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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1794/35818/BBainesCOBrienCv1.1.pdf
e1b2af064d885cd5e5dc26a62ab00415
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
Wilson, Reginald Charles
R C Wilson
Description
An account of the resource
166 items. The collection concerns Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923, 1389401 Royal Air Force) and contains his wartime log, photographs, documents and correspondence. He few operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron. He was shot down on 20 January 1944 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Janet Hughes and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wilson, RC
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
I never knew my Uncle Cecil O'Brien for he was missing in action over Germany and presumed to be dead, before I was born in country NSW in the autumn of 1944. Cecil, who was born in Sydney in 1916, was the youngest of three boys and the son of John Francis O'Brien and Mary Julia Mann. John, senior, was from a pioneering Irish background and Mary Mann was born in Mousehole, Cornwall in 1886 and came to Australia aged four years with her family on the ship [italics] Oruba [/italics] in 1890.
The three boys, John, who was my father, George and Cecil grew up in the garden suburb of Daceyville in Sydney's Eastern suburbs, not far from famous beaches such as Bondi, or Maroubra, perhaps less well known, but the place they most often went to swim. The eastern beach suburbs of the city are milder in winter and a lovely afternoon breeze makes them pleasant in the heat of summer. Not too far away was the Sydney Cricket Ground and, most exciting of all, Kingsford Smith Airport. The boys were active and swam and loved to play cricket in the local park. It was during one such game in 1930 that George was struck on the head by a cricket ball and later died in Sydney Hospital. The family was bereaved again by the death of their mother, Mary, to cancer, in 1932.
[photograph]
It was with some trepidation that my grandfather watched as Cecil signed up with the Airforce Reserve on October 11, 1941. He had married his fiancée Norma Sumner in April that year. My father John signed up some months later after some deliberation for he was also married, a father of one son, and a school teacher. He went on to serve with 466 Squadron as a navigator, after training in Australia and Canada, and happily returned to civilian life at war's end.
The brothers enthusiastically answered the call to young men to join the Empire Training Scheme (EATS) by which Australia agreed to train and send 36% of the pilots, observers, wireless operators and gunners required by the RAF to fight the war. Approximately 27,800 men were trained by the RAAF in Australia, mostly at an elementary level. Soon after joining the Reserve Cecil was recruited by Air Crew 2 and completed his elementary flying training in the outer suburbs of Sydney, country NSW and Queensland. A week before his 26th birthday on July 13, 1942 Cecil was awarded his flying badge. By November Cecil was on his way to the UK on board a troop ship and attached to the RAF.
Letters to his father in Sydney that have survived for over 60 years have enabled me to gain and [sic] idea of what life was like for my Uncle during his year in England as he trained with Bomber Command to become a well qualified pilot. Although at no time could he reveal to his father where he was situated, or the finer details of his training, further
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research has helped me to decipher the abbreviations on his service record papers and reveal where he was attached and posted.
On disembarkation the men were sent to 11 PDRC at Bournemouth in SW England. They were issued with kit, given a general review and instructional course and then immediately sent on 14 days leave as part of the Dominion Troops Scheme. They were chomping at the bit to get flying again.[italics] 'I am going into bombers and hope to get the best little plane in all the world which of course is the Mosquito,' [/italics] Cecil wrote to his father. But he was cooling his heels as the guest of an Australian woman, Mrs. Milne, in her large and comfortable home, Broadkeys, at Lake Windermere, and left to admire the beautiful English countryside swathed in light drifts of snow. The lads were entertained by a special dance held for them, good food, a [italics] 'wonderful room with a feather bed,' [/italics] and tobogganing in the snow.
Back at the original camp at Bournemouth after the leave, and two days at Ealing, Cecil was required to complete a Commando course which seems to have been in the North, at Whitley Bay. Cecil expressed his relief to be back to what was a well organized billet after contracting a severe cold in the chilling weather of NE England. Meanwhile John had commenced his training in Australia and Cecil was waiting patiently for the day when his brother would arrive in England. For the Australian airmen letters from home and the occasional parcel from the Australian Comfort Fund, or home, were much appreciated and looked for. Such a parcel might contain items like fruit cake, cans of peaches, tins of cream, chocolate, tobacco, shaving cream, toothpaste and a brush, paper and envelopes.
Letters tended to come in batches. There would be no mail for weeks and then an avalanche of letters. Part of the problem was that that [sic] the men moved on as they trained and the mail had to follow. This resulted in airmen spending many a spare moment writing replies. John O'Brien senior sent Cressy Comfort Fund Canteen Orders because he read in the paper that England was short of food, although Cecil reassured him, [italics] 'believe it or not there is plenty of food. Certain items are scarce but there is more than plenty for everyone. From the stories we heard we thought everyone would be perpetually hungry.' [/italics] Cecil did ask for sweeteners for his tea for sugar was in short supply. Norma numbered all her letter [s] to Cecil but they tended not to arrive numerically.
In March, after completing a course on the links trainer Cecil and his cohorts were granted three short periods of leave enabling them to visit Reading, Birmingham and beautiful Winchester, while they waited for a training post to become available. It was one thing to ship in air crew but quite another to have them continually training in the air. On March 22 the group was sent to Anstey near Leicester to 9EFTS to train on Tiger Moths. For reasons not explained this did not work out and the men were returned to base at Bournemouth. Another posting was found with 50 Group Pool on April 9, with 18 EFTS, where the lads threw themselves with gusto into the 6 day week of training on old Tiger Moths. They regarded this as fun as they were fully aerobatic. Cecil's morale lifted as he was busy again, [italics] 'This is a grand place. We are well billeted and well treated in a lovely spot. The country around here is beautiful with its spring mantle.' [/italics]
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The group was separated at the end of this training and Cecil found most of his cobbers were sent to other stations, except one Australian who had been with him all along. They were posted to 15 (P) AFU at Ramsbury from April 16 to May 25 for intensive training on Airspeed Oxfords. [italics] 'We touch on quite a bit of new work, mostly wireless aids, such as Beam approach and Homing at night etc. I must mention my respect and liking for the 'Pommy' instructors. There is no bull about them at all and they are most courteous and friendly. Not in a condescending way, they just treat us as pals which make learning so much easier.' [/italics] Equipped with hydraulic undercarriage there was no winding up as Cecil had to do with the old Anson in earlier training. At this base there was time enough to visit the local village and explore the country side. But there was en [sic] element of home sickness in letters home when Cecil wrote that [italics] 'the time can't come soon enough for me to be on my way home.' [/italics] This was constant message in his letters over the year of training. He expressed his desire to have the war over and be home again soon.
By the end of May, with a good assessment and 300 hours of flying in his log book the boys were with 1518 BAT flight at the famous Scampton base continuing intensive training on Oxfords and logging up hours of night flying. The operational station was home to 617 Dambuster Squadron and the boys were told in real terms what it was like to fly a raid. [italics] 'This is a wonderful place,' [/italics] wrote Cecil to home. They were provided with first class billets and mess. On May 27 the King and Queen visited to award Guy Gibson his VC and Cecil had a good view of the proceedings.
Cecil got an above average assessment at the end of his course and returned to the Satellite base at Ramsbury on May 31. While waiting for a posting his duties were odd flying duties and duty pilot. Cecil wrote to this father commenting on night flying saying that [italics] 'with the modern aids flying the kites was a piece of cake.' [/italics] The posting came through to 29 OTU at Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire, on June 29. The base was much dispersed and Cecil and friends found themselves having to walk miles as they began each day at 6.30 am with PT. As the daylight of summer continued till near midnight the lads had trouble falling asleep. They were used to going to bed in darkness because the Australian summer sun slips below the horizon early in the evening and darkness falls quickly. To get to meals on time they went to town and bought themselves bikes. [italics] 'There is a fair bit to learn and our crews to select but it won't be a hell of a while now. I'm afraid there isn't much I can tell you about it except that I will be in heavy stuff for ops,' [/italics] Cecil warned his father
By July 27 Cecil was happier at a new station in the midlands. Unfortunately the records do not give any details but presumably he was still with 29 OTU at this new base. What is known is that the [sic] he was flying a plane that was very heavy at the controls and may have been a Manchester. Cecil had selected some of his crew. The first was an Australian wireless operator named William Simpson, from Guyra, NSW who, coincidentally, just happened to be a relative of a maternal Great Uncle. He chose an English navigator and his pal, Gerald Sudds, as bomb aimer. The air gunner was expected to arrive the following week
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A lot of night flying followed and Cecil said he had [italics] 'seem [sic] more dawns in the Air Force than I have seen in the rest of my life.' [/italics] The training continued full time with no day off in a month as the work was intensified in the lead up to the bombing of Berlin. There was time spent waiting for kites be serviced and for the weather to clear and time spent on long range country flying. Surrounding this dome were farms with heavy crops and herds of cattle grazing contentedly. [italics] 'The cattle look beautiful and seem pretty hefty. I'd like to cut a steak off one of them,' [/italics] wrote Cecil. Food was an ever important subject. [italics] 'We have just returned from a Satellite dome [sic] (possibly Ramsbury) where we could occasionally get eggs and chips for tea from a cafe near the gates. We usually get good breakfasts and lunch on camp but tea is usually terrible and as we were night flying we were not wanted in the afternoon.' [/italics]
As September began Cecil heard that his brother John was training in Toronto, Canada. The invasion of Italy has begun. Twelve letters arrived from Australia and Cecil was looking forward to leave coming up at the end of his operational training. The hazards of night flying became real for Cecil when he was lost one night close to a balloon barrage area and another tine [sic] he just saw another aircraft in time to avert a collision. [italics] 'I put my plane into a violent dive and busted a few pipes, and my rear gunner's head, but other than that everything went very well and we passed out with very favorable [sic] reports.' [/italics]
Some well earned leave was taken as guests of Bomb Aimer Gerald Sudds and his parents at Applegarth Farm, Sevenoaks, in Kent. [italics] 'Eggs and bacon every morning, lots of good food and a feather bed. It was such a break from service life.' [/italics] On their return there was no transport to meet them and they were sent to the wrong station and had to spend a night under canvas before they were picked up. A week of commando training was set down for them at HQ 51 base before the new posting to 1661 Conversion Unit based at Winthorpe, Nottinghamshire, came through on October 3.
Boosted by the change Cecil wrote enthusiastically of the [italics] 'beaut 4 engined Lancaster, the best heavy bomber in the world. It is streets ahead of anything else in the heavy class and we are fortunate to be posted to them. Also we are going to the best group in bomber command and with any luck may be attached to an Aussie squadron which is perhaps the best in the group. If we can make ourselves the best crew in the squadron we would be the best crew, on the best bomber, in the best squadron, in the best group, of the best Airforce in the world. The best crew in the world. What an aspiration!' [/italics]
Cecil found the aircraft relatively easy to handle and most maneuverable [sic]. [italics] 'They are really a lovely aircraft. I am amazed at what well over 20 tons of aircraft can do' [/italics]. Food parcels had arrived from Australia. There were three cakes from Norma and a parcel from work colleagues, tins of fruit from the Sumner family and Saxin tablets to replace sugar in tea. It was now just over a year since Cecil had left Australia and he was expecting to be commissioned as an officer before Christmas
By December 12 the men were posted to 467 Squadron at Waddington air base. This was the most comfortable base to date. They had centrally heated billets with showers and
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ablutions attached. The mess had billiards tables and a camp cinema with a change of programs three times a week. There was a sunray lamp in the officer's mess, a little touch of luxury. A telegram had arrived from John saying he had arrived in England to begin service. He was stationed at Driffield with 466 Squadron. Cecil travelled to the base for a reunion with his brother. They spent a day and night together and John had chocolates and soap from America for Cecil. They parted with John intending to join Cecil at Waddington when his leave came up. When Cecil returned to base another parcel containing a Christmas cake and chocolate had arrived from Australia, sewn into a calico bag to protect it on the journey.
The crew had their photograph taken as a group and Cecil posted it home to his father and wife Norma. [italics] 'I'm sorry I won't be home for Christmas but I will be thinking of you all and hope to be home for the next,' [/italics] he wrote to his father. Instead of singing [sic] his letter with the usual, [italics] 'Cheers,' [/italics] he wrote an affectionate, [italics] 'love to all.' [/italics] Christmas day was rather festive at Waddington and the crews were on general stand down from 10am. They helped serve the airmen their dinner then retired to the officer's mess for drinks before a meal of turkey and pudding. A dance was held before Christmas and there was generally a round of entertainment on off nights which helped to make spirits bright. Cecil reported feeling in the pink and that everyone was ok.
Found among my mother's papers following her death in 2008 were letters from Cecil to my father, John, of 466 Squadron. As Cecil was writing to his brother, now stationed in England, he was able to express himself without the censor to strike out any information. He wrote on December 28 that he had done two trips. One was to Berlin on December 16 and the other to Frankfurt on 20th. The dentist u/sed [sic] Cecil for the next Berlin raid because of a bad toothache. [italics] 'I did a cross country exercise one night and it ached like buggery all the way round. [/italics]
Writing on a Sunday which must have been at the end of December Cecil told his brother he was due for leave about January 4. As it turned out he left on January 6. He planned to go down to Cornwall to his mother's birthplace Mousehole. [italics] 'I've done three trips now. Two to Berlin and one to Frankfurt. The last Berlin was a bit shaky, the winds reared round and we got over Kiepzig and had a hot time there with flack. We were followed by fighters for a while shortly afterwards but they weren't in the show to shoot as I was weaving like buggery. We were late at Berlin and the attack had finished and we had plenty of attention. We were hit by one lot of flack and didn't know how lucky we were until the next morning when we found a hole in the oil tank and an engine strut almost severed besides a few other holes. I should have been in the last two shows but have been unlucky with kites and didn't get off.' [/italics] Cecil's commission came through that day of letter writing, January 3, 1944 along with a food parcel form [sic] Norma. It contained a Christmas cake and a big tin of sweets.
The trip to Cornwall to his mother's birthplace did not happen for Cecil found he could not afford such a long trip after having to go to London to arrange for his officer's uniform. Instead he travelled to Applegarth Farm with Gerald Sudds. Upon his return he
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did two more trips with 467 Squadron. Writing to John again on a Sunday, [italics] ' We have done two trips since I got back to Berlin and Magdeburg. Both as uneventful as a trip can be which isn't very. These long stooges are grim. We were shot at and followed by the Gerry fighters but came back without a scratch. I have yet to see anything like Magdeburg. The cloud had broken through and the whole area was a mass of coloured target marker planes explosions enclosed in the brilliant white fires of burning incendiaries. I was going out tonight but a snow storm decided against it.' [/italics] Cecil's final word to his brother who was yet to begin his tour of operations was, [italics] 'Be careful.' [/italics]
On January 27 1944 another major raid on Berlin's western and southern districts was planned. Cecil was on his fourth trip as the sole pilot, but his sixth trip in total. His first two trips to Berlin and Frankfurt were as 2nd pilot with F/L D.S Symonds and P/O D. Harvey at the controls, as was the custom for the initial raids. The Lancaster ED539 PO.V MKIII as reported missing on January 28 1944. In Australia John O'Brien received the dreaded telegram, not knowing until he opened it which if his sons it related to.
[ telegram letterhead]
423 MELBOURNW 130/1 5-20 P
[missing letters]STAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT [inserted] 2970 [/inserted]
[missing letters]LIVERY PERSONAL . . . MR J.F. OBRIEN
[missing letters]ILLS CRESCENT DACEYVILLE NSW
20250 PILOT OFFICER C OBRIEN MISSING STOP REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON PILOT OFFICER CECIL OBRIEN IS MISSING AS RESULT AIR OPERATIONS ON NIGHT 27/28 JANUARY 1944 STOP KNOWN DETAILS ARE HE [missing word] MEMBER OF CREW LANCASTER AIRCRAFT DETAILED TO ATTACK BERLIN GERMANY WHICH FAILED TO RETURN TO BASE PRESUMABLY DUE TO ENEMY ACTION [missing word] REQUEST YOU INFORM NEXT OF KIN MRS CECIL OBRIEN 262 RAINBOW STREET COOGEE IMMEDIATELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS OFFICERS WISHES NOTED IN HIS RECORDS STOP THE MINISTER FOR AIR JOINS WITH AIR BOARD IN EXPRESSING SINCERE SYMPATHY IN YOUR ANXIETY STOP WHEN ANY FURTHER INFORMATION IS RECEIVED IT WILL BE CONVEYED TO YOU IMMEDIATELY
The tattered and folded nature of this small document is evidence of the many times over the years my grandfather opened this to read it. It was as if the profound shock of his loss was and [sic] experience that he relived many times.
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Cecil's brother, John, did not know his sibling was missing until a cable from his family in Australia on February 2 informed him of the loss. John took leave and travelled to Waddington where Mrs Kenrick, a friend of the Group Captain's wife at Waddington was about to write to John in case he had not heard the news. The only information Waddington had was that no radio communication was received from the plane once it left base and no other aircraft reported seeing any incident involving ED 539.
There followed an agonizing wait for official confirmation that Cecil was indeed dead and that did not come until a letter was received from the Department of Air on March 6, 1945. Further details were received in an aerogram from Mrs. J. Doncaster, the transcript of which is as follows;
[italics] AIR MINISTRY
Casualty Branch
73-77, Oxford Street,
W.1.
4th June 1946
Madam,
I am directed to refer to your letter of the 3rd May 1846 [sic], regarding your son, Sergeant F.H. Doncaster, and to inform you with deep regret that the confirmation of his death has been obtained from captured German documents which state that his aircraft crashed at 8.38pm on the 27th January 1944, 'Berlin-Kopenick, 239 and 254 Wendenschloss Road or Street. No information as to his place of burial is given, and every effort will be made by the Royal Air Force Missing and Enquiry Service to ascertain these details.
I am to express the sincere sympathy of the Department with you in your loss.
I am Madam,
Your Obedient Servant,
A.W. Livingston
For Director of Personal Services.
Mrs. J.A. Doncaster
16, Top Row.
Beacon Hill Newark [/italics]
A letter from the Department of Air was sent in 1945 expressing sympathy but giving few details.
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[Australian Coat of Arms]
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Casualty Section,
DEPARTMENT OF AIR,
391 Lit. Collins St.,
150867
RAAF.166/31/143(23A)
Dear Sir,
It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that the death of your son, Pilot Officer Cecil O'Brien, occurred on the 28th January, 1944.
The operation in respect of which your late son was reported missing took place on the night of the 27/28th January, 1944, and Overseas Headquarters, Royal Australian Air Force, London, had presumed that the casualty occurred on the 28th January, 1944.
The Minister for Air and members of the Air Board desire me to express their profound sympathy. It is hoped that the accompanying enclosures will contain information of assistance to you.
Yours faithfully,
[signature]
(M.C. Langstow)
[underlined] SECRETARY. [/underlined]
Enc. 4.
Mr. J. F. O'Brien,
4 Wills Crescent,
[underlined] DACEYVILLE. [/underlined] N.S.W.
The final letter from the Department of Air gave details of the crash and was received in
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May 1948. The letter is attached as a separate file.
Thus it was that the boy from the Eastern suburbs of Sydney, who so longed to go home again, was never to have that opportunity and, neither did his mate from the Guyra bush. We are proud that he rose to the demands of the training and the task of flying with 467 Squadron. We are sure that the families of all the crew killed in action that January night have mourned, as we have, over the years, the loss of their sons.
May they rest in peace.
The crew of ED 539 PO.V lost over Berlin 28-1-1944 were;
Pilot Officer Cecil O'Brien, 420250 RAAF aged 27. Son of John Francis and Mary Julia O'Brien; husband of Norma Ellen O'Brien of Maroubra, NSW Australia. No known grave. Commemorated at Runnymede.
F/S William John Simpson 421693 RAAF aged 23. Son of William Henry and Mary Ellen Simpson of Guyra NSW Australia. No known grave. Commemorated at Runnymede.
F/O Gerald Henry Sudds Bomb Aimer 136393 RAFVR aged 22. May have been born in district of Malling, Kent in December quarter 1922. Son of Mr and Mrs Sudds of Applegarth Farm, Sevenoaks, Kent. Berlin War Cemetery, 1939-1945. Grave 5-K-36.
Sgt Harold Boardley Navigator 159485 RAFVR aged 22, May have been born at Mutford in 1922? No known grave. Commemorated at Runnymede
Sgt Douglas James Coombe Flight Engineer 1582983 RAFVR age 19. May have been born at Blaby in June 1924. Berlin War Cemetery 1939-1945. Grave 5-K-37.
Sgt Francis Herbert Doncaster Rear Gunner 1013809 RAFVR age 23. Born Newark in June 1920. No known grave. Commemorated at Runnymede.
Sgt Joseph James Melling Mid Upper Gunner. 1017778 RAFVR age 27. May have been born at Barnsley, Yorkshire in March quarter 1917. No known grave. Commemorated at Runnymede.
Photograph of crew follows.
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[photograph]
Crew of flight ED 539 PO.V 467 Squadron
Front row left: Sgt William Simpson Wireless Operator: F/O Gerald Sudds Bomb Aimer; P/O Cecil O'Brien:
Remainder of crew, not identified,
Sgt Harold Boardley, Navigator
Sgt Douglas Coombe Air Gunner (maybe airman on first right second row?)
Sgt Francis Doncaster
Sgt Joseph Melling.
Colleen Baines
Sydney
Australia
28 May 2009
10
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
Cecil O'Brien Biography
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Cecil written by his niece. It is based on letters he wrote to his brother, Colleen's father. She explains his training and the various locations where he served. He was lost 27 January 1944 over Berlin.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colleen Baines
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-05-28
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Ireland
England--Mousehole
Australia
New South Wales--Sydney
New South Wales--Maroubra
New South Wales--Kingsford Smith
Great Britain
England--Bournemouth
England--Ealing
England--Whitley Bay
England--Reading
England--Birmingham
England--Winchester
England--Anstey (Leicestershire)
New South Wales--Guyra
Germany--Berlin
Canada
Ontario--Toronto
Italy
England--Sevenoaks
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
England--London
Germany--Magdeburg
England--Runnymede
England--West Malling
England--Mutford
England--Blaby
England--Newark (Nottinghamshire)
New South Wales
Ontario
England--Berkshire
England--Hampshire
England--Kent
England--Leicestershire
England--Middlesex
England--Northumberland
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Surrey
England--Warwickshire
England--Barnsley (South Yorkshire)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
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Ten printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BBainesCOBrienCv1
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
29 OTU
466 Squadron
467 Squadron
617 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
crewing up
entertainment
final resting place
Flying Training School
George Cross
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Heavy Conversion Unit
killed in action
Lancaster
Manchester
memorial
missing in action
Mosquito
navigator
observer
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Driffield
RAF Scampton
RAF Waddington
RAF Winthorpe
sport
Tiger Moth
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/787/9358/LMaltbyDJH60335v1.2.pdf
b23af7b66c08924d51d2b516d0b72ec7
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
Maltby, David John Hatfeild
D J H Maltby
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader David John Hatfeild Maltby DSO, DFC (1920 - 1943, 60335 Royal Air Force) and consists of his pilot's flying log book and documents. David Maltby completed a tour operations as a pilot in Hampdens, Manchester and Lancasters with 106 and 97 Squadrons at RAF Coningsby before being posted to 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton. He successfully attacked the Möhne Dam in May 1943. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by the Maltby Family and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />Additional information on David John Hatfeild Maltby is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/114788/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-09-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Maltby, DJH
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
David Maltby's pilot's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Air Force pilot's flying log book for Squadron Leader David Maltby covering the period from 20 August 1940 to 13 September 1943. Detailing his flying training and operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Uxbridge, RAF Paignton, RAF Anstey, RAF Grantham, RAF Cranage, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Coningsby, RAF Wigsley, RAF Dunholme, RAF Fulbeck and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Anson, Oxford, Hampden, Manchester and Lancaster. He flew a total of 32 night operations, 5 with 106 Squadron, 23 with 97 Squadron and 4 with 617 Squadron. Targets in Denmark, Germany, and Italy and Norway were Duisberg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Kiel, Karlsruhe, Essen, Magdeberg, Hamburg, Heligoland, Trondheim, Stuttgart, Warnermund, Copenhagen, Mannheim, Sassnitz, Möhne Dam, San Polo D’Enza, Leghorn and Milan. He flew as a second pilot on operations with Flight Lieutenant Coton. He was killed returning from an aborted operation to the Dortmund Ems Canal 14/15 September 1943.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMaltbyDJH60335v1
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-15
1941-06-16
1941-06-18
1941-06-19
1941-06-21
1941-06-22
1941-06-24
1941-06-25
1941-08-02
1941-08-03
1941-08-05
1941-08-06
1941-08-07
1941-08-08
1941-08-12
1941-08-13
1941-08-16
1941-08-17
1941-08-18
1941-08-19
1941-10-23
1941-10-24
1941-10-26
1941-10-27
1941-10-31
1941-11-01
1941-11-07
1941-11-08
1941-11-15
1941-11-16
1942-04-08
1942-04-09
1942-04-27
1942-04-28
1942-04-29
1942-05-04
1942-05-05
1942-05-07
1942-05-08
1942-05-09
1942-05-16
1942-05-17
1942-05-19
1942-05-20
1942-05-22
1942-05-23
1942-05-26
1942-05-27
1942-06-08
1942-06-09
1943-05-16
1943-05-17
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-09-15
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cheshire
England--Devon
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Sassnitz
Italy--Livorno
Italy--Milan
Italy--San Polo d'Enza
Norway--Trondheim
Italy--Po River Valley
Germany--Möhne River Dam
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
106 Squadron
16 OTU
1654 HCU
617 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
Flying Training School
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
Lancaster
Manchester
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Coningsby
RAF Cranage
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Grantham
RAF Paignton
RAF Scampton
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Wigsley
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1801/40369/LStewartEC87436v1.2.pdf
9aaa3cce2399f4099304ff401ba6257d
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
Stewart, Edward Colston
E C Stewart
Description
An account of the resource
272 items. The collection concerns Edward Colston Stewart DFC (b. 1916, 87436 Royal Air Force) and his wife, <span>Flight Officer </span>Ann Marie Stewart (nee Imming, b. 1922, 5215 Royal Air Force). It contains his log books, documents, bank notes and photographs. He flew 50 operations as a pilot with 1446 Ferry Flight and 104 Squadron. After the war they served in the Far East. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2013">Ann Marie Stewart collection</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2012">Bank notes</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Paula Cooper and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-24
2022-06-21
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stewart, EC
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
Edward Stewart's pilot's flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for E C Stewart, covering the period from 2 July 1940 to 25 November 1944. Detailing his flying training, instructor duties and operation flown. He was stationed at RAF Sywell, RAF Cranwell, RAF Ansty, RAF Walsgrave, RAF Cirencester, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Kabrit, RAF Luqa, LG237, RAF Church Broughton, RAF Wymeswold and RAF Lyneham. Aircraft flown were Tiger Moth, Oxford, Tutor, Wellington, and York. He flew a total of 50 operations; 3 unnamed daylight with 1446 ferry flight and 47 night operations with 104 Squadron. Targets were Fuka, Sardinia, Tunis, Catania, Comica, Bizerta, Gerbini, Palermo, La Goulette, Sfax, Sousse, Tripoli, Gabes, Mareth Line, Kattana, El Hama and El Maou. Other targets are listed as battle area. He flew as a second pilot on operations with Squadron Leader Leggette and Flying Officer Parker.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LStewartEC87436v1
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942-08-07
1942-08-09
1942-10-27
1942-10-28
1942-11-01
1942-11-02
1942-11-03
1942-11-12
1942-11-13
1942-11-14
1942-11-19
1942-11-20
1942-11-22
1942-11-23
1942-11-24
1942-11-26
1942-11-27
1942-11-29
1942-11-30
1942-12-01
1942-12-03
1942-12-04
1942-12-05
1942-12-06
1942-12-09
1942-12-10
1942-12-12
1942-12-13
1942-12-14
1942-12-15
1942-12-16
1942-12-17
1942-12-18
1942-12-19
1942-12-21
1942-12-22
1942-12-25
1942-12-26
1942-12-27
1942-12-28
1942-12-31
1943-01-01
1943-01-02
1943-01-03
1943-01-05
1943-01-06
1943-01-07
1943-01-08
1943-01-09
1943-01-10
1943-01-12
1943-01-13
1943-01-14
1943-01-15
1943-01-18
1943-01-19
1943-02-24
1943-02-25
1943-02-26
1943-02-27
1943-03-02
1943-03-03
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-20
1943-03-21
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-03-24
1943-03-25
1943-03-26
1943-03-27
1943-03-30
1943-03-31
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1944
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Great Britain
Italy
Libya
Malta
Tunisia
Egypt--Cairo
Egypt--Marsá Maṭrūḥ
Egypt--Suez Canal
England--Derbyshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Northamptonshire
England--West Midlands
England--Wiltshire
Italy--Catania
Italy--Palermo
Italy--Paternò
Italy--Sardinia
Italy--Sicily
Libya--Tripoli
Tunisia--Bizerte
Tunisia--La Goulette
Tunisia--Mareth Line
Tunisia--Qābis
Tunisia--Sfax
Tunisia--Sūsah
Tunisia--Tunis
Egypt--Kibrit
North Africa
Egypt--Fukah
104 Squadron
21 OTU
28 OTU
aircrew
bombing
Flying Training School
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Cranwell
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Lyneham
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Sywell
RAF Wymeswold
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/620/19402/LPaineGH1894345v1.2.pdf
8d0ce55660066fa6cbd2eb6bd174ad7e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Paine, Geoff
Geoffrey Hugh Paine
G H Paine
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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
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
Geoff Paine's pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for G H Paine, covering the period from 4 January 1945 to 25 July 1949. Detailing his flying training, post war squadron duties with 511 squadron and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Anstey, RAF Guinea Fowl, RAF Thornhill Gwelo, RAF Valley, RAF Topcliffe, RAF Lyneham, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Ternhill, RAF Church Lawford, RAF Swinderby and RAF Middleton St George. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Cornell, Harvard, York, Oxford, York, Wellington and Anson.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LPaineGH1894345v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Zimbabwe
England--Durham (County)
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Anglesey
Zimbabwe--Gweru
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
aircrew
Anson
Cornell
Flying Training School
Harvard
Initial Training Wing
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Church Lawford
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Lyneham
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Swinderby
RAF Ternhill
RAF Topcliffe
RAF Valley
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/620/19408/BPaineGHPaineGHv1.2.pdf
c1a7c6c381d79a4c2bf964593a249785
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Paine, Geoff
Geoffrey Hugh Paine
G H Paine
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
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 document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Geoffrey H. Paine
My life in the Royal Air Force
From its formation I was a member of The Air Training Corps, I rose to the dizzy rank of Corporal and was a member of 1157 Sqdn (Falmouth & Penryn, Cornwall)
I was a pupil at Falmouth Grammar School, sat & passed my Cambridge School Certificate.
As soon as I was 18 I voluntered [sic] for RAF Aircrew and went to Sentinal House, London to sign on. Went through a strict medical and did an aptitude test in a sort of mock aircraft cockpit to check my coordination. This was successful and I was clasified [sic] as fit for Aircrew as PNB (Pilot, Navigator of Bomb Aimer).
I returned home and continued at school where I studied Air Navigation.
To start my training I had to be 18 + 3 months so on 30th August 1943 I reported to the Aircrew reception centre at Lords Cricket Ground, London. Went through another medical (plus an FFI !!) was issued with my uniform and then spent a few days in St John's Wood doing drill etc.
On 20th September I went to No 6 Initial Training Wing at Aberystwyth, billeted in the Bell View Hotel on the sea front. Accomodation [sic] was OK but food was a bit scarce! Lots of drill on the sea front and classroom subjects in the University. There were about 20 of us who were non swimmers and one cold morning we were marched up to the University swimming baths. We were lined up along the side of the pool and told to climb up to the highest diving board and jump in!! We were fished out with long polls by the insructors [sic]! One of the cadets was unable to jump and was taken off the course for aircrew to transfer to ground crew!
Apart from drill and classroom subjects we did clay pidgeon [sic] shooting and fired Lewis and Bren guns on the firing range. We also had to go into a Gas chamber and temporally remove our gas masks!
After Christmas leave I went Grading School AST Station Ansty, near Coventry to fly in the lovely Tiger Moths. Communication between the instructor and pupil was through a Gosport tube and it was quite common to inhale a strong smell of whisky! After only 6 hours flying
[page break]
I was sent on by first solo (I think it was a bit of a record judging by the instructors boasting to his colleagues!!) During our spare time we had to lay taxy ways using bricks which came from the bombed houses of Coventry. We also did guard duty at night.
Following a short leave on 25th Feb. 1944 I was posted to the Aircrew despatch Centre at Heaton Park, Manchester. On the 13th March I was posted to what had been No. 17 Initial Training Wing at Scarborough. During the first parade the CO asked if anyone was a model maker? I voluntered [sic]!! Solid wooden models of aircraft used for aircraft recognition training had “disappeared” and they were on the CO's inventory, my job was in the workshop to make as many models as possible! At night I sometimes did guard duty down on the coast armed with a Sten Gun.
On 26th of March I was posted to the ex No. 2 Itw at Cambridge which was in Pembroke College (didn’t do much there except scive [sic] to escape route marches).
On 6th of April posted again! This time to RAF Waltham, No 100 Squadron Lancasters where I packed thousands of incendary [sic] bombs and worked the Squdn office.
Back to Heaton Park on 20.05.44. 31st May 44 posted to RAF Bourne (near Cambridge) 105 Squdn Mosquitos [sic]. There I Assisted [sic] in Operating [sic] the “Sandra” light, a searchlight which was turned on to shine vertically when the Mosquitos [sic] were returning from a raid to assist them to pinpoint the airfield.
Back to Heaton Park on 18th July 44. This was another delay in aircrew training and I was given the option of staying at Heaton Park, volunteering to help on farms of going to London to do bomb damage repairs! I voluntered [sic] to go to London. (a good choice!) We were stationed at RAF Hornchurch and each morning we paraded in a hanger and given details of where a doodle bug had landed and where bomb damage repairs were needed. There were about 20 of us in my squad with a Flt Sgt in charge, we had our own troop carrier equipped with all the necessary tools with
[page break]
which to replace dislodged roofing tiles, repair broken windows (a yellow waterproof material) plaster board to replace bomb damaged ceilings.
We operated from Hornchurch from the 3rd August 44 until 5th December (No 55 repair unit). On 6th Dec. we were moved to operate from 55 RU at Kew. On 2nd Jan. 45 we went to RAF Hendon to repair and clear the remains of a barrack block which had received a direct hit by a V 1 at 7 o’clock one evening (not a pleasant task which involved picking up body parts when clearing rubble).
Back once more to Heaton Park on 8th of Feb. to be kitted out with tropical kit for flying training in Southern Rhodesia! We boarded Royal Mail Ship “Andes” at Liverpool and sailed for Cape Town. On route we called in at Freetown to take on water and amuse ourselves by throwing in coins for the natives to pick up from the deep. Natives would dive under the ship if you threw in a silver coin, some rotten blighters wrapped up pennies in silver paper. You had to block up your ears to avoid hearing the VERY strong natives language when they discovered how they had been fooled!
We arrived at Cape Town on about the 1st march and boarded a beautiful steam train to take us to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia. I think it took 2 days and a night. Each carriage had bunks to sleep 6. A fascinating journey through the middle of South Africa. We arrived at Bulawayo on the 4th march and spent 12 days there to become aclimateised [sic] to being several thousand feet above sea level.
On the 16th March (45) I went to No 26 EFTS at RAF Guinea Fowl, near Gwelo to start my pilot training on Fairchild Cornell aircraft. My
[page break]
instructor was Sgt Bruce. The weather every day was clear blue skys [sic]. After 7 hours 40 mins I was sent on my firs [sic] solo in the Cornell.
On the 25th May ’45 I was posted to No. 22 Service flying Training School at RAF Thornhill, near Gwelo flying Harvards. My instructor on Harvards was Pilot Officer Pearce. After 3 hrs 40 min I did my first solo flight in the Harvard. Within just a few days of receiving my Pilots Wings along came VJ DAY, The end of the 2nd World War. ALL FLYING TRAINING Ceased!!
We were all called on parade and told we were to return home. We were given two alternatives! We could either await our demob date or sign on for 3 years plus 4 years on reserve and continue with our flying training at home. I chose the latter!
We all returned to Cape Town to await our boat home to England. I had four wonderful weeks in Cape Town climbing the mountains and learning to surf at Muzenburg.
On the 10th October we boarded the RMS Del Pacifico for home. On the way we called in at James town, St Helena (where Napoleon was ‘imprisoned’) We arrived back in England on 29th Oct 45 and spent 5 days at West Kirby. After a short leave I was sent to RAF Stansted where we had to unload and store in the hangers there oceans of equipment from closing RAF Stations.
From 28th Nov to 18th Jan I was at no 27 Aircrew Holding Centre at RAF Bircham Newton.
On 18th Jan 46 I started flying training again at No 6 Sfts, Little Rissington, on Harvards. The Station closed on the 9th April and we moved to No 6 SFTS at RAF Tern Hill where I received my RAF Pilots Wings, at long last !!! on 3rd September 1946.
After some leave I went to Aircrew GST at RAF Locking near Weston Super Mare.
[page break]
More detatchments [sic]! first at RAF Church Lawford from 25 Jan 47 to 28 April 47. The station was training Naval Pilots, I got in a little flying on Harvards. From 28th April to 7th May I was at RAF Kirton in Lindsey where I acted as Despatch Rider on a 500cc Norton!! until 7th May 47.
Much to my surprise I then went to 242 Sqdn, Oakington and 511 Sqdn as second pilot on Avro Yorks! Route flying to India carrying freight and (on the side) trading bicycle tyres in Iraqu and buying carpets in Karachi in India!!! Nice profits!!
This was from 7th May 47 to 26 Aug 47.
27 th Aug I went to No. 2 PRFU at RAF Valley to qualify on Oxfords and Ansons. On 30th Oct 47 I went to
No 201 AFS RAF Swinderby to qualify as pilot on Vickers Wellingtons.
I qualified as pilot on Wellingtons and on 1.3.48 attended No 1 Navigation Staff Pilots Course at RAF Topcliffe flying Oxfords, Ansons & Wellingtons.
On 7.6.48 I went as a Staff Pilot at no 2 Air Navigation School to Fly ut navigators on Wellingtons A most enjoyable time flying all over England almost every day and night with ut Navigators on board.
On 7.8.49 I was offered a Commision [sic] if I stayed in the RAF and signed on again. I opted to take my release so as to go home and join my lovely wife, Evelyn, having married her on the 26th August 1948!
