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Title
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Nutting, Sinclair
Sinclair Nutting
Clair Nutting
S Nutting
Description
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One oral history interview with Sinclair "Clair" Nutting (b. 1921, J85055 Royal Canadian Air Force).
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-22
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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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Nutting, S
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean MacCartney. The interviewee is Sinclair or Clair Nutting. The interview is taking place at Mr Nutting’s home in Banora Point, New South Wales on the 22nd of February 2017. Now, Clair, you’ve written a book called, “A Piece Of Cake,” which documents a lot of your experiences but even so we’ d like to go through some aspects of those and other aspects that perhaps were not covered with —in as much detail. So, let’s go back to the beginning. You were born in 19 —
SN: ’21.
JM: ’21. And where were you born?
SN: I was born in a place called Radisson. R A D I S S O N.
JM: R A D I S S — Yeah.
SN: Saskatchewan S A S K. period. Canada.
JM: And that is where you spent your, most of your youth.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And that’s where you did you schooling.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And you, your family had been in the area there for quite some time.
SN: Yes. They were pioneers.
JM: Pioneers. Yes. And what sort of pioneers? Pioneers in what way? They were farming.
SN: They were the first, among the first settlers as farmers in that area.
JM: Going back how many years would that be, do you think?
SN: To 1900.
JM: 1900. Yeah. And so what was your family farming?
SN: It was what we call a mixed farm of grain, wheat, oats, barley, rye. And animals. Cattle, horses, pigs, chickens.
JM: Right. And so all of those animals — were they raised and then sold or some of it used for home consumption as well? Or a mix again? Or what?
SN: It was rather a mix. They had horses of course were what were used to work the farm
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the cattle and pigs we slaughtered as we needed them. And they were sold on the market when they were ready to sell.
JM: So. Right. So, you sold them as cured stock.
SN: As beef and pork. Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. And your father did all the butchery or did he bring in somebody to do the butchery?
SN: No. My father did it.
JM: Right. Ok. And what about the grains? They were all sold. You sent stuff off to silos and that sort of thing or what happened there?
SN: It was, it was a large family farm which included my father, his brothers, my grandfather and they ran it as a unit. It must have been, what? About six sections of land or something like that. It — all of the farms in that area at that time were mixed farms meaning that they were — the people who lived on them were [pause] what’s the word I’m seeking? They were dependant on the farm for their livelihood. For gardens, for grain, for the animals. That kind of thing.
JM: Ok. And so, you would assist in some of the farming duties from time to time when you were a young lad a or —?
SN: Yes. All farm kids that were old enough were expected to earn their keep.
JM: Keep. Yeah.
SN: Yes.
JM: So what sort of things? What sort of tasks were you given?
SN: Oh, there were all sorts of things. In harvest time we would move out with the men. We did all the usual things, I guess. Getting water and wood. Driving horses on wagons and on machines. Binders and ploughs and that kind of thing.
JM: So then again you probably got some sort of basic mechanical, more than basic mechanical training with helping to repair machinery and all of that sort of thing from time to time too, I guess.
SN: All that I wished to have. Yes [laughs]
JM: Right. So, so you were doing this in between your schooling and so what was your schooling? I’m not particularly familiar with the Canadian education system. So would you have gone to school — normal school? The start age in Australia is five. And then through what they call primary school and then transfer to a high school or secondary school. And usually, well, back then, they usually finished about seventeen. Sometimes sixteen. But if they left early they finished at fourteen or fifteen. So how did the Canadian system —
SN: Pretty much the same Jean but this might be interesting. It was during the Depression.
JM: Yes.
SN: And during the Depression they had correspondence courses.
JM: Right.
SN: And I, for instance, went to a country school which had a total of eighteen pupils in all grades from one to ten.
JM: Right. Yeah.
SN: So that was most of my schooling.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this was caused by the Depression.
JM: Depression.
SN: They wanted to get the kids back to school.
JM: The kids were on the farms basically.
SN: Yes.
JM: I suppose. Yes.
SN: Yes. And I then went into the town for the last, I guess, year and a half I was there
JM: Right. And how far away was town away?
SN: Six miles.
JM: Six miles. Right.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And did you travel in and out each day or did you stay in town?
SN: I boarded with a family.
JM: Right.
SN: For a year and a half during the winters.
JM: Right.
SN: Because it was too difficult.
JM: Too difficult.
SN: To get me back and forward.
JM: Back and forward. Yeah. And was this family friends of the family or —?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes. They were dear people.
JM: They were?
SN: They were dear people.
JM: Dear people.
SN: Yes. And good friends of mine.
JM: Good friend. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. Ok. So. So that, yes, well that in a way is actually quite similar to what country children in New South Wales in particular would have experienced as well because they had, like, one teacher schools.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And you would have had one teacher school there.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Yes. Yes. So, what —
SN: One size fits all.
JM: Fits all. Who had sort of a multitude of different grades in the classroom in one corner and scattered all around the area and he was, he or she would be moving between all the children and helping them with the grade that they were on. So, the teacher was — had a bit of a challenge in those sort of situations as well didn’t they? So —
SN: Yes. I didn’t finish my high school.
JM: No?
SN: I was expelled.
JM: Oh, I see. Yes. Right. Because? You —
SN: I misbehaved.
JM: You misbehaved. Yes.
SN: Yes. What — it might be interesting — when I came back from overseas and was discharged you had to go to the capital of the Province, which was Regina, to be discharged. And I wanted to go to university so I went to see a man called a Registrar who was a small god in charge of education and I was in uniform and I told him my story. He listened, I came back the following day and his secretary came out and said, ‘I’m sorry. Mr,’ whatever his name was, I’ve forgotten, ‘Is unable to see you. He was called away,’ and my face fell. And she said, ‘but he left you this.’ And she handed me an envelope which was a, to the effect that I had fulfilled all of the qualifications for Grade 12 and marks were given me which brought me up to the level to enter the university.
JM: Very good.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Very good indeed. So that gave you the chance to go to university.
SN: That’s right.
JM: After you returned. Yeah. Ok.
SN: That’s right.
JM: We’ll come back to all of that in due course. But so, you, what age were you when you were expelled? Roughly. Do you remember?
SN: I joined up when I was eighteen. I suppose I would have been seventeen.
JM: Seventeen. Right. Ok. So I presume in that year between being expelled and being called up you probably just worked on the farm? Is that? Or did you go and get a job?
SN: No. it was a, it was the end of the school year.
JM: Right.
SN: And I joined up in December of 1940.
JM: Right.
SN: And by that time, because of my birthday, I was eighteen.
JM: Right. So --
SN: So —
JM: So it just happened.
SN: Yes.
JM: Just went through the war in a sequence.
SN: Yes. It did.
JM: Alright. So signed up then for the air force.
SN: Yes.
JM: Any particular reason for the air force or —?
SN: Well the air force was quite [pause] it was, I suppose the, the glamour service at that time. This was where people who wanted adventure or saw the war as an adventure this was where they went.
JM: And so that’s what attracted you. You saw that as an adventure.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: And you said, ‘Right.’
SN: That was very good.
JM: If they’ll have me that’s where I’ll go, sort of thing.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes. Ok. Actually, I just meant to just backtrack once before we get in to — so this was in 1940 that you enlisted but just before that how, how much of an impact did the Depression have on your family? Because you were on the farm you were a little bit able to cope. A little bit better than perhaps people in town because you had lots —
SN: Yes.
JM: Of resources at hand, so to speak.
SN: That’s right. That’s right.
JM: In terms of food and, you know, meat and chicken and eggs. And you had milking cows too I presume.
SN: Exactly. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. So, you were relatively comfortable.
SN: I was.
JM: Yeah.
SN: In terms of the Depression I was — our family came through it pretty well.
JM: Well —
SN: You know there was never a time when I had to think about —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Whether I had any food to eat.
JM: Yeah. Whether there was going to be food on the table. Yes.
SN: Work or what have you.
JM: Yes. That’s right. Ok. So, you enlisted then December 1940.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes, and where did you do your initial training?
SN: I went to Brandon.
JM: Brandon. Yes.
SN: Which was the manning depot.
JM: Where? Sorry?
SN: It was the manning depot.
JM: Right. And where is Brandon in —?
SN: Brandon —
JM: How far away from Radisson is that? I assume you enlisted in Radisson or did you have to go over to the main —
SN: No. No. I had to go to the main, the largest city.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was Saskatoon.
JM: Right. And then so from there to Brandon how far? Where? What sort of distance is that? Just roughly. You know. Sort of a day’s train ride or half a day.
SN: It’s a day’s train ride.
JM: Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: Yes.
JM: So you were over there. So your parents were happy about you enlisting were they? Or was your father a bit —?
SN: I think so.
JM: I forgot to check. Did you have any other brothers and sisters? Or —?
SN: I had one sister but she was much younger than I am. She was seven years younger. After I was expelled I, and the fellow who was expelled with me, we got one of the freight trains that went into the city and we went to the army, the navy and the air force and nobody would have us because they said we were seventeen and did we have permission?
JM: So, you weren’t able to get in at that point.
SN: No.
JM: No. So then when you turned eighteen, you said to your parents. How did they feel about that?
SN: I think they were pretty well resolved that it was going to happen. It wasn’t something they — like all parents they were fearful but I think they were resigned that this was what most people, like me, were doing.
JM: Ok. So, you’re off to Brandon. Is that right?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. And what —how long were you there?
SN: Oh, I would think a couple of months.
JM: A couple of months. Yeah. So, this is early ‘41 basically.
SN: Yes.
JM: Ok. And from Brandon where did you go next?
SN: We went to what was called guard duty.
JM: Guard duty. Yeah.
SN: Which was another couple of months?
JM: Yeah. And where was that?
SN: And that was in Saskatoon.
JM: Yeah. So back to almost near home. Yeah.
SN: Yes. It was back to a couple of hours away.
JM: Yeah. And that was about a couple of months you think.
SN: Yeah. Roughly.
JM: What sort of things did guard duty — what sort of things were you guarding something? What? I mean guard duty sort of implies you were guarding. What did it actually?
SN: It was really part of the training regime to get people sorted out as to what they were to do. It was compulsory. You had two hours on, four hours off, two hours on, four hours off during which you went — in this instance we were guarding, they were guarding airports. Everybody went through this. And you simply went out with your musket and [laughs] patrolled an area for two hours and they checked that you were there and you were awake. And then they — oh there was continuous inspections and little marches and that kind of thing. It was a training thing.
JM: Thing. Yeah. Ok.
SN: Everybody went through it.
JM: Ok. So this is possibly getting to the — just beyond winter so at least out on guard duty.
SN: Yes.
JM: You were not out in the depths of winter. Out.
SN: No. no. There was danger.
JM: Pacing the perimeters.
SN: No danger involved.
JM: Yes. But I mean, but you weren’t out in the cold and snow and all the rest of it though at this point.
SN: No. No. No.
JM: Because as I I say it had become more or less the end.
SN: Yes, it was —
JM: You were pretty well early spring at this stage so —
SN: Yes. Yes, it was spring.
JM: Yes. So, ok. So what, anything in particular that stands out from there. Things that you realised you could do or things that you were being asked to do that you didn’t like doing or anything like that?
SN: I don’t think there was anything remarkable about it.
JM: About it.
SN: It was [pause] I think there were something like twenty four of us that went through this. Nothing.
JM: In that group.
SN: Yes. Nothing remarkable.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So where did you go to from there?
SN: I went to Calgary.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And that was to do wireless training.
JM: Ok. Yes.
SN: Wireless air gunners.
JM: Yes.
SN: And at that time we all got to wear a white flash in our caps.
JM: Caps.
SN: Which separated you from those who didn’t and I was there for — what? Maybe four months or something.
JM: Right. So, would this be, say, around about May? May ’41 to —
SN: I would say.
JM: To October ’41.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or something like that?
SN: Until, until December.
JM: Until December. Ok so we could work back from there.
SN: Yes.
JM: So, December, November, October. September to December. So, we’ll say August/September to December of ‘41 there at your wireless.
SN: Yes. I would say it was a five month course.
JM: Course. Yeah.
SN: That would be my recollection.
JM: Recollection. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. And so all facets of being a wireless op and air gunner all mixed in together. You didn’t — or did you do blocks of wireless work and then —
SN: No. It was all wireless.
JM: It was all wireless. Yeah.
SN: It was all wireless. And I did not finish the course.
JM: Right.
SN: I went —
JM: For any particular reason? Or —?
SN: Yes. I went on leave for, what was it, it was a long weekend and I caught pneumonia.
JM: That’s right. Yes.
SN: In Saskatoon. And they put me in the hospital and I was in the hospital for nearly six weeks.
JM: Yes.
SN: You know. And I was in an oxygen tent for —
JM: Yes. Because you were not a well person for —
SN: For four days because I had — I was lucky.
JM: Yes.
SN: They brought out the first of the Sulfa drugs and that saved me.
JM: That saved you. Yes. Of course. That’s how bad you were.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: So when I finished they posted me.
JM: So, this — when, when was, that was when?
SN: That was from the end of November.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Until the end of the year.
JM: Yes. That you were in hospital.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: In hospital or convalescent leave.
JM: Yes.
SN: It was something like that.
JM: That’s right. Yeah. So therefore, you didn’t actually finish that course. So, what happened there?
SN: I don’t know whether I would, to be very frank. I don’t know whether I would ever have. It was probably a good thing in that I wasn’t particularly — I could do the Morse at speed but I was not particularly — I don’t think I would have been a particularly good wireless operator. So, in any event, at the end of this thing they posted me to Trenton.
JM: Right. Where’s —?
SN: As what we used to call a straight air gunner.
JM: Yeah. And whereabouts is Trenton?
SN: Trenton is in Eastern Canada.
JM: Right. And when would this be? January ‘42?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. And that was for straight air —
SN: Yes.
JM: Air gunner training.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Yeah. So, what stands out about that training?
SN: It was about [pause] maybe six weeks. Something like that. Well I think I had decided that I really had to make this.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it was a large course and I came second. I think it was probably the first time I realised that I could do something.
JM: Do something. Yeah.
SN: This was, I think, largely attributable, I covered it in this book.
JM: Yes.
SN: This man I met who was much older than I was and he — I was a little ashamed of being somewhat bookish and that it was a bit sissy to excel. And he said, ‘You know, this is foolish.’
JM: Yes.
SN: ‘You do as well as you can.’
JM: You can. Yeah.
SN: [unclear] you can do that. And I did. And the other thing which is also covered in this book was the rather extraordinary thing of this man who was court martialled and, because he thought that he was operating a camera gun when he was not. He was operating a Vickers machine gun.
JM: Machine gun.
SN: And he shot up a parade of airmen.
JM: Airmen. That’s right.
SN: In a row.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was court martialled. And as I say in there this was an extraordinary spectacle that I’ve never forgotten. He was a little non-descript fella from Newfoundland whose name was Silver and he, the entire station, it was a big station, was out in hollow square.
JM: On parade.
SN: With the, we were all, yes, we were all on parade and we were all there and the band was there and the group captain was there with a table and the man with the leopard skin drum. The whole bit was the drum rolls, everything.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this poor little man was marched up and his hat off in front of this table, and the drum rolls cut off by [unclear] this corporal. Cut them off.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Cut them off.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And threw them on the ground.
JM: Ground.
SN: Marched him off.
JM: Off.
SN: And he got two years in the penitentiary.
JM: Penitentiary.
SN: So, we all remembered that.
JM: That.
SN: And it was for not turning up.
JM: Up.
SN: For an overseas posting. And so, I think, I think we all got the point.
JM: You all got the point. That’s right. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So, then, so this is sort of becoming a turning point. So, after the air gunning. This training at Trenton. Where did you go?
SN: Well I got, as everyone else did, our air gunner badge.
JM: Badge.
SN: And sergeant’s stripes.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we all went on embarkation leave. And that was a couple of weeks or ten days. I’ve forgotten. But Canada is like Australia in that train journeys were very long.
JM: Long. That’s right.
SN: It takes —
JM: And of course, if you’re right over in Eastern Canada that’s a long way from home.
SN: Yes.
JM: To get back. Yes.
SN: So then, following embarkation leave I came to Halifax and —
JM: So, you didn’t — did you actually get home in that embarkation leave?
SN: Yes, I did.
JM: Or — yes, you did .
SN: Yes. I got home for about ten days I think.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then we were back to Halifax and just as things worked out we were the last, there were twelve of us marched down to board ship. And we were the last people aboard.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the convoy left that about an hour or two later.
JM: Gosh. So this would have been the end of March, early April ’42.
SN: This would have been early March. Yes. 1942.
JM: Yeah. Probably be about mid-March. Oh yeah. Early March. Yeah. Yeah. That’s ok. Yeah. Early March ‘42. Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: And so so Halifax. So where —?
SN: Halifax is —
JM: So was this a large troop carrier that you were on? Or a small —
SN: A large convoy.
JM: Yes. But there was a convoy but were the boats themselves — was there large troop carriers.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Did you have any sense of whether there were thousands there? Or perhaps under a thousand or —?
SN: There were, they were crowded.
JM: They were crowded.
SN: It was a ship called the Andes. Which had run on the Latin American English run.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Not a bad ship.
JM: Yes. No.
SN: But we were in cabins. They were, I think, seven or eight of us in a little —
JM: A cabin. Yeah.
SN: And the the toilets were at the end of the —
JM: Yeah. Corridor so to speak.
SN: Corridor. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So where —
SN: But it was good enough. It wasn’t bad. We could —
JM: Ok. So —
SN: Everybody had —
JM: So where did you land in —
SN: We landed in Greenock which is Glasgow.
JM: Glasgow. Yeah. And so, on the train down to —
SN: We had no, yes, we had no adventures. We had one emergency in the Irish Sea where they shot at, where they put down a sub and the convoys were in lines of destroyers.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And ships.
JM: Ships. Yeah.
SN: Following one another.
JM: You don’t remember how many were in that convoy? In that total convoy.
SN: I haven’t the vaguest idea whatever.
JM: No. That’s ok.
SN: What it is.
JM: So you got there pretty uneventfully.
SN: Yes. Now they may have, I think they sunk something in the Irish Sea.
JM: Sea.
SN: But that was it.
JM: That was it.
SN: So we had really quite a good —
JM: Quite. Ok. So then you’re off in Glasgow. You’re on the train I presume to —
SN: We went by train to Bournemouth.
JM: Bournemouth. Yeah.
SN: Where everyone went and that was a manning depot there.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you stayed in Bournemouth.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Until you were posted.
JM: Yes.
SN: To wherever you were going.
JM: Going. Yeah.
SN: They were, we were a mixture of pilots, observers.
JM: Observers. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Everything. And that was a very easy thing. The only remarkable thing again, which was in the book, was that we were quartered in formerly resort hotels and we ate in a different building than the one in which we were housed.
JM: Right.
SN: And we came out this one day and a siren went and we tumbled out on the street and I remember seeing these two Fokker Wulf 190s come in and they came under the radar. Just straight over the —
SN: We were right on the end — Bournemouth is a —
JM: Seaside bit.
SN: Seaside resort. And they came under the radar and they came right up and they bombed. Dropped their bombs and went.
JM: Went.
SN: And they hit the building we were to eat in and I can remember we were all amazed. Standing there with our mouths open. And some of them, finally they were digging around in the thing said, ‘Come.’
JM: Come.
SN: Don’t stand there like —’
JM: Yeah. ‘Come and help us dig.’
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: So, it was a rude awakening.
JM: Awakening to the realities of war. What so now you finally knew what you were about to be part of .
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes. It was real.
JM: It was real. That’s right. So, any idea of how long you were in Bournemouth for? So you would have been there. How long did it — I didn’t — how long did it take to get from Halifax across to — It would only have been a couple of days.
SN: About ten days.
JM: Ten days. Yeah. And so then down. So, we’re probably talking about April. Bournemouth was probably about April ‘42 to — how long do you reckon?
SN: Maybe to June.
JM: To June. Yeah. And so where did we, and so —
SN: May or June. I’ve forgotten.
JM: May or June. What sort of — were they giving you any theory lessons there at this stage?
SN: No. It was — you just had a roll call.
JM: Roll call.
SN: Once a day.
JM: Once a day.
SN: And that was it.
JM: Pre. So did you —
SN: And then you did whatever you pleased.
JM: So, did you go up to London or do anything like that or how did you spend your time?
SN: No. You were not, you were I don’t know whether, they must have told us. No. No one went anywhere. I think you were on call.
JM: Call. Right.
SN: That you would be moving out as soon as it happened.
JM: Moving out soon. Yeah.
SN: And I don’t think anybody was —
JM: Right.
SN: You would have had to have leave.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: To do that.
JM: To do that. Yes. Ok. So, you were, you were just basically sitting around. What did you —play cards or things like that to pass the time? Or what did you do to pass? So just basically sitting around. Effectively doing nothing. How did you pass, how did you and your mates pass your time? Sit down on the —
SN: We moved around. It was quite a beautiful place with many gardens. We moved around during the day to the beach and so on and the pubs at night.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Nobody had all that much money.
JM: Money.
SN: You know that you [laughs]
JM: No. that’s right. Yeah.
SN: You could —
JM: Basically, sit and watch the world go by.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: There was no, there was no, no attempt to discipline or to —
JM: Right. Ok. So, from, so nothing, no particular experiences stand out whilst in Bournemouth.
SN: No, I don’t think there was anything there.
JM: No. Ok.
SN: There was a Palais dance. A Palais de Dance which they had in most places, you know.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, where, where to next? Was it to Wales next?
SN: I went to Wales.
JM: Yes.
SN: To a place called Stormy Down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: It was a mining area.
JM: Yes.
SN: Coal mines.
JM: Yeah. And over there you were doing —
SN: To a gunnery school.
JM: To the gunnery school again. Yes. And roughly how long was that?
SN: It wasn’t all that long. I would say that it might have been a month. Pretty full on.
JM: Yes. And so, this was where you came. So, you hadn’t done any gunnery training back in Canada so, this would be your —
SN: Yes, I had.
JM: You had. You did do some.
SN: Oh yes. Yes.
JM: When you were at Calgary.
SN: No. No.
JM: No.
SN: When I was in Trenton.
JM: Trenton. Trenton. Ok. So — oh my apologies. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, because that’s where you were second. Second. Had the second highest score. Ok so how were the — what were you using? Different guns here now between what you were using in Trenton? Or —
SN: Yes. We were using [pause] what can I remember about it now? In Britain we were using old Lewis guns which were a pan that sits on the thing and it feeds outside and it seems to me that we were [pause] I’m not sure now what? We did quite a bit of target shooting. Drogue shooting where a drogue is dragged.
JM: Dragged. Yes.
SN: And of course in both places you do a lot of — what do you call it? [pause] Where you do — you shoot at the —
JM: Skeet.
SN: Skeet shooting.
JM: Yeah.
SN: A lot of skeet shooting. A lot of target shooting. That kind of thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And —
JM: As part of this.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: And there was a course.
JM: Yes.
SN: Which you, of benefit and I did very well. I got — they said, “A very good air gunner.” So —
JM: Were there particular competitions or something or —
SN: Yes. They would mark you for —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Target scores. How you —
JM: And you were coming out on top a lot.
SN: Yes.
JM: Right.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. So, do you think you would have perhaps back when you were younger, on the farm, I presume you would have been doing some shooting there.
SN: Yes.
JM: So, do you feel that that perhaps gave you a bit of an advantage having sort of been always shooting moving targets. I would presume a lot of the time they were moving so —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: I don’t know.
JM: You don’t know.
SN: No.
JM: Yeah. But nevertheless you obviously had an aptitude for it because you were doing very well there with your skeet.
SN: Yeah. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. And you didn’t retain an interest in skeet shooting at any time. You didn’t do it many years down the track. Just as a little deviation here for a second.
SN: Only once.
JM: Yes.
SN: We were on a transatlantic ship with the family going somewhere. I’ve forgotten where but going. I was Foreign Affairs and we used to go by ship.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And they had a competition on this ship for skeet shooting.
JM: Yes.
SN: And I guess there were about thirty or forty people there and I won.
JM: You won.
SN: And they gave me a cup.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the rather wonderful thing about this was that both the kids were there and watched it. The two boys.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So that brought my [laughs]
JM: Increased your standing in their eyes no end. Did it?
SN: Yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: Ah well that’s very very interesting. So, do you remember how many rounds you had to shoot or was it a decent length competition or did they sort of try to keep it.
SN: It was, it was a pretty, a pretty easy one.
SN: Yeah.
SM: Ordinarily if you do skeet shooting you go through about seven stations.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And that means you’re shooting —
JM: Different heights. Yeah.
SN: At a bird at the height it’s going.
JM: Yeah.
SN: As it’s going away from you.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Up. It’s all the way through.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Whereas this one was there. Had to be done from the back of the ship.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you didn’t have, they couldn’t.
JM: Have variations.
SN: They couldn’t have done any variations of any sort.
JM: Any sort. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: That amounted to very much.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, you really did five and somebody, maybe they were five of you shot five each and you won that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then those who won competed again.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: It wasn’t really [laughs] that big a thing.
JM: It wasn’t such a big challenge for you.
SN: No.
JM: Having had all that other experience. Ok. Well that’s all very interesting. Ok. Well you completed the gunnery at Stormy Down. About a month. So, from there. OTU.
SN: I went to OTU.
JM: Yeah.
SN: At a place called Honeybourne.
JM: Yeah.
SN: A beautiful place in the Midlands.
JM: Yes.
SN: Near Evesham and Stratford on Avon. Yeah.
JM: And so how long were you at OTU?
SN: I was there for the fall because I remember we went out to steal apples. I got to the squadron in — maybe in October. Now, I had these. The reason I don’t have these dates here is my logbook was stolen.
JM: Stolen. Yes. I know. From when the book was —
SN: So I don’t have this.
JM: Yes. I know.
SN: I’m really just doing memory.
JM: I know. I’m just trying. I fully appreciate that I’m really testing your memory here but yeah.
SN: In the late summer and early fall I was at the OTU. I would have been —
JM: OTU. So that’s probably —
SN: I would have been there for at least three months.
JM: Three months. Right. So, we’re probably talking about August. September.
SN: Yes, I would say August September.
JM: August September of ‘42 we’re talking about here.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. Ok. Yeah. And what stands out about OTU? Anything in particular. Apart from the fact that there was nice countryside. There were nice orchards where you could scrounge some apples.
SN: Yes. Well they had very nice pubs and you could chase girls.
JM: Yeah. Yes.
SN: And the weather was delightful.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the only thing that — two things happened I guess. One was that you, a lot of OTU is the gunner — each, each — the gunners have their own courses. The navigators. Pilots. Then you form a crew.
JM: Yes. You’re doing your crewing up. Yeah.
SN: And a lot of this was called circuits and bumps.
JM: Bumps. Yeah.
SN: Around and around and around.
JM: Around and around. Yeah.
SN: And one night a German night fighter got in the thing. Got in the — there’s usually four aircraft.
JM: Aircraft.
SN: And they follow one another.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he got in the line.
JM: Line. Yes.
SN: And shot it down. We were in Whitleys which was an old two engine.
JM: Engine.
SN: Bomber. And he got in the line and shot the —
JM: The Whitley that was in front.
SN: The Whitley, as it was landing. Yes. So that was a big thing for us.
JM: That was. Yes. And, but that wasn’t you.
SN: No.
JM: Were you in, were you in.
SN: I wasn’t, I wasn’t even in the circuit either.
JM: You weren’t in the circuit either.
SN: No.
JM: Right. And what was the outcome with that Whitley. Was it —did he inflict injury as well as damage to the aircraft or —
SN: Yes.
JM: He did.
SN: Yes. He did.
JM: So, what? Killed all the crew or —
SN: No. No. I think they [pause] I think one. I think one man was either, either killed or very badly injured
JM: Injured
SN: And the aircraft was of course.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Runway. Smashed itself.
JM: Smashed itself. Yeah. Right. Ok. So at this point your crew. You’ve now, you crew up as well here at OTU.
SN: Yes.
JM: This is when you form your crew. So, your pilot.
SN: Was — I’ll deal with that I think.
JM: Yes.
SN: He was a man called Stonehill.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was a squadron leader.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was from Fighter Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I don’t know what he’d done but he was, he was not happy to be there.
JM: No.
SN: That was not what— he didn’t really want to fly this [laughs] box like aircraft. And he was, we thought he was old. Old would be he was in his thirties.
JM: Late twenties or something. Oh thirties. Yes. Yes.
SN: You know.
JM: Yes.
SN: But he was older than we were.
JM: Yes.
SN: And proper RAF type, you know. Had a handlebar moustache.
JM: And all the rest of it. Yes.
SN: Yes. And he’d, and we saw nothing of him because we were, there were five of us including him.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he of course he was an —
JM: An officer. And he was in the officer’s mess. In the —
SN: The other four of us were NCOs.
JM: Yes. NCOs.
SN: In our own mess. Ordinarily someone would have had, a pilot would have had something to do with us but he was, he didn’t want to be there.
JM: No. That’s right.
SN: And he, I don’t think he really knew our names. He, and so, we really saw, we saw nothing of him except we would, you know, get in the aircraft and we’d get out.
JM: Yeah. That’s right.
SN: Except for one. We went to a place called Long Marston which is up, just out of Stratford.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this was for a, sort of, pre-operational thing to work out with the crew and we flew every day.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Cross country’s and things and we saw one night he came. We were at the flights. The flights is where the aircrew wait to get on, to get off.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he came out of the flights where we were and suggested that we come and have a beer.
JM: And everybody —
SN: So, we did this to wherever it was. We went from the flights and he had he must have [pause] I don’t know how we got there. He had a little Austin convertible.
JM: Convertible.
SN: Thing. And he, I think he either had family or him, beside him. And we sat around with him for an hour in the pub and the only thing I remember about it was that he had a dog and the dog was a Spaniel. And the dog would drink beer. The dog drank beer and we sat and we had a beer and he was friendly. But I don’t think he — he didn’t intend to stay and he didn’t stay.
JM: Didn’t stay.
SN: They took him. They took him back to where he came from.
JM: Back to where he came from. Ok. So, he disappeared down the thing. Down the track. But the rest of you stayed together though at this point. So who was your navigator?
SN: Well we had a little, a little crash. A little accident.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which I deal with there when the aircraft went off the end of the runway.
JM: Runway.
SN: And it broke the leg of the wireless operator, I think. A big tall fellow named Hurst.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the crew packed up then. I think. Now I’m I don’t know which happened first.
JM: First. Yeah.
SN: Whether we had this, this [pause] this accidental crash. Whether we had that and then he was sent off or whether he was sent off when was just finishing up I don’t know.
JM: No.
SN: We never knew. We never saw him. They never said anything. They just called us in and they said, ‘Now, we’re disbanding this crew.’
JM: Crew.
SN: ‘And we’re posting you to other squadrons.’
JM: Squadrons. Yeah.
SN: To squadrons.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Ok and so and from there you, that’s when you went to 405.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Ok. And so you were landing. You joined 405. How long, how long were you at OTU? August September ’42.
SN: I was about three months.
JM: About three.
SN: A good three months.
JM: Ok. So, you were posted to 405. What? About December. November. December or —
SN: No. October.
JM: October. Ok.
SN: Yeah.
JM: October.
SN: I think.
JM: ’42.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Ok. And so here and a couple of little experiences in 405.
SN: Well we went, I went. When I went to squadron I was on squadron for a long time. Longer than most people.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I came in with my kit and there was a note for me and it said something like “Welcome Clair.”
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when you come to the, wherever the, what do you call it? Not a dormitory. We were quartered in an old college.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he said, when you, “When you come to the quarters come and see me. Stuart.”
JM: Stuart.
SN: And it was Stuart Clark who was from my little town.
JM: Town. That’s right. Yes.
SN: Right.
JM: Yes.
SN: And so, I went up and he and the navigator who was a fella called Elmer [Bulman] from [unclear] Nevada. And they were playing Battleships and so we talked about things and Stuart said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘We need an air gunner. You come with us.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: In our crew.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I did.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I was lucky.
JM: You were lucky. Yes. So that’s it. You knew the pilot because you had Stuart there as that.
SN: Yes. He was the navigator.
JM: Oh sorry. He was the navigator. Yeah.
SN: And he went to see the —
[phone ringing]
SN: Excuse me a second while I see to that.
[recording paused]
SN: Yes. And so he went to the pilot and said, ‘Look I’ve got —
JM: He went to the pilot. Yeah. Went to the pilot.
SN: And I was in.
JM: The pilot’s name? I should have it.
SN: Weber.
JM: Weber. That’s right.
SN: W E B E R. So I was in.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And so then you went off and started to do your ops.
SN: We —
JM: Coastal Command.
SN: We were, what we did first is we —
JM: You got linked with —
SN: We were at Topcliffe up in Yorkshire. We had to do, we had to convert. It was called conversion at that time.
JM: Conversion. That’s right. Yes. Yes.
SN: Which was from, we had, they had been on Wellingtons.
JM: Wellingtons.
SN: And the squadron converted to Halifaxes so it was this period of people getting used to this new aircraft.
JM: Halifax.
SN: So that went on for a time. And then maybe a month later. Sometime in November they they were losing a lot of people with this. Losing a lot of shipping with the subs.
JM: Subs yeah.
SN: And they’d lent us to Coastal Command.
JM: Coastal Command.
SN: To cover during the time the North African invasion force went down.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And so we were sent down to Southampton to do this, this thing and we spent most of the winter there.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: Doing these —
JM: Patrols.
SN: Patrols. Yes.
JM: So you weren’t actually bombing. You were doing surveillance.
SN: It was called air sea warfare.
JM: Yeah.
SN: ASW. I think. And you were looking for, you went out on, it was called a square search and you went out. They were great long things that would go from ten to twelve hours. Went down off the Scilly Islands and Bishop’s Rock and somewhere. A point on the Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay. Whatever it was.
JM: Was.
SN: Depending on what they had decided that day.
JM: That day.
SN: At the briefing where everything is. Where you should go.
JM: Go.
SN: And you flew this course square and back. And you flew fairly low. A thousand feet or something and you looked for submarines.
JM: Submarines yeah.
SN: And evidence of them you see.
JM: Yeah. A bit — sort of a wake from the conning tower.
SN: Yes. There was a great deal of that.
JM: Yes.
SN: It was a separate — Coastal Command it was called. We were lent Coastal Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And Coastal Command, all through the war, and Australia. Here as well.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Operated all through the war doing just that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That was the —
JM: Yeah. So how many [pause] how many missions would you have done in Coastal Command do you think? Roughly.
SN: I can’t remember. You got — what they did is they, they took three of these [pause] ops or whatever you want to call them.
JM: Call them. Yeah.
SN: They took three of these for one op.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Three patrols if you want to call them that.
JM: Yeah. Three patrols were equal to one op in the —
SN: That’s right.
JM: The bureaucrats eyes.
SN: That’s how they did it.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: I don’t remember just what. Just how many there were. There wouldn’t have been all that many. The weather was pretty duff.
JM: Yeah. So —
SN: During that period so you would be stood down quite often, you know.
JM: Down quite often.
SN: And it was, there is nothing more boring than [laughs] [that sort of?] exercise
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I guess we had. We thought we saw evidence of a sub and we dropped our depth charges once. We thought we saw oil on the surface. And when they came up to charge their batteries and when they did this [pause] the oil — they would dive and they would send up several gallons of oil.
JM: Oil.
SN: So that —
JM: Created a bit of an oil slick.
SN: And you’ll see the oil slick.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the object was that the attacking aircraft would say, ‘We got him. We saw the oil,’ and he was — they sunk.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And of course, it hadn’t that at all.
JM: At all. No. Because they were in fact just doing it as part of their diving.
SN: Yeah
JM: Part of their diving process, so to speak. Yeah.
SN: We had one, I guess — two close encounters. One was [pause] one was that, was with, on these patrols they were so long that you had to carry excess tanks for excess fuel.
JM: Excess fuel.
SN: And that meant that you had the — they had of course to change tanks and you had to watch. The engineer had to watch the gauges to make sure that he changed, while one was still operating.
JM: Operating.
SN: To the new one.
JM: The new one. Yeah.
SN: And in this one case he forgot.
JM: Forgot.
SN: Whatever he was doing and the pilot fortunately noticed this and he said, ‘Mac,’ he said, ‘Change tanks.’ And he made a tremendous huge leap and did it and by that time we were down low enough and I wondered why we were this low that I could see the whitecaps on the waves.
JM: Waves.
SN: Yeah. So we were down maybe roof height by that time [laughs] and it sort of laboured its way up.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And the other one I describe in the book when we attacked the German —
JM: Yes.
SN: E-boats.
JM: E-boats. Yeah.
SN: In the [pause] it’s the harbour near, near Biarritz.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And they threw up a lot of stuff.
JM: Yes.
SN: And we —
JM: You got some flak out of that didn’t you?
SN: I don’t remember whether we did or not. We might have but it — we probably did because you could see the puffs and things.
JM: Yeah.
SN: But the sailors. I shocked them. They were out sunbathing on the deck [laughs] so we were close enough and I swept the decks of this thing.
JM: Yes.
SN: And you could see great activities going on there.
JM: Yes.
SN: But of course they had enough stuff there that they could have blown us out if —
JM: Out of the sky. But you got away before they managed to get to them. Yeah. So —
SN: Yes because I think you you could say our attack —
JM: Was totally unexpected. Yes.
SN: Was aborted.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And depth charges wouldn’t really have done anything.
JM: Done anything.
SN: That much harm.
JM: Much harm.
SN: They told us later.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So, all up you were doing this for about —
SN: For the winter.
JM: For the winter. Yes.
SN: Yeah.
JM: So, through to early ’43.
SN: Yes. Till maybe it would have been about March.
JM: March yeah. And then you resumed with 405 then.
SN: It would have been March. Yes. It would have been the end of February.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Early March. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So you resumed with 405.
SN: Yes. So the Squadron. You see we never changed. Coastal Command is — they’re painted white grey.
JM: Yeah you were.
SN: And with us we just —
JM: Stayed black.
SN: Left it and stayed black.
JM: Yeah. And so how long were you back with 405?
SN: This was 405.
JM: Sorry.
SN: The whole squadron.
JM: Yes but with 405 base.
SN: To Bomber Command.
JM: Yes. To Bomber Command because you were down in Southampton.
SN: Yes we were.
JM: With Coastal Command.
SN: We were lent to Coastal Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Then we returned to —
JM: Bomber Command.
SN: The end of February we returned to —
JM: Yeah.
SN: To Bomber Command.
JM: To Bomber Command. To —
SN: To Topcliffe which was in Yorkshire.
JM: Yes. So, and so from here you then went on. Started to do some actual bombing raids from here.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: We did, we did several bombing raids from Topcliffe at that time. Maybe three or four or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And one of them was Stuttgart which was where I shot down a Messerschmitt 109.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And any comments in terms of, you know, how close he was before you were able to see him and get, get, you got on to him before he got on to you or was he trying to get to you but your pilot managed to get away. Get at an angle where he was ineffective but you got him or what?
SN: He came up behind and I saw him. And I gave, when he got within range I gave the pilot evasive action and the pilot did it in classic fashion.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when he was close enough. Six hundred yards. Not all that long. I got a good, a good shot at him.
JM: Yes.
SN: He was coming up like that you see and he, by this time had started to fire at us but he was, he didn’t hit us.
JM: Hit us because the pilot had already started the changing.
SN: He’d already started and he didn’t touch us at all.
JM: Touch us. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Yeah. And he then went above us and started to turn around and fell.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s how you know you’d had a — you’d scored.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes. So it was confirmed hit for you.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: But I couldn’t see where I was until he was —
JM: Coming past you more or less.
SN: Went down. He was off.
JM: Yes. Yes. I see. And so, and so that, was that was Stuttgart raid. And any other things stand out from these raids at this point?
SN: No. They were —
JM: They were.
SN: They were all on —
JM: Sort of routine.
SN: What was called Happy Valley.
JM: Valley. Yeah. Over the Ruhr. Yeah. Yeah. But routine as such and just —
SN: That might have been a period of maybe three weeks or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I’ve forgotten.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And then we were transferred to Pathfinder Command.
JM: Pathfinders. Yeah. That’s right. Yes.
SN: Which was down at Gransden Lodge.
JM: Lodge. Gransden Lodge. Yeah. And so, this would have been March.
SN: It was March 13th was when I shot the aircraft down.
JM: Right. Ok. March 13. Ok. So then would that be later March then that you went to Gransden Lodge? That the Pathfinder.
SN: Yes. Or the 1st of April. I don’t know which.
JM: Right.
SN: It wasn’t long.
JM: Yeah.
SN: We just, we just did maybe two or three ops.
JM: Yeah. Ops. Yeah. Yeah. And the decision to move to Pathfinders. What, what’s the story there?
SN: Well 405 was the oldest Canadian bomber squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which had been operating on the [ unclear] maybe a year in Bomber Command in what was called 6 Group which was the Canadian group.
JM: Group. Yeah.
SN: And because it was the, I suppose, and I’m guessing here because it was the oldest squadron and had the most experience it was the one selected to go to the Pathfinder group.
JM: Pathfinders.
SN: And also, I guess because the CO was quite a remarkable guy. A fella named Johnnie Fauquier and he was a force in himself and he —
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: Because he was brought back.
JM: Back.
SN: As the head of the squadron and we were sent down as a part of 8 Group.
JM: Yes. But was it the commanders that came to you and said to your pilot, Weber and say, ‘Right, your crew’s a good crew – ’
SN: No. No.
JM: You’re going over to Pathfinders or —
SN: No. Oh no. Nobody was asked anything.
