1
25
26
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1378/PPOConnellDA16010016.1.jpg
579b8dd9e8b7802b24c7c2913de891fd
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Group of airmen and Archibald McIndoe
Description
An account of the resource
Group of standing airmen around Sir Archibald McIndoe. He is signing his autograph for members of the group. Captioned 'HQ1544'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010016
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 Canadian 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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1382/PPOConnellDA16010023.2.jpg
d38dd5c62891c76fa91b023e711a0686
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1382/PPOConnellDA16010024.2.jpg
b03aae10a32cae43ff3c2f52af83887f
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Archibald McIndoe and Charles Portal seated at top table
Description
An account of the resource
Sir Charles Portal, consultant plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe, Air Chief Marshal Sir Alec Coryton, Wing Commander Albert Ross Tiller RCAF (plastic surgeon) seated on the top table. Captioned 'HQ1526' and on the reverse 'Portal'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010023
PPOConnellDA16010024
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 Canadian 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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1383/PPOConnellDA16010025.1.jpg
ab1f52d03e3bf7bfbf8ab9d6c251d111
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1383/PPOConnellDA16010026.1.jpg
c1d8995b473595cda65bffca3557ac40
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alec Coryton, Archibald McIndoe and Albert Ross Tilley
Description
An account of the resource
Archibald McIndoe and two airmen seated with Sir Alec Coryton standing giving a speech. Captioned 'HQ1522' and on the reverse 'McInoe [sic] Ross Tilley (RCAF)'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010025
PPOConnellDA16010026
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 Canadian 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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1384/PPOConnellDA16010027.1.jpg
50aee76ef4375af68a66d4026b23913c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1384/PPOConnellDA16010028.1.jpg
b7304bfb324bd1ca2e9e4fe59d44de60
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alec Coryton's speech
HQ1523
Mac Lord Portal
Description
An account of the resource
Sir Alec Coryton delivering a speech with Sir Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe and Wing Commander Albert Ross Tilley seated at the top table. Captioned 'HQ1523' and on the reverse 'Mac Lord Portal'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010027
PPOConnellDA16010028
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
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 Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1386/PPOConnellDA16010030.2.jpg
f16c5ee3ba6e99b6f8d9d1d79f49d852
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1386/PPOConnellDA16010031.1.jpg
732554c65a12167b3741c31366dbc8a8
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Charles Portal addressing the dinner guests
HQ1531
Lord Portal
Description
An account of the resource
Sir Charles Portal speaking, on his left Archibald McIndoe and Sir Alec Coryton. On his right an unnamed civilian. Captioned 'HQ1531' and on the reverse 'Lord Portal'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010030
PPOConnellDA16010031
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 Canadian 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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1388/PPOConnellDA16010033.2.jpg
3a12769abb92d276b06ec56104357722
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1388/PPOConnellDA16010034.2.jpg
427328c8b776b07ba35dd46d99a37f64
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ross Tilley addressing the dinner guests
HQ1528
Ross Tilley RCAF
Description
An account of the resource
Wing Commander Ross Tilley standing and speaking, Archibald McIndoe and two others are seated at the top table. Captioned 'HQ1528' and on the reverse 'Ross Tilley RCAF'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010033
PPOConnellDA16010034
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 Canadian 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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1389/PPOConnellDA16010035.1.jpg
801b917e01ffb2c5f760ddc341066059
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/1389/PPOConnellDA16010036.1.jpg
80ab8d3649033c1ccfcddb1d22e9916a
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-09
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Archibald McIndoe addressing the dinner guests
HQ1545
Archie
Description
An account of the resource
Archibald McIndoe standing and speaking. The top table guests are seated. In the foreground are the backs of several airmen seated on one of the long tables. Captioned 'HQ1545' and on the reverse 'Archie'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPOConnellDA16010035
PPOConnellDA16010036
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 Canadian 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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
O'Connell, Desmond. Guinea Pig Club Inaugural Dinner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Canada. Royal Canadian Air Force
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/144/2209/AOConnellDA160809.2.mp3
7b47ee9f459cf922016141194f66e9a4
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
O'Connell, Desmond
D A O'Connell
Des O'Connell
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection relates to Flying Officer Desmond Anthony O’Connell (b. 1919, 754811 199137). He was badly burned when his 502 Squadron Whitley crashed in Northern Ireland and he became a patient of Archibald McIndoe and a member of the Guinea Pig club. The collection contains an oral history interview, two telegrams, four religious cards and Royal Canadian Air Force photographs taken at a formal the inaugural Guinea Pig Club dinner. Guests at the dinner include Charles Portal, Archibald McIndoe, Harold Whittingham, Alec Coryton and Albert Ross Tilley. The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Desmond O'Connell and catalogued by IBCC staff.
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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.
Date
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2016-08-09
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 9th of August 2016. I’m in Sunbury on Thames with Desmond O’Connell and he flew in Whitleys and we’re going to hear the story of his experiences in life and the RAF. Desmond what do you remember in the earliest days?
DO: I was born in 1919. One of eight children. My father had been in the First World War, in the infantry and he came home with a very, very strict outlook on life and he brought us up there in the East End. We weren’t very poor. We were poor, we were poor. We lived like you see on television these days when they try to depict the East End in the early days. I say I was one of eight children. Two of them died to leave six of us and we were all brought up. My father, coming from the army was very, very, very, very conscious of strict, of strictness and that is why he, he wore a thick leather belt which he used on us reason, on the boys, which we thought unjustly but rightly or wrongly it, it brought us up thinking what a fine job my father did bringing me up like this. I’ll bring up my children the same ways. So I was overly strict but fortunately the boys are still sticking around with us. But when I started school at St Francis Catholic School in Stratford where I was born and there and there until I was eleven and then I got a scholarship to the local secondary school. My two brothers had also been at St Francis School and both won scholarships and went, my eldest brother went to the West Ham Secondary School. My next brother went to St Bonaventures at Forest Gate Grammar School and my, although we were Catholics, my father, I know, felt very, he really put education before Catholicism and my eldest brother that had gone to the West Ham Secondary School passed all the exams, even the final exams, two years early. He was so clever. I went to the same school and they found that brains didn’t necessarily run in the family so I didn’t quite accomplish what he did. But, after, after that I left school. I went to work in London, in the City and I was on fifteen shillings and two pence a week out of which I paid a little bit towards my upkeep and my train fares and pastimes. Then after a while I left there. It was the, it was an Australian, Australian agents for stuff to, merchandise to be sent to Australia and after that I went to, I got a wee bit ambitious and I went to the Teachers Provident Society at Hamilton House near King’s Cross and that was for two pounds a week which was quite a lift for, financially but it allowed me to, to expand, expand a bit more. To go on to join the tennis club and then I played cricket for the West Ham Secondary School Old Boys and I played soccer for St Francis Old Boys. So all in all I spent quite an active youth. My elder, my next brother up who went to the grammar school at St Bonaventures eventually came home one day and said he was joining the RAF VR which I’d never heard of but he, but I saw him in uniform and immediately the uniform was attractive and I joined the VR in 1939 and I was called up on the 1st, the 1st of December. I’ve got the telegram here. I was called up on the 1st of December and we went to Cambridge and went and we did a, I was at St John’s College, Cambridge and the other colleges were taken over for accommodation for doing the rudiments of service life, square bashing and learning RAF law and all and after that I went to Marshall’s Flying School at Cambridge to train as a pilot on Tiger Moths. My brother had also joined the VR, was also there but much more advanced of course having gone solo earlier and I was going quite well there and I was up for going solo on Tiger Moths and we were called up one Monday morning, which I remember well. We were all called on parade and the CO said, ‘I’ve,’ ‘I’ve had orders from Air Ministry. We’ve got too many training as pilots so we’ve got to cut down and go into other, other air crew jobs. ‘So,’ he said, ‘A’s to N’s will continue with their training as pilots and O’s and otherwise, well Z’ds will either, as you’re volunteer reserves either get out of the service and be called up or you can revert.’ My brother, who had gone solo got out and within a very short time he was a lieutenant in the navy and I was training as an observer. I trained. I went down to the, I forget what they call it now. The school at, at Hastings for doing square bashing. It was quite, there we used to do the square bashing on the sands at St Leonards on Sea and the sergeant, ‘I want to hear your footsteps.’ He didn’t, not realise, having been one of his, one of his favourite expressions he didn’t realise that we were on sand but after a while I was taken off to train as an observer and I went to Yatesbury to the Bristol Flying School at Yatesbury next to the RAF Wireless School and there we flew on Ansons doing navigation. We did navigation. An observer was pushed. He did navigation, bomb aiming, gunnery, meteorology and another subject which were quite difficult. Quite difficult to absorb because they, all of them were very, all of them were very deep subjects and eventually I passed. That’s the navigation side of it of the, of the training as an observer and we went then, we were posted up to Dumfries and we went under canvas at, I think, I think it was called Tinwald Downs. Something Downs. We went under canvas there while we did our bombing. Bombing instruction. And it was, it was a most enjoyable time under canvas there and eating out and the weather was quite nice but there we did our bomb aiming training at Annan on the coast there. We were flying Fairey Battles. Well we were a passenger in Fairey Battles while we were training for bomb aiming and also we were trained on, on Harrows. Handley Page Harrows, a big old aircraft for gunnery where we had the front turret had 303s painted blue and the front turret had 303s painted red and they had an aircraft go towing a drogue and we fired at that. When he, when we came down the drogue was taken off and the number of holes, colours was counted. Not allowing for one day, I mustn’t say whether it happened more than once, that the same colour 303s were used at the front and the back turret but they still got the, still got the result that there was so many blues and so many reds. When, when we qualified from there I and somebody else was sent to Belfast, to east, to Aldergrove to 502 squadron on Whitley 5s which, which I believe had been, had been withdrawn before but they were brought back. They were withdrawn as Whitley 3s had radial engine and they were brought back as Whitley 5s on Rolls Royce and we flew to Belfast, we flew to Aldergrove and there we did, we did tours flying to the Atlantic [coughs] excuse me. Flying to the Atlantic escorting convoys across. We had on these aircraft, what was then new, the ASV that was Air Sea V, I don’t, it was, it was radar for spotting any, any metal object in the water so really it was looking for , looking for submarine U-boats, looking for U-boat conning towers and we were on that doing eight hours, eight hours and right at the very beginning we took homing pigeons and to do eight hours flying and these darned pigeons cooing at you for eight hours it nearly sent you bonkers but eventually they were withdrawn but we did some, some very good, I’m going to pat myself on the back now, we didn’t, we didn’t do astro navigation. We had to keep, we had to keep RT silence, wireless silence so all in all it was dead navigation. Dead reckoning navigation and, as I say, patting myself on the back we always picked up our objects and we always got home without any trouble each time and I always, the more I think about it the more, the more proud I am really that say without all these modern aids we did achieve that. Then it was decided after a while that we would open up a new airfield at Limavady, which is just to the north, in Northern Ireland. It was an unprepared airfield. There was no runways. It was all mud. It really was mud. And we had, there was no accommodation. We lived in an old, a big old house with no amenities at all. We lived, lived on cold water for washing and everything and then one day on, on this, on this day after we’d flown from Limavady for a few times there was another Sergeant O’Connell. He was from, from Roscrea, in Southern Ireland. He and I were in the Alexandra Hotel at, at Limavady having a few drinks before we were going to Derry as neither of us had been there and while we were there Bill O’Connell’s two wireless operators came in and said, ‘We’re flying tonight.’ So I said, ‘Oh’ and Bill had had a few so I took him back to the airfield. It was all very new there so the, when sergeant, when I, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m Sergeant O’Connell.’ I took Bill’s briefing for him and I I plotted his courses, his course and I was quite proud really but whilst I was there the CO, or one of the senior officers said, ‘You’re, you’re flying tonight.’ So, so if so we are. Now we’re on a Whitley 5. We’re after the Bismarck. The German Bismarck. Heavy, heavy warship was just outside our range and causing havoc amongst the, amongst the convoys so our aircraft we had was given extra fuel tanks, extra bombs, extra depth charges and off we, we were due to take off at 3 o’clock ish in the morning and duly took off but all those extra bombs, extra fuel and everything was too much for the aircraft and it didn’t make the high ground a couple of, three miles away from the airfield and hit. The, the pilot, first pilot and the wireless operator, second wireless operator got out the front. Now, the second pilot Chris Carmichael you see and me and the wireless operator Stan Dawney and the rear gunner, I’ve forgotten his name, nice chap, were going to get out of the back of the aircraft and I was crawling down to the escape through that door and the extra fuel tanks were strapped, fractured and covered me with petrol which again wasn’t bad because just before then we’d been issued with flying jackets and leather flying boots. I was crawling out and it fractured, these tanks fractured, covered me with petrol which was still not bad. We got out and unfortunately the grass was alight and consequently I was set alight and fortunately, as I say our flying jackets and flying boots saved my, my, saved me quite a bit but the rest of me from the waist downwards to the back of the shins suffered badly and I got out and my, the, my wireless operator Stan Dawney put me out as much as he could but there was so much petrol on board that it was quite a difficult job and we were there and somebody, one of us said, ‘Careful of the bombs,’ and we ran, including me, we ran to the brow of the [cough] excuse me, the brow of the hill and just got over the top when the whole lot blew up and you heard about it for miles away. So much so that the, we were, we were all, all registered as killed in action but we’d all got away with it and we started walking down there, down the hill and unfortunately it had been a hill for peat. Where they dug about six foot trenches to get it and of course it was not visible so there was a second to get Chris Carmichael, Stan Dawney, the rear gunner and myself walked and we kept falling down these pits, these trenches but eventually we came to a farmhouse. I think it was McGuiness. We came to this farmhouse and we knocked at the door and the explosion must have warned them that something had gone wrong because they opened the door quite readily and these three, the other three said, ‘We’ve got a bloke here who wants a bit of help. Can we put him in your cowshed,’ which was, it was attached to the house, to the, so says ‘Yes.’ So they put me in there with sacks and sticks. Sacks and things like that and the three of them went off to try and find some help and after a while I was there by myself. The cow, or cows came over and started sniffing so I opted out. I got back to the front door of the farmhouse, knocked on it and they opened the door and I said, ‘Can I come in? The cows are getting too, too friendly.’ But it was then about five o’clockish in the morning and the sun was rising behind me. They opened the door. It was a very catholic area and there was a big picture of Jesus Christ facing me on the wall in the, and as I say the sun was behind me. I thought, whatever they said I’ve arrived. It was worth it. But they took me in and they sat down. A big peat fire. They sat down, sat me down beside it and although my face and hands were quite severely hurt they put a cigarette, they put, gave a cigarette, they held it to my lips, helped me smoke it and they were very, very, McGuiness but what was, I thought my gloves were, there were strips hanging off my hands and I thought it was my gloves but I knew I hadn’t put my gloves on because when you get in the aircraft by the time you’ve put your maps out and done this you can’t do it with gloves you have to do it with bare hands. I didn’t have them but I saw the skin of my hands was hanging, hanging loose but eventually they, somebody got, and got through to the airfield, to Limavady and they sent transport out there and I think it was Flight Lieutenant Storer I think came out, picked me up and took me to Roe Valley Hospital which was a little hospital, mainly, mainly for maternity, and put, put me in there and I was in there for quite some time. My mother and father were sent for and they came over. The, our, not being critical or being nasty but our medical officer was a big Irishman who was a bit fond, bit fond of the bottle and he, he said, in my hearing, I didn’t, I don’t remember losing consciousness, I may have done. But he said to my mother in my hearing, ‘You can either have him buried here with medical, with er marshall, a marshall funeral or we can send his body home. With the CO, with the MO was a little fresh, fresh medical officer. He was a flying officer but he had just joined the medical service and I’m sure he was a foreigner, non-British and he said to my mother, ‘If you don’t do something he’s going to die.’ And my mother kicked up a, kicked up a stink and I was flown back to England to, but whilst I was in there, in hospital there, the chaps had, there was nothing else to do up there on this and they used to come in to the hospital, really for something to do and I remember them saying, ‘The Bismarck had been sunk. The Bismarck’s been sunk.’ And apparently the navy had, which I haven’t checked but I think it must be right, but I was flown back to this country in a hospital aircraft. I’m pretty sure it was an Oxford with a, with a doctor Aitchison. I’m sure it was Dr Aitchison was my bod and we were coming back, flying back to Halton, the RAF hospital at Halton, and about the Midlands the pilot had been warned that there was enemy, there was enemy activity in the area and I was being escorted by two fighters and when we landed at Halton they did a victory roll over the airfield and disappeared. When they got me off the aircraft on the, they got me to the hospital someone took the, uncovered my, my, my details and said, ‘Oh he’s only a bloody sergeant.’ So that, that was my greeting to Halton Hospital. But while I was there I was treated very much so. But I think he was, I think it was a Squadron Leader George Morley, again I wouldn’t mind that being checked but he did some very, very, some very essential first aid, first aid to burns treatment and it was, it was through him that my hands got away with a lot, they could have easily been bandaged as clumps but it was he, George Morley I’m sure but one day Archibald McIndoe appeared and, at Halton Hospital and he took all of our, all the burns patients back to East Grinstead much, much to the annoyance of George Morley. And there, the Halton Hospital was very good but even the nurses, although they were good nurses, they were still disciplined. Disciplined. RAF discipline. And you weren’t, you almost had to lie to attention when the CO came around on his weekly, on his weekly inspection. He seemed to be more interested in whether there was dust on the window sill. I think the sights, I think the patients there were he wasn’t used to it, he just wasn’t used to it. He just wasn’t used to it and he seemed to think well I I can’t do it and George Morley can and he didn’t, he didn’t really inspect us. But any rate, at Halton, at East Grinstead we were put in to Ward Three and we, it was a great leveller. A great leveller, Ward Three. There were quite a few Battle of Britain pilots in there and there was, there was no, nobody was rank conscious there. We all, they looked at, the commissioned people looked at us wondering and we looked at them wondering but the way Archibald McIndoe treated us all it soon, it soon cancelled out any, any rank consciousness and I think that made, made it a lot for, for the success but I had about, all in all I had about twenty nine operations. And there, I always remember there was a flying, flying officer, I think it was a Flying Officer Burton. He did a pinch graft on me. That’s where they took a little piece of skin from the unburnt part of my legs and planted them on the backs of my thighs which had been badly burned. A pinch graft. But that was his first operation and I believe he went on, well I mentioned his name since they, and people said he became quite a big name in plastic surgery. But as I say I had twenty five, twenty six, twenty nine operations and, but the big, the thing about it is Archibald McIndoe did not like, did not like authority poking its nose in and he was very much, he was very much for the saying, making you not feel conscious, self-conscious and he railed, ranted at people of East Grinstead to treat them normally which they did do. Then after a while they, when they were getting fairly active we went out to industry to mix, to mix with other people. I went to Kelvin Bottomley and Bairds who were instrument makers down at Basingstoke for three months. Then I went to, then you go back to hospital then for three months and then another three months I went to Carter, I don’t know, at Wembley and we did that just to get us acclimatised to meeting and we did work too. Acclimatised to meeting people and getting, getting, stopping from being self-conscious. But of course at these places people rather looked upon you as heroes kind of thing and it made you feel not, because they did it, it made you not conscious of what you looked like to them and from there on I came out. I went back to my old job as, well I do know, a big thing Archibald McIndoe did, while I was in East Grinstead, while I was in East Grinstead hospital the chaps came down from, as it was a, came down from ministry, air ministry to try and convince, I don’t know whether it was convince, whether we should go out under a pension or stay in. They tried to encourage some people to go out so they didn’t have to pay. One always thinks nasty thoughts about but it was as if they were wanting you to go out to save money but Archibald McIndoe heard about it and stopped it there and then. How could he carry on his, his healing if people weren’t there, back doing their old jobs and from there on I I was, I had an airfield as an airfield controller where I used to be in a caravan at the end of the runway telling aircraft, signalling aircraft a green light whether it was alright for them to take off or land or a red light if it was caution. Not, not to. And there, in, I don’t know now but there again this airfield, airfield I was at was Ossington, Ossington in Nottinghamshire was taken over for British Overseas Airways to train their pilots on their aircraft and it had been an OTU before that and it was going too well until the boss of British Overseas Airways started to be a bit, a bit bossy and, kind of thing, you know. He was a civilian and we were all air crew, air force and after a while we started answering him back and there was always a feud, a feud going on. And then once, one Friday or Saturday he went away as an airline pilot and came back on Monday as a squadron leader which changed, which changed things a lot. We always seemed to fall out with him and I got a wee bit fed up and I went to the orderly room and in charge of the orderly room was a Flight Sergeant Williamson. He had been in the RAF, or rightly had been in the Royal Flying Corps in the Great War and I said to him, ‘Willy, get me a posting please.’ And he said, ‘I can’t.’ He said, ‘The only way you’ll get away is to apply for a commission,’ So I applied for a commission and somehow I got it and I went to various places and I finished up at Cosford but I got this commission and I went to various places overseas. I was at Blackbushe Airport and I went overseas to El Adem and I was on my way to the Far East and I got, we got to Cairo and while we were there the atomic bomb was dropped so my posting to the Far East was scrubbed and I was posted up to, to Italy and I was at Poppiano, just by Vesuvius and Pompeii there and while I was there my padre took me up to Rome and we had a, he was a Czechoslovakian, Australian Czechoslovakian and he was going back to Australia and he still had a friend up in Rome I think, who later became Cardinal Knox who went to Perth in Australia and they got us , they got us an audience with the pope there. And another funny thing is we were out in Cairo. We had one night. We thought that we were going to be posted. One of us went down to Wadi al Far, one went to Malta and I was going to Italy.
Other: Do you want a refill or anything? More tea or coffee.
CB: I was –
Other: Yes? No? Sure.
CB: Yes please.
DO: I was going to Italy and we had a wee bit of a silly night on the junior officer’s club on on the Nile. One chap who I shouldn’t have said it but he did get on my nerves. He was always talk. Talk. Talk. Full of. He went out of Wadi Hal Far, one of them went to, the accounting officer went to Malta and I went to El Adem on my way back to, on my way to Poppiano and when I was demobbed I was flown back to Cosford to be, and I was, it was a bit foggy in the morning and when I woke up there was the, the fellow who I’d been drinking with on the, in the officer’s club, the fellow who annoyed me. I heard his voice and of course he had been demobbed at the same time. He came back and I even, I later joined the ministry of aircraft, Ministry of Civil Aviation as a controller and I went to various airfields. I went to Glasgow, Shetland, Wick, Inverness and then I came back down south and that’s where I flew. Roughly what happened.
CB: In what year did you retire then Desmond?
DO: ‘47.
CB: 1947. From the ministry.
DO: No.
CB: Or demob was ‘47.
DO: From the air force.
CB: Yeah.
DO: To the ministry.
CB: Ok. We’ll stop there a mo. Thank you.
[machine pause]
DO: They’d heard, everybody’s was blown, the aircraft was blown up.
CB: When you were pranged they thought it -
DO: Yeah. They thought -
CB: Yeah.
DO: As always your kit was rifled.
CB: Oh.
DO: By your colleagues.
CB: Oh right.
DO: And -
CB: Because they thought you were all, all dead.
DO: But everything was so disorganised there. I’ve got the thing, I’ve got somewhere, I wrote to the RAF, RAF records and they wrote that back and they gave me the obvious when I joined but then they said after that there’s nothing. Everything just terribly disorganised. In fact Limavady was a disaster. It really was.
CB: Did you keep in touch later with the other members of your crew?
DO: No. I attempted to. Stan Dawney the first wireless operator, he tried to, he tried to pat me out and he burned, he singed his hands but he was a nice chap. My rear gunner. I don’t know. I’ve forgotten his name. I’ve got his photograph somewhere. But my pilot, my first pilot was a very much an [stress] officer in the auxiliary air force. And he was very very rich. His father was a big potato man. And I’ve got, in fact he wrote, he had his -
Other: Is that the man that sent an account of your accident and you thought hmmn that’s a funny viewpoint? Dad.
CB: Ay?
Other: Is that the man that sent you an account of the accident that was in some journal and you thought, hmmn [laughs]. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know where it is.
CB: We’re just pausing for a mo.
[machine pause]
CB: The pilot was Pilot Officer John Dickson of 502 squadron. There’s a, an article here.
DO: He was a -
CB: On a wing and a prayer.
Other: Oh if it’s -
DO: The thing about his, he never came to briefing and -
VT: Handy.
DO: He always, he always turned up, he always turned up in, his WAAF always drove him in a low car, drove him up to the aircraft when we, just before we took off. And -
CB: He was relying on the second pilot for the briefing was he?
DO: Chris Carmichael. Nice fella. I can’t think where it is now but his, his biography was written by somebody in Belfast and he sent me a copy of it and asked me to, asked me to write my autobiography and he -
CB: Oh yes.
DO: But that is the stories are -
CB: Other?
[pause]
CB: I’m just stopping again.
[machine pause]
DO: My squadron.
CB: Oh you haven’t been in contact with any of the squadron.
DO: We didn’t know each other. We didn’t have a sergeant’s mess so the only ones, the only things to do in Limavady was go to the Alexandra Hotel or go to, they had one cinema and the pictures used to change every, every Wednesday there and that’s all there was to do.
CB: ‘Cause it was in the middle of nowhere.
DO: No. Nothing to do. Terrible. Terrible.
CB: So did you try to do things as a crew?
DO: No. No. No.
CB: Why was that do you think?
DO: Well it seemed to, certainly we wouldn’t have done anything with the commissioned type but we were all, I don’t know but they would say there was absolutely nothing to do. It was a little village. A little village.
Other: Who was Mr Redhead?
DO: Ay?
Other: Who was Mr Redhead?
DO: He was the, he was the second wireless operator.
Other: You kept in contact with him for a bit though.
DO: No. He kept in contact with me.
Other: Oh you enjoyed hearing from him I’m sure.
[pause]
CB: We’re just stopping again because you deserve a slurp of your coffee.
[machine paused]
CB: So we’re restarting now and I’m asking Desmond about what happened. So the aircraft’s down, the grass is on fire, the ground is on fire.
DO: Yeah.
CB: How did you feel then?
DO: Well you felt a bit numb really. All you wanted to do, you wanted to get to safety, to help but I don’t think, I don’t think I thought anything, anything dramatic or - [pause]. I don’t know. All I wanted to do was to get somewhere to get er, because it was, it was very cold so all my, were all frozen so I didn’t, I don’t think I once ever felt sorry for myself. I don’t think -
CB: So this was, when was this exactly? What date?
DO: What? The crash?
CB: Yeah. February ‘42. Because it was very cold.
DO: Yeah. I should know it shouldn’t I?
CB: Yeah. Ok. We’ll come back to that. What were the extent of your burns?
DO: Well. Just before, we, we were issued with these American flying jackets. They were leather from there to there.
CB: From the waist right up.
DO: Yeah. And leather flying boots which were from there to there. Other than that I was burnt. Burnt. But in fact I was very lucky actually that if I hadn’t had those I would have, I think they helped me. Even when I went, as far as I was concerned, well I know as a fact that I walked. I walked down the side of this hill to the farmhouse and they didn’t carry me, they didn’t lift me. I walked. As I said there were peat, peat trenches dug. We kept falling down those and going ha ha kind of thing but I think the shock was, was, numbed any feeling at all.
CB: At what stage did you begin to feel the pain?
DO: I don’t know because once, once I was bandaged you didn’t feel the pain I’m sure. I’m sure.
CB: But you were bandaged. When? -
DO: Well, as soon as I got to the hospital I just -
CB: So that was quite a while.
DO: It was three to four hours I should think but the, I still think I had a lot to thank the weather for. That it -
[pause]
CB: So your hands, arms and your head were badly burned.
DO: Yeah.
CB: Where was the worst burn and pain?
DO: Oh the hand, the worst of the lot on, on operations is when they bandage your hands. They put tight bandages on to force the join, force the, I mean all these are, all these are force. Are all -
CB: All the joints.
DO: Yeah, and they, I mean once it starts moving it’s broken the seal so they put these very, very, very, and your fingers swell a bit too.
CB: Is this gauze that they are -
DO: Yes.
CB: Do they use gauze to, to bind the hand?
DO: Sorry?
CB: What sort of material. Is it gauze or - ?
DO: What do they call those -
CB: Elastic bandages.
DO: Yes.
CB: Right.
DO: And they put them on.
CB: Surgical dressings.
DO: Yeah. No. That was the, that any part and on the legs too where they put on and it was yeah having to be careful for a fortnight to three weeks. I had, I had three chins but there again it’s one of those things. Once you have food you start moving the, and I mean I was warned that give up eating for three weeks.
CB: What were they feeding you with? Soup?
DO: Yeah. Yeah. You didn’t like that because it made you feel an invalid. It was the same with the ears and these ears are plastic surgery. They become part, there was skin put on and there was bandaged behind and a very, very tight bandage put. The thing about it is this was early on plastic surgery and they were finding out what not to do later. No. We were, we were very early on in, in Archibald McIndoe’s success quite frankly because he was, I’m sure he was making lots of, inverted commas, lots of mistakes which he remedied later.
CB: Yes. The date was the 27th of April 1941. I was a year too late. So -
DO: That’s when I pranged.
CB: Yes. So that means it was the really early days of -
DO: Yeah.
CB: His activities.
DO: Oh very. Plastic surgery. Very early.
CB: And how did you feed yourself or did they feed you to begin with?
DO: No. Again I don’t know if it was done purposely but all our nurses were very, very attractive and you wanted to show them, show off to them how tough you were. We don’t need your help. It was very, I was [?] you know one who, so I was [she?] spooned soup with a toothpick you know. Some wonderful characters. Wonderful characters.
CB: So you were in a ward. How many people in the ward?
DO: There was, when we started Ward Three at East Grinstead. There was there and there was a dozen beds there on that ward but that ward was knocked down and, because it was all the sergeants were getting in there, all the, and overseas pilots and McIndoe didn’t like it, he had the ward, and he purposely, he purposely made sure that, ‘cause he was, he was a bit of, I don’t know if he ever had any trouble with other people but he was very conscious about mixing. Mixing. And he was very successful. Very successful.
CB: And so how about in your recuperation because your legs are burned as well as your hands and your face? How did you manage to get yourself comfortable?
DO: That was one of the actually, actually I think it was possibly that I did myself quite a bit of no good but it was only if I asked that person for assistance they’d think I’m a cissy. I can’t do it. So you’d want to show how tough you were and no, a lot of it quite frankly, quite frankly the patients there at East Grinstead did a lot for themselves psychologically and physically by not giving in. Did not give in.
CB: And how did they entertain you? Because some people like you couldn’t move for a bit.
DO: We had, we had various people used to come down on the Sundays but there were two, there were two cinemas in East Grinstead and they both changed their films on Wednesday so you had four films a week, kind of thing. And the one hindsight, the one bad thing was if you went to a pub for a drink you’d never have to buy it yourself which was a bad thing because it it tempted you to drink more and the big thing in the RAF hospitals, in service hospitals they used to have a blue uniform. Well, I don’t know if it’s a uniform but blue trousers and a blue, blue jacket. A white shirt. And if you were, if you were not a bit brains or something a red tie then you was in and of course no publican was allowed to serve anybody in a blue uniform. Now, McIndoe found this out and he kept all of us in uniform. He kept one blue suit for punishment and it was only one bloke, old Jonah, great fella. He was, he had to wear it for a while but that’s -
CB: What had he done to deserve that?
DO: I don’t know. He could have done anything. He was, he was bonkers. Great fella. Great fella.
CB: So you’ve got all these people with different experiences. To what extent did you share your experiences?
DO: Nobody.
CB: That’s what I thought.
DO: Nobody talked about what happened.
CB: Right.
DO: Nobody. Because you were always afraid that they’d outdone you.
CB: Sure.
DO: So you could let yourself down rather.
CB: Yeah. So what was the main topic of conversation if there was one?
DO: There really wasn’t one. Usually talked about funny incidents and Archibald McIndoe, I presume it was him got, got work for us to do in the, I mean there was a mix. Little handy jobs that you used to do to keep you. One thing was to keep the fingers going and the other thing for to keep your brain, brain ticking over but actually we were, we were very lucky because it was quite easy for, quite easy for not thinking at all.
CB: The danger I suppose was, was it, that the mind and was not exercised?
DO: Well just stagnate.
CB: Yeah.
DO: You got up. You had, you had meals given to you. You had people to come in, nurses to fuss over you and it was very tempting just to lie back and let them do everything.
CB: And as part of the activities did you have singsongs and somebody on the piano or what happened?
DO: No. There was, there was a piano in Ward Three for a while and Archibald McIndoe used to come and play it but that was all that -
CB: And what about beer on the ward?
DO: It was said and I don’t, I did not notice it, I did not experience it that they had beer on the ward. Now, I didn’t see but I can imagine for one occasion but it’s always that that was remembered.
CB: Yes.
DO: I can’t believe it but –
CB: They didn’t want you rolling out of bed.
DO: No. No. No. It wasn’t much. I used to have lunch and then half a dozen of you used to walk down to the cinema and you’d come back just in, just in time for tea, you see. It was a shocking life. In hindsight it was a shocking life.
CB: The, the cinema was on the camp was it or was it in -
DO: No. No. There was two. The Whitehall theatre and where, we had, we had our, we had our original, where we had our, our foundation of the Guinea Pig Club dinner there at the Whitehall Cinema and the radio centre. So there were two cinemas, two shows a week, different films. So just went. We, we had one pilot learning German and the young lady, a very, very attractive lady sat on a bed and crossed her legs and, and she had quite a class going. I remember the haben sie? Est is gut. Est is se gut but she, she gave us, she was running quite a popular, very popular class so suddenly she gave up and oh dear we got an old hausfrau came in and took her place and the class disintegrated.
CB: I wonder what signal that was?
DO: Terrible.
CB: What did you have to do to qualify to go out to the pub?
DO: Nothing at all but you didn’t, you didn’t risk being gated. No. Because the thing about is if you went down to the pub everybody wanted to buy you a drink and after a while it used to be embarrassing actually to refuse it.
CB: Did you have an escort with you?
DO: No.
CB: No.
DO: No.
CB: So what was the reaction of the local population?
DO: The, as I say McIndoe somehow, I don’t know, he did it, he got it broadcast in this little town, do not stare, and people were very, no, people in East Grinstead helped an awful lot because they didn’t, they didn’t cringe or anything at all like that.
CB: You said you had twenty nine operations.
DO: Yeah.
CB: How did that work as a sequence?
DO: I think, I think, I think that time available was it. If, if he had an hour to spare, ‘Who wants, who wants that slot?’ And if you were, he’d look at what’s got to be done in an hour and he said, ‘Right. I’ll take him down and do his hands and do his,’ I think, I think it was a lot like that.
CB: So we’re talking about ‘41 is when the crash took place. When did you eventually leave hospital?
DO: [pause] It was three and a bit years.
CB: So it’s nearly the end of the war.
DO: When did I crash?
CB: ’41.
[pause]
CB: April ’41.
DO: I suppose early ‘43 I presume because I came out of the service in ‘46. Was it? And, and I don’t know. I wouldn’t hazard a guess.
CB: Well let’s say it was ‘43. What did you do in the rest of the war in the RAF?
DO: Well I was on airfield control where you were at the caravan at the end of the runway and you had a red light and a green light and if you saw a, you gave, if an aircraft was waiting to take off, if it was all clear out there you gave them a green light. If there was an aircraft coming in you gave a green light. If something suddenly happened, a lorry, you’d give them a red light and that was your job and at the airfield at Ossington they were doing, it was an OTU, Operational Training Unit prior to going on operations you were fairly well up all night doing, doing it.
CB: And what vehicle are you in because it’s a mobile unit?
DO: Yeah.
CB: You’re at the end of the runway.
DO: A caravan.
CB: Right.
DO: A caravan.
CB: Which is black and white boxes.
DO: Black and white squares.
CB: Yeah. Squares. Yeah.
DO: And you used to have a meal brought out to you in a, in a hay box at night.
CB: So a lot of the time you were a sergeant. Did you go to flight sergeant before you were commissioned?
DO: Yeah. I was, I was a flight sergeant.
CB: And what prompted the commissioning?
DO: Well, as I say it was British Overseas Airways. Their fellow in charge was a, we suddenly realised he wasn’t in the service so we could say [?]. So when he was given a temporary squadron leader it was then we started, instead I went to Flight Sergeant Williamson and said, ‘Get me a posting,’ and all he could do he said, and it showed you how hard up they were. ‘All you can do is apply for a commission,’ so I applied and got it.
CB: And what training did you get to become an officer?
DO: You had the Officers’ Training School. It was mainly physical. A little bit learning about RAF law but not really much. It was really conditioning you to be in charge of men. As you’ve never, you’ve always been in charge, you’ve always been in charge of and cut out any slovenly habits you’ve got and things like that.
CB: Can I just go back to the operations? How did you feel about this sequence because there’s an awful lot of them so where, of operations, twenty nine. Were you looking forward to them? In dread of it? Or what were you feeling?
DO: Oh no. No. No. No. Not at all. I don’t think I ever, was ever apprehensive about what was done. I don’t think so. Maybe. You always thought, you always thought what they had to do was for you. It was for your betterment.
CB: Ok. Finally changing the subject. When did you meet your wife and where.
DO: She’s my second wife. My first wife I was at Glasgow, I was at Inverness. I was in charge of Inverness airport and she, my first wife worked in teleprinters [?] and up there she was from Elgin which was thirty miles up the road. She was a catholic. I was a catholic. We met going to mass and we got married there and we had five children. And she died of cancer.
CB: Oh.
DO: Then I got around, I finished up at London airport and my present wife was was an air, an air traffic assistant there and we had nothing to do so we got married. We had two children. Well we, we’ve been very unlucky. Two of our girls were killed in accidents.
CB: Dreadful. What was your first wife’s name?
DO: Renee. Renee Patterson. A great Scottish dancer.
CB: Oh. And your current wife. What was her -
DO: She was Winifred.
CB: Last name.
DO: Freaks. F R E A K E S.
CB: Ok. Right. Thank you very much indeed.
[machine pause]
CB: That was really interesting. So your accident -
DO: Did I tell you about the accident? We were after the [pause] Bismarck. We were after the Bismarck.
CB: Yes. You did. How much flying had you done at that point?
DO: It must have been over a hundred hours. I was, I was, I was very conceited about that flying because I flew with no aids, you had to keep WT silence and I wasn’t astro navigation conscious and -
CB: Did you use a sextant?
DO: No. As I say we didn’t, hadn’t, no, you used to take, used to use a bomb sight and take your drift on air waves, on wave tops. I thought I was very good and -
CB: Before the accident did you engage any German submarines or surface ships?
DO: Well, in fact the Germans had a great big old aircraft also out on patrol.
CB: The Condor.
DO: I don’t. But if you, if you saw one there was a race. He, if you saw you there was a race to get in to the clouds so you didn’t see each other.
CB: Oh right.
DO: I think it was the Condor.
CB: Yeah. The Focke Wulf Condor.
DO: Yeah.
CB: But you didn’t do any attacks on surface vessels or submarines then?
DO: On suspect. Yeah. You didn’t, wasn’t conscious of anything.
CB: Who was running the air to surface radar? On the aircraft? On the Whitley?
DO: It was installed in the aircraft but there was an awful lot of guesswork in it.
CB: Yes. But who operated the system?
DO: It was installed in the aircraft. It, I think the system was installed as a box.
CB: But somebody was operating the system and looking at the screen.
DO: Oh we were.
CB: You were or the wireless operator.
DO: Well anybody but somebody was.
CB: Right. Ok. Anything else?
VT: No. That’s fine.
[machine paused]
DO: Not long, not long after I crashed.
VT: Yeah.
DO: As I say the fellas had nothing to do. They came to the hospital and told us that the Bismarck had been sunk.
VT: Yeah.
DO: But the navy were after it anyway.
VT: Yeah. And you know the story of that do you?
DO: No.
VT: Oh right.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Desmond O'Connell
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AOConnellDA160809
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Description
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Desmond O’Connell was born in London in 1919. He followed in his brother’s footsteps by joining the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve in 1939. He went to Cambridge to commence pilot training but half the contingent were transferred to become Observers. He was posted to 502 squadron to Aldergrove and then to Limavady in Northern Ireland. One night the squadron were detailed to attack the Bismarck and were loaded with extra petrol tanks, bombs and depth charges. However the plane could not take the extra weight and crashed three miles from base. On making his way out of the plane, one of the extra fuel tanks ruptured and Desmond was dowsed with petrol. When Desmond did make the escape, the plane was on fire and he suffered catastrophic burns. When he was in hospital, his parents were called for by the doctor, who asked his mother where she would like him to be buried. She wouldn’t accept this and Desmond was transferred by hospital plane to RAF Halton Hospital. His plane was escorted by two fighters who did a victory roll over the airfield as his plane landed. Desmond then began years of recuperation and endured twenty nine operations as a member of Archibald McIndoe’s Guinea Pig Club.
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2016-08-09
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Julie Williams
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01:37:21 audio recording
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eng
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Sound
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Northern Ireland--Londonderry (County)
England--Sussex
Great Britain
aircrew
animal
crash
entertainment
ground personnel
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
medical officer
navigator
RAF Halton
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/283/3439/AJonesPWA171207.2.mp3
b1161008fdc7ccbc2058d73a7d2e684d
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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Jones, Thomas John
Tom Jones
T Jones
Description
An account of the resource
62 items. An oral history interview with Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force), his log book, photographs, correspondence, service documents, aircraft recognition manuals, medals and a memoir. He flew operations as a flight engineer on 622 Squadron Stirling and 7 Squadron on Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection also contains an <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2566">Album</a> of 129 types of aircraft. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Jones and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2014-12-04
2017-12-07
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.
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Jones, PW
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 7th of December 2017 and we’re in Lincoln talking with Peter Jones about the career and life of his father Thomas John Jones DFC. I think just first of all it’s interesting to reflect that in this case Peter didn’t elicit much information from his father, which is exactly the same with my father, and also Jan’s, in that they might have touched on trivialities, but they didn’t talk about what actually happened.
PJ: That’s very true.
CB: So Peter, how does that fit with your feeling of the background?
PJ: [Sigh] I feel very sad, that he, that he didn’t talk to me about it, about what he actually did and had to put up with, and when I did find out, I was immensely proud.
CB: I can imagine.
PJ: But also, as I only found out twenty four hours after he had died, it was an absolute maelstrom of emotions, of reading the memoir that he’d written fifty years after the war, secretly late at night, when my mother had gone to bed - I wasn’t living there at the time - and he’d put all his memories in a WH Smith notebook.
CB: Had he, really.
PJ: And when he’d finished them, he just hid them with all his personal papers I guess knowing I would eventually find it, after his death.
CB: What do you think prompted him to write it? What age was he when he wrote it?
PJ: He was in his eighties when he wrote that; he died in 2004. I don’t know, was he trying to exorcise his demons? Was he conscious that he hadn’t been able to tell me what he’d done and how he actually felt about what he’d done? I really don’t know.
CB: He was awarded the DFC.
PJ: He was.
CB: So clearly he’d had some really horrendous experiences which were rewarded. Do you think that it, to some extent, he felt he didn’t want to look as though he was in any way building on the background?
PJ: Yes, I think he did. He was a very modest man; he was a very modest, self-effacing gentleman. He was a lovely dad.
CB: But never got on to anything to do with wartime.
PJ: Only the very light-hearted stuff. [Microphone noise] He would talk about that, I mean he relates various stories of some of the capers the crew got up to, but when it went to operational, no. No details.
CB: What were the most dramatic capers they got up to would you say?
PJ: Um, I’ve got a lovely photograph taken at Mildenhall when he was flying with 622 Squadron and it shows my dad and three or four of the other crewmen dangling one of their colleagues out of a first floor window. By his legs. [Much laughter] I think that would probably be one of many stunts like that in the day, you know, it, obviously it would be quite a safety valve, and they would thrive on the black humour, but it was a lovely photograph.
CB: This is out of context in the sequence, but I think it’s worth just talking about – how do you think they dealt with the stress?
PJ: Certainly black humour. I think everyone deals with stress differently. So, I don’t know. My father was a smoker. When you, I’ve noticed that a lot, so many photographs of airmen back in the day, and airwomen, of course, they’re nearly all smoking. I think they enjoyed going down the pub as well.
CB: I mean we’ll get on to your father in a minute, but you, as the archivist here, are covering a huge range of different situations and they, there are two things that come out of that in a way, one is the release from the stress, and the other is, we’ll touch on later, is the LMF, the lacking moral fibre bit, which comes up but is largely buried, but the release of the stress is a broad one and in practical terms, what was the main safety valve would you say?
PJ: High jinks. I think that it was the high jinks. We at the archive have got so many photographs of, wonderful photographs of crew, both aircrew, ground crew, WAAFs, having a really good time, it was an adventure. They were young people. And when you look at the photographs of them having a good time, and then just look at the, look at the face, and then look at the rank, they really don’t go together. You’ve got a very, very young man or woman, with a very senior rank and again that must have, must have really weighed heavy on their shoulders.
CB: There was a notion, there is still I suppose a notion, that what the war did to people in the RAF, but particularly Bomber Command, was make them grow up really quickly. Do you reckon you see that in some of the pictures that have been submitted?
PJ: Definitely. Yeah. Certainly some of the more senior officers, you can see it in their faces: they’ve aged. They’ve aged. I mean my father when he, in 1944, he was twenty three. He looks older. And I think they did go through the mill, and I think it did age them, certainly mentally and probably physically as well with some, particularly the rear gunners who had to endure such cold. It must have been pretty dreadful.
CB: And constant flight, fright.
PJ: Yes. Of which they never spoke.
CB: No. I mean my CO in the Reserve had a mental breakdown after being chased by a Ju88 and then shot down, and so the stress there was huge. But what would you put down to the fact that almost, very largely, people in all of the Forces failed to talk about their experiences in the war? What do you think was the background of that?
PJ: We’re looking at a different decade, aren’t we. It was the stiff upper lip decade. It was the decade where men feared to shed tears, other than in private. I think that’s got a lot to do with it. I don’t, would they share it with the rest of the crew? I don’t know whether they would. In fact I don’t think they would, share their fears with the rest of the crew.
CB: No. I just get a feeling, having talked to people, that the LMF bit actually destabilised the crew so there was a very good reason for getting rid of them quickly, but if, and if they spoke about it, the crew was destabilised.
PJ: Yup. I think it was a fear of letting the crew down.
CB: That’s it.
PJ: Definitely.
CB: And that’s bombers, so we’ve got wider scopes than that, which is difficult to fathom.
PJ: [Pause] Mm. One of the things that my dad talks about, is a particular incident where, I can’t quite remember the details of it now, the nearest he actually came to being killed, and he actually quotes - this is in a, in his notes that he wrote fifty years after the event - he actually writes in there and describes this event and he describes himself saying, saying aloud, ‘don’t cry when you get the letter, mum’, and then he suddenly realises that he may be on an open mike, and thinks oh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but he wasn’t. You know, so I think that’s an example of again, fear of letting the crew down.
CB: Well I think we know, don’t we, that it’s clear from the four engined bombers but also from the, [throat clear] excuse me, two engined bombers, that the crew was the family.
PJ: They were. My dad describes them as being like brothers, rank didn’t matter.
CB: And they superseded all other relationships.
PJ: Indeed. Yeah, yeah. And because of the nature of the role that they were dealing with, they never made friends with other crews. They felt unable to, because they didn’t know how long they would know them for, and no thought was given to who had been in your bunk before you got in it. That must have been quite difficult to deal with.
CB: So in the Nissen huts there were two or three crews, and when one was lost then everything was picked up quickly, for replacement with another crew. Who they didn’t know either.
PJ: No. It must have been a terrible time for the ground crew, who saw so many come and go.
CB: Yes, and on ground crew, there are two aspects to that. One is losing their crew and their aeroplane, the other one is when the aeroplanes come back bent, or with horrors in. So what’s your perception of the ground crew reaction to that?
PJ: Well of course the ground crew always thought that the aircraft was theirs [emphasis], and they loaned it nightly to the aircrew and lo, you know, god help anyone that bent it, you know. But there was a lovely relationship between the flight crew and the ground crew, and I would imagine there was great banter. I know that my father thought the world of the ground crew. I mean they worked on his aircraft in the most appalling [emphasis] conditions sometimes, to keep it in tiptop condition and to keep the aircrew as safe as possible, or as safe as they could possibly be. But the ground crew must have gone through such terrible times, when their aircraft didn’t come back, you know. And it must have been there in the back of their mind that was it something that we missed? It’s terrible times.
CB: And the link between the aircrew and the ground crew would be the pilot and the engineer would it? Or what would be the main link – just the engineer?
PJ: I think pilot and engineer, yeah, but there would be camaraderie with the whole crew. I don’t know whether the ground crew actually were involved with trying to install the rear gunner in his turret because of course they struggled to get in there on their own.
CB: Yes, ‘cause moving on from there is the aftermath of an attack and removing crew who were injured, or dead. What was your perception of that?
PJ: Pretty grisly business. Very often it, I mean the rear gunners’ odds of survival were so few, so low, and it was quite common that the rear turret just had to be hosed out. Pretty unpleasant job.
CB: And the bits taken out as well.
PJ: Yes. One of the early things that my father talks about in his notes was when they first went to Mildenhall and they saw their first operational aircraft, and it was a, if I remember rightly, it was a Stirling, outside the Flying Control and it was absolutely riddled with holes. And as they walked round, round this aircraft, they got to the rear gunner’s turret and it was just a shattered mess of just shattered Perspex and bent metal, with lots of blood in it, and uniform, bits of uniform and hair, it was at this point my father actually quotes in his notes, ‘it was this point we realised we’d got to pay back the cost of our training,’ and it all became very real.
CB: Yes. Let’s just. That’s a good phrase, I think, that’s appeared in many cases, probably, which is the payback, so how did you perceive the crews’ attitude to that?
PJ: They were professionals: they were dedicated. They were airmen, trained. They were young men, it was an adventure, it was a job and they were young men under orders and they would obey those orders.
CB: Hm. And in a way they were completely detached, if they were at twenty thousand feet, that’s four miles above [throat clearing] where the effect of their ammunition, their bombs, is felt.
PJ: Yes, they’re kind of divorced from it.
CB: Detached.
PJ: Yes, all they see is fires, and explosions and then of course the flak, the searchlights, et cetera and the ever-present fear of fighters.
CB: On a slightly lighter note then, there’s if they make a mess inside the aeroplane, there’s a fine attached to this.
PJ: There was. My father actually flew three hundred hours, three hundred flying hours, before he got rid of his air sickness and squadron lore had it, that if you threw up in the aircraft you had to pay a fine to the ground crew and clear it up yourself. He actually, he mentions that his bank account was saved by a member of the ground crew who gave him any empty biscuit tin. [Chortle] I think that’s another reason why he liked ground crew!
CB: Then there’s the other aspect which is the filling of the Elsan, [clears throat] or not. [Laughter]
PJ: Exactly, or not! Yes, I would think so, or not. A filthy piece of kit, back of the aircraft, just near the rear turret which must have been pretty unpleasant for the gunner. They’d use anything rather than have to use the Elsan, including milk bottles or peeing down the flare chute or even into the bomb bay. But you know, it was desperate measures to have to go and use the Elsan.
CB: See how long it was before it froze!
PJ: Not long, at eighteen thousand feet! [Laughter]
CB: Now [throat clear] what about the interpersonal relationships of the crew? How did that work?
PJ: They were, as I’ve said, they were like brothers; rank didn’t matter. However, once they were operational, on an operational flight, it came into play. The rank did matter then and the skipper’s order was to be acted on, there was no messing about, when they were on ops, there was no, there was no overuse of the communications at all. Everything was spot on. They were professionals.
CB: I think one of the interesting things, looking at the log book and your details of the crew, is that they, the pilot was Royal Australian Air Force.
PJ: He was.
CB: And you also had a wireless operator who was the same, but you had two, he had two Royal New Zealand Air Force and two RAF, three RAF Reserve, RAF Volunteer Reserve. So how did that interaction go?
PJ: It seemed, looking at my dad’s notes, it seemed to work really well. There was no, they were a crew and it didn’t matter where they were from or what their backgrounds were. They were a crew.
CB: I’m going to stop just a mo. Now your father did a lot of ops, but we’ve talked about the aircrew, what about the hierarchy? So, there was a Flight Commander and a Squadron Commander, did you get much out of the notes on that, the relationships?
PJ: No, he does, it’s humour, in some of it. He doesn’t talk much about the squadron commanders although he does talk about when he joined 7 Squadron, that they’d just lost their CO on operational flying. He was replaced and within a fortnight the replacement had gone; had been killed as well.
CB: This is a Pathfinder Squadron.
PJ: This is 7 Squadron at RAF Oakington, yeah. Thinking that, looking back you think was the policy of the squadron CO flying ops a good one? You have to question it really, don’t you. It can’t have done the morale any good, when the boss cops it.
CB: Well presumably the Flight Commanders were Squadron Leaders and the Squadron Commander, ‘cause there’d be thirty aircraft, would be a Wing Commander, would that be right?
PJ: Yes. The quote that my father gives it was three Wing Commanders that were lost.
CB: Oh was it? Oh, I see. In sequence.
PJ: In sequence, yes.
CB: Any indication of whether the Station Commander flew with them occasionally, because Group Captains did sometimes.
PJ: Um, in his logbook there is one: Lockhart. He was, he flew, my father was Lockhart’s flight engineer for one op, other than that it was Fred Philips, DFC and Bar, who was my father’s pilot.
CB: I mentioned earlier the topic of LMF – the lacking moral fibre - did he, in his notes in any way refer to that, either by experience or hearsay?
PJ: He did. And he speaks, and he speaks with warmth about those that just had reached the end of their tether and couldn’t do it any more, and he says he felt sorry for them, but they were still airmen; they weren’t to be ridiculed.
CB: Any indication of their fate, fates?
PJ: Nope. No.
CB: Just stop a mo. I think, in restarting, it’s worth just exploring a couple of things and putting it into context. A lot of these things are written up and in this case there’s a lot from Thomas’ recollections, but the key is the being able to listen to the narrative that you’re delivering. And there are two topics: one’s LMF and the other is the Guinea Pigs. So on LMF, what’s he say there in his report? Notes.
PJ: In his notes he writes a paragraph about LMF in it and he writes: ‘some unfortunates, through no fault of their own, reach the point where they can no longer carry on. Irrespective of how many ops they’d completed, they were deemed lacking in moral fibre. I never knew or heard of any member of aircrew that had anything but sympathy for them.’ And I think, I would like to hope that was a general feeling amongst the airmen, they had reached a point where they couldn’t go on.
CB: Yeah. For whatever reason.
PJ: For whatever reason, yeah.
CB: What do you know about their fate, after they were removed?
PJ: He doesn’t mention a fate at all, he doesn’t mention it.
CB: Okay. And then the people who were badly injured, burned or amputees, what’s he got on that?
PJ: He says, ‘I remember some of the lads who had a tough time: the empty sleeves and trouser legs of the amputees, there were lads with no faces, noses and ears no more than shrivelled buttons, and heavy, newly grafted eyelids, their mouths were little more than slits in a face rebuilt with shining tightly stretched skin grafts, some had hands shrivelled and clawed like eagles talons. They sought no sympathy or favours, but carried on doing a job they could manage. When they went drinking with us, their laughter was as hearty as ever, their spirits unbroken,’ I’m sorry.
CB: It’s all right, we’ll stop. They carried on doing the job they were trained to do.
PJ: Yeah. And he goes on to say when they went drinking with us, their laughter was as hearty as ever, their spirits unbroken and no sign of bitterness. I do find it very difficult to read some of my father’s notes. Even though it’s now, what, thirteen years since he died.
CB: But it’s intensely personal for you.
PJ: Very.
CB: Which it was for all these individuals.
PJ: The notes that he wrote, he wrote in the first person, so it is as though he’s actually speaking to me from the page. Which he is.
CB: Of course, yes.
PJ: That was his idea.
CB: Well the Guinea Pigs, we’re talking about partly there, of course, we’ve interviewed as a group of people, I’m sure we’ve interviewed a number of those, and seen the effects of them and even these years later, some of them brilliantly mended shall we say, but always obvious that they’ve been injured in one way or the other, and McIndoe did an amazing job.
PJ: Fabulous man. And his team.
CB: And of course, there is now, indeed, not just him. There is actually a museum, isn’t there, down in East Grinstead now.
PJ: Yes, I really must go.
CB: In the County Museum, in the Town Museum, and there’s a memorial as well of course. There aren’t many left, but there were six hundred and fifty, in total.
PJ: Yes, it’s sad that we are losing so many of our ladies and gents now.
CB: Shall we now go specifically on to your father’s situation. Here, if we start with earliest information about him. So, he was born in 1921.
PJ: He was.
CB: In Birmingham, is that right?
PJ: Yeah. He was born on the 19th of April, 1921, at 35 Wrentham Street in Birmingham 1, right in the very city centre of Birmingham. The house that he was born in was a back-to-back property on three floors, and a cellar. I think now we would class these properties as slums; they were dreadful places. On the ground floor was a living room and a small scullery, the bedroom above was where his parents slept and then the bedroom above that was where the children were. My dad was one of three. They were, Edna was his, his older sister, and she had a bed of her own, whereas Dad and Ron, his brother, shared a bed. He would talk to me about these sort of things, and he always said that it was cold, bitterly cold, in winter, and they would snuggle up together and there were times when they actually had to sleep under coats. Another thing he would talk about was the fact that it was shared facilities for houses and I think it was six families shared two toilets, which would have made mornings rather interesting, I think.
CB: Out in the garden this is.
PJ: Out in the yard. Yes.
CB: In the yard.
PJ: My father’s parents were William Jones, and Amy Jones, neé Roberts. His father had served with, in the trenches in the First World War, but after the war he became a metal presser. His mother, obviously my grandmother, was a housewife. The family before my dad was of school age, thankfully moved south to Hall Green, which is quite a nice, leafy suburb, and certainly things got better for them down there and he went to, I think it was Pitmaston Road School, and he actually says in his notes that he rather liked school and, but I don’t know what age he was when he left school. I know certainly that he, when he left school he started an apprenticeship with the BSA, in Small Heath, in Birmingham.
CB: Well school leaving age in those days was fourteen wasn’t it, so apprenticeships tended to pick up from there.
PJ: Yeah. When war broke out he was too young to enlist, really. He joined the Home Guard, but I don’t know a lot about that, and I think he was determined to serve, because he was just fed up with sitting at night in the air raid shelter and watching his city burn. He describes in his notes how Edna would sob in, at the very back end of the shelter, frightened as, frightened stiff, as the bombs whistled down. But he was always the boy in the doorway, watching what was going on. Eventually he applied for service, and he applied for service in the Royal Air Force. Why he chose the Royal Air Force I don’t know. Was it the nice uniform? Was it the chance of flying? Why didn’t he choose the army? I think possibly why he didn’t fancy the army was because his father and his grandfather had both served in the army. His dad had served in the trenches and Walter, his, my father’s grandfather, had been out in the Boer War so maybe he’d heard grisly stories about life in the army, on the front line. One memory that I have of my dad when I was growing up, was that he wasn’t a good sailor. In the 1950s and 60s we would go on holiday to the East Yorkshire coast, or the East Riding coast as it was then, and we’d go to Bridlington, and during the holiday it would always, there would always be a cruise on the Yorkshire Bell or whatever the other ones were called, in Flamborough Bay, and I remember my father was always very quiet and rather green around the gills, [chuckle] so I think that was probably the reason he didn’t volunteer for naval duties. Um, I think, I need to go through his log book, but I’m pretty sure he went to Cardington first, in September ‘42 for aircrew selection. And interestingly, when I got hold of his service record, he was turned down - for aircrew - and I think he must have been pretty, pretty brassed off about that. What changed their mind, I really don’t know, because he ended up as aircrew and successfully carried out sixty four ops with main force and Pathfinder Force, so something must have impressed them. I think I have a very vague memory of my dad talking about the flight engineer’s position on Stirlings, which is the aircraft that he started on, as being very poky. My dad was five foot one, so maybe they changed their mind because they wanted small flight engineers! I’d rather think that they saw his potential rather than his size [laughter]. But I guess, like all of the trades, they needed engineers and here was an enthusiastic young feller who wanted to fly. Anyway, from Cardington he was posted to Padgate for his induction and that’s where he was issued with his service number, and like all servicemen it was a number he would never, ever forget. From Padgate he went to the Initial Training Wing, 42 ITW, at Redcar up on Teesside, and there he was billeted with Mrs Thatcher on Richmond Road, Redcar for six weeks and he talks about the capers he got up to with Ken Battersby and Chaz Curle, but most of all he remembers how icy cold it was doing drill on the sea front with the howling north, north wind and the spray from the North Sea. Must be pretty unpleasant. But anyway, he got through that. In December ’42 he then went to RAF Cosford, and there he, a quote from RAF Cosford, he actually said, ‘everything involved muck and mud down there.’ He says that in the first week of every entry it was spent on fatigues, peeling four foot high piles of vegetables and after every meal the floors and tables of the huge dining hall had to be cleared and polished. There was also guard duty but they didn’t mind it because everybody else had to do it. I suppose they’d all gripe but it had to be done, it’s just how it was. From there he went to start his engineering course at St Athan, by this time he was what, twenty two. I’ve got a lovely photograph of him at the age of twenty two, taken at St Athan, where he looks like a very, very young sergeant. He was a natural engineer. It never left him, he was a perfectionist in everything he did in later life. He drove my mother batty because he was plan, plan and then do, whereas my mother wanted plan – do, or just do. [Laughter] But he was a great planner. He was a perfectionist in everything he did. I think that comes from his RAF training and it was instilled in him how important it was. A lot of the people that he’d been at Redcar with were also at St Athan and he writes, most of the lads that had been on the ITW were at St Athan. He records in his memoir lots of names, Tommy Meehan, MacMeehan, John Mullins, Jimmy Cruickshank, Albert Stocker, Arnold Hurn, Jack Walker and John Gartland. And that they would be killed. Taffy Lightfoot and Roy Eames would go down over Bremen and that Billy Currie was shot down whilst still training. It was pretty terrible, and it was a relatively small group to start with, at the ITW, that so many would be killed, and so quickly. From there he went to 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at Stradishall, and it was here that he experienced his first flight in a Stirling. He’d never been higher than a first floor window in his life and he really didn’t know how he was going to cope with it. And his description, I think, of his first flight is fabulous. It’s just something that you don’t think about unless you’ve done it yourself, in an aircraft of that generation, which sadly I haven’t but would love to. And he describes taxying to the runway and, ‘hesitating for a few seconds before beginning the mad dash to the other end and how the aircraft’s thirty tons lifted off the runway and it promptly began to sway from side to side and up and down. Looking back down the fuse, the wings actually flapped, the huge engine appeared to be nodding in unison, looking back down the fuselage the whole structure was twisting back and forth,’ and he says that the height didn’t bother him but after ten minutes the motion caused him to be sick and here he says it took three hundred flying hours before the airsickness settled down. Quite remarkable. I can’t imagine flying in an aircraft that’s doing that, but. It was at Stradishall that he was crewed up, and it was the same process that they all went through: all met up bumbling around in a hangar and sort of someone would come up and say fancy being my flight engineer or I need a rear gunner, and it’s a kind of odd way of doing things; but it worked! You know. I think it’s quite remarkable that a skipper could have, I don’t know, almost a special sense of who he’s choosing and certainly with Fred Philips’ crew, they gelled straight away. I mean the crew was Fred Philips who would become, was awarded DFC before he was twenty one and was awarded Bar before he was twenty two. He was an insurance clerk from Punchbowl, Sydney. Dave Goodwin was a New Zealander, he was the navigator, another Kiwi was Clive Thurstan who was initially bomb aimer, and he had an interesting nickname: he was known as Thirsty Thurston - I wonder why! The wireless operator was an Australian, called Stan Williamson. Ron Wynn who was RAFVR was the mid upper gunner, he was from Stockport. Joe Naylor, again RAFVR was the rear gunner, and interesting he was known by everyone, sorry, it was John Naylor, and he was known by everyone as Joe, or maybe I’ve got that the wrong way round and they did their first flight together on the 29th of September 1943. I can’t imagine what it was, what it would feel like, I really can’t. But having read the memoir, they became instantly, a crew, and gelled as a crew, immediately. And it was after thirty four flying hours at Stradishall that they were declared fit for operations and as I said earlier, that was when it suddenly became very real. On the 2nd of September ’43 they joined 622 Squadron at Mildenhall. They were flying Stirlings. The squadron converted to Lancasters in November ‘43. That’s where his log book starts to get very interesting. Whereas he’d logged his operations in quite detail with additional information added after the op, I think later on. He’s quite detailed, he notes targets and also notes the, sometimes notes, tonnage of bombs and the aircraft that took place and the losses. Having looked through a lot of log books they are all very different. They’re all of the same format, but every airman had his own way of putting things in. I love the fact that you rarely, rarely see a scrappy log book: the writing is almost identical in them all. Whether it was something that was taught at school, or whether it was something that was taught during their training, that they all seemed to have the same handwriting. They’re beautifully readable and they are fascinating books to look through. His first op was a gardening op, a minelaying op, on Skaggerat and he mentions that they had an extra man, for gardening ops, they had a naval, a member of the Royal Navy that would arm the mines before they were dropped and then it just goes on with I think, next we’ve got two ops to Hanover, the first of which they had to turn back due to engine failure, and then it was gardening again, but this time at Kattegat. And just, it’s not intense, the flying, really, right, having said that, I’ve just turned the page, [paper shuffling] and I’ve gone the wrong way round. Er, yup. He’s going to Ludwigshafen, Berlin, Berlin, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart again. His last op with 622 was on the 1st of March, the Stuttgart. And it was there that they, went, after that they went to Warboys and this is where they each learned a little bit of each other’s role so that should anything happen someone else would be able to carry out your role and not let the crew down and hopefully get home.
CB: Now Warboys was the night flying unit, so what were they there to do?
PJ: A lot of it was circuits and landings, obviously like the initial training but they were learning night navigation I believe as well, using a bubble sextant and things like that and that was the second sort of hat that my father wore. That he, he learned to do the, now what is it called, the navigating via the stars?
CB: The star shots.
PJ: Star shots, thank you. Yes. It was after that, that on the 4th of April 1944 they transferred to 7 Squadron, Pathfinder Force, at RAF Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Their ops started on the 9th of April with an attack on the railway yards in Lisle. This was ’44, so a lot of the ops here are French. This was running up to D-Day, and interspersed with German ops as well, but there’s an awful lot of operational flying on Normandy. [Paper shuffling]. Get these the right way round. On the 1st of July they start doing day ops, or daylight operations again it’s all French and they’re hitting communications, flying bomb sites, railway yards, oil plants and then he goes night flying again, over Germany, and then it’s back to France. Interestingly some of these ops they were flying two ops a day. On the 18th of July ’44 they did a French op, a flying bomb site, flying three hours fifteen minutes in the morning, then at night they were up again for three hours thirty five minutes attacking an oil plant in France. A lot of these French ops now in July, Fred Philips had been promoted to Master Bomber with 7 Squadron, so I guess it would have been even more intense with the crew than it had been in the past because I guess they weren’t dropping bombs and markers then scarpering: they had to hang around. Must have been pretty stressful. Going on to again, July. On the 30th of July, my dad’s log book shows that they were bombing the Normandy battle area. That’s followed by more flying bomb sites. On the 6th of August they were observing the artillery firing, 7th of August it was the Normandy battle area again, and it was the enemy strong points were being bombed, back to oil depots and then fuel dumps. The 12th of August 1944 there were two ops: in the day it was a fuel dump, four hours five minutes, and then in the evening they were stemming the enemy retreat. Then it’s back to flying bomb sites on a daytime raid. 29th of August 1944 was the longest flight that they ever did, and that was to Stettin in Poland, a total of nine hours and ten minutes, and my dad refers to this op in his notes by saying that it was the coldest he had ever been on an op and he felt so sorry for the rear gunner, because my father was in a heated cockpit and of course there was little heating for the rear gunner and of course many of them had a clear vision panel although they punched the panel out to see, so he must have been incredibly [emphasis] cold on that raid.
CB: Just before you go on from there, in his notes, what does he say about the bombing of the V1 and V2 sites, because they were difficult a to find and b to actually hit?
PJ: He doesn’t actually mention them, he doesn’t say much about them. It’s all in his log book with just a little note, he doesn’t actually describe physically attacking the V1 and V2 sites, and most of his descriptions are of Berlin and the Ruhr, which were of course the bread and butter targets, and nasty targets as well.
CB: Yes, so how did he feel, in his notes, about Berlin?
PJ: Like them all, he hated it. It was the big city. It was the place that Hitler did not [emphasis] want hit, but.
CB: So what was the significance of them being an unpleasant place to go? Was it more flak, was it fighters or combination of both?
PJ: It was a combination of both. I mean Berlin had massive, massive flak towers didn’t they, and the flak was intense. Um, he describes the noise when the curtain went back, in the briefing, when they followed the red line and at the end of the red line was Berlin and he just describes it was a loud groan. Really, no one wanted to go to the big city.
CB: So as the Pathfinder, now on 7 Squadron, the most accomplished ones would drop the reds, the newer ones would drop the greens, if Fred Phillips became the Master Bomber did that mean they ended up dropping reds?
PJ: Er, I don’t know, he doesn’t describe that. He does remember graphically being extremely uncomfortable circling the target for so long, on an open radio, you know, and he was very aware that they were the sitting duck, the aircraft that had to be shot down.
CB: And what height would they be flying then? Does he give any indication of that?
PJ: He talks about eighteen thousand feet. Whether they dropped for the target, I don’t know. He does describe flying over enemy territory at ten thousand feet, when they were, they’d been severely shot up over the target and they experienced severe [emphasis] airframe icing and the only way that they could gain height was to make the, was to jettison anything and they ended up throwing out all of the ammunition and the guns and they flew back to the UK at ten thousand feet, over enemy territory. Eventually, there was no way they were going to get back to Cambridgeshire, so they diverted to the first airfield available which was West Malling in Kent, fighter station, and ran out of fuel and piled into the runway. They wrote the aircraft off completely. And he describes having to get back to Oakington, from Kent to Cambridgeshire, on the train, in flying gear. [Laughter] There was no taxi in those days. No, but that was just one of the dodgy moments he had.
CB: Did the aircraft become unserviceable or a write off because he landed without undercarriage, or what happened exactly?
PJ: He doesn’t go into great detail, but it was written off, completely written off. I don’t know at the time whether West Malling had a concrete runway or whether it was still grass, I don’t know. But I can’t imagine the CO of West Malling being impressed as a Lancaster drops in very heavily. But they got away with it. They were, at Oakington, Fred Philips’ crew were known as the lucky crew. They’d been flying on a lot of ops by then and they were probably seen as one of the more senior crews on station and they were invariably late back, and usually peppered with holes and my dad describes in his notes, once, the fact that they were so late back that he later discovered they’d been written off and marked up as missing and he describes how they eventually landed and they were debriefed and then they went into the dining hall for their post-operational bacon and eggs and he said there was one of the, there was a WAAF in there and soon as they walked there in she burst into tears.
CB: And the relationship with the WAAFs, was that regular or how did it pan out?
PJ: I think it was, yeah, again, they had great respect for the WAAFs and many a young amorous airman could be put down by just one stare from them [chuckle].
CB: Does he make any comment, it’s an interesting point though I think, about the experience of the WAAFS who had relationships with the aircrew and constantly losing that person?
PJ: He doesn’t mention it, but I’m aware that it must have been very difficult. And I mean some of the poor girls got the reputation as being the chop girl because they’d lost so many boyfriends, or well, airmen who they’d had relationships with, and they got this dreadful reputation and that must have been really hard to live with.
CB: Absolutely.
PJ: And yet there are so many lovely stories about the relationship between the aircrew and the WAAFs. Stevie Stevens’ story is absolutely fantastic, in that, I can’t remember where he was flying from, he, he really enjoyed, loved the sound of the WAAF controller’s voice and then she suddenly just disappeared off the radio and she was never heard of again at that station. I think it was Scampton that he moved to and lo and behold, there it was, the same voice as he was requesting permission to land and he was so intrigued by this WAAF’s voice that he actually went to the Control Tower to see who she was and of course the upshot of that was that they married!
CB: Never looked back.
PJ: Never looked back and are still happily married to this day. Yeah. Some lovely stories.
CB: I think one of the interesting ones that emerged from interviews is the occasions where the WAAFs lined up at the end of the runway to wave off. Does he refer to that in any way?
PJ: He does. Yeah, he does, he said there would be a row of them, or a row of people on the Control Tower balcony and there would be, and he said invariably there would be, I think he calls it a gaggle of WAAFs, that would wave their handkerchiefs to them, but another person that he talks about was a little girl and he talks about this, a family that lived next to the perimeter track in a farm cottage, and he describes how the squadron would taxi round the perimeter tracks from their various dispersals, describing, and he described the aircraft as being like a row of ducks and he said just this roar and spit and hiss of brakes and he said there was this little blonde girl would appear at the back, at the garden gate, every time there was an aircraft on the perimeter track and she would wave to them, every evening. And he said without fail each aircraft that passed this little girl, the crew would wave back and the gunners would dip their guns at this little girl and he said he would love to know who she was, and after my father died I was researching his notes and I found out who she was.
CB: Did you?
PJ: Her name was Clara Doggert, if my memory serves me right, but sadly she died, but it would have been so nice to have met this lady.
CB: Yes. On a lighter note, looking at the log book, [bump on microphone] I think it’s quite interesting to see the entry that says NFT – Night Flying Test - and the timing. What do you know about the choice of timing?
PJ: Um, I hadn’t spotted that one.
CB: So the idea is that you take off at twenty three hundred hours, and you do your night flying test which takes an hour and ten minutes and why is that?
PJ: I think it would be because they would get their breakfast?
CB: They would get their fry up! [Laughter]
PJ: Good for them!
CB: After midnight! And I think this is one of the intriguing things there. I mean on ops obviously they were coming back because they were flying at night, but to do the night flying test.
PJ: They had a cunning plan!
CB: Yeah! Some of them had to be in the day so that didn’t work. Same title, but different time.
PJ: Yes. I think they’d become a pretty savvy crew by then, knew how things worked.
CB: So how many ops had they done when the crew left 7 Squadron?
PJ: Sixty four.
CB: Oh, right.
PJ: They had, by then they had an extra crew member because Fred was Master Bomber so they had a specialist map reader, of course H2S had come along by then so they were an eight man crew. The eighth man was a guy called Steve Harper who hadn’t done as many ops as the rest of them, so when the crew split up he wasn’t tour expired, and Steve kept on flying with 7 Squadron for a bit longer and he was very, very seriously injured by flak on an op. He survived, but he was seriously injured. Their favourite aircraft was PA964 and in less than a month after them, the crew splitting up, the aircraft was shot down and the entire crew were held then, as POWs. So the name ‘Lucky Crew’ was pretty apt. They got away with it. They never saw each other again.
CB: Didn’t they?
PJ: A couple of the Australians and the New Zealanders did, but the RAFVR chaps didn’t. And in my dad’s notes he does actually mention that and he asks the question, would I want to meet them again, and he actually makes the point of saying no. And the reason he wouldn’t want to meet them again, because he wants to remember them as being young men. He doesn’t want to see a load of old men, he wants to remember them as, how they were.
CB: I think that’s a really telling sentiment, as to why some people don’t want to open up about what they’ve done: it’s a memory that’s hurtful, in some ways, it’s pleasurable in others. But there’s a mixture of emotions, isn’t there.
PJ: But there is, and again in his notes, he hints [emphasis] at the, the difficulty he had with the number of civilians and children that were killed. I think he took comfort from being, with his role as a Pathfinder, that he was marking targets as accurately as possible to cut down on the losses, but he was, I think one of the reasons he couldn’t talk about it, were the civilian losses.
CB: Any reflection on the British civilian losses being on the opposite, receiving end?
PJ: No. The only thing he mentions in his notes is the, when he was a teenager in the air raid shelter and he also mentions walking from Hall Green to Small Heath one morning after an op the night before, after a raid the night before on Birmingham, and he actually mentions being fascinated by the effect of the bombing: that one house was a shell and yet the house next door was perfectly okay. One had no windows, the other one was intact, with an alarm clock still ticking in the window, and he describes a double decker bus, sitting on its nose, in the middle of the road. And he just describes this as being absolutely fascinating in an horrific way, and he couldn’t, just couldn’t work out why it wasn’t all flat and yet why would one building remain intact, as though it’d not been touched at all and yet the one next door was completely devastated.
CB: Just on that tack, what do we know about the composition of the German bomb load, in dropping bombs on Britain.
PJ: Well they were using twin-engined aircraft and certainly the bomb load that was dropped on this country was far less than was delivered to Germany.
CB: I was thinking of the composition of the load itself. So they’ve got high explosive and they’ve got incendiary. Because the RAF learned from that.
PJ: Yes, um, it was the incendiary that would cause the, the devastating fires, then you had also, certainly from an RAF perspective, specialist bombs for, that were used on specific targets. Like the Grand Slams, et cetera.
CB: Had father got to the stage of dropping those as well?
PJ: No. No, by the end, by the time he was on Pathfinders he was mostly dropping markers with a basic payload as well.
CB: ‘Cause his job was to make a mark, marking.
PJ: Yes. Primary job was to mark, mark turning points and targets for main force.
CB: So at the end of the tour, tours, two tours, effectively.
PJ: Two tours.
CB: What did he do then?
PJ: When he left, when he left Oakington, I think, I’m sure he went to Northern Ireland to, er, looking at.
CB: To Nutts Corner.
PJ: To Nutts Corner, 1332 Heavy Conversion Unit, and he was there from the 28th of December ’44 to April ’45. One of the things that he talks about is the warmth of the people of Northern Ireland. And he describes that when he arrived in Belfast he was kind of adopted by a family and given a late Christmas lunch by this family because he was a young lad; you know, sort of, he wasn’t that young by then, but he was so far from home, from his, from Birmingham. 1332 Heavy Conversion Unit moved to Riccall in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was an airfield to the south of York and just sort of north of Selby, and as a teenager I used to cycle out there and it was all still there, which was wonderful, knowing that my dad had served there, but that’s, I digress, and it was whilst he was serving at Riccall – he was the adjutant of the Engineering School there - he went to a dance in Selby, which was a little market town, and the dance was at Christy’s Ballroom, above a shirt factory, of all things, which I think was how they were in the day, and he met the girl who would become my mother. And she was a farm worker’s daughter, who was at the time working in service, as a maid for a quite a wealthy timber family that ran a wealthy timber business and actually where she was living at the time, working, was on the perimeter track of RAF Burn and later my mother would tell me how, as a young working maid, she would also go to the bottom of the garden, in the evenings. But anyway, my dad would cycle to Burn or to Hamilton, where my mother’s home was, and that’s four miles south of Selby, on his service bicycle. That wasn’t too bad, but then 1332 HCU moved to Dishforth and his weekly trips then were a hundred and twelve miles, on a service bicycle, in all weathers. I guess he was in love! [Laugh] Mad fool!
CB: Amazing what motivation there can be in that! What were they flying, 1332, that was a Heavy Conversion Unit, but.
PJ: Initially, they were on, at the time they had a mixture, I think, of Lancasters B24s, certainly the last aircraft my father flew in was B24.
CB: But what was their role? It wasn’t bombing.
PJ: I think, I think they’d gone over to transport by then, or certainly they were heading that way. But when his time was up at Riccall he went to Bramcoats, and there he was the Station Armaments Officer, and this is where his RAF career is kind of taking a spiral because he’s not flying, he hates it. He really [emphasis] wanted to stay in the RAF and pursue a flying career but my mother wasn’t having any of it, so that was the end of his dream of serving round the world and spending his days flying. From Bramcoats he ended up going to Uxbridge and after a medical and signing lots of papers he was given a cardboard box with a suit and hat in it. And he was demobbed.
CB: When was that?
PJ: Oh, I think ’46, I think. I’d need to look at the log book. But my parents married in February ‘46.
CB: And he was still in the RAF then.
PJ: Yes. His wedding photograph is in uniform.
CB: How did he feel about moving from operations, which were very intense and specific, in terms of being a Pathfinder Force, to an OC, to an HCU? What did he feel about that in his notes?
PJ: Um, I wouldn’t say he was bored. But -
CB: Frustrated?
PJ: Yes, frustrated probably. He did have the odd bit of excitement. I mean he talks about [bumps on microphone] one particular incident at Nutts Corner where he was a flight engineer for a young Canadian pilot. He said that this young Canadian was a flying boat pilot and he said lovely chap, really eager, and loved it, he said they were on final approach to Nutts Corner and my father kept looking at this pilot and the pilot kept nodding excitedly much as ‘I’m doing all right aren’t I’, and my father looked at him again and then looked down at the switch gear and looked at him again, and my father just gently leaned over and pushed the full throttles wide open to force an overshoot because he’d forgotten to put the undercarriage down! So the eager Canadian airman was having too much of a good time. Apparently his expression was one of hang dog!
CB: This was on a Stirling?
PJ: Yes, er no, it was a Lancaster actually. Because of course he wouldn’t have been on flight deck for a, with a Stirling. Yes, I can imagine the poor Canadian’s face. He thought he was doing really, really well.
CB: Amazing!
PJ: But I think he was disillusioned, my father was disillusioned: he didn’t want to be on the ground, he wanted to be in the air.
CB: So when he left the RAF, what did he do?
PJ: I really don’t know. As I say, my parents married in February ‘46 and initially they moved to Birmingham and also to Bath because my grandparents, my maternal grandparents lived in Bath for a very short time and then moved back to Birmingham, and then my parents ended up settling down in Selby and my father started working for John Roster and Son which was a paper mill. They were a Manchester based paper company and they had a satellite factory in Selby, and he worked there for years [emphasis]. I came along in 1954 and as I was growing up I remember that my dad was hardly ever at home. He, for years and years and years he worked six and a half days a week and he would always cycle to work and he cycled to work in all weathers, and I can still see him in winter with his RAF greatcoat with plastic buttons on it, he’d taken the brass buttons off, and he used his old gas mask, service gas mask bag, for his backup and there’s a really endearing image I have of him, cycling off in his greatcoat. Um, having said that he was never there, when he was there, he was a great dad. He always had time to read stories to me, and we would read things like the usual 1960s classics that every little boy read: Moby Dick and Treasure Island et cetera, and I have lovely memories of him reading those. Again, going back to his practicality, he used to build me all sorts. He made stations and tunnels. He made the tunnels out of paper pulp, from the paper factory, from the paper mill. So I always had a really good train set.
CB: A type of papier maché.
PJ: An early type of papier maché. Yes. It was very smelly as well!
CB: He worked as an engineer, presumably, at the paper mill.
PJ: He did, he did. Yeah, and he was there until I was in my teens and of course I changed from junior school. He was brilliantly supportive with my homework and he would spend hours helping me with homework and I remember one for some reason I was struggling with the coffee trade in Kenya and I now can’t forget it and he just sat down and we just went over it. He was an incredibly skilled artist - self taught - and sadly I never inherited those genes, although my daughter has. He produced some fabulous sketches.
CB: Amazing!
PJ: And watercolour paintings. [Paper shuffling]
CB: [Indecipherable] in 1979. Amazing, yes.
PJ: He started from nothing with his art, you know. He just used to doodle and then he just got better and better and better. An example I’ve got here today is the, this, his lionesses head and it’s incredibly [emphasis] detailed isn’t it, you can almost see every hair.
CB: Yes. As an engineer did he go into design engineering as well do you think?
PJ: I don’t think so, I don’t think so. I think he was possibly a bit of an innovator, when problems arose, which of course he would have had to have been back in the war, he would have had to have been very self reliant and that carried on with him. He became a model maker as well, and he produced a model that I still have at home that sits in my sitting room and it’s a twin engined compound engine. Stationary steam engine.
CB: Oh really!
PJ: And it works. It probably, well it worked. It probably doesn’t any more because I haven’t kept it serviced. But it has pride of place.
CB: Brilliant.
PJ: Yeah, it’s a lovely thing.
CB: So, you were a teenager when he left the paper mill. What did he do then?
PJ: He got a job as a maintenance fitter at Danepak Bacon, in Selby, and it was then that he actually started to only work five days a week, which you know, I suppose was luxury, really, but sadly he didn’t work there for a very long time because he was, the company got into difficulties and he was eventually made redundant. I think that [emphasis] had a big effect on him [pause] and after his redundancy he never had a job again, and he was made redundant before [emphasis] retirement age.
CB: So what messages did you get from his [emphasis] experiences and advice as to what career you would follow?
PJ: He wanted me to go in the RAF, and follow his footsteps, but I didn’t. [Laugh] My mother didn’t want me to. So I headed off in a different direction altogether.
CB: What did you do?
PJ: I went into acute healthcare. Well after a while, I went into acute healthcare. I had numerous, numerous sort of jobs first. Nothing too serious.
CB: Did you have some kind of vision of what your career was to be?
PJ: Initially no, not at all and then I met up with a few people who were working in healthcare and I thought yeah, that sounds interesting.
CB: So what did that involve?
PJ: It involved a thirty four year career working with anaesthetics and airway management.
CB: Tell us more.
PJ: I trained as an operating department practitioner and specialised in anaesthetic support and ended up working mostly with emergency patients. I specialised in emergency work in the end.
CB: Doing what exactly?
PJ: It was airway management. I used to work in, I was based in operating theatres but I worked in Intensive Care Units and then the resus rooms in A and E departments. It was the A and E work that I really did love. I worked all over the country. I started in Kettering and from Kettering I went to, um, where did I go from Kettering? To East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, then I went up to London and worked at Moorfields Eye Hospital, the Western Ophthalmic Hospital, Great Ormond Street. Then I worked in the St Mary’s Group, which was St Mary’s in Paddington, Mary’s West 2, St Giles West 10, Samaritan Hospital for Women, and then I got a little bit disillusioned with living in London, or maybe it was my then girlfriend who got disillusioned and wanted to move. So I got a job in Lincoln and a month later my then girlfriend who would be my wife and now my ex-wife [laugh] followed and I moved up here to Lincoln in 1987 and I’ve been here ever since. I took early retirement in June, July 2012 because I was just so disillusioned with how the NHS management worked, messing things up, and I really didn’t want to be part of it any more. I had two years where I didn’t do anything, really, and I saw a post, I think it was on the internet or something like that, about the International Bomber Command Centre and I read this post and thought that sounds really interesting. And lo and behold it was based in Lincolnshire, and so they were looking out for volunteers. So I thought well, I spent two years sitting on my bottom doing next to nothing, or once a week walking up the pub and I could be doing something a little bit more worthwhile and something that would reflect what my late father had been doing and I started on the project as a data checker. I was working with the, with Dave Gilbert who was doing a fabulous job recording at the losses and it was one of my jobs to check the accuracy of the information against the data and make sure that what was going to be put on the IBCC records was accurate. And it was fascinating but shocking, as well, going through the losses and looking at the ages of those that had been lost and also looking at the fact that an awful lot of those aircrew that had been lost were lost in training before they’d even got on the squadrons, and I was really shocked because I was, at the time, I’d been given a whole load of Canadian names, I’d been given about a hundred and fifty Canadian names, and the losses in training were higher that the loss, operational losses, for this particular group of airmen, and I thought, and I’m thinking where are these poor sods remembered. They’re not. Not really. There’s the odd little memorial in a hedge bottom, somewhere, which I think are wonderful, but there were so many lost in training that aren’t recorded. They’re not in Chorley. Mind you, Chorley was the record of the aircraft not the crew, wasn’t it.
CB: Absolutely.
PJ: And this is one of the reasons why I got so hooked on the project, and I think it was in January 2015 I had a phone call from the Bourne office asking me if I’d like to come on board as a paid member of staff, to work on the archive, and I bit their hand off. We were based initially at Witham House on the University of Lincoln’s campus. We were in a portacabin which I think my colleague describes as the nearest thing the university had to a Nissen hut, at the time.
CB: We remember.
PJ: You remember it well, [laugh] with the flexi floor, but in August 2015 we moved off the main university campus out to University of Lincoln’s Riseholme Campus, which is where we are today, and we work in the most beautiful country house and I think it just lends itself so, so nicely to the project. It looks, I [emphasis] think it looks like a Group Headquarters and when I first saw it I thought, yeah, I want to work there. But there are two things missing on that house: it doesn’t have a flagpole and it doesn’t have an RAF Ensign fluttering from the top of it. But um, beautiful house. Beautiful grounds and I am very fortunate that I’m now working with a fabulous group of people. Working with some amazing [emphasis] facts, figures, and dealing with amazing stories and artefacts and literally every day is like Christmas Day, when I open the post I have no idea what’s going to come through the door. But it’s also every day is an emotional rollercoaster, you go from the Christmas Day of opening a parcel and seeing these amazing artefacts and these wonderful memories that are sent in, or I’m listening to other recordings of fabulous stories, or heartbreaking stories that come through and it’s those stories and reading the letters, that a young airman wrote, hoping that no one would ever have to read it and of course I’m reading it because his parents did. And I remember reading one of those, it was from a young Canadian airman from Vancouver who had just started operational flying and he’d written the [emphasis] most beautiful letter. I found it remarkable that a nineteen year old could write such a mature letter. I was, I read this letter late on a Friday afternoon and I couldn’t get rid of it, and it haunted me all weekend. I mean, those letters were wonderful. But also we deal with the other side of it, in that I got into the archive about two hundred letters from a young airman who, before he joined up, had worked at Park Royal, in a printing works, and the letters that he was writing weren’t to his family, they were to his workmates, and so they weren’t sanitised and they were laugh out loud funny. My colleagues here will tell you that I was laughing, out loud, at some of these letters, and this particular airman was the Eric Morecombe of his day and I got inside his head and I got to know this man and reading these letters and he’s describing one where there’d been an influx of two hundred WAAFs on station and he actually says ‘the chaps are getting choosy’, with the WAAFs [chuckles] and you know, these were lovely letters and then I got to the last letter in this pile and I rang this chap up and the donor, the owner of this collection was from Bridgewater in Somerset, and I rang him up and said ‘I’ve just read the last of Peter’s letters’ [banging] and I said ‘what happened to him? Have you got any more letters?’ [Steps] And he just says, ‘well you’ve read his last letter.’ He didn’t come back. And that really hurt, because having read all his letters I thought you know, I’d got to know this man, he was a very funny man, and he must have been fabulous to serve with. But the project’s going really well. I’m in receipt of some amazing [emphasis] stuff and I do it in my dad’s honour.
[Other]: Yes.
PJ: Well, I hope he’s smiling down on me.
[Other]: I’m sure he is. You’ve given us a fantastic insight into your father’s experiences. Absolutely.
PJ: He was a remarkable man. He was a lovely man.
[Other]: Yes.
PJ: As I say, it’s been thirteen years since he died and, [pause] I still miss him.
[Other]: Course you do. I’m going to the loo. [Whisper] [Laughter] I’ll turn this off.
CB: It’s running. So Peter, thank you for what you’ve done so far. I think, in summing up we could cover a few other things, but what was your parents’ reactions to your career choices after the experiences of their parents, and your father in particular, in the war?
PJ: As I said, my father, I think, rather fancied the idea of me joining the RAF, as I did, but my mother put me off that. I don’t think my father was disappointed at all, in fact he was quite proud of the career path I chose, but interestingly, another career path that my mother put me off: I gained a Deck Officer Scholarship with Shell and my mother put the kybosh on that as well. [Laughter] She was quite, quite, um, she tended to get her own way.,
CB: What worried her about going to sea?
PJ: It was being away from home I think. Actually she was probably right because of course the British Merchant Fleet has gone. So I’d probably be redundant.
CB: As a Captain! [Laugh]
PJ: I doubt it! [Laughter] More like Pugwash! But no, my dad was proud of where I ended up.
CB: Of course. Well I mean it’s a very good thing to do.
PJ: And I really think he would be very proud of what I’m doing now.
CB: I bet, yes.
PJ: It’s a great project. I think that we are trying to turn back history, because Bomber Command and particularly those that flew were demonised and we want to tell the story of the whole of the bombing war, not just from British perspective, but we were an umbrella over the whole of the war. We want to hear the experiences of people on all sides and we are getting remarkable stories: we’ve got fabulous inroads into Italy with amazing stories from there. And, you know, going back to Bomber Command, I can’t, I really can’t imagine what it was like in 1945 when everyone was huddled around the wireless, waiting for Churchill’s victory speech and everybody was mentioned. Except Bomber Command. And I think that must have been a terrible blow to everyone that served with Bomber Command; a body blow. So many had been killed and what recognition had the government given them? None. What is a life worth? What was a life worth to them? You know, I think it was a terrible thing to miss them out.
CB: Did your father ever mention this matter?
PJ: I think he did once. I can’t, I wasn’t that old, and I’m pretty sure it was a conversation he was having with someone else, but he was pretty hacked off about it, he’s, I think his opinion of Churchill had gone from being very high to being very low. He was hurt by it, very hurt. Because he’d lost so many, many friends.
CB: Yes, you mentioned them.
PJ: Well that was just a few I think.
CB: Yes, that was just from his early days.
PJ: Exactly, it wasn’t from the later days.
CB: What was do you think his overriding memory was, of his service during the war?
PJ: I can tell you – it’s in his memoir, if you -
CB: I’ll pause while you look it up. Right, we’re re-starting now.
PJ: I can quote from my father, I remember him saying that all in all he felt he’d had a good war, he’d had a relatively easy war, he’d come out unscathed and that in a way I think he felt guilty because he had survived and so many hadn’t, but he then, in his notes, he reflects and he reflects asking what made them do it? What made them go on ops, over and over and over again, and he says was it the patriotism, was it the pride of volunteering being greater than the butterflies in the stomach, was it the fear of letting down the crew, or of the lifelong stigma of lack of moral fibre? And he says perhaps it was one or all of them, who knows? And then he follows that with what I think a lovely sentence.: ‘And what do I have to show for it? My discharge papers and identity discs, my flying log book and a few medal ribbons – and a thousand memories.’
CB: I think that’s extremely touching, it, it in a way, glosses over an important point which is not unusual for him, people like him to miss, which is: he got a DFC and nobody crowed about that but why did he get a DFC, what was the origin of the award?
PJ: I’ve never found the citation. I think possibly, of course, he was on a crew that carried out a lot of ops. I’ve found Fred Philips’ citations for both of his DFCs, for his DFC and his Bar.
CB: Which were earlier.
PJ: Which were earlier. Of course by 1945 they were dishing out quite a lot by then, weren’t they.
CB: What was the date of your father’s DFC?
PJ: I can’t remember.
CB: But it, was it a similar time to his pilot, his second one?
PJ: No, it was later.
CB: Later, exactly.
PJ: Which makes me think possibly the number of ops, or -
CB: Nothing specific. Could have been the end of the tour, the second tour.
PJ: Yes. That’s what I think.
CB: Would be nice to be able to get the citation though.
PJ: It would. I would like to see that.
CB: Right, we’ll pause there for a mo. Now we’ve already talked about the DFC and also the crew gelling together, but what sort of conversations did they have, in these circumstances?
PJ: One of the conversations that my dad did tell me about, and that was a conversation he would have with the mid upper gunner, Ron Wynn, when they were coming back, leaving the target on every op as flight engineer it was my dad’s role to walk the length of the fuselage doing a damage control walk, to see how badly damaged, or if [emphasis] they were damaged. And my dad would always use a shielded torch and Ron Wynn would always say, ‘Oi, you’re lighting me up like a bloody lightbulb up here, turn that torch out!’ And my dad would always reply, ‘If there’s a hole in this bloody fuselage I’m not falling out of it for you!’ [Laughter] And it would be the same conversation, every op, but there must have been more, there must have been more. Even in the, even in the sort of, the terrible times of the operations the humour was still there. Like in the breakfast before the op there was always somebody who’d say if you don’t come back, can I have your breakfast, wasn’t there, you know. There was always that, that lovely, lovely dark humour.
CB: Yes, it’s a trait where you deal with the danger, at the threat, and the horror of it, with humour.
PJ: Yes, but since my father’s death, I’ve spent over eleven years researching his notes and of researching his crew, or the crew that he served with, and I was fortunate enough to have made contact with Fred Philips in, who was living, still living in Sydney, and interestingly, when his flying career with the Royal Australian Aircraft, Air Force came to an end he joined Qantas and he eventually became the Chief, the Senior Training Captain, with Qantas and he was the first Qantas pilot to fly a 747 to Heathrow. Now sadly Fred died in October last year. The other one I managed to get in touch with was the mid upper gunner, Ron Wynn, still living in Stockport. After the war he’d been an instructor at Cranwell and I managed to speak to him on the phone and it was quite an emotional encounter I think, for him, talking to the son of someone he hadn’t seen for so long, but after the initial emotion he was very chatty. And after the conversation I had an email from one of his sons, saying how much his dad had enjoyed talking to me and hearing what my father had gone on to do, but then he said that the conversation had brought back a lot of memories and he wouldn’t want to talk again. I do hope that wasn’t too upsetting for him. But you know, I’ve gone through the crew and I now know what all but two of them did, after the war.
CB: One of the reasons was it, the link between the mid upper and the flight engineer was both were acting as lookouts, during this, but what was father actually doing as a flight engineer in his role?
PJ: In his role?
CB: So, start with take off.
PJ: At take off he would take over throttles so that the pilot could use both hands on the stick, for take off. During flight he would be constantly making fuel calculations et cetera, trimming the engines, shifting fuel between tanks et cetera, just to keep the stability and also keeping records, and as I say doing calculations because they didn’t rely on instrumentation for fuel, it was the engineer’s calculations, and woe betide if he got them wrong. My father could, could fly, he, it was again, going back to the Warboys experience where they did a bit of each other but I think it would have been straight and level flying, it wouldn’t have been landing, take off and landing, that sort of thing. Looking back at his, reading his memoirs, I think he did have a good time. I once went to the 7 Squadron reunion in Longstanton and when my, when his tour was up and they were going their separate ways they took their ground crew out, to the pub, The Hoops, in Longstanton, where they wouldn’t let the ground crew spend a penny. In his notes, my dad said it was worth the twenty four hours of hangover. And I dearly wanted to go and have a pint in The Hoops but it’s been knocked down.
CB: Oh dear.
PJ: But I did walk the streets of Longstanton, in the rain. One of the things that he talks about as well, is once on an aborted op they were returning to Oakington in a really vicious side wind and they had a sudden gust of wind and bounced badly on touchdown and went round again, and as they were roaring off, off the runway, the wind had sent them across the village at very low height and he can vividly remember seeing people staring up and people running away and he can clearly remember a lady running out of a house and grabbing a little girl, or her child, and pulling her into the house, out of the way. My father describes how they, they very narrowly missed All Saints Church in Longstanton and that when they touched down, got out of the aircraft, the rear gunner came, wandered around, and said to Fred Phillips, ‘if you’d have told me you were going to pull that stunt I could have taken that weather vane off as a souvenir!’ [laughter] But thinking as I was driving into Longstanton, it’s a long straight road into the village, the hair almost stood up on the back of my neck when I saw that, the spire of the church and realised that’s it! That’s it.
CB: In conclusion, because this is fascinating and it’s covered so many aspects of your experiences, and your father’s experiences. But thinking of father’s experiences with the research that you’ve been doing, and what he had written, what’s your overriding feeling about the story?
PJ: My father’s story or the story of Bomber Command.
CB: Your father’s story.
PJ: My father’s story. [Sigh] The little lad from, [pause] from the slums of Birmingham did all right.
CB: Can I translate that into a feeling of great pride?
PJ: Indeed.
CB: Thank you, Peter Jones.
PJ: You’re welcome
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/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AJonesPWA171207
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Peter Jones
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
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01:49:58 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-12-07
Description
An account of the resource
Peter William Arthur Jones (b. 1954) speaks about his father Thomas John Jones DFC (b. 1921, 1640434 and 184141 Royal Air Force). Peter Jones discovered a memoir written by his father, Thomas Jones, a flight engineer, just after he passed away. Peter talks about his father’s life and service during and post-war, some of the details in the memoir and memories of their time as a family after the war. There is much discussion about operations and post-flight details, how emotions, injuries and fears are dealt with, including non-flying personnel as well as those who flew. Peter’s own life and work, particularly on the IBCC Digital Archive is also talked about, and the way the stories of others are so emotive.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-23
1944-04-04
1944-08-12
1944-08-29
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Birmingham
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Berlin
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
Wales--Glamorgan
England--Warwickshire
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
Second generation
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
1657 HCU
622 Squadron
7 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Pathfinders
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Nutts Corner
RAF Oakington
RAF St Athan
RAF Warboys
Stirling
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/325/3484/ASaundersAC170201.2.mp3
1fb4c24cc9bd7c60d04ffe2634fa1ca5
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
Saunders, Sandy
Arthur Courtenay Saunders
Arthur C Saunders
Arthur Saunders
A C Saunders
A Saunders
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of a log book, an oral history interview and extensive medical records as well as photographs and a report. Dr Arthur Courtenay "Sandy" Saunders (1922-2017, 295329 Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) received extensive burns after an aircraft crash in September 1945 and underwent experimental maxillo-facial surgery, as a member of the Guinea-pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sandy Saunders and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-01
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Saunders, AC
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today I’m in Burton Lazars talking with Doctor Arthur Saunders, Sandy Saunders, about his experiences in the Forces and in later life. Sandy, what do you remember in your earliest days?
AS: Not much, er, I was born in Bootle, Liverpool, and the third of four children and I had a quite a contented childhood. I went to a church school in the — in Bootle and, er, that was Christ Church School and then I got a scholarship at eleven to Bootle Secondary School, which was in fact a grammar school. It’s still going strong as Bootle Grammar School and, er, I managed to get a, a scholarship to do a science degree. I, I had had early feelings that I wanted to do, to do medicine but I didn’t get sufficient grades in my scholarship to, to get the five year grant. Anyway I got a sixty pounds a year scholarship and I did a — I started a, a science degree. It was a physics department run by a Professor Rotblat (R O T B L A T) who later became a — he went to Cambridge and was one of the developers of the atom bomb. He was a nuclear, nuclear physicist and, er, in 1941 I heard of a, er, a short service commission in REME for radar, radar officers so I applied for that and I, er, went into the Army and did my usual boots training and I was commissioned as a lieutenant in REME in, in 1940, ’40, ‘43, and I did two years as a radar officer, lieutenant in REME, and, er, it was straightforward work. It was working on various gun sites round the country and, er, calibrating the gun laying radar and — but it was very remote from enemy action and I suppose I was quite excited by the operations that were going on in Europe. 1941 there was the Pegasus Bridge Operation and that seemed really exciting and then there was Arnhem in 1943 and, and, er, I had a yearning to join the Glider Pilot Regiment. I applied for a transfer to the Glider Pilot Regiment in early 1945 and after the various medical checks and interviews and psychological checking and all the, the rest of the palaver I, I went off to, er, the battle course at Fargo camp in Sal— Salisbury and, er, did that and it was quite exciting, this kind of commando course, because of course glider pilots were soldiers and once the landed they were operational fighting troops. And then I went off to Booker Airfield near High Wycombe and did my ETFS, Elementary Flying Training School, and I did about seventy-five hours on flying Tiger Moths and I was — I passed out as a pilot of average ability. I'd done all sorts of exciting things. I did solo night flying and aerobatics, and recovery from stalls and all sorts of things. And it was great and I loved the flying and then I was sent off to a, to a conversion course to gliders, with the intention of becoming a pilot of, of — the war as over by this time by the way and I went off to, um, an airfield in, in Warwickshire and, er, I did some training on the gliders. They were — the gliders they used were, were Hotspurs. It was a smaller version of the, of the, er, troop carrying gliders, towed off by DC3s and, er, as part of the training I had to do I was sent off on a navigation exercise. We had the Link trainer and that gave us our basic navigation skills and, er, I was sent off, on a training triangular flight. I hadn’t flown a Tiger Moth since I was at Booker a month or two before and, er, the — I was instructed to take off on the grass runway. At, at this airfield there was only one runway and that, that was occupied by gliders and tower aircraft so I was asked to take off on the outer wind strip which was ninety degrees out of wind. So I took off with a, a corporal in the front cockpit to do the navigation and, er, there was no problem taking off and I did the triangular flight and it took about probably twenty-five or thirty minutes. I returned to the airfield and, er, I had to land on this grass strip. There were no, no other aircraft in sight and I attempted to land and I had to side slip in because the wind was obviously increased and, er, I had to side slip but coming out it seemed like an angle of about thirty degrees. I thought it was unsafe to put the wheels down and so decided to go round again and I made a circuit, same thing, and I went — I opened the throttle and went round again, did another circuit of the airfield, circuit and bumps they used to say, and on the third attempt, er, I don’t know, probably the lack of experience, I, er, made a late decision to, to go round again and by this time feeling rather fraught. In charge of an aircraft, you’ve got no contact with the control tower and there’s no radio because it’s an open cockpit two-seater plane and, er, I opened the throttle, went to go round again, and found I was going towards some trees and I pulled the stick back to get over the trees and I overcooked it and went into a stall and, of course, then everything goes floppy. You’re, you’re out of control and, er, I — the plane just dropped in a stall, hit the ground rather hard and I was knocked out. I, I presumed that my head had hit the control panel, the instrument panel and, er, by some miracle I, I was wakened by the flames all round. I was obviously on fire and, er, the survival instinct kicked in. Shut my eyes tightly. I think my goggles had been knocked off in the, in the crash and, er, I managed to undo my harness, again instinctive, and climbed out over the starboard side of the aircraft and dropped to the ground and next thing I knew I was in hospital. The, er, the corporal in the front seat must have been killed instantly. I flew in a Tiger Moth last month. The BBC arranged it. They were doing a documentary. I think the film was last Monday, Monday of last week and, er, I was in the front cockpit during that flight and I must say that I had a momentary flash of grief. I get, I get nightmares even now, flashback nightmares, fortunately not so often nowadays but it, it always contained this grief about the navigator in the front seat. What he must have felt when the plane stalled God knows. You’ve only fractions of a second to think about it before you die. So anyway, it’s, er, a rather pathetic story of, of crashing a plane but, you know, there’s no drama to it. I ended, I ended up in the Guinea Pig Club. You know there were thirty-four Spitfire and Hurricane pilots who’d taken part in the Battle of Britain. They, they’d sustained their burns in act—action and, er, I just got mine from a training accident. It’s a — yeah but it was wonderful when I got to East Grinstead eventually. That was in 19— the end of 1946. I was in hospital in Birmingham for, for a year and they did my, my resuscitation and the initial grafting and, er, I had really horrific disfigurement and, anyway, I was under a general surgeon there. He’d done a course in — at East Grinstead and he did my initial facial reconstruction. He gave me four new eye lids and, er, at the end of a year I was back on duty, light duties, non-combatant duties, in REME. I was — they were mainly in central workshops and then I was, I was posted as second in command of a prisoner of war camp in Derbyshire. And it was there that the medical officer checked me over. I, I couldn’t close my eyes properly and I got recurrent infections and, and it was he who suggested that I see the national expert in burns surgery at East Grinstead and, er, I went there in late 1946 and, er, McIndoe looked at me and he offered, he offered further help. He said, ‘You need four new eyelids and reconstruction of your nose and some work around face and,’ he said, ‘Come in tomorrow and check into Ward 3 and I’ll do some work on your eyelids in the morning.’ [slight laugh] And from then on it was just a matter of recurrent operations and recovery time, and I applied to get in to Liverpool Medical School and was successful, and I started at Medical School in, in September 1947. I was still having operations at that time and, er, I did, I did the five years training, qualified in 1952. So that was five years at Medical School which were pretty wonderful. I, I was living at home. My parents, they’d been bombed out twice during the war. Do you know, in 1941 I was at — I’d been evacuated to Southport and I went home for the weekend, May 1941, and that, that weekend Liverpool was heavily bombed, particularly Bootle with its docks and I was a Rover Scout and I’d, I’d been given the privilege of working in a rescue squad and I went out on duty and, er, had — we went over to houses near the, the South Park, digging people out of bombed houses. I went back to the bunker and there was another call out so I was first, first out of the bunker and there was a scream of bombs, you know, the usual [whistle]. I threw myself flat and there was huge explosions and I was picked up between two bomb craters and I had bomb, er, splinter wounds across my buttocks, and my — one in my leg, and one in my foot and I was sent off to Ormskirk Hospital in a pick-up truck. I spent only ten days there for — while the lacerations healed up. But I thought then — I was, I was eighteen and I, er, I was thinking then deep thoughts about mortality. You know, I, I went camping one, one night in a pop tent [background noise], a camouflaged pop tent, in Lancashire. And I remember lying with my head out up through the, through the flaps of the tent, looking up at the Milky Way and thinking about eternity, and I thought, ‘God in — I’m eighteen. In fifty-two years’ time I’ll be sixty.’ Did I get the calculation right? ‘Well, I’ll be sixty and probably dead.’ And [slight laugh] started thinking about philosophical thoughts of mortality. Anyway, it was wonderful to recover and qualify — I think I got the dates wrong about Medical School. 1941 was the bomb— bombings and I was still at school then. It was 1943 I went to, to the, er, science department in Liverpool. Yeah, my parents had a bad time, you know, with moving house and my, my father pulling out what remained of the carpets and then refitting them in, in the next house and he was wonderful. He’d been, he’d been in the Army in the First World War and he was posted to the North West Frontier of India and, er, he became an interpreter. He could speak Hindi and Pashto and Urdu and, er, I suppose that was my, my inspiration towards a, an Army career. Yes, he survived the — his three years in the, in the Army but he was on quinine for three years and that made him profoundly deaf so he had difficulty getting a job. He was — he got a job as a grocer’s assistant but he was a wonderful chap. He, he was very good on DIY, you know, he used to mend our shoes and he made my Christmas presents. He made me a boat and an aeroplane and all sorts of things. Wonderful, wonderful people in the 1940s. It was — talk about resilience. What my mother must have gone through, you know, with the being bombed out and my injuries. And my daughter, my sister, was in the Army. She, she was, er, posted to Italy with the invasion there. And my brother, my younger brother, he was in the merchant navy at sixteen. He was a, he was a wireless operator on a merchant ship. He was at the beaches on D-Day delivering troops. Yeah, very exciting times. Anyway my, my story is really the Guinea Pig Club. It’s a — the Guinea Pig Club was really the making of me because, you know, there were six, six hundred and forty-nine members who’d, who’d been burned, some of them horrendously. Some of them had — I had twenty-eight operations in my — at the two hospitals but some of them had sixty operations or more and they, they were all cheerful, resilient people and, you know, these were the bravest of the brave and, and being a fellow member was really such a privilege and that’s what, that’s probably what drove me, as I was getting on in life, to propose this memorial to the Club. There’s a big memorial to McIndoe at East Grinstead. It’s an eight foot statue with — which, er, the town had erected and — but that was to McIndoe, the medical services, but I wanted one to the Guinea Pig Club, the Club, its six hundred and forty-nine members to — as a memorial to, to what they went through and the stone mason, the stone mason designed a quite a moving tribute. I was going to pay for it myself but my wife, Maggie, started a campaign, a fund raising campaign and, er, she managed to raise enough money to pay for it. But, er, my — I said in my speech to the Duke of Edinburgh that my intention in, in [pause] arranging the memorial was that as a [pause] it was repayment of a debt of honour really for the, er, medical expertise that had brought me back to health and for the enormous psychological support I got from the other members of the Club, who really altered, altered my attitude and personality and, er, really gave me the ambition to get well again. So, er, that’s my story.
CB: Thank you. Did, um, you, as part of the treatment at East Grinstead, did they have psychiatrists there?
AS: No psychiatrists. There, there was no psychological support at all except from the encouragement of McIndoe who said, ‘I can help you to get back to a normal, normal life, physically.’ And — but it was, it was the members of the Club really. Their attitude was so optimistic and there was black humour, you know, but everyone was cheerful and up — uplifting. You know, I, while I was having my eyes, eyelids grafted you had to lie in bed for, for a couple of weeks with your face covered so you couldn’t see. To one side I had Dinty Moore, who was a bomber pilot, and his story was amazing. He, he took off in a, in a new Halifax and — with a full load of fuel and a full load of bombs bound for Germany and he, er, he found after take-off that he was having difficulty climbing and the flaps had, had stayed down and, and, er, the undercarriage wouldn’t wind up and then the right starboard engine, the starboard outer engine, wouldn’t feather and, and he had to cut, cut the engine, so he had managed to get to two thousand feet and then he had that awful decision, what to do next? So he decided to fly on and ditch in the North Sea. He’d taken off from South Yorkshire somewhere [background noise] but I’ve got this story in print and the, er, outer port engine caught fire and he had very great difficulty maintaining height so he decided that he had to do — he had to land, you know, at night over the fields of Norfolk and in the dark. He had a full load of bombs and fuel. Anyway he landed and the right wing hit a farmhouse and the right side of the fuselage was torn out and the plane was on fire but he managed to get out somehow. And he became a Guinea Pig and went back to a normal life. Christ! All the decisions, all the decisions you have to make. What could be more horrifying than that? Did you see the film about the landing on the, on the river in New York? That —
CB: I’m due to see it soon.
AS: I’ve seen it and, you know, the pilot had a fraction of a second to make a decision whether to go back to the airfield or carry on to the river. Christ! It’s such an enormous responsibility. Anyway it was meeting people like that that, er, really gave me my destiny. I’ve had a wonderful life.
CB: So after medical school what did you do?
AS: I went into, into general practice. I was in hospitals in Liverpool for a year or so as house, house, surgeon, house physician and, er, one of the — the chap who was the — he was a physician at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Birmingham who, who befriended me and he telephoned me to say there was a General Practice job going in Nottingham, was I interested? Well I was quite open minded about what career I should take at that stage. And I went to Nottingham and had an interview with the Practice and they took me on as an assistant with a view — and from there I went on to another — I didn’t get that Practice so through the, er, through the Family Practitioner Committee I, I got a chance of another Practice and I was there for forty years. Amazing. But it was a career that I thoroughly enjoyed. Of course, I had to practice for the sense of dedication and, er, it was a great advantage to me because I really enjoyed doing, doing the work. God, it was hard work. It was like “Call the Midwife” stuff, you know. We booked a hundred women a year for home confinement. I did all the work, you know. If a patient needed a blood test you just got out a syringe and did it on the spot. And, er, if they needed any other examinations you felt you had to do it yourself. It was really — I didn’t have any staff. It was me and my fountain pen. It was a partnership of three with an elderly, elderly man at the head and he eventually retired and he offered me the sale of his house and I — then I went through various life crises, you know, the mid-life crisis and the marriage folded up and — but I battled on and [pause] yes, it’s amazing how life experience affects your person— personality and attitudes. And here I am at ninety-four, quite content with life, wonderful wife.
CB: Where did you meet Maggie?
AS: Over a bridge table. My second marriage folded up, er, in 2000. I, I’d been living apart from my wife in the same house but she was playing up with other men and I eventually divorced and, and I settled here, next door actually. I got it, I got it through a house agency in Melton Mowbray. I was living there with my dog for the next ten years and then I used to have a, a bridge group on Wednesday evenings. They were all women and, er, Maggie was one of them. She was married and had children and I’d, I’d already decided never to have anything to do with women again after my second marriage experience. And I was living there quite happily and Maggie’s husband died about nine years ago and I realised that I was living apart, she was living apart and we kind of chummed up and the — it became quite intense and we married seven, seven years ago, and then the lady here died and I bought this house and this, this is the ultimate in down-sizing [slight laugh]. You know, doctors usually have big houses and I had a farm house with my second wife, with big farm house and a few acres, and we ran horses for her children. We were quite happy there until she started playing up and — but I’ve been happy here. It’s a tiny, tiny bungalow but it’s just, just idyllic.
CB: You don’t need a lot of space do you?
AS: Well it’s ideal for elderly people to have very little. You can only sit in one chair at a time and [slight laugh] three meals a day and wonderful entertainment from TV and —
CB: How many children have you got?
AS: I’ve got — I had three. I’ve got two, two now. Angela, my younger daughter, she studied medicine at Southampton and she, she was a GP and she was a medical officer of a hospice in Somerset, Yeovil, and she developed a, a sarcoma in her pelvis and in four weeks, five weeks she was dead.
CB: Was she?
AS: Yeah, and she was nursed in her own hospice. That was a dreadful time to go through.
CB: How old was she?
AS: Fifty-two. Yeah, and I suppose it was her death that, um, prompted Maggie and I to decide on marriage. So, er, we’ve been very very happy. My dog died and — yeah, me and my dog next door, I thought that was wonderful and, you know, when I was eighty I thought, ‘I’m getting on in my life and I’m alone with my dog.’ And [cough] I decided — sailing was my hobby. I had a boat [cough] and I sailed it round from its base at Woolverstone on the River Orwell and I sailed it round to Falmouth and I used to go off cruising, um, with a friend and we sailed down it down to the Marbella [?] and Bay of Biscay and [cough] all over the place and I sailed all the North Sea, you know, Germany and Holland and Belgium and all over the place for years and, er, when I was in my late seventies I decided that my ambition was to do the Atlantic crossing so I got a crew job on a, on a Westerly Ocean, Ocean Wanderer and I got into the North Sea Race in November 2002. Yes, I was eighty. I had my eightieth birthday halfway across. We went across from Gran Canaria over to St Lucia and I flew back and continued my life with my dog. And then, do you know, when I was eighty-four I thought, ‘God I’m really old now. I’d better make arrangement for my funeral.’ So I bought, bought a grave at the — in a churchyard a hundred yards up the hill there and made arrangements and then, er, Maggie came along.
CB: Your salvation.
AS: Yes?
CB: Your salvation.
AS: My salvation. I’ve had an incredible, incredible happy life. It’s been wonderful.
CB: What about your other two children?
AS: My, my son became a doctor. He was a GP but he fell foul of, er, drugs. He went onto opiates while he still a doctor and I think he’d some experience with a dying patient, you know, and I think he had some mental aberration. He went onto morphia himself and eventually ended up in a court case and then after an interval I got him a job in — with one of my ex-trainees in Nottingham. And from drugs he went onto drink and he became a, an alcoholic and he also lost his job and had court cases and driving offences and all sorts and, er, the day before we married I rang him to see if he could get to the funeral. I’d, I’d paid for therapy for him on several occasions but he always relapsed and he — the turning point for him was my daughter’s death. He, er, he came down to — by train to Somerset to the funeral and he was living in a hostel at that time, a hostel where they did a breathalyser test every evening and, er, if you, if you didn’t pass the breathalyser you were chucked out. Anyway he came down and Maggie and I took him to the station in, in Somerset to get him back to Derby and, er, he must, he must have, with his daughter’s, his sister’s death it must have affected him, and so he had a drink and when he got the hostel he was over the limit and they chucked him out. So he was on the streets and eventually he got a flat in Nottingham and was living rock bottom and the day before the funeral I visited him and he was damn near dead, you know. He’d had a couple of bottles of vodka that morning and he was living in dis— disgusting disorder and I got him into the alcoholic unit at Nottingham the next day which was, which was the day of our wedding. And, er, they took him in and he hasn’t had a drink ever since.
CB: That’s good.
AS: That was the turning point. He was rock bottom and he had a few weeks of cold turkey and therapy and, er, he’s been improving ever since. He’s given up smoking and last year we went to his wedding and — he hasn’t worked. He’s a house husband but he’s much, much better.
CB: And, er, number three?
AS: Number three. My, my daughter. My elder, she, she was born in 1952, the year I qualified and, er, she’s been more or less an invalid all her life. She had, she had bilateral CDH and she had some horrendous operations during her childhood and, er, up to the age of twenty-one, when she had a [unclear] osteoplasty and she’s had both hips replaced, replaced in her fifties. She’s OK. She has a degree in art. Never worked. She married and — to a chap who had a teaching diploma but he, he’s never had a settled job and they live in very poor circumstances in Nottingham. They had one boy, who’s my grandson, and I now have two great grandchildren. They came here on Saturday and — because I’m not well and I’m in close contact with them. My son rings me every day or every other day and we’re all attuned. They — I, with my, with my huge divorce settlements I’ve never been able to accumulate enough money but I had enough to buy this place and Maggie’s got her pension and so she’ll be alright.
CB: What did Maggie do when she was working?
AS: She was a head teacher and she was a senior magistrate. She was chairman of the Melton Mowbray and Rutland bench. And she retired at seventy. She’s seventy-five now and so this place is ideal, ideal for her. It’s easily run. It’s got a modest garden and she likes the gardening. She’s been doing the lawn mowing for the last year. I haven’t been able to do much.
CB: You mentioned the extraordinary inspiration, er, from your bedfellow and, er, I just wonder what it is that — we’re talking about Dinty —
AS: Dinty Moore.
CB: Yes. What it is it that gives people the extraordinary positive focus in times of desperate straits?
AS: I don’t know but it does wash over you. You have these extraordinary cheerful men. Some of them were horrendously disfigured. They’d walk about the town with pitiful grafts, you know, between their arm and their, and their face and, and, er, they’d be jokey and upbeat all the time. They, they enjoyed laughing and there was a barrel of beer on the ward encouraged by McIndoe. He said, ‘It’s a very good idea to keep the men hydrated.’ [laugh]
CB: And in most cases in the early days of surgery then the view of the people must have been fairly challenging. What was the reaction of women particularly to men with this disfigurement?
AS: That’s extraordinary. Some of the, um, Guinea Pigs have written books and in, in one the reaction of his wife when, when he came back from East Grinstead was that she couldn’t stand to be touched by him because his hands were knobbly, you know, and — but when I got back to Liverpool I had been engaged to a girl and — but that folded up. Yes and, er, I think reactions were variable and yet many Guinea Pigs married their nurses.
CB: Did they?
AS: And quite recently, as recently as November, December, during the course of this documentary I was doing for the BBC, they took me down to East Grinstead and we met a present-day patient on — an Army, um, plastic surgeon and he was very very badly disfigured. He had very serious burns and he still had a lot of facial scaring and unevenness and he had a wife who’d met him as a patient and, and she’d fallen for him. Isn’t that extraordinary? But on one hand women couldn’t tol— tolerate the disfigurement but this girl had actually been attracted to a man who was disfigured. I think, I think the personality of the injured person comes over somehow and it’s the personality that matters to a sincere woman.
CB: Is there any history of how people progressed after they finished their treatment in terms of settling down with a family? In other words, did they all marry or —
AS: Yes, well I haven’t got the statistics but most, most of the Guinea Pigs became happy married family men.
CB: And from a medical perspective we have these, for some people, horrific views of the immediate aftermath of the initial surgery and then a progression but how does the body assimilate these extraordinary changes with some of the fabric of the skin coming from areas that aren’t normally exposed to the light?
AS: Well my legs were grafted and they — I regained full function really accept that I can’t squat, I can’t bend my knee back fully. I, I think the, er, treatment I got at the first hospital — I had a years’ treatment there — it wasn’t really, er, up to modern standards. The, the tightening of the grafts over these stopped me bending my knees but I had physiotherapy but it was only for a, er, a few weeks I think and I’ve never been able to regain my full, full flection, um, but that’s no handicap and I’ve been able to leap about the deck of a boat and I’ve been able to ski. I was skiing until I was eighty-two and, er, I’ve never been a runner but I’ve been a walker. I used to go trekking in the Himalayas and for years I carried on with a trekking group. I went as trek doctor and, and it was a wonderful time of my life. That was in my seven— sixties and seventies. And I’ve been trekking with Maggie in Italy, er, on the Amalfi coast and that involved quite a lot of energetic walk— hill walking.
CB: So what’s the secret to your long and active life?
AS: The secret? I think its attitude really, um, you get on with things [laugh] doing your best. Do you know, I used to march in the, in the, er, Armistice Day parade? And, er, I once went to the, to the Horse Guards Parade. I was — I’d travelled, travelled down the night before and I got to the parade ground quite early about 9 o’clock and I went to the, um, the van where they had the, the, signs where you’re supposed to stand and I got a — my stick with a label on it and I went over to the parade ground to my spot, in a row of seats, 3 of something, and I was standing there and a few Guinea Pigs joined me, and then two or three and then — oh, there were five of us. I was standing there and a chap with a bowler hat came along and, er, he was obviously ex – RSM and he said, ‘Now Sir, I want you to place your stick on that sycamore leaf and stand there and line up in rows of six.’ So I said, ‘But there’s only five of us.’ He said, ‘Well do you best Sir.’ [laugh] I think that’s, that’s a good maxim to go by, do your best, yeah. Well —
CB: In your perception, your experience and perception, you have a number of people who all have had a disability because of fire, for various reasons, to what extent did they compare notes as to how they got them?
AS: Well we didn’t really talk about it very much. I think we — my conversation with Dinty Moore in the next bed kind of thing. But we, we heard about things and of course all the books written by Guinea Pigs, the — Richard Hillary was the first, wasn’t he? And, er, he described things very well.
CB: Geoffrey Page, various people.
AS: Geoffrey Page. Yes, yes but just knowing these people, sitting in the same room, you know, sitting at the same table at dinner, was wonderful inspiration.
CB: Do you think that somehow this personality and jovial approach was developed by the difficult situation?
AS: I think it was. Yes, making the best of things seemed to be the order of the day. And of course these, these were men of twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two and, you know, they were all full of hormones and, er, they had a drink ethic and very parlast [?]
CB: Supported by attractive nurses were they?
AS: Yes, well McIndoe’s policy was to, to, er, encourage a social intercourse with other people and of course talking to young women was far easier for young men.
CB: You talked about one of your early relationships going wrong. How had you met in the first place there?
AS: Well that probably went wrong because, er, I was at, at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Birmingham and one of the nurses who was looking after me in quite an intimate way, you know, ‘cause I was quite helpless. My hands were in bandages, my legs were in bandages, my head was in bandages so you had to be looked after, for hygiene and all the rest of it, and I suppose I developed a, an emotional connection with my first wife. She became my first wife.
CB: She was a nurse? Right.
AS: She was a nurse and yes —
CB: She knew —
AS: She, er, had a nice family. Her mother and father were teachers in Bourneville and she used to take me there for meals and she used to wheel me, wheel me to the cinema in Selly Oak in a wheel chair and look after me generally so, er, there was an emotional development and —
CB: And was there a second wife?
AS: We eventually married in 1949.
CB: Right.
AS: Yeah.
