1
25
27
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/27/91/PFilliputtiA16010001.2.jpg
9f7d1a7ba00b362e1c3a0caf7a06c79c
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
Filiputti, Angiolino
Angiolino Filiputti
Alfonsino Filiputti
A Filiputti
Description
An account of the resource
127 items. The collection consists of a selection of works created by Alfonsino ‘Angiolino’ Filiputti (1924-1999). A promising painter from childhood, Angiolino was initially fascinated by marine subjects but his parents’ financial hardships forced an end to his formal education after completing primary school. Thereafter, he took up painting as an absorbing pastime. Angiolino depicted some of the most dramatic and controversial aspects of the Second World War as seen from the perspective of San Giorgio di Nogaro, a small town in the Friuli region of Italy. Bombings, events reported by newspapers, broadcast by the radio or spread by eyewitnesses, became the subject of colourful paintings, in which news details were embellished by his own rich imaginings. Each work was accompanied by long pasted-on captions, so as to create fascinating works in which text and image were inseparable. After the war, however, interest in his work declined and Angiolino grew increasingly disenchanted as he lamented the lack of recognition accorded his art, of which he was proud.
The work of Angiolino Filiputti was rediscovered thanks to the efforts of Pierluigi Visintin (San Giorgio di Nogaro 1946 – Udine 2008), a figurehead of the Friulan cultural movement, author, journalist, screenwriter and translator of Greek and Latin classical works into the Friulan language. 183 temperas were eventually displayed in 2005 under the title "La guerra di Angiolino" (“Angiolino’s war”.) The exhibition toured many cities and towns, jointly curated by the late Pierluigi Visintin, the art critic Giancarlo Pauletto and Flavio Fabbroni, member of the Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione (Institute for the history of the resistance movement in the Friuli region).
The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Anna and Stefano Filiputti, the sons of Angiolino Filipputi, for granting permission to reproduce his works. The BCC Digital Archive is also grateful to Alessandra Bertolissi, wife of Pierluigi Visintin, Alessandra Kerservan, head of the publishing house Kappa Vu and Pietro Del Frate, mayor of San Giorgio di Nogaro.
Originals are on display at
Biblioteca comunale di San Giorgio di Nogaro
Piazza Plebiscito, 2
33058 San Giorgio di Nogaro (UD)
ITALY
++39 0431 620281
info.biblioteca@comune.sangiorgiodinogaro.ud.it
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Filiputti, A-S
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.
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
P-38 crashing near Pocenia
Description
An account of the resource
A P-38 crashes in flames near a canal which is bordered by vegetation. Four other aircraft are visible in the sky amongst bursts of anti-aircraft fire.
Label reads “121”; signed by the author; caption reads “13 LUGLIO 1944. Cacciabombardiere Loke P 38 [Lockheed P-38]precipitato presso il mulino di Pocenia UD, l’equipaggio è deceduto”. Caption translates as “13 July 1944. Lockheed P-38 fighter aircraft crashed near the Pocenia watermill (Udine province), crew died.”
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
121PFilliputtiA16010001
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angiolino Filiputti
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Francesca Campani
Alessandro Pesaro
Helen Durham
Giulia Banti
Maureen Clarke
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One tempera on paper, pasted on mount board
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy--Udine
Italy
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07-13
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artwork
anti-aircraft fire
arts and crafts
P-38
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/27/144/PFilliputtiA16010055.1.jpg
d45b27d5a7eb86fad1a424bef626847d
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
Filiputti, Angiolino
Angiolino Filiputti
Alfonsino Filiputti
A Filiputti
Description
An account of the resource
127 items. The collection consists of a selection of works created by Alfonsino ‘Angiolino’ Filiputti (1924-1999). A promising painter from childhood, Angiolino was initially fascinated by marine subjects but his parents’ financial hardships forced an end to his formal education after completing primary school. Thereafter, he took up painting as an absorbing pastime. Angiolino depicted some of the most dramatic and controversial aspects of the Second World War as seen from the perspective of San Giorgio di Nogaro, a small town in the Friuli region of Italy. Bombings, events reported by newspapers, broadcast by the radio or spread by eyewitnesses, became the subject of colourful paintings, in which news details were embellished by his own rich imaginings. Each work was accompanied by long pasted-on captions, so as to create fascinating works in which text and image were inseparable. After the war, however, interest in his work declined and Angiolino grew increasingly disenchanted as he lamented the lack of recognition accorded his art, of which he was proud.
The work of Angiolino Filiputti was rediscovered thanks to the efforts of Pierluigi Visintin (San Giorgio di Nogaro 1946 – Udine 2008), a figurehead of the Friulan cultural movement, author, journalist, screenwriter and translator of Greek and Latin classical works into the Friulan language. 183 temperas were eventually displayed in 2005 under the title "La guerra di Angiolino" (“Angiolino’s war”.) The exhibition toured many cities and towns, jointly curated by the late Pierluigi Visintin, the art critic Giancarlo Pauletto and Flavio Fabbroni, member of the Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione (Institute for the history of the resistance movement in the Friuli region).
The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Anna and Stefano Filiputti, the sons of Angiolino Filipputi, for granting permission to reproduce his works. The BCC Digital Archive is also grateful to Alessandra Bertolissi, wife of Pierluigi Visintin, Alessandra Kerservan, head of the publishing house Kappa Vu and Pietro Del Frate, mayor of San Giorgio di Nogaro.
Originals are on display at
Biblioteca comunale di San Giorgio di Nogaro
Piazza Plebiscito, 2
33058 San Giorgio di Nogaro (UD)
ITALY
++39 0431 620281
info.biblioteca@comune.sangiorgiodinogaro.ud.it
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Filiputti, A-S
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.
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
P-38 shot down
Description
An account of the resource
A P-38 crashes in flames while other aircraft are visible in the sky amongst shell bursts. A body of water flanked by trees and gun emplacements is visible in the background.
Label reads “120”; signed by the author; caption reads “13 Luglio 1944. Improvviso attacco di “Lokeed P38” alle piste aerre di Lavariano-Risano-Sammardenchia UD, un cacciabombardiere colpito dalla reazione anti-aerea si incendiava.”
Caption translates as: “13 July 1944. The unexpected attack of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning on Lavariano, Sammardenchia, and Risano airstrips (Udine province). A fighter was hit by anti-aircraft reaction and caught fire.”
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFilliputtiA16010055
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angiolino Filiputti
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Francesca Campani
Alessandro Pesaro
Helen Durham
Giulia Banti
Maureen Clarke
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One tempera on paper, pasted on mount board
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy
Italy--Lavariano
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07-13
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artwork
anti-aircraft fire
arts and crafts
P-38
shot down
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/27/196/PFilliputtiA16010107.1.jpg
1a1b466ce182f56d9b802e86c5d91348
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
Filiputti, Angiolino
Angiolino Filiputti
Alfonsino Filiputti
A Filiputti
Description
An account of the resource
127 items. The collection consists of a selection of works created by Alfonsino ‘Angiolino’ Filiputti (1924-1999). A promising painter from childhood, Angiolino was initially fascinated by marine subjects but his parents’ financial hardships forced an end to his formal education after completing primary school. Thereafter, he took up painting as an absorbing pastime. Angiolino depicted some of the most dramatic and controversial aspects of the Second World War as seen from the perspective of San Giorgio di Nogaro, a small town in the Friuli region of Italy. Bombings, events reported by newspapers, broadcast by the radio or spread by eyewitnesses, became the subject of colourful paintings, in which news details were embellished by his own rich imaginings. Each work was accompanied by long pasted-on captions, so as to create fascinating works in which text and image were inseparable. After the war, however, interest in his work declined and Angiolino grew increasingly disenchanted as he lamented the lack of recognition accorded his art, of which he was proud.
The work of Angiolino Filiputti was rediscovered thanks to the efforts of Pierluigi Visintin (San Giorgio di Nogaro 1946 – Udine 2008), a figurehead of the Friulan cultural movement, author, journalist, screenwriter and translator of Greek and Latin classical works into the Friulan language. 183 temperas were eventually displayed in 2005 under the title "La guerra di Angiolino" (“Angiolino’s war”.) The exhibition toured many cities and towns, jointly curated by the late Pierluigi Visintin, the art critic Giancarlo Pauletto and Flavio Fabbroni, member of the Istituto Friulano per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione (Institute for the history of the resistance movement in the Friuli region).
The IBCC Digital Archive would like to express its gratitude to Anna and Stefano Filiputti, the sons of Angiolino Filipputi, for granting permission to reproduce his works. The BCC Digital Archive is also grateful to Alessandra Bertolissi, wife of Pierluigi Visintin, Alessandra Kerservan, head of the publishing house Kappa Vu and Pietro Del Frate, mayor of San Giorgio di Nogaro.
Originals are on display at
Biblioteca comunale di San Giorgio di Nogaro
Piazza Plebiscito, 2
33058 San Giorgio di Nogaro (UD)
ITALY
++39 0431 620281
info.biblioteca@comune.sangiorgiodinogaro.ud.it
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Filiputti, A-S
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.
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
P-38 attacks the San Giorgio di Nogaro railway bridge
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PFilliputtiA16010107
Language
A language of the resource
ita
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Angiolino Filiputti
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Francesca Campani
Alessandro Pesaro
Helen Durham
Giulia Banti
Maureen Clarke
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
United States. Army Air Forces
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One tempera on paper, pasted on mount board
Description
An account of the resource
A dual truss railway bridge has been attacked by a P-38 fighter flying at near-ground altitude. The metal structures are engulfed in flames while debris is falling all around. A collapsed telegraph pole is visible in the bottom left corner. Five more P-38s are visible at the top of the picture, four flying towards the right whilst the fifth is pointing towards the bridges. A bomb is visible below it.
Label reads “279”; signed by the author; caption reads “26 APRILE 1945. Locheed [Lockheed] P.38 attaccano con le bombe “HC” erano chiamate “block-busters (spiana isolati) per il loro immenso potere distruttivo, simili a grandi caldaie cilindriche, privi di pinne direzionali; il ponte della ferrovia sul fiume Corno, a S. Giorgio di NOGARO UD.”
Caption translates as: “26 April 1045. Lockheed P-38 fighter aircraft attack using high-capacity bombs, known as Blockbusters. These bombs were used because of their great destructive force. They looked like big, cylindrical boilers, lacking directional fins. Portrayed here is the railway bridge on the Corno river in San Giorgio di Nogaro (Udine province).”
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Italy--San Giorgio di Nogaro
Italy
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04-26
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
Artwork
arts and crafts
bombing
P-38
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/351/3522/AWoodardP160512.1.mp3
676f65ec3a4b2d9e7d1226df655c32cf
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
Woodard, Peter
Peter Rowlands Woodard
Peter R Woodard
P R Woodard
P Woodard
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. One oral history interview with Peter Rowlands Woodard (b. 1924, 1810707 Royal Air Force), photographs, a warrant certificate and a note of operations carried out by H R Woodard. He was a wireless operator and flew operations with 192 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Rowlands Woodard and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Woodard, PR
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and I’m in St Alban’s today on the 12th May 2016 with Peter Woodard and his wife Irene and Peter was a wireless operator, signaller and I’m going to ask him to talk about his life starting with his earliest recollections that he has. Peter.
PW: As regards when, where I was born.
CB: Yeah.
PW: Well I was born of course in Banbury in Suffolk and had a twin, the youngest of twins, because my twin brother Howard he was always climbing in seniority by arriving twenty four, twenty minutes before I did [laughs] and then of course we went to the local Catholic school because my father was Catholic so and we were christened Catholics but my mother was Protestant, but she had agreed of course to bring us up in the Catholic faith. And from then on of course I went to the ordinary school at Banbury and then we moved to Beccles for a while and then from Beccles we moved back to Banbury and then on to Colchester. My father was a bit of a wanderer alright he was in the print trade and of course he became a printer’s leader and then he we moved from there to Tunbridge in Kent and from Tunbridge in Kent we moved to St Albans and then of course along came the war. My father was a, he was a bit of a wanderer anyway but he, he for some reason or other joined the army again, course he was in the signals regiment, signals corps in the first World War and of course he re-joined and it became the Royal Corps Signals then when he was in it. And being an old man, as he was, he got himself a nice cushy job at Eastern Command Headquarters that was at Luton Hoo and he has his hands, he was a wireless man, he had his own little wireless cabin at Luton Hoo and he stayed there until the war finished and other than that he was as I say in the print trade. And of course my mother was in the print trade too she was in the book binding department and that’s how I came to follow the print trade in a way, just successive and of course I was apprenticed at the, with the [inaudible] publishers and suppliers limited, Campfield Press in St Albans that’s how I became a book binder. Of course then I was in the air training corps and of course when the war was on I then went into the RAF and I was on deferred service for a while before I entered and then went up to Lords Cricket ground for air crew receiving centre, then from then on I went off to radio school and I was at Yatesbury number two radio school I think it was, Yatesbury in Wiltshire and then of course from there I went on to Dumfries, when did I first start flying, I’ve got my log book here so it’s easy enough to find, my first trip was in 1943, in September 1943 in Adomally doing radio transmitting tuning and receiving and all that sort of thing, that was in 1943 and then at the end of 1943 I then moved from Yatesbury to where are we, oh, air crew, operational auxiliary flying unit OAFU they called it at Dumfries and flew there in Andersons and that was in March, no April 1944 until the end of May 1944, no not the end of May, yes it was yes, then I moved to Edge Hill which was satellite which was OTU and part of Chipping Warden actually and that’s when I crewed up with Flight Lieutenant Fawkes who became my pilot and by then my flying hours had gone on to sixty nine to seventy hours day light and forty-five hours night time. Then of course from then on I went to, still at Chipping Warden with Flight Lieutenant Fawkes doing our OTU training and we finished there August 1944. Then we came Chipping Warden, by then we were crew you see, Wellington crew so that was pilot, navigator bomb aimer and wireless operator by then and we flew from [unclear] squadron at Fulsham until 1945 was it 1945, 1944 rather yes 1944 flying from Fulsham then all the time until we did our first special duty operation on October 1944 doing special duty ops up and down the Dutch coast and carried on doing that sort of thing the French/German border in 1944 October, still October yes. There we are and then we got, still doing special operations on the Dutch coast and the first one, that’s in 1944 too, our first one [pause] first operation was 18th of February 1945. By then my skipper was squadron leader and our first operation was to Rehiene a 3 30 trip three hours thirty night time and Dortmund the next one was Dortmund then Dortmund again on the Danish coast rather, and , like I said my skipper then was now OC of A flight 192 Squadron, and then of course he then started signing my log books as the squadron made the OCA flight, then in 1945 March 1945 we were special operation [unclear] Frankfurt, Hannover and stayed in Germany all in Germany until the end of March no, Heligavan was in April 1945 then the last one we did operation of the war, I think it was the last operation of the war too, special duty operation to Flensburg that was in north Germany wasn’t it, yes that’s right up in the north of Germany yes, and then it was certified that we completed a first tour of operations [unclear] signed by Wind Commander Donaldson and then 102 Squadron Pocklington. I was then left Foulsham and being that much younger than the rest of the crew I was sent up to Pocklington and so I left the crew and Ben, I always remember Ben saying when you get up there, don’t forget, when it’s all over and done with, we shall, I’m going to insist that we meet at least once a year and that was very good of him and he did, he made sure we did, we didn’t miss a year at all. One year we, he had business in France and we all went over to Paris on the strength of his company which was very good [laughs]. Anyway, Pocklington, that’s right, Pocklington, I was with a Flight Sergeant Sandham who was a pilot and the crew there and we did a real cross country taking the ground staff to see the havoc over in Germany. And then that was with Pilot Officer Sandham. Then we moved to [unclear] and transfer, 102 Squadron it was then and we transferred to Liberator’s, troop carrying and we did that training until October, the end of October, and then in November we were doing the conversion still on Liberator’s but the pilot I had then was Pilot Officer West who had come straight from America where he had done his training so he, in fact I was the only member of the crew in transport command I was , had a completed tour of ops, I had a real raw crew, 102 Squadron Leader [unclear] that’s right Pilot Officer West and then we used to go backwards and forwards to India, that was in December 1945. We used to go base to Castle Benito, Castle Benito and then on to India that was the short-term on Liberator’s. Castle Benito, Cairo West Cairo West, Shairo, Cairo West, Shairo, Maripau that was the route we used to take. We were taking personnel out to India and then bringing some back. The whole bomb bay was sealed and had seats in the middle and some of the Liberators I wasn’t up on the flight deck I had a cabin on my own halfway down the aircraft and so to get to it I had to go through the bomb bay where the guests were sitting you know and of course I used to threaten them if I get any trouble I’ll get them to pull a [unclear] to let you out [laughs] which tended to amuse them a bit. They were mostly army people. We had one officer there and he said “God”, he said ‘I’ve gone across Egypt and the desert in a tank and one thing and another’, he said ‘but I’ve never felt as bad as this I tell you’ and he was really ill, he got sickness alright. So that was, carried on with 53 Squadron unwards on the India routes yes, [inaudible] to upward Eastray, Eastray to Castro ,Benito Castro Benito to Cairo West to Maripau and back it was a really interesting time and that went on until 1946 then. Yes April 1946, Lidda, Maripau, [unclear] with 53 squadron upward. In fact I did more distances flying then than I’ve ever done before backwards and forwards to India, Maripau, Shariba seven hours. It was coming back that was the main thing and of course that was the finish of my flying with with the RAF I came out of the RAF then and of course started flying again in 1951 and 1946 when I was in the reserve had to do reserve flying in Panshanger, that was handy that, that was flying in Andersons then and the pilots were citizen pilots. Mr Stewart, Mr Brown and Mr Snowden, Mr Snow and so on [laughs] [pause] and that went on until oh I did a stint at the reserve flying school at Cambridge and of course I was just in reserve then you see [pause] 22 reserve flying school, that would finish my flying with the Air Force then, that was on the 24th January 1954 [pause] and then of course the skipper was true to his word and every year we used to go on to a in the end there were only three of us, the skipper, wireless operator and the navigator and that’s when we had our annual trips [laughs] when we all went out, this in in Ben’s house, at .
IW: Look it up, would it be on there?
PW: Yes I was sitting in Ben’s house there [laughs]. That’s the same one isn’t it yeah [pause] in the New Forest he had a place down in the New Forest [pause].
CB: So every year you got back together?
PW: We did.
CB: In different places?
PW: Oh no, we, we, we used to go the New Forest, well for start off the first reunion was at , on the East Coast [pause].
CB: Okay, well we can look that up.
PW: Yeah, I can’t remember that now, and then after that we had a reunion in Blackpool.
CB: Hmm.
PW: Yep had a reunion in Blackpool. It was the Butlins, the Butlins we went to on the Norfolk Coast, what the heck.
CB: Cromer was it or somewhere like that?
PW: Hmm.
CB: Was it Cromer or somewhere like that?
PW: No, before you get to Cromer.
CB: Hunstanton?
PW: No, no it was right on the coast it was a Butlin’s holiday camp.
CB: Anyway we’ll look that up.
PW: And from then of course we used to have a reunion every year and Ben made sure that we got, in the end there was Ben the Skipper, Jock, Jock Scot, the navigator and myself, even the rear gunner he couldn’t make it any more, course he’s, as I say they were all ten years older than me anyway.
CB: Yes.
AW: I was still the boy.
CB: Yeah.
AW: [laughs] They called me the boy all the time.
CB: So what was it like flying in a crew where you were that much younger than them because they on balance were much older than most crews anyway?
PW: Well yeah , because they’d both been instructors, Ben as skipper was a teaching pilot, it was in his log book.
CB: Yeah
PW: Down there where he was teaching people to fly and Ken Scott the navigator he was the same he was teaching navigation and I think they both decided they wanted to see something of some action before it all ended and of course that’s when they decided to join up and it was at the OTU that Ben approached me, he was tall a six foot chap, and he introduced himself as Flight Lieutenant Faulkes, ‘would you like to be my wireless operator’ so I looked and I liked the look of him and the way he approached and it was all good, because we all used to gather in a hangar you know for this selection crew, crew selection and it worked you know, it was marvellous there was group of signallers, air gunners or WOP AG’s as I used to call them navigators, rear gunners and bomb aimers, that’s all we did, not flying engineers then because we were still on.
CB: Still on Wellington’s.
PW: Twins, hmm. So he approached me and he said ‘would you like to move on to as a wireless operator’ so I said yes sure and we gelled straight away and when we crewed up and the bomb aimer was Canadian.
CB: What was his name?
PW: Morgan, and trying to think of his name.
IW: Danny Hutchings.
PW: Hmm?
IW: Danny Hutchings.
PW: No, no that wasn’t his name he was with transport command.
IW: Oh I beg your pardon.
PW: This was when we crewed up originally and that’s it of course we had a mid-upper gun turret on the Halifax’s and on the Wellington, was there one on the Wellington, I can’t remember now.
CB: Not normally, no front and .rear
PW: Yeah, hmm, so.
CB: So it was a crew of six?
PW: Yeah, Hmm.
CB: Right, so this interaction between you as a boy and the others they were constantly ribbing you were they?
PW: Oh no, not really, I just looked on the skipper as a father figure, I mean he was so, so good to me really, I just had complete faith in him and in the navigator, I never felt queasy about any trip I went on with them at all.
CB: No. That’s when you were at OTU, how did , did Ben Faulkes look out all the other members of the crew or how did that work? Was he the instigator of the crew?
PW: As an OTU at Wellington we’d just had the.
CB: But in this milling around in the hangar, how did he go around looking for people?
PW: He came to me when he had already got to know Ken Scott.
CB: Right.
PW: Who was a man from Edinburgh, in fact he was a customs and excise chap in a brewery
CB: [laughs]
PW: And he’d tell us some tales about that when we used to have or reunions. He used to bring a case full of what he called a case of wee heavies, it was that strong isle stuff [laughs] he used to bring that in a big case to wherever we were having a reunion, at Filey, Filey in Yorkshire.
CB: Yep.
PW: We had some great fun there and of course we had the flight engineer eventually.
CB: That was at the HCU so where was your heavy conversion unit?
PW: we did heavy conversion on squadron.
CB: Oh did you, right.
PW: Hmm, we didn’t go to a heavy conversion unit.
CB: Right, do you know why that was?
PW: We converted from.
CB: Straight onto what? Lancaster’s?
PW: Halifax.
CB: Halifax, ok.
PW: Yes the squadron was a flight of Wellington’s and then a flight of Halifax.
CB: Hmm.
PW: And then a Mosquito and then a single Lockead attachment from the American Air Force, that was the 192 Squadron and of course they done away with the Wellington in the end.
CB: Yeah.
PW: And we converted to the Halifax on the squadron.
CB: Right.
PW: So when Ben was first Flight Commander we were on Wellington’s.
CB: Oh were you.
PW: And he was Flight Commander on Halifax’s.
CB: Where did the Flight Engineer come from?
PW: I don’t know where he came from.
CB: What was his name?
PW: He was commissioned man when he first came.
CB: As was the pilot?
PW: Yeah and the navigator was of course was commissioned, and the rear gunner he became, he got commissioned as well and so I was the only NCR in the squad, in the crew in the end, but , of course I was ten years younger.
CB: In the Wellington, in the Wellington you’re talking about.
PW: Yeah and the Halifax.
CB: And the Halifax. Right.
PW: Hmm, yeah and the Halifax, of course I , they put me up for commission and I had the interview with the CO, Donaldson, remember Donaldson don’t you? And he considered I was too young for a commission [laughs] and so that was it, I didn’t get the commission.
CB: Strange.
PW: So I was, I was myself, I was the only non-commissioned officer in the crew.
CB: Where did the bomb aimer come from?
PW: I can’t think where Ted came from, no not Ted, , yes he was a Canadian fella, he was an officer he was commissioned, he was Canadian [pause]
CB: Okay.
PW: He lived in the, what’s the big waterfall in Canada?
CB: The big what?
PW: The waterfall.
CB: Niagra Falls.
PW: Niagra.
CB: Right
PW: Yes he came from the Canadian side of Niagra.
CB: Now going back to your earlier times.
PW: Yeah.
CB: You were a wireless operator air gunner, did you do gunnery training?
PW: Yes I did gunnery training.
CB: And where did you do that?
PW: That was at Walney Island.
CB: Walney Island. So you did that after Yatesbury?
PW: Yes, yes.
CB: Okay, at Walney Island.
PW: Yes we went to Walney Island at some radio school
CB: Right.
PW: To get the air gunners certificate
CB: And from there you went to Dumfries?
PW: Dumfries, yeah, operation, Auxilliary Flying Unit they called it.
CB: Yeah. So what were you doing in the Auxilliary flying unit?
PW: We were just flying Andersons.
CB: Yeah but as a signaller or as a gunner?
PW: Well both, I was a signaller and a gunner.
CB: So it had a turret did it?
PW: We had to go, we had an aircraft tow and a drove and we had to fire at the drove and that was the gunnery school, I didn’t do any gunning, what was is, let me find my log book, oh I forget now what it said there. [pause] Is it in here?
CB: Okay, well we can look in the log book in a minute.
PW: Oh yes that’s the wireless operator, that was the Liberator that was.
CB: Right, so when you were at the OTU, you’ve crewed up so what did you do while you were at the OTU then Peter?
PW: AFU?
CB: At the OTU, at the Operational Training /unit.
PW: OTU?
CB: What were you doing there mainly?
PW: Well, well.
CB: You were working as a signaller at the OUT?
PW: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Or as a gunner or both?
PW: I was , I was doing wireless operator.
CB: Yeah.
PW: Didn’t do any gunning. Chipping Warden that was.
CB: Yeah, so what were you doing at the OUT as a wireless operator, what was your task?
PW: Just operating the, the radio equipment.
CB: Yeah but why was the radio needing to be operated, what was happening?
PW: Nothing really, I was just on cross countries and that was all.
CB: So you were flying across country, are messages coming into you or are you sending them out, what is happening?
PW: Yes, in the main it was radio silence, if the navigator wanted a fix I’d give it on the loop system.
CB: Right.
PW: Three or four stations, I gave him the time and where it was coming from and he’d get his positions from that.
CB: Right, so just explaining that, you’re tuning into a radio station.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Having tuned in you are then taking a bearing from the radio station.
PW: That’s right, yeah.
CB: Then you go to another radio station and you take a bearing from that is that right?
PW: That’s right.
CB: And you do a third one at least and that gives you the triangulation as they call it, is that right.
