1
25
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/44/371/PBarfootW1631.1.jpg
8e2ba5ef13ffe8cde485cbaa7b86885b
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
Barfoot, William
William Barfoot
W Barfoot
W E Barfoot
William E Barfoot
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. An oral history interview with William Ernest Barfoot (915770, 141457 Royal Air Force), and photographs of him school in India, during training and on operations with 296 Squadron. They include images of Albemarle and Halifax glider tugs, Horsa gliders, landing zones, and his wedding photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Nigel Barfoot and catalogued by Terry Hancock.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-08
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Barfoot, W
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Gliders and tugs at RAF Tarrant Rushton
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBarfootW1631
Format
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One b/w photograph
Subject
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World War (1939-1945)
Coverage
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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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Dorset
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Description
An account of the resource
Oblique aerial photograph of the may runway running left bottom to top right; on the southern end are two lines of sixteen Hamilcar gliders with further Hamilcars dispersed in the background. On the grass each side of the runway are parked fourteen Halifax Mk 3 facing inwards at an oblique angle. All aircraft carry invasion stripes.
The description of this item is partially based on information provided by the donor. This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form: no better quality copies are available.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Hamilcar
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Tarrant Rushton
runway
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/227/3372/PCharltonR1603.1.jpg
050ec2c145fb98c267b86c32860b5151
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/227/3372/PCharltonR1602.1.jpg
722c20116026475658f51dc3399f87dd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/227/3372/ACharltonR160720.1.mp3
3341eead56faa2593f39be1ed6a64a1f
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
Charlton, Raymond
Raymond Charlton
Ray Charlton
R Charlton
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Raymond "Ray" Charlton (1815764 and 201593 Royal Air Force) and a memoir. He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with Squadron 57, from RAF East Kirkby.
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
2016-08-05
2016-07-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Charlton, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: Hello, it’s Pam Locker and I’m in the home of Mr Ray Charlton of ****. So, if I can just start Ray by saying an enormous ‘thank you’ on behalf of the International Bomber Command Memorial Trust for agreeing to talk to us today, and I thought we’d perhaps start by talking a bit about your family and how you got involved with Bomber Command in the first place.
RC: I am one of five children to the Charlton family. I am the middle one. At the time of the war I’d just turned fifteen and then as it crept along to seventeen and a bit I wanted to join up in Bomber Command. My mother was absolutely [emphasis] against it and would not sign the admittance form, agreement form, so she said ‘You can wait’. So I had to wait ‘til I was eighteen and then I went in. I was sent along to London, Lords (Lords Hill I think it is called), flats there that had just been completed for upgrading. And then I was selected to go to Paignton in Devon and enjoyed that from the start, by the sea, living in a bed and breakfast apartment, run by the RAF of course, not by [unclear] the cooks and everything. But the main hotel in the town, in the village, was used as the headquarters where we dined and everything else, meetings. I found my initial test of weather. I could not for the life of me remember one set of clouds so they sent me off to be re-mustered. I finished up at the Isle of Sheppey, just outside London as you know, and then we had interviews one after another and I decided I’d train as a flight engineer and then from there I was posted up to ‒ now I’ve got it down somewhere ‒ and finished up at Bridlington and then from there it was down the west coast, east [emphasis] coast, to, er , ‒ until we passed out. And then, just to make things easy for everyone, I fell ill with pneumonia, about a fortnight before the exams so they had to keep me back until I recovered. After that I had to wait until the next intake to take the exams, which I had to join, to join with them to do the same exam. And we finished up being selected as trainee flight engineers and we were shipped off to South Wales, St Athans, to do a six months course. Twenty-six weeks of subject, each one taking one week except for the engines which was two weeks and, er, now ‒.
PL: So, did any of your other siblings go into the Forces?
