1
25
14
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1560/35630/BMillingtonRWestonFv1.2.pdf
8f0a70969cd59c55fef62f5a0d5a383d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Weston, Fred
F Weston
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-11-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Weston, F
Description
An account of the resource
20 items. The collection concerns Fred Weston DFC (1916 - 2012, 126909 Royal Air Force) and contains documents and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 and 620 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Catherine Millington and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Air Gunner
Based around the WWII service of Fred Weston DFC RAFVR
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Fred. In addition it includes histories of aircraft and squadrons he served in, Details are included of airfields he served at. Additionally there are biographies of various servicemen associated with Fred's squadrons and service.
At the end there is a biography of the officer in charge of Arnhem, Lt-Gen Sir Frederick Browning and his wife Daphne du Maurier.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Roger Millington
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2005-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridge
England--Letchworth
Wales--Bridgend
Wales--Penrhos
Egypt--Heliopolis (Extinct city)
Singapore
France--Cherbourg
Netherlands--Eindhoven
France--Brest
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Dunkerque
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
France--Brest
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Berlin
Italy--Turin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Quiberon
France--Boulogne-Billancourt
Germany--Essen
France--Le Creusot
Germany--Leverkusen
France--Caen
Netherlands--Arnhem
Norway
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Belgium--Brussels
England--Rochester (Kent)
Northern Ireland--Belfast
England--Longbridge
France--Arras
England--Darlington
Italy--Genoa
England--Longbridge
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Nuremberg
Italy--Sicily
France--Normandy
Netherlands--Arnhem
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Wales--Pwllheli
England--Yorkshire
England--Leicester
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
Scotland--Edinburgh
England--Rochford
England--London
England--Cornwall (County)
Scotland--Ayr
England--Friston (East Sussex)
England--Gravesend (Kent)
England--West Malling
England--Hailsham
England--Yelverton (Devon)
England--Bentwaters NATO Air Base
England--Great Dunmow
England--Heacham
England--Weybridge
Wales--Hawarden
England--Blackpool
England--Old Sarum (Extinct city)
England--Kent
England--Folkestone
England--Hambleton (North Yorkshire)
England--York
Scotland--Scottish Borders
England--Cambridge
England--Thurleigh
England--Darlington
England--Hitchin
England--Lancashire
Italy
France
Egypt
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
Great Britain
Yemen (Republic)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Durham (County)
England--Sussex
England--Essex
England--Herefordshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Surrey
England--Wiltshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Swindon (Wiltshire)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
British Army
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Free French Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
85 sheets
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BMillingtonRWestonFv1
1 Group
100 Group
101 Squadron
103 Squadron
105 Squadron
114 Squadron
139 Squadron
141 Squadron
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
162 Squadron
1657 HCU
1665 HCU
18 Squadron
180 Squadron
2 Group
208 Squadron
214 Squadron
239 Squadron
3 Group
301 Squadron
304 Squadron
342 Squadron
6 Group
6 Squadron
620 Squadron
7 Squadron
75 Squadron
8 Group
9 Squadron
90 Squadron
97 Squadron
99 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
aircrew
B-17
B-24
B-25
bale out
Beaufighter
Blenheim
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
Boston
Caterpillar Club
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
ditching
evading
final resting place
Gee
Gneisenau
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Horsa
Hurricane
Ju 87
killed in action
Lancaster
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Meteor
mid-air collision
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
P-51
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
propaganda
radar
RAF Bicester
RAF Biggin Hill
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Bottesford
RAF Bourn
RAF Bradwell Bay
RAF Bramcote
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Chipping Warden
RAF Coltishall
RAF Drem
RAF Driffield
RAF Duxford
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Evanton
RAF Fairford
RAF Finningley
RAF Great Massingham
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Harwell
RAF Hendon
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Honington
RAF Hornchurch
RAF Horsham St Faith
RAF Kenley
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Leconfield
RAF Leuchars
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Little Snoring
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Manston
RAF Marham
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Newmarket
RAF Newton
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Oakington
RAF Penrhos
RAF Pershore
RAF Ridgewell
RAF Shepherds Grove
RAF Sleap
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tangmere
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tilstock
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Waterbeach
RAF West Raynham
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Wratting Common
RAF Wyton
Resistance
Scharnhorst
Special Operations Executive
Spitfire
Stirling
target indicator
Tiger force
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/778/15054/LGoffCC746538v1.1.pdf
3236de6a86a90aa2e5a6fd9be3b30ec5
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
Goff, Cyril
Cyril C Goff
C C Goff
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Cyril Goff (746538, Royal Air Force) and contains two log books and a handwritten note naming his crew. He was a pilot and flew 13 operations with 100 Squadron from RAF Grimsby.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by N Bussey and catalogued by David Leitch.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-12-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Goff, CC
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
Cyril Charles Goff's pilot’s flying log book. One
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot’s flying log book for Pilot Officer Cyril Charles Goff from 24 February 1942 to 18 October 1943, detailing training schedule and operations flown. Served at RAF Sleap, RAF Tilstock (Whitchurch Heath), RAF Newton, RAF Shawbury and RAF Grimsby (Waltham). Aircraft flown were Lancaster and Whitley. He carried out a total of 13 operations with 100 Squadron as a pilot on the following targets in Germany: Berlin, Hagen, Hanover, Ludwigshaven, Mannheim, Munich, Nürnburg, Peenemude, Rheydt and Stuttgart. His pilot on operations was<span data-ccp-props="{"201341983":0,"335559739":200,"335559740":276}"> Wing Commander McIntyre. </span>Includes notes on a leaflet dropping operation over France whilst with 81 Operational Training Unit, and an air-sea rescue operation with 1667 Heavy Conversion Unit searching for a dinghy in the North Sea.
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
David Leitch
Callum Davies
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
LGoffCC746538v1
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.
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-07-28
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-09-22
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-10-01
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-07
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-10-18
100 Squadron
1667 HCU
81 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
air sea rescue
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
missing in action
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
propaganda
RAF Grimsby
RAF Lindholme
RAF Newton
RAF Shawbury
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1128/11651/PSmithAP1801.2.jpg
5005da2dc1fa3c5fe6b15887d2696a7a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1128/11651/ASmithAP180103.1.mp3
6e18c214c8d145f8259a33f8e0f4ec50
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
Smith, Arthur Peter
A P Smith
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Peter Smith (1923 - 2018, 1808854 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 101 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
2018-01-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Smith, AP
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CJ: This is Chris Johnson and I’m interviewing Arthur P Smith who is usually known as Peter today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Peter’s home in Kent and it is Wednesday the 3rd of January 2018. So thank you, Peter for agreeing to talk to me today. Perhaps to start the interview you could tell us about your background. Where and when you were born and what your family background was.
PS: Yes. Right. I was born at Wateringbury just outside of Maidstone and my mother and younger sister were working on a farm I’m afraid but that was the way it was in those days. And I stayed there at school at Nettlestead and Wateringbury until I was nine. And then we moved to Paddock Wood where my mother had two sisters because my mother had about nine or ten sisters altogether. So we were all trying to get roughly together. And I went to Paddock Wood School from nine until I was fourteen which was the time in those days practically everybody left school. Boys and girls. And when I was fourteen, in Paddock Wood they had a wood work shop where lots of younger boys could learn woodwork which was quite a good thing in those days and we carried on doing that for two or three years. Then the war started I’m afraid, and you would not believe it but we started making army huts. And I’ve never seen so many army huts in all my life which were going all over England. So of course they were calling up, all the boys for service life and they had to have somewhere to live which was, that was where our army huts were going. And we carried on doing that as, all the time I was there. So then in 19 — the beginning of ’41 a friend of mine, we decided to join the Air Cadets but we had to go to Tunbridge Wells which was a fair cycle ride during the blackout in those days. So we had to go on a Sunday and one day in the week. So, but in the middle of June to July we happened to be going on a Sunday lunchtime and all of a sudden there was a, well it was a dogfight between Germans and English right over our heads at a place called Matfield. I shall never forget it because we sat on the side of the road for about two hours listening to the Battle of Britain and we couldn’t believe it. All of a sudden there were horrible chink chink clink clink and a pile of ammunition hit the road which luckily didn’t hit us so we did worry too much about it. But that went on for sort of two or three hours then. We just sat there until it finished. But in 1941 we, we joined in those days was the Air Defence Cadet Corps. But in 1941 they started the new ATC which a new squadron started at Tonbridge. So we could go there by train so we didn’t have to cycle to Tunbridge Wells anymore. So I joined that and because I’d been in the Air Cadets for quite a long time I found myself being a sergeant very soon. It was only for mostly drill and that sort of thing. So, and then I stayed there ‘til March. March ’43. But in the meantime in the middle of ’42 I’d had a medical but they said because at the moment we haven’t got room for training we’ll put you on deferred service which they gave you a little silver badge which you wore but two people still kept asking, ‘Why aren’t you in the service?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m waiting to go,’ so which I did in March ’43. So, as most people know when you joined aircrew in London it’s so many things to do. Medicals. What you know? Do you know? What you’ve got to know. And we had two weeks in London and then I went to Bridlington for six weeks doing all sorts of training. Aircraft recognition, Morse Code and drill and how to take a gun to bits and put it together and all that sort of thing. And then I think I think I had a weeks’ leave from that and then I went up to Bridgenorth for another six weeks training which was a bit more advanced than what we’d already been doing. And then I finished that six weeks and then they decided that they had a new Air Gunnery School at Dalcross, just outside of Inverness. So I ended up there for another six weeks where I did my six weeks air gunner’s course. So when it ended up, it was a beautiful summer that year and I remember we used to go out flying and the weather was so lovely I don’t think ever once did we have to cancel anything because the weather was beautiful. And all in all by the time we finished I went from an AC2 joining the Air Force to four and a half months and I was a sergeant air gunner, and most people couldn’t believe it because I had a job to believe it as well. But, and then we came home, had some more leave and then I went up to Lichfield which, I think is in Lincolnshire. And I just couldn’t believe it because we went at this, you know and there was about four or five hundred different air crew. Pilots, navigators, wireless ops, bomb aimers. Everything. And everybody was just wandering around smoking, chin wagging, coffee when you could find one. And then I was standing over at a tree looking out over the woods and these two Canadians came over. A pilot and navigator, and they came over, started chatting and the pilot said, ‘Hey mate,’ something like that, because he didn’t know my name, ‘Would you like to fly with me? Or my navigator, and we’ve got a bombardier over there so that’s three Canadians. Would you like to fly with us?’ So I didn’t know any better so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll fly with you.’ ‘Ok,’ he says, gave him my name and everything and they took it down and went over and saw, there was a couple off officers sitting at this table writing everything down. And then they said, ‘Oh, well, come and we’ll introduce you to the wireless operator.’ And then that, at the moment was all our crew which was five. Just the navigator, pilot and bomb aimer, wireless op and me, the other gunner. And then they said, ‘Right. All get in a lorry,’ and went to a little sort of well it’s just a little aerodrome called Sleap which was the OTU where we started to learn all our air [pause] I don’t know what you’d call it. Instruction I suppose. And we were flying Whitleys and the pilot said, ‘Well, I like them,’ because they’d got two nice, I believe, Merlin engines I think. I think, but and they had a rear gun. And we did where the pilot and I, I can’t remember how many circuits and landings we did but I know we kept on for about a week. Circuits and landings about ten times a day for a week and then we started doing sort of small cross countries for about probably an hour. Then we kept doing that and then we started doing bombing trips as well so the bomb aimer could get some time in and the wireless operator. We all did sort of different jobs just to get more, well so we knew what we were doing. And then we did that. We was there for about six or seven weeks. And they found out that we got so many crews they didn’t know where to put them. So I think I remember we went home for about two weeks again. Then we went back. We went back to the same OTU for a week. And then they decided to send us to a Heavy Conversion Unit which was a Halifax and the pilot said he was a bit annoyed about that because he didn’t want to fly on a Halifax. He wanted Lancs. And so we did four or five weeks in this Halifax. Mostly circuits and landings again for about a week. And then we started doing more bombing trips, and trips for the wireless operator and a lot of more cross countries but all our flying was over England. And we did, oh quite a few cross countries and then I can’t actually remember the time but I think it must have been sort of October perhaps something like that. Maybe November. But then we got another week’s leave because we got so many crews lined up we didn’t know what to do with them. So we had another week and then we went back to [pause] Oh God, I can’t remember. No. It wasn’t Coningsby. No. I can’t remember the name but we went back to another Conversion Unit which was a Lancaster Finishing School which made the pilot happy. So we got back to there. I think it was somewhere around about the beginning of November which we started doing cross countries, bombing trips for about four or five weeks. And then we had another weeks holiday and then we ended up back at, or back at Ludford Magna which we didn’t know was a bomber station in those days because it hadn’t been going, only I think since about the middle of July and we went there just before Christmas ’43. Then we did another few cross countries, bombing trips, all in training. And then they said to my pilot, ‘You’re going on a second dickie tonight.’ So, I don’t know if you know but Canadians had a Commissioner in London. So if you didn’t agree with some things you used to go and see the Commissioner and they would sort it out you hoped. Anyway, my pilot said, ‘I’m not going.’ And he wouldn’t go because, you don’t probably know but quite often if that pilot went on a trip with a operational crew it was always surprising the number of pilots went missing. And the crew were left at home with no pilot. So that crew either had to get another pilot or start training again. So anyway my pilot said, ‘I’m not going,’ which he didn’t go. So about two or three nights later they said, ‘Right. You don’t want to go on a cross country. You can go on a raid.’ So that’s the 27th of January we went to nine hours to Berlin. And we’d never been out of the country before and that was the first trip. They said, ‘You’ll be alright. You can have a rest tomorrow night.’ Of course we didn’t. We just were just sort of thinking about getting up when we got called in. ‘You’re going to Berlin again tonight.’ So, which we did. And then we had a weeks’ leave from there. And then we came back. Then I think, I think we did another Berlin. I think we did about three in a row and then we started doing Schweinfurt, all the —
[recording paused]
CJ: So you’ve got your list there.
PS: Yeah.
CJ: Of the raids you went on.
PS: Yeah. Yes. Well, I have a list here of all the raids we did. And we did the first three were Berlin. And then Leipzig, Stuttgart, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, two more Stuttgarts and then two to Frankfurt. And then we did a fourth Berlin. That was middle of March. And then Essen. And then we went to that horrible Nuremberg where we had the worst night of the war as far as Bomber Command went because we lost ninety six aeroplanes of just Bomber Command. And we lost seven aeroplanes from Ludford Magna which was, the old sergeant’s mess was a bit quiet on the next morning, 30th of March. I’ll never forget that one. And then after that we started doing a few to France. Another one called [unclear] Aachen, and then we went to Cologne. Dusseldorf. Karlsruhe. Another one to Schweinfurt and [unclear] Hasselt, Cologne, Duisburg, Dortmund and two to Aachen which was back in Germany. Then we did two in France. A place called Trappes. And then on the thirtieth of, our thirtieth trip we went to do the big guns at Calais which was quite a nice trip. Only just over three hours. We were home, back to bed in four hours. Lovely. And then the next night we thought well we’ve finished our thirty. That’s us finished. But they, after that which was the 5th of June they said, ‘You haven’t finished yet because you’ve got one more. Everybody.’ And that was a special duty operation which we thought well what special duty? So this night, the only night we didn’t carry any bombs but all the aircraft were filled with Window which was a type of paper which was used to interrupt or stop the German radio from working properly. But so we spent all night going from Dover to Paris dropping this Window all night which, well it wasn’t quite all night, it was only six and a half hours but, but all two squadrons were just going backwards and forwards all night dropping this Window. Then when we decided to go home we couldn’t think, we got the other side of London and we saw sort of hundreds of aeroplanes all going the other way. Going towards France. So we didn’t quite figure it out until we got back and landed and then they told us that the, all the troops and everything had gone across the Channel and were invading France. We didn’t see anything ‘til we got home which was, well we thought it was quite good. But in that time I was at Ludford Magna we lost seven hundred and thirty nine aircraft from the time we were landed. And we lost five thousand two hundred airmen in our time.