PW: So the navigator could plot where he should be.
CB: So you have to be quite quick.
PW: Oh yeah, hmm.
CB: Do you log the time between each tuning in?
PW: Yes well I didn’t have a log of course I just passed to the navigator straight away. Well he’d be sitting quite close.
CB: So how long did it take to tune in and get a fix as it were?
PW: [pause] I can’t remember.
CB: The reason I ask the question is that if the plane is moving and so he has to take account of that.
PW: That’s right yeah, hmm.
CB: In time.
PW: The speed, air speed and the wind direction [laughs].
CB: And how did you decide which station to take the bearing from?
PW: Well, you had various stations en-route you know and they would radio and say can you get a fix from so and so.
CB: These were civilian radio stations that you were using were they or beacons?
PW: No, no, no I don’t, [pause] they, were automatic I think.
CB: Ah beacons that are set up. Right, okay.
PW: You didn’t have to speak to anybody or anything like that.
CB: No, no.
PW: [unclear]
CB: So in essence what we’re describing is that, you’re listening out with your loop on the top of the aircraft?
PW: Yeah.
CB: You tune into a radio transmission and you then plot the bearing of that from the aircraft?
PW: Yeah.
CB: You pass that to the navigator with the time at which you took it?
PW: Yeah.
CB: You then go to the next one and give him the bearing is that right? Of the next one and give him the time you took it, is that right?
PW: Yeah.
CB: Did you do more than 3? Or was 3 enough for him to get.
PW: 3 was enough as a rule.
CB: Right. So you were needed to do it quite quickly did you?
PW: I can’t remember how fast I was going anyway [laughs]. No it wasn’t too quick I just used to give him the bearing that’s all.
CB: So when you weren’t doing that you were listening in.
PW: Yeah.
CB: And what were you listening in for?
PW: Well there was an what do you call it, a special frequency.
CB: Yep.
PW: Just 2 initials it was, I can’t think of it now.
CB: Right.
PW: I can’t think of it now, and then pass that on to the navigator.
CB: So what were you listening for?
PW: Just a signal that sounds like a, it was usually two digits, dah-di-dah-di-dah or something like that, 2 initials. They were broadcasting all the time.
CB: That’s what I mean, what were they broadcasting? Are they just broadcasting dot dash Morse code in other words?
PW: Morse code, yes.
CB: Or are they sending you a message.
PW: No just Morse Code, just Morse code signals.
CB: So was that at particular interval or was it a regular transmission that they were making?
PW: I think it’s a regular thing.
CB: Right.
PW: Hmm.
CB: Ok.
PW: Because there was someone there all the time.
CB: Because some signallers have said to me that on the half hour they had to listen to something.
PW: Yeah.
CB: This is when they’re on ops.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Ok, so anyway when you’re doing the cross country you’re trying to help with the navigation?
PW: That’s right.
CB: So then you changed to the heavy conversion unit onto Halifax’s?
PW: Yeah.
CB: How different is your role on the Halifax from on the Wellington?
PW: More or less the same, in our Halifax the rest position was taken up with the secret equipment.
CB: Right.
PW: Well I didn’t know anything about because I was just a straight wireless operator but we had a special operator who was usually a commissioned type and he had all his gear in the rest position in the Halifax and we used to go and of course half the time recording and they’d be searching for a start while we were, we used to go out with the main force and then deviate from the main course and perhaps we’d send out some [unclear] the window, the bomb aimers job, that was to put the window out and then change route again back onto the route and then veer off again and do the same again and that confused the German radar of course.
CB: Hmm.
PW: That was all it was really and we had extra petrol tanks in the Halifax and of course in the Wellington’s so that , and they carried a small bomb to give the bomb aimer something to do, [laughs] it was only a small bomb because they had the extra petrol tanks of course, I can remember one time the bomb aimer’s job was to change the petrol cox and all of a sudden I can remember Ben saying ”did you change the tanks over cox“ and he went flying past me [laughs] to get to the cox to turn the thing on to a different the tank.
CB: What made him say that? The pilot.
PW: Oh I don’t know, just to make sure he had I think [laughs].
CB: Oh right the engines didn’t stop?
PW: The engine didn’t stop no [laughs].
CB: Now what about the special operator, did he link in with the crew or was he very stand offish?
PW: No, no he was the normal one who came with us but he never had anything to do with the crew at all.
CB: What did he do as a job?
PW: Oh as I say the equipment they had, I mean I’ve never seen anything. [unclear] were unknown at one time of course, what was the other name, navigating.
CB: So there was also H2S was there?
PW: H2S that’s right.
CB: Who operated the H2S?
PW: That the special operator who operated that.
CB: He did, did he? Okay.
PW: Yes, yes I didn’t have anything to do with that at all.
CB: So this is the eighth man on the aircraft is it?
PW: Hmm.
CB: You still had the mid-upper gunner did you?
PW: No.
CB: So you only had seven of you in the crew?
PW: If they wanted anybody as mid-upper gunner that was me [laughs] that was the idea being a WOP AG.
CB: Yeah.
PW: But I never did go up into the [unclear] at all.
CB: Right.
PW: I mean we didn’t see that much traffic and the rear gunner was, I know we had a corkscrew a couple of times, that frightens the life out of you that does, but Ben did it marvellously well.
CB: So just describe the corkscrew could you, what started the corkscrew?
PW: In the aircraft approaching.
CB: And who called that?
PW: That I don’t l know because.
CB: But normally?
PW: Normally it would be the navigator I would think, or the bomb aimer.
CB: I’d suggest that it might have been the rear gunner.
PW: [laughs] it might have been the rear gunner, yeah.
CB: Well if the attack was from the front.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Then the bomb aimer would see it wouldn’t he?
PW: Yes, yes.
PW: But the navigator can’t see anything because he’s shrouded up on his table at the side of me.
CB: So what happened with the corkscrew then, you said it was a bit disconcerting so?
PW: It is yeah, yeah, because you’re not strapped in you see.
CB: Right, right.
PW: I mean they are.
CB: But you’re not.
PW: The ones [unclear] are strapped in and the navigator’s strapped in but you’re not strapped in, it’s all of a sudden [makes plane like sound], yeah so it’s a frightening thing, I remember we were doing it once and you were sort of in a, you almost feel like you’re going to lift up.
CB: So can you describe how the aircraft reacts in a corkscrew, what happens, somebody calls to the captain what does he say?
PW: I wouldn’t know.
CB: Corkscrew, corkscrew left or corkscrew right does he? So then what, what does the pilot then do with the aircraft?
PW: Well just doing a quick back left or right.
CB: So he goes down to the left doesn’t he or down to the right and then.
PW: Yeah, roll, not rollover no wouldn’t be a rollover [laughs].
CB: No, no but roll out of it.
PW: Goes straight and then try and get back on whatever the course.
CB: And then back up to what the course was.
PW: Yeah, yeah.
CB: So the purpose of a corkscrew was to do what?
PW: Just to evade the fighter that was all.
CB: So did you get hit at all in the aircraft?
PW: Never.
CB: Flak or fighter?
PW: Seen plenty of flak.
CB: So what’s it like when you see a lot of flak?
PW: I can’t say I was ever really frightened but I didn’t like the look of it. Ben came and said to me 0nce “come and have a look at this” and of course it was, well you could touch the sky, I just went I’ll go back, I didn’t particularly want to look at it. [laughs] I can’t say I was frightened though, no, no.
CB: Okay, so what is the view of flak, the sky is full of flak but what are you looking at what is it?
PW: The sky’s full of full of white [unclear] it’s terrific really. You think to yourself how the hell are we going to get through that lot. But of course we used to have to leave the mainstream, left or right, leave the mainstream that’s why we had extra petrol tanks. We’d go with the mainstream perhaps as far as the bomb aimer said he released his little bomb we had, and then come back or go right the way round and make our way home you see.
CB: But on the way out are you going, are you saying that on the way out, you’re going in and out of the stream are you?
PW: Yes, hmm more or less.
CB: And that’s because.
PW: Well we’d go out from the stream and drop the.
CB: Window.
PW: Window, yeah. And of course in the meantime hoping that the the special operator found a frequency that the German’s were working on. Because they used to search for the, they’d got some idea which frequencies they were using and then we had equipment for jamming.
CB: Right.
PW: And as soon as he found that he put our equipment on to jam the German RT.
CB: And how did they jam, the German, the special operators?
PW: I. I’ve no idea really. It must have been sending a blast of something like that, I really didn’t know how they did it.
CB: Okay, so H2S was a bulge underneath the fuselage?
PW: Yeah, yeah.
CB: What identification was there that you were special operations with aerials on the top of the aircraft?
PW: Well I don’t know, I think that gave you, that gave the H2S a picture of the terrain.
CB: Yes, but what indication was there on the aircraft that there were special bits of equipment for the special operations man, was there an aerial on the roof or the side or where was it.
PW: There was one underneath, there was a couple on the top and of course there was the DF one on the top, the only one I needed and the only one I operated because I didn’t know what they were doing.
CB: No, no.
PW: Because it was considered secret.
CB: God.
PW: But see if you crash landed or landed and the aircraft was [unclear] the skipper would operate something and destroy the aircraft itself. Once we were all out hopefully [laughs].
CB: Hmm, so the special operator had explosives in his area to destroy the equipment in the event of something going wrong.
PW: Yeah, yeah that’s right.
CB: And to what extent do you think the German’s could identify that you were a special operations aircraft?
PW: [unclear] I have no idea, I don’t know how they could know really I apart from they might be able to feedback from the special aerials maybe, I don’t know.
CB: And later aircraft had a tail warning system for German night fighters to detect the transmissions of German night fighters, what did you have on your aircraft?
PW: Nothing that I know of.
CB: So you couldn’t detect that you were being, that there was somebody creeping up on you?
PW: [unclear the rear gunner.
CB: Like one eyeball.
PW: That’s right, yeah. Hmm.
CB: Okay, good.
PW: We did have to corkscrew one time because the rear gunner saw something and thought it was coming for us.
CB: Hmm, and he missed you?
PW: Hmm, and of course the bomb aimers business this tinsel out, wow that was just like a shoot.
CB: Oh was it, in the Bombay was it?
PW: No, it wasn’t in the Bombay, I know it was quite near the mid-upper turret.
CB: Right, in the floor?
PW: Hmm in the floor, yeah.
CB: How would you describe the performance and comfort of the Halifax?
PW: Well my position was A okay and of course Halifax, yeah, I was underneath the pilot
CB: You were?
PW: Yes.
CB: Right. Did you have any windows?
PW: There was a small one but you had it blacked out anyway.
CB: How high could you fly in the Halifax?
PW: I didn’t think we went much over 10,000.
CB: Oh, was that the, the bomber stream was running higher than that though wasn’t it?
PW: Yeah, but you’d have to have your oxygen on.
CB: Hmm.
PW: If you were over 10,000 anyway and I don’t remember having the oxygen mask on for considerable periods.
CB: Was that partly because you needed to be lower in order for the special operations man to be able to deal with the German night fighters and radar?
PW: Perhaps so, as I say what they did mid- aircraft I didn’t.
CB: No.
PW: We had the Cato air tube there, what do they call it?
CB: The screen for the H2S you mean?
PW: H2S, hmm.
CB: Who operated that?
PW: The special operator.
CB: Oh he did, right okay.
PW: Yes, yes, he was usually an officer or two tour man.
CB: Oh was he, and what sort of languages did he speak?
PW: [pause] I don’t know whether he spoke manually or we used to record send out messages in German from the aircraft.
CB: Hmm.
PW: Once they found a frequency that the fighters were working on, how the hell they did that I don’t know, they must have known what sort of range they were working on.
CB: Yes, well in the 101 squadron for instance, Lancaster’s then the special operators were all German speakers you see so that’s why I’m asking what the languages your special operator spoke.
PW: I wouldn’t know.
CB: I think it reinforces the point doesn’t it that the rest of the crew didn’t know anything about him.
PW: Well perhaps so yeah.
CB: But when, gradually the crew became commissioned is that right?
PW: Hmm.
CB: So where did the special operator live, stay where was he billeted, he was always an officer was he?
PW: Yes, I just presume he was somewhere, either in the officer’s mess or in the, if you were in a station like Foulsham then we had all sorts of, set out in huts, there was no sort of big building.
CB: What was your accommodation at Foulsham?
PW: just a hut.
CB: Nissan hut?
PW: Yes, type of Nissan hut yeah.
CB: With whom?
PW: With a big coke stove in the centre [laughs].
CB: In the middle yeah?
PW: But there was one, we got a little room on our own, the rear gunner and myself and so we were quite cosy there.
CB: I’m just going to stop this a moment. We’re talking about the accommodation you had, so how many other crew members were in the same accommodation as you?
PW: Well there was just the rear gunner and myself.
CB: Right.
PW: The others being commissioned.
CB: So what social life did you have as a crew?
PW: Oh well we always used to get, the whole crew used to go to Norwich, they used to have a truck take us all to Norwich and we all mixed in together. The place we used to go to in Norwich Samson and Hercules, that was a , well the only trouble was the Americans used to go in there as well. And that’s the time that.
IW: Yes.
PW: I could never understand.
CB: What?
PW: What it was all about.
CB: Why, how do you mean?
PW: Well when the Americans and the Samson and Hercules came in they had separate colours of squadrons and whatever.
CB: They segregated their people by colour?
PW: Yeah, yeah, when they got, they used to create hell, and of course the white caps, so in the end we decided we wouldn’t go in the Samson [laughs].
CB: You mean that they would take out the blacks so that they weren’t in with the white air crew is that what you mean?
PW: Well they sought them out, they would come into the dancefloor and then all of a sudden a coloured one would be with one of the white yank’s fancies and then they would start. We used to say, I don’t know [laughs] I don’t know who we’re supposed to be fighting for, [laughs] the whole place [unclear] and it was strange absolutely and of course the white caps used to lie about them with their truncheons like.
CB: These are the military police?
PW: Yeah, yeah and they didn’t spare any blushes.
CB: No, no. So where they American black ground crew or where there any American black air crew?
PW: Well no they had American, there was an American all black squadron.
CB: There was. Where was that based?
PW: I’ve no idea where it was based.
CB: No.
PW: It was in East Anglia.
CB: What were they flying, fighters?
PW: No Fortresses.
CB: Oh they were, right. Now in the RAF how often did you come across people from the West Indies or Africa or whatever, India?
PW: No we didn’t, we had one officer in the squad who was a West Indian, and I didn’t get to know him at all but he was a very nice fella, but as I say we didn’t have much to do with him really.
CB: What did he do, was he a pilot, navigator or what was he?
PW: He was pilot rank if I remember rightly.
CB: What rank?
PW: maybe a Flight Lieutenant [pause].
CB: On your squadron?
PW: Well I don’t know if he was on our squadron because we had a, we shared a place with 462 Squadron who were Australian. Yes it was 462 Squadron who shared a base with us.
CB: Oh right.
PW: So he might have been with them.
CB: So there was what one did you ever know or come across any other colonial, West Indian or African?
PW: No, not while on squadron, no.
CB: No, okay, Right. Now when you came to the end of the war, you’d already done your tour?
PW: Yes.
CB: How was it that you then did a second tour? Because people tended at the end of a tour to then go on ground jobs. So how did you change to a second tour?
PW: I didn’t go on to a second tour.
CB: Ah.
PW: No.
CB: So you did your thirty?
PW: Yes, that’s right.
CB: So which squadron were you with when you did that?
PW: That was with, with 192.
CB: Right. But then you went to 102 and then 53.
PW: 102 became 53
CB: Okay, and was the war still on when you changed to that?
PW: No, no.
CB: So it just happened that the end of your tour was also at the end of the war was it?
PW: Yes in fact we were on the last bomber command raid of the war to Flensburg.
CB: Yes which is what you said earlier to Flensburg.
PW: That’s right that was on the 2nd of May 1945.
CB: And did you do any ferrying of POWS’ after that in operation exodus?
PW: No, no we did, what ferrying we did then was taking Halifax’s up to the graveyard [laughs] up to Scotland and then come back with one of the others.
CB: They flew you back in some other plane?
PW: Yeah in one, one plane.
CB: Yeah. So the war ended in 1946 and you were de-mobbed, does it say there when you were de-mobbed?
PW: 1945 [pause]
CB: In 1946?
PW: In 1945 I was transferred to 102 Squadron Pocklington and that became 53 Squadron.
CB: Right.
PW: And that was , what was it Bassetlorn.
CB: Upward? You were at Upward as well?
PW: I was at Upward [pause]
CB: So you never did fly Lancasters?
PW: No. Never flew one.
CB: So you came to the end of the war then what did you do, you left the RAF when you were de-mobbed.
PW: Yeah.
CB: How did they kit you out?
PW: Oh well I went, they sent me up to , oh where was it, Yorkshire, I was doing on a sort of radar station, but that was only for a little while of course it wouldn’t be in my log book.
CB: Hmm, it’s in our pay book. Yeah. So then you went back to civilian life doing what?
PW: Well as an adult apprentice, I carried on in my apprenticeship and the Government paid Camphill Press the money to make my wages up to a German’s rate.
CB: Right.
PW: Although I was an adult apprentice.
CB: Right.
PW: I was supposed to do three years like that.
CB: But you did less did you?
PW: No I carried on doing that and and then of course we, to make up for the fact that I missed a few years apprenticeship, of course an apprenticeship was seven years in those days [laughs].
CB: Oh right.
PW: And so they used to pay the Salvation Army publishing supplies and the money to make up my, to a German’s rate. So I was still in an adult apprenticeship and I went up to London printing for quite a while.
CB: On day release was it?
PW: Yep. [pause]
CB: Where was that Camden Town?
PW: No, [pause].
CB: Regent Street Poly?
PW: [pause] No, no it’s, a London School of printing and bookbinders, Stamford street that was.
CB: Right, Okay.
PW: Before they moved of course, and then of course I then got a job with somebody I used to work with had started up on his own and I went to work for him.
CB: What was that called?
PW: Book binding.
CB: No, no the company.
PW: The company, what was it called?
IW: It was Mr Hicks.
PW: Hmm, yeah Mr Hicks, I forget what the book binding was called. Universal Booking Binding he called himself.
CB: And you stayed there how long?
PW: Oh, about a year if that.
CB: Then what?
PW: Then I was with a chap who I was an apprentice with, the name of Clark, he was an older chap and he was working for this fella so he got a deputy and there was three of us and he was a composter and we started our own book binding company.
CB: And what was that called?
PW: For what part of a better name, Reliance Book Binding Company [laughs]. And, well as I said I’m not going to work for somebody else, I’ll work for myself, and I did.
CB: With two others.
PW: With the help of two others, yes, partners. But of course that didn’t last, the partnership didn’t last in the end.
CB: How long did it run for?
PW: Because one of the chaps thought he’s now a boss he could please himself when he comes and goes [laughs].
CB: One of those.
PW: [laughs]. So that didn’t work very well did it , so I decided we’d end that so we ended that partnership so there was just Mr Clark and myself.
IW: [unclear]
PW: And we carried on as the Reliance Book Binding Company until I retired.
CB: Which was when?
PW: When did I retire?
IW: I don’t know because you still used to.
CB: What age?
PW: I wasn’t sixty even was I, fifty-five.
IW: Oh no, never fifty-five.
PW: It was when I retired from, when did I retire from working for myself then?
IW: I don’t know, but you certainly didn’t retire at fifty-five.
CB: Anyway you retired, after you retired did you then do another job or?
PW: No, no.
CB: Your pension was enough to keep going, or did you sell out or did you sell your part of the company?
PW: I did, Ron and myself sold the company to the chaps we worked with over a period of three year and.
IW: The chaps that worked for you, you didn’t just work with them they worked for you.
PW: That’s right yeah.
CB: Okay, and then you put your feet up?
PW: No, not really.
CB: What did you do, I started.
PW: What did I do after that?
IW: [unclear]
CB: I’ll just stop recording for a bit.
CB: We’re just picking up what happened after the war, so after the war you went back to civilian life but actually you returned to the RAF in the volunteer reserves so when did you do that and what did you do?
PW: Well it should be in there.
CB: So it’s 1951 to 1953. What were you doing?
PW: [pause]
CB: Because you said it was the reserve flying school, but what were you actually doing for them?
PW: Wireless operator on Anderson’s and I finished that in 1954.
CB: So what was the purpose of the?
IW: What was the purpose Peter?
CB: What was the purpose of this organisation the reserve flying school who were you teaching?
PW: Just to keep, keep your hand in really.
CB: Right.
PW: We used to have weekend flying and then an annual week at Cambridge.
CB: Right.
PW: And then I finished that and that’s when I finished the RAF altogether wasn’t it.
CB: Right. Ok.
PW: Hmm, so I was then just a sergeant.
CB: Oh they took you down to sergeant from warrant officer?
PW: So yeah, when I was back in reserve, that’s right wasn’t it, just had the three stripes again.
CB: Okay, thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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AWoodardP160512
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Peter Woodard
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
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
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01:09:35 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary. Allocated S Coulter
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
2016-05-12
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Flensburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Woodard was a wireless operator and after training at RAF Yatesbury he flew operations with 192 Squadron.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carron Moss
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
100 Group
102 Squadron
192 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-24
bombing
Cook’s tour
crewing up
H2S
Halifax
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
P-38
RAF Dumfries
RAF Foulsham
Raf Mauripur
RAF Pocklington
RAF Shenington
RAF Yatesbury
training
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/408/7511/SChattertonJ159568v10401.2.jpg
3298e5a6eac90c4a020d5552d79306f2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/408/7511/SChattertonJ159568v10402.2.jpg
9c93abb41f86f32e6e4f0b6186fffa5e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/408/7511/SChattertonJ159568v10403.2.jpg
519e7e3f27f0782d9cbed34674ee1fcb
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
Chatterton, John. 44 Squadron operations order book
Description
An account of the resource
Collection consists of 521 items which are mostly Operations orders, aircraft load and weight tables and bomb aimers briefings for 44 Squadron operations between January 1944 and April 1945. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by M J Chatterton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning Dewhurst Graaf and his crew, and Donald Neil McKechnie and his crew. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/109020/">Dewhurst Graaf</a> and <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/115642/">Donald Neil McKechnie</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Chatterton, J
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Marking reclaimed land to North of the target. [sic]
Bombing wind at H-5. [diagonal line across text]
No preselection delay but preselect J clusters at end of stick. [diagonal line across text]
[the following two lines of text are outlined with a square] Left to Right
57 207 619 44. 630.
57 Sqdn - base leader firing Red Very’s. [sic]
44 - Red/Yellow.
[underlined]Briefing[/underlined] Now. 0300
Capt. 0315
Main 0345.
H2S set up for sun up [sic]. Smokescreens.
ASI’s delays.[sic]
[page break]
[insert]a series of calculations for fuel and weight[/insert]
No direct marking
Possibility of proximity markings to North of [symbol]triangle[/symbol].[sic]
Target A.U.W t. - Subtract 4,000 lbs.
Bombing Height - 15-18.000
Stick Spacing - 50 yds - .5 sec.
Target Ht. - 50’ (sea-level).
Heading - 185[symbol]degrees[/degrees] T.
TI’s - Red - 1000lb.
TI’s - Green - 250lb. [inserted]set bracket[/inserted] May be used so that controller can give directions.
Controller is a Blue Lightning with invasion markings.
Also a [underlined] Mosquito. [/underlined]
[page break]
If weather bad the Controller will bring the aircraft down.[sic] (not below 12000?) [diagonal line across text]
H hour 0900 1st off 0530. [diagonal line across text]
Bombs fall in town
Drop on H2S.
If H2S u/s bomb the tank turrets.
If turrets not visible bomb any German [symbol]triangle[/symbol][sic]
Through cloud on way back. [diagonal line through text]
No orbiting [sic] at [symbol]triangle[/symbol]. [tick mark]
Fighter escort meeting at 7 1/2 degrees [tick mark]
[deleted] 466 & 207 [/deleted] 55base Red verys. [tick mark] [diagonal line through text]
Aim centre [indecipherable word] of stick.
Attack spread in thier[sic] companies of A/C approx 1 mile apart turning right after bombing. [diagonal line through text]
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
Bomb aimers notes
Description
An account of the resource
Notes include marking, briefing times, H2s set up, weights, bombing heights and target marking plan. Continues with bad weather plan, use of H2S, fighter escort details and aiming instructions.
Format
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Three pages handwritten notes
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SChattertonJ159568v10401, SChattertonJ159568v10402, SChattertonJ159568v10403
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jon-Paul Jones
44 Squadron
57 Squadron
619 Squadron
630 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
briefing
H2S
Master Bomber
Mosquito
P-38
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/408/7569/SChattertonJ159568v10477.2.jpg
4568a881fe75c60b21afcb59ce17f572
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/408/7569/SChattertonJ159568v10478.2.jpg
12dff69879b34dc6664789e37e09c92b
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
Chatterton, John. 44 Squadron operations order book
Description
An account of the resource
Collection consists of 521 items which are mostly Operations orders, aircraft load and weight tables and bomb aimers briefings for 44 Squadron operations between January 1944 and April 1945. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by M J Chatterton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning Dewhurst Graaf and his crew, and Donald Neil McKechnie and his crew. Additional information on <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/109020/">Dewhurst Graaf</a> and <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/115642/">Donald Neil McKechnie</a> is available via the IBCC Losses Database.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Chatterton, J
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DATE 15-8-44 GILZE RIJEN
HSKRG
TFJMVBAZL QPOX
[Table of bomb loads]
[Calculations]
[Table of Petrol, Distributor, T.V., Bomb Weight and All Up Weight]
[Table of Preselect]
[Table of aircraft heights and false height settings]
ZERO. 1100
EFFORT. 200
TARGET HEIGHT. S.L.
ROUTE: Base – 5235 x 0300E – 5220 x 0430E – 5200 x 0505E –
Target: 5203 x 0552 wide dept – 5206 x 0555E – 5200 x 0505E – 5220 x 0430E –
5205 x 0300E – Base
BOMBING HEADING. N – NE
[Page break]
5-52 4 M, marke TI yellow H-5-4-3-2 cascading 5000
14/16000, PFF leading,
Leader will fire Green very light for forming up.