JM: No. No. I’m not asked but just said, ‘Right —
SN: No.
JM: Said to Weber.
SN: There was nothing. They just took the squadron.
JM: They just took it.
SN: As it was with Coastal Command.
JM: Right.
SN: Took the squadron.
JM: Right. The whole squadron. Yeah. Ok. Ok. So, and so no one had any choice in the matter. Everyone had to just comply.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Basically. Yeah. Ok. So [pause] so then began your time at Gransden Lodge and — how many — you did a lot of ops in that time.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: From Gransden Lodge.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Now I was, it was quite a time from October to January of forty — January of ‘44 I believe.
JM: Yeah. Ok. Well if the squadron moved over in March/April ’43.
SN: In other words I was with the squadron from —
JM: Squadron from —
SN: October of ‘43 to January of ’44.
JM: Yes, but you said that the squadron moved.
SN: Well in that time it was in Bomber Command to Coastal Command to Bomber Command.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: To Pathfinder Command.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. But what we had there before was that you [pause] you moved back [pause] to you had your Coastal Command and then —
SN: We went back to Bomber Command.
JM: You went back to there and that’s when you did your, you said the 13th of March.
SN: Yes.
JM: Was when you did your raid on Stuttgart.
SN: Yes.
JM: And you shot down the Messerschmitt.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And that was when you were back at Bomber Command.
SN: That’s right.
JM: That’s right. And so that’s why you were initially indicating to me that it was perhaps late March, early April that the squadron moved to —
SN: That’s right. Moved to Pathfinder Command. 8 Group.
JM: To Pathfinder Command. Yeah. In April ‘43. So, in fact you were part of Pathfinder from, roughly, early April ’43 right through to —
SN: To January.
JM: To January ’44.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s right. That makes sense. So would you have had leave at any stage? You must have had some periods of leave in between all these bits and pieces.
SN: Yes. We had a lot of leave. We had a week every six weeks.
JM: Yeah. And just before we get into Pathfinders you know, any of the, I don’t, I’m not looking for a sort — because you’ve had so many raids with, or ops with Pathfinders we’ll just pick on a couple I guess but just backtracking up until there you’d had periods of leave and what, did you have a regular places you went to when you were on leave or did you try —
SN: London.
JM: Always London.
SN: Usually. Yes.
JM: Yes. And did you have a particular place there that you always went to for accommodation or did you do different places? Or —?
SN: Different places. Yes.
JM: Right and —
SN: And usually with the, with the crew or at least two of us.
JM: With the crew basically went all together.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. So, so, Weber the pilot went with you and —
SN: No. He was English.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he, of course, went home.
JM: He went home. Yeah.
SN: And I had a particular, my particular pal was a wireless operator.
JM: Yes.
SN: Who was a fellow called Rickard.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the engineer.
JM: Yes.
SN: Who was called MacLean.
JM: Yes.
SN: So either usually the two of us but sometimes three —
JM: Yes.
SN: Would go on leave together.
JM: Together. Right.
SN: And we went to Ireland once. To Dublin. Which was interesting.
JM: Did you have to go in civvies for that? Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: You changed at the border. At a place called Larne. You left your uniform and got, they gave you a civilian suit and off you went. It was the, the, what I suppose the most attractive feature of it was that there was no food rationing and you could get all steak and eggs and bacon and what have you.
JM: Whatever you wanted. Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: Which made a change.
SN: Which was rather pleasant.
JM: Yes.
SN: For a few days.
JM: Yes. That’s right. Yes. So, it’s what I think a lot of chaps ultimately ended up doing is having a little excursion to Ireland. I think probably just for the sake of getting the food.
SN: Yes. Indeed. Indeed.
JM: Yes. That’s right. So, no other particular events stand out from when you were up onto this point. When you were on leave. Just all, just the usual sort of pubs and shows and —
SN: Pubs and shows and girls.
JM: Girls.
SN: You see [laughs]
JM: Yeah. Yes. Ok. So, looking at Pathfinders. What particular missions or ops do you want to highlight?
SN: I think, I think for Pathfinders, of course, the people who are most affected are the pilots and navigators and bomb aimers. For the gunners and wireless ops it’s really, it’s the same. It’s pretty much the same drill. The only difference is with Pathfinders you are continuously training.
JM: Yeah.
SN: There is very little time off so to speak. There is a training exercise every day you’re not on ops so it’s, it’s a pretty full on thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I guess there is another interesting thing about it is, of course, it was a pretty impromptu [pause] I was going to say it was a pretty impromptu move and we were moved and quartered in the village. In amongst the village.
JM: Yes.
SN: The huts and things were all in this village.
JM: Yeah. So, houses were basically just requisitioned to be your accommodation.
SN: No. The village was there and the village was operating in the same way.
JM: Yes. But individual houses might have been requisitioned.
SN: No.
JM: No.
SN: They built, they built —
JM: So, you were billeted. The people lived there and you were all just billeted in —
SN: Yes. And we all —
JM: With families.
SN: We all lived in, what do you called them, huts. What are they called?
JM: Nissen. The Nissen huts.
SN: Nissen huts. Yes. We all lived in Nissen huts.
JM: Oh ok.
SN: The masses were in Nissen huts.
JM: So, they built Nissen huts within the village itself.
SN: Yes. We all lived in the village and we walked to the flights.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was about a quarter of a mile.
JM: A quarter of a mile away. Right. Yeah.
SN: Which was rather interesting. It was an interesting time.
JM: Yeah. For what reason?
SN: Well I think you — these villagers, we went back. We had a reunion there. And they regarded us as their people. You know, they knew us all in the pubs and how many didn’t come back. Who.
JM: Yes. And so, they basically felt a sense of protection.
SN: Yes.
JM: Enveloped you guys in a cloak of protection in a way to sort of provide you with, I guess, some stability or something like that is what they felt they were doing by providing that [pause]
SN: Yes. It was quite —
JM: Extending that friendship for want of a better word. Yeah.
SN: It was quite touching.
JM: Yes.
SN: When we went back.
JM: Yes. Yes. And — Ok. So you were doing regular training as well as going out on ops and what? Any, which ops in particular stand out for you?
SN: Well [pause] it’s like anything else I guess. You — it becomes a routine and it’s what you do and you — I think you become a little callous. And I think it takes, it took me a time after I was discharged. I found it [pause] An uncle of mine spoke to me and said, you know, ‘Have a little compassion.’ You became used to death. And people didn’t come back. And the casualty rate was horrendous.
JM: Yes.
SN: And you were, if you survived it’s what you do and it’s your [pause] you can get, you can accustom people to almost anything.
JM: That’s right.
SN: So, you know, we went out and did it and came back.
JM: Back.
SN: We laughed about it.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Drank to the next man to go.
JM: Go.
SN: That was life.
JM: That was life. And what, what particular — I think there were a couple of particular ops that you mentioned in the book that you might just touch on briefly?
SN: Well I think we, we were first occupied with the Ruhr Valley. With Happy Valley.
JM: Happy Valley. Yeah.
SN: Then we went on to — we did one on Hamburg and we did some long runs. Pilsen, I think. And finally, Berlin. I went to Berlin seven times.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They [pause] we got shot up pretty badly several times and I guess what you remember is that your crew changes. Or ours did. For instance, the man I was telling you about. Stuart Clark.
JM: Yeah.
SN: He had a great friend in the squadron and instead of flying down to Coastal Command with us — we flew, you see. We just packed our stuff up and went. He decided to fly with his friend. You know, why not. And I remember he went off before we did. Went off. He just got over the horizon. Whack. The time of stress with an aircraft is when it takes its first turn because it’s got, not only the momentum of getting in but it has to make this turn.
JM: Turn.
SN: That’s it. And it didn’t and they were all killed. Blown up. So, we had an American with us and when the Americans came over and started to operate he went back to his, or went to — the American air force were happy to have them and most of them went back. And I guess the [pause] we lost crew members and I guess that’s what you remember. Who was the first one? [pause] We had, oh the first one we lost was unfortunately the navigator who was a very nice fella. We were good friends and we used to go to the pub at night. And we were at a place called Leeming in Yorkshire and instead of going around by the road we would cross the airfield and you had to be careful because of night flying [laughs] to do these things, you see.
JM: Yes.
SN: But it made it shorter. Anyway, we came back and I guess all had quite a bit to drink and we were at the top of our — they called them married quarters. They were cottages and we were in the two bedrooms upstairs. I, and Ricky, the wireless operator and Gibby. We got, we came back and we got to the top of the stairs and Gibby slipped and he rolled down these stairs and we got at the bottom and his head was bleeding. So, we got the ambulance and he was unconscious. There was nothing — his head was bleeding and the ambulance came and we never saw him again and I don’t know what happened to him. I presume that he perhaps died. And the other two I think I deal with in here. I might have dealt with Gibby as well. We had a thing which was called [pause] what did we call it? It’s [pause] lack of moral fortitude. LMF.
JM: Yeah.
SN: LMF. And that’s really quite a good story actually. We had two of our crew. One was over Essen. A fellow named Gordon Wood. Toronto. And he, how anybody could think of this when we’re over Essen and the bloody kite was —
JM: Bouncing around the —
SN: Bouncing because of the flak.
JM: Flak.
SN: Threw us [unclear ] and he, and we missed, we went over the —
JM: Target.
SN: Target. And we missed.
JM: Missed.
SN: We were off so we had to go around again. Do another thing. Because the bomb aim has to be straight and level to do this thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when we started going around the second time he went to pieces and he, the pilot’s name was Tony. And he said, ‘Don’t go in there Tony. Don’t go in there. They’ll kill us,’ he said, ‘I want to go home and marry Mary,’ he said, ‘Don’t do this.’ He wept and so forth at the pilot, Tony. And Mac, the engineer, went down and take his intercom out and then they had to get him up and put him on — we had a little bench.
JM: Bench. Yeah.
SN: Across from the hatch and tied him up on the bench.
JM: Bench.
SN: And he came and we reported this when we came back that we had this man. The ambulance met him and I never saw him again or heard anything of him. Then the other one was — we were — I don’t know where it was. Nuremberg. Hamburg. I’ve forgotten. Anyway, we’d got an American who was a mid-upper gunner and they did a stupid thing. They thought instead most attacks by fighter aircraft come in from the bottom.
JM: Bottom.
SN: And they don’t see because the rear gunner just sees a hundred and eighty degrees so they said, ‘We’ll put a thing like a tear drop in the bottom of the aircraft.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the mid-upper gunner will lie there and he had no guns, will lie there with his intercom, on his belly and report these aircraft that he sees. Stupid thing to have done. And he’d been alright before that but he, they only left the thing on for maybe two or three weeks.
JM: Weeks.
SN: And he went bananas.
JM: He went bananas.
SN: And he saw aircraft all over the sky and he gave evasive action and we’re pitching around [laughs] trying to find these until it finally occurred —
JM: Trying to avoid these imaginary aeroplanes.
SN: That there weren’t any aircraft.
JM: Yes.
SN: No one else saw it.
JM: No.
SN: So, he had to be disconnected, and put on the thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we never saw him again.
JM: Again.
SN: But after the war I learned what happened. And what had happened was they took these people, gave them whatever help they could.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They sent them back to Canada.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then they gave them a choice. They said, ‘Now we will not discharge you.’ For dishonourable —
JM: Dishonourable discharge.
SN: Put this on your conduct thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: You will have a choice. You can either join the army or the navy and carry on with the war.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Or we will give you a medical discharge.
JM: Discharge. Yeah.
SN: You have a choice and it always seemed to me that that was very fair. And nobody ever reported and said these people were cowards. They were medically —
JM: Unstable or anything like that.
SN: Or anything like that. So it was one of the good war stories.
JM: Good things. Yeah.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Now around in this period of time though in September ‘43 you discovered by accident shall we say in as much you and your good friend Drew were in London on, I presume on one of your periods of leave.
SN: Yes. I’d forgotten him but he was, yes.
JM: Yeah. And that he was sitting reading the newspaper and reading the latest list of honours and said that, informed you that you had been awarded the —
SN: DFM.
JM: DFM.
SN: Yes. That’s right.
JM: And the, I haven’t got the exact words of the citation in front of me but it was in terms of a, in recognition of a number of —
SN: Yeah.
JM: Ops.
SN: I remember I said something like, he said, ‘Read this,’ and I said something like, ‘Yeah. They’re going to knight me tomorrow,’ or something. And he said, ‘No. You silly bastard,’ he said, ‘It’s you.’
JM: It’s you. That’s right. But did you was it just simply for a sequence of raids or did you actually get told something?
SN: It was a sequence I think.
JM: Yeah. But did you, can you recall.
SN: The citation.
JM: The sequence that they were actually referring to in terms of particular difficulties on those particular raids or —
SN: No. It was a general citation it seems to me. As I remember it.
JM: Right. So were other members of the crew awarded DFMs?
SN: No. Nobody.
JM: So how did they seem?
SN: Only me.
JM: Do you know why they singled you.
SN: I think it was the aircraft that I shot down.
JM: So, going back to —when? So —
SN: Yes. it went back to —
JM: So, it goes back to the March.
SN: Went back to March.
JM: March. When you shot down the Messerschmitt.
SN: That’s right.
JM: In Stuttgart.
SN: That’s right. I think so, yes. I think that was what it was about because I was the only one.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, so you didn’t get any further clarification in terms of the citation or anything like that. The commanding officers.
SN: There is a citation. Yes. And the citation [pause] I had or I probably have somewhere here but God knows where I would find it.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Right. And then you lined up and received your award from King George.
SN: Yes. I went to Buckingham Palace and lined up with a lot of other people.
JM: And did he have any words to you do you recall? Or did he just walk along and just pin and kept walking.
SN: No. He was on a little dais in the palace and you went up one by one, up just a little, maybe that high or something and the king was slightly higher.
JM: He was slightly elevated by about eighteen inches.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or something like that.
SN: He was there.
JM: Yeah.
SN: With a sort of a lectern or table that had the awards.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That were being passed to him by someone.
JM: An assistant on the side.
SN: Yes. And you were — before you went up they put a little tin thing or something on your tunic.
JM: Yes. On your tunic, yeah, so they had —
SN: And you went up. He shook hands with you.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And said something like I suppose, ‘Well done,’ or something like that and hung these on the thing.
JM: Thing. Yeah.
SN: And then you went.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It wasn’t, you know, he was there were maybe, I don’t how many. Let’s say there were a hundred or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: There were a lot of them anyway.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And that was it, you know. He wouldn’t have had enough time to have said —
JM: Too much to each one. No.
SN: To anyone really because it was a line.
JM: A line yeah.
SN: That went through.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It was a job he had to do. Yeah. That was it.
JM: So then did you have an afternoon tea afterwards and did you talk with any of the other recipients?
SN: No. That was it. That was it. No.
JM: You just received it and you were out the door.
SN: You were told to appear at the palace. You had an order written on the thing. At such and such a time. And you came and they said, ‘Yes, that’s you. Here it is. You go in there. You go there. Get in the queue.’
JM: Almost a sausage line.
SN: Yeah [laughs]
JM: Right. Ok. So so, at this stage we’re getting you’ve been doing the various ops etcetera so you’re building up the number of ops you’re doing. We get towards the end.
SN: Yes.
JM: Did you know you were getting — because by this time, where are we up to? About, January ’44 so this is getting to —
SN: We’re in October I guess.
JM: Yeah. October ’44.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: And at that stage we [pause] our pilot and all except two of us in the crew.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Ricky and myself —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Had completed the magic number.
JM: Number.
SN: Which was forty five.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And so, they [pause] they had done their —
JM: Completed their —
SN: Completed their second tour.
JM: Tour.
SN: And there were the two of us who had not.
JM: So that was you and Ricky.
SN: Ricky. And Ricky went. Ricky decided that he had had enough and he didn’t really want to fly with a sprog pilot or somebody else. So, he said, ‘I really don’t care whether I have that Pathfinder badge or not. I’d rather be alive.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I stayed on to finish and I had three to finish.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it took a while. November until I crashed because you had to find a crew that was short.
JM: Short.
SN: Of a rear gunner.
JM: Rear gunner. Yeah.
SN: To go with.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I went with well they wanted to put, yes, they put you on this crew. Their man had [pause] I’ve forgotten — he’d fallen ill, I think. Whatever he had he wasn’t going to be able to fly again. So, I had, this fella, his name was McLennan. Canadian. So, I became their rear gunner.
JM: Gunner.
SN: For these three trips. And because I had been waiting around the weather was duff.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we went to Berlin three times.
JM: Right.
SN: And in the end, you’ve seen there. So, and they were three bad flights because I guess they were I guess a sprog crew to some degree. We got shot up very badly and we got lost. And then the last flight we got shot up. The second last flight we were shot up pretty badly. And we were quite lucky. It burnt up the wireless operator’s notes and the navigator’s maps. The whole thing. [unclear] and it was pretty well peppered. So, then the last flight —
JM: So, did you use the same plane? Or did you — or the ground crew repaired it enough. Or did you use a different plane for that? For then? This last flight?
SN: They repaired it.
JM: They repaired it.
SN: They repaired it. I’m sure about that but I should say I don’t know.
JM: Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: That would be a better answer.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And then the last flight we, the last flight I made which was the forty fifth for me. I was — that would finish me off and it very nearly did.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we got, we got shot up again as we came off the target.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it was the night before, we were attacked by a fighter. The last night. I’ve forgotten if we were or not. Certainly, we were the second, it was an ME110 that very nearly got us. And we were lost. And the Met people had made a mistake in that they believed that a front was going to come in. They knew this but they believed that there would be ample time for people to get back from Berlin before this front came in. It was a heavy front. Well, they were wrong. And the front came in earlier and aircraft at that time when you’re doing blind landings come down in concentric circles.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It’s like —
JM: So, you stacked up.
SN: A for apple and B for Bertie.
JM: Yeah.
SN: X for X-ray and they’re in a line you see.
JM: In a line. Yeah.
SN: And they come down and you have a different altitude so they don’t get.
JM: Running into each other. Theoretically. Yes.
SN: Yes. And they bring them down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: The operator.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Brings them down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: And the last circle, and when they do this they find the marker that makes the, what is it called [pause] when you have a blind landing you’re looking at your instruments. I’ve forgotten the name. It’s in there anyway. You have to pick up this bar and come in.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And if you miss that you’ve got to go around ‘til you get it again because you’re coming down.
SN: Down.
JM: They’re bringing you down on that bar. They have given you your altitude that you should be at.
SN: Yeah.
JM: They’re following you down.
SN: The pilot is just blind flying into this. So, we had been up. We were lost. We were late and we’d been up a long time and they were bringing us in and the pilot missed the bar and we had to go around again. And by this time, we were out of fuel and he knows we’re very nearly out of fuel and I know that we’re in trouble because I can see the treetops going by the turret.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I did the luckiest thing I ever did in my life. There was a belt about that wide.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Webbing.
JM: Webbing belt. Yeah.
SN: With buckles on it.
JM: Strapped you in.
SN: And it was on either side and I put that on.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Locked it there and that saved me.
JM: That saved you. That’s what saved you. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So, you came and so having seen the treetops. It wasn’t too long after that that before —
SN: It was just minutes after that. Yeah. And the aircraft broke off, you see. The tail broke off.
SN: Broke off.
JM: Yeah. So, you were saved but the rest were not.
SN: That’s right. Well, the pilot came through but in a very bad state. And I found him. And I think I say there, things were blowing up. We had failsafe stuff. And it was burning. And I was not in a very good shape at the time. It had knocked me out. I was bleeding.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And in a stupor I think.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he, he was lying with this stuff popping off and I thought I should move him back a little and I took him by the legs and his legs started to come off and the bone appeared. I couldn’t do that. And I got — we had a little packet of stuff and I don’t know whether I shot him with a hypo. Certainly, I had, when they found me I had the packet but what I did with it I have no idea. In any event when they came back they found me wandering around with this packet. This kid found me who became a friend of mine. And they brought the ambulance out it was thick heavy fog, and packed I and McLennan in and he, he was not conscious through this, through all this, I don’t think. Maybe he was but he didn’t seem to be.
JM: Seem to be.
SN: To me. And he and I went in together and it seemed to me that I wasn’t sure whether, I think he, I think he recognised me as we went in. And then I was in this hospital in Ely maybe a week or ten days. I’ve forgotten. And I asked, when I came too the following day, for McLennan. He was a nice fellow. And he said he died when he got there. So, I was the only one who survived.
JM: Yes, and so do you regret having made the decision to have, to complete those other three ops? Do you feel you would have was there what was the motivation in the first place to do, to do the three? Was it simply that you wanted to have the completed tour or what?
SN: It’s, I signed on for to do the tours.
JM: To do the tours. Yeah.
SN: And I wanted it done. Yes.
JM: You wanted to do it.
SN: It was something I wanted to do.
JM: Do. Yeah. So —
SN: And Ricky, whom I met again after the war, who my particular chum he always regretted that he didn’t.
JM: Right. Yeah. There you go. So people who, despite the fact that it was very very difficult for you for those last three. One thing just very briefly. Did, in Pathfinder, did Gransden Lodge, did any of the various squadrons intermingle at any time or did you stay very much within your own squadron?
SN: Completely within our own squadron.
JM: Within your own squadron. Because, I mean Australian, you know, there were various other, you know like —
SN: Yes, we had all sort of people. Australians, British.
JM: Yeah, yeah, but there was a 156 Squadron at Gransden Lodge too, I think, from knowledge but there was never any intermingling or anything like that.
SN: No. De were the only ones.
JM: You were the only ones.
SN: During my time.
JM: Your time, yeah. Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: And we didn’t. Yes. No. We didn’t. I didn’t know anybody from any other squadron.
JM: Right. No. Right.
SN: You know the top squadron chief, they would have gone to group headquarters.
JM: Headquarters.
SN: And they knew —
JM: What was going on.
SN: Other people from the other squadrons.
JM: Yeah. Squadrons yeah.
SN: But not at my level.
JM: No.
SN: We never saw anybody.
JM: No. Right. And did — so you were in hospital and then I presume you went on leave and went perhaps to rehab. Like a rehabilitation.
SN: No. I went. I got out of hospital and went back to the squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That was in January.
JM: January ’45.
SN: Yes. And I got back to the squadron on Christmas Eve. I think it was.
JM: Oh. Ok. So that was Christmas Eve ’44.
SN: ’43. ’43.
JM: ‘44 wouldn’t it be?
SN: No. ‘43.
JM: Ok.
SN: In January of ‘44 I was posted.
JM: Yes.
SN: From the squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: To a RAF gunnery school for gunnery instruction instructor’s course.
JM: Yeah. Ok. That was in January ‘44. Yeah. Ok. And so how long were you there for?
SN: I would think it would be about a month but it might have been six weeks.
JM: Right.
SN: The only thing I can remember about it is that it was a RAF school at a place called Manby. And they spent all their Sunday, or most of their Sunday on the parade square where they were inspection after inspection and I was by that time commissioned. I noticed that they had a most extraordinary [pause] before they started this buggering about.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They called out, ‘Fall out the Jews and infidels.’ [laughs]
JM: Right.
SN: It’s true.
JM: Right.
SN: It’s true. And thereupon the head of the WAAFs who was shaped rather like a large trout and had a moustache bigger than me and was obviously Jewish and she would fall out and the other one who fell out was an Indian. Indian Indian. A little squadron leader of some sort and he, I guess, was a Hindu or — I don’t know what it was. But I thought this is not a bad lark so the next Sunday I fell out with them. And no one —
JM: Queried it.
SN: No one ever queried me. I think they simply assumed well he’s Jewish.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And well that was the end and I had my Sunday.
JM: Well there you go. That was a way to get a Sunday off wasn’t it? And so, what happened after? Did you complete this course? Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And what happened after that?
SN: Then I went back to 6 Group which was the Canadian group.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Up in Yorkshire and I instructed. I guess till the end of the year. Something like that. I’ve forgotten how long it was and then I was posted back to Canada.
JM: Right.
SN: To — they had a huge base near Vancouver.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was for [pause] for the Far Eastern campaign. Well the Far Eastern campaign was cut short at Hiroshima.
JM: That’s right. Yeah.
SN: So, nobody went anywhere.
JM: Anywhere.
SN: But there were about five thousand of us there and we were all given Joe jobs of one sort or another to keep us occupied. And that was for I guess for six months in ‘44. And then in August I was discharged.
JM: So that was August.
SN: 1945.
JM: ‘45 yeah.
SN: That’s ’45. Yes.
JM: ’45. Discharged. Yeah and —
SN: The only thing that I did during those six months, you know — there were really so many of us was I went over to Victoria to sell Victory Bonds for a month and this was rather fun. The people who were selling the bonds who were business men in the city I guess and were not the always the same people. And they would pick me up and we would go to factories, plants, offices and they would make a little spiel and I would get up and talk for, you know, maybe a minute or two and then we’d go on to another place.
JM: I see. Well that was different.
SN: Yes. That was the only thing I did when I was there.
JM: And this was when you were in.
SN: In this place. At Boundary Bay it was called.
JM: Near Vancouver.
SN: Yes. It was so bad that in the end the last job I had was to teach people who — no —I did do some work out there. I flew in Libs. They had Liberators.
JM: Liberators. Yeah.
SN: On instructing for three months which was alright. We had something to do. But then this last thing I was teaching [pause] what was it called? When an aircraft is is [pause] has to ditch. Ditching procedure.
JM: Ditching procedure. Yeah.
SN: And I had a sergeant and I had three other fellows and I had to give, I thought I was rather badly used and I had to give — I think I had to work two days a week. That was all I did.
JM: Did.
SN: But —
JM: Put a crew through this ditching procedure training. Goodness me.
SN: And there was hundreds of — well I don’t know how many.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Who were doing [laughs]
JM: Same thing.
SN: The same thing but there we were.
JM: And when you are discharged in August ‘45 presumably you then head back to the farm. To the family.
SN: Yes. I went back to the family and I went down and got myself discharged.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And in September, 1st of September I guess, I went to university.
JM: Right. And there you did, what?
SN: I did General Arts. And I was there for five years.
JM: Five years. Right. And?
SN: I got an MA.
JM: An MA right.
SN: In History and English Literature.
JM: Yeah. And where and then what? What —
SN: Well I then found [pause] I met a remarkable man who — I really started out to take law and I should have done that. That made sense. It was a profession. But he was an historian. Brilliant man. World scholar. Wonderfully — looked like Charles Laughton.
JM: Sorry?
SN: He looked like Charles Laughton.
JM: Right. Ok. And what was —
SN: A wonderful voice.
JM: And what was this chap’s name.
SN: He was a history prof. His name was Charles Lightbody.
JM: Right.
SN: And I was quite fascinated by him and he became a friend of mine and I thought well I would do that and so I —
JM: You’d become a historian.
SN: I ended up with an MA and I realised that there really wasn’t anything I could do but teach and I wasn’t — I didn’t think there was really be much of a teacher. So, I, in the meantime had written. There were three examinations which you had to pass for Foreign Affairs. One was a four hour written hour written exam. Or was it six. I think it was six. It was a half day anyway and then you had to go for an oral examination with people. And then you had a third thing. I’ve forgotten what it was and then you, if you were lucky this was across the country and if you made it you were, you got the appointment. They took you in to the Foreign Service. Well I had written this, I guess, in the spring. I heard nothing from them. So, I had to think what I could do. So I applied for some scholarships and got a fellowship which was a scholarship down in New Orleans at Tulane University. So, I went down there. By this time, I was married but I went down by myself to see. And I was only there for a month, six weeks, something, when my appointment came through. But I was there long enough to realise that this was really not my —
JM: Cup of tea.
SN: Cup of tea. I was put, this was for a PhD and I was put to my chore — you had to teach part of the time was the Tulane football team. And Jesus. They [laughs] recruited these people from the villages and towns not because of their academic.
JM: Their academic ability.
SN: Oh no. That was not [laughs]
JM: They were recruited for their football ability.
SN: And I’m teaching European history to these fellas and they’re going [yawn] so —
JM: So, you were very pleased to have your posting come through.
SN: I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t hesitate a minute.
JM: You didn’t hesitate. You grabbed it with both hands and —
SN: That’s right.
JM: So then —
SN: Happily, ever after.
JM: And when did you actually start your posting. So, I presume you had to do some sort of orientation period but when did you officially start with the — so what is this called? The Canadian Diplomatic Corps is it. Or what was its proper title?
SN: Canadian Foreign Service.
JM: Canadian Foreign Service. Yeah.
SN: Really from the 1st of January.
JM: 1st of January ‘46 would it have been.
SN: No, it was after that.
JM: What are we up to?
SN: It was after Christmas. It was December. I think it was December 27th. Something like that.
JM: So, December 27th.
SN: It had to be that year.
JM: Yeah. So, when would this be. About ‘51.
SN: In Ottawa.
JM: Would it be ‘51? December ‘51 or ’50.
SN: It would be December 1950.
JM: 1950. right. Yeah. So, December 27 1950 and it was, did you say, Ottawa.
SN: Yes.
JM: Ottawa. And so that was where you’re —
SN: So, I spent thirty odd years.
JM: So was that a training — your initial training at Ottawa or that was your actual first posting as —what?
SN: It was a training.
JM: Training. Yeah.
SN: It was before the first posting.
JM: Posting. Yeah. And then where was your first posting?
SN: It was really in Latin America and Bogota but before that someone fell ill in Tokyo. And they needed to send someone out to —
JM: To Tokyo.
SN: This guy didn’t come or I’ve forgotten what it was. In any event they needed somebody and the Korean war was on. So, they were able to send somebody out with military you see.
JM: Right.
SN: They didn’t have to go through the procedure of sending them by sea.
JM: Right.
SN: Across the thing. It was a time factor. So, I flew over and I was there for six months.
JM: To — to —
SN: Tokyo.
JM: Tokyo.
SN: Yes. Things happened and I was kept on.
JM: Yeah. So that became your first —
SN: I suppose that it was my your posting.
JM: Even though, yeah, yeah.
SN: But it was a temporary assignment.
JM: Assignment. Yeah. Yeah. So then did you come back to Latin America after that?
SN: I came back to Ottawa. And then by that time they had posted me.
JM: Yeah.
SN: To Bogota.
JM: Bogota. Right.
SN: And I was, you know, in Ottawa for a couple months.
JM: While they sorted the paperwork out, I guess.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So, Bogota and then and then you say thirty years moving around.
SN: Yes.
JM: Various embassies moving around the world.
SN: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
JM: Presumably changing roles. Moving up into a higher role most of the time. So, what was your —
SN: Yes.
JM: So were you a —
SN: I went through the usual steps of third secretary. Second secretary. First secretary.
JM: Secretary.
SN: Counsellor. Minister.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And ambassador.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, it was, I guess, about thirty three years. Something like this.
JM: Yeah. And where were you ambassador?
SN: I was [pause] I resigned or — I didn’t resign, I finished as ambassador to Ecuador.
JM: Right. And did you have any other ambassadorial post prior to Ecuador?
SN: I had another Head of Mission is what we called it.
JM: Right.
SN: I had a Head of Mission post before that. I was Canadian Commissioner in Cambodia.
JM: Right.
SN: Which is where I met Shirley.
JM: Right.
SN: And of course, that was an unfortunate thing in the sense of career in that divorce at that time was frowned on and I was unemployable because my then wife had to agree if I were to be posted and of course that was the last thing she was likely to do. And it was a long dragged out affair and very difficult for Shirley. However, we had this time in — well I went to National Defence College which was our half civilian and half military. I went as our departmental candidate. It was a year’s course for top executives so that was good. And then I went. I was farmed out from the department. I did a couple of years in the planning department of National Defence.
JM: Right.
SN: As their foreign affairs rep or advisor. Whatever you’d call it. And then I did two and a half years I think. A very strange business which was because one of my foreign affairs friends was the deputy and he brought me in and I headed up a research planning division in Indian Affairs.
JM: So what sort of, so this is the —
SN: This is when I had time out for divorce [laughs]
JM: So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, ok. And that would have been a very interesting exercise as well.
SN: Yes, it was. I learned a great many things.
JM: Yes. I can imagine. Gosh. And then presumably the divorce finally got sorted and you were able to be reappointed as an ambassador then.
SN: The day, the day after, no. I didn’t. The day after our wedding we were posted to Washington.
JM: Washington. Right.
SN: And it was that quick.
JM: That quick. So, when was that. When were you married. What was your —
SN: It was September.
JM: September of —?
SN: Of [pause] We were at Washington for four years. 1978. 1974.
JM: 1974.
SN: We were married.
JM: Yeah.
SN: In September. And the following day —
JM: You were off to Washington.
SN: Off to Washington. And Shirley’s sister was there and my brother in law.
JM: And what was your role in Washington? You were attached to the embassy as what?
SN: As a counsellor.
JM: A counsellor. Right. Yeah. Ok. Yes. Oh well and so —
SN: You there you have —
JM: Yeah. And how do you feel that your air force experiences informed your diplomatic, the way you handled your diplomatic career in any way or or you never really thought about your air force time once you were in as a diplomat. I mean, recognising the fact you had many many roles as a diplomat that you, you know.
SN: Well I think it was useful to me in the sense that the things that I was doing. For instance when I was at national defence. When I was at National Defence College.
JM: Yeah.
SN: For a year and that’s, you know, we lived, at that time there there were only thirty two people and you eat, drink with those people every day for a year and it was useful to me, half of them were military.
JM: Right.
SN: To have —
JM: To have had that close quarter that — A — that background and, B — that close quarter living as you had had to have as part of war service.
SN: Yes. And when I was at plans it was useful because I knew people again. I was accepted. So when I was in Washington I did the political military thing for four years you see so I was always in close touch. So yes, it was useful.
JM: It was useful.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Well you have had, certainly had an incredibly varied life and when you look back to the fact you started off as a farm lad, for want of a better word of describing it.
SN: Farm kid.
JM: Which is not to put down people who run, who own and feed the nation from their farms but it’s just very different life and lifestyle to — and then, and I guess, as part of that you became a bit of a rebellious child and that rebelliousness came out in some of your early years. In your early air force training and ultimately it clicked and you changed tack and you became — you decided to accept.
SN: Go with the stream. Yes.
JM: Go with the stream and accept the discipline which was probably when you started doing well in your gunnery courses.
SN: Yes.
JM: And that’s when you felt you had a role to play and that was a turning point potentially there. And then as we say you just ultimately going through to then find a totally different course of life and become part of the Canadian Foreign Service for such an extensive thirty three years. That’s an incredibly long time. And were you, have you ever been given any recognition for that length of service from the Canadian Foreign Service.
SN: Oh yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: In what format?
SN: I have no misgivings. I — I’ve been well treated. I have no, it would have been nice to have gotten a little higher up the tree but that was the way it played out.
JM: Was there a system of formal recognition? Awards or anything. Were you given any awards at any time or —?
SN: No. We didn’t have any. We all have a medal or I assume we do. That we get for having served.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you get a letter from the minister. The PM saying thank you.
JM: Thank you.
SN: And that’s it.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Now, unlike, and this has always been a grievance with, I think some people in the Commonwealth Foreign Services — the Americans, if you become an ambassador you take the title with you.
JM: Yeah. Like a —
SN: You were called that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the British usually knight their Heads of Mission and they can carry the title.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And Canadians, Australians or New Zealanders do not.
JM: Not.
SN: Yeah. So that bothered some people and of course it didn’t, it doesn’t bother most people because as long, so long as everyone else suffers with you [laughs]
JM: You’re not on your own in that circumstance.
SN: No. No.
JM: No.
SN: No.
JM: Well I think that you’ve been exceedingly generous with your time and we’ve covered a huge amount of ground there. Simply amazing set of experiences and I just thank you for it Clair. It’s just been really really wonderful and the fact that we’ve got this record now as part to help contribute to the knowledge base about Bomber Command personnel is so important. So, thank you very much for that.
SN: Alright. Well thank you. It’s taken a fair amount of your time.
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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ANuttingS170222
Title
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Interview with Sinclair Nutting
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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02:16:42 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Jean Macartney
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-02-22
Description
An account of the resource
Sinclair Nutting Grew up in Canada and worked on the family farm before he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 405 Squadron. After the war he emigrated to Australia.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
England--Yorkshire
Great Britain
Ireland
Ireland--Dublin
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
405 Squadron
6 Group
8 Group
aircrew
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Medal
Fw 190
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
Halifax
lack of moral fibre
Me 109
military discipline
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Manby
RAF Topcliffe
training
Wellington
Whitley
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/377/6710/LDawsonSR142531v2.2.pdf
49c83001650f4a5f72ee40cfc1a96250
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
Stephen Dawson's pilot's flying log book. Two
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
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LDawsonSR142531v2
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.
Format
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One booklet
Conforms To
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Pending review
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
Creator
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Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Stephen Dawson, covering the period from 6 April 1942 to 30 August 1944. Detailing his instructor duties, flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Swanton Morley, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Swinderby, RAF Wigsley, RAF Bourn, RAF Gransden Lodge, RAF Market Harborough, RAF Silverston and RAF Boscombe Down. Aircraft flown in were, Oxford, Wellington, Lancaster, Boston, Mitchell, Buckingham, Marauder, Halifax, Liberator, Harvard, Avenger, Defiant, Barracuda, Hampden, Black Widow, Hurricane and Mosquito. He flew a total of 32 Night operations with 97 Squadron. Targets were, Krefeld, Mulheim, Wuppertal, Cologne, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Essen, Nurnburg, Milan, Leverkusen, Berlin, Mannheim, Munich, Hannover, Frankfurt, Fredrichshaven, Modane, Cannes and Ludwigshaven. The log book included pictures of examples of some of the aircraft flown, also handwritten list of targets and bomb loads.
Contributor
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Mike Connock
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
England--Wiltshire
France--Cannes
France--Modane
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-03
1943-07-04
1943-07-08
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-26
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-09-05
1943-09-06
1943-09-07
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-07
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-10
1943-11-11
1943-11-12
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
14 OTU
1654 HCU
97 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
B-25
B-26
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Boston
Defiant
Halifax
Hampden
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bourn
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Swinderby
RAF Wigsley
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/607/8876/AMaywoodRM151109.2.mp3
773cbbdec73ec1fb4e55919303593c37
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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Maywood, Dick
Richard M Maywood
R M Maywood
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Maywood, RM
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard 'Dick' Maywood (1923 -2016, 1623169 Royal Air Force), his log book and a certificate. He flew operations as a navigator with 608 and 692 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
2015-11-09
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: This was the, this was the interview with Mr Richard ‘Dick’ Maywood at xxxx and he was a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator.
[Recording resumes]
RM: Above the main bomber stream. Twenty eight thousand. We carried one cookie.
CB: Four thousand pounder.
RM: Four thousand pounder.
CB: Yeah.
RM: And we had the Mosquitoes with the bulged belly. Now a lot of those — that was the B16. A lot of those appeared in the film, “633 Squadron.” Now, that film was the biggest load of bullshit you ever came across. It was so ridiculous that a lot of people would believe it. The bombs which they showed being loaded up on these, for the operation, were cookies. The four thousand pounder bombs that we carried with the peculiar tail fin added and they were supposed to drop these bombs so that they hit the base of the rock and bring it down. Now, with the four thousand pounder we were told safety height above one of those is five thousand feet or more. They wouldn’t have been more than five hundred feet away from that rock. So, the best part of that film as I was concerned was the theme song. The theme music.
CB: Yes. Exciting.
RM: Which I intend to have played at the end of my funeral service.
CB: Oh right.
RM: Because I’m gone.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The other Mosquito film they made. “Mosquito Squadron.” Again. That was largely, sort of, bull but there was one interesting point there which is true and that is the point where they had Mosquitoes practicing dropping bombs or lobbing bombs in to tunnels and that actually did occur. And one of the Polish squadrons. I think it was 305 was involved in that but other than that away we go. The Amiens raid which was a true one.
CB: Pickard. Yeah.
RM: That formed the basis of Mosquito squadrons attack. So, in actual fact “Mosquito Squadron” in spite of the American CO and all that sort of nonsense did contain certain aspects which were very true. Curiously enough, as I say, most of the light night striking force operations were either nuisance raids to divert fighter aircraft from the main bomber stream and were raids in their own right or they were on the same targets but about a mile higher than the main stream. So, some of them, the runs, were particularly with Berlin. They used to call that the Milk Run.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So how did that work?
RM: In exactly the same way as an ordinary raid would be set out. You’d be given the route. You’d plot the route. And you’d be given the Met winds which the weather people had found and were vital because A — you needed it for navigation in the days of steam navigation. And you also needed it as the only setting to be put on the Mark 14 bomb sight. And that was the gyroscopically controlled one. I can tell you a story about that too. I shared a bombing range with a B17 on one occasion at Boxmoor near Oxford. We’re at twenty five thousand feet. We had six practice bombs. It was a NFT. And I was sharing a range with a B17 and he could not have been more than fifteen thousand feet. With the bomb and the pickle barrel from thirty thousand feet. Norden bomb sight. His bombing error was twice mine. I was knocking up around about sixty, seventy yards and he was around about the, probably a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty yards and as I say he was probably ten thousand feet below me. Two miles below me. So much for the American bomb sight. And that Bomb sight the bombardier had to take it out of the aircraft every time he flew and put it back in to safe keeping and then draw it out because they didn’t want the Germans to get it. But what they’d overlooked was the fact that the Germans had hacked down quite a lot of B17s and knew everything about the bombsight. But there we go. I’m afraid that you are probably going to think that I am very biased against the Americans. I’m very biased against the American navy. And I’m not particularly, sort of enthusiastic about their air force either. Any air force which bombed in daylight, in formation. Well, at a steady height. Steady speed. Nearest approach to suicide you could get. The B17 crews, I must admit, were very very brave people. Very brave people. But in those days as I say we hadn’t got much reference for them because most of the big B17 stations were around here. in this area. Northamptonshire.