My six Years [sic] in the RAF was so enjoyable and a really wonderful expierience [sic]. Looking back it seemed like a lifetime!
I went on to farm until 1966 when I went as a Fulltime Officer in The Royal Observer Corps rising to the rank of Commander.
I retired at 60 in 1985!!!!
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
Geoff Paine's time in the RAF
Description
An account of the resource
A five page document recording Geoff's time in the R.A.F. from August 1943 until August 1949, in addition to his flying career as a pilot he undertook many other tasks as the aircrew training machine wound down.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Geoff Paine
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five typewritten pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Memoir
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BPaineGHPaineGHv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jan Waller
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1946
100 Squadron
105 Squadron
Anson
Cornell
Flying Training School
Harvard
incendiary device
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Mosquito
Oxford
RAF Ansty
RAF Bourn
RAF Grimsby
RAF Hendon
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Swinderby
RAF Ternhill
RAF Topcliffe
Royal Observer Corps
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1278/19442/PParkerJJ1617.2.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Parker, John Joseph
J J Parker
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer John Joseph Parker (1062881, 121671 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, heirlooms and photographs. He served as ground personnel.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ann Pilbeam and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-15
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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Parker, JJ
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[two photographs]
Inscribed watch/compass
Combined watch / compass inscribed 'To F/O Parker from Ansty H.G.
[page break]
1.
[underlined] The Watch! [/underlined] April 8th 1994
Sometimes life is like a jig-saw puzzle and it is often many years before the pieces fit together.
As long as I can remember, my father has had a watch. It is on a leather strap and has a clock face surmounted by a compass face.
It is inscribed on the back/ To F/O Parker from Ansty H. G.
I always knew my father had been stationed with R.A.F. at the flying school at Ansty and that the watch had been given him when he left.
Yesterday myself, husband Rob and youngest son, John visited Coventry. I had nevr been before. I was impressed and moved by the ruins of the old cathedral merging with the glory of the new one.
We went into a visitors’ centre and watched a film on the bombing and rebuilding of Coventry. I learnt things I never knew. 500lb of bombs in German planes brought over on the night of Nov. 15th 1940. A city reduced to rubble with great loss of life. The hopelessness of a situation which incredibly quickly turned into building for the future.
The next day we visited my father and he asked how we enjoyed our day and
[page break]
2.
and what we thought of the cathedral and the new.
And then he said
“I WAS THERE”
There is so much about his war experiences that we know nothing of. This was to be one of them – now to be told 54 years after the event.
He was stationed at Ansty (we saw the sign yesterday). He was there in November 1940 – a month before I was born.
On the evening of Nov. 15th Coventry’s ordeal began. Father said the bombing lasted from dusk until dawn and Coventry lit up the sky.
At dawn, about 2,000 men, including my father, were taken in Coventry. Amidst the smoking rubble they helped to bring out those alive and the dead. Often the search was slow and impeded by those grieving when members of their family were young dead. Sometimes when working on a house or in a garden a fire would suddenly start up again and flames would shoot up.
Many families began to collect their few belongings and make their way out of the city to sleep on the road sides. They had cardboard or wooden boards to sleep on. But also were many people travelling into the city from other places, anxious for news of family and friends.
My father said they worked for
[page break]
3.
days, eating and drinking on site until the search for people was over and dangerous rubble had been cleared.
[underlined] P.S. [/underlined] I took the watch to Judith Miller from the Antiques Road Show (2015) and she was fascinated by the story. She could and would not put a value on it – just priceless she said!
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
Inscribed watch/compass
Description
An account of the resource
Combined watch / compass inscribed 'To F/O Parker from Ansty H.G. and a note written by John Joseph Parker's daughter.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Format
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Watch/compass
Language
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eng
Type
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Physical object
Identifier
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PParkerJJ1616, PParkerJJ1617
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1994-04-08
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Coventry
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940-11-14
1940-11-15
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
bombing
heirloom
RAF Ansty
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1072/11530/APetersC150428.1.mp3
4b4db26db9a98983d38ba4614e6d0b76
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
Peters, Cyril
Cyril Ebenezer Peters
C E Peters
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Cyril Peters DFC (1331907 Royal Air Force). He served as a flying instructor at the Advanced Flying Training School, RAF South Cerney and flew operations as a pilot with 77 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-04-28
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Peters, C
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MJ: This is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre with —
CP: Flight lieutenant.
MJ: Flight Lieutenant Cyril Peters DFC.
CP: Air Force at Cambridge in 1940 when I was nineteen. I was attested, sworn in and given a number 1331907 and sent to Uxbridge for three days assessment training. At the end of my three days at Uxbridge I was informed that I was accepted as U/T aircrew and should wear a white flash in my forage cap. Initial training was done at Scarborough at Number 10 Initial Training Wing, living in the Grand Hotel which the RAF had requisitioned. Fifty two of us on the course for two months. At Scarborough we battled with navigation, instruments, air frames, engines, Morse code — sending and receiving eight or nine words per minute. Guns. I learned to take a machine gun apart to bits and put it back together again. Never ever fired on in anger but I could take one to bits. Air Force law. You name it we studied it as well as running up and down the hills at Scarborough with a full pack and rifle. Ostensibly to instil discipline into us. At the end of the course we were on parade outside the Grand Hotel in three ranks with our kit bags when were marched around to stores. We broke off in single file and walked to the stores and inside we were each given some extra kit which we stuffed in the top of our kit bags and kept our mouths shut. We had long since learned that if you opened your mouth to ask the simplest and most sensible of questions it was deemed you were challenging authority. You were charged with the offence and you would either get seven or fourteen days jankers. So we kept our mouth shut. We were trained from Scarborough.
[Telephone ringing.]
CP: Excuse me.
[Recording paused]
CP: We were trained from Scarborough and after a brief stop in Manchester we arrived at Gourock where we boarded the French liner the Louis Pasteur. In the very early ‘30s the Louis Pasteur had held the Blue Ribband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic. She was a twenty five knot liner but how many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of U/T aircrew were on the Louis Pasteur I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess. There were thousands on board. She was bursting at the seams. We steamed off into the North Sea with a cruiser ahead, a destroyer either side as escort and we belted across the North Sea like a dose of salts. In a matter of two and a half, three days we were berthed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, had been trained down to Toronto and after two weeks in Toronto were informed our flying training was to be done in America. In Arizona. At number 4 British Flying Training School. BFTS. A flight sergeant was put in charge and we were put on the train at Toronto for Chicago. When we reached Port Huron which, I think was the last station on the Canadian side the flight sergeant shouted out, ‘Get your civvies out and put them on and put your cap badge in your lapel so I shall know who you,’ so and so’s, ‘are.’ Being a flight sergeant in ‘41 I can assure you he wasn’t interested in so and so’s. His language was far more colourful. So I opened my kit bag and there on the top were civvies which we took out and put on and we put our cap badge in our lapel as chiefy had told us so knew who we so and so’s were. We had to enter America as civilians. The American government weren’t sticking their necks out by entertaining foreign troops in their country at all. We were civilians. When we arrived in Chicago, at the terminal in Chicago from Toronto the [pause] Chicago is like London. Once you go into one terminal and you need to go out in another direction you had to change terminals. The taxis that had been employed to transport us to the other terminal drove on the platform, up to within a foot of the carriage in which we were travelling. And I reckon, with luck I stepped one foot on the platform and with my kitbag I was in the taxi. And lined up in two rows just outside the taxis, the whole length of the platform, motorcycle police wheel to wheel. And as soon as we were all on board the taxis we drove through Chicago with a police escort either side. And when we reached the other terminal the same applied. The taxis drove on the platform to within a yard of the carriage in which we were to travel and again I reckon, with luck, I stepped one foot on the platform with my kit bag — I was in the carriage. And lined up, in two rows just outside of the taxis, the whole length of the platform, motorcycle police wheel to wheel. And as soon as we were all on board the train moved off. Very slickly organised. The train journey across America was three or four days. The train stopped every night at 6 o’clock for thirty minutes so we got out and wandered around. One of the drivers blew his hooter at twenty five past so you ran like a stag and made the train to clamber on because when he started at half past six you knew he wouldn’t stop until the next night at 6 o’clock. You had to be on board. We got off in Arizona at a town called Mesa. Mesa is situated about fifty miles due south of the capital, Phoenix and we were bussed ten to twelve miles out into the desert to 4 BFTS. We were classified as Number 4 course at 4 BFTS. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 had done their previous six, twelve and eighteen week training under the American Air Force at Thunderbird Field and they came in to 4 BFTS just before we arrived. When we arrived there was a hut for the sheriff, for his rifle and twin revolvers. There were four corner accommodation blocks over an area of desert. No paths. No tarmac. No nothing. Anywhere. There was a mess hut because they’d got to feed us and a control tower. That was it. Twelve rows of aeroplanes. Four rows of Harvards — the 86s, the advanced trainer. Four rows of Vultee — the intermediate trainer. And four rows of Stearmans — the primary trainer. And that’s it. This 4 BFTS was a private venture by Southwest Airways Incorporated. And boy oh boy did they ever get their fingers out. In a matter of three or four weeks the area inside the four corner accommodation blocks was grass. On it had been built a cadet lounge with easy chairs and magazines from England which we could enjoy if we had time from our studies. All the paths were laid. A parade ground had been put down. One hangar was completely built and the second was half way up. Considering that was a private venture they really got their fingers out. We started flying September 1941. Fifty two of us. On March the 13th 1942 — thirty two of us. Twenty had been scrubbed for lack of aptitude. We were on parade outside our accommodation block in three ranks. We were marched around to stores. We broke off in single file and walked to stores and inside we were each given a handful of sergeant’s stripes, a pair of wings, made to sign for them and told to bog off and sew them on. A most intriguing and surprising Wings Parade. And the next day we left Mesa for Chicago, Canada and home. Pearl Harbour had occurred early December ’41. From this time America were in an emergency and we were allowed to wear uniform the whole time. In camp, out of camp, anytime. So we were coming back to Chicago in uniform. And boy oh boy what a difference that kick up the backside had made to the Chicagoans. A more friendly, likeable, pleasurable people it would have been difficult to meet. Had I accepted all the two hundred packets of Camels and Lucky Strikes I’d been offered I should have needed a trailer to have towed them in. Very generous. Very warm. Very friendly. We enjoyed, we walked, we enjoyed our walk through to the other terminal. We were, we left Chicago and we were trained in to Canada. To Moncton. And at Moncton we boarded the steamship Banfora. SS Banfora. A pre-war cattle ship. And I say this quite simply because a contingent of the Canadian army marched on the Banfora to come with us to the UK and join their compatriots and with fifteen minutes they walked off. You could stuff it. They certainly weren’t going to travel on such rubbish accommodation, not on your nelly. It didn’t matter to the powers that be. They merely filled it with aircrew. They knew we daren’t mutiny. If we did we would either be shot or clapped in jail. And so we came home in convoy, on the Banfora, a pre-war cattle ship. The American instructors had recommended me for single engine day fighters. Spits and Hurris which is what I wanted. When I got back to the UK the lords at the Air Ministry decided my single engine aeroplanes should be a Tiger Moth and a Magister. I was sent to Number 6 Flying Instructor’s School operating at Scone near Perth in Scotland and within two months I was a qualified flying instructor to teach basic exercises to solo standard. Not to wing standard. Just to solo standard. So we taught straight and level flying, medium turns left and right, gliding turns left and right, climbing turns left and right, take offs and landings and taxiing control on the ground. That was all. And I had eight students. Four in the morning. Four in the afternoon. And detailed to fly five hours every day. The locals at Scone had convinced us that the only way to enjoy their honey was to drink it neat and chase it with a half pint of beer, a whisky beer chaser. And I could buy a whisky beer chaser in Scone mess for eight old pence. That’s just over tuppence in modern parlance. And I was sure, when it came time to my posting from the flying school there was nowhere in England where I could buy a whisky beer chaser for eight old pence so I elected to stay at Scone. I did my first year or so at Scone. It was July the 13th ’43 when I received the King’s pleasure — was appointed to a King’s Commission and posted to 11 EFTS – to 9 EFTS operating at Ansty near Coventry. I arrived at Ansty, reported to my boss, the wing commander flying. He didn’t want me at Ansty. His four flights were full but his two flights at his satellite at Southam needed instructors so I was sent to Southam. I got to Southam and I reported to the CO. The flight lieutenant. He said to me, ‘Here at Southam we’ve got twenty Tiger Moths. Bowsers to feed them. If you want a bed tonight to lay your head on you’d better get in to Southam and find one. If not – hard luck.’ So I pulled into Southam and I got digs with an elderly widow, Mrs Paxton who had living with her her nephew Ted. Ted was a very highly skilled motor mechanic who for years had been servicing all the police vehicles in the area and the police were determined not to lose him. So they made him a war reserve copper which kept him there all the war to do their servicing. To get from Ansty, from Southam dead across country to the village where I was born, Gamlingay which was between Biggleswade and St Neots on the A1, a little bit east of that, if it was a short leave I barely got to Gamlingay in time to turn around and come back. And I said to Ted, ‘I’d better buy myself a vehicle.’ So he said, ‘Well if you go along to the local garage they’ve got two.’ So I went along and they had a 1929 Austin 7 with a part fabric body, reconditioned engine – ten pounds. They had a 1931 Austin 7 with a non-reconditioned engine – five pounds. I knew that my, that the fuel on my vehicle would have would always be at least fifty percent paraffin so I opted for the non-reconditioned engine. Five pounds. Registration number HX 4819. She smoked well but by God she went well. I kept her and a year later when I’d been posted to Yorkshire I sold her for a tenner. So she did me proud did old HX 4819. The Rolls Royce works at Ansty had been completing the building of the Mosquito aircraft before flight testing them and delivering them to squadrons for operational use. And it was quite obvious in very early spring of ’44 that Mosquitoes were far more urgently required than pilots because snap you fingers over night the EFTS was shut down. There wasn’t a Tiger Moth in the vicinity and twenty of us pilots had been posted to an Advanced Flying Unit at South Cerney near Cirencester in Gloucester flying the twin-engined Airspeed Oxford for eighty hours. So we got out but on the bomber trail not the fighter. After AFU the next stage was OTU. Kinloss, the satellite at Forres. Forres, the satellite of Kinloss had just emptied its crews out to the next stage of training so a whole batch of us were posted in to fill it up again. Here we were to fly the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, the old flying coffin. Flat out, nose down, one twenty indicated if you were lucky. A pre-war bomber. Ye Gods. The second day at Forres we were detailed to report to a large briefing room. Inside were every aircrew trade. Pilots, navs, bombs, wops, gunners. No engineers. We didn’t need engineers on the Whitley. And here we crewed up and I started picking my crew. I saw a pilot officer bomb aimer, six foot three, built like a tank. And I thought Ye Gods what a great asset he’d be if later on you were at a local pub and got in a fix. So I went over to him and I said, ‘You’ve got yourself a skipper. I’m Pete.’ He said, ‘I’m Cliff. Cliff Lamb. And I know a navigator.’ I said, ‘Dig him out.’ So we dived in the motley throng and he dug out a five foot, a pilot officer navigator. Five foot nothing. Slim as a bean pole. Pilot Officer J E E Viella. John Viella. Black hair, black eyes. I said, ‘Ok John. You’ve got yourself a skipper. I’m Pete. What cooks?’ ‘Father ran from Mussolini in the early ‘30s to London. I’ve done all my schooling in London. I’m in my second year of accountancy and I’ve joined the air force. How long have you been flying?’ Which rather took me aback. I said, ‘Since 1941.’ ‘How many hours have you done?’ ‘I don’t know. Twelve, thirteen hundred.’ ‘Well we’d better get ourselves a couple of gunners and a W/op.’ He thought I’d just transferred trades and I would have what anyone normally through the trade would be. About two hundred and fifty hours. I’d been kicking around a bit longer. The three of us saw a gunner on his own by the side of the room holding a bottle and we three agreed anybody holding a bottle, irrespective of what was in it, was recommending himself. So we went over to him and said, ‘You’ve got yourself a crew. I’m Pete. The skipper.’ He said ‘I’m Sergeant GWC Jack from Grantown on Spey. I’m nineteen and I’m a rear gunner.’ We said, ‘Smashing job, you’re in.’ He said, ‘I know a mid-upper and a W/op.’ We said, ‘Go and dig him out.’ So he went and dug out Sergeant Haines, a mid-upper. Sergeant Will the W/op. We had a full crew. Our work on the Whitley was eighty hours. Usually in six, roughly six hour cross country’s day or night. On each cross country there’d be some bombing practice for the bomb aimer and some gunnery practice for the gunners. We had trouble with our wireless op. On every trip after an hour, after two hours he pronounced his radio unserviceable. Took it to bits and spread all the bits over [coughs] sorry.
[recording paused]
CP: And he took his radio to bits and spread it over the floor of the Whitley which meant that from that time the navigator never ever received any help from the radio for his navigation. Thank the lord he was an ace. Give John a minute with his sextant on the sun, moon, any star. He knew all the constellations. Betelgeuse. Cassiopeia. I got an exact fix. Never ever on any operation day or night was I ever off course. Which is why I’m alive today and talking to you in my nineties. He was brilliant without a shadow of a doubt. This culminated in the last trip. We’d landed. We were in dispersal doing our rundown checks and switching off. And I called to Will, ‘Get your things together, pack your bags and bog off. You’re out.’ And his great chum, the mid-upper, Haines said, ‘I’ll go with him.’ Now, when you get rid of two bits of dead wood from your crew at the drop of a hat there’s only one reason. Old Lady Luck is firmly on your shoulders, and she’s been there ever since. We were posted to an Advanced Flying Unit – Marston Moor, where they were flying the four-engined Halifax Mark 2 and Mark 5. Fifty hours. We picked up our engineer, Sergeant Ted Millington. We had, at the end of our six we were posted to 77 Squadron operating at full Sutton on the Halifax. Full Sutton is near Elvington. We arrived at Full Sutton and when you get [pause] — ages, I was twenty three. The navigator John and the engineer Ted were twenty two. Jock in the tail was nineteen. We managed to pick ourselves up a spare wireless op, Ross, Ross Tinian. A flight sergeant. Ross and Cliff, the bomb aimer they were both old men. They were twenty eight. They were old geezers. So we had a crew without a mid-upper gunner but when we got to a squadron every time I operated I had either Flying Officer Harris as my mid-upper or Flying Officer Davis. Davis was an Aussie. And I was lucky. Everytime they either flew with me. On the two occasions when I didn’t have Harris then I had Davis. So I was very lucky. Once you get to a squadron you’re converted to their aircraft and they were flying the Halifax Mark 3 with radials. And the difference between the Mark 2 and 5 and a Mark 3 was phenomenal. I could get a Mark 3 with a full bomb and fuel load up to twenty thousand plus without any trouble at all. I would have been poorly placed to have got a Mark 2 or a 5 up beyond twelve, fourteen thousand feet, without a shadow of doubt. The difference was quite remarkable. After you’re converted you’re detailed to fly second pilot with an experienced crew and I flew with Flight Lieutenant Taylor and his crew. A night operation to the Ruhr, to Essen — six and a half hours. It was Flight Lieutenant Taylor’s twenty ninth trip so he’d got one more to do before he got a fresh job. Then I was detailed to fly with Flying Officer Charlesworth. Again to the Ruhr. A night trip. Six and a half hours to Duisburg. It was Charlesworth’s fifteenth trip so he’d got fifteen more to do before he got a fresh job. And then I was as free as the air to operate with my own crew. And the first target we bombed was Bingen. Bingen was a town way, way south on the Rhine. Its claim to notoriety was the fact it had fairly extensive marshalling yards. And through those marshalling yards regularly, numerous times weekly, came troop trains loaded with reinforcements from Austria and from Munich for the German front line. And a hundred and five of us were sent out this night cock up the contract. Pick off the marshalling yards and apparently intelligence found out for us afterwards we’d done a good job because no more [laughs] no more troop trains ever came through Bingen from then on. At the end of that trip we were in dispersal doing rundown checks and switching it off and I said to myself, ‘Pete if that was an indication of what you’re tour is going to be like. You’ve got it made. You’re going to make this.’ I’d seen little, no flak on the way in to the target, over the target, out from the target. On the way home we hadn’t been molested or searched for or shot at. It had been a piece of doddle. You get stupid thoughts when you’re twenty three and in charge of a bomber don’t you? I’d like now to give you this map. And this was an actual map of a trip that I did on my eighth trip on my tour to an oil refinery in between Bohlen and Dresden and Leipzig. In the Dresden area between Leipzig and Chemnitz. Our boss, Bomber Harris insisted concentrated bombing was vital. He insisted concentrated bombing often swamped defences and once you got defences swamped then the middle and end of an attack could be as accurate as the opening. If you’re going to swamp, if you are going, and four hundred of us were detailed to bomb Bohlen this night. The four hundred of us would go through. The first hundred at seventeen thousand feet. Five minutes. The second hundred, eighteen thousand feet. Five minutes. The third hundred, nineteen thousand feet five minutes. And the rest twenty thousand five minutes. Twenty minutes — the job’s done. Two thousand tonnes of bombs on the ground. When you think that the Germans, the most weight of bombing they dropped on us was three or four hundred tons, you can understand two thousand just swamps them. They had nothing to fight against it at all. And we thought this was smashing. We thought Bomber Harris deserved a pat on the back for that. We thought that was smashing. If you’re going to control your area you’ve got to, if you’re going to concentrate them you’ve got to control them and so Bomber Command laid down the route we were to fly and I must admit considerable thought had been given to these routes that they gave us. We were detailed this night to leave base at nine thousand feet and we left there at nine thousand feet. Flying due south to Reading at one seven five. When we were going to this part of Germany we always turned over Reading. It gave the locals a morale booster if they heard four or five hundred bombers going out. They’d think, ‘By crikey somebody’s getting their backside kicked tonight. We hope the boys come back.’ We hoped we all came back too. From Reading we turned south easterly and we flew over the English coast at C, the French coast at D, to position E. From E we flew due, roughly due easterly to F. Still at 175. Now if you can continue that line from E to F straight on with your fingers it’s making for Frankfurt, Mannheim, Mainz. So if you’re defending Germany and you’ve picked up the stream you think that’s the target and you can get your night fighters up around. Once we get the night fighters up they could only be up two hours and then they had to go home for a drink. We’re going to be four hours to the target and four hours back again. So it’s good if we can get them up. But long before we get anywhere near Frankfurt, Mannheim, Mainz we turn north easterly to G. Now, on this leg we change from 160 [pause] from 175 to 160 so we’re climbing. We’re climbing to bombing height and so you can say I’m at seventeen thousand feet before I get to G. And G is actually just about, if you move it with your finger is going for Kassel. Fresh target. Before we get anywhere near Kassel at G we turn a little bit more to the east to H. Still at 160. But if you follow a route from G to H with your fingers it’s making for Leipzig. Fresh target. And this was how it was done. To fool up the German defences. We’re changing. We’re going to — because after H we turn north easterly and we’re actually making for Berlin. And he were always dodgy about Berlin. But long before we got anywhere near Berlin at I we turned just below due east and to J. And here we’re just north of Leipzig so that there’s no danger and then we turn on our bombing run to K. At 160, Cliff, the bomb aimer sat in the seat on my right all the trip until we got to the target area when he slid down, went to the nose of the aeroplane. Got his bomb sight ready. And his job now — he had, two jobs, two things. First to identify the target. He’d seen stacks of photographs and pictures of the target at main briefing and the wing commander had given tremendous insight into it. He now had to select it on the ground and pick it out. Once he’d got it picked out then he had to make sure it crossed his bomb sight on the centre line to the aiming point when he pressed the button. Bombs gone. As the skipper, once you heard, ‘Bombs gone,’ your natural inclination was to shove on full power and belt the hell out of there. But that wasn’t possible because when he, when he pressed the button, bombs gone he activated the camera and the camera took five pictures one after the other across the target in thirty seconds. During those thirty seconds you were allowed to increase your speed by ten. That was a big morale booster I can assure you. Once you got an indication from your dash that the camera had finished then it was full power up to two hundred and belt the hell out of there. Once we left the target our speed is now two ten and after five minutes from the target we’d lower height to seven thousand feet. And we fly back over Germany at seven thousand feet until we come to Frankfurt, Mannheim, Mainz where there’s light flak to twelve so we climb up to fourteen. Keep at fourteen until we’re well clear and then we let down to eight thousand feet. And we fly at eight thousand feet via Reading back to the Humber. At the Humber we let down to two thousand feet and join Full Sutton and land. My trip was a little bit different. We set course at nine thousand feet for Reading. We turned across the English coast at C, the French coast at D, to position E. From E we flew to F at one seven five. From F we got our climbing one sixty. And at seventeen thousand feet we level. And after G the starboard inner engine decided to pack up. There was no flak. No night fighters. It was a pure mechanical failure. So it was switch off, fuel off, feather the prop. Speed now back to one forty and I needed left rudder to keep straight. I now had the option of coming back. Dropping down four thousand feet, turning one eighty degrees and coming home on my tod with a full bomb load. I hadn’t got a full petrol load. Of the just under two thousand gallons I started with I’d probably used up three fifty, four hundred but I’d still got sixteen hundred gallons left which was a lot of fuel. If they couldn’t pick me up to predict me they’d alerted a couple of fighters to come up and shoot me down. So I said to the crew, ‘I suggest we stay with the stream, using them for cover.’ When there are four hundred of you every radar screen is covered on the ground. Swamped. And instead of bombing at H plus 4 which was my time on target we’d bomb at H plus twenty at the end of the attack. And instead of bombing at seventeen thousand feet we’d bomb at fourteen thousand feet. And the crew said, ‘Ok skip. Press on.’ Whenever I’d done practice flying at Full Sutton at two and three engines it had been in the Halifax with a couple of hours of fuel on board. The boys don’t fully bomb up and fully tank up an aeroplane for you to go and play with obviously. So I’d never flown one under this configuration at this height and I boobed. Instead of getting there at H plus twenty we were twenty minutes late. We got there nearer H plus forty. But our boss’s theory was right. Defences had been swamped. If there were a half a dozen gunners firing at us that was all. And that was in scare mongering. Cliff picked to go on the ground and bombed it. We took our five pictures. No question of changing speed. I was stuck at one forty and so we turned away and when we came to let down to seven thousand feet we were still at one forty. I remembered that when we were bombing the North German ports Wilhelmshaven, who were Hamburg. We had crossed the North Sea at five hundred feet above the water. When you’ve got three or four hundred bombers, each with four fans whipping around flying at five hundred feet the prop wash is a bit disturbing. So you thanked the lord when you got near the Frisian Islands and you climbed up to bombing height and stayed there. So I thought if we stayed under bombing height like that it might be an idea to go down lower than seven thousand feet. And I went down to four thousand feet. And I must admit the whole way back even through Frankfurt, Mannheim, Mainz nobody fired a gun at us. We were completely clear the whole time. We stayed on the course that they’d laid, command had laid down for us and we were probably in the Frankfurt, Mannheim, Mainz area when the starboard outer, I presume it had been keeping watch on the starboard inner all night thinking Ye Gods he has had a night off. I’ve worked my socks off for this driver. I’m fed up. I’m going to pack up but to let him know I’m going to pack up I’ll make sure there’s a slight explosion and a sheet of flame from the starboard outer which there was. And the driver recognised it was going to pack up so it was switch off, fuel off, feather the prop and I pressed the graviner button. I’d got four graviner buttons. One for each engine. And it flooded the engine with foam which I hoped would douse all flames and it did. Speed was now back to one thirty and I’d got on full left rudder. My left knee locked. That was one improbable out of the way and I controlled the attitude of the aeroplane with power. If I put on too much power the strength of the engines rolled me and turned me to the right. If I took off too much power I rolled and turned to the left. So it was a case of juggling. We ran into cloud. Clouds are very handy. You can hide in it. We knew night fighters were around but this cloud contained icing to the extent that I was rather concerned if we stayed in it indefinitely the build up might be awkward. So we had to get out of it. To go below it might be a problem because it could be on the ground. So it was a case of climbing out of it. To climb I needed power. So it was a case increasing power very slightly so that I could still keep the wings level and keep straight and wait. Wait for my slight increase of power to give me a slight increase of speed, five and whip that five into height ten feet and wait for my five. Another ten feet. There was no panic. We were three seventy, three hundred and seventy five four hundred miles to England, it would take me a good two and a half hours at least to get there so there so was no hurry. And we uched, jigged, gripped our way up to six thousand five hundred feet. We were clear of cloud and I reckoned six five would be ok to cross the drink to UK. So we levelled at six five. I now checked with the nav, with Johnny. I was a bit concerned at the time we’d taken to uch up to six. And he confirmed what I thought, we were nearing the front line. This thought was under the auspices of the trigger happy American gunners and our own gunners, neither of whom liked aero engines. They shot, the American gunners shot them out of the sky irrespective of whose they were. Our own gunners were a bit more selective. So I called the W/op and said, ‘Break the seal on the IFF and switch it to distress.’ In his compartment he had a six inch square back box. The IFF. Identification Friend or Foe. It had a switch that was off, that was wired off and on the wire was a seal. And the wireless ops were warned by the signals leaders back at Full Sutton that if on any trip they interfered with that seal on the strip they’d be court martialled. But this was an emergency. Ross broke the seal, switched it on and immediately, way on the port horizon came three airfield sandra lights. The searchlights at the corner of the airfield intertwining. And on the starboard horizon three more. These were two emergency airfields. That was Woodbridge in Suffolk and that was Manston in Kent. They had picked up our emergency drill and lit themselves up. I made for Manston. When I reached Manston I did the circuit. When I was nicely placed on base leg I throttle back, did a glide approach and landing on the amber runway. Once we were on the ground I used my inner engine to get me through the red runway on to the peri track when I stopped and switched off. Waited for a tractor to come and hook on and tow us in, which they did. They picked us up, took us, debriefed, fed us, bedded. Sleeping in full flying kit that night I think we kept warm. They got us up in the morning. Fed us. Gave us a warrant to London, across to Kings Cross and up to York. And when we walked on the platform at Kings Cross station of the York train we had a bit of a snozzle. The very first compartment we came to, there was no corridor, had a great big notice filling one window completely — “Reserved for crashed aircrew.” And this got the billy goat of our rear gunner. He snatched the door open, ripped it off the window and tore it to shreds and threw it down. ‘What the hell are they talking about? We haven’t had a crash landing. We made a normal landing. Get their facts right.’ ‘It doesn’t matter Jock. We’ve got a compartment. Let’s get in.’ We were all carrying our parachutes. When you’d signed for your parachute you didn’t leave it out of your sight. If you didn’t hand it back in it could cost you sixty or seventy quid to replace and that was a lot of money then. We were carrying — we were in full flying kit. We got in, dumped our stuff, got to York and we were picked up. Taken to Full Sutton. When we reached full Sutton my immediate boss, the wing commander flying, wanted a full report of our sortie which I gave him. And three weeks later I was in the mess and I picked up the Daily Mail, and on the, on the front page were headlines, “Two engines failed but he went on.” And when I saw it I thought well goodness me some other geezer’s having a bash at this. But reading the article it was talking of Flight Lieutenant Peters and his trip over Germany. And some three weeks later I was called in to the CO’s office of group captains. Inside was our AOC, the group captain and my immediate boss Wing Commander Forbes. And the AOC pinned a bit of this ribbon under my wings, congratulated me and wished me a safe and satisfactory tour as did the group captain and Wing Commander Forbes. And that was it. Many many many many many many many months later my Distinguished Flying Cross arrived by post with an apologetic letter from the king. He was sorry he couldn’t hand it to me personally. He was far too busy. Probably handing out awards to sportsmen. Anyway, he sent it by post and he wished me a long and happy life. And considering I’m now in my ninety fourth year and still pressing on he was right.
[recording paused]
After leaving the air force I went into teaching. I taught until 1952 when I returned to flying with air work at Royal Air Force Digby flying the Tiger Moth. After a year flying Tiger Moths I returned to the air force in which I served for fifteen years. Finishing at Royal Air Force College, Cranwell. I then returned to education in Sleaford and finished up my education in ’86 when I retired and I’ve been retired ever since.
MJ: This is the end of the interview with Flight Lieutenant Cyril Peters DFC on the 29th at 12:30.
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Interview with Cyril Peters
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Mick Jeffery
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2015-04-28
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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APetersC150428
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00:44:32 audio recording
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Cyril Peters joined the Royal Air Force at Cambridge in 1940 and trained as a pilot in Canada and the United States. On his return to Great Britain he served as an instructor before flying operations as a pilot with 77 Squadron. He became a teacher after the war.
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Canada
Great Britain
Germany
United States
England--Kent
England--Yorkshire
Arizona--Phoenix
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bingen (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
New Brunswick--Moncton
Nova Scotia--Halifax
Arizona
New Brunswick
Nova Scotia
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
4 BFTS
77 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
British Flying Training School Program
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Harvard
Initial Training Wing
military service conditions
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Elvington
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Manston
RAF Marston Moor
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/13/ADerringtonAP150715-01.2.mp3
2af1448baa606754816904ab2f0786c3
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Derrington, Arnold Pearce
Arnold Pearce Derrington
Arnold P Derrington
Arnold Derrington
A P Derrington
A Derrington
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Two oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Derrington, AP
Date
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2015-07-15
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and I am conducting an interview with Doctor Arnold Pierce Derrington and we are in his house in Cornwall and we are going to talk about his experiences over the years in the RAF but starting off in his early days and then after the war with his civilian career. Today is the 14th July 2015 and I’m asking Derry to start in the early days. What was your background Derry and how did all of that progress?
DD: Well I was a child in Devon. I came to Cornwall at the age of eighteen months to live at St Erth. That’s still my model village and I was there until about 1930 and the family had grown by then and we moved to Marazion near St Michael’s Mount and I had my childhood days there. Very happy memories of Marazion and I still see friends from there and still hear from there.
I had a friend living nearby in a place called [?] and he was a navigator too. He’d been a clerk in an agricultural merchants and the, he went into the air force, and did a tour with Coastal Command and was posted to Rhodesia where he was an instructor. When he died eventually I spread his ashes from a lifeboat in Mounts Bay. But he and I were childhood friends. We were little rogues really because his father was a policeman and the father was very incensed sometimes. Some man came to him and said someone’s put water in the petrol of my motor tank in the tank the petrol tank of my motorbike and it turned out that we two boys had done it. Very embarrassing for the policemen. That boy’s sister is still alive. She visits me occasionally.
And at Marazion I was at the county school at Penzance and never dreamed I’d be flying. I saw Alan Cobham’s Air Circus. I’ve got his little notebook here. It’s in that blue container there. Do you have it? Alan Cobham’s book. That’s it. And I have a very dear friend I haven’t seen for seventy seven years. I went to that air display with his parents. And that was an air display that flew around with trailers behind the planes saying where the display was taking place and we were talking recently about that actual airfield which is between Marazion and Haile and my mother said, ‘Don’t you dare go up flying’ and I was offered a free flight and I did say no but within ten years I’d done a tour and got a DFC. It’s amazing how things go on isn’t it?
Now, where do we go from there now? I was at Marazion in the LDV or Home Guard and when I went to college at Exeter I decided to join the LDV there. And after a month or so the University Air Squadron was opening up in Exeter and I joined that and I was at St Luke’s, Exeter which was a teacher training place and until the last two or three years there were a few of us around but I’m the last one of them still going strong. One of the chaps Archie Smith from St Austell was on the county council with my wife. She was a councillor and had a very good career about it. She ended up with an MBE.
Well I went on then to University Air Squadron from this Home Guard lot there and I’ve even got a greeting telegram somewhere from a relation congratulating me on joining this University Air Squadron. I could dig that out if you want to see a picture of it I expect.
And well it was good training. We had a, a, a commanding officer called Searle who was the head of the physics department at Exeter and he had an adjutant called Crosscut and the main chap we met from an interesting flying point of view had the Croix de Guerre. He was a rear gunner. He was badly scarred.
And from the University Air Squadron I was attested in Weston Super Mare in June 1942 and that same month I joined the air force at Lords Cricket Ground. Our first payday, first money I’d earned in my life cause having been University Air Squadron I was a leading aircraftsmen and we were very superior indeed to the AC plonks. They only got a half a crown a day. And after a short time at Lords I was posted to Manchester to await overseas posting but they discovered that I needed corrective goggles so I was sent down to Brighton Aircrew Dispersal Wing, ACDW and had a very happy time there staying in a huge great hotel, sleeping on rough beds at the Hotel Metropole. And there was another one The Grand there was well and the [air?] parade still took place in those days and we saw some of the rather shaky soldiers who came back from there.
And from ACDW I was posted to grading school Ansty near Coventry. I was made into, well I did fly in a Tiger Moth but I was made into as a navigator and I’m very glad I was because it kept me going during the very horrible times that we were doing operations. I had my head down getting on with the job. I did look out a time or two but it was so horrific I got back to my base very soon and from the grading school I went to Blackpool waiting for overseas posting and from Liverpool I sailed to South Africa. It wasn’t straightforward because we were afraid of the submarines that might have damaged us so we went across the coast to America and then back again to freestone, Freetown and then from Freetown down around the Cape to Durban. We didn’t get off the boat at all. I was on gun duty on oerlikons.
When we got to Durban we went to a transit camp called Clairwood and there we were thrown an empty linen case and told to stuff it with grass because that would be our palliasse bed and the toilets, they were like huge great egg racks. I think there was accommodation for about eighty. And they fed us very well. It was very nice. The novelty of South Africa was interesting indeed. I met very interesting people there who worked in the Red Shield Club and they invited us into their homes and there was one family called Thornton who had a son same age as myself training as a doctor. I’ve heard from him right until recently when he died. And when I moved away from East London to Durban, Durban to East London we did some training in the air force work there. I went up there to do night flying at a place called Aliwal North and that was a place outside the town of Queenstown. It was a very strange volcanic rock there with a big flat top called [?] and there was [?] Association and I was a member of that for a long time and correspondence kept on.
And I met a dear man who was flying beside me called Harry Dunn. Because my name came in the alphabet first before his I was graded as first navigator he was graded as second navigator. And well I did turn out to be a better one than he did because I came top of the course. But Harry came to me when we went to our next stage up at Queenstown almost in tears. He said, “My maths is no good at all. Will you coach me?” Harry was out with the girls and drinking and didn’t bother at all really. He was good company but very happy go lucky.