Base will form up over Scampton at 9000ft. A/C will cross English coast @ 12500
Escort 3 Sqdns Thunderbolts (48 A/C & possibly L’s & M’s)
Target will be patrolled by 1 sqdn of Yank fighters from H-60 -H, and will then make four flying attacks
If markers cannot be seen bombs may be dropped on any airfield in vicinity, only airfields may be bombed, no bombing on Gee or D/R
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bomb aimers briefing 15 August 1944 - Gilze Rijen airfield
Description
An account of the resource
Shows two bomb loads for operation, one for fourteen aircraft the other for four. Details distributor, preselection and false height settings as well as route, timings and other details. On the reverse pathfinder marking and bombing instruction. At the bottom details of Thunderbolt fighter escort.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-08-15
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two sides front form document filled in on the reverse handwritten
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SChattertonJ159568v10477, SChattertonJ159568v10478
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Netherlands--Tilburg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-08-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
briefing
Gee
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-38
P-47
P-51
Pathfinders
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/770/9399/SDexterKI127249v10021.2.jpg
8f184a1aff889f4a6bf6e94ffd90509b
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
Dexter, Keith Inger. Album
Description
An account of the resource
24 items. Contains newspaper articles and information about Keith and Shelia Dexter while at school. Includes a number of photographs of Keith Dexter's mother's home in Stradishall and of a memorial to men of F Division of the Metropolitan Police lost during 1939-45. Followed by documents from Squadron Leader A N Banks concerning the collision between a Halifax and a Mosquito at RAF Foulsham in a April 1944 with photographs as well as information on Foulsham and 192 Squadron. Finally photographs of Keith Dexter's medals, an escape map and compass and a photograph of a model train built by Keith Dexter with a certificate from the Model Engineering Exhibition 1933.
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
Dexter, KI
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-30
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
THE AIRFIELDS 115
Squadron flying its first Circus on May 16 and attaching Triequeville. A large number of enemy fighters rose to give battle, but the Mitchells all returned safely to Foulsham. Thereafter both squadrons flew Circuses and Ramrods when the weather permitted. By mid-August 180 Squadron had flown 17 operations. The long haul to the south was time- and nerve-consuming, and to be better placed for operations running up to D-Day both squadrons flew out, aircraft going singly for security reasons, to Dunsfold on August 18/19, having flown their first large scale 24-aircraft operation on August 12. The feeling in July had been that the Mitchell might be better in the Middle East. Indeed, 98 Squadron flew to Honiley in July for range trials, but the idea was abandoned.
Vacant Foulsham was taken over by 3 Group on September 1. On the same day No 514, the second Lancaster 1 squadron in the Group, formed here. Providing crews for Stirling-orientated 3 Group had caused 1678 Flight to form, and this moved to Foulsham on September 16 to be on hand to supply crews for 514 Squadron. It took them two months to reach operational status and, on November 3/4 1943, six Lancasters commenced operations, two going to Düsseldorf and four mining. Not for long did they operate out of Foulsham for, in a general shake up, both units moved to Waterbeach on November 23.
The need to base 3 Group Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell meant it must lose its operational commitment. So, on November 25, No 192 Squadron left for Foulsham. This highly specialised squadron was flying Halifaxes, Mosquito IVs and Wellington Xs all specially fitted out with listening equipment to snoop on German radio and radar transmission. On December 7 100 Group took over Foulsham and snatched 192 Squadron in the process, the unit being enlarged on December 12 when 1473 Flight, which had been similarly employed, arrived from Little Snoring to become its ‘C’ Flight. Backing the squadron, the Special Duty Radar Development Unit arrived in mid-April 1944 and became the Bomber Support Development Unit on May 1. It stayed until December 23 1944, and used Mosquitoes. The Americans needed similar intelligence material and, from August 1944 to early 1945, a detachment of two-seater P-38s was stationed at Foulsham.
Once BSDU had left the station Halifax IIIs of 462 Squadron RAAF arrived from 4 Group on December 27 1944, trained in the use of special equipment, and commenced operations on March 13 1945.
No 192 Squadron played a vital part in the bomber offensive from 1943. Operating widely over occupied territory and Germany, its crews listened to enemy radio chatter and discovered frequencies of these and radar equipment. They snooped upon the airborne radar of night fighters, jammed VHF transmissions and afforded RAF control of German fighters. By summer 1944 they were operating by day and night, and the squadron was, on April 9 1945, the last to fly the Mosquitoes jammed enemy R/T.
Foulsham’s value was greatly extended when, in 1944, the main NE/SW runway was fitted with FIDO equipment to allow operations in misty weather.
The wart over, both squadrons disbanded, 192 on August 22 1945 and 462 on September 24, then the station passed to Care & Maintenance under 40 Group in 1945. The RAF soon vacated it, but the station was not sold off. In 1954-1955 the USAF based a special signals unit there.
Runways, ‘T’ Type hangars, the perimeter track and the water tower all remain among the farm land. Flying has not ceased, for often a crop-spraying Piper Pawnee can be seen about its business in the summer months.
An aerial view of Foulsham taken on January 31 1946 (DoE).
[photograph]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
History of RAF Foulsham
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with description of operations with B-25 from RAF Foulsham. Succeeded by 514 Squadron Lancaster and 1678 training flight. Replaced by 192 Squadron of 100 Group flying Halifax, Mosquito and Wellington on radio countermeasure and other special operations. Bomber support development unit arrived in April 1944. FIDO added to airfield in 1944. Station place on care and maintenance 1945. At the bottom a photograph of the airfield taken January 1946.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed document with b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SDexterKI127249v10021
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946-01
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.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
100 Group
1678 HCU
192 Squadron
3 Group
462 Squadron
514 Squadron
B-25
FIDO
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Mosquito
P-38
RAF Foulsham
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/971/10025/MMolloyS[Ser -DoB]-160212-01.pdf
31dff3d389965a32008336afe506ab34
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Molloy, Shae
S Molloy
Description
An account of the resource
One Luftwaffe intelligence file on Allied aircraft.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Shae Molloy and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Molloy, S
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Partial transcription]
Frontnachrichtenblatt der Luftwaffe
Nicht zum Feindflug mitnehmen!
Der Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe
Führungsstab I C
Sonderausgabe:
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte
Teil I: Britishe Kriegsflugzeuge (einschl. Der USA-Lieferungen)
Teil II: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.
Teil III: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union
Leistungen und Bilder
Stand: 1. September 1942
INHALT
Vorbemerkungen Anlagen 1 und 2
Teil I: Britische Kriegsflugzeuge (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen)
Hoheitsabzeichen der britischen Kriegsflugzeuge Anlage 3
Leistungstabellen Grossbritannien (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen) Anlagen 4a-4c
Schattenrisse im Maßstab 1:1000 der wichtigsten britischen Kriegsflugzeuge Anlagen 5a-5e
Westland “Lysander” Anlagen 6a-6c
Hawker “Hurricane I” Anlagen 7a, 7b
Hawker “Hurricane II C” Anlagen 8a-8c
Supermarine “Spitfire I” Anlagen 9a, 9b
Supermarine “Spitfire V” Anlagen 10a, 10b
Supermarine “Spitfire” (Aufkl.) Anlage 10c
Westland “Whirlwind” Anlagen 11a-11c
Boulton & Paul “Defiant” Anlagen 12a, 12b
Bristol “Beaufighter I” Anlagen 13a, 13b
Bristol “Blenheim-Fighter” Anlagen 14a, 14b
Bell “Airacobra” (P-39) Anlagen 15a-15c
Brewster “Buffalo” (F2A-2) Anlagen 16a-16c
Lockheed “Lightning” (P-38) Anlagen 17a-17c
Grumman “Martlet” (F4F-3 “Wildcat”) Anlagen 18a-18c
North American “Mustang” (P-51)Anlagen 19a-19c
Curtiss “Tomahawk” (P-40B) Anlagen 20a, 20c, 20d
Curtiss “Kittyhawk” (P-40E) Anlagen 20b, 20d
Curtiss “Warhawk” (P-40F) Anlagen 20d
Bristol “Beaufort” Anlagen 21a-21c
Bristol “Blenheim I” Anlage 22
Bristol “Blenheim IV” (“Long-nosed”) Anlagen 23a, 23b
Bristol “Blenheim VIII“ Anlage 23c
Handley-Page “Halifax I” Anlagen 24a-24c
Handley-Page “Halifax II” Anlage 24d
Handley-Page “Hampden” Anlagen 25a-25c
Handley-Page “Hereford” Anlage 25d
Avro “Lancaster” Anlagen 26a-26c
Avro “Manchester” Anlagen 27a-27c
De Havilland D. H. 98 “Mosquito” Anlage 28
Short “Stirling” Anlagen 29a-29c
Vickers “Wellington I” Anlage 30b
Vickers “Wellington II” Anlage 30c
Vickers “Wellington III” Anlagen 30a, 30c
Armstrong-Whitworth “Whitley V” Anlagen 31a-31c
Martin “Baltimore” Anlagen 32a, 32b
Martin “Maryland” Anlagen 33a-33c
Lockheed “Hudson” (A-29) Anlagen 34a-34c
Lockheed “Ventura” Anlage 35
Douglas “Boston” (A-20A) Anlagen 36a-36c
Boeing “Fortress I” (B-17 C, D) Anlagen 37a-37c
Boeing “Fortress II” (B-17 E)Anlagen 38a, 38b
Consolidated “Liberator” (B-24) Anlagen 39a-39c
Brewster “Bermuda” (SB2A-1 “Bucaneer”) Anlagen 40a-40c
Vought-Sikorsky “Chesapeake” (SB2U-3 “Vindicator”) Anlagen 41a-41c
Curtiss “Cleveland” (SBC-3) Anlagen 42a-42c
Fairey “Seafox” Anlage 43
Supermarine “Walrus” Anlage 44
Saro “Lerwick” Anlagen 45a-45c
Short “Sunderland” Anlagen 46a-46c
Consolidated “Catalina” (PBY-5 “Catalina”) Anlagen 47a-47c
Consolidated “Coronado” (PB2Y-3 “Coronado”) Anlagen 48a, 48b
Martin “Mariner” (PBM-2 “Mariner”) Anlagen 49a, 49b
Fairey “Fulmar” Anlagen 50a, 50b
Blackburn “Roc” Anlagen 51a-51c
Fairey “Albacore” Anlagen 52a-52c
Fairey “Swordfish” Anlagen 53a, 53b
Blackburn “Skua” Anlagen 54a-54c
Northrop N-3PB Anlage 55
Bristol “Bombay” Anlage 56
De Havilland “Flamingo”, “Hertfordshire”Anlage 57
General Aircraft “Hotspur II” Anlagen 58a, 58b
Teil II: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.
Hoheitsabzeichen Anlage 59
Allgemeines Anlage 60
Leistungstabellen USA Anlagen 61a, 61b
Schattenrisse im Maßstab 1:1000 der wichtigsten USA.-Kriegsflugzeuge Anlagen 62a, 62b
North American O-47Anlage 63
Curtiss O-52 Anlage 64
Republic P-43 “Lancer” Anlage 65
Republic P-47 “Thunderbolt” Anlage 66
Douglas A-24 Anlage 67
North American B-25B Anlage 68b
North American B-25C “Mitchell” Anlagen 68a, 68c
Martin B-26 “Marauder”Anlagen 69a, 69b
Douglas SBD-3 “Dauntless” Anlage 70
Curtiss SB2C-1 “Helldiver” Anlagen 71a, 71b
Vultee V-72 “Vengeance” Anlagen 72a, 72b
Vought-Sikorsky SO2U “Kingfisher” Anlage 73
Curtiss SO3C-1 “Seagull” Anlage 74
Boeing PBB-1 “Sea Ranger” Anlage 75
Consolidated 31 Anlage 75
Vought-Sikorsky F4U-1 “Corsair” Anlage 76
Douglas TBD “Devastator” Anlage 77
Grumman TBF “Avenger” Anlage 78
Transportflugzeuge Anlagen 79, 80
Lastensegler Anlage 81
Kleinluftschiff (sog. “Blimp”) Anlage 81
Teil III: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union
Hoheitsabzeichen Anlage 82
Allgemeines Anlagen 83a, 83b
Leistungstabellen Sowjet-Union Anlage 84
Schattenrisse im Maßstab 1:1000 der wichtigsten Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union....Anlagen 85a-85c
R-5 Anlage 86
R-10 Anlagen 87a, 87b
I-15 bis Anlage 88
I-153 Anlagen 89a, 89b
I-16 Anlagen 90a, 90b
JAK-1 Anlagen 91a, 91b
MIG-1, -3 Anlagen 92a, 92b
LAGG-3 Anlagen 93a, 93b
SB (bisher SB-2) Anlage 94
SB (bisher SB-3) Anlagen 95a, 95b
AR-2 Anlagen 96a, 96b
DB-3 Anlagen 97a, 97b
DB-3F Anlagen 98a, 98b
JAK-4 Anlage 99
PE-2 Anlagen 100a, 100b
SU-2 Anlagen 101a, 101b
IL-2 Anlagen 102a, 102b
ER-2 Anlage 103
TB-7 Anlage 104
KOR-1 Anlage 105
MBR-2 Anlagen 106a, 106b
MDR-6 Anlage 107
GST Anlage 108
TB-3 Anlage 109a, 109c
PS-84 Anlagen 109b, 109c
U-2 Anlage 110
UT-1 Anlage 111
UT-2 Anlage 111
JAK-7 Anlage 112
Teil I: Britische Kriegsflugzeuge (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen)
Achtung!
Wichtige Vorbemerkungen!
In den Leistungstabellen sind die Flugzeuge der USA.-Herkunft durch entsprechende Überschrift kenntlich gemacht und die militärische und Werksbezeichnung in USA. in der Spalte “Bemerkungen” angeführt.
Bei den Schattenrissen im Maßstab 1:1000 tragen die Anlagen links oben die Überschrift:
“Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien (einschl. USA.-Lieferungen)
Diejenigen Flugzeugmuster, die bei der britischen und bei der USA.-Fliegertruppe eingesetzt sind, tragen in Klammern unter der britischen militärischen Bezeichnung auch die militärische Bezeichnung in USA.
Bei den Bildtafeln und Bewaffnungsskizzen wird unterschieden a) zwischen den Mustern britischer Herkunft, b) den Mustern amerikanischer Herkunft, die nur bei der britischen Luftwaffe eingesetzt werden und c) den Mustern, die bei der britischen und USA.-Fliegertruppe Verwendung finden.
Die unter c) angeführten Muster werden in Teil II “Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.” nicht mehr angeführt.
Die Anlagen tragen deshalb in Teil I links oben folgende unterschiedliche Bezeichnungen:
Zu a) Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien
Zu b) Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien (Herkunft USA.)
Zu c) Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte” Grossbritannien und USA.
Im Fall b) werden die USA.-Werksbezeichnungen in “Fußnoten” gebracht.
Im Fall c) werden die militärischen USA.-Bezeichnungen in Klammern hinter der britischen Benennung, die USA.-Werksbezeichnungen in Fußnoten gebracht.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte - Anlage 1
Vorbemerkungen:
1. Die Steigzeiten werden auf 0,5 min, die Dienstgipfelhöhe auf 0,5 km, die Geschwindigkieten auf 5 km/st abgerundet.
2. Bei den Motorenleistungen sind die Höchstleistungen und dahinter die Höhe angegeben, in der die Höchstleistung des betreffenden Motorenmusters erzielt wird.
3. In der Rubrik bew. MG.-Stände/ MG. in den Tabellen (Anlagen 4a – 4c, 61 a, 61 b und 84) bedeutet die obere Zahl die Anzahl der Mg.-Stände, die untere Zahl die Gesamtzahl der MG. Die Anordnung der einzelnen MG. siehe Bewaffnungsskizze des betr. Musters.
4. Flugdauer und Gesamtflugstrecke sind naturgemäß abhängig vom Grad der Drosselung. Die Flugdauer kann sich schätzungsweise rund in den Grenzen 1:3 bewegen, die Gesamtflugstrecke in den Grenzen 1:2. Die angegebene Flugdauer und Gesamtflugstrecke bezieht sich zumeist auf eine mittlere Drosselung von etwa 66% oder auf die angeführte Marschgeschwindigkeit.
5. Unter normaler Flugstrecke und normaler Eindringtiefe sind die Werte bei größter Bombenlast angegeben.
6. Die Leistungen und näheren Angaben der Flugzeuge für mehrere Verwendungszwecke werden nur in der Tabelle der Hauptverwendung angeführt.
7. Bei Unterschieden zu den Angaben der früher herausgegebenen Leistungstabellen sind die Angaben in den Zusammenstellungen dieses Heftes maßgebend.
8. Bei der Betrachtung der Bilder ist zu berücksichtigen, daß die Tarnbemalung entsprechend den verschiedenen Kriegsschauplätzen verschieden ist.
Alle Angaben sind nach dem Stande vom 1. September 1942 neu bearbeitet.
Die in den bisherigen Frontnachrichtenblättern erschienenen Bilder und Zeichnungen der wichtigsten Kriegsflugzeuge sind, soweit brauchbar, wiederholt und ergänzt, die Leistungsangaben berichtigt worden.
Vorliegendes Sonderheft zum Aushang bringen und zum Unterricht benutzen!
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte - Anlage 2
Anordnung der Bewaffnung, der Kraftstoffbehälter und der Panzerung bei den wichtigsten Kriegsflugzeugen der Feindmächte
In den Zeichnungen sind die Bewaffnung, die Kraftstoffbehälter und die Panzerung nach nachstehendem Schema eingezeichnet:
- Kraftstoffbehälter geschützt
- Kraftstoffbehälter ungeschützt
- Panzerung
- MG
- MG. in Bola [Bola= short for “Bodenlafette”, a ventral gun carriage or gondola]
- Kanone
Die Skizzen sind ohne bestimmten Maßstab. Die Eintragungen wurden auf Grund der zur Zeit vorhandenen Unterlagen – soweit möglich unter Auswertung der Beuteflugzeuge – durchgeführt.
Es ist anzunehmen, daß alle Flugzeuge mindestens mit einem Rückenpanzer für den Flugzeugführer behelfsmäßig ausgestattet sind. Bei den Flugzeugmustern, bei denen an Hand von Beuteflugzeugen eine Panzerung festgestellt wurde, ist diese in den Skizzen eingezeichnet.
Bei den neusten Flugzeugen finden sich nunmehr auch geschützte Kraftstoffbehälter.
Bei den Angaben über die Bewaffnung ist zu berücksichtigen, daß ein und dasselbe Flugzeugmuster verschiedene Bewaffnung aufweisen kann, z. B. Doppel-MG. statt Einfach-MG., Kanonen statt starre MG. usw. Alle bisher bekanntgewordenen Bewaffnungsarten sind bei den jeweiligen Mustern in der Beschreibung auf der Skizze vermerkt.
Die Skizzen von Feindflugzeugen mit Eintragung der Bewaffnung, der Kraftstoffbehälter und der Panzerung werden entsprechend eingehender neuer Unterlagen laufend berichtigt und für neu eingesetzte Flugzeugmuster laufend ergänzt werden!
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte - Großbritannien (einschl. Der USA.-Lieferungen) – Anlage 3
Hoheitsabzeichen der britischen Kriegsflugzeuge
Flügeloberseite
Flügelunterseite
Neuerdings sind der gelbe Ring um die Kokarde, desgleichen der weiße Ring in der Kokarde und der weiße Streifen an der Seitenflosse wesentlich schmäler gehalten. Bisher waren alle Ringe der Kokarde und alle Streifen an der Seitenflosse gleich breit.
Teil II: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.
Achtung!
Wichtige Vorbemerkung!
In diesem Teil sind die Muster nicht mehr aufgeführt, die auch in der britischen Luftwaffe eingesetzt sind. Diese Muster sind im Teil I “Britische Kriegsflugzeuge” (einschl. der USA.-Lieferungen) in den Anlagen 15a-15c, 16a-16c, 17a-17c, 18a-18c, 19a-19c, 20a-20d, 34a-34c, 36a-36c, 37a-37c, 38a, 38b, 39a-39c, 40a-40c, 41a-41c, 42a-42c, 47a-47c, 48a, 48b, 49a und 49b gebracht. Diese Anlagen sind dadurch besonders kenntlich gemacht, daß sie links oben folgende Bezeichnung tragen:
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte
Großbritannien und USA.
Die meisten Bilder tragen noch di bisherigen Hoheitsabzeichen.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – USA. - Anlage 59
Hoheitsabzeichen der USA.-Kriegsflugzeuge
Hoheitsabzeichen auf Flügelober- und –unterseite. Neuerdings häufig nur auf einer Flügelseite (linker Oberseite und rechter Unterseite). Die Flügelunterseiten der Heeresflugzeuge tragen außerdem häufig die Aufschrift: US-Army.
Hoheitsabzeichen auf beiden Seiten des Rumpfes.
Sowohl bei Heeres- als auch bei Marineflugzeugen nicht regelmäßig vorhanden.
Hoheitsabzeichen auf beiden Seiten des Rumpfes, nur bei Marineflugzeugen. Nicht regelmäßig vorhanden.
Hoheitsabzeichen: fünfzackiger weißer oder hellgrauer Stern in kreisförmigem blauen Feld. Nach einer unbestätigten Pressemeldung ist das Hoheitsabzeichen von gelbem Ring umschlossen (warscheinlich am Rumpf). Weiß, gelb, blau
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – USA. - Anlage 60
Allgemeines
Bedeutung der Bezeichnung der Flugzeugmuster der amerikanischen Heeresfliegertruppe
Die einzelnen Flugzeugmuster werden durch Buchstaben und eine Zahl gekennzeichnet. Die Buchstaben vor der Zahl bedeuten die Kategorie, die Zahl gibt an, um das wievielte Muster in der betreffenden Kategorie es sich handelt. Die Bezifferung ist hierbei laufend, ohne Rücksicht auf die Herstellerfirma und ohne Rücksicht darauf, ob das Muster nur als Versuchsmuster oder in Serie gebaut wurde. Ein weiterer Buchstabe nach der Zahl gibt die verschiedenen Serien (Ausführungen) des betreffenden Musters an. Die Kategorien werden durch folgende Buchstaben bezeichnet:
O (Observation) = Aufklärer
B (Bombing) = Kampfflugzeug
A (Attack) = Tiefangriffsflugzeug
P (Pursuit) = Jäger
FM (Multiseater Fighter) = mehrsitziger Jäger (Zerstörer)
C (Cargo) = Transportflugzeug
OA (Observation Amphibium) = Aufklärer-Amphibienflugzeug
Ein X (Experimental) vor der Bezeichnung bedeutet, daß es sich um ein Versuchsmuster handelt, ein Y, daß es sich um ein Flugzeugmuster im Truppenversuch handelt. Zum Beispiel:
B-18 = das 18. Kampfflugzeugmuster
B-18A = die 2. Serie (1. Abwandlung des 18. Kampfflugzeugmusters)
YFM-2 = das 2. Zerstörermuster, im Truppenversuch sich befindend
P-40D = die 5. Ausführung des 40. Jägermusters
Bedeutung der Bezeichnung der Flugzeugmuster der amerikanischen Marinefliegertruppe
Die Fluzeugmuster werden durch eine Gruppe von Buchstaben und Zahlen bezeichnet, die durch einen Bindestrich getrennt sind. Durch die Gruppe vor dem Bindestrich wird die Art der Verwendung, die Herstellerfirma und die Musterzahl gekennzeichnet, während die Zahl hinter dem Bindestrich die betreffende Serie angibt. Der letzte Buchstabe vor dem Bindestrich ist das Kennzeichen für die Herstellerfirma, wobei die einzelnen Firmen wie folgt bezeichnet sind:
A = Brewster
B = Boeing (auch Beech Aircraft)
C = Curtiss
D = Douglas
F = Grumman
H = Hall
J = North American
L = Bell
M = Martin
N = Naval Aircraft Factory
O = Lockheed
P = Spartan
R = Ryan
S = Stearman
T = Northrop
U = Vought-Sikorsky
Y = Consolidated.
Die vorangehende Zahl gibt an, um das wievielte Flugzeug dieser Kategorie der betreffenden Firma es sich handelt, wobei jedoch das erste Flugzeug nicht speziell durch eine Zahl angeführt wird. Die Zahl 1 wird daher weggelassen. Vor dieser Zahl wird der Verwendungszweck des Musters durch 1 bis 2 Buchstaben ausgedrückt. Der erste Buchstabe bedeutet hierbei den Hauptverwendungszweck, der zweite die zusätzliche Verwendungsart. Es werden folgende Buchstaben verwendet:
P = Fernaufklärer (Flugboote)
O = Aufklärer (Artilleriebeobachter)
S = Nahaufklärer
B = Kampfflugzeuge (Stuka)
F = Jagdflugzeuge
J = Arbeitsflugzeuge (Amphibien)
N = Schulflugzeuge
R = Reiseflugzeuge
T = Torpedoflugzeuge
PB = Fernaufklärer-Kampfflugzeuge
OS = Artilleriebeobachter und Nahaufklärer
SB = Aufklärer-Stuka
TB = Torpedo-Kampfflugzeuge
SN = Aufklärer-Schulflugzeuge
JR = Arbeits-Reiseflugzeuge
Ein X (Experimental) vor diesen Buchstaben bedeutet, daß es sich um eine Versuchsauführung handelt. Die Zahl hinter dem Bindestrich bezeichnet, um die wievielte Serie des betreffenden Musters es sich handelt, wobei die einzelnen Serien verschiedene Motorenmuster oder sonstige Änderungen aufweisen.
Zum Beispiel:
S U-4
S: Kategorie “Aufklärer”
U: Fa. Vought (Da keine Zahl voraussteht, bedeutet es das 1. Muster dieser Kategorie)
4: 4. Serie
S B 2 U-3
S B: Kategorie “Aufklärer-Stuka”
2: 2. Muster dieser Kategorie (der Fa. Vought)
U: Fa. Vought-Sikorsky
3: 3. Serie
X T B F -1
X: Versuchsmuster
T B: Kategorie Torpedobomber
F: Fa. Grumman (1. Muster der Kategorie)
1: 1. Serie
Teil III: Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Sowjet-Union
Achtung!
Wichtige Vorbemerkung!
Um die Feststellung von erbeuteten Flugzeugen zu erleichtern, sind die Muster auch mit den russischen Buchstaben bezeichnet, z. B. I-16 = И-16.