CB: Near Peterborough.
RM: Peterborough and that area.
CB: Yeah.
CB: And all that area. And George, my pilot, if we were coming off a night flying test he’d look around for one of these and he’d formate on a B17 and sort of drop his undercarriage and put the flaps down and sort of follow on its wingtips and then when he’d had enough of that he’d go clean. Both engines. And then he’d fly in a circle around them as they went along because I mean we could do a hundred and ninety knots quite comfortably on one engine. But to give you some idea. On one occasion, on an authorised low flying exercise an American B, a P47, the Mustang — formated on us. “Air Police” written along it’s side and he was going like this. More or less telling us to get up. I gave him the washout sign. I said to George my pilot, I said, ‘We’ve got a visitor.’ ‘What’s that?’ He looked, ‘Oh him,’ he said. He said, ‘Let’s teach him a lesson.’ And he just took both engines through the gate and we left.
CB: Left him standing.
RM: Within a minute he was a dot. He could have beaten us at low level because of course our B16s that we were flying at that time, although it’s low level, really didn’t get into their own until we were at twenty one thousand feet or over. But going through the gate gave us that little bit extra. And that was it. Because we used to — from Downham Market we exited down between the old and new Bedford Levels right down to Royston. That was our route out. Incidentally, after VE day they said, ‘You’re coming off high level bombing. You’re going low level daylight in the far east and map reading.’ Now, that is the equivalent of going off an HGV on to formula one practically. Now, a lot of people don’t believe this but I can assure you, hand on heart, that it’s true. We were told, ‘Now, when you go to low level that is fifteen to twenty five feet.’ And we did it. Fortunately, my pilot, when he was an instructor in Canada at Estevan on Oxfords had four instances of collecting rubbish from the undercarriage of his Oxfords. Low level. Unauthorised. But he was very very good at it [laughs] and we had quite an amusing incident to do with that but if we go back to the light night striking force. As I say that was part of 8 Group which was given the permission to put eight, in brackets, PFF force. Group rather. Pathfinder force. Because each station in 8 Group had one Mosquito which was mainly light night striking force and one squadron of Lancs which were again associated with the Pathfinder force and they were equipped with H2S which gave you the map. And of course H2S was the result of quite a lot of Lancs being shot down because the night fighters, German night fighters could tune in. Home in on them and bang. And then again, the Germans had a very nasty idea called Schrage Musik which you’ve probably heard of. The upward firing guns. So, they’d home in underneath an unsuspecting Lanc and bang. That was it. But once they got wind of this then they put the Mosquito night fighters in with the bombers and that did reduce the losses a little because it upset the Germans. Now, is there any aspect that I could fill you in on? Because I don’t exactly know what you’re after you see.
CB: That’s alright. So, what I’d like to suggest is that we start with your earliest recollections of your life. What you did at school? Where you were born? And then after school what did you do?
RM: Yeah.
CB: And how did you come to join the RAF?
RM: Yeah.
CB: I’m just going to stop for a mo.
RM: Yeah.
[recording paused]
CB: Hang on. Let me just get it started again. So now we’re restarting with the early days, Dick.
RM: Yeah.
CB: So, where you were you born and —
RM: I was born —
CB: Just up the road.
RM: Just around the corner.
CB: In Peterborough.
RM: In Peterborough yes. I went to the local school which is about a hundred and fifty yards around the corner from here as an infant. From five to seven. They had the junior section then from seven to eleven and when I was eleven I got a scholarship to the local grammar school which was called Deacon’s School. Peterborough had two grammar schools. Deacon’s and King’s, of which, of course, there was very considerable a rivalry between the two [laughs] as you can imagine. Now, with King’s School it didn’t matter so much about passing the school cert exam. Eleven plus equal. With King’s School you had to be able to sing because that was the Cathedral School. And curiously enough at the service yesterday at the Peterborough Cathedral I remarked on the fact that we must be getting old because the choirboys looked smaller and smaller. I was actually in school to hear war declared. I’d reached the sixth form. And we were actually called in during the holiday to the sixth form to deal with the evacuees from London. Now they, that started on a Friday. The evacuees came into the school and we were there to separate these various children and give them to the groups to which they’d been allocated so that they could be taken to their future homes. And about half past ten, quarter to eleven on the Sunday morning the headmaster came around and said, ‘Forget about the evacuees. All of you assemble in the music room because Neville Chamberlain is going to speak to the nation at 11 o’clock.’ So, we went in there and we heard the war declared and that was that. Now, I came to the conclusion then that instead of staying on to go, say to do my A levels and go to university if that would be interrupted by war service. Now, I’d always been, from the age of about nine when I’d got a book called the Boy’s Book of Aircraft for a Christmas present I’d always been interested in the flying aspect. Biggles and all that sort of thing. And I developed quite an interest in flying from the reading point of view and from the model aircraft point of view. And I thought well why not volunteer for the air force. So as soon as I was eighteen, that was in 1941, I nipped up to Cambridge because at eighteen if I volunteered for the air force I wouldn’t be called up for the army or the navy. And so, I volunteered. I was accepted for further investigation. That was in 1941 and then in December ‘41 was called to Cardington where I had my aircrew medicals and aptitude tests and was accepted as future aircrew. And much to my annoyance, that was December ’41, I was actually called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground August bank holiday Monday 1942. I hopped off one foot on to the other. I thought that was a dirty trick [laughs] Anyway, we were assailed with needles and vaccinations and boots to be cleaned and uniforms. Paraded up and down Earl’s Court and so on and went to the zoo for meals. From there I eventually went to Number 6 ITW at Aberystwyth. I’d only been there about six weeks on a ten weeks course when I had to report sick on the Tuesday. I’d got a swollen throat and what not. Sore throat. Went to the sick quarters and the MO there sort of looked, ‘Ah, Mist Expect three times a day for three days. Come again on Friday.’ Well, this Mist Expect was a brown lotion. Yuck. Which was very evil tasting. Anyway, by the Friday morning I more or less managed to crawl up to the sick quarters and they said, ‘Strange. We’ll have you upstairs under observation.’ And that was on the Friday. On the Sunday morning I developed the classic male symptoms of mumps. Now, as soon as they realised this they whipped me off to the local isolation hospital called Tanybwlch where I was the only patient and I distinctly remember it. There were five Nurse Williams’ and one Nurse Prodigan there. I lived like a lord but the interesting thing was that I was there for a week and at the end of the week they said, ‘Right. You’ll be going home Monday. Fourteen days sick leave.’ Now, before the Monday, on the Friday, about twelve of the people who were in my flight at ITW reported in to Tanybwlch with mumps. And what they were going to do to me was nobody’s business until I mentioned fourteen days sick leave. I was the flavour of the month after that. Anyway, from there, after a week, a few weeks due to bad weather I finished up as Desford Leicester, grading school where I did my twelve hours on Tigers. Selected for further pilot training. The interesting thing was there the instructor that I had was a Sergeant Collinson. He was an ex-bank manager and three weeks after I’d finished and gone to Heaton Park word filtered through that he’d had a pupil who’d frozen on the controls and killed them both. And a nicer bloke you couldn’t have wished for. He was the exact opposite to the American instructor which I had at Grosse Ile. Anyway, as I say, we did this grading school and then from there we went to Heaton Park which of course was the centre from which all aircrew to Canada, America — the USA, South Africa were sent simply because there was no room in the sky to have UT pilots barging about and getting in the way even though the Tigers were painted yellow. But, and as I say from there I volunteered for the Flying Boat course which was rather ill fated. I did get about thirty — thirty five hours solo on Stearman N2S4s which I thought was a beautiful aircraft. It really handled superbly. The sort of one that the wing walkers are using now. Much nicer aircraft to fly then the Tiger. Had twice as much power and on Tiger if you came on the approach five miles an hour too fast you nearly floated across the airfield. You didn’t get down. With the Stearman N2S4 you came in and as soon as you got the right attitude closed the throttle, stick back and it would go down on a three pointer and stick. Much nicer. Also, had brakes which helped you to stop and manoeuvre because with the tiger they had to come out and take your wing tip.
CB: Now where was this? In the states. Where?
RM: This. Grosse Ile, Detroit.
CB: Grosse Ile.
RM: Yes. And the French Grosse Ile. And that was American navy. The only British officers that we had there were one RAF and one Royal Navy officer acting as liaison because of course not only did the RAF send pilots there but of course Fleet Air Arm. And it was the Fleet Air Arm course really. With carrier work and then Flying Boats because they had to be versatile with both but I could never understand why we were subjected to the first part of the course but it was a good thing in actual fact. But I couldn’t see it at the time. Because I couldn’t understand anybody would try landing a Catalina on a Flying Boat. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs to be. Anyway, from there, as I say, I was sent back to Canada. To Windsor, Ontario and had a re-selection board. Was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. The navigators could either be pure navigators, NavBs, NavWs nav wireless or Nav radio and in each case, it depended on the type of aircraft that they would be going on to for their training and radio mostly on fighters for instance. The day and night fighters. The —
CB: Can I just go — can I interrupt? Go back a bit? Why was it that you gave up the flying? The pilot training with the US navy.
RM: Why? I was washed off. Yes. I was washed off the course. They had a field. The main fields. Grosse Ile had several satellite airfields. Much more. And one of these was a square field on the edge of Lake Michigan and in the middle of the field was a hundred foot diameter circle. Now, it gets rather technical here because to explain it I’ve got to be technical. Imagine that there’s a line through the circle with the wind. Wind line. And this wind line when on the afternoon that I was taking my tests was at right angles to the shore of the lake. Now, this field was probably no more than four hundred yards long and the circle would be probably about eight or ninety yards in because you had to, sort of, do a touch down and off again. The afternoon, it was in August, the ambient air temperature was eighty five Fahrenheit. Now, you came down wind parallel to the wind line like a normal left hand circuit. Eight hundred feet. When your wings were opposite the circle you cut the engine and the rest was a glide. Now, you had to glide down across the wind line at between ninety and forty five degrees. Continue the left hand turn and make a right hand turn onto the wind line and in and drop. Because, of course with a lot of aircraft you’ve got no forward, fighter aircraft particularly, no forward vision. So they had to adopt this and they still do I believe. I’m not sure. Now, as soon as on the right hand turn, as soon as I crossed the shoreline I gained about fifty feet. Thermals. I’ve never done any gliding or known anything about it and I didn’t know what a thermal was. So I overshot. The next time. The second run. I came a little bit lower. I still overshot. And we had to get three out of six in the circle. The third shot. I came around and I still touched down just beyond the circle. So I knew that I’d failed but I opened up and ignored the instructor who was sitting by the side of the circle watching. Ignored his signals [laughs] I thought I will bloody well put one in and the fourth one in I actually undershot. But in order to do that my right hand wingtip on the right turn was almost in the water. It was that low. And as I say as soon as I muffed that third one I knew that I’d failed so it didn’t bother me much. Now, one difference between the RAF training aircraft and the American training aircraft was that with the Tiger Moth you had a two way Gosport system so you could talk to the pilot. With the Stearman N2S4s, both army and navy, they had one way Gosport. The pilot could talk to you but you couldn’t talk back. The other fact is that all of the instructors, army and navy instructors on pilot training in the States were usually first generation nationalised Americans. Now, they were not allowed to go to the actual warzones just in case they were spies and nasty types. So, you can imagine that these instructors had quite a bone to pick. You know. They were very bitter about being singled out for this and they took it out on us. Now, on one occasion I’d already upset my instructor. You know, before these circles landing. And if you had a high level emergency which usually occurred at two thousand feet you were supposed to glide round, selecting a field and then make this sort of approach. And we were stooging along on one exercise just before these circles and he suddenly cut the motor and said, ‘Right. High level emergency.’ And one of the satellite fields was just down there so, I gave it full left stick, full right rudder, organised a side slip and brought it right down in one go in to this field. Settled and did a three pointer. And I sat there and I thought bloody marvellous Maywood. The remarks that came over the Gosport were not printable. Definitely not printable. I had disobeyed every rule in their book. Disobeyed them. I was worthless. I was useless. He didn’t speak to me for a couple of days afterwards. He just took me up. But on the way back after the side slip he cut the visit short because we flew for an hour and a half at a time. We’d been flying for about a half an hour. He said, ‘Right. We’re going back to base.’ And he did flick rolls left right left right and obviously to try and upset me. And they had a mirror up in the centre section where they could see us and as he did these, the more he did it, you know, sort of thumbs-up which made him even worse. As I say for two days he would just take me out to the aircraft. We’d do what we had to do until this circle business and not a word was said. Now, after washing off this course, as I say, we had a re-selection board in Windsor, Ontario. It’s just across the water from Detroit and I was selected as a NavB. I had to do six months general duties work. Three months in Toronto manning depot. That was quite an interesting, mostly sweeping the floor but on one occasion. Two occasions. Two successive days. We had to, you know, two of us, another washed off pilot and myself chummed up and we were picked for guard duty in the detention barracks there. When we reported to the flight sergeant MP first thing in the morning we were handed side arms. 45 revolvers. And the SP said, ‘Now, the only thing I’m going to tell you,’ he said, ‘Is never ever let one of the prisoners get within shovel distance of you.’ Shovel distance. What’s that? He said, ‘Remember that.’ He said. ‘If they look like getting there,’ he said, ‘Shoot them because it might be the last thing you do.’ He said, ‘We won’t ask questions.’ Anyway, we went into this detention barracks and we were ushered in to a building which was about thirty feet wide. Probably ninety feet long and normal height of a shed. Say perhaps ten, twelve feet. Across the centre of the room there was a black line. Two inch black line that ran down the walls, across the floor and up the other wall. Now, you can imagine. You walk in there and you see this. At one end there was probably about fifty, sixty tonnes of small coal. The other end absolutely pristine walls and floor. Whitewashed. The prisoners had wheelbarrows and shovels and it was their job to shift this coal from one end to the other and then when they’d done that they scrubbed the floor and the walls. Whitewashed them. And then did the job again. Now, they were doing this probably for two or three months and they were, it was described as being stir happy. And this was the reason. They’d had one or two of the guards had been attacked with these shovels and had been seriously injured or killed and that was the reason why we were told. Now, we only had that for two days fortunately because we more or less stood back to back [laughs] watching each other’s backs and then back to the old sweeping routine. And that was for three months. Then from there I was sent out to a place called Goderich which is right on the borders. Western border of Ontario. That was a training station for twin-engined aircraft for Royal Canadian Air Force cadets. Spent three months there and then onto a place called Mountain View in Ontario to do the bombing and gunnery school. The flying was done on Mark 2 Ansons. You’ve probably seen pictures of those. And the gunnery was done with the Bollingbroke which was the Canadian version of the Blenheim 4. The turret. Have you ever seen the Blenheim gun turret?
Other: No.
RM: Most peculiar arrangement. Vertical column. And a beam pivoted on this vertical column. At one end of the beam is a seat. At the other end are two Browning pop guns. 303s. And handlebars. So when you — to operate the turret to elevate the guns or depress them you turn the handlebars like twist grips. And to turn the turret you steer it like a pushbike. So, if you were firing at aircraft up there your bottom was right down here and you’re looking up there. You’re not sitting in the chair and looking all over like did with the Fraser Nash and the other turrets. The locking ones. Anyway, we were quite interested because the first exercise that we did it was really a chastener. We had two hundred rounds each to fire. Now, what they did with the two Brownings — they put three hundred pounds in each with a dummy round of two hundred in each gun. So, the first person in to the turret, you flew in threes, first used the left hand gun. Two hundred rounds. Left it. The next person going in two hundred rounds from the right hand gun. And then the third one cleared both guns and a hundred from each. Now, the actual bullets — the tips were dipped in paint. So that when they went through the drogue, which was the target, you could see from the colour as to who hit and how many. The drogue was roughly in size a bit bigger say than the fuselage of a Hurricane or a Spit so you can see it was quite large. The first exercise was what was known as a beam target where the towing aircraft had towed the drogue on your beam two hundred yards distance. Steady. In other words you were firing at a static object. No lead necessary either way. And of course we just blazed away with these in short bursts and when we got down after the first exercise. This exercise. They gave us the number of hits. Now, believe it or believe it not at two hundred yards, steady target, no more than probably being on the gun boats — an extraordinarily good result was five percent hits. The average? Three percent. Which is amazing isn’t it? The reason? Vibration. The rigidity of the gun mountings of course allowed the guns to spray and this is one of the things where modern films and pre-modern films of aircraft fights where you see a nice line of holes being stitched across the fuselage — absolute bullshit. You were lucky if you get it off, peppered them. That was the gunnery and then we did sort of quarter cross overs and all that sort of thing. Mostly then with cameras attached to the guns. They took Cinefilms. They wouldn’t let us use live ammunition against [laughs] their aircraft. The bombing was done with Mark 2 Ansons. A very slow aircraft. And using the old fashioned Mark 9 bomb sight which was quite a Heath Robinson contraption really but it worked after a fashion. But it was designed to operate when aircraft were sort of doing their bombing runs at probably a hundred and twenty, a hundred and fifty miles an hour with very little relationship to the forthcoming four-engined aircraft. And for that reason they devised the Mark 14 bomb sight which was gyroscope labourised and it was a beautiful piece of work. But going back to what I was saying about the weather, aircraft and wind finding. With the Mark 14 bomb sight you had to put the wind velocity in. Feed it in manually. And the only other manual thing you did was fit the bomb type. Select the bomb type and it worked out the trajectory and everything. Not only that but with the plate glass, sight glass, you had the red cross with the sword and that was stabilised horizontally. So that it would, in actual fact, give you accurate bombing up to about ten degrees of bank. Whereas with a Mark 9 you couldn’t. You had to be absolutely spot on and running the thing accurately.
CB: Straight and level.
RM: Straight and level. Yes. So that was an advantage with it. And that was bombing and gunnery school. Then nav school, as I say, was at Charlottetown, PEI. Prince Edward Island. And it was there I had my first really narrow squeak. In training of all things. Now, the nav school at that time lasted for twenty weeks. At the end of ten weeks you got a seventy two hour pass. From the Friday night to the Sunday which you couldn’t do much about because by the time you got from Charlottetown on to the mainland it was time to come back again. Right out in the sticks there. You were in the boon docks. Anyway, because we had bad night flying weather in the first eight weeks of our course they decided that instead of us flying on the tenth week we would fly on our twelfth week and the next course — 97. Behind us. Two weeks behind us would fly in our place. Now, you can appreciate this obviously. We were, a group of us, were going into the local cinema and it was just getting dark. Nice bright moon. No wind. Not worth talking about. Beautiful night. When we came out of the cinema three hours later there was a forty five knot gale blowing. Now, I can visualise what I understood and if I was in the same position I might have made the same mistake. In fact, almost certainly would but the Met forecast for the whole of their four hours was light and variable winds. Now, a sprog navigator. They’d only done ten weeks. They were only half way through the course. You still, over there, only had radio bearings. Visual sightings. More or less. And astro compass. The old bubble sextant which I could never get on with to navigate with. And the first leg out probably — of course you see navigation in those, steam navigation the vital part was wind finding, direction of the wind because that meant that you would get to where you wanted to go to. Probably find wind— sort of ten knots. Well, that falls within the flight plan. Get on the next leg and then you suddenly find wind fifteen, twenty knots. Must be something wrong so you backtrack. Check all your doings and in the meantime still maintaining the same course. And eventually you think well the only thing to do is to go back to ten knots. So, you re-plot for ten knots. Come to the next turning point as you thought, make your turn and say ,with four legs ultimately, you’ll probably be getting, or getting readings of thirty knots, thirty five knots. Can’t be right. Must go back to flight plan. And at the end of the flight when you should have been back at Charlottetown if you’d sort of ignored the truth you were probably fifty, sixty nautical miles northeast of Charlottetown. Right over the main Gulf of St Lawrence. Well as I say when we came out of the cinema there was this forty five knot wind blowing. When we got back to the camp they said, ‘Course 96 report to briefing room first light.’ And they made sure that we were there at first light because they sent people around to get us up. And we were given a very quick course on how to conduct line square searches. And every available aircraft and staff pilot who were available flew us so that we did these searches over the Gulf looking for missing aircraft. Never did see any. I believe that just after we’d finished the course. Twenty weeks. And being on our way back that they found one empty dinghy out there. And I believe that in actual fact they found the wreckage of one on the coast of Labrador which is just across the other side. How many went missing we were never told. But I did find out from the archives of the Empire Air Training Scheme in Brandon near Winnipeg — that I think three crews were absolutely lost. But anyway, we measured that and as I say we came back to this country. We did, before they would turn us lose on anything, they said, ‘Right you’ve got your navigation brevets in Canada. From Charlottetown. Over the Maritimes. Where one road or one railway is a land mark. Now, you may find flying over Britain and the continent a bit different. So, before you do anything we’re going to give you three weeks intensive training on map reading.’ And we were actually posted to a lovely little station just outside Carlisle. I think it was called Longton, where we were piled in the back seats of Tiger Moths. They only had about eight of these Tigers with staff pilots there. So, as I say it was quite a small grass field and we did quite a lot of map reading and target spotting over the Midlands and the Lake District. And that was good fun actually. On one occasion we, I actually flew with a pilot. One of the staff pilots who was a little more daring than others and it was a very windy day and he said, ‘I fancy doing a trip. Do you want to come?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ So, we took off and we were plotting our way around and the biggest rift that I calculated on that was fifty four degrees. And when we came over the airfield boundary at three hundred feet we actually landed ten feet inside the fence because the wind speed was virtually the approach speed of the Tiger. Yeah. That was quite interesting that was. Anyway, from there we went to AFU, Advanced Flying Unit and that was at Wigtown in Scotland. Halfway between Dumfries and Stranraer and that was on Ansons. Again, that was just generally getting used to flying over Britain. And then from AFU of course, straight on to OTU at Upper Heyford where we flew in Oxfords and we, more or less, we were [pause] our technique with Gee was a Gee fix every three minutes. DR after six. Six minutes. New course and again every three minutes. Every three minutes. And this was anything up to four hours. Which of course is the sort of navigation that we would be doing with the Mossies at night. And we also, we weren’t introduced to Loran until OTU and the snag there you see was the Gee would only be useful up to the Continent’s coast line. After that there was so much interference by the Germans. So much, what we called grass, that you couldn’t pick out the signal so we had to use LORAN which, curiously enough, they never did jam. It worked quite well and it worked out well over the Atlantic. Coastal command used it quite considerably. And as I say the last OTU trip we demolished a Mossie by going through the hedge and into trees on the way back with a single engine landing. Then, as I say, I’d only just started a tour before VE Day came. Just after VE Day the first thing we did were Cook’s Tours. We had two Mosquitos from each of the stations. 8 Group stations. Took off at one hour intervals during the day so that there was a route which went across northern Germany, the Ruhr valley then out more or less through the Danish border and back to home. And this was ostensibly to give us a picture of the damage which Bomber Command had done but if you bear in mind that these flights were every hour through daylight I reckon that the idea was a standing patrol just to tell the Germans we were still about. Now, at the risk of boring you here we were told that these Cook’s Tours would be a thousand feet. That’s a thousand feet above ground level obviously but George sort of took it upon himself to fly at a thousand feet. Now, the Ruhr valley is above sea level. About three hundred feet if I remember rightly. So, we were probably about seven hundred feet. Now, as I say the place was absolute rubble with steel structures. Just odd bits sticking up. Odd bits of concrete. Just like Hiroshima. And the Germans had bulldozed roads through this rubble so that they could get their troops. We were stooging along one of these roads. Sort of just ambling along at about a hundred and ninety knots. And we could see in the distance a chap ambling along with his stick and he heard us and he turned around. He recognised what we were and shook his stick at us. So, George said, ‘I’ll teach him a lesson.’ So, he sort of pulled up into a stalled turn and as he did he opened the bomb doors. Now on the B16 the bomb doors are big. Four thousand pound bomb size and from the front you can’t miss them. And this chappy, you could see, he sort of looked. Up went the stick and he was legging it down the road like mad, much to our amusement. Yeah. When it comes to low level flying though as I say our height was fifteen, twenty five feet. Clipping the grass almost. And on one occasion we were going across Wales, went down the valley and then up the other side. Big wide valley. Half way up this valley was a farmhouse and we were climbing up the slope and there was a woman pegging washing out. She obviously heard us and we could see her looking. Saw we were there and then she decided to look down and she could see us coming up and she legged it through this farmhouse. We could see her. And she ran out the other side as went over the top. Again, in those days our sense of humour was different to what it is now and as you probably [unclear] it was quite interesting. But fortunately for us — just after this 608 Squadron, the one we were on, was disbanded and we were posted to another 8 Group unit. 692 Squadron at Gransden Lodge which is just to the west of Cambridge and we, in actual fact, did one or two trips there and 692 was disbanded which meant that we were redundant aircrew. So we were sent first of all up to Blyton in Lincolnshire for re-selection board and I eventually finished up, although I’d opted for something different, on a flight mechanic engines course at Hereford. Credenhill. But there I learned all of the intricacies of the Merlin and the Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp engine. And having finished that course I was posted to 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham in Norfolk. Langham, now, I believe is famous for its glass factory there which I think is on the old airfield where I became the flight tractor driver. And that’s what I stayed until I was demobbed. Now, they [pause] I could have opted to sign on with the air force. Not necessarily guaranteeing that I would fly as a navigator again but there was a pretty good chance. But in those days you had to do twenty one years for a pension which would have taken me from the age of nineteen when I joined up to forty. But you were too old to fly at thirty two. Now, as you probably appreciate after being grounded you don’t know what sort of job you’re going to get. General dogsbody usually. And the thought of eight years as dogsbody to get a pension didn’t appeal to me so I came out and I eventually finished up at teacher training college where I spent five years with a secondary mod trying to teach maths and science. And at the end of five years — because in the period between school and joining the air force I’d become an electrical trainee at the local power station so I’d got quite a good working knowledge of turbines, pumps and all that. Generators and so on. A good mechanical background. I managed to get a job as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the local technical college on a one term temporary contract in 1954 and I was like old Bill in World War One. Unless you can find a better hole there’s no point in moving. And I eventually spent twenty eight years there and retired. Well, took voluntary redundancy in ‘82. And I’ve been a pensioner ever since. I think the Ministry of Education are busy making little plasticine models of me and sticking pins in because I’m quite expensive. Yeah. But that is that sad story of my life.
CB: Fascinating. Thank you very much. I suggest we have a break now.
RM: Yes.
CB: So, I’ll turn off.
[recording paused]
CB: So. Ken. We’ve just talked about Ken O’Dell being at Edith Weston near North Luffenham because he was also trained in America.
RM: Yeah. Now, if he was trained in America he wouldn’t necessarily be going to Grosse Ile because –
CB: He didn’t. No.
RM: He went under what was known as the Arnold Scheme and that would be usually around about Texas or somewhere like that. To one of the flying schools there with the American army and he would become an army pilot. Now, of course there would be some relevance there because the first part of their course would be for fighter aircraft. Fighter training. Single seat fighters. And this is probably where he went.
CB: Yes.
RM: Under the Arnold Scheme.
CB: His instructors were civilians.
RM: Yes. Yeah. And that did apply but not with the navy. The navy were all genuine navy types. For example, the chief petty officer who took charge of all the morning parades and what not — he had been in the American navy for eighteen years and he’d never seen the sea. Mind you, the Great Lakes, when it does get rough you do get thirty foot waves on it so it’s as good as the sea. And we can prove that because a group of us Fleet Air Arm and RAF types we hired one of these paddle steamers one Saturday night to go out on the lakes. You know, for an outing. This chief petty officer came with us. Now, admittedly it was a bit choppy but he spent all evening draped over the rail. Much to our delight. Much to our delight. Yes. Yes, he was not popular. The Americans for instance. The American navy have a very queer discipline which didn’t go with us. Very rigid. Whereas with the RAF you get a certain amount of latitude and humour. But not the Americans and for any minor misdemeanour the sort of punishment you got you went before the mast, you see and you were awarded this punishment. And that was known as square eating. Have you ever come across it?
Other: No.
RM: Ever heard of it?
Other: No.
CB: Never.
RM: Right. Now, at mealtimes because you were condemned to this you had to do a square eating. In other words [pause] that. That was square eating.
CB: So, lifting it up vertically and then pulling it, eating it horizontally.
RM: Yes. Horizontally. To eat.
CB: Into your mouth. With both knife and fork.
RM: Yes. Oh no. Usually with the fork because the Americans of course chop up their stuff.
CB: Of course. Yes.
RM: With a fork even. But if you did use the knife.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It had to be like. Now can you imagine anything more stupid? And that was the sort of typical sort of thing that you got. But the Americans, bless them, they weathered it so — good luck.
CB: Tell us about the accommodation. What did that they have?
RM: Oh, the accommodation was superb. These twin, these blocks that you see in the films. Two story blocks. Everything beautifully polished. Wood floors. The interesting thing is they had showers there and toilets. You had a single bed which was made up every morning. You know. Bullshit. And the interesting thing was the actual loos. Now, the loos were just like ordinary loos except there were no partitions [laughs] yeah. And we thought that strange. But they say you can get used to anything and it is so. Yeah.
CB: How many people? Were they, were you in dormitories?
RM: It was a dormitory. Yes. It would be about twenty — probably twenty four people. Twenty four cadets. Two sides. Twelves. Just like the dormitories you see on the films. The wartime films of the Americans. The American army of course were a bit more spartan than the navy. But everything was nice. The food though was good. Rather like the curate’s egg though. Good in parts. And you had very strange things like plum jelly with chopped celery in it and that would be a vegetable. Things like that. It was ingenious. Let’s put it that way. As I say, the discipline was very very good. If you heard the trumpet sound for the flag being lowered at the end of the day wherever you were and whatever you were doing you had to stand to attention, face the flag and salute whilst the trumpet blew. We did, in fact, there was one big navy battle that was conducted whilst I was there and I can’t for the life of me think what it was. I think it was Leyte Gulf but I’m not sure. On this particular occasion all flying stopped on this day. We were all assembled in one of the big hangars. All RAF. And five hundred of us all together. Fleet Air Arm types. All the officers there. The band. And the flags and banners and what not and we were given a very very stirring speech by the commanding officer on how good the American navy was and how brave they were and what a victory this had been. All this, that and the other. If you’d listened carefully at the back particularly with Royal Navy types, Fleet Air Arm types a series of raspberries. Yeah. Then having gone through all this marshall music we were all marched out again and continued. I remember that quite clearly.
CB: What time did you get up in the morning?
RM: Usually around about half six.
CB: And breakfast?
RM: Breakfast. Yes. You wandered over to the mess. That was one thing you didn’t parade for. You only paraded after breakfast. You know.
CB: Yeah. And what time did you go to breakfast?
RM: Usually around about half seven.
CB: And then you went for your parade. What time?
RM: About quarter past eight or so. From there disbursed to the actual flying field which — now this was quite interesting in actual fact. The main airfield at Grosse Ile didn’t have runways but it did have a huge circular patch of concrete about six hundred yards diameter so that you could land in any direction and you could land two or three aircraft side by side. Now, that was clear. All you had was hangars in the distance. And then beyond the hangars there was one vertical radio mast which was clearly visible. Now, that radio mast subtended a fraction of one degree from the field. So, you think nobody’s going to hit it. Wrong. Just before we got there some character flying solo. Chop. And the mast came down and hit the, fortunately the American seamen’s mess not the British mess and did grievous bodily damage to several of them. But nobody shed a tear from the British contingent for that. As you can gather I’m not terribly impressed with the Americans.
CB: Were the Americans training their people in similar numbers to yours or what was the situation?
RM: I don’t know what the navy situation was because this was the American navy base. And it was only RAF and Royal Navy.
CB: Oh was it? Training.
RM: Training.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. So, they must have had other bases. Probably in California and on the coast and so on. But we didn’t know anything about those and didn’t want to know anything about those.
CB: No. Tell us a bit more about these people who were first generation Americans. What sort of people were they and what was their attitude to the war?
RM: The one. My instructor and I only came across him really was a chappy who was a naturalised Dutchman with the rather curious name of Nieswander. Not spelt exactly as we’d pronounce it. N I E S W A N D E R. Now, he was, as a say, a naturalised Dutchman. First generation. And about six feet two, physique rather like a beanpole and of course like all of these other characters he had a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He was going to be a fighter pilot. Bugger this job sort of business. And he was, I suppose, fairly interested in teaching people to fly but you could sense and even it was expressed sort of rather obliquely to you by him that he wanted to go into the war zone but he was not allowed to.
CB: No.
RM: All of the pilots and this, of course, I think this also applied to the army pilots that they were not allowed to go into the warzone so they could either go on to training but curiously enough — transport. Cargo and all that sort of thing. And some of these cargo flights actually took them into the war zone. But they weren’t equipped with guns and what not so they couldn’t fight. Yeah.
CB: And what ranks were these people who were your instructors?
RM: Oh, practically all lieutenants. Junior grade.
CB: Right.
RM: Which would be equivalent to our POs. Pilot officers. Now, the interesting thing was there that in the RAF of course with commissioned and non-commissioned ranks you got upgrading in rank at given periods of time with aircrew and what not. Not so with the Americans. And I daresay that I was there, what, 1943. I daresay that in 1945 when the war finished he would still be a lieutenant. General. GJ. Lieutenant junior grade.
CB: And what rank were you at that time? An LAC were you?
RM: An LAC yes. Got, oh — Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where I got y brevet. The Wings Parade there. Now that was in July. And we were all drawn up. We’d finished our training satisfactorily and I was assigned the rank of sergeant. We did get about three or four commissions straight away but mostly sergeant rank. And we were drawn up 2.30 in the afternoon on the parade ground there at Charlottetown and we were addressed by the Governor General of Prince Edward Island after we’d been given our brevets. And this gentleman to us, at that time, we estimated his age at eighty. He was old anyway. He was quite short and apparently, he was deaf. His aide de camp was an army type, lieutenant, who stood about six feet two and this Governor General was making a speech which lasted in total about fifteen minutes. And in the speech, he congratulated us on being — becoming pilots with the Royal Air Force. Went on in this vein and his aide de camp, his aid, was nudging him. Almost to tell him. You know, we could see it happening but he ploughed on and at the end of it the aide de camp had a real chat with him. Now we were standing to attention. Blazing sun.
CB: July. Yes.
RM: And by this time our tunics were turning black with perspiration. And what does the silly old bugger do? Once he’d been told that we were navigators he went through exactly the same speech and substituted the word navigators.
CB: Yes.
RM: Now, if any of us had had a gun we’d have shot him. Without any doubt. He was definitely not the flavour of the month. I had, I have never ever been so hot because of course the Canadians had the lightweight summer gear. Khaki. Like the Americans. What did we have? Blue serge. We never had any and those blue serge uniforms were quite warm. Yeah. We could have shot him quite cheerfully.
CB: Yeah.
RM: But –
CB: Now the Canadians. Excuse me. I’m going to stop a mo.
[Recording paused]
CB: So, let’s just talk about the Canadians.
RM: The Canadians except for the French Canadians in Quebec were charming people. Now, as far as the Americans are concerned — individually very charming. We had individual hospitality through their USOs where you go and have a weekend with a family and so on. Superb hospitality. But when you get them in a group you’re on a different planet. Terry Thomas had the best description of a group of Americans. Remember his –?
Other: No. I remember him but not –
RM: Described an absolute shower. Yeah. And we found that afterwards actually when my first wife and I went across to the Continent in the early 60s. On the ferry we bumped into a bunch of Americans. Loud mouthed. Uncouth. But if you separated them they were quite charming to talk to. Now, the Canadians — much more reserved but just as genuine and I made quite a few friends there except at Charlottetown. Which — there’s a joke about Charlottetown actually which was very true at that time and the joke goes like — that in summer they raise potatoes and in winter children. Now, they still had prohibition there when we were there. That would be in late ’43, early ‘44. And apparently, prohibition stopped only perhaps twenty years ago so consequently the local inhabitants made their own alcoholic drinks by filtering off brasso and stuff like that or using rubbing alcohol. And the weekend before we got there. Two of the erks off the station because there were RAF aircrew there had purloined from the stores a quart of glycol, mixed it with orange juice and two of the local popsies and these two had a beano at the weekend. On the Monday morning the two popsies were dead, one of the erks was in sick quarters blind and the other one was rather non compos mentis. And both of them by the time we got there at the next weekend were on the boat home to Britain. That’s the sort of thing they got up to. As far as I can remember with Charlottetown you had large numbers of children who did the same sort of thing as a lot of the children you see where troops are concerned, and where the Americans are concerned. You know. Chocolates. They wanted chocolates and sweets or whatever and I was not impressed. Nothing would tempt me to go back there again even though it has changed apparently. The Maritimes, the western provinces, New Brunswick and so on — very sparsely populated and very uninterested. The only thing with them is trees, more trees and even more trees with roads, odd roads going through. Nah.
CB: Now when you were flying in Canada —
RM: Yeah.
CB: Were the instructors all Canadians? Were they British? What were they?
RM: A lot of them were RAF seconded over there. What happened, say take twin engine aircraft. You get the RAF sent over there — say to Estevan. He would do his course. The few people at the top of the course, the really high flyers would be retained.
CB: The creamies.
RM: As instructors and would do a full tour. Now, this has a bearing actually on George, my pilot and 8 Group. Now, all 8 Group Mossie pilots had to have at least a thousand hours on twin engines and the twin engines were mostly of course Oxfords which handled apparently rather like a Mossie. Either that or they were tour expired Lancasters. But you didn’t get anybody who just got his wings becoming a Mosquito pilot. Now that was just 8 Group. I don’t know what happened with 5 Group or 2 Group which were the other two groups that I remember being a part of Bomber Command. And it worked. It worked quite well. There were Canadian instructors obviously. RCAF. That is, if they hadn’t been posted to Britain which they were. I mean, they were coming over. When it comes to going over to Canada and the States I travelled on the Queen Elizabeth and it was like a mill pond and of course the Lizzie and the Mary were run by the Americans. They were handed over to the Americans and based at New York. And typically from New York they would come across to Glasgow — Greenock, with a division of American troops. Eighteen to twenty thousand troops on. They would unload them. They would then load returning Americans or returning Canadians and all RAF aircrew that were going for training. Royal Navy and so on. Roughly about five thousand at a time. And they would go to Halifax. At Halifax they would discharge and pick up a Canadian division. Bring those back and then you’d have aircrew that were going to the United States on the Arnold Scheme and people like that. Returning Americans going back to New York. And that’s how they did it. Now, going over there the actual mess deck had tables for twelve diners. Twelve people. And the cooks cooked in batches of twelve and you had, each day, one person went from the table to the mess. The cooks collected a tray say, of twelve steaks. Twelve chops. Now, when I say steaks — American steaks. Not British steaks which were postage stamp sized. But these were genuine. Genuine pork chops. Sausages. Those twelve helpings came to the table. Now, we got on to the QE in Greenock at midnight. The engines were running. There was a bit of vibration there. We sailed on the first tide which was about 6 o’clock in the morning. Just breaking day. We had to go to breakfast around about 7.30 again. And of course, we collected this tray. There were only four of us on the table. The other, sorry, six of us on the table. The other six were in their bunks seasick and we hadn’t even hit the Atlantic. Anyway, we got out onto the Atlantic and it was like a mill pond. There were six the first day, six missing the second day, four missing the third day. And we ate like lords. You know, God, we thought, you know, this is marvellous. We really ate. And these steaks and that were beautiful. Couldn’t grumble at that. And on the last morning they did manage to come down for breakfast before we disembarked. But one interesting thing. Each of us was given a job. The job that I was given was to go from the main stores with one of the American seamen to actually re-store or re-stock the canteens. Chocolate and so on. Which was quite a — not a very onerous job. Over and done with in an hour and that was it. But this American seaman I was with he said, ‘Have you got any currency you want changing?’ So I said, ‘Well, you’re not allowed to bring any currency out. Only ten pounds.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Supposing you got a bit more than that?’ He said, ‘Would you like it changed?’ He said. So I said, ‘Changed to what?’ He said, ‘Dollars. American.’ Now in 1939 the pound was worth four dollars American and four forty dollars.
CB: Canadian.
RM: To the Canadian. So you had this ten percent difference. So, I said, ‘Well, what’s your exchange rate?’ He said, ‘Well. For you it’ll be four dollars to the pound.’ So I said, ‘Well, it so happens,’ I said, ‘I’ve been a bit naughty. I’ve brought an extra tenner out. Twenty. I got twenty pounds changed into American dollars which, interestingly of course if you spent them in Canada which they were spendable — for ten dollars you’d pay the American ten dollars and get a dollar change. So, it worked out quite well. But the — I was talking to this seaman and I said, ‘We seem to be going at a fair old lick.’ I said, ‘What’s it doing?’ He said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t tell you.’ He said, ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’ So, I said, ‘Go on. Nobody’s listening.’ He said, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’re cruising at twenty nine knots.’ But one night I woke up. It was only about 2 o’clock in the morning and the boat, you could tell from the vibration that they’d definitely sort of upped the steam but when we went to breakfast we were back to the twenty nine knots. So, I said to this chap, I said, ‘What happened last night?’ ‘Nothing very much,’ he said. So I said, ‘Go on,’ ‘You’re pulling my leg,’ I said, ‘You were going a lot faster.’ I said, ‘What speed were you doing?’ He said, ‘Thirty four knots,’ he said, ‘There was a sub scare.’ Now, of course the two Queens were unescorted but imagine this. A six inch gun fore and aft on the bow and the stern. On the main deck — Bofors and three inch guns. On the deck above you had Oerlikon cannons.