CJ: Yeah. And did you talk about that much on the base or was it something you just —
PS: Oh, you didn’t talk about it at all. No. You just [pause] well we were lucky in one way because we had six NCOs. Only one officer. Only the pilot was the officer. And we were lucky in another way that we had a small hut. Just us six. So it was just us. Well, and as I say the pilot used to spend most of his time with us and just go home to bed. You know, eat or drink sort of thing. But other than that we sort of lived in that hut on our own you know. Yeah.
CJ: So, how did you pass your time on the base when you weren’t on ops?
PS: Well, I used to play a lot of badminton. I know I couldn’t play all day but and they took, we took over one of the hangars, or we had two badminton courts painted on the floor sort of thing, you know. And there was four, five, six of us who quite often played badminton. And I I got my bicycle there as well and quite often, well quite often but maybe once or twice a week I used to cycle out for the day, you know or to [pause] I can’t remember the name of the village now but we went to, you know riding around just for something to do. There was two or three of us used to cycle around because it was alright cycling in those days because you didn’t see only about four, four cars a day because they just wasn’t about which was quite nice. And there was plenty of places to cycle and quite little tea shops. All, even in war time there was little tea shops around. So all in all with badminton and cycling we didn’t do too bad. And the navigator and I always, if possible we went to church on Sunday morning. And we were the only two in our crew. But we thought that was quite nice. We thoroughly, we really enjoyed it, but on a Sunday morning and there used to be always quite a few local people there. A very good church service.
[pause]
CJ: So when you were going on a raid, on ops how were you told and how did you prepare for it?
PS: What happened? What happened? Even though, if we’d been on a raid the night before we didn’t used to get up until lunchtime. So we’d always go to lunch but normally if you got up for breakfast there’d be a notice on the board, “Meeting at 10 o’clock,” which everybody had to go to. Every flyer had to go to. And you would see around about there’d be policemen around about making sure that odd people can’t get in anywhere. And then you’d all go to the crew room and the CO and that would walk in and mention ops tonight. And then he’d say, ‘Make sure you have your meals and everything,’ And there’d be another meeting at probably three hours before you went on a trip. So you went to the meeting and the navigation people and the bloke in charge of the weather.
CJ: Meteorologist.
PS: Yeah. And he would tell you what the weather was going to be like. Possible to where you were going. And there would be a big notice across the top of the board where you were going which used to make you wake up a bit. And they’d tell you all the different places roughly where you’d go over or around and then they’d tell you what bomb load you’d got and what petrol load you’d got, because if you were only going sort of the middle of France or the entrance to Germany you never took a full bomb load which was twenty one thousand two hundred and fifty four petrol. Which quite often you didn’t take a full bomb load. And then you would, about two hours before you went you could go and have supper which was always egg and chips for supper. Every time. Same old thing. Egg and chips. And then quite, that’s it. You’d get a lift on a lorry to take you to the crew room. Then, being the gunners, the two gunners we had to wear more cold weather suits than anybody else because the front five of the crew were, being up in the front of the aircraft they got hot air from two of the engines which we didn’t have in the two turrets. But just before I went there they’d arranged to have electrically heated flying suits, or a suit you wore under your outer suit which had wire to your arms and legs and you had slippers on which were electrically heated and gloves and your body waist coat. But you never had nothing around your legs. Only the wire that went to your feet. By the time you’d got all your gear on, four pairs of socks, I’d got a nice pair of silk stockings and ordinary shoes and a great big pair of flying socks as well. By the time you’d got them on you had a job to walk. And the suit was a great big suit that you wore over the top of everything. And I always used to wear a silk scarf because I always sort of felt I, my head was always cold. But I never felt cold in my hands and feet which was a good thing. But then one night we, we’d come halfway back and you found the oxygen wasn’t working. So we managed to get the oxygen bottles and stick them on but my ears really froze so bad that the lobes were frozen more or less for about a week before they came back into real circulation which I, which I didn’t fancy very much. But then another night we came all the way back from Berlin with no rear turret because the outer port engine used to work the rear turret which of course the engine didn’t worked. The only time we had ever had anything go wrong was that one engine when I couldn’t use the turret. Other than that we had thirty one trips with nothing really went wrong. Absolutely superb aeroplane. And I always think we had a really good pilot which I’ll show you what he did in a minute. But, and other than that I don’t think we never got attacked once. Saw quite a few fighters but we were told unless they actually attacked don’t let them know where you are. You want to come back. So I never fired my guns once at all. Only just to test them sort of thing. Never fired them at anything. But quite often over the target, because when you looked over the target it was like a beautiful big bonfire which it was, and you could see lots of fighters criss-crossing the raid and quite a few Lancaster’s as well but what I was more frightened about than anything was running into another aeroplane. A Lancaster. I wasn’t worried about anything else because unless you sort of have been there and seen the number of aircraft that you’re all flying the same way. I mean sometimes we were having eight hundred more aeroplanes all going the same way and all being over the target within sort of thirty, forty, fifty minutes. Which is a lot of aeroplanes going the one way and, but luckily enough I mean quite often you’d see a great big bang where you know two aeroplanes have collided. I mean you saw more of that than you see of anything going wrong really. That was more frightening than anything else because I just didn’t fancy, well I didn’t fancy falling out the aircraft where you don’t know where you’re going. So there again we were so lucky. Yeah.
CJ: So what would your responsibilities have been as the rear gunner then if you were attacked?
PS: Well, if you were attacked well it all depends. They used to sort of, they didn’t sort of come down they always came up under your back side. And it was a thing to keep your eyes open sort of level down because if a fighter was coming up he was probably coming up from the darkness wasn’t he? And you’ve got to try and see him before he sees you. But, and if he did it’s your, to attack and tell the pilot what to do. I mean if they sort of come around to the left you’d want to go to the left. You’d tell the pilot, ‘Corkscrew left,’ you know, sort of thing as quick as possible. Or right or whatever and just well just hope for the best every time. But as I say we were just so lucky that it didn’t happen. But as I say we, we were never attacked once and everything all those trips over to Germany but just well you think there’s thirty there and we was never attacked once. You can’t be much more lucky than that can you? I don’t think you can anyway.
CJ: So, what happened to you and your crew when you’d done your thirty first op?
PS: Well, we had two or three days together and then we all had, I can’t remember, I think we had about a fortnight’s holiday. We went, I can’t remember where we went back to but I went back to —
[pause – pages turning]
CJ: So you went back to where?
PS: Yeah. So when I finished there I went back to 27 OTU Lichfield which was another trainee OTU for trainee aircrew which was Wellingtons. And I was there for well, where are we? [pause] I was there, I was there for three months and then they eight or nine aircrew they came in one morning and said, ‘You’re all going to learn to drive. You’re going to Blackpool.’ So we said, ‘Oh lovely. That’s alright.’ But one or two of the blokes could drive anyway but then we all went anyway. But in the end ended up ten of us went to Blackpool to learn to drive. Because I didn’t know how to do it but two or three had already driven. But in there we used to go down the, where all the lorries and things were about 8 o’clock in the morning. And then we’d have perhaps two hours being told all what makes a lorry and car go, and all how to repair it. How to take a wheel off. Everything. Everything about a car. But we had like two hours every day and then we’d go and have two hours driving around the aerodrome. Well, it wasn’t an aerodrome. It was a driving school. We’d have two hours driving round and then after lunch we’d have another two hours learning how to put the lorry together. Then in the afternoon we’d have another two hours driving through Blackpool. There weren’t many cars about in those days but we did this for six weeks. Oh, God it was shocking but in the end we all passed because they just used to say, ‘Drive.’ You were just told what to do and we did it and they’d say, ‘You pass.’ We didn’t have like it is now. But we all did that and then they said, ‘Righto.’ We’d got another week’s leave and when you came back they said oh I’m going to RAF Gravely which is in Norfolk, not too far from Cambridge which was a PFF Lancaster squadron and a Mosquito squadron and we were, you know just joined all the, all the other LAC drivers and that. But most of us were ex-aircrew and when we used to drive around because we used to pick up the aircrew which were going on ops. We used to drive a mini bus and take them out to the ops. A lot of these aircrew said, ‘How do you get a job like this?’ Which was quite laughable really because we’d already, us, had already done our tour, but they didn’t know that. But we used to explain to them what we’d already done and you know of course they didn’t like it very much but as I said, ‘Well, you finish your ops you can get a job like this.’ But, and we used to go to the other side of Cambridge and get a load of bombs in a lorry. We used to think it was hilarious in those days. Get a load of bombs and drive them back from Cambridge to Graveley. Oh, my goodness. So I had about, about three months there and then they said, ‘Oh, you’re going back to OTU.’ I said, ‘What on earth for?’ ‘Well,’ they said, ‘You’ve got to get up to date with what you know.’ So I went back to an OTU. I think that was back to Lichfield. And I was there for two or three weeks and then I got posted to another squadron, another OTU and much to my amazement I ended up with three Australian aircrew who hadn’t been on any ops. So of course when I found out I’d got myself another crew with three Australians and the other gunner was a boy I’d known in the Air Cadets in Tonbridge before joining aircrew. And anyway we started our training on Wellingtons and we did about three or four weeks training and they dropped the first, well we, we were told we were going to Japan before, when we started. And then they dropped the first atom bomb but that was only three or four days before they dropped the second one wasn’t it? If you can remember. So anyway they dropped the second one and within two or three days all the war in Japan was finished wasn’t it? And within a fortnight the three Aussies were on their way home because we, they said we don’t want them anymore. So they were all back home after about three or four weeks after that. And then [pause] I can’t remember. Oh yeah. Then they decided because this is sort of nearly the end of ’45 wasn’t it? And they said, ‘Oh, we’re sending you to Cranwell.’ I said, ‘Why the Dickens are we going to Cranwell?’ They said, ‘You can learn to be a teleprinter operator.’ So I said, ‘Right.’ They said, ‘You can get a ground job now. You won’t have to fly anymore.’ So anyway I did this. There was about ten of us. All ex-aircrew learning to use a typewriter. So we had this. I think it’s about seven or eight weeks I think training and to be this teleprinter. And then in the end there was a Scotsman which was, he was about six foot six tall, massive, and another Londoner, flight engineer and we were posted to 19 Group Coastal Command in Plymouth. So goodness gracious me. We went to this place and there was three airmen and of course nearly all the other operators were all WAAFs. About twenty of them, you know and it was Coastal Command. A place called well Mount Wise, or something. Mountbatten, which was in Plymouth Harbour. It’s Coastal Command. Anyway being us, us three men they decided they wouldn’t let us work at night so in the end we ended up only doing about three or four shifts a week because they didn’t want us at night. They wouldn’t have three airmen with the WAAFs at night. I mean, I know there was only probably about four or five WAAFs at night but a dozen or so in the day because there was a whole row of teleprinters. So I was there for just over a year and I think it was about one of the best, well Devonshire weather I’ve ever known. It was beautiful. And what we used to do if we wasn’t on that day we’d go down the road, we’d get on the first bus that came along, pay a shilling and when we got to that shilling we’d get off and walk home. That’s what we did every day. Yeah. It was just something to do. But the weather was just absolutely fantastic. And then I was there for Christmas ’46 and I got, oh God [pause] not laryngitis. What’s the other thing you get in your throat? Oh God. There was something wrong with my throat and the doctor said I’ll give you, no, not penicillin. Yeah penicillin. And of course that really upset me so I had to come off of that. But something else he give me and I’ve never had anything wrong with me throat since that day. You would not believe it. Never had this what it was. Not, laryngitis I think it was. Yeah. I was going to have it done and it didn’t and then he told me, he said, ‘Whatever you do never take — ’ no, it wasn’t paracetamol, it’s Penicillin. He said, ‘Whatever you do never taken penicillin anymore.’ So I never have. In all, I’ve had different things. And so I’ve never taken penicillin anymore. So it doesn’t cure everybody. But whatever the other thing that it was. And then in January we had this horrible fog and that’s when I went to London and got demobbed. Then I had another three weeks paid. Three months paid holiday which was very nice. That’s my life, near enough.
CJ: So what did you do after demob?
PS: Well, I had another mate. He’d, he’d been in the RAF but he didn’t fly. And about June or July we decided, we used to, he got a motorbike and started, got a motorbike and we used to drive around on a motorbike for two or three months. Nothing else much to do. But then we decided to go fruit picking. So of course the middle of Kent there was plenty of apples, pears, plums and I think, I think we did plums and pears I think first and then we went to apple. But we made a fortune because you used to get paid at so much a bushel. Well you could pick a bushel of big apples in ten minutes and then you got so much for it you know. Cor we made some money. We used to make ten bob a day and then go home. Which was a lot of money in 1947. Cor it was wonderful. Course then we had this motorbike and we would sort of do a half a days work and then go to the seaside. We had a wonderful time. And then come to, coming up to Christmas my father had been a male nurse in a mental [unclear] and he said, ‘Why don’t you give it a go?’ So I don’t know if you know, ever heard of Chartham. If you know Canterbury. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s where he’d been. So I went there and got talking to the boss and he found my father had been there before the First War because my father went in the Army as a, well a rifleman. He was a first aid bloke as well. You know, he did it all sort of thing and he got away with it alright but then he got rheumatic fever. That’s the only thing. Which didn’t do him any good, and I say I had three years a mental nurse. That’s where I met my wife. So from there on it was us. But I didn’t mind the work but I just couldn’t be, stand being indoors in the end because quite often you’d be indoors for a whole week. Indoors, you know. Not, not in and out doors but indoors looking after patients, you see. After three years I decided I couldn’t stand anymore so I, I, then we got married and then another friend of mine he rang up. He said, ‘We want a cowman.’ And I thought oh my God. I didn’t know anything about milking cows. So we went to this farm because it had a nice, a nice little bungalow and everything and learned all about milking cows. But then they decided to set up after a while to sell the milk that we produced. Then in the end we used quite often I’d milk the cows, have my breakfast and go and deliver the milk. So we had, and in the end we had three milk rounds and I used to do, sort of this one this week, that one then. Milk it, deliver it and everything else. So we did that for ten years. Well, I know people say, you know farm work and all that sort of thing but it was quite interesting. You know, it was interesting. You know. Say milking. Looking after, looking after the cows, doing all the milking and bottling up and everything and delivering it and keeping everything running. And we made it work too because it was, well it was a big farm because we had our own cows. All outdoors as well and, well they had to be indoors in the winter. But we had ten years there. And then after that another, another friend rung up and he said, ‘We want a baker’s roundsman in Chatham.’ Well, and of course, God what am I letting my insides for?’ But he said, ‘Come and have a look.’ So I did and the pay was about four times I was getting on the farm. I was on this estate for twenty years delivering bread. This estate and another estate. It was alternate days, you know. Then the baker showed up in the end. Then I went to work for BP over the Isle of Grain. I did four or five years there. And then that packed up. That sold up. God, what did I do after that? I can’t remember. I can’t. You know what —
CJ: Coming back to the RAF.
