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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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Taplin, J A
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-01-05
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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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Taplin, JA
Description
An account of the resource
128 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant John Albert Taplin (b.1919, 1268696 Royal Air Force) and contains correspondence, documents photographs and two audio interviews. He flew operations as an air gunner with 408 Squadron before he was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Kevan Taplin and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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Title
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Newsletter of the National Ex-Prisoner of War Association
Description
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An article about the German treatment of British and French prisoners of war.
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National Ex-Prisoner of War Association
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Civilian
British Army
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eng
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Text
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One printed sheet
Identifier
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MTaplinJA1268696-161130-050001
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
prisoner of war
Red Cross
the long march
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Title
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Culkin, Jean. Album
Description
An account of the resource
64 items. An album containing photographs and newspaper cuttings from her husband John George Mackel Culkin's service as ground crew in North Africa and Italy, and Hong Kong post war.
Date
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John George Mackel Culkin
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Culkin, J
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Title
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Kuching, Borneo
Description
An account of the resource
Four photographs, first two Jack on the veranda of a building, captioned 'Outside Basha', reverse captioned Kuching Borneo 1964-65'.
Third and fourth is Jack and other individuals in a row outside, awaiting a formal visit. Captioned, Duke of Edinburgh visits and talks'. Reverse, captioned Kuching Borneo, 1964-65, Duke of Edinburgh's visit.
Format
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Four b/w photographs on an album page
Language
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eng
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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PCulkinJ17010132, PCulkinJ17010133, PCulkinJ17010134, PCulkinJ17010135, PCulkinJ17010136, PCulkinJ17010137, PCulkinJ17010138, PCulkinJ17010139
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
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Malaysia
Borneo
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/935/11292/ALunnLG171107.2.mp3
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Title
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Lunn, Leslie Grantham
L G Lunn
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Leslie Lunn (b. 1923, 1317021, 157825 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 127 Squadron
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-11-07
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Lunn, LG
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 7th of November 2017 and we’re in Balsall Common near Coventry talking to Squadron Leader Leslie Lunn AFC about his life and times. So, Les, what are the earliest recollections you have of life.
LL: My sister [laughs] boxing me in, in the house and looking after me. Not allowing me to move. I wasn’t allowed to move [laughs] I was very very young then. After that I don’t know. I just, I just went to school and it was we went to school at Wembley and then at Watford. Then we moved from Watford down to Plymouth and I went to a school called Warren School and didn’t learn a thing because it, it was a totally incompetent and my father and mother decided that their son was an absolute idiot. And I sat the entrance exam to Plymouth, Plymouth College and somehow or other passed and I started and I did my education in Plymouth College. Finished it off at the age, I started about the age of thirteen and I, and I got my School Certificate eventually at eighteen. And then with the bombing raids on Plymouth my parents moved out to, out into the country and we lived at Cornwood in, in Devon. And I volunteered for the RAF from there. I had a bit of a row with me mum and in a huff I went into Plymouth and volunteered. And when I came back and told my mother she wouldn’t believe me [laughs] until my call up papers came [laughs] And then I was attested in Oxford and oh, I had to wait something like oh three or four months before I was attested and then I had to go. I’d never left home and I had to get up to London to Lord’s Cricket Ground to where we were all assembling and I went up by train and eventually got to Lord’s Cricket Ground where there was hundreds of us waiting and we sat there and waited and waited and waited all day and, or for the rest of the day and eventually they never got to me. The L’s. So we were billeted out in, oh I can’t remember now, and we had to go back again and we were eventually had a medical and all that sort of stuff and I was in the Air Force. And the reason why I came to, went in the Air Force was that my father was in the First World War and he was in, he was unfortunately eighteen when the war was declared and he joined the Norfolk Regiment and was in the trenches for nearly a year and he saw these funny little biplanes flying up above him and he decided that he was better up there then down in all this mud. So he volunteered too for aircrew and he was sent to back to England and became an observer. And I can’t, and he was posted then back to Germany as an, as an observer and he flew with a captain, I don’t know his name, in and I can’t remember, I think it was 14 Squadron. It could be. I don’t. I can’t really remember. And the life expectancy was somewhere in the matter of three weeks. Possibly three months. And my father somehow survived for the rest of the war. Three years. So he was a very, very lucky man. And he met my mother in, on one of his leaves because his, his father was a master tailor in, in Norwich, Mother was a typist in in the railway or something and he met her and they were married. And after the war pop couldn’t get a job so he joined the Black and Tans.
CB: Oh.
LL: Yeah. The Black and Tans, and went to Ireland with my mother and my sister then who was a baby and they spent some time in, in Ireland. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t very pleasant. And then pop came, then when they came back father became, worked for a firm called Blundell’s. And they did a hire purchase system. And father stayed with them for the rest of his career and he became the manager of a department store in Plymouth because we moved from Watford to Plymouth and and he retired from, from that particular job. And then during the Second World War he volunteered for is it AR? Not ARP. What was it?
CB: Yeah.
LL: Was it ARP?
CB: Yes. Yeah.
LL: And he had a uniform and there’s a photograph of us somewhere with me in my officer’s uniform and pop in his. And, and the reason why I suppose I joined the, I wanted to be a pilot and join the RAF was because of my father’s background really. Am I nattering too much?
CB: That’s really good. Keep going.
LL: Oh, I see [laughs] where do I go from there?
CB: Well, you were at ACRC so —
LL: Oh yes. I I volunteered and, and I was at ACRC. That’s right. ACRC. That’s right. ACRC. And from there I was sent to Paignton to do my ITW and we lived in a [tin barny] hotel on the front and I made friends. Three chaps. And we all four of us got together and eventually the postings came through and my three friends were posted to, on one of the drafts to America to do their pilot training. And I was left out. And I tried to get on the same tour but they said that I would be on the next one. So anyway I continued doing my training at the ITW and then I was posted to America and we had to go up to Manchester and had to be called from Manchester which was a reception area. We went by, up to Liverpool. I think it was Liverpool where we boarded a troopship called the Montcalm and I had the most awful journey to America, or Canada. It was, it was our troopship plus another troop ship and the weather got worse and worse and worse and we were escorted by those American, ex-American destroyers. Four funnel jobs.
CB: Yeah.
LL: Nasty old things. Anyway, the weather got so bad they turned back to England and left us and we had to go right up towards the Arctic Circle to avoid U-boats. And we landed eventually in Halifax. And the life on that boat was absolutely awful. I was eighteen, never left home and I had to suffer these. Everybody was being sick and the ship was riddled with cockroaches. All the food that was just dished out, we had to go down to the galley and collect it had cockroaches in it. You sliced the bread and you sliced through a cockroach. And consequently I hardly ate anything for the two weeks I think it was. Goodness knows how long I took to get to Canada. But we landed at Halifax eventually and at, I went to Moncton, Moncton, Canada. Where we were stayed for I don’t know what we did there but then we boarded a train and went all the way down to Montgomery in Georgia. Or was it —
CB: Alabama.
LL: Montgomery. That’s right. Montgomery, Georgia. And that was quite an adventurous journey. We stopped at New York and we had a, a walk around Grand Central Station, and oh it was, to be in America and all the food was was absolutely fantastic. And I started, and then we did what they called a conversion to American system of marching and I was, oh yes. I’ll go back. I actually was, my number of the course was number 42H. So ‘42 being the year and H was my graduation month I think. And anyway, we did drill and lectures and things like that. Then I was posted down to Arcadia, Florida where I started my primary training on Stearmans. And my instructor was Mr Ryan and he was a civilian and he had three or was it four students. And I was the only one to survive. The others didn’t make it. And I did sixty hours there. Then I went to Gunter Field, Montgomery, where I did my basic training on [pause] oh dear, Vultee13s I think they were called. Fixed undercarriage and wound the flaps down, that’s right [laughs] So anyway another, did another sixty hours there and then from there I went to [pause] Carlstrom? No. I can’t remember the name of the place. Was it Carlstrom Field? No. I did my advanced training anyway on Harvards and I graduated in August. I think it was August. It could have been early September but I’ve got it in my logbook anyway.
CB: Ok.
LL: And they’re on the table there. And somehow I became a natural pilot. On the advanced we went down to an airfield, Eglin Field in Florida and did air gunnery. That’s right. And I did quite well and that billed me in good stead because eventually when we got back to England and we were at Bournemouth we were all interviewed and they were building up Bomber Command all, all the time. And I should think out of the hundreds that were there the majority of them were pushed into Bomber Command. But at my interview I said I wanted Spitfires and I wanted Fighter Command. And fortunately I had a good gunnery score and that, on my records and I was posted to 129 Squadron on Spitfires. Much to my relief. And to fly a Spitfire was absolutely marvellous. And I was still, let me see at the end of the year oh, I had, gosh [pause] I left a bit. I’m sorry. I was posted to an OCU. That’s right. From Bournemouth I was posted to Grangemouth. Grangemouth in Scotland where I did my OCU and, on Spitfires. And from there I was posted to 129 Squadron at, it was at [pause] oh dear. Oh dear. Carlton? That was Carlstrom Field, I think. It was one of these wartime strips with Somerfield tracking and we lived in — no. I’m I’m sorry. Ignore that. Ignore that. Ignore that. Ignore that. That was sometime later. Ignore that. That’s right. I went to, I joined 129 Squadron at [pause] is there an airfield near Ringwood? Oh I can’t. I can’t remember.
CB: At Hurn.
LL: It will be in my logbook anyway. And the Squadron had actually gone to Hornchurch and so my 129 Squadron didn’t, wasn’t there. So I had to wait until they came back again and then of course I started, and I started my ops from, from there. And we did [pause] I was very green of course and they looked after me, I suppose. And then we were posted from that airfield. I can’t remember the name again, to Hornchurch where I operated from. I don’t know for how long, but we were on Spitty 5s to start off with at, at the airfield I can’t remember the name of. And we then converted on to Spit 9s when we were at Hornchurch and we did fighter patrols and I was nominated as, as I was a good Number 2 I used to fly Number 2 to the station commander and also the Squadron commander. And from there we, the war, the invasion, we prepared for the invasion and we were posted down to, this is where we went to, oh dear. Why? Why can’t I think of it? It was one of these wartime airfields and it was Sommerfield tracking and we lived in tents and life was a bit rough. Unfortunately they had a system where the pilots moved to the new station and took up the aircraft and they had the ground crew of those particular aircraft. And the the airfield was run by a Polish wing and Wold, no it wasn’t Woldzinski, but anyway we had two Polish Squadrons there and we, and we joined with our Spitfires at this particular place. But we had Polish ground crew. But we got rid of our Spitfires almost immediately and we got Mustangs and our serviceability went down very badly because they didn’t understand what we were talking about and we didn’t understand what they were talking about. The ground crew. And eventually we got British ground crew and everything was a little bit more satisfactory and we did patrols. We escorted Fortresses to, into Germany. We did a lot escort work. And most of our, a lot of our, when I was on on on Spitfires we escorted American bombers in France and into Germany and yes it was all all very, very well, I can’t say exciting really. It [pause] and I’m about bouncing around a bit. Does that matter?
CB: Fine. It’s fine.
LL: I’m bouncing around a bit. So anyway. The invasion. We were at this airfield, and oh yes we with, with the Mustang of course we could stay airborne for quite a long time and we, on these escorts to in to Germany with the Fortresses we were airborne in the Mustang for three hours, three and a half hours, maybe four hours some times. And when we got back on one particular trip it had a tremendous rain storm and all our tents had been flattened. All our bedding was soaking wet. And it was a bit of a mess actually. The whole airfield. And it took quite a while to sort of get ourselves sorted out. The other thing about it was that the Squadron commander made me the imprest holder and I had to go to base accounts and collect all the money and pay the troops and the officers the money they wanted. And the trouble was there was there was nowhere to put this money. I had no safe. I had, and I and I used to go on operations with my pockets full of, full of money because I had nowhere to put them. I couldn’t leave it in the tent. So eventually I saw the Squadron commander and I said, ‘This is ridiculous, sir. I can’t, I can’t cope.’ Anyway, he agreed and they got somebody in to, an officer, ground crew officer and he took over the imprest. So if I had been shot down in Germany I would have had lots of money [laughs] Oh dear. So anyway, from there we went to [pause] we were preparing to go over to, over to France. Oh yes. The invasion. We took, we started with the, the invasion started and we didn’t actually take part in the very first day. The 6th. We were, we were on standby and we were on, and I flew supporting the invasion on the, the second day and it was amazing to see. To fly over that beach head and the, and the number of ships in the harbour there. But the Navy was very very light fingered and they invariably fired at us. And to avoid this they introduced a system where we lowered our undercarriages, circled round to prove to them that we were British and then off we went again. But they still fired at us and they invariably got at least one aeroplane which was very, very upsetting. But the fact was that we were then doing ground, ground support and we were supporting the troops in, against the German tanks and doing a lot of ground work and we lost a lot of pilots through ground fire. And I’ve got all the names in my logbook if you want it. And then we were, the Doodlebugs started and we were diverted from the invasion to shoot down Doodlebugs. And we went to Dungeness, a little airfield in Dungeness with our Mustangs and we were given new Mustangs with a higher boost so that we had more speed to catch these Doodlebugs. And I met, I got one which blew up in front of me and bits of metal through all, from the doodlebug sort of passed over me and blackened all my windscreen. And I got two possibles. So, so I had a little bit of a success there. And then from there I was tour-ex and I was posted to Ingham on fighter affil duties. Can we stop there?
CB: We will.
[recording paused]
LL: Then we had the undercarriage down and circled around them. And that’s the whole Squadron you know, sort of doing it. They still fired at us. But it was the actual invasion supporting the troops and doing ground, ground attack work was more or less new to us. We did what they called from Hornchurch and, and, and the other airfields we used to do what they called ramrods.
CB: Yes.
LL: That was low level stuff and we sorted out trains and German cars and things like that. Interdiction I think they called it, didn’t they?
CB: Yeah.
LL: Keep on whirring. So anyway, Ingham.
CB: Just quickly, what was the armament you had on the Mustang?
LL: Sorry?
CB: What was the armament on the Mustang?
LL: .5s, .5s.
CB: Right.
LL: .5s.
CB: But on the Spitfire you had twenty millimetre cannon.
LL: We had. The early ones of course they had eight 303s and then we got two cannons and two 303s on each wing. No. One cannon and one, that’s right and also a couple of 303s and then they dispensed with the 303s altogether and we had two cannons per wing.
CB: How did you feel about that?
LL: Oh, jolly good. Jolly good. For ground attack work they were marvellous. And on these what they called ramrods.
CB: Just quickly on the V-1 Doodlebug.
LL: Yeah.
CB: So what was the technique that you were trained to pursue with them?
LL: Ah. Well they came in at around about two thousand feet, the Doodlebugs. And we had a sea patrol which was, and then and, and we, if you picked and we stayed at about three or four thousand feet above and so when we saw them we used to have to dive on them and with that extra speed we managed to keep up with them. And we then chased them and fired at them or we hadn’t, if we had missed them, they were still pressing on we had to stop because there was a gunnery belt, anti-aircraft belt and we had to stop and turn back otherwise we would have been fired at. And the gunners took over the Doodlebug from us.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And had a go at it. So it ran a pretty dicey journey.
CB: Sure.
LL: The old V-1s, really. So it, oh yes and one of one of the gunners when we were on this airfield the gunners actually shot, shot one down and winged it and it didn’t blow up. It actually sort of tipped over and headed for the ground and it came straight for us. And we scattered and, and, and it landed in the field just behind the airfield. And when I, we sort of came, I came to I was under the petrol bowser [laughs] Can you imagine it? I was under the bloody petrol bowser. Stupid thing. So, anyway it was from, it was quite exciting chasing the old Doodlebugs.
CB: The one you hit —
LL: Because they didn’t fire back at me you see [laughs]
CB: No. But what was the recommended technique for the approach?
LL: To dive down on them from height to get the speed.
CB: So was it a passing shot or did you actually dive and then come in from behind?
LL: Oh yes. Always from behind. You couldn’t get a deflection shot on them.
CB: Right.
LL: You had to fire on them from behind.
CB: So the one that you got. The kill you did. It blew up. You got a ton of explosive at the front going up.
LL: I must have stopped the engine which then slowed it down and I hadn’t realised that and of course I then closed in rather rapidly and then of course my cannon fire actually exploded it.
CB: Right.
LL: And it, and somebody else did this and they finished up with bits of the Doodlebug stuck in their wings.
CB: Yes. And they were, people were brought down by it as well.
LL: That’s right.
CB: So now you’ve gone through the blackness and your windscreen you said was covered in black. So what did you do then? You can’t lean out and wipe the windscreen.
LL: Somehow, somehow you can’t lean forward and clean the windscreen [laughs] somehow by looking out sideways I managed to get back and land it. Oh, I had engine failure on take-off at that airfield too.
CB: This is at Dungeness.
LL: Yeah. We had Packard Merlin engines and they suffered from internal coolant leaks. And I was leading a section off from there and all of a sudden I started losing power and all this smoke came out of the exhaust. And I had selected undercarriage up because I’d just left the ground and the, and that was it. The engine stopped and I finished up at the ditch at the end of the airfield. And my number two sort of pressed on, fortunately.
CB: So, in those circumstances the number two leads the flight.
LL: No. He had no other opportunity. He had to carry on actually. I don’t know what happened. Whether he landed again or not I can’t remember. I was more concerned about getting out the aircraft [laughs]
CB: So you said there were two probables. How did that occur?
LL: They, they were winged but they, but they and they went down, started going down and then they went into cloud and, and that was it. They, for some reason or other they didn’t give the, they didn’t award me them. They just gave me probables.
CB: Because they couldn’t link it directly to you. Is that it?
LL: They couldn’t link it directly to me. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. How did you feel about that?
LL: Well, had to accept it didn’t I?
CB: Not as sick as a parrot.
LL: So anyway where did we get to?
CB: Right. So you then went to Ingham.
LL: Ingham.
CB: In Lincolnshire.
LL: Oh yes, where we had Hurricanes and Spitfires. And I’d never done this sort of thing before and of course the daylight fighter affil was, was relatively easy. In fact, it was enjoyable. Really enjoyable doing quarter attacks on, and we used to meet the bomber above his airfield and then we used to, off we used to go and do the quarter attacks.
CB: This is the fighter affiliation.
LL: Fighter affil, yeah. And, and then of course we, I had to do it at night. Well, at night time I wasn’t very, I didn’t like night flying very much and, but I had to get used to it. And again we had to take off at night, find the bomber because he always used to be above the airfield and then he used to lead us off. Off somewhere. And then we used to do our quarter attacks at night time. We had infrared lights or lamps under each wing tip on the Spitfires and the Hurricanes so that the gunner can photograph us at night time and assess their abilities. And it was their responsibility to bring us back to base because we had no idea where we were going or where we were. And we, the trouble was that we daren’t lose the bomber because we had no navigation systems and we had no radio systems to get home. And it was their, the bombers responsibility to bring us back home again and when it was a lot of cloud around the bomber used to descend into cloud and we had to formate on this bomber in cloud. And the only ident, the only visual, visual of the bomber was the downward ident light. And you had to sort of fly more or less underneath it to keep in touch with it. And it was quite, quite frightening actually. And you daren’t lost it because you had, you had no idea when you broke, if you eventually broke cloud on your own where you were and there was no identification on the ground and and you were really were sort of lost in a way. But fortunately I managed to hang on to the bombers and I never had that, that situation at all. But it was. And then from Ingham we were, they decided that we would have to go to the bomber stations themselves and we went to Lindholme. The whole unit went up to Lindholme where we operated on fighter affil there. And then we saw Bomber Command operating at its, at its full [pause] I remember one night. Would they have had Halifaxes or Lancasters? I think. I can’t remember. But they took, one aircraft took off and crashed immediately after take-off and then the next aircraft took off and that did exactly the same thing. And instead of selecting undercarriage up the chappie must have, they think who operated the flaps must have brought the flaps up and the aircraft must have stalled and gone straight in. But it was a dreadful mess. It was something that sort of stuck in my mind. Anyway, one of the pilots who was posted on to Typhoons and he didn’t want to go and I wanted to get away from Bomber Command at the time. So I wanted to get back into Fighter Command so I volunteered to take his posting and I was accepted and I went down to Aston Down and converted on to Typhoons. And when I was there the war ended. And I had managed to scrounge trips on Tempests instead of Typhoons. I got on to Tempests which was more of a faster and better aircraft and from there I was declared redundant. And I went home on leave and I was recalled and when I got back I found that they wanted pilots on 222 Squadron in Germany flying Tempests and I was nominated. And I was, I think I said, ‘Thank goodness for that,’ and off I went to Germany to, oh dear what was the name of the damned airfield? Anyway, I joined 222 Squadron and on Tempests. And we, we just did ordinary training and flying and, and then we were sent back to England. I was only on, in Germany for a short period like three or four months and the Squadron was brought home and we were converted onto Meteors. And we went to Molesworth and we converted on to Meteors and they were Meteor 1s. And of course they were twin-engine and we, I had never flown twin engines before. None of the pilots had. And we were given dual in an Oxford. And this, the asymmetric training they gave us was the instructor, throttle back one engine and he said, ‘You push the rudder in the opposite side to keep it straight. Ok? And if you throttle back the other one you push the other rudder. Ok?’ And he said, ‘Now, you do it.’ And I do it. And then we went in and landed. And that was my asymmetric training [laughs] They didn’t show no, no approaches or anything and and consequently we had an awful lot of Meteor crashes because the, the engine, the fuel for some unearthly reason had, when they manufactured was getting water into it and the engines were, were, tended to stop. And unfortunately a lot of pilots had to do asymmetric landings and they had very little training and consequently they, they killed themselves approaching on one engine and it, it was, it was, it was amazing. The Meteor had a very, very high accident rate [pause] What did I do from there? Oh, yes. I can’t remember, [unclear] no. Meteors. Where did I operate? We went to Exeter. That’s right. Exeter, on Meteors. And of course that was quite close to my home which was in Plymouth. And I used to sort of nip home over the weekends quite easily. And I had a car then so I managed to get home quite easily. And then I was posted from 222 Squadron to 1 Squadron to convert them on to Meteors. They had Spitfire 21s. And I had the opportunity to fly Spitfire 21s and 22s with, some of them with contra rotating props so you went from Meteors to Spitfires again. And the Squadron commander brought me in one day and said, ‘How would you like to be posted overseas?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘You’re a bachelor and they want pilots in Italy, and how about it?’ So I said, ‘Oh, ok.’ And consequently I was posted to Italy. We went by train all the way across the continent on this military train and it took two days to get to Northern Italy. And it was Treviso. Treviso in Northern Italy. That’s right. Where we flew Mustangs. So, I’ve gone from jets back to piston engines. And we, and of course they were disbanding Squadrons left right and centre at the time and our Squadron was disbanded and I was sent up to a transit camp in Austria where we spent days doing nothing and waiting for a posting. And I assumed I was being posted home again but I was posted to the Middle East. And I [pause] and I eventually after a lot of journeys and trains and aircraft I managed to get via Malta to the Canal Zone, Egypt, where we lived in tents. And from there I was posted to Cyprus on to 213 Squadron. And I, and they were so short of pilots there was the Squadron commander, one flight commander and two pilots. That totalled the Squadron. And I turned up plus a couple of others and we sort of expanded the Squadron a bit. And then they were gradually, Cranwell had started up again and we eventually got some Cranwell students. Pilots posted in and we spent about nearly a year in good old Cyprus. We had a marvellous time in Cyprus. And then I was posted from there. We were sent to Khartoum. And that’s the first time I really saw the Sahara Desert and I was amazed at the extent of that desert. It was fantastic. And flying sort of single engine aircraft over this desert is, is quite, quite something really. And anyway we arrived at at Khartoum and we spent nearly a year there. And we were, from Khartoum we had, yes that’s right it was hot and awful and they had what they called an international front. A weather front called a haboub. And this had, it was high winds and it picked up the sand and it had rain and this black cloud was extended, used to move right across the ocean northwards and and sand was blown everywhere and it was, and it was the first time we’d seen rain. And it was quite, it turned the sand into sort of mud and what amazed me was that after two or three days of this sort of haboub and rain the, if you looked horizontally across the sand you could see it turning green. Grass was actually growing again in the sand. And then of course it didn’t last. It was then of course the heat and the sun killed it off again but that is there, and what amazed me was that it could actually grow and if you could cultivate it I suppose you could have, you know turn the desert into the grass. But anyway, we from Khartoum we were sent down to Mogadishu in —
CB: Somalia.
LL: Somalia. Where we lived very very primitively. It was a dreadful thing. The only toilet was a hole in the ground with a big trench in the ground with holes in it and you sort of had to sit over the hole. We had an air liaison officer, a Claude [Histead?] his name was and he was, he stayed with the Squadron all the way from Cyprus. And he stayed with us for ages. Anyway, he decided that he was, and of course there was a lot of flies over this thing and he decided that he was going to do something about it. So he got some petrol and poured it down into this hole, there were various holes and threw a match in and the whole thing went up in smoke including the [unclear] so it was left a dirty big hole and no small holes for us to sit in, over [laughs] But he got rid of the flies. Anyway, the AOC came down to see us I can remember and, and we thought we’d give him a decent lunch so I went into Mogadishu and I bought these chickens and gave them to the chef or the cook and we, he cooked them up and they served them. And boy those chickens must have been a hundred years old I think because they were so tough that we couldn’t even get a knife into them. And so that was the special dinner for the AOC was a complete washout and we finished up eating corned beef and what was it? What are those red things? Oh, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, we had a makeshift corned beef lunch much to the amusement of the AOC. So we spent time there and we were actually supporting the army in the unrest in that area. And we used to fly, we had long range tanks of course and we had to locate this army unit and we used to fly over them. And our presence helped to back up their system I suppose in keeping the natives quiet because there was a lot of unrest there. And we used to put on rocket demonstrations at [unclear] and do rocket demonstrations just to show them what was in store for them if they didn’t behave themselves. You can’t do that these days. But we had quite a while at Mogadishu and then from Mogadishu we went up to Aden and stayed at Aden for a while where 8 Squadron was. And then I got up to, posted, we were posted back up to the Canal Zone. And the first thing they told me I was required at Group Headquarters for an interview for a permanent commission. And of course I hadn’t got any kit and anyway I got the batman to press my KD and whatnot. Made myself reasonably respectable and reported to Group Headquarters where they kept me waiting all morning and then when I was ushered in I can’t remember what rank they were but they started asking me questions on political situations and things. And I said ‘Excuse me, sir. I haven’t seen a paper or heard a radio now for nearly two years. I have no idea what’s happening in the world so I cannot answer your questions.’ He looked at me as if I’d gone mad and I got, I must admit I got a little bit annoyed because you know he just couldn’t believe that I didn’t know what was going on in the rest of the world. You know, with Russia and what not. And consequently I was turned down. And when I got back to base, to Shallufa, that’s right, Shallufa we were stationed at, the station commander said, ‘How did it go?’ And I said, ‘Not very well.’ And then of course it came through that I’d, I had failed and he said, ‘Right. I’ll put you up again.’ So I was put up again and before I was actually summoned for another interview I was posted home tour-ex. That was after two and a half years. And as a matter of interest my overseas allowance then was two shillings a day, 10p now. That was not exactly [laughs] that was added to my salary and of course taxed as well. Can I go back a little bit? Back to Khartoum.
CB: Do.
LL: When I was, when I was at Khartoum I was sent home on a, on a course. Some, I don’t know I’ve forgotten what course it was now but anyway I took the opportunity and I thought it was jolly good. Anyway, I eventually got back to England again and I did the course, and I had a week’s leave and when I was coming back to report back to Air Ministry I got, we had first class tickets in those days. In my compartment there was a young lady and a young man and she was wearing, and it was a hot day and she was wearing a fur coat. And I said to her, ‘Are you cold?’ She said, ‘Yes. I’ve, we’ve just come home from Khartoum.’ I said, ‘Really? So have I.’ She said, ‘Oh, my daddy is a district commissioner in, in the Sudan.’ And then I told her what I thought of district commissioners because while we were stationed at Khartoum they would have nothing to do with us. We used to go to the Sudan Club where there was a swimming pool and when we used to go to the mess they completely ignored us and wouldn’t have anything to do with us because we were service. And I told her what I thought of district commissioners and I left the compartment. Found somewhere else to sit. So I didn’t think much of her. So, anyway where did I get to?
CB: So you went back on a course.
LL: Oh yes. On a course. And, and that was on the train journey —
CB: Yeah.
LL: To London. Then I had to go up to, oh some transit camp up in Lancashire somewhere and then I got, got on a troop ship and we went, I went back to the Middle East and I rejoined the Squadron in the Canal Zone. And then of course we got involved with the Israeli Egyptian war.
CB: Yeah. 1948.
LL: Yeah,1948. And these, I can remember the Egyptian Spitfires landing at Shallufa and they were in a dreadful state these aircraft, these aircraft. There were panels missing off them and they were, oh dreadful looking aircraft. They were completely and utterly neglected. Anyway, the highlight then that had happened was that 208 Squadron had red nosed Spitfires and I can’t remember what base they were on and four of them went missing one day. And they’d been shot down by the Israelis. And our Group Captain Anderson came over to us and while we were at Shallufa we used to do readiness. We used to do twenty fours hours on, and twenty fours off and we shared it with 6 Squadron. And we had just come off readiness and they had de-tensioned the BFMs which is the Belt Feed Mechanism. And anyway, the group captain came to see me and my Squadron commander was in, in Cairo at the time so I was looking after the Squadron. And he said, ‘Get your aircraft ready, Les and we’re going to go and find these bloody Spitfires.’ And anyway, we got airborne and 6 Squadron got airborne and we flew towards Israel and, well it wasn’t Israel in those days. It was —
CB: Palestine. Yeah.
LL: Palestine, wasn’t it? Palestine. And we saw these two Spitfires, red nosed Spitfires flying out to our left and so we assumed they were 208 Squadron and they came around and the next thing that happened is they were firing at us and they shot down my number two. We couldn’t believe it. And these bloody Israelis attacked us and shot down and killed my number two. [Tattersfield?] was his name. He’d only joined the Squadron a couple of months before. Anyway, it broke up and I somehow finished behind a Spitfire which was firing at one of my Tempests and I pressed the tit to shoot at him and of course the guns didn’t work because my BFMs had been de-tensioned. Anyway, he must have seen me. He broke up and disappeared. So I, in way saved the chap’s life in that second. When we got back to base we looked at his aircraft and there were bullet holes through the fuselage and hitting the back of the armour plating. You know, behind the seat. So he was jolly lucky. And gosh, our Group Captain Anderson was absolutely furious. He said, ‘I’m going to put rockets on these bloody aircraft. We’ll, show these bloody Israelis.’ Anyway, Group managed, somehow found out and they calmed him down and that was the end of that. But it was, it was quite a thing and it never appeared in the papers. I don’t know what would have happened if, if I had shot this bloody Spitfire down. So that was quite an excitement there.
CB: These, these Israelis were all ex-RAF pilots.
LL: Most of them. Yeah. So, anyway what had happened is that they had shot down these four pilots and fortunately all four pilots survived and they were taken prisoner. And [pause] and believe it or not I was given a book and I think it’s called, “Silent Witness,” or something like that. This is stories by RAF pilots that had not been printed or not known. And one of the stories is the, is by the pilot of one of these Spitfires that were shot down. And he recalls his adventures or what happened to him after he was shot down, and he also mentioned the fact that the Israelis actually shot down one of the Tempests. So, I had a double. It’s up, it’s up in the bedroom somewhere, this, this book.
CB: This double link for you.
LL: A double link. I was reading both sides.
CB: Yes.
LL: I found out both sides of the story. But the Israelis were not very nice at all. They were, they were, they were bombing people. They were putting wire across the road, you know and motorcyclists, despatch riders were, had been decapitated by this bloody wire. They blew up half, one of the wings of the headquarters. They, they, they got hold of some army colonel or major and imprisoned him in a tomb somewhere and eventually the services managed to find him again. They were doing all sorts of nasty things there. And they were also trying to get extra aircraft and they would bribe, we found out they would bribe us with money if we actually landed our aircraft into Israel. They would take us over. They would take us out to sea and put us in a dinghy and say [laughs] and say that we had, had engine failure over the Mediterranean and of course there was no sign of the aeroplane. But I don’t think anybody took [laughs] took that little adventure anyway. But that was a little bit of bribery on their part. So it was all very sort of what do you call it? Exciting, I suppose. Interesting.
CB: What did they do with these pilots they captured.
LL: They, they put them in prison actually. And, and I think they looked after them. They didn’t sort of torture them or anything like that. But I can’t remember how they got released. But they were released somehow or other. But I’d have to read the story again. I can’t honestly remember. So anyway, I was posted back to England and I took over a comm flight at Hawarden in north, near Chester, North Wales, where we had Ansons, Oxfords, and this AOC had a Spitfire, and we had a Harvard. And we used to fly ATC boys over the weekend and we, and we flew people from A to B as, as a communications flight. And I eventually got my permanent commission interview and I got my permanent commission there. So it was quite a long time after the war that I actually I got my commission. And the reason, and how I stayed in the Air Force was that there were at the end of the war they were offering, it was about a year after the end of the war they were getting short of pilots or something or the other and they were offering four year commissions. And I accepted the four years and I managed to get my permanent commission during that period of extended service as they called it. Extended service. From, I stayed there for, [pause] oh I don’t know whether I ought to mention it but all my, my friends used to ring me up when they were posted from A to B because they didn’t have cars in those days and I used to go across with the Proctor and pick them up and take them to their new airfield. And I used to charge them ten bob for the [laughs] for the pleasure of doing it. I didn’t keep it. I put it in this, in the, in the flight fund and, and at Christmas time we spent this money on a nice party for the ground crew and the pilots. It was called, “Lunn’s Airlines.” [laughs] I don’t know whether I should say that. Nobody knows that really. So, anyway from there I was posted down or sent down to Little Rissington for an interview to be an instructor. And I didn’t want to be an instructor, but they said you’re going to be an instructor. So I eventually got a posting to Little Rissington on the instructor’s course. And what we used to do there is you had dual with a, you know with a at Little Rissington a CFS instructor and then we used to fly mutual. You know, two pilots together. And believe it or not my co-pilot or confederate was an Israeli I was told and believe it or not his name was Captain Israel Stern. He had renamed himself Captain Israel Stern and I went up and saw the Squadron commander and I said, ‘I don’t want this man. I won’t fly with him,’ and I told him a bit of the story and he said ok and he gave me, they gave me somebody else. But it was amazing that I should be given this bloody man because I must admit I hated them. Anyway, I graduated funnily enough with a B1 instead of a B2 and I was sent up to [pause] outside of York. What was the name of the blasted airfield?
CB: Elvington?
LL: Who?
CB: Elvington.
LL: Elvington. No. No. It’s a prison now. Full Sutton. Full Sutton.
CB: Yeah.
LL: Full Sutton, and of course the Korean War had started.
CB: Yes. 1950.
LL: Yeah. It was the Korean War and they were calling up ex-RAF pilots back into the RAF and we, and Molesworth was opened up again. And it was a disused airfield and there were no facilities there. There were nissen huts and I had half a nissen hut, a bed and a wardrobe I think, or a cupboard or something to put my clothes in. And we all ate in the airmen’s one mess because there was no officer’s mess or sergeant’s mess or officer’s mess. So we all ate together. And we had to set to and open up this airfield and prepare to get aircraft. And we got Spitfires believe it or not, and Vampires and Meteors. And we did a conversion course of these pilots who were being called up. It was, it was quite a lot of, in fact a graduated CFS instructor spent a lot of his time initially in shuffling manure out of the air traffic control building [laughs] so they could get that place, the air traffic control building sort of back into operation again. It was a bit of a mess actually. But after a lot a lot of work we got this airfield going again and I became a flight commander there. And it was a lot of work. We used to start at 6 o’clock in the morning and we lived in nissen huts. And the officer’s mess was a nissen hut and [pause] oh yeah. We, we worked jolly hard actually and we worked weekends as well. And then from there after I can’t remember how long I was at Full Sutton but I spent a lot of time, and of course I did a lot of asymmetric flying there because we had to teach these students or ex-pilots asymmetric. And they used to shut down an engine in the air and then do a single engine landing. And then so many aircraft had accidents they decided it was rather silly to shut down the engine so we just throttled it back.
CB: This was on the Meteors.
LL: On the Meteors, yeah. And anyway, I was summoned to the station commander’s office one day and he said there was an air commodore, I think he’s one, he said, ‘He’s never flown in a jet and,’ and he said, ‘I want you to take him up on a trip.’ So I said, ‘Ok. Fair enough, sir.’ So we took him out to the aircraft and I briefed him and whatnot and set him in and we took off and I got, had an engine failure just as I left the ground. There was a bang and bingo the engine stopped and by God, I really had to work hard to keep that aircraft in the air. Anyway, we managed to slowly climb away and we came around and landed again. And the air commodore said, ‘Oh, asymmetric flying is easy in the Meteor isn’t it?’ [laughs] Little did he know that I was struggling. That I struggled. Anyway, that was one incident anyway. It was a very primitive airfield. Everything was very primitive and it’s now, it’s now an open prison. Full Sutton is. And what happened then? Oh yes. I was posted from there as flying wing adjutant down at CFS where I met Diana Broadhurst, she was a WAAF officer there.
CB: So, Harry’s daughter.
LL: And, and she used to come down to the office every other day and see me. And she said, ‘Look, Les, the WAAFs in the tower haven’t got a toilet. Can you organise a toilet for them?’ And I said, ‘Well, there’s nowhere in the air traffic building that we can put a lady’s toilet.’ Anyway, she used to pop down practically every other day on this subject and so we got to know each other quite well, and I married her [laughs] And she said, ‘You’ll have to ask my dad.’ And I said, ‘Oh.’ And he was CnC Bomber Command at the time. And so I had to go up with Diana to High Wycombe and I stayed with the CnC that weekend and I asked permission to, to marry his daughter. I can’t remember whether he said yes or no but he, the one thing he did say. That she was extremely loyal, and Diana [excuse me]
CB: It’s alright.
Other: It’s alright.
[pause]
CB: We’ll stop there just for a mo.
[recording paused]
LL: Yes. Oh, yes. We we got married at High Wycombe and her father Harry, Sir Harry went on this, the Vulcan was just coming in to service and they had three Vulcan 1s which they were, which they used for trials work and one of them they took out to the Middle East and then out to the Far East and Diana’s father went as co-pilot to Podge Howard, who was the captain. And they went all the way out to Australia and New Zealand and they came back again and they landed at, in North Africa somewhere. And they were scheduled to land at London Airport and the weather at London Airport was awful and they, and it was in the early days of London Airport and Broady, as they used to call him didn’t want to land at London Airport. And he said, ‘Waddington is open and clear. We’ll go up to Waddington.’ But they said, ‘The reception committee is at London Airport. You’ll have to land at London Airport.’ And Podge Howard said, ‘Ok. We’ll have one go and if we can’t make it we’ll divert to, up to Waddington.’ And you know the consequences, don’t you?
CB: Yeah. So do you want to just describe that?
LL: Anyway, what had happened is they were doing a talk down and of course they were doing a GCA.
CB: Yeah. Ground Control Approach.
LL: And you’re azimuth and elevation and you’re on the glide path or below the glide and you’re left or you’re right and you adjust to what you’re being told and the Vulcan 1 had its pitot head heaters, pitot head on the wing tips. So when you came in. we didn’t have flaps so when you were coming in on the approach the aircraft was at quite a high angle.
CB: Yes.
LL: And consequently you got disturbances in the pitot head which produced a two hundred foot error in the altimeter. Now, if you are being talked down it doesn’t matter what the altimeter is showing. You’re either on the glide path or you’re not on the glide path. The altimeter can read anything. If you are actually doing a talk down and they say you should now be passing through eight hundred feet you had to have a thousand feet on your altimeter to be at eight hundred feet.
CB: Yeah.
LL: So you had to add this two hundred feet on.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And they blamed this error into the actual cause of the accident. The trouble was the controller had not guided a jet aircraft in on a GCA before. It was his first attempt. And consequently it was much faster than the piston engine aircraft.
CB: Yeah. On his approach.
LL: On the approach. And they broke cloud and they were very low. And Broady looked up and the runway was at this angle instead of down there. Then they hit the ground and broke the undercarriage off or one of them and if, if Podge Howard had carried on and landed he would have slid and everybody would have been alright. But he attempted to overshoot. Anyway, he opened up to overshoot and somehow or other the undercarriage had hit the underside of the aircraft and knocked all the generators off, and the control systems were defunct. They wouldn’t work and the aircraft started to climb and roll. And Podge Howard said, ‘I’m going,’ and pulled his blind and shot out and Broady eventually yelled to the crew, the rear crew, ‘For God’s sake get out,’ and he was at an angle. You know, ninety degrees, and he operated his ejector seat and went out and landed and broke his, his feet or his, and his leg I think. Something to do with his feet anyway because he hit the ground rather hard. And of course his wife and other daughter Claire Broadhurst were in the tower waiting for him. And they have a controller at the side of the runway in the cabin and they came out and found Broady and they brought him into, into the cabin until they could get transport and take him in because he couldn’t walk. And of course they came out all in fire engines and what not and they thought that Broady had been killed because they couldn’t find him. And so for a while his wife thought she was a widow. But anyway they got transport out and they got Broady and they finished up in that military hospital. I forget where it was. And it was, and of course we’d only been married, what a couple of weeks and we were living in Peterborough and I was posted to 63 Squadron on Canberras and after the honeymoon, two weeks honeymoon I reported to, and of course to the Squadron and as I walked into the officer’s mess the Squadron Commander Wingco Charles was it, and his navigator met me and said, the first thing they said was, ‘Your father in law has crashed at London Airport.’ And I though God, I must get in touch with Diana. Anyway, I managed to get a hold of Diana but she had already been told by someone that her father was ok. But that was the beginning of our marriage really. Anyhow, I was on Canberras there and we lived in Peterborough and —
CB: Where were you stationed?
LL: At Upwood.
CB: Right.
LL: Oh, sorry. Didn’t I say? No, I was stationed at Upwood on Canberras. And then of course the, that Canal Zone fiasco.
CB: 1957.