Bei den seit 1940 engeführten neuen Flugzeugmustern erfolgte ab 1941 eine Änderung der Bezeichnung: die Neubezeichnung führt nicht mehr die Kategorie der Flugzeuge an, sondern ist aus den Namen der Konstrukteure gebildet. Diese neuen militärischen Bezeichnungen werden in der vorliegenden Zusammenstellung in der ersten Überschriftzeile in der deutschen und der russischen Schreibweise angegeben, die bisherigen Bezeichnungen in Klammern darunter (nur in der deutschen Schreibweise). Bei den schon früher eingeführten Mustern ist die alte Bezeichnungsart beibehalten worden.
In diesem Teil werden nur die Kriegsflugzeuge gebracht, die in der Sowjet-Union selbst hergestellt werden.
Die Muster britischer und amerikanischer Lieferungen sind in Teil I (Britische Kriegsflugzeuge einschl. der USA.-Leiferungen) und Teil II (Die Kriegsflugzeuge der USA.) zu finden.
Zur Zeit (September 1942) sind folgende fremde Muster bei der Luftwaffe der Sowjet-Union festgestellt worden:
Jagdeinsitzer Hawker “Hurricane” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 7a, 7b, 8a-8c)
Jagdeinsitzer Bell “Airacobra” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 15a-15c)
Jagdeinsitzer Curtiss “Tomahawk” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 20a, 20c, 20d)
Kampfflugzeug Douglas “Boston II” und “Boston III” (s. Teil I, Anlagen 36a-36c)
Kampfflugzeug North American B-25 (s. Teil II, Anlagen 68a-68c)
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – Sowjet-Union - Anlage 82
Hoheitsabzeichen nach sowjetischer Vorschrift von 1941
Seitenansicht
Ansicht von oben
Ansicht von unten
Die Vorschrift wird nicht in allen Fällen genau durchgeführt. Es wurde festgestellt, daß der Sowjetstern auf dem Seitenruder gelegentlich fehlt oder daß die Flügeloberseite das Hoheitsabzeichen trägt.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – Sowjet-Union - Anlage 83a
Allgemeines
Die militärische Bezeichnung der älteren Muster erfolgt nach der Kategorie des betreffenden Musters mit einem oder zwei Buchstaben und einer darauffolgenden Zahl.
Es bedeutet hierbei:
I (Istrebitelj) = Jagdeinsitzer
DI (Dwuchmestnyi Istrebitelj) = Jagdzweisitzer
B (Bombardirowschtschik) = Bomber
SB (Skorostnoj Bombardirowschtschik) = Schneller Bomber
DB (Daljnyj Bombardirowschtschik) = Fern-Bomber
BB (Blishnij Bombardirowschtschik) = Nah-Bomber
TB (Tjashjolyj Bombardirowschtschik) = Schwerer Bomber
PB (Pikirujuschtschi Bombardirowschtschik) = Stuka
BSch (Bronirowany Schturmowik) = Gepanzertes Schlachtflugzeug
R (Raswedtschik) = Aufklärer
SchR (Schturmowik Raswedtschik) = Teifangriffsflugzeug – Aufklärer
U (Utschebnyj Samoljot) = Schulflugzeug
UT (Utschebnyj Trenirowatschnyj) = Schul-Übungsflugzeug.
In der darauffolgenden Zahlenbezeichnung ist kein System zu erkennen. Die Zahlen sind weder aufeinanderfolgend, noch nach Werk, Konstrukteur oder Motor durchgeführt. Weiterentwicklungen werden manchmal durch eine nachfolgende Zahl, z. B. I-15 ………. I-153, manchmal durch einen nachfolgenden Buchstanden, z. B. DB-3……………Db-3F, bezeichnet.
Bei den neu eingeführten Flugzeugmustern erfolgt die Bezeichnung seit 1941 nicht mehr nach der Kategorie des Musters, sondern nach den Namen der Konstrukteure (vgl. Vorbemerkung).
Die Werktypenbezeichnung erfolgt durch eine Nummer.
Neue Bezeichnung:
JAK-1
JAK-2, -4
JAK-7
MIG-1, -3
LAGG-3
AR-2
PE-2
ER-2
SU-2
IL-2
Ursprüngliche Bezeichnung:
I-26
BB-22
UTI-26 (I-26 als 2sitziges Übungsflugzeug)
I-200 (Werksbezeichnung I-61)
I-301
SB-RK
Bei den neuen Mustern wurde oft eine Verschiedenheit in der Konstruktion oder in der Bewaffnung vorgefunden, was darauf schließen läßt, daß die serienmäßige Entwicklung noch nicht abgeschlossen ist.
Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte – Sowjet-Union - Anlage 83b
Bei Meldungen über abgeschlossene oder zerstörte Flugzeuge ist künftig die neue Musterbezeichnung anzuführen!
Hinweise für den Flugmeldedienst:
Die Unterschiede zwischen einigen Flugzeugmustern sind derart gering, daß ihr einwandfreies Erkennen im Luftraum schwierig ist. Für den Flugmeldedienst werden daher zweckmäßig sich sehr ähnlich sehende Muster (die auch immer gleichen Verwendungszweck haben) unter nur einer Bezeichnung zusammengefaßt.
1. I-15bis und I-153 werden nur als I-153 angesprochen. I-153 ist nur eine Weiterentwickung des Musters I-15 und hat wesentlichstes Merkmal ein einziehbares Fahrwerk. Außerdem sind beim Muster I-153 der obere und untere Flügel geknickt.
2. Die drei neuen Jagdeinsitzermuster LAGG-3, MIG-1, -3 und JAK-1 (“Spitzmaus”-Muster) werden nur “Lagg” angesprochen.
Am Boden ist die Unterscheidung wegen der verschiedenen Bauweisen ohne weiteres möglich.
Das Muster LAGG-3 ist in Ganzholzbauweise ausgeführt,
Das Muster JAK-1 hat einen Holzflügel (durchlaufend) und einen Rumpf aus Stahlrohr geschweißt, mit Stoff bespannt,
Das Muster MIG-1, -3 hat die Außenflügel und den rückwärtigen Teil des Rumpfes ab Führersitz in Holzbau, den Rumpfvorderteil und das Flügelmittelstück in Metallbau.
Diese drei neuen Jagdeinsitzermuster haben flüssigkeitsgekühlte V-Motoren, die beiden älteren Muster haben luftgekühlte Sternmotoren.
3. Alle SB-Muster (SB-2, -3) und das Muster AR-2 (SB-RK) werden unter der Sammelbezeichnung “SB” angesprochen.
Hauptunterscheidung am Boden:
Alle drei Muster haben flüssigkeitsgekühlte V-Motoren, aber verschiedene Kühleranordnung: SB-2 Stirnkühler, SB-3 Bauchkühler, AR-2 (SB-RK) Flügelkühler.
SB-2 und SB-3 haben einen Bugstand mit Schwenklafette, wobei jedes MG. sich in einem Längsschlitz in der Bugnase bewegt, das Muster AR-2 hat einen geschlossenen Bugstand mit einem MG. in Kugellafette.
Das Muster AR-2 hat Sturzflugbremsen, ähnlich wie die Ju-88, die beiden SB-Muster haben keine Sturzflugbremsen.
4. Die beiden Muster DB-3 und DB-3 F werden unter der Bezeichnung “DB-3” zusammengefaßt (zum Unterschied vom Muster TB-3 = “TB-3” Ansprache zweckmäßig “Dora B-3” und “Toni B-3”).
Beide Muster haben luftgekühlte Sternmotoren und unterscheiden sich nur durch die Art der Bugkanzel. Das Muster DB-3 hat eine stumpfe Kanzel mit einem MG.-Drehturm im Bug, das Muster DB-3 F hat eine langgestreckte Kanzel mit einem MG. in Kugellafette.
Alle anderen Muster sind mit ihrer Bezeichnung anzusprechen. Ähnlich sind sich noch die Muster SU-2 und R-10 sowie die beiden Muster PE-2 und JAK-4. Ein sicheres Unterscheiden dieser Muster wird nur bei einigen Fluglagen möglich sein. Ein gutes Unterscheidungsmerkmal bei den Mustern SU-2 und R-10 is die Lage des Führersitzes, der beim Muster R-10 ganz vorn, unmittelbar hinter dem Motor angeordnet ist, während er beim Muster SU-2 weiter zurücklegt. Bei der Ansicht von unten weist das Muster R-10 eine gerade Flügelhinterkante (Keilflügel) auf, während das Muster SU-2 einen Doppeltrapezflügel hat. Als Unterscheidungsmerkmal am Boden dient auch das Motorenmuster: R-10 mit einfachen Sternmotor, SU-2 mit Doppelsternmotor.
Die Muster PE-2 und JAK-4 sind in der Luft schwer zu unterscheiden, am Boden aber infolge der verschiedenen Bauweisen leicht zu erkennen. Das Muster PE-2 ist in Ganzmetallbauweise ausgeführt, das Muster JAK-4 in Gemischt-, der Flügel in Holzbauweise.
Dublin Core
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Die Kriegsflugzeuge der Feindmächte
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IBCC Digital Archive
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1942-09
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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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223 printed sheets. The following pages are missing: 25b, 25d, 43, 61a, 73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81.
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deu
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Text. Service material
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MMolloyS[Ser#-DoB]-160212-01
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Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
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Pending review
Temporal Coverage
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1942
Description
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Contains photographs, silhouettes and drawings of British, American and Russian aircraft, showing dimensions, armament, armour plate or glass, and position of fuel tanks. Tables set out aircraft capabilities, including range and bomb loads.
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Peter Schulze
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Germany. Wehrmacht Luftwaffe
B-17
B-24
B-25
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Boston
Catalina
Defiant
fuelling
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Hampden
Hudson
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lysander
Manchester
Mosquito
P-38
P-40
P-51
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Swordfish
Ventura
Walrus
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/803/10783/PdiPlacitoLH1701.2.jpg
89587cbda0f20671b0c4ea1b85001701
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/803/10783/AdiPlacitoLH170209.1.mp3
bb9d0b5a910e57882406f39298fe61e0
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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di Placito, Lawrence Henry
L H di Placito
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Lawrence 'Lawrie' di Placito (1922, 1646268 Royal Air Force). He served in Air Sea Rescue.
collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-03-09
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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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diPlacito, LH
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewee is Dav, the interviewer is David Meanwell, the interviewee is Laurie Placito. The interview is taking place at Mr Placito’s home in Line in Surrey on the 9th February 2017. Okay, Laurie so if we could start with you, your parents, where you were born and where you grew up.
LP: Yes, I was born in Chertsey, Surrey 21st 1st 1922. [Ringing sounds] with six boys, three girls and two children already pre-deceased at the age of three and four. I was educated at the Stepgate school, council school, until the age of eleven, where I passed the scholarship for the grammar school, which was Stroves Grammar School, Egham. And from there I left Egham, Stroves in 1936. I took up employment at the post office as a sorting clerk and telegraphist, at the wages of twelve shillings and sixpence per week, of which one shilling and three pence was stopped for unemployment benefit. War came, before the war came in 1939, I joined the sixth battalion of the Surrey Territorial Regiment, with the headquarters in Chertsey, Drillhall Road, Chertsey, which consisted then of two or three times a week marching up and down the roads, drilling and such like. This brought us up to the summer of 1939, before the war had started. I was called in to the office to say that I wouldn’t being going to the summer camp with the rest of the lads, because of my Italian parentage, I therefore, I was sort of thrown out of the Territorial Army. Now this clashed with my position at the Post Office because I was, at the Post Office I signed the Official Secrets Acts; the Postmaster told me, he said they can’t really do that he said, but things what they were, so I just had to accept it. Now in, war started September the 3rd 1939. I saw all my old friends go off before into the summer camp. They had about three weeks summer camp training. At the end of the training war broke out and these lads were shipped out to various places, with the barest of minimum of training, not firing a rifle in, in, anger or shooting, just all theory really. I therefore then, I left the post office and I was employed at a boatyard, building naval vessels in, on the Thames in Chertsey, where I was friendly, very friendly with another young lad. Now we’d talked about this air sea rescue business what we’d heard about, so we both decided to join. We went to Acton town hall to join the RAF Air Sea Rescue. We were called into separate rooms, but before this I didn’t have much knowledge of sea going, but David, my friend, he knew all about the sea and the points of the compass and such like and he genned me up on questions. So eventually we were called into two separate rooms. I was questioned concerning my knowledge of the sea but I explained I didn’t know much but anyway at the end of the day, I was accepted. You know, David came out of his room said how did you get on? He said they won’t accept me he said, because I am a trainee boat builder and I was only a labourer really, so that put paid to that friendship [laugh]. Going back previously to this, to early ’39, I was only seventeen, I went to Surbiton town hall near Kingston, was a recruiting office and I applied to join the Royal Scots Greys Cavalry Regiment, because I was so full of horses. Now the recruiting sergeant told me, he said for one thing you’re too young, you’re not seventeen and a half, he and another reason he said, forget about the horses he said you’ll never see a horse on active service. Well that, this was all previous to me joining up at the town hall. So, I waited quite some time for my application to come through before I was called up, and from there I received me travel warrant, to travel to Cardington in Bedford. Now Cardington was a pre-war airship station, and the airship mast was still in place where the, all the different airships used to moor. At Cardington I was issued with kit, which consisted of uniform, boots, shirts, etc. It was a bit of a hit and miss affair because you lined up in front of a counter and a fellow looked at you and said I think you’re about a size and threw you a coat or jacket hoping it would fit. Anyway, that soon sorted out. We was only there a very short time to draw kit, from there I was posted to Great Yarmouth, RAF Great Yarmouth to do basic military training. Now this consisted of marching up and down the, the roads, rifle drill, shooting, bayonet, with the bayonet with the dummy, you had to charge at the dummy with the bayonet. Now what that meant for me being an air sea rescuer [chuckle] I never, would never know., This was a very, quite basic training, but it consisted of assault courses, as I say, rifle shooting, the Sten gun what had just come into operation, using the Sten gun. Sitting in an enclosed room without your gas mask, when a gas was turned on you had to find your way, to get your gas mask on before the gas got too much for you, which obviously you had somebody standing by. We were there for about two, Great Yarmouth, we were there Great Yarmouth for about two, two months, marching up and down the roads. One particular thing I always remember was our drill corporal was a Yorkshireman, a Corporal Harrison. And on every march you had to sing On Ilkley Moor Bar Tat, I knew every word of Ilkley Moor Bar Tat. Anyway that came to an end and we travelled well at once to go to Tayport, on the Scottish Coast. Now Tayport, well obviously it was a port, but it was also home to RAF Leuchars It was an Australian squadron at Leuchars, mostly Australian squadron, but we were there just doing menial work ‘cause it wasn’t a training station for air sea rescue it was just a pit stop, so my day was employed either helping in the hangars, or we had a very zealous CO with his garden. That garden had to be kept up, it was pristine, there was even stones had to be painted white, all round the garden. What’s more, he had a dog, and this dog was obviously come and dig up where you had to. This lasted for a few weeks and for the first two or three weeks I was stationed, rather I was in barracks with the Aussie squadron, And all day long every time someone would come in it would play – what’s that Australian song?
[Other]: Waltzing Matilda.
LP: Yes, Waltzing Matilda, that would be on all day every day, Waltzing Matilda. Well eventually I came out of that, back into the English section of the RAF and from there, oh I had this thing of joining to be a flight, a flying airman, so I went into the office where you remuster, that’s where you changed your trade. Now I spoke to the recruiting I suppose he was an officer, I’m sure. I explained what I wanted to do. He said ‘Whatever for?’ Well I said I think I was just getting a bit fed up of waiting around for this air sea rescue. So I applied to be a wireless operator air gunner. His reply was ‘I’ll give you a bit of advice boy’, he said ‘Only birds and fools fly.’ Now I thought that wasn’t a very nice thing, because he’s sitting in an office all day long, with those poor fliers night after night out flying, doing a terrible job. Well, anyway, within the space of another couple of weeks I was posted and I didn’t hear any more of that application. So from Great Yarmouth I went up to Tayport, that’s how I got to Tayport. As I say I was at Tayport for a bit, killing time actually. And then we got posted to RAF Corsewall, Corsewall Point, that’s on the other side of Scotland. That’s at the head of Loch Ryan at the head which led down to Stranraer, the waters at Stranraer. Now here we commenced our training, our air sea rescue training proper. It was a very, very, what shall I say very complex because it covered so many subjects., We had to study for instance buoys, buoys how they was attached to lines underwater to a mooring called a mooring trot, how to scull a boat, a small rowing boat with one oar, navigation, morse code and semaphore flags. The morse code was, was [chuckle] was a bit of a laughable situation because you’d be paired off and you had to send, one would be sending, one would be receiving morse code course there was many rude messages sent from one airman to another! Also aircraft recognition you would be thrown cards and you, you had to say straight away, English bomber, English fighter, German bomber, German fighter such like, and also from school work you were given a books and pens and you had to write notes and notes down of rules of the sea, the meaning of flags and such like. And then there was the practical training where we were taken down to the waters edge to the port and it would be put on different vessels and you would practice how to work a boat. These were called sea plane tenders, there was a, an old hulk moored, moored out at sea and you had to come alongside. The coxswain would shout out ‘come along port side to or starboard side to,’ and you had to turn your boat round to starboard of course there was lots of times there was lots of crashes [chuckle] ‘cause not many boys were able to control boats like that. As I say it was very thorough, thorough training. It, although it was an uncomfortable billet. The billets were nissen huts scattered about in the woods. And for the washing facilities were very basic, you had wash tubs, but for the toilets consisted of, of a row each side just with sacking in between each person so you could have a conversation with the follow sitting opposite on the other side of you, and I’m saying when I said it was basic, it was basic. At the end of the, at the end of the, at the end of the huts, nissen huts there was a big container of a blue liquid. [Turns away] What’s that liquid, erm,
[Other]: I can’t remember.
LP: Perm, permanganate of potash,
[Other]: Yes.
LP: Every man had to gargle with it, permanganate, and if you didn’t and you went sick with a sore throat you were in trouble, you were on charge, as I say it was very basic the conditions. The nissen huts were equipped with a paraffin stove in the middle of the hut. Now you were issued with a ration of paraffin and that had to last you so much, so many days, or day or whatever it was. If you used it up that was your fault, but you’ve got to remember we’d be out at sea, or on the boats rather, you’d be wet and cold, so that paraffin did always last. Now another situation was you had to do guard duties, now the guard duties consisted of dotted around this camp, in the woods, sentry huts, well, just stands really, just a metal stand, you would do I think it was either two hours on or four hours off, or vice versa. This was after you’d done your days’ work at the training. Now, one of, one of the duties of the guard, night guard, was called a rover patrol, he would as the word say, he would wander round the camp just looking at different places keeping an eye. I’d have an old Lee Enfield rifle, First World War issue, with five rounds of ammunition. Now if you come across a German I don’t know what would happen [chuckle]. One amusing, well I don’t think it was amusing really, on my amble round the roving patrol I came across a big bowser, a big tanker, which I thought contained paraffin, I thought well this is lovely [laugh]. Now, I searched around to find a container, luckily I found this container, put it under the bowser, turned the bowser on but instead of paraffin it was all effluent, effluent that came out [laugh]. So I was in a bit of a state, the rest of the, that was cleaning me uniform. Food, I suppose for RAF food wasn’t bad you just had to line up and you were served by a WAAF, RA WAAF girls. But you held out, you had a mess tin, knife, fork and spoon and tin mug. You’d hold your mess tin in front of the WAAF and she would dish whatever was up – plonk. Well, the food wasn’t all that great, but another incident, rather amusing. The officer would come round. A shout would go up ‘Orderly Officer, any complaints?’ But the Orderly Officer would come round accompanied by an NCO, ‘Anybody any complaints?’ Well, one brave soul shouted out ‘Yes sir, I’ve got a caterpillar on my plate.’ The officer walked over, this is true, he walked over to the boy, he said ‘There sir, it’s a caterpillar.’ ‘Hmmm,’ he said, ‘just push it off’ he said, ‘with your spoon.’ ‘Well, I wasn’t going to eat it sir.’ So that was another happy episode. Previous to this I forgot to mention, when I was at Great Yarmouth there was one particular airman, late in the afternoon he would go up to the NCO in charge, say a few words to him and off he would go, well we had to continue till the end of the day. So I said to this boy, after a couple of visits I saw him. I said what do you say? What gets you to come home so early? ‘Well, I’m in the boxing club.’ So I was always interested in boxing as a youngster so I said ‘Can I join?’ he said we’d be only too glad to have you. So I joined the boxing club there which was an asset really, I boxed and a couple of times at Great Yarmouth amongst the RAF. Well also, now also, back up to Tayport, not Tayport Corsewall Point, Corsewall, there was a boxing section there. And the fellow in charge was a guy who was an athlete, a pre-war was a runner, he wasn’t a boxer, a runner oh can’t remember his name. We used to have running, training before going on duty so I joined the boxing club there. Now, I did very well there really, because I’m not praising myself, but every Sunday we had what’s called a uniform parade. We had two uniforms, there was the best blue. Now on this best blue parade, everybody was lined up on a Sunday morning had a full inspection, the flag would be hoisted, the CO of the whole section would come round and inspect each man, so he gets to me, the Orderly Officer who was with him taps me on the shoulder and says you stay there you and I thought ‘Now what’ve I done?’. And so when the parade was dismissed and everyone went, the CO and officers came up and congratulated me ‘cause I’d boxed the night before apparently and I won my two bouts. I always remember one because it was an officer and I anyway that was the end of that but also stationed there was, I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of him, a Steve Donahue, now he was a champion jockey of England, Steve Donahue, like our Lester Piggott today. Well his son was Pat Donahue, now Pat Donahue was an officer, first of all he was just a NCO but the second time I visited he was an officer and he was a very good boxer. Pat, Pat Donahue, a very good boxer and I was very friendly with Pat although it didn’t do him any favours but was just the fact that we became good friends what with him being an officer and me being NCO, just a private. What more can I say about that? Oh, another amusing incident, on a Sunday as I say, you had the day off. They used to run the transport buses into Stranraer, which was quite a bus ride away and there were no such thing as seats and you was just clinging on, hanging on as best you could. I was hanging on at the back of the bus, and the fellow next to me, he said ‘Where do you come from?’ I said ‘Oh, you probably wouldn’t know, a place called Chertsey, in Surrey,’ and he laughed, he said he lived at Everstone. Now he turned out, he was Worts w-o-r-t-s funeral directors and Harry Wort was a funeral director, well there again there was another strange quirk because when we finally moved from Corsewall Point to various stations Harry moved off and I didn’t see Harry again till he arrived a year later when he turned up at Newhaven, he’d spent what they called the white man’s grave, the Gold Coast in Africa. Well, I don’t know quite how long we were at Corsewall Point because, it was a very long, as I say, it was, covered a lot of work, classroom work, practical work, seamanship and such like but eventually I passed out from the giddy heights of AC2 to aircraftsman first class with a rise in pay. [Laugh] I’ve got my figures actually what rise in pay. Shall I get those figures now? Well, my rise in pay, my pay in 1942 that was three shillings per day. And out of that three shillings, I made an allotment to my mother of one shilling and sixpence per day, so that was ten shillings and sixpence per week. And this was for twenty four hours a day service. [chuckle] But then in March 43 I was a AC1, I was getting four and ninepence per day and I was still one shilling and sixpence to my mother. August the 1st 1943 I was receiving five shillings and threepence and still making the allowance of one and sixpence to me mother and I think it was not until 44 that I was getting six shillings per day [papers shuffling]. But I had, had a very good family. My sister used to regularly send me money, so really I wasn’t too bad. I did not smoke, when I say I used to drink, it was, you couldn’t afford to drink a lot anyway. Now [pause, shuffling of papers] Can I go back to my days at Great Yarmouth?
DM: Oh yes, yes.
[Other]: [ Cough]
LP: Yes, during my days at Great Yarmouth, the raw recruit, you obviously jumped to any order that you were given. Now, the second day I was there, the corporal in charge tapped me on the shoulder ‘Haircut Hughes!’’ I said, ‘Corporal,’ I said, ‘I had a haircut yesterday.’ He said ‘You’ll have another one today.’ So everybody tapped on the shoulder had to have a haircut. Now after you had your hair cut, you had to give the barber a sixpence, so he must have done very well out of – him and cohorts. And also at Yarmouth I think it must have been a big college because it was a big open room with showers, no shower enclosures, just open showers. You had to have a shower today – another sixpence. So that was quite a lump out of my, those must have made good living the barber and the shower man. And also I must, [shuffle of papers] injection time. Now it would be a column of men you had to bare one shirt sleeve, go past a so called medical orderly for an injection. There was no just holding your arm, just walk by one big stab. No change the needle. Next one up, another big stab. And I see grown men what I don’t know if it was fright or nerves just collapse on the ground.
DM: Can you remember when you started actually active service? When you’d finished your training. 43 or 42
LP: It was the beginning of 43. January 43, yeah. Now, I’ll come to that now. I was posted from Coreswell Point, Scotland to Gosport, Portsmouth. I was only there a very short time and this consisted of we were based on Stokes Bay, part of Portsmouth Waters, Southampton Waters, it was a testing ground for torpedoes. At the end of a long runway, a seaway, was an old hulk, bored, the aircraft would come down, drop the torpedo obviously aiming for the hull. And our job was to patrol up and down retrieve the torpedoes and so forth. Well that lasted only could have only been there only a few weeks. From there I got a posting to Newhaven. Now Newhaven was a very busy station. And it was there that the actual air sea rescue began. I was, I was told to find a billet in the town, Newhaven town, because the actual nissen huts were full and the, a certain number of airmen were billeted with families in houses. Well I was stationed with billeted with a Mrs Cook, her husband was away on war work, she had two children and an old grandmother, but she did look after me. She used to obviously get a ration allowance for food. As I say, from there I was taken straight on to high speed launch 190. Now it took quite a bit of get used to because you were mucking in with old hands really and I was a newcomer, but I got quite capable. My first job was a gunner. The gunner at this time there was a stand outside each a stand either side of the wheelhouse with a Vickers drum fed machine gun. Now my job was to hang on to that machine gun. Don’t forget the boat is not just cruising up and down its moving. But, as I say it was, it was a drum-fed machine gun but these didn’t last very long as it wasn’t so long after the guns were taken off of that and then we had a for’ard gun, revolving turret with twin browning machine guns, that was my next job I was a Browning machine gunner front turret. The turrets, the armament on the boat as I say they disbanded these two shields machine guns. There was a front turret, a rear turret, and then they decided to put a twenty millimetre Oerliken canon right at the stern of the boat. Well that did slow us down a little bit, the cannon. For there I was the gunner, that was my job, I had to be in the gun turret, and it was only after that I took my second class coxwain’s course, I was called in one day, the CO said I think you should take a coxwain’s course. From there I had been at Newhaven, I don’t know, five six months, I was sent up to back up to Corsewell Point for another bout of training as a coxswain. Well I passed that out, that meant a, that meant a rise in pay and also a jump in rank from leading aircraftsman to corporal. By this time I was quite, what shall I say, well quite at home on the boat: I knew what to do and what not to do. And my job was to be in the wheelhouse. There was a first class coxswain, the skipper and the second class coxswain in the wheelhouse. And you took it in turns to coxswain the boat.