PS: Yeah.
CJ: Did you manage to keep in touch with some of the crew that your flew with? I think —
PS: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he and I are the only two left now. The rest are all dead.
CJ: So some of these are Canadian you said are in the crew.
PS: Yeah. That one. That one. That one. Then my navigator he said, ‘We’re coming over to England in the summer.’ I forget, somewhere in the summer. Anyway, we lived, we lived here and he came over. He and his wife came over for four weeks and of course I’d, I had a car so we went about. I looked after him for a week and then they went up to the Midlands somewheres. Somewheres near where that motorbike came from. They went up there three weeks. Then they came back. Then in, I forget when it was but then in 1980 he said, ‘Why don’t you come over? We’ve got a big reunion in Toronto.’ So, oh yeah I managed to get three weeks off from the bakery so he said, so, there was only Margaret and I, so we went to Saskatchewan and they picked us up at Toronto and we went to [pause] oh God. Anyway, we went to this Saskatchewan and we went to this mess. There was five thousand people in a room. Men and women. About three thousand men and women. And it was wonderful. It really was. A big meal. Plenty of people to talk to and you would not believe but one of the people there was the chief of the German night fighters. He was there for a, yeah he was. Cor, he was quite a well-known name but he was a chap, the bloke in charge of the German night fighters. He was there on holiday. And I say that was really good. And then about forty two we went to Canada again for a month’s holiday. And then ’84 we had another big reunion. About, about another, you know five odd thousand. My navigator, he’d got a little, nice big buggy we could all sort of sleep in it if we wanted to, but we didn’t. He took us right across, right across Canada which was absolutely fantastic. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And then we went and stayed with them again. Then my wife’s sister decided to go to America. To her daughter. So in the end we went four weeks to Salt Lake City. And cor it’s a place that is. Believe me. And so we had a, going around there, and we had another in the end he got a sleep van. What do you call it?
CJ: A camper.
PS: Camper. Oh God, my bloody brain. And so we went half way across salt err Grand Canyon. Well, it’s the big Grand Canyon. All up in the mountains, everywhere. Played snowballs in June and all that sort of thing. We had a lovely time again. And soon after they all went and died so we didn’t go anywhere.
CJ: So while you’ve been talking, just for the listener we’ve been looking at a wonderful photograph of you and your crew.
PS: Oh yeah.
CJ: Around a motorbike and sidecar. So you used this when you were on the base did you?
PS: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course he, well he got in touch with his friends in, I think it was Birmingham I think, and because he knew they’d be, apparently he’d known them before the war or something. And anyway —
CJ: So on the photograph this is the gentleman sitting actually on the bike.
PS: That’s the navigator.
CJ: Yeah.
PS: The pilot in there as well. We used to get, quite often got four on it. Then we went out to dinner somewhere, you know.
CJ: Yeah. And how did you manage to find the petrol to keep it going when it was so scarce?
PS: Well, I don’t know. We just used to park it behind as I say that’s not our hut, but we had a little hut. We just used to park it behind the hut and every time we went and got it it had petrol in it so it must have made it in the night. Well, it worked alright. And as I say we quite often got four on it no trouble.
CJ: So, so for the listener when they see this photograph online you’re the gentleman in the middle row. Sorry the back row in the middle.
PS: The middle. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s as I say this is the flight engineer, and he was the radio operator. That was the mid-upper and I was the tail gunner and there’s the bomb aimer.
CJ: So coming back to Bomber Command after the war. Do you have any opinions on how Bomber Command were treated after the war?
[pause]
PS: No. Because, because we, well we had a big Bomber Command Society thing. Aircrew Association. And well, right up right up to about a few years ago we were going. But we had over a hundred in Maidstone but they’re nearly all dead now. I’ve got a book in there it’s about eighty odd signatures. Well, not signatures. I used to take our Standard. And there’s eighty odd signatures there from the hundred odd we had. I mean when we used to have dinners and dances we had a hall full. I mean up ‘til last year we probably got four, five, six of us go to a local pub in Maidstone. Yeah. Well, we haven’t been this. Didn’t go. The last six months we haven’t been. But we’ve still got four or five of us, you see. Yeah.
CJ: And have you been able to visit any, view any Lancasters in museums?
PS: Well, as I say I’ve been to [pause] oh golly.
CJ: Duxford is it?
PS: Well, I say Duxford. I’ve been there. And the one in London. What’s the one in London?
CJ: Hendon.
PS: Hendon. I’ve been there. Yeah. Oh, I’ll tell you another one I like is East Kirkby.
CJ: Just Jane.
PS: Pardon?
CJ: Just Jane.
PS: That’s it. Yeah. Well, quite often when we used to have the reunion in Lincoln we used to have the dinner in Lincoln and then we’d go to Ludford for a service and that. But when we went there we used to go to stay with my wife’s sister at Newark and, you know because we could drive home from Lincoln to Newark no trouble. But then we used to go to, on the Monday, always on the Monday we’d go to East Kirkby and spend the day there. Then if I, two or three times I met my wireless operator there. And then this other bloke Rod Moore I think they might have let you know about this thing, he’s there. And we used to spent the day there and I got to know the two brothers. But one died didn’t he?
CJ: The Panton brothers.
PS: Yeah. That’s it. Yeah. Well, the two. I’ve got a book there signed by them somewheres. By the two brothers and the, and the sister. And I got there one day and he said, ‘Come on,’ so we went over, got in the aircraft, got in the aircraft for about two hours. Just sitting around, you know looking. I got down the rear turret. And then when I had my eighty fifth birthday a lot of my friends, because we had a lot of these, a lot belonged to our aircrew by then. Still. They all put two or three or four quid in a pot and we got enough money to go up to East Kirkby, sit in the turret and go around the airfield. Yeah. Because it’s, I think it was, I think it’s about a hundred and twenty pounds, a hundred and thirty pounds in those days just to ride around the airport. As you probably know. Get four engines going you soon get rid of a couple of gallons of petrol. But we used to go around. I’ve got a photograph somewhere of my daughter because she ran around. She ran all the way around the bloody airfield behind taking photographs of me sitting in the rear turret. Yeah. Cor, she ran some miles that day. But as I say I sat in the back. We got there on this, I think Monday morning and the man who had already signed to sit in the turret didn’t turn up. So I already told them the day before if anything goes wrong I want to get in the turret which I did. But it, it was a .5 turret. I don’t know if you know the difference. You probably do. But, but it wasn’t as good. I had the first .5 turret at Ludford, at 101. The, the boss man he knew two brothers from the local village who were mechanics and they made a .5 turret. It was about two or three inches wider than the old .5 and what was good about it you could just about get two people in it and you could sit on the seat and you’d got no glass in the front. The whole front was clear. You didn’t have to bale out the back. You could bale out head first straight out the, and you didn’t have to have one of these sit ons, well it was but you didn’t have one of the old clip on parachutes. You could have one of these sit on ones and you just sit here like that and if the worst comes to the worst head first straight out the back and you was away. Really super. But the .5 turret at East Kirkby is not the same gun as I had in Ludford because the one I had in Ludford was up here like this. But the one they had in East Kirkby was the guns were in front of you. In the way. And you had a job to get in it because the was the seat was different.
CJ: So when you’re saying a .5 turret for the listener that doesn’t know the difference the original guns were .303.
PS: Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. There would be four guns in a normal Lancaster are 303 but when we got the .5s they were bigger guns, bigger ammunition which was the American type like they had in all their Flying Fortresses. They had all .5s. Yeah. It’s quite good actually. They made more noise too.
CJ: How did it feel to be sitting in the turret again?
PS: Yeah. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah. Good. When it was going around the airfield it didn’t half go around every time. I don’t know how my daughter kept up because she ran all the way around. Yeah. Yeah. She got some good photographs. But I was going to [pause] there’s my pilot.
CJ: Well, I think we’ve covered everything today, Peter. Thanks ever so much for talking to us today.
PS: Oh, it’s my pleasure.
CJ: For the —
PS: It’s nice to see you. It’s nice to talk.
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 Arthur Peter Smith
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Johnson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-01-03
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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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ASmithAP180103, PSmithAP1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:12:33 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
Peter Smith was born in Kent and attended school until he was 14. He started working for a woodwork shop and when the war began, they started building army huts. In 1941 he joined the Air Cadets. He recalls how one Sunday he and a friend saw an aerial dogfight which they watched for two hours. They heard and saw spent ammunition landing on the ground close to them.
In 1942 he attended his RAF medical and was given deferred service. He was called up in March 1943 and attended various training courses to become a rear air gunner. Posted to RAF Lichfield he formed up with his mainly Canadian crew before moving on to an Operational Training Unit flying Whitley’s. At a Heavy Conversion Unit his crew moved to Halifax’s and finally Lancasters. In November 1943 they were posted to RAF Ludford Magna with 101 Squadron. Their first operation took place on 27th January 1944 to Berlin. Peter lists the German towns he was sent to on operations, including Nuremberg in March when the squadron lost seven aircraft. His thirtieth operation was against large guns at Calais. Normally the end of a tour, they were asked to carry out a special duties' operation on the night of 5th June 1944. They flew back and forth between Dover and Paris dropping Window, foil strips, out of the aircraft. It was not until they returned to the station that they were told it was part of the invasion of Europe.
He describes what he did in his spare time and the preparation for operations. Over the thirty-one operations he flew, Peter says that he never had to fire his guns even though he did see some night fighters. Only on one occasion did their aircraft have trouble, when one engine stopped working and there was no power to his rear turret. He describes the various roles he had after completing his tour until he was demobbed in January 1947.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nick Cornwell-Smith
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Nuremberg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943-11
1944-01-27
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
101 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Normandy deception operations (5/6 June 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Lichfield
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Sleap
training
Whitley
Window
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Penny, Jim
James Alfred Penny
J A Penny
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Penny, J
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Three items. Two oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Jim Penny (b. 1922, 1345892 Royal Air Force) and his log book.
He joined the RAF in 1940 and flew operations as a pilot with 97 Squadron from RAF Bourn. Targets included Nuremberg, München Gladbach, Berlin, Montlucon Dunlop rubber factory in France, and the Modane Tower Tunnel. His aircraft was shot down over Berlin 24 November 1943 and he became a prisoner of war. He was liberated on 3 May 1945 and retired from the RAF on 19 July 1971.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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2015-08-16
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Jim joined the RAF in July 1940 on his 18th birthday. His ‘Flight’ was sent to the US to train under the ‘Arnold scheme’. He went to a variety of bases to learn to fly (detained in 1st interview), flying the PT17 Stearman biplane, BT-13A, AT-6A Harvard, Vultee-13, and then the Armstrong Siddeley, before returning on the Queen Elizabeth as a newly commissioned pilot with the rank of Sergeant.
On returning to the UK, he was posted to RAF Shawbury (Shropshire) Advance Flying Unit. Jim’s next posting was to RAF Tilstock Heath where he ‘crewed up’. Complete with crew he arrived at RAF Sleap (an auxiliary station for RAF Tilstock Heath). On being asking if they would be willing to join the Pathfinder Force all agreed to accept the offer – PFF was elite after all. After HCU training at RAF Blyton je stated, ‘The Lancaster was the finest plane I’ve ever flown’. On 26th July 1943 Jim was promoted to Flight Sergeant.
He remembered the RAF casualties and how their work affected their mental state, particularly the Squadron Casualties. However, the awareness that they were regularly striking at the heart to Nazi Germany left the with an enduring pride in being a ‘Armada’.
Jim and his crew transferred to RAF Upwood – Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit then to RAF Bourne 97.
Jim flew to bomb Nuremberg, München Gladbach, Berlin itself many times, Montlucon Dunlop rubber factory in France, and the Modane Tower Tunnel in France. He was involved in 2 flights that were ‘Boomerang flights’. One of the October operations was to be part of the decoy flight that was to draw fighters away from Kessel onto themselves, and bomb Frankfurt.
In November 1943 they were judged to be a competent part of the PFF and were tasked to be a back-up marker crew – the ones with the GREEN flares.
They flew to Dusseldorf, Manheim and Berlin. On 24 November 1943 they were hit by flak, managed to survive, became a POW until he was liberated on 3rd May 1945.
On 6th October 1945 he reported to No 34 Maintenance Unit at RAF Montford Bridge. A year later he had refresher course at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, as a Warrant Officer.
In 1948 Jim joined the City of Lincoln, Lincoln Squadron Bomber Command at RAF Waddington. He left Waddington to join the RAF Central Flying School as a flying instructor which he found very rewarding when he sent a pupil solo. Jim tried for a permanent commission while posted to RAF Ternhill but failed because he was tone deaf. Jim was offered a branch commission at the age of 37.
He left RAF as Flight Lieutenant on 19th July 71. He had no regrets about serving in the RAF and was a part of the Shrewsbury RAFA and the Shropshire Aircrew.