And well we both got through and he came back with me on the same troopship back through Tufik (?)in the Red Sea. And the Germans were still in Italy and we had a lot of women and children on board who were being repatriated from India. They were service families. And they weren’t going to take any risks. When the Germans were clear, after a fortnight in Tufik we came back through the Mediterranean and home in time for Christmas 1943. And we were very popular because we brought back things which were normally rationed.
I bought a lovely Omega watch in East London for seven pounds ten shillings and well the same watch these days is nearly two thousand pounds. I lost that but that’s another story. I’ve bought another Omega since. I navigated on that one all the way through. They issued us with proper watches but I was delighted with my Omega. And I believe I had to hand wind it. I’d rather forgotten but recently I’ve seen the certificate when I bought the watch and apparently it had to be handed in to be oiled every year. Well mine never got any oil on it at all and I navigated on it pretty well. I was very happy with it. Delighted with my Omega.
Now where have we got? Oh yes. We were posted after Christmas leave, to West Freugh to acclimatise to British conditions and we flew up and down the Hebrides. Very fascinating indeed. I saw Iona which has a church which is the same pattern as our village church here in Pendeen - cruciform. And after going to this unit at West Freugh Harry got posted off to Transport Command and I was posted to Bomber Command. We were told, ‘write your wills. You won’t be here in six weeks time.’ I thought I’d find out how Harry’s going on. No reply. Wrote his parents – no reply. So I thought, well that’s it. I still have a lovely photo of him.
And I went on from West Freugh to, let’s see, OTU at Moreton in Marsh. Operational Training Unit. And that was on Wellingtons. In the meantime Harry had gone to Canada and became a fur merchant after the Transport Command experience as a fur merchant like his father was. And twenty or fifty years later on his conscience was pricking him because he had borrowed a book from an old aunt living near Bath and he came back to England from Canada to take this book to her. She was dead. Had an uncle ten miles away. Went to see him. He was dead too. So he thought I’m so far west I’ll go down Penzance and see old Derry. He didn’t tell me he was coming. I didn’t know where he was. I hadn’t forgotten him. And that day my wife and I were taking an old lady to hospital so we weren’t there in order to see him and Harry caught the train back to [?] to stay or he hoped to stay with a [sugar bidder[?]] there that he played rugby with before the war. When he got to the a [sugar bidder[?]] house he was out but the caretaker said, “Come on in and have a meal. He’ll be back in the morning.” and he was telling his tale of the book and going down to Penzance to see an old navigator friend. And that caretaker said was that navigator called Derry Derrington. He said, “How did you know that?” “I sat beside him on thirty one operations in bomber command. He was my navigator. I was his bomb aimer.” That dear boy has died since but his wife is still alive.
So after being at West Freugh Operational Training Unit there we crewed up, six of us, because we only had Wellingtons. We weren’t on a four engine outfit so we needed a flight engineer later and we gelled as a crew very quickly. Our pilot was an Australian called Les Evans, a dairy farmer’s son and he came from a place called Kingaroy in Queensland. And Les Evans was a very good pilot. He had been an instructor. We were all good chaps. We were never, there never was as good a crew as we are. Charlie will think so too. Charlie was friendly with another gunner called Dennis Cleaver and those two had crewed up together and they were looking for somebody to join and my pilot, Les Evans chose me for his navigator. I was delighted. Didn’t care whether he was Australian or Chinese or whatever he was. He was a dear old boy.
And after Les Evans, he and I were together, we chose the oldest wireless operator we could get and that was Tom Windsor. Tom was thirty one. We thought he was our grandfather [laughs] and Tom was a good old boy with the girls. One of the joking things which Charlie and I still talk about he used to say, “I’d like as many shillings,” and what that definitely meant we don’t quite know but we could guess all sorts of things. We were quite youngsters really in our early twenties. Tom was thirty one.
And well, we had Jonah who was in antiques with his brother. I was a trainee schoolmaster just qualified. Tom Windsor was a bookies clerk and Charlie and Dennis, the gunners, were both fitters and there were six of us. And we did OTU work at Moreton in the Marsh on Wellingtons and that was good. I saw my area where I live here from the air for the first time. I had been to see Alan Cobham’s Air Circus and did a flight - very limited indeed, but this was very wonderful to see our area from the, I suppose it was about ten thousand feet.
Well from the OTU we were posted to a Heavy Conversion Unit to get used to a four engine aircraft and we picked up an engineer who had been on the Queen Mary - Jock. Dear boy. Scotsman. A wee haggis we called him and he was good. In fact we had the most hair raising experience when we were doing a flight near the Isle Of Man because he had to change the petrol tanks over every so often in order to balance the aircraft, trim it up properly and he needed to go to the elsan and whether he was there longer then he should have done or what we don’t know but two engines cut out on us and I as navigator had to hold the escape hatch open, I did, ready for the crew to bailout and we got, Jonah, no Jock the engineer came back quickly, switched the right tanks over and she picked up and there we were again but we were very dicey indeed in those days.
Well we started our tour of operations. We were posted from our Heavy Conversion Unit to Driffield in Yorkshire just about twenty miles north of Hull. A lovely peacetime station. And the pilot did a second dickey, that is to give him experience. In the meantime we did all sorts of training to keep us well and fit. And on from there we started our own tour. And the first trip was an easy one cap griz nez. It was to do with army cooperation.
The second trip is one that was probably the most momentous in our lives. It was to a flying bomb site. Now on our back from leave we’d gone through London. We’d seen the headlines - Pilotless Aircraft over England and well those were the V1s and we didn’t know what that would mean and we were told this was a highly secret operation. We were not to talk to anybody about it at all and we were going to hit this target over, in daylight, at minute intervals. And as we were going down the country toward Beachy Head some silly bounder flying alongside us pressed the wrong button and what the crew were saying among themselves mentioned the name of the target. And that was [?] for the Germans. My pilot could see that every other aircraft was being shot down and he climbed an extra two thousand feet after Beachy Head [?] and did a shallow dive on the target. That gave us that bit more speed and we got there that split second before the minute was up but the flack came up and the Germans shot down one of their own fighters on our tail. Oh the gunners were quite screaming about it and we really felt we were getting acclimatised.
Well we got back from that we knew we’d got an aiming point. I’ve got a reconnaissance photograph of it here. It’s in my file which I’ll talk to you about later. That big fat file there is a list of all the things we did. All the, and I think it’s quite unique because the Australians were such a happy go lucky mob they didn’t collect them from us to shred them like most other people had done. I’ve got a complete unique set of operations and I know that we did well. We were good at wind finding and we did PFF support because we used to broadcast the wind that we found that was used by the master bomber.
Now where did we go from there? Well we did thirty one ops. Mainly over the Ruhr - Happy Valley, Flak Alley - all sorts of names for it and we got hit a time or two but we luckily came back and a lot of our dear chaps didn’t. I got back from a week’s leave and found seven complete crews wiped out. And they were dear boys. They were a jolly lot. They were mad as hatters. Motorbikes going around the mess, footprints on the ceiling. My speciality was doing forward rolls on the top of billiard tables or else in the fireplace. I’ve been told this later but I don’t remember it. And one chap flying with us he was the navigation leader he smoked his pipe through the side of the oxygen mask which was a little bit risky I think what do you think? Would you fancy doing that?
CB: No.
DD: No. No sensible person would I’m sure. In the middle of my tour I came home once and I thought I I’ll go up and see how my dad was getting on and I found him lying dead in the garden beside a bonfire. He’d had a stroke at the age of fifty four. That was, I was the oldest one of four children and my brother and I are the only two in our family now left but that was a great shock to me. It was the first dead person I’d seen and I was very saddened about it. I determined I wasn’t going to do any more flying when my tour was up although we were invited to be PFF people but I explained that I was the eldest of four and I couldn’t go back again and it wasn’t held against me. I was with a very fair lot.
The Aussies were a mad, happy lot. I got on wonderfully well with them. They were dears. And I never knew them do a bad, evil deed with anybody at all. They were wonderful. You’ll see pictures of some of them and some of the targets we had in my main logbook there.
Well we did get through our tour. I say the general thanksgiving every day for our creation, preservation. Preservation deeply underlined because we were preserved from all sorts of horrible things and we were able to save ourselves and our country by what we did. My Charlie, the rear gunner has a grandson I think it is who’s a Member of Parliament. There’s a photograph of him up there and I’ve got a letter of his in my general logbook here saying, ‘If I can do a much for the country as you chaps in Bomber Command then I shall feel I’ve done well.’ He’s a Doctor of Medicine as well as a Member of Parliament and I believe he had an increased majority at the last election. Charlie’s very proud of him. Charlie comes down this way on holiday occasionally. He was staying at a place called Mousehole not far from here with his, this man’s brother owns it and Charlie and his wife were down and we had some wonderful times together.
Earlier on I was talking about my friend in Canada who was, who met my bomb aimers crew over in Effingham near Goring and when this Harry came at one time he gave me my computer. Do you know it?
CB: I do.
AS: It’s a whizz wheel.
DD: A Dalton.
AS: A Dalton computer, yeah.
DD: A Dalton mark 3. While we were training as navigators this was our bible AP1234. There is an AP4567. I’ve seen it but I can’t get another copy. Anyhow, where I got this I don’t really remember but it was a precious book.
Well the tour was horrific. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world but I wouldn’t wish anyone else to have done it. And the crew were magnificent. We never had any quarrels or arguments. Les was a wonderful leader and well the mid gunner was a bit dicey sometimes but he was a jolly old boy and he loved singing too. We got on well. Talking about singing I’ve got a list of some of the ribald songs we sang.
We had lots of waiting around and because I live in the sticks down here in West Cornwall it took a long time to travel from Yorkshire to Cornwall. Twenty seven hours usually, stopping in London overnight very often, that I couldn’t come home on a forty eight hour pass. The time would be spent all with travelling and I passed my time away by doing this. This was my engagement present for my wife. This I did on an engineer’s bench in Air Force Station Driffield. The Song of Songs. In the back it says where it was done. Bound and written out by Arnold P Derrington between October and December 1944 at Driffield. I’m very proud of the title page of it. And I gave this to my wife and it will be my daughter’s eventually and this is the main title page. There.
CB: Wow.
DD: The Song of Songs. And I have bound a book before under ideal conditions but that was done on an engineer’s bench. The leatherwork as well and it’s very precious as you can imagine.
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Pardon?
CB: What prompted you to do that?
DD: Well the language in it is very lovely and I felt it was a suitable engagement present for my wife.
[pause]
I’m wondering what is the next thing to talk about?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: Hmmn?
CB: Would you like to have a break?
DD: No.
CB: Ok.
DD: No.
CB: So you said it was horrendous on operations so could you describe a typical operation that was hairy please?
DD: I got a diary which is totally illegal. There’s a black book over there somewhere. That’s it I think
[pause]
Yes diary of an RAF career after the 20th June ACRC etcetera. A tour of operations. An illegal document. Well its written, there’s quite a bit of detail there and I used it on one occasion for the people who are writing a history of our squadron. You see a book there, a big heavy book. That’s it. And my grandson Adam, who is going to have this stuff was so delighted he bought a copy for himself and, I was given a gratis copy and the two chaps who wrote it one is called Lax he was an ex air commodore and the other man there, a hyphenated name he was a chemistry professor very near where my daughter who lives in Australia. I’ve never met these two chaps but I’ve just had phone calls from them and with extracts from our diary and other things o sent them they got fifty references to us as a crew in that book. What’s it called again?
CB: To See the Dawn Again.
DD: To See the Dawn, yes. Well number, operation number eighteen. After much lighting, lightning the usual restless night I woke to a lovely morning. No signs of movement. Today is St Luke’s day. What happy memories it recalls. Possibly too many of us over the world - Canada, Africa, India, Gib West Indies and dear old England. Have I longed to, how I’ve longed to be on the cliffs today. Hanging around in the morning. FFI in the afternoon. Promise of pay then wait. Nothing doing. Draughts and roll call. Detailed for more, for move off tomorrow. I can’t read my own writing. Five weeks have elapsed since I heard from Helen and another five weeks will pass before I hear anything more. [?] I hadn’t done any operations that day.
CB: So this was a diary that you kept in addition to your logbook was it?
DD: Yes my logbooks are rather scruffy looking things.
CB: Yes I saw it on there.
DD: The South African one.
CB: Right.
DD: If I’d had it in England it would have had a rather nice blue cloth cover instead of a plain cover like that.
CB: Right ok. What prompted you to keep the diary?
DD: Oh just being [fussy?] and breaking regulations sort of thing.
[pause]
DD: I ought to be reading my own writing but I can’t.
CB: Well off the top of your head though what would you say was the most hair raising experience you had in a raid?
DD: Well even in the last raid we did. It was the 27th of December and we were going to the Ruhr and I’d had flu and I didn’t feel like flying at all. It wasn’t a case of LMF and it wasn’t a case of jitters it was a case of finishing near the end of the tour but I just did not feel well. My pilot Les said come on you’re alright you’ve always done well for us so far on previous occasions and off we went and I got taken sick and Jonah was sitting next to me the bomb aimer and I could tell him what to do when I couldn’t do it myself. And then I passed out and the heating failed at minus forty four. And we had to come down and I just vaguely knew what was happening. We had to come down to ten thousand feet because of the oxygen shortage. The heating had failed and the oxygen failed as well. And we had bombs being dropped by our own chaps up above and they were shooting at us down below and the fighters on our tail but I was able to work out the courses for the pilot. I’m sure you all know what the preparation is beforehand and there are estimated courses and things which one should take and as a navigator I’d worked that out in the briefing beforehand and I just read off from those and applied variation and deviation and gave the pilot those courses and we got through where we were going and whether we hit the target or not I don’t know because I handed over to Jonah, the bomb aimer. And on the way back I was feeling very unwell indeed and this was all due to the flu business I think. Anyhow, we did get back and thank God for that. That was a very hair raising situation to be in. I didn’t like feeling unable to do the job I had to do.
It was a very necessary job but a very horrible job and when I think we were trained to kill it’s a very revolting thought but if we didn’t do it we would have had much worse done to us as a nation and so I was very grateful to have got through my tour and because we were the only pommie crew amongst a lot of Australians they didn’t discriminate against us. Maybe we were favoured all the more I don’t know but they were dear fellows. We loved the lot of them and a very sad time it was when some got lost. There’s a recording of so many names of people who were lost after an operation.
That was a bit hair raising. Anything else you’d like to ask me?
CB: Yeah in practical terms was after the pilot was the navigator the most worked member of the crew?
DD: Oh yes and I was glad I was occupied like that. I didn’t see some of the horrible things that were going on but I had to record things. I had to give him new courses if need be and my main job was wind finding and I was able to do that well and our winds that we found were picked up, were broadcast so PFF could pick them up. And we were helpers of PFF we weren’t direct PFF people but PFF support was the denomination that we were given.
CB: So what is PFF?
DD: Pathfinders.
CB: Pathfinder right.
DD: Yes. They could wear a very special little golden wing.
[pause]
There’s a little map showing Elvington and such places we were talking about. You’ve got it alright?
CB: Yes thank you yeah.
CB Now on your plane.
DD: On?
CB On your Halifax did you have H2S?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How did you use that?
DD: Yes.
CB: How did you use it?
DD: Well there was good screen to pick up the shape of towns and if a town had particular projection on one corner we could take a bearing on that and know where we were and I’ve got one chart in my, the big book which you can look at later on and I’ll show you a map which was specially adapted for H2S work. Gee was our main help and I’ve a Gee chart there. That gave us position line and we took a fix every six minutes and that was very handy because six minutes is a tenth of an hour and we could use the decimal point to move whatever our speed was. It was my job to find out what speed we were going. If we were getting to a place too early we’d have to do a dog leg beforehand. Do you know what that means?
CB: Just a weave.
DD: It was an equilateral triangle.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And you flew sides of it instead of a third and you just dodged with a piece across the bottom and you could lose two minutes or three if you would but that if you did that you were taking a colossal risk because you were crossing the main stream coming along. We were pretty close to each other sometimes.
CB: You couldn’t see them could you?
DD: No and there were times when you felt the slipstream of other aircraft almost as if the plane had hit a brick wall. She juddered because of it. Can you imagine that?
CB: How did you do your wind finding?
DD: Joining up the position on the ground to the position in the air and taking the vector that you got between the two you could work out the speed and the direction of the wind. The angle between the air position and the ground position gave you the direction of the wind. The length of the vector a quarter of the time you’d been working in the air you could work out the speed. It was done, this computer, are you aware what it was like? We had a red and green end on the pencil. It’s a laptop.
[pause]
DD: Had you seen one of these? No?
CB: No.
DD: No? Well speeds are set like that, went around that way and you put your wind on and you take a reading off against this point here and you know what angle we were working on.
CB: So this is the navigational computer mark 3, the Dalton Computer.
DD: And this was the circular slide rule converting centigrade to fahrenheit. Nautical to statute miles and so on. And my dear old friend on Transport Command brought that home from Canada for me.
CB: Oh did he? So it wasn’t standard issue in -
DD: Yes.
CB: The RAF? Was it?
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Oh it was. Right.
DD: Have a good look at it.
CB: Yes.
DD: And in that navigation manual there it tells you how to use it.
CB: Yeah.
DD: It talks about the duties of a navigator as such in that book too. The Navigator’s Bible.
CB: So back on operations a lot of it was the Ruhr. How did you actually find the target?
DD: Oh well the Pathfinders had been ahead normally and dropped flares. In daylight of course. It was a matter of the bomb aimer having taken near the target he’d then take over when we were say within ten miles of it, whateve,r and the target, when the PFF marked it, they had different methods of dropping flares. One name, I almost get nightmares about it - Wanganui. That was the name of an island near where Pathfinder Bennett lived. I’ve seen it from the air. Charlie Derby who you’ve met had been right around the south island of New Zealand and so had I. We went out at different times and stayed with Les Evans and his family. Les Evans has been here and stayed with us too. And Wanganui was the, when they dropped three different colours of flares and the master bomber would be overhead circling, looking down at the target and he’d give the bomb aimer instructions, drop your bombs to the right of the yellow flares or whatever. Yellow flares, red flares and green flares. Those were what we used.
And just to explain that Les Evans was an Australian but he emigrated to New Zealand.
DD: He married a New Zealand girl.
CB: Oh right.
DD: And he moved to Auckland.
CB: Right ok. So when you weren’t on operational flights what were you doing?
DD: Well keeping, getting as near to the right track as possible to the next turning point and we didn’t fly directly there. I can show you some little dots on little charts I’ve got there. Show you the operations we did and I’ve drawn them on straight lines but we never flew directly to the targets. This was in order to fox the Germans and we did all sorts of zigzags and shapes like that. And we also dropped window. Do you know what that is?
CB: Yeah.
DD: There’s some bits of window in my main big heavy blue book there. One of the wireless operator’s jobs used to throw out leaflets, propaganda leaflets. One thing which is rather saddening I had a lovely collection of leaflets and on one occasions when I was talking to a group somebody pinched them. I’ve got a few leaflets left but not the main lot that I did have.
CB: A collectable item.
DD: I suppose so yes.
So when you’re flying to the target you’re in a stream.
DD: Yes.
You’ve no idea where the other aircraft are. You said there were a number of issues, things that happened and you were glad you weren’t watching them because you were navigating so what sort of thing was that?
DD: Well it was up to the gunners and the bomb aimer went down into the nose. And they were keeping their eyes open for other aircraft too. We had no lights on of course as you can imagine and the pilot of course was alert to see that he was avoiding any other aircraft and you could feel the slipstream of other aircraft sometimes. It was quite a jolt at times to feel that but I still stayed at my post as navigator recording what was said by other people if it was necessary to record it and also making sure that I could easily feed the pilot with the course to steer once we’d been to the target.
I have rather an interesting business happening. Every October I go to a place called Porthleven and that’s where Guy Gibson was and I was flying at the same time as Guy Gibson but not actually on the same operations as he was and the people of Porthleven, he was there as a boy they’ve got a plaque up on a wall near the town clock which is away on a wing beside the harbour and because I’m a flying fellow I get invited over to it each year and they come and collect me for it and it’s a wonderful occasion. Very heartrending. And people reminiscent of their experiences of Guy Gibson as a child living in the town. Porthleven is about thirty miles from here I suppose. Out towards the Lizard Peninsula.
CB: As a crew, as a crew you did everything together.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: So when you weren’t flying what were doing?
DD: Writing that book you saw. Difficult to say. Ordinary sort of things. We visited local towns and did a bit of shopping. We weren’t a drinking party.
CB: Did you have many tasks to do on the airfield though?
DD: No.
CB: When you weren’t flying?
DD: Orderly Officer sometimes.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I was orderly officer on one occasion and a boy came up to the table and collected his pay, a corporal, and he’d been a boy at school with me. This was when I was at the Operational Training Unit and I got a message over the tannoy would Corporal Mitchell report to the Ordinary Officer. Got the fright of his life. Sounded terribly officious and when he saw me he just melted completely. And he was a boy with me at St Erth. His father was a carpenter and the president of the little band in the village and he was in that band.
CB: Now as you finished your operations.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: Then what happened?
DD: I got posted to Operational Training Unit as an instructor at Moreton in the Marsh and I decided then it would be a good time to get married and we lived in a village called Blockley which wasn’t far from the airfield there. It was an interesting little village. The plumber was called Mr Ledbetter.
[laughs]
The butcher was called Balhatchet. The chemist was called [Milton?] and I might think of a few more in a minute but, and the vicar was called Jasper. I was confirmed in Blockley.
CB: And what did you actually do as an instructor? Did you -
DD: Well, I didn’t fly then.
CB: Go up in the Wellingtons much
DD: I was a ground instruction.
CB: Right.
DD: And the young fellows who were going through were just needing, they were glad of my operational experience and one student who came through was a squadron leader who’d been with me in South Africa. He was a regular I think. I can’t think of his name now.
CB: And why would he be there?
DD: Oh to take a tour of operations. He hadn’t done any operations beforehand. He, he’d been a navigational pilot instructor. I can’t think of his name at all.
CB: No. So he was a pilot instructor as a pilot.
DD: Yes.
CB: But why was he getting navigation -
DD: He wanted -
CB: Training from you?
DD: To do a tour.
CB: Right.
DD: A tour was normally thirty one.
CB: Ahum.
DD: I believe Charlie who you met he had to do an extra one and he did it with a crew he had some illness or had flu or something and couldn’t go on operation with us and he said that they were a ropey lot. They were smoking. They were falling out among themselves and they were no, no sense of duty at all. But we were a very agreeable wonderful lot together and it was an experience that I can’t define. Closer than brothers. Our lives depended absolutely on each other and we relied on each other totally. Absolute trust. Absolute frankness.
CB: So what was your feelings at the end of the tour when you were all dispersed?
DD: When I was?
CB: When everybody was dispersed to other places.
DD: Well we wanted to keep in touch. We kept in touch with each other. I went to Dennis’ wedding at one time down at Llanelli and Dennis was a good old singer as I was saying. He had been a rather broad Oxford dialect beforehand. Now he’d become quite a little Welshman.
CB: So how long were you at the OTU as an instructor and what happened at the end of it?
DD: Well I was approached by someone who said, “You are an experienced navigator. Would you like to become a full time navigator?” I took the staff end course at Shawbury which was not far from Shrewsbury and right near there a place was called Church Stretton and the hill Caradoc which is the bungalow name here was overlooking where we were flying from. And the doctor who lived in this house before me came from that home district and he named this house after that hill called Caradoc which is a [?] in Shropshire.
Church Stretton has been rather precious to me because I had an aunt who lived there. She had a Breeches bible and she gave it to me which I’ve now handed to my son. My grandson Adam who will receive all my air force stuff he was married to a girl who came from there so we went back there to his wedding. And so church Stretton has been a little bit meaningful to us.
We had very good instruction there and I flew up to Reykjavik in Iceland. Went up on astro and came back on LRN Long Range Navigation.
CB: When you said you went up on astro that was because you were using the astrodome.
DD: Yes.
CB: And the sextant
DD: It wasn’t very, it wasn’t very accurate.
CB: But using a sextant.
DD: Oh yes.
CB: How often?
DD: A proper sextant.
CB: How often did you use sextants?
DD: Very rarely.
CB: On operation?
DD: I got I knew how to use one but it wasn’t used very often because it did need really precision and Gee and H2S gave us that. We could be much more precise than just map reading and well we were so high sometimes map reading wasn’t so easy and of course sometimes there was no character in what the land was below us.
CB: So how did you feel about using Gee because -
DD: Oh Gee was ideal. Yes the Gee screen gave us the position lines which we plotted and the more the angle between two position lines got nearer to a right angle the more precise it was. If it was shallow and less then say fifteen degrees it was little bit too inaccurate so we attempted to get position lines that would do that. In the book that I’ve got there the big heavy one you can look in that. Maybe you’d like to turn over a different pages in that and talk to me about that.
CB: Yes.
DD: But we, I stayed there after Shawbury, went back to Moreton in the Marsh again and I think I was offered the chance, “Would you like to come back in to the air force. Full air force.” No I didn’t wish to. I wanted to settle down to married life and family life and I did but I did ATC cadet work and that was very rewarding indeed.
CB: So -
DD: One of my cadets is still a local farmer here. He was a farmer’s boy and he was such a good cadet he was given something that in 1950 or so was a great privilege - a free flight to Singapore. I still see him and he still remembers the joy of being able to do that sort of thing. He went back to farming again.
CB: When were you demobbed and where?
DD: In September 1945. And my son David was born in that month as well. I was demobilised, where was it now? Harrogate I think. I’m not really sure. Harrogate I think.
CB: Right. I think in a moment we’ll pause for a break but just talk to me please a little more about H2S because that was sort of a mixed blessing.
DD: Well it was very good. H2S - just a code name for it, gave you on your screen a fluorescent picture of the ground below and towns stood out more so than anything else and if a town had a particular projection you could cotton on to that in order to get a bearing from it. And you’d rotate the screen [phone ringing] in order to – can you answer it please?
Tape mark 5308 the telephone begins to ring and the interview answers it for the interviewee – not transcribed.
Tape mark 5348 TAPE THEN REPEATS UNTIL MARK 1.47.20
CB: Derry we were just talking about the fact you were on 462 and then 466 squadrons
DD: Yes.
CB: At Driffield. Could you just explain how that evolved with the two squadrons?
DD: Well I started off with 466 all together but, and then 462 had been in the western desert and were posted back to England to take special duties. They were going to have a station of their own later on so we were transferred from 466 to 462 for that interim time. When 462 was built up to be a good squadron size then we were posted back to 466 and I can’t remember the name now but 462 went to not Swanton Morley
CB: Foulsham
DD: Faversham was it? That’s it so they were posted to that. They were a complete squadron on their own and you can read about it in the book by Mark Lax and the professor of chemistry. It’s possible that Mark Lax may be coming over to see me in late autumn this year. I’ve invited him. Whether he will or not I don’t know.
CB: So what’s his involvement with the squadron?
DD: He was just interested writing its history.
CB: Right.
DD: What his Australian Air Force career was I don’t know but he was an Air Commodore.
CB: And what age is he?
DD: Oh I should think middle fifties I should think.
CB: Right.
DD: They’re both younger than we are.
CB: So that covers that extremely well thank you very much and what were, oh final point. What were special operations?
DD: They might have been gardening which of course is laying mines in shipping tracks that was called gardening - code name for it. It could have been dropping food to needy people in certain areas that were damaged, overseas that is not in England. Those were their special duties.
CB: Right.
DD: They weren’t torpedo dropping but I did have a friend who was on Swordfishes dropping but that would have been a special duty but that was left to the RNAS which later was embodied in the RAF.
CB: Thank you. I’ll stop it there and pick up later.
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 Derry Derrington
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-14
Format
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00:56:20 audio recording
Language
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eng
Identifier
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ADerringtonAP150715-01
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Heather Hughes
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.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
South Africa
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Type
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Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Gee
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
love and romance
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Shawbury
RAF West Freugh
sanitation
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/7/3394/ADerringtonAP150715-02.1.mp3
6cd1f162411f8a65aa035d4d1151c5ab
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
Derrington, Arnold Pearce
Arnold Pearce Derrington
Arnold P Derrington
Arnold Derrington
A P Derrington
A Derrington
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington DFC (- 2016, 187333 Royal Air Force), a navigator with 462 and 466 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Derrington, AP
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-15
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: It’s 15th July 2015. My name’s Adam Such. I’m a researcher for the International Bomber Command Centre and this is the second half of an interview with Flight Lieutenant Derry Derrington former DFC, former navigator on 466 and 462 squadrons RAF.
Derry first of all good morning thank you for allowing me to come back.
DD: My joy.
AS: Great. I’d like first of all really to take you back to briefings. I know that they weren’t all exactly the same but can you give me a general idea of how long they’d go?
DD: Well a briefing used to last about three quarters of an hour at most. Sometimes it could be done in a quarter of an hour and once we had the briefing the navigator would settle down to make out what his flight plan. Do you know what a flight plan is?
AS: Roughly. But if you’d like to go through it.
DD: It’s on every chart and every log I’ve got here and you’ll see that we knew the complete journey that we had to make and it wasn’t always direct. It would appear that it should be but we had to do all sorts of diversionary courses in order to fox the enemy and I’ve got a chart that I want to give you which shows every target we went to with, as it were, a straight line going from Driffield or our take off point was called Flaxfleet and it wasn’t a straight line as my chart shows but it’s easy for anyone to notice and we didn’t go in straight lines like it appears to be. I’d like to give that to you now while I think about it.
AS: Ok.
[pause]
AS: Now I now have your chart in front of me with your thirty one missions on it.
DD: Yes.
AS: Yeah, as you say straight lines but the doglegs would be quite substantial I suppose depending on where the -
DD: Well depending on the time. We could always lose time. We couldn’t pick it up unless the pilot really stepped on the gas but two minutes was the most that we have to, we mustn’t get there too early or we had to lose some time but we didn’t do that very often but of course once your jigging around like that you’re crossing the path of other members of the stream of aircraft and you were taking a risk. You’ve got to be very alert. You don’t want collisions in the air.
AS: Back, back to the briefing where we started did, did the whole crew go just to one briefing or was there separate briefings for pilots and navigators.
DD: No it was a total, all the crew was there for it and they went back to do whatever they wanted to do with their equipment but we had to sit down and work out our flight plan and the flight plan was a very handy thing because it depended of course on the forecast winds of that time. They may have changed completely by the time we would do the operation but they would have been just about five or six degrees difference perhaps from one course to another and it wasn’t just a case of the calculation course you had. You had to work out deviation and also each aircraft was tuned differently so that you had to amend the calculated course that you were going to steer. You applied correction and deviation but that was the navigators job to do that and well it took some time with the computer working out the courses that we had to go but the bomb aimer might have been with me on these occasions. Jonah our bomb aimer was quite keen and he would be watching what I was doing. And we were great pals. They were wonderful crew to be with.
AS: After, after the briefing and you’d worked out your flight plan it’s, what happened then? I mean
DD: Well.
AS: We hear about the operational meal, the operational egg. What -
DD: Well we had, some of the chaps said they had a good meal beforehand. I only seem to remember a good meal afterwards [laughs] they gave us plenty to eat. Two Eggs on My Plate is, I believe is the title of one book written about our experiences in those days. But they did feed us very well with a good old fry up.
AS: Then out to the aeroplane.
DD: We felt we were very privileged people because in those days were the days of rationing.
AS: Then out to the aeroplane. How long before take-off would that, would that be?
DD: Probably two hours, two and a half hours or so before take-off. And it wasn’t a case of being waved off we just were there and we went and didn’t know who was waving us off or what we were just intent on being there and doing our job.
AS: You were, were 4 Group, in, in Yorkshire.
DD: I was - ?
AS: 4. In Number 4 Group.
DD: 4 group yes.
AS: Now that’s between the 6 Group North.
DD: Yes.
AS: And the other groups South. Did you climb out directly on course or or did you have to avoid the other aircraft from -
DD: Well we had a collecting point to move from near Spurn Head, a place called Flaxfleet and we didn’t set course from the airfield as such we were out warming up and going around, flying in orbit around the area but we wanted to be at Flaxfleet by the time of take-off. TOT time of take-off or time over target TOT. And we set off from there and well we were on the alert all the time to see we weren’t too near other aircraft. I say we - especially the gunners. They were the eyes of the plane and the pilot.
AS: Once, once you had formed up and I presume for daylight operations there was more of a coming together than, than at night time?
DD: You mean the aircraft flying close to each other?
AS: Yeah.
DD: I suppose there must have been. Most of our operations were night time, dark, in the darkness but we did some daylights. The Yanks were daylight people. They didn’t do too much dark, night time flying but we were day and night. And our trips were not quite as long as some people spent a long time. I suppose the maximum length of time you’ll see from our logbooks the maximum length of time on any of our operations was approximately eight hours but some people had time longer than that.
AS: Yes, I -
DD: We didn’t have any very long drawn out operational time. I’m amazed we did what we did in such a short time.
AS: I see Magdeburg probably was, was the furthest you went.
DD: Probably, yes.
AS: On your trips or perhaps Koblenz.
DD: Ahum
AS: Yeah. Coming, coming back now if I may coming back from the trip was there much of a desire to be home first? To open the taps? To -
DD: No. No, we went along steadily the only thing was in the funnel when we were coming to land we sometimes the Germans had a fighter lurking around and we had to be equally alert at landing time as we were taking off. That was that. Have you heard much about that happening?
AS: No I’d like you to tell me about -
DD: Well -
AS: The whole process.
DD: They had fighters in the funnel sometimes and of course our fighters were up to combat them but we had to be on the alert because of that.
AS: Could you talk I know you were inside behind your curtain but could you talk me through perhaps the, the sort of aids to final navigation? The funnel lights, the drem pundits, Sandra - that sort of thing. Could you talk me through the process of coming back to base and landing?
DD: Well I didn’t have much to do with that. I got them back to the area where we had to be and the crew looked after that as a whole. They got their eyes open and the pundits, those are, those are the flashing lights you’re talking about?
AS: Ahum.
DD: Well the pilot had his job to do and the bomb aimer might have been there to help him and be observing with him but as a navigator I’d was, I’d got them back to very near the base and I’d done my job but I was alert to write and record whatever had to be done and I’d hear the conversation of the crew and if I heard anything significant then I’d make a note of it on my log.
AS: Which brings me nicely into afterwards. After landing. You said you’d done your job but perhaps you were the most important man at the debriefing. What was the debriefing like?
DD: We were asked all sorts of questions and were you at the target in time? What opposition did you get there? And of course the crew would say as much as I would about that. If they’d said at the time they would have been on my log recording it. I believe my logs are pretty neat. I’m not as tidy and neat now as I was then but I know you’ll their fairly clear. I did everything printing. I didn’t do anything cursive writing at all. It was fine print.
AS: And they, they would they go through your navigation log either then or afterwards,
DD: Oh they’d have an overview quickly. And after the operation was over the navigation leader would have a look at the log and the chart. They were handed in together. And he’d write a comment do you see there are comments on the front page of it - A satisfactory trip or did you take enough fixes, take more than you do and what they may say what was your opinion of H2S when it came in to us initially. You’ll see one or two of my charts are in a colour different from the others instead of the normal red printing on a white background.
[OTHER: LONG PERSONAL CONVERSATION NOT TRANSCRIBED]
DD: Yes they had a white background and the towns shape is in brown and the brown showed up very good against the white background and if a town it isn’t just a red glowing dot on the fluorescent screen it was a shape on the chart that we had and if there was some projecting point in some way that you could identify then that a bearing on, from that could be taken and that would give me my position. It was, your attempt was to get a position every six minutes at least apart from any visual sightings there may have been and this radar was a wonderful help.
AS: Was it generally reliable?
DD: Oh yes. They did try to jam us but we didn’t have much of that to worry about. They couldn’t jam the H2S but the window that we scattered was supposed to confuse their ground systems for identifying us.
AS: But the actual installation in the aeroplane? Could you be confident you’d go in there and turn it on and it would work?
DD: Oh yes.
AS: And work in the air
DD: Oh yes it was very reliable.
AS: Was that generally true for the aeroplane? You’d walk to your allocated aeroplane and it would be fully functional for the trip.
DD: Yes. Oh yes.
AS: So the standard of maintenance was, was pretty high.
DD: Very good indeed. The ground crews were very helpful. And if we weren’t satisfied they soon knew it. [laughs]
AS: Were your ground crew predominantly Australians by the time you were on ops or a mix?
DD: We were a totally pommie crew with an Australian captain. And I don’t think we were, it wasn’t a case of tolerated we were treated as equals. We had a very good company. A jolly good lot they were too.
AS: The ground crew? Were they mostly Australians?
DD: No I don’t know any ground crew were Australian. They were all British I believe.
AS: Ok.
DD: One thing which was rather interesting I ended up as a lecturer in Manchester University eventually and there was one fellow who came on the staff. He said, [?] ‘My job was I trained as a navigator but they were beginning near the end of the war not to need any more air crew things were going on so well and it was my job to load you up with our bombs, with the bombs. I was doing that job’. So he has diversified to be loading up bombs for us and well we just took off with what they gave us.
AS: When we talked yesterday we talked a bit about the French at Elvington. Did you have much to do with the Free French squadrons?
DD: We just knew they were there and we were just delighted I think that we were cosmopolitan as we were. We had a Maori in our squadron and well we were British and the French were there and well they had the same directions and the same intentions as we did and we were just delighted I think that we were a multinational gang, 4 Group
AS: Yeah. Indeed you definitely were.
[pause]
There we are. So we talked that you were an Australian squadron fully accepted as English people.
DD: Ahum.
AS: The Australians were far from home can you tell me a bit about their life. What they did for leave and how - ?
DD: Well quite a few Cornish people went overseas mining years ago. There’s an adage if there’s a hole in the ground there’s a Cornish miner at the bottom of it. And the thing is that some of these Australians who came over had relatives in England. They weren’t all convicts [laughs] and they went off and had leave and visited relations and well they liked going to London to see the bright lights.
AS: Did your Skipper, did he come home with you? Did he?
DD: No. He has been home since but not during operational time.
AS: On the squadron can you recall any real characters and why they were characters?
DD: Oh there was a chap called Tiny Cawthorne. He was a very big chap. Very tall. There was a man called Ern Shoeman and Ern Shoeman was reputed to be a millionaire property wise and he and I were good friends. He used to write me quite a bit and he knew we had a handicapped daughter. Our daughter Mary is fifty nine, she’s Downs Syndrome and she’s a very sweet, gentle little soul. She’s at a home up in Wadebridge and she’s got a very good carer looking after her. My nephew Michael is very good to her, takes her out for morning coffee and so on. She doesn’t speak because she lost her voice when my mother in law died and she was annoyed. Or Mary’s reaction was, ‘I’m not going to speak any longer ’cause granny’s not here and she didn’t tell me she was going.’ And we’ve had speech therapists for her and she is not speaking but my son David is coming down, takes her off for a walk somewhere when they’re the only two there and she’s able to make herself known. She understands sign language and she’s a great joy and friend to us and we’re very relieved to think that she’s looked after so well because we’re ancient and we shall probably pass on before she does but normally Downs Syndrome people don’t live beyond the age of fourteen but we were told that she wouldn’t live beyond the age of two but she’s still going on ok.