CB: Twenty millimetre.
RM: Yeah. Twenty millimetre. And on the roof you actually had two rocket launchers. So, as far as aircraft were concerned which of course would be the main thing they would have given them a very rough time. And on the second day they tried the guns out, you know, just to make sure they were working. And they did them one side and then the other. A big rocket flare went up, parachute flare, and they all opened up on this and it was quite deafening. Except the big six inch guns. They didn’t. But everything else —
CB: How many days did it take to get over?
RM: Four days and eight hours. As I say we lived like lords. Coming back. We came back on one of the old Empress boats. It was the Empress of Japan but it had been re-named the Empress of Scotland for obviously patriotic reasons. That took six days and a half. And on that they only had two meals a day. Not three. Now, you can believe this or believe it not. Going out the canteen had run dry so there was nothing on the way back. The first morning, I forget exactly which way around it was but this was the sort of thing. We had smoked haddock for breakfast. The evening meal — wiener sausages. Then for a change wiener sausages for breakfast. Smoked haddock. And we had that for six days. There was no sweets. No fruit available. And we were not in a happy mood. And then when we got into Liverpool Bay the boat had to anchor there for twelve hours before we could dock. And we could see the shoreline. People moving about. There would be restaurants there. And there we were. Stuck. We were not a happy crew. Funnily enough when we came back we had a full customs inspection. And you were allowed two hundred cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch say, or a spirit and a bottle of wine. The chappy in front of me, customs bloke ‘cause we were all queuing up, customs said to the chap. ‘Any cigarettes?’ Expecting two hundreds. The chappy in front said, ‘Six hundred.’ The customs officer looked at him and he said, ‘Surely you mean two hundred?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got six hundred.’ ‘Oh. Well, that’ll bloody well cost you then.’ [laughs] I mean how thick can you get? Dear. Oh, it was. I must say that in spite of our, got one, two or three near squeaks I can look back on my war service and it’s quite interesting. Very varied. And I met some jolly nice people.
CB: How many of those did you keep in contact with after the war?
RM: I kept in contact with my pilot up to a time and then I lost contact with him. The chappy that I was at the Toronto manning depot with we split up but I traced him afterwards. After we’d become civilians. And found out that he’d actually joined the Toronto Metropolitan Police. Been with them for ten years and then he’d left there and joined the Pinkertons.
CB: Right. In America.
RM: Now, I always thought that the Pinkertons was a mythical organisation and I was put severely in my place when Gordon — eventually I went over there in ‘86 and stayed with him and his wife. When I said that I thought it was mythical he said, ‘We’re international,’ he said, ‘We’re interested, more or less in industrial espionage and things like that,’ he said. ‘We’re not interested in police work.’ So, I was really put in my place there. Yeah. And my pilot. He died. Had a heart attack around about 1982 if I remember rightly going on a fishing trip from Vancouver to Nanaimo. Vancouver Island. And he died on the ferry. Had a heart attack.
CB: Was he a Canadian?
RM: No. He was a Londoner. But he had gone across to the States — to Canada. Done his pilot training, become an instructor at Estevan and while he was there he met his wife who was the daughter of a newspaper owner in Langley which is just outside Vancouver. And of course as soon as he was demobbed he shot off to Canada because he got free passage there. Free ticket back home. Yeah.
CB: I’ll stop there for a bit. Thank you.
[recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re now re-starting after a short break and we’re with Dick Maywood and talking now about LMF.
RM: LMF. Lack of moral fibre which was a euphemistic way of referring to cowardice. It was not unknown with, particularly Bomber Command crews that some of them lost their nerve. In fact it’s a wonder that they didn’t all lost their nerves on heavies. Anyway, if they were accused and if they did succumb to lack of moral fibre they more or less had a courts martial and were almost certainly stripped of all rank.
CB: Physically.
RM: Yes. And –
CB: In front of — sorry go on –
RM: They were also treated to so many months in the Glasshouse which was at Sheffield. And everybody knew. All their crew knew of Sheffield and what it entailed. And fortunately, from my point of view I mean flying in the Mossie was safe. I mean not like the heavies. Because the chop rate even in 1944/45 on heavies was still quite considerable. But on Mossies I think it worked out, on 8 Group Mossies something like about half a percent. But one thing that did strike me with that ‘casue in the Mossie, being wood, low thermal conductivity. Radiators between the engines and the fuselage on both sides with air bleeds. Sealed cockpits. We flew in battle dress. No gloves. But we did have the escape boots just in case we had to escape. That was it. And we had our own sidearms. In my case a .38 revolver and it was only about three years ago it that it suddenly dawned on me. Twenty five thousand feet. If we had been hit and had had to bale out we would have been dead. Lack of oxygen and cold because, I mean, the outside air temperature was around about minus sixty. Minus seventy. And apparently about thirty six seconds of that and its good night nurse. It was a good job we didn’t think about that otherwise we might have gone LMF. But no, I have the utmost sympathy because one or two of my friends I know have had a very sticky patch. One I was with yesterday he is ex-Bomber Command Lanc and he was telling a friend that on one occasion they had a twenty millimetre shell, or, no, it couldn’t have been twenty millimetre. It must have been bigger than that. Go in to the Lanc and lodge in the ironmongery and not explode. And Dennis said that they sort of fished this thing out and dropped it out. And the chap who was talking to him and said, yeah, ‘Didn’t it explode then?’ And Dennis said words to the effect, ‘You’re rather stupid. If it had exploded I wouldn’t be here.’ How silly can people get? It’s, but it’s surprising really. When it comes to the old Mossie they talk about the wooden wonder. They’ve heard of the wooded wonder vaguely. No idea what it did really. Couldn’t be very interesting because it’s made of wood. And when you consider it was the first RAF multi role combat aircraft. You had your weather versions. You had the oboe versions. You had the PR Unit versions. Night fighter units. You had the Coastal Command Banff Wing which for a time had those Tsetse Mosquitoes with the 57 millimetre gun and I know one or two of the 247 Squadron even now who flew in those. And one in particular and he said that every time one of those guns went off you lost twenty knots airspeed with the recoil. But they didn’t last long because they found that a battery of eight rockets, sixty pound rockets was a better bet than the Tsetse gun. That was known as the Banff wing. There was 235 and 247 Squadrons in the Banff Wing. Anti-shipping. You had second TAF who flew fighter bombers. That’s guns, cannons and two bombs in each and that would probably be either on interdiction, road transport, railways and what not. You had the night intruders. Now, had the war had gone on longer it would have satisfied my sense of humour to get on night intruders. Because I loved the idea of sort of just dropping an odd bomb on the runway as they were about to land or shooting the buggers down. Pardon my broken English. Shooting them down. It would have appealed to my sense of humour but no. No. But there we are.
CB: So, you talked about flying at very low level.
RM: Yes.
CB: Tell to us a little more about that. I mean we’re talking about being low indeed.
RM: Yeah.
CB: However you look at it. And what about the excitement and the danger? Or the other way around.
RM: Well excitement. Yes. Particularly when we were doing low level bombing because I’d be prone in the bomb bay looking out the window. The Mark 14 bomb sight was useless because it was a high level job. And they hadn’t got a low level bombsight so it was all done with Mark 1 eyeballs. Now we had a bombing range out at Whittlesea. Well, just the other side of Whittlesea. And flying PPL I often had a scout around there to find out where the field was and I couldn’t find it but this was a big square field with the target in the centre. Now, literally to go we were flying over trees and down again. That was, we were sort of doing. The reason for it was quite simple. We were told the lower — you were going out to the Far East. A lot of jungle. Clearings. The lower you fly the less time you’ll be a target for ground gunners. So, the closer you can get to the treetops and the ground the safer you’ll be. And as I say, fortunately George was extremely good at low flying. Quite interesting actually. If we were bombing on east west run we’d come in low level and then at the end of the run we’d do a slow climb up to about fifteen hundred feet and then do a turn, reciprocal, back down to height again and bomb in the reverse direction and when we were on that run. On the east west run. Our turn to go reciprocal was always over Peterborough Town Bridge. It was super you know. Sort of down there. Yes. Home.
CB: Now, what about navigating when you’re — because your vista is very restricted when you’re flying low. So how did you deal with the navigation in that context?
RM: That was extremely difficult because as you say your range of vision is restricted so you have to absolutely do the correct thing. You look out and you see on the map where you are. The common mistake with map reading is to look at the map and say, ‘Oh that must be it,’ Because as you are probably well aware it is in actual fact, it’s very easy to do that. To convince yourself but I’ve been ferried over the last two or three years on what was known as Project Propeller. And I have, I’ve had a variety of pilots and I’ve flown as passenger with them and quite interestingly I am deadly against wind — so called wind turbines. And I cannot convince the BBC or the papers just what a waste of money they are. But these wind farms shown on air maps are extremely accurate.
CB: Are they?
RM: And they make bloody good landmarks because they actually show the arrangement of them.
CB: Oh right.
RM: So, you can see an arrangement and you can look at the map. Well we must be there. But of course in those days we didn’t. And again, you see, over the jungle as far as I can make out fortunately we were three weeks from going out to the east with the B35s.
CB: Oh.
RM: Which was the later version of the B16. We were within three weeks and VJ day came. Now I cannot stand hot humid weather. Whether it’s a throwback to the Wings Parade with the Governor General or not I do not know but I just cannot stand it and the thought of going out there. I would have been a grease spot.
CB: Yeah.
RM: A grease spot. Yeah.
CB: Just picking up on the navigation.
RM: But it would be with maps.
CB: Yes but —
RM: And dead reckoning.
CB: Yes. Well, I was going to say you use IPs. identification points. Would you put more of those in?
RM: Oh yes. You’d put them on the map because you’d probably, you’d be looking for them on the course. And as I say you take the ground on to the map not the map to the ground. Yeah.
CB: Now, going back to what you were talking about before we started taping you talked about the three mishaps that you had. So, what were they?
RM: Right. The first one was at Navigation School at Charlottetown and that was the fact that due to bad weather we missed the bad weather which was not forecast for the people who flew in our place. So, they got lost and I’m pretty sure that if we had flown on that night and we’d been given that Met forecast — winds light and variable which would take as zero for navigation purposes. It might have been a case of there but by the God go.
CB: Yes. You might also have vanished.
RM: Yes. Yes.
CB: Yeah. In the Great Lake.
RM: No. The Gulf of St Lawrence.
CB: Oh, in the Gulf of St Lawrence sorry. Ok. Next one.
RM: That was the first one.
CB: Ok.
RM: Then at OTU on the return trip from France where we had to land on one engine. They put us on the shortest runway with no wind and of course we vanished through the hedge with rather dire consequences to the Mossie. But — and then the third narrow squeak we had was of course the first time we took off with a four thousand pound live bomb and we got off ten knots slower than we should have done.
CB: Now, the Mossie could take four thousand pounds.
RM: Yes.
CB: But it was just in this particular case. What happened?
RM: Well, we, we — it took us longer to maintain, to achieve height than it should have done. Let’s put it that way. There was considerable chance that if the engines had even stuttered under those conditions on take-off we would have wiped out half of Downham Market.
CB: Was it because of the wind? You took off with the wind? Or what was it that caused it?
RM: Oh, we always took off in to wind.
CB: I know but in this particular case why was it?
RM: George didn’t say very much but I think the engines were not producing as much as he expected or the flaps were not right or something like that but I was too busy then actually during take-off. Getting all the charts ready and getting ready to —
CB: Where were you going that day?
RM: We were going to a place called Eggbeck which was one of the satellite airfields for Kiel. The Kiel Canal in Denmark. And it must have been the name of an airfield because I’ve looked and I’ve actually been in that area. Motored in that area for quite some distance and never found a place called Eggbeck. But it must have been one of the fields which was known as that. Yeah. And that was the one and only.
CB: Right.
RM: I’m afraid. Much to my annoyance. I was really savage when VE day came along, you know.
CB: Yeah. I imagine.
RM: I wanted to get my teeth into the Germans. But these things happen. But as I say afterwards we did the Cook’s Tour. We did quite a few what were known as Bullseyes. Have you come across those?
CB: Yes. Would you like to describe that?
RM: Yeah. Bullseyes were exactly the same conditions you would fly an actual operation. The only difference was at the target area e didn’t drop a bomb. We took a photograph to prove that we were there and we got there on time. Now, to give you an idea of the difference because as I say we had the Lancaster squadron. 635 Squadron at Downham Market and on bullseyes we both did the same route. Now, the Lancaster chaps would go in for their evening meal, would go to briefing and would be taking off as we were getting ready to go to the mess for our evening meal. Our evening meal, briefing, take off. Fly the same route. Be on target at the same time. On the way back we would land, be debriefed and would be having our breakfast when the Lancs were coming in. So two hour difference. Solely due to speed. But here I can give you something which is even more interesting. The American B17, the Flying Fortress. Nine crew. Fourteen guns. Four engines. Bomb load to Berlin four thousand pounds exactly. Out and return nine hours. Now, our Mossies on 608 Squadron, 692 and the other ones on the, what we called the Milk Run. The Berlin run. Out and return time four and a half hours. Now, admittedly with the American the B17s there was time taken up getting into formation and breaking formation on the way back but a lot of people don’t realise with the Americans in daylight, they couldn’t fly at night. They couldn’t navigate. They didn’t know how. They flew in daylight. Formation. Now, they carried a master navigator and a master bomber and I think usually two deputies just in case. They’re in formation. When the lead aircraft dropped his bombs they all dropped theirs. So, what they were doing in actual fact was carpet bombing. Admittedly they’d blanket the target. They would hit the target but that would be covering an area. Now, of course Bomber Command was specific on target markers. You bombed a target and all of the aircraft bombed that target. Not just one or two. So, as I say the American B17 crews were very brave. Much braver than I’d be, I think, under those circumstances to fly in daylight, level thirty thousand feet. Fighter fodder. No doubt. Yeah. Whereas the old Mossie. You couldn’t describe [pause] they did, the Germans did do us an honour. I think it was the Henschel 219 but I’m not sure where it was designed as a two engine night fighter specifically to counter Mosquitoes.
CB: Was it really?
RM: And that was the biggest compliment they could pay us. Then of course the jets came along and that was a different matter. They could sort of commit mayhem. But the interesting thing was that on the raid that we were doing on Eggbeck we were going out and near the target one of the aircraft called out, ‘Snappers,’ and that was the code name for the fact that 262s were about.
CB: Right.
RM: But nobody got lost that night. So –
CB: Messerschmitt 262 jets.
RM: Yeah.
CB: Yes.
RM: I mean they were serious opponents those. The 30 millimetre cannon for a start. I mean you don’t argue with those. Yeah.
CB: What was your operating speed?
RM: Our normal cruising airspeed out was around about two hundred and thirty knots. But that was indicated air speed. I mean at twenty five thousand feet the true airspeed would probably be somewhere in the region of three hundred knots which was covering the ground fairly well. If we went flat out the highest ground speed that I ever recorded was four hundred and ten miles an hours. And that was without trying.
CB: Now, what was the pattern of your operation? Because you were much faster than the Lancasters so you took off late but you had to be there first so how did you do that?
RM: Well the oboe aircraft had to be first. And then the Mosquitoes that carried additional marker bombs would be on target more or less at the same time and they would be listening to the oboe.
CB: Which was the master bomber.
RM: Or the ground. Master bomber. Advising them where to drop their new flares.
CB: Right.
RM: Whether they’d drop them short, long, east or west and so on to correct the error. And then of course by this time the main force Lancs and Mossies would be coming up on the scene but in a lot of cases with 8 Group the light night striking force actually operated on different targets. These targets were designed to be diversionary to lure night fighters away so that they didn’t know whether to go for the Lancs or us and in that case you’d probably get about anything from forty to fifty Mossies attacking quite a valuable target. Yeah.
CB: Now, you talked about twenty five thousand feet. Was that your normal operating height?
RM: Yes. That was normal.
CB: Or did it vary much?
RM: It didn’t vary much. Anything from twenty five — twenty eight thousand. The oboe Mossies, of course, they went up to thirty seven thousand feet.
CB: Oh did they. Right.
RM: Because of course the radio waves were line of sight and at that height they could just get the Ruhr. And of course, the Ruhr was the main complex of the German war industry and after, in ’43 onwards it was systematically demolished with oboe and and with precision bombing. Yeah. As I say the whole area was completely derelict. There was nothing there.
CB: What was your most abiding memory of your experience in the war?
RM: Well, it may sound silly to you but the thing which stuck in my throat more than anything was catching mumps. I mean it was so demeaning. Orchitis. Which, of course is the classic symptoms of that. It’s not pretty and it’s painful and to catch that at nineteen years of age. It was a chance complaint and that, that really stuck with me more than anything. Yes. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
CB: Yes.
RM: I suppose in a way what with that and the fact that I got washed off pilots case and the fact we hit bad weather at Nav School. With the time I lost. If it hadn’t been for that I might not be here.
CB: But you might have done all sorts of other things. Operationally.
RM: I might have finished up on heavies with a much heavier chop rate. Yeah.
CB: Just going back to the American training experience. In essence it was to train for flying boats so that –
RM: Yes.
CB: What aircraft did they have in that area working on the lake?
RM: They didn’t. The Grosse Ile was the aircraft carrier part of the navy.
CB: Ah right.
RM: And once they’d completed that you then went down to Pensacola.
CB: Right.
RM: And the Gulf of Florida and converted on to Catalinas.
CB: Right.
RM: Now the interesting thing is that for many years RAF — the RAF Museum at Cosford encapsulated my wartime flying experience very very neatly. They had Canso, which was a Canadian built Catalina because it had a retractable undercarriage whereas the Catalina didn’t. And alongside it was a Mossie B35 which, to all intents and purposes, apart from an astro dome was the same, exactly the same as our B16s. And these were side by side. Now, nobody knew about me there so it was purely chance but I gather now that last year that they actually split them up into two different hangars. Which is a shame.
CB: Changing the subject a bit —
RM: Yes.
CB: A Mosquito is very cramped inside. Or is it? For the navigator? And how did you operate?
RM: Well, I was a lot slimmer than I am now. The amount of room we had. My seat was about that wide. In front of me we had a dashboard with a dropdown table for the maps and what not on. We were actually sitting on the main spar and the pilot’s seat was just in front of the main spar. Now, just here —
CB: In front of you.
RM: In front of me and to the left hand side would be the console with the undercarriage and flaps.
CB: Throttles.
RM: And throttles. For the pilot. Right handed. In front of me, underneath the dashboard would be the opening which I would go through to get into the bomb bay.
CB: Go in legs first.
RM: No. Head first.
CB: Right.
RM: Yeah. Because you had to be facing the front. Yeah. You could only go in head first. There was no room to do a hundred and eighty.
CB: Yeah.
RM: It’s very cosy. The pilot –he had roughly the same amount of room and all the gubbins in front of him and to his left. We were both slimmer and we could both get in. Now, the B, the bomber versions — you went in underneath. It had a floor entry. Like the prototype in South Mimms Museum. The fighter bomber versions had a side exit or entry and that was just aft of the propellers. About nine to twelve inches behind the propellers and in the event of getting out you had to go in. Go out head first facing the rear to make sure you didn’t get mixed up and come out as mincemeat. Yeah. They had a ladder which stowed in the aircraft that you climbed up. You went in facing backwards and then turned around. The pilot went in first, of course to get into his seat. Now, he would have a seat type parachute. We had just the harness and we had the parachute stowed down by the right hand side so that if we had to get out we could just pick it up, clip it on and out.
CB: So, if you had to get out are you going to go out through the canopy or through the floor?
RM: Oh you didn’t go out through the canopy except as we did when we crash landed at [unclear] when it was stationary. If you went out through the canopy you had a jolly good chance of being chopped in half with the rudder. So, you always went out the escape hatch at the bottom. Yes. It would be a very foolhardy thing to go out the top. Yeah. That was quite interesting now you’ve come to mention it. When we were at Gransden Lodge we were doing, going up on an air test actually and we got up to about ten thousand feet and all of a sudden there was a hell of a bang and a lot of rubbish and what not flying about and George said, ‘Get ready to jump.’ So, I sort of put the parachute on and he said, ‘Oh.’ he said, ‘The aircraft seems to be flying all right,’ he said, ‘I thought the front had gone in.’ You know, the nose, with all the rubbish and what not. We were looking around. Couldn’t see anything wrong. And then we looked up and we found that the top hatch had blown off. And of course the vacuum, the sort of [unclear] effect too place all the rubbish in the bomb bay had come out and he said just said, just tried it and he said, ‘The chances are it’s probably altered the stalling speed a bit.’ So instead of carrying on with the climb he played about and found out exactly how the aircraft handled at a hundred and twenty knots which was the normal approach speed and he found it was probably about a hundred and thirty knots with the extra drag. And so, we aborted and came back and landed. There was quite a hullabaloo, you know. ‘How come you lost that hatch?’ Well, one of those things. Yeah. They didn’t charge us for it [laughs] 664B. I take it you know what 664B was.
CB: No. Tell us. Tell us for the tape.
RM: 664B action was to re-claim from your wages.
CB: Yeah.
RM: The money for whatever it was that you’d lost, stolen or strayed. Yeah. A lot of people for instance lost their wristwatches and went on 664B because you could get a Rolex for around about six pounds ten shillings. The Longines. I had actually had a Longines wristwatch. We were issued with watches. I don’t know whether you realise this or not but we had, were equipped with aircrew watches and we had to rate them and adjust them so that they lost no more or gained no more than two seconds a day. Now, that stems from the vital necessity of having exact time to the second when you’re doing astro shots. Because one second in time can mean about a quarter of a mile in position. And for instance Coastal Command types. The Catalinas and the old Flying Boats.
CB: The Sunderlands.
RM: The Sunderland. If they were returning and they had very poor radio signals. Very few Astra shots. And could not be absolutely certain of their landfall because of the astro shots and wrong time. A few seconds. I mean a quarter of a mile could mean the difference between getting into a fjord or a bay or hitting the land at the side of it. So it was vitally important that you got the time down to a second. It wouldn’t have mattered now because course cards. So accurate. But of course with the spring you actually had to adjust them. Now, the first watch I had we were equipped with these at navigation school at Charlottetown. The first one I had was a Waltham. An American which was quite well thought of. But I just could not get it closer than about five seconds no matter how I tried. And after two weeks they said, ‘Right. That’s no use.’ So, I took it back and got a Longines and within a week I’d got that sorted out and it worked quite well. And kept that right the way through and stupidly I handed that in when I was demobbed. Because as I said 664B I could have had it for six pounds fifty. Six pounds.
CB: Even in those days.
RM: Another thing. Another thing too which I bitterly resent or regret handing in was my sunglasses. Now, they were Ray-Ban. Green. They were superb for sun. want a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses now. Ninety quid. Ridiculous isn’t it? They would have cost about three pounds.
Other: Yeah.
RM: On 664B.
CB: You talked about astro shots. You talked about astro shots so where would you put the sextant. Could you hang it on the —?
RM: Yes, you hung it in the astro dome.
CB: Yeah.
RM: Now, you can turn this off because I’m going to be in trouble.
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 Dick Maywood
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-11-09
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMaywoodRM151109
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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02:21:54 audio recording
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
Scotland--Aberdeenshire
England--Leicestershire
Canada
Ontario
Ontario--Goderich
Alberta
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island--Charlottetown
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Ontario--Belleville
Temporal Coverage
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1944
1945
1945-05-08
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Description
An account of the resource
Dick was born in Peterborough and volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941. He was called up to Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1942. Dick went to No. 6 Initial Training Wing at Aberystwyth. He then went to RAF Desford, flying Tiger Moths and was selected for further pilot training. After Heaton Park, Dick volunteered for the flying boat course and flew on Stearman N254s at Grosse Isle in the United States. He returned to Canada, initially to Windsor where he was re-selected as a navigator air bomber. He was sent to Goderich and then Mountain View to the bombing and gunnery school on Mark 2 Ansons and the Bolingbroke. He gained his brevet at Navigation School in Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island.
Dick underwent intensive map training on his return and went to the Advanced Flying Unit in Wigtown on Ansons. He proceeded to the Operational Training Unit at RAF Upper Heyford on Oxfords, where he was introduced to Loran. He had just started a tour as a Mosquito Pathfinder navigator before VE Day. He describes the aircraft, Oboe, and the pattern of their operations. Dick participated in Cook’s Tours to the Ruhr Valley. He was in 608 Squadron but it was disbanded and so he was posted to 692 Squadron, another Group 8 unit, at RAF Gransden Lodge. This was also disbanded, and Dick was sent to RAF Blyton for a re-selection board where he was sent on a flight mechanic engines course at RAF Credenhill. He was posted to the 254 torpedo Beaufighter Squadron at Langham until he was demobilised.
608 Squadron
692 Squadron
8 Group
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
B-17
Beaufighter
Bolingbroke
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Gee
Initial Training Wing
Master Bomber
Me 262
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Oxford
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Banff
RAF Blyton
RAF Credenhill
RAF Desford
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Upper Heyford
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/770/9395/SDexterKI127249v10018.1.jpg
879016093af87f69d18f9ee3b21bbf14
Dublin Core
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Title
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Dexter, Keith Inger. Album
Description
An account of the resource
24 items. Contains newspaper articles and information about Keith and Shelia Dexter while at school. Includes a number of photographs of Keith Dexter's mother's home in Stradishall and of a memorial to men of F Division of the Metropolitan Police lost during 1939-45. Followed by documents from Squadron Leader A N Banks concerning the collision between a Halifax and a Mosquito at RAF Foulsham in a April 1944 with photographs as well as information on Foulsham and 192 Squadron. Finally photographs of Keith Dexter's medals, an escape map and compass and a photograph of a model train built by Keith Dexter with a certificate from the Model Engineering Exhibition 1933.
Publisher
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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.
Identifier
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Dexter, KI
Date
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2017-08-30
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[inserted] Annex ‘F’ [/inserted]
No. 192 SQUADRON
BADGE
In front of a flash of lightning an owl’s head affrontee
MOTTO
‘Dare to discover’
[missing letter]he Squadron was first formed at Gainsborough on 5 September, [missing number]917 to serve in a night training role from Newmarket where it [missing letter]mained until disbandment in December, 1918.
No. 192 re-formed at Gransden Lodge on 4 January, 1943 from [missing letter]o. 1474 Flight with Wellingtons and Mosquitoes. At first it was [missing letter]on-operational to re-equip with Halifaxes but on 26 January [missing letters]sumed operations. These consisted of exploratory flights over [missing letters]emy territory to identify enemy radars and establish the [missing letter]awelengths used. In February a detachment went to the Mediter[missing letter]nean for similar duties. By March the aircraft were flying along the [missing letter]orwegian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Danish coasts and inland [missing word] far as Berlin. In May a detachment went to work with Coastal [missing letter]ommand, operating over Biscay and the Western Approaches. By [missing letter]id-summer over 50 sorties a month were being flown of which [missing letters]ree aircraft were lost (all over Biscay).
In 1944 the Squadron began flying its sorties in co-operation with bomber raids over Germany but the main task was still to keep a check on advances in enemy radar so that the other 100 Group squadrons could use the information in their jamming sorties. In May, 1944 a detachment went to Ford and flew special sorties along the line of the North Downs during the nights of the invasion of France; sortie rate reached its peak in July, 1944 with 153 trips. In September two USAAF P-38 Lightnings were attached and flew twenty-one of the 196 sorties flown; in October the work was concentrated on locating signals for enemy missiles investigating [italics] Egon [/italics] during actual bombing raids, and [italics] Knickerbein [/italics] and [italics] Benito [/italics] radio guidance systems. The last Wellington operation was flown on 7 January but the intensity of operations continued until the end of April, 1945 when the collapse of the Reich brought 192 Squadron’s work to an end. It was disbanded at Foulsham on 22 August, 1945, being the basis of the newly-formed Central Signals Establishment.
On 15 July, 1951 it was re-formed as part of the Establishment at Watton for operational signals research and equipped with Lincolns, Canberras and Washingtons. It served actively in this role until 1958, being re-numbered 51 Squadron on 21 August.
Bases etc.
Formed from No. 1474 Flight at Gransden Lodge on 4 January, 1943.
Gransden Lodge – Jan 1943 – Apr 1943
Feltwell, det. Chivenor, Lossiemouth, Davidstow Moor – Apr 1943 – Nov 1943
Foulsham, det. Ford, Lossiemouth – Nov 1943 – Aug 1945
Disbanded at Fouilsham on 22 August, 1945. Re-formed at Watton on 15 July, 1951.
Watton – Jul 1951 – Aug 1958
Disbanded by re-numbering as No. 51 Squadron at Watton on 21 August, 1958.
Main Equipment
Vickers Wellington IC (Jan 1943 – Feb 1943)
N2772, DT:E; R1797; Z1162; AD590; AD600; HF837
Vickers Wellington III (Jan 1943 – 1943)
X3566
Vickers Wellington X (Jan 1943 – Jan 1945)
HE243, DT:K; HE380, DT:J; HE472, DT:P; HE826, DT:D; HE857, DT:F; HZ415, DT:A2; LN172, DT:J; LN398, DT:A; LN789, DT:C; LP156, DT:D; LP345, DT:G; NC704, DT:A
de Havilland Mosquito IV (Jan 1943 – Aug 1945)
[inserted symbol] DZ376, DT:M; DZ410, DT:K; DZ491, DT:N; DZ590, DT:I; DZ617, DT:O
Handley Page Halifax II (Jan 1943 – Jul 1943)
DT735; DT737
Handley Page Halifax V (Jul 1943 – Feb 1944)
DK244, DT:Q; DK246, DT:R; LL132, DT:Q
Handley Page Halifax III (Feb 1944 – Aug 1945)
LK780, DT:X; [underlined] LW613, DT:W; [/underlined] LW626, DT:V; MZ358, DT:F; MZ449, DT:Y; [underlined] MZ564, DT:X; MZ717 [/underlined], DT:O; MZ806, DT:R; MZ929, DT:X; NA242, DT:D; NP970, DT:T; NR187, DT:U
Lockheed P-38L Lightning (Sep 1944 – Mar 1945)
44-23156
de Havilland Mosquito XVI (Mar 1945 – Aug 1945)
NS776, DT:I; NS797, DT:N; NS816, DT:O; RF974, DT:J
Avro Lincoln B.2 ( 1952 – Aug 1958)
SS715, 53; SX980, 54; WD130, 61
Boeing Washington B.1 ( 1952 – 1954)
WZ966, 55; WZ967, 56; WZ968, 57
English Electric Canberra B.2 ( 1952 – Aug 1958)
Commanding Officers
W/Cdr C.D.V. Willis, DFC – Jan 1943 – Mar 1944
W/Cdr E.P.M. Fernbank, DFC – Mar 1944 – Jun 1944
W/Cdr D.W. Donaldson, DSO, DFC – Jun 1944 – Aug 1945
Aircraft Insignia
During World War II the Squadron’s aircraft carried the code letter combination ‘DT’ on its aircraft. During the fifties the Squadron’s aircraft carried no specific insignia.
[inserted] DZ376 Not listed here – probably being made of wood was written off. The Halifax could be repaired. [/inserted]
[inserted] DT.W is visible in photo 2 background. [/inserted]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
History of 192 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
History from formation on 5 September 1917 until 1958. Includes bases, aircraft and commanding officers.
Format
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One page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Identifier
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SDexterKI127249v10018
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
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
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
Steve Baldwin
Requires
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Workflow A completed
192 Squadron
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Gransden Lodge
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/762/10759/PCulpinBW1801.2.jpg
18b286b5059a4120880f8dec1f127797
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/762/10759/ACulpinBW180530.1.mp3
c2786922775bf14f781b46f36ac8ada9
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
Culpin, Bernard Walter
B W Culpin
Bob Culpin
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Squadron Leader Bernard Walter Culpin DSO, DFC (1921 - 2019, 155922 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a navigator with 405 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-05-30
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.
Identifier
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Culpin, BW
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
RP: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Rod Pickles, the interviewee is Bob Culpin. The interview is taking place at the home of Mr Culpin’s daughter in Devon, on the 30th of May 2018, also present is Heather Culpin. Well good afternoon Bob, and many thanks for inviting me for this interview, I’m delighted to be here. If we could start by giving me a little bit of your background, when and where you were born and what lead you to join the RAF?
BC: Right, I was at school in Yorkshire, a mining village called Swanton, (not many people know it) I took scholarship exam, passed that, went to secondary school. I was very young, only just under ten when I went so, I was one of the youngest in the form, about a year younger than the others. I never did have any writing lessons which was why my writings so awful these days, and went to the secondary school. My father was a railway driver, locomotive driver, he passed away when I was four years old. He was coming back from a shift on the railway, walking at night, on a Saturday evening. He was a very religious man, he used to preach in the local parish, not the parish church, the chapel, and we think he was mentally composing his sermon as he’s walking back, didn’t realise there was a train coming up behind and he hit him and broke his arm and various other injuries, he didn’t seem to badly hurt I gather, but he developed pneumonia and passed away in hospital a couple of weeks later. So, my mum had then had three children, myself, my brother was three years older, my sister was three years older than him. My sister was at secondary school at that time, or nearly there, my brother and I were at the local council school. He passed the scholarship, went to the secondary school, I followed and did the same, so three of us went to the same school. It had been a grammar school, they downgraded to secondary school, luckily, we had a headmaster who was grammar school inclined so he kept that sort of atmosphere going. So, we all enjoyed the school. Then the war loomed up later, when I was just about the leave the school, I was going to join a bank, but I’d taken a civil service exam and passed that so I switched to going to join the civil service. My sister meanwhile was teaching [unclear] and had married, my brother, being three years older was nineteen, he’d been called up before the war started and was one of the Z reserves, I think they called them, and I was still at school. No, sorry I’d left school, I was back in the civil service, in the civil service there. So, it came to the stage where gradually the men left the office where I was in and they were all- Nearly all the girls and me and a couple of old First World War veterans [unclear] and somebody else. [Unclear] was the sort of chap who used the say to the girls, ‘It was too big to throw itself on the parish,’ and he used to love frightening them talking about First World War and, ‘They don’t like it up ‘em,’ that sort of thing, you know, [chuckles], typical [unclear]. Anyway, it came to the stage where I was the only bloke and- No there was myself and one other, a youngster, and I decided to join the service, what did I want to do? I want to fly, everybody wanted to fly in those days. My brother meantime, was- Had finished his training and he went over to France for the first batch of people who went to France. So, I decided- I joined the air force, went down to the station to catch the train to Cardington because I’d had- On my medical I'd been train sick oddly enough, and the doc who was doing the medical interview said, ‘I’ll have to do an air test, is that alright?’, I said, ‘Yes, I don’t mind, I think I’ll enjoy it’. Anyway, I went down to Cardington, they gave a little ride in it- A little light aircraft and did loops and all sorts of things and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and when I went back, they said, ‘Right, you’re fit to fly.’
RP: So, what year was this then Bob, what year was?
BC: That would be 1942.
RP: Ok.
BC: No earlier than that. 1941, let me just have a look.
RP: 1941.
BC: So-
HC: Yep, January 1941.
RP: That would be 1941, ok. So, you’ve gone- You’re at Cardington, what happens next then?
BC: I was cleared to fly so I went back and eventually got my calling up papers. Went down to the station and met another young bloke who’d been in the same form with me before we joined the civil service, and he was going off to the same thing, so we travelled by train to ACRC in London, where we got fed in the Lords Cricket Ground and in the zoo [chuckles] all over the place in London, and eventually did IT (initial training) which was just marching and drill, getting uniforms and stuff. Finished that, and went to (that was initial training) OTU, where we learnt a little bit more about flying and aircraft recognition and that sort of stuff, and eventually went to a unit to select a crew, all turned up in a hanger and that’s where I met Ron. Must tell you, before the OTU, I did my training in America, I’d been selected to be a pilot. So, we went on the Arnold draft on the good ship Highland Princess. Mainly aircrew going across in a convoy to start with, we all had a job as lookouts or U-Boat searchers or looking for anything unusual. We had a nice calm day to start with and we got- About the second day out when we saw- Somebody identified as a Condor overhead a German ship. So, all the U-Boats in the [unclear] there sorting us out. So, whoever was in charge of the convoy took the decision that the Highland Princess, with one destroyer would leave the convoy and shoot off for America or Canada. So, we left the convoy and then we had rough weather the next day, the destroyer kept going out of sight, under the waves sort of thing. The Captain didn’t come and do his parade in the morning, he was too sick they said [laughs]. Anyway, that went on for a couple of days and then we got mid-Atlantic, got better and then we hit Fogo[?] off Newfoundland, and- So it took us about ten days altogether to cross the Atlantic. Anyway, we got off at Brunswick[?], New- Nova Scotia up there, took a train down to Toronto and there we were reselected sort of thing to various measured training units, they were just starting this, it was the Arnold draft, it was just that they were American teaching English pilots I think, and my destination was Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
RP: Gosh [both laugh]
BC: And I had a wonderful time there, the Americans didn’t quite know how to take it at first, and at Christmas we were annoyed because the- They’d had another little base alert [unclear], the Japs were coming sort of thing.
RP: Oh yes, yeah.
BC: And we were confined to barracks, we’d all got Christmas destination in Birmingham, Alabama, with families and they kept us in. So, after a few hours we thought, ‘No,’ and we quietly dispersed and went to our Christmas place. When we came back, some of them came back a bit early and they got American civil service[?] guarding us then, guarding the camp, and when they got back there was a [unclear] fight immediately, the Americans rushed in with guns [unclear], and eventually [unclear], and left us alone but one chap has been fired upon the boundary, or fired towards we never knew what- I don’t think they fired at him but he always said, ‘Yeah, they tried to shoot me’ [laughs].
RP: Well, it’s a good story isn’t it.
BC: Yeah. Anyway, when we’d- Christmas over, we started our flying on Stearmans, a heavy version of the Tiger Moth but much heavier, and we started with American civil instructors. We had all our air flight [unclear] with us, and the American instructors each had about three students on average, some two, some three. Mine had three and he wasn’t bloke I liked at all which was a pity, and he didn’t like me very much. He was shocked that people could be learning to fly when they couldn’t even drive a car, never mind, he couldn’t even ride a bike and never driven a car and they tried to teach him to fly fighters, and instead of taking the view that we’re just teaching them to fly, so he decided I was landing too near the fence, a bit too low, I was always skimming the fence by the hut you see, but he didn’t- He wanted more than this, on a [unclear] and eventually he put me up for suspension and I was sculpt[?] by the senior instructor. Oh no, before I was sculpt[?], I was passed to another instructor, he’d already sculpted[?] his three, so I was his fourth and he didn’t keep me long before he put me up for suspension, so they got rid of me, and- I went on the train back to Moncton, to Canada, lovely East Coast train, I think [unclear] stopping off at little towns and getting out, having a meal, getting back on the train, it was a lovely outing. Up to Moncton, and in the order room, three of us had got together and we learnt there’s a navigation course in Miami, and we thought that’s better than going home having done nothing, having been to America. So, we nipped down to the order room and said, ‘Is there a navigation course in Miami?’ said, ‘Yeah, they’re going to start one up, it’s not started yet, they’ll be going down soon’. I said, ‘Anymore vacancies?’ and, ‘Oh no, no I don’t think so’. Anyway, the other two piped up and said, ‘Oh yeah, you can fit us in in time, just pop the names on the train,’ and so he said, ‘Yes, alright’. So, he put the tree of us on it and we all went down to Miami, and we were training in the university there, which was a wonderful atmosphere, not like a British university in those days. The lecturers were very informal, one of them took us [unclear] through the grounds one morning, and the girls were saying ‘Hi Reg, hi [unclear]’ to the senior supervisor, which wouldn’t in a British university in those days, it might now. Anyway, flying training was on Commodore, which was the prototype Catalina
RP: Oh yeah.
BC: So, we had to get on a little boat to go out to the things and when we came back, we landed on the water with a splash, and it was lovely, we enjoyed it, and we got to know a very good family there, who entertained us, they had a house on the beach. She called herself Lady Merrio[?] and she got a title from somewhere, Spanish I think, but she also had marvellous soirée’s, and the three of us used to go along. One bloke who- Paddy who could play the piano and she used to get people down from New York to sing. Lovely stuff and weekends we’d spend there, there was a queue of cars always outside university on a Friday evening to take kids around all over the place. Anyway, finally finished the course [unclear] you weren’t commissioned or anything, [unclear] can have flying badges, they hadn’t. But went back from there, eventually Moncton and back to the UK and that’s when we went to Bobbington, which was a- Well a familiarisation place ‘cause we’d been flying in blue sky all the time. So, we had some flying at night in bad weather just to get used to, then we went OTU, to sort the crews out and as I say we joined- I mated up with Ron Mill, Ron, the New Zealander, he’d seen Harry Young the only engineering pilot on this [unclear] OTU, so we joined him. Then I’d had a chat with one of the wireless ops, he was a Welshman, Danny Langley, so we found him and he joined us. We went to see Harry Gowan and- Who else was there? Anyway, we went to see Harry Gowan and he was quite happy, he liked this mixed bunch he’d got in front of him, so we joined up with him and so we just went off and registered and they put us as a crew together. So, it was a New Zealander, a Canadian pilot, a Yorkshire navigator- Oh the rear gunner, they joined us later, the gunners. Anyway, this was at OTU and we were- While we were there, about a couple of weeks, they lost a lot of the instructors because we had one the thousand-bomber raids, quite a few of their instructors were lost on these. We were meantime, going to the local pub and we found out there that Ron- Freddie Mace[?] was the other, the rear gunner, he was a cockney, and we found out that he was a News of the World darts champion and Danny Langley was also a good darts player, and we found that they locals were taking the Americans who were billeted there for a ride by saying, ‘Oh let's play for a barrel of beer,’ or ‘Let’s play for a round’, and so Danny and Freddie Mace, his name was [unclear] though we always called him Freddie. Danny and Freddie decided they’d get a bit of revenge for the Americans, so they went and played a board very badly, well not too badly, and then did another one and managed to lose that between them, and one of the locals suggested they play- We play for pints and Danny Langley said, ‘No let’s play for a round for the whole pub,’ and, ‘Oh sure,’ and they then just played for, sixty, hundred-and-twenty, oh it was marvellous to watch and the faces of the locals fell [chuckles] and they bought the round for the whole lot, but we’d done our little bit for the Americans there [chuckles].