DM: How many of you were there on the boat?
LP: Well on the boat, the boat consisted of the skipper, obviously an officer, a flight sergeant first class coxswain, a second class coxswain, a wireless operator, a medical orderly, two engineers, and two more gunners. Roughly, sometimes you’d have eight of you, sometimes there’d be ten of you. Now, the day consisted of hours and hours of searching, we had, the first boat that was always called the first boat, on first degree, that was usually, the rendezvous thirty miles south of Beachy Head, that was the usual one for the first boat, you’d be on station if you were the first boat you’d be on station, at six o’clock you’d be on station if not near that you’d be on your rendezvous. Now when you were on your rendezvous, patrol up and down just waiting orders really, it could be a long, long long day. But suddenly you’d get a crash call now this was taken by the wireless operator and ours was a very good one named Norman and a good wireless operator too. If he didn’t have his helmet on, Norman he would have it by his side. Now he could pick up our particular call we were a seagull, seagull something, I forget my number but we were seagull something. As soon as Norman heard that, he’d get the signal and that came from the Navy. Now although we were RAF Coastal Command, we were directly under the command of the Navy when it come to positioning. So you would take the course of that call and go up and down, up and down and what you would do call a square search, you would do a certain distance, a mile, one way, turn starboard right then back again so you were doing a search square all the way to where it had been reported – a crash. And you would report search and search and whatever you did your search. Now sometimes you’d be there all day log and do nothing but another time you’d be flying here there and everywhere. On one particular, one particular search, I’ve got it written down here somewhere, we had a crash call I was a gunner at the time and I was still in the front turret. This was in my early days. We were patrolling along and suddenly this spitfire came overhead. I didn’t know it was a spitfire at the time, fired his machine guns in front of us. At first thought I thought it would be a German, he turned round, turned round again and then I could see it was a spitfire, and he took us right up to this pilot sitting in his dinghy, which was a good save, we saved him. Now on that journey, the turret and I’m not exaggerating or making it up, a mine floated past and I could have stretched out and touched it. But there’s nothing I could do about it. It wasn’t the first mine I’d see, they was quite frequent. Quite often you would see a mine broken free of its moorings floating. Now we used to have to report the Navy and the navy would send out a vessel and destroy it. But that was very handy when they would explode the mine you’d get buckets and buckets of dead fish, or stunned fish and it was just a case of scooping the fish up. Although when I was in a private billet I used to have, the landlady used to supply my rations, but the rest of the crew, or those who weren’t in private, they would draw rations for the day and we would have what they call a galley which consisted of a methylated spirit stove and you would do your cooking, but the fact that I wasn’t part of it didn’t make any difference really, you was just part of mucked in together. Clothing, clothing we were well-equipped. We had duffle coats which no other RAF had, proper rain coats, rain macs, we had sea boots, jack boots, just slippers for ordinary time on the boat when you were in harbour and also our CO he was Squadron Leader John D. Syme, a very, what shall I say, a man’s man. His main concern was the welfare of the boats crews. Now all of the boats crew and the probably the base crews as well, we had sheets to sleep in, not just a blanket because the ordinary issue was blankets, two blankets, but John D. always made sure we had sheets, clean sheets. On board, when you slept on board if you were on duty at night, then you would sleep in a sleeping bag, and you had fold down bunks.
DM: Would you be at sea?
LP: I’m sorry?
DM: Would you be at sea when you were sleeping?
LP: Yes. You would, there was no regulation you would be at sea eight hours, ten hours and then come home. It didn’t work like that. You went out until you were called. You just couldn’t say well it’s time to come home, you just did as you were called. As I say, I’ve got a record of it here where you’d be out. You’d do a crash call and that would take a day and then you’d still have to go out. So the hours was long. Also, another thing, it was, it was the only base in the whole of the RAF Air Sea Rescue that received a rum ration, going back to the old days. Once you’d been at sea so many hours, you were entitled to the skipper’s, to the skipper’s, to the skipper’s thoughts it was time for a rum and everybody had a rum ration. And if you stayed out longer and longer you still had another rum ration. But that was entirely up to the skipper.
DM: Did you ever get attacked? Did you ever get attacked?
LP: No. We were always told you must never open fire on anything unless you were attacked first. We lost a couple of boats on the, what they call it, the early landing, where it was a failure?
DM: What was that Dieppe?
LP: Dieppe, yes. We did lose a couple of boats, I wasn’t at Newhaven at the time, but we did lose a couple of boats there. Two or three got killed. When DD come here around we had armour plating put on top of the wheelhouse. And on the part of the fore deck was armour plated and you had a big five white star painted on the fore deck for aircraft recognition as an allied sign. Now I’ve got somewhere I picked up Germans, shall I tell you about?
DM: Yes, that would be very interesting.
LP: Right.
[Other]: Doc here ten past one in the morning.
LP: Yeah, ten past one in the morning, crash call to position 360 degrees Hove two and a half miles, search the area till hours when message received to return to harbour. After seen in dinghy airmen picked up German wireless operator from a JU88. We searched the area for the remainder without result. Returned to Newhaven, and prisoner handed over to Naval authorities at 0705 hours.
[Other]: No further incident 1400 hours.
LP: Then 1400 hours we searched till quarter to five, 1745 hours. Now going back to that German,
DM: Yes.
LP: Now going back to that German. This was early hours of the morning and we picked him up with a searchlight. Previous to that there’d been an air raid over Newhaven, the district. The funny part of it was. We kind of felt it was we picked, he’s sitting in the dinghy, he’s got a very pistol in his hand. We said ‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’ friend, no answer, he didn’t answer. And it took several minutes to realise he wasn’t British or Allies, he was a German. Part about it was on this particular journey the engineer was a Belgian. His name was Albert, They called him Albert. Now Albert wasn’t a regular on the boat, it was a one-off. Now Albert, was forced to leave Belgium in the German invasion. Albert hated [musical sound]
DM: Yes.
LP: Albert hated Germans he realised it was a German he was for throwing him back in! Well, it took a bit of persuading, but another interesting thing was, I kept his very pistol, the Nazi very pistol and had a whistle attached, and part of his parachute we divided up, silk parachute. I had quite a nice piece of silk parachute which I gave my sister for her baby girl at the time wasn’t it. It made her christening gown. I think the skipper had his boots, I think the skipper had his boots. Anyway we took him back to harbour. Oh, we clothed him, we had dry clothing, gave him dry clothing, we took him back to harbour and then it was quite a way from the water’s level to the harbour wall – which was up a steep. Somebody had the bright idea of blindfolding him. Well he put the blindfold on and he was absolutely shivering. He thought we were going to shoot him. Anyway we got him up on board and got him to naval and it was a couple of weeks later that a complaint came through that somebody had taken his fur lined sea boots, flying boots and I kept that very pistol and the whistle for not, four, five, years back.
[Other]: Four, five years.
LP: Years, then I gave it to somewhere in Newhaven.
[Other]: Museum.
LP: Newhaven.
[Other]: Museum.
LP: Yes, museum at Newhaven. Anyway to pick somebody up early hours of the morning just with a searchlight, he was lucky, wasn’t he?
DM: He was.
LP: Another. Which one’s this one?
[Other]: The Walrus, where you rescued the men from the Walrus.
LP: Not the one off the French coast was it?
[Other]: Don’t think so, no.
LP: This is another. This made the headlines in the paper this rescue. [shuffling of paper] That’s the original but,
DM: That one: ‘Six RAF men saved in the battle of the Seine’?
[Other]: That one.
DM: Six men saved from the wreck of a Wellington bomber, so that was you, you rescued those men?
LP: Well, it’s strange really, I won’t go into all the details of how we got there.
DM: Well you can do.
LP: Can I?
DM: Yeah.
LP: Well, shall I read off that?
[Other]: Hmmm
LP: If I read it off that, I can’t read it. [Pause] There’s a lot to read isn’t it.
[Other] You dropped the lifeboat.
DM: Which bit are we talking about? So they obviously came down over the other side of the Channel, the French side of the channel.
LP: The mouth of the Seine.
DM: Right. So why were you, were you sent there or were you already there?
LP: No, no we were on patrol in the channel when we got a call, so we had to break off from where we were to go there. Now, two RAF launches took place.
DM: When was this, do you know? Oh yes, July 17th 1943.
LP: Yes. Two launches were sent there. Now I was on 190 and after you see all the air, fighting going on we found that airmen, six airmen, were in an airborne lifeboat, it was one of the first that had ever been dropped. They climbed out of their dinghy into this airborne lifeboat. Now I think the other boat was 177, 190 177. 190, we reached the crew first. Now our coxswain, the first class coxswain, Bert Underwood, a very good coxswain, in his anxiety, he came along a little bit too fast for the crew. We threw ‘em a heaving line, we were going a little bit fast for them to hold onto the line, consequently we passed. 177 behind us, they picked the crew up. Strange part was, they picked the crew up, turned round and gone straight back to Newhaven. Now we were left out there, off the French coast [laugh] with this lifeboat. First of all, orders came ‘Sink the lifeboat, return to base’. So on board we had a tool chest consisting of axe and various tools these were passed along. At the last moment a message came up again, ‘Return to Newhaven with lifeboat.’ So that meant towing, so consequently, we had to put the tow line on the lifeboat and tow it back to Newhaven which took ages, ages. I don’t know what time we got back, I never know what time we got back, but that was a good rescue that.
DM: Did you rescue any other bomber crews during?
LP: Yes, yes. That another one? Routine patrol in the channel, a fine day, round about mid-day skipper said it’s about time we had something to eat, so we were preparing something to eat, when looking up at the sky, we saw a US American fighter bomber a P38 I think it was, a twin-fuselage. That disappeared and then we saw a parachute gently floating out. We followed him, where the parachute was going to land, and it turned out that when he had pulled his cockpit cover he’d dislocated his arm. He was floating in the water, unable to save himself. We were alongside in minutes. One or two of the crew jumped overboard, held him up while we got alongside him, and picked him up and took him back to base. I’ve got a letter from his CO, this letter is dated 29th of March 1944. Dear Sir, The excellent work of the members in your command when they rescued First Lieutenant T.G. Giles, United States Army, from the waters of the English Channel on the 16th March 1944 cannot be allowed to pass without an expression of appreciation. It is my very great pleasure to send you this letter of commendation for bringing about an operation with such happy and favourable results in the case of an officer of my command. Lt. Giles was forced to bail out of his plane while returning from an operational mission over occupied enemy territory. In so doing he sustained severe injuries. His condition was such that he was practically helpless when he reached the water. He was not able to find his dinghy and he would not have been able to get into it if he had and he was not even able to inflate his Mae West. It is fortunate indeed that launch 190 commanded by Craig as was brought alongside without delay. This pilot could not have survived any length of time in the sea on his own. The prompt and sure action of the ASR personnel in this instance merits the highest praise. The courageous action of the men who when over the side to render assistance is most noteworthy. I am fully aware that this rescue is not an isolated incident, but one of a number of superb accomplishments on your parts that have saved many ditched airmen, both British and American, under catastrophic circumstances, but one cannot disregard that if it were not for the immediate aid given so skilfully and successfully, and I am sure that Lieutenant Charles would not be alive today. The sentiment of the whole of this organisation when I express that thanks of a job well down. The crew of the HS190 was the Skipper, Flying Officer Craig, Flight Sergeant, first coxswain, Sergeant Placito, second coxswain, leading aircraftsman Fiddler fitter, LAC Hayes Leading aircraftsman Leading Aircraftsman Hyde crew. That was a good rescue that one.
[Other]: It was.
LP: There’s so many more [chuckle].
[Other]: Still there’s a sad one.
LP: How about or bore you too much, if you left me that, well there’s not much attached to that one, not so far off the French coast there were German floating stations which consisted of a bed, provisions for downed airmen. And on a couple of occasions we came across these stations but fortunately or unfortunately there were no airmen alive in it. We just inspected them, took note of what was there and left.
DM: Do you have any stories around D-Day? What happened on D-Day with your group?
LP: Well on D-Day it was quiet actually, our D-Day was very quiet. Our boats weren’t considered deep sea going; they were built for speed. Pictures of them where they came out. I’ve got no big thing about D-Day. We went out early, picked up odd, odd bits of floating material rafts and such like but no actual rescues. D-Day was a quiet day considering the other days you would be there all day and all night.
DM: You were talking earlier about a rescue involving a walrus.
LP: Yes,
DM: Okay so this is where you picked up a civilian body.
LP: 0710 routine patrol over Beachy Head. Crash call to position search direct by Beachy Head Beachy Head Station, that would be the station at Beachy Head.
DM: Coastguard, or maybe coastguard?
LP: Coastguard, that’s the word. We carried out in company with a Walrus and sir sea rescue aircraft at 1445 received another call to position. On position at 15:15 hours quantity of wreckage found at 1600 hours we sighted a body of a civilian
[Other]: Civilian.
LP: Position 5 degrees off Newhaven seven miles delivered body to police. Returned to patrol until 2115 hours. [shuffle papers] Yes, we picked that poor boy up, that civilian bather. What wasn’t nice, the skipper wasn’t pleased to take him on board, no he thought about either sinking the body or, but he was told, yes, that was sad that.
DM: Take you on now to the end of the war. What happened when hostilities ceased?
LP: Yes, just let me et me thoughts. Yeah, I finished the war off as a transport driver actually.
DM: How did that happen?
LP: The Japanese war finished in
[Other]: August.
LP: August. Okay then yeah. When peace, okay then, when peace was signed with Germany in May, it meant that there was no longer essential for so many routine patrols to take place owing to the fact that it was just friendly aircraft. When peace was signed completely with Japanese surrender, the station the RAF station I don’t know what to try and say.
DM: You were still at Newhaven?
LP: Yes, still at Newhaven. I know what, the end of the German surrender the Japanese war was still in. It was decided to send boat to the Far East. The boats that were chosen to go were copper plated hull that is the hill was plated with copper plate to stop borings from sea insects. 190 although I wasn’t aboard at this time, 190 got as far as Gibraltar when it was halted and that the operation to go to the Far East was aborted, was no longer necessary, The reason I was no longer on board at this time I failed a medical exam and you had to be A1 to be a boats crew. So I was taken off HSL 190 and given a shore job. I was lucky enough to be made a transport driver. We had a Bedford vehicle used to run messages to Thorley Island and into Brighton. This was a very good job because it was so easy going. The reason I got the job was an old friend of mine who was on 190 was a transport driver his job was to drive the warrant officer his name was Stevens a nice gentlemanly man, Steves, Stevenson, he was to take him where he wanted to do to go. Bill Stoneman used to frighten the life out of him wherever he drove. He wasn’t a driver he relied on somebody else to drive or whether Bill did di deliberately or not I don’t know but he fell out of favour with the WO I was called into the office by a friend of mine, Don Stovey, who was a clerk and said that Warrant Officer Stevenson wanted a new driver, a different driver would I take the job. Of course I jumped at it. So from there on I was the station driver. The strange part about it was, I was the only one knew where the vehicle was kept. It was kept in a side street in Newhaven in the town. So consequently we used it on many occasions at night for our trips into Brighton, [chuckle] but I think this soon came to an end when I think it was spotted by another, a Marines, not a Marines, a motorcraft, I beg your pardon a motorised section of the RAF in Newhaven at the time and I think it was one of their vehicles that was mistaken for us and anyway from then on the vehicle had to be kept outside the officers mess on the harbour. Yeah.
DM: So you finished your time in the RAF as a driver.
LP: I finished sa a driver, yeah.
DM: Can you remember when you were demobbed?
LP: I’m sorry?
DM: Can you remember when you were demobbed?
LP: I got demobbed in 1946 I don’t know, middle of 46, something like that, I was demobbed, yeah.
DM: Did you go back to the post office or
LP: No I didn’t I no, I didn’t I just worked for me brother-in-law driving and one thing an another. But it was such a funny thing feeling you know being under orders twenty four hours a day. I forgot to say, that when it got near D-day time, all the civilian billets were closed and where we used to have single beds in the, in the nissen huts they were all double bunked so, to get all, so all the boys were on call. Yeah, it was a good job driving because quite often they, the officer would go into Brighton to pick up papers and also the rations were picked up in Brighton at the, one of the big hotels I think it was the Metropole or the Grand Hotel which was run by RAF, yes, it was the Australians had taken over. Which was the hotel that was bombed? Was that the Metropole?
DM: That was the Metropole.
LP: Was it? Yeah.
[Other]: I think it was.
LP: Yeah, I think it was the Metropole yeah, well the Australians were living there they had taken it over, and that was also then, I used to have to go in for a clothing exchange because what usually happened, well it always happened, if you had something worn, your clothing were worn and you thought need a change we had a storeman at Newhaven, Tiny Wellman, he was a big fella, they called him Tiny Wellman, he was the storeman, and it was up to him if you wanted a new pullover or a new shirt or whatever, it was up to him whether you got it or not. Which was, you know he either liked you or didn’t like you. But after that, all the clothes were kept at Brighton and it was my job, I could take clothing in and exchange it, so consequently I did a good, had a good job changing clothes for the boys that wanted, you know new shoes, whatsoever. But you used to get up to all sorts of tricks to earn a shilling, because one particular, in the Metropole, the Australians had taken over, and there was one room with dozens of pairs of shoes, they would throw the shoes in, me and a friend of mine I used to take with me, we would sort out shoes, take ‘em in to the clothing exchange, get a new pair of shoes for pair of old ones. The things you did. [Chuckle] I tell you one other happy episode too. When the war ended, horse racing started, and Brighton was, I think it was the first race course in the south of England to open. Now, there was no signalling affairs, there was no way when the horses. I don’t know if you understand horse racing but when they go down to the start, there was no way that they knew where the horses were at the start or when the start, starting gate opened or not. So they came to Newhaven to look for a signaller or signallers. One of my best friends was a signaller so he said you come, he said you can do the transport, so I used to take the transport, it lasted for about three or four days. We would take two men down to the start of the racecourse, and two men at the finish with Aldis lamps because there was no speakers as such, and they would signal when the horses were ready to go off, to start, they would signal to us they’re off and then obviously we knew if they’d won or lost so we had a good few days, three or four days with that. But going back to that American we saved he piled cigarettes, whatever, in a day or two the CO sent down. I didn’t smoke, it didn’t matter to me, but one of the do-gooders there tried to put the block on it, to say you know you didn’t do it for, for cigarettes. Obviously we didn’t do it for that but that was his kindness to do it wasn’t it. I would have liked to have met that American some time.
DM: Yeah, I suppose all the people you rescued you don’t really know what became of them after they walked off your boat, that was it, they were gone.
LP: Yeah. We used to have something about the size of that polished wood and every rescue you’d put on you’d put a roundel on, you know, RAF roundel, you’d stick one of those on and we had that on the.
DM: Did you used to put a swastika on when you rescued a German? [Laugh]
LP: No, we didn’t put a swastika on, no. We had two Germans, two particular Germans. One German, I had only been there a short time. He was in the water or in a dinghy. We picked him up and he had the sense enough when he’d baled out he’d wrenched his leg and his leg I don’t know, was half off or half on the sense enough to have tourniquets round his thighs. We saved him. There you are, years and years ago.
DM: Yes, thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Lawrence Henry di Placito. One
Creator
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David Meanwell
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-02-09
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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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AdiPlacitoLH170209, PdiPlacitoLH1701
Format
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01:27:39 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
British Army
Royal Navy
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Description
An account of the resource
Lawrence di Placito served as a second-class coxswain on the RAF Air Sea Rescue launches during the Second World War. He was born in Chertsey and attended Egham grammar school where he was a member of the cadet force. Upon leaving school in 1936 he was employed with the Post Office as a clerk/telephonist. Early in 1939 he joined the 6th Battalion East Surrey (Territorial Army). Lawrence went through military training, but he was told he would not be allowed to remain in the unit because of his Italian parents.
At the outbreak of war, he left the Post Office and was employed building naval vessels at a boat yard on the Thames in Chertsey. It was here that he first heard about RAF Air Sea Rescue, which he successfully enrolled into. Following training at various establishments he was posted to Newhaven on High Speed Launch 190 as a gunner.
Lawrence describes rescue operations: a Spitfire leading them to an airman in a dinghy; a Wellington aircrew rescued close to Le Havre on 17 July 1943; a German wireless operator who baled out from a downed Ju 88 and his parachute being divided amongst the crew, and finally rescuing the United States serviceman T G Giles who baled out of a P-38.
Occasionally they would come across mines that had broken free. These would be guarded until the Navy arrived and detonated them. This would result in the surface being covered in stunned fish which the crew would be able to scoop up.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Chertsey
England--Great Yarmouth
England--Newhaven
England--Bedfordshire
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France
France--Le Havre
England--Norfolk
England--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
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1943-07-17
1944-03-16
Contributor
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Ian Whapplington
Anne-Marie Watson
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
air sea rescue
animal
bale out
ground personnel
Ju 88
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
P-38
RAF Cardington
RAF Great Yarmouth
shot down
Spitfire
sport
Walrus
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/11929/[1]DAVID AND THE RAF2 [2].pdf
35b5401702ea96880cafe22e9866fad0
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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Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy 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
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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DAVID AND THE RAF
My brother David’s very distinguished wartime career with the RAF - two DSOs and a DFC, and promotion to Wing Commander at 28 - warrants a separate appendix to these family notes. He has kindly helped me to compile it by giving me the run of his log books, and I have supplemented them from a number of other sources.
He became interested in flying in the early 1930s. I recall him taking his small brother of 9 or 10 to an air show at Eastleigh and abandoning him while he went up as passenger in a Tiger Moth doing aerobatics. That may well have given him the incentive to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1934 as a weekend pilot. He did much of his training at Hamble, on the Solent. When war broke out in September 1939 he was called up immediately and had to abandon his legal training. He spent the “phoney war” towing target drogues at a bombing and gunnery school at Evanton in Scotland. His log books show him rated as an “average” pilot.
At the end of April 1940, just before the Germans attacked in the West, he went to Brize Norton for intermediate training (earning an “above-average” rating) and then to Harwell for operational training on Wellingtons, the main twin-engined heavy bomber of the early war years. On 20th September, just as the Battle of Britain was ending, he was posted to his first operational squadron, No 149, part of No 3 Group, at the big pre-war air station at Mildenhall. His first operational sortie was over Calais towards the end of September, no doubt to attack the invasion barges.
Over the following five months he took part in some 31 night raids. The German defence at this time was relatively feeble by comparison with what was to follow, and so the tour was correspondingly tolerable; however bitter experience had shown that day bombing was much too costly, and the night bombing techniques were very inaccurate. His first raid on Berlin, at the end of October, was particularly eventful; they got hopelessly lost on their return, came in over Bristol, and ended up over Clacton as dawn was breaking with very little fuel left. There both the Army and the Navy opened up on them, and even the Home Guard succeeded in putting a bullet through the wing. They eventually made a forced crash landing at St Osyth. The Home Guard commander, a retired general, entertained him generously and he finally got back to Mildenhall where his Group Captain forgave him for the damaged aircraft and advised him to go out and get drunk. He took the advice, and in the pub he met a WAAF whom he married eight months later (maybe that is why he remembers that particular day so well.)
The gauntlet of Friendly Fire seems to have been a not uncommon hazard to be faced. On another occasion, when he had to make three circuits returning to Mildenhall, the airfield machine gunners opened fire on him from ground level; he thought they were higher up and judged his height accordingly, and narrowly missed the radio masts which were not, as he thought, below him.
The longest raids on this tour were trips of over ten hours to Italy: to Venice, which they overflew at low level, and to the Fiat works at Turin. He described the latter raid, and the spectacular views of the Alps it afforded, in a BBC broadcast in December 1940. The commonest targets were the Ruhr and other German cities, and some raids were made at lower level on shipping in French ports. The raid which won him the DFC was on 22nd November, on Merignac aerodrome near Bordeaux, which “difficult target he attacked from a height of 1,500 feet and successfully bombed hangars, causing large fires and explosions. As a result of his efforts the task of following aircraft was made easier ......... He has at all times displayed conspicuous determination and devotion to duty.”
It was at Mildenhall that he featured in a series of propaganda photos by Cecil Beaton,
“A Day in the Life of a Bomber Pilot”; they were given a good deal of publicity and in fact David appears in one of them on the cover of the recently published video of the 1941 propaganda film “Target for Tonight”, also made with the help of 149 Squadron - though he did not take part in the film. Beaton describes the occasion at some length in his published diaries, though he has thoroughly scrambled the names and personalities, and he “demoted“ David from captain to co-pilot in his scenario.
On completion of this tour, early in March 1941, David was detached on secondment to the Air Ministry to assist with buying aircraft in North America, and later to ferry aircraft within North America and across the Atlantic - he flew the Atlantic at least twice in Hudsons, taking 12 hours or more.
The “chop rate” in Bomber Command increased substantially during the first half of 1941. [Footnote: The average sortie life of aircrew in the Command was never higher than 9.2 and at one time was as low as eight, and during the dark days of 1941-1943 the average survival chances of anyone starting a 30-sortie tour was consistently under 40% and sometimes under 30%. In one disastrous raid, on Nuremburg in March 1944, 795 planes set out, 94 were shot down and another 12 crashed in Britain. During the war as a whole, out of some 125,000 aircrew who served with Bomber Command, 55,500 died.] This coupled with increasing doubts about the value of the results obtained led to a serious decline in aircrew morale. During the summer of 1941 the Germans had considerable success with intruders - fighter aircraft attacking the bombers as they took off or landed at their own bases. At the end of September David returned to No 3 Group and joined No 57 Squadron at Feltwell, still with Wellingtons. His third raid, over Dusseldorf on October 13th, was particularly difficult; they were badly shot up and with their hydraulics out of action they crash landed at Marham on their return. After two more raids the strain finally proved too much and he was admitted to hospital just before Christmas 1941; for the next two months he was there or on sick leave. From then until mid-July he was Group Tactical Officer at HQ No 3 Group, and not directly involved in operations. In July 1942 he was posted to No 15 Operational Training Unit, at Harwell and Hampstead Norris, where he spent six months as a flight commander flying Ansons and Wellingtons, though he did participate in one raid on Dusseldorf while he was there.