CB: Was your second wife a nurse?
AS: Oh, my second wife was following several life crises.
CB: In the medical sense you are all, one way or another, severely injured by fire. But you talked about your legs being burnt so you’re affected because your skin was taken from your legs, is it? So that’s why —
AS: I had skin taken from the upper legs and buttocks and, er, my eyelids came from the inner upper arm, yeah, the hairless part, and the nose came from my chest, yeah.
CB: So was the nose completely rebuilt underneath as well, from a bone point of view?
AS: No the cartilages were alright, yes.
CB: OK. So there are certain parts of the anatomy that give up the skin for particular spots more commonly, do they? In other words the upper arm for eyelids.
AS: Yes, that’s right. It’s chosen to be appropriate. I don’t grow a beard which is unconscious really.
CB: So what was the damage initially? You hadn’t got goggles on?
AS: No. They must have been knocked off, yeah.
CB: Did it affect your ears as well?
AS: No, no, I had a helmet. Yes, that saved my scalp and I’ve still got hair.
CB: Yeah. And then —
AS: Some of the Guinea Pigs did lose their ears and scalp.
CB: And arms, hands, were hands. Were they affected?
AS: I was wearing gloves but I had first and second degree burns to my hands and wrists but they were back to normal function within six months. Yes, first and second degree burns survived without grafting. You get blistering and so on but it was —
CB: What was the reaction of people at medical school to your circumstances?
AS: Yes that’s rather curious because it was twenty years after I, after I qualified that we had a reunion and one of the, one of the, er, my ex-student colleagues, a lady, came to me and said, ‘Sandy, I just want to apologise to you because it’s been something that’s been on my mind, ever since doing second MB. We were in the dissection room and Professor Wood had allocated us to do head and neck.’ And, er, I had my lower eyelids, er, grafted about two weeks before and I still looked pretty hideous, you know. Anyway she said, ‘In the dissection room you were, you were lifting the skin from the malar area and I looked at you and looked at the corpse and I had to go out to the ladies and actually physically vomit. I was so, so deeply affected.’ She said, ‘I just want to apologise to you now.’ Isn’t that strange? It’s — I can understand her feelings. I shouldn’t have been there really.
CB: You should have been resting.
AS: Until I was presentable. But reactions in people to disfigurement is quite extraordinary. It’s much better nowadays I think. There’s a lady appears on TV now doing the weather report with, with part of an arm. Quite openly she’s had an amputation and it’s marvellous that people are now — and through, through the armed forces amputations and things they, they’ve become — they have a much better attitude but at one time people were revulsed [emphasis] by physical disfigurement, particularly facial, and I used to try and hide my face in the first year or two.
CB: Did that mean that you didn’t get involved socially very much?
AS: Well, well, um, I was rather defensive about it. I remember when I, when I had my eyelids done I had to travel back to Liverpool from Sussex and I arranged a felt mask [laugh] like the Phantom of the Opera, you know, which I stuck round my glasses to hide the scars. Yeah, the Phantom of the Opera is a comparison.
CB: Yes, well, inspired by these sorts of things.
AS: Yes, well that was written in, in the days before acceptance of disfigurement.
CB: Did you get the feeling that a lot of people stared?
AB: Yes, yes. In fact, East Grinstead, through McIndoe’s influence, became known as the town that didn’t stare.
CB: Because they’d been programmed by the hospital—
AB: Yes, they’d been programmed. McIndoe used to go round the bars and the dance hall and the cinemas and say to people, ‘Please accept these patients as normal. It’s very important to be able to talk to people without feeling embarrassed.’
CB: And in medical school one has a huge curiosity for medicine and everything associated with it so did your experience come up as a student with other students?
AS: I never, never really noticed. I didn’t think about it. I developed a great friendship with Sid Watkins. He was a brilliant student, got a First in everything, and, and he became, um, the Professor of Neurosurgery at the London Hospital and, er, Bernie Ecclestone picked him up and appointed him as the
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ASaundersAC170201
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Interview with Sandy Saunders
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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01:04:03 audio recording
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Pending review
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Chris Brockbank
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2017-02-01
Description
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Sandy Saunders recalls Liverpool being bombed in 1941 and while on a rescue squad he sustained splinter injuries from a blast requiring hospital treatment. After taking a science degree he served in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers as a radar officer, working on gun sights and gun laying radar. He later remustered as a glider pilot. He describes his crash in a Tiger Moth during training. He was burned and consequently became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. He had twenty-eight operations including re-shaping his nose and skin grafts to his eyelids. He became a general practitioner in Nottingham and was in general practice for forty years until retirement.
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British Army
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Great Britain
England--Liverpool
England--Sussex
England--Lancashire
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
aircrew
bombing
C-47
crash
grief
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
memorial
pilot
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/3494/PStangryciukBlackJ1701.2.jpg
7833673268b4133cfbed42ada1200c7c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/3494/AStangrycuikBlackJ160710.1.mp3
8d572e5a9ef203e919c42aa93a627b9b
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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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Black, Jan
Jan Stangryciuk-Black
Jan Stangryciuk
J Black
J Stangryciuk-Black
J Stangryciuk
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Jan Black (formerly Stangryciuk)(1922 - 2023, 794829 Royal Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-10
2017-03-14
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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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StangryciukBlack, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TO: Right. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, whatever the case is. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre and the gentleman I’m interviewing is Jan Black. My name is Thomas Ozel. And also in the room we have —
DB: Danuta Bildziuk.
AB: And Artur Bildziuk.
TO: And we’re recording this interview at the Polish Centre in Hammersmith on the 10th of July 2016. Now, could you please tell me what year you were born?
JSB: Yes. I was born 18-4-1922 in Eastern Poland. Chelm Lubelskie. And after having fourteen years my father emigrated to South America. To Argentine. When we arrived in South America my father bought land and started a plantation. I went to school in Argentine to learn English and the rest of my education. After five years the Second War started in 1939. September. After hearing the destruction in my country and the suffering which my country was involved I was very, very upset because I had very patriotic feeling for my country and my people. In English newspapers in Buenos Aires were advertisement want some volunteers can join and enter into British armed forces. I applied to such invitation and I was asked to come over to Buenos Aires, to the capital city to have interview. I did travel to the capital city. Had interview. And after the interview I was asked when would I like to be ready for my, for my, for my journey to join the armed forces in Great Britain? I told them what that’s after arrangement what they could provide. After two weeks I received a letter and they told me, you know I can come to the capital city and I will have accommodation provided before the boat which will be sailing back to England. I arrived in mentioned location in Buenos Aires and had accommodation in hotel as it was arranged but we never knew when the boat would be sailing as it was strict secret but we’d been told we must be ready on short notice. And we received that notice that in four hours we must be ready and we would get transportation from the hotel to the very big boat called Highland Monarch. That boat was twenty six thousand tonner. Big one. And the most of his supply to England was meat for the nation in England. When we start our voyage our boat, to avoid German location of German submarine was not going on the straight course. He was doing zig zagging to avoid German’s location of German submarine. That journey took us much longer to enter Belfast in Northern Ireland because the boat was always in danger to come to the main ports of England. So the location between Argentine and Belfast was arranged for those four big liners which were doing the important supply of food between England and Argentine. The name of those boats was Highland Chieftain, Highland Monarch, Highland Princess. The fourth one I don’t remember. And after arriving in Belfast we’d been arranged — arranged accommodation in hotel for two nights. And afterwards we’d been, at night shipped to Scotland and we found ourself in some military barracks. After one week we had to pass medical board. And we’d been asked in what unit of armed forces we would like to serve. Of course I was young and I thought the most exciting unit I wanted to join — the Royal Air Force. During that time Polish Air Force start to be formed in England and I asked the commanding officer in English station if it is possible for me to be serve in the Polish Air Force. And I received permission and I had ticket arranged for me to travel to Blackpool. In Blackpool it was the first Polish Centre where the Polish Air Ministry was based. In Blackpool after having another interview about what profession I would like to serve in the Polish Air Force once again I wanted to fly. And they told me the only, at that time vacancy for training would be as a air gunner because to have a, have a permission to train as a pilot would be taking much longer time as we had special amount of people who only they could afford to train at such time. I accept my position as a rear gunner. After finishing all my training I had posting arranged for me to go to the 18 OTU. operational [unclear] where we start to be trained flying and having different night flights and earning more experience about future commitments which we will be engaged. Beginning of such training we had training to drop leaflets. Propaganda leaflets over Vichy France to promise French people what liberation will be coming for them in near future. During my return from such a mission our Wellington bomber received defect and we crash landed before we reached the aerodrome. During that impact in the crash I lost consciousness. When I recovered my consciousness I knew what I must try to get out of my crashed plane. But I, before deciding to look exit out I decided to try to see what’s happening to my pilot. From the rear turret I crawl to the front of the plane where the pilot was sitting. I tried to, to get him out of the burning plane but I couldn’t untie his belt what he was tied with it and the plane was increasing of the burning. I covered my left side of my face with my left hand and with my right hand I looked for the exit from my burning plane. Then I noticed skylight exit. As my plane was broken in two pieces, during that exit I scrambled to get out of the plane with burning my kombinezon flying suit as the petrol was already, already full of petrol. During my crawling and from the plane I received help from local farmers when they came and took my burning kombinezon out of me. But I was already very badly burned. My face and my hands. Ambulance came and been notified of the accident in about half an hour. And I was taken to Cosford Hospital. RAF hospital near Wolverhampton. During that hospital, receiving first treatments for one week I had a chance to meet very famous doctor. Doctor who came and inspect the RAF hospital in Cosford. The name of that doctor was Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was one of the great plastic surgeon doctor based in Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, Sussex. He told me he was going to transfer me to his hospital and asked me if I will be happy to go there. I told him what I leave the decision to him as he was the person knowing better my situation. On the next day the ambulance took me to East Grinstead Hospital and in that hospital I found lots of, lots of different, my friends from the RAF. They were Canadians, Poles, Czechs, English and I felt I found myself like in a big family. I started my treatment under that plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was to us airmen what from different accident, from different type of injury what we receive we treat him he was not only our big doctor but he was our friend. And we could not give them the greatest recognition how he try to do whatever possible to bring our disfigurement back to better future. After spending four months in East Grinstead I received quite a good improvement of my recovery and the hospital was very under big pressure. New cases were arriving day and night. Hospital for giving some burning airmen quite [pause] quite bigger recovery had to send them back to their units as they were short of beds. I receive that notice what I will be sent back to my station. When I received that notice and when I had my ticket, train ticket provided I arrived at my station and I had to report to my commanding officer. When my commanding officer saw me he asked me what I want to do. I looked at my commanding officer and I said to him, ‘Sir. What I want to do. I want to do what I’ve been trained to do. I want to fly.’ He looked at me and he said, ‘Warrant officer, in case you ever will be involved in some, in some type of possibility shot down over Germany you will be very unwelcome with your profile.’ I turned to my commanding officer and I replied, ‘Sir, maybe my future flying will not always be such an unfateful.’ Then I had to pass certain tests if I was fit enough to fulfil my professional responsibility in flying. And I was sent for two hour test with two doctors onboard on my plane. After having two hours flying we returned to base and the doctors told me what they will leave. They will leave the rest of the, of the, my experience and test of my flying with my commanding officer. On, after two days my commanding officer met me again and he said after seeing the report from my flying he said he has full confidence of giving me to continue my duty. I received my job as a, flying as a spare gunner in my station. And I continued to fly. I made eighteen operation over Germany and I was recalled to hospital to finish my treatment. When I returned to hospital, after three days my crew what I was flying went on bombing mission and were shot down. The pilot what I remember his name he was Squadron Leader Jan Konarzewski was killed and the navigator was killed. So many years I cannot remember the navigator name. The rest of the crew escaped from the German concentration camps. I’ve heard two of them, after when war finished they went to Canada. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the crew. When I finished my treatment in East Grinstead war ended. I was transferred to still serve in my service in station — Royal Air Force Station Andover in Hampshire. I was there on responsible duty to keep the aerodrome not be some time taken for training courses as local training courses some time were coming to the aerodrome and they were problem for the landing planes. We’d been doing, as I say guarding the aerodrome in Andover. So the aerodrome was always free for any landing plane. After three years I’d been asked to return to Dunholme Lodge Discharging Centre. I went to Dunholme Lodge from Andover Station and after two weeks I received my discharge. My demob suit, my demob shoes, two shirts and some compensation money. And that’s how I ended my service in the Royal Air Force in 1948. That’s about the end of my story.
TO: Is it ok if we just pause there for a moment?
DB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
TO: When you were growing up in Poland were people quite afraid of Russia?
JSB: Yes. The people were in Russia yes. Will you ask me, tell me again please?
TO: Were people worried about Russia and Stalin?
JSB: Yes. Very much so because Stalin and Hitler made treaty between themselves and they arrange already partition of my country between Germany and Russia. So the Russia really was beginning cooperating with German when war started in Poland. Afterwards it ended quite different because instead of keeping such a friendship between those two countries they start to fight between themself because they knew sooner or later they are danger one to another. And we became also big saviour for the Russians when the Russians were invaded by the Germans. We gave them all our help to stop German such a big advance overrunning that big territory. Thanks to our supply with whatever armament we’ve been able to do it that stopped the German’s big blitzkrieg to make Russia become their occupation big land. Winter also came at the right time when the German advancement not succeeded as were planned. Russia, after the war received big recognition for in the end fighting on our side. But it also, they also should be thankful what they received. Very big help from us. And that’s why today are such a big nation with such a future ahead of them. We still feel now what the Russia could be much more helpful with us. Remembering the days when we all save big danger to overtake that burden. We succeeded together and the Russians should also remember what they must remember and be with us not against us. Yes.
TO: And when you were at school had you been taught about the Polish War of Independence?
JSB: Yes. Very much so. I’d been taught and I had very big patriotism for my country as my country being occupied by, for so long by the three superpower Germany, Russia and Austria. When we regained our independence after the First War we had only twenty years freedom time to rebuild our almost zero economy. War came too soon and we were grateful to have ally like England and France far away because we’d been surrounded by very unfriendly neighbours. Russia. Germany. That’s why today we Poles remember that England was one country when in the end they decided to tell Germans what if they invade Poland the war will be declared against them. That’s what England did and I think what England and Poles took that difficult decision to fight together and we today change Europe for the example to the rest of the world. I hope the people should remember the difficult days and try to remember how Europe today benefitting from our freedom and prosperity for seventy six years. Whatever young generation decide from now on that will be their decision. But I think they are capable more to continue to go in the same direction as we left after 1945.
TO: And what was your favourite plane in the RAF?
JSB: Yeah. My two favourite planes I think up to today, in early day, the Wellington was super bomber. But afterwards we’d been able to build much bigger, much more faster, much more superior plane, Lancaster — and I think Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane they were the planes that should be remembered for a long, long time to come.
TO: Could you tell me about the conditions aboard a Wellington?
JSB: Yeah. Wellington had the same, I would say a good name because the structure of a Wellington was very practicable, what — it was very outstanding to certain damage to it because the aluminium structure what was built in the Wellington structure was very practicable. And I think as the war started the Wellington will also leave good history for himself.
TO: Yeah. Could you tell me about the, what it was like inside a Lancaster?
JSB: Yeah. Lancaster was very manoeuvrable fast plane and had three gunners. Germans knew what he had quite a good defence for himself. They always knew to attack Lancaster it was also a risk to themself and the Lancaster was our saviour I think. And we had confidence in him what he always took us over the German sky and always we been happy when he brought us back.
TO: And could you — what was the first ever mission you did over Europe?
JSB: Yeah. The first mission what I made it was the most diverse experience what I had over the Gelsenkirchen because in our briefing we’d been told that the Germans had big factories what were producing lots of military hardware in that place. That was my first bombing mission and I had to face my first [pause] first my lesson how it look to be over enemy territory.
TO: Can you tell me what you saw?
JSB: Yeah. I saw lots of explosion. Lots of burning down below. Lots of searchlights. And it was hell. I was happy when we returned over the Channel. I felt it was like halfway to be home. Yeah.
TO: And I’m sorry to ask this but did you ever find out what the defect was in that Wellington that caused the crash?
JSB: Just, I don’t know but I know the one thing what during the early days sometime our planes were not hundred percent to be airworthy. But we could not always make complaints because if we complain sometime for some small what it was defect we be probably be treated as we are not happy to continue our responsible mission. Yeah. You see from in early day sometimes plane because it was such a big demand in continue training and the plane probably didn’t receive a hundred percent service capable under the pressure. But we did fly them because it was such a situation what we had not enough time to keep this plane in a hundred, hundred percent. And planes were under continuous very big pressure and small repairs and defects needed to be done. It was not to blame the people who serviced the plane but it was only because it was in such a hurry time that we had to do everything in short time. Yes.
TO: I’m sorry. I know you’ve told me this before but there was a lot of background noise at the time. Could you, could you please give me the full description — like what target you were going to on the mission where the crash happened.
JSB: Yeah. Just before we went over the leaflets it was just normal briefing we received to drop these leaflets over the France. And the different people were probably reading these leaflets and hoping their liberation will come soon. But defect what was in the plane — no. We had not notice no defect before we took off. It just happened as we’d been returning to base.
TO: And I’m sorry again but could you please tell me again what happened during the crash? Was the — please.
JSB: Yeah. When before we crashed the pilot give us signal what the one engine receiving defect and we must prepare for crash landing. We, being near the aerodrome and we had not altitude to bale out but we had to crash. And during that crash that’s what happened. I came out and my crew was killed.
TO: And other than the pilot who else was aboard the plane? Who else was aboard the plane other than you and the pilot?
JSB: The pilot notify us on intercom what we will be committed to crash land. And that’s what happened. We’d be near to the base but we could not reach the aerodrome and we crashed before the aerodrome.
TO: And how did you feel when you woke up? You regained consciousness —
JSB: Yeah. When I recovered the consciousness I was still dazed. Yes. After that terrific impact you know what we receive. But I quickly came to [pause] to break my memory what we have to get out of that burning plane as soon as possible. And myself, instead of looking for exit I went to save the pilot hoping that he was still alive. I don’t know if he was still alive or he was half dead but I couldn’t take him from his seat because I think he was still tied up with the belt. Yes. I could not see it because you know I had to cover my face with my hand because the flame was all over it. The plane was engulfed in the fire and when I found that exit, the broken exit I was already my kombinezon was burning and the people who came because we’d been near the aerodrome and those people were professional because they always been expecting sooner or later some crashes do happen. You know what I mean. When they live close by. They had courage to come quite close and help to undo my burning, you know, flying suit. Yes. But I was already then my helmet was thrown out you see during the impact and I was already all my hair, my head was badly burned. And my hands up to, up to here you see were all badly burned, yes.
TO: When did the ambulance arrive?
JSB: In about half an hour. An ambulance took me to RAF Hospital Cosford near Wolverhampton, but I was in terrific pains. And thanks to the different morphine what I was given to ease my pains I was put to sleep but the pain continue for many, many days. But after each day I notice that I was recovering slightly and we were given from the hospital staff always their great encouragement what you will in the end become as more as we were before. Probably we make improvement but the small marks always will be left for the rest of the life. Yes.
[recording paused]
TO: And did the plane actually explode?
JSB: Yes. After the still petrol what was inside plane did explode and I was lucky to be little distance from the plane because if I would be still inside that was the end. So they got me still on my side after the crash. Yes.
TO: And when did you first meet McIndoe?
JSB: Yeah. The doctor McIndoe, he used to inspect different hospitals in different parts in England. And at one time he visit RAF hospital in Cosford. When he saw me he told me he will ask for my transfer to his hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex because he told me in that hospital they have much bigger, much better facilities for big burns and big damages to different parts of the corpse. And he asked me will I like to go to that hospital. I told him, ‘Dr McIndoe, I leave it to you. And I hope your advice will be more than me deciding what to do.’ And I was very happy when I arrived in East Grinstead Hospital because I met so many boys with the same. With the same burns and different damages in our life. I was feeling like I am in big family. And the people in that town, East Grinstead, they were so friendly to us what we are always we remember that town as it is our very friendly town when people never stare at us no matter in what condition we did look they accept us. And we will be grateful to them what they treat us as we were part of that little town.
TO: Did you have a girlfriend during the war?
JSB: Yes. Yes. I did meet a girlfriend. And after some few days during my holiday when I met her we became friends. And she asked me what happen to me when war ends. I told her this is big story. I cannot tell her. If I can tell her because I told her the war always bring very unexpectedly changes. But then were small question. If ever war end if we will continue our friendship. I had no alternative. Only thinking what such a promise probably can be given. And when war ended and my wife in the end came to visit me when I was in hospital I was so grateful because I had no family, no really friends to come and see me in that hospital. And when she came and visit me in hospital I was so proud of myself and of her what I had somebody who came to see me. At one time I asked her, I said to her, ‘Look. You came from London to see me in East Grinstead. I said that was lots of problem for you to came that distance.’ She looked at me and she told me if I want to listen to her why she came to see me. I said, ‘Yes. Do tell me.’ She said, ‘Look. On your next bed you have your friend also. English pilot. He has his father and mother with him.’ She said, ‘There further on you see another, your friend have some other friends.’ And she said, ‘You are in your bed. You have nobody.’ And she said, ‘That’s why I felt I must come and see you because probably your family is far away. And that’s what made me to come and see you.’ Those words I will remember for the rest of my life. Now, I’m old man. I can’t go to Poland. I can’t go to my sister in Argentine. But I bury my wife in Gunnersbury Cemetery, west of London and I promised her if ever anything happened to me I will be buried with her. And that’s why I’m living in London. Because I know my history is here. What we did during the war. How we fought the war. How we ended the war. And I think for that reason I call England as my most, most, the first place where I want to end my life. That’s really truth you know because that’s I buried my wife and I promised her I would be buried with her and that’s what it will be because I think if I go nobody will look her grave or nobody will bother. You see that was during the war. How it brings people sort of together you see. But people today war long time gone and don’t remember those days. Yes.
TO: When you’d come back from a bombing mission did you ever find out how successful your mission had been?
JSB: Yes. Yeah. Because we had to take photo during the mission. From beginning it was not such a demanding responsibility. But as war start to continue we had to bring much more, much more improvement in our missions. What we had to bring better results of our bombing and we had to bring the photographs. Where we bombed and how near we’d been able to bomb the targets what it was in demand. So, it was very, very important what to drop whatever our mission was to do it the most effectively. In the right spot. And that’s where in the end we were so proud what we’d been making such a great bigger direct hits in the spots what needed to be destroyed. Thanks to the new improvement in our recognition and in our new invention of bombing.
TO: And were you ever involved in attacks on Hamburg?
JSB: No. No. I never. I’d been on Essen, Dusseldorf, Gelsenkirchen and many others what I probably now don’t remember you see after so many years. But we had different targets and different targets we knew were much more heavily defended. So we always during the briefing we knew what targets were more difficult than the other ones. They were all always danger because, because the Germans had very superior defence you know and they always, always been trying to give us very hectic time over their sky, over their city and over their land. But whatever they did they never could close door against us. We’d been always telling them whatever superiorities they had in the past but we will be still coming over their sky, over their city and over their land and they were not able to stop us.
TO: Did you ever see any night fighters?
JSB: Yes. I saw once and I thought he was going to attack us. Yes. And I was giving pilot instruction what the German Messerschmitt 109 is probably trying to shoot us down. I don’t know for what reason he kept certain distance as I kept him in my sight. And I was thinking when he come closer I will give pilot instruction to make different movements to get off his gunsight because as he was following us I knew he would try to catch us in his gunsight. But the distance was still far. We continued the flight and I was hoping what probably soon I would have to give pilot my instruction. I don’t know for what reason he didn’t commit his attack. Maybe, I don’t know, he felt or he had certain also risk to do it. I don’t know. Or maybe he wanted to return to base because sometimes they were short of fuel you see. And that’s also probably you saw but they were probably already thinking how to come back to base. So the fighters, not all the time they come and determined to shoot you down. You see probably, probably they think what they also taking certain risk when they come because whatever defence you had you always had also difference you see. They had superior because they had much longer distance to open the fire and what would be effective. And they were much more manoeuvrable. Yes. But also depends. You don’t know who was flying in them. Because some were more determined to do, proceed with their action. Some probably thought they already made enough, you know, success during that night. That’s difficult to be sure you know what some but they also had pilot more determined to do their duty and they had some pilot probably who thought different way.
TO: And what kind of anti Aircraft guns were the Germans using?
JSB: Oh they were bad. They were bad. They, they used to catch us in the searchlight and when they catch you in searchlight you have so difficult to get out of them you see because they catch you from different direction. And when they catch you in you are blind you see, in it. So what you do? You do whatever manoeuvre you do. You turn your plane left, right just to get out of escape from those and during that time the fighters if they are in the near area they also see you from the distance. So they at the same time have terrific advantage to come and finish you off you see. When even you escape from the searchlights you see they afterwards will continue their attack. Searchlights was very, the very ones they catch you, you be really in trouble to get out of the searchlights and many times, many times you you’ve been tried to avoid when you saw them on the sky. You’ve been always trying somehow to dodge them but not every time, you know you’ve been able to dodge them. And some targets were much more equipped with the defence of searchlights than the other. We’d been usually try to avoid on going on bombing mission because we had good knowledge different places what had bigger defence than the other places and sometime we been even changing courses you know [pause] our journey so put the Germans always more uncertain of our direction of our mission. Yes. Yeah.
TO: Could you see anti Aircraft shells exploding?
JSB: Anti Aircraft — ?
TO: Shells exploding.
JSB: Oh yes. Yes. I, I have had sometime, or brought small shrapnel holes when they explode in the air. Yes. Many times we almost, when we came and saw the shrapnel just damage in certain parts of the plane we were almost kissing the plane what he was able to bring us down and still capable to come back. And they were soon quickly repaired if the damage wasn’t too serious here. Sometimes you see when this, they explode they will touch with big force and do big damage. Sometimes smaller shrapnel explode it will make hole but luckily depends where it touch you see. One sometimes it make hole but not manage to damage your fuel supply or something you see. The plane will continue [unclear] Yes. It depends. Sometimes they explode. When they explode in bigger, bigger say pieces and such a big piece you know when he hit you it almost you have nothing else. If you have chance to bale out or sometime the plane is going without any chance to survive. Yes. But the Germans had very strong defence because they had for so many years of well train the people you see because the bombing was continue night after night and during all those nights of experiences it gives much capability to be such effective. Yes. Yes.
TO: And what was the procedure for when you reached the target and bombs were dropped?
JSB: You just, when you drop your bomb you think you are half home because there’s nothing more danger when you are going on the target with full load. Because even if you are attacked by fighter during that time you cannot do sharp manoeuvring with your plane because your plane is very heavy when loaded. So when you go to the target is always the most danger journey. Once you drop over target you just put full throttle and get far from the target as possible and afterwards hoping for the best. Yes. To your way home.
TO: And what did you think of the RAF leaders?
JSB: I think what our Bomber Harris, the leader from the Bomber Command I think he did the most recognition for succeeding. Such an effective bombing as he taught to us what all will be one of the most destructive weapon to make German to surrender. Because from beginning the Germans had always better equipment. Better [pause] I don’t know better, always system what we could not face to their superiority but the Bomber Command always dictated the terms. And whatever Germans did against us they never could stop us going over their sky, over their cities, over their other well defended parts of the country. And Bomber Command, without Bomber Command there would be very difficult to win the war. We did the biggest damage to their industry. To whatever defence they thrown against us. They couldn’t stop us to succeed. Our superiority.
TO: And what year or what years were you doing bombing raids?
JSB: 1943. Yes. ’43. That was some time in, in November. November. Yes.
TO: Do you want to take a break for lunch at all?
JSB: No. No. No. No.
DB: How much longer do you want to —
TO: Well, I’m really enjoying this so —
DB: [laughs]
TO: I have about another half an hour left of battery on here so —
DB: Ok. So shall we just —
TO: If I have more questions after that would it be ok to take a lunch break and then have another chat this afternoon.
DB: That’s up to —
TO: Would that —
JSB: Yeah.
TO: We have another half an hour on here.
JSB: Yes. That’s alright.
TO: Would it be ok if I have more questions to speak to you after lunch?
JSB: Yes. Yes.
TO: Ok. Did you, did you hear about the Holocaust?
JSB: Yes. Yes. I did hear about the Holocaust because it was obvious what Hitler regained his super power in Germany and we knew by always telling to the German people what in the First War the Germans lost the war because the very rich Americans industries was Jewish big people — involve America in defeating the Germans in the First War. And he, after the war always blamed what the rich American big Jewish businessmen were the one who made that decision to defeat the Germans because they already notice what in Germany was certain building anti, anti-Jewish feeling. And he continue with that always. I would say complaints. What the Germans should never accept the defeat in the Second War and by doing so he gained very big popularity. And that’s how he start to build his recognition in Germany. What he will try to do something that just would never happen again. And after such a lot of promises what he start giving to the German people he was heading for the second preparing German nation for the Second War. Yes. And as he did prepare the German people they refused to pay their compensation for the, whatever was enforced on them after the First War. The German anti-Semitism start increasing. They start doing lots of unnecessary damage to lots of Jewish population in Germany. And of course it was obvious what those anti-Semitism was increasing. Poland received before the war certain amount of Jewish population what had been forced to leave the Germany. And we received lots of Jewish population because they were very helpful to my country. They were business people. They brought economy quicker recovery. And we knew what in Germany before the war anti-semity start to increase. So I did believe in Holocaust during the war because I start somehow getting information from Poland what’s happening. Not only to the Jewish people and to the Polish people and we had sympathy. We Poles had sympathy for the Jewish people and Polish people in reverse you see. So I didn’t from beginning never thought of gas chambers when they start to modernise such a barbaric destruction. But I knew what the Germany anti-Semitism did exist. I was young going to school. In my school in Poland we had different nation. We had German. We had Ukrainian. We had Polish. We had Jewish. But at school in my days there was very strong discipline. I could not be unfriendly to any of those different nation because it was severe punishment for it. And I thought whatever in Poland in short years freedom we had very strong democratic system. And I’m only sorry that that freedom didn’t lasted longer. But still Hitler was very unfriendly man and he is to blame for the suffering what he give to so many people. What today the Europe should remember and never go back to those days again.
TO: Did you hear about the uprising in Warsaw?
JSB: Yes. Yes. I’ve heard. I’ve heard you know what was there was Jewish people whatever they had they’d been defending themself because they knew what they had to unite themself. And how bravely they did unite and start doing their uprising and what, what consequences they paid for it. But they knew they had no alternative. Only the last resort it was to fight. Whatever they had to arm to fight with. The Jewish people should never because they in every country they helpful because they are business people. They bring business and help to the economy and I’m I, I think in Poland if we today would have more Jewish population my country probably would make better prospect. But still so many Jewish people from Eastern Europe being murdered and small amount what survived went back to liberate their country.
TO: Did you hear in 1944 when the Polish Resistance took over Warsaw?
JSB: Yeah. Yes. I remember that time. And I knew already what that resistance, what had happened would be no good to the Polish nation. But it was too late to stop the people because they went under so much hatred towards the Germans and they wanted to be liberated after so many years occupation destruction. But we already we could have won the War without uprising in Warsaw but the people were prepared to liberate themself soon as possible. They just couldn’t wait no longer. And they paid heavy price for it. And that’s how some time when people take decision what it doesn’t bring much success but probably oppression what they suffer for so long they had to as they started they decided to go and they not receive from our ally — Russians at that time, help, you know, what should have been given to those poor people what fought same as people fought in Stalingrad. Yes.
TO: And what do you think was the most important battle of the war?
JSB: Yes. Most important battle of the war. I think the most important battle of the war it was Battle of Britain because that was our first big success. But it wasn’t a victory in my, as a military man I knew what the Germans still had so much power. And they really from my, whatever little knowledge I had what the Germans always wanted somehow to pressurise England to come to some treaty because they knew if they would invade England they would involve themself in very, very serious occupation. And they knew that that occupation probably will destroy their victory. They were going different turnings against England somehow. Not to invade because invasion would put so much responsibility of keeping, you know the victory over England. So I would say the biggest, our victory in battle it was to stop invasion of this country. But the Germans had many other plans still in their pocket. Blockading what was very effective. On the same sort America was involved in conflict. But it became our great help to win the war. So I think the Japanese forced America to come to war what helped us a lot to win the war. And I think we must remember that from the beginning we fought alone and it was very difficult war. And we must always still remember what Europe always been fighting and even we don’t know what if we are not continue our peace as we up to now holding. What could happen afterwards. Because you see I really think what America probably in the First War came to help us to win the First War because it was also very difficult war. We remember how many people we lost in the first war. In the Second War American people been warning President Roosevelt they don’t want to be involved in the European war and America been supplying us with lots of essential help what we needed. Yes. That’s true. Because that was great also help to us. But without America we would probably found it very difficult to continue. And I think the Japan who attacked America that’s when the victory start slowly to change on our side because Americans give us lots of things what we’d been needing to continue the war and to gain the victory.
TO: Shall we pause there for a while?
DB: Yeah.
TO: Yeah.
[recording paused]
TO: How did you feel when you feel about Chamberlain signing the Munich Agreement?
JSB: I felt what Mr Chamberlain was very badly always promised by Hitler during the previous meetings. And in the end Mr Chamberlain, our prime minister noticed that Hitler was not fulfilling his promises as it started. And in the end I must give the prime minister my full recognition what he did the right decision what, knowing what he no longer believed Hitler future promises. And in the end when England, France and Poland had not aggression treaty arranged Mr Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England decided what he would no longer will believe and tolerate the German expansion. And when the Germans attacked Poland in 1939 Mr Chamberlain had promised Polish people if such thing happened then England, France and Poland will enter into the conflict with Germany. He did. And whatever may be certain mistakes were done before the invasion I’m grateful what Mr Chamberlain made promises, kept his promises and took those very big, big decision to don’t believe Germans no longer and only declare the war on Germany. I think that was the right decision in the right time. Without those decision we probably would be not in the same Europe as we are now.
TO: And how did you feel when you heard about the Yalta Agreement?
JSB: Yes. Thank you. Yes. Yalta Agreement. I give full recognition for Mr Churchill plan and decision but I think during the Yalta meetings the Americans and the Russians play bigger parts of the deciding how Europe should be divided. I think England in those days should have had much bigger saying in that decision. But the Russians was already made big European power. Stalin demanded very big concession in Europe and Mr Churchill was incapable to be against those Yalta plans as they were mostly decided by the America, Russia and England. That’s why lots of Eastern European countries instead of being free and maybe much sooner in the part of Europe they been given to the Russian domination, Russian exploitation for more than forty years after the war. That’s why Europe is still today not united probably. Not more prosperous as it should have been if the Yalta Agreement was not made with some mistakes. But during those big decision which took part in Yalta the Americans thought they were still playing the biggest part in the world decision by having already super superpower in their atomic weapon and hoping that with that weapon they will be able to continue the future superpower in the world without believing what soon or later the Russians will be able also to get closer to that super atomic power. And this happened. When this did happen Europe was still under big military threat from the Russians part. And it took so many years to pay heavily for mistake what been committed in Yalta Agreement.
TO: When you were, first came to Britain from Argentina did most of the Poles you were with already speak English?
JSB: No. During that time I had little edge over my countrymen because as we were sailing towards Argentine and I was young at that time we’d been told that if we speak English when we arrive in Argentine it will be quite the bigger help for the future to have better jobs and to have some better position in life. I started to learn English on my voyage toward the Argentine because I was young and I knew the time was changing and I have to learn the new life in the new world. So when I came to England beginning of the war I was lived more advanced in my English than lots of my countrymen who start arriving from different parts of Europe to this country.
TO: Can you tell me about the training that you went through to be a gunner?
JSB: My training started in Blackpool. That was our Polish RAF centre. First we learned recognition of different German planes during at night on the cinema screens. Knowing when sometime we will be bombing Germany, flying over Germany not to shoot down our planes because sometime at night is very difficult to recognise the aircraft between British aircraft and German aircraft. But we’d been specially trained at cinemas at night so we always could recognise the shape of the plane. How the shapes of the planes look of the German construction and how the shapes looked of the English construction. And in the end, even at night we learned those thing. How to be careful sometimes. Not to shoot on our planes.
TO: Did you ever have to fire the guns during a mission?
JSB: Did I fire the gun?
TO: Fire the guns during a mission.
JSB: I, no I never, never had the chance of shooting down German aircraft because during my eighteen operation we passed through lots of difficult times of searchlights, shell exploding from anti-aircraft. Many other incidents. But I never had chance to opening the fire on none of the German planes because I was lucky probably. But during my operational tours we not had that engagement with the Germans night fighters.
TO: And how do you feel about the bombing of Dresden?
JSB: Yes. Dresden was bombed in two nights in succession and during the day by the, also American they bomb it. I think Dresden was bombed because in Dresden the Germans had still big amount concentration of German special units which were very bad. Very much, very much prepared to take part in contra-Russian advance and I think that’s was probably the reason why Dresden was so badly bombed and destroyed. Because the Germans concentrated in that part of the country still unexpected big amount of military units which were endangering — endangering our, our advancement in our [pause] our entering into lots of territories in Germany. Without destroying the Dresden Germany still had very big unexpected for us probably their plan which we destroyed those reserve what they had this plan before the Germans could draw them into the action.
TO: Could you please tell me about the medals that you have there?
JSB: Yes. Medals what I have. First is Polish Cross of Valour. Second is Polish Air Force medal. Third is Aircrew over Europe. Fourth is King George. Sixth is Lancaster Bomber medal what was awarded to us after the war.
TO: Were you given the Cross of Valour for the Wellington bomber crash? Why were you given the Cross for Valour?
JSB: Because that Polish is when you prove that you committed some great honour defending your country and your own honour.
TO: Could you describe the procedure for taking off in the bomber?
JSB: Procedure?
TO: Taking off procedure.
JSB: Yeah. Taking off, it was always the most danger part of our, of our journey. The pilot will come to the starting point, test for the last minute all his four engines and getting permission to start from flying control. During that time if any defect could happen the plane is almost in the most dangerous situation what you could find yourself. After take-off, once you regained certain height, altitude, you feel the pilot can lower the throttle of his engine because the plane already give the big strength to lift the load what we had to take to our destination.
TO: Can you tell me about the landing procedure?
JSB: Landing procedure was always the happiest point of our journey because we were believing that whatever happened in those times we are in our home close to our accommodation. And that was the happiest part of our journey and happy to come and talk about our mission what we went through that night.
TO: Can you tell me about the briefings? The briefings you would have.
JSB: The briefing always was to us very partly scary because we’d been always told what journey is ahead of us and we always knew that during that journey anything could happen. So before we took off we always give ourselves hand. Whatever happened we will always remember each other. But the biggest happiness always happened when we returned and talk of our successes. Returned home.
TO: How would you describe morale amongst the crew?
JSB: Morale with the crew was always high because we knew that we were making progress in closer to our victory. But sometime when we returned from our mission and sometime we lost almost one or two crews it was very depressing days for few days. Seeing the tables when previously people sat having their food. Lunches or dinners. And that depressing mood sometime lasted for the quite a few days. But that was the war. We’d been prepared to have and face happier days and much more depressing days.
TO: And what did you do to entertain yourselves?
JSB: Yes. Thank you. Entertaining days always were happier when sometimes we could not take off because it was foggy or sometime the meteorological weather not possible for continue to do our missions. Some of us were playing bridge, some of us were playing snooker, some of us were having nice happy pint of beer discussing the past experience that we had. And hoping what we achieve soon victory and we would be able to celebrate the victory and sometime visit our families at home and tell them about our past what we had to serve during the war.
TO: And what’s your happiest memory of the war?
JSB: The happiest memory of the war. It was in May when it was declared of the German surrender. During that night I got myself so drunk that I don’t remember how I got home but I was brought by my friends. My friends were older than me so they could withstand the more spirit which they drank. I was younger and not such experience. I got myself so badly drunk I don’t remember how I got home. But the next day I got so happy with very, very sore head. And I only drank cup of tea the next day. That was the truth.
TO: Were there any particularly popular songs that you liked?
JSB: The most popular song we had a lovely girl who sang to us this song that, “One sunny day we will meet again.” And that song when I hear even now it bring me back. And I, I am old now but I still feel that I am young because that song gave us so much spirit. The beautiful memory, melody and the beautiful words that were in that song.
TO: On board the, when you were on a mission did you speak to each other in Polish?
JSB: Yes. Yes. We spoke completely in our Polish. We were under British command but the crew were all briefed in Polish and we had better, better understanding speaking our own language than probably not a hundred percent what we could speak English in those days.
TO: How did you feel when you heard about the D-Day landings?
JSB: D-Day. D-Day. I land myself outside Buckingham Palace. And I will remember those days also to my dying days because the crowd was so much outside Buckingham Palace. The King George, the Queen Mother and the rest of the royal family had to come on balcony and also show people that they still with the crowd outside. This happened in my memory about four times. What they used to come on balcony and wave to us. Go back inside in to palace and the crowd was still without moving from outside the palace. Then again people start to demand what they want to see the royal family. Again the doors on balcony were opened and the royal family will come on balcony. Acknowledge that they were still with the crowd. That would continue to the very early hours of the morning. That live, memory also for the rest of my life. Yes.
TO: What films did you watch during the war?
JSB: Film. I watch. The most film what I will remember when I land myself in RAF Hospital Cosford and film was Bing Crosby, “White Christmas.” It was Christmas Eve and I was in, in a small room in that hospital with dim light. And it, that memory overcame and I start to cry. And two nurses came and they talked to me and I was feeling ashamed that I cry because that song overtook me for some reason. Maybe because I was far away from home. I don’t know. But that song I will remember also for a long time to come.
TO: Was it very cold aboard the bombers? Was it cold aboard the bombers?
JSB: Yes. It was cold before the bombing but we’d been always dressed up to stand up the cold high altitude. But we could plug our electric contacts what we were connected to our flying suits. So we’d be more, more always warm from be prepare for what we meet over enemy territory and not thinking much about the cold. But the cold always was on high altitude. If anything could have gone wrong with the heating would have been very severe danger to the human life.
TO: Could you see much on the ground when you were on a bombing mission?
JSB: Yes. At night when we used to fly over enemy territory when it was moonlight it was mostly danger nights what we had to face. We always knew that during those nights we face much more danger than in some nights when they were slightly over clouded. So we always, in case of emergency having unexpected meeting with the Germans fighters we could without hesitating hide ourselves inside. Into the cloud when even the Germans will avoid to follow us because they knew they would face just as much danger themselves as they could inflict on us.
TO: And on missions were you part of a bomber stream? Were you in a bomber stream on a mission?
TO: Was I in the mission on a bomb —
TO: Were you with a lot of other bombers when you were flying? Were there other bombers around you on a mission?
JSB: Yeah. Oh yes thank you. Yes, yes thank you ask me that question. The most danger part was when we’d been approaching the bombing target and the bomb airman was directing pilot right on the target. During that time some time were incidents when the close one of our plane was approaching slightly from small different direction. And you had to avoid. Continue straight course and release your bomb because it would involve you in collision with near approaching our own plane. So what you do? You making the turning and during that turning you lose lots of distance to turn back and do return approach to the target. During that time is most dangerous to collide with another approaching aircrafts coming on the same target. Or delaying your return from the target when lots of German fighters during that time hunting for last returning plane. This is the most danger part. If during your approach on target something happen what probably you have to turn and make second approach because you’re losing your return home. And during that time lots of Germans fighters still in the area what you are victim of return.
TO: And did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany?
JSB: Yes. Yes. Yes. I felt very much so. Because not only because I disliked the Germans but I didn’t like their new approach. What they felt, that they had superiority over the other people. I thought we were, whatever nationality we all were able to do the same as the Germans did. And for that reason because the Germans they inflicted in your generation that they were superior to the other nation. This I didn’t believe and this I didn’t like. And I thought what they must never think for the future of the same superiority than the other nation.
TO: And how do you think today about Germany?
JSB: Thank you. Yes. Today I think the Germany change. Very much so because in the last two wars they knew what the military, military involvements never bring good result. I think Germany pass lots of changes since the old days. They had much more understanding leaders since. They have, I would say the most outstanding chancellor lady Merkel recently and I think also having their [pause] their Pope in Rome what brought to Germany more recognition of the Catholic religion. Germany make terrific understanding that Europe is more united today and more friendly as it was in the past.
TO: And do you think Bomber Command was treated unfairly?
JSB: No. I think Bomber Command we partly adopted the lessons from the Germans. What they badly used about some very incapable countries of self defence. And in the end we learn those tactics that they were brutal and very effective on to destroy people morale and destruction but we used them not starting those methods. We use them as a self defence because we learn from the Germans. But in the end we had superiority of that most super power of Bomber Command because we built more planes for the right time and we used those bombing because by using that strength we speed up the end of the war. Without having Bomber Command I think the war would continue for many years to come.
TO: And how did you feel when you heard that Russia had occupied Poland?
JSB: Yes. I thought to myself, I felt to myself when the Germans invade Poland how the Russians stabbed my country in the back. If the Russians would invade Poland soon after the Germans invaded we probably still fought Germans for longer time because eastern part of Poland there were more difficult for German blitzkrieg armed division to move forward. We’d been capable to defend the rest of our country for quite a few more weeks to come. But the Russians came and helped them. So we had no chance to fight against two superpower. And the Russians been always to Poland same unfriendly nation as the Germans.
TO: Is there anything else about your time in the air force which was important to you which you’ve not told me about which you would like to say?
JSB: If —
TO: Anything important that you’ve not mentioned that you want to talk about.
JSB: No. I think that’s all that I could tell and what I experienced and remember from the war. I think when I joined as a volunteer I’m happy what, how I started and how I ended because my country today is free and I’m happy that my country have recognition and the honour in the world. Thanks for England what England had courage to have treaty with Poland and during, at such danger days the England came in defence of the Poland with France and I think that’s why today we have free Europe and the rest of the world. So Europe is example to other nation what they must live in peace and to do the same as Europe did in 1939.
TO: Thank you very much. It was fantastic hearing about your story.
JSB: Thank you. What I’ve been able I’m not politician. Only part of military men. I’ve been trying, you know to tell you that.
TO: Thank you.
JSB: 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/.
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AStangryciukBlackJ160710, PStangryciukBlackJ1701
Title
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Interview with Jan Black. One
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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
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:31:57 audio recording
Creator
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Tom Ozel
Date
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2016-07-10
Description
An account of the resource
Jan Black flew operations as an air gunner with 300 Squadron. He was badly burned when his aircraft crashed on a training flight and he became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. He underwent ten operations at East Grinstead Hospital. He describes his early life in Poland and Argentina; enlisting; training as an Air Gunner and being was posted to 18 OTU, RAF Bramcote; his plane crash and being burned. Whilst on a return stay at hospital, the crew he had flown with were shot down on a bombing operation. After the end of the War, he spent three years at RAF Andover and then was demobbed at RAF Dunholme Lodge. He talks about the relationships between Poland, Russia, Germany, Austria and England before, during and after the War. He talks about his opinions of Wellingtons and Lancasters and describes his first operation over Europe. He describes his crash landing again. He talks again about his treatment and time in hospital and about his plane crash and mentions Archibald McIndoe. He describes taking photographs of aerial bombings; the German defence of targets and night fighting against Messerschmitt 109s. He talks about shrapnel damage to aircraft; bomb drops; ‘Bomber Harris’; the Holocaust; anti-Semitism; the ‘Uprising in Warsaw’ and the Battle of Britain. He talks about the Munich Agreement and the Yalta Agreement; learning English; his training in identifying aircraft; the bombing of Dresden; his medals; take offs and landings; briefings and morale. He talks about the entertainment they devised, the popular songs, speaking Polish on the intercom when on ops. On D Day was outside Buckingham Palace, dangers over the target, Bomber Commands bombing campaign.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Argentina
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Temporal Coverage
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1942-10
1943
1944
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
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Julie Williams
18 OTU
300 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-Semitism
crash
demobilisation
fear
final resting place
Guinea Pig Club
Holocaust
killed in action
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Me 109
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Andover
RAF Cosford
searchlight
training
Warsaw airlift (4 August - 28 September 1944)
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/8766/AStangryciukBlackJ170314.1.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Black, Jan
Jan Stangryciuk-Black
Jan Stangryciuk
J Black
J Stangryciuk-Black
J Stangryciuk
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Two oral history interviews with Jan Black (formerly Stangryciuk)(1922 - 2023, 794829 Royal Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2016-07-10
2017-03-14
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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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StangryciukBlack, J
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 14th of March 2017 and I’m in London with Jan Black, who came from Poland originally and we’re going to ask him what, what about, what he did in his life. What are the earliest recollections of life that you have Jan?
JB: In Poland?
CB: Yes.
JB: Yes, I was, my people were farmers in Poland and of course I was going to school and helping, you know, my parents you see. Agriculture worked in. Yes. And then when my family decided to emigrate to Argentine and in 1934 we had all the docs, immigration documentation complete we went by sea to Argentine and we dock in Buenos Aires. That’s the capital city of Argentine. Then after, after [pause] seeing different part of Argentine my family settled in province named Misiones. That was big province near Brazil, Brazilian boarder. Then, then I starts school in Argentine to learn Spanish and to uplift my further education. Then after living four years in Argentine the war broke out in Poland and my country was invaded by the Germans in September 1939 and after ten days the Russians attacked my country from the east. To me it was very sad time hearing all the news and destruction what my people start to suffer under the German and the Russian occupation. And every day I was reading in the newspaper how continuously different, different system was in force on my people and I start to feel very sad for my country. Then after about three months, in the Polish newspaper printed in Argentine, there was very happy news I receive. What the Polish people and the ordination could volunteer to come to England and to join armed forces and to fight against the Germans. I went from my homeland in Argentine to capital city Buenos Aires to the centre, where we had to report our intentions of joining as volunteers and to come to England. When I arrive at that centre we’d been check by medical board and we had tell them why we decide such a decision to come. And it was very straight forward answer, what we just wanted to go and fight against aggressive occupation of unfriendly nation. After having medical check up, we’d been asked when we would like to go to England. I told them soon as possible and the person who was in charge at that time told me what they will check my health and if I want to go soon they will notify me in two weeks, and they told me I can go home and wait for the next information. After two weeks I receive letter and a ticket, railway ticket that I can come to certain centre in Buenos Aires, the capital city, and I would be accommodated in one hotel. When I, on the second day, came to the meeting place I notice that there were different nationality volunteers. Polish, English, French and I was very happy what different nations also were coming as a volunteers. We’d been told in that hotel what we must keep our secret about our destination because there was lot of Germans espionage during that time circling in that part of the city. We’d been told what our departure will be very short notice given and be prepared on such an event. Then one evening notice was given to us at six o’clock and we’d been told what we will get transport to board on the big British liner from Buenos Aires port, when the big boat will take us to England. The name of that boat, I remember, it was the name Highland Monarch belonging to the British Royal Mail Line. That company had four big liners continuously travelling between England and Argentine and they, what they, during that travelling between England and Argentine there were, they were bringing lots of meat from Argentine to England. I say food for the war days during the difficult times. When we started our journey at night, at twelve o’clock, very secretly we had been told what we must be very alert because our journey will be continuously in danger from the German submarine or big German battleship which are circling on the Atlantic Ocean. We’d been told to be always , have ready, wear jackets in case the boats get sunk, we will have life jacket attached and the boat was continuously during the journey not going on a straight course only circling, zigzagging to avoid be spotted and sank by the German submarine. The journey starting from Buenos Aires to England took, instead of three weeks, took four weeks because the boat was zigzagging and loosing lots of shorter distance between England and South America. When we came closer to England we’d been told what our boat would dock in Belfast, Northern Ireland because to come closer would be much more danger as during that time the Germans continuously kept bombing our port on west from western approach. When our boat disembarked us we’d been taken to the local hotel for a couple of days and then we were taken to Scotland to some military barracks centre. And then again we had to pass the second medical board from the doctors. Doctors during our medication and inspection bought us, ask us what armed forces we would you like join. We had choice to serve in the Royal Navy, Army, Air Force or other forces. I was young and I thought the most exciting service would be Air Force. The doctors told me what my medical board said it was good enough and I, if I want to serve in the Royal Air Force I can make already decision what I will be, will be accepted. Then we’d been accommodated in some army barracks in Scotland and start telling us what now we will be sent to different centre when we start to continue our trainings. My selection was decided to send me to Blackpool where was Polish RAF centre for beginning my training to start learn of my future responsibility. After studying such trainings for months will be taken to special RAF centre. The centre it was 18 OTU Bramcote. When we start to continues the next training with flying. That training was very exciting for young men like myself, but it was very speedy training. We had not too much time to have, for other exciting moments. Training was long hours of different responsibility to get us ready, equip for responsibility we would be facing for our future flying. I was happy to start my training flying on Wellingtons to wing engine bomber at that time and I knew that soon I will be selected to the operational squadrons, but during that time we had to go on evening [unclear] training. During take-off my Wellington had fault in one engine during take-off. We crash during that take-off and I lost consciousness during the impact of our crash. When I recover my memory I could see what part of my plane was in flames. I start walk to the front of my plane and see what happening to the rest of my friends. When I reach the position where my pilot was sitting I saw him in his special seat. I did try to get him out of the burning plane but he was still strapped in his seat and during that time the plane was quickly increase in the bigger burning flames. I knew and I could see how to un-strap him from his seat and I cover my left side of my face because the flames were obstructing and burning my visibility and helping myself with the right of my hand looking for exit from the burning plane. Luckily at moving inside in that burning plane, I was lucky to see what my plane during the impact had crack in its construction and there was broken exit from that plane what I was lucky to squeeze myself from the small hole of my burning plane, but I already couldn’t see normal because my eyes were already damaged from very strong flame was burning round the plane. I start to crawl a certain distance from my plane and the local people found us. Came to my rescue and they torn my burning combination suit because without that help I would be completely burned to die. I was so lucky what those people were so brave and came so close to that burning plane and they took me inside into their local house but I couldn’t see nothing because my visible, visibility was damaged. But they told me that they had already telephoned for ambulance to come. In about half an hour ambulance came and they took me gently into RAF Hospital Cosford near Wolverhampton. I was in terrific pain. I was so happy to be dead at that time because it was such a painful experience what I had to go in my lifetime. But the doctors soon came to my rescue. They told me don’t worry your pain soon will stop. I didn’t believe them but they had the answer to it. They give me certain tablets and I think some injection to stop my pain. When I recover my memory, I think it was the next day, I could not see nothing because my eyes were damaged but the doctor came and talked to me and told me that I will be making progress with their help. I thanked them very much but the most biggest thing I receive from them was my pain was already under control. Then my small recovery started day by day. [clock chiming] The nurses every day would take me to the bathroom, put me into the bath and gently try to remove my bandage that I was strapped on my head and on my hands. That bandage was soaked with a special oil so that oil prevent so the bandage doesn’t get stuck to my burning flesh and they gently will remove that bandage every day and cover me with the fresh new bandage. After having the same routine day after day, after two days I been told that a very special doctor will come to see me. The name of that doctor was Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was one of the biggest plastic surgeon doctor in the Royal Air Force Hospital, Queen Victoria in East Grinstead. He came that hospital to RAF hospital in Cosford and to see certain airmen from different accidents. When he came to see me he told me his name and he told me he would like to transfer me to his hospital in East Grinstead and ask me if I will be happy to go to that hospital. I turned to him and I said to him ‘doctor I leave all the decision to you because you know the best about my problem and what to do with me’. He was happy to hear that my great thanks to him that he wanted to take me to that special hospital in East Grinstead. The next day ambulance took me to that hospital. When I arrive in that hospital I’d been told there are so many boys from different accidents and different nationalities. There were English, Canadians, Polish and I think some French. I was so happy to be in such a friendly hospital. Queen Victoria Hospital it was one of the most famous hospital in the world for the badly burned, disfigured young airmen and the city, small town East Grinstead. It was our, the most lovely place maybe in England because those people understood and feel our disfigurement and they never stare at us in such bad disfigurement as we receive from different accidents. East Grinstead give us hope to continue, having such a big hospital with such advanced capability to improve our standard from the most horrible disfigurement what the fire could give to you. Must stop now.
CB: Right.
JB: How we play this, you know broken mentally now. You know what I mean?
CB: Yeah, they knew how you felt.
JB: Yes you see because you come to London people don’t, when they see you in certain still disfigurement they think, think probably you come from other planet or something. [laughs]
CB: [laughs] Yes, yes. Can I just ask you one thing and that is what happened to the rest of the crew because there were five of you on the aircraft or six?
JB: Yes. There were, I was one and the rest died. I was the only one that survived. Yes.
CB: Yes. Right. So you were flying as the co-pilot?
JB: Um.
CB: You were flying as the co-pilot?
JB: No. I rear gunner.
CB: Oh, gunner?
JB: I was the rear gunner.
CB: Oh, right.
JB: Yes, yes.
CB: OK.
JB: I did try to save my pilot because, but by the time I tried to reach the plane was in flaming.
CB: Yes.
JB: In bigger. So I covered my left side and tried with right hand so I burned my right side you see. Because you can see it you see you lost your visibility and the way to find the way you just had to with one hand. Even in your hand you was using feeling because hands was burnt. Fire you see. The biggest enemy what you could face.
CB: Absolutely. Yeah.
JB: Because I was — three times I see young boy drowning I say but you can fight drowning, but fire —
CB: Fire you can’t.
JB: It puts you out of completely, out of control you see. Fire the biggest enemy what you could face.
CB: Dreadful. Yes. So how soon after take-off did the engine fail?
JB: You see, what I want to, ‘cause I asked for break.
CB: Yeah.
JB: Then after spent six months in hospital. Hospital was getting so overloaded with new cases coming night after night and they were running short of beds, so what they used to do they sent you back to your stations for certain time.
CB: Right.
JB: And they patched me up. The beginning of my recovering and I’d been told what they cannot do another operation because I must have certain recovery time you see.
CB: Right.
JB: And they got in touch with my station but I would be discharged from hospital for short time and my station send me railway ticket from East Grinstead to Scotland, to Evanton near Inverness to gunnery school. And in that place there was, they give me instead of having a bit more recovery I had to continue flying with the new course, batch of gunners who come. Flying Boulton and Lysanders so the new gunners always be — I already was advanced as a gunner and give them instruction how they have to continue the more — the rest of their training. How to shoot the Lysander whose pulling behind him they sat and they firing from the Boulton twin engine plane with the [unclear] turret. Yes. To teach them how they have to see the distance. When the Lysander approaching them and they will be able to know the distance from what distance they can open fire, shooting to the Lysander sat which is dragging behind. And sometime it was very, very danger, you know, because the new gunners they had no hundred percent control of what they were doing. Sometimes they turn bit too much quickly and they shooting instead of sat and they shooting closer with the pilot you know flying Lysander. [laughs] So the pilot talk to me on the intercom ‘what’s happening? Can’t you see what’s happening?’ I said ‘yes skipper, I see what’s happening’. You know, I said, you know that’s not going to happen again. So I run to that gunner and I say he must move the turret gently not you see, but they kept not feeling it yet. So I continue that training for three months in Scotland. Evanton near Inverness. And after three months, after three months I went to my commanding officer and I said to him I said ‘Sir, I would like very much asking you for one favour. If you could give me permission to be sent to my squadron.’ And the commanding officer in the gunnery school asked me why I want to be transferred. I ask him after having three months responsible job what I was doing I found I just cannot continue, you know, to do that. He said ‘you will do that’ but he said I must wait another few days. I thank him. After, I think four days, I had my railway ticket with the rest of my documents, discharge from that station gunnery school to my squadron. When I arrive to my squadron, the next day I had to report to the commanding officer. My commanding officer ask me why I asked to be transferred to that station. I told him what I spent three months as instructor in that gunnery school and it was just too much to continue and he ask me what I want to do on my station. I turned to him and I said ‘Sir, what I want to do, I want to do same thing what I been taught told what to do. I been teach to fly and do my flying job.’ He said to me will I be, if I will be able to do that. I said to him I think if I did already three months as instructor in the gunnery school, I am sure I will be able to continue to do the rest of my job. He said alright but, but they still send me, he send me with two doctors for two hour flying and the doctors kept talking to me during those two hour flying, looking at my reaction and my, and my [pause] and my, how I feel if I’m not nervous or something or they could notice, not capable to continue to do my job as I ask my commanding officer that I wanted to fly again. After two days my commanding officer saw me and told me what the doctors give him result without no problem so I can continue to do my flying again. I restart doing my operational flying and at one time I receive letter from hospital and hospital ask me to go back for the continuation of the rest of my treatment recovery. I took the letter and gone to my commanding officer and show him the letter and commanding officer turn to me and said you should be very happy what the hospital want to continue to improve you, the rest of, give you treatment. He said you should be only too happy to that hospital and he said I must go. On the third night after departing from my station and departing from crews what I was flying with them. On the third night they went on the night mission and never return. So you know my history, twice luckily, you know had enough luck probably you know not to end up with the rest of my friends, you see. By the time they finish my, the rest of my treatment the war was over, but I still serve ,still serve three year longer, longer. You know, because I was young and they were discharging mostly older people. And in 1948 I had my discharge from Dunholme Lodge, the discharging station, Dunholme Lodge in Lincolnshire. Yes. And that’s when I started to go into the civil life. Then I got married to my wife. That’s why because I didn’t marry her during the war because I told her the war brings so many unexpected changes but when war ended we, we give each other promise so we get married. And we kept to our promise [pause] after living with my wife for fifty-two years [pause] I promise her what I will never leave her. So when I die I give her promise I will be buried with her together and that’s what I will give, going so you see I thought England is my country, my history here. They called me when it’s Remembrance Day [unclear] London Royal British Legion I felt if I go back to Argentine, I took my wife to Argentine I ask her if she like to see my family and we went by boat because during that time, after the war it was not such a long distance plane flying, so we went by boat. Three weeks going there and three weeks going back. But Argentine was changing after the war, different Government, different changes and I thought I was already more adjusted to life with my future wife in England. We returned and restarted our civil life and now I go to Poland for short holiday. I got some time to Argentine now, it’s easier to get there but I thought I came to England when time was difficult and we achieve our aim and this country had guts to stand up, you see and to [unclear] enough was enough without England the world would be different today. So that’s what I did for this country. There was nobody else could stood up. The English had guts to do it and the rest of people would join.
CB: Um.
JB: And without such a decision probably, you know, I don’t maybe for a thousand year the world would be different.
CB: Um.
JB: But you see the people, young generation don’t know what took [unclear] you see I saw in my squadron when sometime you come back and that table it was empty in the dining room and you thought sometimes think to yourself when my table will be empty. Because we could always eat together. We be like brothers if you know what I mean. And we — whatever happened after the war we made Europe different for so many years.
CB: Um.
JB: The people parted in different parts of the world now making destruction and so on but we show the world what Europe will change and I think this whatever we make changes we should be happy that so many people give their lives in the second war. But we must always remember that we don’t want to go back to the old days what Europe was, you see.
CB: Um.
JB: And we, we had our — the one thing after the war I was really heartbroken when Mr Churchill was not elected as our leader because I thought in the most difficult time when he took over, er, we should have given him that big recognition what he started in difficult time and achieve with the rest of the people in the world such a great victory and recognition and using the election, you see because I think that was the biggest mistake what we make after the war. Because with him I think we probably would be still much better off, you know what I mean, because that meant was seen all over the world you see.
CB: Um.
JB: But sometime politician do make mistakes too, you know what I mean. Men go, will fight and do his job and the politician make mistake too, you see. But that’s how things go, you see. To us and it will be continue.
CB: Um.
JB: And I mean I have sister in Argentine. She’s younger than me, a few years, and she said to me why don’t I go back and live with, with her and her children. I said no, I said I came during the war, I was a young man, I found my girlfriend here during the war and I said I would be feeling lost there, you see. Because I said, I in this country have some recognition you know. What I did, I mean if I would go to other country, even in Poland it wouldn’t be the same like here.
CB: Um.
JB: You see I belong to the Guinea Pig Club. Duke of Edinburgh [unclear]. He’s our president of our Guinea Pig Club, you see. He used to come sometime if he was not abroad to our dinner in East Grinstead. I had couple of times chance to talk with him, you see and that give you something what you, you used to have special days, Remembrance Days. Royal British Legion give me invitation to all the smaller things and you, you just feel you don’t want to lose that recognition, you know what I mean.
CB: Um,
JB: I will not receive that in another country. Yeah. And that myself what I as a young man came from the Atlantic all ready because I was feeling hurt what my people suffer of two unfriendly nation. Russia and Germany and I thought it was all wrong what we in Europe in those days for so long had so many times, you know, continuously such an unfriendly living. Yes. And now whatever look, year seventy over seventy years people travel you saw no fighting we give the rest of the world example what they should take same thing what we did. You know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: But we don’t know how long it going to last because you see because there new super power emerging with nasty ideas. Yes. And that’s why those [unclear] sooner or later will be happening all over the world. There’s nothing worse when dictator get power, you see, because they don’t listen to nobody. I mean those big dictators, you see when they done, have democratic system they take power into their hands and that’s what always was not much future during. Luckily we got rid of them [laughs] but some as soon you got rid of them then some new emerging [laughs] yeah. But, we took, when we took that big decision in 1939 and Mr Chamberlain used to, Neville Chamberlain used to go to Hitler and ask him what you, why you continuously want more, you already took so many. And he used to always promise the British Prime Minister there would be no war you know. But the rest of the world knew that the Germans was arming themselves and preparing themselves for the big expansion of their empire. You see that’s why [unclear] Germans because they wanted they could get pressurising Poland what Poland should give them [pause] chance to march, attack Russia because they knew that Russia was such a huge big country. And they knew it would be easy to, in those days, to overpower that part of the Eastern Europe. And Poland they wanted no German friendship nor Russian. They used to live between two very unfriendly neighbours you see. And that’s what happened, you see. And Hitler, you see, in the end took power into his own hand and he was gaining without fighting from beginning. Yes. And if in those days there would be no England there was no other country who would be stopping his expansion here because he already had everything going easy, easy. And even after when France collapse, look he was almost big military hardware which he recover from the French. I mean he used to make himself from strength to strength you know, without. He’d overpowered Czechoslovakia, took very big modern small industry, Skoda. Took the French, you see, military hardware and he was gaining from strength to strength he was building himself. It’s a good job there was one country still standing in the world. What they knew they cannot give in no more and they told, told on the last many meetings of Mr Chamberlain had what if, if he continue with Poland because Poland had treaty with England and France at that time. What the world will be unavoidable. But even so he took so many chances and he gained without problem and he thought it would continue but he made mistake you see. But the British decided they were going to stand up to it. Yes. But you think, you think there is the world that’s why in Europe now you see we, we should have much bigger recognition, you know what I mean in, in that. There’s twenty-seven countries, yes but we should be classified you know exactly as equally you know because there is difference between one country and another, you see. And the trouble was immigration was big problem for long time, you see, because now they well staffed to notice that what you know we must do something and cooperate not listening just to one country, you see, because it is a world problem you see and, but Europe didn’t listen much you see and that’s probably what ever happening changes or we don’t know how it’s going to end, you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: But it was problem because they used to come to [unclear] and not the one country was selected the most of them wanted us England, you know what I mean, because it was the most place where they could get the easier living and you see Europe then should talk it out more into consideration what they should cooperate together. I mean the Syrian problem started, Europe start to wake up you know and notice the big problem to the rest of the world but there is not only secondary there is African problem yes coming. And Europe must work together to stop that because one country cannot do it. Now, now after all these years [unclear] tried to clean it you know what I mean. For how many years and it was spreading because during that time lots of people were making money out of it you know. Everybody had fingers in it, you know what I mean.
CB: Um. Um.
JB: You see the French were very, I would say, to, to have less responsibility because they, they had their country and they should probably knew what lots of people who come from different parts through their land come to the English Channel and heading, you know to England.
CB: Um.
JB: And for so long it was continue you see, but the, like, you see, in the many, many different ways I think the France took big res — less responsibility they, they start to feel under own problem you see and that’s what happening but probably that should been stopped long time ago, years. But politicians have time to make mistakes you see. And that’s we probably don’t know how going to end you see.
CB: Let’s just stop there for a mo. Now you mention that you had a girlfriend in the war called Evelyn.
JB: Yes, yes.
CB: And where did you meet her?
JB: Yes.
CB: And what was she doing?
JB: I, I met her during the war one day at the Hammersmith [unclear] at a dance [laughs] yes. Yes.
CB: So how did that come about?
JB: Er, well you see Hammersmith was very popular part of London where was lots of during the war activities and there was very famous for dancing you know [unclear] dance and I met my wife but she, she was, er, coming from the Derbyshire, Matlock in Derbyshire. Yes. And my wife during that time was working in cafe royal syndicate. Yes. And I ask her why she’s not going back to Derbyshire and she told me because she come from big farm in Derbyshire but her father send her to London to finish her economy programme. When she receive her degree in the economy she decided that she find better reward living and working in London. And she decided to stay in London and when I met her during my first meeting I ask her why London is her select place. She told me because working on the big farm was very responsible and heavy daily responsible life but she was always happy to tell me what the Derbyshire will always be her, the most lovely part of the country. But one time I ask her why and she told me if I ever heard the name Rolls, Rolls Royce I say yes that’s one of the famous place where they produce the biggest engine for the planes she told me because the most famous people live in Derbyshire and I always will remember her sorts of proud to come from that part of the world. She was very understanding person and I promise with her what when war ended and we survive during the war, if she decide to marry me I will give her promise I will do that. War ended and we kept to our promise. And I will remember what we kept that till the very end. She was very good wife and my memory will be continuous of my happiness what I spent with her for so many years after the war. Yes.
CB: When did she die?
JB: Um.
CB: When did she die?
JB: Oh, eight years ago.
CB: Right.
JB: I bury her in Gunnersbury cemetery.
CB: Oh Gunnersbury. Right. Right.
JB: Yes. Yes.
CB: And it’s big enough for both of you?
JB: Yes.
CB: Let’s have a break there for a moment.
JB: Yes. But we knew the second war was brewing, from, you know, year two year we knew.
CB: Right.
JB: And the, the one thing, you see, what I remember it was what certain dictators were feeling what they could make such a, a big, er, names for themselves, you see, and I think what the Europe at that time was thinking after the first war that they had enough seen suffering that the peace will continue but at that time certain dictators emerge into the big popularity and that’s why Europe became such an unfriendly part of the world. Yes. And that’s what happened. It started from small conflict, it went to the bigger one. And I ask, I took small part in that conflict. I think what we, at that time, played very important part and commitment that we took to not to keep continue making same mistakes in Europe again.
CB: Um.
JB: And I hope the young generation should remember the history what we went through and should not forget that the history should not be repeating itself again.
CB: Um.
JB: We, they have a, have a responsibility for such a big commitments what was started on, we gain our aim in the end and I’m so happy what Europe now is. Whatever is prosperous part of the world.
CB: Um.
JB: Yes.
CB: What was it that prompted your father to leave in nineteen — what was it that prompted your father to leave in nineteen forty, thirty-four why did he go to Argentina?
JB: Oh yes. Because you see Europe was my country, living was hard after the first war and my father look like millions of other European nations, were looking for better prospect in different parts of the world. South America it was huge big empty new land. Lots of people were hoping that they make easier life there.
CB: Um.
JB: You see. He went there, bought lots of land cheaply, because land was cheap there you see. But it’s no good having lots of land if you have no strength to give — aid you.
CB: Um.
JB: To cultivate that is huge responsibility and I, I had feeling what my country was suffering when war started and I, my only happiness was to have opportunity during that time to come to England.
CB: No.
JB: And to fight together with British so my people not again go under for many years of occupation of the very unfriendly neighbours like Russia and Germany. And that’s as I mention in the past what England for many nation give that courage and strength what we together.
CB: Um.
JB: Join in and with such a difficult uncertain future but in the end the things start to show us what we gain our victory in the end.
CB: Um.
JB: And I feel what we must remember the history and the history must never repeat mistakes in the past. Yes.
CB: You’ve also got the British Legion VE70 badge.
JB: Oh yes, I —
CB: So that’s because you were remembering the end of the war.
JB: Yes, yes and I have one unforgotten association here.
CB: Yes.
JB: You know, Buckingham Palace. This one.
CB: That one. Yes.
JB: You see, yes, that’s once, once in lifetime they probably when they think you did something you know so they ask you, Christmas little party you see in the news Buckingham news party.
CB: Um. Yes.
JB: Yes. So you see that’s why for Buckingham Association.
CB: And what is your tie?
JB: Um.
CB: What’s the tie that you have got on?
JB: Tie. Lancaster, yeah that’s my — you see, that’s [unclear] [laughs]
CB: [laughs] Right just going to stop for a mo.
JB: But you see afterwards when I did in my squadron after hospital.
CB: Yes
JB: After gunnery school.
CB: Yes.
JB: I used to do spare.
CB: Yeah.
JB: Because you see in the squadron on Lancaster is three gunners
CB: Yes.
JB: Rear gunner, middle gunner and front gunner and sometime crew, one, one person will have [unclear] operation or something so in the squadron is always spares.
CB: Yes.
JB: Crew.
CB: Yeah.
JB: Person who finish [unclear] and he doesn’t want to be posted somewhere else.
CB: Right,
JB: And he will have a holiday after you do thirty-three trips.
CB: Yes.
JB: Because when you do thirty-three trips you don’t need to fly no more.
CB: Right. Right.
JB: But you just get into it you don’t want to be somewhere, sent somewhere you want to stay in your squadron.
CB: Can I go back to the crash?
JB: Yes.
CB: So you were the only survivor, you were really badly injured obviously with fire.
JB: Yeah.
CB: But how did you feel emotionally about the fact that you were the only survivor?
JB: Oh, well you see that’s sometime now. When we have Battle of Britain Remembrance and you go behind our war memorial and you see all the names written and sometime you think to yourself what I probably, probably would be better if I will be dead with them then if you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: Because you see —
CB: The sense of loss?
JB: Yes, because that was the friendship you see. We share sometime when we had to empty cigarettes packet and you came back from the operation and you notice cigarette were on very short, er, ration in those days, so you take, share with them you see. It was friendship, terrific friendship you see during the war.
CB: Um.
JB: I mean such a friendship will be in your heart for long time you see and if you’re gone with your friend in pub you didn’t wait if he probably was running short of cash or something not to share with him you know your money because us people were living together and facing the responsibility together. They were almost prepared to give life, one for another, you know what I mean.
CB: Um. Indeed.
JB: You see, today is difficult for people to understand such a friendship.
CB: Sure, because the crew was the family.
JB: Yeah it was family, it was family.
CB: Now the crash was in a Wellington but this is three — then you go to 300 Squadron and that converts to Lancasters?
JB: Yes, yeah. We passed our conversion on Halifax’s in Brighton and from Halifax’s into the Lancasters. Yes.
CB: Oh Right. So you went to the Halifax, from the Halifax through the Lancaster conversion school?
JB: Yes the Lancaster that was seven crews you see.
CB: Yes.
JB: Yes but before you go on a Lancaster the Halifax’s, that’s a four engine bomber. So from Wellington you go on Halifax and from Halifax’s into the Lancaster. Yes.
CB: Yes. Yes. So they, when you returned to East Grinstead, you were on Halifax’s?
JB: No from gunnery school.
CB: Yes.
JB: From gunnery school, my squadron then was sending from Wellingtons into the Lancaster.
CB: Right.
JB: And at Faldingworth Station, was built by Wimpy. It was first new built aerodrome that was 1900 Squadron moving in you see near Market Rasen. Yes.
CB: So you then, having converted onto Lancasters.
JB: Yeah.
CB: You then went on ops from there. How many ops did you do on the Lancasters themselves?
JB: Eighteen.
CB: Eighteen?
JB: Yeah.
CB: OK. And then you were called to East Grinstead?
JB: To East Grinstead, yes.
CB: How did you feel when you heard about the loss of the whole crew in the Lancaster?
JB: Oh, it was really I think the same probably as I would lost my father or mother or brother you know. That was the same because you see we during our flyings we were such a close together, you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: When we went for holiday we share our money if we had money when we had no more money we return back to the station. You know what I mean. We shared together and we had one pay master. We give him our money. He used to pay our lodging. When we had holiday we usually gone together, you know what I mean.
CB: Right. We’re stopping there. Thank you.
JB: Yeah.
CB: When you left the RAF —
JB: When I left the RAF yes.
CB: What did you do?
JB: When I left the RAF, yes, I got job in the rubber factory in Southall. The name of that factory was [pause] Woolf, Woolf Rubber Factory Company, Southall, Hayes Bridge. Hayes Bridge that’s the name of that district, Southall.
CB: What did you do there?
JB: I, I was young and they give me opportunity to train me as a machine forcer setter [pause] I start in that factory to do night work. Twelve hours at, twelve hours night, twelve hours shift. I worked there twelve years [long pause] having one Sunday off. After twelve years [pause] I left and work for, as a rep, for the electrical company. With the electrical company, Clark Electrical in Willesden. I worked twenty-two years knowing all the cities in England I travelled as a rep and my big boss in that electrical company, the name Mr Jack Clark, died and the company, company was sold.
CB: Oh.
JB: And I reached my retirement age you see and that was the end of my civil life. So I had two jobs, one in twelve years and one twenty-two years.
CB: Brilliant.
JB: Yes.
CB: What did your wife do in that time?
JB: Oh yes. My wife in the end work in Carlton Tower Hotel, Sloane Street, Knightsbridge.
CB: what did she do there?
JB: That was the first American hotel built in London.
CB: Oh was it.
JB: The Carlton Tower.
CB: Yes I remember it. Yes. [long pause] So she stayed there all the time?
JB: Yes.
CB: Good. And how many children did you have?
JB: My wife had caesarean operation could not have no children.
CB: So that saved you quite a lot of money?
JB: Um.
CB: That saved you a lot of money?
JB: Yeah, yeah. I bought little old house in, in Holland Park, that’s when I made my money in the rubber factory you see.
CB: Yes.
JB: Yes. It was dilapidated house because during the war nobody could get no paint, no — you know because — and the roof was leaking but I liked the place Holland Park, you know. And as you know property start going sky —
CB: Sky high yes.
JB: And the things start to improve but the work was after the war, there was no, any, I would say, support like now people get.
CB: No.
JB: You had to get up early in the money whilst there was some job going because after the war in England was very difficult, very difficult. Every food was on ration you see. You went to the butchers shop you could get six rasher of bacon or half butter cut, you know, on how you say one pack of butter that was cut in half you see because on coupons.
CB: Yes
JB: Everything was on ration. Shoes on the ration. But afterwards slowly year by year when factories start turning into the commercial things start to improve.
CB: Yes.
JB: Lots of big emigration people used to go to different parts of the world from to America, Canada, Australia. Because during the war the most factory were producing for the war.
CB: Of course.
JB: Essentially you see.
CB: Yes. Yes.
JB: And it took them time to restart afterwards.
CB: Um.
JB: But when they started and you had strength to do it there was lots of money could be made, you know what I mean.
CB: Yes.
JB: It was hard, hard.
CB: Hard work.
JB: Hard working but there was overtime, there was factory was working you know all year round without stopping because my rubber factory I could set forcer machine on any production today.
CB: Right.
JB: Like Firestone, Goodyear, Dunlop because most of the rubber factories they have same machine forcers you see. And I was young and I was supervisor.
CB: Right.
JB: Yes. But you have to in those days there was no strikes, you know, because was union after was started, you know, emerging and there change came and was perhaps getting lots of new rules and so on. But when the factory started after the war they kept going for many, many years because there was such a shortage of domestic products. Our, the biggest customer was Ford and Dagenham. We used to produce to Ford and Dagenham all our rubber installation into the cars because before in the car all the rubber installation in window doors was all rubber. Now it’s plastic
CB: Yes.
JB: It’s different. And the Ford lorries used to wait outside our factory day and night. Soon as you cure our products they were —
CB: Right. Taken there.
JB: Rushing to Dagenham.
CB: Right.
JB: Because Ford had such a big orders for so many cars they could not change it they used to wait outside our factor, lorries, drivers soon as we produce and cure they were quickly because it was so —the rest of the world was such a shortage of cars.
CB: Yes. A couple of final questions. What was your wives maiden name?
JB: Evelyn Black.
CB: And we call you Jan Black.
JB: Yes.
CB: What is your actual surname?
JB: Jan Black.
CB: Yeah in Polish. What’s your Polish name?
JB: Oh. Jan Stangryciuk. Very difficult.
CB: So when did you change your name to Jan Black?
JB: Yes. I’m glad you, you see— I tell you something. When I, when I was with my de-mob money you see, eight years I thought I take my wife on holiday to Argentine you see and I probably thought I settle in Argentine. So my doctor said, Archibald McIndoe, that big plastic surgeon in hospital because he was not our, he was our friend, our advisor, you see that doctor to us he give us almost new courage to continue our recovery because we were partly broken.
CB: Yes. Yeah.
JB: You know what I mean, destroyed, we were ashamed to go between people, yes. He said to me, he said what documents you have. I said Sir Archie, I said I have no any documents. He said you should have British passport. I said to him I don’t know how to, how to make British passport. Don’t you worry for you will arrange for you. Because he said because if you go to visit to Argentine now you must have some documents but when I came here they didn’t want any documents [laughs] I probably have from school some certificate, you know what I mean. So you see, and of course because my wife was the name of Evelyn Black so they said to me we’re not going to give you different name you have same name like your wife, you know what I mean [laughs] but I tell you why. When I applied to the Argentinean Embassy for visa, because in those days you needed visa to go to, they were so interested about my past in England in eight years in the Air Force and so on. And they ask me if I agree so they put in local paper in BA my arrival that I serve in England in the Air Force eight years, I had my accident and so now I am returning to visit my family I said that’s OK but when they called me when my visa ready I went to collect my visa they said to me Mr Black but we have little more problem to ask you. As you know there is so many German different type of men who are now in South America we’ve been advised if you will agree of putting in local paper some of your visit to your family after eight years in England. I said but why is that the problem, they said because some of those men probably could be very unfriendly towards you because there’s so many men with those names unfriendly lots of, now circling in South American countries. So when I came to my wife and I said to her she said you don’t want know your name of your visit what you did in England and she said you had enough during the war, different you know, er, incidents, accidents and you don’t want to go now, you know putting in the paper your arrival and she wouldn’t have it. So I went back you see to the Argentinean Consulate and I said you know I’m afraid I want not to mention of my visit because so many Germans with big money, with submarines got — even the people there in Argentine up to now believe that Hitler was hidden himself in Argentine. What that’s what they said what they did — they got his you know body, his body in Russia somewhere. In Argentine there is still, in Patagonia, that’s a part of Argentine.
CB: In the South. Yes.
JB: Where lots of German community live. Eichmann after so many years you know they, they caught him up.
CB: Yes. Yes. They’re Nazi’s.
JB: Eichmann near my sister in Argentine. I have house, photo from his house. He bought that house near little airport. In BA, Buenos Aires, because Buenos Aires is a huge territory you know, you know London is big but Buenos Aires is also huge size you know what I mean.
CB: Yes I know. Physical size.
JB: So he bought that house, huge house near the airport. He already bought that with that big amount of money and he was living near that airport and had the plane in case of any problem he could easy get away because he had plane near Buenos Aires, small plane you know.
CB: Yeah, yeah. This is Eichmann.
JB: And that house so he easy could escape you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: But the Israelis Secret Service you see there.
CB: Yeah, they got there
JB: And I have photos. You, I mean, I took when I went there to my sister holiday to Argentine with my wife. And that house is still standing as a museum.
CB: Oh is it?
JB: Yeah. A huge house. He was there and he had girlfriend and he promised her to marry. She was Argentinean and in the end because he told her he was single man, he was so and so but that girlfriend start to notice he was trying to betray her you know what I mean.
CB: Oh right.
JB: And staying there and, you see, somehow got in touch with the —
CB: The Israelis?
JB: Israelis Secret Service and that’s how they got him you see after so many years.
CB: Oh I see.
JB: But there’s still — what Hitler was not us, it was in the Europe where the Russian got his body or something but he was in, in Patagonia with stronger German [unclear] two in Argentine places, Patagonia one territory with lots of German emigration and another one what is in one of those parts you see.
CB: Right.
JB: Where you know he spent the rest of his life
CB: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Jan Black. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-14
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStangryciukBlackJ170314
PStangryciukBlackJ1701
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Jan Black Stangryciuk was born in Poland but his family emigrated to Argentina in 1934. He volunteered to travel to England to join the Royal Air Force in 1939. He recounts his journey, why he made this decision and how he joined the RAF. He was involved in a crash landing during training in a Wellington in which he sustained serious burn injuries and he describes this event in detail and his subsequent hospital stays and treatment. After recovery he spent time as an instructor at gunnery school at RAF Evanton before rejoining his squadron. He undertook a total of eighteen operations in Lancasters with 300 Squadron. He eventually left the RAF in 1948 and married his wife, Evelyn, and he explains why he took on her surname.
Contributor
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Tracy Johnson
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Argentina
Poland
Great Britain
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
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1939-09
1948
Format
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02:08:10 audio recording
18 OTU
300 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
crash
Defiant
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Lancaster
love and romance
Lysander
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
military ethos
Operational Training Unit
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
RAF Bramcote
RAF Cosford
RAF Evanton
take-off crash
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/774/9294/PWoolfAS1701.2.jpg
937865517e51cdac6783016788d6dbbc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/774/9294/AWoolfAS170629.2.mp3
f7b928dc76dd339bfb8864372ebd8e47
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
Woolf, Arthur Sidney
A S Woolf
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Arthur Woolf (1922 - 2021, 1579552, 157533 Royal Air Force) his log book, a memoir, correspondence, documents, a newspaper cutting and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 630 Squadron and became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Woolf and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Woolf, AS
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is a recording for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive being carried out at Sutton Coldfield. It’s Thursday the 29th of June. It’s 12.05 and the interview is with Arthur Sidney Woolf. Flying officer with 630 Squadron who was also a Prisoner of War and a member of the Guinea Pig Club. The interviewer is Harry Bartlett. Right, Arthur. Not making too much noise standing it up. We’re on.
AW: Right.
HB: What, what I’d like to ask you first Arthur is what you were doing before the war and what led up to you joining the RAF?
AW: Well, before the war I was only a youngster. I went to ordinary elementary school. I passed with honours for secondary school as we used to call them in those days. My mother was seriously ill at the time with duodenal ulcers and wasn’t expected to live. And my opportunity went. My father couldn’t cope. So, I continued and I finally left ordinary elementary school at aged fourteen in 1936 and I applied for a job and retired in the Birmingham Despatch. There ain’t no Birmingham Despatch anymore because it was taken over by the Birmingham Mail.
HB: Right.
AW: But there used to be two separate evening papers in those days. Birmingham Despatch and the Birmingham Mail. And I saw they advertised there so I went up with my mum as we did in those days. And when I had a reply and was asked to go for an interview. And it was a little office in Colmore Row which is the business centre of Birmingham. And it was up on the third floor, and I went in and it turned out it was a local Friendly Society. Friendly Insurance Society called the British Workmen’s Friendly Society. Shift it where ever you want it. I’m telling you this by —
HB: Yeah.
AW: A matter of interest. It’s my story. Called the British Workmen’s Friendly Society and I was the office boy. There was only five of us there. I was only small and we had agents. Most of them, well a lot of them were spare time. We had an office in Tamworth and so we had part-time workers there who were in those days were mainly miners.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
AW: Because the mining industry was in Tamworth in those days. And they used to do this in their spare time to earn extra cash, you know. And so it was, it was a ruddy good training for me really. Throw that, throw that on your neck out the way.
HB: Oh. It’s alright.
AW: Ruddy good training. I was fourteen, you know. And I, and I was introduced into doing auditing of simple books. Shop keepers in Hockley and that sort of thing. One I remember particularly was we used to make biscuit, biscuit what do you call them? Biscuit what? I don’t know.
HB: Tins.
AW: Fancy like. They were very fancy.
HB: Oh. Oh.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Got nice wood and metal inlaid.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so forth. And that was one of the companies down in Hockley. And I used to go and audit the books. I mean at fifteen, you know what I mean, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And then I started taking some exams which was in the insurance side of the business. Friends Society, pensions, doctors, that type of thing, you know what I mean? We had agents’ loans part time. And I took my exams and did very well in them. Although I’d only had an elementary school education. But just I’m not shooting the sherbet here but I always did pretty well at school, you know. Then the war broke out didn’t it? I was seventeen. So I, and I was fed up to the teeth with this place. By this time two of the blokes out of the office, there was only five of us, two of them had been called up. That left three of us. All youngsters, you know. Oh and I was up to here with it. You know what I mean? I mean it was a good position because it was, it was a private company as well. They did accountancy. All via Jethro Kent. Jethro. There’s a name you don’t get very often. He was the old man. I mean I called him an old man. To me he was like Methuselah. Now I’m, now I’m much older than he was at the time. You know what I mean?
HB: Yeah.
AW: He was in his sixties or seventies. Walrus white moustache. Jethro. And his son, Kenneth G Kent, they were both qualified chartered accountants so they had a private accountancy business. And I got involved in doing a bit of auditing you see, as well as having to take exams to do with insurance and the law as far as insurance is concerned. I mean life insurance. Life assurance really because it was, you know it wasn’t insurance against accidents it was life assurance. And I got cheesed off to the teeth and the war had gone on, you know, started up and I thought oh bloody hell. I was dying, I was mad about aircraft. And I used to get home and I used to cycle to Castle Bromwich which is now a big housing estate but it was Castle Bromwich Airfield which was a pre-war place. No, no runways just, you know [pause] and I used to watch them during — even before the war broke out. They’d taxi across and up they’d go. The old biplanes, you know. Always fascinated by aircraft and flying. And I used to cycle to these and by this time of course there was [unclear] restrictions, but there was railings along the Kingsbury Road and I used to park my bike there and just watch the aircraft through the railings you know. They were Fairey Battles I think at that time which was never a very good aircraft anyway but I mean that was early in the war of course.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And then I met my girl who turned out to be my wife. We were married for fifty five years.
HB: Wow.
AW: We never had children but we loved each other very very much and she was my life you know. Anyway, she worked at Castle Bromwich Aeroplane Factory which is now Jam Jar.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Which is just down the road. Two or three miles down Chester Road. And she worked there. She was what they called a Hollerith worker. Have you ever heard of Hollerith?
HB: No.
AW: It was a punch system. Little, little machines. And they used to — not all the fingers. It was two or three fingers, that’s all. Punching cards. Holes in cards and then when you draw the machine and they were all shifted and— you know what I mean? And I met her by chance. Introduced to her actually by a friend. A mutual friend. Fell head over heels. She was a good looking girl I’ll tell you and — but I was dying to fly and I wanted to fly. And I thought well, I’m going to go in the RAF. So, when my time came I volunteered for aircrew. As you know there was only aircrew, only volunteers were ever accepted by RAF. And I had to go Viceroy Close which is a big block of flats. It’s still there in Birmingham. Just outside the city, which the RAF took over completely in those days. And part of the building was occupied by aircrew medicals. So when the papers come to go for an aircrew medical, you know. Cough and all the rest of it. But in between I had trouble with my ears. I’d had boils in my ears.
HB: Oh dear.
AW: Yeah. Very painful. And I was only a youngster, you know. And I thought I shan’t say anything about that, you know. No. I don’t want to risk the chance of getting into aircrew. So, finally come around to the hearing test. We were all civilian lads, you know seventeen or eighteen and so forth. And I went into this room and there was a flight lieutenant there and, ‘Name?’ Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he looked at me and he said, ‘Now, I want you to walk to the end of this room,’ which was a long narrow room, he said, ‘And face the wall.’ He said, ‘I’m going to say words to you and I want you to repeat them to me.’ So, I’m all ready. I’m going to do this test. So, I went to the other end and, ‘Stop.’ he said, ‘Now, face the wall,’ and he started, ‘Tomato. Potato.’ You know, similar type words and whispered like that. And my ears were aching with the desire to get the bloody thing right. You know what I mean? And it went on for some little time. He said, ‘Ok. Come back and I went back and he looks at me and looked in my ears with the old what do they call them? You know, when they look in your ears.
HB: Yeah.
AW: He said, ‘You’ve had trouble with your ears, haven’t you?’ And I thought, ‘Oh shit. He knows.’ [laughs] I said, ‘Well, yes. I had a boil,’ I said. You know, I didn’t tell him it was a series of them but, ‘I had a boil.’ ‘I thought as much,’ he said. He looked at the papers again. He looked at what he’d written down. And then he said, ‘I’m going to pass you,’ he said, ‘You’re on the borderline,’ he said, ‘For your ears.’ He said, ‘But I’m going to pass you,’ he said, ‘But I want you to know that if you have trouble with your ears when you start flying, if you get that far,’ he said, ‘It’s not the RAF’s fault.’ In other words they were washing their hands of any responsibility. You know. I thought, bastard [laughs] And so eventually I had, I had my calling up papers to go to report to Padgate in Lancashire. Just a Recruiting Centre, you know.
HB: Near Blackpool.
AW: Parade around. Nothing else.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I mean no airfield. Oh God, I was up to here. I was a very, I was a home loving boy really and I’d never gone far from home. You know what I mean? There’s only my brother and I. Just the two of us. My brother was four years older than me and he was already in the RAF. He didn’t fly but he went out to Egypt and Cairo [pause] Oh God, but anyway. He went out to the Middle East in the RAF and he was out there for a number of years. You know. And then my turn came. And I thought bloody hell. You know. So, Padgate. Oh God was I homesick. I really was. I mean bloody terrible bloody place. I don’t know whether it exists anymore as an RAF camp. I doubt it.
HB: No.
AW: It was just a training. A reception centre. You know what I mean? So, half the time I was walking around with RAF trousers on and my own jacket, you know, that sort of thing, because I hadn’t got everything. Oh dear. Oh dear. And three days before Christmas I had to go. 22nd of December which has lived in my memory ever since. I thought the sods. They could have waited. And I hadn’t too long met my wife Sheila and you know I was head over heels. I thought bloody hell. The sods. They could have waited until after Christmas at least, you know. Anyway, to cut a long story short that was the start of my RAF training. And it was quite long. It was nearly two years before I finally reached the squadron and was then flying in Ansons and all sorts. Dominies we flew in you know originally yeah as a wireless op. And finally went to Upper Heyford which is in Oxfordshire. And it’s, I don’t know, I think it’s still there.
HB: It’s still operative. Yes. It’s still operative.
AW: At Upper Heyford. And there I met all sorts of blokes there. There was rear gunners, mid-upper gunners, flight engineers, wireless ops, pilots, navigators, you name it. All the categories. And they just said to us, ‘Now, you’ve got forty eight hours to get crewed up. It’s up to you. You know. Mix around. Talk. And I want you all in sevens.’ You know, seven was a crew. He said, ‘And if you haven’t found a crew at the end of the forty eight hours you will be allocated to whatever’s left.’ So, of course nobody wanted that. They didn’t want that sort of stigma.
HB: No.
AW: Did they? You know what I mean? Anyway, I was, I went to bed that night. This was down at Upper Heyford. I was a sergeant at the time and next door to a fellow and he said, ‘Have you got crewed up yet?’ I said, ‘Bloody hell. No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t had a chance to even to talk to anybody yet properly.’ ‘Oh, I have,’ he said. ‘I’ve crewed up with a Yank.’ Of course, we all knew who the Yank was. He was in RAF uniform. He’d done like you said crossed into Canada and joined the RCAF. And so he’d got his RAF uniform on. I said, ‘Oh, I’ve seen him around.’ I said, ‘I’ve heard him talking.’ ‘Aye. A good guy,’ he said. He said, ‘Are you crewed up?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Are you interested?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ So, he took me along to, to see the pilot. Bill. And chatting and of course the long and the short of it we crewed up. And actually I finished up with two Canadians, two Yanks and three Brits in my crew.
HB: Wow.
AW: And one of them was a Welshmen. It’s amazing really. Yeah. And they were a great crowd of lads. They really were. But unfortunately when we were shot down both the mid-upper and the rear gunner were killed at the time we were shot down. You know. But —
HB: What were the names of your crew? The pilot was Bill.
AW: Bill Adams.
HB: Yeah.
AW: My navigator was, he lived at Radstock near Bath and he was the most difficult to find.
HB: Oh right.
AW: I don’t know why. I just couldn’t get any leads on to him. You know what I mean? Toogood his name was. T O O G O O D. George Toogood. Rear gunner — Ross Lough. L O U G H. And mid-upper gunner — Johnny Kiesow. Polish American. Yank, you know. Yank. He’d done the same as the pilot and gone into Canada, you know and so forth. Who have I missed out?
HB: Bomb aimer.
AW: Bomb aimer. Woody. Woody. Quite a character, Woody. Quite a character. He was the only other commissioned member of the crew. So, in the end there was just the two of us so we naturally sort of teamed up together. We were in the same mess and so forth, you know. He was quite a lad was Woody. And he came from Ontario. Have I missed anybody else out?
HB: Flight engineer.
AW: Flight engineer. Yes. He was bloody difficult to find and I found him in the end. He was in Canada. He’d gone to live in Canada. Bloody amazing, you know. His name escapes me at the moment I’m ashamed to say.
HB: No. No. No. No. That’s alright.
AW: He’s in there. I’m sure.
HB: Yeah.
AW: So, I found him and then afterwards I went to stay with my bomb aimer in Ontario with my wife. Went over and stayed with them. They invited us over, you know. And I also went to stay with my flight engineer who settled in bloody — right in the west side of Canada.
HB: British Columbia.
AW: Chilliwack. Chilliwack.
HB: Oh right. Yeah.
AW: A place called Chilliwack.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Which is, you know not too far from the West, West Coast. Went to stay with him as well. I found them but it took me two or three years to find all of them, you know because when I was taken Prisoner of War of course I lost touch complete with everything.
HB: Who was Dickie Richardson?
AW: He was a wonderful character. He was a Guinea Pig.
HB: He was one of the Guinea Pigs. Right. I’ve gone a bit too far ahead.
AW: A blind guinea pig. A lovely, lovely lad. A great friend of mine.
HB: Yeah. I’m just trying —
AW: He was a wireless op. He got shot down. And the last thing he remembered seeing when he was shot down was a German soldier coming towards him on the road and his sight went. And he never saw again.
HB: Oh no.
AW: A great character. And no arm. No. One arm off up to there. But a wonderful character, you know. I was in the cellar for some time which I think I mention in there. When the Germans evacuated the hospital I was in in Nancy. They left four of us in the cellar with the French army doctor who’d been captured also, to look after us. And Dickie was one of those four. It was, it was quite an experience that was. We were there I think about ten or eleven days. Just below ground level. That’s all. The fighting was starting to come closer and closer. And I was thinking about all those bloody guns going off and so forth. Frightened you to death really when you’re lying helpless. Immoveable virtually in my case with this bloody great plaster cast on.
HB: Horrendous.
AW: And —
HB: But it, but so, so that was, that was obviously later.
AW: Yes.
HB: So, you’d gone to [pause] to crew up at Heyford.
AW: Upper Heyford. Yes.
HB: Did you stay at Heyford for OCU or did you —
AW: No.
HB: No.
AW: No. I’ve got them all listed actually somewhere but —
HB: No. No. Don’t worry about it at all because, because there’s all sorts —
AW: I’m just trying to think where I did my OC — oh dear, my memory’s going as I’m getting older.
HB: Well, AF, you did your AFU at Dumfries.
AW: Dumfries. That’s right. Yes.
HB: And you went to —
AW: Up to, up to was there —
HB: OTU at Upper Heyford.
AW: Upper Heyford.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I was just going to say. Yes. Yes, it was. That’s right.
HB: That’s was, oh that was when you were flying. You were doing OTU in Wellingtons and —
AW: That’s right. Yeah.
HB: Wimpies. Yeah.
AW: We started off with Dominies. De Havilland Dominies. Something else. Ansons.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And all the old. You know, and all the old —
HB: Yeah. All the old.
AW: Mind you they were a good reliable aircraft, you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: The old Anson. I mean it could go on forever. Fly on forever those Ansons would.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But it was — oh dear.
HB: So, so you crewed up there.
AW: Yeah. And then we moved as a crew.
HB: And then you went to — ah it says in here Wigsley.
AW: That’s right.
HB: That’s not a place I’ve heard of before.
AW: No. Well, it was only a temporary wartime place. It was in [pause] dear oh dear [pause] Nottinghamshire I think it was.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I think it Nottinghamshire.
HB: Because then because obviously you did that training and then you went to Syerston.
AW: Syerston.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah.
HB: And that was, that was —
AW: That was the flying. That was where we, we first went in Lancs.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Lancs. Yeah.
HB: Oh right, because —
AW: And then —
HB: It says in here, it says in here —
AW: If it says there it’s true.
HB: That you were posted there. Yeah. Yeah. It says here you did your, you did your conversion training consisting of sixteen hours.
AW: That’s all.
HB: Wow.
AW: That’s all.
HB: In two weeks.
AW: Yeah. I mean for the pilot as well. He’d got to go and fly in bloody ops.
HB: Yeah.
AW: In the aircraft. It was true. I mean, you know I’ve got the, after the war was over I wrote to the RAF and asked for a list of my postings and so forth, you know. Trainings. And I’ve got it. It’s in here
HB: Yeah. You’re service. Yeah. Your old service record.
AW: The old service record. That’s right. Yes.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: And it’s in there somewhere. I’ve got it.
HB: Oh, that’s great.
AW: So, you know, I mean, you know. Sixteen. It was nothing really.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Nothing.
HB: Sixteen hours.
AW: But in between that we had to fly [pause] do I mention it there? Bloody. Christ, come on.
HB: Stirlings.
AW: Stirlings. Nightmare. Nightmare. Bloody great big thing. And I mean, you know you’ve got no power at all really, you know. None at all.
HB: No.
AW: Chug chug chug and trying to reach a bloody flying height, you know. Hours. Literally hours. It was a bloody awful aircraft. It really was. And it was very huge and it stood quite a height from the ground, you know to get in to it.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: And they were always having trouble with the undercart. The undercarriage was always failing. And even while we were converting on to them, that short course we had for the crew went round it. Another amendment to the bloody requirement of the undercart was going to be incorporated. It was a terrible bloody aircraft. I mean, you know it was a shocker.
HB: Yeah.
AW: God were we glad to get off those and get on to — and of course the Lanc, by comparison was, was beautiful.
HB: Yeah.
AW: It really was. There’s no other description for a Lancaster anyway.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: That’s my only description for a Lanc.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I mean Halifaxes were very very good and they were very near to it, you know. But I think, I think the Lanc just about had it. Beautiful. I’m sticking to that one. Whatever you think.
HB: Right. You can tell from my face then.
AW: And so eventually we got to the squadron which was East Kirkby. East Kirkby.
HB: That was, that was in 5 Group wasn’t it?
AW: Yes.
HB: With 630.
AW: Yeah. It was about thirty or forty miles from Lincoln. Yeah. And we did, on our sixteenth operation we got shot down on the way to Stuttgart.
HB: Yeah. You were in B Flight weren’t you there?
AW: Yes. That’s right.
HB: So you’d done — what was your first trip?
AW: First one.
HB: Your first trip. Your first op.
AW: I’ve got the —
HB: Sorry, I’ve got it here.
AW: I’ve got my notebook here.
HB: Saumur.
AW: Saumur. That’s right.
HB: In southern France.
AW: There was a big infantry —
HB: Yeah.
AW: German division there.
HB: Yeah.
AW: A crack division apparently. And we had to go and try and sort of stir them up a bit, you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah. Well, a lot of the flights I did actually were in France. To do with the battle across France.
HB: Yeah. What, what year would this be?
AW: ’44.
HB: Arthur. 1944.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah. And I got shot down on the 25th of July. The night of the 24th 25th of July was the night we were shot down.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah.
HB: What, what —on the lead up I’ve just noticed in here.
AW: Yeah.
HB: You were actually, you were actually involved in bombing the coastal batteries for D-Day.
AW: That’s right. And I’ve got the, I’ve got the Légion d’honneur medal from the French.
HB: Did you now?
AW: Yeah. Which I think is a lovely medal.
HB: Oh, that’s beautiful.
AW: Isn’t it.
HB: Yes. That is beautiful.
AW: Take it out if you want to.
HB: That’s absolutely superb. And that, and that’s obviously related to the D-Day.
AW: It was.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Only for the people involved in D-Day.
HB: Yeah. That’s absolutely superb.
AW: It’s a lovely medal that is, I think.
HB: What a beautiful —
AW: I’m not a medals man quite honestly. I’ve got my, my — the medals I was sent after the war, you know, that I was entitled to which was just the standard.
HB: Yeah.
AW: What do you call them?
HB: That’s a beautiful thing.
[rustling]
AW: Excuse me. These are those. That’s that. I received them in the same box. Way back at the end of the war. I mean —
HB: Absolutely.
AW: Compared with this they’re just — I didn’t even bother to mount them at all. You know, I thought well bloody hell. But that I thought was a lovely medal.
HB: So, that was —
AW: And —
HB: Yes.
AW: And if I can just show you something.
HB: Yes. Sure you can. Sure.
AW: The letter that came with it was fantastic I thought [pause] That’s, that’s the letter that came with it.
HB: I think, I think you ought to be reading that one out, don’t you?
AW: Do you?
HB: I think you ought to be reading that one out.
AW: Yeah. Well, if you think I should.
HB: Yeah. I think you should. But do you want to leave that? Do you want to leave that for a minute while we, while we just —
AW: Alright. Ok.
HB: Because that’s obviously June. That’s obviously June for D-Day and you were shot down the —
AW: 25th of July.
HB: 25th of July.
AW: ’44.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah.
HB: So, not long after.
AW: Yeah.
HB: So, so what were your memories of that particular op? Where were you headed for that?
AW: Heading to Stuttgart.
HB: Right.
AW: We never got there.
HB: Right.
AW: We were just in the, just approximately over the border between France and Germany and out of the blue a fighter comes up from below [noise] and and damaged the engines. I can’t remember which or which engine it were or how many there were damaged at the time but we started to lose height. You know, lose power. And the pilot said, ‘We’ll have to turn back. We’ll have to dump the bombs and turn back.’ So, the navigator sort of plotted as best he could some open ground as best as he could and dumped the bombs and turned back. But not long after we turned we started to lose height much more seriously. Got the order to bale out. And I was at the front but I was the last one of the front members apart from the pilot of course who stays with the end, to the end. And they were all sort of up the steps waiting to get out and all the, all the jettisoned the big hatch that you got, you fall through out the bottom of the Lanc. And I was behind them and I’d been hit on the hip here when the, when the fighter attacked us. And I say [whisper] right by the arsehole, you know. Had he been an inch to the right he’d have been right up inside me and that would have been the end of me. And I lost a lot of blood. And I felt myself, you know, I thought, ‘Christ, if they don’t hurry up I’ll never make this. I’ll never make it.’ And I don’t remember going out through the, through the hatch to tell you the truth. I can’t remember and I can’t remember coming down in the parachute. But I came around with the parachute all around me and my leg giving me hell. And it was dark and I thought, ‘Christ. How long have I been lying here?’ You know. Foreign country. I’m not, I wasn’t sure whether I was in Germany or France because we were somewhere near the borderline when we were attacked. I thought to myself, ‘Christ, what do I do?’ So, I went to get up and I thought, ‘Oh Jeez.’ I almost screamed with agony. I thought, ‘Bloody hell. I’ve popped my leg.’ It wasn’t a compound fracture. It was a plain facture but of course that’s the strongest bone in your body. Your femur. And that was the one I broke [noise] Didn’t realise it at the time. Just thought well you know I’ll be alright. Lie here a few days and if I can keep going for a few days it’ll get better and I’ll be able to try and make my way back home someway or other. You know what I mean? We all had had the lectures on this sort of thing of course. And I was lying there and I heard people talking. And I thought, aye aye. I heard a man and a woman’s voice and I thought [pause] ‘Don’t shout yet. Hang on. See whether they’re German or not.’ Because I wasn’t sure whether I’d landed, you know in Germany or France. Anyway, after a while I could hear them. To my mind it was obviously French they were speaking so I shouted. They came over and in the bloody pitch black. I was out in the wilds of somewhere. And the lady, that one the photograph there hugged me as though I was a long lost cousin or something. I suppose they were glad to have found somebody alive I suppose, you know. And then they chatted to each other. The man and the woman. They were brother and sister actually as it turned out. On that photograph. And he went. I don’t know where he went. I had no idea. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. In those days anyway. And after a while he came back and he brought a step ladder with him. And they used that as a stretcher. And they lifted me on to it and I nearly yelled with agony. As they lifted you know I suppose ends of the bones you know. Jeez. Carried me, it seemed like an interminable distance. I don’t suppose it was that far but it was pretty rough terrain anyway. And then they opened the door and they put me in. It was a barn. And they gathered all the straw from the barn of the local hamlet. And they gathered all the straw together and puffed it up and they laid me on this. On this straw. And the lady there, she went away. The bloke stayed. Henri stayed with me. And she came back and she’d got some soup in a bowl. And another bowl with some water in it and cloths and she kept bathing my forehead, you know and feeding me soup. They were good to me. You know what I mean? They took a risk because they were in occupied France. It was in German occupied France. So they took a risk.
HB: Very much so.
AW: As I say, and years later I decided I’d like to try and find them and give them a proper thanks. And I’m going on holiday to Italy and we went that way when I’d found out where it was through the Red Cross. It took me ages and them ages to find out where I’d actually been. It was just a hamlet. Just two or three old old farmhouses, you know. Really old. And I wrote and told them with the aid of my colleague who spoke fluent French. He wrote it all out in French for me. And I explained that he was doing that in French so they’d understand it. And we finally went and we found it after some difficulty. Right in Eastern France. Right by the border virtually. And we had a hell of a day. I mean, I took English and French dictionaries with me, you know to try and help. And pencils and paper. Oh my God. We had some laughs, you know even though we couldn’t understand. We made each other understand mainly. But the old grandma there. Can you see her?
HB: Yeah.
AW: There. She was the grandma. She’d got, she’d got one tooth there. Just a pickled onion spear as I called it. And we had quite a day there. And we spent the whole day there. It was fabulous, you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so after that time I wrote to them and I sent them parcels because they were pretty tight for food.
HB: Yeah.
AW: The Germans —
HB: That was at Tramont-Lassus.
AW: That’s right.
HB: Near to Nancy.
AW: That’s right. Yes. I sent them food parcels and I kept quite a correspondence going with the aid of my colleague as I say who I worked with. But that died and faded after a while. You know, as things do, don’t they?
HB: Yeah.
AW: I’m sorry really because I would have liked to keep in touch with them. I wonder what’s happened to their family now. But when, when we went we were going on holiday to Italy and I’d routed it once I found out where it was and had to get a special map. It was a well-known map and people who sell maps. I forget their name.
HB: Michelin.
AW: Michelin.
HB: Michelin.
AW: Michelin map of that area. Just of that area. And I managed to get one. Sent for it and so forth. And I found out where it was so I routed it through this way and finally we, and I wrote and told them we were coming. It would be some time just after lunch but we couldn’t give the exact because we were coming right down from Calais you know. Right across France basically. Northern France. And drove up and came to the road leading to this little hamlet. And they were all out in the street. All out. And little tiny little toddlers who weren’t even born when I was shot down.
HB: Wonderful.
AW: And they got the bloody Tricolours and the Union Jacks. Fantastic. I felt too shy to get out the car almost. You know what I mean? They were absolutely fabulous. So, they told all the local people that I was coming, you know, ‘And this was the fellow who landed amongst us during the war.’
HB: Yeah.
AW: A fabulous time. We stayed at a hotel about ten miles away for the night. But we had a fabulous time. Although we didn’t speak each other’s language it was an enjoyable time.
HB: Yes.
AW: Because we were — you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: They were glad to see us. So, I visited them once or twice like that.
HB: Yeah.
AW: On different holidays that I was going on.
HB: Yeah. And how long, how long did they actually look after you for, Arthur?
AW: It was only the one night really.
HB: Right.
AW: The next day when I sort of woke up or came to in the morning. There was a little dirty window up in this loft. I can see the sun’s out because it was, it was summertime.
HB: Yeah.
AW: July ’44. And I thought, ‘Oh, look at that lovely sunshine. If I can get this leg right now I’ll be off.’ You know. I was thinking I could. Two of my crew did walk all the way to Switzerland by the way and got interned. Two of the crew.
HB: Did they?
AW: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But anyway, I thought that would be it. And then after a while, I forget what time it was. Late morning or some time before noon I heard some loud sighs and the door opened. A gendarme. The old French policeman came in who could speak a little bit of English. Not very much but a little bit. So, I suppose the rumour had got around that [pause] that I was there, you know what I mean? So, I thought, ‘Christ,’ you know, ‘If I’m not careful here he’ll tell the Germans and I’ve had it. I’ll be in a bloody Prisoner of War camp.’ And at that time the war didn’t look as though it was going to end next week. You know what I mean? I thought, oh Jeez, the thought of that. So, we got on alright and the lady came back again, you know. Rose. Bathing me and bringing me food to eat. And finally he went and I’m trying, the last thing I tried to impress on him, ‘Please don’t let the Germans know I’m here and as soon as I possibly can I’ll get off their hands,’ you know. Because they were taking a big risk. You know, by keeping me there and not telling the Germans they were taking a risk. Anyway, I mean the policeman must have realised I needed hospital treatment. I’d broken my bloody femur for Christ’s sake. You know what I mean? And after he’d gone, some time later, it was early afternoon I heard a vehicle pull up outside. A door opened. German soldier. I thought, ‘Oh no.’ I thought, ‘Oh, that’s it. Sod it.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I’ve had it.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I thought, ‘Oh bloody hell.’ Anyway, he’d got a mate with him and they’d got a little five hundred weight truck. Vehicle. Got a stretcher. Took me out. Put me in the back. Bloke got in to drive in the front and the other sat by me on a little seat at the side you know. And they took me to the hospital in Nancy. And I was the first Englishman in there. They’d got Prisoners of War but they were, a lot of them were French colonials. Frenchmen and French colonials who’d been captured in North Africa.
HB: Oh right.
AW: In Rommel’s do. You know what I mean, you know? And so I don’t remember much at all. They tell me I was delirious for nearly four days. Seven days. You know, I’d been shouting all sorts of things and I’ve, I have memories that I was in, somewhere in the Middle East going through my mind at that time during the delirium I had. You know what I mean? So it was then that I learned that I’d broken my femur, you know. So, the next thing I know I’m in traction. And they put a pin through the knee there. Right through that knee. And a weight at the end of a pulley over the end of the bed to pull the bone out so that it wouldn’t go back in the wrong position. So it would be like pulling it out to let it go back later in the correct position. Otherwise it would have been, you know, offset. And every time anybody walked by the bloody bed I was, ‘Don’t get near the bloody pulley for Christ’s sake.’ Because if they had touched it you know I felt it right up into my spine sort of thing.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And there was air raid warnings and Christ knows what while I was in this position. And they did once, when they, once they’d got me in to this plaster which they’d put on too bloody tight and it was agony they did carry me down to the cellar when the air raid warning went. And that was a nightmare because we had to go down steep stairs you know. And me inside this bloody plaster and oh Christ it was agony. I was down in this cellar and we could hear the planes going over. It was the German planes actually, I think. I’m not sure to tell you the truth. And finally they carried me back up there. And then the rumour went around, they’re leaving. ‘We’re all leaving. We’re all going. They’re taking us all into Germany.’ Well, they did. And four of us they left there. And as I say they left us in this cellar underneath the hospital. And some nuns came. I don’t know where they came from. Somewhere in Nancy. Came with food for us twice a day.
HB: But were they, were the medical staff, Arthur were they all French under German supervision?
AW: Yes. But they all went with them. They’d all, they had been captured at some time or other.
HB: Right.
AW: So, they all went back. They left one French doctor who’d been captured. I don’t know where. They left a French doctor to look after the four of us in the [pause] One was a Ginger haired fellow named Ginger who’d had his leg off to here. He’d trodden on a mine or something.
HB: Yeah.
AW: He was a soldier. Another one was a fighter pilot who flew in Mustangs or something like that. And he’d had to bale out. He’d been attacked and shot down. And as he baled out he hit the bloody tailplane with his stomach. And his stomach was a bloody mess so he couldn’t be moved. Then there was Dickie Richardson and myself. Dickie was a wireless op the same as me, in the RAF. And when he was shot down that’s when he was blinded.
HB: Yeah.
AW: The last thing he remembered seeing was a German soldier coming towards him along this road. And Dickie was in a hell of a mess. God. He had, at that time he’d had his hand off. They’d amputated his hand. Bald as a badger except that he was badly burned so it was all bandaged. And his face was a mess. They left a little hole there to feed him through a tube. And I was telling you about this chap before they moved us all into this cellar. There was four of us in this cellar. He said, This fella, he’s marvellous. He sings. He tries to sing and you know he’s got these terrible burns. He must be in agony.’ Anyway, he was there and it turns out he came from Worcester which is not too far from here.
HB: Yeah.
AW: So he knew Birmingham and he knew the Bull Ring in the city. So we, we naturally became buddies. You know what I mean?
HB: Yeah.
AW: And it was nice to talk to somebody who knew places. He knew places I knew and vice versa. We were down there for I think it was about ten or eleven days actually and we could hear the firing getting nearer and finally it was very near and it was like small arms fire. You know. And we’re only just below street level actually in this cellar. And this Ginger said, ‘Sorry. I’m going to have to find somebody to come down and help us,’ you know. We were stuck there and nobody knew we were there really except the doctor who’d been looking after and we don’t know what happened to him. Whether he went we don’t know. So he went, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t you forget us’, you know. I said, ‘We’re stuck down here and we’re relying on you to bring somebody.’ Anyway, he was away for about an hour or more and suddenly a bloody Yank appeared. A Yankee first lieutenant. Talk about John Wayne. He wasn’t as big as that but he was dressed like John Wayne would be if you imagine as he’d been in films about that.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And he was dirty looking and he just walked in. He must have come down the steps and he came along the corridor and into this, well a cell it was really. And he just went, ‘Hi fellas.’ We could have kissed him. Really. Out come the fags.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: He’d got a cigarette. Bloody Yank. He was wonderful. And he said, he said, ‘I can see you are all in trouble,’ he said, ‘Does anybody need anything urgently doing?’ I said, ‘Well, yes please.’ They put this plaster on and it came from here up right around across here and across the back and they put the edge of the plaster was where the bloody wound was. They’d put a dressing on, that’s all. And of course as it dried it curled in. You know. You’ve seen plasters do that? And it curled in on the bloody wound and I was in absolute agony. I mean I couldn’t turn over or anything. It was such a, I was stuck, you know, it was up to here.
HB: So, your left, your left foot, ankle, leg.
AW: Yes.
HB: Femur. Waist.
AW: Yeah.
HB: With a half cast around on your bum.
AW: Well, it came right around.
HB: And it came right up on to your chest. So you —
AW: Right across the bloody wound. I was in agony. I tried to sort of ease myself upwards inside the cast if you understand what I mean to get the weight off this bloody edge that was cutting into the bloody wound. So, when this Yank came he said, ‘Anything special you want doing?’ He said, ‘I’ll get you some medical attention. Is there anything I can do for you now?’ I said, ‘Yes. For Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘I need somebody to look at my ass.’ I said, ‘I’m in trouble.’ He said, ‘Well, I can’t do that on my own.’ I said, ‘No. I understand.’ He said, ‘But I’ll bring somebody,’ he said, ‘I won’t desert you. I’ll bring somebody.’ And sure enough he went and they came back. All the Yankee medics and so forth. They were fantastic.
HB: Yeah.
AW: They carried us out. They had ambulances there. And they took us to a local field hospital under canvas. You know. And then I moved back through different field, American field hospitals. Getting further and further away from the actual fighting front. And I think it was, I think it was somewhere in the middle of France. Mid-northern France. With an air strip. And I was flown back in a Yankee plane. And I was the only Englishman, I told you on board. All the rest were Yanks and nearly all of them were infantrymen who’d just come direct from the front line. Wounded. Some of them badly, you know. And they took me to a little hospital. We landed somewhere near Reading. I don’t know where it was. Somewhere near Reading. And they took me to a local hospital and I was in this ward with nothing but Yanks. It was a Yankee hospital. But the next day I was taken by ambulance and then I went through a series of various hospitals. And finally I finished up at Wroughton RAF Hospital near Swindon. RAF officers ward if you don’t mind. Going up. And they looked at me. Took this plaster off and he said — the word he used was, ‘Christ,’ as he took the plaster off and saw my foot. I couldn’t see it at that time. I was lying up you know and it was, and it was just black. Solid black all around there and the back of my heel. It was gangrene. And then there was touch and go and then they said, ‘Oh, we can’t deal with that here. You’ll probably have to go to Archibald McIndoe’s place.’ I said, ‘Who? Never heard of him.’ ‘Archibald McIndoe.’ I said ‘Who’s that?’ ‘He’s a world famous plastic surgeon at East Grinstead.’ I said, ‘Well, where’s East Grinstead?’ He said, ‘It’s Sussex.’ ‘I don’t want to go down there.’ I was thinking of Sheila, my girlfriend coming to see me, you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And she never travelled on her own very much at all, you know. But anyway, they took me by ambulance then to East Grinstead and it was the best move I ever had really. You know. Fantastic. But it was a bit different because I’d been in a sort of orthopaedic ward. You know, broken limbs and so forth. And I moved into this ward down in East Grinstead and they got what they called the bug in. They got the bug. You know, which is very easy with burns you know. So everybody was walking around with masks on. All these nurses had masks over their faces. You now. Visitors had to wear a mask. And I thought, ‘Christ, this is serious [laughs] I don’t like this.’ Anyway, it was a wonderful wonderful wonderful place. It was really. I mean we were treated like, like sirs really, you know. We really were. Wonderful treatment. Wonderful wonderful man. And altogether I was about, I think about fourteen or fifteen months having treatment.
HB: When you first got there though and they put you in the ward. Who was in the bed next door but one?
AW: Next door but one was Dickie.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah. Fantastic. But he wasn’t in the bed. He was sitting by — there was just a stove. It was a wartime sort of place. Like a temporary, added on to the local cottage hospital in East Grinstead. And this fellow was there. They put me on an end bed. There was only about ten beds in the ward. There was five each side. Only a small wartime thing. And I saw this fellow sitting by the, by the stove. He’d got a dressing gown on. And he’d got an arm off up to, up to there at the time and his, his head was bandaged but I could see part of his face which was very very badly burned. And I thought, ‘I’ve got a feeling I know you.’ I knew him by his real name while we were in the cellar. Walter. Walter Richardson. Because Richardson — Richardson. Dickie. Dick. You know. And they were all calling him Dickie so I thought, crikey. Anyway, this nurse was sort of getting me settled in to the bed and tucking me in and I said to her, ‘That fellow by the, sitting by the stove there,’ I said, ‘Is his name Walter?’ ‘No. I don’t think so,’ she said, ‘We know him as Dickie.’ So, I thought, ‘It’s him. I can tell his voice,’ and so forth, you know. But he’d got his arm off to there. When I knew him he had just his hand off you know. So, I said, ‘Well, I think I know him,’ I said, ‘Could you bring him over to me?’ She said, ‘Yes, I’ll bring him.’ She said, ‘Come on Dickie. Somebody here wants to speak to you. He thinks he knows you.’ So, she led him over to my bed. And he leaned over like blind people do, you know. He couldn’t see. And I said, ‘Hello Walter, I bet you don’t know who this is.’ And he said, ‘Christ. It’s Red.’ And he recognised my voice. And it had been three or four months since we’d seen each other. We got separated, you know in various field hospitals as we moved because he was very very ill, Dickie was and so he didn’t make the same progress as I did. So I got flown back before he did. So, we never saw each other again then. And then I recognised him but he recognised my voice as soon as I, and the fact that I called him Walter I think did it. I said, ‘Hello Walter. I bet you don’t know who this is.’ ‘Christ almighty, it’s Red.’
HB: That was your nickname? Red.
AW: Well, yeah because in the cellar there were four of us. Two Gingers. And he called me Red and the other one Ginger.
HB: Right.
AW: Because he couldn’t see either of us. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah. And that’s the story really. You know.
HB: So, so you end up in East Grinstead.
AW: Yeah.
HB: With the, what was to become the Guinea Pig Club.
AW: That’s right.
HB: With Sir Arthur McIndoe.
AW: Archibald.
HB: Sorry.
AW: Archibald.
HB: Archibald McIndoe.
AW: Yeah. Wonderful wonderful man.
HB: And, and so he, they actually saved your leg.
AW: Oh, no doubt about it. No doubt about that. It was due for an amputation. But there was a wonderful sister there. Nursing sister. She was, I suppose she was late forties. A Scots girl. Had a sweet voice. And she used to come and dress my leg three or four times a day. My foot. And they tried all sorts of things, you know. Of course this was when penicillin was just, at the time penicillin was new. Oh, this is it. Shall I do it for you, you know. It made a mess of my foot. Penicillin. I’m penicillin allergic.
HB: Oh right.
AW: Didn’t know it then because it was very early days of penicillin. And they tried all and in the end she tried a mixture of, I can’t remember all of it but it had liquid paraffin and something else and something else. I don’t know what the other two were. I know liquid paraffin was. And they just soaked muslin in it you know and made a pad and put it on there and there and bandaged it. And after two or three days when they took it off there was bits of it. Bits of the shit, you know on it. And they said, ‘It’s coming away. It’s coming away.’ And they did that for weeks and weeks until they finally got it completely just and then I had plastic surgery. And what they did, they took — I don’t know whether you can see, Harry. I don’t want to bore you with it. But —
HB: No. No. I’m not bored.
AW: That’s my good leg.
HB: Oh right. So that’s where, so that’s where they took the skin from.
AW: That’s right. Yeah. Can you see that patch?
HB: Good grief.
AW: And can you see that at the back?
HB: Yeah.
AW: That there.
HB: So that came, that —
AW: What they did, they cut because that’s an S. I don’t know whether you can see. It goes around there.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Like that. They opened that flap there and that flap there. Put my foot in it like that.
HB: Pull along there.
AW: Cast around there so I couldn’t move it and I was stuck like that for about two months.
HB: So, they, they —
AW: And they, and they had me suspended over, or my legs suspended from a bar that they construct over the bed vertically.
HB: So, the living flesh from your right leg.
AW: Grew.