RP: Did they ever find out he was a darts champion?
BC: I don’t think so ‘cause we weren’t there very long, but it was only the local News of The World champion and- But it was quite a fair feet.
RP: Well yes.
BC: Anyway- OTU we left there, were posted to a heavy con unit, yes to a- Oh, went to Wellingtons first, we’d been flying Wellingtons at the OTU and then we went to Halifaxes and- At the con unit which we converted to four engine bombers. That’s where we picked up our engineer who was a Canadian, who’d been everything, a [unclear], garage attendant-
RP: Gosh.
BC: But he knew all about engines.
RP: Which is the main thing [chuckles]
BC: Great thing, yeah, and that’s where we picked up a-
RP: So, from the OTU, what was your first actual RAF station that you- When you flew your first sortie?
BC: Yes, after we [unclear] done the conversion unit, we were posted 405 Squadron.
RP: Right
BC: And that was [unclear] from 6 Group. So, we went up there and we learnt almost straight away that instead of being in bomber command, the squadron was going to detach to coastal command to cover the Bay of Biscay patrols and the Atlantic patrols, while coastal command was looking after the North Africa landings.
RP: Right [chuckles].
BC: So, we had a change of scenery and we went and joined- We were posted out of Beaulieu in the-
RP: Oh right, was that in the Halifax?
BC: In the Halifax, yes, yeah.
RP: Ok.
BC: And we did these sorties, they were quite long sorties, eight hours and ten hours some of them, at low level because you couldn’t do a sub patrol without being low. I suppose hundred feet, something like that. Navigating was difficult because we’d got no navigation aids, they [unclear] just flew in lanes, good old-fashioned minus method of flying in the wind, the wind drift and the direction of the white chaps[?]. I forget the system but if you worked out what the local wind was at low level, and it was always great when after eight or ten hours we came back and hit Bishop Rock[?] lighthouse right on the nose, you think, ‘Oh it wasn’t bad’ [chuckles].
RP: That’s very good.
BC: And we never had any excitement. Oh, just one occasion when Ron Mill would say, ‘Oh, hi, bomb doors open,’ and opened bomb doors, I say, ‘Well there’s a convoy just ahead.’ But luckily this- The convoy started firing the colours of the day, on our colours of the day, not the Germans. So, Ron said, ‘Oh, close bomb doors’ [chuckles] and meantime the destroyers on the convoy were coming nearer to get a better shot at us. So, we head off as fast as we could. We later did a wee check, and the convoy shouldn’t of been where it was, it wasn’t our fault that we didn’t know about this convoy, it was only a small convoy but, several destroyers with some ships. Anyway, all the time we were there, I think the crews- We only had submarine attack that wasn’t very successful it [unclear] and then we were back in 6 Group again. So, we went up to Topcliffe and Leeming. They couldn’t decide which one we wanted to be at so some aircraft at Topcliffe, some at Leeming and some down at Beaulieu. My twenty-first birthday was down at Beaulieu in a mud hut with- When we first went down, an empty landscape, mud and a little sergeant’s mess, we went and got a little thing of beer, carried it through the hut and that was my-
RP: That was your twenty-first birthday.
BC: Twenty-first birthday.
RP: Oh dear [both laugh].
BC: Anyway, when we were back at Topcliffe, they finally decided that this was going to be the 6 Group squadron that was going to join the pathfinders. So, before we did any flying, we knew we were going to move again, and eventually we did move to Gransden Lodge, near Cambridge and we started flying from there.
RP: So, your first op from Gransden Lodge was what date then, Bob?
BC: Well on the 27th of April 1943, and its ops on Duisburg, and it was a good one for us to train in because we got coned by searchlights on the first run, and we didn’t- We never saw or got near searchlights before, never been cordoned by them. My little office was all lit up bright, and Harry Gowan, we called him Harry Ousley[?] but, Harry said, ‘What the hell do I do?’ and luckily the flight engineer said, ‘Kick the ruddy nose down Harry,’ [chuckles] which Harry duly did, and we eventually emerged from this searchlight cone, but of course taking a nosedive, everything on my table got airborne, I got airborne, pencils and things, catalogue on the floor, I thought, ‘Christ.’ [chuckles]
RP: Making it a steep dive, was he?
BC: And, everything, I hit the roof in the head.
RP: Really?
BC: Yep, anyway that was good training we thought-
RP: Didn’t know what to do next?
BC: Get out of it quickly before the get you-
RP: I think that was the secret wasn’t it? To get out of it quickly?
BC: Yep, and then we did- Oh we, in that process we got several holes, fifty-three holes, our ground crew always loved counting how many flak holes we got, or [unclear].
RP: Dear, fifty-three?
BC: Fifty-three on that-
RP: And this was on Halifax, yes?
BC: Yeah, the bomb that- Fourteen-thousand, or eight-thousand instead of eighteen-thousand, once we got down, we couldn’t get back up again.
RP: Oh right [chuckles].
BC: Then we did a series of Essen ones, Dortmund and Bochum, lots of searchlights, only one hole at Dortmund. Duisburg that was only our third op, so we were still beginners really. We had at tragedy, our bomb aimer Ron, couldn’t for some reason be with us, we got another bomb aimer who was new on the squadron, and soon after we left the British coast, he started saying he didn’t feel well. Anyway eventually, we couldn’t get a reply from him, then I went down to have a look at him, I thought his oxygen mask must be loose, but he was out cold, unconscious and I tried to get him to come round. So, I told Harry, I said, ‘Look, this chap,’ (I didn’t even know his name then) ‘is unconscious, I think it’s probably a sort of fear thing that he’s got but I can’t get him round, what to do?’ Well, we’d only just left the English coast, long way to go to the target, long way back again, he’ll be dead by the time we get back if we don’t do anything. So, I said, ‘I think, and the CO won’t like it, but I think we take him back’. So, we turned round and brought him back, and we did get a [unclear] but, said, ‘Yeah, it was the right thing to do really,’ because you couldn’t take him there and back again, and we hadn’t-
RP: Did he survive?
BC: We were only a straight-forward bomber, weren’t doing pathfinder stuff then.
RP: Did the chap survive?
BC: Oh yes, well he was sent straight back to 6 Group and back to Canada.
RP: Oh right.
BC: So, we never did know any more about him. Then bottom searchlights, Dortmund, little opposition, started being PFF backers-up then. Backers-up went in with the early markers so they weren’t alone and we went-
RP: So, being part of the pathfinders group, you weren’t actually- You were behind the people doing the marking? You did the bombing?
BC: No, yeah, at this stage we were- Somewhere in this is a period where we didn’t do any ops for a week or two, and we did pathfinder training, marking and that sort of thing, and we quickly became- Initially you became backers-up, you went in early with the first markers.
RP: Oh right.
BC: Then later on you’d be backing up any other new markers if they want a visual resetting. So that went on, and we quickly became professional as the- Oh visual markers, Harry Gowan- Ron who was an excellent bomb aimer said to him on one occasion, it was on a Berlin flight, bit later than this, when we were doing the running to the target, and Ron was doing his normal, ‘Left, left, left two degrees, steady, bomb doors open, left, steady, oh, gee Harry I'm sorry we’ve overshot’ [laughs].
RP: So, you have to go all the way around again?
BC: We had to go-
RP: Oh dear
BC: And it was twenty minutes later we, we bombed the second time.
RP: Was it cloudy or something or did he just miss it?
BC: It just- Well it was smoky down below and he just missed it, misty and smoky.
RP: Oh dear.
BC: And somehow, he just missed it.
RP: Yeah [chuckles].
BC: Anyway, we went on to do, [unclear], Cologne, Aachen, then Hamburg, this was in July ‘43, we did the four ops on Hamburg, it was on the 24th of July, 22nd of August-
RP: And this was still in the Halifax then, yeah, you’re still flying the Halifax?
BC: I’ve turned over two pages, yeah, still flying the Halifax on the 24th of July, on the 27th of July, on the 29th of July. But on the first of these, the night- A couple of nights before we’d done Aachen, we got holes in the main plane and the bomb bay. That was a scary one, because the piece of flak- I was sort of sitting doing my charts here, Ron was sitting there with the radar- I’m just thinking of that, I’ll tell you what Ron’s habit used to be. As we took off, Ron and I would be at my table and Ron, New Zealander, would always turn round to me and say, with his mic off say, ‘Hello [emphasis] death,’ and eventually I joined him. We both did this ritual, habit it were, until one day [laughing] when Ron left his mic on and the rest of the crew heard ‘Hello death’ which didn’t please them at all [chuckles]. Anyway, we stopped it when- On the first Hamburg trip, Mac the mid-upper gunner, the French-Canadian got a piece of flak in his stomach, and Danny had to look after him. He wouldn’t have any morphine, he was taken to hospital as soon as we landed, but he died eight days later. So, we stopped that ritual then, it hadn’t worked sort of thing.
RP: So you got another crew member coming in then?
BC: Yeah, and it was a pity because Mac was a lovely, contrast to Ron, Ron who was a quiet New Zealander, whereas Mac was a noisy French-Canadian, and Mac was very loyal, he was always very loyal, he was a royalist, royal family couldn’t do wrong. Mac used to, being French, used to take the micky out of Ron and his royalty, ‘Who elected them then?’ [laughs]. They used to fight, but they always went on leave together and I used to join them, so we used to go down to London for the weekend very often, and once we had a stand there, and where’d I got to with- Yeah, the first of those Hamburg trips we were badly holed. The second Hamburg trip the port outer engine caught fire, it was feathered over the target. The third trip we were coned on the first run in and had a couple of wee holes in the aircraft from flak, and on the last Hamburg trip, which was only a few days later, a thunderstorm iced up, was losing height, couldn’t make the height, and eventually had to jettison before the target, otherwise we wouldn’t of stayed above ground. So, that was the fourth Hamburg, Hamburg wasn’t a good place for us. Then we went on a longer distance, [unclear] and then eventually Peenemünde where we had an interesting role, the way they shifted the aiming point from the first group aircraft, first few-hundred aircraft, the second few-hundred and the third few-hundred, up the side of this- Well then, where the sea started, on the coast, and all the buildings were that way, and the earliest ones should’ve got the west attack from the first lot, then we came in as recentres and by using a false setting on the bomb site, they’d worked out that it was above aiming point just enough to get the next lot of serious buildings, and then after that there was another five, ten minutes, whatever, and another set of recentres would come in and they’d do the same and have a third aiming point. As it worked out, we could tell from the photograph it worked out not badly, but unfortunately the very first flock on the first target before any recentrering or anything came in was- Had taken the data of wrong H2S point, so that was out and the other west wing [unclear] saw the bombs going in the sea.
RP: Oh dear, they missed.
BC: So, as we had to take the centre of the next lot, whatever we did was tenfold a bit, wouldn’t saw it wasn’t too fierce but it did mean we killed a lot of civilian workers instead of German technicians and we missed some of the main development plants. But on the whole it was quite a-
RP: So, were you still flying the Halifax then?
BC: Yes, I think so, yes Halifax
RP: How soon before you took on the Lancaster then? Did you change to Lancasters that year?
BC: Halifax on the 17th August Peenemünde 27th of August, 22nd of August, Lancaster.
RP: Oh, so did you not go for any further training on the Lancaster then?
BC: We had a couple of days.
RP: Just a couple of days [chuckles]
BC: We went out as a crew, and Harry got his handbook out, read all about it, we did, I think it was-
RP: So, didn’t go away to an OCU for Lancasters then?
BC: No.
RP: Goodness me.
BC: No, we just straight into them.
RP: Gosh.
BC: It was a Halifax on the 22nd of August, on the same day we flew a Lancaster, and then the next day we did Lancaster to Berlin, and it was Lancasters from then on. So, we only had a couple of days to get used to the Lancaster, but it was so much better. Just reverting, if I may?
RP: Yes certainly.
BC: What I was talking about being air sick on the thing at the beginning of my training. When I first- We first started flying ops, the instruction was to barrel roll all the way to the target, doing that. That made me as sick as a pig, and the ground force left a little bunch of sick bags on my nav table-
RP: You had a reputation then [chuckles]?
BC: Yeah, and I couldn’t help it, but it made it messy, you tried to be sick and tried to work out-
RP: I can imagine.
BC: But anyway once we were pathfinders, qualified medic said, ‘Don’t muck around with this [unclear] straight to the target.’
RP: Straight there, yeah.
BC: ‘Or straight to the training point, straight back, fast as you can,’ and I was not air sick seriously after that at all.
RP: So, if you’re flying straight and level, no problem.
BC: I was alright, it was when we were barrel rolling that my stomach didn’t have a hold of its own, but luckily that didn’t last too long, and as we were pathfinders most of the time, it was alright.
RP: So were you with the pathfinders from then till the end of the war, was that your last-
BC: I was with the same squadron, yeah.
RP: Same squadron, ok.
BC: Anyway, we went on [unclear]. There was only one- I did quite a few, sixteen Berlin trips-
RP: Gosh.
BC: - and they were long ones.
RP: Was that the longest trip was it? Berlin?
BC: Yeah, seven and eight hours forty, eight hours forty, seven fifteen, eight forty, six fifteen, quite long trips.
RP: That’s a long trip
BC: There was only once in the whole time I flew with Harry Gowan that we came- Nearly came to blows or, cross purposes. We were coming back from bombing Berlin, having always thought it was, and the H2S wasn’t working, Ron couldn’t get anything out of it, and I was coming back on after [unclear] gave me latitude line and [unclear] from the probable air speed, I can work out a probable position, and I just had this feeling we’re getting a bit north of that[?] although the flight shots[?] were putting us more that, but it was only minus, I wasn’t too worried about it then. Suddenly, out of the blue Harry piped up the, ‘Look there’s a searchlight ahead, I’m going to alter course,’ I said, ‘Which way?’ he said, ‘Left,’ I said, ‘No, I think we’re all right here, the searchlight will be heading straight forward if we keep going.’ And then Ron gave me a nudge and said, ‘Look,’ and he’d got a picture and it showed that there was a big built-up area right ahead, a city. So, I said, ‘Harry, you can’t alter course that way, stay as you are and you’ll be all right,’ said, ‘No, no I’m not going into that searchlight,’ I said, ‘Well it’s only one, there’ll be a lot more if we turn and go into.’ He said, ‘No, I'm going to miss this one,’ I said, ‘Right Harry,’ I didn’t know what to say, I said, ‘Look there’s, just had a picture this big city, you’ll be a lot more safe coming up soon,’ and he said, ‘Well, there’s another one I can see now as well,’ I said, ‘Yeah there will be, they’ll be a lot more soon.’ ‘Well, no it’s clear down to the left,’ so I said, ‘Ok Harry, you take over the navigation, I'm just nipping back to get my parachute’ [chuckles] and that made him think I was a bit serious, and Ron then piped out ‘I’ve got it again look, Harry you’re heading for another great city.’ ‘Oh,’ and he was quite for a bit and said, ‘Which way do you want me to go?’. [Unclear] I had a heading that took us clear, this- Quite a drastic one, you know a right angle, and luckily at that time the city started opening up in searchlights, so Harry could see on his right searchlights opening up and we were heading away from them now. That was awfully poor, and we took a day or two to get over that one because it’s the first time he’d queried our advice from the office
RP: So, what, do you know what the city was? What city it was, did you know?
BC: I don’t remember, I often wonder, I must get my log book out and work it out.
RP: Ok, so, one thing while you were obviously being posted around, what rank were you by the time you got to Lancs? What rank was-
BC: At this stage- Harry’s was amazing, I’ll just tell you his. Yeah, the squadron lost most of its senior staff on one of the raids, and as a result Harry Gowan became a flight commander, he was a sergeant in December ‘42. Still sergeant in December, yep, this is where it gets interesting. A sergeant in March ‘43, a pilot officer in May ‘43. Pilot officer continued all through that time, and that’s where the squadron lost a lot of crews, in October ‘43 Harry was a pilot officer, 7th of October flight lieutenant.
RP: Oh right.
BC: By November he was a squadron leader.
RP: Gosh, what about yourself?
BC: Myself, I- I was commissioned sometime after Harry, and then the Canadians had a policy that all their crew should be commissioned, so gradually- I was next after Harry and I became- It’s a long story, I’d been nav leader when I first- When we first lost this group of senior men, including the nav officer, and I'd been nav leader as an Englishman, but the Canadians in 6 Group, the [unclear] at 6 Group decided that it’s time the Canadian’s had Canadian squadron commanders, Canadian flight commanders and Canadian section leaders, because until then all the wheels had been English, and this edict came down, so I had to hand over as nav leader to Glen Ode[?] who was the CO’s navigator. But we, between ourselves sorted out that we don’t need to be on ops the same night, let’s take it in turns reasonably, you be the main one, but I can take over some of the nights and do some of the briefings, and some of the [unclear]. ‘Cause the navigators job was busy and then you have an op, you got the- According to the op, you eventually found out where the target was, what the route was, what the timing was, so then I had to sit down and work out a flight plan on the best available wind, which would give a time of start, we allowed about five ten minutes to make up time in case the wind was adverse, and work out a flight plan, from that the squadron commander could work out start up time, taxi time, take off time, that sort of thing, and all of this of course flying meals, the time of those. So it meant I was busy straight away, as soon as we knew what the target was and what the timing was, oh and the route, that came from Group as well. So, it took you a bit and if you’d- Yourself, you had your own log to do, flight plan as well as this one for the whole squadron, and then at the end of it you might have interrogation to do, find out how things had gone and that sort of thing. So, it was quite a busy time as nav leader, so Glen Ode[?] and myself decided that we’d split this a bit between us. I stayed on the squadron, by then my pilot had gone, by then Millwood[?] was nearly going, he was the wing commander who’d come down from 6 Group to take my pilot’s, Harry Gowan’s place. He had one of the most exciting moments there, you were always getting fighter types, we had I think three that were all in Milwoods[?] time, I’ve got the paperwork on them here somewhere, and on one night we came back and he was groaning about being in pain, stomach pain, and I said, ‘Not been hit by anything?’, ‘No, no, no it’s just indigestion sort of pain.’ And when we got back to base, we started landed, he was saying to the engineer, I don’t know what the engineer history was, ‘Come and help me push this stick down, I can’t get it down.’ So, this engineer was helping him push the stick forward, we landed, bit of a bump, landed, and only then the engineer said, ‘You’ve still got the George in,’ the artificial automatic pilot, and he’d still got the automatic pilot on, that was trying to keep everything level, he was trying to push it down. So, lucky we got away with that because usually that leads to trouble. Anyway, he’d got appendicitis and he was at hospital for a week after that.
RP: Yeah, so we’ll go back to- What rank were you at this time then?
BC: I was, no idea here-
HC: You could say that story about how you got promoted when you were in the pub?
BC: What?
HC: That story about when he got promoted from being in the pub, when you were having whisky?
BC: Oh yeah, I've mentioned that slightly, shall we do that in full?
HC: Yeah
BC: Oh, yeah, when I’d said that they’d lost a lot on one of the wheels, we’d been- We’d had our thing, we were having our six weeks leave and it was due to start on the Saturday. On the Friday, quite late in the morning, we had a squadron stand down, so as always happened we decided that’s it, leave starts. It was normal practice if you were stood down for the day. So, we went off, usually, Ron, Mill (New Zealander), Mac the mid-upper who died, and myself would got to London. Danny Langley had a wife in London, he would either go there or he and his very understanding wife, had an arrangement that he had a girlfriend up near Gransden, yet she didn’t mind if he went to see because this girlfriend's husband was in hospital with, used to be a dangerous disease but it’s gone now, anyway he was dying, and so Danny Langley’s wife didn’t mind him going and comforting her if they were stood down. Just on one occasion, Danny had gone, not on this occasion, on the one occasion he’d go before time and he’d been sent to the- It was like a prison almost, detention centre for a week, just to get his- Stop him leaving early and that sort of thing. Anyway, on this occasion we decided we’d all go on leave, so Danny went off to see his girlfriend, Harry Gowan who was very religious, had a girlfriend in Wales, and he [unclear] girlfriend, a very nice girl, so he went off to see her, and the three of us would head to Cambridge, have a drink and go and get a train to London. So, we went to Cambridge, a little pub, the landlady came out, it was nearly closing time then, landlady came out and said, ‘Oh boys I've got a lovely scotch liqueur, scotch, beautiful, come look in the back room and have a drink.’ So, we went back with her, she had this little tub of a liqueur, it was a scotch [unclear], I think that’s what it was, it was beautiful, smooth, lovely. So, we had several of these, and then we thought, well we better get the train, and we went and got the train to London, had our leave, came back, ‘CO wants to see you first thing in the morning.’ I thought, ‘What have we done? Was it because we went away early?’ We found out there that they’d lost- They had to make up a crew to make up our crew. The stand down had been cancelled which was very rare, and they’d got our squadron on again, and it was [unclear] a little French-Canadian man who was our CO, and he had it all in standing at attention in front of him and he said, ‘You went away on your leave early, didn’t you?’ and we said, ‘Well, it was a stand down,’ ‘Aha but you’re not on leave until the day of your leave, which was Saturday,’ and he argued the point a bit. Anyway, he said, ‘That’s beside the point, we’ve lost our nav leader, our [unclear] leader, our flight commander, we had to make a crew and they all went. So unfortunately, Gowan, you have to be a squadron, you’ll be flight commander, Culpin you be nav leader, Mill bombing leader’ - And I don’t think it matters as Langley [unclear], I don’t remember whether he was leader or not. Anyway, we all got new responsibility, promotion in rank because we’d gone on leave early. I thought it was ironic but unfortunate for the chaps who’d had to make up a scratch crew, because we didn’t like strangers in the crew. I think I was the only one on the squadron that nobody minded having in the crew as a stand-by ‘cause I always got away with it, I was always lucky. So that was how that came about, the thing that Heather was mentioning, and- Oh and then this order came down, we took it in turns to.
RP: So, as nav leader then, what happened after that then? You mentioned that you had to swap?
BC: Yeah, well we shared the duty, and I used to hate being in the ops room the way it turned out sometimes because there was the morning room and they put the times of arrival on the board, and then one of the ops girls, I got to know very well, but she had an Australian boyfriend who was a pilot on the squadron, and I was in the ops room with her who was in the cabinet looking at the board, watching the aircraft come in, and Bill Chase this, Australian’s aircraft number didn’t appear, and didn’t appear, and it became clear that he wasn’t going to return, and she was very upset. But one of the quietest, happiest moments I'd known on the squadron, a few weeks later she- We were in the ops room (she was sergeant by the way) I said, ‘Why don’t we cycle out to Eltisley and have an egg on toast?’ There was a little private house in Eltisley, little village near us, where the lady had access to eggs, and for aircrew she would always produce poached egg on toast.
RP: Oh right.
BC: So, I said, ‘Oh yes,’ so we [phone rings].
RP: So, in August 1944, obviously things were starting to change, when did that sort of feeling that the war was being won come to you? Did people start to realise that you were winning?
BC: I think to us it was when we saw the shipping in the channel, we’re off on a- Attacking a target in the [unclear] or whatever it is there, [unclear] bomb site, something like that, and everywhere we saw lots of shipping sightings, along the radar we could see the shipping. So we knew that at last the moving forward is on, and the next night we had the target of a gun battery on the coast, a German gun battery. I was flying then with an American chap [unclear] and he was the only Canad- Only American on the Canadian squadron, he joined the Canadian air force initially but now reverted back to the American air force, and that was when we realised that it was definitely on, and from there on it was-
HC: That was D-Day?
BC: What?
HC: That was D-Day?
BC: D-Day, yes.
RP: So, from D-Day onwards, you were still flying a fair number of sorties though, yeah?
BC: No, I was- I forget the exact date, but towards the end of the war, I’d been flying with most anybody who needed a few sorties to get their forty-five, you see, and several flight commanders say who just needed another half-dozen sorties so I flew with them, another one came and said, ‘Would I,’ oh yeah- I- Let me explain, I had a garage that had lots of petrol coupons for lorry drivers. We had a WAAF section that ran the MT, and in the MT we had the big tank of [unclear] stuff, and then a smaller tank of low [unclear] fuel for light aircraft that never came to see us. So, if you left your can in a certain place near the MT section, went back the next day, you would find it was full of petrol by a chance, only- Nearly caught out once, when as I got my can in my green- Had green [unclear] bags in those days, and it just fitted a nice can of petrol. We got it on the handle bars driving up to, up to the mess, and the barrier was down, and the policeman on the barrier was a bit slow moving himself, so I had to break hard and there was a clang [emphasis].
RP: Oh no [chuckles]
BC: Can of petrol hit the ground, and I thought, ‘Oh this is it,’ but this SP came up and said, ‘Oh you have to be careful sir, you might damage it,’ lifted it up, put it on the handle bars and opened the gate and let me through. Thank goodness for that sensible policeman [chuckles].
RP: So, what was your- Can you remember then, what was your last sortie then, before the war ended? Where were you going on your last sortie?
BC: It was- I’ll soon see, into Yorkshire, post-war, Lancs, [unclear] U-Boat pens at La Pallice, he was the master bomber, it was small, only thirty aircraft and we were dropping bombs on the U-Boat pens in La Pallice, he was the master bomber.
RP: And what date was that then?
BC: That was on the 11th of August- I’ve not got my glasses here. I think it’s the 11th of August 1944.
RP: So after-
BC: Yeah,12th of August 1944.
RP: So, after that date what did you do between then and the end of the war then?
BC: I’ll just catch up before then.
RP: Yeah.
BC: Sometime before that, that was August ‘44, in early ‘44, in July ‘44 [pause] Yeah I left, 405 then in August ‘44, and I was sent to 11 ferry unit in transport command. The nice idea was that a few of us were going to form this ferry unit and fly all the Canadian built Lancs back the Canada.
RP: Oh right.
BC: They were nice steady job for long time, and before then I’d had- Oh yes, this was where my flight career came to an end in bomber command. One morning- One night we went to Cambridge, a group of us, in my car, a little four-eight, we had our drinks in the usual pubs, went back to the car, got in, didn’t notice anything unusual, driving along a few miles out of Cambridge where there’s a big, and one of the wheels went past us, and the apparently it was fairly common in Cambridge those days, before we got back somebody must’ve been putting a car on bricks, lifting it, and undoing the screws to take the wheel off and that must have been when we got back and so they disappeared and hadn’t screwed back the wheel anything like that, they just left them, and the wheel had just came off and went past us. It had done quite a- I think a mile or two before then. So, anyway, next morning the flight engineer I was flying with in those days, said, ‘Do you want a lift up to the flights Bob,’ I said, ‘Yes please’. So, we’re off in the car and we’re going up to the flights and on- It was winter and on the way there we went down a steep hill, then up a steep hill and that was covered in ice and the sun was shining just at the top. But, down at the bottom there was a driveway that came out of a big house which King Peter of Yugoslavia was living in with his wife, when he didn’t want it, he let the station commander have it as his residence, and apparently (I learnt this later) the station commander was coming out of his drive and we were coming down this first hill, and the driver, he was Dutch, it wasn’t [unclear], the driver didn’t see that coming down the hill was a lorry. So, although this car stopped, he pulled out a bit and we hit the lorry straight on. Now at the time I was bending forward, lighting a cigarette so my neck was placed like that, I went up and hit the ceiling. So, they came to the car, various people, and apparently, I was telling them, ‘Look, be careful of my knees, I think I've got them wedged under the dashboard, and I think they’re damaged, so be careful,’ and about then I suddenly just flaked out, and crushed the top of the vertebrae in the spinal cord, hadn’t fortunately hit the spinal cord itself, and went into- Was taken to hospital, and the doc left a message with the orderly saying, ‘If he comes round, don’t let him move it, [unclear].’ But that message got changed when I did come round, the first thing an airman sitting at the bed said to me, ‘Can you move your head sir?’
RP: Oh no.
BC: And, I said, (something told me not to try) I said, ‘No, I don’t know, I can’t,’ ‘What, not up and down?’ ‘No, no I can’t.’ This is when the doctor came in, the message got [unclear] and they finally got me to hospital, and I was in a plaster from there to there for a good six months.
RP: So that saw you the rest of the war?
BC: That was the end of- They were still operating, but I wasn’t anymore, and at the end of the thing, when I'd recovered, been to convalescence and everything else, what had been arranged that I would be transferring to British airways as a navigator there. I went for a severe medical exam for British airways.
HC: BOAC.
BC: BOAC.
RP: BOAC, yeah.
BC: Yeah, and they said you’re not fit to fly for another three years.
RP: Oh my goodness.
BC: So, I said, ‘Oh dear’. So, I went back and my doc says, ‘Let me get you an RAF medical.’ Took me to a medical and, ‘Yeah, be careful but you’re alright to fly’-
RP: Were you still in the RAF at this time then?
BC: Still in the RAF yeah.
RP: Ok, so where were you when the war ended then? Where were you when-
BC: I was in- Well-
RP: In May ‘45, where would you have been then?
BC: Convalescing.
RP: Still convalescing, are you? Convalescing.
BC: Convalescing because we hired a car, three of us, one had a bad leg, I had this thing on and we put the car in a ditch between us.
RP: Oh no [chuckles]
BC: But not seriously, no need- Just one of the roadsides [unclear] things.
RP: Oh dear, so did you fly again with the RAF then?
BC: Well, at that point I thought- Oh we were on for various things that the RAF phased down, I was going to be on a yacht[?] conversion flight, flying to the far east, I thought I'd bring back some carpets. But that didn’t materialise, and what happened? Yes, I got to this stage.
HC: You were still
BC: Oh yes, I decided then there was no future in the RAF, back to civil service. So, I was released from the RAF.
RP: What was that, ‘45?
BC: ‘45, yes.
HC: You were still in the RAF when you met mum in-
BC: Yes.
HC: In late ‘45.
BC: Yeah, I'd recovered from- I’d got rid of my thing, and the squadron had flown back to Canada, except for one squadron and Macdonald and myself had been left in charge of getting the- Handing Gransden Lodge over to the RAF, from the RCAF. The RCAF by the way, they went round setting fire to all the hay stacks which didn’t make them very popular with village [unclear]. The RAF paid the bill, I think. But, anyway, I was going back to the- RAF- Oh yes, and the squadron had flown back and Mac and I decided we’d have one last night in London together, go to our regulars, The Sussex, the [unclear], and the [unclear], the three pubs off Charring Cross Road. One during the war had been a Canadian mainly pub, another had been a New Zealand mainly pub, and another one was a general British, I think. Anyway, we’d go back and have a look at these pubs, last look at them, and we’d been in some pubs, we were walking back to The Cumberland where I had a room booked, and we heard dance music and Mac said, ‘Oh there’s some dancing, let’s go and find it.’ So, we- It was in Mount Street, so we went- Diverted, went down Mount Street and we found a doorway with lady sitting behind a table with a book, and we- Mac said, ‘Is there dancing? Can we join in?’ and she said, ‘I’m very sorry sir, an American officers Red Cross club, it’s for American officers only,’ and then came Mac with great presence of mind said, ‘Oh, we’re promised to meet Captain Copenhaver here,’ (he’s the last one I flew with by the way), ‘Captain Copenhaver here, would you mind paging him?’. She said, ‘Oh, no’, so she comes up to the stairs to page him and we tottled up behind her, and as she went toward the [unclear] thing, we went in, looked around and there’s a counter of there, there’s a girl with lovely sparkly eyes, serving ice cream. I thought she looks happy, so I went over and said, ‘Would you like a dance?’ and she was wearing Red Cross uniform- American Red Cross uniform, said, ‘I don’t think we’re aloud to, it’s only the American Red Cross officers who can dance,’ said, ‘Oh come on they won’t mind’. So, she says, ‘All right,’ so she took the uniform off and we had a dance and we stayed together all night. At the end of the night I said, ‘Are you hungry, let’s go and have a meal somewhere?’. So, we did go out for a meal but we couldn’t find a place that was open, it was quite late at night then, and she said, ‘Anywhere’ [unclear] she says, ‘If you’d like to come home with me, I can give you egg and bacon?’, I said, ‘Oh is it far?’ She said, ‘No, it’s only Peckham,’ I said, ‘Oh, fine’. So, I went back with her, we got a fifty-four tram to Peckham, along the embankment, and had egg and bacon and- I found out she worked in the local health centre sort of place, wasn’t a health centre in those days, whatever they called it, and I got her telephone number and I rang her the next day and she didn’t expect me to, and we lived happily ever after-
RP: I thought that was the end that was coming [laughs].
HC: And result [chuckles].
BC: She passed away about seven, years ago? Seven or eight.
HC: Yeah, twenty-
RP: Oh, that was lovely, what a lovely story.
BC: Yeah
RP: So, from that point then, you left the RAF?
BC: I left the RAF.
RP: And went back to-
BC: Went back to the civil service, they’d sent us on a PLUA course at Leeds. There was myself, an army officer and a navy officer, we started going out for lunch together, started going out for lunch and a beer together, then went for a few meals together, all decided this wasn’t right for us. I was having a lot of pain from my neck sitting at a desk in the office, it was getting- I thought i’d be better doing something active, so I'd gone back in the RAF, and stayed in for another twenty years, thirty years until 1976 when I retired.
RP: So, what were you- Still aircrew?
BC: Still aircrew, and I was flying cambers[?] for a while. They were, to me, pretty painful flying- Used to go low level flying over Scotland, over the rocks and things, and I was tall for a camber[?] and my [unclear] dome would hit the roof, and I'd have a [unclear] on my head when I got back.
RP: Yeah, there’s not a lot of space in those.
BC: Three-hour flight in that, I used to go home and lie down, ‘Oh lovely’. But [unclear] I was the flight commander on the squadron and we had some very good crews, I was with another Dutch Holland this time, pilot and he- When it came to retiring from there, been posted two and a half years, he wanted to go to the [unclear] force and said, ‘Don’t fancy another two and a half years of alerting and that sort of thing.’ So, he went [unclear] and unfortunately on one occasion in a Victor, was late getting back to a demonstration and was rushing it and broke the aircraft up and killed himself and- So I- After that I was posted various places, went to Ruislip where I was running a thing, [unclear] all the hours, documents, flight plans and low flight signals and NATO and things, sent stuff to Jeffersons[?] who did the American stuff ‘cause they liked our technique better than theirs. I had about eight teleprinters churning stuff out and the post office used to send two bags up every morning to take stuff away, and then finally, various others, the last one was Upper Heyford, which was an American base with about ten-thousand Americans and their- With wives and families. Else and I were the only British people living on the base, I was commander, it was my base technically, but there were dozen American full colonels, and half colonels and one major general, so- They were very good, I had working relationship quite good. The one I was with most was the air base commander, [unclear] whose bit like [unclear], had been a New York policeman and if I was upset about anything and I went down the corridor, his secretary would call out for him, ‘Sir, the squadron leaders coming down, I don’t think he’s very happy’ [laughs], we got on very well.
RP: On leaving the RAF then, where did you settle down? Where was your- Where did you come to rest?
BC: When I left the RAF, that was at Upper Heyford, the RAF. When I retired in 1976, we came to Bridport just down the road here.
RP: Not too far away.
BC: Heather sent us a brochure, she was at Southampton University, sent us brochure by the people there, it had some buildings in Bridport. We went down to see it on a Friday afternoon, saw the site manager, saw the plan for the [unclear], I said, ‘We’ll have it,’ and that- We bought the first thing we looked at, it was only a hole in the ground.
RP: Well, I’ll bring it to the end there, and I ask everybody the same question Bob, if you lived your life again would you join the RAF?
BC: Oh, well it would depend on the RAF, it’s changed so much-
RP: I mean going back, would you go through all that again?
BC: Going back I would, yes.
RP: You would
BC: Yes, I- It seems wrong to enjoy the war, but we made what we could of it and we were such a good mix, friendly group together. A little routine if Ron brought a parcel from New Zealand, and it had some oysters in it, one of us would go down the village and get a loaf of bread, another one would go down to our famous egg shop and get some eggs and we’d have a fry up
RP: Sounds good.
BC: And at night time when we were on ops, there were usually two crews in a hut, sometimes three, we all left money under the pillow so that if we didn’t return the rest of them could have some money and have a little party.
RP: Anyway, it’s been a privilege talking to you, and thank you very much indeed, it’s been great, thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bernard Walter Culpin
Interview with Bob Culpin
Creator
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Rod Pickles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-05-30
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
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Sound
Identifier
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ACulpinBW180530, PCulpinBW1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:22:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Culpin worked for the civil service before joining the RAF in 1941. He was posted to Alabama for pilot training but was remustered and instead, completed a navigation course in Miami. When he returned to Great Britain, Culpin formed a mixed-nationality crew and trained on Wellingtons and Halifaxes. After joining 405 Squadron, they undertook coastal command patrols from RAF Beaulieu, before moving to RAF Gransden Lodge in 1943. He describes their role as ‘backers-up’ and ‘recentres’ during Pathfinder operations, the circumstances surrounding his promotion to navigation leader, and difficult trips to Hamburg and Peenemünde. Culpin's operational flying ended after he was injured in a car accident. After the war, he briefly returned to the civil service before re-joining the RAF until his retirement in 1976.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
United States
Alabama--Tuscaloosa
England--Cambridgeshire
England--London
Florida--Miami
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Peenemünde
Florida
Alabama
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1943-04-17
1944-08
405 Squadron
6 Group
aircrew
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Commodore
Halifax
Lancaster
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
promotion
RAF Gransden Lodge
searchlight
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1121/11612/PShakesbyFN1801.2.jpg
3d522f64f0b7c49430a9c1da120cc987
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1121/11612/AShakesbyFN180822.1.mp3
e604bfe604acb62ad2038ee02c983aa9
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
Shakesby, Norman
Francis Norman Shakesby
F N Shakesby
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Francis Shakesby (b.1924, 2207370 Royal Air Force). He worked on H2S and Gee as a member of ground personnel with 582 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-22
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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Shakesby, FN
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
IP: This is Ian Price and I’m interviewing Norman Shakesby today, the 22nd of August 2018, for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at [beep], Kendal. Also present is Pam Barker, a good friend of Norman’s. Norman, thanks ever so much for agreeing to talk to me today, it’s- I’m really looking forward to it. It is 10:37 in the morning, and we’ll start the interview now. I think, just to start off, can you- You were born on the 17th of May 1924, but you- Can you tell me where you were born and where you went to school?
NS: Barton-upon-Humber[?] if you know where it is? Where my life was dominated from the first [unclear] four years by the New Holland Pier where you went over on the river- On the train river Humber to Hull. Great excitement, when they built the- It’s a beautiful bridge but it’s taken all the excitement out of it. Don’t you want to- What was it next?
IP: Where did you go to school?
NS: Oh yes, well I attended my infant school for about one year and then we moved to Lincoln, and I went to the Lincoln St Giles junior school, took the, took the [unclear] scholarship and attended The City School of Lincoln.
IP: Ok, and were you an only child or did you have brothers and sisters?
NS: No, I have a sister who is younger, four years, and a brother who is older by four years.
IP: Ok, and what did you- I presume your mother sort of looked after you children and looked after the house, and what did your father do?
NS: Well, he came out of the army, I can- Yes, his grandfather had a- And I've got to explain how he came to have it. His family- Grandfather, was- And his Grandfather’s brother, ran a drapery shop in Hull and they sold mainly to the, to the seamen and they had a strike and they went bust, so they lost their- All the money. So, my father decided, he would follow his father, who was- Worked as a traveller for [unclear] Hopper, Hopper’s Bicycles. I’ve got them- I’ve got a catalogue about them, and he followed on, his father had retired, and he did all the Midlands and learnt how to drive by sitting at his side for miles and miles in the school holidays and, so that he- And then when he- The foreigners took over, and he lost his job. Well, it narrowed his area so much, he couldn’t have made, you know, he couldn’t make ends meet. So, he went into the brewery trading, he- When we got a- We got a pub. We got this public house in Lincoln, well just outside Lincoln, and then he got a pub right in the middle of Lincoln, and if you go now- This is an interesting thing, if you now go to Lincoln and walk down the high street, and you get to Barclay’s bank and you stop and look above where they usually look, you’ve got to look up in the air and at the top of that building it says Black Swan, and the one on the left window was my, my brother’s wind- Bedroom and his father and his mother, my mother on the other, and then when the war broke out they say it’s why he was gone, he was on the reserve list, and he was called in at Dunkirk and I still to this day remember him telling- Coming in, he said, ‘I’ve got to go, I just had the phone call and they said pin cushion or some ridiculous thing, that means that invasion is imminent and I've got to go and report immediately’, and they sent him up to Durham, to, to take on the role of keeping all the civilians in an orderly fashion if they’re evacuating.
IP: Ah right, so his, his reserve service was as a result of him having served during the First World War.
NS: Yes, yeah.
IP: So, what did he do during the First World War then?