AS: That’s
And they treat her like a little doll up there where she is with the Home Farm Trust. That’s the name of the organisation looking after her at Wadebridge.
AS: And she, she used to interact with this character from the squadron. The property developer.
DD: Oh no, Ern Shoeman -
AS: Yes.
DD: Used to write and ask how she was getting on.
AS: Ok.
[phone ringing]
DD: He was a very pleasant man. He was a pilot I think.
AS: Are there any other characters that you can recall?
DD: Well there was this chap Jackson who used to smoke his pipe through the inside of the oxygen mask [laughs]
AS: That was insane.
DD: Very risky business.
AS: Presumably when he was on oxygen.
DD: I think so.
[PERSONAL CONVERSATION REGARDING PHONE CALL NOT TRANSCRIBED]
AS: So there was room in the squadron for characters was there? Discipline was, was reasonably relaxed?
DD: Oh yes. Yes. We didn’t go on parade very much. I can’t think of many more. We were characters I suppose.
AS: Characters and survivors yeah. So, what, what would a day on the squadron, a non-flying day on the squadron have been like?
DD: Difficult to say. I did some of my book. You’ve seen the -
AS: Yes.
DD: Song of Songs. Places like, let’s see, Mablethorpe. That seems people used to go there for a day out if there was a forty eight hour pass or a stand down I ought to know if I thought of that I could think of that easily I just can’t think of any. They would go to one or two coastal towns between Spurn Head and oh I just can’t think of the names of them.
AS: Don’t
DD: [I ought to. I’m ancient you see [?]
AS: Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. So switching tack a bit. You have the DFC.
DD: Yes.
AS: How did you hear about your award and how was it presented to you?
DD: I’ve got a newspaper cutting about it there. It was in the Gazette. Rotherham Gazette I think and I had a very nice letter from the George VI - Secretary presumably. The king was indisposed. Wasn’t able to be presenting personally as he would wish to do and wished me well in my future career and it came through the post [laughs]. No ceremony or whatever. My wife has the MBE. We went to Buck House to get that and my sister in law and my daughter could go with us.
AS: Fantastic.
DD: But there was no ceremony about it and immediately after the war and for at least twenty years Bomber Command was almost in the dog house. They were thinking in terms of all the damage they did to oh someplace or other. Let’s see which would be the one?
AS: Was it Dresden?
DD: Dresden.
AS: Yeah
DD: That’s the one. Well we weren’t involved in that at all. We don’t know if we injured many civilians. There were bound to have been at times but you couldn’t be that selective. Necessary they might have been injured or killed. We tried to do our best not to damage local human beings but bombing is a very, well not exactly indiscriminate but we had taken, aimed to be as accurate as we could.
AS: You mentioned at Bomber Command as you put it was in the doghouse after the war. Was this a real feeling that, that you and your comrades had that your -
DD: Oh we didn’t feel that. It was the attitude of the general public and Bomber Command wasn’t popular with the national attitude for some time. It was some, afterwards I think people have come around to believe and to know that we were the only ones to really get to the heart of Germany and the industrial heart of it. And if it wasn’t for Bomber Command well the war would have gone on much longer. And of course Guy Gibson’s dam busting that created havoc and that shortened the length of the war, the length of the time of the war finishing.
AS: I’m, I’m really interested in the fact that you think that it’s, it’s changing. For what it’s worth I agree. But do you think things like the Bomber Command Memorial in Green Park and what we’re doing up in Lincoln, do you think that is, signifies a change in public attitude?
DD: It was very popular at a time when the green park memorial was the biggest attraction in London and some silly fools went and defaced it with some paint.
AS: Yes I saw that. It was
DD: You saw that?
AS: Yes I was up there for the opening as you were.
DD: Oh it was a lovely day.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Yes they fed us well. They provided positions for us. We booked to go to it in good time to go see it. I went a day or two earlier I was so excited about going and Charlie and I were together and my son and my grandson went with me. They were the two guests I had and they were very impressed and delighted.
AS: There, there was this feeling amongst the aircrew that they weren’t appreciated before that. Is that the case?
DD: We didn’t think or care about it.
AS: No just -
DD: We were there and did the job and it had to be done. We didn’t care what the public thought. I will say this in terms of the public and Bomber Command I’ve been to a few reunions and I sometimes had a taxi to go from Paddington to another station, our reunions were often up in York, and I met a taxi man and he said, “Oh come with me I wouldn’t dare charge you chaps. I know what you went through.” And that was a lovely gesture. I’ve met that on two or three occasions.
AS: Moving completely different track if I may for a moment - use of wakey wakey pills - amphetamines or Benzadrine I know they were in the escape packs but were they ever offered to you before flying?
DD: I don’t recall anything about it at all. I don’t think so. No, we didn’t, I didn’t take any. I knew they existed but I didn’t want any or need any and neither did our crew.
AS: Excellent that’s good. Continuing on with the escape kit theme did you have any sort of escape training?
DD: Yes.
AS: And what did that consist of?
DD: We went to battle school and I seem to remember walking around on my hands and knees and I believe we had details to store a map in our caps or in our shoes in case we needed to make reference to the land to find our way around. We did escape training about a fortnight as far as I know.
AS: In your training before going on operations what, what sort of, of flying did you do? I’ve heard of bullseyes for instance. What were they all about?
DD: Yes they were practice flights to targets and they gave the bomb aimers and the gunners experience and the bullseye was operational experience and the bullseye was operational experience and a part of operational training. We didn’t do that when we were on operations. That was prior to operations.
AS: And did you get involved in leaflet dropping as well in training?
DD: No. I think the wireless operator’s job was to throw leaflets down through the chute and he’d take a handful every three minutes or so and they were in different languages. Some of the leaflets were like little booklets. I’ve got one or two there stuffed away in my general folder but I did have a lovely collection of leaflets and I went out to give a talk on one occasion and I’m sorry to say someone obviously pinched them.
AS: Oh Lord.
DD: I reckon I lost about twenty different leaflets on that occasion.
AS: That’s not a very nice thing to do.
DD: One leaflet I remember particularly was about the flying bomb site Watten that we went to and that’s now a visitor attraction with a coloured leaflet to hand out to people. And we knew that we had an aiming point. There was a great hole beside of the take-off place for these V1s and the walls of it were eight feet thick so you can imagine they needed to give good protection to the missiles which were stored inside.
AS: And you destroyed it.
DD: Hmmn?
AS: And the bombers destroyed it.
DD: Well they shook it up a lot [laughs].
AS: All the way through the crew has been the major part of your experience I think. Since the war I think you’ve kept in touch. Have you had -
DD: All the time.
AS: Have you had reunions?
DD: Oh yes we’ve had reunions. We went to Llanelli where Charlie the, Dennis Cleaver was, he married a Welsh girl. Whether we went to the wedding or what I don’t quite know. I did give an address at Jonah’s funeral. I am a Reader in the church and I wanted to talk about Jonah at the time. He was my particular close fellow ‘cause he sat beside me while we were on operations.
AS: What, what, what form did the reunions take? Would you all go off to a hotel somewhere or go back to Driffield or what?
DD: In York itself I think, mainly. It was Betty’s bar they used to talk about. They used to meet there when - you said what do people do on their day off or when they had free time - Bettys Bar in York was popular. I wasn’t a drinking fellow and that was very popular. They were a very hearty, jolly lot the Australians. Very easy to get on with.
AS: And you’ve been to Australia yourself a number of times.
DD: I’ve been nine times. Not just because of our daughter but there have been reunions in Australia. I did have some reunions to do with South Africa too. The [Hornclip?] Association. [Hornclip?] was a volcanic mountain with a flat top near where we flew from and that Association has packed in now but that was quite a popular meet up. I think we had one or two reunions in London.
AS: I think we’ll, we’ll pause there.
[pause]
DD: I don’t think we were using H2S until the end of our tour.
AS: We have from your fantastic folder here we have a, a collection of souvenirs[?] papers from each mission and one of them we have here - Mission 25 to Cologne does in fact have your H2S map here. Could you, could you talk me through what we’ve on this map?
DD: Well we had a fluorescent screen same size as the Gee was and the shape of the town would come up as a darker pink glow against a faint background and the shape came up like you see here. These different shapes of towns. You see London over there, a big patch, different towns in England and that was a case of navigating by H2S and I could take a fix every six minutes with no difficulty. See the scattering towns look.
AS: Yes.
DD: That’s the Ruhr there. You can see the shape of towns alright there.
AS: But on here you have a number of different coloured lines and writing could you, could you talk me through those. Base at Driffield there with -.
DD: Yes on the track that we wanted to keep there’d be two arrows and the wind that we found would have three arrows on it, the vector with the wind and we took off from Flaxfleet but you see our base Driffield is about twenty miles north of Hull and there’s a place called Flaxfleet not far away. That’d be the start of that thing. It was a village I suppose. I’ve never been to Flaxfleet. I’ve got a, somewhere over in that file over there big file I think I’ve got a postcard with a picture of Flaxfleet on it. Not that it’s very important but that’s the name of it.
AS: And then this, this is your track pre-planned. This is the track you’d planned beforehand.
DD: That’s right. On the way out. That was the wind vector there. That green.
AS: Ahum
DD: The target would have a triangle there.
AS: So you’re routing over, over Reading on this particular occasion.
DD: Yes.
AS: Is that, is that a regular route?
DD: I don’t know. Not often.
AS: But would you, would you always avoid London?
DD: Oh I suppose so. It’s such a sprawl. Anyway so long as I got my fix every six minutes that was all I really needed to have, needed to do.
AS: And you’re calculating a lot of wind vectors. One two -
DD: We were probably wind finders about that time and maybe[?] transmit that to PFF. There’s a rash of towns along -
AS: And as you say they all have different, different shapes.
DD: Shapes.
AS: What was the -
DD: Cologne.
AS: What was the target in Cologne?
DD: Railway. Railway marshalling yard.
3549 Other: Morning.
DD: Morning Abigail everything ok
PERSONAL CONVERSATION WITH ABIGAIL FROM MARKER 3605 - NOT TRANSCRIBED.
AS: So an enormous amount of information on here and you put this, which of this would you put on before you took off.
DD: Nothing.
AS: Information -
DD: Maybe that green, we dropped leaflets or something.
AS: That’s window, says window or something.
DD: Oh yes that might have been put on there before we took off.
AS: Also with your chart here we have a second chart and that’s -
DD: Sometimes we were asked to replot an actual operation and that might have been such a case. I don’t know.
AS: At short notice.
DD: After the operation. Analysing what we did.
AS: Ok.
DD: They kept their eye on us pretty well.
AS: And we also have a flight log. Flight plan, excuse me.
DD: Yes that was, that was target there. Before the target. After the target.
AS: Ok.
DD: What does it say here?
AS: Ok. - KJ Brown , Flying Officer.
DD: Hmmn
AS: So he was -
DD: He improved.
AS: Entirely satisfied with that one, with the Cologne trip. Can you, can you talk me through some of this. Here where it says watch - fast and slow. What’s that all about?
DD: Oh by watch when they gave us the time signal. Was it four seconds ahead of the actual Greenwich time signal or four seconds behind. That would be recorded there and the time would be important if I was doing anything to do with astro navigation but to the nearest minute well in terms of astro navigation a minute meant, a minute in time meant a four miles position difference and we had to correct for that.
AS: So you were navigating to that, that degree of accuracy?
DD: Yes.
AS: Ok. Here we have - is that required track?
DD: Yes, and those were the different winds we used.
AS: These would be given to you before the op would they?
DD: Yes. Yes that’s right.
AS: And then is this after take-off. This section of the form is
DD: That’s right
AS: After take off
DD: Yes.
AS: What actually happened rather than -
DD: That’s right. Watches synchronised so my time was what the pilot had in front of him. Why did I underline that I wonder. Is that take off time?
AS: Airborne. Yeah.
DD: Yes.
AS: Climb to six thousand over base. That must have taken quite a long time with a -
DD: Heavy aircraft.
AS: Heavy aircraft.
DD: The pencil’s a rather light colour. You can read it anyhow.
AS: Ahum [pause] and what’s that say?
DD: Master switch off. The master switch meant that the bombs couldn’t be released afterwards once it was off. We had a hang up or two once or twice with bombs. It’s not easy landing when the bombs are held up.
AS: Can, can you recall what size of bombs they were?
DD: Oh there’s a list of it. I’ve got a list of it on, let’s see, I think in the logbook there’s a list of the weight of bombs which we carried. You remember you’ve got the logbook?
AS: Yes. Yes, we can, we can have a look through that but this is marvellous this is a record of every single thing that happened isn’t it?
DD: Well that’s what the navigators job was you see. Not that we were going to do a post mortem or anything like that but at the debriefing they may have had questions to ask us.
[pause]
AS: And also you have a target photograph.
[pause]
DD: Cologne.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Anything on the back? No.
AS: What’s that telegram say?
DD: Best wishes and love, Helen.
AS: Fantastic.
DD: And that was the envelope the telegram came in. You don’t get greeting telegrams, you don’t get telegrams at anymore I suppose.
AS: And what’s the address there? Is that something Hall? Is that your officer’s mess?
DD: [Arley?] House, Marazion. That was my home address.
AS: Ah ok. Right. Shall we?
[pause]
Derry in amongst the things that you’ve kept is this Gee lattice chart here.
DD: Yes.
AS: Gee lattice chart North German chain. Could you talk me through what Gee was and how you used this chart?
DD: Well Gee was signal which came to us from a ground station and sometimes of course those did get attacked but we were delighted to be able to pick up these transmissions and we had a screen in front of us and we could find out where we were and the position lines as you see had certain values written on them and the value on that it made sure we were keeping to the same signal all the time and we had to record our position and we wanted to get two signals. One signal to cross the other and the better it was in terms of being a right angle it was more spot on. If it was say a thirty degree angle between the two position lines it wasn’t very satisfactory so we had to pick out the signals that were the most suitable to give us an accurate position and when we got our fix we used to make a mark with a cross on the chart according to where we were and it was my hope all the time to take a fix whichever method we did it every six minutes because six minutes being a tenth of the hour it was easier to work out by moving the decimal point the speed that we were doing and the Gee fix that we got showed us our ground position. By joining the air position to the air position we got an angle, a vector from which we could work out the wind direction and speed and that was the navigator’s job. The duties of a navigator are shown very well in the AP1234.
AS: Yeah, we, we’ll come to that.
DD: Does that tell you a lot?
AS: That does tell me a lot thank you and I can see here the crosses that you, some of the crosses that you’ve made.
DD: Yes.
AS: The lines are the Gee lines, the lattice lines are in green, red and purple. So were they different lines for different stations?
DD: That’s right. Yes.
AS: Ok and what would you see on your instrument, your Gee instrument? Would you see the values or -
DD: No I would set with some little tuning knob which station I was on which, and then take the reading for the position line and transfer that on to the chart I was navigating on.
AS: Ok and on here also apart from the crosses we have this pencil line coming down from [Maesemunde?] along the Dutch coast and then inland to by Krefeld.
DD: Yes.
AS: What, what was that? What does that represent?
DD: I don’t know. It might be if we were flying in that area whether we would be dropping window or whether we’d be dropping leaflets. It should be labelled but I’m not aware of it if it’s not labelled.
AS: Ok
DD: Is it a man-made line or a printed one?
AS: It’s a thick, thick pencil but no matter, it was a general query. Do these grid squares do they match up to a GJ there. HJ
DD: Pardon?
AS: They match up to your squares on your -
DD: The transmitting units? Those are different, the transmission would be here.
AS: Yeah excellent.
DD: Well modern laptops, on the computers are quite a frequent things but this is a laptop and it’s a circular side, slide rule and here we set the speeds and we used to prop the wind from that centre point how long it was, each one of these is ten miles and when we rotated this we set on the course that we were going to fly and take the reading off at that point there and I don’t really remember how I used this completely but it was a very useful tool.
AS: Which course would you pass to the pilot? Would you pass the true course?
DD: No. No, it had to compass the deviation and the compass correction and the true course was just, was a mathematical figure but that wouldn’t be handed to the pilot. And that was for converting statute to nautical. Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Indicated air speed.
AS: That’s a remarkable tool. It has a green and red pencil. What, what was the significance of the green?
DD: Well.
AS: And the red end?
DD: We used green for the fixed position and red for the target position but the green was used much more frequently than the red. And you’ll see the different colours on the charts that I’ve got.
AS: Yeah.
DD: Used occasionally but I think more likely than not ordinary pencil is more significant in my calculations than the different colours.
AS: Ahum
DD: I hope I’m talking sense.
AS: Absolutely. Now amongst your souvenirs alongside the computer is this air navigation.
DD: Oh AP1234.
AS: Now that is your bible perhaps.
DD: Yes.
[phone ringing]
DD: The ladies will answer that.
AS: Yeah. Now it -
DD: Somebody will come up very soon
AS: It seems.
DD: Oh she’s got the extension with her I expect.
AS: Fantastic. Quick thinking. It seems incredibly comprehensive
DD: Yes.
AS: Scope of navigation, bearings, compass error - was this a tool you used every day or something like a textbook from, from training or both?
DD: In training time. It wasn’t taken in the air with us. If you look somewhere around page thirty.
AS: Page thirty.
DD: Yeah that’s, that’s the -
AS: The circular slide rule. Excellent. Which is what we’ve just been looking at. The navigation computer mark III.
DD: Yes, I used that which is in your hand if I was giving a talk somewhere and that would have been put on top of that page I expect.
AS: Ok.
DD: These straps were there for a Mosquito pilot who was wearing it. He’d strap it to his knee and it had, it mustn’t move, like that. That would keep it from falling off his knee and being readily found if he needed it ’cause more likely than not he didn’t have a navigator with him and that was, he did his own navigation.
AS: Good Lord.
DD: [mentioned?] about arrows? Yes. Track two arrows the course that the pilot had to go was with that single arrow and three for the wind I think. Yes the vector of all wind velocity. The triple arrow.
[pause]
AS: It’s completely comprehensive isn’t it? The formula and the dos and the don’ts.
[pause]
What sort of examinations on all this did you have in training that you had to pass? Were they very detailed or - ?
DD: I don’t remember at all.
AS: Ok.
DD: We passed those exams that’s the thing.
AS: Yeah. You did your training in South Africa. Was there any anti-British feeling that you came across amongst the Boers?
DD: Oh yes we had to walk out in fours because there was a group of desperate Boers called the OBs [?] the Brothers of the Wagonette they were horse drawn people and they, they would assault air force people because of the pro-Boer feeling. South Africa had apartheid going on out there, colour bar, and that was cancelled later on but we kept together if we were walking out so we wouldn’t be attacked by these desperadoes.
AS: Was there, the other side of the coin was there a lot of kindness shown by other -
DD: Yes. .
AS: South Africans to you?
DD: Oh yes. South African families. Met some very interesting people called Thornton at East London and the lady of the house her husband was supposed to have the best stamp collection in South Africa. He was delighted to show that to us. They had a son and his friend, same age as myself and a friend, and they were training as doctors and I kept in contact with their son Geoffrey until he died about ten years ago and they, they were delighted to look after us. And the lady, Mrs Thornton, it so happened that when we moved to Queenstown from East London they were in a Red Shield Club, Salvation Army there was a friend who’d been to school with the lady that had met us in East London.
AS: Incredibly small world isn’t it?
[pause]
AS: Derry, one of the other the other things you’ve kept is your, your logbook.
DD: Yes.
AS: Observers and Air Gunners Flying Logbook. It’s not a blue one. It’s not a nice blue one. Why is that?
DD: Oh yes well of course the thing the normal ones are issued in England had a cloth binding. This one in South Africa just the bare boards. And this started to come to pieces and the repair I had done with that that blue colour there is the colour it should have been and it’s repaired somewhere in the St Just area. There’s a very good shop in St Just called Cookbook and they, I buy books there occasionally, I sell them books occasionally and they bind books as well and they repaired this for me.
AS: It’s a wonderful job.
DD: That you see there was my log when I went to grading school at a place called Ansty near Coventry flying Tiger Moths. Only small amounts of time.
AS: And these exercises 1, 1a, 2 they’re still used today.
DD: Oh are they?
AS: Yeah. Still used today. Very short time. September the 13th to what, the 26th is there any more on the back. Less than a month. Twelve hours.
DD: Ahum
[pause]
That’s Guy Gibson.
AS: Yes. So grading school and then in October 1942, and then jump straight to Queenstown in South Africa.
DD: Ahum.
AS: In October ’43.
DD: That’s when I passed out.
AS: Ok. Qualification.
DD: Do you know the pewter tankard I’ve got? It’s got a glass bottom in it. Do you know why?
AS: No.
DD: You don’t know?
AS: No.
DD: Well if it was a solid bottom and you were drinking than someone could easily draw a knife or whatever and give you a prong and that’s so you can see what was happening.
AS: I didn’t know life in an officer’s mess was so dangerous.
DD: Hmmn.
AS: Right. This is your result of your ab initio course.
DD: That’s right.
AS: At Shawbury.
DD: Shawbury?
AS: Ahum.
DD: Ahum that was a speck end course we called it. I’m entitled to the letter capital N like people put BA after their name but I don’t use it.
AS: And what, what’s your remarks there? What do, what do they say about you?
DD: Good results on course. With his pleasant personality and keenness this officer can satisfactorily fill a staff position. So you see I was called a staff navigator. They might have called me into a briefing room or something like that and there we are, that’s part of it.
AS: I’m just trying to get a sense of how much flying you did in training.
DD: I don’t think I did more than six hundred hours.
AS: It’s quite intensive Derry.
DD: Ahum.
AS: In South Africa on Ansons. I mean here - 14th of July. Good Lord, that was, 14th of July 1943, that was seventy two years ago yesterday.
DD: Yes ahum.
AS: Yesterday. You did three trips in an Anson.
DD: Ahum. Usually two as first navigator and second navigator. My friend Harry Dunn I was telling you about would be flying with me then and they had all sorts of strange names, Dutch names, these Boer people. South African Air Force they wore a khaki uniform.
AS: And army ranks.
DD: Yes.
AS: I believe. Yeah. In training did you feel it was high pressure and very intense or was it reasonably relaxed?
DD: Oh reasonably relaxed. My terrible feeling all the way along was will I be ready in time to do something worthwhile and we used to blame Air Commodore Critchley who was supposed to be a Training Command Officer and we used to blame old Critchley for not moving us on quickly if we got waiting and waiting and waiting for the next posting and I didn’t think I was going to live long enough to do operations but thank God we did.
AS: So did you get the feeling that there were an awful lot of aircrew in the system by time this time?
DD: No. No, we just accepted the fact we were a course going through and they must have planned well ahead to make places for us in South Africa and in Canada and in Rhodesia. I did write something about our overseas training. The Empire Air Training Scheme they called it.
AS: Was that published somewhere or -
DD: I don’t think so.
AS: Ok.
DD: It might have appeared in, there was an aircrew magazine called Intercom and I believe it was published in that but I’m not sure.
AS: I can look out for that. And then from South Africa by the time you left South Africa you had done what forty two hours day.
DD: Not very much.
AS: No eighty eight hour day flying and twelve hours twenty at night. Total flying. Left South Africa. And how did you get back to -
DD: On a troop ship called the Orduna.
AS: Ahum
DD: A South American boat. And there were a lot of women and children on board being repatriated out of India, service wives and children, and we went up through the Red Sea and we were kept at Tufik on the Red Sea until the Germans were cleared out of Italy and then they were afraid that we might meet some submarines in the, in the Mediterranean so we were well protected. They made well and truly sure that we’d be safely transferred.
AS: Ok. And you came into, to Liverpool?
DD: Liverpool again, yes.
AS: Super. Had you been commissioned by this time?
DD: Oh yes but we didn’t have commissioned uniforms until I’d travelled from Liverpool to Harrogate and that’s where the measurement and fitting of pilot officers uniform came into it.
AS: I hope you got a first class travel warrant.
DD: I suppose so [laughs]. I expect I did.
AS: And then we’re at Number 4 AFU is that Advanced Flying Unit?
DD: Yes, Advanced Flying Unit yes. Was that West Freugh?
AS: West Freugh, yeah.
DD: Stranraer.
AS: Yeah. And this was still, I suppose, individual training for you. You hadn’t crewed up at this point?
DD: No.
AS: And this was on Ansons?
DD: That was Ansons again. To get used to British conditions.
AS: Navigating in the fog. Yeah. Was it, was it a shock coming from the, the bushveld and the plains of and South Africa to what, what we have in the UK.
DD: No. We just took it for granted that it would be slightly different and we coped.
AS: And all the principals and all the training were - you could carry them straight.
DD: Yes.
AS: Straight across. Ok. Right, so we’ve got here a pundit crawl. Can you remember what that was all about?
DD: Travelling from red light to red light I think.
AS: Really ok.
DD: Whether it was the gunner’s point of view or from my navigation point of view I don’t know. Maybe I just had to record what was done. A pundit crawl.
AS: Yeah. And then 21 OTU.
DD: That’s Moreton, Much Binding in the Marsh.
AS: And it seems to get really serious at this point. You’ve got a page of dinghy drills, parachute drills, wet dinghy drill.
DD: We went to the Baths at Cheltenham for that. In the middle of England well away from the sea.
AS: Yeah. And by this time you, you’d crewed up?
DD: Yeah. No.
AS: Ok.
DD: Yes at OTU we crewed up, that’s right.
AS: Ok and you were using Wellingtons.
[pause]
Right.
[pause]
And that is super we did your OTU and crewing up and whatnot yesterday so I think we’ll draw a pause there if we can.
DD: Ahum
[pause]
DD: Turning on now?
AS: Yes.
DD: Occasionally we had a little wicker cage with pigeons in it and I believe the idea was that if we were shot down or if we were captured then the homing pigeons would come back with the news [laughs] and it only happened to us two or three times but I was aware that it did happen occasionally.
AS: And did you carry them on every trip or just -
DD: No. No.
AS: Just a few.
DD: Just occasionally.
AS: What, one wonders how you could release a pigeon from an aeroplane at two hundred miles an hour but perhaps it was if you crash landed.
DD: The crash would release the cage. The poor pigeons.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ADerringtonAP150715-02
Title
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Interview with Dr Derry Derrington
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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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:08:21 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Date
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2015-07-15
Description
An account of the resource
Dr Arnold Pearce Derrington grew up in Cornwall and joined the University Air Squadron at Exeter. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 and completed training at RAF Ansty, South Africa, RAF West Freugh and RAF Moreton in the Marsh, where he trained as a navigator on Wellingtons. He was posted to RAF Driffield where he served with 462 and 466 Squadrons. Most of his operations were over the Ruhr. He discusses H2S and Gee in detail. He was later an instructor at RAF Moreton in the Marsh and was demobbed in 1945. He kept a diary of his time in Bomber Command.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
South Africa
England--Gloucestershire
England--Warwickshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Wigtownshire
France--Watten
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Julie Williams
462 Squadron
466 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
animal
Anson
bombing
briefing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
memorial
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Ansty
RAF Driffield
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF West Freugh
training
Wellington
-
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
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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Paine, Geoff
Geoffrey Hugh Paine
G H Paine
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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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
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Transcription
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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
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Title
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Interview with Geoff Paine
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-26
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APaineGH160726
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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
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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/19/43/PAutonJ1503.1.jpg
fcd84ad8b587a4e098652670dd63b4c8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/19/43/AAutonJF150608.2.mp3
6ee59b7c7d75a4b3e1001264485de6ae
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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Auton, Jim
J Auton
Description
An account of the resource
26 items. The collection relates to Sergeant Jim Auton MBE (1924 - 2020). He was badly injured when his 178 Squadron B-24 was hit by anti-aircraft fire during an operation from Italy. The collection contains an oral history interview and ten photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Jim Auton and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
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2015-07-30
Identifier
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Auton, J
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: Well Jim, perhaps we could start with your date and place of birth please?
JA: Yes I was born at Henlow, my father was an officer in the RAF and he happened to be stationed at Henlow when I happened to be born.
CB: And what date was that?
JA: That was the 13th of April, 1924
CB: And what do you remember about your childhood?
JA: I remember when he was transferred to Cranwell, I started infant school at Cranwell and we had to walk across the aerodrome to school, and there were about twenty of us and we were told to walk in groups together and if you see an aeroplane coming in, stand still [emphasis] so he can avoid you and we used to see aeroplanes coming in to land on the grass field, they were bi-planes of course and we’d wave to the pilot and if he waved back to us that made our day because pilots were our heroes and we all wanted to be like daddy and join the RAF when we were old enough and next to the school playground there was an aircraft dump, old fuselages, they’d taken the engines out and the instruments but we’d climb into the cockpits and stand there and go ‘dud dud du du’, we were shooting down Germans when we were five years old, we knew the Germans were the enemy, I don’t think our government knew at the time.
CB: So you have happy memories of your childhood in Cranwell?
JA: Yes, and then of course we, he was stationed at Manston and we could go in the workshop and see the fitters working on the planes, they never told us to shove off, and we liked the smell of dope on the aircraft on the canvas and, but when they took an aircraft to the butts to synchronise the guns, they’d jack up the tails to get the plane horizontal and we’d stand around with our fingers in their ears while they were shooting into the pile of sand in the butts, and then when an aircraft broke down we used to rush out across the aerodrome to help the man, help the men push it and for kids it was marvellous, we loved aeroplanes.
CB: So do you think that’s what started your desire to join the air force later on?
JA: Well you see I was brought up on RAF stations, RAF camps and I didn’t know any other life, we were isolated from the outside community, we had free medical treatment, free dental treatment, we were in married quarters most of the time where even the crockery was provided, all the linen and everything, so our whole life was in the air force until we were adults, so naturally we all wanted to be pilots when we grew up, and when the war was announced I thought ‘oh good they’ll need more pilots now’ [slight laugh]
CB: So off you went to volunteer.
JA: Well when I was seventeen I couldn’t wait, I went to join up, and I registered as a pilot but I found later they put me down pilot navigator or rather pilot observer as it was in those days so they could change me any time they wanted, and I started flying training as a pilot and then when they introduced the four engine bombers they didn’t need two pilots, so they would have a pilot and a bomb airman who had done some flying training and he in an emergency would be able to take over from the first pilot so the bomber was a second pilot, but and [slight pause] I started flying in England but the German intruders flying over us, over England were shooting us down in our training planes, so the Government opened the Empire Air Training scheme.
CB: Where did you do your initial training?
JA: At Ansty near Coventry and then after much delay because flying schools were all full and there was a waiting time, I was sent to South Africa as a navigator and I trained there as a navigator, but I wasn’t very keen on being a navigator so I also trained as an air bomber, because I knew air bombers would be allowed to pilot the plane, in an emergency, and even during training the staff pilots would allow me to take out over and fly the Oxfords and Ansons because that’s all I wanted to do really and so I trained as a navigator and a bomb airman.
CB: What about your journey down to South Africa?
JA: That was marvellous, hundreds and hundreds of them on a small Liberty ship. We were told you mustn’t be below decks during daylight, so we had to stay on the top deck in all weathers and there wasn’t room for everybody to sit down, so if somebody stood up you immediately sat in that place and some of the troops perched on the ship’s rails until they broadcast anybody falling over will drown because the ship will not stop to pick anybody up, so we couldn’t sit on the rails so we had to stand up sometimes for ten, nine or ten hours, during the day, we were fed twice a day, seven in the morning and seven in the evening and the food was like an airways meal on a tray and it wasn’t enough to keep us alive and I asked the crew, it was an American Liberty ship and the crew were Filipinos and Negroes and I asked them ‘do you have this terrible food that we have?’ and they said ‘no we’ve got plenty of food’, they said ‘if you come and work in the kitchen for us, we’ll let you have our food’, so I spent couple of weeks washing up dirty dishes until the heat got too bad and I went back on the troop deck again, but during my time in the kitchen I was allowed to sneak some food out for my friends [slight laugh] who didn’t work in the kitchen, that was all unofficial of course.
CB: Was it better food in the kitchen or just more of it?
JA: More of it and better.
CB: So they were keeping you on starving rations basically?
JA: Yes, yes, eventually the doctor said I was suffering from severe physical debility but that was much later, we were on this ship for six weeks and they warned us we were in shark infested waters and the ship wouldn’t stop for anybody falling over board, but it was quite an interesting voyage except the sun was dreadful in the tropics and there was no shade, and the officer in charge of troops thought that we were cadet officers because we wore a white flash in our caps but we weren’t and when we got to Sierra Leone Freetown somebody must have told him we were not potential officers and he said ‘right, you’ll have to do all the duties’, fire picket, fatigues, peeling potatoes and all sort of things like that and guard duty for the rest of the voyage, another three weeks and my name beginning with an A, I was one of the first to be chosen for guard duty and it was a stinking hot day and we were anchored off Freetown to re-fuel and I found a hatchway and a collapsible chair and I sat in that hatchway and dozed off because I’d had no sleep, we couldn’t sleep on the deck as it was too hot and the smell of the engine oil, and I dozed off and suddenly I was awoken when the ship’s officer came round on his inspection with the ships warrant officer and they bellowed at me ‘what are you on? sleeping duty?’ and I said ‘yes, sir’ because I didn’t like to say no to anybody in authority and they said ‘you’re under arrest in five minutes’, ‘oh dear’ I thought ‘I’ll be all on my own in prison’, the brig, the ship’s prison was below the water line, it was nice and cool and I wasn’t on my own, there were eleven other air crew cadets in there with me and the police who looked after us took us round for dinner wearing their caps and then they said ‘you keep your mouths shut and we’ll go round again’ and they took their caps off and we had a second dinner, so being in the brig wasn’t so bad, except we were locked in and we were below the water line and there were submarines about, so we thought if, if a submarine hit we’ll certainly drown like rats in a trap but it didn’t happen of course.
CB: It must have been quite a relief to get to South Africa after all that?
JA: We anchored off in Table Bay about quarter of a mile from land and the dock workers had a big lump of rusty steel plate and they wrote on it in chalk: ‘plenty of food, plenty of women, plenty of booze’ [laughs] and the next day we docked in the harbour and we were told you will be discharged tomorrow, and there was nearly a riot because we’d been cooped up for six weeks and eventually they said ‘Ok, you can go into town but you must be back at midnight so we all went into town, it was paradise, things we hadn’t seen for years like pineapples and peaches and plenty of food and so we goaded a kind of a restaurant run by volunteers for service men and some old ladies served dinner, so we had a three course dinner and when we finished they said ‘would you like anything else’, and we said ‘could we have it again please?’, so we had another three course dinner, then we had half a dozen bananas on the way back to the ship [laughs] and we brought a coconut, it was paradise, but at flying school wasn’t so funny, the day we arrived we were told that five aircraft had crashed and twenty five air crew had been killed, that’s five pilots and two navigators in each plane and two bomber men in each plane, five men in each plane and the reason was the staff pilots had been low flying round a hospital where somebody’s wife was working and all five crashed (these would be Ansons?) they were Ansons and they, we were told report those pilots for low flying in future but we didn’t do that because we liked low flying because stooging about high up isn’t much fun, but low flying is exciting [clears throat].
So after training in South Africa [coughs] for nearly a year we went up by stages through central Africa, Rhodesia, Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda, the Sudan to Egypt where we found we were going to live in the Heliopolis Palace Hotel, marvellous [emphasis] but when we entered we found there were no beds, no furniture of any description and we had to sleep on the marble floors and our kit had been left behind in South Africa so we only had the clothes we were standing up in, so I wrapped my shoes in a towel to use as a pillow and lay my uniform down on the marble floor and slept on that, I found that I had to sleep on my back otherwise my hip stuck into the marble and it hurt [slight laugh] and then, I was then sent to Palestine where there was a war, the Jews and the Arabs were fighting each other and both sides were fighting the British Palestine police and while I was there they blew up the radio station and they blew up hotels, and people were fighting in the streets and I thought ‘I haven’t got into the war yet but I’m going to get shot by our own police’, and they had said to us, because we each had a revolver, ‘hand in the revolvers in the armoury, so I went down to the armoury which was in the cellar of the hotel and I handed my revolver in, and I saw the men there were mounting twin machine guns on a platform to be carried on a lorry, so it was a war, but then we were then transferred to Lidder, after going back to Egypt and wasting some more time sleeping in the western dessert on the sand, we had to empty our shoes thoroughly because there was scorpions in the dessert and the sand was almost too hot to walk on and the authorities had laid a tarmac path but it never hardens and it was like sticky toffee so we couldn’t walk on that [slight laugh]
CB: And this was part of your flying training or were they just moving you from place to place?
JA: Moving us around, and then we went to Lidder for a conversion course, onto Liberators, about a five week course.
CB: Were you expecting Liberators?
JA: No, when we saw that we were going to fly Liberators, we thought ‘they are American planes, why haven’t we got Lancasters?’, ‘cause we knew about Lancasters we thought they were marvellous, Liberators were unknown and didn’t even know that the RAF had Liberators and we thought they’re gonna send us to Japan because the Americans had Liberators so we were a little bit frightened of that, because we thought we should be helping defend Britain, we thought the war in Japan is an American affair and we shouldn’t be anything to do with that, but after we’d been shuttled around in Egypt to Palestine for a bit we went to Algiers by air, nine hours, and we thought we were on our way to Italy, when we got off the plane we saw a French flag and we said ‘what’s this place?’ and a French airman said ‘it’s Algeria’ or at least he said ‘it’s Maison Blanche’, we said ‘where’s that?’ he said ‘it’s Algeria, it’s North Africa’ and we said we’re supposed to be in Italy but there was nobody to ask, we could ask any questions and he said ‘you can go to a hotel here and sleep in huts in the grounds’, and then you should go to Algiers’s downtown about twenty miles and report to the RTO, transport officer, we went to see him the next day and he said ‘oh bomber crews, you’ll be here for ages, you’re low priority’, he said ‘only fighter pilots are priority one’ and our navigator said to me ‘we are priority one, I’ve read the documents’ but I said ‘shut up, it’s nice here’ so I said to him ‘the French people don’t seem very friendly’ and one of the gunners said ‘no wonder, we’ve just sunk the French fleet in Iran, so [slight laugh] after three weeks we said to the corporal in the RTO’s office, ‘I think you ought to have another look at our documents’ and he stood and talked on the telephone for a few minutes, kept us waiting because we were so insignificant, a low priority, then he looked at the documents and nearly had a fit, he said ‘you’re priority one, you should have left the same day’ he said, ‘you’ll be on a plane this afternoon’, so we fly to Italy in a freight plane with a load of boxes and an aircraft wheel that wasn’t properly strapped down, it kept shuffling around and nearly run us over, we were sitting on the floor and when we got to Italy, no customs, no immigration, nothing at all, nobody to tell us where to go or what to do, so we, first thing a service man does when he goes somewhere new is look for a tea and a bun [laughing] or what’s called a ‘shy and a wad’ and there was a little sort of canteen with Italian girls serving and they were laughing and joking, I expected Italians to be hostile like the French but they were so friendly, I thought we’re gonna like it in Italy and they kept saying ‘capiche, capiche’, and I said ‘no, no cabbage thank you, just tea and a bun’ and they said they were saying ‘do you understand?, capiche’ but we didn’t know that, but we thought they seemed nice [laughs] hope there are going to be some women where we’re going.