HB: Was connected to your left leg.
AW: That’s where that came from you see.
HB: And grew.
AW: That’s right.
HB: And then at some stage —
AW: They disconnected. And that’s it.
HB: Came along with a big pair of scissors.
AW: It took a long while.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I was there fifteen months altogether.
HB: Wow. And it’s —
AW: And unfortunately that foot, that leg’s about three quarters of an inch shorter than the other one but it doesn’t matter.
HB: Well, that’s —
AW: But you can see —
HB: Incredible.
AW: The only thing is that gets very dry. That there.
HB: Yeah.
AW: It gets very dry and it cracks sometimes and I have to wear a plaster on it, you know. It gets sore.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But I mean I had a lucky — I mean I was as near as damn it to having it amputated.
HB: Yeah. I mean, that’s that I mean.
AW: They did wonderful work.
HB: I mean, I know, I know it’s a lot of years ago but it’s just amazing really to to —
AW: Well, you can see, can’t you?
HB: To see that.
AW: You can see the patch, can’t you?
HB: Yeah.
AW: You can see that’s where it’s come from.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And around there like a letter S and that that way, that that way. Stuck my foot in it, for the want of a better word. Stitched it all up. Put some plaster around here so I couldn’t move.
HB: And that was it.
AW: And suspend it. Well, didn’t suspend me exactly but my feet and legs were up.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I lay on my back like that.
HB: Good grief.
AW: So when I wanted a pee or a shit I was in trouble.
HB: Well, yeah.
AW: You can imagine can’t you?
HB: Yeah.
AW: And that went on for two months.
HB: Yeah. Never mind nil by mouth.
AW: [laughs] Oh dear. Oh, it’s a long —
HB: That’s, that’s amazing.
AW: That’s a long story but —
HB: No. No. No. Its —
AW: And that’s why I’m a Guinea Pig.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And —
HB: And that’s, and that’s obviously the Guinea Pig Club.
AW: That’s it.
HB: That’s it.
AW: Fantastic.
HB: And you’re one of, one of the survivors.
AW: Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, yes. I mean, I’m very fortunate but most of the lads in the Guinea Pig Club were badly burned. You know. Badly burned. Like Dickie. But he lived for some years. He had twins.
HB: Did he?
AW: Yeah. A boy and a girl. Yeah.
HB: Oh lovely.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Fantastic.
HB: So, while all this was going on. Right.
AW: Yes.
HB: I’m just picturing the scene now.
AW: Yes. That’s alright, Harry. Yeah.
HB: 630 Squadron. You’re flying.
AW: Do you want a cup of coffee by the way?
HB: We’ll have a break. We’ll have a break
AW: Ok. We’ll carry on talking.
HB: We’re having a, we’re having a scene here of you’re flying on ops, you’re writing to Sheila.
AW: Yes.
HB: Right. And you’re keeping in contact.
AW: That’s right. Yes.
HB: You’ve obviously had a few leaves and what not. So, you come back from France.
AW: Yes.
HB: And you’re in East Grinstead.
AW: I went to Wroughton first.
HB: Well, yeah. To Wroughton.
AW: Orthopaedic.
HB: How, how did, how did Sheila take it?
AW: She took it bloody well and she waited for me.
HB: Good girl. Yeah.
AW: She did. I’ll just tell you this little bit. I was, when I was flown back from France I was put in some local hospital near, somewhere near Reading. But it was only for the one night. The next day by ambulance I was taken to Wroughton.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Officer’s ward. RAF officer’s ward.
HB: What rank were you when you were shot down?
AW: Flying officer.
HB: You were flying officer when you were shot down.
AW: Yeah. Yeah.
HB: Right. So you’re in the posh bit now.
AW: So I’m in the — yeah. And there were all sorts of cases. They were mostly orthopaedic cases in there. But anyway I’ve got the letter I wrote to my mum and dad from there. It’s in pencil because I was lying on my back in this plaster.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And I couldn’t. I had to write like this, you know. It was very difficult.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: The paper keeps falling. It’s all in, all in pencil. And I wrote and told them where I was and I said, “As far as I know it’s a few miles from Swindon. It’s called Wroughton.” And of course my mum and dad hadn’t heard a word about me. They didn’t know whether I was dead or not. All they were told I was missing. I’ll show you something if I may. I’m sorry to delay this.
HB: No. No. No.
AW: You may be on your way.
HB: No. No. My time is yours, Arthur.
AW: If I’ve got it. Somewhere I have, I’m sure. I’ve got all the telegrams and so forth that went backwards and forwards, you know.
HB: Right.
AW: At the time. I think that’s the one. This is a telegram in those days. Look. Post Office.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Telegram.
HB: Tiny little envelope.
AW: Yeah. [pause] Can you read it?
HB: It’s very faded now isn’t it?
AW: It is. Yes.
HB: Right.
AW: Read it.
HB: BM priority CC Mr C Woolf.
AW: That’s my father. Charles.
HB: 31 Ismere Road.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Erdington.
AW: That’s right.
HB: “Deeply regret to inform you that your son Flying Officer Arthur S Woolf is missing from operations on the night of the 24th 25th of July 1944. Please accept my profound sympathy. Letter follows pending receipt of written notification from the Air Ministry. No information should be given to the press. Officer commanding 630 Squadron.”
AW: Yeah. That was the first my mum — and I hadn’t even told them I was flying on ops.
HB: Oh.
AW: So, you can imagine. Well, I didn’t want to worry them. I knew they’d worry to death. My older brother was in the far, the Middle East and I didn’t want to worry them. They knew I was flying. I said I was. I kept telling them I was still on a different course. Which I did go on quite a lot of training courses. So, when they got that you can imagine. My God.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I perhaps should have told them I was on ops, you know. Really. So they could have been prepared.
HB: It come as a bit of a shock.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Yes.
AW: A hell of a shock.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Oh dear. But there you are.
HB: So, so by then did, did Sheila, Sheila know your mum and dad quite well by then?
AW: Oh yes. She did. She did. She knew them —
HB: Had you got —
AW: And on the letters and that I sent I always put on the end, tell — “advise Sheila,” you know.
HB: Right.
AW: And they knew where she lived.
HB: So, had you and Sheila got an understanding by this stage? Or —
AW: Well —
HB: Were you still just a courting couple?
AW: Oh, we were still courting I think.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah. Yeah. But we always, both of us always felt there was nobody else. You know what I mean?
HB: Yeah.
AW: So that was it. Yeah. Then this is one, “Arrived England.”
HB: This is another telegram.
AW: This is from me.
HB: This is from you.
AW: This is for mom and dad. Mr and Mrs Woolf. “Arrived England. Address RAF Hospital, Wroughton, Swindon, Wilts. Alright except for a broken leg. Please inform Sheila — Arthur.” [laughs]
HB: [laughs] All right except for a broken leg.
AW: You can’t get, you can’t get much terser than that can you? [laughs]
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Oh dear.
HB: It’s like —
AW: This is the bit I was going to tell you. So, I was very very pale because I hadn’t been out in the open air at all. Been in the cellar and prior to that in the ward so I’d never been in the open air and sister said, ‘You could do with some fresh air. We’ll have you moved. We’ll put you out on the balcony tomorrow or something.’ ‘Ok.’ Sort of thing. And so I’m on the balcony in my bed and by this time, oh that’s right I still had the plaster on me. No. I hadn’t. I’d had the plaster off by then. So I was half sitting up in the bed. Like this, you know. And I saw my mum and dad. They were quite big grounds to the hospital at Wroughton. Gardens and so forth. And they were coming in this bloody main path with Sheila. Walking up and suddenly my dad caught sight of me and he paused and he ran.
HB: Oh bless.
AW: Oh, grand, you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And they came up. Oh God. You can imagine the reunion. They thought I was gone and missing and dead and so forth. You know. So it was a wonderful moment that was that will live in my memory forever. Absolutely.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: So, I’ve got all sorts of letters and things here but [pause] no.
HB: Do you want, do you want to have a break for a coffee?
AW: Ok. I’ll go and make a coffee. How do you like your coffee, Harry?
HB: Let me just pause this. I’m just — it’s, the time now is —
AW: Are you alright for time?
HB: 13.05. So, I’m just going to pause while we have a comfort break.
[recording paused]
HB: Recommencing the interview. The time is 1.40 and we’re suitably refreshed.
AW: I’m taking all your day up.
HB: Well, we’ve had an interesting chat while we’ve been having a coffee. Just go back over a couple of things.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Arthur. When you, when you started off with 630.
AW: Yes.
HB: At East Kirby.
AW: It’s Kirkby.
HB: Sorry. East Kirkby.
AW: It’s got two Ks.
HB: Yeah. Your, your crew was formed and trained by then and you then did sixteen ops.
AW: Yes.
HB: So, what, what sort of areas did you go to for your ops?
AW: Mainly France.
HB: Mainly France.
AW: Because it was to back up the troops.
HB: Yeah. And in what, what year? This was in 1944.
AW: ’44. ’44.
HB: Right.
AW: When the invasion had taken place which I was involved in, on — that’s why I’ve got that medal.
HB: Yeah.
AW: On the sort of July. June. And then much of it was to do with backing up army movements.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so forth. We did one daylight road on an aircraft factory just somewhere north of Paris. And we did one other daylight raid which was [pause] I can’t tell you, can I?
HB: You can.
AW: It’s in my log isn’t it?
HB: You can because I’ve got your logbook there.
AW: Which is quite something to see it, to actually see the bloody — where you were going.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Where am I? Where am I? Where am I? [pause] I’ll have to put my specs on.
HB: Here you are.
AW: Specs on.
HB: There you go.
AW: Sorry.
HB: I’ve got it. I’ve got it for you. Yeah. I’ll hold it.
AW: Yes. I had my eyes done. Started in January. I finished about a month ago.
HB: Right. Yeah. Well, they’re certainly working.
AW: I’m a sucker for — now where was it? [pause] Now then, I’m not sure which one of those two it was but it’s in the book. It’s in the book.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Hang on. Hang on. It’s in the book. That’s why I check this book.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Because they went on the same ops as we did virtually most of the time. You know what I mean? [pause] I’ll tell you the toughest. The toughest place we went to was a place called Wesseling in Germany.
HB: Wesseling.
AW: Yes. W E S S E L I N G. Wesseling. And I’ve never seen so many aircraft shot down. The flak as well as the night fighter interception on part of the route was absolutely enormous. We were over this place. Wesseling. It was an oil refinery or something and bloody hell the planes were going down all around us. They really were. And we never got a touch. Never got a scratch. It’s just fate isn’t it?
HB: Yeah.
AW: It’s fate.
HB: Yeah.
AW: There’s no accounting for it.
HB: Because —
AW: We lost a lot of aircraft that night.
HB: Yeah.
AW: If I remember correctly.
HB: Because I’ve had a quick look in your logbook there. You didn’t really get any damage until you were actually shot down.
AW: No. We did have. We were attacked on one other occasion but oh dear, what was it? It was used for — but oh God I’ve forgotten. We were, we really thought we’d had it.
HB: Right.
AW: It came out of nowhere, you know. Because the trouble with the Lancaster — its blind spot was below. You know, you didn’t, you know, you couldn’t, nobody could really see down below. You know. And there were all sorts of things thought about and tried in that respect but we had this bloody set to with this plane and I thought Christ we’ve had it. And in the end the mid-upper gunner who got killed — Johnny Kiesow. He got it.
HB: He shot it down.
AW: Yeah. It was never confirmed because we didn’t actually see it hit the ground.
HB: Right.
AW: But we saw. I got up in the astrodome because it was right by my station and I watched it and I saw it start smoking and then flames coming out of it and it went and it disappeared in the clouds. But never saw it actually crash and they won’t give it you, you know.
HB: No. No.
AW: They wouldn’t give it him.
HB: And that, you didn’t, you didn’t put that in your logbook did you?
AW: I can’t remember which one it was. I can’t remember which one it was now. It’s so long ago, quite honestly.
HB: Yeah. Well, it is a while ago [laughs]
AW: It was over, it was over, well yes [laughs] it was over France. I can tell you that much. Yeah.
AW: Now, where would it be?
HB: I couldn’t — I didn’t notice anything about that in your logbook when I flicked through it. No. No.
AW: I can’t remember which one it was to tell you the honest truth. I’m ashamed to say.
HB: Yeah. No. It’s, I mean you know it’s but that’s the thing about your guy’s logbooks.
AW: I mean and the next morning we went down to the flight office and see the aircraft and you could see bullet holes all through. Yet none of us were injured. None of us got hurt.
AW: Amazing, isn’t it?
HB: We were bloody close to it, you know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: It’s amazing really, you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And —
HB: So —
AW: But that was a blind spot with the Lanc was below.
HB: Yeah.
AW: A bad blind spot really. But there you are.
HB: Because the plane that got you had got one of these —
AW: I assume it was. What did they call them? The German term isn’t there? Is there a term for it? The German. Bloody hell.
HB: Was it nacht musik or something?
AW: Something. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Not quite like that. But yeah it already fires upwards.
HB: Yeah. It’s —
AW: And its almost certainly that’s what did get us.
HB: Yeah. So, when, when you were actually on that particular raid and you were then attacked —
AW: Yeah.
HB: Did you lose your air gunners then or did you — ?
AW: No.
HB: Or did they —
AW: I can’t remember but —
HB: Right.
AW: No. I don’t remember to be honest.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But I have a feeling it was afterwards.
HB: Right. When, when —
AW: Because I don’t remember anybody saying, you know.
HB: No.
AW: Anything about them being injured. Or anything at all.
HB: And obviously with you being wounded.
AW: Yeah. Exactly.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: So, I don’t really honestly know.
HB: Yeah. So, out of your crew —
AW: I’m the only one left.
HB: You’re the only one that’s left alive now. The — it was only the two gunners that were killed.
AW: Yes. That’s right. The mid-upper gunner and the rear gunner.
HB: And the rest of your crew landed.
AW: Yes.
HB: Parachuted.
AW: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
HB: And, and you say two of them managed to walk away and evade.
AW: Yes. Yes, that was quite an interesting story. In fact, he did write about it. George did. It’s funny. They landed by parachute of course.
HB: Yeah.
AW: They told me this afterwards. Years afterwards. Landed by parachute and —
HB: So that’s Arthur who’s known as George Toogood.
AW: Joe. Joe Toogood.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And Woody. And so Woody sort of walked down this lane. Got his parachute all collected up and so forth and buried it or did something. I don’t know what he did with it. And he thought, ‘Now, what the bloody hell do I do?’ So, he saw the milestones. You know France is full of milestones, isn’t it?
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Kilometre stones I should say. And he was just bending down like to try and see because it was dark still. A voice said, ‘Hello Woody.’ [laughs] He said, ‘I nearly shit myself.’ [laughs] All quiet, you know. You could just imagine, can’t you?
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Oh dear. Oh dear. So, anyway —
HB: So, that was the bomb aimer and the navigator.
AW: Anyway, and that’s quite an interesting story actually.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: The trials and tribulations. They walked in to Switzerland which is some way to walk. They walked at night when they possibly could and they hid in haystacks. They ate all sorts of bloody stuff because they were starving. They even knocked up people. Took a chance. They were so desperate for something to eat and a proper nights’ rest. You know. They knocked up French people who didn’t trust them and that sort of thing. You know what I mean? It was quite interesting.
HB: Yeah.
AW: They finally got to Switzerland. They had a bloody good time there. Food. Food. You know, fantastic.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Absolutely fantastic. So, they got away with it and they —
HB: So you’ve got, the two Canadians you’d got in your crew. Could either of them speak French?
AW: No.
HB: Oh.
AW: No.
HB: Oh right.
AW: No. Not to my knowledge. No. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t.
HB: So, then, so they got to Switzerland with no language skills whatsoever.
AW: That’s right. Whether they knew a bit of French.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Being from Ontario and around there you know. Quebec is the big place for French, isn’t it?
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: I don’t know. But they had some trials and tribulations. And some near misses I think as well. But they made it anyway. But the Swiss weren’t very receptive at all. They had a hell of a job getting into Switzerland when they got there.
HB: Oh.
AW: Yeah. I’ve got that story. I don’t know if I’ve got it unfortunately. I don’t know what happened to it.
HB: So they’ve, so —
AW: They had quite a job. The bloody Swiss were most suspicious and wouldn’t —
HB: Yeah.
AW: Wouldn’t let them in and so forth. But eventually they had them in and they were in a little hotel up in the mountains overlooking the lake and God knows what else. You know. I said, ‘Some of us have got it made.’ [laughs]
HB: Yeah. Yeah. You were in —
AW: There was me suffering.
HB: And you’re in, you’re in a basement in Nancy.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that was, that was being, coming to the end of those sixteen ops.
AW: Yes.
HB: Obviously they’re going through Europe. And you were just, you were telling me about how your mum and dad got to know through the pilot. Your mum got to know through the pilot.
AW: Oh yes. Yeah. Well, they hadn’t heard anything officially and my dad kept writing and that sort of thing. You know. There were no phones.
HB: I think you’ll have to explain how your pilot actually got back to England.
AW: Oh, well yes. As I say he was in Eastern France. A Yank. And of course they could hear gunfire and so forth getting nearer and nearer. And he knew what it was. It was the advance, you know. And he must have known also it was the Yanks in that part of the, France. And he got a bicycle. I don’t know whether he had use of that while he was with this farming family and he got off and he cycled and met the Yanks. And met up with the troops and so forth and they saw him safely through the lines sort of thing. The next thing he knows he’s back in England and he went back to the, to the squadron. And after a while he had a, he was granted a leave and I think it was a fairly long leave of absence. Then he was instructed to go back to the Pathfinder squadron. And that’s where and he did — I don’t think he did a full tour. He did a few ops with them with a different crew.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Which I didn’t like.
HB: No.
AW: I didn’t like that. The fact that he, you know he was going some but there you are, you know. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s stupid really.
HB: So he came, so he came back to England.
AW: Yes.
HB: And he’s heading back for this and he’s got a bit of leave and he ends up in —
AW: What’s the name of the —
HB: In Birmingham. Walking down your front path.
AW: Oh yes. With my mum. Yeah. As I say so he stayed with them two or three nights. And I told you about the tomato didn’t I?
HB: Yeah. Well, yeah.
AW: [unclear]
HB: I think, I think you probably, you know, there’s your mum.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Standing looking out the window.
AW: That’s right.
HB: And this big handsome American turns up.
AW: Yeah. She saw this big tall fellow at the gate because we had a fairly long front garden. And she thought, ‘Oh, he’s in uniform. American uniform.’ And she thought, ‘That’s Bill. It’s got to be Bill,’ because she knew he was tall and so forth. She’d never seen him. And she rushed to the front door and almost dragged him into the house she said. Just opened it. There’s some news of me. And he had news from me. Apparently, there was a grapevine somewhere when he was living with this family. He’d heard that one of the crew had got a broken leg and was taken to hospital. They thought it was in Nancy. They weren’t sure. And they were pretty sure it was me. So, he told her that I was ok but I’d got a broken leg and of course I’d worse trouble I think because of the plaster causing all my problems.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Not the broken leg. I mean that cured. It heals anyway.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And he stayed with them and they had a good time together. He took them out drinking and God knows what else. You know what I mean?
HB: Yeah.
AW: So he enjoyed himself. And finally when he was posted back to the squadron he went to a Pathfinder squadron.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And he had another crew. So, I assume, I don’t know, he probably took the part of some other pilot who had been killed or something or lost in some way. And he took over this crew.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And I’ve even seen a photograph of it. Don’t like them [laughs]
HB: Nicked your pilot [laughs] Stole your pilot.
AW: That’s right. Stole him.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s ok. So when you’ve, you were coming to the end of your time in East Grinstead and at some stage obviously you were discharged. I think you said fifteen, sixteen months or something.
AW: Yes. It was.
HB: And you were, so you were discharged from East Grinstead. From —
AW: That’s right.
HB: Archibald McIndoe’s —
AW: That’s right.
HB: Thing. And you, where did you go back to then?
AW: I went back to the original place I’d worked at as an office boy.
HB: No. Sorry. I mean did, did you go back to squadron before, before you were —
AW: No. I went afterwards.
HB: Right.
AW: I went to have a look over it to see.
HB: Yeah. So, you were demobbed from East Grinstead.
AW: Well, I had to go. I was at home. They sent me home on leave.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Pending discharge sort of thing.
HB: Right. Yeah.
AW: And then I had a letter saying I was — my, my commission had ended on such and such a date.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I can’t — well I think I’ve got it somewhere.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And then I had instruction to go to Hednesford I think it was. In the Black Country. Where they had [pause] with all the suits.
HB: Oh.
AW: What do you call it?
HB: Your demob suit. Yeah.
AW: Oh God.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I hated that. Hated it.
HB: Tell me what hat? What hat did you get, Arthur?
AW: I got —
HB: A trilby?
AW: I don’t think I did get one. I don’t think I wanted one. You know. I’ve been used to wearing of course the old officer’s cap.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But I didn’t fancy trilbies and things. I don’t think I bothered with that.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But it wasn’t very far from Birmingham. It was Hednesford or somewhere like that where they set up this discharge sort of camp, you know. And oh, it was bloody awful. All these bloody raggy suits and boots and oh gee.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Horrible. Not used to it.
HB: So, so you obviously went through there and you got your demob.
AW: Yeah.
HB: And you then, you’re looking for work.
AW: Well, my firm where I’d worked as an office boy but I left them to go to work at Castle Bromwich aeroplane factory. I told you, didn’t I?
HB: Yeah.
AW: Did I tell you about that?
HB: Yeah.
AW: Because Sheila worked there.
HB: Yeah.
AW: That’s why I went.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But the original firm I worked for as an office boy in Colmore Row someone got to know that I was home and wrote and said the position was there for me if I wanted it. So, I went back there. Biggest mistake I ever made really. Well, I felt it was bloody awful. I told you there was only about five of us on the staff anyway and so during the war while I’d been away and the others had been away they’d only had youngsters and the bloody records and things had gone to pot. You know what I mean? And an insurance company needs records.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Like nobody’s business. Oh, and I was, oh bloody hell. I thought I’ll never stand this. I can’t stand this. This is not what I want to do. And you know, do you know Birmingham centre?
HB: I know a little bit about Birmingham.
AW: Do you know Colmore Row?
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Well, I was in Colmore Row. Near this Edward Square where the Council House is and this sort of thing.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: And right opposite they’d opened a Milk Bar which was a fairly new things in those days. A Milk Bar. So, I said, ‘Oh, sod this.’ I used to go down in the lift and go down to the Milk Bar. Middle of the day or whatever time, you know. There was nobody else around. And it was such a, such a nightmare of a task to try and sort out on my own the bloody mess that the office records there had got in to. You know what I mean? And I thought, ‘Christ, I can’t stand this.’ And I thought, ‘I don’t know what the bloody hell so I’ll go in the Milk Bar and have a milkshake and think about it.’
HB: Yeah.
AW: But in the end I stuck it out for some time. Took exams. Insurance exams. Which I passed.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so forth. And [pause] and then I, as I say I was at, I never really settled in there after the war really.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But my brother, who’s now passed away of course, he was four years older than me he was the purchasing manager at — do you know Schrader Tyre Valves?
HB: Yeah. I’ve heard of Schrader. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: And he said, well he knew I was unsettled, he said, he said, ‘We’ve got a job going,’ he said, ‘Export manager. He said, ‘But I’ve nothing to do with it,’ he said, ‘But, you know.’ So, I applied for it and I got it. And then I travelled all over the world.
HB: Oh right.
AW: I’ve been all over the world. I was with them for a number of years ‘til I got fed up with travelling. I went to pretty well all, all parts of the world other than I never went to Australia or New Zealand but other parts — South America. You name it I travelled.
HB: Did you go back to Germany?
AW: No. I went to Germany but only for an exhibition that was on.
HB: Right.
AW: To do with driers and so forth.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know. But I did travel all over the world and you know on a large number of visits shall we say.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Got fed up in the end with that. And I thought, ‘Well, Christ I can’t stand this for the rest of my — ‘til I retire. It’s not possible.’ And so when I was at home, you know I spent about on an average at that time six months out of the twelve abroad. Which is a lot. My wife was on her own. Well, she had a good position herself but I mean she had no family. You know what I mean? And I thought this isn’t right. So, I began to look in the papers when I was at home for something worth going, going after you know. And I saw this advert and it was in the, I think it was the Birmingham Post and it said that they had a director who was due to retire from age who was in charge of all the commercial aspects of the company. And that they were looking for a suitable replacement. To train if necessary. So I thought I’ll have a go at that. Anyway, I got a letter to go for an interview and it was in the Black Country. Bloody hell. I didn’t know the Black Country. Do you? Do you know the Black Country?
HB: Well, a little bit.
AW: It’s a land of its own isn’t it?
HB: That’s when you need your language skills.
AW: Absolutely. Anyway, to cut a long story short I had to go for a second interview and I found this company. It was called Alloy Wire Company and they draw wire nickel chrome wires cold through diamond dies to, fine as your hair.
HB: Blimey.
AW: Absolutely, you know —
HB: Yeah.
AW: Quite, quite technically good stuff. I had to go for a second interview and I was getting on for fifty by this time, you know. And I thought, Christ I, you know. I can’t stick this ‘til I’m sixty five and retirement age. So I went and I had a second interview. And I got on very well at the second interview and they seemed very pleased with me. And it was for a take charge of all the commercial aspects of the company. You know. Books. The lot. Which I was capable of doing. I went to night school.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so forth in the earlier years and so forth. And I got the job and I spent the rest of my working life there.
HB: Oh right.
AW: Fantastic.
HB: When —
AW: So I spent about fifteen years there and what a crowd of —
HB: When did you, when did you actually marry Sheila?
AW: I married her in 1945.
HB: Brilliant.
AW: After the war. After I was out the RAF. She wanted to get married before and I said no. It wasn’t right.
HB: No.
AW: You know, I’d heard and know about young girl’s being left as widows.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know, and it —
HB: So you were still recovering from your injuries when you got married.
AW: Well, I was. I was on a walking stick. I didn’t show you the photographs but yes I was still using the walking stick.
HB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Yeah.
HB: That’s —
AW: We got married in Erdington which was a suburb of Birmingham.
HB: Yeah. Can I just take you back?
AW: Yes.
HB: To one, one part. Because while, while we were having our coffee you were showing me you’ve got a piece of your aircraft.
AW: Yes.
HB: And it was interesting. You touched on calling in on the family that looked after you when you first landed.
AW: That’s right. Which I did. Yes.
HB: So, so and I think you said it was the Dupre family.
AW: Dupre. That’s right.
HB: Yeah. So, just, just for the sake of the interview Arthur can you just go back over that when you go and you go with your brother.
AW: Oh yes.
HB: And the family.
AW: Well, yeah —
HB: And you go back.
AW: Well, I was in the car and we were driving. My brother and I both drove so we shared the driving. We were going in to to Italy on holiday.
HB: Yeah.
AW: We went to the West Coast of Italy and so I routed right around there. Spent the winter routing it out, you know. And finally —
HB: And had you been in contact with the family to say —
AW: That’s right. Through the letter with the help of my colleague who spoke French. And I told them I was arriving this date. Couldn’t give them an exact hour but it would probably just sometime early afternoon. And as I say I drove up in this little bloody hamlet it was and there was all the bunting out. They’d got Union Jacks and Tricolours out. And all the families, even little kiddies as I said who weren’t even born when I was shot down, they were all out. And there weren’t all that many because there was only a few houses sort of thing. A few very very old French farmhouses. And we had a hell of a time really. We really did, you know. I took a bottle of Scotch — Johnny Walker in those days was very popular. And they’d got the homemade what they called schnapps.
HB: Oh right. Yeah. Yeah.
AW: Made with the plums. Oh my God I floated.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And anyway they found us a little hotel nearby. It wasn’t too far away. We stayed the night and we saw them again the next day sort of thing, you know.
HB: And they were all there weren’t they?
AW: Yes. They were.
HB: Was it Rose? And —
AW: Rose and Henri. That’s right.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Henri was the chappie who found me with his sister Rose.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And he took me and he said, ‘Would you like to see where the aircraft crashed?’ I said I’d love to. That’s what I want to see as much as anything. So he said — and I was in this bloody Morris Minor. Bloody hell, you know. With all the stuff on the top. Overloaded and we went up this bloody, like a creek it was and I thought Christ we’re going to overturn and he seemed to be oblivious you know. Oblivious at that fact. And I was struggling with the bloody car and it was grinding and I thought, bloody hell we’ll never get up here without a fatal accident. Anyway, we finally got to the top and he showed me. There was the crash scene. A bit burned in places and that sort of thing. But they’d taken virtually everything away but there were one or two bits and pieces and that’s why I got that bit that I showed you. It was a bit bigger but I sawed a piece off for a young relative. And it brought a lump to my throat really when I saw it.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Knowing that some, two of the lads had been killed you know.
HB: Yeah. Did it, did it give you a sort of a sense of closure or anything like that?
AW: No. Not really. No. Because it was a few years afterwards so no. No.
HB: Right.
AW: It wasn’t like that but I I mean I wish, I wished afterwards but she’d have been terrified, I wished I’d have taken my wife with me up there but only Henri and I went.
HB: Right.
AW: Because he knew I think that it was going to be a bit of a rough ride and it bloody well was. I was frightened to death at the wheel. I was really. I thought we’re never going to turn this bloody, because we’d got stuff on the roof.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: I know it’s only a small car. It was a bloody Morris. Bloody hell.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Anyhow —
HB: Did you, did you ever find out where your two crew that were killed? Did you ever find out where they — where they were buried?
AW: No. Oh no. Yes. Only the one.
HB: Right.
AW: That was Woody.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Not Woody. The [pause] God, it was at Tremont. In the little local village cemetery.
HB: Right. Because you had, was it —
AW: I’ve got a photograph but I don’t —
HB: Yeah. Because you had Kiesow.
AW: Somewhere.
HB: Kiesow is the mid-upper and Rob Lough. Lough.
AW: No. It was Ross actually.
HB: Ross Lough.
AW: Ross Lough.
HB: And he —
AW: He was the rear gunner. It was his grave.
HB: In, in Tremont.
AW: Tremont, that’s right.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And it was fairly newish by comparison to most because, you know I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen French cemeteries but God some of the graves are so old.
HB: Oh yeah.
AW: And the stones.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You can hardly read the —
HB: Yeah.
AW: So, he’s buried there actually and when I got there there were actually some flowers. Fresh flowers. So they may have put them on there knowing I was going to arrive that day.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Which was ok. Ok. They did it anyway. So he’s buried there but you know I don’t know where. What happened to Johnny Kiesow.
HB: Yeah. Because I think, I think some of the Americans after the war they they actually.
AW: They moved them all didn’t they?
HB: They moved them all.
AW: They did yes.
HB: Yeah.
AW: So they may have done that and I don’t know where he is.
HB: Right.
AW: You know. I never found out about him.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And the same way I had great difficulty finding out what happened to my pilot.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Who died in 1979. Apparently. I don’t know what of or anything. Very mysterious isn’t it, you know?
HB: Yeah.
AW: I’m not sure that’s, you know, I think it’s a fact but I have to believe because I was told that was so much. Somehow it doesn’t — doesn’t convince me. You know what I mean?
HB: When you, when you look back now because you you’ve got very clear memories of, of your time in Bomber Command.
AW: I have.
HB: When you look back now what, what do you feel? What do you feel about your service with Bomber Command? How do you feel about your training and what you did?
AW: Well, about the training. I was a long while in training. I think it was getting on for two years. Something like that. All together. Before I finally reached the squadron, put it that way, you know. It’s a long time really. And different courses. Morse code. You name it. Machine guns. Although I wasn’t a gunner I had to go through Browning 303 bloody training and all that sort of thing. All on different courses. So, I went on a whole series of different courses and different things and I must admit the training was pretty good. That’s my opinion. You know. And I I did pretty well in virtually every subject I went on. That’s why I got my commission.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I learned later. I was on a course at Yatesbury. Morse code, and wireless. Not just Morse code. Wireless. Yatesbury. It was a very big, you know wireless teaching camp, you know. In Wiltshire. The hills and so forth. And I was in the lecture one day and somebody gave me the message that I was to report to the adjutant. So I thought, ‘Adjutant. I’ve done nothing wrong,’ [laughs] you know. Three steps sir.
HB: Yeah.
AW: So I went to see him and he asked me all sorts of questions about myself and my family and what I did and what my interests were and was I interested in sport and all that sort of thing, you know. And he said, ‘Ok,’ he said, ‘Go back to your lecture.’ Of course I had to put my best blue on for that. So I had to go back to the hut first and get changed into my working day blue. Not that I worked. It wasn’t work. It was —
HB: Yeah.
AW: You just listened to lectures and so forth. And that was it. And then I heard nothing more until I was at OTU. So it was some time afterwards. And I had another request to go and see, well ordered to see the adjutant there. And he told me I’d got my commission. That was it. And it turned out I had, well I had, I’d finished virtually, either in the virtually in the first two or three on every course I’d been on. You know.
HB: Right.
AW: And I think that, and then I suppose, well, I don’t know. Perhaps my attitude may have helped as well but —
HB: So, by the time you actually came to crew up you were already —
AW: We’d crewed up.
HB: Flying officer.
AW: It was at that. I think it was two or three weeks difference.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I got crewed up and then I got the bloody call and got my commission.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so I had a forty eight hour pass and with my mum went into town. We had to go to Austin Reeds and all this because they, they kept ready-made uniforms.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And they’d alter them a bit.
HB: Yeah.
AW: To suit whoever.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And they knew I was — I only had two days. I’d got to be back the next evening.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And we went all over the place. And I had a list about this bloody long. It was a foolscap sheet and it had got lists of all the things I needed. Even to a hairbrush. A comb. Everything was listed that I was required to have as an officer. You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And you can imagine what the bloody run around was can’t you?
HB: So when, so you’re very very early on in the crew and you’re an officer.
AW: And there’s only one other. That was Woody.
HB: And Woody was —
AW: Woody was already commissioned when he came over from, from Canada.
HB: He was commissioned from Canada.
AW: Yeah.
HB: Right. So, you’ve got an American pilot.
AW: Yeah.
HB: I mean obviously the mess system in the RAF if you’re on station, on the squadron you would be eating —
AW: In the officer’s mess.
HB: In the officer’s mess.
AW: The officer’s mess.
HB: And the rest of your crew.
AW: Was in the sergeant’s mess. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah.
HB: And how did you feel about that?
AW: That happened a lot. That happened a lot. That happened a lot.
HB: So how did, how did you, how did you manage to socialise then?
AW: We just went out in, when we had a night out in to Lincoln. Had a booze up [laughs] I remember the first one we went on. We were just crewed up. This at Upper Heyford. And we’d just crewed up and so we didn’t know each other. You know what I mean? So the practice was you’d book a room in this local pub which is on the cross roads, I can’t tell you the name. I don’t know the name. It was in the Oxfordshire area. And you booked, book a room and you rolled with the crates of beers you know and you sit there together and drink yourself silly sort of thing. I remember walking back across these bloody fields. Ploughed fields. We were up to here in mud and we were arm in arm. Seven of us singing to ourselves in the pitch dark and that was the first sort of booze up we had together.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Do you know what I mean?
HB: Yeah.
AW: It sort of broke the, broke the ice and that was it, you know. We got on very well together actually as a crew.
HB: Yeah.
AW: We really did.
HB: And so you kept up with the Association.
AW: That’s it.
HB: The 630 Association.
AW: That’s right.
HB: But you’re also a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
AW: Yes. That’s now finished virtually because we’re all too old. I mean too old. I mean if there was a reunion, at a pinch I could make it.
HB: Right.
AW: You know. But a lot of the lads couldn’t and I’m, the last I heard there was about thirty of us left, you know. That was a part of my life that I wouldn’t have missed if I could have helped it. In spite of what caused it.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Going to East Grinstead.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I wouldn’t have missed it because I met some wonderful guys as Guinea Pigs. Absolutely fantastic.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And some of the dos we had as reunions were disgraceful [laughs] they really were. You know. But wonderful.
HB: Absolutely.
AW: I met some lovely people in East Grinstead as well. They were wonderful people, you know. I think as you mentioned yourself earlier on McIndoe met the local people as much as he could and told them. I mean I wasn’t affected visually but a lot of the lads were very awful really to look at. Especially in the initial stages of their burns and grafting. And McIndoe put it, could put this over better than I can of course but he spoke to them and told them, you know not to stare too much but just to accept them as they were. And if they felt like inviting them into their homes for a coffee, one of the Guinea Pigs, if they met them in the town so much the better. And he showed, put the locals right in that way because initially when they’re badly burned they are a sight. You know. Especially if it’s the face. And that did the trick. Do you know what I mean? So the local people in East Grinstead, of course it’s swelled now, it’s a much bigger town than it was then but they all treated us marvellously. They really did. When we went into town for a drink which we did when we could [laughs] I was in a wheelchair for a lot of the time and they used to push me in the middle, bob up to the bar [laughs] you know.
HB: I think given the theme it was perhaps as well you were in a wheelchair.
AW: Well, perhaps it was. Yeah.
HB: Yeah.
AW: Yeah. Wonderful. And there was, as I say a nursing sister there. Oh, I’ve forgotten the name now I’m ashamed to say. She was a lovely lovely nursing sister. Scottish. And she had a lovely lilt to the way she spoke, you know. And as I say she, she persevered with this bloody foot of mine. Trying to get this poison out of it, you know because she knew that until that poison they couldn’t even start thinking about doing any graft working you know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And she bloody kept changing this and changing that and then as I say one day I dressed about three times every day and she took this dressing off and she said, ‘Look. Look.’ And there on the pad was some of the, she said ‘It’s started to come away, I think. We’ve got it I think.’ And she’d thought of it. It was bloody marvellous really.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And it was liquid paraffin and two other items I think. I don’t remember. But why liquid paraffin I don’t know. Whether that was to sort to bring the stuff away and make it stick to the, to the muslin I don’t know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: But I was some weeks at that. I had to have physiotherapy every day and oh, bloody hell.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I met my dear friend Ray Brook and he became a really close Guinea Pig mate.
HB: Yeah.
AW: He used to come up and stay with Sheila and I at Christmas time.
HB: Yeah.
AW: It was him who started me smoking again. The bugger. I’d packed it up, you know. Have you ever smoked?
HB: Yes.
AW: Well, you know what it’s like then.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I’d packed it up and hadn’t smoked for some weeks anyway. I looked up Ray and I asked him if he, if he’d thought about coming up. Staying with us for Christmas. Yeah. He’d love to. So he came to stay with Sheila and I. In Erdington we were then. And he kept lighting up you know. With his mitts. His badly burned mitts. ‘Red.’ You know. ‘No. No. Don’t tempt me. Don’t tempt me.’ You know. And he’d sort of throw one over and just tempt me. And he did. And in the end I just thought, ‘Well, I can take it or leave it now. I haven’t smoked for so many weeks.’ Could I hell? Had a fag and within a fortnight I was back on to what I was before. Do you know what I mean?
HB: I don’t know.
AW: But he was a lovely lovely friend. He really is —
HB: Yeah.
AW: And I lost touch with him. He was a very close friend. He used to come and stay with Sheila and I. He came from South London. His father spoke with a cockney accent but they were lovely lovely people and being only about thirty miles from East Grinstead they used to come and see him every Sunday afternoon. So I was included in the family circle.
HB: Right.
AW: Because I was very close to Ray.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And so I used to chat with his mum and dad. They’d bring him goodies and I was part of the family as far as that was concerned. So a really close good friend. And I’ve lost touch with him. I keep ringing his phone number and there’s no reply but he was very very ill the last time I heard him so I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t passed away.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know. Anyway —
HB: So —
AW: A great guy.
HB: Yeah.
AW: A great guy.
HB: We’ve come right through it. We’ve come to the end of the war. You’ve got, got your job. What, what do you feel? What do you feel your service with Bomber Command — what did you achieve? You know, with your service. Do you think?
AW: Achieve in what, what respect?
HB: Well, you know in the sort of in the general thing of your service during the war you’ve done your job in Bomber Command. So —
AW: Well, I’ll tell you what I did feel privately. I felt that I had achieved something in I’d got a commission and I’d only had an elementary school education. And I put that down mainly to the fact my extra activities educational wise after I left school. I went to night school and I had, I had a postal course with the Metropolitan College of St Albans. And every three days or so we used to have to send a test off like an exam and they would come back marked with red ink.
HB: Yeah. Yeah.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And I got through those exams. Those were like, for, mainly for insurance purposes. You know what I mean? But it was normal subjects as well including algebra and all that type of thing. You know what I mean? And I got through that very well and so I pride myself I must admit. I, when I was a young, young fellow before I went in the RAF I had two cousins one of whom lived in Italy. He was ninety six. He passed away not too long. Well, three or four years ago. And we used to go out together, you know. This was before I met Sheila. So we’d have the Raglan overcoats on, you know. Young boys of the town, you know and — but I decided I was going to get somewhere as far as my education was concerned. Which I knew I’d reached a limited level at elementary school. So, I went to night school and I took some bookkeeping and that type of thing, you know which stood me in very good stead later on.
HB: Yeah.
AW: That type of subject. Commerce in other words. Later on when I was looking for a position other than travelling around the world which I did for a number of years it all stood me in good stead. You know. And I wrote for this job as I say out in the Black Country and got the job. Didn’t understand a word anybody was saying to me for about three weeks [laughs] They have a language of their own. And I finished up as a director there.
HB: Right.
AW: So, I reckon I did pretty well as considering I only had an elementary school education.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I got my commission. Which helped me later on. You know, the fact that I’d been commissioned I suppose was different positions. But I finished up in the Black Country, and a director of this company called Alloy Wire Company which was nickel chromed stuff.
HB: Yeah.
AW: That sort of thing, you know. So, I thought — I live on my own. I regret very much because I loved my wife very dearly but as I said we never had any children. She was a wonderful wife. Never, never had a day’s illness until she had the one that killed her which was a brain tumour.
HB: Oh dear.
AW: You know.
HB: Yeah.
AW: And that was in the year 2000. That’s seventeen years ago now. So, so actually I suppose I did quite well during the war . Apart from meeting Sheila which was the best thing I ever did.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I did pretty well for myself really and as I say finished up as this director in the Black Country. And travelled around the world with them.
HB: Yeah.
AW: For some years. And then retired and we were quite happy. We moved in here because my cousin I’ve already mentioned to you living in the flat just down the way here. So we used to come and visit him, you see. Him and wife who was alive at that time. And so Sheila and I used to go and visit him about every month or so, you know and have a night playing cards or something and have a cup of tea or a bit of supper. And so we knew these flats very well and we talked about one day and we both agreed that when we retired we thought we’d possibly think of coming to live here. Which I did but by this time my wife had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and only given twelve months about, to live, you know. So she never had any enjoyment of this place really you know. We only lived just around the corner.
HB: Yeah.
AW: The next road up. And that was where we lived. We were in a bungalow we had there which we saw built from scratch and it’s still there now.
HB: Well, that’s —
AW: So I — yeah the war did me no harms really except that I’m now on my own. I had a wonderful wife and girlfriend to start with.
HB: Yeah.
AW: I’m lucky I got away with my life when it was — I came very very close to losing it and after that even closer to losing my foot. I’m very fortunate really. You know. I I live on my own. I’ve a good neighbour next door and one next door but one and we go out for a drink on Tuesday nights usually.
HB: We’re back to the drink theme [laughs]
AW: Just come back from holiday in Spain with Mike, next door.
HB: Right.
AW: He has a daughter owns a house there on the coast in Spain. That’s about the fourth or fifth time I’ve been there. So I don’t do badly really do I?
HB: No. Not at all.
AW: There are times when I am on my own. You know what I mean? You’re lonely but —
HB: Well, I think Arthur that’s —
AW: All of the advantages I’ve got I’m very fortunate really.
HB: Yes.
AW: And to live to ninety five I think is actually exceptional.
HB: Yes.
AW: In the circumstance. I came very close to losing my life.
HB: Yeah.
AW: On the 24th 25th of July 1944. So, I’m lucky to be here really.
HB: Yeah.
AW: You know.
HB: Alright. I mean, I’ve got to thank you Arthur because it’s it really has been an excellent experience for me.
AW: Well, I hope I haven’t bored you, Harry.
HB: No.
AW: You know.
HB: No. I mean.
AW: That’s the last thing I want.
HB: As I said to you we’re going to bring the interview to a close because it’s just coming up for 2.30pm.
AW: My God.
HB: But and I’m getting a bit concerned you’ve not had anything to eat. So —
AW: Well, neither have you.
HB: Well, that’s —
AW: Not that I’m very good cook or anything like that. Unfortunately I’m not.
HB: I’m going, I’m going to terminate the interview now.
AW: Ok.
HB: But I do have to thank you on behalf of the Bomber Command, International Bomber Command Digital Archive for a really interesting interview.
AW: Well, thanks for coming Harry. It’s been —
HB: It’s been a pleasure.
AW: It’s been great meeting you.
HB: A pleasure. Thank you
AW: And I hope we meet up for, or talk at least on the phone. You can’t get away from me [laughs]
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 Arthur Sidney Woolf
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harry Bartlett
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AWoolfAS170629, PWoolfAS1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:50:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
France--Nancy
Description
An account of the resource
Arthur Woolf was working in an office before he volunteered for the RAF. He was keen on flying and would cycle to Castle Bromwich airfield to watch the aircraft. He was accepted for aircrew training and became a wireless operator. After joining a crew he was posted to 630 Squadron at East Kirkby. On their sixteenth operation they were shot down by a night fighter. The two gunners were killed. Arthur was seriously injured and when he regained consciousness he heard voices which proved to be French people who took him to their farmhouse. He was eventually taken prisoner and was taken to hospital in Nancy. He and three others were left in the cellar when the hospital was evacuated and they were liberated by the Americans. On return to the UK Arthur was first sent to Wroughton RAF Hospital before being transferred to the care of Archibald McIndoe and his team and became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
630 Squadron
aircrew
crewing up
Dominie
evading
fear
final resting place
Guinea Pig Club
Lancaster
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
prisoner of war
promotion
RAF Dumfries
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wroughton
RAF Yatesbury
shot down
Stirling
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/700/10101/PBeasleyDG1727.1.jpg
3e6476a4caca883b605d7c511cc297fb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/700/10101/ABeasleyDG180326.2.mp3
d30a8491f63c56f32a83d26c6d06fe2d
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
Beasley, Doug
Douglas George Beasley
D G Beasley
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. An oral history interview with Doug Beasley (b.1925, 1876732 Royal Ar Force) and photographs of aircrew. He flew operations with 76 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Doug Beasley and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-11-03
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. 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
Beasley, DG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: So, I’ll just introduce myself. So, it’s David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Doug Beasley at his home on the 26th of, where are we? March 2018. So if I just put that there.
DB: Yeah.
DK: If I keep looking over I’m just making sure it’s working.
DB: It’s working.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Right. Yeah.
DK: It is. Sometimes get caught out with the batteries going or something.
DB: They’re quite good those aren’t they?
DK: They are nice. A very handy little —
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Little bit of kit that. Right. So, if I can just ask you —
DB: Yeah.
DK: What were you doing immediately before the war?
DB: Well, I, I was still at school when war was declared but in, when I was [pause] yeah I left school and when I was sixteen I started work in, in a company called British Glues and Chemicals Limited.
DK: Oh right.
DB: And I was studying really accountancy. I also was in the Air Training Corps immediately I was sixteen. And that meant that as soon as I was eighteen I went to, to the Aircrew Reception.
DK: Right.
DB: Selection.
DK: Yeah.
DB: People.
DK: Was the Air Force your first choice then?
DB: Oh yes. Yeah. Well, I was in the Air Training Corps.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And the, three months later I was in the RAF. And the reason was, I was accepted as pilot, navigator, bomb aimer which everybody wanted to be and they said, ‘But it will be at least a year before you join up.’ And I said, ‘Well, all my friends have gone into the RAF as well.’ And the new position of flight engineer was just coming in.
DK: Right.
DB: And they talked, well I don’t say they talked me into it but you acted as second pilot anyway.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So, so —
DK: If I could just take you back a bit.
DB: Yeah.
DK: What was the first things you had to do when you joined the Air Force? Because presumably there was a bit of square bashing going on or something. Or —
DB: Well, yeah, the first thing was I joined up at of all places Lord’s Cricket Ground.
DK: Right.
DB: And thirty thousand of us turned up there. And as I’m a cricket fan I’m part of the history of Lord’s, you see.
DK: Oh excellent.
DB: So, and we —
DK: You, have you ever been out to bat there, Doug?
DB: Hmmn?
DK: You’ve not been up to bat. No. No.
DB: No. No. No. Nothing like that but —
DK: That’s what I always wanted to do.
DB: There’s a special plaque up in Lord’s Cricket Ground.
DK: Yes. I’ve seen that. Yeah.
DB: So we were there for three weeks and then funnily enough I was, I then went to the Initial Training Wing which was [pause] I found all these things.
DK: Ok.
DB: Which was at Torquay.
DK: So if just say this for the recording then.
DB: Yeah.
DK: So you were at Number 3 Initial Training Wing.
DB: Yeah.
DK: C Flight of number 2 Squadron. And that was in October 1943.
DB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: So whereabouts are you then? Are you —
[pause]
DK: Ah.
DB: The names there as well.
DK: You haven’t changed much.
OJ: I couldn’t find him earlier [laughs]
DK: So they were all sort of the same age as you then were they?
DB: Well, no they weren’t.
DK: Oh right.
DB: I was explaining to my grand-daughter a lot of them were policemen.
DK: Oh.
DB: And they were not allowed to join until they were thirty years old.
DK: Right.
DB: So I found myself, all that back row were policemen basically.
DK: They do, and now you’ve said they do look a lot older don’t they?
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And —
DK: So how old would you have been in October ’43?
DB: I was just, I was just eighteen then.
DK: Eighteen.
DB: Yeah. Eighteen and a quarter. Yeah.
DK: So presumably they couldn’t join earlier because they were in a Reserved Occupation.
DB: Yeah. They couldn’t join earlier.
DK: Yeah.
DB: No. I mean we were you know the younger ones. I don’t know how many were in the same category as me but I always seemed to be about the youngest at the moment, you know.
DK: Right.
DB: But I think it was because of this Air Training Corps I was in. As soon as I was eighteen I was interviewed and then three months later I was in the RAF. And that was when I joined up to Lord’s Cricket Ground you see.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So 3 ITW was based where?
DB: Torquay.
DK: Torquay. Right.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And we were there for about six weeks I think. Yeah.
DK: And what used to happen at Torquay then?
DB: Well, that was, that was when they really [laughs] they really, you got, you got a pretty awkward flight sergeant looking after you and they were basically getting us absolutely fit. There was a lot of running going on etcetera. But it was your initial training for the RAF.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. On that.
DK: Was it something you took to well at the time?
DB: Well, yes. Well, there’s a lot worse places than, to be than Torquay. So that was quite interesting. Yeah. And then after that I started my basic training which was at St Athans.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Which was one of the largest, well I think it was the largest place in the, outside Singapore. Something like that anyway. And I was there then for, oh that was quite intensive training. Yeah.
DK: And was that training to be a flight engineer?
DB: Oh yeah. Very definitely.
DK: So you didn’t, you said you tried to join as a pilot.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Bomb aimer. Navigator.
DB: Yeah.
DK: But was turned down for that then presumably.
DB: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t really turned down. I could have taken it if I was prepared to wait twelve months.
DK: Right.
DB: But as I mentioned most of my friends had joined the RAF.
DK: Right.
DB: And, well I didn’t want to miss it.
DK: Yeah.
DB: I know that sounds a bit foolish but —
DK: So, what was the training like then at St Athans? What did you have to do?
DB: Well, it was, it was very comprehensive really because I wasn’t ever trained as an engineer. But of course the most important subject you had to be good at was mathematics because in the air you did everything.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And so there was a lot of basic training on engines and stuff like that but what, what was really always mentioned was it’s what we had to do in the air.
DK: Right.
DB: If things went wrong. And of course there was a lot of basic training because the pilot and myself were the liaison group with the engineers. Ground engineers. So it was pretty intensive. The training.
DK: So, at St Athan did they actually have aircraft that you worked on or was it all parts?
DB: Yeah. Well, there were aircraft there but part of the training was we went to Speke Airport.
DK: Right.
DB: Where at that time they were producing Halifax aircraft which I was on, and so we saw, saw them in production then and I think we spent about three or four days there.
DK: Right.
DB: Really learning all about the thing. And, and that was the first time I saw a lady pilot, you know taking off.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Because it was an airport.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Well, it still is. Liverpool Airport now. So that was quite an interesting background. And then after that I went straight to the Heavy Conversion Unit. I mean, and that’s, that was immediately on to four engine aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And the flight engineer, we were all flight engineers there in the Heavy Conversion Unit and I think I was there a good two or three months ahead of the crew.
DK: Right.
DB: Because the ordinary crew went to Operational Training Units, and what happened was then they came to the Heavy Conversion Unit and we flight engineers all lined up and, and the respective pilots came along and —
DK: Picked one of you.
DB: Picked. Well, it was quite interesting with mine because he was a Canadian and he was thirty one years old. And he just said, ‘What’s your name?’ So, I said, ‘Beasley.’ He said, ‘No. Christian name,’ you see.
DK: Right.
DB: So I said, ‘Doug.’ He said, ‘My name’s Doug.’
DK: Yeah.
DB: So we had something in common straight away. And so it was a funny form of selection.
DK: Yeah.
DB: What crew you were in.
DK: Do you think that, do you think that worked well then with the pilot just coming up and choosing his flight engineer?
DB: Well, it did as far as we were concerned. Yes. I know of no complaints at all. We all, we all got on very well. The two gunners were British. One was Welsh.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And one was English.
DK: Can you remember your pilot’s name? Doug?
DB: Yeah. Kerr. K E R R.
DK: Kerr.
DB: I’ve actually as a matter of interest I only found this the other day myself but it’s, I’ve got somewhere here photographs of them all. All —
OJ: I thought I’d be nosey.
[pause]
DK: Oh wow.
DB: That’s, that’s the same as that one.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: That was one of my pals. That was when I first joined up.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But that was the, that was the pilot. Kerr. Pilot Doug Kerr. This was July 1944.
DK: Just, just for the recording.
DB: Yeah.
DK: That’s Kerr. K E R R.
DB: K E R R. Yes.
DK: Dg Kerr.
DB: The navigator was Alec Marshall.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And then that was the bomb aimer. Jerry Lowe.
DK: Jerry Lowe. Yeah.
DB: The wireless operator was Mel Magee. And these, these were the two gunners.
DK: So the two gunners.
DB: Yeah.
DK: The mid-upper gunner was?
DB: Vic Hewitt.
DK: Vic Hewitt.
DB: Yeah. And Wally Hearn.
DK: Wally Hearn.
DB: Yeah.
DK: That was the rear gunner.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. So I only found this the other day.
DK: Wow.
DB: So that was quite interesting.
DK: That’s superb that.
DB: I think, I think it just goes on to all sorts. Well, I think there’s another one here. This is with the crew.
DK: Right.
DB: That’s me there. And this was another part there. This is the —
DK: That’s the Halifax in the background there, isn’t it?
DB: That’s right.
DK: This was the Heavy Conversion Unit at Marston Moor.
DB: Yeah. That’s right.
DK: The Heavy Conversion Unit at Marston Moor.
DB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: I’m just saying this loudly for the recording.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Oh wow.
DB: So, and then the, you were at Heavy Conversion Unit for, well I was the lucky one. I had already had experience of the Halifax and they hadn’t you see.
DK: No. So what had they trained on then before?
DB: Well, they were, on Operational Training Unit was on Wellington aircraft.
DK: Right.
DB: And so there was six of them in the Wellington. Training. And I just didn’t go into Wellingtons at all. I went straight on to the, where the flight engineer had to be you see. Yeah.
DK: So was it the Heavy Conversion unit then the first time you actually flew?
DB: Yeah. Yes. And I was flying with, with well the trainee flight engineer people.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. And it was quite a hectic course you know because you were then taught how you had to handle the four-engine aircraft. Eight petrol tanks and all the, everything the flight engineer should know basically. So it was, it was quite a course. And then I, the rest had done ordinary flying but they hadn’t flown in a Halifax before.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So we had a trainee. An instructor for the pilot.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But nobody was with me. I was, I was on my own.
DK: You were on your own.
DB: Right from the word go.
DK: So how did you feel then when you had your first take off in a Halifax?
DB: Well, I had done.
DK: Yeah. Done it before. Yeah.
DB: I’d done plenty of flying before.
DK: Yeah.
DB: With, with the instructors.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So, so I did, you know but that time well I was I had to know it all, you know. And, and then the first time I flew with the crew I mean the, the rest of them they didn’t know what the flight engineer was for or anything particularly.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So that was when we started to form as a complete crew.
DK: Right.
OJ: And was that still when you were eighteen?
DB: Yes. I was. No. I was nineteen.
OJ: So you were nineteen then.
DK: Nineteen now.
DB: Nineteen.
OJ: Flying a plane at nineteen.
DB: No. I was nineteen by then. Yeah. Yeah.
OJ: Gosh.
DK: So your pilot then was quite, for most of the pilots quite a bit older then if he was in his thirties.
DB: Yeah. They called him pop.
DK: Yeah.
DB: He was naturally —
DK: The old man of thirty.
DB: Naturally grey haired.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But he was, he was a wonderful character. Extremely good and we, you know while we were at Heavy Conversion Unit we learned our business really. What it all meant.
DK: So at Heavy Conversion Unit what were you doing? Were you going on cross country flights?
DB: Oh yes. We were doing day flights. Night flights.
DK: Yeah.
DB: The lot. And even one, one was dropping leaflets over enemy territory. Not, not anything too serious but in the end it counted as our first op.
DK: Right. Right. So your first operation was from the Heavy Conversion Unit.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And then of course what happened after we finished at Heavy Conversion Unit which I think it was August ’44 we then went to [pause] well, Holme on Spalding Moor.
DK: Right.
DB: Which was the 76 Squadron base. Previously 76 Squadron were in [pause] I said the name of the [pause] but it’s a famous —
DK: Linton on Ouse.
DB: Linton on Ouse.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And the famous one there was Leonard Cheshire you see.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So we were we were quite a famous Squadron because of him.
DK: You didn’t meet Cheshire there then?
DB: No. But at Holme on Spalding Moor, in the Memorial Gardens there is a special thing for him.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. That’s at Holme on Spalding Moor.
DK: Right.
DB: No. We never met him because by that time when I was flying he was, he was in the Pathfinder.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Pathfinder Force. And, and of course as you know he was in the crew that dropped the atom bomb.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And I think that was what made him do the work he did afterwards. So we then went to the Squadron and in pretty rapid time we, we did our first operation.
DK: Right.
DB: Which I think I —
OJ: One of these.
DK: The logbook.
DB: The logbook.
OJ: That.
DB: That’s the one. I think it was [pause] it was August I think if my memory is right.
[pause]
DB: 17th of August.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And these, these were the sort of —
DK: Right.
DB: Before. And that was our first operation on the 27th —
DK: So is that first op?
DB: So we were there say from the 7th, after about a week.
DK: Is this a week?
DB: No. I’ve, this is when I was just flying as the engineer.
DK: Right.
DB: No crew.
DK: So just for the recording then —
DB: Yeah.
DK: When you were at the Heavy Conversion Unit you were flying Halifax 2s and 5s.
DB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: And they were with the Merlin engines.
DB: Yeah. They were.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And then we went to the radial engines. So this is when I, my own crew, there’s the Marston Moor.
DK: So just for the recording again.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: It’s 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit at Marston Moor.
DB: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And, you know this is where I was learning my stuff. Second engineer.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Every time. And I flew with those people there. And then this was when I started doing the real, real —
DK: With your crew.
DB: Real. Yeah.
DK: So that’s between the 4th of July ’44.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And the 7th of August ’44.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Oh, no. Carry on. It’s the 12th. It’s the 12th, the 12th of August.
DB: Right through to that, yeah. We did about sixty one hours one way and another.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: In the Heavy Conversion Unit and they counted that one as an op you see.
DK: So your first operation then was the French coast.
DB: Yeah. 12th of August. Yeah.
DK: A bullseye.
DB: We were dropping leaflets and stuff like that.
DK: So that’s referred to as a bullseye.
DB: Yes. Yeah.
DK: This one.
DB: Yeah. It —
DK: Ok.
DB: And then this is when the real —
DK: Right.
DB: This is when we converted to the Halifax 3 so we had —
DK: With the radial engines.
DB: Yeah. You know, those first parts were basically learning.
DK: Yeah.
DB: With the radial engines.
DK: Did you find much of a difference between the Merlin-engined Halifax and the Bristol Hercules?
DB: No. Not really. The basics were the same as far as the flight engineer was concerned. I mean our main responsibility was looking after the fuel and keeping the balance of the aircraft right. So we were, we were, well I was always pleased. There was always plenty to do. You know.
DK: So that —
DB: Yeah.
DK: So the fuel systems were similar.
DB: In both.
DK: In both aircraft.
DB: Yes. Yeah. It was just the engines that were different.
DK: Yeah.
DB: There has always been an argument that the best aircraft of all was the Lancaster with radial engines. The Lancaster 2.
DK: 2, yeah.
DB: But well I noticed even last night they kept mentioning the Lancaster all the time and, but it’s the, it’s one of those funny things. It was the Spitfire all last night. No mention of the Hurricane, you know.
DK: The Hurricane. Yeah. Yeah.
DB: This always upsets us a little bit.
DK: Yeah. I’m not surprised.
DB: But that’s the way it goes and then —
DK: So you joined 76 Squadron on the 17th of August ’44.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And you’re flying your first operation on 25th of August ’44.
DB: Yeah. And that was —
DK: So that was an operation to Watten.
DB: Yeah. That was the, this was the V-1. The V-1 unit.
DK: I’ll spell that for the recording.
DB: That’s in Calais.
DK: That’s W A T T E N.
DB: Yeah. Watten. And, and that was, in fact you’ll notice it was in daylight, which was most unusual and they always say the first one is, is can be fatal. A lot of people went on their first op and this was quite hairy. We, in my diary we saw three aircraft shot down and we were hit by anti-aircraft fire and we lost an engine. So that was a good start, you know. And anyway we survived it and —
DK: So you came back on just three engines.
DB: Three engines. Yeah. And of course when we got back, when you land damaged it’s the pilot and myself with the ground crew and it was quite frightening, you know. What we saw there. But I’ve never forgotten what my pilot said. He said, ‘Well, one thing I’m pleased about is, we all did what we had to do.’ And I’ve never forgotten that.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But that was really what crews were all about.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So, so it was a good baptism in a way.
DK: Did you find that because of that danger you kind of bonded then as a crew? If you’re doing your, your part.
DB: Well, it did, it did a lot of good. Yes. I mean we all got to know each other reasonably well but not, not in, not in actual duties like that.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So, yes it did do a lot of good because it paid off, you know.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
OJ: And you were saying three planes got shot down. Were you the only ones that came back? Or how many others? How many others went out on that?
DB: Well, we didn’t lose any in our Squadron but there were three we saw shot down.
DK: From other Squadrons.
DB: We had to take evasive action when we lost an engine. Well, I mean it momentrally things aren’t right. You know.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And you know I’m, I’m saying to the pilot, ‘Feather the engine,’ and he does what he has to do but of course we’re taking evasive action as well and we found ourselves going over Dunkirk and I think I’ve mentioned that in the diary and we saw another one shot down there and so we were lucky.
DK: Yeah.
DB: We survived it. The first one.
DK: And that was flak that damaged the engine.
DB: Oh yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. I mean it was very, I mean they were heavily defended those V-1 sites and this was when it was really at its peak. The V-1s. And we did a lot of, a lot of French flying in those early stages. Yeah.
DK: So, obviously it’s just after D-Day, isn’t it, so?
DB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: So your, so your next operation then was two days later. The 27th of August.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And that was to —
DB: And that was a place called Homburg. Yeah.
DK: Homburg. Homburg.
DB: And again that was a daylight one as well. And then you’re, there are all sorts of things here. There was Le Havre, look. We went there.
DK: So, Le Havre on the 10th of September.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. I’ll just read these out for the recording.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So the 10th September Le Havre. 15th of September Kiel.
DB: Yeah. That was the first German one. Yeah.
DK: 20th of September Calais.
DB: Yeah.
DK: 23rd of September Neuss. Near Dusseldorf.
DB: Yeah. Near Dusseldorf. Yeah.
DK: Near Dusseldorf. That’s N E U S S.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Then where are we? 25th of September.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Calais.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And then 26th of September Calais again.
DB: Yeah. So it was quite, quite a busy month one way and another. Yeah.
OJ: Can I just take a look at [unclear]
DB: Yeah. And then we go in to sort of October.
DK: Ok.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Can I read those out for the recording?
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So 7th of October was Kleve. 9th of October — Bochum. 14th of October — Duisburg. 15th October — Wilhelmshaven. 25th of October — Essen. 28th of October — Westkapelle.
DB: Yeah. Its Walcheren Island.
DK: Walcheren Island. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then 30th of October — Cologne.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And then the 31st of October — Cologne again.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And those, those were all at night then were they?
DB: No. Where it’s in red they were at night.
DK: Oh right. Sorry. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. So it was pretty hectic going. And then November.
DK: So, November then.
DB: Yeah.
DK: 2nd of November — Dusseldorf.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Another back there. 6th of November — Gelsenkirchen. 16th of November — Munster.
DB: Yeah.
DK: 21st of November Sterkrade. S T.
DB: Sterkrade.
DK: Sterkrade.
DB: Yeah.
DK: S T E R K A E E and then 29th of November — Essen.
DB: Yeah.
DK: I’ll get back to those in a moment.
DB: Yeah.
DK: So what was, what was it like then? Operations actually over Germany?
DB: Well, all, they were always heavy flak. You were lucky if you didn’t get anti-aircraft fire and, of course it always looks a lot worse at night. Although having said that that first operation we did where we lost an engine it wasn’t much fun in daylight when when, when you’re under a lot of pressure. The main problem at night was, I mean I think there was one of those, I think it was one of the Cologne ones where we were the thousand aircraft and the mind boggles. A thousand aircraft over the target in twenty minutes.
DK: Yeah.
DB: You know, its —
DK: Could you, could you actually see much at night though from your aircraft?
DB: Well, at night time there were no lights on or anything like that. In daylight sometimes you were supposed to be flying at say twenty thousand feet and sometimes the aircraft couldn’t get up to that. Not necessarily your own. So you could have some below that if the aircraft wasn’t as good as, we were lucky. We had fairly new aircraft. These Halifax 3s. So sometimes we seemed to be above but it was not much fun if they opened the bomb doors.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And a lot of that happened of course and hit aircraft below them. So none of the German targets were, were easy, you, you, because the fighter force was pretty engaged at that stage, you know. So there was very seldom. It was either heavy anti-aircraft fire and of course where the fighters were concerned they tend to come up underneath you.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. They were, they were quite good.
DK: Can you recall actually seeing any German fighters?
DB: Oh yeah. We were hit by one. I’d have to look in my diary —
DK: Yeah.
DB: To see which one it was but we, we were attacked by a night, a Junkers 88. In fact, if you go in there.
OJ: Do you want me to have a look with me?
DB: What are we up to?
DK: Up to 29th of November.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. If you —
OJ: That’s December.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember. It’s in the diary.
OJ: November the 18th or was it November the —
DB: Well —
DK: Would it be in the logbook somewhere?
DB: Yeah. It’s in the, no it wouldn’t be in the logbook I don’t think.
DK: [unclear] ok.
OJ: That’s in to November.
DB: If you can —
DB: That’s November 6th
DK: Oh, here we go. It is in the logbook actually. 12th of January 1945. Attacked by Junkers 88.
DB: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s when it gets [laughs] Yeah. Well, that’s good I put it in there. Hanover. Yeah. I thought. I said Cologne didn’t I? So that was pretty, pretty you know it was mainly German targets and it was about that time when we, you know a tour of operations was thirty.
DK: Right.
DB: But the weather was so bad and I really genuinely mean that. Terrible the weather was. And we took off sometimes when, when we shouldn’t have done one way and another. And, and we the weather, the weather was so, so bad that what they did instead of doing thirty they brought in a points system. So you had three points for French targets, four points for German targets and because of that instead of doing thirty we ended up doing thirty eight, you see. And this was all because of the bad weather. The replacement crews couldn’t come in. And if you look at the last eight that we did and you’ve got to remember psychologically we’d got away with it —
DK: Yeah.
DB: For the thirty. And this coincided with the Ardennes Offensive and we, that was, you know that was before we’d done thirty. When the Ardennes Offensive was on. We went to a place called St Vith, and it was, we were going to take off on the Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and finally took off on Boxing Day because of thick fog. And we took off in thick fog because we had to go to St Vith. It was so critical. This was when the Germans were —
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Getting the upper hand. And it was, it was very heavily defended but it was a daylight as well and we, I think well we saved the day for them.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Because it was the railway station we took and they were reinforcing.
DK: Right.
DB: Reinforcing the troops.
DK: And that was to support the American troops on the ground was it?
DB: Well, yes.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And it was very difficult. And when we got, when we were going back we still couldn’t land at Holme on Spalding Moor because the fog was still thick, and so we got diverted to East Fortune and I always remember it. We’d never been to East Fortune. This is in, in Scotland and I, I remember saying to the pilot, ‘There’s no going around again,’ because it was pretty hairy. We were on, we were, you’re not ever quite empty but it was quite serious. Anyway, he was a good pilot and we landed.
DK: So you were down to your last drop of petrol.
DB: Yeah. And in fact we had thirty gallons left. Which is nothing in a four engine aircraft.
DK: No.
DB: And then we went back and the weather was, was, that would be around Christmas time when we did the St Vith one.
DK: Yeah.
DB: When we had to go. Then we got onto the last date and again it was, it was, the weather was unbelievably bad. And this was when the Russians were asking Bomber Command to help them out and because, you know they were winning but they didn’t have the heavy bomber force and we were, we were attacking troop concentrations and everything else. And the trip we did was a place called [pause – pages turning] Let me just get the page. These were the last eight there.
DK: Yeah.
DB: We, we went to, to Böhlen which, we were the diversionary flight for Dresden.
DK: Right. Yes. Yeah.
DB: And it’s only recently I realised that. So look at that flying time. Eight hours twenty minutes you see.
DK: Eight hours twenty minutes in the air.
DB: Yeah. And so sometimes when you’re the diversionary raid that is to draw the fighters away. But it, I don’t think they were expecting it. The Germans. So in a funny sort of way we, we got away with it. Then if you notice the next night, again to help the Russians, eight hours.
DK: To Chemnitz.
DB: Eight hours five minutes again.
DK: Yeah.
DB: So those last ones, this is, I mean we were on borrowed time in my book. But you know you notice there that there’s the thirty eighth one. So the last two were daylight ones.
DK: Right.
DB: So it’s —
DK: So then just go through them. Böhlen was on the, where are we? That was on the 13th of February.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And then Chemnitz on the 14th of February.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And then the last two. 23rd of February — Essen.
DB: Yeah.
DK: 24th February.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Near Dortmund. Kamen.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. That was our last one.
DK: Both daylight.
DB: Then. Yeah.
DK: So what was it like flying daylight at that stage?
DB: Well, the last two were daylight. I mean Essen is always a worry because it was very heavily defended etcetera and they weren’t, I mean the Germans were suffering a bit then with, there wasn’t much fighter opposition towards the end. But funnily enough saying that after I finished flying, I don’t know whether this has been mentioned before but I think it was in April our, our Squadron were badly affected. The Luftwaffe made their last, and they followed the bombing, bombing fleet back to bases and quite a few of my friends they were shot down over, over our own ‘drome. And I think in total we lost about twenty aircraft that night but that was the last fling of the Luftwaffe.
DK: Yeah.
DB: They never gave up.
DK: No. No.
DB: Unbelievable really. So that virtually covers the flying part. But the other thing which is relevant is after I finished flying I became an instructor at Operational Training Units.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And this is where it was Wellington aircraft and it was where my crew trained. All of them. And that, that was interesting. And I think it was in 1946 it was my first time I’d ever been to Southampton and I was nominated to be the air sea rescue officer.
DK: Right.
DB: And the course was at Calshot, near here. And it’s something I’ll never forget because it was about a month’s course and of course you realise what you didn’t know when you were flying. But on the, towards the end of the course we were all told we were going to have some very important visitors, and it was McIndoe’s.
DK: Right.
DB: The famous surgeon.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And what he’d arranged is we were all aircrew on this course, and this was part of his mental treatment and we were told, each one had a gorgeous nurse with him, and I think it was a coachload that came. And I’ll never forget it as long as I live. It’s very difficult talking to people who haven’t got a face basically. But they were talking as, as if they because that was his secret. He said, ‘You’re no different now than you were before.’
DK: Yeah.
DB: And mentally he’d got them and they were conversing and of course it was very clever, with other aircrew. You know. And it was very upsetting for all of us.
DK: Yeah.
DB: As you can imagine. But that was something which is very relevant to the flying.
DK: Did he —
DB: To experience that.
DK: Until that time then it hadn’t really crossed your mind about what could happen then and the dangers and the fires and whatever.
DB: Well —
OJ: Did you kind of not think about it?
DB: I think it’s it —
OJ: Yeah.
DB: I think its [pause] yeah.
DK: [unclear]
DB: Of course we’d lost, we’d lost crews.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And funnily enough it was only just recently — three aircraft were lost and in three cases they were sharing our billet. The crew.
DK: Right.
DB: And that’s pretty awful you know but you’ve got to remember they weren’t dead. They were missing.
DK: Right.
DB: I know now what’s happened to them but you didn’t know. So it is very difficult to [pause] I think it’s because you think it’s never going to happen to me, but it comes pretty near to it when you’re asked to leave the billet and then they collect all their belongings.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And the same night there’s a new crew in.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. It’s very very difficult to comprehend that sort of thing.
DK: How did you get on with the new crew when they came in? Did you, was it more difficult to make friends with them then?
DB: Well, no. No. Well, you were just aircrew.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And, and I mean they were always in awe of us if, particularly when we’d done about twenty five. They always reckoned if you could get to twenty you stood a chance.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Did you find then, did you feel you were more confident then, the more operations you did?
DB: Well, now it’s very, yes you’re more confident as a crew. Yeah. Because you knew each other inside out.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Sort of thing. But I wouldn’t say you were any more confident because it might be your turn.
DK: Yeah.
DB: You know. And I always felt sorry for the ones who had done twenty plus and then went missing.
DK: Yeah.
DB: That sort of thing. And the worst ones for us were that last eight. And look, look where they were. You know. So that made it worse.
DK: Can I just take you back to, as I say this is the 5th of January 1945.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And this is Hanover and you’re attacked by a Junkers 88.
OJ: That’s Jan 14th.
DB: Yeah.
DK: So you’re in Halifax 3 NA218.
DB: Yeah. What date was that?
DK: It was the 5th of January. January 1945.
DB: 5th of January.
OJ: That’s Jan 14 —
DB: Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Hanover. Yeah.
DK: Do you do you want to read it out?
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yes, I will do.
DK: Yeah.
DB: “Tonight our target was Hanover. This was a trip on which we were over enemy territory for quite a long while. Everything was ok until we started our run up.” That’s to the target. “A Junkers 88 attacked us from a head on position and slightly below and raked us with machine gun and cannon fire. It was shaky for a minute or so and we were hit but nothing vital had been put out of action. On return we found damage to the wings, fuselage and starboard rudder. In places it was just like a pepper pot. When one shell went right through the starboard inner air intake but by some chance it never hit the propeller. We considered ourselves very lucky as nobody was hurt. The flak was moderate at the target and we dropped our eight and a half thousand pounds of bombs through cloud.” So it, but one remarkable thing was I sat behind the pilot and, and the bullets, we heard them, you know. They were that close. And the pilot was just a slight bullet —
DK: Grazed.
DB: Grazed.
DK: Grazed. Yeah.
DB: So that was how close it was.
DK: Yeah. And that was in his neck.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: That was how close it was. But of course we didn’t know that ‘til, in fact he didn’t really know it until we got back that he was bleeding a bit, you know. But that was a bit shaky because again you had to take evasive action and if my memory is right we went down from about twenty something thousand feet to about ten thousand feet taking evasive action. And of course at the end of that you don’t know quite where, where you are and the navigator eventually gave a course and it, it turned out to be a reciprocal course which is easily, easy to do. But fortunately one of the gunners said, ‘I think we’re going the wrong way,’ [laughs] and [pause] it wasn’t a joke at the time.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But we, we successfully, that’s why you know, you rely a hundred percent on your crew and it was all put to right in no time at all. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And of course I come into my own when, something like, because sometimes what I think it was on that particular one we couldn’t make contact with the rear gunner and that was my job. I was the roaming one, you know.
DK: Right. Yeah.
DB: And had to go. But everything was alright you know. But so it was tricky. Yeah.
DK: So when you can’t hear anything from the rear gunner what do you have to do?
DB: Well, I just go down and I’ve still got, you know I’ve got all my equipment including the intercom and all that and when I, when I got down there I think in in the excitement he’d obviously taken evasive action and his thing had just come out.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. So it was nothing to worry about.
DK: Right.
DB: But it wasn’t easy. I had to go up and down the plane a few times because once we had [pause] well, it could have been quite serious. We, we, you know when the bombs have gone and on this particular one there was one sticking. And that’s again, I have to be the one who goes down to the bomb bays and in this case it wasn’t noticeable at all. And then, also to make certain that all the bombs have gone when you get over the Channel on the way back you open the bomb doors again and, everything all right. The next morning, ‘Will Flying Officer Kerr and Flight Sergeant Beasley report to the commanding officer’s, immediately.’ And we didn’t know what it was for. And this this was when this thousand pound bomb had, was somehow icebound or, or I don’t know what it was. And of course after we’d you know opened the bomb doors and everything else and of course what happens is when you landed at night they don’t open the bomb doors ‘til the morning.
DK: Right.
DB: And the ground crew immediately spotted this.
DK: So the thousand pound bomb was still in the bomb bay the next morning.
DB: Yeah. It was hanging loose.
DK: Loose.
DB: And of course, I mean we, you know you’re not quite on Christian name terms with the commanding officer but he’s a pilot like.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Like an aircrew like yourself and he said, ‘Well, I can’t say you’re inefficient,’ he said, ‘Because you’ve done —’ I think it was about twenty odd ops we’d done. And he said, ‘These things happen.’ But it was a bit disconcerting you know.
DK: So you wouldn’t have known. Well, you didn’t know you were landing with a bomb on board.
DB: Yeah. Well, we landed with a loose con. Yeah. Yeah. Or probably that loosened it but it certainly wasn’t visual to spot it.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. So how did you visually see the bombs? Was there something you looked down.
DB: Well first of all the bomb bay was open and then you get a pretty good view. You knew where the bombs were.
DK: Right.
DB: Supposed to be. It wasn’t easy. It was quite easy to make a mistake and the saving grace was always opening your bomb doors over the ocean.
DK: So if there were any hung up they’d drop.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: They, and we never, we’ll never know to this day what the real story was but we ended up with one loose one in the bomb bay.
DK: I bet that gave the ground crew a bit of a shock the next morning.
DB: Well, they were very nice about it because [laughs] because you know what anybody says the ground crews were unbelievable.
OJ: Did you have —
DB: There’s no other word for it.
OJ: Different ground crew or was it the same one each time?
DB: Oh, it was the same one all the time.
OJ: So you had a really good relationship with them.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And of course when you finished your tour of operations it’s a real, real good booze up. All. Everybody. Yeah.
DK: As, as the flight engineer then did you have to, did you want to know all about the mechanics of the aircraft? So did you talk closely —
DB: Oh yeah.
DK: To the ground crew about what they were doing?
DB: Oh yeah. I had a working knowledge of everything.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. So as they were working on something you would know about it.
DB: Yeah. What happened was if there was something wrong with the aircraft it was the pilot, myself and one of the ground crew who, who went up. You know. You’d see in my logbook it’s quite often that we, when we were having the aircraft tested.
DK: Right.
DB: And no, they, I, I always felt well one of my friends from the Squadron now he was ground crew and they had one night when the, when their, when the plane didn’t come back and he was, he was making the comment, he said ‘We always wonder where it was something we hadn’t done,’ you know. That was the relationship between them.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And it must be very upsetting.
DK: That must be difficult for him. That —
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: He was thinking had you done something wrong.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So your, the crew itself did you used to socialise with them at all? Did you?
DB: Oh yes. We went everywhere.
DK: What did you used to do off duty?
DB: There are photographs.
DK: Yeah.
DB: I think in there somewhere where, where we’re all out, I don’t know I think it’s in this one but —
OJ: On the razzle [laughs]
DK: On the razzle [laughs] in pubs and things.
DB: No. But we were, we were socially I don’t think it’s in yeah there’s, there’s where we were fumigating the billet at seventy —
DK: Right.
DB: So, that’s when we first arrived there. And they were nissen huts. I never lived in anything other than nissen huts.
DK: So, what, what were you actually fumigating for then? Because there would be —
DB: Well, because it was a nissen hut which, which was awful.
DK: Right. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. It looked awful. Yeah.
DK: Nasty bugs in there.
DB: And they were very cold.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. Yeah, and so, you know all the crew were —
DK: So there was nasty bugs in there was there?
DB: That’s right. Yeah. You know. There’s where we were out on the river.
DK: Oh wow.
DB: Having a —
DK: So just for the recording its —
DB: Yeah. We all, we all —
DK: You’re off duty at Knaresborough.
DB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: And that’s July 1944. So you’re in a boat there are you? A rowing boat.
DB: That’s right. Yeah.
DK: Are you there?
DB: I’d be there somewhere. Unless it was me took the photograph.
DK: The photo.
DB: Oh. There’s me there.
DK: Oh, right. Ok.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. But so we we were always together and —
DK: Can I?
DB: The other remarkable thing about it was we, we and you will probably find this goes on we had six, seven days leave every six weeks.
DK: Right.
DB: When we were flying. And the bomb aimer and the wireless operator they always came to our house. We lived in Welwyn Garden City then, and they always came to our house and my sister was only talking about it the other day. She was fourteen at the time I think, and she said the wireless operator as soon as he came in he’d put his photographs up on the mantlepiece. He said, ‘I’m in a home now,’ you know. And she remembered this, these things very vividly.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. And my father always enjoyed them turning up because with them being Canadians they had all sorts of goodies. And it was funny. Our crew. It’s most remarkable. Three, three didn’t drink, and four didn’t smoke. Including myself. That was most unusual then, you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Most unusual. So my father did very well with cigarettes. Yeah.
DK: So where would you go on your off duty times then? Where did you used to go on your off duty times then?
DB: Well, mainly York.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. Because York, when we had a stand down it was York where we mainly went to. Sometimes we went to Goole. And Market Weighton was another place near. And the village. The village was quite good at Holme on Spalding Moor. There was a very good pub there. In fact, when we have our reunions we still go there.
DK: You go there. To the same pub.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. And, and it’s still a good pub.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Oh right.
DB: Yeah.
DK: If I could just go through the log book again.
DB: Yeah, by all means.
DK: Just to say. I think we got up to the 31st of October didn’t we?
DB: Yeah.
DK: Oh no we didn’t we got to November here. So just for the recording again then so just carrying on the 17th of December ’44, Duisburg. 26th of December it’s —
DB: That was, yeah that was the Ardennes Offensive one.
DK: The Ardennes Offensive.
DB: Yeah.
DK: So, the 29th of December — Koblenz. 30th of December — Cologne. 1st of January 1945 — Dortmund. 5th of January — Hanover where we know you were attacked.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: By the Junkers 88. So the 14th of January Saarbrucken. I’ll just whizz through these if you don’t mind. 1st of Feb Mainz, 2nd of Feb Wanne-Eickle.
DB: Wanne-Eickle. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Bonn. That’s a well-known one.
DK: Yeah. 4th of Feb — Bonn. 7th of Feb — Goch. 13th of Feb —
DB: That’s a long one.
DK: Böhlen.
DB: Yeah.
DB: Böhlen near Leipzig.
DB: Yeah.
DK: In support of the Dresden raid.
DB: Yeah.
DK: 14th of Feb Chemnitz. 20th of Feb near Dusseldorf. 23rd Of Feb — Essen. 24th Of Feb Kamen, and that was the last.
DB: Yeah.
DK: The thirty eighth.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And so, and that’s total flying here. Total. So operational flying hours. That’s your total flying.
DB: Yeah.
DK: So, well that’s seventy nine hours five minutes daylight, and a hundred and twenty two forty night time. That’s a total two hundred and one hours forty five minutes.
DB: That’s pretty, pretty good.
DK: In thirty eight operations.
DB: Yeah. It was quite funny.
DK: Just put that down for the recording.
DB: I’ve never looked at the [pause ] my wife and myself we, we had, in the rubber business we were, and we were going of all place to a rubber conference in Essen.
DK: Right.
DB: And on the way there we, we stopped at a place called Munster. And I [pause] and the cathedral there was badly damaged and they had an arrangement with the Coventry one.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
DB: And I said to my wife that I was flying at that time, and do you know that was the first time I’d looked in my logbook. I fact, I had job to find it. Yeah. And I was on it.
DK: Yeah.
DB: The Munster raid there and it, it was, that was I had been to Germany on business but I’d not been to where I’d been.
DK: On [unclear] yeah. Yeah.
DB: Well, I went to Cologne.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Because they were the main. They were the difficult ones.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Cologne. Essen. Well, they were all difficult but you remembered that you, if Essen came up on the board you weren’t very happy to go there because it was heavily defended you know.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So how did that make you feel then? You were going to Germany on business.
DB: Well, I —
DK: Is it something that was in the back of your mind at the time when you were there?
DB: No. I think the worst was over. You know. When I went, it could have been almost twelve months after the war ended when I I’m talking about.
DK: Yeah.
DB: In fact it could have been longer than that, and things were almost normal back in Germany by then. It was, it was probably later than what —
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. It would have been. It would be in the 1980s. Well, that’s a long time.
DK: A long time afterwards. Yeah.
DB: After the war you see. So things were getting back to normal. But I, I was, you do get brainwashed you know. You hated the Germans and I very much disliked the Japanese because one of the neighbours where we lived in Welwyn Garden City he came back and well just looking at him was enough. Terrible. And but they were brainwashed as well, weren’t they?
DK: Yeah.
DB: So were the Nazis, so, and you can still see it really.
DB2: If I can just intervene a minute.
DB: Yeah.
DB2: We went to the church in in Munster. Or part of the Cathedral. And part of it had been bombed. Was it the entrance? Entrance lobby that had been bombed?
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DB2: And [pause]
DB: Yeah. That was Munster was it? Yeah. I’ve mentioned that.
DB2: Yes. Well, it’s on my mind. Munster.
DB: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
DB2: A university town.
DK: Yes. Yeah.
DB2: For two reasons. But it’s a university town and the Cathedral had been bombed.
DK: Yeah.
DB2: Part of it.
DK: Yeah.
DB2: And over the, you know a sign had been put up, “May we forgive each other as He forgives us all.” He.
DK: Yeah.
DB2: The capital H.
DB: Yeah.
DB2: Forgives us all.
DK: Yeah.
DB2: Which I thought was rather beautiful.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yes.
DB2: And the, the students, the university students were some of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. Men and women. They were supreme examples of the human race.
DB: Hitler Youth.
DB2: And yes.
DB: Yeah.
DB2: They were obviously the start.
DB: That’s right. I’d forgotten that. Yeah.
DB2: The start. The start of another of Hitler’s dreams you know.
DK: Yeah.
DB2: Yes.
DB: Well, at the end of the war when the war was ending we were warned that the, the main if if you crashed or whatever happened you, if you were picked up by the Luftwaffe you were alright. If you were picked up by the Gestapo you weren’t.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And if you were picked up by the Hitler Youth you weren’t.
DK: Yeah.
DB: They were absolutely brain washed, you know.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And they were fighting right to the end. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
DK: If I could just ask just very briefly what would a raid actually involve? When you got up in the morning what sort of procedures did you go through?
DB: Well, first of all you were warned that we were flying.
DK: Operations were on.
DB: That operation was on. And you didn’t know where you were going of course. And then you, in other words you had you had to be aware that that evening or whatever daylight whatever it was you were flying so you took the suitable precautions and then you were called for briefing.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And we had separate briefings. All, we went to the engineer’s department. The navigation department. We never knew where we were going but we all, and the gunners we were told what the bomb load was and everything else, but we never knew the target until we actually went into the actual briefing. And then sometimes it was, and none of them were good news but some were better than others [laughs] you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. So that was basically the procedure.
DK: Yeah. And then you went out to your aircraft at that point.
DB: Oh yes. You went out to your aircraft and of course it [pause] there was a very good article. A book just written. Been written for the, you know with this anniversary.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And he, in the book it says that in the aircraft the main people who were working all the time were the pilot, the flight engineer and the navigator.
DK: Is that the Patrick Bishop book?
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. And I’d never looked at it that way but I was glad because I thought well I was occupied most of the time.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And I was. The only time I wasn’t occupied was when we were over the target and I was up in the astrodome. But you know all the petrol was right.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Alright, when we lost an engine that gets a bit difficult. But —
DK: Yeah. Was that, on the Halifax I’m not too sure. Whereabouts are you in relation to the pilot?
DB: Yeah. I’m sitting right behind him.
DK: Right behind him. Right.
DB: And the idea behind that and this was the, normally if I’d have been in a Lancaster all the time I’d be sitting next to the pilot you see. But it was very clever in the Lanc, in the Halifax. I was sitting immediately behind him. And the bomb aimer assisted him on take-off, you know. And then there was a clear entrance all the way down the aircraft so that if anything went wrong the crews could get out much easier than they could in the Lancaster, you see.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: It annoyed me a bit last night. I don’t whether you watched.
DK: I did. Yes.
DB: The programme.
DK: Yes.
DB: It annoys me every time. It was Lancaster.
DK: Yeah.
DB: No mention of the Halifax.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And then it went on to Spitfire. No nothing on the Hurricane. And then it went on to, no mention of a Wellington aircraft.
DK: No. No.
DB: Which was a very critical one.
DK: And then when you looking on later our next door neighbour here he flew —
DK: Do you want to just —
DB: And he flew, he flew Victors. Next door. No mention of the Victor. The Vulcan bomber.
DK: Really?
DB: Yeah.
DK: Is that a neighbour who flew Victors then?
DB: One of my neighbours. Yeah.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. My next door neighbour here.
DK: Oh right.
DB: This is, you know after.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But he flew in just as awkward circumstances and it’s always the same. I mean, I’ve nothing against the Lancaster but funny enough it’s been proven that the Halifax was a much more versatile aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
DB: I mean it served on Coastal Command. It took paratroopers.
DK: Pulled gliders.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And it even dropped off spies in various places.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And, and, there was in fact there was an article the other day about the Halifax where one crew they, they were right out in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere and they attacked this U-boat and sunk it, but the U-boat also put the Halifax down and they were, six of them got out and it was somebody local here as it turned out.
DK: Oh right.
DB: They, six of them were in the dinghy for eight days and survived. And how they [pause] they were trying to get, get fish. And when I did this course you know on this air sea rescue the thing, the last, well one of the last days we were there we were in the Solent and they put us in a dinghy at 8 o’clock in the morning. This was in March. And left us. And we were there ‘til it went dark. So that was one day, and then the air sea rescue boat came out and picked us up. And that was enough for me.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: It was enough. I thought to myself how can, but of course you’ve no choice have you if your shot down. Yeah.
DK: I noticed that the TV programme last night didn’t even mention Coastal Command, did it?
DB: No. It didn’t.
DK: And the U-boats that were attacked and all the rest of it.
DB: That’s right. No. It was, it was a good programme but not —
DK: Yeah. The usual suspects.
DB: Yeah.
DK: The Spitfire, the Lancaster and the Vulcan.
DB: And of course the, the thing that annoys us most of all was, was, they had to mention Dresden. You know. That’s automatic. Particularly with the BBC, you know. And that’s unfair as well. And in fact one of the things I did for a friend of mine he, he, he was talking about Dresden and etcetera and the last magazine that came out from Bomber Command was the truth about Dresden. I don’t know whether you’ve read —
DK: Yeah.
DB: The last Bomber Command. And I’d written about the last eight for this friend of mine. And of course we were on that. On the raid indirectly. On the thing.
DK: Yeah. On a diversionary.
DB: And I think this article said they first of all claimed it was three hundred and fifty thousand were killed and in the end, I mean it’s it was a terrible number but it was twenty five thousand, you know.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. But all these do-gooders they don’t understand do they?
DK: No.
DB: But what I like was the Dambusters pilot, err bomb aimer who’s the only one left now.
DK: Yeah.
DB: What’s his name?
DK: Johnny Johnson.
DB: Johnny Johnson. Yeah. His article. He was, he’s fed up with it. I don’t know whether he was on the raid.
DK: Yes. I’ve met him a few times.
DB: Yeah. Well, he always says, ‘Were you there?’
DK: Yeah.
DB: And of course they never were. ‘Did you know the circumstances at the time?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, keep your bloody mouth shut.’ You know. And, and I thought well I couldn’t put it better myself.
DK: Sums it up doesn’t it?
DB: Yeah. It does. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Ok. Well that’s great. Just one final question. I think you’ve really answered it there but all these years later how do you look back on your time in Bomber Command?
DB: Well, I’m glad I did what I did. You know. I don’t think I’d want to do anything else.
DK: No.
DB: At all. And I did what I wanted to do which was to serve in Bomber Command.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. So I’ve no regrets at all about it.
DK: Did you stay in touch with your crew after the war?
DB: Well, we did up to a point. In fact, I found, found a letter from the navigator and the wireless operator but with I think the answer is that you want to forget the war when it ends. And the first time I ever thought about it was, it was in the 1980s I think it was, and we’d, we had a place in Spain. In fact, we’ve still got it but we, we were on our way back and we stopped at a hotel. We came in at Plymouth and we stopped in this hotel and there was a fella there who, he had the aircrew [pause] what did they call, they called it the Aircrew Association you see. And I said ‘What’s all that?’ And he, he said, ‘Well, the Aircrew Association’s just been formed.’ And this was in the 1980s you see.
DK: Right. Yeah.
DB: And that was the first time it had ever registered. And I said, ‘Well. I was in the aircrews,’ and I said, ‘How do I apply to get in to the Aircrew Association?’ You see. So he told me how to do it. And they kept saying he was too young that fella [laughs] A nice compliment. So, but anyway I wrote and thanked him so he knew it was genuine, you know.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Because they check you out at the Air Ministry. So and, and so I joined the Aircrew Association and then not long afterwards I got a phone call again saying, ‘We’re now forming the Squadron Association.’
DK: Right.
DB: And that was how the 76 Squadron Association, and this was in the 1980s. So it’s only resurfaced since that.
DK: After then.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Did you leave the RAF soon after the war then?
DB: Yeah. I left in 1947.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. And funnily enough I think I said in what we talked I ended up in Swinderby. That was the last station I was on. And in the Operational Training Unit there.
DK: Right.
DB: So can’t be much nearer to Lincoln can it?
DK: No.
DB: Than that. Yeah. So I know I know Lincoln quite quite well. So I I was thinking of staying in the RAF because I was invited, invited to because anyway the remarkable thing was I’d also heard that the Halifax had been converted. I forget what they called it. The Hastings or something like this, and it, it was commercial flying. And all they needed was a pilot and, and navigator and, and first engineer.
DK: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
DB: Like a second pilot I would have been. So I applied for this job and he said, ‘You’ve got all the qualifications,’ he said, ‘But we can’t appoint you.’ So I said, ‘Why is that?’ He said, ‘You’re not old enough.’ And you had, you had to be twenty four then.
DK: So how old were you at the time?
DB: Twenty two.
DK: So you were twenty two. You’d flown thirty eight operations.
DB: Yeah.
DK: In Halifaxes.
DB: Yeah.
OJ: And how many hours?
DK: Yeah. Well just operational over two hundred and one hours.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And they wouldn’t let you fly the civilian version.
DB: Yeah. They were most embarrassed.
DK: Right.
DB: But that was the rule. The ruling at the time. And funny enough, well I ended up alright anyway but if if I’d have flown with them I’d have eventually ended up with BOAC.
DK: So you could have carried on.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Flying with the airlines.
DB: Funnily enough you know when the Squadron Associations were formed one of my best friends who was in the same flight as I was he knew my pilot extremely well and he went on that, and I told him. And he said, he said, ‘I only just made it, Doug,’ as well. You had to be twenty four. Yeah. Unbelievable.
DK: Absolutely.
DB: Yeah. And I’ve never forgotten that. So I could have carried on flying but I went to the accountancy work.
DK: I think it was the Halton. The civilian version.
DB: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: The civilian version of the Halifax.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. So it was quite interesting to be. So —
DK: Bonkers isn’t it?
DB: You talk more about it now than, I mean from 1940, well when I came out let’s say 1950 to 1980 you never really really talked about it. I was in the RAF Association but the only thing I remember there was they did the Dambuster film. 1953. And that was a story in itself really. One of my friends there, all you had to be was in 617 Squadron you see and he didn’t serve on the Dambusters raid but he was in 617 Squadron, and we had another fella who was a member and he said he was on 617 Squadron, you see. So again you had to do it through the Air Ministry and all this.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: And this fella who was the chairman at the time he said, ‘We’ve got a problem, Doug,’ he said, ‘This other fella. He’s never even been in the RAF.
DK: Oh.
DB: So,’ he said, ‘You’ll have to help me out when he comes in.’ So he duly turned up, and this Harry, Harry Nutall his name was, he said, ‘Have you had your invitation yet to the premier of the Dambusters film?’ ‘No. No,’ he said, ‘I can’t understand it.’ So he said, ‘Well, let me tell you something,’ he said, ‘You’re not going to get an invitation. You’ve never been in the RAF.’ And we never saw him again. And it just shows that some —
DK: Yes.
DB: I think they kid themselves to believe it.
DK: Yeah. Walter Mitties. Walter Mitties they’re called.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And I’ve never forgotten that.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And that was the only time really it came to life. Because after that again it all went back.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But now it’s, I mean you know the Bomber Command Memorial in London.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Is quite something isn’t it?
DK: Have you, did you get to the unveiling of that?
DB: Oh yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Well, all the family came to that.
DK: Yeah. I was at that.
DB: That was a memorable moment that. Yeah.
DB2: You couldn’t get him away.
DB: That was quite something wasn’t it?
DB2: Yes.
DB: Yes.
DK: So what are your feelings on the new Memorial then?
DB: Well, I think it’s going to be good. I’m looking forward to seeing it but I’ve made up my mind as well that, you know at one time we, we weren’t going to go to the official one and now I’ve got the feeling well I should go you know.
DK: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
DB: Sort of thing. But I want to go again because this time it’s more important because that Memorial must, must be quite something. To see all those names on.
DK: It is. Yeah.
DB: Yeah. It’s very emotional I should think. Yeah. And funnily enough one of my, one of my, well best pal, in fact I’ve got his, you know looking through this stuff. He flew when it was much more dangerous than I was. He was on the Nuremburg raid.
DK: Right.
DB: And he survived. He survived that and he went to Ceylon afterwards. It just says, “Ceylon Air Force,” and I’ve just found a letter from him where it was dated September the something 1945, and then there’s a note on there. Went missing in October that year. And I am concerned that his name goes on this board.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. Because I’ve got his name, rank and number. He was a warrant officer like I was you know.
DK: So that was, what year was that then?
DB: ’45 when he went missing.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. But he’d served a full tour. Yeah.
DK: But the war had ended though presumably.
DB: Well, yes it had because he was obviously sent to the Far East.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: To carry on there. So he’d started there but he just went I don’t know where.
DK: Yeah.
DB: I never got the detail.
DK: I know this is a bit of an issue at the moment.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Because those on the Memorial are those that served with Bomber Command within the UK.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Those that went to the Far East.
DB: Yeah.
DK: And even the Middle East.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Aren’t included. If that’s where they were.
DB: Yeah. I read that article about that.
DK: Even though they might have served in the UK. I know we’re trying to get around that.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Not get around it. That’s the wrong phrase. But to include them.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. They want to include those that were in both the Middle East flying bombers. And Italy. And then the Far East.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So at some point, all being well he should appear on there.
DB: Yeah.
DK: But not, unfortunately not at the moment.
DB: No.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. because he was serving in the Far East you see.
DK: Can you —
DB: Because we were, we were —
DK: Can you remember his name?
DB: Yeah. I’ve got his, I’ve got his —
OJ: Is it in the office?
DB: Can you just.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Look on the desk in there Tavie. You’ll see a letter in there from him.
DK: Cool.
DB: And his name rank and number is all on there.
DK: Yeah.
DB: He was a warrant officer like I was. He finished his tour of operations. He did the Nuremberg raid so he, he was always about six months to a year ahead of me.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. And he —
DK: They went —
DB: There’s a letter from him which is dated September ’45 and then I heard in October.
DK: Right.
DB: He went.
OJ: He knows exactly what he’s talking about.
DB: His number is on, on here. Everything. Yeah. That’s, I think that’s my, that’s his writing.
DK: Right.
DB: And I think that’s my sister’s writing, but I’ll have to find out. But I think here is his, yeah his full rank and number are on there you see.
DK: Oh right. So —
DB: Yeah.
DK: That’s warrant officer JE Topple.
DB: Topple yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Can you remember what JE stood for?
DB: John. John Topple.
DK: So, he’s, for the recorder he is Warrant Officer John E Topple.
DB: Yeah.
DK: T O P P L E.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Service number 1874884. And he was with 99 Squadron in Ceylon.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
DB: But he’d done a full tour of operations before.
DK: Right.
DB: Yeah. In the UK.
DK: He went missing out there.
DB: Yeah. But you know he was on when it was at its worst.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
DB: So I feel I his mother and my sister were only talking about it the other day. She always thought he’d knock on the door some time, you know. Yeah. But so I don’t know the circumstances but —
DK: No. But he went missing in September 45. Or October.
DB: Yeah. Went missing October the 7th 1945. So —
DK: Right.
DB: I don’t know what he was doing out there particularly.
DK: 99 Squadron then were flying the Liberators out there.
DB: Oh, were they?
DK: So he was on the four engine bombers.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So they stayed in the Far East for quite some time after the war.
DB: Did they? Yeah. Yeah. He was still active service. Well, I was still really until 1947 really. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: That’s even more of an issue actually because it’s actually someone on bombers in the Far East.
DB: Yeah.
DK: After the war has ended.
DB: Yeah. But —
DK: Officially. Though still on active service. Yeah.
DB: Yeah, but he served in. I forget what squadron he was on in the UK.
DK: Right.
DB: But he did a full tour. He did his thirty ops anyway. Yeah.
DK: Well, it’s something, certainly something we need to look into.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. But I feel it’s my duty to, you know. You know.
DK: I know this is you know the Memorial round there and the names on there it is expanding.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Because a lot of the records only showed those who died on operations.
DB: Yeah.
DK: While the aircraft was in flight.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Some of those who died when came back.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Aren’t included.
DB: No. I know that.
DK: So, that’s why some records say fifty five thousand.
DB: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: But our records are showing fifty six thousand.
DB: Yeah.
DK: It’s increasing.
DB: Yeah. I think in our book which is, you know there’s a 76 Squadron book. We’ve got, we’ve got everything in there.
DK: Yeah.
DB: And I know we were about seven hundred. Over seven hundred casualties.
DK: And that’s one Squadron.
DB: One Squadron.
OJ: That’s scary.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Ok. We’ll press on.
DB: Quite a lot of detail as well.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it’s been good for me to go through everything.
DK: Excellent. It’s been great for me. I’m rather conscious of how long we’ve been but thanks very much for that.
DB: Yeah.
DK: Just for the recording can I just have your name.
OJ: Yeah. I’m Octavia Jackman.
DK: And your grandmother’s name?
OJ: Doreen Beasley.
DK: That’s excellent.
DB: Oh you’re still there.
OJ: I’m still there.
DK: Ok. Well, thanks very much for that. I’ll switch the recording off now.
DB: Yeah.
[recording paused]
DK: So that’s completion of a tour of 76 Squadron. February 1945.
DB: Yeah. Well, that [pause]
DK: So who’s, do you remember who that is there?
DB: Yeah. That’s the, that’s the navigator.
DK: Yeah.
DB: That’s the wireless operator. Pilot. Rear gunner and myself. I don’t know where the other two are on it.
DK: Yeah.
DB: Yeah. But I don’t know where that photograph is now.
DK: Right.
DM: With the —
DK: With the ground crew.
DB: Wait a minute.
OJ: Which one?
DB: I had it’s it’s I did I did find it. Is this some old photographs?
OJ: That’s your whole envelope of photographs. And you’ve got —
DB: Yeah. I think. I think [pause] No. That, that’s 76 Squadron, you know dinners, and all that sort of thing. But there is one somewhere of, of all the ground crew as well.
DK: Yes. It’s unfortunate it’s not in the album isn’t it?
DB: Oh, wait a minute. I’ll tell you where it is. It’s in my other room.
OJ: Do you want me to go up?
DB: It’s in there isn’t it.
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 Doug Beasley
Creator
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David Kavanagh
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-03-26
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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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ABeasleyDG180326
Format
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01:21:34 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
At the start of the war, Doug Beasley left school at 16 to start work. Initially a member of the Air Training Corps, he was sent for aircrew selection when he became 18. There was a 12-month wait to enlist as a pilot, so he opted to become a flight engineer. He joined Number 3 Initial Training Wing in Torquay, after spending three weeks at Lord’s Cricket Ground, in October 1943. Many of his fellow intake were ex-police officers, older as they were not released from the police until they were 30 years old. After six weeks he was posted to RAF St Athan for basic training as a flight engineer on Halifaxes, then to 1652 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Marston Moor. It was here that he was formed in to a flight crew when they transferred from their Operational Training Unit. At this stage they were flying the Halifax II and V. It was with this unit that he flew his first operation, a leaflet dropping operation over France on 12th August 1944. He joined 76 Squadron at RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor flying the Halifax III. He describes in detail many of his operations, mainly over Germany. One in particular occurred in January 1945 when his aircraft was attacked by a Ju 88 night fighter. Though struck by many bullets and cannon shells nothing vital was damaged though the pilot’s neck was grazed by a bullet. After completing his tour of operations, 38 rather than the normal 30, he became an instructor with an operational flying unit flying Wellingtons. In 1946 he became the Air Sea Rescue officer attending a course at RAF Calshot. He left the RAF in 1947 to return to civilian life.
Contributor
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Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
England--Torquay
England--Devon
England--London
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Yorkshire
France
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10
1944-08-12
1945-01
1946
1947
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
1652 HCU
76 Squadron
air sea rescue
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
flight engineer
ground crew
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Ju 88
Lancaster
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
propaganda
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Marston Moor
RAF St Athan
RAF Torquay
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/879/11119/AHolmesWC151105.2.mp3
151a6f9e54b2b296f3999e5dd631e5f1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Holmes, William
William Cyril Holmes
W C Holmes
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Holmes DFC (b. 1921, 131013, 176554 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a memoir by his bomb aimer, official documents, Guinea Pig Club memorabilia, photographs of him and his crew and a memoir of his time training in Canada. He was a Stirling pilot on 149 Squadron in 1944. He flew 17 operations before crashing his aircraft at RAF Thorney Island 18 June 1944 and subsequently becoming a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William and Bill Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Holmes, WC
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Ok, Bill, we’re starting to record now.
WH: Well, I’m astonished to be asked to do this because I certainly didn’t do anything very different than thousands of others. I was born in Banbury, two-up, two-down, which is the reason that I am sitting where I am now. My daughter many years ago came with me to see where I was born and she said: “Daddy, you didn’t live there!” I said, come off it, Louise, that’s why you live where you are now because I was determined to get out of it and I did. And now, every time I come through my gate it pleases me, I look at the house but it’s a bit ridiculous in some ways because it [unclear] onto the back of the village shop. But, as far as I’m concerned, it is detached. When I get to insurance companies asking me, is it semi? Well, technically it is but not what they are thinking of. And it’s a stupid way to buy a business but we walked down the gravelled drive and I said, oh yes, I could live here and I could see the possibilities except that I hadn’t got a lot of money. In fact I’ll correct that, I hadn’t got anybody [laughs] and I could see the potentials that I could develop, which I did. And I know there’s two shops, three or four flats and it’s my pension fund. So, I’ve achieved my aims, in some ways. But my father and mother were marvellous to me, they, I’m, I still got my mother’s photograph by my bedside cabinet. I, unfortunately when I left England after re-joining the RAF I went out on the town and I was, I think the word is drunk, and when I left her I was still drunk in the morning and I never saw her again, I was abroad and she died. So, it, yes it was a tragedy to me, for one of those things. Now, during the war which is all vivid to me although it’s seventy years, I don’t know, long time ago but it’s still vivid and as much I can remember every other highlights. I crashed my last aircraft, I crashed landing, wheels up and unfortunately I say, killed my navigator, he burned to death. But he shouldn’t have done because I got them all in crash positions but there we are one of those things. Now, most people, or lots of people have never heard of a club that I belong to, the Guinea Pig Club, which was founded by fighter pilots early in the war under a famous, when you get old you forget words, skin,
CB: Plastic surgeon? Plastic surgeon?
WH: Excellent! Plastic surgery. And the story goes, and it always makes me laugh, early in the war, it was mostly fighter pilots that he was treating, I reportedly, reputably, he came and looked and said, this lot won’t drink water, we were all dehydrated, he said, bring on the beer. And as far as I know, it was one of the, if not the only hospital that had a barrel of beer at the end of the war. And it achieved its object because we did drink it. But going back to earlier in the war, I didn’t particularly want to fly, I hadn’t even thought of it, it was beyond my ken and early in the war there was, as far as I can remember, a very large photograph, I say photograph, poster, with, change your overalls for a flying suit and I thought, ah, well I was a reserved occupation so I went off and tried to join the air force and they sent me home, they said, oh no, you’re in a reserved occupation, you go back to work, we don’t want you but eventually I think they ran out of pilots [laughs] and I was accepted and but for that accepted I would never have seen the things I did see. Trained in Canada, learned to fly on Tiger Moths, and Boeing-Stearmans and flew alongside the Rockies actually, a marvellous experience, one that I would have never been able to achieve on my own. But it’s all still vivid to me. I can remember looking at the first Wellington coming off, Ansons, and Airspeed Oxfords and I thought, oh my God, how am I going to get on with that? But fortunately it’s about one of the few accolades, I don’t know where that’s the right word, I did get above average on my instructors comments, that was learning the basics to fly it but then when I went to a squadron and looked at the Stirling, which most people haven’t heard of, was the forerunner of the four-engine bombers and it was huge but, like everything else, you take it in your stride. But as I say the highlights are still quite vivid to me and we were shot up quite badly, petrol, fuel, running down the fuselage and we were all drunk on it, lots of people don’t realize you get drunk on the fumes but I did some way foolish things. But alright we all do in our life. Only a few weeks ago I pranged my wife’s car, I didn’t let her see it, I put it away and took it off for repairs before she did see it because for some time I have been saying, do not swing out through our gate, approach it cautiously and obviously I didn’t. However, that’s life. And what else can we say about the war? I’m quite proud of my distinguished flying cross. Lots were awarded at the end of the tour but there was another category, a [unclear] awards which were for the particular sortie and I’m quite proud of it. I think rightly so but I don’t like people think, well he’s boasting which I don’t intend to but I am still proud of it. But, as I say, still all, [phone rings] ah, interrupted by the phone.
CB: [unclear]
WH: [unclear]
CB: We’re restarting now after the telephone. Ok.
WH: Well, at risk of repeating myself, I’ll say again, I’m very proud of my DFC but it was astonishing to me, just a country boy, I didn’t think anything happened like that to me and this particular raid was on the U-boat pens at Brest, which, the main force couldn’t penetrate the pens with high explosive and the only other answer, the navy admiral’s etcetera told us was, right, mine the entrances, this will prevent the submarines from, U-boats from getting in and out and demoralising their mine-sweeping crews because the mines were set at different, at different settings. Harry, my second pilot, my bomb aimer explained in his letter to me, in his memories that they emphasized, do not ever consider, again I’ve lost a word, jettison, good, these mines because we didn’t want them to dissect, I don’t know if that’s right, take them to pieces, in other words, and find an answer to them but Harry wrote, my second pilot wrote and explained it all, which possibly went over my head at the briefing, can’t remember that seventy years ago. But, but for the war I would never have gone to Canada which was a marvellous experience, Estevan, out in Saskatchewan, sometimes in the winter under two or three feet of snow and the local drug store used to look after a lot of our lads and I became great friends with a man and his wife and eventually after the war they came over and stayed with us. The hospitality of the Canadians was marvellous, really, they were very kind to us and of course, we were flying in safe conditions which in England with its weather problems, the conditions for flying in Canada were very different. I remember looking out one day, a hell of a lot of snow, and I said, ah, good day off. Oh no, when we looked out they were rolling steam rollers down the runways, a different kind of snow, not wet, dry and it packed out. We didn’t get a day off, we just flew off the top of it. But when I realised the size of the hangars of the snow and one was topping the hangars, and I thought, God this is some snowstorm. But a marvellous experience. I went out on, I don’t know if the boat is the right word, it certainly wasn’t a liner, I think a banana boat, and it was sunk in Halifax harbour, the second trip after I’d landed and I thought, well that was lucky. Luck, it’s, I’ve always said that better to be born lucky than rich, I’ve always thought that I am lucky anyway in many ways. But coming back to decorations when the CO sent for me I was on leave on D-Day and I thought, oh dear, what have I done? And he told me about the decoration and I couldn’t believe it. I got outside, tapped on his door again and he said, yes, what is it? I said, well, with respect, sir, would you tell me all that again because I haven’t taken it on board and he laughed and did, Wing Commander Pickford. But we had one advantage because he was on the same course Wellingtons and we called him Pick and when I saw him on the squadron walking down the road I said, hello Pick, and oh my God, he is a wing commander. How to win friends and [unclear] people but all a very useful experience and I think altered my life totally and after the war, long after, I was asked would I like to go on a NATO exercise and I thought, well, what does this entail? And it was a trip to Germany and I’ve got to be honest about this, there were quite a few of us reservists and we got together and my sergeant of my section said, are you interested in this? I said, no, not really. Well, he said, go on, have a trip up the Rhine, he said, if anybody asks for you, I’ll say, oh yes, I’ve just seen him he’s just, I said, do you think that will work? Oh yes, he said. And there was about a dozen of us we sailed from Cologne up to Koblenz past the Lorelei, a wonderful trip, which I’d like to do again on the boats with accommodation, but again something I would never have the opportunity to do but for the Royal Air Force and I suppose the war. People have said to me, well, you know, you chaps talking about the war, I said, hang on, it was a very big slice out of our life. It was times when we were scared out of our wits. I’ve heard lots of people that say, oh no, I wasn’t frightened. Well, I’ll be totally honest, I think all of us were scared, you didn’t know, you took off, you didn’t know whether you were gonna come back or not. And there was a standing joke, the flying meal we always got and the joke was if you don’t come back, can I have your egg? And we also got a rum ration but it was after operations, I would have preferred the rum ration first but it’s all very real to me and I presume always will as long as I got my memories yes. I have done something like this before, there was a local historian asked and we did the question and I answered set up which I will give to Chris and he may play it. I am so confused with modern methods of listening to CDs. My club, the RAF association club, pulled my leg frequently. How the hell did you ever fly aeroplanes, you can’t do your car radio and your mobile phones are mystery to you and I just laughed that one off. But whether Chris will want to play this small CD, cause I haven’t found out, I had to play it back, I had forgotten what it said now, but as Chris pointed out to me, short of occasions like this recording stuff eventually will all be lost because inevitably we shall all die and it’ll be gone. So I’m quite grateful, I’m quite proud to be asked but astonished because I didn’t do anything special. Thousands of lads did just the same as I did and it always makes me laugh when people say, oh yes, I knew somebody in the RAF, did you know? When we are talking of thousands of people, it’s ridiculous things as I say. However I think I’ve come to the end of my reminiscence. I’ve no doubt and I thought this time I think of all sorts of things I should’ve said. I do this frequently, think of the smart answer long after the event. I think, well, I should’ve said that but I didn’t.
CB: It’s ok Bill because we are going to do some questions in a minute.
WH: I’m sorry.
CB: Restart. So we are starting again now.
WH: Yeah. Ok.
CB: With the Brest raid.
WH: Well, we were briefed by [unclear] admirals and I thought we’d got, there was more gold blade on their arms and my second pilot, Harry Stannus, who wrote a brief history which was very interesting actually and he emphasized that under no circumstances were we to jettison any of the bombs that we didn’t complete, of mines I should’ve said, that we didn’t complete the sorting. So, out we went but the thing that Harry in fact I did take on board, it was emphasized, the mines had to be dropped precisely from three and a half thousand feet, not very high and in fact too damn low on a bombing run at a three and a half thousand feet over a heavily, a highly defended target was, I was gonna say, suicide but they hit us with everything, small arms and Harry, lying prone in the front of the aircraft, had the best view of everything. In fact he was blinded by searchlights, couldn’t see the dropping point and he said, go on skipper, go round again and I often think that Harry should’ve got some recognition because at that point a bomb aimer had control of the aircraft. He could see what was required and as I said, he said, go round again, skipper, and this happened so many times that I was throwing the aircraft about because of the ammunitions coming up we were hit, but not vitally but we were peppered with all sorts of holes when we got back. But the one thing we didn’t reckon on was fuel tanks. Losing highly toxic fumes down the fuselage and we were, drunk is the only word I can think of, intoxicated sounds a bit better and we all did some very foolish things. And one I shall never forget, we’d lost two port engines from anti-aircraft fire and had a runaway starboard outer and foolishly I attempted a left hand circuit which was madness but I can only blame toxic fumes, well, that’s my story and I stuck with it but instead of landing as I intended on the runway, of course left hand against two port dead engines was stupid. And of course instead of landing where I intended, wheels up, crash landing, we crossed the runway and of course soaked with fuel, up she went. And I can remember again Harry pushing me out, he got very badly burned himself because of the delay in getting himself out and pushing me out, but I can remember vividly, stupidly I’d lost my flying boots and I thought, well, the grass is wet, and it was very wet and I headed with the rest of us, we all, well, we didn’t all get out. The navigator burned to death unfortunately, but the rest of us and we thought, well, the ammunition was going off, and I thought, right, let’s get the hell out of this, but the time we got to sick quarters, just to bring a note of hilarity into things, one of the staff brought a damn great pair of scissors, approached me, and I was insistent that he didn’t cut off my brand new [unclear], didn’t make any difference, he just cut away. But we then became McIndoe, Sir Archibald McIndoe, the plastic surgeon, he used to go round squadrons, picking the people that he wanted to treat and he took the whole crew and I, I don’t know whether you have heard of the Guinea Pig Club, nothing to do with guinea pigs but applicable only to aircrew who had been burned on operations. Nobody wants to join because the only way you can join is to be burned on operations against whatever enemy. So it’s highly selective but dwindling now. We’re all dying. Well, some of us. Unfortunately, our dinners, our annual dinners have now ceased, for obvious reasons, because we are scattered all over the country and all over the world, there’s lots of Czechs, Poles, Americans, all sorts of people but it’s getting too difficult now to organise an annual dinner but Prince Phillip is our president. Used to come round and talk to all of us and he, he was very interesting actually, but he, he is a very ordinary, I say very ordinary, perhaps that’s the wrong expression, but he’s like you and me, very nice chap to talk to and the last time I set eyes on him was at a reception in Banbury town hall and he came with the queen some years ago and I thought, well, on this occasion I will wear my Guinea Pig tie. And from some yards away, he looked over and he said, they’re finished? I said, no, they’re not, Sir. I’m still here. And that concluded the occasion. I can’t think of anything else that I can think of, other than it changed my life totally.
CB: So you, going back to the mine dropping,
WH: Yes?
CB: How many times did you go round?
WH: Yes. Well totally, five times, that was in, out, in, out. I’ve got documents from the Royal Air Force, I can’t remember what the document is now but emphasizing that there were five approaches in all and presumably why I got a [unclear] for it but Harry should have got one. I didn’t know that I could recommend anyone because a previous trip I did write to my CO about one other member of my crew, Tommy Smith, who’d done a previous trip with the same, a previous tour with the same squadron and many years after at one of our dinners he said, thank you Bill, I said, what for? He said, the letter you wrote, he said, I got a DFM, I said, oh, I didn’t think I was able to recommend anyone, but I think possibly I should have recommended Harry for his, for his part in this raid at Brest. The thing that is the most important to me I mean main force we were bombing from ten, fifteen, twenty thousand feet but three and a half thousand feet at what we called straighten level which it had to be for the mines, apparently the mines, I am told, would break up if they weren’t dropped precisely at three and a half thousand feet. But I presume that’s why I got a [unclear] but as I said, it’s all changed my life totally, in fact so much so, after the war, in another job I was assistant adjutant, which I hadn’t been trained for and I used to bash out one finger typewriter letters for jobs and I took the Telegraph and I’ve been taking the Daily Telegraph ever since because it had more jobs than the others. And when I’d applied and got questionnaires, what school did you go to, where, I don’t know, oh dear. Well, I got a county, Oxfordshire county council scholarship which it was called at that time and I used to have to write on the questionnaires, I got this scholarship and this enabled me to apply for a pilot’s course, I think they only took, well, not only, probably school boys but they wanted people with some intelligence and it usually got me an interview and I’ve always said, well, if I can get an interview, I can get a job which is a bit naughty I suppose. But in a fact it worked, and it did, it got me interviews so I shall be forever grateful to the Royal Air Force and I don’t think I would ever have been commissioned other than thousands of us that were because all the American pilots were all commissioned, not so the Royal Air Force, lots of us sergeants, flight sergeants, yeah, I think I’ve run out of reminiscence now.
CB: Ok, we will take a break there for a bit. So, Bill was in a reserved occupation, when he left school,
WH: Yes.
CB: So, what age did you leave school?
WH: Well, despite the scholarship I wasn’t very happy. In fact, I was very unhappy. I saw this as an escape from school as well, I didn’t go on till I was sixteen. But it they considered the, the authorities considered it was a vital job to be captain
CB: [unclear]
WH: [unclear] as I said, on troop training, train on all sorts of things, that was an experience in itself and again something that I remember quite well. Only, the only thing I did remember having left hospital bandaged up, desperate to come home and I was walking down the high street in Banbury and met some chappie with also a cleaner and he said, oh, how are you doing then, Bill? I said, oh, getting by. His reply astonished me. Well, is your own bloody fault, you didn’t have to go. Which upset me and annoyed me. But, if we’d all felt like that, we’d have had a very thin Air Force. But, as I said, it changed my life totally. And when I was recommissioned, going back in the service in ’50, that meant more to me in many ways than routinely being commissioned during the war. I always remember the interview for commissioning and I expected to have my life probed in depth but nothing of the kind happened, I went in and I don’t know if it was an air marshal or what, saluted them, all I got was, ah, good morning flight sergeant, did you train in Canada? I said, yes, I did, sir. Did you like it? I said, oh yes. Nothing about my schooling or suitability or anything and I finished a two or three minute interview and I couldn’t believe it and I came out and the adjutant said, oh, you’ve seen the air marshal? I said, yes, well that’s it, he said, you’re commissioned. I couldn’t believe it. And then I went back to the squadron and the CO said, well, you’d better take a day off, go and get a uniform. So we, I took the crew with me and we went to Cambridge and went into one of the outfitters specializing in uniforms and a little lad behind, well a little old man behind the counter said, ah, here we are sir, your fits you well, what sort of a hat, a cap do you want? I said, how do you mean, what sort of [unclear] or operational? I said, [unclear], he said, very correct but operational battered and. I said, oh, and he threw it on the floor along a lot of dust and came up with a cap that looked like a German officers. And therein lays another tale. I asked first time I was conscious and hospitalized, have you got my hat? It became a standing joke, Bill’s hat. I said, well where is it? He said, I don’t know where it is. Obviously burnt with the aircraft. But, that was a minor thing. At that time, aircrew could go up to London and you could get uniforms, overcoats, caps, all sorts of kits from people that had been killed or left behind them and rekitted, people that had lost of. And I came away with an overcoat and an operational cap. I wish I’d kept it. Never mind, Well, I hope we’ve got enough material. The only thing you, who’s gonna be listening to this [unclear]? I did but there was I believe, and I can’t remember whether I dreamed it up or whether it was fact. I understand there was an Air Ministry order, AMO, air crews, repeat air crews will not urinate against tail wheels. Well, apprehension before taking off, I won’t say scared, apprehension cause you didn’t know what was gonna happen. Everybody relieved themselves against tailwheels, whether that rotted them or not I don’t know. Quite a thought. Whether that AMO ever existed or not I’m not sure.
CB: What other, what other little tales have you got?
WH: Yeah. He didn’t say to me Chalky White, our navigator, he said he was, I won’t use the expression it’s rude, he was scared, I said Harry, he wasn’t the only one who was scared. But nobody wanted to let on that they was scared to other people. But it to be scared frightened, it has, I’m trying to think of an expression I wanted, it was contagious, it made other people scared. I can remember one of my crew and I won’t remember, I won’t name him, he said, oh no, not again, I got my log to fill in. I told him what he could do with his log. I said, Harry, we’re on, no, not Harry, this is an operation. So and so did you log, I don’t care what you do with it but he was sticking to the book. I said, well, rules are not written in stone, they are for guidance. But we didn’t realise until long after that he was twice our age so I could understand it, he got a wife and children and we were, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, no such responsibilities. But all, still to me [unclear], all very real, vivid. Hopefully, somebody listen to this. It may have conveyed some of the thoughts and fears that we suffered. My rear gunner was a Canadian and day off he’d go to bed in full Irvin jacket, which was a beautiful flying jacket, sheepskin. Same trousers, and he’d go to bed all day. I said, oh God, I want to live life not I don’t want to [unclear], I got lots of time to sleep. It used to astonish me. But one other story it was my rear gunner, he, I said, no I don’t want my rum, oh, I’ll drink it, skipper, and that got me into a lot of trouble because, he used to dish out the Wakey-Wakey pills and he, how, was I going to say.
CB: These are Benzedrine.
WH: Old age, you forget things, mid-sentence and you stop and you think, what the hell was I going to say?