NS: He was in the- First of all in the Hull friends which, you know, and then he, he was in the front- In line for about, oh about six months and they came down the line and said, ‘Would anybody like to volunteer going to the air?’, you know, he thought that’s a better thing than being on the Western Front. So, he said, ‘Yeah, ok’, and he came home and then he sort of spent a few months over here training to be an observer, which is at the front of the aircraft [unclear] on the- The pilot is behind him, and behind the pilot is the engine, and behind the engine is a propeller, propels hence, propeller and that was his- And then he was shot down and that ended it all.
IP: He flew FE2b’s I think didn’t he, yeah-
NS: Yes.
IP: So, so he was shot down about 1916, 1917 we think?
NS: Yes, the year before and then in 1918 armistice. Yes, he was- He did- Yes, I think it was just over a year. But it, it ruined his- He couldn’t bare to be in a shut door, room, you know, it does something to him. But one or two of his stories were interesting, how they had a- This is irrelevant, they had- One of the lads was very feminine and they got to work and back then they’d make all sorts of things with experts in the prisoner of war camp, and they would fit him out as an officer in the German army, and the block house had a partition in the middle of wood, and the German’s were one side, English the other side, and they took a panel out when the Germans changed at lunch time and put it back, and then they waited for the opportunity, they got him out as an officer, a German officer, ‘Yes it’s today, go quick’, out with the panel, and they’d also got this fella dressed up as a woman and the other one was a German officer. The two of them scrambled out, straight out through the main door towards the main gates, and they got to the gates and saluted, got a salute from the gate and they walked off, hundred yard or so down the road and he was watching them go, he thought there was- The pair of shoes that he’d got on, they would- ‘Halt’, caught him [chuckles]. It was an amazing story, so close, so close to getting-
IP: And, and his experience in World War Two then, did he stay in Durham? Did he- Was that- He was, he was just in the UK I presume?
NS: My mother was dying slowly with TB, so he put in for- Once he’d been there a week, they sent him home because he was forty-something, a lot of his- And he was very quiet and concerned, a lot of his oppos or friends, you know, the level- They’d done the same thing, signed in, they went to Middle East [emphasis] and forty-five or so. Well, he came out and he was, you know, discharged, so went back to the pub.
IP: Ah right. So, we’ll, we’ll step back a bit then to just before the war, you were- You would’ve started, what I might call grammar school, I know it wasn’t called a grammar school but this- Did you say it was the-
NS: City School.
IP: City School in Lincoln. So, you would’ve started there about 1935 I suppose, something like that, would that be right? Born in 1924, started when you were eleven?
NS: Yes.
IP: Ish, roughly.
NS: I’m trying to work it out.
IP: It doesn’t matter precisely. So you were, you were at City School when the war broke out?
NS: What happened, and it’s rather relevant in a way to what went later, Lincoln had a system whereby you can take your scholarship a year early, the bright lads, and then you could- When you got in- I got maths, so I started at ten, not eleven or what [unclear] and then as you get to the first year and second year, they pick out the top ones, who go straight through without ever a middle one. So, you did- Taking the-
IP: School certificate, was it? Yeah.
NS: A year before you should, and that mean- Can I tell you why it was awkward? Because, when the war broke out, I was nearly getting- We lost all our teachers, we ended- I was taking like languages, we ended with two teachers who- And they were both called up because they were interpreters, you see, and because of that it- We reached a position where everything was collapsing at Dunkirk, absolutely pandemonium, and we, we were told there was nothing terribly- Headmaster said, ‘I don’t think the universities are going to be functioning because everything, you know, and everything’, he said, ‘You better get something, get a job and now’. So, the two of us, there were only two doing languages, the- And I never knew what happened to the other physics people, whether they were kept on, but we were more or less, ‘You better go’, and so we both decided to go into a bank. So, at sixteen, I was whipped off to Alford because Barclays worked on the basis that you couldn’t work in your hometown, you might know that you earned too much and have a living, you know. Whereas my friend went into NatWest, and they let him stay home. I had to go into digs, so at sixteen I [unclear], she’s a lovely lady looked- There were two juniors, and she took us in both, [unclear] till I was called up. So that- And I was away from home, my brother had got- Qualified as a pharmacist and been called up, but it was, you know, plenty of sergeants and things, you only got a good payment. When I was called up, it was [chuckles]- Hadn’t got anything, there were no, no, you know, exams or an A to show for it, but I’ve-
IP: So, how did, how did you find working for Barclays then? Did you enjoy that?
NS: I did actually, yes, and I had to get there and it was the Tuesday of Dunkirk and that was the last to be- Took them out of the sea then, and there was no trans- Very little transport, I got a bus within three miles of Alford, sun and sun, you know, lovely day with a big suitcase tramping along and a fella came along in a milk float [chuckle]. He said, ‘Where are you going?’, I said, ‘I’m going to Alford’, he said, ‘Hop on’ [chuckles]. So, the horse went trotting along and I sat at the side of him. We got there and there was this very forbidding win- A big white door and it said Barclays, so I went round, I pushed a big spring and it went behind be bang [emphasis], you know. This little tubby fella came up behind the counter, he said, ‘Good Morning, can I help you?’ and I said, ‘I’m the new junior’, ‘Where the hell have you been? Dunkirk?’ [laughs]. I can remember that as clear [chuckles].
IP: Good stuff. So, so you were- Must’ve been at Barclays for a couple of years I guess then before?
NS: Oh yes.
IP: Yeah.
NS: And, I took ten of the- Six of the ten bankers' exams and in the last year at, what was I? Sixteen, seventeen by that time, seventeen yes. The- We’d lost our chief clerk, we’d lost the other junior, only in one junior and [unclear] curious one- We had ladies, two ladies and it was years later, she was, I’ve forgotten- She lived in a big house in the village and invited me one night to tea. She was about three year, four years older than me, invited me to a dinner and we played [unclear] tennis, and met her years later. I was listening to the radio in bed, and they said, ‘This is’- And I cannot remember her name, and ‘We’ll tell you how she came to be in Africa’, and she was the [unclear] right-hand woman, and it was because she had to be kicked out because they were saying she was, you know, telling him not what- What not to do, when he shouldn’t’ve been doing, and I thought, I’ll write a letter to the BBC and tell her I'm here, you know, to see her. He put it off, I then went to look for her and she had died. Anyway, that covered me the earlier times.
IP: Yeah, so you mentioned you were called up to the RAF, you didn’t volunteer, it was- You just got you papers?
NS: Yes, but while I was in the air force- While I was in the bank, I joined the ATC for Alford and I was a flight sergeant. I mean, that’s my flight sergeant’s uniform, and so, when I joined the air force, I made sure I got into the air force by doing ATC. They took people who were outstanding, took them into the radar and radio station, that’s how I got into it and they said- Curiously enough at any one time in the- [unclear] would you want to hear what, how, where, when?
IP: Yeah, well we’ll get onto that ‘cause I'm- The first thing that struck me about it was, I mean it sounds like you were quite well educated and that sort of stuff, so I was wondering why you didn’t end up as an officer? Do you know how that-
NS: Yeah, because a technician- I mean I was a- Totally without any knowledge of- Because the first thing they did do, we did six months in Leeds college of Technoloy to do all the radio and stuff, and then they took the top two to go into radar, and the top two, me being one of them, we went down to London, we were digs in the, what do you call? The prom place.
PB: [Whispers] Royal Albert Hall.
NS: The?
PB: Royal Albert Hall.
IP: Royal-
NS: Can’t hear [chuckles]
IP: Royal Albert Hall.
NS: Oh yes, Albert, just round the corner from Albert Hall is Albert Court and it’s a very posh- They said the [unclear] or somebody [unclear] had had it, so they covered everything with plywood and we were in there, and we prayed[?] the outside, which was at the time the front of one of the- The London, you know, university, and we- Say we went into 3 Squadron because we had a fellow army officer who’d come to make [unclear] in London and you had to say, ‘A Squadron, B, C Squadron’, and turn, where? ‘Left turn’, down Vickery and Grand Exhibition Road, what’s by all retired [unclear], how it is there, and you wheeled left at the V&A and there were laboratories with the V&A, and I came out as the top two in that, with the- Having done Gee and we didn’t- We’d done a bit of H2S at that point, and we did- How long was it there? About six months.
IP: So, you just- Sorry to nip back again. So, you were called up to the RAF in November- Was it December ‘42, wasn’t it? That’s right, and did you go straight to Leeds from there, or did you do basic training first, you did sort of square bashing?
NS: We went in- Yes, we went into [unclear]
IP: Into where sorry?
NS: We went in the west coast area there was an RAF training camp there.
IP: Ok, alright.
NS: So, we did that, and then we went up to Redcar
IP: Oh yeah, yeah.
NS: And a little aside that, years later I was teaching in Redcar new college and I was standing- Having a dinner at the [unclear] hotel and the last time I'd been there, I'd been standing out while the officers tell you to [unclear] [chuckles]. Anyway-
IP: How did you find- How did you find the basic training and stuff? The square bashing and all that sort of stuff?
NS: Oh rubbish. We got off very lightly because we were ATC cadets.
IP: So, you knew how to do drill, and you knew how to make-
NS: You were taught how to- In half an hour we had to- You know, what it- To arms, ‘Shoulder, arms’-
IP: Rifle drill, yeah.
NS: And they said, ‘Right’- One of the other corporals, ‘You’re gonna do it with the flag tonight’. Pull the flag down and that sort of thing, back to the hotel [chuckles] well it’s like Dad’s Army, we’re actually in fits, even he was laughing [unclear] [laughs].
IP: So, you did- So, you did that sort of basic training and then from there, from Redcar I guess, you went to Leeds to do your mechanic training. But, do you know how they selected you to be a, a mechanic? I mean, presumably you could’ve gone off to any training?
NS: Yes-
IP: Cooks, bottlewashers-
NS: Well, the only thing I knew, is they said, ‘You were a bank clerk, we found them very, you know, very good at this bank clerks’, I don’t know why-
IP: Maths and stuff maybe, I guess, I don’t know.
NS: I couldn’t say why it changed to-
IP: Ok, alright, alright. So, to Leeds, down to the Albert Hall, London. Do you remember how long you were in Leeds doing your-
NS: Yeah, six months.
IP: Six months, and that, that was- Sorry, just to- Sorry. So, that was- Was that radar mechanic training, or was it-
NS: No.
IP: It was just mechanical training?
NS: Yeah.
IP: And then they streamed you to radar, the top two as you say. So you were the top two of that, you then went to your radar mechanic training in London and you were the top two of that course.
NS: I was-
IP: Yeah.
NS: And I can tell you why I was never a corporal as well, which I should’ve been.
IP: Oh, we’ll come back to that maybe. But- So, right, so-
NS: [Unclear] say this about that-
IP: Yeah.
NS: The- We’d been [unclear] and- Oh I’ll tell you. In [unclear], we had a theatre with two rollers chairs- Stairs either side and you go up this one and you shove the needle in you and then take the needle our, or take the fridge out and the needle in and you walked across the stage and they’d put the next one on tight up to the other one [chuckles], and I had a fellow who’s six foot three in front of me and he started going like that [laughs] and jumped out of the [unclear].
IP: Went down like a sack of spuds, yeah.
NS: Right, so that’s the only reason that I was in the bank clerk, I suppose I’d got the fact that I'd done some extra work at the bank with- Banking, you know, banking law, nothing to do with it, but, we’re all- And the thing that struck me it was being push here, push there and we were in digs in Redcar and I'll never forget the porridge it was burnt every morning [chuckles] and- But we then ended in nice digs in Leeds, lovely widow and she looked after the two of us and we’d all [unclear] what’d be known [unclear] and we walked in the first morning, we sat in anticipation and this [unclear] walked in and said, ‘Good morning gentlemen, take a seat’ [laughs]. Gentleman [emphasis] [laughs] oh, what a change, yes.
IP: So, just trying to get this back where we are now. So, we’ve gone- Done your basic training, did you go to Redcar before you went to Leeds then, or after?
NS: Yes.
IP: Ok, so it was Redcar first, then Leeds and then you went down to London, The Albert Hall, and did your radar mechanic training there, came in the top two of your course there and then- So what- And how did you- I mean, did you enjoy- Did you enjoy it, was it, was it- How did you find that phase of being down in London and the training down there and what have you?
NS: In all the wave forms and things that we learnt, it’s fascinating [emphasis] and I really did enjoy that, yeah.
IP: Had you- So when you’d been growing up, I mean, had you, had you done any sort of electrical, electronics or electrical stuff-
NS: No, nothing.
IP: - sort of crystal radios or any of that sort of stuff?
NS: No, well they had a whiskers, you know the old, [unclear] whiskers [chuckles] those little- Yes, and- But, nothing further than that. I’d no, I'd no mechanical background.
IP: Oh right.
NS: No.
IP: Yeah.
NS: But it- They’d got a good volunteer [unclear] and I mean, they picked somebody who they- I did, I did very well.
IP: It sounds that way. So, what happened then after you left? Did you say you were about six months, you think in London?
NS: Yeah.
IP: So now we must be into 1943, I guess, something like that, or maybe, or maybe later than that I don’t know, do you remember?
NS: No, not- It wasn’t as long as that I don’t think.
IP: Ok.
NS: And then it was posted to Gransden Lodge.
IP: Right.
NS: Canadians.
IP: Yes.
NS: That was lovely.
IP: Yeah, 405 Squadron. So- And you were posted onto the squadron? You weren’t stationed personally?
NS: No, no.
IP: You were on the squadron-
NS: There were two of us, two Englishmen among the- All the rest were Canadian radar mechanics, because we hadn’t got them at that time
IP: Ah, right.
NS: I assumed that we were still training them, you know, but- And then, I wish I'd taken the names because there was just a gang, you know [laughs]. In fact, when I went to- I’ll tell you in a minute if you want to know why I moved to-
IP: Little Staughton?
NS: Yes, Little Staughton. What was I leading up to there? Oh yes, I'm in Little Staughton and Christmas I cycled over because it’s was only about eight miles and I had my Christmas with the whole gang in Gransden Lodge.
IP: Ah, ok. So, right- Just, just going back. So, I get the impression you were happy to be a radar mechanic, I mean you said you enjoyed it, you said you found it fascinating. So, and I supposed compared to some things you could’ve ended up doing, it was great.
NS: It was a, a marvellous piece of equipment.
IP: Yeah.
NS: And you’ll see I've got a [unclear] on the inside, and when I came out, I was then mending people’s televisions, but you see then you went all this funny business and that, nothing like mine, you see, [unclear] red tube and things.
IP: And so, you joined the squadron, 405 Squadron, it was- Well, your section, the radar mechanic section, how big- How many people were there in the section then? Do you remember, roughly?
NS: Um-
IP: I mean, are we talking ten? Fifteen?
NS: Well there was about the same as on that photograph which is at Little Staughton, it’ll be about fourteen in this I suppose
IP: Ok, alright, so- But, two of you were Brits and the other, the other twelve were Canadian, and how do you, how did you find them? Were they friendly? Were they a friendly lot?
NS: Oh yes, they would- Yes, marvellous [chuckles] and they used to, you know, mock limeys and that sort of thing, but they were great fellas. The [unclear] particularly a man called Moon Mullin, and he had shock of hair like an Indian and he was a real rover. They couldn’t touch them you see, because as soon as you got one step from the safe it said ‘Private [emphasis], no entry’.
IP: Ah yes, yes, so behind closed doors sort of thing, yeah, yeah.
NS: Yeah, we did no mucking about, flying drill or anything like that, we just looked after our own [unclear] you know, along that and that was [unclear].
IP: Ah, and did you feel that you were part of 405 Squadron? Were-
NS: Yes, I was very sorry to leave it and it wasn’t to my- Actually, I can tell you later, it wasn’t to my- It’s tied up with the corporal, it wasn’t my- It wasn’t to my best and it was all because the radar officer found out- When I went there, I went there as an AC1 and within two, three weeks he’d made me a LAC because I was so good, and they then wanted to form a new squadron at Great Staughton, or Little Staughton [unclear] and they’d taken the half from one English one and half from the other English one, but they needed the officer and they took the officer who was English, with the Canadian and he had- He said then, he said, ‘We want one more’, so he came to me and he said, ‘I’m going to move to- And I’m taking you with me’. I thought, well I'm gonna be alright here, he’d look after me. Did he hell [emphasis]. I got there, and of course, what happened was that after a few weeks it came to the idea of this new squadron getting there, getting there informa- Getting their [unclear] better, you know, going up to corporals, and they were- And I thought, well, the two- They’d already got theirs, two from one half and the other two, so no [unclear], and that was it, and nobody said anything, and I thought oh that’s a bit [unclear] and it dawned on me why. This half, ‘Oh we want this man’, this half, ‘We want this man’, and ‘I want this fella’, no way mate, you haven’t got any supporters there, and then didn’t have- That was my first time that I wasn’t made a corporal [chuckles] which I should’ve been because I was in- You know, he took me with him because he thought I was good [emphasis].
IP: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
NS: But, anyway I didn’t want the job, because at the [unclear] I start off by doing DI’s every morning in the cold-
IP: Daily inspections? Yes.
NS: [Unclear] and then I got into the- When I got to Great Staughton, I was put on the bench doing- We didn’t do Magnetron, I didn’t- Never got- Didn’t know how it worked but that was obviously a big secret. But I did the H2S and the Gee, putting the faults right on them. I always remember, I loved that, it’s like a detective model. You go through all the, the [chuckles]-
IP: The diagnosis?
NS: Yes, the- You’d got a big, a big book of all the info- The brown [unclear] that goes to that, and that- And you used an oscilloscope because you got a wave form, that’s [unclear] wave forms for television, they go quickly down and then slowly, quickly down because you’re putting it into the devalves[?] and you’re making it move, the dots, so you get that- It’s- It makes it move round on the screen and when I got to the other- Great Staughton they said, ‘Well you know quite a lot about H2S so we’ll do it on the Benson[?]’ and I was doing it one morning and I couldn’t find this damn fault and I thought, oh it’s lunchtime so I got on my bicycle, because you all had bikes then, and I'm cycling and I think, oh I didn’t try that one, I'll have to go, ‘Norman put your hat on’ [shouts] [laughs]. I’m trying to [unclear] a bloody war on, and you’re telling, put my hat on [chuckles].
IP: Have to get your priorities right.
NS: [Laughs]
IP: Hats are everything.
NS: [Unclear] a bit.
IP: Right, so just, just going back to- Was it 405 Squadron- Were they already on the pathfinder force when you joined them then?
NS: Oh yes.
IP: So- And was, was that one reason- Because you were top of your course were you particularly selected for the pathfinder force do you think? Or, or did it not quite work that way, or don’t you know?
NS: Well, I mean the thing was you went to Gransden Lodge and it was pathfinders and I don’t know whether I was chosen- I don’t know where the others went, you know, [unclear].
IP: Yeah, yeah, ok, yeah. Did you, did you understand at the time what the pathfinders were all about? Did you understand how the, how the bomber offensive was working kind of thing?
NS: Yeah, oh yes.
IP: So you, so you were- I mean this is, this is the whole thing that interests me of this whole- Being part of the squadron and understanding what was going on ‘cause as an LAC you might reasonably not know exactly what they were doing and what was required. Somebody turns up with a broken H2S-
NS: LAC is the highest technical thing you can get to.
IP: Right.
NS: So you’re bound to know, you know.
IP: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you were well treated on, on the squadron?
NS: Oh yes, yeah.
IP: What did you, did you have any thoughts at the time about what the bomber crews were doing? About what they were going off to do, did you think about it at all?
NS: Oh yes.
IP: And what were your thoughts?
NS: Very, very traumatic, you know, and we used to see them off at that time it was like metrology[?] mare[?], eighteen aircraft one behind the other, and I'll tell you the story what I did- Happened to me on that line [chuckles] if you’re interested?
IP: Yeah, go on then?
NS: And- But- And we- At the front of it, it had the caravan with a dome and the red light and green light and they’re there in case a fault starts before they get off, so you can see them off, and then you see them back, and that was it.
IP: Yeah, so you used to watch them come in?
NS: And that’s three you’ve got.
IP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you get to know the crews quite- Or
NS: No.
IP: I mean-
NS: Not a click.
IP: You didn’t meet the navigators or anything like that who are dealing with the equipment?
NS: Well, I did because I was put in charge of what was like a big toy. It was a huge tank- Well a tank, ten foot by ten foot, full of water with a little scanner and underwater you can have it at a pay low frequency, so it’s a mock-up of the H2S in- Underwater, and you had the controls at the side and they had to- Before they got their little badge, extra pay, they had to pass the test I gave them to get to Berlin underwater [chuckles] which is fascinating
IP: Yeah.
NS: I always thought it would do lovely for the kids, pathetic, this little thing buzzing under water, and had this arose because you asked me something-
IP: ‘Cause I was asking you how well, how well you got to know the navigators and that-
NS: So I did get to know some of them and one particular one, they were in- This was at- I didn’t do it at Great Staughton, I did it at Gransden Lodge and one I’d got friendly with and he- And his brother was also in aircrew, so there was another there and we all went out for a drink at times, and to put it short, we saw them right through to the end.
NS: Yeah.
IP: And we counted it [unclear].
NS: Yeah, no that’s ok, that’s I- I understand. So, you said you- That you went to see the Lancasters off and that sort of stuff, and that must’ve been eighteen I think you said on the squadron, that must’ve been quite- I mean it must’ve been really impressive seeing eighteen, eighteen Lancaster-
NS: Yes, they stopped it very quickly because one night [unclear] all 8 Group into [unclear] he was there from senior, saw them all there and went down the line, so they stopped it very fast.
IP: A German intru-
NS: Bomber.
IP: Oh bomber, or an intruder- Well, doesn’t matter really, does it but-
NS: Yes, it was a foreign air, aircraft. So now they used to wait to be pulled off the outlined positions, one at a time. But it used- It was quite a, you know, quite an occasion. Everybody was there, all the ground crew were seeing them off and it was quite a- Quite emotional.
IP: And did you have to deal with anything with the aircraft at that stage then, or?
NS: We would’ve done if there’d been an error because they’d run all aircrafts, all their instruments are put in through it as while they were waiting and if there were- No I didn’t- Never had one- That was my servicing during the day [chuckles].
IP: So you have to- So if there was a problem with the H2S or, or, well Gee, you had to jump on board the aircraft and try and do a quick, a quick fix?
NS: Oh, we had more that, we had to jump on anyway because the Germans had got the Gee and it’s a very accurate piece of information in this, in this country it was at one end of the runway to the other, and we didn’t want this happening so they decided we’ll delay the actual frequency until the last minute. So, it was- We had about ten boxes all with a different set-up and each one had another ten, so there was a hundred choice and that was only put in twenty minutes before take-off, and job of radar mechanic was to put them in the back of the van, get the [unclear] WAAF to drive at the end, starting and went jump in the first one, up to the eye[?], over the back, [unclear] room, ‘'scuse me’, get to the next [imitates vehicle]. Eighteen, one after the other and you’ve got seventy-two machineries in front of you, propellers [imitates propeller] noise and this particular- Next one, next one I got to, seventeen, eighteen, eighteen [imitates vehicle] right up to the front and the wireless op was there with his headset round his neck and I'm just screwing it up and hear- And on his, on his- In the earphones, ‘Are you ready for take-off [unclear]’ [imitates aircraft engine] and we were swinging onto the, ‘Me, me’ [chuckles]. So, ‘We’ve got a foreigner, stop, stop’. So, I had to say, ‘I’ll just finish this’, ‘Ok, cheers’. Go down into the mid-upper, ‘'scuse me, could you open the [unclear] door?’. ‘Cause I couldn’t open it from the inside, never had done that, I could open it from the outside. He’d have to get out- I delayed them ten minutes while I [chuckles] I don’t know whose fault it was. I mean I was going at a noble pace standard every time before, I think they were a bit ready that, bit-
IP: A bit keen to go?
NS: Yeah.
IP: So you nearly got a free ticket to Hamburg or Cologne or Berlin or wherever?
NS: On 405 Squadron they had brothers and such and occasionally they used to take the brother with them, very illegal.
IP: I know, I know that passengers used to go occasionally, and there’s some really sad stories of course about bombers being shot down with passengers on board who shouldn’t, who shouldn’t have been there really.
NS: They could shoot them.
IP: Yeah.
NS: Because Hitler’s spies.
IP: Mhmm.
NS: That’s why I-
IP: So you, so you didn’t- You never went on a, on a trip? Would you have liked to?
NS: No.
IP: No.
NS: I’m not a- I couldn’t have stood it. I used to think, how do those lads do it day after day? And I came to the conclusion the only thing that kept them going was the comradery between the crew. You can’t tell anybody now, so you keep going but- I know it's a bad day today but this could be a bright, summers afternoon and they climb in that bloody aircraft and go out and come back two having gun- Not coming back and then you got to go again two days later and it goes on and on for forty of them.
IP: Yeah, yeah.
NS: Which is amazing.
IP: Yeah, absolutely incredible, yeah, I take my hat off to them.
NS: I used to say to people, just before you start criticising them, just put yourself in their position
IP: Yeah.
NS: In the army, you have [unclear] bloody army and a fired battle and people getting blown to bits and then you pulled help and you have a rest. Those lads go every morning knowing they’re going, by the afternoon they’ll be off, maybe two days rest or what, you know, and I, you know, I admire them to the fullest.
IP: Mhmm, yeah, couldn’t agree more. Right, so we’ll- That’s, that’s- I think you’ve provided some really interesting information there. You moved onto 582 Squadron at RAF Little Staughton which is near Great Staughton I know that much. Was that- But you were working the bay then weren’t you, so you had less interaction with the aircraft and the crews I suppose but you were still doing the diagnostic stuff. Was, was that much of a change then, being on 582 after 405? Did you- I mean, it sounds like you missed 405 because you said went back for their Christmas dinner?
NS: Yes, yes.
IP: But, but was it a big change going to 582 or?
NS: Well, yes, I didn’t want to go but it [unclear] you know, orders is orders and he was gonna take me with him.
IP: That’s right.
NS: But of course, I- If I'd have stayed in 405, I’d have been a corporal. It was very sad that he was trying to do something good and it didn’t work that way, well I could’ve- And an interesting thing, I mean to prove it, we had to be on duty, one every night, one- And I was in this- I was in there and I walked into the office, looked around and there was a waste paper basket and pulled it out, it’s torn up and said ‘LAC Shakesby corporal’. So it’d got to the point actually putting it forward and they’d killed it
IP: Mhmm.
NS: And I went right through until [chuckles]- I can tell you that- I won’t tell you, but I can have so many- Every time- I had four other times when I just didn’t- Just missed it, and the last time was when I was being demobbed. The officer on- At Waddington, when I went to sign and get it signed off, he said, ‘You know, you’ve got an awfully good record here Shakesby’, he said, ‘You know, you should’ve been made a corporal’, I said, ‘Well, it’s just the way’, he said, ‘I’ll- Going to put it- I’ll put it in for you, I’m going on leave for three weeks’, and I was demobbed by the time he got back [chuckles], so it’s- Such is the world.
IP: Yeah.
NS: But it would’ve been nice because my wife, my wife would’ve got more money and I’d have got a bit more kudos.
IP: So you were married by then?
NS: Yes.
IP: When did you get married then?
NS: Pardon?
IP: When did you get married?
NS: 1946.
IP: Oh, I see, oh ok, so this was- Right, not during the war then, it was after the war that you got married. Ok, alright well-
NS: Yes, it was actually almost VE Day, V- No, no- Let me go-
IP: How did you meet your wife?
NS: I was- She was a girl in the digs we’re in in Leeds.
IP: Ah, ok. Right, so you kept in the touch all the time as you were moving round the air force and then- Oh ok, then you got married, wow. Yeah, ok.
NS: Too early, but [chuckles]-
IP: You did what you do don’t you?
NS: I got [unclear] I've got two boys.
IP: So, that kind of ties into my next- What was going to be my next question actually, which was how- What did you do for social life when you’re on the squadrons then? What, what social life did you have?
NS: Mainly in- The British Legion had a bar on the, on the drome and they had a special bitter and we used to end up there playing dominos and what not and every time, every few weeks or when- You had a day off and there was a bus to Cambridge and I well remember having been drinking the night before and getting on the bus the next morning and I was trying to keep upright [chuckles].
IP: Bit worse for wear?
NS: Yes.
IP: Ah yes, nothing changes. So, so it was- And, so you’re going to Cambridge with your mates and that sort of stuff and- So you’re going to Cambridge with your mates and what have you?
NS: Well, normally I usually was on my own, you were the only one off from there-
IP: Ah yes, yes of course, yeah, yeah, ok, and did you get any leave? What did you do- I suppose you’d have gone to see your girlfriend or whatever-
NS: Yes, we usually had weekends towards the end of- Later time until the, as I say, the bomb dropped in Japan and they- We all- Had to be sent back and they didn’t know what to do with us, so they sent us to the Middle East as- With the radio mines, and then because I got- I’m now jumping very quickly-
IP: Well, I was just gonna say. So, you, you did your time on 582 Squadron, I think- Yeah, we’ll cut that sort of stuff. So, you did your time on 582 Squadron and then were you on 582- So VE Day happened, were you still on 582 then?
NS: Yes, yeah.
IP: You got married around about that time as it happened, did you get- Where did you go- Did you go back to Leeds to get married or?
NS: Yeah.
IP: Ok, was she a Leeds girl then I take it?
NS: Yes.
IP: Ah right, ok, and- So, VE Day came, you were still kept in the air force ‘cause obviously they couldn’t demob everyone immediately and the Japanese war was still going on anyway, and then they dropped the bomb- So- But you weren’t up to then- ‘Cause I know numbers of the bomber command squadrons were, were ready to go to the Far East and some of them were converted to transport squadrons as well-
NS: Yeah, we, we were ready to go, we got the clearing and we were starting to, to convert onto Lincolns.
IP: As, as a transport squadron or as a bomber?
NS: Yeah.
IP: Ok, as a transport squadron.
NS: Well I thought- We thought as a bomber.
IP: Oh I see, ok, yeah, yeah. So- Right- Ah that’s interesting. So, so you’re waiting for that but then as you say, the bomb- The atom bomb was dropped-
NS: Fortunately, fortunately, weren’t looking forward to that bit [unclear]
IP: Yes- What- I suppose, just going back to VE Day, can you remember the- I mean this is just one of those general things if you were around at the time. Can you remember when the news came through that the war had ended?
NS: Yes, I think I- It was a morning I remember on the radio, and there was [laughs] great hilarity from everybody on the [unclear] as we can well imagine.
IP: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say what was your reaction? What did you think about it?
NS: Oh, we wanted to go, it was an adventure [unclear]
IP: Yeah.
NS: [Unclear] we’d been- I’d been in the air force a length of time by then.
IP: Yeah. So, you were ready to go home?
NS: I was.
IP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So- But as it turned out then, 582 was pointed out to go out to the Far East and- I mean from your reaction it sounds like you didn’t want to do that but-
NS: We were dispersed all over and we were sent out to the Middle East, and I was spent with- Two of us, two- Where a ground [unclear] team was operating for the Middle East and we had eight Nissen huts on this barren- Well it’s- I think there’s a photograph of it actually, and we, we went on AS[?] and then did a bit of overhauling then, and we got all the messages on the [unclear] screen in [unclear] morse code and I’d been there- And we used to go from there to Castel Benito, fifteen- Well you’ve seen them haven’t you, fifteen hairpin bends to get down to the flat plane and then the- It’s still an airport for Tripoli and they had two tents for us and we’d arrive this, you know, fairly dirty [unclear] and the white things on the [unclear] and you’d say, ‘AMES’, ‘Oh, that bloody lot’ [chuckles], air ministry experimenting, and they had two, two tents for us and we fed there and we stayed the day and then we went back, and then a day went with nobody and then the next one went and back, and we were doing this about [unclear]- About three months, it said, ‘Shut down, these are your orders, close [unclear] shut it off’. So, [unclear] won’t shut it off, we just carried on going down, nobody did a thing. We had two months where nobody did anything but play monopoly and go [laughs]- We had a- And there was a little village, we went through it to get to the set, there was one photograph showing the Nissen huts and they had little tin cans, the [unclear] smoke and they used to stop us and swap cigarettes for eggs, so we’d get eggs and then go, come back [unclear], and in that village there were two Italians, one was the electrician, he had an engine that he’d start by doing this [imitates engine] and they had electric lights but it went off at ten o’clock because that was the orders, and the other one was a bar and we used to go down to the bar, nobody else went except us and there’d be all liqueurs on, we used to drink our way down them [chuckles] and they had a little girl and she taught me to say [sings a tune]- Can’t I’ve forgotten the words now.
IP: The Italian national anthem it sounds like, was that the one? I don’t know but- So- Right- Because I was thinking you must’ve been desperate to get home but it sounds like you were having quite a good time in the Middle East really.
NS: Well, it wasn’t- Mixed feeling, I mean ok, I could’ve done without it. Then they sent us back to Cairo and they said to put us on then this, this- Well, dismantling these radar, because the- We’d only been the few, the rest were still doing that. So- And we had our tents in a little enclosure and guards at the gate, so and then we’d get garries[?] to go into the treble 1MU, that’s the- That’s the- What we did, called it, and I got there on my own, having flown and I thought well [unclear] I'll go on parade. ‘Airmen, get your hair cut, get that shined up’, and I thought bloody hell mate I haven’t been- And all the lads round me were eighteen and I was twenty-two, you know, and I knew the ropes a bit, ‘Oh righto, sir’, and I found out then that the guards at the gate were from some foreign, foreign empire, maybe- I’ve forgotten which one it was then, but they went off duty at ten to seven and the British got in- On at seven o’clock, gap of ten minutes, so I used to go out at five to [chuckles] because by that time [unclear] I had a severe stomach dysentery, or not as bad as that but when I came out the fella said, ‘You feeling better?’, I said, ‘Yes’, ‘cause he was being in the hospital. ‘Have your bowels moved today?’, ‘Yes’, ‘How many times?’, ‘Twenty-four’ [chuckles] and the toilets were the other end, you know [chuckles] that’s your fault from doing- Getting it. So, he said, ‘Would you like to do a misemployed?’, he said ‘You won't get any pay and you’re still on tread with 1MU, but there’s a hotel, Regina, which looks after all the posts in the Middle East, they have three offices in descending ranks, wing commander all this, and several women who [unclear] and I have to decide, the person is going is a corporal and he’s being demobbed, would you like to take his job?’. I said, ‘Yeah, that sounds ok’. So, I used to walk out every morning- This is why I got [unclear] going out early before the- And arrive at the hotel, and it was quite pleasant [unclear] the three offices used to have a bit of a [unclear] and then I'd watch the girls and, and- So when we- All the correspondence came through me, and this [unclear] oh, airmen with whatever they called it release over, under, sixty, home. Oh, I'm fifty-eight. The wing commander came in he said, ‘I see you’ve read that Shakesby’, I said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Well, we’re going to make you a corporal and we’ll keep you’, and I thought, like hell you will [chuckles]. So, ‘Yes, thank you sir’. This is the next time I didn’t get it.
IP: Yeah, yeah.
NS: So I got on the bicycle and I biked out to treble 1MU, it was about four miles and went to the dis office and knocked [knocks], ‘Yes’, ‘Hello corporal, you’ll be wanting to see me soon’, ‘Why? What’, I said, ‘Well this, you know, people, I'm due for the re-pat’, ‘Oh god, we don’t know, it’s not’, I said, ‘I know it’s true because I've seen the-’. I said, ‘But, just remember I belong to this unit, not that hotel, I'm fifty-eight’, ‘No’ he said ‘I’ve got- Ok’.
IP: When you say you’re 58, what, what do you mean?
NS: That’s a number.
IP: What, as in your service number, or-?
NS: Just a number relating to your- Time you’ve been in.
IP: Right, gotcha, ok, yep.
NS: Well and the- Fifty-eight was- And it was up to sixty, you see. So, he said, ‘We’ll look after you’. So, I went back and several weeks went by, [unclear] to get moving, got to organise transport and everything to get the fifty to home, and then it came through, LAC Shakesby report back to M- 71 MU and [chuckles]- I still remember that face of that officer, ‘Oh’, he said ‘I see you are’, I said ‘Yes sir’ [chuckles].
IP: On the way.
NS; He said, ‘Pity we were going to make you a corporal’, I said, ‘Yeah, well I know which I prefer’ [chuckles]
IP: And that was you- So you were demobbed once you got back to the UK then?
NS: No.
IP: Oh.
NS: No. I had then- How long was it before I was demobbed. That was a different thing from being demobbed, it was just they were using it for this particular group who’d been sent overseas knowing nothing what else to do with them. You know, I can’t remember-
IP: So when you went back to the UK, where did you go to then?
NS: Waddington.
IP: Right.
NS: And I lived in the Black Swan, every night, I was there when I went to get my signatures [unclear] office and said, ‘Are you arriving or leaving?’, I said, ‘I’m leaving sir’, ‘I don’t remember seeing you’, so you know. Of course, the radar officer knew because I'd said to him- My parents lived down the road, he said, ‘I’ll get the sleeping out pass for-But I'm going on a- I’ve got to come back, I'll be back several weeks’, and of course it was just over weeks, I just went home and came back again. I thought that if I'd been in [unclear] too long.
IP: Knew how to keep your head down.
NS: I mean [unclear] looked around they were all bogs, you know, and- And he said to me, he said- And he was looking at that, he said, ‘This is an excellent report’, he said, ‘Why are you still not a corporal’, I said, ‘Well, there’s a story’ [chuckles].
IP: Yeah, ok. So- But Waddington was your last base?
NS: Yes.
IP: And then you were demobbed?
NS: Yes.
IP: Was that a good day?
NS: Yes [chuckles] the only thing was that, it had been all this snow and ice, which took me off my bicycle every morning and evening. They sent me to the west coast to be demobbed and there wasn’t a snow flake over here, they hadn’t had any snow, and by the time I got back we were flooded out, we couldn’t get into the village, the snow melted all this stuff and, and that was-
IP: And where, where did you go? Once you were demobbed, where did you go then? What, what happened? Where did you go to live and what did you do for work?
NS: This is when I went to the west coast to be signed off and-
IP: Yep, yeah, and given your suit-
NS: And then went back and they said ‘Cheerio’ on-
IP: But, where did you go? Did you go back to Lincoln? ‘Cause your wife presumably was still up- Was she still in Leeds at the time?
NS: No, she was living in Hykeham, where my parents were.
IP: Ok, right.
NS: So, yes I just walked out and I'd got my civvies over in the west coast, sent back on the rail pass, said- Went to see the radar office who said, ‘Well thank you, cheers’, pity about that, pity you were on gone leave, I might’ve been a corporal but never mind.
IP: And what did, what did you do work wise then? Once you left the RAF, what happened about that?
NS: My father was, being the pub, was great friends with a fellow who was one of the officers in the Russen Hornsby, they build- Built electric motors for the mines, and he said I could get a- And I had a- I applied then for the- I went to see my headmaster and he said, ‘Well, would you like to take up teaching?’, I said, ‘Yes’, he said, ‘Well there’s an emergency scheme for anybody who wants to, you’ve got the right- You’ve got matriculation’, he said, ‘But one thing, they’ll offer you twelve months’, he said, ‘Don’t- Go for the full time one which is still being used by everybody normally because it then, I think the others might be down paraded a bit by not being the full course’, and he said, ‘Apply to Leeds’. So, I applied to Leeds and I had to wait a year, and I was then working in this chaser in the, what you call them, [unclear]- Anyway they built these, this-
IP: Mhmm.
NS: And my job was to go around the stem[?] all and they had a- They had a foundry[?], they had a machine shop and they had, what’s the others? Anyway, there were three different processes and they used to get stuck with the bits at one of them, these can’t go ahead until that goes, so my job was to go and hurry it up you see.
IP: Trouble-shooter?
NS: Yes and just before I left, I found out where they kept all their information for each of the [unclear] each one of them in a Kardex system and if you looked at this Kardex system it shows what the- The number of the machine and where it was. Well, when the oddbod, boss at my office went to the weekly- Say, ‘Why aren’t we getting on with this?’, and they’d say, ‘Well, we can’t get, can’t get the thing out of the machine shop’, ‘Oh well’. So, I thought I’ll check this, so I went- Nobody stopped me and I pulled out, where is it? Oh, it’s in, it’s in the [unclear] oh, boilers, the boiler shop. So, I went back to my boss, I said, ‘That one, it’s in the boiler shop’, So he went [chuckles] to the next meeting, ‘It’s in the boiler shop’, ‘What, how did you find that out?’, and I thought this is a ridiculous English industry, they told [unclear] from where they want- Don’t want to be caught napping, that they deliberately don’t let people know what they should know.
IP: Yeah.
NS: Anyway, I thought I'm leaving after a fortnight, so I got a bad name, I can tell you, ‘Don’t do that mate, don’t tell them where we are, let them find out’, I said, ‘I have found out’, he said, ‘Well you’re out of orders, you can’t go in that place, it’s not your’- [Chuckles]
IP: So-
NS: Is this irrelevant? I don’t know-
IP: No, no, no it’s- No, it’s not at all. But you went to Leeds from there to do, to do teacher training?
NS: Yes.
IP: Whereabouts in Leeds were you doing that then?
NS: Brickett and-
IP: On Briggate?
NS: Yeah- No, not Briggate. It’s the-
PB: Beckett..
NS: Beckett.
IP: Oh, Becket college.
NS: Yes.
IP: Ah right, which is now- Which became Leeds polytechnic and is now-
NS: Well, it was polytechnic [unclear] when we were there-
IP: University of Leeds or Metropolitan or something, yeah.
NS: And the- I was there, the second [unclear] and they just had one more, there were three intakes of the men- And the girls were the- From school and so here was the men's dormitory and there was the girl's dormitory with the various names and there’s as [unclear] used to say, ‘There are two-hundred men chasing two-hundred women across the quad’ [chuckles] ‘cause we were behind them on the rotation and they were eighteen and we were almost twenty-six. It’s a bit- I mean I, I was [unclear] with my wife, I was true to her and, and because we’d got a baby by that time anyway.
IP: Oh right, ok.
NS: And- But the others had a whale of a time, the single men.
IP: Yeah, yeah, and was your wife back in Hykeham still-
NS: Leeds.
IP: In- Oh, she, she went with you to Leeds?
NS: Yes.
IP: Yeah, so what- How long did the teacher training last then?
NS: Two years.
IP: Ok and what were you, what were you going to teach?
NS: Well, it was all- They were all primary.
IP: Ah right, yeah, ok.
NS: And I'd got matriculation and, on the way back one day when we were going back to our own houses, there was a- One of the other fellows he said, ‘I’ve just appealed to London University for a degree’. Well, I didn’t want to do- I mean I'd been doing it ten years and [unclear] a reunion [unclear] and that’s- I was trying to [unclear]- Yes, we had a reunion and I'll put in for the training he said. Oh, so I wrote to the London University of course I wanted- I remembered that fellow on the Leeds, where we- In our training, ‘Good Morning Gentlemen’, I thought that’s fair fee for me, I want to be further education me, and- So I wrote to the London and they said, ‘Well you’ve got a matriculation so you get interview’, and of course there was no financial aid, I had to pay the lot and I had to do it at home. So, I did a- With a [unclear] two children and my wife, sorry I'm going to be working all night and I did it nearly every night for five years.
IP: To do a degree course from home? Distanced learning.
NS: Yes.
IP: I didn’t know they did that in those days
NS: It was- Well it’s- It’s called private and I've got the list of all- And there is a whole lot of people who were doing it at home.
IP: Oh right, ok.
NS: Then.
IP: Oh, what was your degree course in then?
NS: Mine was- I was in second- I was in economics
IP: Oh right, goodness, ok. So, and you were at that- You were teaching at that stage I presume?
NS: Yes-
IP: Which-
NS: In a small village which was- It was the only one left in Bedfordshire which went from five to fifteen and I used to take the juniors and all of the group for music. I got on quite well. I could play the piano roughly and I had to play for the hymns, and I had to take the- All the ones for music and, and I quite enjoyed it because I got them first of all in the juniors with- The music man came to see me he said, ‘You’re doing very well here’, he said, ‘Would you like to have a set of percussions, [unclear] for the juniors?’, said, ‘Yes’. So, we got tambourines and all sorts of things and a record player and they used to- And it- I taught them [chuckles] I taught them on tables because they used to say, ‘You’re the violins, you’re the flutes’, and I put the radio on and say, ‘Right [hums a tune] one, two, four, two, four, three, four’, and if it was a wet Sunday, a wet half-time, you know-
IP: Yeah.
NS: Playground. They’d say, ‘We’ll stay in, can we do the music?’ and they loved it.
IP: Yeah.
NS: And they learnt their tables by god.
IP: Which village in Bedfordshire was it, can you remember?
NS: Yes. Riseley.
IP: Oh, ok.
NS: It’s just off the main road.
IP: Yeah.
NS: Down, Bedford.
IP: Right.
NS: And it’s one of the best years in my life, but for my wife as well. That village was fantastic[emphasis]. We had a drama group, I'm into drama, we had [unclear] drama group with no end- We used to win trophies and we had the vicar who was- He used to say, ‘Oh Mr Shakesby, [unclear] bring Mr Shakesby a cup of tea’, and he could do everything [unclear] of comedy and the other fellow was a- He’d been Bedford, Bedford, what do you call it? Anyway, Bedford Modern. I don’t know whether you know, it’s a public school?
IP: I’ve heard of it.
NS: Yeah, and he- And his father was a big farmer but he’d been robbed by [unclear] and went- During the war, somebody had done him down and they were down in quite poor circumstances. They lived in a little cottage and when my wife and I went for tea they had a little girl who had look of [unclear] said- And her coat of arms, she was an Irish professional tennis player and Godfrey, he was mad about drama and he and I- Because he used to get the artistic side and I was the [unclear]- I’ll, I'll produce this one, and used to go to London, when the, what’s it [unclear] all the musicals, and he’d come back with the music and put different words to them, quite illegal, and we had a very good pianist and we used to do these and, and I've got all the photographs of them [chuckles] and he used to say, ‘Hello [emphasis] Norman’, and the people who had- The- In Bedford there was a factory which made chalks for the schools.
IP: Ok.
NS: And they used to come- They were also from Bedford Modern in their schooldays, and they used to come to the village and Godfrey was there and he’d say, ‘Hello [emphasis]’ [laughs]. Anyway, that’s not RAF [chuckles].
IP: No, no, that’s alright, but going back to the RAF, did you find it hard to adjust after the war? After you left the RAF then, or did you just slip into being a civilian again no trouble?
NS: I found it very easy.
IP: Very easy?
NS: Very easy.
IP: Yeah, you just put it all behind you and cracked on sort of thing? Oh ok. But what were your thoughts at the time about- ‘Cause obviously, by then Bomber Command people had turned their backs on what had gone on during the war pretty much, did you have any thoughts at the time about that? Or, or were you not concerned greatly?
NS: Sorry about?
IP: About how, how the world- Or how the country was starting to look on the bomber offensive and that sort of stuff and trying to forget all about that stuff.
NS: I wasn’t very happy, you know, and when it got worse and worse, when they had this old thing built and somebody knocked it down and, you know, in one of the parks and I thought, oh this- You know, but you can’t do anything can you? So- But I always had a great admiration for those lads and I pushed it whenever I could and say, ‘Hey, just a minute you saying that, just think this, they go on, you know, this eight, ten-mile- Ten hour and then they come back and have a cup of tea and go to bed and then they’ve got to go again in two days' time’. My friend, I met him up at Great Staughton, we’d been on- He was the other one of the two, and he came and he was on, on Mosquitos with what you call it, the Oboe and that was much easier. They used to be setting off at eleven at night, ours would’ve been in the air by eight, by then [chuckles] and they were back home and, [unclear] by night fighters, so if you want to go on ops, go on-
IP: Mosquiots.
NS: He was a little fellow and, and the radar, the Oboe was in the front and it was a thing like the front of a car, the lid lifted up and then he went- And one day he was in there, in the seat and somebody came along and pushed it and shut it up and the thing took off [chuckles]. I met him after and he was- He said, ‘I didn’t want that again’. He said, ‘Somebody came and shoved it, next thing I knew we were rumbling down the runway’, and the pilot came back because he felt there was a big weight on the front, something wrong with his aircraft, he wasn’t going on ops he was doing, you know, what are they called? When they do this-
IP: Yeah, just a, an engine test or whatever it-
NS: [Unclear] and lifted up the-
IP: Was he in the nose of the aircraft then?
NS: Sorry?
IP: He was stuck in the nose of the aircraft?
NS: Yes, yeah, you know, just room for a little fella in there, he was [unclear] like this and he’s sort of leaning over there and this [chuckles]-
IP: Good grief.
NS: Another funny story.
IP: Yeah, yeah ‘cause there are two VC’s won at 582 Squadron during the time you were there, but I don’t know if you would’ve- If you would’ve known about that, there was a South African captain won a, won a Victoria Cross and a chap flying in a Mosquito won one as well but- But that doesn’t ring any bells? I don’t know whether that news would’ve percolated down or not. ok. So, so you- Did you spend your whole working life as a teacher then? Was that how you- That was your career as it were?
NS: Yes, I got my degree, I got a job in a- Well I got a job in Bedford College because there was a job offering for business to them, accounts, accounting, which is my- One of my- And it was night- They had a night team there and a night school with- That with the adults and that [unclear]. The only thing was, the nasty part [unclear] was that I had to hand the [unclear], you know, apprentices and the plumbers on, what you call, general studies.
IP: Oh yeah, yeah.
NS: Absolutely back breaking, ‘Well what are we doing this here for ey mate?’ [chuckles] and I stuck it for a year and I couldn’t do it any more than that so- But I got into it, I got into FE, that’s my thing.
IP: Right.
NS: And so I went to Redcar, which was a new college and-
IP: And what did you teach there, at Redcar?
NS: Business studies, what I've just said.
IP: Yeah.
NS: And, commerce and all that side.
IP: Yes, yes.
NS: And I had a fantastic principal Joe Dunning and the- Is this irrelevant? [Chuckles]
IP: It’s all relevant.
NS: He- The- Redcar had been opened for one year for the engineers, business side and the general degree and A-level, O-levels were starting that time and there was five of us for the whole of the, that side and I remember sitting at the five with the head of the department [unclear] are we going to get anybody? ‘Cause we’d seen nobody yet, you know. When I left four years later, there were thirty-two [unclear] staff, from five and Joe [unclear]- I won’t go into that but that’s my sadness about missing- I found out only just recently that Joe Dunning had been here before he died.
IP: In- What, in Natland? Or in-
NS: Yes.
IP: Good heavens above.
NS: And I'd been in the same place, I desperately would’ve met him.
PB: And seen him.
IP: Yeah of course.
NS: ‘Cause I went to see him at one time, we went up Glasgow, ‘cause we went to Glasgow and I went onto the iPad and a glowing report of him in [unclear] he sorted all their technical colleges out and they’d given him this award and that award and he’d died in, well 2010 wasn't it? Or 5.
PB: Yeah, while we were here, yeah.
NS: And, it said- And his wife had retired to Penrith and there was an overlap of three, three-
PB: Years we were here.
NS: [Unclear] years, when we were both alive and he was- And he died by the time I got there. So- What some six weeks ago, I said I'd go and see the wife.
PB: Yeah we did, we met his wife.
NS: Delighted.
IP: Yes, yes, I bet, yeah.
NS: Of course, I got a programme because in my- I was only there for two years and that was because I fell out with a man in- Anyway, doesn’t matter. But- What, what he did, he’d seen one of my productions at Saltburn, so he’d been down to London and it was the Union of the Australia, New Zealand were having a technical week and then he went down to London, came back with- Full of [unclear] with Galileo and he said, ‘That’s what we’ll do with this, Galileo, and you are Galileo’. I’ve got the programme [chuckles] I’ve got it out there, and so I took part as Galileo and it was nice because after I'd seen his wife, his widow, she said [unclear] money, she said, ‘She remembers you in the, in the, that play’, I thought if you saw it, you should be ‘cause it’s a magnificent performance [chuckles].
IP: Did you, just- I think we’ll round it off- Oh blimey we’ve been going for a long time actually. Did you, did you keep in touch with any squadron members? I mean 405, they’re all Canadians so they would’ve gone off back to Canada I suppose, wouldn’t they, so you didn’t keep in touch with anyone after the war?
NS: No, no, no.
IP: Ok.
NS: No I lost touch with them all.
IP: Yeah.
NS: Once we came over from oversea because I kept meeting new, new bobs of people. I mean when we got to Tripoli with a ground [unclear] chain, that when we left there, we went to different places and then never met them again.
IP: Sure, ok.
NS: So I haven’t got a- Nobody.
IP: Well, we’ve been going for nearly an hour and a half-
NS: I know.
IP: -Norman, so I think, I think to save your strength we’ll call it- I’d just like to say, it’s fascinating listening to you, I mean I'm sure we could talk for hours more, but, but I think we’ll call a stop there, it’s been great. Thank you ever so much, I do appreciate it.
NS: Well, I’ve enjoyed it, it’s nice to talk about yourself.
IP: Exactly, exactly.
NS: You see, it’s the drama, dramatic in me [chuckles].
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 Norman Shakesby
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ian Price
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AShakesbyFN180822, PShakesbyFN1801
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
01:20:01 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
Norman Shakesby was a radar mechanic on 405 and 582 Squadrons. Born in 1924, he was studying languages at The City School in Lincoln at the outbreak of the Second World War. His language teachers were quickly called up to act as interpreters, so on the advice of the headmaster, Norman left school and found employment as a junior bank clerk. He became a member of the Air Training Corps when it was formed, which paved the way for him to enlist in the RAF in November 1942. Having completed his basic training, Norman attended the Leeds College of Technology studying radio, from where he was selected to specialise in radar. Further training followed and he became proficient on both H2S and Gee radar. Posted onto 405 Canadian Squadron, Norman maintained the equipment on the aircraft. This also involved boarding aircraft before take-off to set the selected frequency for that operation. Care had to be taken with impatient crews, to ensure he wasn’t a reluctant passenger on operations. He had the greatest respect for the aircrew and witnessed the euphoria of them completing operations before going through the same emotions again a few days later. In 1944, a posting to 582 Squadron gave Norman a change, servicing equipment in a bay carrying out more detailed rectification. Following the ending of the war, a posting to the Middle East saw him complete his military service before returning to RAF Waddington and demobilisation. After meeting his old headmaster, he followed a career in teaching, initially employed as a primary school teacher at Riseley, Bedfordshire, before completing his degree and becoming involved in further education.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ian Whapplington
Tilly Foster
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Libya
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
Libya--Tripoli
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
405 Squadron
582 Squadron
Gee
ground personnel
H2S
radar
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/809/22583/LEdmundsAE430709v1.2.pdf
3cb999f857acfe6ff694b39669f8441c
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
Edmunds, Eddie
Albert Ernest Edmunds
A E Edmunds
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history with Eddie Edmunds DFC (b. 1917, 430709 Royal Air Force), his log book and one photograph. He flew operations with 106 and 608 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Albert Edward Edmunds 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
2017-09-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edmunds, AE
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
Albert Edward Edmunds’ pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for A E Edmunds, covering the period from 18 August 1941 to 4 October 1945. Detailing his flying training, Operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Penhold, RAF Hatfield, RAF Prestwick, RAF Dishforth, RAF Kirmington, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Peplow (also known as RAF Childs Ercall), RAF Church Broughton, RAF Hixon, RAF Barford St John, RAF Downham Market, RAF Warboys and RAF Gransden Lodge. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Hudson, Ventura, Wellington, Manchester, Lancaster, Martinet, Mosquito and Mitchell. He flew a total of 44 night operations, 30 with 106 squadron and 14 with 608 sqaudron. Targets were, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, Lorient, Milan, Bremen, Nuremburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Essen, St Nazaire, Kiel, Spezia, Dortmund, Pilsen, Bochum, Oberhausen, Krefeld, Berlin and Schleissheim. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Pilot Officer Lace. The log book also list his post war civilian flying.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEdmundsAE430709v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Alberta--Red Deer Region
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Oberschleissheim
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--La Spezia
Italy--Milan
Scotland--South Ayrshire
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1942-12-20
1942-12-21
1943-01-27
1943-01-28
1943-01-30
1943-01-31
1943-02-02
1943-02-03
1943-02-04
1943-02-07
1943-02-08
1943-02-13
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-16
1943-02-17
1943-02-21
1943-02-22
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1943-03-10
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-13
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-08
1943-04-09
1943-04-10
1943-04-13
1943-04-14
1943-04-26
1943-04-27
1943-04-30
1943-05-01
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-14
1943-06-15
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-18
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-03-26
1945-03-27
1945-03-28
1945-04-02
1945-04-03
1945-04-11
1945-04-12
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
1945-04-19
1945-04-20
1945-04-21
1945-04-22
1945-04-24
1945-04-25
1945-06-02
1945-06-07
1945-06-12
1945-06-19
1945-06-27
1945-07-09
1945-07-23
1945-08-03
106 Squadron
16 OTU
1654 HCU
27 OTU
30 OTU
608 Squadron
83 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
B-25
bombing
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Manchester
Martinet
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Barford St John
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Dishforth
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Hatfield
RAF Hixon
RAF Kirmington
RAF Peplow
RAF Prestwick
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Warboys
RAF Wigsley
Tiger Moth
training
Ventura
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/455/24507/LLaneRJJ5795v10001.2.pdf
c6aa909ea3a27fba7908ba1635d89d84
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
Cothliff, Ken
Ken Cothliff
K Cothliff
Description
An account of the resource
486 items in 12 sub-collections. The collection concerns Ken Cothliff's research on 6 Group Bomber Command and contains an interview with Adolf Galland, documents and photographs. Sub-collections include information on 427 Squadron, 429 Squadrons, Gerry Philbin, Jim Moffat, Reg Lane, Robert Mitchell, Steve Puskas and logs from RAF Tholthorpe.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ken Cothliff and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Cothliff, K
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
Reg Lane’s Royal Canadian Air Force 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.
Description
An account of the resource
R J Lane’s RCAF Pilot’s Flying Log Book from 10th February 1941 to 2nd September 1956, detailing his training, operations and post war duties as a pilot. No flying is recorded in 1945, 1946, 1947, 1953, 1954 or 1955.
He was stationed at RCAF Station Sea Island (No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School), RCAF Station Dauphin (No. 10 Service Flying Training School), RAF Abingdon (No. 10 OTU), RAF Linton on Ouse (35 Squadron), RAF Driffield (1502 Beam Approach Training Flight), RAF Gransden Lodge (Path Finder Force Navigation Training Unit, 405 Squadron), RCAF Station Rockliffe (Air Force HQ) and RCAF Station Edmonton.
Aircraft in which flown: Tiger Moth, Harvard, Whitley III, Whitley IV, Halifax I, Halifax II, Oxford, Lancaster I, Lancaster III, Lancaster VI, Mosquito IV, Liberator I. Expeditor, Beechcraft, B-29, Goose, North Star, Dakota III, Dakota IV and Mitchell.
Records a total of 64 operations (63 night, one day). Targets in Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy and Norway were: Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Brest, Caen, Cologne, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Emden, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Kiel, Magdeburg, Mannheim, Milan, Munich, Nuremberg, Nurnberg, Osnabruck, Paris, Pilsen, Saarbruck, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart, Trondheim, Turin, Vegesack and Warnemunde. His first or second pilots on operations were Sergeant Williams, Sergeant Hammond, Pilot Officer Field, Pilot Officer Dobson, Sergeant Murray and Sergeant John. Records four flights with Flight Lieutenant G. L. Cheshire in October 1941. Post war flights include “FIRST RCAF ROUND - THE - WORLD FLIGHT” January and February 1950.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LLaneRJJ5795v10001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Norway
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Italy--Po River Valley
Alberta--Edmonton
British Columbia--Vancouver
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Manitoba--Dauphin
Ontario--Ottawa
Czech Republic--Plzeň
France--Brest
France--Caen
France--Paris
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Milan
Italy--Turin
Norway--Trondheim
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Rostock
Ontario
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Manitoba
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1956
1941-11-07
1941-11-08
1941-11-09
1941-11-10
1941-12-11
1941-12-12
1941-12-18
1941-12-30
1942-03-03
1942-03-04
1942-03-08
1942-03-09
1942-03-13
1942-03-14
1942-03-30
1942-03-31
1942-04-27
1942-04-28
1942-05-04
1942-05-05
1942-05-08
1942-05-09
1942-05-19
1942-05-20
1942-05-30
1942-05-31
1942-06-01
1942-06-02
1942-06-03
1942-06-16
1942-06-17
1942-06-19
1942-06-20
1942-06-21
1942-06-22
1942-06-23
1942-06-25
1942-06-26
1942-06-29
1942-06-30
1942-07-02
1942-07-03
1942-07-19
1942-07-20
1942-07-21
1942-07-22
1942-07-23
1942-07-24
1942-07-25
1942-07-26
1942-07-27
1942-07-30
1942-07-31
1942-08-01
1942-10-13
1942-10-14
1942-10-15
1942-10-16
1942-10-24
1942-10-25
1942-11-09
1942-11-10
1942-11-22
1942-11-23
1942-12-31
1943-01-01
1943-02-03
1943-02-04
1943-02-05
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-25
1943-02-26
1943-02-27
1943-03-01
1943-03-02
1943-03-03
1943-03-04
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1943-03-10
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-27
1943-03-28
1943-03-29
1943-03-30
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-14
1943-04-15
1943-04-16
1943-04-17
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-12-16
1943-12-17
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-03-24
1944-03-15
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-07-18
10 OTU
35 Squadron
405 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
B-25
B-29
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
C-47
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Harvard
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Master Bomber
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Abingdon
RAF Driffield
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Linton on Ouse
tactical support for Normandy troops
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/530/25990/MShawSR3002545-160211-15.2.jpg
64233735a3dc7bb38205a8314df55045
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
Shaw, Stanley R
S R Shaw
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Shaw, SR
Description
An account of the resource
37 items. An oral history interview with Stanley Shaw (3002545 Royal Air Force) Photographs, documents and his log book. He served with a Repair and Salvage Unit and attended many crashes. He later served in North Africa and the Middle East.
The collection also contains two photograph albums; one of his RAF service and one of his time in a cycle club.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Stanley Shaw and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-14
2016-02-11
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
Aircraft Recovered by No 9 Party, 54 MU
Description
An account of the resource
A list of 29 aircraft recovered during 1944-45 by No 9 Party, 54 Maintenance Unit.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stan Shaw
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten list
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MShawSR3002545-160211-15
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Thurleigh
England--Ely
England--Felixstowe
England--Desborough
England--Northamptonshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
B-17
B-24
B-25
Battle
C-47
Halifax
Lancaster
Mosquito
P-51
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Bourn
RAF Castle Combe
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Desborough
RAF Duxford
RAF Felixstowe
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Graveley
RAF Henlow
RAF Hethel
RAF Kimbolton
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mepal
RAF Oakington
RAF Podington
RAF Stradishall
RAF Sutton Bridge
RAF Swannington
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Tempsford
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Watton
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
Walrus
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/607/26325/LMaywoodRM1623169v2.1.pdf
5b92814ba444c0b862e57eaf42f615f4
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
Maywood, Dick
Richard M Maywood
R M Maywood
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Maywood, RM
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard 'Dick' Maywood (1923 -2016, 1623169 Royal Air Force), his log book and a certificate. He flew operations as a navigator with 608 and 692 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
2015-11-09
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.
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
Dick Maywood’s Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot for R M Maywood, navigator, covering the period from 31 December 1943 to 25 September 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and post war flying. He was stationed at RCAF Mountain View, RCAF Charlottetown, RAF Kingstown, RAF Cliffe Pypard, RAF Wigtown, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Barford-st-John, RAF Downham Market and RAF Gransden Lodge. Aircraft flown in were, Bolingbroke, Anson, Tiger Moth DH82a, Oxford and Mosquito. He flew one night operation with 608 squadron and completed his post war flying with 692 squadron. Target was Eggebeck. His pilot on operations was Warrant Officer Johnson.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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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
LMaywoodRM1623169v2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cumbria
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Wiltshire
Germany--Schleswig-Flensburg
Ontario--Belleville
Prince Edward Island--Charlottetown
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Ontario
Prince Edward Island
Ontario--Belleville
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1945-04-26
1945-06-09
1945-07-03
16 OTU
608 Squadron
692 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
Bolingbroke
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Mosquito
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Barford St John
RAF Clyffe Pypard
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Wigtown
Tiger Moth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1772/31069/MCleggPV[DoB]-150819-04.pdf
f455e2dd94dd4a5af08ae3e4cb11a33d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1772/31069/MCleggPV[DoB]-150819-04.pdf
f455e2dd94dd4a5af08ae3e4cb11a33d
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
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Aldborough Dairy and Cafe
Description
An account of the resource
Collection contains advert for Mudd's choicest butter, details of Aldborough Cafe, photograph, newspaper cuttings and many pages of visitors signatures. an index of visiting Canadian and American airmen, some notes on signatures and details of the death of those signing the book.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clegg, PV
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] DETAILS OF THE DEATH OF THOSE SIGNING THE BOOK [/UNDERLINED]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 7th 1942]
Athol Herbert JENNINGS F/S RCAF Killed Aug 28th/42 408 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
408 Sqn – Hampden I – P1244 EQ-Y – Op: Kassel
Sgt A H Jennings Killed
Sgt L G Chaston RCAF Killed
Sgt C H Thompson RAAF Killed
Sgt J W Todd Killed
T/o 2005 Balderton. All are buried in Hannover War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 7th 1942]
Sydney Clarence CAMP Flt Sgt RCAF Killed Jan 15/42 51 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 8th 1942]
Eric John RICHARDS Sgt RAF Killed Jan 15/42 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Whitley V – Z9424 MH-R – Op: Emden
Sgt E J Richards Killed
Sgt H C Needham pow
F/S S C Camp RCAF Killed
Sgt G S Booth pow
Sgt W D Muirhead pow
Sgt R J White Killed
T/o 1758 Dishforth. Shot down by a night-fighter (Uffz Zipperlein, 4./NJG1) and crashed 2215 between Achtkarspelen and Rottevalle (Friesland) the latter being 4 km N of Drachten, Holland. Those who died are buried in Smallingerland (Rottevalle) Protestant Churchyard.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 8th 1942]
Roderick James CHISHOLM F/S RCAF Killed Jan 6/42 35 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
35 Sqn – Halifax II – R9439 TL-A – Op: Emden
Sgt S E Davies Killed
Sgt H Thomas Killed
P/O T J Taylor RCAF Killed
F/S R L Bradshaw RCAF Killed
F/S R J Chisholm RCAF Killed
Sgt A Squires Killed
T/o 2319 Linton-on-Ouse. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. Sgt Davies hailed from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 8th 1942]
Frank OLIVER DFM F/S RAF Killed Sep 30/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Squadron with Coastal Command, May - Oct 42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 9th 1942]
Douglas FORBES Sgt RAF Killed Mar 8/43 61 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
61 Sqn – Lancaster I – W4903 QR-P – Op: Nürnberg
F/L C A Giles DFC RAAF Killed
P/O K D Babington-Browne Killed
F/O F Richards Killed
P/O B J Gunter Killed
F/S G Mitchell Killed
Sgt E Carr Killed
F/S D Forbes Killed
T/o 1930 Syerston. Believed crashed in the general vicinity of Fürth, a large town just to the NW of Nürnberg. All were buried at Fürth on 10 March, but since the war their bodies have been taken to Durnbach War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 10th 1942]
Jack Vage KERR F/S RAF Killed Oct 16/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 10th 1942]
Frank Lewin LUFF Sgt RAF Killed Aug 12/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 10th 1942]
Norman VINER Sgt. RAF Killed Jan 21st/42 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Whitley V – Z9311 MH-J– Op: Emden
P/O B Sides Killed
Sgt D A Richards Killed
F/S B L Hart Killed
Sgt N Viner Killed
Sgt J J Clarke Killed
T/o 1734 Dishforth. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 3 – Date of entry January 13th 1942]
William Moreton JAMES Sgt RAF Killed Jul 12th/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/ 42]
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry January 23rd 1942]
Stanley WOOLHOUSE W/O RAF Killed Oct 3/43 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Halifax II – HR728 LK-D – Op: Kassel
F/L W T Irwin Killed
F/O J A Grundy Killed
P/O W J Watson Killed
F/O J J Dawkins Killed
F/O R T Watkinson Killed
W/O S Woolhouse Killed
Sgt J Dixon Killed
Sgt J F Gordon Killed
T/o 1810 Snaith. Crashed at Wietersheim on the E bank of the Weser, 4 km SSW of Petershagen. All are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery. F/O Grundy was an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry 27th January 1942]
Arthur Hugh Steyning BROWN P/O RAAF Killed Oct 16th/42 51 Sqn
(No details known) [Sqn with Coastal Command, May - Oct/42]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry 28th January 1942]
Douglas Ronald FREEAR Sgt RAF Killed Apr 10/42 158 Sqn
(No details known)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry January 28th 1942]
John David William STENHOUSE F/S RAF Killed Mar 1/43 51 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 4 – Date of entry February 15th 1942]
Ronald Arthur Bertram WILLMOTT P/O RAF Killed Mar 1/43 51 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
51 Sqn – Halifax II – BB223 MH-C – Op: Berlin
F/S J D W Stenhouse Killed
Sgt C Avery Killed
Sgt W Colangelo RCAF Killed
Sgt A Beauchamp Killed
F/S R A B Willmott Killed
Sgt A Howe Killed
F/O J B Duncan Killed
T/o 1830 Snaith. Shot down by a night-fighter (Lt August Geiger, III./NJG1) and crashed 0008 Voorst (Gelderland), 5 km NW of Zutphen, Holland. All are buried in Voorst General Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 5 – Date of entry February 20th 1942]
Alan Kenneth FARLAM W/O RAAF Killed Aug 14/43 19 OTU
[crew and operation details]
19 OTU – Anson I – N9671 XF-P – Training
W/O A K Farlam RAAF Killed
F/O H H Kirby DFC Killed
Sgt E S A Gray Killed
Sgt F J Pellatt Killed
Sgt R Brown Killed
Sgt K Ashmore Killed
T/o 1435 Kinloss for a navigation training detail. At approximately 1505, the Anson was seen diving, with both engines running at full power, from 4,000 feet and failing to recover before hitting the ground roughly a mile E of Arbroath airfield, Angus. An examination of the wreckage revealed that most of the fabric had peeled away from the starboard wing. All rest in cemeteries scattered across the United Kingdom and it seems likely that the funeral for W/O Farlam of Neutral Bay in New South Wales was arranged by relatives as he is buried in Surrey at Cheam (St. Dunstan) Churchyard, Sutton and Cheam.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 5 – Date of entry March 18th 1942]
Edward Maurice TAYLOR Sgt RAF Killed Jun 17/42 24 OTU
[crew and operation details]
24 OTU – Whitley V – BD358 – Training
F/S W T Rushton Killed
P/O L Rowlinson Killed
Sgt G E Hibben Killed
Sgt E M Taylor Killed
Sgt A F Alcock RCAF Killed
Sgt Harris inj.
LAC H G Foot Killed
AC2 J Murray Killed
T/o 1525 Honeybourne for a navigation exercise involving the crew, which was made up of a screened pilot and wireless operator, four trainees and two passengers, in overwater flying. At 1955, the bomber returned to base and was seen, while on the cross-wind leg, to lower the flaps. As it did so, so the nose appeared to rise quite sharply. Immediately, the flaps were retracted and the Whitley continued with its approach but as it turned finals, and the flaps were once again lowered, the nose pitched up and the aircraft stalled, plunging to the ground on the boundary of the airfield, where it burst into flames. Those who died rest in various cemeteries across the United Kingdom. This was the first major accident involving an aircraft from the unit since its formation in mid-March 1942.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 6 – Date of entry July 28th 1942
Roderick John HEATHER P/O RCAF Killed Mar 12/43 427 Sqn
(No details known)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 7 – Date of entry September 18th 1942]
Thomas Donovan COPELAND F/O RCAF Killed Mar 11/45 434 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
434 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB834 WL-Y – Op: Essen
F/L R J Fern RCAF Killed
P/O W T Jones Killed
F/L A G Rowe DFC RCAF Killed
F/O T D Copeland RCAF Killed
F/O J R Latremouille RCAF Killed
F/O G Scott RCAF Killed
F/O J A H B Marceau RCAF pow
T/o 1138 Croft. Hit by flak and crashed within seconds of completing its bombing run, plunging into the target area. Six bodies were later recovered from Plot B at the Süd-West Friedhof and taken to the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery. F/O Marceau RCAF was very badly wounded and was to undergo many years of hospital treatment. Apart from 37 year old P/O Jones, who had served previously with 419 Squadron, the crew were on their second tour of operations.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry September 19th 1942]
Eric Raymond PRICE F/O RAF Killed Oct 22/43 77 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
77 Sqn – Halifax II – JD121 KN-O – Op: Kassel
F/O J S Barber Killed
Sgt D W Stribley Killed
Sgt R O Hand Killed
F/O E R Price Killed
Sgt I M Smith Killed
Sgt J Pretsell Killed
Sgt H A Weber RCAF Killed
T/o 1802 Elvington. Crashed at Tietelsen, 9 km SE of Brakel. All rest in Hannover War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry October 14th 1942]
Peter LANE Killed Jan 18/43 97 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
97 Sqn – Lancaster I – R5575 OF-L – Op: Berlin
Sgt G H Rowson Killed
Sgt P Lane Killed
Sgt J E West Killed
Sgt J Bell Killed
Sgt J C Brittain Killed
Sgt G A Axup Killed
F/S H C Beebe RCAF Killed
T/o 1703 Woodhall Spa. Crashed in the Waddenzee. Sgt Brittain's body was recovered on 9 April and buried a week later in Ulrum General Cemetery. The rest are named on the Runnymede Memorial. At 40, F/S Beebe RCAF was amongst the oldest RCAF airmen to die on operational service with Bomber Command.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry October 23rd 1942]
Arthur Lawrence FAIRBROTHER Sgt RAF Killed Feb 15/44 77 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
77 Sqn – Halifax V – LK726 KN-O – Op: Berlin
F/O G Bodden Killed
Sgt J L Green Killed
F/S N F W Gooding Killed
Sgt W H Beere Killed
Sgt R C Hall Killed
Sgt J Smith Killed
Sgt A L Fairbrother Killed
T/o 1730 Elvington. Crashed at Buskow, 7 km S of Neuruppin. All were buried at Buskow on 17 February, since when their remains have been exhumed and reinterred in the 1939-1945 War Cemetery at Berlin. Sgt Fairbrother's service number indicates he was accepted for pilot training in the pre-war volunteer reserve.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 8 – Date of entry November 27th 1942]
Derek VOLLANS Sgt RAF Killed Apr 15/43 425 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
425 Sqn – Wellington III – X3763 KW-L – Op: Stuttgart
P/O A T Doucette DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt A Jones Killed
P/O J O L Desroches DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt D Vollans Killed
P/O G P H Ledoux RCAF Killed
F/S P P Trudeau RCAF Killed
T/o 2107 Dishforth. Crashed at Mussey-sur-Marne (Haute Marne), on the W bank of the Marne, 8 km S of Joinville, France. All rest in Mussey-sur-Marne Communal Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 10 – Date of entry January 17th 1943]
William ("Bill") HENDERSON P/O RCAF Killed Apr 14/45 419 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
419 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB866 VR-M – Op: Kiel
F/S C C Maclaren RCAF Killed
Sgt G A Livingston RCAF Killed
F/O D W Wincott RCAF Killed
F/O C R Loft RCAF Killed
WO1 W Henderson RCAF Killed
F/S E R Wightman RCAF Killed
Sgt G J Jones RCAF Killed
T/o 2022 Middleton St. George similarly tasked. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. At 36, F/S Wightman RCAF was amongst the oldest Canadians killed on bomber operations in 1945.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 12 – Date of entry February 21st 1943]
James Henry ("Smudge") EVANS F/S RCAF Killed Aug 10/43 405 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
405 Sqn – Halifax II – HR872 LQ-K – Op: Mannheim
F/L K MacG Gray RCAF Killed
Sgt D A Black RCAF Killed
F/O A J Middleton RCAF Killed
Sgt J H Evans RCAF Killed
Sgt H King Killed
Sgt C W Pickering RCAF Killed
Sgt J Hanna RCAF Killed
T/o 2252 Gransden Lodge. Shot down by a night-fighter (Lt Norbert Pietrek, II./NJG4) crashing 0100 at Awenne (Luxembourg), 9 km NW of St. Hubert, Belgium. All are buried in Florennes Communal Cemetery. F/S Gray RCAF and F/O Middleton RCAF both came from Medicine Hat in Alberta.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 12 – Date of entry February 21st 1943]
William John Ross DAVIES F/S RCAF Killed March 5/43 426 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 12 – Date of entry February 21st 1943]
Cyril Randolph TRASK P/O RCAF Killed March 5/43 426 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
426 Sqn – Wellington III – BK401 OW-M – Op: Essen
P/O C R Trask RCAF Killed
P/O C E Chapman Killed
Sgt W J R Davies RCAF Killed
SGT N F Paterson RCAF Killed
Sgt G Walen RCAF Killed
Sgt R E Williams RCAF Killed
T/o 1910 Dishforth. Lost without trace. All are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Note. A reliable private source in Holland indicates this Wellington may have crashed in the IJsselmeer, 10 km E of Amsterdam.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 14 – Date of entry April 17th 1943]
Albert Frederick HOPLEY F/S RCAF Killed May 14/43 426 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
426 Sqn – Wellington X – HE697 OW- – Op: Bochum
Sgt J A Thomson RCAF Killed
Sgt A F Hopley RCAF Killed
Sgt J P O Ethier RCAF Killed
Sgt N Hudspith Killed
Sgt T F How Killed
T/o 2334 Dishforth. Shot down by a night-fighter and crashed 0253 near Nederhorst den Berg (Noord Holland), 16 km SE of Amsterdam. All are buried in Amersfoort (Oud Leusden) General Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 13 – Date of entry March 31st 1943]
Sidney Leon MURRELL D.F.C. Flt/Lt. RCAF Killed June 22/43 405 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
405 Sqn – Halifax II – JD124 LQ-P – Op: Krefeld
F/L S L Murrell DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt A W Nichols BEM RCAF Killed
P/O F W Hodge RCAF Killed
P/O J H T J Lemieux RCAF Killed
P/O R A Livingston DFC RCAF Killed
F/S E D Rowe RCAF Killed
Sgt R L Robinson RCAF Killed
T/o 2336 Gransden Lodge. Crashed in the vicinity of Mönchengladbach, where all were laid to rest in the Städtfriedhof on 24 June. Sgt Nichols RCAF now lies in the Reichswald Forest War Cemetery; the rest have been taken to Rheinberg War Cemetery. F/L Murrell RCAF was a Texan from Gainsville.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 16 – Date of entry July 3rd 1943]
John Henry STEVENS Sgt RAF Killed Oct 3/43 44 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
44 Sqn – Lancaster III – ED433 KM-V – Op: Kassel
P/O H G Norton RAAF Killed
Sgt J H Stevens Killed
Sgt S D Stait Killed
Sgt F Thompson pow
Sgt E E Greenfield Killed
Sgt W A Whalley Killed
Sgt R G Martin Killed
T/o 1831 Dunholme Lodge. Crashed in the Söhrewald, 10 km SE of Kassel. Those who died are buried in Hannover War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 15 – Date of entry May 7th 1943]
Donald James ELLIOTT F/O RCAF Killed Jan 1/44 405 Sqn
(No details known)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 17 – Date of entry July 16th 1944]
Lloyd William Wesley JONES P/O RCAF Killed Jan 22/44 427 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
427 Sqn – Halifax V – LL139 ZL-D – Op: Magdeburg
S/L D M Arnot DFC RCAF Killed
W/C A N Martin RCAF Killed
P/O R A N Rondelet RCAF Killed
P/O L W W Jones RCAF Killed
F/O W V Thom RCAF pow
P/O R Dawson Killed
P/O L S Gray RCAF Killed
P/O R O Nickerson RCAF Killed
T/o 2000 Leeming. Attacked at 19,500 feet by a night-fighter while clearing the target area. The order to abandon was given, but before the crew could react, the Halifax exploded, throwing clear F/O Thom RCAF. The others are buried in Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery. W/C Martin RCAF was the CO of 424 Squadron and had been attached for operational experience. P/O Rondelet RCAF was a Belgian, born on 21 November 1915 at Seraing in the SE suburbs of Liege.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 17 – Date of entry July 24th 1944]
David Neville COTTON P/O RCAF Killed June 29/44 427 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
427 Sqn – Halifax III – LV938 ZL-A – Op: Metz
WO2 A J King RCAF pow
Sgt H Morgan pow
F/O W A Wilson RCAF pow
P/O W M Pookay RCAF evd
F/S R E Mowbray pow
F/S S K Vallieres RCAF pow
F/S D N Cotton RCAF Killed
T/o 2145 Leeming similarly tasked. Hit by flak and crashed at Juvincourt-et-Damary (Aisne) some 24 km SE of Laon. F/S Cotton RCAF is buried in Juvincourt-et-Damary Churchyard.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 18 – Date of entry August 26th 1943]
Nick VENBER P/O RCAF Killed May 1/44 420 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
420 Sqn – Halifax III – LW476 PT-J – Op: Somain
F/L E Northern DFC RCAF Killed
Sgt L S Franklin RCAF Killed
F/O F W Morrison RCAF Killed
WO1 N Venber RCAF Killed
F/S C H Lines Killed
Sgt W H Young RCAF Killed
F/O A H B Hall RCAF Killed
T/o 2115 Tholthorpe to bomb rail installations. Presumed crashed in the sea. F/O Morrison RCAF is buried in Cayeux-sur-Mer Communal Cemetery, F/O Hall RCAF rests at St-Valery-sur-Somme Communal Cemetery, while the other members of crew are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 19 – Date of entry August 27th 1943]
William Edward MARTIN Sgt RCAF Killed Dec 11/43 26 OTU
[crew and operation details]
26 OTU – Wellington III – BK440 – Training
F/S A Merridew Killed
Sgt S Wilson Killed
F/S N Doherty RAAF Killed
Sgt E W Brown Killed
Sgt W E Martin RCAF Killed
Sgt A W Ellis Killed
T/o 0645 Little Horwood for a navigation sortie. Exploded 0800, or thereabouts, and crashed near Park Farm, Hindolveston, 8 miles ESE of Fakenham in Norfolk. Five were taken to Cambridge City Cemetery, while Sgt Brown is buried in Rushden Cemetery. In the years since this tragedy, various items of debris have been recovered from the fields and the more important pieces are now with the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
James Archibald WILSON Sgt RCAF Killed Jan 21/44 419 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
419 Sqn – Halifax II – JD466 VR-E – Op: Magdeburg
F/L A G Hermitage RCAF Killed
Sgt J A Wilson RCAF Killed
F/S R H Walton RCAF Killed
F/S W B Tobin RCAF Killed
WO2 J B Chess RCAF Killed
Sgt R Shields Killed
Sgt R W Edwards RCAF Killed
T/o 1941 Middleton St. George. Crashed at Borne, where all were buried on 26 January. Since the cessation of hostilities, their bodies have been brought to the 1939-1945 War Cemetery at Berlin.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
James Coulter COPELAND P/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
William Edward Heaton BARTY P/O RAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 4th 1944]
Stephen Lawrence NOREJKO P/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
429 – Halifax III – MZ900 AL-K – Op: Boulogne
F/O J M Prentice RCAF
F/S F P Platt
F/O T A Wilson RCAF
F/S S L Norejko RCAF
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF
F/S W E H Barty
F/S J C Copeland RCAF inj
T/o 0714 Leeming similarly tasked. Hit by flak which damaged both starboard engines. Unable to maintain height, F/O Prentice RCAF put the bomber into the sea off the French coast. F/O M Lanin RCAF in Halifax III MZ303 AL-R witnessed the ditching and he remained overhead until an ASR Walrus, escorted by two Spitfires, arrived on the scene at 1019. All were picked up, F/S Copeland RCAF being slightly injured. Overladen, the Walrus was eventually met by an HSL which took the crew in Newhaven. P.T.O. [See next entry]
[page break]
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Halifax III – MZ463 AL-J – Op: Osnabruck
F/O J M Prentice RCAF Killed
F/L H D O/Neil RCAF Killed
P/O E S C Clark RCAF Killed
F/O T A Wilson RCAF Killed
P/O L Norejko RCAF Killed
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF Killed
P/O W E H Barty Killed
WO2 J C Copeland RCAF Killed
T/o 1619 Leeming. Lost without trace. The six RCAF members of crew, along with P/O Barty, are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial while Lt McRoberts USAAF is named on his country's memorial to its airmen with no known graves. It will be recalled that six of the crew had been involved in a dramatic ditching incident while operating against Boulogne in September. Apart from F/L O'Neil RCAF, who was flying his first sortie, all were about two-thirds of the way through their tour.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 23 – Date of entry January 7th 1944]
Frederick Peter CAMMAART P/O RCAF Killed Apr 23/44 424 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
424 Sqn – Halifax III – LV780 QB-M – Op: Dusseldorf
WO2 W F Vornbrock RCAF Killed
Sgt L Walters Killed
F/S J S Laird RCAF Killed
WO2 F P Cammaart RCAF Killed
Sgt L Hanson Killed
Sgt J J Renning RCAF Killed
Sgt F P Morrisey RCAF pow
T/o 2230 Skipton-on-Swale. Crashed near Goirle in Noord-Brabant, 4 km S of Tilburg, Holland. Those who died were buried in Goirle Roman Catholic Cemetery, but since 1945 the four RCAF members of crew have been taken to Bergen op Zoom Canadian War Cemetery. Sgt Walters had been born Lionel Cohen and he came from Golders Green in Middlesex.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 24 – Date of entry February 1st 1944]
William Henry PARKINSON F/O RCAF Killed May 9/44 432 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
432 Sqn – Halifax III – LW594 QO-G – Op: Haine-St-Pierre
P.O S A Hawkins RCAF Killed
Sgt H Ibbotson Killed
F/O A I Raetzen RCAF pow
Sgt M B O'Leary RCAF pow
F/O W H Parkinson RCAF Killed
Sgt G Hand evd
Sgt R B Haxton RCAF evd
T/o 0130 East Moor similarly tasked. Shot down by a night-fighter (Oblt Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer Stab IV./NJG4) and crashed 0332 at Grand Reng (Hainaut) a small Belgian town on the border with France some 16 km SE of Mons. Those who died lie in Gosselies Communal Cemetery, where all 102 graves are for airmen who died in Bomber Command service between July 1942 and May 1944.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 24 – Date of entry February 3rd 1944]
John Tengate TUNSTALL Sgt RAF Killed Jan 7/45 550 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
550 Sqn – Lancaster I – NG363 BQ-P – Op: Munchen
F/O C J Clarke RCAF Killed
Sgt J T Tunstall Killed
F/S H E Miell RCAF Killed
F/O A L Coldwell RCAF pow
Sgt L O Precieux Killed
F/S F W Bradley RCAF Killed
F/S L A J Gauthier RCAF Killed
T/o 1815 North Killingholme. Those who died rest in Dürnbach War Cemetery. Nineteen year old Sgt Precieux was the son of Jules Henri and Marie Alicia Fanellie Precieux of Phoenix on the island of Mauritius.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 25 – Date of entry February 4th 1944]
Stanley Allen HAWKINS F/O RCAF Killed May 9/44 432 Sqn
(See Page 24 et seq. for details with rest of crew)
[visitors book entry. Page No. 25 – Date of entry February 8th 1944]
Douglas Anderson HENDERSON P/O RCAF Killed Feb 21/45 427 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
427 Sqn – Halifax III – NR288 ZL-F – Op: Worms
P/O W R Wilson RCAF pow
Sgt J F W Taylor Killed
F/O L Webster RCAF Killed
WO2 R R Stuart RCAF Killed
F/S D A Henderson RCAF Killed
F/S L O Foisy RCAF Killed
F/S A J McLeod RCAF Killed
T/o 1623 Leeming. Those who lost their lives are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 26 – Date of entry February 18th 1944]
Robert Fitzgerald CONROY F/O RCAF Killed Mar 24/44 429 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Wellington X – HE593 AL- – Op: Düsseldorf
F/S R F Conroy RCAF evd
Sgt G A Leitch RCAF Killed
P/O G R Densmore RCAF Killed
F/S G A Nelson RCAF Killed
Sgt J Burns RCAF Killed
T/o 2300 East Moor. Outbound, and while climbing towards 19,000 feet, shot down by a night-fighter. Three are buried in Eindhoven (Woensel) General Cemetery; Sgt Burns RCAF lies in the Canadian War Cemetery at Groesbeek.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 27 – Date of entry February 28th 1944]
James Coulter COPELAND P/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Halifax III – MZ900 AL-K – Op: Boulogne
F/O J M Prentice RCAF
F/S F P Platt
F/O T A Wilson RCAF
F/S S L Norejko RCAF
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF
F/S W E H Barty
F/S J C Copeland RCAF inj
T/o 0714 Leeming similarly tasked. Hit by flak which damaged both starboard engines. Unable to maintain height, F/O Prentice RCAF put the bomber into the sea off the French coast. F/O M Lanin RCAF in Halifax III MZ303 AL-R witnessed the ditching and he remained overhead until an ASR Walrus, escorted by two Spitfires, arrived on the scene at 1019. All were picked up, F/S Copeland RCAF being slightly injured. Overladen, the Walrus was eventually met by an HSL which took the crew into Newhaven.
(Above F/S also signed the Visitors Book on an earlier page (23) on Jan 4th 1944)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 27 – Date of entry February 29th 1944]
Robert Roy CAMPBELL F/O RCAF Killed May 13/44 419 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 27 – Date of entry February 29th 1944]
Burdel Frank EDWARDS F/O RCAF Killed May 13/44 419 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
419 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB713 VR – Op: Leuven
P/O B F Edwards RCAF Killed
Sgt J R Carruthers Killed
F/O R R Campbell RCAF Killed
P/O P Dewar RCAF Killed
P/O R S Smith RCAF Killed
P/O J A Webber RCAF Killed
P/O H E Oddan RCAF Killed
T/o 2200 Middleton St. George to bomb rail yards. Outbound, crashed and exploded at Reninge (West-Vlaanderen), 10 km SSW from Diksmuider. On 16 May, P/O Smith RCAF was buried in Coxyde Cemetery, the others lie at Adegem Canadian War Cemetery.
Note: P/O Charles SURLES is listed as having been killed the same day as F/O PRITCHARD. He must have been in the same aircraft shown here as he was in Pritchard's crew. He was an American citizen from Louisiana.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 33 – Date of entry July 12th 1944]
Gordon Featherstone PRITCHARD F/O RCAF Killed Aug 17/44 420 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 33 – Date of entry July 12th 1944]
Charles Pittman SURLES P/O RCAF Killed Aug 17/44 420 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
420 Sqn – Halifax III – MZ687 PT-L – Op: Kiel
F/O G F Pritchard RCAF Killed
P/O R H Davis RCAF Killed
Sgt E A J Proud pow
F/O F W Moffit RCAF Killed
F/O D I Block RCAF Killed
WO2 D B H Lorenz RCAF Killed
F/S K G Boucock RCAF Killed
F/O A G Roski RCAF Killed
T/o 2101 Tholthorpe. Crashed in the North Sea from where Sgt Proud was rescued two days later. Of his seven comrades, F/O Moffit RCAF and WO2 Lorenz RCAF are buried in Kiel War Cemetery while the rest have no known graves.
Note: P/O Charles SURLES is listed as having been killed the same day as F/O PRITCHARD. He must have been in the same aircraft shown here, as he was in Pritchard's crew. He was an American citizen from Louisiana.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 34 – Date of entry August 11th 1944]
J P ("Benny") BENOIT WO2 RCAF Baled out Aug 3/44 433 Sqn. Survived.
[crew and operation details]
433 Sqn – Halifax III – HX275 BM-S – Op: Bois de Cassan
F/O R H Simpson RCAF
Sgt W Purdie
F/O R Woodhouse RCAF
F/O C M Dandy RCAF inj
WO2 J P Benoit RCAF
Sgt R E Budd RCAF
Sgt O M Brown RCAF
T/o 1031 Skipton-on-Swale similarly tasked. Hit by flak while turning from the target area, F/O Dandy RCAF being slightly wounded. The flying controls were badly damaged and at 1440 the crew baled out, no further injuries being reported.
Note: "Benny" BENOIT from Toronto, calls himself "The Parachute Kid" – for good reason! Where he landed is not known.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 37 – Date of entry September 19th 1944]
Thomas Abercromby WILSON F/O RCAF Killed Dec 6/44 429 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
429 Sqn – Halifax III MZ463 AL-J – Op: Osnabruck
F/O J M Prentice RCAF Killed
F/L H D O'Neil RCAF Killed
P/O E S C Clark RCAF Killed
F/O T A Wilson RCAF Killed
P/O S L Norejko RCAF Killed
Lt F M McRoberts USAAF Killed
P/O W E H Barty Killed
WO2 J C Copeland RCAF Killed
T/o 1619 Leeming. Lost without trace. The six RCAF members of crew, along with P/O Barty, are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial while Lt McRoberts USAAF is named on his country's memorial to its airmen with no known graves. It will be recalled that six of the crew had been involved in a dramatic ditching incident while operating against Boulogne in September. Apart from F/L O/Neil RCAF, who was flying his first sortie, all were about two-thirds of the way through their tour.
Note: F/O Wilson was in the same aircraft that included the three other crew members that appear on Page 23 previously (and Page 27)
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 25th 1944]
William ("Bill") Gordon McLEOD F/O RCAF Killed Apr 10/45 433 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
433 Sqn – Lancaster I – PB903 BM-F – Op: Leipzig
F/O R J Grisdale RCAF Killed
Sgt W A J Thurston Killed
F/O I B Zierler RCAF Killed
F/O W G McLeod RCAF Killed
F/S J M Hirak RCAF Killed
F/S F G Seeley RCAF Killed
F/S D W Roberts RCAF Killed
T/o 1317 Skipton-on-Swale similarly tasked. Hit by predicted flak just short of the AP. A fire was seen to break out in the starboard inner engine, though the flames were soon quelled. Height was lost, followed by a small explosion which turned the Lancaster onto its back. Diving steeply, the bomber hit the ground and exploded. All are buried in Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery.
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 25th 1944]
Ernest ("Bill") William WATSON F/L RCAF Killed Jan 16/45 420 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 25th 1944]
Quan Jil LOUIE F/O RCAF Killed Jan 16th 45 420 Sqn
420 Sqn – Halifax III – NA192 PT-Q – Op: Magdeburg
F/L E W Watson RCAF Killed
Sgt A K Parker Killed
P/O C W Way DFC Killed
F/O Q J Louie FCAF Killed
P/O W J D Partridge RCAF Killed
F/S D J Jacobi RCAF pow
F/S T Lynch RCAF pow
T/o 1846 Tholthorpe. Those who died are buried in Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery. F/O Louie RCAF, for whom no details of his next-of-kin are known, had the unusual Christian names of Quan Jil. P/O Partridge RCAF was the son of the Revd A M Partridge of Napanee, Ontario.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 31st 1944]
Sydney Dolton HEWSON F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 31st 1944]
Robert Allan EBBER F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry October 31st 1944]
Arthur Allen DIXON F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry November 2nd 1944]
Albert Thomas LE BLANC F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[visitors book entry. Page No. 38 – Date of entry November 2nd 1944]
Keith Oscar McDIVITT F/O RCAF Killed Dec 28/44 428 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
428 Sqn – Lancaster X – KB798 NA-G – Op: Opladen
F/O E W Page RCAF Killed
Sgt G F Owen Killed
F/O S D Hewson RCAF Killed
F/O A A Dixon RCAF Killed
F/O R A Ebber RCAF Killed
F/O K O McDivitt RCAF Killed
F/O A T le Blanc RCAF Killed
T/o 0300 Middleton St. George. All are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 40 – Date of entry December 17th 1944]
John STREET P/O RCAF Killed Mar 2/45 408 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
408 Sqn – Halifax VII – RG472 EQ-T – Op: Koln
F/O H R Sproule RCAF pow
Sgt A D Dennis RCAF pow
F/O J E Moran RCAF pow
F/O V D J Mousseau RCAF pow
F/S J G Paxton RCAF Killed
F/S J Street RCAF Killed
F/S V T Hunt RCAF pow
T/o 0721 Linton-on-Ouse. Homebound, when hit by flak which killed F/S Paxton RCAF and F/S Street RCAF. The other members of crew baled out just moments before their aircraft exploded and fell near Bad Godesberg on the W bank of the Rhine, SE of Bonn. The two airmen who died were first buried at Bad Godesberg, since when their remains have been taken to Belgium and interred in Hotton War Cemetery.
[page break]
[visitors book entry. Page No. 42 – Date of entry January 23rd 1945]
Harold Keith STINSON, D.F.C. Sqd/Ldr. R.C.A.F. Killed Feb 1/45 433 Sqn
[crew and operation details]
433 Sqn – Lancaster I – NG460 BM-A – Op: Ludwigshafen
S/L H K Stinson DFC RCAF Killed
P/O E H Thompson Killed
F/O D J McMillan RCAF Killed
F/O A W Belles RCAF
P/O J T McShane RCAF Killed
P/O R Pierson RCAF Killed
P/O R J Thompson RCAF
T/o 1523 Skipton-on-Swale. Bombed the AP at 1928 from 17,000 feet and was hit by flak. On return the Lancaster entered turbulent weather while in cloud and control was lost, two of the crew managing to bale out from 2,000 feet before their aircraft crashed near Low House, roughly 1,000 yards NW from the town of Driffield, Yorkshire. The four RCAF officers are buried in Harrogate (Stonefall) Cemetery; P/O Thompson rests in Hampstead Cemetery, Cricklewood.
Note. These were the first casualties sustained by 433 Squadron in 1945 and it was also their first Lancaster write off. Three more would be lost before the end of the war, from which not one man survived.
[Source of information: Bill Chorley's 'Bomber Command Losses' Volume 3]
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
Details of death of those signing the book
Description
An account of the resource
Listing by page of visitors' book of personnel who had signed and were subsequently killed with details.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
Germany
Germany--Kassel
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Nuremberg
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
England--Worcestershire
England--Durham (County)
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Kiel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Mannheim
England--Cambridgeshire
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Magdeburg
France
France--Metz
England--Buckinghamshire
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Munich
Belgium
Belgium--Haine-Saint-Pierre
Germany--Worms
Belgium--Louvain
France--L'Isle-Adam
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Netherlands--Zutphen
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Mussey-sur-Marne
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-08-28
1942-01-15
1942-06-06
1942-09-30
1942-03-08
1943-05-08
1943-05-09
1942-10-16
1942-08-12
1942-07-12
1943-03-08
1942-10-16
1942-08-12
1942-01-21
1943-10-03
1943-10-03
1942-10-16
1942-04-10
1943-03-01
1943-03-02
1943-08-14
1942-06-17
1943-03-12
1945-03-11
1943-10-22
1943-01-18
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1943-04-14
1943-04-15
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-03-05
1943-03-06
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1944-01-01
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1943-12-11
1944-01-21
1944-01-22
1944-12-06
1944-09-17
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1944-05-09
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-12-06
1944-05-12
1944-05-13
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-03
1944-12-07
1945-04-10
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1944-12-26
1944-10-31
1944-11-02
1944-12-27
1944-12-28
1945-03-02
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Twenty-eight page printed document with handwritten annotation
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MCleggPV[DoB]-150819-04
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
PV Clegg
158 Squadron
19 OTU
26 OTU
35 Squadron
405 Squadron
408 Squadron
419 Squadron
420 Squadron
424 Squadron
425 Squadron
426 Squadron
427 Squadron
428 Squadron
429 Squadron
432 Squadron
433 Squadron
434 Squadron
44 Squadron
51 Squadron
550 Squadron
61 Squadron
77 Squadron
97 Squadron
Anson
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
Halifax
Hampden
killed in action
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
RAF Balderton
RAF Croft
RAF Dishforth
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF East Moor
RAF Elvington
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Honeybourne
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leeming
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Little Horwood
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Middleton St George
RAF North Killingholme
RAF Skipton on Swale
RAF Snaith
RAF Syerston
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1389/31249/LDixonW2206823v1.2.pdf
708eeff6860c5633fc1d6aab98548bb0
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
Connock, Mike
Michael Connock
M Connock
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
2015-02-24
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
Connock, M
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection concerns (Royal Air Force) and contains people who served with 50 and 61 Squadrons at RAF Skellingthorpe.
They include:
W Dixon
GR Williamson
BV Robinson
GA Walker
L Barber
HJ Whitwell
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Mike Connock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sergeant W. Dixon’s RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book
Description
An account of the resource
Sergeant W. Dixon’s RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, from 23rd September 1943 to 4th April 1945, detailing his training and operations as a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner. He was stationed at RAF Yatesbury (No. 2 Radio School), RAF Evanton (8 Air Gunnery School), RAF Bishopscourt (7(O) AFU), RAF Turweston, RAF Silverstone, (17 OTU), RAF Wigsley (1654 HCU), RAF Syerston (5 LFS) and RAF Skellingthorpe (61 Squadron). Aircraft in which flown: Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster.
He flew a total of 32 operations (6 day, 26 night). Targets in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and Poland were: Bohlen, Bremen, Brunswick, Dortmund, Dresden, Duren, Dusseldorf, Flushing, Gdynia, Gravenhorst, Houffalize, Ladbergen, Lutzkendorf, Merseburg, Molbis, Munich, Nordhausen, Nurnberg, Politz, Rheydt, Rositz, Siegen, Trondheim and Wurzburg. His pilots on operations were Flight Lieutenant Burns, Flying Officer MacFarlane and Flying Officer Lambert. Includes numerous comments on operations, including “COULDN’T CLIMB OVER ALPS OPENED BOMB DOORS & TOBBOGANED (sic) OVER” and “ATTACKED BY 5 JU88’S 2 SHOT DOWN”.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LDixonW2206823v1
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.
Belgium
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Belgium--Houffalize
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Wiltshire
Germany--Altenburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nordhausen (Thuringia)
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Saxony
Germany--Saxony-Anhalt
Germany--Siegen
Germany--Steinfurt (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdynia
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-10-06
1944-10-07
1944-10-11
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-19
1944-10-20
1944-11-02
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-06
1944-11-07
1944-11-16
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-24
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1944-12-19
1944-12-27
1944-12-31
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-13
1945-01-14
1945-01-15
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-12
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-04
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
1654 HCU
17 OTU
61 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Banff
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Carnaby
RAF Evanton
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Netheravon
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Stradishall
RAF Syerston
RAF Turweston
RAF Wigsley
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1835/33177/YProbynEA1896412v2.1.pdf
a1d55fe6fa9a98fc8237aca4c7d03741
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
Probyn, Ernest Arthur
E A Probyn
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-04-23
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
Probyn, EA
Description
An account of the resource
61 items. The collection concerns Ernest Arthur Probyn (Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, photographs, diary and a scrapbook. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 61 Squadron.<br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2044">Probyn, Ernest. Scrapbook</a> <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by P Probyn and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Royal Air Force crest]
THE AIR FORCE DIARY
[page break]
[black and white photograph of RAF emblem]
2/2
THE AIR FORCE DIARY 1945
With sections on the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and the Air Training Corps
[page break]
PERSONAL MEMORANDA
Name Ernest Arthur Probyn
Service No 1896412.
Home Address 7 Ichnield Rd
Longwick
Aylesbury, Bucks
Dates of Promotion W/O. due on 28.10.45.
Home Phone No. AYLESBURY 213
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
1945 JANUARY
1 MONDAY
Went to Lincoln to tea & pictures.
2 TUESDAY
Late morning, went to Lincoln.
3 WEDNESDAY
Very windy, also snow, cold.
4 THURSDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Royen, [/underlined] what a trip nearly bought it.
5 FRIDAY
Very cold day, very nearly went on spare bad trip.
6 SATURDAY
Rather a quiet day spent in Billet. Wrote to Mother & Gladys.
7 SUNDAY
Weather pretty duff.
[page break]
8 MONDAY
Practise flying.
9 TUESDAY
Quite [sic] day spent in billet, snowing, all day
10 WEDNESDAY
Still more snow.
11 THURSDAY
Started to pack early for leave.
12 FRIDAY
Up very early to start leave home by 3 p.m. Saw Glad in evening.
13 SATURDAY
Went to Wycombe with Gladys.
14 SUNDAY
Tea at Glads.
[page break]
15 MONDAY
Spent day at home
16 TUESDAY
Carlton with Gladys
17 WEDNESDAY
Went to Aylesbury with Mother
18 THURSDAY
Spent day in Oxford with Gladys
19 FRIDAY
Spent day at home.
20 SATURDAY
Went to Wycombe with Gladys.
21 SUNDAY
Back to Camp
[page break]
22 MONDAY
Went on a low level Cross country took photos from rear turret.
26 FRIDAY
Low level cross country again.
27 SATURDAY
Up on a 20 [indecipherable word] check.
[page break]
1 FEBRUARY THURSDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Seigen [/underlined] SE of Cologne. S. Ldr. Horsley pranged & blew up on drome.
2 FRIDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Karlsruhe [/underlined] had bust up with JU88 he lost. 1 M.
3 SATURDAY
Day in the clear.
4 SUNDAY
Fighter affill
[page break]
5 MONDAY
Pretty cold day, heavy frost in the morning.
6 TUESDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Magdaburg [/underlined]. Flak hot, caught a burst Landed near Brussels.
7 WEDNESDAY
Spent most of day in bed. Went into Brussels in evening, went to the 21 Club.
8 THURSDAY
Pretty late getting up. Went for walk to a village called “Geovise.” Had tea at the local Mayors.
9 FRIDAY
Flew back by Dacota [sic] boys glad to see us again Wish I had kept part of ‘chute.
10 SATURDAY
Bruce came over for the weekend.
11 SUNDAY
Had to stay in camp raining all day.
[page break]
12 MONDAY
Went to Lincoln this evening.
13 TUESDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Dresden [/underlined]
14 WEDNESDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Rosetz [/underlined]
15 THURSDAY
Went to Lincoln for evening, with Mac.
16 FRIDAY
Fairly quite [sic] day spent in camp.
17 SATURDAY
Another day spent in camp.
18 SUNDAY
Went to camp cinema saw “Phantom of the Opera.”
[page break]
19 MONDAY
Busy during day. Spent evening packing Duty Crew.
20 TUESDAY
Started leave today arrived home at 3 pm.
21 WEDNESDAY
Went to Aylesbury with Mother, saw “Casanova Brown” at the Odeon.
22 THURSDAY
Took Gladys to Carlton to see “Christmas Holiday.”
23 FRIDAY
Went to Aylesbury with mother to see “Dangerous Moonlight.
24 SATURDAY
Wycombe with Gladys saw “Casanova Brown” again, good film though
25 SUNDAY
Saw Uncle Will in morning. Glad came round in evening.
[page break]
26 MONDAY
Spent morning in garden. Went to Risbrough in evening with Glad saw “Fanny by gaslight
27 TUESDAY
A day in the garden planted the shallots parsnips, peas & beans.
28 WEDNESDAY
Spent last evening with Gladys. Told her just how I felt about her.
1 MARCH THURSDAY
Back to camp again dont [sic] feel like going.
2 FRIDAY
Started D.I. again feel pretty cheesed off.
3 SATURDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Dortmund-Ems Canal [/underlined]. Slight flac. [sic] 1 M.
4 SUNDAY
Pretty quiet day.
[page break]
5 MONDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Boland [/underlined] south of Leipzig. Hot place. 2.M.
6 TUESDAY
Went to Lincoln with Mac. Had tea & went to films.
7 WEDNESDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Hamburg [/underlined]. Flack heavy. Lost our hut mates on trip also 2 more kites. 3.M.
8 THURSDAY
Quiet day spent in camp. Went to Cinema in evening. Weather just like spring
9 FRIDAY
Another day of peace went to Caister in evening. Glads.
10 SATURDAY
Spent day in Lincoln saw D. Lamour in “Paradise Island.”
11 SUNDAY
Daylight raid on [underlined] Essen [/underlined].
[page break]
12 MONDAY
Daylight raid on [underlined] Dortmund [/underlined]. Passed right over home. 1.M.
13 TUESDAY
Rather a quiet day.
14 WEDNESDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Landsdorf [/underlined]. Flak pretty hot.. Took Groupy. 2.M.
15 THURSDAY
Flew back to Base from Grandowne Lodge
16 FRIDAY
Spent morning getting a pass. Arrived home about 10 pm.
17 SATURDAY
Spent most of day in the garden.
18 SUNDAY
Saw Gladys today. Started back to camp.
[page break]
19 MONDAY
Started work. Wish I was still on leave.
20 TUESDAY
Night raid on [underlined] Bolan [/underlined]. Took the G.C. Quite a lot of rocket flack. 3.M.
21 WEDNESDAY
Spent day in bed
22 THURSDAY
Day raid in [underlined] Bremen. [/underlined]
23 FRIDAY
Wizard day. Spent it sunbathing.
24 SATURDAY
Went to Rauseby Hos. Saw Hodgy & Dan Solly.
25 SUNDAY
Wizard head today.
[page break]
26 MONDAY
Went to town with Jack. In evening we saw “This Happy Breed” at the Theatre Royal.
27 TUESDAY
Spent day in camp.
28 WEDNESDAY
Went to Town with Pop & Mac. A good time was had by all. Saw A. Planes at the Ritz.
29 THURSDAY
Spent day in camp Cinema in evening, saw “Dearest Song.”
30 FRIDAY
Stayed in camp all day. No [indecipherable word].
31 SATURDAY
Bags of mail. Quiet day as usual.
1 APRIL SUNDAY
Spent the whole day in the Hut
[page break]
2 MONDAY
Another clear day. No opps. Went to Caister in evening.
3 TUESDAY
Still nothing doing
4 WEDNESDAY
Daylight raid on [underlined] Northanger [/underlined] very quite [sic] no flak.
5 THURSDAY
Started filling in our passes today
6 FRIDAY
Leave at last I was home by four.
7 SATURDAY
Went with Glad to Aylesbury.
8 SUNDAY
Spent today at home.
[page break]
9 MONDAY
Rather a warm day for gardening. Glad & I went to Carlton in the evening
10 TUESDAY
Went for a walk with Gladys in the evening
11 WEDNESDAY
[inserted] DADS. [/inserted]
Spent the day in the garden with Mother.
12 THURSDAY
Aylesbury with Gladys.
13 FRIDAY
Went to Aylesbury with Mother, went to films.
14 SATURDAY
Saw the film “Wilson at Wycombe Odeon.
15 SUNDAY
Started off back to camp found [underlined] tour [/underlined] was ended.
[page break]
16 MONDAY
Off on leave again. I arrived home about ten at night.
17 TUESDAY
Spent the day in the garden. Saw Glad in evening.
18 WEDNESDAY
Went to Carlton this evening with Glad. Saw “Follow the Boys”
19 THURSDAY
Finished off odd bit of digging. Went for a pretty long walk in the evening across the fields.
20 FRIDAY
Went to Carlton this evening with Gladys.
21 SATURDAY
Glad came over to tea. I started off to camp.
22 SUNDAY
I got back to camp at 5.30 this morning.
[page break]
23 MONDAY
Had our photo taken at the kite today with the ground staff.
24 TUESDAY
Went to Brussels to pick up prisoners, landed at Westcott, flew over home. X
25 WEDNESDAY
Day spent in the Billet. Weather pretty bad.
26 THURSDAY
Went to Brussels again for more prisoners Had a prang. Shaken up a bit. X
27 FRIDAY
What a cold day. I spent most of it in bed.
28 SATURDAY
Had quite a lot of snow today
29 SUNDAY
I spent all morning in bed.
[page break]
30 MONDAY
Spent day getting cleared.
1 MAY TUESDAY
Filled in my leave pass spent day in town with Mac. Met Dan in evening, had our last few hours together.
2 WEDNESDAY
Up at six & off on leave.
3 THURSDAY
Spent all day in doors I feel pretty rotten.
4 FRIDAY
Most of today at home fixed up a date in evening.
5 SATURDAY
Raining most of today went to Carlton in evening with Glad.
6 SUNDAY
Went for a long walk with Glad in the evening
[page break]
7 MONDAY
Glad was taken to hospital with appendicitis today.
8 TUESDAY
V.E. day war over in Europe. Everyone going mad. I have been thinking today of some of my pals who were not so lucky as myself, in getting through
10 THURSDAY
Recalled. Back to camp.
11 FRIDAY
Spent today getting cleared. Went to Lincoln in the evening
12 SATURDAY
Started off for A.C.A.C. today arrived about 6 pm.
13 SUNDAY
Nothing doing today
[page break]
14 MONDAY
Started day well by filling in stacks of forms.
15 TUESDAY
Had a medical today passed ok.
16 WEDNESDAY
Spent day in billet nothing to do.
17 THURSDAY
Kit inspection. It’s a long time since I had one of these.
18 FRIDAY
I had my first interveiw [sic] today.
19 SATURDAY
Had a trade test today. Hope to get to Halton.
20 SUNDAY
Whit Sunday nothing doing today.
[page break]
21 MONDAY
Whit Monday spent morning in bed, went for walk in evening.
22 TUESDAY
Saw the E.O. today he put me down for E.V.T. & matric.
23 WEDNESDAY
Had my second interview today.
24 THURSDAY
Nothing doing only P.T.
25 FRIDAY
Saw final Board, still hope to get same job. Pay day.
26 SATURDAY
Clearing Board Started home.
27 SUNDAY
Arrived home in time for lunch
[page break]
28 MONDAY
Saw Glad this evening but she cant [sic] go out.
29 TUESDAY
Spent day in garden weeding & dodging showers.
30 WEDNESDAY
Rather a wet day for gardening. Saw Glad in evening.
31 THURSDAY
Most of day spent in doors, to [sic] wet to go out.
1 JUNE FRIDAY
Did a spot of gardening, went to Aylesbury.
2 SATURDAY
Planted summer beans this morning. Spent evening with Glad.
3 SUNDAY
Rained all day. To [sic] wet to do anything.
[page break]
4 MONDAY
Went to Aylesbury with Mum to Hospital. Went out with Glad in evening 6.th.
5 TUESDAY
Saw Gladys this evening
6 WEDNESDAY
Mother went to Hospital today for Xrays.
7 THURSDAY
Went into Risbrough to Carlton with Glad.
8 FRIDAY
Just pottered about in the garden today.
9 SATURDAY
[inserted] MUM [/inserted]
Mothers Birthday today spent day at home.
10 SUNDAY
Went to Glads for tea, & a walk round after.
[page break]
11 MONDAY
Gave mother a hand
12 TUESDAY
Went into Risbrough this evening with Gladys to Carlton.
13 WEDNESDAY
Not a lot doing today
14 THURSDAY
Did a spot of work in garden. Glad & I went into Risbrough in the evening
15 FRIDAY
Mother went into Hospital again today. Has to go in when there is room for two months.
16 SATURDAY
Wycombe today with Glad, the first time for quite a while.
17 SUNDAY
Glad came over for tea today went for walk after
[page break]
18 MONDAY
Glad started work today, so I did not see her.
19 TUESDAY
Quite a warm day. Did a spot of gardening Went with Gladys to Carlton in evening.
20 WEDNESDAY
Spent most of day in garden. Went to Wycombe in the afternoon.
21 THURSDAY
Went to Wycombe again this afternoon & pictures in evening with Glad.
22 FRIDAY
put in quite a bit of time in the garden today.
23 SATURDAY
Spent a wizard day in Wycombe with Gladys. Had my recall.
24 SUNDAY
Saw Aunt Louie in morning. Went out with Glad in evening.
[page break]
25 MONDAY
Spent quite a lot of today getting pass. Went to pictures for last time with Gladys
26 TUESDAY
Started off to Tangmere. Arrived in time for tea. Billeted in an old mansion miles from camp.
27 WEDNESDAY
Spent most of the day in the camp waiting for my posting
28 THURSDAY
Started off for Cosford. Arrived pretty late got fixed up for the night.
29 FRIDAY
Started off well today new billet is about 2 mls from the mess.
30 SATURDAY
[underlined] FEEL DOWN IN THE DUMPS. [/underlined]
Spent Most of the day in the Mess. Weather foul poured with rain most day HAD IT.
1 JULY SUNDAY
[inserted] Put in for W.O. [/inserted]
Had a late morning, feel pretty cheesed off.
[page break]
2 MONDAY
Very cheesed off
3 TUESDAY
[underlined] DITTO [/underlined] !!!!!!!
4 WEDNESDAY
Went into Shiftnall [sic] today. Not a bad place bit better than camp.
5 THURSDAY
Went to a Gang Show in the Camp Theatre.
6 FRIDAY
Started work today. It makes a change from more hanging about.
7 SATURDAY
Worked in the morning spent most of the afternoon in the Mess.
8 SUNDAY
Should have been on Church parade but did not make it.
[page break]
9 MONDAY
Saw a show called “Alfredo & his Gipsy Band”
10 TUESDAY
Went to a show in the camp theatre called “Aircrews.” An all R.C.A.F. show.
11 WEDNESDAY
Still hard at it only wish I could get posted away from here.
12 THURSDAY
Finished my job today only wish I could get off till next week.
13 FRIDAY
Saw Mr Cousins today only hope he can do something for me.
14 SATURDAY
Went to Wolverhampton this evening & to films saw “None but the Lonely Heart.”
15 SUNDAY
SPENT MOST OF MORNING IN BED WROTE HOME & TO GLADYS IN AFTERNOON.
[page break]
16 MONDAY
Started [indecipherable word] engines today. Mostly lectures.
17 TUESDAY
More engines, pulled a Gipsey [sic] Miner to pieces.
18 WEDNESDAY
Still stripping the engine down. Cleaning it.
19 THURSDAY
Went into Wolves this evening took some collars.
20 FRIDAY
Still on engine. Saw a show in camp called Desert Dog.
21 SATURDAY
Had a letter from Gladys today.
22 SUNDAY
Had a ride round this evening
[page break]
23 MONDAY
Back to work started putting the engine back together.
24 TUESDAY
Went into Wolverhampton this evening to collect my collars.
25 WEDNESDAY
Had an engine runup today it was pretty good
26 THURSDAY
Nipped into Shiftnall [sic] with Geo this evening.
27 FRIDAY
Had exam [indecipherable word] engine. I think I passed ok.
28 SATURDAY
Went into Wellington to a dance. Not much else to do.
29 SUNDAY
Spent day in camp, feel pretty cheesed off.
[page break]
30 MONDAY
Started on phase C. Mags & Carbs today. Skipped off of G.S.T. Film this evening saw “Love Story”
31 TUESDAY
Still on Mags & Carbs. Had letter from home today.
1 AUGUST WEDNESDAY
Pay Day. Had a letter from Glad. V.V. today.
2 THURSDAY
Started work on Carburetters [sic] today.
3 FRIDAY
Still on carbs. Filled in my pass for bank holiday.
4 SATURDAY
Work in morning. Off home in the afternoon. Saw Glad in evening.
5 SUNDAY
Spent most of day at home. Went out with Glad in evening
[page break]
6 MONDAY
Spent the day at Bonnie End with Gladys Had a wizard time.
7 TUESDAY
Off to camp again.
8 WEDNESDAY
Started on Hercules XI today.
9 THURSDAY
Went into Wolverhampton this evening.
10 FRIDAY
Spent day in workshops. Went to cinema in evening Saw “Love Story”
11 SATURDAY
Went down to Boskaville this evening.
12 SUNDAY
Spent most of the day in the billet.
[page break]
13 MONDAY
Started work again. Went to pictures with the corp this evening. Saw “And Now tomorrow.”
14 TUESDAY
Payday. Just about time as down on my last few bob.
15 WEDNESDAY
V.J. day, some of the chaps went home I went to Boskaville to a party & stayed all night. [symbol]
16 THURSDAY
Arrived back at camp in time for dinner spent afternoon in workshops asleep.
17 FRIDAY
Started off home today arrived about 7 oclock. [sic]
18 SATURDAY
Did a bit of work in the garden went to pictures in the evening saw “Champagne Charlie.”
19 SUNDAY
Stayed at home all day. Started of [sic] to camp in evening.
[page break]
20 MONDAY
Back in the workshops still playing with Hercs
21 TUESDAY
Went to an Ensa show on camp this evening.
22 WEDNESDAY
Had the morning of [sic] from work. All the boys on G.S.T.
23 THURSDAY
Day on engines. Went to cinema in the evening. Saw, “Murder in Thornton Square”
24 FRIDAY
Had a letter from home & one from Gladys today.
25 SATURDAY
Spent morning in the workshop. Was invited to a party in No. 1. Sgts Mess in the evening
26 SUNDAY
Went for my usual Sunday ride to Boskaville
[page break]
27 MONDAY
Started on Merlins today. Went to cinema. Saw “A Guy Named Joe”
28 TUESDAY
Had a letter & parcel from home today. Spent evening in the mess playing snooker
29 WEDNESDAY
Day off, stayed in the billet as it rained all day.
30 THURSDAY
Back in the workshops. Went into Shiftnal [sic] in evening.
[page break]
7 SEPTEMBER FRIDAY
Started off for Credenhill what a place. Pulled up in first 5 mins
8 SATURDAY
Quite a lot of the boys arrived back at camp, the four of us turned in early.
9 SUNDAY
Up pretty early. Spent most of day in billet rest of lads arrived.
[page break]
15 SATURDAY
Battle of Britain Day. Camp was thrown open to civies.
16 SUNDAY
Church parade
[page break]
21 FRIDAY
Workshops today. Started off home in evening.
22 SATURDAY
Spent morning in garden. Went to Carlton
23 SUNDAY
Pretty nice day. Started off for camp in the evening.
[page break]
24 MONDAY
Feel pretty tired today. Started work over in the airfield.
25 TUESDAY
On Lectures today. Had all the gen on running up an engine
26 WEDNESDAY
Spent day on airfield running up Hurricanes.
27 THURSDAY
Back to workshops started taking an engine out of a kite.
[page break]
4 OCTOBER THURSDAY
Finished packing in morning. Started off for Credenhill.
5 FRIDAY
Spent the day in Hereford.
6 SATURDAY
First day in camp none of the other boys turned up yet.
[page break]
13 SATURDAY
Went into Hereford today, had tea & went to Cinema.
14 SUNDAY
Spent all morning in bed, dont [sic] feel too good
[page break]
19 FRIDAY
W.O.
20 SATURDAY
Stayed in the billet most of the day raining most of the time
21 SUNDAY
Went to Church in the village this morning
[page break]
22 MONDAY
Started a new phase today. I went to pictures in evening
23 TUESDAY
Lectures most of the day on [indecipherable word] starter, & organisation.
24 WEDNESDAY
Hand swinging props on the magister poured with rain most of the time.
25 THURSDAY
Still stacks of rain [indecipherable word] up the Oxford. Pay day.
26 FRIDAY
Morning in the class Running up the Typhoon in afternoon.
27 SATURDAY
Got off work early spent afternoon in the billet.
28 SUNDAY
Went to Village Church in morning
[page break]
29 MONDAY
On second week of instalation, [sic] could not do much as it is raining
30 TUESDAY
Weather has broken. Things warming up round camp a new wingo has arrived. 74 in 4 hrs.
[page break]
7 WEDNESDAY
WARD MASTERS OFFICE 11.00
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
9 DECEMBER SUNDAY
SHOULD BE ON LEAVE? I HOPE!!!!
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
3 JANUARY 1945 THURSDAY
CTG 8.30
[page break]
[advertisement for James Booth & Company]
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
Ernest Probyn 1945 Diary
Description
An account of the resource
A diary kept by Ernest up to October 1945
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ernest Probyn
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One printed book with handwritten annotations
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YProbynEA1896412v2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Aylesbury
England--Lincoln
France--Royan
England--Oxford
Germany--Magdeburg
Belgium--Brussels
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Essen
Germany--Dortmund
England--Wolverhampton
England--Hereford
France
Germany
Belgium
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Herefordshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Oxfordshire
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.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
bombing
Ju 88
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Westcott