CB: Is this around about Naples was it?
JA: It was in Naples, and then we were transferred to Portici to a, to a holding centre, and there were people there who’d done a tour of operations and they were going on a rest period, and they were so dejected, haggard and ill looking, and they wouldn’t talk to anybody and we thought it must be terrible on a squadron, that it was demoralising to see them, anyway we stayed there a few weeks and then we were sent to Foggia by train, and you understood that Foggia is a big aircraft base, there were thousands and thousands of Americans there, with Liberators and Flying Fortresses, B24s and B17s, and we had liberators but other squadrons, some of them had clapped out wellingtons obsolete or obsolesce wellingtons so the liberators were a bit better except they weren’t new machines, they were machines that had been damaged and done a tour in the American Air Force and were now in a sort of scrap yard called a maintenance unit, and the pilots would go and ferry them to our squadron and if we were lucky we’d get the one in reasonable condition but most of them had got terrible faults, some of them had even got twisted airframes, and engine troubles common, and our fitters worked in the open air, there were no hangars, and sometimes they worked through the night in all weathers, and we were reliant on them to keep us alive.
CB: Now your crew, there was the seven of you as in a Lancaster but in this Liberator is that right?
JA: Yes, when I talk about how when I won the war I always say ‘I didn’t do it alone, there was seven of us’, and three of them were Scotsmen, one was from the Shetlands, and it took me a few, few days to learn to understand them on the intercom, because the intercom system is not very clear, it’s like a poor telephone system, and their Scottish accents were very guttural and I knew my life depends on these fellas, so I had to learn [slight laugh] to understand them and the skipper was very pleased when I joined the crew because up till then he was the youngest member, he was twenty-one and I was twenty and of course as I trained as a navigator and as an pupil pilot I was a useful member of the crew, and I’d done a gunnery course so I could do anything if anybody was killed or injured, I could take over from them, I couldn’t land a Liberator of course but I could keep it in the air long enough for the others to jump out and I said, I think I was bombing I think it was Budapest and the flak was so thick I thought we couldn’t get through it without being hit, and I looked over the side and it was like black velvet, the sky was so dark and I thought I’d jump out if I dared but I had no faith in my parachute and as I said to a Polish pilot I knew, he had parachuted safely and I said ‘ I think I’d jump out if I dared, but I’d be scared’ and he said ‘you wouldn’t hesitate if your arse was on fire’ and he was speaking from personal experience.
CB; So, you were with this very close-knit group, you were a good team, a good cohesive team?
JA: Yes, yes, you see when we arrived on the squadron nobody would talk to us because they couldn’t be bothered with new boys and when we became senior crew, we couldn’t be bothered to talk to new crews because on average they were only doing seven trips before they got shot down, and it was bad enough if our friends got shot down, but we didn’t care much about strangers being shot down so we didn’t really want to make any friends, because it would be traumatic when they died.
CB: And what were the conditions like at Foggia?
JA: The conditions were absolutely terrible, we were in a field, there were no gates, no fence, we were in a field with one solitary brick building, and that was the orderly room, the medical offices office and something the commanding officer used, he lived in a caravan, we lived in little four man tents, bivouac tents, you couldn’t stand up in them and we had no beds, we had to make our own beds out of bits of packing cases, and I had the side of a packing case with a strut across the middle, in the middle of my back, most uncomfortable, covered in cardboard, the mid-upper gunner, had a sheet of corrugated iron, I said ‘that’s why, that’s why he walks so funny’ [laugh]
CB: But you’d have the heat, you’d have the rain, it must have been terrible.
JA: It was, we’d have the side of the tents rolled up and the end flaps were open because the heat was so intense and we’d get a couple of hours sleep at night, but we couldn’t sleep more than a couple of hours so we’d get up and walk around, and when the sun came up it was unbearable and there was no shade anywhere, there was a place that we called the dining room and it was a roof on six poles with no sides and we sat on forms at trestle tables, and the cook, had an outside kitchen arrangement made out of oil drums, and the first thing I noticed was his black arms and white hands, he was twenty-one, he never wanted to be a cook, we called him Gladys because he was a nice boy.
CB: And was the food any better?
JA: The food was terrible, you see sometimes the food didn’t arrive, the food was brought to us by a lorry from somewhere distant each day, only enough for one day and after everybody had had a bit of it on the way there wasn’t much left for us, and there was hardly enough to keep us alive and sometimes the food didn’t arrive at all and we’d have nothing to eat for twenty-four hours and one day we said to Gladys our cook ‘ God for Christ’s sake Gladys, find something, there must be something left over’ and he scratched around and he found an onion, a raw onion each and a mug of tea, and that’s what we had and we had to do a nine hour flight, on an empty stomach and of course I smoked twenty cigarettes on every trip because it took away the hunger pangs, and then the medical officer discovered that the cook was using some sort of cans of meat and vegetable stew that had blown, and most of us got severe enteritis and people couldn’t control their bowels and there were no toilet facilities in the air, so people were doing it in their trousers, and sitting there on it for the rest of the trip, and some of the crews were yellow with jaundice, we didn’t know if it’s contagious or what caused it but we were living in what they called a malarias area, there were boards around the perimeter of the field we lived in, saying ‘caution, malarias area, malarias area, area’ and everyday a bowser arrived, a tanker of water but we couldn’t drink the water, it tasted of chlorine it was terribly strong, so we could only use it for washing ourselves and trying to wash clothes but we had no washing powder, we’d save little scraps of soap and put a shirt in a tub and leave it for three weeks to soak [slight laugh] and then rub it, and then rinse it and lie it in the sun, and in the hot sun it was dry in about an hour and we had nothing to eat except a mug of tea twice a day, and when we came back from operations we went to the debriefing tent, and there was a billy can full of lukewarm tea there and half a dozen mugs, they were never washed they were just recycled, we dipped them in the lukewarm tea, but if we were gone for more than five hours on a trip, we were given five boiled sweets which we promptly ate on the ground before we took off, and we were given a gallon of tea between seven of us, in a thermos jug, but that got cold, we’d saved it for the return trip and Jock the wireless operator used to bring the tea round for us cold, cold as ice, and about once a month we got what we called a tuppenny bar of chocolate but it was tropical chocolate and it never melted and in the air, I would put a piece of chocolate in my mouth and chew it and it became like gravel and then it became like dust and then I swallowed it but it never did melt, and one day some, some things arrived at the cook house, we thought they were bails of straw but they were dehydrated cabbage and that’s the worst thing you can have when you’re flying because our stomachs swelled up and we had to loosen our belts and our flying clothes because our stomachs were expanded enormously and we farted furiously throughout the trip.
CB: Did you have proper flying clothes in all this?
JA: We had flying clothing, we just recycled, the only ordinary clothing we had were ones left behind by casualties and of course lots of it was very old and our kit bags were still somewhere in Egypt or South Africa, following on about three months later and when I was in South Africa, I brought thirty oranges for a shilling, no for three pence, you couldn’t buy less because they were in a net, thirty for a ticky it was called, a threepnee bit [sic], and my kit bag wasn’t quite full so I put thirty oranges in there thinking the kit bag would come with me but it followed on three months later and the oranges were well ripe by that time [laughs] they were putrid, and we were allowed to wear civilian clothes in South Africa, provided we wore our service cap, we could buy bush shirts and nice clothing in the gents’ outfitters, so if we took our caps off we looked like civilians, and that was good quality stuff and when that eventually arrived in Italy we were very pleased because we’d been dressed like scarecrows up until then with all sorts, I had a brown battle dress, it wasn’t khaki it was brown, a sort of teddy bear material, I don’t know what air force or army that was from, maybe Greek or something, and it was a bit big for me so I could wear two battle dress blouses, two pairs of trousers, two shirts, two vests and three pullovers, because sometimes it was twenty below in the air and then I’d wear my flying suit, going to the toilet to urinate was a bit difficult because I had so many clothes on, I couldn’t stretch my penis long enough in the cold air to have a pee in the pee tube, which was on the side of the fuselage with a tube leading out of the aircraft but usually they were blocked up with cigarette ends [laughs]. The Americans had had ashtrays in their Liberators, they smoked in the air, smoked cigars in fact but the RAF took the ash trays out so of course we smoked in the air, nobody knew and I would smoke twenty cigarettes during a trip and now and again I’d feel like another cigarette but I’d already got one alight and then I’d think, ‘what did I do with the last cigarette end, did I stamp on it? did I drop it?’ and I’d switch a torch on which had a bit of brown paper over the glass, inside the glass because that was regulation and try and find the cigarette end on the floor somewhere and, once we took a fitter with us to another airfield and he nearly had a fit when he saw me light a cigarette because you are not allowed to smoke within so many yards of an aircraft but it was alright, it was, smoking was less of a hazard than the flak, we were carrying a ten thousand pounds of bombs and thousands of gallons of fuel, petrol and oil and pyrotechnics, photo flashes, incendiary bombs so –
CB: A cigarette was the least of your problems –
JA: A cigarette was minor.
CB: What did you make of the Liberator as a plane?
JA: Well when I flew it, because I could fly it when the automatic pilot backed and the skipper said to me ‘you can take over if you like’, it was like, it was like steering the Queen Mary, if you wanted to change course you had a wheel instead of a joystick and you’d turn the wheel and wait and nothing happens for a few seconds and then suddenly it moves, and if you don’t turn the wheel back quick enough its gone too far, so it’s too sluggish and, of course my instrument flying, I only took over at night, my instrument flying wasn’t good enough, most of my instrument flying was in the link trainer under the hood, and instrument flying was tedious and I could only stand about half an hour at a time, then I was glad when the skipper came back and took over, we were all sergeants, we liked that, because it was awkward sometimes when there was officers in the crew, in one crew the tail gunner was an officer well that seemed silly because a sergeant in that crew was a skipper and he was in charge in the air but he had to salute the tail gunner on the ground, well he should have done if they hadn’t abandoned saluting, but there was so many American officers because all of their bomb aimers or bombardiers were commissioned and the navigators and the pilots, so they always, when they talked to me they always addressed me as lieutenant because they thought I must be an officer being a bomb aimer, bombardier, and I would say ‘no we’re not one, we’re sergeants’, but you see we didn’t wear rank badges because we hadn’t got any, when we qualified at flying school, they didn’t give us any sergeant strips and when we got to the squadron nobody was wearing any rank and the commanding officer said ‘you should wear rank badges’, we said ‘we haven’t got any’ he said ‘chalk them on’, chalk them on, well that seemed so silly we didn’t bother, we said ‘we can get some from the Americans’ he said ‘you’re not allowed to wear those’, so we didn’t wear anything.
CB: Did you get on well with the Americans?
JA: Yes, oh yeah they were lovely fellows, we went to a, about twenty miles away to Foggia, was a ruined town, it had been bombed by the Germans, the Italians, the British and the Americans so there wasn’t much left of it, but there was a bath house where they had shower baths, and when we had a day off we’d hitch a ride on a lorry, lorries were conveying chalk from the quarries and we’d hitch a ride on the back of a lorry carrying limestone, and then we’d get very dusty on there, the drivers were all American Negroes and they’d say ‘where you going, down town Foggia?’ and we’d say ‘yes’, ‘get aboard’, so we’d climb up on the limestone and go to the bathhouse which was a small with half a dozen cubicles which were meant for one or two people but there were always four or six people pushing in trying to get wet, under the water, and we’d be sitting there waiting to go in with our towels and our soap, all naked, and soon as someone came out we’d push our way in and try and get some water, and after the war I was invited by the Hungarian government to go, go to a meeting in Budapest, they’d invited all available flyers of every air force that was active over Hungary during the war, well Hungary was allied with Germany and I’d bombed Hungary but the Hungarian air force was very kind to us, they took us flying, you know in their aeroplanes and there were five Americans standing there, there were only two of us they could find from England, but I said to one of the Americans ‘do you remember the shower baths in Foggia?’ he said ‘yeah I must have seen you there’ but he said ‘I didn’t recognise you there with your clothes on’[laughing].
CB: So let’s turn to your missions, your operations, what were you involved in while you were there on your long range bomber?
JA: Well we could put most eighty aircraft in the air, RAF, Liberators and Wellingtons but the Americans could put up six hundred, or nearly a thousand, they flew during the day, we flew to the same time at night and of course we had the same opposition say for sixty planes as they had when they flew six hundred so our casualties were much higher than Americans but I liked the Americans, we got on well with them, they had a camp in a field not far from us and we went to visit them once, to compare their facilities with ours and they had tents with wooden floors and wooden walls and they had stoves, we had nothing like that, we didn’t have running water, they did, they had electric light, we didn’t, they had decent food, we didn’t, they had flak jackets to protect them when they were flying, we didn’t, they had an ice cream plant for making ice cream and when the weather was very hot, they used to take the ice cream up to about fifteen thousand feet to freeze it and they had a cinema on their site, we didn’t, so we felt really rather ashamed of our conditions compared with theirs ‘cause they didn’t know how bad ours were –
CB: I’m surprised there wasn’t mutiny but I suppose –
JA: Well we had some desertions, we didn’t, we felt mutinous but we didn’t actually mutiny, and our attitude was we want to get this bloody war over and beat the Germans, and get home, but after forty operations we should have six months instructing or some other job and then come back and do another forty so not many people getting through the first forty and by the time we’d done twenty we knew we wouldn’t survive, we were the most senior crew on the squadron, we lost the flight commander and all the senior people off the squadron and when people much more experienced than us were failing to come back, we thought ‘we haven’t got much chance’, and so we reconciled ourselves to the fact that we will die but everybody’s got to die sooner or later and we thought ‘we are gonna die now instead of when we are ninety-nine’ so that cheered us up the fact that everybody has got to go sooner or later anyway but what did worry us, is the thought that we’d be severely wounded and blinded and badly burned, that sort of thing and having to live with that from the age of twenty for the rest of our lives, we didn’t like that, we had been stationed in Torquey as raw recruits, and there was a hospital there for burned air crews, air crews that had had their faces burned off and they were disgusting to look at, and horrifying, and we didn’t want that to happen to us, it was very demoralising and it was happening to other men, it never happened to us, you know, we couldn’t understand how we keep getting away with it, the plane was hit, engines were knocked out, we were landing on one wheel and two engines and all sorts of things like that, but none of us were hit yet and we went on to, the skipper had done one air experience trip, before we started operating, so he was one ahead of us he’d flown with another crew for experience, we didn’t like that ‘cause we thought ‘if he gets bumped off we’ll have a strange pilot’, and anyway we went on, watching other people dropping like flies until our, until my, my thirty-seventh trip, and I was bombing German troops in Serbia, they were evacuating from Greece and the Greek islands, back through Yugoslavia, back to the home land, to defend Germany, and we were stopping them, and no matter how much we bombed them they never really took to it and they hit me, filled me full of shrapnel.
CB: Before we get to that Jim, your first operation I believe were against oil plants in Bucharest, is that right?
JA: The first one was an oil refinery in Fiume, that was an Italian port which is now Rijeka which Fiume and Rijeka mean river, and it’s now Yugoslav, Croatia now, and I know that oil refinery well, and I know a woman who used to go to school across the bay when I was bombing that oil refinery and I thought what a terrible thing it was she lived nearby and when I went past on the bus sometimes after the war and I thought I could’ve killed her and I would’ve hated to kill her she was such a nice person and, after the war I knew a lot of Germans, the German airmen, pilots, ‘cause I speak fluent German and they always thought I was German, they used to say ‘but your father’s German?’, and ‘no, no he’s English’, well your mother is German ‘no no’, ‘well where did you learn English?’, I was the head of the German department of import export firm for years and I had to learn German at school anyway, and I had a private tutors for languages after the war and, I even spoke Italian during the war, fifteen years after the war I opened an office in Milan, and I put a man there who was a Venetian, rather posh Italian, superior you know, and I said ‘hey Franco, have you changed the language?’ and he said ‘why?’ I said ‘well during the war we used to speak differently’ and he said ‘no we haven’t changed anything’ well he said ‘after Mussolini, we didn’t call people voy we said lay’ and I said ‘no it’s not that’ I said, I only speak these days when I’m on my monthly trip to Italy, to supervise the office, I only speak to bus conductors and waiters and people like that but they speak differently to the way I spoke, so I started talking to him in Italian and he said ‘for God’s sake don’t talk to the directors of Fiat, what you speak is Neapolitan dialect’, well I didn’t know that and I thought well if it was good enough for the girls in Sorrento, it’ll have to be good enough for the rest of the Italians, he said ‘you speak like those little black fellas down in the south’, ‘cause you know there was snobbishness between the north and the south but I liked the southern Italians, they were all nice jolly people you know, I’ve even got some distant relatives that are Italian, my, my grandmother’s sister married an Italian during the first war when the Italians were on our side, and they settled in England and had a multitude of children and I knew them all.
CB: So the operations, some of which were in Ploiesti in Romania, and they had a fearful reputation.
JA: It was the most heavily defended target in the world.
CB: You were bombing these oil plants, especially the one at Ploiesti at night obviously?
JA: Yes, yes it had tremendous defences you know, because it was the oil that was vital, what really finished the war was lack of petrol, they got, they’d run out of fuel for the tanks and the aircraft so all the war we should have only really been concentrating on oil refineries, oil fields.
CB: So the operation in October to do gardening or mine laying as it was properly known, mine laying in the Danube of which you reported was the most frightening episode that you’d ever been.
JA: Well the first time that we dropped mines in the Danube, we’d been told they are secret and you must make sure you drop them in the main stream, the Germans must not get the secret of the mines, they lie dormant for three weeks and they don’t go off until the second ship passes over them, so they are virtually un-sweep able, the Germans used to fly over them with special aircraft with a big magnetic ring on it to try and explode them, they’d gun barges adrift to go over them and nothing, they couldn’t sweep them and, within a few months we’d stopped a hundred percent shipping on the Danube, which was conveying oil from Ploiesti back to the German forces, so it was a very important thing and the fighter defences were enormous, we’d seen planes shot down every few minutes and that was a bit frightening, I used to think ‘I hope there’s not somebody I know in it’, because a plane would fly along beside us for seconds, it seemed like ages, on fire, and slowly descend in a curve and explode on the ground, and we were told, ‘don’t be distracted by crashes’ but you can’t stop looking at them, wondering ‘whose that?’ and thinking ‘why don’t they get out, don’t see any parachutes’, what we didn’t know was that the Germans had upward firing guns, and they’d creep underneath the plane in the dark and fire into the belly of the plane and nobody would see them, so the gunners didn’t open fire and wondered ‘why didn’t the gunners open fire on that?’, nobody told us about it, this was the secret.
CB: No, they were doing this to Liberators? They were certainly doing it to Lancasters weren’t they, they were doing this to Liberators as well?
JA: Yeah and you see we had no ball turret underneath, the RAF took out that bull turret, we hadn’t got a gunner for it anyway and then we had a gun turret in the nose but they took all the guts out of that, to decrease the weight, so we had no guns in the front turret, we had no gun underneath that could’ve seen these upward firing guns and we didn’t carry a lot of ammunition, mining the Danube we would use all our ammunition, immediately I’d drop the bombs, I would rush back to the beam position where I’d got two machine guns, one on either side, there was no gunner for those so in the event of an attack I would use those or when we were mining the Danube, I’d drop the mines, rush back there and use those guns to strafe the shipping on the water or any insulations on the banks, the banks were two hundred feet high, and the Germans used to stretch cables from bank to bank so we had to fly below two hundred feet so we normally went to a hundred feet in the dark above the water, and then we thought we’d be safe, except there was flak barges with barrow balloons and we couldn’t see the cables from those because the barrage ruins were too high up above us and you can’t see a cable in the dark, we were going too fast anyway and, I remember one time there was a man on a barge firing at me with an automatic rifle and I gave him a quick skirt, squirt from the machine gun as I went by, I would’ve like to have met him after the war if you lived to discuss that, you know I didn’t mean it really you know, I’d say ‘I’ve got nothing against you personally’.
CB: But if you’re going to fire at me, I’m firing at you, what was your bomb load on something like this?
JA: Ten thousand pounds, you see we couldn’t carry a big bomb like the Lancaster because we’d got the cat walk going down the centre of the plane, so the bombs had to be hung in rows one above the other on either side of the cat walk, so the biggest bomb we could carry was a thousand pounds, so we carried ten of those, ten thousand pounds, which is plenty anyway and we’d carry pyrotechnics, lots of incendiaries as well.
CB: And what was your job if there was a hang up, and the bomb hadn’t been released?
JA: I had to go along the cat walk, in the dark, with no parachute, and no oxygen, and holding onto the railings in the roof and skidding about on the ten inch wide cat walk, with the, the slipstream would take away my weight so I had a job to keep on my feet and when I got to the bomb which was usually the one right to the back, I would stand on the cat walk with one leg and kick it and it would never fall off, so I had to swing then holding onto the hydraulic pipes, which were not meant to be swung from they are only about an inch diameter, I’d hold them with two hands, my wrists would go like jelly, you know, I’d swing and kick with both feet and when the bomb eventually fell off it was like my stomach went off with it, ‘cause there was always lights twinkling on the ground and thousands of feet below, and one slip and I’m off to the ground you know, seconds to live, that was terrifying. The only other terrifying thing was throwing grenades when I went on an infantry tactics course during training and, swinging propellers, on tiger moths, on a wet windy and muddy day, I thought I’ll swing in to the propeller and get my head cut off, but when I was in South Africa a chap did walk into a propeller, a navigator, and it threw his head over the hangar, so propellers were a danger, you couldn’t see them rotating, they were invisible.
CB: So now you were also involved in what was known as the Warsaw uprising or the support of that, that’s right isn’t it Jim?
JA: Yes but to go back to the mining of the Danube, the first time we mined the Danube, I said to the skipper ‘we’re too low, we’re much too low’ and he said ‘we’re at a hundred feet’ and I thought ‘we’re bloody not’, I could tell by the droplets of water we’re not at a hundred feet, when we got back to base the compass was, the radio compass was checked and we’d been at thirty feet in the dark, if we’d touched the water we’d have been gone, so that, it was terrifying yet there was no, there was no pay off, if you dropped the bombs you’d see the explosions and things, you’ve done something but you dropped mines that are not going to go off for three weeks or more then there’s no, the stress is there, there’s no release from the stress except machine gunning like mad, and then of course on the way back you would get attacked by fighters so then I was stay by the beam guns or as the Americans call them the waist guns, and that was quite exciting really firing those, but the reflector sides illuminated, were too bright, they were meant to be used during the day and I couldn’t see through them at night so I switched them off and I fired watching where the trace goes ‘cause every fifth bullet it was a tracer, so I fired a gun like squirting a hose, and they’d burn out about I don’t know whether it was six hundred yards but up to that time I could see where they were going, firing like watering the garden it was, with a hose pipe [laughing] anyway you were asking me about?
CB: Supporting the Warsaw uprising, dropping the supplies?
JA: Yeah, I’d bombed a place in Hungary, we were pretty tired, it was the second of two nights we’d been in the air, and we eventually got back in the tent to go to bed and within three hours a runner, a runner arrived from the orderly room and he said ‘you’ve got to report for briefing’, we’ve only been in the tent for three hours and we were told you’re going on a secret operation, fly down to Brindisi, we didn’t know what it was all about, and in Brindisi we went into a hut and there was a big map on the end wall and it showed a tape going from Brindisi to Warsaw, we thought well it’s nothing to do with us, the Poles are on our side we’re not going to bomb Warsaw, but then we were briefed and told we’re not going to bomb, we’re going to drop supplies of explosives and ammunition and guns for the underground resistance fighters who were fighting in the city against the Germans and, they were expecting the Russians to arrive any minute so on the 1st of August they’d started to fight, and they were doing well for a few days, and the Russians stopped their advance so the Poles were on their own so they appealed for help, apparently Winston Churchill was in Italy checking the arrangements for the south of France invasion which was imminent and he said, ‘we must help the Poles, we went to join the war on their account, we can’t stand idly by’, our air officer commander told us this later and, so he said we should go with the special duty squadrons, there was an Polish squadron and an RAF squadron dropping supplies but they’d lost so many men so they couldn’t continue so three liberator bomber squadrons were called in to do the supply dropping, they said ‘you must, you must drop from below six hundred feet and the poles said ‘two hundred, otherwise the parachute containers will drift away’ and they said ‘we’ve been there, it’s safer at a hundred feet because then the Germans can’t bring the guns to there because at a hundred feet you’ve come and gone quickly’, but they said ‘there’s one building still standing and that’s sixty meters high, so don’t fly into that in the middle of the night’, when we got to Warsaw, the whole city was on fire, gun fire and everything was burning and we’d been told a particular street and squares where we were to drop the supplies but nothing was recognisable so I remembered them saying, Zoliborz, a district of Warsaw is still in the hands of the insurgents, well that was a few days ago and I thought there doesn’t seem to be any fires, or no fighting going on as far as I could see, we fly around for fifty minutes and planes were getting shot down all around us and I’d eventually counting the bridges, I knew where Zoliborz was, I dropped the supplies there and I said to the wireless operator, ‘we must be bloody mad you know flying around fifty minutes’ and he said ‘well we’re not going all that way to drop them in the wrong bloody place’, I thought we’re all crazy, the psychiatrist reported that we were crazy, in their official reports, which I read after the war, ‘they must be crazy and they all think it won’t happen to them’, it’s insulting, we knew it was going to happen to us sooner or later, why shouldn’t it happen to us, it did happen to me in the end, fortunately it wasn’t quite fatal [laughing] .
CB: Glad to hear it, so that was your philosophy really to imagine that you had been killed already basically?
JA: Well we knew that we would die eventually anyway, so it’s like people ask you ‘when did you have your holidays?’, when you’ve had it, doesn’t matter if it was June or September, its gone, so doesn’t matter when you die really, if you’ve got to die anyway what’s the date matter, we had to tell ourselves that sort of thing, but we had superstitions, we had lots of superstitions, my friend Deakey (?) the navigator, he had a lucky shirt and he couldn’t fly without his lucky shirt and if it was dirty he had to wash and dry it quickly ready for flying that night, we only fly once without his lucky shirt and we got lost, and that was on the way back from Warsaw, we went twice to Warsaw and each night we lost thirty percent and by the third night we’d lost ninety percent, ninety, the air force pretended it was seventeen percent but everybody knows it was ninety percent and there are plenty of documents saying it was ninety percent and our air officer commanding Sir John Slessor wrote a book in which he [said] the time of the Warsaw uprising was the worst time of his career and he mentioned it was ninety percent but after the war, Stalin had to be appeased so we didn’t want to tell, didn’t want to emphasize anything we did that he didn’t agree with, ‘cause Stalin was anti-Poles and he’d stopped his army to allow the Germans to polish off Warsaw, and Hitler said eradicate Warsaw, it was to be razed to the ground and he gave an order ‘all inhabitants to be killed’ and the new German commander who wrote a book after the war, he said ‘you don’t mean women and children?’ and he was told ‘yes’ [emphasis], the whole population is to be killed, that’s what was going on when we were flying over there, and we were told ‘if you get shot down near the Russian lines, they will shoot you, especially if you are dressed in blue’, well of course we were dressed in blue we were in the Air Force, so it was a bit late to tell us that now and, while we were flying to Warsaw we were being shot at by the Russians and the Germans because they didn’t agree with us helping the Poles, the Poles got a medal, the Germans got a special badge, the Russians got a medal, I’ve got one of them as a souvenir, and we got nothing, we got no recognition.
CB: Andy your pilot comes over as very calm.
JA: Yes, he was very determined, he was very stubborn and of course he was the skipper, he was in charge but I always felt that I was in charge you see and when we were lost on the way back from Warsaw, Deakey the navigator called me up and said ‘Jimmy can I have a word with you’, well I thought there’s something wrong and I just asked him a little while ago, ‘do you want a pinpoint?’ ‘cause I would navigate by map reading all the way there and back you see, but I hadn’t bothered because he, I said ‘do you want a pinpoint?’ and he said ‘no, no I’m alright’ now he says ‘can I have a word with you?’, so I scrambled up the front to the nose compartment and the tears were dripping off his chin and he said ‘I don’t know what country we’re over’, I said ‘give me the typographical maps, I’m shit hot at map reading, I could tell you in a few seconds where you are’ and I said ‘we’ve got no maps for this place whatever it is’, when we should be over the sea, we’re over land and when we should be over land we were over the sea of course we were over the Greek islands, they’re all messy you know, the little bits and we’ve got no map for that place and I didn’t know until after the way why we hadn’t got a map, the reason was he’d got diarrhoea and he’d used the map because there wasn’t any toilet in plane, and he wrapped it up and chucked it out down the flare shoot, that’s where the map was the Germans had got it, bit messy, and the plane had been on fire, the wireless operator had the wireless set in pieces and he was in his element putting it together, you know mending it, he was busy and I, went up the front to have a chat to the skipper with Andy, and I said to the flight engineer, he pushed past me to look at the fuel gauges, they were like a gauge on an oil tank, like a domestic oil tank, visual gauge with a bubble in tubes, I said ‘how we’re doing?’ he said ‘empty’, I said ‘we can’t be empty we’re still flying’ he said ‘yeah but I don’t know how long for’, we’re flying over aerodromes with German planes with black crosses on, they’re freight planes but we daren’t try and land there otherwise the you know the ground defences open up on us, so I said to Andy ‘we’re heading to the mountains’ and I said to him ‘land on this road’ I said ‘these strong, straight roads’ I said ‘we’re just flying over one now, look you can land here, that’s what I would do if I were you’ and he said ‘I think we’ll press on’, I thought ‘you’re mad, press on, [emphasis] we’re flying into the mountains and we’re out of fuel, and in any minute all the engines are going to cut out’, anyway he was right and we did press on and we got eventually over the sea and the radio operator had got the wireless together again and he always used to stand up and point when he was listening on the radio and he started waving his arms about and pointing and he said its Brindisi and we were facing the runway, we running up to Brindisi and we went straight in, if there had been anybody in the way we couldn’t have done round the circuit because when we got to the end of the runway the, all engines cut out, out of fuel, so we told the duty pilot where we were and that we were out of fuel, so they put some fuel in and flew back to Amendola near Foggia, of course we’d been gone so long we couldn’t still be in the air, our trip was eleven hours and forty minutes plus over an hour going to Brindisi over an hour coming back so we were so tired, I’d already dropped off to sleep for the last half an hour and when the plane landed I was still asleep and the ground crew got in and stirred me with a foot to wake me up, I was just dead tired, I’d been in the air longer than I’d been on the ground for about three days and no sleep at all you know (tired, hungry?) yeah but we were always hungry.
CB: And then you’d have to have the debriefing?
JA: Yes, that didn’t take long because we were always a bit impatient at debriefing, we’d answer questions, we didn’t volunteer any information and always something had gone wrong with the plane, like the guns didn’t fire, the oxygen cylinders were empty, all sorts of things, one engine cut out, two engines cut out and the ground crew would run out to us soon as we landed and they’d shout ‘any snags, any snags?’ and we’d swear and shout and say ‘this went wrong and that went wrong’ using lots of ‘f’ words but then we’d never report the snags, because we relied on those lads and it wasn’t their fault, the planes were clapped out anyway and they’d work through the night perhaps maintenance and they couldn’t get spares and some of the things they did were, were fatal, and they couldn’t help it, one of them said to me, ‘I don’t get very close to the air crews, I don’t make friends with them because’ he said ‘if a plane goes missing I’d wonder if I did something wrong or whether I’d forgot to do something’ and he said ‘I’ve been on a squadron a long time and lots of planes have gone missing and I always feel it might be my fault’ so he said ‘I don’t like to get friendly with air crews’, I can understand that, when I used to go to the, we weren’t allowed to take anything with us like a bus ticket or money or anything like that, and so I had a little wallet and I used to hand it to the sergeant fitter, ground crew fitter and I’d say ‘take that Jake and if I don’t come back you can keep it’, and he’d take it but he didn’t like touching it really and when I got back he’d shove it at me as soon as he could ‘cause he didn’t want anything to do with dead men’s property and I can understand that you know, he was squeamish and when I got wounded he was the chap who lifted me up and carried me out of the plane.
CB: So what happened on that your final operation obviously, what was it the thirty-seventh out of forty?
JA: Yes
CB: And what happened Jim?
JA: When we were told the target would be undefended, and for the first time ever you can bomb anywhere in the town, it’s just full of Germans, so I dropped a stick of bombs at predetermined intervals, and I hit about two or three blocks of flats right in the middle, the next one between two blocks of flats, the next one a road and rail junction, and then I said to the skipper, ‘hold this course for half a minute because we’re going into mountains now’, and we were low you see because the visibility you had to come down very low, ‘cause of the cloud, and just as I said that the tail gunner said ‘it’s flak, it’s stern’ and WOOF [emphasis to express being hit], and it’s a sensation like if you’re playing football and the football is wet and heavy and somebody kicks it and it hits you straight in the face, it’s a numb sensation at first and then comes the pain, well this was like a puff of wind, like being hit with something but no pain what so ever and then floods of blood, I seemed to be bleeding to death, and I felt for my parachute pack because I thought we were getting shot down but I was the only one hit actually, we were hit in one engine and me and the navigator wrote in his diary; ‘Jim’s eyeball is hanging out on his cheek’ [laughs] actually it wasn’t, I’d got a lump of Perspex because all the Perspex had become shrapnel, and there was a piece about four inches long stuck in my eyeball and of course all the blood was running down my face because I was hit in the head and the face and everywhere and the blood running down this Perspex made it look as though my eye was hanging out you see so he couldn’t look at me, so he tapped me on the head and I could see he was talking, we had throat microphones, American throat microphones, it were very efficient and he was telling the crew I’d been hit, I crawled under the flight deck and when I stood up in the well, the back of the flight deck, the wireless operator had got all the first aid kits open and he wanted to put one on my face but he was hesitant to do it and I thought ‘do it, do it’, but of course there was this four inch long piece of shrapnel stuck in my eye, and it wasn’t until it fell out that he could put bandages on and then he bandaged everything that was bloody including my right arm which was badly damaged and my left arm which I’d used to investigate my other wounds and that wasn’t damaged but it was very bloody so he bandaged that as well, he bandaged everything and then he said ‘I’ll give you a shot of morphine’, I said ‘I’m not in pain’, I had no pain what so ever and that frightened me because I thought, if you get your legs chopped off you don’t feel any pain, because the body reacts as though you get shock but you don’t feel pain and I thought I’m dying, I must be dying and I said ‘I’m not in any pain I don’t need morphine’ and he got some out the first aid thing and I’d got my eyes shut and he stuck the thing in my arm and the morphine came like a marble, raised up, it didn’t disperse and when we landed he said to the ground crew ‘I’ve tied a label on him saying I gave him morphine at twelve o’clock, but I know now that I shouldn’t do that because he’s got a head wound’ and ‘oh Christ he’s killed me instead of the Germans’ [laughing].
But anyway, all we did all the time was sing and tell jokes, and it was like a rugby club –
CB: In the military hospital?
JA: No on the squadron, we weren’t morose and we weren’t miserable, in fact everything was hilarious and because we had to keep flying it didn’t matter what we did, hooliganism didn’t matter, drunkenness, it didn’t matter, because we were either up in the air or we had a group stand down when we’d have two of three days off due to so many casualties, waiting for new crews and new aeroplanes, and we’d get drunk and forget everything you see, and if, if unexpectedly we had to fly after a night a free night in the mess and drunkenness, we’d have a headache like you’ve never experienced and I went to the medical officers little cubby hole and there was a youth leaning up the doorpost and I pushed past him and I was opening boxes and things looking for an aspirin and I said to this fella, ‘do you know where they keep the aspirins?’ and he said ‘yeah’ and he told me and I said ‘you know your way around?’ and he said ‘yeah I’m the medical officer’ [laughs]
CB: So you found yourself in this hospital?