LL: Nineteen, was that ’57? Occurred. And I think Broady must have, didn’t send 63 Squadron out. They sent, they sent the other Squadron because he thought it would be a bit unkind to send his son in law out after [laughs] I think. I’m only suppositioning this. And, and but he didn’t send me, my Squadron out. So anyway we were, I flew with my, the two navigators and one was the Squadron commander and he had asked for a mature pilot. And of course I flew these Canberras and it was, yeah we did detachments to Malta and that sort of thing. And then our daughter was born, Dorothea. And then I was posted after a while on to Vulcans and I was up at Waddington. Did the OCU and joined 617 Squadron. In the meantime we were, we had moved from Peterborough to, oh golly Moses [pause] A lovely thatched roof cottage aye, aye, aye. And that’s where Dorothea was born. Do you know I can’t remember the name of the place. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. And I did the OCU at Waddington. Then I was posted to Scampton. And they had one Vulcan that had been delivered and they were building the Squadron up of course. And, and I stayed with 617 Squadron for five years I think it was.
CB: Was that a long tour or two tours?
LL: Yeah. I did two tours with them, I asked. I asked to do a second tour and I was nominated as the Bomber Command demonstration pilot and I used to go off on Battle of Britain days and demonstrate the Vulcan. And I went to Canada and I did it over there. I went to Norway, Oslo and I demonstrated it there. And I was awarded the AFC. I assume for my abilities.
CB: What was the Vulcan —
LL: Sorry?
CB: What was the Vulcan like to fly?
LL: Oh, it was bloody marvellous. It was an absolutely wonderful aircraft. It really was. When I was in, doing this demonstration at in, in Norway they were celebrating so many years of powered flight. And the Americans were there with a, B not a 52. 47? Would it be a 47?
CB: Yeah.
LL: Yeah. I think it was a 47. And at the briefing they said, ‘All the spectators are at stands at,’ so and so side of the runway, ‘Could you, can you, would it be alright if you took off on runway — ’ so and so, ‘Which is slightly downwind. You’ll have about a five knot downwind. Will that be alright?’ And the Americans thought and thought and thought and they got their calculators out and what not. And I immediately said, ‘Of course I can. No problem at all. I can get airborne in four hundred yards.’ At a guess. And these Americans wouldn’t believe me and they actually paced out four hundred yards on the runway. And I thought, ‘You’ve got to get airborne boy.’ [laughs] And on the very first demo I taxied out and opened up full bore on all those lovely Olympus engines, released the breaks and I, at the right time I hauled back on the old pole and the old Vulcan lifted off the ground and up she went. And everybody amazed at this aircraft climbing away. And I actually appeared on Norway’s television. And after I’d landed, the Americans they were shaking their heads. Bloody marvellous. Bloody marvellous. So I felt, I felt very proud of the old Vulcan then. I really did.
CB: Well, the story was that the 47 would only get off the ground because of the curvature of the earth.
LL: They had rocket assisted take off.
CB: Oh did they?
LL: Most of the time. Yeah. When, yes we used to do lone rangers from Scampton and we used to go to America. To Omaha. The base there. And I can remember taking off from there on the return journey and I took off and as I say they called up and said, ‘Call passing five.’ I said, ‘Passing ten.’ And they said, there was a pause they said, ‘Call passing fifteen.’ I said, ‘Passing twenty.’ [laughs] They couldn’t believe that I was climbing up that fast, you know.
CB: Yeah.
LL: Because they were used to the old 47s. Again I felt very proud of the old Vulcan.
CB: This was the bombing competition.
LL: And of course there was the bombing competition as well. Yes.
CB: How did you get on with that?
LL: We did, we did very well actually. We, the Squadron came, were second. We didn’t, we never actually won it. We came second actually.
CB: Was it an annual event?
LL: Yes. Oh yes. On one particular trip we were doing we had taken off, at night of course and we were pressing on and my navigator, not Godfrey Salmond. Oh lord. Lord. Lord. Isn’t it amazing how you can’t remember things some times? Anyway, he had a habit of acting rather funnily when he got on board the aircraft. And a couple of times my navigator Arthur Wheatman said that whatever his name was, ‘Is sort of banging his head on the table.’ And I said, ‘What?’ Because I can’t see, you know in a Vulcan, you know. They’re back down there.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And I can’t, I can’t see them. I could see the navigator that side but I couldn’t see down there. And he said, ‘Oh, he’s ok now.’ Anyway, on this bombing competition we were on, on doing the navigation leg and Arthur called on the intercom and said, oh God, I wish I could remember his name, I have to look in my logbook, ‘He’s banging his head on the table again.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean? And he said, ‘He’s looking funny and he’s gone white and he’s banging his head on the table.’ And I thought, well I said, ‘Keep me informed.’ And after about five minutes he said, ‘He doesn’t look too good, skipper.’ So I said, ‘Ok I’ll have to cancel, and I’ll call base and return.’ Anyway, I cancelled the thing, called base and, and got back to Scampton and I asked for an ambulance to pick him up and they hauled him off into the sick quarters. And I went to see him later on and he was sitting up there perky as anything. Anyway, that was the end of him. We couldn’t take him anymore. I got a new AEO called Godfrey Salmond. Why can I remember his name and can’t remember the other chap? And so I got a new, a new AEO. And anyway they got special permission for me to do the, our trip again.
CB: Right.
LL: Normally if you return its part of the exercise. You’ve failed.
CB: Yeah.
LL: But because of the situation they allowed me then to do my portion of it again for 617 Squadron and we got, we were second.
CB: Was he the nav plotter or the nav radar?
LL: Who?
CB: The one who had the problem.
LL: Oh, the AEO.
CB: Oh, he was the AEO.
LL: Yes. I’m sorry. Didn’t I say?
CB: The air electronics officer.
LL: I didn’t say AEO.
CB: Yeah.
LL: That’s right. No. I had, we had a good crew. I had a good crew. And the wives got on well together. And, and Harry, our son was born at Scampton. And Harry is, now lives in Australia. He emigrated about ten years ago to Australia [pause] Oh, when Diana died he immediately came home. Both of them actually, and they looked after me.
CB: We’ll just pause there again.
[recording paused]
CB: Now, you spent your formative years you might say in the war on fighters. And then you transferred eventually to the Bomber Command force but particularly into Vulcans. I just wonder whether as there were some people who had flown Lancasters or Halifaxes or Stirlings in the war whether there was any link in their minds with the more modern arrangement with the V force.
LL: It never, I don’t think it ever occurred to them. It certainly didn’t come up in conversation anyway. It, they like Tommy Thompson he was one of the pilots on our Squadron who was a wartime bomber. And he used to, he did refer occasionally to incidents during the war but he was very, very remisent about it. He didn’t. Unless you particularly asked him he would never introduce the subject. All I know is that Tommy, we used to do these lone rangers and they bought, and he he went out to, I think it was [pause] I forget. It was out to Butterworth, that’s right. In Malaya. And they staged back and they got to North Africa and at the time they said that we should only do one stage a day. And anyway things were getting a bit tight for them so they decided to, when instead do two stages to get home. And they got airborne from North Africa and, and headed home. And the got airborne from North Africa and headed home. And when they got back to Scampton the Group headquarters summoned him up and said, ‘Why did you do two stages instead of one when it’s against orders.’ And anyway, anyway he, I think somebody some high ranking officer was asking him and he said, I know, ‘If you can’t trust me at this stage, I’ve flown in Bomber Command during the war, I’ve flown Lancasters, Lincolns, Canberras and now on this and I have an impeccable record. If you can’t trust my judgement now I’m leaving the Air Force.’ And he turned around and walked out and resigned his commission.
CB: Did he really?
LL: And, and he finished up by going out to Australia. And he took a Land Rover and drove all the way out to Australia [laughs] with his family. That was one incident. That’s all I can think of.
CB: Did, did many people in your experience in the RAF after the war discuss their experiences during the war of any type?
LL: Well, most of the pilots on my Squadron were, weren’t in the war. You know, like in 213 Squadron there were no — they were all ex-Cranwell cadets or pilots that graduated after the war and got commissions and things like that. No. I don’t think so.
CB: Going fast forward again then to the Vulcan. It was an extremely manoeuvrable aeroplane. Did you feel any link between your fighter days and flying the Vulcan?
LL: Well, when I was doing the demonstrations, yes [laughs] In fact I’ve got a book down there and didn’t even bother to put my name to it. I was referred to as the “Star of the Air Show.”
CB: And what did you do there?
LL: I did my demonstration. And we had rapid starter on the old, on the Vulcan and and it was, we had an electrical and then they had air pressure and they made it a rapid start on all four engines. And I had my crew chief to make me a plunger thing which I could press down on the starter buttons and get all four to go down together. And I taxied out at, at, in Paris and, and stopped the engines at the beginning of the runway and then I called for take-off. Or they told me it was ok to take off and I pressed the old buttons, this thing down and I took off and consequently again got the aircraft airborne you know very early and I had a minimal amount of fuel and I climbed up and got almost, and then I practically rolled her and in fact they said I did a half roll and then I carried on with my demonstration. And I was referred to as the star. “Star of the Paris Air Show.”
CB: Where was that? That was at the the [unclear] Show was it?
LL: That was —
CB: Orly.
LL: I can’t remember the name of the airfield in Paris we went to. Anyway, my crew were all married of course and and the wives came out and joined us. In fact, Diana came out with Stuart Macgregor. I think his name was Stuart McGregor and he was Broady’s AD, not ADC. He was something to do with, he was a Squadron leader anyway. He actually had, flew Diana out in one of the Bomber Command communication flight aircraft into, into and she joined me at the hotel in, in Paris.
CB: So in your demonstrations did you ever roll the Vulcan? Or at any time?
LL: No [laughs] I wanted to but I thought it would be a little bit too far-fetched in a way. I half rolled it but I never fully rolled it.
CB: So —
LL: So, of course my crew in the back were sitting there being thrown around.
CB: So, technically a half roll is being inverted is it?
LL: That’s right. Yes.
CB: Yes. And then taking it back.
LL: Yeah.
CB: And pulled through and turned.
LL: That’s right. That’s what I used to do at the top of the climb.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And pull around.
CB: And then turned back the right way on the way down.
LL: That’s right.
CB: So we’ve —
LL: I used to enjoy those, it and when I went to Canada it was their, some exhibition and I was introduced to a chap, a Canadian who, he told, he was a most interesting chap. He had spent his career flying. And he started flying a solo aircraft and out in the Arctic, Northern Canada and he used to take, deliver mail to these outposts in the Arctic and he used to sleep in the aeroplane because there was nowhere else to go. And to stop the aircraft oil system solidifying because of the intense cold he used to have a small burner thing underneath it. Underneath the engine to keep the engine sort of warm. And he did that for some years and then he bought a twin engine, and he became quite a rich man and he had, he used to spend six months down in Florida. In for the summer and then fly back up to Canada again for the Canadian summer. And, and I was allowed, or the AOC who was out in, in Canada with me as part of the ground effort allowed me, said that it was ok. This chap wanted to fly in a Vulcan. And he said, ‘Ok. You can take him up.’ So, anyway, on my demonstration he sat or stood on the ladder holding on to the back of the two ejector seats while I threw the aircraft around. And when I landed he said, ‘God, that was bloody marvellous, [laughs] That was bloody marvellous.’ And when we were due to come home he had this fruit farm, or I don’t know, but he had he brought this crate of peaches and he put them, we put them in the bomb bay and when I landed at Scampton, we got all these peaches, this crate out and we distributed amongst the fruit to the, to the ground crew. But he was a marvellous chap. And, oh yes, the ex-Squadron commander of 617 Squadron. The Canadian. And he was the first to drop that huge bomb. What weight was it?
CB: Oh, the twenty two thousand pound Grand Slam.
LL: Grand Slam, he was one of the first to drop that. He was the CO and he was in Canada and he contacted me and actually took us out a couple of times. In fact, we were invited to a hotel, to a big reception and he, this ex-Squadron commander and my crew had a table and it was dry, there was no drink. And anyway this, why can’t I think of his name?
CB: What, Shannon?
LL: Sorry?
CB: Shannon?
LL: Sorry?
CB: Shannon or did he not become a CO? One of the Dambusters was Shannon. He was an American.
LL: Yeah.
CB: Who became Canadian.
LL: No. He was a Canadian.
CB: Right.
LL: Not an American.
CB: Ok.
LL: No. He was a Canadian. Oh lord. I wish I could remember his. Because he looked after us and in fact I think he was invited and he in fact invited myself and my crew to this reception. And they had all these dignitaries on a top table and all these other small tables around in this big hotel. And anyway, anyway this ex-Squadron commander called a waiter over and said, ‘I want some drinks.’ And he said, ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ He said, ‘Get me some drinks.’ Anyway, we had wine with our dinner. And, and anyway. Oh dear, my navigator. He was —
LL: Right. We’ll just stop for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: So you all got your wine.
LL: We all got our wine. Anyway —
CB: Yeah.
LL: That naughty navigator or ours went around collecting napkins.
CB: Oh yes.
LL: And he tied them all up together, you know, into a great big — and he crawled to the next table and said, ‘Pass it on.’ You see. And this long stream of napkins headed its way up towards the top table. And I thought, oh God. Anyway, it started, it got to the top table and started to go across and then it stopped before it got to the dignitaries and of course our AOC was on the top table as well. And he, and next, next morning the AOC came to see me. Oh, I can’t remember the name of the bloody airfield, and said I was a very naughty boy. And when I got back to Scampton my squadron commander met me and said, ‘I understand you’ve been a rather naughty boy, Les.’ [laughs] but it was a good party. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
CB: Why was it a teetotal event? Was it a religious?
LL: I don’t know. It was a teetotal event. For some reason they had it was I forget what it was all about. I don’t, I don’t think I ever did know. But anyway this ex-Squadron commander got a little bit tiddly and when he was driving, he was driving us back home he stopped and said, ‘God, I can’t drive anymore. You drive Les.’ And of course, I [laughs] I drove his car back to, to base.
CB: Vancouver was an Air Show where they very much appreciated the Vulcan.
LL: Yes. That’s on, that’s on the further side.
CB: Yes.
LL: Yeah.
CB: So this was the Atlantic side.
LL: Oh yes. That’s the thing I had not mentioned and that was that we had a reunion when I was at Coolham. That’s right. Coolham. This airfield down south. And from there we had a reunion. Afterwards, that’s right. No. I’m getting a bit mixed up. Hang on a second. Anyway, the Squadron in that area had a reunion which also celebrated the invasion [of the day] and somebody organised all this and they got hold of this lady whose father, Skip Paine was her father and he was killed in a flying accident at Coolham. And she came over from Canada and we met and we became firm friends. And Christine and Rick, he’s to do with the theatre, they come to England and they come and see me and we talk and I keep in touch with them and and they’re very very good friends. Christine and Rick. And her father, she planted a tree in memory of her father when she came over once. Can I pop and see Sarah?
CB: Please do.
LL: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: You’ve talked about the tragic accident at Heathrow.
LL: Well, we used to do target study.
CB: Yes.
LL: And we had to do so many hours every week and we used to go in to a locked secret room in the operations block and study our targets. And I always think at the back of my mind that it was never going to happen. And I think we lived with that feeling that it’s not going to happen because it’s impossible. We can’t do this sort of thing. It would be ridiculous even to start it.
CB: This is nuclear war.
LL: Yeah. A nuclear war is out. Really out of the question and I think in our minds that people will eventually sort themselves out and it will all be cancelled. And I took a Blue Steel out to Australia in the Vulcan.
CB: Right.
LL: Because that was, I don’t know, a weapon.
CB: A stand-off weapon.
LL: A stand-off weapon.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And I was hoping that we would be able to fire it but they had, they took it off our aircraft and put it, and they did it themselves. The test people down there out in the —
CB: They didn’t drop it from a V bomber at all.
LL: No. Well, I don’t know what they did with it. They must have done trials on it. They must have dropped it from something.
CB: But a Canberra wasn’t big enough.
LL: And of course the navigator had to keep the Blue Steel working all the way out and of course he had a lot of work to do.
CB: Yeah.
LL: But when we got there a car turned up and I said, and they said, I said, ‘What’s this for?’ He said, ‘It’s been ordered for you.’ And I found out that that dear father in law of mine had been in touch with somebody out in Australia and ordered this, this car for me so I could use it to get around.
CB: Fantastic.
LL: That was, that was marvellous.
CB: This is, this is Woomera isn’t it? And Woomera is the middle of ruddy nowhere.
LL: Broady was, he was a fine chap actually and it’s, and that’s his picture up there when he was a wing commander.
CB: Oh yes.
LL: And there are all his medals.
CB: Yes.
LL: Behind you there. And those medals were sold. Somebody who was doing the history of Hornchurch, a chap called Mr Smith got in touch with Diana because he knew that her father was station commander at Hornchurch at one time. And he told her that the medals were at this particular auction, on an auction and I tried to stop it and I couldn’t. I just couldn’t get anybody to talk to me. Eventually I got hold of somebody after a lot of trying and I said I wanted the medals to be withdrawn. And they said, ‘You can’t do that. We can’t do that. A family member has put them up and they’re in the catalogue and they will be sold.’ I said that, ‘They are not to be sold. They are to stay in the family.’ But no, they wouldn’t listen and they were sold. So where Broady’s medals have gone I have no idea but I think they fetched something like thirty eight thousand pounds at the auction. And where that money went to I don’t know. But Diana’s half-sister Claire she was a rather spoiled girl. She dropped us completely and after her mother died she inherited everything. Diana hardly got anything at all. And she just dropped us. And we haven’t heard from her at all for donkeys years. But Harry, actually, when he, she’s living in Spain and Harry actually managed to get in touch with her by email to inform her that Diana had died but she didn’t even try to contact me or anything. So as far as I’m concerned Claire doesn’t exist. But Diana’s other sister Jill, she lives in Herefordshire and she’s been absolutely, she was absolutely marvellous and I keep in. I still keep in touch with her. And she’s very artistic and I’m celebrating my ninety fifth birthday in January and she is doing the invitations for me.
CB: Oh excellent.
LL: And it [pause] and I’m going to have that put on the front.
CB: Oh excellent.
LL: And this is the sort of invitation.
[pause]
CB: That’s jolly good. Yeah. With your picture on the front of it. That’s really good.
LL: Yeah. That’s right.
CB: With your Meteor behind.
LL: That’s right. Yeah.
CB: Is that a 1 or an 8?
LL: This is a Meteor 3.
CB: Oh, 3. Right. Just quickly you mentioned you never expected a nuclear war to happen. Did you believe in those days that you were making a substantial contribution as a deterrent?
LL: Yes. I’m pretty certain we did. I’m pretty certain we did. We did all this QRA, you know.
CB: Quick Reaction Alert.
LL: Quick Reaction. And we were also detached on to a peculiar airfield in Scotland so that if Scampton was bombed at all we would be up, you know away from it. And we did have, I had, Diana and I had discussed it and she said, ‘If anything does happen I’ll grab the kids and everything else and head for Herefordshire. If it does. If it does happen.’ So we had planned that sort of thing.
CB: Changing the topic to an earlier one which is the crew of a V bomber is five and three of the crew sit facing backwards. In the case of the Vulcan below the two pilots. Only the pilots have an ejector seat. What was the attitude of the crew to the inherent danger of such an arrangement for escape?
LL: They just, they just accepted it.
[telephone ringing]
LL: They just accepted it.
CB: Yeah.
[pause]
LL: I don’t think [pause] did we ever bale the rear crew out? Yes. I was watching the Vulcan take off once and as the nose lifted the whole nose wheel hydraulic system fell out and the nose wheel ran along the runway so he just had a stump. And I rushed back and rang air traffic and said, ‘For God’s sake get hold of that aircraft. He’s lost his nose wheel.’ And anyway they called him up and he came on around and they took and he flew low over the airfield and they said, yes, the nose wheel had disappeared. And then for some unearthly reason they sent him over to Waddington and they baled the rear crew out over Waddington. Why they didn’t do it over Scampton I don’t know. But a chap called Blackwell I think his name was, his ‘chute didn’t open properly and he was killed. But they naturally had to have the undercarriage up because the nose wheel was right behind the door. The whole structure. So if you slid down the door you hit, you would hit the the nose wheel. So therefore the undercarriage had to be retracted to bale the rear crew out.
CB: So, then what did they do? Did they do a —
LL: They, they, they had the undercarriage up, they opened the door and you had to have the speed somewhere below two hundred knots actually to —
CB: Yeah.
LL: For the door to open fully.
CB: Yes.
LL: One of the Vulcan crashes was that, on the Mark 1 and they grounded the Vulcan for a bit was that the a, that they had a single buzz bar for the generators, alternators. And one of the alternators back fired and knocked off all the other general alternators and this was on a long range to Canada.
CB: Oh.
LL: And they were over Canada when all this happened at forty thousand feet. And they always said that the batteries would operate the powered controls for ten minutes. Anyway, they had, believe it or not there was no means of resetting these alternators. So they couldn’t get them back on line again and so the aircraft was incapacitated really and it started to descend and it consequently got faster and faster and of course the co-pilot ejected and the captain didn’t. And they couldn’t get the rear crew out as far as I know.
CB: Because they couldn’t open the door.
LL: They were going too fast. And anyway, the co-pilot was, hadn’t got his Mae West on and he landed in Lake Michigan and was drowned.
CB: Jeez.
LL: And the aircraft crashed and the Vulcan was grounded. And then they split the buzz bar, so that if it happened again you’d only lose one side.
CB: Of power generation.
LL: Yeah. So that was the only time I can think of that you would want to get the rear crew out. But then of course the door wouldn’t, as it was over two hundred knots the door wouldn’t open properly. So —
CB: Now, after a bit then the nuclear deterrent was withdrawn and replaced by the Navy so low level flying was the order of the day.
LL: Yeah. It was quite exciting. Low level. But it wasn’t designed for that sort of thing. It, it didn’t absorb the, you know the disturbance or the bumps.
CB: The buffeting.
LL: It was an uncomfortable trip really. No. It’s the old Mark 2 of course we could get up to what forty thousand feet almost fifty thousand feet on the old Mark 2. It was a bloody marvellous aeroplane.
CB: Some people got over sixty.
LL: Yeah.
CB: Thousand.
LL: Yeah. I got a Canberra up to forty odd thousand feet [laughs]
CB: Just going back to your very earliest days there you are in America being taught by civilians. Are you treated as civilians yourselves in civilian clothes or was it RAF?
LL: We were in, we were the first British cadets to go in uniform after America had declared war. Before that they had to wear civvy clothes.
CB: And the instructors. Were they all —
LL: At, they had American sort of senior instructors but they had recruited civilians because they hadn’t got enough instructors with the expansion.
CB: Right.
LL: And so they employed the ordinary civil aviation instructors.
CB: And what was the general attitude of the American towards the British? The RAF.
LL: They were fine. Fine. We put up a bit of a black hole when we arrived because we arrived at Turner Field. That’s right, Turner Field on the very first day. We came down from Canada we finished at Montgomery at Turner Field and when we got off the train we all assembled, fell in and we were marched off and somebody struck up the tune, “As we go marching through Georgia.”
CB: Oh.
LL: And we all started singing, “As we go marching —” and the Americans were not very pleased [laughs] and [pause] in fact we had a mutiny there on my course. It was, they were in six months we did all the ground school and all the flying and sometimes we used to get up at 6 o’clock in the morning. Do ground school until lunchtime, flew all, flew all the afternoon and then did night flying. And then, alternatively it was flying. Get up, do flying in the morning ground school in the afternoon, night flying at night. So it was a lot of, a long, long day.
CB: So the mutiny was —
LL: I admire the Americans for their organisation. They expanded so quickly and they really, they really got cracking once they got, they declared war. They really did. Craig Field. That’s right. Craig Field. That’s where I went to. Did my advanced. Craig Field.
CB: And there you’re flying Harvards.
LL: Harvards. Yes.
CB: Or T6 Texan.
LL: Yeah. Oh, you remember I said I had these three friends at ITW.
CB: Yes.
LL: Well, all of them were killed during the war. None of them survived. I was the only one to survive.
CB: But was that on operations or were some killed in other ways?
LL: Well, one was killed on, on, in Bomber Command. Another one was on Mosquitoes and I don’t know what happened to him and the other one was on Tempests and they were off on a trip to France and he had engine failure over the Channel. And of course he tried to ditch the thing but with that great big intake in the front, you know —
CB: Yeah.
LL: It just immediately tipped up and it sank and he was killed. And in fact, I’ve got another, in that same book this chappy is talking about this particular incident of Neil. Neil was his name. Was it Neil? Anyway, that’s how I got confirmation that he [pause] so all three of them died.
CB: Yeah. You were talking about the losses in training. Were they a mixture of the instructors and the students or just the students?
LL: Well they had, we lost, again the course before me, where that would be 42 EFG F 42G they, we did a day/night cross country. We flew the, the, these were on basic training. I think it was the basic training. Anyway, we did a first leg down to Miami from from Montgomery. It would be the Vultee basic training aircraft and then they did a trip. Took off at night and flew a dog leg and back up to Gunter Field. And the Met forecast was completely and utterly wrong and they hit one of these ghastly tropical storms. And there was something like twenty odd aircraft. One aircraft managed to get back to base. We lost six pilots that night, were killed. And others force landed and survived. But that was a big blunder by the Met people. That was the course before me. And when I was at primary I think you were either born lucky or born unlucky and I certainly was born exceedingly lucky. But this chap was flying with his instructor and he hadn’t got his seat strap done up and they hit a bump and he left the cockpit and finished up sitting astride the fuselage in front of the rudder. Much to the amazement of the, of the instructor up front. But anyway the instructor managed to get the aircraft back again and landed and then the next, then a couple of days later he was testing the mags at the end of the runway, running the engine up and the engine just blew off. Just left the aircraft. Boom. And then believe it or not somebody landed on top of him and killed him. Now, that is what I call unlucky.
CB: Yeah. Extraordinary.
LL: Yeah. But the Americans were very good actually. We, we had no — the only leave we got was three days I think it was. After primary. And we registered at this military club and they were, Americans would come along and pick you up and take you off and entertain you and look after you. And two of my friends and I went to this club and these Americans [unclear] was their name, took us down to, this was in Florida, to their house and they had a private beach with cottages on it and they gave us a cottage and we lived in this cottage. The provided all the food and we had barbecues and they looked after us. And they wrote to my parents as well. So yes, they were very good actually.
CB: A very hospitable people the Americans.
LL: Very good.
CB: Right. We’ve done extremely well. Thank you very much and I think we need to have a pause because you need your lunch.
LL: [laughs] Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Did the, the turbine blades would come off at any time would they on the Meteors?
LL: Hmmn?
CB: The turbine blades you said separated.
LL: Yeah.
CB: Was that in flight as well as on the ground?
LL: Oh yes.
CB: And what was —
LL: Mostly in flight.
CB: What was the effect of that?
LL: Just a rumble really. A vibration.
CB: And then you had to shut down the engine quickly.
LL: You had to shut down the engine. Then you were faced with asymmetric which you hadn’t been trained for. That’s why you had so many fatalities.
CB: Yes.
LL: The thing is on an asymmetric, on the approach you have an approach speed and if you get low and of course as you, as you approach you’re throttling back and if you’re getting a bit low you open the throttles but you’ve got have to have sufficient rudder to offset the amount of asymmetric.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And eventually if you got too low and you got too, if you had too much power the aircraft would naturally, you’d got full rudder on but you would still divert from your heading. So you’re only faced with one thing and that is to dive and get a bit of speed up but then of course you haven’t got that height most times.
CB: Oh right.
LL: So you’re in, in a non-return situation.
CB: Was it realistic to go around again?
LL: Well, you wouldn’t be able to do because your rudder wouldn’t allow you to open up to full throttle.
CB: Right.
LL: All it would do was swing you around and eventually you’d —
CB: You’d topple it.
LL: Topple on to your back and that would be it.
CB: Right.
LL: You couldn’t go around again.
CB: Right.
LL: Because your speed was too low.
CB: Yeah, I see, right.
LL: You had an asymmetric speed of say one hundred and sixty five knots or something and you didn’t want to let it go below that.
CB: What was your touchdown speed normally?
LL: Well, as you approached the runway of course you could reduce that speed and it was the actual Meteor touchdown was something like ninety, ninety five knots.
CB: Oh was it?
LL: Something around about that.
CB: I’ve seen figures that suggest that the RAF lost four hundred and eighty pilots flying on Meteors.
LL: Yeah. And also they lost pilots because of the oxygen system. We had a couple of aircraft go in from altitude at Full Sutton and when they were doing that they couldn’t understand why. We assumed that they’d lost control and they’d gone into a spin and that was it. But in fact what had happened was when they were doing a service, a major service on one of the aircraft they had the oxygen system out and they was found that it wasn’t actually producing the oxygen that was required. There was something wrong with it. It had worn or was leaking or something like that and they checked all the other Meteors and they were all, they were faulty.
CB: Were they?
LL: And we were all flying Meteors with a faulty oxygen system [pause] And they were of course passing out from lack of oxygen at height. And then of course that was it.
CB: They wouldn’t recover.
LL: They wouldn’t recover in time to do, and they lost a lot of pilots that way.
CB: So we talked about you on Squadron in the Vulcan. And we haven’t got to the end of that.
LL: No.
CB: So, did, did you move to another Vulcan Squadron after 617?
LL: No.
CB: Or did you go to something else?
LL: I went straight from 617 to Boscombe Down.
CB: Right.
LL: And I joined the Transport Flight at Boscombe Down and I spent six years there. A most enjoyable six years.
CB: And what were you actually doing then?
LL: I was, well I was on the transport side actually.
CB: But was it experimental or were you delivering people?
LL: Well, it was experimental with the VC10 of course. And we had the Andover. And I’m not a test pilot. And the other pilots were in fact test pilots.
CB: Right.
LL: And so they were doing trials on cross wind landings and all that sort of stuff. And we did some overseas tropical trials. And what Boscombe normally do but you need a test pilot to qualify to do it?
CB: Yes.
LL: And I was not qualified. So I spent some time just flying. We had, we had a Beverley [laughs]
CB: Gosh.
LL: I took, and I took a Beverley all the way to Churchill in Northern Canada. We took [pause] we went from, from Boscombe Down to Iceland.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And then —
CB: Greenland.
LL: No. We didn’t. We were going to go to Greenland but there was a lovely low and they had, we got the navigator had found that we had if we went a little bit further south we’d have a lovely tail wind and the old Beverley was tanking along at a hundred and forty five knots. With a, you know fixed undercarriage four bloody great engines. And we went from there —
CB: It’s a flying brick.
LL: All the way to Goose Bay.
CB: Oh yeah. Labrador.
LL: Labrador. And then from Labrador we went to [pause] where was it? Near Toronto. An airfield near Toronto and then from Toronto up to Churchill. That was an amazing station. That really was.
CB: What were, what were you doing there? Delivering something?
LL: I was, I went there to collect the helicopter that was doing cold weather trials.
CB: Oh.
LL: And the helicopter was put in the back of the Beverley. And I had ground crew with me as well of course to keep us in service and, but I’ve never, of course the Aurora Borealis was in full swing when we were in Churchill. And it was amazing to see all this. And I could see icebergs in the in the gulf there. And the, and the whole station relied on this power station that provided electricity to keep the station going. And they had an emergency system that if ever that power station packed up that the Churchill itself would freeze. And consequently like the loos and all that sort of stuff would all be non-operative so they had an emergency escape. Evacuation system.
CB: Oh.
LL: But as far as I know it never happened. And they also had warnings that when the temperature was so low that they weren’t allowed to go out and most of the buildings were actually interconnected so you didn’t have to go outside.
CB: Too cold.
LL: To get to another building. And of course to get people to actually service there or work there they were, they were usually naughty boys who [laughs] who wanted to get away from it all. Like doctors. That’s what I was told anyway. But it was, it was quite an experience. And there from there, from Churchill I went all the way to the Azores and we landed. I had to refuel enroute. I forget where. Then we finished up at the Azores. And on the way to the Azores the engineer was, said, ‘Well, the revs have dropped slightly on number three,’ I think it was. And he said, ‘It’s still running ok.’ Anyway, when we landed he ran the engine up and it sort of, and there was hardly any mag drop. Or the mag drop was in limits anyway. Anyway, we took off the next day and this engine was still showing a bit funny but it was running reasonably smoothly, or smoothly and when we got back to Boscombe Down when they checked the engine and put it unserviceable they found that one of the cylinders, you know, a radial engine had actually become detached and it was actually bouncing up and down with the piston.
Other: Wow.
CB: Blimey.
LL: And it actually had dented the actual cowling.
CB: Gosh.
LL: And that engine kept going.
CB: Bristol Centaurus.
LL: Amazing, the old Centaurus, yes.
CB: So after Boscombe.
LL: Boscombe. Oh yes. I was sent up to Finningley to take over the Vulcan simulator. And I had to be checked out on the Vulcan again.
CB: On a flying one.
LL: Yeah. And we used to go there and I used to fly about once or twice a week.
CB: So, with the simulator did the crews go into that before they did flying in the OCU?
LL: Yes. Part of their training for their conversion.
CB: Yeah.
LL: Was to do the simulator.
CB: Right.
LL: And then they had to, when they were on the Squadron they had to do so many hours on the simulator every month.
CB: Right.
LL: And of course they came to me. Then we put in faults and all that sort of stuff.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And it was very, it was an analogue type simulator. It was nothing like what they have these days.
CB: Right.
LL: And the one I saw at Heathrow for an aircraft, I forget what it was, you know you could dial up Toronto or Singapore or various airfields and you could do your landings at, you know at those particular airfields. And when you took off it actually looked as if you took off. You know. There was a slight rumble and they’ve got airborne and the horizon and the cloud and all this sort of stuff and it was so realistic it was amazing. It put my simulator to shame.
CB: So how long did you do your tour at Finningley?
LL: I did —
CB: What age were you then?
LL: I retired there and I was coming up to tour-ex and I didn’t, and of course we bought the house and we were living in it and I applied to stay. So I actually did another tour. I did nearly ten years there.
CB: Did you really?
LL: I got a bit bored towards the end of course with it all. I tended to lose a bit of interest.
CB: Well, you’d been doing it in total for how many years? The Vulcan.
LL: Yeah. Anyway, the, I left the Air Force and then they decided that they would civilianise instructors on simulators, The Air Ministry. And as I was leaving the Air Force I thought I might as well become a civilian. And I had to go down to Air Ministry and had an interview and I got the job with the Civil Service as a simulator instructor. A civilian one. And I did that for a couple of years and then because the Vulcan was, the V force was disbanded and I lost my job. And that’s when I left for, a friend of ours put me, put me in touch with somebody or somebody was put in touch with me and came to see me and asked if I would like a job with a recorder with the Milk Marketing Board. And I said, ‘Anything to stop me being bored.’ And that’s how I started and I did ten years of that. And then Diana retired because she was a teacher.
CB: Right.
LL: At the Rossington School in Yorkshire. And she did twenty odd years teaching. When we were at Boscombe Down she just suddenly over one meal said, ‘I’ve enlisted in the teacher’s training course in Salisbury. I said, ‘What? You’ve done what?’ ‘She said, ‘I’m going to be a teacher.’ So, anyway when I was posted north she hadn’t finished her teacher’s training course. She had another term to go. So I got into a married quarter at Finningley and Diana stayed down at, in Salisbury. She stayed with a friend of ours, Geoff Boston and his family. And then she came up and got this job with, at Rossington School.
CB: Brilliant.
LL: You could hear Diana out. I used to go and pick her up sometimes. She had her own car but sometimes I used to go and pick her up. And I could, as I approached the school you could hear Diana’s voice telling the kids to shut up or do something or other. Using her sergeant major voice. One day when I was there and the kids had all gone out and I was back, still on the classroom I wrote on the board, “Silence in class,” in big letters. And the next morning when Diana came in, and the children she couldn’t understand why they were so quiet. You know. Sitting there all peaceful quiet. And then she turned to put the date on board and saw, “Silence in — [laughs] Oh dear. Lovely. Lovely.
CB: Can we do a fast backwards?
LL: Oh yes. Go. Yes.
CB: Most people flying with your seven thousand hours of experience have had the odd hiccup and we’ve talked about one or two things but when you were at Hornchurch what happened there as the most dramatic event at Hornchurch when you were taking off one day?
LL: At Hornchurch.
CB: So, two of you in Spitfires.
LL: Do you know I can’t [pause] Hornchurch.
CB: You mentioned earlier that at Hornchurch you’d had a bit of a dicey time taking off with your wingman.
LL: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, it was a grass airfield. Hornchurch was. We were over there. 129 Squadron and 222 Squadron were over here and Wing Commander Crawford Compton.
CB: Oh yes.
LL: Was the wing commander flying and he had a Spitfire which was the pride of Hornchurch. It was a special finish. And anyway that day we were called for operation and we used to take off in twelves. And Crawford Compton taxied out with 222 Squadron and lined up across the airfield and we came up and lined up behind us. And I was flying as number two to the CO. And I had my number two, number, number one to the CO, and I had my number two tucked in here and of course we had the other aircraft. And we saw the aircraft ahead of us 222 Squadron getting airborne. And [unclear] was my Squadron commander and he put his hand up and dropped his hand and we were off and I formated on him. Up came my tail to be confronted with a bloody Spitfire right in front of me, you know. And I slammed. I couldn’t turn left because I’d hit the CO. I couldn’t turn right because my number two would have gone straight into me. So I slammed the throttle closed and I couldn’t stop and I finished up on top of the Spitfire. I married it [laughs] And Crawford Compton saw me coming and he leapt out. Got out of the cockpit but he was still attached from his Mae West to his dinghy and so when he left, got out the cockpit he was held in, part in and part out by his connection and he actually physically broke it.
CB: Blimey.
LL: And then fell onto the ground as I hit, landed on top of his aircraft. And he tried afterwards to break that and he couldn’t. It was sheer bloody wilful powers.
CB: Yeah.
LL: That actually did it. And that morning he had said at briefing anybody who damages or [unclear] that Spitfire is posted out. And I’d got two. [laughs]
CB: What had happened to his Spitfire that caused you to catch him?
LL: Well, it was my prop chewed up all the tailplane and the fuselage and that sort of thing. And anyway, Crawford Compton came to see me afterwards and he said, he apologised to me. What had happened was that he had been running his engine on the Spitfire and consequently it was warmish or hottish before he got into it. And of course we started up and he taxied out and he was looking at his watch for take-off time and of course it got over heated. And he closed the throttle and shut down the engine and waved the rest of the Squadron on, and stayed put. Well, it was bloody obvious that the Squadron behind, somebody’s going, somethings going to happen. What he should have done was taxied out and to hell with the engine boiling and got out of the way. But he apologised for, and said that it was alright. And funny enough when we were married and at the reception committee at the CnC’s house old Crawford Compton was there. No, it wasn’t Crawford Compton. It was, I’ve got the wrong name. He was a New Zealander. Anyway, he came up and sort of was talking and I said to him, ‘I nearly killed you.’ And he looked at me and he said, ‘Hornchurch.’ I said, ‘Two Spitfires. Remember.’ ‘Oh, of course.’ [laughs] He was at, he was at our wedding reception. Crowley-Milling was the CO of 6 Squadron out in the Middle East. And he became quite a very senior officer. He became an air marshall or something.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And I met up with him again at Broady’s funeral. He was there.
CB: Yeah. He was a Battle of Britain man.
LL: That’s right.
CB: What would you say was your most memorable point during your service in the RAF?
LL: That’s a very difficult question. Getting my AFC at Buckingham palace, I think. Because I’m very much a royalist and to go to Buckingham Palace was really something. And Diana was with me and my mother.
CB: How did the day go?
LL: Unfortunately, Diana had a stinking headache when she came out and we were going to celebrate but all she wanted to do was to go to bed and rest. And so we were staying with a friend of hers and so the rest of the day was, had to be cancelled. But it was, you know I think getting, going to Buckingham Palace and getting the AFC was really a highlight in my life. And I appeared in, my name was in the Plymouth paper and what not.
CB: So how did the day progress? How did it start?
LL: What for AFC?
CB: Yes. Did you spend the night in London?
LL: Oh, yes.
CB: And then go.
LL: Yes.
CB: Or what did you do?
LL: We were living in Salisbury and we came up by train and we got a taxi. And I think we went straight to Buckingham Palace.
CB: You were a Squadron leader at that time.
LL: No, I was — was I? I suppose I must have been. Yes.
CB: And what was the procedure? You came to the front of Buckingham Palace.
LL: Yes. And then the ushers actually took us in and took us to this big hall and got the AFCs and those sort of minor medals were right at the end. All the knighthoods and things, you know were up front.
CB: Yeah.
LL: So I was right, right at the end.
CB: In your number 1 uniform.
LL: And the Prince. Yes. Oh, yes. Nicely pressed and presented. And Prince Phillip said, ‘What did you get your medals for?’ I said, ‘Well, I haven’t seen the citation, sir.’ In fact, I never did see the citation.
CB: oh.
LL: And I told him that I was the Bomber Command demonstration pilot and I performed in various places and countries. And he said, ‘Did you bend it? Did you bend it?’ Said Prince Phillip. I said, ‘No. I pulled the odd rivet, I think.’ And he grinned and that was it.
CB: So the procedure is that he pins on the AFC medal.
LL: Yes. That’s right.
CB: What did you do then?
LL: Oh I don’t know. I think we just left. There wasn’t a sort of reception or meal or drinks or anything like that. I think we, I think we left. Do you know I can’t recall. All I know was that Diana wanted to get away because she had this ghastly headache. It was a migraine of some sort.
CB: In the wartime what was the most exciting activity that you engaged in? Was it chasing the V-1s? Was it ground attack?
LL: I think it was ground attack. We, when I was on Mustangs at Coolham and the invasion started we had two five hundred bombs stuck underneath each.
CB: Did you?
LL: One under each wing and every time we went over there we bombed sort of bridges or targets, and various targets, and it was, it was quite hairy at times I can tell you. We’d got twelve aircraft sort of, you know milling around and doing things. You had to keep your eyes open.
CB: Did you have a designated target before you left or was it a target of opportunity?
LL: No. It was, we had to go to a certain area.
CB: Yes.