In spite of the appointment of Harris early in 1942 and the introduction of the Gee radio navigational aid, results were still considered disappointing, particularly over the Ruhr, and serious questions were raised about the future of Bomber Command. To improve matters, in August 1942 the elite Pathfinder Force was set up under Don Bennett, albeit in the face of considerable opposition from most of the group commanders who were reluctant to lose their best crews to it. At least initially, all the crews joining it had to be volunteers, and to be ready to undertake extended tours. Their task was to fly ahead of the Main Force in four waves: the Supporters, mainly less experienced crew carrying HE bombs, who were to saturate the defences and draw the flak; the Illuminators, who lit up the aiming point with flares; and the Primary Markers and Backers Up who marked the aiming point with indicators. Their methods became more and more refined as the war went on. The increased accuracy required of them, and their position at the head of the bomber stream, inevitably exposed them to greater danger and a higher casualty rate than those of the Main Force.
No 156 Squadron was one of the original units in the Force; it operated from the wartime airfield of Warboys with Wellingtons until the end of 1942 and thereafter with 4-engined Lancasters, the very successful heavy bomber which was the mainstay of Bomber Command in the later years. The squadron flew a total of 4,584 sorties with the loss of 143 aircraft - a ratio of 3.12%. David joined it in January 1943, again as a flight commander. In the following four months he carried out a further 23 raids (all but one as a pathfinder) in Lancasters. The log books note occasional problems - “coned”, “shot up on way in”, “slight flak damage”, and so on. [Footnote: "Coned" = caught in a cone of converging searchlights, an experience which he says put him off hunting for life.] Much of the period became known as the Battle of the Ruhr, though other targets were also being attacked. He told me once that the raid he was really proud to have been on was the one where instead of marking the targeted town (I think Dortmund) they marked in error a nearby wood, which the main force behind them duly obliterated; only after the war did the Germans express their admiration for the British Intelligence which had identified the highly secret installation hidden in the wood.........
One of the pages in his log book has a cutting from the Times inserted, evidently dated some years later, recalling how in April 1943 the spring came very early and the hedges were billowing with white hawthorn blossom. This puzzled me until I read in a book on 156 Squadron how that blossom had come to have the same significance for them as the Flanders poppies of the 1914-1918 war.
David was promoted to Wing Commander half way through the tour (pathfinders rated one rank above the comparable level elsewhere), and awarded the DSO towards the end of it. The recommendation for this said that he had “at all times pressed home his attacks with the utmost determination and courage in the face of heavy ground defences and fighters. As a pilot he shows powers of leadership and airmanship which have set an outstanding example to the rest of the squadron” - and Bennett himself added, noting that David had just flown four operational sorties in the last five days, “he has provided an example of determination and devotion to duty which it would be difficult to equal.”
On the end of this tour in June 1943, he was sent to command No 1667 Conversion Unit at Lindholme and later Faldingworth. In December 1943 he transferred to a staff appointment at the headquarters of the newly formed 100 (SD) Group at West Raynham and later Bylaugh Hall. At this stage in the war the methods of attack and defence were growing increasingly complex, and this group was formed as a Bomber Support Group, including nightfighters, deceptive measures, and radio countermeasures (RCM). In June 1944, just after D-Day, he was given command of No 192 (SD) Squadron based at Foulsham, another wartime airfield. This squadron had been formed in January 1943 as a specialist RCM unit, and it pioneered this type of operation in Bomber Command; it flew more sorties and suffered more losses (19 aircraft) than any other RCM squadron. While RCM and electronic intelligence were its primary purpose, its aircraft often carried bombs and dropped them on the Main Force targets. RCM took a number of forms - swamping enemy radar and jamming it with “window” tinfoil, looking for new radar types and gaps in its coverage, deceptive R/T transmissions to nightfighters, and so on - and one of the attractions of the work was the considerable measure of autonomy, and the freedom to plan their own operations. These extended to tasks such as searching for V2 launch sites (recorded as “whizzers” in David’s log book) and trying to identify the radio signals associated with them, and supporting the invasion of Walcheren in September. The squadron was equipped with Wellingtons (phased out at the end of 1944), Halifaxes and Mosquitoes, plus a detachment of USAAF Lightnings.
This role was the climax of his career, and lasted until the end of the war and after. It involved him in 25 operational sorties, all in Halifax IIIs, the much improved version of this initially disappointing 4-engined heavy bomber. They carried special electronic equipment and an extra crew member known as the Special Operator. The record of these sorties in the log books, for the most part so formal and statistical up to this point, becomes a little more anecdotal: “rubber-necking on beach” (when he took two senior officers to see the breaching of the dykes at Walcheren), “Munster shambles”, “Lanc blew up and made small hole in aircraft [but only] 4 lost out of 1200!” The furthest east he went was to Gdynia in Poland; on returning from there he had the privilege of becoming the first heavy aircraft to land at Foulsham using the FIDO fog dispersal system. “Finger Finger Fido” was the cryptic comment in the log book.
A number of these sorties were daytime; on one of them, on September 13th, he was chased home by two ME109s which made six attacks on him. One of them opened fire but thanks to violent evasive action his aircraft was undamaged: his own gunners never got a chance to fire. No doubt it was skill of this sort, as well as his survival record, which gave his crew great faith in David’s ability to get them home safely. An encounter on December 29th 1944, on a Window patrol over the Ruhr, was not quite so satisfying; they claimed to have damaged a Ju88 which subsequently proved to be an unhurt Mosquito X from Swannington - and the Mosquito had identified them as a Lancaster. The log entry concludes “Oh dear. FIDO landing, flew into ground. What a day.”
He was awarded a bar to his DSO in July 1945. The recommendation, made in March, recorded that “since being posted to his present squadron he has carried out every one of his sorties in the same exemplary fashion and has set his crews an extremely high standard of devotion to duty and bravery. This standard has had a direct influence on the whole specialist work of the squadron.
“He has been personally responsible for the planning of all the sorties carried out by his special duty unit and by his brilliant understanding and quick appreciation of the everchanging nature of the investigational role of his squadron, much of the success of the investigations performed by his aircraft can be attributed to him. He has shown himself to be fearless and cool in the face of danger, and towards the end of his tour made a point of putting himself on the most arduous and difficult operations.
“Both on the ground and in the air he has been untiring and has not spared himself in his efforts to get his squadron up to the high standard which it has now reached.”
The squadron was disbanded in September, by which time David had completed 501 hours of operations against the enemy in 86 sorties, the great majority of them as captain of his aircraft. He had no ambition to make a permanent career in the RAF; he has commented to Richard that this fact gave him a degree of independence in his dealing with his superiors that he thinks they appreciated and valued. He was demobilised in November and returned to his interrupted law studies.
* * * * * * * * * *
I showed these notes to David, who thought them well written but suggested that they gave a twisted view of the reality - a reaction that I can understand. Since then, however, I have managed to contact one man who flew with David: H B (Hank) Cooper DSO DFC, who first met David in 149 Squadron which he joined in January 1941 as a wireless operator / air gunner for his first tour, and later did two tours as a Special Operator in 192 Squadron, the second of them under David's command. On two occasions he flew as a member of David's crew.
He has written of David that "he was always completely fearless and outstandingly brave and pressed home his attacks to the uttermost. As the Squadron's CO he generated loyalty and warmth, he was an outstanding model to follow. He spent much trouble and time encouraging his junior air crews as well as helping and seeing to the needs of the ground technicians who serviced the aircraft, generally in cold and difficult conditions. He was completely non-boastful, in fact he belittled his own actions (which were always of the highest order) when discussing air operations. [That rings very true!] He was an outstanding squadron commander in all respects, much liked and completely respected by all his air crews and ground crews."
G N D
March 2002
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Title
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David and the RAF
Description
An account of the resource
Account of Wing Commander David Donaldson's RAF career from his early interest in flying and joining the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve in 1934, call up in 1939 and operational tours on 149 Squadron, 57 Squadron, flight commander 156 Squadron pathfinders and commanding 192 (special duties) squadron. Includes training, descriptions of notable operations and incidents, postings between tours to headquarters and training units, pathfinder techniques, radio countermeasures and award of two Distinguished Service Orders and a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Creator
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G N Donaldson
Date
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2002-03
Format
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Four page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BDonaldsonGNDonaldsonDWv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Hamble-le-Rice
England--Eastleigh
England--Oxfordshire
England--Norfolk
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Scotland--Evanton
England--Suffolk
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Bristol
England--Essex
England--Clacton-on-Sea
Italy
Italy--Venice
Italy--Turin
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund
Netherlands
Netherlands--Walcheren
England--Berkshire
France
France--Bordeaux Region (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Poland
Poland--Gdynia
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Gloucestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1934
1939
1940-04
1940-09-20
1940-10
1940-12
1941-10-22
1941
1941-04
1942
1942-07
1942-08
1943
1943-01
1943-04
1943-06
1944
1944-06
1944-09-13
1944-12-29
1945
1945-07
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Frances Grundy
100 Group
149 Squadron
15 OTU
156 Squadron
1667 HCU
192 Squadron
3 Group
57 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
FIDO
forced landing
Gee
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 109
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
P-38
Pathfinders
pilot
propaganda
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Evanton
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Warboys
RAF West Raynham
target indicator
training
Wellington
Window
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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
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Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy 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
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] Brief History of 192 Squadron [/underlined]
No. 192 Squadron was always part of the 'Y' Service and, as such, its primary object was a complete and detailed analysis from the air of the enemy signals organisation. The first step in this direction was made by the Blind Approach Training Development Unit who, in addition to their Blind Approach Training, started to fly on the German Ruffian and Knickebein beams. At a later date, a special unit, the Wireless Investigation Development Unit was formed to take over special signals investigation leaving B.A.T.D.U. to concentrate solely on their Blind Approach Training.
The airborne investigation of enemy signals was then taken over by 'B' Flight of 109 Squadron, which later became 1474 Flight, being formed at Gransden Lodge on the 10th July 1942, and this in turn, became 192 Squadron on 4th January, 1943. With the formation of 192 Squadron, the aircraft establishment was 8+3 Wellington Mk.X, 1+1 Halifax Mk.II and 3+0 Mosquito Mk.IV. 192 Squadron had hardly been formed when it was called upon to undertake a very important and detailed investigation. The whole of the Western Mediterranean had to be surveyed in order to ascertain what enemy radar coverage existed in that area, and with this object in view, one Wellington Mk.X was detached to North Africa on the 18th February 1943. As the undertaking proved to be far too big for one aircraft, this aircraft returned to base on the 14th April, 1943. They made a complete survey of the Western Mediterranean bringing many important features to light and returned to base on the 25th August 1943.
On the 1st February 1944, 1473 Flight, who up to this time had been under the control of O.C. 80 Wing, Radlett, and whose activities in the main, consisted of signals investigation over friendly territiry [sic], were merged into 192 Squadron and the aircraft establishment was amended to 6+1 Wellington Mk.X, 8+2 Halifax Mk.V, 6+1 Mosquito Mk.IV and 1+0 Anson. The Halifax Mk.V on this establishment being changed to Halifax Mk.III on the 20th February 1944. The Squadron was then a three Flight Squadron, but on the 25th November 1944 the Wellington Mk.X were replaced by Halifax Mk.III and on the 27th December 1944 the Squadron Establishment was 17+0 Halifax Mk.III, 7+0 Mosquito Mk.IV and 1+0 Anson.
[page break]
It was the Squadron's responsibility to undertake rgular [sic] coastal flights in Europe, covering the whole of the coastal areas in the European theatre of operations. The West Coast of France, Belgium, Denmark and Norway were patrolled with the object of ascertaining that we always had full information regarding the density and frequency coverage of the enemy coastal radar organisation. At the same time a vigilant watch had to be maintained to see that new frequencies were not brought into operation undetected. The importance of this work cannot be overestimated and it is felt that no history of the Squadron would be complete without mentioning the survey of the Norwegian Coast which was carried out in September 1944. This survey was undertaken on orders received from Air Ministry and the object was to try and find some break in the enemy coastal radar coverage between the latitudes of 62° and 67° North which would enable an attacking force to get in undetected. As a result of the survey carried out by a detachment of this Squadron at Lossiemouth, it was found that such a break did exist, and if our aircraft crossed the Norwegian Coast north of 64°50' there was little or no chance of them being plotted. As a result of this information several successful attacks were made on enemy capital ships, the Command losses being slight.
In August 1944, 192 Squadron were the first to find and establish the identity of an enemy transmission 36.2 Mc/s which had a P.R.F. of 25. This was established as an enemy long range radar, and by means of a Fuge 16 homing loop, which was fitted to one of our Wellington aircraft, homing runs were made, and its site on the coast of N.W. Holland established.
The enemy inland radar coverage and communication system also had to be monitored and to enable this to be undertaken, it became the policy of his Squadron to route heavy aircraft in with Bomber Command formations accompanying them to he[sic] trget[sic]. In addition to keeping a constant watch on the enemy ground radar organisation, it became part of the Squadron's duty to investigate enemy airborne transmissions, but due to the lack of D/P facilities considerable difficulties were experienced. The enemy A.I. transmissions
/was
[page break]
was known at the time but its general characteristics concerning radio frequency and pulse recurrence frequency were not. In all eighteen flights were made, the last being a more or less suicidal but successful attempt. A Wellington IC fitted with special investigation equipment was routed over enemy occupied territory in the hope that a Hun night fighter would intercept and attack. The enemy was most obliging and although he carried out ten or twelve attacks on the aircraft, doing considerable damage, wounding the special operator on three occasions and damaging the special investigation equipment, all the required information was obtained and sent back to base in code by the wireless operator. The after effects of this flight were far reaching in as much as it enabled countermeasure action to be taken from the jamming point of view and permitted the formation of the Serrate Squadron, which met with considerable success.
If all the various types of investigation undertaken by the Squadron were dealt with in detail, considerable space would be occupied and in view of this only details concerning the types of German radar which were investigated are given herewith. Freya types, including Hoarding and Chimney, both inland and coastal; Wuerzbergs, inland and coastal; Coast Watchers, mainly coastal but on several occasions inland flights were made to ascertain if the enemy was using the coastwatchers inland for aircraft reporting. Enemy A.I. (Fuge 202), SN2, Germonica (Fuge 216, 217 and 218). Radio altimeter, Fuge 201, I.F.F. Fuge 25 and 25A Jadgeschloss, Windjammers, Bernhard, Benito, Sonne, Schwanbuoy, Pulse Communication and also the Centimetre bands. As was expected some of these flights entailed considerable flying hours before any positive information was obtained and in certain instances, (such as investigation undertaken in the Bay of Biscay searching for submarine radar), well over 1,000 flying hours were expended on this search without any positive results.
With the advent of V.1. and V.2., 192 Squadron were prepared in as much as Mosquito, Halifax and Wellington aircraft were suitably equipped and kept at stand-by for immediate take-off in order to investigate the responsibility of some form of radio control being used with V.1. and V.2.
[page break]
The investigation for signals in connection with V.2., assistance was given by the 8th. U.S.A.A.F. Who had already detached a flight of P.38's to Foulsham, arriving on the 24th August 1944 under the command of Capt. Kasch. These investigations were continued until the end of February 1945, the Americans finally leaving the Squadron on the 6th March, 1945.
D. Day saw 192 Squadron in a new operational role. A constant patrol was maintained between Cap Gris Nez/Cherbourg to see if the enemy was using the Centimetre band for radar, all the known enemy radars being efficiently jammed. No positive results were obtained but the Centimetre investigations were continued right up to the last days of the Squadron and many interesting signals received. Although no definite information was obtained that the enemy had, at the time of the investigation, Centimetre radar equipment, it was established that the enemy was using Centimetre radar.
Sound recorders, both on film and on wire have been used extensively on investigations and have proved invaluable. The Squadron has always played an important part in the interception of V.H.F. R/T and W/T traffic, both air-to-air, and air-to-ground, and numerous valuable sound recordings of this traffic were made. Its value was doubly increased from D.Day onwards due to the old question of optical range and such transmissions being outside the normal interception of a ground Listening Sation [sic].
A sound recorder also played a very important part in establishing the use by the enemy of what is known as the Bernhardine Gerate, this being a somewhat complicated system, ground to air, involving the transmission of Hellschreiber traffic. When one considers that this traffic was only operative for approximately ten seconds a minute and the nature of the traffic, without a sound recordr [sic] this particular type of of transmission could not have ben [sic] broken down.
Sound recordings were also of considerable assistance in assessing the efficiency of our R.C.M. As sound recordings were made of our countermeasures with the actual signal when it was being jammed in the background. These recordings could, therefore, be examined at leisure and the efficiency of the jammers assessed accordingly.
[page break]
Cameras also played an important part in signals investigation, such cameras as the Leica, Contax, Kodak Cine and Bell and Howell were used. The duration of certain enemy transmissions being so short, it was not always possible for a detailed analysis of a signal to be made by the special operator, but in many instances the duration of the signal did permit a photographic to be made, enabling further information to be obtained. Cine cameras played a very important part in establishing the polar diagrams of enemy radar transmiters [sic]. Some very good results being obtained on the Jadgschloss type of transmitter.
As opposed to the straightforward investigation of enemy radar, a considerable number of flights were made to analyse various types of jamming which were reported. Gee, Oboe, Monica, Serrate etc. and other flights were made to check the efficiency of our own radar countermeasures. It is considered of outstanding interest that it was as a result of detailed investigation by the Squadron of friendly and enemy signals both checking the density and signal strengths, that the present Loran frequency of 1.9 Mc/s was allocated.
On 12th. December 1944, 192 Squadron played its first operational role as an airborne jammer. On this date the first Mosquito aircraft of the Squadron fitted with two channels of Piperack flew operationally. In time, all the Mosquitoes were fitted with Piperack and a dual role was played by the aircraft, from the point of view that it was the general practice to carry out a signals investigation on the way to and from the targets, but using Piperack itself over the target.
The type of work undertaken by the Squadron necessitates a high standard of skill and efficiency on the part of the Special Operator. Prior to November, 1943 the training of special operators was undertaken by T.R.E. but after this date, all training of special operators was done on and by the Squadron. A detailed course was given to the special operators involving 2 - 3 weeks of ground lectures and at the termination of these lectures, an examination was given On passing the ground examination, additional air training was given to the candidate. Generally the special operator had to have an average of from 6 - 9 air training flights before becoming operational. It is also of interest to note that the requirements
[page break]
of 1431 Flight A.C.S.E.A., with regard to special operators was met by the Squadron.
Considerable work has to be done on aircraft for signals investigation, such work involving a 230 volt A.C. power supply in addition to the 230 volt D.C. and 1,000 volt A.C. cycle being supplied. Mountings had to be fitted into the aircraft to house the special investigation equipment and when it is considered that the equipment itself differs with the nature of the investigation, the installation had to be designed in such a way as to enable any type of receiving equipment to be put in at a minute's notice. The following aerials also had to be fitted to the aircraft: ¼ wave general search aerial, vertically polarised, ½ wave dipole vertically polarised and horizontally polarised on the port and starboard sides, a ¼ wave band cone aerial for 1 - 5,000 Mc/s general search and a special wide band capped cone aerial of Bagful aerial for general search for 200 - 1,000 Mc/s.
Self recording receivers have also been used by the Squadron. The first of these was the Goldmark and although the recordings made were of value, they were not comparable with those that were made using the Bagful receiver (a T.R.E. Product). The usefulness of the self-recording receivers is limited by the fact that they only enable the radio frequency and the density of signals in the frequency band being being swept, to be recorded. Other special recordind [sic] units such as the Blonde were in hand, by means of which full details concerning the radio frequency, pulse recurrence frequency, pulse width and general characteristics of a signal could be determined, but unfortunately, these did not come to hand in time to be used operationally.
Window dropping was also undertaken by the Squadron. The first Window flight being made on the 6th October, 1944, and as they are of interest, the operational flying hours and sorties for the years 1943, 1944 and 1945 are given herewith:-
/1943
[page break]
1943.............Operational hours …................3,143
1943.............Operational sorties.....................440
1944.............Operational hours ….................6,817
1944.............Operational sorties...................1,394
(four 1945.............Operational hours ….................3,121
months) 1945.............Operational sorties......................602
The Squadron badge was presented to the Squadron on 15th May 1945 by A.V.M. E.B.Addison, C.B., C.B.E., A.O.C. 100 Group and the Squadron disbanded on 22nd August 1945.
[page break]
[underlined]AIRCRAFT TYPES FLOWN[/underlined]
Jan 1943 – Nov 1944 Wellington Mk X Vickers
Jan 1943 – Feb 1944 Halifax Mk II Handley Page
Jan 1943 – Aug 1945 Mosquito Mk IV de Havilland
Feb 1944 – Feb 1944 Halifax Mk V Handley Page
Feb 1944 – Aug 1945 Halifax Mk III Hndley [sic] Page
Feb 1944 – Aug 1945 Anson Avro
Jul 1951 – Mar 1953 Lincoln B2 Avro
Jul 1951 – Jan 1958 Washington B1 Boeing
Mar 1953 – Jul 1958 Canberra B2 English Electric
Jan 1958 – Jul 1958 Comet C2 de Havilland
[underlined]LOCATIONS[/underlined]
04 Jan 1943 Gransden Lodge Squadron Formed
05 Apr 1943 Feltwell
25 Nov 1943 Foulsham
22 Aug 1945 Foulsham Squadron Disbanded
[page break]
[underlined]SQUADRON COMMANDERS of 192 SQUADRON[/underlined]
Wg Cdr C D V Willis DFC 4 January 1943
Wg Cdr E P M Fernbank DFC 12 March 1944
Wg Cdr D W Donaldson DSO DFC 13 June 1944
Sqn Ldr W A C Emmett 15 July 1951
Sqn Ldr A N Hoad AFC 18 January 1954
Wg Cdr W M Dixon DSO DFC 1 January 1956
Wg Cdr D S V Rake OBE AFC 7 July 1958
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
192 Squadron radio countermeasures operations
Description
An account of the resource
Covers coastal patrols to determine density and frequency coverage of enemy radar organisation, discovery of new enemy radar type and monitoring enemy overland radar and communications. Mentions use of specially equipped Wellington flown over enemy territory in hope of attack by night fighter to collect enemy airborne radar information. Search for possible radio use with V1 and V2, D Day operations, sound recording of enemy VHF W/T and R/T transmissions, use of cameras, modification of aircraft and use of window. Lists of hours flown, aircraft flown, locations and squadron commanders.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight page printed document
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MGrundyAF[DoB]-150610-09
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
100 Group
192 Squadron
Anson
B-29
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Lincoln
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-38
radar
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Gamston
RAF Lossiemouth
Tirpitz
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1232/15273/PGrundyAF15010010.2.jpg
22e600bd74184c739e39d104c090193c
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Royal Air Force Personnel
USAF flight with 192 Foulsham 1945
Description
An account of the resource
Top - three aircrew standing on the wing of an aircraft. David Donaldson on the left is wearing battledress with pilot brevet, the middle one is wearing a flying jacket and side cap, the one on the right is wearing a flying helmet. From right to left: Lieutenant Vaughn, pilot 7th Photographic Reconnaissance Group United States Army Air Force, unknown American ground personnel and David Donaldson. Note on reverse reads 'USAF flight with 192 Foulsham 1945'. David Donaldson's logbook suggest this was related to a flight in a P-38 Lightning on 3 March 1945. Middle left - four aircrew all two wearing peaked caps and two side caps all sitting in a row. In the background a Nissen hut and other buildings. Middle right - Royal Air Force personnel marching past. Front four officers in line are saluting. They are identified on the reverse as from left to right: Roy Kendrick, Warrant Officer Adam, Lauden and Wing Commander Donaldson. In the background hangars. Bottom left - a group of aircrew officers with two sitting on top of a wing and the others standing in front of the wing of a Hawker Henley aircraft. Bottom right - five Royal Air Force Personnel three wearing battledress two standing and three squatting down by the tail turret of an aircraft. Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PGrundyAF15010010
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
John Rees
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-03-03
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-03
192 Squadron
aircrew
ground personnel
Nissen hut
P-38
pilot
RAF Foulsham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1279/17471/PPearceAT16010033.2.jpg
13c87125cb83fb977d93d140ef3aed8a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pearce, Arthur
A T Pearce
Description
An account of the resource
140 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Arthur Pearce (1874945 Royal Air Force) He served as an air gunner with 12, 170 and 156 (Pathfinder) Squadrons and completed a 44 operations. After the war, on 35 Squadron he took part in the June 1946 Victory flypast over London and a goodwill visit to the United States. It contains his diaries, memorabilia and photographs.
The collection also contains an album concerning his post war activity with the Goodwill tour of the United States.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Steve Allan and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Pearce, AT
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Aircraft on Long Beach Air Force Base
Description
An account of the resource
Vertical air to ground view of an airfield parking pan running top left to bottom right. Airfield buildings are also shown. Parked on the pan are Lancaster, B-29, C-57, Northrop P61, B-17 and Lockheed Constellation as well as other aircraft.