CB: These are
WH: I’m sure it’s not only me, I’m sure it happens to other people. However, whoever listens to it perhaps it will bring a little, well.
CB: So how well did the crew [unclear]?
WH: The navigator who died unfortunately, his brother came to see me in hospital and he said, look Billy, it wasn’t your fault, it was one of those things. But, now what were we talking about?
CB: The crew.
WH: Oh yes. Well, the flight engineer, as I said, was, well to us, he was in his forties so I could understand his reactions were different to us youngsters. But quite frankly at nineteen, twenty, twenty one, whatever, to be in charge of a damn great aircraft, when I think back, [unclear] how the hell did I do that? But [unclear] we all drew [unclear]. The Air Force used to boast, there’s nothing clever about flying, we can teach your grandmother to fly, you’re not special, but you gotta solo in so many hours and if you’re not we are wasting our time. But of course soloing, the first time you’re let loose on an aircraft and no instructor, they didn’t warn you, you went out on a normal, as you thought, a normal instruction flight and you got in and then the [unclear] just got out casually and said, well, that’s it, take it off, you’re away. And I, depends on many factors, the size of the aircraft I suppose, but the Boeing-Stearman, was a proper aircraft as opposed to a Tiger Moth and it was fully aerobatic and it was or had been a fighter in the Spanish War. But to be sent off on your own, but you, you just did things that you’d been taught and hoped for the best. They used to say, all these aircraft [unclear], I said, no, they don’t, not to me they don’t anyway. But I could. I’m going to boast now I could. Grease, I say grease. I could put a Sterling down fairly accurately with comments from my rear gunner saying, skipper is like a ten gallon drum back here, no five gallon drum. I said, what do you mean? It’s bouncing up and down. I said, no. A little later I said, you’re improving. It’s only a five gallon drum now. And he did say, or sometime after on a training trip, I don’t know how it came up but he said, well, all you’re doing is sit up there. I said, you’re what? I said, come on [unclear] you come up here. I put him in the second pilot’s seat. I said, there’s the course, just the fear, just the fact that he’d never being trying to do anything like this whatsoever, the sweat was rolling off him and I said, there’s nothing to it, all you gotta do is sit there. Don’t ever tell me I’m just sitting there. But he always criticised my landings although we all, I say all, I remember if ever I had a senior officer sitting in a second pilot’s seat it made me nervous and I could drop on him from fifty feet and one I can remember, the CO said, oh don’t worry Holmes, I’d do one myself, we all do. Inevitable. Well, mark [unclear], some pilots are better than others. But again, it’s quite something to be an [unclear] pilot and I don’t know where I saw it but I am convinced I’ve seen it that the award of a brevet, a pair of wings, is considered a decoration. Now, I’ve seen that somewhere but where I don’t know. I still got mine, original wings somewhere, sitting there, I can’t bring myself to get rid of stuff. Hence the trouble with my wife with all the stuff I spread. I shifted everything in a hurry off the kitchen table when I knew she was coming home. Well, we transferred to
CB: Initial Training we are talking about.
WH: Stearmans which was a proper aircraft, not bits of wire and. But I, yes I enjoyed it cause there was no interruptions from enemy aircraft and not in Canada, good weather, not a lot of cloud, and it was, well, it made life a lot easier but as I said before, when it snowed, it snowed, believe you me, but there is two kinds of snow, wet and dry and they just steamrolled, I say steam, they rolled in away. Over the top, and we just flew off over the top of it, no difference, whatsoever. But a marvellous experience, one I’d never have had otherwise. The only thing I didn’t really like was going there being batten down under hatches and we went over on a ship called the Letitia and we were batten down under hatches a three destroyer escort at the height of the U-boat war, which was a bit scary. I used to sleep on top of a hatch. I thought, well, I want to get out of here if it’s gonna happen, but, oh, well it didn’t. Obviously it didn’t cause I [unclear] sit here, sitting here [unclear] away. OTU, shipping warden, I stood amongst dozens of other aircrew, pilots, waiting for information, [unclear], sergeant Holmes, yeah, that’s me, shipping warden. I started to laugh, she said, what’s funny? I said that’s seven miles from my home, [unclear] just right. Having said that, when I did ask for a posting near my home, the second time ran, [unclear]. I said that’s nowhere near my home, for God’s sake. OTU, ship warden. Wellingtons, old Wellingtons, they’d done a tour, they weren’t the best. We weren’t getting new aircraft. So there was a [unclear] of [unclear] really make mistakes, and we all made them. We used to night cross countries, hoping the navigator got it right. On one of the cross country night exercises I, no, it must have been daylight not night, I hadn’t got a clue, I went as a training navigator, I wasn’t the best, I said, oh my God where are we, what are we up to? And the wireless operator was giving me fixes, so many minutes, hours, away to be of any use and the pilot flying the aircraft said, where are we? I looked down, I said, Ireland. What do you mean Ireland? I said, well, it’s green, it’s down there. Well, where are we? I said, well, I just told you. No, I want to know on the map. I said, I haven’t got a clue. Well, hand over. So I handed over to another pilot, he said, where are we? I said, Ireland. Yeah, but where? I said, well I saw a [unclear]. How the hell we get back, I don’t know. [laughs] But as a navigator I’d make a very good bricklayer. I was, I used to keep a thought in my mind, flying reciprocal, which was the opposite of what we were going out, if we were going out just in the hope that I’d be going in the right direction, not farther into Germany. But I often think I should have be interned in Switzerland because I was downed near into Switzerland, try to think where the hell that was. And I said, oh no, we are going home.
CB: We’ll come back to that. So, from the OTU you went to the HCU, conversion unit.
WH: Heavy conversion unit, yes. And
CB: Where was that?
WH: As I said, it was a huge aircraft.
CB: But, where was it?
WH: Wratting Common, I think.
CB: Yes.
WH: Yes.
CB: And that’s when you went to the Stirling?
WH: Sorry?
CB: Stirling.
WH: Stirling. Yes, yes. And it was huge. I, well I look at that photograph and I realise how huge it was. A bit fearsome when you just went over for the first time but alright, you just got on with it. Did as you were told. That’s the one thing I regret, I’ve no photographs of me at all, with the, because we were said, cameras weren’t allowed and so obeyed but lots of people didn’t cause they got photographs leaning out of aircraft. Perhaps I was daft not to but I regret that, I’d loved to have had a picture of me. I did ask, now wait a minute, who did I ask? Someone wrote to me. Ah yes, [unclear], saying he was, well you know what he was saying, and I put in my letter to him, if you have any photographs and he said he was looking for something in particular, I’m sure he’s got photographs and if he has of my wrecked aircraft I want to see what it looked like afterwards. But I went down and did ask many years, well, some years ago now, I said, oh I’ll go and see the adjutant and ask, has he got any photographs, he said, when, I said, ’44, God no [laughs]. I said, oh, I thought you took photographs of everything. Oh well, we did but we haven’t got any here but as I said all a long time ago. Memories that will never leave me, well, hopefully. And I never dreamed as a small boy that I’d ever be doing anything like this. But for the war I wouldn’t have done. Wait a minute, Squadron 149, yeah, 3 Group, 149, 3 Group, Lakenheath and then Methwold, Suffolk. Don’t ever want to see Suffolk again, really. Not the most, well, we did
CB: At the HCU.
WH: We did, what we called a Second Dicky, a second pilot trip and I do remember one thing. Afterwards I thought, oh my God, we were over the target and I don’t know how close but an aircraft when across in front of and I thought, my God I thought we had it. I can’t even remember the target now. But it was, there was a lot of railway marshalling yards and stuff to, targets that were, well opening up for the second front. But when I left hospital, we drove up, I couldn’t remember, couldn’t believe the amount of, well, it was the build-up for the D-Day obviously, I was on leave D-Day. But we came up from East Grinstead and there were thousands and thousands of cars and lorries and I didn’t know what was going on. But obviously it was the build-up for D-Day. Wouldn’t have missed any of it, wouldn’t, couldn’t do it again. Not a very nice day, is it? Remember most.
CB: Operation [unclear]
WH: Long, lonely flights dropping supplies to the Maquis, low level, five hundred feet, when we, yeah, one, on one occasion we couldn’t find a dropping zone and I think it must have been an airfield we crossed, they shot us to hell. I lost control of the throttles, I’m trying to think how and why but we landed back home. I don’t know why I didn’t really get, it didn’t occur to me to go up and see what damage they had done to the aircraft and I don’t know why, lots of people did but I didn’t. You just start to be alive. It was, it was always in your mind, because you came down and there another name was gone and that was it. When you start to think, a bit brutal, [unclear], oh dear, but question and answer like this is, well, somebody will hear it one day.
CB: How did you find the dropping zones for the Maquis?
WH: Ah, that was always a mystery to me, the navigator, how the hell he found them, he’d find a clearing or something, he’d have the coordinates of roughly where they were, obviously there was information coming to and fro but it’s never mentioned anywhere but it was vital to the second front, no, that’s not true, to the, it was vital to the underground, the Maquis. I don’t’ think they would have resisted [or existed?] without the help that they got from us but the people I most admire are the ones who took out light air craft, Lysanders and landed and dropped people, that must have bene a bit hairy.
CB: Did you deliver people as well?
WH: Sorry?
CB: Did you deliver people?
WH: No. Never, no. No, never, it was supplies, I still got a, I still got a container somewhere, I don’t know where it is. I can remember my sergeant saying, how many? I got lots of boxes, what the hell? I said, well, I came over with a suitcase, I said, but I’m going back with a wife and two children. I said, I’ve accumulated all this [unclear] of stuff and I, now I think they’ve been chopped off most of them and probably burnt but it’s, I wish this sort of thing had been available to my father cause I would loved to have known, what did he do to get a military medal?
CB: What did he do as a job?
WH: Well, I don’t know, he was just [unclear] Great Western Railway, no, I.
CB: In Banbury.
WH: Yeah. Honestly, don’t know. I knew, ah, I used to write his letters for him to the union because he got an industrial disease, dermatitis, caused by coal dust and oil apparently. And I used to write his letters. We were fighting a case and he wasn’t a scholar of any kind. I always remember someone saying, I saw your dad riding his bike, he said, he jumped off and his legs [unclear], it always tickles me, running alongside it. But I had a lovely home actually, they were, well, just ordinary people but cause they’ve [unclear] come from different background entirely I mean. I remember saying to her years ago, well, talking about cars, I said, we only had a Lancia? I said, Lancia, I haven’t got a pair of bloody roller-skates. But a different background entirely. And I think when we eloped at the vicar of, oh God, what was the name of the place? Didn’t want to marry us, and I think he looked to the documents and saw that Yvonne was from a different background than me and then we, ah, the vicar of Tottenham [?], Guilford and he said, oh, don’t worry, he said, nobody came to my wedding. And the chap who painted that came, he and his, he married a WAAF, I know, [unclear] something to say.
CB: So when was it that you got married?
WH: When? ’49. Which is, how many years ago?
CB: Yeah, it’s quite a long time.
WH: ’49. Fifty, well, fifty, sixty years. Yeah.
CB: Where did you meet Yvonne?
WH: Where did I meet? Well, Chalky my navigator and I had the same musical taste, can’t stand pop, well, didn’t exist then. But Yvonne had a beautiful control to her voice and she was heard in the town hall in Banbury singing, Doctor Leslie Woodgate, BBC, and he insisted that she go to the Guildhall School of Music on the Embankment. And they said yes, seven years, oh I wanna get married. Well, don’t stop singing. But she did have a beautiful voice. I heard her in the town hall. I know that my redeemer liveth, I remember it very well. But she did have a very, it really was a beautiful voice. I wish I could sing. Talent, you’ve either got or you haven’t. I got the blame for that too, cause I left the car at Hanger Lane, I didn’t wanna drive in to the Embankment. And when we came back, she rang up her folk from the, from Hanger Lane, and I got the blame for turning her down. Because she, I think she could’ve gone a long way. But I was fascinated. However. We all have different talents, well, some of haven’t got any, and I haven’t, I can’t, I can’t draw. I can’t [unclear]. Oddly enough the children are all artistic or they were. But I haven’t got a single party trick, I can’t even whistle [laughs].
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 William Holmes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AHolmesWC151105
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-18
Format
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01:12:57 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
William Holmes remembers his time as a pilot in the RAF. Gives a vivid and graphic account of the dramatic crash-landing which left him badly injured and brought him to join the Guinea Pig Club. Remembers various episodes of his operational life: training in Canada; flying Stirlings and Boeing-Stearmans; targeting U-boat pens in Brest; dropping supplies for the Maquis; being awarded a DFC. Mentions Wakey-Wakey pills.
149 Squadron
3 Group
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
forced landing
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
pilot
promotion
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Methwold
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Wratting Common
RCAF Bowden
RCAF Estevan
Resistance
Stearman
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/325/11349/MSaundersAC295399Arm-170201-01.1.pdf
5b35edd914bac7cd5fb4607cf2e90210
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
Saunders, Sandy
Arthur Courtenay Saunders
Arthur C Saunders
Arthur Saunders
A C Saunders
A Saunders
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection consists of a log book, an oral history interview and extensive medical records as well as photographs and a report. Dr Arthur Courtenay "Sandy" Saunders (1922-2017, 295329 Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) received extensive burns after an aircraft crash in September 1945 and underwent experimental maxillo-facial surgery, as a member of the Guinea-pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Sandy Saunders and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Saunders, AC
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
Sandy Saunders' medical records following aircraft crash
Maxillo-Facial Service
Description
An account of the resource
Medical records for Sandy Saunders following the aircraft crash on 27 Sep 1945 where he sustained burns to his face, hands and legs. Included are proceedings from medical boards from Nov 1945-Feb 1947 and detailed notes from the Maxillo-Facial Unit, Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead from April 1947, where his surgeon was Archibald McIndoe. Sandy Saunders was finally discharged from that unit on 6 Sep 1949.
Format
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28 printed sheets with handwritten annotations, sketches and photographs
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
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MSaundersAC295399Arm-170201-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
British Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--East Grinstead
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-09-27
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
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.
aircrew
crash
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1035/11407/PMorganA1701.2.jpg
bbb83e7b3de1c6a8e529cf34122f1744
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1035/11407/AMorganA170413.1.mp3
8cccce916ad7adad24864c03490079b0
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
Morgan, Alan
Alan Morgan
A Morgan
Fingers Morgan
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Alan Morgan (b. 1923, 1589714 Royal air Force) and five photographs. He served as a flight engineer and lost his fingers to frost bite.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alan Morgan and catalogued by 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
2017-04-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Morgan, A
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: This is Suzanne Pescott. I’m interviewing Alan Morgan today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Alan’s home and it is the 13th of April 2017. First of all, thank you Alan for agreeing to talk to me today. I’d just also like to say present at the interview is Ella, Alan’s wife of seventy years plus and his son Peter. So, first of all Alan do you want to tell me about your life before you joined the RAF? What was it that you did?
AM: Well, I was an apprentice toolmaker at Cooke and Ferguson’s, Openshaw and I was making tools for the Lancaster bomber. And the tools were the jigs and fixtures for the bomb doors. And I carried on then. In 1942 joining up. I went to join up for aircrew but they wouldn’t have me because I was in a Reserved Occupation you see. So, anyway there was two of us went down to join up. Gerald [unclear] and myself. Apprentice with me at Cooke and Ferguson’s. Then six months later or a few months later we’d, we went home. They sent us back home. They said we was in a Reserved Occupation and they sent us back home. Anyway, later on they advertised for Bomber Command aircrew and so we both joined up together. We just signed up for aircrew which was the [pause] well I think we joined up to, as flyers, you know. Like you see. Then we carried on. Carried on working. And then the war came so it was a matter of getting in the, you know wanting to get in the forces, the RAF and that was it. I carried on working as a tool maker. Apprentice toolmaker. And I don’t know what happened after that. We just carried on and joined the Air Force in —
EM: 1942.
AM: 1942. Yeah. It would have been December ’42. Yeah.
SP: Right. And did you say you joined up with your friend?
AM: Yeah.
SP: So, did you go to the same training with him? Did you go at the same time?
AM: No. He went in six months after me but as I got injured he went on his first. He went on his first operation and he was killed. On the very first one. That was Gerald [unclear] So, but oh while we was at Cooke and Ferguson I was in the Home Guard. I was also Fire Service. Looking after the factory, you know. Going on, examining, doing the roof. So, I think that was about all, you know.
SP: What sort of thing did you do in the Home Guard? What was the — what did that entail?
AM: Well, it was entailing going around the airfield — no, the reservoir at Audenshaw. You know. Guarding it [laughs] Supposed to be.
SP: Guarding the reservoir in Audenshaw. So, you were obviously keen to go as aircrew because you tried twice. So, what, what appealed to you about going to aircrew?
AM: Well, I wanted to go flying, you know. It was as simple as that. So we, I joined up and then I was called up to do a twelve week stint at Blackpool. Parading you know. We got our peak, white peak caps on. Then we got, I got posted down to St Athans. Yeah. I can’t, yeah — and then I did twelve week at St Athans.
EM: [unclear]
SP: So, Alan, what did you actually do at St Athans? What was it you there for?
AM: We were learning how to fly, you know. Being taught how to do the aircraft, you know. All about the aircraft. Flying conditions. As, I don’t really know what we did there but we passed out as flight sergeants, you know. Like sergeants rather. And when we, when we’d done our training there at St Athan I was posted to Swinderby where we crewed up. And we did. We got crewed up and then did us training on an old Manchester bomber. Training on that. A Halifax Mark 1, an early Halifax. And also an old Stirling that was there, you know. So, and then from Swinderby, I was there about three months. We went straight to Fiskerton. 49 Squadron. And there we started circuits and bumps and flight, you know learning how to fly the aircraft like you see. And [pause]
SP: So, at Swinderby, the crewing up. Do you want to talk me through that? How did you find the rest of the crew?
AM: Yeah. Well, we got crewed up at Swinderby and then we were moved to, at Fiskerton, 49 Squadron. And there we started. Well, really we were thrown in at the deep end. We started. We were soon on bombing raid because we got there on the December ’43 and we was down for ops, you know. We did circuits and bumps and —
[recording paused]
AM: Do the throttles on the doing. Start the four, start the four engines. Check everything and assist the pilot on take-off. Undercarriage. I used to do that up. All by instruction from the pilot though and then —
PM: So he, dad he’d ask for —
AM: I used to check all, I had to check all the engines on the flight. I had to check all the engines, you know. And [pause] well that was it, you know.
SP: And this was on Lancaster bombers did you say?
AM: Yeah.
SP: At Fiskerton.
AM: Yeah.
SP: Yeah. Ok. So, what — your crew. So, tell me a bit about your crew. Who were you crewed up with?
AM: Well, Jack Lett. He was a, he was a pilot, you know. He’d done, he’d done his training at Canada. Then there was Jock Irving, the rear gunner. He was my best pal, you know. Then there was Frank, the wireless operator. Then there was the bomb aimer. McIndoe. Oh no. Not McIndoe. Mac. Macke. And then there was Tommy Woods, the mid-upper gunner. Andy, the wireless operator. So, we was all pals together you know.
SP: And did you go out as a team? A group.
AM: Always. Well, I had a motorbike. I bought it off me dad in what —1944 I’d have that bike wouldn’t I? The motorbike. And Tommy Wood, the mid-upper had a little Morris car. And whenever we was on stand down we used to go to Lincoln, you know. All together. All the crew. Pile in his car and I’d always take some, take somebody on my motorbike. And then we used to, if and when I got a forty four hour pass I used to come home, you know. As long as I got back for Monday morning, I think 8 o’clock. So, that was it.
SP: So where did you used to go in Lincoln?
AM: Oh, we used to go — well, we were adopted by a café owner. Alice, she was called. And if we was ever in Lincoln you know we were stuck for a meal or a drink she used to provide it for us, you know. She was very good, Alice. But we used to go mainly in the sergeant’s mess you know for entertainment. For entertainment. But really we didn’t go a lot into Lincoln because we were so busy. Every day we was flying, you know. Training. And then when we was on it was short and swift. The Bomber Command. I was doing bombing runs on to Berlin six times. Which was terrible, you know. It was. You was lucky if you survived one let alone six times. Then I went to Leipzig. And that was on my twenty first birthday. Oh yeah [pause] It’s not got the, it’s not got the — oh Berlin. Yeah.
[recording paused]
SP: Ok, Alan. So, you’re talking about your different raids and you said you did two raids on your twenty first birthday.
AM: Yeah.
SP: So, do you want to tell me about those?
AM: Yeah. Well, the first raid was to Stuttgart, no Stuttgart it was but —sorry. Leipzig.
SP: That’s alright.
AM: Sorry. It was Leipzig. And then the second, the next raid was Stuttgart. And that’s when I lost, you know, I got frostbite. What happened, the door got blown open by heavy flak and skipper sent the wireless operator to close the door. He blacked out. Skipper sent me down and said, ‘You’d better see what’s happened to Frank.’ So, I went down with a spare oxygen bottle. Saw to Frank. Managed to bring him around a little bit and then I got him back to the main supply where his position was. He was ok. Then I went back myself. I managed to close the door and then I blacked out. And unfortunately, in the transition I’d took my gloves off and unfortunately my hands was exposed and they took the, they was exposed. How long I don’t know. But the skipper then dived down to ten thousand feet and at ten thousand feet I, oh, the bomb aimer came for me and between us we struggled back to the rest bed and then I flew home. And we made an emergency landing at RAF Ford on the south coast. And there they took me to, in the ambulance from the, from the aircraft straight to Chichester. And there [pause] whether they gave me wrong treatment I don’t know but they put me hands in saline gloves. Warm. Warm saline gloves. And unfortunately, according to McIndoe at the hospital where I was transferred from Chichester to East Grinstead it was the wrong treatment. So, immediately they got me to East Grinstead they put both my hands in ice buckets over me, that was slung over my bed. And from then on unfortunately they started going black at the tips and gradually they went black all the way up to the knuckles. And after about three or four weeks I had to have them amputated. And that was my, that was my finish I thought. You know. But while I was in hospital I kept coming home on leave, going back to the hospital. Having different operations because I had operation for all the tendons and the nerves shot, err cut down because they was hurting me every time I put my clothes on. So they did that. They did do one at a time. They wanted to do them altogether but I said, ‘No,’ I said, ‘One at a time.’ And I was ok. Independent with one hand, you know, bandaged up. Anyway, I, I survived all that lot but unfortunately I got pneumonia with the cold being on my chest. We think it was that or the shock of the operation. I don’t really know but I got pneumonia and they sent for Ella and my mum and dad. They came down to the hospital to see me, you know. But the war was still on, you know. We were still having raids in London and doodlebugs was flying over the area you know. It was, it was a hectic time really, you know. That was the, that was the end of my career as I thought but fortunately I I got an interview at Adastral. McIndoe put me in for aircrew again. And then I got my, I went to Adastral House. Passed for a, I suppose an assessment at Empire Air Navigation School at Shawbury. And I passed that and yeah I was — oh, we went to, I did the usual training exercises plus a trip to Gibraltar. And at Gibraltar we got fired on. We had, we had two pilots at the time so we got fired on by us own warships in the, you know to keep away. So we had to keep away from them. And the two pilots changed seats but one of them pulled the red, the emergency accidentally and pulled the wrong, and it blew off and smashed all the astrodome. So we was delayed at Gibraltar for about six days. And there I went shopping with the crew, you know. And I brought, I’d got a kit bag and I filled it with bananas and brought bananas home didn’t I? And they’d never seen bananas in England. It was, it was a good holiday that [laughs] I enjoyed it there at Gibraltar. And then I come home. I think I got married, didn’t I? Yeah. 10th of June 1944. And that was a big occasion. I remember that. So, I think that was about all, you know. Up ‘til that time.
SP: So, it sounds as though it was great to get back to doing something after you’d come out of hospital. Do you want to tell me a little bit about what life was like in the hospital at the time? What was —
AM: Well, it was like a [laughs] it was like a hotel really. There was a piano in the middle of the room and they used to be singing away. A big barrel of beer. And all the lads, all the lads used to trip out of bed and have a glass of beer. Or I used to have whisky though brought to me by Mrs Dewar, the Dewars whisky people, you know. And every morning she came visiting. I used to get whisky, you know. A drop of whisky.
SP: Was this some special — the treatment you had? It was part of a club did you say?
AM: Well, Mappin and Webb used to run therapy like. Major Mappin used to take us out for trips out in the pub in a big Lagonda, you know. He used to take us out. Those that could get out of bed, you know. And then we used to have trips to London Palladium. All the big shows, you know. They sent us tickets and we’d go. A party of us. I’d go down and have a night out, you know in London. It really was, it was alright. It was very very good.
SP: And did you say it had a name? You were a part because they were doing trial things for recovery. Was it called the Guinea Pig Club did you say?
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
SP: Ok. So, what, what was the Guinea Pig Club?
AM: Well, it was all the badly burned Battle of Britain pilots first started it. They formed a club. But as the, as the time went on Bomber Command, all the aircrew Bomber Command used to be Guinea Pigs as well you know because they was badly injured. And we kept together all these years right up to the, well up to the last year. The last year was us last reunion that we’d had with the Duke of Edinburgh being our president and he was there with us. I don’t know where it was at.
SP: At East Grinstead.
AM: No. That, we went to the —
AM: National Arboretum was it?
[recording paused]
SP: So, Alan was there anything else about the hospital?
AM: Well.
SP: That you want to say?
AM: Well, we used to go in the grounds. Ella was with me at that time. She’d come down visiting me and we sat in the grounds and we used to watch the doodlebugs fly over just above the height of the balloons. And one actually got tipped and the planes used to chase after them, you know. Sometimes they tipped them over with the wing or sometimes they’d shoot them down. But having said that we was in the grounds of the hospital, sat down and one doodlebug came down. It must have been a mile away and oh the blast from it. We could feel it at, couldn’t we? We could feel it. And the noise was terrific. And that, that happened once while we were down there. Oh, there was a lot of activity going on wasn’t there? Every day there was something going on. But having said that we survived it all, you know and we just carried on. You know.
SP: So, from, after the hospital you said you got married. And then what happened after you came out of the RAF?
AM: Oh, well I went back to Cooke and Ferguson’s. The Guinea Pig must have wrote to Cooke and Ferguson’s. Well, I think so. And I started there back on switch gear. Apprentice, you know. Apprentice. Yes. I was on switch gear for, no. And then I went on. I moved from switch gear to jig boring. And I went to the tool room. In a specially heated room and a special machine. And also there was a [unclear] in there I learned how to use that. And I carried on working there for about ten years isn’t it? Ten or more. I carried on working until the firm was taken over by a company in south of England and they made five hundred of us redundant. And from then on I went then, I went to different factories you know. One factory I went on a milling machine. And another factory I went jig boring. Another — but the hours were so long. They wanted me at work because I was in contract work and the hours were so long that I didn’t want the hours. I wanted to go out caravanning, you know. At weekends. But they always wanted me to work longer and longer and longer. So, then I moved from there. I give up that job. I went toolmaking at another contract firm. And I carried on tool making ‘til I finished. ‘Til I was sixty. Yeah. I retired, didn’t I? At sixty. And I’ve had a good life really. You know. I think so anyway. I’m worse now than I have [laughs] I have been because you know I’m always dizzy and I can’t remember, and I’m deaf [laughs] Oh dear. Dear. But we had a good life. And we’ve always gone abroad haven’t we with the caravan? Travelled all over Spain. Been to Germany. Been to Switzerland, Italy. Yeah. Oh, we’ve had some really good holidays with the caravan. Then we sold the caravan and I moved up to a motorhome and we travelled about in that, didn’t we? In fact, we’ve still got the motorhome in the, in the doings and I’ve give it Peter. He’s taken it over and he’s enjoying it I think, you know. Oh dear. So —
SP: So, how long have you been married now? You and Ella.
AM: How many years?
EM: Seventy two in June.
AM: Seventy two years we’ve been married. So I think she knows me by now, you know. Oh, I couldn’t have done without her. She’s been an absolute Godsend, helping me. She even, she even has to shower me you know because otherwise I’d flop down, you know. But I survive, don’t I? I have a morning in bed after a shower [laughs] To recover.
SP: So, Alan is there anything else you’ve not had a chance to say or anything else you think is important that you want to say? Anything else important you’d want to say before we finish the interview? Or anything you think you might have missed?
AM: Well, anything. That I’ve got a good family. Good job I’ve got Peter and Leslie to look after. You know, if there’s anything I want doing now they do. Yeah. Or Kenneth. Yeah. Kenneth, my eldest son. He’s, he was a retired, he’s a retired dentist. They’ve been brilliant with me. They look after me now. Oh dear. I couldn’t do without them. I couldn’t.
SP: It’s been a pleasure to do the interview with you Alan. So, thank you for sharing all those stories. So, thank you very much.
[recording paused]
SP: Ok. Alan so just chatting you’ve got a link to Vera Lynn. What’s —
AM: Yeah.
SP: What’s your link to Vera Lynn?
AM: Well, it was a party that she was invited to down at East Grinstead. Was it the hospital? Yeah. It was the hospital and she came to visit us all. And I knew she was, you know like I thought, well I’d make her something. I presented it to her at the hospital. And it was a bird box. A Blue Tit box. And I presented it to her at East Grinstead. The hospital. And she was thrilled to bits with it and she wrote me a letter thanking me. In fact, she wrote me two letters, didn’t she? First one thanking me and the second one was to tell me that the Blue Tits was, the Blue Tits was going in the bird box. And she was thrilled to bits wasn’t she? That’s a few years ago.
EM: About eight. At least eight years ago.
AM: About ten years ago.
SP: Brilliant. So, you made that bird box for her at home or at the hospital?
AM: Yeah.
SP: At home. Yeah.
AM: At home. I had to make them, a dozen at a time and sell them for —
SP: Charity.
AM: Fund for the hospital, you know.
PM: You’ve done all sorts, haven’t you?
AM: I did. I did a lot for the hospital, you know.
SP: Ok. Thank you for that.
[recording paused]
SP: So, this is Suzanne Pescott and I’m interviewing Ella Morgan today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Ella’s home and it’s the 13th of April 2017. So, thank you Ella for agreeing to talk to me today. Also present in the interview is Ella’s husband Alan and son Peter. So, Ella do you want to talk to me about your war years and what you remember?
EM: Well, yes. The war started the year I started work. And eventually, when I was fifteen I did go to, I went to work at Cooke and Ferguson’s in the office. And while I was there like you do I met Alan and we started going out together. He worked in the Works and we kept together then all the time. Eventually he, he volunteered and he went into the Air Force and I stayed there. And on his first leave because we weren’t married I wasn’t supposed to have any time off. So, I took the week off, I went back to the office and they sacked me. So, I thought oh well there’s plenty of work in the war so I moved on and went to another office work in local English Steel. And I stayed there. And during the time I found out I was three times, in the Works they were getting more money than I did. So, I decided to go into the Works and I learned to drive the truck around the things and I learned to drive the crane. And I stayed there. And it was while I was there Alan had his accident in the Air Force. He’d been home. He hadn’t been on a proper leave. He just used to come home when they weren’t flying. When the weather was bad. And of course we got notification. It was his twenty first birthday actually and he was due to come home three days later. So, obviously his mother got notification saying that he was in hospital. And about a week or so later what happened he’d deteriorated. He was ill and he’d been asking for me, so they sent for his mother and father and me. So, we went down and he was really poorly. He had pneumonia and his hands were a mess. They were just like brown bananas. They said that he was very poorly but I just said, ‘Oh, he’ll come through. He’ll be alright. I don’t accept that.’ And I stayed and his father came home. His mum and I stayed a bit longer. Then we came home. When he started to recover we came home. He was on the way back. And then of course while he was at hospital they was doing all the things to him. At Easter, when it was holidays I took his sister down with me to East Grinstead. She was fourteen, I was eighteen. We went down on the train across London in to, and got the train to East Grinstead and you know there were all bombing and doodlebugs but we, we just sailed along Dorothy and I. And I took her to see him and he was alright. He was great. He’d, I think he’d had his, they’d amputated his fingers by then so he was in bandages. And, you know we saw the lads. You hadn’t got to stare at the lads and you hadn’t to go and help them until they asked you. So, I told Dorothy this and it was great. And while I was there he said, ‘Oh, I won’t work and I can’t get married.’ So, I said, ‘Right. We’re getting married.’ So I came home and I knew he was going to be out of hospital at the week. It was the Monday before D-Day. Yes. Monday before D-Day. And I arranged the wedding. Mum helped me. And his uncle and auntie was very good. His mum was good. So, we arranged the wedding. We had everything organised. I went down for him. He came home on the Monday. It was D-Day on the Tuesday down there and all the tanks were ready for going over. We could see them bypass us and things like that. Anyway, came home and we got married on the Saturday. We had our honeymoon. Everything. White wedding, everything. Everybody was absolutely superb helping us. And we had our honeymoon. Then he had to go back for his — and he went back every so often for operations all through the next year. He used to travel down. Then come home. As soon as he was able he got a pass to come home. He recovered at home. And he did that until they discharged him. And then when he was discharged he went flying for the Air Navigation School as a trainer, you know. And from there we’ve just had a wonderful life. It’s been great.
SP: That’s great, Ella. You said when you were down at the hospital there was a lot going in the grounds and things like that.
EM: Oh yes. Well, when we were at the hospital I mean the war was still in full swing and the doodlebugs used to go over. We used to watch them. And the Spitfires used to follow them and you could see they were trying to tip them to send them — they didn’t want the doodlebugs to get to London so they tried to get them to come down. If they set them off balance they dropped, you know. And there was one dropped while I was there and you really felt the blast of it I’ll tell you. But, you know that was life. You didn’t think oh I’m going to get killed. You just got on with it. We didn’t bother. You know. And when I was in the hospital they warned me not to go and help any of the lads because they were all very badly burned. And they said if you want, if they want to ask they’ll come to you and ask you. And I got to know all the lads and used to go out with them. In fact, two of them after we was married came and stayed with Alan’s mother. They came up to visit. And we were real friends with everybody. You didn’t, you didn’t look at the faces. It was the person. They were absolutely great, the lads. You know. And they all tried their best to get on with their lives. Of all of the ones down there I don’t think there was one that didn’t make a life after. And that was the secret of the hospital because it wasn’t run as a hospital. It was run as a home with injured, and the rules were totally different in the hospital. You could go in and out when you want. The lads could do that. And it was really was extraordinary. All due to Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was the instigator that did, that made it. Definitely.
SP: I think you were saying as well that a lot of the families down there were —
AM: Oh, yeah.
SP: Supporting and helping the hospital.
EM: Yes. When we went down there was a little estate around the hospital and they all opened their homes for us to visit. And one lady, her husband was in the army and I used to go and stay with her and her daughter every year. Every time I went down I used to stay with them. And they were like family friends eventually. The whole thing. And then you know they built a pub on the estate and it was called, they called it the Guinea Pig Pub. And every year after that we used to go down. And we all had, they had a darts match every, every Saturday morning. There was a darts match in the, in the pub and a meal for us. And then they used to go to the, the lads used to go to their AGM. And we used to have afternoon tea — the ladies, visitors in the, in the hospital. You know, everybody was so welcoming. It really really was. There was a very unusual atmosphere that, that I’ve never seen anywhere else. I think it was due to the severity of the burns and the lads. They realised they had to make them feel comfortable, you know. That’s it.
SP: That’s great. Thank you very much for that.
EM: Ok. Well.
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 Alan Morgan
Interview with Ella Morgan
Creator
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Susanne Pescott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-13
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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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AMorganA170413, PMorganA1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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00:46:29 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
Alan Morgan was an apprentice toolmaker and therefore working in a Reserved Occupation when he volunteered for air crew with his friend and fellow apprentice. His friend was killed on his first operation. Alan trained as a flight engineer. On one operation the wireless operator lost consciousness when he was trying to get the door closed that had been blown open when they were attacked. Alan helped him but while he also tried to get the door closed he lost consciousness. His hands were exposed and during this time he developed frostbite. Alan was sent to East Grinstead to the care of Sir Archibald McIndoe and became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Sussex
Germany--Stuttgart
Wales--Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1944-06
49 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
flight engineer
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
love and romance
Manchester
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
RAF Fiskerton
RAF St Athan
RAF Swinderby
Stirling
training
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/879/17964/MHolmesWC176554-180703-05.1.pdf
52cba191839aa519f6e2986d3e60bdde
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
Holmes, William
William Cyril Holmes
W C Holmes
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Holmes DFC (b. 1921, 131013, 176554 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a memoir by his bomb aimer, official documents, Guinea Pig Club memorabilia, photographs of him and his crew and a memoir of his time training in Canada. He was a Stirling pilot on 149 Squadron in 1944. He flew 17 operations before crashing his aircraft at RAF Thorney Island 18 June 1944 and subsequently becoming a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William and Bill Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Holmes, WC
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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Guinea Pig club annual dinner 1979
Description
An account of the resource
Guinea Pig club anthem and diner menu for event help at the Copthorne Hotel Crawley 22 September 1979.
Date
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1979-09-22
Format
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Four sided printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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MHolmesWC176554-180703-05
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Crawley (West Sussex)
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
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1979-09-22
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/879/17965/MHolmesWC176554-180703-06.1.pdf
bf65334ce72fc320b5a868078908c07a
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
Holmes, William
William Cyril Holmes
W C Holmes
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer William Holmes DFC (b. 1921, 131013, 176554 Royal Air Force), his logbook, a memoir by his bomb aimer, official documents, Guinea Pig Club memorabilia, photographs of him and his crew and a memoir of his time training in Canada. He was a Stirling pilot on 149 Squadron in 1944. He flew 17 operations before crashing his aircraft at RAF Thorney Island 18 June 1944 and subsequently becoming a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by William and Bill Holmes 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
2015-11-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Holmes, WC
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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LARCOMBE EG FOCUS
[Page Break]
[Guinea Pig Club Crest]
Annual Dinner
Saturday 26th September 1992
The Felbridge Hotel
East Grinstead
[Page Break]
THE PLASTIC SURGEON
ITS HABITS, DIET AND BEHAVIOUR
A study in Unnatural History
Introductory
The Plastic Surgeon is my theme
So Muse, inspire my song,
For, though the subject odd may seem,
I would not do him wrong.
His habitat is Harley Street,
His prey the Wart and Scar,
And though he has enormous feet,
He chiefly moves by car.
[Page Break]
THE BIRTH OF THE GUNINEA CLUB
(Extracts from the Minutes of the first meeting, held on Sunday 20th July 1941)
The objects of the Club are to promote good fellowship among, and maintain contact with, approved frequenters of the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead.
The Annual Subscription for all Members is 2/6c., due on 1st. July each year. Women are not eligible for membership. A “Ladies Evening” may be held.
The following are proposed and seconded by members present :-
Life President: Mr A.H. McIndoe, FRCS
Vice President: Sqdn. Ldr T. Gleave
Secretary: F/O W. Towers-Perkins
Treasurer: P/O P.C. Weeks
Committee Members: Messrs. Coote, Edmunds, Page, Hughes, Wilton, Overeyander, Gardiner, Rissel, Davies, Fraser, Hunter, Eckoff, Morley and Livingstone.
Other members present were Messers. McLeod, Mappin, Clarkson, and Bodenham.
The Following were proposed and seconded as Members: Messers Dewar, Shepherd, Lock, Hillary, Fleming, Lord, Hart, Langdale, Bennions, Harrison, Butcher, Truhlar, Koukal, Noble, Mann, Kransodebski, MacPhail, Banham and Smith-Barry.
[Page Break]
TOASTS
THE QUEEN
ARCHIE, JOHN AND JILL
THE GUESTS
WING COMMANDER DEREK MARTIN, O.B.E.,B.Sc.
REPLY TO THE GUESTS
AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR MICHAEL GRAYDON, K.C.B.,C.B.E.,R.A.F
[Page Break]
MENU
Green Pea and Champagne Soup with Nutmeg Sipits
Half a Roast Duck with fresh Ginger and Pineapple Sauce
Selection of Seasonal Vegetables and Potatoes
Apple Pie and Cream
Freshly Brewed Coffee and Mints
[Page Break]
Impressions
I do not like the Surgeons,
They are a brutal race.
They came and sliced my tumm up,
And parked it on my face.
I do not like the Surgeons,
They are most unrefined,
Who wants to have a forehead made,
Of slabs from their behind?
[Page Break]
THE GUINEA PIG ANTHEM
We are McIndoe’s army,
We are his Guinea Pigs.
With dermatomes and pedicles
Glass eyes, false teeth and wigs,
And when we get our discharge
We’ll shout with all our might:
“Per ardua ad astra”
We’d rather drink than fight.
John Hunter runs the gas works,
Ross Tilley wields a knife
And if they are not careful
They’ll have your flaming life.
So, Guinea Pigs, stand ready
For all yours surgeons’ calls:
And if their hands aren’t steady
They will whip off both your ears.
We’ve had some Australians,
Some French, Some Czechs, Some Poles;
We’ve even had some Yankees,
God bless their precious souls.
While as for the Canadians –
Ah! That’s a different things.
They couldn’t stand our accent
And built a separate Wing.
We are McIndoe’s army,
(as first verse)
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
Annual dinner Guinea Pig Club 1992
Description
An account of the resource
Cover shows a guinea pig in top hat and tails, inside a humorous account of plastic surgeons, a history of the guinea pig club and a menu for dinner on 26 September 1992, a cartoon and the guinea pig club anthem.
Date
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1992-09-26
Format
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Eight page printed booklet
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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MHolmesWC176554-180703-06
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--East Grinstead
England--Sussex
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1992-09-26
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
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Claire Monk
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/774/30929/MWoolfAS157533-170629-010001.1.jpg
0975aa88beac978dd76853bba191797b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/774/30929/MWoolfAS157533-170629-010002.1.jpg
783b42aea60a583b4d227217beefbf05
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
Woolf, Arthur Sidney
A S Woolf
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Arthur Woolf (1922 - 2021, 1579552, 157533 Royal Air Force) his log book, a memoir, correspondence, documents, a newspaper cutting and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 630 Squadron and became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Woolf and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-06-29
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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Woolf, AS
Transcribed document
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[Guinea Pig Club 'eve of dinner' dance souvenir]
A message from the President of the Guinea Pig Club, Sir Archibald H. McIndoe,
C.B.E., M.S., M.Sc., F.R.C.S., F.A.C.S.
“THE Eve-of-Dinner Dance is a new venture due to the enthusiasm of Ann Standen. It is intended to give our members a further opportunity of renewing not only their own friendships but of meeting again all those good East Grinstead people who remember them so well.
I am sure it will have your support, particularly as all the proceeds go to help the Club in its work. So a hearty welcome indeed to all Guinea Pigs, Friends of the Guinea Pig Club, and Guinea Pig Club Supporters”
[signed] Archibald H. McIndoe[/signed]
[page break]
[cartoon drawing of a hospital ward]
THE SPIRIT OF THE STY
[autograph page-blank]
[page break]
[black and white photograph of Club members]
GUINEA PIG CLUB
“Eve-of-Dinner” Dance Souvenir
WHITEHALL
EAST GRINSTEAD
Friday, 2nd September, 1949
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
Guinea Pig Club 'eve of dinner' dance souvenir
Description
An account of the resource
On the front a photograph of a group of men with facial burns standing around a seated man. Inside a message from the president of the Guinea Pig Club, Sir Archibald H McIndoe and a cartoon of men cavorting and gathered in a hospital ward. Captioned 'The spirit of the sty'. Back page blank for autographs.
Date
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1949-09-02
Format
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Four page printed booklet
Language
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eng
Type
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Artwork
Text
Photograph
Identifier
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MWoolfAS157533-170629-01
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sussex
England--East Grinstead
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1949-09-02
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/774/30939/BWoolfASWoolfASv1.2.pdf
f62f9d2147ca2ccc8cd92af5c543242e
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
Woolf, Arthur Sidney
A S Woolf
Description
An account of the resource
23 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Arthur Woolf (1922 - 2021, 1579552, 157533 Royal Air Force) his log book, a memoir, correspondence, documents, a newspaper cutting and photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 630 Squadron and became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Woolf 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
2017-06-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Woolf, AS
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Air Crew Association Badge]
ROYAL AIRFORCE [sic] CAREER & EXPERIENCES IN WORLD WAR TWO.
F/O ARTHUR S. WOOLF.
No. 630 Squadron, No. 5 Group.
BOMBER COMMAND.
[page break]
[photograph]
R.A.F. CAREER AND EXPERIENCES IN WW2.
F/O ARTHUR S. WOOLF.
630 SQUADRON. No.5 GROUP.
[page break]
[Bomber Command Crest]
[5 Group Headquarters Crest] [630 Squadron Crest]
[page break]
R.A.F. CAREER AND EXPERIENCES IN WW2.
F/O ARTHUR S. WOOLF.
As a youngster I was always thrilled by the thought of flying, so volunteered for aircrew and eventually in 1941 reported to Padgate R.A.F. Recruitment Centre at the age of 19. I was very much a home-loving boy from a close-knit family of just four, my older brother being already in the R.A.F. was serving in the Middle East.
I was first posted to Blackpool for 'square bashing', morse code training etc. Then on to Yatesbury in Wiltshire, No.2 Radio School, after which, due apparently to a 'log jam' of trainees (or a cock-up of some sort!) we were all individually posted out to various U.K. R.A.F. stations for "Radio experience". In my case this was to Martlesham Heath, an old pre-war airfield a few miles north of Ipswich on the east coast, where I became one of the station's Signal Section, though I still wore my white flash in my forage cap and was still untrained aircrew. It was here that I 'cadged' my very first and very unofficial flight, it was on one of my off duty days. Of all things it was in an old Walrus aircraft of the Air-Sea Rescue Squadron based there. I was crammed into the tiny space available and we chugged down the East coast just a few feet above the sea. I was thrilled to pieces!.
My second flight, this time semi-official, was in a Hampden on a practice bombing trip to Orford Ness bombing range just off the east coast, when I was supposed to try to fix a u/s radio. My, I was really progressing. From a Walrus to a Hampden! I must have been mad to go anyway near either of them, but where ignorance is bliss.......
After seven or eight months at Martlesham I was posted to the Aircrew Reception Centre at St. Johns Wood, London, much to my disgust. This seemed very much like a backward step in my R.A.F. career, just doing more 'square bashing' in the local streets, but it only lasted a couple of weeks or so, when I was then moved to I.T.W. at Bridgenorth. At the end of this course, at the Passing-Out Parade, it was announced that I had achieved the highest pass marks in all the various subjects ever attained since this course had commenced and I was presented with two hundred cigarettes to mark the occasion. Being a non-smoker at that time my colleagues benefited [sic]!
My next posting was to Yatesbury again, but this time on a more advanced signals course which included flying, officially this time, on air signals training, first in De Haviland Dominies, and later in Proctors. I continued obtaining high marks in virtually all subjects and just prior to the final tests and in the middle of lectures one morning I was told to
R.A.F. Career and Experiences in WW2. Page 1
[page break]
report to the Adjutant. Without being told why, I was questioned by him at length about my family background, my education and further studies, my interests etc., and then dismissed back to normal training with the rest of the squad. At the end of this course and before being posted to A.F.U. at Dumfries in Scotland, we were given our three stripes, although it was stressed that we were still under training and we were not to think that we could go throwing our weight around as "real sergeants"!
The A.F.U. course at Dumfries, where we flew in Ansons, lasted some two months or so and followed by O.T.U. at Upper Heyford, flying in Wellingtons, the faithful old "Wimpeys". It was here that we crewed up and it was done in the following manner. Each category of aircrew was told that they had so many days in which to find a crew, otherwise they would be "appointed" and teamed up with the "leftovers". We all felt that this would be a bit of a scourge and was to be avoided at all costs. In my own case, that evening I got talking to a Navigator type who said that he had just teamed up with the 'Yank' Pilot, Bill Adams who had crossed over from the U.S.A. into Canada to join the R.C.A.F. before the U.S. entered the war. Needless to say I agree to be their Wireless Operator and in no time at all we had a full crew, comprising a 'Yank' Pilot, and a 'Yank' Mid-Upper Gunner who had also crossed into Canada to join the R.C.A.F., a 'Canadian' Bomb Aimer (commissioned), a 'Canadian' Rear-Gunner, and three 'Brits'., one of whom was a 'Welshman' in fact.
Before we had even begun our 'Wimpey' circuits-and-bumps I was, for the second time in my R.A.F. training career, told to report to the Adjutant, where I was told, to my great astonishment, that I had been awarded my Commission. I was given a travel warrant, countless clothing coupons and a 48 hour pass to get home to Birmingham to buy all my Officer requirements, – a very extensive list was provided. For the next few weeks I almost felt like a Blackpool 'sprog' again, walking around in my brand new Pilot Officer uniform, especially in the Officer's Mess, but before too long I became Flying Officer, my uniform got to look more 'seasoned' and I became more used to the required "Officer and Gentleman" code.
After finishing our Upper Heyford O.T.U. course, during which as a crew we became quite 'bonded', possibly due as much to our off-duty time together (i.e. drinking sessions and such) as to our actual flying and training together, we were posted to Scampton.
Here, among much else, I attended courts martial, strictly under instruction I hasten to add!
Page 2
[page break]
Our next move, as a crew, was to Conversion Unit No. 1654 at Wigsley, flying four-engined aircraft for the first time, the dreaded Stirling. We duly experienced here the usual type of problem that seemed to be associated with this aircraft when all flying was cancelled for a few days because of undercarriage problems. This was whilst an Air Ministry modification requirement was incorporated into all the Stations' Aircraft. It was at this time that I learned how to "play the dice" (the game of crap) from my American and Canadian co-trainees and enjoyed quite a slice of beginners luck.
Finally our last posting in training was to No.5 Lancaster Flying School at Syerston for a surprisingly rather brief conversion on to Lanc's., consisting of only sixteen hours flying training in this beautiful aircraft, over a period of two weeks. During this time I did however, on one of our training flights out over the Wash, manage to wangle a "go" in the rear turret for the one and only time and to fire off the guns into the sea.
Then we waited with somewhat bated breath and some excitement to hear which Squadron in No.5 Group we were to go to. This was to be No.630 Squadron at East Kirkby in the fenlands of Lincolnshire, about 14 miles from Boston; we were driven off in a van with all our gear, joking and laughing but all of us I think, wondering what the immediate future held.
We were allocated to 'B' Flight and the first week was spent in settling in and on day and night checks and training flights, during which time Bill Adams, our Pilot, went as "second dickie" on an operational flight. Then came our first "trip", which was to Saumer in central France to bomb an important railway junction, a flight of about 6½ hours. Boy! did that aircrew breakfast in the Mess (with an egg!) taste good after debriefing. It was a good feeling with our first "op" safely under our belt, and our initial fears now faced up to and if not overcome, then at least dealt with.
So we settled into a[deleted]n[/deleted] very busy and very exciting life. We were involved just a few hours before the D-day landings, bombing a heavy coastal battery in a bid to help to weaken the enemy defences against our invading forces.
At the briefing we were given dire warnings not to stray from the unusually circuitous route and we guessed that this was "it", the long awaited invasion of Europe, which was confirmed on awakening the following day.
In our first three weeks of action we did nine operational flights and the last of these, which was to Wesseling, just south of Cologne, to bomb a synthetic oil plant, was the "hairiest". From the time we crossed the Dutch coast to the target and back again we continuously encountered German
Page 3
[page break]
night fighters, searchlights and/or heavy ack-ack, we saw many aircraft going down in flames in the darkness.
Of the thirty or so aircraft despatched from East Kirkby (Nos. 630 & 57 Squadrons) eleven were lost (77 men)!
Our ops. continued, to many varying types of targets. During one of these, on our return journey we were attacked from below by a Junkers 88 being used as a night fighter; although we immediately went into the conventional corkscrew avoiding action, his first gunburst caused some damage to the rear of the aircraft and the rear turret was put completely out of action. We were a sitting duck but either by complete luck or by brilliant shooting, Johnny Keisow, our U.S.A. Mid-Upper Gunner, scored "a Hit" although he was catching only occasional brief glimpses of the JU 88 due to the corkscrew action of our aircraft. The attack on us immediately ceased and the enemy aircraft started pulling away on a long sweep on to a reciprocal course away from us. We were able to resume normal flight and from the astrodome I was able to watch as the JU 88, now with flames coming from it, gradually lost height and after a while disappeared into the cloud-base below. We felt like giving three cheers over the intercom but it was strictly necessary to be particularly alert at this possible vulnerable time in case [inserted] any [/inserted] of the JU 88's "mates" were in the vicinity.
Our 13th op. was a daylight raid on vital bridges and German troop concentrations at Caen, where the Allied ground advance had been seriously held up. It was exciting being able for the first time to see "what was going on" in the lovely dawn sunrise, though again the ack-ack was extremely formidable and I saw a Lanc., flying in alongside us, across the French coast, receive a direct hit and just disintegrate into fragments, and any member of the crew possibly surviving was out of the question. It came as something of a shock, actually seeing the moment of destruction so close at hand, it was a case of "There [inserted] but [/inserted] for the grace of God go I".
The 14th trip was, surprisingly, also a daylight op., this time to an aircraft factory at Thiverney, a few miles north of Paris.
So on to the night of 24/25th July 1944, our 16th op., which was to Stuttgart. All went well until we were approximately over the French/German border when we were suddenly attacked by a night-fighter and suffered very considerable damage, which included the loss of our port inner engine and, not least of all, yours truly. I had been hit in the left hip and buttock and quite soon was losing blood at quite a rate. We were in some trouble and our Pilot quickly decided that we must abort the op., ditch the bombs, then head back, hoping to reach Allied Forces territory in northern France on
Page 4
[page break]
which to crash-land, or to bale out. Soon however, flames began licking from the damaged engine and within a very short time the flames grew and spread rapidly and we were told to bale out. I was by now, not in a very good condition and I remember wondering whether I was going to "make it". I remember virtually nothing of getting out of the aircraft or of my parachute descent but the next thing I knew was coming-to in a field in the dark, with my parachute all around me and in addition to earlier wounds, an absolutely agonising pain in my left thigh.
On hearing voices I shouted and it proved to be a French farming family out looking for survivors of the stricken aircraft. I was carried on a step-ladder which was used as a stretcher, to a barn and there laid on straw. The French lady was extremely caring, constantly bathing my forehead and also feeding me soup.
Sometime after daybreak a French gendarme arrived and after earnest conversation with my "hosts" departed and it was not too long after there was the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside, followed by the appearance of a German soldier in the doorway. My heart sank into my shoes! I was taken in a small truck to a P.O.W. hospital in Nancy, in eastern France, where, I learned much later, I was the first 'Brit' to arrive, the other existing patients being mainly French Colonial troops, many of them originally captured in North Africa.
My first week there is more than a little vague in my mind, during which I was, apparently, somewhat delirious, due to delayed treatment for my broken femur, and probably my other wounds. Later, though still painful, my leg was put in traction by means of weights suspended from cords on pulleys over the end of my bed from a 'pin' through my knee. The resulting agony if anyone as much as brushed by [inserted] the [/inserted] weights was intense! Eventually however, after some weeks, my leg was put into what should have been plaster but was actually more like concrete, and with no padding.
This cast covered my lower torso from the waist and then on down to the ball of my left foot and on drying out became extremely tight around my ankle, I was unable to get the staff even to examine it, so I had to put up with the agony I was in.
Food was very poor, consisting largely of black beans and some sort of macaroni just boiled in water. How I longed for the lovely breakfasts and meals we had in our mess in "Blighty". We did get some Red Cross parcels which were a Godsend.
Then, suddenly, after all sorts of rumours about how near the Allied Forces were, the Germans decided to evacuate the whole hospital to Germany, with the exception of four of us, who they considered were too ill to move. We four were moved down into a cellar below the hospital and a French
Page 5
[page break]
Army doctor and a French Colonial orderly were left to look after us.
One of the other three 'types' was Dickie Richardson, an R.A.F. Wireless Operator, who had been transferred from another hospital, and was very severely burned over much of his body, – he was blind, and had a hand amputated. In spite of all this and being bandaged literally from head to foot he was a wonderful character. He was a Midlander, from Worcester, knew Birmingham, and there was something of a natural affinity between us in the particular circumstances. We spent about 10 days in the cellar, fed by local nuns. Towards the end of that period shell-fire broke out on the town above (at our ceiling level), which was later followed by small-arms fire, and then we could hear tremendous cheering; the Yanks (General Patton's U.S. Third Army) had arrived!
Within a short time a U.S. infantry lieutenant had somehow been directed to us in the cellar. Cigarettes were the first order of the day. Soon after his departure U.S. 'medics' arrived to give us some basic and much needed medical attention.
Within an hour army ambulances had arrived and we were transported to a field hospital, all under canvas and a few miles from Nancy.
Subsequent transfers to other field hospitals again under canvas, took us further west during the next few days but to my dismay 'Dickie' and I became separated and I was quite upset because I somehow felt 'responsible' for him. During these moves, and much to my utter relief, my 'plaster' cast was removed by the U.S. medics, the old one was replaced by a much better quality padded cast, only to reveal two very large gangrenous-like wounds on the instep and heel of my foot, caused by the too-tight cast.
I was eventually flown back from Verdun to an airfield somewhere near Reading. I was the only 'Limey' in the hospital plane, a Dakota, the rest being all U.S. infantry stretcher cases, virtually straight from the front lines. In due course I arrived at R.A.F. Hospital, Wroughton, near Swindon, where I was treated for about two months before being transported to the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead in Sussex, the hospital base of the world famous plastic surgeon, Archibald McIndoe (later knighted), the most impressive and wonderful person I ever met and knew in my whole life. To my surprise and delight I was settled into a bed just next-but-one to 'Dickie' Richardson!
Although by comparison to most of the other patients here, who were all fliers, my medical problems seemed small, as they mostly had all been terribly burned. Even so, the gangrenous matter in my foot had eaten through three of the tendons and I came close to having the foot amputated, but in the end this was avoided and I underwent numerous skin-
Page 6
[page break]
grafting operations and duly qualified as one of Archie McIndoe's (the Boss) Guinea Pigs, a matter of which I am very proud.
My hospital treatment lasted some fifteen months in all. Following this I was medically discharged from the R.A.F. but my Guinea Pig friends have remained my dearest and closest over the ensuing years since 1944 and our Annual Reunions in East Grinstead, lasting for three or four days, are something special, though only about 25% of us still survive, of which some sixty or so are now fit and well enough to attend. 'Dickie' Richardson remained a very wonderful friend and character in spite of his blindness and all his other incapacities until he passed away three years ago in 1997.
Just a few years ago after the end of the war, having through the International Red Cross, traced the whereabouts of the French farming family Dupré, who had found me and looked after me that night in 1944, I wrote to them, sent them parcels, later motored across France with my wife, on route to an Italian holiday, to meet them again and to thank them. I was greeted with flags and bunting strung across from building to building in this so very rural and tiny hamlet of Tramont Lassus in eastern France and though there were some language problems, with the aid of books, paper, arms, hands, my whiskey and their home-made Mirabelle spirit, a great time was had by all! During the day I was taken to the barn in which I had lain and also some distance across the fields etc. was shown the site of our Lanc's final demise, there still, though a little overgrown were the five indentations in the earth of our aircraft's nose and four engines, with small pieces of metal still around, one of which I was able to bring home as a souvenir. I still have it.
Many years later in the mid-1980's I had the irresistible urge to trace my old surviving crew-mates again, our two Gunners, Ross Lough (Canada) and Johnny Keisow (U.S.A.) both having been killed when we were shot down.
What a task it turned out to be and in all took me over three years. My file just grew and grew as I corresponded with all sorts of organisations, associations, groups and individuals in the U.S.A., Canada and the U.K. and finally succeeded as follows:-
Pilot, Bill Adams (U.S.A.): Died in Boston U.S.A in 1979.
Flt/Eng. Trev. Tanner: Although Welsh, settled in Western Canada and just after the war and together with my wife, I visited him on two or three occasions prior to his death in 1998.
Page 7
[page break]
After our 'set-to' in 1944, shortly after bailing out, the above two teamed up and were taken under the wing of a French family, again farmers, and awaited the arrival of the Allied troops pushing east. They eventually reached the U.K. safely.
Bomb Aimer, Eddie Wood ("Woodie") (Canada): Lives in Hamilton, Ontario, and I am in regular touch, having also visited him, in the company of my wife.
Navigator, R.A. ("George") Toogood: lives in Radstock, near Bath, the nearest, yet was the most difficult to trace. We are now in regular touch and meet once or twice a year with our wives.
These two also got together after safely bailing out and undertook the very daunting and sometimes dangerous walk to neutral Switzerland, where they were interned, in reasonable conditions, until they were repatriated to the U.K.
So to the present and our autumn years. My wife and I live quietly and contentedly. I am Member (No. 1367) of the Aircrew Association, Solihull Branch, whose monthly meetings I attend as often as possible and at whose request I have put my memories on paper.
Page 8
[page break]
[photograph]
A/C Arthur Woolf age 19 years in 1941
[photograph]
Flying Officer A.S. Woolf recovering in an R.A.F. hospital in the West Country. November 1944.
[page break]
[photograph]
Photograph taken in the 1950's at Tramont Lassus, Eastern France with the French family Dupré, my 'saviours' on 24/25th July 1944.
From left to right
Rose, Myself, Charles, Henri with Mère in front.
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
Flying Officer Arthur S Woolf - RAF career and experiences in WW2
Description
An account of the resource
First page has head and shoulders portrait of Arthur Woolf wearing uniform tunic with half brevet, medal ribbons and peaked cap. Next page has badges for Bomber Command, 5 Group and 630 Squadron.
Covers joining the RAF at age 19 and training at Blackpool, Yatesbury as radio operator and subsequently at Martlesham and Bridgnorth. Crewing up at RAF Upper Heyford while on OTU flying Wellington. This was followed by four engine training on Stirling then Lancaster before posting to 630 Squadron at RAF East Kirkby. Describes operations mentioning types of target, losses, attack by Ju-88. Continues with account of daylight operation to Caen and later Paris. Describes operation to Stuttgart in July 1944 when they were attacked by night fighter and badly damaged as well as he being injured. After aborting the operation fire forced them to bale out. Continues with account of his injuries, capture, transfer to and experiences at POW hospital near Nancy. Describes liberation by American forces and being flown back to England and then to RAF Hospital. Concludes with account of 15 month hospital treatment, discharge from the RAF, membership of the Guinea Pig Club and trying to trace members of his crew in the mid 1980s. At the end photographs of Arthur Woolf, of him in hospital and of the French family who helped him after he was shot down and injured.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A S Woolf
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Thirteen page printed document with b/w and colour photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BWoolfASWoolfASv1
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
United States Army
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
England--Shropshire
England--Suffolk
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Cologne
France
France--Caen
France--Paris
Germany--Stuttgart
France
France--Nancy
France--Verdun
England--Berkshire
England--Reading
France--Meurthe-et-Moselle
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1941
1944-11
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Babs Nichols
5 Group
630 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bombing
C-47
crewing up
Dominie
Guinea Pig Club
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Ju 88
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
military discipline
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
Proctor
promotion
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Dumfries
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Scampton
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wroughton
RAF Yatesbury
shot down
Stirling
training
Walrus
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/193/30990/BYeomanHTYeomanHTv1-01.1.pdf
8262794404d2ef0dfee19a3f5bd97a8e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/193/30990/BYeomanHTYeomanHTv1-02.2.pdf
7e6e96679a1915a0c9b98fb636e9cf11
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
Yeoman, Harold
Harold Yeoman
Harold T Yeoman
H T Yeoman
Description
An account of the resource
31 items. Collection concerns Harold Yeoman (b. 1921 1059846 and 104405 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 12 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview, a memoir, pilot's flying log book, 26 poems, a photograph and details of trail of Malayan collaborator.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Christopher E. Potts and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Yeoman, HT
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Start of transcription
[underlined] LOOSE ON THE WIND [/underlined]
Harold Yeoman
[page break]
To those who never came back.
[page break]
Their voices, dying as they fly,
Loose on the wind are sown;
The names of men blow soundless by,
My fellows’ and my own.
A.E. Houseman,
“A Shropshire Lad”, XXXVIII.
“And how can a life be loved that hath so may embitterments, [sic] and is subject to so many calamities and miseries? How too can it be called a life, that begetteth [sic] so many deaths and plagues?”
Thomas a Kempis,
“The Imitation of Christ”.
[page break]
[underlined] LOOSE ON THE WIND [/underlined]
Author’s foreword
Never no more
We would never fly like that
Lennie
It makes you think
‘Yes, my darling daughter’
Crewing-up
Images of mortality
Tony
Mind you don’t scratch the paint
Rabbie
Letter home
Low-level
A boxful of broken china
The end of Harry
Silver spoon boy
Intermezzo
Overshoot
First solo
The pepper pot
Approach and landing
Knight’s move
A different kind of love
Sun on a chequered tea-cosy
Photograph in a book
Glossary
[page break]
[underlined] AUTHOR’S FOREWORD [/underlined]
During the years of the Second World War, some 90,000 men, from the British Isles, from the great Dominions overseas and from the countries of Europe overrun by the German enemy, volunteered as aircrew in Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force. Of these men, over 55,000 were to lose their lives and, to this day, more than 20,000 of that total have no known graves. In one particular operation there were more Bomber Command aircrew killed than there were casualties during the entire Battle of Britain.
There were many men whose names will bear for ever an aura of unfading brilliance, men such as Leonard Cheshire, (whom for a brief time I was privileged to know) such as Guy Gibson, or John Searby. There were also the thousands who could not aspire to the greatness of those remarkable men, to their almost unbelievable heights of courage and achievement. To attempt to assess what we in Bomber Command did achieve is no part of my aim. Much greater minds and more highly skilled pens than mine have already done this. This small piece of writing is solely an attempt, through the window of personal recollection, to tell of a few of the incidents which affected me and of a few of the splendid young men whom I was fortunate enough to know and to call my friends. Many, all too many of them, alas, gave their lives as part of the price of our freedom, the freedom from an unspeakable tyranny, that freedom which we now so casually enjoy and take so easily for granted. If, in this small book, I have planted their names like seeds in the garden of future years for even a few eyes other than my own to read, for a few other minds to remember, then I shall have done what I set out to do.
An eminent air historian has recently quoted some words which I wrote to him, words which I now venture to repeat. I said, “We simply had our jobs to do and we tried to do them as best we could.” I believe that sums it up.
Harold Yeoman
November 1994
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] Never no more [/underlined] [/inserted]
“….. And through the glasse [sic] wyndow [sic]
Shines the sone. [sic]
How should I love, and I so young? …..”
(Anon.)
[page break]
[underlined] NEVER NO MORE [/underlined]
There was something icy cold running down my face and a brilliant light was shining into my eyes.
“What on earth?” I heard myself mutter.
I came to rapidly out of a deep sleep and tried to wriggle away from the cold wetness which was finding its way down my pyjama collar, but I could not escape it, nor the blinding glare.
“What’s going on?” I half-shouted, then I saw her hand holding the dripping sponge. Bright sunshine was pouring through my window that winter morning.
A pale, laughing face framed in jet-black hair behind the hand. She was sitting on the side of my bed.
“Betty!” I shouted, “Stop it! What the heck are you doing?”
“Saturday,” she answered brightly, twisting the sponge away from my hand, “Saturday, and it’s your day off. We were going for a walk, do you remember?”
Her dark, lustrous eyes shone with mischief. I wiped my face on the sleeve of my pyjama jacket and shuddered with the cold. I tried to pull the blankets back around me, but she pulled them firmly down again to chest level. What on earth would my parents think, I wondered, a young girl coming into my bedroom – they’d have a fit. It was almost too much for them when I’d insisted on volunteering for aircrew when I was nineteen, but this - !
“I’ve brought you a cup of tea; now hurry up and drink it, ‘cos it’s breakfast time.”
Betty got off the bed, handed me the cup and made for the door.
“Don’t be long now, and if you don’t take me for that walk, I’ll never speak to you again, never no more.”
“What, never, never no more?” I mimicked.
“No, never no more.”
She grinned, but pretended to be in a huff and flounced out, tossing her shiny black hair which gleamed like coal in the morning sunlight. It became a silly, affectionate catch-phrase between us.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
We had arrived at the Knight’s home at almost the same time; Betty from Coventry, after the air-raid, I from Initial Training Wing, to start my flying training at Sywell, a few miles from the centre of Northampton. We had seen the bombing from a safe distance, out of the train windows, on the way up from our I.T.W. at Torquay overnight. We had stopped, miles from anywhere, for hours, it seemed, while the raid progressed. We could hear the Jerries droning overhead and saw the fire on the horizon.
“Someone’s getting a hell of a pasting,” we had said.
Betty, then, was a refugee. Near misses from H.E.s had decided her parents to evacuate her from the shattered and blazing city to the safer home of her aunt and uncle; the R.A.F. billeting authorities had decided to send me to the Knights at the same time. So we quickly became friends; we were both of an age and of similar dispositions, light-hearted, fun-loving, undemanding and contented by nature. Two of a kind, I thought.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We walked in Abington Park. It was brilliantly sunny but bitterly cold, a wonderful December day. There was snow on the ground, the bare trees were black and stark against the clear winter sky. With my white u/t pilot’s flash in the front of my forage cap I swaggered a little. Why not? I was very proud of it. My buttons gleamed, my boots shone like glass.
“Bags of swank!” our drill Corporal used to shout at us as we marched through Torquay, and we obeyed that command, always. I was proud of myself and I was proud to be walking out with Betty. She was a lovely girl, her face in repose calm and radiant as some Italian Renaissance Madonna in a painting.
“No, I haven’t gone solo yet,” I was saying as we walked, “but I’ve only done nine hours up to now, you know”
“How long will it take you, do you think?”
“Oh, any minute now, but my instructor puts me off a bit, he is rather bad-tempered.”
(‘Can you see that other aircraft?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well then, are you going to fly round it or through it?’)
“That’s not very nice, is it?”
“No, not very, but I try not to let him put me off.”
[page break]
“Will you be getting any leave at Christmas?”
“Don’t suppose so, Betty; I mean to say, I’ve only been in three months altogether and we did get a 48 hour pass from Torquay, you know.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The Knights had a radiogram in the lounge of their comfortable semi-detached house.
“Look what I got for Christmas,” Betty exclaimed, holding out a blue-labelled record in its cardboard envelop, “would you like to hear it?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Hutch.”
I had little or no idea who or what Hutch was, then.
“Yes, please,” I said.
She put the record on and straightened up, standing before me in her simple, grey dress. The creamy, brown voice came out of the loudspeaker and I was immediately seized by some emotion which I had never before experienced.
“That certain night, the night we met,
There was magic abroad in the air,” sang Hutch, and Betty was humming the tune along with him.
“There were angels dining at the Ritz
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.”
To this day, when I play that on my hi-fi and hear Hutch’s lovely velvet voice and perfect diction, I am back with Betty at Mrs. Knight’s, falling beautifully and adolescently in love with her from the exact moment that she played me that song. I find it, still, an unbearably moving experience, one which brings a lump into my throat and tears to my eyes.
“Did you like that? Do you want to hear the other side?”
“Oh, yes, please, I’d like to.”
On the other side was “All the things you are,” and it couldn’t have fitted my mood better, either. She was all the things which Hutch was singing about.
“That’s a wizard record, Betty,” I said. She smiled happily.
. . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
“Gosh, I’ve never had champagne before, Mr. Knight,” I said.
“Well, you went solo on Christmas Eve, when we were away and now you’ve done your first solo cross-country today, so you can try some, to celebrate, apart from the fact that it’s New Year’s Day, of course.”
“Well, thanks very much, and – cheers!”
“Cheers,” from Mr. Knight, “and happy landings.”
“Chocks away,” Betty said. Now where had she learned that?
“Would you like to hear another new record?”
“Oh, yes, I would, very much. What is it?”
“’You’d be so nice to come home to’, it’s called,” she said, “do you know it?”
“No, I’ve never heard that one.”
She put the record on and I listened as I sipped the unfamiliar but strangely disappointing wine. I thought, “Yes, you would be so nice to come home to, Betty darling.” Maybe it was the wine after all.
But I really didn’t know how to say that sort of thing to her. How did one start? Besides, my mind was still full of the voice of Flying Officer Lines from earlier that wonderful day.
“You don’t need me, do you? I am going to have a sleep. Wake me up if anything goes wrong.”
And pulling out his speaking tube he had wriggled down into the front cockpit, out of the slipstream, that New Year’s morning, as I set course, droning over snowy Sywell in the bitterly cold sunshine. He was a Battle of Britain Hurricane pilot, instructing for a so-called rest, and trusting me, with only thirty hours in my log-book, to fly from Sywell to unknown Cambridge, land, and come back again. If you did the trip without assistance from your instructor it counted as solo time, and I had done that. My cup of happiness was full, that day.
“You’d be paradise to come home to and love”, went the song as the record ended.
I sighed.
“Yes, she would be,” I thought, “but how on earth do you go about actually saying things like that to Betty?”
There were all manner of things I undoubtedly wanted to say to
[page break]
her. But I hadn’t even kissed her yet, and you couldn’t say some things without kissing somebody first, could you? Besides, she might not want me to. So how, and when, did, or could, one start? It was very difficult, rather like trying to do a perfect three-point landing.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Every other Friday we were paid. I was rich beyond my wildest imaginings. From the two shillings a day at Torquay I had progressed to no less than five pounds four shillings each fortnight. That was as a mere Leading Aircraftman. What I would be paid if ever I became a Sergeant pilot the imagination simply couldn’t tell me. I used to split the money carefully into equal parts and with one half burning a hole in my pocket and the Friday evening feeling joyously pervading my system my little world was at my feet until Monday morning. I would go into Northampton, to the “Black Boy” in the main square, for a mixed grill and a pint of black-and-tan, sometimes with Len or Eric, sometimes alone. It became the high point of my week.
We would sit and talk flying to our hearts’ content, comparing notes on our experiences. In retrospect how limited they were and how naive we were, and yet how miraculous and other-worldly it seemed to me to know the unutterable thrill of open-cockpit flying in the freezing winter air, strapped tightly into the fragile machine whose engine purred bravely in front of me; the wonder of the view of the blue-green and white hazy landscape spread out below, the icy slipstream on my numbed face, the thrill of the response, under my hands and feet, of the aircraft to small, smooth movements of the controls. There was the magic of the rising, tilting and falling of the snow-covered, mottled, dim countryside, blotched with the smoke of towns, the dazzling red disc of the sun as it set in the haze, the ecstasy of sideslipping [sic] in over the hedge and of smoothly straightening out the glide to set her down for a perfect three-pointer on to the frosty grass near the other Tigers, while a few fellow-pupils watched critically, and while over at the Vickers shed the engines of a great black Wellington rumbled ominously.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
“Are you coming down to the Y.M. tonight, Harold?”
My head was down over my books, in the dining room. I wasn’t finding the theory of flight too easy.
“Oh. Yes, I’ll be along; are you going to be there?”
“Well, I work there there [sic] three nights a week now, you know. Auntie thought I should do something to help the war effort until I’m called up.”
(Called up? I hadn’t thought of that; somehow I couldn’t imagine Betty in uniform.)
“O.K., I’ll see you down there later, then, I’ve got just about an hour’s work to do. Keep a chocolate biscuit for me, will you?”
She waggled her fingers, crinkled her nose smilingly, and went out.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I landed for the last time at Sywell in a Tiger Moth, sideslipping [sic] off the height and greasing her down on to the grass. I let the aircraft rumble to a halt, then I taxied carefully to the dispersal tents, faced her into wind and switched off. The prop juddered to a stop. An erk ducked down to chock the wheels. Dusk was beginning to fall; I could see Alex Henshaw, Vickers’ Chief Test Pilot, on the circuit in his Spitfire. Everyone always stopped whatever they were doing to watch him fly, it was part of our education. But my eyes always returned to the huge black bulk of the Wellington by their hangar. I pulled out my harness pin and released the straps carefully, so as not to damage the aircraft’s fabric. I sighed and reluctantly, as one would part from a girl, I climbed out of the cockpit. A chapter had ended.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“I don’t know exactly where, Betty, except that it’s overseas. The lads are all saying Canada, but no-one ever tells us much. I suppose we’ll not know until we get there. There’s a few posted to S.F.T.S.s in England, Hullavington, Cranfield, places like that, but ten of us are definitely on the boat.”
She looked down at her cup of tea. We were sitting together in
[page break]
the Y.M.C.A.; she had an hour off duty. The place was full of uniforms, but I scarcely notice them, I only had eyes for her.
“Will it be soon?”
“Next week, they think.”
“Harold - ?”
“Yes, what?”
“Oh, well, nothing. You will write, won’t you?”
“Of course I will, Betty, yes, I’ll write to you as often as I can.”
“What will you be flying?”
“Harvards or Oxfords, I suppose, I’m not really sure.”
“What do you want to go on to, fighters or bombers?”
(Strange, how civilians thought there were only those two categories of pilot, but I suppose the news the press and radio gave concerned mainly those two. After all, they were the types mostly at the sharp end of things. But I thought of Betty, huddled fearfully in the shelter, that night of the Coventry raid and I felt a sudden and great anger that she should have had to endure that. And I thought of the Wellington over at the Vickers hangar at the aerodrome, sinister, powerful, black, and from then on I was never in any doubt.)
“Bombers,” I said firmly, “definitely bombers.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
It is strange that I don’t remember saying goodbye to Betty, nor to the Knights, if it comes to that. I must have done so, of course, but sadly, I cannot bring the occasions to mind.
I did go to Canada. Once we got out west we worked hard and we flew hard, by day and by night. We got no leave, very little time off. We didn’t particularly want any. Things were getting rather urgent back home. Besides, I wanted to hurry back to Betty, and to my parents, too, of course.
I wrote to her as often as I could. She sent me her photograph, smiling and lovely in that grey dress, but I’m afraid I haven’t got it now. I got my wings a few days before my twentieth birthday. In the late summer, after a stopover in Iceland, I was back in England, and with a couple of Canadian chaps, splendid fellows whom I had
[page break]
met on the boat, I was posted to a Wellington Operational Training Unit at Bassingbourne, not too far from Northampton. Most of my buddies went on to fighters. As it happened, they had a little more future than us bomber boys. Not much, but a little. Of course, I was longing to see Betty again.
As soon as I had settled in I phoned the Knights one evening. It was an interminable business, repeating their number to different operators, waiting while the line buzzed and crackled, while disembodied and unreal voices spoke unintelligibly to one another in hasty, clipped syllables. In the end, a man’s voice spoke up.
“Is that Mr. Knight?”
“Yes, who is that?”
“It’s Harold.”
“Harold! How are you? Where are you speaking from?”
I told him Bassingbourn. We were allowed to do that so long as we didn’t give the name of our unit.
“How’s Mrs. Knight?”
“Oh, she’s fine, she’s down at the Y.M. this evening, on duty.”
“I see. And Betty, is she still with you?”
There was a slight pause. I thought we must have been cut off. Then he said, “No, she went back home a little while ago. Things are a bit quieter now, you know.”
“Yes, I understand. But how is she? I’d love to see her again.”
“Well, actually, Harold, she’s fine. But look, did you know – did she mention that she’s getting engaged?”
I felt as though I’d flown slap into a mountainside in the dark. I swallowed with difficulty, the perspiration had broken out on my forehead and my hand holding the receiver was trembling.
“No,” I said, “I didn’t know that.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“No, I hadn’t heard that.”
“Yes; he’s quite a nice chap, a bit older than she is, works in a car factory, I believe.”
We didn’t talk long after that; I was too stunned to think very straight. I’m afraid I never saw the Knights again, and I am truly sorry, for they were good, nice people and they were extremely kind to me. I made a mess of my flying during the next few days.
[page break]
I still think about Betty. I have quite a substantial record collection and after years of fruitless searching I finally got the record of Hutch singing what has become for me a poignant song, that song about the nightingale. And when I play it I can see Betty’s lovely face, pale and calm, like the Madonna, and I can visualise the gleam of the firelight on her jet-black hair, that winter afternoon in Northampton.
I wonder, often I wonder, what became of her. Dear Betty, I shall never forget you for you were my first love. What happened? Where did I go wrong? I don’t know why I should feel so very sad when I think of those days, for they were truly among the happiest of my life.
Sometimes, too, I think of the way she used to laugh, and of her words; I can almost hear her voice speaking to me, as though she were in the room here. But I know I shall never see her again and now, the touching little phrase sounds only like a cry of despair in the night – “Never no more, never no more.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] We would never fly like that. [/underlined] [/inserted]
[page break]
[underlined] WE WOULD NEVER FLY LIKE THAT [/underlined]
After I had described the incident to him, with inevitable, automatic use of a pilot’s illustrative gestures of the hands, he thought briefly about it, then looking directly at me, “You ought to write about it,” he said, “Why don’t you put it on paper?”
The following day I awoke early in the morning, earlier than usual, even for me, with his words still sounding in my ears. And remembering the words with which I had described the events of almost sixty years previously still fresh and vivid in my mind, I took up pencil and paper.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Now, in the dying days of the twentieth century, almost every summer week-end, all over the land, you may buy your ticket for some air display. You may sit in your car with the doors open to admit the pleasant breeze, the warm air, the chatter of the crowd, the over-emphatic loudspeaker announcements, or you may lounge upon your hired camp-chair, your sunglasses shading your eyes as you look upwards into the limitless blue clarity of the sky, and watch, to the accompaniment of the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of the hundreds of spectators, the improbable antics of the ugly, purpose-built, monstrously-powered aircraft, meretriciously decorated with advertisements, performing their violent and ugly aerial manoeuvres. To me, the vicious use by their pilots of stick and rudder palls after only a few seconds, and I think, perhaps nostalgically, that I would much rather watch fewer and simpler aerobatics performed by pilots in standard military aircraft. And as I ponder this my thoughts are led back to a day on a Northamptonshire aerodrome when I was beginning my elementary pilot training in the R.A.F.
The time was the sever winter of 1940-41. The Battle of Britain had just been won; Coventry had only very recently been devastated by the Luftwaffe in one catastrophic night raid. I was one of twenty or so young men on our course. Most of us had never seen an aircraft at close quarters until we arrived at No. 6 Elementary Flying Training School. Here, there
[page break]
were Tiger Moths – biplanes, gentlemen’s aeroplanes, as I heard them many times described. They were docile, forgiving, vice-less, sensitive to both hands and feet, a sheer joy to handle once the initial strangeness of the sensation of controlling an aircraft in three dimensions had worn off. Most of us, I fancy, could see ahead no further than going solo on them, then completing the course with the required fifty or so flying hours before we went on to the next stage in our training, a Service Flying Training School. But we did not look far into the future; we did not know nor could we imagine what was coming to us. Perhaps, in many cases, this was just as well. All we knew was that we were, each one of us, filled with an unquenchable desire and zeal to qualify eventually as pilots in the finest Air Force in the world, to become – and we thought this and spoke of it without embarrassment or apology to any man – the elite of all the armed forces, an opinion which I will hold with pride today.
So we flew and we studied flying and talked of little else but the theory and practice of flying. We questioned one another. We pored [sic] over pilots’ notes and airmanship notes and navigation books and the Morse Code. We questioned our instructors and our peers on the senior course. And we kept our eyes and ears open, sensitive and receptive to anything, however small, which would assist us in any way to obtain those wings which we longed to be able to wear on our uniforms.
Here at Sywell, the Tiger Moths were, during the day, dispersed around the perimeter of the grass aerodrome, standing in their training yellow and earth-camouflage paint, their R.A.F. roundels standing out bravely, awaiting their next pupils to take them up on whichever exercise they would carry out. We were divided into three Flights, six or seven of the boys on my course in each, with six or seven of the senior course. Each Flight had its ‘office’ in a camouflage-painted bell tent near the hedge. But what drew my eye almost hypnotically when I was standing there, not flying, perhaps watching other pupils performing their ‘circuits and bumps’ until it was my own turn, was the occasional sight of a Wellington, a twin-engined bomber, at that time the biggest we had, standing outside a hangar on the far side of the aerodrome – the Vickers shed, as it was called. It fascinated me constantly and unfailingly, massive in its matt-black dope with its very tall single rudder, standing squat, silent and menacing outside its hangar, contrasting against the snow-covered ground,
[page break]
never approached by anyone except the Vickers personnel. What was taking place there I have never known, but all of us well knew who flew it.
He would arrive in his Spitfire, considerately keeping a respectable distance outside the circuit while we pupils took off or landed in our tiger Moths. Then he would slip into a vacant place in the circuit and make his approach and landing, his aircraft, pencil-slim, perfect and graceful in its flight, the focus of all eyes from the ground, its appearance possessed of something of the beauty and poetry of a Bach fugue or a Mozart andante, a Shakespearian sonnet of flowing aerial beauty. The pilot, we learned from some of the senior course who were comparatively old hands on the aerodrome, was Alex Henshaw, Vickers’ Chief Test Pilot, a fact which reduced us tyros, with probably less than thirty flying hours in any of our logbooks, to awestricken silence.
He it would be who would take the Wellington from its place at the Vickers shed, taxi it, ponderously, it seemed to us, into take-off position when all Tiger Moths were well clear, and without fuss send it charging with engines howling at full boost over the bumpy grass field and into the air, leaving traces of oily smoke in its wake from the two Pegasus engines as he eased it over the trees fringing the aerodrome and climbed away. Later, he would return to land, once again showing meticulous consideration of us pupils, and would taxy the bomber to its position by the Vickers shed. I would have not believed them had someone told me that less than a year later I would land and take off here in a more powerful Mark of Wellington on the strength of having seen Alex Henshaw’s performances; I am sure that my audience, if indeed I had one, would have been quite unimpressed by the sight. I know that my own crew, in the tense silence as I scraped over the trees on take-off, were wishing themselves anywhere but with me in my inexperienced disregard for their safety. But it was watching Alex Henshaw that first sowed the seed of an idea in my head that, whereas almost all of the chaps on my course wanted to fly fighters, I thought that I would try my utmost to get on to a bomber Squadron, if only to hit back at those who had so terrified Betty, the niece of the couple on whom
[page break]
I was billeted in Northampton, and whom I was beginning to regard as someone more than a friend. A year later I would be wearing my pilot’s wings, having been half way across the world and back to earn them, having joined a Wellington Squadron in Lincolnshire and having survived a fire in the air followed by a barely controllable night descent in the darkness and the final crash-landing on my first operation against the enemy. I would also have gained, then lost, a love.
One afternoon, at Sywell, I was not flying, standing outside the dispersal tent with two or three others of my course, no doubt talking flying, and watching critically the take-offs and landings of a few pupils on circuits and bumps. (How readily I could point out their faults – a slight swing on take-off, a ropey turn, a bumpy landing, or a too-high hold-off; how slow I was to recognise my own failings and correct them, except on the sometimes caustic promptings of Flying Officer J - -, my instructor).
At this stage in our training we could detect instantly any appearance or movement of an aircraft in the sky, no matter how far distant it was – an attribute I have never lost – and we could also quickly and correctly identify it, an ability which, for obvious reasons, was essential by day or by night. But on that bright, very cold afternoon, first there was the distinctive note of the Merlin engine. Our heads turned. Here was the Spitfire with Alex Henshaw, assessing the position of the Tigers on the circuit. He would have been at about 800 feet; I had a splendid view as he cruised gently along, well outside the aerodrome boundary. Then there was a flash of sunlight off the wing as, quite unexpectedly, he rolled the aircraft on to its back and flew, straight and level, but inverted, into wind. We turned our heads and grinned at one another. This was good. This was very good. Exciting stuff. Soon he would roll back and finish his circuit normally. We were wrong. He turned crosswind, still inverted, his rudder pointing grotesquely earthwards. This was becoming quite amazing, an incredible sight. Then, still inverted, he turned again, on to the downwind leg and put his wheels down – or rather, put them up, as we saw them, rising like a snail’s antennae from the duck-egg blue under surface of the Spitfire. Then he turned
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on to the final crosswind leg, still inverted, undercarriage held high, flaps now out, and finally into wind, on to his landing approach.
Spellbound and speechless we watched as he lost height smoothly in the inverted position. What was he going to do? Open her up and roll her out, then go round again on a normal circuit? But no, he continued on his inverted final approach. I hardly dared breathe; the tension in our small group could be felt. Down and down he slipped until we were prepared to see simply anything – but surely not a crash? I could not truly estimate at what height he was, but finally, effortlessly and smoothly, he rolled her out, the engine popping characteristically as he held off at a few feet and set the Spitfire down for a perfect landing on the grass. We exhaled in unison, the tension gone, wonderment taking over.
I have never seen any piece of flying anywhere to approach the silken, wonderful skill of this, and I would be astonished if anyone else has; it was sheer unadulterated Henshaw genius, a sight that I have always remembered with awe, one I shall never forget.
There is a very fine novel, long since out of print, written by an R.A.F. Flight Lieutenant pilot who was killed in 1940. The action takes place at a civilian flying school; in one particular chapter some pupils are watching an instructor putting an aircraft through its paces on a rigorous test flight and one of them speaks some words which precisely matched my thoughts as I watched that incredible inverted circuit – “We’ll none of us ever fly like that.”
I am sure that none of us standing there on that wartime winter day ever did and I would be astounded if anyone else did, or could. It was flying by a genius; even the gods must have smiled to see it.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Lennie [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] LENNIE [/underlined]
In those days, full-backs wore number 1, right wing threequarters threw into lineouts and wore number 2, and so on, down to number 15 at wing forward. Lennie wore number 2 in my local rugby club’s first team, and also in the County side. As an aspiring wing threequarter [sic] myself, although just into my teens, Lennie, when I watched the team’s every home game, wide-eyed on the open side of the exposed pitch, in whatever weather, Lennie became one of my boyhood heroes.
He was not by any means one of your greyhound-type hard-running winger, for he carried, in retrospect, perhaps a pound or two too much weight to be numbered with them. But he was as elusive as a well-greased eel. Although in defence, and in particular, his rather feeble kicking, he was slightly suspect, with ball in hand every spectator, whether at club or County match, unconsciously sat up or stood straighter, in anticipation of his jinking, sidestepping runs up the touchline, soldier-erect, dark head thrown back, mouth slightly open. I wonder how often in his career he heard the encouraging shouts of the crowd, “Come on, Lennie!”
The recollection of a particular incident in one particular match, against the strongest club side in the county still remains vividly with me. In all but the highest grade of rugby, receiving the ball as a wing threequarter [sic] within ten or fifteen yards of one’s own corner flag meant that there was no choice. One kicked for touch, hoping to gain at least twenty or so yards. Especially so when one was pitted against the most efficient and successful team for miles around, and even more so when one was faced by the opposing winger, who in this case was an English international. But on this occasion Lennie eschewed the safe option. Perhaps it was that he himself knew that his kicking was rather weak.
About a hundred yards from his opponent’s line and faced by a rapidly advancing and grimly competent opponent, he set off to run, up the appreciable slope of his home ground. With a jink and a sidestep he evaded the oncoming International, who skidded and was left floundering. Urged on by the home crowd, myself included, he ran, sidestepped, swerved and tricked his way through the opponents’ entire team, his lately evaded marker in breathless and fruitless pursuit. He finally rounded the fullback and scored wide out to the left, after a solo effort of more than 120 yards. It brought the house down, especially as the England ‘cap’
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was finally left prone and exhausted in his wake. I have watched and played rugby for very many years and I honestly believe that I have rarely seen a finer individual try scored.
Came the war. Players and spectators alike of the necessary ages were scattered all over the world, many never again to see or handle a rugby ball. Very early in 1941, my elementary flying training – and Betty – left behind, the latter with some heartache, I and several other LACs from Sywell found ourselves en route for we knew not where to continue our training, gathered like so many shepherdless sheep in midwinter in a large and bleak Nissen hut at RAF Wilmslow, an overseas embarkation depot. There must have been fifty or so of us in the hut, sitting upon our respective beds, while a Corporal at one end lectured us on some topic relevant to our impending departure, then called us forward, alphabetically, of course – I was used to being the last in any roll-call – to hand us some sheet of instructions. Awaiting my turn I watched idly while others hurried forward to the Corporal’s desk, then about-turned and went back to their places. Watched idly, that is, until a name I only half-heard was called, and a well-built dark man trotted, on his toes, up the aisle to the Corporal. I started up with a stifled exclamation, recognising the way he ran. It was Lennie, Lennie C - - of W - - R.F.C. I could scarcely believe my eyes. For a second or two the forage cap with the white flash of u/t aircrew almost deceived me.
As soon as we were left to our own devices I walked along the hut and across to his bed-space.
“Excuse me, but you are Lennie C - -, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
He looked curiously at me.
“I thought so, I’ve often watched you play, at W - -.”
He looked surprised and pleased. I mentioned my cousin, who played in the same team. To meet someone from one’s own home town in the Service was a reasonably infrequent happening, and because of that, all the more welcome. He told me he was under training as a Navigator. We stuck together, despite the disparity in our ages – he was about ten years my senior – through our dismal stay at Wilmslow, then via Gourock and a ridiculously small ship to Iceland where we trans-shipped
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to an armed Merchant Cruiser. This was more of a morale-boosting title than anything else; the ship was a medium-sized passenger cruise vessel with two quite small guns which, at a guess, might have just about managed to sink an empty wooden barrel, but not much else. The news finally filtered down to us that we were heading for Canada. On setting out from Reykjavik we looked around for our convoy. There was none. We were to cross the Atlantic alone, with two paltry guns to defend ourselves against whatever there might be in the way of U-boats, pocket battleships or a combination of both. This was a very real threat. The ‘Bismarck’ was later to sink ‘Hood’ and itself to be sunk in the North Atlantic. We slept and lived, about 150 of us, I suppose, on the floor of what had been the Recreation Room with about twelve inches of so-called bed-space between mattresses. Half way across the Atlantic, in a February storm, the engines packed up and we tossed, helpless, for twenty four hours, a sitting target for the Kriegsmarine. Then at last we heard the welcome rumbling from the bowels of the ship.
An LAC whose bed-space was near to Lennie’s and mine then reported that he felt unwell. Chickenpox was diagnosed, and the M.O., looking for all the world like an S.S. man selecting victims for the concentration camp, ordered that several of us, including Lennie, Brian S - , who had been on my course at Sywell, and myself, were to be sent into quarantine when we arrived in Canada. Brian, as it happened, was also a rugby man, having played for Broughton Park.
We duly and thankfully docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia and after, I’m afraid, gorging ourselves on steaks and chocolate, which we had never seen since before September 1939, about twenty of us, including two or three Fleet Air Arm airmen, to our eyes bizarre in their bell-bottomed trousers and flapping collars, were put on the train for Cape Breton Island, in particular for the small R.C.A.F. Station of North Sydney.
Our quarantine turned out to be farcical. After twenty four hours on the camp we were informed, amazingly, that we could please ourselves where we went and whom we met, until further notice. We looked at one another in astonishment – then proceeded to enjoy ourselves while we could. Our duties, such as they were, consisted of one night duty in six when three of us were left in charge of the kitchen and served meals to the RCAF airmen
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who were on guard duty and fire picquet. The civilian cooks, who had never met anyone from the U.K., ensure that we were fed like fighting cocks, providing us with quantities of steaks, eggs and milk. Out of camp, the streets, cafes and cinemas of North Sydney and of Sydney itself were open to us. Lifts in cars belonging to the local people were there for the asking, and the friendly Nova Scotians, learning of our arrival, took us to their hearts and into their homes. They were astonished that despite the deep snow on the ground, we seldom, if ever, wore our great coats. The cold was so dry compared with that in England, and we were physically in such prime condition that we felt no discomfort, whereas our Canadian hosts went about muffled up in greatcoats and fur hats with ear-flaps. Our stay there was as good as an extended leave.
Off the pitch, most rugby players are determined to do their utmost to ensure that breweries never go out of business. Lennie was no exception. When a group of us were out together he drank his beer slowly but steadily, became more and more relaxed and laughed a good deal, sometimes uncontrollably. He never became objectionable or aggressive, never used bad language and was always amenable to our advice that perhaps he had had sufficient and it was time to return to camp. Being a mere tyro, at the age on [sic] nineteen I drank sparingly and with considerable discretion, my mental sights being fixed over the horizon, on the next stage of my flying training and the eventual gaining of my wings. So I took it upon myself, on several occasions, to steer Lennie, muscular but curiously boneless, laughing at only he knew what, safely into our barrack hut and on to his bed, where I covered him, still in uniform, with his blankets, where he would fall peacefully asleep. Lennie, even with several beers inside him, never did the slightest harm to anyone.
Of course, the idyll had to come to an end. After several very pleasant weeks, our posting came through. Brian and I and some others were destined for Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, No. 32 S.F.T.S., while Lennie was posted to Goodrich, Ontario, a Navigational Training School. I remember how we shook hands when we said ‘cheerio’. His smile was as broad as ever, and his hand, I recall vividly, was large and surprisingly soft.
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It must have been on one of my leaves from Moreton-in-the-Marsh towards the end of 1942 when my father, who was on the committee of the local rugby club, gave me the news. Lennie had been shot down and was missing. He believed that it had happened off the Norwegian coast. It was yet another blow to me following the loss of my own crew. I had recently had a reply from the Commanding Officer of my Squadron in response to a letter I had written him, that my crew must now all be presumed dead. I felt that the bottom had dropped out of my life and I was nearing the end of my tether. I was suffering deeply, as was my flying, and I sensed that my forthcoming Medical Board would be the end of a chapter. I went about cocooned in silent grief so intense that it amounted to permanent depression, which was only temporarily assuaged by drinking far more than I ever saw Lennie drink. From what little my father had gleaned from his informant at the clubhouse I surmised that Lennie must have been on some squadron in Coastal Command. For some reason I visualised him on Whitleys.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Years passed. I will not say that I had forgotten Lennie; occasionally some memory of those days would float unbidden into my mind and I would visualise him as I had last known him on Cape Breton Island, always smiling, playfully light-hearted, completely harmless. Then a friend gave me a cutting from a local newspaper with a photograph of the successful rugby team of the immediate pre-war years. Lennie smiled up at me from the middle of the front row of players, next to another young man who had been shot down into the sea off the Dutch coast as a wireless operator in a Blenheim on a daylight shipping strike. I was impelled to ask the friend whether any information could be obtained from the Internet as to what had happened to Lennie, and when it was he had died. Within days I knew enough to be able to consult a series of volumes of casualties of Bomber Command. For Lennie had not been on a Coastal Command Squadron as I had surmised, and he had not been shot down off Norway.
He was the Navigator of one of six Wellingtons from a Bomber Squadron at Mildenhall, (where much later, J – ended her career in the W.A.A.F. as a Base Watchkeeper), detailed to attack shipping, in daylight, on the Dortmund-Ems Canal in North-west Germany on a September afternoon in 1942.
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On reading this, I could hardly believe that Wellingtons were being used on daylight operations at that time; I had thought that the crippling loses [sic] that they suffered on such attacks in the early days of the war had meant their transfer solely to night bombing. (On my telling M – about these circumstances, she said ‘Suicide raid’. That was about the size of it.) Mr. Chorley’s painstakingly collated and amazingly detailed book gives the bare bones of the tragic story. Four and a half hours after taking off, presumably on their way back to Mildenhall, and within sight of the Dutch coast and the comparative safety of the North Sea, his aircraft was attacked by a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulfe 190, a formidable fighter aircraft. The wireless operator was killed in the attack and the aircraft was set on fire. The two gunners managed to bale out and became prisoners of war. The account says that Lennie was last seen using a fire extinguisher, bravely trying to put out the fire which was raging inside the fuselage of the Wellington.
The blazing aircraft crashed into what was then the Zuider Zee; the bodies of the wireless operator and the pilot were recovered and subsequently interred in a cemetery in Amsterdam, but Lennie’s body was never found and, having no known grave, his name is recorded on the Runnymede Memorial along with twenty thousand others whose remains were never recovered.
So died a hero who for a brief time was my friend.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] It makes you think [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] IT MAKES YOU THINK [/underlined]
“Mail up!”
We jumped off our beds and hurried towards the door at the end of the barrack hut. At least, some of us did. The majority stayed where they were, on their beds, pretending to read, cleaning buttons, pottering about. There could be almost no chance of mail for them, for they were Norwegian, and their homeland was under German occupation. They accepted this lack of mail, as they did much else, with considerable stoicism.
We who were the fortunate ones gathered around the R.C.A.F. airman who called out the names on the envelopes, and who, while looking down at the handful of letters he held, handed us our mail without a glance. There was one for me. I looked at the postmark. Coventry. My heart bounded when I saw that. There was two-thirds of the width of Canada and all the Atlantic Ocean between us; she was back in devastated Coventry, I in smaller and completely peaceful Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, under training as a fighter pilot.
I walked slowly back to my bed, savouring the sight of her handwriting, feeling the texture of the envelope smooth under my fingers. I sat down quietly, as far as one could be quiet in a hut with twenty-nine other blokes. In deference to us, the Norwegian lads did keep quiet as we read our mail. I held the unopened letter a long time in my hand, gazing at her rounded, shapely writing. I wanted this moment of pleasure to last as long as possible.
At the time I was with her, under the same roof, being so caught up in the novelty and the thrill of flying, I didn’t realise what was happening to me, or to her, and it was all too foolishly late that I had become slowly aware of it. After we had parted, when I was at the Embarkation Depot en route for Canada, and when I had time to take stock of myself, it was only then that it dawned slowly upon me that I had fallen in love with her, and that I wouldn’t see her again for the best, or the worst part of six months at least. Oh, Betty, I thought, the time I so stupidly wasted. Would I ever have the chance again?
I sighed, and looked at her photograph on my locker. She was
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smiling at me enigmatically, her mouth curving slightly up at the corners, her dark eyes holding more than a hint of mischief, the gleaming mass of her ebony hair framing the soft pallor of her calm face. Slowly and carefully I opened the envelope. I turned to the last sheet, looked at the end of the letter first, fearful that it might say only “yours sincerely” or some such. It did not. The words were there that I wanted to read. I lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and luxuriously, and started from the beginning.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Tim spoke up from across the gangway between the beds, his English idiomatic and only very faintly accented.
“I hope she still loves you, but come on, we have flying to do.”
“O.K., Tim, I’ll be right with you.”
I tucked the letter into my top left-hand tunic pocket, carefully buttoning the flap. Soren and Aage, next to Tim, both stood up. What opposites they were, I thought, Soren cheerful, muscular, blond, extrovert, while Aage was gaunt and rather silent, and toothy, with melancholy eyes which flickered nervously around him. We made our way up to the flights; it was going to be another hot day. Already the air was filled with the tearing rasp of the Harvards’ Wasp engines as the fitters ran them up in preparation for a long day’s flying.
We turned into ‘F’ Flight crewroom at the front of one of the hangars and looked at the flying detail pinned up on the board, next to the Coke machine. Aage was due off on a cross-country to Swift Current and back at 0900, while Tim, Soren and I had an hour’s formation flying at 1000. Lower down the list I saw that I was due on the Link Trainer at 1500 for blind-flying simulation, and to round off the day, or rather, the night, one and a half solo night-flying hours at 2100. It was going to be a long day, as well as a hot one. Aage, now bent over a map, pencilling careful lines, was to take over my aircraft, I saw, when I landed after night-flying.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
After the snowy, tree-fringed grass field at Sywell it was a novelty to have these sun-baked runways, even more so when there were two parallel ones with a narrow grass strip in between, the whole field being patterned by this double triangle of concrete strips.
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We took it in turns to lead our formation of three. Station-changing, as we had no R/T, was indicated by hand-signals from the leader. Soren was to lead first with me as his number two and Tim, three. Then I would take over the lead, and finally, Tim. I followed Soren’s bright yellow Harvard out as he taxied on to the perimeter and turned towards the end of the runways in use. He took the right-hand runway of the pair and edged across to the left of it, braked and stopped. I gave him ten yards clearance and took the right-hand edge of the same runway. Tim stopped level with me, alone on the left-hand runway. I saw Soren slide the canopy shut and start rolling, and I followed, pushing the throttle firmly up to the stop. I never got used to the tremendous feeling of exhilaration as the power surged on. I lifted the tail and kept straight with small pushes of my feet on the rudder-bar. As I chased after Soren I could see Tim out of the corner of my eye, keeping abreast of me.
Suddenly Soren was airborne, then I followed, climbing into the summer sky. To maintain station, the rules of tidy and correct flying were suspended. You used no bank on your small turns to get into position, but skidded gently across on rudder only. It felt all wrong, it was like being told deliberately to mis-spell a word one had known and used for years. When I had first practised formation with F/O Sparks in the front cockpit I had been frightened out of my wits to see two other aircraft each within ten yards of me. But one was soon conditioned to accept this, and very quickly one learned the gentle art of close formation flying, when your own wing was actually tucked in to the space between the leader’s wing and his tailplane, so that any forward or backward relative movement meant a collision. But provided you watched him like a hawk, and kept station by means of constant throttle and rudder juggling, you got by. It became great fun, and the early thoughts of comprehensive and devastating collisions were soon forgotten.
So I tucked myself right in on Soren’s starboard side and stayed there while he climbed, turned or glided. We flew four basic formations, vic, echelon starboard, echelon port and line astern. The echelons looked great and the line astern gave you a bit of relaxation, for numbers two and three were slightly lower than the aircraft in front,
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to keep out of the turbulence of his slipstream. Where we were heading was not my worry, nor Tim’s. Soren was in charge of that side of things while he was leading. He gave the signal to change leaders. I skidded away from him and opened the throttle to draw ahead. He skated in to my left and Tim crossed to my right, as number two. Back to cruising revs as they snuggled themselves in tightly against me. I looked down at the baked prairie landscape and saw that Soren had headed us back towards Moose Jaw to make it easy for me. I grinned and mentally thanked him. I started to sing loudly to myself as we flew, running through the repertoire of the popular songs we were always playing on the juke box at Smoky Joe’s cafe, just outside the camp gates, I felt on top of the world – a letter from Betty, a great day for flying and the formation going like a dream. I led them around until my time was up and signalled Tim to take it from there, over Regina Beach on Last Mountain Lake, at four thousand feet.
I slid into number three position in the vic and tucked myself in tightly into Tim’s port side. He led us around in a turn to port, back towards base. We never did steepish turns in vic formation, it was too difficult for the man low down on the inside to keep station as he had to cut his airspeed back so much. Tim tightened the turn and climbed a bit as he did so. Watch it, Tim, I thought. Still tighter; I dared not look at my airspeed. Still tighter, and my controls were starting to feel sloppy, approaching the stall; I dared not throttle back any further or I would stall off the turn and go into a spin, and a Harvard lost nine hundred feet per turn once they did spin. Out of it! I shoved throttle on as I winged over and dived out of the formation, swearing to myself as I did so. The wretch! Playing silly buggers like that!
All on my own in the bright morning sky I screamed round in a steep turn to port, with plenty of power on, nearly blacking myself out in the process. I yanked the seat tighter against the straps to bind my stomach firmly in and keep the blood in my head, stopping the grey-out. I eased out of the turn. Five thousand feet. Now, where the hell were they? Then I saw them, now about six miles away, orbiting innocently. I flew over to them and sat just off
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Tim’s port wingtip, shaking my fist at him, which only made him throw back his head and laugh as he made come-in motions with his hand. I went in, tight. We formed up again into a sedate vic and finished the detail, as usual, in echelon port, about two miles from the field, when we did our line-shoot party piece – a swift wing-over to port in rapid succession and a dive on each other’s tails into the circuit, making sure we were well clear of the more sedate pupils going about their quiet business.
When we had landed, taxied in and switched off, I collared Tim.
“Damn you!” I said, pretending to be about to sling a punch at him, “What the hell do you think you were playing at? Trying to make me spin in, were you?”
“No danger,” he replied, laughing, “you had bags of height – can’t take it, eh?”
Soren chimed in, smiling broadly.
“We thought you’d just decided to go home.”
“Wait till I’m leader, next time, you two mad so-and-so’s,” I said threateningly, “I’ll turn you both inside out!”
All the same, I threw Tim a Sweet Cap; Soren didn’t smoke. We strolled back to ‘F’ Flight crew-room where I’m glad to say that Tim bought the cold Cokes. It was a hot morning.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The Link Trainer Sergeant was a stocky little R.C.A.F. man who looked like a middleweight boxer.
“Don’t forget to reset your gyro-compass every ten minutes or so or you’ll be way to hell out at the end. Got your flight card? Do all your turns at Rate two and let’s have a nice neat pattern on my chart at the finish. Give me the O.K. when you’re ready and I’ll tell you when I’m switching on so you can punch the clock.”
“Right oh, Sergeant,” I said.
I climbed into the little dummy aeroplane on its concertina-like base. I pulled over the hood, plugged in the intercom in the darkness and propped up the flight card near the small lamp on the instrument panel. I felt the lurch as he energised the system; the instruments
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came to life with a sigh.
“I’ve put you at a thousand feet,” he said, “do you read that?”
“Check,” I replied, “turning on to 045 Magnetic, now.”
“Got you. Just watch your height as well as your timings, won’t you, bud?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
I was flying the awkward Maltese Cross pattern, the idea being to finish exactly where you started, after the completion of the twelve legs. The instructor had a wheeled “crab” which inked in the line of your track on his chart. At the end, you should have drawn a perfect Maltese Cross, but it took forty minutes, approximately, of solid, grinding concentration on your instruments alone.
“Switching on – now!” came his voice, and I hit the stop-watch.
After what seemed like hours I did my final Rate 2 turn on to my original course. I straightened it up, timed a careful one minute, then called out, “Finish – now!”
He acknowledged and switched me off. The needles sagged to their stops. I took off my headphones and opened the hood and side door.
“O.K.,” the Sergeant said, “come right over here and have a look-see. Not bad at all.”
I went over to his glass-topped table. My pattern was about ten inches across and I had finished about an eighth of an inch from where I had started. It looked pretty damn good to me, and for an instant I thought about Tink’s brother in his Hampden.
“Yes,” I said, feeling rather pleased, “just a bit out, Sergeant.”
He grinned.
“You’re doing O.K., buddy,” he said agreeably, “now how’s about seeing if L.A.C. Briggs is outside, eh?”
“O.K., Sergeant,” I said.
He had just made my day.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I lay back on my bed after the evening meal and read the letter once again. The hut was quiet. Those who weren’t night flying had gone to Smoky Joe’s or into town for an evening meal. The few of
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us on the night flying detail were reading, writing letters or dozing on our beds, waiting for the darkness. There was no sign of either Tim or Soren, while Aage was actually sound asleep.
She wrote, “I miss you here, I miss our walks in the park. I wonder if you will be posted somewhere near when you come back, where we can meet? Do you still want to go on to bombers, like you told me? Will it be very dangerous? Whatever happens, I shall pray for you, as I do now, that God will keep you. I have always said what has to be, will be, but I feel he will keep you safe…..” She went on to say she would be spending some time with her Aunt and Uncle in Northampton, as her parents still felt happier with her over there.
I folded the letter slowly and thought about Betty and the simple, almost idyllic happiness of life in those days six months ago. Tink, on the bed next to me, motioned to me and across at Aage, grinning, imitating his open mouth and his posture, his ungainly sprawl. Tink, the single-minded, I thought, hero-worshipping his brother flying his Hampden over Germany, and who could hardly wait to get on to the same Squadron. A faraway look would come into his eyes when he spoke about it; “When I get on Hampdens,” he would always be saying, and his broad, boyish face would be raised to the sky, “When I get on Hampdens with my brother –“
But looking at Aage had made me feel tired, too. I yawned, then lit a cigarette and grinned at him. Tink was from Coalville in Leicestershire; I wonder often what became of him.
An hour later I was taxying my Harvard out in the darkness, the flarepath away to my right looking very long and very far away. Night flying without a navigator and entirely without radio consisted, at Moose Jaw, of circuits and bumps – and of not getting lost. There was no blackout and you could see the town for miles, no bother at all. But if the visibility went, you got down out of it, quick. So far, it never had; the prairie nights were wonderfully clear.
I got my green from the A.C.P. and, nicely central between the flares, opened her up. We charged down the runway and floated off
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easily. I had done quite a few of these night flying stints before, and found I had taken to it naturally, much more so than I did to aerobatics, for example. Undercart up, throttle back to climbing power, keep the gyro on 0, shut the canopy, and up to 1000 feet. Level off, throttle back to cruising, turn port to 270. There’s the flarepath down over my left shoulder. Keep the wings level, watch the artificial horizon. Rate one turn downwind, heading 180, throttle back a bit, then wheels down when we’re opposite the middle of the flarepath. Greens on the panel as the wheels lock. There’s the A.C.P. giving me a green on the Alldis lamp. Crosswind on to 090. Bit of flap. Drop the nose and turn in. Watch the airspeed, open the canopy. Engine noise surges in. Switch on the landing light and hold her there. Nice approach, I think. Now, hold off and let her sink the last four feet. The flares merge into a line. Hold it there. A bump and a rumble. We’re down.
Keep her straight, flaps up, headlamp off. Touch of brake, not too much. Fine, now turn off the runway along the glim-lit perimeter track and back to the take-off position again. There’s someone else up, I can see his nav. lights. Wonder who it is? I rumble along the peri. track to head back for the end of the runway. Must say, I can see Tink’s point, I’d rather like a bash on Hampdens myself. After all, they’re what I wanted when I first thought about joining up, except that my ambitions were no higher than to be a gunner.
“Will it be very dangerous?”
God knows, Betty, but as you say, what has to be will be, and there is no turning back, one must simply live for and through the minute, even the second, and do what has to be done, enduring what has to be endured with fortitude.
Something’s irritating me, and I can’t think what, except there’s something here which shouldn’t be. My God! Yes! The cockpit is full of red light, now it’s flashing off and on, urgently. Stop. Tread on the brakes. She creaks and jerks to an abrupt halt. The red light stops flashing at me and someone taxies past me in the opposite direction. Wow! So that’s what the red was all about?
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Must stop this day-dreaming. Only two more circuits and I can pack it in, hand over to Aage and hit the sack. I’ll be about ready for it, too.
There’s my green. Hope he doesn’t report me for taxying through a red. It was only a dozen yards – I think. Oh, well, can’t do a thing about it now. No harm done, so here goes, back to my take-off point. Turn on to the runway, uncage the gyro on 0, open her up. We’re off again.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Turn on to 180, see the stars sliding around. Between the field and the town, now. Nice and easy, purring along, last landing coming up, then into the pit.
“I miss you here, I miss our walks in the park.”
I wish I were meeting you after this, Betty, ‘you’d be so nice to come home to’ – I wonder if you still play that record? ‘To come home to and love.’
Coming home – the lights of home – lights – lights – lights! What the hell’s going on? All those lights, ahead, and coming straight for me? Hell! Get the stick back, you’re in a dive, heading straight for the town! You’ve been asleep, you bloody fool. Come on, come on, ease out. The lights slide below me. Thank God for that. I risk a look at the altimeter – 500 feet. God. Another few seconds, and that would have been it, smack into the town centre, curtains. I reach up and slam the canopy open, letting the cold night air flood in, taking deep breaths to wake myself up. I climb cautiously back to circuit height, select wheels down and duly get my green from the A.C.P., as though nothing at all had happened. I turn across wind, edging towards the flarepath. Shove the nose down, turn port, full flap, headlamp on, heading straight in. I land, thankfully, and exhale with relief. Aage is ready and waiting to take over the kite as I dump my ‘chute, blinking in the bright light of the crewroom, and fill in the Authorisation Book.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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The murmur of voices nearby awoke me. I pulled the bedclothes around my ears, but it was no good. I was awake, back to life again. I sat up, yawned, looked at my watch – 0820. Still in time for breakfast, if I hurried. Brian, Tim, Tink and Soren were in a huddle across the other side of the hut, talking in hushed voices, looking solemn. Two strange erks were standing near Aage’s bed. I was puzzled.
“Hey, Tink!” I called, sitting on the edge of my bed and yawning again, “Tink!”
He looked over his shoulder and came across to me. I nodded towards the strangers.
“What’s cooking?” I asked.
“It’s Aage.”
“Aage? What about him?”
“He’s dead. He crashed, night flying, last night.”
“He what?” I gasped, fully awake in an instant, “He crashed? How the hell did it happen?”
Tink shrugged.
“No-one knows, he just went in, about four miles away, that’s all we know.”
“Christ,” I whispered, “poor old Aage. He’s definitely - ?”
“Oh, yes,” Tink said, “no doubt about it, I’m afraid.”
I said, quietly, “He took over my kite, last night, you know.”
Tink said, “Was it O.K. when you had it?”
“Of course, no trouble at all.”
I didn’t want to mention my falling asleep, not even to Tink. He sighed.
“Makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered, remembering the lights rushing towards me, “it certainly makes you think.”
(‘What has to be, will be.’)
“Mail up!” someone shouted, and there was a clatter of feet hurrying down the hut. There would be no mail for Aage. Another day had begun.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] “Yes, my darling daughter” [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] “YES, MY DARLING DAUGHTER” [/underlined]
“What was it you did yesterday?” Flying Officer Sparks asked, “advanced formation, am I right?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, wondering what was in store for me that morning. He pinched his lower lip between thumb and finger and frowned with silent concentration, his black moustache looking more luxuriant than ever.
“Well now, I think you’d better do some steep turns, climbing turns and a forced landing. An hour, solo. Take 2614. Don’t do all your turns to port, you don’t want to give yourself a left-handed bias, and watch you don’t black yourself out in your steep turns. Now. Forced landings. Don’t touch down anywhere, you only do that with an instructor. Don’t go below a hundred feet, and thirdly, don’t cheat and have a field picked ready, close your throttle at random when you’re doing something else. If you do ever have an engine failure you won’t be able to pick and choose the time or the place. All right? Any questions?”
“I take it I keep my undercarriage up, sir?”
“Yes, better a belly landing and a bent prop than a somersault if you try a wheels down landing on an unknown surface. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Right, off you go, then.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I came to attention, about-turned smartly and went out of the Instructors’ Office into the pupils’ crewroom of ‘F’ Flight, No. 32 Service Flying Training School, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, on the Canadian prairies.
I felt buoyant that morning; I was feeling very fit and happy and I knew I was flying well. It was a beautiful early summer day with a few puffs of fair-weather cumulus at about five thousand feet, with a light breeze to temper the already growing heat. The constant drone of Harvards filled the air, punctuated by the fierce, ear-splitting howl and crackle of the high-speed propeller tips as one fled down the runway like a scalded cat, tail up, and took off, flashing yellow in the sunlight and tucking its wheels neatly up as it left
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the runway.
Tim and Soren, two of the twenty or so Norwegians on our course – in fact, the R.A.F. were in the minority on Course 32 – were sitting in the crewroom. They completed my formation of three when we flew, and we were great buddies. Tim looked up and grinned.
“No formation for us this morning, eh?”
“No, not this morning, Tim. I hear that you’re grounded, anyhow, for trying to make me spin in off a turn!”
I was joking, of course, and Tim knew it; on’s [sic] loyalty to one’s formation was absolute. Tim laughed hugely, his lean, brown face, normally rather grave, was transformed.
“Anyhow,” I said, “he’s not fit to fly with a face like that,” and I pointed to Soren, who was feeding a nickel into the juke box. There was a thud, and out came the seductive voice of Dinah Shore.
“Mother, may I go out dancing?
Yes, my darling daughter.
Mother, may I try romancing?
Yes, my darling daughter – “
It was practically our course signature tune at Moose Jaw, everybody sang, whistled or hummed it and selected it on whatever juke box was handiest, whether here in the crewroom or out at Smoky Joe’s, the cafe at the camp gates, on the dust road which led to town. Soren looked up. He had a bottle of coke in one hand, a split lip and a discoloured right eye. He grinned at me.
“Ah, but it was just a friendly little fight with a couple of Canadians, nothing serious at all.”
Soren’s favourite occupation on his evenings out was to have several drinks then find someone to fight. Strangely enough, he never fought with any R.A.F. bloke.
“See you later, then,” I said to them. Tim gave a vague wave, Sorne’s eyes were already shut as he lay full length on a convenient bench, arms crossed on his chest, his mop of incredibly blond hair gleaming in the sun which poured in through the window.
“What if there’s a moon, mother darling, and it’s shining on the water?” I sang to myself as I crossed the expanse of concrete
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in front of the hangars, under the blazing sun, my parachute bumping against the backs of my knees, the morning breeze finding its way pleasantly inside my unbuckled helmet. It was so hot that we were able to fly in shirtsleeves. Up at eight or ten thousand feet it was delightfully cool, but at ground level the temperature could climb to the 120’s in the sun by afternoon.
I found 2614 among the half dozen kites parked in line facing the hangar. Someone had thoughtfully left the canopy open to minimise the heat in the cockpit. I checked that the pitot-head cover was off, I didn’t want to get airborne and find that the airspeed indicator was out of action. Then I climbed in off the port wing-root, clicking the leg-straps of my ‘chute into the quick-release box as I did so. An erk was standing by with the starter trolley. I did up my safety harness while I was busy with the pre-start cockpit check. I operated the priming pump and shouted “Contact!”, switching on the ignition, and with the stick held firmly back into my stomach I pressed the starter switch. The propeller staggered, jumped, staggered again, then caught as the engine roared into life. the prop-tips became a yellow semi-circular blur in front of my eyes. The erk wheeled away the trolley, parking it to one side where I could see it.
I tested the controls for the full movement and ran up the engine, buckled my helmet securely and pulled the seat up hard against the straps, waving away the chocks. The erk gave me the thumbs-up. I toed the brakes off, opened the throttle a little, and we rolled. I taxied with exaggerated care, knowing that F/O Sparks was probably watching me. I had been told off by him once or twice for taxying carelessly. So I ruddered the nose meticulously, each way in turn, at 45 degrees to my direction of travel, which enabled me to see ahead, to the sides of the big 450 horse-power radial engine. A taxying accident was a very serious matter indeed, and a Court Martial was the automatic sequel.
I arrived at the end of the twin runways in use and squinted up into the flare; no-one was on his approach. A final check on the windsock and on the cockpit settings, then I turned on to the runway, pushing on a little rudder to ensure I was absolutely in
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line and central. I set the gyro to ‘0’ and uncaged it, then glanced up to make doubly certain that the canopy was fully back, just in case anything went wrong on take-off and I had to get out in a hurry. Then a final deep breath and we were off. I eased open the throttle to its fullest extent. We rolled, rumbling over the runway, keeping straight with small pushes on the rudder. The engine note rose to a deafening howl and the pressure on the stick increased as we gathered speed and as I eased the stick central. We were in a flying attitude, tail up and charging down the runway which was vanishing with amazing rapidity under the nose of the aircraft. At 65, a slight backward pressure on the stick – not quite ready. At 70, a bump or two, then the incredibly smoothness of being airborne.
I whipped up the wheels, holding the nose just above the horizon to pick up speed, then I throttled back to climbing boost and revs, and reaching up, slid the canopy shut. It was a bit quieter then, and I could relax a little. I adjusted the climbing angle to give me 100 m.p.h., saw with satisfaction that the gyro was still on ‘0’, and did a quick check on all the instrument readings, going swiftly round the cockpit in a clockwise direction. The altimeter slowly wound around its way towards the cotton-wool cumulus.
“Mother, may I go out dancing?
Yes, my darling daughter,” I sang loudly to myself.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“How right he was,” I thought as I brought her smoothly out of a steep turn, “you can black yourself out in one of these.”
I had tightened the turn gradually, to the left, which I could do without conscious effort, toeing on top rudder to keep the nose pushing around the horizon, the stick fairly tightly into my stomach to tighten the turn in on itself. As the rate-of-turn indicator hovered around the 3 1/2 mark I could feel myself being crushed down into the seat, my cheeks were being pulled downwards, and the instruments had become rather fuzzy as the ‘g’ took hold of the blood in my brain, sucking it down out of my head. Then, as I came out of the turn and the ‘g’ decreased, I stretched myself against the straps as the pressure slackened, and bared my teeth in a mirthless grin
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to restore my features to their correct shape.
“Forced landing next,” I said to myself as I slowly but firmly closed the throttle, stopping it just before the place where the undercarriage warning horn would sound. I was at about six thousand feet, to the west of Moose Jaw. Several miles away, to the north-east, I could see another Harvard stooging along, probably on a cross-country, and away to the north a civil DC3 was flying the beam from Regina to Swift Current. I gently pushed the nose down into the quietness, selected flaps down and hand-pumped on 15 degrees. In a real engine failure you would have to do it this way, the hard way. I slid the canopy open and was all set to pick what would laughingly be called my ‘field’; in this part of the world what passed for a field was rather rare.
The prairie lay below in its muted colours, the occasional yellow dust road straight as a string, the sun flashing briefly on some watercourse. About thirty miles to starboard there seemed to be some line-squalls building up already above the low hills which marked the border of Canada with the neutral U.S.A. I put the kite into a shallow glide. Then I saw my field, a green, squarish paddock with two white buildings in one corner, a dirt road leading up to them. I settled the airspeed on 80 and turned towards the paddock, losing height slowly but steadily in a succession of well-banked turns like the descending hairpins of a mountain road. The green postage stamp of the paddock grew larger. From the smoke of a small fire somewhere on the prairie I saw I would be roughly into wind on my final approach. The white buildings grew into the size of matchboxes.
“What a God-forsaken place,” I thought, “imagine being stuck out here, miles from anywhere, no town, no trees, lots of damn-all connected by roads.”
Then I notice a movement near the house. One figure was standing just outside it, then it was joined by another. Still I glided down, mentally noting airspeed and altimeter readings with quick glances, checking and assessing my position in relation to the paddock. I used to sideslip Tigers with contemptuous ease to get them into the
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field at Sywell, it became my trademark before I left there, but I’d never tried to sideslip a Harvard. Come to think, perhaps this wasn’t the time to start. The horizon had lifted quite a lot. I was going to make it all right, I thought. The prop windmilled ahead of me and I had the urge to open the throttle to make sure that the engine was still functioning; it seemed an age since I had cut the power off. I dropped the nose and did a final turn to port. Airspeed back to 80, pump down full flap, line up, into wind, on to the paddock.
It was a man and a girl standing there watching me, the sun gleaming on their upturned faces. The man was pointing upwards, towards me, he had put his arm protectively around the girl’s shoulders. His daughter, I thought. I imagined them speaking to one another in their slightly harsh Canadian voices, anxious as to what was going to happen next to the aircraft, to me – and to them and their home. I saw the girl give a small wave of the hand, nervously, encouragingly, almost as though she were trying to placate some force, to stave off a possible disaster, and I felt a pang of guilt, knowing that they would be thinking that I was in trouble. Two ordinary people, the tenor of their lonely lives disturbed as never before, by my so casual and uncaring intrusion.