RC: Yes. On one of the evenings attending the NAAFI a Canadian recruit who joined the RAF pulled out a roll of notes and in the queue next to us was a chappie with his eyeballs hanging down, so absolutely flustered. There was over one hundred pounds in a roll of notes. Apparently his father sent him ninety pounds a month to help him to live. Anyway, that night we’d all gone to bed the Military Police walked in, shut all the blinds up, and turned all the lights on and said, ‘Stand by your bed and your lockers’ and I said to the young Mo who stood near me, ‘What the matter?’. He said, ‘Shut up’ and in the end he said, ‘There’s been a robbery’. So I said, ‘Oh dear’ so I said, ‘Well. I don’t want to be funny but think of this as my bed, go into the next billet in the same position as this is’ (‘course they’re all in lines). I said [unclear]. Anyway they disappeared and then we were told we could go to sleep. Next morning I was sent for by the station commander, ‘How did you know that chappie was responsible?’ I said, ‘I didn’t’. So he [?] said, ‘I just didn’t like his absolute horror at seeing so much money, sheer delight to hold it’. So, he says, ‘Well, that was the money that was stolen’. So I said, ‘Oh thank goodness’. He said ‘Well, I’ll tell you this, you know the ruling here, if you get 70% you’ll be recommended for a commission. If you get 65% you will have [emphasis] a commission. So, I said, ‘I don’t want one, various personal reasons’. Anyway, he came out at the end of the exams and I’d got 64 ½ % because the day before was the final exam, oral, and the sergeant said to me, ‘You’re a devil. You know the answers and you’ve given me some wrong ones’. He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘That’s my reason’. So he said, ‘Well, I don’t know what to give you, so many marks or so many marks’ and I chose the lower, the lower, number he mentioned and that was put on a piece of paper one and a half inches square which I had to take to the station commander’s office and hand it in and I put it on his desk after the normal salute. He said, ‘Is that all you’ve got? Who did this?’ I said, ‘Sergeant So-and-so’ and he bawled down the telephone, ‘Sergeant So-and-so here now’ and he came in and he says, ‘Why did you give this man so many marks?’ He says, ‘Well, that’s what he asked for’ [laughs]. He said, ‘I wanted to give him far more but’ he says, ‘I know he knew the answers but he gave wrong answers deliberately’. Anyway, he says, ‘I want you to alter it. I says, ‘He’s not to’ and refused to let him alter the figure. So I was left and I was ‒, I finished up, as Sergeant.
PL: Can you explain why you made that decision? Or if it’s personal that’s fine.
RC: My family was going through a very financial tight period. My father had lost his farm and prices for what he’d got fetched the lowest you could ever get and he refused to be made a bankrupt. He didn’t want the indignity of being a bankrupt, silly old devil. But anyway, he said he’d pay back every penny he owed and one of his brothers, he owed about £100 and he was the worst one to pay back. He demanded [unclear] until every penny was paid back. Anyway, it stuck and I was posted off to a bomber command, first of all at Swinderby on Stirlings (horrible tumbly things) but then on to East Kirkby where we started our bombing trips.
PL: I’m recommencing with Raymond Charlton.
RC: I’m Raymond Charlton. Now I’ve forgotten where I was. No, I can’t pick it up.
PL: You’ve just gone to East Kirkby.
RC: Well, before I got there I was asked, no, I’m jumping ahead. No, we went to East Kirkby and we were crewed up. Four Australians, the pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, and wireless operator were from different parts of Australia and the mid upper gunner came from Loughborough and the rear gunner came from Norfolk. I can’t tell you no more else. He was the baby of the crew. He was only nineteen. I was an old man of twenty. It was three weeks after I finished flying I became an old man of twenty-one. And then the fun starts. I was sent along to be re-graded for a job but being a VR, not many people know about this, the Air Force could not post you anywhere without your permission or change your job without permission of you. Er, it’s not flowing.
PL: So, tell me about East Kirkby. What was it like there?
RC: East Kirkby was very flat, typical flat Lincolnshire field. When the wind blew there was nothing to stop it. The snow came. The only thing that stopped it was your buildings. Our Nissan hut was completely blocked in one end. We had to use the back end and the floor was lino covered and in the winter months it used to be awash. So how we survived that I’ve no idea. And then of course they decided a very good frost put the kybosh on it. One tap only worked and that was in the cookhouse. Taps all over the camp wash rooms and such like were all frozen. So it was back to ‒
PL: Very uncomfortable.
RC: Very uncomfortable, yes.
PL: And did you share with the rest of your ‒ the rest of your group you were with or with others?