LL: And possibly bomb a certain bridge, and then it was freelance after that. But we knew where the front line was and all that sort of thing. And it was the old Typhoons that really braved the day. Of course, the old Tyffy was designed for ground attack and at Falaise Gap they really slaughtered —
CB: Yeah.
LL: The Germans there.
CB: With rocket firing.
LL: Yes. The introduction of rockets was really a step forwards.
CB: Yeah. The sixty pound warhead, rocket.
LL: When they said that Rommel was killed, you know.
CB: Wounded.
LL: I think it was, was it an accident?
CB: He was in his staff car, wasn’t he?
LL: Well, I thought it was me did it in a way because on one of these ramrods I was leading another Mustang and we came across this staff car with outriders and, and we attacked it. And the, and the occupants sort of dived for the ditches and that sort of thing and it looked like a senior officer as I shot over the top. So afterwards I thought I must have done it. But I hadn’t. It must have been some other senior officer. But on those ramrods. It was a target of opportunity if you see what I mean.
CB: Yeah. You weren’t called up by a forward air controller.
LL: Yeah. We went for trains and that sort of thing. Engines.
CB: How did you get trained to drop your five hundred pounds bombs?
LL: Sorry?
CB: How did you get trained to do your bomb dropping?
LL: Ah, there’s a thing, there’s a thing. When, before we went on to Mustangs or it could have been afterwards, anyway we went to an Armament Training Centre. Now, where I’ve no idea. I think it was North Wales. We did air gunnery and we did bombing. And the way you did bombing was using your gunsight. You know, diving down but generally speaking when you’re low level it, we just came up towards the target, hoped for the best, pressed the tit and both bombs went.
CB: But you needed to know —
LL: It was hit and miss. Very much a hit and miss but with the, if you dived down from any height you used your gunsight on a target and you had to get a, possibly a forty five degree angle.
CB: And would you put deflection on the gunsight?
LL: That’s right. And when I was in the Middle East with 213 Squadron I became an ace at rocket firing, I don’t know why.
[doorbell rings]
LL: Ah, that’ll be the gardener.
CB: Right, I’ll stop it there.
[recording paused]
CB: We talked a bit earlier about fighter affiliation and you being up at Ingham and it’s really the process of that that I wanted to know more about. So before the sortie, how did the briefing go when you ran a fighter affiliation?
LL: I was just told that the bomber would be over head at a certain time and then it was my responsibility to get airborne and meet it.
CB: Right.
LL: That’s about it.
CB: I was thinking in terms of once you’ve done it you can do it regularly. But what was the instruction for the fighter pilot? In terms of his actions —
LL: Had to do quarter attacks on it.
CB: Right. So that means —
LL: To give the gunner deflection —
CB: Yeah.
LL: Type practice.
CB: So would that be from the forward as well as the rear quarters?
LL: You mean the upper —
CB: When you’re coming away from —
LL: Well, whoever I suppose all positions were manned and I suppose they were all taking pictures of me.
CB: Yes. I was thinking of your attack on the bomber. So the bomber is flying along.
LL: Yeah.
CB: Would you be doing some attacks from the front quarter?
LL: No. I would up to the left and diving down on to them
CB: Right. Now, with fighters there is a fairly prescribed route that you take. You don’t go straight in, do you? It comes, you come in you come in on a curve. How does that work?
LL: Practice.
CB: But, but yes, so you work it out. Could you explain how you work it out what you need?
LL: Well, the thing is somehow, in daytime of course it’s easy.
CB: Yes.
LL: Because you can see the bomber and you do a quarter attack on to it as you would do on to, on to another fighter really.
CB: Yes.
LL: But at night time, of course to see the bomber invariably you had to be much closer before you actually started.
CB: Yeah.
LL: If you were got far away you lost sight of the bomber.
CB: Yeah. Just going back on this just to get some idea are you coming in in a sort of parabolic curve? So that means that it’s not entirely predictable but you are coming in instead of straight —
LL: Oh yes.
CB: In a curve.
LL: One varies one’s attack, so from partially below or from above. And that sort of thing.
CB: Right.
LL: Oh yes. You had to vary your, your attack.
CB: Yeah. And in the dark identify where the bomber is. What can you see of the bomber? Can you see the exhaust flashes?
LL: Not really. Not really. They had the downward ident and I think while we were actually doing the attack they had the nav lights on dim or something like that. We had a method of somehow seeing the bomber. You know, you are asking me something now I can’t honestly remember. All I know is I daren’t lose it.
CB: No. But you were in a, in a group doing this activity at Ingham. There was a unit.
LL: That’s right.
CB: So there were a number of you who were fighter pilots who’d finished a tour.
LL: In fact one or two were ex-bomber pilots.
CB: Oh.
LL: Who’d been transferred across. And they’d come from Lancasters to Spitfires.
CB: Really?
LL: In fact when I, that posting I told you about that I accepted it was one of the bomber pilots, ex-bomber pilots who was posted on to Typhoons and he didn’t want to do it, and I took his posting.
CB: So, as a, as a unit to what extent did you exchange views, ideas and experiences in attacking bombers?
LL: I don’t think we did, we did it just our own experience.
CB: Because you were all experienced. Normally you were experienced pilots.
LL: That’s right. We were all experienced.
CB: Yeah. And then in the dark you would follow the, if you were at Ingham then the bombers didn’t land at Ingham did they? So —
LL: Oh no.
CB: So did you land with the bomber and then move in the daytime back to Ingham?
LL: Well, Ingham was quite close to the Bomber Command station and sometimes, most times we flew up to the, say Lindholme or Sandtoft or someplace and met them above. Above. Above.
CB: Yeah. But you wouldn’t be able to see the airfields normally would you?
LL: No.
CB: Right. And did the bombers have their IFF switched on so people —
LL: Ah. If they did it certainly didn’t help us.
CB: No, but I was, what the reason I asked that is the Identification Friend or Foe is designed to make sure that other aircraft —
LL: Oh yes, yes.
CB: Night fighters particularly don’t shoot you.
LL: Well, we carried IFF enough.
CB: Yeah.
LL: On the fighter.
CB: As well.
LL: I’d forgotten about that.
CB: So yours would have been switched on.
LL: Yeah.
CB: Because you don’t want to get jumped by a bona fide night fighter.
LL: [laughs] Oh dear, yeah. Then of course when we moved from Ingham and we were actually posted to, to Lindholme we were actually on the airfield where they took off.
CB: Yeah.
LL: And so therefore we used to just take off and meet them up above. And I can remember once there was thick cloud and I climbed up and up and I came out the top and I hadn’t a clue where I was. I couldn’t find this bloody bomber. I milled around and I called him. We could talk to each other and I couldn’t find him. And so I eventually descended and fortunately I knew where I was.
CB: When you go under the cloud.
LL: Under the cloud. I came in and landed. Aborted.
CB: So —
LL: Couldn’t find the blasted man.
CB: So, you’re in the dark coming back to land. How do you know where the airfield is and what runway you’re on?
LL: Well, contact air traffic.
CB: And they would put up the landing lights, would they? Airfield lights.
LL: We had — yes.
CB: The lights on the runway.
LL: That’s right. They had lights on the runway. They had to have.
CB: I’m thinking of just as —
LL: Yeah.
CB: The RAF did interdiction into Germany to shoot down night fighters the Germans actually did the same. So you had an interesting contradiction here.
LL: Do you know I suppose they must have had some sort of lighting on the runways. I can’t honestly remember. I can’t honestly remember. And talking about landing. Going back right back to America. When we started night flying on Harvards the American way of landing a Harvard at night was to come in on the approach and when you touched down stuff the stick forward to stay on the ground. And I couldn’t do this. I was either too early or too late and consequently if you hit the ground and you were a bit late you started bouncing. And I couldn’t master this and I went, go around again with my instructor sort of in the back getting a bit sore and I said, ‘Can I land this thing the way I want to please, sir.’ And he said, ‘Alright.’ And I came in and landed three pointer as I would in the daytime. And I made a lovely smooth landing. And he said, ‘Oh, that was good. Do it again.’ So off we went again. Opened the throttle, round we went on the circuit and I came around and I did another beautiful three pointer again. He said, ‘Right. You can do that in future.’
CB: So, there was a logic to their process. Their own process. What was that?
LL: I don’t know, it was a stupid idea.
CB: A good way of bending your propeller.
LL: And the wheels actually touching the ground, instead of touching you had to stamp your stick forward to hold, to keep the thing on the ground and of course the tail came up in the air. Oh dear. It was the most awkward bloody movement. I didn’t like it, that’s why I couldn’t do it I suppose.
CB: Did it result in accidents with people cartwheeling?
LL: No idea why they did it. But they did teach me one thing, and that was to land in the dark with practically no runway lightings. They had these goosenecks.
CB: Yeah.
LL: On the runway.
CB: [unclear]
LL: And they only had two at the beginning and two at the end. Towards the end. And the rest of the runway was dark and we had to land on that. Now, that bore me in quite good stead because when I was at Coolham George Powell and myself were scrambled in the, in the evening to intercept some fighters and it was aborted or something. Anyway, it got dark or getting dark and George and I somehow got separated and they had told us to divert to Ford Airfield. And I didn’t get it because my radio had gone unserviceable. So anyway, I returned to Coolham in the dark and circled the airfield and I came in and landed on the airfield in the complete darkness. And my flight commander came out and said, ‘Christ, how did you do that. What did you do that for? You were supposed to land at Ford.’ I said, ‘Was I?’ But I landed at the airfield in the dark on this, the runway which was this Somerfield tracking.
CB: Because of your training. At Ingham did they have Somerfield tracking?
LL: No. It was just pure grass airfield.
CB: So, landing there with no identification of runway —
LL: That’s right.
CB: In the dark was a bit of a challenge was it?
LL: It was a challenge at night. Yes. They had, sort of the odd light sort of around the airfield to indicate where I think, where the peritrack was or something like that but it was it was just a grass airfield. We just landed on it.
CB: Right. A lot, a lot of airfields had drem lighting, so once you got on the drem pattern —
LL: It’s amazing what you can do from just pure experience.
CB: Yes. But the drem lighting system led you on to the airfield.
LL: Yeah.
CB: You didn’t get that.
LL: They didn’t have drem lighting.
CB: No. Right. Which was the aeroplane you enjoyed flying most?
LL: I liked the Mustang. It was a roomy cockpit you see and we had this big canopy and you could actually sort of look around and it was, it was nice to fly.
CB: Bubble canopy.
LL: Bubble canopy, yeah.
CB: Yeah.
LL: No. I think the Spit, the Mustang and the Vulcan were the aircraft I liked flying best. And we were caught out in thick fog once in the old Vulcan and, and the country had gone out and when we got back to base they were completely out and they diverted me to Waddington and they were just about as bad. And, and of course we had this ILS approach. And I actually started the approach with the ILS and I kept on going and I couldn’t see the airfield at all. I just kept on coming down and then I flew over a landing tee, you know which is at the beginning of the runway. And I actually got on to the runway and I touched down and I yelled to the co-pilot, ‘Stream.’ And we streamed the ‘chute and I slammed on the brakes because I really couldn’t see where I was going. But I landed and I actually stopped on the runway. Much to my amazement. And I had to shut down there because I couldn’t see the taxi the fog was so thick. How I got down I just don’t know. But the wingco flying, silly bastard. He came out in a vehicle and parked himself beside the runway when I was landing. I could have —
CB: Run him over.
LL: I could have run over him if I hadn’t got straight on the runway. Anyway, they towed, they had to tow my aircraft back into, because I couldn’t taxi it. And when you put your landing lights on of course it reflected on to the fog and it made it even worse.
CB: Yeah. So you landed without your landing lights.
LL: Yes. I think that was my hairiest landing I think I’ve ever done.
CB: What were you carrying at the time?
LL: What was I — ?
CB: What were you carrying at the time? Bomb load.
LL: Nothing.
CB: Right.
LL: I wasn’t carrying any bombs or anything. It was just purely a training flight. Any more?
CB: That’s it. Les Lunn, thank you for a most interesting talk today.
LL: I hope I haven’t bored you.
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Interview with Leslie Grantham Lunn
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Chris Brockbank
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2017-11-07
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ALunnLG171107, PLunnLG1701
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Pending review
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03:00:37 audio recording
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Description
An account of the resource
Leslie Lunn joined the RAF and after his basic training did his flying training in America. In the UK he joined 129 Spitfire squadron after completing his training. The squadron later converted to Mustangs. His squadron covered the D-Day landings and was switched to dealing with the V1 flying bomb threat, and during these sorties he destroyed one V-1 and recorded two probables. He later took part in fighter affiliation duties working with Bomber Command. He converted onto the Typhoon and later the Tempest with 222 Squadron after moving back to Fighter Command. He joined 1 Squadron flying the new Meteor jet fighter. He was later posted via Italy and Austria to the Middle East serving in the Canal Zone. When he returned to the UK he joined 63 Squadron flying the Canberra, and later converting on to the Vulcan joining 617 Squadron. He also became the display pilot for the Vulcan. He was awarded the AFC by Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace.
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
United States
England--Essex
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
208 Squadron
222 Squadron
63 Squadron
aircrew
Meteor
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-51
pilot
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Ingham
RAF Shallufa
RAF Waddington
Spitfire
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-weapon
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/8766/PStangryciukBlackJ1701.1.jpg
7833673268b4133cfbed42ada1200c7c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/333/8766/AStangryciukBlackJ170314.1.mp3
c18b97cc9486526d7fd01b40171ef5f4
Dublin Core
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Title
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Black, Jan
Jan Stangryciuk-Black
Jan Stangryciuk
J Black
J Stangryciuk-Black
J Stangryciuk
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Jan Black (formerly Stangryciuk)(1922 - 2023, 794829 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-10
2017-03-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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StangryciukBlack, J
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 14th of March 2017 and I’m in London with Jan Black, who came from Poland originally and we’re going to ask him what, what about, what he did in his life. What are the earliest recollections of life that you have Jan?
JB: In Poland?
CB: Yes.
JB: Yes, I was, my people were farmers in Poland and of course I was going to school and helping, you know, my parents you see. Agriculture worked in. Yes. And then when my family decided to emigrate to Argentine and in 1934 we had all the docs, immigration documentation complete we went by sea to Argentine and we dock in Buenos Aires. That’s the capital city of Argentine. Then after, after [pause] seeing different part of Argentine my family settled in province named Misiones. That was big province near Brazil, Brazilian boarder. Then, then I starts school in Argentine to learn Spanish and to uplift my further education. Then after living four years in Argentine the war broke out in Poland and my country was invaded by the Germans in September 1939 and after ten days the Russians attacked my country from the east. To me it was very sad time hearing all the news and destruction what my people start to suffer under the German and the Russian occupation. And every day I was reading in the newspaper how continuously different, different system was in force on my people and I start to feel very sad for my country. Then after about three months, in the Polish newspaper printed in Argentine, there was very happy news I receive. What the Polish people and the ordination could volunteer to come to England and to join armed forces and to fight against the Germans. I went from my homeland in Argentine to capital city Buenos Aires to the centre, where we had to report our intentions of joining as volunteers and to come to England. When I arrive at that centre we’d been check by medical board and we had tell them why we decide such a decision to come. And it was very straight forward answer, what we just wanted to go and fight against aggressive occupation of unfriendly nation. After having medical check up, we’d been asked when we would like to go to England. I told them soon as possible and the person who was in charge at that time told me what they will check my health and if I want to go soon they will notify me in two weeks, and they told me I can go home and wait for the next information. After two weeks I receive letter and a ticket, railway ticket that I can come to certain centre in Buenos Aires, the capital city, and I would be accommodated in one hotel. When I, on the second day, came to the meeting place I notice that there were different nationality volunteers. Polish, English, French and I was very happy what different nations also were coming as a volunteers. We’d been told in that hotel what we must keep our secret about our destination because there was lot of Germans espionage during that time circling in that part of the city. We’d been told what our departure will be very short notice given and be prepared on such an event. Then one evening notice was given to us at six o’clock and we’d been told what we will get transport to board on the big British liner from Buenos Aires port, when the big boat will take us to England. The name of that boat, I remember, it was the name Highland Monarch belonging to the British Royal Mail Line. That company had four big liners continuously travelling between England and Argentine and they, what they, during that travelling between England and Argentine there were, they were bringing lots of meat from Argentine to England. I say food for the war days during the difficult times. When we started our journey at night, at twelve o’clock, very secretly we had been told what we must be very alert because our journey will be continuously in danger from the German submarine or big German battleship which are circling on the Atlantic Ocean. We’d been told to be always , have ready, wear jackets in case the boats get sunk, we will have life jacket attached and the boat was continuously during the journey not going on a straight course only circling, zigzagging to avoid be spotted and sank by the German submarine. The journey starting from Buenos Aires to England took, instead of three weeks, took four weeks because the boat was zigzagging and loosing lots of shorter distance between England and South America. When we came closer to England we’d been told what our boat would dock in Belfast, Northern Ireland because to come closer would be much more danger as during that time the Germans continuously kept bombing our port on west from western approach. When our boat disembarked us we’d been taken to the local hotel for a couple of days and then we were taken to Scotland to some military barracks centre. And then again we had to pass the second medical board from the doctors. Doctors during our medication and inspection bought us, ask us what armed forces we would you like join. We had choice to serve in the Royal Navy, Army, Air Force or other forces. I was young and I thought the most exciting service would be Air Force. The doctors told me what my medical board said it was good enough and I, if I want to serve in the Royal Air Force I can make already decision what I will be, will be accepted. Then we’d been accommodated in some army barracks in Scotland and start telling us what now we will be sent to different centre when we start to continue our trainings. My selection was decided to send me to Blackpool where was Polish RAF centre for beginning my training to start learn of my future responsibility. After studying such trainings for months will be taken to special RAF centre. The centre it was 18 OTU Bramcote. When we start to continues the next training with flying. That training was very exciting for young men like myself, but it was very speedy training. We had not too much time to have, for other exciting moments. Training was long hours of different responsibility to get us ready, equip for responsibility we would be facing for our future flying. I was happy to start my training flying on Wellingtons to wing engine bomber at that time and I knew that soon I will be selected to the operational squadrons, but during that time we had to go on evening [unclear] training. During take-off my Wellington had fault in one engine during take-off. We crash during that take-off and I lost consciousness during the impact of our crash. When I recover my memory I could see what part of my plane was in flames. I start walk to the front of my plane and see what happening to the rest of my friends. When I reach the position where my pilot was sitting I saw him in his special seat. I did try to get him out of the burning plane but he was still strapped in his seat and during that time the plane was quickly increase in the bigger burning flames. I knew and I could see how to un-strap him from his seat and I cover my left side of my face because the flames were obstructing and burning my visibility and helping myself with the right of my hand looking for exit from the burning plane. Luckily at moving inside in that burning plane, I was lucky to see what my plane during the impact had crack in its construction and there was broken exit from that plane what I was lucky to squeeze myself from the small hole of my burning plane, but I already couldn’t see normal because my eyes were already damaged from very strong flame was burning round the plane. I start to crawl a certain distance from my plane and the local people found us. Came to my rescue and they torn my burning combination suit because without that help I would be completely burned to die. I was so lucky what those people were so brave and came so close to that burning plane and they took me inside into their local house but I couldn’t see nothing because my visible, visibility was damaged. But they told me that they had already telephoned for ambulance to come. In about half an hour ambulance came and they took me gently into RAF Hospital Cosford near Wolverhampton. I was in terrific pain. I was so happy to be dead at that time because it was such a painful experience what I had to go in my lifetime. But the doctors soon came to my rescue. They told me don’t worry your pain soon will stop. I didn’t believe them but they had the answer to it. They give me certain tablets and I think some injection to stop my pain. When I recover my memory, I think it was the next day, I could not see nothing because my eyes were damaged but the doctor came and talked to me and told me that I will be making progress with their help. I thanked them very much but the most biggest thing I receive from them was my pain was already under control. Then my small recovery started day by day. [clock chiming] The nurses every day would take me to the bathroom, put me into the bath and gently try to remove my bandage that I was strapped on my head and on my hands. That bandage was soaked with a special oil so that oil prevent so the bandage doesn’t get stuck to my burning flesh and they gently will remove that bandage every day and cover me with the fresh new bandage. After having the same routine day after day, after two days I been told that a very special doctor will come to see me. The name of that doctor was Sir Archibald McIndoe. He was one of the biggest plastic surgeon doctor in the Royal Air Force Hospital, Queen Victoria in East Grinstead. He came that hospital to RAF hospital in Cosford and to see certain airmen from different accidents. When he came to see me he told me his name and he told me he would like to transfer me to his hospital in East Grinstead and ask me if I will be happy to go to that hospital. I turned to him and I said to him ‘doctor I leave all the decision to you because you know the best about my problem and what to do with me’. He was happy to hear that my great thanks to him that he wanted to take me to that special hospital in East Grinstead. The next day ambulance took me to that hospital. When I arrive in that hospital I’d been told there are so many boys from different accidents and different nationalities. There were English, Canadians, Polish and I think some French. I was so happy to be in such a friendly hospital. Queen Victoria Hospital it was one of the most famous hospital in the world for the badly burned, disfigured young airmen and the city, small town East Grinstead. It was our, the most lovely place maybe in England because those people understood and feel our disfigurement and they never stare at us in such bad disfigurement as we receive from different accidents. East Grinstead give us hope to continue, having such a big hospital with such advanced capability to improve our standard from the most horrible disfigurement what the fire could give to you. Must stop now.
CB: Right.
JB: How we play this, you know broken mentally now. You know what I mean?
CB: Yeah, they knew how you felt.
JB: Yes you see because you come to London people don’t, when they see you in certain still disfigurement they think, think probably you come from other planet or something. [laughs]
CB: [laughs] Yes, yes. Can I just ask you one thing and that is what happened to the rest of the crew because there were five of you on the aircraft or six?
JB: Yes. There were, I was one and the rest died. I was the only one that survived. Yes.
CB: Yes. Right. So you were flying as the co-pilot?
JB: Um.
CB: You were flying as the co-pilot?
JB: No. I rear gunner.
CB: Oh, gunner?
JB: I was the rear gunner.
CB: Oh, right.
JB: Yes, yes.
CB: OK.
JB: I did try to save my pilot because, but by the time I tried to reach the plane was in flaming.
CB: Yes.
JB: In bigger. So I covered my left side and tried with right hand so I burned my right side you see. Because you can see it you see you lost your visibility and the way to find the way you just had to with one hand. Even in your hand you was using feeling because hands was burnt. Fire you see. The biggest enemy what you could face.
CB: Absolutely. Yeah.
JB: Because I was — three times I see young boy drowning I say but you can fight drowning, but fire —
CB: Fire you can’t.
JB: It puts you out of completely, out of control you see. Fire the biggest enemy what you could face.
CB: Dreadful. Yes. So how soon after take-off did the engine fail?
JB: You see, what I want to, ‘cause I asked for break.
CB: Yeah.
JB: Then after spent six months in hospital. Hospital was getting so overloaded with new cases coming night after night and they were running short of beds, so what they used to do they sent you back to your stations for certain time.
CB: Right.
JB: And they patched me up. The beginning of my recovering and I’d been told what they cannot do another operation because I must have certain recovery time you see.
CB: Right.
JB: And they got in touch with my station but I would be discharged from hospital for short time and my station send me railway ticket from East Grinstead to Scotland, to Evanton near Inverness to gunnery school. And in that place there was, they give me instead of having a bit more recovery I had to continue flying with the new course, batch of gunners who come. Flying Boulton and Lysanders so the new gunners always be — I already was advanced as a gunner and give them instruction how they have to continue the more — the rest of their training. How to shoot the Lysander whose pulling behind him they sat and they firing from the Boulton twin engine plane with the [unclear] turret. Yes. To teach them how they have to see the distance. When the Lysander approaching them and they will be able to know the distance from what distance they can open fire, shooting to the Lysander sat which is dragging behind. And sometime it was very, very danger, you know, because the new gunners they had no hundred percent control of what they were doing. Sometimes they turn bit too much quickly and they shooting instead of sat and they shooting closer with the pilot you know flying Lysander. [laughs] So the pilot talk to me on the intercom ‘what’s happening? Can’t you see what’s happening?’ I said ‘yes skipper, I see what’s happening’. You know, I said, you know that’s not going to happen again. So I run to that gunner and I say he must move the turret gently not you see, but they kept not feeling it yet. So I continue that training for three months in Scotland. Evanton near Inverness. And after three months, after three months I went to my commanding officer and I said to him I said ‘Sir, I would like very much asking you for one favour. If you could give me permission to be sent to my squadron.’ And the commanding officer in the gunnery school asked me why I want to be transferred. I ask him after having three months responsible job what I was doing I found I just cannot continue, you know, to do that. He said ‘you will do that’ but he said I must wait another few days. I thank him. After, I think four days, I had my railway ticket with the rest of my documents, discharge from that station gunnery school to my squadron. When I arrive to my squadron, the next day I had to report to the commanding officer. My commanding officer ask me why I asked to be transferred to that station. I told him what I spent three months as instructor in that gunnery school and it was just too much to continue and he ask me what I want to do on my station. I turned to him and I said ‘Sir, what I want to do, I want to do same thing what I been taught told what to do. I been teach to fly and do my flying job.’ He said to me will I be, if I will be able to do that. I said to him I think if I did already three months as instructor in the gunnery school, I am sure I will be able to continue to do the rest of my job. He said alright but, but they still send me, he send me with two doctors for two hour flying and the doctors kept talking to me during those two hour flying, looking at my reaction and my, and my [pause] and my, how I feel if I’m not nervous or something or they could notice, not capable to continue to do my job as I ask my commanding officer that I wanted to fly again. After two days my commanding officer saw me and told me what the doctors give him result without no problem so I can continue to do my flying again. I restart doing my operational flying and at one time I receive letter from hospital and hospital ask me to go back for the continuation of the rest of my treatment recovery. I took the letter and gone to my commanding officer and show him the letter and commanding officer turn to me and said you should be very happy what the hospital want to continue to improve you, the rest of, give you treatment. He said you should be only too happy to that hospital and he said I must go. On the third night after departing from my station and departing from crews what I was flying with them. On the third night they went on the night mission and never return. So you know my history, twice luckily, you know had enough luck probably you know not to end up with the rest of my friends, you see. By the time they finish my, the rest of my treatment the war was over, but I still serve ,still serve three year longer, longer. You know, because I was young and they were discharging mostly older people. And in 1948 I had my discharge from Dunholme Lodge, the discharging station, Dunholme Lodge in Lincolnshire. Yes. And that’s when I started to go into the civil life. Then I got married to my wife. That’s why because I didn’t marry her during the war because I told her the war brings so many unexpected changes but when war ended we, we give each other promise so we get married. And we kept to our promise [pause] after living with my wife for fifty-two years [pause] I promise her what I will never leave her. So when I die I give her promise I will be buried with her together and that’s what I will give, going so you see I thought England is my country, my history here. They called me when it’s Remembrance Day [unclear] London Royal British Legion I felt if I go back to Argentine, I took my wife to Argentine I ask her if she like to see my family and we went by boat because during that time, after the war it was not such a long distance plane flying, so we went by boat. Three weeks going there and three weeks going back. But Argentine was changing after the war, different Government, different changes and I thought I was already more adjusted to life with my future wife in England. We returned and restarted our civil life and now I go to Poland for short holiday. I got some time to Argentine now, it’s easier to get there but I thought I came to England when time was difficult and we achieve our aim and this country had guts to stand up, you see and to [unclear] enough was enough without England the world would be different today. So that’s what I did for this country. There was nobody else could stood up. The English had guts to do it and the rest of people would join.
CB: Um.
JB: And without such a decision probably, you know, I don’t maybe for a thousand year the world would be different.
CB: Um.
JB: But you see the people, young generation don’t know what took [unclear] you see I saw in my squadron when sometime you come back and that table it was empty in the dining room and you thought sometimes think to yourself when my table will be empty. Because we could always eat together. We be like brothers if you know what I mean. And we — whatever happened after the war we made Europe different for so many years.
CB: Um.
JB: The people parted in different parts of the world now making destruction and so on but we show the world what Europe will change and I think this whatever we make changes we should be happy that so many people give their lives in the second war. But we must always remember that we don’t want to go back to the old days what Europe was, you see.
CB: Um.
JB: And we, we had our — the one thing after the war I was really heartbroken when Mr Churchill was not elected as our leader because I thought in the most difficult time when he took over, er, we should have given him that big recognition what he started in difficult time and achieve with the rest of the people in the world such a great victory and recognition and using the election, you see because I think that was the biggest mistake what we make after the war. Because with him I think we probably would be still much better off, you know what I mean, because that meant was seen all over the world you see.
CB: Um.
JB: But sometime politician do make mistakes too, you know what I mean. Men go, will fight and do his job and the politician make mistake too, you see. But that’s how things go, you see. To us and it will be continue.
CB: Um.
JB: And I mean I have sister in Argentine. She’s younger than me, a few years, and she said to me why don’t I go back and live with, with her and her children. I said no, I said I came during the war, I was a young man, I found my girlfriend here during the war and I said I would be feeling lost there, you see. Because I said, I in this country have some recognition you know. What I did, I mean if I would go to other country, even in Poland it wouldn’t be the same like here.
CB: Um.
JB: You see I belong to the Guinea Pig Club. Duke of Edinburgh [unclear]. He’s our president of our Guinea Pig Club, you see. He used to come sometime if he was not abroad to our dinner in East Grinstead. I had couple of times chance to talk with him, you see and that give you something what you, you used to have special days, Remembrance Days. Royal British Legion give me invitation to all the smaller things and you, you just feel you don’t want to lose that recognition, you know what I mean.
CB: Um,
JB: I will not receive that in another country. Yeah. And that myself what I as a young man came from the Atlantic all ready because I was feeling hurt what my people suffer of two unfriendly nation. Russia and Germany and I thought it was all wrong what we in Europe in those days for so long had so many times, you know, continuously such an unfriendly living. Yes. And now whatever look, year seventy over seventy years people travel you saw no fighting we give the rest of the world example what they should take same thing what we did. You know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: But we don’t know how long it going to last because you see because there new super power emerging with nasty ideas. Yes. And that’s why those [unclear] sooner or later will be happening all over the world. There’s nothing worse when dictator get power, you see, because they don’t listen to nobody. I mean those big dictators, you see when they done, have democratic system they take power into their hands and that’s what always was not much future during. Luckily we got rid of them [laughs] but some as soon you got rid of them then some new emerging [laughs] yeah. But, we took, when we took that big decision in 1939 and Mr Chamberlain used to, Neville Chamberlain used to go to Hitler and ask him what you, why you continuously want more, you already took so many. And he used to always promise the British Prime Minister there would be no war you know. But the rest of the world knew that the Germans was arming themselves and preparing themselves for the big expansion of their empire. You see that’s why [unclear] Germans because they wanted they could get pressurising Poland what Poland should give them [pause] chance to march, attack Russia because they knew that Russia was such a huge big country. And they knew it would be easy to, in those days, to overpower that part of the Eastern Europe. And Poland they wanted no German friendship nor Russian. They used to live between two very unfriendly neighbours you see. And that’s what happened, you see. And Hitler, you see, in the end took power into his own hand and he was gaining without fighting from beginning. Yes. And if in those days there would be no England there was no other country who would be stopping his expansion here because he already had everything going easy, easy. And even after when France collapse, look he was almost big military hardware which he recover from the French. I mean he used to make himself from strength to strength you know, without. He’d overpowered Czechoslovakia, took very big modern small industry, Skoda. Took the French, you see, military hardware and he was gaining from strength to strength he was building himself. It’s a good job there was one country still standing in the world. What they knew they cannot give in no more and they told, told on the last many meetings of Mr Chamberlain had what if, if he continue with Poland because Poland had treaty with England and France at that time. What the world will be unavoidable. But even so he took so many chances and he gained without problem and he thought it would continue but he made mistake you see. But the British decided they were going to stand up to it. Yes. But you think, you think there is the world that’s why in Europe now you see we, we should have much bigger recognition, you know what I mean in, in that. There’s twenty-seven countries, yes but we should be classified you know exactly as equally you know because there is difference between one country and another, you see. And the trouble was immigration was big problem for long time, you see, because now they well staffed to notice that what you know we must do something and cooperate not listening just to one country, you see, because it is a world problem you see and, but Europe didn’t listen much you see and that’s probably what ever happening changes or we don’t know how it’s going to end, you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: But it was problem because they used to come to [unclear] and not the one country was selected the most of them wanted us England, you know what I mean, because it was the most place where they could get the easier living and you see Europe then should talk it out more into consideration what they should cooperate together. I mean the Syrian problem started, Europe start to wake up you know and notice the big problem to the rest of the world but there is not only secondary there is African problem yes coming. And Europe must work together to stop that because one country cannot do it. Now, now after all these years [unclear] tried to clean it you know what I mean. For how many years and it was spreading because during that time lots of people were making money out of it you know. Everybody had fingers in it, you know what I mean.
CB: Um. Um.
JB: You see the French were very, I would say, to, to have less responsibility because they, they had their country and they should probably knew what lots of people who come from different parts through their land come to the English Channel and heading, you know to England.
CB: Um.
JB: And for so long it was continue you see, but the, like, you see, in the many, many different ways I think the France took big res — less responsibility they, they start to feel under own problem you see and that’s what happening but probably that should been stopped long time ago, years. But politicians have time to make mistakes you see. And that’s we probably don’t know how going to end you see.
CB: Let’s just stop there for a mo. Now you mention that you had a girlfriend in the war called Evelyn.
JB: Yes, yes.
CB: And where did you meet her?
JB: Yes.
CB: And what was she doing?
JB: I, I met her during the war one day at the Hammersmith [unclear] at a dance [laughs] yes. Yes.
CB: So how did that come about?
JB: Er, well you see Hammersmith was very popular part of London where was lots of during the war activities and there was very famous for dancing you know [unclear] dance and I met my wife but she, she was, er, coming from the Derbyshire, Matlock in Derbyshire. Yes. And my wife during that time was working in cafe royal syndicate. Yes. And I ask her why she’s not going back to Derbyshire and she told me because she come from big farm in Derbyshire but her father send her to London to finish her economy programme. When she receive her degree in the economy she decided that she find better reward living and working in London. And she decided to stay in London and when I met her during my first meeting I ask her why London is her select place. She told me because working on the big farm was very responsible and heavy daily responsible life but she was always happy to tell me what the Derbyshire will always be her, the most lovely part of the country. But one time I ask her why and she told me if I ever heard the name Rolls, Rolls Royce I say yes that’s one of the famous place where they produce the biggest engine for the planes she told me because the most famous people live in Derbyshire and I always will remember her sorts of proud to come from that part of the world. She was very understanding person and I promise with her what when war ended and we survive during the war, if she decide to marry me I will give her promise I will do that. War ended and we kept to our promise. And I will remember what we kept that till the very end. She was very good wife and my memory will be continuous of my happiness what I spent with her for so many years after the war. Yes.
CB: When did she die?
JB: Um.
CB: When did she die?
JB: Oh, eight years ago.
CB: Right.
JB: I bury her in Gunnersbury cemetery.
CB: Oh Gunnersbury. Right. Right.
JB: Yes. Yes.
CB: And it’s big enough for both of you?
JB: Yes.
CB: Let’s have a break there for a moment.
JB: Yes. But we knew the second war was brewing, from, you know, year two year we knew.
CB: Right.
JB: And the, the one thing, you see, what I remember it was what certain dictators were feeling what they could make such a, a big, er, names for themselves, you see, and I think what the Europe at that time was thinking after the first war that they had enough seen suffering that the peace will continue but at that time certain dictators emerge into the big popularity and that’s why Europe became such an unfriendly part of the world. Yes. And that’s what happened. It started from small conflict, it went to the bigger one. And I ask, I took small part in that conflict. I think what we, at that time, played very important part and commitment that we took to not to keep continue making same mistakes in Europe again.
CB: Um.
JB: And I hope the young generation should remember the history what we went through and should not forget that the history should not be repeating itself again.
CB: Um.
JB: We, they have a, have a responsibility for such a big commitments what was started on, we gain our aim in the end and I’m so happy what Europe now is. Whatever is prosperous part of the world.
CB: Um.
JB: Yes.
CB: What was it that prompted your father to leave in nineteen — what was it that prompted your father to leave in nineteen forty, thirty-four why did he go to Argentina?
JB: Oh yes. Because you see Europe was my country, living was hard after the first war and my father look like millions of other European nations, were looking for better prospect in different parts of the world. South America it was huge big empty new land. Lots of people were hoping that they make easier life there.
CB: Um.
JB: You see. He went there, bought lots of land cheaply, because land was cheap there you see. But it’s no good having lots of land if you have no strength to give — aid you.
CB: Um.
JB: To cultivate that is huge responsibility and I, I had feeling what my country was suffering when war started and I, my only happiness was to have opportunity during that time to come to England.
CB: No.
JB: And to fight together with British so my people not again go under for many years of occupation of the very unfriendly neighbours like Russia and Germany. And that’s as I mention in the past what England for many nation give that courage and strength what we together.
CB: Um.
JB: Join in and with such a difficult uncertain future but in the end the things start to show us what we gain our victory in the end.
CB: Um.
JB: And I feel what we must remember the history and the history must never repeat mistakes in the past. Yes.
CB: You’ve also got the British Legion VE70 badge.
JB: Oh yes, I —
CB: So that’s because you were remembering the end of the war.
JB: Yes, yes and I have one unforgotten association here.
CB: Yes.
JB: You know, Buckingham Palace. This one.
CB: That one. Yes.
JB: You see, yes, that’s once, once in lifetime they probably when they think you did something you know so they ask you, Christmas little party you see in the news Buckingham news party.
CB: Um. Yes.
JB: Yes. So you see that’s why for Buckingham Association.
CB: And what is your tie?
JB: Um.
CB: What’s the tie that you have got on?
JB: Tie. Lancaster, yeah that’s my — you see, that’s [unclear] [laughs]
CB: [laughs] Right just going to stop for a mo.
JB: But you see afterwards when I did in my squadron after hospital.
CB: Yes
JB: After gunnery school.
CB: Yes.
JB: I used to do spare.
CB: Yeah.
JB: Because you see in the squadron on Lancaster is three gunners
CB: Yes.
JB: Rear gunner, middle gunner and front gunner and sometime crew, one, one person will have [unclear] operation or something so in the squadron is always spares.
CB: Yes.
JB: Crew.
CB: Yeah.
JB: Person who finish [unclear] and he doesn’t want to be posted somewhere else.
CB: Right,
JB: And he will have a holiday after you do thirty-three trips.
CB: Yes.
JB: Because when you do thirty-three trips you don’t need to fly no more.
CB: Right. Right.
JB: But you just get into it you don’t want to be somewhere, sent somewhere you want to stay in your squadron.
CB: Can I go back to the crash?
JB: Yes.
CB: So you were the only survivor, you were really badly injured obviously with fire.
JB: Yeah.
CB: But how did you feel emotionally about the fact that you were the only survivor?
JB: Oh, well you see that’s sometime now. When we have Battle of Britain Remembrance and you go behind our war memorial and you see all the names written and sometime you think to yourself what I probably, probably would be better if I will be dead with them then if you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: Because you see —
CB: The sense of loss?
JB: Yes, because that was the friendship you see. We share sometime when we had to empty cigarettes packet and you came back from the operation and you notice cigarette were on very short, er, ration in those days, so you take, share with them you see. It was friendship, terrific friendship you see during the war.
CB: Um.
JB: I mean such a friendship will be in your heart for long time you see and if you’re gone with your friend in pub you didn’t wait if he probably was running short of cash or something not to share with him you know your money because us people were living together and facing the responsibility together. They were almost prepared to give life, one for another, you know what I mean.
CB: Um. Indeed.
JB: You see, today is difficult for people to understand such a friendship.
CB: Sure, because the crew was the family.
JB: Yeah it was family, it was family.
CB: Now the crash was in a Wellington but this is three — then you go to 300 Squadron and that converts to Lancasters?
JB: Yes, yeah. We passed our conversion on Halifax’s in Brighton and from Halifax’s into the Lancasters. Yes.
CB: Oh Right. So you went to the Halifax, from the Halifax through the Lancaster conversion school?
JB: Yes the Lancaster that was seven crews you see.
CB: Yes.
JB: Yes but before you go on a Lancaster the Halifax’s, that’s a four engine bomber. So from Wellington you go on Halifax and from Halifax’s into the Lancaster. Yes.
CB: Yes. Yes. So they, when you returned to East Grinstead, you were on Halifax’s?
JB: No from gunnery school.
CB: Yes.
JB: From gunnery school, my squadron then was sending from Wellingtons into the Lancaster.
CB: Right.
JB: And at Faldingworth Station, was built by Wimpy. It was first new built aerodrome that was 1900 Squadron moving in you see near Market Rasen. Yes.
CB: So you then, having converted onto Lancasters.
JB: Yeah.
CB: You then went on ops from there. How many ops did you do on the Lancasters themselves?
JB: Eighteen.
CB: Eighteen?
JB: Yeah.
CB: OK. And then you were called to East Grinstead?
JB: To East Grinstead, yes.
CB: How did you feel when you heard about the loss of the whole crew in the Lancaster?
JB: Oh, it was really I think the same probably as I would lost my father or mother or brother you know. That was the same because you see we during our flyings we were such a close together, you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: When we went for holiday we share our money if we had money when we had no more money we return back to the station. You know what I mean. We shared together and we had one pay master. We give him our money. He used to pay our lodging. When we had holiday we usually gone together, you know what I mean.
CB: Right. We’re stopping there. Thank you.
JB: Yeah.
CB: When you left the RAF —
JB: When I left the RAF yes.
CB: What did you do?
JB: When I left the RAF, yes, I got job in the rubber factory in Southall. The name of that factory was [pause] Woolf, Woolf Rubber Factory Company, Southall, Hayes Bridge. Hayes Bridge that’s the name of that district, Southall.
CB: What did you do there?
JB: I, I was young and they give me opportunity to train me as a machine forcer setter [pause] I start in that factory to do night work. Twelve hours at, twelve hours night, twelve hours shift. I worked there twelve years [long pause] having one Sunday off. After twelve years [pause] I left and work for, as a rep, for the electrical company. With the electrical company, Clark Electrical in Willesden. I worked twenty-two years knowing all the cities in England I travelled as a rep and my big boss in that electrical company, the name Mr Jack Clark, died and the company, company was sold.