Altitude 150 feet. Airspeed 80. It was, if I said it myself, a honey of an approach, I could have put her down with no trouble at all. They were both waving now and I could distinguish their features. I had them firmly fixed in my mind as father and daughter. Perhaps he was a widower, living out his hard life on the land which his ancestors had farmed since the Indians had left, perhaps his pretty daughter had sacrificed her youth, her prospects and hopes of marriage, to look after her father and help on their farm, burying herself in their lonely world. They were remote there from everything of violence, receiving news of the war over the radio from professionally cheerful and brash newsreaders, couched in terms that they could merely imperfectly comprehend: Europe was far away, dominated by some tyrant of whom they knew little, opposed only by distant and defiant English cousins whom they had never seen, and whose ways were as strange and unknown to them as those of the biblical characters of whom perhaps they read daily at the end of their quiet evenings together.
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I saw him clasp her to himself protectively, and I saw also that I was now below 100 feet. Firmly, I opened the throttle fully. The engine surged with power, its roar doubly deafening after the long glide down. I eased the nose up and gently started to milk off the flap. The house slid beneath my port wing. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the two figures. He was greying, slightly stooped, in brown bib-and-brace overalls, she a slim girl in a vivid blue frock, her dark hair like a halo round her face. I suddenly thought of Betty. They stood, their arms around each other, as I flew over them.
Then I had the strange and unaccountably peaceful feeling that in those few minutes I had known them all my life. It was as though time itself had become distorted, elongated, to envelop the three of us in some temporal vacuum in a cul-de-sac off the normal path of consciousness, where the clock of the world stood still and where we had, in some mysterious way, experienced a fragment chipped off the endless expanse of eternity, wherein the three of us had been united as one.
The horizon sank away below the Harvard’s nose. I was back again in my element after those eerie few seconds. I looked down at them for the last time. She was standing with both hands pressed to her face. Then her father slowly raised his right hand, as though in benediction. I climbed away into the summer sunshine. And I sang, to no-one but myself, but thinking of the girl down there –
“Mother, must I keep on dancing?
“Yes, my darling daughter!”
I turned the Harvard’s nose for home.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Crewing-up [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] CREWING-UP [/underlined]
Although there are many things which happened at that time when we looked directly into “the bright face of danger”, there are some, and regrettably, some of the most important, the recollection of which steadfastly eludes me. This of course pains me greatly, as the men I was about to meet were destined in those six all too short months to leave an indelible and now poignant impression upon my memory.
My recurring faint recollection is somehow associated with being in a group of other pilots, pupils at 11 O.T.U., Bassingbourne, not far from Cambridge, quite near to the place of execution of Dick Turpin at Caxton Gibbet, and later to become an American Flying Fortress base. We were gathered at the end of one of the hangars in the morning sunshine, practising what little skills we had acquired on the use of the sextant, taking sun-sights and from them plotting the latitude of our position, which was, of course, easily checked by our, at that stage in our training, benign instructors. Perhaps their thoughts were couched in similar terms to those which Connie was to use in conversation with me a year or more later, and in totally different circumstances and surroundings – “They don’t know what’s coming to them, poor sods, do they, Yoicks?”
None of us knew what was coming, for better or for worse, to us, and I was certainly not to know that within the hour I was to meet, and for the next six months – (was it really as little as that?) – become associated with and know intimately five of the finest men, in my opinion, who ever walked the earth. Men who became closer to me, closer to each other, than brothers, than my and their own flesh and blood, men who were mutually supportive in the intangible but unyielding bond which perhaps only aircrew or ex-aircrew can comprehend, men, four of whom had already entered the last six months of their short lives.
We put away our sextants, thankfully, in most cases. There were about twenty of us pilots on the course, both from the United
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Kingdom and the Dominions. My own particular friends were Charlie from Newcastle, Hi-lo, a rugged, rangy Canadian and the man who was to become his Observer, a cheerful Australian named Laurie, and also Roddy, another Canadian, smiling and lively, whom I often addressed, attempting, not unkindly, to imitate his accent, as Raddy. He, Hi-lo and Laurie were soon to be posted with me to 12 Squadron. All three were also soon to die.
We had completed our introduction to the Wellington under the tutelage of ‘screened’ ex-operational pilots, on somewhat battle-weary ex-Squadron aircraft. The inevitable ‘circuits and bumps’ – a few of the bumps quite heavy – had been the order of the day, and of the night, a fortnight of them. I astonished myself by going solo on what were in my eyes monstrously large twin-engined aircraft, having gained my wings on single engined Harvards, in less than three hours. Perhaps it was due not so much to skill and ability as to confidence, or perhaps over-confidence. Looking back on it now it never ceases to astound me and I have to consult my log book to verify the figure of a mere two hours and forty five minutes instruction.
One interesting feature of this fortnight was that before we flew at night we practised what were known as ‘day-night’ landings. Flying in broad daylight with an instructor as safety pilot, we wore specially tinted goggles which gave the impression of surrounding darkness, while the runway was marked by sodium lights which showed up brightly and gave us the line of approach and landing. It was a novel and rather weird experience, but a very useful one, preparing us for the real thing, flying at night in much-reduced visibility, our eyes fixed almost exclusively on the blind-flying panel of A.S.I., altimeter, turn and bank indicator, gyro compass, artificial horizon, and rate of climb and dive indicator.
And so, to one degree or another proficient enough pilots of the Wellington, we were ready to be crewed up.
‘George’, as automatic pilots were universally known, were rare pieces of equipment in late 1941, so every Wellington was crewed by
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two pilots who shared the manual flying (of anything up to 7 1/2 hours on some operations) and one of whom was designated as captain of the aircraft, almost invariably addressed as ‘skipper’ or more usually ‘skip’. Once in the air, however, the pilot was virtually under the orders of his Observer, a misnomer if ever there was one, as he was in no position, huddled in his tiny compartment with his plotting chart and maps, his parallel ruler and sharpened pencils, constantly reading his super-accurate navigation watch, his ‘slave’ altimeter and airspeed indicator, to observe anything outside the aircraft. No pilot, however privately doubtful he might be of the Observer’s statement of the aircraft’s position relative to the earth, or of his instructions to alter course on to a given heading at a certain time, ever had the temerity to question him as to these matters except in the mildest and most oblique of terms. To do otherwise was to risk a most sarcastic reply, usually culminating in the curt riposte, “You just do the flying and let me do the navigating.” Later, on the Squadron I was to learn that Observers as a clan – and a Freemasonlike clan they were, dabbling in the impenetrable mysteries of running fixes, square searches, back-bearings, drifts and suchlike – were sometimes irreverently known as the Two-Seventy Boys, after their alleged persistent habit of, having bombed some German target and being urgently asked by the pilot for a course “to get the Hell out of here”, would airily answer, “Just steer two-seventy,” that being West. The Observer was also the crew member who released the bombs, his bomb selector panel down in the starboard side of the aircraft’s nose being somewhat inappropriately known as the Mickey Mouse, for a reason I never discovered, directing the pilot from his prone position between the front turret and the pilot’s feet on the rudder pedals with what was usually a breathless series of instructions, “Left, left”, “Right” or “Steady”, the word “left” always being repeated so as not to be confused with “right” against the various external and internal noises of a bomber aircraft. Current at the time was a somewhat school-boyish joke that one Observer had so far forgotten himself in the excitement of the bombing run to call urgently to the pilot, “Back a bit!”
The remaining three crew members each wore the air gunner’s ‘AG’ half-wing on his chest. But one, in addition, had the cluster of
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lightning flashes of a wireless operator on his sleeve and was invariably referred to, not by the official designation of wireless operator/air gunner but with the racy and succinct abbreviation ‘WopAG’. His was the task of obtaining as many bearings on radio stations, both R.A.F. and, if he was able, B.B.C. and German civilian stations such as Hamburg or Deutschlandsender and pass the information to the Observer in the next compartment. He must also, at designated times, listen out to messages from his base aerodrome and also his Group Headquarters. In addition, in emergency, he could attempt to obtain a course to steer to any given bomber station by requesting from them a QDM, the code for that information. But this was regarded as being rather infra dig.
The two ‘straight AGs’, as the other gunners were known, occupied their respective gun turrets with a few inches to spare, one at the front and one at the rear of the aircraft, the coldest positions, despite their electrically heated leather Irvin suits. In the ‘tail-end Charlie’s’ case it was the loneliest position in the aircraft and the most hazardous if attacked by a Luftwaffe night-fighter, but the safest if a sudden crash-landing became necessary, or if the order to bale out was given in some dire emergency, when he simply rotated his turret through ninety degrees, clipped on his parachute, jettisoned the turret doors and fell out backwards. Each turret was equipped with two .303 inch Browning guns, lovingly maintained and cared for by their users, pitifully inadequate when compared to the cannon of the German night-fighters.
To be in the firing line of these Luftwaffe cannon was not at all pleasant. Although never, fortunately, experiencing it in the air, Charlie, my room-mate, and I, billeted in Kneesworth Hall close to the aerodrome, on the old Roman road of Ermine Street, were quietly writing letters one evening in our first-floor room when we heard, and ignored, the noise of the air-raid siren from the village. Bassingbourn was one of the nearest training aerodromes, and certainly the nearest bomber O.T.U., to the east coast, although a fair distance from it. But this fact must have been well known to the enemy, who paid us periodic visits. One aircraft, in fact – I believe it was a Junkers 88 – either by design or mischance actually landed at
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Steeple Morden, our satellite aerodrome and became the property of H.M. Government and the Air Ministry, subsequently appearing as part of the circus of captured German aircraft in flying condition which we once saw flying out of Duxford, a nearby fighter station, where they were based, and heavily escorted by a squadron of Spitfires indulging in some plain and fancy flying around them to discourage curious onlookers such as we, who might have gone so far as to try to shoot them down, if in sufficiently rash a mood. However, to return to Kneesworth Hall and the air raid warning. Charlie and I carried on with our respective writing until we were suddenly aware of a strange aircraft engine noise becoming rapidly louder, accompanied by the loud and staccato banging of cannon-fire as the German intruder shot-up the road, the village and approaches to the aerodrome. Our letters were swiftly thrown aside as we, with violent expletives, flung ourselves under our respective beds. My future rear gunner also had a tale to tell concerning an attack by an intruder.
The taking of sun-sights over, we were instructed to gather in one of the hangars to be crewed up. There was, as I recall, no formal procedure attached to this important and far-reaching event. One of two instructors acted somewhat like shepherds directing straggling sheep to make up a group of six which was to be a crew. There must have been a hundred or more aircrew of all categories milling around rather haphazardly until, perhaps, a beckoning hand, a lifted eyebrow or a resigned grin bonded one man to another or to a group as yet incomplete. The whole procedure, if indeed it could be graced by that term, seemed to be quite without organisation, the complete antithesis of all previous group activities I had experienced since putting on my uniform eleven months before. Here, there was no falling-in in threes, or lining up alphabetically. (And how I used to long for anyone named Young who would replace me, the invariable and forlorn last man in any line for whatever was to be received or done.)
“You lookin’ f’r ‘n Observer?”
He was tallish, rather sallow and thin-faced, in Australian dark blue uniform with its black buttons, Sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeves, the winged ‘0’ above his breast pocket.
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“Sure. Glad to have you,” I said.
This was Colin, more often than not simply ‘Col’. He was to guide us unfailingly through the skies, friendly skies by day and night, then through the hostile moonlit spaces over Germany and Occupied Europe. Col, from Randwick, near Sydney, with his baritone voice which quite often suddenly creaked, almost breaking as he spoke, with his wry sense of humour, his sudden, almost apologetic half-stifled laughter, his strange, colourful vocabulary – “Take five!” His term, sometimes sarcastically uttered, of approval. And when he suspected that I or some other member of the crew was trying to kid him – “Aw, don’t come the raw prawn!” A single man, his father working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Later, one night on ops with the Squadron to Kiel where the Gneisenau was skulking after its dash up the Channel from Brest with the Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen, Col performed a wonderfully accurate piece of navigation. It was on an occasion, of which there were several, when the Met. forecast was completely inaccurate, which we feared when we entered cloud at 600 feet after take-off. We climbed slowly until we could climb no more in the thin air and reached 20,500 feet, still in cloud, a faint blur of moonlight showing above us. We bombed the centre of the flak concentration in the target area, completely blind, but saw several large explosions which we duly reported on our interrogation back at base. Losing height slowly on the way back and with an unwelcome passenger in the shape of the 1000 pound bomb which had hung-up, I broke cloud at something around 1000 feet on return, a mere four miles south of our intended position, to see the welcome finger of Spurn Head down to starboard and the four red obstruction lights of a radar station near Cleethorpes gleaming ahead. Over seven hours in cloud and an error of only four miles, thanks to Col’s abilities. It was on this raid, by Wellingtons, 68 in total, of our No. 1 Group, that the Gneisenau was so badly damaged that she never sailed again from her berth. Many of her crew were killed. Perhaps it was our bombs that had done the damage, who knows.
I once found Col, on an op, being quietly sick into a tin at the side of his plotting-table, his face ashen, but carrying on despite that.
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Such was his dauntless spirit. He had my unspoken sympathy as a fellow-sufferer.
A pale, poker-faced and very quiet Royal Canadian Air Force sergeant pilot attached himself to us. Elmer, as the rest of the crew came to christen him, was silent to a degree, but despite that somehow exuded a quiet if somewhat forlorn determination. When we reached the Squadron in October he joined Mike Duder’s crew. Five of the six of them were killed when, damaged by flak over Essen on Mike’s 29th trip, his last but one of his tour had he completed it, they were finished off by a night-fighter and crashed in Holland. It was not until many years later that I learned a little more about Elmer. Although in the R.C.A.F., he was not, in fact, a Canadian, but a citizen of the United States of American, from St. Paul, Minnesota. Before Pearl Harbor [sic] he had an urge to fly against the Germans, possibly because of his Central European forbears. He volunteered for the U.S. Air Force as a pilot and underwent his initial training. Unfortunately, like many others, he had trouble with his landings and was failed. He returned home undeterred, with his desire to become a pilot undimmed. To raise money for the course of action upon which he had decided, he took a job in a sweet factory and augmented his wages by working as a petrol pump attendant. He then travelled to Canada and enlisted in the R.C.A.F. This time he successfully completed his training and got his long-desired wings. All this I learned years later when I was able to trace his sister-in-law and with a residual sense of guilt over my at times impatient, if not downright snappy instructions to him in the air, I have attempted to salve my conscience by having several times visited his grave, and those of his crew, in a war cemetery in a small, neat town in the Netherlands.
The ‘father’ of our crew was Mick, our Wop/AG, the only married man amongst us. In peacetime – or ‘civvy street’ as it was invariably known – he had worked at Lucas’ in Birmingham and was knowledgeable on most things electrical and mechanical, owning a small Ford car as well as a motor cycle. The former was later well used on stand-down nights on the Squadron for trips into G.Y. (as Grimsby was known) and I once had the doubtful pleasure of a hair-raising pillion ride
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over snow-covered skating rink minor roads, on his motor cycle, also into Grimsby, which was almost as nerve-wracking to me as a trip to Essen. Mick (this was not his given name) was tallish, fairly well-built, with a high forehead, a studious manner, a slight ‘Brummy’ accent and an unconsciously querulous voice. It was he, I think, who christened me ‘Harry’, by which name I became known by the rest of the crew, and the use of which, after their loss, I have strongly discouraged. Mick had done part of his training somewhere in Lincolnshire and had frequented, and knew the landlady, Edna, of the Market Hotel on Yarborough Road in G.Y., which became a home from home for us on stand-down nights. He had a habit concerning which Col and I wryly complained on several occasions, of, on being asked over the intercom. for some information, would testily reply, “Hey, shut up, I’m listening out to Group.” We met his wife once, in the ‘Market’, Mick proudly introducing her to us all, a shy, rather self-effacing girl, soon to become a widow.
Our gunners were a wonderfully contrasted pair. Johnnie, from a small Suffolk town – and again, not his given name – in the front turret, was slim, neat in appearance, quiet of speech and demeanour, moderate in his choice of words and apparently completely without fear. No matter what the circumstances, his voice over the intercom. was as calm and measured as though he were indulging in casual conversation over a glass of beer. On the way to Essen one night we were suddenly coned in a dozen or more searchlights and the German flak gunners got to work on us. Cookie was hurling the aircraft all over the sky in his attempts to get us out of the mess, and I was being hurled all over the interior of the aircraft, which was lit up as bright as day. In a steep dive, attempting to escape from the combined attack of searchlights and flak bursts, Johnnie, without being told, opened fire with several short bursts from his twin Brownings on the searchlight batteries, and immediately we were freed from them as they snapped out as though all controlled by a single switch. Johnnie bought himself no beer the next time we went to the ‘Market’.
In contrast to Johnnie’s urbanity there was Tommy, our cockney rear gunner. I am still looking for Tommy, still seeking to discover what became of him after he was admitted to hospital after a few ops with us, whether even today, somewhere, he is alive. J – would have
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described him, had she, like me, had the good fortune to know him, as being like Tigger, a very bouncy animal. Although not tall, he was built like a boxer or a rugby prop forward, solid, chunky – even more so when kitted up in his Irvin suit – with a gleaming broad red face, scarred in one place, topped by rather long and slightly untidy Brylcreemed hair, his face almost always split in a broad grin. He was cheerful, cocky, good-humoured, never short of a quip, lively and effervescent, and he was a tonic to us all when things were going against us.
He laughingly described to us one incident in which he was involved while in his training Flight in the weeks before coming into the crew. He had been on a night cross-country involving an air-to-sea firing exercise, aiming, presumably, at a flame float which they dropped in the English Channel. Several other gunners were taken along on the trip and after Tommy had fired his allotted number of rounds he retired to the rest bed half way down the Wellington’s fuselage, unplugged his intercom., closed his eyes and fell asleep, the padded earpieces of his helmet dulling the noise of the engines and of the rattle of the Brownings fired by his fellow-pupils. He awoke with a start, someone shaking him violently and yelling in his ear, “Bale out! Bale out!” The aircraft was being jinked around the sky in evasive action from the attack of a German fighter. By the time Tommy had collected his wits, found and clipped on his parachute and jumped through the open escape hatch, the aircraft was down to approximately 600 feet, the lowest safe altitude to allow a parachute to open. No sooner had it done so than he was down to earth, to the softest of all possible landings – in a haystack.
He had no idea where he was, nor what had happened to the aircraft or to the others in it, and certainly no idea of the planned route of the cross-country flight.
“I hadn’t a bloody clue where the hell I was,” he told us, “could’ve been in France, Germany England, any bloody where.”
So he collected his deployed parachute into his arms and in the darkness plodded away from the scene of his sudden and fortuitous landing upon the earth. The unfamiliar countryside was silent and
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dark. He came upon a ditch under a hedge and rightly decided to spend the night there. In the morning he would take stock of his position. In the ditch, he rolled himself into his parachute, comfortably warm inside his leather Irvin suit and once more slept.
In the morning, at daylight, he cautiously emerged to size up the situation. On the other side of the hedge was a narrow road. Keeping well hidden, he awaited developments. Presently, the distant sound of voices alerted him and two men dressed in farm-workers’ clothes came walking along the lane. Tommy strained his ears to catch their conversation, to determine what language they were speaking. To his relief he heard familiar English words. Tommy emerged and, perhaps too quickly, confronted them. But startled as they were by his sudden appearance and flying clothing, they were soon convinced of his nationality when he employed his colourful vocabulary to some effect. They directed him to the nearest house where he received some much-needed refreshment and telephoned his flight Commander at Bassingbourn.
On our evenings out at the ‘Market’ in G.Y. he always made a point of collecting small empty ginger ale bottles after one or other of us – often it was I – had added the contents to our gin. These he would take along on our next op., storing them handily in his already cramped rear turret ready for use. We had heard it said that if caught in searchlights, a couple of empty bottles thrown out would, during their descent, scream like falling bombs and cause the searchlight crew to douse their light, and one night on the approach to the Happy Valley, as the Ruhr, with the somewhat black humour of bomber crews, was known, when we were trapped in searchlights he proved, by throwing out a few bottles, that this was no old wives’ tale. It worked like a charm and we slipped through the defences and on to Essen.
(Soon afterwards, on leave, I was relating this to an elderly and very unworldly female relation, who, to my amazement and vast amusement was alarmed and scandalised, wide-eyed and open mouthed. “Oh! But you might have killed somebody!” she exclaimed.)
I have made several attempts to find out whether Tommy survived the war. In correspondence with a contemporary Squadron member, he
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wrote to say that he had a copy of a Squadron Battle Order in which Tommy’s name appeared in relation to an operation, as rear gunner in some crew whose names were unfamiliar to me, but that Tommy’s name had been crossed out in pencil and another substituted. Whatever the significance of that, neither he nor I could tell after the lapse of time. A message on the Internet, placed by my Dutch friends, has produced no result.
Are you out there somewhere, Tommy? If so, you and I are the only two survivors of the six who came together on that sunny August day in the echoing hangar at Bassingbourn those years ago. I miss you all, more than words can express; I think of you every day that passes, and I never cease to grieve for you, nor ever shall.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[underlined] Enemy coast [/underlined]
Through cockpit window now,
The lemon-slice of moon,
Some random stars
Pricked in a hemisphere of indigo.
Ahead, the coastline waits –
Pale, wavering beams
As innocent as death
Rehearse the adagio ballet
Which will transfix us
On pinnacles of light
For ravening guns.
But for a space
In this brief, breathless safety,
Poised high above the metal
Of the neutral sea,
We hang in vacuum,
Scattered like moths,
Mute castaways in sky.
Until, inevitable, we penetrate
The charnel-house of dreams,
That swift unveiling of Apocalypse
Familiar to us
As the routine holocaust
Which other men call night.
H.Y.
June 1991
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[inserted] [underlined] Images of mortality [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] IMAGES OF MORTALITY [/underlined]
Someone, once, to whom I had been talking – perhaps, it must be admitted, at rather too great length – of my time at Binbrook, cut across my words impatiently with, “Ah, yes, but you were at an impressionable age then.”
Not being by nature argumentative I let the comment pass, and the subject was rapidly changed. But the memory of that remark has remained with me. Broadly, I would not dispute its accuracy, for surely, at whatever age one is, one should be, and should remain, impressionable. But here, the implication seemed to be that the events I had been speaking of were not of such importance to have remained so strongly in my memory as they had done. I was then, and still find myself now, a little annoyed by that viewpoint. The happenings of that period of time were of considerable importance to us participants, and the young men, or youths, as some of us were who were involved, were all, in their own individual ways remarkable to one extent or another, by any standards of unbiased judgement. But perhaps my bias is showing.
Be that as it may, when I think of Binbrook now, there comes into my mind a cascade of kaleidoscopic impressions of scenes, small scenes maybe, and of faces and voices, images of places and of people fixed into my memory like the black and white snapshots secured in an album of photographs.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
It was a shock to me when I saw it for the first time, walking up the road from the Mess towards the hangars. Being a peacetime Station – only just – Binbrook was equipped with the standard pattern of permanent buildings, including a row of what had been married quarters – a few semi-detached, two-storied houses. For some seconds I couldn’t think what had happened over there when I saw that most of the top storey of one of the houses had been shattered and was broken off. I halted in my stride, quite appalled at the unexpected and shocking sight. My first thought, an almost instinctive reaction in those days, was “enemy action”, then it slowly dawned on me that
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this was not so, that the building had, horrifyingly, been struck by one of our own aircraft, either on taking off or on landing, using the short runway. Who it had been, and what casualties had resulted, I never knew. I was too shaken to ask and no-one, certainly, ever volunteered the information. It was not a topic of conversation one indulged in or dwelled upon. But similar incidents were to involve my room-mate, Johnny Stickings, and I was to escape the same fate by only a few scant feet, and by the grace of God.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Johnny had been somewhat longer on the Squadron than I, an Observer in Sergeant O’Connell’s crew. He was short, rather chunky and pale, with straight hair the colour of dark sand. I think we were both much of a type, for while we never went around together, we were perfectly pleasant towards one another and quite happy to be sharing a room, never getting in each other’s way or on each other’s nerves.
One winter’s morning I woke to find his bed still neatly made up and unslept in. At breakfast I heard that his aircraft had crashed the previous night, coming back from an op., on Wilhelmshaven, I believe. As far as anyone could tell me there had been both casualties and survivors. It was later that day when I returned to the room, and found Johnny in bed.
As I recall, he seemed rather dazed and quiet, as well he might have been. He went into few details of the incident; possibly his conscious mind was shying away from the harrowing experience, or perhaps he had been given a sedative. What he did tell me was that when the aircraft crashed he remembered being thrown clear. He had been flung bodily into a small wooden hut on some farmland in Lincolnshire. The hut had collapsed around him and he was only discovered lying in its wreckage by chance, when one of the rescue party noticed the demolished building.
For several years, on the anniversary of the crash, there was an entry in the memorials in the “Daily Telegraph”, to Sergeants O’Connell, Parsons, Laing and Delaney, signed “Johnny”. Then one year the entry no longer appeared.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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Life on the Squadron produced, naturally, shocks to one’s nervous system. Shocks which one could reasonably expect as part and parcel of the normal run of operational flying, and which to one extent or another were predictable. It was the unexpected ones which shook one more violently than the rest; the dazzling blue of a searchlight out of nowhere which flicked unerringly and tenaciously on to one’s aircraft, the long uneventful silence of flying through a black winter’s night being suddenly shattered by a flakburst just off the wingtip. These were things which could set the pulse, in an instant, racing to twice its normal speed.
But there was an incident which occurred in, of all places, the ablutions of the Officers’ Mess, an incident which was so completely unexpected and, at the time, heaven forgive me, so utterly shocking, that it froze me into complete immobility, open-mouthed, horrified, and, for an instant, uncomprehending.
Apart from, as they are termed, the usual offices, in the dimly-lit stone-floored rooms, there were, naturally, a row of washbasins. I was washing my hands at one end of this row one evening when I heard a soft footstep nearby and I distinguished a figure in the feeble blue light which served to illuminate the place. What was so shocking was the face, a random patchwork of different shades of vivid red, white and pink, two long vertical cuts from the ends of the mouth to the chin, the eyelids unnaturally lifeless and mis-shapen, the hair of the head in isolated tufts falling at random on the skull over the brow.
As he moved, I recovered myself and muttered some vague greeting as I went hurriedly out, back to the normality of the well-lit, noisy anteroom. It was a while before I recovered from this un-nerving encounter. Someone subsequently told me about Eddie. He was a burn case, one of McIndoe’s ‘guinea pigs’. A pilot, he had crashed, taking off in a Hampden. The aircraft had burst into flames. The Hampden’s cockpit was notoriously difficult to get out of in a hurry and he had fried in his own greases until he was rescued. Richard Hillary, in his well-known book ‘The Last Enemy’, described Eddie as the worst-burned man in the R.A.F. He was now a pilot in the Target Towing
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Flight, flying drogue-towing Lysanders on gunnery practices.
Possibly because we both frequented the games room a fair amount, he and I slowly drifted together. No-one made any sympathetic noises towards Eddie, that was definitely not done, and no-one made the slightest concession towards him either. He played against me often at table-tennis, with a controlled ferocity which could have only have been born of the desire to live his spared life completely to the full. Frequently, a clump of his dark auburn hair would flop uncontrollably down over his eyes, to expose an area of shiny red scalp, upon which hair would never again grow, one of the numerous grafts on his head and face, the skin having been taken, he told me, mostly from his thighs. He would damn it cheerfully and push it roughly back again with his sudden slash of a broad grin, which never reached his lashless and expressionless eyes.
I had detected some accent which I could not place. One day while we were sitting together in the anteroom, chatting, he mentioned that he was a South African.
“Oh?” I said, “Where from? I’ve got relations out there.”
“Where do they live?”
I named the town.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he said, “that’s where I’m from; what’s their name?”
I told him.
“Have you a cousin called Edna?”
“Why, yes,” I said, astonishment growing every second.
“I used to go around with her,” he laughed, “it’s a small world, isn’t it?”
Eddie, I am glad to say, survived the war. There is a photograph of him, among others of McIndoe’s ‘Army’, in a book named ‘Churchill’s Few.’
. . . . . . . . . . . .
What can one say of Teddy Bairstow? Only that, had he lived fifty years before his time he would have been described, I am sure, as ‘A Card’ or as ‘A Character’.
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Unlike Tony Payne or Jim Heyworth, for example, he was physically unimpressive; very thin-faced and pale, sparse hair brushed sideways across his head, but with eyes as bright as those of the fox’s head of our mascot. It was his voice, however, which one remembers best, grating, strident and penetrative in its broad Yorkshire accents. When he was in the room, everyone knew it, and the place seemed filled with his jovial, but somehow, rueful, almost apprehensive presence.
Teddy had a stock phrase which he used whenever anyone asked him, for example, what sort of a trip he had had. He would lift his voice in both pitch and volume and exclaim to the world at large, “Ee! ‘twere a shaky do!” He had, to everyone’s knowledge, at least one very shaky do. Coming back from some op, he found, for one reason or another, that he wasn’t going to make it back to Binbrook. But he was reasonably close, he had crossed the Lincolnshire coast, and decided he would force-land his aircraft. But no wheels-up-belly-landing, as he should have done, for Teddy. Incredibly, he did a normal landing, if it could be described in those terms, undercarriage down, in the darkness, into a field near Louth, and got away with it without nosing over into a disastrous cartwheel. Few would have survived to tell the tale – Sergeant O’Connell certainly had not done so – but everyone agreed with Teddy’s usual comment. ‘Twere indeed a shaky do.
Towards the end of February Teddy’s luck ran out. We went after the German pocket-battleship Gneisenau in Kiel Docks, where it was holed up after escaping up the Channel. Teddy did not come back.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Somehow, it happened that Eric and I tended to gravitate together to play billiards or table tennis in the Mess games room, and for the odd glass of beer. It was, I think, possibly because like me, he was the only one of commissioned rank in his crew, apart from Abey, that is, who was his pilot and our Flight Commander, a Squadron Leader, very much senior in rank to both of us. Eric was Abey’s Observer, tall, well built, unfailingly polite, his manner polished and urbane, yet by no means superior. We got along very well; I enjoyed his company, and I like to think he enjoyed mine.
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It was one afternoon when we had a stand-down. Frequently, my crew and I would go in to Grimsby, to the cinema, then to the “Market” for a meal with Edna, the landlady, possibly stay the night, and come back in time to report to the Flights next morning. We usually managed to cram ourselves into Mick’s, our wireless operator’s, Ford. However, on this particular afternoon, possibly because we were broke, there were no such arrangements. I happened to bump into Eric in a corridor, in the Mess. We said “hello”, then he stopped suddenly and said, “I say, are you interested in music?”
“Yes, I am, rather,” I said, not knowing what to expect.
“Well, look, I’m just going along to old Doug’s room, he’s going to play some records – would you like to come along? I’m sure he won’t mind.”
So I went. Doug was pleased to see us both. He wound up his portable gramophone and put on Tchaikovsky’s ‘Valse des Fleurs’. I can never hear that lovely, lilting piece without thinking of that afternoon in Doug Langley’s room, lost in the beauty of discovery of orchestral music, and remembering Doug himself, with his light-ginger hair and luxuriant moustache, sitting, eyes closed, head thrown back, as Eric and I listened attentively. From there, on a subsequent stand-down night we went to a real symphony concert, my first ever, in Grimsby, and a whole new and wonderful world had opened up for me, thanks to Eric and Doug.
Abey’s crew went missing on Kiel, the same night as Teddy Bairstow. It was years later that I knew that Eric, and indeed, the rest of the crew, had survived. Desperate for contacts after J – ‘s death, I hunted through telephone directories until I found his name, and contacted him. After a few phone calls, and the exchange of several long letters, I met him in London. Being the men we are, it was an affectionate but undemonstrative greeting, a handshake and smiles rather than arms around shoulders and tears.
His was a simple story. With quite typical frankness he told me, and M – who was with me, that it was all his fault that they had got shot down. There had, he said, been some fault in his navigation, a very common thing in those days when navigational aids were almost nil, when such things as Gee and H2S had never been heard of. On the way to Kiel they had strayed over Sylt, a notorious hot spot of an island off the Danish-German coast.
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They were hit be flak in their starboard engine, which put it out of action. After a discussion as to the alternatives open to them, Abey had turned for home, in the fond hope that one good engine would be sufficient to carry them to the English coast. It was not to be; they were losing too much height to be able to make it back across the wide and inhospitable North Sea. The next option was to turn round again, fly across enemy-occupied Denmark and try to get to Sweden, where they would bale out and be interned for the duration. Again, their loss of height eventually ruled this out, they would never have a hope of reaching any Swedish territory. The third and final option was to bale out over Denmark. This they did, one after the other, successfully, over the island of Funen. They were all immediately taken prisoner. Eric and Abey finished up in the notorious prison campo Stalag Luft III, Sagan, the scene of the “Wooden Horse” tunnel – and of the murder of fifty aircrew officer prisoners by the Germans.
Eric, to my and to M – ‘s fascination, produced an album of pencil sketches he had made on odd scraps of paper, of prison-camp life. I asked him how he had been treated as a P.o.W., those three and more years that he spent behind the wire. Typically, again, he said, “Oh, I didn’t have too bad a time, really, you know.”
What could one say in reply to that? I simply shook my head in wonder. Of course, among others, we mentioned Teddy Bairstow. He and his crew had not been so fortunate. Nor had Doug Langley, whose grave I found, quite by accident, in a quiet cemetery in norther Holland a short time afterwards.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I returned to Binbrook after many years. But only to the village. I had already found the Market Hotel in Grimsby where I went so often with my crew. I had stood for several minutes, looking up at the windows of the rooms we used to have, and remembering kindly Edna, who treated us like sons. Remembering Col, and Mick, and Johnnie, of my original crew. Remembering Cookie, our skipper, and Mac, our rear gunner, the Canadians among us. Thinking of the man I never knew, Rae, the man who had taken my place, the man who had died instead of me.
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When I arrived at Binbrook, I found I could barely contain my emotion. I recovered myself to some extent while I drank a cup of coffee in the Marquis of Granby, the well-remembered pub in the village. I stood for a long time at the top of the hill, on the road which led down into the valley and up again to the now deserted and silent aerodrome. I stood, remembering again, seeing, across the distance, visions of the Wellingtons I and my friends had flown, parked in their dispersals, the movement of men around them, and their faces, hearing their long-stilled voices. But I could go no closer to them than that. There were too many memories, too many ghosts.
On that fine morning the images of mortality were too real to be borne.
. . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Tony [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] TONY [/underlined]
At the time when I subscribed to ‘Readers’ Digest’ there would appear in each issue a short article entitled ‘The Most Unforgettable Character I Have Ever Met’. I find that this description could fittingly apply to Tony Payne.
When I had the privilege of knowing him, Tony, at the age of 21, was already a veteran in terms of ability and experience, looked up to almost in reverence as one of the elite pilots on the Squadron.
And whenever I recall the Officers’ Mess at Binbrook with its high-ceilinged anteroom just across the main corridor from the dining room, with the eternal, homely smell of coffee from the big urn near to the door, I can visualise Tony as he was so often, standing slightly to one side of the fire, pewter tankard in hand, holding court, as it were, the focal point of all eyes and conversation, eternally smiling and cheerful, his crisp, clear voice sounding above the music from the worn record on the radiogram which would be softly playing a catchy little tune, a favourite of his, called ‘The Cuckoo’. I have never heard it, or heard of it, even, since that time, but I could never forget it, as it was almost Tony’s signature tune. But Tony was entering the last six months of his life.
He had the gift of holding everyone’s attention by his witty observations on most things operational – and non-operational, his words rolling brightly and optimistically off his tongue, his eyes shining with the pleasure of living for the moment, and that moment alone, of good company and comradeship.
Once we were discussing a particular trip. (They were always ‘trips’, occasionally ‘ops’ but never ‘sorties’ or ‘missions’). Someone was describing our attempts to locate some target in Germany one night recently. There had been only sporadic gunfire aimed at us whn [sic] we arrived at about 20,000 feet, and that gunfire, we knew, was not necessarily from the immediate area of the target.
“What did you think about it, Tony?” someone asked. Tony beamed at the question, leaned slightly forward and declaimed with mock solemnity and a judicial air, “Ah! Then I knew that something was afoot!” he said.
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Among his many friends, or ‘familiars’ as they might have once been known, (a description singularly appropriate), was the Senior Flying Control Officer (or ‘Regional Control Officer’ in the terminology then in force) Flight Lieutenant Bradshaw, “Bradders” to everyone. He was old enough to be Tony’s and our father, a World War I pilot beribboned with the ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ campaign ribbons of that conflict, slightly portly, fairly short in stature, of equable temperament and genial in manner, his iron-grey to white hair meticulously trimmed. A great deal of repartee was invariably exchanged by the two, doubtless born of their mutual affection despite the disparity in their ages.
To our delight one day, Tony hurried into the anteroom in a state of high glee, carrying a small, brown-paper wrapped parcel the size of a large book.
“Wait till you see this, you types!” he crowed to his audience, which included Bradders, who was as intrigued as the rest of us. Tony slowly, tantalisingly slowly, unwrapped his mysterious parcel then dramatically held up its contents for all to see. It was a gilt-framed oil painting of a side-whiskered old man in a country churchyard, his foot upon the shoulder of a spade, a battered old felt hat on his head. The frame bore the title – ‘Old Bradshaw, the village sexton’. It brought the house down and it was ceremoniously hung on the anteroom wall near to the portrait of Flying Officer Donald Garland, one of the Squadron’s two posthumous Victoria Cross recipients, and near also to the mounted fox’s head, our Squadron badge, which had been presented to ‘Abey’, Squadron Leader Abraham, our Flight Commander, on his posting from a Polish O.T.U. where he had been instructing, to 12 Squadron.
At about this time the Air Ministry commissioned Eric Kennington, a noted war artist, to make portraits of outstanding aircrew members, many in Bomber Command, and Tony was one of those selected to sit for him. He sat in his usual place at one end of the anteroom fireplace while Kennington went about his work. The Mess kept a respectful silence while this was proceeding, conversing only in whispers and never attempting to peer over the artist’s shoulder. Some time later, the finished portrait was hung in a place of honour on the wall, to Tony’s laughing embarrassment.
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It was only within these last few years that during a telephone conversation with Eric, my friend, fellow-survivor and table tennis and billiards opponent of those days, who had been Squadron Leader Abraham’s Observer when they were shot down over Denmark, that he asked me if I remembered Tony’s portrait, and whether I knew what happened to it. I confessed that I had almost forgotten about it and did not have any idea what had become of it. But his question touched off in me a desire to find out. It seemed logical that in the first instance I should consult my local Library to see whether they might possibly have any book of the Kennington portraits. It did have such a book, and they brought it out to me. Unfortunately, Tony’s likeness was not among the hundred or so reproduced, but he was mentioned in the index of all the portraits which the artist had undertaken. Where next? I decided that the obvious next step was to contact the R.A.F. Museum at Hendon. There I struck gold. They had the original portrait in storage and swiftly sent me a photo-copy. I obtained two copies, one of which I sent to Eric. Today, a sizeable and well-produced copy of Tony’s portrait hang on my wall where I can look on it with a mixture of affection, pleasure and great sadness, as well as a sense of honour that such a fine man and such a fine pilot could have wanted me to join his crew. I was more than a little surprised when he did so and have often wondered what prompted him to approach me. It was prior to his finishing his first tour, and I have described the incident and its calamitous sequel in the next chapter.
His crew, on his first tour with us, must truly have been quite exceptional. To have completed their tour made them exceptional enough. The chances of that were a considerable way short of evens. There was an example of their ‘press on regardless’ spirit and of the brilliant navigation of Tony’s Observer, Sergeant Dooley, a dapper, smiling little Englishman, on one of our trips to Kiel to bomb the pocket-battleship Gneisenau.
We rarely had an accurate Met. forecast on the trips we did in that winter of 1941-42, and on this night the conditions turned out to be worse than even the Met. Officer had forecast. We took off in the darkness and gloom and entered heavy cloud at 600 feet We climbed
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steadily out over the North Sea but at 20,500 feet we had still not reached clear air. With our bomb load we could climb no higher. We were somewhere in the top of the cloud mass, the moon a faint blur of light on our starboard bow. Below and around us were numerous gun-flashes from the flak defences of Kiel, and as obtaining a visual pinpoint was obviously impossible we bombed the centre of the flak concentration. We turned for home, still in cloud. After over three hours of manual flying, concentrating solely on the instrument panel in front of me, and losing height slowly down to 1,000 feet, I became aware that we had finally reached the cloudbase. Then to my relief and delight I pinpointed Spurn Head, our crossing-in point, about four miles to starboard, and saw the four red obstruction lights of the radar station near Cleethorpes dead ahead. We heartily congratulated Col on his navigation – seven hours plus in cloud and only four miles off track at the end of it.
But Sergeant Dooley and Tony had outshone us. Like us, finding the target in Kiel docks completely cloud-covered he had refused the opportunity to bomb blind as most of us had done. They set course for the Baltic Sea, topped the cloud and found moonlight – and stars. Flying straight and level, which one had to do to take astro-shots of the various stars on the astrograph chart, and which one could safely do over the sea, but which was a most unhealthy undertaking over hostile territory, Sergeant Dooley obtained an astro fix of their exact position. He then plotted a dead-reckoning track and course to the target, some distance away, and when their E.T.A. was up, bombed on that. The Squadron Navigation Officer subsequently re-plotted his whole log and found that they had been ‘spot-on’ the target. Such was the ability and experience of Tony and his crew.
When his tour was finally over and he had a well-deserved D.F.C. to his credit he was posted away to some hush-hush job at an aerodrome on Salisbury Plain, and both the Mess and B Flight Office were the poorer and less colourful for his going.
My final meeting with him before my posting and his shockingly unexpected and untimely death was a few weeks after he had left the Squadron at the end of his tour. He appeared one day, cheerful and unchanged as ever, in the anteroom one lunchtime. He had flown up,
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unofficially, one guessed, in a small, twin-engined trainer. He was, he told us, flying all sorts of kites, at all sorts of heights, mostly over the Channel. He alleged that ‘they’, whoever they might be, and he did nothing to enlighten us on that, even wanted him to fly inverted on occasions. Beyond that he said nothing, and we did not ask him too many questions. He mentioned that although he had flown up to see us in the Oxford, one of the several aircraft at the secret establishment, he would have preferred something else – “I wanted to come in the Walrus”, he chuckled, naming an antiquated and noisy single-pusher-engined flying boat, usually operated by the Fleet Air Arm.
“I’d love to have taxied up to the Watch Office and chucked the anchor out!”
He left us after a cheerful lunch and went for ever out of my life, for which I am greatly the poorer.
It seems that he came back to 12, without a crew, for a second tour and was insistent on taking part in the first 1,000 bomber raid, that on Cologne, with a completely new crew. His was the first aircraft to be shot down that night. It happened over the outskirts of Amsterdam. How he came to be there will always remain a mystery to me, as the route planned for that night to Cologne lay over the estuary of the Scheldt, mush [sic] further south, its numerous islands providing invaluable pinpoints.
He and all his crew are buried in beautifully tended graves in a shady part of Amsterdam’s New Eastern Cemetery, which I have several times visited.
On one visit to Amsterdam I had contacted a Dutchman who had formed part of the team of volunteers who had excavated the remains of C-Charlie, Tony’s aircraft on that fatal night in May 1942. I was able to visit the crash site in the suburb of Badhoevedorp. A small museum of remembrance had been created in some old underground fortifications on the outskirts of the city where were reverently displayed several small identifiable components of the aircraft, as well as one or two pathetic personal belongings of the crew. I was offered, and accepted, a small section of the geodetic construction of the Wellington and this now has a place of honour in my living room, where Tony, from his portrait, appears to be looking down upon it.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Mind you don’t scratch the paint [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] MIND YOU DON’T SCRATCH THE PAINT [/underlined]
After what happened that night to his beloved Z-Zebra when we, for the first and only time, were being allowed to fly it on ops, I could have quite understood if Tony had never wanted to have anything to do with me, or with any of the crew, again.
But instead, after it was all over, for some time afterwards, whenever he happened to see me in the anteroom there would come into his eyes a gleam of what I could only interpret as amusement, but something more besides; this was a look of amusement mingled with a knowledge and appreciation of our good fortune, the look which perhaps a proud parent gives to his offspring as he sees him emerge from the last obstacle of a tricky course in the school sports and run triumphantly towards the finishing line, a “by-God-you’ve-done-it” look. A fanciful idea maybe, but the more I look back on it, the more I am sure that was what it was.
It was when we had already done a handful of ops, I remember, and when he himself must have been well on towards finishing his tour – remarkable enough in itself – and quite some while after the events which led to his, and our, final trip in ‘Z’ that he caught my eye and beckoned me over, one day when there was no flying, in the mess at Binbrook. He and I were both standing among the small crowd of aircrew officers near the fireplace, tankards in our hands, nearly all of us smoking, under the gaze of the portrait of Donald Garland, V.C., and of the fox’s mask mounted on its wooden shield.
And when I had made my way towards him he paid me a great and surprising compliment, he who was without doubt one of the finest of the many fine pilots on the Squadron.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
But the story, of course, starts some time before that, when we were very much the new boys, before I and the rest of the crew had been blooded on ops. When we had arrived on the Squadron from our Operational Training Unit at Bassingbourn, Elmer, my co-pilot,
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had been allocated to Mike Duder’s crew, while the rest of us had been taken over, as it were, by Ralph, a pilot who had a few ops already to his credit. We settled down comfortably enough with him and went through the final stages of our familiarisation and training on the Mark II Wellington in preparation for our first operation together. This landmark in one’s flying career was something which I, at any rate, had looked forward to – if that is the correct form of words – with a mixture of curiosity, awe and a certain degree of apprehension tinged with excitement; I regarded it as a large step into a completely unknown world. Just how hazardous a step it would turn out to be I was soon to discover.
At that time, my logbook tells me, we had no aircraft which we could really regard as our own, perhaps because we were a fresher crew, I don’t know. However, we had flown seven different aircraft since joining ‘B’ Flight. One morning we reported as usual, to the Flights. I had the privilege of using, along with others, Abey’s, our Flight Commander’s, office as a sort of mini-crewroom. It was late November and we sat around talking, shop mostly, until about ten o’clock, when Abey’s phone rang. All conversation stopped. We knew what it would be – either another stand-down, or a target. It was a target, for freshers only. It would not be named until briefing that afternoon, of course, but I was fairly certain it would be one of the French Channel ports.
Abey nodded to me pleasantly and said, “Let the rest of your crew know, will you?” Then he looked quickly at the blackboard fixed to the wall facing him and said, “Look, I think you’d better take Z-Zebra, Tony’s aircraft – he’s off to Buck House tomorrow to collect his gong from the King.”
Tony Payne wasn’t in the Flight Office at the time, I suppose he had been told by Abey that he wouldn’t be required in any case; an appointment with His Majesty would naturally take priority over anything. So it was lunchtime when we’d done our quite uneventful night flying test on ‘Z’, that I saw him in the Mess. Or rather, that he saw me, and made a bee-line for me.
“What’s this I hear, then?” he asked.
I grinned at him.
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“You mean about Z-Zebra?”
“Yes, I mean about Z-Zebra. My Z-Zebra. You’re not actually going to fly my kite, are you? On ops? God!”
There was a look of mock-horror on his face.
“Well, that’s what Abey said, so that’s what we’re doing. Don’t worry, Tony, we won’t bend it, or anything.”
“Bend it? You’d better not! If you so much as scratch the paint I shall deal with you all personally, one at a time, when you come back, you mark my words!”
We both knew he was kidding, but I knew, too, that ‘Z’ was the apple of Tony’s eye and that it had served him well. I hoped that it would serve as [sic] well, too.
Briefing was in the early afternoon. I cannot recall that there were many of us there, three crews at most is my recollection. The target was Cherbourg docks, time on target 2100 to 2130, bomb-load seven five hundred pounders, high explosive, route Base – Reading – Bognor Regis – target and return the same way. I felt nothing other than curious anticipation, once the time of take-off drew nearer. I think the thought that we were in ‘Z’ boosted my morale. Tony’s aircraft must be good, for he was good, the best. That followed; ‘Z’ wouldn’t let us down. The trip was going to be, if not the proverbial piece of cake, then quite O.K., quite straightforward, a nice one to start us off, of that I was confident.
It was a Saturday evening and dusk was falling as I went up to the Flights and opened my locker in Abey’s office. He was there, of course, looking quietly on at the small handful of us putting on our kit for the op. I started to struggle into my flying kit. Roll-necked sweater under my tunic, brown padded inner suit from neck to ankle, like a tightly fitting eiderdown, old school scarf, which, while I would never have admitted it, was my good-luck talisman. Pale green, slightly faded canvas outer flying suit with fur collar, wool-lined leather flying boots, parachute harness, Mae West and, lastly, ‘chute and helmet, which I carried. I checked that I had the issued silk handkerchief, printed very finely with a map of France, just in case, and I touched the reassuring small miniature compass,
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sewn into my brevet, another aid to evasion if forced to bale out.
I joined Ralph and the lads in the hangar. There was a continuous buzz of conversation, the odd burst of laughter. Ralph was smiling with rather forced cheerfulness, no doubt wondering how his new crew would cope. Col, our Aussie Observer, looked more sallow than usual and was chewing gum rapidly. His Australian twang, when he spoke, was more pronounced, it seemed to me. Mick, the wireless op., looked worried, as usual, and said nothing, while Tommy, our rear gunner, was completely unconcerned and grinning from ear to ear. Johnnie, who would occupy the front turret, was his calm and quite imperturbable self, almost, I realised, the complete antithesis of Tommy.
Ralph said quickly, “Let’s go, then,” and we strolled out of the chilly, pale blue lighting of the hangar into the darkness. We climbed awkwardly into the waiting crew-bus parked on the perimeter track. A half moon was beginning to show, flitting in and out of the scattered clouds which were drifting out to sea from off the Lincolnshire Wolds. It was cold, and despite my flying kit, I shivered a little. Col was still chewing stolidly, his face expressionless. There was a little desultory conversation as the bus rolled towards the dispersals, but the night’s op was not mentioned.
“Z-Zebra,” called the W.A.A.F. driver through the little window at the front of the bus. We started to clamber stiffly down the back steps, reluctant to leave the companionable shelter of the vehicle.
“Have a good trip!”
Someone from another crew shouted the conventional but oddly reassuring words, which were invariably used to send a crew on their way.
“You too,” one of us replied.
Z-Zebra loomed over us in the semi-darkness. The crew bus rumbled away. The silence was intense, almost tangible. The ground-crew stood around, blowing on their hands and beating their arms around their bodies against the cold. There were muted greetings. Col and I walked several yards away from the kite, lit cigarettes from my case and took a dozen or so quick draws before stamping them out.
“Come on, let’s get started,” I muttered, and we clambered up the red ladder which jutted down from Z’s nose. Johnnie was handing
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the pigeon in its ventilated box carefully up to Mick.
We struggled in, heavily and clumsily, each to his position. I hoisted myself over the main spar and stood in the astrodome, reaching down to plug in my intercom lead, and I found the hot-air hose, aiming it to blow on to my body once the engines had been started. The port engine suddenly stammered and roared into life, then the starboard. We heard Ralph blow twice into his mike to test the intercom, then he spoke.
“Everyone O.K? Harry?”
“O.K., skip,” I said.
“Col?”
“Yeah, skip.”
“Mick?”
O.K.”
“Johnnie?”
“O.K., skipper.” Johnnie was always punctilious and correct.
“Tommy? All right at the back there?”
“Yes, fine, skip.”
“Right, I’ll take it there and do the bombing run, Harry, you can bring us back.”
“O.K., skip,” I said.
Ralph’s mike clicked off. There was an increased roar from the port enging, [sic] shaking the whole kite, then from the starboard, as Ralph ran them up, checking the power, the magnetos, the oil pressure and the engine temperatures. The kite was shivering like a nervous racehorse at the starting gate, waiting for the off. A lull, then I felt a lurch as we moved slowly out of dispersal. The hangars, topped by their red obstruction lights, slid by, then we were at the end of the runway in use. Behind us I could see the nav. lights of the other aircraft which were to share the night sky with us over Cherbourg. A green Alldis light flashed directly on to us – dah, dah, di-di, - Z.
“You’ve got your green, skipper,” I said. We were on our way.
“O.K., here we go, hold on to your hats.”
Johnnie appeared alongside me and grinned rather wolfishly; the front
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gunner went into his turret only when we were safely airborne. Ralph opened up the throttles against the brakes to lift the tail a little. Z-Zebra jerked and strained, then suddenly we surged forward, the engines howling. The Drem lighting of the flarepath smudged past, faster and faster as we charged down the runway. The bar of lights with the two goose-neck flares at the far end slid towards us, then suddenly all vibration ceased; we were airborne, we were on our way.
Johnnie gave me the thumbs-up and vanished up front to go into his turret. In a few seconds he called up to say he was in position. I felt and heard Ralph throttling back to settle into the long climb to operational height; we would aim to be at 20,000 feet over the target. He began a turn to port to bring us back over the centre of the aerodrome to set course accurately for Reading.
The night was clear, some cloud showing vaguely out to sea, a blaze of stars everywhere, with the half moon as yet low on the port beam. There were several flashing red beacons to be seen, scattered over the dim landscape like lurid and sinister fireflies, but no-one bothered to read their Morse letters on the way out; coming home, it would be another matter, they would be looked for and read as eagerly as one used to read the familiar names on railway stations on the way back from a holiday. From the astrodome the mainplanes were pale in the faint moonlight, the exhaust stubs glowed redly. The rudder was a tall finger behind us, under which sat Tommy in his turret, a lonely place. I could see the guns rotating from side to side as he kept watch. There was little sensation of height or speed as the engines roared steadily under climbing power, the passage of time seemed suspended and there was a sense of complete detachment from the earth and from all things on it. Conversation was limited to the essential minimum.
Ralph came up, eventually, on the intercom.
“Oxygen on, please, Harry, ten thousand feet.”
I acknowledged, unplugged my intercom and left my position, going forward over the main spar to where just behind the Observer’s compartment the oxygen bottles were in racks up on the port side of the
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fuselage. I screwed open the valves on each one and returned to the astrodome.
“Oxygen on, skipper.”
I plugged in the bayonet fitting of my oxygen tube to the nearest socket and clipped the mask on my helmet securely to cover my nose and mouth. After a while, “Glow on the deck, dead ahead, skipper,” Johnnie said. I went forward quickly to stand beside Ralph.
“Looks like Reading,” I said, “they always did have a lousy blackout. See those two lines of lights? The railway station. Wouldn’t that slay you? I don’t know how they don’t get bombed to hell.”
“Useful for us, anyhow,” Ralph replied, “we’re dead on track and two minutes to E.T.A., too. Good for you, Col,” he called.
The faint glow of Reading vanished under the nose. The moon was a bit higher now. Col gave the new course for Bognor. I took a deep breath of oxygen and holding it in my lungs as long as I could, went back to the astrodome. Tommy spoke up, rather fractiously.
“Bloody cold back here.”
“Shut up a minute, Tommy,” I heard Mick say, “I’m listening out to Group.”
No-one spoke for a while. Then I caught a glimpse of a white flashing beacon to starboard. These were very useful; Observers kept a list of them coded with their actual Latitude and Longitude positions. I switched on my mike.
“Occult flashing R Robert about five miles to starboard, Col,” I said.
Then, “That’s peculiar,” I thought, “I didn’t hear my own voice saying that.”
I checked my intercom switch and repeated what I’d said. Still nothing. I moved over to the intercom point at the flarechute and plugged in. I blew into my mike – dead as mutton. Taking a gulp of oxygen I went forward to Col’s desk and banged him on the shoulder. He looked up in surprise. I undid his helmet and shouted in his ear.
“Is your intercom working?”
He thumbed the switch and I saw his lips moving. Then he shrugged his shoulders expressively.
“Bloody thing’s crook,” he shouted.
After another gulp of oxygen I went forward to yell in Ralph’s ear.
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“Intercom’s u/s!”
I saw Ralph check his mike, then he nodded, the corners of his mouth turned down ruefully.
“Not a sausage,” he shouted, “see if Mick can fix it.”
I pushed through the door into Mick’s compartment. He beat me to it.
“Intercom’s u/s, R/T, too.”
“See if you can fix it!”
Mick nodded.
I went forward again to Ralph, who had scribbled a note on a message pad.
‘If no joy in 15 min. we jettison and abort.’
Without the intercom we would be completely cut off from one another, an impossible situation. I settled into the second pilot’s position alongside Ralph, thinking that I might as well stay up front for a while. Ralph was writing something again, letting the trimmers fly the aircraft while he did so.
‘Tell the gunners,’ I read, and gave him the thumbs-up. More oxygen, then I ducked under the instrument panel, past the bomb-sight, treading gingerly on the bottom escape hatch, and quickly opened the front turret doors.
My God, I thought, it’s freezing cold in here.
Johnnie twisted himself round and looked at me questioningly.
“Intercom’s gone for a Burton,” I shouted, “we may have to scrub it.”
He raised his eyebrows and nodded.
Half way back down the fuselage I saw the rear turret doors opening and Tommy emerged, slightly red in the face.
“My bloody intercom’s u/s,” he shouted, looking aggrieved.
I told him the situation quickly and he went back into his turret. I bent over Mick, who was fiddling with the intricacies of the radio equipment.
“Any joy?” I shouted.
Mick grimaced and shook his head.
“Keep trying, Mick.”
When I went back to Ralph he leaned over and shouted, “If Mick can’t fix it by Bognor, we’ll jettison ten miles out to sea and go home.”
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I wrote a note for Col and passed it to him. I was already hoarse with shouting and tired from moving around the aircraft on scanty oxygen.
Still we climbed. Bognor was now below us, I could distinguish the shape of the south coast, the Isle of Wight. Col came forward and made book-opening movements of his hands to Ralph who nodded and selected the bomb-door switch to ‘open’. Col ducked down to the bombsight. I wondered idly whether there were any convoys below; even though the bombs would be dropped ‘safe’ they wouldn’t like five hundred pounds of solid metal from this height. There was a slight shudder as the bombs went. Col came back.
“Bloody waste,” he shouted.
Ralph nodded as he closed the bomb-doors.
He shouted to me, “We might as well get down lower where we can come off oxygen. Get a course from Col, will you?”
I did so and set it on the compass for Ralph, who did a wide turn to port, losing height steadily. The altimeter slowly unwound.
When we passed through ten thousand feet I turned off the bottles and went the rounds of the crew, telling each one we were on the way home. Their reactions were muted, impassive. Soon we were down to two thousand feet, droning over the dim November landscape. There were no beacons to be seen anywhere in this area. I stood alongside Ralph, wondering if I would get a chance to fly ‘Z’ soon, but perhaps he didn’t like the thought of passing messages himself; the journey from front turret to rear, for example, was a bit of an obstacle race.
Quite suddenly, I noticed that the starboard engine temperature was up. I tapped Ralph on the arm and pointed to it. He nodded slowly, we droned onwards. I looked out of my side window, through the arc of the propeller, mere inches away, at the starboard engine. Was it my imagination, or was there a whitish mist streaming back from it? Ralph had levelled off at a thousand feet. Col came in and handed him a note of E.TA. Reading. The starboard engine temperature was higher, and now the oil pressure was decidedly down, too.
We’ve got trouble, damn it, I thought, and I saw there was now
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no doubt at all about the trail of vapour from the engine.
“Looks like a glycol leak,” I told Ralph, who stared grimly ahead and nodded. Then he turned to me.
“Get Mick on the W/T to base, returning early, intercom and R/T u/s, glycol leak starboard engine.”
I gave him the thumbs-up, seized a message pad and wrote it down, then went aft and handed it to Mick, who was sitting glumly at his table. He looked at the note, raised his eyebrows and frowned, then started to tap out the message on the Morse key.
Up front again I saw that the vapour leak from the engine was now streaked with red, and angry looking sparks were flying back over the engine nacelle and the trailing edge of the mainplane. I nudged Ralph, who leaned over to look, then grimaced. Now, the engine temperature was very high and the oil pressure had slumped even further. Z-Zebra was in real trouble. As is the way in flying, events thereafter moved in a downward spiral from bad to desperate with sickening rapidity. A lick of flame spat out of the engine, over the starboard mainplane, then horrifyingly, like the tail of a rocket, the flame shot back towards the rear turret.
“Fire!” I yelled in Ralph’s ear.
I pressed the extinguisher button on the instrument panel. Ralph chopped the starboard throttle back and hauled the wheel over to counteract the lurch and swing. I looked at the flames which were now pouring out of the duff engine, over the cowling and the trailing edge of the mainplane. Suddenly Tommy appeared at my side.
“Hey! There’s a hell of a lot of sparks flying past my turret!”
“Yes, we’re on fire, but we’re trying to get it out,” I shouted back at him.
Tommy’s eyes opened wide when he saw the blazing engine.
“Jesus bloody Christ,” he said, in awe.
We were now below 1000 feet. Ralph had opened up the port engine to try to maintain height, but we were turning slowly to starboard the whole time. I thought about the best part of 375 gallons of petrol in the starboard wing-tank, then about the western edge of London and its balloon barrage, somewhere very close to us. We
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were in one hell of a mess, I thought, and it began to dawn on me that the situation could well kill us all. I tried not to think too hard about that. Ralph was wrestling with Z-Zebra, trying to keep it on some sort of a course, but it appeared to be useless.
“Poop off some reds,” he yelled, “and look out for a flarepath!”
I hurried aft.
“Put the I.F.F. on Stud 3,” I shouted to Mick, above the howl of the good engine, and nodding glumly, Mick switched to this distress frequency which would show up as a distinctively shaped trace on all ground radar sets. I quickly found some double-red Verey cartridges and got the signal pistol down from its fixture in the roof of the fuselage. I loaded the cartridges and shot them off one at a time.
“Can’t do much more now,” I said to myself, and hoped for the sight of a flarepath, a directing searchlight, or anything that would help us. I went forward again. We were still losing height and I realised that we were too low to bale out. But the fire had died down and I sighed with relief at that. The prop windmilled slowly and uselessly. I wished that Z-Zebra had been fitted with propeller feathering devices, but it was useless wishing thoughts like that. I peered intently at the starboard wing; there didn’t seem to be any fire there, thank God, otherwise we would simply blow up in mid-air and that would be that. Now, the immediate problem was how we were going to get back on to the ground in approximately one piece; there wasn’t a flarepath or a beacon to be seen anywhere.
I felt completely helpless and at the mercy of a capricious and malignant fate which I could do nothing to influence. It was like being in a paper bag going down a waterfall. Ralph’s face was grim as he struggled to keep straight and to maintain altitude. I heaved a length of wrapped elastic from my parachute stowage and tied the wheel fully over to the left, to take the load off Ralph a little. He nodded his thanks. Another length of elastic; I tied the rudder bar over to the geodetics. That was all I could do.
I looked out again. Still no sign of friendly lights and the treetops were looking damned close now. The port engine exhaust stubs were bright red due to the punishment the engine was taking and I knew it was just a matter of minutes before we hit something. I thought, “This is a hell of a shaky do.” Then, ahead, I saw an interruption in the dark skyline and I was puzzled as to what it
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could be. I took a glance as [sic] the A.S.I., just under 100 m.p.h., much too near stalling speed for comfort. I hardly dared look at the altimeter, it showed a mere 200 feet now. The curious, dim outlines on the skyline grew slowly larger as we staggered on. That was about it, Z-Zebra was simply staggering along and sinking through the air, almost on the point of stalling, when we would drop like a stone. I was holding the wheel over to port, helping Ralph all I could. Keep height and we lost speed; keep speed and we lost height. That was the quite hopeless situation.
The jagged skyline, which was now beginning to fill the windscreen, resolved itself horrifyingly, in the dim moonlight, into buildings. A town, and worst of all, a town with a tall, thick chimney, dead ahead.
“Jesus Christ,” I thought, “we’ve bloody well had it now, we’re going to hit that bloody chimney.”
100 feet on the altimeter. Now we were over the town, churning over the roofs at 90 miles an hour. The streets looked so close that I could have put out a hand to touch them. The chimney loomed nearer, the black roofs skated away behind us, apparently just below the floor of the fuselage. I thought of the people in those houses, cringing as they heard the hideous noise just above their heads, praying that the aircraft wouldn’t hit them in a cataclysm of bricks, rubble and blazing petrol. I was sweating as I frantically heaved at the wheel to try to help Ralph. His eyes were staring as though he were hypnotised by the sight of the chimney. With agonising slowness it slid towards us, slightly to starboard now, it seemed, then just beyond the starboard wingtip, a handful of yards away. I shut my eyes for a second, hardly daring to believe that we had missed it.
“Thank Christ for that!” I yelled at Ralph. We were over open fields again. Ralph shouted desperately, “I’ll have to put it down soon, get them into crash positions!”
I hurried to the front turret, collected Johnnie, who was as pleasant and imperturbable as though he was sitting in an armchair in the Mess. he would have had a grandstand view of the whole thing, up to now. Together, we grabbed Mick and Col. The three of them lay on the floor of the fuselage, hands clasped behind their necks.
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I hurried, stumbling, to the rear turret and wrenched open the doors.
“Crash landing, any minute now!” I yelled at Tommy. He would sit tight, his was the safest place in the kite in this situation. I almost envied him. I rushed forward again and took a final glance out of the windscreen. We were at treetop level. Then I went back to join Mick, Col and Johnnie. There was not enough room for me to lie down, so I stood sideways on, taking a firm grip on the geodetics, and hoped for the best.
Suddenly the port engine was throttled right back. This was it, I thought. A few seconds’ silence, which seemed like a month, then a tremendous impact. A cool smell of newly-torn earth filled the aircraft. I hear, unbelievably, a long burst of machine gun fire and could see red tracer flying ahead of us. I couldn’t think what was going on; surely we weren’t being shot at? The kite bucketed along, everything twisting and grinding, the deceleration fantastic. I could hardly stay upright. The smell of ploughed earth was beautiful, almost intoxicating. I hung on grimly, and after what seemed an age, we finally lurched to a halt. For an instant there was total, blissful silence.
“Everyone out, quick!” I shouted.
The three of them hurried forward where I could see Ralph’s legs vanishing through the escape hatch above the pilot’s seat. Tommy came staggering from the rear of the fuselage, clutching his forehead.
“You O.K.?” I asked him.
“Hit me bloody head on some broken sodding geodetics,” he said angrily.
“Hurry up and get out in case the bloody kite goes up,” I said urgently, and I pushed him forward, ahead of me. He climbed out of the top hatch via the pilot’s seat; I was hard on his heels. I could hear Johnnie telling someone, in his clear, modulated voice, that he had forgotten to put the safety-catch of his guns on to ‘safe’, the impact of the crash had set them firing. I hoped vaguely that no-one had been hurt. It was years later that I learned that one bullet had gone through a child’s bedroom window as her mother was putting her to bed; the bullet had embedded itself in the mattress without harming the little girl.
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I followed Tommy up and out. I was swinging my legs over the edge of the escape hatch, on to the top of Z-Zebra, when I saw a spurt of flame from the port engine. The strain had been too much for it.
“Port engine’s on fire!” I shouted to them, “get to hell out of it!”
I jumped back inside the cockpit, quickly found the port fire-extinguisher button and jabbed my thumb hard on it, swearing softly under my breath. Then I clambered out again, found the port mainplane under my feet and walked down it on to the field.
The aircraft looked like a landed whale, its props bent grotesquely backwards, its back dismally broken, with the rudder towering up at an odd angle, its wings now spread uselessly across the stubble and the broad rut which we had gouged out of the field trailing back towards the hedge, between some tall trees. The crew were grouped together twenty yards away.
“Come on, Harry!” someone shouted.
A man was running over the field towards us, I could see the steam of his panting breaths in the moonlight as he got nearer and heard him excitedly saying something about ‘the biggest field in the district’. The moon shone palely through the trees which we had missed and the air was sweet as wine. I lit a cigarette and joined the others.
“Are you O.K.?” Col asked. I nodded.
“Bloody fine landing, Ralph,” I said, “damn good show.”
We followed the man over the stubble, towards the broken hedge, then to an Auxiliary Fire Station on the outskirts of St. Albans, where we had come down.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Look,” Tony said confidentially, “you know I’ve got …… as my co-pilot?”
“Yes,” I said, wondering what was coming next.
“Well, between you and me, I’m really not all that happy with him. Would you like to come into my crew? I can fix it with Abey, if you would.”
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When I recovered from my astonishment it didn’t take me long to decide. I shook my head.
“No, thanks, Tony, no, really, I wouldn’t want to leave my own crew, you know.”
“Oh, well, I can quite understand that. I just thought - . But if you do change your mind, there’s a place for you with me, any time.”
I thanked him. I have never forgotten the honour he did me.
As I have said, Tony took the wrecking of Z-Zebra quite well, all things being considered. Shortly afterwards, he finished his tour. His crew were posted away, while he himself went on to some hush-hush flying, somewhere on Salisbury Plain, we heard, involving several different types of aircraft. It was something, we guessed, in connection with the development of radar and its applications. He paid us a visit once, in an Anson.
“I wanted to come up in a Walrus,” he said, naming a slow, noisy and out-of-date small flying-boat, “and throw out the anchor in front of the Watch Office!”
We had a jocular half hour with him in front of the ante-room fire.
Tony Payne came back to the Squadron for his second tour of ops. He took a new crew, on their first trip, on the Thousand Bomber raid on Cologne. His was the first aircraft to be shot down that night. He was hit by flak over Ijmuiden, on the Dutch Coast and the aircraft blew up over Badhoevedorp, on the outskirts of Amsterdam, killing him and the whole crew. They are buried together in a beautiful shady spot in Amsterdam East Cemetery, their graves lovingly kept and cared for. I have visited the place where they fell; I have seen the place where they now lie at peace. Most of the aircraft was salvaged recently by some caring Dutch people, and I have a fragment of it on my bookshelf, to remind me of the man that was Tony. Not that I need much reminding.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Rabbie [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] RABBIE [/underlined]
He was the sort of bloke one took to automatically if one was of a fairly quiet disposition, for he himself was quiet almost to the point of being self-effacing. On the ground, that is. But in the air – well, that was another matter. On the evidence that I had, at least, it seemed that another side of his nature took over.
In build, he was perhaps an inch or so taller than me, well made, with rather thick, limp, fairish hair, quite piercingly blue eyes and a mobile mouth which always carried the trace of a smile, as though he were laughing inwardly at some secret joke. His manner of speaking was strange until you got used to it; he would start a sentence then lower his eyes almost apologetically, as though he were afraid you were becoming bored with what he was saying. His voice was quite deep, very quiet, and his utterances were staccato, like short bursts of machine-gun fire, punctuated by little nervous laughs, almost sniggers. Now and again he would stammer slightly, and now and again a trace of his native soft Scots accent would ripple the surface of his halting, quietly spoken sentences.
It was I who first called him Rabbie, on account of this inflexion of voice, which, when he became animated, would show more prominently. I think he secretly rather liked the name; there weren’t many Scotsmen on the Squadron as far as I knew, and certainly, there weren’t many in ‘B’ Flight. We became friendly, and although on stand-down trips to G.Y., as we invariably called Grimsby, crews usually went as crews, on nights when we stayed in the Mess he and I, more often than not, would gravitate together, along with Eric. Possible because the three of us where a shade quieter types than, say, Tony or Teddy Bairstow.
I don’t know how it came about that I flew to Pershore with him – he had done his O.T.U. there, it seemed, and on a stand-down day he got permission from Abey to do a cross-country there. He must have asked me if I would like a ride; anyhow, I went along with him. He had his own co-pilot, Sandy, with him, and his crew. It was then I discovered the other side of Rabbie. I had only been on the Squadron a fortnight and everything was new and a bit strange.
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Rabbie and most of the others were comparatively old hands, and whereas I was a strictly-by-the-book pilot, I soon found that there were others who weren’t. Like that day, when I flew with Rabbie. One normally did cross-countries at a sober and sedate height, say between two and six thousand feet. Perhaps for a few minutes, now and again, one might have a crazy fit and beat up a train or something or other, but unauthorised low flying was a Court Martial offence, and all pilots had been repeatedly warned of that fact ever since they started flying at E.F.T.S.
We went off in Barred C, Abey’s own aircraft, and once we’d cleared the circuit, quite simply, it was a hundred feet maximum all the way. To begin with, I was shaken rigid, I’d never known anything quite like it; such sustained, hair-raising excitement, spiced with the occasional bad fright. Trees, villages, hills, hedges, they all streamed by; very little was said among the crew. When I’d collected my scattered wits and realised that this was second nature to all of them, I began to enjoy it a little more. We landed at Pershore, Rabbie said hello to one or two old friends, we lunched, took off again and came back at the same height, all the way. I was getting used to it by this time, but I still swallowed hard once or twice.
When we had landed and taxied in I came down the ladder after most of them. Rabbie and the crew were doing what we usually did then, taking off helmets, sorting out the navigation stuff, looking for some transport back to the Flights. As we lit cigarettes, and with his little secret smile, Rabbie said to me, “Enjoy it?”
“Rabbie,” I said to him, “excuse me for asking, but do you always do your cross-countries at nought feet?”
He gave his little sniggering laugh and looked down.
“Well, no,” he said softly, “but you have to let your hair down now and again.”
Some of it must have rubbed off on Sandy, too, except that he gave himself a bad fright. It really could have been quite a shaky do. Several of us were in ‘B’ Flight office one afternoon, doing nothing in particular. We had a couple of kites on, that night,
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but most of us had been stood down too late to go into G.Y. The phone rang and Abey answered it, his face, as usual, giving nothing away. He looked across at the blackboard as he listened and our eyes followed his, wondering.
“That’s right, E-Edward,” he said, and rang off.
The board said, ‘E’ – Sgt. Sanders – Local flying – airborne 1420.’
“We’d better go and see this,” Abey said calmly, straightening a few things on his desk, “Sandy may be in a bit of bother, it appears that he’s hit something south of here. He’s coming in now.”
We piled into the Flight van and hared out to dispersal. Just then, we saw ‘E’ land, quite a reasonable one, too. We breathed again. Then, as we waited, he taxied in and we could see that where the port half of his windscreen had been there was just a jagged hole. The air-intake on his port engine looked peculiar, too, it was half bunged up with something greyish. Sandy stopped in his dispersal and cut the engines. The ladder came down and he climbed down it a bit tentatively, looking decidedly sheepish when he saw the reception committee.
He and Abey talked rather quietly together while the crew climbed down and stood around, fiddling with their ‘chutes and navigation stuff, surreptitiously brushing what looked very like feathers from off themselves and trying to look unconcerned. Someone who had overheard the conversation muttered, “Been low-flying over the Wash and hit a bunch of seagulls.” We grinned at [sic] bit at that, once we knew they were all O.K. Abey’s poker face said nothing as he turned away from Sandy. Then someone nearby said, “Hey, Sandy, what’s wrong with your face?” and when we looked closely we could see a piece of pink seagull flesh sticking to his cheek. Sandy put a hand up to his face, then had a look at what he had collected. Slowly, his eyes rolled up, his knees buckled and he fell at our feet in a dead faint. Abey, good type that he was, hushed it all up.
Not long afterwards, a handful of our kites went as part of a smallish force to attack one of the north German ports. It might have been Emden. Rabbie was on it; I wasn’t. Next morning, after breakfast, Teddy put his head around the door of the ante-room, his eyes starting out of his thin, pale face.
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“Hey!” he exclaimed, “You want to have a look at Rabbie’s kite, he’s had a right shaky do!”
He tore off out, to tell someone else. Quickly, we made our way up to the Flights. ‘E’ was parked right outside ‘B’ Flight hangar, and most of the starboard mainplane out board of the engine just wasn’t there. The wing finished in a ragged, twisted jumble of geodetics. Obviously, they had had a very narrow escape indeed from a burst of flak. I climbed aboard. The wheel was tied over to port with a chunk of rope. I found Rabbie, poking idly about at this and that.
“Dodging the photographic bod,” he said with an apologetic grin. There was one of the photographic section erks outside now, fussing about with a camera, taking pictures of ‘E’. Rabbie looked paler than usual, thoughtful.
“How the hell did you manage to get it back like this?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said, with his nervous little snigger, “it wasn’t too b-bad, Sandy and I tied the wheel over a bit,” and nodded towards it.
The photo erk had gone and the sightseers had thinned out to two or three. I climbed out, chatting to Rabbie, but as we talked, I could see something different. There was something in his eyes that I’d never seen there before, a distant, almost other-worldly expression.
When I left the Squadron I lost touch with everyone, including, at times, myself. It was a long time afterwards, and I was talking to Eric on the telephone. We had reached the “Do you remember” and “What happened to” stage.
“By the way,” I asked him, “what ever happened to Rabbie?”
“Rabbie?” Eric replied, “Oh, I’m afraid he was shot down, you know.”
It had happened near the Dutch town of Beverwijk. Rabbie had finished up as a P.o.W with Eric and Abey, then had been repatriated on account of injuries to his hands, Eric said. Some of his crew had been killed.
In June 1989 a Dutch air-war historian took me to a beautifully-kept cemetery in the small town of Bergen, near Alkmaar, to visit the graves of a contemporary crew of ‘B’ Flight whom I had known.
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As I was turning to leave, my eye, quite by chance, noticed another name on a nearby tombstone, one which I immediately recognised, that of our Commanding Officer, who had gone missing while I was with the Squadron. Very near to him and to the others was yet another familiar name, that of Sandy.
Each name of all the aircrew, some 200 of them, who are buried there, is inscribed upon the bells of the local church, just across the way. One of the bells is perpetually silent, representing those who could not be identified. And one bell bears the inscription – “I sound for those who fell for freedom.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Letter home [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] LETTER HOME [/underlined]
I wonder how many premonitions the average person has during his or her lifetime. It’s not the sort of topic which crops up very much in normal conversation, so I don’t think it can happen all that often. But when it does, and you believe you are being given a glimpse of the future, it can be quite weird and rather frightening. So far, I can recall three instances personally. One was at a very long interval of time, one was just the opposite, while the third - . That is what the letter home was about.
A week or two ago I was watching a debate from the House of Commons on television. There was a fairly sparse attendance, the subject became rather mundane and my attention, frankly, was beginning to wander. I looked along the green leather seats where the numerous absentees would normally have sat. Surely, I thought, surely seats like those had played some part in my life at some time?
Then I had it – they were the colour of the wooden-framed armchairs in the anteroom of the Mess at Binbrook. And I was immediately reminded of the first, and very strong, premonition I had had there, and was coping with, as I sat in one of those chairs, almost alone in the quiet room on that winter’s night, waiting to take off on a raid over Germany – and not expecting to come back.
Looking into my logbook now, I can narrow it down to one of four dates, but the actual date is of no importance. The premonition I had, though, was important, very important to me, very gradual, but extremely strong.
Abey, our Flight Commander in ‘B’ Flight was, in every sense of the word, a gentleman. He was then in charge of eight or ten crews of six men each which comprised ‘B’ Flight, and he had, among many other things, the responsibility of selecting crews under his command for any operations on any particular night, or day. Fortunately, the latter were scarce enough. Sometimes the choice was simple, if a maximum effort was called for by Command or Group, he simple sent everyone whose aircraft was serviceable. But sometimes
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he had to choose, and no-one envied him that, nor ever queried his choice. Querying things like that is something that happens in films, usually bad ones. If a “fresher” target was specified for the night’s operations then novice crews, who had done up to four of five ops were selected to go. If he had any choice at all, any crew due for leave went on leave, that same morning. He did his job well and fairly; he was a very considerate man.
On the day of which I write, our crew had done three trips, one of which had had an abrupt and near-catastrophic ending. A “fresher” was called for that night, so we were “on”, in S for Sugar. I have been wondering, recounting this, trying to remember what my reactions were during the time of an op, from the first knowledge that I was going, that night, to some unknown target, whose location and identity would not be known until briefing that afternoon, until the moment after one’s return, sitting down thankfully, tired and strained, into a chair, with a mug of coffee and rum in one hand and a cigarette in the other, for interrogation after the trip. When we would look around the room to see who was seated at the other tables with the Intelligence Officers, recounting their stories of the night’s experiences. However, although I readily confess that not a single trip went by when I was not to some extent frightened, quite often very frightened indeed, my first reaction on being told that I was among those who were on that night’s operations was one of intense excitement, of being immediately strung up to a very high pitch, reactions accelerated beyond their normal speed, like those of a sprinter on his starting blocks, alert for the sound of the pistol which will launch him on his rapid way.
We did our night flying test in S for Sugar as soon as we knew we were operating that night. It was winter, but not too bad a winter until then. This particular morning was cold and cloudy with a breeze from the south-west, the odd spot of rain in the wind, a typical winter’s morning in Lincolnshire, in fact. We flew around for a while to test that everything in the aircraft was working properly, except for the bomb-release mechanism and the guns. We weren’t bombed up yet, of course, and we would test the guns over the sea once we were on our way that night. I was still quite strung up with excitement
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and anticipation. None of us thought or said very much about the target, it was bound to be one of the French Channel ports, the docks, or course, and they were reckoned to be a piece of cake – straight in from the sea, open the bomb doors, press the tit and then home, James.
Briefing was at 1430 hours. By that time the weather wasn’t so good. The cloudbase was down, the wind was getting up and it was colder. At briefing there was ourselves and a handful of others. The target wasn’t one of the Channel ports, it was Wilhelmshaven, on the north German coast, not what we had expected, and quite a tough target. Weather prospects were moderate to fairly poor, with a front coming across which we would have to contend with, a risk of icing. It didn’t sound all that funny. But there it was.
The excitement of the morning had worn off and I was beginning to feel a bit deflated when I went back to the Mess after briefing. There was nothing to be done until teatime, and takeoff was fairly late, to catch the late moon. About five hours to kill. As I thought about it like that I realised that the expression could be taken more than one way, and I didn’t like one way very much. I went back to my room with the sense of deflation sliding quickly downwards towards a feeling of depressive foreboding. It was not as though the target was the toughest one in the book, tough enough by any standards, but no long stretch of enemy territory to be crossed there and back. Not exactly, as we had thought, the reasonably easy one we had expected, but not as bad as it might have been. Or so I tried to tell myself.
The foreboding grew inside me the longer I sat in my room. I was alone; Frank Coles, my room-mate, was Squadron Signals Leader and usually had things to do even when the rest of us were free. Out of the window I could see that the weather was steadily worsening, which added to my unease. I sat there, smoking, and trying to read. It was useless. I became more and more certain that this trip was the one I wasn’t coming back from, that we were going to be shot down. Once I had arrived at that realisation I found I was almost able to visualise it happening; I had already seen it happen to others nearby. But tonight it was going to happen to us, and that would be the end of me.
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There was nothing I could do about it; I had to go through with it, it had to be faced. The only practical thing I should now see to was to write a letter home, to my parents. The trouble was that I had very little idea what I wanted to say to them. For several reasons, I felt they hadn’t had the time to get to know very much about me, as an individual. But still, I felt I owed them this letter.
So I wrote to them. It was a very short letter, I remember, but its exact contents I cannot recall. I know I started in the conventional way – “by the time you read this you will know I have been reported missing,” and so on, and I know that after I had addressed the envelope I added, “To be forwarded only in the event of my failing to return from an operation.”
By the time I had stewed over this wretched little piece of writing it was teatime. There was still no sign of Frank. I was glad of some company in the Mess, although there weren’t all that many in, with only the freshers operating. So I had tea. It was usually a high tea if there were ops on. On this evening, as on many others, there were kippers, toast and tea. Surprisingly, I found I was very hungry. I think I was determined to enjoy what was going to be my last meal. So I savoured every morsel. As dusk fell I stretched myself out in front of the roaring fire in an armchair in the anteroom to await the time to go up to the Flights to get dressed for the trip. The armchair had wooden arms and sides with a green leather padded seat and back.
Every time the tannoy went with some commonplace announcement that someone was wanted at his Flight or Section I would jump a little and stiffen when the W.A.A.F. said, “Attention, please, attention, please,” and then slump down again when I heard that it wasn’t ops being scrubbed. There weren’t many people in the anteroom, and as the fireplace was at one end and I was very close to it, I couldn’t really see who was in the room with me. I was concentrating on absorbing, I think, every scrap of physical comfort I could from the heat of the fire, in what I now firmly believed to be the last few dwindling hours of my life. I could hear sleet or snow spitting as it dropped down the chimney on to the fire.
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I was seeing all sorts of strange pictures in the glowing coals. What they were I didn’t know, faces mostly, it seemed, but whose, I couldn’t distinguish. I started as one of the Mess waiters drew the big curtains across the blacked-out windows. Seeing me in battledress and roll-necked sweater and knowing that I was “on”, he gave me a half-smile as he piled some more coal on to the fire. The heat on my legs died as he did so.
“Is it still sleeting?” I asked him.
“Yes, sir,” he answered quietly, “still sleeting.”
Tactfully, he didn’t add “It’s a rotten night to be on ops,” or anything like that, but I knew that was what he was thinking. I nodded. He walked quietly away about his business and we left it at that. The wind was starting to get up quite a lot now. I could hear the slap of the sleet hitting the window like a wet cloth in the gusts. Surely they would scrub it? In an hour or so we were due to take off for Wilhelmshaven. I wondered what the weather was like over there, whether they were thinking that it was such a bad night that they were safe from R.A.F. raids. Then I thought about the letter. Was I being stupid? Was this all a lot of childish, hysterical nonsense, over-dramatising oneself? I still thought not; I was still convinced in my own mind.
Why did one write such things? I mused. It made no difference, really, to the outcome, someone would die, someone would be bereaved, that was all there was to it. I wondered how many people I knew actually wrote them, too. I suppose one reason for writing a last letter was to say a final goodbye to someone who was dear to one, but I think also it was to prove to oneself that one was ready and spiritually prepared to leave this life, to give up all those things regarded hitherto as important and to enter a new existence, to meet again one’s friends who were already there, like going from one room of a house to another via the dark passage which we call death. There was a Sergeant pilot in ‘B’ Flight, whom I knew quite well, Norman Spray. He left a letter for his mother. He went missing on a raid the following spring and his words of parting from his mother were so memorable that they found their way on to the page of a national newspaper which I happened to read. I am sure he was an exceptional person to have written in the way he did.
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The minutes ticked slowly by. Hypnotised by the heat from the fire and, I suppose, subconsciously withdrawing from what I believed were my final hours, I think I must have dozed for a few minutes. The tannoy announcement jerked me back to complete wakefulness. The W.A.A.F. said, “All night flying is cancelled, repeat, all night flying is cancelled.”
I immediately started to shiver uncontrollably, despite the fire’s heat. I moved my body around in the chair to try to stop the shakes, to try to hide them in case someone should see. I fidgeted around, stretched, blew my nose, then looked around the ante-room to see whether anyone was watching me. There were one or two ground staff Officers, and Teddy, Eric and Doug, the first two talking quietly over their beer, Doug reading a book, absently stroking his luxuriant ginger moustache with the back of his hand, an unconscious gesture which we all knew well. Outside, the wind moaned, the sleet was still tapping on the window, as though someone were asking quietly to be let in, perhaps like the messenger of Death itself. For not long afterwards, He would claim two of those three.
I took something of a grip on myself and pressed the bell at the side of the fireplace. When the steward came I ordered a beer. I could hardly believe this was happening. He was the man who had drawn the curtains earlier. He took my order, then hesitated and said, not looking directly at me, “You’ll not be sorry, sir, about the scrub, not on a night like this?”
“No, I’m not,” I said, “not on a night like this.”
The shakes had just about stopped by then. I went across to Eric and had a chat and another beer. Neither of us said much about the scrub, he hadn’t been on, anyhow, being in Abey’s crew. I certainly didn’t complain about it. Eventually I went up to my room and furtively tore up the letter into small pieces. I don’t think Frank noticed anything, if he guessed what I was doing he was too tactful to mention it. Then I undressed and got into bed. I was probably going to live for another twenty-four hours.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Low-level [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] LOW-LEVEL [/underlined]
By the third day, those of us who were in the know were getting a little twitchy.
When you are briefed no less than three days in a row for the same target, when you are told it is to be a low-level night attack, when you learn that the whole thing is so hush-hush that only pilots and Observers are to know what the target is until after you are airborne, you only need one scrub to make you jump a bit at loud noises.
After the second briefing, when there was another scrub, and the following day, when there was a third identical briefing, you could have almost cut slices of the tension out of the air with a knife. To begin with, nothing in that city had ever been bombed before. When we knew where it was to be, we looked at each other with eyebrows raised. For very good reasons, we had to go in low and make one hundred per cent certain that we were going to hit the target when the Observer pressed the bomb-release. If we were not certain, then, ‘dummy run’ and round again. No trouble in that, we were told, there were no defences worth speaking of, only a couple of light flak guns at the airport some distance away. Just avoid that, and we shouldn’t have any bother.
So we were told at the briefings, all three of them. Did we believe it could possibly be true? We made ourselves believe it, I think, but it took some doing. Weren’t we used to the Channel Ports, to Kiel, to Essen and the Ruhr, where, in all conscience it was deadly enough at twenty thousand feet at night, let alone at – what was to be our bombing height? – two thousand five hundred feet, straight and level down a corridor of flares?
We would have liked to believe it, certainly. It sounded so – different, so well organised. 235 aircraft, which to us was one hell of a lot, including some Manchesters and four-engined Stirlings and Halifaxes. The first wave was going to drop flares, and keep dropping them so that the whole place would be well lit up, and once
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they'd done that and let go some incendiaries and cookies to start the ball rolling, then the second wave, which was us, would come in and stoke the place up with high explosive, as low as the safety height, 1,000 feet per 1,000 pounds of the heaviest bomb, permitted. If there hadn’t been some Manchesters carrying 2,000 pounders, in our wave, we would have been down around 1,000 feet, I suppose.
What was going through the minds of Mick, our wireless op. in S-Sugar, and Johnnie and Bill, the gunners, being completely in the dark as to what it was all about, I could only guess. But they accepted the situation stoically, and never asked one question. Except when we were clambering out of the transport at dispersal, really on our way, on the third evening, then Mick, who was a married man, said quietly to Cookie, “Is this a suicide effort, skip?” I believe he was recalling those two posthumous V.C.s our Squadron had won less then [sic] two years before, when we had lost five out of five Fairey Battles trying to stop the German advance through the Low Countries. Anyhow, Cookie shook his head.
“No, Mick, it’s not a suicide effort, at least not if I can help it!”
I’m afraid I couldn’t resist mischievously chipping in then, just as we were sorting ourselves out in the dusk of that early March evening under the shadow of S-Sugar’s nose in the quietness of our dispersal.
“You won’t be needing your oxygen mask, though,” I said.
Mick’s eyes widened. It was a bit cruel of me.
“You’re kidding, Harry, aren’t you?”
“No, pukka gen,” I laughed.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Mick said, his Brummy accent very pronounced.
Col, our Aussie Observer, came to the rescue.
“Don’t let it worry yer, Mick,” he said, “it’s going to be a piece of cake. Or so they say, anyhow.”
I was hoping this didn’t fall into the category of famous last words, as we climbed aboard. I found I was yawning quite a lot, while a muscle in my back was trying to do something all on its own.
We took up our positions in the kite. As co-pilot, mine was in the Wimpy’s astrodome until Cookie wanted me to fly it, or needed
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a hand with something up front. I checked the intercom point, saw we had a flare handy in case we had to do a bit of target-finding ourselves, and I groaned inwardly when I saw the stack of nickels, as our propaganda leaflets were known, which I was going to have to shove out over northern France. I took one out of the nearest bundle and saw a cartoon of a depraved and vicious-looking S.S. man, headed, ‘Personalité de l’ordre nouveau.’ I hoped I didn’t meet him later that night in some French gaol.
Faintly through my helmet I heard someone shout “Contact port!” and the engine shuddered into life with a roar, bluish flames spitting out of the exhausts. Then that tune, which remained obsessively with me throughout that night, and which, ever since, has evoked such vivid memories of it, started going through my head – ‘The last time I saw Paris’. Now we were rumbling around the perimeter track. The black shapes of the hangars, topped by their red obstruction lights, came and went. A little group of four or five W.A.A.F.s near the end of the runway waved to us as we passed them. A dazzling green light flashed three dots, our aircraft letter, at us, Cookie opened the throttles and the tail lifted. Then we were charging down the runway, the Drem lighting whipping past the wingtips as the Merlins’ roar rose to a howl at full throttle.
When we had turned on to the course for Reading, our first pinpoint, Cookie checked that everyone was O.K. Then he said, calmly over the intercom, “Now I can tell you where we’re going. It’s the Renault factory in Paris and it’s a low-level do, two to three thousand feet, and there’ll be bags of flares so we can bomb spot on.” There was stunned silence, then Johnnie said coolly, “Paris? That sounds like fun.”
The tension was released and we all laughed immoderately. Cookie told them about the lack of defences, how the crossing-in point had been carefully chosen at the mouth of the Somme, near Abbeville, and how we had to be very sure not to drop anything outside the target area, in case of casualties to the French population.
“I’ve always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower,” Mick said.
From the rear turret Bill, our Canadian gunner, drawled, “Don’t worry, at our height you’ll be able to count the bloody rivets!”
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The evening was clear as our home beacon slowly fell away behind us. It seemed strange to be cruising easily along at about five thousand feet; usually we climbed steadily all the way to whichever target we were bound for. There wasn’t much talk over the intercom, I think the boys were busy digesting the news about the target – and the bombing height. Then the moon came up, huge, brilliant and impersonal, a beautiful sight, away to port. Reading was, as always, easy to find, the railway station was like a dimly-lit flarepath, but it gave us a good pinpoint, however much it might have helped the Luftwaffe. We crossed the south coast dead on track and E.T.A. and headed out over the Channel. Cookie switched off the navigation lights. Shortly afterwards, Mick reported that he had switched off the I.F.F. We were on our own now.
In only a few minutes it seemed, Johnnie said, “Enemy coast ahead, skipper.” I peered forward from the astrodome. The pewter colour of the Channel showed a faint line of dirty white a few miles ahead of us. A few degrees to starboard some light flak was going up, and I reported it for Col to log.
“Probably Le Tréport”, I said, “they always put on a firework display for us.”
Johnnie said, “I can see a big estuary dead ahead.”
“O.K., Johnnie,” Col replied, “let’s know when we cross the coast. Next course one seven two magnetic, skip.”
Then Johnnie said calmly, “Anyone see an exhaust almost dead ahead, same height?”
I hurried forward to stand beside Cookie, and we both saw it at once, a point of orange light, straight ahead of us, and nastily at our own height.
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Cookie said, “I don’t want to be formating [sic] on a goddam 109.”
“Nickels due out in five minutes, Harry,” Col told me.
“O.K., Col, thanks,”
I went aft again, to the flare chute. I heard Cookie say, “That fighter’s still going our way, we must be bloody close to him. I’m going to alter course a bit to try to lose him, then fly parallel to our proper track. Turning ten degrees starboard now, Col.”
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In the darkness of the fuselage I unlocked and extended the flare chute and started pushing the bundles of leaflets out. Once free of the aircraft the slipstream would release each bundle from its elastic band and spread them all over the countryside below. In a little while I heard Cookie say, “That bloody fighter’s still there, damn him to hell.”
Johnnie said, “We’re catching him up a bit, too, skipper.”
“That’s bloody impossible,” Cookie exclaimed angrily. He sounded rather exasperated.
I finished the nickelling, stuffed a couple into my pockets for souvenirs, brought the flare chute in and went forward again, past Mick, who gave me a thumbs-up, and Col. Johnnie had been quite right, that glowing point of red light was definitely larger now. The countryside under the rising moon was a leaden blur, now and again shot with a vein of silver as the moonlight reflected off a river.
“How long to the target, Col?” Cookie asked.
“E.T.A. eighteen minutes.”
The light was really getting quite a bit bigger now and we were still heading straight towards it. Suddenly, it all became clear to me.
“Hey, Cookie!” I exclaimed, “that’s no fighter exhaust, it’s the bloody target!”
There was a moment’s silence, then, “Jesus!” Cookie said in awe, “You could be right, Harry, you could just be right, at that. Check our course, Col, one seven two magnetic, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s it skip, one seven two.”
Now we could see it. It was a fire on the ground, like a huge, glowing ember alone in the darkness. I went back to the astrodome. A pinpoint of white light hung above the glow, like a star, then a second, a third, a fourth. The flares were going down, dropped by the markers, for us. Cookie called out, “O.K., fellers, this looks like it, but we want to be good and sure where we bomb.” As we flew towards the blaze Johnnie said, “I can see the Seine, the fire’s right on it.”
Col said, “Part of the works is on a sort of banana-shaped island
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in the river, we’ve got to fly slap over it.”
We could see almost a dozen flares now, brilliant, whitish-yellow, and trailing rope-like white smoke as they slowly sank towards the ground, suspended from their parachutes. I could dimly see buildings below us. Cookie was turning S-Sugar gently to come in from the south-west; all the action was now on our port beam, then on our port bow.
Suddenly, away to starboard, two light flak guns pumped a few rounds of coloured tracer upwards, but there could have been no aircraft anywhere near them.
“Light flak away to starboard, skip,” I said, “only a few rounds, I think they’ve gone down to the stores to get some more ammo.”
“Just keep an eye on it, Harry.”
I was humming the words of that song to myself,
“The last time I saw Paris,
I saw her in the Spring….”
We were heading straight in now, flares on either side of our nose. The ground was almost invisible against the glare ahead from the fire and the lines of flares hanging in the sky. Col said, “Coming forward, skip.”
A few more rounds of tracer hosed up, away to starboard, but I didn’t even bother to report it. The lack of opposition near at hand was quite uncanny; we certainly weren’t used to this sort of thing. I was searching the sky for fighters, tracer, heavy flak-bursts, but there was nothing. Just the flares, dozens of them now. We were right among them, flying straight and level down a well-lit avenue.
I saw a dim shape loom up, dead ahead, growing rapidly and menacingly larger every second.
“Turn port, skip, quick!” I shouted.
Cookie yanked her nose round. A Hampden, bomb-doors open, hurtled past us on a reciprocal course, obviously completely disobeying briefing instructions as to the direction of the bombing run. He was almost close enough to read his identification letters.
“The stupid bastard,” said Cookie, “what the hell’s he doing?”
“Bomb doors open, skip,” Col said tightly.
“Bomb doors open, Col!”
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The inferno had vanished under our nose. There was a long silence while Col directed our track up to the target. I peered down, but I could only see a jumble of city buildings; I was trying to find the Arc de Triomphe.
“I’ve got that island coming up,” Col said, his excitement showing in his voice, “left, left, steady, right a bit, steady, steady – bombs gone!”
I felt the rumbling jolt as we dropped our load on the Renault factory.
“Bomb doors closed,” Cookie called.
“Oh, bloody marvellous!” Bill almost shouted from the rear turret, “spot on, Col, you got the first one bang on the island and the rest of the stick went right across the factory, I saw them bursting!”
Some distance ahead there was a sudden flash from the ground, a yellowish fire which turned redder and spread out, in a bend of the Seine.
“Some poor sod’s bought it, about one o’clock, five miles,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Cookie, I can see it. Don’t know what the hell he was doing up there.”
I looked back at the target, now a sea of flame beneath the brilliance of the unearthly light of the flares and the moon. A sudden eruption of flame shot up from the factory as I watched.
“Christ! Did you see that?” Bill called, “someone’s hit a goddam petrol tank or something.” We learned later that one of our Flight Commanders, Squadron Leader Jackson, had scored a direct hit on a large gas holder; it was that we had seen.
But the other fire, the burning kite on the ground in the bend of the river, drew our eyes to it as I took over the controls from Cookie.
“Poor sods,” Johnnie said quietly, “I hope they got out of it.”
We droned on over northern France, heading for Abbeville and home. But the excitements of the evening were not over yet. Half way to the French coast Johnnie reported a light flashing from the ground, to starboard of our track. I looked across between the nose and the mainplane and saw it, a square of yellow light, bravely flashing
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di-di-di-dah, “V for Victory”. Col came up to look.
“Good on yer, mate,” he said laconically. Those people down there in Beauvais were risking their lives by signalling to us their appreciation and encouragement, and I felt a strong bond had been forged between them, whoever they were, and us, in S-Sugar.
We flew on towards the mouth of the Somme. Bill said he could still see the target burning, many miles behind us now, and we were riding on the crest of a wave at the obvious success of the attack. We’d never known anything like it before and we hoped we would know many like it again. And as the Renault factory burned in Paris and the V’s flashed out from Beauvais I became aware that perhaps, after many disappointments, we were now beginning to win.
There was much elation as we flew homewards in “S”. We were a cheerful and buoyant crew, that night of all nights. I never dreamed that five short weeks hence I alone, of the six of us in the crew, would be the only one left alive.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] A boxful of broken china [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] A BOXFUL OF BROKEN CHINA [/underlined]
It had happened to Abey’s crew already (although I was not to know this until some years later), and no doubt it had happened to others whom I had known.
It was a common enough occurrence in those days, when we had simply to rely upon dead reckoning navigation with a bit of astro thrown in – there was nothing else to rely on, then – that at one time or another you would stray off track, fly unwittingly over a defended area, and get thoroughly well shot at. I use the words ‘thoroughly well’ advisedly, in the full knowledge that I shall be treading on many corns when I say that the German flak and searchlights left our own standing at the post when it came to accuracy and effectiveness. On several nights while at Binbrook, after our own air-raid sirens had sounded, we would troop out of the Mess to watch the progress of a raid on Hull and, so to speak, compare notes on the Luftwaffe’s reception with what we received, over Germany. We were all left in no doubt as to which target we would have chosen to be over, and would retire to the anteroom when the all-clear sounded, shaking our heads sadly and making rueful and derisive comments concerning the lack of effectiveness of our ack-ack gunners and searchlight crews compared to their German counterparts.
There were well-known hot spots over the other side, places whose names sent a slight chill up one’s spine when they were mentioned. Places such as Essen, or anywhere in the Ruhr, if it came to that, Hamburg, Heligoland, Sylt or Kiel. The list was a long one and the toll taken by those guns of unwitting tresspassers [sic] over their territory was heavy.
But no such reputation attached itself to a town called Lübeck, which we, among 2345 aircraft, were to attack one night late in March 1942.
“Lübeck?” we whispered to one another at briefing that day, “Lübeck? Never heard of it.”
We had it pointed out to us by our Intelligence Officer at the briefing, a bit beyond Kiel, a bit beyond Hamburg and between the two, almost on the Baltic coast. The defences, we were told, were
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believed to be negligible. Oh, yes? Well, we’d heard that about the Renault factory in Paris and that turned out to be true, so why shouldn’t this one be the same? Our confidence was very high after that Renault attack and this one was beginning to sound quite good. It was going to be largely a fire-raising raid. There were a lot of wooden buildings in the town, apparently. This really was beginning to sound very interesting, the chance to do to a German city what they had done on fifty-odd nights in succession to London. However, we were to carry an all-high explosive load in S for Sugar. We were warned, of course, of the proximity to our route of the defences, which we all knew about, of Kiel and Hamburg, but no-one really needed telling about those. We had experienced the Kiel defences twice before recently, once when 64 of us Wellingtons of 1 Group had put the battle-cruiser Gneisenau out of action for the rest of the war. I often wonder which of us it was that hit it, for I remember seeing some quite big explosions that night.
So, as far as the trip to Lübeck was concerned our crew, at least, were in a fairly happy mood. Looking back, I am sure that on that night, while not one of the six of us would have admitted it for fear of tempting whatever fates might be looking down upon us, we were each secretly thinking that this trip, this particular, and possibly only trip we would do, was going to go some way towards approaching the proverbial ‘piece of cake’. One could describe a trip in those terms while drinking, in a post-operational flood of euphoria, one’s mug of rum-laced coffee, waiting for interrogation, bacon and egg, and then bed, but no-one ever had the temerity to voice those words about any target before take-off. Not at any price. Fate was not there to be tempted in such a careless and impertinent manner.
The buoyant mood of the crew of S for Sugar was not in any way diminished when we gathered in B Flight hangar, all kitted up and ready – almost eager – to go. Mick, Johnnie and Col were standing near the crewroom door, looking amused about something, and with a fairly large cardboard carton half-hidden by their flying-booted legs. They had obviously said something to Cookie, now commissioned and doing his first op. as a P/O, for he was showing a lot of very white teeth in his amusement.
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“What’s going on?” I asked, puzzled. Such levity was very unusual before an op., we were invariably rather silent and very tense. Mick nodded towards the box.
“Present for the Jerries, from the Sergeants’ Mess,” he said in his Brummy accent, a broad grin splitting his face.
“What the hell have you got there?” I asked.
“Boxful of broken china,” Col said, “we’re going to chuck it out over the target. It’s all got the R.A.F. crest on, too.”
“Christ, you’re a mad lot of so-and-so’s,” I said through my laughter. Had I known it, I wasn’t going to laugh again for some time after that.
Recalling it now, although I cannot obviously tell where or how the navigation went wrong, it must have done so, somewhere along the line. Perhaps the reason was simply plain fatigue which led to our being off track and flying into trouble. Fatigue which, even as young, fit men, was inevitable when one realises that while the Lübeck raid took place on 28th March, this was our third operation in four nights. It almost alarms me now, to think of it as I write. We had taken off late on the evening of the 25th, the target being Essen, never any picnic. We had bombed what we believed to be Essen, but we had seen, remarked upon among ourselves at the time, and reported at our interrogation, that many aircraft seemed to be bombing much too far west, at Duisburg, we believed. But there were those among the Squadron aircrews who laughingly insisted that we had bombed too far east, perhaps Bochum, or even Dortmund. We still didn’t think so; we believed we had been in the right place and that the main force of the attack had hit Duisburg.
Apparently ‘Butch’ Harris thought so too, for after a few hours’ sleep we were awakened, fully awakened, with the news that ops were on again that night, the 26th. At briefing we learned the target. Essen again, time on target before midnight. It was a sticky trip, and we lost two of our crews, making three lost in the two nights. I have often wondered how many ex-aircrew are alive today who can say, “I was twice over Essen within twenty-four hours, and live to tell the tale.”
So, after the double attack on Essen, twenty-four hours’ rest
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and we were off to Lübeck, the piece-of-cake target compared to Essen, the wooden town which would burn like Hell itself. Provided we got there to see it, which, in the event, we didn’t.
It seemed that no sooner had we crossed the enemy coast, somewhere in Schleswig-Holstein, that a huge, bluish searchlight suddenly snapped on, and pinned us as surely as a dart hitting the bullseye. And not only one, but about a dozen followed. Then the flak started. Cookie was flying S for Sugar, I was in the astrodome. What use I was I don’t really know, except to try to see if there were any fighters about to attack us. Which was ridiculous, with all the flak they were throwing up at us. In any case, I couldn’t see a thing for the dazzling and horrifying glare of all those lights.
Cookie threw the Wellington about as though it were a Spitfire. The sensation was like that of being on a high-speed roller-coaster which had gone mad. And all the time, the intense, bluish flood of light which lit up the interior of the fuselage like day and the thumping of the flak-bursts around us. We had the sky all to ourselves, and, it seemed, all the defences of northern Germany were telling us that this time we weren’t going to make it back home. I was hanging on to whatever I could to stay standing upright in the astrodome, striving to see beyond the lights, to see whether there was a gap anywhere which Cookie could aim for. One second I would be pressed down on to the floor as he pulled out of a steep dive, the next, I would be hanging in mid-air, fighting against the negative ‘g’ and clutching wildly at the geodetics as he topped a climbing turn then put S for Sugar into another screaming dive. We carried one flare, heavy and cylindrical, four of five feet long. This suddenly left its stowage with the violent manoeuvres and hit me flush in the chest, almost knocking me to the floor. I managed to grab it before it damaged the aircraft and somehow secured it again.
I was, of course, frightened, but not uncontrollably so. As the shellbursts thudded around us my fear was climbing steadily, like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day. I felt I was useless in the astrodome and longed to be doing something active. Quickly I unplugged my intercom and oxygen and clawed my way forward, to see if I could do anything to help Cookie, perhaps to take over
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if he was hit. Col was sitting with both hands clutching at the navigation table, looking rather sick and staring straight ahead of him, while Mick was fiddling with his radio, doing goodness knows what, I thought. I reached the cockpit, where Cookie was wrestling with the controls, his face shiny with sweat, his jaw tightly clamped. He glanced down at me as I plugged in my intercom. Dive, turn, climb, turn, dive – we were corkscrewing all over the sky, losing height all the time. Then Cookie snapped on his intercom switch.
“Col, get rid of the bloody bombs.”
Col came forward, his face looking ashen in the awesome light. A few seconds later I felt the bombs go with a thud. I thought, “I hope they kill somebody, destroy something down there, after what they’re doing to us.”
My fear had now risen to such a pitch it amounted almost to ecstasy.
“Get your chutes on everybody,” Cookie half-shouted over the intercom, “stand by to bale out.”
I obeyed, gladly, and wrenched open the escape hatch near to where I was standing. As I did so, a hole appeared in the aircraft’s fabric skin at my side and I wondered how much damage we had taken. It seemed it was merely a question of a second or two before we were hit and blown to pieces or set on fire, before I and the rest of the lads were torn apart by an exploding shell. They could not go on missing us for ever. I was impatient for the order to bale out; I felt I had had enough of this experience. At the same time I felt a deep sadness that I might be going to die without having led a complete life, a life in which I had not experienced many things. I had never known the love of a woman; I had never even had a steady girl friend.
Through the open escape hatch I could see the earth, a huge forest, stretching away under the moonlight. Still the lights and the flakbursts hammering at us, the smell of cordite. At that moment I came to accept that I was going to die, and at the same time, I now realise that I lost altogether, and for ever, the fear of death. Not the fear of pain, of great pain, which I still possess, but the fear of dying, of the flight into the unknown world of
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the hereafter. I am convinced that in those seconds, a corner of the veil was lifted and I was granted a glimpse of the boundless quietude of eternity. A great and mysterious calm flooded over me, enfolded me in a sensation of complete and deep peace. I now understand what the prayer means when it speaks of ‘the peace which passeth all understanding’. I could not then and cannot now understand it, but I am certain that at that moment, when I felt I was standing poised on the brink of death, the Almighty reached out His hand to me and I responded and touched it with mine. The memory of the incredible sensation of smoothly passing, as it were, through the fear barrier to another dimension, one of all-embracing calm, is one which has remained with me all my life.
Then suddenly it was quiet. Utter quiet – and darkness. We were through it, we had got away. There was the forest below us, and a stretch of water. The Baltic? It could only be. Cookie was almost drooping over the controls now, physically spent, nearly, I knew, at the point of exhaustion. He had saved all our lives.
“Take over, Harry, for Christ’s sake,” he said, and almost dropped out of the left-hand seat. I climbed quickly up into it and took the controls. Someone slammed shut the escape hatch and I inhaled deeply, very, very deeply, hardly able to believe we were still alive, still flying.
We were at a mere 2,0000 feet. Cautiously but quickly I tested the controls for movement and response. Satisfactory. Almost incredible, I thought.
“Col, where d’you reckon we are?” I asked.
“I know where we’ve been, right enough, Harry,” he said, “slap over Kiel.”
“Look, then, I think we’re a bit east or south-east of it now,” I told him, “I’ll steer three-one-five for the time being if you’ll give me a course to take us to that big point of land on the Danish North Sea Coast – you know the one I mean? Near Esbjerg?”
He knew it. He gave me the course and I started to climb; the more height we had, the better for us, in case of further trouble. We had lost thirteen thousand feet in all that evasive action but we needed to get at least some of it back. I had everyone make a check around the aircraft, but apart from a few minor holes we were intact, and there were no injuries of any sort. It seemed
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unbelievable that we could have survived the pounding we had taken with such negligible damage.
In the brilliant moonlight I saw the Danish coast creeping towards us, with the glint of the welcoming North Sea beyond. Esbjerg harbour was sliding beneath our nose; about eight ships were anchored there – and we hadn’t one single bomb left for them. I cursed aloud; they would have been sitting ducks for us. Not a shot was fired at us as I dived S for Sugar gently out to sea.
On the way back I discussed with Col where he thought we had been caught at first; he reckoned we had been trapped over Flensburg and then handed on, from cone to cone of searchlights until we were firmly into the Kiel defences, like a fly in a spider’s web. I was sure his assessment was correct as we had arrived over Esbjerg exactly as we had planned. I settled down to the long, thoughtful flight home. As usual, there was almost complete silence all the way. I am certain that there was not one among us who was not offering up a silent prayer of thanks.
After we had landed, switched off the engines and climbed stiffly down the ladder, we gathered in a group to congratulate Cookie. He was quite matter-of-fact about his marvellous effort. Then Mick said, in that edgy voice of his, “But listen here, Cookie, we used to have decent trips when you were a Sergeant, I hope all your trips as a P/O aren’t going to be like this one.”
He little knew that two short weeks and three trips later, he, Cookie and the rest of them, apart from me, would be dead, in unknown graves.
Then, inconsequentially, I remembered something.
“Hey! What happened to that boxful of china?” I asked.
The tension was easing.
“Oh, that?” Col said, “don’t worry, Harry, we’ll drop it on the blighters on our next trip, get our own back for tonight. Anyhow,” he added, “I’ll bet it’s the first time Kiel’s been dive-bombed by a single kite!”
I recall, with crystal clarity, waling down to interrogation. Col and I were together, he on my right, the others a few paces behind
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us. The moonlight was intensely bright and the hangars and the buildings of the Station stood out sharp and grey under its flood of cold light. There was not another soul to be seen and there was only the sound of our footsteps on the roads which led down from the hangars to the Headquarters buildings. I felt that I did not want to speak now, I did not want to break the spell of the feeling of that great “peace, from the wild heart of clamour” which was pervading my whole being, enfolding me in the purity of its white light, like that of the moon, shining down from God’s heaven on those whom he had spared that night, the night of the Lübeck raid.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] The end of Harry [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] THE END OF HARRY [/underlined]
“And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
II Samuel 18, v.33.
“Crews were given a forecast of clear weather over Essen but cloud was met instead. The bombing force became scattered and suffered heavily from the Ruhr Flak defences….. 7 Wellingtons, 5 Hampdens, 1 Halifax, 1 Manchester lost ….”
Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt,
The Bomber Command War Diaries.
I open my log-book to refresh my memory of that trip. The entry lies there in red ink, under my fingers, as clear as the day on which it was written, as is now my recollection of the night, which comes flooding back to me.
The date. We were in M for Mother. “Operations, Cologne. Diesel engine factory attacked with 4000 lb. bomb. Moderate heavy flak and searchlights in area, mostly on west side of town. Good weather.” A pencilled note, “263 aircraft in attack; 179 Wellingtons, 44 Hampdens, 11 Manchesters, 29 Stirlings. A new record for a force to a single target. 4 Wellingtons and 1 Hampden lost.” We got off lightly that night. Sometimes, like one we did to Essen, it was ten per cent. It was the last night I ever flew as one of Cookie’s crew.
We approached Bonn from the north-west at about twenty thousand feet, into the brilliant light of the moon, dead ahead. The sight was fantastic, beyond all imagining. We were just off the edge of a solid sheet of strato-cumulus at about ten thousand feet, stretching as far south and east as the eye could see, lit brilliantly white by the moon, and with its north edge, nearest us, as well-defined as the edge of an immense shelf. Out of this layer there towered
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a huge cumulo-nimbus, rearing up, its north side jet black, like a gigantic tombstone, to about 15 or 16 thousand feet and casting a tremendous shadow over the Rhineland. To the north of this cloud-shelf it was crystal-clear, hundreds of stars shone brightly and the Rhine writhed and gleamed like a thread of silver below us. We turned north, to track along it, the fifteen or so miles to Cologne.
We could see it ahead. There were six or eight searchlight cones, with a dozen to twenty lights in each, probing, leaning, searching the sky for a victim to pin like a sliver moth in the beams. Every now and again the cones would re-form to close the inviting gaps between them. Each cone would split in half, the lights from one half leaning one way, and the other half the other way, to join the neighbouring cones, which performed the same manoeuvre, to form new cones. It was hideously fascinating, almost hypnotic, to watch. There would seem to be no way through. The dozens of red flashes of the flakbursts, seen distantly, grew larger and more menacing as we approached. Light flak was hosing up, strings of red, green, orange and white, and below everything, the fires, three or four smallish ones, growing larger all the time. Big, bright, slow flashes as cookies exploded among the flames. We were tensed up as we carried ours in. M-Mother had been specially modified to carry the two-ton bomb which protruded some way below the belly of the kite, the bomb-doors of which had been removed. A single hit from a piece of shrapnel on the cookie’s thin, exposed casing and – the mind shied away from it.
So we felt naked with this inches beneath us as we edged through the searchlights, to the right of the Rhine, weaving constantly through the flak, which we could hear, thumping around us over the roar of the engines. We could see it flashing close to us on all sides. In our imaginations the cookie was growing in size; they could hardly miss it, I thought. More fires started below, a stick of bombs rippled redly across the darkened city, then another. Some incendiaries went down in a yellow splash. Or was it an aircraft going in? Still, the slow, bright flashes of the cookies going down on to Cologne. Col went forward. We could hear his harsh breathing over the intercom as he directed us into the bombing run, guiding M-Mother so that the target slid down between the wires of the bomb-sight.
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“Bomb gone!”
The kite thumped upwards as the cookie left us on its journey of destruction. A tight turn to starboard and we were heading back the way we had come, towards the surrealist cloudscape, the enormous, abrupt shelf with the grotesque tower looming up out of it.
On the way back Cookie called me up on the intercom.
“Will you take over, Harry?”
Someone else said, “come on, Harry, get us home.”
It sounded like Mick, the wireless op. Up to now I had always got them home. I had never in my life been called “Harry” by anyone until we were crewed up at O.T.U. But from them I would have happily accepted any nickname they cared to bestow on me. So we flew on through the night, and I got them home.
When we landed I found the M.O. waiting. He was usually to be seen somewhere in the background. This time, he singled me out and detached me from the weary crews who were standing around, clutching their helmets, drinking their rum-laced coffee, rubbing their faces and eyes to clear their fatigue before they were interrogated.
“How did it go?”
“O.K., Doc.”
“Any trouble?”
“The trip, or me?”
“You.”
“No more than usual.”
“Take your pill?”
“Yes.”
“No effect?”
“No.”
“Take this one, now. Get some sleep and see me in the morning after breakfast.”
“O.K., Doc.”
He slapped my shoulder and trudged off. I went into interrogation with the crew, lighting another cigarette as I did so. Ewart Davies was the Int. Officer at our table. We liked him. He didn’t push us too hard for answers, he was quick, quiet, and had some idea what it was like. He knew we wanted our egg and bacon – and bed. As we walked towards the table, Johnnie, our front gunner, gave me a
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quizzical look. Mac, now our rear gunner since Tommy had gone into hospital, was telling him how he’d chucked some empty bottles out over the target to fox the searchlights; it had worked, too. Gunners were a special breed, and had a special bond.
Next morning, I saw the Doc. He made no bones about it and came straight to the point.
“Come in, sit down. Now then, your grounded until you can have a Medical Board, and as soon as you can pack you’re going on six days’ sick leave.”
I felt as though someone had slammed a brick on to the back of my head. I had flown and lived with my crew for eight months. We had shared much together; more than that perhaps. We had shared everything from hilarious evenings in the “Market” to staring into the face of imminent death, where our expectation of life seemed to be measured in seconds. They had become indispensable to me, we were part of one another, our relationship uniquely deep. We knew one another’s strengths, and weaknesses. Where there was a weakness, and there were few, strength was drawn from the others. Where there was strength, we each drew from it fortitude and endurance. We were closer to each other than brothers and there was an unspoken-of bond of the deepest affection between us all which was greater in its way than anything else in the world of human experience. I was stunned to think I was being parted from them; it was something I had never imagined could possibly happen. Our lives were so much intermingled and we were so completely unified and interdependent that I couldn’t imagine life without Cookie, Col, Mick, Johnnie and Mac.
In a daze, I collected some kit together, saw the Adj. about my travel warrant and found Johnnie. He, of all the crew, was closest to me. We would always sit next to one another on our sessions in the “Market”; he was very quiet, absolutely imperturbable, the personification of steadfastness and quiet courage. Somehow I got to Grimsby, then to Doncaster. On Doncaster station I was surprised to meet Ewart, who had so many times gently interrogated us. Normally so ebullient, he too was now subdued.
“Posted to Northern Ireland,” he said ruefully, in his harsh Welsh
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voice, “Hell’s bells, I never wanted to leave 1 Group, but you’ll be back, don’t you worry.”
Nearly three years later I was to meet him in Malaya. We had much to tell each other then. But now, we were both thoroughly depressed. He saw me on to my train, we shook hands, wished each other “Happy landings” and I looked back at him as the train pulled out, a slight figure, smoking the inevitable cigarette in its long holder, hunched miserably on the end of the platform.
The sick leave was anything but cheerful. I was tired, moody and tense. I developed some new and unpleasant symptoms which I kept to myself. I slept fitfully, ate little, snapped at my parents and listened avidly to every news bulleting on the radio for word of bomber operations. There was a raid on Hamburg, five missing. I drank in the local pub, alone, more than I was accustomed to, lay in bed late, walked alone on the cliffs where I used to go with Ivor on his leaves from the R.A.F. Three of my friends were on the verge of call-up for aircrew and Ivor and another school friend, Connie, had already gone to Stirling squadrons which were being formed and expanded. Of these five, four were soon to die, but there was no knowing that at the time. I looked out the first three and let them eagerly pick my brains, it gave me some relief to be able to talk flying and it filled some of the dreadful blanks in the leave.
I was working it all out. I would apply to go on to night fighters, to get some of my own back, or on to Coastal Command Whitleys. The morning before I was due back off leave I heard the B.B.C. news bulletin.
“Last night, strong forces of Bomber Command attacked the Krupp’s works in Essen and other targets in Western Germany and Occupied France. Much damage was done and large fires were caused. From all these operations sixteen of our aircraft failed to return.”
I found my hands were clenched tightly. Essen. That was an old enemy; we had been twice in and out of its massive and savage defences inside twenty-four hours not so long ago, and it had cost us three of our crews, including our Commanding Officer, in the process. To this day I cannot say or hear that evil name, Essen, without a shiver going down my spine.
My parents saw me off at the station. I was glad to go back;
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I felt like a fish out of water away from a bomber station, it was my life. I was anxious to hear the latest gen., and to get my medical board over and done with, to know what was to become of me. The local train crawled from Doncaster to Grimsby; I found transport there to take me to Binbrook.
My room-mate Johnny Stickings had crashed in January when one engine had failed on the way back from Wilhelmshaven, and he and the only other survivor had been taken to hospital. A little later, another Observer and a good friend, Eric, had gone missing with Abey, our Flight Commander, on Kiel, along with Teddy Bairstow and his crew. I had been moved in with Eric’s room-mate Frank, to keep up our morale, I supposed.
I walked along the empty corridor in the Mess. Someone came out of the ante-room and passed me, a pilot whom I didn’t know. I wondered about him, who he was, who he was replacing. We said “hello”. I went up the stairs and turned left to my room. I opened the door and there was Frank, with his fresh complexion and almost Grecian good looks, putting away his laundry.
“Hiya, Frank,” I said, “what’s the gen?”
“Oh, hello, Harry,” he replied, looking up, “how do you feel? Did you have a good leave?”
“So-so,” I said, “but what’s the gen?”
He cleared his throat.
“Look, Harry,” he said, “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you. Cookie, your crew, they went missing on Essen two nights ago.”
“Oh, Christ, Frank, no,” I said, dropping on to my bed, “Oh, God, they didn’t. Is there any news of them?”
He shook his head slowly.
“No, I’m afraid not. They went to Hamburg the other night and got back O.K. with everybody else, then they were on Essen and they didn’t come back, I’m afraid. They were in H-Harry, there was nothing heard from them after they took off. I’m terribly sorry.”
I put my head down into my hands; I was beyond speech. I heard Frank go out of the room very quietly. I thought, “I’ve let them down. I’ve failed them completely. I wasn’t with them to get them back home this one time when they needed me more than ever. I wish
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to God I had gone with them.”
And I wondered who had taken my place. Whoever you were, I thought, I would have you heavy on my conscience for the rest of my life, I would forever walk with your ghost at my side. I knew it was the end of something unique and very wonderful in my life, as though a great light had suddenly failed. It was the end of being called “Harry”. To this day I have never permitted anyone else to call me by that name, their name for me. H-Harry was gone for ever, taking them all with it to their eternity, and their own Harry had died with it, and with them.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Silver spoon boy [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] SILVER SPOON BOY [/underlined]
It’s not a part of the city I’m in very often, but a short while ago, after a lunch engagement, I found myself passing the narrow-fronted shop in the busy street which once was the cafe where I had met him for the last time.
I stopped for a minute or so, oblivious to the intense, grim-faced pedestrians brushing past me, and to the traffic as it roared by. And I remembered that day more clearly, it seemed to me, for in that area, while the occupants of the shops and offices have obviously changed many times, the upper facades of the Victorian buildings have remained virtually unaltered – as have my recollections of Jack.
So indeed has the mystery surrounding him, how he came to be in the R.A.F., what happened to him then, and why the man who might have answered my questions would not do so.
There seems to have been no actual beginning to our friendship, it was simply one of those things which developed out of nothing. Since we were merely children at the time I suppose we must have seen each other in the road, probably each of us with a parent, perhaps eventually spoken a few casual words, but looking back now I cannot put any sort of a date upon it. I suppose friendships are like that. My memories of the house we lived in then are intermingled, woven like the coloured threads of a tapestry, with the recollections of the lads I knew at that time – of Alan, of Norman and Peter, and of Jack himself, who lived nearest to me of them all.