Claire CampbellClaire Campbell
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Transcription
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JP: Right, I’m James Alfred Penny. I’m ninety-three. I was born in Glasgow and during the war I ended up as a Bomber Commander Pathfinder Pilot with 97 Squadron at RAF Borne in Cambridgeshire, where we flew Lancasters. I was seventeen and a half when the war was declared. I still remember Neville Chamberlin broadcast. I thought then that he had done his best to prevent another war was almost in tears with those that were in war with Germany. I joined the RAF in July forty when I was eighteen. I’d wanted to be a pilot since I was about ten probably from reading all the exciting stories of the First World War pilots. There was a long waiting list before finally getting an aircrew medical. I finally became RAF VR at the voluntary reserve on 20th March 1941. I finally called for service on 4th July forty-one, sixteen days before my nineteenth birthday. On the train to London I met John Thomas and Alec McGarvey both policemen. Police had been reserved from East twenty-five and recently those between fifty-five and thirty were given permission to volunteer for aircrew. In my flight of sixty ITW, Initial Training Wing, forty were ex police. I remained convinced that every policeman in the United Kingdom between twenty-five and thirty promptly volunteered. Our flight was sent to America. General [unclear] Arnold commanded the South East Army Air Core. What became known as the Arnold Scheme trained RAF airman to be pilots. It began in June 1941 while America was still neutral and we entered the United States in civilian clothes. Our six hundred airmen became 42E, the fifth entry to be trained as pilots. When the Japs attacked Pearl Harbour on 7th December forty-one we went into RAF uniform. As the US declared war in Germany in Japan we were now allies. The Arnold Scheme ended in March 1943 presumably as the US required their training facilities and the build up of their own airforce. As well as the Arnold Scheme RAF were trained in Texas and produced navel airman by the US Navy. One hundred of us went to Souther Field, Americus, Georgia for primary training by the civilian, Graham Civilian Aviation Company on the PT17, the Stearman biplane. My civilian instructor, G M Marston was a quiet, patient man who inspired confidence. Being sent solo was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. From basic training we went to the US AirCore Cochran Field, Macon in Georgia manned by AirCore ground crew and officer flying instructors. We flew the BT-13A, an all metal monoplane with fixed undercarriage and a standard instrument panel suitable for night flying. The propeller had a fine and coarse pitch. Compared to the Stearman it was very heavy on the controls. I was slowly adjusted to these heavy controls. My aircrew lieutenant with a none stop [unclear] style had no patience had put me up for check ride by a senior instructor. This went off well and I was given a new instructor a Lieutenant Stanell, another quiet patient man with whom I progressed well and passed onto advanced. Advanced training at Napier Field, Dothan, Alabama was an AT-6A named by a Harvard by the RAF. Light on the controls I was again slow to adjust. On approachment to landing I let the speed drop dangerously low, near to a stall, which from approach height would have been fatal. I had two check rides and was washed out and sent back to Canada. In Canada the personal dispatch centre at Trenton Ontario was unhappy place. Airman who had failed their courses were processed for some other form of service. Interviewed by a Flight Lieutenant he asked why I had been washed out. I said it was my own fault. I’d been too slow to adjust the voltage much heavier controls and the Harvard had the same trouble in reverse, for it was light on the controls and I was heavy handed now. I said I thought it would’ve been better if I had gone from the Stearmans straight to Harvards. The Lieutenant smiled and said we had been worried about the number of washouts at advanced and sent a team of experienced pilots to investigate. They’ve just come back and had recommended exactly what you have suggested. I’m going to recommend you go back and fly. In 1950 training by a flying instructor at central, RAF Central Flying School I was trained to rest my hand lightly on the Harvards trim to ensure it was not used incorrectly whilst you’re a pilot. I recall the Vultee VT-13 required the elevated trim to be wound fully back on the approach to landing. Wind the trim fully back on the Harvard resulted in a near up attitude and dangerous loss of speed on the approach. Now that my instructor and two check ride pilots had recognised what I was doing with the trim which was creating the danger, and recently reading about the Arnold Scheme on the internet I learnt that some fifty percent failed and were sent back to Canada. I wonder now how many of the large number of washouts from advanced that Trent Flight Lieutenant had mentioned had been caught out by the same simple trap. In a flight interview the Flight Lieutenant apologised for me going back to flying on the twin engine Lockwood for he rightly assumed, like most, I wanted to be a pilot, fighter pilot. We went to 35 SFTS North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After the war when I visited Canada I realised that someone in the Canadian Government had been very far seeing. These airfields built all over Canada became civil airfields serving the far flung areas of Canada which might otherwise might not have afforded this vital facility in such remote areas. The Airspeed Oxford was a low wing twin engine aircraft with a single fin and rudder pared with the Armstrong Siddeley 350 horsepower Cheetah radial engine. A sturdy plane, for me it had no vices. My instructor Pilot Officer, Flight Officer Henry Shackleton was another quiet patient man whose pleasant friendly manner put one at ease. On the 12th of September 1942 we were awarded our coveted wings and promoted to Sergeant. I had flown a total of two hundred and eighty-one hours by then and as was usual only six on our course were commissioned. We came home on the Queen Elizabeth. More than ten thousand of all three services were aboard. She sailed unescorted because she was too fast for any sub to catch her. The Queen and Queens must have carried nearly two million men to and fro across the Atlantic. [pause] RAF Shawbury in Shropshire was the first airfield I flew from in England on 15th January 1943 and was to be the last stationed I served at on retirement on 19th of July 1971. It was a special place in my memories, all happy for it was a happy station and always blessed by good station commanders. In January forty-three number 11 Advanced Flying Unit was equipped for the Airspeed Oxford. They checked our competency as pilots, accustomed us to night flying over the blacked out, over the blacked out UK. There was a bat fight a team approach training flight which trained pilots on the system where on approach to landing the pilot had a constant hum in his earphones if he was correctly in line with the runway. If he strayed off course the hum became a Morse Code dot dash or dash dot depending on whether he was port or starboard of the correct line of approach. There was an outer beacon, sorry an outer and an inner beacon which gave a cone of silence as the plane passed overhead. I think one had — stop this is then —I think one had to be four hundred feet at the outer beacon and two hundred feet at the inner. On my last bat fight, under the hood flying solely only on instruments, I was guided by the beacon approach. After the near marker I expected the instructed to take over but he told me to keep going and finally said “round out”. This I did and instantly with touchdown on the runway. I had a shock when I lifted the hood off. We were in thick fog. The instructor, also on the beam, had absolute faith in it keeping me on the controls lets him concentrate on seeing the runway at the last minute. Thick fog had arrived suddenly and with insufficient flow to divert to another airfield clear of fog. The experience only gave me even more confidence in the BE system. I left Shawbury with a total of three hundred and seventy hours and much more confident of my abilities as a pilot. [pause] Can we start again? For operation training we went to RAF Tilstock Heath in Shropshire where we crewed up. This is a strange RAF custom. Pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and rear gunners were assembled in a large hanger. We were told to sort ourselves out into crews and left to get on with it. With no warning of this affair most looked at stunned as I felt. How did one start? I thought I might as well get a Scottish crew and went over to a work of bomb aimers and asked if any of them were Scots. Sergeant Ali Campbell, a bomb aimer, said “I'm from Glasgow will I do”? I liked the look of them man. “Certainly” “I know a navigator from Glasgow shall I get him?” “Yes please.” He fetched a dark [unclear] individual older man and introduced him as Jimmy Graham also from Glasgow. With Jimmy was a red headed, freckled fresh face gunner and Jimmy said “Red here is an American. He'd like to be in the same crew as me.” Red was Sergeant P D Rise from New York. I liked, I liked the look of the man. I was delighted. All I needed now as a wireless op. A little chap asked if I could take somebody from Grimsby. I liked the look of him too. Sergeant J R Cowan made my crew complete. Seems strange I never knew their ages until I started to write my memoirs in the year 2000 and I learnt them from a kind and most competent lady from the Air Historical Branch. Jimmy Graham was the oldest man in the crew at twenty-eight. Bob Campbell was twenty-two. Bob Cowan twenty-three. Red was Royal Canadian Air Force and I only learnt he was twenty-nine when my book was published and I was contacted by his relatives. It seems now a strange way to select a crew to put us all together and let us sort ourselves out. Somehow it worked and the crew thus formed seem to be successful. RAF Sleap was a nearby satellite airfield for Tilstock Heath. C flight from err, C flight was detached to operate from there. We flew the Whitley Mark 4, powered by two Rolls Royce Merlins. When we practiced single engine landing I thought the Whitley was difficult in holding height on one engine. In fact, one night heading back to Sleap from a cross-country exercise, we lost power in the starboard engine and started to lose height. We approached the Pennines with only high ground to come, a black night and a possibility of air, air, alternator error I told the crew to put on their parachutes and standby to bail out if we got below three thousand feet. Fortunately our old Whitley held height above three thousand feet and we made it safely back to base. That was when I found out that Bob Cowan was petrified of having to bail out but it didn't stop him flying, that is courage. I liked the aircraft. It handled well and seemed sturdy. We practiced bombing at both high and low level, air to sea gunnery and many cross-country flights. We flew slightly more night than day hours. By the end of the course I had four hundred and thirty hours in my log and for the first and only time passed out with an above average assessment in my logbook. As a crew we were above average and we had major successes in navigation and bombing exercises. We were pleased to be one of the two crews on the course to be chosen to fly on an operational leaflet dropping over France and even more pleased when the operation was cancelled. For we were only too well aware that the Whitley was no longer a suitable operational aircraft. I was asked if we would volunteer for Pathfinder Force, warning that this would mean a tour of forty ops instead of thirty which was the main post tour. I consulted with the crew and they all agreed they wanted to accept the offer for the Pathfinders were considered an elite force. We went to a heavy conversion unit at RAF Blyton in June and we were there until July and we first flew the Halifax Mark 2 and 4, 2 and 5, sorry. For the Halifax was reckoned to have a sturdier undercarriage, better able to stand a heavy landing pilots new to the type might make and often did. After about fifteen hours in a Halifax we flew forty-eight hours in the Lancaster's Mark 1 and 3. I loved the Lancaster from the first flight. It was a pilot’s aeroplane. It was very responsive. Sergeant Father's, aged 21, who came from London, became our flight engineer. On the 26th of July I was promoted to acting up flight sergeant and we left Blyton for RAF Upwood which housed a Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit. For the staff instructor observing how we performed we flew one bombing and six country flight exercises. The last was the north, up the Irish Sea between the western isle, round the top of Scotland down over central Scotland and the Pennines. At ten thousand feet on a clear summer day it was the most pleasant flight I have ever made. The weather was glorious and the Highlands and Islands were beautiful. [pause] Next we joined 97 Pathfinders Squadron at RAF Bourn in Cambridgeshire. Bourn was [unclear] airfield with dispersed accommodation. We were allocated a mid upper gunner, pilot officer G T, G J Bates. He had already completed one tour and we were delighted to have a man of his experience join the crew. He was relaxed and at ease with us and we all liked him. I remember the casualties and how they affected our attitude and emotions at the time, especially squadron casualties. We were aware that regularly [unclear] strike at the heart of Nazi Germany. We were proud to be part of the Armada, I still am. [pause] Alright. Over the years I’ve often been asked if I was ashamed of bombing Germany. Those that asked that question are the ones who should be ashamed. More than fifty-five young men in Bomber Command who died were exactly the same type of men as the fighter pilots from the Battle of Britain and like them were fighting for their country. Err, and Hitler — don't, don’t, yeah, right. The bombing campaign was indeed terrible but in the context of the time it was essential. The moment war ended political experience combined with moral cordis made those who had approved the campaign back off because of primarily Hamburg and Dresden. Both had military targets and ethers of time I deeply regret the necessity but not the actions. For the first I was not yet an operational squadron. For the second I was a POW. Had I been on a squadron at those times I would have taken part. This part of my story is primarily to the memory of five brave young men who died to keep the country free from an evil tyranny and a brave young American who came to help. Right. At Bourn we were allocated a mid — new pilots went as a second pilot for an experienced crew in their first two operations. I was crewed with Pilot Officer Ken Farely, an Australian. Operation pilots in Lancaster were not fitted with dual control. Second pilots stood behind the engineers position keeping out of the way. Milan was a seven hour forty-five minutes round trip of about twelve thousand miles, twelve hundred miles sorry. A long time to be standing. All I did look out and listen to the crew on the intercom. They were very professional. There was no chatter and it was all related to the task. There was cloud cover all the way over France but over the Alps the sky cleared and in the bright moonlight the Alps were awesome. Brilliant white snow on the mountains did not hide the bleakness and the threat of the black rock. I remember thinking this was no place to have an engine failure. A forced landing was out of the question, even parachuting would have been fraught with danger. The sky cleared over Italy and the target was visible from the fires already started. The searchlights and the flying to my inexperienced eye seemed to waiver about rather aimlessly in the fact of the light below us even though we were only about fifteen thousand feet. We were carrying target indicator bombs, the usual cookie, the four thousand pound blast bomb and three five hundred pound high explosive bombs. Looking at the bomb dispersal I thought how impressive that bomb load looked. It was particularly interesting listening to the bombers controls as he lined up to drop are green TI’s on the [unclear]. The Pathfinders task, the most experienced crews identified the aiming point and dropped red TI markers and follow-up Pathfinders dropped backup greens on the reds. Target indicators drifted, usually backwards. Instructed by the master bomber, Pathfinders would re-centre. Main force aircraft bombed on these markers. One hundred and forty Lancasters went to Milan and one failed to return. The flight home was anticlimax. The Alps were awesome but the flight over France was dull, even boring. Later on of course I realised that was just what was most wanted. A nice safe, incident free, boring journey home. On the 16th it was a relief to be at the controls again with my own crew and we made a short daylight flight. On the 17th I was flown — no hang on, cut that. On the 23rd of August to Leverkusen. Again I was crewed as a second pilot to Pilot Officer Farely. Four hundred and seventy Lancs and Halifax’s went to Leverkusen and five failed to return. Flight time was four hours forty-five for a five hundred mile round trip. With a lighter fuel load we carried a heavier bomb load. TI’s, the cookie and six thousand pound high explosives. This time the targets seemed to be heavily defended by flak. There was virtually complete cloud cover lit up by the searchlights, good for the night fighters to see the bombers against the relatively bright cloud. Although our gunners didn't see, other reports said there was a lot of fighter activity. We bombed the red glows. I thought a bit dodgy though I had just enough sense to make no comment. Leverkusen is not far from Cologne and I heard later the Germans had reported that Cologne had been attacked. We bombed from thirty thousand feet which I thought a bit dodgy in heavy flak. Sergeant Farely was making sure his bomb aimers had the best possible view. There was a lot of flak on the way to and from the target. We were in a major industrial area and the flak was from other towns. I was dying to ask questions but knew that would not be welcomed. The shorter flight time with so much going, on despite tiring, this trip was not too tiring. [pause] Was on the 23rd and 24th of August to Berlin. It was decided it would not be fair to send me to Berlin on my first operation with my crew. Ok. We had been reminded at briefing to be alert for intruders on return and this lesson was rubbed in when we learnt that a crew had been shot down over England when nearly home. Our first operation as a crew was on 27th, 28th of August to Nuremberg my flight engineer was Sergeant Richard Fathers, twenty-one. I was twenty-one at that time. My navigator Sergeant James Graham was twenty-eight. My bomb aimer was Sergeant Campbell, twenty-two. My wireless operator Sergeant Cowan was twenty-three. My mid upper gunner, I never did find out his name, his age and my rear gunner Sergeant Rees eventually I found out was ninety-seven, no twenty-seven. On the ground it was Christian names except that I was always Skipper and there I used the crew positions eg bomb aimer. On that first flight with a task as main force for the bomb force, loaded with the cookie a blast bomb and high explosives Jimmy’s navigation was spot on and we reached the target on time. The Nuremberg, the Nuremberg target was clear. Bob bombed the TIs which were clearly seen. I was impressed with his calm control on the bombing run and his rising crescendo tone as he gave steady, steady, steady just before he reached our bombs which emphasised the need for just that. Although the flight was heavy and there was many searchlights we saw no night fighters but learnt there weren't many at the target on the route home. Of six hundred and seventy-four aircraft thirty-three were lost two night fighters. Two were 97 Squadron crews which put a damper on our euphoria at completing a successful mission. Right. Stop. On the 31st of August we went to Mönchengladbach. Fifteen of the squadron took off after midnight, a round trip of six hundred and sixty miles took three and a half hours. Jimmy’s navigation was spot on and we arrived at the target on ETA. We carried a cookie again and high explosives even with that load we had notably reached ninety thousand feet. Despite the cloud cover Bob could see the glow of the red and green concentration markers and bombed in the centre of these.