There are shadows of a 12-aircraft formation of Lancasters flying towards top of image projected onto the ground over the pan.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPearceAT16010033
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
United States Army Air Force
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocation impractical
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Sykes
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
California
California--Long Beach
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1946-08-01
35 Squadron
aerial photograph
B-17
B-29
C-47
Lancaster
P-38
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1292/17624/PPearceAT16030025.1.jpg
66b8ce3d676c25c94621a65b34910217
Dublin Core
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Description
An account of the resource
Air to ground view of the south-eastern corner of Fairchild production facility at Hagerstown, looking north north west. P-38 lined up outside. In addition C-82 and C-47 parked on aircraft pan. Airfield an runways above factory with car park left and in front.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PPearceAT16030025
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States Army Air Force
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Maryland
Maryland--Hagerstown
Title
A name given to the resource
Fairchild production facility at Hagerstown
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
aerial photograph
C-47
P-38
runway
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1339/20893/SValentineJRM1251404v10033.1.jpg
0efdce67d64ea67c6b765e9d7f1d60a1
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Valentine, John. Ursula Valentine's newspaper cutting scrapbook
Description
An account of the resource
131 items contained in a scrapbook. Mainly newspaper cuttings of events from May 1942 to 1945.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
THE TIMES MONDAY NOVEMBER 23 1942
SIR S. CRIPPS LEAVES THE WAR CABINET
NOW MINISTER OF AIRCRAFT PRODUCTION
PROMOTION FOR MR. H. MORRISON
MR. EDEN TO LEAD THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
COL. STANLEY COLONIAL SECRETARY
The King has been pleased to approve the following appointments:-
Lord Privy Seal LORD CRANBORNE
Secretary of State for the Colonies COL. OLIVER STANLEY
Minister of Aircraft Production SIR STAFFORD CRIPPS
Minister Resident in Washington for Supply COL. J.J. LLEWELLIN
Colonel Llewellin will fill the new post of Minister Resident in Washington for Supply, and will be responsible to Mr. Lyttleton as Minister of Production under the general aegis of H.M. Ambassador for work in relation to the British Missions and Combined Boards in Washington concerned with supply matters.
Sir Stafford Cripps, who ceases to be a member of the War Cabinet, will take Colonel Llewellin’s place as Minister of Aircraft Production, and Mr. Herbert Morrison, Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister of Home Security, will take Sir Stafford Cripps’s place in the War Cabinet.
FRENCH STAND IN TUNISIA
GERMAN ATTACKS BEATEN OFF
BRITISH BATTER AXIS COLUMN
The following announcement was made last night from Allied Headquarters in North Africa:-
One of the British advance units inflicted heavy damage on a German armoured column in Tunisia on Saturday.
French forces were attacked by Germans in Tunisia. This French force is one of those which had disregarded the Vichy order not to oppose Axis occupation of Tunisia. Two vigorous attacks were unable to break French resistance, in spite of relatively severe losses. French patrols are operating far to the rear of Axis advanced positions.
A raid on the Tunis airfield was made yesterday by B17s of the 12th Air Force. They were escorted by P38s. At least five enemy aeroplanes were destroyed on the ground. Others were damaged and hits on hangars and warehouses were observed. Four German fighters were shot down.
The P38 is the Lockheed Lightening, a fighter of unorthodox design. Its tail unit is held by twin fuselages.
RUSSIANS ADVANCE 40 MILES IN STALINGRAD AREA
TOWN RETAKEN ON THE DON
ENEMY SUPPLY LINES CUT ON EASTERN BANK
The Red Army has made important advances at the approaches to Stalingrad. It was stated in a special announcement broadcast from Moscow last night that Russian troops moving in two directions, from the north-west and south of the city, have gained between 40 and 50 miles.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Sir S Cripps leaves war cabinet, French stand in Tunisia and Russians advance 40 miles in Stalingrad area
Description
An account of the resource
Article 1. Headlines: Sir S Cripps leaves the war cabinet, now minister of aircraft production, promotion for Mr H Morrison, Mr Eden to lead House of Commons, Col Stanley colonial secretary. Notes appointments by the King. Article 2. Headlines: French stand in Tunisia, German attack beaten off, British batter axis columns. Notes attack on Tunis airfield by B-17s of 12 Air Force escorted by P-38. Four German fighters shot down. Article 3. Headlines: Russian advance 40 miles in Stalingrad area, town retaken on the Don, enemy supply lines cut on eastern bank.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
The Times
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three newspaper cuttings mounted on a scrapbook page
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SValentineJRM1251404v10033
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
British Army
United States Army Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Tunisia
Tunisia--Tunis
Russia (Federation)
Russia (Federation)--Volgograd
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Angela Gaffney
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Workflow A completed
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1942-11-23
B-17
P-38
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020001.1.jpg
2d25b81fc0a01f3c908d5082f5e52e3e
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020002.1.jpg
3f189d648da89f4bc00241aeda3f8d41
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020003.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020004.1.jpg
e1dd1c6068ff6e9feacfdd94c802b774
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
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
British, American and German Aeroplanes in Operational Service
Description
An account of the resource
Plan, head-on, angled and side views of 65 aircraft in use during the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Aeroplane Spotter
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four printed sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCurnockRM17020001,
PCurnockRM17020002,
PCurnockRM17020003,
PCurnockRM17020004
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
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
United States Army 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.
Anson
B-17
B-24
B-26
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Boston
Catalina
Defiant
Do 16
Do 18
Do 24
Halifax
Hampden
He 111
Hudson
Hurricane
Ju 52
Ju 87
Ju 88
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Me 110
Oxford
P-38
P-40
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Ventura
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1762/30389/PSmithJJ2001.2.jpg
5af2792c8819245dd9c0ec38c9afc30c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1762/30389/ASmithJJ201227.2.mp3
0a602ddff875a9df408937afc9059a58
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Smith, John James
Jim Smith
J J Smith
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jim Smith (b. 1929, 2481850 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-12-27
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
Smith, JJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: So, my name is Nigel Moore. I’m recording this interview on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln. It’s Sunday the 27th of December and I’m in my house in Bushey, Hertfordshire. I’m going to be interviewing John James Smith, known as Jim who happens also to be my father in law. Jim was born in February 1929 in the village of Gretton where he still lives. Gretton is in the northern part of Northamptonshire and very close to the border with Rutland and Leicestershire. It is also located at the top of the southern escarpment overlooking the valley of the River Welland. So, Jim, tell me about the first ten years of your life before the war. What was life like in the village?
JS: Very quiet. You know it was a small village. Only about six hundred people and we just carried on a farming life really. Though with Corby so close Corby was a steel town making tubes. In fact, it made the tubes for the Pluto and most of the men either worked on the farm or at Corby in the steelworks.
NM: So, what about schooling in your family?
JS: Well, we all went to Gretton Primary School and at thirteen, I got a scholarship to go to the Corby Technical College which is about five miles away. Used to have to cycle that every day. Night, night, night and morning.
NM: So, what, what, what changed in village life when war broke out? Because you, you were ten when war broke out
JS: Yes, well —
NM: What changed?
JS: Well, suddenly about forty children came on the train from London and they all went, issued out to various people. And the people opposite us, an elderly woman she had two boys and she said, ‘Oh, no. I want two girls.’ But she had to have two boys. Two boys. And these children hadn’t seen any green fields at all. They came from inner London and hadn’t seen the countryside at all and the first night, first day the two, two boys went down to the river and on the way they came to across a field of sheep and it started to rain. So they tried to get the sheep to go in the hovel but the sheep wouldn’t cooperate with them so they took their coats off and put them over two sheep, two of the sheep and got wet through themselves. They came back up and the woman said, ‘Where are your clothes?’ They said, ‘Oh, we couldn’t get the sheep to go in the sheds so we put our coats on the sheep.’
NM: So, did, did you village children mix at all with the evacuees?
JS: Yes. We did. Yes. They brought two, two teachers with them but one of them quickly disappeared and the other one he was a bit odd. He used to cycle around the village with his tin helmet on and his trilby on top of that and he was an odd sort of a character he was. So we suddenly had these thirty or forty children came into the school and of course we, our education suffered. And the men in the village came up to the school and dug trenches in the garden so we would have somewhere to go when, when the air raids started but of course we never, never went in the trenches at all and we all, the school issued, was the issuing centre for the gas masks. So we all had our gas masks from there and most of the people in Gretton had their gas masks from there as well. And the children, the very small children had a container with the, they put the children in and that was their gas masks.
NM: So did you all have air raid drills at school?
JS: Not really. No. We, they built blast walls around the cloakrooms and we went and sat in there but they were the only air raid precautions we took.
NM: Did you get the Anderson shelters to dig in your gardens?
JS: No. But there was a few in the village and they, they built above ground shelters but nobody ever used them. We used, we used to sit under the table downstairs during the alarms, when the alarm went off. And we had two radio, aircraft air raid sirens. One was at Uppingham which was always going off that was. We didn’t take any notice of that one. And then the one at Corby and we always took notice when that went off. But there were some ack ack guns at Corby. But they only fired about once or twice. Corby itself was a steel town and had Bessemer converters which were open to the skies and it’s a wonder really that they didn’t come and bomb them. But we had smoke cannisters all around Corby and they were lit and the smoke came out when the air raid sirens went.
NM: So, were there air raid wardens in the village?
JS: Yes.
NM: Firewatchers.
JS: Yes. Fire watchers. My father was an auxiliary policeman and there used to be about four or five of those used to walk around the village every night telling people to put the fire, put the light out if their blackout curtains weren’t good.
NM: Can you remember the night that Coventry was bombed in November 1940?
JS: Yes. We, we could see this glow in the sky and we wondered what it was. The planes were droning over us and in fact one was shot down but you could see the clouds of, well the sky was lit up with the explosions over Coventry and this plane was shot down by a Defiant and it was shot down over the village. We were outside and we saw all these tracers going over and in to the German plane and that landed, well crashed about five miles away at another village. All the people were killed in it.
NM: So, at this point you weren’t under the table in the kitchen then.
JS: No.
NM: You were out watching.
JS: That’s it [laughs] it was mid-evening that was. So it wasn’t, we hadn’t got up and gone under the table. We were standing outside and you could hear the drone, the planes droning over all night long. But that was the only action we saw.
NM: Were you aware that night that it was Coventry?
JS: No. No. We didn’t know what it was. We could see this glow in the sky and we didn’t, somebody said, ‘Somebody’s getting it.’ And we didn’t know who it was. But I had an uncle. He lived in Coventry and he said they went out and stood on a hill overlooking the town, city and they saw this parachute coming down and three or four of them said, ‘We’ll go and get him.’ And they went running towards it and suddenly found themselves on their back. It was a land mine. But no, it was very disappointing the next morning. Very depressed to see the city in ruins.
NM: So, you saw German aircraft that night.
JS: Yeah.
NM: What about other occasions during the war? Did you see any German aircraft at all during the war?
JS: Well, we didn’t, no. There was a lone raider, raider came over during the day and that machine gunned some farmers in the, in the valley but it was shot down near Peterborough. And one night we were all laid in bed and we could hear this plane going over and mother was saying, ‘That’s one of theirs.’ And father said, ‘No, it’s not. It’s one of ours.’ All of a sudden the bedroom lit up and he dropped about forty incendiaries in the valley below us and luckily all in the fields. If that had dropped on Gretton which had a lot of thatched cottages it would have been really serious. But the next morning I rode down to the valley to the site and collected a lot of bits of incendiary bombs. I’ve still got one somewhere in the house.
NM: So, were you the only child there or did you all, all the boys —
JS: No.
NM: From the village go down and all the girls as well?
JS: There were a lot of boys went down but you know it was scattered over two or three fields and we collected all the bombs, bomb bits we could find. All the fins at the bottom of the bombs. Some of the, one or two of them fell in the river itself but they didn’t go off. Or didn’t do any damage.
NM: So, did the Corby steelworks themselves get any damage at all during the war?
JS: No. That was very lucky really. No. Only once. Had got a new post office in Corby which hadn’t been opened and the bomb, one bomber came over dropped a series of bombs and one of them dropped outside the Post Office and opened the Post Office up for them. But the steelworks itself didn’t have a bomb dropped on it at all which was unusual because, you know these Bessemer converters going straight to the sky.
NM: Was there an occasion when one crashed in to the steelworks?
JS: That was an American.
NM: Oh, ok.
JS: A Lightning which, at that time I’d gone to the Corby College and we were at lunchtime and we heard this bang and looked up and the Lightning was coming down. Falling out of the sky. The pilot had parachuted out and it fell on, fell on the steelworks but fell in place with nothing there. Didn’t do any damage. And the pilot, he landed at Great Oakley which was about three or four miles away.
NM: So you’ve no idea why. Why he crashed.
JS: No. No. The plane exploded. Came from [pause] what is it? I can’t think. I can’t. About, an airfield about five miles away. We were surrounded by airfields. American and British.
NM: Yeah. So, in fact, the nearby airfields to Gretton were Cottesmore, Wittering.
JS: Yeah.
NM: North Luffenham and Spanhoe.
JS: Yeah.
NM: Can you give some description of the aircraft traffic you saw during the war? Those airfields.
JS: In the early days of the war they, at North Luffenham and Cottesmore they’d got Lancasters. No. Hampdens and Whitworths and they came over. Took a long time to get over from one side of the, one side of the sky to the other. Just limped over but we didn’t really see many. We saw more of the Yanks when they came to Spanhoe and they had gliders there and they used to take them up. When they got over Gretton they used to let them go and the gliders used to glide down to Spanhoe Airfield. And during, during the D-Day landings and also during Arnhem the roads were all closed round, around Spanhoe and we saw the gliders going off and saw masses of Flying Fortresses from various airfields, you know. Quite a few airfields and Flying Fortresses. One Sunday morning I was at work and suddenly there was a big explosion and one of the Flying Fortresses had failed to take off. All the crew got out, got out and the plane exploded and that evening I cycled over to Deenethorpe which was the airfield and got a belt of .5 ammunition. The police were there but they didn’t say anything to us. I flew away with, I come away with about a dozen .5 ammunition which my father took the bullets out, tipped the gunpowder out and lit that and that just flared and then he put the cartridges in a fire and they went all they detonated. Blew up then. So that was only the only real excitement we had.
NM: So, can I take you back to Spring of 1943 when the Lancasters with 617 Squadron were practicing —
JS: Oh yes.
NM: Over the Eye Brook.
JS: Yeah.
NM: Although, of course you didn’t know who they were at the time.
JS: We didn’t, we didn’t know what it was even. We didn’t know there was a reservoir there but you know in those days we didn’t know what was happening in the next village let alone five or six miles away. We could see these Lancasters coming low over about five miles away and as they come over they fired Very lights at them and we certainly knew afterwards that they’d been practicing at the Eye Brook Reservoir for the Dambusters. That was one of the two reservoirs they trained at.
NM: So, how often did you see them? Was it frequent or was it —
JS: Well, we saw them for about a week. Every night for a week or so and then suddenly they stopped and we realised afterwards what they were all about.
NM: So, they’d come over at night would they?
JS: Well, it was, it was dusk sort of thing. We could see them. That was the other side of the valley from us. So we could see them coming over and these Very lights being fired as they went over.
NM: So, moving back to 1944 again and D-Day and Arnhem. Did you see the gliders go off as it were?
JS: Yes.
NM: [unclear]
JS: We saw a lot of gliders going off. We didn’t know anything about it off course until afterwards. All the roads were closed and you weren’t allowed anywhere near Spanhoe. And the gliders went off and of course they didn’t come back, a lot of them. There’s a memorial at Spanhoe showing all the people who died on the various raids. On various operations that took part.
NM: It must have been an impressive sight. Was it?
JS: Yes. It was. Yes. Most impressive was the Flying Fortresses. Masses of them going over. I don’t, as I say there were four or five aerodromes around us and there were masses of these Flying Fortresses flying over. We didn’t, didn’t know at the time what it was all about but you soon found out of course.
NM: Now, during the war of course you went from being a ten year old schoolboy to sixteen by the end of the war. So, tell me —
JS: Yeah.
NM: Tell me about your development during, during those six years.
JS: Well, at thirteen I left Gretton and went to Corby Engineering College and I used to have to cycle there morning and evening. We didn’t see a lot. We saw all these smoke cannisters but never saw them lit. But one night, one evening when I came home from school the ground was covered in these plastic, white plastic pictures of foil. We didn’t know what that was about but of course it was practising the radar and they were all over the place they were. Had bits of foil all over the hedges everywhere.
NM: So, this was Window was it?
JS: Yeah. Windows. Yeah.
NM: So, at Technical College you were training for what? What was your —
JS: Engineering training.
NM: Engineering training.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, most of the people there went in to the steelworks or part of the steelworks.
NM: So, by the end of the war you were still going to that Technical College.
JS: Yes.
NM: What, what can you remember about VE Day itself? What happened in the village? How did you feel about it all?
JS: Well, everybody was very pleased of course and they had a big bonfire in one of the fields and a greasy pole. I’ll always remember that because most of the men would try and climb up this greasy pole and not succeeding. And in the end they pushed this chap up with two poles under his feet. And when he got to the top and got the flag he got a small pig and piglet and that’s the only real thing I can remember really about the VE Day.
NM: So after the end of the war I know you did National Service. What happened between you, the end of the war and you doing your National Service?
JS: Well, there was one other thing with regard to the Americans they decided, well with their, with our Army cadets they said they’d take us all up. And they took two Dakotas. We sat in the Dakotas. No seats of course. We sat on the floor and they took us up on one Sunday afternoon for about half an hour and flew around and then we had our tea up there. Had cakes which I hadn’t seen before and it was very very very good of them. And then when the rationing was on you had to cycle to Corby every Saturday and get cakes which weren’t available in the village.
NM: Was there any other impact of rationing on, on the village life?
JS: Well —
NM: Were allotments and home grown —
JS: Yes.
NM: And all that?
JS: There were a lot of allotments there taken over. My father had what? A ten pole. Twenty pole. Which was quite a big bit to dig and grow mainly potatoes. And then we had a Pig Club in the village and well a lot of people kept a pig in the back garden and every Sunday they used to go around looking at everybody’s pig and having a drink in everybody’s cottage and they finished up finally the worse for wear. My grandfather, he kept a pig and as I said we had some people from, lived in Coventry and when they used to come down my father, my grandfather used to hang their hams up in the, in the living room and when they, when they came down from Coventry they always wanted to take one of the hams back. So, in the end when he knew they were coming he used to take his hams down and hide them in the other room.
NM: So, when did you graduate from Technical College?
JS: Well, when I was fifteen, fifteen and a half, sixteen and started work straight away and spent five years as an apprentice. And at the end of the five years, on my twenty first birthday when I got on top rate of, for the money I had my calling up papers. I always remember when I started as an apprentice. I got twenty nine and nine pence a week for forty seven hours and when I’d just got on top rate, on the same day I got my call up papers to go on National Service and spent two years, well eighteen months but due, due to the crisis, Suez I think it was it put up two years. But I, I was lucky. I got posted to an aerodrome near Rugby which was only about forty miles away and I used to come home every weekend.
NM: So, you did your National Service with the RAF.
JS: Yeah.
NM: From 1950 then when you were twenty one.
JS: Yeah.
NM: So how come you ended up in the RAF as opposed to the Army?
JS: Well, we had, we went to Northampton to have our medicals and while we were there they had an Army and a Navy and an RAF chappy there and they asked you where you wanted to go in. I said the RAF. They said, ‘Why?’ I said ‘I don’t like marching.’ That was good enough. I got in the RAF. But a lot of, a lot of them went in the Army which they didn’t like at all. And one or two got in the Navy. But most of us went in the RAF and I went to Padgate to do National Service training and after six weeks had an interview and they sent me to a training college. At Weeton I think it was. Near Blackpool. And we had an eighteen month course in six weeks there and after we came out of there they posted me to Church Lawford near Rugby and I spent the rest of the time there.
NM: And what was your role at Church Lawford?
JS: Well, I was on the maintenance side of the earth moving equipment and I used to have to go out to various sub-contractors to sign off the work they had done and I always used to arrange for it to be on a Friday so that I could go straight off to, on leave for the weekend.
NM: So you could go back home for the weekend.
JS: Yeah. I was, by that time I’d been made up to a corporal and there was a, you had a security patrol every six, seven weeks and you had to spend all the weekend on the camp. So I used to arrange it so that on the Friday I used to be away from there to another civilian place. One of them was at St Albans and we stayed at the RAF camp there at, at somewhere. On the De Havilland site I think it was. And I used to arrange so that I went on Friday. So, they used to, when they used to ring up seeing where I was they’d say, ‘Oh, he’s on detachment.’ And by that time you’d be on detachment for seven or eight weeks before I’d be sent somewhere else and they realised I was still on the camp and so I didn’t do it. I only did security patrol once.
NM: So you spent the whole two years at RAF Church Lawford did you?
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
NM: Were, were any other trips involved? Did you get any flying at all?
JS: No. No. I didn’t see any aircraft at all while I was in there. Oh, I went, I went, they sent me up to Acklington to repair a tractor. RAF Acklington and they said, ‘We’ll take you to an airfield in in Birmingham and a plane will come and pick you up.’ So, they dropped me at this airfield. All the hangars had, all the control places windows had been smashed. I stood there wondering why, what was going to happen and all of a sudden this Avro Anson dropped out of the sky, picked me up and took me up to RAF Acklington. And after repairing the tractor I come back on a lorry all the way from there to, to Rugby. Stayed overnight at, in Doncaster. At the airfield there.
NM: So at the end of your National Service you went back to the, back to the steelworks?
JS: Yes. Yes.
NM: At age twenty three. Yeah?
JS: Yeah. I went back and they put me straight in the drawing office so I didn’t actually go to do any work in the workshop itself. I just stayed in the workshop, in the drawing office for six or seven years. Then started doing various, started building various things outside and I used to go and look after those.
NM: Such as? What were you —
JS: Well, the —
NM: Mostly involved in?
JS: Well, the most, the biggest one was the ropeway aerial ropeway which was six miles long from Rothwell to Corby. And I was a clerk of works on that so I oversee the work on that to get that working.
NM: So, this was to try and get, is this is to get the ironstone from the quarry —
JS: Yeah.
NM: To the steelworks.
JS: Yeah.
NM: This six mile ropeway.
JS: They were going to build another big dragline but that, and this ropeway was going to provide the iron ore for it but they cancelled it. The big dragline. So really it was surplus to requirements the ropeway. But it stuck around for four or five years and then they cut it all up.
NM: So, you were involved in all the, how many quarries were there around Gretton and Corby that you were working with?
JS: Oh I don’t know. About eight or nine I should think. Yeah. With large draglines in four of them and various smaller ones in the others.
NM: And how long did you take, take on that role for?
JS: Until, well until I was made, after about six, seven years I was made engineer in charge of maintenance of all the various areas and I stayed there until I was made redundant in nineteen [pause] I don’t know what it was now. No. I can’t remember.
NM: Was that when the steelworks closed?
JS: Yeah.
NM: Right.
JS: That was ’59, I think.
NM: And what did you do? What happened after that?
JS: Well, I got a job. Well, I knew one of the chaps in the steel, in the tube works. Used to go on the same manager’s mess tables as him and he said, ‘What are you going to do when you’re made redundant?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go on quality assurance. Come back to haunt you.’ Because he was in charge of quality assurance for the two works and he rang me up and said, ‘Were you serious?’ I said, ‘Oh yes.’ He said, ‘Well, Lloyds Register of Shipping want somebody and would you be interested?’ So I said, ‘Yes. Yes, I would. Yeah.’ So, he said, ‘Go to Birmingham and see the chief, chief surveyor there and he’ll take you out to lunch.’ And I went to the Birmingham office and he said, ‘Oh, I’m too busy to see you today,’ he said, ‘Can you start next week?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And that was my interview for Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Somebody else had joined from another area at the same time as me. He said, ‘How did you get on at the interview?’ I said, ‘I didn’t have one.’ He said, ‘Oh, I had terrible one,’ he said. ‘They grilled me for about an hour,’ he said [laughs] So mine was just, ‘Can you start next week?’
NM: So, your last part of your career then was with Lloyds inspector.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. Lloyds. Yeah. And then I had a stroke when I was fifty nine and so I didn’t work after that. That’s been thirty odd years ago now.
NM: So that just about covers everything.
JS: Yeah.
NM: I had on my list.
JS: Yeah. And me.
NM: Have you got anything else to —
JS: I don’t think so. No.
NM: Add to that.
JS: No.
NM: When you look back during the war what was your overall impressions of growing up between those formative years of ten to sixteen and then with such major events going on around you. What was your —
JS: We didn’t really know much about it. As I say we lived in a village and we didn’t really know what was happening in the next village let alone what was, what was happening in the world. I remember on D-Day I was doing a trig lesson and I put in the top of the page, “D-Day.” And that’s really all I knew about it. So it didn’t really affect me much at all.
NM: Ok.
JS: Yeah.
NM: Very good. Thank you very much.
JS: Thank you.
NM: We’ll finish the interview there. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John James Smith
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nigel Moore
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-12-27
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:34:46 Audio Recording
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ASmithJJ201227, PSmithJJ2001
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
John Smith grew up near Corby surrounded by aerodromes so he was used to the sight of aircraft. He observed Lancaster aircraft practicing for the Dambusters raid over Eye Brook Reservoir. He also witnessed glider practice and was impressed by the sight of the Flying Fortresses flying overhead. He also witnessed the German aircraft flying overhead to bomb Coventry and witnessed a German aircraft shot down. After the war he spent his National Service in the RAF at Church Lawford.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-11
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Northamptonshire
England--Corby
England--Coventry
England--Warwickshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
617 Squadron
animal
B-17
bombing
childhood in wartime
Defiant
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-38
RAF Church Lawford
RAF Spanhoe
Window
-
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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
King, Edward James
E J King
Description
An account of the resource
46 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Edward James King (b. 1920, 1377691, 182986 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs and an album of charts and newspaper cuttings. He flew operations as a navigator with 96 and 15 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Patricia Joan Potter and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-11-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
King, EJ
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] VILLERS BOCAGE [/underlined] [underlined] 30th June, 1944 [/underlined]
[underlined] Panzer Concentrations in Woods. [/underlined]
Daylight operation at request of Field Marshall Montgomery. Formation flight with very heavy fighter escort. Very good visability [sic] & weather. Many ships seen in [deleted word] Channel and at the beachheads with many wrecked landing craft. H.M.S. "Rodney" observed near to the beaches with convoys everywhere. Landing strips in Normandy see in operation with Liberators, Spitfires and Lightnings. Cherbourg seen[deleted] i [/deleted] in distance. Bayeaux very peaceful. Only light flak seen but it was very accura[missing letters] Fighter escort mainly Spitfires with a few Tempests.
[page break]
[map]
[inserted] VILLERS BOCAGE [/inserted]
[page break]
[map]
[page break]
DAY 30TH JUNE 1944.
3 GROUP ADOPTED A NEW ROLE YESTERDAY WHEN THEY MADE A DAYLIGHT ATTACK ON VILLERS BO[deleted]S[/deleted]CAGE. APART FROM THE DAWN ATTACK ON 'D' DAY THIS WAS THE FIRST FULLSCALE OPERATION CARRIED OUT BY THIS GROUP OVER ENEMY TERRITORY BY DAY, SINCE THE BREST DAYS OF 1941.
