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Dublin Core
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Title
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Cook, Kenneth
Kenneth Cook
Kenneth H Cook
Ken Cook
K H Cook
K Cook
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander Kenneth Howell Cook DFC (b. 1923, 151017 Royal Air Force). Kenneth Cook flew 45 operations with 97 Squadron, Pathfinders.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-04
2016-07-25
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Cook, KHH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PJ: Right. Interviewers Peter Jones and Sandra Jones. Name of the interviewee Wing Commander, Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC. Attending with him is his son Jonathan Cook. The date is the 25th of the 7th 2016 and it’s just 5 o’clock pm. The place is Chadlington, Oxfordshire. Thank you, Ken for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Ken, tell me about what you did before the war?
KC: Okay. Well I attended grammar school at -
JC: Marling.
KC: Marling Grammar School near Stroud in Gloucestershire and I was one of the first to join the Air Training Corps Squadron that was set up in Stroud, number 1329 Squadron and that helped to focus my attention on joining the Royal Air Force and while I waited until I was old enough to apply and a couple of years later I found myself on the train going from Stroud up to Paddington with an appointment to go to Lords Cricket Ground to be a part of what turned out to be over five thousand budding air crew that were joining the RAF on the same day that I was and after a few weeks staying in local accommodation in that area I was then posted up to Scarborough to the ITW [name number?]. That was at Scarborough Grammar School. So I did my ITW and then I was posted up, back up to the north west of England to wait for a boat because I was going across to America to learn to fly in America as a pilot and going across the Atlantic we were chased by a U-boat which gave us a bit of a turn and we got away from it and got to the other side alright and then got on a train that took us three days to go along through Canada right down through the centre of America to Georgia. And so my opening days were down there in very high temperatures erm which I enjoyed very much and we were flying an aircraft called a Stearman, the biplane, and I’d gone solo but they decided that I and one or two others needed a lot more time than they could afford so they asked me to go back to Canada to carry on my training there which I did but when I got to Canada I was told the pilot training schools were all totally full so I’d have to hang around. So they then asked me if I wanted to be an air gunner and I said no. And they made me hang around a bit longer and then eventually they said, ‘We’re opening up a new air crew job called an air bomber. Would you be interested in that?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ I’d have a go at that and so I went on through a couple of courses spread over three or four months and I came out as the two guys that, I was commissioned as a young pilot officer off the course. There was two of us commissioned. I was one of them and so I came back home having gone out as an erk I came back to England as a pilot officer. Then having got back to England I found myself, believe it or not, posted to, what’s that airfield near High Wycombe, the grass over?
JC: Booker.
KC: Booker. Booker airfield, to fly Tiger Moths and so I carried on. Started my pilot training or continued my pilot training there and I’m lost now from where I go from there.
JC: Do you want to stop for a second Dad? Shall we stop for a sec? Can we just stop for a sec?
KC: Hmmn?
JC: Do you want to stop for a little break?
KC: Yeah.
JC: For a second.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So you -
[Pause]
SJ: Okay.
KC: So I was posted to the northwest England to fly. Can you stop it for a minute? I can’t think.
[Pause]
JC: Botha?
KC: Botha, yeah.
JC: Botha.
KC: Yeah. That was it.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Up there in Scotland. In the northwest. And then on to er what was I saying? Which one the -
JC?: Cottesmore.
KC: Cottesmore. That was the Wellingtons. Starting to learn night bombing and all that techniques. And from there I was posted to -
JC: Winthorpe.
KC: Winthorpe, was it? Yes.
JC: Heavy Conversation Unit.
KC: Yeah. HCU.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And then -
JC: And then Bardney after that for five [weeks?]
KC: And then to 9 Squadron at Bardney.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On Lancasters, yeah. Yeah. I did ten ops with 9 Squadron and a crew there and then we were invited to join them, they had just set up the Pathfinder force in Bomber Command and we were recommended as a crew that could join the Pathfinder force which I went on a course at Bourne in Cambridgeshire and then graduated on, as a Pathfinder crew in Lancasters [pause] and I did another thirty five ops with a Pathfinder crew. Altogether, I did forty five ops and I came out of that. Just after finishing ops I got awarded the DFC. And where did I go after ops?
JC: You went off to, where did you go then? You went off to Fiskerton didn’t you? To be the station radar nav officer. Was that right?
KC: Yes, I did. I was posted to RAF Fiskerton near Lincoln.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Having, I completed altogether forty five ops so I was now screened from any more ops but I then flew at Fiskerton. There were two Lancaster squadrons there and my job was to, as new crews came in from training I had to fly with each new crew to check them out, that they, that their navigators could operate the radar properly before they were allowed to go on ops. That was hairy because some of the pilots were new and they couldn’t land the Lancaster at night and we used to do what we called a few, what we called a few cannon balls going down the runway at night. Anyway, went through that period. The squadron then moved from, they closed the airfield and moved us to Fulbeck and so I went along although I was on the station and not with the squadrons I was instructed by Group Headquarters to go with them to Syerston on the Fosse Way and I stayed with them for about two years at Syerston flying with new crews when they came in. Checking them out on the radar and so on. Then what happened after Syerston?
JC: Okay. So you were getting ready for the Tiger Force. Is that right?
KC: Um.
JC: You went to back to the, posted back to Coningsby. Station radar nav officer.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were part of the build-up for the Tiger Force when you were due to head out to the Far East weren’t you?
KC: They were going, they were going out there. Yeah.
JC: Yes but obviously it was cancelled because the Japanese surrendered. Didn’t they?
KC: Yeah. That’s it.
JC: Okay.
KC: [?]
JC: So that took you to the end of the war. Right?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so what was your first posting post war was at HQ1 Group at Bawtry.
KC: Bawtry yes. I was the group radar nav, group navigation officer.
JC: Yeah.
KC: At headquarters of 1 Group at Bawtry.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then in 194 –
KC: I was a wingco then.
JC: That’s, okay, well you were then offered a permanent commission in, that was 1948.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You were offered permanent commission?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you went on to Thirsk. Okay.
KC: Well, ‘cause I went to Topcliffe.
JC: Yes.
KC: ‘Cause that was, had been set up to, to train all wartime people like me in to being proper peacetime navigators [laughs].
JC: That’s right.
KC: And I was one of them. How to use Astro and all that stuff and to navigate the aeroplanes.
JC: What’s Astro?
KC: Astro and also with the radar, of course. All the latest stuff.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. What happened after Topcliffe?
JC: And then you went to a conversion course on night all weather fighters and you then moved to Coltishall flying in Mosquitos.
KC: Yeah. I had to go on to learn the latest air borne radar for night fighter navigator radar people and then I was posted to Coltishall.
JC: That’s it.
KC: Where there was a night fighter squadron and I joined the squadron. I can’t remember how long. About a year or more and then I was posted – when? I took command.
JC: That squadron, that squadron converted didn’t it? To –
KC: To Javelins.
JC: That’s, no, to Meteors I think it was.
KC: Meteor night fighters. That’s right.
JC: That’s right. Yeah.
KC: Yeah. From Mosquito to Meteor night fighters.
JC: Yes.
KC: When did I take command?
JC: You, so that was, I don’t know when you took command but in 1953 you were group navigation officer at that point and in 1956/57 you went to West Malling didn’t you? And you were appointed as a flight commander. Is that right?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Which was unusual for a navigator wasn’t it?
KC: I was one of the first navigators to be a -
JC: Yes.
KC: A flight commander.
JC: Yes. Okay. And then in 1957 you went to 153 in West Malling.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were appointed commanding officer there.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And given the rank of Wing Commander at that point.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. And the aircraft you moved to then were Meteor.
KC: Meteor and, and yeah Meteor night fighters.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: They were 12s and 14s I think.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Were they?
KC: Yeah. Mark 12s and Mark 14s. Yeah.
JC: And later you converted to another aircraft.
KC: Yeah. Javelin.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: That’s right. Okay.
KC: Javelin. Night, all weather fighters.
JC: Okay. And then after that you were posted, you had an opportunity to improve your, your shocking education.
KC: Yeah. They sent me to the Staff College.
JC: That’s right.
KC: I went to the RAF Staff College for a year and they were obviously teaching me to read and write again you know.
JC: That’s right.
KC: I was at Bracknell in Berkshire.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Do you want to take another quick break? Just take a quick break dad?
KC: Yeah. Shall we do that? Yeah.
[Pause]
JC: So where did you go? You went off to the Middle East.
KC: Yeah. I went to Iran.
JC: No. No.
KC: No.
JC: That was post air force. You went to somewhere else. You went to Aden didn’t you?
KC: Oh I went to Aden, yes.
JC: That’s right.
KC: In the Middle East. Aden. And I used to have to tramp up in to the Persian Gulf from Aden.
JC: Yes.
KC: Visiting the air force bases and that all along the Gulf.
JC: Yes.
KC: And I was out there about two years wasn’t I?
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Until 1963.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you were posted back to a training command I think. Is that right? For a couple of years. And then you moved on to Signals Command at Medmenham near Marlow.
KC: Yeah, it was, it was, was it a Group Headquarters or a Command Headquarters?
JC: It was, it was HQ Signals Command it says.
KC: Oh the Command Headquarters then.
JC: Yes.
KC: As a staff officer I was there.
JC: Yeah. And what was your role there?
KC: Signals Command, Medmenham.
JC: Is it related to personnel? Wasn’t it? It says here you were a senior personnel staff officer.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. I think I was involved, yeah, in staffing matters there.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes you were. And then you took retirement in January 1968.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then started your civilian career.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah
JC: So is that as far as you want to take it? There we go. That’s that bit. Now, shall we start again and I’ll, I’ll ask you some questions around this different things that you just want to give me there as well.
SJ: Those.
JC: Okay alright. So dad, so going back to so when were you, first of all just give your birthdate, dad. When you were born.
KC: 9th of April 1923.
JC: 1923. Okay and where were you born?
KC: Randwick.
JC: Randwick in Gloucestershire.
KC: Near Stroud.
JC: Yeah. Near Stroud in Gloucestershire.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And just kind of describe what sort of a place Randwick was back in those, those days?
KC: Well, Randwick was a small Cotswold village. Everybody knew everybody.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I went to Randwick village school.
JC: How many kids were there in that school? Roughly. Can you remember?
KC: There was about a hundred and fifty altogether.
JC: Was there? Okay.
KC: There were about three or, yeah, three classes total.
JC: Yeah.
KC: In the school.
JC: Okay.
KC: And I passed the eleven plus.
JC: And you also had, did some things in the village as well didn’t you? Weren’t you sort of active in the choir as I remember? Is that right?
KC: I was in the church choir.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah. The C of E church choir.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I became the head choir boy ‘cause I was the guy that would always get pushed in the back by the choir master saying, ‘Sing up Ken.’
JC: Fantastic. Okay. Alright. And so then you went, you passed your exam and went to Randwick School and where was Randwick School?
KC: Well it -
JC: Sorry not Randwick School. You went to Marling School.
KC: Marling. Marling School.
JC: And where was Marling School?
KC: Marling School was on the outskirts of Stroud.
JC: Which was how far away from -
KC: About four miles.
JC: Right.
KC: I used to cycle there on a bike every morning.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so you stayed there for a number of years until you were what? About sixteen were you?
KC: Yeah sixteen.
JC: Yeah. And then you left the -
KC: I then, I got a job with a company called Erinoid. It was in the early days when plastics were first being made in this country.
JC: Yes.
KC: And Erinoid were one of the early companies and I was invited to join their lab, their laboratory.
JC: Right.
KC: Where all the experiments was being done on the latest type of plastics.
JC: And so -
KC: I was an office boy if you like.
JC: Right.
KC: But in fact they made me look at everything that was going on with a view to picking it up.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So you were almost like an apprentice there?
KC: An apprentice. Yes.
JC: That’s what you were kind of doing.
KC: Yes.
JC: Doing. Okay. And, and so you did that job. So we were now in 1939 so there would have, that would have been presumably you were working there at the outbreak of the war. Were you?
KC: Yes I was. Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And what was, how did you feel about the outbreak of the war? What was, you know your initial thinking?
KC: Well one of the first things I did was to join the Air Training Corps in Stroud.
JC: Right okay.
KC: And from there -
JC: And what made you join that as opposed to joining the army or the navy? What was it about the Air Training Corps?
KC: It was about flying and I wanted to learn to fly.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: It seemed like a better option. Did it? Fair enough.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Fair enough. Okay. So you got to the age, I guess, of eighteen where you could potentially signup.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So were you conscripted or did you volunteer?
KC: I volunteered.
JC: You volunteered.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where did you go to volunteer? At somewhere -
KC: I went to Weston Super Mare.
JC: Did you? Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Why did you have to go down there ‘cause that’s a bit of a way from Stroud?
KC: That was the sort of a holding centre.
JC: Right.
KC: Where you went down there and you’d find you were there with all sorts of guys and so on.
JC: Right I bet. Did any, did you go down there with anybody. Any friends go with you? Or?
KC: No.
JC: No you went off on your own did you?
KC: On my own. Yeah.
JC: And did you have to do anything before you went down there? Was there anything more local in Stroud that you had to do to -?
KC: Only that I was now an active member of the Air Training Corps in Stroud.
JC: So it was the Air Training Corps that helped you -
KC: That helped me.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Very much. Yeah.
JC: I see.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. And so what happened when you went to Weston Super Mare? What happened when you went down there?
KC: Oh crikey. What happened at Weston Super Mare? I think we were, we were every day marched out on to the top of the cliffs.
JC: Yes.
KC: And made to parade up and down doing all sorts of, learning to drill, you know -
JC: Right.
KC: All the drill stuff.
JC: That’s where your drill stuff happened?
KC: Yes.
JC: Right. Okay. Good. And, and of course you had your mum and dad were back at home.
KC: Yes.
JC: What was their reaction to your having signed up and volunteered? Do you remember?
KC: My dad was almost, sort of well, ‘I expected you to do something like that Ken.’
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing, you know.
JC: Yes.
KC: My mum said, ‘I don’t want you to go.’
JC: No. I bet.
KC: 'I don’t want you to go.’
JC: As mums do.
KC: But I did. But I used to, you know come home on breaks and -
JC: Yes.
KC: See them.
JC: And you had, you had several older brothers and a sister. What were they doing during all of this?
KC: Yeah. Harry was the eld– , well Mabel was the eldest wasn’t she?
JC: Your sister. Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: That’s right.
KC: And she’s the one who kept, if you like, the family running.
JC: Right.
KC: Although she lived a few miles away.
JC: Yeah.
KC: She kept an eye on my mum and dad.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And really kept the family running -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Smoothly. And I had brothers like Harry.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was –
JC: Did he sign up for any, any of the services?
KC: Sorry?
JC: Did he sign up for any of the services? Or was he a bit, he was a bit older wasn’t he?
KC: A bit older. Yeah. Walter. Walter did.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yes. He did.
JC: What did he sign up for? Did he sign up for, was one of them merchant navy? I can’t quite remember what he was.
KC: It was something like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I think it was. Yes.
JC: Yes.
KC: Merchant navy. Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about your nearest brother?
KC: Charlie.
JC: Charlie. What did he do?
KC: Well Charlie was in a reserved occupation ‘cause he worked for Newman Henders and he was a draughtsman.
JC: Right.
KC: And they were working on munitions and stuff.
JC: Oh right.
KC: And so he was screened. They wouldn’t let him go.
JC: Right.
KC: He had to get on with the war stuff that he was working on.
JC: Fine. Okay.
KC: On drawing boards and things.
JC: Okay. Alright. So -
KC: Yeah.
JC: So that’s what the family were doing and what they were thinking and you were off at Weston Super Mare and coming home at weekend, occasional weekends and things like that were you?
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Okay. And how, and so you did that for a bit and then you said before that you had to go up to, to Lord’s to kind of muster up there did you? Is that, is that right?
KC: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I had to report to Lord’s.
JC: Yes.
KC: ‘Cause I wanted to fly aircrew.
JC: Yes. So that was where aircrew were sent.
KC: Aircrew. We all, literally I was absolutely shattered. Walked into the Lord’s Cricket Ground ‘cause I’d never been, even to London like that in my life.
JC: Right.
KC: And walked in and there with thousands -
JC: Yes.
KC: Guys like me and -
JC: And what was -
KC: We were there. They took over the expensive housing from, I’m not anti-Jews but a certain part near there a lot of Jew families, rich Jew families.
JC: That was St John’s Wood wasn’t it? Around the St John’s Wood.
KC: St John’s Wood.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the government kicked them all out.
JC: Yes.
KC: And took over all their sumptuous houses, I mean for me as village kid coming up there, going into their bathrooms and seeing all the ornate stuff they had in their bathrooms, you know.
JC: Quite something was it?
KC: It was. It was unbelievable, you know.
JC: And were you so you were sort of put into these, these kind of houses and apartments I guess in -
KC: Yeah.
JC: In London. And you were sharing with people from your part of the country or from around the country?
KC: All over the country. There were guys that could hardly add up to five.
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing.
JC: Yes.
KC: And there was, not cockneys but they had accents that you couldn’t understand half the things they said, you know.
JC: Right. I bet, I bet there were people that you hadn’t been exposed to many of those kinds of accents, had you?
KC: No. I hadn’t. No.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Fantastic. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so okay so you did, so you did that and then from there that’s where they sent you I think to Booker wasn’t it? To start the -
KC: Yeah.
JC: The training.
KC: FTS Booker.
JC: Yes.
KC: To start pilot training.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. Yeah. That Booker was near High Wycombe.
JC: That’s it and that was for air experience wasn’t it? On, on -
KC: Yeah.
JC: What sort of aircraft? Those were on -
KC: Seeing if you were going to be airsick all the time.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which, they would chuck you out of aircrew. Yeah.
JC: And that on what sort of planes were those you were flying?
KC: That was Tiger Moths.
JC: Tiger Moths.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Gosh.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. And how did you take to the flying? What was your sort of initial memories of doing that?
KC: I felt quite comfortable about it. I think, I mean I wasn’t eliminated or anything like that.
JC: Right and could you have been eliminated at that point?
KC: You could have, yeah.
JC: Right.
KC: If you didn’t cope reasonably well they’d chuck you off the course.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay and so, so that was sort of April May 1942 and then in June 1942 they put you on board this ship the SS Leticia.
KC: Leticia.
JC: Leticia that’s right. And that was -
KC: And we went across the Atlantic -
JC: And that was from up in Scotland. You had to go up to Scotland to catch -
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: That didn’t you? From the Clyde.
KC: The Clyde.
JC: To go over to Halifax in Nova Scotia.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And –
KC: We were chased by U-boats going across the Atlantic.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then, and then from there you travelled down on the trains through to Georgia to -
KC: Albany, Georgia.
JC: Albany, Georgia. That’s right.
KC: Took about three days and nights on the train.
JC: That’s it.
KC: Thousand, hundreds of miles. It was a distance train trip.
JC: Okay. But you were flying from a place called Turner Field.
KC: Turner Field.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Albany, Georgia.
JC: That’s it. Okay. And then you were, what sort of planes were you flying down there? This was -
KC: PT17s. Stearman.
JC: Okay.
KC: A biplane.
JC: And this -
KC: The American version of the Tiger Moth sort of thing.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But it was a heavier airplane than the Tiger Moth.
JC: And why were you sent over to the States to do, to do this?
KC: Because they wanted air crew quickly.
JC: Right. But why not train them up here?
KC: The only schools we had were absolutely jam packed full.
JC: I see. Okay.
KC: And to, they needed to, they needed hundreds more.
JC: Right.
KC: So we were sent. I mean some were sent to South Africa.
JC: Yes.
KC: I was sent to Canada and America.
JC: Right. And America was still neutral at this time wasn’t it?
KC: Yes. Yeah.
JC: So, so, so but they were still happy for, for aircrew to be trained up in America on this -
KC: Yeah.
JC: There was -
KC: I don’t know how we got away with that but we did.
JC: Yeah. Okay and this was something called, there was a name for this scheme wasn’t it? What was it called?
KC: The Arnold Scheme.
JC: The Arnold Scheme. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Alright. Alright. So, so you did some training on these Stearmans and then they decided that you needed to do more flying and they sent you back up to Canada.
KC: Yeah.
JC: But the -
KC: They said they hadn’t got enough hours.
JC: Yes.
KC: To keep me down there because it was such a concentrated course down in America.
JC: Yeah.
KC: So they sent me back to Canada and they said I could carry on up there. All the lot of guys had got up there at this holding unit and I found I was there with about five hundred other guys who were also were waiting to carry on with their training.
JC: Right.
KC: And so I was there, I can’t remember how long I was there.
JC: So this was in, this was Trenton.
KC: Trenton, Ontario.
JC: Trenton, Ontario.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. So -
KC: Yeah.
JC: This was in September 1942.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And I think you were there for some months by the looks of it.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Through until about January, I think.
KC: Yeah.
JC: In 1943.
KC: In the process they’d come every so often and say, ‘would you like to become an air gunner?’ And I’d say no.
JC: Why didn’t you want to be an air gunner?
KC: Well I didn’t, I thought that was an unskilled job.
JC: Right. Okay, Fair enough. Okay. And so, so then they offered you this thing called an air bomber.
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: And what, what was that?
KC: Well, the air bomber, that was coinciding with the four engined bombers coming in to the RAF.
JC: Right.
KC: And -
JC: Like what sort of, examples of those, like what?
KC: The aircrew in the Lancaster.
JC: Yes.
KC: You had the pilot and the flight engineer.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Then you had two navigators. One was what they called the navigator plotter.
JC: Yes.
KC: His job was to work out time, course and so on and the other one was a navigator observer which was me.
JC: Right.
KC: My job was to do all the, operate the radar that we carried to drop our bomb loads using my radar. If we had to do visual bombing I had to also operate the bomb site down in the nose.
JC: Right.
KC: Of the Lancaster and I also was trained to use guns in the turrets in case we were attacked and the gunners were killed.
JC: Yes.
KC: My job was to get them out of the, out of the turret and take his place.
JC: Right.
KC: That sort of thing, you see.
JC: And wasn’t there some forward guns as well that you were supposed -
KC: Yes. In the, right in the nose.
JC: Yes.
KC: There was a turret.
JC: Yes.
KC: Right at the front and the gun protruded out the front.
JC: Yes.
KC: And down the tail end there were four guns in the tail end turret.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And the mid-upper turret -
JC: Yes.
KC: Were two guns.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Good okay. So you trained on this new job of air bomber for a period of several months. You came off and you were commissioned.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And coming out of the course. What rank was it again?
KC: I was a flight lieutenant.
JC: No. I think you were a pilot officer.
KC: Oh pilot officer, sorry.
JC: I think.
KC: Pilot officer. That’s right.
JC: That’s what you came out as didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you were sent back to the UK at that time.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you went up to Wigtown to fly these Bothas. Bothas. What sort of aircraft was that?
KC: Botha was a twin engine.
JC: Yes.
KC: Aircraft, it had been an operational aircraft but they reckoned it was underpowered so they took it off ops.
JC: Right.
KC: And used it as advanced training for people like me going on to ops.
JC: And had you formed a crew at that time or were you just randomly -
KC: No.
JC: Assigned to -
KC: I was a random guy at that time.
JC: Right.
KC: Didn’t -
JC: Okay.
KC: Didn’t, get a crew until you got to the OTU.
JC: Okay so that was the next thing. You went to the OTU.
KC: Yeah.
JC: At Cottesmore.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were flying Wellingtons.
KC: Wellingtons.
JC: So you got a crew there.
KC: There, yeah.
JC: And how did you, what was the process of choosing a crew. How did you -
KC: [Laugh] That’s a good question. We were -
JC: Were you carefully selected and matched up?
KC: We were a lump, a lump of aircrew there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: All sorts and sizes gunners and wireless operators and bomb aimers and navigators and pilots and so on and we used to wander around in a, you literally used to go up and say, ‘Have you got a crew yet mate?’ And whoever it was would say, ‘No I haven’t. Would you like to join with me? I’m a navigator.’ He’d say, ‘What are you?’ ‘I’m an air bomber.’ He’d say, ‘Yeah fine.’ And then we’d keep together and we’d go to somebody else, ‘Would you like to come in our crew.’
JC: So it was -
KC: And that’s how it was done.
JC: So obviously it was a scientific and carefully managed process so –
KC: Yeah.
JC: So that was good. So tell me a bit about the crew that you, that you ended up with. What was the skipper’s name?
KC: Jim Kermans[?] He was much older. I mean, we were, I was twenty one, twenty two and he was twenty nine. He was the dad of the crew.
JC: Right.
KC: Twenty nine.
JC: And where was he from?
KC: He was an Australian.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Very staid sort of person. Not much sense of humour.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On thinking back he must have been worried to hell on every flight he did. That sort of impression.
JC: Did he give you that impression while you were there or did you think he kind of took it in his stride quite a bit?
KC: He did it a bit when I was there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: ‘Cause I had to get very close to him.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The pilot. With some of the things I had to do -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Was directly on behalf of the pilot.
JC: Right.
KC: So I had to get to know him.
JC: Yes.
KC: I mean he had a flight engineer.
JC: Yes.
KC: But er -
JC: What was the flight engineer’s name?
KC: Ken Randall.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where was he from?
KC: The other navigator, what was called the navigator plotter was Don Bowes.
JC: Where was he -
KC: Who was an out and out Yorkshireman.
JC: Oh was he?
KC: He could hardly speak English. It was all Yorkshire stuff [laughs].
JC: Alright. What about, what about Ken Randall. Where was he from?
KC: Ken Randall, he was a Birmingham, brummy.
JC: Was he? Right Okay.
KC: Yeah. Yes.
JC: So you were meeting people from around the country that you’d probably never met people from that part of the world before.
KC: Yeah. It’s amazing how we welded into such a good crew.
JC: Yeah and what so what made a good crew do you think? What was -
KC: I think -
JC: How’d that work?
KC: You were individuals. In a crew of seven you’d find two or three of you were buddies and then suddenly a fourth one in the crew would sort of latch on to us ‘cause we’d go to a pub and he’d be there on his own.
JC: Right.
KC: And you’d say, ‘Come on. Have a drink,’ Sort of thing, you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And that helped to bring them in, you know.
JC: Right. So the pub was important then?
KC: Yeah. Oh yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The village pub.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where was the village pub? So you were -
KC: Bourne. Well when doing ops from Bourne -
JC: Yeah.
KC: We used to go down in the village pub, literally was in the village of Bourne.
JC: Right. Yeah.
KC: And we used to brews[?] in there and have a few.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And then get back and get to bed ‘cause we probably had to get up early morning to do some flying the next day.
JC: So, so on a so you obviously with Wellingtons you found your crew now.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Who else on the crew? So let’s just finish the crew off. So you’ve got your flight engineer, you’ve got your navigator, you’ve got your skipper who’s the pilot.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about the, so you’ve got two gunners haven’t you?
KC: Yeah. We had, the mid upper gunner was a Canadian.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the tail gunner was an out and out broad Scotsman.
JC: Right.
KC: He used to get excited when we were on ops and he’d talk about this thing coming in and he used to shout and scream but it was in broad Scots and none of us could understand [laughs].
JC: [laughs] Brilliant. Okay. Good. So, Okay, so you’ve got your crew and you’ve moved over to the, to Winthorpe and then on to Bardney where you started operations in Bardney.
KC: I did ten ops at Bardney, 9 Squadron.
JC: And that was on Lancasters.
KC: Yes.
JC: On number 9 Squadron.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay and, and what sort of place, what was, what was Bardney like as a place to kind of work from?
KC: Bardney was very much a new airfield with Nissen huts.
JC: Yes.
KC: Everything was Nissen hutted accommodation.
JC: Right.
KC: And it seemed that, you know, everything was sparse there but it was just about enough for human people to live and be fed.
JC: Right.
KC: And then, but you were going off on ops and that from there and you used to think coming back oh I’ve got to come back to that bloody den downstairs again sort of thing, you know.
JC: Right. Right. And what so if you had an op, when did you know when you were flying on an operation. Did you -
KC: We were all, all the aircrew had to go for the briefing which was always held on the night of ops. The briefing was at two o’clock in the afternoon.
JC: Right.
KC: So all the aircrew that were about on the station would go straight towards the briefing room which was -
JC: Yes.
KC: Quite a huge room.
JC: Right.
KC: And they had table after table in there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And they could pack a couple of hundred or three hundred aircrew -
JC: Right.
KC: In there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And you’d walk in and then the far you came always came in at the back door. You walked in and you looked straight ahead because there were the maps of Germany and the continent ahead of you and there was the route you were going to fly that night and [?] we’d say, ‘Oh not bloody Berlin again.’ This was after I’d done about eight ops to Berlin, you know.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: And so, you know, we used to talk to one another, ‘Oh bloody Berlin again,’ you know.
JC: Yeah. Alright. So, so had the briefing room there. And who ran the briefings?
KC: The squadron commander.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And his flight commanders.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: And of course they had specialists. I mean they had the guy who looked after the wireless operator guys.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
KC: And he was the radio wireless op king sort of thing.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
KC: And I think that was about it. What other trade was there? Oh the engineer.
JC: Right.
KC: Station engineer.
JC: Yes.
KC: Was always there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And he would say something about what had happened to some of the aircraft. They had to do some modifications or.
JC: Right.
KC: And he also would cover anything wrong with the radar gear that we carried on board that had -
JC: Yes.
KC: Been modifications to it dadedadeda.
JC: Right.
KC: And all that stuff.
JC: Right. What other things came out of the briefings? I guess you would have some intelligence. There would be an intelligence officer there.
KC: They showed the route and they had a large scale map on the wall, the big wall at the end of briefing room but all they had shading areas showing where all the searchlight belts were -
JC: Yes.
KC: Over Germany.
JC: Yes.
KC: And where the night fighter air fields were -
JC: Yeah.
KC: In Germany.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And heavily populated areas. They were brought out to show you that -
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know don’t go flying over these on the way because they’ll shoot you down.
JC: Right.
KC: If you get mixed up with some of these other cities.
JC: Yes.
KC: On the way in to, in to your target in Germany.
JC: Yeah. Okay and so how long would a briefing typically take, would you say?
KC: Sorry.
JC: How long would a briefing typically take?
KC: I should say minimum of two hours.
JC: About two hours.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then would there be a break and you could go off or did you then go straight to -
KC: They would tell you what time briefing was going to be.
JC: Yeah.
KC: For the raid.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They would announce what time the night flying meal was arranged for.
JC: Right.
KC: So you had a good cooked meal before you went.
JC: What sort of things would you have before you go up?
KC: Eggs and bacon ‘cause eggs were rationed. Eggs and bacon and you know tomato and things like that.
JC: Right.
KC: Lovely.