Again I found it easy to follow his clear guiding voice as he kept us on line for his target. With his bombs gone the light seemed to leap up, if it could have sighed with relief I’m sure it would have. I did. We still had a further thirty seconds of straight and level waiting for the flash to go off on our camera. I hated that extra wave and ones instinct was to turn away with the flak bursting near us. No fighters but twenty-five aircraft were lost to [unclear] many over the target area. Right. The 30th August to the 1st September 1943 we went to Berlin. The flight time was six hundred and fifty hours over a thousand miles. Our bomb load was a cookie plus eight five hundred pound heavy explosives. We reached Berlin on estimated time of arrival. At eighteen thousand feet Bob bombed on a red marker despite the cloud. The flight seemed more concentrated to me. The searchlights lit up the cloud. We saw no fighters but many of our own aircraft was seen over the target. Forty-seven were missing mostly to fighters and mainly in the Berlin target area. Wing Commander Burns, A Flight Commander was reported missing which was a shock for he was a legendary character on the squadron. It was also disconcerting that someone so experienced could fail to return. We were gaining in confidence. The crew had performed so well and Berlin was considered one of the dodgiest targets. Overall losses proved that. We flew three more successful missions [pause] each time arriving on our ETA and err, our ETA — alright. Start that again. 3rd of September 1943 was Berlin again and the 5th and 6th of September we went to Mannheim which was the boomerang. The Boomerang is failing to complete a mission [pause] oh dear. It’s incomplete a mission. Returning airway a very opposite name for such events. A boomerang does not count as an operation. Less than an hour out the starboard outer engine caught fire. We ejected our bombs in the sea. On our way back the station engineering officer told me the oil pipe, the propeller control had sheared and the loss of oil would have been so rapid, too much to allow for the feathering. He congratulated me on getting back and landing safely with a wind milling prop. I was pleased for I was a bit miffed that not one of the pilots, not even my flight commander, made any well done comment. When I thought about it, it was small beer compared to having been to Mahnomen and back. On the 15th of September we went to Montlucon in France again, no not again, take that out, rubber factory some four hundred and thirty miles from base. [pause] It took five hundred and twenty hours, five hundred and twenty hours. Three hundred and seventy-four Halifax and Stirling bombers were assigned. Of the forty Lancaster twenty-eight were Pathfinders. I suspect the others were new crews like us from Pathfinder squadrons with main force bomb loads of cookies and heavy explosives. We went in at four thousand six hundred feet. On the approach Sam Ogleby, our new gunner called out from mid upper turret “Christ skipper look up”. I saw what seemed to be hundreds of bombs falling just a few feet in front of us. Most seem to be coming from heavy bombing directly over head. At briefing we had been told of the aircraft brief to bomb from six thousand, eight thousand and ten thousand feet. On return it was surprising to hear that incendiary bombs had hit only five aircraft. What had been looked on as a relatively safe operation had turned out to be quite hairy. Three aircraft were lost, one to flak near the coast and two to fighters. The raid was completely successful in destroying the entire Dunlop works. On the 16th and 17th of September we went to Modane Tower in France. Again our mid upper gunner was again Sam Ogleby. The target was the entrance to the Modane Tunnel. Three hundred identical loads. Unlike my feelings on my last return from Milan, this time I welcomed an uneventful return home. I was not tired by flight time of seven hours ten minutes but piloting kept me busy and strangely happy. Also I was not standing all the way. Two aircraft had lost to flak over the French coast one going and one on the way home. A third fell to a fighter somewhere on the route back. We then had a new mid upper gunner Flight Sergeant R S Mortham, aged 23, who had completed a tour in the Middle East. [pause] [sigh] In September we flew three more successful missions each time arriving on our ETA. We also flew one boomerang. The 3rd of September 1943 we went to Berlin. On the 5th, 6th of September we went to Mannheim, that was the boomerang. The boomerang is failing to complete a mission returning early. A boomerang does not count as an operation. Less than an hour out the Starboard outer caught fire, we ejected our bombs in the sea our way back to the base. On our way back the station engineering officer told me the oil pipe, the propeller control had sheared and the loss of oil would have been so rapid, too much to allow for the feathering. He congratulated me on getting back and landing safely with a wind milling prop. I was pleased for I was a bit miffed that not one of the pilots, not even my flight commander, made any well done comment. When I thought about it, it was small beer compared to having been to Mahnomen and back. 15th of September was Montlucon in France. The target was the Dunlop rubber factory four hundred and thirty miles from base. The round trip took five hours. Three hundred and seventy-four Halifax and Stirling bombers were assigned. Of the forty Lancs twenty-eight were Pathfinders. I suspect the others were new crews like us. Squadrons with main force bomb loads of cookies and HE. We went in at four thousand six hundred feet. On the approach Sam Ogleby, our new gunner called out from the mid upper turret “Christ skipper look up”. I saw what seemed to be hundreds of bombs falling just a few feet in front of us. Most seem to be coming from a heavy bomber directly over head. At briefing we’d been told there would be aircraft brief to bomb from six thousand, eight thousand and ten thousand feet. On return it was surprising to hear that incendiary bombs had only hit five aircraft. What had been looked on as a relatively safe operation had turned out to be quite hairy. Three aircraft were lost. The raid was completely successful in destroying the entire Dunlop works. September 16th, 17th we went to Modane in France and again our mid upper gunner was again Sam Ogleby. The target was the entrance to the Modane Tunnel. Unlike my feelings on my last return from Milan, this time I welcomed an uneventful return home. Two aircraft were lost to flak over the French coast one going one on the way home, a third fell to a fighter somewhere on the route back. We then had a new mid upper gunner, Flight Sergeant R S Mortham aged 23, who had completed a tour in the Middle East. In October we made five successful operations. On the 2nd and 3rd of October, 3rd of October to Munich. On 4th and 5th to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt ten aircraft were missing and one was from 97 Squadron. Strange that even heavy losses overall seem to have little effect yet the loss of one squadron crew cast a gloom. Not that we knew the lost crew, we were all friendly enough but did not mix with other crews. It was as if each crew was sufficient unto itself. It was certainly not a conscious decision but as if we were aware at all time that someone might be the next to go. With indestructibility of youth it was never going to be you, always some other chaps. 7th, 8th of October Stuttgart. 8th and 9th Hammerberg. That was another boomerang. 18th and 19th Hanover. 22nd, Frankfurt, Kassel. Three hundred and forty three Lancs went to Kassel, the main target, only four were lost. This time there were two important [unclear] raids. Lancs to [unclear] and Mosquitoes to Munich. These spoof [unclear] particularly Mosi’s in Munich drew off the German fighters. For us there was various flak to fly through, much as usual. Of the eighteen aircraft of 97 Squadron which went to Hanover one was — a number of experience crews went missing. 18th, 19th of October was Hannover. Three hundred and sixty Lancs went out. Seventeen were lost. Another experienced crew from 97 Squadron again put a dampener on satisfactorily completing another op. 22nd of October Kassel and Frankfurt. Sixteen crews attacked Kassel and two were part of the spoof raid on Frankfurt to draw the German Fighters from the main force. We were one of those crews though the other boomerang. Frankfurt, eight mosquitoes and twenty-eight Lancs set off for Frankfurt and thirty-one of us got there. A bomb load with cookies and one hundred and fifty-six incendiaries. The only time we carried incendiaries for we were a spoof simulating the beginning of a full raid. On the crew buster aircraft I remember Red “Hey skip were to draw off the fighters we’ll be drawing off the buggers onto us”. Kassel, Frankfurt was 90 mile to the south and slightly west to Kassel. The route had made it appear that Frankfurt was the main target but as we opened attack there the main force turned north east to Kassel. We headed there to after dropping our bombs and the raid was fully developed as we approached. The sky was clear and visibility good. We could see Kassel was a solid [unclear] of fire. I thought it must be completely destroyed. All my commander reports confirmed that. My thoughts had been accurate to all intents and purposes it was. There were many fighters at Kassel and of the four hundred and forty-four Lancasters and Halifax which attacked Kassel, forty-two were lost. A heavy price to pay even for an incredibly successful operation. I was sad that our spoof had not been very successful. Kassel was a horror on the scale of Hamburg and Dresden and the efficiency of the operation. It was a smaller place. I have no idea of the casualties or reports concerned to the Germans. War did not comment on German casualties. For once I felt sorry for the folk in that city. Would I do it again? Yes. We were at war, all war is evil but more evil is to submit to evil. For me it's a simple as that. Bomber Command in forty and forty-one to forty-three was the only force with air striking directly at Germany. Part of the direct damage done to the German war. If all those German fighter planes, guns, searchlights and the men who manned them had been available for the Russian front, it could reasonably be argued that Russia might have been defeated before the aid of the west reached it. November forty-three [pause] 3rd and 4th November 43 we went to Dusseldorf. This was our first operation as back up markers. I have since discovered that crews from main force Squadron with a good record would be asked to volunteer for Pathfinder Force after fifteen main force operations. We’d been picked up early and done [unclear] trips for the Pathfinder Squadron. It gave us a boost to think we had proved ourselves. We were now considered competent to be a back up marker crew. This was due to Jimmy’s consistently accurate navigation and Bob's excellent bomb aiming. Bob certainly is part too passing information obtained on his steady radio watch. Although we had not been attacked by night fighters we had great confident in our gunners ability which was comforting. We now carried four TIs, that’s target indicator bombs, as well as the cookie and high explosives. Dusseldorf was a round trip taking four hours thirty minutes. Bob's report as recorded in Jimmy's log stated green TI markers and bomb sites at time of release of bombs. Markers later were concentrated. A typical clear report from Bob. He always had a relevant aiming point in his bomb sight. Cut. 7th and 8th of November we went to Mannheim which had twin towers separated by the Rhine. Then on the 18th and 19th of November we were back to Berlin. Stop there. 18th and 19th of November was Berlin again. Again we got there on ETA and Bob released our HE on a concentration of various backed up by greens. We saw flak all around us, Berlin was getting quite dodgy. Nine of the four hundred and forty Lancaster's failed to return. 22nd and 23rd of November Berlin, six hundred and fifty heavies plus eleven mosquitoes attacked Berlin. Wait a minute. The, the — what's that? The Bomber Command report stated that German Fighters were grounded by bad weather and only twenty-five aircraft were lost. It only shows clearly that although every airport was made to keep losses down these raids were made before learners and acceptance of the best of all those young men. It was appropriate to record the great regard bomber crews had for Butch Harris.
Back within the ethers of time with us and we were proud to be one of the Butch’s men. Butch was a term of affection. I recorded it but I don't expect those not there to understand it. Cut. 24th November 1943, Berlin. We were again carrying TIs. We arrived on ETA to find about eight tenths cloud. The searchlights again lit up the sky and the cloud. The flak seemed heavier than ever as we arrived up to our aiming point. At the end of our terminal run and just as his voice had risen to the central tone of steady, steady, steady he quietly said “we’ve re-centred, carry on straight and level Skipper it's going to be about two more minutes”. So we did a further two minutes straight and level. This time just as Bob's tone had [coughs] again risen to the steady, steady, steady indicating imminent bomb release we were hit by flak in the bomb bay. [pauses]The BST report of that night's raid seems to fully support my belief, as it was predictive flak, given that extra time to latch on to us one of our green TIs exploded in the bomb bay and we were surrounded by green fire. All the electrics fused so there was no intercom. I distinctively released my catch to my harness which strapped me in my seat and I broke open the harness to lean forward and wave to Dicky who was in the nose by Bob throwing out window. Window is metallic strips for deceiving radar. I pointed to behind my seat where his parachute was. As he came back I started counting one and two, two and three until I reached eighteen seconds. I knew my crew could be allowed thirty to sixty seconds for we practiced often enough. Now I had no intercom to give them the order I still believe that, that when I lent, lent forward I saw Bob with his hand on the bomb release panel trying to eject our bombs. I know the forward escape hatch was not open. I also knew it would all be a matter of seconds before the burning TI set off the four thousand pound blast bomb from the cookie, and hoped it would be long enough to get some of them out. I still had full control and all I had to do was keep my plane straight and level to give my crew the best aid to bailing out. I knew I was going to die but my responsibility for my crew, was my crew. I did throw up two thoughts my first was Mum’s not going to like this and very strangely for I had never considered this before nor even as the polite saying is knowing a woman the second was I wish I’d left a son behind. There was now flames between me and my instrument panel and Dicky was just bending down for a parachute when the cookie blew up. I found myself still in the sitting position in cold air with a flashing thought “where's my bloody plane gone”. The mind works incredibly fast in such situations and I recall waving the choices between doing a delayed drop to avoid the flak or opening my chute at once to drift clear of the bombing. As we were exactly over the aiming point when we blew up and at the midpoint of the raid I knew what was to come. I pulled my rip cord. When my chute opened I saw what could only be a piece of fuselage falling past me like a falling leaf. Then I remembered that the Home Guard had been told if a shell exploded within fifty feet of a parachute it would cause it to candle, which means to fold up. With that in mind, hanging there in the middle of the Berlin flak where it seemed to be every gun was pointed at me, I have never been so frightened in all my life. Courage is a strange thing, in the plane I had the responsibility of my crew I knew I was done but I was scared. Hanging from a parachute I had nothing to think about but myself, I was petrified. The German gunners missed me and I did land safely but that begins a different part of my story. [pause]. It's completely irrational for I could have done no more than I did but I still carry a deep sense, not of guilt but of something closely approximating to it, in that I lived and my crew died. I wrote to all the kin on my liberation with varying responses. I’d known my crew for such a short, time indeed knew little about them except professionally they were so very good at their respective jobs yet we became a close knit crew and formed an inexplicable bond, dependant on each other skills and loyalty. Red could have joined his countrymen, he would certainly have had better pay probably better promotion, yet he chose to stay with his skipper and his crew. Like the rest of us he knew the risks. Few crews from Pathfinder completed the forty-five operations. Now after over seventy years it’s absurd but I can still see them as they were and I miss them still. Their loss has conditioned my response in life to include indeed I am lucky Jim because I have a life that they were all denied. That's it. I landed in a back garden, a suburban back garden in Berlin and was very rapidly picked up. I was a prisoner of war from the 24th of November 1943 to the 4th of May 1945. After the war I stayed in the air force and was commissioned and retired in 1971.
MJ: On behalf of the International Bomber Command I'd like to thank Jim Penny for his recording on the 23rd of August 2015 at his home in Shrewsbury. Thank you very much.
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Title
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Interview with Jim Penny. One
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-16
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APennyJ150816, PPennyJ1501
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Jim Penny joined the Air Force in July 1940 when he was eighteen. He recounts the training which he undertook before he became a Bomber Command Pathfinder pilot for 97 Squadron at RAF Bourn. He explains the crewing up process and details those who were in his crew. He gives accounts of his operations until his aircraft was shot down over Berlin 24 November 1943. His Lancaster was hit in the bomb bay by anti-aircraft fire which caused a green target indicator to explode. All his crew were killed but he became a prisoner of war. After the war he stayed in the RAF until he retired in 1971.
Contributor
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Tracy Johnson
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Modane
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Mannheim
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1941
1942
1943-11-24
1944
1945
Format
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00:43:13 audio recording
97 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
bombing of Kassel (22/23 October 1943)
crewing up
fear
grief
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
military ethos
Oxford
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Blyton
RAF Bourn
RAF Shawbury
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
RAF Upwood
searchlight
shot down
Stearman
target indicator
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/2480/PBaggJG1602.1.jpg
fc588435640eb081dc7c9ea25e2e7a3f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/2480/ABaggJG160902.1.mp3
66e2a38c2f9d559f89ab20b610d08c80
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Bagg, John
John Bagg
J G Bagg
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman John Garrett Bagg (b.1920, 1475631 Royal Air Force) and 11 photographs. John Bagg trained as an instrument mechanic before re-mustering as photographer. He served at RAF Finningley, RAF Bircotes, RAF Whitchurch and RAF Sleap.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bagg and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Access Rights
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Permission granted for commercial projects
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM. This is Anne Moody and it is Friday the 2nd of September 2016 and today I am with John Bagg in Royston which is in Barnsley and I have also got with us Gary who may chip in now and again. I want to ask John, you told me you were born in 1920, where ?