RC: Only the crew. We were put in a Nissan hut which housed two crews. Fourteen of you. And then, unfortunately, it appeared the other crew didn’t come back from a trip and then that happened on one or two occasions so they decided, as the bomb aimer put it, we’ve given everybody the jinx. So they wouldn’t let another crew come back in. They filled that bed up with the instrument repairer. He was a funny chap. Every time an aircraft went out and we were at home he was on his own but when the aircraft ‒, when we were not flying we had to sit up while all of them came back and landed. Well we’d never heard that noise before but he didn’t wake up at all. Then suddenly a tinkle bell went and it was an alarm clock in his kit bag and he woke up. So I says, ‘He never hears the aircraft, only tinkle bells’ but he was a nice chap to work with and did well. Then, of course, when we finished flying, I was posted off to a recruitment camp and they were trying to find us with jobs. First of all it was a young pilot officer still wet behind the ears, then a flight lieutenant, flying officer then a flight lieutnent , then a squadron leader. Then a wing commander came in and says, ‘You are causing trouble’. I says, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘You won’t make up your mind’. I said, ‘I will. I will not take a clerk’s job’. ‘Not even a clerk SD (Special Duties)? ‘No’ I says, ‘I’ll be a clerk when I’m demobbed. I don’t want to be a clerk now’. He says, he went on, ‘Well, the RAF regiment is recruiting officers. Would you be interested?’ I says, ‘Well, I could be’. He says, ‘You’re a funny chap. Three times you’ve refused to have a commission. Now you’re saying you don’t mind’. ‘Well, it’s a different situation isn’t it? When I was flying I didn’t want a commission’. I said, ‘How would I have gone from St Athans as a trainee flight engineer to join a crew, all of them sergeants. How would I feel as a pilot officer?’ I said, ‘That’s one of the reasons why I refused to do it.’ The there was another occasion when three of us were invited to the adjutant’s office to fill in a form. When we finished it I said, ‘Can I have my form back?’ He said, ‘The CO’s not signed it yet. He’s not back ‘til four o’clock’. I said, ‘I’ll have the form now’. So he gave me the form, the adjutant came into the room and I tore it up. I said, ‘This is for a commission and I don’t want it’. Then, of course, oh I forget. What was it? Yes, yes, the pilot said to me one day after muster (while we were flying this is). He says, ‘Can we go for a walk round the perimeter?’ He said, ‘I want to talk to you’. I said, ‘Am I in trouble?’ He said, ‘No, no, no. The CO wants you to change crews and go fly with him, the wing commander.’ I said, ‘Like hell!’ He said, ‘What’ll I tell him?’ I said, ‘Tell him to go to hell!’ Well, apparently he did [laughs]. ‘Cause I met him thirty-odd years later and I says, ‘I don’t expect you remember me’. He said, ‘I do. You’re the one who refused to fly with me. Go to hell!’ He said, ‘Why didn’t you want to?’ I said, ‘I just didn’t want to’. And then I said, ‘I’ve now taken it and come back in the RAF regiment as a Flight Lieutenant so now I’m happy’. I said, ‘Things are straight at home and everything else.’
PL: So, tell me about the relationship you had with your crew.
RC: It was a very, very, very friendly, easy to get along with crowd. Never any trouble. The only trouble we ever had was with the mid upper gunner. He called out one day, ‘My [?] heel was on fire’. His electrically heated suit had set fire at the heel. The connection had so the pilot said, ‘Go and sort him out’. Of course, being dogs body I went down to the mid upper gunner, took his shoe off, his sock off, put a dressing on his heel, ‘cause it was a horrible smell. Burning flesh is not very pleasant. Anyway I put his shoes back on and socks, put him in his perch and I says, ‘Get on with it and shut up’. Anyway, I hadn’t been back many minutes in my position when he said ‘It isn’t half draughty here’. So the pilot in very sharp terms and in terms I’d never heard before, ‘Go and sort him out once and for all and shut him up’. So, I went back and said, ‘What a matter?’ He said, ‘Well, when I sit under this I get a draught on my neck’. So I put my fingers up behind his head and they went straight through a hole. It could only be a bullet hole but I wasn’t going to tell anybody. Anyway, I said, ‘Don’t turn side wards unless you have to, you know, need to move, turn side wards, and you won’t feel it.’ When I got back to the pilot’s position he said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Shush’, he said, ‘I want to know’. So I went back and said, ‘Bullet in the dome, bullet hole in the dome. Just one in the back’. And then when we landed the bomb aimer knew. He heard me say to the ground crew, ‘You need a new canopy. It’s gone.’ So he says, ‘We’d better go straight back to the hospital ‘cause he’s that bloomin’ thick the bullet’s probably still in his head’. We were really nice to each other normally but that was the worst remark I’d heard about any of them. And we just didn’t bother. But anyway, they changed the thing and, of course, just before then he’d insisted on doing one of my jobs, which was to dipstick the petrol tanks, but on a frosty morning I told him where to walk on the wing. I said, ‘Don’t go to the right or to the left. Keep on that line’. What did he do? He stepped over to the right and then you saw him sliding down the wing. It’s only fifteen feet high and when we got in the aircraft he says, ‘My left wrist hurts’ and I put it in a splint, sat him in a turret and said, ‘Work your right hand and keep your left hand steady’ and I said, ‘You’re all right’. Anyway when we landed we said, ‘We’d better go back to hospital with him’ and they took him there and the wing commander came in and said, ‘You’d better find a new gunner’. He said, ‘We’re a three months repair job - compound fracture’. Now of course sitting there working the turret wouldn’t do any good at all but he had no option. But he was an ex-boxer so you know how intelligent they are [laughs].
PL: So, what about your missions. Tell me a little bit about your tours.
RC: Well, most tours are, most of the tour, were without any remark you can pass. One to Munich once, after climbing Mont Blanc, which is twenty-four thousand feet, we couldn’t go over the top. We had to go round it. While we were getting near to the target the bomb aimer, bomb leader, who controlled where we dropped bombs said, ‘Hold back chaps. Do not drop yet. My boys are down posting the letters in the letter boxes. If anyone drops a bomb you’ll kill one or two of them’. Anyway, in the end he says, ‘Right chaps, boys’. But to get there we’d have to turn out and then back in the crowd. Well you know what it’s like trying to cross a busy road from a side road. You’ve got to wait for a space and that’s what we had to do, wait for a space between all the aircraft going in to the target. We got there, did the necessary, and went home. And then, on another occasion, oh dear, that’s gone.
PL: What did he mean, ‘putting the letters in the letter box’?
RC: They were flying that low to put markers down and to cover any not right, not in the right position to put colour on to cancel it. But they were flying at about fifty feet above house tops. The Lancaster going round and round directing them what to do, where to drop one and he controlled the rest of us. Now, what was another occasion? I had three occasions when the ‒ No, won’t come.
PL: Can you remember where you were sent on your missions?
RC: Well, that was to Munich. And then one day waking up in the morning the bomb aimer said ‘Oh dear, we’ve had it tonight, chop [?] We’re going to chopper [?]. We were shot down over the target.’ Now, funnily enough I’d had a dream myself and it was his remarks that reminded me of it. They always said unless you have a remark, a remarkable namesake you don’t know it, know what the target was, dream was. And I’d had a dream. In fact when we were over the English Channel I pointed to the navigator on his map where we would cross on the way out and on the way back. I said, ‘We shall cross there on the way back’ and I saw every river, every railway line and every forest area in this trip and then when we got over, over the target, I suddenly saw a black spot at, what we’d call ten past two. Look at your watch and look at ten past two. And I said, ‘Now watch it’ and all of us were watching that (the pilot was too busy). All six of us were watching that black spot area and it became closer and I said, ‘Well, that’s it’ and we did the necessary cork screw dive and with that he, this object just flew away. It was a German night fighter, realised we’d spotted him and turned away to look for someone else. But I can’t think ‒ there was three occasions. Never mind, they won’t come.
PL: So, you stayed with the same crew throughout your time?
RC: The crew was with us until we lost the mid upper gunner and then we swapped to Bob, Bob Mott, and he fitted in absolutely marvellous. The pilot and I selected him from the initial conversation ‘cause I said to Tommy, ‘This is the one’. We’d seen one but didn’t like him and then we saw another and then we told the third to go back to duties. And he fitted in as if he’d been with us all the time. We didn’t even realise it was a different man. Just the fact he just had a slightly different voice but the same attitude. We were all keen on doing a job. I’ll always remember one new crew came in to fill up a space, the other space on our billet, and they went out on fighter ‒, fighter affiliation. That’s where a Spitfire armed with a camera attacks you to see what reaction you had. And the mid upper gunner said, ‘He sat on his rest bed telling the pilot what to do’, and I said to our pilot, ‘What do you think of that?’ He said, ‘Not much’ and I said, ‘I think even less of it. How many do we give him?’ And we both agreed one or two trips and then the next night I was put on to fly in his place on their first trip because their engineer had fallen sick and I said, ‘I’m not going to go’ so they threatened me with a court martial.
PL: Why was that?
PL: Lack of moral fibre and I said I’d rather die a coward than live, rather live a coward than die as a stupid idiot and anyway they went off ‒ nobody thing. The next night we were sent on this trip with this same crew to go together in a thing. They didn’t come back. On their first trip they didn’t came back. But what do you expect with an attitude like that in training? We said they didn’t deserve to live but apparently the bomb aimer said we had got a name, putting a jinx on people, because the pilot and I used to say, ‘Give them five trips’, ‘Give them four trips’, and they never went beyond it. You knew by just how they behaved what chance they had.
PL: Was there a lot of superstition?
RC: I think there was a lot of ‒, yes, a lot of people carried things in their pockets, mementos from the family to cover, to guard them. It’s like, we were sent off one day to some oil fields in Poland. Now, on the way out from England all our instruments failed. Of the six main instruments only two worked. We’d got height and speed but not for wing movement or height to ground and we struggled on. The cloud was very heavy. We didn’t see where we were going. When we crossed the ‒, Norway and what not, what do you call that area? I can’t think of the area. Denmark and what not. When we crossed over there not one visible sign of any coastline so we didn’t know where we were. Poor old navigator had to do everything by dead reckoning and we flew off and after a while, flying ages (it was a nine hour trip), the pilot, navigator, said, ‘We must be somewhere near’ and we looked down and we saw some flares about fifty miles behind us. I said, ‘We’ve come too far’. So, of course, we turned back and what we saw my heart jumped because the flak was so dense, looking at a wall of flak, and we had to go in a circle and turn and believe it or not it was an arch like that and we flew under the arch and they said, when we were debriefed, ‘No bullet holes?’ No, not one. He said, ‘You’re the only one’. He said, ‘Have you been on the same trip?’ We said, ‘Well, we’ll prove that when the air camera shot of where the bombs dropped’ and it did give a very clear shot. We were over the target, the oil fields in Poland. Of course Gerry was very short of oil so it was necessary to keep it away from him. But, er, its, we never did, never did solve why the instruments failed. They blamed me, thinking I’d not put on, or removed, the protection of the tube letting the air in. It’s like just a hole in a pipe which told the instruments what to do, air pressure, and everything was registered. It was the six, and there’s two of them, instruments just like those. There was six of them in a block in every aircraft you could see, still is, and everybody accused me of not removing the protection which was on [unclear] the ground. Take it when you go flying, put it in your bag, just a plastic canvas tube cover. But no, that was alright, when we got there, and that was it. Never did find out why it failed. Then there was one funny trip, coming back, just after we’d left the target, I said to the pilot, ‘My oil drum, oil tank, petrol tank, on the wing, starboard side, looks a bit low’. ‘Double check and give me your readings’, so I sat and did all my calculations again. I said, ‘No, I’m fifty gallons short on starboard’. Well, he said, ‘We’ll press on’. Now, we didn’t know what it was. It could have been a hole in the tank and it sealed itself. They did that, they sealed themselves if there was just a small damage, or not. Anyway, I did a ten minute reading every time from then until we landed and as we came into land they didn’t want us to land, they wanted us to go away to some crash ‘drome. The pilot refused flat, ‘Not going, land here or else’. Anyhow, they allowed us in but we had to park somewhere way over, way away from where we normally parked. So, what did they do then? Put an armed escort on it until everything was checked. They recharged the tanks with some petrol and proved that I was very low. I’d only got twenty-six gallons left in both two tanks, which was just about enough to land on. Anyway ‒.