CB: Oh.
JB: And I reached my retirement age you see and that was the end of my civil life. So I had two jobs, one in twelve years and one twenty-two years.
CB: Brilliant.
JB: Yes.
CB: What did your wife do in that time?
JB: Oh yes. My wife in the end work in Carlton Tower Hotel, Sloane Street, Knightsbridge.
CB: what did she do there?
JB: That was the first American hotel built in London.
CB: Oh was it.
JB: The Carlton Tower.
CB: Yes I remember it. Yes. [long pause] So she stayed there all the time?
JB: Yes.
CB: Good. And how many children did you have?
JB: My wife had caesarean operation could not have no children.
CB: So that saved you quite a lot of money?
JB: Um.
CB: That saved you a lot of money?
JB: Yeah, yeah. I bought little old house in, in Holland Park, that’s when I made my money in the rubber factory you see.
CB: Yes.
JB: Yes. It was dilapidated house because during the war nobody could get no paint, no — you know because — and the roof was leaking but I liked the place Holland Park, you know. And as you know property start going sky —
CB: Sky high yes.
JB: And the things start to improve but the work was after the war, there was no, any, I would say, support like now people get.
CB: No.
JB: You had to get up early in the money whilst there was some job going because after the war in England was very difficult, very difficult. Every food was on ration you see. You went to the butchers shop you could get six rasher of bacon or half butter cut, you know, on how you say one pack of butter that was cut in half you see because on coupons.
CB: Yes
JB: Everything was on ration. Shoes on the ration. But afterwards slowly year by year when factories start turning into the commercial things start to improve.
CB: Yes.
JB: Lots of big emigration people used to go to different parts of the world from to America, Canada, Australia. Because during the war the most factory were producing for the war.
CB: Of course.
JB: Essentially you see.
CB: Yes. Yes.
JB: And it took them time to restart afterwards.
CB: Um.
JB: But when they started and you had strength to do it there was lots of money could be made, you know what I mean.
CB: Yes.
JB: It was hard, hard.
CB: Hard work.
JB: Hard working but there was overtime, there was factory was working you know all year round without stopping because my rubber factory I could set forcer machine on any production today.
CB: Right.
JB: Like Firestone, Goodyear, Dunlop because most of the rubber factories they have same machine forcers you see. And I was young and I was supervisor.
CB: Right.
JB: Yes. But you have to in those days there was no strikes, you know, because was union after was started, you know, emerging and there change came and was perhaps getting lots of new rules and so on. But when the factory started after the war they kept going for many, many years because there was such a shortage of domestic products. Our, the biggest customer was Ford and Dagenham. We used to produce to Ford and Dagenham all our rubber installation into the cars because before in the car all the rubber installation in window doors was all rubber. Now it’s plastic
CB: Yes.
JB: It’s different. And the Ford lorries used to wait outside our factory day and night. Soon as you cure our products they were —
CB: Right. Taken there.
JB: Rushing to Dagenham.
CB: Right.
JB: Because Ford had such a big orders for so many cars they could not change it they used to wait outside our factor, lorries, drivers soon as we produce and cure they were quickly because it was so —the rest of the world was such a shortage of cars.
CB: Yes. A couple of final questions. What was your wives maiden name?
JB: Evelyn Black.
CB: And we call you Jan Black.
JB: Yes.
CB: What is your actual surname?
JB: Jan Black.
CB: Yeah in Polish. What’s your Polish name?
JB: Oh. Jan Stangryciuk. Very difficult.
CB: So when did you change your name to Jan Black?
JB: Yes. I’m glad you, you see— I tell you something. When I, when I was with my de-mob money you see, eight years I thought I take my wife on holiday to Argentine you see and I probably thought I settle in Argentine. So my doctor said, Archibald McIndoe, that big plastic surgeon in hospital because he was not our, he was our friend, our advisor, you see that doctor to us he give us almost new courage to continue our recovery because we were partly broken.
CB: Yes. Yeah.
JB: You know what I mean, destroyed, we were ashamed to go between people, yes. He said to me, he said what documents you have. I said Sir Archie, I said I have no any documents. He said you should have British passport. I said to him I don’t know how to, how to make British passport. Don’t you worry for you will arrange for you. Because he said because if you go to visit to Argentine now you must have some documents but when I came here they didn’t want any documents [laughs] I probably have from school some certificate, you know what I mean. So you see, and of course because my wife was the name of Evelyn Black so they said to me we’re not going to give you different name you have same name like your wife, you know what I mean [laughs] but I tell you why. When I applied to the Argentinean Embassy for visa, because in those days you needed visa to go to, they were so interested about my past in England in eight years in the Air Force and so on. And they ask me if I agree so they put in local paper in BA my arrival that I serve in England in the Air Force eight years, I had my accident and so now I am returning to visit my family I said that’s OK but when they called me when my visa ready I went to collect my visa they said to me Mr Black but we have little more problem to ask you. As you know there is so many German different type of men who are now in South America we’ve been advised if you will agree of putting in local paper some of your visit to your family after eight years in England. I said but why is that the problem, they said because some of those men probably could be very unfriendly towards you because there’s so many men with those names unfriendly lots of, now circling in South American countries. So when I came to my wife and I said to her she said you don’t want know your name of your visit what you did in England and she said you had enough during the war, different you know, er, incidents, accidents and you don’t want to go now, you know putting in the paper your arrival and she wouldn’t have it. So I went back you see to the Argentinean Consulate and I said you know I’m afraid I want not to mention of my visit because so many Germans with big money, with submarines got — even the people there in Argentine up to now believe that Hitler was hidden himself in Argentine. What that’s what they said what they did — they got his you know body, his body in Russia somewhere. In Argentine there is still, in Patagonia, that’s a part of Argentine.
CB: In the South. Yes.
JB: Where lots of German community live. Eichmann after so many years you know they, they caught him up.
CB: Yes. Yes. They’re Nazi’s.
JB: Eichmann near my sister in Argentine. I have house, photo from his house. He bought that house near little airport. In BA, Buenos Aires, because Buenos Aires is a huge territory you know, you know London is big but Buenos Aires is also huge size you know what I mean.
CB: Yes I know. Physical size.
JB: So he bought that house, huge house near the airport. He already bought that with that big amount of money and he was living near that airport and had the plane in case of any problem he could easy get away because he had plane near Buenos Aires, small plane you know.
CB: Yeah, yeah. This is Eichmann.
JB: And that house so he easy could escape you know what I mean.
CB: Um.
JB: But the Israelis Secret Service you see there.
CB: Yeah, they got there
JB: And I have photos. You, I mean, I took when I went there to my sister holiday to Argentine with my wife. And that house is still standing as a museum.
CB: Oh is it?
JB: Yeah. A huge house. He was there and he had girlfriend and he promised her to marry. She was Argentinean and in the end because he told her he was single man, he was so and so but that girlfriend start to notice he was trying to betray her you know what I mean.
CB: Oh right.
JB: And staying there and, you see, somehow got in touch with the —
CB: The Israelis?
JB: Israelis Secret Service and that’s how they got him you see after so many years.
CB: Oh I see.
JB: But there’s still — what Hitler was not us, it was in the Europe where the Russian got his body or something but he was in, in Patagonia with stronger German [unclear] two in Argentine places, Patagonia one territory with lots of German emigration and another one what is in one of those parts you see.
CB: Right.
JB: Where you know he spent the rest of his life
CB: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Jan Black. Two
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-14
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStangryciukBlackJ170314
PStangryciukBlackJ1701
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Jan Black Stangryciuk was born in Poland but his family emigrated to Argentina in 1934. He volunteered to travel to England to join the Royal Air Force in 1939. He recounts his journey, why he made this decision and how he joined the RAF. He was involved in a crash landing during training in a Wellington in which he sustained serious burn injuries and he describes this event in detail and his subsequent hospital stays and treatment. After recovery he spent time as an instructor at gunnery school at RAF Evanton before rejoining his squadron. He undertook a total of eighteen operations in Lancasters with 300 Squadron. He eventually left the RAF in 1948 and married his wife, Evelyn, and he explains why he took on her surname.
Contributor
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Tracy Johnson
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Argentina
Poland
Great Britain
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
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1939-09
1948
Format
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02:08:10 audio recording
18 OTU
300 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing
crash
Defiant
Guinea Pig Club
Halifax
Lancaster
love and romance
Lysander
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
military ethos
Operational Training Unit
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
RAF Bramcote
RAF Cosford
RAF Evanton
take-off crash
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1561/34783/SRAFIngham19410620v040001-Audio.2.mp3
beecb77e5ba24652eef7ada82bd88855
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF Ingham Heritage Group
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-14
Rights
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 Ingham
Description
An account of the resource
25 items in six collections. The collection concerns RAF Ingham and contains interviews photographs and documents concerning:
Andrzej Jeziorski - Pilot 304 Squadron
Arthur Hydes - Boy in Ingham
Brian Llewellyn -ATC
Jan Black - Rear Gunner 300 Squadron
Lech Gierak - Armourer 303 Squadron
Marion Clarke - MT Driver RAF Ingham
Mieczyslaw Maryszczak - Armourer
Stanislaw Jozefiak - Air Ops 304 Squadron - Pilot on Spitfires
Wanda Szuwalska - Admin 300 Squadron Faldingworth
Zosia Kowalska - Cook RAF Ingham
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by the RAF Ingham Heritage Group and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
GB: On record now, right. Right. Hopefully, the intention is obviously, when we get, we’ll get a professional company to edit the whole tape to make it into, you know, for presentation, so it doesn’t matter if we have kind of little kind of funny laughs and things like this, because it will obviously kind of, hopefully the tape will look, you know, quite good when it’s all finished and put together so it doesn’t matter a bit of explaining.
JB: Yes. In style.
GB: Indeed yes, indeed. I mean really obviously the intention today is just to talk to you about your life, before the war, and obviously kind of little bit about your family. Obviously your time in the Polish Air Force before you left Poland and then obviously your, your kind of trip or your route into, all around and into.
JB: I will tell you completely different route, my route, you know, how I came here, yes.
GB: Okay. And then obviously once you came to Britain, obviously about joining up with the Polish Air Force in the RAF.
JB: Yes, yes.
GB: And then really talking a little bit more perhaps in depth about when you were at RAF Ingham. If you’d like to talk about, obviously, the missions that you were on and in particular the one where your aircraft crashed, then we don’t mind but if you prefer not to talk about that for personal reasons, then we fully understand.
JB: No, I think is good to mention how it happened, and because it will be, you know what I mean, the real story, you know what I mean. It’s no good to leave something important what happen in my life, not to mention it, yes.
GB: Well the nice thing is this will be a lasting memory, unfortunately after you have passed on and probably after we have passed on as well, the Heritage it’s almost the Heritage Centre will be for future generations, yes.
JB: That’s what I was thinking. What now you see Minister of Education try to bring the Second War into the children, into the history, because you see somehow after the war you know what that generation went through, for such a suffering and sacrifice which in giving their life, what was quickly forgotten, you know what I mean. GB:Because that was worst history than Napoleonic days, because Napoleonic War, it was gentlemen war, but that, in a Second World War, that was almost unbelievable what in twentieth century you know, such a barbarous could be committed, crime on the people. So you see new generation came, and the authority, you know, completely forgot about the suffering, what we went through it, you know what I mean. And to listen now what they said when they asking children at school about history of Battle of Britain, some of them even don’t know, because there is so much newcomers to this country. But all right, they newcomers, but they should learn the history of this country, you know, what was happening here, and I think now what they’s trying to um, recover the lost time you see, after so many years, you see, because that was probably one of the most, I would say, desperate effort, that Second War what we win, because if the Germans would succeed, what they almost did, I mean we probably would be for thousand years under their domination. That’s what they had idea, you know what I mean.
GB: I think so.
JB: That’s what they kept it, the rest of the world for so long.
GB: Yes.
JB: Because they had the system what, you know, that they would manage under their sort of strict rules you see, and I’m glad what you now try to recover some of the history so the young generation after us, you see, will probably know what we had to go through it, you know what I mean. Yes. It’s important what they still try to save something you know it would be a good idea. Look at Margaret Thatcher. I used to remember, I used to go to her shop, when father, on the corner, had that shop.
GB: Yes. In Grantham.
JB: Because I used to get cigarettes some time, but when I used to go to that little shop, early in morning, I had to look left, and right, if nobody already in the shop or if somebody been in the shop, I was waiting till they come out, and then I would walk to the shop and ask for some cigarettes because I didn’t want cigarettes only for myself. I wanted for myself and for my friends. So when nobody been in the shop, I was alone, so I used to get one or two packets extra! [Laugh] You see, that’s how the things were you see, those days! I mean people today have no idea. If you, in morning, you see, yesterday your friend went to get cigarettes, but the next day was your turn. So you see we used to do in turns, we used to get up early in the morning!
GB: Just to get the cigarettes.
JB: To get cigarettes and go from shop to shop! Terrific. [Laugh] We come for holiday to London, come to holiday, and sometime we come in afternoon, all hotels booked up because all the people who have forty eight hours, military people, come to London. If you come late, outside hotel: ‘No Room, No Room’ you see. So you didn’t have even to go and ask, because they used to leave the sign: No Vacancy. So we used to sleep in Serpentine, you know, they had the deck chair, [indecipherable] we put some deck chair. In morning we go wash ourself in Serpentine, shave because we won’t be served in our gas mask, you know what I mean and waiting for pubs to open, you know what I mean. [Laugh] So first we had to order ourself rooms early in morning, because that was only time, but many times we slept in, in the Park, you know what I mean, because we been happy, and living from day to day. If you went to bar on your own - I’m just telling you this story what I went through.
GB: Yes, yes.
JB: And some time you make appointment with your friends, so we meet you in Fifty Two Piccadilly – that was well known pub - and sometime you got to the Park and your friends still been delayed, so you would be standing on your own. You will not be standing for long because people come and talk to you, you know, straight away, you see, because you could not stand on the corner and drink alone, the people be friendly, you know what I mean.
GB: When you were on the forty eight hour pass did you have to go in uniform?
JB: Oh yes, yes, uniform.
GB: Always in uniform.
JB: Yes, uniform, because if you been in civvie you always been suspected what you some, probably you know person undesirable, you know what I mean, yes. And I mean pubs were packed [emphasis] during the winter, I mean during the war, because people just been living uncertain life, you know what I mean. And they been so happy you know. You came and the cinemas were playing, the bombs were dropping, shows were going on, you know what I mean, people just got, in the end you know, they got used to bombing, you know. Sometimes they were falling closer, sometimes they been, the Germans used to bomb East London, dock side you know what I mean. Somehow they didn’t do much in the centre of the London, you know, but the East London was receiving the most hit, yeah.
GB: Did you always come to London for your forty eight hour passes? Was that the best place?
JB: No, some time, some time I go to Scotland, because you see when you come some time to London, and you know you have lots of disturbed nights, you know what I mean, then some time you will go, and Blackpool.
GB: And Blackpool. Because that was the Polish Depot, wasn’t it.
JB: Blackpool. That was our depot you see. We had such friendly relations there because we used to, sometime when you been doing, you did half tour, used to get two weeks little rest you see to Blackpool, and we nearly always went and stayed same small boarding hotels, you see, and it was beautiful place, Blackpool. Oh, I still think Blackpool is one of the nicest part in England, you know what I mean. That beach, long, you know, sandy beach and the Blackpool Tower, you know, dancing, you know, phoar! [Laugh] Manchester public house on the corner on the Promenade, you know what I mean. Blackpool was lovely place, and so much in holiday, in those days, so much excitement.
GB: Was, in those days, was Blackpool like little Poland, because of the sheer number of Polish airmen that were being trained there?
JB: Yes, yes. You see, I’ll tell you why we left good respect, but after the war, when war ended, from Germany, from lots of those concentration camps, came lots of different people what they call themselves what they were Polish, but they were not, they were all different, some even Germans been disguised telling them they could speak Polish, that they were Polish, so they spoiled us reputation. But when Polish Air Force only stay in Blackpool, when we used to enter to the small hotel on the Promenade, we made our own rules. Some time was landlady the owner of the hotel because her husband was Captain in the Far East serving for four, five years, and in the hotels was the rules what you can bring girlfriend to sitting room for cup of tea or coffee, but nowhere else. And we had our rules and anybody brought girlfriend sometime, because every hotel had sitting room, you could invite her to sitting room, you can treat her with cup of tea or coffee or cake.
GB:: That was it.
JB: Gentlemen, If you wanted anything else you have to look outside but not in! And we had those rules and you know the landladies would go to sleep during the night and they didn’t have to worry because they knew what anybody who came inside to the hotel, she was sure what there would be not be any bad reputation on her. And we kept that, you know what I mean, and that was good. [Laugh]
GB:: Jan, what’s your full name? Cause I wasn’t sure. I spoke to Danny and he wasn’t sure.
JB: Yes, I tell you. I’m glad you asked. You see, when I met my wife, in London, my wife managed private club [sniff]. And I, so we went to one pub in London and we met English, erm, English, erm, he was, PO, Pilot Officer and he came and talked to us, asked us from which squadron we on. We told him we came from Lincolnshire and spending holiday and the pubs was closing because they open from eleven till three, after, open five till eleven, so he said - and we been seven of us - he said and what you doing now and we said probably have to go to cinema, wait till pub to open again! He said to us, listen I am member in one of the club, would you like to come with me? Well we said, oh thee, In those days if you could go to private club it was almost big, you know, satisfaction you know what I mean, because so we say you know that would be almost unbelievable what you. Oh yes he said, I’m member and I can take you but you not allowed to buy drinks; I will treat you to drink. So we went with him and he introduced us to the person who owned the club, and he said they are Polish aircrews from Lincolnshire and I like to introduce them to the club so they can have a drink with me. So the young lady said very nice, thank you. So we had one drink, second, and the people in those days they all were shop owners, solicitors, engineers, come for lunch during, because they were active in their own profession you see, but members of the club. They invite us in evening again because you see the club had also hours opened in afternoon and after in the evening. So we went in the evening and we behaved properly and the lady who owned the club, after second day, she said to us, listen you bunch, I will make you members. But when she said she will make us members we got stiff, frightened, because we thought she would ask us to pay the membership! And in those days membership, you know! [laugh]
GB: Was some money, yes!
JB: So she said but don’t you worry, she said, you don’t have to pay. I know you come from time to time and my members, her members mentioned that she should make us members you see, so she give us little book with the rules, how we have to obey the membership. So if we have friend to bring to the club we must treat them with the drink, not allow them to buy the drinks and be sure what the people we guarantee their membership you see, so that was fine. We went one night, second night, on third night, when our lady was closing the club, our navigator, he was our banker because we used to give him all our money to him, and he used to pay the expenses: hotel, restaurants, drinks [laugh] and we only stayed on holiday till kitty was lasted. When kitty was empty we returning back to the station, some time before the holiday finished, depends on the kitty.
GB: How much time, yeah how much money.
JB: Anyway, to come to the point, you see we had yes, and the lady was closing the club and you had to finish the drinks on time because in those days the police rules were strict. If they caught you some time half an hour late delay the club was fined, heavily, you know, for not obeying the rules. So anyway we had to finish drink quickly and we said to the lady who owned the club, and what you going to do now? She said I’m going home. So we quickly said, we suggest to her, we want to take her to dinner. So we said what about if we take you for quick dinner? You been so kind to us, make us members, and we like to reimburse you something what we can. Well she said, I have to take dog for walk. [Laughter] [Indecipherable] when she finish. So we take her by taxi, we wait in taxi outside, she take that dog for walk quickly, come with us, we got to Soho, to little Italian restaurant and we give her nice dinner you see, and we finish almost two weeks, nearly every night we went to that club because we’ve got so many nice members there and we just been waiting for night to go up there you know, to have, meet the people. Then she said to us, look, if you have any friends, you come again to London, you give them my club address and tell them you are friends of your crew and I will make them members. Because there were Canadians coming, New Zealands, you know, all the military. Our second crew, what we recommended, we say you go to London, you will be able to go to club where lovely ladies come, you know, and you will, it is different from the pubs you know, because in those days it was big different between club and the bar. So we went there and the lady said what happened to that crew, first lot? They said, oh they were all killed, only one survive. She said and this one survive, where’s he? Is on the station and not come to London, they said to her, no he is in hospital. Oh, I see, and he still alive. Yes, he is badly burned. Which hospital is he? Oh he is outside London, in East Grinstead, Sussex. Oh I see, yes, that’s a big hospital for Royal Air Force, you know what I mean. So she made note and the one Saturday afternoon, sister, ward from hospital, come and she said, Jan, you have somebody come to visit you. I said sister, I don’t expect. Oh yes, somebody know your name, yes. So I said bring her in. She come and I was all in bandages. And she said you laying here and you never even phoned me, to tell me what you are here, and I said I don’t know where is my telephone numbers; I lost everything, I said that’s all what I own: my bandages! She said never mind, I’m glad what you are here. And I was so proud, because that’s on Saturday, listen, lots of my English colleagues had father, mother, brother or sister come, and I was on my own and knew, been feeling very, you know, lonely. She used to come and see me you know. Because when my English colleagues bring her, they said to their father oh that’s the Polish airman. So they will come, treat me with cigarettes, have a joke and talk, but I knew it was not the same, you know what I mean, but when that lady came especially to see me, I honest, I was important, really was. [Laugh] So that sister, and afterwards she spent a few hours, that sister brought tea, cup of tea, cakes, you know, because that how was treating the visitors. And I said how you came here. She I came by train because I have car but I have no petrol. So I call taxi and there was about one mile to the station. Took her to the station, I thank her for her visit, and she said if you ever passing through London, you come and see me. I said to her I will be going to station to collect certain thing, so I said I come for quick drink. She said you do that and afterwards she came few times to see me in hospital because I spent in that hospital six months, and it was just friendship, she was so kind to me. I said to her, I used to call her by her name, I say Evelyn, listen you coming to see me, you have so much business to do. She said listen, I come to see you, you don’t know why? I said no. Well, she said look, your friend, this one, has father and mother she said, somewhere they have, and you are on your own she said, and that’s why I come and see you. And you know this touched me, you know what I mean, what I felt I had somebody still. I was so happy afterwards because you know, I used to talk to my friends – you had visitor but I had visitor too, you know what I mean. And you know that develop afterwards that I became friendly and I married her. I married her for fifty years.
GB: What was the date of your marriage?
JB: 19 10 46. Yes, I remember that date. I was married in Lincolnshire: Great Eastern Hotel. That’s a railway hotel.
GB: Was that in the middle of Lincoln, was it?
JB: Yes, yes.
GB: Great Eastern.
JB: Listen, nearly all the staff got sack because I got married in Registry, [sigh] but reception was, you know, in a, and I booked myself in the Great Eastern with my wife for couple nights and nearly half of my station turn up and the rest of the hotel could not sleep! So they said the next day, the next manager had all the waiters, waitresses, everybody, what there was so much noise all the people could not sleep! But there was no disturbance, no problem except lots of people turn up. And they made kitty and they been ordering the drinks, you know what I mean, people in corridors, everywhere, but in the end you know, he accepted what that was special wedding, only one what he would remember you see, and there was some of them had caution you know what I mean, but that about all you see, and that was also lovely wedding because I wanted, you see, I even show you, you see here, here, if you have glasses.
GB: Permission to Marry.
JB: That Permission to Marry. In those days our commanding officer would not let crew, aircrew, to get married, girl, if he doesn’t see girl first. Because a lot of them go on holiday, get drunk, meet any girl, get engaged and get married and some of that marriage didn’t last long. And afterwards it, rules was what any aircrew member who want to get married must bring his girlfriend first, commanding officer had to accept and if she was suitable and you see I had from the commanding, when my wife saw him, you know what he said to me, he said I will, because she used to come and stay in the White Hart Hotel.
GB: In Lincoln
JB: On top, you know.
GB: On the top, near the Castle, yeah.
JB: That’s right. So he would, he sent her taxi back to the hotel, you know, she almost had it from beginning he was asking her question, afterwards she was asking him! [Laugh]
GB: That’s very good!
JB: And you see I got married.
GB: This has answered the question. You know, my first question to you was what was your original name, your Polish name. It was Stangrycuik.
JB: Stangrycuik I tell you why: my wife, you see my wife was named Evelyn Black and she was born in Derbyshire, but her father had lots of land, big land and she was as a young, studying economic and working on the land. She had two brothers. After when father died, two brothers left on the, on that big farm, and on that farm they had pub, so on Saturday and Sunday, local farmers come with their children, discuss what crops they should have in different parts, because the weather is the most suitable for such a crop and children would play in the garden, have orange juice and the father and mother would discuss in the bar you see, their life. But when she finished study economic she didn’t wanted to return and work on the farm because it was hard work. Hard work. She decided to work for big London company, hotel and restaurants, as er, erm, she was, you know, qualified accountant. She was kept all the, from the restaurants, all the expenses, statements. People used to come, have table, waiters used to serve them with the drinks, whatever food and used to bring to the office expenses of those. And in those days Royal Family, Café Royal off Regent Street she was working, and that was syndicate. They had hotels in Maidenhead and different expensive hotels in London. When they had extension nights, sometime, they applied to the police for extension because it will be till two o’clock in morning, you know, special function, and she would get that extension for the later night. So my wife used to, the manager ask her if she work overtime because is very busy gala night you know, when also from royal family members come, so they used to pay her double time. And she worked few years there and not one time, and when used to have gala night big function, they used to invite the manager from brewery, Watney Brewery on Piccadilly, Victoria, sorry, Victoria, that was brewery in Victoria, and in the end they were asking if they lower their drinks because in the end they said we give you so much business you must lower the drink. So I will make the story quickly, and when is that gala night, he, that big manager come from Watney Brewery come with his wife and often talk to my, in the end wife, who was in the reception, accountant. He said listen I don’t think I will be coming much often here, so my wife then as the secretary of that Café Royal, said why not? I had terrific bust up with your syndicate and I think we breaking our relation business, no longer. She said, no not really. Yes, yes, they try to bring me, so down in prices what I can’t lower them no more, you know, to supply with the drink. And he said to her then, to my wife, he said and you working here so few years, they not treating you so generous. Well she said but I’m still happy, I pay my rooms and I said, he said you know that business better than owners, you should have your own business. Because she was already annoyed with the syndicate company what you see he was breaking the business after all those years, he said you should have your own business, you know that business better than the owners. She said yeah, but you must have money to have that. He said surely you must have some money! Well, she said, my brothers sold the estate in Derby and gave they me little because I would not work with them so they gave me a small compensation One went to Australia and one brother went to went to Canada; they had bust up between them so they went far from each other, you know, but they, you know, share whatever. She said but I have no money to start. Don’t you worry, you tell me how much you have, brewery will give you, find you place but you have to buy drinks, in exchange for little concession what I help you, and you should have your own business, he said, because you will make better business because you know that business better than the owners of that syndicate, hotel in Maidenhead and Café Royal and the [indecipherable] in London and he put her that fix into her head what she should own private club, and for seventeen years she owned that, during the war, and that’s when I met my wife you see. I was little airmen gone to club and land myself with the lady who own the business you see.
GB: Can you remember when you actually met her when you went down to London that first time?
JB: Yes, that English pilot officer took us in, and he was the member you see.
GB: Do you remember what year that was?
JB: Yes! In, end of ’41 you see, and my wife was ten year older than me, but she was, after I show you photographs, everything. Anyway I married her and she was, some time when we go to our reunion, because I show you some, you see that’s where I go to my Guinea Pig Reunion, yeah.
GB: Did, when you got married, did Evelyn take your name or did you change straight over to Black?
JB: Yeah, I was, you see is already war finished and my wife knew I not going back to Poland you see. Because there was so much communists and the communists didn’t like the people from the aircrews because you see all people, aircrew, we knew all the sickness of this country and so on, and they used to suspect us what we will be spying against the communists, and we been always, those who weren’t, been always followed by the KGB you know what I mean. So I, my wife knew I was not going back to Poland and she said look Jan, calling me by my name, I have business and for me to change all the administration is lots of extra expense and she said I want to keep on the same and she said I want to naturalise you British, because you not going where so many communists there, you went enough with the Germans and she said now you have another you see, people to follow you. And I love my wife so much I didn’t care what I, and you see, and of course my doctor from East Grinstead, Sir Archibald McIndoe, that big plastic surgeon - he used to call me Polski you know – and when he used to meet us in East Grinstead in the Whitehall bar, that’s hotel bar, when he's not operating on people, his chauffeur bring him in Rolls Royce and wait for him outside and he will come to that bar and when we had operation finished, so we can work we used to go in evening to East Grinstead to have a drink or to cinema and return to hospital for next operation, and sometimes he will meet us in Whitehall Bar and have a drink with us. He was like our friend; our advisor, our surgeon and all the doctors in those days were so friendly, you know, with the airmen. When they had some time in the evening they used to, we meet in certain places and have a little drink or chat, yes, and he was also advisor to us. And when I had demob, I went to see him and I said Sir Archibald, I said, I have letters sent for my demob. So he look at me, he said listen, he said I would not advise you to sign for the Regular. Because in those days when you were young still, you didn’t have to take demob but you had to sign for the Regular, for seven years or fourteen years contract. He said when you take demob now, you will be entitled to your pension and he said if you have problem we find you job and you’re sure. He said you sign new contract, suppose you get discharged for some reason, what you didn’t obey the rules or something, he said you lose all your entitlements. So he said I advise you, you take your demob you see, and I had to listen to him, you know what I mean, because he was, he was to us like our doctor, advisor and so on. And I took my, and I had two jobs after the war. Och, I tell what job I did. I did twenty years in rubber factory. You know why I did in rubber factory? Because owners of the rubber factory were members of my wife club. Listen, my wife said you are mad going. I said Evelyn, you have business, but I want to be independent; I cannot work with you because I say I will ruin your business. She said why? I said listen, your members come to the club, they will buy me drink, I have to reimburse them drink. I said I have to feel I’m the same like them and I said your business will go bust! I don’t want nothing to do with your business, you keep your business, and you see the sister of the owners of that big rubber factory was her friend. They used to, went to school together and she used to come to my wife club. And she said to me listen, I take you to my brothers and I tell them they have to give you job. So I said Sonny, I don’t know if I would be able to do the job. Don’t you worry, I tell them what they have to do with you: they have to teach you. I in one year I was supervisor, I could sell rubber, anything, rubber tyres, whatever rubber you see, because they train me as a supervisor because their old fellow was leaving the job after sixty years. That was big rubber factory and I start I thought I just work year or two, I get enough money to get some deposit on some house, because my wife always paid flats, you know. She was renting in Albemarle Street that’s near Ritz Hotel, almost, where our Margaret Thatcher, poor thing, died yesterday, and she said because she wanted to rent near the club because she always walked from business from hotel, to her flat and she paid lots of money. I say Evelyn, I said you work so hard and I said half your money is going for the, she said in this district you have to pay you see. So I said don’t you worry, I make enough money. So I bought old house, with the leaking roof in Holland Park because during the war all the houses in London were so much dilapidated because you get no paint, no wood, nothing, and I like the house. And the roof was leaking, stair was broken, I said to my wife, never mind, don’t you worry, I want this house. She said you’re mad! So I paid the flat one month, I moved myself with the dog [laugh] to the house; four storey house. In those days it was two thousand five hundred pound, but to earn two thousand five hundred pound in those days was like almost fifty yesterday, but every month I did something, a bit, you know and in the end you know, that dilapidated house you know, start going up and up in prices, you know, and when recently you know, the property went, you know, sky high, I would, in the end when my wife finished the club business and we rented up flats in Holland Park with her because even club was too much in the end because that’s a big responsibility. When she was young she was. Boys I must give you drink coffee, cake listen I have special cake made for you.
GB: Shall we take a little break for a moment then, we can switch the filming off and talk about some photographs.
JB: Listen quickly.
GB: I think you probably need a break more than we do, you’ve talked for about a whole hour! If you press the red button again the word record should come off the screen. [Beep]
JB: That’s right, plenty sugar.
GB: I’ll just er, leave that running anyway, might be some other bits that are worth, oh yes please, thank you.
JB: That’s why I don’t worry! [Crockery sounds] Long as your stomach enjoy it! [Laughter] [Pause] Well I’m so glad you came all the way from Lincolnshire to see me because you see we spent so many years in that part. I used to love Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, because the countryside in summer beautiful, you know, yes. Lincolnshire, I used to go with my friends in Lincoln, when they had racing in those days. You know that was first race in the spring what used to start.
GB: The horse racing in Lincoln, yes, yeah.
JB: Nowadays that’s went to Doncaster.
GB: But the old grandstand is still there.
JB: Still there, yes.
GB: And the racetrack is there, for the horses, but nobody races any more.
JB: Yes I know.
GB: Still run at Market Rasen.
JB: Yes, oh yes, that’s right. Yes, Lincoln was lovely – that Cathedral, every time we used to coming to land we always had to joke and be careful captain don’t touch the thing! [Laugh]
GB: Well we’re delighted to come down to see you and we’re looking forward to when you can come in May, not just because of the time at Faldingworth for you, but also hopefully the next morning on Sunday, and I’ll speak to Daniel, to come and visit us, to see how the renovation is going up on the site. Cause we’ve got the old airmens’ mess where the Junior Ranks, but we can walk round the corner to the old sergeants’ mess, the big long building, that’s still there: the farmer keeps chickens in there now.
JB: Oh boy!
GB: But, and there are one or two other buildings that are still there, including the old control tower, but that’s been changed now; the present owner has turned it into a gymnasium I think. There’s one or two things on the old airfield, and if the weather is good for us as well we can drive you round and stop at different places around the airfield and you can tell us if you remember certain things. Many of the old buildings have gone now, just because the farmers, they’ve either fallen down or the farmers have knocked them down to make a bit more room for the fields.
JB: You know last time when I went and I saw, saw that overgrown airfield, I thought to myself, every time we shall return, we thought that was our home, you know that. Yes. You know you, when you came out from the plane, you thought I am at home.
GB: I’m at home.
JB: You see the trouble was, when you used to miss your friends and you went to dining room and you saw that table empty, and that table empty and you think to myself I wonder when this table will be empty? Because we always used to sit together at the same table, the crew.
GB: I was going to ask you did the crews sit at set tables, you had your own crew table.
JB: Yes, we had our own chart, and at one time [sigh] my crew, my squadron, had quite bit of bad luck, you know, we lost five crews in short time and Bomber Harris came, paid us unexpected visit. So in evening, we didn’t have flight then, the adjutant said we will be meeting special guest in one of the hangar. So have a, all good shave and wash and after tea get yourself into the hangar. Because this guest come, we thought who it would be? Maybe King you know or, who, and he came with the car and he had little talk with us. He said, boys I came to see you because you look bit depressed, and I know why you feel depressed. But he said, that’s what happen in, during the war: some time we going to happy day, sometime we going to depressing days, but he said I tell you what I want to tell you - I’m exactly telling the words what he explain. He said our friend Germans always had ideas to start the war, because he said, by starting the wars they used to make good gains. They invade other people homes, destroy their homes, rob their homes and bring the loot back to their own country. And he said people in their country never saw the destruction and suffering. But he said, I came to tell you, with this war, we going to take destruction and suffering into their [emphasis] countries, so the Germans will know what war brings, and memories. So he said for the first time we’re doing that, and by doing that we’re having those depressing days left in our memory, but he said this will not last for ever. Sooner or later the rest of the world will start to be happy. But he said is getting very near when that success we achieve, but success is in front of you, so don’t you worry; it will not last forever, you know. And that we give him because we knew that he was under pressure to do that you see, because not only he, the Russians press him, because you know what the Russians knew, the Russians say if you not going to help us, the Hitler will, he had planned to, was the destruction of Dresden, because the Germans had very big concentration troops there and they wanted to contra attack Russian’s advance and Stalin said if you not helping me they going to chase me back to Stalingrad and the war may completely change still in the last phase of the war. And that’s why destruction went to Dresden because they were preparing lot of last Germans, you know, contra attack on Russian’s advance you see, because the Russians was pressing with all their strength because they didn’t give Germans chance to recuperate, you know what I mean, and by doing so they were gaining the successes. But they knew they wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer. That’s why the destruction went on Dresden, because, to completely wipe out the Dresden. We had such heavy losses in Bomber Command you see, because Bomber Command support the Russians, and support our troops. Our troops. Our invasion on Normandy coast, without Bomber Command going and smashing fortification from Baltic to Atlantic, none of our troops would landed on Normandy coast. The Bomber Command helped them you see, to bridge it, just because they had so fortified, you know what I mean. They, they were, Germans nasty, nasty people. But Bomber Command, paid the price and achieved the result in the end. More cake boys? Yes!
GB: I’m all right thank you.
JB: Now listen!
GB: That’s not good; that’s on tape now. My wife will know I’ve eaten cake! [Laugh]
JB: That thing is red.
GB: Is that the warning? I think it is.
GB: Yes. Is the red thing on?
GB: Yeah, it’s flashing and it’s got green, it’s not got the pause. It’s just the battery usually. Is it on the screen is it? Does it say red?
GB: Just record on it.
GB: How many hours left does it say?
GB: Nine hours thirty six. If I can read without my glasses.
GB: It should be quite a lot because it had had about four years worth of recording on there, everything from when Hayley used to swim. I cleared all that off last weekend. My camera when we bought it about three or four years ago, probably little bit longer than that now, we just recorded everything from family holidays to everything, it’s got quite a big memory on there so this last weekend I wiped all of it off, well saved it onto my computer so that we knew we would be chatting for quite a while today, so you know, we’ve left it on so.
JB: It’s nicely set I think for our height, you know, so.
GB: It captures you just here nicely, with us out of the screen.
JB: More coffee? Listen, I’m not going to charge you no more because not hot. I make you hot. [Steps] [Pause] We have a hot coffee this time!
GB: Oh! Okay, thank you.
JB: {Banging] Listen, next time you come to [indecipherable] we won’t be strangers you see because you’re our friend from Lincoln, Yorkshire. Yes.
GB: Well next time you’re coming to be our guest, aren’t you, in May, you’ll come and see us.
JB: You see, which way round, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Bomber Command. Here in [indecipherable] they want fighters, you know, and most Bomber Command boys lived there because they had friends and so on, so they remain there.
GB: In Lincolnshire everything is all about the Lancaster and they forget about the Wellington. So because Ingham was purely Wellington squadrons, this is it, we go Lancasters, Wellingtons.
GB: Line them up!
JB: Wellingtons give us the start, yes, yes, they give us the start.
GB: Never heard anything back from Malcom.
GB: Malcolm?
GB: Everett from Nottingham. His uncle. Polish. He was in Fighter, he’s a Fighter. He’s over in Canada. [Indecipherable]
GB: Colin did say that quite a few of the Polish WAAFs are coming to the Faldingworth thing, and [emphasis] the Nottingham Polish scouts.
JB: This time you have the good coffee!
GB: Oh right. We have the rubbish coffee first! [Laughter]
JB: Yes that was it!
GB: I thought you were just seeing how the visitors were going before you give us the good coffee maybe!
JB: You came long way you know, to see me, and sugar, help yourself to sugar. That’s right.
GB: I’ll move that back. There we go. [Sounds of movement] I’ll come and sit this back here a little bit just so that it faces more the front.
JB: Thank you. Yeh, you see, the trouble was, not many people remember the history, but I tell you what I want to tell you. In the old days Poland was country surrounded by three very big power: Russia, Germany and Austria. At one time, many years ago, Poland was the strongest nation in Europe. We stop Turks’ invasion on Europe, but our history start change, you know what I mean, like every country, you know, in future. And then at one time Poland went under occupation of three big power: Russia, Austria and Germany, and we stay under their occupation for hundred twenty years. When the First War started, after hundred twenty years we regain independence, and we’d been destroyed completely, left like that because the biggest battlefield went on the Polish land, you know, between those three superpowers, Russia, Germany and Austria. But when we got independence, for twenty years, England and France was only our far neighbours what we could depend. The rest we still been surrounded by er, not friendly nations, like Germany, Russia, and even Austria and then there was Czechs, Lithuanians, I mean those country, encouraged by the Russians, by the Germans, to cause Czechs against Poland. They knew what that new country, after fifty years to gain independence, was very weak nation. But we had only two countries what we thought we could depend little on friendship: England and France, and we kept it. But in the end we knew in Europe what the Second World War is brewing. But one thing what I have respect for England till my dying days, what England had the guts to stand up against the Germans. No other nation in the world in those days. They all were frightened of the Germans. When the Olympics started in 1930-
GB: Six, yeah.
JB: The Hitler show well his superior power, you know what I mean. And when that Olympic finish, everybody were in fear of the Germans’ superiority. But England, always they were big Empire in those days, they knew what the Germans to them also are big danger, you know, because they knew what the Germans always were creating to regain their superiority in the world. When 1939 came, England only had the guts to stand up. Even French was hesitating in the end. They, you know, were not hundred percent sure, but in the end they had just to do it, but they didn’t do it with heart, no, you see, and the French being senseful were truly bluffing in the end, what it ended that way, you know what I mean. What in the end the Americans got themself involved, because the America didn’t want to it come to the war, and we had very, but in the end who stood up only? England and Poles on this island; everybody was running away. I remember, I work in London, in some parts, in Willesden, where lots of Jewish community live. Rich community, nice houses, and it was at night. I took girlfriend I met in the dance, it was very dark and she promise me she stay with me if I take her home because she was frightened afterwards when dance finished. I said I take you home. I took her home and I was walking back to the Paddington station, I had small room there where I working, and I walk through Willesden, where was half dead. Houses, windows were boarded in, everybody, lots of Jewish community fled to Canada, or somewhere, because they thought the Germans inevitably coming here. And when I walked through that empty park, I thought to myself, will it really happen, you know, what everybody so frightened you see, but that how it was in London. Certain parts in London they were almost deserted too, you know what. I don’t know where people gone, if they gone to different parts of the country but some of them went abroad. So you see, the world, because I went through the beginning of the war till the end, what this country, with Mr Churchill in the end, as the warmonger, I think maybe he was wrong sometimes, [laugh] he didn’t know what he was doing!
GB: We needed a strong leader.