JB. In this house, I have lived here all my life.
AM. Crickey, ninety five years.
JB. My Grandfather took it on then, my Mother took it over and then I took it over and I want to be carried out from here.
AM. You are not moving anywhere else?
JB. Only to my back Garden, it keeps me occupied.
AM. So did you have any Brothers or Sisters?
JB. Two Brothers both were in the Services, one was in the Army and the other was a Ferry Pilot, he transported Liberator Bombers from manufactures in Canada all over the World. Down South Australian to Caucasus Islands, that was his job.
AM. What did your Parents do John, what did your Dad do?
JB. Not very much because the jobs were scarce,and my Father eventually, because he was a Shell worker and when the owner stopped he was out of work. He managed to get a job at the Colliery, a poor job on the screens which wasn’t very nice.
AM. On the screens, what does that mean ?
JB. He was screening the coal in the dust and everything. It affected his chest so he had to go off work and I was at Normanton Grammar School in those days and I left at sixteen and managed to get a job at the [unreadable]
AM. That is unusual because quite a lot left at fourteen didn’t they?
JB. Not at the Grammar School, and the [unreadable] and I stayed there till I got my call up.
AM. So what did you do, what was your job?
JB. Just general clerical work, anything, poor jobs in those days.
AM. So you got your call up, at eighteen?
JB. At twenty, twentieth birthday you were expected to register and you registered each month after that, you had no option.
AM. So what did that mean?
JB. You could volunteer before that if you wished.
AM. So when you got your call up, what was that like?
JB. I had to go to Barnsley for an interview to try and assess you for what they put you into sort of thing, and I didn’t want to go in the Army and the chappy asked me questions, “what’s your interests?” and I was always interested in like I used to make my own crystal sets, radios and with headphones, and he asked me all this and he said ok. Then I got the word that I would be in the Royal Air Force as an instrument repairer which suited me fine and I thought what a great opportunity this is because there was nothing, nothing around here really, not the good jobs, nothing like that, and that was my call up in May nineteen.
AM. May nineteen forty.
Gary. Forty One.
JB. Forty One to go to Melcham, got a train from Ralston to Sheffield where I say two or three lads all going to the same places, you know there were masses of people travelling in those days being called up.
AM. How far had you been before that though?
JB. Not very far at all, been to Scarborough day trip, I remember paddling in the sea. Been not very far at all and been to Leeds, I’ve been to Leeds and Sheffield.
AM. So you got the train to Sheffield and you saw the other lads.
JB. Went up to two lads, where you going and they were going to Melcham same as me, and you know I have kept in contact with those two lads until they both died, one died just recently and one a few years ago, they are both [Unreadable] Barnsley lads.
AM. OK so we are going to start this recording we had a minor mishap, the batteries went flat but we will just carry on the story from where John got to. We have just got off the train, changed at Bristol and we have just got off the train at Melcham with hoards and hoards of other people who have been called up.
JB. The Military Police, so they shepherded us into buses and things into the Camp into a massive hanger and it was all portioned off, bedspaces, I was given a bed space. First thing was take your clothes off, not first thing, sorry. Get measured for your uniform, you went to the counter, there was a chap there he just said, “tunic, size off” and so on, he never measured you the sizes, you got all your kit, he did ask you size of big boots. Then you went and changed, the first thing then you parcelled your own civvy clothes up and sent them back home, you were in then.
AM. What did you get in the way of uniform then, what did you get ?
JB. Two tunics, two pair of trousers, pants, vests, socks and they were all course in those days, and the boots because most people had never worn boots, mainly shoes, but you had to get used to the boots.
AM. So what do you mean ankle boot do you mean?So just above the ankle.
JB. More or less like and I think they left you alone until the next morning.
AM. So you said it was a hanger with all the bed spaces, how many beds ?
JB. God knows, massive.
AM. And no privacy or anything, what was that like.
JB. I think the next day or two they did sort it out with a hut to live in.
AM. So what was it like sleeping in a massive dormitory like that then?
JB. I can’t describe it really going from home to that, you got talking and laughing and things like that.
AM. And it’s all men of course,there is no women there.
JB. And of course in the next day or two you were assigned to a hut and then there were medicals and God knows what.
AM. I don’t know if I dare ask you to describe the medical, go on describe it for me.
JB. Line up and pants down [unreadable].
AM. What does that mean ?
JB. Well looking at everybody, I didn’t see them turf anybody out. I suppose it was for disease and had to do. The inoculation I don’t know how many of those.
AM. And you are just all in a line waiting for you jabs.
JB. The bigger men seemed to pass out more than the others a lot of men passed out at the thought of inoculations you would be surprised.
AM. Why would that be, because they weren’t used to that sort of thing because now as kids you just get used to that sort of thing, don’t you. They literally passed out?
JB. Yes, eventually you got settled in and there is a Corporal at the end of each hut in a little private thing, there is a tannoy which in the morning said wakey wakey and by God if you weren’t out of bed in five minutes the Corporal would be out and he would tip the bed over.
AM. How many men to a hut?
JB. Not too many about fifteen or sixteen at a guess.
AM. What in an open space?
JB. I got one somewhere in here.
AM. We will have a look at it in a bit.
JB. Outside and Parade then, it was about seven in the morning, PE basically then off to the cookhouse for you breakfast. There was a mad stampede, everybody, I was always the last,I couldn’t run as fast as them others for you breakfast.
AM. What did you get for breakfast?
JB. The usual, sausage, beans,bacon.
AM. Well you say the usual, but had rationing started by then, I can’t, I’m not sure?
JB. There was eh, I don’t think we had cereal or anything like that, I can’t really remember now.
AM. But you definitely remember sausage and bacon?
JB. At one place I regularly had kippers and nobody liked kippers but I loved kippers. When the asked any extras, anybody want any extra, I was always there, I love my kippers [laugh].We then started on the drills and the marching and got down on the square you know.
AM. So at this point it is just learning to be a serviceman, rather than any specific thing. How many were there at the….
JB. We were farmed out then we didn’t get a hut, into bell tents outside and it was a scorching month during that year, scorcher. We did all the exercising and everything outside it was marvellous, they got us marching up and down the square.
AM. Did you enjoy it then, because you described it as marvellous so?
JB. There was a lot of Camaraderie between you.
AM. And you still were a very young man?
JB. There were older people mixed in all in that intake, mm, and marching and marching and marching up and down the square. You got assault courses you know bayonet charging you made fun of it in a way,you know charging up and down, shouting, and bayoneting these sacks. If ever you got to do it, I don’t know how you would do it. You know.
AM. In real life when blood comes out.
JB. And the assault courses, I was one of the smallest there but I kept up with them. Then eventually [pause] where am I ? Eventually after all this training there was no vacancy for a course at the moment, so they farmed you out all over the place to wait for your call up. I was going to show you this, the first place I went to, was unbelievable [rustle of paper] to Norfolk, place called Pulham in Norfolk, that was then but the hanger was.
AM. John is showing me a picture of a Zeppelin and a massive hanger in Pulham?
JB.Pulham in Norfolk.
AM. So that’s where you were sent so what did you do there then?
JB. General duties, it was a massive scrap yard, sort of thing apart from one industry that was there was filling small bombs, packing them all in big boxes and take them to the station for distribution. They had a massive danger area with a little railway all round it and masses of boxes for these bombs to pack in, fill and empty and so on.
AM. Was it dangerous, did they have any accidents?
JB. No not that I know of, you couldn’t go in without handing in your cigarettes and things like that. You got a little train round to where you went to. Not much work to do there, there were only about fifty people there I think, fifty probably and it was just a fill in.Then, massive you couldn’t believe the size of that Hanger.
AM. So what happened then at the end of that then?
JB. You got your call up for your Instrument Repairers Course, its back to Melcham then, its all right [unreadable] all the time and then we went on the course for the cameras’, for the instruments.
AM. For the Instruments. How long was the course.
JB. Three months, it wasn’t much use to me because at the end of the course they asked for volunteers for a special camera course. On cameras’ and things like that, so I’ve always been interested so I put my hand up. I never did inspections on instruments I was always on cameras after that.a
AM. Did you learn anything about instruments or did you already know it from?
JB. I passed the Trade Test, everything but I never actually did the work.
AM. So what sparked the interest in cameras’ as I gather there wouldn’t be a lot around at that time?
JB. I worked with these massive cameras’ you know, massive cameras’
AM. Give me an idea of what size?
JB.Stood about nigh high.
AM.So we are talking about a foot high.
JB.With different lenses.
Gary. These are the ones that fitted in aeroplanes.
JB. Some were for daylight and some for night work and they had special shutters and they were all radio, electrically controlled from controllers and things like that, control [unreadable] six volt.
AM. So did you have to do another course to learn how to use that?
JB. Oh yes, that was at Halton that, which was the college.In the Winter.
AM.Near Andover.
JB. I really liked that, the cameras’ and controls and things and after that, that was near Christmas and they couldn’t find us a station at the time. So they said go home and we’ll call you when your unit is home for Christmas and we said ok. In other days when talking to people the used to say, get posted to Finningley, get to Finningley, they have chicken every Christmas. When my posting came it was to Finningley, I couldn’t believe it.
AM. Did this come through the post?
JB. Yes, report to Finningley on such and such a date. It was true chicken for every dinner for Christmas, every dinner, a marvellous place that. I didn’t remain there long because they were opening a satellite, a smaller Station at Bircotes near Bawtry and I got sent there. It was just a pile of mud when we got there, not much to do at the moment, at the time of course it wasn’t equipped or anything.
AM. Just before we go to Bawtry tell me about Finningley, what did you actually do, what did you do there?
JB On Cameras’ introduced to the Photographic Section, you were attached to the Photographic Section not to the Instrument Section, and they showed me round a mock up of all the controls working. They were all flexible drives, motor driven and everything and how to work it and instruction books and things like that.
AM. So what was your job on them, what were you doing?
JB. Servicing the cameras’ There were some cameras’ like gun cameras’ which were fitted in the machine gun turrets, you got one camera and three or four machine guns synchronised on operations with the firing of the guns.With all film, little small film going through.
GARY.Were you actually taking them out of the aircraft or were you fitting them.
JB. No we were fitting them.
GARY.Fitting them into the aircraft.
JB. Same with the big cameras’ they weren’t left in the aircraft.
GARY. So what aircraft did you start working on?
JB. At Finningley they were Hampdens, they used to call them flying coffins, [laugh] I don’t know if I should say it they were horrible aircraft and then we soon turned over to Wellingtons.
GARY. Then was it Stirlings’ after that?
JB. No I never went on Stirlings’ no, later on at one stage they did get a Stirling to try but the system couldn’t take it they were massive things these Stirlings. I’ve got one photograph in there, Stirling.
AM. Yeah we’ll come to that. So you were literally fitting them in, fitting the cameras’ in, taking them out. Who took the film out? What happened to the film?
JB. Massive, films about that wide.
AM. So we are talking about six inches something like that.
JB. Some of them are taken, I want to show you.
AM. Yeah we will have a look of those in a minute.
JB. That was the size of them, that was the film size.
AM. Right so it was about six inches.
JB. There were hundreds of exposures you know they were massive.
AM. So we are back on again, we have just been talking to Johns’ Wife and we have switched the recorder on. So John has just been telling us about the working on the aircraft and the cameras’ so tell me a bit more about that then.This is still at Finningley?
JB. Yes I didn’t remain there long. I was sent to Bircotes.
AM. Tell me about that then?
JB. They was just starting up, we had to wait for aircraft being allocated to us first of. Then it got working then em, It was my first really working, fitting the cameras’ I had only been under instruction mainly at Finningley and then we had to go out together, the vehicle took us for transport. You might have six or seven lined up that day, six or seven sets, controllers and everything, might have electric motors. Suppose I had to service everything and controls and electric motor to do. It was our job to fit them in the aircraft all ready, all ready for off, Bomb Aimer had them.
AM. Yes because there was the one that automatically went off when the bombs were dropped.
JB. Yes and there are different cameras’ I say, some were for night flying, taking photographs at night, synchronising those big bomb
GARY.Were there a timer when the bombs were released, a time for starting to take photographs?
JB. They had to judge the height and speed and all this on this timer, you see.
AM. So did you set the timer?
JB. No the Bomb Aimer set the timer.
AM. The Bomb Aimer set the timer.
JB. The heights and things and it were on the shutters, so many seconds before the flash was expected to explode. Then it went, I think the flash operated it to close it. What we did when we was on training where I was, all mine was on training not Operations, they had infra red lights on certain buildings, there was one on the Menai Bridge and some in Churches and they were sent out at night to sort of Bomb this place and if they bombed it they got the infra red signal back.
AM. So not literally Bomb it [Unreadable through interruptions]
JB. They were bombing it and the flash would go off, they should get this infra red light on the thing itself you see to show that they hit it. Of course many of them didn’t.
AM. Who taught them to use the camera, who taught the Bomb Aimer to use the camera?
JB. I suppose I was in their training their briefing. It was funny, one place I was on if you were on like, picket duty might be about six month, eight month you were watching around for fires, something like that. You would get a book, some of the Aircrew might get an early call if they were flying off at seven o’ clock, and you’d get a book with the names on, hut so and so bed number so and so and you would go into this hut and find this, you can imagine me go up to this bloke and say are you Sergeant so and so, sign this [laugh]. It used to be comical, sign this, he would be signing to say that you called him.
AM. So it wasn’t your fault if he didn’t turn up.
JB. It must have been Operations when they went away and some of them didn’t come back, on Operations.
AM. Did you get to know the Aircrew then?
JB. Not really no, because they were changing very rapidly. They went to our place and then they would go somewhere else for different training.
AM. I am interested in the cameras’ who, what, who manufactured the cameras’ what make were they?
JB. I don’t know, I don’t know.
AM. So not like a massive company like Kodak or anything like that?
JB. No No. I haven’t any photos of them at all.
AM.So you’d go to the aircraft and fit it, the Bomb Aimer, you would make sure there was a film in it and all the rest of it.
JB. Then when they came back
AM.[interruption] that was going to be the next question, off they went then when they came back what did you do then?
JB. Well you had to take the things off, for the film, the things the film was in and they went to the photographic department for processing.
AM. So you took the film off and you took it up to the…
JB. We worked in the photographic department, it was where I worked sort of thing. I had nothing to do with that side of it but I was in with it. I use to go in watching and the massive films that used to come out you know, massive and the machines to process them.
GARY. How long did you stay there for John, you know you left Finningley?
JB. Left Finningley, went to Bircotes.
GARY. How long were you at Bircotes for?
JB. Not very long at all, oh ah, probably about twelve months and then I got a call sending to Whitchurch in Shropshire, which eh that hadn’t been opened up very long. They were all new places I managed, they were setting up you see. I eh I really loved it there in Shropshire.
GARY. And that was an Operational Training Unit?
JB. They were all Operational Training Units.
AM. You said you really loved it what, what was it you really?
JB. The people that you worked with they were marvellous, some, I know one chap he was a very wealthy chap at least he told us he was and he used to play with one of the big bands in London. Harry Roy of something you remember in those days [little stutters] His Father was a Colonel or something as well, a real mixture.