JC: Lovely, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. There’s got to be some pros to it I suppose. So, that’s good. Okay and so you have your meal and then what happens? You go to your dispersal do you?
KC: You went back to your room in dispersal and if it –
JC: How did you travel around the base did you –?
KC: Bike.
JC: On bike.
KC: [We were drove?] or bike.
JC: Right. Okay. So you would ride out and it could be a half a mile away or that kind of distance.
KC: Yeah.
JC: To your -
KC: A couple of miles.
JC: A couple of miles.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Could be. Yeah.
JC: So it could be getting dark by this point and you’d be cycling off to –
KC: Yeah.
JC: And the plane would be there and there would be a building next to the plane that you would, you would sit in prior to -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Going off would you?
KC: Well remember we had to go back to briefing.
JC: Yes.
KC: For the raid.
JC: Yes. Okay. So that’s in addition to that. So you had a second meeting then -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Do you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay and what was, what was the purpose of that? That second meeting.
KC: Sorry?
JC: Have a drink. Have a drink, dad.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Sorry. I’m getting you to do too much talking.
[pause]
JC: And what would, what would the purpose of that second meeting be dad? The briefing. What was different from that from the first, the first briefing in the afternoon?
KC: Any changes of timing.
JC: Ah I see. Okay.
KC: Something might come through from group head or command headquarters.
JC: Yeah.
KC: That they’d found out something about Jerry tactics or something was going to happen.
JC: Yes.
KC: So that might modify the way you were going in. They may even change the route.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause they were ‘cause your original route would take you right into the middle where all the German night fighters were.
JC: I see.
KC: So they would re-route you.
JC: Right. So they’d have updates on intelligence.
KC: To try to avoid that.
JC: Okay. So they’d have updated information. Alright. So you’d have that second briefing and then you’d go off to your dispersal area. Right? Is that -
KC: Yes. Yeah.
JC: Yes. Okay and then would you go straight in to the plane or sit around in the dispersal area for a bit or how, how long a -
KC: We used to sit in our room.
JC: Yes.
KC: You know, I mean it was Nissen huts where I was. I probably had about four or five guys on beds in the same Nissen huts -
JC: Yes.
KC: That I was.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: So I we’d have a chinwag or you know you’d, you may have wanted to go and have a bath or something like that.
JC: Right.
KC: You know.
JC: What else did you do to kind of while away the time ‘cause obviously there was lots of sitting around waiting isn’t there? So -
KC: Yeah if this lady wasn’t here I’d tell you exactly what we were doing [laughs].
JC: Right okay fine I think we’ll leave that to the imagination there, dad. That’s fine. Okay. [laughs].
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about things, did you play cards or anything like that or -
KC: Some of the guys did. Yes.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And -
JC: Yeah.
KC: And card games or poker and things like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Well, you know, poker’s a card game.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Things like that.
JC: Chess and things like that?
KC: Chess, yeah.
JC: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, alright so then the time came and you had to get in, get in to the plane.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Presumably you had to suit up. Just describe what you had to wear before you -
KC: Well, you’d, you obviously would put your flying overalls on.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But we used to have odd pockets in these flying overalls and so each chap would decide whether he wanted to take a knife, bars of chocolate stuffed down the leg or something like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: In case you bailed out and -
JC: Sure.
KC: You wanted, you know. That was the idea was to take something like bars of chocolate.
JC: Didn’t you have ration packs as well?
KC: Oh yes.
JC: Did you have emergency rations?
KC: Yeah. Had a -
JC: Or something.
KC: Ration pack, yes.
JC: Yeah. Yeah that you carried with you.
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay. So you had your overalls on and what else? What other things did you have to put on before you climbed in to the plane?
KC: Well, obviously the Mae West.
JC: Yes. What’s a Mae West for those that wouldn’t know?
KC: The Mae West was, was the, if you came down in the sea you wore it. You had your flying suit on and also your underclothing and anything like that and then this Mae West went over the top and it had a system of buoyancy.
JC: Right.
KC: But also you could inflate air. The little bottle -
JC: Right.
KC: With air and you could pull a plug plunger and that would shoot air and this thing would, from being close to you would suddenly you were in the middle of a floatation -
JC: Right.
KC: Gadget.
JC: Yes.
KC: Sort of thing, you see.
JC: Yes. So like a lifejacket almost. Yes.
KC: So if your aircraft came down in the sea and you had to get out of it whatever happened ‘cause it was going down with you on board –
JC: Yes.
KC: This was how you made your thing work so at least you.
[phone ringing]
JC: Yes. Yes. Okay so we’ve got that. And then what else? You presumably have a flying jacket would you, as well? That you would need to, to wear.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: During the war they changed those quite a bit. I had one that was very woolly and fluffy.
JC: Yes.
KC: But it was also a nuisance ‘cause it was all padded in the wrong places and things like that for wear.
JC: Oh really.
KC: So it wasn’t, it wasn’t sensible.
JC: Oh right.
KC: So we chose not to wear that. We wore them in the middle of winter of course.
JC: Right. Yeah.
KC: But if we could get away without it we’d put an extra jumper on.
JC: Yes. Okay. Okay, alright so you put, put all that clothing. What about a parachute? Did you have to wear one of those?
KC: We all wore harness.
JC: Yes.
KC: What they called parachute harness.
JC: Yeah.
KC: With clips on the front and your parachute was a pack about that wide.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which was stored somewhere handy for where you sat.
JC: Right.
KC: In the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: And the idea was that if you had to get out the first thing you don’t enquire, ‘Where’s my bloody chute?’
JC: Yeah.
KC: You took it with you and as you went out of the aircraft you clipped it on.
JC: Yes.
KC: You pulled the thing so you come down alright, you know.
JC: I see. Okay.
KC: That was the drill that you were taught.
JC: That was the idea was it okay. And this was all -
KC: And I was pleased not to have to do that.
JC: Yes that’s good. Leaving a perfectly good plane. Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay so that’s how you dressed. So you climb into the plane and then presumably what happens then the kind of engines on and you’ve got sort of checks that you have to do before -
KC: Yeah and you had checks to do and you got in to the aircraft. Each of us had our pre-flight checks to do.
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know, I had to get all my equipment, bits of equipment that I carried.
JC: Yes.
KC: To do my job. And if I was using radar which I was had to set up the radar sets. [ ?]
JC: Have a drink. You’re not used to talking this much are you dad? Actually, you are used to talking this much. Yeah.
[Pause]
JC: So you’re getting your radar sets ready. Yes.
KC: Yeah. Getting it all set up and you know you’d obviously plug in your leads to make sure you were on the air with everybody else in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
KC: And just check that out.
JC: What about oxygen and stuff like that?
KC: Oxygen. Yeah.
JC: Pre-test that?
KC: You each had your oxygen point where you sat.
JC: Yes.
KC: [Excuse me] and plug that in.
JC: Yes and did you have if you needed to move around the aircraft you had presumably a kind of mobile -
KC: Yes. A portable bottle that you could -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Pick up. They were stowed in two or three places in the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So if you I mean for instance if you wanted to use the loo in the Lanc.
JC: Yes.
KC: You had to go right to the back of the bloody aircraft.
JC: Was that presumably where the rear gunner was, was it?
KC: You went right near to the rear.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Gunner.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But to get there you had to climb over what we called the main spar.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which went right through the middle of the main wing.
JC: Yes.
KC: But also went through the cockpit bit where we were.
JC: The fuselage. Yeah.
KC: So to get to that you had to literally climb over this thing.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: With all your garb on you know.
JC: Yeah. Yes. And -
KC: Not popular that.
JC: Yes and a slightly personal question but what was it like going to the loo on a Lancaster?
KC: Shall I tell you?
JC: Go on. Yes.
KC: Well on one occasion my bottom froze to the, to the pan.
JC: Did it? ‘Cause it was a metal toilet seat.
KC: We moaned about these things and then they changed this seat from metal to plastic because of that. Because not only me but some of the other guys had gone to the toilet and found they couldn’t get their bottom of the toilet. It was frozen on. It‘s absolutely true.
JC: Oh right okay. Alright.
KC: And -
JC: Yes. So -
KC: Yeah. I don’t think I’d better say any more about that.
JC: Okay dad. There’s enough detail there. Thank you dad. That’s good. Alright. So, so you’ve done your pre-flight checks, you’re in the plane and then you’re kind of taking off. Now that must have been quite a spectacle being there with lots of aircraft taking off at one time.
KC: Oh yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What was that like? ‘Cause I guess you were able to, where you were sitting, look out and see -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Other aircraft around were you?
KC: See. Yeah, all the aircraft encroaching towards the beginning of the runway.
JC: Right.
KC: So they might have come right across the other side of the airfield. The airfields were pretty big.
JC: Yes.
KC: So they were taxiing around the peri track, they were.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: And suddenly all converge and all these aircraft were coming from all directions to -
JC: Yes.
KC: That one point.
JC: Yes.
KC: To get to the end of the runway.
JC: Right.
KC: That used to be a bit nightmarish at times because -
JC: You could have crashed into each other.
KC: Some of the guys used to get too bloody close and -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Bang the tips of their wings and things like that.
JC: Right okay so alright so can you, have a drink dad.
KC: Yeah.
JC: I was just going to ask you what your memories are of your early operations because that must have been quite, quite, you know, scary as a new crew.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Relatively new crew. Can you -
KC: It was, it was horrific.
JC: Yes.
KC: Is the fair way. In terms of there were these guys on the ground shooting up and trying to get you and you were flying along and suddenly there was a bloody great explosion out to the right and somebody’s been hit by ack ack and he’s exploded with all his bombs on board. The first time you see that is quite an eye opener I can tell you.
JC: I bet.
KC: And I used to see, we used to see it on almost every raid we went on. Some poor sod would get a direct hit from -
JC: Yeah.
KC: German ground ack ack stuff and what they, of course they had their night fighters up as well.
JC: And what sort of planes were those. Those were -
KC: They were –
JC: Messerschmitts, were they? Messerschmitt 109s.
KC: Messerschmitt and they were twin engine Messerschmitts.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And they had a tactic.
KC: The ME109 was single.
JC: Right.
KC: But they had ME110s.
JC: Right.
KC: Which was a two man crew.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah. And they were deadly.
JC: Yes. On what –
KC: ‘Cause they had the latest radar as we had the latest radar.
JC: Right.
KC: So they could pick us up.
JC: Right. And what was their tactic? You said about them using to try and fly up underneath.
KC: Yeah.
JC: I remember you saying about that.
KC: Their main tactic was to get A, to get themselves into the bomber stream.
JC: Yes.
KC: Our bomber stream.
JC: Yes.
KC: And then they had to use their own radar to pick us up.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bearing in mind we were going across twenty or twenty five thousand feet across coming up from the ground.
JC: Yes.
KC: From Germany and across the North Sea and so on.
JC: Yes.
KC: So they would suddenly find they were up among us.
JC: Right.
KC: And we soon knew they were there because suddenly, you’d be going along all nice and dark and suddenly boom an aircraft blew up just in front of you.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause they, if they attacked us on the way to the target we all still had all our bombs on board.
JC: And was that the tactic that they used to try and shoot up into the bomb bays as well.
KC: Yes they used to fly. If that was me flying along with my crew along there they used to come up there.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they’d open up because they knew all your bombs were in the bomb bay.
JC: Yes.
KC: On the bottom side of the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So their idea was to explode our bombs.
JC: Yes.
KC: To blow us up.
JC: Right. Right. I see.
KC: And the nearest I ever had in my crew was when they did that ‘cause they did it several times but this particular occasion the, they were so close they were too close when they opened fire.
JC: Right.
KC: So the cannon shells came through the bottom of the aircraft, missed all our bombs but they ended up some of them in the front cockpit just missing me and the pilot and the other navigator.
JC: Right.
KC: But it was so close, bearing in mind we were wearing oxygen masks, the bomber crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But it was the cordite when the shells exploded in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
KC: Was so strong even with oxygen mask I could smell, smell the cordite.
JC: Right.
KC: From the cannon shells exploding -
JC: Right.
KC: Inside the aircraft.
JC: That’s amazing.
KC: But also of course they came through and didn’t just stop. They kept flying through and this particular case of the attack they broke our plexiglass nose.
JC: Right.
KC: It shattered.
JC: Yes.
KC: So we had a gale blowing in the front didn’t we ‘cause there was no blooming plexiglass to protect us.
JC: Right.
KC: I’ve never forgotten that one. Yeah.
JC: Because didn’t you have to go down there as well to do the bombing?
KC: Visual. If the radar didn’t work.
JC: Yes.
KC: You didn’t bring your bombs back. You went down. I had to be able to use the visual bomb sight.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Mark 14 bomb sight.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Lying prone and looking through the actual bomb site and directing the pilot verbally over the intercom telling him which, to go left, right, up or down whatever the case might be.
JC: Yes.
KC: Because I was using my bomb sight.
JC: Yes.
KC: To aim at what I thought was the target we were going for.
JC: And, and so what stopped you from just dumping the bombs and heading off home? Why, why would that, you know.
KC: Well we weren’t going to do that. Fly all that bloody way and not drop our bombs were we?
JC: Yeah I know but why, why was it so important to, to kind of, you know, get, get them on target. Would you have been required -
KC: Well -
JC: To come back again if you -
KC: Because when you operated the bomb release.
JC: Yes.
KC: You set in motion a line overlap camera.
JC: Right.
KC: There was a camera built up in the bomb bay.
JC: Yes.
KC: And when your bomb doors was open and you pressed the bomb button to release the bombs, it operated this camera.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which then took a line overlap the ground that you were flying over so when you got over that back to base the station photographic officer came in and took the camera thing out of the camera, whatever they called it, you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Part of the camera away.
JC: Yes.
KC: And developed it and could, they could plot and decide whether you’d bombed your target or you’d bombed ploughed fields or something.
JC: Yes and so if you hadn’t hit the target they’d send you back there again the next night basically.
KC: That wouldn’t have counted as an op.
JC: And wouldn’t counted it as an op. So you would have -
KC: And your crew would kill you.
JC: Yeah. Yes.
KC: ‘You didn’t do it properly Ken. You made us do another bloody op Ken.’
JC: So but I guess on the other side of that there would be occasions where you were over a target being shot at.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And searchlights going everywhere weren’t there?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were trying to make sure you hit it and they probably wanted you to leave quick sharp didn’t they?
KC: The rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They’d say, ‘Ken drop the bloody thing. Drop it.’ [laughs]
JC: Yeah. Yeah okay. Alright.
KC: And I didn’t.
JC: No. No. No.
KC: And so when we came back I knew I had a good photograph of what we’d actually, where we’d bombed.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We had bombed the proper target.
JC: Okay so you did those early, those early operations in 9 Squadron and then you were moved to 97 Squadron as part of the Pathfinder force.
KC: Yes.
JC: Why, why were you selected to go to the Pathfinder force?
KC: I think we discussed as a crew because if you went there you got a promotion.
JC: Right.
KC: You got another rank.
JC: I see.
KC: Okay.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah. And we felt that we’d done ten ops on main force.
JC: Yeah.
KC: What we called main force. We felt we were ready to upgrade ourselves.
JC: Right.
KC: And so we volunteered and went through the, of course we had to learn all the latest radar which the main force -
JC: Did you automatically get put on to Pathfinders if you volunteered or is there a selection process that you had to go through. Did they, because presumably they wanted?
KC: There was a selection process.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: But they knew your record if you’d already done ten ops on. As I had.
JC: Yes.
KC: As we had on 9 Squadron.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They knew that you knew what was going on.
JC: Yes.
KC: Sort of thing.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they still put us through this course to learn the latest radar.
JC: Right.
KC: That the Pathfinders had that the main force didn’t have.
JC: So tell, what was the role of the Pathfinder force? What was that really about?
KC: The role of the Pathfinder force was obviously to find the target and mark it with pyrotech markers or whatever –
JC: Yeah.
KC: You were, had been told to use. It was also part of our job was to put down route markers because some of the main force would lose their radar on the way.
JC: Right.
KC: So we’d put markers down which were at their briefings they would be told that route markers would be dropped and look out for a red/yellow or whatever pyrotechnic coming down. That’s the one you aim for going towards the target and things like that you know.
JC: So it was like breadcrumbs was it?
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Laid for you and you did they breadcrumbs.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay. Okay and why, why did they need you to put markers down? Why couldn’t every, every crew just - what, what was the purpose of marking?
KC: They were not highly trained like we were.
JC: Right.
KC: We had been put through these special courses when we joined the Pathfinder force. We had special courses to try to get us to work to the odd minute.
JC: Yes.
KC: Of time.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bearing in mind we were going on a twelve to fifteen hour flight and to talk about getting within the minute or two or whatever was quite a tall order.
JC: Right.
KC: But we did it.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The guys who were, like me who were Pathfinders. That’s what we had to be able to do.
JC: Okay.
KC: That’s why I got a DFC at the end of it.
JC: Good. Yeah. Your timekeeping. That’s good.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good. So you, so you did this role and you, you marked the targets. Were you also dropping live munitions as well or was it just markers that you were dropping?
KC: Oh every time we dropped bombs.
JC: Yeah. You dropped bombs as well.
KC: Well when I pressed the button to let go the markers.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On that stick of bombing that I was using.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We were getting rid of incendiaries, sometimes incendiaries.
JC: Yes.
KC: Would go down.
JC: Yeah.
KC: A shower of them or it could be incendiaries plus five hundred pound bombs were going down.
JC: Right.
KC: It could be a whole stick of all that stuff.
JC: Yes.
KC: And then in the middle of that we were dropping stuff called Window.
JC: And what is Window?
KC: Window was the code name given to stuff that we used to throw out, disperse out of the aircraft to try to muck about with the ground radar system so it would instead of just getting, picking up our aircraft this was a massive metalised thing that dropped out of our aircraft and it caused consternation to the Jerries on the ground because instead of getting one clear blip of a bomber suddenly there was a bloody great cloud of stuff and you couldn’t pick out the bombers.
JC: Right.
KC: Because of our, the stuff we dropped out of the aircraft.
JC: It sort of confused.
KC: One of the tactics we were doing things against them and they were doing things against us.
JC: Right.
KC: But this was the sort of thing that we were trained to do.
JC: Right. Right. Okay. Okay and so were the Pathfinders always ahead of the main force or did they, ‘cause they had to mark the target.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Or did they have to -
KC: They were always the primary markers.
JC: Yes.
KC: They were Pathfinder primary markers.
JC: Yes.
KC: And you did that when you were, had become very -
JC: Yes.
KC: Experienced Pathfinders.
JC: Right.
KC: But then because some of the raids we had seven or eight hundred aircraft on.
JC: Yes.
KC: There had to be marker crews coming in towards the end.
JC: Yes.
KC: To drop markers for the last lot of ordinary bomber boys that were coming in.
JC: Yes.
KC: They still needed to find and put their bombs down on the target.
JC: Right.
KC: So the Pathfinder guys, believe it or not, we used to hate that. If you were one of the unlucky sods to come at the end you know you would get everything shot out of you because -
JC: Yeah.
KC: By the time you got there the Jerries knew you were coming anyway.
JC: Right.
KC: And their night fighters were up amongst you.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But usually very experienced Pathfinder crews that came in towards the end.
JC: Right.
KC: To make sure that the rest of the main force had some markers to aim at.
JC: Right. Okay. Okay that’s good. Alright. So, any particular, so you obviously did quite a few operations. You did forty five in total didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And any, any, any of them stand out in your mind at all for any reason?
KC: Um -
JC: You mentioned Berlin as a difficult place to go to.
KC: I did ten ops to Berlin.
JC: Yes.
KC: I think what was the, there was, also we did trips to the Ruhr area.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which was full of anti-aircraft. That was a terrible lot to go over because they used to try to knock you out of the sky straight away. There were some trips. I’m trying to think. I’ll think of it in a minute.
JC: Well just while you’re thinking about that the other thing is obviously during your operational time was the, of, was preparations for D-Day wasn’t it? Going in to -
KC: Yeah.
JC: 1944.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so you started to intersperse operations over Germany with operations over France.
KC: Absolutely.
JC: And so what was your role really in the kind of run up to D-Day?
KC: We, we were given targets, German targets on the beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Normandy beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: We were given targets for about three nights in a row.
JC: Yes.
KC: To cover the Germans.
JC: Yes.
KC: They had built quite hefty defence systems behind the beaches of Normandy and we went over, and we came down lowish to do it. We didn’t do it at twenty odd thousand. I think we were dropping stuff over, over the French coast about ten thousand feet.
JC: Right.
KC: And so the idea was to make sure that you clobbered all the German ‘cause they had tanks on the beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they’d built in gun systems.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Into the rocks and so on the beaches and so we used to go and drop sticks of flares to have a look and then when we could see them we’d turn around and do a visual run over them and clobber them.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. So that was a, was a slightly different role then from what you’d been -
KC: From normal.
JC: Normal operations.
KC: The normal mass bombing.
JC: Yes. Yes.
KC: We did in places. The big cities in Germany.
JC: Yes. Okay. Alright. So you, so you did all that and that took you up to, to around the time of D-Day which is when I think you had your, your last operation. July 1944 in fact was your, no, sorry, April 1944 was your final operation I think.
KC: Where was that too?
JC: I don’t know. I haven’t got a note of that but your, certainly your latter ones you did, I think, ten or twelve operations over France.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Various parts of France.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Including the Normandy, the sort of, the immediate environment of the beaches.
KC: That’s why I got that gong.
JC: That’s right. Yeah so that was why you got the Legion d’honneur.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So yes you did that. Then you moved on to do sort of training type roles didn’t you? After -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Preparing other crews to go up.
KC: Yeah. That was one of the worrying things in my life.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Whenever I flew with people I’d say, I’d say to, when I got down I’d say that bloody Pardew[?] he can’t land it.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was doing what we called a kangaroo landing every time he landed.
JC: Oh really. Bouncing down the runway.
KC: Yeah.
JC: With inexperienced crews.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And your role with them was to prepare them on the radars and that sort of thing.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Okay and how were you feeling at this kind of time? What was the sort of, ‘cause you’d done forty five operations so an experienced hand at doing all this so what was your sort of feeling about things? Do you recall how, how that was?
KC: Yes. I felt that I was due for a rest.
JC: Right.
KC: I felt I was happy to come back again.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But I felt we’d had some real tough ops.
JC: Yes.
KC: We’d been on Pathfinders.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And I thought enough is enough for a while.
JC: Yes.
KC: And that’s the way it went.
JC: Yes and you had, I think at least one or two operations where you come back and you’d lost engines.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes and so -
KC: Yes, that’s, yeah at its believe it or not I was never terribly worried about that as long as –
JC: Yeah.
KC: We had two or three engines left.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Lanc would fly on it alright.
JC: Yes.
KC: But if you lost two engines -
JC: Yes.
KC: Particularly on one side.
JC: Yes.
KC: That could be, that meant that meant the pilot really, it was it was really critical because he had to operate the pedals to offset the fact he hadn’t have any power on one side.
JC: Yes.
KC: He’s got all the power on the left side.
JC: Yes.
KC: Or the right side.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And it needed quite a bit of physical effort to control that.
JC: Right. Right. Okay -
KC: But we had this chap Jim Kermans [?] who was a bloody good pilot.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was mature. He was twenty nine years old and we were all about twenty one.
JC: Right.
KC: The rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And he was mature, he was a trained lawyer in Australia.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And you know he was, he was a great guy really.
JC: Right.
KC: I didn’t like him too much as a man.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause he hadn’t got any sense of humour.
JC: Right.
KC: But as, as an aviator he was tops.
JC: Yes. Got you back safely all those -
KC: Yes.
JC: All those times.
KC: Yes.
JC: Yes. Yeah, so that’s good and what happened to the crew after you finished your forty five operations. Did you stay in touch with them or did you all disperse to do other things?
KC: We soon dispersed off.
JC: Yes.
KC: To do, you know, different members of the crew, whatever their job was, they were sent to training schools.
JC: Yes.
KC: To, like the wireless operator guy would go -
JC: Yeah.
KC: To help train new boys and so on and that sort of thing. Yeah.
JC: Yeah. Okay, alright. And at the end of the war you were you did this goodwill tour as well which we hadn’t spoken about so -
KC: To America.
JC: Yes. So, tell, tell us about that. That was with quite a famous squadron wasn’t it?
KC: 617.
JC: Yes with 617.
KC: The one that Guy Gibson when they did the -
JC: Yes.
KC: Eder dams and all that.
JC: Yes that’s right. The Dambusters.
KC: They were based at that time at Binbrook.
JC: Right.
KC: And the AOC asked me would I like to go along -
JC: Yes.
KC: And fly on that trip to America with 617.
JC: And what was the purpose of the trip? You said it was a goodwill tour.
KC: Goodwill.
JC: So it was to -
KC: We were going to first of all flew across the Atlantic to Washington DC.
JC: Yes.
KC: And whilst we there of course we, the public were invited to come and look at our aircraft because you know we had, we had operational bomber aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So the public were invited in, in their droves.
JC: Yeah.
KC: To see our Lancasters.
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know, and it was quite a sight.
JC: Yeah.
KC: To have the whole squadron of Lancaster lined up on their airfields.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And the crowds would come in literally in their hundreds and thousands.
JC: Right.
KC: To see them.
JC: Right.
KC: You know.
JC: And what’s your memories of America having gone from wartime Britain. You know, immediately after the war to what was your lasting memory of America?
KC: I thought they were lucky sods.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah because -
JC: I guess the food was slightly different wasn’t it?
KC: Oh yeah. Yeah, that was lovely you know ‘cause we were still on rationing back home.
JC: Yes.
KC: But there we had the best of everything.
JC: Yes.
KC: That we could lay our hands on.
JC: Yes.
KC: You know.
JC: Fantastic.
KC: Sorry that sounds awful but you know what I mean.
JC: Fantastic. Okay and, alright so, and so you toured around the States with this -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good-will tour. Okay. Right -
KC: We were on Lincolns by the way.
JC: You flew on Lincolns. Not on -
KC: Not Lancasters.
JC: Right.
KC: They’d just brought the Lincoln in and we were, we took, was it twelve or fourteen Lincolns across to America? And of course everywhere we went, the first thing we would arrive we would do a flypast.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bloody great Lancs flying over the town.
JC: Or Lincolns, yeah.
KC: Or Lincolns rather.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: Flying over their towns.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which they seemed to enjoy and we went right across. I mean we started off in Washington DC was our first port of call and then to Detroit. Across America to Detroit and from Detroit across to Kansas and Kansas to LA and from LA coming back more south. What was the place in the south? I’ve forgotten the big cities across the south.
JC: Was it Dallas or somewhere like that?
KC: Dallas, yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Dallas was one of them.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah and then back up to Washington eventually.
JC: Right.
KC: And from there and then we took off and flew back to England.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: It was, to me it was an absolute education ‘cause I mean we saw the states you know all the time.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Seeing places we’d read about and never been to.
JC: Yes, fantastic alright. Good. Okay so you came back and then you had your post war career and you carried on flying Mosquitos and then you converted to some of the early jets didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And what was that like? Going from a sort of a propeller-driven plane to a, to a jet.
KC: That was an education.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. So that was, that was the early Meteors and then on to Javelins wasn’t it?
KC: Javelins. Yeah.
JC: Yes. Yes, okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So, good -
KC: Super planes they were. I thought anyway.
JC: Okay and you took and you took some of these planes on overseas didn’t you? I remember seeing pictures of you in places like Cyprus.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You went on training.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Operations didn’t you? Down -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Down there.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Were you involved in any of the sort of post war, so there was obviously problems in Cyprus and then there was -
KC: Yeah, we were there.
JC: In Suez and things like that were you?
KC: What aircraft did we have to go there?
JC: It would have been either Meteors or, or Javelins I’m assuming. Was it?
KC: I think it was Javelins.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah ‘cause when we were there we were the air commander of Cyprus [billed us?] we were told quickly, ‘You are now part of my defence force.’
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing and I was going off at night in the dark. My crew and other members of the crew and so on ‘cause they were having problems with the, what are they called? The Jews. You know the -
JC: The Israelis.
KC: Israelis. Yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They were being a nuisance and coming over Cyprus and things like that.
JC: Right.
KC: And into the Cyprus airspace.
JC: Yeah.
KC: So we’d get scrambled to go and chase them off.
JC: Yeah.
KC: At night.
JC: Okay.
KC: But they were also Turkey were reinforcing their own people because there were a lot of Turks on the island of Cyprus.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the Turks were bringing in, we found out through flying -
JC: Yeah.
KC: They were bringing it, dropping in at night on parachutes.
JC: Right.
KC: Down to their own people in the villages.
JC: Yes.
KC: So we, more than once I’d been up the backside of one of these guys dropping stuff to the Turks from Turkey.
JC: What? Transport planes -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Coming over.
KC: Yeah I used to hone in on them I used to tell our control downstairs, ‘Got one, I’m locked on to him. I’ve got one.’
JC: Right.
KC: And they used to say 'Monitor him. Keep an eye on him.'
JC: Yeah.
KC: For the -
JC: Right okay fantastic. And then you say you carried on and you actually moved. Did a permanent stint out in Aden. What was going on in Aden? Why, why was there an air force base in Aden?
KC: I’m trying to think what made me, what made us go there.
JC: It was a British protectorate really wasn’t it?
KC: It was a British protectorate and I think that, I can’t remember how I ended up going there, what made me go there but that was a very interesting part of my life because you know we were the forerunner of what later was going to be problems up in the Persian Gulf.
JC: Right.
KC: From Aden I used to jump on aeroplanes and go up to some of these towns, biggish towns and so on the Persian Gulf which later became real trouble spots.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Okay so that was that and then you came back and I think you did sort of some MOD type roles until the end of your air force career in 1968. Moving around. Non-flying duties. Yes. Yeah, okay.
KC: I’d had my innings.
JC: You’d had your innings at that point. Had your innings at that point. Okay. Good.
KC: I was very lucky to get away with it, with what I did when I think when I look back at what I did and what could have gone wrong, you know things like that. Amazing.
JC: Amazing. Yeah absolutely.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good. Alright.
KC: You’ve got a history book now.
SJ: We have [laughs]. So did you have any lucky charms or superstitions?
KC: No. I honestly didn’t. I didn’t believe in it.
SJ: Yeah.
KC: No. No.
PJ: They say a lot of crews are superstitious or they were weren’t they, you know and there was always this little teddy bear in their -
KC: Yeah. I don’t think I had anything like that.
PJ: Coat or something.
KC: No. No. No.
JC: No. You didn’t believe in all of that.
KC: No.
JC: Just a good square meal.
KC: That’s right.
JC: What happened, what happened when you got back from flying, as well? Presumably you got another, there was a debriefing.