He was an only child of quite well-to-do parents. His father was a tall, big-boned, genial man, fond of country pursuits. Jack’s mother was a pleasantly relaxed, comfortably built lady with shrewd eyes, a good amateur pianist who also had rather a fine contralto voice. Jack was very much the son of his parents, cheerful, almost jaunty in manner, generous to a degree and quite undemanding – this last perhaps because he had most things that an only child of fairly well-off parents could wish for. But although he was a boy whom I had heard described, somewhat jealously perhaps, as having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was not by any means a spoiled child.
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Like most other boys of my age I lived an intensely active life, physically in top gear from morning till night. But there appeared to be a shadow across Jack’s life. He was frequently absent from school, and on those occasions when I called at his house I would be told by his mother that he was in bed, unwell. These vague illnesses were, more often than not, described as ‘overgrowing his strength’, but eventually there were hints of a weak heart. He began to be excused games at school and their doctor’s car appeared fairly regularly at their front door. Yet he was never anything else but buoyant and cheerful and I never remember seeing him look or behave very differently from a normal, healthy lad. My own parents, at those times when I told them that Jack was poorly, would give each other meaning looks and would now and again make veiled and half-audible remarks about some doctors who knew when they were on to a good thing. These bouts of malaise never seemed to alter in their frequency, and it became accepted, gradually but inevitably, in the small coterie of friends I had as a young teenager, that Jack was perhaps a little less fit than the rest of us.
Jack’s father, as I have mentioned,. Was interested in country life, and in particular, in shooting; he owned a beautiful and gentle-natured black Labrador, by name Prince. Jack’s uncle was a farmer near to the small country town of B - , some sixty miles away, and close to some good shooting. It was only natural that Jack’s family should spend most of their holidays there. One summer it happened that my parents were going through a period of considerable financial stringency; there had never been any luxuries in my life, but now, even the necessities were scarce.
Then Jack’s father, perhaps being aware of our circumstances, and being the generous man he was, casually asked me if I would like to spend two weeks of the summer holidays with them on the farm. My parents readily and gratefully agreed; I was in the seventh heaven of delight. It was an idyllic fortnight, the car drive there and back were memorable adventures enough, to me, at any rate, without anything further. We had the run of the marginal land on which Jack’s uncle grazed his stock, the scenery was very agreeable, there was impromptu cricket to be played, drives in the country and to
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wonderful, deserted beaches nearby. The discordant note, as far as I was concerned at any rate, was sounded by the early-morning shoot which I attended, crouched unhappily in the butts near the sea’s edge in the half-light of a chilly dawn, while Jack’s father blazed away at the beautiful and harmless ducks and we regaled ourselves with bottles of cold tea, which were regarded by the others, at least, as something of both ritual and delicacy. A little while ago I found, at the bottom of a drawer, a photograph, startlingly clear, of Jack and me standing against a haystack during that holiday, two gawky youths grinning into the camera, with me holding Jack’s cricket bat. I was to visit the farm once again.
When the war came, the little crowd of my friends and I, apart from Jack, went our various ways. It is difficult now to place the events of that time in their correct sequence, the constantly recurring pain of many recollections has tended to blur the outlines, but never to soften the impacts of those tragic times. The two events connected with Jack, I am now astonished to realise, were separated by almost three years of war – in my mind they seemed to be telescoped together, their perspective foreshortened by the passage of time.
Strangely enough, my own family’s ancestors had some connections with B - , and my father, who was always much more interested in the family tree than I ever was, had paid one or two visits to the place over the years to search the parish register for reference to our name and to contemplate the inscriptions on our forebears’ tombstones in the shady churchyard on the side of the hill.
My father was quite obviously under considerable stress during the war; the office where he worked was constantly understaffed as more and more men were called up into the Forces. There were also frequent Air Raid Precautions duties which he could not neglect, nor would ever have dreamed of doing so. In addition, my mother’s health was beginning to fail, and they had two sons in the forces, one of whom was engaged in duties where the chances of eventual survival were rated as about two in five.
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Early in 1942 my own crew, in my absence on sick leave, were reported missing on a raid over the Ruhr. I think my parents must have noticed the effect this had upon me, for they decided that on my next leave we could go to B – for a few days, staying at the hotel in the small market place, if I was agreeable. I thanked them, and thought it might be a good idea. It was late spring when we went, with blue and white quiet skies and sunlight pleasantly shining on the grey stone buildings. The hotel was almost empty; B - , while on the main road, was also between two county-towns which drew the local people like the twin poles of a magnet.
Released from operational flying I embarked upon what was to be several months of drinking far more than was good for me, in an attempt to dull the agony of mind and self-recrimination I was undergoing. This must have been painfully apparent to my parents, and must have caused them considerable heartache, but – and I shall always be grateful to their memories for this – they uttered no word of reproach.
How we spent our time there I cannot remember, perhaps I was in a constant alcoholic haze. The only event I can recall with any clarity was the afternoon we visited Jack’s uncle’s farm and I introduced my parents to Mr. Brown, his wife and his two daughters. I remember it as having the appearance and atmosphere of a scene in a stage play. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, gestures seemed limp and exaggerated and we sat like figures in a tableau against the backdrop of the scarcely-remembered living room of the farmhouse, small-windowed, lit by an oil-lamp, a heavy, dark red tasselled tablecloth draped over the massive dining table. Outside, I could see the shelter-belt of firs waving lazily in the breeze, hypnotic in their motion. My parents and the Brown family sat stiffly in their best clothes. What they talked about, I have no recollection; I said not more than perhaps a dozen words. I remember that one of Jack’s cousins kept looking curiously in my direction from time to time. Jack, now working in a branch of the same bank as his father, was, naturally, mentioned. I hadn’t seen him for quite some time, but someone said he would like to meet me when we went back home, before I returned to my unit.
The arrangements were made. My parents and I got off the bus at its city terminus in the Haymarket. They would make their way to the railway station and so home, I would join them later, to pack my kit at the end of my leave, as that day was my last.
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I remember feeling released and lighter in spirit when I left them, and guilty because I did so, but the sense of freedom was pleasant after a week when it had been necessary to cork down my feelings tightly and be on my best behaviour. Yet I almost dreaded going back to my unit, a Bomber Group Headquarters, where I had been given a sinecure of a job while I waited for a medical board, for the news that I might receive of the fate of the crew of H-Harry. As I walked through the grey city streets it seemed as though I were treading the razor-edged ridge of a mountain in a high wind.
We had arranged to meet at a little cafe on one of the main streets. Jack was standing outside, smartly dressed, tall, looking well and, as usual, cheerful. We shook hands.
“Hello,” he said, “nice to see you again. How are you?”
I lit a cigarette as we walked into the quiet cafe.
“So-so,” I replied, “a lot has happened since I saw you last.”
We sat at a small table, ordered coffee and biscuits. I looked at him and said, “You’ll have heard about my crew, have you?”
He looked down at his cup and nodded. I thought he appeared more adult than I’d ever noticed before.
“Yes,” he replied, “I had heard. How do I tell you how sorry I am?”
“Don’t try,” I said, “it’s O.K., I know.”
He asked, uncomfortably, “Do you think they could be prisoners?”
“I don’t know; it’s nearly two months now, no-one’s heard anything?”
We sat silently for a few minutes, traffic noise falling on our ears. Then he said tentatively, looking at the wings on my chest, “Are you finished flying, for good, I mean?”
I shrugged.
“Not as far as I know. I’ve got six months off then I’ll be having another medical board and we’ll see what they say then. I’ll probably go back on ops, I should think; after all, I’ve only done half a tour, I think I owe somebody something.”
“Do you think they’ll send you back again?” he asked, surprised.
“Oh, yes, they can do anything, you know,” I said, “there’s a bloke on the Squadron who’s completely flak-happy and he’s still operating.”
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He looked at me.
“What do you mean, ‘flak-happy’?”
“He’s round the bend,” I said shortly, “got the twitch, call it what you like.”
Jack shook his head wonderingly.
“But they let him go on flying?”
“Sure they do; he’s a damn good gunner and an experienced one, too. He’s not afraid of man or beast. Of course,“ I said, “there is another side to it – he could be dead by now. It’s a while since I saw him, and anything could have happened in that time. It depends on the targets you get. It depends on a hell of a lot of things.”
Jack swallowed hard.
I asked him if he’d seen anything of Alan or Peter.
“They’ve both volunteered for aircrew,” he said. I thought he sounded a bit wistful and I could tell what he was thinking.
“Listen,” I said firmly, “when I went and stuck my neck out I didn’t do it as a dare to the rest of you, you know, there are other ways of getting yourselves into trouble. And don’t you go losing any sleep about not being fit, it’s not your fault, and when the time comes you’ll be shoved into something which will be useful to the war effort, I’ve no doubt at all.”
He looked at my wings again.
“I hope so,” he replied, “it’s not a great deal of fun feeling left out of things.”
We finished our coffee. He insisted on paying for them, saying that he was a rich war-profiteer. He was probably getting a lot less than me, but it was no use arguing, I didn’t have a lot of time, and neither did he. I suddenly thought of that and said to him, “Anyhow, what are you doing here, skiving off during working hours? Shouldn’t you be drawing up balance sheets or something?”
He looked at me a bit sheepishly, squinting into the sunshine as we stood on the pavement with the pedestrians hurrying by around us.
“Oh, I asked the Manager for an hour off,” he said airily, “told him I was meeting a pilot on leave from the R.A.F. He said to tell you to drop one for him.”
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We shook hands.
“Take care of yourself,” he said, “and I hope you’ll have some good news soon.”
“Thanks, so do I.” I could hear the pessimism in my own voice. I looked at my watch. “Well, it’s been great seeing you; until next time, then, so long, Jack.”
It was some time later when I learned, with feelings of complete astonishment, almost disbelief, that not only was Jack now in the R.A.F., but that he had been accepted for aircrew training. I had to read my parents’ letter several times before I could begin to grasp what they were telling me.
Many months went by. I had been stationed at Tuddenham, in Suffolk, for a year, watching the almost nightly operations of, originally, the Squadron’s Stirlings, then their Lancasters; by day seeing the vast fleets of American Fortresses and Liberators forming up overhead to carry on the round-the-clock bombing of German cities. Late on a February afternoon I stepped out of the Tuddenham mail van, on which I had hitched a lift, at the aerodrome gates of Mildenhall, our parent station. The daylight was already fading and there was comparative silence; the Fortresses were back at their East Anglian bases and our Lancasters were waiting, poised to go that night.
I stood watching the roadway which led up to the barrier at the guardroom, chatting to the Service Policeman on duty. I recognised J – ‘s walk when she was far away. The S.P., who knew her, wished us a good leave, saluted and turned away. J – and I had met and worked together in the Operations Room of a bomber station in east Yorkshire, around the time of the Battle of Hamburg. But after a blissful few months I had been posted to Tuddenham, then, quite amazingly, following a bleak interval without her, she had been posted to the Base Operations Room at Mildenhall, a small handful of miles away. Everyone who knew us thought that one or other of us had somehow wangled things; in point of fact it was simply unbelievably good luck. In addition, it was a considerable feather in her cap as Mildenhall was one of the key stations in Bomber Command.
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Consequently, we saw one another several times a week when she, of course, should have been catching up on her sleep after long and hectic hours of night duty when operations were on. Now we were going on leave together; three days at my home then three at hers.
A lorry, known to all as the Liberty Wagon, took us to the nearest railway station at Shippea Hill, along with a dozen or so others, then we caught a local train to Ely. We had a meal there and took the overnight train home. We arrived before breakfast the following morning. When we had freshened up and had breakfast, my mother, who looked paler and more drawn than when I had last seen her three months before, looked at me across the table and said quietly, “I hardly know how to tell you this; it’s so awful, when you and J – have just started your leave.”
I couldn’t guess what was coming, but I steeled myself for whatever it might be.
“What is it, mother?”
She bit her lip then said, eyes averted, “I’m afraid it’s bad news, it’s Jack, he was killed two days ago.”
I felt my mouth open and close, then I reached slowly for a cigarette.
“But – was he on ops? I didn’t know he’d got as far as that, I thought he was still training.”
Mother nodded.
“As far as I know, he was killed training, night flying.”
She paused.
“You will go and see his parents, won’t you? They’re terribly upset, naturally.”
“Of course I’ll go,” I said, “of course I will.”
I went to see them that afternoon, after I had screwed up my courage to the limit for what I knew would be an ordeal for all of us. The tension in their house was almost tangible, their grief hung on the air like a cloud. They knew little about it except that Jack was dead; he had been a Navigator on Wellingtons at an Operational Training Unit in the Midlands whose name, Husband’s Bosworth, rang a bell with me when they told me. His pilot was also from our area;
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they had flown into a hill near a village in Northamptonshire. His funeral was here, tomorrow, would I come? It was unthinkable, of course, that I would not. His father paced the room incessantly, never meeting my eyes, Jack’s mother, her face bloated with weeping, tore at a handkerchief in her deep armchair in the corner. Their beautiful piano, black and shining, would remain unplayed for a long time, I knew, and her voice, which I had so often heard in Schumann lieder, would be silent now. The dog lay across the hearthrug, his eyes following first one speaker, then the other; I felt he knew what had happened to his beloved young master.
I met the cortege at the massive stone and iron gateway of the cemetery the following afternoon. The late winter sun was sinking and it was bitterly cold under the fading colour of an almost cloudless sky. I was the only non-relation there; as the hearse came slowly up to the gates through an avenue of trees I gave it the finest salute I had ever given to any senior officer. When I went home in the deepening dusk J – was alone in the living room, sitting in the firelight. I kissed her gently, holding her to me.
That evening, as I felt I must, I went to see Jack’s parents again. They were sitting alone, quieter than before, and with the calm of resignation beginning to possess them. Prince’s tail thumped the hearthrug twice as I walked into the room, his eyebrows lifted and fell as he looked at me, his chin across his folded paws. Jack’s photograph smiled cheerfully down from the mantelpiece. I told them I had come to say au revoir. His father thanked me for being there that afternoon, then, “Do you think you could possibly do something for us?”
“If I can, of course,” I said, glad to be moving on to practicalities.
“You know Jack was stationed at Husband’s Bosworth when – it happened, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know at the time,” I said, a bit uncomfortably, thinking that I should have done. We had seldom written to one another; one didn’t have much time nor the mental quietude in Bomber Command to do very much in the way of letter-writing, except to one’s girlfriend.
He went on.
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“Do you know anyone there? In your job I thought perhaps you might know someone who could tell us just what happened. We know so little, just what his C.O.’s letter told us, not very much at all. But if you could, perhaps, speak to someone?”
Jack’s mother dabbed at her eyes.
“Actually, I do know someone there, as it happens,” I said, “a chap I worked with at Tuddenham until recently was posted there as Adjutant; I’m sure he’ll be able to tell me something.”
He brightened slightly.
“That’s good,” he said, “really quite a coincidence. What sort of chap is he? You really think he would be able to help?”
I described George, avuncular, knowledgeable, but on occasions fiery and quite outspoken.
“I’ll phone him as soon as I can after I get back to Tuddenham, and get in touch with you.”
“I’ll be glad to pay any expense involved, if there is any,” he said, “and don’t get yourself into trouble on our account, will you? But – we would like to know something, of course.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I told him, “there’ll be no expense, and no trouble at all.”
I said goodbye to them. I was not to know that I would never see them again.
The first day back from leave I rang George quite confidently. He sounded his usual self, brisk, affable as ever, but perhaps slightly fussed. Had he trodden on a few toes already, I wondered? After the conventional greetings were over, I came to the point.
“George, I’ll tell you why I’m ringing you – it’s about a crash you had a week or so ago, the pilot was Sergeant - - . Well, I was a friend of the Navigator. I’ve just come back from his funeral at home and his parents were wondering If you could give them, through me, any further details of how it happened.”
There was an abrupt and surprising change in his manner.
“Is that why you rang me? To ask me that? I can’t tell them any more than was in the letter to them. I’m surprised at them asking you to do this.”
“O.K., then, George,” I said calmly, “if that’s how it is then I’m very sorry to have bothered you.”
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I rang off. I was extremely puzzled and quite troubled by his unexpected reaction; we had always been, and still are, good friends and our working relationship was never anything less than co-operative and mutually accommodating. That evening I wrote to Jack’s father, telling him briefly that I had been unable to obtain any further facts about the crash. He did not reply.
For various reasons, and to my lasting shame, I did not visit the graves of Jack, and of Peter, Connie and Roly, another classmate, all Bomber Command aircrew casualties, for several years. But after having stood in that busy street, gazing at what had been the cafe, and remembering Jack and I as we had been then, both of us in the prime of youth, an inner compulsion drove me to do so. I could find the graves of all of those who were buried there except one – Jack. I visited and revisited the place where I thought I had stood at his funeral, searching the tombstones round about for his name, but to no avail. I had heard that his parents had moved to B – on Mr. Henderson’s retirement and I was almost on the point of becoming convinced that they had had Jack re-interred there.
Eventually, after several fruitless searches, and as a last resort, I decided to go to the cemetery office to make enquiries. In a few minutes I had found it, about a hundred yards away from the place where I had been looking. There was a solid, low grey headstone with a substantial curb. There was the name, Flying Officer John Henderson, ‘killed in a flying accident 3rd February 1945.’ So very near to the end of the war, I thought sadly. The lettering was now so faded as to be almost illegible. Underneath his name were those of both his parents. The grave itself was completely bare, not a flower, not a blade of grass, not even a weed, only the cold, wet earth under the leaden sky.
I stood for several minutes in the silence, remembering them, but especially remembering Jack, incidents from our friendship returning vividly to mind. And I wondered about many things, the questions now long unanswered. Was he really the semi-invalid he had always been made out to be? How then had he passed his aircrew medical? Why did they crash that night? Had he – God forbid – made a navigational
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error? Why had George been so brusque and annoyed at my question?
There were no answers to be found in the rustling of the cold breeze among the fallen, russet leaves, and I thought that there never would be, that I would never know. But worse, I wondered would there be anyone left to remember Jack when I was no longer able to remember, or would his name disappear completely, both from his gravestone and from the memories of everyone who might have known him on earth?
I took the Remembrance Day poppy out of my lapel and pressed it into the sodden, bare earth below his name. Then on that grey afternoon I spoke a few words to him, very quietly, but knowing that somewhere, he would hear. And as the winter dusk was falling I turned away.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I did not expect that I should be writing a sequel to this, but a sequel there is, one long-delayed…
Obviously, I have thought very many times about Jack since his fatal crash and I have visited his grave very many times also. But rarely, if ever, have I dreamed about him. Until a few nights ago, that is, more than fifty-one years since he was killed. It was a dream which was so vivid and so poignant – that realisation was with me even as I was dreaming it – that it has stayed with me, haunted me and disturbed me ever since the early morning when, in this heartbreaking dream, I recognised Jack, from a great distance, walking towards me on a riverside path. There were iron railings on my right, a river was nearby, at my left hand, the path curving slightly from my left to the right. For some reason I was quite sure I was on the riverside at Stratford-upon-Avon. I have been there twice, once during the war, with Connie and Shep, when we were at Moreton-in-the-Marsh together, and once on a brief visit when I was on holiday at Malvern. Yes, this was Stratford, I was positive. And I knew it was Jack approaching, I could distinguish his
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features, his walk, his tall, upright figure. He was as I never saw him in life, in uniform, his peaked cap at a slight angle on his head, the Navigator’s half-wing above his breast pocket. There he was, coming briskly towards me, smiling, the Jack I knew of old. And he was with a girl. Her features I could not distinguish as she approached me with him; they were walking close together, arm in arm. Even in my dream I could feel a lump in my throat as I watched them. They stopped in front of me. I heard Jack say, “This is Janet”, and I could see now that she was smiling, a radiant, pure smile, full of utter delight and joy.
They turned together and walked slowly in the direction that I was going. It had turned slightly misty. I was fascinated by Jack’s girl Janet, wondering what sort of person she was; I could not take my eyes off her. She wore a small, round hat of the pillbox type, and a brownish, quite long, heavy coat. Her lips were full, I saw, and pink; here eyes shone with a wonderful radiance, such as I have rarely seen. I had the overwhelming sensation of their happiness with one another. Then the girl, Janet, looked at me directly, her arm still through Jack’s, and gave me her wonderful smile, so full of bliss.
“We are going to be married,” she said, “next year.”
At that moment she looked as lovely as anyone I have ever seen. But immediately, as though I had been submerged by a wave from the sea, I felt an immense sorrow engulf me, because, as I awoke slowly, with the vision of that lovely, loving couple in my brain, even in my dream I knew that their marriage could never, never be. For Jack was to die; Jack was dead.
It is a dream I shall have in my mind until the day of my own death, until Jack and I meet once more and – God alone knows whether there ever was a girl named Janet – perhaps I might meet that girl who I dreamed was going to marry my oldest and closest friend, The Silver Spoon Boy, the boy who gave everything he ever possessed. ‘Too full already is the grave, Of fellows who were young and brave, And died because they were.’
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Intermezzo [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] INTERMEZZO [/underlined]
“Sign here? And here? That it? O.K., Sergeant. Now, what have I signed for? Oh, I see, one brand-new Wimpy in mint condition with full certificate of airworthiness and rarin’ to go. HD 966, isn’t it? Where do I find her? That it, over there by the dispersal hut? O.K., thanks. Probably be back tomorrow for another. Cheerio.”
“Here we are, on this beautiful morning. HD 966. Plenty of juice, Corporal? Well, I’m not going as far as John o’ Groats, thanks, just to Moreton-in-the-Marsh. Pitot head cover off? Fine.”
“There’s only me. Up the ladder. God, it’s hot in here. Haul the ladder up, stow it next to the bomb-sight. Slam the escape-hatch door. Stamp it down firmly, to be sure. Hell, the heat. Slide open the windows, that’s better. Shove my chute into the stowage. Into the driver’s seat, check brakes on. Push and pull the controls about to test for full movement. Shove the rudder to and fro with my feet. All free. Fine. Check the petrol gauges. Enough.”
“Undercart lever down and locked. Flaps neutral. Bomb doors closed. Switch on the undercart lights. There we are, three greens. Undercart warning horn? God, that’s loud. Never mind. Main petrol cock on, balance cock down.”
“Now. Throttles closed, boost override normal, mixture rich, pitch levers fully fine, superchargers medium. O.K. So – ignition on, open throttle an inch. There we are. Now, yell out of the window. Contact port! Press the starter button. That’s it, got her! Hell! What a row, wish I’d brought my helmet after all. Shut the window. No, damn, not yet. Contact starboard! Press the button. There she goes. Come on, come on. Now shut the window. It’s a bit cooler now, anyhow.”
“Oil pressure O.K., all temperatures O.K. So, what’re you waiting for? Run them up. Port engine first. What a bloody noise. Pitch controls O.K., revs down and up again. Give her plus four boost. This is going to be damn noisy. Here goes. Throttle back, boost override in. Now for it. Open right up. Hell, it’s awful. Plus
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nine and threequarters. Fair enough. Throttle back smoothly. Not too quick. Override out. Now the starboard engine. Stick my fingers in that ear. Pitch control O.K. Plus four boost. Mag drop? ……”
“All O.K., then. Brake pressure? Right up. Try each wheel. O.K. So it should be, too, brand new kite. There goes the Anson with those A.T.A. girls. God, shook me when that blonde brought the Halifax in. Cool as you please, all five foot nothing of her. Damn good landing, too. Smashing blonde, like to see her again. Like to – hey, steady on! Back to business. Test the flaps. Right down. Now up again. Fine. Where’s he taken the starter trolley? Oh. Over there, well away from me. See they haven’t got that bloody Whitley moved yet. Bit off-putting, that, finding a pranged Whitley over a hump in the runway, just after you’ve landed. Plenty of room, though, at least it’s on the grass. Well, come on, let’s get back to Moreton, might have half a can if there’s no more flying today.”
“Chocks away. Wave hands across each other where the erk can see. There he goes with the port chock. Now the starboard. Thumbs up from him. And from me. Little bit of throttle, hold the yoke well back. Here we go. Taxy out over the grass. Bumpy. Wish they’d get another runway put in, too. The one they have got isn’t even into the prevailing wind. Using it today, though, I see. Not much wind at all, but the Anson used it. Lovely sunny day. Swing the nose about a bit, never know what’s ahead. Would hate to prang a Spit or something. What’s that Oxford doing? Coming in. Trundle up to the end of the runway, opposite the line of trees. Bit off-putting they are, too, when you’re approaching to land. Park, crosswind. Brakes on. Relax and watch him come in. Wheels down, crosswind, losing height. Bit bumpy over the trees, of course. Flaps down, now he’s turning in. Nice steady approach. Oh, Christ, here’s a Spit coming in next, what a bind. I’ll have to wait a bit. Yes, he’s put his undercart down. Damn!”
”Float her down, boy, float her down. Now, watch it. Not bad, not bad at all. Over-correcting a bit on his rudder on the runway. Never mind, nice landing, though. Open up my throttles to clear the plugs of oil. Yoke hard back. What a row. There we are, sounds
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O.K. Now throttle back and wait for the Spit. Quick check round the dials again. Set the altimeter to zero. Gyro to zero and leave it caged. Where is he? Oh, here he comes, hellish fast. God! That was a split-arse turn and no mistake. Full flap. Well, he is heading in approximately the right direction. Whoof! He’s down. A bit wheel-y, but never mind, he’s in one piece and still rolling. Now beat it, chum, and let a real kite take off. No-one else in the circuit? Thank bloody goodness. Wait a tick, where’s my friend in that Spit? Oh, there he goes, taxying to the Watch Office. Fighter boys – I don’t know!”
Here we go then. Flap fifteen degrees. Brakes off. Port throttle to turn on to the runway. Hope the far end’s clear. Suppose they would poop off a red if it wasn’t. Nice and central Brakes on. Uncage gyro on 0. Now hold your hat. Open both throttles steadily against the brakes. What a bloody row. Yoke back, now let it go to central. Not too far, not too far. More throttle. Hold the brakes on. She’s shuddering like hell, wants to jump off the runway. Lift the tail just a bit more. Now. Full throttle and brakes off. Here we go – and how! We’re really rolling. Shove those throttles forward against the stops. Touch of rudder against the swing. Fine. Hold it there.”
“Feels great. Love take-offs, tremendous sense of power. Hellish noise, too. Airspeed? 50. Nice and straight, shove the tail well up, a real 3 Group takeoff. Touch of rudder again. 65. Over the hump. Gi-doying! Nearly airborne then! Plus nine and threequarters on both, 3000 revs. Wizard. 75. Runway clear and pouring back underneath. There’s that Whitley. Plenty of room. 80. Almost ready. Still bags of room. Come on, come on. Ease back a bit. Trying hard to go, almost a bounce then. Now? Now she’s off. Airborne. Keep her straight, wheels up. Pick your field in case an engine cuts. Right, got one. Lights out as the wheels come up. Then red, red, red. All up and locked. Throttle back to climbing boost. Revs back to 2600. Airspeed 120. Overrides out. 200 feet. Gyro still on 0. Take half the flap off. Watch it, now. 300 feet. All flap off. Slight sink there, feels horrible. Keep climbing. Everything sounds good. Quick look around the panel. All O.K.
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“1000 feet. Level off. Cruising boost and revs. Select weak mixture on both. Rate 2 turn to port. There’s the Oxford just taking off. Spit’s parked at the Watch Office, next to the Hali. The Hali – God! That girl was a smasher. Cirencester just below the port wing. Now the railway. And there’s the Fosse Way. Follow it home, no bother. The Romans knew how to build roads. Excuse me, Centurion, but there’s an enemy chariot on your tail! Weave left, Lucius Quintus – now! Weather’s wizard, just a few puffs of cloud at 1500 feet. No hurry. Throttle back to economical cruising boost and revs. Try the trimmers. Feet off the rudder. Nice, keeps straight. Feet on again. Hands off. Bit nose heavy. Just a touch on the trimmer. Try again. There we are, perfect, no wing-drop, no pitching, no yawing. Flies herself and purrs like a sewing machine, she’s a beaut. Check the magnetic compass. Heading 037. Cage the gyro, set to 037, uncage. Check around the panel. Zero boost, 1850 revs, airspeed 150, altimeter 1000 feet, temps. and pressures O.K. and steady. Fosse Way sliding along under the port wing. Vis thirty to forty miles, 2/10 cumulus at 1500 feet. God’s in his heaven and all that.”
“What a view, all greens and hazy blues. Fields, trees, hedges, pale little villages. Lovely country. Must really explore it soon. Good as being on leave. I’m lucky. Bit lonely in these kites all on your own, though. Used to five other bods nattering. Nearly four months now. I wonder if there’s any news yet. Write to the Squadron tonight, see if there’s anything come through from the Red Cross.”
“Kite at 10 o’clock, slightly higher. Twin. Oxford, heading for Little Rissington, I’ll bet. Wonder who’ll take this Wimpy over. Couple of weeks and it could be bombing Tobruk or somewhere. Long stooge out there. Portreath – Gib – Malta – Canal Zone. Blow their luck. Wonder what the chop rate is out there. Better than we had, I’ll bet. Spit. at nine o’clock, high, heading East. Going like a bat out of hell. Clipped-wing job. Boy! Is he pouring on the coal. Wonder if he’s a P.R.U. type. Climbing hard, too. There he goes. Berlin by lunchtime at 40 thousand plus, I’ll bet. Nothing to touch him. Take his pictures, stuff the nose down and come home with 450 on the clock. Not a thing near him. That’s the life.”
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“Stow-on-the-Wold coming up below. Must go back to that pub some time. Wonder if I’ll hear anything from the police. No rear light. Jam had no front light. Both tight as newts. Tried to tell the flattie we were a tandem which had just come apart, wouldn’t believe us. Hell, couldn’t even pronounce it, I called it a damned ‘un, could hardly talk for laughing. We’d had a few that night! Blasted nuisance, though, expect we’ll be fined ten bob each. Shan’t go to court, though, write them a pitiful letter. Got no ident letters yet, how about doing a beat-up at nought feet? Oh, hell, can’t be bothered. Too hot, anyhow, slide the window open a bit more. Wouldn’t want to drop off to sleep like I did that night at Moose Jaw. Shaky do, that. Never mind, still alive and kicking.”
“Should write home tonight, really. Can’t be bothered to do that, either. Write to Betty? Oh, Christ, what’s the use? She’s hooked up to that other bloke, whoever he is. Don’t even know his name. Hell and damnation, why didn’t I - ? What’s the bloody use of moaning about it? But, God, she was nice. Wizard girl. There were angels dining at the Ritz - . Oh, for God’s sake, stop it. She’s gone, she’s gone, you’ve bloody had it, you missed your chance. Just stop thinking about her. Forget it. Oh, hell, why didn’t - ? Christ! Forget it, can’t you? Think of something else. Yes. Yes. What? I know. Let’s have a song.”
“Ops in a Wimpy, ops in a Wimpy,
Who’ll come on ops in a Wimpy with me?
And the rear gunner laughed as they pranged it on the hangar roof,
Who’ll come on ops in a Wimpy with me?”
“There we are, Moreton dead ahead. Long runway end on to me. Two kites on the circuit. God, I’m ready for a bite of lunch. Wonder what it is? I’ll do this right, otherwise the Boss will chew me off.”
“Into wind over the runway in use. Good look-see at the Signals Area, then a copybook circuit. Here we go. Signal for transport by pushing the revs up and down again. Makes a nice howl, hear it for miles. Oh, hell, I expect I’ll get chewed off for that, though.”
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Blast him, why does he hate my guts? Those other two Wimpies have gone, must have landed. Yes, can see one taxying. Reduce airspeed to 140. No signals out except the landing-T and that’s O.K. Crosswind leg. There’s the van leaving the Flight Office, good-oh, he’s heard it. Turn port, downwind. Throttle back to 120. 120 it is. Lock off, select wheels down. Red lights out. Green, green, green. Down and locked. Ready for crosswind.”
“Rate 1 1/2 turn to port, now. Nice. Select flap 15 degrees. Stop. Lever to neutral. Push a bit to compensate for the flap. Now the approach. Full flap. Shove the nose down. Rate 1 1/2 turn to port again. Watch the airspeed. Back to 95. Pitch fully fine. The van’s heading for dispersal down there. Keep the speed at 95. Dead in line with the runway, height just nice. Carry on, carry on. Losing height nicely, speed dead on 95. Trees rushing by. Lower and lower. Throttle right back. Push the nose down a bit more. Ten feet, now level off. Lovely, sinking down beautifully. Airspeed falling off as the runway comes up. Clunk! We’re down, what a beaut. Have we landed, my good man? I didn’t feel a bloody thing. Keep straight with the rudder. No brake, plenty of room. Slowing down now. Flaps up. Turn right at the peri. track. There we are.”
“Van’s waiting for me. Good-oh. Follow it round to whichever dispersal. Go on, then, after you, I’m waiting. That’s better. Get well ahead, where I can see you. That’s it. Weave the nose a bit. Not too rough with the throttles. Bit of brake now. O.K., I see which dispersal. Bit more brake. Slow right down. Turn into dispersal and swing round into wind in one go, with the starboard throttle. Flashy! Throttle back, straighten her up. There’s an erk with the chocks. Roll to a stop. Brakes on and locked. Pull up the cut-outs to stop the engines. That’s it, piece of cake.”
“Ain’t it gone quiet? Out of the seat. Where’s my chute? Yank open the escape hatch and shove the ladder down. Just nice time for lunch. Wotcher, Loopy, thanks for the lift. Did you witness my absolutely superb landing? No? Well, you missed a treat. How’s the Boss? What was that? Do what to him? Not me, old boy, it’s
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a Court Martial offence, and besides, it’s immoral. Come on, let’s go for lunch. What about the White Hart tonight? By the way, you missed a treat at Kemble this morning. I was just standing there, waiting until this kite was ready, when a Hali. comes into the circuit. Lovely approach and landing, taxies in, stops, and what do you think, out steps this A.T.A. pilot. Wait a minute, wait a minute, this one was a dame, and a wizard blonde at that. Now just let me describe her to you in some detail, you lascivious, drooling Australian, while I permit you to drive me to the Mess. Well, now, she was about five foot six, and her figure…..”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Overshoot [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] OVERSHOOT [/underlined]
In that glorious summer they had decided that I could do some non-operational flying, so they posted me away from Group Headquarters at Bawtry Hall, where I’d been playing about with a bit of admin. work, a lot of cricket, and, between drinking sessions, flirting with a couple of W.A.A.F.s.
Bawtry had been very pleasant but it was distinctly stuffy after the Squadron. I was the only recently operational aircrew there and I always had the feeling that they were waiting uneasily and suspiciously for me to start swinging from the chandelier, or to come rushing up to someone very senior and snip his tie off at the knot. What really made it for me was the brief moment when I happened to look across the anteroom one day – where Group Captains and other wingless wonders were two a penny, with bags of fruit salad to be seen on their chests, though – I looked across and saw him standing there, quite quietly. It was “Babe” Learoyd, and he had only one medal ribbon, that of the Victoria Cross.
It was a bit strange when I found myself back on a Wellington Station again, even more so because this one, an O.T.U. at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, was set in lovely pastoral countryside, a complete contrast to my Squadron’s base on top of the Lincolnshire Wolds. As I was back on flying, I decided that instead of getting drunk every night I’d better cut it down a bit, to every other night, if I wanted to survive, of course, which was debatable. I suppose that was oversimplifying it, because if I misjudged something and pranged, I would possibly write myself off, but I might take a few quite innocent people with me, which wasn’t by any means O.K.
However, I needed something to knock me senseless at night, because I was still getting nightmares. In the end, I would usually fight myself awake, distressed and sweating, and lie wide-eyed, until the summer dawn at last came palely to my window and I heard the distant whistle of the first train as it wound its way through the trees and by the little brooks down to Adlestrop and Oxford.
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That train and the railway station in the small market town gradually became to me symbols of ordinary, carefree life, of freedom and safety from sudden death, symbols I was desperate to hang on to. Eventually, the station became so central and vital a part of these imaginings that I lived in considerable and constant anxiety lest one of our aircraft while using the short runway which pointed directly towards it, should crash on to it and destroy my only link with the sanity of the outside world.
I wasn’t posted to the actual O.T.U. in Moreton, but to No. 1446 Ferry Flight. Basically, the idea was that we picked up brand-new Wimpies from Kemble, about half an hour’s flying time away, flew them solo, following the Fosse Way, back to Moreton, then handed them over to pupil crews from the O.T.U. who would do one or two cross-countries in them and then fly them out to the Middle East, in hops, of course, to reinforce the Squadrons in the Western Desert. Sometimes they were straight bombers, nevertheless looking strange in their sand-coloured camouflage, sometimes “T.B.s”, torpedo-bombers, with the front turret area faired in by fabric and the torpedo firing-button on the control yoke, and sometimes they were pure white Mark VIII “sticklebacks”, bristling with A.S.V. radar aerials, low-level radar altimeters and the like.
One morning I had collected a T.B. from Kemble and was bringing it in to Moreton. No bother at all. Except on my approach to land I seemed to be coming in a bit steeply, I thought. I checked the airspeed, 95, correct. I checked the flap-setting – yes, I had full flap on, and wheels down. Looked at the A.S.I. again. Still 95. But, hell, I thought suddenly, it’s graduated in knots. Frantic mental calculations to convert knots to m.p.h. Ease back on the control column a bit. Multiply by five, divide by six, I concluded. Say, 80. So, bring the speed back to 80 indicated. I should have checked before take-off, of course. After all, this was a T.B., a nautical job. Looks right now, I thought, except that I’m floating a bit while the airspeed drops off, using a bit more runway to get her in. No panic, though. I got her down quite nicely and didn’t go anywhere near the far hedge. Quite a good landing, too, though I says it as shouldn’t.
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But, just my luck, Squadron Leader --- had noticed it.
“That’s not a bloody Spit you just brought in, you know, Junior,” was his greeting as I walked into the Flight Office. I sighed inwardly. Here we go again, I thought.
“No, sir.”
What the hell were you doing? Trying to land at Little Rissington?”
“Just came in a bit fast, sir, that’s all.”
“You should’ve gone round again, done an overshoot.”
“Well, sir, I don’t much like overshoots on Wimpies.”
He grunted.
“Don’t like overshoots,” he said acidly, “Are you a competent pilot, or not?”
“Yes, sir, I am, but I don’t like taking unnecessary risks.”
To tell the truth, I hated overshoots completely. You had to shove on full throttle when you decided you weren’t going to make it, and with the full flap you already had on, the nose tried to come up and stall you at fifty feet. So you pushed the nose down with all your strength and some frantic adjustment of the elevator trimmer – three hands would have been useful about then – to pick up some speed before you even thought of climbing away to have another shot at a landing. Then, while keeping straight you had to milk off seventy degrees of flap a little at a time – and she wasn’t at all fond of that process. She wanted to give up the whole idea and just sit down hard into a field, to sink wearily on to the deck and spread herself, and you, around the county. You had to be damn careful not to take off too much flap in too much of a hurry when those big trees came nearer, or when those hills started to look rather adjacent. At night, of course, you couldn’t see them at all, but you knew they were lurking somewhere handy. If you were in a hurry about taking the flap off, then, you went down like a grand piano from a fourth-storey window, and you’d had it. No, overshoots were definitely not for me, thank you very much, not unless they were absolutely essential, and I knew that I knew, to the foot, when they were. I’d never been wrong yet.
“Well, watch it in future, Junior, and don’t set the pupils a bad example.”
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I could quite understand why Loopy had been within an ace of punching him in the face, a few days previously. It wasn’t only the things he said, it was the way in which he said them. Before I could reply he went on, “You might be interested to know that we’ve got the S.I.O.’s son taking a kite out to Gib. soon, he’s done his circuits and bumps and he’s crewed up. His father had a word with me at lunchtime yesterday.”
As I only knew the Senior Intelligence Officer vaguely by sight I merely murmured something non-commital [sic] and asked if there was anything else. I was told, reluctantly, no, there wasn’t, so I saluted and drifted out to have a word or two with Dim and Loopy.
A few days later there was a gap in the flow of kites from Kemble, and as Loopy and I had done all the compass and loop-swinging on those we’d recently collected I took myself off to the Intelligence Library. I was standing at one of the high, sloping library desks, reading one of the magazines, when out of the corner of my eye I saw someone come in and stand at a desk about six feet to my left. I took no notice of him but carried on reading Tee Emm or whatever it was. When I had finished, I turned to go – and recognised him.
“Christ! It’s Connie, isn’t it?” I exclaimed.
I had last seen him in the Sixth Form at school, five years ago. Five thousand years ago.
“Yoicks!” he said, greeting me by the nickname I’d almost forgotten. Connie wasn’t his real name, either, but he’d always been called that at school because, it was said, he had a sister of that name who was more beautiful than the moon and all the stars. A shame I never met her. We shook hands vigorously.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
“Been posted to something called a Ferry Flight,” he replied.
“Bloody marvellous! I’m in that, too; come into the madhouse!”
“Well, blow me,” Connie said, “it’s a small world, isn’t it?”
We celebrated that night, in traditional fashion, with several pints apiece. It was great to have him with me, he was jaunty, carefree, entertaining and likeable. I had noticed, of course, that he had the ribbon of the D.F.M. One day, as we walked through some nearby town on a half-day off, I noticed too that his battledress was ripped,
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just below his ribs, on one side.
“By the way,” I said, “do you know you’ve torn your battledress?”
I pointed to the damage. He laughed heartily.
“That’s my line-shoot, I’m not repairing that, Yoicks – got that over Turin from a cannon-shell. Never felt a thing!”
It was about this time that I discovered the poems of A.E. Housman and, on free afternoons, I would lie on the unkempt lawn of the little cottage where I had my room, out beyond the Four Shires Stone, and would read his poems long into the drowsy, high-summer afternoons, their words tinged with the sadness that I had learned. And as I lay there, the supple, vivid wasps would tunnel and plunder the ripe plums I had picked off the little tree under whose shade I rested. There was constantly to be heard, with the persistence of a Purcell ground, the noise of the Wellingtons on the circuit, two miles away, over the lush green Gloucestershire landscape, hazy with heat, the sound rising and falling on the consciousness like the breathing of some sleeping giant.
At length I would pick myself up, stiffly, feeling the skin of my face taut with the sun, and put the poetry away. Then in the incipient twilight I would stroll down the road towards the sinking sun to meet Connie, to have dinner in the Mess and to slip easily into the comfortable routine of an evening’s drinking with him, and perhaps with Dim, Loopy, Pants or Mervyn, in the anteroom, or down at the White Hart in the village. I would see Connie’s dark hair fall across his forehead, his heavy black brows lift and lower expressively over his mischievous eyes as he told some humorous story of his days and nights on his Squadron at Downham Market. Sometimes, when we were flush, he and I would catch a train to one of the neighbouring market towns, to embark on an evening’s pub crawl, laughing at each other and at ourselves as the beer took effect, and as the darkness slowly fell, un-noticed; each of us drowning our private memories.
Once, a bunch of O.T.U. pupil crews came into a pub where we were sitting – was it in Evesham? – obviously on an end-of-course party before they went their various ways to join their bomber Squadrons. They joked a lot, sang a bit and indulged in some mild, laughing horseplay. Connie, who like me had been watching them, suddenly
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grew solemn.
“Poor sods,” he said gravely, “they don’t know what’s coming to them, do they, Yoicks?”
Poor Connie, too. He himself had not long to go. Just over a year later he was killed, at the controls of his Stirling, where, had he known that he must die, he would have wished to be, I think.
Eventually, wherever I had been, I would fall into bed, my brain dulled by the alcohol, but neverthless [sic] conscious enough to dread what the night might hold for me, waiting for the nightmares to come again.
There was one kite in the circuit, wheels down, as I strolled towards the Mess for dinner as twilight was beginning to fall. It was yet another lovely evening, and what with the idyllic existence and Connie’s new-found friendship, I was feeling that as far as I was concerned, I could stay here until further notice, despite Squadron Leader --- and his unpleasant little ways.
I was quite near to the Four Shires Stone when I heard the sudden howl as the kite’s engines were opened up to full throttle. Should we go to the White Hart with Loopy and Dim tonight, I wondered, or have a bit of a session in the Mess? Just then there was a loud thump and a silence, another thump, and I saw a telltale column of black smoke erupting over the hedges and treetops ahead and slightly to my left, a mile or so away, I guessed. The kite had overshot and gone in.
“Jesus!” I said, and broke into a run down the road. I was panting and sweating along when suddenly the Flight van screeched to a halt beside me, going the same way. Squadron Leader --- was driving.
“Get in, Junior,” he yelled, “We’ve got to get them out!”
He let in the clutch and drove fiercely down the empty road. The pillar of smoke grew bigger as we got nearer. Then I saw the gap in the hedge and the smashed tree where it had hit. At the far edge of the field the shattered Wimpy burned savagely. We skidded to a stop and flung our doors open. As I ran through the gap in the hedge and across the field, --- raced around the front of the van to join me. I could feel the heat on the surface of my eyes from
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the wall of leaping flame. The kite’s geodetics were like smashed and twisted bones stripped of their flesh. I ran on, over the cratered and churned earth. There was a reek of petrol, of ploughed earth, and of something else, sweetish, sickly, burned. An engine lay to one side, the prop grotesquely curled back.
Suddenly there was a ‘whumph!’ and I found myself on the ground. A petrol tank had exploded. I got up again and went towards the inferno that was raging under the smoke-pall. I splashed through a pool of something. I could hear Squadron Leader --- cursing somewhere nearby; I was gasping and sobbing for breath.. [sic] Then the oxygen bottles started to explode and bits of metal went screaming viciously past me. I tripped and fell heavily. And I saw I had fallen over something smoothly cylindrical, like an oversize sausage, bright brown, and with a smouldering flying boot at the end of it. A few feet away lay an untidy, horribly incomplete bundle of something in what looked like Air Force blue, lying terribly still under the stinking glare. I was retching, on all fours, unable to move further. I dimly heard another explosion nearby, sounding curiously soft, there was a blast of hot air on my face, and then there were the bells of the approaching fire-tender and ambulance.
I was being dragged by my shoulder. It was ---.
“Come on,” he panted, “we’ll never get near it. They’ve had it, poor bastards.”
We must have made our way back to the van as the rescue vehicles arrived; I don’t remember much about that part. I was leaning up against the side of the van and wiping my face with a shaking hand when I heard --- say, “Now I’ve got to go and tell the S.I.O. that his son was flying – that.”
“Oh, Christ,” I groaned.
“Let’s go,” he said, “Let’s get to hell out of here.”
He switched on the engine of the Utility as the black funeral pall of smoke spread over the sky, and thinning, smudged the sunset dirtily.
I read an article in a magazine recently. The writer had been visiting some place which had impressed her. She concluded with
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the words, “But you never lose an experience like that. You carry it around with you.”
Yes. And sometimes you feel you need just a little help to carry it just a little further.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] First Solo [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] FIRST SOLO [/underlined]
I drank some more beer and said to Connie, “The trouble with Shep is that he’s far too damned opinionated, and what’s much worse, he’s far too often right. You just can’t knock him down, can you?”
Afetr [sic] several pints in the White Hart I was feeling less in control than I might have been, but having given vent to that penetrating observation I felt quite foolishly and inordinately pleased with myself. Connie, who had also had several, perhaps for different reasons, looked at me a trifle owlishly.
“I say, Yoicks,” he said, slurring just a little, “that’s rather good. You’re dead right.”
“If you don’t mind, Connie,” I said, “I’d rather you didn’t use that word.”
“What word? What have I said?”
“Dead,” I replied.
At the time, Connie and I were busy settling into our new routine in ‘X’ Flight of the O.T.U. at Moreton-in-the-Marsh. The powers-that-be had decided that there were too many pilots in Ferry Flight just across the way, and not enough utility pilots in ‘X’ Flight. Squadron Leader ---, with barely disguised joy, had promptly nominated me for transfer. And perhaps because he knew Connie and I were close friends, he had selected him to accompany me.
“Utility” was the word for it. We flew Wellingtons on fighter affiliation exercises and on air-to-air gunnery, one pilot and a kite full of A.G.s who took it in turns to man the turrets. Fighter affiliation was by common accord reckoned to be gen stuff, that is, approximating to the real thing – mock attacks by the ‘X’ Flight Defiant, convincingly hurled around the sky by Cliff, at which the gunners “fired” their camera-guns. But the air-to-air lark, I always thought, was of very doubtful value. Our Lysander flew straight and level, towing on a cautiously long cable, a canvas drogue, at which the gunners fired live ammo. with prodigal enthusiasm. Doubtful value? I might have said “pointless” instead. How many Me109s or 110s obligingly flew alongside you at a convenient distance and invited
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you to have a shot at them? It was damn noisy, too, with both your turrets blazing away, and the smell of cordite lingered on your battledress for days.
Most of the time the Defiant or the Lysander, whichever was in action, was flown by Cliff. He was tallish, lean, dark-haired and casual, a Canadian Flight Sergeant, but a man who might have stepped straight out of a Western film. Like Connie, he too was entering the last few months of his life. Cliff, the casual, was soon to be killed over Hamburg in his Pathfinder Lancaster.
The other occasional pilot on the two single-engined kites was Hank, an American, a Flying Officer in the R.A.F., also casual and easy-going, but suave, where Cliff was slightly flinty. The two were inseparable, if only as inveterate gamblers. I learned a lot about the gentle art of shooting craps from Cliff and Hank. On days when there was no flying, when Bill, Connie and I would be lecturing the O.T.U. pupils on Flying Control systems, emergency procedures, dinghy drill and airfield lighting and also, in my case, on the layout of the multifarious internal fittings of the Wellington, Cliff and Hank would retire to a quiet corner of the hangar. Gambling was strictly prohibited by the R.A.F., of course, but the rattle of dice would faintly be heard, punctuated by urgent cries of “Box cars!” “Baby needs new shoes!” or “Two little rows of rabbit-shit!” Money was never seen to change hands, but now and again it was apparent, from the obvious tension which was building up between them, that the stakes were high.
Our happy little Flight was genially run by an Irish Flight Lieutenant named Bill. Bill was the very antithises [sic] of Squadron Leader --- whom I’d just left behind. He was a tall, gangling, rather awkward-looking pilot who affected a slightly vague nonchalance about life in general. One of his endearing little foibles was that he seldom, if ever, referred to an aircraft by its proper name. It was commonplace that all Wellingtons were Wimpies, and fairly common that Lysanders were Lizzies, but he extended these nicknames by referring to our Defiant as a Deefy.
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I sat in on his introductory lecture to a new Course, a dummy run for me before I took over the conducting of the wedding ceremony of sprog crews to the Wimpy. They had all come off Oxfords and it was a bit awe-inspiring at first to be confronted by the size and complexity of the Wellington at close quarters. Bill’s opening remarks were memorable. He lurched up on to the dais, which was, in our hangar, alongside a complete Wellington fuselage, stripped of its fabric, and also near a separate cockpit taken from another kite. He looked slowly around the faces in front of him, as though surprised to find himself there at all, then lit a cigarette, exhaled, beamed happily at our new charges, coughed softly, and in an unbelievably broad Ulster accent uttered the following pearl of wisdom and deep scientific truth.
“Well, now. This here – this here is a Wimpy, and –“ patting a mainplane as one would a favourite dog, and lowering his voice confidentially as he leaned forward earnestly towards them – “these are the wings. Now you’ll be wondering what keeps them on. But don’t you be worrying yourselves about that, ‘cos it’s ahll [sic] ahrganised.” [sic]
After that, he had our pupils in the hollow of his hand; they adored him, as we all did. Dear old Bill. Old? He was about twenty three.
Bill, Hank, Cliff, Connie and me. A nice mixture; one Northern Irishman, one American, a Canadian and two Englishmen. Then into our happy little world stepped a newcomer. Shep. Correction – he did not step, he never stepped. He would barge, blunder, or he would push, but step? No. However, he arrived, all right. That was the system all over. ‘X’ Flight had needed two pilots, so it got three. Shep was a stocky, powerful little Yorkshireman, darkish hair thinning a bit, snub-nosed, built like a prop forward and always with a challenging look shining from his eyes, as though to tell the world, “I’m only five foot six but don’t let that fool you, I’m little and good and I’m worth two of you.” In his manner of speaking he was blunt and earthy to the point of rudeness, but almost everything he said was accompanied by that challenging look and a grin, which took the edge off most of his outrageous remarks. While none of us, except perhaps Bill, were saints as regards our language, which was, when circumstances demanded it, bespattered with words we wouldn’t normally use in mixed
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company, not to mention the odd spot of blasphemy, Shep’s outpourings were liberally garnished with a single oath, namely, “bloody”, which, at times, he rather over-used, I’m afraid.
Like Connie, he had been on Stirlings in 3 Group, or rather, “them bloody Stirlin’s” and, of course, when he realised that he and Connie had that in common he attached himself firmly to the two of us. So our placid little duo became a slightly turbulent trio. Express an opinion which didn’t match Shep’s and, “Ah’m tellin’ you, you’re bloody wrong. Now listen ‘ere – “ and one would be corrected in no uncertain way.
On an occasion when flying was scrubbed for a couple of days due to bad weather, we found ourselves in the city of Oxford. We had a meal, and we also had several beers. When it came to the time to go for the train back to Moreton it was growing dusk and it became necessary to find our slightly alcoholic way from an unfamiliar side street to the railway station. There developed a slight divergence of opinion as to the correct course to steer; Connie and I were all for heading in a certain direction, but not so Shep. Oh, no.
“It’s not that bloody way, Ah’m tellin’ you, Ah’m bloody sure we passed that big buildin’ over there when we came in.”
Meekly, we followed him. And arrived at the railway station in a few minutes. That was Shep all over. A trip to Stratford-on-Avon followed, one Sunday, and we were regaled with a lecture on bloody Shakespeare, and also bloody Ann Hathaway. The trouble was that Connie and I were both reasonably ignorant about Shakespeare and all his works and couldn’t contradict, or even argue with Shep. It was a trifle frustrating, to say the least, at times.
I seem to recall that it was my idea in the first instance, to have a bash at the single-engined kites which we owned. I had been up with a crowd of gunners on fighter affil., no evasive action, of course, to give them practice in getting the Defiant in their sights long enough to get a picture of it. It was simply a question of flying a straight-line track along the line of the range for about forty miles and back again, while all the gunners had a shot. To be honest, it was pretty damn boring, except when one of the pupils,
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despite all my previous entreaties and warnings, would clumsily heave himself in or out of the rear turret and give the undoubtedly adjacent and awkwardly placed main elevator control shaft a hearty push or shove, whereupon we were all hurled up to the roof or on to the floor amid a torrent of curses, depending on whether the kite was forced suddenly into a climb or a dive. It broke the grinding monotony of straight and level flight, though, and once back into the correct attitude everyone had a good laugh about it, including me. Needless to say, the exercise was conducted at a very respectable altitude to allow for such eventualities, and also to give Cliff free rein to throw the Deefy around with considerable abandon.
I was stooging along at about six thousand feet on a day of pleasant sunshine while all this was going on around me, watching Cliff out of the corner of my eye as he screamed across and down beyond my starboard wingtip in a near-vertical bank which he would then convert into a steep turn and a rocket-like climb, before coming in at me again from some new angle. I was thinking that it was pretty to watch, and that he should have been a fighter boy. I thought also that I might well have been one, too, had I not had two early love-affairs, a distant one with the Wellington across the field at Sywell, the other with Betty who had suffered under the German bombing of her home town. But the germ of an idea was growing as the morning progressed and as I day-dreamed, holding the Wimpy on course over the placid Gloucestershire landscape while the white puffs of cumulus drifted lazily by on their summer way.
When I’d finally finished the detail and landed back at Moreton I disgorged my crew of gunners and wandered into Bill’s office. He was sitting there doing his best to look like Lon Chaney on one of his off-days.
“Hello, Bill,” I said, “have you got a minute?”
“Sure, Junior, me boy,” he replied, “and what would be on your mind, now?”
“Well, it’s like this,” I said thoughtfully, “I’ve been watching Hank and Cliff having all the fun chucking the Deefy and the Lizzie about –“ he had me doing it by this time – “ – and I was thinking I’d like to have a bash on them, too. I did my S.F.T.S. on Harvards,
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you know.”
“Did you now?” he answered thoughtfully, “well, well, let’s see.”
He lowered his voice confidentially and looked around conspiratorially. He pretended to be watching a Wimpy on the circuit.
“As a matter of fact,” he said quietly, “a little bird tells me that Hank might be leaving us soon.”
“Oh?” I said, not wanting to appear to be too inquisitive, and waited for him to go on.
“Yes,” he said, “apparently the Chief Instructor came across him and Cliffy rolling the bones in a quiet corner, and poor old Hank, him being the senior and an Officer and all, is going to be sent to the place where they send naughty boys.”
“But what a bloody stupid waste,” I exclaimed, “Hank’s a damn fine pilot. He goes and sticks his neck right out, volunteers for the R.A.F. when he had no need to, being a Yank, and just because he rolls a couple of dice they’re going to kick him up the backside. It seems damned childish to me.”
“Oh, he won’t be grounded for good, or anything like that, he’ll just do drill and P.T. and parades and so forth for a couple of weeks, then they’ll send him back on flying, somewhere. Anyhow, the point is, I could use another pilot or two for the Deefy and the Lizzie, so you and Connie and Shep might as well have a go. It wouldn’t be fair on them if I said O.K. to you and not to the other two.”
“No, of course not,” I said.
“There’s no dual controls, you realise that, don’t you, Junior? You’ll have to pick it up from a ride or two in the back seat and read up the Pilot’s Notes a bit.”
“I’ve already been genning up on them,” I grinned, “I think I know where all the taps are, it’s just a question of getting the feel of the things.”
“You crafty so-and-so,” Bill said, smiling. “O.K., then, you fix it all up with Cliffy and I’ll have a word with the other two. H’m. Is that the time? Neither of us are flying this afternoon, so how about a quick noggin before lunch?”
“Sound suggestion, Bill,” I said.
We walked up to the Mess together; I was feeling slightly excited at the thought of getting a couple of new types in my log-book. I suppose I liked the challenge.
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It was strange to be sitting jammed into the four-gun turret of the Defiant while Cliff flew it around the circuit and gave me the gen.
“She’s a bit of a heavy sonofabitch,” he drawled, “but she’s got no vices if you treat her right.”
To be honest, I couldn’t see anything of what went on in the cockpit in front of me, all I could do was to form some idea of the distances on the circuit, where to start reducing speed and where to put the wheels and flaps down, and to watch the landing attitude, of course. He did a couple of circuits and bumps for me and that was all we had time for on that session.
Soon afterwards, he gave me a ride in the Lysander. That was quite an entertaining experience. It was an ugly-looking parasol-wing kite with a big, chattery radial engine, wonderful visibility due to the high wing, a fixed undercart and ultra-short take-off and landing runs. It was fitted with God knows what in the way of trick slots and flaps. Take-off was incredible, it made me want to laugh out loud.
“The important thing,” said Cliff as we stood ticking over, ready to roll, “is to make sure you’ve got your elevator trim central for take-off – this wheel right here.”
I leaned over his shoulder and looked at the aluminium wheel down below his left elbow. It was the size of a small, thick dinner-plate, with a bright red mark painted across the rim as a datum.
“If you don’t have that centralised, like it is now, you’ll try to loop as soon as she gets airborne, then we’ll be having a whip-round for a goddam wreath for you. So watch it, bud.”
“O.K., Cliff,” I said, “I’ve got you.”
“Let’s go, then, eh?” he said, and opened the throttle. We seemed to be airborne in about fifty yards and climbed like a lift in a hurry. The runway simply dropped away below us. Compared to the Wellington’s take-off it was simply unbelievable.
“Hell’s teeth!” I said, “She really wants to go, doesn’t she?”
“Sure does,” he replied happily.
Landing was equally impressive. It seemed you just closed the throttle and the Lizzie did the rest. She was designed for Army
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co-operation duties, to land in any small, flat field. And, of course, they were used extensively for the cloak-and-dagger stuff, putting in our agents to western Europe by night and picking up others, all by the light of the moon and a couple of hand torches: that must have been quite something.
Cliff turned into wind.
“No undercart to worry about,” he called.
Suddenly there was an almighty ‘clonk’ and I almost snapped the safety harness as I jumped involuntarily.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“No danger, just the slots popping out at low speed. Now see, I’ve got the elevator trim wound right back. Get it?”
“O.K.,” I said, “Got it.”
We lowered ourselves down on to the runway and rumbled to a halt in a few yards.
“Bloody marvellous!” I exclaimed, “some kite, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” said Cliff as we taxied in, “I wouldn’t mind one of these babies for myself, to take back home.”
“No trouble at all,” I replied, “they’ll be two a penny after the war, and with all the cash you’ve won at craps you’ll be able to afford a fleet of them.”
He laughed.
“Aw, well, we’ll have to see, when the time comes,” he said.
The time never came, of course.
You can guess who organised himself the first solo. You’re right, it was Shep.
“Ah’m flyin’ the bloody Lizzie in ten minutes,” he announced loudly, one day soon after, bustling into the hangar and crashing open his locker door.
“How’d you fix that?” Connie asked.
“Ah, well, Ah’m the best bloody pilot around here so Bill said it was only right Ah should have first bloody crack before either of you clumsy buggers bent it.”
“Get the Line-Book out!” I shouted, “Just listen to that – best pilot? You’re just a ham-fisted bus driver, you four-engined types are all alike!”
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“Steady on, Yoicks,” Connie said, “don’t include us all in that.”
“Well, some of you are ham-fisted,” I said. “Anyhow, let’s go and witness this demonstration of immaculate, text-book flying by our modest friend here.”
Shep grinned and slung his chute over his shoulder, then the three of us wandered down to the peri. track where our Lizzie was standing on the grass, looking quite docile and waiting for her pilot. Shep buckled his chute straps into the harness quick-release box, pulled on his helmet and heaved himself into the cockpit. Connie and I lit cigarettes while he started her up, ran up the engine and taxied out for take-off.
“When are you going to have a shot?” Connie asked.
“Tomorrow, in the Lizzie,” I replied, “I’m quite looking forward to it.”
Shep was ready for take-off. He opened her up and the bright yellow Lysander quivered and tolled, then she was airborne, climbing steeply and joyously. He took her nicely around the circuit, a much smaller one than the Wellington’s, of course. Connie and I watched critically, smoking and chatting. As he was on his landing approach Bill drifted along.
“How’s he doing?” he asked.
“Bang on,” I said, “just coming in now.”
Shep landed and taxied round to the start of the runway again. He had done all right, we agreed. No reason why I shouldn’t, too, I thought. Hurry up, tomorrow.
He stopped to let a Wimpy take off. The contrast was grotesque, the bomber using most of the runway and climbing very shallowly away over the trees as it tucked its wheels up, leaving behind it a blur of oily, brownish-black smoke.
Shep moved on to the runway into position for takeoff. It was a lovely afternoon, hardly any wind, a few puffs of cumulus at about four thousand feet. There was a slight haze over the low hills beyond the railway station. We heard him open her up and she rolled. He’d hardly got the tail up before he was airborne, nose-high. Then he was climbing steeply, the engine howling, the kite hanging on its prop.
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“Oh, sweet Jesus!” Bill said, very distinctly, next to me. I simply stopped breathing and watched. We were going to see Shep die in front of our eyes and were completely unable to do a thing to help him. Then, at the moment when it seemed he would inevitably stall and crash into the middle of the aerodrome from less than a hundred feet, he somehow got the nose down, and as he did so, painfully raised the starboard wing. The crazy, fatal climb changed slowly, so terribly slowly, into a steep turn to port. Shep was in a series of tight turns, at full throttle, right over the centre of the runway at about fifty feet. Gradually, the turns slackened, the note of the screaming engine eased. He flew over us, very low, still turning to port, but now more or less in control, obviously winding the trimmer frantically forward.
“Bloody hell!” Connie gasped, “I thought he’d had it that time.” I could only gulp and nod. I felt for a cigarette with hands which were shaking so much I could hardly open the case. My knees felt like water. Bill sighed and said quietly, “I’m afraid he didn’t do his cockpit drill. He forgot the elevator trim.”
We said nothing, but watched as Shep came in to land.
“Let’s go,” Bill said.
We went back to the Flight Office. Five minutes later Shep bustled in, a bit red in the face. He dumped his chute and helmet on to a chair.
“Bloody Lizzies!” he exploded wrathfully, “that bloody trimmer wants modifying, it’s a bloody menace!”
We could only look at one another in silence and amazement. Surely he would admit to being in the wrong, just this once?
Next day, Bill called for Connie and I and silently handed us a memo from the Chief Instructor.
“With immediate effect,” it said, “Lysander and Defiant aircraft of ‘X’ Flight will be flown only by the following personnel.
F/L W. McCaughan,
F/O H. Ross,
F/Sgt C. Shnier.”
Bill, Hank and Cliff. I handed the memo back to Bill.
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“Yes, Bill,” I said, “O.K., fair enough.”
So we flew Wimpies up and down the range and liked it, and we watched Cliff hurling the Defiant into gloriously abandoned manoeuvres in the late summer sky while we flew straight and level. And we gritted our teeth, and we liked it. But now and again I had a sneaking little thought – I wondered what would have happened if that had been me up there instead of Shep. Would I still be bouncing around, like he still was, or …..?
I know, of course, what became of poor Connie, and every year on the anniversary of the day it happened, I visit him where he lies. What happened to Shep, I don’t know, but I’m prepared to bet that whatever it was, he would have had the last word, or, as he would put it, the last bloody word. But really, he wasn’t such a bad bloke. As I said to Connie, you just couldn’t knock him down, that was all.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] The pepper pot [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] THE PEPPER POT [/underlined]
It must have been a surprise to Connie as, just when we were about to climb up the ladder into the Wimpy one fine morning, he saw me fold into a heap at his feet. I can’t say it was much of a surprise to me, I hadn’t been feeling too brilliant for some time before that.
Things then moved very quickly. The M.O. saw me and whipped me off to London for a medical board, where I was told quite pleasantly that my flying days were over as far as the Royal Air Force was concerned, and I was asked what I would like to do. No promises, of course. I said, “Intelligence, in Bomber Command.” That seemed to them a reasonable idea, as far as I could make out.
Then followed several completely idle weeks in Brighton in mid-winter, waiting to see what was going to happen to me. My days’ work consisted of reporting to the Adjutant in the Metropole at nine a.m., asking, “Anything for me?” being told, “No”, and that was it until next morning, when the routine was repeated. I was billeted in a little hotel on King’s Road, facing the sea, with three or four other R.A.F. types and one or two R.A.A.F types. There were a few civilians there, too, among them the comedian Max Miller, who, off-stage seemed to me to be distinctly un-funny, if not downright anti-social.
I made friends with a couple of other pilots, Aussies, John Alexander and Don Benn, who were on their way home. Don had crashed in a Beaufighter and injured his legs – his M.O. had said he should play some golf to strengthen them. As he had been a stockman in outback Queensland, the idea of his playing golf was rather amusing both to him and to me. But, as an utter tyro myself, I agreed to go around the lovely course, up on the Downs near Rottingdean, with him. At night, John and I would paint the town red in a mild sort of way, sometimes exercising the legs of the local police force. I caught a glimpse, one day, of Hank Ross, doing penance, marching in a squad of aircrew types along the front. It depressed me greatly. Hank looked desperately unhappy. I waved to him and he acknowledged
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me with only a sad little smile. I thought that if he had waved back, he would probably have been sent to the Tower. It still seemed desperately unjust. I never saw Hank again.
Eventually my course came through, to an Intelligence training centre in a big old house in Highgate. Some fairly hush-hush stuff went on there and we were forbidden to talk to anyone who wasn’t on our own course of about twenty. But one evening, in the anteroom, I was delighted and amazed to see dear old Tim, and made a bee-line for him, rules or no rules. We chatted for a few minutes until someone intervened. Next day I was kept behind after a lecture and given a severe reprimand, and although I saw Tim several times after that, I never spoke to him again while we were there. Not until we met, at Niagara Falls, almost fifty years later – two survivors.
During this time, Alan was called up for training amd [sic] I discovered he had reported to an Aircrew Reception Centre at St. John’s Wood. We met for half a day, had a long talk, a visit to the flicks and a meal at a strange and deserted Greek restaurant somewhere near Covent Garden.
The end of March found me posted as an Intelligence Officer to Linton-on-Ouse, where there were two Halifax Squadrons, one commanded, as I discovered when I arrived, by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire. Soon afterwards, the Canadians were about to take over Linton and I accompanied one of the Squadrons to Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, in east Yorkshire. After a couple of weeks there, the S.I.O. decided that they were rather short-handed at the satellite Station, Breighton, where the other Squadron from Linton had settled in. So there, among the farm buildings of the nondescript but not unpleasant hamlet of Breighton, I put down roots for a few months. And there I met J - .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I was pinning up the bombing photos of the previous night’s raid when I noticed he was there again. the Intelligence Library, no matter how we tried to dress it up, was never all that well-populated, and that morning was no exception. The photos usually drew a few
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interested crew members, Tee Emm was invariably popular, but the other stuff was really a bit on the dull side. There wasn’t, for example, a tremendous rush for the Bomber Command Intelligence Digest. Most of the crews, anyhow, were sleeping off last night’s trip, or last night’s session in the local, whichever was applicable.
This little gunner, though, I had seen him in there several times before, always at the same table near the door. It made me wonder. I suppose it was rather obtuse of me not to have cottoned, especially in view of my own feelings about J - . Anyhow, when I had put up the photos I went over to him, more out of curiosity than anything.
“Hello,” I said to him, “did you want something?”
He hesitated, then said, “I suppose – “
“Yes?”
“I suppose Sergeant S – isn’t on duty, is she?
I saw it all, then. One of our W.A.A.F. Watchkeepers, Billie S – was very much sought after for dates, and, it must be admitted, slightly blasé about the whole business. Rumour had it she was the daughter of a fairly high-ranking Army Officer in the Middle East. She was an extremely pleasant girl, blue-eyed, blonde and very nicely shaped, with a calm, almost angelic manner and a vibrant, husky voice which could send the odd shiver up your spine when she used it in conjunction with those big blue eyes of hers. But not my type. Now J - , one of the other two Watchkeepers, she was a different matter entirely. I had the feeling I was going to like Breighton very much indeed, even though I’d only been there just over a week.
“Sergeant S - ?” I said to him, “do you want to see her?”
(Bloody silly question, I thought, of course he did.)
“Well, if I could, just for a minute, if it’s no trouble.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I went back into the Ops. Room. Billie was purring at someone on the telephone and even then, unconsciously using her china-blue eyes expressively. Apart from her, there was only Margaret, one of the Int. Clerks, writing industriously. Billie hung up finally. I said, “Billie, there’s a gunner in the Int. Library would like
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a word with you.”
She wrinkled her nose just a little and said, “who is it, sir? Not that Sergeant P - ?”
“Don’t know his name,” I replied, “smallish chap, though, in Sergeant – ‘s crew, if I remember rightly.”
“Yes, that sounds like him, Johnny P - ,” she answered, with a faint sigh. She shrugged her shoulders and with a lift of her immaculately plucked eyebrows she said, “Would you mind, very much, sir?”
She sounded resigned.
“No, you go right ahead,” I said with a grin, “mind he doesn’t chew your ears off, though.”
She laughed quietly and went out, smoothing down her skirt over her hips as she went. Margaret was smiling quietly to herself and I cleared my throat rather noisily and started to sort out a pile of new target maps, mostly of Hamburg, I noticed. My tea had gone cold and I cursed it. Margaret looked up and laughed.
“Shall I get you some more, sir?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, Margaret, there’s a dear.”
She went out into the little store-room-cum-kitchen between the Ops. Room and the Int. Library, which we had been told recently to empty as far as possible. This had intrigued us greatly, but we asked no questions.
Billie came back, patting her blonde hair and looking a little flushed.
“Well,” I said, “have you been fighting like a tigress for your honour?”
“Oh, nothing like that, sir,” she replied with a smile, and left it at that, which was fair enough. Nothing at all to do with me, really. Margaret came back with teas all round. The war could continue. Billie got behind her switchboard, handed me a cigarette and did her usual pocket-emptying routine in search of a comb or a lipstick or something, as I lit her cigarette. The stuff that girl carried around with her.
The moon period came around and there weren’t any ops for a few days. Funny to think that when I had been operating a full moon was popularly known as a “bombers’ moon”. Now it was shunned as
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being too helpful to the German night-fighters. We more or less caught up with the outstanding stuff; the Watchkeepers got the S.D. 300 slap up to date and Pam spent a bit of time in the Library putting up some new stuff on the notice boards and going over some bomb-plots with the crews from the photos they had come back with. She mentioned casually that one of the gunners seemed to be spending a lot of time in there. I merely said “Oh, yes?” and looked blankly at her.
I got to know J – a little better during this time, and I knew that this was it. I was very pleased to see that she didn’t have an engagement ring on her finger. Our conversations progressed imperceptibly from one hundred per cent “shop” to a slightly more personal level. I found I was looking forward more and more to the times when she would be on duty, and I tried to fiddle it so that I was on at the same times. I also found that I was looking forward less than usual to my next leave, which would take me away from her for a week.
One afternoon, when things were quiet, I asked J – how Billie was coping with Johnny.
“Well, he’s very persistent,” she said, “he wants a date with her, but she’s doing her best to stall him off. Poor kid, what he really wants is his mother, you know.”
I nodded thoughtfully; I hadn’t seen it quite like that.
“So is Billie going to date him?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know what she’ll decide,” J – said, “she’s tried her best to head him off, and all that, but he just shakes his head and keeps asking her to go out with him just once; what can she do?”
“Knowing Billie, I’m sure she’ll think of something,” I said, and we smiled at one another. I little suspected what in fact she was thinking of. Had I known, I would have slept less at nights than I was already doing, for various reasons.
Of course, I was thinking along the lines of asking J – for a date, too, but I was worried about rushing things. I had to pick my moment and I wasn’t sure just how to recognise when it had come. I would lie awake thinking it over, and thinking about J - , which just shows you what sort of state I was in.
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Two or three nights later I was on duty with Freda, the third of the Watchkeepers. Our aircraft had just gone off and we were relaxing a bit and wondering if we’d get any early returns. Freda had just finished phoning the captains’ names and take-off times through to Base at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, along the road about eight miles, when the phone rang.
“It’s Billie, for you, sir,” Freda said.
“For me, Freda?”
“Yes, sir, she asked for you.”
I thought Billie must have forgotten to finish something on her last shift and wanted to square it with me, or get Freda to do it while she was on duty.
“Hello, Billie,” I said into the phone, “what’s the gen?”
“Oh, hello, sir,” came her creamy, purring voice, “can I ask you a favour?”
I still thought it was going to be something to do with work.
“Of course,” I answered blithely, little knowing that my whole life was in the process of being changed from that very second.
“Well, sir, I’ve got a date with someone tomorrow night, and to be perfectly honest about it, I’d rather make it into a foursome. So would you be willing to come along?”
“Hell’s teeth, Billie,” I said, “this is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? But never mind, yes, O.K., you can count me in on it.”
“Oh, thank you very much, I knew you wouldn’t let me down, it’s such a load off my mind. You’re sure you’ve no objections?”
“No, of course I don’t mind, I’m game for anything,” I said brightly. “It isn’t Johnny, by any chance, is it?”
“Well, sir, as a matter of fact, it is,” she said confidentially. “I couldn’t very well get out of it and I thought it would be best if I tried to organise a foursome – the Londesborough Arms in Selby, if that’s all right with you. By the way, I’ve got some transport laid on from the W.A.A.F. guardroom to get us there, seven o’clock, assuming there’s a stand-down, of course, but we’ll have to make our own way back, so it’s bikes all round. We can push them on to the lorry to go to Selby.”
“Sounds bang-on,” I said.
Billie started to make end-of-conversation noises and was obviously about to hang up on me.
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“Just hold on a sec., Billie,” I chipped in quickly, “there’s just one small detail I’d like to get clear – who am I taking along?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that, sir,” she said airily, “I’m sure I can find someone nice for you. Thank you very much indeed.”
She put the phone down.
I lit a cigarette and drank a mug of tea thoughtfully, letting my imagination give me a pleasant few minutes until we got a call from Flying Control that we had an early return coming back. So, for the time being, at any rate, I put the thought of my blind date aside. When the main body of our aircraft came back, one of the crews I interrogated happened to be that of Johnny P - . His pilot was a chunky bloke with a staccato manner. Johnny just sat there quietly smoking and saying nothing, but looking silently into infinity, as though he’d never seen me, or his crew, before. It was a bit weird. Finally, Pam, Derek and I got the Raid Report completed and bunged it off to Holme by D.R. I got to bed about 0400.
I was awake again with just about enough time to cycle down to breakfast. It was a miserable morning, ten-tenths low cloud and raining like the clappers. But J – was on duty and the day seemed to brighten when I saw here. Pam was photo-plotting as hard as she could and I got my head down, alongside her, over the mosaic photograph, about four feet by three, of last night’s target. No-one said very much. The blackboard had been cleaned off, in readiness for the next one. The photo-plotting took a long time, there was so little ground detail on the crews’ pictures due to cloud-cover over the target. About ten-thirty we got a stand-down through; J – phoned it around to those who were concerned. Buy lunch time we’d only plotted about half a dozen photos. One thing about the Ruhr – if you missed the aiming-point you usually hit something or other in the way of a built-up area. It was a consolation.
At lunchtime the rain had eased and there were even a few breaks in the cloud to the west. Derek took over from me about two-thirty and promptly plotted one of the photos to within a couple of hundred yards of the A.P., from a sliver of ground detail you could hardly see.
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“Beginner’s luck,” I said laughingly, and went off for a sleep. I hit the mattress and knew no more for a couple of hours. When I awoke, it took me a few seconds to remember that I was going on a blind date that evening, but suddenly I felt unreasonably, unaccountably happy, swept along by a wave of well-being which had me whistling “Tuxedo Junction” and singing snatches of “Sally Brown” as I got myself spruced up and into my best blue. I don’t know why I should have felt like that; possibly as someone once said, the mood of flying men changes with the weather, and outside, I saw that the sky had cleared to a beautiful evening.
“Sally Brown is a bright mulatto,” I sang,
“Way, hey, we roll and go –
“She drinks rum and chews tobacco,
“Spend my money on Sally Brown!”
Which started me wondering, again, who my date would be. I honestly hadn’t a clue, Billie had given me no inkling whatsoever, but I trusted her implicitly not to saddle me with some worthy but plain girl who would spend the evening painfully tongue-tied and twisting her fingers together. Never mind, I thought, it’s quite a change for me and at least we might all have one or two laughs together and try to forget about ops and casualties for a couple of hours. At five to seven I was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, twenty yards or so from the W.A.A.F. guardroom, and trying also to think up a convincing story to tell the W.A.A.F. (G) Officer if she should appear and want to know what I was doing. As I was looking at my watch for the third or fourth time I heard a soft, musical voice say, “Hello, are we each other’s date?” and there she was, there was J - , looking quite wonderful.
My heart skipped a couple of beats, I could feel myself blushing scarlet and I found I was grinning foolishly. I managed to stammer something trite, or perhaps merely stupid. Anyhow, J – laughed, and I laughed with her, more or less in relief. I felt a bridge had been crossed, or at least, built.
Everything happened pretty swiftly after that. Billie and Johnny P – cycled breathlessly up, a fifteen-hundredweight lorry with several
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assorted aircrew on board screeched to a halt, and accompanied by a chorus of piercing wolf-whistles, Johnny and I loaded the four cycles on to the lorry, helped the girls up and scrambled aboard ourselves. Loud cries of “Let’s get airborne!” and “Chocks away!” and we were off, racing over the wet roads under the trees, through the village, being thrown companionably and tightly against one another as the driver took corners at some speed, and away to Selby, the nearest town of any size.
It turned out to be rather a dingy little place, I thought, but the pub itself was clean and surprisingly quiet, no Breighton types, or indeed no uniforms at all, apart from ours, to be seen. The evening went by in a blur which was only partly due to the intake of alcohol. Billie was her usual polished and poised self and Johnny never took his eyes off her. He looked like a thirsty man approaching an oasis. Such an unremarkable little chap to look at, a mere five feet six or seven, mousy, rather untidy brown hair, slim built like we all were on wartime rations and high levels of stress, but with an infectious grin which would suddenly light up his plain features.
What J – and I talked about I cannot for the life of me remember; I was completely bowled over by the simple fact of listening to her cool, musical voice. I think we talked about books and cricket, but had we simply sat in silence, that would have ensured my complete happiness, merely to be at her side, in her charming company. Considering the rationing position, we had a very good meal in the small, half-empty dining room. I remember how spotlessly white the tablecloth was. Johnny demonstrated his talents as an amateur conjuror, palming small objects and plucking them out of our ears, and so on. We had all had two or three drinks by then and our laughter came fairly freely. He did one small, silly trick with the chromium pepper pot, holding it between his fingers and rushing it down towards the table in the representation of a bomb’s rushing it down towards the table in the representation of a bomb’s trajectory, with the accompanying piercing whistle. We all duly made “boom” noises when it hit the cloth – except that it didn’t, it was no longer to be seen.
Eventually it was time to go. We undid the locks on our cycles in the twilight of the summer evening, and by tacit agreement, split
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up into two couples. J – and I didn’t hurry, tomorrow could take care of itself and we never saw Billie and Johnny again that evening. On the way back we stopped at a field-gate by the edge of a copse and leaned our elbows on the top bar, side by side, to watch the sickle moon slowly rise. One or two aircraft droned distantly in the starry vault of the darkening sky and we followed the nav. lights of one of them until they vanished into the haze and all was silent again, except for some small animal rustling his nocturnal way through the undergrowth. We didn’t talk much, I think we were both content with the magic of the still night and with each other’s presence and new-found companionship.
As we stood there, I tentatively put my arm around her shoulders and that small overture was not repulsed. We talked about Johnny.
“Do you know any of his crew?” I asked J - .
“Some of them,” she answered, “they seem nice lads. Johnny’s lucky to have a crew like that.”
“Yes,” I said, “he is. It’s a very special sort of relationship, there’s nothing quite like it.”
She turned to look at me.
“Your own crew, do you keep in touch with them?”
So I told her. She put a hand on my arm.
“I’m dreadfully sorry, I really had no idea that had happened.”
We cycled back to Breighton. I felt a great peace stealing over me. We stopped at the now deserted road by the W.A.A.F. guardroom.
“It’s been a lovely evening,” J – said, “thank you so much for it.”
“I’m the one who should thank you,” I said, “for putting up with me.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t say that, please. Anyhow, I must go now.”
She hesitated. Her lips, when I kissed her, were cool and sweet, like dew on a rosebud.
The next morning Base Ops., in the shape of Flight Lieutenant Smith, came on the phone.
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“Is that you, Breighton?” he asked in his dried-up schoolmaster’s voice. He would seldom, if ever, call you by your own name, you were only “Breighton” to him. I sometimes wondered what he called his pupils and more especially, whether he called his wife by her surname. So I was always deliberately and exaggeratedly casual in reply to him, just to irritate him.
“Yeah, Smithy, this is the Acting Unpaid Senior Int./Ops Officer, at your service. What can I do you for?”
Smithy was not amused. He sniffed loudly.
“We’re sending you some parcels. Store them in your little kitchen place, or whatever you call it. Don’t open them. That’s important, but keep them under lock and key until you’re told what to do with them, and keep the key on your person at all times. Is that understood?”
“Cloak and dagger stuff, eh, Smithy?”
He sniffed again and went on.
“Expect them in about half an hour. They go under the name “Window.” Is that quite clear, Breighton?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
He rang off and I mused a little, wondering what on earth it could be that was so secret and new.
A sheeted-over lorry arrived from Holme and we started to unload the innocent-looking brown-paper parcels, the size of shoe boxes, and quite heavy, too. We all pitched in and got the lorry emptied eventually. By this time you could just about squeeze up to the sink in there to make the tea. Which one of the girls did, as we needed some by then. I dutifully locked the door on the bundles but I could see this was going to be a real bind, so we laid on tea-making facilities with the W.A.A.F.s in the telephone exchange, next to the Ops Room, and moved our few mugs and kettle and so on in with them.
When things had quietened down and I thought no-one would notice particularly, I slipped quietly in to the Window Store, as I was now mentally calling it, locked the door carefully behind me and took down one of the parcels. Very carefully I made a small slit in one corner of the wrapping paper so that it would look like accidental damage. I looked inside. There were hundreds, or perhaps thousands,
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of what seemed to be paper strips, about an inch wide and a foot or so long, matt black on one side, silvered on the other. My first thought was that they were some new form of incendiary device. I sniffed them – no smell. What on earth could they be? Was it something to dazzle the searchlights, then? In that case, why weren’t both sides shiny? I could get no further with my theorising, but as it happened I was somewhere on approximately the right lines. I carefully replaced the bundle and went back into the Ops Room, not forgetting to lock the door behind me as I left the thousands of bundles of Window. I put on an innocent expression and started to whistle “Sally Brown”.
“Quite a nice day out there,” I said. I wonder if I fooled them.
The mysterious Window wasn’t a mystery for much longer. A couple of days later we got a target through, quite early on, which was a sign that the weather was going to be settled. Hamburg. Hence all those new target maps. And when the operational gen came through, bomb load, route and timings and so on, right at the end was the magic word Window. It was to be carried by all aircraft. The number of bundles per aircraft was stated, as were the points on the route where dropping was to start and finish. The dropping height and the rate of dropping was stated, everything was laid down. Then we guessed it. It was a radar-foxing thing.
“Let’s hope it works,” we said to one another.
Derek did the briefing and I went along to listen, sensing that this might be an historic occasion. The Station Commander stood up on the platform first, and conversation stopped abruptly. He looked slowly around the blacked out briefing room in the Nissen hut. You could have heard a pin drop.
“Gentlemen,” he said, very slowly and quietly, “the intention of tonight’s operation is to destroy the city of Hamburg.”
The silence was so intense you could almost feel it. He went on to say that they would be carrying a new device which would save us many casualties if it was used strictly in accordance with instructions, and he told them about Window, which was designed to swamp the enemy radar screens with hundreds of false echoes, each one looking like a four-engined bomber.
Well, as far as Breighton was concerned, it worked like a charm that night. When the crews came back, and the Squadron’s all did,
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they were highly elated about the results of the attack and the lack of opposition. Few fighters had been sighted, flak was wildly inaccurate and spasmodic and the searchlights were completely disorganised and erratic. The photographs proved their elation was well-founded.
Three days later it was Hamburg again, and my turn to brief them. I caught a glimpse of Johnny, sitting about three rows back, still with that distant look on his face, as though this had nothing to do with him. I mentioned this to J – when we met on night duty, the first time I had seen her since the night we had gone to Selby.
“I’ve noticed it, too,” she said, “I don’t know what it is with him. Maybe it’s because of Billie, of course, he’s absolutely overboard for her. She’s changed too, she’s gone much quieter than she was.”
“Yes, I’d noticed that,” I said, “funny what love does to you, isn’t it?”
I gave J – a sideways look. She had coloured just a little, but smiled and said nothing. We were in the lull before take-off time. We talked about the possible effects of Window on this second raid on Hamburg. We did not know it at the time, of course, but this night was to be known as the night of the fire-storm, when hurricane-force winds, caused by the immense uprush of air from the fires, were to sweep their flame-saturated way through the city, even uprooting trees which had stood in their path. And there were still two further raids to come in the next week, plus an American daylight attack thrown in for good measure.
“Did you notice the bomb-load was almost all incendiaries?” I asked J - .
“Yes, I did,” she replied, “I wouldn’t be in Hamburg tonight for all the tea in China; imagine, almost eight hundred aircraft with full loads of incendiaries.”
“Make them think a bit,” I said. “You know, J - , what I can’t understand is why they just don’t give in now, surrender while they’ve still got some towns which are fit to live in; it’s quite obvious that we’re just going to work our way through the list one by one and flatten all his cities – I can’t think why he will just allow this to happen.”
We talked, smoked and drank tea far into the night. When they came back, the crews’ elation was now tinged with awe. No-one had
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ever seen such tremendous fires, “a sea of flame” was a common description by the crews, with a smoke pall towering to above twenty thousand feet; you could smell it in the aircraft, some said.
It was either on one of the big Hamburg raids or very soon afterwards that Johnny P – ‘s crew did not come back. I have to admit, in shame, that they were, as far as my feelings were concerned, just one of the many that we lost – all good, brave lads, but now almost anonymous in their terrible numbers, like the headstones in a war-graves cemetery seen from a distance. I knew only few of them personally; when it happened, I felt the pang of the loss, but the impact was not so great, God forgive me, as that of the loss of a crew on my own Squadron, of men whom I had been flying alongside, or with. Perhaps there is a limit to the sorrow one can truly absorb and bear, perhaps a saturation point is reached when the loss of men becomes a ghastly normality, where the mind begins to accept it as part of the natural order of things. But later – then it will suddenly all strike home in some unguarded moment, with full savage impact, as it has done, many times since.
When the last crew had been interrogated the night that Johnny went missing I saw Billie standing to one side, pale as chalk, gazing wordlessly at the faces around her, waiting for Johnny, who would never bother her again. I went over to her and touched her shoulder.
“Try to get some sleep, Billie,” I said, “he may have landed away, you know.”
It was all I could say. She nodded miserably.
She was on duty next morning, when we started the photo-plotting, tense, deadly pale, her eyes haunted by heaven knows what dreadful visions. I had given her a cigarette and taken one myself when the clerk handed me something or other and distracted my efforts to produce my lighter. Billie said quietly, “I’ll get mine,” and, typically, dumped a load of stuff from her pocket on to the desk. It wasn’t a lighter which she’d got out, though, it was a chromium pepper pot. I froze. She clapped a handkerchief to her mouth and rushed blindly out of the Ops Room as we sat silent and motionless.
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Later that day I met J – outside the village church.
“Shall we go inside?” she said.
We stepped into the dimness of the nave. My mind was still on Johnny.
“The way he looked,” I said softly to J - , “do you think perhaps he knew?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “perhaps he did.”
It was cool and quiet in there. J – knelt in a pew and bowed her head; I knelt alongside her so that our sleeves touched. Somehow, I felt I needed that nearness of her. A Prayer Book was at each place; there was just enough light left to read. I opened the book and came upon Psalm 91.
“Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day. A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.”
J – ‘s face was calm, next to me, as I thought of Johnny, and of all the others. After a while I closed the book and slowly stood up. I took J – gently by the hand and we walked out, shutting the heavy oak door behind us, into the dim, evening green-ness of the churchyard and the faraway sound of engines in the summer twilight, as the first stars were beginning to appear.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Approach and Landing. [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] APPROACH AND LANDING [/underlined]
With the inevitablity [sic] of an experience of déja vu, it unrolled itself with preordained certainty in my dream, as completely familiar as the action of a film one has seen often before, slowly remembering it in all its detail, and on waking and thinking afresh about it, I realised with some surprise that I had never written about, or even spoken to anyone about this particular event – since the time that J – and I talked about it, that is – one which both at the time it happened and since that time, I had always privately marvelled – and shuddered at what might have been.
At night in the Ops. Room at Breighton, once 78 Squadron’s Halifaxes had taken off there was little to do for whoever was on duty. Normally there was one Int./Ops. Officer – that is, Pam, Derek or myself – one duty Watchkeeper, a W.A.A.F. Sergeant, Billie, Freda or J - , and an Ops. Clerk. There was time to catch up on all sorts of things which of necessity had to be shelved during the process of assisting perhaps twenty or so aircraft to take off, adequately prepared and correctly informed, to bomb some target in the Third Reich. There was, naturally, time to chat, time to drink tea and to smoke endless cigarettes while the hours crawled by until the tension of the time of the first aircraft due into the circuit approached. And when J – and I were on duty together (and I took some pains to ensure that we often were) the conversations were naturally more relaxed, more personal.
It was on one such occasion, when the names of people one had known in the Service were casually dropped into the talk like snowflakes on to a pond, to exist for an instant and then to vanish and to be almost forgotten, that one name struck a chord between us.
I mentioned F – ‘s name quite casually, as that of someone I had known well by sight but not personally, a pilot on our sister Squadron at Binbrook eighteen months before, and who was the central character in a very highly skilled but very high-risk piece of flying which I had witnessed from, literally, a grandstand seat, and which, these many years later, was the subject of my dream.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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At Binbrook, when operations were on, it was necessary to have what was termed a Despatching Officer, one who was not flying on that operation. He was provided with a light van and a driver, and was to ensure that in this van there was contained every conceivable piece of necessary equipment which any member of any crew flying on the operation was likely to find to be unserviceable or to have forgotten prior to takeoff – articles such as flying helmet, goggles, oxygen mask, intercom. leads, the various essential maps and charts, and so on. In the event of a sudden radio call from an aircraft to the Flying Control Officer on duty in the Watch Office that some such was required. The Despatching Officer would be driven rapidly to the relevant aircraft’s dispersal to deliver the required piece of equipment.
On one particular late winter’s afternoon, although both Squadrons were operating, my own crew was not among those detailed. And I was designated on the Battle Order as Despatching Officer. There was, as it happened, no call for my services and the Wellingtons started to take off, using one of the shorter runs, roughly north-west to south-east and passing within two or three hundred yards of the Watch Office. Once that I was certain that nothing was required, I went into the Watch Office and up on to the balcony to watch the aircraft taking off, bound for some target – I cannot recall which – across the North Sea.. All had left the ground and were on their way, vanishing into the evening sky to the east, when there was a call over the R/T from one of them which had just crossed the English coast. It was that piloted by F - .
One of his main undercarriage wheels, the port wheel, could not be retracted. He was climbing away with one wheel locked into the ‘up’ position and one which would not join it. Apparently he could neither retract the wheel which was locked down nor lower again the wheel that was retracted. He was carrying a 4000 lb. High Capacity blast bomb, irreverently and casually known to us as a ‘Cookie’. His Commanding Officer, watching take-off from the Watch Office, called him up on the R/T and ordered him to jettison the Cookie into the North Sea, then to return to the aerodrome to attempt what would have been, in any case, a fairly hazardous
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landing with a full petrol load. But it was the only possible and sensible procedure in these unfortunate and unhappy circumstances.
But F – was very much his own man. I knew him, from a distance, almost as the reincarnation of a cavalier of King Charles’ day, dark, good looking, dashing, individualistic, the complete extrovert. He might well have served as the model for Frans Hals’ “The Laughing Cavalier”. He replied – to his C.O., mark you – that he intended to bring his bomb back with him. Then, apparently, Wing Commander K - , his C.O. and he exchanged words and observations of some sort. But F - , literally in the driving seat, was adamant and persuasive enough to have his way. We waited rather breathlessly for what might transpire, as well as what his C.O. might say to him, should he, in fact manage to return safely.
After a short while, all the aircraft operating having cleared the area, we heard the note of F – ‘s Twin Wasp engines, as noisy as four Harvards, which is saying something. He appeared on the circuit, a grotesque and unsettling sight. To those of us who have flown aircraft, especially Wellingtons, it is an almost unconscious reaction on seeing any aircraft in the air, to project oneself, as it were, into the cockpit, holding the controls, glancing at the blind-flying panel’s telltale instruments, and in this case, in F – ‘s case, seeing the wretched sight of one green light and two reds in the trio of small undercarriage warning light on the dashboard.
There were now five or six of us on the Watch Office balcony and we watched tensely as F – steadily made his circuit and, throttling back, commenced his final approach. His particular aircraft, in common with a few on both Squadrons’ strengths, had been modified to carry a ‘cookie’, which was essentially a railway locomotive boiler, thin-skinned and packed with high explosive. The bomb was too deep to be accommodated in the normal Wellington bomb-bay, so the modification consisted in suspending it in a rectangular hole like an upturned, lidless coffin without bomb-doors, in the underside of the aircraft. And the bomb was by no means flush with the aircraft’s belly, it protruded, throughout its entire length, by several inches, horrifyingly open to flak, machine gun bullets, cannon-shells – or a belly landing. The sensitivity of the weapon was legendary, the name “blockbuster” applied
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to it by the press was completely apposite.
So F – made his approach, one wheel up, one down, a grotesque and unpleasant sight, the cookie protruding ominously. Why we stood there watching, goodness only knows. Perhaps we were simply too fascinated to move or perhaps we were quite unthinking as to what the outcome might be, should there be an accident, a bad landing, and the cookie were to explode. If that had been the case, I would not be writing this. Or perhaps we were just plain stupid or reckless not to have sought cover.
The aircraft slowly slid down its final approach in the quickly-fading daylight. We watched and waited, almost holding our breath. I remember lighting a cigarette with a hand which was not altogether steady. Then, holding the starboard wing over the ‘missing’ wheel well up, F – touched down, it must have been lightly, on the port wheel only, the engines throttled back to a tick-over. Miraculously, he kept the aircraft straight. We hardly dared look at the protruding cookie. As the Wellington slowed the starboard wing slowly drooped, and finally, at the end of the aircraft’s run, the wing finally scraped the runway, the Wellington slewed around through ninety degrees to starboard and came to a lopsided rest. The fire tender and ‘blood wagon’ raced up, but neither, thankfully, were needed.
It would be trite to say that we breathed again but I am sure that there were some of us who in the final seconds of the touch-down and landing run were actually holding our breath. We stood there, the small group of us, on the balcony, potentially exposed to what would have been a blast-wave of killing proportions not only for us, but for many quite far distant from the runway. Perhaps the fact that we stayed to watch was even due a degree of professional interest in the expertise of one of our peers. But the visual memory of F – ‘s landing that evening has remained with me as something at which to marvel.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Oh! Did you know F - , then?” J – asked, that night in the quiet Ops. Room at Breighton.
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“Only by sight” I replied, then I told her about the landing.
“I will never forget that, I assure you. You knew him, too, then?” I added. J – nodded.
“Oh yes, who didn’t? He was quite a character, wasn’t he?”
“’Was’?”
“Yes. Perhaps you didn’t know he had been killed at --- .” She named an aerodrome not too far distant.
Apparently F – had taken off on a non-operational flight. On board was also an A.T.A. girl pilot and the aircraft had, for some unknown reason, crashed, killing everyone on board. J – mentioned that there was a certain theory concerning something which might have been a contributory factor to the tragedy. I will not set down here what that theory was. But I shall continue to remember F – as I knew him at Binbrook, debonair, dashing, cavalier-like and above all, just that bit larger than life, and possessed of flying skills to which few of us could ever hope to aspire.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] Knight’s move [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] KNIGHT’S MOVE [/underlined]
“One sang in the evening
Before the light was gone:
And the earth was lush with plenty
Where the sun shone.
The sound in the twilight
Went: and the earth all thin
Leans to a wind of winter,
The sun gone in.
One song the less to sing
And a singer less
Who sleeps all in the lush of plenty
And summer dress.”
“Casualty”
from “Selected Poems” by
Squadron Leader John Pudney.
Once I had seen the hangar, intact, black and huge, just over the hedge as I rounded the bend of the lane, everything seemed to fall into place, even after so many years.
Everything, except, of course, that J – was gone. I shut my eyes for a moment and forced my thoughts away from her. God knew what became of Pam, and as for Derek, I never heard of him for years after I left Breighton. But now I had, for the first time, come back. Seeking what? I could find no answer to that in my mind, except that I had obeyed some inner compulsion to revisit the place and that somehow it seemed to bring me some peace and calm of spirit to be back there amid the quiet hedges, the ruined buildings, the memories, and the silent, empty sky, where among so many losses I had, with deep feelings of the unique guilt of the survivor, found
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my personal happiness when so many had lost everything, for ever.
I walked down the empty road in the warm October sunshine, past what remained of the East-West runway, and marvelled at the utter silence. The little river at the edge of the road slipped silently over its green weeds and I remembered Gerry, how he had aborted a takeoff one night, smashed through the hedge and across the road and had finished up with the aircraft’s nose almost in that river. Amazingly, they had missed everything solid and had all walked away from it. I smiled to myself as I recalled how everyone in the Mess had kidded him about it the following morning.
The Mess itself was till there, pretty well intact. One or two broken panes in the windows, the buff-coloured walls reflecting the warmth of the sun, the porch by now overgrown with tall weeds around which a bee idly buzzed. Now, no bicycles leaned against its walls, there was no C.O.’s car parked, no battledressed figures walked in and out, calling to one another – there was just the brilliant sunshine and the utter silence. And then, as I visualised the inside of the Mess, its layout, its half-remembered faces; I thought of the events of such another day of sunshine all that time ago. I saw the interior of the anteroom, the small table with the chessmen on their board, the young bomb-aimer sitting opposite me, frowning with concentration as we played, then looking at his watch and standing up reluctantly, the cracked record, “I’ve gotta gal, in Kalamazoo”. “Shall we finish it tomorrow?” I had said to him.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
My part of the briefing came second, as usual, after the Wingco had told them the target and shown them over the route on the wall-map. Most of the crews weren’t really interested in the industries, population or the other standard Intelligence gen which I served up to them, and I didn’t blame them; their main concern was what the defences were like – and, privately, whether they would get back. They were silent when I pointed out the flak and searchlight belt around the target, and a few night-fighter aerodromes near to their route. There were one or two whistles when I told them
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how many aircraft were on that night; it was quite a big effort and craftily organised so that there were two targets, the stream of kites splitting up abreast of and between the two towns, then turning away from each other to attack their respective targets some sixty miles apart. There were also elaborate Mosquito spoof attacks to draw off the enemy fighters from the main force.
“We hope that will fox the defences,” I concluded.
When briefing was over I left the hubbub and snatches of nervous laughter from the crews and cycled down to the Ops Room in the summer afternoon to try to finish plotting last night’s bombing photos. One of our Halifaxes was on his landing approach, another was on the downwind leg with his undercart lowered. One of their engines was slightly desynchronised and it made a throbbing note above the steady roar. The sun was very bright, the trees were a deep green above the huts and the houses of the village and it was warm.
One of the bombing photos was holding us up. There was only a small fragment of ground detail, more or less one block of houses, visible in the usual mess of smoke, cloud, bomb bursts, flak and fires. Pam was having a go at it when I arrived.
“Any luck?” I asked, throwing my cap on the table.
“Not yet,” she said, “but it must be somewhere near the aiming point because there’s so much going on in the photograph.”
We stewed over the mosaic for a time, trying to fit the photo in, which would enable us to discover where the aircraft had dropped his load of bombs. Pam looked along the approach side to the A.P., I took the exit side. Finally, I had it placed.
“Oh, good,” Pam said rather wearily, and stretched.
I measured the distance carefully.
“Can you give him a ring in the Mess, Freda?” I asked the duty Watchkeeper, “he’ll be wanting to know. Tell whoever you speak to that they were about a thousand yards from the A.P., would you?”
After that, we generally tidied up from last night’s effort, and as far as we could, from tonight’s preparations. I did a last minute check that the Pundit was in the right place and set to flash the correct letters, and that the resin lights on the aircraft were the correct colour combination. About six o’clock I went down to the Mess, put my feet up and relaxed. There were several battledressed and white sweatered chaps clumping about in their heavy, soft-soled flying boots, trying not to smoke too much, mostly a bit pale and rather quiet.
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Dinner was much as usual, no-one had very much to say to anyone else, at least among the crews who were on. Derek came in and said he was going up to relieve Pam on duty.
“See you before take-off,” I told him.
“What the heck for?” Derek asked, “there’s no need – why don’t you get some sleeping hours in till they come back?”
“Oh, I don’t know; I might as well be up there,” I said, not wanting him to know that J – and I had a sort of thing starting. I hoped so, anyhow. She would be taking over from Freda about now. I’d taken her out a couple of times and I thought she was pretty wizard; we seemed to speak the same language. Had to be a bit careful, though, the R.A.F. was touchy about male Officer – W.A.A.F. N.C.O. relationships. You could easily find that one of you was suddenly posted to Sullom Voe or somewhere like that, and the other to Portreath, or worse still, overseas.
I went into the anteroom. Someone had the radiogram going. It was Glenn Miller and the Chattanooga choo-choo on Track 29. I settled down with Tee Emm at a table where someone had left the chess board and pieces, and was chuckling over P/O Prune’s latest effort when a voice said, “Do you play?”
I looked up. He was a P/O Bomb-aimer, rather stocky, darkish, with his name on the small brown leather patch sewn above the top right-hand pocket of his battledress, his white, roll-necked sweater and half-wing looked rather new, I thought.
“Sure,” I said, “but not very well, I’m afraid. I’ll give you a game, though, if you like.”
“I’m not very good myself,” he said.
As we were setting out the pieces, “Who are you with?” I asked. He named his skipper.
“He’s good; flies these Hallies like Spits!” he said, laughing. For an instant, the lines of stress on his face were smoothed out in the snatched and fleeting relaxation of the moment, so that instead of looking like a young man, he looked like a very young one.
“Yes, I know the name,” I said, “I think I’ve plotted one or two of your photos recently. How many have you done?”
“Six”, he answered.
There was nothing I could say to that. Thirty trips was a hell
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of a way off when you’d done six.
He chose white from the two pawns I held in my closed fists.
“Off you go, then,” I said.
He opened conventionally enough, pawn to king’s fourth, pawn to queen’s third, and so on, and as we played I could tell we were both about the same calibre, on the poor side of indifferent. After a while, he started looking at his watch a lot and I could see his concentration was beginning to fade, but his knight was going to have my bishop and rook neatly forked, so I knew I was in for a bit of trouble. He sighed and said, “That’s about it for now, I’m afraid, I’ll have to get weaving up to the Flights.”
I said, “O.K., then, shall we finish it tomorrow? I’ll make a note of the positions, if you like.”
“Yes,” he said, “fine,” and got to his feet. “Thanks for the game.”
“Enjoyed it,” I said, and gave him the usual and universal Bomber Command envoi, “Have a good trip.”
“Sure, thanks,” he said, gave a half-wave and went out.
I watched him go. He looked rather like a schoolboy who had been sent for by the Head. A slightly cracked record on the radiogram was now telling us that someone liked her looks when he carried her books in Kalamazoo. I wondered idly where that was. I made a copy of the position on the chessboard and went out of the Mess. It was a beautiful summer evening, the sun was starting to dip now and there were some streaks of altostratus in the north-west. A faint breeze brought the twittering of sparrows; a blackbird nearer at hand was giving a few clarinet notes, intent on practising the first bar of his eventual good-night song. A Halifax droned over, to the east, high, probably setting off on a night cross-country or a Bullseye. His engines made a hollow, booming roar in the clear evening air. Then the Tannoy came to life with a hum and with a leap of the heart I heard J – ‘s voice come over, telling someone he was wanted at his Flight Office.
I cycled up the quiet road through the hamlet, which was companionably and inextricably mixed up with the Station’s huts, and turned right at the tall gable-end of a house on to the narrow concrete road which, in a few hundred yards beyond the W.A.A.F. site, came to the Ops Room.
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The sentry gave me a cheery “Good evening, sir,” and I went inside to the strip-lighting, the huge wall-blackboard, the central plotting table and the long desk with the telephones. Derek, J – and little Edith, one of the Int. Clerks, were on duty. I saluted and said, “Hiya, folks, everything under control?” It was. Edith was finishing writing up the captains and aircraft letters on the big blackboard and it looked impressive. You started to imagine the bomb-load from that lot going down on to a built-up area, and what it would do. Then you stopped imagining. I got busy with some paper-work, tying up loose ends and amending some S.D.s, then the clerk made some tea. J – ‘s phone was pretty quiet – it usually was a couple of hours or so before take-off – she was writing a letter, I think, and Derek was sorting out the mosaics alphabetically and sliding them back into the big drawer below the table.
“Time we had a new one for Hamburg,” he said, “this one’s about had it.”
“So’s Hamburg,” I said, “if it come to that,” and we grinned.
We drank tea, smoked and chatted a bit, mostly about our next leave. Derek was whistling “Room 504” off and on, and rather badly. There wasn’t a lot to do now except wait for a scrub, which we knew wouldn’t happen when there was a big summer high over western Europe. Odd calls came in to J – requesting Tannoy messages; she put them out and logged them all.
I went outside for a while to look at the sky. The Ops Room was windowless and the lighting and general fug got you down rather after a time, especially as we all smoked like chimneys. It was about nine o’clock. I looked over the cornfield which was just outside the Ops Room door. The corn was ripe, grown high, ready for harvest; the sky was very beautiful, pale green almost in one place, some stars showing, complete stillness.
“Calm before the storm,” I thought, rather tritely. I breathed the cooling air gratefully. Somewhere in the distance the blackbird was firing his short bursts of evening song. It was all very peaceful and the war seemed a hell of a long way off.
The sentry seemed fidgety, he was probably wishing I would hurry up and go in again so that he could have a quiet smoke himself.
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“Nice night,” I said to him.
Back in the Ops Room I felt we were completely insulated from the outside world. Until the phone rang.
“Ops, Breighton,” J – said. She listened, then put the phone down.
“Flying Control,” she said to me, “they’re taxying out. First off should be any minute now.”
“O.K.,” I said, “I might as well chalk them up.”
I was feeling a little strung-up; it would give me something to do. In a little while the phone rang again.
“Ops, Breighton….. right, sir, thank you.”
J – turned to me.
“B – Baker airborne 2149.”
I chalked up the time opposite ‘B’. After that, the phone went at very short intervals, until they had all gone. In the Ops Room we never heard a thing, only the hum of the air-conditioning and the buzz of the strip-lighting.
I imagined them doing their gentle climbing turns to port and setting course over the centre of the aerodrome, the Navigators carefully logging the time, the gunners in their turrets watchful for other aircraft, then climbing steadily away towards Southwold where they crossed out for the North Sea, the enemy coast and whatever lay in wait for them beyond, on the other side.
When they’d all gone, the Wingco came in for a chat. He was a good type and we all liked him. He and Derek shared an interest in painting, and after a while he took Derek off to the Mess for a drink. There wouldn’t have been much for Derek to do behind his desk, anyhow.
“Can you cope?” Derek asked, as he went.
“Of course,” I said, hiding my elation that J – and I would be able to have a talk. The clerk slipped off into the Int. Library, I think she sensed that three was a crowd. After a while, the phone rang again.
“Ops, Breighton….. yes, thank you, I’ve got that.”
She turned to me again.
“Flying Control. Early return, F – Fox, starboard inner u/s. I’ll phone the Wingco in the Mess.”
While she was doing so, I went outside again. It was quite dark now, and countless stars were showing. They had put the Sandra Lights on for
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F – Fox. In a little while I heard him coming from the south, then he came into the circuit with his nav. lights on, flashed ‘F’ on his downward ident. light and slid down on to the runway behind the H.Q. huts, his three engines popping as he throttled back. In the stillness I heard the screech of his tyres as they bit the runway, then his engine-note faded into silence. In a minute or two I heard his bursts of throttle as he taxied into dispersal. He would have jettisoned his load, and most of his petrol, into the sea. J – had logged his time of landing on the board.
“I’ve told the Wingco,” she said.
We swopped childhoods, parents and early Service days for a while, then I decided to go and have a sleep in the Window Store, on the bench. I must have been tired and slept very soundly, because I was awakened by knocking on the door and Edith’s timid voice calling, “First aircraft overhead, sir.”
I shivered as I swung my legs down off the bench and on to the stone floor; I always shivered when I heard those words, wondering how it had gone. Had they had much opposition? That was always my first thought. Had there been much fighter activity? What had the flak been like, and the searchlights? I never thought much about the target; what seemed to matter to me was whether they were all back.
I went into the Ops Room and lit a cigarette, passing my case around. Derek was back.
“Here’s Rip van Winkle,” he said, “come to muck things up for us.”
“Get knotted,” I grinned, “and let’s have my fags back.”
He threw my case back at me and I disappointed him by catching it. The phone rang; J – answered it. The first one had landed safely. Derek said, “I’ll get along and start the interrogations, Pam’s on, too.”
“O.K., Derek,” I told him, “I’ll be down later,” and he left.
He still had “Room 504” on his mind and it still sounded no better. The phone rang again, it was another one landed. They kept coming in steadily and whoever was nearest the blackboard chalked them up. By quarter to six we had them all back but two. I took a quick
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look around. The clerk was in the far corner collecting empty cups. I said to J - , quietly, “Can you meet me tonight? Seven o’clock? We’ll go to the Plough, if you like.”
She nodded.
“Yes,” she breathed, and smiled briefly. She still looked wizard, I thought, even at six o’clock in the morning after a long night duty. For a while we let our thoughts take possession of us. Then the phone broke the silence again. One of the two had landed away, in 3 Group. That left just one outstanding.
The minutes ticked by. Then I said the usual thing, one of us always said it at times like this.
“He could have landed away, too, and they haven’t told us yet.”
But there was actually only fifteen minutes left before his endurance, on the night’s petrol load, ran out. I went outside, restlessly. The Sandra Lights looked desolate in a vivid and rigid cone above the aerodrome, waiting in the silence which had now enveloped everything. Dawn was starting to break. It looked like being another perfect summer morning. Far away, a door slammed and someone whistled, loudly and jauntily. Probably one of the returned crews, just off to bed. The sky, lightening, seemed immense, the stars had faded and the trees were motionless. In a little while I went back inside.
“Anything, J - ?”
She shook her head. I looked at my watch. Time was up, and more. We were quite quiet for a long while. Then I said, “I was playing chess with his bomb-aimer just before they went. Let’s hope to God they are P.o.W.s”. We still sat, waiting. When I knew it was quite hopeless I said to J – “You’d better phone the Wingco and the Padre. I’m going to see about the photographs. See you this evening, then, goodnight, J - .”
“Goodnight, or rather, good morning,” she said.
I walked out of the Ops Room into the early morning with a feeling of weariness and desolation. What was it all about? I thought. It was quite cool outside; I reached for a cigarette and my hand found a piece of paper in my pocket. It was the sketch of the chess board. I looked at if for a minute or so, then I said,
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“Good luck, wherever you are.”
I screwed the paper into a ball and dropped it into the waist-high corn, and I thought of the seven men who might be lying amidst the wreckage of their aircraft somewhere across the sea. It was growing light now and a faint breeze stirred the ripened heads of the wheat. Somewhere, the blackbird was starting to sing. The Sandra lights had been put out. There was nothing left for me to do. I shivered, and turned away.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
With an effort I dragged my thoughts back to the reality of the present, and I realised it was already time to go. The sun was dazzlingly low, but its warmth still lingered and there was a faint scent of late roses as I walked up through the hamlet, towards the gable-end and the road to the Ops Room. An old man was stiffly tending his patch of front garden, and looked up as I said “Good evening.”
“Been a fine day,” he said. He saw my rucksack. “Have you come far?” he added.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve come a very long way,” and I walked on, into the silence and the shadows of the gathering twilight.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
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[inserted] [underlined] A different kind of love. [/underlined] [/inserted]
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[underlined] A DIFFERENT KIND OF LOVE [/underlined
“’Tis sure small matter for wonder
If sorrow is with one still”
(A.E. Housman)
Temporization, delaying tactics, putting-off. Call it what you will. I try to justify it be telling myself that whatever one calls it – and I am fairly certain we have all of us been guilty of it at some time – it is a human failing, and the guilt one feels, if one should feel guilt at some action or lack of action if it affects only oneself, has been felt by many another person. And should one indeed experience feelings of guilt if whatever the reason for the “putting-off” it affects only oneself? But I am afraid that in the circumstances which I have finally decided and brought myself to the point of describing, at least one other person must have felt some hurt, almost certainly deep hurt, and this is what has concerned me for a very long time. The thought and the concern I have felt is something which comes into my mind for no apparent reason at intervals of time, like the aching of a doubtful tooth which one knows will prove difficult and extremely painful of extraction. The moral points having been made, it is time for me to elaborate, sparing, I hope, no detail, least of all sparing nothing of the sad story of my own actions which undoubtedly started the whole business. These events, I know, will be re-lived in my mind, as they have been over the years, for days on end, producing invariably feelings of deep sadness and of ineradicable guilt.
I think it is worthy of mention that in the closing months of my career in the R.A.F. I was successively Adjutant of two units. The first of these was the unhappiest unit I had encountered, and the second, which followed immediately afterwards was without doubt the happiest one; one where I felt that those around me were like-minded. I went, at the behest of the powers-that-were in South East Asia Command, from one to the other on receipt of the appropriate signal, teleprinted on to paper, simply by walking from one tent to
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another on a crowded-to-capacity aerodrome near Rangoon, the Japanese surrender having thankfully taken place a few hours before. I met some of my new fellow-Officers and took to them immediately. First impressions were confirmed over the next days, weeks and months. On the final posting of my R.A.F. career I had arrived on a unit which was the most agreeable I had experienced in six years. I think that was understandable when one considers that I would wake in the mornings knowing that there was no war being fought, that no-one was going to be killed among those around me, no-one was going to go missing on operations and that one would not find an empty bed across one’s room in the morning, no empty chair in the Mess, no letters to be written to next-of-kin.
From the tented camp, where conditions were, to put it mildly, primitive, we were, after a few days, put on board a small paddle-steamer and left Rangoon for where we knew not. On this small ship I was to meet people with whom I was to work and play very happily for almost the last year of my service in the R.A.F. and with a few of whom I was to form enduring friendships, now alas, terminated by the inevitable and merciless passage of time.
It was on this ship too, where I first became acquainted with the music of Elgar. One morning as we were steaming southwards – we knew that much! – I was coming down a short flight of stairs leading to what, in terms of a house in England, would be described as a hallway or lobby. Some music was being played on a gramophone there and I was so struck by its grave beauty that I stood stock still on the stairway until it had ended. Then, moved by it and marvelling at its beauty I went up to the Equipment Officer who was playing it on his wind-up gramophone. This was at the time of 78 r.p.m. shellac records, of course. I asked him what he had just been playing and he was more than pleased to tell me that it was a movement from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, called Nimrod and explained the significance of that title. Little did I know that I was to hear the same music, in vastly different circumstances very soon, the recollection of which would have the power to move me deeply for years afterwards, not only because of the music itself, but because of the player of it and what the player meant – and still means – to me.
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We soon learned that we were heading for the island of Penang, of which most of us had heard, but that was all, as part of Operation Zipper, the British occupation, or rather re-occupation, of what was then Malaya, after the Japanese surrender and withdrawal. We were to be, in fact, the first R.A.F. unit to land in Malaya. And so it was. We arrived at the quayside of Georgetown, the principal town, under the massive shadow of the battleship H.M.S. Nelson, anchored next to us. Over the next few days we found our quarters in an old army cantonment on a wooded hillside, at Sungei Glugor, and took possession of the small aerodrome at Bayan Lepas in readiness for the arrival of a Spitfire squadron and a detachment of two Beaufighters from Burma. We hunted for furniture for the empty and deserted cantonment and found ample in the abandoned dwelling houses on the island. We readily imagined what must have happened to the original occupants during the Japanese occupation.
Within days we had the Station operating and thanks to the Royal Signals, in contact with our parent formations at Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The Spitfires and Beaufighters duly arrived. We were an operational formation.
Now that I was settled into a permanent location I had the time and facilities to write a letter to J – every day, as she did to me. We had been engaged to be married for just under two years and there was a clear agreement between us that we would not be married until after we were both settled into civilian life again. Never did either of us doubt the promises made to one another and despite the time and distance which separated us, neither of us doubted the fidelity or behaviour of the other. J – was a W.A.A.F. Sergeant on an operational bomber station, now thankfully converted to peaceful purposes, and she was surrounded by some hundreds of both W.A.A.F. and R.A.F. personnel. As for me, my surroundings were peopled exclusively by men. The relationship between J – and I was firmly founded on mutual trust.
It had been decided that we should participate in a Service of Thanksgiving in one of the churches in Georgetown, and the arrangements were soon made, as were the arrangements for a victory march-past of all the armed services in Georgetown’s Victoria Park.
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I suppose there were over 100 of us to attend the service, which was held in the Chinese Methodist Church on a pleasant evening. A sizeable Chinese contingent were also present, men and women, all beautifully dressed in white. I was near to the right hand end of a pew fairly near to the front of the church, and as I took my place the organ was being played. To my amazement and delight I immediately recognised the tune as none other but ‘Nimrod’, which I had only recently come to know and which had made such an impression on me on the boat coming down from Rangoon. Smiling to myself, I looked up and to my right to see if it was one of our number who was the organist. My further surprise was that it was not anyone that I knew, but someone I took to be a Chinese youth in a white surplice. And then I saw that I was again mistaken; the organist was a Chinese girl in a long white dress. As she finished ‘Nimrod’ she moved almost seamlessly into a Chopin E Minor Prelude whose tune, full of yearning, almost brought tears into my eyes.
The service itself was jointly conducted by a Chinese clergyman about 50 years old and of almost ascetic appearance, and our own Methodist Padre. During the service an announcement was made that light refreshments would be served in the church hall afterwards and I determined to be there, partly from personal preference and partly because as Wing Adjutant it would obviously be my duty not to return immediately to the cantonment at Glugor but to show a degree of sociability towards the local people who were our hosts.
It dawned on me that since I had left England more than six months previously I had never seen a member of the opposite sex in that time, nor even heard a female voice. My mother, on my embarkation leave and J – immediately prior to my going on leave, had been the last two women to whom I had spoken.
I wondered, as, the service over, I went into the fairly crowded church hall, whether the girl organist would be there so that I could tell her how I had enjoyed and been moved by her choice of music. She was indeed there, one of those serving refreshments at a line of tables at one side of the hall. I was extremely pleased, went straight across to her, and smiling, spoke to her, complimenting
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her on her playing.
She smiled depracatingly [sic] and brushed away with her hand one side of the curtain of her collar-length black hair from her face, a gesture which, so characteristic of her, I have recalled very many times since. Her voice was soft, musical and charmingly accented, reminding me forcibly of J – ‘s own voice. She apologised for not having played well; she said she was out of practice. These few seconds were the start of an utterly delightful, all-too-brief, but quite unforgettable friendship. It became a friendship, and only that. Nothing more. During the time that I knew her I never once touched her, not even to shake hands when eventually I left Malaya for good. (‘For good’? I was in two minds about that. I felt I was being torn apart). My promises to J – were unbreakable and at no time did I think even of the possibility of breaking them. We were engaged to be married; we would be married as soon as it could be managed when I returned to the U.K. Strangely, I have only just discovered some poignantly applicable words in a chanson by the 14th century Guillaume de Machaut –
‘…. in a foreign land,
You who bear sweetness and beauty
White and red like a rose or lily ….
The radiance of your virtue
Shines brighter than the Pole Star ….
Fair one, elegant, frank and comely,
Imbued with all modesty of demeanour.’
I was not alone in making a friend in the local community; there were at least two other Officers to my knowledge who formed attachments of one sort or the other while we were on the island.
And at home? J - , in her daily letters to me occasionally mentioned going to dances on the aerodrome where she was stationed and I presumed that obviously she danced in the arms of men. But I trusted her as implicitly as I hope she trusted me. She mentioned two men, both Australian pilots, by their nicknames. One of them was killed, with all his crew, when they crashed within sight of the aerodrome on returning from an op. No reason for the crash was ever
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established. But to my discredit I could not help feeling a twinge - - perhaps more than that – of jealousy whenever I read their names in her letters. And some time after J – and I were married, while we were once talking about wartime days and nights, quite out of the blue she said, only half-jokingly, “If I hadn’t married you I would have married an Australian”. I remember that I smiled but said nothing. What could I say?
I find it difficult now to describe Chiau Yong adequately as I saw her then and as I think of her now, without using trite phrases or words which in this age of cynicism would be sneered at or greeted with unbelieving or sarcastic laughter. But then, and over the weeks which followed I was charmed by her placid nature, her smiling, childlike innocence, her undoubted beauty and her impish sense of humour.
That evening in the church hall, as I chatted to her, standing as we were at opposite sides of the table of refreshments, I felt a growing happiness which I had not known for a long time stealing over me and calming me, as though the war, with all the tragedies which I had seen and experienced, had never taken place.
When, regretfully, it was time for me to go I had learned her name and that she was the daughter of the clergyman whose church this was. I had also, hesitantly and tentatively, expecting nothing except possibly a polite rebuff, asked if I might see her again by coming to hear her organ practice, whenever that might be. She shyly consented and I felt, as I left the hall, that my feet were hardly touching the ground. I think I must have been smiling foolishly, but fortunately no-one commented as we boarded the gharries to return to Glugor.
As often as I possibly could I went to the church and sat in a pew near to the front, where I could see her sitting at the organ console, while she practised, content to listen to the music she made and to watch her as she played, quite unperturbed that I was there, a few feet away from her, listening and watching. Sometimes I went with her into her home, where she played the piano for me. And often we talked. Her English was truly excellent, somewhat reminiscent in her use of words and phrases of the Victorian era, but none the less lucid and charming to hear spoken
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in her soft, lilting voice. We talked about the music she played; she asked what sort of music I liked. We talked a little about our respective backgrounds. She was keen to learn anything about England. I mentioned one or two of my wartime experiences but asked for no details of hers or of her family’s under the Japanese occupation. I developed an interest to scratch the surface of knowledge of the Chinese language. Her own dialect, and that of her mother, who spoke no English, unlike her father and her sister, was Hokkien. She and her sister, who joined us on one occasion when we sat talking, amused themselves and entertained me by translating my name into written Chinese ideographs, which they pronounced as ‘Yo-min’. Whenever Chiau Yong wished to draw my attention to something or ask me a question, it was always prefaced by her saying ‘Mister Yo-min….’ . I suppose in her strict upbringing, which I assumed she had had, the use of my Christian name would have been seen as unduly familiar.
She taught me the numerals from one to ten and chuckled delightfully behind her small hand at my unavailing efforts to pronounce the words for ‘one’ and ‘seven’ correctly. To my ears they sounded identical; I am afraid that I was an obtuse pupil. I asked her about her own name; she told me that it meant ‘shining countenance’ which, I thought, could not have been more appropriate. As to her age, I never enquired. I would have put her as being slightly younger than I. I was 24 at the time, she would be possibly around 20, I thought.
I met her parents on at least one occasion. They very kindly invited me to come to their home for an evening meal, which I was glad and honoured to do. Two things stand out clearly in my mind about that occasion: the number of different languages spoken around the table and the sense of peacefulness which surrounded us. Her mother, a quiet middle-aged lady, simply dressed in black, spoke only Hokkien which, if she addressed me, was translated by Chiau Yong, as was my reply to her mother. Her father, the minister, spoke excellent English in a calm and measured manner. Her sister, Chiau Gian and her rather quiet younger brother spoke English too, for my benefit. Chiau Yong, who had told me that she was learning Mandarin, the classical Chinese tongue, spoke in English, of course, to me, in Hokkien to her mother and in Malay to the houseboy who appeared from time to time on his domestic errands.