JA: Yeah when, after we landed, I was put on a stretcher, propped up in a sitting position on some blankets, some blankets behind me and it seemed to take ages and the flight engineer said ‘what’s the bloody delay? Get him to hospital’ and they said ‘we’re checking the first aid kits’ which all had been opened and used and they said ‘there’s a pair of scissors missing’ and that’s why they were delaying and he said ‘if you don’t get him to hospital right away I’m gonna bloody do the lot of ya’, and he was a tough Shetlander and that made them pull their socks up, and they put me in the ambulance to go seven miles, no twenty miles into Foggia to the general hospital, military hospital, and the skipper said ‘I’ll come with you’, well he shouldn’t have, he should’ve gone back to be debriefed but I was glad he came with me, ‘cause I didn’t know what I looked like, I didn’t know if my ear had been chopped off or whether I’d got a complete nose ‘cause I knew a piece of shrapnel had creased the top of my nose and the bottom, I didn’t know how bad things were and he said I can show you and he and he got a little stainless steel or chrome mirror in his pocket and he showed me but that’s very distorting and I thought ‘bloody hell look at that’, and I heard the nurses talking and they were talking as though I was already dead and one of them said ‘he must have been a good looking boy’, he must have been? [emphasis] I’m still here, you know, and they stripped me, cut all me clothes off and I felt a bit embarrassed because I’d borrowed a pair of long johns from the tail gunner and I was stripped down to my long johns and I felt that was a bit embarrassing because long johns were a bit silly aren’t they, and then the skipper went back then but he had to hitch hike back and he was in his flying kit you know, and when he got back he got a bollock-ing ‘cause he should have gone straight back not gone to the hospital with me, and anyway he got over that and they decided as he’d done one more trip than me anyway and they couldn’t manage without me and they hadn’t got anyone to replace me, the crew could stop now and go for a rest period, and after a few days they did go, and so there I was in hospital four and a half hours, and a chap from the squadron had sprained his wrist or something and he called at the hospital, to see the medical officer at the hospital and he said, the medical officer said ‘we’ve got a chap from your squadron in here’ and he said ‘oh I’d like to go and see him’ and he said ‘no you better not he’s just recovering from four and a half hours on the operating table so you won’t be able to talk to him yet’, and I came round and it was evening but I couldn’t see and I was bound up like an invisible man, just all bandages and I could see a white apparition by the bed and I thought ‘I’m alive’, surprisingly and I muttered, [clears throat] ‘could you tell me if they’ve taken my ear off?’ and this thing said ‘what are you here for?’, and I said ‘I’ve been wounded’, and she said ‘well you’re have to wait until the day staff comes on, I don’t know anything about you’ so I had to wait the rest of the night to find out whether I’d got a nose and whether I had only got one ear and that worried my because in the day of short haircuts I thought I’d look a fool with only one ear [slight laugh] isn’t that silly and, of course I was blind in one eye and the, every hour they dropped penicillin in my eye, it was icy cold, they said ‘you’re lucky, you’re being treated with this new penicillin, new’, I’d never even heard of it and I said ‘can you warm it up, it’s cold’ they said ‘we keep it in the refrigerator’ [slight laugh], anyway, after a few days I was totally blind because my left, my left eye had been alright, well reasonable but then I was totally blind in both eyes and I heard them muttering about cross infection in the ward and I had to lie flat on my back for a month, thirty days I wasn’t allowed to sit up or move due to the eye treatment, they said ‘we’ve healed eyes before but usually they get an infection in the end and we have to remove them’ and I thought well if I can’t see with it it doesn’t matter, I might look alright with an eye patch, a talking point and they transferred me to another ward, they lifted me up flat, put me on a stretcher, wheeled me away, and all the others in the ward had thought I’d died and I said well nobody talked to me anyway, they said, ‘well when your eyes were bound up we didn’t know whether you were awake or asleep’, well I didn’t know what time it was or what date it was or anything and I used to doze off and come back to consciousness again all the time and I never knew whether it was morning or afternoon or evening and I used to listen to what was going on, are these night time sounds or day time sounds, very difficult to tell. Anyway I then after a while when I’d recovered a bit I had more operations on my eye under local anaesthetic, terribly painful, they picked out bits of steel, bits of Perspex and a piece of wood and the chap said to me, ‘what wood was there in the air craft?’ I said ‘well it was made of aluminium’ he said ‘well you’ve got a piece of wood in your eye, a tiny piece’, then I remembered, there was an air blower near the bomb airmen’s position and it would blow in my face so I used to put map over it and stand the astro compass box up against it and it was made of wood and of course that had been shattered and a piece of wood obviously went in my eye, and when they cut my clothes off in the hospital I’d got three pullovers on, lots of clothes you know, multiples of everything and two of the pullovers were air force issue but one I’d brought at Marks and Spencer’s before I joined up and I thought ‘steady on that’s my pullover they cut in half’ you know and that watch that got took off I brought that you know, got no compensation, but anyway it was terrible in the hospital because nobody had any time for me, I don’t know whether they were opposed to the bomber offensive or what it was.
CB: So what nationality were they, the nursing staff?
JA: British, in that hospital they were British, in a second hospital they had Italian nurses that was a bit better but the British nurses were quite cruel really and, except for one, she used to be on night duty and she’d come and sit on the bed and talk to me at night and bring me a cup of tea, I think she fancied me [laughing] and anyway when I could stand up, because I felt very dizzy, it was very difficult to stand up after being about six weeks in bed and I’d only got blood stained clothes on, ‘cause one battle dress was though the rats had eaten it, it just fell open, as I’d got more than one battle dress on, one of them weren’t too bad and, but it was all blood stained and my flying boots were all caped with blood and I felt stupid you know I wanted to have proper clothes, and I felt very truculent and resentful, and the nurse came round and she said ‘lie to attention’ [emphasis] and I said ‘what does that mean?’, she said ‘both arms above the sheets down by your sides, feet together, head straight’, [coughs] I said ‘I can’t do it’, can we wait a minute [pauses] and then got it up gradually from twenty to eighty percent.
CB: So you’re still in the hospital, how long were you in the hospital?
JA: Three months and I was transferred then to a place called Torre del Greco to another hospital, and we’d got Italian nurses there, very pretty, black hair and uniforms, white dresses with a red cross on their chest and their English was a bit faulty and they’d come round every day and ask me ‘lavatory?’ [puts on an accent] and I’d say ‘what’s that?’, ‘lavatory?’ [in accent again], that’s all they could say and I’d say ‘I don’t understand’, and then they’d write something down and go away and I was there for a month and then I was discharged and told you’re on twenty four hour stand by to go back to England wounded, never happened, after a few weeks, they put red crosses on my kit bags and loaded them on board a ship, I had a two week visit, sorry a two week voyage back to England through the, past Gibraltar, through the Bay of Biscay, submarine alert all the time, no beds no chairs and I sat on a form leaning on a table for two weeks.
CB: Still of course not a hundred percent?
JA: No I was ill, very ill and every now and then submarine alert and I’d got to scramble up on deck in a life vest and over coat and have to stand there in the drizzle and rain until the submarine alert was over, and I wasn’t treated as an invalid at all, I was just with the other troops, nobody had a bed, nobody had a chair, if some of them if they were lucky they could climb on the table and sleep on the table but I couldn’t get on the table so I had to sit on the form and lean forward on the table all night, and we put into Liverpool and we spent twenty four hours in the docks while the customs went thoroughly through the ship examining everything, I thought some people have been abroad for several years, what the hell are they looking for? and we’re all British anyway, and then I got off the boat and I had to carry two kit bags with the red crosses on, all to the station put them on the train unaided, I thought ‘what they hell are the red crosses for?’, and I reported to the Air Ministry with me two kit bags and they said ‘you’ve been sent back because they haven’t got the right facilities for treating you in Italy’, so I expected to go back into hospital again but they gave me five weeks leave, didn’t give me any money, they didn’t ask me where will you go on your five weeks leave but they said ‘every week report here again’, well my, fortunately my father was at an Air Ministry unit at Harrow and my parents lived in Hillingdon on the outskirts of London, so I could live with them, the morning after I arrived there, in my funny garb of odds and sods and I hadn’t got a proper uniform, I heard the first time of Doodlebug what we called pilotless planes (B1) I had heard about them, didn’t realise they were so noisy, I knew when the motor cut out they’d come down and one came over and the motor stopped and I said to my mother ‘what do you do?’ she said ‘don’t do anything’ and she went outside to peg some washing on the line and it just dropped at Greenford, which was not very far away from [pauses] not very far away from where we were living and then the rockets came and they were terrifying, the V2s, the rockets, because you’d hear terrible explosion and then hear them coming and in the newspapers and on the radio it was saying ‘gas mains exploding all over London’, well that was a lie, my father knew what they were and he was told ‘don’t evacuate your family as it will cause panic’ so he had to stay there, couldn’t tell his family the danger, it was quite silly during the war because when the Germans bombed a town we weren’t allowed to know which town it was, on the radio it would say ‘bombs were dropped at random’ and we thought ‘Random must be totally destroyed by now because its bombed every night’ [laughs], anyway my father said ‘haven’t you got a proper uniform’, I’d got this brown battle dress which I wore with a blue shirt and a black tie and a hat that had collapsed with a badge I had brought in a bazaar in Egypt which wasn’t a regulation badge, an air force badge it was sort of a souvenir thing bought in a bazaar ‘cause someone had stolen my badge and, he sized me up and brought me a tunic anyway but I was wearing a flying badge and strips on this brown thing and I was hoping people would ask me ‘what the hell are you?’ but nobody ever asked and I was passing military policemen, they should have said ‘excuse me, what air force are you in?’, nobody ever asked because there was so many foreigners in London of different armies and air forces that everybody looked different, anyway I realised I wasn’t, on my weekly visits to the Air Ministry, I wasn’t seen by what I would call proper doctors, I was seeing men in white coats, now psychiatry was in this infantry or psycho analysis and we were prime subjects for it because we were all bloody crackers, you see, so they asked me all sorts of questions, not about my injuries, no medical treatment but things like ‘do you like girls? What sort of girls do you like? Do you dream? What do you dream about?’ so I made things up, course the chap was writing things all down in long hand, ‘what sort of girls do you like?’ I said ‘girls with red hair’, well I had only known one girl with red hair, I nearly said to him girls who do or girls who say yes [laughing] but ‘what do you dream about’ so I made it up a dream and told him and it would amuse me to see him scribbling it all down, no medical treatment what so ever then I got a telegram, report to Innsworth, and I said to my father who’d worked his way up you see from being a corporal in the first world war to being a squadron leader, acting wing commander and he knew all the ropes, I said to him ‘god I could do with a few more days leave’ and he said ‘well send them a telegram’, I said what will I say?’ he said ‘wedding’, so I thought telegram style is quite ambiguous you see, and instead of saying ‘I request extension of leave for my wedding’ I just said ‘for wedding’, so it could be anybody’s wedding, they said forty eight hours granted and report to Manby in Lincolnshire, well I still hadn’t got proper uniform and everything, just one tunic my father had given me, this funny cap and other odd things you know, and I had to buy everything I needed to make it up, you should have three of everything, three pairs of trousers, three tunics etc. I had to buy it from the stores and a 664B which it the payment on clothing on repayment form, I can remember even the name of the form, form 664B, and I had it stopped out of my pay, so I was looking for a job, nobody knew what I was there for, there were people on a course, officers training courses and I said, they said ‘are you an instructor’ I said ‘I don’t know, can I look at your books?’ they showed me the books and I said ‘no I don’t know any of this stuff, it’s all up to date, you know I don’t know it so I can’t be an instructor’, ‘are you a pupil?’ I said ‘no I’m off flying so I can’t be a pupil’, I got pally with the armourist officer and I said ‘I’m sick of just hanging about, three weeks and nothing to do and have you got anything I can do?’ and he said ‘well we need someone to take charge of the low level bombing range but it’s night work’, I said ‘well I’ve got nothing to do during the day or during the night so I might as well be working at night, sleeping in the day’, so he gave me a squad of blokes and WAAFs and I was in charge of bombing range so after another three or four weeks he said ‘guess what, your documents have come through and you are attached to my section anyway, what would you like to do?’, I said ‘well what is there?’, he gave me two or three options and said ‘there’s a detachment on the coast with three bombing ranges, have a ride out there on the ration lorry, see if you like it, you can take charge of one of the ranges’, so I thought well anything to get away from the real air force, get away on a detachment.
CB: Your eyes were alright now were they?
JA: No, no I still couldn’t see out of my right eye, but they said, they introduced peace time regulations and things you see after the war had ended, and they said annual musketry, everybody must attend so I went to the rifle range and I fired off so many rounds and I didn’t get any bullets on the target at all, so they said ‘something must be wrong there, will you do it again?’, well I couldn’t see the target never mind hit it, and I was trying to use my left eye with the rifle on the right side you see and that’s impossible, anyway I was in charge of the bombing range for a year or two and I was sent for by the commanding officer, he was an air commodore and he said ‘air crews are allowed to take trade training’, and I said ‘well I don’t need any because I’ll be demobbed in about six months, demobilised, don’t need any trade training’, I said ‘what is there anyway?’, he said you’re only allowed to take group one or group two trades and I said ‘what are the group one’s and group two’s?’ he said ‘there aren’t any’, I said ‘well what is there then?’ he said ‘well if don’t volunteer for one of these I’ll damn well send you on one’ he said ‘there’s plenty of openings for cooks’, I said ‘oh I’d like to be a cook’, I thought you’re in the warm and you can get plenty to eat if you’re in the cook house, I said ‘I’d like to train as a cook’ and he was furious, he said ‘that’s a group five trade, you’re not allowed to take a low trade’ well I thought well it’d be nice you know in the winter in the cook house [laughing] so he said ‘I’m sending you on a photographic course’, so all the other people, I was in charge of the course of twenty five men because I was a senior man, and the others were people who had joined up to fly but before they could start training the war had finished so they got to go onto ground jobs, and the ones on the course were amateur photographers and they knew everything, well all I knew was you point a camera and press the thing and you send it off to Boots, and when it comes back it’s prints and how they do it I don’t care, but now I had to learn all about it, take photographs of things moving and you know all sorts, people walking, cycling, aeroplanes taking off and all that, I learned quite a bit actually and then I was transferred to Benson, near Oxford and I was put in charge of the photographic section, well I was the most naive photographer in the world because I wasn’t even interested, but I was put in charge and they were doing an air survey of the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, and doing hundreds of feet of film and it was all going through machines and it was all automatic, well I’d never seen such machinery and the photographic officer was always sliding off somewhere and he’d put me in charge and disappear and when he came back he’d say ‘hundreds of yards of film have been ruined’ and ‘how did that happen?’ and he said ‘you didn’t make them clean the film’ well I didn’t know they had to clean the film [slight laugh], so it wasn’t too bad because there was a lot of women there, WAAFs, they were quite jolly and I used to open the section at nine o’clock in the morning and they’d say ‘right we’re go off to breakfast now’ and we’d go down by the river, the Thames and have bacon and eggs and stroll back when we felt like it, and I hadn’t got the faintest idea, some of the people knew what they were doing and some didn’t you see, I didn’t know at all [laughs], so eventually I was demobilised from there and it took place at Uxbridge and I was given a chalk striped suit, like Max Miller I felt, and a hat, I’d never worn a trilby hat and we looked in mirrors in our civilian clothes and laughed like hell because we’d never worn anything like that before and when we come out the demobilisation centre there were chaps hanging around offering you two quid for the box of clothing, I offered them the hat, they didn’t want that, they wanted coats and trousers, ‘cause clothing was rationed you see, and the thing I would have really like to keep was an over coat because they had good overcoats in the air force and I hadn’t worn an overcoat you see, so I went to a market and they were selling second hand clothes which weren’t rationed and I brought a sailor’s overcoat [laughs].
CB: Did you keep in touch with your crew after the war?
JA: Up until the time they died, yes, except the one from the Shetlands who emigrated to New Zealand so we lost touch with him, but the rest of us stayed in touch until they all died, one at a time, not all together but they got heart attacks and cancer and things and I think that was through the stress they had during the war.
CB: You became a very successful international businessman after the war.
JA: I did, yes, I devoted all my time to educating myself, I attended a technical school, it was a commercial and technical school, they had commercial boys who did short hand typing and book keeping and technical boys, I was one, we did metal work and wood work and higher mathematics’ and science, advance subjects you know, we didn’t do the nice subjects like art anymore and scripture and things you know, easy subjects, we didn’t do that.
CB: There is one point I wanted to ask you, you were awarded the DFM, the Distinguished Flying Medal –
JA: Yes.
CB: Did you accept it?
JA: No I didn’t, I got a message, chaps used to come into town, my old friends who’d trained with me and were still on the squadron and they’d come in they said, one of them said, ‘see you got a gong then?’ and I said ‘I don’t know anything about it’, he said it was on DROs, daily routine orders, I did know about it because an officer appeared one day in the hospital and he sat on the bed next to me and I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t recognise him properly, because my eyes were badly affected and he said, in a very pompous way he said, ‘I have honour to inform you, that you have been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal’ and it was as though I could hear a radio on in the background, it didn’t sound like me at all, and I heard myself saying ‘tell them to stick it up their arse, I don’t want a bloody medal, I want some clothes, I want a shirt and a tunic, and some trousers, I want some shoes’, because they hadn’t provided me with anything and another thing that upset me was a bitch had had puppies on the squadron, in the tent lines, and I’d got one of these puppies and that was the only thing I’d got in the world, I’d got the rest of the crew but I didn’t own them and the only thing I owned was this little Italian dog, he was a kind of Labrador and I used to save a bit on my plate from dinner or breakfast and bring it back for him, put it on the ground and he’d lick the plate clean, and the next morning I’d go to breakfast, forget to wash the plate and I’d remember later ‘oh god I forgot to wash the plate’, because it was always so clean, you see he’d licked it clean, and the lads came to the hospital and they said ‘the CO’s had all the dogs shot’, ‘what, why’d he do that, shot all the dogs?’, ‘cause they were good for morale those dogs and I used to look forward to my little dog you know when I came back from my trips, it might be the last day of my life, and he shot it, and that’s why I didn’t take the DFM, why I told them to stick it up their arse, now years after the war when I moved to Lincolnshire from London, where I live now, I was in Lincoln when I met somebody who turned out to be a flight commander from the squadron, and he was not the same flight I was in, we had A flight and B flight, he was the other flight and he said, I didn’t know him on the squadron ‘cause he came after I’d you know done most of my trips, he was the new boy, and he said ‘do you know the CO is still alive, he lives in Norfolk’ I said ‘no, I didn’t know that’ he said ‘I’ll give you his details, his telephone number and address’, so I phoned him and I said ‘I’d like to come and check a few things with you ‘cause I’m writing a manuscript for a book and the sort of things I’ve heard, I heard that you were a group captain dropped down to wing commander because you wanted what the Americans called some combat time, we thought you must be bloody potty,’ because he was non-compassionate at that time you see, I said ‘there’s certain things I’d like to check with you whether it’s true or not’, I went to see him, I said you never talked to us on the squadron because we were sergeants, he said ‘well I couldn’t because you were so much more experienced than me’ he said ‘I kept a low profile’ and I said ‘well you won’t remember me but I’ll tell you something now and it’ll remind you who I am’ and I told him about the DFM and where it should be stuck and he was flabbergasted, I had come back from dead you know to haunt him and he’d got a couple of dogs there you know, young two dogs, and how would he feel now if I shot his dogs –
CB: Did you mention that to him?
JA: I didn’t no, I just told him I was so embittered and outraged that I didn’t want the bloody medal but of course it was a mistake, looking at the Antiques Roadshow one day, I saw a few ordinary medals being auctioned and a DFM, and the DFM made about six thousand pounds or something put together with the other medals and I said to my wife what a fool I was I should’ve taken it, but it was involuntary you know when I said it, it was as though I wasn’t speaking, I was listening to somebody saying it, and I was in a bad way of course, I’d got no short term memory, for many months, I didn’t dare tell anybody because I wanted to get back on to flying you see, I thought you can fly with one eye, I’m not interested in anything else only flying, they wouldn’t have it, and [pauses] I was eventually, I was on this photographic course and coming out of a darkroom into the sunlight I couldn’t see I was blinded, my eyes are streaming, so I was sent to an army doctor in Aldershot, and he said to me ‘you’re up to British army standards’ and I said ‘maybe I am because you’re calling up people with one eye now’, they were towards the end of the war they called up people to serve with one eye. And I went back to my unit, one day I was called for by the medical officer and he said ‘you should have had a medical board last year’, I said ‘I did have one’ and he said ‘why do you say that? Nothing in your records about it’, I said ‘I went to Watchfield and I had a railway warrant for myself and a party of airmen and I was in charge, ‘and what do alleged happened?’, I said ‘well the medical officer who gave me a board he said ‘what’s your condition?’ and I said ‘about the same’ and he said ‘right we’ll leave it at that then, same’ and he said ‘I can’t understand you saying that’, and I said, he was flicking over pages in a file, I said, the pages are numbered, I said to him ‘there’s one page missing’ he said ‘it’s nothing to do with you’, I said ‘well it’s my records it’s something to do with me, that’s the page that gives you know, details of my last medical board’, he said ‘I’m a squadron leader, I’m competent to conduct medical boards, you are A1’, and I thought I can’t be A1, what’s their game, I thought, well they don’t want to pay me a pension for not being A1, so nothing I can do about it, I left the Air Force and I signed on with a panel doctor just before the National Health Service came into being, and he said I’ll just check you over while you’re here and he said ‘good God man you’re in a terrible state, what the hell has happened to you?’ I said ‘I was wounded when I was flying in the Air Force’, he said ‘well you should get a pension’ and I said ‘I can’t get a pension, I’m A1’ [laughs] he said ‘the bastards’ he said, ‘they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it’, he said ‘I’ll get some British Legion forms and fill them in for you, you sign it and send them off’, so that happened, I took a day off, I thought this is a waste of time and they said ‘yes you are due for compensation’, gave me nine shillings a week, nine shillings, I didn’t need nine shillings anyway within two years I was an armour men’s designer working for the Ministry of Defence and from there I progressed upwards until I was managing director or chairman of three companies at the same time and I was making an awful lot of money.
CB: How do you look back at your time in the RAF? is it with –
JA: With disgust, you see when I was a child, daddy was in the Air Force, all his friends were in the Air Force, they were my heroes, we were, Douglas Bader was stationed on there and he used to come to my father’s house and I saw Lord Trenchard, he was going by in his car on the aerodrome and people who became very famous later and I admired them, they were all my heroes, Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison, all those people you know, civilian pilots, I didn’t know any other life so naturally I joined the Royal Air Force and when we were living at Cranwell, that time 1929 and then again just before the war, the Royal Air Force was known as the world’s finest flying club, it wasn’t very big, only about thirty thousand men in the RAF, they would join with no rank and they’d go out in seven years with no rank, there was no promotion, you see there’s no expansion until late 1930’s and everybody seemed to know everybody, my father knew every commanding officer throughout the world, and he was well known, when I was in the RAF people remembered him you know and they’d look at my name and they’d say ‘have you got any relations in the service?’, and my brother was in the RAF and he said ‘I always say no, ‘cause we don’t want to let the old man down’, ‘cause he was a bit of a scallywag, and anyway, I used to forget to draw my pension of nine shillings a week, forty five pence nowadays and it would go on for about three months and I had to write away for it, and I let things slide ‘cause I was making an awful lot of money, I was eating in the best restaurants in the West End and hotels all over the world, staying in the best hotels.
CB: What do you think you would’ve done if you hadn’t gone in the RAF?
JA: God knows
CB; Do you think you would have just brought your success as a businessman you just have brought that forward as it were and you would’ve started it straight away?
JA: I don’t know.
CB: Or did you need your time in the RAF to form and develop?
JA: I think the RAF made me very aggressive and when I went for a job after ready for coming out of the RAF, I was in uniform and I had an interview with the personnel manager of an engineering firm and he said ‘what were you doing in the Air Force?’ no ‘what were you doing in the war?’, well I was dressed in uniform, I’d got a flying badge and medal ribbons, I thought it was pretty obvious what I was doing, I said ‘I was flying in the Royal Air Force’ ‘oh’ he said ‘not much use to us is it?’, I was very aggressive at that time, the war had made me a bit loopy, and I felt like I wanted to knock his head off but I thought just a minute he’s right, I’ve learnt how to fly an aeroplane, how to drop bombs, how to blow people up, how to shoot people, I’ve learnt nothing that’s of any use to a civilian employer, he’s right I’ve completely wasted my time, if I been a cook or a lorry driver I would have something to contribute, but that made me determined to overtake all the people who hadn’t served in the war so I started at the bottom in a factory, and I went to evening classes and I had private tutors, I spent all my money on tuition, I got language teachers, I leaned Latin, I learned Russian, and I perfected my German and within two years I was head of the German department in import export firm with only Germans working for me, because I was an engineer and a German speaking Englishman, so I’d got an advantage there, and the cold war had started, and I thought either there’s going to be a war with Russia or eventually the Soviet empire is so big there will be a demand for things –
CB: that’s where you did most of your trade –
JA: So I learnt Russian so I could negotiate contracts in Moscow in Russian –
CB: Tenacious, determined.
JA: Well I was determined to do better than everybody, I went for an interview ,when I first came out of the Air Force, because I understand the government were giving grants to ex-service men, and I went for an interview and they said ‘what were you doing before you joined the Royal Air Force?’ and I said ‘well I was in school until just before’, they said ‘were you not studying for a profession?’, I said ‘I was only seventeen when I joined the air force, I was studying higher mathematics and subjects that would get me through the selection board to be a pilot’, I said ‘the town was being bombed and I thought by joining the Air Force I could help to stop that’, they looked at me, they were thinking you simpleton, they said ‘we only give grants to professional people’, so few weeks later I made another application and the attitude to me was humiliating or intended to be humiliating, so I got, I was fed up with being humiliated so I told the interviewee off, I really told him off, in words, you’ve never heard before and the second man who was sitting with him, when I left, rushed out with me and jumped in the lift and he said ‘thank you for doing that’, he said ‘that was wonderful the way you told him off, I’ve had to sit there for weeks listening to his rudeness’ he said ‘you really fixed him’. When I got a job as an armours designer, because I’d been in the Air Force and been shot, not because I knew anything about designing [slight pause], all the other people in the department had gone straight from school, into the ministry and they’d all got a free education and got a higher national certificate which is what I wanted to do you see, so I thought they’ve never been in the service and they’re the same age as me and they’re well ahead of me, got their qualifications, I’ll beat them, I’ve got to be better than them, so that’s what drove me on, I was inferior and I became superior ‘cause I had to, I had to do it, I spent all my money on studying, spent all my time on studying.
CB: Well that’s been a fantastic story Jim, thank you very much indeed.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Jim Auton
Subject
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World War (1939-1945)
Great Britain. Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Jim Auton grew up on Royal Air Force stations and joined the Royal Air Force at seventeen. He trained as a pilot navigator and bomber at RAF Ansty near Coventry, then in South Africa under the Empire Air Training Scheme. He trained on B-24s at Lidder and after travelling up through Africa was stationed at Foggia in Italy, where he started his operations. He describes the tough conditions there, as well as the operations in which he participated, such as targeting an oil refinery in Fiume, now known as Rijeka in Croatia and Ploiesti in Romania. He took part in mining operations in the Danube as well as secret operations to drop supplies in Warsaw to support the uprising. Whilst on his thirty-seventh operation, he was injured and describes his time in hospital, the journey home and his ground jobs in the Royal Air Force after the war. He also relates why he turned down a Distinguished Flying Medal, and recounts his post-war career as a businessman.
Creator
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Clare Bennett
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-08
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Emma Bonson
Heather Hughes
Language
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eng
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AAutonJF150608
Format
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02:13:37 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Warwickshire
Croatia--Rijeka
Danube River
Egypt
Italy--Foggia
Poland--Warsaw
Italy
Poland
Romania--Ploiești
Croatia
Romania
Danube River
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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.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Type
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Sound
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
animal
B-24
bombing
coping mechanism
demobilisation
Distinguished Flying Medal
fear
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
RAF Ansty
RAF Benson
sanitation
superstition
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Warsaw airlift (4 August - 28 September 1944)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/577/8846/AGregoryN150724.1.mp3
68369faff1465dab9c9367181bffe473
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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Gregory, Norman
Norman Ellis Gregory
N E Gregory
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Gregory, N
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Norman Gregory (-2022, 1473815) and his medals. He served as a bomb aimer on 101 Squadron. He flew five operations before his aircraft was shot down on 22 May 1944 over Dortmund.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NG: Good afternoon my name is Norman Ellis Gregory, I served with Bomber Command during the war and my service number is 1473815. I finished my service in February 1946 with the rank of Warrant Officer. I joined the Air Force in 194unclear). I came on active service in the Air Force in 1942, going first of all to Regent’s Park. But at the time I joined up I had volunteered about a year before for air crew in York where I was at St John’s College, York. So the Air Force took a group of us who had volunteered and, er, spent all the available weekends and some evenings training us, er, through the course what would have been ITW, so that when we went to Regent’s Park we were all, all of us were LAC’s and that meant, you know, an increase in pay from half a crown up to seven and six a day, which was very nice thank you. But anyway, from Regent’s Park we went down to, erm, Brighton for what reason I can’t remember. But anyway from Brighton we, some reason we were dispersed all over the country and I was sent to Anstey which was just on the north side of Leicester. It was, erm, a flying school and I did twelve hours in Tiger Moths at, Anstey and at that place I was recommended for multi-engined aircraft. From there (pause) I eventually gravitated to Heaton Park at Manchester and from Heaton Park at Manchester in the latter part of 1942 I was sent to Greenwich on the Clyde, and I sailed to New York on the Queen Elizabeth the first time and we sailed into New York. And, er, from New York we went up to Halifax, Nova Scotia and from there me in particular, erm, I was handed over to the Canadian Air Force and I served for the next six months doing flying training, navigation courses and so on with the Canadian Air Force, not the Royal Air Force which had stations all over the place in North America. Anyway, six months later, er, the back end of June beginning of July 1943, by a strange quirk of fate I came back in reverse order, went back from Canada down to New York and I went back across the Atlantic onto Queen Elizabeth again. This time when I went up the gangway struggling with my kitbags, the officer at the top said brutally to me, I was by myself I wasn’t with a troop or whatever, he said “can you sleep in a hammock” I said “yes sir” he said “well you go far into the focus of the crew” and that’s how I crossed the Atlantic the second time swaying in a hammock with the crew. I came back to the United Kingdom, erm, I was then in posted to, erm, (pause) to Harrogate and from Harrogate we were dispersed to the various OUT’s over the country and, erm, I ended up at 28 OUT. But before that, I can’t remember the name off hand, erm, it was just outside Shepshed in Leicestershire and that’s where we crewed up. Having crewed up we went to Castle Donnington and for the next four or five months we were flying Wellingtons day and night and on one occasion we’d hardly taken off when the skipper called down to me in the nose and said “Greg Greg come up here I’m crook” he said and he was slumped over the controls. Now fortunately this went and we dual controlled and so I had to jump up into the co-pilot’s seat and I flew that Lancaster all night and we eventually came back to Castle Donnington and I had made my first run in to land the aircraft at night. I hastily add that I had landed a Wellington during daylight but not at night and I was going round for another circuit on to attempt to land the aircraft when the skipper came out of his coma and said “what are you doing”, “where are we” and I explained that we were on the circuit and he says “I’ll take over” and he landed it. And, erm, I expect everyone was very happy (laughs) to get their feet back on the ground again that night. Well from Castle Donnington we went to Hemswell, er, that was a heavy conversion unit and we were going to change or go up the ladder from two engines to four and they sent us from Hemswell to a brand new satellite and there were, I don’t know how many, possibly about twenty, very antique Halifax’s and in the first fortnight there we lost six aircraft and all the crews due to, erm, the Halifax mark. It had some sort of fault in the tail unit and all the aircraft after those six losses, all the craft were grounded and men came out of the Halifax factory and put the mark II tail unit on. From there we went to, erm, squadron. There was a time where you went to Lancaster flying school flying training school, but by then the squadrons preferred to run their own flying training school so it was, erm, end of March early April. We went to 101 squadron and for the next six weeks we were just learning to fly the Lancaster and I am proud to say that, erm, the skipper allowed me to sit in the pilot seat and fly the Lancaster and when we had completed night time, day time flying we would go on, the fighters would come along side and we’d shoot at the droves. You know from the Lancaster and we’d do daytime bombing with practice bombs and night time bombings with practice bombs and so on and when they were satisfied that we could fly the Lancaster then we were put on the rota for bombing operations and the night of the 3rd 4th of May 1944, erm, we went on our first op to a place called Milaca, it’s about a hundred miles east of Paris. And the aircraft, all Lancaster’s, came from One group and Six group, all in the Lincolnshire area, and goodness knows what happened that night. There’s all sorts of stories, but we were circling the (pause) turning point for twenty minutes and unfortunately there was a German night fighter station a matter of a few minutes away from where we are and so there was a Turkey shoot. There were out of the 350 Lancs on that target and incidentally it was a low level attack on a pre-war French barracks which was supposed to have an (unclear) edition there and so we were bombing at seven thousand feet instead of the normal twenty thousand feet. I’ve got photographs there, that, er, possible to see, there was not two bricks on top of each other, it was literally flattened without doing any damage to the local French community. Unfortunately we lost over forty aircraft and they scattered over say a ten mile radius from there. They’re all buried in church yards in that vicinity and I’ve been back at least five times over the last you know thirty years or so to visit the different burial places of these crews. Two years ago I went there with my daughter and we went to a village that I had never been to before and we were told that there was a crew buried in the church yard at this village and when I got there we had a service in the church yard in memory of this particular crew. Then the local people said that the aircraft in question came down in the forest, you know, over there sort of thing, and they were going to take us up into the forest to the exact spot, because in the previous year the local community had got a big lump of rock at to mark the exact place where this aircraft came down. It was all chiselled with the name of the aircraft and the names of the crew and everything, and when we went up in the forest I was the only man there who had actually been on that raid. I was literally gobsmacked because, erm, I’d known all these years that there were 350 Lancs on the target and what a loss there was, not only from my own squadron, but from many other squadrons. The local people told me that the aircraft in the forest was a Halifax and I’d never heard of this it’s (unclear), now this links up with the fact that during the time of circling the marker point before turning into bombing, I heard the master bomber over the RT say “this is your master bomber going down take over number two” and that was the Halifax that you know I visited in the woods. It turns out that this Halifax had belonged to the PFF and it had been vastly modified. It carried a crew of eight, they had removed all the Bombay’s and put long range tanks in, but he was shot down along with the other forty aircraft and they were all killed, very sad. When the local Mayoress unveiled this, er, memorial up in the forest, er, a little boy with a velvet cushion and a special pair of scissors went up to the Lady Mayoress and bowed to her, she took these pair of scissors and she cut the tricolour tape that went round. It’s customary apparently in those places that they chop up this ribbon and give it to all the important people. The first piece that was chopped off was presented to me, which I still have. Well unfortunately for me and for my crew I suppose, and a lot of other people too, we only completed five raids when we were shot down over Dortmand in the Ruhr on the night of the 22nd of May 1944. We were shot down from underneath and we were on our way literally within minutes of dropping the bomb load on Dortmund, and so the, er, shells of the enemy aircraft set the insentry load on the Bombay on fire and of course I was in the nose and there was the wireless operator, the navigator, the flight engineer and the skipper on the flight deck and none knew that the aircraft was on fire until something alerted the er the radio man that there was something wrong. He opened the door, and from there to the after the aircraft and the whole thing was a raging inferno, I mean it was a case of if the shells had been ten feet forward they’d have shot everyone in the flight deck you see. So the tail gunner was killed, the special wireless operator was killed and the mid upper gunner was killed there and then in this raging inferno in the aircraft, so the skipper decided in the next few minutes I had dropped the bomb load on (unclear) and the skipper said that we’ll have to abandon the aircraft. But of course I’m lying on the escape hatch and so I, I removed the hatch and you have to disconnect your (unclear) you have to disconnect your power supply to your, I had a power, erm, (unclear) heated chute and you have to, and your intercom, so it’s quite a, and then you’ve got to get your parachute and clip it on. And then you literally dive into the open shoot as if you’re diving into the water and captain and pull the ripcord, and in my case, and I’m afraid in lots of other cases, when I’ve compared notes years afterwards, that when this, erm, pack on my chest was pulled upwards when the parachute was displayed it caught me under the chin and knocked me out. Mind you in twenty three thousand feet there’s a remarkable lack of oxygen so, erm, that may or may not have played part, but anyway it knocked me out. And when I came to there was a deathly hush, there wasn’t an aircraft in the sky, they’d all gone home and I’m floating in this parachute, but I’m combed by a searchlight that I’ve never heard of anybody else, but obviously it could have happened many times, and the searchlight followed me all the way down to the ground. I thought that I would get a belly full of lead but I didn’t, my boots had fallen off and when I landed I was exceptionally lucky, I just happened to land in a small clearing in an area of forest or a lot of trees anyway, but unfortunately I didn’t see the land, the ground coming up, and I damaged my right knee. I could stand on my left leg but I couldn’t walk and so I crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled until I came to a little row of, er, small houses and just the nearest one I knocked on the door and a young woman a woman of about twenty came to the door she took me and in. Unfortunately for me that night in my navigation bag I had left my cigarette case, er, it was just something I’d never done before I usually kept the cigarette case about my person and so I said, I tried to, I couldn’t speak German at that time and I said to the made signs to this young lady that I would like a, had she got a cigarette and she disappeared out into the night. She came back ten or fifteen minutes later and handed me two gold flake (laughs) where she got them from I have no idea and she was accompanied by the village policeman and he started to speak to me in German. When I implied I couldn’t understand what was going on he started to speak to me in French and so my schoolboy French came into good use and, er, he was a POW for the French in World War I so there was a certain amount of empathy between the two of us. I still have a little giggle all these years later, that because I couldn’t walk he put me on the cross bar of his bicycle and I was wheeled into captivity (laughs). Well from there in the local lock up sort of a place, like a large village, I was picked up the next morning by a young under officer, a corporal I suppose in the Luftwaffe and he had come from the airfield at Dortmund and so I don’t know how far out of Dortmund I was, but a mile or two. He took me on the local train into Dortmund and of course that is what I’d had been bombing the night before so all these people milling about the railway station in Dortmund thought it would be a good idea to get hold of me. And so this corporal pulled his revolver and told me to get behind him and he threatened and he said “if you lay hands or try to lay hands on me” that he would fire his revolver so that was a good plus mark for me. So for the next few days I was in the sails of this airfield just outside Dortmund, the only aircraft I could see was a single engine (unclear) so there weren’t any night fighters or day fighters anything there. To my great surprise my skipper and navigator were already prisoners there and it turns out the information they gave me that after I’d bailed out seconds later the controls were within a shot away or burnt away and the aircraft went over. The skipper and navigator were literally thrown up through the canopy and the others, the wireless operator and the flight engineer, they didn’t manage to get out, you can’t if you’ve got that amount of negative to you you’re just pinned down. And so unfortunately that added two more deaths to the three already and the skipper and navigator. When we came back to Blighty a year later, they went their different ways. But they both died about thirty years ago of cancer, I presume from smoking, but they were literally in their sort of, well the navigator would only be about fifty-five when he died of liver cancer and the skipper died about ten years later exactly, it was cancer I know. Getting back to Germany the three of us went back down to Frankfurt to the interrogation centre and from there we went to, erm, a little village, a little town called Wetzler which is the home of Zeiss. They were in a newly made little camp and it was tents, bell tents, that they’d captured I suppose at Dunkirk. Every time it rained, the water ran through the tent and we got very wet at night, and subsequent to that we were sent down the skipper was commissioned by that time. He went to Luft 8 where they had that famous escape and the navigator and myself went to Luft 7, which was a new camp alleged in Silesia and (pause) it’s a change from the tents. This, this camp in Bancow was, erm, I don’t know how many hundred, but an awful lot of chicken huts, and we were six to a chicken hut instead of a tent and this was an improvement. But it was summer time and by late September early October, erm, nearby presumably Russian labour was used to build a permanent camp because the Germans were fed up of the RAF escaping or attempting to escape. They built all the barracks on stilts and at nine 0 clock each night, not only were we locked in, but they set all these Alsatian dogs out in the compounds. So trundling because you were on stilts was out of the question but (pause) we were only in that permanent camp for a matter of months, four months at the most I would think. Because it was towards the end of January 1945 that the Germans were being attacked, er, by the Russians on their own border. The Russians were breaking through in our direction from Warsaw and the Germans decided to evacuate us, as they did all the other POW camps you know. Some up on the (unclear) some in the South of Germany and so on and we were on the march for three weeks. There was a metre of snow on the ground and (pause) mostly in the first week we were only marching at night, turning if the roads opened from the German troop movements and tank movements during the day. Eventually after three weeks we got to a place called Luckenwalde about twenty or so miles or so south of Berlin and that was a huge er camp. I I, I couldn’t even dream of a POW camp of between twenty and twenty-five thousand men in it. And this camp, it wasn’t initially anything to do with the Airforce. Normally in the POW camps the German Luftwaffe made prison camps for Airforce people and the German (unclear) made their prison camps for the army and the Luftmarine. No, no not the Luftmarine but the German navy looked after their own kind, but in this place at, erm, camp in Luckenwalde they had separate compounds for the French, the Dutch the Norwegians, every nationality that they’d conquered had compounds there. But the predominant ones were the French because they were using the French, not only the French army and Airforce no doubt, but the French civilian males as forced labour in Germany. And anyway, I was part of a troop of RAF lads on this march, there were seven of us, and initially on march the first night we all slept by ourselves. The next night we slept in twos for warmth and eventually the seven of us, if there was any chance of kipping down in barns or whatever, we were seven in the bed, and bitter were the complaints “I was on the outside last night” (laughs). Incidentally the first month that I was in Germany I never had my clothes off or had a shower and it was a repeat run on this so called death march, nobody had their clothes off and so you know it was just do as best you could. But I had, I was exceptionally lucky, I don’t know where I got them from but I had four pairs of socks and on that death march I wore two pairs of socks by day and I had a strong pair of boots and the other two pairs were tucked inside my shirt next to my skin so that they were warm and dry. And so each night or day if the case was that we were going to stop marching for twelve hours or so, that the first thing I could do was to take my boots off, take my socks off put warm dry socks onto my cold feet and put the two pairs of socks that I’d taken off back to get warm and dry next to my skin. Well it seems curious to say this, but it’s perfectly true that when we got back to Luckenwalde, the barracks that were given were simply large empty sheds with a roof and windows that were closed and a concrete floor and we were just, you know, assumed to find a patch on the concrete floor where we could lie down, but it was actually wonderful to have (laughs) somewhere out of the weather, out of the rain and out of the snow just to lie on a bit of concrete. But there it was, it, we were only there oh two or three weeks when we managed to get into a different block where we had probably a room no more than fifteen foot square with bunks in it so the seven of us were in that room. And on one occasion, and the next compound was a Russian compound, and we managed to smuggle a Russian out of the Russian compound into our room, I don’t know how this, this was organised, but this man was allegedly a tailor to trade and he was doing all our mending. Whilst he was sitting there with his needle and thread and doing his mending for us, a Russian, a German officer came in and he would have been shot just where he was sitting if he’d known he was a Russian, but fortunately he wasn’t dressed like a Russian and so he just carried on doing sewing and, er, the German officer cleared off and what not. But anyway subsequent to that, we were all very hungry and short of rations, at that particular place one of the daily rounds was a German with a paler full of potatoes who came round and HE put his hand in the bucket and gave YOU a potato, if you were jolly lucky it might be a as big as a tennis ball, but believe me they were a lot smaller than that. So, erm, because I could speak French and nobody in that group of seven could, two or three of us including me were smuggled into the French compound so we could do barter to get some food for them because they were going out of the camp every day and could get access to food that we obviously couldn’t and it is a bit of a matter of some amusement that I changed my RAF uniform for a French uniform so it gave me freedom of movement about in that camp and the Germans didn’t, weren’t aware that I was anything other than what I looked like and, er, so I could you know move freely about trading for food on our behalf. Well in the latter part of our stay in Luckenwalde, the Russians were getting closer and closer to their attack on Berlin and it is still is a matter of amazement that the Russian guns were powerful enough to send shells ten or fifteen miles and so we didn’t hear the artillery firing, but we did hear the shells screaming overhead and we didn’t hear the shell exploding in Berlin but it was going on, you know day after day. Eventually we woke up one morning and all the German guards had disappeared and the same day the Russians arrived and the Russians were very keen to re-patriate us back to the UK via Odessa and the Black Sea, but we weren’t very keen on that idea so, erm, we heard on our secret radio, got in touch with the Yankee forces on the other side of the (pause) I can’t remember the name, but anyway we got in touch with these Americans and when they tried to reach the camp the Russians turned them back. However, they didn’t go all the way back where the Russians hoped they would go, they retreated about three miles the other side of a forest and we were left a note that if we could get back to these lorries by a certain time that we would be taken to the American lines. And so it was we escaped from Luckenwalde and we got, we drove for a long long time and we got to Hildesheim in Germany and we were in a pre-war German barracks and to this day I am gobsmacked that it was completely untouched, it hadn’t been shelled or bombed or anything like that, it was lovely accommodation and the British Red Cross were waiting for us and gave us, er, you know, fresh underwear, socks, toothbrushes, shaving kit and that sort of thing. We were only there the one night as far as I can remember and we were flown out by Dakota down to La Halle in France. We flew over La Ruhr and it was an eye opener to see the havoc that the RAF had made for the German cities in La Ruhr. We got to La Halle, and as I say I was in a French uniform and I traded that for a Yankee uniform and within twenty-four hours the Royal Navy had shipped us across to Southampton and back to the United Kingdom. Incidentally, VE Day we spent in Ludkenwalde, we didn’t get away from Luckenwalde until three or four days after the Russians arrived so we missed all the joy and fun of VE Day. We were all posted up to RAF Cosford near Wolverhampton and given fresh kit and given excellent food and sent on six weeks leave. After that, before and after, we had medicals and the following August the Japanese gave up and we thought all these thousands and thousands of air crew were redundant and we said please can we go home, can we finish, “no you can’t leave here the Air Force until you put back the weight that you were when you joined up” (laughs), well I was only about seven and half stone when I came back from Germany so it wasn’t until you know six months later that I recovered my previous weight and I was discharged. So there we are in a nutshell this is my experiences. When we got to La Halle it was a matter of amazement to me, I mean it was a tented camp, we all had a shower and a change of clothing if we wanted it and I did, and of course there was plenty of food and I had never been in an American Mess before, in the Sergeant’s Mess in the UK for that matter. You sat down at a table to, for your food, you know, for your breakfast, your midday meal and your evening meal and in this Yankee thing, I can see, it’s a tented encampment. The tables were about a foot higher than normal tables so you had to stand at the tables, there was no sitting down, you queued up and you were given a big metal tray and they put the food on your metal tray with you know a knife, fork and spoon and you went to these very high tables and you stood there and you ate what was on your tray, handed your stuff in, so there was an endless trail of people, instead of sitting down and talking you see, they were getting rid of you as quickly as possible so that was an eye opener. I could go back to Luckenwalde, the time between that elapsed between the Russians arriving and us escaping, we went into the local village and I can remember I saw a que of women outside a bakers and so I joined the que and I got a loaf of bread you know. I was highly delighted, ver, very delighted that I’d got a loaf of bread and a day or two later, erm, one of my friends who was called by the unusual name of Robert Burns, but unfortunately he was nothing to do with the Scottish poet, he was a regular in the Air Force and he was a Sergeant fitter, an engine fitter, and he was sent out on the empire training school system to South Africa. Now he was what do you call it, he was at Holten, and these Holten Bratts, it was, er, I don’t know whether it was actually written into the contract or not, but it was a clearly understood thing what a Holten Bratt was, whether you was an earphone fitter, an engine fitter or an instrument basher or whatever trade it was that he had the right to be re-mastered to air crew. I don’t know what he got fed up about, but I mean he was a Sergeant fitter in South Africa and I suppose living like a lord, but something upset him, I never knew what, and he remastered and became air crew and he became a pilot. .He was flying out of North Africa in Wellingtons and mostly he was flying across the Mediterranean and sewing mines in the, the airports of the Northern side of the Mediterranean, and this particular night he was sewing mines in a Greek port called Milos and they were shot at, sewing mines flying low over the water and he was shot out of the water and he was the only one to get out of the aircraft alive. He was fished out of the drink by a German launch or boat of some sort. It was the middle of winter in Europe and he was flying out of North Africa with shorts and a shirt, nothing else, I mean boots, but nothing else, and he was thrown by the Germans into a barbwire compound, no hat, no tent just a nice layer of snow on the ground and that really was incarcerated. And he, for some reason I’ve never found out, nobody else could find out I suppose, that he was never directly sent to a German POW camp, he was sent for several months from one civilian jail to another all through the Southern part of Europe. Eventually he was in the same POW camp as me, and getting back to Luckenwalde when you know a lot of POWs start scowering round the countryside looking for food, the food quickly disappears, and I said to him one day, look there’s no good us going looking for food in this locality lets go for a long walk and of course being me we went for five or six miles and we came to this German farm. That area, the German farm were always built in a square, one side was the farmhouse, two sides were barns one side the wall with a big double gate and we walked round this farmhouse and everything was shuttered, you couldn’t hear any cattle, couldn’t hear any human beings and we banged on the shutters and walked round like Joshua going round the walls of Jericho. Suddenly we just turned the corner and this corner was the front of the house part of the farm, the farmhouse, and a shutter opened towards us like that and from behind the shutter there came a fist with a big knife dripping blood, and his arm came out, then the shutter was moved a bit further then the head came out, and this Robert Burns looked at this head with the man with the blood dripping knife and he said “Milanovich” and then this man, with the bloody knife, said “Robert Burns”, and they’d both been down in Bulgaria (laughs) in a civilian prison, how this Milanovich got there, goodness knows, but anyway we got a little bit of a peak out of it. That was a wonderful day for us. That’ll do.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command, I would like to thank Norman Gregory, erm, bomb aimer, warrant officer for his interview at his home address on the 24th July 2015. Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Norman Gregory
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-24
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGregoryN150724
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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
Format
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00:45:23 audio recording
Description
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Having volunteered for aircrew in 1941 in York, Norman came into active service in 1942. He flew Tiger Moths at RAF Ansty and was recommended for multi-engine aircraft. After RAF Heaton Park, he went to Halifax, Nova Scotia. He spent six months training with the Canadian Air Force before being posted to RAF Harrogate and sent to No. 28 Operational Training Unit. Before that, he flew Wellingtons at RAF Castle Donington. Norman went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Hemswell and a new satellite with Halifax Mark I aircraft, grounded after six aircraft were lost.