127 LANCASTERS TOOK OFF FROM.
15 SQUADRON. – 17 DETAILED. – 16 PRIMARY. – 1 ABORTIVE.
622 SQUADRON. – 14 DETAILED. – 13 PRIMARY. – 1 CANCELLED.
90 SQUADRON. – 19 DETAILED. – 19 PRIMARY.
115 SQUADRON. – 27 DETAILED. – 27 PRIMARY.
514 SQUADRON. – 29 DETAILED. – 27 PRIMARY. – 1 ABORTIVE. – 1 MISSING.
THESE IN COMPANY WITH 105 HALIFAXES OF 4 GROUP SET OUT IN IT IS HOPED, GOOD FORMATION WITH FIGHTER COVER. THERE WAS 3.5/10 CLOUD AND MOST OF THE CREWS WERE ABLE TO SEE THE TARGET AREA QUITE CLEARLY THROUGH GAPS IN THE CLOUD. HOWEVER, OWING TO THE TERRIFIC CLOUD OF SMOKE AND DUST CAUSED BY THE HALIFAXES WHO WENT IN FIRST, THE AIMING POINT WAS COMPLETELY OBSCURED AND VERY FEW SAW THE MARKERS. THIS DID NOT PREVENT A GOOD ATTACK AND BOMBING WAS CARRIED OUT ON INSTRUCTIONS OF MASTER BOMBER ON CONCENTRATION OF SMOKE, THE MAJORITY FROM 10/12,000 FT. BUT A NUMBER CAME DOWN BELOW CLOUD AND BOMBED FROM 3,600 TO 4,000 FT.
SOME EXCELLENT PHOTOGRAPHS WERE OBTAINED BY ALL SQUADRONS AND ABOUT 90% SHOW THE AIMING POINT OR WHAT WAS THE VILLAGE COVERED BY CLOUDS OF SMOKE AND VERY LITTLE BOMBING APPEARS TO BE OFF THE TARGET. THE VILLAGE AND RODS [sic] SEEM TO BE OBLITERRATED [sic], AND IT IS HOPED MANY 'PANZERS' WITH IT.
THERE WERE SOME SCATTERED ACCURATE LIGHT AND HEAVY FLAK IN TARGET AREA, SEVERAL AIRCRAFT BEING HIT. THIS IS BELIEVED TO ACOUND [sic] FOR THE ONE LANCASTER AND ONE HALIFAX CASUALTIES.
NO ENEMY FIGHTERS WERE SEEN
ONE OF 75 SQDN WAS HIT BY FLAK OVER TARGET AND FORCED DOWN, BUT MANAGED TO LAND ON ONE OF THE LANDING STRIPS BEHIND OUR LINES, THE ONLY CASUALTY BEING ONE MEMBER OF CREW SLIGHTLY WOUNDED BY FLAK.
VILLERS BOCAGE
THE WHOLE AREA IS A MASS OF CRATERS. ALL THE AREAS ARE STILL BLOCKED.
[page break]
[photograph]
What Monty ordered
THE bombs going down in bottom centre of picture were part of the 1,000 tons dropped by the R.A.F. on a special target in answer to a call from the battle-line in Normandy
The target was a forest in the Villers Bocage area which held concentrations of German tanks. More than 250 Lancaster and Halifax night bombers, with fighter cover, made the daylight attack
The picture was taken at the height of the attack when the target was a sea of smoke and fire. In 12 minutes Rommel's armour was obliterated
"Your action will not be forgotten by the enemy," said Gen. Montgomery in his message of thanks to Bomber Command
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Five items, Edward's description of the operation to bomb Panzer concentrations in woods, requested by Field Marshall Montgomery. As the operation was in daylight Edward was able to describe the scene not too long after D Day. There is also Edwards navigation plot, a map showing the target area with their track and the target. Part of an official report on the operation, it details the aircraft from 3 Group that took part and their squadrons, together with 4 Group Halifax aircraft with a heavy fighter escort. It makes the point that this is the first full scale operation by 3 Group in daylight since D Day. The visibility was good until obscured by dust created by the bombs exploding, the operation was judged a success. There is also a press cutting captioned 'What Monty ordered' describing the operation.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Edward King
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Map
Map. Navigation chart and navigation log
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten documents, a nav plot, a map, a press cutting
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SKingEJ182986v10084, SKingEJ182986v10085, SKingEJ182986v10086, SKingEJ182986v10087, SKingEJ182986v10088
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
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-06-30
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Title
A name given to the resource
Villers Bocage, Edward King's 19th operation of his tour
115 Squadron
15 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
514 Squadron
622 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
bombing
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-38
RAF Mildenhall
Spitfire
tactical support for Normandy troops
-
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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
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Operations
Description
An account of the resource
Top left - extract from Ned Sparkes's log book between 3 August 1944 and 25 August 1944 with operations to Foret de Nieppe, St Leu-d'Esserent and Brest.
Right - document titled "The Reckoning". Giving details of bomber commands sorties, aircraft and aircrew losses, and asking whether sacrifice was worth results.
Bottom left - three short documents giving some account of operations on flying bomb site (2) and Brest. Gives number and type of aircraft used, target, results and losses.
Bottom left - photograph of a crashed Wellington wheels up in a field. Captioned 'A Wimpey completes the course at 85 OTU Bruntingthorpe 1944'.
Bottom right - document entitles "Aircrew casualties" listing bomber command casualties during the war up to 31 May 1947.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-25
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Morbecque
France--Creil
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One log book extract, five printed documents and a b/w photograph all mounted on an album page
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSparkesW17010023
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
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Sparkes, Ned. Album
4 Group
6 Group
8 Group
85 OTU
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
crash
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
killed in action
Lancaster
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
P-38
prisoner of war
RAF Bruntingthorpe
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/39771/PDarbyCAH18020025.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/39771/PDarbyCAH18020026.1.jpg
fb6f887bd1984203a1cf2ec0e3cc960f
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
Darby. Charles Arthur Hill
Darby, CAH
Jack Darby
Johnny Darby
Description
An account of the resource
203 items. The collection concerns Charles Arthur Hill Darby (1915 - 1996, 154676 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, documents and correspondence. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard John Darby and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, CAH
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Two Lockheed Lightnings
Description
An account of the resource
A colour postcard drawing of two Lightnings engaged in a dog fight.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
J. Salmon Ltd
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artwork
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One double sided printed card
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDarbyCAH18020025, PDarbyCAH18020026
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
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Darby. Charles Arthur Hill. Postcards
arts and crafts
P-38
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40358/MAnkersonR[Ser -DoB]-180129-03.pdf
dd90747e7abd3657167b099d0ce081d4
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association
Description
An account of the resource
97 items. The collection concerns Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association and contains items including drawings by the artist Ley Kenyon.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Ankerson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-29
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
RAF ex POW As Collection
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
Allied and Axis Aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
A list of aircraft with a brief description of each one with size, construction, engine, armament and observation details.
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
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Regia Aeronautica
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Service material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
30 printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
Anson
B-17
B-25
B-26
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Boston
Catalina
Do 18
Do 215
Do 217
Do 24
Fw 190
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Hampden
He 111
Hudson
Ju 52
Ju 87
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Me 110
Mosquito
P-38
P-40
Stirling
Sunderland
Typhoon
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2231/40701/MBirdJH184015-180215-20.1.pdf
8f77186c954aef8db5693e1aaa927fe1
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Bird, JH
Description
An account of the resource
50 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer J H Bird (b. 1921, 184015 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, note books, newsletters and a <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2251">photograph album</a>. After training in south Africa, he flew operations as a pilot with 104 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lissie Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-15
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
Bird, JH
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
American Aircraft Notes
Description
An account of the resource
Notes kept by JH Bird during his training.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
JH Bird
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
United States Army Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
34 handwritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MBirdJH184015-180215-20
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
aircrew
B-17
B-24
B-25
B-26
Boston
Catalina
Harvard
Hudson
P-38
P-40
P-47
P-51
training
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2308/42019/PEwingRL19010034.2.jpg
aef39e0b0380b495b68e8e7b3f16daf7
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
Ewing, Robert Logan. Photo Album
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-11-16
2019-12-04
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
Ewing, RL
Description
An account of the resource
37 items. Contains photographs of his service life including pictures of RAF Wigsley.
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
Model Aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
#1, 3, 4 and 6 are a model Lancaster, in the air and on the ground.
#2, 7 and 8 are a Stirling model
#5 is a Wellington and Spitfire model.
#9 are a model Stirling and Lightning.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Nine b/w photographs on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PEwingRL19010034
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.
arts and crafts
Lancaster
P-38
Spitfire
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2566/44246/MJonesTJ184141-220105-120029.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2566/44246/MJonesTJ184141-220105-120030.2.jpg
979f5166f39c8d8ef38afd7d1931011a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jones TJ. Aircraft photographs
Description
An account of the resource
129 aircraft recognition photographs.
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
Jones, PW
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lightning
Description
An account of the resource
Head on view of an airborne Lockheed P-38 Lightning with drop-tanks.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
United States Army Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
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
MJonesTJ184141-220105-120029, MJonesTJ184141-220105-120030
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
P-38
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2563/44399/MParryWE1172401-220531-05.2.pdf
9c27676d60f8395688b050b0f63a7ddd
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Parry, William Edward
Parry, W E
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer William Edward Parry DFC (1912 - 1996, 1177401 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 9 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Frances Lee and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-05-31
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Parry, WE
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] "HOLTEN IN OORLOGSTJD (1984)
HOLTEN IN WARTIME [/underlined]
[underlined] LANCASTER CRASHED IN HOLTERBROEK. [/underlined]
In the evening of Saturday Septenber [sic] 23rd 1944 244 Lancasters, nine Mosquitos and one Lightning of a number of squadrons of No. 5 Group of the British Royal Air Force took off from their basis [sic] in central England. In the surroundings of the town of Lincoln. Only a short time before their take off the flyers had come to know which for that night would be the objects of attack and details about the routes to fly and aims were given. Like with other attack flights, also this time not all planes should be able to execute their missions successfully and return safely to their bases. At the end of the attack it appeared that fifteen planes of No. 5 Group were missing. One of those Lancasters crashed that night near Holten. We'll trace the flight of this machine.
After they had occupied themselves with things like briefing, distribution of the flyers' outfits, the filling up the planes with some 5900 litres of fuel, the loading with bombs and ammunition and finally the tests and checks of the engines, at last the signal 'take off' was given that evening. One after another twelve Lancasters of No. 9 Squadron R.A.F. which were employed that night, flashed along the runway on Bardney base. At 19-02hrs exactly (British time) the Lancaster LL901 WS-V for Vic' took off. Snorting the engine went up with it's heavy load of bombs and joined the planes, which in the evening light formed a formation. For the crew of seven members it was to be the 26th operational flight they flew together. They flew for the seventeenth time in this old but reliable and safe 'box', which had already 368 flying hours. A very large number, which were flown during about 50 operational and many test flights. Among the members of the crew who knew each other already since the training, a great friendship had grown the course of months. In June 1944 they had been placed in this squadron and almost immediately used in the bomb attacks on the continent of Europe. In the night of 12 to 13 June 1944 they executed their first operational flight at the French town of Portierd. The following attacks were for the greater part also aimed at French territory to support of the marching allied forces and further at some German towns, while one time the Dutch airfield Gilze-Rijen was bombed. Their last flight was a remarkable one. They had taken part in the operation 'Paravane' at which the famous German man-of-war Tirpitz was attacked. The ship was lying heavily defended in the Norwegian Altenfjord, just beyond the radius of action of the Lancasters. A cute plan, however, was executed. In the evening of September 11th 1944 they had taken off from their base and after a stop in Scotland, where the fuel tanks were refilled, they flew non-stop to an airbase in north Russia near the town of Archangelsk. From that place the Lancasters of No. 9 and 617 Squadron R.A.F. with full tanks performed attacks on the 45,000 ton war-ship. Though at these attacks the Tirpitz was heavily damaged, they did not succeed in sinking the ship and the aircraft flew back to their bases in England.
For this night the attack was aimd [sic] at Dortmund-Ems canal, near the town of münster. The intention was to destroy hereby the enemy supply lines between the German industrial areas upon the Ruhr and the front near Arnhem where some days before large allied airborne units were dropped. The aircraft were equipped with 12 ton bomb with time ignition, a so-called 'Tall boy', which had to be dropped on the market target. In the beginning the flight went quietly. Flying eastward in fact they flew up to the darkness and when they passed the Belgian coast at a height of about five kilometers [sic] it had already grown completely dark. From this height the heavy battle near Arnhem was clearly to observe. Glowing bullets and grenades drew bowlines though [sic] the sky and there were fiercely burning fires. When they reached the German frontier shellfire on the formation was opened. The aircraft, however could manage to reach the target area undamaged. They flew in onto the target from about 7500 metres and the bomb was aimed at the place, which was indicated with red burning markers. After that they immediately left the area. Because of the time ignition of 30 minutes it was not visible for the crew of the WS-V whether their bomb had hit the target or not.
(1)
[page break]
F/Lt Charles Scott from Glasgow flew the Lancaster back home. The German flak was still very bad, but as soon as they had reached Holland, it soon diminished. Though it was quiet now, they kept on the alert. The gunners were behind their machine guns and peered into the dark night. Suddenly there was a loud crack. It was clear that the plane was hit, but nobody had seen or heard anything. Because they did not see any flak, the crew was convinced that it had been a German night-fighter, which had attacked them. The right inside engine proved to be hit and soon licking flames came out of it. Very quick the man came to action and tried to put out the flames, unfortunately without any result. Shortly after the second engine caught fire too at the starboard side. F/Lt Scott realised that now nothing could be done about it anymore. The plane could hardly be controlled and a quick decision had to be taken. He suggested to try to make a forced landing in the liberated area, soth [sic] of Arnhem. Suddenly the Lancaster lost much height and was not under control anymore, where upon Scott ordered the crew via the intercom to bail out. Probably at that moment the right wing burned through, whereafter the bomber swung round and tumbled down. The crew found their way to the escaping hatches. Only F/Sgt Leslie Langley succeeded in opening the hatch, leaving the plane and reaching the ground safely, he, however, sprained his ankle. "It was as if it took me two hours before i [sic] managed to open the hatch, which was underneath me, after which i [sic] jumped immediately", Mr. Langley told, when we visited him summer 1979 at his home in one of the suburs [sic] of London. He went on: "That i opened it at the very last moment, is clear from the fact that i came down in the meadow next to where the plane crashed. The parachute must have opened very shortly before i touched the ground. Of the jump i don't recall anything. Immediately i put off my parachute, hid it in a small trench and on my knees i drank some draughts of water from a ditch, to come to myself again. Fof [sic] a short time i looked around if i saw anyone of my comrades. Because of the extreme heat of the burning plane, I could not approach to it very close. I was aware of it that the Germans would appear and that i had to take my heels very soon. Limping i ran off, on course of my compass, in a southern direction.
As a matter of fact all this had not gone totally unnoted [sic] by the Holten population. The heavy sound of the formation flying over had enticed a few people to go outside even though time during which people had to stay in had already begun at 8-00p.m. It always was fascinating view. The eastern sky was lighted red, caused by fires in the Ruhrgebiet; searchlights scanned the sky for planes, while Very lights and flares, flakshells and tracer bullets flickered up against the nightly darkness. Not seldom planes crashed and this night too several of them were seen coming down in the surroundings. In the meantime it was around 23-30 hrs. when from the east a plane became visible which burned heavily and approached the village dangerously. The sound of the roaring engines pierced everybody to the very marrow, as if it were the last cry of a dying animal. Some people went into a panic. Sleeping children were waken up. A few people ran up to the falling plane, according to the advices of the Civil Defence. Fortunately the plane flew over the village, but crashed at the Populierendijk in Holterbroek. Far in the neighbourhood the shock could be felt and the surroundings were lighted up by the glow of the fire, so that see the cows in the pastures, while the trees cast their shadows on the sinister lighted land, that was frightened up so sudden in this autumn night.
Immediately after the group commander of the constabulary, Hallink, charged a number of his men with the garding [sic] of the plane. Mr. H.J. Holterman, deputy commander of the CD came to the spot personally and stated that a more [sic] engined English plane had crashed and was fully splintered and that several flyers were killed in the crash. An airman was lying at the way in to a meadow. (This was top-turret gunner F.A. Saunders.) Both apparently had bailed out too late and smacked the earth before their parachutes could open. Later one more dead airman was mentioned, found at the Evertjesweg. In the afternoon the latter was transported to the mortuary at the old cemetery by the nearest farmer, Aanstoot 'De Grieze', with his cart.
(2)
[page break]
On Tuesday morning September 26th the dead bodies in the burned out plane were collected and coffined by municipal workers. Then it became clear that in and under the wreckage were the mortal remains of four young men who were badly mutilated by the fire. So six victims were recovered in total.
The very morning at 11-20hrs they were buried on [sic] the cemetery.
Bomb aimer F/Sgt Leslie Langley had walked on in a wearisome way, in spite of his sprained ankle. When he arrived at the Schipbeek, he followed it in a western direction. Only when it was nearly morning he knocked at a house and presented himself with the words: "Ik bin English", one of the phrases which were on an information leaflet all allied flyers had, to make surviving and escaping in occupied area more easily. The people, however, didn't dare to let him come in and Langley continued on his way. Near Deventer, where the Schipbeek flows together with the Ijssel, he followed the Ijssel in a southern direction, in the supposition that somewhere in the neighbourhood of Zutphen he would meet the british army which would march on from Arnhem. He didn't know that the situation in Arnhem was very bad for the English at that moment. Leslie had walked on for three nights, sleeping in the daytime, when one early morning he knocked at the door of the family Gradus Visser in Gorssel. Only a few words were needed to make clear what had happened and what his plans were. They let him in and explained to him the bad situation of the English at Arnhem. There was no use going on. He however, could not stay at the Visser family. Too many Germans were arround [sic] Father Visser nevertheless arranged contacts with the underground movement and a safe shelter was found for Langley at the Koeslag family in Laren, a family extremely active in helping allied flyers. From Koeslag, Langley was conveyed by 'Kees' of the Holten underground group to the farm 'Buisweerd', from where he was taken by some persons in hiding there to Reterink in Zuidloo. This was about three weeks after the crash. Langley stayed here for nearly seven months, together with John Miller who, the same night, was shot down in the enviroment [sic] of Zelhem. The latter still wore his uniform and had his pistol with him. He wanted to defend himself and refer to the convention of Geneva in case he would be taken prisoner. After New Year they were joined by the Norwegian flyer Kare Herfjord of No. 332 Squadron R.A.F., who had made a forced landing on January 4th, 1945, in the Rijssenseveen behind the farm of the family Lindenberg. In an ingenious way shelters were made for the persons in hiding in a strawstack. In the daytime they mostly were in the farmhouse. Sometimes there were very dangerous situation when two German friendly policemen from Bathmen came to the farm's kitchen for coffee, while the flyers were playing Monopoly in another room. A game in which Langley clearly gave proof of his past as a bank employee when it came to counting money. That Monopoly game helped them through the long months they had to await the liberation.
When on April 6th 1945 an armoured car of the Canadian 8th Reconnaissance Regiment came near the farm, the three airman [sic] jumped in and were brought – without having time to say good-bye- behind the lines. For interrogation they went on to Breda. After their identity had been checked, they were flown to England and on April 10th Langley arrived already at his parents and fiancee in London. You can easily guess what a joy it was for everybody. The Langleys in London had lived in anxious suspence [sic] during all those months. Via the Red Cross organization they knew there was only one survivor. Who he was could not be determined, because not all victims could be identified.
After the war Leslie Langley, now working at an insurance firm in London more than once visited the Reterink family and also the spot where his plane crashed.
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In 1947 he was back for the first time and visited the family J. van Schooten, living about 200 metres from the place of crash.
Just at that moment a house painter worked there. Painter and ex-airman stood together and recognized each other without knowing at first who exactly the other war. Soon it became clear. Leslie Langley stood face to face with Arend Schipper, during the war commander of the resistance movement in Holten and it was him who had conveyed Langley from Koeslag in Laren to Buisweerd. Later on Langley was taken to the farm of H. Reterink in Zuidloo, where he was liberated at last.
[underlined] A flyer is missing. [/underlined]
A short time after the liberation there were some problems with regard to the identification of the fallen airmen. There has been some talk on the missing of the British F/O C.E.M. Graham, navigator of the Lancaster NF 923 of No. 617 Squadron R.A.F. (known as the Dambuster squadron which had the destroying of the German barrages to their credit) The plane had also taken part in the attack on the Dortmund-Ems canal near Münster, was, however, attacked by a German nightfighter and lost it's course and had flown high over Holten. It appeared that this airman was severely wounded in an airfight over Twento and had got a shock. Because the plane was heavily damaged and could not effect a normal landing anymore, Graham probably was thrown out of the plane on his parachute by his comrades to save his life. The other members of the crew could manage to leave the plane with the exception of the pilot F/Lt G.S. ('Geoff') Stout. He lost his life when the plane crashed at the Vordensebinnenweg in the municipality of Lochem.
An enquiry after the location of the F/O Graham's grave had no result. In Holten nobody knew about a flyer with this name and an extensive investigation by the municipality of Holten in which many places in the neighbourhood were summoned, didn't help to make this case clear. It was suspected that the flyer in question should be among those airmen buried in Holten of whom some had not yet been identified. It was most evident that it concerned the victim found at the Evertjesweg. The mortal remains were disinterred on November 6th 1945 and interred on [sic] the military cemetery at Oosterbeek in square IV, row C, grave 13; later a tombstone was placed with the indication C.E.M. Graham, Flying Officer, 159937.
In the opinion of a member of the Holten CD at that time, there was still no proof that it reaily [sic] concerned the flyer mentioned above. It reaily [sic] concerned the flyer mentioned above. It seemed as if they had passed off the matter to satisfy the victim's father, Major-General Sir M.W.A.P. Graham, KBE, CB, MC, – a high officer in the staff of Field-Marshal Montgomery – to appoint the exact place of his son's grave. It was the more peculiar, because now in Holten in fact they missed a dead man from the plane which had crashed the same night in Holterbroek. After it was accepted that the mortal remains of two different, severely mutilated flyers should be buried in one grave. They then thought that it concerned the flyers Hayward and Harding, resting in a joint grave, as to be seen to this day at the cemetery regarding the little space between the two tombstones.
Yet it is to accept that the identification was correct and that it really concerned the flyer who came down at the Evertjesweg. After inquiries in the surroundings we had a talk with Mr. H.J. Bosschers. He remembered having seen that night a plane approaching from eastern direction. Over Holten the plane, however, had turned to the south. Mr. Bosschers also rememberd [sic] that at some distance behind his house 'something' came down with a thud. Only the next morning he learned that it should have been an R.A.F. man who had fallen down at the Evertjesweg. It appeared to be dark, slightly built person with small hands.
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Mr. G.J. Huisman, inhabitant of Holten, at that time hidden for the Germans at the family Jansen 'Menum', also living in this area, also remembered the dead flyer who was found in the mornining: [sic]
"Evidently he had come down hard, because we could see an imprint of the body in the soil. On his collar he had a badge in yellow and red with sickle and hammer, while there was a ring on one of his hands with a picture of a red Indian's head. Blood ran from his mouth. I could see that i was not the first person on the spot, for the parachute had been cut off and was hidden under some brushes [sic] by the road side. I took it home with me. Later i saw that the parachute cloth had been shot through in different places. In my opinion that was the cause of the flyer's death."
At attempts to trace how it all came to pass why F/O Graham had come down in Holten and was found dead, we succeeded in contacting the, at that time F/O R.H. ('Reg') Petch, who belonged to the same crew and took part in the flight as tailgunner. In spite of that his information gave no useful clues. Because of his position in the tailpart, Mr. Petch said not to be well informed of what was going on in the cockpit. Probably F/O Petch bailed out first, when his gun-turret had been eliminated and the plane burned. He came down in the municipality of Hellendoorn and kept covered for two days, observing sharply the bustle around a farm. When nothing suspicious happened he went up to the farm. The farmer warned the resistance movement; they helped him with addresses where he could hide for the coming period.
F/O Petch was liberated on April 10th 1945 in Nijverdal.
Flight-engineer P/O A.W. Benting landed severely wounded in the municipality of Markelo, a few metres behind the farmhouse of the family Tempelman of the Borkeldweg, near the municipal frontier with Holten. With the firing of pistol-shots he drew the attention of the family. He, however, had a shot wound through his head and through his calf of a leg; they could not help him in the right way. They took him a short time afterwards to a hospital in Enschede, but there he died a few days later.
F/O Graham had also taken part in the attack on the Tirpitz and probably had gotten this badge in Russia.
The other members of the crew were more fortunate. F/Sgt F.L. ('Peter') Whittaker, top turret gunner, came down not far from P/O Benting behind the farmhouse of J.W. Ebbekink 'Peurtje' – very active in the resistance movement where he was helped further.
Bomb aimer F/O W.A. ('Bill') Rupert, a canadian, landed safely on the Markeloseberg, hurried away from there and also came in touch with the underground. Together with his fellow crewmember Peter Whittaker he too was an enthousiastic [sic] co-worker at the droppings of arms, etc. For the resistance. In chapter 9 about the resistance movement more will be told about.
About the wireless operator F/O R.J. Allen nothing is known, except that he survived the war. Just like Petch, Rupert and Whittaker he probably was liberated at last at a hiding address in Eastern Holland.
Many thanks to the author Martin Hols for the translation from Dutch to English from the book HOLTEN IN OORLOGSTJD (1984) from the Saunders family.
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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
Holten in Oorlogstjd (1984) - Holten in Wartime
Lancaster Crashed in Holterbroek.
Description
An account of the resource
A detailed account of the night's events leading to the shooting down of a Lancaster over the Netherlands.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Netherlands
Netherlands--Holten
Great Britain
England--Lincoln
France
Netherlands--Tilburg Metropolitan Area
Norway
Russia (Federation)
Russia (Federation)--Arkhangelʹskai︠a︡ oblastʹ
Germany
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Netherlands--Arnhem
Scotland--Glasgow
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five typewritten sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MParryWE1172401-220531-05
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1984
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
5 Group
617 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
crash
evading
final resting place
killed in action
Lancaster
Mosquito
navigator
P-38
RAF Bardney
Resistance
Tallboy
target indicator
Tirpitz