PL: Did they ever find out what the problem was?
RC: No, I still say they didn’t put it in but the petrol boys had a knack, a knack of filling their forms in that nobody could understand. But I don’t think they would do it deliberately. But it never did resolve itself. But the wing commander was very cross over it ‘cause we’d landed that much earlier than we should‘ve done and also not having the petrol right and my form which was normally within fifteen gallons of what it should be was way out. But still there we are.
PL: What was a crash drum? Did you say crash drum?
RC: Crash ‘drome [emphasis]. Aircraft ‒. There’s one in Norfolk. Eight aircraft could land at the same time on the wet. It was a special ‘drome built for crashing on. No aircraft normally use it. You landed and then they pulled you inbetween the trees out of the way so nobody could land at the same spot and it was about six or seven that could land at the same time. It was fantastic really. But he wanted us to go to another ‘drome that was prepared to let us aircraft land if they were not busy. But he refused to even consider it. But having got back it all blew over, but no ‒.
PL: Tell me a little about your job as flight engineer.
RC: Well, it just, my job was to make sure the engines were absolutely lined up with each other, to synchronise all four engines along with the pilot’s help. He’d do two and I’d do two and then we’d join the two inners to make sure they were together and naturally without any [unclear] he was shorter than me. He couldn’t reach all the levers. So if he wanted to, er, put some exhaust, acceleration [emphasis], on he’d have to go down, I’d [emphasis] have to go down and lift it up and hand it over to him to use, to ‒. ‘Cause when we first met he wanted to control all the engine’s controls, but I said, ‘No you don’t. I control those. That’s how I’d been trained’ and after a while he accepted it ‘cause he realised we couldn’t reach half of them. He was too low for him to reach but we never did fall out. My job, well you could say it was getting boring [unclear] ‘cause nothing happened. We never had any false alarms, never any fuses, we just went and we came back and we used to hand the aircraft over to the ground crews. Nothing to report, just clean it up, you know, just check it over. The only time we had any trouble we had to land at an aerodrome called Tarrant Rushton and I said to the ground crew there that had been allocated to our aircraft, ‘I’ll see you in the morning at eight o’clock. Don’t touch a thing’. Well, I got there at eight o’clock and he said, ‘I’ve done it Sergeant’. I said, ‘Have you?’ He said, ‘Yes’. All he had to do was to top up the oil, coolant and make sure the petrol level was right but he said he’d done it all and had checked, it was alright. We took off and I said to the pilot, ‘I don’t like the sound of our outer engine’. I said, ‘She keeps surging and easing off and surge again’. He said, ‘If you want to switch it off I’ll let you switch it off and we’ll go home on three’. I said, ‘No, we’ll keep it running and I’ll keep my eye on it’ and we did. Oh, ah [background noises] and we did, damn you [addressed to a pet?]. Yes, I says, when we got out, I says to the ground crew, our ground crew, he was a sergeant, Corporal Scott. The other one was an aircraft man, he was English, and much younger but he was very keen and very careful. But the engineer, Scott, was absolutely brilliant. I said to him, I said, ‘I don’t like the sound of that engine. She’s surging’. He said, ‘I’ll look at it’. ‘Course, when we went to be looked after he would start up the engine and I went back to him after my breakfast and the engine was out and he was working on the connections of the [unclear]. I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ He said, ‘Some bloody fool has put oil in the coolant and coolant in the oil’. I said, ‘Oh, has he?’ So I went straight back to the wing commander, I said, ‘I want that (and I got his name you see), I want this bloody idiot’. Shh shut up [addressed to a pet in the room?]. ‘I want this idiot. (I called him a bloody idiot.) Charge him’. I said, ‘He could have killed us’. He said, ‘He what?’ I said, ‘He filled up the [unclear] one engine. He put oil in the coolant and coolant in the oil.’ And yet on their lids they’ve got [unclear] of that size and right across it was these letters OIL or coolant CLT. So how [unclear] I wouldn’t know, lack of brain. So he says to me, ‘He’s been suitably dealt with’ and then the wing commander started to celebrate. He wanted to try out a new scheme of what they called formation flying. So, he chose our pilot, my pilot, to fly in the out of position, right on the edge of starboard so, naturally, when you went round right you had to run but when you went to the left you had to put your brake on. Anyway, we were flying out one day over the Wash and another Lancaster, obviously a trainee, a trainee crowd, ‘cause you could tell by the markings was a trainee crew and he circled in closer than what we were to the one [unlear]. We tried to shoo him away but there was no such thing as radio ‘cause we were on a different wave band, see, we had our own special wave band, and all they did was just smile and wave. ‘Go away’ [emphasis]. And suddenly we were flying off and the wing commander said, ‘Start to turn right’ [laughs]. I looked at the pilot and he did nothing. I think he was oblivious to the thing. He hadn’t realised this aircraft was as close as it was but we ‒, I pressed my button, I said ‘Straight ahead please’. The wing commander came back on , he says, ‘Would the person who cancelled my order give his name, his crew, his pilot’s name and aircraft number and the reason why he cancelled my order’. So I briefly explained. He said, ‘I’ll see you in my office afterwards’. Well, of course he finished off his training. He decided not to do any more formation flying and it was the idea of the Americans. You formed a formation from the front and the rest trailed behind. So it gave greater safety. But anyway I went to his office afterwards, ‘The information you gave me was enough to locate who the idiot was.’ He said, ‘You’ll be pleased to know he will not fly another aircraft. He’s been taken off’. He was completely irresponsible so what good was he as a pilot if he was irresponsible. But he circled in that close if we’d moved a foot or two we’d be within an inch of him ‘cause he didn’t know we were going to turn unless I ‒. We couldn’t tell him. But they said afterwards ‘Thank God you were sitting on top fully alert’. I said ‘Somebody has to be’ [laughs]. But I think that’s why we survived, all of us was of the same category of mind. You train to the extent we were still training when we finished and I still say that’s why so many went down. They thought it was a holiday.
PL: Is there anything else that you want to tell me?
RC: I can’t think of anything else.
PL: Just very briefly then tell me about what happened after the war?
RC: After the war?
PL: So the war ended and then what did you do?
RC: Yes, The war ended so when we ‒, when we finished flying we were sent on demob leave. Then when we were on demob leave Germany had had enough, finished. I got letter ‘cause up ‘til then we had seven days indefinite leave, seven days indefinite leave, and every week that was renewed. So I had a month’s holiday at the end of when we were flying and we ‒, then after four weeks, I had a notice to go to um ‒ I went then up in Scotland, just where the RAF regiment is now, funnily enough, it was there. Anyway, he said, ‘We’ve posted you to Grantham for a commissioning course. We’ve accepted your commission. This is your commission. Go!’ He said, ‘If you’d signed when you were on the flying side, all you had to do was sign a sheet and you’d get a uniform. Now you’ve got to prove you’re good enough.’ I said, ‘Good show, I’m another three months in England’. Anyway, I did my training, became a flying officer, no pilot officer, pilot officer. I was posted to Iraq, the Middle East. Iraq in the Iraq levies. I got out there. We had to see the colonel first. We had an army colonel in charge, Colonel Loose [?] and he said ‘I’m putting you with the transport. You can help out on the transport to start with but you may have another ‒, another drop’. Anyway I went to this transport office. There was about thirty or forty lorries or cars and, er, we were sitting one day in the office. This flight lieutenant in charge, he was taking a charge sheet of one of his drivers for some misdemeanour and the phone bell went and all he kept saying was, ‘Yes Sir, I’ll tell him Sir. Yes Sir, he will be Sir’. When he finished he said, ‘The Colonel wants to see you in his office after breakfast’. This was at six o’clock in the morning. He said after breakfast, which was half past seven. Anyway, I went to the office as per appointed and he said, ‘You are the Adjutant as from next week, of No. 1 Squadron’, number one wing, the first top wing, and yet I knew the adjutant of the number two and thought he was a much better chap at the job than me. But anyway he said, ‘I think you’ll be alright’ and four or five weeks after I’d been in the office he was walking up under this shade of the building, and he stopped outside the door, you know, this insect door. He flung that open. He said, ‘I knew I hadn’t made a mistake. You’re doing very well’ and walked on. I didn’t even have a chance to say, ‘Thank you.’ Anyway, things progressed and as I said the other adjutant was better than me. He said, ‘Well, he was here before you. If he’d been my adjutant I would have sacked him a fortnight after he’d started.’ He says, ‘I’m keeping you for months’ [laughs]. So I says, ‘That’s nice to know’ I says, ‘Why?’ He says, ‘You fit in. You get on with your job’ and I progressed very well.