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After I had visited their home on several occasions to see Chiau Yong and to hear her play, I was slightly surprised when one afternoon, as we were talking together, a pilot from the Spitfire squadron which had arrived came into the room. I knew D – P – well enough to talk to, but I thought, in my limited understanding of such things, he did not fit into my preconceived idea of what a fighter pilot should be like. He was, from what I had seen of him in the Mess, not only slightly older-looking than the other pilots, with somewhat thinning hair, but also of a quieter disposition than most of the others. However, a Spitfire pilot he was, whatever ideas I had formed about the differences between them and bomber pilots such as I had been. I gathered he had come to see Chiau Yong’s father, and not being interested in the reason for his visit I promptly forgot about him after we had exchanged polite enough greetings on this and on one or two further occasions when he came to the house to see Mr. Ng.
I knew that my time on the island and indeed in the R.A.F. must shortly come to an end. Being an administrative officer, as Adjutant, I could almost forecast when my time would come to ‘get on the boat’ and while others around me were obviously in a fever of impatience to get back to ‘civvy street’, as it was always called, I found my own state of mind to be more in the nature of calm acceptance, knowing that while I would be returning to J - , whom I loved and to whom I would be married, somehow, somewhere and at some time, I had spent a quarter of my life and almost all my adult life in R.A.F. uniform and would find things difficult or indeed incomprehensible.
At about this time our unit, 185 Wing, received orders to move across to the mainland, into Province Wellesley, to become R.A.F. Station Butterworth, leaving very good and well-appointed accommodation for something not quite so commodious. But there was a very good ferry service between Butterworth (which local people knew as Mata Kuching) and Georgetown, so I was still within easy reach of the town, its cafes, good sports facilities which were well used by us all, and above all, still within easy reach of Chiau Yong.
Towards the end of my service at Butterworth, on one visit to her, she suggested that we take a cycle ride to see some nearby parts
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of the island which were strange to me, and this we did for a couple of hours, along deserted roads, up hillsides, almost always under the cover of trees with their blossoms, so exotic to my eyes, with their birdsong, and the chattering and calling of monkeys and chipmunks.
The idyll had to end. I think my unconscious mind has, as a defence mechanism, obliterated the recollection of our goodbyes, for I can remember not one single thing about it. It is as though it had never happened. But it must have done, of course. I returned to England, a stranger to a strange land. Standards had changed, attitudes had changed, there was no longer the feeling of one-ness, of co-operation and togetherness which the war had engendered. It seemed now as though it were ‘every man for himself and damn the others’. I let a decent interval of two or three days pass as I settled in at home with my parents then I travelled south to be with J - . It was a happy but strange reunion. Strange to see her in civilian clothes, strange to see her leave to catch an early train to Brighton to work for the South Eastern Gas Board. All our talk was of when, where and how we were going to be married and where we would live. In the end, with the willing help of my parents, I found very basic accommodation in my home town, as I had agreed with J – that I needed to return to my old occupation and to obtain a necessary qualification as soon as possible.
J – and I were married in the autumn from her aunt’s home in Surrey and after our honeymoon in Edinburgh we were thrust into the realities of married life in cramped surroundings, comprehensive rationing, with a shared kitchen, and where even the basics of living necessitated stringent saving on my salary, with all of which J – coped amazingly well. I had to study hard in the evenings in the same small living room where J – was usually reading or knitting, deprived of the radio so as not to disturb me. Settling down at work was none too easy. My superiors were a man who had somehow missed the first World War and who was too old for the Second, his deputy, who had tried hard to dissuade me from volunteering for aircrew on the grounds that I would be probably be instrumental in killing people and who himself, had he not been reserved from military service as a key employee would have been compelled to describe himself as a conscientious objector. There were also two ex-R.A.F. men, who in six years of service had attained the respective ranks of Corporal
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and of Leading Aircraftman. Perhaps because I had outranked them it became apparent that any particularly physically dirty or awkward job was allocated to me. I accepted the situation as a continuation of military discipline, as I did when the office clerk, a lady of mature years, when I politely declined to do part of her far less than arduous work for her (so that she would have more time for gossiping, I suspected), told me rather angrily and unimaginatively that since “I’d been away” I had changed, which I thought was something of an understatement. I never talked of my wartime experiences and no-one asked me a single question. All they knew was that I had flown aeroplanes, been over Germany and finished my career in the Far East. The rest was silence.
Having neither a telephone nor a car I kept in touch with friends I had made in the R.A.F. by letter and rarely did a week go by without news from someone, either in the U.K. or some other part of the globe. My correspondents, of course, included Chiau Yong, whom I had told in a letter that I was finally married, and had given her my address. I certainly had not forgotten her and whenever I thought of her I smiled mentally at the remembrance of her charming company and her music-making.
At this time, although of course there was no means of knowing it, J – was sickening for a serious, potentially fatal illness, which within months was to take her into sanatoria for more than a year of her young life. Whether this slow decline in her health, coupled with the novelty of her surroundings and circumstances contributed to the short and low-key breakfast table conversation which took place between us I do not know, but I suspect it might have done so.
I remember vividly that it was a Saturday morning. There were two letters for us, one for J – and one for me, which, to my delight I saw was from Chiau Yong. We opened our respective mail at the breakfast table. The letter was typical of Chiau Yong’s nature – pleasant, equable, written in beautiful English and containing some mildly jocular reference to something I must have once said to her about settling down into civilian life. It contained no word of love; it ended without those conventional little crosses which were the well-known signs for kisses. I would have been astonished beyond measure if it had done so. J – had finished reading her own letter. I smiled across the table and said “From Chiau Yong. Read it, darling”.
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She took it without a word and read it expressionlessly. I had no inkling of what was to come as she handed the letter unsmilingly back to me. Looking directly at me, she said “I don’t think it’s right that she should be writing to a married man like that and I think you should tell her so”.
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I was completely taken aback with shock and surprise. I had known J – for more than three years during which time we had seen eye-to-eye on almost everything and no word of disagreement had ever passed between us. But I recovered my composure quickly and knowing that one’s wife must come first in everything, I said “All right”.
I immediately left the table, got the writing pad and sitting down again in front of J – I wrote the cruellest words that I have ever in my whole life composed. My opening words are to this day burned into my memory.
“Dear Chiau Yong”, I wrote, “In England, a married man does not write letters to another girl”. And I continued briefly that the correspondence between us must now stop. It took about three minutes. I handed the letter wordlessly to J – who read it and gave it back to me with a nod. “Yes,” she said.
Chiau Yong’s name was never again mentioned during our married life, but I cannot and would not pretend that, happily married as we were for almost 40 years, I never thought of Chiau Yong. For I have thought of her often and I have been deeply and bitterly troubled that I must have been the cause of her suffering so much shock and pain so unexpectedly and, in my eyes, without any reason, and certainly not by any misdeed of hers, intentional or otherwise. I have prayed again and again over the years, and still do, that she might have eventually forgiven me. I never saw her again; I never heard from her again. Whether she is alive or dead, was or is happy or unhappy, I do not know, but I do know that she brought light and sweetness in unbelievable measure into my life and that our short and beautiful friendship was as innocent in every respect as any relationship could be.
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There is a curious and disturbingly bitter postscript to this unhappy episode in my life. J –‘s parents lived in Worthing and naturally she wanted to see them and her unmarried younger sister whenever she could. We had not much money, but by dint of hard saving we were able to spend two or three weeks every summer, usually during the Worthing Cricket Week, with her parents. One summer’s day, not all that many years before she died, J – and I were walking through the park near to the Worthing sea front. We left the park and crossed the road, going towards Lancing, still near to the sea. On the corner stood a church whose denomination I did not know – until I read on a notice board erected near to the church door, “Minister – D. P. –“ I looked away quickly before my shock and astonishment became too obvious. It could only have been the Spitfire pilot from Penang who used to visit Chiau Yong’s father, presumably for some sort of guidance or instruction as to his post war vocation. If things had been other than they were I would have gone immediately with J – to seek him out, to talk over the times when we first met, but of course Chiau Yong’s name would have come into our conversation. I walked on in silence, as though nothing untoward had happened, but with my mind in a turmoil. So J – never knew about D – P – , about his nearness and of the memories I still had of sunlit afternoons in the church hall in Georgetown where I would sit talking with that beautiful young girl in her long white dress.
Was I in love with Chiau Yong? Can one be in love with two people at once? Was that possible when I never stopped loving J - ? These are questions I have many times asked myself. The only self-convincing conclusion to which I can reasonably arrive is while there was no element whatsoever of the physical aspect of love in my relationship with her, yet I feel that the affection which I held and hold for her, whatever her feelings might have been for me, was more than mere friendship, that this was a different kind of love. Christ exhorted us to love one another. We were both Christians and I think that this is what He meant us to feel for one another.
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And so now, very often, while I have been writing this belated account of something which has haunted me for a very long time, and very often since I wrote that terrible, wounding letter, I remember with a sort of poignant gratitude and happiness, bitter-sweet happiness, the beauty of her nature and her innocent sweetness and I thank God for the gift of happiness which she gave me. But at the same time I feel a profound and bitter guilt and sadness, knowing that the dreadful hurt which she must have suffered and perhaps for years remembered was due to no fault of hers but was entirely due to me.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Mi querer tanto vos quiere,
muy graciosa donzella,
que por vos mi vida muere
y de vos no tiene querella.
Tanto sois de mi querida
con amor i lealtad,
que de vos non se que diga
viendo vestra onestad.
Si mi querer tanto vos quiere,
causalo que sois tan bella,
que por vos mi vida muere
y de vos no tiene querella.
(Enrique, d. 1488)
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[inserted] [underlined] Sun on a chequered tea-cosy [/underlined] [/inserted]
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O where are you going, Sir Rollo and Sir Tabarie,
Sir Duffy and Sir Dinadan, you four proud men,
With your battlecries [sic] and banners,
Your high and haughty manners,
O tell me, tell me, tell me,
Will you ride this way again?
(School Speech Day song, 1936.)
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[underlined] SUN ON A CHEQUERED TEA-COSY [/undelrined]
It was Zhejian green tea. I poured the water on, placed the lid carefully on the pot and took the tea-cosy in my left hand. The sun through the kitchen window shone brightly across its red and green checks. And stirred some memory, deep down in the recesses of my mind. Those checks had some significance, somewhere from a long way back. I stood there, looking down at the covered teapot and let myself relax until the realisation slowly dawned. I was looking again at the band around Ivor’s R.A.F. peaked cap when he was an apprentice at Halton, before the war, and I found myself thinking back to the times I had walked with him along the cliffs, hearing the gulls screaming overhead and wheeling in the sunlight, laughing with him as he sang “Shaibah Blues”, with the waves crashing on to the rocks below.
I never thought I would find myself in the position of trying to do a small thing to defend Ivor, after all this time, but, of course, there’s no one else left to do it now. Looking back over it, although so many years have passed since H – wrote what he did, it still seems to me that they were very cruel words to use, especially as Ivor had no means of defending himself, no right of reply nor of appeal. It was something so barbed that it eventually acquired, through its re-telling, the significance and nature of a legend, and in the perverse way of things it elevated Ivor to the status of a minor hero. But all the same, at the time it took place I could see it had made a deep and lasting impression on him, young and resilient as he was. And now, to me, at any rate, H – ‘s words about Ivor have acquired a poignancy which can never to expunged.
Ivor need not, of course, have let anyone into the secret; one didn’t do that sort of thing, very often, at school, in case it was thought that one was being sissy or trying to attract attention and sympathy, but it was sufficient to indicate to me, and to John, I believe, who was there at the time, how deeply it had struck home, when Ivor approached us one day on the Second Field, before school went in.
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It was the beginning of the Autumn term. The field behind the woodwork room looked bare and open without the cricket nets; the marks of the bowlers’ run-ups and of the batting block-holes could still be seen. The rugby pitch, away down the slight slope, looked very green and inviting with its newly painted posts and flawlessly straight white lines. During the winter months I lived for rugby and thought of little else; scholastic subjects took a poor second place.
As was the custom, about half the school were engaged in punting a single rugger ball around, more or less at random, before lessons started, competing with one another to catch it then punt it as far as one could again. It sounds, and looked, I suppose, pointless. But it was rare that anyone in any match missed catching a kick by the opposition, and no-one at all would dream of letting the ball bounce before he attempted to take it. I was squinting up into the sun at the flight of the ball when I heard someone call, “Hey! Yoicks!”
I turned to see Ivor. John, who was nearby, grinned when he saw him and came over, with his rather stiff-legged, rocking walk. Ivor and I exchanged the usual new-term greetings and repartee – where had we been, had we seen the latest laurel and Hardy picture, and so on. Then, surprisingly, for the old term was now but a hazy memory, Ivor said, “What was your report like?”
“My report?” I repeated in astonishment.
“Yeah, what was it like?” Ivor repeated, attempting a casual nonchalance.
I was surprised at his interest in that, because Ivor, more so than I, perhaps, was not particularly scholastically minded. He had the build of an athlete, taller than me by four or five inches, heavier by almost a stone, with dark, short-cropped hair, a freckled face and a pugnacious jaw. He moved with the natural athlete’s springy lope. He was a more than adequate boxer, a hard-working and aggressive lock forward and, during the summer, a forthright, attacking middle order batsman, as well as being a bowler of fearsome pace and hostility, if rather lacking in accuracy.
“What was it like, then, your report?” he repeated insistently.
To be truthful, I could hardly remember much about it; I took little interest in it, apart from my French result and the comments opposite “Games”. My parents rarely commented on it either, except to tell me, with some regularity, that I would have to pull my socks up.
“Oh, all right, I suppose,“ I said off-handedly to Ivor. “I was top in French,” I added rather smugly. He ignored that.
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“What did H – have to say – about your Speech Training?”
I looked at him in amazement. Speech Training? It just didn’t count; there was no exam., no placings, just remarks on the term’s progress, or lack of it.
For a short while around this period of time, the powers-that-were quite rightly decided that we should be put on the path towards becoming at least partly comprehensible in our speech to someone who might live more than half-a-dozen miles away. And Mr. H - , as a recent graduate from Oxbridge, was deputed to perform this function. It must be said that he did so with rather bitter sarcasm, delivered under a thin veil of feigned jocularity, which did little to impart in us either the ability, or indeed the desire to speak our mother tongue in a widely acceptable form. In fact, it had, in some cases, where the pupil concerned was either of a rebellious or strongly independent nature, quite the reverse effect, as toes were, metaphorically speaking, firmly dug in.
Into this category Ivor fell; he took very personally and very much to heart the barbed remarks directed at him during the rather tedious classes in Speech Training, and in the end, it was obvious to everyone that he was adopting an attitude verging on passive resistance to H – ‘s instruction. It seemed that Ivor’s was the proverbial duck’s back off which the pure water of H – ‘s tuition flowed unheeded.
Ivor seized me, in mock anger, by the lapels of my blazer.
“C’mon, c’mon!” he exclaimed in his best Humphrey Bogart accents, “Come clean, y’rat!”
“Well,” I said, rather tired of the subject by now, “if you must know, I think he said something like ‘fairly good’. I didn’t get myself told off by my parents, anyhow, so it can’t have been too bad. But why, anyhow? What’s all the fuss about?”
Ivor’s eyes narrowed and he looked around him before, dropping his voice, he said to John and me, “Do you know what the rotter put on mine?”
“No,” I said, somewhat obviously.
“Well, on mine, he said, ‘Seems incapable of sustained effort’, the so-and-so. My Dad played merry hell about it, threatened to
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stop my pocket-money and goodness knows what.”
“I say, it is a bit thick, though, isn’t it, H – saying a rotten thing like that? I mean to say – “
I left the sentence unfinished; I felt that H – ‘s remark was a bit much. Surely he could have simply said ‘fairly good’ or ‘could do better’? They were the customary form of words. But this, well, it was rather damning. Both John and I made sympathetic noises, then John passed around his wine gums. I let Ivor have the black one and we chewed them in thoughtful silence, each of us meditating on the rat-ishness of H - . The next time I caught the ball I passed it hard to Ivor and he gave vent to his feelings with a tremendous punt which almost cleared the fence by the Art School.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
At that age, memories are short, and mine was no exception. I cannot speak for Ivor, of course; I suppose that somewhere inside that stubborn, defiant head of his a resentment still burned, and as far as H – was concerned, while it would be quite unfair to say that he had it in for Ivor, it was apparent that he singled him out with some slight relish as the object of any cutting remarks he felt inclined to make concerning our defective pronunciation. But it was something which, to be honest about it, did not loom very large in my life. Perhaps twice a week, during the Speech Training lessons I would look covertly, with mingled anticipation and apprehension, at the scornfully sarcastic H – and at a reddening Ivor, his lower lip jutting stubbornly, as the temperature of the atmosphere rose between them. But my Autumn term was dominated by the fact that I was picked to play for the Junior House fifteen.
I knew, of course, that Ivor’s eldest brother was in the Royal Air Force; from time to time he mentioned him, proudly, and looking back, I realise that I never knew his first name, he was to Ivor, simply ‘my brother’. Somehow, it lent them both a great deal of dignity, I think. Ivor would also tell us the latest Station his brother was on, their romantic-sounding names supplying, as it were, a coloured backdrop to the anonymity of ‘my brother’ in his coarse, high-necked airman’s tunic and peaked cap pulled down on his brow,
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as I saw him in my imagination, marching in a squad of men – I did not yet know they were called ‘flights’ – across a vast parade ground.
“He’s on a course at St. Athan, just now,” Ivor would tell us, or, “My brother’s been posted to Drem,” or again, “He’s at Scampton.”
What his brother did, exactly, we never knew, nor thought to ask, it was sufficient that he inhabited and was part of a picturesque, far-off and dashing world, greatly removed in every way from our monotonous and rather dreary provincial town.
One day, Ivor came up to John and me and said, proudly, “My brother’s been posted overseas, he’s gone to Aden.”
John said, mischievously, “Will he be wearing a fez?” and had to dodge the powerful left swing which Ivor pretended to aim with serious intent at him. On the strength of that news, John and I took to calling Ivor “Ali”, but we could tell he didn’t much like it, and as he was still the target of H – ‘s jibes we thought he had sufficient to contend with, so we eventually dropped it.
It was during the Christmas holidays when I was, for want of something better to do, in our sitting room playing the piano rather loudly and very inaccurately, that my mother put her head around the door.
“You’re not concentrating,” she said, “I can tell, you know. But there’s someone here for you, do you want me to bring him in?”
“Who is it?” I asked, glad of the interruption.
“I think he said his name was Bradley,” she replied.
“Oh, it must be Ivor, then,” I said, feeling much less bored and getting up from the piano. I went to the front door. Ivor was standing there with an expression of elaborate unconcern on his face.
“Hello, Yoicks,” he greeted me.
“Hiya,” I said, “what are you doing here?”
I thought perhaps he might want to borrow a book, or something.
“I was just going for a walk along the cliffs – want to come?”
This surprised me slightly as he wasn’t by any means a regular friend of mine away from school; there were a group of five or six of us who lived near to one another and who tended to congregate
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on our bikes in our immediate neighbourhood; Ivor lived all of three-quarters of a mile away in quite another part of the town, separated from our district by a railway line.
“Sure,” I said, glad of the distraction, “just hang on, I’ll shove my coat on.”
As I was doing so, “Mother!” I called, “I’m just going along the cliffs with Ivor.”
“Mind you don’t get cold,” she said, “Have you got your coat on?”
I rolled my eyes at Ivor, who grinned understandingly.
“Yes, Mam,” I said, in a long-suffering voice, and shut the door quickly behind me. We strode away.
When we arrived at the cliff-tops, the cold easterly wind was smashing the rollers against the rocks below and tugged at our overcoats as we walked. Until then we had talked of the usual things, what we had had for Christmas presents, the “flicks”, as Ivor always called them – a word learned from his brother, perhaps? – and how we had been passing the time during the holidays.
“My brother’s in Aden,” Ivor said, “did I tell you?”
I said yes, he had told us, how was he getting along?
“Great,” he said, “but it’s bloody hot out there. They’re all wondering what this bloke Mussolini’s going to do, he keeps talking about – what’s its name? – Abyssinia, or some place?”
I wasn’t greatly interested in the comical figure of the Italian dictator, comical, that is, as he appeared to us, or as he was portrayed to us. So I merely grunted something non-committal.
Ivor said abruptly, “I’m leaving. I thought I’d tell you.”
“You’re what?” I shouted above the noise of the sea, “You’re leaving? Leaving school? But you can’t!”
“Oh, yes I can, though,” he replied with a grin of triumph, “my Dad’s been to the Town Hall to check up.”
“But what are you going to do?” I asked, now all agog. He used an expression I heard then for the first time, on that cold and windswept cliff path, one which, when I hear it, inevitably brings to mind Ivor, his freckled face pink with the cold, as he proudly said, “I’m going to join the Raf.”
[page break]
The penny didn’t drop. It must have been the cold.
“The what?” I said, “What’s the Raf?”
He punched my shoulder playfully. Fortunately he was nearer the cliff-edge than I.
“C’mon, yer mug, it’s the R.A.F., of course. What else did you think?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I replied, recovering my balance. “When’re you going, then?”
“Soon as I can. End of next term, prob’ly. I’m going to be a Boy Apprentice at Halton!”
He squared his broad shoulders. A vision of Oliver Twist with his empty porridge bowl held out in front of him floated into my head. ‘Boy Apprentice’ sounded rather like someone who was being exploited, ill-treated. I am sure I was wrong, but the picture remained. But I grinned and said, “You might get out to Aden with your brother.”
“Hope so,” he said wistfully, “but he’ll prob’ly be posted again before that. Anyhow, that’s what I’m doing. I’m leaving as soon as I can. No more speech training for me!”
We laughed. Two gulls wheeled noisily overhead, their screaming cut across the noise of the sea and of the wind. Ivor aimed his fingers, pointed like a pistol, at them and clicked his tongue very loudly, twice. He was good at that.
“Gotcher!” he exclaimed.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The Spring term came and went. Ivor, as they would put it nowadays, kept a low profile as far as H – was concerned, and worked assiduously at every subject, even Speech Training. At the end of term he quietly left us. I don’t even remember saying ‘cheerio’ to him. We were young, you see, and quite without sentiment. Then it was summer, and the nets went up again. To my surprise I was elected Junior House cricket captain and became rather insufferably swollen-headed about it. It was on a Saturday afternoon that summer when I saw him again. I was sitting at home, reading, when a shadow passed the window, there was the sound of heavy footsteps and someone knocked at the door. I heard the door-knocker flap loosely as my mother answered it, then the sound of conversation.
[page break]
“It’s your friend,” mother said, “the one in the Air Force.”
I hurried to the door. Ivor stood there, smiling broadly, resplendent in his uniform, heavy boots shining brilliantly, his cap carrying the chequered band of the Halton Cadet.
“Hiya, Ivor!” I said. (I almost called him ‘Ali’ and only just corrected myself in time.)
“Hiya, Yoicks! How about comin’ for a walk? I’m on a forty-eight.”
I had no idea what that was but I went to tell my mother where I was going.
“Isn’t he smart?” she smiled quietly, “he looks well in his uniform.”
We set off for the cliffs, in the sunshine. I noticed he did not lope along now, he marched. He seemed taller than I remembered him, bronzed and deep-chested, harder. We exchanged news. In one way he seemed to be very grown-up but in another, he was still my form-mate, furrowing his brow at some problem of Algebra.
“What’s a forty-eight, by the way?” I asked.
“Just a forty-eight hour pass.”
“You haven’t got much time at home, then, have you? All that way from Halton and you’ll have to be back again inside two days?”
“Sure,” he said, airily and confidently, “it’s a piece of cake.”
That was another new expression; I stored it for future use.
“Where’s your brother just now? Still in Aden?”
“No, he’s been posted to Shaibah; bet you don’t know where that is.”
I shook my head.
“never heard of it before,” I said.
“Middle East,” Ivor said proudly, “Iraq – getting his knees brown good and proper.”
He started to sing joyfully what I later knew to be the anthem of all overseas R.A.F. men, “Shaibah Blues”. Then he ripped into several verses of “Charlotte the Harlot”, and while, having been very strictly brought up, I didn’t know the meaning of some of the expressions, I gathered from their anatomical connections that it was not the sort of thing one would sing at home. At least not at my home. But I smiled rather sheepishly when he’d finished.
I said, “Do you like it, in the Raf?”
(I hadn’t forgotten.)
[page break]
“It’s great,” he said decisively, “bloody great.”
He slapped me hard on the shoulder.
“It’s a great life if you don’t weaken, Yoicks!”
“What do you do?”
“Oh, square-bashing, P.T., lectures – I’m going to be a Flight Mechanic.”
I could see he was as happy as a sandboy, it shone out of him. He was alert, confident, buoyant, a complete contrast to the rebellious and scowling youth who had reluctantly forced himself to stand and, red-faced, chant, “the rain in Spain.”
“that’s fine, then,” I said, “but we don’t half miss you in the scrum.”
He never mentioned H – ‘s name.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Then, of course, the fuse which had been smouldering in Europe for six years finally detonated the bomb, and everything blew up in our faces. Not many of us were at all surprised. Although I and nearly all our little crowd who lived nearby had left school and were settling into our various jobs, as soon as Munich had come along I pushed my studying to one side. I knew there was no point in it now. It was going to be, at the very least, somewhat interrupted. So I, and my friends, played a lot of games, went to a lot of flicks, cycled a lot, and, out of working hours, lived our lives to the full, as far as we could. I started to take a girl out. Her name was Lilian, and she was extremely beautiful.
When the Battle of Britain was on I went into the R.A.F. One of my leaves, much later, coincided with one of Ivor’s, and he called at hour house, out of the blue. This time, as we were men, we shook hands firmly. He looked me up and down.
“I’m bloody well not going to call you ‘sir’,” he said.
“You’d bloody well better not try,, either,” I replied, “or I’ll stick you on a fizzer!”
He swung a playful punch at me, which, knowing Ivor, I was half-expecting. I dodged it and clouted him in the midriff, hard enough to make him wince.
“You rotten sod!” he gasped, “come on, let’s have a walk on the
[page break]
cliffs!”
I handed him a Players’, we lit up and strode away. The cliffs were partly wired off as an anti-invasion measure but we managed to get near enough to hear the same waves crashing on to the same rocks, and to smell the salt air as we walked. Until I looked at us, I felt nothing had changed; then I knew it had, really, and that you could never, ever, put the clock back to what had been.
It was about this time that the inevitable, impersonal and cruelly clinical process of the dissection of our little crowd began.
Norman was unfit for military service because of his deplorable eyesight. He was working for one of the Government Departments in London when a German bomb killed him. Peter, who lived in the next house down the street, and whose father had been drowned at sea a couple of years before, went into the R.A.F., became a Navigator, and was killed when his Wellington, from Finningley, crashed one night. I visited his mother on my first leave after it happened.
She was in a state of near-hysteria at mention of his name, and bitter, it must be said, that everything seemed to be going well for me. She did not know, of course, about my crew. I left her staring into the small fire, locked in her private world of abject misery. Then there was Jack, who was also an only son, strangely enough, also a Navigator on Wellingtons, also killed in a night crash.
By the time Alan, whom I had met in London while I was on my Intelligence course, had qualified as a Radar Operator on Beaufighters, the Germans had ceased flying over England at nights and he was transferred to non-operational flying. George also went into the R.A.F.., qualified as a pilot, then, almost immediately, the war ended. He emigrated to the U.S.A., where he had been trained.
Connie and I had a few months together at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, until I was grounded for good. I left him there, bumped into him once more, on leave, then learned of his death. He had crashed his Stirling, towing a glider, over England.
When it was all over, I asked Alan to be my best man. I would have done so anyhow, but in practical terms I had no choice – there was no-one left in our crowd now but he and I.
[page break]
So much had happened since I had last seen Ivor that he rarely had entered my thoughts. There was little reason for him to have done so, as he was a Fitter, in a pretty safe ground job in the R.A.F. Like thousands of other friends, we had been separated by the war and we would either bump into each other on some R.A.F. station, or in some outlandish place in the Far East, or eventually, we’d see each other back in the U.K. When he did enter my head occasionally, I thought perhaps he might have met and married a girl from some other part of the country, or, like George, had seen service in foreign parts and emigrated. I visualised him in a fez, thought about John’s remark about his brother, and smiled to myself at the happy recollection. But gradually, Ivor faded out of my mind.
Until I bumped into a chap who owned a shop, and who had been in our form at school. He had lived within a few hundred yards of Ivor. He, also, had served in the wartime R.A.F., as an armourer, and strangely enough, he told me he had been on the nearest Station to Breighton, at the same time as I had met J – there. I don’t know how he managed it, but he was a mine of information as to what happened to the chaps in our form. Ivor’s name did not come up immediately, as, of course, he had left school before we had done so. But in a pause during his cataloguing of old friends and acquaintances I asked him, “Where’s Ivor got himself these days? I haven’t seen him for years.”
P – was solemn, bespectacled and deliberate in manner and speech. He looked earnestly at me through his thick lenses for a moment or two, as though sorting through some mental card-index and trying to decide whether I could be trusted to hear the information which he had in store there.
“Ivor,” he said slowly, “Ivor Bradley. Yes. he went into the Raf, of course – you knew that?”
“yes,” I said, “He was a Boy Entrant, a Halton Brat, as they were known.”
A smile flicked on to and off his face, like the headlights of a car signalling ‘come on’.
“That’s right,” he continued, then paused. “Yes, well he went missing, you know.”
[page break]
For a moment I could not think what he meant. Rather obtusely I said, “You mean he left town? Went off somewhere suddenly?”
“No, no, he was aircrew, he went missing on a raid over Germany,” P – said, looking more owlish than ever.
“But – he was a fitter, surely?” I exclaimed, with an awful feeling, which I had hoped never again to experience, beginning to overtake me. Then, as the light dawned, I said, “Did he remuster to aircrew?”
P – nodded.
“Yes, that’s what happened. I saw him just after he volunteered for aircrew – you remember we lived near to one another? – and he said he wanted to do something a bit more active. So he became a Flight Engineer.”
“Good God,” I said softly, I’d no idea at all. I never dreamed that Ivor would go – like that.”
He nodded again, solemnly.
“Well, he did, I’m afraid,” he said.
He shuffled through a few more cards.
“How long were you at Breighton, by the way? I saw your name in the Visitors’ Book in the Church there, on the day after you’d been in.”
“That’s remarkable,” I said, “what a small world, isn’t it?”
I remembered very vividly going into the church with J - , the day after Johnny P – went missing.
P – said, “You must call in again sometime. I’ll shut the shop and we’ll have a cup of tea and a proper chat.”
I said yes, I would do that, and I felt I should really have made more of an effort to do so. But I was a bit of a coward about the rest of his card index, I’m afraid.
It was several more years before I learned what had happened to Ivor. Searching through a volume of aircrew losses I finally found his name. He was lost without trace, with his crew, during a raid in a Pathfinder Lancaster in the summer of 1943.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I poured myself a cup of the green tea and took a sip as I looked out of the window. But it was terribly tepid, so I threw it all away
[page break]
and found I wasn’t really thirsty after all. The sun had long since moved off the chequered tea-cosy, and it was starting to get dusk. I shivered suddenly and found I was feeling extremely lonely and extremely depressed. I looked across at the white telephone and wished to hell that someone would ring, anyone at all, even a wrong number would have done, just so that I could have heard a voice. I sat for a while, waiting, but I knew it was a stupid thing to do. Nobody did ring, so I put on my anorak and went out quickly.
I walked around for a bit. I passed a lighted pub which looked very inviting and cheerful with people smiling at one another and chatting while they drank their beer. I wished I could go in and have a few beers, with Connie, like I used to. I stopped and thought about it, but I knew it would be no good, and as M – had said, it wouldn’t solve anything. So I kept on walking and feeling bloody miserable when I thought about Ivor and Connie, and about Jack and Peter and Norman, and all my crew. And about J - . Her especially. Then I had a strong craving for a cigarette, but I knew that would be a stupid thing to do, too.
It started to rain, so finally, I made my way back to the flat. It felt empty and cold, like somewhere someone had once lived, but didn’t any more. If no-one rings before nine o’clock, I told myself, I will ring M - , just so that I can talk to someone, for Christ’s sake. I sat and looked at the telephone again for a bit and thought about it. But nine o’clock came and I didn’t do anything about it in the end, because I knew it wouldn’t be very cheerful or very much fun for her, and as I was tired and cold I swallowed a couple of aspirin and got into bed.
While I was taking them it occurred to me that there was a stack left in the bottle which could be put to very effective use, but then I thought that wasn’t exactly any part of a pressing-on-regardless effort, so I shoved the bottle firmly to one side.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to go off to sleep after all this business, and I was damned right. I kept thinking about Ivor, then I started thinking about the crowed and how much I realised I was missing them. And about J - ; her, most of all. Then I thought,
[page break]
“My God, there’s only me left now, and I’m not much damn good to anyone like this, even if there were anyone,” which made things worse. I would have given a great deal if I could have turned the clock back, to have gone back to Breighton, to that lovely summer, to have started all over again, to be meeting J – for the first time, that wonderful morning when I saw her walk into the Ops Room, when she came to attention smartly and saluted and said, “Good morning, sir.” Little did I know, little did we both know what was to happen to us.
But this was getting me nowhere, so in the end I said aloud, “Oh, Christ, I just don’t want to wake up in the morning.” Then I said goodnight to J – ‘s photograph, in our own very special way, like I always had done, to her, once upon a time, when we were together, when we were happy.
And then I put out the light.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
[inserted] [underlined] Photograph in a book. [/underlined] [/inserted]
[page break]
[underlined] PHOTOGRAPH IN A BOOK [/underlined]
“Frankie, do you remember me?”
(Late 20th century pop song.)
I realise it is very trite to say that the unexpected is always happening. Nevertheless I have to say that something completely unexpected happened recently to me, which produced, out of the blue, a violent cocktail-shaking of emotions which I thought were firmly and peacefully laid to rest.
I flatter myself that usually I am among the first to obtain, or at least to see, newly-published books on the subject of Bomber Command in the second world war, but for one reason or another, this was not the case in relation to a recently-published history of No. 4 Bomber Group.
4 Group included the aerodromes at Linton-on-Ouse, (my initial posting as an Int/Ops Officer), Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, to which I was moved when the Canadians were about to take over the northernmost aerodromes of 4 Group to form their own 6 Group, and Breighton, the satellite of Holme, where I was to meet, fall in love with and become engaged to J - , who, when the war was over became my wife.
I should have, to have been true to form, snapped up the book on its first appearing, but for various reasons, I did not. Instead, I heard reports – all good – of it from D - , an Ex-W.A.A.F., who features on a whole page of it, complete with her charming photograph, and with whom I had been corresponding. And I heard of it from Alan, a friend who was instrumental in having a memorial installed on the village green close to the place where Pilot Officer Cyril Barton, V.C., of 578 Squadron in 4 Group, sacrificed his life in bringing back his crippled and half-crewed Halifax after the disastrous Nuremberg raid. Alan was a schoolboy at the time and was among the first on the scene of Cyril Barton’s crash. He has, most worthily, devoted a considerable amount of his time and energy to ensuring
[page break]
that Cyril’s sacrifice will never be forgotten. It was as a result of this that, just before J – died, I met Alan, a very caring man, a man who has become a true friend to me. He was given the book as a birthday present.
He and I live in neighbouring towns. We speak on the telephone quite often; we meet whenever we are able and always find much to talk about, as Alan was also in the Royal Air Force. He was thrilled to receive the book, which, naturally, contains material concerning Cyril Barton. I had been searching bookshops for it, but without success; I had been waiting for the local Library to obtain it for me.
Early one evening there was a ring at my doorbell. Alan was standing there, cheerful as ever, a welcome sight indeed. He was carrying something flat in a Sainsbury’s carrier bag. With typical generosity he said that as he and his wife were shortly going on holiday, I might as well have the benefit of the book while he was away. I was grateful to him, and leafed through it while we chatted for a while before he had to leave to go to work. He showed me a picture in the book of Cyril’s wrecked aircraft and of Alan himself, as a schoolboy, standing near to it, very soon after the crash occurred.
When Alan had gone, impressed by the high quality of the book and by the photographs in particular, many of them amateur pictures taken by wartime aircrew members, I leafed through its pages, then worked through them systematically.
There were many poignant, familiar scenes. Of aircraft and their crews, of aerodromes and their buildings, targets in Germany and the occupied countries, pictures of people I had known of by reputation, people I had known personally, many I had never known. I found myself wondering how many of those young faces smiling at me from the pages were now, like myself, turning these same pages thinking, as I was thinking, “Oh, yes, I remember a scene like that”, or how many if them were no longer able to do this. A lump was gathering in my throat as I turned to a particular page and saw, among a group of captions, one which read ‘Interrogation for 78 Squadron crews as others await their turn, following the raid
[page break]
on Berlin on 31st August/1st September 1943.’
Reading it, I thought, “Well – I was an Intelligence Officer to 78n Squadron at that time.” Then I looked at the photograph and saw myself pictured there, in the far corner of the room, writing down the replies to my questions to the crew – heaven only knows who they were – at my table.
“My God,” I exclaimed.
I could not help it and I am not ashamed to admit that my eyes flooded with tears. I had no idea that the photograph had been taken; the author’s credit was to Gerry C - , who was a pilot on the Squadron at that time, whom I knew, and with whom I am still in contact.
I felt as though I had been wrenched back in time to that night, almost fifty years ago, as though the intervening years had never been, as though I were still at Breighton, working those long and irregular hours in the windowless Operations Room alongside Derek and Pam, with one or other of the W.A.A.F. Watchkeepers – Freda, or the attractive and much sought after Billie, or with J - . I felt, strangely, that all I needed to do was to walk out of the door of this cottage and I would find myself, miraculously, back on the narrow concrete road leading from that house in the hamlet of Breighton with its tall gable-end, along past the W.A.A.F. site to the Nissen huts of the Intelligence Library, the Window Store and the Ops. Room, where the armed sentry would be on duty, where the cornfield would be stretching away to my left, up towards the perimeter track and the runways of the aerodrome. I would return the sentry’s salute and his greeting and I would open the heavy door of the Ops. Room to see, on my left, the huge blackboard with the captains’ names and their aircraft letters already entered for the night’s operation. At the top, the target for tonight, perhaps Duisburg or Mannheim or Essen – or Berlin. The route written underneath that – Base – Southwold – Point A, with Lat. and Long. positions for the route-marking flares to guide the bomber stream to the target. The time of briefing, of the operational meals, of transport out to the aircraft, of starting engines, and of take-off. Of ‘H-Hour’, the time on target. On the wall facing me I would see the huge map of the British Isles, the S.D. 300, blotched in red with gun-defended areas, stuck with broad-headed pins and coloured threads carrying information
[page break]
about navigational hazards.
In the middle of the room the big map table where, after the raid, we spread the mosaic photograph of the German town which had been the target and would plot the crews’ bombing photos. And, to the right, the place where I shall sit, near to the telephones and next to J – who is there behind her switchboard and Tannoy microphone, ready for the night’s operation. If she had been born a man she would, I know, have been a member of a bomber crew, for she thought and talked of little else but bombing operations.
Except on stand-down evenings, in the twilight, when we met secretly in the village at a quiet angle of buildings on the main road, near to the bus stop, then cycled to the ‘Plough’ at Spaldington, the nearest village to the bombing range, where, amazingly, there were no other uniforms to be seen in its homely bar. Where we would spend the long, warm evenings over two or three beers, sitting in the high-backed, high-sided wooden seats made for two, made for people like we were then, people who were young and who had met and who loved each other deeply and desperately. And sitting there, talking gently together, we would hear, above the murmur of the farm workers’ talk, the drone of some aircraft, perhaps on a night cross-country flight, perhaps heading for the other side on a raid. Then we would both sit silently, listening, not saying anything, but I know we were both praying for its safe return to base.
Sometimes, when our own aircraft had gone on a raid and we were not due on duty until they returned, we would steal a precious hour together, sitting with our arms around one another in the darkness, on a low grassy bank under some trees, not far from the unmanned railway level crossing at Gunby, the Sandra lights from the aerodrome shining distantly through the trees, heavy with their summer foliage. For some reason, whenever I hear Delius’ ‘The Walk to the Paradise Garden’ I invariably and inevitable think of J – and I at that place and those wonderful, warm summer nights we shared in the countryside of East Yorkshire, around Breighton.
The tears which came to my eyes when I saw my photograph, and the sadness which overwhelmed me, were because now, that Interrogation Room, whose walls, had they been possessed of ears, would have heard
[page break]
small, unemotionally told tales, couched in the understated phrases of flying men, of achievement, of failure, of heroism, of desperation, triumph and tragedy, that Interrogation Room is now an unoccupied ruin, and the Ops. Room is no more, now part of an isolated dwelling house. I know, for I have been back there, where among so much tragedy, I was so happy.
And J - , now, is no more, except in my memory. I sat with her, taking her cold and unfeeling hand in mine, one beautiful summer morning, such as we used to have at Breighton, and I watched her life slip away from the loveliness that had been her. But we shall meet again, I know, she and I, and all the many crew members who came into our lives and went again, and were forgotten by us, like the many dawns and the many sunsets which we shared.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
[page break]
[underlined] GLOSSARY [/underlined]
Abort – to abandon an operation and return to base.
A.C.P. – Aerodrome Control Pilot, a ‘traffic policeman’ for those aircraft within visual distance.
A.G. – Air Gunner.
Alldis lamp – high-powered lamp capable of flashing Morse letters.
A.P. – Air Publication, usually a book; Aiming Point.
A.S.I. – Airspeed indicator.
Astrodome – transparent blister half way back along the fuselage of the Wellington.
A.S.V. – Anti-surface vessel.
A.T.A. – Air Transport Auxiliary, civilian aircraft delivery service.
Base – parent Station of one or more satellite aerodromes. Three, four, or even five Bases and their satellites constituted a Group.
base – one’s home aerodrome.
Best blue – best uniform.
Bind – (noun) nuisance, annoyance. (verb) to complain, tiresomely.
Bomb plot – plan of the target area annotated with the positions of each of the Squadron aircraft’s bombing photos.
Bombing Leader – senior Bomb-Aimer on a Squadron, responsible for instruction and training of other Bomb-Aimers.
Bombing photo – vertical photo taken automatically on release of an aircraft’s bombs, thus showing the point of impact.
Boost – petrol/air mixture pressure at the engine inlet manifold.
Buck House – Buckingham Palace.
Bullseye – bomber exercise in conjunction with friendly searchlights.
Circuits and bumps – take offs, circuits and landing, the staple diet of training pilots.
C.O. – Commanding Officer.
Cookie – 4000 pound High Capacity blast bomb, nicknamed by the press and B.B.C. ‘blockbuster’.
DC3 – Douglas Dakota twin-engined transport aircraft. Also known as a C-47.
Defiant – Boulton Paul single-engined fighter/night fighter. Two-seater, the rear seat being in a rotatable 4-gun turret.
[page break]
D.R. – Dispatch rider.
Drem lighting – aerodrome runway and perimeter track lighting, protected by metal dish-shaped hoods so as to be invisible from above. First used at R.A.F. Drem, Scotland.
Early return – (later knows as ‘boomerang’) aircraft returning from an abortive sortie.
E.F.T.S. – Elementary Flying Training School.
Erk – Aircraftman.
E.T.A. – Estimated time of arrival.
Feathering – device which enabled the pilot to turn the blades of a propeller edge-on to the direction of flight, thus minimising the drag on the aircraft in the event of an engine failure.
Flak – German anti-aircraft fire.
Flights – Flight Offices and crewroom.
Flying the beam – flying from A to B by means of an aural signal transmitted by B.
Fresher – a new crew; such a crew’s early operational flights; the target for such a crew.
Fizzer, stick (or put) on a – charge with an offence.
Gee – radar navigational aid which enabled an aircraft to fix its position. Had a limited range which just covered the Ruhr and was susceptible to jamming.
Gen – information, news, divided into ‘pukka’ (true) and ‘duff’ (false). (Meteorological Officers were invariably known as Duff Gen Men.)
Geodetics – aluminium girders formed into spiral basket-work construction which made up the fuselage and mainplanes of the Wellington.
Get weaving – get going, get started.
Glim lamps/lights – low-powered lights which formed the flarepath of an aerodrome.
Glycol – Ethylene glycol, liquid coolant.
Gong – medal.
Goose-necks – paraffin flares housed in watering-can-shaped containers. Supplemented Drem lighting.
G.Y. – Grimsby.
Gyro – gyroscopic compass.
[page break]
1 Group – Bomber Group in north Lincolnshire consisting of, originally, 4 R.A.F., 3 Polish and 2 Australian Wellington Squadrons, latterly, of Lancaster Squadrons.
3 Group – Bomber Group in East Anglia consisting of, originally, Wellington Squadrons. Converted to Stirlings, latterly to Lancasters.
Halifax – Four-engined Handley Page bombers with crew of seven. Nicknamed Hali or Halibag.
Hampden – Twin-engined Handley Page medium bombers, crew of three.
Harvard – single-engined North American Aviation Co. advanced fighter trainers. Also know as Texan or AT – 6.
“Have a good trip” – Between close friends on a Squadron this parting remark was occasionally varied by the addition of “Can I have your egg if you don’t come back?” This was part of the grim humour current among bomber aircrew.
H.E. – High explosive.
High – anticyclone, high-pressure weather system.
H2S – Radar device which showed a ground plan of the earth below an aircraft.
Ident. light – identification light, a small nose-light used for flashing Morse.
I.F.F. – Identification friend or foe. Radar set carried on an aircraft to identify it as friendly to British ground defences. Set to ‘Stud 3’ it gave a specially-shaped distress trace on ground radar screens.
Int. – Intelligence.
Intercom – internal ‘telephone system’ in an aircraft.
Interrogation – now known, in view of the current overtones of ill-treatment which have become implicit in the term, as ‘de-briefing’.
I.T.W. – Initial Training Wing.
Juice – petrol
Kite – aircraft.
[page break]
L.A.C. – Leading Aircraftman.
L.A.C.W. – Leading Aircraftwoman.
Line-shoot – boast.
Link Trainer – a simulator which gave practice in instrument flying.
Lysander – Single-engined Westland Aviation Army co-operation (originally) aircraft.
Mag drop – the reduction in r.p.m. of an engine when one of its two magnetos was switched out.
Mae West – Inflatable life-jacket which gave to its wearer the contours of the famous film actress.
Mosaic – collage of aerial photographs, taken probably at different times, but from the same height, making up a complete picture of a German town, and used to plot bombing photos.
Nav. – navigator, navigation.
N.F.T. – night-flying test.
Nickels – British propaganda leaflets dropped over enemy territory. To drop the leaflets was known as nickelling.
Observer – Navigator/Bomb-aimer in twin-engined bombers prior to the establishment of these as separate categories.
Occult – white flashing beacon showing one Morse letter whose latitude and longitude was carried by Observers or Navigators (in code).
On the boat – posted overseas, or, when overseas, posted to the U.K.
One o’clock – slightly to the right of dead ahead (twelve o’clock). Dead astern was six o’clock.
Ops – operations.
O.T.U. – Operational Training Unit.
Oxford – twin-engined advanced bomber-trainer, made by Airspeed Ltd.
Peri. track – perimeter track, a taxying track connecting the ends of the runways on an aerodrome, and having aircraft dispersal points leading off it.
Pigeon – homing pigeon carried in bomber aircraft to carry a message back to base giving the aircraft’s position in the event of ‘ditching’ (landing in the sea), when the aircraft would be too low for its radio transmissions to be heard.
[page break]
Pit – bed.
Pitch controls – varied the angle of the propeller blades and consequently controlled the r.p.m. of the engine.
Pitot head – (pronounced pea-toe) fine-bore tube facing forward which supplied air pressure from the movement of the aircraft through the air and showed this pressure as airspeed on a ‘clock’ in the cockpit.
P/O – Pilot Officer (not necessarily a pilot!)
Poop off – shoot off.
P/O Prune – a cartoon character in Tee Emm (q.v.), an inept pilot forever involved in accidents of his own making.
Portreath – R.A.F. Station in Cornwall
Prang – crash, wreck, break.
Press the tit – press the button.
Prop – propeller, more properly, airscrew.
P.R.U. – Photographic Reconnaissance Unit.
Pundit – aerodrome beacon, flashing two red Morse letters which were changed at irregular intervals. The beacons were always within two miles of the parent aerodrome, although their position was changed nightly.
R.A.A.F. – Royal Australian Air Force.
R.C.A.F. – Royal Canadian Air Force.
Resin lights – low-powered lights at the rear of an aircraft’s wingtips, illuminated over this country as a warning to friendly night-fighters. Colours were changed at irregular intervals.
Revs – revolutions.
Rolling the bones – gambling with dice.
R/T – radio telephone (speech).
Sandra lights – cone of three searchlights stationary over an aerodrome, to assist returning aircraft.
Scrub – cancel.
Second dickey – second pilot.
S.D. – secret document.
S.D.300 – wall-map of the U.K., kept in the Ops Room and maintained by the Watchkeepers, showing positions of all gun-defended areas, navigational hazards and convoys.
[page break]
S.F.T.S. – Service Flying Training School. (Stage following E.F.T.S.)
Spit – Spitfire.
Spoof. – feint.
Sprog – newly arrived, newly joined, raw, inexperienced.
Square-bashing – drill.
Stall – lose flying speed.
Stirling – four-engined bomber manufactured by Short Bros.
Stooge – boring, casual or haphazard flying.
Stud 3 – Distress frequency setting on I.F.F. (q.v.)
Sullom Voe – R.A.F. Station in the Shetlands.
Sweet Caps – Sweet Caporal cigarettes, a popular Canadian brand.
Tee Emm – Air Ministry Training Magazine. Humorously written and comically illustrated aid to safe flying and good navigation and gunnery. It was extremely popular with all aircrew.
Trailing edge – rear edge of mainplane or elevators.
Trimmers – (or ‘trimming tabs’). Small adjustable sections of the aircraft’s control surfaces, enabling it to be flown, when they were carefully adjusted, without undue pressure on the controls by the hands and feet.
Undercart – undercarriage.
u/s – unserviceable.
u/t – under training.
Vic – V.
W.A.A.F. – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force; a member of same.
W.A.A.F. (G) – Officer responsible for the discipline and well-being of all W.A.A.F. on a Station.
Watchkeeper – W.A.A.F. Sergeant who acted as a clearing house for all telephoned outgoing and incoming secret operational and other information, and who was responsible for its prompt and correct transmission to the appropriate person(s).
Wellington – twin-engined Vickers bomber with a crew of six.
Wimpy – Nickname for the above. Derived from the character in a ‘Daily Mirror’ cartoon – J. Wellington Wimpy, a friend of Popeye.
[page break]
Wingco – Wing Commander. (C.O. of a bomber Squadron).
W/T – wireless telegraphy (Morse code).
Y.M. – Y.M.C.A.
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
Loose on the wind
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with a poem and then a series of stories which together form the memoirs of Harold Yeoman, an officer who served in Bomber Command during the war, initially as a pilot on Wellingtons and then as an Intelligence Officer. He relates his activities both professionally and personally during this time and recounts the many friends and colleagues he lost whilst on operations. He recalls his flying training on the Tiger Moths at Sywell, then on to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada for further training. He was then posted to Bassingbourne O.T.U. to train to fly Wellingtons, before going to Binbrook on operational flying duties. Harold flew a number of operations before being grounded due to medical reasons. It was whilst he was grounded that his crew were reported as missing and subsequently recorded as killed in action. While waiting for his Medical Board, Harold was stationed at the Operational Training Unit at Moreton-in-the-Marsh ferrying brand new Wellingtons from Kemble and flying them to Moreton to hand over to pupil crews. He was then moved to ‘X’ Flight of the O.T.U and trained new pilots before being grounded again for medical reasons when he transferred into Intelligence for Bomber Command. He completed his R.A.F. career in Penang as an Adjutant.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H Yeoman
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1994-11
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Format
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Multipage printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Poetry
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Northamptonshire
England--Northampton
England--Devon
England--Torquay
England--Cheshire
England--Wilmslow
Iceland
Iceland--Reykjavík
Canada
Nova Scotia--Halifax
Nova Scotia--Cape Breton Island
Saskatchewan--Moose Jaw
England--Suffolk
Germany
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Netherlands
Netherlands--IJssel Lake
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Essen
England--Lincolnshire
England--Grimsby
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Cologne
England--Berkshire
England--Reading
Netherlands
Netherlands--IJmuiden
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Sylt
Germany
Germany--Helgoland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Bochum
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Burma
Burma--Rangoon
Malaysia
Malaysia--Kampong Sungai Gelugor (Pinang)
Malaysia--George Town (Pulau Pinang)
Malaysia--Butterworth (Pulau Pinang)
England--Buckinghamshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Nuremberg
Saskatchewan
Nova Scotia
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-09
1942-05
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BYeomanHTYeomanHTv1
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
1 Group
12 Squadron
4 Group
578 Squadron
78 Squadron
air gunner
Air Transport Auxiliary
aircrew
animal
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
arts and crafts
B-17
B-24
bale out
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
control tower
crash
crewing up
Defiant
faith
fear
final resting place
flight engineer
flight mechanic
forced landing
Fw 190
Gee
Gneisenau
grief
ground crew
ground personnel
Guinea Pig Club
H2S
Halifax
Hampden
Harvard
In the event of my death letter
Ju 88
killed in action
Lancaster
love and romance
Lysander
Manchester
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
medical officer
mess
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
observer
operations room
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Bawtry
RAF Binbrook
RAF Breighton
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Kemble
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF St Athan
RAF Sywell
RAF Torquay
RAF Tuddenham
Scharnhorst
searchlight
shot down
Spitfire
sport
Stalag Luft 3
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Victoria Cross
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1767/31030/PHarrisonRW2103.2.jpg
68ba54b381a50cb1b3a6a5dddfe026ed
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1767/31030/AHarrisonRW210227.2.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Harrison, Reginald Wilfred
R W Harrison
Harrison, Reg
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Reg Harrison (b. 1922, R155986, J25826 Royal Canadian Air Force) and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 431 Squadron and was known as 'Crash' Harrison because he survived four crashes during training and operations.
The collection was catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-02-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, RW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RH: I’m ready for take-off then.
DE: Yeah. I’ll do a very quick introduction and then, then we’ll start properly. So this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive with Flight Lieutenant Reg Harrison. My name is, is Dan Ellin. This is recorded over Zoom. Mr, Mr Harrison is in Saskatoon, Canada and it is Saturday the 27th of February 2021. It’s 10.30am in Saskatoon Canada and it’s 4.30pm in Lincoln in the UK. So, Reg, thank you very very much for agreeing to do this interview with, with me this morning.
RH: My pleasure and my honour to do it.
DE: Thank you. So, right from the very very start could you tell me a little bit about your early life and how you came to volunteer for the Royal Canadian Air Force please?
RH: Yes. Well, I was born on a farm and we farmed near [unclear] Saskatchewan. Do you know where Regina, Saskatchewan is? Ok. Well, it’s, it’s towards central Saskatchewan and we were about probably a hundred miles away in the east of, of Regina. And when I did my Service flying at Yorkton we were flying Cessnas then but they started the station with Harvards. So the Harvards, we were only about seventy miles from the airport so the Harvards were always flying over. We didn’t have a tractor or a car so I was sitting behind six horses and as soon as the Harvards came over and doing their aerobatics I stopped the horses. Horses are pretty smart. It didn’t take them very long. As soon as they heard a plane they automatically stopped. So cut it short we didn’t get as much farm work done as we should because I sometimes sat there for about twenty minutes before I started them up again. So when I got embarkation leave, some of the neighbours came over to bid me farewell and I heard my dad say, ‘Well, we don’t like to see him go but I have an idea we’re going to get more farm work done.’ So, to make a long story short I only had my grade ten and I, I took my grade nine and ten by correspondence because we didn’t have a High School. I don’t know what you’d call it in England, I forget but, I had to go to Public School. I went to Public School at Lorlie from grade one to grade eight. Took correspondence course from the Department of Education to do my nine and ten. And then they said, ‘Well, in order to be a pilot you had to have your grade twelve.’ And in 1941 the Royal Air Force were getting short of pilots, so the powers that be decided well there’s a possible pool of, of pilots that only have their grade ten, maybe partial grade eleven, partial twelve. If we set up what they call Educational School, Pre-Enlistment Schools they called them, and if they passed a medical and a physical then they could enrol in this Pre-Enlistment School. So they set that up in 1941 and in the Fall of, after harvest was finished, I went to Regina to the Recruiting Centre and I had my medical. I only weighed a hundred and eighteen pounds so I was pretty skinny then but rather wiry I guess. I managed to pass the medical, and they also gave me an aptitude test. Coming from the farm I didn’t know very much about the big wide world, but maybe the aptitude test might have been easy because I managed to pass that. And then that school started at the end of October and lasted until the end of April. If you successfully completed that course then you got credit for your grade twelve, last two credits. And then you were sent to what they called a manning depot and that’s where all pilots, navigators, well they weren’t navigators then we were just called, we were just called airmen. AC2s and you stayed there for several weeks. You learned to march and you got all your inoculations and all that sort of thing. And then if you wanted to train as a pilot then they had what they called a Ground School where you took meteorology, physics, preliminary navigation, and so on. And they had that in Regina and that lasted for ten weeks. And then after you’d done that the pilots then were sent to Elementary Flying Schools, and in Saskatchewan at that time they were using Tiger Moths, Gypsy Tigers. You later switched over to Cornells but they used Tigers. So, about the time they were, they were starting those in the Fall it was, most of the fellas that I knew would get posted to Regina Elementary. But in 1942 they had a very large crop in Saskatchewan so my dad contacted the authorities and asked them if, they, I could come home for six weeks to help with the harvest. Which I did. And then when I got back to the station they said, ‘Well, there’s no room at the Regina Elementary so we’re going to send you to Virden.’ To Virden, Manitoba. So I then went to, I went to Virden. I started there in, in late October, and I finished that course just about the end of December. Went home for Christmas and then, but before that when I’d finished the elementary they asked me where I wanted to go for my service flying which I was surprised. I thought well they would tell me where I might go. And I said, ‘Well, what choice do they have?’ They said, ‘You can go to Dauphin, Manitoba, go to Brandon, Manitoba or you can go to Yorkton. I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think I’d like to go to Yorkton.’ He said, ‘Why do you want to go to Yorkton?’ I didn’t tell him it was close to the farm. I said, ‘Well, if we happen to get a forty eight hour pass the bus connections or train connections would be easier for me to get home.’ So they said, ‘Ok. We’ll give you the warrant and you can go to Yorkton.’ So when I got to Yorkton I was very surprised to find that the fellas that had gone to the Elementary School in Regina, I figured they’d be halfway through their course but they hadn’t even started because in 19 — in that winter of ’42 there was a lot of blizzards and snowstorms, and the flying was set back. And my friend Buddy who I’d met at the, at the Pre-Enlistment School he was also there and that course had just started. It was about a week into the course and they thought well I could catch up so I joined that course. And that course lasted, it was started in January and we got our wings the last week in April. And we get, everybody gets ten days embarkation leave. I went home for ten days, and then I caught the train at [unclear] Saskatchewan and so I have pictures for you. I’ll send those to you, and they show me standing at the station. Then I had to change trains in Melville. What we called the Trans-Continental. That would be similar to your train that would go from Kings Cross to Edinburgh, and it would only stop at the main stops. I think that one from Kings Cross if I remember correctly it had about seven or eight stops. I know it used to, it used to stop at Doncaster and it would stop at York and it would stop at Newcastle on Tyne and so on.
DE: Yeah. The distances are totally different aren’t they?
RH: So that particular, what they called the Trans-Continental it would leave Vancouver and it would take seven days to get to Halifax. So that gives you an idea.
DE: Yes.
RH: How large Canada is. So I got, changed trains and got on that train at Melville and then it took about almost four days to get to Ottawa. Then when it got to Ottawa my friend Buddy, he boarded the train. Then it took us another three days to get to Halifax. And then I think we were in Halifax about, possibly three weeks. But we didn’t go over in a convoy. The convoys took about almost a month. Well over, maybe a hundred, a hundred and thirty ships in a convoy and under normal circumstances the U-boats were sinking at least twenty five to thirty ships. And they told us that we were going to go on the Louis Pasteur. That was a French liner that had been converted to carrying troops and we said, ‘Oh well, how about, we’re going alone. How about the U-boats? They said, ‘You don’t have to worry about the U-boats because this Louis Pasteur can go faster than U-boats,’ which it turned out to be so. It took us four and a half days to cross the Atlantic. Then we landed in Liverpool on July the 1st 1943.
DE: Can we, can we just go back a little bit? Could you tell me what, what was it like the first time you flew? And what it was like going solo for the first time?
RH: That’s, that’s an interesting question, Dan because when I was ninety three years old one of the CBC reporters had met me at an Air Show and unbeknownst to me she arranged, she arranged for me to go for a flight in a Tiger Moth. And one of the fellas near Saskatoon he had a runway right beside his house. It was on an acreage. And he also owned about five planes and I went back in a Tiger Moth when I was ninety three years old. And it was, in a way it was a, in some ways it was a strange feeling but otherwise it brought back a lot of memories for me. But he said to me, ‘When did you solo?’ I said, ‘I’ve no idea but,’ I said, ‘I’ve brought my logbook. Let’s have a look.’ And it turned out that I soloed on Remembrance Day in 1942. And I probably, I think the average would be about eight to nine hours, or ten hours before they sent you solo and I look at my logbook and I think I had, I had about nine and a half hours when I went solo. But I really liked flying and actually when I was about twelve or thirteen years old I had a flight. It was in the wintertime and I had a flight in a small aircraft. In our Public School they had a furnace that needed some repair so the chap from the furnace company came, rented a plane and came out and landed in a field near Lorlie. And then while the furnace was being repaired he came over into town and, and wanted to know if anybody wanted to go for a ride. It cost five dollars and I asked my dad. I said, ‘Dad, could you loan me five dollars?’ He said, ‘Why do you want five dollars for?’ I said, ‘Well, I can go for a ride in a plane.’ He said, ‘Well, I don’t have any five dollars,’ he said, ‘I might not even have enough to buy these groceries,’ he said. But the storekeeper overheard the conversation and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I understand that you’re a little bit of a trapper and you’ve been catching —’ what we called weasels and so on, and he said, ‘Do you have any?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do,’ I said, ‘I’m going to get ready to shift them to Melville.’ He said, ‘What do you think you can get for them?’ I said, ‘Well, I hope to get maybe seven or eight dollars.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll loan you five dollars on the understanding that when you sell those pelts,’ he said, ‘You’ll pay me back.’ So that’s, that was my first flight when I was twelve years old.
DE: Fantastic.
RH: And it was cold too because it was an open cockpit. I remember that [laughs]
DE: Yeah.
RH: So then, of course as you well know Dan when you get to, when you get to Liverpool or wherever you land in England everybody goes to Bournemouth. All the, all the, all the aircrew go to Bournemouth. And we discovered there that there were a lot of beautiful hotels and that’s where the, I guess you would call the rich people went there for their holidays but they, they made sure that all their pictures and all their expensive furniture was removed from the hotels. But I remember Buddy and I, we stayed at what they called the Royal Bath Hotel and we were there for probably maybe three or four weeks, and then the pilots had to go to an Advanced Flying School to take what they called a BAT School, Beam Approach Training. One thing I should mention is that when we were flying in Canada, night flying, all the towns were lit up. Aircraft had navigation lights on. When we got to England I can vividly recall that train ride from Liverpool to Bournemouth. It was at night. I knew we were going through towns and you couldn’t see a light. Everything was blacked out. And then we discovered that night flying you couldn’t have any navigation lights on. So in addition to the blackouts and no navigation lights we also discovered that the weather in England wasn’t as conducive for flying as it was in Saskatchewan because we had lots of sunny days. In the Midlands when you were flying we had, I suppose you’d call it quite a bit of haze because there was a lot of manufacturing done in Birmingham and Sheffield and those things. So flying was much more difficult. I think that’s why they started the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Furthermore, there wasn’t enough room left in England for, for all their training.
DE: And also, you know there’s, there’s not the Luftwaffe to worry about either if you —
RH: Pardon?
DE: There’s not the Luftwaffe to worry about either if you’re training in Canada.
RH: Oh no. No. I think that was, I think that British Commonwealth Air Training Plan really contributed a great deal to the success of the war.
DE: So did you go on to multi-engine aircraft in Canada?
RH: Yeah. When we went to Yorkton they’d switched over from Harvards to what they called 172 Cessna Cranes. They were twin engines because then they didn’t need fighter pilots like they did in the Battle of Britain. They were short of bomber pilots. So they switched a lot of the service stations over from Harvards to Cessnas, and Canada leased a lot of aircraft from the United States. And those were flown back again after the war.
DE: Ok. Yeah.
RH: So when we got to, Buddy and I went to Church Lawford in Warwickshire. I think it’s, if I remember correctly it’s not that far from Stratford on Avon.
DE: No. It won’t be. No.
RH: I had an aunt that married my Uncle Harold and she came from, from Warwickshire, near Stratford On Avon. But that, that course it was of course beam approach training, and I often wondered when we were at Yorkton why pilots had to take Morse Code. I thought well the wireless operator would have to do Morse Code. Why did the pilot have to know Morse Code? Well, I soon found out why that was required because then you had to use, you had to use the beam, the Morse Code to get lined up with the beam. And that of course was used when the, if you had to land in the fog when the ‘dromes were equipped with FIDO. And for our very first trip, this was much later, our very first trip in a Lancaster where we did have to land on FIDO but I’ll tell you about that later because that was over a year ago and I’d really forgotten what the damned signals were. So when we were at, when we were at Church Lawford [pause] every time Buddy would, Buddy was engaged to, to his High School sweetheart Jean Woods, and he wrote to her on a regular basis and every time he’d write to her, he called me Harry, I guess short for Harrison, called Harry, ‘Well, Harry you’d better put a footnote on this letter to Jean.’ Of course my usual reply was, ‘Well, I don’t know Jean and I don’t know what to say.’ And he would always say, ‘Well, you never know. Some day you might meet her.’ And the last day we were there I have a picture, I’m going to send you a picture of Buddy and I. And we had a little Welsh gal that looked after us. Polished our shoes and all that, so we thought we were really in, in royalty when we had that kind of treatment. That didn’t last very long after we left that station. And he said, ‘Well, I’m writing another letter to Jean.’ I have a picture of him licking the stamp to put on the letter. He said, ‘You’d better put another footnote on this,’ he said, ‘Because when we get back to Bournemouth,’ he said, ‘We’re going to get posted to OTUs,’ he said, ‘And we might not end up at the same one.’ So I used to say, ‘Well, I’ve told you before Buddy I don’t really know what to say.’ He said, ‘Well, just put something on this. You never know. You might meet her.’ So, when we got back to Bournemouth I think we were only there about two weeks when we got posted and I went to Ossington. That was number 82. I think if I remember correctly it was near, it was near Sherwood Forest and we were going to start flying there and then. They had a course that wasn’t finished so they had a satellite drome called Gamston so we, we did our flying from Gamston. But I found that the Wellingtons, they were, as you know they were geodetic construction and they were very sturdy aircraft. Well-constructed. And I found them I guess an easy way to say it was somewhat heavy on the controls but they were, I wouldn’t say they were easy to fly but they were quite a little bit more, certainly more effort than the, than the Cessnas and the Oxfords that we were flying and I found them particularly hard to fly on one engine. But I managed to get through that course and looking there, I looked to see what my rating was and I got, I got above average so I guess I didn’t do too badly. In fact, I got that, I’m not bragging but I got that in most of the training that I did. And that, that course lasted, I, it was a fairly long course. I think it lasted about three and a half months, and then we got posted to a Conversion Unit and we went to, we went to Dishforth which later as you know became, became part of 6 Group. And that’s where 431 Squadron and 44 Squadron were, were stationed. And it was all, all it was part, it was two of the fifteen squadrons that made up 6 Group and that was, that was a Canadian group.
DE: Yeah.
RH: They’d been advocating for some time to have their own, to have their own, their own group.
DE: So —
RH: And —
DE: When —
RH: That was —
DE: Sorry. Sorry.
RH: Ok
DE: I was going to —
RH: Go ahead.
DE: I was just going to ask when did you crew up?
RH: Pardon?
DE: When did you form, when did you form a crew?
RH: Oh, now that, I’m glad you asked that question because that’s very interesting the way they did it. They put us all in a big hangar. An equal number of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers and we weren’t in the hangar very long and this tall chap came over to me and he said, he introduced himself, he said, ‘I’m Hal Philips,’ he said, ‘I came from Vancouver,’ he said. And I introduced myself. He said, ‘You got on the train at Melville didn’t you?’ I said, ‘Really,’ I said, ‘How did you know that?’ He said, ‘Well, my wife and I got married on my embarkation leave and she said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have, the honeymoon’s going to last seven days,’ she said, ‘Because it’s going to take seven days to go from Vancouver to Halifax.’ So, that’s how I got my navigator. And I said, ‘Well, Hal, we’d better look around for a bomb aimer.’ So we looked around and we saw a chap sitting down smoking a cigarette and we went over to him and we introduced ourselves and he said, ‘Well, I’m Gordon Dumville,’ he said, ‘I come from Saskatchewan. From Rocanville.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I know where that is. In south east Saskatchewan.’ I said, ‘Do you come from a farm?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Are you crewed up yet?’ He said, ‘No. I guess nobody wants me.’ I said, ‘Well, would you like to fly with us?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to fly with somebody. I might as well fly with you.’ So then we said, ‘Well, we’ll need a, we’ll need a wireless operator.’ So we looked around and we see somebody with, with a w/op badge on so, or a wing I should say so we introduced ourselves. He said, ‘I’m Bob Hooker,’ he said, ‘I come from Big River.’ That’s kind of interesting because where my youngest daughter lives now we go right through Big River and she, they live on a lake front property about eight kilometres from Big River so that brings back memories. So then we said, ‘Well, we need, we need a rear gunner.’ So then we saw some gunners in a group and one chap seemed to be by himself so we introduced ourselves. And he said, ‘Well I’m, I’m Kenny Taylor,’ he said, ‘I come from, from a farm near Mayerthorpe, Alberta.’ So it turned out that he was the youngest in the crew and I was next to, I was next to Kenny as far as age goes and my navigator was probably, he already had a degree in agriculture. He was probably seven or eight years older than I was and my, and Bob Hooker was also about the same age. And so that’s how we crewed up.
DE: Ok.
RH: And then —
DE: I was just going to say when did, when did you get your flight engineer because he’d have been RAF rather than Royal Canadian Air Force, wouldn’t he?
RH: We got, we got our flight engineer when we went to conversion.
DE: I’m sorry, I’m —
RH: We did, yeah we had a five man crew on Wellingtons and we didn’t need an engineer.
DE: I’m jumping ahead. Sorry.
RH: So, yeah, so we got the engineer then when we went to the Conversion Unit and the Conversion Unit didn’t last more than about three weeks. And I, excuse me I’ve got to have a drink of water.
DE: Cheers.
[pause]
RH: And they, they gave us an instructor who had just finished a tour, and I, I could tell that he wasn’t too enthusiastic about being an instructor. And so he did the first couple of circuits I guess and then he told me to take over. We were flying Halifax 5s with inline engines and I understand they used to have a lot of glycol leaks, Merlin inline engines. And on my first landing I didn’t do a very good job. I couldn’t keep it straight. So he stopped the aircraft and he said, ‘If you bloody well want to kill yourself,’ he said, ‘You bloody well go ahead,’ he said, ‘You’re not going to kill me.’ So we taxied the aircraft, told me to taxi the aircraft up to the flight. We did that and he got out the aircraft and left me there. And then a flight commander came out and he got in the aircraft and did a circuit. Told me to, no actually he told me, he told me to do a circuit and we were coming in to land, the aircraft was moving around I guess too much on the runway, he said, ‘Take your damned feet off the rudders.’ You don’t, he said, ‘You don’t need very much rudder control on these aircraft.’ He said, ‘Try another landing.’ So we did another landing and I suppose the reason I kept my feet on because I wasn’t very tall. I was about five foot six and he said, ‘I think you need a cushion or something behind you so you can reach that. But remember you don’t need much rudder,’ he said, ‘On these aircraft.’ And that was the problem that I had. So after we got that solved then as I say, that course only lasted about, about three or four weeks. And then while we were there it was interesting. They said, ‘Well, if you finish this course without killing yourselves,’ that was not too encouraging [laughs] They said, ‘Just hope you don’t get posted to Croft.’ We said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘Well, Croft throughout Bomber Command is known as the jinx station. Everything that happens always happens at Croft.’ Well, I often think back and after I’d been there, finished my tour with my four crashes I guess I added to their reputation. [Laughs] So, when we, when we got to, to Croft I think we were only there about, well we got there on the 12th. I remember that. We got there on the 12th of March and on the 15th of March there were five crews arrived that day. They’d had a few losses. Five new crews. And they had told me what crew I was going to fly with and one of the pilots that had come to the station the same day he came to me and he said, ‘Well, I know pilot —’ so and so, he said, ‘Would you mind switching places with me?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter to me, I said, ‘I really don’t know any of the, any of the crews.’ So he said, ‘Well.’ I said, ‘You go and speak to the flight commander and see if he ok’s it.’ So he did. And so I ended up going with a Flying Officer [Feldman] and his crew and I discovered that he came from Quebec City and was a very good hockey player and he played with what they called the Quebec Aces. And the, the —
Other: Sorry. I’m just plugging this in. Sorry, Dan.
DE: Ok.
Other: Don’t want to lose power halfway through.
DE: Oh right. You’re just plugging in the power cord. Ok. Thank you.
RH: So, so the target that night was Amiens and we were, we were bombing the large transport, I guess you’d call it a transportation centre. The Germans were bringing up a lot of supplies in preparation I suppose for the, for the allied landings. And there wasn’t a jump seat there so I stood up about halfway and he said, ‘Well, you’d better go and sit down on the step,’ which I did. It was a sort of a routine trip. There wasn’t very much flak or much searchlights there and when we, when we were coming in to land, excuse me [pause] coming in to land he told me, I was standing beside him, I wanted to watch him land, he said, ‘Go back to the crash position.’ Well, I didn’t go. I stood back about three or four steps so he couldn’t see me because I wanted to see him land. And unbeknownst to the crew they had a five hundred pound bomb left in the bomb bay and when the aircraft touched down the bomb didn’t drop off. The runways were a bit, they weren’t very level there so the aircraft always bounced a bit. We got just about to the end of the runway and then the bomb dropped off even though the bomb switch was off. The bomb was still live. We never heard the bomb go off but it woke everybody up on the station and I suppose from the concussion, the bomb literally blew the plane apart. There wasn’t anything left from the wings. The fuselage was gone, the rudders were gone and it was like a movie scene. I, I suppose I was knocked out momentarily because in a Halifax you’re about twenty six feet off the ground. So I don’t know what my trajectory was but I expect that the bottom of the aircraft blew out when the bomb went off and it killed the two gunners instantly. And the rest of us, I suppose literally blew us out of the aircraft because I found myself lying on the ground and I remember opening my eyes and I thought I could see stars. And then I thought, my first thought was jeez, I must be in heaven. There was no sound. And then all of a sudden I started to get wet and, I, my first thought was oh I must be bleeding to death. Well, it wasn’t. What had happened, when the bomb exploded all the gas lines were punctured or fractured, and then the hundred octane gas was flowing towards the exhaust. They were still pretty hot from the flight and then they all burst into flames and then there was a big wall of fire. And I picked myself up, I was still sort of dazed. It was dark but it was getting lighter as the fire rose, and I started to run. This is a bit fresh, I don’t know whether I should tell it or not but I tripped, and I tripped over, someone’s head had been decapitated and there was no helmet on and he had a mop of, I remember he had a mop of beautiful curly hair. I kept on running and I saw someone else running and heard someone else yell, ‘Help.’ And the pilot was almost out of the, the cockpit was left, one wing was fully intact. Another wing was only partly there, but the pilot was almost out but he had those, the old type flying boots on where they, they were fleece lined with the zipper all the way up. That’s when they, later on they changed those into more of a boot with a zipper on. Then if you bailed out because when they were baling out the fire, when they baled out when the parachute opened they were losing one or both flying boots so they made a new type of flying boot. So this chap that was, I didn’t know the crew, the chap was running. He called me and so we, we both tugged on the pilot and pulled him, pulled him away from the aircraft. That part wasn’t burning. It was just the rear part of the wings and that that were burning. And then of course, I guess it was the oxygen bottles started to explode and the verey cartridges and there were a lot of explosions around. And then, then I think I think the ambulance arrived then and took us to the hospital. And then nobody seemed to be injured but I had a sore arm and so they said, ‘Well you’d better, you’d better go on.’ They told me it was a bad scrape. So I went to my aunt and uncle’s in Hull. They lived in Hull, and I was there about the third day and my uncle who had been in the, survived the First World War he, one day he was home for lunch and he said, ‘Let me have a look at that arm.’ So he looked at it and he said, ‘By Jove, I don’t like the look of that,’ he said. There’s an anti-aircraft battery. As you probably well know, Dan, next to London Hull was one of the most bombed cities in Britain. All the east I remember from history that there was a lot of, a lot of lot of shipping done from Hull, and all that was left there were just concrete. All the docks and everything were gone but there was just enough room for the trawlers to come in. They used to go out at night and do their fishing and come in with their catch in the morning. But there was still an anti-aircraft battery in the outskirts of Hull so I got on the bus and went out there. It was called Sutton. I went out there and I saw the medical officer. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You’ve got phosphorous burns,’ he said, ‘How did you get those?’ So I told him about the bomb explosion. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Those bombs,’ he said, ‘There’s lots of phosphorous in those,’ he said, ‘That’s where you got your burn,’ he said, ‘That needs to be looked at right away.’ And he said, ‘I’m a little short of bandages,’ he said. I suppose they had, quite a few people were killed in Hull. So he, he said, ‘I’m going to put a fish dressing on your, on your arm.’ And he wrapped it up in newspaper, tied it up and he said, ‘You’d better get — where are you stationed?’ I told him. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’d better get back on the train as soon as possible and get back to the station.’ So I went back to my aunt and uncle’s and got the clothes that I’d taken there, and went to the train and then of course I had to take the train from there. I had to change in York to get back to Croft. Then Darlington. Then up to Croft to the station. Of course in those trains you know you’ve got six people in the compartment and three on each side looking at one another, and pretty soon people started looking around and sniffing. They could see I wasn’t carrying anything. They thought they could smell fish so I had to, I had to explain to them where the fish smell was coming from. [laughs]
DE: Oh dear.
RH: I don’t really know what the fish dressing did but apparently as the doctor said that was the best thing to do. So to make a long story short I saw the medical officer and he said, ‘Well, where do you want to go for treatment?’ Well, they might as well have asked the [unclear] because I didn’t have a clue where I should go. So he said, ‘Well, I’d better send you to Basingstoke.’ Of course that was a big, I remember my dad saying that was a big hospital in the First World War. And at that time they had a lot of casualties. Especially tank casualties from Italy. And when I got there I was so embarrassed because I was walking around and I saw fellas bandaged there with, you know some of them were blind, and some of them had their arms grafted to their face and I just felt so. They kept me there for a week. They just didn’t have enough time to deal with me. They did, dressed my arm and then they finally sent me to East Grinstead. And then I was there for, I had pinch grafts done on my arm. Dr Tilley. He was a Canadian doctor. He was the one that, that did my, my pinch. He did a pinch graft. They tried a flap graft first but that didn’t work so then they did pinch grafts. Took pinches from my, from my upper thigh and then grafted it on. So I was there for probably nine weeks and then I went back to the station.
DE: What had happened to the, your crew during the nine, ten weeks that you were —
RH: That [laughs] that’s interesting. When, when I got back to the station I thought oh well they’d have found another pilot. I’ll have to, I’ll have to get another crew. Well, I guess it turned out they didn’t know how long I was going to be away and the crew were still there. I don’t know what they did for the time I was away but they were there waiting for me. So I think, I think we did maybe one or two cross countries to get climatised I guess again, and well actually that would have been my, several weeks, almost two months before I’d flown or since I’d flown. And then we did, we did eleven trips without any, I wouldn’t say without any difficulty but some of them were, what the word for exciting is. I don’t know whether that’s the right word or not but they were all very different. And on the way out to, on our thirteenth trip on the way out to the aircraft, the lorry used to take us out, if I remember correctly I think the lorries were large enough to take two crews which would be fourteen airmen. And my rear gunner, Kenny Taylor, the youngest in the crew he was very quiet and I said, ‘What’s the matter, Kenny? Don’t you feel good?’ He said, ‘Well, skipper. Physically,’ he said, ‘I feel ok,’ he said, ‘But do you know what trip this is?’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s twelve, er thirteen. Why?’ ‘Gosh,’ he said, ‘I sure don’t like, I don’t like thirteen,’ he said, ‘Can we call it 12a?’ I said, ‘Kenny, if it’ll make you feel better then it won’t be thirteen. It’ll be 12a.’ I don’t know whether Kenny had a premonition or just what, but when we got the green light to take off I got at least three quarters of the way down the runway and the port inner engine suddenly stopped and I had about eighty, it was just prior to lift off. About eighty to eighty five miles an hour, and the engine stopped suddenly and the aircraft veered off the runway. Then it’s pitch dark. It had been, we’d been, the flight had been delayed at least a couple of times and then when we took off it had quit raining but it was dark and I didn’t know if I throttled back if, I was the fourth aircraft off out of nineteen or twenty. The other aircraft, I knew they were slowly inching their way to the take-off point on the perimeter track. I couldn’t see them. I didn’t know if I could get stopped. I knew if I didn’t get stopped and crashed in to one what a horrible site that would be. So I pushed the throttles through the gate and when I did that I had more than full power on the two port engines and suddenly the aircraft, I did gain a bit of altitude. The, the right wing went down and then the aircraft started to shudder and I still had enough control. I remember straightening the aircraft out. I yelled at the crew to brace for impact. My bomb aimer was standing beside me. The last thing I remember is telling them to brace themselves and I don’t remember anything else. But I got over those aircraft and just off the edge of the drome there was a farmhouse and a barn and there was a stone wall around, around the house. The barn was attached to the house which was quite common in England. And we crashed into that wall and then when we, we were probably I don’t know how fast we were going. Maybe eighty, ninety miles an hour. My bomb aimer went forward into the instrument panel and I don’t know how I ended up with the cockpit split open. I don’t know how I got out but they found me lying on the wing. I was knocked out. My wireless operator and mid-upper gunner apparently pulled me off the, off the wing. And the navigator and the rest of the crew apparently were wandering around, around the aerodrome. And I was still unconscious but the bomb aimer, he was still conscious, and there were, he had a serious head injury and they were going to take us to a hospital. I think it was Northallerton. They couldn’t do anything at the, at the base hospital. So I, I woke up on the way to the hospital and I knew, I’m pretty sure that Gordon was still, was still alive then because they operated on him. I think it was Northallerton. But he didn’t, he didn’t survive the operation. But then I ended up with a broken nose and probably twenty or thirty stiches in my face and a badly bruised thigh so I was in the hospital for probably about ten days. [pause] So then they when I got out the hospital they had got another bomb aimer to take Gordon’s, take Gordon’s place, and we continued our operations. And on the seventeenth trip it was, we went to Brest, and I remember when we were going out to the aircraft I remember my wireless operator saying to, to my two gunners. He said, ‘Well, we’re, we’re going to Brest,’ he said. They told us at briefing it was, expect to encounter a lot of flak because the, Brest and Hamburg were where the German U-boats were being serviced, and he said we could expect a lot of flak and probably a few night fighters. He said, ‘I hope we get back from this trip ok.’ I think it was Kenny or Maurice said, ‘Well, why?’ He said, ‘Well, we’re going on leave. We’re going on leave tomorrow,’ he said, ‘So, I hope to get back.’ And I, whether which one was it? ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Well, the skipper, the skipper will get us back ok.’ So I never gave it another, I never gave it another thought. But then when, I suppose, I’m not sure just where we were, whether we were halfway back to England then we ran into this heavy rain. And as we got closer to the, to Croft, the wireless operator had told me, or I asked him, I said, ‘Have we got any diversions?’ And he hesitated and he said, ‘No.’ And then the second time he called up he asked about the weather. ‘Got any more?’ I said, ‘No.’ Then he said, ‘Well, aircraft from 3 and 4 were being diverted.’ I said, ‘Well, better, better listen.’ So he called up three or four times, and I kept asking if he’d had a diversion. He said, ‘No,’ he didn’t have any. But I don’t know how he, how he missed the diversion but when we got back to base it was still pouring rain and it was heavy cloud and I think there was only one. Only one person on duty in the control tower and he said to me, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You can land,’ he said, ‘But I’ll put on all the lights that we can,’ he said, ‘And come down to about eight hundred feet and see if you can, see if you can see any lights.’ Which I did but I couldn’t see any. And he then said, ‘Well, climb. Climb to thirty five hundred feet and stand by for further instructions.’ Well, they always say that you can’t fly by the seat of your pants, and I’d been flying for at least two hours in this heavy rain and thick cloud and I decided, well I’m pretty sure we’re going to, we haven’t got much fuel left. We’ll probably have to bale out although I never said anything to the crew. And he said, ‘Climb to thirty five hundred feet.’ So I remember it was easier to turn to port to do a slow turn than it would be to starboard. So I did a slow climbing turn with just enough RPMs on to gain some height and I suppose I was getting calls from the control tower, and while I was doing this slow climbing turn I must have been unconsciously pulling back slightly on the control column because all of a sudden the navigator yelled at me, he said, ‘Skipper, what’s happening?’ Just as he said that all of the navigation equipment ended up in the cockpit and then the aircraft started to shudder and I knew instantly what had happened. That the aircraft was almost on its back because the cloud was thick and I had no sensation in that position. I shoved the throttles forward. At the same time I pushed the stick forward. I still have that feeling of the aircraft shuddering but I caught it in time and then I got it into a dive and I pulled as hard as I could and finally got, got out of the dive. And apparently the chap in the control tower had been calling and he went outside and he could hear the aircraft so I don’t know how close we came to slamming into the ground. But then I said to myself well to heck with this I’m not climbing to thirty five hundred feet, I’m climbing to five thousand feet and I did. I kept the throttles at full force and the perspiration was pouring off me, and I climbed to five thousand feet and in the meantime he was calling up wanting to know where I was. Well, in that kind of weather I’m sure we didn’t know exactly where we were and he finally said, ‘Well, the only drome open is Silloth on the west coast.’ And I asked the navigator, I said, ‘How far is that? It sounds like it’s a long way.’ I think it was just on the very west coast. Right on the, I suppose it would be on the Irish Sea. I’m not sure. But I know it was an OTU because they were, they started flying Hudsons there, and I know they had a lot of, they had a lot of crashes there. But anyway we didn’t have very much fuel left and I said to the crew then, I said, ‘Well, it looks like we’re going to have to leave this aircraft. We’re going to have to bale out.’ So I said, ‘We’ve gone through the bale out procedure.’ I said, ‘When you leave your position,’ I said, ‘Let me know because,’ I said, ‘I’m going to be the last one to bale out.’ So [pause] they, they did. They all let me know when they were, when they were gone and then it was my turn to go. And you’re probably aware that the pilots had the opportunity of wearing a chest type chute or a seat type chute and as soon as I found that out I thought gosh that doesn’t sound very good. My chute’s down in the nose and the bomb aimer’s job is to give me my chest type chute if we have to bale out. What if the bomb aimer gets injured, we get attacked by a night fighter or we get hit with flak how am I going to get my parachute? So I used to carry my parachute. It weighed about almost thirty pounds I think with all that silk that was packed in there. I used to carry it in. I remember getting over the main spar. It was a bit difficult but I carried it in and it fit really well into the, into the cockpit seat. And then after I got in there I would strap it on, and then I’d put my waist, my Mae West on top of that. I did that every time. But when it was my turn to bale out which I’d never tried doing before because when we got back from a trip we just undid the parachute and I carried it out. So I moved across the cockpit and then I got hold of a rung with my right hand. Then when I figured I was clear of all the levers I let myself go. There’s three levers come at forty five degree angle and the last lever came up between my leg and my parachute harness. And I’d already let go of the rung and then I found myself dangling there and when I, before I baled out I put in the automatic pilot and I trimmed it so it was slightly nose down because I knew that it was a sparsely populated area but I didn’t know how far the, the aircraft was going to go. So I thrashed around and I thought egods, I survived the, survived the trip from there but now I’m going to go down with this aircraft. And I don’t know how long I thrashed around but finally I heard, I heard a crack and the lever broke. I suppose with my weight and the weight of the parachute the lever broke. I remember falling. There were three steps to the escape hatch and I remember falling down three steps and I remember hitting my elbow and I actually rolled out of the aircraft and I saw the, I saw the, I remember seeing the rudder of the aircraft and then I started to roll over and I found my rip cord. I gave it a yank. Of course nothing happens when you first pull it. And then this chute opened with a real jerk and I swung to the right, came back and I hit the ground. So I really, I really have no sensation of falling in a parachute. I’ve asked skydivers at air shows, ‘How close do you think I was to the ground?’ They said, Well, you were probably less than a thousand feet. Might have been about eight hundred feet when your parachute opened,’ because I remember hitting the ground really hard. But by this time the rain had stopped but it was real foggy and I remember sitting on, sitting on my parachute and I thought well at least I’m alive. And then I wasn’t sitting there for very long and it was real still and I heard a whistle. And as you know, we had a whistle on our battle dress that we had to use in case we were ditching at night. And I heard this whistle. So then I dropped my whistle and I blew back. And then I heard someone. Someone shouting, ‘Where are you?’ And I said, ‘I’m over here.’ Somebody said, ‘Where’s here?’ [laughs] I remember that so distinctly. And finally after calling back and forth my mid-upper gunner Maurice Content, he came from Montreal, he had a bit of a French accent but he was a really great guy. He was probably about seven or eight years older than I was but he said, ‘Skipper, thank God we’re alive.’ I said, ‘Yes. Thank goodness we are.’ I said, ‘I wonder how the rest of the crew made out.’ Then we heard another whistle. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Somebody else is alive.’ So then after more blowing whistles, and some more talking, here our rear gunner Kenny shows up. So at least there’s three of us alive. And so I remember we, I don’t know which one of them said, ‘Well, we’ve got an escape kit that we’re supposed to use if we bale out over enemy territory. Let’s open it and see what’s in it.’ [laughs] So we all opened our, our escape kits and of course there was some chocolate in there and there was a compass in there and a little map. Some I think had a little package of dressings and so on. I remember we ate our chocolate and then I remember Kenny saying to me, ‘Well, skipper. What are we going to do now?’ I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re going to have to start to —’ by this time then the fog had sort of started lifting and it would be, I think we baled out about, hit the ground probably about 4 o’clock in the morning and this would be about, well we sat there for a long time and finally the fog started to lift. It’d be about, somewhere about nine and nine thirty and then I said, ‘Well, we might as well go back in an northeast direction,’ because that’s where we came from. So we started to walk. And as you probably know we were in what they called the Fells district, and some of them call them high hills. Some actually call them small mountains but they seemed like mountains by the time we walked up one, they were and the grass and heather was at least up to our knees and we had the new type flying boots on. They’re fleece lined and they come up to just about your knees and then they actually made like a shoe, and then if you bale out over enemy territory then you can rip that top off and then you’ve got a boot. And but we didn’t do that. We walked and then about eleven or, ten or 11 o’clock the sun came out and it was, it turned out to be a really hot day which you, you get very few of those in England unless it’s, unless it’s in southern England you’d have more of them but not in, not in that part of the country. But anyway we walked all day. All we saw were sheep. We never saw any habitation. We didn’t see any buildings and we were getting tired and hungry and about 7 o’clock in the evening Kenny, my rear gunner, he said, ‘Skipper, I think I can see a building.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘You must be hallucinating, Kenny,’ I said. ‘There’s no buildings around here.’ ‘Skipper,’ he said, ‘I’m sure there’s a building there.’ I said, ‘Ok. Let’s go and see if there is one.’ So we started walking. He told me where he could see it. Maybe his eyesight was sharper than mine but we kept walking. Sure enough there was a building there. As we got closer and there were lots of sheep around and it turned out that it was a shepherd and his wife. That that was their summer home and they had got probably hundreds of sheep. When we got there we saw at least three or four sheep dogs. And then what we thought was the hired man but it turned out later, I found out later that it was their son, and their name was Blenkinsopp. I could understand his wife but I could not understand [laughs] I could not understand and he actually when he saw us coming I guess whether he thought we were German airmen but he had, he had this pitchfork over his shoulder. I remember his wife, I could understand her, saying, ‘No,’ she said, ‘They’re Canadians.’ So they had this, this hut was stone wall but there was a, I don’t know whether it was a dirt floor or what it was. It seemed like a dirt floor but it was kind of solid. And then I remember looking up and they had bacon and hams hanging in a beam across there. I remember seeing chickens running around there and then we could smell bread. She’d just baked bread and she said in her accent, ‘I suppose you lads are hungry.’ We said, ‘Well, yes we are.’ So she made us some, cooked us some bacon and eggs, and she had some biscuits for us and I think she made us tea. And then the shepherd which we thought was a hired man, later it turned out to be his son he spoke to them and they had a horse and a cart and I saw him take off on this with this horse and cart. Just the son. And seemed a long time but about midnight an RAF van showed up and we got in the van and it took us to the Penrith. And when we got to the, it was the hospital and when we got there here the rest of the crew were there.
DE: Jolly good.
RG: And I, I have no idea how they, how they got there but they were all there. And the navigator apparently had, he had of all the sparsely populated area he’d landed on, he’d landed right on a stone wall. I don’t know whether it was part of Hadrian’s Wall or what it was but he’d landed on it. He landed on a wall and he had two fractures in his, in his upper vertebrae but he could still walk but that showed up after. And another one had a badly sprained ankle. But they were all alive. And then I guess they’d notified the, notified the station and later on during the day a Lancaster showed up and transported us back to Croft. But when I got my records from the War Records Branch in Ottawa I got this, that was after what they called the Access To Information Act. When it expired I think it was twenty five years after it expired, then you could request documentation. So I remember writing to the War Records Branch in Ottawa to get copies of my war records and I got an envelope and I’ve measured it. It’s twenty two inches long and it’s fourteen inches wide and over an inch thick. So when I looked, looked through that there were thirty five, they had two Boards of Enquiry. One in to the, in to why the bomb exploded even though the bomb switch was off and then of course was a large investigation over the crash on take-off because the very first thing they did was send the engine to the factory. And apparently when they took the engine apart there was no fuel in the fuel lines to the engine. So their conclusion was that the engine failed due to fuel starvation. Whether there was an air lock or what but that was their determination and, and then the, what else [pause] I’ve lost my train.
DE: It doesn’t matter. I just, so did you and your crew all get the little caterpillar badge for, for using your parachutes?
RH: Pardon?
DE: Did you get the little tiny caterpillar badge from the Irvin Parachute Company for, the little pin?
RH: Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. Got that. Yeah.
DE: And do you know what happened to your aircraft after? After you managed to bale out.
[pause]
RH: That’s, that’s another story. In 1984 I went to, I went five times to Guinea Pig reunion at East Grinstead. Apparently, the English, they met every year. The Guinea Pigs that were remaining. Well, I say England. Britain now let’s say because they came from Wales and Scotland. And the Canadians, they formed their wing, because there were about seventy five Canadians that were treated there and I think there were enough Australians also to form a wing. But they were mostly British. They’d be a few maybe Poles or French and so on. But all together I think there were close to eight hundred treated at the, at the Burns Centre at East Grinstead and then we all became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. And that’s, that’s how it got its name. The plastic surgeon he was a New Zealander.
DE: McIndoe.
RH: Pardon?
DE: McIndoe.
RH: Yeah. That’s right. McIndoe. One morning he was going his rounds and they were, they had this Englishman in the bathtub in the saline bath because they’d discovered that the Battle of Britain ones that had baled out and landed in the Channel or the North Sea, that their burns were, that they healed quicker so it must be the salt water. So that’s how they treated them at East Grinstead. The first thing they did was put them in a saline bath. So the story goes that McIndoe poked his head around the door and said, ‘Good morning,’ and the Englishman in the bathtub, he said, ‘You know, sir,’ he said, ‘We’re just a bunch of bloody guinea pigs.’ And Sir Archibald McIndoe said, ‘Oh,’ he said ‘that’s interesting,’ he said, ‘We should form a club and call it the Guinea Pig Club.’ And that’s how it got its name. Because I think they’ve done a documentary on that.
DE: There’s books written and all sorts. Yeah. So, you were going to —
RH: Because I —
KA: Tell him about, he asked about when they found your plane.
RH: Oh yeah. That. Yeah.
KA: Right. Tell him about that.
RH: Yeah. I’m going to tell him about that. So, so in ’84 when I went to the, when I went to the reunion in East Grinstead there was a lady there from Carlisle and her brother, their name was Hutchinson. He was one of the very badly burned airmen and I think they were having a tea and she said to me, where, wanted to know where I came from and she wondered what station I was from and I told her then about the bale out. And she said, ‘Oh, well that’s, that’s not so far from Carlisle,’ she said, ‘Tell me the whole story,’ she said, ‘And I’m going to write it up and put it in the local paper.’ So she did that and then there was a business man there by the name of Peter [Connan] and he got interested in that story and took my address and wrote to me and said, ‘Well, the next time you come to England to visit your relatives,’ he said, ‘Come to Carlisle,’ he said, ‘And I’ll take you out to the crash site.’ He said, ‘I know,’ he said, ‘I’ve written two books now,’ he said, ‘And I’m on the third one.’ He said, ‘I’m researching aircraft that crashed within a hundred miles of Carlisle.’ But he said, ‘I have details of your crash and,’ he said, ‘I know where the aircraft is —’ For I don’t know how long it was but the RAF, the area where the plane crashed I think it was an earl that owned all the land and he wouldn’t let anyone near the aircraft unless they were from the, from the RAF. And so he took me as close as possible to where the, where the aircraft had had crashed. And he belonged to a Rotary Club and took me to one of their luncheons. And then about four years ago I got a letter from a fella by the name of Philip Smith who lived in Newcastle on Tyne and he said, “My friend and I,” he said, “We’re doing research on aircraft that crashed in the general area where —” he said, “I was born.” He said, “I came across your crash,” he said, “In my research,” He said, “Your plane crashed about forty miles from where I lived but —" he said, “I’ve moved now to Newcastle on Tyne,” he said, but he said, “I’ve been out to the, I’ve been out to crash site and,” he said, “There isn’t anything left,” he said, “As far as the plane goes. The scavengers they’ve taken everything.” Because I guess the earl sold [pause] I forget his name now. He sold the property. But he came to Canada to train and he was a Spitfire pilot. And I can’t, I can’t just, at the moment I can’t remember his name but he was an earl. And, so Philip Smith, he sent me pictures and he gave me the name of the, he’d been visiting the farmer and his wife and their, and at the moment I can’t think of the exact name of the town where they are but they’ve taken over. They’ve taken over the area or the farm where the aircraft crashed and it was in a boggy area and apparently it went almost straight down and the engines apparently are still in the bog. But of course there isn’t anything left now of the plane but the farmer’s wife, it’s not agricultural land, the grass is almost two feet high and they have cattle and sheep because it’s so hilly and there’s no, there’s no agricultural crops grown. And the farmer’s wife’s name is Edith, her husband’s name was Geoff Wilkinson and she went out in their quad. She said, ‘Philip has been out several times,’ she said, ‘So I decided one day I’m going to get on the quad and I’m going to go out and see what I can see,’ because all there is left is a crater but it’s covered over now with grass. But they took pictures of it and showed me exactly where the aircraft was and she said, ‘When I got there,’ she said, ‘I stuck my hand down rabbit holes,’ she said, ‘And I ended up with about thirteen or fourteen pieces,’ she said. ‘So I put them in a sack. I took them home and I laid them out on the kitchen table,’ she said, ‘And I took a picture of them,’ she said, ‘And I’m, I thought you might like to see them.’ [laughs] So, I’ve, I’ve got a picture there so I’m going to write to you and I’m going to send you one of those pictures.
DE: Oh smashing. Thank you.
RH: Because it’s interesting to see and then when on one of the visits that Philip Smith made out there he found, he found an article that there were numbers on it and he wanted to know if I knew where it came from. And I could see there were white numbers but there was a lot of mud and things caked on it. So I cleaned it up and I got out my pilot’s handbook and I looked. It looked like it might have been something to do with the fuel gauge so I looked at the engineer’s panel and I found that this, this, it was actually the shape of a, it was flat but it was indicating how much fuel was in a particular fuel tank because I got it cleaned up enough I could see all the white numbers and they corresponded with the numbers that when I, you know when they had them all numbered in the, in the Halifax handbook. I showed the engineer’s panel so I was able to write back to Philip and tell him that I’d been able to able to, able to identify it and I still have that. I’ve got it taped on there. So then when we got, when we got back to, when we got back to the, we got back to the, from, from the bale out about five days after that they told us that the powers that be thought that the crew should go to London, to the Central Medical Board to be examined. And of course when we got there we saw psychologists and psychiatrists and they were all wing commanders, I think. Coming from the farm I wasn’t that well versed with psychologists. I didn’t really know they existed. But we had some really interesting questions posed to us and I answered them the best I could. So to make a long story short we were there three days. When we got back to the station they called me there. The squadron commander called me in and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We got the results from your visit to the Medical Board.’ And he said that, ‘We’ve got good news and bad news for you,’ he said, ‘The good news,’ he said, ‘You and your rear gunner are still considered fit to fly but the rest of the crew they’re not fit to continue flying. So we’ve decided that even though they’ve only done seventeen trips we’ll give them credit for a tour. They’re entitled to the ops wing but then they’ll go back to Canada. But if you and your rear gunner want to join them you can also get credit for your tour.’ So, I gave Kenny the news. As I say he was the youngster in the crew and Kenny said, ‘Well, skipper. If the rest of the, if the rest of the fellas on the squadron know that we’re fit to fly and we don’t continue flying they’ll think we’re cowards.’ And I said, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ I said, ‘That would never do, Kenny.’ And at the time they were converting the squadron to Canadian built Lancasters, so the squadron commander, Wing Commander Mitchell, he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘If you and your rear gunner want to continue flying,’ he said, ‘We’ll give you a couple of hours flying with the Lancaster,’ he said, ‘And we can, no problem getting you a new crew,’ he said, ‘We’ve got a lot of orphan crew members around here.’ He said, ‘They’ve lost their crew. They were either in hospital or something, but they’re trying to finish their tour and they’re having a difficult time to get another flight.’ So he said, ‘We’ll soon get you a new crew.’ So my navigator had a very good friend named Abby Edwards. He came from near Toronto and he was a dentist. He was probably about my navigator’s age. He came to me and he said, well, at the time my nickname was Crash and he said, ‘Crash,’ he said, ‘I’ve got about six or seven trips left,’ he said, ‘Can I finish my tour with you?’ I said, ‘Abby, you know what my record is,’ I said, ‘You might never finish your tour if you fly with me.’ [laughs] He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I know your record,’ he said. He said, ‘Your crashes you were in,’ he said, ‘They weren’t your fault,’ he said, ’So, I’d like to finish my tour with you.’ I said, ‘Well, that’s fine.’ So he became my navigator and then they made up a crew for us. [pause] And then I still had Squadron Leader [Frankie Gulliver] for my flight commander and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Go and sit in that brand new Lancaster,’ he said, ‘And familiarise yourself with the, with all the controls,’ he said, ‘Not much different,’ he said, ‘From the Halifax,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘Sit there for a couple of hours,’ he said, ‘And then,’ he said, ‘We’ll do a couple of circuits and bumps.’ So I get, I can’t remember how long I sat there but I finally went back and I told him, I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think I’ve got a good idea where everything is.’ He said, ‘Ok,’ he said, ‘Get your crew,’ he said, ‘And we’ll do a couple of circuits.’ So I expected he would get in to the seat and fly. ‘No,’ he said, ‘You get in there,’ he said, ‘And you fly.’ He said, ‘I’ll just go with you for one circuit.’ So, I got in and I was really surprised at the way the Lancaster handled. It was, I just can’t describe it but it was so smooth on the controls and I made a reasonably good landing and he said, ‘Ok,’ he said, ‘Take your new crew,’ he said, ‘And go out to do some air to sea firing,’ he said, ‘And do a short cross country,’ he said, ‘And then you can come back,’ which we did. Then two days later we went on our first op.
DE: Ok. So you’ve, you’ve flown a couple of different Marks of Halifaxes and now you’re flying Lancasters. There’s, there’s lots of people —
RH: Yeah.
DE: That argue, you know which they liked best and which was best. What’s, what’s your opinion?
RH: Oh, the Lancaster was, it was, for me it was much smoother and easier to fly. But I also, I’ve read many books where it said those that had to bale out over enemy territory that more people found the Halifax easier to bale out of than the Lancaster. Just the way it was designed I guess.
DE: Yeah.
RH: Same as, same as the Mosquito but apparently it was very difficult to escape from too.
DE: But you, as a pilot you liked the Lancaster.
RH: I liked the Lancaster. But I will say this about [pause] like I flew the, I flew the Halifax with the Merlin inline engines and I did my tour with the, with the radial engines. With the Hercules radial engines. They were very powerful but they discovered that you know they were very hard on fuel, so you couldn’t carry as many bombs. Well, you could carry probably twenty three hundred gallons of petrol if your tanks were full but they used, they used a lot of fuel on take-off. So we didn’t have any difficulty over the target on the first trip but when we were getting, I’m not too sure how far we’d be from there but the wireless operator said, ‘Well, we’ve been diverted to Tuddenham and it’s equipped with FIDO.’ Oh my God, I thought, my first trip in a Lancaster and now I’ve got to land on FIDO. Well, number one, when I was sitting in the aircraft I never looked to see where the little box was to turn it on so that I could get the Morse Code signals.
DE: Oh, for the —
RH: To get myself lined up with the runway.
DE: For the BAT. The beam approach.
RH: Yeah. The beam approach training. And then when I finally found the box to turn it on I turned it on and then it had been over a year since I’d taken a course and I could not remember the signals. The signals to port were different than the starboard and they always told us, ‘If you get into an emergency don’t panic. If you panic you won’t think of anything.’ Well, I don’t know how long I sat, well sitting there, I was in the ruddy, somewhere within the circuit and I finally [pause] it came to me. I knew that one side was dit dit dit. The other was da da da. And I finally got, I remember crossing the beam twice in my circling I guess the aerodrome and then I finally got the signals figured out and got myself lined up with the runway and then of course you’re still in fog and I get down to seven hundred feet, a thousand feet, nine hundred feet and I thought egods where is that? Where is that runway? And about eight hundred feet you break through the fog because they’ve got this hundred octane fuel forced through these pipes eh with holes in and blazing away. There’s two walls of fire and I thought egods I’d better keep this damned aircraft between these walls of fire because I glanced out to my port side and I saw a Halifax blazing away. Now, to make a long story short I got the aircraft down and taxied over to where they were dozens of aircraft there. I don’t know how, you know how many were there but there were certainly a lot of aircraft. I think they had, if I remember correctly they only had about three stations equipped with FIDO. But this was Tuddenham. It was a large drome, equipped at Tuddenham and we stayed there. And then about 10 o’clock I think, the fog had cleared and then we, then we headed back home. I think it was two days later we went to, we went to Duisburg which had been bombed several times. And when we were on the bombing run, just started the bombing run we got hit with flak and it hit the port, the port inner engine but, there was a small fire but the engineer was able to extinguish the blaze but almost at the instant the mid-upper gunner yelled at me. He said, ‘Skipper, there’s a Halifax shooting at us. What’ll I do?’ ‘Are you sure?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I can see the bugger.’ I said, ‘Well, shoot back at him then.’ And you know, I don’t know whether it was, it seemed like it was almost hailing, you could almost hear the bullets hitting the aircraft and then the firing stopped. And then we found out later that their guns had jammed but when they got back it was their first trip. We discovered that when they got back to the station they claimed they’d shot down an unidentified four engine German night fighter. Well, [laughs] as you know the Germans didn’t even have four engine bombers. I think they had Dorniers and Heinkels as their twin engines. I don’t recall them ever having a four engine bomber. But that’s what we turned out to be.
DE: Oh dear.
RH: An unidentified four engine German night fighter. So we got the bombs dropped and went to close the bomb doors and they didn’t close all the way. And of course I didn’t, I had no idea why they didn’t close. Then when we got into the circuit went to put down the, put down fifteen degrees of flaps, and then went to put down the undercarriage and we’d only got one wheel. And I remember flying the Halifax that there was, there was an air bottle there charged up to I think about twelve hundred pounds pressure to use that and the engineer knew where, where it was. Tried that. Couldn’t get the wheel down and then he said, ‘Skipper,’ he said, he said, ‘There’s a crank here somewhere,’ he said, ‘Maybe we can crank it down.’ I said, ‘Well, try cranking it then.’ Well, he couldn’t. Couldn’t get the wheel down. So I told the control tower. I said, ‘I’ve only got one wheel.’ And they said, ‘Stand by.’ And finally they came back and they said, ‘Well, you can’t land here on one wheel,’ they said, ‘The runway’s not long enough. We don’t know what’s going to happen to the aircraft after you land so —’ They said, ‘You’ll have to go to a crash drome.’ So, they said, ‘Stand-by.’ You know. They finally came back on and said, ‘You’ll have to go to Carnaby.’ Well, that was on the, you probably know where that is, that’s on the east coast and actually not that far from Hull where my relatives lived and we had enough fuel to get there. And when I was in the circuit I said to control tower, ‘Have you got any instructions how I can land this brand new Lancaster on one wheel?’ And there was silence. Came back and said, I forget what they called the, referred to me, not as skipper but I forget the word they used, ‘You’re the first one that’s tried landing on one wheel. We’ve had lots of belly landings,’ they said, ‘But we haven’t had one landing on one wheel.’ But they said, ‘We know that you’re going to ground loop so we’ve got three flare paths. We’ve got one with like,’ they were all hooded, of course. ‘We’ve got one to the right with red lights. We’ve got one in the centre with amber. And then we’ve got one at the port side with, with green.’ So they said, ‘We’re going to put you in the centre. We’re going to put you in the centre flare path.’ And this was right close to the North Sea and as I turned in one of the engines started to sputter so I knew that we were getting a bit short of fuel. So I came in probably a little bit higher and a little bit faster than normal but as soon as I touched down I suppose the weight from the aircraft was too much for the one oleo leg and it snapped off. And then the aircraft started to spin. I don’t really know how many, I don’t know how many times it actually did but we went right across the green flare path and we ended up, we ended up on the, on the grass. I’ve got several pictures there. It shows the Lancaster sitting on the grass. So this was still dark and when we went out, when it was daylight we went out to look at the aircraft and what had happened when they, when the Halifax started shooting at us all their bullets hit the hydraulic lines. It punctured the hydraulics and we slowly lost all the hydraulic fluid. But if they had been about three or four feet higher it would have killed the navigator, the wireless operator, they would probably have killed me, the rear gunner. Maybe the, maybe the mid-upper might have survived. But if they had been that much higher. So that’s how close it, how close it came. So, then we, we went to the, I don’t know how we got to the station in Hull but I said to the crew, I said, ‘I’ve got a cousin that works in an office not, not very far from the station,’ I said, ‘We’ve got, we’ve got an hour and a half to wait for the train to York and then we’ve got to change trains in York.’ I said, ‘I’m going to slip over to see if my cousin’s working.’ So I went to the office and there was a young lady there. She said, ‘Can I help you?’ And of course I’m in my flying gear. She said, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ And I said, ‘Yes. I’d like to speak to my cousin.’ ‘And who may that be?’ I said, ‘Mary Graham.’ ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I’ll call Mary.’ So I still see my Cousin Mary and her eyes were that big and she said, ‘Oh, my God,’ she said, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve crashed again.’ [laughs]
DE: It must have been, it must have been quite good for you having family in Hull. So I guess you could go see them when you were on leave and things like that.
RH: Oh yeah because my dad never did get, like after he survived the First World War. He came out to Canada in 1912. Went back when they needed engineers and got married in 1917. Got I think about three or four days leave, and he never did get back. He lost, he actually lost two brothers in that war. Strange because they named me after both of them. Reg. Reg and Wilfred. And then when, when we [pause] had my little visit with Mary of course she went home and told her folks what had happened. And when we got, got to the station and got on the train and changed at, changed at York and then got back to the station. Then I think it was the next day Wing Commander Mitchell by this time, Group Captain Turnbull, he’d been transferred back to 6 Group Headquarters and I’m not sure if it was Northallerton or Harrogate, it was either one of those where 6 Group was located but he was transferred back to 6 Group Headquarters and Wing Commander Mitchell was put in charge of both squadrons. He was the station commander then in charge of all, and they brought in another wing commander from the RAF to take his, take over his place. And then Wing Commander Mitchell called me in to his office and he said, ‘Well, Crash,’ he said, ‘You’ve cheated the Grim Reaper four times,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling,’ he said, ‘That you’re not going to be lucky the fifth time,’ he said. ‘So we’re going to screen you,’ he said, ‘And you won’t be doing any more operations. But,’ he said, ‘If you like flying the Lancaster,’ he said, ‘They’re establishing a new special duty squadron over in Middleton St George,’ he said. ‘Not sure what you’ll be doing but,’ he said, ‘They’ll be making trips to France which is now clear of the Germans,’ he said. ‘So if you want to join that squadron,’ he said, ‘They have lots of room for you.’ So he said, ‘You can think about it for a few days.’ I thought about It, and I thought well I won’t be doing any more ops but I said. ‘Maybe my luck will run out,’ I said, ‘Even though I’m not on ops,’ I said, ‘Maybe something else will happen to me because,’ I said, ‘I seem to be jinxed.’ [laughs] So, I decided. Oh, I said, ‘Maybe I’d better get screened.’ So that was, that was the end of my flying career.
DE: So how many ops had you done at that point?
RH: Pardon me?
DE: How many ops had you done at that point?
RH: Nineteen.
DE: Nineteen. Ok. Thank you. Are you ok to carry on or would you like a wee break for a, for a little bit?
RH: No. I’m fine. I’ll have another drink of gin [laughs]
DE: Oh, you’re lucky [laughs] I’m on water.
RH: Yeah. I think I am too.
DE: Ok [laughs]
KA: Have you shown them the book?
RH: Eh?
KA: Have you shown the book?
RH: Oh. Can you see this book?
DE: I can see it says, “Flight.” If you lift it a bit higher. Ok.
RH: Ok. So that book that just came out recently and it was written by Deana Driver, and she once said there’s been, actually I should go back. She, she and her husband ran, she and her husband ran a printing business. Can you hear me?
DE: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
RH: And so she had [pause] I guess I have to go back to the Canadian Snowbirds. You’ve probably heard of them. Canada’s air demonstration team.
DE: We have the Red Arrows.
RH: Did you?
DE: Yeah. The RAF display team are called the Red Arrows. They’re stationed, well they practice over my house.
RH: Oh yeah.
DE: So yeah. Yeah.
RH: But anyway when they were formed they reactivated 431 Squadron. So then I’ve had a connection with them ever since and been to their station at Moose Jaw. That’s where they’re training NATO pilots. But then when, when the Governor General visited Saskatchewan in 2018 for her training as an astronaut she took some of her flying at Moose Jaw flying Harvards. So the Snowbirds said, well and she wanted to visit the station. They said, ‘Well, we’ll put on, we’ll put on a special show for you.’ And unbeknownst to me the fella in Saskatoon that had organised, he’d organised numerous air shows and there’s another photographer there. He had interviewed numerous veterans and done videos and they’d arranged, they’d arranged with the, with the Snowbird commander to make me an Honorary Snowbird. So after the air show I thought well we’ll be going back to Saskatoon. They said, ‘No. We’ve got a, you’d better stick around for a while because we’ve got something else to do.’ So then I saw people gathering around and people with cameras and much to my surprise the Governor General was there and the commanding officer and then they had a beautiful plaque and the Commanding Officer, Colonel French presented me with this plaque and made me an Honorary Snowbird. So I have a picture taken with the Governor General on my right and I’m in the centre and the Snowbird commander’s there and I’m standing right beside the Governor General and I thought, gee I wonder if I should put my arm around her [laughs] I suddenly thought well better not do that I said, because Prince Philip, he has to walk six blocks behind the Queen and the Governor General is representing the Queen. I said, you’d better, you’d better not do that [laughs] After they’d presented me she said, she had a bit of an accent and she said, ‘Oh, they tell me you used to fly the Lancasters.’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘What were they like to fly?’ I said, ‘They were a lovely aircraft to fly.’ I said, ‘Your excellency, if you go to Trenton,’ I said, ‘There is one Lancaster that can fly and one in England,’ I said, ‘If you go to Trenton I’m sure they’ll let you fly the Lancaster.’ ‘Do you think so?’ [laughs] I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m sure they’d let you fly it.’ So I’ve often thought it was a good thing I didn’t try and put my arm around her. So where were we now? I got sidetracked.
DE: Yeah. You had just been screened so I guess it’s —
RH: Oh yeah.
DE: It’s, it’s from there and the voyage home I suppose.
RH: So then, well then of course I stayed around the station for a while. I went back to my aunt and uncle’s to, [pause] to say goodbye to them, and then went to Warrington. That’s where they all went to turn in their gear and so on. And when we, I was only there for one day and then it came [pause] oh I guess what you’d call a storm but anyway the weather turned really cold and all the pipes froze. They had hundreds of people there, and you had to return all your gear. And then they said, ‘Well, it’s going, everything is shut down because all the pipes are frozen. We can’t get anything done so where ever you came from you might as well go back.’ So I went back to Hull for another three or four days and said a second goodbye to my aunt and uncle. Then went back to Warrington. We had to turn in our helmets and flying boots, and I thought well I’m not going to turn everything in. If we didn’t turn in we had to pay for them. So I thought, well I survived four plane crashes I’m taking something home with me. So I took my flying boots. They said, ‘Where are your flying boots?’ Well I said, ‘I forgot.’ I said, ‘I left them with my aunt. I left with my aunt and uncle.’ They said, ‘Well, you’ll have to pay for them.’ So, ‘Ok. I’ll pay for them.’ And I often wish I’d kept my darned helmet, you know. Because when, over the years I’ve gone to numerous schools and so on and I often wish that, I used to take my flying boots to show them and that but I often wish I’d taken my helmet. But I didn’t. Then to make a long story short I, you remember my Buddy saying, ‘Well, you might meet Jean?’ Well, when we got to, when we got back to Canada I think it took us about another four, four and a half days but I got seasick. I never did going over but I got seasick. In the Irish Sea there was a bad storm and I was so sick. It’s the strangest feeling. I just wished the ruddy ship would sink I got so sick. Even though I’d survived the war. That’s how sick I felt. And I think we got, probably got tossed around. I don’t know how long. I was sick for about two days. Anyway, we got back to Canada. We landed at Lachine, Quebec and I wired my folks in Melville and told them at the farm, told them when I would, possibly when I would get there but I would let them know when I arrived at Melville because I’d decided I wasn’t stop at Ottawa because I didn’t know what I was going to say to Jean. I got cold feet. I’d never had to do such a thing so I figured she’d be upset and I phoned. I phoned, it was a Saturday afternoon and Jean wasn’t at home. Her sister Angela answered the phone. She said, ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Jean’s not here,’ she said, ‘But when will you be arriving in Ottawa?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, Angela,’ I said, ‘But I’ve wired my folks and I won’t have time to stop.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Jean’s going to be disappointed because she wants to talk to you about Buddy.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘But I won’t be able to stop.’ So I hung up the phone and it wasn’t long before a little voice said to me, ‘You know that’s pretty darned selfish of you. Your good friend, Buddy, he never even gets to the squadron and he’s killed in his last trip at Conversion Unit. The least you can do is go and see Jean.’ I wrestled around with it for at least an hour more and then I said, yeah, I guess I’d better go. So I phoned. I phoned back and Jean was home then and she answered the phone. She said, ‘Well, my sister told me that you weren’t going to be able to stop.’ And I said, ‘Well, I changed my mind, Jean,’ I said, I said, ‘I’m going, I am going to call.’ She said. When will you be arriving?’ And I said, ‘Well, there’s hundreds of airmen here and they us told it will be several days before they get everybody sorted out. All the trains.’ I said, ‘I’ll let you know when we’re going to arrive.’ I think it was three or four days before, before they got it sorted out and of course we had several stops before we got to Ottawa. We stopped at Montreal and other places. And then when we got to Ottawa this was a large station full of airmen getting greeted by families and so on and I’m sitting on my kit bag and my uncle had given me a nice leather case to bring my flying boots back. So I looked across and I saw two women and it looked like they were looking at a picture. I thought gosh, that might be Jean and her sister so I got my kitbag. It was heavy. Dragged it over there. And it was cold. It was the 28th of January ’45. And when I got closer I said, ‘Are you ladies looking for someone?’ They said, ‘Yeah. We’re looking for Flight Lieutenant Harrison.’ Oh, I said, ‘I’m a flight lieutenant. My name’s Harrison. Maybe you’re looking for me.’ So that’s how, that’s how I met Buddy’s Jean. And you know I often thought that he was always so emphatic when he’d say, ‘You never know. Some day you might meet her.’ And I often thought that then maybe he had a premonition that he wasn’t going to make it, eh? So anyway I was going to stay two days and I stayed four. Went back for holiday for ten days and that in ’45 and then the same in ’46. And December the 23rd ’46 we got married. And then my —
DE: Wonderful.
RH: My girls often say to me, ‘You know dad, if you hadn’t listened to that little voice we wouldn’t be here, would we?’ [laughs] I said, ‘No.’
DE: Yeah.
RH: But it’s a strange thing you know when, when I think about it and I should say too you know when I got back to the farm everything was quiet. It was like living in a different world and I, I thought then you know why didn’t I stay another year or so over there and join that special duties squadron because I understand that they were flying a lot of the prisoners of war back. Making trips and I’d often wished, but then I’d think well maybe I did the right thing because even though I wouldn’t be facing the enemy something else might have happened because my flying career was jinxed [laughs] But what really has bugged me and all through these years, my navigator and I were recommended for a DFC. And I know that because after the raid on Sterkrade when Croft lost eight aircraft on that raid, it was we were bombing a synthetic oil refinery and unbeknownst to, unbeknownst to the authorities the Germans had opened a night fighter ‘drome about thirty miles from Sterkrade. And we were attacked that night just after we left the target. We were attacked by a Messerschmitt 109 and my mid-upper gunner got credit for shooting him down. I think he was either inexperienced or I was just coming out of the corkscrew manoeuvre and my rear gunner saw him coming in. He missed us on his first run. He was coming in the second time and the rear gunner yelled at the mid-upper and told him where he was. The mid-upper gunner got a real good shot at him and that plane immediately went into a steep dive so he must have hit the pilot with his first burst. And then after the loss of those aircraft and they also, 431 also lost five aircraft on one night on raids to Hamburg. And they called me in and Frankie Goldman said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’re going to be a deputy flight commander,’ and I said, ‘Frankie,’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about office work, I said. I came from the farm,’ I said, ‘I haven’t got a clue what to do as a deputy flight commander.’ He said, ‘You’ll learn on the job just like I did.’ So I was about, I think I was only on the job about four or five days. One afternoon the phone rang about 2.30 and I was in A Flight, and I didn’t give my name, I remember saying, ‘A Flight.’ The other end of the line was, ‘This is Flight Lieutenant Nicholls. I’m the adjutant at Middleton St George and I’ve got recommendations on my desk for gongs for Flight Lieutenant Harrison and Flying Officer Philips.’ He said, ‘I’ve got all the information I need on Harrison,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘Before I send them up the line for a final approval,’ he said, ‘I need more information on Philips.’ I said, ‘Flight Lieutenant Nichols, this is Harrison speaking.’ I said, ‘The wing commander’s in his office. I’ll transfer your call.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘By all means do so.’ I transferred the call to the wing commander. That night in the mess Al was writing home to his new wife and I might have been dropping a line to my folks at the farm, or I’m not sure. Looking at the pilot’s, I always had my pilot’s handbook with me and that night I said to Al, ‘Oh, it looks like we’re going to get a gong.’ He said, ‘How do you know?’ I told him about the phone call. Well, to make a long story short after the, after the crew were screened and just before, I think it was after the first trip on the Lancasters I looked on the Daily Routine Orders and there were three airmen that got the DFC and one was my navigator Al Philips. And I had an idea right away why my name wasn’t there. Because after the bale out the group captain called me in. The flight commander said, ‘The old man wants to see you.’ So I went to see the group captain. He said, I saluted him, he said, ‘Sit down. I’ve got something for you to read.’ So he had an endorsement in my logbook. Said at the top “Carelessness.” The gist of it was that my navigator also had one in his book and the wireless op. “This pilot in conjunction with the navigator knew that aircraft from 6 Group were being diverted and should have known that he had, that he’d be able to land at Croft.” So he said, ‘I’m placing this in his logbook,’ he said ‘Due to carelessness.’ Well, if I had ever known that any aircraft from 6 Group were being diverted I would, I would never have gone.
DE: No. Of course not.
RH: You know. So I, that’s why I never received my DFC. But anyway —
DE: So you were, you were, you were talking about this time when you were attacked by night fighters. Did any of the aircraft you flew did you also have the, the mid-under gunner?
RH: No. They never did. And you know what I never realised. I think I don’t think the authorities knew for quite some time that the German radar, you know they had the two types. They had the type where they, and mostly the women operating these three radar stations and they used to zero in on individual aircraft. They would relay that information to a night fighter, tell them where the aircraft was and then he was to let them know when he could see the aircraft and then he would get underneath. They had cannons on those night fighters as well as machine guns. They would get underneath the aircraft and he would aim the cannon at the gas tanks. Yeah. And if they were on the way to the target he didn’t get too close because he didn’t know what, what the bomb load was. And they had a, I understand they had a special tip on their cartridge and when it hit the gas tank the whole aircraft would be a mass of flames. Because quite often you’d see a big orange ball in the sky and that meant that it had been attacked and hit by a night fighter. They were probably, some of them were probably incinerated. But then the other method they had what they called the lone wolf. Right. So they would just, they would know where the bomber, they would be directed to the bomber stream and then they would just be on their own then. Then when they spotted a bomber then they would, you know come in for the attack. [pause] But I think, I think the closest estimate that I have I think there were close to the figure of all the bombers that were lost about eighty percent of them were shot down by night fighters rather than flak. And have you ever, have you read the book called “The Red Line,” the raid on Hamburg?
DE: I’ve read —
RH: No. Nuremberg.
DE: I’ve read several books. Yeah. Yeah.
RH: Have you read that one?
DE: I’m thinking, I think it’s one of the ones behind me.
RH: Oh, it’s an interesting one. That’s the night they lost ninety five bombers over, and then lost eight in England. And the wind changed a hundred and eighty degrees and they overshot the target. Did hardly any damage to the target they got so lost. And at the very bottom of that book it said the most costly and bloodiest raid of the war.
DE: No. No. It was. But you were, you were on operations in ’44 weren’t you?
RH: Yes.
DE: So after that. Yeah.
RH: Yeah. That was before when they, yeah.
DE: So did you do a mixture of targets? Because I suppose some of those were in support of the Normandy campaign and in France as well as in Germany.
RH: Yeah, we did.
DE: You said you did —
RH: We did quite a few of them in France, you know. Before, before D-Day, and after D-Day. We were on the Falaise Gap one too. Where they bombed short. Oh God, I can remember everything was timed right down to the minute and that’s when the Marauders had been in early in the morning and, and they’d, they’d, but they bombed things in a quarry and then, then the Canadians and the Poles moved into the quarry and then there was still a lot of smoke and that in there, and they had inexperienced crews on that raid. And I could, I can still see that Halifax. It was a Halifax setting up to meet and open the bomb doors and I said to the navigator, ‘How much farther have we got to go?’ And he said, ‘We’ve got about almost three minutes. We’ve got at least two and a half minutes. Why?’ I said, ‘Well, there’s a Halifax right up on my port,’ I said, ‘I can see all the bombs. I can see all the numbers on the bombs,’ I said, ‘And he’d got its bomb doors open.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’re not there yet,’ he said. I said, ‘Well, they’re —’ and I said, ‘I’m going to pull away from this because he was almost over my wings.’ And shortly after that the bomb, he let the bomb load go and then when that happened and we were bombing on yellow TIs that day and they sent a Lysander up firing off yellow cartridges to stop the bombing. I think it ended up with, it was either nine or thirteen bombers dropped their bombs short. Killed quite a few Canadians and Poles. And then when we got back to the station there was a message. All pilots, navigators and bomb aimers report immediately to the briefing room. And then of course they, they developed the pictures and we could tell quite easily the ones that had bombed short. But they should never ever have sent because the only escape route there was for the Germans to the east because the Americans were there to the west and then the Canadians and the British and the only escape route that the Germans had was the east. And I, it was a sultry day and a hot day and I remember looking out and there were, there were actually horses and that there. I suppose they were short of fuel that were pulling maybe some of their guns and that. But there were lorries and tanks. The whole countryside was littered with vehicles and trucks and tanks and streams of soldiers on the, on this escape route to the east. I’ll never forget that raid. So, that’s a few of the highlights of my, of my flying which I must say, Dan was entirely different than sitting behind six horses on the farm. And you know when I, there’s many a time when I look back and wonder how I ever, how I ever did it. Eh? Because when on the farm I knew very little about the big wide world. And then when you got over there every day was different. You learned something every day. It was just almost as if you were picked up and dropped on another planet or something. Life was so different.
DE: So did it change you?
RH: I think that it, I think it changed me in many ways. I think during that, for well the eight months I took the pre-enlistment course, I think during those four and a half years I think, I know I learned more about life in many aspects than I would have at any other time in my life. And I think what bothered me more than anything and I never realised it at the time that all the fellas that I trained with at all the different stations and different stops they made, Ground Schools and Flying Schools never thought that just over half of those fellas never came home because the loss rate in Bomber Command was fifty five percent. Somewhere between fifty five and fifty six percent. And I know for a fact, that for a fact because I had a picture taken just the day after we got our wings and there are four of us in there and I’m the only one that came back. There were thirty, thirty two I think got their wings that day and seventeen never came home. So that’s what it averaged out to. And you know, I often think when on Remembrance Days the thought occurred to me that for most people Remembrance Day was just a day in their life, eh. But for families that lost loved ones they had many Remembrance Days throughout the course of the year when the loved one that they lost had a birthday.
DE: Yeah.
RH: Or Christmas, or Easter or other occasions. And most people, you know they, they just have no idea. I’ve always said that there’s no glory in war. War is hell. More so for civilians than really the military. The military at least have, they have some opportunity to shoot back or that, but the civilians don’t and when you think of the millions that died in the Second World War. It was the First World War too. But I heard so many horror stories from my dad about the First World War that I was never going to join the Army and I didn’t like the water so [laughs] I think the only, the only place left for me is go in in the air.
DE: Yeah. There’s so many people like you, I think have said the same thing, ‘I don’t want to be in the trenches like the, like the infantry.’ And yeah. One chap said, ‘I can’t swim so I’ll join the air force.’
RH: That’s exactly how I felt [laughs]
DE: Yeah.
RH: Yeah. I think about the First World War. I never realised until reading the Legion Magazine probably a few months ago the number of horses and mules that were lost in that war, eh? Something like two hundred and seventy thousand. I often wonder how they ever fed them. But I also never realised that Canada sent several shiploads of horses over there, and those ships wouldn’t be really fitted for transporting horses and I understand they sent veterinarians with them but a lot of the horses were dead before they got there.
DE: Yeah. And some would have been, some would have gone down because they would have been torpedoed as well so —
RH: Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
RH: Yeah.
DE: So, just, you know really quickly what, what did you do after you got married? You didn’t work on the farm then.
RH: Well, that’s interesting because I hadn’t, like I didn’t, I really didn’t like farming. I had allergies and working harvest time, and the grain dust and that it used to bother me and I never really, to be truthful I never really wanted to farm. So when, after I’d been home I got discharged in April. I think April the 14th ‘45. I had to go to Winnipeg. Get discharged. Then when I got back I thought well I’ll go to the university. Maybe I’ll take a course in agriculture. So I went. I saw the, I had an appointment with the Dean of Agriculture and he said, ‘Well, Harrison,’ he said, ‘We’ve got over two hundred, most of them ex-Air Force and some Army,’ he said. ‘They’re all going to graduate,’ he said, ‘And I don’t know. I’m sure there’s not enough jobs for them,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to do,’ he said. ‘You told me that you had an application in for the Public Service and you could have an opportunity to go to work for the Veterans Land Administration which would be settling veterans on farms. So —’ he said, ‘If I were you I think you should take that job,’ he said, ‘Because I’m sure that all these fellas that are going to graduate from agriculture there’s not going to be enough jobs for them so —’ I took his advice, started to work for the Veterans Land Administration. Not only did they settle veterans on farms they also built houses for them and then if you didn’t want to farm or didn’t want to build a house they also had what they called Re-establishment Credit. You got seven dollars a day for every day you served in Canada and fifteen dollars a day for every day you were overseas, and then you could use that for buying furniture and so on. So that’s how I used mine. But I think the Federal, the Canadian Government, I think they had one of the best, one of the best programmes for veterans that came home from war. So that, then I worked then for the veterans. I worked from November ’45 in Regina until, when I got back from, from marrying Jean they called me in the office. They said, ‘Well, we’ve got good news for you. Oh,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a, have I got a promotion?’ ‘No. We’re going to transfer you to Saskatoon. To the District Office. You’ll have the same, get the same salary as here.’ So I started working in Saskatoon in January ’47 and retired in 1984. So I probably worked for the Veteran Land Administration for thirty eight and a half years. I started near the bottom of the ladder when I was one of the younger ones and kept my eyes and ears open. And a lot of them had university degrees but I worked my way up the ladder and when I retired my job was Regional Director for the Far Western Provinces so I often thought well I probably just as well there as if I’d gone to university.
DE: Yeah. Probably did.
RH: So, I just, I think those, for the times that I spent in the Air Force I think in many ways the times they were the most exciting. Sometimes the most interesting and I have to admit sometimes they were a bit scary. So I have, I guess you could say I had mixed feelings about the war but overall for me they were favourable because I was just, it was just luck I guess that I survived some of those plane crashes because they weren’t normal.
DE: No. No. Quite.
RH: Plane crashes.
DE: Yeah. Your nickname was well deserved I think.
RH: Yeah.
DE: So, we’ve been talking. Well, you’ve been talking and I’ve been listening for well over two hours so I’m quite happy to end there. Just there’s, there’s a couple of other questions that I always ask before I end an interview and, you know the first one is there any other story that you have in mind that you can think of that you’d like to tell before we, before we wind this up?
RH: I just wanted to ask you when, when Kevin goes back to my place when he has time and takes pictures like when you walk into my place I have a hallway. I’ve got lots of pictures of, of aeroplanes and so on, but in 1944 the Canadian press went around to all the Canadian bomber stations and they took pictures. You may have seen them but they, they were, oh here’s a book. They took pictures of, of all the squadrons and there you can see them. You can see them all standing on the top of the Halifax. And —
DE: Yeah.
RH: So that shows how much, how strong those things were built, eh?
DE: Yeah. Yeah.
RH: Because now when you get on an airliner the first thing they see is, ‘Don’t step here.’ [laughs]
DE: Yes. Yeah.
RH: Yeah. So, so what, what I plan to do is I’m going to, I’m going to get your address from, get Kevin to give me your address and then I’m going to, I’m going to send you a copy of this. This article was written by a, by a Mr Gray and I met him at a, at a Allied Air Force reunion in Toronto in September 1990 and he was a retired High School teacher, also a former RCAF pilot and he had a, there was another teacher there too, a High School teacher who also a pilot. So when they had a going away luncheon on the Sunday he noticed my Caterpillar and my Guinea Pig Badge. He wanted to know how I got those and I told him the rest of my story and he said, ‘Did you ever write a book?’ I said, ‘No. I never considered myself a writer.’ And apparently he, he liked to write and he said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Would you mind if I wrote up your story?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I’ve got all my documentations. Copies of all my records.’ I said, ‘They came in an envelope,’ I said. I measured it. It was twenty two inches long. It was fourteen inches wide and well over an inch thick.
DE: Yeah.
RH: So I said —
DE: Well, I would —
RH: I said, ‘Thirty pages,’ I said. ‘Thirty five pages in the, in the Board of Enquiry into the crash on take-off,’ I said, so —
DE: Yeah. Well, I mean anything you could send like that would be absolutely wonderful and I’ll have a chat with Kevin about how we can get copies of photographs and things.
RH: Yeah. So what I, what I’ll do when I, when I go back to the offices, go back to the offices, there’s the endorsement. So I’ll send you a copy of that.
DE: That would be fantastic. I think we’ll stop the recording but we’ll keep chatting for a little bit longer.
RH: Ok. Yeah. I’ll get one of those books too and send it to you. As they say, ta ta. Ta ta for now, love [laughs]
KA: We’re done.
RH: We’re done.
KA: Good job, Reg. Holy smokes man. You talked for a long time.
RH: Too long, eh?
Other: Ok. Here. I’ll stop that.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Reg Harrison
Interview with Reginald Wilfred Harrison
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-02-27
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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02:21:35 Audio Recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHarrisonRW210227, PHarrisonRW2103
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
England--Northumberland
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Hull
Manitoba--Virden
Ontario--Ottawa
Saskatchewan--Regina
Saskatchewan--Yorkton
Ontario
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942-11-11
1943-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
Description
An account of the resource
Reg Harrison grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and enjoyed watching aircraft when they flew over. He had his first flight as a youngster when he was lent five dollars by a shopkeeper. He volunteered for aircrew as soon as he was of age and began his training as a pilot. He had four crashes which earned him the nickname, Crash. The first incident took place while he was on his second dickie trip and the aircraft crashed. He and another member of the crew then heard the pilot shouting for help and returned to get him out of the aircraft. Reg sustained burns and was treated at East Grinstead Hospital. On their thirteenth trip his rear gunner was worried and suggested they call this trip 12A rather than thirteen. They crashed on take-off. On another occasion he and the crew had to bale out over England. Again, on another occasion while on an operation they came under fire from a Halifax who had mistaken them for a German aircraft. They just managed to get the stricken aircraft back and crashed at RAF Carnaby.
When he had leave, Reg would often go and visit his family who lived near Hull. He completed nineteen operations before he was screened, as his Wing Commander felt that he had been lucky too many times and might not be so lucky the next time. Reg has always been mindful of the loss rate in Bomber Command. He has a photograph taken a day after he got his wings. Of the four airmen in the picture he was the only one who returned home.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Steph Jackson
431 Squadron
434 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
bombing
Caterpillar Club
crash
crewing up
FIDO
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
love and romance
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Carnaby
RAF Croft
RAF Dishforth
RAF Gamston
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2053/33663/PStrattenG2101.2.jpg
fdfe04053597678eaa9dd5e18158cbcc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2053/33663/AStrattenG210722.2.mp3
edf3517ceb815e06abf411f025405566
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
Stratten, Gwyneth
G Stratten
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-07-22
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stratten, G
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Gwyneth Sratten (b.1934). She worked at RAF Rauceby Hospital after the war.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MC: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre on Thursday the 22nd of July 2021. The interviewee is Mrs Gwyneth Stratten and the interviewer is Mike Connock. The interview is taking place at Mrs Stratten’s home in Lincoln. Also in the house is Mr Stratten. Ok, Gwyneth, thank you very much for doing this interview. What I’d like today, start at the beginning and so tell me a bit, when and where were you born?
GS: I was born in London and I lived there all through the war only leaving in 1949 when my parents thought that we were going to be having trouble with Russia and they didn’t want to be in London if we had another war and that we moved to the country.
MC: Yeah. So, what did your parents do? What were they —
GS: My father. Well, he had to work in a factory during the war but other than that he was always a self-employed electrician and my mother was just mum [laughs]
MC: Did you have any siblings?
GS: Yes. I had a brother who served in the Army during the war and he was, finished up in Germany. Again, he was in the military police and he came out in 1949. I’ve no others.
MC: Yeah. So, your early schooldays. Do you remember much about your early schooldays?
GS: I can, I have actually written about my school days.
MC: Yeah. So, you obviously enjoyed them.
GS: Which, no —
MC: Oh right.
GS: Which I found very useful when my children, my grandchildren at the local school were working on what life was like for children during the war. So my grandchildren delightedly went off with my identity card and my ration book and all the information I had. So, it was quite useful.
MC: Yeah. So, you were born when? Sorry. What year?
GS: I was born in 1934.
MC: ‘34. Oh, right. So, you were, at the outbreak of war you were quite old. Relatively, you know. You weren’t —
GS: Well, yeah. When the war broke out I was —
MC: ‘39. Oh, you were five year old. Yes. Yeah.
GS: I was five years old.
MC: Yeah. So you, you remember quite a bit about the war.
GS: I do. There are certain anecdotal things which I think of will go with the subject we’re speaking about now. I remember in nineteen, I think it was 1944, my mother was a great one for introducing me to like the theatre and museums and all that kind of thing and on this particular day she took me to one of the museums at Kensington. I don’t remember which one. And we were in this particular gallery and there was just she and I there looking at the things when we heard all this noise and a party of seven men in RAF uniform came in accompanied by some very pretty ladies in all their nice summer finery. But the thing that immediately hit you was that all the men were horribly disfigured. There was one young man there, he had no face and no hair or anything. And they were running one of these tubes from his arm to build a new nose. And I mean a ten year old looking at that. But I was always very, sort of, it didn’t shock me. I just looked at them and my mother quickly drew me away and said, ‘I’ll tell you in a minute what that lad is.’ And she told me and she said they were the pilots that had been injured during the war and they were being treated at a place called East Grinstead.
MC: East Grinstead.
GS: And that’s where it first entered my life.
MC: Yeah.
GS: Which was fantastic.
MC: Yeah.
GS: And I never ever [emphasis] forgot it. And then my next experience was I had to go and have facial surgery myself and I went to University College Hospital in London in 1984 and I was due to see a professor there who had got this special programme going for people who had had cleft palates. And I sat in his office waiting for him and on the shelf was a cabinet and it was full of instruments used in plastic surgery and it was MacMillan forceps err McIndoe forceps, McIndoe this. McIndoe that. And I thought that name and I remembered back to then. And then in 1981 I went to Rauceby and discovered that again I was looking at the Guinea Pigs. That’s what those young men had been.
MC: Yeah. They were. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.
GS: And then I had the great honour of meeting a big group of them when they came to Rauceby for the reunion and that was one of the most moving moments of my life because on the day they came we really did put on a really good show for them. And the widow of the man who had been the [pause] I’m just, he had been the plastic surgeon for the unit there all through the war and his name was Squadron Leader Fenton Braithwaite and he went on to become a wing commander and that fascinated me. You know, that there was three jumps in my life and as I say when I met these men they still bore a lot of their scars but the widow of this surgeon had sent down some photograph albums. When the patients were brought in to the hospital they were photographed immediately and then as the treatment progressed photographs were taken on each occasion so that the men themselves could see how they were progressing. And also, it was there for the surgeons. And anyway, we, I remember sitting with somebody else and we were looking and we were both crying just looking at these terribly injured men. But on that day that they came we put a notice in the room where the whole thing was happening to say if anyone thought that they were featured in those books if they came to see me I could arrange for them to view the books and have a look if they wanted to. And one man came over and said, ‘Yes, I —' well several came and this particular one said, ‘I would very much like to see them.’ I said, ‘Right, come on. You come in my office.’ And I said, ‘Would you like me to stay with you or do you, would you like to be on your own?’ He said, ‘I would prefer if you would stay here.’ So I stopped with him and he leafed through and all of a sudden he found the picture he wanted. Oh, I’ve gone all [pause] And he said he’d spent, ‘I’ve laid a ghost.’ And I looked at him and he said, ‘I wanted to see my hands when I had fingers.’ And sure enough he had no fingers.
MC: Yeah.
GS: And he said, ‘I’m so grateful for seeing this.’ And with that he just got, got up and went back to the, to the room. But that whole day it was very very emotional. These men were all, in my eyes, heroes. Can you turn off? I must —
[recording paused]
MC: Yeah. Well, let’s go back to, we’ll carry on with that in a minute. Just go back because you were five when war broke out.
GS: Yeah.
MC: So, during the war were you, you stayed in London or did you get evacuated?
GS: I remained in London until 1944 when the VJ bombers were coming over and I don’t know if you had experience of them but they were terrifying.
MC: The V-1s.
GS: The V-1. V-2s.
MC: Yeah.
GS: And my parents decided that I should be evacuated so off I went to stay with a relation in Bristol. And I was only there five weeks and I wrote home and said to my, and said to my mother, ‘Mum, I want to come home. If you don’t come and fetch me I’m going to walk home.’ [laughs] My mother brought me home and two days after I came home a mine was dropped in the garden up the road and that was the nearest anything ever came. But —
MC: And whereabouts in London was this?
GS: I lived out at near Edgeware.
MC: Oh right. Yeah.
GS: So, but I have many many memories of the war.
MC: Yeah. So, when you left school, so you went to school in London.
GS: No. I left there in ’49.
MC: Oh yeah.
GS: And moved down to Wales and I went to school down there.
MC: Yeah. So, when you left school what was your, what did you do?
GS: Well, when I left school I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I won a scholarship to Art College and this is where the miserable bit comes in. I had no financial backing whatsoever and in the end I discovered it wasn’t going to work. I had no means of making money or anything. I had to give it up. So then I went and joined the Civil Service which was the most boring work I’ve ever done in my life. And it was through being in the Civil Service drove me in to the Army [laughs]
MC: So, when did you join the Army?
GS: I first joined in 1951. I joined the Territorial Army. That’s where I became a qualified radar technician. And I left that and joined the regular Army in ’55 and it was the best thing I ever did in my life. It was, it was the making of, I felt that my life actually started when I was twenty one. It was wonderful.
MC: So how long did you spend in the Army?
GS: I had four years in the regular Army and I went from private to sergeant in fifteen months. So, I must, must have been doing something right.
MC: Something right. Absolutely. Yeah.
GS: And I was also, I did an exam. They were talking about allowing the military policewomen to do SIB work which would, I would have loved. And I took, we did an exam which I passed with ninety eight percent but then of course they posted me to Germany didn’t they? [laughs] So I landed up in Germany where I met my husband and where foolishly I got married [laughs] So, yeah. That was my military experience. But the rest of it was, RAF experience was just as a service wife.
MC: Oh. Oh, yeah. Ok.
GS: And I could write a book about that.
MC: So, so, what brought you to Rauceby then?
GS: We were living at, my husband had been at Cranwell and my, my mother had just died in 1980 and I went through a really bad emotional time and our marriage was a bit shaky and my husband came home and he said, ‘They’re advertising for a librarian at Rauceby.’ And we all knew about Rauceby. Rauceby Hospital.
MC: Yeah.
GS: He said, ‘Why don’t you apply for it?’ I said, ‘No. They won’t give it to me. Why would they give it to me?’ So, I went for the interview and I think there were about seven of us went for the interview and I came home and I said, ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I just made them laugh.’ I said. I knew I wasn’t going to get the job. And we were having our tea and the phone rang and a voice said, ‘Oh hello, Mrs Stratten. Would you be interested in starting work —’ whatever. I couldn’t believe it. And that was giving me my dream job. It was perfect. I was in an old Victorian building. I was among medical things which I was fascinated by, you know. It was, it was just, just perfect.
MC: Yeah.
GS: I was able to, well I was involved in so many things in the hospital apart from the library. I joined the League of Friends. I used to do, oh I did several seminars and exhibitions and all sorts of things. It was the most wonderful job I’ve ever had in my life and as I’ve said before I would have done it for nothing only I didn’t let them know that. But it was a wonderful job.
MC: So, did you get to meet any of the patients there?
GS: I worked with patients as well.
MC: Oh, you worked with, oh I see, yeah. Yeah. Of course, you would do I suppose.
GS: Yes. I mean, you will find that there are things on the internet that talk rubbish about Rauceby. Well, I know for a fact I went through all the records. There were very very few examples of any cruelty to patients and when you read what all these people on this group that people that worked at Rauceby everyone said what a wonderfully happy place it was to work. It was. It was just lovely.
MC: So, what sort of hospital was it then?
GS: Well, it started out in 1902 as an asylum and initially the patients were housed in Grantham while they built the hospital and they moved in in 1902. And of course, it was wonderful. They’d got electric lights which I mean that was unheard of. Albeit the fact it was forty watt bulbs and it was only allowed to have it on at certain times of the day but it, it was just the whole, the whole concept of it. The whole building had been built with the patients in mind so that all the wards faced to the south which was wonderful. And of course, during the war they had, there were two verandas either side of the hospital. These were used for the tubercular patients and I’ve got a lovely picture of some on there with their nurses.
MC: Because weren’t some of the burns patients treated there as well?
GS: The burns patients were not treated in the hospital because in nineteen oh, 1928 Patrick, no not Patrick. Norman Henderson came to Rauceby as the medical superintendent. Then in nineteen, hang on I’m just thinking of the date. Nineteen. Where are we? Oh yes. The Mental Health Act changed in 1930 and it said that some patients could be day patients. They didn’t need to be, you know in all the time so they built a new little private hospital sort of thing away from the main building and that was going to be for the day patients. Well, they all moved in and then of course the war was coming along and the Air Ministry realised that they were building all these airfields they’d better provide some [laughs] some medical care. The hospital at Rauceby wasn’t big enough so they said right we have the day hospital at Rauceby and they moved the hospital from Cranwell. Moved it into Rauceby and they built two operating theatres in there. And then of course as things went on a little bit more it was realised they were going to need the whole hospital. So, on the 20th of April 1940 there were five hundred and twenty three patients with all their trappings. Their beds and everything were moved out and moved off to other asylums around the country and at the same time the RAF were moving in and kitting out the wards and they did the whole changeover in forty eight hours. And by any standards it was considered a miracle of organisation.
MC: It's quite amazing.
GS: And then of course they then progressed to build bomb blast wards around the south facing wards and built the things they required for military operations.
MC: So, when, when did you get to meet McIndoe then? Was that later?
GS: I haven’t actually met Mc —
MC: Oh, I thought you did.
GS: I always wish, I would have loved to have shaken his hand. He was a remarkable man.
MC: Yes.
GS: And anyone you speak to that had anything to do with him would say, and he was knighted of course for his work and he was just so remarkable. I mean for instance when he had these patients at East Grinstead, when men in the RAF were in hospital they had to wear these awful uniforms like, they were sort of grey blue things and they had a red tie and they were hideous. But he said, ‘No. My patients will wear their uniforms. They have got to know that they are still the men they were inside.’
MC: Absolutely.
GS: Even though they were disfigured. Disfigured externally. And I thought for that time that was very very forward thinking and he was really a psychologist in the making. But I thought that was incredible.
MC: So, was it still an asylum when you got there? Or was it not?
GS: Well, the Mental Health Act changed so much over the years. The original Mental Health Act, I mean you read it and it would make your hair curl. It really would but improvements were gradually made and every time there was a change there was a big upheaval everywhere you know. No. Even in, in the comparatively short time that I was there I think it changed two or three times but each time there would be an improvement. And then of course we come to Enoch Powell. The MP. The dreaded Enoch Powell. He came to Rauceby on an inspection and he walked all round and they took him down to the farm. The hospital had its own farm. They took him down to the farm and he just stood there and the people that were with him said you could smell this weird smell and he said it was from the pigsties and he said, ‘That is not right having the pigsties smelling like that when there is a school nearby.’ And anyway, he went away and a fortnight later they were told they had to stop all farming. Just like that. Now, when you think you’ve got these people in a mental hospital the majority of which came from agricultural backgrounds so that kind of work came second nature to them. So, it was good therapeutically and it provided produce for the hospital and everything. So, these poor people, they were, said, ‘Right, you can’t do it anymore. All you can do now is sit in your chair, read a book or whatever.’ There was nothing and so he was not very popular.
MC: I can imagine.
GS: But the awful thing was that they found out that the smell didn’t come from the pigsties. The smell came from a blocked drain [laughs]
MC: But the farming, the farm never restarted.
GS: The farm never restarted.
MC: Oh shame.
GS: Yeah. They did keep some of the gardens going and within the hospital, in fact next door to my office we had the most glorious Edwardian conservatory which, I mean it was just magnificent and so some of the people, the patients that were able to could go in there and work on the plants and that. But to take away that without even considering that he was removing an essential part of those people’s lives was wrong.
MC: So, I mean there was one thing that somebody brought to my attention was called NYDN. Not Yet Diagnosed Neuropsychiatric. Did you ever, was that —
GS: Never. Never heard that.
MC: It was just something somebody mentioned to me about —
GS: No one never. No. I never heard that one.
MC: Never heard. I was going to say so, so, what, what prompted you to write the history?
GS: Well, as I say when I first went there I realised what I was in and I thought this is wonderful. Look at all these lovely old Victorian, Victorian fittings. I mean the interior of that building was to my mind fantastic. It was all these wonderful glazed tiles and the workmanship that had gone in to it. Great big solid oak doors. It was just beautiful. They’d modernised the wards gradually over the years but a lot of the old tiles were there. It was so beautiful and so I wanted to know how they’d come to be there. That set me off trying to find out about the building of it and then, and it just went on from there and then we decided that we were coming up to one anniversary and somebody said to me, ‘Why don’t you organise a reunion for all the, for all the ex, for all the ex-staff.’ And I thought oh, that’s a good idea. Says she. And then of course we had to hunt out all these records. Well, when we were looking for the records we were finding all sorts of old photographs and documents and I said, ‘What’s going to happen when the hospital shuts?’ And the clerk said, ‘Well, they’ll just bin them.’ And I thought, ‘No, they will not.’ So, as I went round I gradually accumulated all these wonderful books and things and one day the porters came down to me. I’d got them on my, my list and they kept their eye open and they said, ‘Oh, Mrs Stratten we’ve found something we think you ought to see.’ So off we went in to the cellars of the hospital and there on a shelf were three great big leather bound books. And when I opened them the first two were all hand written and the third one had typed sheets taped into it and they were the patients’ records from the day the asylum opened.
MC: Goodness me.
GS: And would you believe I brought them all home and I read the lot. It was amazing. It gave me a real insight in to how the medical professional approached, well mad patients as they were.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
GS: And they were the majority of them were considered to be pauper lunatics.
MC: It wouldn’t work today.
GS: So, I thought well now these books they are not going to be dumped. So, I thought, right. I know what we’ll do. We’ll have a reunion and I will do an exhibition in the ballroom and we can have all that there and then afterwards I I will look to putting it all safely. So after we had the reunion which went very well indeed we [pause] I rang the Archives in Lincoln and said, ‘I’ve got something I think you ought see.’ And they came out and said, ‘Oh, thank goodness you’ve got to us.’ They said ‘already the leather is deteriorating’ so they were wrapped up very carefully and put in a box and taken away so I knew they were safe. Some of the books I hung on to because I thought I’ll hang on to it until we close the hospital. Then I’ll hand them over. So, and then that started the Rauceby connection as such and it just grew from there because everyone in the hospital knew what I was doing and as I say after the reunion of the patients I wrote a little book called, “Rauceby Reflections.” About the hospital which we sold nine hundred copies and there were copies sent to Australia, New Zealand, Canada. All. America they went. They went all over the place. I mean we sold them at two pounds each I think it was and the money went to the League of Friends so that they could buy Christmas presents for the patients. So it was win win win all the way round.
MC: That’s excellent. Really brilliant. Yeah. So —
[recording paused]
GS: How did we come to doing this RAF reunion? Yes.
MC: What’s, oh that was the RAF reunion.
GS: No. The one I’m talking about was, was the hospital reunion.
MC: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah.
GS: And in actual fact we found a lady who had started work there in 1915 and I’ve got some lovely pictures of her and she was fantastic. Is that on or off?
MC: It’s on. Yeah. Go on. It’s —
GS: Anyway, after that while the, while the reunion was in progress I was in the ballroom and walking round and I noticed down in the corner where the little bit of the RAF bit was I could see these, I think there was two couples, a husband and wife couples taking great interest in it and they came over and they said, ‘Mrs Stratten, is there any chance that you could organise a reunion for the RAF?’ Well, I said, ‘Nothing’s impossible if you don’t try.’ But I said, ‘Just leave it with me.’ And at the same time this lady came over. Her name was Mrs Masters and she had been a nurse in the Burns Unit at Rauceby during the war. So, she came over and said, ‘Do you think we can do a reunion for the RAF?’ So, with that I got in, I had a colleague who was interested so he and Mrs Masters and I went up to see the manager at the hospital and said, ‘Look, we’ve had this request. Would you mind if, could we do it?’ And he was very obliging. He said, ‘Well, I don’t see why not. But you’re doing it. We’re not doing it.’ Right. And, but of course we had a bit of a problem there didn’t we? We hadn’t got any old books about, about RAF personnel. Nothing. The only thing we had was this photograph of RAF, RAF men in uniform. And we knew, we knew Norman Henderson who’d been the medical superintendent and who had been with the RAF during the war as a wing commander but that was all. So, of course then we had to try and trace all these men. I can’t remember how long it took me but I did finally get a name for everybody on that photograph.
MC: And how many was on it?
GS: I can’t remember.
MC: [unclear]
GS: Hang on. I’ve got the photograph here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty one.
MC: Twenty one. And you got the names of all of them.
GS: And I got the names for all of them.
MC: That’s quite amazing. So, and then they call came to the reunion.
GS: No. No. No. No.
MC: Oh.
GS: Well, some of them had already passed away.
MC: Oh, I see. That was amazing.
GS: I mean, we were so chuffed. We got all the names and what was nice going into the future over the years we’ve had so many telephones calls and letters and things from people making enquiries about how they can find details of their grandfathers or their fathers or whatever. And this gentleman contacted us and said, ‘I never knew my father. He died just shortly after I was born. And —’ he said, ‘My mother always regrets that she never had a photograph of my father in his uniform.’ And he said, ‘I wondered if you’d got anything in your collection.’ Well, we looked through everything. Couldn’t find anything and then the name sort of rung a bell and I looked and there’s a picture of him on, in that big picture. And we, we did a copy of it and sent it off to him and we had the most wonderful letter back to say that his mother cried when she opened it.
MC: So, I mean it was, I mean in your history that you talk about the number of operations that were done.
GS: Yeah.
MC: You know, it’s quite, quite a busy hospital during the war then.
GS: Well, I mean, I can remember somebody saying that you could come out and you’d get up in the morning and there would be ambulances the full length of the drive bringing patients in and of course the other thing is in the Burns and Orthopaedic Unit you see these planes were going out on these bomber raids and things and sometimes there were accidents on the way out.
MC: Yeah. Yeah.
GS: But more often than not it was coming home and then perhaps been injured during the flight. Or the big thing was getting frostbite on their hands. And so of course it was, it was working twenty four hours a day.
MC: A constant flow.
GS: A constant flow. And I know Mrs Masters said that, she said you would just clean up the operating theatre from one thing, she said you just had time to have a quick cup of tea and there was somebody else in there. She said it just didn’t stop.
MC: So you, this story you wrote after you’d finished at the hospital then or were you still at the hospital? I suppose you started it at the hospital.
GS: Well, I started it. I did write an edition of it some in 2000 I think it was. I was never really happy with it but in between 2000 and 2021 we had so much material come back because we’d sold so many books and people were then remembering things that I thought oh, but then when I was ill last year I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I was just so ill. And I sat here one day and I thought I’ve got to do something and I want to get this Rauceby thing sorted and I remembered that I had a half-finished manuscript somewhere. So I hoicked this out of the cupboard and went through it and then sat down and I concentrated solely on writing this one.
MC: Yeah.
GS: And it helped me. It just got me back to functioning. The only problem was that never having done such a thing before I had no means of getting people to tell me what I should be doing. I wanted someone to come and help me put things on the computer because I was doing things I’d never done before and it was awful. I just had literally no help at all and it was finally at the end I just got to the point where I found a publisher who was interested and I thought I’ve got to get someone just to help me to finish it off. A gentleman up the road is a IT specialist and I said, ‘Look, blow the Coronavirus thing,’ I said, ‘I’m over it and,’ I said, ‘You’re alright.’ And he came down and he sat for about an hour just, just tweaking it to get it right, you know. But I thought oh no. But then the publisher. They were in a state of chaos because when I’d initially put the book forward they were changing their operations. Then Corona came along. Half their, well most of their staff were working from home and I landed up with that version and then there’s a smaller version which is the one on, on Amazon with the code on it. And they published both [laughs] so you take your choice.
MC: Still the same story.
GS: Still the same story.
MC: Right.
GS: So, that, that one there I just that came out the blue really because —
MC: This was just of the war period.
GS: So, I thought no I’m, the other thing that made me cross as well I went to the museum at Hendon some years ago and that was very interesting. I even found something about my son’s activities on there. And I said to them, ‘Have you got anything on the medical side of, you know, hospitals and that during the war?’ ‘No. No.’ Anyway, I gave them a copy of the original little pamphlet thing which they were pleased with and then I was thinking when I was looking at all this I thought flip, I’m doing this for Bomber Command. I’m going to do another copy and send it down to Hendon because it should be there.
MC: Yeah. Quite right. Yeah. I mean in one story I was going to say that you mentioned that obviously Rauceby was nearly destroyed in a fire. In a fire.
GS: Well, yeah because that was after the war when it was still in, in being occupied by the RAF. Now, they had a beautiful ballroom there and of course during the war they used to have dances and that which was very popular in the local population. Especially the girls. And they would go down to the dances. Well, underneath the stage there was a room where they used to stack all the old bits of furniture. Anyway, this particular night they’d had the dance and it was over and somebody must have been in there and left a cigarette burning and the whole, because it was all pine panelling and the floor was all highly polished and it had great big, great big like stained windows. And the whole lot just went up. And fortunately, the wind was blowing in the right direction that it was, they could get everybody out but the fire just destroyed all the old ballroom and I’ve looked and looked and looked to find a picture and I did find one but it’s a very, very scrappy drawing of the ballroom.
MC: Yeah.
MC: But it gives you some indication of what it was like. But yes, and that was 1945 1946. Around then.
MC: Yeah. You say it was 1945.
GS: Yeah. Yeah.
MC: Yeah [pause] Yeah. Whit Monday 1945. Yeah. So when, so did you go back to Rauceby? You know for the closure when it was closed or —
GS: Well, I was one of the last people there.
MC: Oh, really.
GS: It was, it was awful really.
MC: So, were you still working there when it closed?
GS: 1997.
MC: Oh, you were still working there. Right.
GS: I was still working there. Yeah. And what I’m, I should have retired three years beforehand but I thought no I’ve started all these libraries and I want to be here at the end. So of course, we had to get everything out and on the last day I was officially opened my boss came from, from Pilgrim and there was somebody else there. And I, when I went to work I always used to dress formally because I thought you’re in the public eye, you know you dressed neatly but that morning I went to work wearing trousers and a jumper with a funny teddy bear on the front and my boss said to me, ‘Well, I’ve never seen you dressed like that.’ I said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘It’s the last day. I’m doing it for that.’ Anyway, while they and the other two were doing something or other and they weren’t around I just quietly slipped away. But then it was arranged that I should go back there. Just after Christmas it was. No. No. Sorry. Just before Christmas and I should check, there was a big box in the hall where people used to put books in. So I, they said, ‘Would you go back just check see the books in there.’ There was nothing in there anyway. But it was very strange going in to a —
MC: Quite eerie.
GS: I had on the last day walked all around the hospital on my own.
MC: Yeah. Very emotional.
[recording paused]
MC: You was going to mention something else.
GS: Yeah.
MC: What was that?
GS: Well, when I talked to, when these people were coming in to see me at the hospital from our ex-RAF people several turned up wanting to have a look around and having a chat with me and this man came in and he’d got a book with him. And in the book he’d written, and he had been flying in the Hampden aircraft and apparently he’d had quite a hair raising time and they sent him in to the Psychiatric Department. And he’d only, he said, ‘I’d only been in about ten days and —' he said there was one of these big inspections that the RAF love having when bigwigs come down and all the rest of it. And he said, ‘There was this rather elderly sort of high-ranking officer there in charge and —’ he said, ‘He stood by my bed and said, “What’s this man in here for?” And they told him, you know. He said, “He looks perfectly fit to me. Discharge him. He can go back. Man up. Man up.” Anyway, they sent me back to my unit and then a week or two later my MO on the station sent me back to Rauceby.’ I thought that just shows the attitude of some of the —
MC: Did he say what his problem was?
GS: It was only through all these people were under intense pressure.
MC: Absolutely.
GS: All the time. And although they were, there was a degree of fun and they had to have this outlet with all the activities they did and the, and the silly things they did because they wouldn’t have lasted another minute.
MC: Yeah. Are you aware of the term LMF?
GS: No.
MC: Used in the Air Force. Lack of moral fibre.
GS: Oh well, I know about that from, from the first one. Well, from the First World War when they took people out and shot them.
MC: Yeah. Well, I mean the MO at the station then would have likely sent that young man to the hospital.
GS: Yeah.
MC: To avoid him being declared as lack of moral fibre. That’s the, you know, that was, it was one of those things during the war. I just wondered whether you’d come across it.
GS: No. I’d not come across that. I mean most of the people that other than that I’d spoke to a lot of them were people who actually worked at the hospital and RAF people.
MC: Yes.
GS: But as I say a large, a large proportion of the people that came to the reunion were people who had actually had the treatment at the hospital. I mean, like Gus Walker. Wing, wing, well I can’t remember what he was then. He was the commander anyway. At Scampton.
MC: Yeah.
GS: And he’d, he’d been talking to another man standing outside and he noticed there was a Lancaster bomber and the bomb doors were open and there were fuses dropping that were not, not alight and he knew there was a big bomb on board and he went to run towards it. He went to run towards it and the bomb went up. The plane completely disappeared and Gus Walker was blown seventy feet backwards fortunately but he left one arm behind.
MC: Yes. I know the story of Gus Walker. Yes.
GS: Yes. I only know because when we were in Holland he was in charge out there and my friend’s father was the, husband rather was his driver and we met him at various functions that we went to. So I felt very privileged you know but yeah I mean —
MC: Was Gus Walker treated at the hospital then?
GS: What they did, they happened, they went rushing out. This Mrs Masters went and she and two surgeons and that rushed out there and then brought him back. And then he, while he was in there, God, what was his name? The Dambusters man.
MC: Oh, Gibson.
GS: Gibson.
MC: Yeah.
GS: He was, apparently he was very close to Gus Walker.
MC: Yeah.
GS: And he used to come in practically every day to see him. And that’s when Mrs Masters and Gus, and that young man started an affair but —
MC: Ok [laughs] Which young man are you talking about? [laughs] Oh so we’re —
GS: What did I say his name was?
MC: Gibson.
GS: Gibson. With Gibson.
MC: Really?
GS: In fact, Gibson was her son’s godfather.
MC: Amazing. Amazing. Yeah.
GS: But, but no it, no one who, I mean you’ve been in the RAF so you will realise you know but you can’t possibly realise what it was like. It’s only by talking to these people that you realise what pressure they were under. It was immense.
MC: Yeah. Yes, it was.
GS: And when, when I hear about these people nowadays moaning and groaning about doing a bit of extra work I really get —
MC: Yes. They certainly did go through a lot.
GS: They did.
MC: They did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s been lovely talking to you, you know.
GS: Do you think that’s alright?
MC: Oh, it’s brilliant. It’s been brilliant. It’s superb and I thank you very much for doing this interview.
GS: Well, as I said now I can put it all to rest and I can just shut my mind away from it because I’ve lived with it for all these years and I just wanted to make sure that it was available on the internet about Rauceby itself and I wanted Bomber Command to have something about it.
MC: The beauty of this is of course, the recording is, it will be on the archives.
GS: Yeah.
MC: People can listen to your story.
GS: Probably bore them stiff.
MC: Thank you very much.
GS: Are you sure you don’t want a drink?
MC: No, thank you Gwyneth.
GS: That’s alright.
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 Gwyneth Stratten
Creator
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Mike Connock
Date
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2021-07-22
Type
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Sound
Format
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00:52:28 Audio Recording
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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AStrattenG210722, PStrattenF2101
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Gwyneth Stratten was born in London in 1934. She was briefly evacuated during the war but wrote to her mother to say if she didn’t come and collect her she would walk home. On a visit to a museum in London with her mother she saw a group of badly injured airmen visiting the museum. This was the start of her fascination with the men of the Guinea Pig Club and their surgeon Archibald McIndoe. Gwyneth joined the Army in 1951 and was very happy in her role. She married an RAF serviceman and returned to the UK. Years later she became the librarian of Rauceby Hospital which after being a mental institution had become a military hospital during the war. When the hospital was due for closure she began collecting items to build a picture of the history of the old hospital and organised a reunion of ex-RAF patients.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Guinea Pig Club
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
RAF hospital Rauceby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1561/34783/SRAFIngham19410620v040001-Audio.2.mp3
beecb77e5ba24652eef7ada82bd88855
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 Ingham Heritage Group
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
2016-11-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
RAF Ingham
Description
An account of the resource
25 items in six collections. The collection concerns RAF Ingham and contains interviews photographs and documents concerning:
Andrzej Jeziorski - Pilot 304 Squadron
Arthur Hydes - Boy in Ingham
Brian Llewellyn -ATC
Jan Black - Rear Gunner 300 Squadron
Lech Gierak - Armourer 303 Squadron
Marion Clarke - MT Driver RAF Ingham
Mieczyslaw Maryszczak - Armourer
Stanislaw Jozefiak - Air Ops 304 Squadron - Pilot on Spitfires
Wanda Szuwalska - Admin 300 Squadron Faldingworth
Zosia Kowalska - Cook RAF Ingham
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by the RAF Ingham Heritage Group and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GB: On record now, right. Right. Hopefully, the intention is obviously, when we get, we’ll get a professional company to edit the whole tape to make it into, you know, for presentation, so it doesn’t matter if we have kind of little kind of funny laughs and things like this, because it will obviously kind of, hopefully the tape will look, you know, quite good when it’s all finished and put together so it doesn’t matter a bit of explaining.
JB: Yes. In style.
GB: Indeed yes, indeed. I mean really obviously the intention today is just to talk to you about your life, before the war, and obviously kind of little bit about your family. Obviously your time in the Polish Air Force before you left Poland and then obviously your, your kind of trip or your route into, all around and into.
JB: I will tell you completely different route, my route, you know, how I came here, yes.
GB: Okay. And then obviously once you came to Britain, obviously about joining up with the Polish Air Force in the RAF.
JB: Yes, yes.
GB: And then really talking a little bit more perhaps in depth about when you were at RAF Ingham. If you’d like to talk about, obviously, the missions that you were on and in particular the one where your aircraft crashed, then we don’t mind but if you prefer not to talk about that for personal reasons, then we fully understand.
JB: No, I think is good to mention how it happened, and because it will be, you know what I mean, the real story, you know what I mean. It’s no good to leave something important what happen in my life, not to mention it, yes.
GB: Well the nice thing is this will be a lasting memory, unfortunately after you have passed on and probably after we have passed on as well, the Heritage it’s almost the Heritage Centre will be for future generations, yes.
JB: That’s what I was thinking. What now you see Minister of Education try to bring the Second War into the children, into the history, because you see somehow after the war you know what that generation went through, for such a suffering and sacrifice which in giving their life, what was quickly forgotten, you know what I mean. GB:Because that was worst history than Napoleonic days, because Napoleonic War, it was gentlemen war, but that, in a Second World War, that was almost unbelievable what in twentieth century you know, such a barbarous could be committed, crime on the people. So you see new generation came, and the authority, you know, completely forgot about the suffering, what we went through it, you know what I mean. And to listen now what they said when they asking children at school about history of Battle of Britain, some of them even don’t know, because there is so much newcomers to this country. But all right, they newcomers, but they should learn the history of this country, you know, what was happening here, and I think now what they’s trying to um, recover the lost time you see, after so many years, you see, because that was probably one of the most, I would say, desperate effort, that Second War what we win, because if the Germans would succeed, what they almost did, I mean we probably would be for thousand years under their domination. That’s what they had idea, you know what I mean.
GB: I think so.
JB: That’s what they kept it, the rest of the world for so long.
GB: Yes.
JB: Because they had the system what, you know, that they would manage under their sort of strict rules you see, and I’m glad what you now try to recover some of the history so the young generation after us, you see, will probably know what we had to go through it, you know what I mean. Yes. It’s important what they still try to save something you know it would be a good idea. Look at Margaret Thatcher. I used to remember, I used to go to her shop, when father, on the corner, had that shop.
GB: Yes. In Grantham.
JB: Because I used to get cigarettes some time, but when I used to go to that little shop, early in morning, I had to look left, and right, if nobody already in the shop or if somebody been in the shop, I was waiting till they come out, and then I would walk to the shop and ask for some cigarettes because I didn’t want cigarettes only for myself. I wanted for myself and for my friends. So when nobody been in the shop, I was alone, so I used to get one or two packets extra! [Laugh] You see, that’s how the things were you see, those days! I mean people today have no idea. If you, in morning, you see, yesterday your friend went to get cigarettes, but the next day was your turn. So you see we used to do in turns, we used to get up early in the morning!
GB: Just to get the cigarettes.
JB: To get cigarettes and go from shop to shop! Terrific. [Laugh] We come for holiday to London, come to holiday, and sometime we come in afternoon, all hotels booked up because all the people who have forty eight hours, military people, come to London. If you come late, outside hotel: ‘No Room, No Room’ you see. So you didn’t have even to go and ask, because they used to leave the sign: No Vacancy. So we used to sleep in Serpentine, you know, they had the deck chair, [indecipherable] we put some deck chair. In morning we go wash ourself in Serpentine, shave because we won’t be served in our gas mask, you know what I mean and waiting for pubs to open, you know what I mean. [Laugh] So first we had to order ourself rooms early in morning, because that was only time, but many times we slept in, in the Park, you know what I mean, because we been happy, and living from day to day. If you went to bar on your own - I’m just telling you this story what I went through.
GB: Yes, yes.
JB: And some time you make appointment with your friends, so we meet you in Fifty Two Piccadilly – that was well known pub - and sometime you got to the Park and your friends still been delayed, so you would be standing on your own. You will not be standing for long because people come and talk to you, you know, straight away, you see, because you could not stand on the corner and drink alone, the people be friendly, you know what I mean.
GB: When you were on the forty eight hour pass did you have to go in uniform?
JB: Oh yes, yes, uniform.
GB: Always in uniform.
JB: Yes, uniform, because if you been in civvie you always been suspected what you some, probably you know person undesirable, you know what I mean, yes. And I mean pubs were packed [emphasis] during the winter, I mean during the war, because people just been living uncertain life, you know what I mean. And they been so happy you know. You came and the cinemas were playing, the bombs were dropping, shows were going on, you know what I mean, people just got, in the end you know, they got used to bombing, you know. Sometimes they were falling closer, sometimes they been, the Germans used to bomb East London, dock side you know what I mean. Somehow they didn’t do much in the centre of the London, you know, but the East London was receiving the most hit, yeah.
GB: Did you always come to London for your forty eight hour passes? Was that the best place?
JB: No, some time, some time I go to Scotland, because you see when you come some time to London, and you know you have lots of disturbed nights, you know what I mean, then some time you will go, and Blackpool.
GB: And Blackpool. Because that was the Polish Depot, wasn’t it.
JB: Blackpool. That was our depot you see. We had such friendly relations there because we used to, sometime when you been doing, you did half tour, used to get two weeks little rest you see to Blackpool, and we nearly always went and stayed same small boarding hotels, you see, and it was beautiful place, Blackpool. Oh, I still think Blackpool is one of the nicest part in England, you know what I mean. That beach, long, you know, sandy beach and the Blackpool Tower, you know, dancing, you know, phoar! [Laugh] Manchester public house on the corner on the Promenade, you know what I mean. Blackpool was lovely place, and so much in holiday, in those days, so much excitement.
GB: Was, in those days, was Blackpool like little Poland, because of the sheer number of Polish airmen that were being trained there?
JB: Yes, yes. You see, I’ll tell you why we left good respect, but after the war, when war ended, from Germany, from lots of those concentration camps, came lots of different people what they call themselves what they were Polish, but they were not, they were all different, some even Germans been disguised telling them they could speak Polish, that they were Polish, so they spoiled us reputation. But when Polish Air Force only stay in Blackpool, when we used to enter to the small hotel on the Promenade, we made our own rules. Some time was landlady the owner of the hotel because her husband was Captain in the Far East serving for four, five years, and in the hotels was the rules what you can bring girlfriend to sitting room for cup of tea or coffee, but nowhere else. And we had our rules and anybody brought girlfriend sometime, because every hotel had sitting room, you could invite her to sitting room, you can treat her with cup of tea or coffee or cake.
GB:: That was it.
JB: Gentlemen, If you wanted anything else you have to look outside but not in! And we had those rules and you know the landladies would go to sleep during the night and they didn’t have to worry because they knew what anybody who came inside to the hotel, she was sure what there would be not be any bad reputation on her. And we kept that, you know what I mean, and that was good. [Laugh]
GB:: Jan, what’s your full name? Cause I wasn’t sure. I spoke to Danny and he wasn’t sure.
JB: Yes, I tell you. I’m glad you asked. You see, when I met my wife, in London, my wife managed private club [sniff]. And I, so we went to one pub in London and we met English, erm, English, erm, he was, PO, Pilot Officer and he came and talked to us, asked us from which squadron we on. We told him we came from Lincolnshire and spending holiday and the pubs was closing because they open from eleven till three, after, open five till eleven, so he said - and we been seven of us - he said and what you doing now and we said probably have to go to cinema, wait till pub to open again! He said to us, listen I am member in one of the club, would you like to come with me? Well we said, oh thee, In those days if you could go to private club it was almost big, you know, satisfaction you know what I mean, because so we say you know that would be almost unbelievable what you. Oh yes he said, I’m member and I can take you but you not allowed to buy drinks; I will treat you to drink. So we went with him and he introduced us to the person who owned the club, and he said they are Polish aircrews from Lincolnshire and I like to introduce them to the club so they can have a drink with me. So the young lady said very nice, thank you. So we had one drink, second, and the people in those days they all were shop owners, solicitors, engineers, come for lunch during, because they were active in their own profession you see, but members of the club. They invite us in evening again because you see the club had also hours opened in afternoon and after in the evening. So we went in the evening and we behaved properly and the lady who owned the club, after second day, she said to us, listen you bunch, I will make you members. But when she said she will make us members we got stiff, frightened, because we thought she would ask us to pay the membership! And in those days membership, you know! [laugh]
GB: Was some money, yes!
JB: So she said but don’t you worry, she said, you don’t have to pay. I know you come from time to time and my members, her members mentioned that she should make us members you see, so she give us little book with the rules, how we have to obey the membership. So if we have friend to bring to the club we must treat them with the drink, not allow them to buy the drinks and be sure what the people we guarantee their membership you see, so that was fine. We went one night, second night, on third night, when our lady was closing the club, our navigator, he was our banker because we used to give him all our money to him, and he used to pay the expenses: hotel, restaurants, drinks [laugh] and we only stayed on holiday till kitty was lasted. When kitty was empty we returning back to the station, some time before the holiday finished, depends on the kitty.
GB: How much time, yeah how much money.
JB: Anyway, to come to the point, you see we had yes, and the lady was closing the club and you had to finish the drinks on time because in those days the police rules were strict. If they caught you some time half an hour late delay the club was fined, heavily, you know, for not obeying the rules. So anyway we had to finish drink quickly and we said to the lady who owned the club, and what you going to do now? She said I’m going home. So we quickly said, we suggest to her, we want to take her to dinner. So we said what about if we take you for quick dinner? You been so kind to us, make us members, and we like to reimburse you something what we can. Well she said, I have to take dog for walk. [Laughter] [Indecipherable] when she finish. So we take her by taxi, we wait in taxi outside, she take that dog for walk quickly, come with us, we got to Soho, to little Italian restaurant and we give her nice dinner you see, and we finish almost two weeks, nearly every night we went to that club because we’ve got so many nice members there and we just been waiting for night to go up there you know, to have, meet the people. Then she said to us, look, if you have any friends, you come again to London, you give them my club address and tell them you are friends of your crew and I will make them members. Because there were Canadians coming, New Zealands, you know, all the military. Our second crew, what we recommended, we say you go to London, you will be able to go to club where lovely ladies come, you know, and you will, it is different from the pubs you know, because in those days it was big different between club and the bar. So we went there and the lady said what happened to that crew, first lot? They said, oh they were all killed, only one survive. She said and this one survive, where’s he? Is on the station and not come to London, they said to her, no he is in hospital. Oh, I see, and he still alive. Yes, he is badly burned. Which hospital is he? Oh he is outside London, in East Grinstead, Sussex. Oh I see, yes, that’s a big hospital for Royal Air Force, you know what I mean. So she made note and the one Saturday afternoon, sister, ward from hospital, come and she said, Jan, you have somebody come to visit you. I said sister, I don’t expect. Oh yes, somebody know your name, yes. So I said bring her in. She come and I was all in bandages. And she said you laying here and you never even phoned me, to tell me what you are here, and I said I don’t know where is my telephone numbers; I lost everything, I said that’s all what I own: my bandages! She said never mind, I’m glad what you are here. And I was so proud, because that’s on Saturday, listen, lots of my English colleagues had father, mother, brother or sister come, and I was on my own and knew, been feeling very, you know, lonely. She used to come and see me you know. Because when my English colleagues bring her, they said to their father oh that’s the Polish airman. So they will come, treat me with cigarettes, have a joke and talk, but I knew it was not the same, you know what I mean, but when that lady came especially to see me, I honest, I was important, really was. [Laugh] So that sister, and afterwards she spent a few hours, that sister brought tea, cup of tea, cakes, you know, because that how was treating the visitors. And I said how you came here. She I came by train because I have car but I have no petrol. So I call taxi and there was about one mile to the station. Took her to the station, I thank her for her visit, and she said if you ever passing through London, you come and see me. I said to her I will be going to station to collect certain thing, so I said I come for quick drink. She said you do that and afterwards she came few times to see me in hospital because I spent in that hospital six months, and it was just friendship, she was so kind to me. I said to her, I used to call her by her name, I say Evelyn, listen you coming to see me, you have so much business to do. She said listen, I come to see you, you don’t know why? I said no. Well, she said look, your friend, this one, has father and mother she said, somewhere they have, and you are on your own she said, and that’s why I come and see you. And you know this touched me, you know what I mean, what I felt I had somebody still. I was so happy afterwards because you know, I used to talk to my friends – you had visitor but I had visitor too, you know what I mean. And you know that develop afterwards that I became friendly and I married her. I married her for fifty years.
GB: What was the date of your marriage?
JB: 19 10 46. Yes, I remember that date. I was married in Lincolnshire: Great Eastern Hotel. That’s a railway hotel.
GB: Was that in the middle of Lincoln, was it?
JB: Yes, yes.
GB: Great Eastern.
JB: Listen, nearly all the staff got sack because I got married in Registry, [sigh] but reception was, you know, in a, and I booked myself in the Great Eastern with my wife for couple nights and nearly half of my station turn up and the rest of the hotel could not sleep! So they said the next day, the next manager had all the waiters, waitresses, everybody, what there was so much noise all the people could not sleep! But there was no disturbance, no problem except lots of people turn up. And they made kitty and they been ordering the drinks, you know what I mean, people in corridors, everywhere, but in the end you know, he accepted what that was special wedding, only one what he would remember you see, and there was some of them had caution you know what I mean, but that about all you see, and that was also lovely wedding because I wanted, you see, I even show you, you see here, here, if you have glasses.
GB: Permission to Marry.
JB: That Permission to Marry. In those days our commanding officer would not let crew, aircrew, to get married, girl, if he doesn’t see girl first. Because a lot of them go on holiday, get drunk, meet any girl, get engaged and get married and some of that marriage didn’t last long. And afterwards it, rules was what any aircrew member who want to get married must bring his girlfriend first, commanding officer had to accept and if she was suitable and you see I had from the commanding, when my wife saw him, you know what he said to me, he said I will, because she used to come and stay in the White Hart Hotel.
GB: In Lincoln
JB: On top, you know.
GB: On the top, near the Castle, yeah.
JB: That’s right. So he would, he sent her taxi back to the hotel, you know, she almost had it from beginning he was asking her question, afterwards she was asking him! [Laugh]
GB: That’s very good!
JB: And you see I got married.
GB: This has answered the question. You know, my first question to you was what was your original name, your Polish name. It was Stangrycuik.
JB: Stangrycuik I tell you why: my wife, you see my wife was named Evelyn Black and she was born in Derbyshire, but her father had lots of land, big land and she was as a young, studying economic and working on the land. She had two brothers. After when father died, two brothers left on the, on that big farm, and on that farm they had pub, so on Saturday and Sunday, local farmers come with their children, discuss what crops they should have in different parts, because the weather is the most suitable for such a crop and children would play in the garden, have orange juice and the father and mother would discuss in the bar you see, their life. But when she finished study economic she didn’t wanted to return and work on the farm because it was hard work. Hard work. She decided to work for big London company, hotel and restaurants, as er, erm, she was, you know, qualified accountant. She was kept all the, from the restaurants, all the expenses, statements. People used to come, have table, waiters used to serve them with the drinks, whatever food and used to bring to the office expenses of those. And in those days Royal Family, Café Royal off Regent Street she was working, and that was syndicate. They had hotels in Maidenhead and different expensive hotels in London. When they had extension nights, sometime, they applied to the police for extension because it will be till two o’clock in morning, you know, special function, and she would get that extension for the later night. So my wife used to, the manager ask her if she work overtime because is very busy gala night you know, when also from royal family members come, so they used to pay her double time. And she worked few years there and not one time, and when used to have gala night big function, they used to invite the manager from brewery, Watney Brewery on Piccadilly, Victoria, sorry, Victoria, that was brewery in Victoria, and in the end they were asking if they lower their drinks because in the end they said we give you so much business you must lower the drink. So I will make the story quickly, and when is that gala night, he, that big manager come from Watney Brewery come with his wife and often talk to my, in the end wife, who was in the reception, accountant. He said listen I don’t think I will be coming much often here, so my wife then as the secretary of that Café Royal, said why not? I had terrific bust up with your syndicate and I think we breaking our relation business, no longer. She said, no not really. Yes, yes, they try to bring me, so down in prices what I can’t lower them no more, you know, to supply with the drink. And he said to her then, to my wife, he said and you working here so few years, they not treating you so generous. Well she said but I’m still happy, I pay my rooms and I said, he said you know that business better than owners, you should have your own business. Because she was already annoyed with the syndicate company what you see he was breaking the business after all those years, he said you should have your own business, you know that business better than the owners. She said yeah, but you must have money to have that. He said surely you must have some money! Well, she said, my brothers sold the estate in Derby and gave they me little because I would not work with them so they gave me a small compensation One went to Australia and one brother went to went to Canada; they had bust up between them so they went far from each other, you know, but they, you know, share whatever. She said but I have no money to start. Don’t you worry, you tell me how much you have, brewery will give you, find you place but you have to buy drinks, in exchange for little concession what I help you, and you should have your own business, he said, because you will make better business because you know that business better than the owners of that syndicate, hotel in Maidenhead and Café Royal and the [indecipherable] in London and he put her that fix into her head what she should own private club, and for seventeen years she owned that, during the war, and that’s when I met my wife you see. I was little airmen gone to club and land myself with the lady who own the business you see.
GB: Can you remember when you actually met her when you went down to London that first time?
JB: Yes, that English pilot officer took us in, and he was the member you see.
GB: Do you remember what year that was?
JB: Yes! In, end of ’41 you see, and my wife was ten year older than me, but she was, after I show you photographs, everything. Anyway I married her and she was, some time when we go to our reunion, because I show you some, you see that’s where I go to my Guinea Pig Reunion, yeah.
GB: Did, when you got married, did Evelyn take your name or did you change straight over to Black?
JB: Yeah, I was, you see is already war finished and my wife knew I not going back to Poland you see. Because there was so much communists and the communists didn’t like the people from the aircrews because you see all people, aircrew, we knew all the sickness of this country and so on, and they used to suspect us what we will be spying against the communists, and we been always, those who weren’t, been always followed by the KGB you know what I mean. So I, my wife knew I was not going back to Poland and she said look Jan, calling me by my name, I have business and for me to change all the administration is lots of extra expense and she said I want to keep on the same and she said I want to naturalise you British, because you not going where so many communists there, you went enough with the Germans and she said now you have another you see, people to follow you. And I love my wife so much I didn’t care what I, and you see, and of course my doctor from East Grinstead, Sir Archibald McIndoe, that big plastic surgeon - he used to call me Polski you know – and when he used to meet us in East Grinstead in the Whitehall bar, that’s hotel bar, when he's not operating on people, his chauffeur bring him in Rolls Royce and wait for him outside and he will come to that bar and when we had operation finished, so we can work we used to go in evening to East Grinstead to have a drink or to cinema and return to hospital for next operation, and sometimes he will meet us in Whitehall Bar and have a drink with us. He was like our friend; our advisor, our surgeon and all the doctors in those days were so friendly, you know, with the airmen. When they had some time in the evening they used to, we meet in certain places and have a little drink or chat, yes, and he was also advisor to us. And when I had demob, I went to see him and I said Sir Archibald, I said, I have letters sent for my demob. So he look at me, he said listen, he said I would not advise you to sign for the Regular. Because in those days when you were young still, you didn’t have to take demob but you had to sign for the Regular, for seven years or fourteen years contract. He said when you take demob now, you will be entitled to your pension and he said if you have problem we find you job and you’re sure. He said you sign new contract, suppose you get discharged for some reason, what you didn’t obey the rules or something, he said you lose all your entitlements. So he said I advise you, you take your demob you see, and I had to listen to him, you know what I mean, because he was, he was to us like our doctor, advisor and so on. And I took my, and I had two jobs after the war. Och, I tell what job I did. I did twenty years in rubber factory. You know why I did in rubber factory? Because owners of the rubber factory were members of my wife club. Listen, my wife said you are mad going. I said Evelyn, you have business, but I want to be independent; I cannot work with you because I say I will ruin your business. She said why? I said listen, your members come to the club, they will buy me drink, I have to reimburse them drink. I said I have to feel I’m the same like them and I said your business will go bust! I don’t want nothing to do with your business, you keep your business, and you see the sister of the owners of that big rubber factory was her friend. They used to, went to school together and she used to come to my wife club. And she said to me listen, I take you to my brothers and I tell them they have to give you job. So I said Sonny, I don’t know if I would be able to do the job. Don’t you worry, I tell them what they have to do with you: they have to teach you. I in one year I was supervisor, I could sell rubber, anything, rubber tyres, whatever rubber you see, because they train me as a supervisor because their old fellow was leaving the job after sixty years. That was big rubber factory and I start I thought I just work year or two, I get enough money to get some deposit on some house, because my wife always paid flats, you know. She was renting in Albemarle Street that’s near Ritz Hotel, almost, where our Margaret Thatcher, poor thing, died yesterday, and she said because she wanted to rent near the club because she always walked from business from hotel, to her flat and she paid lots of money. I say Evelyn, I said you work so hard and I said half your money is going for the, she said in this district you have to pay you see. So I said don’t you worry, I make enough money. So I bought old house, with the leaking roof in Holland Park because during the war all the houses in London were so much dilapidated because you get no paint, no wood, nothing, and I like the house. And the roof was leaking, stair was broken, I said to my wife, never mind, don’t you worry, I want this house. She said you’re mad! So I paid the flat one month, I moved myself with the dog [laugh] to the house; four storey house. In those days it was two thousand five hundred pound, but to earn two thousand five hundred pound in those days was like almost fifty yesterday, but every month I did something, a bit, you know and in the end you know, that dilapidated house you know, start going up and up in prices, you know, and when recently you know, the property went, you know, sky high, I would, in the end when my wife finished the club business and we rented up flats in Holland Park with her because even club was too much in the end because that’s a big responsibility. When she was young she was. Boys I must give you drink coffee, cake listen I have special cake made for you.
GB: Shall we take a little break for a moment then, we can switch the filming off and talk about some photographs.
JB: Listen quickly.
GB: I think you probably need a break more than we do, you’ve talked for about a whole hour! If you press the red button again the word record should come off the screen. [Beep]
JB: That’s right, plenty sugar.
GB: I’ll just er, leave that running anyway, might be some other bits that are worth, oh yes please, thank you.
JB: That’s why I don’t worry! [Crockery sounds] Long as your stomach enjoy it! [Laughter] [Pause] Well I’m so glad you came all the way from Lincolnshire to see me because you see we spent so many years in that part. I used to love Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, because the countryside in summer beautiful, you know, yes. Lincolnshire, I used to go with my friends in Lincoln, when they had racing in those days. You know that was first race in the spring what used to start.
GB: The horse racing in Lincoln, yes, yeah.
JB: Nowadays that’s went to Doncaster.
GB: But the old grandstand is still there.
JB: Still there, yes.
GB: And the racetrack is there, for the horses, but nobody races any more.
JB: Yes I know.
GB: Still run at Market Rasen.
JB: Yes, oh yes, that’s right. Yes, Lincoln was lovely – that Cathedral, every time we used to coming to land we always had to joke and be careful captain don’t touch the thing! [Laugh]
GB: Well we’re delighted to come down to see you and we’re looking forward to when you can come in May, not just because of the time at Faldingworth for you, but also hopefully the next morning on Sunday, and I’ll speak to Daniel, to come and visit us, to see how the renovation is going up on the site. Cause we’ve got the old airmens’ mess where the Junior Ranks, but we can walk round the corner to the old sergeants’ mess, the big long building, that’s still there: the farmer keeps chickens in there now.
JB: Oh boy!
GB: But, and there are one or two other buildings that are still there, including the old control tower, but that’s been changed now; the present owner has turned it into a gymnasium I think. There’s one or two things on the old airfield, and if the weather is good for us as well we can drive you round and stop at different places around the airfield and you can tell us if you remember certain things. Many of the old buildings have gone now, just because the farmers, they’ve either fallen down or the farmers have knocked them down to make a bit more room for the fields.
JB: You know last time when I went and I saw, saw that overgrown airfield, I thought to myself, every time we shall return, we thought that was our home, you know that. Yes. You know you, when you came out from the plane, you thought I am at home.
GB: I’m at home.
JB: You see the trouble was, when you used to miss your friends and you went to dining room and you saw that table empty, and that table empty and you think to myself I wonder when this table will be empty? Because we always used to sit together at the same table, the crew.
GB: I was going to ask you did the crews sit at set tables, you had your own crew table.
JB: Yes, we had our own chart, and at one time [sigh] my crew, my squadron, had quite bit of bad luck, you know, we lost five crews in short time and Bomber Harris came, paid us unexpected visit. So in evening, we didn’t have flight then, the adjutant said we will be meeting special guest in one of the hangar. So have a, all good shave and wash and after tea get yourself into the hangar. Because this guest come, we thought who it would be? Maybe King you know or, who, and he came with the car and he had little talk with us. He said, boys I came to see you because you look bit depressed, and I know why you feel depressed. But he said, that’s what happen in, during the war: some time we going to happy day, sometime we going to depressing days, but he said I tell you what I want to tell you - I’m exactly telling the words what he explain. He said our friend Germans always had ideas to start the war, because he said, by starting the wars they used to make good gains. They invade other people homes, destroy their homes, rob their homes and bring the loot back to their own country. And he said people in their country never saw the destruction and suffering. But he said, I came to tell you, with this war, we going to take destruction and suffering into their [emphasis] countries, so the Germans will know what war brings, and memories. So he said for the first time we’re doing that, and by doing that we’re having those depressing days left in our memory, but he said this will not last for ever. Sooner or later the rest of the world will start to be happy. But he said is getting very near when that success we achieve, but success is in front of you, so don’t you worry; it will not last forever, you know. And that we give him because we knew that he was under pressure to do that you see, because not only he, the Russians press him, because you know what the Russians knew, the Russians say if you not going to help us, the Hitler will, he had planned to, was the destruction of Dresden, because the Germans had very big concentration troops there and they wanted to contra attack Russian’s advance and Stalin said if you not helping me they going to chase me back to Stalingrad and the war may completely change still in the last phase of the war. And that’s why destruction went to Dresden because they were preparing lot of last Germans, you know, contra attack on Russian’s advance you see, because the Russians was pressing with all their strength because they didn’t give Germans chance to recuperate, you know what I mean, and by doing so they were gaining the successes. But they knew they wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer. That’s why the destruction went on Dresden, because, to completely wipe out the Dresden. We had such heavy losses in Bomber Command you see, because Bomber Command support the Russians, and support our troops. Our troops. Our invasion on Normandy coast, without Bomber Command going and smashing fortification from Baltic to Atlantic, none of our troops would landed on Normandy coast. The Bomber Command helped them you see, to bridge it, just because they had so fortified, you know what I mean. They, they were, Germans nasty, nasty people. But Bomber Command, paid the price and achieved the result in the end. More cake boys? Yes!
GB: I’m all right thank you.
JB: Now listen!
GB: That’s not good; that’s on tape now. My wife will know I’ve eaten cake! [Laugh]
JB: That thing is red.
GB: Is that the warning? I think it is.
GB: Yes. Is the red thing on?
GB: Yeah, it’s flashing and it’s got green, it’s not got the pause. It’s just the battery usually. Is it on the screen is it? Does it say red?
GB: Just record on it.
GB: How many hours left does it say?
GB: Nine hours thirty six. If I can read without my glasses.
GB: It should be quite a lot because it had had about four years worth of recording on there, everything from when Hayley used to swim. I cleared all that off last weekend. My camera when we bought it about three or four years ago, probably little bit longer than that now, we just recorded everything from family holidays to everything, it’s got quite a big memory on there so this last weekend I wiped all of it off, well saved it onto my computer so that we knew we would be chatting for quite a while today, so you know, we’ve left it on so.
JB: It’s nicely set I think for our height, you know, so.
GB: It captures you just here nicely, with us out of the screen.
JB: More coffee? Listen, I’m not going to charge you no more because not hot. I make you hot. [Steps] [Pause] We have a hot coffee this time!
GB: Oh! Okay, thank you.
JB: {Banging] Listen, next time you come to [indecipherable] we won’t be strangers you see because you’re our friend from Lincoln, Yorkshire. Yes.
GB: Well next time you’re coming to be our guest, aren’t you, in May, you’ll come and see us.
JB: You see, which way round, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Bomber Command. Here in [indecipherable] they want fighters, you know, and most Bomber Command boys lived there because they had friends and so on, so they remain there.
GB: In Lincolnshire everything is all about the Lancaster and they forget about the Wellington. So because Ingham was purely Wellington squadrons, this is it, we go Lancasters, Wellingtons.
GB: Line them up!
JB: Wellingtons give us the start, yes, yes, they give us the start.
GB: Never heard anything back from Malcom.
GB: Malcolm?
GB: Everett from Nottingham. His uncle. Polish. He was in Fighter, he’s a Fighter. He’s over in Canada. [Indecipherable]
GB: Colin did say that quite a few of the Polish WAAFs are coming to the Faldingworth thing, and [emphasis] the Nottingham Polish scouts.
JB: This time you have the good coffee!
GB: Oh right. We have the rubbish coffee first! [Laughter]
JB: Yes that was it!
GB: I thought you were just seeing how the visitors were going before you give us the good coffee maybe!
JB: You came long way you know, to see me, and sugar, help yourself to sugar. That’s right.
GB: I’ll move that back. There we go. [Sounds of movement] I’ll come and sit this back here a little bit just so that it faces more the front.
JB: Thank you. Yeh, you see, the trouble was, not many people remember the history, but I tell you what I want to tell you. In the old days Poland was country surrounded by three very big power: Russia, Germany and Austria. At one time, many years ago, Poland was the strongest nation in Europe. We stop Turks’ invasion on Europe, but our history start change, you know what I mean, like every country, you know, in future. And then at one time Poland went under occupation of three big power: Russia, Austria and Germany, and we stay under their occupation for hundred twenty years. When the First War started, after hundred twenty years we regain independence, and we’d been destroyed completely, left like that because the biggest battlefield went on the Polish land, you know, between those three superpowers, Russia, Germany and Austria. But when we got independence, for twenty years, England and France was only our far neighbours what we could depend. The rest we still been surrounded by er, not friendly nations, like Germany, Russia, and even Austria and then there was Czechs, Lithuanians, I mean those country, encouraged by the Russians, by the Germans, to cause Czechs against Poland. They knew what that new country, after fifty years to gain independence, was very weak nation. But we had only two countries what we thought we could depend little on friendship: England and France, and we kept it. But in the end we knew in Europe what the Second World War is brewing. But one thing what I have respect for England till my dying days, what England had the guts to stand up against the Germans. No other nation in the world in those days. They all were frightened of the Germans. When the Olympics started in 1930-
GB: Six, yeah.
JB: The Hitler show well his superior power, you know what I mean. And when that Olympic finish, everybody were in fear of the Germans’ superiority. But England, always they were big Empire in those days, they knew what the Germans to them also are big danger, you know, because they knew what the Germans always were creating to regain their superiority in the world. When 1939 came, England only had the guts to stand up. Even French was hesitating in the end. They, you know, were not hundred percent sure, but in the end they had just to do it, but they didn’t do it with heart, no, you see, and the French being senseful were truly bluffing in the end, what it ended that way, you know what I mean. What in the end the Americans got themself involved, because the America didn’t want to it come to the war, and we had very, but in the end who stood up only? England and Poles on this island; everybody was running away. I remember, I work in London, in some parts, in Willesden, where lots of Jewish community live. Rich community, nice houses, and it was at night. I took girlfriend I met in the dance, it was very dark and she promise me she stay with me if I take her home because she was frightened afterwards when dance finished. I said I take you home. I took her home and I was walking back to the Paddington station, I had small room there where I working, and I walk through Willesden, where was half dead. Houses, windows were boarded in, everybody, lots of Jewish community fled to Canada, or somewhere, because they thought the Germans inevitably coming here. And when I walked through that empty park, I thought to myself, will it really happen, you know, what everybody so frightened you see, but that how it was in London. Certain parts in London they were almost deserted too, you know what. I don’t know where people gone, if they gone to different parts of the country but some of them went abroad. So you see, the world, because I went through the beginning of the war till the end, what this country, with Mr Churchill in the end, as the warmonger, I think maybe he was wrong sometimes, [laugh] he didn’t know what he was doing!
GB: We needed a strong leader.
JB: He kept going, you know what I mean! He started in the First War, in didn’t go according to plan everything, but when the Second War came he was about one of the best, you know what I mean, what could come at that time. And he took bluff, he bluff many times and he was biding for the time, because that was only hope what something will happen. And yes, we may don’t like the Japs, but good job what they attack Pearl Harbour, you know what I mean, and they made Americans to come into the war.
GB: Big mistake for them.
JB: Because otherwise I remember the war how every day I was studying the events from day to day and only when Americans go to war you could see the laughs on the people’s faces you know, because we knew now we are not alone and that happened like that, yeah. But from beginning it was hard going but in England with Mr Chamberlain, he was, he believed Hitler from beginning. The trouble was with him, every time he go meet Hitler, he come back, step on Croydon airport: ‘There will be no war, I have signature in my hand.’ But Hitler did not have honour to tell the truth: he was just playing for time, you know what I mean and in the end he knew what he made blunder because he believed him, he believed him, and that’s why he had to resign and coalition became, you see.
GB: Don’t forget your coffee.
JB: That’s right, and you see by bluffing that time, when Mr Churchill came, what Americans got themselves involved, and that, he made also mistake, attack Russia, too late, because he wanted you know, for his stand place petrol and he had not petrol, petrol running out. Every time he had any reserves somewhere we used to bomb there, you know what I mean, and he could hide no longer and he was desperate. He started in North Africa, yes, he won Alamein but it was already with Americans help, yes, okay, you see. Because Rommel, you see he got himself involved in Russia, could not help Rommel in North Africa. Of course, Montgomery beat Rommel you see, but they prepared themselves, up to here Germans you see, when they started but they made lots of mistakes and we gained it. [Laugh] You see that’s how war go. Sometimes you see, you almost have victory but mistake costs and to put mistake right Is very costly. [Laugh]
GB: Can I ask you Jan, about?
JB: Ask me anything.
GB: Can we talk about your, when you came to, when you first came to Britain and joined the RAF, as a Polish airman, can you tell us which, did you fly in or did you come by boat and where did you come to? Tell us a little bit about about Blackpool because I think that was your first- the Polish Depot.
JB: I think you touch one of the most important ones. My father was soldier in the First War and we, when the Russians, the Germans were defeated, Austria collapsed, Poland start re-emerging independence, my father was in Polish erm, in Polish Army. When the Germans collapsed, you know, in 11 11, the Russian wanted to invade, under the Bolshevism, the rest of Europe, because Europe was so tired of the war. The France was almost collapsed; England was very bad unrest, because suffering for five years in the First War and the Russians people who starved, they were hungry of food because the big pressures was on Russians’ Front too you see, and we beat the Russian’s invasion on the Vistula river, in Poland. Because how we beat the Russians then, when they wanted to invade the rest of Europe – Bolsheviks. Because the communists was breeding, wanted to overthrow the monarchies, in Germany, in Austria out, out. England sent small reinforcement because the English Royal Family were linked with the Russian Royal Family and as you know, in the First War, Russia, and England and France and very strongly united.
GB: [Beep] Carry on. Right we’re back on again.
GB: [Indecipherable] battery at the same time.
GB: So were you going to tell us a little bit about how you actually came to England.
JB: Alright. Before war started, my father knew the Second War would always begin sooner or later, and he was fighting against the Bolshevism in the First War. When the Russians had very big defeat and they were always warning what, you know, they will return. That was the, always sign. And he saw, he saw the First War destruction and he said to my mother what he don’t like to see Second War. He had the idea what the war will come and would be same thing what happened in the First War, so he sold his possession in Poland and in those days was very big emigration going to Canada, America, South America, Brazil, Argentine, and my father went, decided to go to Argentine, to start plantation there. We went on the boat from Poland. When I was passing near Dover Strait, I saw the white chalk of Dover, I thought to myself, I had been at school having so many lessons about England, what the democratic system in this country, how near. I could see it but I cannot be in, on that coast to see it. You know how it’s in sight you see, because England was always in Poland very important lectures done you see, how it is leading modern nation in the world. Anyway, my ship continue through the English Channel, stop in Spain, stop in Portugal, stop in North Africa, Casablanca, Dakar, then cross to Brazil, off Brazil went to Argentina, BA. My father you see had already planned where we went to settle down in Argentine. We went there, bought lots of land. I thought to myself what he's going to do, forest? He said we will start plantation: plant lots of oranges, bananas, all different type of wine grapes. I went to school in Argentine to learn Spanish. I was already fifteen year old, where you, during break play football, so some of those Argentinian he said you cannot play football. Then, you know, I shoot goal. No, you didn’t score that goal, you bloody fool! I said what did you say? I already knew how to ask him what this he say. He says something again, I punch him in the face. He will go to teacher, report what I misbehave at school. The teacher report to my father, your son not behaving properly at school. My father said listen, you going to school to learn Spanish and learn the Spanish history. I say father I’m learning but I said, I’m not happy. I said they not going to call me what I don’t want you to call me. [Laugh] He said but you don’t have to fight with them I say sometime you have to. [Chuckle] Anyway, I continue to listen to father. War started; I was already nineteen. English Embassy, French embassy, Polish Embassy calling for volunteers. You don’t know how many volunteers came from South America to this country, from Brazil, from Argentine. They were all different nation joining, against Germans. We had three English ship, the Royal Mail had, big English company Royal Mail, going continuously because English had so much investment in Argentine, they were building railways in that huge country. All the meat factory, because Argentine is one of the biggest meat producer in the world after United States. Frederice Angelo, the factory, when the trains come with the, all the stock from the, those huge provinces with the, to the factories, whole train, you could see those cows inside in the train going from beginning of the factory when slaughter start, in the end of the factory, all ready, ships taking all the meat frozen to different parts of the world. England had lot [emphasis] of money tied up in Argentine, lot; big companies, big companies. And when war started lots of volunteers, English, French, Polish start, because Embassy put, advertise, need people. We start, we been put in the hotels in BA, never know what time we going to leave because the German submarine was all over waiting and all those big boats what were going from Argentine with meat supply to England, and volunteers, we used to sleep on the hammock; we had no beds. All the time you have the salvage tied up in case the boat is torpedoed so you jump into the water to save yourself and we had at night a turn we had to watch with binoculars for German submarines somewhere, and our boat – huge! Royal Mail had three: Highland Moorland, Highland Chief, Highland Princess: four big boats. Continuously they used to cross each other, one coming already from England, second come and they used to hoot each other when they pass each other, crossing the Atlantic. And they used to never come to Southampton, the far as they come to Belfast. Unload in Belfast and go back. Belfast then go back. I came to Belfast and first I felt bombing [laugh] and what a souvenir, imagine! And from Belfast they shipped us to Scotland, you know, at night. And from there to Blackpool and from Blackpool to Evanton in Scotland on the train and we be start training day and night, in hurry because the war was in hurry, you know what I mean, to train. We had sometime few hours sleep, you know what I mean. In Scotland we were living in huts. Those round huts, you know.
GB: Nissen huts.
JB: In the middle we had coal fires, chimney. In morning cold, we had, river was passing near our hut and the wooden boats was from the river, we had to wash ourselves, shave ourselves, quickly before the you know, our duties start. And coming in Argentine during that time was summer there, we came here it was winter. In Scotland dark [emphasis] at night in winter time, cold. First I had to go climatise myself to Scottish weather [chuckle] and start training there. When we got first training then we been shipped to Midland, that was better, you know, better. Then when we finished training in Midland, we then joined to the squadrons you see, and in squadrons was much better, you know, much better life. Yes. So you see I start my way, come from Argentine, was seven hundred of us on that boat coming, on Highland Chieftain, big boat, twenty two thousand ton, and we, German submarine all over South Atlantic, with that Graf Spey what they could not catch, that big German er, battleship what you know eventually they caught him near Montevideo, what they, being sunk you see; we start training. Then, you see, when I was start to fly I done few ops from my OTU. First we been doing lots of leaflets, throwing over France. ‘Don’t you worry, we beating Germans in three months, war finished!’, to give to the French people! [Laugh]
GB: So they were your training runs.
JB: Thousands! Then afterwards they send us bit more deeper in Germany to drop few bombs, you see. And then I, we had our accident and I came out on my own from my crew, because my plane got broken, Wellington. I lost consciousness during the accident and when I woke up, I recover my memory what we had crash and I saw everything in fire. [Pause] I, I was squeezing myself; I’d been trying to get my pilot out of, out of his seat, but I think he was still tied up with his, and I couldn’t get him out and in the end I was running out of breath because I could not see, I could not feel, and I start to crawl back and when I crawl back the plane was broken in half, so I had to exit where I got myself out. When I got myself out, my uniform was burning on me, because some parts, some parts I think got wet with petrol, so those parts when was wet, or when I touch maybe, when was trying to squeeze myself from the plane were fire, and we crash near farm, and the people run out from that farm and er, [pause] they tear my clothes from me you see, but I was, I lost my helmet because during that, er, er, during the crash, you know what I’m, impact, I was you know, I was somehow thrown, my helmet was thrown, so I already burn my hair and good job what they torn my flying [indecipherable] out because otherwise I would got probably burn you see with my uniform. We crash near farm somewhere, very near.
GB: Was that in England?
IJB: In England, yeah.
GB: And your aircraft at that time, was that a Wellington or a Lancaster?
JB: Wellington, yes. And I land myself in Cosford hospital, Royal, RAF hospital, that’s where we crash near, and they soon give me, I was in such a pain, but before we crash, the pilot notify flying control what we are in trouble you see. You see during that time our plane not been serviced properly, we’d be in such a hurry training, training, training, and our plane not been hundred percent sometime, maybe, fit to fly, but if you too often put what there were certain problem, you’re gonna some time maybe you don’t, just don’t want to fly, you know what I mean, so you had to do it. Now if something not working In the old days You see now sorry.
GB: Can’t fly.
JB: But in the old days small problem you just have to -
GB: So your crash happened when you were on the OCU then?
JB: Yes, you see, that plane was continuously refilling it up, refilling it up, you see. They had not enough time to service properly. Anyway, I don’t know what was problem but the pilot signal what we are, you know, going down you see. Then I land myself in hospital, but with pilot notified, he give a signal, we going to crash land, you see. It was at night time and when those people took me inside to their house, I couldn’t see them because everything was red in my eyes because my eyes was also burnt you see, from the flame, so everything was red, and he give us, the pilot give directions to the plane control exact place where we been heading to, to crash, and the ambulance came in about half an hour, but I was in such a pain, such a pain. I still remember that today what, and those people were offering me cup of tea, something I couldn’t touch, nothing, because my hands was, but they were talking to me. And I land myself in Cosford, RAF hospital and they start giving me injections to lower the pain, and in the end, in the end when I woke up, that was somewhere I think in afternoon and we crash in evening, so it was long time, and I just look at my, everything, I was embalmed, but I still could see very little through my, one eye I could see ward, what everything was when I look on my hands was full of bandages and the doctors start came and slowly they start talk to me what to get better, you know, start tell you and I spent there three weeks. And Sir Archibald McIndoe, that the big plastic surgeon from East Grinstead, he used to go visit different hospitals in England, also see different cases, the Air Force fellow who burn, in different locations, and he was surgeon and asked them to be to transferred to his hospital in East Grinstead. So he came and spoke to me. He said you, do you know me? I look at him. I said no. I am big plastic surgeon from East Grinstead Hospital. In those days I didn’t know East Grinstead! I said where, he said East Grinstead near London. Oh yes I said, yes, I know. He said that’s where you come to, I’m taking you there! He shout at me! I say when? He said tomorrow you will come. I said thank you, and you see they transfer me with the ambulance to that hospital, and that was proper hospital there because there was modern facilities, good staff, beautiful hospital. Every time when I pass near I always go visit there, you know what I mean. And the people there, in East Grinstead, they so kind, because some of the boys so badly burned, if you would saw some cases you will close your eyes. Their faces, eyes, ears, no hair: completely [emphasis] new faces, you know what I mean. They had to repeat, because fire is a shocking thing, because fire damage. I was in my life couple of times drowning because I was swimming and in the end I got in some very steep, deep hole what I couldn’t get to the edge of it you see, I was drowning, in the sea, but the fire is the worse enemy. The water is bad but the fire is even worse, you know what I mean. You see I spent there six months and the hospital was every night new cases come, at night. People shouting at night. They bring them on the trollies with pain, from different accidents; tell they could have done with the injection, with the pills you see. So as they, they bathe you little. They keep sending you to diff, to units, because hospital could not cope with so much overloading. Then you do certain time and they recall you back for to continue. So they sent me doing instructing in the gunnery school you see, because I already had few ops behind me, they used to call me, I was capable to do that job what they been so desperately need. So I used to go with those gunner, Lysander used to have that air bag and we going in [indecipherable], that’s a twin engine plane with the two, when the gunners in turn go and shoot him. They sometimes shooting bag, shooting the pilot [laugh], pilot shouting on the intercom [laugh] stop you bloody thing you know what you doing! The bullets flying over my head! [Laughter] Because you see the student you have to tell gently, you know, he somehow press on the trigger you see that turret moving fast you see, so you get him out, you see, you put another one, you say listen when you turn it you must turn gently not so sharp! I said once you pointing on the airbag, once you pointing at pilot head! [Laugh] I said you shoot down the pilot you get into trouble, you get me to trouble you understand! What you doing! So I kept it for six months then I went back as I told you, back to my squadron, then I start to feel to be like home, you know what I mean. Yeah. Because there was, you did your job, and there was no shouting at you, you had more respect, you know what I mean. On this gunnery school I mean I was already instructor but still you had to stand up as a, you know what the discipline, to show them what they must be, you know, example to be, know what I mean.
GB: What rank were you at the gunnery school?
JB: I was Warrant Officer.
GB: Oh Warrant Officer. And was it just Polish.
JB: I had Warrant badge.
GB: The students you were teaching, were they English or just the Polish?
JB: Mixed. There was Australian, there was Canadians, you see, there was Poles. Some of the Canadians been coming already trained, some of them been finish here you see. In the end my squadron sometime, because we always had about eighteen crews operational, from my squadron. So some time when we had replacement we had to have backup from the Royal Air Force because we had, our crews were still due to be, er to come, so we had some spare crews coming, flights. A Flights or C Flights you see, English Section, because we always sent about eighteen planes you know, on the op.
GB: On op.
JB: That was big, big, lovely aerodrome for headquarter, new build by Wimpey, beautiful there.
GB: What, you obviously can remember the date, what was the date of your crash?
JB: My crash, yes, 1943, about three weeks before Christmas.
GB: So yeah, beginning of December ’43.
JB: Yes, somewhere, because Christmas, I tell you, I never forget that Christmas till my dying days. We had Christmas tree, beautiful tree, and you know, first when you badly burned, every day they take you to have a bath. They take your pyjama out: top, bottom, beautiful two WAAFs, nurses, WAAF officers will come and take your dressing gown from your hands, face, because that dressing is with oil, so the oil doesn’t stick to you. And they have to keep changing those dressing gowns till skin heals, you know what I mean. So they have to keep clean every day you must have a bath, they run bath full of water, imagine, from beginning, young man, you go to bath and two beautiful nurses you know, take your dressing gown, afterwards you get used to, but from beginning you almost, you shy to look them. They used to because they already been doing that, but you from beginning. And that Christmas, Bing Crosby sang White Christmas. Anyway, before midnight there was nice atmospheres, nurses were singing, the lights weren’t on and afterwards we had spare room so they turned the lights down and I had radio, and Bing Crosby sang ‘White Christmas’,’ and that touch you, you know what I mean. And I was then in the little room, lights very dimly lit up and I thought, if it is Christmas, that special day, what it touch you so much, you know what I mean, with that song, and every time when I ever heard him singing that song, you know, it remind me that day I was in that hospital you know what I mean. Because that Christmas was such a thing, once you land yourself in hospital and you knew, when in the past you always mix with crowd of people, and this time you was on your own, was very, very sentimental, yes. You know even now, you say, I’m sorry I’m probably bore you talking, but I want to tell you my exactly life.
GB: Oh no!
JB: Even when I go now, during Battle of Britain, when we have all big crowd here - I don’t know if you ever been here, by the monument?
GB: Yes, last September we came.
JB: I’m glad. I hope you come this September.
GB: Every year. We will come every year.
JB: You to us you are very valuable because you going to live lots of, you help us lots of history what we, you know, want to leave behind, because the war’s it is remain, all the history should be known. Yeah. So every time I go to that and when I see those face, my men, who, I’m telling you exactly what I, what to tell you from my heart. I think to myself why didn’t I die with them, you know what I mean, when I say their name because you think they gone and I left behind why should be? I should be there with them but it just happen like that. But some time you, you think you would be better off if you would died with them, you know what I mean, yes. You see friendship, you see, you probably will remember, when you facing, facing, death, and we are three of us together, [pause] is the biggest friendship, the biggest brotherhood you share together. Because you know you depend on each other. You see the same thing would have been in crew, seven, you knew defend each other life and when you miss one of them is probably more than your own brother, you know what I mean. The sort of friendship, you sort of develop friendship. If I see my English crews like I, before [crashing sound].
GB: It’s all right. I’ll get it.
JB: Oh sorry, I’m sorry to give you problem. Oh thank you.
GB: That’s all right. Gone everywhere.
JB: I have lots of more memory, I lost lots of my different records, but I’m still holding [paper shuffling], oh, yes, yes. That’s all right. [Paper shuffling] I thank you, you’re friend.
GB: I’ll move those on to there.
JB: Yes. That’s lovely. [paper shuffling] Look, before we have our statue erected, few years ago Daily Mail was, I miss some daily, because that was every day different added story, I thought why don’t we have our recognition? Even Churchill betrayed them; the nation turn its back. So should we still feel duty, you know what I mean, and in the end we got this monument because every time I see them I was the same like them and I felt what the people forgot us. But you know why? When war ended, the Germans call what was that’s biggest barbaric system done on Dresden, but so many and Mr Churchill slightly turn us back, to give the most recognition to Fighter Command. But we never forgive him because who were Fighter Command, they just stop, delay invasion, in the end Hitler said I will come back to you later, I’m not in such a hurry, but the Bomber Command, who from beginning till the end, went night after night, day after day, from beginning nobody could touch Germans, only Bomber Command did here and that’s why we pay such a big casualties.
GB: You took the fight to them.
JB: We had to go for eight hours. The fighters -
GB: Would you like to sit down.
JB: Yeah. The fighters, listen!
GB: There we go. [Paper shuffling]
JB: Thank you. Sometimes they jump in their Spitfire, they come back and the cigarette still left on ash tray, burning. When we had to go, we had to go for eight hours, over their sky, over their land and face them for eight hours, you know what I mean, then return to English Channel, that was sacrifice and you see people always talk with mistake: Battle of Britain. We only stop invasion but he still had so much power he went on Russia, because he was running out of petrol, that’s why he went in hurry to get, he start North Africa, no success, Then he said well, the other way: I go on Russia. And if he were to take Russia much early probably he would succeed, you know what I mean, but he attack them bit late and winter came and delay him, and why delay? Because Bomber Command, night after night, went over their sky, over their cities, over their whatever places what it hurt them badly, you see, and made destruction and who in the end lost the most people? Bomber Command – yeah, we paid the prices. And we should be, now we have our statue. Every time we go there, we know what only, I went there, Duke of Edinburgh pass with the Queen and I sat in the second row of chairs. So I waved to him, he turned, he said I know you from somewhere! So I turned to him, I said so you should Your Highness. He saw me from somewhere! I often talk with Duke of Edinburgh because he is our President of the Guinea Pig. When we have our dinner before, in East Grinstead and when he is not abroad or somewhere he always come to dinner with us and he eats, every time will enjoy pint of bitter in the bar and he talk with different voice. Then my English colleagues said to him, they bring him what they said that’s a Polish airmen, he stay with us. So he turned to me and said oh, so you not in Poland? I said no because I said the Russians don’t like me, so I said I’m still here. Oh so you here, where you living? I said I’m living in London, Your Highness. Oh in London! I say yes. Whereabouts in London. I said I’m your neighbour. You are my neighbour? I say of course I’m your neighbour: I live in Royal Borough, I said, I live in Holland Park. Oh, but you never come to see me, I say don’t come to see you because you have so many fellows with rifles and stuff! [Laughter] So he said but, you have to tell me, you are my friend – I said they don’t listen to me! [Laugh] And he laugh and he went andgo talk with somebody else, you know, he’s a very. People say talk to Duke of Edinburgh what he’s such a, you know, he’s just the same, and he will have same food with us and he enjoy joking and telling us some nice story. He said when I go to different meetings I have to be so careful because, he said, if I make something, they up to it and he said next morning in the press lots of things done to it. He said with you boys I can talk and it’s no paparazzi [laugh]. And he will have same pint of beer to start, and he will walk in bar and chat, you see you never can press yourself to start talking with him, but when he is brought to you, then you can have a chat with him you see, [laugh] then, yeah. So, he said so you are living in my borough? I say yes, I say I have been living before you, because I said, I know you got married after me [laughter] when you came, and the fellows who escort him laughed, you know, because I remember when he got married, and in Hyde Park we had all different groups from Colony come, and they had in Hyde Park, in the tents, accommodation, you know what I mean. So I said oh yes, you became my neighbour much after me, I say I came after the war, yeah, because, and he, he few times he came to see us and after, when dinner finish, quietly to take him through back door and back to London, yeah.
GB: Can I ask you a question? When, you said when you went on operations and you went for eight hours, can you tell us a little about what it was like? Did you spend all eight hours in your gun turret, or were you allowed to walk up and down the aircraft? Did you take a little bag with a flask of tea and sandwiches? What did they give you? Tell us a little bit if you can about an ordinary mission.
JB: Yes, I tell you what. We used to take coffee with flask; strong black coffee with drop of rum, drop of rum, and pilot will always, from time to time: Jan, you all right, how you feel? All right skipper, don’t worry, I’m watching, watching, don’t worry. Oh we just want to know, you know, he communicated with one each other ever so often, you know, so, because some time certain fellow can fall slightly sleepy, you know what I mean, so we keep in communicating from time to time, but I, you see when I went second time after my accident, and the new crew came, they were feeling what I was to them like, superior, because I already had few operation before me and I had to tell them, before we went on first op, I said listen, I can advise you one thing what you have to do. What you have to keep your eye left and right all the time, because if you going to keep that, what I’m telling you, you probably will have much more chance to, because I said the Germans come so quickly and so unexpectedly what, before you notice it’s too late, so you have to see him much before he see you you see, and I said you must keep eye on each other so you all know what you’re doing, and you keep looking. Because I said, pilot has his responsibility and you as the gunners, you have your responsibility, because you have the responsibility for the rest of crew. I say you have your guns and your guns is for defending ourselves. I said some of the members of the crew, they have no guns. Well you have the guns and you have to give that, you know. They felt, you know, like I was to them, bit more superior because I already had few ops you see.
GB: You had the experience.
JB: Yes, that’s right.
GB: How many operations did you go on all together do you think?
JB: About fourteen.
GB: Fourteen. Did you, it’s a delicate question to ask, but did you manage to shoot down any Germans?
JB: No. I had one, I had, who wanted to attack us, and I don’t know why, and he kept following us for while, but I think he knew what we saw him you see, and he was coming, was lowering himself down, from the back he was following, but never took attack you see. And I, to the mid upper I said look, look he’s on your right, on my, on my right from the back, watch him, watch him, he’s going to do something! And he follow us, I don’t know, or he had not enough guts.
GB: Maybe.
JB: Because Germans too also, not everyone was not brave, you know what I mean. And in the end when clouds came we went, because when clouds came you run into the cloud, you don’t care what happen, if you collide with something long as you get away, you know, so the most danger night it is when it’s moonlight. When we go on bombing and is full moon, is almost fifty fifty chance, you know what I mean, because the Germans could see you like in daytime, you know what I mean, and long distance but when is certain over cloud, over target, is, you see, very, very big to us, future to survive, you know what I mean. Because you don’t care when you see the fighter is attacking you, if you have near cloud you run into the cloud, you know what I mean, and he will be frightened to follow you because you know, you can collide, but you, to save yourself you don’t care.
GB: You go into the cloud.
JB: You will do it. Yes.
GB: Did you think yourself, you obviously with a rear gunner in a Wellington and then also in the Lancaster, what was it, what were the guns like, were they powerful enough do you think you could have better? Because they kept changing the different armaments that you had.
JB: No I think Lancaster had better, they were more modified, more superior, movement and erm, effectiveness than Wellington. You see every, from Wellingtons they made lots of improvement into the Lancaster and you felt the second, what you been, not two gunners, it was three of you, you know what I mean, and the Germans knew, when he would attack you from the back, he would have two gunners against him, you know what I mean, instead of one. Because Wellington is rear and front, so he know the front, he’s not bothered about the front, he only, and the German fighter, first of all, when he attacking you his first idea to kill the rear gunner, because once he point on you and he, he upset your defence, then he know he got the rest, you know, easy way. So his first idea to have eyes set on the rear gunner you know, and he will always attack from the back, very seldom from the side, because from the side is so big speed, what he cannot catch you in his gun sight, but when he follow you from the back he has distance.
GB: A still target.
JB: And he get you right in his circle and then you are, you know, almost in his mercy you see, yeah.
GB: Did you have any armour plating in the rear turret at all to protect you?
JB: No.
GB: Nothing at all.
JB: No. You just, you know, you had good visibility, but pilot had, pilot had. From beginning we had sometime two pilots; one and assistant pilot who’s doing first trip or something. But afterwards you train pilot for Lancaster four engine; it take so long what they couldn’t afford it to have two pilots so we had one, yes. Maybe some time first trip, some time, when the pilot, Commanding Officer knew, what he need to send with the second pilot, so they send him to give him one trip, what to experience, you know what I mean.
GB: When, when you came back from each operation, was there a certain time when you were able to relax? When you were still in the air, coming back from an operation, was there a certain time when you came over the British coast or was it further inland than that?
JB: You know first of all when we just been over Holland, to Belgium, even France, we felt little better, but when we came over English coast at least you know you were home, yes, [telephone] you knew what maybe some Germans here but they so scared over our land when they have no time and because sometime we will come and the Germans will be around here you know, so we had some diversion you see, yes. There were occasion we landed on American bases. That was good because we could get cigarettes you know, [chuckle] and bottle gin, and bottle of gin! And you can have a beautiful food whatever the time of the night you like, because kitchen is always open you see. So listen, next time you come back to your station all your friends after you because they knew you’d been diverted to American station! It was like you know [laughter].
GB: Are there any funny stories you can remember when you were on operations, up in the air, the funny things that happened in the aircraft? Can you remember any funny things that happened with your crew when you were up on operations?
JB: Oh yes, yes! Sometime you know there is certain job, fellow sitting, he said, listen you know what this, our skipper doing now? He turned, he completely turned his course, he sort of [indecipherable] going on Berlin, I say you’re joking! No, no he’s something, doing wrong! Listen, you don’t tell me he not so stupid to do such a thing. Only jokes, you know. But jokes is all right if is quiet, but when is sometimes hot you know what I mean, there is no joke, there is no joke, you know. After, when we get from the danger, we can joke, you know what I mean, yes.
GB: And your time when you were back on the ground, on the stations, tell us a little bit about your life on the RAF stations, if you can, in between operations. What was your normal day on the ground?
JB: I’ll tell you what we’ll do, [sigh] I was very good snooker player, and you know when I learned very good snooker? When I land myself in hospital and we had recreation room and three snooker table. So when you not in bed, you go to that canteen, have a cup of tea or coffee, and sometime play game or two just to pass the time, and I had you know, very good talent for the snooker and some time - I’m glad you ask me that because I cannot remember everything, so when you ask me certain question I sometime give you interesting answer - that Sir Archibald McIndoe, what he was such an important person in Air Ministry, if he phoned to Air Ministry and he said listen, I want twenty professional nurses: my hospital short of nurses. After two days new nurses come from Ireland, because most Ireland supply beautiful trained nurses, young girls. And they come to hospital and after one years hospital short of nurses because boys married them, you know what young boys, and they soon find themselves husbands you see, but anyway, that Sir Archibald McIndoe also liked play snooker. Sometime he will start operating from seven o’clock in morning because the more they operating those people, the more some of them they finish them in to do the service again, you know, it was like you know what I mean, conveyor belt. People coming in and going out, coming in and going out. So he would start operating early, certain cases, and lunchtime sometime, you know what he would do to me? He will call me, to my, I will be on Ward One, he will ask sister, sister call that Polski – he called me Polski – so sister say, hey Polski, your boss want to see you, So I get on the telephone. Yes Sir Archie, what can I do? Listen Jan, reserve table one o’clock today because I give you game. I give you three black start! I say thank you Sir Archie. Yes, yeah, because you have to learn little bit more about snooker! [Laugh] So he bloody come, I will already have a sandwich for them, coffee, because he will play snooker with me and have a sandwich and coffee because he, then we finish one game listen, we have a quick one, another one. So instead of one game we will have two games, we would have sometime he would not even have time to finish a sandwich and coffee, but two game he will finish, and then he will laugh. Some time I specially let him win the game because that give him satisfaction. He will go back to operating room, he said I beat that Pole, because he thought he will beat everything! But he said I told next time three blacks is not enough for him, next time, listen, so that give him satisfaction. And he loved playing snooker. When he will meet us in bar, in Whitehall, in the evening, not every night, but from time, he usually know Friday or Saturday was the best time to meet us, he would always talk snooker to you, you see, because he loved that game and he used to play with me and with other fellows you know, but he always used to like play with me because I supposed to be quite a good player what wins them, because they all knew, so he used to enjoy beat the best one. And he was really nice. Some time he will ask us, he lived in East Grinstead, New Forest, that’s a little outside town. He has beautiful big bungalow there. So sometime he few us, he ask us for glass of beer into his, because we all had cars, you know, in East Grinstead, because lots of people sold cars cheaply because petrol was so expensive, some of people had cars but no petrol so you could buy petrol for, car for twenty five pound in those days and you know on the station you always been able to get petrol.
GB: Little petrol here, little petrol there, yeah, yeah.
JB: So we go to his, that little, that nice bungalow and he will have a drink with us in his sitting room and afterwards sometime he leave us, because he said I have to get up tomorrow morning, I have to go to London and we will have a game or two in his you know, also have a drink and afterwards go back to hospital. He was really our friend; we, we, when he died we felt for him like he was our advisor, doctor and father, you know what I mean. And he had so much influence, you know whatever, because when the Queen and King came to visit, he was the right hand man, you know what I mean, and Queen and King from time to time visit that hospital because it was all the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, you know, colonial boys too and you know Royal Family often pay visit there. He was, and he was such an influential,so. Whatever he wanted to gain you know, something, he had his voice was respected everywhere. Yes.
GB: Do you remember back to the names of the crew in your aircraft when you had your accident?
JB: Yes, I yes, that my second crew who died, I have in my book – this one.
GB: Oh, in, how do you pronounce his surname. Is it Jerzy Cink, is it Cinic? In Polish, how do you say that name there?
JB: Ah, Cink. Yes, Cink.
GB: Cink, I’m just going to use your toilet for a moment. Brendan wants to ask you a question.
JB: Just here, first on the right, go there. First on the right. Yes, just first on the right. [Cough] I’m sorry I, [cough] do too much talking, but you see I have to tell you whatever, because you came long way and if I don’t tell you I forget, you know what I mean. I find when my second crew got lost. Four hundred something. Thank you, yes, put that somewhere. [Crockery sound] Yes, thank you.
GB: I presume, this book references, I’ve seen copies.
JB: Put that, yes thank you. [Long pause] Yes, you see here, I.
GB: Page [indecipherable]. Three hundred Lancasters.
JB: Oh yeah, here you see.
GB: Oh right, marked.
GB: More heavy losses on the first raid in 1941, attack on [indecipherable] on the night 2nd of January VHJ?
JB: Yeah. That’s my crew. Konarzewski, yes.
GB: Right. That was the aircraft. VHJ.
JB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where is Konarzewski? [Pause] No. There is the car. [Footsteps] [Crockery sounds]
GB: All marked in here as well.
JB: That’s right, yeah, Jan Konarzewski, oh yeah, that’s my crew. Second one.
GB: VH-J then. EB722.
JB: Yeah. That’s my crew what I was recalled to hospital, they went and, and that fellow was instructor, and he was in Hucknall, Hucknall.
GB: Mmm. Nottingham.
JB: And afterwards he got so fed up he said, he went, he came to our squadron and pass all the training and he was made Group Captain. Because for his services, for few years he was instructing, and imagine just before war ended, went on the flight, and you know what I mean, and crew vanished, yes. I mean different from beginning of, this end like er, that fellow, er, our ace, what in the last war, before war ended, went over Belgium. One was um, my memory, my memory you see is, er, Group Captain, Group Captain who had the most bomber, the highest Victoria Cross in Bomber Command there.
GB: Polish or British? English? Do you mean Guy Gibson or Cheshire?
JB: Guy Gibson. On Mosquitos. He went just before the war ended, in last few days, over Belgium and was shot down and killed. And the second one was er, er, his wife also contribute a lot, Group Captain Guy Gibson and second one was er, he had the most, the most trips, he was the most highly decorated – Cheshire!
GB: Leonard Cheshire.
JB: Leonard Cheshire. They were, my friends, I, listen, Leonard Cheshire had gunner in Holland Park. I tell you why, I will tell you history, fact, why Leonard Cheshire did so many trips. He was the highest decorated man in the Second War, Leonard Cheshire. He was first as a Lieutenant, made first tour, and when they finished first tour they had given holiday, everyone went different directions. One live in Scotland, one in Wales, one somewhere in London. When they return from that holiday, they all been given different, afterwards, type of duty to do. But his crew came back first, day before, from his, from their holiday. He came on second day, it was on Saturday he came back, and somebody tell him, oh your crew went to the local park to have a drink because one of the fellow is having birthday. So he get in his car and go to that park, and he said why have they just spend holiday. Oh, we had lovely holiday, one was in one place and one in another! And they said so what you doing here? No he’s, Jack having holiday, birthday, so they his birthday so we have drink, skipper, we buy you drink too, what you have? So skipper he says Oh, I have a bitter. Well he said listen boys I have the news what I will be transferred to London, to Headquarters, I will do office job now, he said I don’t know what you going to do. Well skipper, we decided today, as we having that birthday drink, what we going to continue to fly till end of the war. You know they got drunk and decided they not going to take, you know, different jobs; they want to fly. So he said when did you decide to do that? Oh well, Jack had birthday and we had drink, we thought you know, it’s nice to continue. And he start to feel sorry for them they going to fly without him. So he said why didn’t you told me that before? Well we didn’t know that, but we somehow came back from holiday and we decided the best thing for us to continue. And he start to feel sorry to leave them, you know, behind. He said now I have to do, rearrange everything you know if I want to stay with you. No they say, you don’t have to, you know, you decide for yourself. So he decide to fly with them second tour, he decide to fly second and third tour you see, and that’s how his story went. When war ended, he knew what Polish Air Force contribute to the Second War. He was lovely fellow, Leonard. He went to visit Poland, with his wife, and he saw some Poles who went back, because some left their wives in Poland, you know, and when he went there and saw some of them, or some of them already by communists badly treated, badly, you know, went through different interrogation, you know, he decided to build in Poland few, to those homeless people, home, to the ex RAF who went back to Poland and he found them in such a suffering, with his wife. So the Polish government made her Baroness of Warsaw, you know, his wife.
GB: Yes, yes.
JB: Leonard Cheshire became Catholic after the war, he went to Rome and he made application to Pope what he want to become Catholic. You know why? Because he made so many trips and sometimes he said, the, his guilty conscience was hmm, touching him, maybe so many trips what he made maybe the bombing, maybe some suffering to some people and he thought maybe to ask God forgiveness, because he was half religious person, you know what I mean. Probably that’s why did so many trips know what I mean, and his wife spent half of the time in Poland when he died, you know what I mean. Because she was doing some charity job there and she was well respected you see, in Poland. That’s Leonard Cheshire. But I tell you one story about him. You see when I live in Holland Park fifty years, all people knew me – oh that’s ex Polish airman, that’s Polish Guinea Pig. Our Police Station, all Police Station knew me because two girls from the station rent the flat in my house so when they have time they will popping in for cup of coffee, when they had day off they would come and go by, oh, Mr Black, how are you, all right, we’ll pop in quick and have a coffee. I, you see I did and in one job after the war, twelve years in rubber factory and after, when I finish, I work for electric wholesaler, twenty years. Because I knew all the cities in England and my boss like me so much because he send me to Nottingham, Coventry, Birmingham. I know that city Doncaster. He send two fellows you see they couldn’t do the cover because you see they had no experience to be in that part. I work for big electric wholesaler, [telephone ringing] so I very seldom saw my boss because he send me, all my customers like me. When they ordering, want to put orders, they asking on the reception they want to talk to me. Because when they talk to me, I promise them what I will deliver them tomorrow or after tomorrow for sure. When they talk to the boss, he take the order but long as he take the order he doesn’t bother if he deliver on time! So you see all the customers got to know me. They phone for the orders, they want to talk to me, because they know, what I, and they used to give me always good orders. You respect the guy what’s ex you know RAF and so on. So my boss was jealous of me. He said I don’t know what you do with your friends, they phone me, they only want. I said because I tell you why, I said when they order with you, you take their orders but you don’t bother to deliver on time! I said when I take order I sometime don’t sleep the time that I will deliver them, that’s the difference. I said, yes, I said and you thinks, you know, because you know I do that job, so he was also ex-Army fellow, you know what I mean! But yes, you see, I was starting, where did I start, with them, yeah, so you see, I had two jobs. Second job I loved because I had independent job. I used to travel all around the cities and in the end I went to my boss and I said, listen, when I start the job you told me it will be London. Then it was London, then afterwards you said it outside London, it was outside London, [beep] I said now we spreading all over, Scotland, Wales. Ah, he said Jan, but you don't have to hurry, you can stay in hotel, boarding room when you fine to. I said listen, I have wife. I said I didn't marry my wife to stay in Scotland, or somewhere, I said I marry my wife in London! I said no, no, I said. Listen, you know we in business we some time do more, some time less. I said yes, now every year is more and more and nothing less, but in the end he said well we will be changing so, but for time being. So I had lovely job, but it was you know, responsible job, you had to do it: nothing for nothing you see. And when I come back now, what we did war days responsibility and when war ended how we had to be also, you know what I mean, doing the job, you know what, we had nothing given for nothing you see. Now people never satisfied, you know what I mean, yes, lots of changes yes, and that’s why, maybe now, we cannot afford certain things, you know what I mean, to give so much. Like now they, wanting flats in Westminster for thousand pound you know what I mean whatever, you know, weekly, because these days you see time change, yes, you know what I mean. The Chancellor, the present Chancellor, Chancellor cannot do so much, if he cannot afford it he has to do it.
GB: Looking, looking back at your time when you’re in the Polish Air Force, in the RAF, do you look back at it now, I know you have some sad memories, and some, probably memories you prefer to forget, but as a whole thing, what do you, when you look back now, what do you think of your time in the RAF, how do you view it now?
JB: RAF, you see we live, it was days when we never knew what tomorrow’s going to bring; we used to live from day to day. But every day, when you had chance, you enjoy it, because you been catching. I’m glad you ask me that. Sometime when I was stationed in beautiful parts in this country because England have such a beautiful scenery in certain parts. This country is so much, compared with different parts of the world, so nicely preserved, so nicely upkept, you know what I mean. I used to take bicycle, in spring, and sometime go quietly for nice cycle, and I would stop that bike, and see beautiful flowers, beautiful flowering trees and I think to myself: how God made this planet so beautiful. When you some time visit you never look that, you never think that, but then when I find the time and you see that beautiful thing in front of you, those birds singing, you think to yourself I wonder if tomorrow will be such a beautiful day. If I go tonight and never return, you know what I mean. You been thinking that, you know, if you survive that one. Because when you young you something like flower growing, flowering, you don’t want to die, you know what I mean, because you full of life, you know, and see all that thing beautiful round you. So you see when you’re young person you want to live, that remember, and when I used to see that beautiful thing round me, the river, and I used to drive, cycle in those quiet place, beautiful county Lincolnshire and I think that would be shame, you just want to live now [laugh] and you facing that, the worst when some time you going to take off you see, Once you’re airborne you just feel phew, you can breathe, but the take off is always a bit of, you know what you up to: start. The second time when you go on target, when you already been there before, and you know when it’s lots of German guns there, you know, when you have on the briefing, because when you come to briefing, and our briefing officer with his long stick and big map, start pointing and you think to yourself: not that bloody place again! [Laughter] You know.
GB: Were there times when you were in the big briefing room, when they told you about where you’re going to go, so you had good locations, and not so good locations, and bloody awful locations, and was there like a groan round the room and things like that when they told you? I presume the first thing you knew was in the briefing room when the senior officer stood up at the front and told you did you?
JB: Listen, when he’s telling you about that what you already been there, you want him to finish quickly [laugh] without no mentioning them, what they have somewhere back [indecipherable] because they will tell you when, before you reach that place somewhere where you will have obstacles too, you know, so you just, you please will you finish quickly, you know! [Laughter]
GB: Where would you say, remembering back, where was the one [emphasis] place you didn’t want to hear that you were going? Where was that? Was there one place or a couple of places?
JB: Yes, one, one I remember.
GB: What was that?
JB: I remember Gelsenkirchen, that’s in industrial part of Germany. At one time I thought, I thought my plane was, you know what I mean, going down. I said to skipper, I said Jan, what the hell are you doing? I said, I cannot shift in my turret! His name was Jan too, Jan Konarzewski, he was Group Captain and I was Warrant Officer. He said Jan be quiet, I’m frightened, he’s shooting at us and I have to get away, he said, don’t you bloody shout! [Laugh] Because I, feel, listen, they in front, they don’t feel that, but I, in that bloody turret, when they turn and put that [indecipherable] I fucking feel my feet is going down! I said listen, hysterical here, you know what I mean, he say hysterical here too! [Much laughter] But, you know what I mean. In the end I know he’s not doing that on purpose you know what I mean. But I said you did bloody make me nervous, I thought you know that’s it, I said I didn’t know what happened. He said what he saw those flares coming up him and he just couldn’t, wanted to avoid them or something and that’s why he turn. But some time you know, when you try to avoid the desperate moment you do so many funny things, you know, you just don’t care, you know, in those days. And some targets are, Germans, they were, oh they, I must give them that, they had terrific, you know, defence, you know, on certain. I never been over Berlin but the boys who told me once they gone on that, you know, he said they had good drink before, because they knew it was very, very strongly defended place because the Germans, specially wanted Berliners, to show them what, there was nothing to worry about. Because that Goering he told German people what there would be no any planes coming in the sky, you know, he gives them such a surety, you know what I mean, and after our plane on Hendon Museum, it said who made over hundred trips over Germany [laugh], yeah; he was giving Germans to Hitler such assurance, what they don’t you worry, I see them all you know what I mean, yeah.
GB: Have you, we’ve obviously got the Wellington in Hendon, and the one at Brooklands. Have you been inside them, at all? Have you been to see them at all?
JB: Only Lancaster, oh I take lots of people from Poland.
GB: Yes. To Hendon, the museum.
JB: To Hendon, yes, that’s the first. When I have some visitors I tell them to. Listen, I went to Argentine because my sister lived there, and er, [pause] and I went to museum and I saw were Lancasters in Argentine. In Buenos Aires there is one in the city and I thought to myself where did you beautiful things end you see, land yourself here? My sister said to me Jan, I didn’t wanted to call you back because I knew you been something so much attach. I said – my sister called Marcella – I said Marcella, I could stand on that plane and watch him and talk to him. I said what you would probably would be tired waiting for me. I said Marcella, because that plane bring me so much memory. I said for you is probably difficult to understand. I said, when some time we went on operation and it was very, [pause] very, I said, scary. And when we came back, we touch his wings, we kissed him, that’s why we been grateful what he took us there and brought us back, you know what I mean. I said Marcella, you will not understand me why I will stand outside him and I feel sorry what he so far away, yeah. I telling you this story, story from my [emphasis] life, what I felt sorry what that plane was so far away and we have only couple left now.
GB: Indeed.
JB: And those planes helped us so much to win the war. How we got rid of them, you know we been sending them on scrap and these are such historical planes - they helped us to win the war.
GB: It’s the same with the Wellingtons though, isn’t it.
JB: Wellingtons, Spitfires, look now we looking in Burma, those planes what were buried somewhere. You’ve heard that.
GB: Yes, yes.
JB: I mean what they were shipped there all that distance, and it was too expensive for them to bring them back, you know what I mean.
GB: So they buried them.
JB: So they buried them and they looking for them now, and they are somewhere because if they would be sold or something it would been known by now.
GB: They made a lot more Wellingtons than they did Lancasters during the war, and after the war they obviously sold quite a few to different countries but the rest were all scrapped, scrap metal.
JB: Scrap, yes, yes.
GB: What they would give for a flying, a Wellington that was flying now.
JB: Oh yes, oh boy, yes.
GB: Got an alarm that was all.
JB: Yes, you see, I mean those planes to us they were so I mean historical you see, what we flown in them they been to us, what they are part of us, I, when I go now to Hendon museum, you know, some, I like to go some time on my own because when I go on my own, quiet, yes.
GB: Quiet, and your own time, I understand that.
JB: And I, because I know every plane, what type of duty he was doing here and I think those planes helped us to win the war, because without those. You see Poland, what I want to tell you, we were new country after hundred twenty years occupation by those three nasty neighbours, we knew what the Second War will be, the biggest part who will play – Air Force. We train lots of people to be new country born in Eastern Europe, but we had not enough money to build the planes. But we had well trained pilots, been flying. We been producing small planes what was, we were selling to our poorest countries, for training. As the war started we had our own production plane, but very few. What came, just came to beginning of the war, but nothing compare with Great Britain like Spitfire, Hurricane or Wellington.
GB: They were very special.
JB: They were more superior. But the pilots had lots of flying hours in Poland, we train lots of people, we knew the Air Force will play big part. When that war started, you see the Germans attack us unexpectedly; we knew they would attack us sooner or later, with the Russians they made treaty together. They were friends, Hitler and Stalin together, and England said no, you see. And the Russians, when Hitler was fighting England, Stalin was helping Hitler, sending him whatever he needed because he wanted if Hitler attack Britain; he was encouraging Hitler. You’ve got France, England next. Because you know why? Because he was preparing to stab him in the back afterwards, and in the end Hitler knew that. Hitler knew that. That’s why they from beginning as the friends then in the end turned enemies you see, on each other. Well you see -
GB: Sorry, go on, no.
JB: When war ended, England, didn’t know much about the communist because they were separated for the rest of the world, they did wanted people to know how suffering they live, had bad situation because that was communist, you know what I mean, and they not never been friends of our. They became friends because we had to help them. Because we had to help them because we been frightened if we don’t help them the Germans get hold of their essentials what they need, so we had to help them, but the Russians weren’t really our friends, you know what I mean, not like during the monarchy days, like when they were our friends. We sorry what we didn’t help them because probably if we would help them in those days, we would been able to squeeze the Bolshevik, you know what I mean, because those people only went there because they were suffering with hunger, with the condition. But we, we also been so weak, after the First War, what been not able to help them, you see. But I mean the Russians, look now, they now more friendly because they have big enemy – China. Sooner or later Chinese will make move and the one move what they will make is only that big territory, what they want. They don’t want nothing else. Up to now they been doing trade with England, America; they manage to get by, but when the trade start to slow down, the Russian, the Chinese have everything now what they need, and the Russians now not making with us no more trouble, you see, living very quietly, very scared not to touch them, you see. Putin holding here.
GB: Maybe.
JB: But not for very long because people knew in Russia what they want change, because the rest of the world is living better than them you see, and the people will make a change sooner or later and Putin holding, but that empire is not the same what it was, you see, is breaking down. Look like that big part Ukraine, yeah, is broke down, the Eastern Europe what broke down, they just holding, but time come.
Let me just switch the camera off now, cause I think there’s probably not much time on there anyway
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Jan Black
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
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Format
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03:08:22 audio recording
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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SRAFIngham19410620v040001
Description
An account of the resource
Jan Stangrycuik (Black) was born and raised in Poland. His family emigrated for a better life in Argentina when he was a teenager, but when the British Embassy called for volunteers to join the war effort, Jan answered the call and sailed with seven hundred other volunteers to England, where he joined Bomber Command and trained as an air gunner. He was the only surviving member of his crew when, in 1943, his Wellington aircraft crashed, near RAF Cosford, escaping with severe burn injuries.
He recalls his time in the RAF, including his recuperation from his extensive burns under the care of Sir Archibald MacIndoe with whom he became friends. He became one of the founder members of the Guinea Pig Club. He talks about life away from flight operations, of his exploits whilst on leave in London where daily life went on albeit under the threat of bombardment. It was where he met his future wife, an English woman who came to see him regularly at the hospital in East Grinstead, as he made his lengthy and painful recovery back to health. Jan later returned to duty as a gunnery instructor on Lysander aircraft before returning to his squadron and resuming flying operations.
Jan talks about daily life in between flight operations; how one lived day to day, because each day was precious, how crews had their own table in the dining room and wondering if the table next to them would be empty the next day.
He also shares anecdotes about, and pays tribute to, Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire who he knew and considered them friends. He recalls his fondness of, and conversations with, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and, at the time, President of the Guinea Pig Club.
Jan also reflects on Polish history and the aftermath of the war. After the war he settled in Britain, working all over the country, until he retired.
This item was provided, in digital form, by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by the IBCC Digital Archive.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoff Burton
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Argentina
France
Germany
Great Britain
Russia (Federation)
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Blackpool
England--London
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
Chris Cann
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1941
1943
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
ground personnel
Guinea Pig Club
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
love and romance
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
military service conditions
perception of bombing war
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
RAF Cosford
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Hendon
RAF Ingham
Spitfire
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force