AM. What did you do on your days off?
JB. Eventually I took my bike with me.
AM. Push bike or Motor bike.
JB. Push bike, I took it with me wherever I would go and I used to go out on my days off, round Shropshire, nearly every road in Shropshire.Went up into Cheshire and all over the place. I never lounged about on my days off. I hadn’t been there long when they was, is that Sleap? They was opening a Satellite at Sleap and I was posted there to start it up.
AM. Sleap is SLEAP Sleap Airfield.
JB. Sleap.
GARY. Was you there when the aircraft hit the Control Tower?
JB. No, no. but I was there when there was a Squadron of American Flying Fortresses, they couldn’t land where they were going so they were coming to Sleap to land in an emergency and bye you never seen them land like it. I mean I was, it was one off, one down, clear the runway before another one could land, whoosh one after the other like lightning, not a space between them.
GARY. But they would have been returning from Operations.
JB. Yeah.
AM. Did you get to go on one?
JB. No, oh no there were Guards round straight away, Guards round straight away. They was off next morning, you couldn’t see anything but it was unbelievable the way they landed.
AM. Its stuck in your mind.
AM. Going back to the Cameras then you said that worked on Hamden’s and you worked on Wellingtons did you stick with Wellingtons.
JB. Yes mostly Wellingtons, I don’t know if it was Sleap or [unreadable] where they didn’t get a Stirling, I think the ground wasn’t solid. They were so big the Stirling, massive, there is a photograph there somewhere and me stood under it.
GARY. We are looking at a small photograph of a large Stirling with one man underneath.
JB. No that’s not it.
GARY. It says on the back, Stirling, Heavy Bomber, me standing in front of the wheel.
JB. It must be me then. [laugh] massive. One thing about the Wellington.
GARY. Just getting a photo of a Wellington.
JB. To get in there was an entrance there and you can see there was a little ladder there. Most of them where I was never landed at all.
AM. And the entrance is just underneath the fuselage ?
JB. Yes just there, there was a trap door that flew up and you had to get in, you had to get hold and pull yourself up.
AM. What with the camera.
JB. No put the cameras in first and get, I never saw a ladder all the time I was there and I wasn’t very big but I managed like everybody else eventually pulled myself into it. That’s where I got me muscles from.
AM. [Laugh] So where next after Sleap?
JB. Ah well I was at Sleap when the War finished actually, then it was a case of they were trying to close it down quite quickly I think. There were a lot of them and they sent me to Oakington near Cambridge and I had to confess I never done a Daily Inspection on instruments in my life and they wouldn’t believe it, I hadn’t honestly. All my work was on cameras and I was the only person on the Station that could really that had had the course on it as to what it does and that. Normally used to get instructions for modifications I had nobody to ask because nobody knew about them but I had to be taught by myself then, but I really enjoyed my life and [unreadable] know particularly [laugh].
AM. How long were you there before you were demobbed they.
JB. Laterally I used to run the little Cinema, they had a little Cinema a little 16mm projector and a screen in the dining room at the end of the dining room. Used to get new films, you know proper films the would show to or three nights a week. I used to run that with two other people there were three of us used to run that.
GARY. So when was you demobbed John, when was you demobbed?
JB. I was demobbed, oh going back to, I went to Oakington eh [garbled] Not long after that they sent for me in the Orderly Romm and they said your posted. I said thank the Lord for that. From there up to Kinloss, I thought who the,Kinloss. The war was over as well you know. I think they was trying to, didn’t know where to send you and I went from Oakington to London and a ticket to Kings Cross, a long journey.
AM. So what did you do in Kinloss?
JB. Nothing much they didn’t want me at Kinloss because they had finished and they sent me to their sort of Satellite which was Brackley and what it was they were taking all the aircraft, surplus and storing them there. There were hundreds of them.
AM. That’s spelt BRACKLA. So literally aircraft, old Bombers.
JB. It was a sort of Graveyard put it that way. As they came in from bringing the troops home from various areas, when they landed they brought the aircraft there just for storage. We just took sort of things, valuable things out of them and shoved them all in the corner.
AM. What sort of aircraft were they?
JB. All types of Aircrew.
GARY. A Graveyard of Aircraft.
AM. I am just looking at something John has just given me. Including a hundred Halifax Bombers some straight from the factory, and we have got a picture of them.
JB. It was just a Graveyard for destruction, no we just parked them up and that was it. Spent our time playing football, got nothing to do.
AM. You didn’t even have to take the cameras out of them.
JB. No,no they had already been taken out I suppose.
AM. So how many of you were there, how many of you playing football and not very much?
JB. There weren’t very many at all, I think it was just a place to fill in.
AM. How long were you there for?
JB. About eight or nine months and I’d taken my bike with me which I rode every Sunday. I cycled all round Loch Ness and all of the Mountains. I had a marvellous time there, you could do what you wanted.
AM. Who was in charge?
JB. And I was there when my Father died actually and they sent for me in the Morning and told me and a Warrant home just like that. Come back when you want sort of thing. I think they were glad to get a few people out of the way, you know [pause] and there we are.
AM. So what eventually happened were you just demobbed and that was it.
JB. Yes went to Padgate for demob, pick your suit, trilby hat if you wanted one.
AM. Where was the suit from, was it Burtons, Montague Burtons?
JB. No they were there, you picked one out there. Masses of them.
AM. So what did you eventually get, a suit, a trilby?
JB. Shoes, everything I don’t know about shirts, I can’t remember that.
AM. And that was it.
JB. That was it, came home to a months leave and then you started a job and your job was guaranteed back at work. Or a job, if they couldn’t find your own job they were guaranteed to find you a job.
AM. And was your job open for you.
JB.Yeah, Yeah.
AM. So you went back there.
JB.Up to Monkton, up to Colliery.
AM. How long did you work there for, did you carry on with that or ..?
JB. Well I got moved to the Headquarters in Grimethorpe in Colliery eventually I left the Coal Board and went back to the Coal [unreadable] where I started as a lad.
AM. Tell me about your photography though, having learned how cameras work?
JB. We started a photographic business me and my wife taking weddings and things.
AM. Where did you meet your wife, when did you meet your wife?
JB. In Barnsley.
AM. After the War?
JB. After the War, the Cummin Ballroom in Barnsley.
AM. What year would that be?
JB. We got married in nineteen fifty three about two years before that about nineteen fifty.
AM. So well after the war then. So tell me about this photographic business then?
JB. It was just mouth to mouth sort of thing, photography was very scarce in those days, films and things like that and people couldn’t buy them, buy films.
AM. What sort of camera were you using. Was it still Box Brownies?
JB. No a reflex camera, you focussed [pause] and that’s mainly it.
AM. It’s interesting though, we have some fascinating photos hear and if John will allow me I will scan some of them because they will absolutely go with the story. Well that was great thank you.
JB. A place I was on, I can’t remember where it was, they used to go on leaflet raids to France and these were some of the leaflets they used to take to drop.
AM. When you say they used to go on, the plane..
JB. No the training.
AM. The Trainees.
JB. Bit tatty I’m afraid are these.
AM. So John has some of the original newspapers that were dropped, little newspapers, going to let me have a look. “review de la press libre”
JB. I don’t know what it is
AM. This ones dated the 29th of November 1942, fantastic. Gosh, so how did you get your mitts on these?
JB. They were at our place and I just had a few took a few.
AM. Brilliant, I am no sure if I can scan these, I might have to photo them instead but they are wonderful.
JB. That’s in German by the looks of it and when we were getting towards the end of the training and sent them on a leaflet raid.
AM. Yes that would have been one of the first pre Operations.
JB. They only went over France [unreadable] we were told they could look through and they could tell how the buildings were like in stereo. They could tell if there was a deep hole or things like that on things they had passed over.
AM. Just looking at some of these photos, so what’s that one then?
JB. Well that’s, that was a, that’s a corner of the cameras.
AM. So we have four lads who worked there on a motor bike and side car but with one of the cameras that John is talking about.
JB. We had a little van mainly, got my first driving license there.
AM. That’s the Graveyard.
JB. That’s the Graveyard and that’s me sat on the step there.
AM. Of a NAAFI Van with a cup of tea.
JB. I think it was the Salvation Army actually.
GARY. John can you remember how much you got paid?
JB. On training it was seven and a half pence a day.
GARY. I have seen one where you got two shillings a day which is ten pence.
JB. Yeah.
GARY. Can you remember up to the end of the War when you were a fully qualified Leading Aircraftsman?
JB. It was a lot better, I can’t remember now though.
GARY. It’s just curious.
AM. Is that you.
JB. Yes that’s in my workshop and those are the controllers for the cameras.
AM. And this is you working on…
JB. On something or another, I had the place all to myself, nobody bothered me.
AM. And there was literally only one of you on each Training Unit.
JB. Yes
AM. We’ve got you playing bowls here in Shropshire. What we also got from John are a number of photos of Cologne of Calne, bombed to smithereens basically and these would have been the photos from the cameras….. Gosh.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with John Bagg
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABaggJG160902
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:46:49 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
John Bagg worked as a clerk before joining the Royal Air Force at the age of twenty. He was trained as an Instrument Mechanic before remustering and completing a specialist camera course. He went on to serve on several training stations. After the war he returned to his old job, but then went into business with his wife as a photographer.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Hugh Donnelly
demobilisation
ground crew
ground personnel
Hampden
RAF Bawtry
RAF Brackla
RAF Finningley
RAF Halton
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
Stirling
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1998/37982/LOatesJ1489926v1.1.pdf
321aeaf262cdc26bb0df677b6ec85f99
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
Oates, James
J Oates
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
2017-12-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Oates, J
Description
An account of the resource
91 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer James Oates (1489926 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents and photographs. He flew paratrooper drops and glider towing operations as a navigator with 196 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Gina E Welsh 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
J Oates’ observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book for J Oates, navigator, covering the period from 11 February 1943 to 19 June 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Millom, RAF Chipping Warden, RAF Stradishall, RAF Witchford, RAF Leicester East, RAF Tarrant Rushton, RAF Keevil, RAF Weathersfield, RAF Sleap, RAF Tilstock and RAF Linton-on-Ouse. Aircraft flown in were Tiger Moth, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Oxford, Harrow, Whitley and Halifax. He flew a total of 24 operations with 196 squadron. The operations were paratrooper drops and glider towing including operation Tonga and Mallard on D-Day and operation Market Garden. All other operations were detailed as briefed. His pilots on operations were Flight Sergeant Lyons and Warrant Officer Oliver.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cumbria
England--Dorset
England--Essex
England--Leicestershire
England--Northamptonshire
England--Shropshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Normandy
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Nijmegen
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LOatesJ1489926v1
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-10-17
1943-10-18
1943-10-24
1943-10-25
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
12 OTU
1657 HCU
1665 HCU
196 Squadron
81 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
crash
Halifax
Harrow
Heavy Conversion Unit
mine laying
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Chipping Warden
RAF Keevil
RAF Leicester East
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Millom
RAF Pocklington
RAF Sleap
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Tilstock
RAF Weathersfield
RAF Witchford
Stirling
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/555/32351/LPennyJA1345892v1.1.pdf
e2c7c76df86f1a75c3fa94e8dfa90ce5
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
Penny, Jim
James Alfred Penny
J A Penny
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Penny, J
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. Two oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Jim Penny (b. 1922, 1345892 Royal Air Force) and his log book.
He joined the RAF in 1940 and flew operations as a pilot with 97 Squadron from RAF Bourn. Targets included Nuremberg, München Gladbach, Berlin, Montlucon Dunlop rubber factory in France, and the Modane Tower Tunnel. His aircraft was shot down over Berlin 24 November 1943 and he became a prisoner of war. He was liberated on 3 May 1945 and retired from the RAF on 19 July 1971.
The collection was 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
2015-08-16
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Jim joined the RAF in July 1940 on his 18th birthday. His ‘Flight’ was sent to the US to train under the ‘Arnold scheme’. He went to a variety of bases to learn to fly (detained in 1st interview), flying the PT17 Stearman biplane, BT-13A, AT-6A Harvard, Vultee-13, and then the Armstrong Siddeley, before returning on the Queen Elizabeth as a newly commissioned pilot with the rank of Sergeant.
On returning to the UK, he was posted to RAF Shawbury (Shropshire) Advance Flying Unit. Jim’s next posting was to RAF Tilstock Heath where he ‘crewed up’. Complete with crew he arrived at RAF Sleap (an auxiliary station for RAF Tilstock Heath). On being asking if they would be willing to join the Pathfinder Force all agreed to accept the offer – PFF was elite after all. After HCU training at RAF Blyton je stated, ‘The Lancaster was the finest plane I’ve ever flown’. On 26th July 1943 Jim was promoted to Flight Sergeant.
He remembered the RAF casualties and how their work affected their mental state, particularly the Squadron Casualties. However, the awareness that they were regularly striking at the heart to Nazi Germany left the with an enduring pride in being a ‘Armada’.
Jim and his crew transferred to RAF Upwood – Pathfinder Navigation Training Unit then to RAF Bourne 97.
Jim flew to bomb Nuremberg, München Gladbach, Berlin itself many times, Montlucon Dunlop rubber factory in France, and the Modane Tower Tunnel in France. He was involved in 2 flights that were ‘Boomerang flights’. One of the October operations was to be part of the decoy flight that was to draw fighters away from Kessel onto themselves, and bomb Frankfurt.
In November 1943 they were judged to be a competent part of the PFF and were tasked to be a back-up marker crew – the ones with the GREEN flares.
They flew to Dusseldorf, Manheim and Berlin. On 24 November 1943 they were hit by flak, managed to survive, became a POW until he was liberated on 3rd May 1945.
On 6th October 1945 he reported to No 34 Maintenance Unit at RAF Montford Bridge. A year later he had refresher course at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, as a Warrant Officer.
In 1948 Jim joined the City of Lincoln, Lincoln Squadron Bomber Command at RAF Waddington. He left Waddington to join the RAF Central Flying School as a flying instructor which he found very rewarding when he sent a pupil solo. Jim tried for a permanent commission while posted to RAF Ternhill but failed because he was tone deaf. Jim was offered a branch commission at the age of 37.
He left RAF as Flight Lieutenant on 19th July 71. He had no regrets about serving in the RAF and was a part of the Shrewsbury RAFA and the Shropshire Aircrew.
Claire CampbellClaire Campbell
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
James A Penny’s pilots flying log book
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Jim Penny
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LPennyJA1345892v1
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
United States
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Shropshire
France--Modane
France--Montluçon
Georgia--Americus
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--Milan
Saskatchewan--North Battleford
France
Georgia
Saskatchewan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943-08-14
1943-08-15
1943-08-22
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-30
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-09-03
1943-09-04
1943-09-15
1943-09-16
1943-09-17
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-07
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-10-18
1943-10-19
1943-10-22
1943-10-23
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-17
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-11-24
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for James A Penny, covering the period from 10 November 1941 to 23 November 1943 when he was shot down over Berlin. He was stationed at AAC Souther Field, RCAF North Battleford, RAF Shawbury, RAF Sleap, RAF Blyton, RAF Upwood and RAF Bourn. Aircraft flown in were Lancaster, Oxford, Whitley, Halifax, Harvard, Vultee and Stearman. He flew a total of 20 operations with 97 Squadron. Targets were Milan, Leverkusen, Berlin, Nuremberg, Mönchengladbach, Montlucon, Modane, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Hannover, Dusseldorf and Ludwigshafen. His first or second pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Fairlie and Squadron Leader Sauvage.
1662 HCU
81 OTU
97 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
arts and crafts
bale out
bombing
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Blyton
RAF Bourn
RAF Shawbury
RAF Sleap
RAF Upwood
shot down
Stearman
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/228/7077/LChattertonJ159568v1.2.pdf
5e1f66ea4eb1f06c1eac87c3090e6417
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
Chatterton, John
John Chatterton
J Chatterton
Description
An account of the resource
Seven items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant John Chatterton Distinguished Flying Cross (1031972, 159568 Royal Air Force). Included are his logbooks, a letter of condolence and letter to be passed to parents of a deceased crew member, mounted copy of entries to the logbook of Pilot Officer A Baker, 44 Squadron Operations Order book, and an oral history interview with Mike Chatterton (b. 1953) about his father, John Chatterton, and piloting the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by M J Chatterton and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.<br /><br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Peter Lees. Additional information on Peter Lees is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/113761/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-14
2016-03-31
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Chatterton, J
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/.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LChattertonJ159568v1
Description
An account of the resource
Pilot’s flying log book for Flight Lieutenant John Chatterton 30 March 1942 to 15 April 1954 detailing training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Served at RAF Dunholme Lodge, RAF Syerston, RAF East Kirkby and RAF Swinderby. Aircraft flown were Lancaster, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Chipmunk, Harvard, Meteor, Whitley, Halifax, Stearman and Lincoln. John Chatterton carried out a total of 31 operations during his tour with 44 Squadron at RAF Dunholme Lodge between 20 October 1943 and 25 April 1944 on the following targets in France, Germany and Poland: Augsburg, Berlin, Brunswick, Danzig, Dusseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Juvisy, La Chapelle, Leipzig, Modane, Munich, Nuremberg, Schweinfurt, Stettin, Stuttgart, Toulouse and Tours. After his tour he became an instructor. The log book includes photographs and memorabilia.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Lincolnshire
France--Modane
France--Toulouse
France--Tours
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Poland--Gdańsk
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Paris
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1943-10-20
1943-10-21
1943-11-03
1943-11-04
1943-11-10
1943-11-11
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-12-03
1943-12-04
1943-12-20
1943-12-21
1943-12-29
1943-12-30
1944-01-01
1944-01-02
1944-01-03
1944-01-05
1944-01-06
1944-01-14
1944-01-15
1944-01-30
1944-01-31
1944-02-15
1944-02-16
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-21
1944-02-25
1944-02-26
1944-02-27
1944-03-15
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-21
1944-03-22
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-03-27
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-05
1944-04-06
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1944-04-20
1944-04-21
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-04-25
1945-10-11
1945-10-13
1945-10-16
1945-10-18
1945-11-07
1945-11-09
1945-11-29
1946-01-03
1946-02-05
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
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.
Title
A name given to the resource
John Chatterton's pilot's flying log book
1660 HCU
44 Squadron
57 Squadron
630 Squadron
81 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of Toulouse (5/6 April 1944)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
Meteor
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Sleap
RAF Swinderby
RAF Syerston
RAF Tilstock
Stearman
Tiger Moth
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1519/30418/MSladdenD25115087-160623-28.2.jpg
1011c45b719c1a839449fd84a681f948
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
620 Squadron
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-23
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
620 Squadron
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-three items. The collection concerns 620 Squadron and contains photographic slides or aircraft and places, an autobiography of Alan T Gamble, wireless operator training school documents, a memoir of operations on D-Day by Noel Chaffey and a short biography of him as well as noted of crews lost on 620 Squadron during Arnhem operation.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Darren Sladden and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Noel Richard Chaffey
1922 – 2005
[photograph]
Noel Chaffey standing in front of the rear gun turret of a Stirling. He was a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner with 620 Squadron and was a member of the Royal Australian Air Force.
Born in West Tamworth, NSW, in the early hours of October 13th 1922, younger brother of Athol.
Schooled in Tamworth and leaving High School for work in Sydney as an artist on glass with Australian Glass Manufacturers Company.
When old enough I joined the Royal Australian Air Force volunteering for training in Canada with the Commonwealth Training Programme as Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and after 13 months passed out as Flight Sergeant. Ready to join front line forces in England.
Upon arrival first posting was holding centre at Brighton then on to Litchfield, only after two days to find a number of us were posted incorrectly, so on we went to our correct posting at Tilstock and Sleap, Shropshire. Here we were crewed and I got a fellow Aussie for Pilot and the rest were R.A.F. English (6 in all).
We six were to join a Squadron 620, in Second Tactical Air Force, under “Ike” for the remainder of the war. At which time we had completed 34 operational missions, including D-Day, 3 days at Arnhem, and Rhine Crossing – without scratch on either crew or aircraft.
Athol had joined the Gunnery schools of the Army and posted to Darwin to go through attacks by the Japs of heavy bombardments on that city, which was almost wiped out, but he came through with only hearing loss on the heavy AA Battery, of which he was in charge of one of the biggest.
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
Noel Chaffey biography
Description
An account of the resource
Biography covers Noel Chaffey's RAAF early life, education, training as wireless operator and joining 620 Squadron where he flew 34 operations including D-Day and Arnhem and the Rhine crossing. Includes b/w photograph of a man standing by the rear turret of a bomber.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One page printed document with one b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Photograph
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MSladdenD25115087-160623-28
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 Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Shropshire
France--Normandy
Netherlands--Arnhem
New South Wales
New South Wales--Tamworth
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Baldwin
620 Squadron
aircrew
crewing up
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
Second Tactical Air Force
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1607/24383/PWatsonJB15010024.2.jpg
8a455b1c77fcb027164557c41a5f1643
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
Watson, Joan. Watson, K. Album
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-25
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Watson, JR
Description
An account of the resource
28 items.
Covering K Watson’s service from training onwards and in Bomber Command and then Coastal Command. Includes sketch maps and mementos.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
RAF Stations visited by K Watson
Description
An account of the resource
A list of the RAF Stations on an album page that K Watson visited with dates. Included is a photo of a flying Stirling LS-J captioned 'The "Gen" Kite'.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
K Watson
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten list and one b/w photograph on an album page.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWatsonJB15010024
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
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.
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Castle Donington
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Dunsfold
RAF Earls Colne
RAF Lindholme
RAF Marham
RAF Netheravon
RAF Sleap
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Athan
RAF St Eval
RAF Stanton Harcourt
RAF Swinderby
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Tilstock
RAF West Freugh
RAF Westcott
RAF Wing
RAF Wyton
Stirling
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16337/ECannonHNealeETH451007-0001.1.jpg
31f3040d69a7cd42a6432fb57d0c8c9f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16337/ECannonHNealeETH451007-0002.1.jpg
c0b8d3168e26995317eaa3a82489a4e2
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16337/ECannonHNealeETH451007-0003.1.jpg
ae3ecf5bb3c8d72be786edd4907b47c6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1246/16337/ECannonHNealeETH451007-0004.1.jpg
40c46132b2f73ca571e132dca936465e
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
Neale, Ted
E T H Neale
Description
An account of the resource
123 items. The collection concerns Edward Thomas Henry Neale (b. 1922, 1395951 Royal Air Force) who served as a navigator with 37 Squadron in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy. The collection contains his training notebooks from South Africa as well as propaganda leaflets dropped by the allies in the Mediterranean theatre.
The collection also contains a photograph album, navigation logs and target photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alison Neale and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-31
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
Neale, ETH
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[Front of envelope]
1395951. F/Sgt. Neale. E.
“COMM” Flight,
144. M.U.
R.A.F.
C.M.F.
[page break]
1802390. F/Sgt. Cannon H.
Sgts Mess,
R.A.F. Sleap,
Nr. Wem,[?]
Salop.
7th October 1945.
Dear Jasputin, Ted or what have you,
Many tanks[sic] for scrawled epistle dated 29th-9-45 recieved[sic] yesterday after following me from Lissett. I had more or less given you up for lost, though you might have got off track sometime & ended up at Sierra del Fuego or some such spot.
I am still a U/T [?] U/S[?] Met assistant & here I have more work to do which definitely does not suit your truly. The camp is not bad & the mangeria [sic] varies, from bad to frightful & Shrewsbury
[page break]
2.
is only ten miles away. Funny the lack of bull[?] considering this is a Wimpy O.T.U. imagine Wimpie’s.
There is[sic] vast quantities of beer of which I naturally have my share but an acute shortage of gaspers, if anyone sais[sic] “anbody[sic] want a fag” a queue forms or should it be line.
I got a letter from Don Skulls[?] Taylor to’ther day, he is flying Wimps at an A.G.S. in the Isle of Man and is cheesed. Len has just moved to Grantham where he is assisting in the parachute section. I hav’nt[sic] heard from Zappie [?] for several week’s[sic] he is a civilian now & apparently likes the life, lucky sod.
Hope you get your leave soon, I go on 10 days in just under two weeks time, I also go for the
[page break]
occasional week end, it only takes five hours to get home & the train service is fairly frequent.
Re your millionaire if I knew of one I would be bleeding him white myself so that would be out.
All the gen for now old lass.[?] Keep smiling & bottoms up.
[underlined] Bert [/underlined]
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
To Ted Neale from Flight Sergeant H (Bert) Cannon
Description
An account of the resource
Bert refers to receiving an earlier letter from Ted. He discusses his social life - beer, food and cigarettes and recalls various colleagues and what they are doing.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
H Cannon
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-10-07
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three handwritten sheets and an envelope
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ECannonHNealeETH451007-0001,
ECannonHNealeETH451007-0002,
ECannonHNealeETH451007-0003,
ECannonHNealeETH451007-0004
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Shropshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-10
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
David Bloomfield
Operational Training Unit
RAF Sleap
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/185/3629/LSayerT591744v1.1.pdf
83e258c6faf6ed7815681549299d9b06
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
Sayer, Tom
Tom Sayer
T Sayer
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Thomas Sayer DFM (1922 - 2021, 591744 54901 Royal Air Force), two log books, service material, newspaper cuttings and photographs. After training as a pilot in the United States of America, Tom Sayer flew Halifaxes with 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington. He was commissioned in 1944 and became an instructor.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tom Sayer and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sayer, T
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
Tom Sayer's Royal Canadian Air Force pilot's flying log book. Book one
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSayerT591744v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943-02-22
1943-02-25
1943-02-28
1943-03-03
1943-03-06
1943-03-09
1943-03-12
1943-03-15
1943-04-30
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-05-27
1943-05-28
1943-05-29
1943-05-30
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-19
1943-06-20
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-07-13
1943-07-14
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-26
1943-07-30
1943-07-31
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1943-08-12
1943-08-13
1943-08-17
1943-08-18
1943-08-23
1943-08-24
1943-08-25
1943-08-27
1943-08-28
1943-08-30
1943-08-31
1943-09-01
1943-09-05
1943-09-06
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-09-29
1943-09-30
1943-10-04
1943-10-05
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-09-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
France
Germany
Great Britain
United States
Alabama
Florida
England--Gloucestershire
England--Yorkshire
Georgia--Atlanta
France--Le Creusot
France--Montbéliard
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Wuppertal
Italy--Milan
Germany--Düsseldorf
England--Cornwall (County)
Italy
Georgia
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Description
An account of the resource
Royal Canadian Air Force pilot's flying log book for Sergeant Tom Sayer from 28 July 1941 to 17 December 1944. Detailing training and operations flown with Coastal Command and Bomber Command. After training in the United States and Canada he served at RAF Linton on Ouse, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Pocklington. Aircraft flown were Stearman, Vultee, Harvard, Oxford, Blenheim, Whitley, Halifax, Anson, Horsa and Stirling. He carried out a total of 35 complete operations as a pilot, eight antisubmarine patrols with 10 OTU from RAF St Eval, one with 76 Squadron from RAF Marston Moor and 25 with 102 Squadron from RAF Pocklington on the following targets in France, Germany and Italy: Aachen, Berlin, Bochum, Dusseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hannover, Krefeld, Le Creusot, Leverkusen, Mannheim, Milan, Montbeliard, Munich, Nuremberg, Peenemunde and Wuppertal. His first or second pilots on operations were Sergeant Carrie, Sergeant Hewlett, Sergeant Lewis, Pilot Officer Mann, Sergeant Green, Flying Officer Phillips, Sergeant Davis, Sergeant Henderson, Sergeant Thorpe, Sergeant Miller, Flight Sergeant Cummings and Flying Officer Kay. He then became an instructor and glider tug pilot. The log book is well annotated and contains printed training material. He completed one additional special operation 18 July 1944 with 620 Squadron from RAF Fairford ‘(SAS. 3 chutists, 24 containers 4 paniers [sic])’ and 1 September 1944 from RAF Ringway ‘parachute jump 600’ singly into lake.’
10 OTU
102 Squadron
1652 HCU
17 OTU
620 Squadron
76 Squadron
81 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Blenheim
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Horsa
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Fairford
RAF Holme-on-Spalding Moor
RAF Leconfield
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Ossington
RAF Pocklington
RAF Ringway
RAF Sleap
RAF St Eval
RAF Stanton Harcourt
RAF Tilstock
RAF Upwood
Stearman
Stirling
submarine
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/185/3628/LSayerT591744v2.1.pdf
faa78c16b1cef665bddbb094ea17e04f
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
Sayer, Tom
Tom Sayer
T Sayer
Description
An account of the resource
13 items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Thomas Sayer DFM (1922 - 2021, 591744 54901 Royal Air Force), two log books, service material, newspaper cuttings and photographs. After training as a pilot in the United States of America, Tom Sayer flew Halifaxes with 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington. He was commissioned in 1944 and became an instructor.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Tom Sayer and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sayer, T
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
Tom Sayer's pilots flying log book. Book two
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
one booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LSayerT591744v2
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for Tom Sayer, covering the period from 2 January 1945 to 7 January 1946. Detailing his instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Sleap and RAF Tilstock. Aircraft flow were, Whitley, Wellington and Anson. In the log book are two photos, one of an aircraft, entitled “one of the boys landing at satellite drome when at Eglin Field Florida”. The other a portrait entitled “67577 WT colour, PT”. There is a schematic diagram of an aircraft fuel system.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
United States
England--Shropshire
Florida--Valparaiso
Florida
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1946
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
81 OTU
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Sleap
RAF Tilstock
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/125/1250/PBaggJG1606-1.1.jpg
3ebecb54caccd1bd68e0d2f52fe16859
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bagg, John
John Bagg
J G Bagg
Description
An account of the resource
12 items. An oral history interview with Leading Aircraftsman John Garrett Bagg (b.1920, 1475631 Royal Air Force) and 11 photographs. John Bagg trained as an instrument mechanic before re-mustering as photographer. He served at RAF Finningley, RAF Bircotes, RAF Whitchurch and RAF Sleap.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Bagg and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-09-02
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.
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Permission granted for commercial projects
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
YMCA tea car at RAF Sleap
Description
An account of the resource
A group of 18 RAF personnel are standing or seated around a YMCA tea car, some are holding mugs, others are smoking, others are standing in lines in front of the open side of the van. John Bagg is sitting on the running board with the white mug.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBaggJG1606-1
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--Shropshire
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
ground personnel
Nissen hut
RAF Sleap