Norman went to 101 Squadron and learnt to fly Lancasters, serving as a bomb aimer. He describes his first operation to Mailly-Le-Camp where over 40 Lancasters, out of 350, were lost.
Norman’s aircraft was shot down over Dortmund with the death of five crew members. He was captured, as were the pilot and navigator. After the Frankfurt Interrogation Centre, they went to a camp in Wetzlar. Norman then went to Stalag Luft 7 at Bankau in Silesia, followed by four months in another camp. The Germans evacuated prisoner of war camps in January 1945 following Russian attacks. Norman marched on a “death march” for three weeks in snow to Luckenwalde, a camp with 20-25,000 men.
Norman escaped with the Americans via Hildesheim and Le Havre before returning to Britain. He was posted to RAF Cosford but could only leave when he had regained weight, which took six months. He finished in February 1946 with the rank of warrant officer.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Yorkshire
Canada
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia--Halifax
France
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Luckenwalde
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1945-01
1946
1946-02
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
101 Squadron
28 OTU
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
Dulag Luft
final resting place
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Lancaster
Master Bomber
memorial
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Ansty
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Cosford
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Hemswell
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/791/10772/PDaviesRS1801.1.jpg
00f54a2d24961e60d3f61e60a9f314ac
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/791/10772/ADaviesRS180201.2.mp3
800ef8d99ba90c254a8396ffd80dc2df
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
Davies, Ronald
Ronald S Davies
R S Davies
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Ron Davies (1921 - 2020, 186892 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 101 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Davies, RS
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
SP: This is-
RD: No just-
SP: So, this is Susanne Pescott and I'm interviewing Ron Davies of 101 Squadron today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s digital archive. We’re at Ron’s home and it’s the 1st of February 2018. Also present at the interview is Ron’s son Peter. So, first of all, thank you Ron for agreeing to talk to me today. So, do you want to tell us what life was like before the RAF for you?
RD: My father was a farmer, and he’d been in the first war and suffered from a lot of damage and, so when the second war [pauses] broke out, I was furious to find I was in a reserved occupation. I felt I wanted to emulate what he’d done. In the event, I did join the air force, which [chuckles] almost came to blows with my father, but it was something I had to do and something which I’ve never regretted. And so, at the age of eighteen in the spring of 1940, I joined the air force as a pilot UT. Went to No 1 ITW in Newquay and then to No 8 EFTS in Anstey near Leicestershire, and I was there when Coventry was bombed and we were just ten miles from Coventry, and Anstey was a small pre-war flying station, and relied on the outside private people to maintain and train the planes. After Coventry of course, the place wasn’t closed down but our course finished, and we were then sent to Manchester, were eventually posted to Canada- Sorry, to America, because we were supposed to be trained as co-pilots onto the Sunderlands, flying boats. Now, are we coping? I spent- First of all, four months in Atlanta and trained on Boeing-Stearmans and from there, the- We went to Jacksonville Academy and we went onto fly the Vultee Valiant, which was greater because America was neutral, their standard of flying was much higher and with less pressure than England. When we finished onto that, we went onto Cessnas, twin-engine planes, and just a month before the end of the season and we had an unfortunate accident and we were- Both the co-pilot and myself were dismissed and we were sent back to Canada. Here we were lost, and suffered because we’d been in an accident, we were sent down to the hospital for check-ups and they kept us there as attendants. So [chuckles] having joined to fly we were now almost slaves in this unfortunate place. Then came Pearl Harbour and we- Suddenly everyone realised that our time was being wasted so we were then re-trained as navigators and I went over to Port Albert, which is just outside Goderich and I spent twenty-six weeks training on navigation and astro and all the things that entailed to it. Eventually we managed to get back to England and by now England was full of aircrew. We’d been away for so long and were sent to an army barracks in Whitley Bay, and we spent nearly three months there and to escape it we managed to get onto a consignment of bomb aimers who were being trained at Millom, and I think I've already told you that twenty-seven of us were posted to 10 OTU in Abingdon to fly Whitleys and then Halifaxes. But to help a colleague I switched to flight- To go to 28 OTU Wymeswold. From there we moved to the satellite which was Castle Donnington, and we completed our OTU on Wellingtons and we did two nickels which were flying over France with leaflets, and then we went from there to Halifaxes on Heavy Conversion Unit at Blyton. We did six weeks on those. From there we went to Hemswell which was No 1 LFS, Lancaster Flying School. We did ten days on that, and then we were rushed to 101 Squadron where we picked up an eighth member who was Keith Gosling and we arrived at 101 the last week in May of 1944, and we remained there until the 6th of November, during which time I completed thirty-one operations and another seven abortions. So altogether it was the equivalent of quite a lot of trips. We- During that time, Keith Gosling was lost and his replacement was a man called Roy Hall, and he stayed with us for the rest of the tour.
SP: So, Ron do you want to tell me a little bit- You had an eighth crew member, so obviously your eighth crew member Keith Gosling, you said was lost, do you want to tell me a little about what happened to Keith?
RD: Ey?
SP: Do you want to tell me a little about what happened to Keith Gosling then, you said he was lost so?
RD: He was lost with Flying Officer Meier[?]. Because, there were more crews than there were special operators, occasionally if the special operators own crew wasn’t flying then had to stand in, so he stood in and it was- Unfortunate thing, it was Meier’s first trip, and then I don’t quite know.
SP: So, Ron obviously there’s some details about Keith which we’re going to cover at the end, so do you want to carry on with where you were up to with your tour?
PD: If we- Can I just-
RD: The eighth member was a German speaking operator of a special equipment called ABC, airborne cigar and this was a jamming device which detected correspondence between the ground and the, and the enemy aircrews and their idea was so that it would give us a little bit of breathing space by jamming this. The unfortunate off-shoot of that was that the transmission itself was a warning device to the aircraft, so 101 Squadron itself suffered much more greater casualties than the average squadron. The invasion assistance that we were giving began to wane and we started going back to Germany again, and flying to many places. I don’t want to say too much about that, but could almost really wrap over and say that we finally finished our tour on the 4th of November and at that point- Ah, just remembered something else, and we were flying F-Fox and the first one was lost on the 12th of June and the second one was lost on the 30th of August, with another crew flying it because we were stood down that night and in the meantime we had to fly other planes until we had a replacement, and we finally had the third Fox, so there were three foxes all together. On the 12th of September and at the same time we finally had a replacement for our mid-upper gunner whom we’d lost on- Well he wasn’t killed, but he just didn’t fly again after Reims and that’s were Flying Officer Ken Gibb DFC with seventy-five operations under his belt came into being. So, can we- A new F-Fox came and that was NF936, and we finished our final trips in that, but- On the 2nd of November. But Paddy the engineer had been ill on one of the trips and he still had a trip to do, and two members of the crew refused to fly anymore operations, and we seemed to think that it was a shame for Paddy to go on his last trip on his own, so I volunteered to go with him and we flew our last trip on the 4th of November, Paddy and I, and at the same time, the crew in our hut, whose captain was Flying Officer Edwards, took over our F-Fox, and we planned to have an extension on the sergeants mess license for when we came back to celebrate. Unfortunately, F-Fox didn’t come back, and the whole of the crew were killed, so we cancelled the extension and it seemed a shame really that on our last day we lost our plane, our hut mates, it was a bit distressing. In the meantime, during July, I'd been on a trip and I had arrived late at the briefing through a fault on the intercom, and I was hauled before the CO and threatened with expulsion from the aircrew and told what an unpleasant character I was, and the final words of the CO when I left the interview was, ‘From now on, you will be under my personal observation’, and I then went home on leave after the completion of our tours and when I arrived I found a telegram addressed to Pilot Officer Davies, so he must’ve forgiven me because he’d recommended the commission. From then on, we went to flying training at a place called Angle in South Wales and we were flying with four crews from 617 Squadron, and they were all- Two had expired from- And we flew for six months on this experimental work and the work was to bomb or- To train the bomb site to cope with eastern conditions and the idea was to bomb the Japanese fleet, and we finished that tour by the end of May. At which time we returned to- We were seconded to coastal command, when I returned to 101 Squadron a character there called Gundry[?] White with whom I'd also blotted my copy book, when he saw me coming back, he made sure that my existence was short and sweet, and I found myself posted to the Far East, and within a month I was at Mauripur which is just outside Karachi, in a transit camp waiting to join the Tiger Force which was the name for Bomber Commad in the Far East. Fortunately for us, before that happened, they dropped to atom bomb and then the hydrogen bomb and at that point I was posted to Dum Dum in Calcutta, and from there, from there I spent seven days on an American liberty ship and ended up in Singapore on my way to Kuala Lumpur. There was so much chaos in Singapore that- And there was no transport available, and so I ended up helping to rehabilitate prisoners to come back home, and when that happened the whole station was posted to Changi- We were at Kallang sorry, and Kallang was to be handed back to the civil authorities and we were all to go to the RAF. But within- I being the youngest of the officers there was left to- With thirty people to tidy everyone up and hand it back to the authorities. But, before that could happen, after four days the runways at Changi were declared unfit and unsafe for four-engine aircraft, and so I stayed for the rest of the war in Kallang with these thirty people and our job was to refuel all the aircraft which were coming through and in particular, we had twenty-five Japanese prisoners of war come every day and it was my job to see that all these people were done. At the, at the end of my time, I was then demobbed in June 1946. I went back to the main base in Singapore and that night there was a NAAFI show with Tommy Trinder and I thought, ‘That’ll be a fitting way to finish’, and when I got in the very first person, I saw was Gwen Lansing-Green[?] who was the daughter of our landlord back home, and I had to go twelve-thousand miles to see my next-door neighbour. You can make as much as that as you wish. We arrived home after six- We went from Colombo which then was Ceylon, Bombay, Aden, Suez, Gibraltar and Liverpool and that was the end of my service, and that was in the book, then everything finishes and it starts again fifty-two years later when I- By this time I’d lost touch with all the crew, and it was fifty-two years later when I was reading a paper and my pilot was writing a story of his accident and from that I wrote to him, we were reunited, and then started all the galivanting to- Back to bomber land. Does that fill in?
SP: That’s great Ron, I think if we just want to go back to a couple of bits you mentioned during your time during the war, you mentioned that obviously you were special operations and Keith Gosling, you said he went on a different flight to you at some time. Do you want to tell us what happened to Keith?
RD: Yes, well now that I can tell you, that I answered the pilot’s letter and then that is where we began to find out all the information about Keith Gosling, and it really goes on- It’s very long winded because it took about twenty years to find all this out. Well, the one word for it is a cover-up. No one wanted to disclose, in fact, I doubt the air force really know, that their only Canadian air force covered everything up, and when you read the stories that we found out, most of this happened because the Canadian government were more concerned with paying a widows pension to someone who wasn’t a widow, and most of the investigations are concerning that, and the fact that a plane, six men were killed, many, many facets of information passed over to the enemy, and if I tell you that the Stasi people were concerned and that’s what- Meier[?] was a member of that.
SP: So, what actually happened? Do you want to tell us what actually happened?
RD: Well, it all started with Keith Gosling’s friend who was called Sam Brookes and they both trained together and they both received their commission together and they both came to 101 Squadron. Now, on the first visit back to Lincoln after I'd met up with the pilot, the- 101 had this mad idea of having two nights for a reunion, and one night would be in Lincoln, or an RAF station on a Saturday with a dinner, and the following would be on the Sunday afternoon when we would go to the church in Ludford and the first night, or the first visit we had and the reunion was being held in Waddington, and we stayed at the Premier Inn or some such, who provided a courtesy coach to take us to Waddington and sitting next to me was Sam Brookes and of course, as you know from your father's experience, whenever two airmen get together it’s always, ‘When were you here? What crew were you with?’, and Sam Brookes case, ‘Who was your special operator?’, and I said, ‘Oh, Keith Gosling’, struggling- ‘That’s strange, we’ve just come back from France where Keith was buried’, he said, ‘And there weren’t seven graves, there were only six graves and Keith Gosling was named as the pilot’, he said, ‘very strange’. But by that time, we’d got to Waddington and we said, ‘We’ll talk about this when we get back’. Unfortunately, for us, we got carried away a bit and that night there were a changeover of chairmen and Air Vice Marshall Eric Macey was handing over to Air Commodore Jim Uprichard, and they start- One was a pianist and the other was a cellist and so you can imagine, half-past one in the morning and the sing songs are going and the drinks are flowing, and we sudden realised we’d missed our bus. So, we never saw Sam Brookes again, in fact, I never did see him because in the shadow of the bus, you don’t really recognise and nothing ever happened from that, and it was three years later before Sam Brookes met our pilot. Now, our pilot had amnesia and he couldn’t remember anything and so, he then wrote to me to tell me all about Sam Brookes and to try and carry on this conversation and from then on that’s how they approached me and not the pilot because, I wouldn’t say my memory’s good, but I can remember a lot of things that happened at the time and I had all the dates in my log book to cover them. And so, that is why I was approached at the last meeting as to what I thought of Keith because Fred, with the best will in the world could remember Keith Gosling but he could never remember that he’d flown with us as a crew member, so it was all these odd- And that is why my- Or I was asked for a second opinion if you like. So-
SP: So, Keith actually went on another operation, what actually happened on the operation when his crew was killed? What actually happened on the operation that Keith was on when his crew was killed?
RD: They flew to Homberg, and- Have to think about how much I can tell you without breaking confidentiality. They flew- And everything I tell you now is conflicted, every evidence is conflicted. When the raid was over, they should’ve come over Holland and the North Sea back to Ludford, but they actually were flying over Belgium, I think it was- I can’t remember the name of the, of the town at the moment. But the bomb aimer bailed out, and when he was interrogated back in this country, they asked him why he bailed out and he said he’d bailed out because he thought the plane was going to crash, but on further interrogation he admitted that all four engines were running and so his explanation didn’t quite fit in. Now, the plane then continued flying away from England and it actually crashed at E-V-R-E-U, Evreu, which if you look on a map is half-way from Belgium to the Alps and at that point, how a pilot could get out of a plane and leave all six members in and how it remained static, but of course, the bomb bays were already- The bomb hatch was already open from the bomb aimer leaving, so all he had to do was get out, and once he got out the plane- He obviously hadn’t put it onto automatic and so it just crashed. Now, that was the first part, and the second part was, the bomb aimer, when he was interrogated, they found he was unfit for further flying activities, and yet he’d been a person, very convivial, until he went on that trip, he was a very natural person. He went back to Canada, and this- Within three years and he disappeared mysteriously in a boating accident, and no one could ever interrogate him again and the pilot, Walter Meier, he was eventually in East Germany and in 1972, he was found in a gas filled room, asphyxiated, and the coroner deemed that there was a fault on the flu system, but again, a mysterious death. The whole thing, and without telling you anymore that’s as far as I can go but, I think it has to be mentioned.
SP: Yeah.
RD: Now, we’ve covered up to fifty-two years after being demobbed, and that started my life back at Ludford, back at Lincoln, back at Coningsby, Brize Norton, covered the whole lot really.
SP: So, what did you do after you were demobbed? What did you do after you were demobbed Ron what did-
RD: I was unemployed for months and months, you see, once you went abroad this country had a year to get itself sorted and they made sure that those who had the good jobs were not going to let anyone in. Eventually, by this time my son had been born and we had a flat in Llangollen and the only job I could get was in Crewe. So, I bought a motorbike and I travelled from Llangollen to Crewe in the worst winter of the war, so I came back from one-hundred-and-twenty in the shade to minus-twenty day after day. In fact, I think, I read somewhere once, where it was forty days of snow, and I rode this stupid motorbike all that way and then eventually I managed to get into the textile industry and managed to keep my head above water, just about. But, during this time, I haven’t told you this but, whilst I was on the observers course my eyesight went and I couldn’t see [emphasis], and they took me off the course and it was only by sheer luck I managed to find a squadron leader who would pass me fit. I wasn’t really, but he did and then half way through my tour, my ears went, and I’ve suffered with both my eyes and my ears ever since. In fact, last month I had two visits in one day at the eye clinic and I had a cold so I had to cancel them both. I still suffer all these- Health problems if you like, maybe I would’ve suffered them anyway but-
SP: So obviously you worked in the textile industry after and did you do that until you finally retired, or?
RD: Yep.
SP: Yeah?
RD: I didn’t retire till seventy-nine. Well, I couldn’t, my first wife died in 1976, and I, I married again and the second wife had vascular dementia, and then my daughter came here- Oh I had a bad fall and I was in a wheelchair and my daughter came to live with me and she was diagnosed with cancer and then that went. So-
SP: How did it make you feel coming back from the war and being unemployed and having to fight for a job really after all you’d done?
RD: Well, it is so difficult to try and explain. One day, I had an interview in- On the East coast for a job and I left Llangollen at quarter-to-eight in the morning when the first bus, and I finally got to Leeds at four o’clock in the afternoon, too late for the interview and so I rang them up and I stayed the night on a station, the Salvation Army, you could stay there for about two shillings and I caught a bus the next morning, the conductor finally showed me where this place was, it was about a miles walk and I was walking along the road and a chap comes back in the opposite direction and we both said, ‘Good Morning’, ‘Morning’, and then about another ten yards and this voice said, ‘You’re not going for the jobbers oil executive are you?’, well, yes I was, he said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t bother if I were you’, he said, ‘I’ve just taken a car back and it’s got bullet holes in’, ‘Bullet holes?’, he said, ‘Well the job is, you go round farms and you sell oil to tractors and it’s rubbish’ he said, ‘And then not only that but you have to go back the following month to try and get the money’, and this farmer had fired his shot gun at him so I turned back. Well, I- Again, I had to stay the night in Manchester and I got back three days later and the first question ‘Did you get the job?’, and I can only tell you that’s how bad this country was, there was just no work, the employment was eleven-million, that’s all and we had thirty-million. So, it gives you some idea. There were at least three million people looking for jobs and you were just one of many. But worse than that of course, the air force had its name tarnished by the Dresden affair which had been bought up by all the political correct people, and that was another reason that- That’s why for fifty-two years I didn’t want to know about the air force or the war or anything else, and it took the whole of one's capabilities to try and keep your head above water, to try and move on. It was a job to stand still, and the first two or three years I bought a house in Crewe and we were so hard up, whilst I'd been in the Far East, we bought rugs and they all went to the auction room, everything we could sell, just to try and pay your bills, and then- It is not something you’re able to communicate to people today, and so, if I don’t talk very much about it, there wasn’t very much to talk about [emphasis].
SP: I think it’s interesting because I think people are- Would be surprised that with such high regard that you’re all held with now in Bomber Command that it was so different at the end of the war and you had to find so much to get jobs.
RD: [Chuckles] Well, Dresden, I make a big thin of Dresden in my book, and I show examples of just what the Americans did ten times worse than what we did, and never any castigation at all. But then, that’s my pet hobby.
SP: And again, you know, for people listening that book ‘From Landsmen to Lancaster’ is the one that explains it in detail isn’t it, by yourself on there.
RD: Yeah.
SP: Just going back to your time with 101 Squadron, tell me about your crew, who you had, I know we’ve talked about one of them but tell me a little bit about your pilot and your- The rest of your crew and your-
RD: Yeah.
SP: Ok, so do you want to talk me through your crew Ron? Yeah?
RD: That’s myself, that’s Paddy Ore[?] the engineer, that’s Titch Taylor the wireless operator, George Williams the rear gunner, Fred James the pilot, Jim Coleman the navigator, Ken Gibb the second mid-upper and that was Roy Hall the second wireless operator-
PD: Special, special.
RD: - and I have all their letters and how they-Oh, he, he also couldn’t get a job after the war and he went back in the air force and he flew five tours of operations on Hastings which was the future of the Halifax.
SP: Yeah, that’s right. And you say a few of them from Canada? You had quite a few Canadians in your crew?
RD: George, he had a tremendous- He never married, and he died in 2009 and he worked on the early warning system in Siberia [chuckles] so none of us really- Fred became a teacher, well that was just about as much as he could do because of his amnesia and-
SP: And how did you crew up? Where did you crew up and how did you crew up?
RD: We crewed up at Wymeswold and really that’s- It’s so involved that- There were four crews who were- We considered ourselves friendly because mostly were Canadians and Australians but in Castle Donnington within two months there the Australians in our crew were burnt to death, the Canadians in the next hut they were also burnt to death. We had two plane crashes in ten nights, and when we were at Blyton, we had another plane crash. So altogether before we ever got to Ludford Magna we’d lost about twenty odd people, and I was reading somewhere that eight-and-a-half-thousand people were killed in training alone. Well, tend not to think of these things, I don’t know- With all the other things going on whether they detract from it really.
SP: So, do you- You crewed up pretty quickly then as a team?
RD: Well, what would you like me to say? Just tell-
SP: Just tell how you crewed up, yeah? Can you remember who spoke to who and-
RD: Well, that was at 28 Wymeswold, 28 OTU Wymeswold, which is just outside Loughborough. There would be about a hundred people and for three or four days we just talked, and I mentioned Walt Reif[?] as the Canadian, he in fact was [chuckles]- The more I talked, the more I bring in complication. Walt Reif[?] was a German, he was born in Germany, emigrated to America, naturalised America, they wouldn’t take him into the air force and so he went over the border to Canada, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and ended up the same way, and his bomb aimer was also born in Germany and he was naturalised Canadian and ended up, if you like, also- We had an Argentinian, as a pilot and his name was- What as it?
PD: [Unclear]
RD: Peter?
PD: Highland, Highland [emphasis]
RD: Peter Highland, Pancho, and Chris Cockshott who was a trainee pilot with me and he was the co- He and I were flying the Cessna when we crashed and we were both kicked out and we stayed together for a long time and we met up again in Ludford Magna and he was killed on his third op, on the- In a F-Fox which we should’ve been flying. So, the more I talk about these things the more involved it gets and then I told you that on the last night of our flying we had- Flying Officer Edwards crew, well the navigator there, he came from Mauritius and his name was Tedier[?] and he was the one and only person from Mauritius who joined Bomber Command and was killed in action. So, I'd forgotten all these things. Going back to crewing up, well I crewed up with Fred first and then Fred found George Williams and Jim Coleman and a man called Eric Smith, that started our crew and Titch Taylor of course also. But Eric Smith didn’t like Fred, he found he was too authoritative (being Canadian) and so as we finished our term at Castle Donnington, Eric broke his wrist and he was given the option of having a rest and then joining us later or joining another crew, and he said, ‘Don’t take offence Ron, but I can’t stand Fred so I'm going to join a Canadian crew’, and he did, and he was killed on his first op. But- So if you go back then that was actually three crew members who didn’t make it but to try to avoid too much confusion, I haven’t mentioned too much of it, in fact I don’t think I've mentioned that in the book at all. Oh yes, I did, yes, yes.
SP: So obviously you did the crewing up, but you were also involved with D-Day?
RD: Sorry?
SP: You were involved with D-Day, were you? Around D-Day, do you want to talk a little bit about your role within D-Day operations.
RD: Well we didn’t know it was D-Day, we just were sent on a trip and we flew for seven-and-a-half hours and when we were coming back, we could see the English Channel was black with ships and we reported all this at the briefing and it was two hours later when we were in the mess when we finally found out that there had been the invasion, and from then on, we were- All leave was cancelled and for three weeks we weren’t allowed off the station. We were just standing by and it was during that time we went to Reims, and when we crash landed at Thorney Island normally a plane would come and take you back, but because all the planes were on stand-by we had to come back by train, and that was another story. We were in London as the V-1 bombs were dropping because we- It took us two hours to get from Havant to Waterloo, and then- I can’t remember the reason, but we couldn’t get a direct trip to Kings Cross so we went part on the underground and watched all the people getting their beds out and then we got the last train from Kings Cross and that was with difficulty, the whole of London was trying to get out. We got into, where was it? We got into Lincoln, we finally got transport back to Ludford, got back into Ludford at half-past-ten, which is exactly forty-eight hours after we’d taken off, and by lunch time next day, we found our names on the board for an op that night, but then it was cancelled and I went over- I used to keep my pilot training up by going on the link trainer, and I went over to the squadron where the flight were to do this and I was suddenly told I was to fly with an air test, with a pilot and so we flew over Liverpool, checked all the Gee equipment and whatever, and we got back to Ludford at seventeen-fifty, I checked my watch, seventeen-fifty and because it was a scratch crew I was flying as the joint navigator and engineer, and I said to the pilot when we got back, ‘If you fly over the control tower I'll fire off a [unclear] cartridge and they’ll change the runway because it’s a short runway’, ‘Nonsense, nonsense’ he said, ‘We’ll go in’. So, he landed, and he hit the runway bounced thirty feet, shot across the perimeter track in between- Across the main road and we ended up in a haystack, and all the equipment we’d been testing was scanners underneath the aircraft, they were all smashed. He still didn’t speak and we were walking back and this boy came up and said, he was about eighteen I suppose, pimply faced youth and he said, ‘My bicycle was in that hut that you’ve crashed’, and the pilot looked, ‘Go and thank Christ you weren’t on it’, and that was all he said, and for that we were both ordered to write an essay and appear before a court as to our actions on why this accident had happened, and after three days it was all cancelled. I was sent on leave and when I got back this pilot had gone so [chuckles] it’s only when you sit down and work it all out and you realise why I didn’t want to think about it for fifty-two years.
SP: Yeah, and just going back to D-Day, you said you flew, what was your role on D-Day? What was 101 Squadron doing? What was the role?
RD: We weren’t bombing, we were flying with- The special operator was jamming the equipment over the fighter stations so that they couldn’t get the information to- Of what was happening.
SP: That’s great, and then you talked about Reims and you said you had to land- You had to crash land on the way back, do you want to tell me a little bit about the trip to Reims?
RD: Well, we had two engines shot out so we landed with- We landed with just two engines and we did a ground loop because all the port undercarriage was ripped away and, and in my book, I mention that the pilot in his résumé of what happened that night, and he said that we were attacked by three different fighters and we ended up at zero feet flying over the tree tops and that’s how we were saved really, and he heard all the canon fire crashing into the front of the plane and thought I would be a bloody pulp, that was his expression. Fortunately that wasn’t the case. But the whole of the front of the plane where I was, it was almost unrecognisable, and the plane never flew again, it was written off. That was just one, we had about four similar episodes, but that was the first one and the first one is always the worst one, after that you become a bit blasé about it all. But the other thing about many of it was really the weather, we were sent in weather that was really never fit to fly, but needs must. They had to keep the pressure up. It’s easy to understand now, it wasn’t quite so easy then
SP: And then on your crash landing, you had a problem with where you wanted to land wasn’t it? Was there some other planes?
RD: Well, it saved our lives, had we landed on the runway and done that we would probably of done the- Thorney Island has a sea wall and that was where Tony Benn made his mistake, he said his brother crashed into a sea wall, so when I told him Thorney Island, he said, ‘No, you’re wrong’, and I said, ‘Well, you can’t be right on both. If he crashed on Tangmere, Tangmere doesn’t have a sea wall, so he couldn’t of crashed into it, it had to be there’, and he also said that his brother was taken to Chichester hospital, well Chichester’s right next to Thorney Island, so that stood me in good stead.
SP: So you were coming in- You were wanting to land at Thorney Island but two Mosquitos were in front-
RD: They said, ‘You can’t land here’.
SP: Right.
RD: And then the pilot, well, he had no option. We didn’t- We had a fuel leak, we couldn't climb any further and, in any case, there was the- These V-1’s were taking off, they started on the 16th of June and the incident I'm telling you about was the 22nd, so I think I mention in the book, at seven-thirty in the morning when we were starting for breakfast and it was the first of seven raids of the day. So not only did we crash land at Thorney Island but we found ourselves in the centre of the first attacks of these things which was a-
SP: So, from what you were saying to me earlier, the- They’d said you couldn’t land on the runway because the Mosquito was in problem so you landed on the grass but the Mosquito actually crashed.
RD: We landed on the grass, which is level. Thorney Island was a coastal command station and it was quite vast, it was pre-war when space was- Cost nothing. So, it- That helped to save- The fact that we were landing on grass instead of concrete made a big difference.