KC: No.
JC: Was it a debriefing?
KC: We got a night flying supper.
JC: You got a – did you?
KC: That’s what it was called. The night flying supper.
JC: Oh right. So you had a good meal before you went and a good meal when you came back did you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Oh right.
KC: When we came back there would be plates of eggs and bacon.
JC: Again.
KC: Beans and things like that again you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We, well we’d been flying for the last ten hours.
PJ: Yeah.
KC: Things like that and we were a bit, bit ravenous.
JC: Yeah. Did you take presumably in addition to your kit could you take things up in the plane with you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: A flask of coffee and things like that, did you?
KC: Yeah Mars bars and things like that. Stick it down there.
JC: Yes.
KC: There was a zip pocket in your trouser leg.
JC: Yes.
KC: And so on to stick a couple of Mars bars in there and things like that.
JC: Keep you going yeah?
KC: Just in case you had to bail out.
JC: Yes.
KC: People used to try and think ahead and think well at least I’ve got a couple of Mars bars I can have something to eat for the next couple of hours or so.
JC: Yes. Yeah, okay.
PJ: Did you all used to go out for a drink together? ‘Cause there was always this thing isn’t there, they say, that good crews -
JC: Well I -
PJ: All stuck together, and they all went out together like family.
KC: Well we did a lot of it. The strange thing was that some of my crew were not terribly social. Only one or two of them and we were seven in the crew of course and there was probably three or four of us that did that and there were a couple who always had a reason for not coming. Yeah. But you know we used to get on and let them do with what they wanted to do.
JC: Was there anybody out of the crew you felt particularly friendly with compared to the others?
KC: Em, Ken Randall, our flight engineer was a lovely chap. Brummy. You know, Birmingham. He was almost naïve but he was absolutely a totally professional flight engineer. He knew everything about all the engines. He could hear noises nobody else could hear coming from the engines and things like that and nice boy, nice fella.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Our tail gunner was absolutely, absolutely, absolutely broad Scotch so if we were being shot at, being chased he would shout but he was shouting in Scot and we couldn’t understand [laughs].
JC: Okay was, he was from Glasgow or somewhere wasn’t he?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, yes. Fantastic. Good. Any other questions? I think I’ve got most of the ones from here.
SJ: Yeah. How do you feel that Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
KC: Pretty grim I think. Politicians I think are absolutely shysters. They want, you know they want things their own way and, but they don’t realise how people are doing trying to please them and I always felt that some of the things I’ve read that were going on around me were absolutely terrible. Politicians, on the whole, I have no time for them. They’re just there for the moment and they get what they can at the time and that’s it. But then that’s me. I could be quite different from anybody else on that.
PJ: What about a medal? A campaign medal?
KC: Yeah.
PJ: Do you think it’s, that you should have had a medal because they never had a medal did they? They had the bomber clasp they just brought in. A campaign medal.
KC: Well, I had medals.
PJ: Yeah but a campaign medal for, you know like for actual the bombing duties and -
JC: You had, you had a war medal.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You have an Aircrew Europe Medal, you had a defence medal and a Pathfinder Eagle.
KC: Yeah. And I got a DFC.
JC: And you got your DFC as well.
KC: Yeah.
JC: But yes there was, there were campaign medals for others weren’t there but not for Bomber Command?
KC: Bomber. We didn’t get anything special campaign for the -
JC: No.
KC: All the raids we did. No.
JC: No.
KC: You know we were going off night after night in the Lancasters with a bomb load. Not just bombs. We had bloody great loads of incendiaries we were taking to cart and drop down. It was, when you think back on it was a dirty war really but we did what the Germans tried to do to us didn’t we? I think we were a bit more successful.
PJ: Well, thank you Ken for letting us interview you for the IBCC.
KC: Okay.
PJ: It’s been a pleasure to hear your stories.
KC: You’ve got some notes.
PJ: Thank you.
KC: Yeah. Good.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ACookKHH160725, PCookKHH1601
Title
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Interview with Kenneth Cook
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
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eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:20:59 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter and Sandra Jones
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-25
Description
An account of the resource
Wing Commander Kenneth Cook was born in Randwick in Gloucestershire. At Marlings grammar school, he joined the Air Training Corps. On the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Air Force and went to America under the Arnold Scheme for pilot training. He continued training in Canada as a navigator/bomb aimer. He returned to Great Britain and continued training at RAF Cottesmore and the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe. His crew were posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney. After ten operations, they joined 97 Squadron Pathfinders. Altogether he flew 45 operations, including several to Berlin. At the end of his tours, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Thereafter, he served at 1 Group Headquarters, and then RAF Fiskerton, RAF Fulbeck and RAF Syerston, tasked with checking the readiness of new crews, specifically the navigators. For a time he engaged in preparations for Tiger force. At the end of the war, he accompanied 617 Squadron on a goodwill tour of the United States. After the war, he remained in the Royal Air Force and was stationed in Aden and Cyprus. He was awarded the Legion d’honneur and rose to be a wing commander. He retired in 1968 and thereafter pursued a civilian career.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Janet McGreevy
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Cyprus
Great Britain
United States
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Berlin
Yemen (Republic)
Germany
1 Group
617 Squadron
9 Squadron
97 Squadron
Botha
crewing up
dispersal
Distinguished Flying Cross
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Meteor
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Syerston
RAF Winthorpe
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger force
training
Window
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Stephenson, Stuart
Stuart Stephenson MBE
S Stephenson
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Stephenson, S
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20 items. An oral history interview with Stuart Stephenson MBE, Chairman of the Lincs-Lancaster Association, and issues of 5 Group News.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
In accordance with the conditions stipulated by the donor, some items are available only at the International Bomber Command Centre / University of Lincoln.
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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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DE: So, this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin, I am interviewing Stuart Stephenson MBE, it is the 15th of the third 2016, we’re in Lincoln at his home address and it is twenty past one. So Stuart, can you tell me some of your earliest memories to do with —
SS: I was obviously born in 1935, which meant that when war broke out I was five-ish. When I was six-ish, I think it would be — in 1941 I think — my father had gone in the Army, I was at home with my mother and sister. We lived in Boston, it was the middle of the year so it was very light early in the morning and we heard a low-flying aircraft of some sort. We slept downstairs because of the bombing, had black-out curtains, I leapt out of bed, I went to the front window, whipped the blackout curtains. To my amazement, in front of me crossing the road from behind to in front, was a very low flying German twin-engined aircraft with a, with a gun turret that pointed its guns down the road, and they fired down the road across as, as we were coming, as they went over. I later discovered that they was actually shooting at a lorry that was parked up the side of the road, and I seem to remember it belonged to a gentleman called Mr Ingoldmells, who was one of the very few haulage drivers in the area at that time. A month or two later, when there was heavy rain, next door but one — a Mr Parker — he said his spouts were overflowing with water, so he got a ladder and he climbed up, and I was lucky enough to be presented with a whole handful of spent German cannon, ammunition shells, cartridge shells that he’d rescued from his gutters. I don’t know what happened to those but this was at Boston. As the, within a couple, maybe a few months — it was a Saturday morning and there was my mum was talking to the lady next door across the fence, and there was an aircraft up there droning away, and I came out and I was looking up in the sky, and I could just see this dot. Little dot of an aircraft. And I watched it and the women talked on, and suddenly, something fell off it, and I said to the women, I said, ‘Look mum. There’s something fallen off that plane’. ‘Stuart, don’t interrupt, we’re talking. It’s rude to interrupt’. And I’m watching this coming down, and I’m saying, ‘No. Look, it’s coming down. Look’, and I finally got them to stop talking, and I looked and I saw this thing coming down and it was getting closer and closer and closer, and I wonder what’s happened. And it fell behind the house, maybe a quarter of a mile away, near a place, a tower, Rochford Tower Hall it was called. Rochford Tower. There was an enormous explosion, at which point we decided it was a bomb, but to our, to my amazement, as a child I saw a row of very large trees. I saw some of these trees flung up in the air with a massive bang and bits coming down all over the place. The two women — ‘Stuart, get in the house’, and we immediately, I immediately, ‘I don’t want to go in the house. The plane’. ‘No, you’ve got to go in the house. We have to get under the table in the kitchen’. Having been under the table for five minutes and I wanted to go outside again to see what was going on, but the plane had droned away to the east and lo and behold, the air raid warning went, which, which encouraged my interest in aviation. Later we moved away from Boston. My father was in the Army and he was stationed near Bakewell in Derbyshire, so we moved to Bakewell and I went to school at Bakewell for a time, and I well remember, and people that have been to Bakewell who will remember the street. The street sort of divides, the main street divides two as you go towards the bridge over the river, it divides into two, with a sort of building in the middle, which was the main one in front of you was the Post Office. And we were waiting to cross the road, there was little traffic, but there was a lot of women and a lot of kids, and they were all talking and I was that bit older then, and suddenly, there’s a strange whistling noise, and there’s women looking up and I’m looking up, because I’m thinking, ‘Oh this is another aeroplane’, and to everybody’s amazement this plane flew over. Well, they all thought it was going to crash because it’s got no propellers on it and it’s, it’s going to crash. And it didn’t crash, but it flew straight over and the panic was gone, and they was all saying, ‘Shhhh. You’ll hear a bang in a minute when it hits the ground’, or something, but it didn’t and it went away. And again, I’m not sure what year, I have a feeling this would be maybe 1944, but by what I recall, there was only the meteor that was flying at that time, and that was my first introduction to a jet. I went to school of course in Boston, I went to school elsewhere. Eventually, having sort of grown up into my twenties, I was still interested in aircraft and the time came in the 1970s when a Lancaster came back to Waddington, and this was PA474 which is currently with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. This aircraft had been recovered from Henlow by 44 Squadron, who had been given the task to, by their CO to locate a Lancaster to bring to Waddington as a gate guardian. They, they had struggled to find a Lancaster and by chance, one of the officers, who I won’t mention but I know him very well, he spotted this Lancaster through a hole in the hedge at Henlow, and it was sitting in a grass field with a Lincoln standing beside it, which the Lincoln was the later development of the Lancaster. 44 Squadron then having made some enquiries, it was discovered that it belonged to the Air Historical Branch of PA4. Well both aircraft did. They, they sent a working party to go out to have a look at it, to ascertain whether it was — how much it would take to dismantle it to bring it, to road it back to Waddington basically, in bits. The ground crew that went to look at it — they’d all been ex-Lancaster ground crew types during the war, because the gap was comparatively short between the two and they were coming up to retirement age. Anyway, they spent several weekends down there and they would go on a Saturday morning or a Friday night with a tent, sleep in a tent under the aircraft, and work on it on the Sunday, doing whatever checks they had to do. After a time, it was decided that it was better than they thought, it might be. So they, they decided that they would take a bowser and put some petrol in it or fuel in it, and see if they could get it to run. Bearing in mind the engines hadn’t been inhibited or anything, it was just standing there. So anyway, they went and then they got this fuel and put in to it, and within another week or two, they suddenly got four engines running. So at this stage, the commandant of Henlow — a college I believe it was, or air, air base — he came along and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ and they said that there was, they’d got permission to move this back to Waddington. So he said, ‘Well we thought — we had this message but we understood you were going to dismantle it and take it by road’, and they said, ‘Well we’ve checked it over, and we decided that it, it is a runner. So it is going to take an awful long time to dismantle it and we’ve got to bring cranes and fittings up here to do it, so we will come and we will hopefully fly it back’. So he was somewhat upset by this, because he wasn’t expecting them to say this and this meant he’d got to make a decision I suppose, but anyway the decision was made that yes, they could fly it back but on one must-not-do. ‘When you take off, you must not fly over the college buildings. The airfield buildings. You must go away from the airfield and the base, so if the wings fall off it, you’ll not fall on to the —’ So anyway, they duly reached that stage. They found a pilot who I believe was a Polish gentleman, they then began to look at the field itself. Working parties were brought to walk the field to fill in holes and generally check it over. They spent several weekends doing this, and the day came when it was to go, so they — it was crewed up and they did all the engine run ups and all the usual pre-flight checks, and off they went across the grass, gathering speed. Reached the point of tail up, and lo and behold, there was a hole in the ground, which they think it was maybe a fox had dug. But our Lancaster hit this and it, with one jerk, it was airborne. The pilot gathered it and kept it flying and it duly flew back to Waddington. I believe the navigator, it was claimed the navigator made a slight error, because the press were waiting at Waddington, and it didn’t initially go back to Waddington. It made a circle around and flew over Scampton, who’d got R5868, which is now in the RAF museum as their gate guardian, with a sort of two fingers up sign, ‘We’ve got one that flies at Waddington’. Anyway, that was done and he duly came in to land at Waddington. So I was told that the press were there in great numbers, and it was all very exciting. He came in to land, and it was one of those landings where he touched down and then took off again, and he touched down and then he took off again. The camera lenses were seen to be going up and down with the long lenses on the cameras, and it duly came to a standstill. Taxied around and was, the engines were switched off and it was back at Waddington. It was only then that they learned that the pilot, who was Polish, he was a test pilot for, I believe it was English Electric in those days, and he was a test pilot flying Canberras, and he’d basically landed it — done a Canberra landing in a Lancaster, which a Canberra has a nose wheel and it lands on a nose wheel configuration that, it doesn’t sit with its tail up or anything. It goes down, whereas the attitude of a Lanc is completely different. Had they known they wouldn’t have let him fly it but — because there were other pilots who were qualified to fly in that, that format of a tail wheel aircraft. We, we were living at Bracebridge Heath and for a year nothing happened. The Lancaster went in the hangar and it was thought that it was being prepared as the gate guardian, however, it then appeared on the airfield from time to time and were doing engine runs and then it, it occasionally took to the air, and it was very pleasant to sit in one’s front garden and see a Lancaster, or have it fly over, virtually over your head, fairly low. At a time when there wasn’t another one in the world flying, the Canadian one was not flying at that stage, and gradually the flying time that it was putting in was increased, and then it sort of appeared at Biggin Hill or Farnborough, and this was really building into something. The officer commanding RAF Waddington, the group captain, he tended to fly it, I think his name was Stanley, along with several others who were qualified to fly that aircraft type. The time went on, and having extended it then the — it was taken for granted by the population that it would stay at Waddington, and that was it, and we were all quite happy. And then suddenly, it was in the Lincolnshire Echo in 1973 that Waddington’s Lancaster was to be moved to RAF Coltishall in Norfolk. Obviously, there was a great deal of muttering and everything, because the thought was, why take the bomber away from where it was, came into service, because Waddington was the very first Lancaster station where it was introduced in ‘41. Anyway, it was duly — something had to be done. A letter appeared, or a piece appeared, in the Lincolnshire Echo, and it said that there’s a Mrs Buttery who had written a piece and made a statement to the Echo, to say that there should be some effort made to retain this Lancaster in the county. It belonged to the county, it didn’t belong on a fighter station. Anybody interested, would they please contact her. I went and contacted her on the, this was on a Friday, I contacted her on the Monday morning at work, which was the only address she gave which was in Guildhall Street opposite the old Post Office in those days. I was the first one there and I introduced myself, and her name was Hilda and we got on very well. There was various other people turned up as the next week or two went on, and we gradually sort of came together. Alderman and Frank Eccleshare decided that there was public interest in this and he would form a — there would be a meeting held in Lincoln for everybody that was interested to come and have their say. So, needless to say, our little group had got together. We called ourselves the Lincolnshire Lancaster Committee, because we was just a committee, we weren’t thinking of anything else. We, we went to the meeting which was well attended. There was a thing in those days on the radio at lunchtime that — Jimmy Young who was a broadcaster, broadcast every day, and if you’d got a problem, he would, I’ll say fix it, but nothing to do with the fix it that we all hate today. However, I wrote to Jimmy Young, and this was before the meeting, and I said this is a problem, and to explain that the local population didn’t want this aircraft moving and, ‘Go on Jimmy. Fix it’. I received a nice buff pre-printed card from the BBC to say Mr Young will — is looking in to this and he’ll be in touch. It’s now forty-three, forty-four years since I got that card and I’m still waiting for his reply. He didn’t come back to us. However, the meeting was held and various — we stood up and made our piece, and amongst the people in the audience, a gentleman stood up who I, we got to know quite well, his name was Eric, Eric Gledhill. I’m sure anybody that knew Eric will not be upset when I say that Eric, he was a crew chief, he was obviously, I don’t know, flight sergeant I guess in those days, but he had what we called a lavatory brush hairstyle. His hair was spiky and it looked very much like a lavatory brush. Eric stood up. ‘I’m the crew chief that looks after this Lancaster, and I can assure you, it will not fly for another couple of years, then it’s going to be on the ground. It can’t go on, it’s on its last legs and this would be the end. So we’ve got two years to try to do something’. Anyway, the, the meeting ended, and we decided that we’d got to sort of try to put a mark on this aircraft, to try to get it kept in to Lincolnshire. So again. I’d had the idea that the Lincoln City, the mayor and his, his attendants were very often seen in the local newspaper in the, in the ward room of the then HMS Lincoln and having the odd drinkies, and so I thought, well if they, this was Lincoln’s adopted warship and I thought, ‘Well come on, Lincoln shouldn’t be adopting a warship, they should be adopting a bomber’. So, I brought this up at the committee meeting and said, ‘Look, we should be making advances to the council to get the bomber adopted’. Our chair lady, she knew the mayor and the message was passed to the mayor, and the council looked at it and the question, I believe, was asked, ‘What’s it going to cost to do this?’ And the answer came back, ‘Very little’., and they seemed to like that idea, and so it was arranged that the, the aircraft would be adopted. It was duly adopted. I’m sorry, I can’t remember the date exactly but it coincided with a visit from 463, 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, their big reunion. They were coming over to, to Waddington for this event and they were duly to be treated with full ceremony, and the adoption would be on the same day as they came to see the Lancaster. I said, again I raised at the committee that if, if we’re going to have it adopted, we should ask that they put the Lincoln City badge on to the nose of the aircraft to illustrate to all and sundry that it was Lincoln City, Lincoln City’s aircraft. This was agreed, that would be done, and the RAF were contacted and they were warm to the idea. I learned later that we’d actually asked just for the badge, but I learned, I learned later that the, this was came in after it’s been moved to Coltishall. But they, they sent somebody from Coltishall, an officer came from Coltishall to Lincoln with a camera, to get a photograph of the Lincoln City badge. Of course, today it would be done by email and it would be in a flash, but he came to Lincoln and he wandered about the city, I’m told, looking for the badge. And in the end, he saw the badge on the side of a Lincoln City Corporation bus, and it had the Fleur de Lys coat of arms. Below it was, in gothic script, “City of Lincoln”, so he took a photograph of this, took it back to Coltishall. It was duly, it was hand painted on to the aircraft by a gentleman who was an expert in this type of work. He had not understood what was asked of him, so he painted the badge very nicely and he’d put City of Lincoln underneath it, which was an idea that we hadn’t have thought of but it was better than we’d thought of, so we got this thrown in as a bonus. So she had a very large badge on her nose in those days, with City of Lincoln in gothic script, and that was put on the nose then. She’s been repainted several times, but it was made, it was officially pronounced that this aircraft was named City of Lincoln, and it would remain that. Whatever paint job they put on it, that would remain on it, and it’s still on it today, although in reduced size on the opposite side to where it was first put on. Coming back to the, the Australian visit, this was a remarkable event, because they, they came to us and they said that — I live in Waddington village — these Australians were coming over and would — when they came to Waddington during the war, there was not enough space for them to live on the camp, so they were billeted out throughout the village. People took them into their homes, the aircrew, which was very traumatic for some because obviously, they didn’t all come back. However, all these years later they’re coming again. ‘Would you like to take a chap and his wife for a week while they’re over here?’ So we said, ‘Yes, we would’, and we were duly allocated, if that’s the right word, the gentleman. Buchan comes to mind. He was the gentleman that flew the Lanc that flew the longest mission ever, when he flew back and he, the BB for the royal aircraft or the Crown Film Unit, to film the Tallboys going down on the Tirpitz, that finally sank the Tirpitz — that’s a famous bit of footage. He was told - they were told they were flying back to Lossiemouth. He said — stuff Lossiemouth or words to that thing, and he would fly back. ‘I didn’t want to go there, I want to come back to Waddington’, so he flew back to Waddington, landed and I don’t — he hardly had enough fuel to get back to his dispersal, it was sucking air. So I was looking forward to, to this visit, because it was obviously somebody that was very interesting to me and I was liking to talk to him, however, at the last minute, unfortunately his lady wife got ill and he couldn’t come, so we had it changed around and lo and behold, I got a fella and his wife called Bill Berry. Bill was a — not a tall man, shall we put it like that, and he was very nice and he talked in a real dinkum Australian accent. That was very good, fitted the Bill Hancock’s Half Hour voice very nicely. They came to stay with us, and of course, we talked. Now, he said to me, he said, ‘Do you know, Stuart’, he said, ‘My best mate ever’, he said, ‘He lived here, he lived in Lincolnshire. He was a farmer’, he said, ‘And we used to go shooting with an old car with the headlights and’, he said, ‘It was a marvellous time between flying’. And he said, ‘I’ve lost touch with him’, and he said, ‘I’ve no idea. I can’t remember where he lived now’. So I said, ‘What was his name then?’ So he said, ‘His name was John Chatterton’. I said, ‘I know John Chatterton’. ‘You don’t’. I said, ‘I do’. So he said, ‘Well blow me down’, or words to that effect, so he said, ‘Can we make contact?’ I said, ‘Well hang on a minute’, so I got up and I dial the number, and he answered, and I said, ‘Hello John. Is that you?’ So he said, ‘Yeah, it is. What do you want Stu?’ I said, ‘Well I’ve got an old mate of yours here’, I said, ‘Who wants to talk to you’, so he said, ‘Have you? Who’s that?’ I said, ‘Does the word Bill Berry mean anything to you?’ ‘Bugger me’, he says, ‘I can’t believe it, put him on’. So they talked, and it was agreed that within the next night or two, they’d, they’d come together in our lounge at Waddington, to meet after all these years, and it was a suitably emotional evening and they brought their logbooks with them. And of course, I’d known John Chatterton for quite a while, his son, Mike Chatterton, was, I believe, at that time currently the Lancaster pilot with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. So, Bill, he said this was fantastic and they compared log books, and I wish I’d had Dan’s recording machine with me because they were going through all these anecdotes and comparing one night. Where did you go on so and so, and so and so? ‘I went to Dusseldorf that night’. ‘How long was you there? How long was you airborne for?’ ‘I was airborne for three hours twenty minutes’. If you like. ‘No, no. What was you messing about at? We did it in three hours and ten minutes’, and there was a lot of verbal going on like that. So they came, after they’d ceased, they’d done their ops and they went to Syerston together as instructors, and they told me a little story. He said they were in the crew room at Syerston, and he said it was, had been a horrible few days and there had been no flying, and there was a lot of blokes hanging about and we were waiting for the weather to lift. The cloud base was still fairly low but it was going up slowly, and he said, ‘We were there’, he said, ‘And we were bored and’, he said, ‘Suddenly, John Chatterton stood up and he said, ‘Right, my lot, we’re going flying’. ‘Are you’re going flying?’ ‘Yes, I’m going flying. I can’t stand this any longer’. So they got up, and they went charging off to their aircraft, and fifteen, twenty minutes later it taxies out on to the runway, comes trundling down the runway, and they all go outside to watch it go past, and it goes past, and it’s — if you look at a map of Syerston, you will see that the River Trent is at the far end of the runway. So he goes, this is Bill telling this story, and he said, ‘He goes down the runway and his tail wheel’s up, but he’s not, his main wheels are still on the ground, and he gets to the end of the runway and he disappears in to the Trent, and we thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s crashed’. So there was bicycles, there was people running, there was vehicles, there was fire engines, they were all, they were all charging down to the end of the runway to see the wreckage in the Trent and hope these fellas are still alive, and he said, ‘We got there expecting to see oil on the water and all sorts of wreckage. Nothing. There’s no marks on anywhere. We can’t — we’re looking around. We can’t believe. Where is he? He’s vanished. It’s magic’. And he said, ‘We just stood there and then we heard a sound, and it was Merlin engines and’, he said, ‘They were, they were behind us and he turned around, and here’s this Lanc coming at ground level and its straight for us, and we all threw ourselves flat, and he comes almost through the middle of us and then climbed up and went away’. And he said, ‘that was John Chatterton, and somehow he’d managed to turn to starboard or port, whichever one it was, and he’d managed to get away without us realising where he’d gone and he’d gone around the back of us, and we was all, we’d all been covered in mud. We’d all thrown ourselves flat on the ground and, and,’ he said, ‘That was a moment I remember’ And I looked at John Chatterton, who’d got, I’m sure if he was here, he would agree with him, Mike would agree with him, that he had a baby face. He looked a rounded baby-faced chap, and I said to John, I said, ‘John, would you do a thing like that?’ And he said, ‘Stu, could you imagine me doing anything like that?’ I said, ‘Yes’. So there was laughter and that was a moment to remember, but I put that, I was lucky to be there with these two guys to hear all these stories, and what a pity. There was a lot more I can’t remember, but there was a lot was forgotten forever I’m afraid because I couldn’t record it.
DE: Sure.
SS: The, the story. I think I’ll have to pause now a minute if you don’t mind.
DE: Ok.
[Recording paused]
DE: Right, so we’re recording again. There we go.
SS: The Lancaster moved to Coltishall but she’s crewed by aircrew from Waddington and Scampton. Jacko Jackson had been allegated to, allegated, is that the right word? Allocated as officer commanding the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in 1972. I believe that’s correct although the thing at the Battle of Britain Flight might tell you wrong. But —
DE: People can find that out. Yeah.
SS: I’ve got it on. They don’t know at Coningsby yet, I’ve not been over since I found out. I’ve a letter from, inviting me to Jacko’s leaving party, and Jacko was, it says in there when he was made officer commanding. I’ve got it in the other room but we can find that out in a minute. Anyway, this was causing them a lot of problems, because they were having to travel by coach to Coltishall and back again at weekends, in all the seaside traffic because it’s a very busy road. This was wrong. We’d been petitioning to the, well the Lancaster Committee we’d, we’d had fun and games. We didn’t realise it but when the Lanc was about to leave Waddington for the very last time, one of our members, who wouldn’t admit doing it but we know he did, he went around all the local pubs where the airmen gather, and he put around these stories that these freaks at Lincoln were going to go to Waddington and they were going to sit on the runway to stop them flying the Lanc out. Well, bearing in mind, Lincoln was, Waddington was a Vulcan base much connected with the Cold War, and the nuclear weapons that were stored thereabouts so the RAF didn’t want a lot of people on the airfield, and the Echo put out statements from the RAF that no public person would be allowed on the, on to the camp while this was taking place. And this was all to be sorted. Come the day, there was police galore in land rovers, patrolling the Sleaford Road. There was more dogs than, than you’ve ever seen. I think they’d brought extra people in from other bases. There was a lot of people on the roadside along there, but there was no trouble and it flew out, and that was the end of the story, but there was a little, little bit of a kink in the tale of it all, that before it went, they’d had a press thing to let the press come on the airfield through the guardroom to take photos and interview the captain and whatever. One of our committee members — he’d got, he’d been driving around the camp, he usually carried about six cameras around his neck, he, he noticed that there was a group of press people gathered in a little group near the guardroom, so he left his car quickly in the officer’s mess car park, walked across to the guardroom and just joined up with these newspapermen. Within minutes a coach appeared, they all gathered on the coach. Nobody checked who they were. They all got on the coach, they were all taken onto the airfield, to the aircraft, and they all took it in turns to get in the aircraft. Well the captain on that day was, we called him Uncle Ken but his name was Squadron Leader Ken Sneller, who was the nicest man you could ever wish to meet, and of course, he knew Trevor, who was the guy that had smuggled himself in, and it came to Trevor’s turn to get in the aircraft to take pictures. And he duly clambered in and came up to the front end, clambered over the main spar to, to see Uncle Ken there. Uncle Ken said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘Don’t tell anybody. I’m a, I’m a spy got on the airfield where nobody’s supposed to be getting’, so he duly took photographs in the cockpit and that was, that was that little moment of when we had the last laugh, but nobody in the RAF knew it had happened. The, the story about the Australians that I repeated a little earlier, that happened a few years later, after the aircraft had been at Coltishall for a time.
DE: Yeah.
SS: So, so it’s not out of context.
DE: That’s fine. Thank you.
SS: The, the time went by and we started collecting signatures to get the aircraft brought back to Waddington, or to Lincolnshire. I think we — but we thought it would be Waddington. We gathered signatures, within a matter of, I think it was fifteen weeks, we got some nineteen — seventeen to nineteen thousand signatures, including every MP except the MP for Grimsby — Mr Crossland who refused to sign. Everybody else would sign for it, signed the petition. From Australia came signatures like Hughie Edwards, who was a VC from Bomber Command’s earlier years. A lot of famous people signed. A meeting was arranged and we met the minister for the Royal Air Force who was — Labour were in power at the time, a little Welsh gentleman called Mr Brynmor John, and an appointment was made for him to meet us at Swinderby, which was a very active RAF station in those days. We were told we would meet at, in the officer’s mess at Swinderby at 2.15 I think it was, and he would have to be leaving by 2.35, so we weren’t given very long to make our point to him. We duly got all the signatures bundled up and tied up with red ribbon, and Mrs Buttery, who was chairman, she came and she made a speech and photographs were taken, and we talked to the minister. It was noticed a little bit later that the group captain in the background who was, I think it was Group Captain Green, I’m not sure, but he seemed very agitated and he kept looking at his watch, and he was pacing up and down, and we were talking to the minister and the minister was talking back to us, and the time schedule that they’d set went completely wrong. I don’t know what happened to his — where he was going after he finished with us, but he ended up about an hour late. Anyway, the bottom line, we got the promise that they would look at it but they couldn’t make any promises and it was wait and see, which we really thought we were just being fobbed off to be honest. Within a few months, Jacko Jackson had taken over. He was then OC of the Battle of Britain flight at Coltishall and Jacko came to me and he said, ‘Stuart, I’ve got some news for you but this is, this is something that is so hush hush that you’re not — you can tell the committee, but you’re not to tell anybody outside the committee, and it’s not to get out because this information will have to be released by the ministry or the Royal Air Force. Not by — not come from outside. So you’ve got to, before I tell, you’ve got to tell me that you’ll make sure that you’ll not pass it on other to those that are sworn to secrecy’. So I said, ‘Yes Jacko, I’ll do what I can. I’m sure they’ll —’ Anyway, we duly had a meeting, I’d made a little bit of a gesture beforehand and we had, I think it was two or three bottles of champagne were put on the table at the meeting, and the rest didn’t know what it was all about, and there was three bottles of champagne or whatever and some glasses and, ‘Well? What have you got? Tell us’. So I said, ‘Well the story is that I’ve been told that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight are going move back lock stock and barrel because we’d lost the Lancaster. We were now going to get the Lancaster complete with Spitfires and Hurricanes returned to the county but unfortunately, it wouldn’t be to Waddington. It would be to Coningsby. The reason why it’s not to Coningsby, we discovered later, er why it’s not at Waddington, we discovered later was the fact that the Waddington, the group that controlled Waddington in those days, were a different group that covered Coningsby. Our group at Waddington had given the Lanc to the other group where the Merlin spares were, and so that other group were not prepared to give the whole of the Battle of Britain Flight back to the group that it had — the Lanc had come from. So, it went to Coningsby. So in due course, all the aircraft came back to Coningsby and of course, this made them within much closer range and LLA — oh we’d gone through the ritual war dance of setting, of A) stopping being a committee any more. Becoming an Association, because people was wanting to, to join up. We had a thing going to raise the money, and have the deflection can made, so that it could put the upper turret on to the Lancaster, because in those days, she was a flat back and it was missing this mid-upper turret which they’d got. It had been sent from Argentina by the Royal Navy, it arrived at Tilbury docks or somewhere, and the phone call was sent to Waddington. ‘We’ve got a big crate here for you Waddington. Do you want to come and fetch it?’ ‘What is it?’ ‘It’s from the Argentine Air Force and it’s a piece of a Lancaster’. So it was fetched but they couldn’t fit it, because it was, they didn’t have the metal work to fix around it, to stop the guns from pointing in to the —shooting the tail fins off or shooting the back of the cockpit, so we — they came to us. And they said, ‘Would you like to — could you get this made?’ So we said, ‘Yeah, well of course. Why not?’ So again, our chairman, she had contacts within the engineering companies in Lincoln, which in those days were very big, and the plans were brought to us. She went off to see them and they’d agreed. ‘Yes, we’ll do that’, but when they saw the plans, because not only is this a strange shape but it tapers as the, as the fuselage narrows, as it goes down towards the tail, they suddenly decided they’d got too much work to do with oil rigs and they couldn’t, they couldn’t do it. So it was eventually came back. She said, ‘Well I’m sorry, I’ve failed with Lincoln completely. Anybody else got any ideas?’ So I said, ‘Well I was’, my task, I was an insurance broker, so I said, ‘Well I’ve got a company that I deal with in Grimsby called Marionette Engineering. I’ll talk to Peter Wild’, who was the boss who I’d known, again, for some years. I went and saw Peter, and I said, ‘Pete, I’ve got these plans. Can you, can your lot make this?’ They, the Marionam Engineering — basically their role was repairing trawlers that came back with damage, which is a bit, slight heavier metal than is used on an aircraft, so he looked at it and he said, ‘Well I don’t know Stu’, and made all sorts of — anyway I seem to have got this ability to keep talking non-stop, and I talked him — eventually he agreed to it, on the basis that it was to shut me up. I took the plans to them which, I’m sorry, which I’d got and he said, ‘Well come back in a month and see how, how we’re going on’, so I said, ‘Alright, but I bet you’ll have forgotten about it as soon as I’ve gone out the door’. ‘No I won’t, I daren’t face another barrage like I’ve had’. So I went back a month later and there, laid on the factory floor, was a large sheet of metal, which must have been measuring about twelve to fifteen foot square. A huge square. And upon it was spot welded various pieces of metal with the tops cut off at funny angles, and it represented something like a thing that you’d expect in one of these Indian type gentlemen who climb ropes and eat fire, that he would lay on a bed of nails. It looked like one of those. So, he, I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry. I think you’ve got that wrong haven’t you? Because it doesn’t make any sense’. ‘Oh we’ll make sense of it to you’, and he whistled up some of the fellas and they brought brown paper out and they draped brown paper around all these things, and suddenly it made the shape of what’s wanted, with the hole in the middle and it was, and suddenly it made sense. And I said, ‘Well that’s marvellous. I don’t know how you’ve done that’. ‘No, I don’t really’, he said, ‘But we’re trying’. Anyway, the, the flight had moved then, had moved back to Coningsby, and it came the day when this, this piece of metal would be transported to Coningsby to be fitted on the aircraft and of course, I went to watch this happen, and the lorry appeared from, from Grimsby. And the fellas that had made it came with it and they drove in the hangar, and they looked at the aircraft and they looked at what they’d done, and they said, ‘Good heavens, isn’t it big?’ And that was the general consensus. Anyway, the RAF had got some, some special platforms at each side of it so that this thing was lifted up by hand. The hole was made in the top of the fuselage where the turret was going to sit, and so the piece that they’d made was then fitted in the exact place where it would be when it was actually screw riveted or whatever they were going to do to the fuselage, and suddenly it looked right. It was — it was — the guys, the guys that had made it couldn’t believe that it was, it was so right. They discovered then that when, after they’d all looked at it and felt duly, duly pleased with what they’d done, the RAF were happy. They couldn’t get it off because they couldn’t get their fingers underneath the edges of it, where it fitted to the fuselage. It was such good a fit. They had to put their hands down the inside and lift it off, up, to get it off and that was duly fitted, and that was a few weeks later, the mid-upper turret that had been in storage for so long was then placed into its position on the bomber and she was no longer a flat back. So she had that on her and she had the City of Lincoln on the nose, which was a good tie to the county. Part of our other project when we’d started was that we wanted to get the Lancaster back to the county, but we realised if we got her back, we should maybe have to do something towards housing her, which would be an horrendous type job requiring a lot of money. So we set to and to raise funds by producing postal covers and appearing at air shows and doing anything we could to raise money, which we were, all in all, quite successful at. The job that we’d done on the Lancaster had made a lot of people say, ‘Can’t anybody join your committee?’ Well, a committee’s a committee, it’s not — it’s not for a lot of people, a huge lot, so we decided to call ourselves Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association. Hence the LLA which it’s become known as today. We applied for charitable status, which we were granted on an educational. We were classified, as far as I can remember, as an educational charity because we were educating people as to what had gone on, and we was trying to extend the life of this aircraft as long as possible. The flight, the two years that Eric Gledhill have given us four years before, had long expired but she still continued and continues well to this day. The problems that Eric had outlined to us, which were unsurmountable in the, those days when it first started, were not on. Not on at all. But modern technology and the fact that the flight had now become very publicly known, and I think it was thanks to our efforts that it was put so well publicly known, that she had gathered a following of her own people. Initially there was not too many. All the ex-World War Two aircrews were interested, their families were interested, but the grandkids in those days didn’t seem too interested. And there was a lot of, ‘Well, maybe. Is it worth doing it?’ And whatever. We did have exciting moments like a royal visit was coming along, and it was decided that we should have the aircrew who, in those days, wore — they called them “growbags.” They were sort of browny coloured baggy flying suits with zips. Lots of zips in the front for pockets and maps and things. We decided the Red Arrows, who didn’t live in Lincolnshire in those days, they wore these fancy red flying suits, and it would be nice if we could get some for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight bomber. Well we were only thinking about the bomber crews in those days. Get some black ones. I was told that Marks and Sparks were the firm, that was the firm to approach. So bearing in mind that was, it would be nice to think we could maybe, dare I say, scrounge them or persuade them to donate half a dozen flying suits for these Lancaster aircrew chaps to wear, but if need be, we would pay for them. So I duly went and saw the management of M&S to outline to them what we needed. They listened to me waffling on about, about what they did for the Red Arrows and could they do it for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight etcetera, and was greeted with, ‘Well I’m sorry, but everybody’s heard of the Red Arrows, but nobody’s ever heard of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Good day’. So I’m afraid we drew a blank, but the Queen was coming and Philip on a certain day in a month or two’s time, so I managed to get the blue prints for these “growbag” flying suits, and the Bracebridge Heath Ladies Sewing Circle made five flying suits to the measurements. Inside legs were taken for the manufacture of five black flying suits. These were duly worn when the royal visit came, with their badges of rank on their epaulets and the pilot’s brevets or whatever, whatever they were. And this went off very well, and photographs were in the papers of these black suited people standing in front of the Lancaster, and that was the first time anybody at the BBMF had ever had a black flying suit. We were not asked after that to, to repeat the thing, but somebody somewhere must have taken notice because suddenly black flying suits became available. Strange how these things can happen, but we think we maybe lit the touch paper with that one. So all in all, our efforts continue. We, we’d always been on the lookout for spare parts, there’s always an outcry for spare parts, and I remember a chicken farmer, I believe it was, somewhere in the back woods of Woodhall or that area. I got a phone call to say, ‘Is that Mr Stephenson’, and I said, ‘Yes, I was’, and he said, ‘Well, you don’t know me, but my name’s’, and I’ve forgotten his name, but he said, ‘We’ve just been put on the electric over here and’, he said, ‘I have got a Lancaster generator that’s been used since the war, ended for lighting up our chicken huts’. He said, ‘Now this is now surplus. We don’t need it ‘cause we’ve got the electric fitted on from the electric board and would you like it as a spare part for the Lancaster?’ So we said, ‘Yes, we’d be delighted’. So I duly went and collected this from the gentleman and it was handed over to them, and it had been driven by a tractor with a belt from a pulley to light — to make the electric for the chicken huts, but it worked alright and I think it was put into their stock, and it’s maybe still there or maybe not. Exhaust stubs, I was, each engine has got, I think it’s — is it six or eight of these down each side of the engines, so there’s all these exhaust stubs and they are always on the lookout for these things. And a sub aqua, a sub aqua club from up in Humberside contacted me. They had discovered an aircraft in the Humber that had been submerged for a long time, they’d managed to retrieve an engine which, when they’d sprayed all this mud and muck off it, it turned out to be a Merlin and they were going to clean it up to be put on display. Would we like — it looked new — would we like the exhaust stubs in exchange for some burnt out ones from the Lanc? So we said, ‘Yeah. We would be delighted’. So that was arranged, but the strange thing was this particular engine — research was done on it and it turned out to be, from all things, a Wellington that had crashed in the Humber in the very early part of the war. Now, we never discovered why, what it was doing up there but it had, it had crashed and it had sunk and it was recognisable from the serial numbers on the engine what it was from. The strange thing was that there was still oil in the sump and everything, of this engine so oil samples were taken out and sent to Conoco up there, who did some research on this oil and they came back and they said, ‘It’s as good as new. If you’ve got a lot of it, you can use it’. And it had been under water for I don’t know how many years, but I suppose oil doesn’t rot away does it? Anyway, that was another little offshoot that happened about this time. I think I’d like another break Dan, if you don’t mind, while I gather my wits.
DE: Ok. I’ll press pause again.
[Recording paused]
DE: Ok. It’s recording again.
SS: As far as the LLA side of things were concerned, we became a, we stopped from being a committee to the Lincs Lancaster Association. We became a limited company as well because we felt that this was — as we were attracting members, it was a way of not leaving responsibility for things in the hands of a few. It was to spread the thing about and to keep it on a proper company way of dealing with these matters as far as bookkeeping and the like. Charitable status was confirmed, we then had to make reports annually to Company’s House with regards to all the affairs of expenditure and what we’ve been doing. Likewise to the Charities Commission, which had to be approved by both of those. As I said, we continued to raise money, in those days with a great deal of help from the Battle of Britain flight themselves because we were — we were the only people of our type. The Red Arrows didn’t have a following like we had. We gained, we gained steadily a thousand, two thousand, three thousand. I think in my period as chairman which lasted for some, from about thirty six/seven years as chairman. I were chairman all that time mainly because no one else would do it, we gathered up to five and a half to six thousand members and it seems to have stuck at that level-ish, in that area. It’s fallen away, it falls away from time to time. Basically, finding volunteers to do the work that’s needed to be done is difficult. The roles of treasurer, of membership secretary and chairman I suppose. I don’t tend to think of it in my own terms, but these, these are roles that do take a lot of time, and as volunteers you don’t get paid and it’s — particularly the, the membership secretary who has to deal with members paying, members getting behind and dealing with cheques and sending out renewals. It used to be done by hand. We had a lovely lady called Sheila Wright who did it. She had big old fashioned — this was really before computers had got going, big old fashioned manuals that she used to do it all in the old fashioned way. She’d been an accounts lady for one of the local newspapers. Sheila used to do it and she was very reliable. She was retired, she gave her all seemingly all the time. There was never any problems. She decided she would go on holiday and she went. She was going on a bus trip, I remember they told me, she went to Unity Square in Lincoln, got on the coach, sat in the chair with her friend and died. She just sat there and passed away and that was shock. She was Sheila, and she’s dead. I’ve no idea what the cause of death was but this was a disaster for the LLA, because she’d been running this thing and picking it up from the bottom is very difficult when there’s so many things that is day to day running. She’d written to people to say you’ve not paid for so many months and either pay up or you’ll get nothing else. This has been an ongoing problem. With the advent of computers, one would think that this sort of becomes easier but we’ve had, we had, in my day, a series of membership secretaries who tend to find it, for some reason, more difficult to keep up with things when it’s on computer, then when it’s done in the old fashioned way. So I guess adding the columns up is easier when it’s done on a computer in Excel, but to do it as far as all the entering up is concerned and the typing in of names and the details., this is what takes a lot of time and identifying who’s due for renewal. And unlike other organisations, when we started we only had small numbers, and we decided that if somebody joined in January, his renewal would be in January every year, and if he joined, if somebody else joined in February, his renewal would be in February, so that means all the renewals are spread out over twelve months. Which again is very, yes, that’s good, but we find that other — since this and it still operates like this today I’m told, but since then other organisations, we find they’ve got one renewal date which is the day of the financial year ending, or in some cases the end of a year.
DE: Yes.
SS: So that then means you’ve got maybe, have five thousand coming in at once, but if you’ve, if you’ve got to deal with the banking side of five thousand, well that’s, that’s the easy bit in some senses but you can imagine that to handle all these things. This was before Pay Pal and direct debits and things as we know, know them so well today have come out. It, it was difficult then, but I’m told that it’s still difficult and it’s not a job that people want. If there’s anybody out there who is in to accountancy and wants a, one’s has got a volunteer spare time job, then this, their approach to LLA would be very much appreciated. Having said that, there’s recently been a piece in The Times following the lady’s — Childline was it called? The, the children’s charity that broke.
DE: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
SS: A report on that and the, the, it’s, to me it’s opened my eyes a lot, because the result of that is that there was an official statement made — that for a charity to be successful, it must be run properly, which means that in a case of expecting volunteers to do everything is not acceptable if that doesn’t make, if that is failing to make the thing run below what it should be doing. It needs, if needs be, it must — the people must be paid to do the work on a normal footing, as if it was a proper job. They would be paid and this has to be paid out of the subscriptions or the money that’s raised, because if it’s not the whole thing, the bubble will burst, as it, as it, did in this recent one. So that is something for the future for them to look at now. I keep feeding these bits of advices to them, but whether they take any notice or whether they’ve got time to, because I’m afraid with all committees, you find that you’ve got one or two people that are very active and they can’t really do enough, and you’ve got a lot of people that like to sit back and do very little and throw criticisms and block everything, and generally cause mayhem, when it shouldn’t be like that if you’re all in for the same thing. The excuse that was, is usually given was, ‘Why are you saying this all the time?’ Is — ‘I’m playing devil’s advocate’, is a much used word, but I’m getting off the point. LLA continues today, it seems to be very successful. There was a time, a few years back, when the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight decided that they wanted to take over LLA, but when you’re a charity, you can’t really be taken over because you’re responsible for all that money in the kitty as the charity, and you can’t sort of give that over to something that’s going to be run as a business. A charity is a charity, and so the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, in their wisdom or not wisdom as I see it, have gone into partnership, or, or — is it partnership? They have a firm that produces their club they call it which you may see advertised, which is a, the reason for the club was given to me that, when it was started that the reason that that club was formed was that it was, it was to allow them to give money to other charities that were not necessarily involved with what the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight normally would be. To whit, the things like the Battle of Britain Memorial, sorry the Red Arrows John Egging Trust or whatever you call it. That was started by the widow of the Red Arrows pilot that was killed. They wanted us to give a chunk of money to them and we felt that, as trustees of that money which was raised for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s benefit, it wasn’t right for us to do that. And this, because we wouldn’t do it, this seemed to cause a fracture which is, was completely uncalled for as far as we were concerned. But they, we wouldn’t be taken over and we wouldn’t do those sort of things, and so this caused them to form their own club. We continued to support them and when they want money for various projects that they’ve got which they invariably, if they get a budget for so much in a year, they want something that’s maybe beyond the budget or - at the moment, I’m speaking now today that there is a project next year for the anniversary of the Berlin Airlift. And the Lincs Lancaster Association will be or have been asked if we will pay, pay for the painting of the Dakota, to be painted into the colours used by the, during the Berlin Airlift, which I’ve been told they’ve agreed to pay, which is obviously the sort of things that’s needed which their club A) hasn’t got the money for and B) is not for that purpose. So as a retired chairman of many years, it’s left me feeling somewhat disappointed to find that they’ve made this sort of split. The charitable side of the fence seems to be quite disturbed because the flight seemed to publish as much as they could, “Join our club. Join our club”, there’s never any thought that the charity really needs the same. It’s due the same backing as the other one because over, over the years while I was chairman, I did try to work it out, and we’d donated for various projects, I think it was just over a half a million pounds for various things that would have been done over the years. Some quite expensive. We put all the, all the engineering books manuals which they’ve got — a huge collection of manuals on their airframes and all their aircraft all in wartime issue type books. We had all those put on, digitised, which I’m sure Dan knows all about. We provided them with a very big printer so that, when you’ve got a fold out document within a book that was scanned, so that it could be printed the size of the unrolled thing out, unfolded out of the book so that they could go in the hangar. If they wanted to know about Lancaster tail wheel, all they’d got to do was type in Lancaster tail wheel, it would come up, all the references they wanted. They could go to that page, print it off. Whether it was an A3, whatever. The biggest size you could think of, it would print it. The, I did receive a letter from the chief of the air staff thanking me for this that we’d done for the Flight, and by producing that book and putting it all on to, on to discs, I think it was in those days, that we’d saved them the equivalent of one and a half men a year in time saved looking for things, trying to find things in books. Today’s age, I’m afraid, those years have slipped by and it’s all forgotten, which is very sad I find. I’m sorry. I’m going off on a tangent.
DE: No. No. That’s fine.
SS: Now.
DE: How do you feel about the LLA supporting other aircraft other than the Lancaster?
SS: Well as far as I’m concerned, I’ve learned today that — I’ve been making some enquiries which — I get bees in my bonnet, being eighty years old now and I’m thinking, well I wonder why that is? And so, I sort of went through the very difficult task of googling a question and I find myself on to a website, a government website, which tells me that one charity with similar aims, can support another charity of similar aims so long, so long as the trustees of that charity agree that it can be done. Basically that’s the precis of what it says in a lot of language and it maybe needs somebody with a, with a lawyer’s degree to read that, to make it as easy as I’ve read it, but it does not, it means the door is open. And it means that in the case of, if we’re supporting the Lancaster, we read we’re set up as an educational charity so to my mind that leaves the door open that A) we can support the Bomber Command Memorial, which is educational with its Chadwick Centre, and it also means that if need be, we can support East Kirkby and its Lancaster, even though, in both cases they’re both charities in their own right, and the fact that they’ve got similar aims means what it means. This brought to mind because there was a piece, the Vulcan to the Sky people — there was a piece on their website which said they have come to an agreement, they’re now supporting the Typhoon Restoration Group. Not the RAF type of today but the wartime Typhoon aircraft, to rebuild one to put back in to the skies of Britain, and this has been supported by the Vulcan to the Trust and they’re both charities, and so I thought if they can both do it I will, I will check up on that see if that’s true and that’s what I’ve come out with this very day. So there’s, there’s hope for LLA to be able to help in other fields, but it still just amazes me that when we started, there was nobody doing anything like we’ve done for anybody else. We were one off. We were completely one off and then gradually, one can see that it’s fostered other ideas amongst other people who have come up with similar sort of things to what we’ve been doing. But as per this BBMF club that they’ve got — it’s, it’s been operated by a money-making firm who are producing various booklets and magazines and things for them, but all on a financial basis. Ours is basically all the administration is done, or has been done up till now, has been done by volunteers, and obviously, with what we’re learning now, since this kiddies thing went into bankruptcy and the results of what the enquiries have come up with, it means that maybe there’s a time to come before too long when it should be run on a proper fashion by employed staff. Only time will tell with these things I’m afraid, it’s a developing scene. I must admit that I got, I got poorly and had to retire, it would be four or five years ago now. The time flies by. I’d been doing the job too long I must admit, I was really getting tired with it. But it’s in my blood and I can’t get it out of my blood, and even though I’ve, I’ve got Parkinson’s and I’m still struggling to get about quite a bit, I’m dealing with about four projects that I’ve dreamt up myself, because nobody is, nobody’s thinking about doing these sort of things and by generating things that are home produced by the charity, that’s a lot more from a financial point of view. It’s a much better bet than buying something in for ten pounds and selling it for fifteen. If you can have it printed yourself and sell it for fifteen, you’ve got it a lot cheaper. Somebody else isn’t making a profit out of it before you get it in other words
DE: Sure.
SS: So I still keep doing, doing that and we’ll just have to see how long I last for, and how long it — how the situation develops, but I keep proffering my advice to the present chairman and whether he takes any notice of me, time alone will tell. But I maybe won’t be around to know whether he has or not, so I can’t think of anything else I can say at this stage Dan. Unless you’ve got any questions.
DE: I’ve got, I’ve got a few questions.
SS: Yeah.
DE: If you look at my page. Could you go back again to why it was you that you wanted to get involved in the first place, when you saw the thing in the paper about — ?
SS: It was just a gut reaction. Completely. Basically, my thought was, and I aired this in, I think I wrote a piece for the Lincolnshire Echo, and it was, I can’t remember the wording, but it was saying things like the next thing you know, officialdom will want to move Lincoln Cathedral to London. We felt it was such a, such a — the link between that aircraft and, in particular, in Waddington, which, Waddington — when the Lanc arrived at Waddington, three were delivered on Christmas Eve 1941. Three airframes for 44 Squadron, which was the first squadron to set up and with those three airframes came, I’ll not say a little army, but a group of people from the Avro factory, who were there to do modifications to these aircraft while they were, while they being put in to service almost. It was, it was an absolute — it must be done, and those people that came — a lot of them married local girls and there’s a lot of families in the Waddington area whose ancestors came from Cheshire and Woodford and Stockport and those places around. So the tie is not just — to a certain extent, it is sentimental but not a hundred percent. There is family links there that’s unbreakable. And by chance the same — another one of my projects which I’d better mention, is that we’re doing this booklet, myself and Toucan are producing this booklet to honour Roy Chadwick, who was the chap that designed the Lancaster and the Vulcan and Roy — he worked tirelessly to do it. But this business, the Lancaster was delivered to 44 Squadron and its first operation that it ever did, was mine laying. They divide the area of the sea around the cataract the North Sea in to areas, and all these areas were named after vegetables so these mining sorties were known as, as gardening sorties. Gardening was the first sortie that was undertaken by Lancasters from — well I was going to say from Waddington, but was it Coleby Grange? Because there was some stories that they would possibly had moved to Coleby Grange for some reason. Whether some work was being done at Waddington, but they were done basically from Waddington, because that’s where the headquarters was. Years later, when the Lanc finished, it of course went on past the end of the war, and in the mean — before, I think before it had finished, the Vulcan had been accepted into the RAF. It came into service at Waddington as well, so there’s another link between Avro and Waddington. The first, the first sortie for the Lanc was a gardening sortie. The last one of the war, on the last day of the war, believe it or not, was a gardening sortie. They’d started off gardening, they’d ended up gardening, and it is said that the Bomber Command sank more ships than the Navy during World War Two. I haven’t seen an exact figure to that but it is spoken about quite openly, and I don’t know whether your researchers have found anything to that effect.
DE: I’ve not looked at that. I think we might have to find someone to have a look at that.
SS: I think there’s a certain mythology about it, because if they’d put, put mines in the North Sea they’re not, they wouldn’t be aware that one of these had struck a ship and sunk it on that spot. How would they know? That’s something that doesn’t add up but that’s, that’s often said. And coming back to the Vulcan in service with Waddington, well the Vulcan went out of service and what squadron took it out of service? It was 44 Squadron — Rhodesia Squadron who took it out of service, who brought the Lanc in years before. They flew the last Vulcan bomber practice mission and then a valedictory flypast, which will all be in this new thing that we’re producing and there’s another coincidence that 44 is involved twice with the two different airframes, though 44 didn’t bring the Vulcan into service. Next question?
DE: It’s another one about how do you feel about how the Lancaster and Bomber Command is remembered today?
SS: Yeah. Bomber Command is — has been very badly treated over the years. I was a great believer in Winston Churchill. His speech, his speechifying shall we say, was second to none when it came to the war and keeping the morale of the country high, but the fact that he, he cut himself off from Bomber Command following the Dresden raid, which is infamous, and he fell literally, we fell or our authorities fell for the propaganda that was put out by Dr Goebbels and his people at the Ministry of Propaganda within the Nazi party. They put this out and we swallowed it hook, line and sinker basically and this, this made that, this changed Bomber Command were upset. There was no medal issued, which has been an ongoing thing for all these years and still, still despite what they did, it still there’s still people complaining about it even though I’m afraid the veterans are getting very long in the tooth, and going back to the Dresden thing, Harris was, was vilified almost for allowing it to take place but what they seem to forget is that Churchill had gone off to, I think it was Yalta, on a conference. The command of the Royal Air Force as such was in the hands and the decision making was in the hands of Portal. Portal was the one that decided where they were going to bomb. The Russians wanted Dresden to be bombed because they felt it was being used as a railway junction for supplying arms and men to the Eastern Front. They wanted it wiping out. I’m told, reading, and I forget who wrote the book, there’s a very good book on Dresden, and when it turned out that the, this raid, this day and night attack thing that took place originally there was three choices I believe. And Dresden was the one that was chosen because when they wanted to start it, was best from the weather point of view. The weather was the restricting thing. It was Portal that gave the order, not Harris. Harris did as he was told. He was outranked, and yet the ones that made the decisions at the top have sort of turned their back on it and left the lower ranks to carry the can as you might say. And the can was carried right down to the fellas that flew on those missions, because they was the ones that was made to feel like they were murderers, and there was no medal issued and there was just a pathetic silence from the government. Which to me over the years, the number of these fellas that I’ve met was beyond my dreams, that I would ever meet so many of them and to a man, this was always something that has created a lot of heated expression and the fact that Winston changed — turned his back on Bomber Command has never been forgotten. I can’t really say much more on that one then I can think of at the moment. It’s been a tricky subject I’m afraid, but the strange thing is that the Americans — one would think that they took no part in Dresden. They, they have not been treated the same way as our lads did. One, I think it was day, the RAF went at night and the Americans went by day, which was the way things were run in those days, and the RAF went by night as they did and the first raid took place and it was calamitous. It was fire storms was soon going. The Americans went back the next day, they saw a lot of smoke rising and they bombed, and it was later discovered that they had actually bombed Chemnitz, which was not the target. Dresden. They’d gone to the wrong place. So that, that says it all to a certain extent. Sorry Uncle Sam, you’ve, you’ve — their side of it has been forgotten. One would think it was only an RAF event, it was not a joint services thing. And I’ve never heard any, any words from the American top brass, commanders of the 8th Air Force, if it was the 8th that was involved in that event, that they’ve never had anything really to say about it. It’s just been another day and the RAF seem to have copped for the, to use an old country expression, the sticky end of the stick. Next question Dan.
DE: I think on a happier note, you’ve talked a little bit about the people that you’ve met. Could you go into, you know?
SS: Well yes, I’ve been very lucky that I’ve met, I’ve met so many. I’ve got a book here, I’ll just have to open it up to get my memory. I’ve carried this book with me and if I’ve met people who, who —
DE: So it’s, “The Lancaster at War”.
SS: “Lancaster at War” volume one. The first thing, when I open the pages, I’ve got a letter here from RV Jones at the Department of Natural History, Aberdeen University dated 18th of January 1979. RV Jones doesn’t mean a lot to Dan, I can see he’s wrinkling his eyebrows. Jones was one of the brains of — he was the man that bent the beams. He was, well all I can suggest is he’s so, he’s such a nice fellow and he’s so knowledgeable. Unfortunately, he’s no longer with us like so many of these people aren’t. I’ve got two or three letters here from him, but there are, he’s written. He did write books and I’ve got a copy of his book which he’s duly signed for me, and that is one of my treasured possessions because it’s such a fascinating book. That he flew, he was, he was involved in coming out with these scientific ideas. He was, he was a confident of Churchill and the top. A boffin as they were called in those days and he was — he was a great guy. I’ve got Crumb, Henry. Henry Crumb. Augsburg raid to you. I was lucky. Bert, Bert Doughty. These were the guys that went to Augsburg. I’ve got letters from Henry Crumb, Bert Doughty, David Penman. Where are we? Oh, that’s another one from Henry Crumb. There’s another one. Augsburg raid. The chap, John Nettleton got the VC on the Augsburg raid. When the Lancaster was moved to Coltishall in Norfolk, there was a young WAAF officer who he met and he married, called Betty, and Betty Nettleton was a WAAF at, at Coltishall of all places when I went to, we did a postal cover and I had to try to find these people, and I thought well I’d like to try and find Betty Nettleton. So I made some enquiries and did some detective work, and I discovered — I’ve got a letter here from her. She worked for the National Westminster Bank Company Limited at Lombard Street, London. When I had to contact her, she didn’t know me from Adam so I thought well the best thing, is to ring her up and I got the telephone number from somebody, which was a different number on the letter she wrote to me, because I had a number of communications with her, but I’ve got this letter and the strange thing was, she said that if her husband had still be alive, he’d be turning in his grave if he’d got one to think that the Lanc was moved to Coltishall. To a fighter base from a bomber base. She wouldn’t like that at all and made that point very strongly, and the strange coincidence was that her telephone extension number at this National Westminster Bank was 474, and she didn’t realised the significance of her extension number on her telephone. It was 474 was our Lanc’s PA474 which was a coincidence. So that was Betty Nettleton. What have I got here? Oh, another one of the — Patrick Doorhill, he was another Augsburg raid survivor. There’s two letters from him. Sorry, three letters from him. What have I got one here. Oh, this is one from — “Dear Stuart”. This is very nice green-headed paper from Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Squire KC. Oh, he’s got so many titles after his name, Ministry of Defence, Chief of the Air Staff. “Dear Stuart, I’ve just heard of the magnificent effort of Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association in scanning the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s servicing manuals on to cd rom. Such a practical initiative is not only a great help to the BBMF but also displays, in a very material fashion, your interest and support for a most important part of our nation’s heritage. I would be most grateful if you would pass on my sincere thanks and congratulations to your members for a job well done. My very best wishes for your continued success. Yours sincerely, Peter Squire”, and that’s addressed to me. So that’s, those are just some letters that are tucked in the first page of the book. Well I turn the page over, I will see some names that will maybe ring a few bells with people. Page one, believe it or not, the one at the top of the page is Bob Stanford Tuck. Bob Stanford Tuck, in case you don’t know, was not a bomber pilot but he was a Battle of Britain ace. He was the original brill cream boy I’m told. He was always a very flashy type. If you, if you google Bob Stanford Tuck, you’ll see what I mean. But looking down the page we’ve got Gus Walker. Now I met Gus at Swinderby. Gus was a famous man. He was, he was a one-armed man, he lost an arm at Syerston when he was — well the story was, one story was that he walked into a propeller that was — and it took his arm off. The other story was that he’d gone to try to rescue someday from a burning aircraft, and it exploded and he’d been thrown out, so I’m not quite certain of that one. Looking down the list is Mr Chandler, 170 Squadron. We’ve got various, various names. We’ve got David Penman, David Brotherick, Bert Doughty of course. We’ve got Mary Chadwick which is — Mary Chadwick was Roy Chadwick’s widow, the mother of Rosemarie Lapham, nee Chadwick, and Margaret Dove who was his other, Roy’s elder daughter. She has been in the forefront of it, well while she was alive, parading her dad’s name around the world. Rosemary was the, some nine years younger and she’s really kept in the background until her sister died and then she’s come a little to the foreground, but they are getting, she’s getting a very old lady now as well of course. I’m sure she wouldn’t be upset if she knew I was saying that. Looking below it, would you believe it or not, I’ve got John Chatterton KMY, 44 Squadron and I’ve got underneath him is Bill Berry and he was, he’s got VNG which is 50 Squadron so they were good friends but obviously on different squadrons at the time when, when they were in operations. Some of these names that I’m struggling to read are the names of some of the chaps that survived the dams raid who are no longer with us. Now looking on the next page, the one at the top of the page is Lord Lilford. Now Lord Lilford won’t mean much to anybody except Mrs lilford, but Lord Lilford was the chap that, that bought NX611 which is now today Just Jane at East Kirkby. He bought it when it was put up for auction at Blackpool, and having left it at Blackpool for a while, he then said to the RAF, ‘You can have it as a gate guardian at Scampton providing you’ll remove it to Scampton and possibly refurbish it before it goes on the gate’. So he was responsible for it being on the gate, until it was eventually he decided to get rid of it, and the Pantons, who’d, who’d bid for it in the early stages and hadn’t bid enough, they then bought it. So it then moved to East Kirkby. Now we come to some dams people. We have Geoff Rice, Basil Fenera, Jack Buckley, they were all people that had survived the dam’s raid. I met them at Scampton and I’m not sure which one, but he had he showed me his car ignition key with a chain, a little bit of chainy stuff on it, and on it was a thing that I could say was something like that you bleed the air out of a radiator. A little key. And when they came back from the dams raid, he walked around under the aircraft and that was dangling on a lanyard and this was the key that was pulled out of the bomb when it fell off, the spinning bomb, when it fell off to make it live and as it fell away from the aircraft, it was only when that was pulled out that it became live, and he’d seen that and he just took it off and put it in his pocket, and he’d now got it on his [unclear]. I often wonder what happened to that. If somebody realised what they’d got and maybe threw it away when it was — [pause]. Underneath that, we have Ken Sneller, who I’ve remarked about before. He was the Lancaster captain when it was at Coltishall before Jacko took over. He’s put Lancaster, he’s put Lancaster captain PA474. November 1974. I’ve got Mary Stopes Roe, daughter of Barnes Wallis signed there. Somebody Smith, that could be anybody couldn’t it? I’m not sure who he is. Somebody Johnson or something. BE Johnson. HI Cousins. There’s a famous name which Dan’s looking as if he’s never heard of. Air Commodore Cousins as he was, part of the Sneider Trophy outfit. But he was, I’m not quite sure of his role, but he made a lot of, he scrounged colour film from the Americans to make a educational, not an educational — a thing to educate the RAF up and coming aircrew as to how to go about things. And the film that was slowly cobbled together, was issued on DVD and is still available today. It’s called, “Night Bombers”. You see all those Lancasters taking off from Hemswell in a row, he was responsible for that film. I did say, I said to him, there was one particular shot if people have seen that film, where they, they’ve got a Lancaster and the camera runs from the navigator, whatever, behind the pilot and it trundles through to the pilot and it moves up and down the fuselage, and I said to him, ‘How did you get that?’ And he said, ‘Oh it’s quite simple Stuart. We just took a Lancaster and carved it in half’. So they cut a Lanc down the middle and then they put, sat the man in his seat as he would be in his half and then they filmed that. And that was, that was something else. The BB — sorry — the BBC — our government didn’t have any colour film in those days, and he had to scrounge it from the Americans he said. But some of the films that were shot by him at that time were quite unique. Like Fido, lighting Fido. At that, Fido was something that hadn’t really been heard of, but Fido was the fog dispersal, whatever it was called. It was the way by burning petrol down the side of the runway to clear fog. That was the theory, but what it cost in miles per gallon I hate to think. Looking down, oh here’s one, Barnes Wallis. Barnes Wallis. Next to him, we’ve got Jacko Jackson had signed it. Below him, we’ve got one of the forces sweethearts of those days, Anne Shelton. Next to Anne Shelton, we’ve got Michael Redgrave, the actor who played Barnes Wallis in the film, so I’ve got Barnes Wallis and Michael Redgrave close together. Below Michael Redgrave, I’ve got Richard Todd who I became very friendly with. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get Guy Gibson because he was wasn’t around to sign. Pat Daniels, he was quite famous. 35 Squadron, 83 Squadron and 97 Squadron. He was — Pat Daniels I think was one of the Augsburg guys, again, I’m not, I can’t remember this. My memory’s fading a little. David Shepherd the artist has signed here, “After a memorable”, let me just get this, “After a memorable day of pure nostalgia in with PA474. Kind regards. November the 4th 1976. Coningsby”. That was the day then, David came and took photographs on which he based the painting that was, was his famous Lancaster painting, which you’ve, you’re people will have seen and I can claim that on that picture, you’ve got a fuel bowser trailer to the right — an oil bowser trailer to the right of the picture which I located for them. Belonged to a farmer, that he used to, he put diesel in it and he used it for tractors that were ploughing well away from roads and everything. And there was, what was it? A bomb trolley with no bombs on it, but the bomb trolley that I’d got collected up from a local scrapyard or some similar thing for that particular painting. But the, it was all done outside the BBMF hangar, which doesn’t appear on the actual painting because it’s, it’s David’s. The way he’s portrayed it. He wanted, I remember on the day, he wanted — he suddenly decided he wanted reflections, so they had to get the fire service. The Coningsby fire section had to attend and they had to pour gallons and gallons of water on the concrete below the Lanc and in front of it, so that he could get the reflection off the concrete of the bomber. That’s the sort of power you’ve got when you can draw out the fire service to do those sort of things. Turning the page again, well I’ve got best wishes from Brian Goulding. Good old Brian. I don’t know. The last time I heard of Brian, he wasn’t very good. Mike Garbutt his co-author has signed as well. We’ve got Johnny Johnson who’s become quite famous these days. “Best wishes Stuart”, that was John Pringle who was the engineering officer who was in charge of the refurbishment of NX611 when it went to Scampton. John Searby is another one, Air commodore, he was a master bomber on amongst the Pathfinders who put himself at risk. He was the master bomber on the raid on Peenemunde for instance, and many other big raids. I met him two or three times. Arthur Harris, Marshall of the Royal Air Force. He did sign for me when I was, when I got to speak with him down in London. Did I mention the meeting with Barnes Wallis? I was introduced to Barnes Wallis down at the RAF Museum and, ‘This is Mr Stephenson’, and he looked at me and bear in mind, he was ninety plus, and he said, ‘Oh I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard of you’, he said. And just imagine, how you meet somebody that — I mean Barnes Wallis to me, with his designs of the bombs, going up to the Swallow, his supersonic aircraft —to have him say that was just — took my breath and I couldn’t, I was lost for speech, which is unusual for me as you maybe notice. And I said, ‘Well how on earth could you have heard of me?’ And he followed that up with an even more strange thing. He said, ‘Not only have I heard of you, Mr Stephenson, I owe you a debt of gratitude’, and I thought, I don’t know what this is going to come out as but I shall going to dine out on this one forever, because this is, this is God talking to me in person almost. So I said, ‘Well you’ve got me on two. How on earth can you have heard of me and how on earth do you owe me a debt of gratitude?’ He said, ‘Well’, he said, ‘You’re the fellow who got that deflection can made so they could put the mid-upper turret on the Lancaster, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes. Yes. You’re right’, he said, ‘Well the debt of gratitude is A) that you got it done and B) that if you hadn’t got it done, they told me they were going to ask me to organise it’. I said, ‘I didn’t realise I was in competition Sir Barnes, otherwise I would maybe have surrendered’. He said, ‘Good job you didn’t because all the people that I know in sheet metal work, unfortunately they are no longer any of them with us. I have no contact with anybody at all. So’, he said, ‘I would have been in real trouble if you hadn’t done it’. So that was a good one. Unlike Sir Arthur Harris, who I met on the same day who unfortunately, and I’m not exaggerating when I say he was a very difficult man to talk to, because he appeared to be somewhere else though I was talking to him. It was very difficult to try to make a conversation, a meaningful conversation with somebody when they don’t answer any questions, and they just say yes and no and as little, seems as little as possible. I must admit I was rather overtaken by, he was wearing his best blue, which with his ranks and decorations and things that he’d achieved over the years. I think he maybe had two best blues but this one must have been a spare or something, because I was trying to talk to him and try to keep this conversation going, which wasn’t really a conversation, and I was transfixed by his blue which had an assortment of holes all over it, onto which had his various badges and ribbons and stars and clusters and things were obviously meant to fit through the holes on his coat, and have little pins in the back to hold them in place, so that when he was dressed properly, he would have all this tin work on his chest and down but he didn’t. He hadn’t put them on or he’d put the wrong coat on when he came, and I thought he’s been attacked by a fleet of killer moths. That just came in my head and I’ve remembered that ever since. Sorry. Sorry Sir Arthur, that’s mean of me to say that. Right. We’re on to Searby down. Looking down the page, I’ve got Don Bennet who of course, Don Bennet was the leader of the Pathfinders and the AOC of the Pathfinders. Next to him, just underneath Bomber Harris, we’ve got Hamish Mahaddie, who was a broad Scot of course who was likewise famous in his own right as a Pathfinder I believe, but he was the guy that put all the aircraft together for the famous film The Battle of Britain, which was a major job that. Getting those vintage aircraft together to make that film. Underneath his name is one that I’ve just told you earlier on, the letter heads, Betty Nettleton has signed the book. Now hang on a minute. Hamish Mahaddie, I’ve done Don Bennett, I’ve said him, and the last one that page is Tony Iverson, 617 Squadron. Those are the front cover pages, but I think I should have to go through the book, but some of the pictures inside the book — there’s the odd one or two that’s maybe got the odd autograph on it, because it’s something they were connected with, but I should have to have a good search for that to find it, but I really must get a note made of all these signatures because you’ve had a look at them and you know how difficult it would be to interpret some of them, because I have a struggle to interpret them some of them — who they are — myself. But there’s enough names to keep somebody with google going for quite a while to sort out who they were. These, these are just the ones sometimes I’ve not had the book with me. I’ve met. I’ve met through business, as well as the Lancaster Association, quite a few of the German side of the fence and one of the interesting ones I met was Hajo Hermann or Hajo Hermann, who was the head of German night fighters. He was asked to form a group equivalent to the Kamikaze amongst the German night fighters towards the very end of the war, but that never got going. I guess they weren’t as, quite as fanatical as the Japanese. He was, he was, he told me a good story. Before the war, well before the war started, the 1930s, he was an officer in the Army would you believe, and he, he was with his soldiers and they were trawling through a swamp, he called me, he told me and lo and behold, there was two or three chaps came up on horses and they sat on their horses watching these fellows crawl through the sludge and muck and general mess, and they were covered in it and eventually one of these people on the horse said, ‘Did you enjoy doing that?’ Not in. I’m not going into “Allo. Allo” German but, ‘Do you enjoy doing that?’ And he said, ‘No’. He didn’t really — he could think of better things to do, and this gentleman said, ‘Well why don’t you join my Luftwaffe instead? We’re just reforming’, and it was Goering. So he, he said, ‘Oh yes. I’ll bear that in mind sir’, or something. Anyway, he went back and he thought well he was due for a change, he was fed up of these swamps, so he joined. He sought out Goering and reminded him and he said he’d be pleased to, and they became friends and he joined the Luftwaffe. He was involved in the war in Spain and then later, he bombed Hull would you believe, amongst other places. He was involved in the bombing of Norway, the Blitz in London, he was involved in the Mediterranean war. He told me a story. He was — they were tasked to attack ships in the harbour, a big harbour in Greece, the name’s gone from me at the moment and they were told they’d got to drop mines in the, in the harbour. That was the task and he said he didn’t want to drop mines, he wanted to drop a bomb. So he duly disobeyed orders and he took a bomb with his mine load, and when he came to dropping the bomb, he dropped it and there was a ship moored out in the, in the harbour. I’m sure the name is going to come back to me in a minute but it won’t at the moment. It hit this ship and the resultant explosion was enormous. Apparently, it was an ammunition ship that was waiting to be unloaded, and it was called the Clan Fraser I believe. He told me. It blew the windows out in Athens which was five or six miles away. A long way away anyway. It wiped out the airport, sorry the harbour, it wiped the harbour out, and as a result, it had a dire effect on British resistance, because it was our ammunition that they’d blown up. And his aircraft was very badly damaged and he coaxed it back to his home base, and was immediately got into trouble for disobeying orders, but when it was discovered what had happened, he got a medal. But he was the only officer in the Luftwaffe, he gained equivalent rank to group captain as I understand it, and he was the only one who could walk in to Goering’s office without an appointment. He could knock on the door and walk in and nobody else could do that. He was made the chief of night fighters amongst his other, because he’d been on bombers. He’d been involved with the invasion of, I think it was Salerno, or Anzio, I’m not sure. Anzio or Salerno when they first used the Fritz X wire guided, I think it was wire guided missile which was used to great success there, and he went to Goering and he said that he’d had this idea. They’d built, Blom and Voss had built some massive flying boats, which were already flying, and his idea was that they would use these flying boats, arm them with a whole load of these Fritz X missiles, which at the speed they fly, they could sort of climb out and reattach to the wings. They would fly out in to the Atlantic, find convoys and with these things they could play havoc in a convoy. They would pop ships off left, right and centre and that would, that would be a — these aircraft were comparatively cheap to make in comparison to the cost of a submarine and its crew. The, the expenditures would — for one submarine, they could maybe build a squadron of these flying boats and Goering thought it was a brilliant idea, and he’d go and see Doenitz. So he made an appointment and he went to see Doenitz. Goering made the appointment for him I think, and when he got there, he met Doenitz coming out of his headquarters, walking down the steps and he saluted him and he said who he was. ‘Oh, you’re the gentleman that has got this idea’. And he explained it all to him and he said that he felt that this would save an awful lot of people’s lives, on submarine crews, who were having a bit of a beating by this time, and it could maybe turn the war even, because we were relying so much on these ships bringing food and arms across the Atlantic, plus building up for D-day. And apparently, having listened to it all, Doenitz reaction was, ‘So you want to be my corporal do you?’ Or something, and he said, ‘I’ll think about it’, and he turned away and it never got thought of again, because Doenitz didn’t want to lose his position as commander of U-boats. Well that was Hermann. There was another guy who was shot down, a German pilot, fighter pilot who was shot down in the Battle of Britain, whose name again eludes me, but I think I’ve got a print that he signed for me. He was shot down and he came down unconscious and he landed on a road, and he was laid on a road, when he came to and there was a crowd of people around him, and he didn’t know whether he was in France or in Italy or where he was in the UK. So there was a guy tending to him, and the guy in German said, ‘Don’t move’, and started reassuring him that he was alright and he thought, I’m in Germany or I’m in France at least, and it turned out that the fellow that was looking after him was the son of, was it Gerald Henderson as it, who was the British ambassador in Berlin when war broke out, and the son was a doctor, who was British of course, and lived in this country and a million to one chance he, he looked after this German guy who was shot down. His daddy had been the ambassador in Berlin. So that was, that was a good one. There was Winkle Brown of course, I met him a few times. Cats-eyes Cunningham. Again these, these are not bomber names. There was the guy that flew Boxcar. It doesn’t mean a thing to you does that? This was the American that dropped the bomb, was it Hiroshima the second one? Or Nagasaki?
DE: Nagasaki was the second one.
SS: Yeah. Well Boxcar was the one that dropped the bombs. I met the pilot of that who was a very nice fella, and he told me this story that they’d had, they’d gone to one place and it was covered in mist and they couldn’t see the target, so they’d gone somewhere else and by the time they’d done what they had to do to get into position, dropped the bomb and then fly back they, they was virtually running out of fuel and they literally got back and they didn’t have enough fuel hardly to get off the main runway before it stopped. But that was — his aircraft was Boxcar. Which was, which was a good one. Jimmy Dell, there was another good name that I met several times. Jimmy Dell. Little fella. Jimmy Dell was, he was a test pilot for English Electric as it was. He test flew Lightnings in their early stages. He took over or he joined Roland Beamont who I’d met, to fly a TSR2. And TSR2 Beaumont, he was the lead, he was the chief test pilot. He was, our man was second. He — the promotion occurred and our man moved up to first position. They were, they were flying test flights from Boscombe with it. He — he was involved when it was flown from Boscombe up to Wharton. The TSR2 was flown up there to demonstrate it to the people that made it, to show how good it was, and they decided that he would fly it up over through the Welsh mountains, the TSR2, at low level. Jimmy would follow him in a Lightning as a chase plane, just in case there was anything went wrong because they were taking telemetry from it, which was in its early stages in those days. They set off and he followed. The TSR took off, he followed. He tried to follow him and he couldn’t stay with him. He had to climb up to — I don’t know — some big altitude to get because it was so much buffeting in those mountains that he couldn’t live with that. Apparently the TSR2 flew through it like butter through a knife you might say. It arrived at Wharton and had landed when Jimmy comes over with the Lightning, just caught up with him. That was a good story, but Jimmy again he told me they were, they were doing a test flight and they went in the morning, and the crew chief said, ‘We’ve got a snag. You can’t fly today I’m afraid, but come back after lunch’. So they said, ‘Right’. So him and the navigator guy that he had with him, they went off to a local pub and had a pub lunch and was playing bar billiards, and the landlord said, ‘It’s the budget day today. Do you mind if I put the radio on?’ And they said no, and they were playing, and they was making the announcements, and they announced the TSR2 was cancelled, so they grabbed their flying helmets and everything, got in their car, rushed back to the airfield, ‘Are you ready to go chief? We’re ready’. ‘Sorry. It’s all cancelled’, and they couldn’t believe, he couldn’t believe it was. They’d been told it had, was cancelled immediately apparently, so they went back to his office where he’d got all his records and everything, and his office had been ransacked. They’d took all the, all the, all the records that he’d kept of the test flying and observations, and everything on it had been taken away, leaving very little on the shelves, because that was his job as chief test pilot by that time of course. And he said it was, that was the worst day of his life. And again, he was such a nice fella. They went, they broke all the jigs and everything to make so if there was a change of government, it was Labour because Denis Healey was the man. He’d apparently said it wouldn’t be cancelled before the election to keep the unions on side, and then immediately when they were voted in, it was changed. Never forgive Denis Healey for that. Nor can I forgive Lord Louis Mountbatten, because apparently the Australians were up for buying TSR2, and Lord Louis Mountbatten bad mouthed it like crazy and they backed out, and that really helped its demise. But they’d even got to the stage that they’d got a firm making these big models of TSR2 for recruiting office windows, and they, they broke, they went into the factories where they were making these models and smashed them all up. They destroyed everything on it, and Jimmy was telling me all this and he’d got this big model, and I said, ‘Well hang on. You just told me they smashed them all up’. He said, ‘Years later this was presented to me’. It was, it had been separated from all the rest. It had a dustsheet or something over it and it survived and that was, that was that one. It came to his retirement — Jimmy, and it was his last day and there was a knock on his office door, and this fella came in with a box and some stuff in it, and he said he said Jimmy said, ‘Hello’, you know and the fella introduced himself and he said, ‘Look, I’m one of the guys that had to go in your office and extract all the paperwork on the TSR2’. He said, ‘We were instructed to take it to so and so and it was all to be burned. Shredded. Destroyed’, he said, ‘But I couldn’t do it all, so I’ve brought you this’. This is what — and he had a box full of stuff that he’d kept. Gone against orders. So Jimmy, he hasn’t said what he did with that, but I guess he gave it to some museum somewhere. But he’s not with us anymore unfortunately. He banged out of a Lightning aircraft and there’s a famous picture of a tractor in a field and a Lightning coming down nose down.
DE: I’ve seen it. Yeah.
SS: That’s Jimmy Dell banged out of that. Sorry, I’ve gone on again.
DE: That’s quite alright. That’s some wonderful stories. Been talking for over two hours and that’s two hours on the tape. There was more when it was on pause. So —
SS: Have you got any more?
DE: I’m just looking. I think we’re going to have to, going to have to call it a day there anyway, but I think we’ve covered most of the questions I’ve got written down.
SS: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. No. That’s absolutely wonderful. Thank you very much. Have you anything else that you’d like to add?
SS: Well no. Personally, I’ve done my bit to help Nicki. I’ve given her quite a lot of stuff from my own collections to sell, and I’ve arranged, before we knew that charities couldn’t give to charity, I made an arrangement with the chairman of LLA that I bought stock that was maybe worth a thousand or two for twenty five quid, which I presented then to Nicki. It cost me twenty-five quid but that’s that was my donation again. That went to the LLA to pay for these things, so that it wasn’t — can’t be logged as a gift, but we maybe needn’t have to bothered with that now, if that’s — it’s on the government website if I’ve read that correctly.
DE: Yeah. We’ll have to have a look at that.
SS: But we’ve got, we’ve got this booklet coming out on the Chadwick thing.
DE: Yes.
SS: And I told you about the university and the picture.
DE: Yes.
SS: If you, if you google Roy Chadwick and go on pictures, you’ll find there’s a picture of Roy, the Lanc and the Avro badge on a landscape type painting, which we’ve got permission to put on the, use in this book.
DE: From Manchester University.
SS: Yeah. And I would imagine that’s maybe going to be a good money spinner, because it will be a book that’s only going to cost five or six quid. I sent her an email back, thanking her so much. She’s not mentioned, I asked if there was any charge when I sent the question, if there’s any charge, please let me know. She’s not mentioned that so I sent her a message back, thank you so much for your help and we were just wondering if there was going to be a charge made for us to use this. I don’t suppose there will be though.
DE: Hopefully not. Hopefully not. Well thank you for the interview. Thank you for all you’ve done for the IBCC and the things that you’ve donated, donated for us to scan.
SS: I’m pleased to help Dan, and if I can do anything else to help while I’m mobile, I will.
DE: Smashing. Thank you very much. Right. I shall press stop.
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 Stuart Stephenson MBE
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dan Ellin
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
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AStephensonS160315
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.
Coverage
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Second generation
Language
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eng
Format
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02:16:01 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Stuart was five when war broke out and recounts some of his early memories.
In the early 1970s the Lancaster PA474 was flown to RAF Waddington from RAF Henlow ostensibly to be a gate guardian. In 1973 the Lincolnshire Echo announced that it was to be moved to RAF Coltishall. A group gradually formed to oppose the move because of the Lancaster’s connections to Waddington; the Lincolnshire Lancaster Committee. A public meeting was held and the City Council agreed to adopt the Lancaster. The Lancaster moved to RAF Coltishall. The committee collected over 17,000 signatures in 15 weeks and eventually the Lancaster returned to RAF Coningsby.
The committee became Lincolnshire’s Lancaster Association so funds could be raised. While Stuart was Chair for c. 36 years, £½ million was donated to projects, including the digitisation of manuals.
Stuart describes how unfairly he felt Bomber Command and Sir Arthur Harris were treated.
Stuart lists a large number of people he has met, received letters or signatures from.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Lincolnshire
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Vivienne Tincombe
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Chadwick, Roy (1893-1947)
childhood in wartime
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
perception of bombing war
petrol bowser
Portal, Charles (1893-1971)
RAF Coltishall
RAF Coningsby
RAF Waddington
service vehicle
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/15990/EDonaldsonDWDonaldsonAH441227.2.jpg
f1cda909b4b2a397baa41a57e8099826
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
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] 11A [/inserted]
192 Squadron,
R.A.F. Station,
Foulsham,
Nr. Dereham,
Norfolk.
Ref:- 192/C.2151/P2. 27th December, 1944
Dear Group Captain,
I enclose a D.O letter from my A.O.C. which was obviously intended for you, but was sent to me in error.
Yours
D.W.D
Group Captain A.H. Donaldson, D.S.O. D.F.C, AFC,
R.A.F. Station,
Coltishall,
Norfolk.
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 David Donaldson to Group Captain A H Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
Is sending on a letter from A.O.C which was sent to David by mistake.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D W Donladson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-12-27
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonDWDonaldsonAH441227
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--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-12-27
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
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One-page typewritten letter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
RAF Coltishall
RAF Foulsham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1722/28904/AYeandleBA181229.2.mp3
2ab0b8438e291265ab84c6488aa0d64c
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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Yeandle, Bertram Arthur
B A Yeandle
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
2018-12-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Yeandle, BA
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Bertram Arthur Yeandle (b.1921, 573365 Royal Air Force) and photographs. He served as an engine / airframe fitter with 179 and 23 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Professor Susan Yeandle and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank, and today is the 29th of December 2018, and we’re in Filton, Bristol talking to Bert Yeandle about his life and times. Bert, what are your earliest recollections of life?
BY: Well, I went to school, junior school in North Petherton, and one of the interesting things about the school, I- In those days the 11+ was rather limited. There were almost forty children in my class, it were one girl and one boy, passed the scholarship and taken to the local, to the local secondary school, you know the high school sort of thing. One was, one was the postmaster's son, the other one was the local labour exchange’s daughter, so that- I- You can put that how you want it but I fancied there was a little bit of a twist somewhere.
CB: And what did you parents do?
BY: My, my mother left- Was born in 19- 1880 in about- She went to school in- She was born in Woodstock, or a place called Glympton near Woodstock in Oxfordshire, and she, she- I don’t quite know much about her schooldays but I remember she told me that she had to pay to go to school, even council school, I think they paid six pence a week they had to pay, had to take this sort of little silver sixpence to school. Anyway, eventually she left home and became a cook, and I suppose her training was through her mother, who had been that sort of thing, and she went to work at Puriton just outside Bridgewater, to the home of a reverend doctor, who had five boys, and she cooked in those days and that must’ve been about, about 1893 or something around- I think she’d be about- Well say she was about sixteen from, yeah ninety-six or seven. She was born in 19-1880 that’s be nineteen, sixteen sort of thing, about twenty-six, maybe a bit younger but that’s immaterial, and then she stayed there and my father, he was a tailor, a bespoke tailor, and he followed the trade until, it was- Until the tailoring trade was swamped by the, by the, the Jewish sort of tailors that came the Montague Burtons and the, fifty-shilling tailors and all these sorts of things, and they swamped the bespoke tailors, and there was a lot of unemployment. Anyways, father managed on, things were rather tough in the thirties for me, because father only had three, three weeks- Three days of employment by a firm of tailors in Bridgewater, three days a week and he used to do jobbing, you know, people knock at the door and say, ‘Shorten my trousers’ or, ‘Lengthen the sleeves,’ all that sort of thing, and that’s how he survived until, about 1935, he became a relieving officer- a temporary relieving officer and registrar in Bridgewater and North Petherton district, and he did- He stayed with that situation until he, until he died. He did join up in 1918, in a tailor division, I don’t know a lot about that but he, he, he didn’t- He wasn’t called up before that because there was a lot of uniforms that had to be made in the fourteen, eighteen war, they were knocked up very quickly and, so he was employed in that and eventually called him up in early parts of 1918, I think or something like that. So, he didn’t, he didn’t- he didn’t know much about it. I had one brother, my brother, he joined the RAF soon after me and he went to the, overseas, the force in France straight away. What did they call them, the?
CB: The BEF.
BY: BEF, British Ex- Yep.
CB: Expeditionary.
BY: And he stayed with them till evacuation.
CB: Right.
BY: Evacuation in May, and he didn’t come across with the boats with the masses, he travelled on a petrol bowser with a few other fellows, south of Dunkirk and came across by some boat further down Brest, or somewhere down that end, he got safely home that was that. He was- While he was there in, with the BEF he was a despatch rider and a part-time policemen sort of thing. I can tell you more about him.
CB: Ok, so-
BY: And he, he demobbed just when ’45, you know, sort of.
CB: Right, so back to your early days at school
BY: Yep
CB: Did you enjoy school? What were your-
BY: I think I did yes.
CB: - particular interests?
BY: One important thing was, half way through my school, my junior school, when I was about nine or ten, our headmaster was seriously ill, and he was taken off teaching and a temporary master came to us, who lived in Cleveland, he came down from Cleveland to take over the management, and he brought with him an Oxford University graduate, who taught his boys to play rugby, and he, he took us out and trained us, and of course North Petherton was a hot bed of rugby from 182- 1875, I think. So, they’ve had a history right through the war, all the time and still operating now, and not the same strength but there we are. So, that’s one of my earliest things, and then as father’s financial position got a little better, being in a better job, you know, more- as an assistant registrar and all that sort of thing, he sent me to a commercial school in Bridgewater, at which I, I- As you know, it specialised in bookkeeping, short-hand and I had the option of either learning French or learning Euclid and as it was, I thought Euclid sounded, well a useful sort of thing and I studied Euclid. You know what that is? A sort of offset, the sort of explanation of why something happened, why two parallel lines never meet, you know, all this sort of thing. So that went on, until I left school and, as I said, went to, work as a junior clerk in the Bristol- Bridgewater gas company. All the towns had their own private sort of organisation in those days right, and then from there on I- My, my cousin introduced me to the, to the strong points of being an apprentice, and how good it would be, and he felt certain, even though I went to a commercial school and one of the papers that we had to, we had to take to assess at Halton. You know that do you? There was three papers, English, science and, and general studies. Well, science was a problem and when I got the exam, temporary exam papers and then applied to be an apprentice, I got the temporary redundant sort of thing to see what it was, and I thought what have we here. So, I got tuition privately from a scout-master who was a teacher and he managed to struggle me through, and I passed and I was four-hundred-and-seventy-fourth out of nine-hundred-and-ten so. So, in those days, it- The pecking order was such that as you- The higher you were up the more first chance you had for the trade you turned in. So, a lot of the- you know the top ten, they went for wireless operator, mechanic, or fitter armourer or fitter two or wireless and electronic, that was the four trades of work and it worked out according to your pecking order. So, I, I was more or less, got what I wanted, and I was trained. I went to Halton and after a while, I think eighteen months they decided that they would- It was getting rather over bodied by more apprentices than they could cope with, all of us the same situation was such in Cosford, and we transferred to Cosford, and I finished my apprenticeship at Cosford, and passed out of Cosford. In about the first or second of April- March- January rather, joined Bomber Command at Harwell, that’s roughly, any more questions?
CB: Harwell in Oxfordshire?
BY: Berkshire.
CB: Berkshire it was then, now in Oxfordshire, yes.
BY: It had no, it had no runway, all the air- All the Wellingtons took off, and we, we had about, about eighteen Wellingtons and an Anson and an Oxford. These other two were for local commute, you know, flitting from one station to the other, passing a sort of good word between each station, and- Where are we now? And then
CB: So what sort of date-
BY: I started to work straight away.
CB: Yep, on what?
BY: On Wellingtons.
CB: Yes, but what-
BY: The first job I got- In those days it was- You got the normal sort of daily routine inspection, you got the thirty-hour, you got the sixty-hour and you got the a hundred-and-twenty hour inspection of aircraft, and being a fitter2 E, engines were my speciality, so I was put with another experienced young man, and we had to take an engine out of, out of the Wellington and put a new one in, that was my first job, and then it went on from there and then, you know, various- But I must say at this stage that it was quite interesting, as we came to the hangar every morning, in the middle distance were the Berkshire Downs and invariably every day you’d see a white patch in there, which is a crashed aircraft. Burnt up by the cadmin[?], you know, what the structure was made out, you know, ‘cause they were flying at twenty-hours and twenty-five hours, no experience at all, and then in 19- They had to get airmen in the air, in ’40, some survived that were better than others but- And that was- But, as time ran on there as normal daily work and we obviously, that the RAF, or Bomber Command as every other command, very conscious of the, of the sabotage which was occurring out in airfields and things like that, and there was guards placed in the insert and outs of the hangar in the first six months of 1940, you know, for- We just didn’t know what was happening, or they didn’t know, and eventually we run up to, to Dunkirk. Now as soon as Dunkirk was sort of settled, within about- When all the ones that were able, were home to their homes or their units and such like, there was that fear of paratroopers. So, we had set up in various teams of about twenty, and we had to man the airfield at an hour before dawn, till two hours after dawn armed with fifty rounds of ammunition, waiting for the parachutes to come. Fortunately, they never came. So- But we’re there waiting and being a lad of nineteen, you know, you had that fear of- You’re out- ‘Cause differing at nineteen, and one of us twenty-five and thirty and go on doesn’t it, and you know, I thought it would be a good job have a shot at these people dangling down with a canopy above ‘em, but it never happened, and then that eased off and we’re on Wellingtons, carrying on ‘cause I think we had about seventeen or eighteen there, and as I told you before we- Our job was in the early stages of March, April, May, May sort of thing was bombing, was nickel bombing or leaflets, propaganda, you know, distribute all over Berlin and all other places like that, and I wish I’d salvaged a couple and got them now, they were interesting to see but we just flung them in the dustbin as it was, you know, you’re- And that was it until, until it came- Now where are we now? I’ve lost my self a little bit.
CB: Just stop a minute.
BY: In, I’d never heard of it before, the Flight Sergeant Warrant Officer in charge of the hangar, who was the boss and you know, you know that sort of, the power they had, you know, they’d do this that and other, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you must do this, you know, that sort of business, and he was, he was a West Indian, and in those days, you know, when you met a coloured man, you- It was unusual, and he was a boss there, and he was the boss all the time I was there. I don’t- What it- Where he ended up, I don’t know, but he was very efficient. There’s no doubt about that. So that’s-
CB: How did he get on with the-
BY: I think he got on very well, we, we respected him, you didn’t- You respected authority in those days but we were, we were sort of brought up at Halton to sort of respect authority, you know, and-
CB: So, you arrived at the airfield, what did they do as soon as you arrived?
BY: Well I mean we’d already gone through the fundamentals of- Medicals and all that sort at Halton, you know, we’d had a very good briefing there, we’d learnt a lot about air force law, and drill ‘cause we- Friday afternoons was the drill, Monday- Wednesday afternoons was sports afternoon, Friday afternoons was ceremonial drill, and in between we were taken to a study room to read- to study, or be read the air force law to us, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do, and of course we got the King’s Shilling at the time.
CB: At Harwell?
BY: At Harwell, yeah.
CB: So, you arrive, it’s one of the expansion period air fields-
BY: Oh, it was yeah
CB: -so it’s well set up-
BY: Well, I don’t know whether you- You’re aware of this but Lord Trenchard in 19- When he was the head of the metropolitan police, he looks at the Air Force and he said, ‘We’re all behind, we’re backward,’ compared to the Germans and all- ‘We’ve got to get a force of grammar school boys,’ and especially grammar, ‘who’ll take an examination, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and fit them and train them to be the ground force of the RAF regardless’.
CB: Yep.
BY: Regardless at the time, you know, what- But there was quite a few people that applied for aircrew at that time and then after about- And I applied but I was, I was a bit late in applying, and at that time the Air Ministry said, ‘Right no more ground crew, we’re not going to spend money training you people for two-and-a-half, three years, and send you off flying and lose you in, in no time’. So, they focused- I don’t quite know what they- How they focussed their attacks on getting more aircrew into Bomber Command and Fighter Command and all the communication and, you know, air sea rescue and all this sort of thing. Not air sea rescue, command control they called it, not air sea rescue, command control.
CB: Coastal Command?
BY: Yeah, Coastal Command, yes.
CB: Well, it was expanding fast.
BY: Yeah, and so he, he emphasised that we gotta get- We’re having an entry of every two months- Every two year, every May- Twice a year.
CB: Yes
BY: Twice a year.
CB: Into Halton?
BY: Into Halton, and Halton was getting a bit overloaded it was four big squadrons there then and we- Then they formed us into five squadron, and we- Then they took us to Cosford, but we had the same standard of education and we all had to go and get the same trade test as well. We had to go to- In those days we had to get a trade test as well so, before you passed out into your squadrons or whatever, and a good job- A good majority of us, you know, had to what they called the warning of going overseas, and I went overseas on the 1st of January- Well I, I left home, left my father and mother on the 1st of January 1941.
CB: Right. Can we just go back to the Halton bit?
BY: Yep
CB: Because it’s quite important here, I think. What was the routine? You’re young, you’re sixteen, you join the air force and you’re in a barrack block-
BY: Yes, indeed.
CB: -with a dormitory, so how many people in the dormitory?
BY: About thirty, and being a clerk before I joined up, most had come straight from school.
CB: Yes
BY: I was the, room clerk so I had to take a name, address and next of kin and all that. So that was my job which in a way was a better job than doing the ablutions or, you know, dust under the bed and, you know, that sort of thing, centre floor. So that was my job and that was the first thing we did at when we got- We had be registered and then what information, detail went to the office and all that sort of thing. Of course, we- All letters home had to be censored, and it started on from there.
CB: Was there censorship before the war?
BY: No, no, not to my knowledge.
CB: Right. When you, when you got up in the morning, what time of day was that?
BY: Six-thirty.
CB: Ok, then what?
BY: Six-thirty, and breakfast was half-past seven to half-past eight all properly dressed, no nonsense. Three mornings a week, we had to get up at six and that was for PT. Not very strenuous but get some fresh air and running out, loosening your limbs from lying in bed. Our bed time, for the first year, was nine-thirty, we had to be in bed by nine-thirty and lights out at ten o’ clock. It was no smoking until you were eighteen, and then you only smoked in certain parts. Lights out, as I say and as the next year went on until we left, you carried on the same routine. I think the- I think we could, light’s out was at ten o’ clock, but we still carried on a routine of breakfast, to the hangar, orderly dressed, if you didn’t- If you weren't orderly dressed- I mean I was caught once wearing a pair of red socks, somebody saw me, took my name and I was jankers, you know what that is?
CB: Yes, so you, well you’d better explain- What are jankers?
BY: [Laughs] Well jankers, first of all you had to report to the guard room, with your best blue on at six o’ clock, at night, and a nine o’ clock. You were inspected by the, by the orderly officer or the sergeant, and which then were detailed to the severity of your crime, into the cookhouse to scrub the floor or, do any duties that were necessary there, and that’s really what it worked out to be. So you were punished, you either got three days or seven days. If you were a really naughty boy and done something really serious you might be sent out to a, a sort of home where they vetted you and gave you a suitable punishment. I remember one situation, I can recall where we took an engine out of- Took a pega- ‘Cause the Pegasus and in-lines used in the Wellington at that time, as a sort of spare. What they could get hold of really, suitable, and this fellow, he had to drain the oil obviously, and he disconnected the oil and the engine, under the coupling to the and shot it out, and shot off the, oil of the tank which was remaining in the petrol tank, I think it was about thirty gallons of oil in this petrol tank and the-
CB: Oil tank, yeah.
BY: And instead of just screwing the thing up, he poked a bit of rag in first of all and screwed it up, eventually the aircraft crashed because the next person undid the union, connected up to the engine, are you with me?
CB: He didn’t know that there was a rag in there.
BY: He didn’t know that there was a rag in there, and that obstructed the flow, and the aircraft crashed because there was a seizure on the engine and he was sent up to field punishment camp.
CB: What happened to the crew?
BY: The crew, I believe were killed. I wouldn’t like to say for definite on that, the aircraft definitely crashed.
CB: A thing like that’s very serious, so to what extent would the- At what point would a court-martial be convened for that sort of thing?
BY: Well, you’d go there- I expect- I don’t know whether, whether it was tantamount to a court-martial, I think it is. If you were sent to the- What is it, what was I, called the name? The home?
CB: The punishment.
BY: The punishment home, if you were sent there the odds are that you would take a service court-martial.
CB: Right.
BY: And every time you were a minor punishment, like I just mentioned what I did with my socks or, you know, I- You had to go in front the CO, and wait in a corridor ten minutes and let him get his breath and you’d get your breath back, and you march in and salute him and all that sort of thing and, the charge was there, with the corporal and sergeant that had found you, that sort of thing, you know, that sort of thing. But, you know, it taught us discipline, and it taught us how to- You know, you got to draw the line sometime, you can’t do what you like, you were treated well, the food was very good in wartime and right up to- Food was very good. Our education, we had twenty-five hours at workshop and fifteen hours in schools, and I always remember the first, the first day at school- We were presented with, the unification of- The one before, oh I don’t, I can’t think of the name, but it was quite severe. I was out of touch really, and I- We sat in, in a order in the schools, alphabetically, so the fellow sat beside me was a brighter boy than I was and he was a good lad and he used to help me a little bit with my sort of, you know, sneaking across a piece of paper and the answer to one of the things. Unification of something, what is it? What is that, a receive before, before algebra? Anyway, it was quite severe and, our history was about the air force, how it was formed, what the blue means and all that sort of thing and the various stations around the company and the general studies was about the various historical, which would affect the air force. We had a good sort of grounding there.
CB: So when did you actually join the apprentice scheme at Halton? It was ’37 entry, when was that?
BY: January ’38.
CB: Right.
BY: I had to report in January ’38. I took the examination in Weston-Super-Mare, in I suppose about- I think it was about September, something like that.
CB: Yeah, and then the course finished after how many years?
BY: Well, the course finished just under two years, we didn’t do the three years because the situation was such that they wanted to cram as much in as they possibly could, you know, we used a few more hours and with a little bit more private study and all that sort of thing. So-But on balance the boys that stayed at Halton, or the ones at Cosford finished at the same time, with the same ability.
CB: Yeah
BY: Group one, we were group one tradesmen, a Fitter2. At this stage, after the war, I with about, about seven or eight-hundred other ones, got converted. You see I was qualified at that time- When I passed out, I was qualified to do any job, to do with the engines, aircraft engines, take the prop off, all that sort of thing, hydraulics and various numatics, and such like. The other tradesmen had their sort of- We never touched any armaments or that was their job, and the wires, nothing to do with that sort of thing.
CB: So you were technically an engine fitter?
BY: And then after the war, I did one year's course to convert me to the air frame side of it, so consequently when I left- We had this course at Locking, RAF Locking in Weston-Super-Mare and when I left that one, I was qualified to do anything on any aircraft you see. That was very handy for the airport because during my time at Halton- At Harwell, there were always visiting aircraft coming in, and if you were a duty flight you had to see to them and deal to them, see what they wanted and see them off. Usually, the crew stayed in the mess or the officers mess or the sergeants mess, that night and off they went for somewhere else. So that was our responsibility, to deal with any visiting aircraft.
CB: And what extra training did you get while you were at Harwell on modern aircraft? Was the Wellington-
BY: We studied, we studied the in-line engine and we studied the radial engine at Halton.
CB: Yes.
BY: In fact we started off studying Morris motors engine.
CB: Did you?
BY: That was our first job, you know, when they introduced us to the internal combustion engines. So, they started off that and we learnt what, you know, what- How tappets worked and the valves and- I mean I didn’t have a clue when I, when I came, sort of thing, but you soon pick it up don’t you?
CB: Well, it was good training wasn’t it?
BY: Oh absolutely, ‘cause I would- And even Geoff will tell you the same thing, the best time of his life was at- In the boy’s service, you know, the apprentice service.
CB: Now talking about that, we talked about you being in a room in the barrack block, thirty people. Was there a corporal in a room at the end in his own?
BY: Oh yes, yes.
CB: So how did that work, there’s a single room at the end with a corporal in it?
BY: Yes, I can remember his name, Corporal Ratcliffe his name was, he was our corporal in boy’s service. He was a very nice chap, he was a sergeant apprentice.
CB: Oh
BY: And he- In one of the earlier entries obviously.
CB: Yes, yeah.
BY: And he was- Well he just kept order, you know, if we lost anything it was up to him to sort it out, and any real complaints we went to him and he would carry the complaint on to, you know, his senior sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, so he controlled the room.
BY: He did control it, but, every morning the orderly sergeant came in at half-past six and shouted, if anyone was in bed, they didn’t stay in bed very long.
CB: So, you get up and you wash, what do you do about the beds?
BY: Oh, it’s most important, folded up your blanket, two blankets and a sheet, a pair of sheets, folded up neatly, stacked up- Our beds were Macdonald[?] beds, sort of-
CB: Two billows deep?
BY: Yeah, close them up to a sort of a sitting distance, sort of thing, from that, from that distance down to there, and you had to pack your, your blankets and your alternate levels and make it look tidy, and your pyjamas on there. The-
CB: Then there was a-
BY: Then the laundry business. We had two avenues for our laundry, the laundry was our boiler suits, ‘cause we all wore boiler- And do you know, we had to wear a tie then, in the hangar room all the time, collar and tie, it's crazy isn’t it? But we had to wear it, if you see anything on the pictures, you see- So we had a [unclear] avenue, a special bag with our names, that was most important, you had to get your names on all your equipment, and then for the other bag, for your- What you called you domestic, was your towels, I think we had two lots, two towels a week and shirts, collars and detachable-
CB: Detachable collar, yes.
BY: Socks, and basic things in that thing, and your sheets. Oh, the sheets went in another basket that’s right, they went into another basket.
CB: How many pairs of sheets did you get a week?
BY: Oh we used to get- I think we got clean sheets, real clean sheets every fortnight.
CB: Right, yeah.
BY: I think that’s what we had to do. So, that was an alternative sort of, pack your bag with washing.
CB: So, there was an inspection of the beds, and the blankets every morning?
BY: The orderly officer came round every morning, while we were on parade. We- And to go to the hangar we paraded at half-past eight in our lines, you had to answer your call- Answer, it was a roll call, and then we- In the boys service we had to march to our schools or our workshop but when we got to the squadron, to 148 Squadron I was on, we just more or less- We just walked to the hangar, and the Warrant Officer he knew who was who sort of thing, he knew who was missing and then, and then in those days we had a restroom, we’d a break and restroom in which we had a chap who wasn’t an apprentice and he was responsible for making the tea and, he had an avenue of going out and getting tea- What we called tea and wads for us, and he made us feel- And we had to pay him, I don’t know, pay a tuppence a week or something like that, he made a living out of that, sort of thing, subsidises his letter income, and the money we got, in the boys service, was a shilling a day. Right, and we could allocate four shillings of that to the post office, to the post office or any other form that your parents wish you. So that’s the sort of- When we went on holiday, our end of term, which was about twelve or fourteen weeks, we would get instead of picking up three shillings at the pay table, we would pick up about ten, eleven pounds just, you know, to satisfy, to go and-
CB: A lot of money in those days.
BY: It was a lot of money, but didn’t seem to last for long ‘cause we had to find our own soap, our own toothpaste, our own chocolate and toothbrushes to [unclear], but the [unclear], hairbrushes, combs you had to find ‘cause they were always being lost, or, you know, that sort of thing, so we made this- And then there quite a little bit of trading going on, you know, if you got broke say you’ll borrow a shilling for one sixpence to return, sort of thing [chuckles] it’s funny really. Mind you, all this is- I’m trying to talk- Remember eighty years ago, you know.
CB: Exactly. Now on that, because this is so different from today-
BY: Oh I don’t- I-
CB: When you went to eat, where did you eat? This is at Halton, where did you eat?
BY: In the cookhouse, what we called the cookhouse.
CB: Right, how big was that?
BY: Oh quite a big place, but it had to, to accommodate sort of each squadron.
CB: And the squadron was how many people?
BY: Hundred-and-twenty, hundred-and-fifty, that sort of thing. I might be inaccurate by that, these numbers, my mind might forget little-
CB: And the menu was-
BY: The menu was very good
CB: - was fixed or, choice?
BY: We had a good breakfast, a good lunch and at tea-time we had cake, and bread and butter and jam, and syrup was always on the table. It- When I got to the squadron, I’d been put on night flying, the night flying duties were as such, you did a day- We’ll say night flying was on Monday night, you got to the hangar Monday morning, you would do your job, you’d be working on the aircraft which is flying that night, and every aircraft that fly that night had to have night flying test. So aircraft had to fly in the afternoon, late afternoon and the pilot would check it and do- He didn’t- They only did a sort of large circuit and all that sort of thing, and if it's come back it was all right, if it’s a small item, it was put right and then you were called according to the time of day, I mean night flying would start- This time of year it would start about 7 o’ clock, and [unclear] the pilots would do- Or the air [unclear] would do two sorties. Three hours, come back, refuel and another three hours, maybe two hours, it depends on what the circumstances were. So, I mean, you know, that was a night flying programme. I know I'm a bit disjointed but you can all sort this, when you read it I'm sure. And then on occasion- This is interesting, when you were on night flying duty, or in duty crew, you had to see any aircraft in and sometimes they came in at night and they would land in between two rows of flare paths, and the flare path, no electrics, it was like a paraffin watering can with wick coming out the spout [chuckles] yes, you’re smiling, this is true though, and the line I think was about twenty
CB: This is paraffin?
BY: Paraffin, and the aircraft would land in between that, and it was a tedious job you had to go, you know, you might- We didn’t have a vehicle to do everything, mostly the vehicles were for driving the petrol bowsers about, so you couldn’t do that, but to go to one end of the airfield to the other you had to walk, or bicycle, or whatever, and- So we had to put these flare paths out then, when it was daylight, they all had to come in, it would be twiched[?] and checked- Make sure they’re serviceable for the next night, it was everything. But, it’s a bit hazardous sometimes, if one had blown over or something like that, and you were told by the flying control to go out and see to that, take another one out, and, you know the RT wasn’t all that clever, and if you had to land with something, you know at that time- Pretty precarious.
CB: So how was the communication on the airport- field? Was it- ‘Cause there was no radio so was it done by flash light?
BY: Yep
CB: Or morse code?
BY: Aldis lamp
CB: Yeah, aldis lamp?
BY: It- The aircraft would come in and flash the green light if it’s ok, and you would reply with that. If, wasn’t- If you weren’t ready, it was a red light and they’d have to go round and come again, sort of thing like- That was the basic sort of thing. Where are we now?
CB: So as you’re onto that, what communication did you actually have with the aircrew themselves?
BY: Very good. They were, you know, more or less you were- Your aircraft was his aircraft and his aircraft were yours and, you know, you saw him off, he knew you and that sort of thing.
CB: Were you normally in communication, ‘cause there are five or six people on the Wellington, so were you talking to the pilot?
BY: Oh yes, well mainly- We talked to the pilot and the navigator and they would come up, but mainly the pilot because he’d know the condition of the engine, if there was anything wrong or if there was a mag drop or no oil pressure or, or the heating was not, not good, it was overheating sort of thing, and-The armourers, if it was, if it was- Had to be armed they, they trolleyed in with their weapons and opened the bomb doors and, did that sort of thing, so it- We all had- It was very organised and there was the petrol bowsers- for starting up, you’d plug in, you know, and make sure the battery was charged there, that sort of thing. The trolley acc’s, we used to call pushed them out there.
CB: Yeah, so the trolley acc is a trolley accumulator to start the engine isn’t it?
BY: Yeah, and at night-time you got into a routine and when you saw the aircraft come in you had two lights sort of thing, you’d wave them in sort of thing. In those days the connection between the ground crew and aircrew was very good, extremely good- Well they- You were responsible for their safety and they were responsible, you know, for the safety in flying, you know.
CB: You had responsibility for certain aircraft only, not all of them?
BY: Well, it depended Chris, you know, how long we, you know- What the situation was, every day is different.
CB: Yep.
BY: So that takes us up to- And then our first bombing on this aircraft- On this airfield. I was in the cockpit and I remember quite vividly what I was doing. I was adjusting the controls to the elevators from the cockpit, and I was- And suddenly there was a- The air warden siren went and I could just see bombers going down the, sort of runway line dropping sort of bombs, not very big, they didn’t do much damage. But after that they decided this was dangerous, we’re gonna- One of these days it’s gonna hit the hangar, they’re either going to bomb the hangar or they’re going to bomb headquarters. So every night at the end of the day we were bussed out to a village called East Hendred, which was the home of the race horse stables, ‘cause that was a hot race- Newbury and all that areas, and we lived in stables there for quite a long while. Right until the end, until I went overseas, and all we had in these stables- But we, we were fed by bus to the, to the unit, come- You know, we had our meal in the evening before we left, and we were taken down for our breakfast in the morning, sort of thing. But, the heating in the- All we had in the stables was two beds and blankets, as I told you, two blankets and sheets- No we didn’t have sheets, we had blankets, just blankets, and in the corner was a sort of shelf which they used to put the hay, stack the hay in and we used to put our bits and pieces in there or, and we had no heating except valor heating, valor stoves do you remember the valor stoves? You remember them Chris, don’t you?
CB: Oh yes, yeah.
BY: And that would heat our water to have a good wash and shave at night.
CB: You just put it on top?
BY: Yeah, and it was only two of us to a stable, so it was enough on a big bowl to wipe our, and then we wandered off in the evening to the village- East Hendred is a place, you’ll see it on a map now, it was a very-
CB: I know it well.
BY: You know it well?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
BY: And it was a stables, the owner was a man called Bell, Dr Bell I think, he owned a string- And another thing, we used to see the horses go across in the very early hours of the morning being led off in the downs, you know, in the distance. Nowhere near the airport, but it was a good country to live in really.
CB: What about the social life?
BY: The social life wasn’t very much, really, well we had a NAAFI, and we used to go in there and we could- There was a couple billiard tables and that sort of thing, we played billiards quite often. You just took your turn with it, dartboards, crib boards and table skittles, all that sort of thing, and we were after a while allowed to go out in the village and have a drink and all that sort of thing. It, you know- All blackout mind, severe blackout, it was quite fun at times but you know where you are, you know.
CB: But the local towns were not exactly on the doorstep, so the nearest one was Abingdon really, so did you get to Abingdon?
BY: No, it was good, you know, looking back now. I can think quite a lot about it now. But this carried on more or less, you know, until we were called for- What were they called? Advanced order for overseas, and they told us, it was about November that we were going overseas. So we had some warning to tell our parents and all that sort of thing.
CB: Is this 1940, ’40?
BY: This is the end of 1940, December 1940.
CB: Right.
BY: And then we set off, and when we went off there, we went to Hednesford, and we assembled at Hednesford. When we, when we had our date to ride- Mine was the 25th of January, and it was at the other entry, or the other group was 18th of January, so they took it in two- There was too many to- It was eight-hundred, to many to manage straight away so that's how we worked it out. We had assembly at Hednesford, and then we were entrained to Didcot, and when we got to Didcot we sort of- There was a coach to take us to Halton.
CB: What was your most memorable recollection, would you say, of being in Bomber Command at Harwell?
BY: Well, my servicing of aircraft there, the general tidying up of the- After an aircraft came back from their sorties, they were tidied up, got a lot of these pamphlets, these nickel sort of things hanging around-
CB: Yes, it was called nickelling wasn’t it?
BY: Yeah, and they were dated, you know, each- I think they were re-written every- Or printed about every fortnight or something like that.
CB: In your recollection how did the crew react to dropping leaflets instead of bombs?
BY: Well, I don’t know, most of them were not all that experienced, because after a while a bomber got introduced to the fifteen- It became the fifteen OTU Operational Training Unit, and that sort of combined, the activity of Bomber Command and Training Command under the umbrella of Bomber Command.
CB: Yeah, to increase their effectiveness they formed the Operational Training Unit.
BY: That’s right yeah. Well, they were so concerned, the Air Ministry were so concerned about the number of pilots they were losing and crews in respect of Bomber Command and every other aircraft, they were losing aircraft very quickly. Thank goodness there was such thing as University Air Force Squadrons, you know, all the squadrons and they supplied, and the pilots that were trained mostly through gliding before the war, they were very much, they filled the gap.
CB: They were so desperate for aircrew but they couldn’t fill the gaps.
BY: Absolutely, and of course- And then when, then- We’ll go on now- Shall we leave now and go onto the-
CB: Yes, let’s just go back to Halton, let’s just go back to the Halton bit because this actually is fundamental to your whole career isn’t it?
BY: Oh it is, it was. It was the making of me.
CB: Yes, so we talked about the, the mechanics of getting up in the morning and the disciplined aspects but you had breakfast which was until eight-thirty.
BY: Well, we had to be on parade at eight-thirty.
CB: Eight-thirty parade, so how long was the parade?
BY: And you had to be buttons cleaned, hat badge clean, you know, and, sort of thing, I mean a lot of that was done the night before, if you’re not careful.
CB: Yeah, yeah, and were you good at spit and polish on your toecaps?
BY: Oh yeah, well, well they were clean, they- We didn’t come up to the army guards, that sort of thing, but they had to be clean, you know, and haircuts, short-haircut. I mean there’s one story about- I don’t know how true this is, a Warrant Officer used to walk around the bill with a pair of clippers in his hand and if he saw a chap with long hair, he’d just run a little avenue at the back of his head, and he’d have to go-
CB: On one side only.
BY: And there was the camp barber, of course.
CB: Yep.
BY: He was a civilian. There was also a place where you could get your shoes [unclear], but didn’t very often get your shoes ‘cause they were good quality boots. We had boots first of all.
CB: Did you have to-
BY: Hurt my feet first of all, but you soldiered on sort of thing.
CB: So, the parade would last how long in the morning?
BY: Oh now, very quickly. The order was, the orderly officer and the orderly sergeant would be posted at the end of the square, with the [unclear] and reveille would be sounded there and then, and then the flag would be hoisted to its position, and then (I was telling the boys about this the other night) the orderly officer would call the parade to attention, that was a whole wing parade that was, quite a lot of boys there, apprentices, and then they would say ‘Fall out the Roman Catholics and Jews,’ and they had- And we all had to go, or whoever it was, in that denomination and get on with this- We had to go to the back of the square and face the opposite direction, while the padre appeared, said a prayer and that was it, sort of thing, and then this would last for a few minutes and then we were called back, and we’d have to sort of about turn, march back sensibly and take our position in the ranks and- And at any time, if you weren’t on the parade and when- At night-time, I think it was about an hour before dark, the last post was sounded, and you had to stand still if you were in sight of it. You didn’t have to salute or did you have to? No, you didn’t- Had to stand still. I mean this is the sort of thing- Can you imagine a sixteen-year-old now wanting to do that sort of thing? They’d laugh you all the way down the road, wouldn’t they? I mean we did it normally.
CB: Yeah, part of the discipline
BY: And felt proud, you know, we all did it together. We’d talk, you know- There was an awful lot of gossip, and we’d play cards, and things like that in the barrack room, but we didn’t play- But in the NAAFI, it was quite a- There was a games room in which there was plenty of, you know-
CB: Quite a hum?
BY: Oh yeah.
CB: And what could you drink in the NAAFI?
BY: Ah, now, only tea and coffee, tea and cocoa, tea and cocoa and, and-
CB: No beers?
BY: No beers, not to my knowledge, not in the boys service.
CB: ‘Cause of the age we’re talking about?
BY: Yeah, the boys service-
CB: Under eighteen.
BY: Or no smoking, you might nip away to the drying room, have a crafty cigarette, but if you were caught you were in, you were-
CB: In for jankers really?
BY: Jankers, with a yellow band round your arm.
CB: Clear identity.
BY: Clear identity.
CB: What about Sunday’s then? Church parade?
BY: Sunday’s, yes, church parade and we all had to- Every Sunday was church parade and we went to ours- Sometimes they had to march to Albrighton when we were at Cosford or, I don’t know where we went at Halton, oh I think there was a, there was two churches at Halton and we had the services there, but it was a quiet day sort of thing. The rest of the day you could do what you like, go back to your billet, go to bed or- And look, you had to attend your meals at a certain time or you didn’t get any. It was usually I think from twelve to half-past-one or something like that, and I always remember at tea time we always had a nice slice of beef and a slice of ham, and there was cakes on the table and there was bread and butter and there was jam, you know, not marmite, I don’t think things like that, but there was syrup, treacle we used to call it, sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, and would you have a dinner later?
BY: No, no. That- not on a Sunday that was the end, but we had a dinner at six o’ clock, so that was our last thing.
CB: So you had tea time and then dinner?
BY: Yes, yeah.
CB: In the weekday.
BY: Yep, weekday yeah. Sunday’s was exception really but we didn’t, you know, I suppose that depended on the, sort of, the manpower of the cooks and people there. They had to have time off and-
CB: And how did you get on with the local population when you went out of the camp?
BY: Oh very well, we had to- When you went out you had to wear a uniform, so you knew who you were and it was a long time before you could go out in mufti sort of thing. I think on the whole, it was, really seemed good. They knew, they knew- I mean the local population they knew what had gone on sort of thing. In Didcot, you know, in the shops they knew who you were and all this sort of thing.
CB: Yeah, so when you’re on station then, so when you were in Harwell, going out then that wasn’t the same sort of restriction ‘cause a) you are adult and b) you are part of the RAF?
BY: That’s right, that’s right, yeah. You had- You could smoke then if you wanted to, and- I can’t remember. Yes, I think we could go into a pub, I think. I don’t- I’m not certain about that, I won’t say one thing or the other.
CB: But you had to be in uniform whatever?
BY: Yes, yeah. In those days.
CB: Yeah, so what was the competition for social events with aircrew?
BY: Oh, there was inter-squadron football, rugby, hockey, cross-country, you know, all that sort of thing, on a Wednesday afternoon, and on Friday afternoons, ceremonial drill, and the bagpipes had their ribbons, they were all dressed up and a band drummer and there was a separate barrack room for the band. If you were in the band, you lived there. You were still in the [unclear] squadron but, domestically you lived there mainly for practicing for- The noise, trumpets and all the various instruments they had, it would be enclosed in that barrack, you wouldn’t disturb the others, and we had rooms for private sort of study, where you could go if you were- Hadn’t done very well in your subjects and you were- Had to smarten up and all that sort of thing.
CB: So at Hal-
BY: We had a very good library and-
CB: That’s at Har- At Halton?
BY: Yeah.
CB: At Harwell-
BY: I can’t remember much about- It was a working town there. You had to get down to it you know-
CB: Harwell is twenty-four-seven isn’t it?
BY: Absolutely.
CB: Because it’s wartime, every day is the working day. So how did you get a day off, was it sometimes- Was it on a rota or what?
BY: I think we get a weekend now and again on a rota sort of thing.
CB: Because flying would carry on at the weekend as well as daytime, weekday.
BY: That’s right yeah, and it was easy- And in those days you could go outside the camp and somebody would pick you up, I mean you would hitch hike from Harwell down to, down to Bridgewater and- Quite easily. You might have eight or nine [unclear] and people would- Who were driving they- It was the exception if you had a vehicle, a trade vehicle, it would stop and pick you up, there was no compulsory, all that sort of thing.
CB: So what we’re talking about, you were nineteen when you- At Harwell, and then-
BY: Well, I was twenty-one, I had my twentieth birthday I think when I was at Harwell.
CB: Still at Harwell?
BY: Yeah
CB: Yeah.
BY: So in the time when we to field the- load our rifles with fifty rounds of ammunition hoping to shoot a parachutist down, you know, somewhere round my birthday sort of thing.
CB: So what sort of training had you had for shooting?
BY: Oh, we used to go- We had to- You had a training place where you got- You could practice two-hundred-yards and five-hundred-yards. But that was well-managed and you had to be very careful-
CB: That was off the airfield?
BY: Oh yes, yeah, and of course, all the guns at the time were kept in the armoury, we never had any guns in the billets or anything, firearms and all that sort of thing, it were all in the armoury and that was pretty well guarded, you had to go in and sign for the gun or whatever, the number and-
CB: When the war started, often aircraft were put away in the hangars at night, what happened at Harwell?
BY: Well, in most places, in Halton- Well mainly talking about Harwell, places we had a sort of open-ended sort of shelter, built of sandbags for the aircraft to go in just in case there was a- [unclear] shrapnel or whatever, damage and, but one or two was damaged and we lost one or two at Harwell, obviously, aircraft. But latter on in my- After the war days I mean, we lost very few planes, most of the pilots were very, very accomplished and very [unclear] because they survived the war and a lot of them had got glider training.
CB: Oh, glider training. Let’s just pause there for a bit. So, Air Force Law, how much did you get of that? At Halton?
BY: Well, you had confidentiality of any activities that were on the camp, like bombing raids, or things like that, never, I suppose it was violated so many times but that was the rule. Air Force Law, what to wear, the history- It was a book about that thick, it was the air force bible sort of thing, and it went right through from the early days of the amalgamation of the-
CB: The Royal Flying Corps
BY: -the army, the naval and-
CB: The Naval Air Service-
BY: - and the Air Force as in those- 1918 when it was started properly and it was a book and all that- It was read to us and we could ask questions and, it’s a difficult question being asked of law. There were rules and regulations which, kept the service as a service sort of thing. I can’t stipulate exactly what they were but I mean, they were rules such as that.
CB: Well, we had the original Official Secrets Act?
BY: Yes, that’s right.
CB: How was that described to you?
BY: Well, that was read to us.
CB: Right.
BY: And there was a notice up on every barrack room entry and all that sort of thing, and beside that was a fire bucket, two fire buckets, one was sand- Or two with sand, ready to put out any fire and a sort of a fire extinguisher on a hook beside in the barrack rooms. So that was, that was one of the laws of things about safety. The laws of safety, the laws of sort of discipline, there was laws of confidentiality, cleanliness and, you know- And of course the other thing that we had quite frequently was VD inspections. You had to stand in a line, drop your trousers and they would- The Medical Officer would come round and check all that sort of thing, you know, and that- I don’t think that mattered too much when we were in the boys service but when we got into Bomber Command that was in- Well that was the natural because, I don’t know if you read any of the book of Bomber Command, they- A lot of them were terribly-
CB: Infected?
BY: Well, I’ve got a book in there it’s, I’ve forgotten what his name is but it’s one of the most in-depth sorts of stories that you can read about what happened in Bomber Command, the crews- The couldn’t care less once they, you know, they focused on their job at question. Their lives at- Anything else was-
CB: Life expectancy was so short.
BY: Yeah. They didn’t know whether they were coming back or not, they were coming back it was jolly good but if they didn’t, you know- And of course they were all young men a lot of them were all, twenty-two, my cousin was only twenty-two.
CB: And the term station bicycle, was running in those days?
BY: Is that- Yes oh yes, well sort of thing, I know what you mean, I know exactly what you mean.
CB: What about security, where-
BY: Oh security, you got in trouble if you broke out. You had to be in at all levels, in the boys service you had to be in by, I think it was ten o’ clock at night. You had to be in your billet by ten o’ clock.
CB: Well, part of the legal aspect, was also related to a comment you made earlier about sabotage, so what was the issue with sabotage and who were these saboteurs, potentially?
BY: Well, the German aircraft, the German prisoner of wars that were already captured and were in camps in England and wherever, and they all wore a special uniform, of big yellow patch on their elbow and something. They would recognise them quite easily, sort of thing, but- And they did a lot of good work because they were put to work you see, building walls and things like that, and all sorts of things. But I think the main worry about the whole service aspect was, the shortage of food because you see, I haven’t spoken to you about this but my trip on the troop ship was- I can tell you quite a bit about that but the, the U-boats- that were shot down, or sunk rather in the North Atlantic in February, March was amazing, and they were carrying food from Canada, from America, from South Africa, from anywhere, the West Indies, wherever they could get food to England, and, you know, that’s why the drive for dig for victory, you know that slogan? You know, that- Everybody had- I mean sports field, stadiums were ripped up and turned into allotments-
CB: And on the airfield itself, there was a vegetable growing patch was there? And also-
BY: No I can’t remember one really, the only thing I remember was a tremendous sort of- On every camp was petrol dump and that was guarded and surrounded and, you know, all- Every security was made to maintain that, sort of thing.
CB: And the coal dump?
BY: Oh yeah, yeah. I’ll get the boys get another cup-
CB: Ok we’ll stop there. When we were talking about law earlier, there’s Civil Law and Air Force Law but the concentration was really on Air Force Law, to what extent did you learn about Civil Law as well?
BY: Well, I feel that, if you committed a crime and the crime reached a certain level it would have to be tried by Civil Law as well, and- Does that help?
CB: Yeah. It was just putting things into context wasn’t it?
BY: Yes, I mean- May I put it another way, that the Air Force, or the services are not solely responsible for the law of the land.
CB: No
BY: It assists obviously, and they guide and the sort of, you know, they do all the speed work for it, but at the end of the day it’s the same as all laws- I mean it seems that, that [unclear] does, all goes through but they don’t always take note of stuff ‘cause they don’t know, they don’t understand it, I mean she’s been at that game for- What is she now? Sixty-nine, she’s been on it thirty years.
CB: Your daughter?
BY: Yes.
CB: But in the air force context, then it's always stressed is it not that the ultimate sanction they have is the courts-martial?
BY: Correct, yes that’s right.
CB: We’ll stop there for a mo.
BY: The war, only as- When they were in captive, not how they were kept, and what conditions they met led up to them being captive for what they were doing, sort of thing, I can’t say any more than that.
CB: Where were they housed? When you were at Harwell, where were they housed?
BY: To be quite honest I can’t tell you, I didn’t see- I saw more of them later on in the service life.
CB: Yeah.
BY: When I came back from overseas, I was- Because they didn’t get out- They didn’t get home straight away, sort of thing, they, on their own.
CB: No, but in the early stages then we’ve got aircrew who’d been shot down and that sort of thing.
BY: I think the majority of the prisoner of wars didn’t want anything- They were quite happy, they were fed well, they, you know, they had communication to- That’s another thing, we didn’t have any communications you see, nothing at all it was no- There was no- Or might be how today, I mean, things happen so quickly now.
CB: Yeah.
BY: Don’t they and I mean-
CB: Were your parents allowed to know where you were serving in the RAF?
BY: Oh yes, oh yeah, they knew where I was staying but they didn’t know anything about- ‘Cause the only information that I had with them was by- We used, what they called aerograph[?], it was a sort of a, I don’t know how it worked but I presume it was telephone- By telephone to some paper company in England and sort of transgressed that way.
CB: This is when you were abroad?
BY: Oh yeah.
CB: But when you were at home, that is to say at Harwell-
BY: Well at Harwell, I came home quite- Several days- Several weekends, that was several weekend- I suppose I came home- I was there best part of a year and I suppose I came home about three times that year. So I had some idea- Did we have our tea? Fair minded answer he could’ve given me.
CB: Yes, the parents supported you but they- Indirectly.
BY: Yeah, at Halton they- I think they wrote to the padre and found out how I was getting on, so- But mind you, on the first day when we went to Halton there was quite a few went back by train the next morning. I don’t want to live in-
CB: I can believe it, yeah.
BY: I don’t want to live in a situation like this.
CB: Yeah, even though it’s- Well in peacetime they had the choice.
BY: Oh yeah, yeah.
CB: Yeah, when I joined a man left after one night ‘cause he couldn’t stand being in a dormitory. When the war started-
BY: I wonder what he would’ve been like in the stable?
CB: Oh, nightmare.
BY: Oswald Bell, that’s the man, Oswald Bell he was the owner of a fleet of horses in that part, East Hendred and-
CB: When the war started in September ’39 you were still at Cosford, when did the control of letters start?
BY: Oh when I went overseas.
CB: Right. Not when you were in the UK?
BY: No, I don’t think so, I can’t remember so. But, I mean, I had the- In those days you could ring up home I think, but once you got abroad that was it sort of thing.
CB: Yeah.
BY: Do you want me to tell you a little bit about troop ship life?
CB: We do, so where did you embark?
BY: From Liverpool, and we went- I told you we assembled at Hednesford and we all marched to- ‘Cause in those days there was a railway station right on the quayside at Liverpool. I think well, I don’t know where the dock was, or, well it doesn’t matter what the name of the dock was, but we all assembled there and we all looked up and we said (there was about fifteen-hundred of us) ‘Are we sailing that thing?’. It was an eight or nine-thousand pound boat, used to be hauling before the war, before the Air Ministry got hold of it, was hauling sort of meat from south of- Argentina to Britain ‘cause we had a lot of meat from Argentina before the war, you know, and anyway, we looked at that thing and we turned round, then were down at the gangplank an’ we were marched up there, and there was not- It was amazing, well it beggars belief, that to house twelve to fifteen-hundred men, there was about five toilets, there was no proper mess decks where we could sit down and have our meals. It was a shambles, and, fortunately we had one officer- We had beside tradesmen, this fifteen-hundred tradesmen we had three balloon squadrons there, it was- There were not very many in the squadron but the leader of the balloon squadron was a, was an officer called Garry Marsh, he was a film star, he made several films if you go through the film industry you’ll see his name and he was Bill [unclear] and all these sort of things, and he stood by us and he said, ‘This is not on,’ he said, and he allowed us, or encouraged us to walk down the gangplank and walk of the ship, and we all walked off the ship down the- Nearly everybody walked off, and there was a crowd on the quayside and here and there, there was an embarkation officer who’s duty was to, to deal with the shipping of troops onto the boats and they were prancing around with their revolvers hanging round their neck. There was a- This lasted for about three or four hours and they decided, the Air Ministry in their wisdom (and I do say wisdom) decided- So they sent us back on the train again to a place called- I can’t think of the name of it- In, not very far, about twenty miles away in Lancashire and they kept us there for a fortnight while the people, carpenters, you know, various people, sorted out the mess. The boat was left to be expected, to sail around the world in, sort of thing, and eventually we, we were housed- Next time we were marshalled up, and we were- I think there were soldiers there, so making sure that we didn’t start running. Now go up the gangplank, went up the gangplank, we’d been to- No Hednesford, was it Macclesfield, anyway we’ll say it was Macclesfield, it doesn’t matter the name of the place. We were there a fortnight, and the air force law was tramped down to us, what we should’ve done, it was, it was, you know, to mutiny- It was a mutinous act and all that, without, you know, despite what the circumstances were. I mean it was a non-starter right from the go of it, the- Anyway, when we went back the second time, we were made certain we went up the gangplank, and the gangplank was pulled up very quickly and it parked out about three-hundred yards off the shore, so we couldn’t get back, and this was in first week in January- First week of February, I think. But before the Captain of the boat had orders to move off and join the convoy the other side of- We went over the top of Ireland into the Atlantic, North Atlantic. When the Captain of the- I mean a small sort of powered lighter / launcher came on with an MP, the local MP, and a Minister of Health or something like that to see it was fit for us to go, and he must’ve said ‘Yes,’ and off we went. Anyway, we got clear and went to the high seas on the North Atlantic, cold, windy, wet, oh miserable it was. I can always remember it, and there were four ships there, four troop ships waiting to go, ranked on the horizon by three or four capital naval ships, HMS- I forget- Three- Two of them were dreadnought and other one was cruisers, you know, that sort of thing, and they- And once we got away from the shore every day the controller of the naval boats would indicate to the Captain of each troop ship where we had to sail, how we had to- And we were sailing, one day we were going east, one day we were going west, it was like a [unclear]. They knew where the submarines were, they knew where the activity of the U-boats were, especially at night, and it took us fifteen days to get from Liverpool to Sierra Leone, Freetown in Sierra Leone. It’s not called Sierra Leone now is it, what’s it called now?
CB: It is called Sierra Leone.
BY: Is it?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
BY: And, and during that time we were- We all slept in hammocks, shoulder to shoulder, [unclear] you know, and of course when the boat rolled, you were- You can, well I don’t need to explain, you can imagine can’t you? People close to- head high. And that’s how we carried on. But as soon as we- And we weren’t allowed ashore, I suppose they thought, ‘This is a [unclear] lot, we’re not gonna let these people get ashore,’ they- We were anchored off about half-a-mile away from shore at Freetown, and- While some sort of, operation or conference carried on, we don’t know what, but what we do know is what we saw, was little boats coming out, young lads about fifteen or sixteen kind of boys, local boys- Boats were full of oranges, lemons, bananas, grapes and- What their technique was, you see, they came up to the boat, they were allowed to come up to the boat and they had, they had another basket which they would attach to a rope, they’d fling the basket up to somebody leaning over the taffrail, catch onto it, put their money in, sixpence or a shilling, and what you got for a shilling was amazing, sort of thing, and then you’d send the empty basket down carefully, with the money in, and then they would put the goods in it, up it’d come again and- And that carried on for best part of a couple of days. So we were getting stuff from these people unofficially, but we were happy to pay for it. I think, I think the most you paid was a shilling or half a crown or- I think some people who had money- But that was the end of- But then we carried on then, it was all peaceful then to go down to the Cape, there were massive boats, there was bunting flying off the ships all- There was no restriction of the- You weren’t allowed to smoke in the North Atlantic in the first fifteen days, I think it was a little bit more then fifteen- It was fifteen days we didn’t see land, and through the zig-zagging sort of direction which we came from to avoid the enemy, and at night you see we used to hear the depth charges going.
CB: Oh did you?
BY: Yeah, every night there were depth charges and submarine gunning for, you know, all that sort of thing, and fortunately we were lucky but a boat before us, in- Was sunk down and about thee-hundred went down, you know, you didn’t hear much about it, well the public didn’t know much about it. But- And the waves were cold, and the waves and the boats were going up like that, you see pictures of it now but- They were up to twenty feet sometimes-
CB: Were they really? Yeah.
BY: You know and-
CB: Not comfortable.
BY: That wasn’t comfortable that, but I think most of us were frightened, we were really frightened because we were there- We were defenceless, we didn’t have any armours, arms, we were just on that boat, and we had the handicap of what was flung at us by the, by the German naval people. But-
CB: So what did you do all day on the ship?
BY: Well we had- There was lots of little, all the- They made certain that we- There was quite a few people and the cookhouse was on a wire cage on the deck, open deck. This is hard to believe, you wouldn’t think- but- and I might be able to show you some of the information on- And then there was guards for spotting periscopes, or spotting any enemy ship which might’ve drifted into that way or any happening on the [unclear], on conditions of weather and if there was a- So we were occupied by doing sort of duties all the time, not all the time because there was a lot of- We could sit down in the mess decks down under and play cards or play games or draughts or whatever, chess or whatever. We passed the time away like that, and then eventually we got to Durban and we were allowed ashore there. We were there for a week, so we could leave the boat from twelve o’ clock mid-day to twelve o’ clock in the morning, to twelve o’clock at night, have to go back to the ship, back to our hammocks and all that sort of thing. But, in the meantime there was a scheme in Durban, and I think this applied to a lot of the South African sides, course the apartheid was very strong at that time, very much strong, and these English people or, we’ll call them white South African, they sort of encouraged- And I was going along with two fellows, two RAF fellows and two army chaps and they said, ‘Can we take you somewhere to give you a meal?’ and oh, you know, yes we could see there was some, you know- No, no restrictions there so were went with them, then we went to their house for the day, for the evening and they took us back to the boat at night and that sort of scheme, and that carried on for about five or six days, and they contacted to our parents, they wrote to our parents as civilians-to-civilians. So our parents knew roughly that we were all right as far as Durban was concerned, and then it was all back up through the Mozambique Channel, to the Suez Canal and we alighted at Port Suez, and then all stand- Hang around there for days and days, we didn’t get any money for a while, you know how it is. Everything was done alphabetically, and I was a ‘Y’ so I had to wait for my money till the second day or something, something like that, and then eventually it all- They already- There was some former thingy gone on, they had some workshops built there, they didn’t have the equipment all together or they, they- Some other boats must’ve brought in- But we had machine tools and things, and very soon after about a fortnight, three weeks, we started servicing Allison engines, twelve cylinder American engines which were fitted to-
CB: To Kittyhawk's?
BY: Kittyhawk's, Tomahawks. Tomahawks were the first one, then the Kittyhawk's, and also there were three sections, there was the Allison section which was the inline section, there was the Cyclone section which was a radial and the Pratt & Whitney section was also, Pratt & Whitney. So these three sorts of lines working at top speed, twelve-hour shifts to service them. A lot of them were coming in, in packages- The Americans sent them over to Takoradi somehow and they used to come through Deversoir back to where we were in Kasfareet just couple of miles outside the Suez Canal so, and there was plenty of workers, plenty of things to assemble and fit, and they all had to be tested as well so. Some were assembled by- If an aircraft came in with an engine to be changed, well the engine would be taken out and a new one would be put in and that sort of thing, and- So there was plenty of activity there, and this activity went on at the height of the war in the desert war, and they had several sort of Commander-in-Chief, who weren’t very good until Montgomery came along, he sorted all that out. He was a queer man really, I mean he would- He lived by himself in a tent with his batman and didn’t associate with anyone else but he was, he was a very keen operator, he knew and- Nearest we get to- Got to the line was about ten miles away at [unclear], they came down to us. So, it could’ve been a, a nasty episode and then that carried on, carried on and things got easier, lots of activity in the desert, sometimes some of us had to go into the desert to do a job and back again sort of thing, and then eventually we, we landed, or we’d driven by truck in a convoy of about hundred vehicles along to coast road of North Africa to Tripoli. Now a lot of people say there’s only- There’s two Tripoli’s, there’s Tripoli in Palestine or that part of the world, there’s another Tripoli in North Africa, and we went to the one in North Africa, which was quite well equipped because Mussolini spent a lot of time and he, his- He had some good thing about him, Mussolini, he colonised a lot of North Africa and he got work for the tribesman there and he got their, he got their side [unclear]- Anyway, it come to the point- It was three factories there, there was a Alfa Romeo factory, there was a- What was the other one? Well-known name, car factory, and we took over one of the car factories, and that was well equipped with everything we wanted and then we eventually transferred to Centaurus engines assembly centre- Which we then had cooperation with Bomber Command because they were flying and a lot of our work was down to 87 Squadron, I think it was, Beaufighters. You know, we- And then I was there a little while and then they flew us back again to Naples, and then come across again in a troop ship, another open ship over there, or a smaller ship and we carried on and then by that time, the British Army had conquered North Africa and then we’re talking about now 1942, ‘43 sort of thing, and then they moved across to Naples then, basically, and we settled in Naples and we did the same work there in Naples and- I was there at Naples for about eighteen months doing the same sort of work, you know, and- Enjoyed life ‘cause it was a bit easier and we had, we had better sort of living conditions in Italy, and I stayed there till Easter ‘45. So, I left my mother and father at the 1st of January 1941, and I never saw them again, I never spoke to them again till Easter ‘45. That’s a long time, now if you were married, you only stayed three years but I stayed four years and- Four years plus, and of course I should’ve come home on a bit- I got injured playing sport sort of thing, so I had to take- It was one troop used to go back in the 1940s to England every year, every month see, one troop out a month, so I had to stay back another month, not that I worried really ‘cause I was quite happy there and I had a nice little house, room overlooking the bay of Naples and could see Sorrento in- Sorrento were in far away and Capri were in high- You could see- It was a wonderful place to stay, so these are the plus sides of things, you know.
CB: How much work did you get done?
BY: Oh a lot of work, we had to work hard there. I mean ‘cause of continuous work coming in from the western desert-
CB: Is this damage, or servicing?
BY: Oh yes, damage some damage and some, quite ridiculous. I remember one case an aircraft was flown in, and the people that dealt it did very well, it was a piece of shrapnel, or bullet or something, gone through one side of the, one of the cylinders, and it went right through outside and out the other side and some clever fellow, he sort of made the two holes, rounded them either side, he poked a piece of tube in right the way through and then he drove two wooden spits into either side, and that aircraft flew back.
CB: Did it really?
BY: Yeah, it’s amazing that, I mean the pilot took a chance but he succeeded because the circulation of fluid in the twelve engines. But they were they were cheaper and easier to assemble then the Rolls Royce were, they weren’t so complicated. But- Where do we go from here?
CB: Right, so how long did you stay out there? So, we’re talking about getting into Naples then the Italian surrender-
BY: I got into Naples on October ’43, and I stayed there to Easter ’45, and we stayed in a vacated- What do they call them? Where people go mad. An asylum, it was quite a big hospital and we turned that into a proper workshop, where we could service aircraft and send them out, and all that sort of thing, any small items had to be done and- I think spares were the problem ‘cause they had to come from the UK. But they eventually did get because-
CB: Which of the aircraft-
BY: At that time, I think just about- I’m not quite certain what the date was when it- When the Mediterranean was cleared for English shipping to come through. I think it was ’44, I think. Or would it be, sometime when they were- When the invasion of Europe was, sometime-
CB: Well, they invaded Southern France after D-Day, so that meant that the Mediterranean was reasonably-
BY: I’m not certain about those facts Chris, but-
CB: What aircraft are you servicing now?
BY: For Beaufighters.
CB: Right, still Beaufighters.
BY: Yep, Beaufighters. They were the main things, ‘cause we were in sections so all our work was done- I was working on Allisons all the time see.
CB: And are these Coastal Command by now or are they Bomber Command- Middle East Air Force?
BY: They were Bomber Command, they were Bomber Command, well-
CB: Middle East Air Force?
BY: I’m not certain about that ‘cause they policed the Mediterranean for a long time.
CB: Were they rocket firing or, were they bomb dropping?
BY: They were bomb dropping and rocket firing yeah, but some of the, some of the very well-known pilots were killed in that, in that place because when the Mediterranean came under the control of the allies, parts of southern, the southern side of that below Israelia, Heliopolis[?] and all these places were still sort of under the jurisdiction of the Germans really, but that was soon cleared up and-
CB: The Vichy French?
BY: Yeah, that’s right yeah. But eventually it sorted itself out and-
CB: But in Italy, you were in the Naples area, but how far north did you go from Naples?
BY: Not very far.
CB: Right, and then where did you go from Naples?
BY: Naples, I went back to North Africa for a while, when the Centaurus came in because a team of Bristol aeroplane specialists came over to give us indication of the servicing, the stripping and the, you know, general of the Centaurus, which was a sleeve valve engine, and-
CB: Though, retro fitted to the Beaufighters were they?
BY: I don’t know are they? Yes, I think there were and I don’t know what other aircraft the fitted to, Buccaneers or something like that.
CB: No, no that’s a post-war-
BY: But while we were at sea coming or going out or- We would often see these pre-war, sort of aircraft flying around, you know. It’s quite amazing.
CB: So then, when did you return to the UK?
BY: As I said, April, Easter ‘45. I then went there to St Eval in Cornwall and 179 Squadron and they had, what’s the name- But their job was- And as we were at St Eval, war ended, European war ended.
CB: Ok.
BY: And the job was for- Our job was to go to every, every- The Atlantic or any of the waterways and direct the, any German vessels or whatever to enter English ports, and that was our job and, I was only there about two months and then, I was posted to Accrington in North of England, Northumberland on 213 Squadron then we went- That was a night fighter squadron, then- From then on my last four years in the Air Force was in night fighters, and that was-
CB: Were these nights fighter or were they interdictors who went in the bomber stream?
BY: They were all Mosquitos, latterly we had the Jet Age came in just as I was leaving, and that was an Armstrong Whitley fighter. You don’t hear much of ‘em but that’s what we had first of all, I’ve got a picture of them somewhere but-
Other: A jet plane?
BY: Hm?
Other: A jet plane?
BY: Oh yes.
CB: I’ll just stop there a bit.
BY: -14 Squadron-
CB: Which was at Accrington was it?
BY: No, no, this is at Coltishall.
CB: Oh Coltishall, ok.
BY: Which is now closed, near Norwich.
CB: Yep.
BY: I had a call to go the officers mess, and when I got there, it was the Squadron Leader there, a VR, volunteer reserve on- He’d come to visit the CO, it was a- Well they were doing a sort of volunteer’s activity on the weekends in those days, and I- And he called me and he said to me, he said, ‘I understand you’re,’ this is what he said to me, ‘I understand you’re leaving the Air Force in the next month or so.’ I said, ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m now married and I want to raise a family and I feel that if I raise a family in, you know, civilian life it might be more advantageous.’ Anyway, I said, ‘My wife is a school-teacher in Bristol and, good school and, I don’t want to upset her sort of way of life’. ‘Oh that’s fair enough,’ he said, he said and he said, any-rate, he asked me a few questions then he said, ‘I you like-,’ he gave me a card, he said, ‘You come and see so and so on such and such a date, we’ll find something for you,’ so I said, ‘Oh what have you got in mind?’ ‘Oh,” he said, ‘We’re building up our sales unit.’ So I said to him straight away, ‘Well I don’t want to go on selling things,’ I said, ‘That’s not me,’ I said, ‘I’d rather, I joined the Air Force to learn about mechanics and sort of how to use my hands and how to use machine tools and, all the other things that go with that sort of life.’
CB: Yeah.
BY: So he said, ‘Well I tell you what,’ he said, ‘If you were still wanting to carry on and be turner, or slotter or,’ you know, all these sorts of things, he said, ‘We’re starting a small shop.’ And there was seven of us, not a very big shop it was, but we were there on our own, just the seven of us and we had quite a few machine tools in there, everything from presses to sort of, everything which was needed to do anything in the engineering, more or less, on a small scale [unclear], and, ‘Would you like to join that?’ I said, ‘Well that sounds, that sounds more my line.’ So I started there, I stayed there with them till I retired. But the beautiful thing about- Everyday- Now what we were doing, basically, the technicians in those days, I mean, in the drawing office, people were drawing, they were tracing and all that sort of- Well nowadays they don’t do that at all it’s all done electronic as you well know. What they were doing, the drawers would come to us with an idea to make something, to design something ‘cause this is unguided weapons ‘cause there was a lot of hard work in the early days of weapons to make certain everything was, you know, spot on and weight and all that sort of thing. So we used to get [unclear] of drawings come in to do that, some on ordinary paper, some on blueprints, mostly in blueprints and then you would, you know, study them, or and that was it. Some jobs would take a day, some days two days, sometimes a fortnight sort of thing, and every job was different, and some of this work it was the pre, what’s the word, before something goes into designing?
Other: Prototype?
BY: Hm?
Other: Prototype?
BY: Prototype, that’s the name. Before the prototype, we were getting everything before the prototype. Now in that case it was a lot of, well that’s not what we want or, that didn’t sort of suit us or that didn’t work out when it was tested, and we had a big cellar underneath and we’d just drop it underneath and wait for the next idea to come from them. So it was- I stayed with them because I found it interesting.
CB: What was the company?
BY: Bristol Air, Guided Weapons Department, and I stayed doing that, people say, ’Well you should’ve gone, you should apply for this and apply for that and gone or.’ I’m a believer in job satisfaction rather than job achievement, maybe I'm old fashioned, maybe I'm wrong, but here I am.
CB: Didn’t do you any harm did it?
BY: No.
CB: And you enjoyed the work?
BY: I enjoyed the work and I found it interesting.
CB: And you rose up in the-
BY: Well, I mean, I mean, your ability, and what is more you see, people are always coming down to us and saying, ‘Something’s wrong with my motorbike, I want a new bush or something,’ you know, and we would turn out a new bush for him or that sort of thing and he would give us half a crown or whatever. You know, I miss all that, and to make things for myself you know, odd times but my- But really and truly, all the time I was with them I was occupied all the day long.
CB: And you enjoyed it?
BY: Yeah.
CB: Now you’ve got three children, where did you meet your wife?
BY: I met my wife, first of all, her father’s a farmer and mother- She’s the youngest of seven children so, how can I put it? She was- She used to come home from Bristol to a place called Othery, which is not very far away, near Langport, you’ve heard of Langport, near Langport, to the farm, and help her mother every Friday or Saturday. She’d come round Friday evening and stay to Sunday night, go back to school on Monday morning, and at the same time I was at Locking, on this one year's course, fitter one's course.
CB: Yep, Weston-Super-Mare
BY: And we used to go up by train, she went back by train and we met on the station, I happened- In the old days the corridor trains, you know, you sort of meet and talk to people and- I used to see her several Sunday nights and then I wrote to her, she wrote to me I don’t quite know and it all started from there, and we got married this was 1948 sometime, ‘cause that was the year I was at Locking and then 1949 September we were married, and she was still teaching and then we bought this house, how much do you think I gave for this house?
CB: When?
BY: 19- I was what? 19- In 1951, I was thirty, it must’ve been about 1956 I bought it.
CB: Crikey
BY: 1956.
CB: Well less than-
Other: Thousand?
BY: Hmm?
Other: Thousand?
BY: Two-thousand- No.
CB: Was it?
BY: I bought it for two-thousand-and-fifty, it’s now worth-
CB: A bit more?
BY: A bit more, a lot more.
CB: Yeah, what do you reckon it’s worth now?
BY: Well, the house next door is empty, my neighbour next door she died not very long ago, couple of months ago and she’d lived there for sixty years.
CB: Gosh.
BY: And her house sold I think for three-eighty, three-hundred-and-eighty-thousand.
Other: [Chuckles]
CB: Amazing.
BY: I mean it’s ridiculous really.
CB: Yeah.
BY: And maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I'll tell you this. I came out of the Air Force with a thousand quid in my pocket. My wife, I used to send to my wife my Marriage Allowance ‘cause I was married for eighteen months. So she had about over a thousand. I was about five-hundred pounds short for buying the house so I went to the bank manager and he lent it to me and about three months we cleared our loan, I never had a mortgage on this house other than-
CB: Amazing.
BY: And I, you know, I think of my young boys there- Two of them living in London, well you know what it’s like.
CB: Yeah,
BY: It’s frightening
CB: Absolutely, nothing for a million.
BY: Nothing at all, and I tell them what they’re going to do I think, ‘cause one, John, that’s the one that his wife, or his partner really, she’s an Executive, she’s a bright girl, she’s in the Save The Children organisation. Good job with them earning good money, I don’t know what she’s earning but they’re thinking about- At the present moment they’re living in London and paying rent and I said to them, you know, ‘It’s better to buy somewhere, and pay your mortgage, because you have got something at the end of it, whereas you paying rent is just money down the drain’.
CB: That’s right, yeah.
BY: And John is working in London, he works for England’s Rugby Union
CB: Oh, does he?
BY: That’s John, so they’re all- But they’ve all got jobs and they’re coping alright and David’s retired but he’s got his own business he goes, ‘course he was well known in a lot of the people in London, reporters and the Editor of the Financial Times quite well, you know, ‘cause he was a spokesman for Engineer Employers Federation-
CB: Oh yeah, got around a bit.
BY: And he said to me, when he found out David retired ‘cause David he’s got MS as well.
CB: Yes, nasty.
BY: Doesn’t walk very well, and this chap said, you know, he said ‘You want to start a business on your own, just going round chairing meetings’ and that’s what he does.
CB: Oh does he really?
BY: He chairs meetings, goes round- So he must be good at it.
CB: Yeah, how intriguing.
BY: You gotta be firm when you’re a Chairman, not let them, let the sort of syllabus wander on and wander on, you’ll be there all night otherwise, but that’s what he’s doing now, and he does- He’s his own boss he can go when he likes and he lives in, in Southampton, goes up to London quite frequently and most of these businesses down in London ‘cause he said to me, ‘I know more people in London then I do in Southhampton,’ but-
CB: We’ve covered a lot of things and early one you mentioned a passion for rugby? So what’s happened to your rugby life?
BY: Well, my rugby life, first of all started off learning- I come from a rugby village but, and I played quite a bit in the services, I was always in the station team and then I played in that- I tell you what, I’ve got a cap in there with a tassel on it, because there was a competition between the eight Commands; Fighter, Bomber, Tech Training, Flying Training, [unclear], what’s the [unclear].
CB: And Coastal?
BY: Coastal Command, it was quite- And they all have got a big command, there were a lot of men in the Air Force in those days in- This is 19- 1942 I think- No, no 1950 something and, so I- We had- They saw I was capable so they selected me out from Coltishall and I went with others and we assembled at Uxbridge as a Command side, and we played this competition against all the other Commands and we won it outright you see, and we had a hell of a time when we won ‘cause we were invited to Bentley Priory, and had a big- I think there was about, eight or nine officers and there was one All-Black was a player, there was one current in National playing in the side- So there, you know- They all knew what it’s all about sort of thing and we had a wonderful time and I’ve got a few photographs, you’ve seen one or two there and I’ve got a cap, they sent me a cap with the excuse, ‘We’re short of money, normally our caps are made of velvet but I’m sorry,’ but they got it printed on there, I’ll show you in a minute before you go.
CB: So when-
BY: And in between I played for Bridgewater and Albion, and I’ve played for Weston-Super-Mare, I’ve played for Devonport Services, I guested for Norwich and Lowestoft when I was over at Coltishall and so, you know, I’ve been around a little bit. Fortunately, I’m still here Chris, to tell the tale.
CB: Really good, yeah. Well Bert Yeandle, thank you very much for a most interesting conversation-
BY: Well I hope I’ve been- I hope it makes sense for your-
CB: I think it will fit really well, thank you.
BY: Do you? Really?
CB: We do, absolutely, thank you.
BY: Mostly-
CB: Your engines?
BY: Well the first engine I worked was a trainee engine, was a Morris Motors car, yep, that was in training, but then we came out I worked on Centaur, Pegasus, Merlins, Griffins, what’s the other ones?
CB: Derwent?
BY: Derwent, yes.
CB: Jet?
BY: I’m not very, I haven’t seen a lot of Jet engines because when I came out of the Air Force, I went into guided weapons you see, so that was the slight-
CB: So you were really a rockets man as well?
BY: Yeah.
Other: In terms of beauty, which would you say was the most beautiful engine you’ve worked on?
BY: Oh, the Rolls Royce, no doubt about it. It’s the most efficient, yeah, and I’ve worked- A lot of aircraft I’ve worked on, all sort of aircraft you know, Spitfires and Hurricanes, a little bit of Hurricanes, and Mosquitos are the aircraft I spent a lot of time on, and Wellingtons early on. They were not very good, you know, Wellingtons. Well in hindsight they’re not very- They were at the time, I mean, industry moves on, technicians move on and development moves on but I mean, an awful lot of aircraft that were built that were rubbish really and now when you compare with what there is at the latter part of the prop jets. See I came over, I flew over from Belfast to East Midlands just now, came over on a prop jet.
CB: Oh, did you?
BY: Hundred people on it, so they still use them, not that I- Fleebye-
CB: Flybe.
BY: Flybe, but I like to fly with [unclear] the one, yeah. Well-
CB: Thank you.
BY: I should’ve liked to of given you a cooked meal.
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 Bertram Arthur Yeandle
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-12-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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01:53:57 Audio Recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AYeandleBA181229
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.
Egypt
Great Britain
Italy
Libya
North Africa
Egypt--Suez Canal
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Norfolk
England--Somerset
England--Oxford
England--Shropshire
Italy--Naples
Libya--Tripoli
England--Oxfordshire
Description
An account of the resource
After leaving school, Bertram Yeandle joined the RAF apprentice scheme and trained as an engine fitter at RAF Halton. After completing his apprenticeship at RAF Cosford, he was posted to 148 Squadron, RAF Harwell, where he serviced Wellingtons. In January 1941, Yeandle was posted overseas. He describes his journey via Sierra Leone and Durban and servicing Allison engines near the Suez Canal. He then travelled to Tripoli, North Africa, where he serviced Centaurus engines for Beaufighters. In 1943, he was posted to Naples, Italy, and service aircraft there until Easter 1945. Finally, Yeandle describes his post-war life, including meeting his wife, competing in an RAF rugby competition, and working in weapon development after leaving the air force.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Jean Massie
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
148 Squadron
Anson
Beaufighter
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
hangar
Oxford
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cosford
RAF Halton
RAF Harwell
RAF Locking
RAF St Eval
sport
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/579/31571/MHarrisonJC1590954-180706-04.1.jpg
07e7f2c080d7750f4b3de3a41156de10
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Harrison, John
J Harrison
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, J
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with John Harrison (1924 - 2017), his log book, correspondence, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Harrison 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
2015-08-09
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MOC/C. [underlined]TELEGRAM EN CLAIR[/underlined] 19/30
[underlined]IMMEDIATE – NOTWT[/underlined]
TO: - 43 GROUP SALVAGE OXFORD; 54 MU CAMBRIDGE;
AM KINGSWAY; HQBC; HQ NO 5 GROUP; NO 106 SQDN METHERINGHAM; RECORDS GLOUCESTER
FROM: - COLTISHALL.
RECD. A.M.C.S. 0601 HOURS, 30TH DECEMBER, 1943.
A625 30/DEC/1943 REPORTING F.B.
(A) [underlined]LANCASTER AIRCRAFT MARK III NO [?]D593[/underlined]
(B) 106 SQUADRON METHERINGHAM.
(C) COLTISHALL AERODROME 00.18 HRS 30/DECEMBER/43. DARK.
[4 lines indecipherable]
(E) P/O WORTHY NORFOLK AND NORWICH HOSPITAL REMAINDER COLISHALL.
(F) NORMAL BOMBER EQUIPMENT.
(G) [underlined]AIRCRAFT DAMAGED BY ENEMY ACTION A I B NO.[/underlined]
(H) CAT ‘B’ PROVISIONAL FUSELAGE AND MAINPLANE DAMAGE E A SALVAGE NO.
(K) KINNOT.
(L) NIL.
TIME OF ORIGIN : - 30/0400A HOURS.
CRASH CIRCULATION.
P.4. CAS. (10 COPIES).
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 serious damage notification
Description
An account of the resource
Telegram sent by RAF Coltishall to the authorities, Air Ministry, 43 Group Salvage Oxford, 54 Base, HQBC No 5 Group, No 106 Squadron, Records Gloucester. Informing them that Lancaster ED593 had landed at Coltishall having been damaged on an operation.
John Harrison was a crew member on this aircraft, the flight engineer was killed and the wireless operator injured.
Additional information about this item was kindly provided by the donor.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-12-30
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page typed telegram
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MHarrisonJC1590954-180706-04
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-12-30
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
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.
106 Squadron
aircrew
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 3
RAF Coltishall
RAF Metheringham
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1822/32382/MWellsRG1686349-170403-020001.1.jpg
66e3f5957afbe158b20371bfba82ddc5
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1822/32382/MWellsRG1686349-170403-020002.1.jpg
1885e8254db5adcdbac59c4cd39df8ae
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
Wells, Ray
R G Wells
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wells, RG
Description
An account of the resource
51 items. The collection concerns (1686349 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs in a separate album. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 158 Squadron. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2029">Wells, Ray. Album</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Carole Dukes and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
List of Ray Wells' RAF Stations
Description
An account of the resource
A list kept by Ray of stations that he served or visited.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ray Wells
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MWellsRG1686349-170403-020001,
MWellsRG1686349-170403-020002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Sheffield
England--London
England--Scarborough
England--Torquay
England--Liverpool
England--Diss
England--Hull
England--Ely
England--Gatwick
Germany
England--Devon
England--Kent
England--Norfolk
England--Surrey
England--Lancashire
England--Yorkshire
England--Kent
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.
RAF Catterick
RAF Coltishall
RAF Eastchurch
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Leconfield
RAF Lissett
RAF Riccall
RAF St Athan
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1560/35630/BMillingtonRWestonFv1.2.pdf
8f0a70969cd59c55fef62f5a0d5a383d
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
Weston, Fred
F Weston
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weston, F
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Fred Weston DFC (1916 - 2012, 126909 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 and 620 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Catherine Millington and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Gunner
Based around the WWII service of Fred Weston DFC RAFVR
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Fred. In addition it includes histories of aircraft and squadrons he served in, Details are included of airfields he served at. Additionally there are biographies of various servicemen associated with Fred's squadrons and service.
At the end there is a biography of the officer in charge of Arnhem, Lt-Gen Sir Frederick Browning and his wife Daphne du Maurier.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Roger Millington
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridge
England--Letchworth
Wales--Bridgend
Wales--Penrhos
Egypt--Heliopolis (Extinct city)
Singapore
France--Cherbourg
Netherlands--Eindhoven
France--Brest
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Dunkerque
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
France--Brest
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Berlin
Italy--Turin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Quiberon
France--Boulogne-Billancourt
Germany--Essen
France--Le Creusot
Germany--Leverkusen
France--Caen
Netherlands--Arnhem
Norway
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Belgium--Brussels
England--Rochester (Kent)
Northern Ireland--Belfast
England--Longbridge
France--Arras
England--Darlington
Italy--Genoa
England--Longbridge
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Nuremberg
Italy--Sicily
France--Normandy
Netherlands--Arnhem
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Wales--Pwllheli
England--Yorkshire
England--Leicester
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
Scotland--Edinburgh
England--Rochford
England--London
England--Cornwall (County)
Scotland--Ayr
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England--Gravesend (Kent)
England--West Malling
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England--Worcestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Swindon (Wiltshire)
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
British Army
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Free French Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Personal research
Format
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85 sheets
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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BMillingtonRWestonFv1
1 Group
100 Group
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
105 Squadron
114 Squadron
139 Squadron
141 Squadron
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
162 Squadron
1657 HCU
1665 HCU
18 Squadron
180 Squadron
2 Group
208 Squadron
214 Squadron
239 Squadron
3 Group
301 Squadron
304 Squadron
342 Squadron
6 Group
6 Squadron
620 Squadron
7 Squadron
75 Squadron
8 Group
9 Squadron
90 Squadron
97 Squadron
99 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
B-24
B-25
bale out
Beaufighter
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Boston
Caterpillar Club
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
ditching
evading
final resting place
Gee
Gneisenau
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Horsa
Hurricane
Ju 87
killed in action
Lancaster
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Meteor
mid-air collision
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
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Pathfinders
prisoner of war
propaganda
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RAF Bicester
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RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
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Resistance
Scharnhorst
Special Operations Executive
Spitfire
Stirling
target indicator
Tiger force
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1903/36359/PSparkesW17010040.1.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
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-16
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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Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lancaster
Description
An account of the resource
Top - Lancaster taxying in front of a hangar. Captioned 'Taxying out from Waddington to formate with Spitfires from Coltishall for 25th D Day anniversary at Ouistreham, June 1969'.
Bottom - front quarter view of parked Lancaster. Captioned 'waiting for the off at Waddington for RAF founders day fly-past Hendon 1968'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1968
1968-06
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1968
1968-06
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--London
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
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Two b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Identifier
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PSparkesW17010040
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Language
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eng
Is Part Of
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Sparkes, Ned. Album
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
hangar
Lancaster
RAF Coltishall
RAF Hendon
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1903/36360/PSparkesW17010041.2.jpg
2c0148e5e48c8b68d5bc71a9c69d5775
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[photograph]
The RAF’s last flying Lancaster, Hurricane and the oldest Spitfire still flying with the Service will take part in the vintage aircraft flying display at Abingdon.
The backbone of the RAF during World War II, the three historic aircraft are seen in flight over the RAF College, Cranwell. THE Lancaster id from Waddington and the Spitfire and Hurricane from Coltishall.
[photograph]
A VULCAN overflys Waddington’s Lancaster during a visit of historical aircraft at Scampton.
[photograph]
LANCASTER FLEW OVER JET AGE MOTORISTS
A Spitfire fighter, owned by Rolls Royce, flying in formation with the Lancaster bomber based at R.A.F. Waddington over the Lincolnshire airbase today.
MOTORISTS on the Lincoln to Sleaford road, who patiently waited today at the Waddington traffic lights for a plane to land, must have been surprised when, instead of the usual Vulcan, the majestic span of a Lancaster glided over.
But within two minutes of the mighty Lanc’s propellers stopping, there was the thunderous roar of a jet engine as one of the station’s Vulcans used the same runway to take off.
A Spitfire fighter of World War II was also scheduled to land, but after a couple of flyovers, it left, as cross winds prevented it landing.
The Lancaster is, of course, Waddington’s and is the only aircraft of that type still flying. It was crewed by the station commander, Group Capt. A. Griffiths, Sqdr. Ldr. Ken Hayward, Chief Tech. Ken Terry and Warrant Officer Bill Sparkes.
The Spitfire and Lancaster had been the subject of some air filming by a Meteor at Swinderby, and the pilot of the fighter was expected for lunch at the bomber base.
[photograph]
Vulcans in salute at Scampton.
By BILL LOCKE at SCAMPTON
SCAMPTON, the scene of many epic wartime events, was the setting on April 29 for the closing chapter in the glittering 32 years history of Bomber Command.
A few short hours before the Command and Fighter Command were merged to form Strike Command, a distinguished gathering headed by Mr. Denis Healey, Secretary of State for Defence, watched a farewell parade and flying display in which the pride of place went to the Lancaster, the command’s most celebrated aircraft of World War II.
As the Bomber Command pennant was lowered, the RAF’s last flying Lancaster – piloted by Gp Capt A. Griffiths, CO of Waddington – flew low overhead.
The famous
Sharing in this nostalgic moment were such legendary wartime figures as Marshals of the RAF Viscount Portal and Sir Arthur Harris, both former AOC-in-C; Victoria Cross holders Gp Capt Leonard Cheshire, Wg Cdr R.A.B. Learoyd and WO Norman Jackson; and Dr. Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb used in the raid on the Mohne and Eder dams.
Earlier, in a speech of welcome to guests, Air Chief Marshal Sir Wallace Kyle, AOC in C Bomber Command and the first AOC in C of Strike Command, said he wanted reassure everyone that in the new command provision had been made for the all important functional organisation in the form of No. 1 Group on the bomber
[photograph]
ABOVE: The sole remaining flying Lancaster bomber, based at R.A.F. Waddington, during its low run over the passing-out parade at R.A.F. Swinderby, yesterday. BELOW: Air Vice Marshal M.H. LeBas, Air Officer Commanding No. 1 (Bomber) Group, presenting a plaque to A.C. J.E Davis, who is the 20,000th recruit to pass through the No. 7 School of Recruit Training at R.A.F. Swinderby. Looking on is Grp. Capt. J. Bush, left, station commander.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Lancaster newspaper cuttings
Description
An account of the resource
Top left - newspaper cutting with photograph of a Lancaster, Hurricane and Spitfire flying over the RAF College Cranwell. Text explains where aircraft based. <br />Top centre - newspaper cutting with photograph of a parked Lancaster with a Vulcan flying over. <br />Top right news paper cutting with photograph of two Vulcans in line astern. Text explains day was a nostalgic gathering with notable attendees after the recent merger of Bomber and Fighter Command into Strike Command. <br />Bottom left - newspaper cutting headline Lancaster flew over Jet age motorist. Photograph from below of an airborne Lancaster and a Spitfire. Text explains they were seen by motorist in Lincoln. <br />Bottom right newspaper cutting - photograph of a Lancaster airborne flying over a parade formation of airmen. Text explain it was the sole remaining flying Lancaster over a passing out parade at RAF Swinderby.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Lincoln
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five newspaper cuttings mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSparkesW17010041
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Is Part Of
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Sparkes, Ned. Album
Contributor
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Peter Bradbury
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Hurricane
Lancaster
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cranwell
RAF Scampton
RAF Swinderby
RAF Waddington
Spitfire
Victoria Cross
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1903/36362/PSparkesW17010042.2.jpg
81c2e2aa7fd8d267fcd3a3816c8fd779
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] WARTIME MEMORIES ARE RECALLED [/underlined]
A Lancaster again thunders over Lincs
By KEN LEE who has just been appointed war artist to the R.A.F. and who has been commissioned to paint a picture of the only remaining Waddington Lancaster.
I VAGUELY remember the war. I lived near an aerodrome and would often lie awake listening to the constant drone of the aircraft as they circled overhead before forming up for a raid.
If the sirens sounded we would all sit under the stairs listening to the distant crump of exploding bombs. I sat there and was never allowed out into the backyard to see the searchlights and glowing tracer.
Only Mr. Pearson was allowed [missing word] do this for he was the street fire warden and consequently had custody of the street ladder and street stirrup pump.
For me the sight and sound of a Lancaster bomber evokes myriad emotions. It means adventure, excitement, danger and courage. I understand the comradeship qualities of human interdependence and trust it brought to many men. It means my early youth and in someway I feel my future was saved by this aeroplane.
Last Friday I fullfilled a lifetime ambition by flying in a Lancaster bomber. Stationed at R.A.F. Waddington it is the only Lancaster that still flies.
BEGAN WITH MEF
B for Betty, serial No. PA474 started its career in 82 squadron as a photo-reconnaisance [sic] aircraft with the Middle East Air Force.
From 1952 it was used for flight refuelling until August 1962, when a laminarized wing was placed in the upper dorsal fuselage for airflow research at Cranfield.
Normally the crew for a Lancaster was seven; pilot, navigator, air bomber, flight engineer, wireless operator/air gunner and two air gunners.
On Friday this was reduced to three, namely pilot, Group Captain Griffith; one co-pilot/navigator. Wing Commander Wilson; flight engineer, Warrant Officer Sparkes. As a passenger I was designated No. 4 We went to Finningley where the Lancaster was to take part in the Battle of Britian celebrations.
IDEAL WEATHER
First of all, a visit to the Met. Office. Cloud base 2,000 ft; wind speed at ground level, zero knots; wind speed at 2,000 ft., eight knots. Over on the runways the windsock hung limply; above there was a blue sky, perfect; wing commander weather. Then [missing letters]tting out.
A helmet with oxygen masks, flight overalls complete with maps and three waterproof paper bags, parachute harness and Mae West. Crew instructions were very gloomy, seeing it was Friday the 13th, and centred on what to do if anything "went wrong." The working of escape hatches was shown, parachute techniques and crash landing procedures explained. "If anything happens we're going through the nose."
We climbed in, up the thin metal steps through the door, at least an experience I've now shared with such men as Nettleton, Thompson, Mynarski, Palmer and Jackson.
OVER BOMB BAYS
Along the dark fuselage of light alloy, I clamber over the bomb bays, across the main beam into the cockpit, taking my seat in the wireless operator's position just below the astrodome and look out through the observation window across the broad port wing.
Further checks, "Glycol spray full?" Mr. Sparkes dashing around. Cellophane strip needed. Wing Commander Wilson dons his white kid flying gloves and takes out his maps. Intercom plugged in.
The signal is given to the ground crew, three fingers held up – fire number three engine! The three- bladed De Haviland DH 5/40 constant pitch variable airscrews swing round and whirl into life. Number four engine, number two engine, number one engine.
Pilot of Lancaster to control tower: "taxi clearance please" – "clear to taxi." Chocks away. Ground crew refire [sic] quickly, and as the skipper brakes on port wheels we leave dispersed point No. 8 and taxi towards the runway. Revs are pushed up, the wheels strain, the fabric vibrates.
INSUFFICIENT REVS
W.O. Sparkes on the intercom. "We're not getting enough revs on No. 2 engine." Group Captain Griffith pushes the throttle forward. "Still not enough power." – "Try tapping the dial." – "No joy, sir." – "Switch generator off and on." – "Still nothing – it's always like this sir." – "O.K. let's go."
Brakes off, throttle open, rapidly gaining speed, racing forward we take off at 1.000 yards. Rate of climb is 250 ft./min. Course set and height given to control tower. "Roger over and out."
We bank heavily to port, below the pattern of harvested [two indecipherable words], stubble burning fitfully and to our left, Waddington, with it's squadrons of Vulcans at dispersal.
"No. 2 engine generating full power now!" – "The thing just needed warming up."
The Frazer Nash 5 forward turret points towards Lincoln. Once again four Rolls Royce X Merlin engines sing strongly in the Lincolnshire sky.
DUMMY RUN
The Cathedral is sighted. A dummy bomb run. I touch the silk stocking I have in my breast pocket. "Target in sight. Steady as you go." "There goes a searchlight at 12 o'clock.
"I've got it. Steady, Steady Crosshairs on! Bomb doors open! Bombs selected and fused. Left, left, steady. Enemy fighter 3 o'clock closing! I think he's seen us. Evasive action, go, go, go" - "We've on bomb run, fight him off."
"Steady, right. Steady. Bombs gone! Bomb doors closed. Get the hell out of here!"
"Heading 320 deg. How did it go?" – "Reargunner to Captain, overshot with incendaries. G.P's on target. I see dust, now flame."
LIKE TOY TOWN
Two more manouvres [sic] over Lincoln looking like toytown, and the first leg is over; on to Gainsborough. Radio contact with Finningley, approaching threshold. Co-pilot points to his left "There it is!"
"Waddington Lancaster to Finningley, speed 185, height 1,000 reducing to 800. I'll make two circles and come in." – "Finningley control to Lancaster, could you come straight in, we've got lots of traffic today."
For the landing we snap our safety belts on. A perfect three-pointer. We taxi back down the runway, an officer takes a photograph and Mr. Sparkes reports that brake pressure is O.K. Guided to our place of rest we go through the shut down routine, do up our top collar buttons and climb out. For Avro Lanc PA 474 it's another successful trip.
I liked Waddington with its university atmosphere and easy efficiency, so different from the two years I spent in the Army.
Before take-off, Group Captain Griffith standing on the steps of Waddington Operational Centre, scanned the runways, his eyes screwed up against the sun's glare and said, "You know, today's flight will cause more interest than any of these vulcans flying around."
He could have added that the Lancaster at Waddington is a hiring symbol of the proud place that aircraft has in history, and from that proud place no man can remove its name.
[page break]
R.A.F. Form 4124
CERTIFICATE OF COMPETENCE
TO UNDERTAKE FIRST-LINE SERVICING OF AIRCRAFT
(To be inserted in Flying Log Books – R.A.F. Forms 414 or 1767)
CERTIFIED THAT
H1601722
(Number)
Warrant Officer
(Rank)
SPARKES
(Name and Initials)
has been examined by a Local Trade Test Board and has been passed as competent to undertake certain parts of the First-Line Servicing on Aircraft of the Types shown below. He has been re-examined successfully on the dates shown.
[a] Unit [b] Aircraft Type [c] Trade Groups [d] Date Authorised as Competent [e] Signature and Rank of Senior Technical Officer [f] Periodic Re-examinations – Date – Signature
[a] RAF Waddington [b] Lancaster [c] All Groups [d] 16 Oct 68 [e] [signature] (M.C. Ferguson) Wing Commander OC Eng Wing
[page break]
[photograph]
PICTURED on arrival at Coltishall is the Lancaster flown in from Waddington by Gp Capt Griffiths. It was escorted into the circuit by Gp Capt Stacey, OC Coltishall, flying a Spitfire of the Historical Flight.
[photograph]
Dr. Barnes Wallis (left), inventor of the "Dambuster" bomb, chats with Wg Cdr R.A.B. Learoyd, V.C., who won his award when serving at Scampton. In the background is seen the R.A.F.'s last surviving Lancaster.
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
Description
An account of the resource
Left - newspaper cutting headline - a Lancaster again thunders over Lincs. Article by Ken Lee, war artist, who had been commissioned to paint a picture of the only remaining Waddington Lancaster. Tells of his trip in the Lancaster.
Top right - certificate of competence for Warrant Officer Sparkes as flight engineer all trade groups for Lancaster.
Bottom centre - newspaper cutting with photograph of Lancaster, Hurricane, Spitfire and Lightnings parked on hardstanding at Coltishall with hangars in the background.
Bottom right - two men wearing civilian suits standing talking under the nose of a Lancaster. Text explains that they are Dr Barnes Wallace and Wing Commander R A B Learoyd VC.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1968
1968-10-16
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1968-10-16
1968
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three newspaper cuttings and one printed document mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSparkesW17010042
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Sparkes, Ned. Album
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Hurricane
Lancaster
RAF Coltishall
RAF Waddington
Spitfire
Victoria Cross
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
-
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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
Jolliffe, Frank Sidney Walter
F S W Jolliffe
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Jolliffe, FSW
Description
An account of the resource
129 items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Frank Sidney Walter Jolliffe (b. 1923, 1314311 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 149 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Margaret Lowe 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
Frank Jolliffe's Annual Confidential Report for 1957
Description
An account of the resource
Frank was a Squadron Leader Navigator, Navivigator Radio Leader on 141 Squadron flying the Javelin at Coltishall. Too recently appointed to assess for promotion.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1956-11-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Suffolk
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. Fighter Command
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Printed form with typed and handwritten annotations
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SJolliffeFSW197221v10062-0001, SJolliffeFSW197221v10062-0002, SJolliffeFSW197221v10062-0003, SJolliffeFSW197221v10062-0004
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.
1956-11-30
141 Squadron
RAF Coltishall
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1937/38349/LJolliffeFSW197221v3.1.pdf
5df50533165672ea2c3bca8070b9ea36
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
Jolliffe, Frank Sidney Walter
F S W Jolliffe
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-18
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Jolliffe, FSW
Description
An account of the resource
129 items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Frank Sidney Walter Jolliffe (b. 1923, 1314311 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 149 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Margaret Lowe 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
Frank Jolliffe's flying log book. Three
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
England--Hampshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
Singapore
England--Yorkshire
Great Britain
Malaysia
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
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 booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LJolliffeFSW197221v3
Description
An account of the resource
Aircrew flying log book 4, for F S W Jolliffe, navigator/radar, covering the period from 4 December 1956 to 20 July 1961. Detailing his flying duties with 46, 141, 41, 60 squadrons and headquarters number 11 group. He was stationed at RAF Odiham, RAF Horsham St Faith, RAF Coltishall, RAF Wattisham, RAF Martlesham Heath, and RAF Tengah.</p>
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
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
141 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Meteor
navigator
RAF Coltishall
RAF Horsham St Faith
RAF Leeming
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Odiham
RAF Wattisham