JB: He kept going, you know what I mean! He started in the First War, in didn’t go according to plan everything, but when the Second War came he was about one of the best, you know what I mean, what could come at that time. And he took bluff, he bluff many times and he was biding for the time, because that was only hope what something will happen. And yes, we may don’t like the Japs, but good job what they attack Pearl Harbour, you know what I mean, and they made Americans to come into the war.
GB: Big mistake for them.
JB: Because otherwise I remember the war how every day I was studying the events from day to day and only when Americans go to war you could see the laughs on the people’s faces you know, because we knew now we are not alone and that happened like that, yeah. But from beginning it was hard going but in England with Mr Chamberlain, he was, he believed Hitler from beginning. The trouble was with him, every time he go meet Hitler, he come back, step on Croydon airport: ‘There will be no war, I have signature in my hand.’ But Hitler did not have honour to tell the truth: he was just playing for time, you know what I mean and in the end he knew what he made blunder because he believed him, he believed him, and that’s why he had to resign and coalition became, you see.
GB: Don’t forget your coffee.
JB: That’s right, and you see by bluffing that time, when Mr Churchill came, what Americans got themselves involved, and that, he made also mistake, attack Russia, too late, because he wanted you know, for his stand place petrol and he had not petrol, petrol running out. Every time he had any reserves somewhere we used to bomb there, you know what I mean, and he could hide no longer and he was desperate. He started in North Africa, yes, he won Alamein but it was already with Americans help, yes, okay, you see. Because Rommel, you see he got himself involved in Russia, could not help Rommel in North Africa. Of course, Montgomery beat Rommel you see, but they prepared themselves, up to here Germans you see, when they started but they made lots of mistakes and we gained it. [Laugh] You see that’s how war go. Sometimes you see, you almost have victory but mistake costs and to put mistake right Is very costly. [Laugh]
GB: Can I ask you Jan, about?
JB: Ask me anything.
GB: Can we talk about your, when you came to, when you first came to Britain and joined the RAF, as a Polish airman, can you tell us which, did you fly in or did you come by boat and where did you come to? Tell us a little bit about about Blackpool because I think that was your first- the Polish Depot.
JB: I think you touch one of the most important ones. My father was soldier in the First War and we, when the Russians, the Germans were defeated, Austria collapsed, Poland start re-emerging independence, my father was in Polish erm, in Polish Army. When the Germans collapsed, you know, in 11 11, the Russian wanted to invade, under the Bolshevism, the rest of Europe, because Europe was so tired of the war. The France was almost collapsed; England was very bad unrest, because suffering for five years in the First War and the Russians people who starved, they were hungry of food because the big pressures was on Russians’ Front too you see, and we beat the Russian’s invasion on the Vistula river, in Poland. Because how we beat the Russians then, when they wanted to invade the rest of Europe – Bolsheviks. Because the communists was breeding, wanted to overthrow the monarchies, in Germany, in Austria out, out. England sent small reinforcement because the English Royal Family were linked with the Russian Royal Family and as you know, in the First War, Russia, and England and France and very strongly united.
GB: [Beep] Carry on. Right we’re back on again.
GB: [Indecipherable] battery at the same time.
GB: So were you going to tell us a little bit about how you actually came to England.
JB: Alright. Before war started, my father knew the Second War would always begin sooner or later, and he was fighting against the Bolshevism in the First War. When the Russians had very big defeat and they were always warning what, you know, they will return. That was the, always sign. And he saw, he saw the First War destruction and he said to my mother what he don’t like to see Second War. He had the idea what the war will come and would be same thing what happened in the First War, so he sold his possession in Poland and in those days was very big emigration going to Canada, America, South America, Brazil, Argentine, and my father went, decided to go to Argentine, to start plantation there. We went on the boat from Poland. When I was passing near Dover Strait, I saw the white chalk of Dover, I thought to myself, I had been at school having so many lessons about England, what the democratic system in this country, how near. I could see it but I cannot be in, on that coast to see it. You know how it’s in sight you see, because England was always in Poland very important lectures done you see, how it is leading modern nation in the world. Anyway, my ship continue through the English Channel, stop in Spain, stop in Portugal, stop in North Africa, Casablanca, Dakar, then cross to Brazil, off Brazil went to Argentina, BA. My father you see had already planned where we went to settle down in Argentine. We went there, bought lots of land. I thought to myself what he's going to do, forest? He said we will start plantation: plant lots of oranges, bananas, all different type of wine grapes. I went to school in Argentine to learn Spanish. I was already fifteen year old, where you, during break play football, so some of those Argentinian he said you cannot play football. Then, you know, I shoot goal. No, you didn’t score that goal, you bloody fool! I said what did you say? I already knew how to ask him what this he say. He says something again, I punch him in the face. He will go to teacher, report what I misbehave at school. The teacher report to my father, your son not behaving properly at school. My father said listen, you going to school to learn Spanish and learn the Spanish history. I say father I’m learning but I said, I’m not happy. I said they not going to call me what I don’t want you to call me. [Laugh] He said but you don’t have to fight with them I say sometime you have to. [Chuckle] Anyway, I continue to listen to father. War started; I was already nineteen. English Embassy, French embassy, Polish Embassy calling for volunteers. You don’t know how many volunteers came from South America to this country, from Brazil, from Argentine. They were all different nation joining, against Germans. We had three English ship, the Royal Mail had, big English company Royal Mail, going continuously because English had so much investment in Argentine, they were building railways in that huge country. All the meat factory, because Argentine is one of the biggest meat producer in the world after United States. Frederice Angelo, the factory, when the trains come with the, all the stock from the, those huge provinces with the, to the factories, whole train, you could see those cows inside in the train going from beginning of the factory when slaughter start, in the end of the factory, all ready, ships taking all the meat frozen to different parts of the world. England had lot [emphasis] of money tied up in Argentine, lot; big companies, big companies. And when war started lots of volunteers, English, French, Polish start, because Embassy put, advertise, need people. We start, we been put in the hotels in BA, never know what time we going to leave because the German submarine was all over waiting and all those big boats what were going from Argentine with meat supply to England, and volunteers, we used to sleep on the hammock; we had no beds. All the time you have the salvage tied up in case the boat is torpedoed so you jump into the water to save yourself and we had at night a turn we had to watch with binoculars for German submarines somewhere, and our boat – huge! Royal Mail had three: Highland Moorland, Highland Chief, Highland Princess: four big boats. Continuously they used to cross each other, one coming already from England, second come and they used to hoot each other when they pass each other, crossing the Atlantic. And they used to never come to Southampton, the far as they come to Belfast. Unload in Belfast and go back. Belfast then go back. I came to Belfast and first I felt bombing [laugh] and what a souvenir, imagine! And from Belfast they shipped us to Scotland, you know, at night. And from there to Blackpool and from Blackpool to Evanton in Scotland on the train and we be start training day and night, in hurry because the war was in hurry, you know what I mean, to train. We had sometime few hours sleep, you know what I mean. In Scotland we were living in huts. Those round huts, you know.
GB: Nissen huts.
JB: In the middle we had coal fires, chimney. In morning cold, we had, river was passing near our hut and the wooden boats was from the river, we had to wash ourselves, shave ourselves, quickly before the you know, our duties start. And coming in Argentine during that time was summer there, we came here it was winter. In Scotland dark [emphasis] at night in winter time, cold. First I had to go climatise myself to Scottish weather [chuckle] and start training there. When we got first training then we been shipped to Midland, that was better, you know, better. Then when we finished training in Midland, we then joined to the squadrons you see, and in squadrons was much better, you know, much better life. Yes. So you see I start my way, come from Argentine, was seven hundred of us on that boat coming, on Highland Chieftain, big boat, twenty two thousand ton, and we, German submarine all over South Atlantic, with that Graf Spey what they could not catch, that big German er, battleship what you know eventually they caught him near Montevideo, what they, being sunk you see; we start training. Then, you see, when I was start to fly I done few ops from my OTU. First we been doing lots of leaflets, throwing over France. ‘Don’t you worry, we beating Germans in three months, war finished!’, to give to the French people! [Laugh]
GB: So they were your training runs.
JB: Thousands! Then afterwards they send us bit more deeper in Germany to drop few bombs, you see. And then I, we had our accident and I came out on my own from my crew, because my plane got broken, Wellington. I lost consciousness during the accident and when I woke up, I recover my memory what we had crash and I saw everything in fire. [Pause] I, I was squeezing myself; I’d been trying to get my pilot out of, out of his seat, but I think he was still tied up with his, and I couldn’t get him out and in the end I was running out of breath because I could not see, I could not feel, and I start to crawl back and when I crawl back the plane was broken in half, so I had to exit where I got myself out. When I got myself out, my uniform was burning on me, because some parts, some parts I think got wet with petrol, so those parts when was wet, or when I touch maybe, when was trying to squeeze myself from the plane were fire, and we crash near farm, and the people run out from that farm and er, [pause] they tear my clothes from me you see, but I was, I lost my helmet because during that, er, er, during the crash, you know what I’m, impact, I was you know, I was somehow thrown, my helmet was thrown, so I already burn my hair and good job what they torn my flying [indecipherable] out because otherwise I would got probably burn you see with my uniform. We crash near farm somewhere, very near.
GB: Was that in England?
IJB: In England, yeah.
GB: And your aircraft at that time, was that a Wellington or a Lancaster?
JB: Wellington, yes. And I land myself in Cosford hospital, Royal, RAF hospital, that’s where we crash near, and they soon give me, I was in such a pain, but before we crash, the pilot notify flying control what we are in trouble you see. You see during that time our plane not been serviced properly, we’d be in such a hurry training, training, training, and our plane not been hundred percent sometime, maybe, fit to fly, but if you too often put what there were certain problem, you’re gonna some time maybe you don’t, just don’t want to fly, you know what I mean, so you had to do it. Now if something not working In the old days You see now sorry.
GB: Can’t fly.
JB: But in the old days small problem you just have to -
GB: So your crash happened when you were on the OCU then?
JB: Yes, you see, that plane was continuously refilling it up, refilling it up, you see. They had not enough time to service properly. Anyway, I don’t know what was problem but the pilot signal what we are, you know, going down you see. Then I land myself in hospital, but with pilot notified, he give a signal, we going to crash land, you see. It was at night time and when those people took me inside to their house, I couldn’t see them because everything was red in my eyes because my eyes was also burnt you see, from the flame, so everything was red, and he give us, the pilot give directions to the plane control exact place where we been heading to, to crash, and the ambulance came in about half an hour, but I was in such a pain, such a pain. I still remember that today what, and those people were offering me cup of tea, something I couldn’t touch, nothing, because my hands was, but they were talking to me. And I land myself in Cosford, RAF hospital and they start giving me injections to lower the pain, and in the end, in the end when I woke up, that was somewhere I think in afternoon and we crash in evening, so it was long time, and I just look at my, everything, I was embalmed, but I still could see very little through my, one eye I could see ward, what everything was when I look on my hands was full of bandages and the doctors start came and slowly they start talk to me what to get better, you know, start tell you and I spent there three weeks. And Sir Archibald McIndoe, that the big plastic surgeon from East Grinstead, he used to go visit different hospitals in England, also see different cases, the Air Force fellow who burn, in different locations, and he was surgeon and asked them to be to transferred to his hospital in East Grinstead. So he came and spoke to me. He said you, do you know me? I look at him. I said no. I am big plastic surgeon from East Grinstead Hospital. In those days I didn’t know East Grinstead! I said where, he said East Grinstead near London. Oh yes I said, yes, I know. He said that’s where you come to, I’m taking you there! He shout at me! I say when? He said tomorrow you will come. I said thank you, and you see they transfer me with the ambulance to that hospital, and that was proper hospital there because there was modern facilities, good staff, beautiful hospital. Every time when I pass near I always go visit there, you know what I mean. And the people there, in East Grinstead, they so kind, because some of the boys so badly burned, if you would saw some cases you will close your eyes. Their faces, eyes, ears, no hair: completely [emphasis] new faces, you know what I mean. They had to repeat, because fire is a shocking thing, because fire damage. I was in my life couple of times drowning because I was swimming and in the end I got in some very steep, deep hole what I couldn’t get to the edge of it you see, I was drowning, in the sea, but the fire is the worse enemy. The water is bad but the fire is even worse, you know what I mean. You see I spent there six months and the hospital was every night new cases come, at night. People shouting at night. They bring them on the trollies with pain, from different accidents; tell they could have done with the injection, with the pills you see. So as they, they bathe you little. They keep sending you to diff, to units, because hospital could not cope with so much overloading. Then you do certain time and they recall you back for to continue. So they sent me doing instructing in the gunnery school you see, because I already had few ops behind me, they used to call me, I was capable to do that job what they been so desperately need. So I used to go with those gunner, Lysander used to have that air bag and we going in [indecipherable], that’s a twin engine plane with the two, when the gunners in turn go and shoot him. They sometimes shooting bag, shooting the pilot [laugh], pilot shouting on the intercom [laugh] stop you bloody thing you know what you doing! The bullets flying over my head! [Laughter] Because you see the student you have to tell gently, you know, he somehow press on the trigger you see that turret moving fast you see, so you get him out, you see, you put another one, you say listen when you turn it you must turn gently not so sharp! I said once you pointing on the airbag, once you pointing at pilot head! [Laugh] I said you shoot down the pilot you get into trouble, you get me to trouble you understand! What you doing! So I kept it for six months then I went back as I told you, back to my squadron, then I start to feel to be like home, you know what I mean. Yeah. Because there was, you did your job, and there was no shouting at you, you had more respect, you know what I mean. On this gunnery school I mean I was already instructor but still you had to stand up as a, you know what the discipline, to show them what they must be, you know, example to be, know what I mean.
GB: What rank were you at the gunnery school?
JB: I was Warrant Officer.
GB: Oh Warrant Officer. And was it just Polish.
JB: I had Warrant badge.
GB: The students you were teaching, were they English or just the Polish?
JB: Mixed. There was Australian, there was Canadians, you see, there was Poles. Some of the Canadians been coming already trained, some of them been finish here you see. In the end my squadron sometime, because we always had about eighteen crews operational, from my squadron. So some time when we had replacement we had to have backup from the Royal Air Force because we had, our crews were still due to be, er to come, so we had some spare crews coming, flights. A Flights or C Flights you see, English Section, because we always sent about eighteen planes you know, on the op.
GB: On op.
JB: That was big, big, lovely aerodrome for headquarter, new build by Wimpey, beautiful there.
GB: What, you obviously can remember the date, what was the date of your crash?
JB: My crash, yes, 1943, about three weeks before Christmas.
GB: So yeah, beginning of December ’43.
JB: Yes, somewhere, because Christmas, I tell you, I never forget that Christmas till my dying days. We had Christmas tree, beautiful tree, and you know, first when you badly burned, every day they take you to have a bath. They take your pyjama out: top, bottom, beautiful two WAAFs, nurses, WAAF officers will come and take your dressing gown from your hands, face, because that dressing is with oil, so the oil doesn’t stick to you. And they have to keep changing those dressing gowns till skin heals, you know what I mean. So they have to keep clean every day you must have a bath, they run bath full of water, imagine, from beginning, young man, you go to bath and two beautiful nurses you know, take your dressing gown, afterwards you get used to, but from beginning you almost, you shy to look them. They used to because they already been doing that, but you from beginning. And that Christmas, Bing Crosby sang White Christmas. Anyway, before midnight there was nice atmospheres, nurses were singing, the lights weren’t on and afterwards we had spare room so they turned the lights down and I had radio, and Bing Crosby sang ‘White Christmas’,’ and that touch you, you know what I mean. And I was then in the little room, lights very dimly lit up and I thought, if it is Christmas, that special day, what it touch you so much, you know what I mean, with that song, and every time when I ever heard him singing that song, you know, it remind me that day I was in that hospital you know what I mean. Because that Christmas was such a thing, once you land yourself in hospital and you knew, when in the past you always mix with crowd of people, and this time you was on your own, was very, very sentimental, yes. You know even now, you say, I’m sorry I’m probably bore you talking, but I want to tell you my exactly life.
GB: Oh no!
JB: Even when I go now, during Battle of Britain, when we have all big crowd here - I don’t know if you ever been here, by the monument?
GB: Yes, last September we came.
JB: I’m glad. I hope you come this September.
GB: Every year. We will come every year.
JB: You to us you are very valuable because you going to live lots of, you help us lots of history what we, you know, want to leave behind, because the war’s it is remain, all the history should be known. Yeah. So every time I go to that and when I see those face, my men, who, I’m telling you exactly what I, what to tell you from my heart. I think to myself why didn’t I die with them, you know what I mean, when I say their name because you think they gone and I left behind why should be? I should be there with them but it just happen like that. But some time you, you think you would be better off if you would died with them, you know what I mean, yes. You see friendship, you see, you probably will remember, when you facing, facing, death, and we are three of us together, [pause] is the biggest friendship, the biggest brotherhood you share together. Because you know you depend on each other. You see the same thing would have been in crew, seven, you knew defend each other life and when you miss one of them is probably more than your own brother, you know what I mean. The sort of friendship, you sort of develop friendship. If I see my English crews like I, before [crashing sound].
GB: It’s all right. I’ll get it.
JB: Oh sorry, I’m sorry to give you problem. Oh thank you.
GB: That’s all right. Gone everywhere.
JB: I have lots of more memory, I lost lots of my different records, but I’m still holding [paper shuffling], oh, yes, yes. That’s all right. [Paper shuffling] I thank you, you’re friend.
GB: I’ll move those on to there.
JB: Yes. That’s lovely. [paper shuffling] Look, before we have our statue erected, few years ago Daily Mail was, I miss some daily, because that was every day different added story, I thought why don’t we have our recognition? Even Churchill betrayed them; the nation turn its back. So should we still feel duty, you know what I mean, and in the end we got this monument because every time I see them I was the same like them and I felt what the people forgot us. But you know why? When war ended, the Germans call what was that’s biggest barbaric system done on Dresden, but so many and Mr Churchill slightly turn us back, to give the most recognition to Fighter Command. But we never forgive him because who were Fighter Command, they just stop, delay invasion, in the end Hitler said I will come back to you later, I’m not in such a hurry, but the Bomber Command, who from beginning till the end, went night after night, day after day, from beginning nobody could touch Germans, only Bomber Command did here and that’s why we pay such a big casualties.
GB: You took the fight to them.
JB: We had to go for eight hours. The fighters -
GB: Would you like to sit down.
JB: Yeah. The fighters, listen!
GB: There we go. [Paper shuffling]
JB: Thank you. Sometimes they jump in their Spitfire, they come back and the cigarette still left on ash tray, burning. When we had to go, we had to go for eight hours, over their sky, over their land and face them for eight hours, you know what I mean, then return to English Channel, that was sacrifice and you see people always talk with mistake: Battle of Britain. We only stop invasion but he still had so much power he went on Russia, because he was running out of petrol, that’s why he went in hurry to get, he start North Africa, no success, Then he said well, the other way: I go on Russia. And if he were to take Russia much early probably he would succeed, you know what I mean, but he attack them bit late and winter came and delay him, and why delay? Because Bomber Command, night after night, went over their sky, over their cities, over their whatever places what it hurt them badly, you see, and made destruction and who in the end lost the most people? Bomber Command – yeah, we paid the prices. And we should be, now we have our statue. Every time we go there, we know what only, I went there, Duke of Edinburgh pass with the Queen and I sat in the second row of chairs. So I waved to him, he turned, he said I know you from somewhere! So I turned to him, I said so you should Your Highness. He saw me from somewhere! I often talk with Duke of Edinburgh because he is our President of the Guinea Pig. When we have our dinner before, in East Grinstead and when he is not abroad or somewhere he always come to dinner with us and he eats, every time will enjoy pint of bitter in the bar and he talk with different voice. Then my English colleagues said to him, they bring him what they said that’s a Polish airmen, he stay with us. So he turned to me and said oh, so you not in Poland? I said no because I said the Russians don’t like me, so I said I’m still here. Oh so you here, where you living? I said I’m living in London, Your Highness. Oh in London! I say yes. Whereabouts in London. I said I’m your neighbour. You are my neighbour? I say of course I’m your neighbour: I live in Royal Borough, I said, I live in Holland Park. Oh, but you never come to see me, I say don’t come to see you because you have so many fellows with rifles and stuff! [Laughter] So he said but, you have to tell me, you are my friend – I said they don’t listen to me! [Laugh] And he laugh and he went andgo talk with somebody else, you know, he’s a very. People say talk to Duke of Edinburgh what he’s such a, you know, he’s just the same, and he will have same food with us and he enjoy joking and telling us some nice story. He said when I go to different meetings I have to be so careful because, he said, if I make something, they up to it and he said next morning in the press lots of things done to it. He said with you boys I can talk and it’s no paparazzi [laugh]. And he will have same pint of beer to start, and he will walk in bar and chat, you see you never can press yourself to start talking with him, but when he is brought to you, then you can have a chat with him you see, [laugh] then, yeah. So, he said so you are living in my borough? I say yes, I say I have been living before you, because I said, I know you got married after me [laughter] when you came, and the fellows who escort him laughed, you know, because I remember when he got married, and in Hyde Park we had all different groups from Colony come, and they had in Hyde Park, in the tents, accommodation, you know what I mean. So I said oh yes, you became my neighbour much after me, I say I came after the war, yeah, because, and he, he few times he came to see us and after, when dinner finish, quietly to take him through back door and back to London, yeah.
GB: Can I ask you a question? When, you said when you went on operations and you went for eight hours, can you tell us a little about what it was like? Did you spend all eight hours in your gun turret, or were you allowed to walk up and down the aircraft? Did you take a little bag with a flask of tea and sandwiches? What did they give you? Tell us a little bit if you can about an ordinary mission.
JB: Yes, I tell you what. We used to take coffee with flask; strong black coffee with drop of rum, drop of rum, and pilot will always, from time to time: Jan, you all right, how you feel? All right skipper, don’t worry, I’m watching, watching, don’t worry. Oh we just want to know, you know, he communicated with one each other ever so often, you know, so, because some time certain fellow can fall slightly sleepy, you know what I mean, so we keep in communicating from time to time, but I, you see when I went second time after my accident, and the new crew came, they were feeling what I was to them like, superior, because I already had few operation before me and I had to tell them, before we went on first op, I said listen, I can advise you one thing what you have to do. What you have to keep your eye left and right all the time, because if you going to keep that, what I’m telling you, you probably will have much more chance to, because I said the Germans come so quickly and so unexpectedly what, before you notice it’s too late, so you have to see him much before he see you you see, and I said you must keep eye on each other so you all know what you’re doing, and you keep looking. Because I said, pilot has his responsibility and you as the gunners, you have your responsibility, because you have the responsibility for the rest of crew. I say you have your guns and your guns is for defending ourselves. I said some of the members of the crew, they have no guns. Well you have the guns and you have to give that, you know. They felt, you know, like I was to them, bit more superior because I already had few ops you see.
GB: You had the experience.
JB: Yes, that’s right.
GB: How many operations did you go on all together do you think?
JB: About fourteen.
GB: Fourteen. Did you, it’s a delicate question to ask, but did you manage to shoot down any Germans?
JB: No. I had one, I had, who wanted to attack us, and I don’t know why, and he kept following us for while, but I think he knew what we saw him you see, and he was coming, was lowering himself down, from the back he was following, but never took attack you see. And I, to the mid upper I said look, look he’s on your right, on my, on my right from the back, watch him, watch him, he’s going to do something! And he follow us, I don’t know, or he had not enough guts.
GB: Maybe.
JB: Because Germans too also, not everyone was not brave, you know what I mean. And in the end when clouds came we went, because when clouds came you run into the cloud, you don’t care what happen, if you collide with something long as you get away, you know, so the most danger night it is when it’s moonlight. When we go on bombing and is full moon, is almost fifty fifty chance, you know what I mean, because the Germans could see you like in daytime, you know what I mean, and long distance but when is certain over cloud, over target, is, you see, very, very big to us, future to survive, you know what I mean. Because you don’t care when you see the fighter is attacking you, if you have near cloud you run into the cloud, you know what I mean, and he will be frightened to follow you because you know, you can collide, but you, to save yourself you don’t care.
GB: You go into the cloud.
JB: You will do it. Yes.
GB: Did you think yourself, you obviously with a rear gunner in a Wellington and then also in the Lancaster, what was it, what were the guns like, were they powerful enough do you think you could have better? Because they kept changing the different armaments that you had.
JB: No I think Lancaster had better, they were more modified, more superior, movement and erm, effectiveness than Wellington. You see every, from Wellingtons they made lots of improvement into the Lancaster and you felt the second, what you been, not two gunners, it was three of you, you know what I mean, and the Germans knew, when he would attack you from the back, he would have two gunners against him, you know what I mean, instead of one. Because Wellington is rear and front, so he know the front, he’s not bothered about the front, he only, and the German fighter, first of all, when he attacking you his first idea to kill the rear gunner, because once he point on you and he, he upset your defence, then he know he got the rest, you know, easy way. So his first idea to have eyes set on the rear gunner you know, and he will always attack from the back, very seldom from the side, because from the side is so big speed, what he cannot catch you in his gun sight, but when he follow you from the back he has distance.
GB: A still target.
JB: And he get you right in his circle and then you are, you know, almost in his mercy you see, yeah.
GB: Did you have any armour plating in the rear turret at all to protect you?
JB: No.
GB: Nothing at all.
JB: No. You just, you know, you had good visibility, but pilot had, pilot had. From beginning we had sometime two pilots; one and assistant pilot who’s doing first trip or something. But afterwards you train pilot for Lancaster four engine; it take so long what they couldn’t afford it to have two pilots so we had one, yes. Maybe some time first trip, some time, when the pilot, Commanding Officer knew, what he need to send with the second pilot, so they send him to give him one trip, what to experience, you know what I mean.
GB: When, when you came back from each operation, was there a certain time when you were able to relax? When you were still in the air, coming back from an operation, was there a certain time when you came over the British coast or was it further inland than that?
JB: You know first of all when we just been over Holland, to Belgium, even France, we felt little better, but when we came over English coast at least you know you were home, yes, [telephone] you knew what maybe some Germans here but they so scared over our land when they have no time and because sometime we will come and the Germans will be around here you know, so we had some diversion you see, yes. There were occasion we landed on American bases. That was good because we could get cigarettes you know, [chuckle] and bottle gin, and bottle of gin! And you can have a beautiful food whatever the time of the night you like, because kitchen is always open you see. So listen, next time you come back to your station all your friends after you because they knew you’d been diverted to American station! It was like you know [laughter].
GB: Are there any funny stories you can remember when you were on operations, up in the air, the funny things that happened in the aircraft? Can you remember any funny things that happened with your crew when you were up on operations?
JB: Oh yes, yes! Sometime you know there is certain job, fellow sitting, he said, listen you know what this, our skipper doing now? He turned, he completely turned his course, he sort of [indecipherable] going on Berlin, I say you’re joking! No, no he’s something, doing wrong! Listen, you don’t tell me he not so stupid to do such a thing. Only jokes, you know. But jokes is all right if is quiet, but when is sometimes hot you know what I mean, there is no joke, there is no joke, you know. After, when we get from the danger, we can joke, you know what I mean, yes.
GB: And your time when you were back on the ground, on the stations, tell us a little bit about your life on the RAF stations, if you can, in between operations. What was your normal day on the ground?
JB: I’ll tell you what we’ll do, [sigh] I was very good snooker player, and you know when I learned very good snooker? When I land myself in hospital and we had recreation room and three snooker table. So when you not in bed, you go to that canteen, have a cup of tea or coffee, and sometime play game or two just to pass the time, and I had you know, very good talent for the snooker and some time - I’m glad you ask me that because I cannot remember everything, so when you ask me certain question I sometime give you interesting answer - that Sir Archibald McIndoe, what he was such an important person in Air Ministry, if he phoned to Air Ministry and he said listen, I want twenty professional nurses: my hospital short of nurses. After two days new nurses come from Ireland, because most Ireland supply beautiful trained nurses, young girls. And they come to hospital and after one years hospital short of nurses because boys married them, you know what young boys, and they soon find themselves husbands you see, but anyway, that Sir Archibald McIndoe also liked play snooker. Sometime he will start operating from seven o’clock in morning because the more they operating those people, the more some of them they finish them in to do the service again, you know, it was like you know what I mean, conveyor belt. People coming in and going out, coming in and going out. So he would start operating early, certain cases, and lunchtime sometime, you know what he would do to me? He will call me, to my, I will be on Ward One, he will ask sister, sister call that Polski – he called me Polski – so sister say, hey Polski, your boss want to see you, So I get on the telephone. Yes Sir Archie, what can I do? Listen Jan, reserve table one o’clock today because I give you game. I give you three black start! I say thank you Sir Archie. Yes, yeah, because you have to learn little bit more about snooker! [Laugh] So he bloody come, I will already have a sandwich for them, coffee, because he will play snooker with me and have a sandwich and coffee because he, then we finish one game listen, we have a quick one, another one. So instead of one game we will have two games, we would have sometime he would not even have time to finish a sandwich and coffee, but two game he will finish, and then he will laugh. Some time I specially let him win the game because that give him satisfaction. He will go back to operating room, he said I beat that Pole, because he thought he will beat everything! But he said I told next time three blacks is not enough for him, next time, listen, so that give him satisfaction. And he loved playing snooker. When he will meet us in bar, in Whitehall, in the evening, not every night, but from time, he usually know Friday or Saturday was the best time to meet us, he would always talk snooker to you, you see, because he loved that game and he used to play with me and with other fellows you know, but he always used to like play with me because I supposed to be quite a good player what wins them, because they all knew, so he used to enjoy beat the best one. And he was really nice. Some time he will ask us, he lived in East Grinstead, New Forest, that’s a little outside town. He has beautiful big bungalow there. So sometime he few us, he ask us for glass of beer into his, because we all had cars, you know, in East Grinstead, because lots of people sold cars cheaply because petrol was so expensive, some of people had cars but no petrol so you could buy petrol for, car for twenty five pound in those days and you know on the station you always been able to get petrol.
GB: Little petrol here, little petrol there, yeah, yeah.
JB: So we go to his, that little, that nice bungalow and he will have a drink with us in his sitting room and afterwards sometime he leave us, because he said I have to get up tomorrow morning, I have to go to London and we will have a game or two in his you know, also have a drink and afterwards go back to hospital. He was really our friend; we, we, when he died we felt for him like he was our advisor, doctor and father, you know what I mean. And he had so much influence, you know whatever, because when the Queen and King came to visit, he was the right hand man, you know what I mean, and Queen and King from time to time visit that hospital because it was all the Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, you know, colonial boys too and you know Royal Family often pay visit there. He was, and he was such an influential,so. Whatever he wanted to gain you know, something, he had his voice was respected everywhere. Yes.
GB: Do you remember back to the names of the crew in your aircraft when you had your accident?
JB: Yes, I yes, that my second crew who died, I have in my book – this one.
GB: Oh, in, how do you pronounce his surname. Is it Jerzy Cink, is it Cinic? In Polish, how do you say that name there?
JB: Ah, Cink. Yes, Cink.
GB: Cink, I’m just going to use your toilet for a moment. Brendan wants to ask you a question.
JB: Just here, first on the right, go there. First on the right. Yes, just first on the right. [Cough] I’m sorry I, [cough] do too much talking, but you see I have to tell you whatever, because you came long way and if I don’t tell you I forget, you know what I mean. I find when my second crew got lost. Four hundred something. Thank you, yes, put that somewhere. [Crockery sound] Yes, thank you.
GB: I presume, this book references, I’ve seen copies.
JB: Put that, yes thank you. [Long pause] Yes, you see here, I.
GB: Page [indecipherable]. Three hundred Lancasters.
JB: Oh yeah, here you see.
GB: Oh right, marked.
GB: More heavy losses on the first raid in 1941, attack on [indecipherable] on the night 2nd of January VHJ?
JB: Yeah. That’s my crew. Konarzewski, yes.
GB: Right. That was the aircraft. VHJ.
JB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where is Konarzewski? [Pause] No. There is the car. [Footsteps] [Crockery sounds]
GB: All marked in here as well.
JB: That’s right, yeah, Jan Konarzewski, oh yeah, that’s my crew. Second one.
GB: VH-J then. EB722.
JB: Yeah. That’s my crew what I was recalled to hospital, they went and, and that fellow was instructor, and he was in Hucknall, Hucknall.
GB: Mmm. Nottingham.
JB: And afterwards he got so fed up he said, he went, he came to our squadron and pass all the training and he was made Group Captain. Because for his services, for few years he was instructing, and imagine just before war ended, went on the flight, and you know what I mean, and crew vanished, yes. I mean different from beginning of, this end like er, that fellow, er, our ace, what in the last war, before war ended, went over Belgium. One was um, my memory, my memory you see is, er, Group Captain, Group Captain who had the most bomber, the highest Victoria Cross in Bomber Command there.
GB: Polish or British? English? Do you mean Guy Gibson or Cheshire?
JB: Guy Gibson. On Mosquitos. He went just before the war ended, in last few days, over Belgium and was shot down and killed. And the second one was er, er, his wife also contribute a lot, Group Captain Guy Gibson and second one was er, he had the most, the most trips, he was the most highly decorated – Cheshire!
GB: Leonard Cheshire.
JB: Leonard Cheshire. They were, my friends, I, listen, Leonard Cheshire had gunner in Holland Park. I tell you why, I will tell you history, fact, why Leonard Cheshire did so many trips. He was the highest decorated man in the Second War, Leonard Cheshire. He was first as a Lieutenant, made first tour, and when they finished first tour they had given holiday, everyone went different directions. One live in Scotland, one in Wales, one somewhere in London. When they return from that holiday, they all been given different, afterwards, type of duty to do. But his crew came back first, day before, from his, from their holiday. He came on second day, it was on Saturday he came back, and somebody tell him, oh your crew went to the local park to have a drink because one of the fellow is having birthday. So he get in his car and go to that park, and he said why have they just spend holiday. Oh, we had lovely holiday, one was in one place and one in another! And they said so what you doing here? No he’s, Jack having holiday, birthday, so they his birthday so we have drink, skipper, we buy you drink too, what you have? So skipper he says Oh, I have a bitter. Well he said listen boys I have the news what I will be transferred to London, to Headquarters, I will do office job now, he said I don’t know what you going to do. Well skipper, we decided today, as we having that birthday drink, what we going to continue to fly till end of the war. You know they got drunk and decided they not going to take, you know, different jobs; they want to fly. So he said when did you decide to do that? Oh well, Jack had birthday and we had drink, we thought you know, it’s nice to continue. And he start to feel sorry for them they going to fly without him. So he said why didn’t you told me that before? Well we didn’t know that, but we somehow came back from holiday and we decided the best thing for us to continue. And he start to feel sorry to leave them, you know, behind. He said now I have to do, rearrange everything you know if I want to stay with you. No they say, you don’t have to, you know, you decide for yourself. So he decide to fly with them second tour, he decide to fly second and third tour you see, and that’s how his story went. When war ended, he knew what Polish Air Force contribute to the Second War. He was lovely fellow, Leonard. He went to visit Poland, with his wife, and he saw some Poles who went back, because some left their wives in Poland, you know, and when he went there and saw some of them, or some of them already by communists badly treated, badly, you know, went through different interrogation, you know, he decided to build in Poland few, to those homeless people, home, to the ex RAF who went back to Poland and he found them in such a suffering, with his wife. So the Polish government made her Baroness of Warsaw, you know, his wife.
GB: Yes, yes.
JB: Leonard Cheshire became Catholic after the war, he went to Rome and he made application to Pope what he want to become Catholic. You know why? Because he made so many trips and sometimes he said, the, his guilty conscience was hmm, touching him, maybe so many trips what he made maybe the bombing, maybe some suffering to some people and he thought maybe to ask God forgiveness, because he was half religious person, you know what I mean. Probably that’s why did so many trips know what I mean, and his wife spent half of the time in Poland when he died, you know what I mean. Because she was doing some charity job there and she was well respected you see, in Poland. That’s Leonard Cheshire. But I tell you one story about him. You see when I live in Holland Park fifty years, all people knew me – oh that’s ex Polish airman, that’s Polish Guinea Pig. Our Police Station, all Police Station knew me because two girls from the station rent the flat in my house so when they have time they will popping in for cup of coffee, when they had day off they would come and go by, oh, Mr Black, how are you, all right, we’ll pop in quick and have a coffee. I, you see I did and in one job after the war, twelve years in rubber factory and after, when I finish, I work for electric wholesaler, twenty years. Because I knew all the cities in England and my boss like me so much because he send me to Nottingham, Coventry, Birmingham. I know that city Doncaster. He send two fellows you see they couldn’t do the cover because you see they had no experience to be in that part. I work for big electric wholesaler, [telephone ringing] so I very seldom saw my boss because he send me, all my customers like me. When they ordering, want to put orders, they asking on the reception they want to talk to me. Because when they talk to me, I promise them what I will deliver them tomorrow or after tomorrow for sure. When they talk to the boss, he take the order but long as he take the order he doesn’t bother if he deliver on time! So you see all the customers got to know me. They phone for the orders, they want to talk to me, because they know, what I, and they used to give me always good orders. You respect the guy what’s ex you know RAF and so on. So my boss was jealous of me. He said I don’t know what you do with your friends, they phone me, they only want. I said because I tell you why, I said when they order with you, you take their orders but you don’t bother to deliver on time! I said when I take order I sometime don’t sleep the time that I will deliver them, that’s the difference. I said, yes, I said and you thinks, you know, because you know I do that job, so he was also ex-Army fellow, you know what I mean! But yes, you see, I was starting, where did I start, with them, yeah, so you see, I had two jobs. Second job I loved because I had independent job. I used to travel all around the cities and in the end I went to my boss and I said, listen, when I start the job you told me it will be London. Then it was London, then afterwards you said it outside London, it was outside London, [beep] I said now we spreading all over, Scotland, Wales. Ah, he said Jan, but you don't have to hurry, you can stay in hotel, boarding room when you fine to. I said listen, I have wife. I said I didn't marry my wife to stay in Scotland, or somewhere, I said I marry my wife in London! I said no, no, I said. Listen, you know we in business we some time do more, some time less. I said yes, now every year is more and more and nothing less, but in the end he said well we will be changing so, but for time being. So I had lovely job, but it was you know, responsible job, you had to do it: nothing for nothing you see. And when I come back now, what we did war days responsibility and when war ended how we had to be also, you know what I mean, doing the job, you know what, we had nothing given for nothing you see. Now people never satisfied, you know what I mean, yes, lots of changes yes, and that’s why, maybe now, we cannot afford certain things, you know what I mean, to give so much. Like now they, wanting flats in Westminster for thousand pound you know what I mean whatever, you know, weekly, because these days you see time change, yes, you know what I mean. The Chancellor, the present Chancellor, Chancellor cannot do so much, if he cannot afford it he has to do it.
GB: Looking, looking back at your time when you’re in the Polish Air Force, in the RAF, do you look back at it now, I know you have some sad memories, and some, probably memories you prefer to forget, but as a whole thing, what do you, when you look back now, what do you think of your time in the RAF, how do you view it now?
JB: RAF, you see we live, it was days when we never knew what tomorrow’s going to bring; we used to live from day to day. But every day, when you had chance, you enjoy it, because you been catching. I’m glad you ask me that. Sometime when I was stationed in beautiful parts in this country because England have such a beautiful scenery in certain parts. This country is so much, compared with different parts of the world, so nicely preserved, so nicely upkept, you know what I mean. I used to take bicycle, in spring, and sometime go quietly for nice cycle, and I would stop that bike, and see beautiful flowers, beautiful flowering trees and I think to myself: how God made this planet so beautiful. When you some time visit you never look that, you never think that, but then when I find the time and you see that beautiful thing in front of you, those birds singing, you think to yourself I wonder if tomorrow will be such a beautiful day. If I go tonight and never return, you know what I mean. You been thinking that, you know, if you survive that one. Because when you young you something like flower growing, flowering, you don’t want to die, you know what I mean, because you full of life, you know, and see all that thing beautiful round you. So you see when you’re young person you want to live, that remember, and when I used to see that beautiful thing round me, the river, and I used to drive, cycle in those quiet place, beautiful county Lincolnshire and I think that would be shame, you just want to live now [laugh] and you facing that, the worst when some time you going to take off you see, Once you’re airborne you just feel phew, you can breathe, but the take off is always a bit of, you know what you up to: start. The second time when you go on target, when you already been there before, and you know when it’s lots of German guns there, you know, when you have on the briefing, because when you come to briefing, and our briefing officer with his long stick and big map, start pointing and you think to yourself: not that bloody place again! [Laughter] You know.
GB: Were there times when you were in the big briefing room, when they told you about where you’re going to go, so you had good locations, and not so good locations, and bloody awful locations, and was there like a groan round the room and things like that when they told you? I presume the first thing you knew was in the briefing room when the senior officer stood up at the front and told you did you?
JB: Listen, when he’s telling you about that what you already been there, you want him to finish quickly [laugh] without no mentioning them, what they have somewhere back [indecipherable] because they will tell you when, before you reach that place somewhere where you will have obstacles too, you know, so you just, you please will you finish quickly, you know! [Laughter]
GB: Where would you say, remembering back, where was the one [emphasis] place you didn’t want to hear that you were going? Where was that? Was there one place or a couple of places?
JB: Yes, one, one I remember.
GB: What was that?
JB: I remember Gelsenkirchen, that’s in industrial part of Germany. At one time I thought, I thought my plane was, you know what I mean, going down. I said to skipper, I said Jan, what the hell are you doing? I said, I cannot shift in my turret! His name was Jan too, Jan Konarzewski, he was Group Captain and I was Warrant Officer. He said Jan be quiet, I’m frightened, he’s shooting at us and I have to get away, he said, don’t you bloody shout! [Laugh] Because I, feel, listen, they in front, they don’t feel that, but I, in that bloody turret, when they turn and put that [indecipherable] I fucking feel my feet is going down! I said listen, hysterical here, you know what I mean, he say hysterical here too! [Much laughter] But, you know what I mean. In the end I know he’s not doing that on purpose you know what I mean. But I said you did bloody make me nervous, I thought you know that’s it, I said I didn’t know what happened. He said what he saw those flares coming up him and he just couldn’t, wanted to avoid them or something and that’s why he turn. But some time you know, when you try to avoid the desperate moment you do so many funny things, you know, you just don’t care, you know, in those days. And some targets are, Germans, they were, oh they, I must give them that, they had terrific, you know, defence, you know, on certain. I never been over Berlin but the boys who told me once they gone on that, you know, he said they had good drink before, because they knew it was very, very strongly defended place because the Germans, specially wanted Berliners, to show them what, there was nothing to worry about. Because that Goering he told German people what there would be no any planes coming in the sky, you know, he gives them such a surety, you know what I mean, and after our plane on Hendon Museum, it said who made over hundred trips over Germany [laugh], yeah; he was giving Germans to Hitler such assurance, what they don’t you worry, I see them all you know what I mean, yeah.