SP: And the Mosquito that crashed was Tony Benn’s brother?
RD: Yes
SP: Right, so yeah, so that’s the link into the Tony Benn story, it was his brother.
RD: Did Tony Benn have a, a navigator with him?
PD: Yes.
RD: Yeah so-
PD: I think all the Aussies had navigators.
SP: Yeah so they crashed on-
RD: Tony Benn and his navigator were killed.
SP: Tony Benn’s brother, yeah and his navigator.
RD: What they had-
PD: Michael Ben [unclear]
RD: -was a malfunctioning altimeter.
SP: Right.
RD: And he didn’t know his height and so they sent another Mosquito up to bring him in and we listened to all that, that was the part which perhaps I didn’t emphasise. We listened to the whole caboodle and after they crashed, we still had to get down if you like, it doesn’t help.
SP: No, so that was Michael Benn who crashed with his navigator and then you listened to that ok, yeah. Is there anything else, Ron, that stands out that you want to make sure you cover?
RD: Have I missed anything Pete?
SP: Ok Ron, well thank you very much for sharing all of those storis with us today, it’s been a privilege-
RD: Well, thank you for coming.
SP: - to meet you, so thank you on behalf of International Bomber Command.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ronald Davies
Creator
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Susanne Pescott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ADaviesRS180201, PDaviesRS1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:57:47 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Great Britain
Singapore
United States
England--Cumbria
England--Lincolnshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Warwickshire
Description
An account of the resource
In spring 1940, Ronald Davies joined the RAF to train as a pilot. Following initial training, he was posted to America but was dismissed after crashing a Cessna. Following Pearl Harbour, he trained as a navigator in Port Albert, Canada, but upon returning to England he completed a bomb aimer course at RAF Millom. Davies formed a crew at RAF Wymeswold and trained on Wellingtons and Hallifaxes, before converting to Lancasters at RAF Hemswell. He joined 101 Squadron and completed thirty-one operations between May and November 1944. He describes completing operations during D-Day, and crash-landing at RAF Thorney Island when returning from an operation over Reims, then travelling back to RAF Ludford Magna by train as V-1 bombs dropped over London. In May 1945, he was posted to Singapore where he remained until he was demobilised in June 1946.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1944
10 OTU
101 Squadron
28 OTU
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
crash
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Ansty
RAF Blyton
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Hemswell
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Wymeswold
Stearman
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/551/23213/LLancasterJO103509v1.2.pdf
56bf3c9cc310d03cf9f44312ba2ba698
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lancaster, Jo
John Oliver Lancaster
J O Lancaster
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lancaster, JO
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Oliver 'Jo' Lancaster DFC (1919 - 2019, 948392, 103509 Royal Air Force), photographs and six of his log books. Jo Lancaster completed 54 operations as a pilot with in Wellingtons with 40 Squadron, and after a period of instructing, in Lancasters with 12 Squadron from RAF Wickenby. He became test pilot after the war and was the first person to use a Martin-Baker ejection seat in an emergency.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jo Lancaster and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-18
2017-03-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Jo Lancaster’s pilots flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for J O Lancaster covering the period from 6 July 1937 to 15 September 1943. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Sywell, RAF Ansty, RAF Desford, RAF Sealand, RAF Ternhill, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Wyton, RAF Wellesbourne Mountford, RAF Upavon, RAF Wymeswold, RAF Kirmington, RAF Wickenby and RAF Binbrook. Aircraft flown were Tiger Moth, Cadet, Hart, Audax, Master, Wellington, Bombay, Oxford, Stirling, Magister, Lancaster, Whitley, Halifax, Martinet, Skua and Spitfire. He flew a total of 54 operations, 31 with 40 squadron 1 daylight and 30 night, 2 night operations with 22 Operational Training Unit and 21 night operations with 12 Squadron. Targets were Calais, Hamburg, Hannover, Atlantic, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Cherbourg, Brest, Munster, Osnabruck, Mannheim, Duisburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Turin, Stettin, Rotterdam, Emden, Nurnberg, Essen, St Nazaire, Terschelling, Haugesund Fijord, Lorient, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Munich and Spezia. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operations was Sergeant Taylor.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LLancasterJO103509v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Northamptonshire
England--Shropshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Worcestershire
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Cherbourg
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--La Spezia
Italy--Turin
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands--Terschelling
Norway--Haugesund
Poland--Szczecin
Scotland--Moray
Wales--Flintshire
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Poland
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1941-05-09
1941-05-10
1941-05-11
1941-05-12
1941-05-15
1941-05-16
1941-05-27
1941-06-02
1941-06-03
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-23
1941-06-24
1941-06-26
1941-06-27
1941-07-02
1941-07-03
1941-07-04
1941-07-05
1941-07-06
1941-07-07
1941-07-09
1941-07-10
1941-07-22
1941-07-23
1941-07-24
1941-07-30
1941-07-31
1941-08-12
1941-08-13
1941-08-16
1941-08-17
1941-08-18
1941-08-19
1941-08-25
1941-08-28
1941-08-29
1941-08-31
1941-09-01
1941-09-02
1941-09-03
1941-09-07
1941-09-08
1941-09-10
1941-09-11
1941-09-12
1941-09-13
1941-09-15
1941-09-16
1941-09-29
1941-09-30
1941-10-03
1941-10-04
1941-10-11
1941-10-12
1941-10-14
1941-10-15
1941-10-16
1941-10-17
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-11-03
1942-11-04
1942-11-07
1942-11-08
1942-11-09
1942-11-10
1943-01-04
1943-01-05
1943-01-08
1943-01-09
1943-01-23
1943-01-24
1943-01-30
1943-01-31
1943-02-02
1943-02-03
1943-02-07
1943-02-08
1943-02-11
1943-02-12
1943-02-13
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-16
1943-02-17
1943-02-18
1943-02-19
1943-02-21
1943-02-22
1943-03-03
1943-03-04
1943-03-05
1943-03-06
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1943-03-10
1943-03-12
1943-03-13
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-03-27
1943-03-28
1943-04-03
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-18
1943-04-19
12 Squadron
20 OTU
22 OTU
28 OTU
40 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Lancaster
Magister
Martinet
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Binbrook
RAF Desford
RAF Kirmington
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Sealand
RAF Sywell
RAF Ternhill
RAF Upavon
RAF Wellesbourne Mountford
RAF Wickenby
RAF Wymeswold
RAF Wyton
Spitfire
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2052/42816/LSouterKP129001v1.1.pdf
cbe847749ea7ad0bea26e83052ee0656
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
Souter, Kenneth Place
K P Souter
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-07-10
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Souter, KP
Description
An account of the resource
30 items. An oral history interview with Kenneth Souter (b. 1919, 129001 Royal Air Force), his log books and photographs. He flew operations as a fighter pilot with 73 Squadron in North Africa and as a test pilot. After the war he flew Lancasters during the filming of The Dam Busters film in 1954.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Ken Souter's pilot's flying log book. One
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSouterKP129001v1
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot's flying log book. One, for Ken Souter. Covering the period from 5 July 1939 to 27 April 1945. Detailing his flying training, operational flying and instructor duties. He was stationed No.43 Elementary and Reserve flying traing School at RAF Woolsington, No.22 Elementary Flying Training School RAF Cambridge, No.9 Elementary Flying Training School RAF Ansty, No,5 Operational Training Unit RAF Aston Down, 43 Squadron RAF Acklington and RAF Ismalia, 73 Squadron RAF Gazala, RAF El Adam, RAF Abu Sueir, RAF Bu Amud and RAF El Gubbi, 102 maintenance Unit RAF Abu Sueir, 108 Maintenance Unit RAF El Firdan, No.1 Delivery Unit RAF Wadi Natrun, test Pilot RAF Port Sudan, RAF Summit and RAF Sidi Henish, No.8 Air Gunnery School RAF Evanton, 867 Squadron RAF Detling, 771 Squadron RNAS Twatt. Aircraft flown in were, Tiger Moth, Hart, Audax, Harvard, Hurricane, Blenheim, Wellington, Lysander, Valencia, Tomahawk, Bombay, Maryland, Vincent, Magister, Lockheed, DC2, Oxford, Kittyhawk, Hardy, Boston, Douglas, Lodestar, JU52, Gladiator, Sunderland, DC3, Clipper, Prefect, Master, Hind, Martinet, Anson, Dominie, DH86, Hind and Corsair. He flew 41 operational sorties with 43 and 73 squadrons, these are described as patrol, scramble, search, and reconnaissance.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Great Britain
Libya
Sudan
Egypt--Ismailia (Province)
Egypt--Natrun Valley
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Kent
England--Northumberland
England--Warwickshire
Libya--Cyrenaica
Libya--Tobruk
Scotland--Orkney
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Sudan--Port Sudan
North Africa
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940-12-04
1941-02-04
1941-02-12
1941-02-18
1941-02-22
1941-02-27
1941-03-03
1941-03-05
1941-03-09
1941-03-10
1941-03-15
1941-03-16
1941-03-18
1941-03-24
1941-03-28
1941-04-01
1941-04-02
1941-04-04
1941-04-06
1941-04-07
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-11
1941-04-12
1941-04-13
1941-05-03
1941-05-08
1941-05-12
1941-05-13
1941-05-16
1942
1943
1944
1945
43 Squadron
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
Blenheim
Boston
C-47
Dominie
Flying Training School
Harvard
Hurricane
Ju 52
Lysander
Magister
Martinet
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
P-40
pilot
RAF Abu Sueir
RAF Ansty
RAF Aston Down
RAF Evanton
Sunderland
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1278/19547/EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0001.2.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Parker, John Joseph
J J Parker
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer John Joseph Parker (1062881, 121671 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, heirlooms and photographs. He served as ground personnel.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Ann Pilbeam and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-15
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
Parker, JJ
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[envelope]
[postmark] Dumfries 11.45AM 21 JNE 1943 [/postmark]
MRS. JOHN. PARKER.
26 HESSLE DRIVE
BOSTON
LINCS
[/envelope]
[page break]
AIR SERVICE TRAINING LTD.
ANSTY AERODROME
WALSGRAVE ON SOWE
COVENTRY.
[badge] AST [/badge]
Monday [underlined] 21.6.1943. [/underlined]
Hello Sweatheart.
To day is mid summers day and what a day, it as[sic] been cold and raining although[sic] the day, but as far [inserted] as [/inserted] I am concerned my darling it as[sic] been a grand day for me, this morning I received your nice[?] gifts of a cake and cigs also baccy,[?] to mention nothing of the picture post [indecipherable word].
Well angle[sic] thanks a lot for every thing it is nice to have a wife like you darling, these[?] little things in [deleted one letter] life go so far
[page break]
at a time like this, so again thank Ann and kiss her for me also thanks a million to you my sweetheart.
Also first thing[?] a big mail[?] also, [indecipherable word] letters to gather [indecipherable word], so I had a good read you bet and I was pleased to hear that Anns[sic] nose is better, also I was pleased to hear that your mother is staying a day or so with you, that is going to be a change for her and you too, yes I bet she found a great change in Ann, she is quite a big girl now to what she was the last time she saw her.
You say you will have to have a go in the garden [indecipherable word] don’t worry about
[page break]
[letter heading] AIR SERVICE TRAINING LTD. [/letter heading]
the garden angle[sic] I will see to all that when I come home, and enjoy doing it too [indecipherable word]
At last my sweetheart I can give you an idea when I shall be leaving this place, if all goes well, I am having an[?] Medical Board on Thursday week so if all goes well I shall be leaving here on Friday week hows[sic] that darling, that is what I am hoping for, and I think I shall be quite well by
[page break]
then, dont[sic] bank too much on it will you darling, but I feel fairly sure in my own mind that on the 2nd July will see me out of here. (thank God), it is a strange place, every day somebody comes in looking like I looked the day I arrived you know, and it does not cheer one up any thing[?] you [indecipherable word].
Darling they are going to put the lights out so I am going to close now, love and kisses to Ann.
All my love Darling
Always your[?] John [21 kisses]
For Ann [7 kisses]
[page break]
[photograph of a lady wearing an R.A.F. badge]
[page break]
[reverse of photograph] 31692
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
Letter from John Joseph Parker to his wife
Description
An account of the resource
Four page hand written letter with envelope, postmarked Dumfries 21 June 1943, on A.S.T. headed paper. He complains about the station, and the weather, thanks her for the parcel and says that he is looking forward to his medical board. Enclosed was a photograph of his wife.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
JJ Parker
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Envelope, four page handwritten letter, b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text. Correspondence
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0001, EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0002, EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0003, EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0004, EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0005, EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0006, EParkerJJParkerCE430621-0007
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Warwickshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06-21
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
RAF Ansty
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1908/36266/BPerryWRPPerryWRPv2.2.pdf
2d9a332b2c7e70c15dc51d7c6351a683
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Perry, Pete
W R P Perry
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Perry, WRP
Description
An account of the resource
Sixty-nine items and an album sub collection with twenty-four pages of photographs.
The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant WR Pete Perry DFC (1923 - 2006, 1317696, 146323 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, correspondence, memoirs and documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Helen Verity and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Me - William Roy Peter Perry DFC
Pete Perry's memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir starts by describing early life and education in Tunbridge Wells before moving to Cornwall. Writes about beginning of the war. Volunteered for aircrew in Plymouth (which had been bombed the day before) shortly after his 18th birthday. Continues with account of early induction and training in the RAF. Journeys across the Atlantic to Canada where he continues his pilot training. Describes activities in Canada and return to the United Kingdom. Describes advance flying training at Ossington, and operational training and other activities at North Luffenham. Continues with heavy conversion unit on Manchester and Lancaster before posting to 106 Squadron at RAF Syerston. Goes on to describe activities and operations while on the squadron including a long description of operation to Turin. Awarded DFC at end of first tour. Mentions operations over Berlin when hit by anti-aircraft fire which set engine on fire. Goes on to describe activities as an instructor at 5 Lancaster Finishing School before going to 227 Squadron at RAF Balderton as an instructor. He eventually returned to 106 Squadron for a second tour in March 1945 where he did a further three operations before the end of the war. Mentions Tiger Force, Cook's tour and bring troops back from Italy. Concludes with life in transport command after the war. After demob in January 1947 became a civilian air traffic controller.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
W R P Perry
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-03-26
1941-04
1942
1943
1944
1945
1945-03
1957-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Kent
England--Tunbridge Wells
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Devon
England--Plymouth
England--Oxfordshire
England--Oxford
England--London
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
England--Warwickshire
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
Germany
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Cologne
Italy
Italy--Turin
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Thirty-two page printed document
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Allocated
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BPerryWRPPerryWRPv2
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
106 Squadron
1654 HCU
227 Squadron
29 OTU
5 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
B-17
civil defence
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Manchester
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Balderton
RAF hospital Rauceby
RAF Metheringham
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Ossington
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Stirling
Tiger force
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/990/10664/LStevensP[Ser -DoB]v1.pdf
ce4571997f357bda766cc396afcc503e
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
Stevens, Peter
Peter Stevens
P Stevens
Georg Franz Hein
Description
An account of the resource
Eleven items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Peter Stevens, Military Cross, (1919 - 1979, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, letters and photographs. Originally called Georg Franz Hein, a German Jew, he was sent to Great Britain by his mother in 1934. He attended school in England and when war was declared he assumed the name of Peter Stevens, a deceased school friend. He joined the Air Force and flew operations as a pilot with 144 Squadron before crash landing his Hampden at Amsterdam in September 1941 and becoming a prisoner of war. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Marc Stevens and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. This collection was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.<br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Ivor Fraser. Additional information on Ivor Fraser is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/108075/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Stevens, MH
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
Peter Stevens' pilot's flying log book
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Peter Stevens, covering the period from 6 June 1940 to 7 September 1941 when he was taken prisoner of war and then from 26 July 1945 to 22 January 1947 and from 28 September 1952 to 19 September 1953. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, instructor duties and post war flying. He was stationed at RAF Hamble, RAF Watchfield, RAF Ansty, RAF Shawbury, RAF Cranage, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Hemswell, RAF Cottesmore, RAF North Luffenham. RAF Gatow, RCAF St Hubert. Aircraft flown were, Avro Cadet, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Anson, Hampden and Harvard. He flew a total of 24 night time operations with 144 squadron, until his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he crash landed near Amsterdam. One of the crew was killed and the other three taken prisoner of war. Targets were Wangeroog, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Duisberg, Osnabruck, Hannover, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Brest and Berlin. <span>He flew as a second pilot on operations with</span> Pilot Officer Roake, Flight Lieutenant Rawlins and Sergeant Gibson. Following repatriation he joined Station Flight at RAF Gatow and then joined 401 Auxiliary squadron RCAF. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LStevensP[Ser#-DoB]v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cheshire
England--Hampshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
France--Brest
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--East Frisian Islands
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Osnabrück
Québec--Saint-Hubert (Chambly)
Germany--Duisburg
Québec
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1945
1947
1952
1953
1941-04-03
1941-04-04
1941-04-07
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-10
1941-04-11
1941-04-23
1941-04-24
1941-04-25
1941-04-26
1941-05-03
1941-05-04
1941-05-05
1941-05-06
1941-06-17
1941-06-18
1941-06-20
1941-06-23
1941-06-24
1941-07-02
1941-07-03
1941-07-05
1941-07-06
1941-07-14
1941-07-15
1941-07-19
1941-07-20
1941-07-22
1941-07-23
1941-07-30
1941-07-31
1941-08-06
1941-08-07
1941-08-25
1941-08-26
1941-08-27
1941-08-28
1941-08-29
1941-08-30
1941-09-01
1941-09-02
1941-09-03
1941-09-04
1941-09-07
1941-09-08
14 OTU
144 Squadron
16 OTU
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Flying Training School
forced landing
Hampden
Harvard
mine laying
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Ansty
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Cranage
RAF Hemswell
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Shawbury
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Watchfield
shot down
Tiger Moth
training
-
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
Evans, Derek Carrington
D C Evans
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Evans, DC
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Derek Carrington Evans (1924 - 2017, 2207080 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 625 Squadron. Also contains photographs of model Lancaster and people.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Derek Carrington Evans and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-14
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.
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
Pilot - face to face
Description
An account of the resource
Introduces Michael G Hanson an RAF reservist and tells of time sailing before stating training. Covers elementary and advanced training before joining 233 Squadron at RAF Leuchars on Hudson. Relates life on the station, in local area and on maritime operations. Continues with accounts of convoy escort from Northern Ireland and life at RAF Aldergrove including meeting member of women's auxiliary air force. Relates attacks on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and other Atlantic operations from RAF St Eval. After completing his tour he became a navigator instructor. He was posted to bomber command in June 1944 and trained on Wellington and Halifax and then on to Lancaster at RAF Hemswell. Describes first operation over France while still training. Eventually goes to 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern. Gives detailed account of operations including Essen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bochum (attached by fighter), Gelsenkirchen, Wanne-Eickel, Dortmund, Harburg, Duren, Bonn, St Vith, Rheydt, Sholven/Buer (oil refinery). Interspersed with accounts of life on camp. Continues with description of other operations, pathfinding, H2S, use of Mosquito. Gives account of operation to Dresden and other operations towards end of the war. Concludes with mention of Operation Manna and award of Distinguished Flying Cross and life after the end of the war. All the way through he writes of activities, events, friends, colleagues and girl friends.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, this item is available only at the University of Lincoln.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Russell
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
496 page printed book with cover
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MEvansDC2207080-160825-02
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Warwickshire
England--Lincolnshire
Scotland--Fife
Scotland--St. Andrews
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland--Antrim (County)
France
France--Brest
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Sussex
England--Eastbourne (East Sussex)
England--Shropshire
England--Bridgnorth
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
England--Wiltshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Angers
Germany
Germany--Essen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Bonn
Belgium
Belgium--Saint-Vith
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Goch
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Poland
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Witten
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Berchtesgaden
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Yorkshire
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Great Britain
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Swindon (Wiltshire)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1944-06-06
1944-10-23
1944-10-28
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-11-06
1944-11-09
1944-11-16
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-18
1944-11-19
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-12-25
1944-12-26
1944-12-27
1945-01-16
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-13
1945-03-01
1945-03-12
1945-03-18
1945-04-18
1945-05-25
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
625 Squadron
aircrew
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Gneisenau
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Hudson
Lancaster
love and romance
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Blyton
RAF Cranwell
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
RAF Leuchars
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Scampton
RAF Silloth
RAF St Eval
RAF Watchfield
RAF Worksop
Scharnhorst
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1468/43464/LHarrisRJ[Ser -DoB]v1.pdf
ba3b67754b3a8fcfda1c8f09082d64fc
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
Harris, Raymond John
R J Harris
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harris, RJ
Description
An account of the resource
Five items. The collection concerns Raymond John Harris DFC (174625 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 9 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Harris and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Raymond Harris's Pilot's log book
Description
An account of the resource
Raymond Harris was a pilot who flew the Lancaster on 34 operations with No 9 Squadron. The log book runs from 19 September 1942 to 24th August 1945. After his initial flying at the No 9 EFTS at RAF Ansty, flying in the Tiger Moth, Raymond went out to No 32 EFTS RAF Bowden, Alberta, Canada, flying the Stearman and occasionally the Tiger Moth. He remained there until December 1942 when he was posted to No 37 SFTS, Calgary, Alberta to fly the Harvard and occasionally the Anson. He remained there until April 1943 when he graduated and returned to Britain. Raymond was posted to 3 (P) AFU RAF South Cerney, flying the Oxford. He attended a BAT course at No 1532 BAT Flt, RAF Bagdown Farm in August. He was posted to 17 OTU, RAF Silverstone & RAF Turweston, 2 November 1943 to fly the Wellington. In April 1944 he was moved to 1661 HCU at RAF Winthorpe flying the Stirling, until May when he was posted to 5 LFS at RAF Syerstone flying the Lancaster. In May Raymond was posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney flying the Lancaster. He did his first operation to Nantes on the 22 May and his second with his crew to Martin-de-Varreville on the 28 May. He did operations to Ferme D'urville, Point du Hoe, Argentan, Gelsenkirchen, Limoge, Prouville,Vitry le-francois, Creil, Culmont Chalimoray, Vileneuve st George, Stuttgart, Camagnes, Rilly la Montagne, Bois de Cassen, Trossy, Etaples, Lorient, La Pallice, Bordeax, Givorg, Brest, Girzerigen, Karlsruhe, Flushing, Tromso (Tirpitz), Urft Dam, Munich, Bergen, Ijmuiden, Altenbeken, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Sassnitz, Arnsberg, Vlotho, Bremen and Swinemunde. He flew a Cook's Tour and also took part in one of the Post Mortem operations. He was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate in June. The last flight in the Log book was on 24 August in Lancaster PA474 which now flies with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.<br /><br /><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW73911805 BCX0">This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No </span><span class="ContextualSpellingAndGrammarError SCXW73911805 BCX0">better quality</span><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW73911805 BCX0"> copies are available.</span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-09-19
1942-12-09
1942-11-18
1943-04-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-30
1943-11-02
1944-04-04
1943-11-02
1944-05-09
1944-05-23
1944-05-28
1944-06-03
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-19
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-06-27
1944-07-04
1944-07-12
1944-07-14
1944-28-07
1944-07-28
1944-07-31
1944-08-02
1944-08-05
1944-08-07
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-13
1944-08-15
1944-09-26
1944-10-07
1944-10-29
1944-11-12
1944-11-17
1945-01-12
1945-02-05
1945-02-06
1945-02-24
1945-03-06
1945-03-13
1945-03-19
1945-03-27
1945-04-13
1945-04-19
1945-06-15
1945-08-24
1944-07-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Canada
Alberta--Red Deer Region
Alberta--Calgary
England--Gloucestershire
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Buckinghamshire
France
France--Nantes
France--Valognes Region
France--Reims Region
France--Argentan
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
France--Limoges
France--Vitry-le-François
France--Creil
Germany--Stuttgart
France--Etaples
France--Lorient
France--La Pallice
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
France--Brest
Germany--Karlsruhe
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Netherlands--IJmuiden
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Tromsø
Germany--Munich
Germany--Roetgen
Germany--Altenbeken
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Sassnitz
Germany--Arnsberg
Germany--Vlotho
Germany--Bremen
Poland--Świnoujście
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Flensburg
Poland
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Log book and record book
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photocopied booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHarrisRJ[Ser#-DoB]v1
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
1661 HCU
17 OTU
50 Squadron
9 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Fw 190
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Bardney
RAF South Cerney
RAF Sturgate
RAF Syerston
RAF Turweston
RAF Winthorpe
RCAF Bowden
Stearman
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tallboy
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1908/36267/BPerryWRPPerryWRPv3.1.pdf
c59c0b819197fe1330885a6891a5dda1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Perry, Pete
W R P Perry
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Perry, WRP
Description
An account of the resource
Sixty-nine items and an album sub collection with twenty-four pages of photographs.
The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant WR Pete Perry DFC (1923 - 2006, 1317696, 146323 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, correspondence, memoirs and documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Helen Verity and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] 29 [/inserted]
[inserted] S H [/inserted]
[inserted][underlined] Pete [/underlined][/inserted]
Aircraft flown:- Tiger Moth, Oxford, Wellin[missing letters] Manchester II; Lancaster I
& III, Stirling V [missing words]
Major RAF operational & training Stations:-
10 ITW, Scarborough; 9 EFTS Ansty; 31 EFTS De Winton, Calgary; 37 SFTS Calgary Airport; 14AFU Ossington; 29 OUT North Luffenham & Woofox Lodge; 1654 HCU Wigsley; 106 Sqdn Syerston & Metheringham; 5 LFS Syerston; 227 Sqdn Balderton; 242 Sqdn Merryfield & Oakington.
[page break]
[underlined] 'RON'S ROGUES GALLERY' [/underlined]
F/Lt W.R.P. (Pete). Perry, DFC. Pilot.
Having reached the ripe old age of eighteen on the 25th I volunteered for Aircrew on March 26th 1941. In April that year I was instructed to report to the Recruiting Officer in Plymouth.
(The city had been 'blitzed' the previous night.)
On arrival some six of us were told to be at the Millbay railway station next morning to catch the 0800 to London – our first step towards our Attestation & medicals at Oxford. Four of us, due to living in Cornwall, were unable to get home & back in time so were billeted in "Aggie Weston's" – the Royal Sailors Rest Home in Devonport. Armed with 'chits' for our stay & warrants for the journey we set out walking – no transport due to the previous nights activities.
En-route an unexploded bomb went off & blew one of our party through a shop window! He picked himself up – unhurt – & we went on. When he came to get some change from his hip pocket he found that he had lost the coins through a tear in his trousers caused by the plate glass window!!
We arrived at "Aggies", allocated our rooms & eventually settled in for an early night. About 2230 the sirens went & everyone was ordered to the shelter in the basement. Just as well for after half an hour "Aggies" was hit! Everybody out & along to the nearest street shelter. Ours lasted fifteen minutes before the roof was blown off! Down the road again to the next available – this one being backed by a high wall (said wall being part of Devonport dockyard) behind which was a large ack-ack gun which kept us jumping for the rest of the night.
About 0400 the all clear sounded & the four of us started walking the four miles to the Station. Fires everywhere. The stench was awful. Firemen working strenuously to get the fires under control; ARP & rescue teams amidst the debris recovering people – & – bodies. We made slow progress along the blocked roads but got to the Station in time.
I decided then that I would opt for Bomber Command – & get my own back!
(Thanks to two nights bombing & all the phones being out I had been unable to let my Mother know what was happening so I wrote a note to say I was on my way to Oxford for three days. It was delivered in a charred state due to the heat of the blitz. She was worried sick for it was two days before I could contact her.)
[page break]
(2)
The RAF decided that I was warm & reasonably fit so in August I reported to ACRC – Lord's (the Long Room); St John's Wood; marching through Regent's Park to the Zoo for meals; kitting out – we were on our way!
Next to 10 ITW at the Grand Hotel, Scarborough – North Sea swimming after PT on the beach. Aldis lamp morse from the little lighthouse on the edge of the harbour wall.
A short stay at No9 EFTS at Ansty before a week at Heaton Park en route to Canada.
Boarding HMT 'Volendam' at Avonmouth we sailed in company with HMT 'Montcalm' plus two destroyers. I was 'volunteered' for galley duty as we left port. I've never seen so many spuds & carrots!
Day 2 – one destroyer left us.
Day 3 – first storm – very upsetting.
Day 4 – we broke down & wallowed in the strong seas – very, very upsetting! The 'Montcalm' carried on & the destroyer scurried to & fro trying to protect both of us Until it finally went off & we were left on our tod in U-boat alley!
Day 5 – the final storm abated; the fault was fixed & off we went, remaining on our own. God knows the route we took but it took us thirteen days to reach Halifax!
Pleasant memories? One evening during the storm a pianist gave a beautiful recital on a grand piano (lashed to the stage!) which included Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue'.
Disembarking it was straight on to the train for the three day & night journey to Calgary, Alberta. Stopping at Winnipeg we were surprised & delighted to be welcomed by the RFC & RAF Veterans Association to a reception in the enormous main hall of the Station. Refreshments, drinks (soft), girls (heavily chaperoned), Sweet Caporals, music & dancing. A most enjoyable welcome to Canada.
(For some years after the war the 'Vets' organised a Quadrenial re-union in Winnipeg. We were there in '84 & I know that others have been – some more than once.).
39 EFTS at De Winton-Tiger Moths flying from compacted snow with the odd 'Chinook' roaring down from the Rockies bringing the customary "40 below". (Well that's what the locals said!)
De Winton also witnessed the result of practical 'hangar flying as the picture shows! Quick medical & then airborne again.
Course completed then a spot of leave in Banff plus a few days in Drumheller before going to 37 SFTS at Calgary Airport.
I enjoyed flying 'twins' & also the privilege our our [sic] Flight was given – to lead the Calgary Stampede [inserted] Parade [/inserted] through the city
[page break]
(3)
in July. (It also gave us free entry to the Stadium. Spectacular!)
Wings Parade in August then straight back to UK. Boarding the HMT 'Awatea' in Halifax we joined an enormous convoy heavily escorted; calm seas & only eight days to Greenock. That's more like it!
A fortnight in Bournemouth before a short AFU course at Ossington to discover the joys of night flying in Britain. Somewhat different to Canada.
39 OTU at North Luffenham & Woolfox Lodge on Wimpy IIIs then the dreaded 'fitness course' at Morton Hall.
Our AOC in 5 Group, AVM the Honourable Sir Ralph Cochrane, KCB, etc., decided that aircrew were a flabby, unfit bunch & needed toughening up before going to a Squadron. A week at Morton Hall on an assault course should do the trick. We may not have been 100% fit [underlined] before [/underlined] the course but we sure as hell [underlined] were not after it [/underlined]! Broken limbs, sprains, strains, crews being broken up. It was discontinued after a couple of months!
To Wigsley for HCU – Manchesters (lovely to fly – empty) then Lancasters.
Finally in June '43 to Syerston & 106 Sqdn. I was first allocated ZN-Z which had been modified to carry the 8000lb cookie. It didn't half give a 'leap' when the bomb was released.
A week or two later a new arrival was sent to do his familiarisation flying in ZN-Z. He announced his return with a somewhat spectacular heavy landing which sent the undercarriage up through the engine nacelle, distorted the fuselage [underlined] & [/underlined] empanage to such an extent that it was a write-off. His F/E was to collect a VC in six months time!
'Twas an ill wind because I collected the brand new replacement. Very acceptable!
One evening, aircraft parked on the grass due to hardstandings being repaired, we had started up & just about to taxy when the aircraft next to us started three of its engines but instead of the starboard outer the F/E pressed the H type jettison switch!! [underlined] Al l [/underlined] the bombs fell off on to the grass. You've seen cartoons of men running in mid-air – I've seen it for real – Ian & his crew didn't wait for the ladder – they were out of that aircraft [underlined] so [/underlined] fast!! I hastily taxied off as fast as I could. Fortunately the bombs did not go off.
A variety of targets – many in 'Happy Valley' then Italy. Milan a couple of times & Turin. The weather on the latter was the most atrocious that I ever experienced – cu-nims galore (couldn't see them nor get over them; St Elmo's Fire all over the plane; ice being flung all over the place. 'Twas clear over the target. Then routed back over
[page break]
(4)
France & the Bay of Biscay (in daylight!) we were shot up over La Rochelle (we were over 10/10 cloud & the Nav 'wasn't sure of his position'!) lost our port outer & therefore the rear turret so we flew back at a [inserted] low [/inserted] very level over the Bay!
Autumn – rumours have it that we are to move to RAF Metheringham (RAF where?) still being built in the hinterland of Lincolnshire. So we had a party to say farewell to Syerston BUT instead of the short hop next day we're back on ops – to Modane.
The objective was to close the Mont Cenis tunnel which the Germans were using to re-inforcr [sic] their troops in Italy. Once we'ed found the valley (Gin clear; a full moon; a doddle) it was a piece of cake. One major gun plus a few light weapons. We bombed fourth & I only saw three flak bursts. The result announced next day said "successful raid, tunnel completely blocked. Aircraft missing – nil; casualties – nil; aircraft damaged – one ZN-X (flown by an Aussie pal of mine) hit in the elsan by one of the bursts which caused a redistribution of the contents around the fuselage.
We finally got to Metheringham, R/T call sign 'Coffeestall'. Two friends of mine formated [sic] on me & we did a gentle beat-up to announce the Squadrons arrival simultaneously singing the 'Java Jive' over the R/T.
The Station Commander (a newly promoted G/C) was in the Control Tower & did not appreciate our efforts – & said so!!
Metheringham mud – everywhere. If a wheel went off the perimeter track you were stuck. If you slipped off the duck board around your hut you lost a shoe. The dreaded coke stoves were always going out so drying out was difficult. Hot water in the ablutions? Ha! Security? Lots of workmen around, many of them Irish. One rare sunny afternoon we went to briefing – the windows were open, sunlight on the wall map of Europe & the red ribbons showing our route in & out of Berlin that night. Our Squadron Commander broke off his briefing as three heads appeared at the window & in rich accented voices said "Just look at all dem pretty ribbons on dat map"!! I don't know for what reason but that trip was cancelled half-an-hour before take-off.
The 'Battle of Britain' continued with several moments of interest. A Lanc flew as well on three (Bit slower) & the Gravener fire extinguishers worked well each time. The 'Queen of the Skies' also flew quite well on two (bit lower & slower though). (For demonstration purposes it would fly on one – not loaded though!)
I was awarded the DFC in January & finished my tour in February. Instructing next., but where? Many pilots went to Wimpy OTU's. Whose luck held out?
I went back to Syerston instructing on Lancs!
Had my 21st birthday there.
[page break]
(5)
It was interesting at first but I became bored by the Autumn & the quickest way back on ops was to do a spell as a Squadron Instructor. I was posted to 227 Sqdn, Balderton for six months & did my stint there. I then collected an all Commissioned all second tour crew (including my first tour F/E, WOP/AG & RG) & then back to 106 Sqdn – still at Metheringham.
It had changed – no mud; the sun shone – & we didn't need the coke stove so much in April.
Only got three in (including one daylight – I needed some 'green' in my log book!) before VE was upon us. I applied for Yorks in Transport Command but was denied since we were on 'Tiger Force' for the Far East!
Training [symbol] lectures went apace but fortunately VJ came before we went out.
Another try for Yorks & this [inserted] time [/inserted] successful – 242 Sqdn (Famous originally for being Douglas Bader's RAF/Canadian Hurricane Sqdn). At least we still had Merlins even if they were tropicalised, & the York [underlined] was [/underlined] a nice aircraft.
I spent a happy nine months with them at Oakington, flying the UK – Calcutta – Singapore schedule service route. I was introduced to the Monsoon (no worse than my Turin trip!) & extra large spiders & snakes that sought shelter in our huts! Succulent prawns in Karachi – source? the Indus [symbol] you know what went in to the many mouths of that river!
Finally to Full Sutton nr York awaiting de-mob. Lovely city – lovely girls – & the loveliest one became my wife in '48 & in due course we had a son & a daughter.
To 'civvy street'. One of my eyes had gone wonky so flying was out. Too much competition from fully fit chaps who had equal experience.
[underlined] I joined civil Air Traffic Control [/underlined] starting at Liverpool Airport, then Belfast (Nutts Corner & Sydenham airports) Preston Air Traffic Control Centre; Joint Air Traffic Control Radar unit at RAF Lindholme; back to Preston as Deputy Centre Supertindent [sic] & finally to Manchester [underlined] finishing my career as CAA Chief Officer there. [/underlined]
So the good fortune that was with me in Plymouth back in 1941 had 'hung around' all my life.
I should be so lucky.
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
Ron's rogues gallery
Pete Perry's memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Gives outline of service history. Goes on to describe joining the RAF, early training, journey across the Atlantic to Canada for pilot training. Gives account of training in Canada and on return to the United Kingdom. Writes of operations on 106 Squadron, award of DFC, tour as instructor before returning for a second tour on 106 Squadron. After the war he flew Yorks in Transport Command before demob and joining the civil air traffic control.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Flt Lt W R P (Pete) Perry, DFC
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-03-26
1943-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Devon
England--Plymouth
England--London
Canada
Alberta--Calgary
Alberta--De Winton
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Italy
Italy--Turin
Italy--Milan
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Six page printed document
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BPerryWRPPerryWRPv3
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
106 Squadron
1654 HCU
227 Squadron
29 OTU
5 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Manchester
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF Balderton
RAF Metheringham
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Oakington
RAF Ossington
RAF Syerston
RAF Wigsley
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1908/36269/LPerryWRP1317696v1.1.pdf
eaaed57d1c21a3705ec7b36ba7a17f91
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Perry, Pete
W R P Perry
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-19
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Perry, WRP
Description
An account of the resource
Sixty-nine items and an album sub collection with twenty-four pages of photographs.
The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant WR Pete Perry DFC (1923 - 2006, 1317696, 146323 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, correspondence, memoirs and documents. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Helen Verity and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
W R P Perry pilot's flying log book. One
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LPerryWRP1317696v1
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book one, for W R P Perry, covering the period from 24 November 1941 to 19 April 1943. Detailing his flying training. He was stationed at RAF Ansty, RCAF De Winton, RCAF Calgary, RCAF Moncton, RAF Ossington, RAF Scampton, RAF North Luffenham and RAF Woolfox Lodge. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Oxford and Wellington.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Great Britain
Alberta--Calgary
Alberta--De Winton
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
England--Warwickshire
New Brunswick--Moncton
New Brunswick
Alberta
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
29 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Flying Training School
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Ansty
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Ossington
RAF Scampton
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington