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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/106/1010/BBriggsDWBriggDWv1.1.pdf
4ed57d765e8a8fd48923aeec0ce8532a
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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Briggs, Donald
Donald W Briggs
D W Briggs
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
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2017-03-27
Identifier
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Briggs, DW
Description
An account of the resource
21 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with flight engineer Donald Ward Briggs (1924 - 2018), his logbook, memoirs and 16 wartime and post war photographs. He completed 62 operations with 156 Squadron Pathfinders flying from RAF Upwood. Post war, Donald Briggs retrained as a pilot flying Meteors and Canberras. He eventually joined the V-Force on Valiants and was the co-pilot for the third British hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island in 1957.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Donald Briggs and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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Don Briggs A brief description of Wartime service
How it all began
1939 saw a rapid build up of the armed forces. The Royal Air Force were recruiting ground servicing personnel in large numbers. I was a 15 year old schoolboy and saw my chance to learn Aircraft engineering so applied to take the Aircraft Apprentice entrance examination. I passed OK and two days after World War 2 was declared I was on my way to RAF Halton No. 1 School of Technical Training. There is little doubt that the harsh discipline coupled with excellent theoretical lessons in Schools (known as Kermode Hall after the well known aerodynamicist) and many hours filing pieces of metal in workshops, turned boys into men. Later in the course we worked in teams stripping down and reassembling many types of aero engines. At the end of training (which was reduced in length due to the demand for Engine fitters) I passed out as a Fitter 2E.
My first posting was to RAF Finningley where I worked on the engines of Wellington and Hampden bombers. The Rolls Royce Vulture engines in the Avro Manchester were giving trouble which meant I assisted with several engine changes.
My next posting was to RAF Upper Heyford where I was promoted to Corporal at the age of 18. There I worked on The Wellington MK3 with more powerful Hercules engines. After carrying out rectification on an aircraft if an air test was necessary I usually asked if I could accompany the pilot.
After approximately two and a half years I decided that more excitement was needed so I volunteered for Aircrew. The President of the selection board said I had passed all the aptitude
[page break]
tests for pilot training. However there was little demand for pilots at that time (Mid 1943) and in view of the fact that I was already a Non Commissioned Officer aero engine fitter all I needed was the three months Flight Engineer’s course and I could be operational in less than six months. So I became a flight engineer by passing the course at RAF St. Athan.
During the crewing up procedure I was fortunate in meeting the captain of the crew that I was to fly with. He was Flying Officer Bill Neal with his crew and they had already completed a tour of operations on Wellingtons. Bill explained that they had been selected to join the Pathfinder Force and what our duties would entail. Our first step was to convert onto the Halifax Mk1 at RAF Lindhome[sic]. During our training sorties Bill Neal gave me a “potted” flying lesson and I handled the controls of an aircraft for the first time! We completed the course of 30 hours then went on to convert onto the Lancaster at RAF Hemswell. I did the night convertion [sic] on my 20th birthday. After attending a short course to learn the Pathfinder procedures we joined No. 156 Squadron at RAF Upwood near Peterborough.
As a new crew we had about two weeks of training to complete during which time I took on the additional role of bomb aimer and dropped practice bombs at a nearby bombing range. Also during this time Bill Neal vacated his seat (there were no dual control Lancasters on the squadron) and allowed me to fly this superb aircraft.
On completion of this training we were declared Operational and 11th June 1944 saw our crew on the Battle Order. The target was the vast marshalling yards at Tours in the South of France. The Germans were routing most of their reinforcements through here to the Normandy battle front.
[page break]
What were my feelings about starting operational flying? Well firstly I volunteered for aircrew and I was fully committed now – there was no turning back. Destiny would decide whether or not I survived. Secondly I was fortunate in joining a very experienced crew and they all made me a welcome addition to the crew. They had not flown with a flight engineer previously. I should explain that in Pathfinder crews the reason the flight engineer took on the extra duty of visual bomb aimer was that the primary bomb aimer operated the H2S radar. No. 156 Squadron were primarily a Blind Marker Squadron which meant that if no target indicator flares were seen cascading the radar operator would release Red T1’s. The Master Bomber would then know that the markers were dropped blind and the target had not been visually identified. On this first operation we were about to fly, we were part of The Illuminating Force and carried twelve hooded parachute flares. The master bomber or his deputy would then be able to identify the aiming point visually. Our first ten operations would be mostly dropping flares. On this first operation to Tours I received my baptism alright as we had two night fighter attacks just before the target which Bill Neal corkscrewed to shake them off. Also the Marshalling yards were well defended by heavy predicted flak and searchlights. So it was a great feeling to be safely back on the ground at our Upwood base.
Our crew flew several sorties in support of allied ground forces on the battle front where we dropped sticks of 14 X 1000lb from only 400ft! Needless to say the aircraft shook with the blast. We also attacked V1 launch sites in the Pas de Calais area. They were well camourflaged [sic] so the technique was that six Lancasters formated[sic] on a Mosquito Bomber equipped with “OBOE” a very accurate blind bombing system. When his bomb doors opened the Lancs also did so, followed by bomb release by all the Lancs when we saw the bomb leave the Mosquito. Thus we achieved a bombing
[page break]
pattern which should have rendered the buzz bomb site unusable. This must have saved many lives in and around London! My first German target was Hamburg (13th OP!) which was heavily defended but we came through the barrage unscathed. Night fighters were in the area and although we saw several bombers going down in flames we were left alone. A sickening sight knowing our comrades would meet their end in a fireball from bombs and fuel. We made a note of the position and got on with our own job.
I gradually became used to flying on operations but there was always that nagging thought that the worst might happen and I may not be climbing down the ladder again. Most of our operations from August 1944 were German – we were even sent to Rhur targets in daylight! Several oil refineries were on our list of targets – the German war machine became more ineffective during the final months of the war mainly due to fuel shortage. Our longest flight in the Lancaster was to Stettin (8hrs 30 mins.) and we landed back at base with barely enough fuel for a diversion!
After completing 40 operations (end of my first tour) I became Pilot Officer Don Briggs and was able to join the rest of my crew in the officers mess. I was given a couple of weeks end of tour leave then pressed on with Skipper Bill Neal for a second tour who had now flown two tours and was awarded the DFC. We flew deep into the heart of Germany attacking oil targets at Stettin, Leipzig, Mersburg, Chemnitz and Dessau. In March 1945 we attacked Nurnburg for the second time and were lucky to survive three night fighter attacks. Our rear gunner had amazing night vision and saw the enemy first thus enabling Bill Neal to take evasive action successfully. We were told at debriefing after a safe return to base that the Germans were using jets at night for the first time.
[page break]
During a daylight operation to Kleve in October 1944 we had a flak burst on the port wingtip which damaged the aileron quite badly. Our skipper with his amazing piloting skill brought us back to a safe landing back at Upwood!
I pressed on into my second tour with Bill Neal apart from one operation with another crew, as their flight engineer had completed his tours of operations.
I’m happy to say that despite several very close shaves I came through 62 operations unscathed. Lady luck was certainly on my side!! Bill Neal pressed on with another flight engineer and notched up just short of a hundred ops! He was awarded the DSO, DFC, and the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre. I am eternally gratefull [sic] to Bill for getting me through the most dangerous period of my life. He made sure that my operational record was recognized resulting in the award of the DFC in July 1945.
A few statistics
French Targets 24
German Targets 38
Night Operations 41
Daylight Operations 21
41 operations in “our own” Lancaster GT – J (NE 120)
Oil refineries 3
V1 Sites 5
Battle Front 5
Marshalling Yards 4
[page break]
Rhur Targets 10 (4 in daylight)
My last 30 operations were all German targets
It was a massive relief to have survived and great to be able to enjoy end of second tour leave with my parents and four brothers.
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
Don Briggs, a brief description of wartime service
Description
An account of the resource
Describes wartime service from 1939 to 1945. Joined as Halton apprentice in September 1939. Posted as fitter engine to RAF Wittering working on Wellington Hampden and Manchester aircraft. Followed by tour at RAF Upper Heyford working on Wellington where he often accompanied pilots on air test. Volunteered for aircrew in 1943 and trained as flight engineer at RAF St Athan. Crewed with then Flying Office Bill Neal and his crew who had completed their first tour. Joined 156 Squadron Pathfinders and declared operational on 11 June 1944 flying operations to support Normandy invasion forces. Describes pathfinder blind marking operations and mentions engagement by two night fighters. Describes operations against V-1 bomb sites formatting on oboe equipped Mosquito. Explains that most operation after August 1944 were day and night operations to Germany. Completed 40 operations and volunteered to go onto a further tour with his crew. Awarded Distinguished Flying Cross and commissioned. Completed 62 operations. Memoir ends with a statistical breakdown of operations.
Creator
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Donald Briggs
Format
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Six typewritten pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BBriggsDWBriggDWv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1943
1944
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
France
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
156 Squadron
aircrew
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
fitter engine
flight engineer
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Hampden
Lancaster
Manchester
Master Bomber
military service conditions
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Hemswell
RAF St Athan
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upwood
RAF Wittering
target indicator
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/2480/PBaggJG1602.1.jpg
fc588435640eb081dc7c9ea25e2e7a3f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/2480/ABaggJG160902.1.mp3
66e2a38c2f9d559f89ab20b610d08c80
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
Bagg, John
John Bagg
J G Bagg
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman John Garrett Bagg (b.1920, 1475631 Royal Air Force) and 11 photographs. John Bagg trained as an instrument mechanic before re-mustering as photographer. He served at RAF Finningley, RAF Bircotes, RAF Whitchurch and RAF Sleap.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bagg and 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
2016-09-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM. This is Anne Moody and it is Friday the 2nd of September 2016 and today I am with John Bagg in Royston which is in Barnsley and I have also got with us Gary who may chip in now and again. I want to ask John, you told me you were born in 1920, where ?
JB. In this house, I have lived here all my life.
AM. Crickey, ninety five years.
JB. My Grandfather took it on then, my Mother took it over and then I took it over and I want to be carried out from here.
AM. You are not moving anywhere else?
JB. Only to my back Garden, it keeps me occupied.
AM. So did you have any Brothers or Sisters?
JB. Two Brothers both were in the Services, one was in the Army and the other was a Ferry Pilot, he transported Liberator Bombers from manufactures in Canada all over the World. Down South Australian to Caucasus Islands, that was his job.
AM. What did your Parents do John, what did your Dad do?
JB. Not very much because the jobs were scarce,and my Father eventually, because he was a Shell worker and when the owner stopped he was out of work. He managed to get a job at the Colliery, a poor job on the screens which wasn’t very nice.
AM. On the screens, what does that mean ?
JB. He was screening the coal in the dust and everything. It affected his chest so he had to go off work and I was at Normanton Grammar School in those days and I left at sixteen and managed to get a job at the [unreadable]
AM. That is unusual because quite a lot left at fourteen didn’t they?
JB. Not at the Grammar School, and the [unreadable] and I stayed there till I got my call up.
AM. So what did you do, what was your job?
JB. Just general clerical work, anything, poor jobs in those days.
AM. So you got your call up, at eighteen?
JB. At twenty, twentieth birthday you were expected to register and you registered each month after that, you had no option.
AM. So what did that mean?
JB. You could volunteer before that if you wished.
AM. So when you got your call up, what was that like?
JB. I had to go to Barnsley for an interview to try and assess you for what they put you into sort of thing, and I didn’t want to go in the Army and the chappy asked me questions, “what’s your interests?” and I was always interested in like I used to make my own crystal sets, radios and with headphones, and he asked me all this and he said ok. Then I got the word that I would be in the Royal Air Force as an instrument repairer which suited me fine and I thought what a great opportunity this is because there was nothing, nothing around here really, not the good jobs, nothing like that, and that was my call up in May nineteen.
AM. May nineteen forty.
Gary. Forty One.
JB. Forty One to go to Melcham, got a train from Ralston to Sheffield where I say two or three lads all going to the same places, you know there were masses of people travelling in those days being called up.
AM. How far had you been before that though?
JB. Not very far at all, been to Scarborough day trip, I remember paddling in the sea. Been not very far at all and been to Leeds, I’ve been to Leeds and Sheffield.
AM. So you got the train to Sheffield and you saw the other lads.
JB. Went up to two lads, where you going and they were going to Melcham same as me, and you know I have kept in contact with those two lads until they both died, one died just recently and one a few years ago, they are both [Unreadable] Barnsley lads.
AM. OK so we are going to start this recording we had a minor mishap, the batteries went flat but we will just carry on the story from where John got to. We have just got off the train, changed at Bristol and we have just got off the train at Melcham with hoards and hoards of other people who have been called up.
JB. The Military Police, so they shepherded us into buses and things into the Camp into a massive hanger and it was all portioned off, bedspaces, I was given a bed space. First thing was take your clothes off, not first thing, sorry. Get measured for your uniform, you went to the counter, there was a chap there he just said, “tunic, size off” and so on, he never measured you the sizes, you got all your kit, he did ask you size of big boots. Then you went and changed, the first thing then you parcelled your own civvy clothes up and sent them back home, you were in then.
AM. What did you get in the way of uniform then, what did you get ?
JB. Two tunics, two pair of trousers, pants, vests, socks and they were all course in those days, and the boots because most people had never worn boots, mainly shoes, but you had to get used to the boots.
AM. So what do you mean ankle boot do you mean?So just above the ankle.
JB. More or less like and I think they left you alone until the next morning.
AM. So you said it was a hanger with all the bed spaces, how many beds ?
JB. God knows, massive.
AM. And no privacy or anything, what was that like.
JB. I think the next day or two they did sort it out with a hut to live in.
AM. So what was it like sleeping in a massive dormitory like that then?
JB. I can’t describe it really going from home to that, you got talking and laughing and things like that.
AM. And it’s all men of course,there is no women there.
JB. And of course in the next day or two you were assigned to a hut and then there were medicals and God knows what.
AM. I don’t know if I dare ask you to describe the medical, go on describe it for me.
JB. Line up and pants down [unreadable].
AM. What does that mean ?
JB. Well looking at everybody, I didn’t see them turf anybody out. I suppose it was for disease and had to do. The inoculation I don’t know how many of those.
AM. And you are just all in a line waiting for you jabs.
JB. The bigger men seemed to pass out more than the others a lot of men passed out at the thought of inoculations you would be surprised.
AM. Why would that be, because they weren’t used to that sort of thing because now as kids you just get used to that sort of thing, don’t you. They literally passed out?
JB. Yes, eventually you got settled in and there is a Corporal at the end of each hut in a little private thing, there is a tannoy which in the morning said wakey wakey and by God if you weren’t out of bed in five minutes the Corporal would be out and he would tip the bed over.
AM. How many men to a hut?
JB. Not too many about fifteen or sixteen at a guess.
AM. What in an open space?
JB. I got one somewhere in here.
AM. We will have a look at it in a bit.
JB. Outside and Parade then, it was about seven in the morning, PE basically then off to the cookhouse for you breakfast. There was a mad stampede, everybody, I was always the last,I couldn’t run as fast as them others for you breakfast.
AM. What did you get for breakfast?
JB. The usual, sausage, beans,bacon.
AM. Well you say the usual, but had rationing started by then, I can’t, I’m not sure?
JB. There was eh, I don’t think we had cereal or anything like that, I can’t really remember now.
AM. But you definitely remember sausage and bacon?
JB. At one place I regularly had kippers and nobody liked kippers but I loved kippers. When the asked any extras, anybody want any extra, I was always there, I love my kippers [laugh].We then started on the drills and the marching and got down on the square you know.
AM. So at this point it is just learning to be a serviceman, rather than any specific thing. How many were there at the….
JB. We were farmed out then we didn’t get a hut, into bell tents outside and it was a scorching month during that year, scorcher. We did all the exercising and everything outside it was marvellous, they got us marching up and down the square.
AM. Did you enjoy it then, because you described it as marvellous so?
JB. There was a lot of Camaraderie between you.
AM. And you still were a very young man?
JB. There were older people mixed in all in that intake, mm, and marching and marching and marching up and down the square. You got assault courses you know bayonet charging you made fun of it in a way,you know charging up and down, shouting, and bayoneting these sacks. If ever you got to do it, I don’t know how you would do it. You know.
AM. In real life when blood comes out.
JB. And the assault courses, I was one of the smallest there but I kept up with them. Then eventually [pause] where am I ? Eventually after all this training there was no vacancy for a course at the moment, so they farmed you out all over the place to wait for your call up. I was going to show you this, the first place I went to, was unbelievable [rustle of paper] to Norfolk, place called Pulham in Norfolk, that was then but the hanger was.
AM. John is showing me a picture of a Zeppelin and a massive hanger in Pulham?
JB.Pulham in Norfolk.
AM. So that’s where you were sent so what did you do there then?
JB. General duties, it was a massive scrap yard, sort of thing apart from one industry that was there was filling small bombs, packing them all in big boxes and take them to the station for distribution. They had a massive danger area with a little railway all round it and masses of boxes for these bombs to pack in, fill and empty and so on.
AM. Was it dangerous, did they have any accidents?
JB. No not that I know of, you couldn’t go in without handing in your cigarettes and things like that. You got a little train round to where you went to. Not much work to do there, there were only about fifty people there I think, fifty probably and it was just a fill in.Then, massive you couldn’t believe the size of that Hanger.
AM. So what happened then at the end of that then?
JB. You got your call up for your Instrument Repairers Course, its back to Melcham then, its all right [unreadable] all the time and then we went on the course for the cameras’, for the instruments.
AM. For the Instruments. How long was the course.
JB. Three months, it wasn’t much use to me because at the end of the course they asked for volunteers for a special camera course. On cameras’ and things like that, so I’ve always been interested so I put my hand up. I never did inspections on instruments I was always on cameras after that.a
AM. Did you learn anything about instruments or did you already know it from?
JB. I passed the Trade Test, everything but I never actually did the work.
AM. So what sparked the interest in cameras’ as I gather there wouldn’t be a lot around at that time?
JB. I worked with these massive cameras’ you know, massive cameras’
AM. Give me an idea of what size?
JB.Stood about nigh high.
AM.So we are talking about a foot high.
JB.With different lenses.
Gary. These are the ones that fitted in aeroplanes.
JB. Some were for daylight and some for night work and they had special shutters and they were all radio, electrically controlled from controllers and things like that, control [unreadable] six volt.
AM. So did you have to do another course to learn how to use that?
JB. Oh yes, that was at Halton that, which was the college.In the Winter.
AM.Near Andover.
JB. I really liked that, the cameras’ and controls and things and after that, that was near Christmas and they couldn’t find us a station at the time. So they said go home and we’ll call you when your unit is home for Christmas and we said ok. In other days when talking to people the used to say, get posted to Finningley, get to Finningley, they have chicken every Christmas. When my posting came it was to Finningley, I couldn’t believe it.
AM. Did this come through the post?
JB. Yes, report to Finningley on such and such a date. It was true chicken for every dinner for Christmas, every dinner, a marvellous place that. I didn’t remain there long because they were opening a satellite, a smaller Station at Bircotes near Bawtry and I got sent there. It was just a pile of mud when we got there, not much to do at the moment, at the time of course it wasn’t equipped or anything.
AM. Just before we go to Bawtry tell me about Finningley, what did you actually do, what did you do there?
JB On Cameras’ introduced to the Photographic Section, you were attached to the Photographic Section not to the Instrument Section, and they showed me round a mock up of all the controls working. They were all flexible drives, motor driven and everything and how to work it and instruction books and things like that.
AM. So what was your job on them, what were you doing?
JB. Servicing the cameras’ There were some cameras’ like gun cameras’ which were fitted in the machine gun turrets, you got one camera and three or four machine guns synchronised on operations with the firing of the guns.With all film, little small film going through.
GARY.Were you actually taking them out of the aircraft or were you fitting them.
JB. No we were fitting them.
GARY.Fitting them into the aircraft.
JB. Same with the big cameras’ they weren’t left in the aircraft.
GARY. So what aircraft did you start working on?
JB. At Finningley they were Hampdens, they used to call them flying coffins, [laugh] I don’t know if I should say it they were horrible aircraft and then we soon turned over to Wellingtons.
GARY. Then was it Stirlings’ after that?
JB. No I never went on Stirlings’ no, later on at one stage they did get a Stirling to try but the system couldn’t take it they were massive things these Stirlings. I’ve got one photograph in there, Stirling.
AM. Yeah we’ll come to that. So you were literally fitting them in, fitting the cameras’ in, taking them out. Who took the film out? What happened to the film?
JB. Massive, films about that wide.
AM. So we are talking about six inches something like that.
JB. Some of them are taken, I want to show you.
AM. Yeah we will have a look of those in a minute.
JB. That was the size of them, that was the film size.
AM. Right so it was about six inches.
JB. There were hundreds of exposures you know they were massive.
AM. So we are back on again, we have just been talking to Johns’ Wife and we have switched the recorder on. So John has just been telling us about the working on the aircraft and the cameras’ so tell me a bit more about that then.This is still at Finningley?
JB. Yes I didn’t remain there long. I was sent to Bircotes.
AM. Tell me about that then?
JB. They was just starting up, we had to wait for aircraft being allocated to us first of. Then it got working then em, It was my first really working, fitting the cameras’ I had only been under instruction mainly at Finningley and then we had to go out together, the vehicle took us for transport. You might have six or seven lined up that day, six or seven sets, controllers and everything, might have electric motors. Suppose I had to service everything and controls and electric motor to do. It was our job to fit them in the aircraft all ready, all ready for off, Bomb Aimer had them.
AM. Yes because there was the one that automatically went off when the bombs were dropped.
JB. Yes and there are different cameras’ I say, some were for night flying, taking photographs at night, synchronising those big bomb
GARY.Were there a timer when the bombs were released, a time for starting to take photographs?
JB. They had to judge the height and speed and all this on this timer, you see.
AM. So did you set the timer?
JB. No the Bomb Aimer set the timer.
AM. The Bomb Aimer set the timer.
JB. The heights and things and it were on the shutters, so many seconds before the flash was expected to explode. Then it went, I think the flash operated it to close it. What we did when we was on training where I was, all mine was on training not Operations, they had infra red lights on certain buildings, there was one on the Menai Bridge and some in Churches and they were sent out at night to sort of Bomb this place and if they bombed it they got the infra red signal back.
AM. So not literally Bomb it [Unreadable through interruptions]
JB. They were bombing it and the flash would go off, they should get this infra red light on the thing itself you see to show that they hit it. Of course many of them didn’t.
AM. Who taught them to use the camera, who taught the Bomb Aimer to use the camera?
JB. I suppose I was in their training their briefing. It was funny, one place I was on if you were on like, picket duty might be about six month, eight month you were watching around for fires, something like that. You would get a book, some of the Aircrew might get an early call if they were flying off at seven o’ clock, and you’d get a book with the names on, hut so and so bed number so and so and you would go into this hut and find this, you can imagine me go up to this bloke and say are you Sergeant so and so, sign this [laugh]. It used to be comical, sign this, he would be signing to say that you called him.
AM. So it wasn’t your fault if he didn’t turn up.
JB. It must have been Operations when they went away and some of them didn’t come back, on Operations.
AM. Did you get to know the Aircrew then?
JB. Not really no, because they were changing very rapidly. They went to our place and then they would go somewhere else for different training.
AM. I am interested in the cameras’ who, what, who manufactured the cameras’ what make were they?
JB. I don’t know, I don’t know.
AM. So not like a massive company like Kodak or anything like that?
JB. No No. I haven’t any photos of them at all.
AM.So you’d go to the aircraft and fit it, the Bomb Aimer, you would make sure there was a film in it and all the rest of it.
JB. Then when they came back
AM.[interruption] that was going to be the next question, off they went then when they came back what did you do then?
JB. Well you had to take the things off, for the film, the things the film was in and they went to the photographic department for processing.
AM. So you took the film off and you took it up to the…
JB. We worked in the photographic department, it was where I worked sort of thing. I had nothing to do with that side of it but I was in with it. I use to go in watching and the massive films that used to come out you know, massive and the machines to process them.
GARY. How long did you stay there for John, you know you left Finningley?
JB. Left Finningley, went to Bircotes.
GARY. How long were you at Bircotes for?
JB. Not very long at all, oh ah, probably about twelve months and then I got a call sending to Whitchurch in Shropshire, which eh that hadn’t been opened up very long. They were all new places I managed, they were setting up you see. I eh I really loved it there in Shropshire.
GARY. And that was an Operational Training Unit?
JB. They were all Operational Training Units.
AM. You said you really loved it what, what was it you really?
JB. The people that you worked with they were marvellous, some, I know one chap he was a very wealthy chap at least he told us he was and he used to play with one of the big bands in London. Harry Roy of something you remember in those days [little stutters] His Father was a Colonel or something as well, a real mixture.
AM. What did you do on your days off?
JB. Eventually I took my bike with me.
AM. Push bike or Motor bike.
JB. Push bike, I took it with me wherever I would go and I used to go out on my days off, round Shropshire, nearly every road in Shropshire.Went up into Cheshire and all over the place. I never lounged about on my days off. I hadn’t been there long when they was, is that Sleap? They was opening a Satellite at Sleap and I was posted there to start it up.
AM. Sleap is SLEAP Sleap Airfield.
JB. Sleap.
GARY. Was you there when the aircraft hit the Control Tower?
JB. No, no. but I was there when there was a Squadron of American Flying Fortresses, they couldn’t land where they were going so they were coming to Sleap to land in an emergency and bye you never seen them land like it. I mean I was, it was one off, one down, clear the runway before another one could land, whoosh one after the other like lightning, not a space between them.
GARY. But they would have been returning from Operations.
JB. Yeah.
AM. Did you get to go on one?
JB. No, oh no there were Guards round straight away, Guards round straight away. They was off next morning, you couldn’t see anything but it was unbelievable the way they landed.
AM. Its stuck in your mind.
AM. Going back to the Cameras then you said that worked on Hamden’s and you worked on Wellingtons did you stick with Wellingtons.
JB. Yes mostly Wellingtons, I don’t know if it was Sleap or [unreadable] where they didn’t get a Stirling, I think the ground wasn’t solid. They were so big the Stirling, massive, there is a photograph there somewhere and me stood under it.
GARY. We are looking at a small photograph of a large Stirling with one man underneath.
JB. No that’s not it.
GARY. It says on the back, Stirling, Heavy Bomber, me standing in front of the wheel.
JB. It must be me then. [laugh] massive. One thing about the Wellington.
GARY. Just getting a photo of a Wellington.
JB. To get in there was an entrance there and you can see there was a little ladder there. Most of them where I was never landed at all.
AM. And the entrance is just underneath the fuselage ?
JB. Yes just there, there was a trap door that flew up and you had to get in, you had to get hold and pull yourself up.
AM. What with the camera.
JB. No put the cameras in first and get, I never saw a ladder all the time I was there and I wasn’t very big but I managed like everybody else eventually pulled myself into it. That’s where I got me muscles from.
AM. [Laugh] So where next after Sleap?
JB. Ah well I was at Sleap when the War finished actually, then it was a case of they were trying to close it down quite quickly I think. There were a lot of them and they sent me to Oakington near Cambridge and I had to confess I never done a Daily Inspection on instruments in my life and they wouldn’t believe it, I hadn’t honestly. All my work was on cameras and I was the only person on the Station that could really that had had the course on it as to what it does and that. Normally used to get instructions for modifications I had nobody to ask because nobody knew about them but I had to be taught by myself then, but I really enjoyed my life and [unreadable] know particularly [laugh].
AM. How long were you there before you were demobbed they.
JB. Laterally I used to run the little Cinema, they had a little Cinema a little 16mm projector and a screen in the dining room at the end of the dining room. Used to get new films, you know proper films the would show to or three nights a week. I used to run that with two other people there were three of us used to run that.
GARY. So when was you demobbed John, when was you demobbed?
JB. I was demobbed, oh going back to, I went to Oakington eh [garbled] Not long after that they sent for me in the Orderly Romm and they said your posted. I said thank the Lord for that. From there up to Kinloss, I thought who the,Kinloss. The war was over as well you know. I think they was trying to, didn’t know where to send you and I went from Oakington to London and a ticket to Kings Cross, a long journey.
AM. So what did you do in Kinloss?
JB. Nothing much they didn’t want me at Kinloss because they had finished and they sent me to their sort of Satellite which was Brackley and what it was they were taking all the aircraft, surplus and storing them there. There were hundreds of them.
AM. That’s spelt BRACKLA. So literally aircraft, old Bombers.
JB. It was a sort of Graveyard put it that way. As they came in from bringing the troops home from various areas, when they landed they brought the aircraft there just for storage. We just took sort of things, valuable things out of them and shoved them all in the corner.
AM. What sort of aircraft were they?
JB. All types of Aircrew.
GARY. A Graveyard of Aircraft.
AM. I am just looking at something John has just given me. Including a hundred Halifax Bombers some straight from the factory, and we have got a picture of them.
JB. It was just a Graveyard for destruction, no we just parked them up and that was it. Spent our time playing football, got nothing to do.
AM. You didn’t even have to take the cameras out of them.
JB. No,no they had already been taken out I suppose.
AM. So how many of you were there, how many of you playing football and not very much?
JB. There weren’t very many at all, I think it was just a place to fill in.
AM. How long were you there for?
JB. About eight or nine months and I’d taken my bike with me which I rode every Sunday. I cycled all round Loch Ness and all of the Mountains. I had a marvellous time there, you could do what you wanted.
AM. Who was in charge?
JB. And I was there when my Father died actually and they sent for me in the Morning and told me and a Warrant home just like that. Come back when you want sort of thing. I think they were glad to get a few people out of the way, you know [pause] and there we are.
AM. So what eventually happened were you just demobbed and that was it.
JB. Yes went to Padgate for demob, pick your suit, trilby hat if you wanted one.
AM. Where was the suit from, was it Burtons, Montague Burtons?
JB. No they were there, you picked one out there. Masses of them.
AM. So what did you eventually get, a suit, a trilby?
JB. Shoes, everything I don’t know about shirts, I can’t remember that.
AM. And that was it.
JB. That was it, came home to a months leave and then you started a job and your job was guaranteed back at work. Or a job, if they couldn’t find your own job they were guaranteed to find you a job.
AM. And was your job open for you.
JB.Yeah, Yeah.
AM. So you went back there.
JB.Up to Monkton, up to Colliery.
AM. How long did you work there for, did you carry on with that or ..?
JB. Well I got moved to the Headquarters in Grimethorpe in Colliery eventually I left the Coal Board and went back to the Coal [unreadable] where I started as a lad.
AM. Tell me about your photography though, having learned how cameras work?
JB. We started a photographic business me and my wife taking weddings and things.
AM. Where did you meet your wife, when did you meet your wife?
JB. In Barnsley.
AM. After the War?
JB. After the War, the Cummin Ballroom in Barnsley.
AM. What year would that be?
JB. We got married in nineteen fifty three about two years before that about nineteen fifty.
AM. So well after the war then. So tell me about this photographic business then?
JB. It was just mouth to mouth sort of thing, photography was very scarce in those days, films and things like that and people couldn’t buy them, buy films.
AM. What sort of camera were you using. Was it still Box Brownies?
JB. No a reflex camera, you focussed [pause] and that’s mainly it.
AM. It’s interesting though, we have some fascinating photos hear and if John will allow me I will scan some of them because they will absolutely go with the story. Well that was great thank you.
JB. A place I was on, I can’t remember where it was, they used to go on leaflet raids to France and these were some of the leaflets they used to take to drop.
AM. When you say they used to go on, the plane..
JB. No the training.
AM. The Trainees.
JB. Bit tatty I’m afraid are these.
AM. So John has some of the original newspapers that were dropped, little newspapers, going to let me have a look. “review de la press libre”
JB. I don’t know what it is
AM. This ones dated the 29th of November 1942, fantastic. Gosh, so how did you get your mitts on these?
JB. They were at our place and I just had a few took a few.
AM. Brilliant, I am no sure if I can scan these, I might have to photo them instead but they are wonderful.
JB. That’s in German by the looks of it and when we were getting towards the end of the training and sent them on a leaflet raid.
AM. Yes that would have been one of the first pre Operations.
JB. They only went over France [unreadable] we were told they could look through and they could tell how the buildings were like in stereo. They could tell if there was a deep hole or things like that on things they had passed over.
AM. Just looking at some of these photos, so what’s that one then?
JB. Well that’s, that was a, that’s a corner of the cameras.
AM. So we have four lads who worked there on a motor bike and side car but with one of the cameras that John is talking about.
JB. We had a little van mainly, got my first driving license there.
AM. That’s the Graveyard.
JB. That’s the Graveyard and that’s me sat on the step there.
AM. Of a NAAFI Van with a cup of tea.
JB. I think it was the Salvation Army actually.
GARY. John can you remember how much you got paid?
JB. On training it was seven and a half pence a day.
GARY. I have seen one where you got two shillings a day which is ten pence.
JB. Yeah.
GARY. Can you remember up to the end of the War when you were a fully qualified Leading Aircraftsman?
JB. It was a lot better, I can’t remember now though.
GARY. It’s just curious.
AM. Is that you.
JB. Yes that’s in my workshop and those are the controllers for the cameras.
AM. And this is you working on…
JB. On something or another, I had the place all to myself, nobody bothered me.
AM. And there was literally only one of you on each Training Unit.
JB. Yes
AM. We’ve got you playing bowls here in Shropshire. What we also got from John are a number of photos of Cologne of Calne, bombed to smithereens basically and these would have been the photos from the cameras….. Gosh.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Bagg
Identifier
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ABaggJG160902
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-09-02
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:46:49 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
John Bagg worked as a clerk before joining the Royal Air Force at the age of twenty. He was trained as an Instrument Mechanic before remustering and completing a specialist camera course. He went on to serve on several training stations. After the war he returned to his old job, but then went into business with his wife as a photographer.
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
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Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
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Hugh Donnelly
demobilisation
ground crew
ground personnel
Hampden
RAF Bawtry
RAF Brackla
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/187/2538/SMarshallS1594781v10079.1.jpg
07282fa73f4e36c831de6393eb83961a
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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Marshall, Syd. Album
Identifier
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Marshall, S
Description
An account of the resource
77 items. The album contains wartime and post-war photographs, newspaper cuttings, and memorabilia assembled by Warrant Officer Sidney Charles Marshall (1924 - 2017, 1594781 Royal Air Force). Syd Marshall was a flight engineer with 103 Squadron and flew operations from RAF Elsham Wolds.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Syd Marshall and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-08
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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Wessex helicopters in hangar, Syd Marshall at Springfields
Description
An account of the resource
Photograph 1 is of two Wessex helicopters in a hangar, captioned 'Helicopter hangar at Finningley'.
Photograph 2 is of Syd Marshall leaning on a Jet Ranger helicopter captioned '"Express" helicopter at Springfields'.
Format
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Two colour photographs on an album page
Language
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eng
Type
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Photograph
Identifier
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SMarshallS1594781v10079
Coverage
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Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
hangar
RAF Finningley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/251/3399/PEppelJW1702.2.jpg
676ab85feb086f60ab5bb03591b7fcd3
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/251/3399/AEppelJ170419.1.mp3
fab97d40c50ec49de2b2caad2fad9464
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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Eppel, John
John Eppel
J Eppel
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with John Eppel (b. 1923, 433156 Royal Australian Air Force), his log book, documents and photographs. He flew a tour of operations as a navigator with 550 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Eppel and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Eppel, JW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean MacCartney and the interviewee is John Eppel. The interview is taking place at Mr Eppel’s home in Eastwood, New South Wales, on the 19th of April 2017. Now, John, I said that we would just have a bit of an informal chat and we’ll start way back in, um, when you were born in 1923 in, I believe, in Marrickville ?
JE: Marrickville.
JM: Does that mean you were born at home or —
JE: No. It was a,a local health centre, private hospital.
JM: Right OK. And was your family there all living around Marrickville?
JE: We were living in just one street right from grandma Blake who is as you see just up there by the fire place. She bought property in just one street in Marrickville right from the man who first settled there, or one of the early settlers was a Frenchmen, Du Ponte [?], so of course it was ang— anglicised to Despointe, later to D E S P O I N T E S. Anyway, grandma Blake took, er, took, er, bought the first property in 1902 and from then, er, well, her son and her grandson extended the prop— the other properties. So, I was then grew up in number 56 Despointes Street which she bequeathed to my father and it stayed in the family until my mother died. My father died, er, just after we married in 1949 and then my mother was there until she died in 1972 or thereabouts and the property — she moved up to her sisters at Earlwood — and the property was then sold so we had landholdings in Marrickville for a long time.
JM: Over fifty years. Well over fifty years. Yes, that is a long time for — very — I believe so and, er, obviously in that case you did your schooling around Marrickville. So primary school —
JE: Primary school was in Despointes Street at one time. This was a British school. The Good Samaritan nuns ran that, and from there we went up to the Duracel [?] brothers up on Livingstone Road [background noise] and finished up there, in a secondary school up there.
JM: And what sort of things were you doing in your youth around Marrickville. Were you playing in sporting teams, in, um, in clubs or —
JE: I played football, I played football at school, you know, for the school teams. Never much good at cricket but, er, football I was, I was reasonable at and my father — well, when I was young I was joining the cubs, a local scout group, and just about that time the loc— scoutmaster that had been there by name of Catch [?] he retired and my father, being an ex-navy man so he took it on. He became the scoutmaster for a while. So, he did the, er, the scoutmaster’s course at Bennet [?] Hill, Bennet Hills and so he took that on for a while. Then finally he retired from that also and the time he retired from it, well, I gave up too, but —
JM: You gave up too. Did you go through and do your King’s Scout badge or didn’t you go as high as that?
JE: No, I got one or two badges I think at the time but I didn’t go in the scouts. I just stayed in the cubs.
JM: Oh, OK. Right. Right.
JE: But, er, one of my sons, my son Peter later in the piece he went right through the Sea Scouts at Lewis Point.
JM: OK. OK. And, of course in, in your sort of — about twelve or so, um, would have been the start of about the Depression years so how, how did that impact on your immediate area?
JE: A great deal. I remember the, the difficult situation in the early ‘30s when Governments were falling and so on. Jack [unclear] was, er, taken out as State Governor and all that sort of thing. I had a small bank account in the New South Wales which was taken over by the Cobalt and my little bank account became a Cobalt bank account which I’ve been with ever since, since 1932, so that’s just by the way. But, er, my father, he’d been something of a motorbike enthusiast. He got himself a brand new Harley Davidson, right, in ‘29, which was his pride and joy. But come the Depression had to sell it and he was out of work for two years and he got a little, little Douglas that ran on the smell of an oil rag. He put his tools on the back, back of the bike and went for looking for work. But he was still basically out of work for two years. So the Depression affected us all. We all knew what was going on. We had patches in our pants and so on and even at school we, we knew we were poor little boys and our fathers were out of work and, you know, it was a bad time and I feel that’s influenced our attitudes for the rest of our lives. My attitude to investments these days is still influenced by what happened then.
JC: That’s right. That’s’ exactly right. And did — when you went through schooling did — sorry I meant to just check — and so what sort of — you mentioned your father had tools — what sort of — was he sort of —
JE: He was a carpenter, carpenter in general —
JM: Carpenter in general but probably turning his hand to anything.
JE: Carpenter and joiner. He had been in the Navy and that was his basic trade. He worked on many of the major cities and the theatres of Sydney city. He, you know, in fact he’s part of the building of Sydney city. On the Regent, the Capital and all, and State theatre. All those theatres he worked on.
JM: That would, that would give you a very interesting insight when you would have gone and visited them in later years to be able to hear about the work what he did so —
JE: Being and ex-Navy man, he was very proud of that, and he had his ex-Navy friends and we went to inter-State gatherings and so that First World War background I was very much aware of it.
JM: Very much part, very much part of your DNA, so yes. And you went — you mentioned the schools you went through. Did you finish school at the end of the intermediate certificate or, er did you go through the —
JE: No, I finished but I didn’t do particularly well but [unclear] improved at Tech after I left school at the beginning of ’39 and I was trying to get in — I had been interested in drawing and interesting building model aeroplanes and making drawings of model aeroplanes out of a magazine I used to buy. So I was buying Flying Aitchison [?] and popular aviation magazines with my little pocket money I managed to get from 1934,’35 onwards. And then about 1937, er, my schoolteacher at the time, a Duracel [?] brother, he encouraged me to re-join the Sydney Municipal Library and I have been in, in, a library member for, oh, ever since. So, primarily it was for geography and a lot of other school subjects but I started to read aeroplane books and a bit about aircraft because I was still interested, and I started to build little balsa model aeroplanes and finally went into Berstex [?] but so I‘ve been building aeroplanes for many, many years so that was — I was interested in the aeronautics so that’s how I got then to where I finally ended up.
JM: You didn’t join the Air Training Corps?
JE: No. No. I don’t think there was an Air Training Corps then. I’m not certain now whether they were they in existence then, the ATC?
JM: But, er, but nevertheless you developed this interest in, in planes and —
JE: So, so I was interested and, of course, I wanted to get, being interested in drawing, I wanted to do engineering drawing and, of course, and while about August of 1940, 1940 I managed to work a couple of — through my mother’s brother I was introduced to Wormald Brothers, which became Wormald International finally, finally an international, before becoming an Australian international company, and I stayed with Wormald International for, then, for forty-eight years, from 1940 until I retired in 1948 [?].
JM: Goodness me.
JE: So — but starting, er, in that industry, in August 1940, the war had started, jobs were still difficult to get and there might be about a hundred kids lining up trying to get a job in a drawing office. I was lucky I got sort of assistance from my mother’s brother so that helped. So, I got in and I was there 1941,’42. I was still in the drawing office but then, in those years, fire certificate passed in the fire protection of Australia’s liquid fuel storage. I’d been there for twelve months in, by 1941, and I took my first annual leave and I went up to Katoomba for a holiday and while I was away the company contacted my father and said, ‘We want your permission to send him to New Guinea,’ and my father agreed. We had the contract for the naval fuel oil depot in Port Moresby. We also had contracts for fuel depots in, naval fuel depots, in [unclear] Sydney and Brisbane so August 1941 I was sent to New Guinea to Port Moresby. I got to the, of course, we were bound by contract to get site details. That’s why they picked me to go and get it and I went up there and at that time did one of the silliest things I’ve ever done. I was the only one made to go the site sentry at the gate, with my arrival ticket to explain it, and, er, I was up on top a hundred and eighty foot diameter, about forty foot high navy fuel tank, about three quarters full, and I wanted to check some fittings see if we could work with them. They were already installed fittings. And I opened the roof and climbed down the ladder inside and with the fumes of the fuel oil and the tropics I could have slipped on that ladder and ended up in fuel oil and drowned and never been found. But anyway I got out of that, overcome that. But also I remember at Port Moresby, while I was in Port Moresby, the flight of the US flying fortress came from the United States, er, across via New, via New Guinea, up to the Solomon Islands and they landed in Port Moresby for the day and I met two members of the crew of the USA Air Force and had a chat with them so that was interesting.
JM: So did you get to look at the planes themselves or just chat to the servicemen?
JE: That’s in here, the record of that flight and I didn’t close to the aeroplanes but I talked to two of the crewmen and that was interesting. So, of course, from then on I had this important information in my brain and by September 1941 I was called up for military service [unclear] 53a and of course the company gave me a letter to take with me and I slipped into in my birthday suit for a medical examination and I hear the area officer’s voice raised, ‘Where is this fella? Let’s have a look at him,’ after he’d read the letter. So I was exempted from military service on account of my information, the fact that I was working on a naval oil tanks, I was working on other, other work for all these oil companies and improving their, their fire protection and so on. So, we were doing important work, and came the start of 1942 the company was declared a protected industry so that made me even more stuck. So, I was, by that time I was going into the Air Force depots that were being built for the Air Force Empire Training Scheme but their, their fuel storages, we were doing fire protection for them also. So I was getting into a uniformed environment in [unclear] Isle, places like the [unclear] Air Force depots and so on, as an apparently physically fit civilian, in this uniformed environment. And knowing my father being in the Navy and the fact that my grandfather had been an Army man in two wars I was getting a bit sensitive about my position so at the start ‘42 I applied to join the Air Force. After I applied to join the Air Force I went to, er, what are they called? The, er, Women’s Emergency Signals Services, for learning, how to learn Morse code. So I was learning Morse code as a civilian on the side. So, all of ’42 I was fighting the company, ‘Are you going to release me?’ They said, ‘No, no, no.’ They sent one other executive sent to the Air Force and said, you know, ‘Can he be released?’ They said, ‘No, no, no.’ So, anyway after that the Air Force made me release the reservist badges, the books rather, the books I had for study. They said, ‘You have to give them back because you haven’t been released.’ So, I had to give them back so I wrote four letters to the manpower authorities at Kingston, Kensington and ended up at state power director in New South Wales in Martin’s Place and the upshot was I was released for the Air Force in 1943 and at that time I was finally released from the company and became an AC2 and I started as an Air Force Courier so the Air Force correspondence with the, with the manpower authorities is appended to this.
JM: Right. OK. We’ll —
JE: At the back of this is my correspondence, correspondence with them.
JM: OK. So, John’s documented a lot of his, um, experiences in a — which also incorporates his family’s military experiences in a, in a book called “Footprints on the Sands” and, um, it’s a very thick document and very well augmented by lots of photographs and other subsidiary documents so it’s a very interesting compilation that he’s created. So, um, so you finally, as you say, got your release to go and enlist and so you, um, did your ITS at Kingaroy I see from your log book?
JE: Kingaroy. Yes, so I enlisted at Woolloomooloo and then on the day we had to turn, turn up we all had to line up at Central Station and the man who had been sent by Wormald Brothers who had been sent down to get me out he saw me that night and didn’t admit to it until many years later [laugh] that he had seen me there. So we were posted off to Kingaroy. There was about thirty of us and on a troop train with a lot of RAF and other people on it was waylaid on the way because an RAF man had an argument with an American and broke a window on the train and the train was stopped and so it was late getting to Brisbane. We get to Brisbane and there we are in civilian clothes and we were late. We lost, missed the train to go to Kingaroy so we bunked up at an army camp on boards overnight with a blanket between four. That’s all they could find for us and the Air Force came and got us the next day, took us to an Air Force base at Sandgate and then we got our selves cleaned up from our trip on the train and had a shave and so on and the next day we got posted off to Kingaroy. So we ended up in Kingaroy. So that was ITS and, of course, we were then stripped of our civilian clothes and we got our Air Force issue and so on, and then we were now in the semi tropics, and we started off in shirts and shorts but they were somewhat ill-fitting so the CO said, ‘No. That’s no good. You look terrible.’ So he made us wear the [unclear] skins, the blue winter overalls, and they were better so we got to wear them. So again we went through the RAAF course then of course, learning all about the new regime. We had to be certain we had read the daily regiment orders and all that sort of thing otherwise we’d be on a charge and swing our arms up, up there otherwise our names would be taken and, oh, all the things that happened to us and [emphasis] got our first flight in a service aircraft. 5 Squadron were there at Kingaroy at the time, flying Wirraways, and they were practicing dive-bombing the tanks of the [unclear] Division out on the [unclear] so they gave us aircrew trainees a flight in a Wirraway, and that was the first service aircraft. Then they converted to Boomerangs and they went to New Guinea. So that was the start.
JM: So, that was the first time you’d actually been in a plane so —
JE: Oh no, I’d flown to, um, Port Moresby.
JM: Oh yes, yes. Of course.
JE: That was Delta Airlines. They were flying Lockheed 14s, which became the Hudsons. Up in Port Moresby was the base for the Lockheed 14s, which became Hudsons. So that was the first flight I had, up to Port Moresby.
JM: But — so that those two planes would be slightly different though, a very different experience. So from Kingaroy, um, you then went to Cootamundra.
JE: Cootamundra. Yes. We were stuck in Kingaroy for a while. We finished our basic ITS course. Anyway, we were in a pool, going out digging in the roads and doing all sorts of silly things and it was just filling time but it was still useful things. But Cootamundra for navigation skills were being flooded by sub pilots and Cootamundra was being killed with sub pilots from Temora and Bundaberg and other places like that. They were, weren’t not good enough to be pilots so became navigators so we had to wait until they were processed through so we were delayed. We were 38 Course at Kingaroy then became 39 Course at, er, at Cootamundra. So, er, that was the situation.
JM: Right. So that’s when you started your navigator training? And so that was —
JE: So by the time we got to Cootamundra it was getting the middle of winter. It was quite cold.
JM: Oh yes, that’s right. It would have been quite cold in June, June and July and August —
JE: You’d put your feet on the ground and they would ring, you know?
JM: Yes. Yes. So hopefully you had slightly heavier clothing by that stage?
JE: Oh, yes. The only time you were warm was when you’d got your flying gear on.
JM: So what, um, flying — did you do flying down in Cootamundra at all?
JE: Yeah we flew mostly over the towns of, er, southern New South Wales and learning all the basic things we had to do, with square searches and, er, taking pictures [background noise] of, er, of silos and railway stations and things like that. It, er, was introducing us to, to basic navigation at that stage.
JM: Well. We’ll come back to the book later a bit later on so that —
JE: We’ll come back to it later. Yeah. Yeah. Righto.
JM: Yeah. If that’s OK. And, um, so that, that’s all good sort of introduction stuff to, for you, and so —
JE: Yes. It was. We did one long cross country to Adelaide and stayed over. The pilot was on instructions ‘Don’t stay over and don’t be delayed.’ Unfortunately during the [unclear] drop on the way across [unclear] like watching a weather balloon going up and I just missed a few readings and so he called me then everything. Anyway, things that happened [slight laugh].
JM: Yes, that’s right. So from there was off to Evans Head for your gunnery training I would assume?
JE: Oh, from Cootamundra we got a little bit of leave in Sydney on the way back to then and I was posted to bombing and gunnery at Evans Head. One of our mates who’d been with us Cootamundra — he was from Queensland, named Alf Dess [?] — he wrote a little poem and — which I’ve got in there about the — and, er, about the, the mistreated men, clock watching, mugs of foaming ale, we got various little bits. There was our sorry little flight at Cootamundra. And, er, he didn’t turn up at bombing and gunnery school at Evans Head. So anyway, ‘What’s happened to Alf Dess?’ Anyway Alf turned up a week or two later and told us his tale. He was a little bit older than the rest of us and he was a man, red faced, reddish faced man, and he liked the strong, strong liquors and he’d been imbibing his latest favourite tipple in Sydney and, er, unfortunately that affected him internally and he had to go to the hospital, hospital at Bankstown, and at that time was a VD hospital. And he turned up there and of course they said, ‘Where did you get it?’ He said, ‘I haven’t got it.’ They wouldn’t believe him. So, anyway, that was his trouble, you know, the strong alcohol affected him down, down below and, er, so he was telling us his tale and had us in fits about the situation, you know, about what could happen, you know [laugh]. And out at Evans head, you know, while we’re on the subject, the huts at Evans Head they were full of lurid places [?] and other things about the more sordid parts of service life, you know, warning us what could happen. In later times, when we went to Britain, we found that Scunthorpe at one time was out of bounds by Bomber Command because it was called the red light of the north for the same reason. So we were warned.
JM: You were warned. That’s right. So any particular, um, memories from that bombing and gunnery training at Evans Head? Any near misses or —
JE: The main thing was we had contend with as bombers and navigators we, we had to fly in the back cockpit of the Fairey Battle and these were Fairey Battles that had been given to Australia. There were hundreds of them sent to Australia and Canada and other places because they were, they were obsolete and they’d been shot down, well, dozens over France in the early days of 1940 and, of course, they were vulnerable in that way but for training they were quite good. But they had Merlin engines [background noise of drilling] and they were glycol cooled and for us as well, and for me particularly, we had to lie down and drop bombs through the hatch under, under the aircraft, and we got the fumes, the glycol fumes from the engine, from the radiator sometimes back to us. It was a sickening thing, you know, when you were trying to concentrate on dropping a bomb.
JM: Yes. Not, not easy.
JE: Breathing glycol fumes wasn’t very good. Then the staff pilots of course were getting, were bored with this job they had and after they’d finished the job they’d go down the beach and fly along the beach at North Victor [?]. They’d go and have fun and games, yeah, yeah. Well, the pilots at Cootamundra used to do the same thing in Ansons at Cootamundra, they used to get fun and games too. They’d get to North Victor [?] farmers’ fences [laugh]. The things that happened.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So then you went to Parkes for —
JE: Well, Parkes was more pleasant. That was our final astro navigation. We were basically trained as general navigators at Cootamundra and astro navigators at Parkes and that, that was reasonable. My main memories there was, again a staff pilot, who was so short he had a cushion on his seat to, apart from his parachute, to see up over the cockpit cone to fly the aircraft. And then one night we were up because of course we were flying mostly at night to Esso [?] and there had been a dust storm and the ground was consumed but the stars were quite bright so we managed, we managed to do what we had to do. That’s my memories of Parkes. That was reasonable but by that time, um, we had the final sort of send-off after each place, Cootamundra and Parkes and so on. My colleagues had, we all got to know each other, our foibles and so on, given each other nicknames and so on, so I was given the nickname of “Keeper of the Good Guts Book” because right from the beginning from Kingaroy onwards we were given ordinary exercise books to make notes in. That was alright. It was a reasonable thing it was to do for us but I thought I had a better idea. I’ll use the foolscap size spring-back binder they used to use as a text book. My father sent it to me. So, from there on, I used this spring-back binder, foolscap size [unclear] binder and with loose leafs my father sent me and I started putting all my notes in that. So the other fellas said, “The Good Guts Book” so at the bottom there the name now is “The Good Guts Book” as it I today. It finally broke the back of the spring-back binder after I’d got my Bomber Command and Transport Command notes in it but it’s still alive.
JM: Still alive. Goodness me. All these, all these years, ninety-odd years later. Yes. Amazing. And so then off to embarkation and, um, so December ’43 you were on a boat to —
JE: Now that was interesting also because, er, there were eighty, eighty-nine navigators now were being posted to Britain. Some of them were coming from where we’d been, at Cootamundra, Evans Head and Parkes. Some were coming from Nhill in Victoria, and we were all gathering at 2 ED [?] at that little park in Sydney but we were to sail from Brisbane. So, the eighty-nine of us were again put on a train and sent to Brisbane to join the American Army transport, The President Grant. The President Grant at that time, er, had been a peace-time liner and the US Army had taken over and it had become US transport, The President Grant, and it was taking wounded from the battles and so on back to the United States. So it was crewed by the US Navy of course and with some Army nurses to look after the wounded. We were, of course, the eighty-nine of us were the main able people otherwise on board and so we were given a job. We had to man the gun tops, gun tubs, on a rostered basis and watch for submarines and be hypnotised by flying fish and things like that, using our imaginations. Er, we never, never met any submarines but flying down the, going down the Brisbane river on that day (it was a week day when we joined the ship) we were floating down the Brisbane river, the PA system on the ship was playing “California, here I come”. There were submarines off the coast, for goodness sake. We thought, you know, where’s security? So, anyway, eventually we got to sea and it was a little bit rough for a start and — but we got our sea legs and that was good for the time we crossed the Atlantic. So, anyway, we crossed the Pacific, we crossed the date line, the equator over the Marianas and of course [unclear] for that, and they fired the rear gun one time and that shook the ship a bit but they didn’t do it anymore. But we were in steel bunks in the hold and sort of thing and I got one all to myself, to sleep there and put my gear in. We had to shave of course and we only got one bottle of cold water every day to sue to drink and to shave and everything else you needed it for. So the alternative was shaving in cold water, cold sea water. That wasn’t very nice. So, eventually some of us woke up to the bright idea, if we go up to the forward winch, to the forward deck, we can drain the winches. There’s hot condensed steam in the winches, nice hot water to shave with. That was good, so use your head.
JM: Use your head. Well, it was what was needed.
JE: Also on the forward deck were the gamblers that played poker and games like that and took the money from the others that were not so good. Oh, the things that happened on that ship. Then, of course, the mess was in the forward hold and going down on the companion way into the forward hold was very tight, you know, and stuff like that and not our cup of tea but still we put up with it. So, eventually we got to San Francisco and, of course, sailing under Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco. That was delightful for the wounded men and of course on the way over they were old school. While we were doing our duty in the gun tubs and if we got bored and started to sing or whistle the [unclear] officer would come down on us. And we had to ignore the American Naval officers and the Army nurses on the deck down below, sort of doing what comes naturally, and we had to ignore all that sort of thing [laugh]. Still that was [unclear]. So at San Francisco we were taken to Angel Island, a US Army base of course, and lectured and my US Army officer he said that, ‘I know you fellas don’t bother about saluting your own officers,’ because some of our officers were pilot officers even then and the rest were sergeants, and of course we didn’t salute each other, and he said, ‘Would you please salute the fella with the eagle on his shoulder. He’s the commander of this post.’ [laugh] So we had to salute the colonel. Anyway that was alright. So anyway, a day and a half in San Francisco, another, Ted Cook and I went, went to the movies, sat all night through a movie, and one of the favourite movies of at that time — no, its name won’t come at the moment. Anyway that was enjoyable.
JM: Yeah. So then on to the troop train?
JE: Onto a troop train across the United States. There was a little bit of snow there on the ground at that time. But the trains were so hot we wore our socks, our shirts and shorts, you know, as the trains were hot. And that shocked the Americans a little bit. And then they got a porter of course came around that we used to tip every so often and the flying officer in charge of us said, ‘Now cut this out.’ He said, ‘You’re only getting five dollars just to keep you going so you can’t afford to give a tip to somebody.’ So we had to stop doing that. We got into, er, middle of the United States and stopped there somewhere in Carolina, er, Carolina. Anyway, somewhere in the middle of the United States and got off the train for a milk shake and so on, and looking around, and a couple of us went and asked the girl for a milk shake and she said, ‘Oh, I can’t understand you.’ Typical southern accent, so anyway [unclear] we got by but the same was in Chicago. You know, the usual interest in Chicago, the stories of the — Al Capone and all the things that had happened in those days we’d seen in the movies and so on. That was our interest in Chicago. Then, of course, eventually we arrived in New York and, er, to another camp and that — we weren’t there long. That, that was alright. So we got into New York as soon as we could and a few of us went to Jack Dempsey’s Bar and did various other things, went to Sonia Heeney’s ice show and so on. So then me [emphasis] since my mother was a soprano and I’d been brought up on operatic arias and all sort of things, since she used to take me to the concert parties, to Long May gaol and veterans home at Upper [unclear] and various old peoples’ homes, I’d grown up with a singing background. I’d grown up on operatic arias, so I took myself to the Metropolitan Opera. I went to the Magnifica [?] and Metropolitan Opera and stayed and sat, stayed for supper on that for ever afterwards and sent, sent the programme back to my mother and made her green with envy [laugh]. Anyway, I got to the Metropolitan Opera. So that was good.
JM: Very good.
JE: So then one cold night we were loaded on to trucks with motorbikes with screaming sirens and so on, and we were taken to the side of a great ship and into the side of a great ship. We didn’t know what it was until we got inside and we found the names of the RAF carved into the railings and all over the place. It was the Queen Elizabeth. And she’d been taking the RAF from the city to the Middle East and now she was taking us to Britain and some thousand American troops bound for what became D Day finally, and they were with us, and again we were one of the smaller groups. There were some French Canadian girls that some of us got pally with and the purser on the ship was telling us what we would need in Britain, like lipsticks to give to the girls. We found we didn’t need lipsticks anyway. He was doing a deal. So, things came. On the Queen Elizabeth there were so many people on it, so many thousands of troops with their arms, and with the ship itself being armed and the gouting [?] cables around the ship and, with so many people using the water that was normally used for so many number of passengers laid down, the ship was unstable. So it was sailing across the Atlantic unescorted, on its own, and depending on the speed to beat the submarines and, as the captain said later, we ended up with a roll, with a high speed roll, and at one stage of the game, they had ropes across all the big open areas, and people had to give up going for meals. There was two meals a day and the PA system was going all day, ‘This is the second call for the third sitting in the sergeants’ mess. Fall in for chow.’ And this would go on all day. So we only got two meals but when this high speed roll was on a lot of people didn’t turn up for meals so that helped us to.
JM: It was impossible.
JE: And of course we were all given a big disk with a number, a coloured disk, with a number and it would say, ‘Stay in our part of the ship. Don’t go wandering about.’ If you wander out of your own area the MPs will be after you so you were under control.
JM: Yes, so you then get to Glasgow?
JE: So we ended up in Glasgow, in Gallowgate, in, up in, oh, in Finch [?] in Greenock, and
JM: On the train down to Brighton?
JE: We were let loose in there for, oh, half a day. And that was in Gallowgate and so we went strolling round the town and we encountered groups of girls. That was a cultural shock. These groups of girls singing, ‘Roll me over in the clover, roll me over in the da da da.’ So, I spoke to the MPO, I said, ‘Are all the girls like that? Do you know that song or what?’ But that was our next cultural shock. When we got back to the RAF base we were based at that time I went for the train and told the NCO about it and he said, ‘You were lucky you didn’t meet some of the fellas with razor blades in the backs of their caps.’ So that was no go, no go at that time. Had no idea.
JM: That’s right. So on the train down to Brighton?
JE: On the train down to Brighton and we met some of the French girls we’d met on the ship. And Don Patten was bloody, ‘Oh, fancy seeing you again.’ Oh yeah, Don Patten was loud [?]. Oh yeah, so down to Brighton and — via London of course — and transferring through London and a quick, quick view of some of the sights, and then down to Brighton and the two hotels in Brighton, The Metropole and The Grand. We were NCOs in the Grand. The officers were in The Metropole and, er, near the famous pier. We were out on the pier for lectures and things like that and sighting new and newer aircraft that used to go over the [background noise] and some others that we’d never heard of before. They were flying over Brighton.
JM: OK, John. Hold on a minute. I think we have a bit of competition here. So — OK, we’ve shut the door now so we won’t have that tree mulcher, the mulching and, er, chain saw going on. So, sorry we were just talking about Brighton and —
JE: We had lectures on the pier and so on and I found out looking after us at that time was our local post man. He was now a warrant officer disciplinary in Brighton and, of course, I knew him and he warned us that there’s six hundred pubs in Brighton but there’s one you shall not go into. Of course, there’s been a fight between the Canadian, Canadian soldiers and Australian airmen so this pub you shall not go into. Of course we all wanted to know the name of it. So, anyway that was that. But we went dancing at the Dome, you know, the famous Dome, the Prince Regent’s house in Brighton. And that was nice. You could ask a girl for a dance and, of course, you’d be favoured. They were nice girls. So that was nice, dancing at the Dome.
JM: And from there you moved on to your advanced flying?
JE: All the way back to Scotland again.
JM: Back to Scotland.
JE: Back to West Freugh on the Mull of Galloway. Well, that again was a nice place to be and we met new friends and a group of us there, there hadn’t been Australians, Australians there for some time so we were, we were welcomed nicely. And we got buddy buddy with the photographic WAAF, Joan Shaw, and she leant us an iron to iron our shirts and I had some starch with me and I offered the starch to starch our collars and so we got a good relationship with Joan. Later in the piece she got friendly with one of my mates, Kevin Curtin. He became an architect in the city. He — and his twin brother Pat was finally lost on ops but, er, she asked me later what had occurred to Pat and Kevin Curtin and she got some of my ops photos but she was to fly from West Freugh to the RAF Interpretation Centre, Interpretation Centre at Metheringham. So I met her later, some years later, sometime later in London. So that was our first friend in there. As I say, we flew up and down in Scotland, over Northern Island and up and down the Irish Sea and got to know about RAF procedures and local weather and so on and leant that they, if the enemy happens to be around they’ll shoot at you and don’t fly over any Royal Navy ships either. They’ll shoot at you. So things, things we had to learn.
JM: Kind of useful buy anyway, yes —
JE: Useful, yes.
JM: Yes, yes, yes. So, and being in March, basically most of March, early April, the weather was just early spring, should have been reasonable. Although, up in that part of Scotland was a little bit cool still at that stage but —
JE: Still a bit cool still but we used to wander around during our time off and even at one time we were down at, er, Oban and a couple of fellas said, ‘Oh, it’s time we had a pin-up.’ So we go past a ladies’ wear shop and there in the window is a hosiery advertisement with a blonde with the long socks on of the time and he said, ‘Oh we’ve got to have that as our pin-up.’ That became our pin-up.
JM: Well, there you go. So all you had to do was ask. So from there down, back, down to Finningley and then after Finningley, Worksop. Of course 18 OTU, um, started off at Finningley and then —
JE: Well, Finningley was the basic OTU, the permanent station, and Worksop was the satellite for it. Finningley was very much a spit and polish type of station and we had to behave ourselves there but the beauty of being now at Finningley was we crewed-up.
JM: That’s right, that what I was going to say. That was where you would have crewed-up.
JE: They got us all in the sergeant’s mess there one day and, er, some words from the CO and from the site padre about aspects of this marriage, which basically was what it was, and so we — they let us loose to crew ourselves up. So John Conway, er, he was also a navigator bomb aimer. He’d, he’d done, been trained in Canada and he’d done a coastal command course in Canada so I got to know him. I’d met him somewhere on a run and so John Conway as bomb aimer, he teamed up with me as navigator, and we looked around. We picked on a fair haired RAF pilot from Liverpool, John Harris, so there was now three of us. So the three of us approached Bob Bickford from Canberra as a wireless operator.
JM: Sorry, Big— Bigfoot?
JE: Bob Bickford.
JM: Bickford.
JE: He was from Canberra and so we picked on him so there were four of us. So we looked around again and here were two gunners, two RAF gunners, er, Jock, Bill Waddell from Dunfermline and Bryan Barby from Birmingham. They’d already got themselves together so we approached them to join us. And here we were in fairly a short space of time, there was six of as the enemy of the few [?].
JM: And so that was the way you came together. So how long had you known John Conway? Sort of —
JE: Oh, a little time. I can’t remember where I met him now. Whether I’d met him on a train somewhere or on leave somewhere but I, I had known him, had a fair acquaintance with him but I can’t recall now where I met him.
JM: Right but was it only in England or —
JE: Oh, no. In Britain. I knew him, met him in Britain.
JM: Only in Britain. Yep. OK. And, um, and you liked the cut of the cloth of the pilot but —
JE: Yes. We all got on well. That was the point then. We were all NCOs still and were bunked in together. We had to get to know each other and we got on well together. So when we, when we finally flew there was no nonsense about pilot and skipper and all this sort, sort of nonsense. It was, we had three Johns: John Harris, John Eppel, John Conway so the pilot became Johnny, I became Jack and John Conway, since he was John Cornelius, he became JC, so that became our terminology throughout. Bob being, er, being, being Robert, Bob, he became Bob. He was the wireless operator. The other gunner Bill, Bill Waddell from Dunfermline had a Scottish accent so he became known as Jock and Bryan in the rear turret he was just Bryan. So we called ourselves by our first names or by nicknames as appropriate and we got on well together from that day.
JM: That right. So then you —
JE: We went to Worksop. Well, Worksop we didn’t do any flying at that time. We were there for a few lectures, and, er, did some training lectures, and training, plotting, navigation plots and that sort of thing but no flying. We didn’t go to Worksop to fly. That was a pleasant place. It was near Retford in, in geography and the beauty of Worksop was we now got into Bomber Command rations and not only more in food and things like eggs and oranges and things that the others could enjoy. I was never an egg person. I couldn’t eat my eggs but the chocolate ration improved. We now got Mars Bars. Mars Bars were nice. So as that, that was England and the chocolate ration was Mars Bars. So Worksop was quite good but what happened at Worksop, of course, was the eve of D-Day. We were, we were there on the eve of D-Day and we had all been flying that day and that night and we were told to be down before midnight because the colours of the day were going to change. And when we got down we realised when we were going to bed and having a hot [unclear], well we couldn’t, mostly it was lukewarm, but flying overhead were the aircraft of the Eighth Air Force who were taking off from East Anglia, formatting overhead, on their way to Normandy. So we knew why the colours of the day were changing so we saw Normandy, saw Normandy starting. So that was that.
JM: And so, and you were flying —
JE: Flying Wellingtons at that time.
JM: At OTU, yes.
JE: And of course we had Wellingtons. We’d flown on Ansons before and Wellingtons were new and bigger aircraft and different things about them and, of course, things we had to be wary of then, things we had to learn, that the Wellingtons had their fuel tanks in the wings and also smaller fuel tanks in the engine themselves and the drill, the drill was that after we’d been out for some hours the pilot, prior to landing, would switch from wing tanks to the cell tanks so he would still have a half hours flying to land himself. He didn’t, wasn’t uncertain about how much he had left, what he had in the wing tanks. So the drill was that me as navigator and Bob Allsop as wireless operator, we were down in the middle of the aircraft and we had to reach past us, had to pull a toggle and pull the toggle for the port and starboard engines, turn the cell tanks on. That was alright. However, the stage where I was told to put the cell tanks on I reached the outer one, pulled it on. Bob puts, pulled it on. Each of us pulled that one. The engines going splutter, splutter, splutter. It was the same one. ‘Get your act together fellas.’ We were switching the engines on and off. One man one job. A very a good thing to learn. Whoever was going to turn the engine on, switch those tanks on, one fella does it and he does it in the correct sequence. You don’t get yourself [unclear] so we nearly got ourselves into trouble but anyway we got out of it alright. It’s just the engines started to splutter and Harris was very upset [laugh] anyway we survived that.
JM: You did. So that and that was —
JE: And of course the other thing we had there was the start of, er, corkscrews. You know about corkscrews do you? Yeah. Well, we learnt about corkscrews there and, you know, this sort of thing. Oh yes. Again the pilots were learning their trade also and they had to do various, various things.
JM: Well, of course, they were in a totally different train again and so they had to learn, adjust to a different plane and learn these manoeuvres at the same time so it was hard for them as well. But hard for everyone adjusting. So, so then having done that you went through and you then ended up with your heavy conversion at Blyton.
JE: Blyton. Well there we met our flight engineer. He didn’t chose him. He was appointed to us. Charles Simpkins was older than the rest of us. He was about twenty-nine and, er, he was basic, his basic training as a sheet metal working. He had been trained by Avro, apart from being ground staff man, he’d been trained for Avro at the Avro, Avro works and, er, so he came to us and, of course, being a married man and twenty-nine he was a steadying force for all of us. John Con— Conway, he smoked a great deal, and drank a, drank a reasonable amount. He’d often say, ‘Remind me to have a beer tonight.’ He didn’t need reminding really but it was one of his favourite statements. So he was a bit disap— disappointed with Charlie but Charlie wasn’t, wasn’t that sort of a fella but anyway Charlie blended in well with us. We all got along together and of course in our name calling he was Charlie.
JM: Yes. So you each had your own names and were able to continue on with that.
JE: Yes, that was just it.
JM: Yeah and so, um, so now you have got new experiences because by at this point you were on Lancasters —
JE: We moved on to Halifaxes.
JM: Oh, Halifaxes.
JE: It was nice from my point of view when I went on the Halifax as a navigator I’d fly right up in the nose. I could look out the clear nose and see where I was going. And John Conway, he used to always — he was born and bred in, er, Western Australia and he was there and he used to drool about the green fields of England so John Conway used to like to look out at such things. So we got on, on reasonably well on the Halifaxes and there were no real problems. The — he and I got buddy buddy with a couple of WAAFs, Nora and — Nora and — Nora and Vera, I think it was, a couple of WAAFs. And at that time it was high summer and long nights and twilight and the local hostelry near Blyton was very much favoured, and it was nice to sit and quaff the mugs of foaming ale in the, in the long twilights. That was a very pleasant place.
JM: Yes, I’d say, because his was late July, early August, so it was a very good time of the year, very pleasant time of the year and, um, yes, I could — well if it were not for the circumstances otherwise —
JE: Yes D-Day was coming up but you know —
JM: But, yeah, it certainly provided some sort of minor diversion or distraction from the other things at hand. So from, after then, um, so you went to Lancaster Flying School —
JE: Lancaster Finishing school.
JM: Finishing School.
JE: That was only a week or so at Hemswell.
JE: Hemswell.
JE: Oh, at Hemswell we weren’t exactly welcome because we, as NCOs (we weren’t sergeants or flight sergeants at that time), the sergeants’ at mess was largely inhabited by the local inhabitants of course and they seemed to resent our presence in their [emphasis] mess so we weren’t exactly welcomed. We didn’t feel happy exactly at Hemswell. We were there just to learn something about Lancasters and about flying them and the fixtures and fittings of them and so on. So we survived Hemswell. There was no real hassles there.
JM: No unsettling experiences with converting to the Lancasters having —
JE: Not really no, no, no.
JM: The adjustments was OK converting from Halifaxes to —
JE: No problems with converting to Lancasters at that stage.
JM: And then you got the news that you were going to be posted to 550 Squadron.
JE: 550 Squadron. So, from Hemswell we were put on a train of course with all our gear up to Market Harborough up towards Grimsby and, er, eventually we unloaded onto a truck and the railway truck was approaching towards North Killingholme and the first thing we were interested in, or all I was interested in, was all these Lancasters. Have they got a bump underneath them? Have they got H2S? H2S was still being fitted to the main force squadrons and did North Killingholme have H2S? Yes. Most of the aircraft did. Oh, good. So I was happy with that. Of course, at that time, from Worksop onwards, I’d been using GEE. GEE was a very accurate navigation system in Britain but as we approached over the continent it was jammed. All the little pusles on the ray tube disappeared into the grass so you couldn’t read them. So, in, in Britain it was very good but over the continent, of course, we was doing this sort of thing, diversions over the continent, astro just wasn’t a proposition. Apart from the clouds, there was more clouds, it was difficult to pick up a star, and changing course all the time astro was more difficult. So, er, with H2S, as a self-contained ground observation radar, which gave us a picture of the ground, a picture of coastline, a picture of the towns and such like, er, it was far better when GEE was jammed, GEE was unusable. So, I was happy that H2S was on the aircraft. Now approaching North Killingholme it was the feeling of exhilaration, apprehension if you like, but here we were, we were approaching the front line at last, after two years, one and a half years after I joined the Air Force in Woolloomooloo, eighteen months later here I am at the front line. That was the feeling.
JM: And so that’s when the operations started?
JE: That’s when the operations started. Well, as part of the operations, it’s something that comes into here that I’ll tell you about and show you about. We were, we were posted from, er, Hemswell, the Lancaster Finishing School, I think around about the end of August, and in early September we were at, we reached North Killingholme, and of course the pilots had to do a second — that was the routine — they had to do a second dickie, second dickie trip with another crew, with a more experienced crew, before they took their own crew out. So the pilots arrived, arrived from Hemswell, and they had to do this second dickie so the day Harris and others had to do it, er, Bob Allsop and Bryan Barby were down at the runway with the members of this other crew and some of the flight commanders and they were waving the aircraft off and it was photographed. The scene was photographed and it, the photograph came to be finally used falsely on a number of other occasions. The aircraft that has been shown that was taking off was BQ-F Fox, a well-known aircraft, which finally flew over a hundred operations, and the crew that normally flew that was a Scotsman, named ‘Jock’ Shaw, David Shaw, er, who made a name for himself in Normandy. It flew its hundredth operation later, about November, but this was now early September and the photographer of the station’s photography section took this photograph of part of our crew and part of another crew seeing our pilot off on their first trip to Le Havre, their first second dickie trip, and the photograph was finally used falsely to illustrate the supposed take-off of BQ-F Fox on its one hundredth operation in November. And it went into the 550 Squadron history. It went into RAF history. It’s an official Air Ministry photograph which I have and it went into other publications which I have down there, “Lancasters at War” and so on. It was used again, again and again, and it was only until last year that my bomb aimer’s, er, daughter in Uxbridge, whom I’ve been communication with for the last three years now, namely Bryan Barby’s daughter. She saw — I sent her a copy, a copy of this which has that photo in it and she said, ‘Oh, look at this photo. Is that, is that you in this photo?’ It was Bob Bickford. She thought it might have been me. She said, ‘That looks like my father, Bryan.’ So, anyway, she start asking questions so I replied. I said, ‘Yes, I had the same questions when I saw that photograph purporting show the hundredth take-off of BQ-F Fox on its hundredth operation.’ It wasn’t. It wasn’t taken in November. It was taken in September. So I got the Squadron records changed and Peter Kildare [?] who looks after Squadron records these days he acknowledged the errors I gave and he changed Squadron records there but that was what happened. The station photographer cheated. He used that photograph he’d taken in, er, September for a purported take-off in November because he had the photographs. The light in November was too dark to take a reasonable photograph so he said, ‘Oh look I’ve got this photograph. I’ll use it.’ So he cheated and so that photograph was then changed. So that was, that was early in our career at North Killingholme.
JM: Quite early in your career, um, on 16th of September by the looks of it. Yeah, so, um, yes, so then this, that and then your career stretched for the full tour, right through then —
JE: Into January.
JM: Into January. But —
JE: Including the period of Battle of the Bulge. It was Christmas and there was an icy fog right across Europe and, er, the Tactical Air Force just couldn’t operate. We operated to, er, the marshalling, marshalling yards of Cologne and we couldn’t get back to Killingholme. We were diverted to an American Air Force base down in East Anglia and remarkably it was one of the stations, er, basing the aircraft that we’d seen from Worksop so that’s how it turned out. We were stuck with them for four days, helped them to drink their whisky, eat their Christmas dinner and so on. They gave us Christmas dinner then we came back to North Killingholme and had a New Year dinner and, of course, in the meantime North Killingholme people had been drinking to absent friends and, er, so at North Killingholme we had a New Year dance and I brought my Ulceby girlfriend to the dance and we won the spot waltz and the spot waltz but, er, apart from that dance at North Killingholme I went to a village dance at nearby Ulceby and met the girl, a Lincolnshire girl, who became my girlfriend for the next five months and she was a tower of strength for my morale during that time.
JM: Did — they often were. They provide the understanding.
JE: That is the point. The women of Britain stood by us. Our girlfriends, the others that we met, appended to other things here, er nostalgic memories of the, of her, a WAAF girlfriend that I had (that was a more, became a more serious affair), to ATS girls I celebrated VE day with in London, er, a girl on Transport Command who was a secretary to one of the directors of Dunbolts [?] and others that we met. There was the feeling of the times that — what was happening at Worksop that I hadn’t mentioned was a movie was being made at Carnforth at that time, er, we didn’t know about it. It was ninety miles north of us at the time. It became an iconic movie based on, based on Noel Coward’s play, er, what’s its name? “Brief Encounters” “Brief Encounter” and so all, all these meetings with our girlfriends and others, they were brief encounters, but no less memorable for being brief. We still remember them [clears throat].
JM: Absolutely and [clears throat] with, um, the flying and with the various ops that you did right through. I mean, I can see just very quickly scanning through your log book here that, that you’d —
JE: Well, being navigator I gave the full — lots of people just wrote duty so and so, op so and so [unclear] — but I wrote the full details of the route.
JM: I can see that and it’s very, very interesting that you had done that because —
JE: I gave the full details of what I did as navigator.
JM: Yes, yes. And, and — but also I can see, you know, obviously part of all the raids that I’ve seen before in terms of, you know, the destination of Essen and Stuttgart and, er, Dusseldorf and, and all the rest of it, it’s, um, yes, what of all of these ops, which ones perhaps stand out for you? I mean, I know they are all significant in various ways but which ones do you think? What, what sort of —
JE: The main point was, I mean, the fact is today that we survived. We had a safe tour and, as the now secretary of 550 Squadron Association, the wing commander, said the navigator had a great responsibility in this. The navigator had to keep everybody safe and twice during our tours all our logs and charts were collected and taken away, where they were analysed and plotted and the plot was put up in the library of the Squadron and there was BQ-D of 550 Squadron on track, on time, in the middle of a crowd, in the middle of the bomber stream. That was the safest place to be. If you were out there the night fighters could pick you off. That’s what happened. But twice during, during our tour that was done and my crew were, er, impressed. They said, ‘We’ve got a [unclear] navigator.’ It was good for their morale, good for my confidence and finally good for our survival. Our gunners Bob, Bob and, er, Bryan and Jock never had to fire in anger. They reported seeing fighters and so on. They reported other aircraft around us but they did not shoot at them. The basic principal was you don’t shoot they wouldn’t shoot at you. You know, don’t draw attention to yourself. That was, that was their instruction. So they didn’t draw attention so we stayed safe. But the only time we nearly got in trouble — we got flak holes, we got flak holes continually and they were patched up and so on and the ground crew were happy that we brought back their aircraft intact, time after time. We flew, we flew twenty-three operations on BQ-D. We flew on, briefly on Fox I’d mentioned. We flew on that and we flew on a few other aircraft —
JM: Fox and V for Victor a couple of times. Victor as well.
JE: While BQ-D was being serviced, but that was, basically BQ-D was our aircraft when we got it and it was our aircraft from there onwards. But when the British Army were, were crossing the Rhine, um, Montgomery tells in his, in his book “Normandy to the Baltic” that the Germans thought there might be an airborne operation for crossing the Rhine and the area around Emmerich, that area, and other towns in that area were heavily fortified with anti-aircraft to counter an airborne operation. So we were sent to — Bomber Command was sent — to three towns around there and we were went to Emmerich at eleven thousand feet, on a bright Sunday morning. Mostly we flew up around the nineteen or twenty thousand, even higher sometimes if we had to get over a front, but on this day we were at eleven thousand feet, and one of the few times — most of my time I spent under my black curtain. Of course there I can use the light and of course outside no lights are supposed to be visible. So I stayed under that curtain most of the time. I took it to be my duty to tell John Harris what the next course was and so on. But it was far more, far better for me to stay cool, calm and collected under there and not get out and gawk at what was going on and what the others can see. I depended on what, what was happening outside by John Conway’s reaction. He was the bomb aimer. He can see exactly what was going on. Yes, as we were approaching a target if he said, ‘Shit.’ It was just average. If he said, ‘Shit!’ It was a little bit worse and if he said, ‘Shit!’ [more emphasis] it was really going to be difficult. So, I knew from that reaction what things were like outside. So that was good enough for me. So anyway, on this particular day, at eleven thousand feet, Conway had already got himself an aiming point photo at, at Calais earlier in the piece, and an hour later he was thinking this was a nice fine bright day and no cloud for an aiming point so he said, ‘Can we go round again Johnny. I wasn’t aiming for it.’ Meanwhile up in the turret when he looked round a quarter of a mile behind us the Lancaster behind us went poof and disappeared in a pall of black smoke. The flak had probably hit it, the enemy bomb aimer hit the, hit the “cookie” the four thousand pound bomb and blown the thing apart. Bryan in the rear turret inside, had warned us, ‘The flak’s following us.’ And we all heard bang, bang, bang up our tail. We all heard it and here’s Conway saying, ‘Oh, let’s go. I want to go round again.’ We all said, ‘Drop them, JC and let’s get out of here.’ So he dropped them, Harris put the throttle through the gate, he changed course and changed altitude and got us out of there. Now, that was our closest incident. The flak could have got us that day. So anyway, that was the worst. But otherwise, as I say, we had a safe tour. So, this I feel is sort of another side of what Bomber Command experience was about. We know that many fellas, like the Bomber Command losses over there and [unclear] over there, many fellas had far worse confrontation with the enemy. We didn’t have a close confrontation with the enemy apart from that day but this is my story, our story, we survived.
JM: But that’s it. Every, every story is different.
JE: Every story puts another face onto what service with Bomber Command was about. The very fact of serving in Bomber Command was a risk to be borne I feel. The fact that you took it on was a risk and the fact that I was exempted from military service so I didn’t end up on the Kokoda like the other fellas did who’d been called up at the same time as me. They ended up on the Kokoda. I could have been on the Kokoda but I ended up in Bomber Command. Which was more dangerous? Anyway, survived that.
JM: Well, I mean, I guess the point is though that the statistics are there to show that the Bomber Command was —
JE: Was very dangerous, yeah, fifty-five thousand or so lost out of hundred and fifty thousand as we know. We know it wasn’t exactly a picnic.
JM: No. That’s exactly right and so it’s —
JE: Well, you know, all of the fellas, of the eighty-nine of us that left Australia together, they are all listed here. I know exactly — now in that little black book over there records their names, ranks and serial numbers and what happened to them. The eighteen of the eighty-nine who didn’t come back, exactly what happened to them. Two particular mates, Pat, Kevin and Pat Curtin from Canberra, who were particular friends of mine. I went on leave with Pat Curtin from Brighton, from Brighton, on one of the [unclear] schemes and we went up to one of the farms, on leave, and Kevin Curtin went somewhere else. But Pat unfortunately, he was, they were both flying from Elsham Wolds (they were twins flying in the same squadron) and they, they, he was delayed, he and his crew were delayed due to some sickness and February 1945, since ‘44-‘45 had been a bad winter, the training stations like Finningley and Worksop at that time weren’t bringing on more crews because there’d been delays in training so the command came down, those that were on the squadrons were to stay there. If you’d done thirty ops you now got to do thirty-five ops. So, unfortunately Pat Curtin was caught on that. He was shot down, shot down over Pforzhiem, on that thirty-fourth op. Nasty. I meant he survived till that time. Only their wireless operator parachuted out. I met him, I used to meet him in later the years and Kevin on Anzac Day. He was the only one that survived. So, that was the way it was. And even, even later, even you see there, I went — after Bomber Command — I went to Transport Command.
JM: That’s right.
JE: I chose that because after Bomber Command I was posted to Catterick which was the Aircrew Allocation Centre to decide what are they going to do with you now? Are you going to training ATU to train for Bomber Command or do you become [unclear] dresser, all sorts of things? ‘You were a draughtsman. You can be a draughtsman again?’ Well, hang that for a lark. So, I was interested in India. My father in the Navy in the First War he’d spent two and half years on the HMS [unclear] sailing down the Bay of Bengal and he used to tell lots of tales. He used to — I’ve got the photos out here — he used to turn over these photos and telling tales and from that and from that. I regret having a tape recorder in those days. You know, I couldn’t record he used to tell, some of the tales he used to tell. From all these photos and from that and from that. And I thought India would be nice so I asked for Transport Command and I went to India with Transport Command OTU, which finally gave me civil navigator’s qualifications, er, but, while we were at Bitteswell, we did training at Ramsgate for basic intensive lectures and learning about civil navigation. Then flying from Bitteswell VE Day came. We knew VE Day was coming up and we were due to fly that night and we were standing around Flying Control, ‘Do we fly or don’t fly?’ The chatter of the [unclear]. Anyway, it came over the tele printer AFCAN [?], all flying’s cancelled. Back to the mess. There was an almighty mess party of course that night up with some of us up at the mess. We ate and drank everything that was available and sang all the songs we ever knew, all the rival’s songs and that kind of thing, and some of the officers came down to the sergeants’ mess from the officers’ mess and joined us. And somebody, somebody had got on the steam roller and started to drive the steamroller around the perimeter track and the CO says, ‘Tell the steamroller to come back to base.’ So all things, all sorts of nonsense went on that night. I, I went down to London. London was going mad of course. There were thousands in the streets and all sorts of people and I went into, into the Nuffield Centre. I managed to get to, into a Services Club to put my gear and, er, I went to the Nuffield Centre, which was near the town centre, for anything going on there and I started dancing with a Scots girl, Scots ATS girl, so I was dancing with her and going to her and so on, so eventually I asked if she wanted to go out to see what was going on. So she came along with her friend Mary and tagging along with her friend Mary was a sailor. So anyway, we started going down the round and I was turning to Mary, er, Ann, and anyhow Mary said, ‘Oh, I want to go back to camp.’ They were based in Chislehurst in Kent, Army Pay Corps. So, Ann wasn’t keen on that idea but Mary was insisting, ‘Oh, I’m fed up with this. I want to go back to camp.’ So right, we get to Charing Cross Station, so get into Charing Cross and the train was waiting for us there and Ann stood, stands, stands at the door of the train waving to me and Mary sits down in the train and ignores the sailor. The sailor stands by and he gets fed up after ten minutes and wandered away. As soon as he wandered away Mary’s out of the train, ‘Right, come on. What are we going to do now?’ So here I am stuck with two ATS girls for VE Day and so we had a whale of a time. So the other thing’s that’s in here now, as you can see, the famous movie that came about in recent times of the Queen and us, we were in — oh, never mind — [unclear]. We sang and we danced, danced the coca cola [?], the rhumba and oops-a-daisy, all those silly things, silly things all day, then finally at midnight we were down in front, in front of Buckingham Palace with all the crowd ‘We want the King. We want the King.’ So, eventually the King and the Queen came out on the balcony and waved to us. So that signed off that day. So, we were all so happy. There were bonfires in Green Park and so on. We wandered back to, er, to Trafalgar Square and we were all a bit tired so we sat down somewhere and the two girls, I had a girl on each shoulder, and curled up together we had a snooze. There were still lights and nonsense going on while we had a snooze. So anyhow the next morning we said we’d better get something to eat because all the pubs and things were closed. So, we wandered back up town all the way through to Fleet Street and we finally ran into a policeman and he said, ‘Oh, some of these places around Fleet Street might open in the morning.’ Oh, well, we said, ‘We don’t want to wait here. Let’s go back.’ So the girls then said they wanted to go back to town then, back to camp, so back to Charing Cross and, er, they went back to town and round the station there were inert bodies all over the place. There was dead tired people all over the place. So they got their train and they went back, back to camp, and I went back to Australia House and had a clean-up at Australia House and I went back to Bitteswell but the next morning Transport Commands, ‘You’ve had your holiday. Now you’ve got to do your flying again.’ So, I was on flying again. I didn’t fly that night, woke up the next morning and there’s the service police collecting the gear of the other three RAF fellas who were bunked in with us. Into Wellingtons again, into — it had failed on take-off. They crashed and everybody was dog tired. And the fact that they were dog tired wouldn’t have helped. Three of them were killed. They’d just come back from being with their families and they were killed. So it wasn’t only Bomber Command that had losses. So did Transport Command. So that was a sad end to VE Day really but apart from that VE Day was enjoyable and Ann, the Scots girl I was buddy buddy with and I was dancing with, I wrote to her later in Edinburgh and, er, she stayed in the ATS until after the war and so did Mary. She was a London girl and I don’t know what happened to her.
JM: And when — OK that was a very different experience because everyone was in such a celebratory mood but when you were in, um, during your ops, period of ops with 550, what leave did you have? What did you do in any of the leave that you had then?
JE: Basically, we had six days leave every six weeks. And I used to go down to London and at one stage of the game, albeit I think it was, might have been from Worksop, my first cousin, Len Froy [?] was on leave. He was a mid-upper gunner with 467 Squadron at Lincoln and I rode my bike (I had a bike at that time) I rode my bike down to Lincoln, saw him. He’d been, he’d been to Berlin and he was asleep in bed. I hadn’t seen him for two years and he looked terrible. As mid-upper gunner of course he saw everything and one particular night, the night of the strong winds, which he learnt about from his navigator. He looked terrible and, you know, I thought, ‘Geez, this is what Bomber Command does for you.’ You know, so you know anyway I met him at that time and, as I say, one of the things I did learn at that time again when I met him and met his navigator, and his navigator told me about the night of the strong winds, which from a navigator’s point of view was interesting information. The — what had Bomber Command been doing? Earlier in the piece when, as you probably know, they weren’t getting close to the targets for various reasons. Air— Aircraft were operating more or less individually, they weren’t operating as squadrons or in bomber streams. They were allowed to operate individually and not always finding their, the right place. So Command got the bright idea at one stage there, let’s get the skilled navigators to find the winds over the continent, broadcast them back, the Metrological Office Command will assess the situation and they’ll broadcast a wind for everybody to use and theoret— theoretically everybody using the same wind, they’ll all end up in the same place and everything will be lovely. It was a lovely idea in theory but it didn’t always work out in practice. This part night the jet stream wind came out of Sweden which was not forecast. Nobody knew about it. The Metrological Office didn’t know about it because, of course, they got most of their information out of Britain and they weren’t ready and didn’t know about this jet stream and the navigators, they detected it. They were detecting winds of about hundred and hundred and twenty miles an hour. They didn’t believe it. Can’t believe this so they were coming back, they were coming back with about a hundred or so. They broadcast back to Command and the Command’s Metrology Office didn’t believe it either, ‘That can’t be right. Let’s make it ninety something.’ The upshot was the stream went to Berlin. Instead of bombing the city of Berlin they bombed the southern suburbs and on their way back they went over the Ruhr, which they were not supposed to go over, and got a pasting. And my bomb aimer, he was in another aircraft, they lost an engine over the Ruhr, they got coned by the searchlights over the Ruhr and they lost one engine through flak over the Ruhr. So, it was a disastrous night, the night of the strong winds, and Len Froy’s [?] navigator, a Welshman, he told me about this and I thought that’s worth knowing, so — but after that disaster they got the [unclear] they didn’t do it anymore and, of course, H2S came into, into greater use and of course gave us all the facility to find our own winds with a bit more confidence and not depend on the broadcast winds, so the broadcast winds idea was scrubbed. Unfortunately not a good idea, no good at all. [cough]
JM: Yes, so —
JE: So, as I was saying, you were talking about leave from North Killingholme, well apart from, as I say, going down to London. I used to go down to the shows and I met another ATS girl at that time named Pam. I don’t know what — I lost her surname. I took her to three shows while I just met her occasionally and she introduced me to drinking gin which gave me a headache which I didn’t drink it any more [slight laugh]. Terrible stuff. So anyway, er, she was another nice girl but, as I say, I liked going to the shows, going the ballet and all that sort of thing. And, er, also I went to Edinburgh and the Victoria League. I used to stay at the Victoria League and they used to run parties and at one of the parties they had us named, all named after fish, and I was offered hake or something like that, and hake turned out to be Hazel. Hazel was a little, a little Edinburgh girl, and I got friendly with her. Every time I went back to Edinburgh several times I took Hazel to the movies, I took her to dances and all sort of things. She became my girlfriend in Edinburgh every time I went up there on leave and she got my watch repaired at one time. So she was another good friend. So, you know, as I say, the women of Britain stood by us.
JM: Yes, yes, and when you went to, er, Transport Command did the rest of the crew go with you or is that — you were all split up? You were all —
JE: No, we were all individuals. We were all individuals, ex, ex operational, and one of the other fellas John Lewis [unclear] he was another one who nearly died. He joined us at Ramsgate and Bitteswell. He was the only one I knew there but they were all ex operational people. There was an RAF fella who walked out of Germany. He’d been, er, parachuted down and walked back from Germany into Switzerland and eventually got home, got back. He still had worn boots and he’d walked out of Germany and now he’s on Transport Command. So, you know, an interesting group of people.
JM: And did you, was it possible to stay in touch with the rest of the, your other former crew at that point or you didn’t worry about that. You were too busy —
JE: Well, I tried to keep in touch with them. But, I learnt that — and all of us went to Catterick first on re-allocation. Conway and Bickford they were both posted home. They came home earlier than I did. I learnt the others, er, the other four RAF fellas, they were posted to things like Air Traffic Control and so on. I learnt where they went to. And Bryan, Bryan Barby, particularly (his daughter I’ve now been in contact with the last three years) he came back to my civilian life after he was finally discharged but he found that wasn’t very good so he went back to the RAF for the next thirty years. He stayed in the RAF for thirty years, in, er, in Egypt and Germany and then Singapore and such like. So, I know all about — I’ve got the complete history of — I’ve been in contact with her for the last three years now and he’s completed a history for the first thirty-odd years. So, you know, and as far as the others were concerned, finally back here in Australia — well before we get to that — John Conway, John Harris [emphasis] our pilot, er, I finally learnt in a letter from his mother, that, er, after he left us he went on fighter affiliation. He wanted to fly Spitfires so he was flying a Spitfire, on training bomber crews, on fighter affiliation. And he was flying from Hemswell to another place up in Yorkshire somewhere and he didn’t have his navigator [unclear] to help him anymore and so the story goes is that he got lost. He shouldn’t have got lost in South Yorkshire, after all it was a County we all knew well. He tried to do a forced landing in a Spitfire, he was in line with some power lines, turned the Spitfire over and killed himself. That was in January 1946. He was newly married. He’d only been married a few weeks. He married a Liverpool girl and here he was killed. His mother wrote to me later in great distress. That girl took all his entitlements, his pension and everything else and refused to contribute to his grave. I’ve got a photo of his grave in there and I’ve told all the others this what happened. You know, a horrible situation. So, anyway, then the others of course, back home Western Australia, John Conway, er, he became a leading light in the public service. He had been in the public service in Western Australia. He came to Canberra where he got an OBE, OBE and the higher [unclear] for public service in Canberra. And he was instrumental in Charles Simpkins’, sponsoring Charles Simpkins’ migrate, migrating to Perth and Charles Simpkins was set up in Perth. As far as Bryan Waddell, er, Bill Waddell was concerned, the Scotsman, he was another ten pound Brit. He migrated to South Australia. He had been an electrician in the mines in Dunfermline back home. He got onto, er, the work on the rocket range but being a Scotsman and very fair he got skin cancer on the rocket range and finally he got kidney trouble. He had ulcers there for a while and finally he died at a very young age. And Bob Bickford, er, he had a hobby farm. He was in the post office there for a while and he became an army, army reservist. He was a captain in the army reserve but, er, he had a hobby farm just out of Adelaide and we visited him there at one time. Of course I had a company car with Wormald and I used to work late at one time and I visited them all and, er, he had this hobby farm and we all had a great time there and all met in Adelaide. All our wives met together and they got on well together so, you know, we all kept in touch but I didn’t, er, I didn’t, I didn’t meet Charles Simpkins until many years later. I was doing fire protection work for the [unclear] gas wells which is now a controversy off the Western Australian coast and I had to go to Perth in connection with this so I looked up Charles and went to visited him at [unclear] so I met Charles later in the piece so, you know, we kept in touch. So it was good.
JM: And so when, er, you were discharged from — well, the official documentation says you were discharged in December ’45 — but I see it said from 105 but, I mean, December ’45 you were back at, you’d returned, you’d returned to, you were in Bradfield Park, back to Australia and Bradfield Park at that point so —
JE: The situation was I was on indefinite leave so after finishing the Transport Command course and getting the civil navigator’s certification I was loose. So I was, I had indicated I had friends and I had my various girlfriends, yes I had girlfriends, so I wasn’t interested on an early permanent posting back home so I was on indefinite leave. So I was based really at Cranfield which was some sort of, became a training base, a permanent base for test pilots at one time. Anyhow I left my gear there with a WAAF black woman and, er, the only time I had a black woman because, of course, at Bitteswell I got my commission. When I finished my tour at North Killingholme I applied for my commission and Group Captain MacIntyre, an RAF stuffed shirt type (I shouldn’t be saying that I suppose perhaps) he said, ‘You’re supposed to be going home. I don’t see why you should get a commission.’ So he wiped it. So I didn’t get my commission at North Killingholme but when I got to Transport Command six months later I applied again. Transport Command were kinder people, they gave me a commission. I thought I was possibly going to fly to the Far East and being a pukka sahib out there and I got my commission so anyway that was alright, that was nice. So, by that time I had a commission, so when I went, I went on indefinite leave and left my girl at Cranfield (a WAAF black lady to look after my gear) so I went on indefinite leave and went to London and did various things, and one night I was wandering around and I wandered into a pub in Convent Garden, “The Lamb and Flag”, and there were two WAAFs doing the Evening Standard crossword so I offered to help. So, anyway when we finished the crossword and I had to stand at the door of the convenience and — while the girls went to spend a penny and that sort of thing that happened in a small pub. Anyway we left and went outside and Ann was a Scots girls and the other girl was a Welsh girl called Rianne. Anyway, Rianne wandered off, knowing that I was attracted to Ann, the Scots girl, and I said to Ann when we got outside, ‘Have you ever been kissed under a lamp post?’ So, from that became an affair for the next four or five months. So she was — I had asked them while we were in the pub doing the crossword, ‘What do you girls do?’ ‘Oh, we’re in filter.’ I said, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ ‘We can’t tell you. It’s secret.’ They were the girls of filter in a fighter command filter room. They’d signed the Official Secret Act and they weren’t supposed, still in 1945, they weren’t supposed to tell me about what they did. So, of course, they’d signed the Official Secrets Act so it wasn’t until later that I really found out what it was all about. The story of filter was, er, was broadcast, was publicised, and knowing that those girls in filter were known as the ‘beauty chorus’ so I became, one of the beauty chorus became my girlfriend. She, she, er, then got posted from Fighter Command Headquarters to RAF Halton at Wendover, forty miles out of London, which was a pay training station. She was supposed to deliver pay accounts. So, I helped her move her gear and on that posting and so on and so we carried, carried on dating. So then came VE Day, VJ Day came. I was in London and she was out at Halton. She started to come to London and I started to go to Halton. We met near the clock tower in Wendover and flew into each other’s arms like a scene from a Hollywood movie. It was a romantic night. So we went to Halton and danced the night away at Halton. That was VE Day. So we celebrated VE Day. So that was that. That was an interesting time. So she came down, down to Brighton to see me off at the time I was finally posted on the Stir— when I came home on The Stirling Castle, and she came down to Brighton to see me off. I’d given her a ka— kangaroo badge which she wore on her tie but inside her coat, against her heart, were the wings of a New Zealand pilot, who was in Second Tactical Air Force. He was still serving on The Portsmouth [?]. So, after I came home and thinking I was more or less engaged, I told my mother and she wasn’t very happy, wasn’t too happy about the situation anyway. Then I get a ‘Dear John’ letter. Well, Leon [?] had come back from a conference and had come back to New Zealand. She met him, well, before he came home of course, and him feeling lonely he wrote from New Zealand and proposed to her. She went to New Zealand and married him and finally the letter I got from them, they’d left New Zealand. He got, he got a short term commission in the RAF, went back to the RAF, and they had a son by that time. And they went back to Britain via Panama so I never saw her again. So, another facet of life. Another facet of life. The things that happened to us all. So anyway, anyway —
JM: That’s right. So you get back home, come back on The Stirling Castle and you —
JE: Came back on The Stirling Castle —
JM: When you were discharged.
JE: There was a group of Dutch troops who were bound for the East Indies to re-establish the Dutch presence in the East Indies and we got on well with them. But when we arrived in Sydney the wharf labourers in Sydney put on a demonstration against the Dutchmen because, of course, they were seen as continuing colonialism in the Pacific so the wharf labourers gave them a poor reception. Of course we got a good reception but they didn’t. So, anyway that was an unfortunate incident that happened there. Then I got leave, disembarkation leave and I got home and so on. Then called up for discharge four days before I was would become a flying officer [thumping noise] which I’ve been unhappy about ever since. I’d got a commission at Bitteswell. Four days later and I would have been a flying officer. Such is life. Such is life. Ah well, never mind. Never mind.
JM: So then you went back into Wormald?
JE: That was now January 1946. Of course, as part of discharge procedure we were given instructions that our former employer was obliged to take us back. I’d entered the Air Force from Wormald Brothers and so they were obliged to take me back. So, I went back and my boss Frank Brook who had been the man who had been to the RAF in, RAAF in 1943 to try and get me out of the Air Force and take me, he finally took me back and was sympathetic and said to me, ‘If you like go out in the street and have a beer, look at the aeroplanes flying over and get it out of the system.’ So I said, ‘Yeah alright.’ So, I gradually melted into the, into the fire protection industry again. And in — the Queen’s Birthday weekend in 1946 I went on a holiday to, er, up at Katoomba. Stayed in Craglea [?] Guest House. There were three girls there, public service girls, and another ex-army man and I sort of acquired these girls, took them on a tour of the sights of Katoomba and I took a fancy to one of them, Eileen Dickson, and things started to get serious then, so in 1946 to ‘49 we courted, and married in ’49, January ‘49 but in the course of courting she said to me she wanted a husband who stayed at home. Of course, I was still, although I went back to Wormald, I thought that I maybe I’d like to go flying again. I put in for Pacific, into Pac— an application to Pacific Airlines to be a navigator to fly across the Pacific. Of course, another one of the Wormald fellas, he joined up before me, just before me in 1942, ‘43, Ray Clark [?], he was released and went to the Air Force. He became a pilot on, on Sunderlands in 10 Squadron in Britain and came back and became a Qantas captain on 747s and things like that. So, he had quite — he lived down, down here in Marrickville [?] so he and his wife Mary we knew him well in later years and he borrowed my navigation notes bring himself up on navigation when he was with Qantas so, you know, these associations carried on. But the fact that I met Eileen in ’46 and she said she wanted me to stay at home. So I stayed with Wormald and stayed with them for forty-eight years. And that, that, in due course, brought its benefits because, er, we were married in, as I say ’49. 1950 I was looking to buy a plot of land at Marraville where my grandfather lived. I was interested in that district. She was interested in this district. She saw this plot of land advertised in the Wednesday paper and well our elder daughter, Elizabeth, came up and had a look at it and said, ‘Oh yes. Looks good.’ I came up and had a look at it. It was a Wednesday and bought it by Saturday we owned it for three hundred pounds. The plot was seventy feet by a hundred, for three hundred pounds in 1950, and then I started to plan and build this house. So, in the 1950s so it about 1955 before we finally moved in. In the, in the meantime, initially, trying to get accommodation in those times was still difficult after the war. We stayed with her parents’ home at Russell Lea for a while and then a friend offered us a flat South Coogee so we lived in South Coogee for a while overlooking the sea at South Coogee. That’s where Peter arrived. So we had Peter and Elizabeth at South Coogee and taking them down to the rocks and that sort of thing and walking down the botanical garden and that was where that was taken. So that was our life in those years and then we got our first car at that time, a little 1932 Morris Minor Roadster which we drove from South Coogee to here and parked it outside here while we built here and, er, I planned this house and built it and I plied a trade, built it as a builder, and my wife wanted cupboards and we’ve got cupboards galore as you can see. There’s cupboards up the hallway there and I said at one stage I said, ‘Here we’ll have a power point for a TV.’ ‘We’ll never have TV,’ she says. And, of course, at the time we’d been living with her parents. It was the early days of TV and the people opposite had TV and we used to go across there and watch, hypnotised by this new thing and watch it till the kangaroo went to bed as we used to do in those days. So, anyway that was Wormald, staying there for forty-eight years, and the places we went to and the benefits we got, long service there, annual leave and long service leave, we started to travel. Eileen had always wanted to travel. Some of her friends used to travel so she wanted to travel to. So we did our first travel and we still had three children now. In 1967 we went on a [unclear] cruise to Japan on the holidays [?] and that was our first travel and that was good. We went to Japan and stayed in Hong Kong and Guam. We visited, we met the Wormald representative in Hong Kong and he showed us around. That was nice. So, from there on we did a lot of travelling. We travelled to Europe, three times on Euro rail. We went to China. We went to Japan twice. We went to India, to Greece, Israel, Egypt and finally to South America. Finally it was a company posting to [unclear] in San Paulo. We stayed in San Paulo, for the company’s association then in San Paulo. We crossed the pacific through, er, to Tahiti, Easter Island, [clears throat] Santiago, Chile into San Paulo. We were there for six weeks. It was fine living but bored with Portuguese TV. But once you finally got, got brave enough to down town. One of the Brits had warned us about how dangerous San Paulo can be down town but it was — they gave me a VW there to drive. But here I had a Holden [?] as a company car but when I got to San Paulo they gave me a VW. I’d never driven a VW, never driven on the other side of the street so here I am living in San Paulo, traffic on the other side of the street in the VW, which was exciting. So I survived that. Did that, reported to the company what I thought about the company’s association in San Paulo then to Wisconsin. There for eighteen months in the North American winter, wife all wrapped up to the nines in -27 Fahrenheit. That was another climate shock. Anyhow she got on well with the local people, the, er, wife of the one of the other engineers, went to shows there and she joined the local YMCA and went and joined their, er, aqua aerobics in the pool and so on so she, she enjoyed being there, and I generally enjoyed there. But the basic project there was to design and build hydraulics for fuel storage for the American companies, Anson Oil [?] and Baronet [?] in Wisconsin. Their exp— expertise was dry chemical and they had a training ground there for the local representatives and on the training ground the company decided we’ll getting into high pressure and long range water hydraulics, which I was an expert in, to get into the oil rigs and so on around the world. So, over and above my salary and the cost of getting me there I was five hundred dollars US to design and build this facility so I took that in ‘83 ‘84 but there again working the American winter, you know, was different. The fact of building there ,as the winter came on getting, getting straw put over what was to be the foundations to stop the ground being deeply frozen where we were going to build on and that sort of thing. Oh, you were learning new things and you got the ground water into Lake Michigan and sort of thing. There were various, various building operations, building regulations. That was a new sphere and, er, of course, as I say, as you saw out there, come Christmas ’84 we said, ‘We’re not sitting here at Christmas on our own. We’ve got to go somewhere. Let’s go on a Caribbean cruise.’ So we went to the Caribbean and got on another boat. So that was interesting too.
JM: That’s right.
JE: Went on another boat.
JM: Well that, as you say, afforded you lots of new opportunities right through and then I presume once you retired in the eighties, at the end of the eighties, you did some more travelling in your retirement or did you settle about after that?
JE: What did we do in the ’80s? [background noise]
JM: I just roughly, just interested in a couple of things but —
JE: [background noise] It might be here.
JM: You, you — you’ve obviously written down, got a time line of your various activities which is an interesting thing for your family to have further down the track.
JE: Yes, yes. [pause]
JM: So, that’s, um, so as I say I was just interested in a brief comment in terms of —
JE: After that, retirement.
JM: After your retirement.
JE: Retired ’88. I’d been in Brisbane for Exo ’88. I went to Brisbane for that. We went over to Canberra for the, er, dedication of the Bomber Command memorial down there. ’89 we did, went to, er, Europe again. Singapore, Switzerland, West Germany, Italy, Austria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia. That was 1990. 1991 we went to New Zealand. ’92, er, we went to Victoria. We went to Victoria, and also went up the Skylon. ’93 [unclear] went to North Western New South wales, up to the corner there, up to Cameron’s Corner. ’94, well, ’94 we went to Singleton [?] was up there and then we went to one of the Eileen’s cousins called Oakland [?] who was marrying a girl in Norway and we were invited to the wedding so we decided to go and, in going to Norway for the wedding, we flew with Lufthansa and as one of the side benefits there we could have a side trip somewhere so we chose to fly to Malta. So we flew to, er, to Frankfurt and then down to Malta, toured Malta and up to, up to Norway, went to the wedding, toured Norway and across into Sweden, from Sweden across to Denmark, to Legoland and down from there, of course, all through and eventually home from there.
JM: So that was a big trip then and so obviously though you in these years you’ve obviously been able to get around so that’s, that’s really good and one other, I was going to say just to say one other thing, just by, I don’t know why because it’s not what we were talking about, but back to your squadron days the bombs you were using were they different to, um, the ones the other units, squadrons we using? No?
JE: No. I think generally we were had cookies and cans. Well, they were four thousand pound cookie and cans were incendiaries.
JM: Yes. So was everyone was using the — they weren’t using incendiaries though were they?
JE: Yes. We were using much the same thing. Yes. We were incendiaries.
JM: I know you [emphasis] were but I’m saying I don’t think, I’m not sure other squadrons were using incendiaries though. That’s what I meant.
JE: Oh, I’m certain others were using them on occasions but they varied at times. The only time we had a real humiliation was a delayed action from one of our armour piercing bombs. One occasion we went to, er, Urft Dam. The Urft was one of the dams in the Ruhr — you know about the three famous dams: the Eder, the Sorpe and the Möhne that were bombed by the famous dam busters and they had great success. At the time the American Army was heading into eastern France and trying to enter Germany, southern Germany and they were held up in that area in the Hürtgenwald Forest and the Urft Dam was threatening to be released and drown them so the Americans asked for that dam to be breached before they got there. So we were part of a small force of about seven or eight aircraft to attack the Urft, Urft Dam. We were, we were loaded with these delayed action armour, armour piercing bombs and we elected ourselves to do it and the code word was “Abandon” and “Home James” and we got, we got “Home James” because when we got there it was covered in cloud, the — what’s the name of it? Charles, the master bomber said, ‘You can’t bomb. Take it home.’ So we had to take our bombs home. We never, didn’t get to be bomb, dam busters, unfortunately, but we couldn’t take those bombs home. Surprise, surprise, surprise they diverted us back to Finningley, where we’d been originally, and Finningley didn’t like that. Here’s an, our Lancaster loaded up with a full load of delayed action armour piercing bombs. ‘Go over to the other side of the airport. Go and practice that over there.’ So we got out of their way over there, we stayed overnight and then we had to take home the next day. But now we had to take off with this full bomb load on the Finningley runway and Harris said to put the throttles through the gate, the emergency alarm on the Merlins that was supposed only to go for a minute, but full, full throttles through the gate to get it off this runway at Finningley to get out bomb load home again. So that was unfortunate but finally 617 Squadron had a go at it, they had a go at the Urft, knocked a few feet of it but it was never breached. So, finally the Americans gave up but at that time, around about that time, the Battle of the Bulge occurred. The Americans came out of the Ardennes heading for Antwerp and the Americans had to pay attention to that and instead of trying to get through the Hürtgenwald forest and gave up on the Urft Dam and went the other way. So the Urft was left alone for a while and eventually bypassed. So that was another adventure. [slight laugh]
JM: Well, you had quite a few and your recollections are incredibly detailed and I think it’s been very, er, amazing to hear, to hear so many instances given such great clarity. So, I think probably at that, at this point we might, um, wrap the interview up and —
JE: Have some morning tea.
JM: We shall have a quick look at some of the documents. So are you, you happy with that are you John?
JE: Reasonable. That’s reasonable enough.
JM: Nothing in particular that strikes you —
JE: There are just a few points I’d like to make about the support we had from the women of Britain and things like that and the people we met and things like that, you know, I’d like to point out, you know.
JM: Yes. No.
JE: But as you know, as you detected, I’d been interested in aeroplanes from way back. I mean, all these aeroplanes are beautiful things and a joy forever. I used to make model aeroplanes out of my mother’s clothes pegs even before I made them in balsa. And now I’ve got over a hundred made in plastic, books over there galore about Bomber Command, books out there about aeronautics generally and other references galore. I’m still interested and, you know, so —
JM: Yes. Oh, your collection of model aeroplanes is stunning and to think you’ve made all of them is just remarkable —
JE: This of course are our travels.
JM: These are all your travels which is a double A3 page, it’s a world map and on the other side.
JE: All my travels from 1941 at Port Moresby to Brisbane. And they’re the references to my other world war books.
JM: Yes, absolutely. Incredible detail. You’re obviously a very organised person and the attention to detail, it’s no wonder you stayed on track —
JE: On track and on time and survived.
JM: On track, on time and survived due to that attention to detail. So, I thank you very much John for that information and, er, so we’ll finish it there.
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AEppelJ170419
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Interview with John Eppel
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:02:26 audio recording
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Pending review
Creator
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-04-19
Description
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John Eppel grew up in Australia and joined the Royal Australian Air Force. After training, he completed 30 operations as a navigator with 550 Squadron. He describes initial training in Australia and the journey by sea via the United States, then further training in Britain before his posting as a navigator with 550 Squadron. He says he was fortunate in having a ‘safe tour’ and describes only one incident, at Emmerich, when the aircraft had a close confrontation with the enemy. He describes the crewing-up process at RAF Finningley and also provides details about H2S and GEE. He also describes many of his leisure-time activities, the personalities me met, the friendships he formed with his crew members and others he met during his years in Britain. He also gives an account of how he spent VE Day and VJ Day. After the war he returned to the same company where he’d worked before the war and retired after forty-eight years.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
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Australia
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany
Germany--Urft Dam
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
18 OTU
550 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
crash
crewing up
forced landing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
love and romance
navigator
Operational Training Unit
perimeter track
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF North Killingholme
RAF West Freugh
RAF Worksop
searchlight
Spitfire
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/3481/Rutherford, Les.1.jpg
2a360ecc2c6bd3a2271901a17ad37fe7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/168/3481/ARutherfordL150605.1.mp3
e2df55e7e391691119891be5fff5f9ee
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
Rutherford, Les
R L Rutherford
Robert Leslie Rutherford
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains four oral history interviews with bomb aimer Robert Leslie "Les" Rutherford (1918 - 2019, 146263 Royal Air Force), his prisoner of war diary, material about entertainment in the Stalag Luft 3 Belaria compound and a photograph. Les Rutherford served as a despatch rider in the army, he was evacuated from Dunkirk and volunteered to transfer to the RAF. He became a bomb aimer with 50 Squadron and completed 24 operations. He was shot down over Germany on 20th December 1943 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Les Rutherford and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-09
2015-10-05
2015-06-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Rutherford, RL
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TJ: Right well I’m here today with Mr Les Rutherford at his home in North Hykeham near Lincoln. Can I call you Les?
LR: Yes you can.
TJ: Yeah?
LR: Certainly.
TJ: Where were you born Les?
LR: I was born at Wallsend on, near Newcastle on Tyne.
TJ: Oh right yeah and -
LR: I’m a Geordie.
TJ: Oh you’re a Geordie? Not much accent. Can I ask what year you were born?
LR: 1918.
TJ: 1918. Right. So um brothers and sisters?
LR: Yes I had three brothers and three err and four sisters, yeah.
TJ: And your parents? Did they, so you were born just at the end of the First World War.
LR: Just at the end. Just before -
TJ: Were your parents -?
LR: October.
TJ: Was your father involved in the First World War?
LR: He was in the navy.
TJ: And he survived?
LR: Oh yes, yes.
TJ: Jolly good.
LR: Yes, he survived. Yes he lived to a ripe old age as well. He was ninety seven.
TJ: Good for him. And so where did you come in amongst the siblings?
LR: I was the eldest.
TJ: Oh right so your father definitely survived then.
LR: Yes. [laughs]
TJ: Did your dad used to give you tales of the navy?
LR: Oh my dad was a great tale teller. We were inclined to disbelieve him. We used to think he was shooting a line half the time.
TJ: Really?
LR: Yes we used to laugh at him.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: But some proved to be true actually.
TJ: What, how old were you when you left school?
LR: I was fourteen when I left school.
TJ: And what did you do straightaway then?
LR: I lived with my grandmother who had a general dealers business and she died just a matter of weeks, a week or so before I left school and I’d often helped her in the shop to give her a break you know, and when she died I went into the shop to work. The funeral was going on and things like this and looked after things and then in her will she left the business to my mother. My mother came and took over the shop and I carried on err running the shop from then on. From, from fourteen, I carried on running the shop doing all the buying, selling and all the lot and it was hard work but it was a, it was a good business because it was right on the entrance to the big shipyard, Swan Hunters, in Wallsend. So in the morning we got all the passing trade from the workmen for their cigarettes and things like that and then we had good passing trade and a local trade it was marvellous, it was a very thriving business and then of course when the war began I was called up into the army and my mother said, ‘well I will go in the business until such time as you come home again,’ she said, ‘and when you come home when the war’s finished I will retire and you will take over the business as your own and pay me a pension.’
TJ: What had your dad been doing during those years?
LR: Well my dad was working.
TJ: What did he do?
LR: All sorts of things. He was um, my dad was a miner and he had a very bad accident down in the mines which stopped him doing that for a while and then he was went to work on the engineering works as various different things. So he was more or less a labourer.
TJ: I see.
LR: I think, you know he was basically a miner so when he went there in to the engineering works he was just doing anything that was going.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: He worked on building for a while, and bricklaying but then he went back in to the engineering works again.
TJ: So you got your call up papers for the army.
LR: Yeah.
TJ: What did you think of that? Was it what you would have chosen?
LR: No I would have chosen the RAF but um I wasn’t given any option.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: I was in the second batch of the militia which were, before the war there was a conscription scheme where they were calling youths of eighteen up for a period of military service and they called the first batch up and while they were doing their three months or so the war broke out so they went straight into the army and then I was in the second batch and I was called up in October and straight in to the army. No choice.
TJ: What, you were about eighteen then?
LR: I was twenty one then.
TJ: Twenty one by then?
LR: I was called up a week before I was twenty one.
TJ: Right. Yes.
LR: Spoiled my mother’s celebration party [laughs]. She wasn’t too pleased. She’d made all the arrangements.
TJ: I understand you were a despatch rider. Did that, did that start soon after? Or
LR: That started straightaway.
TJ: Straightaway yeah.
LR: That’s, that’s I went into the Royal Army Service Corps with the 51st Highland Division and after the basic training we went down to Aldershot and there we were allocated vehicles and I became a despatch rider.
TJ: Were you experienced at riding a motorbike?
LR: Oh we’d had motorbikes before the war. Yes, yes I was.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: So it was a natural thing.
TJ: Yeah. And where did you do your despatch riding?
LR: I like motorbikes yes. I enjoyed it.
TJ: Yeah. Whereabouts did you do the, the job? Did you
LR: Well.
TJ: You were in the England, or
LR: In France to start with. We um we went across to France in January of 1940.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: And then we, err I motorcycled across pretty much the whole of the north of France. We were stationed up in the north of France and I was all over the place up there of course on the job and then we moved across in to, on the German border. In Alsace Lorraine.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Near Metz and we were there when the Germans invaded and they moved the division across from there to positions in northern France to try and stem the German advance and then when Dunkirk took place, when they decided to evacuate the army, our division was left behind to fight a rear guard action to try and hold up the Germans while the evacuation took place and then when the evacuation took place they said that any troops left in France then should be given up as lost.
TJ: Really?
LR: Ahum and there were still some boats trying to get in. We were eventually, the whole, pretty near the whole division was, what was left of them, was surrounded in a place called St Valery.
TJ: Ahum
LR: And St Valery is famous for when Scotland with the 51st division, the 51st division was a purely a Highland division with a few Englishmen in it, I was one of them, and they were surrounded in this place and it was obvious they were going to give up the next day. We’d got to surrender. There was no choice and another chap and I decided that that wasn’t good enough and we put out in to the channel on a door and paddled away and we’d seen ships going in further along the coast and they were going directly into the place and then out, straight out and then forming a, and going away across towards England.
TJ: So was the sea choppy?
LR: No it wasn’t too bad.
TJ: Could you swim?
LR: Well I could swim. I’d done a lot of competition swimming and that sort of thing.
TJ: So it wasn’t too frightening.
LR: So, not for me um but this door it wouldn’t hold the two of us and just as we were getting on, on the door this chap informed me he couldn’t swim.
TJ: Oh dear.
LR: Which I thought was tremendously brave of him actually. And so he got on the door and paddled with a piece of wood and I got on the back of the raft and acted more or less as a rudder and a propeller kicking my feet and going away and we eventually got way out to sea and the next morning we were picked up by a -
TJ: Was this in the dark?
LR: This was in the dark. This was about um 10 0’clock about, you know between ten and eleven at night and um the next morning we were picked up by a French trawler and they picked us up and then later transferred us to an English vessel. Now, when they picked us up they took all my, they gave me a glass of hot rum to start with and that put me out like a light. ‘Course I’d had nothing to eat for about two or three days.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And then, they had taken all my clothes off and put me in a bunk and then they woke me up to say they were transferring me, and they wrapped a blanket around me, transferred me to the lifeboat.
TJ: And the other guy as well.
LR: And the other one, I assume. Do you know I never, ever saw him again.
TJ: Really
LR: No and I’ve often wondered how he fared because he was a bit, he had a bit of a job getting up on the, I know they threw a rope over but he was sort of stiff from the, paralysed from the waist down with sat on this raft all night.
TJ: Once you got on the fishing boat did you see him?
LR: No I didn’t.
TJ: Not even on the fishing boat?
LR: Not on the fishing boat no, the um, as I say -
TJ: Ahum.
LR: They gave me, they hauled him up first and then brought me up and they give me this glass of hot rum and it just knocked me right out.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And when I came too, when I was laid in the bunk and this chap was shaking me to say they were transferring me and they transferred me to the English ship.
TJ: What sort of ship was that?
LR: It was a big, a big cross channel type ship.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: With a lot of soldiers aboard which they’d picked up from further down the coast and um I, I contacted, after a while I went off to sleep again and then after a while I found the officer who was in charge of the lifeboat and asked him where my uniform was and he said oh we didn’t bring any uniforms. So I landed at Dover wearing a blanket and a pair of socks which this chap had given me and that’s all I had on [laughs]. Yeah so that’s, and that was the end of that adventure.
TJ: So after that how much longer were you in the army? How long was it before you transferred?
LR: Transferred. We was taken from there up to Scotland up in the Highlands and um I was up there until June of 1941. The um, meantime there was some, a notice had been posted on the unit to say they wanted volunteers for air crew duties and so I volunteered and I actually changed job in June of 1941. We went down to Stratford on Avon and we were initiated in to the differences in the drill and that sort of thing, given uniforms and oh it was absolutely wonderful. We got down there and we were billeted in the Shakespeare Hotel. We had
TJ: Nice
LR: Rooms with two to a room with sheets and beds. Beds with sheets on them.
TJ: Luxury.
LR: Oh absolutely we were sleeping on the floor for a couple of years [laughs] and um and then of course we went to initial training at Scarborough, in the Grand Hotel, afterwards.
TJ: Very nice.
LR: And then from there when we finished that course we were posted to Rhodesia which is Zimbabwe now.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: On a pilot’s course. And I passed the flying moth, the tiger moth flying course which was the initial flying course and then was sent on to twin-engined planes and I was just ready to solo on those when um the chief flying officer sent for me and said they were taking me off flying and when I asked why he said, ‘Your reactions are too slow.’
TJ: Oh.
LR: So I was absolutely devastated of course as you can imagine and I was sent up to Salisbury, this was down near Bulawayo. We were sent up to Salisbury, the capital and we were then billeted in a big hotel and I was in there with about oh I should think fifteen, twenty other men and they had all been taken off flying duties. One of them went around and asked where were we on ground subjects, you know, like navigation and things, things that, ground subjects - not flying and nearly all of us were top of the course or second top of the course and they then decided that because they were short of navigators or observers as they were then, because they were short of observers they, they had decided to take two off each course and put them on an observers course. Now whether that’s true or not I don’t know. But it salved their conscience a bit, made us look a little bit better. Well at least we didn’t fail [laughs]. But, and then of course from there I went down to East London in the Cape err to do the observers course which was, you passed three courses to be an observer. You passed as a navigator, a bomb aimer and air gunner. You had to pass all three courses and we did that successfully and then moved down to Cape Town to catch a ship home.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And came home.
TJ: Did you see much of South Africa while you were there? Did you have much time to go out?
LR: Not as much as I would like to. I would like to. I mean we were up in Rhodesia, up in Salisbury only a short distance in in their terms.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: From the [Niagara] Falls and the Zimbabwe ruins and never got the chance to visit them. I did get one weeks holiday while we were in Salisbury. Two of my friends and myself asked the flight sergeant of discipline if we, if we couldn’t have a week’s leave to see something of the country and he said leave it to me and the next day he sent for us. He said, ‘you’ve got to report down to the station and go to this err, get tickets to the Marandelles and somebody will meet you there and take you for a week’s leave on a tobacco farm’ which we did and we had a lovely week on a tobacco farm.
TJ: Did you? Yeah.
LR: Saw all the process right from growing and curing and all the whole lot.
TJ: Ahum. And did you smoke yourself at that time?
LR: Not at that time no. No. And then of course we went from there down to the unit. I would have liked to have seen more of South Africa. The journey up from, we landed initially in Durban and travelled from there up to Rhodesia. Now that travel, that route is now the scenic route, you know the great scenic route in South Africa that they all go and pay thousands for. That was that route. We went through all the old Boer countries Mafeking, Boer towns like Mafeking.
TJ: Yes.
LR: And places like that which we knew from the Boer war and it took us three days actually to go up there. And it was, it was wonderful.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Wonderful country South Africa actually.
TJ: So I understand yes.
LR: And the people were very, very good to us.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: The English people that is.
TJ: The settlers.
LR: Yes.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Not, not, not the Boers.
TJ: No.
LR: The Boers, well they used to beat the lads up.
TJ: Oh dear.
LR: Gangs of them. There was a union called the [?] which was, which meant the Brotherhood of the Wagon and, particularly in Johannesburg and Pretoria, and they used to watch out for airmen on their own and they would go and beat them up. And this happened regularly.
TJ: Oh dear.
LR: It happened to us. To my friend and myself. We happened to wander in, in, we were on the transfer down from Rhodesia down to East London. We spent a week in the transit camp between Johannesburg and Pretoria and we went, we got in to Pretoria to have a look around and we happened to wander into an area which was, we heard later, was noted for being [?] territory and my friend got slashed across the top of the eyes with a bicycle chain which was quite nasty. And err
TJ: Were you all right?
LR: I got off with a few bruises fortunately but I was, I was ok.
TJ: So let’s get you on the ship out of Cape Town. Is that right?
LR: Yes.
TJ: Yeah. To? Where did the ship go to?
LR: Went to Southampton.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: We arrived in Southampton and went from there. There was a party of us of course and we came back fairly quickly because we came back on an armed merchantmen.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: But we weren’t in convoy coming back. Going we were in convoy but coming back we weren’t in convoy and we landed at Southampton. On to Bournemouth and after a few days in Bournemouth we were sent up to Finningley which is now the Robin Hood airport.
TJ: That’s right. Yeah.
LR: And to start Operational Training Unit.
TJ: Did you get time to go and see your mum and dad?
LR: Oh yes, yes. We did get leave.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Yes. I had a nice pleasing incident actually because a very good friend of mine at home, we used to play in a band together um, he had been in Rhodesia as well and we ran across one another occasionally and we’d spend a lot of time together actually and while we were in Cape Town waiting for transit he came and in the meantime he’d passed the pilot’s course and he came and the day before we sailed and when I got home I was able to, I went to see his mother and she said, “Oh” she said, ‘Roy’s over in South Africa you know. Did you manage to meet him?’ And I said, ‘Not just meet him,’ I said, ‘I saw him just before we sailed,’ I said, ‘And he’s on his way home.’ Oh she was absolutely [laughs]
TJ: Lovely.
LR: Knocked out. Absolutely knocked out. Anyway when we got to OTU and when we got there the navigation officer got us all in his office and he said, ‘Now which half of you are navigators and which half are bomb aimers?’ And we said, ‘Well we’re all navigators and bomb aimers. We’re observers.’ So he said, ‘Oh well,’ and he counted us all up and he said, ‘you half there are navigators and you half there you’re bomb aimers.’
TJ: So it could have gone either way.
LR: It could have gone either way and err the big laugh of that was in my log book, on the results of the navigation there’s all the exam results in my logbook and the remarks at the bottom said recommended for specialist training after further experience. That was in navigation. They made me bomb aimer [laughs]. Rather typical.
TJ: So after Finningley then?
LR: After Finningley we went on a commando course on Barkston Heath for a week to toughen us up a bit and then we went to a Conversion Unit at Wigsley which is just outside Lincoln of course. In Nottingham I think or in Nottinghamshire err we did err I was with, oh excuse me. My pilot was on his second tour and he’d done his first tour on Hampdens and then later Manchesters. Now the Manchester was the forerunner of the Lancaster so all he had to do on the conversion course was not get used to the Lancaster but to get used to four engines and it didn’t take him long at all. And in actual fact I joined 50 squadron on the 1st of February of 1943 and I was there most of 1943 then.
TJ: Ahum so I understand you were a prisoner of war. What year did you, so you crash-landed in Germany.
LR: Yes we were shot down over Germany and I became a prisoner of war.
TJ: Tell us about, I read something about after when you were actually caught [guten morgen]
LR: Oh when I was, oh when they picked me up?
TJ: When they picked you up in the in the road.
LR: Yes well I’d been walking the day before. When I was shot down it was evening of course around about 8 o’clock - 7 o’clock, 8 o’clock time at night and I walked most of that night, or I tried to, I’d damaged of my leg.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: When the aircraft blew up and I damaged my leg and err.
TJ: How many of you got out?
LR: Only two of us.
TJ: Ahum
LR: I thought I was the only one but there were two of us and I walked as best I could that night and towards when it was just getting light I found myself in a small town, a big village if you like, and I was walking along and people were going to work and saying good morning to me.
TJ: Did they not look at the way you were dressed?
LR: Well they didn’t take too much notice. It was dark and I think they were used to uniforms and things like that and it was just a sort of mumbled ‘morgen’ or the way we would do is – ‘mornin’, you know and so I just ‘morgen’ and carried on and I managed to get my way out of there and on to the banks of a river and it was on the banks there were some thick bushes and I hid up in these bushes all during the day and it wasn’t very comfortable because it was, of course it was January err it was December and it was a bit cold and the next night I started to walk again and I was well on the way and I was way out in the country.
TJ: Where were you heading for?
LR: West. Generally west.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: To get towards France but not much hope mind you. I didn’t have much hope but at least you’ve got to try and the main problem was food and water of course. I had my escape kit which was just horlicks tablets. I, I was walking along this road and I heard a voice shout, ‘Halt.’ So I sort of tried the old ‘morgen’ but it didn’t work and it was three soldiers I think it was, two or three soldiers came up, and one of them shone a torch over me and I heard them say, ‘Oh Englisher flieger’ and of course rifles came off the shoulders and my hands went up and that was it.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: I was a prisoner.
TJ: Did any of them speak English?
LR: No. None of them.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: When I got -
TJ: Were they ok with you? They weren’t rough or anything?
LR: Oh yes, yes.
TJ: They were polite.
LR: They were ok. Yes. No violence at all. No.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: No. Not until I got into that place. I got the um they took me to a house and, where they were billeted obviously, and there was an officer sat behind a table. There was a stool at this side of the table which I sat on and he started to question me in very, very poor English so I pretended I didn’t understand him but then I caught, I was sat there and I got an almighty clout around the back of the head and knocked me off the stool, and there was a German stood there and he spoke perfect English. It turned out later that he’d spent a lot of time working in London and he, he started to question me and he said, He said, ‘You stand up when you talk to a German officer.’ and I thought, I stood up and he said, ‘Name, number, rank.’ I told him the rank at that time was flying officer and he said, ‘You’re not an officer.’ So I said, ‘Yes I am.’
TJ: Oh.
LR: “No you’re not,” he said. ‘Where are your badges of rank?’ So, I was wearing battle dress of course at that time and the badge of rank were on the shoulder. He said, ‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘the badge of rank are worn on the arm.’ So I said, ‘No they’re not. Not with this uniform,’ I said. They’re worn up there.’ He said, ‘Where are your papers?’ I said, ‘I don’t carry papers.’ So he said when the Luftwaffe went over England he said they used to carry papers. I said, ‘Yeah but I’m not in the Luftwaffe. I’m in the RAF.’
TJ: [Laughs] Good for you.
LR: So he said, I might say that by this time I was beginning to get on talking terms with them. Once he’d found, not, not just quite then, he said um, I said what I do have is identity discs so I took out these identity discs to show him and they were stamped on the back – ‘Officer’., ‘So‘ he said, ‘you are an officer.” So I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh right”, he says, ‘you’ll be hungry and thirsty no doubt,’ he said, ‘I’ll go and get you something to eat and drink.’ And he went off and came back with a slice of black bread which was horrible.
Ahum.
LR: And a glass of lager which I’ve often said since was the best glass of lager I’ve ever had [laughs] it was, it was lovely and then from then on he and I got on very well together. He started talking about the rations and things like that. He said, ‘Oh the people, the people in England they’re rationed,’ he said, ‘they haven’t got any food. I said, ‘don’t talk rubbish.’ I said, ‘of course they’ve got, of course they’ve got food.’
TJ: Ahum
LR: He said, ‘But you’re rationed for your food.’ I said, ‘Oh that’s just a precautionary measure,’ I said, You want your pound of sugar, or you want two pound of sugar you go in and buy it [laughs] a quarter or half pound of butter yes, oh yeah, just go in and buy it,’ I said, ‘the rationing’ I says. ‘oh yeah it’s a precautionary measure.’ I said, ‘it’s your propaganda people that are trying, are telling you this.’
TJ: Do you think he believed you?
LR: I had him doubting. I like to think I had him doubting [laughs].
TJ: [laughs] So -
LR: So -
TJ: What sort of thing did they, did they try and get information out of you?
LR: Oh yes. Yes.
TJ: What sort of things did they want to know?
LR: Well while, while I was in, unfortunately the, the central interrogation centre for RAF personnel was in Frankfurt where I’d been shot down so I was sent straight to, to this interrogation centre Dulag Luft and put into solitary confinement. This was a psychological ploy that the Germans employed because when you’ve been in solitary confinement for a while when you come out you’ll talk your head off.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: You know and while I was in solitary confinement the chap came and said he was from the Red Cross and he wished to get news that I was safe to my relatives in Britain so if I’d just give him a few details and so he asked for my name, number, rank which was normal and then he said what squadron were you on. ‘I can’t tell you that’ I said, and then he started to ask me what aircraft were you flying, things like this. And this, he wasn’t Red Cross at all.
TJ: Yes I think you started to suspect he wasn’t Red Cross.
LR: Yes so this was one way of getting but then of course after a while they took you off for interrogation and they started asking me all sorts of questions. I gave them name, number and rank and wouldn’t give them anything else and the [noise off]. Oh that’s the post. They said, ‘Right, well, tell me,’ he says, ‘How was Squadron Leader Parks getting in to his new rank?’ Squadron Leader Parks was a flight commander on the, on the um squadron.
TJ: Your squadron.
LR: My squadron, yes. He’d been a flight lieutenant up to the day before I was shot down. He was now squadron leader. He’d been promoted to squadron leader.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And they knew.
TJ: Interesting.
LR: Yeah. And he then he shot several other little items to me and you know the idea was to shock you into saying, well and in fact he actually did say yeah we know all about you, you know. So I said well if you know all about me then you know I’m not a spy. This is what they were implying that you must be, you could be a spy you see. If you know all about me you know I’m not a spy and anyway I went off and I went back into the cell and then because it was nearly Christmas instead of being in solitary confinement for about seven days or a week or something like that or ten days they let us out early on Christmas Eve and put us, all the prisoners they’d taken, put us in a big room all in together and err -
TJ: Were you all British? Or
LR: Yes.
TJ: Other nationalities? Mostly British were you?
LR: Mostly British yes. Oh excuse me
TJ: So this was about 1943. Is that right?
LR: This was 1943. This was December 1943. As I say it was just before Christmas
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And then shortly after that we were transferred from there to Stalug Luft III. Crossed Germany in cattle trucks.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And that wasn’t a very pleasant experience.
TJ: I’ll bet.
LR: Because you get locked in these cattle trucks and there’s no sanitation or anything like that and most unpleasant.
TJ: How long did that take? That journey?
LR: That took just over a day. I can’t, I can’t really remember.
TJ: No. No.
LR: But you know the time went by.
TJ: Ahum. And then you pitched up.
[New person arrives in room interrupting interview]
TJ: So then you got to Stalag Luft III.
LR: Stalag Luft III.
TJ: Three. And did your heart sink when you saw it?
LR: Well it was more or less what we expected.
TJ: Was it?
LR: Yeah. We were greeted by all the prisoners that were already there. It was a new compound which I said before and they’d sent, I think we were the first, we were the first actual prisoners, new prisoners to go in there. They’d sent a group of prisoners from the other Stalags, from the other compounds to open this one up to get it ready for us for the new influx of prisoners and they were all old hands. A lot of them were people that the Germans suspected of trying to escape and err =
TJ: And yes which we all know from the film The Great Escape which is -
LR: At the cinema.
TJ: Was from that same prisoner of war camp.
LR: The main one was Wing Commander Tuck, you know, the great Battle of Britain flying ace. He was one of them.
TJ: Did he, was he one of the ones that escaped?
LR: No he was one of the ones who was in the camp when we got there.
TJ: Oh right.
LR: He was one of the ones who’d been transferred because of his activities I think. So
TJ: I understand that as you were officers they didn’t give you any work to do.
LR: No.
TJ: So you would spend your whole time trying to work out how to get out and working on escape plans.
LR: Well yes unfortunately the camp that we were in, the compound that we were in was all sand underneath and water. We tried digging a tunnel and we ran into water and we we couldn’t get a successful tunnel going under because of the water.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: But it did have one outcome. A tale which I’ve told a few times. The, we had a wireless. Now this wireless -
TJ: Where did you get that from?
LR: It was made up of parts. We had some very clever men in there you know.
TJ: Sounds like it yeah.
LR: And um it was taken to bits every evening, every day and then at six, oh to get the news at 6 o’clock at night it was assembled in secret somewhere with [?] all over the place.
TJ: Ahum
LR: And we got the 6 o’clock news from the BBC and then it was taken to bits again and the parts distributed among various men so if any part was discovered we could perhaps replace it and they wouldn’t find the whole lot. So this happened. There was a vital part went missing and we had these goons, the Germans, we called them goons, we had them, we were friendly with them more or less and we used to bribe them with cigarettes and soap to bring stuff in for us, odd little items like you know bring an egg in, a couple of eggs or something like this. Some onions or, odd things they’d bring in. So we approached one of these and said would they bring this wireless part in. No, no too dangerous, you know, so I must explain that some of these guards were special. They had, they went around the camp, they didn’t do any actual guarding. What they did, they went around the camp looking for trouble. They would walk into a room and look around to see if everybody, nobody was doing anything clandestine you know.
TJ: Right.
LR: And so we approached one of these and if they found something important they were given a week’s leave and promotion so we approached one of them and said could he bring this wireless part in and he said, ‘No, no.’ So we said you show us where, you bring that part in and we’ll show you where there’s a tunnel. So oh alright. Oh, ‘yes, yes.’
TJ: Bribery.
LR: So off he went see and we bodged this tunnel up, the one that had flooded, bodged it up like the real thing and showed him this when he came in with the part, showed him it, he went off and brought the camp commandant and the camp commandant was a recent addition, of course, to the camp. He was a new one and he came in and he was all cock a hoop oh he was going to find us and the usual sort of palaver and so he was happy, the goon got his week’s leave and he was happy, we got our wireless part so we were happy so everybody was happy all around. [laughs]
TJ: That’s a lovely story isn’t it? And I expect he got his promotion as well.
LR: Yes.
TJ: Yes yeah so I mean life in the prisoner of war camp it must have been a bit boring was it?
LR: I was fortunate in as much as I played guitar.
TJ: Oh right.
LR: And we had a camp band. A very good camp band in actual fact. We had some very accomplished musicians. The leader of the band used to play with Billy Cotton.
TJ: Really?
LR: Before the war, yes. He was lead trumpeter with Billy Cotton and we had some other good, really good musicians and when I first got there I was in hospital with my knee for a while and the same night that I was shot down our wing commander was shot down and his navigator who I was friendly with was in our camp and he was actually saving a bed for me in the room that he was in and he told this band leader that I played piano, which I did, for sing songs.
TJ: Ahum
LR: Sort of pub piano type playing you know, and I’d taken lessons and that but I wasn’t very good. So the band leader came to see me and said you know, he said, the pianist is not very happy in the job, you know, would you take over and I said well I’m not a band pianist, I said. I’m a pub pianist, I play for singsongs and things like that. I said no. I said, but I do play guitar and he said oh we’ve got two guitarists in the band now so he says you know that’s it and then the next day a gentleman came to see me, West Indian and he said. Oh he said I understand you play guitar, you know, and I said yes and he said, band guitar and I said yes. And he said well I’m the guitarist lead guitarist in the band but I don’t like playing in the band very much he’s says I’m more for calypsos and West Indian rhythms and he said if you would like to take over in the band he said I’d happily hand the guitar to you but I would like to borrow it every now and then just to keep in practice you know and I said well that’s fair enough then, that’s good and so I went into the band and that gentleman was Cy Grant.
TJ: I know that name.
LR: Have you heard of Cy Grant?
TJ: I remember Cy Grant.
LR: It was Cy Grant.
TJ: Wow.
LR: And occasionally I would take the other guitarist’s guitar, Cy would take mine and we would go and find a quiet spot to sit and I would show him the band rhythms and he would show me calypso rhythms and we’d have a bit of a sing song together but you know with playing but it was a case of how long you could do that without somebody coming along oh that’s great, can you sing this? Do you know such and such a tune? So it absolutely took -
TJ: When you had, when you played the band did the guards come and watch as well? Come and listen?
LR: Who?
TJ: The guards.
LR: Yes, they did. They did. They used to invite the commandant to the band shows that we did.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Oh he was invited. We used to do, we used to put shows on regularly and we would invite them along and very often some of the sketches lampooned the Germans and they laughed as much as anybody [laughs]
TJ: Really.
LR: Oh aye yeah.
TJ: So they do have a sense of humour.
LR: Oh yes, yes.
TJ: Did you -
LR: A funny sense of humour but -
TJ: Yeah.
LR: They would laugh at some -
TJ: Just out of interest did you have any contact with Cy Grant after the war was over?
LR: After the war was over I went to see him. You know he was touring with oh, Stop the World I Want To Get Off. That -
TJ: Ahum.
LR: That show. He was going to Nottingham and I took my daughter.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: She was about sixteen or seventeen at the time and oh she was absolutely thrilled to bits and I went and saw him there at the, went to the stage door and he came out and we had, we had a good long chat.
TJ: Lovely.
LR: And another incident with that was while I was at work I was telling someone about this and this chap came to me one day he said I was in such and such a station he said, I just forget which it was and Cy Grant was on the station, he said, so I went to speak to him and I went and told him that I worked with you. He said, you know, he told him that I work with Les Rutherford and Cy said, ‘Oh Les how’s he doing?’ and you know all this sort of thing and this chap thought he would say Les Rutherford, who’s he?
TJ: Yeah. That’s great that’s great. Interesting. So we’d better go back a bit um Stalag Luft III and how long, how many months were you there altogether?
LR: I got there in about the January.
TJ: January ’44.
LR: Of ’44 and -
TJ: And you were liberated by the Russians.
LR: We were liberated by the Russians
TJ: When would that have been then?
LR: In April of ‘45.
TJ: Right so -
LR: So just over a year.
TJ: Just over a year.
LR: Just over a year.
TJ: About fourteen months.
LR: And then they held us for a good long while.
TJ: Really? They wouldn’t let you go.
LR: They wouldn’t let us go no. I don’t know why.
TJ: But then were you held in the same sort of conditions? Did they, did they take over the role of jailers?
LR: More or less. More or less. When they, when they took over, they promised us all sorts of things. Oh we were going to get wireless sets and food and all sorts of things but none of it materialised. We still relied heavily on Red Cross parcels.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And um which weren’t very forthcoming in actual fact because I mean the German transport was in chaos so um no we were still virtually prisoners of war.
TJ: So when you did leave, was it organised? Did you all get on coaches and leave the area and -
LR: Coaches? [laughs]
TJ: [laughs] Right. I mean buses.
LR: No.
TJ: Or cattle trucks.
LR: That’s more like it. The um the Russians took us in their lorries to the, to a river. I think it was the Elbe. To a bridge. We got out of the lorries, walked over the bridge and there were American lorries waiting on the other side and the American lorries took us to their camp. It was an old German airfield and we had to wait there till, there were a lot more people there of course a lot more prisoners and we had to wait our turn for an aircraft to take us back home. In the meantime we were living off American rations and that it was absolutely wonderful.
TJ: I bet it was
LR: We got in there and oh white bread. White bread and bacon and eggs things like that.
TJ: Did they have any chocolate?
LR: Chocolate oh yes and films and you know, everything.
TJ: So you were quite happy with that?
LR: We had about, about a week there. We were itching to get home.
TJ: I bet yeah
LR: We had about a week there and then they were flying the Dakota aircraft from there to Brussels and we landed in Brussels and then they said, there some official came, and said if you want to spend the night in Brussels and go and see the town there’s money available to give you, to give you pay. Give you money. But if you want to go home there are some aircraft, a few aircraft waiting on the airfield and they’ll take you. I opted to go home and got onto a, it was a Lincoln bomber actually, the sort of bigger version of the Lancaster and they flew us back to this country.
TJ: Where did you land? Do you remember?
LR: I think it was Cosford but I’m not, I’m never quite, I’m never quite been sure about that.
TJ: Ahum
LR: I think it was Cosford but we had misgivings about what our welcome was going to be because we’d had two or three letters had been published. We used to have a camp newspaper and we used to publish excerpts from letters.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And um some of them were like one in particular I remember was a girl who wrote and said that she was getting married and she said, ‘I’d rather marry a 1944 hero then a 1942 coward.
TJ: What did she mean by that exactly?
LR: We were cowards. We were cowards because we were prisoners of war.
TJ: War.
LR: We’d given up you see.
TJ: Well she obviously didn’t know what she was talking about.
LR: There were several letters in that vein.
TJ: That must have been devastating.
LR: It was.
TJ: For you.
LR: So as I said we wondered what the reception would be when we got back home. We needn’t have worried because we stepped on to the tarmac and there were a crowd of WAAFs waiting for us. It was about, I think about 10 o’clock or so at night. It was still light of course it was June [by the time it got quite dark] and we sort of marched across the tarmac with a WAAF on each arm and went in there to be, to be fed and the other nice thing was there’d been a dance on and the band were just packing up by the time we’d eaten and what not it was about 11 o’clock and the band was just packing up and somebody told them about us being there and they put their gear back up together again and played for another hour so we could have a dance.
TJ: Oh how lovely.
LR: Yeah.
TJ: People can be lovely can’t they?
LR: So that was, that was nice.
TJ: And did you, so you were around Cosford area you think.
LR: Yes.
TJ: And then how long before you were allowed to actually go home?
LR: About the next day I think. Very quickly. The, we had experienced German, Russian, American and now English efficiency and the English was far, far superior to all the others.
TJ: Well that’s refreshing to hear.
LR: There was no red tape. We were given, we were deloused, put a tube put down with powder and stuff and deloused and we were given passes and things and shoved on the train and off home like. Just like that.
TJ: So was that the end of the war for you or did you have to be debriefed or anything like that?
LR: Oh I had to be debriefed. Yes
TJ: Before you went home or did you come back for that?
LR: I think we came back for that.
TJ: How long did you have at home then?
LR: Oh I was home for about six weeks or something like that.
TJ: I bet your parents were pleased to see you.
LR: Not particularly. They [laughs] no don’t get that wrong. On the way home, when I was stationed down here I had an aunt and uncle in York and my aunt was the pastry cook in the De Grey Rooms at York which were very famous reception rooms and I used to stop at York, get off the train and go and see her, go and have a word with her. I used to go down the back way in to the kitchens and she would get a meal on straightaway. The bacon and eggs went on as soon as she saw me and then I would pop back and get the next train up to Newcastle and so this time I did the same. She sat me down for the meal and then she said, ‘How long is it since you heard from home?’ Oh I said I hadn’t heard since about you know about the middle of last year. I said letters weren’t coming through. So she said, ‘Oh you won’t know then.’ Now, I knew then that my mother had died because she was seriously ill with cancer.
TJ: Oh how sad. How sad for you to find out like that.
LR: Yes but at least it prepared me.
TJ: Yes.
LR: For getting, for going home. I was able to get myself composed a bit.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: And, of course, while I’d been away my mother and father were separated. So my father wasn’t there. He was away somewhere else. So -
TJ: A bit of an anti-climax for you coming home then.
LR: It was.
TJ: Not what you’d expected.
LR: And the -
TJ: Not what you’d envisaged.
LR: And the thing was, you know I said we’d had the business?
TJ: Yeah.
LR: Well my mother had appointed two so called friends as executors and they’d fleeced the whole lot and the place was bankrupt so I didn’t have a very good homecoming.
TJ: No.
LR: Really.
TJ: What about your siblings? Your younger brothers and sisters.
LR: Well my younger brother was um, he was killed in the RAF. The next sister down was, she had a mental breakdown. She had epilepsy I think although they didn’t say that at the time.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: In those days and she was in a home. The next sister was just turned eighteen and she’d joined the WAAFs, not the WAAFs, the WRNS and the younger sister was trying to run the business and that was where these executors stopped in and took over. So I had quite a mess to sort out when I got home.
TJ: I bet you did. Yeah.
LR: And I had two younger brothers. I had four brothers and three sisters. That was right. Not the other way but
TJ: And were they still at school.
LR: They were still at school but without any supervision or anything like that they’d been allowed to run wild and one of them was actually on probation. He’d acted as a lookout for some kids that were burgling somewhere and he’d been caught. He was on probation. Well I nearly went mad over this you know. I went, I went up to see the welfare officer eventually. I couldn’t do anything with them. They were absolutely wild. They’d got in with this wild crown. One was ten. One was ten, the other one was eight and they were absolutely wild so um as I say, no one was eleven that was it, eleven and ten, eleven and ten. I went to see the welfare officer and said look if I don’t get these kids out of this environment they’re just going to end up in jail. I said what can I do? Have you got any advice? I said could I send them to a private school somewhere away so they said well you couldn’t afford it. So with the fees for the school but he said but there is a scheme started by the old Prince of Wales for a farm school but it means sending them either to Canada or Australia and he said it means that if you sent them you probably wouldn’t see them again cause in those days the travel wasn’t what it is now so you probably wouldn’t ever see them again so he said it’s up to you.
TJ: So what did you do?
LR: I sent them.
TJ: Where?
LR: To Canada.
TJ: Canada.
LR: And they both did remarkably well.
TJ: So it was a good thing to do.
LR: Yeah the, the elder one, he joined the air force. Went as a navigator in the air force and then became one of Canada’s leading aviation artists. And the other one he joined the air force and actually he was a mechanic with the Canadian equivalent of the Red Arrows.
TJ: And did you see them again?
LR: Well I’ll come to that. And he became a master carver. You know they’re great on these wild imitation ducks in Canada. You know where you’ve got to make them sort of sit on the water and everything like that and he won prizes all over the place and became a master carver and he did some wonderful carvings of birds and things like this and he used to send me photographs of them. And he got married and then divorced and then he got married again and the elder one phoned me up and he said, ‘How do you feel about being best man for George?’ This was the younger one. At his wedding? So I said, “Oh I don’t know I really can’t afford the fares over there at this time. “ He said, well he said if you come over he said I’ll pay your fare over, so.
TJ: What year was that?
LR: 1985. So I said well I will have to talk it over with my wife first because I won’t come without her and we’ll obviously have to raise her fare, you know and we’d only just moved in to this house in actual fact or were in the process of moving. So anyway, my stepson heard about this and said, ‘You must go and I will pay my mum’s fare.’ So both fares were paid for so we were very lucky because we were struggling a bit I must admit. Anyway we went over there and they kept it away from my younger brother. They didn’t tell him that I was going and the day after we got there they’d arranged a party there what they have in a local pub sort of thing a little bit different from ours well they’d arranged a meal there and it was my nephew’s 21s t birthday and they said it was a party for him for his birthday. So they got there, all bar my wife and myself and my nephew and they were all sat down and the elder brother John lent over to him and said, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’ he said, ‘I can’t be the best man at your wedding.’ Well the wedding was the following Saturday and he said oh God why not ,why not and by that time I was walking to the end of the table and he said well I thought maybe this guy could do it instead. ‘Jesus Christ it’s Les.’ He leapt over the table and -
TJ: Lovely.
LR: It was. A very emotional moment actually.
TJ: I bet it was yeah.
LR: It was good. It was good yeah.
TJ: Was that the first time you’d seen him since.
LR: The first time I’d since him since.
TJ: 19
LR: 1946 yeah. Nearly forty years.
TJ: Did you write all this time?
LR: Oh yes I got regular reports from various farm schools about their education and what they were doing and general behaviour and things like that and then when they reached sixteen they were fostered out to families and they took up reputation, took up a positions not necessarily farming but took a job. As it happens they went into the air force and
TJ: And you corresponded all those forty years.
LR: Yeah.
TJ: With them direct. Yeah. Actually to be honest we ought to go back a bit. Actually Les just back pedal a bit to before you were shot down over Germany to your time with Bomber Command. So how many I think they call them sorties don’t they? How many did you fly? Do you have a number?
LR: Yes. I flew, I was shot down on my twenty third.
TJ: Twenty third. Right. And was that a good number?
LR: Yes fairly good. Fairly good.
TJ: And were you always going over, was it always over Germany?
LR: Not always. I did some over Italy.
TJ: Oh right yeah.
LR: And a couple in , a couple in the beginning I did in France over the u boat pens.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: And a couple of mine laying trips as well.
TJ: So, do you keep in touch with old comrades? Apart from Cy Grant?
LR: Well of course he died.
TJ: Yes.
LR: Yes I was, the only one that I was really in touch with was our old rear gunner. But I wasn’t with my own crew when I was shot down.
TJ: Oh.
LR: I was flying, the bomb aimer had got sick and I flew in his place.
TJ: Right.
LR: And got shot down. So, which happens. But my old rear gunner he finished his second tour actually and he went to live down in Budleigh Salterton in Devon, near Exeter and we used to caravan, my wife and I, and we used to take the caravan and we used to take the caravan down there and go and visit him and also when we got rid of the caravan we used to go self catering and we’d make a point of going once a year down to Devon and seeing Frank.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Now when I stopped driving of course I couldn’t go anymore and we sort of just used to get odd phone calls and that was all and then gradually his phone calls began to get odd. His wife died and from then on he began to get bit funny and he began to get dementia I’m quite sure and we were nearly frightened to call him up because we’d called him up and he didn’t know who we were, you know.
TJ: Oh.
LR: He said, ‘Les? Who’s Les?’ You know, and he didn’t know who we were and then quite suddenly out of the blue we got a call from him quite lucid, chatting away quite merrily so we don’t know what to make of it.
TJ: What did you do for work after, after the war?
LR: Well I tried a couple of jobs. Travelling. Took a job travelling the whole of the south of England from the Humber down and that’s how I came to Lincoln. My first wife was Lincoln. We came to Lincoln as a centre so she could be at home and whatnot because I should be travelling a lot. And the travelling, I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t -
TJ: What were you selling or something?
LR: Fancy goods.
TJ: Oh right yeah.
LR: I didn’t get on with it. I wasn’t a salesman.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And then I took a job with Lincolnshire only, with United Dominions Trusts the merchant bankers and I wasn’t doing too bad with that but then they sent for me at head office and said they were going to move me down to Worthing. And I said well I don’t want to go to Worthing. They said oh you know you’ve got to move we’ve made our minds up and I said well don’t I have a say then?
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And they said, oh no you’ve got to go. I said, oh I said, now, I said, when I was in the services they said I had to go away then but since I came out of the services I said I do what I want to do.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And they said well it’s a case of either move or resign so I said, ‘Right, I resign as of now.’ Which I did. So on the way down I was going down the lift with the head clerk and he said I should think again because they’ll not change or anything like that. He says, what has happened is one of the directors sons has come out of the army he says and Lincoln is a rich prospect for him he said and they want him to take it over so I said I’m not having anything to do with that.
Ahum.
LR: So I came back. I was on the dole for about oh I should think five or six weeks. I applied to go back in to the air force. Didn’t hear anything and I was absolutely fed up. Somebody told me they wanted men on machines at Clayton Dewandre’s, a local firm. So I thought right well I’ve got to do something and I went down there. They trained me on a machine and I worked there for the rest of my working life. About -
TJ: What were they making?
LR: Mainly brakes. Power brakes and car heaters.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Mostly.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: Power brakes for lorries and things like that before power brakes came in to cars and things.
TJ: So you told me you’ve been married twice and how many children have you got?
LR: I had one.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: And my wife had one. I had a daughter Marion who unfortunately died about six years ago and my wife’s son is doing very well. He’s the chief engineer up at the, chief maintenance engineer at the university. He’s got a good job. His wife is a midwife sister at the hospital working her socks off.
TJ: Right. So do you have any thoughts on the way Bomber Command was treated after the war? Did that -
LR: Oh yes.
TJ: Is that something that struck a chord with you?
LR: Yes it did indeed. We were completely ignored after the war. When Churchill made his speech of congratulation, thanking the people he thanked all the armed forces except Bomber Command and all the chiefs of staff all got knighthoods and what not. Sir Arthur Harris got nothing and we were absolutely ostracised and people called us gangsters and, you know, air gangsters and all this sort of thing and we were absolutely horrified.
TJ: I’ll bet.
LR: In fact I say now even the government can’t give us even now but they’ve been forced more or less in to giving us a clasp as recognition for Bomber Command you know the clasp that goes on the medal.
TJ: Yes.
LR: It’s a cheap bit of tin. You know the clasps that they have on medals -
TJ: Yes.
LR: They’re usually nice silver sort of things engraved, all the lot.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: This is a cheap bit of well it just looks like a cheap bit of brass.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: With Bomber Command written on it, stamped on it.
TJ: Why exactly, I don’t know too much about it but why do you think Bomber Command -
LR: Largely because of Dresden.
TJ: Ahum.
LR: You know because of Dresden was bombed after the -
TJ: Yeah.
LR: But then so were a lot of other cities.
TJ: Coventry.
LR: They said Dresden was such a lovely city and all that sort of thing but Dresden, they bombed it because Stalin asked them to because Dresden was the main jumping off point for all the troops from Germany going on to the eastern front.
TJ: Yeah, carry on.
LR: And also there were a couple of munitions factories there. So in actual fact there was a legitimate target but they were saying, what these purists are saying is that there was no need to bomb it to such an extent. After the war, as what we did.
TJ: You were following orders.
LR: Just following orders. I mean.
TJ: Yeah.
LR: Churchill ordered it, he actually ordered the bombing when all’s said and done. When Stalin requested it it still had to go through Churchill hadn’t it?
TJ: Of course.
LR: And he just washed his hands of us altogether.
TJ: Not good. It must have -
LR: But members of Bomber Command feel very bitter about that.
TJ: I’m sure. Well thank you very much for sharing all these memories with me Les.
LR: Quite alright.
TJ: I think I can finish here and say goodbye.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ARutherfordL150605
PRutherfordRL1501
Title
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Interview with Les Rutherford. One
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:18:12 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Description
An account of the resource
During this interview Les describes his experience as a despatch rider in France in 1940 before escaping from Dunkirk and returning to the United Kingdom, eventually joining the Royal Air Force. He also describes his training in South Africa and his experience of being shot down, interrogated and imprisoned in Stalag Luft III.
Creator
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Tina James
Date
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2015-06-05
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
South Africa
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Oberursel
Poland--Żagań
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1943-12-20
1944
1945
50 Squadron
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Dulag Luft
entertainment
Lancaster
Manchester
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
RAF Cosford
RAF Finningley
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Wigsley
Stalag Luft 3
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/146/3505/ATaylorWH150710.2.mp3
1d51f0f6e10e9267096b78aab5b85a34
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
Taylor, William
William Henry Taylor
William H Taylor
W H Taylor
W Taylor
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with William Henry Taylor (2214212 Royal Air Force) and a typewritten memoir.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-10
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Taylor, WH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
I’m Ron Meredith and I’m conducting an interview at the moment with Mr Taylor who I’m going to ask to introduce himself. We are actually doing this from his own home in Tattershal and I’m em, sure the rest of this will be quite interesting. Not only did Mr Taylor serve during the War and become a prisoner of War he served on the “V” force with Nuclear Weapons as well, so there is a little story behind this, over to you Sir.
WT. What ?
RM. You are.
WT.My History?
RM. The first thing to say is “I am.”
WT. Who I am?
RM. I’d rather not prompt you unless I have to and if you could just tell it as you wish. Absolutely as you wish.
WT. From the word go?
RM. From the time you signed up first or were called up first, yes.
WT. To?
RM.To whenever you decide.
WT. My name is William Henry Taylor, known as Buck throughout my service. I joined the Air Force in Nineteen Forty Two and er. Actually when I went to join up I went to join the Navy but it was out for lunch so the RAF Recruiter got hold of me and he said “I am sure you would like to be in the Air Force and be a Pilot.” I didn’t even know what a Pilot was, I was only seventeen I told them I was eighteen to get in and eh did a few months refuelling aeroplanes and things like that and em after a period they were asking for volunteers for Aircrew and I became Aircrew. Eh, went through all my courses, did my course as an Air Gunner at Andreas on the Isle of Man and from there on we did various other aircraft, Ansons, Wellingtons and eh at a certain, I forget exactly when it was but it was in nineteen forty four I think, end of Forty Three I think, we were all put into a hanger at RAF Finingley and told to crew up and eh everybody.
RM. What Squadron was this by the way?
WT.No Squadron, just Aircrew that had passed out and, so forth, and this Pilot came to me and said”I like the look of you will you become a member of my Crew, you know be my Gunner?” I certainly would like to be, so we crewed up at Finningley and then as a Crew we went to the OTUs and this and that and the other on Halifaxes, Lancasters and goodness knows what and then eventually posted to Elsham Wolds 103 Squadron and eh. Funny thing about being Aircrew, I didn’t know anybody but my Crew. We didn’t mix; we just kept together the seven of us and eh, slept together, ate together, went out for drinks together and so on. Then we were thrown into the War like Soldiers do, go over the top and eh, commenced Operations. Eh, very dangerous I might say, you were going through flak, like snowflakes there was that much stuff coming up at you, you were wondering how you got through that. Wondering how the Pilot thought, how am I going to get through that? What we did, did several, numerous operations, and finally there was a target just about fifty miles from Paris that we did, it was a place called Ruevigdies. We went there, it was a nine hour trip there and back and em, the first Operation on it, you know numerous Lancasters involved. Couldn’t find the Target and all the rest of it and it was just a waste of time and two nights later, and we lost a few Aircraft on that trip. Then a couple of days later we were told we were going back again to bomb it that night. We reached the target but couldn’t find it, the Pathfinder people couldn’t find it because of the weather, foggy and so forth. We stooged around in circles for quite a bit, aircraft colliding with each other and I don’t know, a bit rough and the next thing I knew on this one, having left the target, well actually the thing is eh, we were told to come home the trip was cancelled. The Master Operator who was looking after the job told us all to go home and my Pilot said to the Crew “We haven’t come all this way twice to come home each time, having done nothing, I think I know where the target was” So we did a bit of a detour around the place and he said “this is it” and we dropped out bombs and headed for home. On the way home we were being attacked and the next thing I knew there was a big explosion behind my turret and eh, the Pilot asked everybody if they were all right and the Bomb Aimer was dead and the Mid Upper Gunner was dead. I found out later after the War we had been hit by one of those Messerschmitt 110 with upward firing guns. The aircraft just went into a dive, a very steep dive and all I could hear was the Pilot shouting “God save me” you know and I thought we are not going to get out of this very well. So I got out of my turret, put my parachute on and the entrance door to the aircraft was just behind my turret. I thought crikey if I jump out I will be in the propellers before we know where we are. So I went back in the turret, all this happened in seconds, I swung the turret on the beam and leant back like that and the slip stream got hold of me and threw me out. Tumbling through the sky, fortunately I remembered to pull my parachute thing and I landed four to five hundred yards from where the aircraft hit the deck. And eh, a big saga from then on, being captured, going through [unreadable] Luft, you know the interrogation centre. A lot of this travelling from France to eventually the Prisoner of War Camp took a couple of weeks on trains, lorries and so forth. It ended up being this Luft 7 a place called Bankow in Poland. And eh, not very nice, a new camp surrounded by high wires gun turrets and goodness knows what and eh after a period of er,well not long three or four months, we were told to get up and marched off in the snow, it was snowing like billyoh. We marched from Poland to just outside Berlin, a place called Leukenwalde. We lost lots and lots of men in the snow, it never stopped snowing for weeks.
RM. Roughly what year would this have been?
WT. It was called the Death March.
RM. Exactly what year was that, was that Forty Four or Forty Five?
WT. It was February Forty Four. Yes that’s when the March started, it took us three weeks and we ended up at this Leukenwalde which was a Camp for all Nationalities, you know Americans, Poles you name it and the French, they were the most numerous Prisoners in this Camp. They lauded it over us, they really did, yes. Eventually we were released by the Russians. The Russian Tank Squadron came to the Camp and just mowed the wires down and the turrets and everything and they wanted us to get on the tanks and go to, they were heading for Berlin, to fight with them in Berlin. I don’t think anybody volunteered. We hadn’t been fed for ages; we couldn’t have fought if we had tried. Then eh, as I say after this release by the Russians we were flown back to England by the Americans and eh, my War as such was over. I hadn’t enjoyed it too much [laugh]. I’m sorry.
RM. It’s an amazing story though, amazing story, but that wasn’t the end for you, you decided to soldier on, rejoin.
WT. Yes well er, we were all demobbed we were only in for the duration of the present emergency. I had no option, I had to go and I was a Warrant Officer and I couldn’t stand the quietness and whatever of Civvy Street. So after a few months I rejoined the Air Force and asked if I could fly again. No they don’t need flyers anymore, they would give me training as an Engineer, Ground Engineer and I accepted that. Then stayed in the Air Force plodding gently through all the ranks till I reached Warrant Officer again in Nineteen Seventy Four. The main thing that I was stationed at RAF Wittering as a Crew Chief on the Victor Bomber and eh, flew ‘round the World on that many, many times, you know. If I could have stayed at that I would have done, but they said no you are promoted to Flight Sergeant and off you go. I was posted to RAF Coningsby, went to America on the trials of the Phantom, myself and ten men. A year we did out there and came back and went operational on 54 Squadron and worked very hard to get that going. I was awarded or rewarded with the BEM for all my activities and stayed there till my service was completed in Nineteen Seventy Seven on my fifty second birthday.
RM. Well that is quite a remarkable story and I’m sure that will be of interest to many, many people over the years.
WT. Was it all right.
RM. Yes indeed, thank you so much.
WT. Can I listen to it?
RM. The only way you can listen to it
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ATaylorWH150710
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with William Taylor
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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00:15:37 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Ron Merrideth
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-10
Description
An account of the resource
William Taylor joined the Royal Air Force in 1942 as ground crew. He remustered as an air gunner and flew operations with 103 Squadron from RAF Elsham Wolds, flying Lancasters. His Aircraft was attacked and shot down by a night fighter in July 1944. He baled out, was captured and became a prisoner of war. In February 1944, he and fellow prisoners were sent on the long march away from the advancing Russians. Following demobilisation he rejoined the Royal Air Force and worked with the V Force at RAF Wittering. He was awarded a British Empire Medal and retired in 1977.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Revigny-sur-Ornain
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Żagań
Poland--Tychowo
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-07
1945-02
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hugh Donnelly
103 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
crewing up
ground crew
ground personnel
Lancaster
Me 110
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Finningley
shot down
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 7
the long march
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/344/3511/PWakefieldJ1601.1.jpg
b92234efa02be14011383a80ecf247aa
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/344/3511/AWakefieldJ161029.1.mp3
434d2e2cf7e487f4db1dbc3d6a3bd309
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
Wakefield, Jack
J Wakefield
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Jack Wakefield (1921 - 2022, 40929 Royal New Zealand Air Force). He flew operations with 75 Squadron from RAF Feltwell and with 38 Squadron in the Middle East.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-29
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
Wakefield, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MS: This is Miriam Sharland and I’m interviewing Jack Wakefield today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We are at Jack’s home in Wanganui and it is Saturday the 29th of October 2016. Thank you, Jack, for agreeing to talk to me today.
JW: It’s a pleasure.
MS: Also present at the interview is Glenn Turner Of 75 Squadron Association. So, Jack can you tell me a bit about your early life before you got involved with the air force?
JW: Well, I was an apprentice upholsterer when war broke out. And I joined the air force and the army at the same time. But the army age was actually twenty one. So when I got the message from the air force that I’d been accepted and that I was going in to camp on the 8th of April 1940. I sent my father down to the army headquarters to say that I was too young to join the army and they weren’t very pleased. But anyway I made the right decision and really enjoyed my time in the air force.
MS: So what made you decide to join the air force?
JW: Well, we were very patriotic as young people and I was actually in the Territorial Army, and that’s why I joined the army at the same time. Most young men were looking forward to adventure. We knew that it was dangerous but it didn’t worry us a great deal. So it didn’t matter a hell of a lot to us which service we went in. But I said years later, there’s one thing about the air force, you go home to bed — if you go home.
MS: So how did you end up in Bomber Command?
JW: Well, eventually, when I arrived in England in July 1940 we were all gathered at Uxbridge in London and from there we were posted to all points of the compass. And I happened to go to number 5 OTU Aston Downs which is an RAF station, training on Defiants. And during that period the Defiants were meeting up with the Messerschmitts and initially the Messerchmitts were coming behind the Defiants which had a four gun turret firing twelve hundred rounds a minute, each gun. They fell to the gunners and the air force were ahead. But once the Germans knew that the Defiant had no forward armament they started attacking from the front, and then things were reversed. The Defiants were, suffered heavy losses and were withdrawn. By that time I’d finished training on Defiants and they had to do something with us. We were trained air gunners after all. No matter what aircraft we were flying in. So we were posted to 75 Squadron. A New Zealand Flight that had evidently a shortage of air gunners. Like replacements.
MS: So did you want to be a pilot?
JW: Yes. I definitely wanted to be a pilot but I, to be quite honest I just didn’t have the education. I was quite capable of passing, you know, exams. I had a proficiency certificate but that wasn’t sufficient. One thing I couldn’t do was mathematics because I’d never seen them in my life. That’s algebra and all that kind of stuff. So I stumbled there. But anyway I was quite happy to go as an air gunner but I would have, right up to the end of my service life I would have liked to have been a pilot.
MS: So can you tell me a bit about the air gunner’s role? What did it feel like when you were in the turret?
JW: Well you felt responsible for your other crew members. You were the only eyes facing backwards. And we had small duties like the navigator might want a drift. Get the drift of the aircraft and things like that but mostly the main function, I suppose, was extra eyes, especially facing backwards.
MS: And did you ever shoot any German planes down?
JW: No. To be quite honest I never fired a shot. But we were fired at occasionally but quite often the target was too far away for me to retaliate so I’d just give the pilot instructions which way to dive to get the darkest part of the sky.
MS: Can you tell us what it was like when you were training?
JW: Well, it was very thrilling getting into a two seater fighter with a Merlin engine up front, even though it was underpowered for the weight it was carrying. We were so keen to fly that there was pilots going up in Blenheim’s solo and we volunteered to go up with them. And one day I went up with this Blenheim pilot and the aircraft — most of the aircraft were clapped out and we got up, he was going up to, I think it was twenty two thousand and we got up to about fifteen and I found I had no intercom. And there was also a light button which we could send Morse. That was u/s as well. And then when I turned the oxygen on that wasn’t working either. And I couldn’t, I could bash and yell and everything but I couldn’t make the pilot hear me. But at seventeen thousand, it’s in my logbook, seventeen thousand you start to overheat so he descended. So, otherwise I would have gone to sleep. That’s just a little side line.
MS: What did it feel like going from New Zealand to England?
JW: Well, it was a great thrill of course. You see, we were, well I was only third generation New Zealander. All our history at school was British history so we felt very very close to English people. And we knew all about, well I wouldn’t say knew all about, we knew a lot of English history. We knew London. All the history connected with London and all that kind of thing. So we really enjoyed getting around. Then we got to Uxbridge. If we weren’t posted in the morning we were free for the rest of the day. So another New Zealander, a navigator, we’d tramp around London until we were absolutely footsore. And I suppose we were glad to be posted [laughs] because we were running out of money as well.
MS: Can you tell us what squadron, what squadrons you were in and what rank you were?
JW: 75 Squadron. I was a sergeant.
MS: And what —
JW: 38 Squadron I was firstly a pilot officer, actually firstly a flight sergeant, then pilot officer and flying officer.
MS: And where were you located? And what was it like on the bases where you were? Where you were based?
JW: Well, Feltwell of course was a permanent base. A peacetime station built in brick and all that kind of thing. You know, a quiet English village and when I got married I took my wife down there and we lived on a farm and the farmer and his wife really looked after us. And we used to enjoy a bit of a social life in the, well one pub was called The Bear. It was right, more or less opposite the gates of Feltwell. And in that pub my wife met an air gunner and he was flirting with her, and I didn’t knock his block off because he was harmless. But anyway two nights later the poor devil got a cannon shot through him and he went to Ely Hospital where he died. That was just one of the things that happened as soon as we got there. But anyway, my wife, living on the farm she could hear the squadron take off and she’d hear us drift back, and of course quite often we were, we couldn’t get down because of fog. So we’d be diverted but I had no way of contacting her to say that I was ok. So if I left, say, left home say at 8 o’clock the night before to take off at ten or something like that. 4 o’clock the next afternoon there was no Jack. And the farmer’s wife evidently went real solid, you know, stern, sad. But I’d just waltz in through the gate and the farmer’s wife would say to my wife, Joan, ‘Jack’s just come through the gate.’ But they really did treat me as their own and gave the wife and I a nice honeymoon. Until I finished my thirty trips.
MS: How did you meet your wife?
JW: Well I think there was three of us. We were on leave in Lancashire and we were wandering around a market there which they had. They had these stalls in the street. Well, you would know about that. And I was looking for pipe tobacco which was hard to get. There was no issue. You just had to get it where you could and we were going around the odd tobacconists and that and asking if they had any. Most of them said no because they’d have it under the counter for their customers. Anyway, there was these two nice, nicely dressed girls, one blonde, one brunette. Well, very well dressed and they were looking for flowers for their mother who had only died roughly six weeks before. And we passed them once or twice and gave the smart remark, you know. We weren’t crude in those days at all. Anyway, we passed them again later on and I asked them if they’d like to go to a local pub, have something to drink and eat. And after we got in there we ordered salmon sandwiches and then we started to sweat. We didn’t know how much they cost and we were nearly out of money because this was the end of our holiday. Anyway, I got on with Beryl’s [unclear] very very well and I promised to write to her because we were going back the next day. And she said to me, her sister Audrey, ‘He’ll never write.’ Well she got quite a shock because I did write. And at that time the girls were, they went home to live with their auntie because their mother had died and the house was sold. And they all got permission from their auntie for me to go there on leave. So that was great.
MS: So can you tell me how you got together with your crew and tell me what your — ?
JW: Oh yes I can tell you about that. I’ve just got to think of the name of the ‘drome for a minute. Oh God [pause] One of those great big personnel aerodromes.
GT: Westcott.
MS: Was it Westcott?
JW: I just can’t remember the name of the place.
MS: Was its Westcott?
JW: No. If you just turn that off I can go and get my logbook.
MS: Sure.
[recording paused]
MS: Ok. So Jack I understand you were a fill-in gunner.
JW: Yes. There were six of us that came off Defiants because they were taken out of service. And there were six of us posted to 75 and they were all people that had trained with me on Defiants. They were surplus to requirements on those squadrons. I think they used some of the Defiants for night fighters, but the chances of detecting anyone was pretty remote. So that’s how I happened to go to 75 and we were just slotted in where air gunners had probably taken ill etcetera etcetera. So, that’s how I became a gunner on 75. The first pilot was an Englishman and he broke his leg doing back flips over the couch in the officer’s mess. So he was [laughs] he was sent away to recover. And I think the next one was a Charlie Pownall. He was a New Zealander. And all the crew wanted to go to the Middle East except me because I’d met this blue-eyed beautiful lady. So I went to the CO who was Wing Commander Kay and said to him that I’d like to stay in England. Now, I wasn’t, I wasn’t dodging anything because naturally it was tougher over Germany than it was over the desert. So he said, ‘Wakefield, if you can get someone to take your place that’ll be ok.’ So one of my mates was Jack Milner from Hamilton, and he had spent most of his life up the Pacific and he hated the snow and ice in England. Absolutely hated it. So when I told him the story he said, ‘I’ll go.’ So Jack went out to the Middle East in my place and he did fifty two trips but he was killed out there. Well, later on of course I finished my thirty trips and then I was posted to a training school. Operational Training School. There I was what they called a screened gunner. I was screened from operational flying but I took crews out over the Irish Sea and we fired on drogue, a drogue towed by another Wellington. And then when we had finished firing we turned around and they would fire on us. And naturally we were firing out to sea. And during that period when I was training other people we were airborne one day, about half an hour, one engine cut out. And we weren’t very high. We were flying across England towards Finningley and we were in sight of Finningley aerodrome and the second motor cut out. So we crashed on the Great North Road. The pilot put the plane down perfectly on the road, but the wing, of course was too wide for the road and we collided with pine trees which ripped the Wellington around and broke its back and in fact broke it in half, and half went down the road. The crew, including myself and the front went through a hedge and the aircraft burst into flames. Being a pretty cunning critter I already had the escape hatch out before we touched and I was laying down with my feet up on the main spar to take the shock. As soon as we hardly stopped rolling I was going out through the top, but the flames were right on our tail. I got one hand all blistered and the chappie next to me, he got his face blistered as he got out the astro hatch. So that was a bit of a shocker. The rear gunner, who was a pupil, and I left him in the rear turret because generally it was the safest place in a Wellington. In this case it wasn’t because the aircraft was doused with fuel when the wing tanks were ruptured and the second half which is, you know is nothing to burn really, went up in flames and the poor chap was caught alive and burned alive, which is one of the horrible memories I have.
MS: So can you tell me what kind of planes you flew in and how they compared to each other?
JW: Well, of course a Defiant was a two-seater fighter and it was too slow for us. With the weight of the turret and the weight of the ammunition of the turret and the weight of the air gunner it was just too sluggish, too dead. The Wellington of course was the heavy bomber when war broke out and a very hard-working work horse. It carried four thousand pound, a four thousand pound bomb. And we went to many many targets in Germany where we were shot at occasionally. Came back once with forty two bullet holes in the aircraft, but most [laughs] most of the time when we got a barrage which appears very close we generally said something like, ‘ship,’ which is my magic word to get away with anything.
MS: Can you tell me about some of those ops that you went on? Any particular raids that stay in your memory?
JW: Well, I can. The memory’s a bit slim on that because they were mostly very similar. They were either good flights or tough ones. But I went to Hamburg five times which was one of the toughest targets to go to. And when the briefing went around they used to have the map of Europe under a sheet during the day. More or less for semi-secrecy and it had a red tape across to the target. And when it was unveiled and it was Hamburg you could hear this audible sigh amongst the aircrew of, ‘Oh God not again.’ I went there five times and you went up, I think it was the Dortmund Ems Canal because Hamburg’s an inland port. And all along that canal was armed and the worst thing was the searchlights because if a searchlight hit on to a Wellington say that was travelling at, we’ll say a hundred and fifty miles an hour they only had to move the searchlight a fraction to keep it on the aircraft. And although our pilots weaved and chucked it around and everything it was almost impossible to get out of. And what we did, there would generally be three on you at once. So they would pass you from one to the other and when you probably got down the end of say, three there would be another three pick you up. And of course if you were blinded by the searchlights you had absolutely no vision outside at all, it was just absolutely blinding. So that’s when a Wellington would be a sitting duck for anything that was hanging around but it never happened. But I remember one night flying past one while another Wellington was getting hammered with the anti-aircraft fire. We sneaked past and I was quite happy about that, another tough target was Berlin. I went there three times and of course part of the endurance I suppose is the distance of those two places. Especially Berlin, you know. All the way from the coast of France you were being tracked. But apart from that, I mean, you felt quite proud of yourself when you got back. You didn’t worry about whether you’d get back or not. But I will admit that on 75 we didn’t lose big groups. Not until I’d finished. And then a night bomber, [unclear] went down there were six crews lost that night. Which was thirty six young men that weren’t there for breakfast, kind of thing. But during my period there would be two occasionally. Mainly because the weather was so shocking. We were snowed in and the Germans were snowed in as well so there wasn’t a great activity. I mean it took me nearly six months to do thirty trips and quite often they would save you until the moonlight period. And I think I did seven in nine nights at one stage, something like that.
MS: So how was the morale on base when you talk about people not coming back. What was the general feeling amongst the crews?
JW: Well, when it was a question of say of two crews they’d just say, ‘Oh we hear old so and so didn’t get back.’ But see there was always a chance that they were a prisoner of war. We didn’t know that they were alive or dead and it may be weeks later before the squadron would know if they were a prisoner of war. So we didn’t worry too much.
MS: Was it hard to get close to people or to make friends? Especially as a fill-in crew.
JW: Well I’m glad you asked that. We were in close groups of friends. In other words chaps that I went there with, you know like the air gunners. I was mostly, you know, we’d go to the sergeant’s mess. We’d form a little group in one corner. And later on I went to the OUT. There was a New Zealander from Fielding and a New Zealander from Hawera and they both worked for Hodder and Tully. Now, this pilot, he was really good friends with us to. So much so that when his wife had a baby and baby clothes were very hard to get in England. Wool was hard to get so my wife gave her Beryl’s baby clothes. And Hugh Kempton was this pilot’s name and I always told my family he was one of the nicest guys I’d ever met. This was as a young man. Always smiling. He had real laugh lines around here. Why he latched on to us I don’t know. Probably because we were Kiwis I suppose. But normally crews mostly, especially crews that were trained in Canada, they would probably stick together most the time but generally if we went out for the evening it would be as our own crew. And we would get drunk, etcetera and stagger back.
MS: So what kind of things, what kind of things did you do in your off times? So you mentioned that you might go out for a few beers with your crew. What other kind of things did you do when you got some time off?
JW: Well, you couldn’t go far from base during the day because you might be called for briefing. This was an operational squadron. Mostly we were on base and you would kind of get in the mess and have a yack. In the case of the air gunners we’d go out and clean our guns. That kind of thing. You always had the odd button to sew on. Or write home. That, more or less just basic stuff like that. You know, mail home took quite a bit of time because everybody wanted to hear about you. I just wish that I’d told my family more. Because we were told to keep our mouths shut I kept my mouth shut. So they didn’t really have a clue what I was doing half the time. I wish I’d been a bit more open about it. I’m sure it would have meant more to them.
MS: So, you mentioned before about things that people did in the mess, jumping over sofas and things like that. What other kind of things did you get up to?
JW: Well, in the sergeant’s mess and I believe it was in the officer’s mess as well, there were these black footprints that went up the wall, and over the ceiling and down the other side. And they were just perfectly in the right place, you know, distance apart and everything. And evidently, they were put there by Popeye Lucas who was one of the early flight commanders of 75 Squadron. He was the culprit but I didn’t know ‘til after the war. I think I read Wing Commander Kay’s book that named him. There was that kind of thing. And we had a chap from Wellington. He was the guy who designed the 75 logo. If we were playing snooker and he missed the, missed the [pause] what do they call it? The pocket. You then took a shot at the lightbulb. So we finished up with no lightbulbs over the, over the tables. So we could only play in the daytime. We couldn’t play at night. We couldn’t play at night until the bulbs were replaced and believe me they’d be very slow in replacing anything during the war.
MS: So, Jack, did you and your, and your fellow crew members, did you have any kind of personal mascots or superstitions or anything that you did?
JW: Well I did. I think it was, I think it was my wife’s sister that gave me a little knitted doll thing that I put on my guns. More or less to please her. But something kept me safe, I don’t think it was that though [laughs] I think it was the prayers of my wife and my mother. We were, I don’t think we were really suspicious. Is that the word?
GT: Superstitious.
JW: No. I don’t think we were really.
MS: What about nose art on the planes? Did any of your planes have any good nose art on them?
JW: Had any what?
MS: Nose art.
JW: Oh yes, they did, Glenn would know this. On Y for York, it had a big soda syphon with a big hand squirting bombs out. And I think it was Glenn that showed the photograph at one of our reunions where I’m standing on a ladder in front of that, and there were several members. Bob Fotheringham was one, and probably a navigator but the fourth guy was the fighter pilot that had only dropped in for the day, and we said, ‘Hey you.’ But that’s, that’s the only one. And that [pause] that Wellington lasted about twenty trips before it went down. And roughly about three I suppose, three or four after I’d finished. That night as I explained before they lost six crews that night, and that was one of them. So —
MS: And I read that you used to drop bricks out of the plane with —
JW: Oh yes. I used to drop half bricks with rude words what Hitler could do to himself. And I think I used to imagine them coming down with a hell of a whistle and then plop, like into a bog [laughs] I mean I can imagine the Jerries ducking and running when they heard the whistle and then there was just a plop.
MS: Can you tell me about the thousand bomber raids?
JW: Yes. I can. I was, I was on OTU at the time. 23 OTU, and I was doing aerodrome control on the satellite. The chief flying instructor asked me if we’d, if a couple of us like to, Kiwis would like to do aerodrome control which is a duty pilot, which was only normally up to that time done by pilots. And we said we’d give it a go, being Kiwis of course you couldn’t have it any other way. So anyway we made a success of that. One day he rang me up and he said, ‘Wakefield.’ he said. ‘I’ll see you out on the runway in about forty five minutes. I’m going to do an air test and I’ll drop in and pick you up.’ And he said, ‘Bring your pyjamas and your tooth brush.’ And when I got in to the aircraft he asked me if I’d just test the hydraulics in the turret. And he said, ‘I can’t really tell you why I’m picking you up or what’s on but briefing’s at 4 o’clock.’ So 4 o’clock we went up and found out the thousand bombers was on. And what they did, they, they got all the front line squadrons in. Then all the OTUs produced fully trained crews that had just barely finished their training. So that’s how they got their numbers. I think the greatest number, I think was nine seventy, they never quite got the thousand if I remember rightly. But pupil crews they went as pupil crews. Us instructors went with other instructors. And in my logbook, I’ve got a Pilot Officer Monroe. And I think he’s the, he was the one ‘cause the timing was about right. He would have been a pilot officer and it kind of tied up with his other exploits in units. But anyways there was a Pilot Officer Monroe and I know he was a New Zealander. I only flew with him once, but I made a comment to one of my mates, ‘These bloody cow cockies are good pilots,’ [laughs] So, anyway we went on those three but with weather we were delayed a lot longer than they expected us to be together because all training stopped during that period. I think they were spread over three weeks. I’ve got the dates in there but I’m sure they were about three weeks. And they were all pretty easy raids because the heavy bomber force had gone in before us. We were on the end because we were more vulnerable. And in some of them we were more or less a picnic. Heavy fires burning, bags of smoke and flashes going off and all the rest of it. But anyway great publicity in England of course. That was, really gave the British people a lift because we’d been hammered before then.
MS: Can you tell me what it was like going to a briefing? What, what happened at a briefing. Can you just talk me through?
JW: Well we used to go in generally like there would be an assembly hall and there’d be a chart of our target for tonight up on the wall. And when the intelligence officer pulled that cover off the map of Europe we knew where we were going. That’s when I told you if it was Hamburg there was a big sigh. So that’s the first thing. The first time we’d know. Well, at one stage they withdrew all permission to live out because they reckoned that they knew where we were going before the aircrew did. Anyway, I still lived out despite orders because they had a friendly hole in the fence and I used to go out there and go home on the farm. Come back the next day about 2 o’clock, ready for briefing about 4.
MS: So you told me that one time you came back from a raid and you ran out of petrol on the runway just after —
JW: Yeah. Marham. Forget where we’d been now. And one motor cut out while we were taxiing and ran out of fuel. It was pretty hairy at times because the weather forecasts weren’t a hundred percent and your petrol load would be estimated. But if you struck an adverse wind of course that would gobble your petrol up. But sometimes they baled out over England if they were lost. They might not be able to land because of fog. Some went right across England and in to the Irish Sea and were lost. So it wasn’t just the operational side of it that was dangerous. There was a hell of a lot of other dangers as well. With Bob Fotheringham — one night we were ready to take off with a full bomb load on. He goes careering off the grass runway and then starts heading straight for the hangar. In other words his trim was all to blazes. So he throttles back, goes back to the end of the runway again ready for take-off. Trundles down the runway, gets up up to about sixty miles an hour and starts heading for the hangar again. Third time we got off but naturally I had no control over that so it didn’t make me very happy. Where we did take off, at the end of the runway was a damned anti-aircraft gun. You know, if you were a bit low that would bring you down. I didn’t like that there either. It’s just another little incident that I was telling you about. Life was full of incidents. Remembering them is the hardest part.
MS: Do you remember James Ward VC?
JW: Honestly, no. He was on the squadron at the same time and I’m positive about that but as we kind of congregated in our own little crew numbers to me he would just be a new chum. So I couldn’t, I couldn’t claim to know him. But you see I’m trying to remember seventy years ago now too. But I probably just looked at him as a new intake.
MS: Can you remember what it was like the first time you went on an operation? How you felt?
JW: Well, I suppose I was a bit apprehensive for a start. I suppose it would only be natural but I think that with the lack of detection methods we had a pretty good chance. And you’ve got to remember that if there wasn’t a moon it was absolutely black, you know there was no lights anywhere. You might see the odd flicker of a train being stoked as it went along the line but in full moon we were open. Really open. From any direction. We wouldn’t even see it coming. I didn’t like moonlight nights.
MS: And you told me before about the time when your aircraft identification —
JW: Oh the IFF. The IFF blew up on take-off and it had a detonator on it to destroy it in case of crashing. So the Germans couldn’t get access to any secrets. And ours blew up on take-off and the pilot called up asking whether to return to base or carry on. We were told to carry on. The ground defences would be warned that we were on our way out. And that was very very good. The only thing is they never told anyone that we were coming in, and we happened to be coming in over Southampton where the navy boys gave us a burst up the backside. It was quite severe naval barrage too. The next thing a fighter, a German fighter err a British fighter came up the side of us. Had a look at me. I had a look at him. And then he veered away which we were rather pleased about. And no doubt he was too. But I knew we were out of range. Probably a Messerschmitt 109. The chance of it being a German were pretty, pretty remote really. But anyway that was just another little incident that happened.
MS: So, as a rear gunner how, how difficult was it to detect whether an aircraft was friend or foe?
JW: Well to be quite honest. There is no other way to say this and there’s no other way to do it. If anything comes up behind you you squirt at them. You can’t possibly tell in the dark what it is. Now, he might be coming up behind you, not, being a friend but not knowing you’re there. But that’s just the way it happens. I had a friend that reckoned he’d put a burst into one of ours one night. He asked me what he should do. I said, ‘Just keep quiet.’ I said, ‘You’re a volunteer. You’re don’t want to waste all that training and experience.’ And it was just one of those things. He was very upset, and he didn’t know what to do but he did take my advice. There’s no point in admitting anything like that. Except to say that somebody come behind you, you knew and you gave them a burst. You can tell them that part of it. I didn’t feel a bit responsible for anything that got behind me. I would shoot at. In the dark and in the moonlight. I mean you can be in a classroom and they would show you all the designs and different shapes of aircraft. It means nothing at night. And of course around home bases you’ve got your navigation lights on. That’s a bit different. Although they did sometimes attack us on the circuit when we were taking off or coming back.
MS: How did you get on with the local people? Did you, did you meet a lot of the other local people and how do you think they felt about the Bomber Command being in that area?
JW: Well, the local people were fabulous for a start. And not only that they really, they really honoured us because Britain had taken quite a hard bombing. Our ships were being sunk at sea. Especially the merchant ships. And we were the only ones taking the war back to Germany. And I think for that reason we had a lot of respect. We were the main ones that were hitting back. The navy boys were fighting their backsides off in the Atlantic but the English people couldn’t see that. The bomber boys, they could hear them going and they could hear them coming back and then there was quite a bit of publicity in the papers. Where we had been to and all the rest of it. Now, I think that, I mean I for instance respected the English people. They were working in factories day and night. My own wife and her sister were working on munitions. And in the winter it was dark when they went to work and it was dark when they came home. So they were putting their backs into it. And the Home Guard were special. I was asked to break up a fight one night in a pub. And this warrant, English warrant officer who was in plain clothes because he was going to a dance, he said, ‘Would you come over here and sort this corporal out. This RAF corporal. He’s picking on a Home Guard. And that Home Guard,’ he said, ‘Is my local butcher. He’s a butcher during the day and home guard at night.’ So I went over to this RAF corporal who happened to be a boxing champion. Nobody told me that of course. And I went over, and I said to him, ‘What’s the trouble corporal?’ I was a sergeant at that time but a very new sergeant. ‘What’s the trouble corporal?’ He looked at my three stripes and of course there would be hundreds and hundreds of air crew around. You know, new sergeants and he would, he was permanent staff guy, so he’d more or less spit on us. So, anyway he called me a bloody sprog, so I hung one on him. And this warrant officer came over and hauled me off and he said, ‘Wakey, I asked you to stop a fight not bloody start one.’ So while, this guy’s hauling off me off my mate from Harborough goes and he gives this bloke another one. So the next day — overnight I heard that this guy was an RAF boxing champion. So the next day he sidled up to me and said, ‘I’ll take you on in the ring anytime you like.’ I said, ‘Do you think I’m bloody silly.’ There’s a difference between a roughhouse and, you know, boxing in a ring where a good guy can get at you and you can’t get at him. But anyway it all well that ended well but, you know, a sprog. Calling somebody that had been over Germany many many times a sprog. That was an insult. That’s why I bopped him.
MS: So you mentioned before about going to dances. What were the dances like in those days?
JW: Well I was a very, very poor dancer so I sat most of them out to be honest. I could go over Germany but I couldn’t face a girl to dance because I couldn’t dance properly. That, the chap from Hawera, Alan Campbell and the English warrant officer pilot. He was on rest with all — he was another instructor. We’d all done our thirty trips over Germany. So we totally resented being called a bloody sprog by a corporal who was PT corporal actually. I mean they have their job but I mean they were a bit officious and they were used to everyone jumping but I didn’t like being called a sprog so I filled his teeth in a bit [laughs] But I actually, I wasn’t, I was never bad tempered or anything like that. My natural nature wasn’t like that. But if someone insulted me that was different. You know, do unto others.
MS: When did you end up on 38 Squadron? Can you tell me about that?
JW: Yes, I served on 75. Then I went on instructions for instructing people for about nine months. Then I was asked to do the three, one thousand bomber raids. And a few weeks after that I was posted to the Middle East. And we went to this big aerodrome which I’m damned if I can remember. A massive one, a personnel base where they trained. Well they were checked crews because most of them had been trained. And we went into a big hangar there and you’d just mill round and if you see a pilot you ask him if he’s got a crew. That’s how we were crewed up. We’d never met each other before. Now, I happened to arrive there with two Englishmen off 75 Squadron and they said, ‘Are you in a crew, Wakey?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re not either.’ So then they came to me and they said there’s a Canadian crew who want to take,’ this was a wireless operator and a front gunner, ‘They want us, but they don’t want you because they’ve got their Canadian friend, rear gunner. So I said, ‘Well you go with them. I’ll find a crew.’ But they absolutely refused over several days. So the Canadians gave in and they decided they’d take me. Just shut that off for a minute.
[recording paused]
MS: So, Jack, can you tell me, you went to Mediterranean Command with 38 Squadron.
JW: Yes.
MS: Can you tell me how that was different to Bomber Command?
JW: Well I suppose it was only really different in living conditions for a start. We were under canvas. Apart from that the operational side of it was the same. And 38 Squadron dropped bombs, laid mines, dropped depth charges. In other words we were a work, you know, a maid of all works as far as bombers were concerned. And it was actually quite pleasant serving out there really. Apart from the odd dust storm.
MS: So can you just tell us the story about the trip where you didn’t get your lunch?
JW: Ah yes we were flying from Gibraltar to Lagos in Nigeria and it was eleven hours forty minutes. And after six hours I thought it was time to have something to eat. I called up on the intercom and said, ‘Any chance of any grub?’ And there was stone silence. And then the second pilot came down with some Jubes which I told him where to put them. And I was very very irate that they could draw our rations and couldn’t count to six as there was on that crew. And so it meant that by the time I got anything to eat it would probably be about thirteen hours. And so I was pretty irate and determined to see the CO soon as I got down to ask for a transfer from that crew. Anyway, I kind of forgave them. Got over it. Later on, when I was promoted, my pilot came to me and he said, ‘I see you,’ he didn’t, he congratulated me when I, when I got my pilot officer, he congratulated me. But when I got promoted to flying officer roughly about six weeks later because it followed me out from England — the commission. He flew at me and called me a little runt. So I said to him, ‘Well if you’ve got any grizzles about pay or promotion go to the Canadian air force headquarters. Don’t moan at me. I’m not even in your own air force. I’m not even the same trade.’ And he did a bit of a snarl. And after that I was asked to drive a truck from Suez to Benghazi for the air force. So while I was away on the road trip my crew went to Malta. And when I got to Benghazi the adjutant asked me if I wanted to follow my crew. And I said, ‘No. I’ll stay in North Africa.’ So we parted. Later on the second pilot came back to 38 Squadron in Benghazi and I did some trips with him. He was ok. I didn’t take it out on anyone else. I’m damned sure it was the pilots work. I don’t know whether he dumped my lunch or what happened to it. Anyway that’s one of things. But in four years of service I only struck two that were similar. Not a great deal to worry about.
MS: Generally, did the crews of different countries all get on quite well together or did you —?
JW: Oh yes. I suppose the only aircrew I took a bit of a dislike to were French Canadians. We didn’t feel that they were trustworthy. We felt that they were a bit devious. Apart from that we could fly with, you know, Irish, Scotch, English, South American, Australian, Canadian, you name it. We had one bloke from South America and I think he was a pilot officer and he started off to say Pilot Officer James Jose so and so and so and so. He had about twenty names. He was quite a likeable guy though. One of his names was named after an Irish hero that led some rebels down there in South America at one stage. He finished up with all these Spanish names and then his last name, his surname was O’Hegans. Quite strange.
MS: Were you all volunteers?
JW: Yes, yes. Definitely so that’s what made all the difference I think. You wouldn’t want reluctant air crew. Not really. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to them. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the crew.
MS: On 38 Squadron where were you based and what jobs did the squadron do?
JW: Our original based was Shaluffa near Suez. And as the 8th Army moved up we generally landed on a desert airstrip and tents could go up rapidly. After all they might be already standing when we got there. And we followed Monty right up. Our squadron followed Monty all the way up to Benghazi in different stages. We were just more or less south of Tobruk when El Alamein broke up. And we heard the thunder of the guns in the distance. Montgomery opened up with a thousand guns, artillery. And we could hear the thunder in the distance. We weren’t far behind the front line at any stage but we very seldom got raided. The Germans weren’t strong enough at that time to waste their bombs on airfields or anything.
MS: How many tours did you do for Bomber Command? And can you tell us a bit about how it felt when you completed your first tour?
JW: Well the first tour of course I went on leave and breathed a sigh of relief. And as I told you I was instructing as an air, flight sergeant air gunner. And then I was asked to do the aerodrome control which we took on. My mate and I with half a dozen guys that were waiting to be re-mustered for different reasons. Some would have changed their mind perhaps and thought it was dangerous. I never asked them their story. One tried to tell me. He said, ‘I don’t know whether you know my story, flight.’ I said, ‘Well I’m not worried about your story as long as you do what I tell you.’ And they stayed and disappeared and replaced. So we were always, there was about eight of us most of the time. And of course I used to let these guys a lot of unofficial leave, you know. We had an Englishman live not far away and I used to say him, ‘You can go home for the weekend but remember if you’re caught I know nothing about it.’ I let an Englishman go home to London without an official leave pass and he came back a day late so I really went him and he started to cry. And I said, ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ His wife had left him apparently when he got home when he got home. And I said, ‘Well you’d better bloody well go back and find her.’ He came back a couple of days later beaming from ear to ear. He was quite happy. But you know Kiwis are a bit like that. We’re adaptable.
MS: How did they decide it was your time to come back home to New Zealand and when did you come back?
JW: I can’t tell you the exact time I was away but all of a sudden, the word went through the grapevine that if you’d been overseas for a certain time, it might have been three years, you could apply to come home. So I applied to come home. I had a wife and child at that stage and we had to wait for, you know, our civilian ship. Not a troop ship. And we came home on The Akaroa.
[pause]
JW: Then when I got back here I was posted to, I think it was [unclear], once. I was introduced to Hudsons. And then I went down to Blenheim where I was aircraft recognition instructor because I’d done a course in England on that. And then we had a bloke there. Well known in broadcasting circles. Tusi Tala, Teller of Tales. He used to tell stories on a Sunday night on the radio. And there was four thousand men on that base, just out of Blenheim and they got us in the theatre there and gave a great spiel how everybody was still needed. And shortly after that you could apply to get out. So I thought it might be a good time to get out. Otherwise you’ve got thousands of army guys coming out at once etcetera etcetera. So that’s what I did except that I went back to a job I was doing before the war as an apprentice. The boss did his damndest to tell me not to join up, because he had been a soldier in the First World War. And their memories weren’t very nice you know. But being young I thought I was better than the whole German air force and why shouldn’t I give it a go. I mean we did have a certain bit of that about us. You know, we were as good as anybody. So I think that was one reason why we didn’t show any fear.
MS: So you had, from your logbook here you had a grand total of four hundred and ten and a half hours of day flying. And four hundred and nineteen —
JW: Night.
MS: And ten of night flying. Total flying time.
JW: Yeah. Night flying was always done in red ink. But you know some of our operations were over the sea. Over the Mediterranean looking for submarines. We might just be changing from one base to the other. So we’d go over the Mediterranean and then back in again and landed at our new aerodrome. That kind of thing. That was counted as an operation. Still dangerous of course. You know with, you know the reliability wasn’t a hundred percent by a long shot. We lost a wing commander doing this night stuff we were doing, you know. Going around the convoys. And they disappeared. No idea what happened when his rear gunner was washed up months later with his dogtags on. So you know he might have hit the drink, or he might have had engine failure and they never got a chance to make radio contact because we’re going round at a thousand feet. It doesn’t give you much time if you run into mechanical trouble. No matter where you flew in the air force. Training, operational or anything else there was men getting killed. I heard recently, and I think that it’s probably right, I think there was ten thousand killed in training in Bomber Command. We lost fifty five thousand over the six years and probably ten thousand wouldn’t be far wrong from what were killed in training accidents. Because they were taking these men, some of them were just like, boys, straight off the farms, out of the factories and turned them into four engine pilots. Some were bound to have crack up or emergencies that they couldn’t handle. But generally speaking they took their job very serious and they did it well. I’m very, very proud of the guys really.
MS: How do you feel about the way Bomber Command got treated after the war?
JW: Personally I think it was disgusting. When we were flying over Germany in 1940 the papers praised what we were doing. We were taking the flight to the enemy. And as soon as the war was over Churchill turned his back on us. But we were encouraged at that time and he made the great speech there that the so and so wind will reap the whirlwind because we were the only ones, apart from the navy guys, that were taking the war actually back to German soil, German cities. Making them wake up a bit. Our bomb load wasn’t that accurate, and it wasn’t heavy, you still do a hell of a lot of damage.
MS: So you went to the unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in London.
JW: Yes.
MS: Can you tell us how you felt at that ceremony and what that was like?
JW: Well, going back to the UK on a military aircraft I felt rather proud of the guys that were with us. I was proud of our exploits. And I was certainly very, very proud of the, rather sad to say, [unclear] there was twenty three thousand names at Runnymede and these were aircrew that have no known grave. In other words they would have come down in the North Sea. Probably in swamps, mountains or whatever, twenty three thousand. So when I see those kind of figures all I can think of are all those eighteen and twenty, and twenty two year olds that I joined with that were full of the joy of spring. And we had one guy with us, he had been washed out as a pilot and he was over the six foot. He decided to be an air gunner. He got in to the turret alright. Once you got in and sitting down you’d be alright. But when he got drunk his party piece was take somebody’s gate off and take it for a walk down the road, like a half a mile. Well there was gate he moved it took two of us practically all our time to lift it. In other words when he was drunk he didn’t know that anything was heavy [laughs] There was all those funny things, you know that happened. Those guys, he was another one that was lost. I think as far as I know I disagreed with Max Lambert because I went through the casualty list and he reckoned eight came back. I reckoned four. I do know this. That one Max Lambert quoted as coming back was lost over Greece because it’s in that book of obituaries, you know, from 1915 or something up to 1945. Jim Bolton — his name was in there. His aircraft collided with another one over Athens. But anyway whether it was four of eight I remember all of them. And I remember what their traits were, you know. Pubs and in the mess and all that and some were real characters. They were all decent guys though. They really were.
MS: Can you tell us a bit about what you did on that trip back to London?
JW: Well, he went to Australia. North Australia. And we spent twenty four hours there and they took us on a bus ride before we went to a hotel and naturally being in a hotel we were well looked after. And I had a friend Ray Tate from [unclear]. It was quite funny because he had hearing aids and my hearing was ok so if anyone knocked at the door I answered. And if there was question of going into lunch or meals he took me down and told me what was in the different terrines and all the rest of it. So we got on very well and I got mixed up one time and I got up early one morning to have a shower and I realised that something was wrong. And I said to Ray the next day, ‘I hope you didn’t hear me. I got up and had a shower about 1 o’clock.’ He said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I just take my hearing aids out.’ So that’s why he didn’t hear me. But anyway he was, he was great. I really admired him and liked him, and I think a certain amount of it was reciprocated. We seemed to just get on so well but he was what you call a really decent New Zealander. But apart from that in England of course we went to [pause] I think we went to Duxford, I think. I think we went to Duxford. A big air force museum there. I get mixed up because I did a few trips with different people. And we went to one of the bases up north where they had a memorial service in the garden.
MS: Have you been inside any old planes since the war? Any of the planes you flew in during the war. Have you been in it. Maybe at MOTAT. The Lancaster there.
JW: I went up to MOTAT. I never went inside the Lancasters. Perhaps because I don’t know whether we were allowed to. But I had a look and of course the turrets are the same but I had a look. I went to [pause] what’s that museum in London? Air force one.
MS: Not the Imperial War Museum. The Imperial War Museum.
JW: No. No. It’s an air force museum.
MS: There’s one at, I think, at Hendon.
JW: Yeah. Hendon.
MS: Right.
JW: I went there and saw a Wellington and walked around it and I couldn’t, couldn’t believe I’d actually flown in one. It was so unreal. It really was. But anyway the funny little thing happened there. I was walking around the museum of Ray Tate and he said, ‘Oh look Jack. There’s a photograph of a Wellington.’ I said, ‘Yeah. I know that photograph. I’m on the end of it.’ And there was two ladies, carers within earshot. And they called all the others over, ‘Oh come over here and take a photograph. Jack’s on it.’ So one of them leant over them and I’ll tell you the story in a minute attached to it, said, ‘Did those grey haired ladies catch up with you in London?’ What actually happened, I had a mate in Blenheim. And I told the story to reporters at, over in Blenheim and I went to the papers and I think they published it on the aircraft newspaper on the way over. But my mate used to say to me that there was always two grey haired ladies waiting on London bridge to catch up with Jack Wakefield. And I used to tell him it wasn’t me and I didn’t do it. So anyhow when we went over to London, to the Memorial, after the ceremony a lady came up with tears streaming down her face and thanked, thanked me for being one that went over. Really filled in for them, you know, during that critical period of the war. And one of these carers came over later, ‘Jack one of those grey-haired ladies has caught up with you.’ [laughs] I mean the grey-haired ladies story was just a myth. It just happened when you start a funny rumour, you know.
MS: Can you tell me about the Memorial unveiling at Mepal? Oh sorry.
JW: At Mepal.
MS: Oh right. Sorry. So after the Memorial service in London can you tell me about when you went to Feltwell and Newmarket and Mepal.
JW: I can tell you. Yeah I can. We were in a pub in Feltwell and I was talking to locals and I said to them that the wife and I were billeted out on a farm close by. And this chap sidled over, and he said, ‘Do you know the name of the farm?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. Chalkwell Farm.’ He said, ‘I own that now.’ He said that little brick bungalow, old brick house that you had, there’s now two American ladies in there that are writers and they’re just tenants. And you know the chances of that happening are one in a million. That he happened to be in there. But at Mepal it didn’t mean much to me because I never served there. But it meant a hell of a lot to the Lancaster guys because I think they went to Feltwell and I think they went to Newmarket and then probably Mepal, I think. So it meant a lot to them, but the service was done in a rose garden and what impressed me was the way that the little church served refreshments and all that. You know, all volunteers through the church. They made us so welcome. And the minister said he was eleven when the bomber boys were milling around the village. So you know there’s quite a lot of stories about these people but I’ll never forget that rose garden.
MS: So that is all my questions Jack but is there anything else that you wanted to tell us about? Any other stories or memories?
JW: I don’t think so. Not off the cuff. I think that pretty well covers it. I just remember one little thing. I should have started off with it. When we went to Levin they gave us about five different shots. You know, Cholera and all sorts of things and the guys were going down on Levin station and falling over. So they stopped leave.
[pause]
MS: So, there are only two Wellington 75 Squadrons air crew left in New Zealand now. That’s you, yourself and Eddie Worsdale.
JW: That’s quite possible. There was, you know, there was, as I say a gunnery officer, he was a gunnery instructor. I was also intelligence officer on a small unit where we sent Maryland and light American bombers. Went out over the Mediterranean looking for downed air crew or enemy submarines. That was another job I did and on 38 I got hauled in to become messing officer, and the guy that was messing officer never returned. You know one of those stories, Glenn. I’ll just take over while he’s away. Alright. And the guy doesn’t come back so you’re stuck with it. So one day I was in the mess. And I was fed up with the Canadians were moaning because the tomatoes were fried and somebody else was moaning because they wasn’t. I did my stack. And I’m in the bar and I’m banging the bar with my fist and I’m saying, ‘Where’s the CO? Where’s the CO? I’ll tell him where to stick his messing officer.’ The next minute there’s a hand on my shoulder. ‘You want to see me Wakey?’ ‘Oh hello, sir.’ [laughs] It’s surprising how you can sober up in a millisecond. Lots of funny little things like that. I remember one night our beer had arrived. Used to come back in a Wellington bomber from the Delta when an aircraft came back from maintenance. It generally had a lot of beer for the officers, airmen and NCOs. And we would probably drink most of it in one or two nights. And I remember the CO climbing up the centre pole with somebody trying to rip his shirt off, you know. The next day, ‘Good Morning Sir.’ [laughs] He was an Irishman. A good, good guy. There was another guy that used to — we only had two records I think. There was a wind-up gramophone and one of these records was, “Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry.” And there was one guy that absolutely hated it. So every time I saw him coming up to the mess tent I put it on. So he was, he ran in to it every time. in the end he lost his temper and jumped on it. That buggered that [laughs] we only had one record [laughs] You see a lot of that stuff was salvaged out of, or purloined out of Italian houses. Even our, we had a nice sideboard in the mess that the barman served behind and all that. All that furniture came from abandoned houses which had probably had the enemy through several times as well as us. And I remember one night we went and we were going to have a bit of a dance and we brought these American nurses over. About five or six. I went with the driver and we picked them up from the American unit and brought them over and they had quite a few dances with the guys. And then the party started to get a bit rough so I decided I’d take them back. So we took them back. And when I got back there was a guy playing the piano. He’d passed out altogether. There was a guy playing the trombone that could only lay on his back and go ‘uhhhh.’ Yeah. I don’t know what happened to the third one but anyway it was a real shambles. There was one night here. It was one morning I had terrible tooth ache and I had an abscess and I went to the dentist and this was out in the desert, you know, in a tent and he said, ‘I’ve got a,’ he said, ‘You’ve got an abscess Wakey and I don’t take them out normally until the abscess has gone down.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t care if you pull my head off the pain’s so great.’ So he said, ‘Last night in the mess,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what happened but,’ he said, ‘I’ve got lumps all over my head.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I saw you doing roly polys back to your tent down the [unclear] Road,’ [laughs] Oh dear. Anyway, excuse me.
[recording paused]
Thank you very much Jack. Interview’s now concluded.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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AWakefieldJ161029, PWakefieldJ1601
Title
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Interview with Jack Wakefield
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
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:18:43 audio recording
Creator
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Miriam Sharland
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-29
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Wakefield grew up in New Zealand and volunteered for the Air Force and the Army. After training, he flew operations with 75 Squadron from RAF Feltwell and with 38 Squadron in the Middle East. He describes a crash when he was instructing.
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 New Zealand Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Egypt
Germany
Great Britain
New Zealand
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Hamburg
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
23 OTU
38 Squadron
75 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Blenheim
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
briefing
crash
crewing up
Defiant
love and romance
memorial
mess
nose art
Operational Training Unit
RAF Feltwell
RAF Finningley
searchlight
superstition
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/360/5767/LFreethR1319543v10001.1.pdf
432d56a5d548ab9c682b4566db2f44e1
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
Freeth, Reg
Reg Freeth
R Freeth
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Sergeant Reginald Freeth (b. 1921, 1319543 Royal Air Force) his logbook and a squadron photograph. Reg Freeth trained in South Africa and served as a bomb aimer with 61 Squadron first at RAF Syerston then at RAF Skellingthorpe.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reginald Freeth and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-31
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Freeth, R
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Reg Freeth's South African Air Force observers or air gunners log book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LFreethR1319543v10001
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
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Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Description
An account of the resource
South African Air Force observers or air gunners log book for Warrant Officer Reg Freeth, bomb aimer, covering the period from 7 February 1942 to 8 October 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations and Instructor duties. He was stationed at SAAF Queenstown, SAAF Port Alfred, RAF Millom, RAF North Luffenham, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Skellingthorpe, RAF Harrington, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Westcott, RAF Finningley, RAF Little Horwood and RAF Wing. Aircraft flown in were, Anson, Oxford MkI, Wellington MkIII, Manchester, Lancaster I & III, Martinet, Wellington MkX. He flew a total of 16 night operations with 61 Squadron to Dusseldorf, Bochum, Cologne, Dortmund, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Nuremburg, Munchen-Gladbach, Berlin, Hannover, Hagen, Frankfurt and Stuttgart. His pilots on operations were Sergeant Madgett, Flight Lieutenant Talbot, Pilot Officer Graham, Sergeant Strange and Flying Officer Turner.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
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
South African Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
South Africa
England--Cumbria
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
South Africa--Port Alfred
South Africa--Queenstown
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1943-02-28
1943-03-01
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-05-27
1943-05-28
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-03
1943-07-04
1943-07-08
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-30
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-01
1943-10-02
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-07
1943-10-08
11 OTU
1661 HCU
26 OTU
29 OTU
61 Squadron
84 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Manchester
Martinet
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Desborough
RAF Finningley
RAF Little Horwood
RAF Millom
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Syerston
RAF Westcott
RAF Wing
RAF Winthorpe
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/377/6709/LDawsonSR142531v1.1.pdf
6abbc58e3bc5bd55a8c78eafc9746dec
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/.
Type
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Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDawsonSR142531v1
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Stephen Dawson, covering the period from 11 June 1939 to 30 March 1942. Detailing his flying training, operations and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Southampton, RAF Hastings, RAF Hatfield, RAF Little Rissington, RAF St Athan, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningly, RAF Lindholme, RAF Swinderby, RAF Upwood and RAF Swanton Morley. Aircraft flown were, Cadet, Tiger Moth, Anson, Hampden and Oxford. He flew a total of 31 night operations with 50 Squadron. Targets were, Dusseldorf, Hannover, Bordeaux, Brest, Berlin, Keil, Lorient, La Rochelle, Copenhagen, Duisberg, Soest, Cologne, Bremen, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Magdeburg and Frankfurt.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Denmark--Copenhagen
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Hampshire
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Rutland
England--Sussex
England--Yorkshire
France--Brest
France--La Rochelle
France--Lorient
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Soest
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1941-02-04
1941-02-10
1941-02-11
1941-02-15
1941-02-21
1941-03-12
1941-03-13
1941-03-14
1941-03-15
1941-03-18
1941-03-20
1941-03-21
1941-03-23
1941-03-24
1941-04-08
1941-04-09
1941-04-10
1941-04-11
1941-04-13
1941-04-14
1941-04-15
1941-04-16
1941-04-20
1941-04-21
1941-04-24
1941-04-25
1941-06-02
1941-06-03
1941-06-11
1941-06-12
1941-06-13
1941-06-14
1941-06-15
1941-06-21
1941-06-22
1941-06-24
1941-06-25
1941-06-27
1941-06-28
1941-06-29
1941-06-30
1941-07-04
1941-07-05
1941-07-16
1941-07-17
1941-07-20
1941-07-21
1941-08-05
1941-08-06
1941-08-08
1941-08-09
1941-08-12
1941-08-13
1941-08-29
1941-08-30
1941-09-02
1941-09-03
Title
A name given to the resource
Stephen Dawson's pilot's flying log book. One
14 OTU
25 OTU
50 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Flying Training School
Hampden
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Finningley
RAF Hatfield
RAF Lindholme
RAF Little Rissington
RAF St Athan
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Upwood
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/380/6891/MHattersleyCR40699-160506-030001.2.pdf
285015105f751b1a073cff037b679249
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
Hattersley, Peter
Peter Hattersley
C R Hattersley
Charles Raymond Hattersley
Description
An account of the resource
77 items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Charles Raymond Hattersley DFC (1914-1948, 800429, 40699 Royal Air Force). Peter Hattersley served in the Royal Engineers between 1930 and 1935 but enlisted in the RAF in 1936. He trained as a pilot and flew with 106, 44 and 199 Squadrons. He completed 32 operations with 44 Squadron but had to force land his Wellington in France on his first operation with 199 Squadron in December 1942. He became a prisoner of war. He married Miss Kathleen Hattersley nee Croft after the war. The collection contains his logbook, notebooks, service material, his decorations and items of memorabilia in a tin box and 39 photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Charles William Hattersley and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-06
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hattersley, CR
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HATTERSLEY
SERVICE DIARY
ROYAL AIR FORCE
LARGE NOTE BOOK
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[underlined] 27TH. LONDON BTN R.E. (TA)
(London Elec. Engineers)
Nov 1930 – Dec 1935
[bracketed] Sapper L/Cpl Cpl [/bracketed] 306 Coy.
Lewis Sun. Sound Locator. Driver M.T.
[page break]
[underlined] 600 (CITY OF LONDON) B. SQDN AAF [/underlined]
Feb 1936 – Mch 1937
[inserted] ACH [/inserted]
AC.2 W/OP T.21 & TF. T.R.9.D.
Hant (passenger) 6 hrs
[page break]
[underlined] R.A.F.V.R. [/underlined]
Mch 30th 1937 – 3rd Apl 1938
Sgt.
[bracketed] Blackburn B.2 Hant (T) Audax [/bracketed] Flying Training Flt Hanworth Aerodrome
Assessment – above average pilot.
[page break]
[underlined] RA.F.
READING CIVIL SCHOOL
4th April 1938 – 7/5/38
MilesHawk Trainer & Magister
UXBRIDGE
7/5/38 – 21/5/38
NO 6 F.T.S.
Netheravon 21/5/38 – 4/9/38
L. Rissington 4/9/38 – 17/12/38
Audax & Hart (T)
Attachments.
NO.1 A.T.C. CATFOSS
31/10/38 – 4/12/38
Assessment – above average pilot
[page break]
S. of AN. MANSTON
2/1/39 – 11/3/39
Anson (1st & 2nd Navigator)
Obtained 2nd cl. Nav ticker (R.A.F.)
106 (B) SQDN. THORNABY (“B” flt)
11/3/39 –
Regarded as P.O. 7/3/39
Fairy [underlined] Battles [/underlined]
Dual .35 mins to solo
Avro [underlined] Ansons [/underlined]
Dual 1 1/2 hrs to solo
Handley Page [underlined] Hampdens [/underlined]
Dual 1 1/2 hrs to solo
July assessment – Pilot – average Navigator – above average
[page break]
[duplicated bookmark]
[page break]
[underlined] 106 Sqdn (contd) [/underlined]
Made Sqdn Signals Officer abt 10/7/39 (Blackpool)
19/8/39. Squadron moved to Armament Training Camp Evanton
4/9/39 Squadron moved to Cottesmore
6/10/39 Squadron moved to Finningley.
10-11-39 Made Regional Control Officer [deleted] 10-11-39 [/deleted]
(& Sigs. Officer)
[bracketed] 1/1/40 26/1/40 [/bracketed] Astro Course at St Athan
28/1/40 Finningley made Sqdn. Navigation Officer.
[photograph of a Handley Page Hampden aircraft]
[page break]
[underlined] 44 Sqdn. Waddington [/underlined]
15/6/40
Posted to 44 Sqdn ‘B’ flt.
17/5/40 1st Operational flight [underlined] over Germany [/underlined]
Hamburg 4 x 500 lb G.P. bombs
Won D.F.C. (& navigator DFM). Crew [bracketed] Windle Atkinson Edmunds [/bracketed]
L.4154 (Q)
14/9/40 Posted to SHQ. & act. Flight Lieutenant
[inserted two newspaper cuttings]
[indecipherable text]
[underlined] 31 ANS [/underlined] (cont)
19/12/41 No 17 Co. ends. [underlined] Passed![/underlined]
19-26/12 Leave
[deleted] 26/12 [/deleted] 26-29/12 Lectures to SFTSs in Ontario
29-31/12 Party in Royal York – Toronto.
[boxed note 1/1/42 Mention in Dispatches {sic] (Ron. Gayette)]
31-6/1/42 Party in [indecipherable] Royal – Montreal.
6/1 – 27/1 Bermuda
27/1 – 28/1 Elizabeth City. N.C.
28/1 – 8/2 Bermuda
[collective explanatory note for period 8-9/2 to 12/2 – Posted 1 Group HQ.]
8-9/2 – Flying Atlantic
9/2 [deleted] [indecipherable] [/deleted] Stranraer
10/2 [two indecipherable words]
12/2 Leave
18/2 Reporting 1 Gp
[underlined] 1 Gp HQ Bawtry [/underlined]
8/2/42 Posted [inserted] (supernumary pending posting to S/L post G.N.O.). [/inserted]
18/2/42 Reported for Nav duties
1/3/42 Granted acting rank of Squadron Leader. – G.N.O. 1 group
7/11/42. Posted to BLYTON to form and command No. 199 Sqdn Granted acting rank of WING COMMANDER.
9/12/42 Missing. France.
12/12/42 Captured P.O.W until 2/5/45.
1/1/43 Mentioned in Despatches (Jan. honours list.)
2/5/45 Released near Lübeck
7/5/45 Arrived England (Wing)
8/5/45 Cosford
9/5/45 Leave until 22/6/45
1/6/45 Applied for P.C.
[page break]
22/6/45 Cosford
23/6/45 Medical = A1B.
23/6/45 – 9/7/45 Leave
10/7/45 Reported 7. F.I.S. Upavon for refresher fly course.
[inserted] 24/7/45 Applied for 18 months postponement of release. [/inserted]
7/8/45 Posted to HQ 43 Group for S.P.S.O. duties. [inserted] as CO Unit. [/inserted] w.ef. 17/8/46 [/inserted]
26/3/46 A.M. P’gram advising will be offered E.S. Comm.
28/3/46 Signalled AM from 43 Gp provisionally accepts.
1/4/46 Posted to AM [inserted] D of Nav [/inserted] as NAV. P.I. retaining acting rank.
Aug ’46 Gazetted Permanent Commission
20/3/47 Posted to HQTC for disposal (Sfy) [indecipherable word]
8/4/47 Posted to 1382 T.C.U. on no35 Course. Passed
15/8/47 Posted Syerston further T.C. course passed
17/9/47 Trip to India flying Dakotas until Oct. 2 [underlined]nd[/underlined]
10/10/47 Posted Abingdon Deputy o/c Flying Wing
2/12/47 Posted Oakington Senior Nav officer & Dep. o/C F.W.
29/6/48 Jun & July 48 Berlin Airlift
24/9/48 Died at RAF Oakington.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
Ode to the skies [underlined] – Up There. [/underlined]
Up there we speed amongst the clouds, Whose billowing shrouds absorb the sounds Emitted with the smoke & flame, From our steed – the aeroplane.
Up there we travel in between Great towering banks of pure white screen. Truly – Castles in the Air, Whose beauty takes your breath, - up there.
Up there we sit and let our gaze Wander in a cloudy maze, And think ’tis shame that Beauty reigns – But seen by us, in aeroplanes
Up there we roam in sunlit sky, A world apart for those who fly. Whilst men upon the surface lurk In cold November’s fog and murk.
Up there unfolds the beauteous night, The moon in all her glorious might, The stars undimmed by Autumns mist, The distant hills by sunset kissed.
[page break]
Up there and now the early dawn Begins to herald in the morn. Long ‘ere earthly man’s aware The rays are lighting us, - up there
[underlined] Finningley Nov 1939 [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] To my beloved Sally [/underlined]
Sweet Sally how I miss your loving charm, The feel of you, your hand upon my arm; Your sweet warm breath upon my eager lips; The lovely imperfection of your hips.
Dear Sally how I love your flaxen hair; The breath of Spring about you everywhere. The soft light melting on your smooth white skin, The gentle perfume of your lovely skin.
Hey Sally I can’t say how much I miss The exquisite trembling of your tender kiss; The thrill of sensing your dear lips on mine, My body pressed into the warmth of thine.
Fair Sally how I love your eyes to show That feeling of such tenderness I know; That lovliness [sic] those perfect lids conceal, But opened such a wealth of charm reveal.
Sweet Sally within those slender arms entwined Is our love’s great [indecipherable word] defined. Such moments in their sweet embrace exist, I could not, - if I wanted to, resist.
[page break]
Oh Sally that we two should ever part Not always hand in hand and heart to heart, That this should happen darling, never fear, I’ll fight the very Gods to keep you near.
- Finningley Dec. 1939.
[page break]
[underlined] To – a Love, - a requeim [sic] [/underlined]
We met, we saw, we noticed, In times of strain, of strife. Our paths ran close together, Sweet moment in a life. Tis not for me to wonder Why paths should so converge, And enter realms of beauty Then suddenly emerge.
Nor ‘tis for me to question The fancies of the Fates, Who play their human playthings Behind their golden gates. But rather should I show my thanks For moments far too rare, For seconds in this passing hour Too lovely to compare.
‘Tis better for to love and lose, Than never know that bliss, That height to which you raised me In the heaven of your kiss. And so I thank thee Sally, For moments we embraced, And look towards the future Which can better now be faced.
[page break]
For though our paths diverge again, That fleeting instant showed, A world of such complexity, - Of magic yet untold; A world if I’d not known thee Would still be dull and bare, But having met thee dearest I’ll so much better fare.
And so into a memory So sweet, your presence parts, But say not that we wasted Those hours near our hearts. For memories we have Dear, That I’d not give away, For all the worlds sweet treasures Could never mine repay.
Finningley. March. 1940.
[page break]
[underlined] To Ann. [/underlined]
I saw you vaguely one vague day Not thinking that again we’d meet, But I felt your impression stay, - Oh Ann, - I found you very sweet.
I found beneath your face of calm, Shown with bold trust and openly, - A world of gay and subtle charm, Oh Ann, - how much I’d give for thee.
I write and see your face appear – You’re in my thoughts so constantly, Your voice in every sound I hear, Oh Ann, - I pray thee smile on me. –
Cottesmore, June 1941
[page break]
[underlined] Ode to an invitation [/underlined]
Come, give me your lips fair Pamela, give me your lips, Let their ripeness be mine fair Pamela, - so sweetly mine. Keep not their fair sweet freshness yourself Keep not their joy and fragrant wealth, - Give me your lips fair Pamela, - so sweetly thine.
Come, give me your hand sweet Pamela, give me your hand, Place its’ smallness in mine fair Pamela, sweetly in mine. Hold not its’ sweetness in solitude Hold not its’ fairness and beautytude [sic], - Give me your hand sweet Pamela, give me your hand.
Come, give me your self fair Pamela, give me your self, To love and to hold sweet Pamela, to hold and to love. Keep not your purity obscure, Keep [deleted] [indecipherable] [/deleted] your goddesslike [sic] allure – But give me your Self fair Pamela, give me your Self
Bawtry [underlined] June 1942 [/underlined]
[page break]
[underlined] To Kay, as Love appeared. [/underlined]
In all Her bountiful and queenly grace arrayed Views from high Olympus Earthwards strayed, And gave Her blessing. Thus enchanted she Did bid me kneel and pledge my faith to thee.
Uncalled unthought [sic] of, unexpected came That sweet sensation; with a name So often lipped unmeaningly [sic], yet far above All other words, - sweet Love.
Undream’d [sic] of, unexpected happiness Encompassed me, as I perceived that this Ungiven [sic] heart could err no more, Now given to my Katherine’s tender care.
Sagan, August 1943
[page break]
[underlined] To Kay. [/underlined]
Calm moments give to golden thoughts, from thoughts to reverie On untold things in days to come, With Thou and me in harmony.
Such thoughts make life seem beautiful, And seeming, therefore is. What need of other wishes, What more achieve than this?
Sweet Kay, what need to pen these words When all to this succumbs, - Dear when I shall have won thee Life itself a poem becomes.
Sagan, February 1944
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Peter Hattersley's Service Diary
Description
An account of the resource
A service diary written by Peter Hattersley covering the period from November 1930 to 24 September 1948.Initially he served in the Royal Engineers but in February 1936 he joined the RAF. It covers his training and operations including a newspaper cutting of the award of a Distinguished Flying Cross in 1940. There are poems written before and during his time as a POW.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Hattersley
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One diary
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Diary
Text. Poetry
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MHattersleyCR40699-160506-03
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
British Army
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.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Poland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Kent
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Poland--Żagań
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Steve Christian
David Bloomfield
1 Group
106 Squadron
44 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
arts and crafts
Battle
C-47
Distinguished Flying Cross
Hampden
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Abingdon
RAF Bawtry
RAF Blyton
RAF Catfoss
RAF Cosford
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Evanton
RAF Finningley
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Manston
RAF Netheravon
RAF Oakington
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
RAF Thornaby
RAF Uxbridge
RAF Waddington
Stalag Luft 3
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/380/7012/LHattersleyCR40699v1.1.pdf
099f001bc26b394fc0440d57cacdb995
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
Hattersley, Peter
Peter Hattersley
C R Hattersley
Charles Raymond Hattersley
Description
An account of the resource
77 items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Charles Raymond Hattersley DFC (1914-1948, 800429, 40699 Royal Air Force). Peter Hattersley served in the Royal Engineers between 1930 and 1935 but enlisted in the RAF in 1936. He trained as a pilot and flew with 106, 44 and 199 Squadrons. He completed 32 operations with 44 Squadron but had to force land his Wellington in France on his first operation with 199 Squadron in December 1942. He became a prisoner of war. He married Miss Kathleen Hattersley nee Croft after the war. The collection contains his logbook, notebooks, service material, his decorations and items of memorabilia in a tin box and 39 photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Charles William Hattersley and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-06
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Hattersley, CR
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
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/.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Bermuda Islands
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Berkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Kent
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Middlesex
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Ontario
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Belgium--Liège
France--Soissons
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Lingen (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Sylt
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
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
Title
A name given to the resource
Peter Hattersley's pilot's flying log book
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LHattersleyCR40699v1
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1945
1946
1947
1948
1940-05-17
1940-05-18
1940-05-19
1940-05-20
1940-05-23
1940-05-24
1940-05-25
1940-05-26
1940-05-27
1940-05-28
1940-06-01
1940-06-02
1940-06-03
1940-06-04
1940-06-07
1940-06-08
1940-06-09
1940-06-10
1940-06-11
1940-06-12
1940-06-20
1940-06-21
1940-06-25
1940-06-26
1940-07-01
1940-07-02
1940-07-05
1940-07-06
1940-07-09
1940-07-10
1940-07-20
1940-07-21
1940-07-22
1940-07-23
1940-07-25
1940-07-26
1940-07-28
1940-07-29
1940-07-31
1940-08-01
1940-08-03
1940-08-04
1940-08-07
1940-08-08
1940-08-11
1940-08-12
1940-08-13
1940-08-14
1940-08-16
1940-08-17
1940-08-21
1940-08-22
1940-08-25
1940-08-26
1940-08-28
1940-08-29
1940-08-31
1940-09-01
1940-09-03
1940-09-04
1940-09-06
1940-09-07
1940-09-08
1940-09-09
1942-12-09
1942-12-10
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot's log book for Wing Commander Peter Hattersley, covering the period 10 April 1937 to 24 September 1948. It details his flying training, operations flown and other flying duties. He was stationed at Hanworth Park, RAF Reading, RAF Netheravon, RAF Little Rissington, RAF Catfoss, RAF Manston, RAF Thornaby, RAF Evanton, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Finningley, RAF St. Athan, RAF Waddington, RCAF Port Albert, Darrels Island-Bermuda, RAF Bawtry, RAF Blyton, RAF Upavon, RAF Shawbury, RAF Bircham Newton, RAF Wymeswold, RAF Syerston, RAF Oakington, RAF Cosford, RAF Stanmore and RAF Abingdon. Aircraft Flown in were, Blackburn B2, Hart, Audax, Mile Hawk, Magister, Battle I, Anson, Hampden, Tiger Moth, Lysander, Catalina, Wellington, Oxford II, Hudson, Harvard IIb, Proctor and Dakota. He flew a total of 32 night operations in Hampdens with 44 Squadron from RAF Waddington, and one operation with 199 Squadron. Took part in Berlin Airlift (Operation Plainfare).Targets in Belgium, France, and Germany were Hannover, Hamburg, Lingan, Rhine, Leige, Keil, Frankfurt, Duisberg, Soisson, Rhur, Sylt, Dessau, Leuna, Magdeburg, Berlin and Munster. Some navigation logs and correspondence concerning the award of his Distinguished Flying Cross are included in his log book. He became a POW in late 1942.
106 Squadron
14 OTU
199 Squadron
44 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bombing
C-47
Catalina
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Hampden
Harvard
Hudson
Lysander
Magister
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
prisoner of war
Proctor
RAF Abingdon
RAF Bawtry
RAF Bircham Newton
RAF Blyton
RAF Catfoss
RAF Cosford
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Evanton
RAF Finningley
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Manston
RAF Netheravon
RAF Oakington
RAF Shawbury
RAF St Athan
RAF Syerston
RAF Thornaby
RAF Upavon
RAF Waddington
RAF Wymeswold
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/468/8351/ABarkerWG160912.2.mp3
5bfb31a75ec95140f42b72d5e93e8c64
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
Barker, Winifred
Winifred Barker nee Goldthorpe-Womersley
W Barker
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Barker, WG
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Winifred Barker.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Julian Maslin the interviewee is Mrs Winn Barker . The interview is taking place at Mrs Barkers home in Appleton near Chester on September the 12th 2016 .
WB: Appleton just, it was Upton.
JM: I apologise Upton, Upton near Chester thank you. Winn would you start by telling us a little bit about your life before you joined the Royal Air Force?
WB: Well, I was born at home at 29 Chellow Street in Bradford the eldest of three children and went to infants school and then on to a middle school and left school at fifteen, and went to work in an office in Bradford which is called the Bradford Dyers Association I started as a junior to work up to be a shorthand typist which I did attain slightly before the war started. I'm stuck now I don't quite know what else to say. I was seventeen years of age when war was declared so I wasn't eligible for the forces at that point. But I and a friend did join Civil Defence at seventeen and we were in a report centre when, if the alarm went off for air raids we had to report for duty and we were telephonists so that messages came through as to which type of bombs had been dropped and what services were required and we had to telephone for fire or the air raid wardens or the hospital or whatever was needed and then at that point I decided that I would like join the forces but I had to wait until I was older and then at nineteen years of age I decided I would like to join the Air Force and if I waited any longer I would be called up to do Munitions or Land Army both of which I didn't really take a fancy to. So at a few years before I was twenty I enlisted for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force now then I'm not quite sure where to go from there. I volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force on the 8th August 1942, just before my twentieth birthday I found myself in Morecambe for three weeks of square bashing on the promenade and getting initiated into service life this was after being kitted out in my uniform next I was sent a rail warrant to Doncaster and the service police on the station arranged transport up to RAF Bircotes a satellite of RAF Finningley where Douglas Bader was stationed I found it very exciting but I never met him. Soon after I was posted to RAF Oakley in Buckinghamshire a satellite of RAF station Westcott, my rail warrant meant travelling to London and changing on the Underground I found this very daunting as annual holidays from Bradford to Blackpool with my parents and siblings was as far as I had travelled by rail. Can I stop for a minute now....I soon settled into service life and made some lovely friends in K hut [?] of different trades and from many parts of the country Pat was born in New Zealand , Phyllis from Canvey Island, Ada from Walthamstow, Rita from Guernsey ,and Peggy from Oxford. We all went to Peggy's wedding to her Polish pilot Stefan and my husband and I visited them after the war. We all kept in touch after the war but sad to say Pat and I are the only two veterans left these friendships are precious memories. Can I stop now....Oh it's things that happened at that station. I celebrated my twenty first birthday at Oakley and the CEO noticed my cards and said I should have a treat, he reserved to seats at the local theatre in Oxford and paid for a meal for my friend and I to go to a hotel and then to the theatre.
JM: Go on then...
WB: Err we walked into the hotel to have the meal, the waiter came to ask us what we would like to drink, well at this point Phyllis and I were so surprised as we had never been into a public house in our lives and hadn't had anything to drink so the waiter suggested a sherry which we agreed to and then we had a lovely meal then off to the theatre [laughs]. When he said what sort of birthday, you know, fancy you shouldn't be having your twenty-first birthday just doing your ordinary duties you need an occasion so I thought it was extremely you know great of him to say to do that really for a little junior you know Stenographer [laughs] oh dear. So then the other things now after this are I don't whether my duties would have been interesting at that particular station? Right I'll talk about this then, are we right? My duties included typing station routine orders once a week which were recited by the Warrant officer on parade reading, oh errm all the camp service men had to parade apart from the aircrew and the Warrant Officer knew the station routine orders off by heart because he was semi-illiterate so I was asked to read letters for him and reply to letters for to his wife, he had joined the regular RAF as a young man he had a fantastic memory and was well liked. I also made out leave passes and rail warrants typing flight instructions for the training flight crews on rice paper which I found very exciting in the event of bailing out and getting captured it could be eaten. The aircrew trained mainly on Wellington bombers at Oakley 11OTU which was the final training unit before the crews were posted for operations, I'll stop there a minute cause yes [pause]. Pay parades were every fortnight on the parade ground, names were called from the registrar and we marched to the paymaster and saluted saying our rank, surname and last three numbers of our service number the loose money was handed to us and we marched back into line [laughs]. My husband and I found on reflection that we once went to the same camp dance at Marham in Norfolk but we did not meet so it was not until after, after we were demobbed and met that we started courting [laughs]. My cousin who was in the REME, the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers stationed at Weymouth in Norfolk took me on the pillion of his motorcycle to Leicester to a concert on a twenty-four hour pass when I was stationed at the time at RAF Marham it was a nice wartime treat for us both. Well I want to stop now because errm. The repatriation of prisoners: one morning I joined some airwomen who had to report to a hanger on the station, a plane had landed with a group of servicemen from various branches of the armed services who had been repatriated from prison camps as we welcomed them we noticed they seemed surprised not quite able to comprehend what was happening, they were then given a full english breakfast which turned out to be too much for them to digest after their treatment as prisoners of war the medics were called and it was an exciting episode for everyone and especially for us a memorable diversity from our everyday duties. Some of them had a number on their arms, I was quite surprised because I thought they had come from ordinary prisoner of war camps but I don't think I imagined it but they were very reticent to really say very much about what had happened to them but they were just pleased to see errm to see uniformed members of the forces mingling with them, and talking with them.
JM: Do you know what happened to them, did they go on to other places?
WB: I think they were sent home for an extended from there...I think that's what they were looking forward to, they were all male but they were from lots of different parts of the armed forces.
JM: Did they look haggard and tired?
WB: Errm they looked rather tired, but most of them were in uniform so perhaps they hadn't been in prison too long .
JM: Or maybe they had been given fresh uniforms ?
WB: Maybe yes, I don't know really.
JM: Ok.
WB: They were certainly pleased to talk to some females [laughs] from the camp who were very pleased to speak to them.
JM: Thats good, thats very interesting thank you.
WB : I can't say much more about that 'cause that episode is a little bit vague understandably really, oh there's another interesting bit here about this, yes shall I start again?
JM: Please.
WB: We often had practice air raids on the camps air crew were immediately sent to the underground shelters but certain air women designated as wardens had to don gas masks and gas capes and started to take gas precautions against possible gas attacks it was a serious business but it did produce lots of laughter [laughs] that's all about that, that I can think of really.
JM: Was it the wearing of the gas masks that produced the laughter ?
WB: It was the fact that all the men were underground and the women were having to deal with it.
JM: Very good.
WB: Because we had to, we were given large buckets with some kind of liquid in and some long handled brushes and we had to start decominis.....whats the word.
JM: Decontaminate.
WB: Decontamination of the walls and lots of laughter was coming from the underground positions whilst we were dealing with all that, but we joined in with the laughter as well of course.
JM: Good, good.
WB: Now then there's just something here, I'm not sure about this one at all really 'cause it's very vague, am I still on tape now? One night there was a loud bang we had just settled down for the night and we were not called out, it seemed there had been a crash with two planes but we never found out what really happened so we kept quiet about it.
JM: Were you aware of how many crashes took place at an operational training unit.
WB: I don't think we had any crashes on our unit apart from this particular event but it wa kept really quiet.
JM: Did you get to know any of the flying personnel?
WB: Oh yes, yes I could mention something about that yes we intermingled with them quite a lot the quota from males to females it was about five to one [laugh] because the length of training was only six weeks and the aircrew were constantly coming in and moving out. They practiced on Wellington bombers on night flying operations and then the next thing was operations.
JM: Do you remember any of the aircrew in particular?
WB: Yes, I'll just tell you a little episode now that might be interesting, I had my first proposal of marriage at twenty years of age from a navigator but I refused him I was very fond of him he was a very nice person but not fond of enough to get engaged we did keep in touch when he moved on to operations and I heard from him that on one occasion he had been sick so he missed that operational sortie that particular time his crew flew without him and were shot down all lost their lives, it had a profound affect on him he survived the war. The same person who had courted me for quite some time we were on the camp together, took me to his home in North Norfolk and his family were very nice they were farmers and everything was very homely and the table was a white washed table which could be scrubbed as you can imagine in a farmer's family and when it came to tea time the bread was brought the homemade bread was brought and laid on the bread platter and then I was wondering what I was going to have for tea, the next thing that came on the table was a big pan and erm something inside this pan, I thought it might be stew but it didn't turn out to be stew it turned out be winkles [laughs] which I had had never ever had in all my life and I thought to myself however am I going to eat these winkles. Well his mother started to butter some bread and the plates came out and a spoonful of winkles was put on my plate and I had to look at the family to see how to eat them and they all had a pin and you had to take the winkle out of its shell on a pin and eat it and I said to my friend Leslie, I don't think I can eat these would I be allowed just to have the bread and butter and he said yes [laughter]. Oh that's it, oh dear I think I've missed alot out of this, but this is all I've got to say.
JM: Would you tell us what happened at the end of your service, when you were de-mobbed?
WB: Oh well, yes I did move around from various stations for short periods, but most of these memories are from when I was stationed at RAF Oakley, because I stayed the longest period there and made the most friends but eventually I was demobbed on the 8th May 1945 after serving for three years and eight months at the point here I would like to mention is that, no one who has been in the services forgets his service number which is quite remarkable. So I went back home, we had moved house by then to a different house but we were still in Bradford and my position at the firm where I was when I left was still open for me and by that time I had, I'd gone up from the junior to a shorthand typist so I took my place there and stayed there for quite a few months and then someone from the Land Army came back into the typing pool and was made the chief typist, and I was rather cross about that so I gave my notice in and then went to another firm as a shorthand typist.
JM: So would it be fair to say that your RAF experience had toughened you up?
WB: Possibly, yes I took umbridge I was disappointed really.
JM: And I get the impression you look back on your RAF service with a great deal of affection and regard.
WB: I definitely do yes, I had a very happy time making a lot of very new friends and yes I had a happy time.
JM: Could I take you back to the beginning of your story, you've told us about your background growing up in Bradford was joining the RAF, going through the training was that quite a shock was it a different environment from where you grew up or did you adapt to it quite easily?
WB: It was a different environment in the sense that life was different,we were living the women were sleeping in Nissen huts separated from the other parts of the aerodrome, for instance the mess where we ate and the headquarters where I worked so we had, so we were given bicycles so from then on we had to cycle from one part of the aerodrome to the other and soon afterwards I found out I had increased two stone to my weight from all this cycling around but I settled to it quite easily really, because it was exciting and what I wanted to do be in a different environment. The vicar from my church wrote to some friends that he knew in Thame which was the local village from where the camp was and they invited me and a friend to go and visit them and stay overnight in their beautiful cottage which had a lovely garden so we had passes to go there and that was really nice because these two maiden ladies treated us as their own and they said any time we had a short pass we could go and stay with them which we did so that was something that was really nice. And at another point another friend in our hut, she'd come over from America and her mother had hired a cottage somewhere near the station we could also go there on weekends and they had a beautiful garden with an orchard and plum trees and she said you can pick as many plums as you want so my friend and I picked as many as we could and put them in a parcel and sent them home they were Victoria Plums.
JM: Lovely, in my researches before meeting you today Winn, I've read that some of the the young ladies who joined the WAAF found it quite difficult to mix with girls of a quite different background and also the idea of living communally was a shock to many of them. Do you remember any of that at all?
WB: I don't remember it been a shock to me because I settled to it quite easily to it really. The ablutions were a bit peculiar because they were stone like troughs on a long err you know position and we had running water but we had no plugs so we all had to buy a plug and carry it around with us in our kit bags when we moved because otherwise you just had running water to wash your face, and your hands and your body so that was funny really because you needed to have a few inches of water to use your ablutions ,do your ablutions properly. But I don't remember finding it difficult personally no. I wanted to be in the forces, I wanted to be doing my bit for the country.
JM: And so it follows that the idea of military discipline was not difficult to adapt too?
WB: Oh the discipline you mean, yes I didn't like I didn't like parading I definitely didn't like parading and I did baulk at the idea that in station routine orders you were not allowed to wear greatcoats until a certain date of the year whether it was cold hot or what and you weren't allowed to wear gloves at a certain time, so that did err me very much I did think oh dear this is silly but of course you had to do as you were told, so that was a little bit hard for me but on a few occasions when there were general parades and the WAAF had to join in the WAAF officer let me off [laughs].
JM: How did you get on with the WAAF officers and NCOs ?
WB: Oh very well, yes very well the WAAF Officer was very kind, I think she was I think her rank was Pilot Officer because it was a satellite and when she went on her leave she always sent me a postcard and it was the comical Lucy Attwell's postcards with the shining face and the little blue eyes she was blonde with blue eyes she very pretty and we talked to each other just on an ordinary basis it wasn't as officer and airwoman she just spoke to me as an ordinary person a friend you know she was friendly. The Station Officer was friendly as well because we all worked in close proximity to each other but of course on duty on parades it was different.
JM: Mmm good, did you ever think about remustering in other trades, or were you quite happy to be a clerk?
WB: No, I was quite happy I knew I wasn't good enough to be in control in the control room or anything like that and I didn't fancy the mechanical side of it because after leaving school I always wanted to be in an office so that was why I took to it quite easily most of these friends I made were in different trades one was a parachute packer and another was a tailoress who mended uniforms and another was an engineer so you know we mixed quite well really but I was quite happy in my job.
JM: Did you talk about the way the war was going and your work on the station did you talk shop as it were or did you talk about other things when you were off duty?
WB: I think we talked about other things, I think we talked about dances and clothing [laughs] and clothing points and that sort of thing we went to, we could go to dances in the local towns with transport from the camp and this very nice warrant officer said to us don't wear your uniforms wear your civvies he said “I won't tell” [laughs] so that was quite...
JM: Did you adapt your clothing, did you make your own clothing or did you use your points to buy ready made clothing?
WB: Well I seem to remember we had a fancy dress party once and I wrote home and my Auntie made me an outfit for that and sent it on to me and it was a draught board with a very short frilly tutu skirt [laughs] but I didn't win a prize but I did take my own civilian clothes not a lot of course you couldn't get much in your kit bag could you? But I did wear a skirt and a nice frilly blouse for dancing and we did wear our nylons, well not nylons it was silk stockings then wasn’t it?
JM: That reminds me to ask you, talking about nylons did you ever have any visits from the American servicemen who were in that part of the Midlands?
WB: No, no I didn't come across Americans much being on a RAF station really there were on different stations mostly I think, so amongst the aircrew there were people from Canada, Australia and New Zealand but we didn't have any Americans.
JM; No, no, I wondered if any had visited from other nearby bases but you say not.
WB: I don't think so no, I can't remember that when I was at Marham it was an American station so there was some Americans there but I was only there a few months so I didn't get to know anybody there.
JM: What about sporting activities?
WB: Sorry?
JM: Sports, did you play much sport?
WB: I played hockey against a men's team, and we won because we got them on the ankles [laughs] but that was all, I don't think I did anything else any other sport my sport was dancing.
JM: And you'd go regularly?
WB: Oh yes, I'd never miss a dance went to all the dances.
JM: Were they on the camp or in the local town?
WB: They were...we did some on the camp but mostly they were in Oxford we were taken to Oxford most of my memories were from Oakley really from that area.
JM: I want to ask you quite a difficult question in some respects you mentioned the possibility of getting engaged to the Flyer.
WB: Leslie.
JM: Yes, did many girls get engaged or get married to flying personnel and did they have many losses ?
WB: Well my best friend Peggy did marry the Polish Officer, pilot officer and we all went, we as friends we went to her wedding she got married during the war and her Father wouldn't go to the wedding because he didn't want his daughter to marry a foreigner and Stefan was a very nice person he really nice, but her Mother went and he did survive the war because my husband and I went to visit him after the war and she wrote and told me with all these friends that I corresponded with we knew all about each other's lives after the war because we wrote to each other and told them about our children and what we were doing and everything but another friend did marry a man from the ground staff and she kept in touch with me and told me that they'd had a son called David and I knew all about her and Pat of course who is still the surviving member now with me she wrote and told me all about her family she didn't go back to New Zealand she stayed in London and she married an airman from the camp but they all survived they all survived the war the ones my friends that I remember survived the war.
JM: That's good to hear .
WB: They were very lucky.
JM: I've also read that perhaps unsurprisingly some WAAFs fell pregnant during their time on camp do you have any recollection of anybody that you know having done?
WB: Yes, one.
JM: And what happened to them?
WB: one, one WAAF that I only knew not really personally but she did fall pregnant and her husband she was married and her husband was an MP so I don't know really what happened to her but they were all discharged as soon as they were made pregnant and of course most people who joined up I believe we not married, unmarried so there weren't very many that wasn't married. But there was only one that I remember.
JM: Alright.
WB: She was discharged immediately so we lost touch with her.
JM: Did you ever get the chance or want to want to have the chance to fly in any of the Wellingtons?
WB: Oh I didn't get the chance to fly but my name was on the list because I did want to go in an aeroplane but apparently there had been some accidents somewhere around the country I don't know where and so it was not allowed anymore. But one of the friends that was in my hut did manage to get up unbeknown to the authorities what she was doing and she did have one or two little spins up did this girl.
JM: I expect you were quite envious was you?
WB: I was really yes, but I was disappointed I did want to go up in a plane.
JM: In a way Winn you were living the life which was in advance of where we are now of the women doing special jobs while the men were in the cellars you were living a life where women had extra responsibilities and duties, would you say that women were treated fairly during your time in the services as women or was there discrimination?
WB: I think so I don't think there was any discrimination really because the jobs that airwomen could do were very you know there were lots of jobs they could do that were similar to the men, the could be drivers, definitely engineers, parachute packers and that sort of jobs so they were not limited the jobs that you could do as a woman.
JM: And were women officers able to give orders to male airmen.
WB: I don't think so I think they were just in charge of the women, they were, there was a WAAF officer in every headquarters in every station but I think they were for the women that were serving really I think the men officers took command really.
JM: When you look back on your service you obviously feel that you did do your duty.
WB: Yes, I'm sure I did all I was asked to do yes.
JM: And do you feel a member of the extended family of Bomber Command which you really are?
WB: I definitely do yes I do because we've already been on one holiday to Bomber County which is in Lincoln and we've been around quite a lot of memorials that's why we went and we to the one where was the Dambusters headquarters.
JM: That would be the Petwood hotel.
WB: Yes and was it the 107 squadron Dambusters?
JM: 617.
WB: 617, and we went to all the memorials in the area around about there and that was a special holiday that my daughter and husband took me on, we all enjoyed that and we're going again this year on my birthday to go to this new memorial that going to be built there.
JM: Good, good.
WB: So I'm very much involved in it I feel.
JM: Good.
WB: I was very pleased to be asked to have these memories voiced.
JM: Well they are very important you have told us a great deal that I'd not heard before about life as a WAAF and I'm sure that the memories that we have recorded this morning will be of great interest to people researching the Second World War and Bomber Command for years ahead and so thank you very much it's been a marvellous interview thank you very much indeed.
WB: Thank you.
JM: Winn, I gather that you have thought of two other stories you'd like to record so please tell us.
WB: Yes, on one occasion I do remember being stationed at RAF Oakley and for some reason I decided to take a shortcut across the parade ground to the other corner where I was intending to go and I got roundabout the middle when a voice yelled out “airwoman” get off the parade ground and I nearly fell back in dismay because I thought what on earth have I done so I was taken to account for why I was crossing this and I was told that I was never ever must you walk across the parade ground unless you were detailed to be on parade. Another occasion was that I remembered that periodically the WAAF officer would distribute some Helena Rubinstein lipsticks and face powder compacts to us freely which were given by the company of Helena Rubinstein in America so we were all elated to have this free makeup which was a very expensive item.
JM: Thank you Winn.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Winifred Barker
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Julian Maslin
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-09-12
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00:41:46 audio recording
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Sound
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Pending review
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Identifier
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ABarkerWG160912
Description
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Winifred Barker grew up in Yorkshire and worked in an office before she volunteered for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. She served as a clerk at RAF Oakley, an operational training unit.
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Carmel Dammes
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Buckinghamshire
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1945
civil defence
ground personnel
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Finningley
RAF Marham
RAF Oakley
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/472/8355/PBlandC1501.2.jpg
47607dc4beca689cae653908ef391be8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/472/8355/ABlandC150817.2.mp3
7d011bdc0c7786974101ce4ef3b8516e
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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Bland, Charles
C Bland
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Bland, C
Description
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An oral history interview with Charles Bland (538762 Royal Air Force). He served as an engine fitter.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Charles Bland and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Charles Bland and this is my story of what, the Air Force I suppose. I started off in grammar school, Boston and then I did my school certificate and my school certificate results were sufficient that I was able to become, join the Air Force as an aircraft apprentice in February 1942. February 1942. It was the first time you’d left home and we all had to arrive at Marylebone Station and it was February the 18th, I think it was, February the 18th, and so I left Boston, got down to London and, and found on Marylebone Station a great number of boys, all the same age as me. Most of them the first time they’d ever left home and so I consequently got on this train and I happened to, it was a non-corridor train and you had the compartments and I got in the compartment and they were all Geordies. You sort of, I mean, I’d never met Geordies before or anything and the, the chap who -
[machine pause]
Yep ok, we got in the carriage and that was the first time I’d sort of been away, more or less, and mixed with a lot of other boys from different parts of the country. Eventually we got there and we got to Halton and we, the first time we’d ever been in a room, we got to a room and there was twenty two of us in the barrack room and all of us were exactly the same. Most of us had never left home before and the most, I got, my chap in the next bed to me was a Scotsman, a chap named Jock Blythe and, but anyway that’s how we, we eventually got in and then we, then they, we all had to go off and go in the mess and we all sort of got together and then, of course, became the thing of joining the Air Force and the first thing we had was a medical, and the medical I failed. I failed because in this, for some reason or other, the Air Force had decided that you had to have bite, what were known as biting points and I had one biting point short so therefore I was not fit to be in the Air Force and for some reason or other, I was discharged. So I never joined, so they sent me back to Wendover Station and there was another chap who finished up, an armourer and myself who had failed our medicals and we stood on the platform station and waited for the train. Both, well, dispirited I suppose, and the next thing was, the warrant officer who was known as Beefy Paley eventually came on and called out our names. What was his name? Damn, I can’t remember. Anyway, he became an armourer. So he said, Charles Bland, so we all went back, the two of us went back to Halton and for some miraculous reason they found us a biting point, so I was in the, I eventually got in the service. So I -
MJ: What was your favourite biting point?
CB: The biting. I have no idea. This biting point was how your teeth clamped together I think, I don’t know, I never did find out, but I was in the Air Force. I didn’t care much then. And so we, I came, went back and but then of course, because I’d dropped behind, I was at, my number is a hundred behind where I, where the chaps were originally, but anyway that all came, it all came about but so on February the 19th, February the 19th, I joined the Royal Air Force and got sworn in and got this number, 578762, but er, but you see where the people that I was with, I should have been 662 not 762 but anyway, I went back to visit the beginning. All the initial because there were several methods of getting in as an apprentice. There was service candidate in which was all based on the fact that you had a father or something in the Air Force. By examination which was then you went on, did the exam and various, how you finished up on the exam, or what was known as a direct entry. I was a direct entry because I had sufficient, I had [unclear], what they were called? Credit standards. I think credit standards in my school certificate in maths, physics and chemistry and that allowed me to go as a direct entry. I was a direct entry with others but all of us, a direct entry were in the beginning, direct entry and service candidate had the first choice and then the others who did the examination, depended on where you came in the examination, what you got, how you got treated, but anyway that was it. We all got uniforms and we all won and we all got our classes, all got our classes, but then you had to be, oh I remember this, in this, my barrack room where these, these, all these people joined in and you all had trades. Now, the trades all, you had the one, was the radio trades, ‘cause they went to Cranwell, they didn’t do at Halton but then the others that were all picked out. You all got selected, if you like to put it, what you were going to be. You’d put down on your exam, on your joining what you’d like to be but it didn’t, yeah, it didn’t necessarily mean you did, because, we, in this barrack room where we were, ‘cause we had all those, I wanted to be an engine fitter. Some wanted to be riggers, armourers and instrument makers. Those were the Halton trades and we, we came back and I always remember, oh God, I can’t even remember his name now. Damn, damn but anyway, anyway this we all went this way selected and we got selected and said, you know, I was going to be an engine fitter. That was all. Then there was Jock Blythe, he fancied airframes so he was, and he was alright, but then we had one chap come back and he come back to the barrack room after being selected, and he was in tears and we didn’t quite understand why he was crying, and we thought maybe something had happened, but he came back and said, you know, I mean we were boys and I mean, we’d only met each other but you know you’d think well, why, you know, some sympathy for why he was crying. And why he was crying was that they’d made him an air frame fitter, and he wanted to be an engine fitter, so that was why he was crying. I met him years afterwards and he always, he always used to say, you know he always used to, he was a crew chief same, crew chief with me [unclear] for years on, but it was this business that he cried when he was at Halton, went years on. Years on ‘cause he knew that he, he wanted a different trade. Oh that was something, yes, he cried because he was made an airframe fitter and not an engine fitter, and there we are, but then we did all the, we did all the training that was necessary. Well boys, when you get boys, boys together, all sixteen year olds and you see you, they, you sort of went, you, I think that you went there, you became a disciplined hooligan I suppose really. It was nothing. Because you all went there like choirboys but after you’d been with all this lot, you became as, you know, apprentices. I don’t know how you sort of became, I don’t know, you’ve got, because funny enough how, because you treated NCOs and everything as they were but you’d, I suppose you’d got a cheekiness and whatnot, I don’t know, but you survived. Well survived. I can’t say that but, but a chap, an ex-apprentice I met years and years later and he had been, he had been a Japanese prisoner of war, and for some reason he didn’t talk much about it, but he, his, he reckoned that his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war because he, he treated the Japanese the same way we treated NCOs and whatnot as apprentices, and he put his survival as a Japanese prisoner of war to the fact that he’d been apprentice, and that was his attitude towards authority. So that was it. But that was a digression from that. Anyway, I left Halton after I managed to get an AC1, oh, and I got thrown out of a class once through laughing, but then of course the, but then days as apprentice were something that, incidents, I’ll mention a couple of incidents. One which, because I mean you all swore, you did all sorts of things and the one was that I always remember we were doing, we had, of course, you had engineering drawing. We did all this business there and engineering drawing. Our instructor was, oh, very studious squadron leader I think. Obviously, he was just like a parson and of course, we all lot we had a, because you had, I mean as boys we buggered about, I mean it was, you know. It was one of the things and I always remember my, one of my colleagues, well I’ll say classmate [unclear], Rickards his name was, and he, he was on there and the he said, oh, and of course there that the thing was we always buggered about and of course, we were doing engineering drawing and his, his statement was, ‘Who’s the thieving sod who’s pinched my rubber?’ And this was part of everyone talked about, but the instructor was a bit like a parson he was, and he stopped the class and he said that, he said that it was getting beyond when one boy called another boy a thieving sod. Well, I mean that was of course, that all went and that, that was being an apprentice and then all sorts of things. You were hooligans really, because you did, you did, you know, filing and all the, all the rest of it. You learned how to file, you learned how to rivet, you learned how to do all sorts of things and the, another thing when you did welding or, welding was one and of course, we had, you always got somebody there who was, would get rather picked on. Picked on in a class and one who was a, who was trouble was a bloke named Bryce, he came from Devon and Trevor Boone was another, he was, Trevor Boone was a, he was a bit of a softie. He was rather, he had a tendency I suppose to be bullied a bit. Yeah, because Bryce was a bugger you see, he was, he, we’d do soldering abrasion, welding, welding and of course all doing, we’re doing, we’re doing that. Not arc welding, it was oxyacetylene and of course, then of course, a pair of pliers that you use and Bryce, of course, played his flame on Boone’s pliers, so that when poor old Boone picked his pliers up, he got his hands burned. Devilish things sort of like that. Oh, and then of course, you, ‘cause we had, there again, McDonald beds. Now, McDonald beds were solid iron beds but they had casters on because you had to, you had to make your bed up in the morning. You had this bed. One, the bottom half slid into the top half and your blankets had to be your biscuits which were the three biscuits. Mattresses, or whatever you like to call them, had to be stacked on one another. Your blankets had to be folded with, we had sheets, so the sheets had to be put between the blankets, and then one blanket wrapped around the whole lot that so it sort of made like a sandwich, if you like and it, that was it. Beds have to made up as laid down. That was the one of the comments that you had to do, yeah. But then we, when we managed and the time came then and of course, we had our drill and had to be marched up and down and of course, we had the pipes and the drums and we were all, and it was, it was you carried your books, you carried your overalls and you had these horrible ground sheets which were meant to be capes, and the trouble was when it rained, and you were marching and whatnot, your legs got soaking wet because the damned ground sheet came to your, it was only came just below your knees, you know, the edge of it, but there we are. What else did we do? We used to march back and forth and, oh aye, that was another thing. We had, because we had various engine, as engine fitters of course, we started off on basics, which was an old Gipsy engine, a four cylinder Gipsy engine we had and then of course, you, you moved off, but then of course, we were in, at Halton we were in, started off in what was known as the old workshops, and then they decided, because we had airmen and wartime fitters there, they decided that they’d move the apprentices to the new workshops which was, if anyone knows Halton, I don’t know if they’re all like that now, but the old workshops, the new workshops were newer buildings and across the other side of the road. I can’t remember our position now but anyway it was across the other side of the road and we all moved. There was er to, going down into the new workshops was a downhill run, if you like to put it, and of course, we happened to be when we, when they changed to the new workshops, we happened to be on the radial engines, which were mercury engines, Bristol Mercury’s, and we were on radials and then we had to move the whole class and our engines from the old workshops to the new workshops, and we had an instructor named Mr Petty. He was the instructor. And so as a class, we moved our engines, but the thing is, when you get a bunch of boys and all of us, they decided to move these engines and of course, these engines were in stands, on castors so we pushed them up to the top of the hill, but then there was a downhill run to the new workshops, so of course they decided then, of course, being boys and whatnot, we decided that the only way to get these down there was to run them down and stand on the stand so that it went down like a trolley. Well of course, this was all, this did very well until we came and there was a curb by the side and of course the next thing was, one of the engines of course, hit the curb and thank goodness there was a bank there. It went into the bank and tipped over but it was not completely over, but of course, it had hit this bank and of course, we came down. We had to heave this engine back on its trolleys and push it back into the workshops, and then of course the thing was, we all got there, and the comment, Mr Petty said that he could not understand why one of his engines had got soil amongst the cooling fins, but nobody enlightened him that it had fell, it had fallen over. But then you had, and I always remember, you know, all, you know, you remember these sorts of things. I remember we had another instructor was a Mr Palmer and Mr Palmer was quite a, he said, ‘If you’re using a hammer, use it’. Don’t, you know, don’t dilly dally with it. Use it. And there was a boy called Hind in our class and, Mr Palmer, I don’t know what happened there, whether it was a hard face or whatnot, but he hit something. The hammer head came off and it finished up in Hind’s stomach so it, it was quite funny really because all it was, was Mr Palmer just extricated this hammer head out of Hind’s stomach and carried on. Hind was a bit breathless but never mind. But there was the other thing we used to do oh, and that was again Butch Hind, was, we did magnetos of course, but then of course, using magnetos of course, you can charge, you know, the thing is, you get a spark and whatnot but they were doing magnetos, and it was found that Hind, by judicious of winding these hand starter magnetos up, that Hind could be charged up and I don’t know if it was, he wore rubber boots or, so he was, you had to gently sort of, Hind would hold the leads and get himself charged up and then someone would go up, put a finger near his ears and he’d get a crick across the ears, you know. It was, oh we did all sorts of things like this, I mean, it was ridiculous really. And we had, we had a lot of civvy instructors and we had one for basic was a Mr Tatum, and Tatum could do anything with a piece of metal that I know, but then you had, he used to be doing because you had to have your, some on the file and some on top. You had to hold the files correctly and if you weren’t holding the files correctly and you were doing something, you suddenly find you had a whack on the finger, because you weren’t correct and he used to come around and give you a whack on the finger. But it was, you know, I suppose, brutal really. I mean you wouldn’t have it now, ‘cause they was being mistreated or something. I don’t know but I mean, you just accepted it. You accepted it. Well he was, but I’m ok. There we are. Then of course, you had your various exams, and that was another one. Petty, another one. He got killed. He went aircrew and he became a pilot, he got killed in a Canberra. Colin Petty. And we had, during exams, there was various means of making bolts and one was what was known as a cold headed bolt, which had all these had different markings in, ‘cause this was all part of the thing of knowing what your markings of all these various equipment and steel and everything were, and one was, a bolt was known as a cold headed bolt and it was a bolt where the head had been pressed in cold. Not, not been turned. It was pressed and this had a ring around the top, but in the exam, it was, ‘How do you recognise a cold headed bolt?’ And of course, Petty didn’t know, and so Petty wrote, ‘Wears a balaclava helmet’. He got seven days for that, seven days jankers for that, for being frivolous on an examination paper. That was how, that’s how things were, you know, you got done for everything. You couldn’t smoke. Oh you got a smoking pass at eighteen, but you weren’t allowed to smoke everywhere and the toilets down in workshops of course. Toilets, yeah, and you could hear because you could have puffs, I mean, you could make a cigarette end last with a pin till the last puff. Oh dear, it was all sorts of things like that. As an apprentice, you did everything, always pushed to the limit, and it, and all your instructors. Oh, and there was another incident, I always remember that we had a named, chap named in our class, Dicky Burke, and Dicky Burke was, he was a oh, he was the same as anyone else, but one time we had a, we had er notes. A corporal, I can’t even remember his name, a corporal was giving, he was an instructor and of course he said we had to, I can’t remember what it was. Anyway, he said take, get your notebook and take these notes, and Dicky Burke said, ‘We’ve already got these notes’, and the corporal said, ‘It doesn’t matter, you’ll still do it’, you know. And under his breath, Dicky Burke said F you, and the corporal heard him and so he was wheeled up to the squadron leader, and in less than two hours, Dicky Burke was, was doing a stretch of twenty eight days in the guardroom, but he still had to come to, well he was doing a stretch but he, he, he was doing his spell in the guardroom but he still had to come to school. He still had to do his doings, so one of the corporal apprentices, a bloke named Ted Atkinson who was a friend of mine, had to go to the guardroom and march him down to school and then march him back up to the guardroom for his, his lunchtime and any off duty, so he did his twenty eight days on off duty, more or less, so he was one of these, one of these incidents that er, but he did the twenty eight days and was shovelling coal from one side to the other and all the rest of it, but as I say, they used to make you do anything. I don’t know, but that was Dicky Burke and his twenty eight days. I’m trying to remember humorous incidents of things and very, it was, of course we were apprentices anyway but then, of course, the other thing was they had Air Training Corps, ‘cause they were the civilian side. I mean, most of them were the same age as us but of course, we were apprentices as opposed to theirs was, well Air Training Corps wasn’t it? People that you join and they had the air training corps come and did a spell well in the camp near Halton, which of course upset those, a bit of an upset, and of course the apprentices raided them as normal, it was normal sort of business. Used to, oh dear oh dear. Apprentices. The other one was, all daft things really. And of course, you had not money, you used to get, we used to get paid a fortnight of three [unclear], nearly new two shilling pieces. That was our pay. Three, three every fortnight, which I mean you had, you could buy chips in the NAAFI and the old rock cakes and whatnot, but, but then of course, there was, generally you used to run out of money or something and they used to do odd, and there was one time, oh, what was his name? He was short of money, and then the thing was that we had, because there was twenty two of us in a room, twenty two of us including a corporal or a snag which was a LAA, a leading aircraft apprentice. He had one stripe on his arm and then you had a corporal apprentice, a corporal he had was probably in the bunk at the end of the room, was the corporal apprentice, but then of course, then they’d get someone short of money and one of the, one of the, one I remember is, I can’t remember his name now, never mind, short of money and then it said was halfpenny around the room. That would give him ten P. A halfpenny around the room and he’d run around the barrack block stark naked which was a, oh God that was brass and of course, he said he’d do it and that so everybody, but then of course, you had to, then had to, everybody, this was immediately transmitted all around the rooms that he was going to run around the block stark naked, and so that meant that everybody was, when he set off, everybody was at the barrack block windows, shouting and cheering him on as he went around. And that was another incident, anything to make money. And then there was, you had jankers, ‘cause that was another one. Your jankers, seven penneth for doing anything. No I managed to avoid that, I wasn’t caught smoking or missing church parade. Anything to scrounge. You get seven penneth and then, but then you were allowed, they decided that you, that the jankers would be separated from the other boys. For what reason I don’t know. And there was a Corporal Croft. He was a corporal in the DI we had and they put him in charge of, ‘cause we had the barrack blocks but then we had wooden huts, and they decided to put the, the jankers in the, or a wooden hut with this corporal in charge which was then, ‘cause he was Corporal Croft, and that was known as Croft’s Cottage, but I think, I think they abandoned that because you got all the ne’er-do-wells who wanted to pinch anything all at, do and that was not, they weren’t distributed cause they used to supposed to do jankers in the cookhouse and they were the ones that always got fed the best, ‘cause they always managed to purloin something. Food or something. It was, it was all part of the game. Part of the game. I mean the best of it was of course, some of the worst offenders became commissioned officers. That was the best of it wasn’t it? I mean years, years on. There was one there, Hammer Mallet, Tom Mallet. He was, he was one but he became a squadron leader engineer. Just shows you ,doesn’t it? How to become commissioned? Become jankers, you know. But then, that was the years. Went through that lot and of course came, I mean we were doing our drill with our rifles and bayonets and all the rest of it as well, and then came the day of passing out and then you had to do, but then you had your exams but then your exams depended on where you were doing, whether if you got, if you got called that you would do your oral exams and boarded, as they used to say, and you’d go for your board to these, you know, either senior NCOs or officers and you were questioned on your trade. I mean, as well as written exams, you had written exams as well which was, you know, like school and whatnot, but your boards were you were all against mostly to gain your trade. They asked you, you know, how you would identify some stainless steel or some question how would you do this or do the other, various things so, but then you, you’d do your board and then if you were you didn’t know how you were doing, you sort of go back again and then, and sit down and go back where you came from and then someone would say, ‘They want to speak to you again’. And you’d think, now that meant either one of two things. That A) you hadn’t got enough marks to pass out or B) you got sufficient marks that they were doing, that they were doing you that instead of AC2 pass out or AC1, you got an LAC. That, that was the thing but I mean, you had to know whether you’d done well enough or poorly or not because if they asked you back again and you’d done very poorly and you were only getting to re-boarded, you again to become an AC2 and I got, I had to go back again because I didn’t get an LAC. Anyway, I did, I finished up AC1, that was how I passed out. I passed out then from Halton, that was then and they said, right then, we are posted. Where were your choices to be posted? Well I come from Lincolnshire so I suppose you put Lincolnshire. I mean, ten to one you never got what you put down for. I put Lincolnshire and I finished up, posted to Kirton Lindsey. That was, and of course the thing was, in those days, and you used to get trains and you didn’t know where you were and blackouts, and you get on a train. There was several of us posted to Kirton Lindsey, I think about four, four of us posted to Kirton Lindsey, and of course, on these trains, you didn’t know where the hell you were going. You got a train, you had to get a train to so and so, and then of course, the only time you ever knew where you were, was if some porter called out, you know, the name of the platform or stop where it was, and we got out at Kirton Lindsey. There was four of us and some airmen as well, and so we got out there and some of the airmen were worldly, more worldly wise, get transport, and they eventually came, got transport and of course, it’s a blackout, you didn’t know where the hell you were. Got to, went to this, got to the station and eventually the guardroom and we were then sent to transit block. Transit block. And the transit room, you went in there and you, you were, I can’t even remember now whether you had, whether there was bedding in there or you had to go to the bedding store and get your blankets, I think. Anyway, doesn’t matter. Got there and eventually we got dished out to the general office, and then we were given wherever we were going, so it’s, you were sent down to the tech side and then they decided where you were going, ‘cause I mean, they were riggers or fitters. I finished up in R&I. R&I. We were doing majors on Spitfires there. Got R&I, some of them got others. And there was another place called Hibaldstow, which was a satellite of Kirton Lindsey. Two of them got sent to Hibaldstow. As I say I was sent to, to R&I. I don’t know, I think I was the only one out of our group who went to R&I, which is Repair and Inspection, which was the major. We were doing majors, majors on Spitfires but, so we used to have the flights when the flights board there, I mean, I mean, oh, and the other thing was, I must have mentioned this, the other thing they had now, so that we, we had, ‘cause we had WAAF fitters as wel,l and we had, I was put into, put into a gang with Corporal, Corporal Shear was in charge and I was put in this gang and of course, I was an, I was an AC1 apprentice fitter. Apprentice, ‘cause the others in the gang were all wartime blokes. One was a bank clerk, one had been, one was, one had been a waiter, I think, but they were a good lot anyway.
[pause for phone]
So we, now, we got to Kirton Lindsey now so that we got to the WAAF fitters, and I was put in a gang, and I can remember Corporal Shear was the corporal in charge, and all the others were wartime. Well one was a fitter, two mechanics I think, we were doing majors on Spitfires and Sadie was the WAAF, and Sadie was, I mean I was only, what, eighteen and whatnot, but I didn’t fancy her really, but I think she rather well she, I don’t think she fancied me. All she did was bugger me about really, ‘cause she would, if you were doing on the engine and whatnot on there and she was sitting on the main plane she’d, and you were doing something, she’d suddenly put her legs out and wrap them around you, you know. But she wasn’t really my type at all, so I didn’t really fancy her and she, the trouble with WAAFs. they either overtightened things or didn’t tighten things up enough. Couldn’t, plugs. they never put the plugs in tight enough and they’d bloody shear off a bloody two by eight or something like that. but anyway that was, that was the WAAFs. But incidents. Incidents, oh the other thing of course, they were Mark II Spitfires and they had Merlin 12s, and they had Coffman starters and cartridge so that you had a cartridge, and one of the things was the flight sergeants, ‘cause we had, oh all part and parcel, you had to, you had your sort of annual booze up and whatnot, and of course, then money had to be put in and the flight sergeant used to fine you for A) for being late if you were late for work or whatnot you’d, he’d fine you sixpence or something, which all went into the fund, and they used to do cartridge starters. I mean, you had to be starting a Merlin on, with a cartridge. You could do it with one cartridge or two but if you had more than two, he used to fine you sixpence a cartridge. So, so the thing was, you had to make sure it was primed and everything before you could, he’d be there, but he’d listen to you, and you would fire up on one and you’re all right. Fire up on two and if it didn’t fire you think, God there’s another sixpence gone you know. So that was the fine, I mean that was a fine for using too many cartridges, but that that was one of the things. Another incident here I always remember, we changed over from Mark II’s to Mark Vs and the Mark Vs were coming in, and this was during the summer of 1944. The warm weather. And we came, we were in, we were in R&I and of course, we were duty crew, if you like, and of course we were at, they were bringing in these Mark Vs and we were, all of us nice summer evening it was, sitting outside and we were all thinking of going down the boozer, and he said, ‘Righto we’ve got, we’ve got four, four spitfires coming in.’ And they were all sitting there in the sun, at the wall of the hangar and the first one came in and of course, then you were all sitting there. Who was going to see the first one in, and I said, ‘Oh bugger it, I’ll see the first one in’, and off I went in to see the first one in. Taxied in and, lo and behold, it was when, when the pilot of course, took her helmet off, it was an ATA pilot. A blonde. She had blonde hair, and who she was I don’t know, and of course, I saw this one in and of course immediately the others saw this girl taxiing this one in, they all rushed out to see the others in, but anyway I don’t know who she was, I’ve no idea. But I often think of the ATA pilots because, oh she was older than me but, and she had blonde hair and I often wonder, having seen ATA pilots, you know, years gone on and wondered who it was. But that was, we got Mark Vs then instead of, but then of course, the time came and then the incident I mentioned of the only time we got involved in Bomber Command In those days was, we had a Spitfire lab down at North Creake, which had Stirlings on and we had to do an engine change, and doing this engine change underneath the belly of a Stirling. That was quite interesting but then that was, then I’ve, then of course, my posting overseas came so then I went up to Blackpool and met all, a lot of the chaps who were at Halton with me. So that was, so we were at Blackpool there, getting kitted out. Marks and Spencers of Blackpool, well then because they had all the, which was Marks and Spencer, had all the kit in there so you, and when the tower, well anyway, that was September ‘44. We went, went to Gourock. Gourock and then we boarded this, I can’t remember even, can’t remember what my, my draft number was. Anyway, but anyway we were boarded on the Orion and the thing was, was this a battleship, no, it was a cattle ship, because there were five thousand, troops, troops in it. That was an incident. There was Army at the bottom, Air Force in the middle and the Navy at the top ‘cause they were the best. Anyway, so we, we went out on that, through the Suez ‘cause then, I think they’d cleared the Med of subs. We went to India via, via the Suez Canal and not around, around the end of South Africa. That was it, no incidents. We had some ex Australian prisoners of war on board and they were well fed, and they used to give us a bit of grub now and again, but and then eventually we got, got to India, but of course, the other thing of course, I’d better mention it that was the, the beginning of my marriage I suppose, ‘cause this friend of mine, who had had the, this corporal apprentice, had to go back to my brother in law who was, he was also at Halton but he was two entries after me, and my friend was a corporal apprentice, was in charge of his room and my brother in law, Bill, he, he gave my, he had a twin sister who became my wife, but he’s, this corporal apprentice started writing to Margaret, but then, I don’t know, it all petered out or something, and then of course, we came on, came on the boat going to India and of course, was one of the things, anyone got any girls to write to? And he gave me Margaret’s address and said, ‘Don’t tell her I gave it to you’. So I came out of the top of my head was a load of rubbish that I found her address floating on the deck of a bloody troop ship’ you know’ but anyway that was that. I wrote to her and of course that was, we got out to India and I was then posted from [unclear], I went to a place, I was posted down to Ceylon to a repair and salvage unit ,121 RS, oh R&SU I suppose. We just used to call it just RSU. So we went down by seven days on the rail, down to India, down all the way down in from Bombay, down all the way down India. Took us a week. Then to Ceylon and we eventually ended, finished up in a place called Vavuniya in Ceylon, and we formed, well I think we formed this R&SU there, We serviced Beaufighters. We had two Beaufighter squadrons and a Spitfire squadron. I can’t remember the Spitfires, but the Beaufighter squadrons were 22 and 217, and we did engine changes and then I got, I got detached to 22 Squadron because they were short of fitters, and I got detached there for a, for a spell. So, I was doing, working with 22 Squadron but then of course, everything changed and they decided that we were going on a, we got, we got sent, we got notification we had to pack up, what was it? Operation Marbrisca I think it was, and get everything, gear and of course it never came about and we then, we moved the whole lot, the unit moved up into India. And Marbris, that was an interesting thing because it was years, years later after I came back home and the I went to, went to school and there was a master at school who had also been out there, but he was in, in SEAF or SEAC operations and I mentioned about this, oh years about this Operation Marbrisc, and he told me what it was. It was in actual fact, they were going to take the island of Phuket. I mean we called it something else as you can imagine which is, I mean, is a holiday island now, and the idea was, they were going to build an airfield on Phuket and operate from there against the Japanese, but then he said that the casualty situation would be, was exorbitant and they cancelled it. So that was where we were going. This Marbrisc. Anyway, that was cancelled and we moved up into South India, basically to, I think it was preparation for the Malayan invasion, ‘cause we moved about. God, as an RSU, we sort of did anything. We did some servicing on Thunderbolts of all things. Then, then we sort of petered out and did nothing really. We sort of, all we did was, oh and then of course the next thing was, they said, oh we got issued with jungle green, so we all got issued with jungle green and we had, then we got to have equipment to do this invasion or whatnot, back up so we got a lot of new waggons and cranes and all sorts of things, all ready to do this repair and salvage, because we were supposed to, I think, we were supposed to service two Beaufighter squadrons and a Spitfire squadron. I don’t know whether they were the same ones that we had before but, but then of course, they dropped the atom bomb and that was, that was the end, that was the end of our sortie to Malaya, but, but then of course, the whole thing wound up. What was the next troubles? ‘Cause it became, the whole thing then, the war had ended and all the blokes that were in the war in Europe were getting demobbed, and people with the, on the unit with the same demob number were not being demobbed, because they were in the Far East, and then of course, we came, these problems what do they call them? What do they call them? Riots I suppose. I think they termed them as riots when they were bloody you know, I don’t know, you were nearly court martialled but anyway, but then of course that all, this came, the whole of India was like that but of course, we were regulars so we, we weren’t involved. They, we, we just didn’t get involved in all that, any of these struggles at all, but then of course, our lot folded up and we were posted to, and then they said, oh we’re going on occupation force Japan. {Unclear] and we went to a place in India called Tamberam, to get to move out but then they cancelled the whole lot so we were less than with all this gear and whatnot, in this Tamberam, and then they decided that we were going to be disbanded, we were. So all the equipment had to go back. All these new lorries and cranes and whatnot, so they were all moved and taken to a place called Visakhapatnam, I think it was. Viso we called it, and they took all this and there were hundreds and hundreds of vehicles. All just, all lease lend stuff. And that was, and they shifted us to a place called Redhills Lake, which had been a flying boat station, to disband. Well, and of course the thing was, and it had a lake there so we did a bit of swimming. That was for a while and apart from that, we did nothing, just sort out equipment, half of it got dumped in the lake and then the day came when I was posted. We were posted, we were distributed and I was posted to 353 Squadron at Palam, and that was Delhi, and that was right up north, and so the next thing was of course, to get the train from, was it Madras, I suppose. I think, I can’t remember where, so, to Delhi and oh, it was a troop train. It was marvellous, marvellous train because it had been a casualty train for, for carrying wounded, not a trooper and oh, it was most comfortable. Had a real good trip ‘cause against all the others we had a, ‘cause normally the trains in there you had same as the doings. You had the hard wooden benches and the ones that slap down on chains for sleeping on, but anyway that was, but anyway we got to Palam and that was 353 Squadron was a Dakota squadron, but then of course, they’d centralised servicing really so that it didn’t matter what squadron you were on, you were, you were put in workshops. I was in engine repair and in engine repair was you did anything really. A Pratt and Whitneys, it didn’t matter what came in and you said, because Palam was a, was a main, well it’s now Delhi airport isn’t it? I think, yeah, and Dakotas, but we used to get all the mail stuff come through. That was the Yorks. And we had also the, was it British Air? No, BOAC was it? BOAC in those days. And it had BOAC Yorks came because the airport was at, was at Palam. Well it was Delhi Airport, but part of Palam, but just around the peritrack and so I did, I did a spell with Dakotas and Yorks. I had engine changes on Yorks. We actually did minor a inspection on Lancasters that flew in. Oh, I did a couple of jobs on BOAC Yorks, but they had landing trouble and they had no fitters, and they used to get sort of co-opted on the engineer, BOAC engineers. They had no, no people at all, so I did a couple of jobs on BOAC Yorks while I was there and then of course, came a time that I didn’t get mid tour leave although I’d put my name down, I wasn’t lucky enough to get any. And then of course in April, oh, then of course the Partition was on. India was, and things were not, things were not very good then. You, you didn’t, if you wanted to go out you made sure that at least there was two or three of you together, ‘cause things, I don’t know why, they didn’t like us really. And then in April, I got a raise and I came home in April. I came home. I went out on the Orion and came back on the Chetril and then we arrived back. It was quite, they say about you know seeing England when you come back, it was, go on, anyway we landed at Southampton and we had to be shipped up to Burtonwood near, oh where is it near? Oh God, Burtonwood. Warrington isn’t it? I think it’s at Warrington. Anyway, when it comes to the point there, we got back to there and everybody was, of course all they wanted to do was get home, and they would have flown us and said this, that and the other, until everyone was chuntering and whatnot the bloke at Burtonwood said, ‘Right’, he said, ‘Get on the lorries and you can go to the bloody station’, you know, it’s up to you where, you know, you go. We’d got our warrants and I think there was, I think a train going south and a train going north and it cleared the station. Didn’t care, you really didn’t care where you went as long as you left there and on the way home. So, I sort of, I got from Warrington to Manchester, and Manchester and of course, while I’d been, while I’d been overseas, my parents had moved from Lincolnshire. They’d moved to Yorkshire, and so I didn’t know where I was going home so the er, got to, I got to Manchester and got to Leeds, and I thought what and I got my parent’s telephone number so I thought, oh I’d better, I’d better ring them and let them know, and so I phoned up and my mother answered and of course she said, ‘Oh your father’s in, in the Isle of Man at the moment’, ‘cause I said, ‘well can you, can you pick me up at the station?’ And so anyway the incidents, isn’t it? So, so I said, ‘Well I’ll go to Harrogate’. I had to go to Harrogate, from Leeds to Harrogate and the, get in the train and the, ‘cause I had two kit bags and your webbing and everything and you know you were sort of carrying these down, and of course I’d asked where the train, the -
[phone ringing]
Train was there and of course I’d got my kit bag on, and you know you’ve got a kit on, a kit bag on your arm, your webbing and a kit bag on the top, and of course there was an airman in a carriage doorway, and I says, I said, oh you know , ‘Open the door’, and I bend over and let the kit bag drop on the floor, and my father was on the, on the train and he picked it up, so and that’s how I met my dad. He came and then my sister, mother at the station. So, incidents, you know, that, ‘cause I came back and of course my father was on the train with the gear, and so my mother and sister at the station. The incident I’m trying to think of. Not that is, ‘cause I didn’t, oh dear, I didn’t stop by. OK now then, we’ve got to, we’ve got to Knaresborough, that was where my parents lived, so and the next thing I had to do, as I’d been writing to Margaret for, oh, since, when was it? 1945. I wanted to get down to Hereford, so I went down to, went down to, go down to Hereford but it’s quite strange really that I’d been writing to her there, but it was, I’d got down to, got down from Manchester, get down to Hereford and the, the last stop before Hereford is Shrewsbury, and I debated whether to get off the train. Why I don’t know but there we are, but anyway it all worked out. We met on Hereford station and that was, that was it, so the beginning of our relationship. Yeah. Anyway, then that all finished and the next thing was of course, we got posted and then, oh God, that was it. Posted, posted to Wheaton, Wheaton, what the hell was at Wheaton? I thought what on earth’s there? Blackpool, near Blackpool. So off I goes to, to Blackpool. Get back on the train, get off at Wheaton and what’s Wheaton? Trainings. Bloody training station, nothing to do with aeroplanes. Bloody drivers, fitters, blacksmiths, welders, everything bar anything to do with aeroplanes, and I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ So, anyway, of course, I arrived on the station and this is in, and I thought, you know, and I went and they said, you’re going to, you’ll be on one wing, I think it was. MTMs, Motor Transport Mechanics. So what the hell am I doing here? And anyway of course, I went in to the general office, off I went, report to squadron leader so and so, so I went to him and immediately I went in there and of course, there was a few, there was an MT fitter and whatnot, and me. So, anyway, I immediately said, complained, ‘What am I doing here?’ you know, and MT and all the rest of it, and this officer, whoever he was, said I was posted as an instructor. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about MT at all’. And this, I remember this officer, who he was, he said, ‘You’re an ex apprentice, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes sir’. ‘Well’, he says, ‘In that case’, he said, ‘You can do any bloody thing’. So that was that. That was me teaching motor mechanics, MT mechanics, and I knew nothing about bloody brakes or anything like that. Well, I think, anyway so I went down to this, where was it? Where I was supposed to be? The phase office, that was it, the phase, the phase office, and there was a sergeant MT fitter there, and I said, ‘Well I know bugger all about motor transport’. He said, ‘Well I’ll tell you what’, he said, ‘I’ll put’, he said, ‘you’ll be on’, I’ve forgotten what it was, but he said, ‘I’ll put you with, there’s a civilian instructor’, he says. ‘You can have a spell with him’, he said, ‘you’ll pick it up from there’. Oh God love us all. So, anyway, I was with this, oh I can’t remember his name, and he was an ancient civvy and so I was picking up brakes and steering, and I never knew there was a blinking theory on brakes and how line up and all this business at all, and of course I was doing this and that, was the, I was on the first week. There was a fortnightly course for this MT mechanics. A fortnight course so I was in there for a fortnight. I’d done one week and there was a fracas in there, and one of the corporal instructors had clobbered a, or hurled a coupling at one of the trainees, and he was then immediately taken off instructing, and the only person to take, put on, was me, and he was on the second week and I’d only done the first week, and the second week was completely, was ridiculous. But anyway, so I had to do it. Have you ever taught, taught people about something you know nothing about? Well, that was what it was with me, instructing people. I had to try to gain a, oh dear, it was ridiculous, but anyway. Then, of course, funnily enough, then they started to er, a phase on diesel engines. Well funnily enough I’d been very interested in diesels, even in India, and I had had my father send me books on diesels, high speed compression ignition engines and whatnot, and so therefore I knew quite a bit, and when they started this phase on diesels, I said well I, you know, I’d done diesels. Oh, they were quite, and shoved me on diesels straightaway, so that was, that was the way it went. I finished up doing diesels and did various other things and then of course I, I, I, I wanted to get away from Wheaton. I’d liked to get down south somewhere ‘cause I mean I was courting then, I mean, and it’s a long way from, from Wheaton, Blackpool down to Hereford, which I used to do on a blinking short weekend. It was bloody fast because I used to have to, I’d travel all night back and have, get my breakfast and kit bag and sort of virtually go straight to the classroom, you know, and get straight, but anyway, but then of course I, I got, I got a what was it a payform 36 posting, because for some reason, I don’t know how I managed it, but anyway down to Hereford. At Hereford. And I was still instructing but when I got down there, I found out there was nothing there, it was equipment assistant. Stores bashers. I thought what the hell am I doing here? But then of course, I got there and the next thing that I’d got there was another, in fact an apprentice, ex-apprentice was a bloke named Don Rigby, and he was posted there as an instructor. He was, he’d managed to get fitter one scores in his career and so the two of us there. What the hell were we doing here? But then of course, we went down to the general office who sent us to this. He said, ‘Yes, you’re definitely posted here’. I thought someone had made a mistake, you know, but then we went to, the pair of us went down to see this squadron leader, and I said, ‘Well what are we doing here?’ I mean. ‘Well you’ve got to tell them all about’, you know, ‘it’s yours to sort of give them an interest in the mechanical things of aeroplanes and engines’. And I thought what am I doing, and we had no syllabus, we had nothing, so we had to, between the pair of us, we sort of worked it out, but God what a, talk about a working week. I think we, our working week was about two or three hours, all week, working week was two or three hours, so we were there so I mean, but we got on ‘cause all the equipment, all the store bashers, instructors, were senior NCOs. We were the only corporals there in the doing but er, we got on very well with them because if they wanted to go off shopping, we’d take their class on, you know. It was, it was or if, you know, something they were getting short of time and they’d, they’d use our time and it was doing but anyway, that all went on and then that collapsed but then of course, at that period of time, I’d been courting. This was 1949 I get, I got married, we get married. So, I got married in 1949, got back off the honeymoon, to the bunk was a piece of paper slipped under the door and it says, ‘Go to the general office ‘cause you’re posted to MCOS’. MCOS. What the hell was that? MCOS. Never heard of it. Nobody doing and this was at Wythall, which is just outside Birmingham. So, Wythall. Wythall. I’d never heard of a Wythall. No airfield that I knew of at Wythall, but anyway MCOS. We’d no idea. So anyway gets to MC, gets to, my, my colleague who was the other corporal there, he got posted, he got posted to, he got his posting to Suez Canal, so he was, he was gone anyway and there was MCOS, so got down to Wythall and doing I found out that this was what was known as the Mobile Classroom Operating Section. So I was back on instructing only in a mobile classroom. I was, as I’d done diesels and they put me on wheels and tyres for starters because I’d been, I’d been steering and whatnot, but then that, that, I can’t remember but I think the instructor on diesels, he was posted and they knew I’d had, done diesels instructing experience and they put me on to the diesels.
So that was that, but that was out on the road for six weeks and back at Wythall for a fortnight, so we roamed the countryside teaching. You went to any station that wanted you and you’d instruct on whatever’s going there, but there’s that was the biggest lot of rogues. The drivers, mostly the drivers, ‘cause you had a driver and instructor with each wagon and the drivers, I think they were the biggest bunch of rogues I’ve ever come across. Pinch anything. And oh, and then the other thing of course we, we were at Wythall which was, had been a balloon base, but Austin’s had taken half of it over to store, you know, their manufactured equipment and whatnot. Gearboxes and whatever you could think of and of course, it was, this was all partitioned by wire netting from the mobile classrooms and of course, knowing the drivers and whatnot and the people that were in Austin’s store place and whatnot, people got, stuff got passed over the wire which as the drivers were traversing the country, you’d get to a transport café and you could sell anything so, you know, parts of cars got sold but then they got wise with it, because the police, Air Force police and whatnot, got wise to it and you got, they, they stopped the wagons at the guard room and got searched and so you couldn’t have any, any Austin components in there, but they used to be fiddling the thing. They used to, somebody, one bloke even moved a whole family because, I mean, the classrooms were big and so they use it as a pantechnic and one chap moved somebody there. I mean they used to, these corporals would do, do anything really. That, but of course the thing was, you see, once you got to the station where you were instructing course they had nothing to do. You were doing the instructing. So they sort of you know did anything really. It was quite. They were a bunch, a really, especially one -
[Pause]
Right. So having, Wythall finished these mobile classrooms and then I got posted to the Middle East. The canal zone so, and the canal zone, went on a, oh what was it, oh I can’t remember the boat, but that was another one, anyway we got to, got to Abihad and Abihad was 109 Maintenance Unit, and that was the repair of Merlin engines, and they were set up, sort of posted on, to start up a repair service on Hercules but that never came about, and I finished up on the overhaul of the propellers. That was, that was a standard sort of a job but it was er, the mid, then of course we had the problems, in fact when my wife came out, the problems of the riots and all the rest of it which that we were, we lived in Ismailia, we had a flat in Ismailia but then all the problems came and we got, if you got enough points, my wife, we got a hiring on the Canal Road, which is not far off the Great Bitter Lakes, you know, where the canal goes through and we, we got this hiring which was a bungalow, it was sort of quite a complex of bungalows. It was typical Egyptian, oh, and of course, I must have mentioned that our bungalow was the only one with a bath, all the rest had showers. We had a bath and this bath must have been built by the Egyptian who made the tombs and whatnot, ‘cause it was like a big concrete but we were the only one with a bath, but then we had no hot running water so the only way we had a, the only way you could have a bath, in fact the ladies, my wife’s friends and whatnot, well, service people that lived there, they had a bath, you could have a bath and by having two primer stoves and put the zinc bath on top of the two primer stoves, get the water heated up enough, tipped in to this massive bath and put some cold with it and then you could have a decent bath. But the ladies, all the wives, there were quite a number of us there and of course my wife would ask the ladies if they wanted to have a bath, so they come and we’d heat, well my wife organised it and they’d have a bath then. Anyway, that was so that was it, but at that point in time was, was the, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and the point was then, then there was this big expansion programme of, I suppose with the V bomber pilots and whatnot and they wanted fitters and riggers back, back home and I was premature re-patted, but then there was a major problem of my wife was pregnant and of course, she had to come back and they, they, it depended on if they couldn’t come back, I’d have to go out, but then it depended whether the aircrew on the aircraft would bring her back. Would they have her and that and it was a Hastings flight and they said yes. So my wife who was, oh was she near, I wonder if, ‘cause that was, oh she’d be at least eight months. She must have been eight months so it was really, you know, it was touch and go, but anyway she came. They decided to take her so we, she came back in this Hastings or we came back in this Hastings and of course, the bloody thing went u/s in Malta, so we all had to get off and of course, she was the only woman on board the aeroplane. The rest was all, all men. She was the only woman and of course, then, of course in those days, there was no family accommodation. There was only women’s and men and so my wife finished up in this nissen hut all by herself and me in the, with the, ‘cause I was a corporal, with the rest of the men and because I was doing and then I remember in a morning, some chap out there says, ‘Is there a Corporal Bland in the hut?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I am’. He said, ‘Your wife wants you’. I thought, Oh God, you know, we’re not going to have the happening in Malta, you know, but no well when I went out she said, ‘When are you getting up?’ So that was it but eventually we, they got the aeroplane serviceable and we came back, and then of course, they wanted to put us in transit, and my wife said no I’m not going in transit, I want to go home and I’d bought a camera out there and then I had trouble with the customs. I said, ‘You can keep the bloody camera’. But they didn’t like that much, but anyway, we finished up at, where was it? Swindon Station. God knows what. Coming back in the milk train ‘cause we were going back to South Wales to her home in Newport or [unclear] and so we had there. So we, we finished up on this, and oh, Swindon I’ll always remember that. She was wanting to lay down and I said, ‘Alright’. and then of course, it was a bit chilly or something. Was it? I don’t know, but I know a porter came in and lit a fire in this waiting room, ‘cause there was only the two of us, and so eventually we, she kipped down on me, but anyway we got the milk train, we got back to, got to Newport and got a taxi from there and of course, the thing, because she was pregnant, my wife wouldn’t, wouldn’t tell her parents that she was on her way home. So, so we arrived completely unannounced, caused consternation as you can well imagine, but anyway that was it. I got posted to Worksop and she had the baby in Pontypool, and I think she’d have been better off in a military hospital then she was in a national health. I didn’t, she didn’t get treated very well there at all, anyway, that’s by the by, so we got to Worksop and I was on Meteors. So, posted to Worksop. Worksop which was an old wartime airfield which had been renovated, and we got Meteors there. So of course, I was, I was then a corporal still and then I got, I passed my senior technician’s exams, so I was a corporal, but I wasn’t really due for my senior, ‘cause at the time, wasn’t due for my senior and then I got my third. My sergeant came through, so I was a sergeant senior tech qualified. So that was the way it went on for the time being. I hadn’t, the time was it, wasn’t to go for the chief so that was the way it was. So I was on Meteors there in R&I, in Meteors so that was, that was my spell there. Then that went on till was it 19, I think it went on until 1955, and then a friend of mine who was also at Worksop, and he was a great reader of AMOs and he said, he said there’s an AMO about this new V bombers and their looking for aircraft servicing chiefs. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘that’s a good idea’. ‘Oh’, but he says, ‘they’ve got to be aircraft fitters’. Well I‘m only an engine fitter, I wasn’t an aircraft fitter. He was an aircraft fitter. Anyway, he volunteered for it and because he was an aircraft fitter, he finished up with it. Anyway, he was waiting and then, then they changed it and he came to me. He said, ‘Ay’, he said, ‘They’ve done, they’ve done a change on the AMO’. He said, ‘They’re taking on airframe and engine fitters’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘Right’. So I went straight into the office and volunteered, and saying that was in 1955 and, yes and that was at the beginning of ’55. Must have been because then I had to go and they said alright, and I got this and I had to go to Brampton for an interview for this aircraft servicing chief. So I went there for this interview and a panel of officers, wing commanders and educators and electrical officers and so I had to, you know. What the hell for I don’t know. They ask you all sorts of questions. So that was it. You didn’t know anything about it at all until, when was it? It would have been, when would this be? July, August something like that, and it came through and told me that I’d got to, now I’d got to, where did I have to go first. I had to go Wheaton first, to get, to go on an airframe course. So I went on this airframe course, which was quite a small one. I don’t think I learned much more than I knew in the first place, but anyway I went on this airframe course and then from then on, I sort of moved on to, we had to then, had to go down to Melksham to go on the instrument and electrical course, so having done that, we went to Melksham, and then they allocated you from Melksham. It depended on how well you did, what you, what aircraft you went on, ‘cause the Valiant was in progress ‘cause there were Valiant crew chiefs, had been trained and I can’t remember how many crew chiefs there was. Twenty of us on the course? Was it? I can’t remember now how many, but anyway, then it worked out the Victor came in and the Vulcan and, and the Valiant but some Vulcan crew chiefs had been trained before, but out of my course there was four Victors that went on the Victor. There was eight, eight, was it eight? Yeah, eight Vulcans and the rest were Valiants. So that’s how I was, and they did you, on the, you were allowed to volunteer which aircraft you want, went, went on but it depended on your position in the final exam which aircraft you got. Unfortunately, I came top so I was able, I had my pick of Vulcan, I didn’t want the Victor. All the others were interested in was the Victor, I wasn’t interested in the Victor at all so I went and got on the Vulcan. So then from Melksham, we went on to Avro’s. Was it Avro’s? No Avro’s weren’t first. Where did we go? Boulton Pauls power fliers I think. Boulton Paul. Was there Avro’s then? I don’t know. A V Roe’s. And then you had to, Bristols was the engines you had to do that so that was the end of, I mean, this was taking you up from, so that was, what are we saying? Was it May? May or June? I don’t know, ’55? So this was 1956 and we were all posted to Waddington, all of us, and all the crew chiefs, the Vulcan crew chiefs, were at Waddington. Half of us had nothing to do. In fact, what did we do, because I’d been in, here it is you see, you come back, you’ve been MT, so you’ve been working on MT and you’ve got an MT driving licence and whatnot, so I finished up driving a bloody lorry, making a car park. That just shows you. Crew chiefs. We were doing sweated labour if you like. And then the first Vulcan arrived in, was it June? July? Anyway, whatever it was and that was it and of course, the only one that was Geordie Colley, who was the number one, and so it did a while and then he had to go down to Boscombe Down on intensified flying trials. And then during this space of time, they’d allocated crew chiefs for the OCU. The first squadron which was 83, which became 44, and then the second squadron was 101, which was going to be at Coningsby and of course, we’d all been buggering about this long, so four of us, we decided we’d try to jack up the system a bit and we get posted to Coningsby. We were all ready for the Vulcan when it came, what a doing that do? Anyway, I got nominated by the engineering officer to go as number two to Geordie Colley, so I finished up going down to Boscombe Down on the intensified flying trials with this XA 895. That was the first Vulcan. The other one of course, the one that crashed, was Broadhurst was 897 and I was 89, with 895, so I went down there with Geordie Colley and then Geordie Colley’s wife had a baby, so I was left on number 1 with this bloody aeroplane that I knew, well I say you knew nothing about. You were one of the one’s that knew anything and everybody, before they did a bloody job, came and asked you was it right, and you had no bloody idea either so it was, and that was the way it went. So I did my spell at Boscombe Down, fell out with the engineering officer, and so he sent me back, which was very nice. So I came back to Coningsby. I get back to Coningsby. No aeroplanes at Coningsby so what, what do we do? You’ve got a crew chief here with no aeroplanes in the wrong airfield because they’d decided the Vulcan wasn’t going to Coningsby, it was going to Finningley, so we got four, four crew chiefs all trained up in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything, you know. So I went in to the squadron leader, Coningsby was on C&M I think at the time, ‘cause they were, they were, they got some Canberras there I think, but then I went in to see, ‘cause I went there, went in to see the engineering officer, was a squadron leader OCUEng, and so anyway ‘cause then he says, oh, do airframe and whatnot. ‘What have you done, Chief?’ I said, ‘Oh, just instructing MT’. ‘Just the man’, he says. ‘You’re in charge of MTSS’. So here am I, a fully trained Vulcan crew chief, in charge of MT servicing, so that was, that was it and I thought, well crikey I’m a, you know, I’ve got sergeants here, MT fitters. I’m not, you know, qualified but anyway it didn’t matter, and then there was another chief tech there doing, so anyway and then the flight sergeant came so I was able to hand over to him without any trouble at all. And they put me then, the MTO said, ‘Oh you’d better come on the MT operating section’’ and that was, I went on the MT operating section and that was when, I suppose, I achieved an ambition as a small boy. As a very small boy, all I wanted to do was drive a big lorry, and so anyway, ‘cause I had the MT operating section and whatnot, the MT, I had a 658 to cover me on everything and I managed to drive one of these damned great snow ploughs. So I thought I’d achieved a very ambition of long ago when I was a little boy, so that was it, but then, then of course things all changed and then the next thing that happened they, where was I? Was I still at Coningsby? Yeah. Or was I oh, no we got posted to, did we get posted to Finningley? Got posted to Finn, oh the, we managed to get ourselves, four of us, back to Finningley, and of course at Finningley, of course there were new quarters. No equipment barrack equipment in them. We were posted, so the barrack warden, you know, he said, ‘I can’t’, you know, ‘I haven’t got the men. I haven’t got transport’, I haven’t got do this, that and the other to furnish these quarters, which need doing, so what we did, I got the 658 and I could drive the truck, so we furnished the quarters. The four of us furnished our own quarters out of the stores and all the rest of it, so we furnished our quarters so we could move the families in. So that was, that was Finningley, and then of course all this was done, and then the next thing, they despatched me back to Waddington, ‘cause they, they were taking the Vulcan to America on a bombing competition. So they detached me back to Waddington so that I could go on this, the SAC bombing competition with these, with the Vulcans and because you weren’t allowed to, you were only allowed, you weren’t allowed to have two crew chiefs per aeroplane, the thing was you’d got to have, in your crew, you’d got to have a crew chief standby in case the original crew chief went sick, so I was, this was the best of it was, I was an engine fitter and basically an engine fitter, so I went as an airframe, an airframe mechanic. I went as an airframe mechanic to Florida on the bombing comp, so that was it, but then of course that all went. Came back home and then of course the second squadron, ‘cause the first squadron, the ones that were at Waddington had all got, been crew chiefs and got their aeroplanes, and my friend who got killed, Taf Everson, he got 908, XA908 but, and anyway they, they, he went and everyone got their aeroplane and because I’d been in America, course I was way down the list, so I eventually, eventually when was it? Would have been ’57, would it, then? Yeah, ’57 aye, yeah. Came up and I went to, I had to go to Woodford and I picked up XH475 that was, that was my aeroplane, so anyway I went up there and got that and became part of the squadron, you know. That was the crew chief. Didn’t matter what you were. And of course, got this aeroplane and took it all over the place. Got stuck all over the place. Lost an engine in Goose. Pump failure. So that was on. Got hydraulic failure, the hydraulic system in, where was that? Oh God. It was, oh dear. Where was that? And that was in America. I can’t remember. That was somewhere and then of course we got, come back and you did the ranges. Then they had the, what was it, oh I can’t remember. The exercises you had to go to. Butterworth. Was it profiteer? I don’t know what it was, I can’t remember now. So I took 475 there. I was flying, I was flying with the wing commander’s squadron. Flew out there and got out there flying and whatnot. I had a day off and of course they wanted to do something, and they, my aeroplane, I had a day off and I came, went back and found that some daft bugger had closed the bomb doors on the safety razor and broken one of the bomb door links. Oh God. And that was, I said, ‘That’s a brilliant one isn’t it?’ So, anyway, only had to be, how am I, there we were, how were we going to get back and there’s all the gear we got there and of course, you opened the bomb doors and we could open them and put all the stuff in and then you had to, we’d close the bomb doors. The only way then was we had, got local blacksmiths to make a turn buckle, and with turn buckle, so you could close the bomb doors and once you’d closed them, we wound them up so that you couldn’t open them. Anyway, took the fuses out and everything, so I had a bomb door, bomb bay full of US equipment, all my tyres had been burnt and worn, so I said to the wing commander, I said, I said, ‘I’ve got no I’ve got no gear in as I can use’. I said, ‘If we get left behind, we’re stuck’. He said, ‘We won’t get left behind’. But then of course, the next thing that happened was, I don’t know how, CRACK. My bomb aimer’s window was cracked. Oh dear. So I said to the wing commander, I said, ‘We’ve got a cracked bomb aimers window’. I said, I said, I said ‘I don’t know, we’ll have to fly back with it’. I said ‘I’ll do a pressurization and see’, you know, ‘if it’s alright’. He said ‘we’ll do the pressurisation on the way home’. That was it. So I flew home with a bomb bay full of rubbish, a bomb er, cracked bomb aimer’s window and came home that way. Landed and that was it. We managed without any trouble. I can’t remember, did we have any troubles? I normally get all sorts of troubles and that but, but I didn’t. I think we got back home without, and then of course, that was it. And then of course the next one was the CnC and whatnot, wanted to go on a lecture tour of America or something but he, he didn’t go in mine. He went on, I forget, was it 909? I think it was, with his own crew chief, Bill Neane I think, but then that got, flew via the Azores to Bermuda. Got to Bermuda and the inverter failed and his brakes, the brakes failed. The CnC wanted another aeroplane to go in so that was it. God knows what time of night I got knocked up in my night quarter, and they said, ‘Chief, we’re going, we’ve got to take, get an aeroplane to Bermuda. His inverter’s gone, brake units so we’ve got to take all the spares’. So there’s me, middle of the night with a pannier, getting bits and pieces and loading it all up, and then off we get to go to Bermuda via the Azores. The Azores. Always remember the, the, was he, is it Portuguese? I think he was, this officer looked as though he’d come out of what’s the name? I can’t think of the place. He had tassels on his uniform and all sorts of things, and did I want compression. I said, ‘Did I want compression?’ I couldn’t figure out what he was on about. Eventually I worked out that he, ‘did I want compressed air?’ Oh yeah, I wanted compressed air, yeah, so, but anyway that was left there without any trouble at all. Got to Bermuda and then of course met the crew chief and the crew of this 909. Landed there, got off the aeroplane and I got, got met by two Canadian Navy petty officers with a big bottle of whisky. ‘Come and have a drink mate’, you know. We’ve got, you know. I said, ‘I can’t drink and do’ and anyway my other crew chief there I said, ‘Alright we’ll have a drink’. So managed to have a couple of whiskies, but we got to change everything on these two aeroplanes because of all the gear from his aeroplane had to be transferred from mine to his and all the rest of it, so we did a pannier change and wheel change with the only support we had, ‘cause it should take four men to winch a pannier down off a Vulcan, was two crew chiefs and two drunken Canadian naval petty officers. So, but we managed and that, that was that. We had a bit of a problem. They had an electrical problem on start-up. It was robbed of, robbed a component off the aeroplane and that was my aeroplane cause I’d been, I’d changed, I’d made, well I’d thought I was going to go through with, with 476 but then, I don’t know whether the CnC wanted Bill Neane. I don’t know what it was but I finished up with this heap of rubbish in Bermuda instead of going onwards. And then, oh dear that, where did we get to? Yeah. Two drunken petty officers winching the pannier. It was amazing we got it down but anyway, we got it down. We got the gear changed over and everything, and Bill Neane wouldn’t drink anymore so as I was stopping, I was stuck. These two petty officers and whatnot decided we should finish this bottle of whisky. Oh God. What a thing isn’t it? So that was it. Then they changed over, then of course, they all got in. The bloody aeroplane went u/s again. That was the one I’d brought in so the CnC had to go, he had a date in America, the CN not the CnC was he? Not the CnC. Whatever he was. Whoever he was he had to go on by, by American transport and how humiliating really. So then of course, I had to rob, I robbed the aeroplane, robbed the u/s aeroplane to get this one serviceable. Then of course, had to get to America, and of course the CnC was acting as co-pilot, so of course there was one pilot missing, so the only way was the co-pilot that came up, came over with me, had to go on to America with this, with this, this other aeroplane. I don’t know how they finished up but anyway the co-pilot came back, but then, then of course the problem came, of course, I had this, left with this aeroplane in Bermuda with brakes troubles and inverter troubles. They’d sent an inverter, they’d sent an electrician out via BOAC to give me assistance on this electrical stuff, but then of course, he came out and I said, righto we’ll, we’ve changed the inverter. We’re alright. We’ll change, do the brake change. We can do the brake change and of course he was an electrician, and of course all he had to do to help me was to jack up and whatnot, and of course then, there was, then came a sorry tale. I got the jack underneath to, to change the brake units on this and I found that the bogie beam had a crack in it, a crack right along the end. Oh, at the end. I thought, what the devil do we, so anyway, all I got, I said to the captain, I said, ‘We’re in trouble here’. I said, ‘We’ve got a cracked bogie beam’. ‘Oh dear’, he said. So anyway, I’ve signals going back and forth, this cracked bogie beam. I said ‘well could drill a hole at the termination of the crack, but then the bogie beam takes all the stress of landing’. So I thought, oh well, but anyways I left it up to the UK air to decide, so they sent out a Doughty draughtsman, techno, oh, stress man or something, to see whether there was any possibility of doing this and he came out, and of course, no. Obviously he wouldn’t say it was even, if it probably was, because if it had cracked and the aircraft had crashed, it would have been him, so that was, that was it, so I was left there with this bloody aeroplane, with the rain pouring down, wind blowing, with this, with this aeroplane. Salt air was making things go a bit rusty but anyway they decided, well they had to change the bogie beam, the bogie beam. I don’t know [unclear]. The bogie beam carries the whole aeroplane of four wheels on one side, you know so, and the weight of the aeroplane so that had to be jacked up. The thing was, was all the equipment, was getting the equipment out to me in Bermuda and of course, the Air Force in those days, hadn’t got any bloody transport aeroplanes at all I don’t think, so they had, they had to hire, hire a DC6 to carry this. So I’d got four jacks, one hydraulic rig ‘cause retractions had to be done, so I had four jacks and a hydraulic rig, and of course they sent it out in this DC6, but fortunately they sent two, a chief tech out of their hydraulic bay and another rigger who was, he was, he was ex Halton boy, the same as me. So we had a chief tech, me a crew chief, a chief tech rigger, a sergeant rigger and a sergeant electrician and the aircrew, and these jacks all had to be built up ‘cause they couldn’t fly them in the aircraft whole so they were all in bits, so I had to build all these jacks up, fill them with hydraulic oil and do everything there to get these jacks up before we could jack the aeroplane up. And the other thing was a negotiation with the, the master sergeant of the hangar, ‘cause there was only one hangar on Bermuda and that was, had the doors welded open so that the wind could blow through it ‘cause otherwise it would have blown off and this, as I say, this master sergeant looked like Geronimo. I’m sure he was Indian anyway and we got on but he was not, he was a hard looking man and of course then he said, I said, well you know trying to negotiate use of this hangar for jacking up. He said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘You can have the hangar but’, he said, ‘for twelve hours only and that’s all’. Twelve hours. I thought, bloody hell and all that, you know we’ve got to change and do hydraulic tests and everything on this, but anyway we managed it. And then a dry, to drive these axles out of the, of the bogie beam was, was the only way we could use - the Americans had solid chocs like sleepers and the way we drove these axles out of there was by one of these chocs and heaving it like a battering ram, but anyway we got the axles out. We got it all done anyway, and all the rest of it and retractions and the wind was blowing through the hangar, but we managed it. We did, we did it all. Much to, well we had to do it in the time, we hadn’t got much option and anyway, we got it out and on the, then of course all trouble started ‘cause then of course, I got water in the pitot system. That was ‘cause of all this terrible rain and the pitothead covers were bloody ridiculous so that was another job I had to do. Clean out, get all the water out of the pitot system. So that was it. ‘Righto’, he says. ‘That’s it. We’ve still got to do an air test’. So we got down to do, I forgot to mention that the only power, the only power source ‘cause the Vulcan bombers was a hundred and twelve volt DC and the only power source they’d got, ‘cause the Americans don’t use it, they use twenty eight volt but the, and only one we could do was borrow. They had a hundred and twelve volt for the, was it the Britannia on the, BOAC, BOAC side or British, yeah, British Airways side of Bermuda, so I had to borrow their diesel generator when they weren’t using it, so that was another thing. So I had to borrow this and then I had to tow it across the airfield to me. So anyway, that was, that was that was another thing, borrowing it and negotiating and all the rest of it. So we got that, got that done and eventually got it, got it started and, ‘Righto, we’re off’, you know and, oh that’s right. When I found that it goes boring off again and, that’s right and of course, they shut down and came back. I said, ‘What’s, what’s the trouble?’ ‘We’ve got no ASI’, no Air Speed Reading. This was when I found out that these pitothead covers were no good ‘cause I got water in the pitot system, so that all had to be drained, all that drained, done, everything else. ‘Have another go’. So we had another go, air test. Off they went and they flew around. I thought, ‘Oh we’re in business here’, they landed and I said, ‘Any?’ ‘Yes. Compass’. Oh dear God. Compass. I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ They said, ‘Our readings are wrong’, you know, somewhere along. I said well you know, so after much investigating, I thought, well it’s near impossible, the two pilot’s repeaters were duff. I thought it’s either that or the master indicator. The master. And I thought, if it’s the master, we’re in trouble ‘cause we’d got to do a compass sweep and all the rest of it for that. So anyway, back goes signals and the next thing comes out an instrument maker who happened to be an instrument maker off my entry of course, so I knew him personally. A chief tech. Instrument came back BOAC. I mean his, his, his excess weight baggage was off because he’d bought a compass, a master indicator, the blinkin’ whole bloody bag of shoots with him, and what state to do a compass sweep if he had to. Anyway, it turned out it was the two, as I thought it was, the two pilot’s repeaters were both u/s. Most unusual. So, anyway, that was, that was changed. I mean, mind you in this, [unclear] I know all this stuff had to be packed up and whatnot and landed on this DC6, to be flown back home and so that was another job. And where had we got to? Oh aye, the compass, that was it. Oh, that was it. Then the other things was, the thing that was before the compass, I can’t remember. Number 3 tank on the portside had developed a bloody leak and the Mark I tanks were not what I’d call brilliant. Anyway, the only way I could do it was, I thought, well I don’t know what I can do with this leak, and the Americans had some, had some peculiar sealant that they had, ‘cause they used a similar sort of thing that I used, and after much, as I say, I got to know this, my master sergeant quite well and I had a long chat with him, and I said, ‘Well have you got some stuff I can maybe cure this leak?’ ‘Cause I knew where it was. The tank where the pump housing and everything was, prone to split. The bolt holes tend to split so I, after much talk with this man I dropped the, I dropped the pump on number 3 tank and lathered this sealant in place, hoping it would do it because I mean, the tank change was beyond and so I had a go. It wasn’t, it wasn’t much good at all but then of course, we’d had the air test. We’d had everything done. We were all ready to go home, but with this tank and I said ‘well’, I said, ‘we’ve got the pilot who was’, Beavis, his name was. Who was he? He finished up a, was he master of the Royal Air Force or something? Mike Beavis, and I said to, and John Ward was the co-pilot, I said, ‘Well look. I can, I can put fuel it for you to go home’, because by this time, we were, we were, this was the only thing that was stopping us. I said, ‘To go home’, I said, ‘Look, we either if you can work it out with number 3 tank empty, we can make it’. I said, ‘Otherwise’, I said, ‘I’ll fill number 3 tank’, and this was number 3 tank port, I said, ‘And then you use all that fuel off that tank for everything to empty it’. And then I said, ‘What’s left we’ll just have to let it leak out’. And so John Ward did his calculations, that we could fly back with that number 3 tank empty, so I then sort of took all the fuses out, took the pump off it and everything. Well, the pump was there but I took the fuses out and everything so that the pump couldn’t overheat or anything, and that was, so we flew back from Bermuda to the Azores. So we land back to the Azores and so I said we were alright from the Azores back home with still number 3 tank empty, and then, of course, oh damn. The Azores, we started off on my pack that I’d got, with the battery pack that I’d got in the bomb, in the pannier, started up and was doing and then they said, Number 3 inverted, was the one that I’d changed, we’d changed in Bermuda. Number 3 inverter had gone down. I said, ‘Oh God’, you know, I said, I said, ‘Well we’re sunk’. I said, ‘I’ve no spare inverters that I can change’. I said we, we, I said, ‘Look. It’s, it’s number 3. We can go on’. Number 3 was the sort of standby. I said, ‘We can either’, to the captain, I said, ‘Look. We either wait here and I get an inverter to change it or we fly home on everything we’ve got with no spare’. So, after a bit of a discussion they said, ‘We’ll, we’ll, go home’. So we started up and flew home. Got, ‘cause we came from Finningley really. Course we landed at Waddington and of course, we had to there for customs clearance of all things. So we landed at Waddington and the wing commander was there to greet us, and my captain who was not the, not the first pilot, he was the navigator, ‘Oh’, he said, we could, he said ‘If you put a brake chute in, we could fly home couldn’t we?’ I said, ‘Look’, I said, ‘I’ll put you a brake chute in but’, I said, I said, ‘I’ll walk home’. I said, ‘That’s a bloody heap of rubbish this is’. A heap of rubbish. So anyway, the wing commander was there and so I said, ‘Well that’s it’. And, and that aeroplane at Waddington, took them a fortnight to get it serviced to fly it to Finningley. So that was, that was me. I came home after months in Bermuda and the wing commander said, ‘You’d better have a couple of days off’. But that was a bloody aeroplane. Bloody aeroplane. 909. XA909. It wasn’t mine, it was Fred Harrison’s. It wasn’t one I fetched, and then oh, after that, we went to, we went on a, to Butterworth. Went to Butterworth and then we, because this was when they shut my damned, did I tell you about that. I haven’t put that on there have I? No. I can’t remember, I’ve told that much. They shook my, they shook my aircraft [unclear], broken the bomb doors. I had to take 9, I had to take, the aircrew wanted to go, were minded to take an aircraft to Manila in the Philippines from Butterworth, and mine was u/s with the bomb doors, and the only one I could take was 909. The engineer said, ‘Do you mind taking 909?’ ‘Cause that was the one that was stuck in Bermuda, Bermuda with. I said, ‘I’ll take anything as long as its serviceable’, so, and that was the only, the only range I ever did where I had a serviceable aircraft from start to finish. I flew there no troubles. No troubles there and flew back and that was the only, only trip I ever did in a Vulcan where I didn’t have any problems.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command Archive I’d like to thank Warrant Officer Charles Bland at his home in Lincolnshire on the 17th of August 2015. Thank you for the recording.
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Interview with Charles Bland
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-17
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Sound
Identifier
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ABlandC150817, PBlandC1501
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Description
An account of the resource
Charles Bland joined the Royal Air Force in February 1942 and went to RAF Halton as an Aircraft Apprentice.
He tells of his training at Halton, and describes the different trades and his exams to become an Leading Aircraftsman 1st Class, where he was then transferred to a Repair and Inspection Unit (R&I) working on Spitfire engines.
Charles then went to India via the Suez Canal and then on to Ceylon to 121 Repair and Salvage Unit, looking after 2 squadrons of Beaufighters and 1 squadron of Spitfires, but he says that because he was an apprentice, he could turn his hand to anything.
He was posted to instruct at a Motor Transport Unit, and spent time learning about the maintenance of other equipment including diesel engines.
Charles was posted to 109 Maintenance Unit, repairing Merlin engines, however at this time the V Bombers were coming into service. He trained as a Crew Chief and after passing these exams he was assigned to the Avro Vulcan XA908, at RAF Waddington.
Charles related the stories of the work he did when the Vulcan had hydraulic failure at Goose Green, the bombing competition in Florida where the aircraft suffered broken bomb bay doors and a cracked bomb aimers window, and the trip home from Bermuda with no fuel in one tank and a broken bogie beam.
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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02:21:37 audio recording
Beaufighter
C-47
fitter airframe
fitter engine
ground crew
ground personnel
Meteor
military discipline
military service conditions
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Coningsby
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Kirton in Lindsey
RAF Waddington
RAF Worksop
service vehicle
Spitfire
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/475/8357/PBoyntonS1512.1.jpg
b8f48f9aeb2acc9b01ed571e88e5da23
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/475/8357/ABoyntonS150624.1.mp3
0ed41bfbe8c8db1cab395ef730cc5b81
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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Boynton, Stuart
Thomas Stuart Boynton
T S Boynton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Boynton, S
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Stuart Boynton (1622415 Royal Air Force), He served as an air gunner with 103 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Stuart Boynton and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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TSB. 1923,19,1939 I left Bridlington Grammar School eh, then, which I didn’t join the RAF straight away I joined the Air Training Corps, I was in there for about a year and a half. The war had already started after about a year and a half I thought well I’ll volunteer for Aircrew, which I went down to London, passed with flying colours, as I think and after that I was eh. I am trying to think where I went after various placed in the RAF in England. I was in Harrogate, I was in, up at South Shields. Then, I am trying to think of it, dates. That’s 1939 so, in after I had been in the RAF a few months I was posted to South Africa and my first wife and I then decided, ‘shall we get married and save the money until the war’s finished?’ Which, I got married when I was only twenty it was in the February ’43. And eh, the next within a week of being married I was transferred to South Africa where I, where I was on the Ansons, flying in the Ansons. On returning from South Africa about a year afterwards I as posted to LLandwrog in Wales. While in Wales there was quite a lot of flying the Anson again and eh just before my birthday which was 21st of March 1924, 1924 yes my first birthday my I was, my was transferred, I was transferred and posted to Finningley which is now Doncaster Airfield. So, so in February 1923, I was born in ’23, 1943 I was flying to South Africa which I say after South Africa I went to LLandwrog. Getting to Finningley which is on 21st birthday which was 1944 I was travelling from LLandwrog to Finningley with a kit bag over my shoulder, that was my 21st birthday. So consequently I flew from Finningley, I was on the Wellingtons for a short time. Eh, a leaflet trip to Holland dropping leaflets then from Finningley I went to Lindholme just down the road onto Halifax’s. While there I had a leaflet trip again to Holland and then from Lindholme I was posted to Hemswell onto the Lancasters. From Hemswell I was posted to Elsham, that’s where I did my first operation. I am only guessing now, Elsham I should say get to Elsham some time in September which was ’44. Our first operational trip was early I should say early November and I you ask me what that was like I can only answer [unclear] It was absolutely horrendous. The flak and everything else was shocking we were caught in the eh, eh the searchlights. Anyway with a bit of luck we got home safely. I just said to skipper ‘I am pleased were back from that,’ I said ‘ thirty trips like this we will double grave before we get to thirty trips.’ Anyway that was all right, we went into land, as we landed we flew straight off the airfield. The plane went up on its side we were straight off, all flat tyres. so that was the first one. After that most of our trips was over what we call the Happy Valley which was the German Steel places, Essen, most of mine was to Essen. Anyway we flew to Essen, we was very pleased to get back. Anyway we did about another ten trips after that ten or eleven trips after that. A couple of pretty bad ones after that but the biggest majority were what you call very easy. The last one we never made as we were coming on our way back, we had a very easy trip, a very quiet trip. The Rear Gunner said ‘We got a; fighter on our port side Skipper.’ Anyway he tried to do the evasive did a bit of a mm a mm, tried to get rid of him anyway. Consequently after about ten minutes, half an hour. Oh I thought we were on our way home. The next thing I knew was the Pilot saying ‘Abandon aircraft were on fire.’ I said, I was I went off in rotation. Just as I was going I saw, three [unclear] last thing I remember saying to my Skipper ‘I’ll see you down stairs Phil.’ With that I was pulling me ‘chute, just as I was pulling me ‘chute, I just heard on intercom the Rear Gunner say ‘Christ I’ve pulled me ‘chute.’ With that I’d gone, I didn’t know what happened after that. But what happened after that I was, only left on the plane was the Pilot, the Rear Gunner and the Mid Upper both the Gunners were Canadians. The young lad I thought I was the ablest, the youngest twenty one. Eddie was only just turned eight, nineteen for all I know he panicked and wouldn’t jump with the Mid Upper, Canadian, wanted him to jump with him, but he refused to jump. ‘No I’m not jumping.’ So all the Pilot said to Mid Upper ‘Get yourself off I’ll try to land the plane.’ The Mid Upper said, he jumped, as his ‘chute opened, all he saw was the wing dropped off with that the plane went straight into the ground, both killed. I have always said, I have always tried to find out to find out why this time, he was a bit older than me but had got two daughters. His wife had left Jersey, she was living in a hotel. Where ever he went she was living in hotels. So what she was left with was two daughters, no home to go to. I said I’ll, I always said he should have got decorated but he never did. So that is about all that I can say about that. So anyway when we was, when we were shot down we were taken to just a little village near from where we was shot down. They had seen us coming down so we had no chance of escaping. So they put me into a billet a Nissan hut with about thirty young Germans in. As I went in I was the only one of the crew that at the time, they found. I thought ‘well I am going to get knocked about here with all these lads.’ I had been in there about half an hour, one of them sidled up to me ‘there you are,’ gave me a bit of their ersatz bread. I thought it was awful, I put it in me pocket. Anyway about another half hour went by another young lad came, German lad, could speak, he could speak a bit of English. He just said ‘ me was a prisoner of Americans me look after you.’ With that he gave me a couple of blankets for the night. That is about all I could say about them, they were very good. But even today I still think now that would be December 1944 we were shot down. Even today he said, ah that is what he did say to me, ‘We have,’ when I was in this Nissan hut, ‘you have broken our lines we are now going to push you back.’ I never thought anything more about that at all until after the war. It must have been what you called ‘The Battle of the Bulge.’ So automatically now I often think ‘ I wonder if there are any of these young lads still living today?’ That’s all, that’s all I can say about that one. So after that we, we I was posted to eh, I can’t remember the name where was it, posted into Poland and one night, one morning woke up, right evacuating the camp. The Russians were coming very close to where, to where we were, so we had to, as the Russians were advancing we had to march away from them. So we were on, in the middle of winter, we were marching until about one or two in the morning carried on might have been one or two weeks, I don’t know. But there again I was one of the lucky ones, the last morning we were on the walk we’d get into farm, I’d went into the farm I were in the barn. I was one of the last in the barn and this would be one o’clock in the morning. When I woke up, whatever time it was, I don’t know all I can say it was light, it could have been five o’clock in the morning. There I was laid outside where it was twenty degrees below. I went, I couldn’t, me hands were, I couldn’t get me hands together, me feet was frozen, I said ‘ the only thing if the lads lit a fire.’ Got warmed up within two or three hours we were back on the wa,march again. So consequently we marched and again for another week, how long I don’t know. Once again I was very lucky one day they just piled all our section, our section were piled into rail trucks and how many were in the trucks I don’t know how we got on for weeing or whatever I don’t know how we got on about that. All I know before it took us about a day a day and a half on this truck, finished up somewhere near Berlin. That is when the Russians liberated us which was what I gather, I don’t know. I don’t know [unclear] prisoners. Once again I would be guessing but it was sometime in April time, May. I don’t know when the war finished. But once they, I always remember the Russians coming through our camp knocking all the fences down. There were men and women on the tanks, just the same and I must admit at the time I thought ‘well they are just like a pack a bandit these lot.’ We got on well with them, they didn’t bother with us, we didn’t bother with them. They would not, we were there two or three weeks at least, the Americans sent a couple of Troops to move us and they said ‘ you are going when it is out turn, we will let you know when you are going.’ So we got fed up of waiting, one day we set off from the camp ‘we will make our way to the Elbe to get across ourselves.’ So we [unclear] a mile down the road next thing we got, the Russians were in front of us back to the camp ‘ you go when we tell you.’ Consequently eh why I know a bit about the time there eh when they did allow us to go we got to Brussels, we got a bit of money, we got showered and everything, money we had a night out in, in Brussels. Consequently when I got back home my second birthday was May the 23rd 1945, So but, so consequently I didn’t get back for me twenty first, I didn’t get back until after me birthday which would be after the 23rd 1945. Consequently I was one of the last prisoners back so I got indefinite leave. So indefinite leave I was posted, well I was in Bridlington, got posted to Scarborough so I was backwards and forwards from Brid to Scarborough for about three or four months. Finally when the war finished they decided aircrew you could [unclear] aircrew but you could only go as ground crew. I just had to come out, I came out of the forces. So that’s about all I can tell you, that’s about it in a nutshell. That’s about all I could say. My Pilot was one of the last to leave Jersey before the Germans occupied Jersey. He was on the last boat to leave, his wife went with him, a young girl, went with him. They got married before they [unclear] over to England and where ever he was posted, Phil, she was in the hotel somewhere. She followed him around so there she was when he got shot down she was stood there on her own with two kids and that’s why I think he should have got married. The main thing of all so consequently I knew Phil only five months of my life and for seventy odd years I have never forgotten him [appears upset].
MJ. You shouldn’t you don’t have to worry, that’s part of it you see.
TSB. Yeah and all that I can say is that a marvellous lad, man, fellow.
MJ. Do you remember his full name, do you remember his full name, do you remember his name?
TSB. Phillip.
MJ. Do you remember his surname?
TSB. Picot that all it was and consequently I mentioned the two daughters and his three aunties all the rest of the family have all died. But the daughters have married very well they are very happy. Two lovely families two and two and eh three aunties I think they have all lost their husbands. But they are all lovely people, lovely people.
MJ. Went to London for your medical ?. [?].[unclear]
TSB. Yeah I can’t think [unclear] I know I went from Kings Cross [unclear] I walked from Kings Cross I can’t remember where it was now but I nineteen, as I say about eighteen to nineteen I was twenty three ‘40 to 1942 I should think would be when I came in forces, long time [laugh]. But eh no at least I have often said eh you have got your memories haven’t you, they are worth a lot your memories. That is why I get so sentimental with Phil my Pilot because as I say I only knew him five months. We were very friendly, we were very very friendly. Not many days gone bye without I think something about him.
MJ. What made you so friendly, what what ?
TSB. I don’t know, just the crew, I think during the war you you, fact, you you made up as a crew, seven of you and I think they tried to keep that crew as separate as they could. So in other words eh anybody lost they weren’t missed as much, they look after themselves because each crew was more or less, they look after themselves. So whenever we went down to the pub the seven of us went out together eh at least most nights of the week, five or six but we always stuck together all the time we were flying. Your mates, you were what you call mates as simple as that. In other words at the end of the day unless you were lucky, you died together. But eh I say I have these thoughts many a time but I am very happy and [unclear] I have had a marvellous life, marvellous life. As I say one of my old aunties I used to see her ninety five or so, she fell down stairs, I have not forgot she turned round to us and she said ‘Stuart I don’t want anybody to live as long as I have lived,’ she said ‘ I am not ready for going yet’ she lived till ninety seven well I got to ninety two now and she was definitely the eldest of all of my family. If I could get to ninety eight whither I do or not, grace of Gods is that. Eh but if I get to ninety eight I shall finish up as the eldest one in the family that’s it.[laugh]. But she was a right battle axe was my auntie, she taught me a lot and I still think of her at ninety seven anyway I’ve got to ninety two whither I get to ninety five by the grace of God, you don’t know, you don’t know. One thing certain and a betting man and I used to like betting on the horses and that as a betting man one certainty is we all know we have to die sometime. It’s a good job we don’t know when. We do we all know we have got to go sometime. And I say when I talk about luck if I get to a hundred very good but whither I do or not you don’t know. There is a lot of luck in life as well you know some people are born lucky and some are [unclear]. And I don’t know about you, you had an accident didn’t you. Was it motor accident you had then?
MJ. Em I’ll make sure this is on, go on.
TSB. After the war my mother, well during the war my mother got a telegram eh, just missing. So she went berserk, demented, crackers then of course shortly after that, presumed killed. So that she is worse than ever then about a month after that somebody came dashing into mums shop at Hilderthorpe Road End Bridlington saying ‘Nellie, Nellie, Stuarts alive, Stuarts alive.’And how they got to know that, not from the Air Ministry it was given over the news by Lord Haw Haw that Flight Sergeant Boynton is now a prison of war in Germany. That’s the first time my Mother new I was living. And it wasn’t, she didn’t get it from the RAF or the Ministry, Lord Haw Haw made it over the news one night, one day that’s first thing, first time she knew I was living. [laugh] killed presumed dead, it was a totally different thing when she knew I was still living you see.
MJ. On behalf of the International Bomber Command I would like to thank Warrant Officer Stuart Boynton on the date of the 24th of June 2014. Thank you very much my name is Michael Jeffery.
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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Stuart Boynton Interview
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-06-24
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ABoyntonS150624, PBoyntonS1512
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
During 1939 Stuart left grammar school and joined the Air Training Corps. After about half a year he volunteered for air crew and was accepted. He and his girlfriend were married in February 1943. Stuart was posted to South Africa working on Ansons and about a year later was posted to Llandwrog in Wales. His next postings were to RAF Finningley, flying in Wellingtons and to Holland dropping leaflets from a Halifax. From RAF Finningley he went to RAF Lindholme, RAF Hemswell and RAF Elsham Wolds. Stuart described his first operational trip as absolutely horrendous. Most of the crew’s trips were then to the Ruhr and the German steel works in Essen. After that they did another ten or eleven trips. During the last trip the crew had to abandon the aircraft when it was shot down and burst into flames. All but two of the crew (one being the pilot, Phil Picot) baled out before the aircraft hit the ground. Stuart was captured and taken to a hut which housed about 30 Germans, but he was treated well. Stuart was detained in Poland. Their camp had to evacuate during a winter night as the Russians were advancing. They were marching for two or three weeks before being taken to a camp in Berlin by rail. They were liberated and eventually Stuart was posted to RAF Scarborough. He came out of the at the end of the war and said he had had a marvellous life.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
Poland
South Africa
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Wales--Carmarthen
Netherlands
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1943-02
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:23:24 audio recording
aircrew
Anson
bale out
bombing
Halifax
Lancaster
love and romance
military ethos
pilot
prisoner of war
propaganda
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Llandwrog
the long march
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/491/8377/AClarkeE150817.1.mp3
8d1fa9fcebb570507c9570e843139bb8
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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Clarke, Eric
E Clarke
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Clarke, E
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. Concerns Eric Clarke (1051928 Royal Air Force). He served as a wireless operator / air gunner with 49 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview and two photographs.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Eric Clarke and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Eric, it’s lovely to see you this morning and as you know I want to talk to you on behalf of the Bomber Command, International Bomber Command Memorial Centre. My name’s Annie Moody. We’ve met before lots of times and I’m interviewing Eric where he lives at Carcroft and it’s Monday the 17th of August 2015. So, Eric where shall we start? Can we start by, just tell me a little bit about where you were born and your childhood?
EC: It so happens the first article I did was in the days of, not computer, typewriters.
AM: Yes.
EC: Typewriters. Not a computer. And used to get a sheet of foolscap and my little portable typewriter and I am doing now and then I started. My father died when I was only eight. Now, that is the first line, first page of the article that I have done in recent years and since the impact of the computer. Are you alright so far?
AM: Alright so far. So your dad, your father, died when you were eight.
EC: Yeah. Right, well, that’s interesting. Where was I born? I was born here and here I am.
AM: In Doncaster. In Carcroft.
EC: Go on.
AM: Were you born in Carcroft?
EC: Go on.
AM: Doncaster.
EC: You’ve got a main road called Owston Road. Did you go to the top of the hill? Well, anyway this building is on the edge of a fairly large, which was for a long time, a colliery housing estate built by the, at that time it was, all around here there’s bore holes of some sort. Here, top of the hill, woodlands when you come to the woodlands and eventually they got one bore hole about three, four hundred yards along the lane and there was still a little water in a hollow like that and then the bottom of the hollow where they dug and they left it and over the years it’s been, it’s been called Witches Hollow and all sorts of things. Of course it’s the coaching lane as you go out and you wind around and it goes a little hollow like that and at the bottom of the well, or what do you call it? What’s the –
AM: Yeah. The well -
EC: Well.
AM: The well.
EC: And then down to the main [Aspen?] Road. The A15. Now, this is where I [] looking at the wall, my documentation, you know.
AM: Don’t worry about it. Where did you go to school, Eric?
EC: Here. Let me -
AM: Go on.
EC: Explain my birth ‘cause that’s important. Where we are, oh dear, just give me a minute. Anyway, the Owston Road which is the edge of the colliery housing estate.
AM: Right.
EC: And this Owston Road and then then there’s [Dereham New Street]. Colliery housing goes from two [102 all back?] then the next street, the last one on the estate is Paxton Avenue. That, coming down lower down [used to be] Carcroft, where the post office is. The shops have been developed and I was born and [black jack?] blamed this, it’s something to do with being a hundred and two. I’ve jumped a few years.
AM: Don’t worry.
EC: It’s important. Let me get it properly.
AM: It’s all good stuff.
EC: Right. I wasn’t born here but I lived here ten years old. So, we’ll start from there. I was born at another colliery estate only two miles down the road. Bentley Colliery. It has a history because of an explosion with thirty one killed over the years. Now, a private, a Nottingham, a Nottingham private colliery company called Barber Walker and Company sank a deep mine. They came from Nottingham where they had several mines but they were shallow mines. They came to South Yorkshire for the deep coal mines and my, I’ve got to go back to my father and mother are both Nottingham bred but first of all to my father, see I’ve made a chart that big with the whole family.
AM: With the family, a family tree on it.
EC: Yes. Chart. Oh yes it is my family tree. Well, I’m going back to 1730 and my ancestors, male ancestors all or most of them worked on the land in Chicheley Hall. Have you heard of that?
AM: Chicheley Hall. Yes I have.
EC: A very famous house and one reputation is that he was Lord Admiral on that. Admiral Lord Beatty. Admiral Lord Beatty.
AM: Admiral Lord Beatty.
EC: A famous World War One man. Now he had Chicheley Hall and a massive estate and all my ancestors either worked on the land or in the big house itself. The Hall. From footmen and so on. Right. And the women also on the land and the usual agricultural workers of those days. Right. We’re trying to get along quicker. A little more quickly. In the early 1800s they started a migration north to Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire and finally they came to Nottingham where women went in these factories as part of the, what do you call it the –
AM: Industrialisation.
EC: You can go to the top of the class on Monday. You’re a knockout.
AM: Thank you.
EC: Yes, and my father’s, I think he was a land man anyway but there is one man who didn’t migrate to Nottingham and he was in the army in World War One and got a military medal and he’s buried somewhere in [Chicheley?] Abbey and he’s there again and I built up this -
AM: Your family tree.
EC: They, there was no computer and there were no, I had to do all this on those –
AM: Right.
EC: [I have brochures on this] why I mentioned the estate Carcroft here. That’s where I spent the first ten years of my life. Well my mother and father migrated to South Yorkshire and my father went to Bentley Colliery and we occupied a colliery house. 75 Balfour Road, Bentley. Yeah. I was born there on the 13th of April 1913. Am I reading it right?
AM: Yeah. Yes. You’re a hundred and two so 1913.
EC: [Three weeks’ time.]
AM: Where did you go to school Eric?
EC: Here.
AM: In –
EC: At [?]. My father died when I was only eight. I shall have to move on quicker. It’s taking all this time to explain the first sentence.
AM: That’s ok.
EC: I’m being critical again you know.
AM: It sets the context Eric.
EC: I had a brother three years older than me and he said I was a prickly little sod [laughs] There you go.
AM: When, how old were you when you left school?
EC: Ten.
AM: You were ten.
EC: Ten. Right that’s why this story is a bit difficult.
AM: Right.
EC: The next, my father died. He was only thirty one. He had cancer and he was riddled and in those days there was no pension. No money, no support and you died with what you put in your pockets and all my mother’s family on my mother’s side, it was big family, about five six brothers. However they migrated with Barber Walker Company, brought all the miners to Bentley and Carcroft [?] and as I was born at 75 Balfour Road. Then, as I was born my mother became pregnant again quite quickly and we had, I had a sister, Freda born August 22nd 1914 and this house was only two bedroom, so, and my mother, the roving type anyway she, in no time at all we got a private house on the A15 only two miles from here and he went, carried on and from that moment from that moment of moving I gather my father started to go down and he didn’t go to work. He’d gone. Right, so no pension, no money, started looking around. My mother was very busy, hardworking, all the rest of it, ‘Take that shirt off,’ ‘cause, you know, she was you couldn’t move without her –
AM: Without her washing -
EC: Inspecting me. And Freda was born at the same house and then, as I was saying, there was no money. There was nothing. So the first thing my mother thought well I’ll get back to my roots and dad’s roots and get some help [from home] and start again. She started and stopped because my mother was very unsettled and [couldn’t be nice to anyone.] A hard working person anyway and she, this is rather strange right, she came back over here to start sorting things out she easily, she had a brother who had a motorbike and he fetched her to go to Nottingham and when she was there one time she bumped into [a former?], went on the back of the motorbike and in fact she was [only with him anyway] and it happened that she went to school in Nottingham.
AM: Is that the clock?
1629
EC: It [?] now and again and gives you the right time but not the others.
AM: Ok. Just coming back to school, you said -
EC: Yes.
AM: You left school at ten years old.
EC: Yes. I’ll try to go on to that now. Sorry. She met this, on a trip to Nottingham she met, bumped into a [mate?] from the Nottinghamshire school she used to know. [He was ? anyway] 1914 and he was in her same plight. He was a widower and he’d got four children. Unfortunately, didn’t know then he got two who were backwards, which we called lack of learning. Two very bright children.
AM: Two not. Yeah.
EC: And my mother had got three. Anyway, they came together like, like here was a man who met all her needs. Never mind [how or what?]. He was a miner and so they married and in no time at all apparently they met [only?] two or three months she was there and she was pregnant and again in no time at all upped sticks and here we are. We got to this Bentley Colliery. [I’m trying to remember]
AM: Don’t worry ‘cause I want to get to where you left school and then what happened between then and joining the RAF.
EC: Right ok. They was married anyway and [a child on the] way and we came from Bentley and got married here. Bullcroft Colliery.
AM: Yeah.
EC: That’s the colliery for this area.
AM: Ok.
EC: Bullcroft.
AM: Yeah.
EC: It’s Barber Walker and Company. [pause] And I went to Carcroft School which was at the bottom of the street. One of them modern schools and it was opened the same year as my birth day. I was as old as the school and in fact I attended the anniv -
AM: Anniversary.
EC: Yes, and my name’s on a brass plate outside the school. So that was the start of the bit getting along Eric. Right, and then when I got to school –
AM: What did you do when you left, did you take your school certificate?
EC: Not in those days.
AM: No. What did you do when you left school then?
EC: Right. Right. I was at Carcroft school, they married, my mother and father were still having children and in no time at all from a family of four we, a family of nine.
AM: Nine.
EC: [?] on the chart the results show how it was and we moved here nineteen whatever, I think we moved here in 1910. We did the ordinary school. They did have, you sat for grammar school.
AM: Yes.
EC: And in those days my father who, well you can imagine the terrible family conditions. It was terrible. They never found Eric anywhere because he was crouching under the table in the bedroom upstairs out of the way. But I was doing well at school, quite bright, I can’t remember so much of it [?] skip this anyway. My father, my stepfather was violent. My mother was as violent and so you can imagine how they got on except have children and in no time at all they’d got five. Well, [?] in those days the bright boys in the class were selected to sit for the West Riding County Council for the grammar school at Doncaster.
AM: Ok
EC: Not Very big and there was only a few from this schools because this local government wise was under the administration of the West Riding County Council.
AM: Yes.
EC: And so to cut that story short there was violence and all sorts and I was always missing upstairs doing, trying to do homework of a sort and then the result of all that was that when I was fourteen oh I was chosen to sit for the [?] but my stepfather [?] in the examination, ‘We can’t afford to send you to grammar school,’ and that was -
AM: So you didn’t get to go.
EC: I didn’t go and I was fourteen and on about the 10th of May, something like that I got a bike in those days and it’s from the house to the office in Doncaster. Coming up to fourteen my mother said, ‘You’re not going down the pit. Here write the application for that job, office boy in Doncaster.’ ‘Yes mum.’ Right. I started working in Doncaster as a fourteen year old boy with ten shillings a week.
AM: Ten shillings.
EC: Ten shillings a week and it so happened that it was a family firm. A World War One family but it was a man with five sons. So I started there. I mentioned the five sons because there was no hope of –
AM: Progression.
EC: Reaching forward but at the same time there was no time [for boys going to] grammar school. So I was there plodding away at this and couldn’t get up the ladder and in a way that was [?] office boy, rent collector, all sort of duties [I had a knowledge of] Doncaster because I was visiting solicitors and so forth all at close knit city centre and my firm had dealings with them all.
AM: Yeah.
EC: I was [giving out] ten to thirty letters delivering around town. Anyway, there was no real progression except the ordinary one. Ten shillings a week. One year I got twelve and six. One year I got fifteen. And progress there and I jumped to it and that was all I did from leaving school was work at Ernest Woodman and Sons, 15 Young Street, Doncaster.
AM: Ok.
EC: And very well experienced in Doncaster. Legal, which attracted me. Legal World. Solicitors.
AM: Yes.
EC: Accountants and two other debt collectors. Well you can imagine what the debt collectors were like immediately after the war.
AM: Ahum.
EC: And 1926 strike and so here we go. My mother, hot tempered, she got, she tried to get me away from my stepfather. I was a thorn in his side somehow. I think it was because his children were not as bright as my mother’s so, hang on a second. Hang on.
AM: Do you want me to switch it off? Ok.
EC: This article that you’ve seen, it’s a bit if what I’m doing at the moment. Can you help?
AM: But they want to hear your voice. That’s the thing. We want your voice telling us.
EC: And what a voice at this moment.
AM: Absolutely. So you’ve worked in Doncaster.
EC: Yes.
AM: And you’ve worked there for a number of years
[sound of knocking on the door]
AM: Oh hang on.
[machine pause?]
EC: My mother was always moving on and the family bigger house, bigger house, family, bigger house. Job’s no good to you. Leave the job. Anyway, so we went from Bullcroft Colliery and then the family was enlarging and the house was not big enough for the family. Looking around and we finished up at Woodlands on the Great North Road.
AM: Ok.
EC: Have you been there?
AM: No. I don’t know it.
EC: Well it’s the A1 M.
AM: Yes.
EC: The end A1 M [came our?] house. We moved out, we finished up, finally we moved to Woodlands of course from the age of ten to forty, not forty.
AM: Fourteen.
EC: 1940.
AM: Oh right 1940.
EC: We finished up at Woodlands in a four or five roomed house and got transferred to Brodsworth Colliery because he was cricketer, first class and of course the collieries if you played cricket up there with the nobs you got a job and that’s how it worked. You got a job but it so happens he was lazy and they were clashing all the time and the eldest of this family of ten or more was my brother George and he was similar. He was like [our mother?] and he actually, the two of them fought and knocking the living daylights out of each other and then there was another move and we finished up at Woodland. Did you come by The Highwayman?
AM: I can’t remember.
EC: Come by it at the bottom.
AM: Oh yes. Yes.
EC: Yes. Well the council houses on [the edge of the next] street right down there tacked on to the Brodsworth, so we got to this, how can I put it [pause] well I was, because I was think, I was a good scholar I think and I, with reading and so on and my teacher got me to stand up in class and read right and there was something about wanting to speak because my teacher was a World War One veteran, a tank captain and a captain of a tank as well as a captain by rank. Yeah.
AM: Right.
EC: And I remember once I wanted to do it, do things apparently I was good at. I could stand up, speak well and the boys you know were deep in dialect. I wasn’t. I was avoiding it like the plague. Even at that age. I don’t know why. And –
AM: You’ve told me about working for that family firm.
EC: Yes.
AM: And you’ve told me about doing the debt collecting. What if we move on a little bit what, how did you come to join the RAF?
EC: Well, before then I I married the first girl who winked at me and only had the one girlfriend and we were married seventy years anyway.
AM: You were.
EC: So your question again was?
AM: So you’ve started work and you’ve got married. What made you, when we get to -
EC: Right.
AM: The beginning of the war what made you join the RAF?
EC: Right. That’s, that’s answered as well, in the book, quite clearly. When we were younger, the 1930s, so on early mid-30s, Finningley became an RAF aerodrome and we, I was going around town and so on I was so used to seeing the Hampdens and the earlier ones and also my ten years to fourteen years was a period of being with the family. I liked to go back home at that age I couldn’t stay away and my mum wanted my money.
AM: Yeah.
EC: Only ten bob.
AM: Yeah.
EC: So I decided, I became very interested and my mother said, ‘better not going down the mine.’
AM: That’s not going down the pit.
EC: Not going down the pit and so on and so on and it was that really and my associate in Doncaster, the people. My squadron for instance, 49 squadron were at Finningley.
AM: They were at Finningley.
EC: Finningley.
AM: But can you, can you remember when you actually went to join up and then what the training was like? What year did you join up, Eric?
EC: I joined up, well that, [I’m not sure about] this really, war was imminent.
AM: Yeah.
EC: We all knew that and all knew, some were joining up you know and getting out of the mines.
AM: Yeah.
EC: Some of the younger ones. However, I wanted to, I decided I’m going to fly. That’s all.
AM: Yeah.
EC: Except I’d seen the boys in blue in Doncaster going into the offices, getting, bringing their wives and getting accommodation and all that and it very gradually became a big RAF station and it also became an Operational Training Unit. Operational Training Unit.
AM: Yes.
EC: And then a small squadron moved in and an awful lot of [? moved in]. In 1939 war was declared and there were Whitley’s which were different, a twin engine bomber.
AM: Yeah.
EC: And Hampdens. Twin engine medium bomber sort of thing. Anyway, I got my brother to take me on his motorbike pillion and, to Sheffield which was a local recruiting office for the whole of South Yorkshire really and I went through the routine and passed one way or another although I did have some ear trouble but nothing to worry about and I was, I wanted to be a navigator. I knew damn all about navigation except I’d become interested in it in my classroom with this captain.
AM: So were you accepted as a navigator?
EC: No. No.
AM: No.
EC: That was it because I hadn’t got a school certificate as you say. I didn’t take it and I hadn’t got it so there was no way. They did not employ grammar school, only grammar school boys at least got in to the navigation.
AM: Ok.
EC: But they offered me wireless operator/navigator and I, yes, yes now we’re in. So I went through the various routines and I get the call and reported, report to Sheffield for a medical examination for air crew. [?] air crew. However, [pause] then they sent me, they said that they would send me home with papers. I was accepted and registered as aircraftsman second class. I was in the air force. And that would be August [1913 the year war] and I went back, back home and I went back to my job and got a shock because I’d already asked my firm could I, is it alright if I, and I showed them the invitation. Medical and so on so yeah but when I got back which was more or less a weeks leave I went back to [primarily] carry on working until I was called, I got a shock. They’d set on somebody in my place who, I understood, I didn’t know it at the time but I was told was exempt.
AM: Ok.
EC: So he could do the job I’d been doing and that was the way it was so I was sent home and that happened twice. I was called up. Anyway, I met a local council not many hours away from here, not now, I met him, he was the treasurer, the chairman of the Labour party’s son. Talking about nineteen and he’d become exempt because he was, he’d qualified, not quite as an accountant.
AM: Right.
EC: But in no time at all war was declared and he was treasurer of the council. Right then, he said ‘What are you doing?’ And I explained briefly and, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re setting on some temporary staff here and if you’re interested you know the district, you know everything and everybody about us more or less so I got a fortnight’s and it so happens I was working then two shilling a week lower than I was paid earlier.
AM: But at Doncaster council. At the council.
EC: No.
AM: No.
EC: No. Oh Adwick.
AM: Oh.
EC: I was, Adwick le Street Urban District Council.
AM: Right.
EC: On April 1st 1915 Adwick, Adwick Council became an urban district.
AM: Right. So you worked for your local urban district council.
EC: So I moved my first, into local government, again its charted and that. Yeah, so from April the 1st 1915 it was an urban district council and [sent to work and it was?] in those days.
AM: Right.
EC: [And often the?] rent collection and so on their offices and all graded and whatnot. [Presumably]
AM: So, so you worked there and then, and then at point did you get your call up to go for training?
EC: Yes. I suddenly got papers through and the call and I had to go to Padgate which was near Warrington. And it was RAF centre of sorts for World War Two and I was issued with a uniform and then blow me they lined up the squadrons, everybody going to the squadrons in there and incidentally I was duly qualified. I had taken to that so I know that. Anyway, the next thing you know and they gave me a railway warrant home. Said you’ll be called by an RAF unit as soon as you’re employable. So I’m back home.
AM: Back home again.
EC: And I went back to [Wolf Lane] the treasurer of the council then and suggested we were doing emergency war measures which meant visiting the council houses, various establishments in the urban district which I knew, you know. I knew every yard. Anyway, that eventually I got the actual call up and again I had to go to Padgate. I think it was there. I’m not sure. And we were lined up one morning and half of us were given railway warrants and we went to Blackpool and I was in the Royal Air Force. Air crew. Now, we should have gone on entering the RAF to an ITW, Initial Training Wing that’s where they [?] speaking get you off the street. Put your feet together, angled at forty five degrees and all that.
AM: And start marching.
EC: From scratch. But not me because I’d already become [duly conscious.] It’s all this detail. Lovely detail really and with one other chappie went to Sheffield and there was procedures and from there I was posted, forgotten that little bit there, where was it? Operational Training Unit.
AM: Up to an Operational Training Unit.
EC: Yes. How we got there I don’t know.
AM: Don’t worry. So what was that like?
EC: Anyway, I went straight on to the, oh what was it? Chipping Norton down south OTUs and there was one there, south of Oxford. Its three letter anyway [pause] anyway I did all the basics ITU and aircrew and posting again home again I think two or three days. Then posted. I went to, about a dozen of us were posted to Scampton and you know all about that.
AM: I do.
EC: I served fourteen months there. At a time when, [you don’t mind] I went straight on to the squadron and then it’s all in the book.
AM: Ok.
EC: All in the logbook.
AM: So you joined 49 squadron. Can you remember crewing up and joining up with the rest of your crew. With your pilot and -
EC: No. I didn’t get that far.
AM: Oh right.
EC: What happened was the ITU and Blackpool were just doing nothing but training. Some people didn’t need training. Straight to squadron or something and I did fly in the ITU on the, [pause] from Blackpool we went by troop train in dead of night because of an air raid. From Blackpool down to Wales down to Bristol where we were in the [?] and everything, no rations, no nothing, six seats a side, no gangway, no nothing and then in the morning we arrived at Yatesbury. That’s on the Bath Road.
AM: Yes.
EC: And that’s where the real work starts. We were just another, well it seemed like there was only a couple of hundred of us but it wasn’t. Not quite that. Very nearly, and that was a first and basic training for air crew. Now in our case that area as big as this was aircraft navigation, no that was further on I think. That unit concentrated on training navigators. Yatesbury was wireless and basics. Pilots, they did their training as pilots and then we started getting together as as crews but not necessarily staying together.
AM: Right.
EC: But putting you, you, you, right, ‘Take M for Mother on a trip, test,’ so on and that was it at any stage a lot of flying. The book tells it all. Have you’ve seen it?
AM: No. I’ll have a look at your logbook afterwards if I may.
EC: You might, well, I’m looking, my son, he used to be a manager, he left and in recent you see I’ve all this is, damaged the brain. You know that. It’s the damage in my brain and that’s why my memory’s gone so I have two brains. One apparently and mainly is normal.
AM: Yes.
EC: But -
AM: You’re doing well Eric.
EC: Yeah. But the other one, anytime soon it will break and I’m in another, the thing was but it’s not permanent.
AM: So, what, what was the wireless operator training like?
EC: Well that was rather intense but first of all it was mainly one track mind. We had to reach, we were, we’d taken over all the ballroom and the big, ballroom, Blackpool front you know, the tower and all the rest of it. Dance halls. There were all tables wired up for blokes. Six in groups of fifty with an acting corporal, a regular corporal, been in the air force since the year dot apparently and then we were two hours [?] and you can imagine it was all regimented at that stage.
AM: Yeah.
EC: You only breathe out when you’re allowed. So that’s it. Right. Test please and you were at trestle tables. Lines of them. Oh and incidentally we had been billeted in Blackpool and all that sort of thing.
AM: Can I stop you for a minute? Do you want -
EC: Yes.
AM: Do you want this tea?
EC: Back to Carcroft School I always remember this captain in the army and tank captain survivor. It on poetry and he got me speaking and reading. ‘Clarke.’ And I’d stand up with my book. Point at it and read. All that sort of thing. And World War One disciplines.
AM: Yes. I’m going to take you back to Yatesbury rather than back to your school. Tell me some more about Yatesbury.
EC: Yatesbury. Yes of course. All we saw were [?] and it was 13th of October.
AM: It’s alright I’m just making sure your tea doesn’t slip.
EC: 13th of October. [?] it’s there.
AM: Tell me a little bit more about Yatesbury.
EC: Oh yes. Yatesbury. We had two, two solid weeks, two solid hours of Morse and our instructor was a retired navy wireless operator.
AM: Ok.
EC: And some people used to say you couldn’t think of anything worse but he was quiet but he was used to, used to thirty words a minute but we got to achieve, we’d never studied Morse. What’s Morse? We were dumb.
AM: Yeah, all new to you.
EC: Yes. What they did people precisely volunteered and in some cases allocated. Even they wanted to go. Like me. I wanted to go so after two hours there was a break and then the acting corporal, the corporal marched out and this is where the journal comes in. Quite a few holiday makers there were in Blackpool at the time saw some smart click click of the air force drill shouting and bawling. 3B3 3 squadron and three wing three squadron and three company and, ‘Clarke,’ ‘928 flight sergeant,’ You caught your last three figures. Mine was 1051928 and you got it’s flight sergeant 928, ‘Take your squad to the park,’ [?] and then we had report back to that certain area in that certain place for the next, which could have been anything from PT, stripping off, in to the baths. I loved that. The baths. I was in charge marching and bathing. Morse. Right up through, ‘Straight through, straight, halt. Stand. Right, space out, space, spread yourselves out. Right. Strip. Get in there. Get in.’
AM: Is this public baths?
EC: Yes.
AM: Yes
EC: And that’s what we did. I’d been delegated to look after them as an acting corporal unpaid and because I had to get out to get them on the go again. Report elsewhere. It might be report to a certain park where the RAF had a PTI, Physical Training Instructor and we had two hours with him. Not at it all the time but some duty other than we had the first two hours get back to Morse at the tower and that was the front. Four times in two hours PTI, break two hours, back. That’s it. Back to Morse again. And to that march left right left right left right all around Blackpool there before this just as an introduction, more or less, to what navigation means?
AM: Yes.
EC: Charts. Do charts and things we’d got. I imagined myself working on a chart.
AM: Yeah. I’m going to let you drink a bit more of your tea.
EC: Yes and then it was high tech training now. How, what wireless sets are made of, you know. We were really into it all. That’s that, that and that but why? It’s there and we [?] Incidentally by the time I got into Blackpool I was twenty six and I was probably standing next to –
AM: An eighteen year old.
EC: An eighteen year old boy who was well away.
AM: You were one of the old men.
EC: I was. I don’t know why but that’s another story.
AM: When did you first go up in and fly in a plane?
EC: Well, at Yatesbury we again this is where the logbook would have come in. From Yatesbury we were warned, six of us, right, at the airfield and we’re going with this sergeant. He takes you. He took six of us out to the airfield. He was doing an exercises anyway. We knew we were going up in the air and we were going to call Blackpool radio station.
AM: Yeah.
EC: And you’re going to make contact and back, and then back to the classroom. See how well we’d done. So it was at Yatesbury and it was probably an hour and a half. We went up in this six seater passenger aircraft and with a sergeant, he’d been in the air force years and he was a technician. So that’s when we first flew. I didn’t fly again then until Finningley and this is again is where the drag occurred and interfered. When final at Yatesbury which had a nasty name did Yatesbury. You know the name given to prisoners you had a bad reputation because it was psych training you know. You couldn’t breathe. Anyway, we were picked out and were queuing up were [all between] get our inoculations and then the next time is railway warrants which are, we two going to the same place. I got used to him. Mahoney. [Finished up?]
AM: How, when did you, after that you went to Finningley. Where did go you after -
EC: Yes.
AM: Yatesbury?
EC: After Yatesbury railway warrants and we thought we were going home or not and we were for a week and then we reported to the squadron.
AM: The squadron. 49 squadron.
EC: 49 Squadron at, no. I jumped. This station south of, south of Oxford I’ve got a memory for stations as well. It’s one –
AM: I don’t know Eric. There’s no -
EC: No. Anyway -
AM: Gary would know but I don’t.
EC: It was an OTU, we were posted to OTU from then for the first time we became flying together.
AM: Right.
EC: Pilot, navigator, sometimes just wireless operator because at that time no aircraft could get airborne without a wireless operator.
AM: Yes.
EC: No RAF could get airborne without a wireless operator and then there were various exercises, flying exercises. In the early part the pilots were doing the circuits and bumps and you had to be, you had to have a wireless operator with him.
AM: What plane, what sort of aircraft were you in?
EC: That was, first time, that was Hampdens.
AM: Hampdens.
EC: Yeah. Ended up in, just a minute, just a minute, this is where, for once in a while I’m lost without my logbook. And we, I arrived at Finningley anyway. I was posted to Finningley.
AM: Yeah.
EC: And it was because I’d been posted but [they don’t know] so they posted me, ‘Where do you live flight sergeant?’ ‘Doncaster.’ ‘Ah right. Finningley.’ And it was Finningley because they couldn’t receive this, they were full up training you see and so I reported to 49 squadron. They were busy flying as an OTU.
AM: Yes.
EC: Operational Training Unit and I just went down to the airfield where there was a crew rooms and outbuildings in between, in between whatever flight programme was on and that, one day that might be navigators which meant pilot, pilot and navigator and wireless operator or it might in between a few circuits and bumps but we were, I was there to get me airborne. I had the temerity to complain. I’m sitting here doing nothing. Nothing to read. No book. No nothing. Anyway, he understood alright. That particular squadron leader eventually did very well right up in Bomber Command. Now then, now -
AM: I’m probably jumping now but when did you do your first operation?
EC: Right. October 13th.
AM: October -
EC: Two minutes past twelve. It was twelve, Midnight. Thirteenth.
AM: This was 1940.
EC: ’40.
AM: Yeah. What was that like Eric? Can you remember it? Well you can remember it.
EC: Yeah. Well I was there, I was there at Finningley and I had to jump a little bit there because this, the squadron commander he said you could do a few rides on the tin. Well the tin was the underside of a Hampden. Underneath -
AM: Right.
EC: You know, where the gun is? No wireless. Just straight, stuck the wireless operator on top with guns and he was a wireless operator on top of the aircraft. So I was there, for air experience. I was in this Hampden. I don’t know if I was doing those cross country and I was just sat in the cockpit and I was getting airborne and that was it. I was not impressed either. I was a little bit of a sergeant major myself I have to admit. A bit, ‘That won’t do.’ Anyway, and then then came the day that Chipping –
AM: Chipping Norton.
EC: No.
AM: Chipping Sudbury.
EC: Oh dear.
AM: No. Oh I don’t know.
EC: Oh I do. I can’t give it you. Ah yes. Oh I can point it to you. I’ve got the book there.
AM: Well never mind because what I want to hear about is your first operation.
EC: First operation. Yes. Well this book. It’s written there perfectly.
AM: Did you get bacon and eggs before you went?
EC: Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
[pause]
EC: I can’t move without, I can’t.
AM: So your first operation was on the 12th and 13th of October 1941.
EC: That’s right.
AM: To Auls and Bremen. That’s A U L S and Bremen.
EC: Well, we, it’s all in that report but we actually bombed Huls. H.U.L.S.
AM: Yes, and that was the start of a full tour.
EC: Yeah.
AM: On three different kinds of aircraft.
EC: And they were all, all overcrowded and –
AM: You started off on Hampdens didn’t you?
EC: Yes. Yes.
AM: Let me have a look at the next one. Your next one after that was the 22nd and 23rd of October to Mannheim.
EC: Mann, yes.
AM: Yeah.
EC: And that’s in the, they called it Happy Valley.
AM: Yes. The Ruhr valley.
EC: Yes. That’s right. And here again I was at a loose end and not very happy. I was arriving at Scampton in a crew room and about half of them regulars. One or two were real regulars, went in before the war. [?] flight sergeant who was in before the war, wireless operator and he come to me or called me upstairs and say this is the flying programme and these two ops [that were ops have] just been scrubbed.
AM: Let me look at your -
EC: Now that was, I can’t see it.
AM: What did it actually feel like up in the aircraft Eric?
EC: Well again, mixed feelings. It was no picnic in that undercarriage. They called it the tin. Dreaded it. It was just a cockpit underneath the aircraft with twin Vickers gas operated guns on, like that and you could swing them around and you could strafe or [303?] and then behind me the bomb doors opened like that behind me to the front of the aircraft. Say from, you know, from there to there and they would open and I can’t, well it’s still a case of looking around. The weather we knew nothing about. It was just another aircraft on a training flight. I would listen out carefully. The pilots, mainly it was the pilot and navigator yeah that was the hardest job to do. I realise now.
AM: Yes. There’s another one highlighted here. The 9th and 10th of January to Brest. Mine laying.
EC: Oh yes. From October onwards it was still was the same. You were lucky to get a flight or if you did, in the tin to fill up and now –
AM: Let me look at the, - this is talking about the Bransby Memorial.
EC: Oh yes. And there again I became [this was a Hampden, not this particular one, [pause] there we are, we took off at dusk mainly. Sometimes it was later on and the whole of Scampton is set in the middle of vast farming areas and that’s so and we took off at dusk and it was all a nail-biting time you had to get up because the Hampden was loaded with mines or a particular type of bomb and otherwise it would carry mines and all I know is I sat there looking around and occasionally a tiny light, nothing else, could see the railways and [pause] sorry.
AM: Shall we find?
EC: The navigator was talking a lot -
AM: Yeah.
EC: About -
AM: I’m looking at another one here in February 1942. You went to Bremen, Bremen.
EC: Yes. Bremen.
AM: Bremen.
EC: Yeah. [Should be Berlin?] to military target. Heavily defended. And what I [?] the first one as we, two important things there did at least talk me to otherwise I might not have [?] right I’m looking for a crossing on the coast out crossing the channel there or from Orfordness there over there, that’s where we leave our coast. See. I was looking for that and that was, and then there’s a channel which is when the navigator and pilot had a lot to talk about, ‘Yes. Yes. No. No. Oh that’s –‘. A lot of them before they finally agreed on a, agreed on a course and then it was crossing the enemy coast. That for me was about the first time was really really not knowing what to expect. Anyway, I very soon found out what it was like as we were getting this crossing point, the enemy coast and suddenly searchlights, ackack, fire, aircraft, aircraft coming up, checking the height and the bombs are not just dropped you’ve got to drop from a certain height and then the navigator were the ones doing the talking, agreeing with the pilot on a certain in, ‘We could do with another thousand feet.’ ‘Yeah. I’ll try it.’ and we would, did it say what -
AM: Let me have a look at, let me find the next one. The Channel Dash that you -
EC: Yes. Now, that’s been reported many many times and it still is.
AM: Were you part of that Eric?
EC: Yes. Let me think. Channel Dash. Name the crew first.
AM: Let me have a look. I’m just trying to see if, with my flight. Oh someone, someone had your flying boots on.
EC: That’s right.
AM: Sergeant B Hunter.
EC: Hunter. Yes that’s the one. I think, however, I was in the tin I think. I can’t remember. Oh I do wish. That morning, I were all ready for call to get airborne and I was in the crew room and like, usually and some people knew the crew same as before and others, like me, I wasn’t sure where I’d be. I’d be called. You were given the pilot’s name. Anyway, oh come on, come on, come on. We were briefed. While we were waiting that morning the back room boys and so on they, everybody knew that the three German battleships were based at Brest.
AM: Yes.
EC: And there was the Scharnhorst and [Schweigen?] oh the name of it now, it will come.
AM: I can’t remember but I know that the Scharnhorst was one of the big ones.
EC: Yes. Yeah. [pause] I can’t remember.
AM: Why, why did Sergeant Hunter have your flying boots on?
EC: Oh yes. Yes, this is the story. Again, it’s in here in detail. We’re in the crew room. There’s lockers. Flying lockers. Your flying kit, if you’re not wearing it, should be in that locker. Right. I was, I got to the crew room. I saw the operations board. That’s the only time, sometimes that I found where I was -
AM: Where you were going?
EC: With whom and where we were going. Channel, Brest and I was with this, well Sergeant Hunter, he was spitting feathers for want of, I put the flying kit on to join this particular aircraft which was on the operations board. Next to me is Sergeant Hunter and he’d been on the squadron just a few months or more. A bit more experienced and he seemed a happy type. Now, he, he had left his flying boots at his billet. At that time we were in the old married quarters for, you know air crew and so on and against the rules, the rules flying clothing must be in the locker. Anyway. I’m scrubbed. Oh yes while and I was getting my stuff on and the door opened and Gadsby, Flight Sergeant Gadsby, ‘Sergeant Clarke, you’re scrubbed.’ I said, ‘Oh not again.’ And anyway to Hunter, ‘I’m scrubbed so you he might as well take mine.’ ‘Alright.’ He had no time to go back to the billet. He’d got to get there and out to the aircraft and so he did and I went back to the crew room and [have something to eat] play around till the next morning to see how they got on. Well the next morning I found that Sergeant Hunter’s aircraft and four others had not come back and my, obviously my boots were down. Well, later on Sergeant Hunter’s [?] body was washed up on the French shore two days later, the Dutch shore two days later. Oh and trying to move it on a little bit I’d been out to Holland two or three times [on the] memorial [to him] he was shot down anyway as he crossed the coast and it was a Hampden, low flying aircraft and they were already obviously, from the information there they were already they knew they were going down so the wireless operator in the tin came up and squeezed into the wireless operator’s -
AM: Yeah.
EC: Standing order that for take-off and landing the chap in the tin had to be up top squeezed in. So that’s what happened. They went down. Pilot and engineer went down with the aircraft on a Dutch farm and the wireless operator and gunner they were thrown out of the aircraft somehow and, but they went down with the aircraft into the mud and the Dutch -
AM: Yeah.
EC: So for sixty years that aircraft with two crew, pilot and navigator, and they recovered it anyway.
AM: It was recovered.
EC: That was a long story anyway but –
AM: So that was the story of your boots. Let’s have a look at some more.
EC: I’ve been since and they recovered the aircraft and gave them a military –
AM: A proper burial. A proper burial.
EC: And it’s all about it and everything in here and then I went back to the crew room waiting to see where next. Who I was going to fly with next.
AM: We’ve got the next one February mine laying and leaflets. Were you still on Hampdens or had you moved -
EC: No.
AM: To Manchesters at this point?
EC: All my, all my ops there were twelve on Hampdens, four on Manchesters and twelve on Lancasters.
AM: On Lancasters. Which was the best out of the three?
EC: Oh [laughs]
AM: Which one Eric? You’re pointing at it but I don’t know which it is.
EC: Oh well that’s a Hampden.
AM: That’s a Hampden.
EC: That’s a, it’s a Lancaster.
AM: Oh that one’s a Lancaster.
EC: And if that was a true photo, well it is, that would be up there.
AM: This one would be you.
EC: That was my position and I would be there.
AM: So did you like the Lancaster best out of the three?
EC: Ooh ooh above everything.
AM: Really. Why?
EC: Well first of all it was the space I’d got.
AM: Yes, you’re not down in the tin any more.
EC: In the tin. I was surrounded by wireless there and there.
AM: So you were just crunched up with your knees up to your nose nearly.
EC: Yeah [?] try to write something in the logbook and I’ve highlighted where I am in the crews.
AM: We’ve got, we’ve got the mine laying and leaflets and let me just have a look here. In March 1942, Essen.
EC: Yes.
AM: Were you on that one?
EC: Well am I marked? It gives you the -
AM: Essen. Yes. Clarke. There you are. Let’s have another, - hang on, [pause] in March ’42 again mine laying and nickels.
EC: Yeah. Don’t know. Now the thing is you want the logbook.
AM: Now don’t worry about, Lubeck. You went to Lubeck. In March.
EC: Lubeck. Lubeck. That’s in the South Baltic. That was a little [?] port all ancient but it was a military target used by the Germans for shipping so for us it was a, it was a target.
AM: A legitimate target.
EC: Yes. So we gave them a surprise. Went over the North Sea. Now –
AM: April ‘42 Cologne.
EC: Yes. [pause] Did we lose any?
AM: Let me have a look. Yes. A flight with Pilot Officer D Kay. Became a prisoner of war and the wireless operator and air gunner was killed. Sergeant Waddell. Sergeant Waddell.
EC: Sergeant Waddell, yes.
AM: Yeah.
EC: Yeah.
AM: I’m looking at the ones that you’ve highlighted.
EC: Yes.
AM: You’ve got April ‘42 was a noticeable date. From this date the unit received its first three Avro Manchesters.
EC: Yes. Now they phased out the Hampdens. Now this is where the flying logbook would have come in.
[Knocking on door]
AM: Oh just one minute. Knock at the door.
[machine paused]
EC: [?]
AM: No. Let’s, let’s, let’s move on a bit. When you got the Lancasters -
EC: Yeah.
AM: Where did you go in the Lancasters? Let me look.
EC: Oh we didn’t do any ops for a month.
AM: No.
EC: Because we had to, what was the trouble we had?
AM: Debrief from one plane and learned to fly another one.
EC: Yes. Yes.
AM: Yeah. Were you on the thousand bomber raid?
EC: Yes.
AM: To Cologne.
EC: Yes. That was May the 30th. Was it?
AM: Yeah. May, yes May 30th 1942.
EC: Yes and it had got six crew and it was more or less a Lancaster fuselage.
AM: Yeah.
EC: So I’d got all this room. I loved it. I’d got a desk and I could get up and I could stand, stand up and put my head in the astrodome and look at, you know, for targets and navigational points and then when we got the signal to, to drop the leaflets I, how can I [pause] I site there?
AM: Yeah we’re looking at a picture now of the -
EC: Wireless.
AM: Wireless operator.
EC: I’m back here. Behind my bomb there’s called the main spar of the aircraft.
AM: Yes.
EC: And I go along there, leg over there and I’m in the -
AM: The fuselage.
EC: The fuselage is it where I’d been like this I’d got all this space. So what the fuse, and the packets with the rubber bands and so on and I got on the intercom, connected by intercom by the pilot and navigator and they told me when, coming up they knew the height we were flying at and the instructions as to the best, well releasing the leaflets. There’s no bomb aiming facility as such but it’s something throwing out parcels so they went down in packets of thousands. Well we did that and we got back safely. Another?
AM: What about the thousand bomber raid?
EC: Yes that’s the last -
AM: Yeah. And then Essen in June 1942.
EC: June 1st. That was Flying Officer Jefferies.
AM: Yes.
EC: He became my pilot.
AM: Right.
EC: I knew I was flying with him but I’d done my ops and on the board I knew that I was flying with him. Now then. Pick one with Flying Officer Jefferies.
AM: It says here that over Essen you attacked from nine thousand feet at two minutes past two and bomb bursts were seen in the target area. Large fires started.
EC: Yeah.
AM: So you knew you’d hit the, hit what you, hit the target.
EC: Only four [Manchesters].
AM: Yeah. When did you move on to Lancasters? Can you, what month?
EC: What
AM: What month did you move on to Lancasters?
EC: We had a period of adjustment to another aircraft.
AM: Yes. Yeah.
EC: Does it say?
AM: Osnabruck. These are all August. Osnabruck.
EC: Osnabruck, yes.
AM: Flensburg and Frankfurt.
EC: Yeah.
AM: And then Zabrucken and Bremen.
EC: Which aircraft?
AM: Let me have a look. Let me look at the picture. I’m not sure. I think this might -
EC: The first Lancaster I remember of course was Flight Lieutenant Cook. Cookie as he was. You hear about this one. We, not much to say, we went to pick up an aircraft and we went to a station to pick up a Lancaster and that was our first Lancaster.
AM: Right.
EC: After that we got them all.
AM: You got, it’s talking here about mine laying in September and the Cooke crew of W4107.
EC: Yes.
AM: Attacked their primary target at Warnemunde
EC: Yeah.
AM: And then landed back at Scampton but four aircraft had to go, so Marston Moor and then we’ve got Weismar again.
EC: Yeah.
AM: And Cologne again in October.
EC: Cologne. It was the last of the four. I knew it was a massed operation but I didn’t know that it was the flight. I’d got several to do for my tour [part of that?] [pause] What does it say?
AM: I’ve got another one here where, here we are at about 2130 on the evening of 24th of October.
EC: Yeah.
AM: After W4761 got back to her Scampton dispersal out jumped Eric Clarke the W/Op air gunner to celebrate the completion of his operational tour.
EC: Now where were, where had we landed?
AM: You landed at Scampton.
EC: No.
AM: Oh wait a minute. Let me look.
EC: The day before.
AM: I’m not sure.
EC: I’ll look at it in there.
AM: But you did twenty six operations.
EC: Yes. We landed short of petrol.
AM: Right.
EC: Back at the place where I did all my OTU.
AM: Right.
EC: South of Oxford.
AM: Right.
EC: See. And then next day, in the morning, we got airborne to Scampton.
AM: Back to Scampton.
EC: I’ll show you anyway and you’ll appreciate the details there.
AM: When you finished Eric, when you’d done, when you’d done your last operation what did you do after that?
EC: Right. Well, I’m now, I’d got quite a bit of leave, but I’ve no job, I’m married to a wonderful, and my wife was working all the time. She worked in a paper shop, newsagent shop and with close family and for instance the owners always had the news agent shop and he used to have to be up at five in the morning. It was very very good for them [?] and that was the same one –
AM: Can I just look at the front of this where it’s saying that you became a signals officer?
EC: Oh yes. That’s right.
AM: And a senior signals leader.
EC: Yes. That’s it. Well when I finished the, got back safely and landed at Scampton and then we carried on ops to finish my tour. We were all together and we qualified as staff Pathfinders.
AM: Yes.
EC: We were a special crew. We were good.
AM: Yeah. Let me just look at the front again. You were commissioned and then you rose quickly in rank to flight lieutenant.
EC: Yeah.
AM: Became a signals officer and then a senior signals leader.
EC: Yeah.
AM: You were mentioned in dispatches in June 1944.
EC: Yeah.
AM: That’s when the war -
AM: Yes. And then finally you became a staff lecturer at the number one Bomber Command Instructor’s School.
EC: At Finningley.
AM: At Finningley.
EC: Yes.
AM: Back where you started.
EC: Yes. But again things weren’t always going right. I can finish that part off. I did, I was called for ops back at Scampton after the Cologne raid and we were briefed to go to [?] Stettin to submarines out there, in the Baltic rather. The Baltic. And to cut that short I was briefed twice to do an op and they were both scrubbed.
AM: And that was to Stettin.
EC: Stettin. Yes.
AM: Yes. Yeah.
EC: And it was for mine laying.
AM: Right.
EC: It was a base. A German base. Anyway, it was a stealth, we called it a stealth raid. Right. We got back and expected to go on the next trip, we’ll be on tomorrow night. Ok. And tomorrow night came and I wasn’t there and I thought I would be there [?] and I went back. Anyway it was scrubbed and it was announced that I had completed my tour of ops which was fourteen months.
AM: Yeah. Finished.
EC: On record.
AM: Yeah.
EC: And so on and then I think, it will tell me in the book, I don’t know how long it was before I was posted. Anyway –
AM: What was it like being an instructor?
EC: Well I was very much at home.
AM: Yeah.
EC: Very much at home with it. I indulged a little bit here and there. [?] the smokers in those days. And they were chain smoking and you could tell the type you know.
AM: Yeah.
EC: I wasn’t [I was too disciplined to] smoke really. Anyway, I was, in June what I wanted to get to, I was called for interview by the station squadron commander. Got that right? Yes, in the book. Would I, ‘Would you accept recommendation for a commission in His Majesty’s Royal Air Force.’ ‘Yes sir.’ I was already a Church Lads Brigade officer for four hundred boys, you know. Anyway, ‘Thank you, you will get the papers eventually. You go home, you get kitted up and we will send you on your way.’ ‘Thank you sir.’ Away I went and went home and I got my papers there. I was a pilot officer.
AM: That was your commission.
EC: And that was that. Then it came through and by that time I was in this OTU getting in to the role of reflecting [?] the OTU as I was still a sergeant. And then I was called, [pause] damn it damn it damn it.
AM: I think you were, you were a sergeant, then a pilot officer.
EC: Yes.
AM: Then a flying officer.
EC: There’s a story with that, you see.
AM: Right ok.
EC: Because I was, I was called by the CO on the OTU where I was a senior instructor at that time.
AM: Yes. Yeah.
EC: ‘Your commission has come through, Pilot Officer Clarke,’ and he leaned across the desk to shake hands and I think it was and, ‘There are your papers, your railway warrant, you’ve eight days to get kitted out’ and [?] there.
EC: ‘Thank you sir,’ and away I went. Home. Pilot officer what had happened they found out later on that prior to getting your commission once you’re recommended you start off with the organisation. The quadron commander, the station commander, group headquarters at Lincoln and so on and then to command headquarters and then ten days later you, you’re an officer. Well I went through all that but it didn’t work. Somewhere along the line somebody sat on my papers or misdirected them or whatever and I arrived at this station and what was that station where I arrived at?
AM: Lincoln?
EC: No.
AM: No.
EC: South of Oxford.
AM: I can’t remember. Does it say in here where you were? No. Don’t worry. Don’t matter.
EC: [Pause] Damn. Damn. Damn.
AM: It’s frustrating isn’t it?
EC: It is yes.
AM: Where, where were, I’m just going back to your, where was Number One Bomber Command Instructor’s School?
EC: Finningley.
AM: That was at Finningley. So you did end up at Finningley in the end.
EC: Yeah.
AM: When were you demobbed Eric? How long did you stay in?
EC: October 13.
AM: 1945 or ’46.
EC: [?]
AM: You were demobbed.
EC: Yes. And I did fourteen months.
AM: Yes.
EC: Continuous.
AM: Operations.
EC: Which would be a record but at the time, statistically the lifespan of Bomber Command aircrew was seven or eight weeks.
AM: Yes.
EC: And I did fourteen months.
AM: You did.
EC: And -
AM: Do you know I think I’m going to switch off now.
EC: Yes.
AM: And let you have a drink and a rest but thank you.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Eric Clarke
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-17
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Sound
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AClarkeE150817
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:51:27 audio recording
Description
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Eric was born in Doncaster and had a difficult childhood. He was attracted by nearby RAF Finningley and decided he wanted to join the RAF when war was imminent. He was registered as an aircraftman second class and trained to be a wireless operator. After training in Blackpool, he did wireless operator training at RAF Yatesbury before going to an Operational Training Unit in Oxfordshire. Eric was then posted to RAF Finningley and 49 Squadron at RAF Scampton.
Eric’s first operation was in October 1941 to Hüls (Krefeld) and Bremen. He did twenty six operations on three different types of aircraft: Hampdens, Manchesters, and Lancasters. He preferred the Lancaster because he had much more space. He was stood down on the “Channel Dash” operation: the wireless operator borrowed his flying boots but never returned.
Eric became a senior signals leader and, after the tour, qualified as staff Pathfinder. He was mentioned in dispatches in 1944 and became a staff lecturer at No. 1 Bomber Command Instructors School at RAF Finningley. Eric was commissioned as a pilot officer and then flying officer.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Cheshire
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany
Temporal Coverage
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1942-02
1944
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
49 Squadron
aircrew
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Hampden
Lancaster
Manchester
memorial
mine laying
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
promotion
RAF Finningley
RAF Padgate
RAF Scampton
RAF Yatesbury
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/543/8783/PHildrethJ1502.1.jpg
8ed4834a7c5568e0404e563b1c55b83c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/543/8783/AHildrethJ150602.2.mp3
9c277bc52941b2a1f31fd5a984fb243f
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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Hildreth, Jeff
J Hildreth
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Hildreth
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Jeff Hildreth (1924 - 2017, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a wireless operator with 170 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2015-08-05
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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MC: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Mike Connock, the interviewee is Mr Jeff Hildreth. The interview is taking place at Mr Hildreths’ home at Sutton-in-Ashfield on 2nd June 2015. OK Jeff, tell me a bit about your early days, when and where you were born.
JH: Well it was at Huntwood, Derbyshire, and my father was a miner, and by the time we got to the war breaking out it was ‒, I decided that I was going to join the RAF because my dad recommended it because he said it was very muddy in the trenches. He was in the Great War. And, well I was called up eventually but I joined the ATC and because you joined that you could qualify for what they called the PNB scheme (Pilot, Navigator, Bomb Aimer) which I did do. I was a bloody idiot, you can erase that if you want [laugh], but I did not ‒, I could have become commissioned and I turned it down, but then that was just a little boy from a little village and it didn’t seem to fit, ‘cause I probably made another mistake somewhere in my life, but that was the daftest one, but nevertheless I did join the ATC and eventually ‒, it’s a long time ago and ‒, but I was going through the various sections and ‒, oh by the time I was called up I remember now, by the time I was called up there was no requirement for pilot, navigator and bomb aimer but there was ‒, so therefore I took the next best thing which was a wireless operator but ‒, and I qualified on the course. That was no problem when I think now ‒, when I say I was qualified, and I think somewhere there they did offer me a commission and again I turned it down. It’s difficult to put the conception to other people but I was just a young lad from a mining village, to be an officer and be in charge didn’t seem to fit. Now I know differently of course, because in the RAF it is very different and so ‒.
MC: What did you do before you joined up? Did you work? Were you working?
JH: I went to night school and studied electrical engineering and I got my ‒, oh, what was it? It wasn’t my AMIEE, it was a HNC, Higher National Certificate, I did that at Worksop Technical College but then, as a result of that, I was employed by the East Midlands Electricity Board and was given a day off a week to go and study again and I did, and I got through that one all right er ‒.
MC: Where did you do your wireless operator training?
JH: Oh that was automatic of course, Yatesbury, the first three months learning Morse code and such like as that, which I never expected that what I ‒, how good, how good I ought to have been compared to how good I really was. It was better to put how bad I was. Let’s see now, I lived at Langold, which is between Worksop and Doncaster and er ‒, let me think. No, that bits gone. It doesn’t seem too long ago.
MC: How long were you at Yatesbury?
JH: Sorry?
MC: How long were you at Yatesbury?
JH: Oh it was three months at Yatesbury, well to start with the first 3 months was nothing else but classroom and then the next three months it was so-called flying training and, which we went on Ansons I believe, I think it’s in there. It was in Ansons and ‒, oh but I’m trying to think where it was. It might have been Scampton. I was at all the stations, Lindholme and so on, the other places, but er ‒.
MC: So where did you go from your wireless operator training? You must have gone to an operational training unit?
JH: Yes, and that was all up in Yorkshire er ‒, I do apologise.
MC: Finningley?
JH: Is it in there?
MC: The 18 OTU out at Finningley.
JH: Yes, that would be it and we were flying Ansons.
MC: 18 OTU were probably Wellingtons.
JH: We went on to Wellingtons but I started on Ansons but that was ‒, oh Finningley, which therefore was not very far from my home in Worksop, and therefore, I used to have my bicycle in camp and whenever I got a weekend off, which was every weekend, I got my bike out and I cycled home and because of that, when it came to crewing up, I suppose I’m not a very open minded person, as you know, I wasn’t good at making friends here there and everywhere, at least not on the surface shall I say but there was one wireless operator too many on the course and so therefore, I offered to be the spare man and not crew up and so I didn’t crew up until it got to the very end of the course and someone went sick and because of that, ‘You are in that crew now’, and that’s how I crewed up and er ‒.
MC: Can you remember the names of the crew?
JH: The actual crew?
MC: The crew.
JH: I don’t know, it was Flight Lieutenant John Baxter from Sheffield, he might have only been a flying officer, I’m not sure, at the time. The bomb aimer came from Huddersfield I think, the navigator came from God’s own country, born in Prince Edward Island, Canadian, and ‒, but the two gunners again ‒, what they were doing, they were closing down the training area because somebody in their wisdom said they got enough, and so my two gunners were both flight lieutenant ex-gunnery trainers and it was Flight Lieutenant Walter Gordon and Flight Lieutenant [unclear] you look up page number two, I think.
MC: So after the OTU you went to the Heavy Conversion Unit?
JH: Oh, that’s right, that was on Halifaxes and ‒, but then you did six weeks on Halifaxes and then you went on to a Lanc finishing school course and that was one year and that was where ‒, and of course, you were supposed to be crewing up all the time, but all I was interested in was being a spare man so I could keep going home weekends on my bike, but then last minute somebody was sick and that’s how I got in John Baxter’s crew.
MC: So when ‒, you then got posted to your squadron?
JH: Well, I think, let me think now. Lanc finishing course, I think. Was it Hemswell? I believe, I’m not sure, and we went down to Scampton for the formation of 170 and then speed back up to Hemswell to take on those flying duties, and so ‒.
MC: What can you remember about that, your first operation then?
JH: Oh, when you looked out forward and I’ve got the astrodome, I could stand up there and as a wireless operator, keep radio silence. That was perfect, it meant I’d got nothing to do except I did follow the ‒, I can’t remember the name of our radar. Fishpond, it was called Fishpond, and it was the aerial was underneath the aircraft, so I could tell if anybody was coming in from underneath and so in actual fact, I could press that button from somewhere and stand up look to in the astrodome as well, I could look at the screen and everything. I ‒, oh the main thing I did was, that when I looked out ‒, I think it was in my mind, I’m sorry there, I was going onto daylight trips and that, I think, was about number twelve and there, if you looked ahead, you could see a bank of clouds which was the anti-aircraft guns exploding, just a bank of black clouds and I sort of recall, it might be that by then the skipper was a flight lieutenant and as such was in the forefront, and we went into that and all I can tell you is that somewhere along the way the skipper says, ‘Right we’re going out’, and we went through that cloud and we looked back, and we could see all the others we’d left behind. So I mean it was ‒, it was a funny crew in a way, I mean the Canadian and myself got on quite well. To be quite honest with you, we didn’t take to the flight engineer because he’d been a warden in a naughty boys school, so if you can picture him, no, but the ‒, as I say, the navigator was from PEI and the rest was good and quite honestly I thoroughly ‒, I shouldn’t say ‒, you don’t enjoy it because every time you go, you’re looking at where all the anti-aircraft is bursting and so it’s like as that, and, of course, you’re becoming more senior with each trip so therefore you were nearer the front and nearer the point for getting [unclear] and getting away, at least that’s my version of it.
MC: So you carried on your night operations and then your day operations. How many flight ops did you complete entirely?
JH: Er, what’s number twelve? That’s it, sorry.
MC: I was looking ‒
JH: Fourteen, that’s night-time, if it’s in red, it’s night-time, oh and that’s another one, fourteen to Eastburg, sorry. Oh yes, that was a Lancaster, and all of a sudden, they fired at us and we got out of the way. We were target with a friend, he might have been on his first trip perhaps, I don’t know.
MC: So you survived pretty well from all your operations. No mishaps? Apart from that of course.
JH: No, I did survive very well and to be quite honest, that was a thought in my head all the time, because very often when you went to a briefing, they might tell you what happened the last time we went there or something like that, but slowly but surely you were told of people who did not come back off their first trip, and it was like blithely going on, you don’t know why, whether the angel was looking after you or what, I don’t know but er ‒, and as I say, in a way we were a funny crew. I knocked about with the navigator and we used to get down into Gainsborough as often as possible and we went to ‒, what do they call the ladies who looked after you?
MC: A brothel?
JH: No [laugh], CWS or something, and you could go to a place in Gainsborough.
MC: WVS.
JH: Pardon?
MC: WVS.
JH: Yes, and you could go to a place in Gainsborough and they’d always got ‒, you could buy these buns, you know, any array of them, they’d all been making them at home. And they’d got a ‒, I think they’d got a billiard table so that suited me as well ‘cause I was trying to learn, and so that was quite enjoyable really. Then somehow, we must have got ‒, I’m trying to think of transport, but I don’t know how we got into Gainsborough and how we got back, but of course it didn’t matter, you knew when you were going on ops because of course, they put a battle order up and if you weren’t on that, away you went to Gainsborough and a day out and ‒,
MC: So how many operations did you complete in total?
JH: I think I completed twenty-nine actually, but with a bit of fiddling, you can say I did thirty. If you look at the bulls ‒, the first thing I did was a bullseye. Now a bullseye, before the operations, a bullseye was where there they sent a force of aircraft over to the foreign ‒, to the European coast, like the Dutch or such like and I’m sorry, yeah, and therefore you were into enemy territory because you went to the coast and what we were doing was to draw the enemy forces to that point because, if you’ve got a fighter, he can only be up in the air for so long as he’s got fuel, so if when we went to, say Gainsborough to, er, Belgium, they had to put their fighters up in the air and that was using some of their fuel. This is what I was told, probably a pack of lies, and then we turned and came home and the main force went in somewhere else, a little further down the coast or something, but we had withdrawn the enemy fire, if you like. I think that was the idea behind it.
MC: Of course, the war ended when you came to the end of your tour anyway?
JH: It did yes.
MC: But you carried on though, didn’t you?
JH: I did, I think I’d just started, done one trip or something, in a Lincoln.
MC: Before that did you do any ‒, Operation Manna, dropping food supplies?
JH: Er ‒, I think so, might have done. Is it in there? Oh yeah, that was low level stuff because yes, and that was stuff that was hung up in the bomb bay and we went low down and dropped it, yes.
MC: To the Dutch.
JH: Yes, but ‒.
MC: You also went on [unclear]
JH: Oh yes, yes, we went to Berlin and we spent a little time in Berlin er ‒, and no, the only thing I can remember in Berlin was that there was a lot of young ladies there, but they had a price and I think the going rate was about twenty cigarettes and er ‒, I think I helped other people. I was a village lad so you know, I don’t think I knew what it was all about at all. So ‒.
MC: Of course, you wouldn’t have been very old at that time.
JH: No.
MC: You would still have only been a young lad.
JH: Yeah, I’d be about twenty-two at most, yeah, but er ‒.
MC: So you then went on to Lincolns.
JH: Yes, and oh, I was gonna say, I don’t know, we were fetching soldiers home.
MC: Operation Exodus.
JH: Yeah.
MC: That’s what they called it.
JH: Yes, er ‒, and we went to Pomergliano, Pommy, I think I did about two or three trips to Pommy, and one to Bari down in Italy. It was quite good. I was quite [unclear], we used to get twenty soldiers into the bomb bay and they were issued with a blanket, a typical Army blanket, that’s what they sat on, and one or two naturally had never flown before, so therefore I was quite experienced, ‘No problem mate’, you know, ‘He’s a good skipper’, thumbs up, and, ‘What’s it like taking off?’ and so on, and I says, ‘No problem, you just fasten up. As long as you relax your body, you’ll never feel a thing. Don’t matter what’s happening’. But the main thing going on those Dodge trips, having got out there, we prayed for bad weather in England so that we had to stay there, because it was near Naples and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of it. I mean, I saw the old city of ‒, I don’t know whether it was Herculaneum or something like that, but it was the old city and of course, there was Vesuvius, always spouting a little bit of smoke and er ‒, I, to be quite honest, the rate of exchange was beautiful, er ‒, I think the official rate of exchange was four hundred lira to the pound, but you could get eight hundred out on the streets, and if you pushed it or bought something, you could even get more than that, so I had ‒, I know I did bring something home, but you know, little bits. I thoroughly enjoyed that.
MC: So you did quite a few of these Dodge trips, didn’t you?
JH: Yeah.
MC: You went to Bordeaux as well.
JH: Ah, that was where I think somebody had a ‒, lost an engine and landed there and so therefore we flew there, along with somebody else. One crew took the repair crew to make good on the aircraft that had landed there and we went and picked up the survivors, some of the survivors, and brought them home, and that was why we went to Bordeaux. Ah, Bordeaux, and [laugh] the ladies of the night were there in Bordeaux in large numbers but again, I was too young [laugh].
MC: So when did your service finish after the war? You went on to Lincolns you said?
JH: Oh yes, they were bringing them in and so therefore we went onto them er ‒, I don’t think I did many trips on Lincolns.
MC: I didn’t realise, you went to 12 Squadron for a while?
JH: I did and I went to 100 Squadron somewhere. I don’t know, but I was ‒, but I think also ‒, what was I going to do back in Civvy Street? I had no idea, I had no idea, and so therefore I was much preferring to stick in the RAF. I don’t mean permanently, but it delayed the decision as to what I was going to do when I did finally come out ‒. Oh, a friend of my brothers was an engineer with the East Midlands Electricity Board and through him, I got a job. Oh good Lord, yes. I was mating a linesman. He went up the pole and he got a sash line. He told you what he wanted so you learnt how to tie it on and make it easy to undo and that was it. So I was ‒, but I was supposed actually ‒, I did eventually qualify as a linesman’s mate, but I was never really a good linesman’s mate and ‒, but as I say, somewhere along the line ‒, oh, one of the engineers with the Electricity Board was a friend of my brothers, and so I ‒, it was through him, he recommended me to go to night school, and I got a day off a week, every week I got a day off to go to night school, and whoever I was working with used to love it because they’d got nothing to do, so I carried on at night school. I got my HNC, or Higher National Certificate if you like, and then I qualified ‒. Oh, I got my AMIEE and then eventually, they made me an engineer and that was me. I was an engineer and that is it, which meant I’d got enough money to get married on.
MC: And when was that?
JH: I should know, shouldn’t it? It’s the 26th of August but I’m blowed if I ‒, I was about twenty-five.
MC: Going back to your Lincoln days, you were with 100 Squadron in Lincolns?
JH: Yeah.
MC: That was a different skipper though.
JH: Oh yes. We broke up altogether because the navigator, being Canadian, he shot off as fast as he could, he was quite happy to go and I think when I was on Lincolns, without saying I’m shooting a line, I was with new trainees coming through, I don’t know. That is correct, yes.
MC: So tell me about that. It says, ‘’Shot down by a Mosquito”.
JH: Yes, why am I ‒? It was ‒, we weren’t shot down by a Mosquito. We were flying along by a Mosquito and I believe the Mosquito claimed a kill, I’m not sure, but we put him down to being a newcomer, trigger happy I suppose, I don’t know. Oh, Operation Capsize, but no Fishpond because with Fishpond, we were very good because we flew low level and I got to interpret, and with a map, I could interpret and I would just tell the skipper, ‘There’s a railway crossing coming up’, and I do know on some, there was a railway going across an embankment and we had to climb to get over it, we were flying at such low level.
MC: Did you ever used H2S radar?
JH: We used H2S a little bit, I’m not sure what that actually did.
MC: It had a screen as well, a bit like Fishpond.
JH: But I believe, and I believe with H2S you could see your target, or something like that.
MC: It was a ground mapping radar.
JH: Ah, I preferred Fishpond.
MC: So you remained in the electricity job the rest of your life then, when you came out of the Air Force, engineering?
JH: Oh yes, yes, well I was in this East Midlands Electricity Board and they used to give me a day off a week and provided you passed at the end of year, and I simply kept passing, and so when I did finally get my fifth year, which was my Higher National Certificate, then that was it. They made me an engineer with the Electricity Board. It wasn’t very wonderful stuff to start with because I’d be on services, for instance, and there was an awful lot of places that had got no electricity, and so some ‒, oh, an application for electricity was going through in one department and if it was in our area, I got the car to go out and check and, you know, say, ’Yeah, it wants a twenty-two yard of red. We can do it'. ‘We can’t do this one underground’, ‘We’ve got to do it underground’, rather, or something like that er ‒, but where possible you slung a ‒, our overhead service. I don’t suppose there’s many of them left now, but it was a number eight copper wire, you put two [unclear] from inside the house, through [unclear] to the top of the house, and at that point, we’d put a corner bracket on and we could put one big insulator on round which was turned this number eight copper, and then the service wire, which was ‒, would be ‒, that’s as far as we went. But then every, as I say, every foot would be a wiring clip, one of those standard ones that wrapped round with two ends and turned back. They were horrible things, they went right through. We did it long enough until my linesman, who I was meeting, climbed up and tapped on. And he was always wanting me to take over from him. I wouldn’t. I climbed up I think once with climbers and that’s ‒. I didn’t think much to it [pause], and he was making like, I’m sure, a picture, you know.
MC: A film movie?
JH: Editing film work.
MC: That was Air Commodore Cozens.
JH: Yes, I don’t know, I can’t remember.
MC: You’ve got a bit in your log book about the Grand National [unclear]
JH: That was after the war. Peace had been declared and so we went flying over places like Grand National or whatever it was and waved to all the cheering crowds.
Dublin Core
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Interview with Jeff Hildreth
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Mike Connock
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-06-02
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Sound
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AHildrethJ150602
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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00:35:16 audio recording
Description
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Jeff Hildreth was born in Huntwood, Derbyshire and studied Electrical Engineering at Worksop Technical College before joining the Air Training Corp, before eventually joining the Royal Air Force as a Wireless Operator.
He did his training at Yatesbury and was there 3 months before moving to 18 Operational Training Unit at Finningley, where he flew Avro Ansons and Vickers Wellingtons. He was not assigned to a crew initially, becoming a spare man to fill in where necessary. He joined Flight Lieutenant John Baxters crew after someone fell ill.
Jeff moved to a Heavy Conversation Unit, flying Handley Page Halifaxes, before moving to a Avro Lancaster finishing school. He was then posted to Scampton for operational duties.
He completed 29 operations before taking part in Operation Manna, dropping food supplies in Holland. He then flew with 100 Squadron on Avro Lincolns taking part in Operation Exodus, bringing soldiers back home.
After the war ended, Jeff returned to his previous employer, the East Midlands Electricity Board where he used his Higher National Certificate to become a qualified Engineer.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
100 Squadron
170 Squadron
18 OTU
aircrew
Lincoln
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Yatesbury
training
wireless operator
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/565/8833/PEvansDC1602.2.jpg
86b05a1f1363b47b738718b23de31580
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/565/8833/AEvansDC160714.2.mp3
c2f2de6871b83db8ca8bdb70d47cefb5
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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Evans, Derek Carrington
D C Evans
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Evans, DC
Description
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Eight items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Derek Carrington Evans (1924 - 2017, 2207080 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 625 Squadron. Also contains photographs of model Lancaster and people.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Derek Carrington Evans and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2016-07-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM. Ok so this is Annie Moody and I am with Derek Evans today. Derek was born in Doncaster he’s living in York at the moment and I am undertaking this interview at the Offices of Worans in Doncaster.
DE. He was born on the 20th of June 1924.
AM. 20th of June ’24, erm and todays date is the 14th of July 2016. So, Derek.
DE. I am 92.
AM. You’re 92, getting on a bit, but still.
DE. I am getting on a bit, yes.
AM. Derek tell me, you have told me when you were born, tell me a little bit about where were you born and tell me a little bit about your parents?
DE. I was born in the village of Doncaster, that’s Edlington, I was born [laugh] about twenty past nine one Friday morning and, eh my sister went to school and she came back and she got a new brother, and eh I don’t know what her reactions were but I heard plenty about it at the time [laugh], yeah eh, yes there was two of us. I had a brother as well who died em but em, there was Doris and me who lived and she died just a few years ago with rotten cancer and she was as good as, as healthy as me, which seemed anyway.
AM. What did you, what did your parents do Derek?
DE. What did?
AM. What did your parents do, what work did your dad do?
DE. My father, my mother was a housewife, my father was an electronic, electric engineer and em pneumatic. That’s em, he worked in the collieries installing the machinery.
AM. Right
DE. And em, and he served in the first war and em he got some medals for that, ‘cause he, one day he heard somebody crying in no mans land, he went over the top.
AM. So he was in the Army?
DE. Yes, he was in, first of all he was in eh [pause] thousands in the Middle East, what do you call it, the Dardanelles and he got away with that. In fact, he brought a shell back that had burst near him [laugh] and I have still got it somewhere.
AM. Still got it.
DE. And eh, eh, then he was, oh he was quite an authority in the eh Scout Movement, and eh if, if they haven’t been destroyed, I’ve got letters from Baden Powell to him and from Lady Baden Powell to him yeah, he helped in the formation of that.
AM. So were you in the Scouts?
DE. Oh I was.
AM. Tell me a bit about your childhood?
DE. Well, I went to school as an infant and, eh it was at Edlington, and eh I think my father must have had a bit better job than a miner because we lived in the top village and it was new, it was all new that, but I had to go down to the old village to school. And eh I used to go dressed, I had a little suit and a tie and did I get some hammer from the scrubbing sods down there, and eh the only thing I remember about that is I got hold of one of these lads and I pulled him up to me, and me hand went up like this, somebody got hold of it. It was me father.
AM. This was at school?
DE. Coming home from school em, yes, and I had waited for that devil because he had taunted me quite a bit. And eh I, I cured him.
AM. Your Dad stopped you thumping him?
DE. Yeah, I would really have done something [unclear], knocked him about I would.
AM. So that was the village school, what about when you were older and in your teens?
DE. That’s eh, one day my father came home from a colliery, I learnt after it was Bentley and there had been an explosion there and he was filthy, his clothes were in rags. And em, I heard him say to my mother, ’that’s the last time I go down the colliery’, and eh he gave his notice in and eh he had no job. And then he managed to get a supply of electrical goods, he was an electrician he knew all about that job and he was selling those, he used to go round the streets selling them and he built a good business up and then the war came. He lost all his contacts and we had to come out of our nice house and get a cooperation house, council house, and eh I went to, I then joined Doncaster Council.
AM. Let me just ask you, so what age were you when you left school then, ‘cause you would be fifteen when the war started, you left at fourteen.
DE. Em.
AM. So what was your first job?
DE. I got a job taking papers around and eh I gave my mother my first wage packet of five shillings, yeah. And eh and then I got eh, and then I left school at fourteen and I was on the streets.
AM. On the streets looking for a job you mean?
DE. Well walking about looking for a job and somebody said to me, “oh, you know Taylor of Colbridge’, do you remember them? ‘looking for an errand boy’ so I went in there and said, ‘I have come for that job’ and they gave it me.
AM. So what did you do, what did you have to do, what did that consist of?
DE. Well first of all it was delivering orders of books round Doncaster, eh and inside three months there were three other errand boys in there, and inside three months I was in charge [laugh], bighead [laugh]. And em, I er carried on there and eh the boss said, ‘would you like an apprenticeship?’ I said, ‘Yeah I would’, so I took an apprenticeship with them at ten and sixpence a week. Ten and six a week, which was a good wage in those days.
AM. A good wage indeed.
DE. And eh I carried on there and er and at six er at sixteen em, I was a junior there and at sixteen I was senior. All the folks had been pulled out in to the War and they left me in charge of that ruddy shop, d’know, at sixteen.
AM. So we are 1940at the beginning of the war, the first year of the war.
DE. Oh yes it would be, wouldn’t it?
AM. Yeah.
DE. And eh I run that all right, eh there was a lot of turnover I maintained it, eh I think it was, about thirty thousand a year, which was a lot of money.
AM. A considerable amount.
DE. I was in charge of about six women [laugh] old women, they were all twenties and thirties and they were all old to me of course, but I ran it, I carried on with it and eh part of there was printing you know, and of course I learned the printing job. I was a stationer, printer and bookseller officially when I came out of there. Well, I was eighteen, at seventeen, I heard they wouldn’t take aircrew unless you volunteered.
AM. Why did you want to be aircrew particularly rather than Army, Navy.
DE. Well, I thought it was a bit cleaner than being shot in trenches [laugh].
AM. True.
DE. Well, me father told me about his, he did fourteen to eighteen in the Army and he was in France, he was in Passchendaele. He used to tell me all about them actually and somewhere in that house of mine, I have got a recording of him telling the tale of the Red Baron being shot down over the trenches yeah.
AM. Baron Von Reichthoven.
DE. I’ve got that somewhere.
AM. So you are getting to seventeen, they wouldn’t take aircrew unless you volunteer.
DE. And I volunteered at seventeen, I went down to the Royal Air Force Recruitment Centre and got signed on.
AM. Right, where was that in Doncaster?
DE. In Doncaster, yeah, well my interest [unclear] out the place. My interest in aircraft started, oh, in the thirties because I was only a kid and my father used to take me to see the aircraft at Finningley, and in those days, you could walk on and walk up to the aircraft you know and I used to talk to the aircrews that were hanging about them, and eh I got really interested in, and they were, now then, Vickers Vimmies, em oh I can remember them over, I will tell you what they were later on, Vickers Vimmies.
AM. It’ll come.
DE. Aye?
AM. It’ll come
DE. Oh, it’s there yes and the Handley Page, eh the Handley Page, it had the gunner on the, in the front nose and the two engines were at the side of course. And eh, I had a look round and I was dragged into one, one day just to show, show me and I remember they had thirteen there and they went off on a [unclear], what did you call it eh, eh countryside eh, travels so. And eh thirteen took off and they got two back they crashed the rest of them.
AM. This was before the war?
DE. This was in the thirties, when the Vickers Vimmies and Handley Page Heyfords, Heyfords, em yeah and from then I have been interested in aircraft.
AM. So, you are interested in aircraft and you want something cleaner than the trenches, so off to the RAF Recruiting Officer.
DE. Yeah
AM. So they signed you up, but then what?
DE. Well eventually of course, my eighteenth birthday turned and they called me up into the Air Force and em I got, I got into the Aircrew Receiving Centre, Aircrew Receiving Selection Centre and it was in the Zoo in Regents Park [laugh].
AM. Had they, at that point, done any testing or anything to decide whether you were going to be aircrew or Ground Crew.
DE. Wait a minute.
AM. Sorry, going too fast.
DE. Typical woman rushing away [laugh].
AM. I apologise.
DE. And eh we was in the eh, the melee of being selected and, and, and I passed the exams for Pilot and they, after a week or two, we were square bashing at that, we were feeding amongst the monkeys [laugh], the zoo and eh one day some sort of Air Force bloke, I didn’t notice what his rank was in those days eh, ‘does anybody know morse code?’ I said, ‘yes I do’, ‘why?’ I said, ‘because I have got a radio station meself and with another bloke, we rented an office, an office we were using in the middle of Doncaster for half a crown a week’ [laugh], and we got all the gear in there. And eh this bloke said, ‘we are short of recruits for radio officers, do you think you could, like to transfer?’ ‘Yeah, I don’t mind, it’s flying, I’ll come’, and I then went down into the radio school and eh I spent twelve months there, came out, it tells you in the book there, came out and qualified a radio operator.
AM. So it was twelve months?
DE. I am sure it was twelve months yeah.
AM. Don’t matter, so what was that like, tell me a bit of what the training was like, easy, hard?
DE. It was hard yeah, it was not particularly hard for me actually em, they could fire morse at me all the days of the year and I could take it then, it’s a good job ‘cause when I was flying on operations, I had, it was all the time morse was coming in from headquarters em, eh Bomber Command headquarters. Go on, you tell me?
AM. No I can’t remember.
DE. And eh it all came in code and you had to be taking it down, writing it out and I could take twenty words a minute then [laugh], and I used to say to the Pilot, ‘oh there is diversion on, we are diverted when you get to such and such a place’, and that is how a radio operator used to perform and weather reports used to come through.
AM. So you finished your training as a wireless operator, what happens next after that.
DE. Well, I got, I don’t know, I was selected and I was given a course of radio navigation and it was a month, and I had a what I call them ‘sprog pilots’, they had just qualified and they wouldn’t trust a good pilot with me [laugh], and I used to fly all over the country and tell him where to go and what city he is going to do. I did that for a month, I did it successfully and I was passed out as a radio operator one then, and then I went to gunnery school and I went to, majority of them didn’t but I was selected to go to Gunnery School and I have no idea why.
AM. Not as a trained radio operator, not when you were already a trained wireless operator.
DE. Well in Bomber Command eh, there were more WOP/AG’S because if anything happened to the rear gunner, he was shot, my job was to crawl down there, open the doors, chuck him out into the open space and get in, sit in the guns [laugh] and that was the procedure yeah. I went to gunnery school, I have got the results there, they are good results and eh [looking through papers].
AM. I am just flicking through the log book for the tape to find where we are up to.
DE. Let’s have a look at it please.
AM. So we are looking at, we are looking at the initial trips here and the results of the initial courses.
DE. You are nowhere near the operation here.
AM. No, I know, no, no.
DE. Ah this is it look, extra syllabus.
AM. So we are May, June ‘44 and we are on the gunnery course.
DE. Yes
AM. And the results of the gunnery course are above average a very keen Cadet.
DE. [laugh] and when I were in gunnery, I used to be in the top turret of an aircraft in the mid upper gun turret, and eh they used to fly, now then a master, or an em, they are Masters aren’t they? Single engined training aircraft towing a long drogue and we had to hit it. You had to fire at that thing coming over you.
ME. A bit like clay pigeon shooting, not.
DE. Oh, I have done plenty of pigeon shooting.
ME. Oh later on. So, I’m looking at the fact that you were given extra syllabus training, given in lieu of bad weather, which cancelled flying.
DE. Yes, ah and that’s Dominies, isn’t it? Yeah, Domini that’s it. The De Havilland Domini was a twin engined twin winged aircraft I don’t know whether you -
ME. No.
Unknown. A biplane.
DE A biplane yeah, it was a lovely aeroplane that, lovely.
AM. So you have done your WOP training, you’ve done your gunnery training. What next?
DE. Eh after gunnery, I don’t know what they call it, it was advanced flying school, oh that’s advanced gunnery course.
AM. You moved onto the Operational Training Unit I would guess.
DE. No not yet.
AM. No, was that later?
DE. [unclear] Wigton that is on the West Coast of Scotland and I don’t know what we were supposed to be doing there, have I made notes of it? [pause] It’s just the details of what we were doing, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s Advanced Flying School, and then I went to No. 18 Operational Training Unit. How I got to there was, we were paraded one morning and eh this corporal came out and he said, ‘I am going to read out names and say a place where you are posted to. You will find that some is going to Leuchars in Scotland’. The bloke next to me said, ‘I live at Leuchars’, he said, ‘the others are at Finningley at Doncaster’. I said, ‘and I live at Doncaster, what is your name, I will swap you names’. Well, this Leuchars name came up, put me hand up, join the queue for Leuchars. No, I, t’other way round, yes, and when it was all, come out in the wash, I was going to Bomber Command, so I thought I had dropped a clanger here, and he was going to Coastal Command, so anyway I joined 18 and we were, we were put in a big, we were put in a Hanger with four, and there was a desk in there and there were four candles. The bloke sat there he re [unclear] they got a seventy-two scale Spitfire if you like and he went, and you had to shout out, and I got everyone right.
AM. Right, so what were you looking at?
DE. I was looking at the aircraft.
[Unknown]. Aircraft recognition.
AM. I’ve got you actual recognition of aircraft, I’ve got you.
DE. An eh, Peter Russell, who was and who’d come and he was in this hall, and there was about four hundred of us and eh he came to me and he said, ‘would you like to become my radio operator?’ and he had done a tour.
AM. How did you know he had done a tour.
DE. He told me.
AM. Ok but he had a little brevet as well that shows that they had done a tour I think. He talks about that in his book that maybe at crewing up, people were happy to join him because he had already done a tour, so you are probably going to be safe with him.
DE. Yeah, he was good looking too.
AM. Right, so he decided.
DE. Couldn’t keep the girls off him.
AM. So at crewing up then, there’s you.
DE. So, there is a Pilot, Colin Richardson, Navigator, Derek Evans the Radio Operator and Titch Haldred the Rear Gunner, is that it?
AM. Yeah, I have got them written down.
DE. Where do you get that from?
AM. The book.
DE. Oh, I see and I did quite a fair lot, quite a lot of flying to a lot of places.
AM. And this was on Wellingtons.
DE. Wellingtons, we used to go wandering around the Continent you know and eh and from then -
AM. Sorry to interrupt, so at this point there is five of you, ‘cause you are in a Wellington and you are doing your training on Wellingtons based in, where were you actually?
DE. Finningley.
AM. You stayed at Finningley.
DE. Eh well we used to use the satellite at Worksop.
AM. Yes, I had scribbled down Worksop.
DE. Finningley was the base and em, and then what, what happened then. Oh, went to eh, four engined aircraft and that was Halifaxes.
AM. So this is heavy conversion unit to get you used to big boys.
DE. Yes, and therefore we had two crew, we had an engineer and a mid-upper gunner.
AM. And I think I’ve got the names here. Tim Cordon was your Flight Engineer and Tony Large was your Mid Upper Gunner. So you picked up your extra two and got seven of you.
DE. No, I am telling lies, he was a Dubliner. I said to him, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ he said, ‘you don’t think you are fighting the war on your own’ [laugh].
AM. So you went to Heavy Conversion Unit I think at em, Blyton.
DE. Blyton yes, it was the base was Lindholme, but the airfield was -
AM. Was at.
DE. Yeah.
AM. And that was initially on Hali, on old Halifaxes.
DE. Yeah.
AM. So what was the wireless operator bit, room, not room, area like in the Halifax?
DE. Ruddy awful, in fact I, I wouldn’t say it terrified me but it frightened me to death.
AM. Why was it ruddy awful?
DE. Well, there was a staircase and em, the Pilot sat on the top of this staircase and I sat directly under him, in trouble and the aircraft spinning, do you think I got down those stairs? No, no, you were pinned in, no, you had no room, I had full radio gear there. I could do all the nice flying, I could do everything you want to but I wouldn’t have like to thought I was getting in operations in it. Anyway, then we went to Lancaster Finishing School at Hemswell, an eh -
AM. So how different, tell me how different was, the Lancaster was to the Halifax.
DE. Well, it is like coming, sitting in this room instead of a back passage somewhere yeah, you could walk about in a Lanc.
AM. And the wireless operator area was better?
DE. Well, there was the pilot, there was the bomb aimer, our front gunner and then there was the pilot and then there was the navigator and the radio operator, we sat together and that was a flight crew. You couldn’t take a four engined aircraft off without having a pilot, navigator and a radio operator yeah, three and eh good job as well, I will tell you later on. I pulled them out of the drink.
AM. Got some stories. So, you done your heavy conversion training, what did that consist of? Just basically up there?
DE. Circuits and bumps.
AM. Circuits and bumps.
DE. And familiarisation with the aircraft of course, but the radio gear was the same so I didn’t need any conversion to that because I knew that backwards.
AM. For your pilot of course, who was moving onto a completely different plane, to fly from what he had been used to on his first tour.
DE. Yeah, oh he used to fly Hudsons, that’s an American twin engined originally a civil aircraft and eh yeah, I’ll come to him in a minute if you like? [laugh].
AM. Sorry, where am I up to, we know where are you, so you have done your circuits and bumps, your heavy conversion training, got your crew.
DE. And then got posted to a Squadron, 625 Squadron.
AM. Yep, at RAF Kelstern.
DE. Kelstern, and the CO met us, because we were two crews posted there to replace two lost last week. So he says, ‘Good evening gentlemen, the only thing we can guarantee here is two weeks life. The crew, the other crew took off with us on the first operation and was lost’. They had one life em I went, well we went as a crew we went on, we went on, we did a tour, we did.
AM. When he said that to you though Derek, you are twenty years old.
DE. Twenty.
AM. You’re twenty. You have not done your first operation yet and he is telling you you’ve got -
DE. A years . .[unclear].. well
AM. I can’t imagine how that felt or what you thought about that?
DE. Em, well we were a little bit bravado, we said, ‘well we will bloody show you’ [laugh] yeah well Peter had done two years operational flying before that and our first operation was to Essen.
AM. Was this the, on your first one, well first of all, you start off, your pilot has to go as second dicky and not all of you went with him.
DE. I don’t know if I went on his second dicky or not, I can’t remember, but he normally took, this is the old, this is the experienced taking the new crew, they actually, they were the, he used to take, the old pilot, used to take the new pilot as second pilot, and he used to take his own navigator and his own rear gunner. So I wouldn’t go on that dicky, second dicky. I did a few of those when we took a new crew on ops.
AM. I’m just looking, so when you did your first one
DE. Was Essen.
AM. Right, let’s find it [pause]. Circuits, here we are. So, the very first one was HLB?
DE. High Level Bombing.
AM. High Level Bombing at Essen. So, tell me right, so this first operation you’re going to Essen, what was that like from the beginning. As in, you know, you are going, you start off, it’s going to be a night, night flight.
DE. Will you close your ears a minute [laugh]. Em the Battle Order, that’s an illustration of the Battle Order in there, it was posted in the mess in the morning and we had to go for breakfast, and eh we thought oh, tonight so what we did as a crew, at ten o’clock we used to go down to the aircraft and we used to go through it like a dose of salts. We used to make sure everything was working and the first thing we did was to say to the ground crew, ‘what’s loaded on here?’ and they used to say, ‘eighteen hundred gallons’ or ‘two thousand gallons’, and of course, if it was two thousand five hundred, we used to say, ‘a long one tonight’. Then we em, went back and had a meal and then we went to kitting out. Put our ‘chutes on and whatever we were going to wear. We used to find out by devious means the temperatures, ‘what are we going to wear?’” So, and then we went into briefing and eh I went into radio briefing, navigator went into navigator briefing and so on, and gunnery and then we had a briefing altogether where you saw the wall, and we used to think ‘bloody hell’ [laugh]. And eh we used to then get in the bus and took out to dispersal, where we climbed in our aircraft. And by ritual all aircrew before an op, had to wee on the wheels.
AM. That is better than doing it up in the air isn’t it?
DE. Yeah, you diverted me a little bit
AM. Sorry.
DE. It’s all right. It was really cold, I mean I’ve flown in minus fifty I, I, actually in conjunction with this, I’ll have to write you a story about Essen, I can tell you.
AM. Tell me what the story is?
DE. I can’t really without thinking about it but eh, Essen, we were up through the flak barrage but we didn’t enquire, we didn’t, we didn’t involve running into a fighter, and we came back on that and eh. That’s where that poor devil lost his life on that first flight of the next crew that we were replacing. So that was Essen done. Come back, you got a cup, a mug of cocoa and half a mug of rum.
AM. A mug?
DE. You could treacle it out the rum you know, if it was naval rum. I didn’t drink, it sort of thawed you out a bit ‘cause you come back from these raids, and I will say it quite bluntly, you were terrified. And em, and then of course you went to your bed and you slept very soundly.
AM. Did you speak with each other about how terrified you were or did you keep that to yourself?
DE. No, no, we, no, no, we talked about it. Because one was saying, ‘did you see that fighter, did you see that, did you see that going down on so and so’. Oh no, you portrayed the whole lot together because the pilot had a different view all together over the rear gunner. I had a different view of them all because I had the radar and I could, I could see every aircraft in, in the Bomber Stream.
AM. Is that the Fishpond?
DE. Fishpond, oh I have saved the, with that I have saved the crew on numerous occasions where I have said to Titch, in the tail, em, ‘aircraft two thousand yards astern, don’t know what it is but it looks quite small and it is going fast’, so we presume -
AM. So it is not a Lancaster then.
DE. It is not a Lancaster, well I can see all the lights around us em, because I used to say to the pilot ‘increase your height by about two hundred feet, ‘cause there is somebody converging on us’, and it would be another one of the stream, ‘cause we had a thousand in the stream you know. And he would raise the aircraft and you would feel the wash of something passing underneath and that was going to be a collision had we not had the knowledge. Mm, so, and then I would say to the, I would say to Titch in the tail, we called him Titch, he was about my size actually, and eh I would say to him ‘seventeen fifty yards, fifteen hundred yards, twelve hundred yards, you are now coming up to a thousand yards’, and he would say ‘I can see him’ and so, and once, I don’t know which. Well I do, I have got it somewhere down eh, I heard him say ‘bloody hell, there’s four of them’. and so they came in and eh the first one actually went up and he set a Lanc on fire above us. We saw them bale out and floating down and it exploded, and all the flaming petrol landed on the ‘chutes and they went, and the next one he decided to have a go at us. He went out to, he went out to starboard and was coming in like this, and I was counting out to Torrey in the top turret, ‘he is just above the horizon, em and is in within oh, he is coming up to about nine hundred yards now from us’, and I said to him, “he will, he’s a fighter and his guns point forward, he’s got to level himself up with us’. and I kept saying to him, “he’s levelling up, he’s levelling up, he’s levelling up’, and I heard Torries’ guns going brrrrr and this thing, so he got him, shot him down [laugh]. And em, the other time, our rear gunner never shot anybody down but he knew where they were, so they didn’t come in his range, but twice Torries came in because once a Junkers 88 came alongside us and he was stalking a Lanc in front of us, and he didn’t see us. Then I heard Torrey, and I heard Peter shout, ‘who’s firing?’ He said, ‘it’s me, oh I have just hosed a Junkers 88 down’. He must have killed the crew ‘cause it went straight down. Aye, I didn’t like to see that just the same, whether it was the enemy or what, but I do know if it hadn’t been the enemy, it would have been us.
AM. Exactly, exactly.
DE. And em, oh this went on night after night.
AM. Can I just ask you about that Cologne trip. So, it is your second one and I believe you, if I have got this one right, is this one where you had to land somewhere else?
DE. Oh, we were going, we were running in on the target and there was Kenny the Bomb Aimer just shouted ‘steady, steady, steady, steady, bombs open, bomb doors open, steady, bombs gone’, and the old Lanc, you know, we used to be at about seven or eight, yes, five hundred foot, it used to rise you know and then eh [pause], well heard, it was a god almighty bang, crash and lit the whole aircraft up and I thought [unclear], and eh we levelled up, Peter caught it again and we got it flying and [pause], no at that time he said, ‘I lost me, I haven’t lost me bombs’, so we went round again like stupid idiots, and we let our bombs go and him at the front said, ‘I haven’t got any bomb sight, the shell has hit it and destroyed our bomb sight’, so some wag in the back shouted, ‘let’s dive bomb them then’ [laugh] and we did, we used Cologne Cathedral as the sighting point and missed it.
AM. Was this the one where the compass and the chart didn’t match and you later found out that the compass had been shot up actually.
DE. Well what happened was that big flash [unclear], a shell had burst next door to us very, very close and had shaken all the navigation equipment that was fixed to the walls, onto the floor and Colin was groping round looking for it, and em we are flying along and em, I suddenly said to him, ‘Colin, you are running on about 230 degrees’, and I said ‘if my memories right, that’s heading for the Atlantic, yeah West’, you see, ‘no I’m not’. I said, ‘you are’, anyhow, I am arguing with him and I knew he was wrong.
AM. How could you tell?
DE. I could see all the bomber stream, I could see the fighters attacking them on the stream.
AM. On the fishpond.
DE. On my Fishpond and eh I saw the bomber stream converging north, and us converging west and eh anyway, Peter the Pilot he said, ‘what are you two arguing about?’ I said, “well we are off course, we should be wanting to swim back shortly because we are heading for the Atlantic’, and eh he talked to Colin for a minute or two and then he said to me, ‘Derek, take us home’, just that, ‘take us home’, and he dismissed Colin as navigator and eh I brought ‘em home, I brought ‘em home, and eh I got, I was given them the courses, I could read the courses off and I thought, thank god I had had some navigation training. We were, we were flying up country and I said I can’t get em, eh a beacon from Binbrook, because that was the local with the em, the pilots thing, that’s right, and if you keep those like that, you will get to where that is being transmitted from and if it collapses, you are on, turned over it. So anyway, I couldn’t raise Binbrook and I couldn’t raise Binbrook and eh we were flying up country, and our rear gunner shouted, ‘there is an aircraft below us, in car headlamps’. Because I had just said to Peter, ‘by god, you are flying low’, he said, ‘I am looking for a field’, he said, ‘we have no juice hardly’. Eh so I said to him, ‘you use your flight control radio’, it’s a little radio in the pilots cockpit and I said, ‘shout Darky on it’, and eh he shouted, “Darky, Darky’, and all the lights came on and he whipped it round like that and banged it down on the runway, and eh a car came and he followed us to dispersal and em it was an American, it was half American and half British, I can’t imagine.
AM. Falkingham.
DE. Falking.
AM. Falkingham.
DE. Falkingham yeah that’s right, she knows more than me about this.
AM. Oh I don’t.
DE. [laugh] I didn’t notice you sat at the side of your mam like.
AM. I am a bit younger than that.
DE. I would have thought, you are alright anyway [laugh]. Anyway em, we parked and we went into the mess, God, the food was beautiful. The Americans used to fly their own food in you know, and eh it was served like pigs. You walked past the table with all this beautiful stuff on it, custard, kippers.
AM. All together?
DE. All together a plate full of [unclear]. The next morning, as usual, we went to look at our aircraft, ten o’clock in the morning, we always used to gather round the aircraft and eh it was like a colander. There were holes in it and eh Peter said to a so called engineer, who was walking about there, ‘how long are you going to get this kite ready, how long is it going to be?’ and he said, ‘that’ll not fly again’. And eh there was an unexploded shell which lodged in the port outer engine, if that had gone bang, um.
AM. And what about the compass, because at this point Colins compass, you brought them home because the compass wasn’t working.
DE. I bought mine, yes, through my radio detection gear.
AM. What happened to the compass.
DE. It was lying on the floor.
AM. So that had been shot as well.
DE. It had shot off, well I don’t know whether the explosion but it was lying on the floor of the aircraft at the back because the, the rear, what do you call it? That compass anyway was lying on the floor and it was giving all sorts of bloody readings to him, ‘cause I couldn’t believe that Colin had lost us because he had run us into targets and kept the forty five second window that we got to bomb.
AM. So Colin was vindicated.
DE. Yes, I he grumbled at me a bit ‘cause I, I told him, ‘You are out of your mind, Colin, you are wrong’, [laugh] and I knew he was.
AM. But it was his equipment rather than him?
DE. It wasn’t Colin, no, no.
AM. So that was only your second operation and you had to get back. Then how did you, you get back from there [unclear].
DE. On a truck.
AM. And what did they say to you when you got back to your own base?
DE. First thing I done, I went into Flying Control and I said, ‘what happened to the comp. The transmitter at Binbrook’, I said, ‘I couldn’t get that for the last, we were half up the country’. And I could have brought Peter with that device over the airfield, and I couldn’t and fortunately, the rear gunner shouts, ‘there is an aircraft in the car headlamps’. Anyway, ah I walked into Flying Control, Peter Russell, Colin Richie and Derek Evans, there was a line through us. They had written us off, dead and they wouldn’t answer my calls, and anyway, we had that out with them with a little bit of fury [laugh] and we were alright with them then, I mean. The aircraft didn’t fly again for some months and we got it again once.
AM. Did you?
DE. Yes, aye, but there was a hole in the floor, hole in the floor between me, and I used to sit with the navigator, close as this and our table was here, and eh there was a hole in the floor, hole in the ceiling something had come through and missed the pair of us. And my father was right, wasn’t he, ‘cause when I started this he said, ‘don’t worry lad’, he says, ‘the Devil looks after his own’ [laugh].
AM. But somebody was.
DE. Yeah, my mother was a spiritualist and, on that night, it was three o’clock when we landed, and she wouldn’t let me father and her go to bed, ‘he’s in trouble’, and at three o’clock she said, ‘he’s alright’.
AM. He’s alright now.
DE. That’s fantastic ‘aint it.
AM. Do you want a rest?
AM. So I am looking at other stuff that I’ve got here. I’ve, I’ve so we have done the Essen, we’ve done the Cologne, then we have Düsseldorf, Bochum.
DE. Bottrop, we were attacked by about four ruddy German fighters there with that. It was a terrible job that, I don’t know whether, I got some, I got some, I got some good notes but I never carry them about with me.
AM. I have got some here where, I think it was on your third one, that was one where I think you saw and aircraft hit. Tell me about, there was one, there was one where you had a near head on crash?
DE. Oh god aye, we were flying, well, we did, no, not quite all night bombing but most of it. That’s the aircraft I got together and the only things I haven’t made are the wheels, I couldn’t do rubber wheels.
AM. We are looking now at a picture of a model of E for Easy, Derek’s second Lancaster that he made and I have got a photograph of that.
DE. Do you know how long it took to make that?
AM. A long time.
DE. Two thousand four hundred hours, because I built it from the plans, and all these engines and all the ribs and everything are all scale fifteen scale. Two thousand four hundred hours and it is a beautiful model and it is made to fly, and I put it on our drive eh, I opened the throttles and it shot forward and I closed them. I thought that’s not going into the air ‘cause [unclear].
AM. You wouldn’t get it back. Tell me about the operation where you had a near head on crash?
DE. Oh well, it’s in the Ruhr, we had done the bombing and suddenly, we were flying like that, suddenly we went down and I looked up and I saw an aircraft pass over the top of us. I thought ‘bloody hell, that was a close one’, and Peter says, ‘I was watching that aircraft come towards us’, he says, ‘and when the wings filled my windscreen, I thought I had better dive’, and that one went up and it was a German fighter.
AM. Right.
DE. So he nearly got his chop as well.
AM. I am looking at, I am looking back at Derek’s log book here, at all the various things. So, in November ‘44 now we are talking about. So, thinking about what is happening generally, we have had D-Day, the Army.
DE. No, not in.
AM. In November ‘44.
DE. Yes, yes, D-Day was, was it June ‘44?
AM. June ‘44.
DE. Oh yes.
AM. So the Army are working their way up towards Germany now and you are still flying over Germany.
DE. We are taking out important points eh Dortmund, Durkheim, [unclear], Dortmund, good gracious.
AM. I think you bombed quite a few railway, railway lines as well, railway yards.
DE. And also, oil refineries.
AM. What did you think, if you did think at all about, about the, the people on the ground.
DE. Nothing, afterwards yeah, I thought oh dear, we got reports back, you had killed so many on that night and eh, we as a crew had killed four hundred and fifty Germans or something, and I was sorry. I don’t like killing eh, we have had to kill ah, while these German fighters were levelling their guns up, we had to kill ‘em quick or it was the man who got in first.
AM. Kill or be killed.
DE. Yeah, but I didn’t like, I didn’t like it particularly. I am not a killing man but you are if you get in the right circumstances em, yeah [laugh] yes. Em just to jump a year or two, I was, I didn’t attend a meeting and I was appointed President of an Air Gunners Association over the north here somewhere, and I thought, ‘flipping heck’, and eh I then said to myself, ‘what did I do. I know, lets go see if there is any German fighter pilots still alive’. I went to Germany, I walked into a Luftwaffe station, I said, ‘does anybody know anything about flying here?’ [laugh].
AM. And they said?
DE. Oh, I got ever so friendly with them, as a matter of fact, it eh, em we got invites to, my wife and I, got invites to stay with them and we invited them and their wives to stay with us. It culminated in, I cleared a couple of fields, ‘cause I still have the farm and em, I got, I asked the, I knew the Army, a Major in the Army, Richard somebody or other, and I said, ‘do you do any manoeuvres?’ and he said, ‘why’, I said, ‘I have quite a few acres of woods and fields’, ‘Oh’, ‘the price is couple of marquees and a field kitchen on Saturday, such and such a date’, ‘yeah that’s easy, yeah I’ll do that’, and they arrived and I issued an invitation to British and German aircrews, a hundred and twenty eight turned up. The wife says how are you going to feed these? Well, we got a few sausage rolls and that, and I said, ‘oh I know something’, and I went into see the CO at Finningley, a David Wilton, he was very friendly with us and eh I said ‘can I borrow a Jetstream for an afternoon?’ He said ‘what do you want one for?’ I said ‘I’ve got a hundred and twenty five British and German aircrew starving in a field of mine and I know that’, what is the German station, closing one down [pause] and eh I will think about it and I had heard on the grapevine that there was chucking food away and stuff, and so to fetch all these bottles of whisky and food into Finningley, it wasn’t changing hands was it? It was RAF in Germany and RAF in England, and eh when we put the, when we put the piles of food down on pallets, my drive was eighty five yards long and it was full, we had tons. I was, I was moved of course, I got a field kitchen cooking and eh I thought, ‘I wonder where they make all the sausages in Germany’. Just as a thought, so I undid a big bundle and got down to a small package, a kilo or something and it said ‘in case of complaint, such and such a company, Burnley’ [laugh]. I held it up and I said you bloody Krauts can’t even make your own sausage.
AM. Can’t make a sausage. I am going to pause while we have some lunch.
AM. So we are back now, we have had lunch, a bit of refreshment and Derek is raring to go, I think.
DE. Raring to carry on.
AM. Raring to carry on. So, we, we have talked about his early life and we have gone through joining up, crewing up, squadron, some of his first operations em. I think just before we paused, Derek was telling us about the near miss when he nearly had a head on crash.
DE. Yeah, I looked up and saw this bloody aeroplane two inches above me, well it seemed like it.
AM. Not long after that em, I think your pilot became a squadron leader, your squadron leader.
DE. Yes, he was.
AM. What difference did that make to rest of you as a crew, did that make a difference?
DE. No, no, no, no he, all the crews were all a family, all the crews were a family.
AM. Right.
DE. The only time I couldn’t get near him was what I used to crudely call ‘Birding’.
AM. Playing out with the ladies.
DE. Yes, and he was very good at that.
AM. You don’t mean, you don’t mean bird watching with binoculars then?
DE. Eh I don’t think he would know one bird from another actually.
AM. Also just before we finished or maybe just after we switched off, you talked about a landing at Sturgate with Fido, tell me about that, what happened?
DE. Well eh, they put some eh pipes and they didn’t quite join them up, there were leaks in them on both sides of the runway and [unclear].
AM. Yes, so as you are coming back from, dropped your bomb load, on your way back and it is not foggy as you are coming back.
DE. And I am saying to Peter, oh I got it through the ‘we can’t land at Kelstern’, ‘Oh?’ ‘We have been diverted to Sturgate’. ‘What’s Sturgate, we don’t have been of there’, ‘it’s Fido, Fog Investigation Dispersal Operation’, and em we arrived over Sturgate, there was just a blazing mass, there’s the air and the fog had been moved up to about five thousand feet I should think, so it was above, above the runway and the runway was just a mass of fire actually and Peter said, ‘god [unclear]’. Anyway, he landed down there and we were frightened, we didn’t want to get a tyre burst or anything, and em we landed there and then we taxied back up the runway, and we picked up a truck with lights flashing and took us into dispersal. That was it, we stayed there for the night. It was em, it was a dangerous job landing on that job, if you got anything went wrong with you and you veered off, you were burnt.
AM. It went down both sides of the runway, didn’t it, all the way down.
DE. Both sides about six thousand gallons of petrol, a minute was burning oh, colossal, colossal amount.
AM. How many times did you have to land on a FIDO? Just the once?
DE. Just the once um [laugh].
AM. Good job.
DE. Yeah, we took off on it, we got, the next day, message came through that Kelstern was clear, so we said ‘right, we might as well take off and get on back’, and so we did.
AM. But it was still foggy where you were?
DE. It was still blazing so we actually took off amongst the blazing petrol and em got up to a reasonable height and cleared off then.
AM. And got back to Kelstern.
DE. Lovely station was Kelstern, it was a -
AM. What was it like, tell me what Kelstern was like?
DE. A field.
AM. But you just said it was a lovely Station, what was lovely about it?
DE. Em, it was a family, there were no rules and regulations, it was just a station carved out of the countryside and all we got round there was just fields and woods, and eh it suited me because I had been used to woods and fields. We spent a nice time there and eh everybody knew everybody, there was no ‘morning Sir’, in fact the boss there was Air Vice Marshall John Baker. I saved his life once and he always called me Derek, never airman.
AM. So how did you save his life. I think I know this story but tell me anyway?
DE. Well, we set of to bomb em some German positions that were holding the British Army up.
AM. You say we, so he was with you.
DE. Oh Aye yes, he was with us and em we were flying over the North Sea and I got a message from headquarters, eh position over run, return to base and take your bombs and fuel back. Thirty two of aircraft and bombs and I said to Peter, ‘yeah whip it round, we have a recall’, and he said ‘our position is to fly with the boss’.
AM. So he was in a separate aircraft.
DE. Oh, in a separate aircraft, we were the aircraft escorting him because Peter was high up then in rank, and em we were to fly in Vic formation with him. You have heard of Vic formation, haven’t you?
AM. Yeah, yeah.
DE. And we kept on flying and I said, ‘Peter. aren’t you turning round?’ He said ‘I can’t let him fly over ‘cause we’re getting near the Dutch coast there you see’. So eh he said eh, so I said, ‘go a bit closer to him’, and I got the Aldiss lamp out and I winked out the message, and that stupid radio operator said, ‘Why?’. And I signalled back ‘read your bloody bomber [unclear] broadcasts’, and he disappeared and he did and em just before the Dutch coast and the Dutch defences. There were rockets you know. We used to fly along and a rocket would be fired and we would steer round it [laugh], you can’t believe it can you? And em I saw him then turn and we flew back with him, and em he said to me, he says, ‘thank you for saving my life’.
AM. So neither of you had dropped your bombs, the whole lot had to land.
DE. We were loaded with petrol and bombs, thirty tons, and em Peter came in, came in last ‘cause we, they had all gone, they had all gone to land except for the gaggle, us and Peter said, ‘I will let him land and go back in after’, so we did an orbit or two and eh then he came in. His rate of sink was too much because a hundred mile an hour was the rate of sink of a Lanc you know, coming in to land. He was sinking a lot and he slammed the throttles forward and he came in a hundred, came in to land on full throttles and we [unclear]. I was in the astrodome, I thought, ‘bloody hell, we are not, we are going to be buried automatically in the field here, you know’, and em, he touched down and then, he was like this, wheel to wheel and he banged open the throttles and took off, and we went round and come and did a proper landing then. We got in the crew bus and we were detached, dispatched outside the Flying Control near the parachute section and all that, and there was John Barker, the Boss, he got all the air crew kneeling down on the hard runway and we were all with this.
AM. Bowing.
DE. Yeah, and Peter said to him ‘what’s all this’, and he said, ‘any bugger who can survive a landing like that is a god’ [laugh].
AM. I can’t, I can’t imagine landing with the full bomb load and how scary that must be.
DE. It was scary. A burst tyre would have made things hot.
AM. Very.
DE. Oh you wouldn’t have got away with it if you had burst a tyre.
AM. You know that Vic formation that you said, what does Vic stand for? I know what it is like and arrow head.
DE. Vee
AM. Oh vee, of course, yeah, but I was trying to work out what the I and the C stood for.
DE. Vic
AM. Vee, Vic, so it is the phonetic alphabet, isn’t it?
DE. Three aircraft.
AM. It is the point at the front.
DE. Yes, that the Vic.
AM. The ones that take the flak.
DE. Yeah.
AM. I read in the book that you led a formation of about two hundred at the front of that, and Colin got them all there and got them all back.
DE. Yeah, oh he was a good bloke was Colin, he was a bit shirty with me when I said, ‘you are bloody miles out, Colin’, ‘oh no I’m not, no I’m not’, and Peter says, ‘what are you two arguing about?’
AM. To be relying to, on his instruments. I am looking at, I am still looking at your log book here at some of the others “Gaggle Leader Training.”
DE. Yes, you are talking about Vic, aren’t you.
AM. Is that what, I am just looking at this.
DE. What do they say about a flock of birds?
AM. A gaggle of geese.
DE. Yeah.
AM. But it is got here that you actually did training for it.
DE. Yes that’s right, learned to fly in vics.
AM. Yes, got you.
DE. Because normally we flew alone, didn’t we?
AM. Yes within the stream.
DE. Yeah.
AM. And then you, what else have I got here, I’ve got one, I’ve got a little note about when you were attacked by some fighters near Nuremburg.
DE. Yes, yes.
AM. Can you remember that one, I might be jumping about too much now, and then the other note I’ve got is em that in April 1945 Kelstern closed, and you had to move to Scampton.
DE. Yes.
AM. And then your very last Operation was Heligoland?
DE. Heligoland yes, a submarine base. I remember running in over that and we weren’t leaders, we were in the main stream and eh we were dropping big stuff on there. Eh and I mean the ones with the em, ten tonners, they used to go through thirty eight feet of concrete and very often didn’t explode a few days later they would explode wouldn’t they. It was designed for that, what do you call it, delayed action yeah, ’cause we, we done one or two trips to em the Dortmund Emms Canal and eh we used to let the water out the canal [laugh] bad people.
AM. That’s one way of putting it.
DE. All eh, you see the submarine engines were made by MAN, M.A.N [spelt out name], you have seen the lorries and that was, that was down there anyway, Dortmund or somewhere and eh, they always used to use barges taking these submarine engines to Bremen to be fitted to submarines and they were all stuck there with no water in [laugh].
AM. That was the idea.
DE. Have a good trip, yeah, yeah [laugh].
AM. And that was it so that was April ’45, that last one.
DE. Yeah.
Unknown. When was VE day?
AM. VE Day was in May, early May, wasn’t it?
DE. Something like that, I know where it starts, the last operation and the next was delivering food.
AM. For the Operation Manna. How many of those did you do?
DE. How many?
AM. Did you just do one Operation Manna?
DE. No, we did two or three, did more than one anyway.
AM. ‘Cause you were flying really low level in Operation Manna weren’t you. What was that actually, after all that year of the full tour of dropping bombs and all the rest of it, now you’re dropping food?
DE. Well we was dropping food to this Hospital. I was stood in the astrodome and we were lower than the nurses standing on the roof.
AM. I know it was really low level, I didn’t know it was that low, I knew it was really low level.
DE. And you know, some years later, I take my wife to Buxton, to the theatre there, you know the theatre? I drove into this car park, lined up and got out and a Volvo came in and what a pigs ear he was making of trying to, so I got out and I am saying, ‘come on, come on’, you know, then I notice it’s Dutch number plates. So I said to him ‘are you a Dutchman then?’ and he said, ‘yes, have you been to Holland?’ I said, ‘I have been over it a time or two’, he said, ‘have you?’ I said, ‘yes, the last time I went I was delivering food’. He said ‘I’ve got some photographs’, he said, ‘I had hidden a box brownie camera’, and he’d taken photographs of us. He said, ‘I have got it with me and you can have them’.
AM. That’s brilliant.
DE. That was marvellous that was, wasn’t it?
AM. What was it, I can’t imagine what that must have been like to be flying so low that you could actually see the people waiting and, and for the food, because they were starving weren’t they?
DE. Oh, we would have killed them if we had dropped it on them, Aye, we were dropping six ton, lots and eh, we went along this low, we went Hague, I think we went somewhere else as well, I think it was the Hague.
AM. Yes, we’ve got the Hague here ‘Spam Droppings’.
DE. Spam Droppings, we call it spam yeah [laugh], and eh we used to, we dropped that and then we dropped, we went across low like that, if we could have put our wheels down landed on it, it was that low. Well, eh was perhaps thirteen, thirteen foot diameter [unclear] props they were and as soon as we let the things go, turned it over and went straight up. We was told not to fire at the defences because they had agreed not to fire at us and I remember Titch saying, ‘the buggers were going with us all the time’, their guns you know. He said, ‘and I got ‘em lined up as well’ [laugh].
AM. Just in case.
DE. Yeah, but the only one that was any trouble was an American. They fired at some of the defences and they shot him down. Serves him right, the agreement was made, it should have been kept.
AM. They called it ‘Chow hand’ didn’t they, we called it ‘Operation Manna’ and the Americans called it ‘Chow hand’.
DE. They would do. When we got a, we used to land at different places if there was fog like Sturgate, the Americans used to land with us in case, if their bases were fog bound and I remember once, this young airman, he attached himself to me, this American airman. ‘Will you show us a Lancaster?’ ‘Yes, I will show you a Lancaster’, and then there were the bomb trains starting and he said ‘where are all these going from?’ I said, ‘they are going to’, I said, ‘wait a minute, this is ours, look’. I said, ‘climb on one of those bombs and you will have a ride round’, so we rode round into the, into our dispersal and he lay on that aircraft until the last one was bombed. He couldn’t believe it, ‘cause I don’t know we eh, four thousand pounder, sixteen five hundreds eh about two and a half thousand pounds of incendiaries, that was a usual load you see. He watched every one hung cause he couldn’t have believed that lot would have done the whole lot of and American squadron, ‘cause their bomb load, maximum bomb load is four thousand pounds. Well, ours was twenty two thousand pounds.
Unknown. What on a Flying Fortress?
DE. Pardon?
Unknown. What on a Flying Fortress, American.
DE. And the German, what do you call that, Dornier 17 isn’t it.
AM. Dornier, yeah.
DE. That was four thousand pound load as well, they couldn’t carry anything.
AM. Well the Lancaster basically was a flying bomb factory, machine wasn’t it.
DE. That is what it was.
AM. And when you stand under it and look at when the bomb doors are open.
DE. Thirty three feet long.
AM. Yeah it is, so have I missed any stories about various operations. Can you think of any more that I have missed that you need to tell me about?
Unknown. The one that you were trying to get Derek was the fighter one, that was the one when Pete went into the Corkscrew, you know, the manoeuvres that got the fighters off the tail.
DE. Eh, I think it was Bochum, yes Bochum. It was a [unclear] because I have got a lot of.
AM. I think Bochum is just after the photographs.
DE. I see it, yes.
Unknown. I know you told me before, Derek, about how Peter had to turn, turn the Lancaster into, you know, the Corkscrew turn, upside down.
DE. We used to turn a Lancaster down like that and roll it, somebody says to me, ‘you can’t roll a Lancaster’. I said, ‘you bloody can with a fighter at the back of you’ [laugh]. I don’t know how many, I can’t remember how many fighter attacks I dealt with, because I dealt with them before the gunners saw them. Yeah look, ninety minutes to the target, Titch in the tail shouts, ‘fighter, fighter!!’
AM. Eight o’clock.
DE. ‘Eight o’clock level, corkscrew, left, go!’
AM. So describe that to me what that felt like from where you were sat?
DE. Where I was sat, I was glued to a screen, eh, well I used to do this with the armchair to hold myself there, ‘cause I’d be swung about and eh Its corkscrew left, right wing down, nose down, dive four thousand feet eh, and then eh, change the wing so that wing was down and then up and that’s why the corkscrew was like that you see, yeah. And that’s why we hoped that the fighters wouldn’t follow us em, and we through them off most we had, oh we had about twelve fighter attacks so we got used to it [laugh]. But with two very good gunners, they were, they were, I mean Torrey the Mid Upper Gunner shot two down, and he shot two down because em, ‘cause they got too close and he said ‘I waited’ and I was saying to him, ‘cause I was vectoring him onto this fighter coming in, and eh I said to him, ‘he has gone out to starboard but he is just, I can see him, he is just below the em, horizon’. He then said, ‘I can see him’, I said, ‘well watch him because he has no guns on top, he has got to fire out of his wings ‘cause he was a 110’, an eh we knew the German aircraft, we knew them very well, best thing for him to do was to study them. That, I can see him now, ‘cause I am up on top, looking, then I saw this fighter coming up and I said, ‘he is going to get his guns level on you, Torrey’, and Torrey let him have it, killed him, oh he killed him, killed him and eh that was five seconds to our demise. That coming up like that and he got him just before he got his guns level em, oh yes, em. Sometimes we got a bit of excitement.
AM. Ah, probably excitement you could have done without.
DE. Oh god, aye, yeah.
AM. And then it all just came to an end, VE Day, last operation. Just looking at your log book, after the Operation Manna, you did a couple of photographic em.
DE. Oh eh, yes in there you see, eh about ten of us nicked a Lancaster.
AM. Nicked a Lancaster?
DE. Borrowed one and then we, and what have I done now, called it?
AM. You have called it a Special Bombing Photographic.
DE. No, I didn’t.
AM. Was it later than that?
DE. Yeah.
AM. Let’s have a look.
DE. Oh we did a Cooks Tour as we called it, we borrowed an aircraft, well there were plenty [unclear] and I think it was about ten of us and we went round the Cooks Tour, up over the Ruhr and the targets we done and had a look at them, and we were shattered. We were shocked at the damage we’d done and eh fighter affiliation, that is you meet up with a Spitfire and it is trying, its got cameras and it is trying to shoot us down with cameras, yeah and that is where we learnt to fight night fighters. And then on 69 Reserve Flying School, I was, of all the flight crew, that was navigators, pilots, navigators, radio operators em, were given a five year call up if you like and em, they gave us an aircraft and we had a lovely time, this was after the war.
AM. Just before the after the war bit, so we have had VE day, you’ve nicked your aircraft and had a bit of fun going round looking at the bomb sites. How long, what, what happened to you then between then and demob, because it was usually quite a lengthy time wasn’t it?
DE. I don’t know why but eh I, I was posted to eh em, electronic school and I qualified as an electronic engineer then, and then I got on a fighter squadron, servicing their gear.
AM. In, in England.
DE. Yeah, and then I got posted to ruddy Scotland, Leuchars, do you know Leuchars?
AM. I don’t know it, but you talked about that right at the beginning.
DE. And eh -
AM. It’s Coastal Command isn’t it up there?
DE. Yes, it used to be Bomber Command and then it was Coastal Command. Because I think they took off from there and the adjacent station to bomb the ships in the fjords, that’s the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau and then em, I had been there a little bit and I was just about getting acclimatized I was posted to St. Leonards, the point of Cornwall.
Unknown. Penzance.
AM. About as far away as you could get.
DE. Yeah, and I thought to myself eh and I thought my demob number is number 53 and they are demobbing 45, ‘I’m not working’, I went. I went looking round the beach and I saw a bungalow for to let and I went in there and I didn’t turn up for work. But what I’d done was, I went into the, into the other aircrew that I was friendly with and I said, ‘book me into the mess will you, for each meal and sign Derek Evans’. Eh after a fortnight I thought, I wonder if they have missed me?
AM. So what did you do, just generally played about on the beach and had a rest?
DE. On the beach it was lovely, a bit of surfing and that, I was fit then and em, one morning I thought ‘I wonder if they’ve missed me?’ So I got on me bike and rode to the station, I went through a fence where the radar section was and somebody says, ‘the Adj. is looking for you’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘Is he?’ I went in front of the Adj. and eh ‘you have been absent without leave’, I said, ‘no I haven’t, go and look at the meals register’. Well he couldn’t get anywhere so he said, ‘you had better go and see their Radar Officer in charge of the radar section’, and eh he said, ‘you have been absent without leave’, I said ‘no I haven’t’. Bit of an argument and I thought ‘bloody bloke, he has been here all the blinking war, telling me off’, and at the end of the argument, I said ‘what you need is a bit of air under your arse’ [laugh] flying.
AM. And he said?
DE. Put me on a charge for insubordination and I went in front of the CO, and he says, he says, ‘you shouldn’t demonstrate discipline like this’. He gave me a right ticking off. My demob came up then about a fortnight after and I went in front of the same Group Captain, and he says ‘will you sign on?’ I said ‘after what you have told me’, he said ‘I have got to talk in front of these buggers’. But he had the same medal ribbons as me and I knew what he’d done [laugh], then eh I went, I, I, left then and he says, ‘I’ll guarantee you promotion to Squadron Leader in five weeks if you sign on’. He says, ‘we are losing’, he said ‘you are experienced ground crew, experienced aircrew’. I said ‘you’ll be right now’, I said. He said ‘Squadron Leader’, and I said ‘no’ I said, ‘I am going back to my own patch where I served an apprenticeship’ and I did.
AM. And that’s what you did. Were you married by then Derek, did you meet your wife in the war, during the war or afterwards?
DE. After the war.
AM. It was after.
DE. I wouldn’t entertain [unclear]
AM. Of course, you are still only twenty two or twenty three at this point, you were still only a baby in relative terms.
DE. Twenty two and em yes, quite a few contacts with WAAFs especially in the, well that’s put it politely, and there was one or two wanted to marry and I says ‘do you know what job I am doing?’ I says ‘tomorrow I might be dead’, I said, ‘if anything happened you became pregnant’ [unclear]. I said ‘no, I won’t attach myself to anybody’ and I think I did right. I eh was posted to Verne, that is near Selby and there’s a Holding Unit. They had bods in there and they were saying ‘I need six so and so, right six out of these’, and eh I was, I was driving up past the racecourse in Doncaster which was, well my mother’s home was there, just near the racecourse and I saw this WAAF working, walking on her own and I pulled up and I says ‘hello, what are you doing here?’ She was one of the Kelstern teleprinter operators. She said ‘I have been posted to Verne’, I said, ‘that’s where I’m going, get in’, so I took her up there, and eh I did marry her actually, eventually. Me dad said to me, when I took her home the first time, ‘she’s no bloody good to you, you know’. My god, was he right, I didn’t last long with her.
AM. So this wasn’t Edna then. That wasn’t Edna then because I know that your wife that you have been married to for a long time, was Edna.
DE. No, I don’t know if it is for publication actually. She was a chemist was Edna and she was in, worked in Boots, just down, and I managed an office equipment shop, just above and we just used to say ‘hello’, you know, nothing and eh, I was living with me father and I was in the pub one night and I used to meet all the builders and business folks, ‘cause I used to collect business, you see. And em, ah, I am trying to think of his name now, Terry it was, anyway I said to him ‘Are you building any houses?’ He said, ‘I have got whole estate going at ‘em’. I said, ‘have you anything cheap?’ He said, ‘Well I have a very nice bungalow, er, next to the field which we are not building on’, I said, “oh, what do you want for it?’ and he said, “two and a half thousand pounds’. I said, ‘I’ll have it’, and I bought it off him in the pub [laugh]. I move in there and I was in there for a bit and eh I kept seeing Edna, I used to chat with her, nothing extraordinary. She said ‘What have you done then?’ I said ‘I have moved from me fathers’ place, I’ve bought a bungalow in [unclear], a brand new one’. ‘Oh’, she said, ‘what’s that address?’ Anyway, bless her, I am having my dinner one day, I used to go, it wasn’t far from where I worked. She knocks at the door, she had all her cases with her. I said ‘what are you doing?’ She said ‘I’ve come to live with you’ [laugh].
Unknown. That’s very forward.
AM. And that was that?
DE. Oh, I took her in and that was it, yeah and I was with her, I have been with her sixty odd years, sixty six years.
AM. How did the, you know, I know you, you talked about what you did after the war, but you know the model building, how did the model building come about?
DE. Well. I used to build models, I have built hundreds, ships, aircraft.
AM. As a hobby, this is a hobby, not as a job.
DE. Yes, and I eh, a friend of mine said, he was one of the officials at the brewery, John Smiths, and I said ‘have you got any property you are getting rid of for nought?’ And he said, “yes, got a nice one in Silver Street, a nice’, but he said ‘but Legards are in it’, but he said, ‘their things coming to an end’. He said, ‘so you had better put in a thing’, so I had a look at it and I thought, ‘this would make a good shop’. I don’t know what, I don’t know what I was thinking of, and then, and then I thought a model shop, yeah, a model shop. Em, the bloke who’s in it, what they call him, I don’t really know him now but, he says ‘Oh, your lease is coming to an end’, ‘cause I rented it from him for a week or two, and he says ‘the lease is, so your rent will have to go up’, so I said to him, ‘why, has your landlord put your rent up?’ ‘No, I am going to see him’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘you had better come back to me and tell me how much you want more’. He came back to me and said ‘you cheeky bugger, you own the place’.
AM. You are the landlord [laugh] and I think on that note.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Derek Carington Evans
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-14
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AEvansDC160714, PEvansDC1602
Conforms To
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:42:07 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Derek was born on June 20th 1924 in Edlington near Doncaster, volunteering as aircrew at the age of 17.
After leaving school at the age of 14, Derek delivered books in and around Doncaster before going down to the Royal Air Force Recruitment Centre in Doncaster and signing up for service after developing a love of aviation after seeing Vimmies and Heyfords.
Derek passed his exams for a pilot, however trained as a wireless operator because of his knowledge of Morse code. When he was crewed up, his team flew in Wellingtons at RAF Finningley, with 18 Operational Training Unit.
Derek then was transferred to a Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Blyton, where he worked on Halifaxes, before being posted to 625 Squadron at RAF Kelstern, flying on Lancasters.
He completed operations to Essen, Dortmund, Cologne and also targeted the oil refineries. Derek also took part in Operation Manna, dropping supplies in Holland.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Netherlands
Germany
18 OTU
625 Squadron
Absent Without Leave
aircrew
Anson
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Dominie
FIDO
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
military discipline
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Blyton
RAF Finningley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kelstern
superstition
training
Wellington
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/568/8836/AFittP150519.2.mp3
81db65d296c732124d3b40d329ce903a
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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Fitt, Peter
P Fitt
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Fitt, P
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Fitt (Royal Air Force) and two photographs. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 467 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Fitt and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2015-05-19
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: So that is now recording –
PF: Right.
AS: Right, as I’ve explained, this is an interview with Peter Fitt, Flight Lieutenant Signaller, from the Royal Air Force Bomber Command during the war. The interview’s carried out by Adam Sutch at Cromer, on the 19th of May 2015. The interview is also for the International Bomber Command Centre digital archive, and also present is Peter’s daughter, Jane.
PF: Yep, right.
AS: Peter, thanks ever so much for agreeing to be interviewed, I’d like to set the scene by asking you to describe your life before joining the Air Force. A little bit about your home, your parents, brothers and whatnot?
PF: Well, well that’s very quick. I was in horticulture so, and my father was a head gardener, and he was keen – I wasn’t – he was keen on me going into horticulture. I wanted to go into the Air Force, ‘cause I was still at the grammar school and there was opportunities to, to join the Air Force, but I – it didn’t materialise, and I was a bit angry at the time, but it didn’t matter, when your children, you get on with these sort of things, and the war came along [chuckles]. Course I went into the Air Force, and that was that, I’d, I became aircrew and I flew on operations during the war, against Germany, and in Lancasters like the one up there, and that’s [laughing] about all I can say apart from describing every trip which is – I don’t want to do that.
AS: No, no of course. When you were growing up, whereabouts was this? Where did you grow up? In Norwich?
PF: Where did I grow up? Oh yeah well, I went to Thetford Grammar School, and I left –
Jane: Where were you born?
PF: Oh, where was I born? Yes, well I was born at Earlham Hall here in, in Norwich where my father was head gardener, and erm, see the connection to horticulture [chuckles], and then I – where was I until you, I –
Jane: Then you went to Breccles Hall.
PF: Ah yes, then I –
Jane: But your father moved –
PF: My father, my father moved as head gardener at Breccles Hall and I was four I think when we moved, I went the local council school, and then I went to Thetford Grammar School when I was eleven, and that’s where I was until I, until I left. Got the usual thing one gets from grammar schools, a school certificate and things like that, and [pause] then it was – a war was declared and I always wanted to go into the Air Force, and my father wouldn’t let me go, and, ‘cause when I was at Thetford Grammar School, there was chances every year, the Air Ministry used to come send people round and, canvassing for chaps to go into the Air Force, but he wouldn’t let me, so when the time came along when he didn’t have anything to do with it, and of course I went into the Air Force [chuckles].
AS: What, what year would that be? What, what month and year?
PF: This would be at the outbreak of war, round about ’39 time.
AS: Okay, so what, what did you want to do in the Air Force? What was your plan when you joined?
PF: Well, my plan was, when, when I joined was to be a pilot and, let me think, I gotta get some things straight. I was at Uxbridge, and oh, there wasn’t a vacancy at the next pilot school, he gave, they gave me an excuse anyhow, perhaps they didn’t want me or what, however I didn’t get, I didn’t get my course, and I carried on and I wanted to be aircrew, so I became a wireless operator [chuckles], a diddy dit dah dit man.
Jane: Was it Bicester?
PF: Pardon?
Jane: You went to Blackpool to learn Morse code.
PF: Yes, that’s where I started – yes well – yes at Blackpool and Yatesbury for wireless operating.
AS: Could we go back a bit? What did you do, what, to join the Air Force? Did you –
PF: What was I before the war?
AS: Sorry?
PF: What was I before the war?
AS: No, what did you do to join the Air Force? Did you go to a recruiting office or, or, or what?
PF: Well, I, I just went to the St Martineau Hall in Norwich here, and I joined the Air Force from there, ‘cause I was working at Crown Point, during [unclear] horticulture actually, and I was at Crown Point, I lived in the boffy there, and, so I naturally went to the recruiting station in Norwich and joined the Air Force.
AS: And that was it, you just –
PF: That was it. And I was in, I think I was in the Air Force for a fortnight and I was flying in a fortnight or so.
AS: Good lord. When, where, after the recruiting office, can you describe to me a little bit about the process of joining the Air Force? So, what they did to you, where you went, how you were messed about, that sort of stuff?
PF: Well, I was messed about quite a bit, by waiting to go – be – [pause] to, to sign on as it were, and I had to go to a place called St Martineau Hall, is that right?
Jane: No that’s County Hall. Martineau Lane is where County Hall building is now.
PF: Where who is?
Lucy: Norfolk County Council building is actually on Martineau Lane.
PF: Oh, are they? Oh yeah, oh of course –
Lucy: That’s where the archive centre is actually –
PF: Well that’s why I joined the Air Force there, and signed on, because I, I was determined to go into the Air Force, my father – I was at the grammar school, I had a chance to go in the Air Force when I was fifteen, course they use to take boys from grammar schools, and I, he wouldn’t let me do it, so the time came, when I was all on my own, so I did it, and I went into the Air Force and that was it. I was, I was a wireless operator – trained as a wireless operator. I did my first tour of ops as a sergeant, a flight sergeant, and then I was, I was commissioned, and then I got a permanent commission and I was a flight lieutenant, and so that was my life in the Air Force. I was a signals, I was a signals leader in the in, and so that was my lot – my life was spelt and spent in the signals actually.
AS: Great. Let’s just wind back – we’ll get onto operational flying for sure – let’s wind back to how they got you into the Air Force. So where did they, where did they send you for kitting out, and what was the process of actually becoming an airman?
PF: Oh, what was the process?
AS: Yeah.
PF: Well, I, I of course volunteered here in Norwich, forgotten the name of the street now, and I just went and signed on there, and within a few days I’d been called up, and I was at Uxbridge [chuckles] in a uniform, much to my parents’ horror. You can imagine my mother [chuckles].
AS: Absolutely. And this, this was as selected for aircrew already, or was this basic training to start with? Basic recruit training?
PF: Yes, that’s right, yeah. It was recruit training and as I was going in for the signals, I was naturally pushed to places where you could – you got used to the life, and the Morse code and all that sort of thing. However, that’s roughly how it worked, is it – was that all you wanted to know? I can’t give you a lot of detail.
AS: No, no, we’re fine –
PF: My logbook is up there somewhere –
AS: We’re doing well. Perhaps we could do it from your logbook to an extent. So, when you’d done your recruit training, and you were selected for aircrew, what happened then, for your signals training? Were you selected for signals straight away, or given some sort of tests?
PF: Well, I wanted to be a pilot, and I tried to be a pilot – I went through numerous selection things, and every time they said, ‘well Mr Fitt, we recommend you to go to Yatesbury’, I think it was to Number Two Radio School, and go in for, and go in for signals. Become a radio operator aircrew, which I did of course, and I was a signals leader and I went right up the ladder in the signals side, but – there we are. But I was a flight lieutenant, signals leader. What is it, Jane?
Jane: [Unclear]
AS: Thank you. Yes, so Yatesbury was your initial contact with signal, was it?
PF: Yes, well no, it wasn’t really. Blackpool was, Blackpool not only was a recruiting centre where I had to go when I first joined in 1940, but it was done by One Radio School or something, so I had a little bit of wireless training there, but my main wireless training was done at, in Number Two Radio School in Yatesbury in Wiltshire. That’s where I started – I did all my training right the way through to OTU crewing up, and or not – I was on operations in early ’43, 1943, and I had a Norfolk pilot which was rather good [chuckles] from Ormesby [chuckles] –
AS: So, can you tell us – the period – you joined up sort of ’39, ’40, and the period between then and going on operations, were you being trained all that time?
PF: All that time yes, on radio, yes. But that, not – to answer your question correctly – not all that time. There was three or four months where I found myself at Royal Air Force Watton, two miles from where my parents lived, so that was very, that was very handy, and I was there as a radio – as a wireless operator. Well it wasn’t bad because I was, I was in keeping with the Morse code and all that sort of thing, and then from there, that’s where the whole career started, and I was flying and I crewed up and I did my tour of ops in 1943, I made thirty trips and went back again in – oh God I can’t remember, 1945, in between time I was at, back to Yatesbury as, ‘cause I was commissioned, so I went back as officer in charge of the wireless flights, so I [unclear, chuckles].
AS: When you went to Watton, early on –
PF: Ah yes, I was – that was before I was commissioned. I was there as a ground operator actually, as a wireless operator, and Watton near – my parents lived three miles down the road [chuckles].
AS: As a, as a ground wireless operator, were you involved with DF-ing aircraft? What were your duties?
PF: No, I could have been, but it was purely SHQ, station headquarters, radio operating, which was station to station. It wasn’t for very long, and I was back in aircrew training again.
AS: Okay. Did you do very much flying whilst you were training?
PF: Yes, I did, I did a tour of ops in 1943, doing my thirty trips, and I went back again, on my second tour – I can’t remember the date – what was the – have you got my logbook there, Jane?
Jane: Yep, yeah it was –
AS: When you were training as a wireless operator, did you do much flying or was it mostly on the ground?
PF: Oh yes I did, we flew in Proctors and Dominis at Yatesbury funnily enough –
AS: Really?
PF: And, yeah that’s all it amounted to and that wasn’t – these aeroplanes were fixed up with four-five sets, and you just went up there with an instructor and that was that.
AS: Mhm. And you learnt Morse code obviously, what –
PF: Yes, I had to do eighteen words a minute, for a start before you ever did anything, and then I became a signals leader, and I had to do twenty-one words a minute for that. But I never – you never use twenty-one words a minute. Twenty-one words a minute is very, is very fast Morse and it’s usually about eighteen is the comfortable Morse speed.
AS: Aside from the Morse, what else did your training consist of? Processes and procedures?
PF: Well, I [pause] fault detection, fault finding, if anything went, if anything went wrong with the transmitter or receiver, you were taught to look for different things to, try and trace it through. Didn’t always work, however, but you had to do it. FF - fault finding.
AS: Mhm. How about wireless bearings and things like that?
PF: Oh yes well that was all part and parcel of your work, and I had to take bearings knowing where and how to call up, using the, you know the Morse code getting a bearing, and that was your job really. That was – and getting, what was it [pause], oh God, I’ve forgotten the name of them now, getting QDMs [chuckles], you’re nodding your head as if you know what I’m talking –
AS: I know some of them, I know the important ones. I know QDM and QFE and one or two other things. Did you get involved with these flimsies at all? Little papers with secret information about station call signs and things like that. Was that part of the stuff you went flying with?
PF: Well, we always had, we always had a, carried a – what did we call them – a flimsy, which was, could be eaten if you were [pause] caught by the enemy, that contained all the wireless information, station frequencies and call signs that you required, so that was what happened. And most of us, you – you’re doing it yourself. [Pause] there was a picture somewhere – where is it? Oh there it is, of me sitting at my 11-54-55 there.
AS: That’s in a Lancaster, isn’t it?
PF: Yeah it –
AS: Yeah.
PF: You know the sets, did you? The 54-55 –
AS: Not a lot no –
PF: No, I didn’t know whether you were a wireless man.
AS: I – my father was a wireless man, not me. [Pause] was it all work? Did you get quite a lot of leave when you were training?
PF: Well, no – we got, at the end of each course we got leave, but there was no fixed leave like when, what we got on the squadron, and we were operating, you used to get seven days leave every six weeks, and that was, that was very useful, ‘cause I was married then, and yes and [pause] what else was there? Yes, that was about all, we were just lucky, only because I was aircrew.
AS: Before you got to aircrew, still on the training, apart from Morse speed examinations, did you have to take any other sort of technical examinations? Written –
PF: We had, had examinations on fault finding and [pause] repair work and, you know – what’s the word for, you know, there is a word that one uses, not second-hand, [pause] when you have a breakdown on a car, you –
Jane: Maintenance journal?
AS: No, no it doesn’t matter, I know what he means –
PF: You know what I’m trying to say.
AS: Yeah. Repair’s a good, repair’s a good word, yeah, it is. Okay. The chaps you trained with, did you form close bonds with them during training, as a unit?
PF: When, what? I’m not with you –
AS: When you were training as a wireless operator –
PF: Yeah –
AS: Did you form close friendships with others on the course? Other trainees?
PF: Well, no, we didn’t, well yeah, I think we got – one or two of us found ourselves on a squadron, but some weren’t fortunate, I think it just depends on your ability and how good you were at Morse and things like that [chuckles].
AS: Yeah. Again, during training, did you ever fly out over the Irish Sea on training flights?
PF: No, honestly, I never flew over the Irish Sea period.
AS: Okay. Now I have a special interest in asking, because of an organisation called The Training Flying Control Centre, but if you didn’t fly over there, we’ll pass that one.
PF: No, no I can’t get into that, because I wouldn’t know anything about it.
AS: When you’d finished your training, you’re entitled to your aircrew badge. Did you have a big parade with dignitaries, or did they send you to the stores to get it? What happened?
PF: No, no we had a – I was at Yatesbury and we had a proper passing out parade, which was purposely laid on for the benefit of the, what’s the word, esprit de corps, and that was it. A parade and an inspection by the CO, who would pin your brevet on [chuckles].
AS: And at that point, were you promoted?
PF: Well, immediately I became aircrew, I became a sergeant, then I was a flight sergeant, and then I applied for a commission and I was commissioned [pause] in the September, I think it was, and I became a signals leader, and I became a flight lieutenant, and I became a signals leader on a squadron, and so that was my history in, where signals are concerned.
AS: When you passed out and got your flying brevet, did you choose to go to Bomber Command or were you just sent?
PF: I was posted to Bomber Command. I was quite happy about it, because I didn’t fancy going into Fighter Command or, or into these fighter bombers, like Blenheims and Bostons, that wasn’t my cup of tea. I imagined myself like that sitting in the cabin [chuckles] and with, a large, with seven other members of the crew, and I was quite happy about that. That’s how I continued, I became a signals leader and a, what else, all sorts of things, a leading, you know how it goes, and the pay was good, leave was good, I was at Mildenhall only about twenty minutes away from my home[chuckles].
AS: So did, once you’d passed out, did you go straight to a squadron or, what happened then?
PF: Oh, we’re back in training? Well, I did operational training on a Wellington, on Wimpies –
AS: Whereabouts?
PF: Finningley, and Doncaster. Then I went to the squadron, via a, oh God, I can’t think of words, a conversion –
AS: Heavy conversion unit.
PF: Heavy conversion unit. At, can’t think, Winthorpe I think it was. Gosh, this is going back a bit, but it’s in my logbook, doesn’t matter, I don’t want to look it up, and that was the, my history in the Air Force. So, I was connected with signals all the time, even when I’d finished operational flying, I went as a signals leader somewhere. I was mainly at Mildenhall which was a bit of luck.
Jane: Can I just ask you, what about RAF Cranwell? When were you there then?
PF: Yeah, I was, I went to a course at Cranwell while I was at Mildenhall, Jane. Yes, Jane’s reminding me I had to go to Cranwell, mainly because I was commissioned, and they were feeding a, pilot officers into Cranwell to give you a taste of bullshit you know [chuckles], how it is and that’s how I, that’s how I got to Cranwell.
AS: Okay. What did you think of the Wellingtons that you were training on at the OTU?
PF: Well, the Wellington was, it was a wonderful aeroplane, it was so reliable and erm – I did all my training on Wellingtons until we were told we were going onto Lancasters, and that we would be going onto Manchesters to convert, and that was my routine, and on Manchesters and on Lancs and that was that.
AS: And at the OTU – was it the OTU you met your crew?
PF: Yes, I was crewed up at the OTU. We were still on Wellingtons then, and that was at Finningley.
AS: Can you tell me a little bit about the crewing up process? What you were looking for in a crew?
PF: Oh yes well, that, it was left to you, the courses arrived at the OTU, the operational training unit, and we were all called to a meeting [pause], the whole caboodle, and then we were told by the CO that we were all going to be put in so and so and so and so, some large room or dining room or something like that, and then we gotta leave it and you must crew up. So that’s the way we crewed up, we just, how did I crew up? Well Dennis was in – I recognised Dennis as a Norfolk accent, so that’s how I got my pilot, and the rest came from there, the others were just dillying around and that was that, we crewed up. We stayed together all those years, all those months rather, because we did a tour in about nine months. So that’s history.
AS: How long was the OTU process, and what time of year was it? Was it swift, or did you get weather problems or –
PF: Oh yes, we did have weather problems, particularly when we were having to do forced cross countries, and the weather was pretty lousy, and that was in sort of November, December time. And this was at, this was at Bircotes which was a satellite at Finningley in Yorkshire, and that was that. I did my OTU, went to, we crewed up at OTU, crewed up with five and we all went on Wellingtons, and we were then posted to [pause] an HCU, a heavy conversion unit where we converted, and this was at Swinderby, and we converted onto Lancasters, and that’s the history of the thing. I never flew on anything else, only on Lancs with the same crew.
AS: Can you remember what sort of training exercises you would do at the OTU? Things like nav-exes or bulls-eyes?
PF: Oh yes, going back to the OTU, that was before the conversion courses, well it was, mainly cross countries at night to get you used to the navigator and the navigator getting used to you and your wireless operating [pause] speciality, if that’s the right word, expertise is the word really, and that was that. That’s what I did, we crewed up and five of us were sent to – we crewed up in five, in Wellingtons and then we were posted to RAF Swinderby where we converted onto Lancasters, with, had to have two more crew, that was an engineer and another gunner added to the five, so that made seven, and then we trained there and we went to the squadron and we were on operations, just like that.
AS: How did you interact with the navigator?
PF: At, at the what, process?
AS: When you were airborne, how did you interact with the navigator? Providing him information, or -
PF: Well, Bert and I, Bert Tischington was the navigator, we got on very well together. We trained on Wimpies as a crew of five, Wellingtons that is, and so we got to know each other very well and we, so we never looked back. We did a tour of ops, complete tour on Lancs [coughs] ‘scuse me [coughs] good God. And that was that [chuckles]. Oh dear, excuse me.
AS: Yeah of course [pause]. Did you have to learn other things that you hadn’t learned in training when you were actually preparing for operations? Things like Z-procedure, using the wireless for landing? Did you get involved with that at all?
PF: I wasn’t involved with that at all. [Pause] my main job was with the navigator really, ‘cause we were training for long distance stuff with Lancs, ‘cause that’s where we were destined to get onto Lancaster squadron where we, which we were, we went to I should say, so henceforth, I was on Lancs until the end of the war I suppose, [pause] but it was just like that up there [chuckles].
AS: Right, we’ll pause the tape for a little while if that’s okay –
PF: I’m sorry, you’ll what?
[Tape paused and restarted]
PF: [Unclear] – with my logbook –
AS: Peter, I’d like to go back to the OTU a bit –
PF: Yeah, that’s fine, I’m going back to [unclear] if I can find it, Bottesford, so back still further [long pause, chuckles]. Oh dear, there’s a note I’ve written here, the mess and the modern, and the modern obliterations in this logbook, are necessary because my son Tim, when he was a little boy, pretended he was like his father and started filling my, filling all the bits and pieces in the logbook [laugh] ‘cause there’s a mess. So, I, I had to put a note in there about that. So, what are we, am I –
AS: We’re looking up OTU on the Wellingtons.
PF: Oh right, oh gosh –
AS: You alright?
PF: Yeah, in a minute. I’ve just got, my back was killing me. Ah, oh. So, OTU, that would be 1942, oh gosh this is going back a bit [turning pages], October ’42, yeah, I’m getting near [long pause]. Here we are, 25 OTU Finningley, 16th of September 1942.
AS: That’s your first flight at the OUT, is it?
PF: Yep –
AS: As a crew?
PF: As a crew, yeah.
AS: Yeah. And did your captain immediately take you off as a crew, or did he do some flying with somebody else first?
PF: Oh no, we all met as sprogs, nobody, no crews – we were assem – we were all, we were all assembling in a very big hall, and we got given four, five hours to crew up, and how did I crew up? Only because of being a Norfolk man, because Dennis Claxton was a baker at Ormesby, came along in his old broad Norfolk accent and said, ‘hello Peter, will you fly with me?’ I thought, oh my God, and I said, ‘yes of course I will’, and as I said, cause that’s how we crewed up, and I flew with him right through the war really. He was a good pilot. Claxton, his father was a baker at Ormesby.
AS: Were you all sergeants to start with?
PF: Yes, then I became a flight sergeant, and among the very few members of aircrew as a wireless operator, I had to take examinations would you believe, to get any, any promotion, in the wireless world of course, and until I became a grade one, I couldn’t get any promotion, so I was, I was messed about a bit. However, I got, I did it and I got my promotions and I became a flight sergeant, and then I was commissioned, and so I, and a signals leader, so I never looked back really. I had a good life, I enjoyed, particularly while I was at Mildenhall, this is after the war, this was in between tours, it wasn’t after the war. I finished my first tour and I was about to go back on my second tour at Mildenhall. I was near to home, I was near my wife, who lived just outside in a place called Ownedge, just outside Bedford, and so I was quite happy there really.
AS: You’ve still got your logbook open at the OTU, how much, how much flying did you do? Can you track that back?
PF: Yeah, well, I’ll tell you in a minute, I did [long pause], oh that’s the [unclear] synopsis, Finningley. Was that, Jane?
AS: Yes.
Jane: Sorry –
PF: At 25 OTU Finningley, I did [pause], there’s loads of it, oh dear, all at sea, yeah, one hour and half hours [long pause] I did twenty, in this instance, it was twenty-nine daylight and six at night. So this has, this has got to be more. [Pause] oh here we are, Bircotes now, so that was the next station, still on OTU, so that puts me up to ninety-five, nearly one hundred hours at OTU.
AS: Wow.
PF: And so it goes on. Oh, this was on the conversion, and then I went – a hundred and fifteen hours, including the OTU on Wellingtons and conversion on Manchesters to Lancasters, ‘cause it was only fourteen hours [chuckles], oh God.
AS: Were you a –
PF: What we, what we looking for do you know?
AS: Well, we’ve answered it actually, the hours, yeah –
PF: Oh, have we? Oh, fair enough. It was a bit complicated, looking up logbooks.
AS: Yeah. Were you straight wireless or did you do air gunner training as well?
PF: I did very little air – I didn’t want anything to do with air gunnering. I was quite happy with signals and I was, I was, would be a signals leader and things like that, so I, quite honestly, I had nothing to do with gunnering. I perhaps should have been a gunnery leader but I didn’t want to know [chuckles].
AS: That’s fair. Did you do any bulls-eye exercises?
PF: Oh yes, lots of bulls-eyes.
AS: What did they involve?
PF: Pardon?
AS: What did they involve?
PF: Long night cross country runs, let’s just look back. OTU Finningley that would be [pause], just give you an idea how long they were, ooh er [long pause], look I’ve got notes everywhere [long pause]. Why are logbooks so complicated when you look back through? Bottesford, that’s all good, I want training [long pause].
AS: No, so the bulls-eyes were at Bottesford were they?
PF: What, just a minute, I’ll just try and get back to Bottesford, I should be there in a sec, because I remember writing – oh that’s 1660 Conversion Unit, that was after that, so it’s got to be here. Bulls-eye here we are. I did a bulls-eye [pause] with Warrant Officer Buzz [unclear] as pilot [pause], five and a half hours from RAF Bircotes which is a satellite at Finningley. Oh you know it, don’t you?
AS: Yeah.
PF: Yeah, so that’s it. Well, that was when I was first flying with Dennis Claxton, who was my pilot during the, during the Lancs time, who lives out here at, he was a baker at Hemsby.
AS: Was, this was winter time, wasn’t it? OTU and HCU?
PF: Yeah, it was 15th of November, yeah.
AS: Yeah. Did the weather cause many problems, many interruptions, or many losses? Did you lose many aircraft in training?
PF: We, yes, we did, because of bad navigation. We didn’t have the things like Gee and that then, and navigation was pretty [pause], what’s the word –
AS: Haphazard?
PF: Basic, yeah. The, you hadn’t got the, what you had later, the radar bit, the Gee box, to get your fixers. No, I was there as a radio operator and I had to get my navigator fixers on numerous occasions, you know. Get a WT fix.
AS: And what speed did you get down to? How quickly could you do that?
PF: Well that took an age, it used to take them an age to wind my training aerial out for a start, and then there was the getting through, well it would take me about half an hour to get a fix I should think. Main time spent cranking the bloody lot of, the aerial in because it was airmen dear, and that means I had to have a training aerial. You’re nodding your head as if you understood [chuckles]. Oh dear, that’s history, that’s the first time anybody’s asked me that question, you know, but –
AS: It must have been hard work in flying kit and on your knees, was it? Winding down?
PF: Yeah, that wasn’t, in the cockpit you had to – it was usually in the, the winding gear was in the panelling of the aeroplane, and that was pretty knuckling, what’s the word [pause], knocking the skin off your knuckles –
AS: Grazing your knuckles, yeah. Did you ever lose one? Forget to wind it up?
PF: No, I didn’t. I must admit, I never, I always – because we had to write it in on the log, and we got seriously chastised, if we hadn’t done it and so we were always very careful, ‘cause they said they were gonna start charging us for any aerials that we lose, and there were not a lot of chaps lost them. What’s that, dear?
Jane: Actually that’s, I haven’t seen that before. I can’t remember the actual picture; I don’t know where the original is –
PF: Oh my God, this is ancient. That was one of the first pictures taken, when, oh God, what was it? When we first joined the Old Ed fifty, 541, my wife’s name was Edna, she was called Ed, and of course up there, it was ED541, so that was Ed-541, that one [chuckles]. So, four-six-seven Wimpies away –
AS: So that on the wall, I understand now, that on the wall is a painting of your aircraft, A-Able isn’t it?
PF: That’s right, yeah.
AS: Now I understand.
PF: Yeah, that was my, that was my first aeroplane that we were allocated for, on operations, here we are, ED541 July 1943, now that’s, that must have been that picture then, yeah, ‘cause I started operating in nine, nine, July, August, yeah that’s right. Oh dear, I get confused about these dates –
AS: We can go through your logbook later for the, for the operations if you like. When you were training, perhaps moving from the OTU to the HCU, did you start meeting equipment in operational aeroplanes that you hadn’t seen before?
PF: Oh yes.
AS: Can you tell me about that?
PF: We had, well not so much from the HFDF from the normal 11-54-55 Marconi stuff that I was using for Morse and communication generally, that was the same, that never altered, the things that were altering were the Gees and H2S, and all the up-to-date radar equipment, that was always changing, but that had nothing to do with me, I was quite happy with my, my Morse code [chuckles].
AS: Did you have things like Fishpond to look after?
PF: Yes, we did, but I didn’t have to look after it, the navigator looked after that. It was, he, we didn’t have it at – we were training on, with it, we never used it on operations or anything like that, but we did, we did have it, that was H2S two-three-one, I can’t remember the damn things now. [Pause] I would have remembered had I had to operate it, but I didn’t have to operate it. I had enough work to do of my own.
AS: It’s quite busy, was it? You didn’t just take off and fly round and come back again?
PF: Oh no, no, I mean, you had to take your broadcast every half hour, and that was numbered so you had to make sure you got that down in your logbook, erm, oh yes there was, there was never a dull moment, not where a wireless operator was concerned, because you were busy nearly all the time, from the time you took off to the time you landed.
AS: So, what sort of things would you be, would be coming in and going out? Position reports or-
PF: For start, things coming in would be your half hourly broadcast, which you had to rec – you had to log, and that was usually [unclear] text, it was numbered, and then after that, it was mainly work. We were always given exercises to do and, with ground stations, with, in particular DF stations, getting QDFs, QDMs, all that sort of thing, and, so there was never a dull moment where I was concerned. As a matter of fact, I suppose I was pleased in a way, because I had plenty to do, I didn’t have a chance to think about anything else. The navigator always kept me busy.
AS: When you knew you were posted to Bomber Command, how did you feel?
PF: Well, I was pleased in a way because we were told we were going onto Lancs, and the Lancaster had just been introduced, so everybody was keen to get onto a Lanc squadron, and as it happened, I was lucky and we got on one, and that was, that was quite good. So that was, that answers your question doesn’t it really?
AS: Yeah. When you were crewed up, formed as a crew, you were all sergeants, were you living together in a mess, or in huts or –
PF: Oh yes, we all lived in – there was, there was an aircrew sergeants mess, because all aircrew were sergeants then, not when I first joined up and flew, there was an LAC erm, yes there was a special mess for the aircrew sergeants.
AS: And did you live as a crew?
PF: Pardon?
AS: Did you live all together as a crew, or –
PF: Oh yes. When we first crewed up, we were always messed together in the same, and always, always in the same hut, and that went on for, through the OTU, through the conversion units when we went from Wellingtons to Lancasters [pause], to when we arrived at the squadron and converted onto Lancasters.
AS: Did it get [pause] –
PF: Sorry?
AS: Did it get too much sometimes, being with the same people all the time, in the air and on the –
PF: No, we were very pleased in a way that we had our own crew, we were like a family really, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way really. Dennis, my pilot, was, lived at, he had a, he was a baker at Ormesby, Hemsby and his wife and my wife were very good friends, and we were all very close knit, we were close knit as a crew. Yes, that was all, that was all good fun really, if you could call it fun.
AS: What were the losses like during training? Were there many aircraft lost?
PF: Oh no, there wasn’t. We were, touching wood, no, there were very few losses while we were training. There were losses when, for example, on OTU, on operational training units where crews got lost and went down in the mountains somewhere you know, if we, if we were doing foreign cross countries and things like that where we did for training. So yes, that used, that used to happen, but not, not very often fortunately.
AS: Mhm. Did you form close links with your ground crew as well as your aircrew mates?
PF: Oh yes, oh yes, we did. We have a very – while we were on operations, I, we, we flew on ops from Bottesford near Nottingham, and we got very close to our ground crews. We used to entertain them a lot, and we used to go out, always meet in the pubs and things like that, and yes, that was, yes, we were, answering your question, yes, we were quite close.
AS: Whose aeroplane was it? Was it your aeroplane or their aeroplane?
PF: Well, that depends, it was theirs in their camp and then ours in our camp.
AS: How did they maintain it? Was it mostly working outside?
PF: Oh yes, it was all outside. They did the daily inspections, the special inspections, and that was all done on the, what do you call it, the dispersal on the airfield.
AS: So, what, what was the daily routine before, before flight? What would you do before flight with your equipment?
PF: Well, I had, I had to check the, all the radio equipment, intercom, anything which was radio or radar, I had to check it worked alright. And the radio, the RT, the radio telephone part.
AS: So, I think we’ve done quite a bit about OTU and HCU. Did you say your HCU, you were actually on Manchesters?
PF: Well, I flew on Manchesters – when I finished on, let me give you the story, when we finished operational training on Wellingtons, we knew we were going to be posted to a conversion unit because we were going to go onto heavy bombers, and we knew that before we got onto them we would have to fly Manchesters, that was the Lanc with two engines if you can perhaps remember, and, so we went onto Lancs – onto Manchesters and then Lancs in that, in that order and that all went quite smoothly. I must say, it was, it was exciting going onto a Lancaster after a bloody old, twopy, old Wimpy, [pause] it was like getting into a – well as Dennis our pilot said, it was like getting into a Spitfire, though he’d never flown a Spitfire [chuckles]. He guessed as much because the Lanc was so much faster than the Wimpy, and more manoeuvrable of course.
AS: When you were learning to fly the Lancaster, before you go to the squadron, was the, was the aeroplane to an operational standard, with all the equipment that was in it?
PF: Oh yes.
AS: Okay. Did you have to learn different operational techniques as well as this equipment when you were at the HCU, or had your training taken care of the –
PF: Oh yes, yes it did –
AS: It did. So, you were –
PF: Pretty well [unclear] up, yeah.
AS: Gemmed up with the operational techniques –
PF: Yep, yeah indeed.
AS: Okay. So, did you pass out of the HCU? Was there a parade?
PF: Er, no, there wasn’t. We were – it was just very ordinary; we were only five or six weeks from OTU to HCU. I was at Swinderby – God, we were there and we were gone and we were on the squadron. As a matter of fact, we were nearly operating, it was that quick. Much to our horror, but there –
AS: Shall we pause it there for a moment?
PF: Okay.
[Tape paused and restarted]
AS: This is a taped interview with Flight Lieutenant Peter Fitt, carried out by Adam Sutch, on the 19th of May 2015 for the International Bomber Command Centre. Peter Fitt was on 467 Squadron for his first tour of operations, and perhaps Peter, I could, I could start by asking what happened when you came to the squadron before you went on ops, when you arrived as a crew?
PF: Right, well, first of all, I want to go back a bit to OTU, Operational Training Unit, where we crewed up. We all arrived there as individual pilots, navigators and wireless operators, air gunners, and – [interrupted] – is somebody coming?
Other: Sorry, would either of you like a hot drink?
[Tape paused and restarted]
AS: Right, let’s start again Peter shall we, now the tea lady’s gone –
PF: Yeah, yeah, you carry on –
AS: You were going back to the OTU when you crewed up, just before you got on the squadron.
PF: Yeah, yeah, yes, and that was 1942 I believe, would that be right?
AS: ’42, ’43, yeah, I think, we did before, so you left, left –
PF: Yes, yes it would be ’42, because I started off – I did my ops in ’43, and this is OTU we’re talking about, yes ’42, August ’42.
AS: Yeah, okay. And what can you remember about your OTU time?
PF: My OTU time was a bit strange, we all arrived at the sta – were posted to this RAF Finningley actually, in Yorkshire, and we all mingled in the, hmm, whatever it was, an old hangar or something, and one officer came along and he spoke to us and said, ‘well I’ve got you all gathered here because we want you – this is the OTU and we want you to crew up, and that’s, it’s got to be up to you. You can mingle with each other and find a pilot and a pilot will find a wireless operator and the wireless operator will find an air gunner’ sort of thing, you just sort it out yourselves’, they don’t print one up to say you’ll fly with so and so, you just sort it all out, and you’re given two or three days to do that, which we did, and I, I crewed up quite easily because it was a Norfolk man, a Norfolk baker from Ormesby, he came over and said, ‘you’re Norfolk, aren’t you?’ I said – he’s real, broad Norfolk – I said ‘yes’ and ‘I am’, and he – I can tell you because he had a real broad Norfolk accent, and he said, ‘why, I’m a pilot’, and he said, ‘I was wondering whether you would, you would, as we’re Norfolkites, you can come be my wireless operator’, ‘yes’, I said, ‘I’d love to’, and in the meantime, he’d sorted out the rest of the crew, so there was five of us. We were crewing up for Wellingtons actually, at OTU, on which we – the aeroplane we did our OTUs on, and so that’s how I crewed up. And then we, we did three months there I suppose – this is RAF Finningley in Yorkshire, and then we were posted to – oh God, I can’t remember the name of the bloody place now, not Finningley, Swinderby, where we went, transferred to four engined aeroplanes, so that was the beginning on the, on the Lancaster episodes, the aeroplanes we flew in for the rest of the war. Now that was, that was, that was rather all good fun, well wasn’t good fun it was bloody dangerous but, but, erm, it was all part of the adventure, wasn’t it?
AS: Exciting, exciting.
PF: So there, that was, so we crewed up and we, we stayed together all those years – we did a mini two tours of ops – this is late ’42 I’m talking about – and we were still flying in ’44, ’45 together, and, and the war came to an end and we kept meeting you know, ‘cause of, Den was a, he was a baker from Ormesby actually, and we used to – we all got, you all get very, very friendly, you know, and the whole families become friendly, and so that was, that was quite a nice episode in my life. It was a bit dangerous for me, during ops but I, Dennis was a good pilot and the rest of the crew were good, and we were, yeah, that was, that was quite an exciting time. I often think back on it, and we, we have our crew reunions still, and that’s jolly nice to get together again.
AS: What sort of skipper was Sergeant Claxton, Dennis Claxton?
PF: What sort –
AS: Yeah, was he a disciplinarian, or relaxed, or?
PF: No, no, he was a typical, what did we say, ordinary bloke who liked driving, a chauffeur if you like, he was conscientious, he always knew what he wanted, he always knew what to ask the navigator, he always knew what to ask us all actually, if he wanted to know anything, and, and yeah, he was quite knowledgeable, and a good pilot. That’s what we were after, we wanted someone who really knew the aeroplane and could throw out a boat when, if we were attacked or anything like that, and he was that good, so we were happy. As a matter of fact, I was a – no, poor Dennis died five or six years ago, his wife is still alive, and she comes and sees me here sometimes which is, which is rather nice.
AS: Absolutely, continuity.
PF: And, and of course – my wife, well she’s dead now, but my wife used to like Iris, which was Dennis’, the pilot’s wife, and they became very friendly – well, we all became friends actually.
AS: So, you finished HCU on Manchesters and Lancasters, and –
PF: I, I finished what?
AS: HCU. Heavy Conversion Unit.
PF: Yeah.
AS: On Manchesters and Lancasters was it?
PF: Yeah, Manchesters and Lancs, yeah.
AS: Yeah. And then you were posted to F –
PF: This, this was at Swinderby where we, we, we er went onto four engines, in the Lanc, and from Swinderby. And from Swinderby we, we – now what, I’m just trying to think of what that was called, when you converted to four engines, not a confighter, it was, it had a, it had a special name –
AS: HCU was it? Heavy Conversion Unit?
PF: Heavy Conversion, well done, you, you’re a gen-king you know.
AS: [Laughing] just, just lucky.
PF: Yeah, yeah on HCU –
AS: HCU, yeah.
PF: And, and Dennis converted to – and he took to the Lancs, he thought it was a great aeroplane, and he was a good pilot, and erm, so that, and we were together all that time. On two tours.
AS: On the aeroplane, did you feel a very great difference when it was loaded and not?
PF: No, no. It was a bit – Dennis used to say it’s a bit, you know, he had to be a bit more careful on takeoff because there was a lot more power, and they used to have to – he said, ‘I’m not supposed put, to go into S-gear’, but he said, ‘I bloody will go into S-gear’, ‘cause he said, ‘I wanna get off safely’, and so he did, that – that S-gear was. It’s called S-gear was a special gear that you, you put the throttles in and that connects to the engine [chuckles], and as the throttles are connected there it does something, it gives you that extra power –
AS: More power, yeah. So, you were posted to 467 Squadron I think?
PF: Yes. We went to – we were posted to – we finished Swinderby, that’s Conversion Unit, and we were posted to [slight pause] Bottesford and, near Nottingham, where we were – joined an Australian squadron, 467 Squadron, and I was with them for a complete – I did my first tour there with them.
AS: Did it feel like an Australian squadron? Were many of the aircrew Australian?
PF: They were nearly, they were nearly all Australian, yes it did feel like, you know – that’s a nice way of putting it, they were real Aussies and that was, that made it rather nice. And erm, so I was very pleased I served on an Aussie squadron and [pause] it was, it was nice, and – what is the word when you’re a mixture, I can’t think of a name but it was, it was very good. And I, I enjoyed myself there, as one can enjoy yourself while you’re risking your bloody neck at night, but it was, that was – I had a very good crew, Dennis Claxton, my baker from Ormesby, he was good, he was a good pilot [pauses] and I hoped I was an average radio operator for, get my navigator some good bearings.
AS: You brought them back.
PF: Brought them back? Oh yeah.
AS: When you were on the squadron, did you do a lot of training flying still?
PF: Did I what?
AS: Do a lot of training flying still, while on the squadron?
PF: No, no, no. The only training you did on the squadron – well it was training I suppose, ‘cause they were called training flights, and that was, you would do cross countries, mainly for navigation, for the navigator and the wireless operator and, for the pilot of course, so that was what we did, yes. Cross countries. We used to call them – they were called bulls-eyes and you used to do a lot of bulls-eyes. Well, they were good really because they make you accurate at, and careful what you’re doing.
AS: Were the skies full of aeroplanes doing the same thing, over England?
PF: Over where, not –
AS: Over England, while you were training. Did you find it really crowded skies, or?
PF: No, no, ‘cause I was trained at night. I was, I was, we were trained for night flying, and we did our training at night, so we didn’t really see a lot of other aeroplanes anyhow. The only time you saw them was when you were taking off and when you joined the circuit to land, when you got back. But that was, that was good training, and well I, I mustn’t say I enjoyed it – that’s not quite the right word, but it was interesting, and I was quite happy [chuckles], I had a good crew, our Dennis was a good pilot, and [pause] we, we survived.
AS: Did you encounter night fighters at all?
PF: Yes, yes, we were, we were attacked several times, mainly by Junkers 88s actually. I thought they [unclear], we thought they’d been Messerschmitt 109 Es and Fs but it wasn’t, it was, we were always attacked by Junkers 88s, which is quite a heavy aircraft is a – it’s nearly as a big as a Wellington, and we just couldn’t imagine them using them as night fighters but they were.
AS: But obviously not brought down, your pilot’s skills and your gunner’s skills –
PF: No, no we evaded all attacks, and the gunners and that, we didn’t – the gunners didn’t shoot any down, any attackers down but I think they were sufficiently awake enough and aware to let the German know that we were around, we knew he was there, sort of thing.
AS: How about the – I know it wasn’t your trade, but how about the navigation equipment when you were doing your first tour? Did you have Gee and H2S by then?
PF: Ooh yes, we had Gee, ooh yes, I had – well I know I was a wireless op, but I had to know all, how to use the Gee and the H2S and all those sorts of things, which were very good, I mean we’d all, could literally be lost without, without them, and they were inc, incredibly good. H2S in particular.
AS: Mhm, did –
PF: Now don’t ask me what H2S stands for, because I don’t know, I never knew, I never did ask. I bet you’ve got to tell me actually –
AS: Not at all, now I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know. In your logbook here, you’ve got a, an Astra recall, or Astro recall, as a, do you know what that’s all about?
PF: Ah yes, that was [interrupted]. Is somebody [unclear].
Other: Hiya, [unclear], I’ve come to change your water jug.
PF: Okay, alright.
Other: Thank you.
PF: Thank you. Erm, what were we talking about, Astra recall? The, they, they’re two separate words actually. Astra meaning we were doing navigation by stars, by, and what was the other word?
AS: Recall.
PF: Recall, recall was to do with diversions and things like that, but that, that’s what that was. Astra navigation, the navigator didn’t like it and I had to help him and I wasn’t keen on it either. The, the, when you’re in cramped conditions and, you’ve got to keep referring to tables and cross referencing all the time makes – it’s hard work.
AS: Hmm. From your station in the aeroplane, could you see very much? Could you see out? Did you want to see out?
PF: Well, yes, I did want to – I liked to see out, there’s something – it’s nice to know that the world is passing by and if you were being attacked, you see it coming. Well, you know, I sat just behind the [pause] wireless operator, well, well you can’t quite see, there was a, there was an astrodome just behind the main cockpit coppola, well that’s what, that’s where I sat under that. That’s why there’s – there was always good light there. That’s where the warmth was, and it was, that was a good position, next to the navigator and course we used to work together.
AS: What were your fears on, on ops really at night?
PF: What was what?
AS: Your fears on ops?
PF: Well, well my fears were pretty awful really, I dreaded it. Well I think we all did, that was, it was alright, go to briefing and you, you were told the target and what to do and what not to do, and that’s frightening when you know the target, ‘cause it was usually a hotspot, and warned about night – it’s all very alarming, but once you get airborne, you’re, thing’s aren’t quite so bad until you get attacked [chuckles], but on the whole I, we were, we were very fortunate, we were, I mean we were only attacked once by night fighters. Used to get, we used to get anti-aircraft [unclear] of course, but the dread of course were night fighters ‘cause the Germans had a very good set-up.
AS: Could you sense or see other aeroplanes in the bomber stream around you?
PF: No, but you knew they were there because of the, of the turbulence you know, and the, and the airmen being in, being in people’s prop turbulence that used to, used to shake you about a bit. That’s the only indication you, you, you had. We were attacked two or three times but we – the gunners were alert enough to shoot away as it were.
AS: I see your first operation was to the Gironde in France –
PF: That’s right, yeah.
AS: What were you doing there?
PF: Laying mines. That, that – all freshmen aircrew, their first, their first raid over enemy territory was a gardening trip, and gardening was laying mines [chuckles], and the Gironde was one that, that was my first, that was my first trip, and that was, that was laying mines in the Gironde River, just off Bordeaux actually.
AS: So, these would be solo trips, would they? Just send one aircraft to, to lay mines, or?
PF: Well, well no, there would be, there would be squadrons doing it, and, and, but it wasn’t mass [pause], wasn’t mass operations, but there were several aircraft doing it, to keep their, their [pause] fighters, things, alive.
AS: Hmm, yeah. Another thing you’ve got here is SBA, local flying, is that standard beam approach?
PF: Yeah, yeah.
AS: Did that involve you at all, or, as the wireless man, or?
PF: No, it didn’t involve me in any shape or form, even though I was the wireless operator. It was, it was only the bomb aimer and the pilot’s concern because the bomb aimer was the first, virtually the second pilot because we didn’t carry a second pilot on Lancs, but we, but the bomb aimer took the part of the second pilot [chuckles].
AS: Okay. And did, he knew enough to fly the aeroplane?
PF: He knew enough to fly the aircraft. Whether he would have had enough – I don’t think Taffey would have been able to land, land it, but he would get you back, and you could do a ditch in the sea if you wanted – if you couldn’t land.
AS: Could I talk about some of the aids? Did you have any contact with Darky?
PF: Well, that, that rings a bell, Darky – now that was to do with RT, wasn’t it?
AS: Yeah, yeah.
PF: Now, now what was Darky? Oh gosh that’s right, on the [pause] forefront of my mind [pause] –
AS: Darky was local transmitters at, at observical posts and aerodromes, and if you were lost you could call up –
PF: Yes, yes oh God, yeah, I remember. I remember, yes, Darky very well.
AS: And did you use it?
PF: No, no, fortunately we never had to [pause]. We had a good navigator and we had Gee which we used to use a lot, and we erm, we didn’t have to use anything else. And none, none of us did courses on that while we got through.
AS: What – sounds like a silly question really, but what was the tension like as you approached the target?
PF: What was the what?
AS: The tension like in the crew as you approached the target?
PF: Well, as a matter of fact – it’s funny you should ask that question because that does cross my mind many times, ‘cause nearly everybody asks you that question. The funny part about it is, that when you’re approaching the target, all fear seems to have gone and dissipated, and you, you, everybody was looking out to find, to look at, to find the target and see what the defences were like and what attack we were going to do, and, and bearing in mind. what you’d been told to do, so yes, yes, that was, that was – rephrase your question because I was getting a bit out of touch with it.
AS: No, no I just – I wondered whether the tension really grew as you were approaching the target, but you’ve told me that the fear left you.
PF: Oh, I see, you mean as you approached the target, did the tension increase? No it didn’t, funnily enough, it rather dissipated, mainly I suppose because you, you were there, you’d seen what you were going to do. The defences hadn’t erupted and all you got was a target which was coloured red, which had obviously been bombed earlier, and that was, that was it, it never crossed our, never crossed our minds. Well, it never crossed my mind because I was a wireless operator and I was busy, and I never, I never even looked out. I was, I had, I was busy on the – ‘cause we had all sorts of messages coming in and that, so I had to listen all the time.
AS: Yes, so you listened on the main sets. Did you also control the RT, or, the radio telephone? You were on the radio telephone as well.
PF: Yes, yes, we were but the pilot used the RT, radio tele, used that for landing and takeoff purposes –
AS: Okay.
PF: But apart from that, there were, there were, the RT was never used.
AS: Hmm. How about the master bomber?
PF: Oh, the master bomber? Yeah well, we, that [pause] he was, it was all done by, by voice actually, and – to be quite honest, we were never impressed with it. It was a bit of a, of guidance you know, but sometimes he was a bit out, and sometimes he couldn’t find the place, but, on the whole, I suppose it worked because the, with their know-how and, and our own know-how.
AS: And you could hear it? You could hear what the master bomber was saying?
PF: Oh yes, it was very clear. Clear as crystal.
AS: Hm. So you were, you were on 467, that’s 5 Group, isn’t it?
PF: That was in 5 Group, yeah.
AS: 5 Group were a bit special, weren’t they?
PF: They were the, THE group, yeah. If you hadn’t have said that, I was going to say that.
AS: [Laughing] Sorry.
PF: But I’m glad you said it, so, you knew about it.
AS: Yeah.
PF: Yes, we used to get all the posh jobs as we’d call them, the posh and dangerous ones.
AS: And one of those that you got was Peenemunde.
PF: Peenemunde, yes, I was on that raid.
AS: Could, could you tell us a little bit about that?
PF: [Pause] yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you [long pause]. Oh, you’ve got my logbook there.
AS: Yeah, yeah, I got –
PF: I just gotta think of the date, what was it, was it August something, wasn’t it?
AS: I’m just looking actually –
PF: It’s ‘40, ’43 [pause.
AS: Do you know, I can’t find it. You’ll probably quicker than I would. Berlin, Berlin [long pause]. There we go, August, spot on, 12th of August.
PF: Yeah, I remember that very well. That was the [unclear], that was the most effective raid of the war, you know, everybody was so accurate, and trained to be accurate, and it was a very efficient raid result.
AS: How much did they tell you at briefing about Peenemunde and why you were going there? What did they tell you?
PF: Well, I’m just trying to think [pause]. We were told of course that, that, that they were specialising in speciality model aircraft to bomb London, and well, we knew that and that did make us more attentive to detail and sorted out, which we did.
AS: Is it true that the, the aircrew were told that if they didn’t do it the first time, they’d have to go back the next night, or is that just a story?
PF: Oh yeah that happened to me several times. Air-chief Marshal, our boss man in 5 Group was, erm, oh God, why has his name escaped me –
AS: Ralph Cochrane?
PF: Pardon?
AS: Was it Cochrane?
PF: Was it who?
AS: Cochrane. Ralph Cochrane.
PF: Oh yeah Ralph Cochrane, that’s the chap, well done, you know more about what I did –
AS: I wouldn’t say that sir, I wouldn’t say that at all.
PF: I just forgot, I just forgot his name, and, and, he was, he wanted you to do everything right, and he was like that and, ‘if you don’t bloody well get it tonight, you’ll go tomorrow night and you’ll go the next night’, and so on, he talked just like that. It was if he was talking to a class of kids, you know, and, yes, he was a very efficient man, and we had – we didn’t applaud him, we appreciated him, his air [unclear] and things like that. Yeah, I remember the briefing for the Peenemunde raid.
AS: Is it like we see on the films, where everyone sits down and the station commander comes in and they pull back the curtain – was it like that?
PF: It was like that, yeah, yeah, but it wasn’t quite so, not quite so dramatic as that [laughs] you know.
AS: How many briefings were there?
PF: Well, that was just – there was only one main briefing, but the navigators, the pilots and the navigators always had to go half an hour early to have their separate briefing, which was – I don’t know why, and the rest of the crews went afterwards to the main briefing. But we all had – as I was signals and we all had our separate briefings by our own leaders.
AS: So, what was the procedure then? The aeroplanes would be test flown, flying test –
PF: Would be –
AS: You’d have a flying test, a night flying test with the aeroplane –
PF: Oh yes, and then an active course, yes, yeah.
AS: Yeah, and then you’d have your briefing, and –
PF: Yes well, the, the, it wasn’t quite as close as we are saying it. For example, if, if the operations were on the Friday night, or any particular night, you would do your flying – we had a special word for them and it escapes, it escapes me, not NFT, something like that – you’d go and do that in the morning somewhere and check everything was alright, and that would be your, your [unclear] practical briefing. And then we’d go to the main briefing and having done all that we, you knew exactly where you were.
AS: And then you’d have, have a meal, or -
PF: We’d have a meal, our eggs and bacon, twice. Eggs and bacon before and eggs and bacon afterwards [laugh], and, yes so that was, that was a very exciting life but it was bloody dangerous, and you got, you get a bit worried about it, particularly if you’re married and that, but there.
AS: How did you get out to the aeroplane?
PF: We were taken out by, by bus, ministry, you know, Air Force busses. They were specially, they were specially made for that purpose. They used to take the crews. They, you had enough space for all the parachutes and the stuff to go inside your – me and my pigeons, I had to carry, we had to carry pigeons, that sounds good doesn’t it [chuckles], and, that, that was it. We would then be taken out to our aircraft, ground crew would be waiting for us, we would be ushered into our seats, and they would carry the stuff in for us, and that was that, and the pilot would get the engines started and run up and we’d all, we’d all do our bits and pieces. I’d do mine and away we go.
AS: Tell me about the pigeons. I mean, they weren’t to eat, were they?
PF: Pardon?
AS: They weren’t there to be eaten, were they? Tell me about the pigeons.
PF: [Pause] it was quite a joke really. They, it used to be one to tell your children. We had to carry pigeons and they’d say, ‘what, you had pigeons, did they tell you where to go Dad’ [chuckles]. I’d say, ‘yeah, we’d let them out and then we’d say Berlin and we’ll follow you’ [laughs]. What was I saying? Yes, we had, we had pigeons.
AS: Whereabouts did you keep them?
PF: What, my – I was responsible for them as the wireless operator, and right behind me were the armour-plated doors, which was ideal for me really, but behind the armour-plated door was a rest couch – oh I thought I saw them earlier – and erm, that’s where we used to place them on that, just right, they all fitted there nicely.
AS: So by the time you’d got to the aeroplane, was it all bombed up and fuelled up?
PF: Oh yes, it was, they were all done up in the morning, if you were taking off in the evening. All the bombing up – everything would have been ready in the morning. That was, that was very, very efficient, and then we would go to the briefing in the afternoon and then take off in the evening.
AS: Hm. Did you feel that you had enough fuel all the time, for the distances and trips that you –
PF: Oh yeah well, we had a, our engine – we all had, every crew had an engineer, and that was his responsibility to make sure that the bowsers had put the right amount of petrol in, and they got the [pause], they got it all laid on so that if the, if the pilot wanted to change engines or something, they did sometimes, that could all be done by stopping an engine and starting another up sort of thing.
AS: Okay.
PF: That was all very complicated but all was very well organised. Everybody knew what they had to do.
AS: Yeah. So, you, you’d done your Gironde mine laying trip, and then you went to Saint Nazaire. Was that the same sort of thing?
PF: Yes, same thing, yeah.
AS: Dropping –
PF: Yeah, well I’m just trying to – why was that? It was because that was the – of course, Saint Nazaire is on the Gironde River, so that was, it was something to do with that trip.
AS: And then the big one, the Big B, operation to Berlin.
PF: Yeah. That was the Big B yeah, they were big trips. Dangerous ones, the losses were always heavy. Well, they were mainly night fighters – Hitler made sure that his beloved Berlin and all that area round there was well guarded by night fighters, which were the Junkers 88, which was a very efficient aeroplane, and they caused us proper problem.
AS: Hm. Did you lose a lot on the squadron to –
PF: Pardon?
AS: Did you lose a lot on the squadron to night fighters?
PF: No we didn’t, funnily enough. We used to have losses to ack-ack and the odd fighter, but that was, there was nothing catastrophic from fighters.
AS: But over the period you were on ops from March 1943, were the losses heavy? Severe?
PF: They were. I wouldn’t say they were severe, they were heavy. I didn’t know what the statistics are on this, I can’t remember them, but – oh you could, people used to hear it on the radio and they would say something about aircraft missing; that used to be an indication of what the night was like. Some nights were pretty awful, mainly due to night fighters.
AS: And could you get a sense of this at the squadron as well? People just disappearing?
PF: Yeah.
AS: Hm. And then, then two days later, you went to Berlin again, and it says ‘bombs dropped on Flensburg’. What was that all about?
PF: Oh yeah, that was a, that was a – that wasn’t a catastrophe, but it was an embarrassment. Let me think now. Oh yes, we were set off and we were briefed to bomb Berlin, and crossing over, oh gosh, what’s the name of, Jutland area, you know –
AS: Oh I – Denmark there.
PF: Denmark?
AS: Yeah.
PF: Yeah. The, there, to the right of Denmark is Flensburg, which is German obviously, and if you drifted off course, you got it in the neck from Flensburg. Well, that was what was happening. And yeah, that was a dicey old area, and we never, I never liked the Berlin trips, ‘cause that was, it was a long way there and you had to go through, like Flensburg, and so many other hazards, there was no sort of sitting back and relaxing and saying ‘oh well, let’s go’ [chuckles].
AS: Did you always feel yourselves well informed about where the German hazards were? Where the flack was –
PF: Oh yes we were. The briefing was very accurate and – no we never had anything, no faults to find with that.
AS: And how about –
PF: And our intelligence was very good too.
AS: How about the debrief when you got back? Was that – what happened in the debrief? Was that a long time or just very cursory or?
PF: No, no that was, it was done quite quickly. We, we just, we landed dead on time as always, found your way back to the debriefing room and sat yourself down at a table, and the debriefing officer would come along and start asking us the routine questions, and that was that, you know. Nothing in particular about it, we just wanted to get back to the mess and have a meal.
AS: Can you remember what –
PF: Our eggs and bacon [chuckles].
AS: Okay. Can you remember what some of the questions were? I know it’s a long time ago, but what were they interested in?
PF: They were interested in the concentration of anti-aircraft from the guns, and particularly the fighters. That’s what they were interested in, because they were becoming a menace, and to trace what airfield they were coming from so they could take care of them with a separate force. But that was the, that was the main thing was night fighters, and he had a very good, he was, Hitler had a very good night fighter force, or Goering I should say.
AS: A moment ago, you talked about getting back and landing dead on time. What was the procedure as you approached the English coast to return?
PF: What, what was the procedure? Well, well actually, we were on tracks that the briefing officer had given you and, so they always knew exactly where you were going to do. If you were off track as it were, you, I, we would just let them know that we were off track.
AS: And then you’d spot, what, you’d spot the pundit light for –
PF: Yeah, yeah, a pundit or a something, a light, strip of light and that would, you’d pick it up and that would give an indication. Everything was so well organised.
AS: You, when you got back to base, what happened then? When you were in the circuit, did they stack you up or, or?
PF: No, no they didn’t stack us up at all, they would get us down as soon as possible, which was right, and we would land and the transport would be there, the aircrew bus would be there to pick you up. We used to have a bus would you believe? And take us back to the debriefing. They’d sow us with coffee [unclear] and that was that. Everybody thankful to be back, having looked round the room to see who was missing [chuckles]. I’m laughing about it, I shouldn’t –
AS: Yeah, but as you said before, you lived in your self-contained crew world.
PF: Yeah.
AS: Yeah. This – you’ve got quite a lot of trips to, to Italy, and I noticed you –
PF: Yes, yeah. I did eight Italian trips.
AS: You got the Italian Star for that.
PF: What’s that?
AS: Was that what you got the Italian Star for?
PF: Oh yes.
AS: So, what were the Italian trips like? Did you go over the Alps?
PF: It was – mostly yes, mostly. Not all trips took us over the Alps but the majority did, and they were quite – we used to like the Italy trips, ‘cause they were quite uneventful. You had all that track across France and there were very few night fighters, which was, which was the problem, attacking Germany or France, and there were very little problems then. It wasn’t until we got nearer to the industrial areas that the night fighters, night fighter problem increased. [Knocking] come in.
Other: Peter, returning back with the water.
PF: Alright, yes, thank you.
Other: Here we are.
PF: Yes, thank you.
Other: You’re welcome.
AS: Yeah, so Italy was a long time but a comparatively easy trip, was it?
PF: Oh yes, the Italian trips, we [chuckles] used to like – when we’d arrive into the briefing room and you looked up on the wall and there’d be the big map up, and you’d see the, that Italy was the target, were the targets and sigh of relief because the, you know, going all the way across France, there were very few night fighters and, not until you got to the Italian area that they become concentrated. But Italy trips were always good. We always looked forward to those.
AS: Did you end up coming back in daylight from them, or was there enough time to –
PF: Mostly we got back in daylight, no in, at night time I should say, but we used to do – oh God, what were they [pause], we used to do trips and there was a name for them and that, that’s slipped my mind [pause]. They were virtually daylight raids, but we were given courses across Germany and France which, which weren’t defended heavily, but, yes, we used to, but that, on the whole we used to like these light trips as we called them [chuckles].
AS: And there were some others, some really difficult trips, some really difficult trips like the Ruhr trips, like Essen and –
PF: Oh yeah, the Ruhr trips were, Happy Valley as we called them, were very severe and strong. We used to hate Happy Valley, because the, the ack-ack concentration – Hitler had done it to please his own people actually, that all, the whole Ruhr Valley was saturated with anti-aircraft guns [pause]. But we did most, that was most of the operation with the, on the Ruhr Valley you know, Happy Valley – you see that? Oh God, handkerchief, oh there it is [long pause].
AS: Are there any particular moments that really stick in your mind of, of carrying out this campaign? Airborne moments?
PF: Well, I, I’m just trying to think. I had an idea you were going to ask me a question like that [long pause].
AS: Were any of you wounded at all?
PF: I was never, fortunately I was never wounded, I was never, we were never hit. We were knocked about a bit by German night fighters, but they weren’t very heavy attack, heavily, they weren’t heavy attacks because our gunners were good enough to keep them at bay. So no, to answer your question, no we, we, it wasn’t a problem. Thank God, because that could – he had an extremely good night fighter force.
AS: And you, you flew the same aircraft, A-Able?.
PF: On A-Able, yeah. There’s a painting of her up there. Er yes, we, we were fortunate enough to have our own aeroplane right through the, my tour.
AS: And did she always start on four engines and come back on four engines?
PF: Yeah –
AS: Mechanically very reliable, yeah?
PF: Yeah, but sometimes the pilot had to give an engine a rest, and we’d come back, perhaps come back on three, but on the whole we managed. Well, it’s nice to know we had – the old Lanc would fly well on two engines.
AS: And on, on takeoff, was that a particularly worrying time with –
PF: Was what?
AS: On takeoff, with, full of full and bombs and –
PF: Well, what, well yes it was, but it was a touch and go sort of thing. The, the tanks, the petrol tanks would be full up and the bomb racks would be full, so you had a, what did we used to call it, a maximum load, or it was called something else, a maximum effort I think it was called, and, and we managed to get through okay.
AS: Were you, had you got married by the time you were on operations?
PF: Pardon?
AS: Had you got married by the time you were on operations, on 467?
PF: I was, I was on operations in ’43, and no, I got married in ’44.
AS: Okay, so when you’d finished ops.
PF: No, and I – when I went back on my second tour, when the second, after the second front had started, that was in ’45, then, yeah I did my second tour, which was in ’45, yeah. I don’t know what when I was leading to, I’m sorry.
AS: No, no, we were talking about when you got married. Did you feel differently on your second tour, when you were married on ops?
PF: No, no I didn’t. We, you treated – it was a job, you know, and that’s how you looked at it, and kept your fingers crossed. I was very fortunate but I, when I, ‘cause I did, my first tour was pretty grim, but I wasn’t, but I wasn’t married then, but apart from that we had a reasonably efficient –
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 Peter Fitt
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Adam Sutch
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
2015-05-19
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFittP150519
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:49:04 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Peter was born in Norwich. His father was a head gardener and wanted him to follow that occupation and so refused to let him join the RAF. With the advent of war the situation changed and Peter volunteered at a recruiting station and after selection tests was accepted as a wireless operator. Peter completed his ground training at No. 2 radio school At RAF Yatesbury and air training at RAF Watton which ended with a passing out parade.
Sent to an operational training unit to fly Wellingtons, he remembers the high rate of losses due to accidents, particularly of flying into high ground. Crewed up at RAF Finningly in September 1942, he was converted onto Manchesters and then Lancasters at the heavy conversion unit at RAF Swinderby. He describes in detail the equipment available to him, which made for a very busy job, and remembers that all the codes were written on 'flimsies' which could be swallowed in an emergency.
Sent to 467 Squadron which, as a special unit, Peter felt were given the "posh and dangerous" jobs. He completed a full tour including minelaying to the Gironde and St. Nazaire, Berlin and also eight trips to Italy, which he considers were easy compared to 'happy valley', as the Ruhr valley was known . One special trip was to Peenemunde and the crews were warned that if they didn't do the job properly, then they would be sent back every night until it was completed. He recalls being attacked by night fighters but the gunners kept them at bay and so completed his full tour in the same aircraft, A-Able.
On completion of his tour Peter was commissioned and put in charge of the wireless flight until 1945 when he commenced his second tour which was terminated with the cessation of hostilities.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France
France--Gironde Estuary
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Peenemünde
Italy
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Holmes
Vivienne Tincombe
467 Squadron
aircrew
animal
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
briefing
crewing up
fear
Gee
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Manchester
mine laying
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bottesford
RAF Finningley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Yatesbury
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/572/8841/AFroudJ160516.2.mp3
b9f785857b8781991f29989631bb29b6
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
Froud, James
J Froud
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Froud, J
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with James Froud (1922 - 2019, 1801660 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an air gunner with 44 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-09
2016-05-16
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DP: This interview is being conducted for the IBCC Bomber Command, the interview is, the interviewer is Dave Pilsworth, the interviewee is Jimmy Froud, the interview is taking place at Mr Froud’s home, xxxx Bury St Edmunds on the sixteenth of May, time is, twelve ten.
JF: [inaudible] from the thirtieth of the eighth to the fourteenth of the ninth, apparently, er, we then went on leave, came back and went to, [pause] [background noise] a quick check, I must have gone straight [pause] [background noise] to
DP: Interview paused
JF: There’s a lot of operations, I did, with Warrant Officer Price, as a spare gunner, one was to Danzig, one was to Stuttgart, Danzig was badly pranged and a lot of people got, unfortunately, er, [pause] [background noise] then, it looks as if we pursued a load of training, for, the lads using radar, wire runs, those were the runs, er, to bombing ranges, you’ve probably heard of those before, er, there’s a number of them there, ok [pause]
DP: Interview paused
[inaudible]
JF: With the crew, with 83 Squadron, Bergen, that’s in Norway of course, erm, and on the way back we were diverted to, ooh, Sutton, I expect, but er, our base was unavailable due to fog, but don’t put all that detail in if it’s unnecessary, strangely enough, the next operation, was on, the first of the eleventh, [pause] and that was a daylight, to Homberg, not Hamburg, Homberg, in the Ruhr, and that was when it was daylight we did, we then [unclear] interest, did a ran, across country, that was Belgium and France, that was checking the [unclear] how set out, we were hit by flak, and er, returned to base, duty not carried out, it’s written up, we did loads of daylight flying, for practise and night fighter affiliation, duty not carried out [emphasis], so, we just need to go onto the ops don’t we, [background noise]
AP: Interview paused
JF: Ops, Mitchell, as a flying officer, Heilbronn, H-E-I-L-B-R-U-double N [spelt out] er, that’s a bombing raid I take it, Heilbronn, it must have been in France, wasn’t it, and the one after that, because this log book got damp once, it’s a job to see, and that was on the sixth of the twelfth, to Giessen, G-I-E-double S -E-N [spelt out] six hour trip, must have been just a bombing trip, sorry we was, Pathfinder first, we were probably flare force, we dropped the flares to light the target up, but that sort of detail I didn’t put in because it didn’t affect me at all, again, about the ninth of the first, at forty five, went to Munich, eight hours forty, again, I just sit in the rear and, let the boys work at the front, and I assume it was marking the target, or just putting flares down, we move on to several ariel, forty five, well, the eighteenth, Bohlen, Leipzig, sonar [unclear] thirty trip, [pause] not sure, what, where that, was, is, in the first months, no, second month, er, second of the first, no, already done that, anyway, Gravenhurst, which was the Dortmund-Ems canal, er, I can remember that erm, that was five hours forty five, the following day, we were told that it had been successful, by a Spitfire out on recognition, er, reconnaissance and looked down and seen this ditch, which had previously been a canal, anyway, they were usually fairly quickly repaired, actually, [pause] er, I’m trying to, about the twentieth of February, Horten, H-O-R-T-E-N [spelt out]that’s in Norway, and that’s U-boat pens, now, we bombed that, and I remember going on leave, sometime later, and being told off by a mate, who, being stationed up there, he said we’d hit the brewery and he was not pleased [laughs] because we got his beer [laughs] ah, the third of March, that’s my birthday, er, operation schme, I don’t know how you pronounce that
AP: Schmedehausen
JF: Yeh, good, I’ll accept that, Dortmund-Ems canal, was that the last one, anyway, and then, again, Bohlen, that’s B-O-H-L-E-N, [spelt out] Leipzig, nearly a nine-hour trip, eight fifty-five, sixth of the third, oh, these are pretty close together, Operation Sassnitz, that’s in the Baltic Sea apparently, eight hours, thirty, any idea?
AP: No, for the record, interview paused
JF: No, ok, [background noise] Lutenzendorf L-U-T-Z-E-N-D-O-R-F [spelt out] that’s Leipzig again, we also bombed Arsbeck, as briefed, and we were diverted to wing, and so, that was, on the fourteenth, on the sixteenth and went to Wurzburg, that’s W-U-R-Z-B-U-R-G [spelt out] seven hours, twenty, that was the sixteenth of the third, er, [background noise] I’ve got half a blank page here, I don’t know why that is
AP: For the record, interview paused, just for the record, interview re-started
JF: And so, we’re now, or did we do, had we done, Lutenzendorf, I think we done that haven’t we, oh, don’t matter, oh, with, seventeenth of the fourth, Cham, Bavaria, that’s Germany isn’t it, [pause] seven hours, fifty, no idea what it was, well, just, eighty, erm, Pathfinder duties, oh, here’s one to Tonsberg in Norway, that’s the twentieth of the fourth, so we’re getting near the end of the war probably, I think that’s the last one, I don’t know [pause] [background noise] yep, that’s it, [background noise] I now, we were then, after a while, preparing to go out to the Far East, we, the plan was to take the mid upper turret off, dangerous thing to do, and put a fuel tank, petrol tank there, they did it to one aircraft we, didn’t like the look of it but we did what we were told, or we went LMF, [laughs] so, we had actually finished operations, I’m afraid, that last one was Tonsberg, I should recognise it, [pause] [background noise] erm, [pause] [unclear]
AP: Just for the record, interview paused
JF: Erm, we [background noise] [unclear] we jettisoned, incendiaries, in the North Sea, there’s a big ditch, below the ocean, and they had to locate it and drop, er, the incendiaries, they were a bit dicey those things, very dangerous, they were made hexagonal, in shape, about a foot long, and the firing pin was located so that they were all packed together in a tight bunch, and dropped so that, they would scatter, now, obviously, pretty dicey things to have around, so, the air force wanted to get rid of them, and we dumped quite a few, er, [background noise] still flying with Mitchell, we’re doing flight affiliation and wire runs
AP: What was involved with fighter affiliation? Roughly
JF: Erm, you’d have a fighter up [unclear] we got to using Spitfires, and er, he’d do attacks on you, and we’d have a camera, mounted, on your gun sight, only little tiny things they were, [unclear] and er, they would record, er, the fighter attacking and when you got back they would be processed by a photo, photographic section, and then, and the films were assessed on a screen er, [pause] now, [pause] [background noise] I continued doing practise, bombing, and, cross countries, cross country duty not carried out, I don’t know why, recalled to base, that’s unusual, I wonder why that was? [background noise] ah, [emphasis] sorry, Mitchell, apparently, disappeared after the eighth of the sixth, he went, he didn’t say goodbye or [unclear] just went and er, we then had another fella, Flying Officer Clayton, erm, and we were doing the same things, you know, preparing to go to the Far East, er, [background noise] it was all training, we did radio range, [unclear] that would be done with the wireless op, [unclear] fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation, fighter affiliation, loads of that, so taken a pair of guns away with us and told us to [unclear] bloody air force, [pause] ah, now, [pause] [background noise]
AP: Just for the record, interview paused
JF: Yes, here, I’ve moved from, 44 Squadron, sorry from, 83 Squadron, to a heavy conversion unit, and that, [pause] oh, here we are, I was at Coningsby up to the thirty first, of the, tenth, forty five, and then I went to Finningley, Finn-in-ley [emphasis] which was a Bomber Command instructors course, and then, from there, on the tenth of the eleventh forty five, went to North Luffenham, which was a heavy conversion unit, er, and we were training people, up until, no those dates are wrong, [pause] [unclear]
AP: Just for the record, interview paused
JF: And I was at Cambridge, when we, was demobbed, and we used to meet quite regularly, [background noise] er, and he, but he died a few years ago, poor John, which probably was a good thing in a way because he’d gone blind or almost blind and he wasn’t taking it very well, a bit niggly on the phone, or some at
AP: What was his surname?
JF: Norman, Johnny Norman, yeh, poor John, [background noise]
AP: For the record, interview paused
JF: Conversion unit, so screened gunner, that means, actually, screened gunner it says, then air gunner that means, that’s a number of trips that we did, to, Moreton- in- the- Marsh and [unclear] to dump aircraft, [background noise] [pause] and we were up to the ninth of September, er, forty-six, we’re still flying as a screen gunner, fighter affiliation, and, those, airlift to Lindholme, fighter affiliation
AP: Is this the conversion unit, sixteen, sixty, wasn’t it?
JF: Sixteen, fifty-three, conversion unit, that’s the last
AP: For the record, interview, paused
JF: Tenth, forty-six, [background noise] could have come out on class B, class B, you got, two weeks leave, I think, not long, and er, you were back into civvy street [laughs] and I came out on a class A, which is the normal class, we got a bit longer leave, and I, I’d reached that stage where I hadn’t made my mind up whether I wanted to stay in or not, but I couldn’t see, what I could be doing, ‘cos, I realised, that, erm, the aircraft that we were flying, would have had to change, and the gunners would not be used, needed, if you’ve got fast enough aircraft, you don’t need air gunners, which is surplus baggage [laughs]
AP: So, what did you actually, do, once you were actually demobbed?
JF: I was, I was a plumber apprentice, up until the time, I went into the RAF, and I went back to plumbing, er, until, I was happily married, and, I did, quite a number of exams, sorry, quite a bit of training at er, evening class, er, and got qualifications, and eventually went to, Bolton, which was a training course, its, attached to Manchester University, and er, there were all sorts of, different trades there, building trade, printing, er, our friend along the road, he was a, I don’t know quite what he did actually, but he was in the, typewriting and that type of stuff, so, having got trained, you had to get a job, there was no guarantee of a job, but, I got a job at Reading Tech, er, stayed there about nine years, a job came up here, for a higher position, so, I came up here, finished up as deputy head in the construction department, and then, when I was old enough, I was demobbed
AP: When you came down here was you with, did you go to West Suffolk College?
JF: Yes
AP: For the record, interview now finished at twelve forty-two with Jimmy Foud
JF: Froud [laughter]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with James Froud. Two
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dave Pilsworth
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-16
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AFroudJ160516
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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00:25:19 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
As part of the Pathfinder Force, Jimmy explains that they did a lot of training using radar, wire runs and bombing ranges, as well as radio range with the wireless operator. Jimmy also describes the fighter affiliation they carried out. They sometimes marked targets or drop flares.
Jimmy refers to several operations with 83 Squadron to places in Norway and Germany, including cross country runs across France and Belgium. They experienced being hit by anti-aircraft fire. The final operation was to Tønsberg in Norway. They also jettisoned incendiaries into the North Sea. Jimmy moved from 83 Squadron to RAF Coningsby, followed by RAF Finningley, a Bomber Command instructors’ course, and RAF North Luffenham, a Heavy Conversion Unit. Jimmy did a number of trips to RAF Moreton in the Marsh; to dump aircraft. He was at Cambridge when demobilised.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
England--Yorkshire
Norway--Tønsberg
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
France
Belgium
Germany
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
83 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Heavy Conversion Unit
incendiary device
Pathfinders
RAF Coningsby
RAF Finningley
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF North Luffenham
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/706/10104/ABellGW161221.1.mp3
9f6081f87bc9ed1ae80c509b7527e12c
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
Bell, Gerald Walter
G W Bell
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Corporal Gerald Bell (b. 1921, 185210 Royal Air Force). He served as ground personnel.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-21
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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Bell, GW
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 21st of December 2016 and I am with Gerald Bell in Weston near Towcester in Northamptonshire and Gerald worked on the ground throughout the war and we are going to talk about his life and times. So, what’s the first thing you remember about life, Gerald?
GB: Going to school I suppose.
CB: Ok.
GB: At five. Yes.
CB: And where is that?
GB: Hickling. School.
CB: Which was near where? Hickling?
GB: [unclear]
CB: In Norfolk.
GB: Yes.
CB: Yes, in Norfolk. Ok. And what did your father do?
GB: He was getting people.
CB: And how many children?
GB: [unclear]
CB: Did he really? Balance, mixed balance between boys and girls or?
GB: Six girls and four boys.
CB: And where you in the pecking order?
GB: Number seven.
CB: Right [laughs]. And mother had a fulltime job?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Looking after you.
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, you went to Hickling school. The primary school. Where did you go for the secondary education?
GB: Never had a secondary education.
CB: Didn’t you?
GB: Left school at fourteen.
CB: Right, ok, and then what did you do?
GB: Me first job was, worked on a poultry farm. That was until I was sixteen.
CB: Yeah.
GB: Then me wages went up and they sacked me [laughs], oh yes, yes, that was quite normal those days. Rather than pay you cause [unclear] I suppose.
CB: Yeah, so then what did you do?
GB: Then I went on the farm. I was the yardman, I did the milking, feed the cattle and the pigs, did the milking.
CB: And how long did you do that for?
GB: Just trying to think.
CB: Well, the war came in 1939, by which time you were eighteen.
GB: I was working, oh, I left the farm
CB: Yeah
GB: Because the governor died
CB: Oh!
GB: And everything was sold off of course and I got a job on a food farm and I was there until I was called up, that was in 1940.
CB: What kind of fruit was it growing?
GB: Well, all sorts. Yeah.
CB: So, when you were called up, where did you go for your attestation?
GB: At Cardington.
CB: After that?
GB: I went back to work of course, I was called up to Stockton
CB: Yeah.
GB: And there I did me basic training, I can’t remember the name of the
CB: This is on the east coast near Whitby.
GB: No, further up
CB: Further up than that. Ok.
GB: Yes, that
CB: Scarborough.
GB: No, no, further up. It’s that place that had the iron things shut, [unclear]
CB: Shutten, no, that’s north west.
GB: Further up.
CB: Yes, up near Middlesbrough. OK, well, we’ll come back to that, yeah.
GB: It’s a seaside
CB: Seaside place.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
GB: Quite well known.
CB: Ok.
GB: It I [unclear] think of it.
CB: Need a map. [laughs] right. How long were you there doing that training?
GB: About six weeks, I think. Then I went to Finningley
CB: Did you?
GB: Yes.
CB: Right. So, you are now, what rank are you?
GB: Ordinary AC plonk.
CB: Yeah, AC plonk. Right. And what did you do at Finningley?
GB: Any general duties.
CB: So, you were a general duties ground staff
GB: Yes, yes.
CB: So, what would that entail?
GB: Any job that wanted doing, cleaning up, anything.
CB: All outside or was some of it office work or what was it?
GB: No, no, it was all outside.
CB: Ok.
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, what sort of places would needed to be cleaned up?
GB: Anywhere, the [unclear] or anything like that, you know, anything, general duties,
CB: Ok. So, if there was a fuel spill outside, would you have to go and clean up the fuel spill [unclear] aircraft?
GB: No.
CB: No, you wouldn’t. Was there any gardening to do?
GB: No. [unclear] garden in those days.
CB: No. So, what other things could you remember that you did there?
GB: No, nothing special, really.
CB: And how long were you at Finningley?
GB: I transferred to Balderton, yes, and I suppose I was there about twelve months.
CB: Ok.
GB: And I got posting, overseas posting.
CB: Right.
GB: Yes.
CB: So, before we do that, what did you do at Balderton?
GB: Same thing, general duties. Yes. Nothing special.
CB: Who was, who were you reporting to in that case?
GB: [unclear] in charge, that’s all.
CB: Which section would that be?
GB: I was [unclear] to general duties
CB: The general duties section
GB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So, did you enjoy being at Balderton or was it boring?
GB: Nothing was boring, no, because I lived in the village, I been far away so everything was new
CB: Yes.
GB: Yes.
CB: So, the bright lights you came to
GB: Yes.
CB: So, what did you do in your time off?
GB: Chasing the women
CB: Did you really?
GB: And drinking of course [laughs], yes.
CB: Was that confined to the station or were you
GB: No, [unclear]
CB: Yeah? How did you travel around from the station to
GB: They had lorries.
CB: Yeah. What was the nearest big town?
GB: Doncaster, yes.
CB: So, that had lots of service people in it?
GB: Oh, quite a few, yes.
CB: Yes.
GB: Lots of people from Finningley went to Doncaster.
CB: Yeah. What sort of time did you have there?
GB: Oh, enjoyed myself of course.
CB: What was the main activity when you went out, apart from drinking and, dancing did you do?
GB: Not a lot of dancing,
CB: No?
GB: I don’t think.
CB: Cinema?
GB: Yes.
CB: So, the lorry would take you and then collect you, bring you back at a certain time.
GB: Yes, yes.
CB: If you missed the lorry, then what?
GB: You had to get back on your own.
CB: How did you do that?
GB: Yeah, walk back [laughs].
CB: How long did that take?
GB: [unclear] Couple of hours, something like that, yes. You had to creep in the camp without anyone knowing [laughs].
CB: What was security like on an airfield?
GB: Pretty good, you used to have to lift up the barbwire and get underneath.
CB: Did you?
GB: Oh yeah [laughs], To get in.
CB: How many times did you get caught?
GB: I didn’t get caught [laughs].
CB: But some people did.
GB: Oh yes, yes.
CB: And then what happened?
GB: I don’t know, I supposed they went before the [unclear] and that was that. Well, you didn’t get away with anything if they caught you.
CB: Who was the person on the station you feared most?
GB: Oh, I suppose, the SWO.
CB: Yes, Station warrant officer.
GB: Yeah.
CB: He had a lot of power, did he?
GB: Yeah [laughs]. Keep out of his way.
CB: Why were people worried about him?
GB: I don’t know, I suppose everybody looked up at him, didn’t they? Yeah.
CB: Even the junior officers were worried
GB: Yes, yes.
CB: So, on the station, what sort of entertainment was there there?
GB: Oh, there was quite a few of the, what was it, not naafi, I forget the name of the people that used to do the
CB: The WVS, was it?
GB: No, it wasn’t, no, it was the [unclear], I suppose they were actors, not professionals.
CB: Oh, ENSA, yes.
GB: Yes. That’s right.
CB: ENSA, yes.
GB: ENSA, yes.
CB: They came and did performances.
GB: Yes.
CB: Where would they do that on the station?
GB: I was just trying to think, it must be one of the hangars.
CB: Ah, right.
GB: Yes. Yes, yes, we didn’t have anywhere else to go, in the winter we used to do roller-skating in the hangars.
CB: Right. How popular was that?
GB: Oh, that was very popular.
CB: So, how did people keep fit during their service in the RAF in the war?
GB: Cause they got us fit when we did the training sort of thing and we never bothered after that really.
CB: And when you were off duty, then you ate in the airmen’s mess, did you?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. And what was the food like?
GB: Not bad, I suppose, yes, yeah. Yes, never heard any complaints.
CB: And to what extent did you link up with the aircrew?
GB: Not much, not really,
CB: What was
GB: Only if we were on guard duty and they come up [laughs]
CB: How often did you have to do guard duty?
GB: I don’t know. One fortnight, something like that.
CB: So, the guard be on a shift system, what were the shifts for that? Certain number of hours on and then and a certain number of hours off.
GB: Yes. Yeah, I think it be about two on and four off, something like that, yeah.
CB: Yeah. So, did you manage to arrest any aircrew who were trying to get in late?
GB: We wouldn’t arrest anyone [laughs], we knew the most of them anyway.
CB: Yeah. But to be effective you had firearms, didn’t you?
GB: Yes, yeah.
CB: And did you have live ammunition?
GB: No.
CB: So, did that have any restriction on the deterrent?
GB: I suppose they knew as well as we knew.
CB: Yeah, yeah. And so Finningley and Balderton, were both Bomber Command organisations, what was going on at those airfields?
GB: What was it, they were just previous to the [unclear] on the bomb.
CB: Yeah.
GB: So,
CB: So they had the operational training unit
GB: Yes, right.
CB: At Balderton, yeah.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
GB: And Finningley.
CB: And Finningley, right, ok. So, what were the planes that they were flying to do that? Do you remember?
GB: I think they were mostly Wellingtons.
CB: Right, yeah. And what were their flying hours day and night,
GB: Yes,
CB: Did they, both day and night? Was it?
GB: Yes.
CB. And what about accidents from the training?
GB: Yes, a few.
CB: Were they? What sort of things went wrong?
GB: I don’t know, they never really let on what has happened to them.
CB: Right. Did any happen on the airfields?
GB: No, no, no,
CB: So when you got, you finished at Balderton, what time of year was that?
GB: I can’t remember all.
CB: So, that’s 1941 anyway.
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, you then posted overseas. Where did you go?
GB: We had to go to, oh, blimey.
CB: Did they have an assembly point in Britain before you embarked? Because you had to
GB: I’m just trying to think where we went to, to meet up sort of thing
CB: Yeah.
GB: The whole lot of us, was always [unclear] about fifty of us, on, blimey, I can’t think of the name of the place.
CB: Where is it near?
GB: On the south coast.
CB: Ah, right.
GB: Where they used to control the aircraft.
CB: On the radar stations?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Right.
GB: The main one. But I can’t remember.
CB: But it was on the coast.
GB: Nearly on the coast, yes.
CB: Yeah. And then everybody assembled, who were all these people, were they mixtures of ground and air crew or what were they?
GB: They weren’t aircrew at all, these were all
CB: All ground crew.
GB: All ground.
CB: All ground personnel.
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, when you were assembled, then where did you go?
GB: You had to go down to Sidforth for training with the army, the Dorset, was it Dorset?
CB: Yeah.
GB: We had training there.
CB: What type of training were you having?
GB: Army training sort of thing, yeah, we were getting fit and all that sort of thing, yeah, yes.
CB: Yeah. A lot of marching?
GB: Yeah, yeah, quite a good bit of marching.
CB: And then live firing of ammunition?
GB: No, no, we never had any firing at all.
CB: What were they training you up for to do?
GB: They were training us for the, we went to [unclear], it was the 893 AMES Air Ministry Experimental Station, that’s right.
CB: Oh, what did that do then?
GB: That was a mobile radar.
CB: Whereabout?
GB: We did that down in Dorset, there was one there.
CB: Ah, there was one there, was it?
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, were you effectively part of a defence, like airfield defence, is that, was that the job?
GB: No, we had separate people on our course that were for defence
CB: RAF regiment, yes. Right.
GB: RAF regiment sort of thing, yes. Anyway, we went from there to up to Scotland to get on the boat for North Africa.
CB: Right. Where was that? Glasgow?
GB: I think it was Glasgow.
CB: And where did you sail to?
GB: Algiers. On the way there the ship being [unclear] broke down, so we had to leave the convoy and they sailed on, they got it started again, woke up one morning and we were on our own. But we could see the destroyer over the far distance [unclear] far behind that, looked after us, that sort of thing. But we caught up eventually.
CB: Did you?
GB: Yeah.
CB: What went wrong with the ship then?
GB: I don’t know, they didn’t say much, you don’t know, you hear all sorts of things. They said the gaffer or the ship captain got recommendation for getting it going again.
CB: Was this an old holiday liner or was it a special troop ship?
GB: No, [unclear], it was a special troop ship.
CB: Right. How many people on the ship?
GB: Don’t know, I wouldn’t know, there’s no end of them.
CB: Did you get a bunk or a hammock?
GB: Hammock, yeah.
CB: What time of year was this? In the winter or the summer or?
GB: I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even remember the date of the invasion there.
CB: No. North Africa.
GB: Yeah.
CB: 1942.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Ok, so you got to Algeria,
GB: Yes.
CB: Then what?
GB: We had to, wait our turn to get into the port and all that sort of thing cause there was quite a lot there of course, all the Americans were there as well and we had to put up in the, built up a marquee in the zoological gardens in Algeria until we got our kit cause we had to wait about a week or two before we got it.
CB: Then?
GB: Eventually we got our kit, got on the road and we went as far as, into Tunisia I think, I’m just trying to think of the name of the place, Setif, but I don’t think it’s that name now, they’ve changed them, cause they were all French names, weren’t they? Now they’ve changed them all
CB: Right. This was in the back of a truck.
GB: Yes.
CB: How come, where was that?
GB: I got used to that sort of thing. They asked for volunteers to drive them
CB: But you could drive.
GB: I never, I could drive but I never volunteered, cause it was too dodgy,
CB: In what way?
GB: [unclear] you know,part road and all sorts of things. Anyway, we got as far as Setif and whether the Germans had made a push, we had to come back quick, I suppose because they were afraid that we’d get captured and they get all our stuff, cause I don’t think there was any other [unclear] like us about those days.
CB: You were all RAF people, weren’t you?
GB: Yes.
CB: How many, roughly?
GB: Roughly I suppose fifty or sixty.
CB: Yeah, the same fifty, yeah.
GB: Yeah, yeah. Cause we had to offer a day and night sort of thing. Anyway, we went back to Algiers and put up the stuff there, yes, we [unclear] from there.
CB: What were you doing in that time?
GB: You know the aerial, I suppose that
CB: For the radar.
GB: Yeah. Those days to move the aerial you had to turn the handle, that was my job, turn the handle at the aerial.
CB: Was this a constant movement as a sweep?
GB: Oh yes, yes, backwards and forwards, they had a barrel in there where all the kit was and they’d ring it, you carry on, when they ring it again, you turn it back sort of thing and you had to keep doing that until they got the two, I suppose the two planes together sort of thing, yeah. It was quite, you know.
CB: You got quite strong in your muscles, did you, arm muscles. What sort of, how did that work on the shifts for that?
GB: We had three shifts, three eight-hour shifts. And you, you know, you did all the [unclear] shift sort of thing.
CB: So, when you weren’t winding the thing round, what were you doing?
GB: It was a full-time job really.
CB: Oh, it was.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Day and night if there were three shifts.
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, what happened next? Was this a portable radar?
GB: I suppose really that was the first mobile radar there was.
CB: Yeah.
GB: Yes.
CB: So
GB: I think the Yanks used to come and visit. You know, [unclear] men come and visit to see what it was all about. But I got [unclear] well, I’d say mood, I got a bad chill and we didn’t have a doctor, we only had a first aid man
CB: Medical orderly
GB: Medical, yeah, and the thought I got pleurisy, cause they [unclear] me into hospital and of course none of the hospital would take because none of them had got the separate
CB: They needed an isolation room to take you
GB: Yes, I think I went nearly [unclear] for a year. Come back to all years now they, I managed to find one
CB: And what had you got? What were you suffering from?
GB: I don’t know, I was there for about a month
CB: Clearly more than a cold.
GB: I don’t think that it was anything more than a cold.
CB: Where did you go next? Back towards Tunisia?
GB: No, no, while I was away, while I was in hospital, they moved, I think they went to Sicily and I don’t know whether it was right or not but I was told that the ship that they were on got bombed, what happened I don’t know after that. But I went back to the, oh, [unclear] forward maintenancy unit.
CB: Ok. What happened there?
GB: Well, we followed the army, you know, into Tunisia.
CB: Yeah.
GB: Until they packed up and I went back to Algiers and finished the tour there.
CB: Doing what?
GB: General duties again.
CB: In, same place in Algeria, was it?
GB: Yes, with the
CB: But you had no radar by then because it had been moved, had it?
GB: Oh yes, they took, the whole lot went.
CB: How busy were you kept during general duties when they took you back to, when they kept you in Algeria? Were you busy or not?
GB: I think I spent most of my time on the sergeant’s mess, being in charge of the sergeant’s mess.
CB: And you had
GB: And we had Italian prisoners there doing [unclear] so we didn’t have to work.
CB: Ah right. So, what rank were you by now?
GB: LAC.
CB: LAC in the sergeant’s mess. So, what were your job then with the Italian prisoners?
GB: To see that they did the work, that was all.
CB: Who spoke Italian?
GB: No one [laughs]
CB: Nobody. So how did you communicate?
GB: I don’t know, we made them understand sort of thing, yeah, [unclear] supposed of you [unclear], no, no, no
CB: And were they willing workers or?
GB: There were some who were a bit dodgy but most of them, you had to watch them though
CB: Why?
GB: They’d nick anything, yeah, I remember one chap I caught, he got the tablecloth wrapped round him, so I discharged [unclear] [laughs]
CB: So, apart from nicking tablecloths, what else did they pinch?
GB: [unclear] as well because you couldn’t, you never had a clue really
CB: Yeah. So, when are we here now, what’s the date we are talking about now, when you are looking after the Italians?
GB: It must have been, I must have been there three years then. I was there three and a half years altogether
CB: Were you?
GB: Yeah. So that’d be towards the end of when I was there. When I got me demobbed from there.
CB: Oh, did you? So, the war was finished, the war finished, did
GB: No, I didn’t. I didn’t get me demobbed from there, we came home, now I went to Leicester East,
CB: Yeah.
GB: They were getting prepared for the victory parade and they had all the cars and lorries and that to do all ready for the victory parade.
CB: So, this is May 1945.
GB: Yes.
CB: So, what did they get you to do?
GB: I was working in the SWO’s office
CB: Were you? And what would you do in there with him?
GB: Paperwork, I suppose, mostly, yeah.
CB: So, how long were you at Leicester East?
GB: Until I was demobbed there.
CB: Yeah. You were demobbed from there?
GB: Yeah.
CB: And when was that?
GB: I haven’t a clue, really. Anyway, I got my demob and I went home, I got another three months leave, you know, two or three months, I don’t know how long it was and there was nothing there for me to do. I could have me job back but I didn’t want it, so I re-joined again and when I re-joined, I got a job, I got a job that they asked me if I wanted, it was behind the bar at the officer’s mess, at the record’s office, Gloucester.
CB: Are ye?
GB: We were stationed at
CB: Innsworth
GB: That’s right, yeah. I was in there for, cause I signed up for four years
CB: Ah, right.
GB: But, the end of the four years, they delayed releases for twelve months, I counted the, what war was on?
CB: The Korean war.
GB: Was it Korea? Yes, that’s right, yeah, they delayed the release so I had to do five years
CB: What rank were you at this stage?
GB: Corporal.
CB: Did you come back in as a corporal?
GB: Yeah.
CB: You left as a corporal, did you, at demob?
GB: No, no, I didn’t,
CB: Ah.
GB: No, I come back as a corporal, yeah.
CB: Right.
GB: And that’s where I met my better half. She was in the officer’s mess service.
CB: At Innsworth?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So you were both behind the bar or what was she doing?
GB: No, she was in the officer’s.
CB: In the administration, was she?
GB: That’s right, yeah.
CB: So, when are we talking about now, 1951?
GB: A bit before that.
CB: ‘50.
GB: Yes, a bit before then, yes. Because I got married, she left the forces and I got married in 1948.
CB: Oh. When you were still in.
GB: I was still in, yes.
CB: Yeah. Ok, so then what?
GB: I was there for five years.
CB: Yeah. But, what about accommodation? Did they give you a quarter or what did they do, they didn’t have any quarters.
GB: They didn’t have any quarters.
CB: No.
GB: The wife stopped at her home.
CB: At. Which was where?
GB: At Eaton, in Wragby, it’s not far from here
CB: Wragby
GB: In Eaton
CB: Yeah. Right.
GB: It’s about five miles from here. Yeah.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Ok. So, you just go and see her at weekends.
GB: Yes, every other weekend I was off, come and see her.
CB: Right, so, how did you manage to travel around? What was the transport arrangement in those days?
GB: Trains, yeah.
CB: Did you get a travel warrant or did you?
GB: Yes, yes.
CB: Cause you were underage, were you? Under twenty-five. No, you weren’t, no. So, you payed for your own travel.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Ok, so you came, you did your full five years because of the extension of one year,
GB: Yeah.
CB: What did you do after that? You didn’t sign on again,
GB: No.
CB: So you went to civilian life.
GB: Well, we got the club, worked in a club at, blimey.
CB: What sort of club?
GB: Working men’s club.
CB: Working men’s, right. Cause your experience behind the bar
GB: Yeah
CB: They found that useful, did they?
GB: Yes.
CB: Right. Whereabouts in the country was that?
GB: I’m just trying and think now, blimey, Jonathan, where was
CB: Was it round here?
GB: No, no, no. You worked with the Oxford, what’s the name? [unclear]
US: [unclear] Green.
GB: No, I don’t think.
CB: Not the place, I tell you.
US: Place or [unclear] company.
CB: I tell you what, let’s do it a different way, you demobbed originally from Leicester East, when you did your four years and added one to make five years, you were demobbed, where were you demobbed from? Cause you were at Innsworth, so, where were you demobbed?
GB: I can’t remember, to be honest.
CB: So I’m thinking that perhaps the demobbed point guided you to certain jobs.
GB: No, no, no.
CB: How did you find this job?
GB: Well, I looked in the, I used to take the daily paper for the pubs.
CB: Oh, right.
GB: So, I found the job. Oh, yeah.
CB: Yeah. So, how long did you work there?
GB: I was there about three years before I got a better job.
CB: Yeah, which was what?
GB: There was another club at Maidstone in Kent.
CB: Maidstone, right.
GB: Yes.
CB: What was that club?
GB: It was originally a liberal club but I think that [unclear] anyone could join
CB: Right. And how long did you work there?
GB: I suppose I was there about four years.
CB: Then what?
GB: Then the wife was expecting so we had to get out and I got a job at Morton in Surrey. Bar manager.
CB: What sort of accommodation did you have? Did they provide accommodation with these jobs or did you have to rent outside?
GB: Well, I first, the pub, the club at Maidstone had a, above the club was house
CB: A flat.
GB: Yeah. But, when I went to Morton, they offered me accommodation, you know, temporary sort of thing until I found somewhere myself, which I did.
CB: Did you buy a house, or did you rent one or what did you do?
GB: No, I bought it,
CB: Right.
GB: [unclear], you know.
CB: Was that your first house?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Yes. So, what sort of job was it, as the manager?
GB: It’s a busy job, cause it’s a big pub. Had a ballroom, you know, they used to do midday lunches and all that sort of thing, parties at night.
CB: How long did you keep going on that job?
GB: Oh, until the boss retired, they had a new pub built down in, blimey, here we go again. On the Thames, what sort of [unclear] I can’t think of the name.
CB: Lots of places on the Thames.
GB: Yeah.
CB: So, how many years do you think you were at Morton roughly? How many years were you there or when did you move [unclear]?
GB: Oh, not long, I wasn’t there very long.
CB: Oh, weren’t you?
GB: Yeah, no.
CB: So, you sold the house and moved somewhere else.
GB: I fell out with the boss, the wife got yellow jaundice and she had to go to hospital and the boss said, I got four children then, you’d have to put the kids in a home, and I said, sod that, I’m not going to put my kids in a home, so I packed the job in and we came over to her, place in Eaton, temporarily and I got a job at Plessey’s in Towcester.
CB: Ah, right. You sold the house at Morton and bought one up here, did you?
GB: Oh yes, yes,
CB: In Eaton.
GB: I sold that and I went to, I can’t think of the name of the [unclear] place, no good at [unclear]
CB: Yeah, ok. And Eadon spelled EYDON. Right? And then you joined Plessey. So, what did you do at Plessey?
GB: Making computers or parts of them
CB: Yeah?
GB: Yeah.
CB: What was your role?
GB: Pardon?
CB: What was your job?
GB: On the machines, machines [unclear], we were operating the machines
CB: So, what were the machines doing, making printed circuits or assembling them?
GB: No, making the
CB: Switch gear?
GB: Making the small, they were like small, very small [unclear] of different, I don’t know what sort, different minerals, they were ground and punched together sort of thing and we had to test them.
CB: Right.
GB: See if they were [unclear] or the machines tested them, we had to run the machines, all massive amount [unclear] into millions
CB: Ah really?
GB: Yeah. Some of them you had to have the telescope to see what was going on, on in the machines sort of thing.
CB: Yeah. So what
GB: I was there about, I was there until Plessey packed up and I had to, I got a job on making rolling tubes, steel tubes
CB: Oh yeah? In Northampton or
GB: No, in Towcester
CB: In Towcester.
GB: Yes. And I stopped there until I retired.
CB: What age did you retire?
GB: Sixty-five.
CB: Right. And when did you move to Weston?
GB: It was before I got my job at Plessey’s.
CB: Oh, was it?
GB: Yeah. It’ll be fifty years ago next month.
CB: That you moved here. This house here, next door?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Then in retirement what did you do?
GB: In the garden [laughs].
CB: Cause you’ve got quite a bit of land. Did you do it all by hand or did you have a rotavator or?
GB: I’ve got a rotavator
CB: Right. And what was your specialty in growing?
GB: [unclear] [laughs] no, all sorts.
CB: Did you have a favourite?
GB: Not really.
CB: Plant or fruit?
GB: No, no.
CB: And after a bit, that got a bit too much, so you got somebody else to do it, did you?
GB: No, no, I’m still doing it.
CB: Oh, you’re still doing it?
GB: Yeah.
CB: Fantastic and you’re ninety-five.
GB: I had to get someone this last summer to do it because I couldn’t do anything. I was so bad that they took me round to see different houses, they wanted to rehome me.
CB: Oh, did they?
GB: Yeah, [unclear] always that sort of thing that I pulled through.
CB: Your hands are not up to it any longer.
GB: No.
CB: No.
CB: Right. Sounds like you’ve done it brilliantly well
GB: [unclear] do it, yeah.
CB: Yeah, amazingly active. That’s what kept you going. So, the final question, what, to what do you attribute your long life at ninety-five?
GB: Just luck, that’s all. Cause my wife was a better woman than I was. And she went quicker. Yes.
CB: Yeah. After the children grew up, did she work herself?
GB: Yes, she did a bit of work, yes, she was at, here we go again, blimey
CB: What sort of job did she do?
GB: Office work.
CB: But she wasn’t also at Plessey with you?
GB: No.
CB: She was somewhere else.
GB: Yes, yes.
CB: Ok. And she died in 2000, sixteen years ago.
GB: Yeah.
CB: Well, Gerald, thank you very much indeed. That was most interesting and the different things. What would you say, actually there is another question, what would you say was the most memorable thing in your role in the RAF? Something that stands out.
GB: I suppose, really was the invasion of Algiers, really. See the working to get us cracking sort of thing.
CB: Good, thank you. [file missing] So, what we didn’t do, what we didn’t do, Gerald, was to find out your return journey from Africa, where you set off from and where you landed and what happened to you.
GB: I haven’t a clue, really.
US: You told me, I remember talking to [unclear]
GB: Coming home, oh yes.
CB: Yes, coming home, which route did you take and what happened?
GB: We travelled by boat from Algiers to Naples, then we’ve come from Naples all up Italy through Switzerland to France, France to [unclear] coast and we landed at, blimey, here we go again,
CB: Newhaven.
GB: Newhaven, yes.
CB: And what was that experience like?
GB: A bit rough [laughs]
CB: Was it? In what way, did it stop at the start or did it?
GB: No, yes, roughly didn’t stop at all sort of thing [laughs]
CB: How did they look after you, was a troop train with, it wasn’t just RAF, was it?
GB: Different stages
CB: Right
GB: They had stops at different stages but
CB: Was it the same train all the time or did you switch?
GB: As far as I know because they changed engines, I don’t know.
CB: So how many days did that take?
GB: It was a fortnight.
CB: So, where did you sleep?
GB: On the train, of course. We will be going night and day sort of thing.
CB: And what about eating?
GB: We used to stop to eating, there were different places, they got, you know, they’d organised places to stop
CB: So, what did they do, pull the train off the main line, into a siding, so that you could eat, where they had some kind of military kitchen?
GB: I suppose that’s what it was, I can’t remember really, I suppose [unclear] more than we rather than things that were going on really.
US: I wondered on that journey you were going through Europe that had been bombed and was war torn, I just wonder what you saw and whether you were surprised at what you saw because you’d been where you were all the time.
GB: Not really, no.
US. And the train kept going, it wasn’t the trains were bombed or destroyed.
GB: Well, it was a bit dodgy, going over the river Po, I think it was, in Italy, it was a bit shaky there, that was the only thing that I remember, really.
US: Were you looking out on ruins at the cities and things?
GB: Not really, no, no,
US: What about France, did that look intact?
GB: No, no, I can’t remember anything but
CB: A fortnight’s a long time to have on a train, what did you with yourselves all that time? Apart from sitting there. Did you play cards? Did you?
GB: No, I never have played cards
CB: Just talked or slept.
GB: Or, oh yeah.
US: Do you remember what your feeling about England was when you got back? Did it look different or did it feel different at all or?
GB: Oh, it felt lovely coming back, how green it was after been out in North Africa, yeah.
CB: And being a country boy, you particularly appreciated that
GB: Yeah, yeah
CB: So, when you got back, then did you go, you can’t have gone straight to Leicester East, where did you go before you went to Leicester East?
GB: [unclear]
CB: What I’m saying is did they have a reception centre for the whole train?
GB: I’m sorry I really can’t remember.
CB: We’ll stop again there, thank you. [file missing] so, when you got back to Britain, and you had the opportunity to see family, how did you feel having been away for so long?
GB: I don’t know, I suppose I expected, I saw what I expected, nothing different really.
US: Were you, when you got home, were you excited or were you very tired or?
GB: No, I don’t think so, no.
US: And were your family asking you a lot about what you’d seen? No?
GB: No, they weren’t that interested, really, I suppose they’d had all the others come back and they heard it all sort of thing, cause all me three brothers, all were in the forces, they’d all come back alright,
CB: That was good.
GB: Yeah.
CB: And did you compare notes with them?
GB: One didn’t want to know anything about it, that was the one that joined the navy, he [unclear] he was with, he was on the HMS Howe I think it was [unclear] in the Far East, he didn’t think much of that. The other brother that was in the [unclear], he went missing and mom had a letter saying he was missing, he turned up alright and he’d never, I’d never heard him say a word about the army or anything, he never mentioned it, the other, the oldest brother was [unclear] on the army service corps, he was full of it, anywhere he went, you know, he enjoyed it sort of thing, he was [unclear] on of those
US: Was there a celebration that you got home safely?
GB: No, no, I didn’t stop at home that long, really
US: Were you already thinking about what you wanted to do with the rest of your life?
GB: I know I wasn’t go to stop at home, [unclear], no. Trouble is, I’d heard so many things from different chaps, how they’d got on, what sort of jobs they’d had, I thought, I must have some of that [laughs]
CB: And then after the war, how often did you speak about the war to other people?
GB: Not a lot, I don’t have much to say about it anyway.
US: Do you, when you look back at the whole of your life, is that, that chapter, the war years, is that very memorable, is that quite a big part of your experience? No?
GB: I forget that, yeah.
CB: So what was the
GB: I really think it was a waste really
CB: A waste of your [unclear] life?
US: Was it not an important part of your life?
GB: No.
US: [unclear]
CB: What would you say was the worst experience you had, during your military service?
GB: I don’t think I had any, of worst experiences, I was just, [unclear] to muddle through sort of thing.
CB: I was thinking, when you got to, you moved from Algeria along the coast to Tunisia, then found the Germans were actually coming back,
GB: Yeah.
CB: How did you feel about that, did that seem dangerous or did they not get close enough to you to?
GB: I don’t think, they didn’t get, they wouldn’t let [unclear] to us
CB: Because of what you’d got
GB: Because what we’d got
CB: You’ve got this radar, yeah.
GB: Yeah.
US: I’ve got one last question, is did you make friends in the RAF that you kept afterwards? Did you keep up with people?
GB: Not for long really, just for a little while, we got, you know, [unclear] the other sort of thing but it soon fell through, yeah.
CB: A number of people in their initial training found friends for life. You didn’t do that, but did you get a good friend who started with your initial training and then moved on with you during their [unclear] service?
GB: No, no, I met several that had done, I’d done the training with, you know, various times sort of thing
CB: Yeah
GB: Trouble is you never knew when you were moving so you couldn’t make too many friends.
US: Ok. I just wondered whether there was ever a moment for you, perhaps at the start, where you knew you were going off fighting for king and country and that meant something to you and was important to you?
GB: No, I’m afraid not, no. No, as I say, I never was ambitious.
US: Did you agree that the war needed to be fought to stop Hitler?
GB: Oh, well, yes, yes, yes.
US: And you agreed that you needed to be part of that, you needed to join up to be part of that fight?
GB: I was trained up, [unclear] called up, yeah, no, I wouldn’t have volunteered, I don’t think.
US: And were you with a lot of people who felt the same way that you were there because you had to be, not because you believed in it?
GB: Yeah, I think a lot of people, yeah, I think a lot of people missed doing what they liked to do sort of thing didn’t understand of doing what they had to do
US: When it came in your life at the start of what would otherwise have been the beginning of your working life
GB: Yeah
US: It got in the way
GB: Yeah. Well, there wasn’t really, even before the war, there wasn’t much to look forward to in that, you know, in that of the country, so, I suppose, really, I was glad it brought me out of it, yes.
CB: What it did was take you out of Norfolk, put you into another part of the country
GB: Yes.
CB: And you’ve always been happy in this area presumably
GB: Yes, yeah, yes. Yes, I’ve been lucky really, I’ve had four good boys, I had a good wife, can’t ask for much more really
CB: Well, no, I think [unclear], extremely good. Did your wife and you speak about the war at all?
GB: No, not really, no, no, I don’t suppose we ever sat and had a talk about it, no.
US: Do you have any idea what her war was like?
GB: Well, I don’t think she moved around much, no.
US: Did she make good friends with the people she worked with?
GB: Oh yes, yes, she is much more friendly than what I am, [unclear]
US: And did she keep those friends after the war?
GB: Yes, I suppose she did, yeah, much more than what I did, mostly because they were all round here sort of thing and she was round here.
CB: Right.
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 Gerald Walter Bell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Brockbank
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ABellGW161221
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:09:10 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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
Description
An account of the resource
Gerald Bell worked on a poultry farm before being called up in the RAF, where he served as ground personnel. He remembers his training at RAF Finningley and RAF Balderton. Tells of his posting to North Africa in 1942, where he initially was working on a mobile radar station. After falling sick and spending a month in hospital, he went back to Algeria, where he was in charge of the sergeant’s mess and had to look after a group of Italian prisoners.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Algeria
Great Britain
North Africa
Tunisia
Algeria--Algiers
England--Dorset
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1942
1945
ground personnel
prisoner of war
radar
RAF Balderton
RAF Finningley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/947/10643/LMathersRW55201v2.2.pdf
55bec3251d71f385ab46787c57ae829d
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
Mathers, Ronald
R W Mathers
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Wing Commander Ronald Mathers DFC (55201 Royal Air Force) and consists of his log books, photographs, correspondence, his decorations, and copies of two letters from Dwight Eisenhower to Sir Arthur Harris. Ronald Mathers completed a tour of operations as a pilot with 9 Squadron from RAF Bardney. After the war he took part in victory flypasts and a Goodwill tour of the United States with 35 Squadron. The collection also contains a scrapbook of the Goodwill Tour to the United States.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Heidi Peace and Ingrid Peters, and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Mathers, RW
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
Ronald Mathers pilots flying log book. Two
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Ronald Mathers covering the period from 1 October 1944 to 24 February 1948. Detailing his flying training, instructor duties and duties with 35 squadron. He was stationed at RAF Swinderby, RAF Finningley, RAF Hullavington, RAF Gravely, RAF Stradishall and RAF Scampton. Aircraft flown were, Stirling, Lancaster, Oxford, Wellington, Hotspur, Auster, Harvard, Reliant, Hudson, Halifax, Dakota, Warwick, Lincoln, Meteor, Spitfire, Buckmaster, Mosquito and Anson. He also flew operation Goodwill to America, visiting Lagens, Gander, Mitchel Field, Scott Field, Lowry Field, Long Beach Field, Kelly Field, Andrew Field and Westover Field.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LMathersRW55201v2
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
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
United States
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
California--Long Beach
Colorado--Denver
Illinois--Belleville
Massachusetts--Chicopee
Maryland--Camp Springs
Newfoundland and Labrador--Gander
New York (State)--Long Island
Texas--San Antonio
Azores--Lajes
California
Colorado
Illinois
Maryland
Massachusetts
New York (State)
Texas
Newfoundland and Labrador
Canada
Azores
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1660 HCU
35 Squadron
Anson
C-47
forced landing
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Halifax
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Lancaster
Lincoln
Meteor
Mosquito
Oxford
RAF Finningley
RAF Graveley
RAF Hullavington
RAF Scampton
RAF Stradishall
RAF Swinderby
Spitfire
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/790/10771/PDaviesHM1701.2.jpg
e6daf8f8f03865493b5a9708da17e4ce
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/790/10771/ADaviesHM171009.1.mp3
86742009fa3786e958f911e74bcb67bc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Davies, Howell
Howell M Davies
H M Davies
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Howell Davies (b. 1939, 2617909 Royal Air Force). He served in the RAF 1963 - 1994.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Davies, HM
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 Howell Davies
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nigel Moore
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-09
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ADaviesHM171009
PDaviesHM1701
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending OH transcription
Format
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00:56:44 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Howell grew up on the Glamorgan coast. After the university air squadron, he joined the RAF in April 1962, training on Provosts at RAF South Cerney. He then went to RAF Swinderby and flew the Vampire T11. He subsequently trained on Vulcans at 230 Operational Conversion Unit at RAF Finningley and the Bomber Command Development unit. He joined 50 Squadron at RAF Waddington. Howard flew Chipmunks at Central Flying School and worked as an instructor in several locations. After a refresher course, he returned to fly on Vulcans at RAF Scampton 35 Squadron as pilot leader and pilot instructor, training crews on terrain-following radar.
Howell discusses the change from Bomber Command to Strike Command, and feelings around the RAF giving up its nuclear strike capability to the navy. He examines the role of captaincy and piloting. Howell outlines how crews came together and describes target study. He also relates his experience of Quick Reaction Alert. Howell describes low level flying in North America and the United States and flying to Libya, Cyprus and Malta. He was trained to do air-to-air refuelling.
Howell enjoyed teaching people to fly and trained the first women at RAF Swinderby. He delineates the training he co-ordinated at RAF Bawtry and the RAF Staff College, Bracknell. His final posting was to RAF Support Command at Brampton. He was also involved in Royal Navy elementary flying training at RAF Topcliffe.
In retirement, Howell spent 20 years restoring a Hawker Demon.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
United States
Libya
Cyprus
Malta
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
35 Squadron
50 Squadron
aircrew
pilot
RAF Bawtry
RAF Brampton
RAF Finningley
RAF Scampton
RAF South Cerney
RAF Swinderby
RAF Waddington
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/865/10825/AGillRA-JT170930.2.mp3
ee2bdb54a700a6de722a519acf341d1e
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
Hazeldene, Peter
Peter Vere Hazeldene
P V Hazeldene
Description
An account of the resource
19 items. An oral history interview with Rachel and John Gill about their father, Peter Hazeldene DFC (b. 1922, 553414 Royal Air Force) and 16 other items including log book, memoirs, medals and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 106 and 57 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Rachel and John Gill and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-07
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
Hazeldene, PV
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 30th of September 2017. I’m in North Hykeham with Terry and Rachel Gill and we’re going to talk about Pete Hazeldene, Hazeldene, who was Rachel’s father, and his experiences in the RAF. So we start talking to Rachel. What do you know about dad in his earliest life?
RG: Well, I know he was the eldest child of seven and he was born in Barry Island. Dad always loved the sea and I think this is, was because he was born near the sea. He had diphtheria as a very small boy and was in an Isolation Hospital. He was a member of the choir, sang in the choir and an altar boy. And then they moved to, to Cardiff. Dad enjoyed life. He loved camp. He loved to go and take, with his friend take his tent to the bottom of Caerphilly Hill. And —
CB: What did his father do?
RG: Oh, Grandpa was in a drawing office in Cardiff. Grandma stayed at home with all these children. Dad left school around about fifteen and was an errand boy for a jewellers but his love of the Air Force started when he saw a poster in a window offering to see the world from a different angle. And that’s when dad decided he would join the Air Force. Grandpa was against it because he wanted him to join the Welsh Regiment but dad was adamant and away he went. I’m not quite sure if grandpa signed his forms or whether it was Grandma. Dad joined the Air Force and came as a boy entrant to Cranwell.
CB: So this is 1939. Beginning of ’39.
RG: Yes.
CB: Although he’d showed his interest in 1938.
RG: Yes. Yes.
CB: Right.
RG: He was, he did the training in Cranwell as a, what did he do? Wireless operator.
CB: Just stop there a mo.
RG: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Doing technical training.
TG: Technical training.
RG: Oh right. Yeah.
TG: With a —
[recording paused]
CB: So, tell us a bit more about him leaving home.
RG: It was quite an adventure coming to Lincolnshire for dad because it was his very first time he’d left home and his very first time he’d actually been out of Cardiff. Out of Wales. And he got here as a sixteen year old and he never left Lincolnshire all his life.
CB: So, we’re going to get Terry to talk about the technicalities here because he came to Cranwell as a boy entrant in the days when they were doing that sort of training at Cranwell. So what do we know about that?
TG: Well, from what he told us and from the books we have that he wrote at the time, his technical notes, he was being trained on radio and electrical theory. And at that time of course he was too young to join aircrew but when the war did break out he did volunteer for bomber crew and he was accepted for that. He was sent from Cranwell to a Gunnery School at Upper Heyford and he trained on wireless op, as a wireless operator and he was trained in Morse Code. Subsequent to that training he joined or was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Finningley.
CB: I think as a wireless operator/air gunner then he went to an outpost somewhere to be trained in gunnery.
TG: Yes. He went West Freugh.
CB: West Freugh.
TG: Freugh. Yes.
CB: In Scotland.
TG: Yes. His first flight was from West Freugh in March I think it was. 1940.
CB: Right.
TG: According to his log book.
CB: So he would have just been eighteen then.
TG: He would. Yes. He’d just turned eighteen a couple of months before. And obviously he was successful and then was sent to Finningley.
CB: Right. Just stop there a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: We’re just going to go back to the Cranwell experience because he’s away from home and there are things there that are different —
RG: Yes.
CB: From being in Wales. So —
RG: Very different. His mum was a very good cook and there was always very good portions for the family but at Cranwell the portions were very small and obviously it didn’t meet dad’s appetite. So the only thing that he could fill up on was cabbage. Dad hated cabbage but he learned that, you know if he wanted to feel full cabbage was the way forward and eventually got to like it and grew them. Yeah.
CB: Extraordinary. But he was being trained in ground radio and electrical activities so most likely he then did some work on the ground.
TG: He did. I understand it was at Abingdon to start with before he was posted to Finningley.
CB: Before he did his gunnery course.
TG: Before his gunnery course. Yes.
CB: Yes. So while he was at Abingdon he, it sounds as though it was when he was there that he volunteered for aircrew.
TG: That’s right. He, after, he then attended a gunnery course and was posted to Finningley where he then flew as a wireless operator and air gunner with 106 Squadron.
CB: What aircraft were they flying?
RG: Hampdens.
TG: They were Hampdens at the time.
CB: Right.
TG: And he later, he was posted with 106 Squadron to Coningsby. And he did thirty operations with 106 Squadron. One of his pilots was a chap called Bob Wareing who on one particular raid they attacked the Schnarhorst and the Gneisenau in Brest and they were successful in putting that ship out of action. And the Scharnhorst. And for that raid I understand that his pilot was awarded the DFC and Peter was mentioned in dispatches. At the end of his thirty raids, thirty operations he, he was posted to Polebrook and seconded to the Americans. But I should add that whilst he was Finningley of course they used to occasionally listen to Lord Haw Haw who correctly broadcast that the clock in the sergeant’s mess was ten minutes slow. Which he often used to laugh about, didn’t he? Your father. That he was correct in Lord Haw Haw. But whilst he was at Polebrook with the Americans he flew in their B17s and he taught them wireless operations and Morse Code. And he flew quite on a few, on a few training exercises with them. One particular rather unsavoury incident took place when he took the class out, of Americans to a pub one night. Amongst them was a black crew.
RG: American.
TG: American crewman. And while in the pub the American military police came in and dragged the black lad out, beat him up and dragged him away because he was in the wrong sort of pub. They say. Your father couldn’t really understand it could he? Peter couldn’t. Pete couldn’t understand that. They charged, the barman charged your dad sixpence. Peter, Pete was charged sixpence because in the melee they broke a beer glass. But he, he never forgot that incident and he couldn’t really rationalise it. It was not what he had expected so to speak. On another occasion he told us that the flight engineer went berserk on the aircraft and in order to subdue him Peter had to, or Pete had to knock him out with an ammo box. I understand there was, and he was grounded for LMF afterwards. Not Pete. The flight engineer.
CB: The American. American flight engineer.
TG: No. No.
RG: No, this was —
TG: This was while he was at Finningley.
RG: Yeah.
CB: Oh, Finningley. Oh, right.
TG: Yeah. Sorry. I’m getting things out of order aren’t I, a little bit?
CB: Yeah. Right.
TG: Slightly. Doesn’t matter.
CB: Ok. So this is 106 Squadron.
TG: As far as I remember it was 106.
CB: At Finningley.
TG: Yes. On another occasion that they went on a couple of gardening missions which was obviously dropping the mines. But they’d got one on board still after this operation and they ventured into France to see whether they could drop this mine somewhere else. And they didn’t take much notice of it but a light aircraft gun opened fire on them and as far as they were aware nothing had happened but when they landed the rear gunner was dead and the thing was awash with blood. His area. And they could never get rid of that blood off that aircraft however much they washed it.
CB: We’ll stop there.
RG: Yes, I—
[recording paused]
CB: So, just going back to the gardening bit.
TG: Gardening of course was dropping mines into the sea and to do that one had to fly very low otherwise the mines would break up. So when they flew in over the land they would also be very low and in range of the, the light anti-aircraft gun that obviously caught the rear gunner.
CB: What sort of anecdotes did he have about training and what was going on there? So, on the airfield.
TG: Well, he did tell me on more than one occasion that he recalled two acts that appeared to be of sabotage when he was, I think training as a gunner. On one occasion he said, on one evening or one night five aircraft who weren’t parked together caught fire almost simultaneously. On another occasion he was on board an aircraft which, as it took off and it had taken off only managed to travel just over the perimeter of the airfield when they crash landed in to a field and the aircraft caught fire. They all managed to get out although Peter said he was burned a little bit. Such was the mark of the man. But when the aircraft was examined because it had failed to gain height the chain that operated the elevators had a, had a bolt inserted in to stop it from operating fully. What became of any enquiry into that he didn’t know and I don’t know. So that was a couple of sort of sad incidents, or suspicious incidents that he, he mentioned to us.
CB: What affect did the loss of the rear gunner have on the rest of the crew?
TG: He never said because —
RG: Dad passed out.
TG: Your father passed out, I think. Peter —
RG: At the sight of the blood.
TG: Pete passed out at the sight of the blood when they landed. But as I’ve already indicated that however much they tried to clean that aircraft the stains of that blood remained. But I rather think that was with 106 Squadron.
CB: And that would need a replacement. So how did the replacement fit in to the crew? Do we know about that?
TG: Peter never said. He didn’t elaborate too much on that side of the operations. He never really mentioned the losses he witnessed when he was on the raids. Although we do know that those losses and what happened haunted him for the rest of his life.
CB: Because this is the early part of the war we’re talking about here.
TG: Yes.
CB: So the Americans came in in ’42.
TG: Yes.
CB: That’s why they were getting help. So what else did he tell you about dealing with the Americans? Working with the Americans.
RG: One story was that dad had been on, I can’t tell you where he’d been on the raid but he was flying back and the aircraft had got minor damage and they couldn’t make it back to East Kirkby. So they had to fly and land lower down the country. Was it lower? Or upper? Well, he landed —
TG: South.
RG: Yes. And dad was doing the Morse Code. The colours of the day and who they were etcetera and he flew over an American base and they opened fire on them. And dad was firing away, not firing away, he was doing his Morse Code. Who he was and the aircraft. And eventually after they’d fired at them, eventually the penny dropped who they were and they landed. They were escorted. The crew were escorted by gunpoint to a higher level. Dad and his crew should have been in the officer’s mess but they weren’t. They were separated. Eventually the aircraft was made airworthy and they took off. And being as they were a whole load of young lads they raided the stores and filled it with toilet rolls. Filled the bomb bay with toilet rolls. They should have flown off and come home to East Kirkby but no. Young lads as they were the pilot did a turn around and as they flew over the airfield the bomb bays opened, the toilet rolls flew out and dad tapped away, you historically say, ‘You crapped on us [laughs] Here’s the bumph to go with it.’ When they got back to East Kirkby they thought oh my goodness we’re all going to be in trouble but nothing was ever said. So, yes. That was, and dad didn’t have a great love of the Americans.
CB: This is, this is later in the war we’re talking about here.
RG: Yes. Later. Yes.
CB: But it’s prompted by the earlier point about being at Polebrook.
RG: Yes.
TG: So —
RG: The Americans. Yeah.
CB: What else do we know about when he was there?
TG: After thirty operations which Peter thankfully survived he volunteered and was, as I say an instructor, went as an instructor to the US Air Force at Polebrook. Teaching them Morse Code and wireless operations procedure and I think we’ve already mentioned about this business about going to the pub haven’t we?
CB: Yes.
TG: Shall I read —
CB: What other, what other experiences did he have with them?
TG: Well, they, they used to fly all over the country of course but Peter at that time, I’m not sure if that time he was probably married to Olive which we’ll come to later but, who was at Spalding in South Lincolnshire and he used to persuade the Americans to land at Sutton Bridge which was only about fifteen miles from Spalding, when he’d been on a trip with them. And he’d disembark from the aircraft and he’d cadge a lift one way or another into Spalding to see Olive. So he was using them as a rather an expensive taxi but it served his purpose very well.
RG: Mum and dad met when dad was visiting a crew member who’d got badly burned in an aircraft and, I don’t think it was one of dad’s crew but it was a fellow RAF man. And he was at Stamford Hospital and I think they went on a motorbike, two of them to see, to visit this friend and they stopped back at Spalding obviously for a beer or two. And they went to the Greyhound down Broad Street in Spalding and my mum was, Olive was the bar maid there. And obviously there was some attraction and dad kept visiting. Yeah. But that’s where they first met. And if he hadn’t have wanted a beer and pulled in they would never have met. And mum and dad were married in April 1942.
CB: So, how did they keep contact during the war?
RG: I think it was dad visiting home. They lived at, with my nan in Little London which is very close to Spalding. I think it was just a question of dad coming and visiting and letters. That sort of thing. Yes.
CB: Ok. So at the end of his posting to Polebrook to assist the Americans.
TG: Yes.
CB: How long was that posting there? Do we know?
TG: Well, he, he volunteered for a second tour and he was posted in 1943. In November 1943 if I recall correctly to Husbands Bosworth where he trained with a [pause] with his second crew. A rookie crew.
CB: That was an OTU.
TG: Yes.
CB: 14 OTU. Yeah.
TG: But from February 1941 he’d been at Coningsby just to go back. He did his thirty raids. Then to Polebrook. And then by November ’43 he, he, he, he went to Husbands Bosworth and there he was crewed up with, as I say the new crew who were under training and the pilot was, flight well then he was flight lieutenant then, but a chap called J B P Spencer who was nicknamed Tuesday for reasons that Peter could never discover. Tuesday was from Durham and from quite a well to do family. They and the rest of the crew after they’d finished training were posted to East Kirkby in the run up basically to D-Day.
CB: And then what was the Squadron number there?
TG: It was 57 Squadron.
CB: Right.
TG: At East Kirkby at the time.
CB: Flying?
TG: Lancasters then.
CB: Well, normally there would be a link of a Heavy Conversion Unit between the OTU and the Squadron but it’s possible they didn’t have them operating at that time. When did he go to East Kirkby?
TG: In March 1944.
CB: Ok.
TG: That’s from memory but —
CB: Stop there briefly.
TG: I’m sure it is.
[recording paused]
CB: So we’re chopping and changing a bit but let’s just go back to Finningley.
RG: [unclear]
CB: So what, what, yes what anecdotes do we have about dad flying in Finningley?
RG: Well, I haven’t any recollection of dad talking about it at the time of that he was in there but later on life I and my husband went on holiday and we flew. It was then Robin Hood Airport and we flew from Finningley as it was and dad said oh, well his pilot, Spencer was rubbish at flying. Flying a plane. He would just throw it in to the sky and when he landed he would equally do the same. It was always a hit and miss affair whether they actually got down ok. Dad said that Finningley had got a crosswind and you had to fly, land it sort of diagonal. I didn’t believe him really but off we went on this holiday. And when we came back the wind was that strong that we basically had to fly as dad had said that his Spencer did. But it was typical. We landed and we were home. But yes. So Finningley has never got any better over the years. Or is it the pilots?
CB: Or is it the crosswind?
RG: Crosswind. Well, yes I suppose it’s how, how the airfield is. Mind you they don’t call them airfields now, do they?
CB: Well, it’s an airport now.
RG: An airport. Yeah. But to me they’ll be aerodromes.
CB: Home of the Vulcan. Yes.
RG: Yes. Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
CB: Right.
[recording paused]
CB: Ok.
TG: Right. From the OTU at Husbands Bosworth and at Market Harborough Pete then was posted to the HCU at Wigsley where they flew Stirlings. And then on to Syerston where he —
CB: Lancaster Flying School.
TG: Well, the —
CB: Finishing School.
TG: The Lancaster Finishing School, I beg your pardon at Syerston where I think they’d also pick up the engineer, would they not?
CB: They would have done that at Wigsley.
TG: Yeah. Sorry at Wigsley.
CB: Yes. But he doesn’t mention that in his tour because it’s expanding the crew to the final seventh man.
TG: I see. He never, he never mentioned much about some details.
CB: No. Then he went on to his second operational Squadron which was?
TG: 57 Squadron.
CB: Yeah.
TG: Where —
CB: That was, where was that?
TG: East Kirkby.
CB: Right.
TG: And that was in April 1944.
CB: Right. We’ll stop there for a mo. Thank you.
[recording paused]
TG: The attrition rate was very very high.
CB: So he joined 57 Squadron in 1944.
TG: Yes.
CB: Early part of ’44. Didn’t he?
TG: With Tuesday Spencer as his pilot. And the rest of the crew, Clarke, West, Hughes-Games, and Grice and George I think his name was. And they flew twenty five missions and I think they were very intense at the time. The enemy fire and such. But they managed to survive it but at the end of the twenty five raids Peter was told by the commanding officer he could not continue to fly. He’d had, he needed a rest and he was stood down. And he went for about ten days leave and when he came back he discovered that the rest of his crew were dead or at least missing. And it transpired that they’d been shot down on the 31st of August 1944 after a raid on the railway yards at Joigny La Roche. About a hundred and twenty kilometres south west I think of Paris. And when he arrived back on base he was summoned to the station commander’s office where he was introduced to Tuesday Spencer’s parents who wanted to meet him as the friend of their late son. And —
RG: Twenty.
TG: Sorry?
RG: The lad was twenty.
TG: He was only twenty years old was Tuesday. And Pete was only a little bit more and they gave Peter five pounds to spend on a good night out.
RG: No. They sent him to mark his commission and his DFC five pounds.
TG: Of the —
RG: Because of their, yes that’s in here. Yeah.
TG: Yeah. And instead of spending it on drink because probably his first inclination would be to do he and Olive decided to spend this money on a pair of candlesticks in memory of the crew. And those candlesticks are still with Rachel’s elder sister. Pride of place on the mantelpiece no doubt. In memory of them. What happened to that crew was that from research we’ve carried out and what Peter was told at the time that the aircraft at least blew up returning from the raid. As far as we can work out. And from, again from records we obtained from the Public Record Office at Kew Hughey, Hughey Hughes-Games was the first to parachute out of the plane followed by Sergeant Grice who Peter didn’t know but was acting as Pete’s replacement while he was stood down. And the Germans later said a third parachute caught fire on the way down but no other men escaped the plane. And the Lanc which was called Q for Queenie ND954 burned out on the ground. Hughes-Games it transpired was taken prisoner of war as was Sergeant Grice and the rest of the crew were killed. And they’re buried at Banneville-La-Campagne near Caen. I might have pronounced that incorrectly. Sadly, Hughes-Games who was interviewed by the Red Cross and from some of the information I’ve given to you about it catching fire and whatever came from him he contracted meningitis and died in, Stalag 3 was it? And is buried in Poland. The rest of the crew as I say are buried near Caen. And I took Peter back there and we’ve been back to their graves several times. Sergeant Grice survived as a prisoner of war and I think he ended up back at home and he lived to be in his mid-eighties in Shropshire. But we never met him and Peter didn’t know him. So that was really the last of his memories of 57 Squadron and the loss of that crew. He did commence a third tour. Incidentally, the crew he lost at 57 Squadron were on their thirty first raid. And it’s commonly thought that thirty was the limit but temporarily it was lifted to thirty five around that time I understand. And sadly on their thirty first raid when they died.
RG: The only plane on that day to be lost from East Kirkby.
TG: On the 31st of July that raid went, basically things were a lot easier for the bombers at that time and it was the only aircraft lost on that raid, on that day from East Kirkby.
CB: How did he feel about the loss of his crew?
TG: Peter never spoke much about the experience he had until he retired from his business when he was about seventy. And I discussed it at great length with him and I took him as I say back to France, down to Kew, to Runnymede, St Martin in the Fields. All the Memorials because he started to open up but he never gave much detail about the bad side of it. He mentioned the crew had been killed and he was quite matter of fact about it but that was the surface.
RG: Say now about dad’s nightmares all his life.
TG: But subconsciously we know that he, he was greatly affected by, by his experiences. You’ve got to bear in mind that he, his flying hours exceeded a thousand. A thousand hours in these, in these terrible conditions. I mean they weren’t sitting back. They were bitterly cold, frightened to death and as he often told us more ammunition was wasted on the Morning/Evening Star than shooting at other aircraft because they were quite obviously tense and wound up. But when I met him and he was in his mid-forties then occasionally if we were staying there we would hear him in the middle of the night when he was asleep.
RG: [unclear]
TG: And also at our house in later life if he was ill he would start up talking to his skipper on the radio in his sleep. In talking almost as if it was happening. These episodes of talking to the skipper and warning him about approaching aircraft or, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ didn’t last for a few minutes. They would last for hours in, in the night. Where he would, he would start off and then ten minutes later he’d had another instruction to the skipper, the pilot to warn him of approaching aircraft. And this was when Peter was seventy five or eighty years old. This was forty years later. And it was obviously imprinted on his subconscious indelibly and whilst to talk to him it didn’t affect him if he talked about it a lot at a function when he was later in life because as I say he didn’t disclose much at all of, of the worst side of things but it was obviously there underneath. And if he, if he’d been talking to you now like I’m talking to you tonight he would have been flying again. In his sleep.
RG: In the mornings he would say, ‘Oh, my goodness. I’ve been flying all night. All night.’ Right up until he was in hospital and Helen went to see him, my sister and just before he died he was still flying.
CB: So, who used to go and see him in the night?
TG: We —
RG: Me. Usually me. Or when he was with mum, mum would.
TG: Mum.
RG: Yeah. But when he, after my mum died and he would be here with us it would be me.
TG: But he was ok the next day as a rule. The one thing I noticed about him and maybe many, many other bomber crew he didn’t have any friends from those days. Like some of the army chaps. Simply because there were none left. They had all been killed. All his crew had been killed hadn’t they? I think he stayed in touch with Bob Wareing briefly.
RG: Yes.
TG: Until he died. And about [unclear]
RG: He stayed, he stayed friends with a lot of the RAF people.
TG: But they’d not flown with him.
RG: Through his association with the Royal Observer Corps and the RAF Association.
TG: And the British Legion.
RG: And the British Legion. And also he was a member of Fenland Airfield and he loved to go and spend time down there.
TG: But he never knew or could talk to anyone who flew with him.
RG: Except —
TG: On those raids.
RG: Except —
TG: Except on one occasion at the —
RG: Metheringham.
TG: Metheringham. The reunion which was held, held every year of 106 Squadron he bumped into —
RG: Well, he nearly didn’t go.
TG: He nearly didn’t go. He was very ill. Quite ill at the time and it was not that long before Pete’s death. But we took him to Metheringham, to the old airfield and he bumped into a chap and they got talking and it transpired that on the Scharnhorst raid this chap remembered it clearly and had been in another aircraft on that same raid. And he remembered some talk of Peter shooting down an enemy aircraft. But Peter, Pete always said he thought, they thought he had originally but he never claimed it was him, did he?
RG: But he, this gentleman knew the formation. He said, ‘And your pilot pulled out of formation to go in again.’ And it was just listening to these two old gentlemen who were well into their eighties talking as though they were there that present moment. But for two old age people to be there just by chance on that reunion was amazing. Terry has that on video because we’d just got a new video camera. Yeah.
TG: That’s with IBC, they’ve got the copy of that. Well, we’ve got it here.
RG: Yes.
TG: But I video’d that conversation and it’s now been —
CB: Brilliant.
RG: Yeah.
CB: So we’re really talking about 106 Squadron when they were flying Hampdens.
RG: From Metheringham Airfield.
CB: From Metheringham.
RG: This one. Yes.
TG: He’s written Coningsby but it was definitely —
CB: Metheringham.
TG: Well, it was a satellite wasn’t it?
CB: Yes.
TG: He flew from there. He met, he once, he met Gibson once or twice and knew him. He wasn’t a very popular man, was he? Gibson.
CB: No.
TG: Very officious. But it’s not on there is it? Is that switched off?
CB: Yeah. No. No. It isn’t. We’ll stop there just for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: The matter of how to speak about these things was difficult for most war veterans. Aircrew particularly. Perhaps because of the high losses. But then there’s the effect on the families. So he’s speaking in his sleep in these times.
RG: Yeah.
CB: What affect did that have on you?
RG: Well, I was mainly concerned for Dad’s well-being really and I would go and chat to him. Although he was asleep his eyes would be open and he didn’t really know I was there. But obviously he did and then he would calm and then in the morning he would say, ‘Rachel, I’ve been flying all night.’ And I would say, ‘Yes, dad. I know.’ But he’d no recollection of me being there. But it was, it was quite upsetting to hear that he was, and he was talking and as though you know he was there, ‘Skip, they’re coming in at — ’ so and so, you know, ‘Do we fire now?’ And it was just as though he was there. But obviously, you know it was affecting his mind. And right up until the minute, well not the minute but the day before he died he was still flying. Yeah. It was —
TG: He was eighty one when he died.
RG: But as a child Dad the war was not spoken to about a lot but on the days when Dad would be slightly not well I was told that I’d got to behave because he wasn’t very well. And that was the reason. But yeah. But in the night he didn’t seem to be agitated by it. It was just as though it was happening and he was coping with it.
CB: So it’s no shouting.
RG: No.
CB: It’s just a conversation.
RG: Yes. Yeah. As though —
CB: As though he’s on the intercom.
RG: Yeah.
TG: As calm as you and I now. Controlled. And so and so’s happening, Skip.
RG: Just as though they were getting on with the job.
TG: A normal tone of voice as if and then an hour later or ten minutes later he’d give an update of some sort. ‘Let’s get the bloody [pause] out of here skipper.’ And that was it.
CB: Because he was acting as a lookout.
RG: Yes.
TG: Well, yes.
RG: Yes.
TG: Oh yes.
CB: As a child though you were told that he was, it was a bad day. So what did you feel as a child when you, he had these episodes?
RG: I just took it, I just took it as, as I’ve got, behave myself. I think I was a bit of reckless child but you know I just got to behave myself and that was it [pause] But no, he was, no. Just my dad.
CB: But he was always calm in what he was doing. It was —
RG: Just turn that off a minute.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
[recording paused]
CB: So how did your mother handle this?
RG: Well, very calmly I think. Dad would on, on what I now know was his sort of bad days he would be prone to picking arguments and probably doing a bit of shouting which was quite unusual for dad because he was quite a calm person. But in, you know he would be probably be shouting at mum but I just sort of took it as I’d just got to behave myself and that would be it. But mum always, when dad was like this was always very sort of calm, and well I suppose she was talking him down a bit. But it was never mentioned why he was like it and I just thought oh well other people’s dads shout and that, you know and that was it. But as a general rule he was such a calm sort of person. Took everything in his stride really. But on these occasions that, that used to happen. Yeah.
CB: To what extent do you think over the years he had spoken to your mother about his experiences?
RG: I don’t really know. I wouldn’t. I would imagine not a lot. It was, I wouldn’t, I never overheard them talking about anything but then I wouldn’t always be there but, no it was usually, if dad spoke about anything it wasn’t how it affected him. It was usually telling a tale of what he’d been up to. What raid he’d been on and different aspects of what they, you know, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t the horrors. It was more of the good bits. You know. Tearing about on a motorbike and that sort of thing as you would expect lads of that age to be doing.
TG: And he was only twenty or so.
CB: Yeah.
TG: When all this was —
CB: Yes.
TG: You know, that was the average age of these —
CB: Sure. Oh yes. Absolutely. So she was in the Spalding area.
RG: All the time. Yes.
CB: Surrounded by Air Force. They were married in the war.
RG: Yes.
CB: She continued did she in her bar work?
RG: Yes. She was a nanny and, to a family who had four children and they kept the Greyhound. So in the day mum would be looking after the children. Helping with that sort of thing. And then she would as and when she was required she would be the bar. The bar girl. Yes. So she stayed with the family. Well, they’re godparents to me and later John one of the sons went into partnership with my dad as a nurseryman and, but mum didn’t live always at the Greyhound. She lived with her parents in Little London. And then when my sister Helen was born she, she was with nan and then mum would be continuing to work and home as normal mum’s do. Yeah.
CB: The reason I ask the question is because to some extent she was programmed to the losses and the stoic reaction of the other crews.
RG: Yes. Yes. I don’t honestly know whether it was all talked about but no doubt it would be you know mentioned. You know. Particularly the loss of all the crew. The last, last one.
TG: I’ve mentioned Tuesday and then of course she had the incident with the DFC. Your mum was disappointed.
CB: So what was that?
RG: Well, dad was awarded the DFC. And mum saved all the coupons and my nan, all the coupons for a new outfit. Coat. A new coat was, I think she had it made and, and you know all ready to go to London, to the Palace and then the king was very poorly so of course it, they couldn’t go. And the DFC was given to dad by his commanding officer over the counter more or less at East Kirkby. And it was very, very disappointing for mum not to be going on that.
CB: I can imagine. Yes.
TG: The king did write. We’ve still got the letter of course.
RG: Oh yes. We, yeah.
CB: Not the same as having it —
RG: No. But no —
CB: Conferred on you.
RG: Well, in those days where they lived, a little village. Oh, you know. Olive Hazeldene. She’s going to the Palace, you know. And a new coat was got. You know it’s just, well, it was one of those things isn’t it? The poor old king.
CB: Well, people didn’t travel much in those days so —
RG: No.
CB: It was a major —
RG: It was a big thing.
CB: Task.
RG: Yes.
CB: We’ll pause there for a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: You were, so let’s just catch up on here.
RG: Do you know, I’m really, I’m really a very strong character but when I start crying I cry for days. Mr Panton, we were talking to him, oh I forgot what I was going to say. We were talking to him one day about dad.
CB: Just to that in to context the airfield was bought by the Panton’s for their chicken farm.
RG: Yes.
CB: And then they bought what is now called, “Just Jane.”
RG: Yes. Yeah. From Scampton. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. So you were saying though that before that happened.
RG: No.
CB: We used to go there.
RG: No. No.
RG: Yeah. We used to go.
TG: Go back to the beginning.
CB: Dad would just go in.
RG: We used to go there, but we never used to speak to anybody because we were like trespassers trespassing and but we used to go and just like look and that was it and you know we girls would probably play hide and seek and that would be it.
CB: On the airfield.
RG: On the airfield. Yes. And then when after dad died we got the Memorial cabinet set up. We were talking to Mr Fred Panton one day and he was saying, and I said my dad would never come in the Lancaster. And he said that they had, when they started doing the taxi runs they had this gentleman who booked himself on one of the flights as they called it. He would come early, have a bit of lunch and sit there and then he would be ready, his flight would be ready, they would call him but he just couldn’t bring himself to get on it. And he said he did it numerous times. Not just the once. Numerous times. Where he really wanted to go on the taxi run but couldn’t bring himself to. And he was, like dad had flown from there.
CB: What do you think was the origin of that reaction?
RG: I would imagine that it would be bringing back all the horrors of, of going. You know, on these raids.
CB: In your case was it your father’s reaction of the loss of the crew without him being there?
RG: He never actually said anything about it but no if I mentioned, ‘Oh, shall we go on one of those taxi runs?’ ‘No. I don’t think so Rachel.’ And that was it but he did [pause] he got a tree planted just around the corner from the mess and in memory and he had a plaque put for his crew. You carry on. Oh dear.
CB: We’ll stop a mo.
[recording paused]
CB: Even though —
RG: Even though dad never actually said how he felt about his crew he did have a tree, bought a tree, a big flowering cherry, had the tree planted and he had a plaque with the all the names of his crew and why we put it there. And now we’ve got, and now we’ve got one by the side of it for dad.
CB: This is a really emotional and emotive activity and task to follow up. But taking the bombing war itself what was his attitude towards bombing in general?
RG: He just, he just, he didn’t do too much commenting on it but I got the feeling that dad was given a task to do and they just went and did it. And didn’t give a great deal, no I was going to say a great deal of thought to what they were doing but obviously they were. But they were just following orders I think. That’s, but he didn’t, dad didn’t say too much. He was a very private sort of fella. Yeah.
CB: Terry, what do you think?
TG: Well, he told me that it was a job that had to be done and he did as he was told and he kept at it. It was the only way. Bearing in mind at the time the only people that were taking the war to Germany was Bomber Command. And he, I asked him sometimes why they’d not been recognised and he just said that’s just how it was. He wasn’t, he got to the stage where he wasn’t, he wasn’t bothered that there was no particular medal for Bomber Command in the war. We all know the political sensitivities about that but that was the way it was. He had a job to do, he said and he did it to the best he could. And he said he was just very, very lucky to have survived.
CB: We talked about his DFC. His navigator also had a DFC. Doesn’t look as though the pilot had a DFC. But what was the, his 57 Squadron pilot because his 106 had two DFCs didn’t he? Wareing.
TG: I think Bob Wareing, 106 Squadron had a DFC and probably a DFC and bar. Peter eventually got his. He said he got it because he was lucky to be alive. But read the citation. Continually went into some of the worst and most heavily defended targets. Sorry. You asked me what?
CB: Yeah. I was going to say what was the reason that, given for his receiving the DFC? Because it was a particular point.
TG: It was a non-immediate award.
CB: Right.
TG: And it was I think the citation and it’s around somewhere was continued enthusiasm and leadership going in to some of the, as I say the worst defended targets repeatedly again and again and again. When he was eventually put forward for it and he received it in 1944. Yes, it was 1944.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
TG: It was, it was some years or quite a long time after I had married Rachel that he even mentioned he’d got it. It wasn’t something that was a big thing with him.
RG: As a child dad was a member of the Royal Observer Corps. He was chief, Observer Corps at the post at Maxey, and on ceremonial occasions, on marches and Remembrance Sundays the medals always came out. So he was very proud of them, but as to talk about it that would be a different matter. But on an occasion where other members of the Royal Observer Corps and the British Legion and all that he would wear them with pride. Yeah.
CB: Now, his 57 Squadron tour finished at twenty five ops for him.
TG: Yes.
CB: What did he do after that?
TG: Well, he, he, he started a third tour at Syerston. From Syerston on Lancasters. But he did a few operational tours before the war finished.
CB: Which Squadron was that?
TG: I can’t remember.
CB: It doesn’t matter. But he was on operations. Not training.
TG: No. He was on operations. We see from his logbook he made at least one or two trips to Berlin. Four or five days after Germany surrendered.
CB: Oh right.
TG: And that was the end of his operational duties but I think he stayed on for another eighteen months or so before finally leaving the RAF.
CB: What, what — how did he come to be in the Observer Corps?
RG: My Uncle Bert. He was my godfather. He was a member of the Royal Observer Corps and dad went. Followed him sort of thing. Yeah. Got the Queen’s Silver Jubilee for services to the Royal Observer Corps. And he was chief observer at the Maxey post.
CB: Which is where exactly?
TG: Just outside of Peterborough. Between Peterborough and —
RG: Yeah. Market Deeping.
TG: Until, until it was disbanded.
RG: Yes.
TG: He, he stayed ‘til the end.
RG: He did all the talks on the, you know when the bomb, what was going off. I used to go with him on those talks. We talked to all sorts of organisations. I was in charge of the slides. You know. To show them. I felt as if I knew everything about it. Yes.
TG: I did talk to him about D-Day. I asked him if he’d been on an operation leading up to D-Day and in fact as his logbook proves he was. 5 Group went and bombed on the evening of the 5th of June 1944. Maisy Grandcamp and that area there. I asked him what he thought about it and what he knew about it. When he went on that raid he had no idea it was D-Day. He didn’t know it was D-Day and neither did anybody else but the top brass. As you probably know. And he said he thought it was funny because as he flew over the Channel, he thought on his screen there was a lot of Window. The silver.
CB: Radar jamming.
TG: The radar jamming stuff that was flying around but it, they did the raid and they got back and he went back and went to bed. And then when he woke up the next morning they told him it was D-Day and what he’d seen on his screen wasn’t Window. It was the boats. It was, it was the invasion fleet going. And that was the first he knew it was D-Day because of the secrecy of everything.
CB: This was on his H2S radar.
TG: Yes.
CB: He was seeing it.
TG: Yes.
CB: Yeah.
TG: But that’s, but that’s his recollection of that. But he remembered some, some raids and he’d tell me briefly about them. I think once they, shortly after D-Day they were detailed to attack Caen. The Germans there, and bomb at a certain point. But between taking off and getting this message our side, I think Canadians advanced further and I think there was quite a lot of allied troops killed by our own side in that raid. You probably know more about it than I do. Similarly we talked about the Scharnhorst earlier. That was a raid he told me that went slightly wrong. The plan had been, I think it was Poleglase was the station commander who led them in. But the plan had been for bombers to go in early at high level and get the bombs, the ships guns pointing upwards when Pete’s group would come in low and give them a good hiding. But I think the timing went wrong and they were waiting for them and hence the first three aircraft were shot out of the sky and then Wareing took that detour inland and came and got them from the other way. But these are the things that are probably not documented anywhere else.
CB: Now, the other major ship of course, capital ship was the Bismarck.
TG: Yes.
CB: So to what did he, extent did he have an involvement with that?
TG: He told us and it came to light after a chance conversation forty or fifty years later. Forty years later. With a chap in the Mail Cart pub at Spalding. But Pete told us that they knew where the Bismarck was heading but they didn’t quite know where it was as I understood it. So they went off to lay some mines in the Bay of Biscay and they were talked down as to where they should plant these mines by some of the Naval vessels. And that is what they did. And obviously a short time later the Bismarck was sunk by other means. But the chap in the, in the pub years later it transpired was on one of our Naval vessels and he was a wireless operator talking with the RAF and giving them instructions. So it was probably that Peter actually had spoken to this man before but never met him in entirely different circumstances than over a pint in the Mail Cart.
RG: Steward and Patteson’s.
TG: Yeah. So Steward and Patteson’s was a, that was another. Pete. Pete knew his beers. He knew them like no man I’ve ever met. And he could drink probably more than any man I’ve ever met [laughs] But when I first met him he used to take me to the Dun Cow at Spalding. Well at Cowbit. And he had this Steward and Patteson was one of the local brewers and Pete with his favourite pint but they used to grow barley in Norfolk for the beer, and they used to grow barley in Lincolnshire on the other side of the River Nene. And Pete could tell from the drink which side of the river the barley had been grown. Now, whether he was shooting the line.
RG: He would be.
TG: Which I’m sure he was but people believed him. So there you go. That’s, that’s the man. He was a very tall man, you know. About six foot two, wasn’t he? Very gentle. And he could speak equally to Prince Phillip or the Queen who he met a time or two.
RG: Garden parties.
TG: Or to the local drunk on his bike going past his nursery. Couldn’t he?
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
TG: Couldn’t he? He was at ease with anybody.
CB: And talking of nurseries. After the war how did he come to take up horticulture?
RG: Well, he went to work for Nell Brothers. Horticulturalists in Spalding. And he went as worker there. And then he went to Swanley Horticultural College and did a course on growing and all that sort of thing. And then he came back home. And then one of the Prestons, John Preston was of school leaving age and he thought he might like a career in horticulture. Growing type things. His father was loosely connected. And so they set up the nursery. They rented the land from Uncle Bert and they set up the business of Redmile Nurseries. John was the young lad and my dad was the expert as it were. And they worked there ‘til dad retired. You know. Quite a successful. Growing tomatoes, lettuce. The land had a bit of wheat on. They did lot of potato chitting. Cut flowers in the greenhouses. They expanded a little bit but that’s it. That’s where dad worked.
TG: He spent all his, his remainder of his working life.
RG: Yes.
TG: The Preston family that Rachel mentioned are the same ones that Olive was nanny too.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And who owned the Greyhound at Spalding.
RG: Yes.
TG: And in fact, John, his partner only died last week. He was eighty five.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: Do you want to just say that again.
RG: Yeah. Dad grew all sorts of veg and things like that. Tomatoes and lettuce. But he absolutely hated tomatoes. It was quite funny really. You grow them, you know and yeah. But he hated them.
CB: What was the origin of that?
RG: I’ve absolutely no idea really but yeah. Yeah. It’s [pause] yeah.
TG: But his —
RG: But we never ate tomatoes like they do in supermarkets now. Red. They’d always got to be firm and orange and they’d always got to be of a certain size. Other things like you have beef tomatoes and things nowadays they just went on the skip. It had got to be if I can remember pink, or pink and white. That was the grade of the tomatoes.
TG: If they were red they weren’t fit to eat.
RG: No. They were thrown out. They were only for frying.
TG: But of course Rachel does the garden. That’s been inherited from her dad I think.
CB: Looks smashing.
TG: Well, your other sister is a horticulturist.
RG: Yes. Helen is horticultural.
TG: In a big way big way down in Spalding.
RG: Yes. Yeah.
TG: Yes.
CB: Stop there again.
[recording paused]
RG: And they went on their honeymoon. The Preston’s had a bungalow at Surfleet Reservoir. And mum and dad went down there. I suppose it was all the time they’d got. They went down there for the honeymoon to the bungalow at Surfleet Reservoir. It’s where the river comes in and there’s a, there’s a sluice gate before it goes out into the sea. Surfleet Reservoir. In the day it was quite a nice little place to be. Yeah, and that’s where they went on their honeymoon.
TG: About three miles from home.
RG: Yes. Well, why not?
CB: Might have got recalled.
TG: Well, yes.
RG: Well, that’s always a possibility isn’t it?
TG: That was it. But —
CB: Stop there.
[recording paused]
CB: So, did you go back to France quite often? Where the crew were buried.
TG: Rachel and, Rachel and I went on holiday in France quite often and always drive. One time when we were coming back we went to Normandy where my father fought and went to some of the cemeteries at Omaha and others. And at the time I think I managed it was sort of pre-internet days really. But I managed to find where Peter’s crew were buried from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and on the way back we travelled to Banneville and to the Commonwealth and found Tuesday Spencer and Weston Clark and Anderson. Their grave. And we came back on the Tuesday and Peter had never set foot abroad. He’d left his mark. By golly he had in France and in Germany from high, from on high and I mentioned I’d been and I didn’t know really how to put it because I didn’t know how it would affect him emotionally. And I said we’d been and found the graves and he did say, ‘I’d like to go.’ So this was on the Tuesday. On the Saturday we jumped in his Rover and I went back to France with him and we had the whale of a time. We had a whale of a time. We not only visited. We visited some hostelries there and we visited Pointe du Hoc and Omaha, and I took him to the graves and he stood beside them and he signed the book. He was very quiet but he was completely controlled and he was able to speak quite easily of them. And so he did and we’ve got photographs of the graves and Peter with them.
CB: So what did he talk about?
TG: When he was there? He would talk about Tuesday. He was, I think the closest because he didn’t know anything much about other crews and that was fairly [pause] fairly part of the course wasn’t it? He knew his own crew but Tuesday had a motor bike and he’d got a girlfriend. I think he was having trouble with this girlfriend and I think Pete used to advise him a little bit on the, on procedure and protocols and things like that. But I think he also used to take Pete to Spalding to see Olive and that sort of thing and have a few pints.
RG: Dad put in here that he socialised an awful lot with Tuesday. He had a little bit more money than dad and if they went somewhere, probably go to London and he would put them up and I think dad quite liked that idea.
TG: That happened once. They made a forced landing somewhere down south and Tuesday had the money and he put the whole crew up in a hotel in London. And Pete was quite happy to participate. He put his back in to that evening I think [laughs]. Really put his back into so, and enjoyed that wouldn’t he? But having said that and between meeting him and Tuesday dying was only eleven months or so wasn’t it? So they were, they were, they were friends but they, they must have known that, well what was going through their minds having looked around you didn’t make plans for the future necessarily.
CB: No. You said he was asked to speak to Tuesday’s parents.
TG: Yes.
CB: What did he think about that?
TG: He described it as it was, didn’t he? He, he, they wanted to speak to him and he was summoned to the office. The station commander. When he returned after ten days or so. And they really wanted to talk to him about Tuesday and how he’d found him because obviously they knew or they had been told that Pete was his best friend while he was down there. I think all he could tell them was —
RG: How it was really.
TG: How it was. And when he’d last seen him and that sort of thing. He didn’t express any emotion at all.
RG: No.
TG: To me. He never expressed any emotion. He just told it how it was and that was all his experiences. The only clue you got to the effect was as we mentioned was the night.
RG: Nightmares. Yeah.
TG: The nightmares if you like to call it that. When he was flying at night. That was the only time he, you would know that there was anything amiss. That he’d been affected. He would talk about his drink. The drinking sessions and the good times. He’d talk about not being able to remember because they’d had just to blot it out. But the middle bit. The bit where it happened he, he didn’t go into any detail other than the funny bits usually. And occasionally obviously the rear gunner being hit. But he was, he was baled out twice. Wasn’t he?
CB: So why did he have to bale out of the aircraft?
TG: I think the aircraft made it back to the UK, in England both times. I think on one occasion he landed in a field and it was foggy. And I’m sure he told me that there was somebody had reported this fellow had come out of an aircraft and a police car was, was on the road and he was the other side of the hedge. And I think they thought he was a German or something to start with because he was running down this hedge side with the police opposite until they could sort of meet up and he identified himself. He did get some shrapnel in the backside once. Didn’t he?
RG: Yes. I think mum used to have it in her sewing box. I don’t know if it’s still there [laughs]
TG: It’s probably —
RG: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think it is now. Yeah. You always, when I was a kid that, ‘Oh, no. That came out of dad’s, dad’s bottom,’ like, you know [laughs]
TG: It had gone through the seat.
RG: Yeah.
TG: Wherever he was.
RG: And when he landed in the tree I think he ripped his leg. But that’s the only injury he got. Yeah.
TG: I think he landed in Norfolk on one occasion if not both. Then struggling back.
RG: The thing is though when you’re growing up you hear, and later on you hear these things and because you’re so engrossed with living —
CB: Yeah.
RG: You don’t take it on board. And then all of a sudden when you get older and you get interested in these sorts of things you think oh, I wish I’d learned more. I wish I knew more about my granddad because he was in the First World War and he, I just knew that he was a horseman but I didn’t know whether he rode a horse. I didn’t know what he did, but he was, he looked after the horse —
TG: A blacksmith.
RG: No. He wasn’t a blacksmith. He looked after the horses that pulled the big guns. You see, I didn’t know any of that.
CB: No.
RG: You know. I didn’t. I mean, ok apart from a picture at my nan’s of him in uniform I wouldn’t have thought. It wasn’t until later on that I’ve got some spoons and knives and things in there stamped with numbers. And they are my granddads and my great uncle’s that they took to the war with them.
TG: They’d be stamped and issued to them, wouldn’t they?
RG: With their, with their service numbers.
CB: No.
RG: I didn’t know. You know, I didn’t know any of that.
CB: No.
RG: And then of course when you get interested it’s too late because everybody’s gone then. Isn’t it?
TG: You see, we’d been across there a lot. Both to the Normandy and to Ypres and the Somme. I nearly lived there. Certainly, if you look behind you when you’re upstairs you’ll see books. I’ve got the 57 Squadron book. The, “57 Squadron at War,” which is very difficult to get a hold of now. I’ve got it. I’ve got it upstairs there but, when I go around to some of these places I mean I often go or used to go to Sleaford and one other, and Norfolk where they’re doing all these re-enactments and you think gosh these are really, because I’m really into these things as you probably gathered. And I start talking to these and they’re all dressed and they, when you actually talk to them they know very little. They want to get dressed up and do battle. They’ve never been to Normandy. They’ve never been to those. They don’t know about, they just want to get dressed up and look you know. They don’t get into it.
CB: They’re actors.
RG: Yes.
TG: Yes. But they’re just enthusiast who want to get dressed up and think it’s fun.
RG: I went.
TG: It annoys me. That they should go and look at those cemeteries, you know. And they’ve never been. I said, ‘What do you think to Omaha?’ ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Omaha.’ You know. Or, or, or Tyne Cot, or Passchendaele or some of these, you know.
RG: I challenged one at Metheringham Open Day one day. He was there and he had DFC things on, you know.
TG: He was dressed up.
RG: He was an officer and he’d got the DFC. You know, the ribbons.
TG: He was a postman. He’d never been in a —
RG: I said to him, ‘Oh, you’ve got, I see you’ve got a DFC there,’ you know. He did not know what I was talking about. I said, ‘That, that ribbon there. That’s a DFC.’ ‘Is it?’
TG: Yeah.
RG: And I thought, what are we doing here? You know. Yeah.
TG: If they’re going to do that they want to know more than I do.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And my dad was there and he, you know he was reported killed, missing in action to my mum on the 18th of June 1944. Fortunately, in the same post she got a letter from him. He was in Carlisle Hospital with a great lump of shrapnel in him. At Ranville, at Ranville, just up from, from Pegasus Bridge. He’d been smashed up. But as I say after three or four months he was fit enough to go back. That’s where he got this.
RG: I don’t know.
TG: He lived ‘til he was ninety six my father. Red beret and airborne.
RG: Yeah.
TG: And all this sort of thing.
RG: Before he died it was the, was it the seventieth anniversary or something. VE. VE Day.
TG: The week before he died.
RG: Yeah.
TG: My dad was in a home here. My mum died a few years before. And he managed to reach the seventieth anniversary of D-Day.
RG: Yeah. And at the home they did a big, a big thing. It was a Care Centre there. And they did a meal and everything like that.
TG: They got him dressed up with his medals.
RG: And he went and it was, it was a good day. He wasn’t quite sure where he was.
TG: It was his last Friday or Saturday on earth.
RG: Yeah, but he, yeah it was —
TG: He died the following Thursday.
RG: But he’d got his red beret on. And he’d got his medals up and he’d got the photograph sat on his knee all day. Clutched. Of him when he was a young man.
TG: A young man in uniform.
RG: And that. Yeah.
TG: And you couldn’t get it off him.
RG: No.
TG: He had it like this.
RG: He clutched it all day.
TG: He died the following Thursday.
RG: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Oh right.
TG: Two years, three ago.
RG: Yeah.
TG: Two and a half years ago now.
RG: But, you know a lot, a lot of people don’t know what you’re talking about when you say these things.
CB: They don’t. No.
RG: No.
TG: No.
RG: I mean, this film I haven’t been to see it. Terry went with some lads in the family.
TG: I went to see “Dunkirk.”
RG: Dunkirk. And I listened to a report on the radio and they, was it the radio? No. Wireless. Whatever you call it, you know. And they said that it’s been made because a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.
TG: They don’t know the difference between Dunkirk and D-Day.
RG: And people when they were interviewed them, and they said, ‘Do you know about Dunkirk?’ ‘No.’ You know. And I think to myself, oh dear. It is a shame.
TG: But they don’t know why they’re here.
RG: No.
TG: We, I’m ashamed to say that one of our friends we used to go to France and Germany a lot. Just jump in the car and book a ferry and go down the Moselle or whatever. Last time we went to Lille and Bruges. We ended up right on the coast at Dunkirk waiting for a ferry, I think we came back from Dunkirk.
RG: Oh, I can’t remember.
TG: But we came to the very end where there’s still some guns there. I don’t know if you’ve been on that coast. There’s still some German guns there. And Sheila, who is just a few months older than you and we’re talking Dunkirk and she said, she turned and said to me, ‘Is this where they all came up on to the beaches then? And the invasion.’ And I think, they weren’t going that way. I mean she’s seventy. I mean, I just think how can you go through life —
RG: Yeah, but don’t you think though like I’ve —
TG: Without knowing that it happened hundreds of miles away. D-Day. And they were coming — we were going up there.
RG: But I’ve grown up with Lancaster bombers. I’ve grown up with them, you know. And my girls they’ve grown up with them as well through granddad. And this is how we’ve been. And all, aircraft in the sky, ‘Oh look. There goes the Dakota,’ or whatever. I’ve grown up like that. But a lot of people just don’t know what you’re talking about. I know a few years ago I was at work and it was, it was a nice day and we were in the canteen and we’d got the windows open. And we sat there having coffee and I said, ‘Oh, listen. Oh, there goes the Lancaster.’ No one looked. They looked gone out at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. I said, ‘Listen. Can’t you hear the engines?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘It’s a bomber. It’s going over.’ ‘What are you talking about Rachel?’ I said, ‘It’s the Lancaster.’ I said, ‘It’ll be going back to Coningsby and do its circuit around the Cathedral.’ And they had no idea what I was talking about. Now, that is sad isn’t it? Yeah.
TG: The other thing your dad didn’t like to see and it must have affected him. I sometimes wonder about why he said it, is every time he saw an old airfield in Lincolnshire and he saw the control tower standing derelict he would say, ‘I wish they would pull them down.’ He said, ‘I wish they’d pull them all down.’ I think it was a reminder. He didn’t, he didn’t like to see them. Did he?
RG: No. Not derelict anyway. No.
TG: I mean, I didn’t know —
RG: He was ok at East Kirkby. You know, because it’s all been restored.
CB: It’s restored. Yeah.
RG: Yeah. But he always went to East Kirkby just for a ride. You know, ‘I’m just going to ride.’ Woodhall Spa. East Kirkby. That way on. But yeah. There we go.
CB: Just going back to the, your parents in the war people took very different views as to whether they should marry or not. So why was it that your parents married essentially in the middle of the war?
RG: Just turn that off a minute.
[recording paused]
RG: Wouldn’t like to hear that. She, you know. Why mum and dad got married in the war. I think they, you know had a good relationship. Romance blossomed and I think the idea was well, why shouldn’t we get married? You know. In those days it was the way forward regardless of how long they had got together. I don’t think that entered into it. So, yes. They, they married. Yes.
CB: And we talked about their links and because they were physically not next to each other while the flying —
RG: Yes.
CB: Was going on. So that covers that matter. Thank you.
RG: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: So, Terry. On your case.
TG: My dad was in the army and he was on the beaches at D-Day and wounded just after. But they married in 1941 and my dad was on a few days leave and they had a special licence. They decided to get married on the Wednesday night and the ceremony took place at the church on the Saturday. And everything was pretty quick in those days although I was three or four years coming along and the eldest of five brothers. They caught up for it later on, didn’t they? But he survived the war. My father.
RG: And they were married for nearly seventy years.
TG: Nearly seventy years.
CB: You had a long and auspicious career in the police force and to what extent did you come across policemen who’d been in the war and did they talk about it?
TG: Well, only early on did I come across it and only for a short period because the chaps on the patrol car with me were much, much older and had served.
RG: Lofty had, hadn’t he?
TG: There was one chap who was, I remember distinctly. Never had a cigarette out of his hand. And he’d been on the Northwest Frontier, was it? As a stretcher bearer and drummer boy. And he told me a few tales.
CB: In India.
TG: Sorry? In India. Yes.
CB: In India. Yes.
TG: And his skin was still leathery. They called him Lofty. A wonderful character. But he didn’t go too much into, into his experiences and I didn’t see many others who were old enough.
RG: And Vic’s dad. Was he in the war?
TG: Yes, but he didn’t serve with —
RG: No. No.
TG: Vic’s dad. No. I met one or two people. One chap had been, he’d worked in an office in Lincoln and he was, you’d call him an insignificant little chap and he wasn’t very noisy. He kept quiet but when he spoke everybody listened because he’d been on the, in the Navy, I think the Merchant Navy and been torpedoed twice and survived. That sort of thing. I think Alf Dixon who was the office man at Spalding when I joined had been torpedoed in, in the Navy. But I was only nineteen when I joined. And I mean I had school masters who had been, all of them had been in the war. One had lost his leg. The deputy headmaster. That’s a thing.
CB: And what about the felons that you dealt with? Had any of those been guided by the forces originally?
TG: No. No. They, young as I was most of them and they just jumped on to the one side of the fence while I’d fallen on the other at the time. I was on the law enforcement side. But no it didn’t.
CB: So, going back to the war itself you talked about the experience of one of the crewmen and being [pause] we were talking about, touching on LMF.
TG: Oh yes. Yes.
CB: So, what was that dimension as far as Pete was concerned? What his knowledge.
TG: The man was out of control. He said he was. He just had him, you know he was shell shocked was probably —
RG: Flak happy.
TG: Flak happy was, was the word. He’d gone flak happy. Completely flak happy and gone berserk on the aircraft. Endangering it. As I said, Pete said he hit him with a ammo box and knocked him out. And then he was charged. Probably court martialled. I don’t know for LMF. In these days you’d have probably got a handsome sum in compensation for all the stress he’d been put through. But that’s as far as it went. I don’t think Pete came across it. Or if he did he didn’t mention anything about that at all. Even if he was stressed. I mean obviously what he said they were terribly stressed. You wouldn’t go out and get blind drunk to forget what you’d just seen, done and been through like they did. It was the only release they had. The only release. They above all went from relative safety to the most terrible danger in a very short time. Whereas no other arm, arm of the armed forces experienced that, did they? They were, either they were out there fighting at a fairly consistent level, I know it went up and down but the bomber crews and I suppose the fighter pilots as well went from sitting at home in a pub in England or with a girlfriend and hours later being subject to the most horrendous barrage and being attacked from above and below. And it was a huge contrast for them.
RG: And the frequency of the flying and the raids. If you look at dad’s logbook it sort of says you know, he’s made up the logbook and its flying such and such and where they’ve gone. Good long way away. Then they’re back. And then it’s not five minutes or so before they’re off again, you know. And they would be going at 9 o’clock and 10 o’clock at night. Flying. Night flying. Coming back. Then afternoons. And there wasn’t a good long rest period in the middle so they, they would be tired out, you know. Head wise as well as body. Physical. Yeah.
TG: Sometimes a crew would be lost and of course their uniforms would, and everything they’d left in their billet was moved and their beds made up for the next crew to replace them. The next crew would come. And then before they went to bed they’d probably gone on a raid and be lost and they’d never use the beds that were made up for them. I mean. As you know. This was the —
RG: I don’t think modern society can understand what a lot of they had to put up with that and go through really. I know there’s different things. Different aspects now. But they just had to get on with it in those days. Well, from what I can understand.
CB: You touched on a point indirectly which is that the socialising of the crew and in this particular case Tuesday’s crew was mixed airmen of sergeants and officers.
TG: And, and —
CB: So, how did that work?
TG: There was I think there was pretty well classless. I think those, those divisions were not, Peter never, Pete never mentioned anything of that nature. The only thing he objected to was when they were marched off at gunpoint by the Americans at this base and they were all put in the sergeant’s mess when he said he should have been in the officer’s mess. But they were questioned and all sorts. That’s the only time he ever, but I think he had taken umbridge at the Americans attitude rather than anything else because Pete had no thoughts for what anybody’s background was. He’d treat everybody the same.
RG: No. Absolutely.
TG: Whether he was a prince or a pauper. Quite literally. And he spoke to all people from all of those classes and you could be with him and he could hold a conversation with anybody from any background but he never ever —
RG: Never judged anybody.
TG: He never judged anybody.
RG: No.
TG: And he never sort of said, ‘I’ve got the DFC,’ and everything. He never got, it never got entered into conversation.
RG: He was just a nice chap.
TG: He was just a nice sociable chap who liked a pint after a hard days work at the nursery. And sometimes in later life he’d go down to the Mail Cart on the bus wouldn’t he because of the road safety. But one of the funny things I’ll tell you about Pete when I was first was going out with Rachel. I think I was first married.
RG: I think we were married.
TG: I think we were married. And Pete and your, and Harold.
RG: And his friend George Samsby.
TG: And George Samsby.
RG: And some, one other.
TG: They were a right drinking group.
RG: Oh dear.
TG: And they all used to go to the Dun Cow at Cowbit. Now, me and my mate who was quite a lot older than me were in a patrol car one night and it was about one in the morning coming back into Spalding along Cowbit Bank. And I could see some of the cars outside the well-lit pub because closing time was about ten thirty and this was 1am. The lights are still on. There were a few cars outside amongst which was your dad’s.
RG: Harold’s.
TG: Your brother in law’s and George Samsby’s and my co-driver, he said, ‘Look at that pub. Let’s go and raid it.’ I, I was appalled that these, you know, he says, ‘They’re all drinking.’ So I said, ‘I’m sorry, Brian. I can’t Brian, I can’t.’ He said, ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘Because I’m at court in the morning. If I get tied up with that lot I’m going to be here ‘til 4 or 5 o’clock.’ I didn’t mention whose cars they were because I could see it in the paper that, “PC arrests whole family illegally drinking.”
RG: Oh dear [laughs]
TG: Dear me. In the local pub. And I could imagine quite a rift, you know and I’d have to go and give evidence against him and then bail him out.
RG: Oh dear.
TG: But he was wonderful company. He was wonderful. He were wonderful company your dad was. Wasn’t he? He was. He used to work like anything. But when they used to be at Maxey they used to get an allowance to cut the grass at the Royal Observer Corps Post. To pay somebody to do it. Well, they didn’t. They kept the money and cut it themselves. So every year they had a right old booze up and a dinner to which we went with the money for the grass cutting. Resourceful to the last. Wasn’t he? Yes.
RG: He used to have these, you know exercises and they’d you know pretend that there was going to be a —
TG: Nuclear war.
RG: Nuclear war, you know. And away dad would go there. And the first thing that went down into the post as they called it was the beer laughs] It went down, you know. The beer.
TG: That was because they were underground weren’t they?
RG: Yeah.
CB: They wouldn’t want to get it contaminated by radiation would they?
RG: Absolutely not.
TG: It didn’t matter about anything else but they’d be locked down there for a few days, wouldn’t they?
RG: Yes.
TG: With the luncheon, didn’t they? The luncheon meat and —
RG: I felt as though I knew everything about the Royal Observer Corps.
CB: What would you think Pete would have said was his most memorable experience in the war?
RG: Golly. That is a question. In the war.
TG: Well, only the things that he’d mentioned really because he didn’t go into that much detail. He mentioned the Scharnhorst thing because they lost those aircraft and they put it out of action for about a month. The loss of his crew, and those things we’ve already highlighted.
RG: I think he would probably have said it would be his mother in law’s cooked breakfast because when he was at home on leave nan, my nan would always make sure that he got the eggs and he got the bacon and had a good, you know a good breakfast. But I can’t think of anything on the raid side or operations that dad would talk about more than another.
TG: He just, he just did it.
RG: Yeah. I think the loss of his crew. He talked about that a bit but, yeah. No.
TG: It was a, it was a period in his life that —
RG: He just did.
TG: They did. And when it was over he wanted to put it behind him.
CB: Yes.
TG: And what he did subsequently was in complete and utter contrast. Wasn’t it? Growing plants and, and selling them. It wasn’t a noisy machine driven —
CB: Destructive force.
TG: Destructive force. It was a constructive effort.
RG: But all his hobbies and things were RAF connected. Yeah.
TG: They —
RG: Yeah. He had a great love of flying and things.
TG: He liked, liked flying. As I say. The Holbeach Club and his wireless op. His amateur radio and obviously the ROC, RAFA and all this sort of thing.
RG: My sister. My younger sister. She —
TG: There are three of them.
RG: Three of us.
TG: We’ll not mention Jane.
RG: Jane. She lived in Bath and she’d just bought this house and they were having it converted. Fantastic place it was and she wanted dad to see it. Now, dad was a very, very sick man and she wanted us to go. And I said, ‘Dad won’t survive a road trip or a train trip.’
TG: He had a heart attack when he was about seventy eight, so.
RG: Yeah. I said, ‘Dad won’t survive that, Jane. It’ll just absolutely knock him out.’ So she chartered a helicopter to come and fetch us.
TG: [unclear] anyway.
RG: Yeah. But dad was absolutely in his element. He, we set of from Fenland Airfield. Right. You know. Little Fen.
TG: In this helicopter.
RG: All his mates were watching him and this chappy in the uniform and off we went.
TG: To Bath.
RG: Terry and I went to Bath.
TG: With your dad.
RG: Yeah. With dad. And dad sat in the front like this. And as we got, we went over where Prince Charles lives. Highgrove, and that. And when we got —
TG: Highgrove. Yes.
RG: When we got near somewhere or other there was two Hercules in the sky. Now, helicopters fly quite low.
TG: It was over the —
CB: This is Lyneham.
TG: No.
RG: No.
TG: No. The one that was closest.
RG: No.
TG: Fairford.
RG: Where the —
TG: Fairford. It was closed at the time.
CB: Because —
RG: Yeah. Because they were converting for the —
CB: Americans. Yes.
RG: Yeah. Two helicopters, two Hercules were coming like this and we’d got, we were all sat in the back. Got these headsets on and I said, ‘Oh, oh look at those Hercules across there. Look at those.’ You know. We were coming like this. These two Hercules were coming like that. And I thought to myself I don’t know but we’re just a little bit too close to those. So I said to the pilot about these. I said, ‘Oh they’re a bit close to us, aren’t they?’ He went, ‘Silence in the cabin.’ Closed me. So then he kept saying to the radar people and whatever.
CB: Control room. Yes.
RG: Yeah. Control room. He kept saying such and such, ‘This is Echo Tango Lima 546,’ or whatever we were, ‘We are a Jet Ranger. We have five people on board. We are flying from Fenland Airfield in Lincolnshire to a private landing spot in Bath. We are a Jet Ranger. We have five — ’ And I kept thinking and I kept thinking, I kept thinking you keep telling them. And he kept saying it, repeating and the control place said you are de, de, de, der like this. And he kept saying and, ‘Yes. We are a Jet Ranger.’ And he kept repeating it. ‘We are a Jet Ranger.’ And then the call sign like that. I thought, yes you tell them who we are because when we hit there’s not going to be anything left of our Jet Ranger. And then all of a sudden this voice said whatever the call sign. ‘You are a Jet Ranger. You are flying — ’ you know repeated everything. He said, ‘Yes. We are.’ And the next minute our little helicopter, well it wasn’t a little one, we went down like this. We went right down like that. I thought I don’t like this, we’re going down, and these Hercules literally went over the top. And when we got calmed down the captain said, ‘Phew.’ And what it was the call sign of us was very similar to one of those Hercules and they’d got us muddled up.
CB: Oh.
RG: But do you know dad sat in the front and dad said something, ‘Well, Skip. That was a good, good shout.’ Or something like that.
TG: Good show.
RG: Good show. Yeah. And the fella said, ‘I bet you’ve had more experiences than that one.’ And dad said, ‘Yeah. But not as exciting,’ or something like that. But oh dear. But, yeah.
CB: Crikey.
RG: Dad was laid up for quite a few weeks after that one. Oh, you haven’t been recording me have you?
[recording paused]
RG: And he obviously had —
CB: So Terry I just want to go back to what talked about the parents of Tuesday coming down to see Pete. What do you think they were looking for?
TG: Well, Durham is a couple of hundred miles away from East Kirkby at least. And travel wouldn’t be very easy at that time. And they were there waiting for Peter when he returned from his, his short period of rest. Expressly having requested to see him. And there must have been a terrible gap in their yearning to find out more about their son in his last days and to speak to his closest friend of that time. His drinking mate. His flying mate. And Pete was able to fill them in. How they were. What his attitude was. What his spirits were like. Right up until the last time he saw him which was obviously some time after his own parents. The fact that they went out to dinner with Pete when they were down there, the fact that the station commander had accepted them on to the base because it wouldn’t be easy for civilians to get on there at that time must have been a great —
RG: And the five pounds.
TG: Must have been a great comfort to them. And having then travelled home. Probably having had to stay down in Lincolnshire for a day or two. To post him the five pounds in recognition of both the comfort he’d brought to them and also for his recent commission, Pete’s commission, clearly shows to me that the effort that they put in the, that it’s the terrible desire to fill in the gaps in their son’s life as much as they could was for closure.
RG: And dad had done it.
TG: And Pete had fulfilled that and filled that gap as much as he possibly could. He brought them closure. And hopefully they went away, well clearly were much happier than they had have been. But to have lost him without any of this detail would have, they would have always wondered. And it wouldn’t have been an easy journey for them to make because they didn’t know what they were going to hear really.
[recording paused]
CB: So what did he particularly appreciate when he was on his trips?
TG: Coming home. He said, he said that often coming home particularly coming home they’d waste a huge amount of ammunition shooting at the Morning or the Evening Star. Whichever time of day Venus was up. When they were very tense and they thought maybe there were fighters waiting for them to land. But one of the loveliest sights he said was the landscape below. England was always greener and he knew he was in England just from the colour, the density of the green rather than on the continent. He didn’t look out for the Cathedral as, as a lot of crews did. Boston Stump was the, was, was more visible than the Cathedral when they came home.
CB: The Lincoln Cathedral.
TG: Than Lincoln Cathedral. But he particularly loved the greenery. That’s more than anything else he loved to see the green green grass of home as they say. And it was greener than over the water.
CB: Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: I want to take you both together.
RG: Oh dear.
CB: And where shall we do it because it’s nice here. Or we can for it outside?
TG: You can do it outside. Or wherever you like.
RG: Yeah. Do it where you like.
CB: Well, we just have the picture with you.
RG: Yeah.
CB: Just hold it between you. It’ll be nice to do it outside wouldn’t it?
RG: I’ll put a bit of lipstick on I think.
TG: She’s got to do her hair.
CB: That’s good. Let me in the meantime just write my email address on there.
TG: I’ll try and send you three and four at a time. Or whatever.
CB: Whatever. Yeah.
TG: Yeah. I’ll just get my shoes on.
CB: Ok.
[pause]
RG: Yes. It would be quite appropriate to be in our garden.
CB: Well, I think so.
RG: Dad and I spent an awful lot of time on it.
CB: Did you? Yes. I think it looks super. Well, I’m looking to move. To downsize my house.
RG: Oh yes. I don’t —
CB: Thank you.
RG: What was I going to say? I think we ought to downsize.
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 Rachel and John Gill
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
2017-09-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AGillRA-JT170930
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:38:47 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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
Second generation
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Hazeldene joined the RAF from Wales when he saw a poster to see the world from a different perspective. He trained as a wireless operator and during training suspected a couple of incidents of sabotage on the base. Peter was posted to 106 Squadron at RAF Finningley. On a mining operation they were hit by anti-aircraft fire. It was only when they returned to base they realised the rear gunner was dead and his turret was awash with blood. On another occasion the flight engineer apparently went berserk and Peter had to subdue him by hitting him with an ammunition box. After his first tour of operations Peter was seconded to the Americans at Polebrook as an instructor. He then was posted to RAF East Kirkby with 57 Squadron. While he was on leave he returned to find his crew were dead or missing. The parents of his pilot travelled to East Kirkby to meet him and come to terms with the death of their son. He started a third tour at RAF Syerston and completed several operations before the war ended. After the stress of operations Peter suffered terrible flashbacks and nightmares for the rest of his life.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
106 Squadron
57 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
bale out
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
final resting place
Gneisenau
H2S
Hampden
Heavy Conversion Unit
heirloom
killed in action
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
mine laying
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cranwell
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Finningley
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Metheringham
RAF Polebrook
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF West Freugh
RAF Wigsley
Royal Observer Corps
Scharnhorst
Stirling
take-off crash
training
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/841/10834/PGrahamFJ1701.1.jpg
c0249cb783ab2c2f3c3ea5c9711c73d8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/841/10834/AGrahamFJ170611.2.mp3
0b104ec5e6e74d163fe77bdcb73c5b98
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
Graham, Johnny
Fergus J Graham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Johnny Graham (1922 - 2017, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 100 and 101 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Graham, FJ
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JS: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jim Scheach. The interviewee is Johnny Graham. The interview is taking place at [ buzz ] Edinburgh on the 11th of June 2017. Also present are David and Maureen. Mr Graham's son and daughter. Johnny, could you tell us a little bit about your life before the war?
JG: Well, I was born on the 15th of March 1922. In [unclear] Dalry in Edinburgh. I was born in the street called [pause] This is yours wasn’t it? Downfield. Downfield Place. Aye. In a top flat. And I was there for the first five years of my life. I attended the Dalry Primary School which was a stone’s throw along the main road. And, and then from then we moved out to Corstorphine. Out to Balgreen. Aye. And I went to Roseburn Primary School until I was twelve. And from there I went out and I went to Boroughmuir Secondary School. My father worked for the council. He was actually a conductor on the trams. On the tramways. And I have to say [unclear] look after us. There was me and my sister who was two years younger than I. At Boroughmuir I did three years secondary education. Which was good. It was a good school, Boroughmuir and I had quite a good education. During that period an organization was formed called the ADCC which was the air cadets of Great Britain which was a forerunner of the ATC. And when I was eighteen I wanted to join up but my grandmother wouldn't let me because, well she asked me not to because she had lost her only son in the First World War. So I joined on my nineteenth birthday [laughs]. And that was me in the RAF. I wasn’t away very often but occasionally we’d go away [pause] I went to a Receiving Centre at Cardington in Bedfordshire and we got sorted out there and sent to Bournemouth for square bashing. A bit of square bashing at Bournemouth. And, and this progressed from there. I wasn't aircrew all the time of course. I joined as an armourer. A bomb armourer. Defusing and fusing bombs. And then a gun armourer [pause] Now, I think [unclear]
JS: That's fine. How you, you said you were an armourer. Then you transferred to air crew.
JG: Yes. That was the Royal Arsenal. Eighteen months, two years, something like that. And I underwent training. Aircrew, aye. I was in the OTU and joined with what was to be my crew. My pilot was a guy called Bill Smith who also came from Edinburgh. And we did our initial training on Ansons and Wellingtons. And when we finished on the Wellingtons we went on to the four engine Halifaxes and Lancasters. What more can I tell you? [laughs]
JS: Could you, could you tell us a bit about the rest of your crew?
JG: Aye. There’s more in my logbook. If you look in my logbook I will tell you.
JS: How did you —
JG: I'm sorry I'm spoiling it.
JS: No. That's fine. No, you're not at all. How did you, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
Other: He’s not —
JG: You’ll have to forgive my memory.
JS: No. That’s fine. That’s fine.
JG: I’m quite old now —
JS: I know. I know. That’s why I was asking. How did you, how did you get on with the rest of your crew?
JG: Very well. Except one instance. There was tale of, tale of sort of training experiences. The mid-upper gunner with a guy called Desmond. I think his second name was [Thor ] or something. I can't remember. I remember his first name was Desmond. And anyway, he embarked on a [pilferising] and he took a lot of stuff from [all of us] [unclear] and I remember, I always remember when an initial thing he took from me was a fountain pen. A [unclear] fountain pen which I got from where I was on Princess Street as a going away present. And I thought a lot of it and I was really hurt when he pinched that. Anyway, they got the, they got the RAF policemen and they arrested him and took him away and we got a new mid-upper gunner [laughs] I’m trying to think. The first place we went to. I need my logbook. Go and get my logbook.
JS: That’s fine.
JG: Because my memory is getting —
JS: No. You're doing fine.
[pause]
JG: Oh, there's my crew. That's my first crew. That’s Bill Smith. The navigator was Burnett. Burnett. Flying Officer Burnett. That's the guy I was talking about. Desmond. There’s me there. That’s the bomb aimer. Canadian. Jimmy Bowens. Wireless operator Jimmy Whiteside from Dundee. And Barney, Flying Officer Burnett was Canadian. And the pilot of course was Edinburgh.
[pause]
JG: I remember [unclear] Aye. Second from the left. Second. That wasn’t his name though. It wasn’t Jimmy Bowens. Oh aye. His name was Thor. The guy that did the stealing. [pause] That’s not right. The name's Burnett. B U R N E T T.
[pause]
JG: Then went to Sandtoft.
JS: That's great. Did you have the same crew all the time? Did you have the same crew all the time?
JG: At that point. At that point. We did thirty operations together. Occasionally we moved to somebody else's crew. You know, for experience. Aye. But I remember Sandtoft. We called it Prangtoft because there were so many crashes [laughs ] Aye [unclear] That was the different pilots I flew with to get experience. You know.
[pause]
JG: Finningley. RAF Finningley. Stormy Down was in Wales. There’s not much else I can tell you.
JS: Is there [pause ] is there —
JG: Anyway. [pause] Then we went to OTU at Worksop. [pause] [unclear] the officer’s coming. Sandtoft. There’s no flying at 1667 Con Unit at Sandtoft. And then we went on to Hemswell. And our first operation was Merville in France. And then Duisburg and Dortmund in Germany. Here’s France. They were all French. It was just before the invasion so [pause] I remember there, that was a hairy one.
JS: Do you want, do you want to tell. If you remember that operation do you want to tell us a little bit about it?
JG: What was it doing there? [laughs] [pause – pages turning] here is some. Aye. [unclear] something. And that was [pause] Gelsenkirchen and Kiel. Twice to Stuttgart. Aye. I think that’s it. I can’t say much about that except I went on thirty operations. Thirty one I actually went because when I went on my thirtieth one and then the group captain was waiting in the, in the hangar and he said would you, ‘Could you please do another trip for me?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know.’ [laughs] Anyway, I did this one and it was to France. And the guy that I was flying with was a wing commander. A Wing Commander Gundry-White. A double barrelled name. And he was doing this trip so that he could say he’d been on operations. Anyway, I won’t go into any details but he got a DFC. I didn’t get anything [laughs] I wouldn’t have minded if he had come around and shaked my hand and said, ‘Thank you for coming with me.’ But he didn’t. So, one of these things. That’s about it really. I just did, sort of, we did an operation to fly the troops back from Italy. And we were glad to get back so quick. Aye.
JS: How many? How many times did you —
JG: It was a base just outside Naples.
[pause]
JS: You’re doing fine.
JG: Every time.
JS: You’re alright.
[pause]
JG: That’s about it. I don’t know what else I can say except that when I was demobbed I went back to my old company John [Muir’s] [unclear] And later on from there I went to the House of Fraser. The House of Fraser. I don’t know.
JS: That’s been really really useful. Thanks very much for sharing that with me.
JG: Thank you.
JS: I’m just going to stop there.
[recording paused]
Other: Has he remembered?
JG: I know but I forget to remember what I remember. Go on.
JS: You’re fine.
JG: Please. Please.
Other 2: What?
JG: Please.
Other 2: You’re wanting the article.
JS: That’s fine. If that helps.
Other 2: Where would that be?
Other: It was just he mentioned this the other day and he always remembers it.
JS: It’s always much tougher when someone puts a microphone in front of you.
[pause]
JG: Oh, like that. That was —
JS: Hang on a second. Just let me make sure.
[pause]
JS: Okay. Do you want, do you want to tell us about this trip?
JG: I saw all the ships. We, we had bombed the German shore guns on the night of the 5th. 5th of June. And the 6th if June it was D-Day of course. And as we were coming back over our course the sun was just, the dawn was just breaking and suddenly there was all this light and I saw all these hundreds and hundreds of ships on the Channel. So they asked me about that.
JS: That’s quite a memory to have.
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 Johnny Graham
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
James Sheach
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGrahamFJ170611, PGrahamFJ1701
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:25:35 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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
Description
An account of the resource
Johnny Graham wanted to join the RAF as soon as he was of age. His grandmother asked him not to because she had lost her only son in the First World War. However, he joined the RAF on his nineteenth birthday. He trained initially as an armourer. He then volunteered for aircrew and was posted as an air gunner to 100 Squadron. His greatest memory was flying back to the UK and as the dawn broke seeing the D-Day operation unfolding on the Channel.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Edinburgh
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
100 Squadron
101 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
ground personnel
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
RAF Finningley
RAF Sandtoft
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/914/11156/AKnottS151001.1.mp3
378d56e9297935f50b102ccca94f5736
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
Knott, Sidney
S Knott
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Sidney Knott DFC (1268143 Royal Air Force). He flew 64 operations as an air gunner with 467 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-01
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Knott, S
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: My name is Adam Sutch. I’m conducting an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m interviewing Mr Sidney Knott. A Bomber Command aircrew member of 467 Squadron during the Second World War. Also present is his daughter Mrs Jean Mangan. Sidney, I’m really grateful to you for agreeing to this interview. Could we start by discussing your time before the war? Before you joined the Air Force. When you were growing up. Schooling and that sort of thing
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Well I was a, I was a youth of the 20s and 30s and I lived in Southend on Sea. I lived in Leigh on Sea which is in the borough of Southend on Sea, Essex. And [pause] things were quite, you know, you imagine what things were like between the wars. It wasn’t very [pause] My father was a joiner. He had his own business. He worked for his father and he, when grandfather died my father took his business over. Just a one man business. And my mother ran a fruit and greengrocery shop. And then when I came up, I left school at fourteen but I lost about fifteen months schooling when I was ten and eleven through an operation. And I worked in in the greengrocer’s shop. And then, of course in 1940, when invasion was imminent, where we lived notice was, I remember, I can see it now. It was on a Sunday and they put up notices on the shop’s windows and saying that we were to be prepared to leave within one hour and only allowed to take one suitcase with us. And as soon as people read this notice, well in twenty four hours from being a busy area full of people suddenly there was hardly, there was only the shopkeepers left. And the Battle of Britain was going on and my father came to me and said one day, well you know we had nothing to, had hardly any work to do because there was no people, many left there. And I used to do my paper round and that was how I got my pocket money. So my father came to me and he said one day, of course he was in the First World War and he was wounded twice and he was in the Essex Regiment. And when he got wounded the second time he was sent back to France in the Suffolks, and he come to me and he had a rough time in the army being wounded several times. And he, he come to me and he says, ‘You don’t want to go in the army.’ Because he was worrying about being called up. This was before I was eligible to be called up and he said, ‘You won’t get in the navy. You’d better see if you can get in the Air Force.’ So I said, ‘Alright.’ He said, because he said, my father was quite a proud man, he never went outdoors without a tie on and he used to say, ‘In the Air Force they wear a collar and tie all the time.’ So, [laughs] so he said, ‘See if you could get in the Air Force.’ So I found out they were, in Southend there was no recruiting for the for the Air Force in Southend so I had to get on a bus and go to Romford. And there was a, there was a recruiting office there, it recruited all sections and I, that’s how I joined the Air Force. And my education was very poor because I lost a lot of schooling and left at fourteen. I did do a little bit of after school work. You know, night classes when I was about sixteen to eighteen. And because I was, what was I when the war started? I was [pause] how old was I when the war started? Eighteen?
JM: Eighteen.
SK: Eighteen. That’s right. And so, you know, that was the background before then. That’s how I joined the Air Force. But they were recruiting for wireless ops at the time. This is ground wireless ops you see. And then I wasn’t good enough for that so he said, ‘We can have you for general duties.’ So I jumped at it and I joined the Air Force as a general duties wallah.
AS: In 1940.
SK: I got my number in 1940. I was sent home on deferred service and was actually called up on the, I think it was the 6th of January ’41. Went to Blackpool, you know, for to do my square bashing. And that was my early life. And then I was, after square bashing we were, a group of us were posted to Horsham St Faiths in Norfolk. And we were only there twenty four hours and they pushed us out to the satellite and we was on a, well we were sent to Blickling Hall. We was living in the cow sheds and things like that. In the outbuildings of Blickling Hall. But the airfield, the airfield was at Oulton. And it was just a grass airfield and we had two squadrons of Blenheims there that were really only just forming from being kicked out of France. And of course some of the crew, the ground crews were still wandering back after being got home from France and had a bit of leave and had been assessed as fit to go back to the squadron. And as I say the Blenheims were doing, that was 2 Group then and they were doing such things as Channel sweeps and things like that. And bombing the coastal ports like Brest and other French coastal docks and so on.
AS: Against the barges and things like that.
SK: Pardon?
AS: Against the barges and things like that.
SK: Oh yes. Yes. You see. That sort of thing. Yes. And then, while I was there doing all sorts of things I was put on, I was on the fire section while I was there and while I was on the fire section I had two duties. One was the fire section to look after Blickling Hall. And we had to eat at Blickling Hall. There was no, on this airfield, all there was on the airfield was two, about two Nissen huts where the fitters were and we had one little brick building where we had, there was no flying control. They had a duty pilot and he just used to have to log the aircraft as they took off and landed and that was his job. It was one of the aircrew that was grounded at the time and that was his duties. And I was put on a crash tender, and we used to stand alongside the duty pilot. There’d be the crash tender, the blood wagon side by side and we had to attend all, any crashes. We were, well I had to attend three crashes while I was there but that’s, that’s going to longer stories. But then, from there during the time, it came up on daily orders that we were to, they were recruiting for air gunners because in the pipeline four-engine bombers were — that was going to be the future. And so they thought, well I mean they had the Wellington bomber and they needed a gunner. And of course the Blenheim had three crew and they had a gunner on them. It was wireless op/gunner. And then the Wellingtons had, excuse me, Wellingtons had five crew with one gunner. But the wireless op was also a spare gunner. And they asked for volunteers so I volunteered and two of us went from this camp, were sent to Horsham St Faiths to see the station commander there.
AS: Who was that?
SK: I don’t know who it was at the time. I can’t tell you anyhow [laughs] I’ve got no record of that.
AS: No worries. Sorry. Go on.
SK: But we didn’t have to go, no test or anything like that and he said, ‘Oh you want to,’ he said, ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘Ok,’ and it was assigned to us and we awaited our call. And then we, that’s how we joined up. I didn’t have to pass any tests or anything there. And then from there we waited our call and it was the end of 1941. Somewhere about October I would have thought, may have been September, I was called to go to Regent’s Park in London because that was the recruiting centre. The initial centre for aircrew. And then from there we were sent to a, after a short course there we were issued with our white flashes. That means aircrew under training which we wore in our forage caps. And then we went down to St Leonards. Part of Hastings and we was in the big marina. Marine Hotel it was. It belonged to Southern Railway at the time but it was commandeered and we, we were posted there at the Initial Training Wing to do the ground work for an air gunner. And the initial gunners, we had quite an extensive course. We had to learn basic navigation. As regards to signals you had to learn the Morse code and read the lamp at, I think six words a minute and there was, you know, you had lots of extra duties. All to do with being a good crew member. And then when that came to the end of that course well of course I didn’t pass the maths you see. They said, ‘You failed on the maths.’ My maths. And of course I wasn’t very good at that sort of thing. So anyway our next posting to go on, they weren’t available to take us, that was to an air gunnery course, because the weather was bad and a sudden influx of people, there was nowhere to put them. So they said we are going to put you on an extended course to do — for several weeks we did just maths, drill and PT [laughs] And from there there was, I wasn’t the only one I must say, I was pleased about that, that didn’t pass on the first issue but they passed us on the second time. And they said, well, and then we were posted to a Gunnery School and I went to, to Manby up here in Lincolnshire to the 1 Air Armament School as it was called and I did my gunnery course there. And I passed my course at gunnery. This course. And I remember it because when we had to do, because Manby was very strict. A lot of bull at Manby. And on passing out parade we had to form on the parade ground where every Friday, every Friday we reported on the parade ground but this one was the passing out parade when you were awarded your brevet. And, and I remember I had to be marker because I was two thirds down the course. And so that’s my position. I passed two thirds down the course. But they were a grand lot of chaps. And then we passed out from there and then I was sent to, from there I was sent to an OTU and that was to Finningley in Yorkshire. I forget the number of the OTU but that’s where we went to. Finningley. And we had to do quite an extensive course there and that’s where I got crewed up. And our crewing up was quite funny really because there was quite a few of us sent to, there was about twelve gunners sent down there because most of these crews that were there we found out were Blenheim crews, which had three crews. They had a pilot, they had a navigator, called an observer and the wireless op/air gunner. And then they were posted to the OTU to take the conversion course on to Wellingtons. And then [pause] so they had to take on two more crew and that would be the rear gunner and a bomb aimer. Right. And the crewing-up procedure was, after about a fortnight because after the fortnight we were just doing section work where the gunners were in one place, pilots, engineers all in their own sections. Then we had to meet all together and the CO of the station said, ‘Well, now you’ve got to get crewed-up. So sort yourselves out.’ So we all just stood there and, you know one or two had got in mind who they wanted, you know to crew-up with and so on. But I remember one of the chaps, one of these gunner friends that I’d got to know said to me, ‘Well you’d better,’ you’d better, you know, ‘Get going.’ He said, ‘Otherwise you’ll be left with that young kid over there.’ You know, he was a pilot. ‘That young kid over there.’ Because he could see some of them getting crewed-up, ‘I’m crewed-up.’ But I’m not, I wasn’t one to push forward so I just waited. And then quite, at the end a chap come over to me and I see he was, he was a wireless op/air gunner and he said to me, he introduced himself like, and he said, ‘I’m Johnny Lloyd,’ and he said, ‘Would you like to join our crew as a gunner? And would you like to come and meet my pilot?’ So I said, ‘Oh yeah. Ok.’ You know. So that’s how I met my first pilot. That’s him there. And he was eighteen months younger than me. And that was the young kid [laughs] they said I’d be left with. And I’ve often thought afterwards of those twelve chaps that were there I wonder how many of us got through, you know. And, you know he was the young kid you’ve got to put up with so I was quite pleased about that. So that was our, so we did all our training there on the Wellington and then we had to go over to, now what was that place called? Near Bawtry it was. A satellite to Finningley, to do, to do cross country’s. Right. Where you, you’re left on your own to do the cross country’s, you know. That was big deals. And so we, that was about a three or four week course over there. Then you go back to Finningley afterwards and await a posting. Well, we waited at Finningley for quite, we were sent on leave then for a while and then when we got back to Finningley we were still hanging about. Finished our course, waiting for a posting and we was quite, there quite a long time and then suddenly it came through that we were posted to, to Scampton. Right. And so I thought oh yes, yes. This was, what’s the time now? It’s about, it’s about, I don’t know, May, June, July. Somewhere about July or August. Something like that. August perhaps, ’42. Yes. And he said, he said [pause] so we gets to, so we gets to Scampton and we find out that Scampton where we are forming a new crew, a new squadron, sorry. A new squadron. And there was already two squadrons already there fully operating. And we was the juniors coming in and as I say, and we found out our first part of forming up we had no aircraft. We had no ground crew. But our leaders were there. We had some leaders. We had to get to know our leaders and our section commanders and so on and we got to know people for the first couple of weeks and then, then we were sent — we’d got to join this Flight. 1661 I think it was. Conversion flight. That was at Scampton. And it was only a grass airfield at Scampton and there were two fully operational aircraft there err squadrons there. 49 Squadron and 83 Squadron were there. And then we found out we’ve got to do this course because we were posted to 467 Squadron. An Australian squadron. And so anyway we, we trained on Manchesters and then after, of course Manchesters were the forerunners of the Lancaster but it only had the two engines. Well when they put the four engines on it they called it the Lancaster and took off the third fin to make it look nice. And so that, that was, you know that was how we got crewed-up there and of course when we were there from a Wellington crew we had to take on two extra people again to make a seven crew. So we had to take on an extra gunner and, and a flight engineer. And then we flew in the Manchesters and there was quite a few on the course there. And then we had to do some bullseyes. Bullseyes are mock operations where we, like mock, they were raid diversions in a way because we used to fly within reach of the Dutch coast and then turn back and come home. But you did everything as if you was going on an op and you would divert. We were diverters to draw the fighters up to us so the main force could creep in and perhaps go in through southern France. So we had a good training there and we used to come over to, of course Scampton as I said was still grass. But unknown to us we were going to be posted to Bottesford, right. Which is just in Lincolnshire but it’s in three counties. The actual airfield I think was in three counties because Bottesford was a very dispersed sort of airfield. So it was Leicester, Nottingham and Lincolnshire. The postal address I think was Nottingham. But we were quite, we were quite close to [pause] what’s the town called? Grantham.
JM: Grantham.
SK: Grantham. And so, anyway we used to go over to Woodhall Spa to do our landing on, on the runways because the satellite stations, as Bottesford was called was built during the war and they built them as dispersed stations. They realised the stations that were built during the war period in the 30s were all quite cramped and in one section they found that was a dangerous thing so they built these dispersal stations. Well, when they built them of course, I mean aircraft were going to be bigger so they wanted more space so they had bigger airfields. And so that’s why we went over to Woodhall Spa which was, had runways to learn the different way of landing on runways as to, to grass. And then, anyway when we got to the, we were [pause] got to Bottesford, we left Scampton a few days before Christmas. That’s ’42. And we first flew at Bottesford about two or three days before Christmas. We had a lot of training to do when we got to Bottesford because unknown to us, the ground crew, they’d sent new aircraft into Bottesford, new Lancasters, into Bottesford and they sent ground crew there to, to learn their trade on Lancasters. And they had a month to do it. Like we was learning at 1661 conversion flight. We were learning from the aircrew side. They were learning it from the ground crew side. And because we thought that how can we be a squadron with hardly any, with no aircraft. No ground crew. Anyway, so we got there and we, I talked to one chap and he said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’d only, I’d only been a mechanic on Magisters,’ which was a single engine aircraft. A little tiny thing, you see. And of course when he come to see the Lancaster, a great big thing, it frightened the life out of him [laughs] you see, and we had a lot to learn. Anyway, the squadron became operational and we operated from there. I finished my first tour and the squadron, the crew I was with we were the first crew to finish a full tour on 467. We, we, there was two other crews that we were quite friendly with. They finished one trip behind us so we beat them by three days. But we claimed that right to be the first then to finish a full tour. And that, that went on to the concluding the, my first tour there. And this was taking place between, shall we say the 1st of January and my last one, my last trip was on the 30th of May. And we were posted away on the 6th of June. And we were posted away. Do you want me to carry on? As screen gunners. As screen gunners. And we said, ‘Well what’s a screen gunner?’ We’d never heard of it before. They said, ‘Oh, you’ll find out.’ So we didn’t know. So five of the crew were posted to the same place. I think it was 17 OTU, I think that was the number, to, to Silverstone. And the navigator was posted to Wing. And he said that was the saddest moment of his life when he had to leave the crew. And we got posted by air and I remember when we got there we had dropped him off at Wing first and then our aircraft flew on and landed us at Silverstone. Well, Silverstone was only just, the OTU at Silverstone had only just moved there and it wasn’t really organised properly. And it took them a month to get organised and when they did get organised they found out they had a satellite as well which was called Turweston. So as all gunners were sent over to Turweston because the gunnery courses and I think the bombing courses were going to be sent from there. And we found out what a screen duty, what a screen gunner’s duty was. We were to be instructors without being taught by — not, not classroom instructors. Field instructors. To pass on our knowledge and, and to take new recruits, new crews coming through from their OTU because that’s what Turweston was. An OTU. And to take them on air firing and, and cine camera work. Well, we had a little training aircraft attacking us as a fighter and so on and so forth and we used to take them up in the air to do that sort of thing, you know. But that’s what a screen gunner was. And of course you were supposed, that was supposed to be a six month rest. Well, we had casualties while we was on there. But after that, so we were posted away in early June and I stayed there ‘til the middle of January and you were supposed to have a six months rest. And then a chap come to me who was one of the staff pilots there. Like us he was a screened pilot. He was an officer, and he said to me, ‘I’m forming a new squadron,’ He’d obviously been told he’s got to go back on ops and he said, ‘Would you be interested in joining my crew?’ So I said, oh you know it came quite out of the blue. And I thought, well I’d done about seven and a half months I think it was and I felt well I’ve gone over my six months. I could be called back at any time and, mind you we had a good bunch of lads, of air gunners there. We all lived in one hut as screen gunners. And it was, I thought well, you know what do I do? But I thought I’ve got to move on I think because if not [pause] So I liked this chap anyway. Although he was a flight lieutenant I liked him. Right.
AS: What was his name?
SK: Walker. Flight Lieutenant Walker. Clive Walker. He came from Bolton. He was the son of a known name in Bolton that had a big tannery works up there. And anyway, he, he approached me and I said [pause] and he said, he saw I was hesitating a bit. He said, ‘Well look, can you think it over? Can I give you twenty four hours to think it over?’ So I said, ‘Oh thank you. Good.’ And at that he approached me because he, I’d just been on, taking some air gunners on air firing and we used to take about four or five air gunners in one aeroplane and then change the gunners in the air and, you know they would be firing at a drogue, you know. Towed by a little light aircraft. And then we could, we were controlling the, the you know it was whilst we were in the air we was in control of these gunners. Well, so anyway when I got back to my billet I kept thinking about it. And I went to a friend I was quite pally with, one of the gunners and I said to him, ‘Clive, Clive Walker’s just approached me about going back on ops with him and I keep thinking, shall I go?’ And the chap said to me and that was Bill Harley, his name was and he said to me, ‘He’s asked me as well.’ So anyway we sat down on our beds and we had a chat and I said, ‘Well, if you go I’ll go.’ So he said, ‘Alright, we’ll both go.’ So the next day we told him yes, we’ll go with him. Alright. I think Bill err Clive Walker, he had a dog on the station. It was a corgi, you know. I didn’t like it. A yappy little thing. I didn’t think much of him as a dog but a nice looking dog but Bill loved this dog. He used to look after the dog a lot. He liked the dog anyway. And he, I think, I don’t know whether the dog swayed the argument [laughs] but we went, we went, and said the next day, ‘Yes. We’ll go.’ So he said he was very pleased about that and he said that and after a little while we were called. And then of course we were taken back to [pause] where did we go? Let’s see. We had to, mind you we had to leave Lincolnshire then. Do you want to go on because it’s not Lincolnshire?
AS: It’s great. Carry on.
SK: Anyway, we had to go to [pause] I think it come under Northampton. Let me see. What’s the name of the place? Turweston. Now was it Turweston? Wait a minute. No. No. No. No. No. Wait a minute. No. That’s where we were. Turweston. Then we had to, when we got the posting we had to go to Little Staughton in Bedfordshire. Little Staughton was 8 Group, Pathfinder Group. So there again when I joined 467 it was a new squadron and we found out that Pathfinders were forming a new squadron and of course as most of us had been off for over a year now from a squadron we had to do refresher courses. So we were sent to different places all around to do refresher courses. We went to Binbrook, up there and did a gunnery and the bomb aimers had to do a bombing course up there. And so we did various other stations around. And then we finished up at Little Staughton and that’s where we operated from.
AS: Which squadron were you?
SK: 582 Squadron. A new squadron. It was formed on April Fool’s Day 1944. And we operated from there, right. I did twenty nine trips on 467. But I did, and I did thirty five trips on 582. So that’s sixty four in total. And —
AS: Wow.
SK: And then of course that’s, we got through ok. You know. So that’s basically my, my flying life and then we didn’t know we was on our last trip and on our last trip was to Bremer in Northern Germany there. Bremer, Bremer. How you say it? And after I landed back somebody said, ‘This is your last trip.’ I don’t know whether perhaps our skipper knew. He hadn’t told me. So we just, you know thought — really? You know. It just came quite suddenly, you know. And that’s the last time I flew in the RAF. And then after sending on leave for a while, we were on leave for a little while, they sent us right up to Northern Scotland for, to be, for an attestation sort of course to reclassify you now to a different job. The only two jobs they we were offering at the moment was to be in the transport section or airfield controller. So I jumped for airfield controller and I did my, my course down at Watchfield in Oxford as an airfield controller. And then when I passed that course I was posted to West Raynham in Norfolk and [pause] as the airfield controller there. They were very pleased to see me because there were only two, two airfield controllers there and they were having to, it’s a twenty four hour station so — and you had to be relieved for your meals so they were never off duty. So when I got there I was welcomed. And so I was there then. That was the longest station I was on because otherwise we was, you know, we seemed to be always on the move. And that’s where I met my wife. At that station.
AS: Was she a WAAF?
SK: She was a WAAF. And then I got demobbed from that station when the war had all finished and so on. And then I went back to work, sort of thing and forgot all about the Air Force then. And I took, as I thought, having a green grocers shop I’ve always got a chance to know how to sell a cabbage. So my uncle was in wholesale greengrocery business and I fancied, I fancied to, to be more in the wholesale business than a retail business. I didn’t want to go and serve women coming in to the shop and arguing about the size of a cabbage so I went in the wholesale department, right. And we, because I was keen on getting back and playing a bit of football and we could have Saturday afternoons off then. And it was interesting, you know. When I was up West Raynham after the war finished suddenly it all came out, the orders came from the hierarchy everyone’s got to play sport. You’ve got to get playing sport again. Well I loved my football until I was called up and then, and then I found I hadn’t kicked a ball for six years. And of course I suppose I would have been in my prime then so I thought, I wonder if I can kick a football? So, anyway the sergeant’s mess got up a team and said we’ll have a try you know and we formed a sergeant’s mess team and we played different sections and goodness knows what else. And I got back playing football and then when I was started playing football that’s why I wanted my Saturday afternoons off. And then after a while it went on that I went to work in London in Spitalfields Market. And I worked as a salesman in Spitalsfield Market. That’s a wholesale fruit and vegetable market there. And I finished my working life there. It’s [pause] so you know that’s basically my life story. You know. In a nutshell [laughs] It’s quite interesting though that different things, you know little things creep up in your life doesn’t it? So if that’s any help to you there you are.
AS: That’s fabulous. Shall we pause there for a second?
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
[recording paused]
AS: Sidney, I’d like to pick up on a few questions that come to mind from, from your interview so far. Could you tell me a bit more about the air gunnery training? Did people ever hit anything firing at drogues? What was the standard like?
SK: I got a standard in my [pause] how did they put it in that? Stop the tape a minute.
[recording paused]
AS: Ok. So tell me a little bit more about the gunnery training and the assessment.
SK: Well the gunnery training was when you’re air firing at a drogue they, you had a little light aircraft come alongside you, flying with you on your beam. So you could turn your turret around onto the beam. As much as ninety degrees. And you’d fire at a drogue which was let out behind. Behind the little tug. And as we took up about four gunners, I think it was at a time we’d take one [pause] we’d take one and we’d, the first gunner would have his bullets. The rounds were dipped in a coloured paint. So the tips were red, yellow, green I think. Or whatever they were. There was about four different colours. And you had two hundred rounds each to fire. So you had little short bursts of two second bursts and then you’d undo your breach and you’d see what colour you are. Because once you lost your colour you had to stop. Right. And that’s how it was done. Right. So that when a drogue came down and it was assessed the bullet would leave a little hole in the drogue with the colour around like a little round circle. And that’s how you was assessed. Two hundred rounds — how many hits you got. And of course it was all done on a beam because that’s where deflection come in and deflection was allowing for the time for your bullet to get from the gun to the aircraft. If you fire direct at him you’ve missed him because it’s gone behind him. Although the speed of the bullet is fast it’s enough to miss the aircraft, you see. So anyway that’s how, that’s how gunnery was assessed. Right. And then also when you were doing cine camera work you had magazines. Two magazines. Each gunner was allowed two magazines. And he had these little aircraft and they did flat attacks you know. They’d be on the beam and they would come in just like this and then pass underneath you. And you had to see how good your manipulation was because gunnery training is a bit like [pause] it’s a bit like, think of yourself as a snooker player. A snooker player, if he wants to be really good like these professional snooker players they have to train for hours a day and keep training. And that’s what you had to do. For gunnery you’ve got to keep training to get your control of your turret because at the turret you’ve got to turn your turret and you’ve got to angle your guns at the same time. Right. And it’s manipulation and it’s, it’s a question of having really good manipulation. And it’s just a matter of continue working at it, you know. And, and it was a Fraser Nash 20 turret I was in with four machine guns. And I had them while I was on OTU flying the Welllingtons. And it was the same as that, exactly the same turrets when I got on the Lancasters. Later on because I’d finished flying by August. Finished operational flying by August. I don’t know what the, I haven’t got the date in my mind but I know it was August ’44 I’d finished flying. And oh where were we? I’m losing my track now.
AS: Did you have ground training turrets? Ground training aids as well or was it all airborne?
SK: Well, I’m talking, I’ve been talking about airborne. Ground training — no. We did, we did a bit of training. I mean you start off by, when you’re at even your initial training when you first join up we used to get, we was at Blackpool but we went up to Fleetwood and they had some rifle butts up there somewhere on the downs, on the seashore. Somewhere near there. And we used to, we were give five rounds to fire a rifle. Right. But then prior to that, I didn’t mention in the chat but prior to that when, when the forerunner of the Home Guard came out it was called the Local Defence Volunteers. And Anthony Eden came on the radio and said, ‘We’re calling for volunteers,’ because the invasion was imminent, ‘We’re calling for volunteers. Will you report to the police station.’ So me and my old mate said, ‘Yes. Let’s go.’ You know. So we went down and we signed on and we were, we was a Local Defence Volunteers. And of course we had nothing much to start with and gradually you got little bits and pieces and then just, it was just, renamed it after a little while because they had such wonderful support that they turned it in and renamed it the Home Guard. And then of course, as soon as it was made the Home Guard that was about the time I was called up. Right. But then we had other training firing machine guns. Not much done on the ground but when we was at, when we was at air gunnery school we used to fly at Mablethorpe, along the beach at Mablethorpe because from Manby to Mablethorpe wasn’t far. We used to fly along the beach and we’d turn the guns on to the beam and there was targets put in the water. You know, this deep of water like, you know because it’s tidal there and targets were put there for you to fire at, right. And that was just for one gunner because that’s when we had [pause] No. We weren’t crewed-up there so no we must have had several gunners then. That’s right. And we, so it was done at Mablethorpe beach. Right. And then to get your, to get your results of the targets from Mablethorpe beach there the people in charge of the sight down there used to go back out on horseback to pick up the targets, you know. I remember that. Don’t kill the horses, you know.
AS: It can’t have given you much time.
SK: Pardon?
AS: It can’t have given you much time because the target comes from the front of the aeroplane.
SK: Yeah. Yes.
AS: And you’ve got very very little time to —
SK: That’s right. Well, yeah. Yeah That’s what, that was some of the training we did. We did two or three. That was part of our air gunnery training when we was at Manby. And then, as I say OTU you did the training with the trailing of the drogue and so on. Basically that was the training, you know.
AS: How about the aeroplanes that you were flying in training?
SK: Well —
AS: Were they mechanically reliable or old and worn out? Or —
SK: Yes. Old and worn out mostly, you know. The longer the war it didn’t, if the thing was operational it wasn’t put on training exercises, you know. On the training stations. It wasn’t so bad. I didn’t notice any problems when we was at Manby when we had, we had Wellingtons there. So luckily I had a good training because I was on Wellingtons all the time and with the same turret and something but when we got to, to being screen gunners we had very poor aircraft there. They had a job to keep them, you know. They’d say, ‘Yes. Your aircraft’s ready.’ We’d go out there as a crew and you find out, oh no. You’d be sitting out there waiting for an hour and a half before it was finished. And I had a, had one crash flying at while I was a screen gunner because I was flying, flying with a sprog pilot. That is a pilot going through the course. And we burst a tyre just as we lifted off on exercise. And so I, I said, well I didn’t say nothing. I thought we’d burst a tyre there and the aircraft just screwed a little bit to the left and I thought well we might as well do the exercise whatever happens because we’d burn up a bit of fuel. So, so finished the exercise and I said to the pilot afterwards, I said, ‘I want you to throttle back a bit and when you throttle back to lower the wheels and we want to inspect the tyres,’ I said. ‘I think we burst the tyre as we lifted off.’ So he said, ‘I thought the thing screwed a bit to the left,’ you know, ‘To port.’ So we, we checked the, so he did, he lowered the aircraft — the wheels down. The undercarriage down. And the port, the port tyre was blown to smithereens. And so he put it up and I said ok. Well, he said, so he said, ‘I’ll let base know.’ So we flew back over base and then we called up and said we appeared to have burst a tyre on take-off, you know. So usual old thing come from that. Put flying control in a panic. So they said the usual thing of, ‘Stand by. Stand by.’ So we, we carried on circuit and we were watching down below and we saw, we know our flight commander in charge of the course. He was, he was a good man really but we used to think he was a hard nut. But he had a little van you know and we could see his van suddenly appeared and it was at the end of the runway, you know. And we were told to fly over. He wanted to inspect it. Yeah. So he, he flew it over and he said, ‘Yes. You have blown your tyre.’ That’s the message we got back. We knew that. We’d had a look at it. So anyway, he said, I thought perhaps he might let us land with wheels up on the grass but he didn’t. He was struggling to, he didn’t want to lose an aircraft so he said, ‘No. Land on the runway and try to keep the leg off as long as you can until last moment.’ So anyway, I went forward. I had a word with the pilot and I said, ‘I’ll assist you as I can,’ and I had to look after my gunners which I got them all sorted out in the, in the fuselage. And of course it wasn’t enough points for them to all know what was going on. So the one with the most sense, as I thought, I gave him the, so he could listen to the intercom and he was to tell the others what’s going on and we [pause] So I said, ‘I’ll come forward,’ and I remember when we were doing all our circuits and bumps when we were under instruction ourselves as a crew they always had, the instructor always called out the airspeed for him. For when he was perhaps doing his stuff and by calling out the airspeed it’s one less job he’s got to watch. So I said, ‘I’ll come forward and I’ll call out the airspeed for you and anything else I can do.’ Oh he thought that was a good idea so that’s what I went forward and sat alongside him. He brought it in but at the last minute he a bit over corrected trying to keep the leg up and instead of what you might expect you’d swing around on the broken leg he went the other way and the wing hit the ground and damaged the wing a bit but we kept upright. We didn’t tip over on our nose. We kept upright and because we were slow, we were lost enough speed to keep us flat and level and I said to the crews, ‘Don’t panic.’ I said, ‘We’ll get out nice and slowly,’ you know. I said, ‘We don’t want any broken limbs.’ There was no fire. I mean I was sitting up in the cockpit with him and I said to the skipper, checking everything’s switched off. I said, ‘All switches off.’ And he checked everything. All switches off so there’s no fuel running about and I could see there was no, it all looked, there was no imminent fire. So we got out quite slowly and by that time our officer commanding was standing outside with his, with his van you know. So I got out and got all my gunners together and with the pilot because he had, he was flying with his own crew, you see. That was their training as well. To learn how to be a captain controlling the crew because he was on the course. And he was, he was a flight lieutenant believe it or not so he must have been somewhere on a training station for years you know and then suddenly said, ‘It’s time you went on ops.’ And he, anyway I walked over to, to our commanding officer there and I said to him, no. ‘No injuries sir. We’re all ok.’ He said to me, he said, he said, ‘You took a long time to get out of that aircraft.’ I said, ‘Well, we’ve got no broken limbs. No casualties.’ So I I sort of went away with a flea in my ear sort of thing, you know. I thought I’d done quite well. So that was one I had like that. And then my other gunner that I got to know which I joined up on the second crew with, he had another trouble when we had an aircraft that caught fire after he’d been airborne a little while. And he of course, we used to control it all from the astrodome halfway down the turret. Halfway down the airframe. The fuselage. And we only just used to sit and we used to control it all by the thing and I used to control the, the screen gunner used to control the tug, the flying you know, the towing the target or if it’s a little fighter going to attack us. We did that by Aldis lamp you see. Using a green for go and red for stop. No. Red was, red was exercise complete. You know. Thank you very much. But we had the green for stand by and then flashing green for attack, you know. That sort of thing. And so there was always little accidents going on, on the OTU because the aircraft weren’t at their best. They weren’t at their best. And in fact a gunner I got very friendly with also, he was one of the three crews that were going through. He was, he was sent as a screen gunner afterwards. He come only two or three days after us. That’s why we had a good lot of gunners there. And he, his wireless op was sent on from, from Turweston. Turweston yeah. When we was doing this. They crashed on take-off and were killed instantly. And that was one. So we had casualties while we was, you know, screened so we thought well might as well go back on ops. So that’s how we volunteered for our second tour.
AS: When you passed out as an air gunner.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Did you know you were going to Bomber Command and how did you feel about it?
SK: No. No. When you passed out from where? From OTU?
AS: Yeah. Yeah.
SK: Oh from OTU we were told we were going to, as I said, up the road here.
JM: Scampton.
SK: Scampton. Yeah. Scampton. Good job I’ve got a prompter. To Scampton. And we was, we were told we were going on a conversion course. That’s what we were told. When we was on a conversion we were told we were actually posted to 467.
AS: In Bomber Command.
SK: Yeah. In Bomber Command, you see. Yeah.
AS: What was it like?
SK: Mind you the OTUs were like Bomber Command. They were OT, Bomber Command’s OTUs I believe. Yeah.
AS: So you knew fairly early on that you’d end up bombing Germany.
SK: Well yeah.
AS: Yeah.
SK: When we, when I joined the first crew, when I said they were a Blenheim crew they thought they were going to the Middle East as a Blenheim crew. Because at that time they were just phasing out the Blenheims and sending them to the Middle East. And they were so surprised when they come and they were going to be made into a Wellington crew you see. So it’s, that’s how the war, you know, evolved really, you know. You never knew.
AS: What was it like being an all English crew in an Australian squadron?
SK: Well the reason we were all English crew. One Irish.
AS: Sorry. I do apologise.
SK: British.
AS: British.
SK: We were British, weren’t we? But our crew we had one Irish. He come from Belfast. We had one from Bolton. One from [pause] where did Ted come from? Bradford.
JM: Bradford.
SK: Bradford. The pilot come from the Cotswolds. I come from Essex. Johnny Lloyd. I don’t know where Johnny Lloyd, I’m not quite sure. He was our wireless op. I’m never quite sure where he come from. So we British. A British crew there. Oh and then we had, we didn’t have the, the flight engineer we got on our, when we first crewed up on our first 467. Our flight engineer really didn’t fit in the crew. And I don’t know what happened to him afterwards. He never operated with us. We did all our training with him at Scampton but when we come to be posted to 467 he suddenly disappeared. So we had to make do with what they called odd bods. If there was an engineer that hadn’t got a crew on the squadron or whatever it was or if not they had to pinch one off another crew that wasn’t flying that night.
AS: All the way through your tour?
SK: Well we had, we didn’t have a lot. We had, I think four different engineers that I can remember. So they were split over twenty nine. Twenty nine ops. One was an Australian. He was pinched off another crew. And our crew, we never had any sickness in our crew at all apart from the engineer which I mentioned. But only once the Irish chap, coming back from Belfast. Coming back from Belfast the boat, the sea was so rough they couldn’t sail the boat and he got back twenty four hours late. Well, we was on that first night so we had to pinch, we had to be given another bomb aimer and they took one from another crew. And he was an observer with the O badge, you know. And he was a good chap. We liked him but he came, he didn’t get through his tour. He failed, failed to return on one occasion. Yeah. Does that answer that question? I don’t know.
AS: Absolutely.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: What was it like being surrounded Australians? Was it very different from — ?
SK: We weren’t surrounded by Australians. I didn’t really, I didn’t really say everything.
AS: No.
SK: A lot of our leaders when we were first formed up at Scampton we found most of our leaders were New Zealanders. Believe it or not. We had the two Flights. A and B Flight. And we was put into A Flight when we got to Bottesford. And that was Squadron Leader Pape and he was a New Zealander. And then when we formed a third Flight in March we, we had our flight commander was another new Zealander. Flight Lieutenant Field. Squadron Leader Field, sorry. And our, and our officer commander, he was actually RAF. He was, he formed, he made the squadron. There was no doubt about that. He was a wonderful leader and he joined the RAF in about 1936 if my memory’s right. But he was actually born in Brazil and, you know. I think he had, I’m not sure if he had British parents or what but he was actually in the RAF. So there was, we had quite a few new Zealanders there. Not many Canadians although there was a few odd Canadians there. And then to get the squadron going, being a new squadron how they, they sent in from different, other squadrons perhaps some experienced pilots because you can’t, you want, you want some experienced crews around you and with say six, six or eight trips to do, right. And so they were sent in to finish their tours with us. So we didn’t have a lot of Australians there. And when the Australians were coming you’d find a pilot would come with his navigator and then the rest we would make up with British. With Royal Air Force. Right. And then we had one or two gunners coming through on their own and they would join a crew. But also, we got through, we was pushed through our tour very quickly. The RAF crews were. We had no rest at all. You know. It was the hardest work I ever did. But they held back a little bit on the Australian chaps coming. Trying to build up the crew, the Australian crew. The Australian squadron. Right. But I don’t think I ever come across a whole, not in my time, a whole crew of all Australians. But they were, if an Australian pilot come through, looking through the book I can see they had a different colour uniform to us so you could always tell them that they had the darker blue one, you see, the Australians. And the New Zealanders as well. So you can see them when you look at old pictures. You could say oh look he’s got three. There’s three Aussies there. The rest were made up of RAF. That’s how it worked you see. So, but that’s why we were not, got through my first tour rather quickly, you know.
AS: Going through at such a rate.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Did, did you start to feel really worn down by it all or were you glad to be going through it so fast?
SK: You didn’t think about it. You were just, it was just what the order was. Whatever the order was you did, you know. It seemed that we was always on you know. Because I mean the weather’s, a lot of people forget what the weather was like. The weather we had in the war or the war winters were very hard. Very hard winters.
AS: That, that actually touches on something I’d like to talk about.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Did you have any experience of FIDO or the emergency landing grounds?
SK: I didn’t have it myself. There was three places in the country wasn’t there had them? One was at Manston and another one was in Suffolk.
AS: Woodbridge.
SK: Woodbridge. Yes. The other one was further up country wasn’t it? Was it in Yorkshire? But there was three in the country there. No. I never had. Never had any experience of that. I’ve spoken to. I did speak to some chaps that landed in it, you know. It’s not — you know, a dicey thing to land in. Flames burning both sides of you, you know. Makes the runway look quite small, you know when you’re coming in, you know.
AS: On your, on your first tour as you say the weather could close in.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Close down.
AS: What was it like coming back when the weather had closed in?
SK: Well Bottesford was in what did they called it? The Vale of Belvoir was it?
JM: Belvoir.
SK: Belvoir. In the Vale of Belvoir right. Right. And it was a frost hollow. So it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t too bad in the middle of the winter because our take off times you had more darkness. Put it that way. We were controlled by the moon. We wanted darkness. Right. And, but sometimes the moon would be coming up before you got back or something like that you know. So we were controlled. What was the actual question you asked me?
AS: What was it like when you came back to find the fog had come in or — ?
SK: Oh yes. Well, yes. Well, it was a frost hollow there so, but most mists like we’ve had recently actually they’d come in in the late hours of the night, you know they form. And then you’ve got them at dawn break, you know. And it wasn’t until you got shorter night hours when you’re coming back at daybreak perhaps or, you know, just prior to then and then it was a bit difficult. But only once did we get diverted. And we got diverted, it’s a long story there [laughs] but we’d done a long trip. That was, I’m pretty sure that was the time we went to the Skoda works down in Czechoslovakia and we, we found that quite a hard trip. Very hard for the gunners. Because, you see, I used to, if you were in the flak belts and you got ack-ack flying around you. I used to think you were better off if you were in the pitch dark because it got so intense looking out for fighters. It was, you know. And you gained experience to know how to [pause] you could smell danger by what was going on around you, you know. And we always had a good understanding. We used to, especially in the first crew because we were all sergeants in the first group. Just sergeants. In the second crew we had four officers and three sergeants. It wasn’t quite so cosy if you know what I mean there. We couldn’t do our crew meetings sitting on our beds. We used to have crew meetings after. The next day and, and if anything we could have improved on, you know. We all had our say and all that. And you could, there was lots of little things you could do to save your skin, I suppose, you know. That sort of thing. Because, you know, you’re flying in a block. You’re not flying in formation. It’s a block. It’s, you can get statistics where you can get the actual measurements. It’s a wide block and it’s that deep and you’re flying as a gaggle anyhow, right. And the reason it was like that, deep like that was because you got at the time on that first tour the Wellingtons were still flying. They could only convert them to Lancasters as the Lancasters became available. And you had, shall we say over a target you’d have the Wellingtons at fourteen thousand feet. You’d have the Stirlings at sixteen. Halifax at eighteen. And we’d try to get to twenty if we could but we couldn’t always get there but you know it just depends on the weather. So that, that’s why you got the depths of it like that. So then they used to stagger it a bit so you weren’t dropping bombs on the ones underneath you and things like that. But when you’re flying at night and your night vision was most important to you for gunners. And there’s always a dark side to the sky. There’s always a dark side. However pitch dark it is one side is darker than the other. And it’s nearly always darker underneath for a start and then the south was nearly always the darker than the north. Right. Because if you got the stars you don’t realise how brilliant the stars can be. Right. So we always used to think if we’d got a long leg to fly on, flying in this gaggle, this stream which I’d say to the skipper, you know, we had a message to say creep over to the, if that was the stream going through there and the dark side was this side shall we say we’d creep over a little bit this way. Right. We’re still in the gaggle but we’d creep over a little bit this way. So the track would be down the middle. Right. But we’d go over to this side. Not that side. So you’ve less chance of being seen. Right. So there was all them little things you learned. You weren’t taught. You couldn’t be taught operational flying. You just had to grin and bear it and learn it yourself. And the only way you learned it was by discussions afterwards, you know and by little tiny things to say how you’d go about it.
AS: What was your attitude, or your skipper’s attitude to weaving? Did —
SK: Oh yeah. In, in those days you did weave. You weaved a lot and of course it was it was so, so a gunner couldn’t get his bearing on you. Because, you know it only takes two seconds to shoot you down. Two seconds. And you’ve got to be, if you’re on a eight or nine hour flight. Long flights in the winter. It’s a lot, a lot of time that’s going on there you know. So —
AS: Did, did you, did you ever have any exposure to wakey wakey pills?
SK: Yeah.
AS: To keep you awake.
SK: Oh yeah. I used to take them. If it was only, if it was up to the Ruhr or places like that according to your, you worked out you was given your briefing to, to know what routes because you didn’t go just straight there and back. You had different ways to, tactics to do. You had to fly on. And oh I’ve lost track now.
AS: Wakey wakey pills.
SK: Oh wakey wakey pills. Yes. So going to the Ruhr it could be four hours. It could be six hours. Right. So, and so possibly not then but if you were going further afield where you’ve got an eight hours, anything over a seven hour trip you needed something to keep awake. But you’ve got to realise you’ve been at work since 8 o’clock in the morning. Right. You’ve been up since 8 o’clock in the morning. You’ve been to a meal and from half past nine that morning you started work. You had your, you’d know by 11 o’clock whether you was on that night. Right. And then you had things to do like we always went out to the aircraft. You’d find what aircraft you’d got. We didn’t have regular aircraft. You had to fly on what was available. I think I worked it out, I think it was fourteen different aircraft we flew in in twenty nine trips. I think it was fourteen. So you didn’t have a regular aircraft so you always went out there to have a look but you got to know aircraft. You know. Perhaps you might do a training trip in one because training never stopped. So if you was on that night you’d have to go out there and you’d look at it and make sure the turret, had it been serviced? You know. Check on it. Make sure the armourers hadn’t missed anything because they were hard pressed and then also give, give, of course we had no Perspex in the front. We had a canopy over the top. Give it a clean. A bit of a sides we had so clean that up. And then you had to do a night flying test. So that had to take place between a bit before you went for briefing or then you would have your briefing. Mostly you would have a meal beforehand. You know, ,a flying meal beforehand. Then you got your briefing. Sometimes it was the other way around accordingly, you know, how it worked out. So there was no, there was never any spare time. And if you weren’t on that night you’re bound to have a flying exercise to do. We never, exercises never stopped. There was always new equipment coming out that some training had to be done on. You were, you’d be put on air firing. We used to, we used to go to, that’s Lincolnshire. Wainfleet. The Wainfleet.
AS: Wainfleet ranges. Yeah.
SK: That range there. And we used to drop our eleven pound smoke bombs from twenty thousand feet onto a target down below. You had to pre-book it, you know and arrange your time and then you were, you were given a slot to bomb at, you know. And then we had gunnery places I told you. Where did we used to go? We went, we had gunnery exercises. Perhaps we went to Mablethorpe then. I don’t think so. I don’t know where we went. I can’t think but there was always exercises right to even if you’ve only got one trip to have done you were still given exercises to do and you were kept busy because it took your mind off any casualties you’d had. That’s what it was done for.
AS: Yeah.
SK: You were never, you’d never get any time to rest at all but then occasionally a squadron would be given perhaps a forty eight hour stand down. And that’s when it was, well that’s right, you know. You got the message. It was good then. The squadron would be stood down. It gives the squadron time to recover, you know. So that’s that. So anything you want to ask me now?
AS: Yeah. On the wakey wakey pills still.
SK: Oh the wakey wakey. I didn’t say that. So I used to take them if it was a long trip but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take them until after we’d done the bombing. Then you’ve got to be, the way home is always worse than the way out, you know. That’s the more dangerous place, coming home. More dangerous is coming back because they could be waiting for you. Especially if it was a long trip because they’d had time to go down, refuel and come up again. So I used to take the wakey wakey pills and I found out they used to make you quite tired for a quarter of an hour after you took them. Whether it was the thought of it or not I don’t know but I thought they always made me tired first. But then they did help you to keep yourself awake because it’s no good falling asleep for a time because it was very unsociable hours we were working and we worked long hours you know. And you could only do it if you were young, you know. And of course we were all young lads, you see. So.
AS: What, what was, I knew they were all different but can you give me an idea of what the debriefing was like afterwards?
SK: Debriefing. Yeah. It varied, I think on squadrons because some said when they come back they used to have a tot of rum and things like that but I don’t think we ever had that. But a cup of tea was more, was better than anything else. Of course when you, when you’ve only done one or two trips you want to keep talking about it, you know. You think, you know, fancy I’ve done that, you know and so on, you’d talk about that. But we, certainly that was one of the first things we got out in our crew is we’ve got to get to bed and forget what’s happened because we might be on the next night. Because your entire, you’d be two nights on and one night off. That’s how it was going. You weren’t always given that. You couldn’t be. But you had to be prepared for that. So from touch down we aimed to get to bed within, into our bunks in two hours. And if we could do it in two hours we were lucky. You know, we’d done well. And the initial crews, the early crews, the ones in the earliest stages would be three or four hours getting to bed, you know. And then that affected them the next day. So you’ve got to, you’d get out your aircraft, you wait for transport. Transport was good. They were nearly always waiting for you. You’d get back to the locker room. You’ve got to stow your gear and it’s no good being excited about it. I know it did happen to some of them that they were so thankful they got back they took the gear off and just threw it in the locker. But the most important thing is, especially the gunners is you have to hang up your suit, your electric suit and see that it’s in your locker. You had long lockers. And it aired in your locker. See. Because any dampness you’d get a short in it you see.
AS: Yeah.
SK: So we always made sure that we got [pause] got into our, into the locker room and stowed all our kit away properly, you know. And then you go to debriefing and when you get to debriefing it depends who’s in front of you. You know. If you had a lot, a lot of bombers on that night there’s only perhaps two or three intelligence officers there to debrief you. Right. So you walk in and the first thing you look for — whose got the tea? You know. And then there would be some WAAFs there that would bring you a cup of tea. So you had a cup of tea and you might, I don’t know whether, there was nothing to eat. You just had this tea. Two mugs of tea would go down that quick. And then if you’re lucky you’d go straight in but if not you’ve got to wait till your, a table’s available for you to sit down. And then debriefing of course. They debrief the pilot and the navigator. The navigator’s the one they’re debriefing really, with the pilot as well because the navigator has got a complete log of everything that has gone on. What you’ve got to remember is the moment you took off every one of those aircraft flying was a separate unit. No one knew what, what he was doing or what’s happening in that aircraft until he came back over base. They didn’t know where he was or anything. So the navigator had a complete log of everything that went on in the aircraft. Right. Just like a ships log. And we were closer to the navy than we were to the army although we came out of the army originally. Right. So we used to get the debriefing done and then you go for your meal. Right. Yeah. Your meal. And you always had an egg when you came back. You always found an egg. It was wonderful just to have an egg you know and that. And then, and when we was at Bottesford after we’d come out the mess there we had at least a half mile to walk back to the billet because we were dispersed. We was right out in the sticks. It might, it seemed longer than that to me but there was only just a small road to go down. Just enough to carry a van down you know. There were no big lorries in them days much. And then that’s what we tried to do. To try to get back to our billet within two hours. So is that the answer? Is that alright?
AS: Brilliant.
SK: Ok.
AS: Wonderful.
SK: Any more questions?
AS: I have hundreds of questions, Sidney.
SK: Oh [laughs]
AS: A couple more perhaps. Did, did you, because you are a man who survived two tours of operations.
SK: Yeah.
AS: At different times of the war.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Did you notice a real difference in how you operated between the first tour and the second tour?
SK: Yeah. Oh yes. Of course. Yes, it did. That’s why we had, that’s why we had to go on to a refresher course. As I said when, we crewed up but as a crew we had to go on to a refreshing course. And we did all sorts of courses. We was, I don’t know how long they were for. I’d have to check my logbook really but I think, I think it might have been even two months before we operated you know because first, navigational aids were coming through. Different navigational aids and so on. And your, your tactics were different, you know. Your tactics were different. You had to keep altering them all the time, you know. So yes, there was a big difference. Yeah. Yeah. And of course then they made more, more officers were coming through in crews and that’s what split crews. When you was all sergeants you were one unit together but when you had officers, not that we didn’t mix together but you had to, you couldn’t, you had to live apart. You didn’t live together. You lived apart. You ate apart and so on. Whereas when we were sergeants everything was done together. You was just a little unit on your own, you know.
AS: Well it seems from, from what you’ve said about your first crew at least that you were a very tight knit, staying alive club. That’s what you wanted to do.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Put a lot of —
SK: We got good results and all. We had some very good results. I remember when we didn’t know we’d finished because you were supposed to do thirty trips. Right. But our pilot had done one second dickie trip. Right. He did it with our squadron leader and he did it to Essen. Because you know what they say? When we, when we was at OTU and people used to come, come to you and say to you at OTU and say, ‘What’s it like flying on ops?’ You haven’t got an answer. You’ve got to find out for yourself. We used to say, ‘When you’ve got Essen in your logbook you’ll know what it’s like.’ That was the answer, you know. So Essen was the most heavily defended target in the Ruhr. Where the Krupps works were. And getting in and out was, you know, it seemed almost impossible. It was amazing how you got through. So that’s what we, that was our answer when we were screen gunners to tell them. Not very helpful but you couldn’t, you can’t teach them. You can’t teach them operational flying. You can teach them everything else but, you know because it was a different feeling. It’s a fear factor comes into it you see. How do you react? You know. There’s somebody there is trying to blow you out of the sky. Another fighter coming up trying to set you alight and blow you to pieces you see. So it’s, it was a fear factor there you know and people act differently, you know. And one never knows, you know. I can tell you a little story when I was [pause] is it alright if I carry on? When I was at ITW down at St Leonards we’d finished our course. Wait a minute. Where was I going to get to, to tell you? We finished our course. Oh wait a minute. I’ve forgotten what I was going to say now. What was we talking about?
AS: We, we were talking about the fear factor. And you were going to tell me a story.
SK: Oh. A story. Yeah. Oh yes. Yes. The fear factor. Yeah. Right. Got it. Well we had to wait a long time down at ITW down at, down in Eastbourne. And they said it’s all, it’s been posted. ITV has been posted. And we was put on a train at 7 o’clock in the morning. We never knew where we were going. And we finished up in Bridlington, you see, that’s Yorkshire. And then we passed our course there and [pause] what was the question again?
AS: We were talking about the fear factor.
SK: Fear factor. Fear factor.
AS: And how people react. Yeah.
SK: Yeah. How people react. The fear factor. Yeah. And oh yes while we was there so they couldn’t, they couldn’t find anywhere to train. The air gunners couldn’t find anywhere else to go forward. We had to wait for our tour because the weather was so bad they couldn’t get through to flying. So we had several weeks there doing different things, sort of thing, you know. And so the fear factor. I keep wandering off don’t I? The fear factor is —
AS: We can come back to that if you like.
SK: No. Wait a minute. The fear factor was that I thought to myself when you, when you sign on as aircrew you haven’t got any knowledge or any idea of what it’s like to fly. None of us had ever been, had had our feet off the ground. We didn’t know what it was like to fly. So I thought to myself a lot of people coming in how are people going to cope with it? Would they be airsick? You see. Well airsickness is not like seasickness. But airsickness is only, you only get airsickness if you’re, you know, doing rough flying. But when it comes to flying over enemy territory you get this fear factor, you see. So they thought well these chaps have never been off the ground. We’d better give them a test to see how they cope with flying. So we was at Bridlington, on the seafront and they decided, ‘We’ll put them through an air sickness test.’ And they got some swings what they had in the fairgrounds right. Big swings. And they put some boards along the top of them and you had to like, you laid down on the board, on the board. And then some of the course there had to keep these thing going, you know. And you had to get the thing so it went perpendicular. Like that. And you had to, to go for twenty minutes. And I mean, a lot of boffins come down and the boffins were standing at the side of us and asking us questions. They were standing here. So as we went up and down they spoke to you as you went up past, you see, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Do you feel ill?’ ‘Would you like fish and chips?’ ‘What did you have for lunch,’ you know. Trying to make you feel sick. Right. And so this was all done on Bridlington sea front and I often thought to myself if any of the locals had seen us, ‘With a war going on what are these chaps doing having fun down there?’ See. So that’s, they did bring out the airsickness ‘cause they couldn’t tell. Some chaps did get sick in the air and its just the fear factor, you know. The fear factor of what might be ahead of them. They didn’t know you see. So they wanted to find out if there was any way they could train them but I’m sure that the tests they put us through was far greater than they would have been in reality like, you see.
AS: It’s a marvellous, marvellous story.
SK: Yeah.
AS: The fear.
SK: I passed my test by the way on that screening.
AS: Of course. Of course. But the fears that one had on, on operations. What, what was the greatest enemy do you think? Was it the flak or the fighters or the weather?
SK: Well both. Well all. There was three things you mentioned there, they’re all. It just depends at the time doesn’t it? You know. It’s, they’re all, all. Which is the worst? Well, I always thought, as I mentioned before fighters I always thought were the worst for me as a gunner because with the shells bombing around you, you know there’s no fighters there. That’s the [laughs] that’s the way I looked at it right. And my job in the back there was to make sure a fighter didn’t creep up on us you know because the German tactics changed as well as ours. And their approach to, their approach to attacking us changed. Where in the, on the first tour they all attacked us from behind, underneath and just came up to us and fired from the back. Right. Aiming at the rear gunner and the aircraft. Right. Between my tours they did the Peenemunde raid. Right. And that’s the first time the Germans used a new system. They called it the sugar music. Sugar music. I think that’s what they called it. They, they used to have a gunner in the night fighter and he was like we were. Firing from a swivel. From a swivel or a turret, you know. At us. Then they thought, well why don’t we have a, rather like the Spitfires had, fixed guns. So they fixed a gun at a thirty degree angle. Firing at that angle upwards. Right. And the pilot could fire it. Right. That’s what they did. So they used a different tactic. They’d fly underneath you where it was always darkest and then when they got underneath they used to lift up. Lift themselves up. They were mostly JU88s they weren’t fast like Spitfires or anything like that but they were just a bit faster than the Lancaster so they could keep up with you, overtake you, but they used to the throttle back and then when they got their gun right they’re aiming for your petrol tanks between the two engines. Right. And that’s how we lost so many through firing. And that started between our tours so tactics had to alter. But Air Ministry never told us about that. We never knew that. Except that we were getting, we were seeing more flamers going down. Set alight by flame. Been set alight. When there’s no ack-ack around about it must be a fighter you see. So you sort of realise something was going on but they never told us and I never knew about these guns until after the war finished. Amazing really. What I, they had the idea what you don’t know about you don’t worry about I suppose. You see.
AS: [unclear ] what, as for both of your crews really was your tactic to just not open fire if you saw somebody?
SK: I I I believed in that. I felt, you see, according to how light it was how far could you see? Right. Guns were harmonised. The four guns. Usually about two hundred and fifty yards right. So they were all supposed to hit on another at two hundred and fifty yards. Right. But sometimes you wouldn’t see an aircraft at that, not [pause] because he’s what, three times smaller than you are. He’s flying in the dark. You’re flying, so he can see you and he can see you and he can see your exhaust pipes just glowing red, you know. If he got in a certain position he could see them. So, you know, it’s — yeah where was I again?
AS: Whether or not you opened fire if you saw one.
SK: Oh yes. Whether I opened fire. Yeah. So I would think, it might have been, you don’t want to make a fight with him. You want to keep away from him. And my idea was if you, you could sense something and if you had any, you’d say to the pilot something like, are we, ‘Get to the darkest side you can,’ you know in as few words as we can. It don’t, ‘It don’t look right.’ ‘Things don’t look right,’ you know. So that, and then if they were like that, they were looking for simple targets. If they could find a crew that didn’t respond to anything you know that’s the one they’d go for, you see. So it was just, just a knowledge at the time really. I suppose. You know.
AS: When you’re flying backwards over a target that’s, that’s been bombed could you, did you look away? Could you preserve your night vision?
SK: I tried, the most important, the thing you were trying to do is don’t look at the target. Because that’s the only time it’s lighter underneath. Right. But avoid looking at the target. Don’t spoil your night vision. We had night vision training and it takes full twenty minutes to get your full night vision, you know. Twenty minutes. I know you can improve it in ten or something like that but, but it’s a full, full twenty minutes to get your full night vision and one flash of light can spoil it you see. And that’s another thing you didn’t want to do. So it’s very tempting to look to see where your bombs are falling, you know but I used to look away. And that’s the only time you looked upwards instead of downwards you know. Or sideways, you know. But that’s something you had to learn to do.
AS: Did you test fire your guns?
SK: In, in the very early stages we were allowed to do it when you were over, over the sea. Right. And then it got stopped doing it because they said there was a danger that you might give your position away and there was a danger that other aircraft might be not too far away from you. And so on. And they said, ‘No. You’re not to do it anymore.’ But we used to do. Test them. Just a short burst and so on but that got stopped. That was an order that came through to stop. So —
AS: Could you, I mean it’s a bit of a silly question because it depends to a great extent on how dark the sky was. But could you often see many other aircraft?
SK: Yes. Oh yes.
AS: Over the target? Or —
SK: Oh over the target you wonder where they all come from. You thought you was all alone. But when you were over the target aircraft were everywhere, you know. Above you. Below you. A pilot was always looking. You don’t want to see somebody with the bomb doors open just above you, you know. But yes its — yes it’s [pause] Ok?
AS: Yeah. As a crew did you ever talk about what you were doing? About the fact that you were bombing the enemy or did you just treat it as a job and just get on with it.
SK: Well it was a job of work. A job you were trained to do. It’s [pause] it’s something that we were right to do. And we had, we had targets to, we had targets to officially aim for, you know. But when you’re fighting an enemy things can go wrong, you know. I mean they had the problem of creep back. Creep back was where you, if you had a target area there and it was marked by the Pathfinders and then the bombers coming in and then they’re getting knocked about a bit. They let the bombs go a bit quicker you know. That sort of thing you know. So they used to put tactics. You’d put your, go forward, mark the forward there to allow for the creep back. You see. There was all things like that. But we were given a job to do and we thought it was the right job to do, you see. Yeah.
AS: And you said towards the end of the first part of the interview that you were demobbed and didn’t really think about it.
SK: We switched off.
AS: Yeah.
SK: It’s what happened. It’s what happened with the government and everything. They wanted everybody to forget everything. It’s like they destroyed all the aircraft. You know. All these aircraft we had. They were just got rid of them and so on and made you forget. That’s why they said on the stations what I said, got to bring sport back. They had sport everything. You’ve got to do. Play cricket. You’ve got to play football. There’s badminton, you know. And there was running races. Everybody had to be in to sport you see because that’s what the, that’s what the Services were before the war you see. So that’s you had a, you forgot all about. In fact my daughters, I’ve got three daughters, I don’t think they know much about what I did until they read the book. So there we are.
AS: Well, hopefully we’ve got a tape as well. One, one final question if I may and it’s not about your aircrew duties. It’s when you did aerodrome control. And I have a reason for this because my mum used to do it as well.
SK: Oh yes.
AS: What was your —
SK: She’d be in flying control.
AS: She was in flying control.
SK: Yes. Yes. I was in the caravan at the end of the runway.
AS: Oh Ok.
SK: Yeah.
AS: So, what did your duties entail?
SK: Right. As flying control. First of all you logged every aircraft as they took off and when they landed and you brought them on to the runway with an Aldis lamp and gave them permission to take off and then when they were landing, with your binoculars you’ve checked that their wheels are down properly. That their tyres looked in good nick and so on and also to recognise the aircraft as its coming to land and so on, you know. So that’s what your duties were. Yeah.
AS: Brilliant. Thank you.
SK: I’ve got a little bit about [pause] I’ll show you this then because I suppose you’ll want to finish then I’ll have said enough. I’ll show you one other thing. I think you’ll be able to keep it if I can show you something. Are you alright for time?
AS: I I have years for this, Sidney.
SK: Oh alright. Now where is it?
[Pause. Shuffling papers]
SK: Now where is it? No. That’s not it [pause] This was a battle order when we went to the Skoda works. Right.
AS: At Pilsen, yeah.
SK: At Pilsen. And that’s when we got diverted to Boscombe Down. I told you the one occasion.
AS: Yeah.
SK: We got diverted to Boscombe Down and our squadron, which is 5 Group, right. And a squadron should only be two Flights. And a squadron should be six aircraft to a Flight. So you should have twelve aircraft. But you had extra aircraft so you got six serviceable. Right. Well, when the war was going on and Bomber Command was building they formed, our squadron formed a third flight. Right. C Flight.
AS: Yeah.
SK: And we was in A flight when we were at the start. And then when it got to [pause] when it got to, they wanted to start a third Flight it was C Flight and the idea of that was how you build a new squadron is you build it up to three Flights and then when you’re going and alright and you’ve got, that’s eighteen aircraft and you’ve got two or three spares. Then you can take that flight away and it starts a new squadron.
AS: Yeah.
SK: But then you go back to your two flights. Well this time we was up to three Flights because we found out the first, it was the 1st of March, I think, we started our C Flight on our squadron there. And this was the 16th 17th of April right. And this is when we, it’s —these are all the pilots. There’s us up there. The other two pilots with us — one was on leave and Bally was the other that came, just followed us off here. That’s our wing commander. He was on that night. Going down, Mackenzie [pause] No. Stuart was RAAF. You asked about that.
AS: Yeah.
SK: Tillerson. Desmond. All RAF. Wilson. All RAAF I should say.
AS: Yeah.
SK: Sinclair. Wilson again. There was two Wilsons on our squadron. And Parsons. And Manifold. So by that time the captains were getting more, more Australians but we were — but they had RAF in their crews. Right. And this is the number of ops that crew had done. There. That’s the time they took off. The time they bombed. The height they bombed at.
AS: Six thousand feet.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was our height to bomb at because there was nobody there. We came down to that height to bomb because there were no defences there and yet we had the hardest trip coming back then ever. That’s the time we landed. We diverted, we got the diversion call come when we was crossing the sea. I know we were just crossing the French coast on our way back. I could go on forever. Because when we was at Bottesford you have to put me back on track in a minute, when we was at Bottesford we were, the station was confined to barracks because we had a Diphtheria scare on, on the squadron and they confined everyone to barracks. No one to leave. But we were able to fly on ops. And when we when we, when we landed at Boscombe Down they knew all about it so the MO had phoned through and said, ‘They’re aliens,' you know. That sort of thing. ‘You’ve got to be careful with them.’ So we were sent up to they wouldn’t allow us in the mess. They found us empty huts and we had to lay down and they found us some, what we called biscuits you know to lay on. Mattresses. And we laid down on them and they rustled up some — because Boscombe down was an experimental station for the RAF. Right. And it was only a grass airfield but that was in Hampshire. And they had to get — we lost two aircraft that night. Stuart. And where’s the other one? Failed to return. One there. Oh up here. “And diverted to Boscombe Down in Wiltshire on return as Bottesford was fog bound.” What I mentioned before. We lost thirty five aircraft. Bomber Command lost thirty eight aircraft from this raid and yet there was no defences at the target. A hundred and ninety nine were killed in action. Fifty two prisoners of war and thirteen, there were thirteen evaders. Right. How they — they must have come down in France somewhere and managed to get back through Spain I should think.
AS: So you could have dropped some aircrew with Diphtheria into the prisoner of war camp.
SK: Yes. We were, we were all the what, you know — what do you call it? They hadn’t got enough of the, would it be serum or something?
JM: Oh No. No. Inoculations.
SK: Inoculations. They hadn’t got enough of them, you see. But when you get a big outbreak like that and so they, they was able to test you to see whether you were positive or negative or something. Do they scratch you or something? I don’t know how they do it, put it like that. But our crew was alright but then we were poorly we were still allowed to fly. And the MO at briefing said to us that night, he said, ‘If any of you unfortunately crash and come down in German you must tell them that you are Diphtheria carriers.’ We said, ‘Blimey we wouldn’t tell them that,’ [laughs] You’re asking for a bullet in your head straight away, aren’t you? You know [laughs] So we didn’t agree with the MO one bit. I remember that. So you can keep this bit if you like.
AS: Thank you.
JM: Well, that’s not in the book is it? It’s not subject to copyright?
SK: I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah but —
JM: Oh.
SK: Yeah.
JM: In which case you can’t digitise that I’m afraid.
AS: Ok. We can —
SK: Well you can have a look at it anyway.
AS: We can sort that out.
SK: You must sort it out. I don’t know.
AS: What interests me on there as well.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Is two things. One — did you climb back to height after you’d bombed?
SK: What? In this? On this one. Yeah.
AS: On that one. Yeah.
SK: You would have done. Yes.
AS: And the “Froth Blower” on there. The code name. Is that the squadron or the target code name?
SK: That. No. That would be the target code name you see. “Froth Blower.” Yeah. Yes.
AS: Ok.
SK: I think that would be in the book there. But you see how many aircraft we put up there? And look. They can’t beat that now. We took off at minute intervals.
AS: Yeah.
SK: Minute intervals. And we got fourteen up there till this last one. And I remember Manifold. He was an Aussie but he went on and he did fifty trips. He finished his tour on fifty and he went on to Pathfinders afterwards and he [pause] he, when he went to start his aircraft one engine wouldn’t start. And they had to rush around and take the spare one standing by. So he lost fifteen minutes or whatever it was. But that’s, that was, that’s good flying control. That was a good bloke at the end of the runway did that one.
AS: Fast on the finger.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Getting them all on there. To get heavy aircraft down at the end of the runway like that, you know.
AS: So at least on that squadron if you had one you’d have a standby aircraft fully fuelled and fully bombed.
SK: You would try to. It didn’t always happen. But there was at that time. At that time there was. Yeah. Yeah. I did a little thing here I wrote down. I think I’ve got it here somewhere. I’m sure I’ve got it here. Printed out. Perhaps I haven’t got it.
[Pause. Shuffling papers]
AS: Do you know how long we’ve been talking for?
SK: No.
JM: Two hours.
AS: Nearly two hours.
SK: Oh I’m sorry.
AS: No. Not at all. Don’t apologise. It’s wonderful.
SK: [unclear ]
AS: I was just saying shall we, shall we draw stumps there. At least for the tape.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: And maybe we can do another.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Sidney Knott
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AKnottS151001
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:51:57 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney Knott was from Leigh on Sea and recalls the day, with invasion apparently imminent, that signs were put up on the local shops advising people that they had to be ready to move within an hour and taking only one suitcase with them. Sidney’s father had been injured several times during the First World War and advised his son to join the RAF rather than the army. Sidney had had an interrupted education so was advised he would be accepted for general duties. He was posted to Blickling Hall where he was on crash duty but later remustered as an air gunner. Initially he was posted with 467 Squadron based at RAF Bottesford. His was the first crew to complete a full tour on the squadron. After his tour he was posted to RAF Silverstone. He was then approached to join a new squadron and do a further tour of operations. His crew joined 582 Squadron, Pathfinders based at RAF Little Staughton. He completed sixty four operations in both tours. He talks about the fear factor of operations, the instinct over the target looking out for threats and coping with the tiredness.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1944
17 OTU
467 Squadron
582 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
bombing
fear
ground personnel
Lancaster
Manchester
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bottesford
RAF Finningley
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Manby
RAF Scampton
RAF Silverstone
RAF Turweston
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
Wellington