GB: Have you, we’ve obviously got the Wellington in Hendon, and the one at Brooklands. Have you been inside them, at all? Have you been to see them at all?
JB: Only Lancaster, oh I take lots of people from Poland.
GB: Yes. To Hendon, the museum.
JB: To Hendon, yes, that’s the first. When I have some visitors I tell them to. Listen, I went to Argentine because my sister lived there, and er, [pause] and I went to museum and I saw were Lancasters in Argentine. In Buenos Aires there is one in the city and I thought to myself where did you beautiful things end you see, land yourself here? My sister said to me Jan, I didn’t wanted to call you back because I knew you been something so much attach. I said – my sister called Marcella – I said Marcella, I could stand on that plane and watch him and talk to him. I said what you would probably would be tired waiting for me. I said Marcella, because that plane bring me so much memory. I said for you is probably difficult to understand. I said, when some time we went on operation and it was very, [pause] very, I said, scary. And when we came back, we touch his wings, we kissed him, that’s why we been grateful what he took us there and brought us back, you know what I mean. I said Marcella, you will not understand me why I will stand outside him and I feel sorry what he so far away, yeah. I telling you this story, story from my [emphasis] life, what I felt sorry what that plane was so far away and we have only couple left now.
GB: Indeed.
JB: And those planes helped us so much to win the war. How we got rid of them, you know we been sending them on scrap and these are such historical planes - they helped us to win the war.
GB: It’s the same with the Wellingtons though, isn’t it.
JB: Wellingtons, Spitfires, look now we looking in Burma, those planes what were buried somewhere. You’ve heard that.
GB: Yes, yes.
JB: I mean what they were shipped there all that distance, and it was too expensive for them to bring them back, you know what I mean.
GB: So they buried them.
JB: So they buried them and they looking for them now, and they are somewhere because if they would be sold or something it would been known by now.
GB: They made a lot more Wellingtons than they did Lancasters during the war, and after the war they obviously sold quite a few to different countries but the rest were all scrapped, scrap metal.
JB: Scrap, yes, yes.
GB: What they would give for a flying, a Wellington that was flying now.
JB: Oh yes, oh boy, yes.
GB: Got an alarm that was all.
JB: Yes, you see, I mean those planes to us they were so I mean historical you see, what we flown in them they been to us, what they are part of us, I, when I go now to Hendon museum, you know, some, I like to go some time on my own because when I go on my own, quiet, yes.
GB: Quiet, and your own time, I understand that.
JB: And I, because I know every plane, what type of duty he was doing here and I think those planes helped us to win the war, because without those. You see Poland, what I want to tell you, we were new country after hundred twenty years occupation by those three nasty neighbours, we knew what the Second War will be, the biggest part who will play – Air Force. We train lots of people to be new country born in Eastern Europe, but we had not enough money to build the planes. But we had well trained pilots, been flying. We been producing small planes what was, we were selling to our poorest countries, for training. As the war started we had our own production plane, but very few. What came, just came to beginning of the war, but nothing compare with Great Britain like Spitfire, Hurricane or Wellington.
GB: They were very special.
JB: They were more superior. But the pilots had lots of flying hours in Poland, we train lots of people, we knew the Air Force will play big part. When that war started, you see the Germans attack us unexpectedly; we knew they would attack us sooner or later, with the Russians they made treaty together. They were friends, Hitler and Stalin together, and England said no, you see. And the Russians, when Hitler was fighting England, Stalin was helping Hitler, sending him whatever he needed because he wanted if Hitler attack Britain; he was encouraging Hitler. You’ve got France, England next. Because you know why? Because he was preparing to stab him in the back afterwards, and in the end Hitler knew that. Hitler knew that. That’s why they from beginning as the friends then in the end turned enemies you see, on each other. Well you see -
GB: Sorry, go on, no.
JB: When war ended, England, didn’t know much about the communist because they were separated for the rest of the world, they did wanted people to know how suffering they live, had bad situation because that was communist, you know what I mean, and they not never been friends of our. They became friends because we had to help them. Because we had to help them because we been frightened if we don’t help them the Germans get hold of their essentials what they need, so we had to help them, but the Russians weren’t really our friends, you know what I mean, not like during the monarchy days, like when they were our friends. We sorry what we didn’t help them because probably if we would help them in those days, we would been able to squeeze the Bolshevik, you know what I mean, because those people only went there because they were suffering with hunger, with the condition. But we, we also been so weak, after the First War, what been not able to help them, you see. But I mean the Russians, look now, they now more friendly because they have big enemy – China. Sooner or later Chinese will make move and the one move what they will make is only that big territory, what they want. They don’t want nothing else. Up to now they been doing trade with England, America; they manage to get by, but when the trade start to slow down, the Russian, the Chinese have everything now what they need, and the Russians now not making with us no more trouble, you see, living very quietly, very scared not to touch them, you see. Putin holding here.
GB: Maybe.
JB: But not for very long because people knew in Russia what they want change, because the rest of the world is living better than them you see, and the people will make a change sooner or later and Putin holding, but that empire is not the same what it was, you see, is breaking down. Look like that big part Ukraine, yeah, is broke down, the Eastern Europe what broke down, they just holding, but time come.
Let me just switch the camera off now, cause I think there’s probably not much time on there anyway
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Title
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Interview with Jan Black
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Royal Air Force
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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eng
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Sound
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03:08:22 audio recording
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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SRAFIngham19410620v040001
Description
An account of the resource
Jan Stangrycuik (Black) was born and raised in Poland. His family emigrated for a better life in Argentina when he was a teenager, but when the British Embassy called for volunteers to join the war effort, Jan answered the call and sailed with seven hundred other volunteers to England, where he joined Bomber Command and trained as an air gunner. He was the only surviving member of his crew when, in 1943, his Wellington aircraft crashed, near RAF Cosford, escaping with severe burn injuries.
He recalls his time in the RAF, including his recuperation from his extensive burns under the care of Sir Archibald MacIndoe with whom he became friends. He became one of the founder members of the Guinea Pig Club. He talks about life away from flight operations, of his exploits whilst on leave in London where daily life went on albeit under the threat of bombardment. It was where he met his future wife, an English woman who came to see him regularly at the hospital in East Grinstead, as he made his lengthy and painful recovery back to health. Jan later returned to duty as a gunnery instructor on Lysander aircraft before returning to his squadron and resuming flying operations.
Jan talks about daily life in between flight operations; how one lived day to day, because each day was precious, how crews had their own table in the dining room and wondering if the table next to them would be empty the next day.
He also shares anecdotes about, and pays tribute to, Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire who he knew and considered them friends. He recalls his fondness of, and conversations with, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and, at the time, President of the Guinea Pig Club.
Jan also reflects on Polish history and the aftermath of the war. After the war he settled in Britain, working all over the country, until he retired.
This item was provided, in digital form, by a third-party organisation which used technical specifications and operational protocols that may differ from those used by the IBCC Digital Archive.
Creator
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Geoff Burton
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Argentina
France
Germany
Great Britain
Russia (Federation)
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Blackpool
England--London
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
Chris Cann
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1941
1943
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crash
ground personnel
Guinea Pig Club
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
love and romance
McIndoe, Archibald (1900-1960)
military service conditions
perception of bombing war
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
RAF Cosford
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Hendon
RAF Ingham
Spitfire
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/620/8889/PPaineGH1616.2.jpg
c7fb40cc6f0bfbe3e8dfa9843065b6cb
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/620/8889/APaineGH160726.1.mp3
924472391843693055dda8d9ecb5466d
Dublin Core
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Title
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Paine, Geoff
Geoffrey Hugh Paine
G H Paine
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Paine, GH
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Geoffrey Paine (1925 - 2019, 1894345, Royal Air Force) documents and photographs. He flew as a pilot with 100 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Geoffrey Paine and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
2016-07-20
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 it’s the 26th July 2012 and I’m speaking with Mr & Mrs Paine, Geoffrey Paine the pilot and we’re in Croxley Green and we’re going to talk about the life and times of Geoff in the RAF and other activities. So, what are your earliest recollections of life Geoff?
GP: My earliest recollections of life? Oh, when I was a small boy do you mean? [Laughs] I lived at Gerrards Cross which is just down the road from here so I’m a, almost lived here all my life, yes always have, telephone [telephone ringing] always have done to be frank. [Telephone ringing]
CB: I’ll stop it just for a moment.
PP: I’ll go and get it.
CB: It gets.
PP: That was timed wasn’t it?
CB: I was going to say, yeah.
GP: That’s better, yes.
CB: Yes.
GP: So in Gerrards Cross I went to school first of all at —
PP: Not leaving a message, so can’t be important.
GP: I went to school first at High Wycombe Royal Grammar School and then I went down to Cornwall and went to Falmouth Grammar School, and of course when I was there the war was on and I volunteered for the RAF, I was in the ATC, Air Training Corps, down there I was one, actually joined the Air Training Corps when it was probably first formed quite early on and I volunteered for royal air force and as soon as I was eighteen I was whipped into it. [Laughs] No trouble at all. And then now where did I go first? Oh my goodness me I went to London first and then I was sent down, we had about, when I signed up in London, we had about three or four days in London and then I went to Aberystwyth, and we were billeted on, in hotels on the sea front at Aberystwyth and we used to have our lessons in the University Aber, Aberystwyth and our drill on the sea front of course, there was a great lovely big sea front there you could drill on, hard standing and then I volunteered of course for the RAF and my first recollections really I went to grading school, didn’t I, I think, I think perhaps it was grading school, No 6, yes, of course I went to an ITW first an initial training wing and then I, was on 20th September, at Aberystwyth, it was a nice place to be, billeted in the Belle Vue hotel, little hotel we were all in hotels there, we did all our drill on the sea front and we used their swimming pool, we had to go up to the swimming pool on a very cold morning, and the first time we went there we were all non-swimmers, we had to climb to the top diving board and jump in, and we were fished out with long poles, and there was one chap couldn’t do it, ground staff, [laughs] he wasn’t allowed to join aircrew, amazing. I felt sorry for him because he was very, completely gobsmacked he was. It took a bit to jump in because they’re quite high the top boards, and they had this great big long pole, and you grabbed hold of it and they pulled you in and you soon learnt to swim, I mean within a couple of days you were swimming the length of the pool so it was a good way to start, I think.
CB: Yes.
GP: A good way to start that. That was Aberystwyth, gosh, what did I do then?
PP: Well you’ve got it all written down old man, use your notes, use your notes!
CB: I’m just going to stop it a moment.
PP: Yes, go on.
GP: Elementary Flying Training School, Ansty, I went first, I did my first solo at six and a quarter hours, which was quite early I think ‘cause me instructor was leaping about, he’d beaten everybody else getting me in the air [Laughs]. Then I went to ITW at Cambridge just for a short time this was, they moved you about just to fill up time. Then I went to 100 Sqn, RAF Waltham, and there I packed thousands of blooming incendiary bombs. They were going on big raids then from Waltham and it was a continuous packing of incendiary bombs, thousands they, the whole place, must have put Germany on fire I think. Then what happened then? Bomb damage repairs Hornchurch, [?] where did I get to? Heaton Park, 18th of July ’44 and then Hornchurch, bomb damage repairs, and then Kew, bomb damage repairs, and then Hendon, again bomb damage repairs, and then I was put on a boat, the ‘Andes’ to go to Cape Town and from Cape Town you go on that beautiful train all the way up to Bulewao, I think it took three days, two days and a night I think and we went to RAF Guinea Fowl to start our elementary flying training on Cornells and then from there I went to RAF Ternhill to fly on Harlands, and then I think it was getting a bit near the end of the war. Twenty-five, five, forty-five, oh my giddy aunt yes.
CB: OK, we’ll stop again a mo’. Could you just explain the bomb damage repair you were doing, so what was the scene?
GP: Well we, there were about I think twenty, twenty-five of us, and we had a chiefie, you know an RAF sergeant.
CB: Flight sergeant, um.
GP: Nice old chap, and a lorry and when a bomb had dropped and blew all the tiles of roofs, blew the windows in we were piled off, given a place to go and there we had all the necessary stuff to, yellow calico stuff, to nail to the window to keep the wind out because all the glass had gone, we put stuff on the roofs, if there were tiles we put tiles, if not we put tarpaulins on the roofs just to make the place habitable, habitable after the bombing, that’s what happened then.
CB: So some of this was in East London?
GP: Yes it was, it was in East and West, and West London too, yes.
CB: And what about Hendon, that’s an airfield, so?
GP: Yes.
CB: What happened there?
GP: I went to Hendon just for a few days. They’d had a, a doodlebug had landed in the evening when they were all having showers and things right onto an accommodation block.
CB: An RAF billet block?
GP: And we had to clear the site which meant clearing human remains as well, it wasn’t very nice at all. It meant shovelling bricks, shovelling it on a lorry and off it all went, that was it. A complete barrack block got a direct hit, unbelievable really they picked that one building out on the station.
CB: Amazing. And what with the human remains this was a sensitive thing but what did you do with them?
GP: Well, you find yourself a hand with a bit of the, bit of the —
CB: The bone, yes.
GP: A bit of bone sticking out, you didn’t know whose it was.
CB: No.
GP: You just put it in a pile, no way of finding out at all.
CB: So what did they then do with those?
GP: I think they were buried somewhere ‘cause they didn’t know whose they were. They knew who’d died in the blocks obviously but the remains you couldn’t really match them up, impossible. Didn’t find any heads or anything, mostly arms and legs and bits and pieces like that. Not very pleasant but it was as if you were in another place, it didn’t mean much because there was no body with it, just an arm or a leg, wasn’t very nice at all. Oh gosh what did I do after that?
CB: So going on from there you were on the ‘Andes’ yes?
GP: Yes.
CB: Which route did that take and how long?
GP: Oh, it was lovely we called in on the way, it was a posh boat the ‘Andes’, a cruise ship and we called into, what’s it called half way down?
CB: You didn’t go via Canada?
GP: No, we didn’t, no. [unclear]
CB: You went in the west coast of Africa did you?
GP: Of Africa, I’m trying to think.
CB: OK, and who were the people being transported, were they only air force or?
GP: Only air force yeah, I’m trying to pick it up on here. All here, near Gwelo. Yes, that’s right. It was back a bit, arrived at Cape Town.
CB: Yeah.
GP: We went on this nice boat to Cape Town on 1st March.
CB: 1945?
GP: Then we were heading for Southern Rhodesia.
CB: Yes.
GP: I think it took two and a half days to get to Rhodesia.
CB: OK.
GP: Two days and a night. Each carriage had bunks to sleep six so we arrived in Bulewao on 4th March and spent twelve days there to become acclimatised, being so high up above sea level I think it was, I think it was about six or seven thousand feet above sea level.
CB: How did they acclimatise you?
GP: Well just a matter of —
CB: Exercise or?
GP: Matter of doing a few marches, they used to take us out and drop us out on the bush and we had to find our way back and you had to be very careful because if you didn’t pull your socks up or your trousers down you got ticks sticking in your knees all over the place because they used to be on the undergrowth and they’d burrow into your skin.
CB: Yes.
GP: And —.
CB: How did you get them out?
GP: With a cigarette if you had a cigarette, you’d put a bit of heat behind them and they reversed their way out, that was better than doing it any other way otherwise they left the beak in there didn’t they you see? So you got a cigarette behind them and they soon came in reverse [laughs]. Yeah, oh gosh.
CB: And how did the flying go when you were there, you were flying Cornells?
GP: Cornells, well the weather of course, every day was like this, beautiful weather, beautiful weather, lovely flying, and it was, the airfield was out, well out in the countryside and we did a lot of low level flying. We used to beat up the native villages, I can see them all now cowering underneath their little shelters. They lived in thatched roof, you know rough little places, we were pretty horrible to them really. [Laughs]. We used them as a target, we didn’t hit anybody but we used to go in very low and —
CB: Yeah.
GP: And then what else, I think, the war finished and we were shuffled off down to Cape Town and we were there for several weeks, we had a wild time because we climbed all the, well I climbed all the mountains. As you know Cape Town goes all the way round, I climbed all the mountains there, I used to live on the mountain. We’d go to Muizenberg and we’d learned to surf, lovely surf at Muizenberg and the people there were ex-pats who’d moved out there before the war and they were very nice, if they saw you coming down the mountainside they’d call you in and you’d have coffee and cakes and goodness knows what, they looked after you which was jolly nice. We were there for some time before they shipped us home again you see, it was really like a nice holiday really.
CB: What was the ship like that you returned on?
GP: A bit rougher than the one we went out on, we went on the ‘Andes’, came back on the ‘Reina del Pacifico’, which was a bit of, I think the ball had blew up in Belfast when we came back, it was a real old tramp steamer, [chuckles] packed with RAF people coming home.
CB: So we’re talking about May 1945?
GP: May ’45 yes.
CB: And you then went where?
GP: I went to, can you find it below, yes this is it here, yes. I went to RAF Ternhill, on the 25th May we went to Ternhill.
CB: What did you do there?
GP: I’m trying to think, um.
CB: That would be where you the advanced training. [Dialogue confused with interviewer].
GP: Flying Harvards. Yes I was flying Harvards there. I went solo in three hours forty minutes which was quite good and received my pilot wings and along came VJ day, got my pilot wings there and then a victory in Japan day and the second world war —
CB: Yeah.
GP: All flying training ceased.
CB: OK.
GP: We all returned to Cape Town to await our boat home to England, four wonderful weeks in Cape Town climbing the mountains.
CB: So that’s what you did earlier?
GP: Yeah.
CB: So if I just interrupt you again?
GP: Yes.
CB: We come to the end of the war but in the war you were in the Air Training Corps but you were also in the Observer Corps were you?
GP: Yes, no.
CB: That was later?
GP: That was later.
CB: OK, so we’ll come to that in a minute.
GP: Yes.
CB: OK I’m just going to stop for a moment. We’re just doing a correction here, because it’s not Ternhill in England, it’s RAF Thornhill, before coming back. Let me just.
GP: Yes, we went down to —
CB: So after Guinea Fowl then where did you go?
GP: We went down to Thornhill.
CB: Right.
GP: Another RAF training school, No22 Flying training School at Thornhill, and on, along came VJ Day, that was on Harvards, but along came VJ Day and all flying ceased and we were just enjoying ourselves, put on a train and sent back to Cape Town. And when we got to Cape Town there was no boat. We saw the boat going out, we missed the boat, and so we had about four or five weeks in Cape Town to do what we wanted so we climbed the mountains, I did, I climbed up the mountains went all along the back behind Cape Town [Colossal?] and then down over, it was interesting, coming down Oloch[?] you had to get down on to the main road if you wanted to get back to where camp was and there were all these people who, ex-pats who’d built lovely houses there, obviously moneyed people, and they used to welcome us with open arms, ‘Do come in’, used to open a little gate and they’d give you cakes and tea, coffee and drinks if you wanted it. We had rather a nice time, four or five weeks there, before we came back on the boat to come home. And we got on this tramp steamer I called it, ‘Reina del Pacifico’ it was a rough old boat, a lot of people on it, very much overloaded, I’ve got pictures of it here we have, we kept. We stopped at Mafeking going down through, that was interesting coming down to South Africa and —
CB: On the train?
GP: Yes, I got off the train there ‘cause the train was there for a while. They were changing engines so I said to the driver ‘How long are they going to be?’ he said ‘Half hour, three quarters of an hour’ so I went down to have a look at Mafeking and there, there’s Rhodes.
CB: Statue?
GP: Cecil Rhodes statue. Which was quite interesting.
CB: Yes, yes.
GP: And this was when we spent time down to Cape Town and I spent my time climbing mountains there.
CB: So on this boat then, ‘cause you’re going back on the boat.
GP: Yes, back on the boat.
CB: What was that like?
GP: Yeah.
CB: What was that like?
GP: A bit overcrowded.
CB: Um.
GP: But we came out of Cape Town and then we came up the coast and we called in at St Helena which was interesting because Napoleon had been banished there.
CB: Yes.
GP: And the people came out, and I remember buying my mother a tea cosy made out of local raffia or something. [Laughs]. Had quite a good time really. Now what else happened, what happened after that, oh gosh?
CB: So then where did you dock when you got back?
GP: Liverpool.
CB: Um. And where did they send you when you returned?
GP: Trying to think, Liverpool.
CB: I’ll just stop for a mo’ hang on.
PP: Dad.
CB: Right so you’ve landed at Liverpool then what?
GP: Yes, we went to, went down to West Kirby in October ’45. I don’t think we did very much there at all, we were just swanning around, didn’t know what to do with us and then they sent us to Stansted. Stansted was an airfield that had closed and we were put in the hangars and lorry loads of equipment from closing airfields came in and what we did we built little bivouac’s underneath some of this equipment and hid there, nobody knew we were there, otherwise we were given a job. So, we were there for about four or five weeks, hiding away [laughter] otherwise you would, they just gave you something to keep you out of mischief I suppose really. And then 28th November ‘45 I went to number, Bircham Newton, No27 FSTS Bircham Newton, and then I went to Little Rissington, 6FS, solo flying training school at Little Rissington on the 18th January ’46, then I went to Ternhill where I got my wings on 3rd September ’46, quite a long process wasn’t it?.
CB: What were you flying then?
GP: Harvards. That was in Harvards.
CB: So all three of those you were flying Harvards were you?
GP: Harvards yeah.
CB: Right.
GP: [Indistinct]. Kirton-in-Lindsay, oh I flew everything then, doesn’t go on there. I flew Oxfords, Hansons.
CB: So how did you convert to twin engine?
GP: No problem at all.
CB: Yeah, but where?
GP: Gosh, where’s my logbook, where’s my logbook?
CB: OK, we’ll look at it in a moment.
GP: I can see in my logbook —
CB: But you had a good time with these other ones, flying single?
GP: Oh yes, excellent time.
CB: Yeah OK, we’ll stop there for a moment. So, from Kirton-in-Lindsay which is in Lincolnshire you went down to Oakington?
GP: Oakington yes.
CB: And what did you do there?
GP: Oakington? I think I did a little bit of local flying.
CB: On what?
GP: What was that in? Gosh, um, has it got it there Pete?
CB: But what was happening at Oakington which is in Cambridgeshire?
GP: Yes it was a flying training school and um —
CB: For? ‘Cause you went on to Yorks there?
GP: Yes, I went onto Yorks there. Gosh it’s difficult to think of it all now.
CB: OK.
GP: How it all pieced together now.
CB: OK, well never mind. So you went onto Yorks?
GP: Yeah.
CB: And what position were you flying there?
GP: Second pilot on Yorks.
CB: But you’d never been converted to twin-engine or four-engine?
GP: No, no, I just sat in the right-hand seat and enjoyed myself.
CB: Yes. And what did the captain get you to do as the second pilot?
GP: Well, keep an eye open, [laughs], I used to go back, I used to leave my seat and go back in the back and fill in the logs ‘cause you always had this great big log to fill in. I used to keep the logs in the aircraft and then when I finished that I’d sit back next to the pilot again.
CB: Yeah.
GP: But it was a bit of a swansong really.
CB: And the pilot what was his experience before being on Yorks?
GP: Well, he’d had been on Lancasters.
CB: Had he?
GP: Yeah.
CB: And a Lancaster only had one pilot so he was quite happy?
GP: Flt Lt Horry, ‘Horrible Horry’ they called him.
CB: Did they?
GP: And he flew the last York into the museum.
CB: At Hendon?
GP: At Hendon, yes. Horry, I got on well with him, they used to call him ‘Horrible Horry’ but he wasn’t, quite a nice chap, I had a very easy time.
CB: And where did you go in the Yorks?
GP: Oh, we went route flying. You flew across alongside the Andes, the um, —
CB: So you went down through France?
GP: Yeah, through France, and then you turned left along the Mediterranean and you called in at various places.
CB: Would you stop at Orange?
GP: I stopped at several places there.
CB: In France?
GP: And what amused me at the RAF stations there in North Africa, we still had German prisoners of war, and the German prisoners of war would be given a big stick to keep the natives from coming in and robbing the things on the station, that was his job, yes, he had a big pole and that would keep the natives out, and he used it too [laughs]. ‘Cause they’d come, they’d pinch anything, they’d pinch anything. Oh dear, yeah.
CB: So your re-fuelling stops would be how long?
GP: Oh, sometimes we’d have a night, sometimes we wouldn’t have a re-fuelling on the gain, and we’d get as far as India, go up to Karachi and we used to land at Suez down the bottom there, and I used to love it there ‘cause you could hire a boat there and go sailing on the big lakes down the bottom there, and I used to go up to Karachi, we used to fly up to Karachi.
CB: Did you fly via Aiden?
GP: No, I don’t think I went to.
CB: So you went to Iraq did you, through Habbanya?
GP: Yeah, yeah Habbanya. Cor, it’s all a bit of mist at the moment.
CB: That’s OK and this was doing what?
GP: I was second pilot.
CB: Yeah, but what was the ‘plane doing?
GP: Yorks. Carrying freight.
CB: Freight.
GP: Freight, yeah we didn’t carry, well we carried a few, odd people who wanted to fly back, in fact we brought my brother back from, on one occasion, from Cairo, he came back in the aircraft with us.
CB: And what, what, you delivered freight to Karachi?
GP: Yes.
CB: What did you bring back?
GP: Freight came back as well. I can’t tell you what came back I suppose they were packing up the stations, and the important stuff we would fly back home. Then they moved us from, God where we flying from then?
CB: ‘Cause we’re talking now about the time of partition aren’t we?
GP: Yeah.
CB: Between Pakistan and India?
GP: It’s all in the distant past now for me.
CB: We’ll stop there a mo’. So, this delivery system you were operating was from RAF Lyneham?
GP: Yes.
CB: In Wiltshire.
GP: That’s right.
CB: In the aircraft could you just describe what was the crew? This is a transport version of the Lancaster so what did it carry in crew terms?
GP: We had a first pilot, we had me second pilot, and I was sitting in the right hand seat really as a lookout in a way, and we had a wireless operator and a navigator, that’s all we had and we’d fly down, call in at various places in North Africa.
CB: But you had an engineer?
GP: Flight engineer.
CB: Yes, flight engineer.
GP: We’d stop at various places in North Africa and unload freight, or load freight, a lot of freight came home because they were closing the stations when we came back, they were loaded with all sorts of stuff, stations, getting rid of it, getting it home.
CB: What sort of accommodation did you get on the route? So your first stop is Castel Benito?
GP: Well I’m thinking about Malta, ‘cause we went into Malta, I went into Malta.
CB: Yeah.
GP: I had nice accommodation there, very, very hot and humid in Malta, I didn’t like it at all when I was there, very humid, terrible. In fact one day I spent the whole day sitting on the edge of the shower it was so blimin’ humid, it was awful. On other occasions Malta was very nice, we just happened to get the weather that’s all. I did nothing but act as second pilot really.
CB: In North Africa, were you in tents or were they proper buildings?
GP: Oh I’m trying to think, trying to think. No, we were in proper buildings, we were in proper buildings, hard to place it now.
CB: Um.
GP: Yes, we were in proper buildings there, I don’t remember being in tents at all, I don’t remember being in tents.
CB: And how busy was the route? And you’re the lookout how often did you see?
GP: Well it was pretty busy because really because there was a lot of freight coming back. Some, little bit going out, but a lot of freight coming back from closing stations and so forth, so we used to have a lot of freight on-board. I would be up with the pilot and then once we got airborne I’d go down the back and fill in the log, we had a great big log to fill in, what we’d got on board and everything else, I used to do, keep the log. Then come back home, it’s all misty parts [laughs] —
CB: Yeah, yeah. So after flying in Yorks without training on twin or multi-engine.
GP: Yeah.
CB: Where did you go after that?
GP: Oh crikey.
CB: Did you go for twin-engine training?
GP: Where’s my logbook?
CB: So you went to Valley?
GP: RAF Valley.
CB: In North Wales?
GP: Yeah North Wales, that’s right it was very nice there.
CB: So what did you do there?
GP: [Laughs] Skive most of the time on the beach. [Laughter] because we had um —
CB: This was September ’46?
GP: The airfield was quite near the beach.
CB: ’47?
GP: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
GP: Yeah, was nice there. Cor gosh, it’s a job to remember it was a long way back.
CB: But the flying training was twin-engine training was it?
GP: Twin-engine training.
CB: In Oxfords?
GP: In Oxfords and Ansons yeah.
CB: So how did that go?
GP: And Ansons yeah.
CB: How did that go?
GP: It went very well really ‘cause there were a bunch of us, there’s a photograph of us in there I think, all pilots and navigators. Or is it in this one?
CB: Well, we’ll have a look in a minute. And the point of the question is you’d had experience on multi-engine?
GP: Yes.
CB: So I wonder how well that prepared you for twin-engine training?
GP: Fine, ‘cause I went onto Wellingtons.
CB: From?
GP: Middleton St George.
CB: Oh right.
GP: And flying UT navigators, they were all UT navs, I used to end up with sometimes one, sometimes two or three navigators in the back, and a wireless operator. Used to fly every day or every night.
CB: And then you went to Swinderby?
GP: RAF Swinderby.
CB: 201 AFS?
GP: Yes.
CB: So were you instructing there or what were you doing?
GP: What was I doing in Swinderby?
CB: ‘Cause you were on Wellingtons?
GP: Yes.
CB: And you were on familiarisation for a while, but what was the purpose of that?
GP: I did a bit of flying there. Can I have a look at —
CB: Yes, we’ll stop there for a minute. So, you went to Swinderby to the advanced flying school for Wellingtons?
GP: Yes.
CB: Then you went to RAF Topcliffe, which is clearly a nav school and you’re flying on Ansons?
GP: Yes.
CB: So.
GP: I was learning to be a staff pilot then.
CB: Right.
GP: So I could fly anything, Ansons, Oxfords, Wellingtons.
CB: Yes. OK.
GP: Used to mix it up.
CB: Right. So, um, at Topcliffe you were doing what?
GP: Topcliffe?
CB: So this is the No1 Air Navigation School and you’re flying on Ansons so.
GP: I think I was a staff pilot.
CB: You were a staff pilot OK.
GP: Yes.
CB: So you’re flying in an Anson, who else is in the Anson?
GP: Um, wireless operator.
CB: Um.
GP: And probably a training navigator to train, [unclear].
CB: Yeah.
GP: They were UT navigators.
CB: Right.
GP: So they used a couple, they used UT navigators, sometimes two UT navigators and one staff navigator.
CB: OK, who was the instructor?
GP: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, and were you being trained at the same time?
GP: No, I was just flying.
CB: Right, OK, right. So from there you then went onto Wellingtons again?
GP: Wellingtons.
CB: And this time you were at Middleton St George.
GP: Middleton St George, yeah I spent most of my time there then.
CB: So talk us through that, what was that, what were you doing there?
GP: Flying UT navigators all over the place, every day, every night.
CB: Right.
GP: I was a staff pilot there so.
CB: OK.
GP: I had my own wireless operator.
CB: Um.
GP: Forget what he was called now. He’s there somewhere.
CB: But the practicality of it is that that kept you busy for quite some time?
GP: Oh yes it did, until I finished I think.
CB: OK. So, when you, you were the captain of the aircraft, except when you had to be checked out occasionally?
GP: Yes that’s right.
CB: So that takes you to the end of your flying training by which time you’d done eleven hundred hours?
GP: Yes.
CB: So your biggest, where was your biggest hour accumulation, flying hours?
GP: Probably flying out to India.
CB: And on these Wellingtons you put in a few hours?
GP: No that was on, not Lancasters, on —
CB: On the Anson, on the Wellington?
PP: Yorks?
GP: No, Yorks.
CB: Yorks to India. Yeah, no, no, but this.
GP: Second pilot of Yorks.
CB: But at the end you were doing the training of navigators?
GP: I was training, UT navigators, in the back. Usually a staff navigator and UT navigator.
CB: Yeah, at Middleton, OK. ‘Cause you started there at six hundred and eighty four hours, and you finished up with eleven hundred hours.
GP: Yeah.
CB: That was pretty good going.
GP: There was a lot of flying see.
CB: And how did you feel about flying like that?
GP: No problem I loved it, I did, I enjoyed it, I really enjoyed it.
CB: And the navigators were telling you where to go so sometimes it wasn’t right.
GP: Which course to go on. I dozed off one night, I’d been on nights, I dozed off and got a tap on the shoulder, ‘Excuse me sir’.
CB: And to what extent could you fly on auto-pilot, or was it just trimmed for stability?
GP: Oh you could, almost entirely, almost entirely you could fix it.
CB: But you did have auto-pilot?
GP: We had auto-pilot, yeah.
CB: Yeah. How reliable was that?
GP: Very reliable, yeah, very reliable.
CB: So this is how you could catch up on your sleep?
GP: We kept an eye on things, you just sat there, you were just a passenger on the aircraft. Aircraft flew itself really.
CB: Yes. And where were the sorties, because Middleton St George is on the north east, close to the coast, did you fly?
GP: Well we used to come right down over the country, down to the, down to Cornwall and the Isle of Wight and up, up again up the east side, yeah we did all sorts of trips.
CB: By then we’re talking about peace time, so everything’s illuminated so to what extent could you check where you were without the navigator helping you?
GP: Well you could ‘cause you, as a pilot, you kept a check on where you were. You knew what course you were flying, or you knew the main places you could identify on the route and it was normally anti-clockwise, you’d go down across Wales and then across to the east coast then up, nearly always that way round.
CB: Right.
GP: For some reason or another, I don’t know why.
CB: So that was No2 Air Navigation School at Middleton St George?
GP: No2 Air Nav yes.
CB: So you come to the end of your time?
GP: Yes.
CB: What rank are you then?
GP: Pilot three.
CB: Right. As what rank?
GP: Well it’s equivalent to a sergeant pilot really.
CB: Right.
GP: But um.
CB: What had they done to the ranks?
GP: I was a pilot four, that was equivalent to a corporal ‘cause they changed it all you see.
CB: Right.
GP: And when the SWO found out I was still in the sergeants, I’d been in the sergeants mess, but because they changed the ranks he said ‘You can’t come in here now, you’re only a corporal’ but I went to the airmans mess and had a far better time in there I can tell you.
CB: At what stage was that?
GP: God only knows.
CB: Was that close to your leaving the RAF or many years?
GP: Yes a couple of years I think.
CB: Yeah.
GP: Yes, you can see from my logbook.
CB: OK. So, you’ve come to the end of your RAF term, how many years had you signed on for?
GP: Three years and four years reserve I think it was.
CB: Right. So, you came out of the RAF in ’49.
GP: Yes.
CB: What did you then do?
GP: Farming, [laughs], took a farm. Then what did I do then? I went in the Observer Corps didn’t I?
EP: ’61 you went in the Observers.
GP: Royal Observer Corps.
CB: OK, what prompted that?
GP: I became a commander in the Royal Observer Corps and —
EP: You went full time ’66.
GP: What was that darling?
EP: You went full time in ’66.
GP: Yes I went full time in ’66 yes.
CB: Fine. And how long did that last?
Unknown: [Indistinct]
GP: Three years was it?
EP: No until you retired.
GP: Until I retired yeah, yeah.
CB: Aged what?
EP: Sixty.
GP: Sixty, when I was sixty.
CB: And while you were in the Observer Corps what was your task?
GP: What was?
CB: What was your task? What were you doing?
GP: Pilot.
CB: No excuse me, I’ll stop it.
GP: Oh sorry, Observer.
CB: So as part of the history here —
GP: Yes.
CB: How did you come to meet your wife Evelyn?
GP: Well —
CB: And when did you marry?
GP: I met Phillip, her brother, first and we had motorbikes, and he took me home.
CB: What was he doing?
GP: He was um, he was in the RAF still, and I was in the RAF, but he took me home, and I met Evelyn then, and oh gosh, it’s a long story isn’t it?
CB: Go on.
EP: That was in ’45.
GP: ’45. 1945.
EP: When you came back from Rhodesia.
GP: I’d come back all sunburnt from Rhodesia, yeah. [Laughter]. Yeah that right, and we got, we just clicked didn’t we, we just got on so well. I think, never had any arguments.
CB: Well there you are.
GP: And her family were very nice to me, your father was very nice to me. He was a funny old chap her father but he was very nice to me indeed, in fact he gave you away, came up the aisle with you to me.
CB: Lovely. And he was a farmer was he?
GP: Oh no.
CB: Oh no, what did he do?
GP: Well I don’t know, [laughs], practically nothing I think. He’d um —
CB: So when did you marry?
EP: ’48.
GP: 1948. Twenty sixth of August, was it? 26th? 1948. Yeah, and he gave her away.
CB: OK.
GP: Doesn’t sound right somehow does it, how can he give you away?
CB: Well I’ve just done it twice.
GP: Yes.
CB: It relieves the financial pressure you might think.
GP: That’s right, that’s right.
CB: Doesn’t work that way at all.
GP: We’ve always got on, never had any upsets as far as I can remember.
EP: Show you the letter.
CB: I’m just stopping a moment. Now here we have a letter from the Queen which ‘gives her great pleasure to send you her best wishes on your sixty-fifth wedding anniversary on twenty-sixty August 2013’.
GP: We’ve got, we’ve got two haven’t we from the Queen? The other one’s hanging up there behind the lamp.
CB: Yes. That’s really nice.
GP: We’ve met the Queen.
CB: Yes.
GP: She’s very nice.
CB: You went down to Buckingham Palace did you?
GP: Yeah.
CB: Was there a garden party?
GP: Garden party.
CB: How did that go?
GP: We went to the garden party. At one occasion my nephew drove us there and the car conked out going down Whitehall [laughs] and we walked into Buckingham Palace. [Laughter].
EP: But we met her at Bentley Priory, that’s where you met her ‘cause we went to [?]
GP: Oh yes, I was in charge at Bentley Priory so I had to meet her didn’t I?
CB: Right. So now what we need to do if we may is talk if we may about your time in the Observer Corps.
GP: Yeah.
CB: So how did you come to join the Observer Corps and where?
EP: Because we were farming.
GP: Yeah, we were farming —
CB: Where?
GP: In Cornwall.
CB: Down in Cornwall, yeah.
GP: Who did I meet?
EP: You met, you went haymaking at next door neighbour.
GP: Next what?
EP: You went next door neighbour, helping with the harvest.
GP: Yes.
EP: And a ‘plane flew over and you went over to have a look didn’t you?
GP: That’s right yeah, ‘Are you interested in aircraft?’, I said ‘Yes, I was a pilot’.
CB: Yeah, and how did the conversation go after that.
EP: He said he had a post on his farm didn’t he?
GP: Yes that’s right he did. Who was that? That was um —
EP: Stevens.
GP: Stevens yes. Yes, he said ‘I’ve got a post on my farm’ that’s right. Um, he had these underground posts every, every four and a half, or five miles.
CB: Right. OK.
GP: They’re still there most of them.
CB: Yeah, hang on. So, this chap’s farm was where you started was it?
GP: That’s right down in —
CB: Where was that?
GP: Down in Cornwall, Pelynt in Cornwall.
CB: OK.
GP: And there was an underground post there. Um a bunker.
CB: Right.
GP: And we had a crew of ten.
CB: Right.
GP: So we’d man it with three at a time so you had a succession of people manning the post.
CB: So what did this compromise, the underground?
GP: The underground, you had a bomb power indicator, you had a battle assembly pipe outside which would record the over pressure of a bomb if it dropped and you would record it on a dial, BPI. BPI - bomb power indicator.
CB: Right.
GP: And then outside you had a pin hole camera, 360 degree camera with a cover on it and you had to load up sensitive papers in that, take it up, put it on its stand outside. If a bomb went off then it would record the height, the size of the weapon and the angle from the post, so you knew exactly, you know you could pass all this information onto your headquarters which were down Truro and they could plot it all on a big map and knew exactly what was going on. It was quite clever really.
CB: So this was with a landline reporting?
GP: Yeah. Landline.
CB: On a landline?
GP: We had radio back up but mostly landline, but um —
CB: So this is Observer Corps, so people were out observing how did that work?
GP: Royal Observer Corps, and they’re from down underground. You had a bomb power indicator underground so if a bomb went off immediately you had, the bomb power indicator would show you how many pounds pressure there was.
CB: Yes, right.
GP: How big a bomb was, and then you waited about three minutes and you went up the ladder, got outside, lifted the lid of the ground zero indicator which was a pinhole camera.
CB: Right.
GP: With four pin holes.
CB: OK.
GP: And you’d lift the lid off, took out the papers to come downstairs and then sent the readings through to headquarters and they could plot that bomb and you had several posts call the same bomb and you’d get several angles they knew exactly where the bomb was, if it went, if you had one.
CB: So what sort of bomb was this supposed to be?
GP: Well a —
CB: A nuclear weapon or an ordinary bomb?
GP: A nuclear weapon probably yeah.
CB: But the Observer Corps itself during the war.
GP: Yeah. The eyes and ears of the RAF.
CB: Were doing something different was it? Was that doing something different?
GP: Eyes and ears of the RAF.
CB: Yes. They would be working above ground during the war.
CB: Right.
GP: Spotting aircraft, saying where they were going and what they were doing, and then we went to the nuclear phase where they built all these bunkers, they’re still there ‘cause they’re solid concrete underground, most of them are still there.
CB: Right.
GP: One or two of them have been excavated but most of the are still there, if anybody’s got the keys they can go down them.
CB: So what distance are they apart?
GP: It’ll be eight miles.
CB: Right, and where are they in the country?
GP: Eight to ten miles. [?]all over the country.
CB: Right.
GP: Everywhere. There was one at Pelynt, where was the nearest one to Pelynt?
EP: I’ve no idea.
GP: Oh, um, trying to think now. They were about every eight, between eight and ten miles apart.
CB: So you were doing this part-time to begin with were you?
GP: Um.
EP: Yes.
GP: Yes I was to begin with.
CB: At what point did you change to full-time?
GP: God.
EP: ’66.
GP: ’66 was it?
EP: Yes.
GP: Yeah, she would know [laughs]. 1966 – full time. Yes I became an observer commander so I had quite a responsibility, then I got posted to Preston, Lancashire but I still kept my home here.
CB: Yeah.
GP: Came home on Friday nights, and went back on the two minutes past seven in the morning to get into the office before anything started happening, yeah.
CB: So at Preston you’re now a senior man, what were you doing there?
GP: Preston, well we had, I had a headquarters there, quite a big headquarters, longer than this garden with offices all the way up with staff, ‘cause you had a local area, had a whole area. There was an area Commandant who was a spare time who didn’t really do very much except have a rank but he didn’t do anything, I was the, I was the one that did the work at Preston.
CB: How long did that last?
GP: ‘Til I retired didn’t it?
EP: Five years.
GP: Five years.
CB: Yes. And from Preston where did you go?
GP: Home.
CB: No.
GP: I was sixty then.
CB: Oh you were sixty. So how does the Bentley Priory part fit into this?
GP: Oh, Bentley Priory.
CB: I’m just going to stop a moment. So, from Preston you came to Bentley Priory?
GP: Yes, I did.
CB: Before you retired, what did you do there?
GP: Well I was in, oh what was I, I was in an office there, and I’m trying to think what I did there, cor dear.
CB: The Queen?
GP: Queen’s visit, we had a Queen’s visit to Bentley Priory.
CB: What did you do about that?
GP: We have observers from the whole of the country down there, bought them all down by train and we had a big garden party at Bentley Priory and I remember I went round one way with the Duke and somebody else went round the other way with the Queen, ‘cause we criss-crossed just to introduce to one or two extra people, special people on the way round, that sort of thing, Bentley Priory.
CB: And what was the significance of the event.
GP: [Exhalation of breath].
EP: Wasn’t it the closing down of ROC was it?
GP: I think it was.
PP: Anniversary?
GP: I don’t know, yes I think it probably was that we were anticipating being closed down, the ROC, and we had just this royal garden party and we invited the Queen.
CB: Yes.
GP: And the Duke.
CB: Right.
GP: The Queen, the garden party was split in two places with the, if you know Bentley Priory out the back is a fountain. One half was that side and we were the other side. So the Queen went round one side and we took the Duke round the other and he was hilarious [laughter], he really was the old Duke of Edinburgh, but we got a lot of fun, a lot of fun with him [laughs].
CB: Well he had a lot of background with the military.
GP: Yeah, yeah, he did.
CB: OK. Thank you. Now in the Observer Corps the people needed to be trained?
GP: Yes.
CB: And what did you do on an annual basis?
GP: On an annual basis we would have a big camp at an RAF station that was being closed.
CB: Right.
GP: And um we’d have a week, I think it was a week there, and observers come from all over England to do training there, which was quite good, but I used to go as a full-time staff and help do the training. It was quite good fun really.
CB: What was the training that they had?
GP: Aircraft recognition, mostly aircraft recognition, God, it’s hard to think.
CB: ‘Cause we’re talking about the Cold War time aren’t we?
GP: Yeah, we are.
CB: And um, so aircraft flying very high that’s no good, but so what were they looking for?
GP: They were still looking for aircraft, I’m trying to think.
CB: No more.
GP: Trying to think. There was still low level flying as well, you know it wasn’t all high level. Um, gosh.
CB: Because as well as recording the data.
GP: Yeah.
CB: About nuclear blasts they had to have training for that presumably?
GP: Yeah, we, trying to think about it now. Yes, we used to have exercises which were all planned, co-ordinated so that a post which was perhaps ten miles away would have a reading and a time, and a post which was ten miles away would have details of the same blast but different timing and different angles, you know the whole thing was co-ordinated as if the real attack had come, nuclear attack had come. Massive, massive, awful, awful to contemplate really, but the whole thing was planned nationally so that all the posts, all the stuff fed in would have co-ordinated properly you know? Quite a big job really. Quite a job, a lot of planning went into it.
CB: And where was this information fed to?
GP: Fighter Command, Fighter Command mostly I ‘spose, yeah, and local defence. Surprising we had scientific officers at each group headquarters, they would work out the fall-out, the radioactivity levels and so forth as if a bomb had really dropped and so we had scientific officers there, they weren’t in the Corps but they were scientists recruited to do that job. Great big screens, two big screens. Long range board and another big screen, and you’d plot on the back and the scientific officers would read the front but you’d plot on the back.
CB: Like fighter screens, and where were these regional headquarters located?
GP: God, all over the place. Oxford, big one at Oxford.
CB: On airfields or separate?
GP: No, separate from airfields.
CB: Right.
GP: One at Oxford, there was one here at.
EP: Watford had one.
GP: Here at Watford, the bunker is still there at Watford, and it belongs now to the vets doesn’t it? They use it down below ‘cause I went down it one night, I used to, when I was down at Horsham I used to come home and I used to go and check on the headquarters here at um —
CB: At Watford?
GP: Yeah. And I went in one night, a bit on leave, I came and couldn’t understand a light was on. So, I went in to put the light out and I could hear noises, der, der, der, der and I thought hello, I said ‘Somebody’s here’ so I walked on and there was a bloke there and what he was doing, he was preparing training material for his crew using all the tape and everything you see. So, I crept down there and I didn’t let him hear me coming and I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. I’ve never seen a bloke jump so high in my life [laughter]. He didn’t think anybody could get in you see, because he had the key. He was using it, he shouldn’t have been using it really, using it to prepare all his training stuff for his crew. That was very funny and I was able to creep right up to him and tap him on the shoulder, I’ve never seen a bloke jump so high in my life. Frightened him to death [laughs], yeah, and that’s still there, that building. If you went to see the vet she’d probably let you in, if you said you’d — gosh when you think the money that was spent on it all.
CB: Yeah. Well this also linked in with the RSG’s didn’t it, the Regional Seats of Government?
GP: Yes, yes it did, that’s right the RSG’s. Yes, it was an interesting time really, in another few years it will all be forgotten nobody will know what it was all about will they?
CB: We’ll have to do research into that as well.
GP: [Laughs].
CB: 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
A name given to the resource
Interview with Geoff Paine
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
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
2016-07-26
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APaineGH160726
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Geoff Paine attended High Wycombe Royal Grammar School and Falmouth Grammar School, joined Air Training Corps and volunteered for the Royal Air Force at eighteen. Upon competition of initial training he was posted at RAF Waltham (100 Squadron) then at RAF Hornchurch, RAF Heaton Park and RAF Hendon. He served in a bomb damage repair unit, and reminisces a V-1 weapon exploding onto an accommodation block at RAF Hendon. Geoff continued his training in Africa (Cape Town, Bulawayo, Thornhill) flying Cornells and Harvards. He qualified as a pilot near the end of the war but after august 1945 flying activities ceased. Back in Great Britain he was stationed at RAF West Kirby, Stansted, RAF Bircham Newton, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Ternhill, RAF Oakington, RAF Lyneham, RAF Valley, RAF Swinderby, RAF Topcliffe where he flew Yorks, Oxfords, Ansons and Wellingtons until he was demobilised in 1949. He subsequently went into farming and joined the Royal Observer Corps first part-time, and eventually progressing into full time role of observer commander retiring at sixty in 1966. Discusses Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit, Cold war bomb testing and observation roles.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Wales--Anglesey
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe--Gweru
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
South Africa--Cape Town
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cheshire
England--Essex
England--Gloucestershire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Manchester
England--Norfolk
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
South Africa--Mahikeng
South Africa
England--Lancashire
England--Bishop's Stortford
Format
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00:54:12 audio recording
Temporal Coverage
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1945
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
100 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Cornell
demobilisation
Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain (1926 - 2022)
Flying Training School
Harvard
incendiary device
Initial Training Wing
Oxford
pilot
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
RAF Ansty
RAF Bentley Priory
RAF Bircham Newton
RAF Grimsby
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Hendon
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Lyneham
RAF Oakington
RAF Swinderby
RAF Ternhill
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Valley
recruitment
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/PLeedhamHJL1801.2.jpg
fdabc281256a5511e83607203749a467
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1015/11304/ALeedhamHJL181212.1.mp3
eca92a44a63ba05981df7098454718ac
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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Leedham, Bob
Herbert John Lewis Leedham
H J L Leedham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Bob Leedham (b. 1922, 1183577, 160986 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 90 and 57 Squadrons.
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
2018-12-12
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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Leedham, HJL
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HB: This is an interview between International Bomber Command Centre volunteer Harry Bartlett with Mr Herbert, Bob, Leedham, who lives at Ashbourne in Warwickshire. He joined the RAF in 1940, but we’ll no doubt will come to that shortly. Bob, if I can just ask you what were you doing on, in the few years before the war?
BL: My family, my father was a skilled carpenter, but on my mother’s side, she had three brothers all of which were very keen engineers and one of which was exceptionally keen and he worked for a local motor company and he was involved in motor bike racing at Donnington, mainly, and it was him that inspired me with a heavy engineering interest, and consequently when I left school, I was educated in Burton on Trent, the dear old brewing place, I finished up there, I was, won a scholarship to be educated at the main system, which was the central system and the grammar school and so on in Burton and I survived that. And on leaving I decided my real choice was to follow my uncles as it were, into the motor trade, which I did. And I was trained fairly quickly as an apprentice in the motor trade and of course when the war started most of them were already on the reserve and they were the first people to be called up. So myself and a couple of my colleagues of my age, and at that time we are talking about an age of seventeen, sixteen to seventeen, I had already passed my driving test and was driving of course and we were left to run the very large garage very quickly after all the others had been called up, and so it was hands on experience with a vengeance. We were left to run the garage and carry on operations and consequently even a relatively short time I had a good engineering background. However, when I got to seventeen and a half, all my mates that I knew and went to school with and so on had all got into the air force, they’d volunteered in some way or other. In fact some of them were actually called up and I knew that sooner or later I would be called up as soon as I got to the age of I think it was eighteen or nineteen and the chances were that I would maybe put in to the Army. Well I had no interest whatsoever of going into the Army. My first choice was always the air force. Unknown to my parents, at seventeen and a half, I went over to the Assembly Rooms in Derby to the recruiting centre and signed up to join, but I had to give my age as eighteen. They probably accepted this with tongue in cheek knowing that I’d lied a little bit about my age. However, I was accepted and instructed to come for a medical a couple of days later. Very amusing and perhaps interesting thing was, that bearing in mind I had been brought up in a relatively conservative sort of area in Burton on Trent as opposed to big cities and so on, so we were living in a relatively closed environment, despite the fact we were all qualified, and highly qualified tradesmen then. So I went over to have the medical. There was about twenty of us lined up. The doctor came in, he says, ‘right, take your shirts off boys, I’m going to check your hearts.’ So he went along, checking everyone, all the way along, and when he got to the end he says, ‘Right, put your shirts on boys,’ then waited a few minutes, said, ‘drop your trousers then.’ I thought ‘drop my trousers!’, bloody hell! I’d never been exposed to anyone in my life before, you know! And I feel that at that moment I changed from being a boy to a man. That’s the way I felt about it, I couldn’t believe, having to drop my trousers and expose myself even to a doctor. That was the sort of background we were brought up in of course, in those days. It’s totally different now of course. So really from then on the next few days I was down at Cardington for the, attestation and so forth and then I was allocated for training. So initially because of my engineering background the RAF at that time were quite short of experienced engineering people, and they’d set up training units and so on but, they were very good from a theory point of view but nothing in the way of hands on. So I was immediately shuffled into training as a fitter 2E. But I wasn’t happy that, I wanted to fly. So it didn’t last long, and I managed to wiggle my way in to ITW at Blackpool, and found myself on a pilot’s course.
HB: ITW?
BL: ITW: Initial Training Wing.
HB: Right.
BL: Which was at Blackpool in those days and that’s where they carried out the tests as to whether you were suitable to fly in an aircrew capacity. So I was accepted to fly an aircrew capacity to be decided specifically by the selection board’s requirements. And the next thing was, at that time the pilot training was being geared up dramatically. The original pilots in the air force at the start of the war and going right up to probably about the end of 1941, were pre-war pilots, mostly people who’d come from quite wealthy backgrounds who could afford to train them as pilots and by the end of 1941, these were the people that the air force had to rely on in the early days. When I look back historically on some of the situations, bombing raids and that sort of thing using obsolete aircraft like Lysanders and stuff like that, it was dreadful really and by the end of ’41 most of these boys had disappeared: they’d either been shot down, been killed, they crashed or were POWs. Result was that there was a colossal demand for fully trained new aircrew. This was done from a pilot’s point of view in Canada, or America, or Southern Rhodesia as it was then, which is now Zimbabwe, of course. Those were the three, main three areas where the pilots would train from about 1941 onwards. And they set up very, very good systems. But there was a difference between Rhodesia trained and particularly American trained. The American instructors were extremely, quite different to us: they were very hard, very dedicated and they set up a system for training pilots, that if you didn’t go solo in twelve hours, you were thrown off the course. You were downgraded to either a navigator or a bomb aimer or anyone else that had any sort of background which would be useful to the air force, in my case an engineering background. And when you consider, you know, people, ex bank managers if you like, and people from a whole variety of trades in civilian life, there they were, shipped over to America to train as pilots and expected to go solo in twelve hours. Just dreadful really. However, that was the way the system worked. It wasn’t quite so severe in Canada, but nevertheless it was similar to the American system but the ones trained in Southern Rhodesia of course, it was very much more realistic, and they didn’t stick to any specific hours to go solo and things like that you see. So the result was when finely trained aircrew of any category then came back to the UK, the usual routine was Initial Training Wing and then on to type training unit and so on and find a way into things like Wellingtons and Hampdens and Lemingtons, er Wellingtons and things like that.
HB: Can I just take you back a little bit Bob? [Cough] excuse me. When you joined up, you started your initial training as a fitter.
BL: Yup.
HB: But you then went for aircrew training.
BL: Yes.
HB: Did you go to train as a flight engineer, or did you go to train as a pilot?
BL: No, I went to train as a pilot initially.
HB: Right. And where did, which you, where did you actually go train as a pilot?
BL: I went to 32 SFTS in Carbery Manitoba, Canada.
HB: Canada, right.
BL: But I didn’t make the twelve hours solo so I was downgraded, the same as three quarters of them. There were very few, at that time anyway, who were competent enough after twelve hours to go solo. So it was a very hard path really. I came back to the UK, together with many others, who’d been diverted then in to training as a navigator or a bomb aimer or a gunner – I’d forgotten that one – and, but in my particular case the fact that I had the engineering background, which they wanted, they downgraded me to co-pilot and flight engineer. So predominantly I was trained as a full flight engineer, despite the fact I was accepted that on aircraft for instance like the Stirling I had to act as co-pilot as well. So I had to take link training and all that. I was never allowed to take off and land, but I was there to relieve the main pilot and to act as co-pilot duties. And that applied pretty well throughout: Stirlings, Lancasters, Halifaxes and so on. So we were always virtually the number two so far as the mechanical operation of the aircraft was concerned. As opposed to the gunners who had their job to do, bomb aimer had his job to do and the navigator. A number of the early bomb aimers of course were also trained as type of navigators but very few of them flew as navigators, they flew mainly as usually as bomb aimer come front gunner. There was always a front turret, gun turret on the Lancs and the Stirlings and Halifaxes, so the bomb aimers were expected to man the front turret and also act as the bomb aimer so far as the targets were concerned. And the navigators of course, they did the actual navigation guidance to the pilots.
HB: So you came back to England and you went to do your flight engineer training for aircrew.
BL: Yes. At St. Athan.
HB: At, St Athan, right. So at the end of that training, where did you sort of stand in the scheme of things?
BL: I was at training, already I’d had my link training as a co-pilot as well, before I went to St Athan, when I left St Athan, fully qualified, the next thing then was to join a crew on either Lancs, Stirlings or Halifaxes. In fact in my particular case I was posted to Stradishall which was a main training base for Stirlings and then the crew of seven were created. There was nothing directed, they put us all in hangar and between ourselves we had to get to know each other and put ourselves together as a seven man crew, which is how it happened. Once that’s established as a crew then your flight training started, which we did at Stradishall of course, on the Stirlings in our particular case.
HB: Where did your, is it all in this hangar, did somebody come to you or did you think oh I like the look of him, I’ll go with him? Or? How did it work? What were the mechanics of it?
BL: It’s a variety really. Our captain, our skipper, was an ex Birmingham policeman and personally, personality was absolutely first class, but he was a strict disciplinarian being ex-police, of course, and so he was highly respected despite the fact he was definitely one of us, but very highly respected. And we got to know him, chatting away and he said well, he says ‘I’ve just come from OTU from Wellingtons,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a navigator and I probably have a bomb aimer.’ He says, ‘I’m looking for a couple of gunners and a flight engineer co-pilot to get the seven man crew together,’ and so from then on it was a question of who you knew and whether you thought they were capable, and see whether they were already in a crew or not that was how we all created seven together. It was done quite amicably, in various reasons, various forms, whether you knew each other or you say well I know old so-and-so, he’s a bloody good navigator, try and get him on our crew, you know, and that sort of thing. So we finished up as a very tight crew and it so happened, subsequently, that when we were doing our ops on the squadron, the camaraderie within the seven man crew was very tight indeed. The result was we found that we had seven first class crew members. Everyone worked together, helped each other and that was the way it went on the Stirlings. Unfortunately the Stirlings of course had a very bad reputation subsequently. The reason for this was because in its early days, [cough] it was built pre-war of course, a long way pre-war, and was a very good four engined heavy bomber when it was produced, extremely good, but unfortunately it came under the influence of the political decisions, the politicians came along and said that aircraft’s got a wingspan of a hundred and sixteen feet! We won’t get it in to the hangars at Cardington, they’re only a hundred feet, you’ll have to take sixteen feet off the wings. So, reluctantly, they put pressure on the manufacturers and the Stirling was modified to have sixteen feet, either, eight feet either side taken off the wings. Not only that by doing that they had to alter the structure quite considerably and raise the undercarriage very high in order to cope with this. Disaster so far as performance’s concerned, the result was the Stirling was always very, very much – what shall I say - the underdog as far as the heavy bombers were concerned. Result was the highest we could ever get to bomb was about twelve thousand feet. The Lancs and the Halifaxes were up above at twenty two thousand and frequently if your time was slightly out we were bombed by their bombs from above us. Frequently happened, there was a lot of aircraft were lost that way. Just one of those things. So really, although at that stage, when you think that the Lanc didn’t come in to service till towards the end of ’42, so in the early days the Stirling was the only heavy bomber and he was restricted in its performance by this political intervention and consequently it had a reputation of being something of a, I won’t use, I want to use the words death traps, but Bomber Harris had his own ideas on this and he was fully aware of it. In fact as ‘43 went on we were doing the Ruhr bombing and then of course Hamburg and then the start of the Berlin offensive which was in the autumn of ’43, and at that stage our losses were running on average seven, eight percent, we had one occasion when our losses were seventeen [emphasis] percent. And it got to the stage where Bomber Harris, he couldn’t stand it any longer, he was at war with a lot of the politicians himself of course by his insistence that Germany had to be bombed in order to minimise their war effort, and consequently it’s on record in one of, I think it was Max Hastings’ book Bomber Command I think he mentioned it in there, the extract of a meeting that Harris had with Churchill in round about October, I think, or maybe November ’43, and he was thumping the table and he said to Churchill, he says, ‘if I send my boys out [thumping] to get lost any longer in these bloody death trips, death traps called Stirlings they’ll call me a murderer.’ He says, ‘what I want is Lancasters, Lancasters and more Lancasters.’ there was a hell of a row went on and Churchill didn’t say a word. But finally he leaned across and said you’ll have your Lancasters. And it was then that the production on Lancasters was even, set up considerably higher than what it was already.
H: So when [cough] -
BL: So really, just interrupting,
HB: No, no.
BL: so going back from our training at Stradishall as a crew were posted to 90 Squadron to a little place called Ridgewell which was in Cambridgeshire, and not terribly well known and we were the first people in. A couple of farms that had been demolished and replaced with an impromptu quickly built runway. There was no, shall we say buildings, which were you might say were suitable for an operational squadron. There was mud everywhere, conditions were foul. They put a series of nissen huts up for us to live in and also for headquarters and the conditions there were not terribly good at all. However, there we were in the spring of ’41, er ’43, expected to use that as a base to operate, operationally against the various targets which were set out. We were at Ridgewell I think for no longer than about three months, four months, something like that and we moved then to a place called, it was West Wickham when we moved there but it was renamed Wratting Common, and consequently conditions there were far better. Again, it wasn’t a wartime, it wasn’t a peacetime airfield, but it was a good airfield and conditions there were far better airfield than Ridgewell. I don’t quite know what happened to Ridgewell in the end, whether it survived or not. I shouldn’t think it did: it was foul. But nevertheless we went to Wratting Common and we continued to fly our ops from Wratting Common on 90 Squadron, until, as I say, the autumn when the squadron was destined to change from Stirlings into Lancs and consequently they were moved to just outside Mildenhall at Tuddenham.
HB: How many ops did you actually fly in Stirlings for your tour?
BL: On Stirlings alone I think we did about twenty one I think it was, on the Stirlings, before we went on Lancs. As I say during that particular time conditions using the Stirling were very difficult, to make an understatement. Our losses were constant and it was amazing really, I mean for instance there was a Canadian pilot called Geordie Young. He was the senior pilot on the squadron, he’d got a lot of experience, and they went off on their last trip, their thirtieth trip, and they got blown up over Dusseldorf on their very last trip and that was, had a very, what shall I say effect on morale on the squadron, because they were regarded you know, the top boys on the squadron. One of the problems, in those days throughout Bomber Command, not just 3 Group which was a Stirling Group, but all the other groups as well, is that when Don Bennett set up the 8 Group, Pathfinder Group, he got old Hamish Mahaddie who he took on as his recruitment boss to collect all the very best crews off the different squadrons he could get hold of, to go into Pathfinders, and of course there was a colossal amount of opposition to this from all the squadrons. No squadron commander wants to lose their best crews, and consequently there was a war going on particularly on 5 Group, with Cochrane was the AOC on 5 Group in those days, based at Swinderby and he was very, very strongly opposed to it. There was open warfare going on the whole time, and despite the fact that 5 Group at that time of course, was the elite group which contained all the 617 boys and various other specialist crews for specialist bombing trips and he obviously didn’t want to lose any of those. And consequently he managed to get some political background particularly from Arthur Harris two of the Pathfinder squadrons in 8 Group would be transferred back to 5 Group. So he eventually had his own Pathfinder boys. Of course then when Gibson set up 617, that was also again from selecting top quality experienced crews. In the early days that was, but before the Dambuster raid, but not so much later on when they were really struggling to get replacement crews from the various crews they’d lost. So really Bomber Harris, Arthur Harris, he was very much supporting the 5 Group people, it was his elite group in Bomber Command and he always gave it sort of first preference on everything. There’s one, a very amusing aspect came at a conference they were having at Swinderby when at the time Princess Margaret was having this affair with Fighter Command Townsend and there was all speculation in the press about whether she’d marry him or whether she’d marry somebody else, and so on, and at this particular meeting, this conference of crews at Swinderby, it was a bit of a hilarious topic and someone was saying, ‘well it’s unknown who she’s going to marry, but it won’t have any effect on us here in 5 Group.’ And somebody stood up and said, ‘well there’s one thing for certain, whoever she marries, it’s bound to be somebody from 5 Group!’ [Laughter]
HB: Yeah. Can I just take you back a little bit Bob.
BL: Yes of course.
HB: I just noticed in some of your notes, I know this is jumping right back, it says you [cough] were posted to Coastal Command, 86 Squadron and flew on Sunderlands.
BL: Yes. That was when I was on 86. We were, we did a detachment down to Gosport actually.
HB: Oh right.
BL: And then to St, St Athan, when the two battleships Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst were at Brest and they were trying to get up the channel to get away and consequently we went down there with 86 Squadron to carry out operations against the two battleships. But for some reason or other, some of the squadron was detached to, in Coastal Command, to a flying boat squadron, which was 10 Squadron based at Mountbatten, at Plymouth. I don’t quite know why this happened, it was only a very short time, but I was one of the people that went on the flying boats for about three months.
HB: So you were there as a co-pilot engineer?
BL: Yes, on the flying boats. And again, bearing in mind our engineering background was what they wanted more than anything because we had to get involved with the maintenance schedules and so on as well. So I only had three months, I didn’t like it at all. Flying boats was not for me, and that was the main reason I thought that there must be a better way that I enjoy so I volunteered while I was there for Bomber Command. That’s where I started into Bomber Command
HB: Right. It’s all right, I was just trying to get the sequence of events into some sort of order.
BL: That was really how the sequence went through. Of course in Bomber Command, very lucky with our crew to survive a tour on 90 Squadron.
HB: What were the operations, you know, you’re flying operations into the Ruhr in the Stirling, and you’ve very clearly explained the shortcomings of the Stirling. What was it, you know, what was, what were your experiences of those, those individual sort of operations?
BL: Well it varied actually. But the Ruhr targets at that time I can remember them vividly. Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Krefeldt, Essen. And Essen was the one everyone hated [emphasis] because at that time that was the home of Daimler Benz, Krups and all the munitions factories, and they had a ring right the way round Essen, three thousand anti aircraft guns and radar controlled searchlights and when you’re flying towards Essen and you looked ahead, you think, ‘Christ you’ve got to get through that to get to the target point,’ and usually at briefing when the curtain was finally pulled back - we were never told what the target was until the very last minute of course - and when the target was pulled back you see Essen area, ‘oh Christ, not Essen,’ you know. However, going from what I say, first five trips Essen, then we went on to Gelsenkirchen, Wuperthal, Mulein, Bochum, Cologne, Munchen Gladbach. Now in my history of 90 Squadron book, there’s various aspects of the work that we did, and there’s a typical battle order printed there as an example. And that was August the 26th I think it was, on Munchen Gladbach and we were on the battle order for that particular night. I think the squadron was putting up something like thirty two aircraft or something that night. There was eight hundred and fifty on the, the full main force. And at that time the procedure on ops on the squadrons was that you didn’t do, as a pilot or co-pilot or anything like that, you didn’t go out with your own crew until you’d done a familiar flight with an experienced crew as a supernumerary and it just so happens that on that battle order I had one under supervision and there was one other crew with another one under supervision. It was on the 31st of August ’43. And these two chaps, I had one of them under supervision, and another crew had the second one. Out of curiosity, in the back of the book there’s seven pages of casualties on the squadron, and when I looked for the names down, both these boys’ names were down on the casualties, one, bear in mind, was on the 22nd of September bear in mind that was just 22nd, twenty two days after we had taken them on the supervision. One of them went on the 22nd, the next night the second went on the 23rd. So they only survived twenty three days on the squadron. And that was typical, absolutely typical. We used to live in a long nissen hut, seven beds each side, two crews in there. Three times we had a new crew come in, and three times we’d wake up after an op the night before, about midday, be woken up by the military police going through the, collecting the bits and pieces, belongings of the other crew who had got the beds on opposite. Three times we had new crews come in and three times we lost them very quickly, in two cases within the first three ops, and consequently we had, as a crew, we had a reputation of being a Jonah crew and nobody would move in with us. [Laughter] But in all seriousness that was the way it happened, you know and we lost some very quickly and didn’t even get to know them. There we were, soldiering on and finally got to the stage as I say, when the Stirlings were taken out of service and deployed on other work, mainly glider towing and things like that. Then the Lancs took over as the Lancaster production of course, got higher and higher.
HB: What do you put down to, I don’t want to use the word success, your ability to have got through those twenty something operations?
BL: A lot of people would say you must have been one of the lucky ones. Yes, to a point. But we had a very good crew; highly [emphasis] dedicated crew to the individual job they had to do and it was, there were various aspects of the operation that needed high concentration and dedication to execute that. I mean our rear gunner, Eddie, he’s still alive now in New Zealand, and he had eyes like a bloody hawk; he could spot these fighters coming in and he would control the operation immediately if he saw a fighter, to the pilot at the front, saying, ‘corkscrew, corkscrew,’ and instead of flying at straight and level from a to b to a target on our particular crew, we would fly perhaps just for a minute or so, then start weaving like that, so that there was no chance of the fighters beaming on to us in, as if we’d been flying straight and level they had a much easier job of coming in to us, and under from mid or something like that, shoot us down. But by weaving like that, was one of the things which we did continually, it was uncomfortable but it was very safe. But apart from the anti aircraft of course, it certainly kept the fighters at bay from us and I mean I think three times we were attacked by fighters and three times we got away from them. Largely due to Eddie in the rear turret. Who shot one of them down actually.
HB: Did he?
BL: Yup, He opened up, he waited till he got it in his sights, and let fly and it blew up in front of him, or behind him should I say. So really that aspect of it is the thoroughness of the type of flying and the operation which was necessary, but on the other hand of course, where anti aircraft was concerned it’s a different story. We, in the Stirling we were in the middle of it, weaving through it and if you had a direct hit or a hit which say damaged the aircraft severely you could say right you were just bloody unlucky like Geordie Young on his thirtieth trip, and that sort of thing, so. The worst night of for Bomber Command for all losses was the Nuremburg flight, you may or may not have heard of this, but it was on the Nuremburg trip when the met people made a complete balls of the forecast. They were forecasting plenty of cloud so that you could fly comfortably in and out of cloud and the fighters couldn’t detect you quite so easily. But on this occasion the weather didn’t turn out as they predicted and consequently it was a full moon clear, crystal clear night and the result was that the main force – there was eight hundred and fifty aircraft on that particular target. This was in the autumn of ’44, I think it was, and that particular night we lost ninety four aircraft on that night, and when you think there were seven men in each aircraft. Work that one out. That was the worst night ever [emphasis] for Bomber Command.
HB: And your crew were on that.
BL: No. We weren’t on that.
HB: You weren’t on that one.
BL: It just so happened that we were on leave at the time so we weren’t on it. But that was, that’s the hard statistics of it.
HB: Because I was interested in the, in the thing you were saying about the Lancasters and the Halifaxes going at twenty two and you know, the Wellingtons, obviously the Wellingtons were at eighteen thousand and the poor old Stirling’s down at twelve.
BL: Yeah.
HB: I mean that must have, that must have influenced your pilot and your crew at that point, when you were on, when you were on the bigger raids.
BL: Well, yes, to a point, but you had to admit it was one of those things. I don’t think, it was only when we got to grips with the Stirling and training and so on and realised what effect the modifications had had on the performance of the aircraft. It was not easy to get off the ground with a full load on. For one thing the inertia of the engines meant that it was, always had this sort of pull to starboard, to the right, which you had to maintain correction on, and not only that but the fact that the undercarriage had been raised quite considerably, very high up. There’s a picture here will show: that was our aircraft and the one that saw us all the way through our tour, and it was so high up it that when this sort of inertia from the engines, it was very difficult to keep it straight down the runway. In fact there was numerous occasions when the aircraft just couldn’t control it with a full bomb load on and it crashed or something and numerous messy situations like that developed. But this is why as I say, I meant occasionally that when I went from Stirlings up into 5 Group, I was posted up to the elite group. How that happened was, that at that time the Lancs were coming on stream and 5 Group at Swinderby was the training base for the Lancs, but again they needed them on the squadron so rapidly that they were pushing the crews through probably too fast, not quite enough training. And the result was that a lot of the crews had been trained on the twin engined Wellingtons and stuff like that, which didn’t give them any [emphasis] experience on four engined stuff. So in the, when we finished a tour on Stirlings, it was decided then by the powers that be as it were – Harris and co – they’d put a few Stirlings up to be based at Swinderby to get, be engaged on the Lancaster training programme so that we could give them experience on another four engine aircraft which was more difficult to handle than what a Lancaster was, and consequently I was one of the eight crews that were, instructors that went up there and that’s how I got in to 5 Group, posted up there on the Stirlings. And I always remember when we got up there about 7 or 8 o’clock in the evening. So we parked the aircraft went over to the officers mess, went in the bar straight away for a drink of course, and we were standing there and there was another group of the instructors and so on and amongst them was Dave Shannon and Mickey Martin – ex 617 – and quite a number of others who’d survived and they were curious as to who we were. And finally old Dave Shannon, who was a big Australian as you probably know from 617, came across and said, ‘who are you blokes then and what are you doing here?’ ‘Oh we’ve brought some Stirlings up to give you some help in the training programmes here.’ ‘Stirlings!’ he says,’ bloody hell!’ He said, ‘have you done a tour on Stirlings?’ I said, ‘yes’. He rubbed his hand over here, says, ‘Well where are your VCs then boys?’ [Laughter] And that was their attitude towards us.
HB: Yes. That tells the tale.
BL: But there again, life’s about winners and losers isn’t it, you know. And what we had we had went out to do the best you can, and as I say, it’s sad really that our losses were consistently high.
HB: So when you’d done, you did, you know, when was you last operation that you did with the Stirling? Can you remember?
L: It was on, I think it was either Hannover or Stuttgart, it was not the Ruhr, north of the Ruhr, but that was my, our last op. We did two Berlins on the Stirling, surprisingly, and relatively quiet trips too, long trips but relatively quiet, for us anyway.
HB: What was your feeling on, you know, you’re going to do your thirtieth or your last tour on the Stirling? What was going through your mind then?
BL: I don’t really think there was any feeling about it. I mean on our crew there wasn’t any suggestion of any feeling of stress or concern or the fact that you might be, the crew expression was – you might get the chop. No, we were a very good competent crew. We operated very correctly and safely as far as we could and I think that had a, that was the predominant factor in the crew. I mean a lot of people today often say to me well what about all the stress and everything? I said well the simple answer was we couldn’t even spell the word. You know, I mean the stress wasn’t there, it was concern. Admittedly we had one occasion when our mid upper gunner, Mick, suddenly went down with something, tonsilitis or something and he couldn’t, he had to go sick and consequently they stopped him flying that night and we were doing an op that night, on, I’ve forgotten where it was now, somewhere in the Ruhr, so we had to have a mid upper gunner, spare mid upper gunner who apparently for some reason or other he’d lost the rest of his crew, he’d done no ops at all, but he was spare, so they said oh you’re joining Cawley’s crew tonight because the gunner’s gone sick so he came to us and was a dreadful situation. He was absolutely petrified of the thought of going on ops, and halfway towards, over the Dutch coast on the way to the target, he suddenly started firing off indiscriminately at what he thought were fighters but they were clouds. And of course it immediately was bloody dangerous because if fighters around they see tracer bullets going out they home in on us. And Charlie was absolutely crackers, he went mad. What the hell’s going on? Go back and have a look!’ And this bloke was sitting in his turret there, absolutely terrified and it happened again, at a very dangerous point, he suddenly started firing off. Anyway when we, we survived the op, we got back and we landed, the crew bus was there to take us back to the base for intelligence and debriefing and he never said a word, wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t get on the bus, he walked back and of course when he was interviewed by the Station Commander he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ The medical people there saw the condition of him and the RAF had a very cruel aspect of dealing with situations like that. They immediately used to braid you, used to name you as Lack of Moral Fibre which was dreadful really. You were immediately stripped of your rank back to basic and sent off to a unit which was down at Brighton to deal with these people who were so called Lack of Moral Fibre and that went on your records throughout your, a very cruel way of looking at it really. But that happened to us on this particular flight and as I say amazing really, the bloke was just absolutely petrified. Couldn’t face up to what he was asked to do, despite the fact he’d gone through training and managed to survive to train to become a qualified gunner, but there we are. Just one of those things.
HB: What did you do when you got back from your last op?
BL: [Laughter] Well I normally drink a gin and tonic but I think I had something a bit stronger than that that night! No. we had a, all went down to the pub locally and had a nice evening and then we knew the next day we’d be posted out, we’d all be posted to different directions and it was a question then where everybody went. It just so happened that in my particular case I was posted, for a very short time, to a place called Wilfort Sludge which is on the A1, but from there of course this deal came up to send some Stirlings up to 5 Group, so I was then posted out of 3 Group into 5 Group. And previous to that I’d, before I finished my tour I’d been recommended for a commission so my commission had come through so I was, and that came through six months late, so I went straight in as a commissioned Flying Officer then and went to Swinderby then as an instructor and it was, the rest of the crew: Johnnie went up to, he was the captain, he went up to near High Ercall, which is up near, in Shropshire somewhere, near Whitchurch to start training Stirling crews up there to tow gliders in anticipation, of course, of the Arnhem offensives and so on, so he went up there on towing gliders. The two rear gunner, the two gears, er gunners, the mid upper gunner and the rear gunner, they were posted to somewhere on special duties. Where they thought they were going on rest they suddenly found they were on ops again, on the special duties, doing, dropping these Resistance guys in France and so on. Harry our wireless operator, the navigator by the way, suddenly when I went to Swinderby I found he was already there and I was sharing a room with him in the mess for a while. Unfortunately, he’s the son of a clergyman in Cornwall, highly religious, he used to spend all his time playing the organ in the local church where we were down the pub having a drink, but he had a heart attack right at the end of the war and died straight away. The bomb aimer, little Barry, little short bloke, he went on rest for a short time and then decided he’d go on a second tour, But got shot down on the third trip of his second tour, but he was lucky. He managed to bale out and he was a prisoner of war for about the last six months. But Harry, our wireless op, his previous job in life he was, worked in the Metropolitan Police, on the vice squad and he was absolutely obsessed on flying against the Germans on Bomber Command, absolutely [emphasis] obsessed. His one aim in life was successful bombing Germany and when we were tour expired and they say, sent out as instructors or rested and so on, and what they called screened as they said, screened from operations. He refused point blank he says, ‘No, I’m not going,’ he said, ‘I’m going to carry on.’ There’s a little bit of discussion with the commanding officer about it and the adjutant and so on, but anyway he got his way was posted on to a Special Duties squadron somewhere, and he carried on flying. He did seventy four ops in the end. And in the end he got shot down over Denmark I think, on one these special, highly secret operations on his seventy fourth. If you go back to Lincoln his name is on the, one of the what do they call it, the metal -
HB: The walls.
BL: The walls.
HB: wall 118.
BL: That’s what happened to all of us in the end. And as I say, the two gunners they survived, despite the fact they were amazed to find themselves on this resistance dropping and that sort of thing. So that was where we all finished up.
HB: So you ended up at Swinderby as the instructor on, you know, giving people experience on four engines.
BL: Yes. So, when I went to Swinderby I was instructing on Stirlings and Lancasters at the same time.
HB: Right. So how did you, how would you relate to the engineering side of the ground crew?
BL: Well, very closely indeed, in fact the whole crew did. I mean our ground crew was our survival in many respects and we respected them, we had a very good ground crew. They kept our aircraft serviceable against unprecedented odds at times. I mean there’s numerous occasions we’d come back with shrapnel holes down the fuselage and that sort of thing, and there was one occasion when there was, we had a near hit, this was Dusseldorf again funny enough, the intelligence people used to say well when the anti aircraft batteries are shooting at you, if you can’t hear on, if you can’t hear any noise you know you’re safe, but if you hear a bang you’ll know it’s very close. We heard this bloody great bang over Dusseldorf and that was very close and it finished up with Norm Minchin, the mid upper turret, with the perspex turret round his head, a piece of shrapnel came up and cut right through the back of the perspex and cut the back of his turret off, and he didn’t know it! Without touching him at all! It just cut through this Perspex and the back, and after we had left the target we were flying back home and he came on the intercom and said, ‘Christ it’s bloody cold up here, have you got some heating on?’ Didn’t even know it had happened! Of course when we got back to base not only that but there was a hole in the side of the aircraft you could damn near crawl through. So the maintenance people had a pretty big job, you know, to patch up all the holes on it. And that sort of thing, but the, yeah, the ground crew were very much part of the team, very important and we had a very good ground crew, very good.
HB: And when you got to Swinderby, you would, you would continue that relationship as you do in the training of the crews.
BL: Well not with the ground crew, not at Swinderby.
HB: Right.
BL: No, I mean we were, at Swinderby all we were concerned with was training the new crews coming through, and the ground crew was general ground crew, not to with, nothing to do with individual aircraft whereas on the squadron each aircraft had its own maintenance crew and its own flight crew and that was our particular aircraft which took us all the way through.
HB: Ah right, yeah.
BL: That finished up by the way, when we handed that over to another crew, actually I read historically in one of the books somewhere it was listed, I forget where the, I think it was the Bomber Command Diaries, every aircraft that was lost they gave indications where they were lost and where they were found and so on and our particular aircraft, the other crew that had it and it finished up in the Zuider Zee!
HB: Oh right.
BL: It was recovered eventually, by the Dutch people, who were, the Dutch people were doing the archive details and so on and there was actually some photographs of it being pulled out of the sea, they’re printed in the Daily Mail I think it was actually, so I couldn’t believe it when I saw this, when I saw the number on the side BF524, that was its serial number. WPNN and it was just being pulled out the water and you could just see the name, the number BF524 on the side of it. Couldn’t believe it. Recovered it and there’s a bloke, a very elderly gentleman, he’s a semi historian based at Alconbury and he’s very much a Stirling enthusiast and he’s got a workshop there full of all the bits and pieces of crashed Stirlings and so on and he works hand in glove with the, his counterparts in Holland and one of the major museums in Holland loan him parts of aircraft which he’s, he’s rebuilt a complete cockpit of a Stirling.
HB: Has he!
BL: At this. Yes, Andrew found this out and took me over there and we had a morning with him. I was intrigued and he’s got this bloody old shed there, old hangar I think it is, a small hangar, packed with all these bits and pieces of a Stirling and in the middle he’s got a cockpit he’s already built. And when we went over there he was sorting out an undercarriage and he was showing us that the Dutch archive people were loaning him stuff out of their museum which he photographed and copied and so on and sent it back to them. He said he had a very good rapport with them. Very interesting this guy. I can’t remember his name. Andrew knows it, but it was at Alconbury where he is based.
HB: Well I think, what we might do, Bob, is we might just have a break now because I’ve just gone to check the battery and we’ve now been talking for over an hour! So if we have a quick five minute break. I’m going to have to change the batteries anyway. So we’ll just stop the interview for the time being.
BL: Yeah. Okay, fine.
HB: Well we’ve had a comfort break and we’re just going to, we’ve had a battery change. So we’re just going to resume the interview -
BL: Oh these bloody things! I hate these!
HB: Just having a problem with a hearing aid battery at the moment. [Whistling]
BL: That’s better.
HB: So we should be go, on the run now. So we’re all settled now for our second part of our interview.
BL: Yes. What I was going to say was, when we were talking about the losses on the Stirlings, the turning point I think, was when it was decided, when Goebbels was boasting that the German fighters and defences were quite adequate against the RAF Bomber Command, he made statements saying that they’ll never touch Berlin or our second biggest city, Hamburg, they’re quite safe with our defences and so on, they’ll never touch them. And that was the challenge which Bomber Harris took up, and decided in conjunction with the naval people, who were very concerned because all these u-boats and subs were based at Hamburg and they were going out into the Atlantic to pick off the convoys and so on, and naval people said we’ve got to get rid of these u-boat pens at Hamburg. So Bomber Harris decided we’d obliterate Hamburg; it’s in July ’43. And at that time, as I was saying, particularly on the Stirlings, our losses were very high indeed and morale was very low and they introduced for the first time this metal foil thing called window. That was these patches of metal things which we discharged through the flare hatch at the back of the aircraft every twenty seconds I think it was, or every thirty seconds, something like that, and these packs, when they went out into the slipstream, developed into a big screen of metallic which completely killed the German radar defences and those, radar, the German defences were based, anti aircraft, were based on the radar picking up the aircraft or picking up the target with a blue, bright blue light, searchlight and once it picked you up, it then brought all the other normal searchlights into a cone and you were in the middle of it, and once you were coned like that, it was curtains it just picked you off then because they had you, and the whole secret of their success was this radar control and when we used this window for the first time it killed their radar. The result was, the first time it was used on Hamburg, it could have been used very early in 1943 but the politicians and defence people were so concerned they thought that if we use it early the Germans will follow this, copy it, and use it against us. So they were very reluctant, but it was only that when our losses got so high they had to introduce it. And our losses immediately on Hamburg dropped to one percent: fantastic! I we went to Hamburg, we did the four nights out of six: I did all four of ‘em. The fourth one was a disaster in that the first three were completely successful and I can remember it now, looking down, a whole wave of fire throughout, it just wiped this whole place out, just like that. The fourth night we went of course the met people again, they were predicting storms, but nothing like as severe as we found. The result was I think of, the storms were so bad, we were struck by lightning and St Elmo’s fire which is on the windscreen, and goes down the fuselage, all the compasses were knocked out and our radar and Gee box was knocked out. We hadn’t the faintest idea how we were, how to navigate back again and I think out of seven or eight hundred aircraft there’s only about twelve or fourteen actually reached the target. All the others had turned back because of the weather, and we were icing up very heavily and on the Stirlings the oil coolers were slung underneath the engines and you know what happens to diesel vehicles in cold weather, the fuel starts waxing and clogs up the carburettors, and the engines stop and that’s exactly what used to happen to us. These coolers which start icing in the middle, and what we call coring, and you had to keep hot air flow going through them in order to keep them serviceable. We suddenly found that we’d got two engines with, suffering from this icing and then there was chunks of ice coming off the wings, battering against the side of the fuselage like, dreadful we had to abandon short of the coast. We jettisoned our bombs into the sea and the only way we could navigate back to the UK was star navigation, and Cyril, our navigator, he was particularly good, he could take star shots with his, with his, my blinkin’ names, what my memory’s going.
HB: Sextant.
BL: Sextant, yes, with a sextant. And a combination of that and following the stars he managed to get us going back in the direction of the UK. When we finally hit the coast instead of being, coming over the coast over Essex or somewhere, we were in the north of Scotland, over the Hebrides and that’s where we came in and of course we immediately identified where we were and we were able to fly back down to, in fact we made an emergency landing ‘cause we were running a bit short of fuel, at Wattisham, in Suffolk. That was on the fourth trip, but the first three were so highly successful, we absolutely wiped the place out, and as I say the losses dropped right down to one percent because of using this window. The rise in morale then was just fantastic, you know after that. Of course sooner or later the Germans found that they could, they changed their system and they found that they could nullify this window by using different types of radar and so on, so it didn’t last, obviously, but we were able to use it for some months actually, and it was very good. We’re just having a new kitchen put in at the moment.
HB: Ah right. That explains the banging.
BL: And the other thing about the ops on the Stirling, in ’43 when our losses were so high, when you counted the number of ops you’re doing, the way it was calculated by Group headquarters, it was decided that because when they analysed the losses and how it was happening and so on, they came to a system of doing thirty ops in a tour and the total would depend entirely on the type of ops. For instance when 90 Squadron went to Tuddenham on Lancasters in the end of ’44, or half way through ’44, their main job - they did very, very little main force bombing – but ninety percent of the jobs of their work and I’ve got it all listed in my history book of 90 Squadron, was on either, was mainly on resistance work dropping resistance and equipment for low level intervention into Europe, dropping arms and equipment to the French and the Dutch resistance movements and so on, and consequently this was done individual very low level operations and the result was that the ops compared with ’43 were very easy and the losses were very low and consequently because, and the short ops as well, and because of this to count one trip as an op they had to do four trips to count as one on the tour, and consequently this system which was introduced before we finished, was that because of the severity of a lot of our ops on the Ruhr operation were so incredibly high losses and so very difficult that they allocated that some of the ops, because of their severity, would count, you had to do one op was counted as two on your tour, because of the severity of the operation and the high level of losses. So it wasn’t, it didn’t always follow that you did a straight forward thirty trips, you could have done say twenty five trips but they counted as thirty on your log book and the severity of the targets.
HB: Did you ever do mine-laying, gardening?
LB: Mining? Yes. Gardening as they called it. Yeah. We did two actually. One off Le Creusot and one other, I’ve forgotten what it was now. We did, our particular crew we only did two mining operations, those were, they were easy ones too.
HB: Yeah. So. You got to Swinderby. You’re doing the training there. How did you move forward from there? So that would be 1944.
BL: Well it was the end of, Christmas, yes Christmas time ’43 when I went to Swinderby, and most of ’44 and as I said earlier I was a fully qualified instructor on Lancs and Stirlings then and towards the end of ’44, I think it must have been round about September, October, something like that, some of the Lanc squadrons in 5 Group were having very heavy losses and the analysis of those losses, was in many cases put down to the fact that, to inexperience, training not sufficient for them, because they’d been rushed through very quickly because squadrons, with their losses, need quick replacements and so on. The result was that at East Kirkby 57 Squadron and 630 Squadron were both there at East Kirkby, and 57 particularly although they’d been engaged on very difficult targets their losses were astronomically high and a hell of a lot of them put down to pure inexperience. So myself and Dicky, we were both instructors at Swinderby, we were seconded to 57 Squadron for three months to set up a revised training unit there, which we did, to give the training, give the operational crews quite a bit more familiarisation and training and so on to try and cut these, some of these losses down. So I had that period there. And it was whilst I was at 57 and about to go back to Swinderby, ‘cause I was still on the strength at Swinderby despite the fact I’d been loaned to 57 at East Kirkby to do this training programme, 463 Squadron at Waddington, the Aussie squadron, had been suffering a few losses here and there, and the, one of the leaders of the squadron, the co-pilot and flight engineer leader there had been lost, so I was posted to 463 as his replacement and I was lucky to stay there until the end of the war.
HB: So that was back on to operations.
BL: So, yes, so I went back on to ops. Of course when I was at 463, because I was the boss of A flight, I was the leader, I didn’t have a crew, so I could only put myself on to do ops when there was a, somebody had gone sick or something you see, so I did them with any crew, and by extremely strange coincidence, I said to you about Essen earlier, my very first trip on my second tour here was a low level daylight on Essen. [Laugh] I couldn’t believe it! But I’ll tell you what, it was so bloody easy, it was so different to 1943. But, so I stayed there really, and at the end of the war as I said earlier, I went to Skellingthorpe, just outside Lincoln when Tiger Force was set up. I was posted on to Tiger Force.
HB: And Tiger Force was - ?
BL: That was the equivalent to 617 to go to Japan to do the [cough] vital targets into Japan, very similar to what 617 had been doing, because the adjacent to 617 Squadron was 9 Squadron. They were both based then at Woodhall Spa and Wing Commander Cheshire was the, was one of the commanding officers at 617 at that time, amongst others. But so when I went to 463 as I say, I was there till the end of the war then, and doing ops from there, and because I was the leader there the flight engineer leader on 463, I was posted to Skellingthorpe to join Tiger Force and I was promoted then at Tiger Force to be in charge of that particular section to go to Japan and we were half way through their training when the bomb was dropped of course and it all came to a halt then. Consequently I found myself in civil flying.
HB: Yeah. You did tell me before the interview started, you were, you were made an offer by the RAF before you -
BL: Yes, offered a, I was a substantive flight lieutenant then, and for a very short time I was an acting Squadron Leader but only for four weeks! [Laugh] Because it all ended then. But I was offered a extended seven year flying, extended flying committee, er, commission and given the choice. I didn’t know much about, well I didn’t know anything about civil flying. I didn’t even understand what BOAC meant until I got there.
HB: But you were originally offered Transport Command weren’t you.
BL: Yes.
HB: What was your view on that?
BL: But I turned that down. I turned that down flat. But there’s a very, there’s another, a very ironic twist that I’ll tell you about. So immediately because we were then seconded from the air force to BOAC we had to get civilian licences. We had to get civilian licences and then they decided what they were going to train us on, so we had to go through the basic theory and all that sort of stuff to get civilian licences and we were allocated I think it was about either fifty or a hundred block licence numbers in the very early days. Once we’d done type training on, at that time on Avros produced the very first post-war airliner called the Tudor and the first dozen Tudors were just being built and they were destined to go to BOAC to start up to date pressurised passenger aircraft. They were quite nice aircraft actually, very good. So since we’d just, we were the first people to be trained on the Tudors. So we did our training on the Tudors and when they were just about to start to take, BOAC to take delivery of the Tudors, for some reason there was a political change and instead of coming to BOAC, they went to British South [emphasis] American Airways, and at that time was run by the old 8 Group Pathfinder chief, Air Marshal Don Bennett, who was a real press on type. [Cough] Highly successful with Pathfinders of course and he was the boss at British South American. They’d previously been running some converted Lancasters into what they called Lancastrians before long distance flying in South America and so on, and they hadn’t got a particularly good record they’d lost three or four of them I think, for different reasons and so they took delivery of the Tudors. Tudor 1s these were, Mark 1s. And I did quite a bit of flying with the, on the Tudors on the South American routes, down to Bermuda, and the Caribbean and so on, and I was put in charge of training at BSA as well. And then, as things went on, we got as far as 1948 I think it was, ‘46’ 47’ ’48 I think it was, yes, ’47 ‘48. Suddenly the Berlin Airlift comes up, and from nowhere I suddenly found BSA, because of their Tudors, the air force was already in force on the Berlin Airlift using mainly Dakotas, the old C47s and they couldn’t cope with, couldn’t make it that economical to cope with the heavy loads that was necessary so they asked a lot of the civilian charter companies and so on, if they could provide crews and aircraft to come on to the Berlin airlift to increase the load factors, and British South American got one of the contracts to, with two Tudors, to go on the Berlin Airlift and I was one of them selected to go on the first one. So I found myself flying over to Wunstorf near Hannover where we were based, to fly on the Berlin Airlift these two Tudors between Wunstorf and Gatow, Berlin. And ironically, I think, when I think that three years before, when I did my last operational trip with 463, there we were still bombing and knocking hell out of ‘em; three years later, there I was at Wunstorf flying into Berlin to try and keep the so-and-so’s alive. Ironic really, they were three years the difference. Anyway, I stayed at Wunstorf for nearly a year, I think it was. I did nearly three hundred flights between Wunstorf and, there were only three of us on board.
HB: What sort of things were you taking in?
BL: Well when I first flew out there, we were taking huge packs of canned meat and stuff like spam and all that sort of stuff, corned beef, and all that, which was fairly easy to handle, in big cases and so on. And then the RAF were getting a bit uppity about what they were going to do and what they were carrying and bear in mind that the US air force was also on the operation with their C54s and Skymasters and so on, they were based at Schleswigland I think it is. I’ve got maps showing all the different air bases that we used over there but we always used Wunstorf and because we were larger aircraft, they decided that instead of carrying packs of food and so on, we suddenly found ourselves carrying coal, huge packs of coal, great big sealed bags of coal, about a hundredweight apiece. So we spent some months then, this coal at Berlin. Landing at Berlin was quite something. It was the ground force of people doing all the unloading and so on was predominantly very elderly German ladies, old grandmothers and mothers and so on, and it was sad to see them. They were dressed, whatever they could find to wear, and they used to come on board. They did all the work of loading and unloading, all the heavy work and they used to come on board to us carrying these lovely family heirlooms like Leica cameras and stuff like that to exchange. They were desperate for two things: cigarettes and coffee, and you could get anything for a couple of packs of coffee, in fact I got a lovely Leica camera in exchange for two bags of coffee at one stage. They used to come up, had it all laid out on the nav table there when they were unloading and they’d bring these heirlooms up and do deals with us. Anything we could, anything they wanted we could give it to them, you know. Children we gave cigret – we gave sweets and chocolate to the children. The children loved it. The Americans set up, at one stage, when they flew into Gatow, over the Frohnau beacon flying on to finals for landing, all the children used to sit round the lake underneath waving to the Americans going over and the Yanks were throwing out chocolate and sweets to them. At one stage they set up, got large handkerchiefs which they tied up sort of like a parachute, and tied these bags of sweets to them, were throwing them out and in dropping them out and the kids loved it. Absolutely fantastic.
HB: Amazing.
BL: But anyway, as I say, another aspect came up then, some time after been carrying the coal, which was a very dirty operation, dust and everything in the aircraft and they suddenly decided that what they wanted desperately in Berlin was medicinal, what do you call it? Two things they were short of, one was straight run gasoline and the other one was, oh dear me, some large amount of some sort of medicinal fluids. I’ve forgotten what they were now, what they were called. But these were in great big packs but the hospitals were desperate for them. So when it was decided that they’d fly the stuff in, it meant that the aircraft that were going to do this had to be modified with huge tanks in the back to carry it. And the air force said point blank they wouldn’t do it, they refused absolutely point blank to carry straight run gasoline in bloody great tanks down the back of the aircraft, they said its far too dangerous, so they refused point blank to do it. So the civilian contracts were asked to do it and we had then replaced our two Mark 1 Tudors with two Mark 5s which had been built and never been put into service but they were much larger and so our two Mark 5s were then equipped with these bloody great tanks for straight run gasoline and this medical stuff and so for the last few months we were flying that into Berlin.
BH: How did you feel about that?
BL: Oh dear me. Well it was just a bloody big laugh I thought, we thought. Bear in mind we’ve still got this enthusiasm from Bomber Command which we’d brought from the air force to the civilian and it was such a big change, you know, but to us it was more of a bloody big laugh than anything else. But anyway, we settled down to it and it was a good operation, it worked extremely well. When you are turning on to final approach into Gatow, Berlin, you came in over the lake on the outskirts of the city and the final beacon was at a place called Frohnau, Frohnau Beacon, you had to call over the beacon which was virtually the outer marker for final approach and the timing was so accurately it had to be done. The timing of aircraft over Frohnau was every twenty seconds between aircraft.
HB: Blimey.
BL: When you think there was a variety of aircraft, everything from small Bristol freighters to Dakotas and converted Lancs and Halifaxes and anything the charter people could lay their bloody hands on. They buy them for peanuts and take them out there to take part because the airlift they pay very big money and we were no exception with our Tudors and it’s an amazing operation really.
HB: So you went through the Berlin Airlift. Just one thing just I’m just quite curious about. You started off I think, on particular kinds of aircraft as a fitter.
BL: Yeah.
HB: What was, what was the system for re-training you when you went to different engines and different engine management systems?
BL: Well there were various training stations set up. I think the initial one for fitter 2Es, or 2As, that’s the difference between fitter rigger and fitter engines was at Kirkham, Lancashire and that was the number one training base, apart from Halton of course which is still there and still doing it today! And Halton of course was always the base of the so called Halton Brats as they call them. They go there as small, young apprentices and three year training straight away and they’re still doing that today. Yeah, they’re still churning out young lads from Halton.
HB: Right. So when you were working with the Stirling –
BL: Yeah.
HB: And then you go on Lancasters, obviously you’ve got Merlin engines, you’ve got Hercules engines, you’ve got all sorts, you’ve got air cooled, liquid cooled. You’ve got all these different engines.
BL: Yes.
HB: So was there an element of self training or was it all formalised?
BL: Well it was to us, to a point where we were fully trained and fully experienced with a lot of hours in on Stirlings when we went up to Swinderby, the 5 Group elite Group., but we hadn’t been trained on Lancs. So we had, it was virtually self-training on the Lancs there by virtue of working on them and flying on them and training every day. So that part of it, yes, was to a large extent I think we did, there were short courses laid on for us. I did one at Cosford for instance, and places like that, but generally speaking more than anything you were self taught, and as instructors you were expected to be experienced and knowledgeable on all the different aspects, so that was how it worked. But go back to the Berlin Airlift though, when that finished, I came back, by that time British South American, there was a lot of demands because they had a very poor safety record. We lost Star Tiger and we lost Star Ariel, both in the Caribbean. Those were Tudor 1s, from the first Tudors that we trained on. The first one was lost over the Bermuda Triangle as they call it, up at twenty thousand feet, no idea what happened to him; it just disappeared. And the second one was, had flown out of the Azores which at that time was a very difficult operation, flying over the south Atlantic from the Azores to South America and weather conditions and very poor nav and all rest of it was very prevalent round the Azores; very difficult route to operate.
HB: How many passengers did the Tudor 1 carry then?
BL: It varied, on whether, the Tudor 1s, I’ve just forgotten. I think up to about eighty or ninety passengers, something like that. The Tudor 5s were much larger but they didn’t actually go into passenger service after the Berlin Airlift. I don’t know what happened. They were scrapped I think, in the end. But anyway, as I say, because of the loss of the two Tudors and the BSA had lost quite a few Lancs so Don Bennett was criticised very heavily and finally he was forced to resign. So he was taken over by BSA who was then taken over by one of the old traditional north Atlantic BOAC captains, Gordon Storr his name, and it was Gordon Storr who I was with, on the, we were the first two Tudors at Wunstorf when the Airlift started and then shortly afterwards after Bennett had left, they decided BSA would be would up so what was left of it came back into, it came into BOAC. But that stage I was still being paid as a flight lieutenant substantive from the air force, seconded to BOAC so I was paid by BOAC who in turn seconded me to BSAA so I was paid by three companies, very interesting situation. But then of course, having come back to BOAC then, BOAC were operating Yorks and converted Halifaxes called Haltons, and, oh there was still a few Dakotas being used, but generally they were waiting for the next civil airliner which came from Handley Page called the Hermes and that was a very good aircraft. I liked the Hermes very much. Performance wise it hadn’t quite got good altitude performance as such, but it was a very easy aircraft to fly, very comfortable, it was designed specifically for the comfort of passengers and so on. And it was after then that the Comet 1 came in from De Havillands, the DH106, which was designed and built by DHs and was at least twenty years before its time. And then of course to us anyway, a huge attraction to get on the first jet aircraft into service. So in no time at all I was, I joined the Comet 1 fleet. We were flying, first of all flying down to Johannesburg and then it was extended to the Far East and out to even as far as Tokyo and Hong Kong and so on. Then of course you know the story that Xray Kilo blew up over Elba on its way between Rome and London. They were immediately grounded, no one could understand why it had, how it had happened. There was a huge inquiry and after ninety-odd modifications they decided that one of them must have been the reason so they put it back into service. And in no time at all they lost a second one which blew up over Naples Bay. That was flown by a South African crew who were on loan to BOAC. We’d also got French crews flying them, and it, so it was then decided that because two of them had blown up, they couldn’t leave them into service any longer. Unfortunately a third one went. The third one was out of Calcutta and that had just taken over from Calcutta and was flying through heavy cloud and they put that down to the fact that it flew into a cunim cloud and the stresses were so great the aircraft just broke up. So then they were grounded completely and when Farnborough rigged up the test rig there, and put a whole aircraft on this water test bed, and they found out exactly why it had happened. The general opinion from the public and in aviation generally was that the pressurisation caused the windows to blow out but that wasn’t true at all. The fault arose through bad engineering practice on the design of the hatches in the roof. The hatches which covered the radio communication, adf system and these two hatches were like that square like that. Engineering practice is that if you design something that’s a square and it’s put under pressure, you see that little crack there, where that join is -
HB: Showing me on the photograph frame.
BL: That little crack there.
HB: In the corner. [cough]
BL: If a crack occurs, it will always come from a corner, and find its way across and finally disintegrate and that’s precisely what happened to the Comet. It was bad engineering practice because if you round the corners those cracks wouldn’t occur. Simple [cough]. Again, in fairness to De Havillands, they produced some very fine fighter aircraft, put in their own engine, the Ghost 50 engine in them, Vampires and stuff like that but they had no experience ever of high altitude pressurised aircraft, and so they built them to what they considered would be strong enough and so on. But I’ve got a book upstairs which Andrew’s been reading, of the whole story, the whole official story of the enquiry and the way they found out all the reasons for it at Farnborough. The summing up at the end of it, when they said officially you know, that the initial fault was the adf hatches that disintegrated because of the bad engineering practice, how it was designed. The general feeling was that the aircraft was twenty years before its time but it simply wasn’t strong enough, because De Havillands, or anyone else for that matter, had experience enough to build them strong enough, when you think that at forty two thousand feet the pressurisation equivalent in the cabin was only eight thousand feet. That was the highest the cabin pressure was ever taken up to give passengers comfort without having to go on to oxygen. So the difference between eight thousand and forty two thousand across the structure of the aircraft was eight and a half pounds per square inch which is massive [emphasis] from the outside to the inside, and it has to be extremely strong, the sort of structure, in order to withstand these pressures. So you can imagine that it was not only not built strong enough, but of course the fault occurred on the hatches which caused it to blow up anyway. The first one that went, Xray Kilo, I had flown that on quite a number of occasions, got it in my log book in a number of places prior to it blowing up. I think previously I’d, we operated it from Tokyo to Hong Kong only the day before I think it was, before it blew up at Elba, but that aircraft had only done seventeen hundred hours. The second one that blew up over Naples had done just over two thousand hours and the one that disintegrated at Calcutta had done less than two thousand hours. They were all going at the, virtually the same time. That was another factor that the inquiry of course dug up, when they said that, Tom Butterworth I think it was, that because of lack of experience at DHs on high altitude stuff the aircraft simply wasn’t built strong enough. You’ve got to go back to Con Derry who was the chief test pilot at De Havillands a few years before when he was doing demonstrations at the Farnborough air show in a, I think it was a Vampire, he was doing very, very tight turns demonstrating and on one of those tight turns the bloody wings came off. He crashed into the crowd there and killed a few people, including himself. That was another example that under extreme stress conditions, that DHs aircraft wasn’t strong enough.
HB: Yes.
BL: So all those factors, you know. So result was that going back to the Comet days, I was involved very heavily with the whole Comet story because then it was decided that they’d have to, they’d build the new aircraft much stronger and up to date. The other thing was, by the way, that De Havillands had their own engines, the Ghost 50 which only produced five thousand pounds thrust, which was quite adequate for the fighters, but for a aircraft like the Comet 4 Ghost 50 engines, they insisted on putting their own engines in and all the experts said no, we needed Rolls Royce Merlin engines, or Avon engines they were, but they refused point blank, they said no, its our aircraft, we’ll put our own engines in and they simply weren’t strong enough. We couldn’t even do a safe level cruise at altitude, you had to do a five degree climb the whole time to get to top of descent, largely because by continuing to fly like that you’re reducing your fuel flow and consequently you had adequate fuel to start your descent. It was because of the consumption levels and the lack of real thrust on these DH engines, it was extremely [emphasis] critical on fuel, extremely [emphasis] critical. They devised this method of five degree climb. You had to fly, when you flight plan you fly backwards starting at top of descent instead of top of climb and things like that, you know. So anyway, when it was decided then they’d build the new Comet 4 much stronger and it would have Rolls Royce engines of much higher quality and it had Rolls Royce Conway engines. So, they’d, after the 1s, they built some Comet 2s, which were destined to go to the air force. But of course after the crashes they never even got airborne, never even delivered, they were just stuck there at Hatfield. So they decided that they’d have to carry out a two year test flying programme to make sure that everything that was being put into the Comet 4 had been well proved, correctly and properly using these two Mark 2s which were used as test beds. So they modified these two Mark 2s, strengthened them up and made sure they were adequate to do the work. They put the standard Conway engines on the inboards and then the new big 524 engines on the outboards which were destined to go into the new Comet 4. So they hadn’t got any crews to fly these at De Havilland, so they asked BOAC if BOAC could loan them I think it was six, was six crews to fly a two year test flying for De Havillands on these Comet 2s, 2Es as they called them. So I was one that went on to those, on to test flying. The first year we, every day we flew non-stop to Beirut from London and back, every day for a year. The aircraft hadn’t got a certificate of airworthiness, of course it was experimental, so there was only three of us allowed on board, no one, none of the boffins were allowed on so they got all the, all the usual test equipment and everything was loaded all the way down the fuselage and it was all fed up to the cockpit where we were and we used to have, they used to give us a list of things we had to check and write the results down, the results of this stuff as we flew, and we had to fly at thirty two thousand feet and record all this stuff for them which was really interesting. I loved it actually. It was a bloody good programme and extremely well paid as well! [Laugh]
HB: Right!
BL: So the first year we did London Beirut every day and the second year they decided we’d have to do the Arctic North Atlantic trials to make sure it was adequate for very low temperature conditions so then we started a programme going from London to Keflavik in Iceland and then across to Goose Bay and Gander in to the Maritimes and then back to London. So we did that for six months. That was a very interesting programme, I liked that part of it particularly. And then of course decided to try and get permission to fly into America. So the Americans were very keen on noise abatement and the Comet did make quite a bit of noise on take off of course, and so they said yes you can fly in to America but not land there, and not do take offs and landings. So then we had a period where we were flying out to different places around America using the new VOR navigation systems and so on, and then eventually politically we got permission to do landings over there and it was at that time then when a lot of the American airlines were looking very enviously at the jet Comet to replace traditional old fashioned piston engine aircraft and we did a series, we were doing a series of demonstration flights when, at the time when Pan American, the number one American outfit had just received, they’d just taken delivery of the first of the civilian Boeing 707s and they were pushing out a lot of typical American bullshit that they were going to be the very first pure jet passenger flight on the Atlantic, transatlantic ‘Fly American. Fly pure jet’, and all that, you know. Anyway, at the time we were down in Detroit doing some demonstration flights for United Airlines, they wanted to buy some of these Comets, so we were doing demonstration flights there. And it was there when we suddenly got a call to fly back to New York and, for some reason, and we found we got to New York we were going to do the first transatlantic flight the next day. We beat the Yanks by sixteen days! And when the Yanks had put all this, all the usual stuff in the papers, and they got the big banners out: ‘Fly Pan American the first jet flight across the Atlantic’ and so on. And after we beat them like that they had to change it all and where it said, ‘we are the first,’ they had to put in: ‘we are one of the first.’ They never bloody forgave us for it! Amazing story! [Laughter]
HB: Oh dear.
BL: But anyway, as I say I was very, very strongly involved in -
HB: How many people were on -
BL: - the whole Comet programme from start to finish.
HB: How many people were on that first trans-atlantic flight?
BL: I think we had about sixty, sixty passengers, something like that, yes. You’ve seen the menu of course.
HB: Yes, yes. Got a copy of the menu there [cough]
BL: We got back to London and it was a very historic occasion. They gave us immediate take off at New York and cleared all the flights from London to give us number one priority to land. BBC and everyone were all were there in force to welcome us, and it was headed by Eamon Andrews on BBC.
HB: Oh right. Yes.
BL: They got our wives there and so on waiting. There was two aircraft actually. We did the eastbound New York London and the other one went the other way, London New York and we crossed over at about twenty degrees west I think it was and acknowledged each other, but you know, two of them, one going one the other. And when we went through all the procedure at London old Eamon Andrews said, ‘We’ve got a coach here for you, we’re taking you up to,’ um to, I’ve forgot where the studios were now, I’ll think of it in a minute, ’taking you up to, see we want to put you on TV tonight.’ They’d decided to put us on that programme ‘What’s My Line?’ And old, the panel at that time dear old, oh my bloody memory’s going, bloke who was extremely well known on the BBC, was the chairman of the panel there. Anyway we went on TV and on this programme and all that sort of publicity and so on; it was really interesting. And then of course the following year I was picked to go to, one of the flight crew to go to Ottawa, Canada to pick up Duke of Edinburgh, Philip. We went in the Comet; he was very keen to fly in the Comet, so we went there to pick him up. He’d been there doing a series of talks and so on. The Queen was at Balmoral at the time so we were to pick him up at Ottawa and fly him back to Leuchars in Scotland, which is quite close to Balmoral, drop him off there. But anyway, we picked him up at Ottawa and we were just, hadn’t been airborne very long when a signal came through to say there’d, a big mining disaster had just occurred at Monckton in the Maritimes and would we divert to Monckton and so the Duke could just put in a quick royal visit, two hours royal visit to the disaster area. So we dropped him off at Monckton and then we flew down, further down to Gander and we waited at Gander for him to come, come back and then we brought him from Gander and flew him to Leuchars, dropped him off there. Oh it’s here somewhere I’ve got a picture of it. On board on the way back he was fascinated with the Comet 1, he loved to fly in the Comet, oh the Comet 4 I should say and on the way back he got a lot of individual special pictures of himself and he signed one each for us, and a handshake.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: I thought she’d got it up here, it’s been on the wall here somewhere. She must have put it away. But it’s personally signed: Philip.
HB: Oh lovely.
BL: Which is, very has, carried a lot of weight, in the years to come. It’ll be worth a few bob I should think!
HB: So when did you actually stop flying Bob?
BL: Well, from then on, after the Comet programme, first BOAC decided to buy the Boeings so they ordered these new Boeing 707s from Boeing of course, from America and in January 1960 the first delivery of, or first Boeing 707 was ready for us to collect. And there was nobody trained on it or anything at that time of course, since we hadn’t got any Boeings. But in America the military version of the Boeing was the KC135 and they’d already built eight hundred of those, they’d all gone to the American air force and the American navy and so on. So having had that number built, all the bugs and problems had all been ironed out, needless to say, unlike so many of our aircraft you see. So it was a well [emphasis] tried and well proven aircraft before it even went into service. So in January ’60 I was, one of the, I was, been an instructor on Comets for some time I’d always been instructing quite a lot and so there’s four instructors, myself and three others were sent out to Seattle to get trained on the 707 and the first Boeing 707 to come off was number hundred and eleven off the line, the production line, so we were still quite a way behind other airlines. Anyway, when we got to Seattle we were trained by the Seattle test flight crew. At that time there’s no civilian aircraft, aerodromes rather, in the UK that could take the 707 except Heathrow and obviously you couldn’t use Heathrow for training but they could use it for service, not for training. Shannon hadn’t got a long enough runway at that time anyway, but they were building a new one. So there was nowhere in the UK where they could train us. So Boeings decided, got permission to use Tucson, Arizona. So Tex Johnson was there, er Tex, not Johnson, Tex Gannard, Tex Gannard was the Boeing Chief Test Pilot at that time and he decided that we’d, he’d take us down to Tucson and we’d set up a training base there and he would train us as instructors and so on, to stay on at Tucson to train the BOAC crews as they were sent out from the UK. So we stayed there to run the training unit [cough] and the crews had come from London, we trained them and they went back and then flew the aircraft in service. So we had a very nice six months so, Tucson and the trainer, super that was. But hard work. I’ll tell you what impressed me more than anything else when I went to Seattle, to Boeings: the difference between the British way of life in [coughing] workload, dedication and that sort of thing in the British aviation industry, was so different to that of the Americans. Soon found the Americans are far ahead of us in their dedication to the work they were doing. It was a bloody eye-opener, believe me. Hard work, but they knew how to do it and it was an absolute revelation to us. For instance when we were doing flight training unit details at London they’re usually about two and a half to three hours at the most, something like that, and then the time we went to Tucson the thing that surprised us was that the minimum flights times were five hours! [emphasis] Bloody long details, oh Christ, but that was typical of the Americans and the hard work they put in. They had three of the test pilots at Tucson with us and a fleet to train us and certify us as being fully trained instructors on Boeing aircraft. And I’ve got a certificate to say that.
HB: Yes. That’s grand.
BL: And anyway, BOAC then got a bit hot under the collar about the cost of running Tucson and all the British bases, so they got permission to use St Mawgan at St Athan, at Newquay. They got permission from the aircraft, from the air force for us to move from Tucson to Newquay and used St Mawgan for training from then on so I then moved, as I say, from Tucson to the Bristol Hotel in Newquay. And being a typical seaside resort, very popular, they didn’t want any weekend flying Saturdays and Sundays, there’s all sorts of objections from the local authority and so on, so it was a bit of a doddle down there.
HB: Good grief!
BL: So it was on the 707 where eventually that was my last flying for BOAC.
HB: I see. There’s a good few years in the air there Bob!
BL: Forty years.
HB: Can I just –
BL: The reason I retired in the end by the way, I was very close to retiring at that time, but I was on training at Shannon at the time on the Boeing fleet. We were doing our winter training at Shannon and one of the details we had to do was to demonstrate the capabilities of the aircraft at high, high speed characteristics of the 707. The normal cruising in the 707 was point eight one mach, but the “never exceed” was about point eight eight, which you should never exceed on a Boeing and we used to have to demonstrate though as you got somewhere near the point eight eight the flight control characteristics changed aerodynamically and you had to be aware of this to happen should you ever stray up there in flight. So we had to demonstrate this and we used to fly at forty odd thousand feet from Shannon across to five degree west in the Atlantic then back again doing these high speed runs and I was doing one of those with two students and we suddenly hit a bloody air pocket – bang! It threw us up in the air and down again, hit it really hard, couldn’t, didn’t even realise it was there just clear air turbulence, and I got thrown up on the ceiling and when I dropped down I dropped right across the arm of the co-pilot’s seat with my hip like that and it buggered up something in my hip and I couldn’t even walk off the aircraft carrying my briefcase. So I had to go sick straight away. I went through all the usual palavers of different Harley Street specialists and lord knows what and all they could tell you, ‘oh you’ve slipped a disc in your back,’ you know and all this. They threatened to send me off for a laminectomy operation, but the BOAC doctor at Heathrow who looked after the flight crews, he was ex-RAF and he was bloody good doctor, Doc civil and liked gossip here with the boys, and he really looked after us, one of us, you know.
HB: Very much so yes.
BL: He says, when finally I got to the end of my tether, I couldn’t clear this up, the bloody pain was there, could virtually, almost couldn’t walk and he says, ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll pull a few strings for you,’ he said, ‘you’re an ex RAF officer’ he says, ‘I’ll get you in to Hedley Court.’ So a couple of days later he says, ‘I’ve managed it, you’re going off to Hedley Court they’ll sort you out there.’ So I went off to Hedley Court which of course is very famous today because all these guys from Afghanistan are going in there for amputainees and that sort of thing you know, so I went into Hedley for three months. Within three days of being there they found out exactly what was wrong with me. What I’d done when I fell down like that over this arm, I’d stretched what they call the sacroiliac joint in my hip, it’d stretched it and bent it and that was the cause of all of the trouble.
HB: Good grief!
BL: And they found that after three days there! All these bloody Harley Street specialists I went to see kept telling me all I’d got was a bloody slipped disc. But the outcome was that I spent three months there and they cured it ninety nine percent. And when I finally got to, they wanted to discharge me I went to see the old Group Captain medical and he says, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘we’ve cleared it up for you,’ he says, ‘you’ll be all right,’ he says, ‘there might be the odd occasions when you get a recurrence but the only thing is,’ he says, ‘I’ll have to put a four hour restriction on your licence,’ and of course BOAC wouldn’t accept that because I was on a world wide contract so they said no we can’t accept that but you’re very close to retirement we’ll give you an immediate retirement on pension. So that’s really how I finished. But it didn’t end there.
HB: Oh right.
BL: Another little facet came. I’d been very interested in act, different aircraft accidents and accident investigation. I was on the accident committee for a few years before that, while I was still flying and somebody at BOAC obviously realised that I’d got experience on them and they said well we’ll keep you on but not in a flying capacity, would you like to become a CAA FIA flight accident investigator. I said yes, so they said right. So they sent me off to the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, to do the full official FIA accident inspector’s course so I had a couple of months over there, and did the course in the university and I qualified, graduated and got my little badge and everything, as an official accident investigator. So I came back to London and I went on two of the accidents actually, one of which was a Boeing which landed with a wing on fire at Heathrow after one of the engines had dropped off into the Staines reservoir. I’ve got a photograph of that landing, with the wing on fire, amongst this lot here somewhere.
HB: Good grief. Yeah.
BL: And anyway after that I found it was a bit boring and of course by that time I’d got a farm in Surrey and I’d got, we were milking a hundred and twenty five Jersey cows, and I’d got thirty thousand chickens, got five vans on the road delivering fresh eggs and cream around London and it was taking up so much time I thought well I haven’t got bloody time to go in so I finally decided I’d quit completely and carry on farming and that really was the end of it.
HB: Yeah, it does bring it to an end, doesn’t it really.
BL: So, quite a lot of various incidents in my career.
HB: Just a few, just a few. Just going back, I meant to actually ask you this ages ago. When you were on 463 Squadron -
BL: Yes.
HB: With the old, the Australians, that would be towards the end of ’45. Did you ever, when you were there on operations did you ever come across the German jet fighters?
BL: Er, no. Not, not the jets, no.
HB: No. All right.
BL: Incidentally, talking about that, of course, when Peenemunde came up, it just so happened, we didn’t, on the Stirlings by the way, the Stirlings from the squadron, I think we put about a dozen Stirlings up on the Peenemunde operation and we’d been briefed from weeks and weeks and weeks that something very special was coming up, no one knew what it was except it was something very special operation but it was tied in very closely to the right weather. It had to be absolutely perfect on weather forecast and of course it turned out it was Peenemunde. And it just so happened that when the Peenemunde trip came up we were on two weeks’ leave. So we missed it.
HB: Yeah. Right.
BL: But it was from then on of course we were very active on bombing these flying bomb sites in France and various parts of Europe. But we never came across any of the jet fighters at all. No definitely not.
HB: Right. Well I think. I think Bob, we’ve come to a natural sort of end, and I just thank you very much. Absolutely fascinating.
BL: Well I hope I haven’t bored you too much.
HB: Oh no! Well I haven’t gone to sleep! [Laughter] No absolutely fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
BL: I’ve been lucky really in a sense, that you know, had all these different variants, military and civilian, I’ve very lucky to be on you know, these special products, projects. Rather like the as I said, the two years I was test flying with De Havilland, that was really interesting.
HB: Yeah. I’m going to, one of the things I forgot to do at the beginning, I didn’t actually say at the beginning: it’s Wednesday the 12th of December 2018. I forgot about that at the beginning, I got a bit excited! So I’m going to terminate the interview Bob and get on with the paperwork. Thank you very much again.
BL: Yeah.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bob Leedham
Creator
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Harry Bartlett
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-12-12
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALeedhamHJL181212, PLeedhamHJL1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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02:16:46 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Leedham was a flight engineer who carried out twenty-one operations on Stirlings. At the outbreak of war Bob was an apprentice motor mechanic, and along with other apprentices, was left to operate the garage when all the engineers were called up. In 1940 he enlisted in the RAF and following initial training, Bob was selected for pilot training but did not achieve the requirement of flying solo within twelve hours. His engineering background meant he was posted to RAF St Athan and trained as a flight engineer. A posting to RAF Stradishall followed, and conversion to Stirling aircraft. Now part of a crew and posted to 90 Squadron at RAF Ridgewell, operational flying commenced. Bob suggests political interference restricted the performance of the aircraft resulting in a higher casualty rate amongst Stirling crews, and explains how the introduction of Window anti-radar equipment improved this. In Spring 1943 the squadron moved to RAF Wratting Common and in Autumn, converted to Lancasters. With more Lancasters coming into service, there was a lack of experience on four-engined aircraft, and some Stirling’s were deployed to RAF Swinderby for crew training. This move coincided with Bob obtaining his commission and he became an instructor on both Stirling and Lancasters. Late in 1944, Bob was back flying operations with 463 Squadron at RAF Waddington, where he was senior co-pilot/flight engineer. Following peace declaration in Europe, Bob joined Tiger Force in preparation for moving to Japan, but the war ended before this materialised. Bob began a post-war career in civil aviation, initially operating the Avro Tudor, and flying approximately three-hundred operations during the Berlin airlift. He also gives an account of the development of the DH 106 Comet and details the faults which resulted in the aircraft being grounded. While undertaking demonstrations in America, Bob was recalled to New York, where his crew discovered they were to operate the first civilian jet flight eastbound across the Atlantic. In 1960, Bob was one of four certified to instruct on the new generation of aircraft, the Boeing 707. An injury sustained from clear-air turbulence curtailed Bob’s flying career, and he progressed into the investigation of aircraft accidents.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Azores
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
United States
Zimbabwe
Arizona--Tucson
England--Burton upon Trent
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
India--Kolkata
Italy--Elba
Mediterranean Sea--Bay of Naples
New Brunswick--Moncton
Ontario--Ottawa
Scotland--Leuchars
Wales--Glamorgan
Washington (State)--Seattle
England--Cornwall (County)
Arizona
Ontario
New Brunswick
India
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Staffordshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943
1944
10 Squadron
463 Squadron
5 Group
57 Squadron
617 Squadron
86 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
C-47
flight engineer
Gneisenau
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Pathfinders
pilot
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021)
radar
RAF Alconbury
RAF Halton
RAF Ridgewell
RAF St Athan
RAF St Mawgan
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Waddington
RAF Woodhall Spa
RAF Wratting Common
Scharnhorst
Stirling
Sunderland
Tiger force
training
Window