Pl: So did you stay and make a career in the Air Force after the war?
RC: They wanted me to. They offered me extended service for seven years and give me nine thousand pounds at the end. I said, ‘Like hell! I’m not prepared to’. And they thought I was foolish so I often said to Jean I never knew what I would have been if I’d stayed flying with the wing commander or staying on the ground in the ground staff job. It could have been a complete change of life for me but I’ve never regretted it, ‘cause I couldn’t stand the petty indifference and intelligence of the generations of officers coming along. They were petty. They fiddled. They, er, mesmerized you. They didn’t give you a straightforward answer or anything. Yet I’d had to deal with them when I knew nothing. I mean, the person who followed me on had only been sent on a three months course on how to be one, I had one hour. But I fitted in just like that and yet it was absolutely new to me. But I’d see a stack of paper that high every morning but it was mostly, you know, discipline and what not. I had one funny case where there’d been a sergeant shot in the leg and a corporal was up on the charge of shooting him and after I had all the interviews, they’d all ‒, all the people had been sent to the Air Force Ministry in London, came back, no good whatever, please retake, all the questions, you know, all the examinations. So I did it myself and this corporal I says, ‘You’re a fool taking the blame and everybody’s blaming you. You did nothing wrong. It’s the others, the more senior officers, native [?] officers.’ They were commissioned by the CO Middle East. But it rounded off. In the end he got away. Oh yes, ‘cause of course the papers I sent in, they said charge him with about six charges and I looked through the legal book and I found another six, so I put twelve charges on his sheet, went across to his room where he was being held and said, ‘I still say you’ve a fool and you’re being charged with so-and-so and so-and-so so’. I said, ‘You’ll be here for years if you’ve not careful’. Anyway, then I got a phone call, ‘He wants to see you back again’ and the chief native [?] officer, who was a Russian by birth, who had been in the Russian Tsar’s army as a major, he was our senior native [?] officer, said to me, ‘He wants you in the cell again’. So I went to the cell. I said, ‘What do you want?’ He said, ‘I want ‒ ‘. I put a hand on his mouth. I said, ‘Shut up. You’re not going to say a word. You’re not going to blub out what you want to say now. You’ll do it officially.’ I put my hand on his mouth and shut him up. I couldn’t catch a word he said. He wanted to confess what had happened and in the end the AOC Middle East came in and saw the Colonel. The next thing I know the corporal was released. The officer who I thought had been the cause of the trouble had been quietly dismissed. No show, no nothing, political, it was all mixed up with politics, politics from the Iraq people and joining in with the British. The Embassy was hopeless. I’d always got on well with the Embassy but they faded away when that came up. They didn’t want to know. But anyway ‒
PL: Talking about politics then, something I need to ask you, your feelings about how Bomber Command has been treated over the years. Do you have a view on that?
RC: Shockingly. I still say the ‒, what you call it, the clasp [?] it’s a bit of tin painted in gold paint. I say after seventy years it’s disgusting, totally disgusting. As the bomb aimer used to say, ‘They give the pilot the big medal. Why can’t they make a miniature one for each of us? We’re all together in the same crew’. No, just the pilot had to have a big, big, medal thing. We got nothing. And that was the attitude. We were all just the workers, get on with it, and yet he couldn’t do it without us, any of us. We used to say the mid upper and the rear gunner were probably more important than we were. Who could have navigated, dead reckoning navigation over a cloud filled sky all the way to the bottom of Poland and back, and back? And he finished up on the same stretch, when we looked out and saw the state of the coastline and we were going over it. I says, ‘That’s where I’d pointed out, isn’t it?’ He says, ‘Yes, you were spot on within two miles.’ He said, ‘And that was only a dream’. I said, ‘Yes, but we did live, didn’t we?’ I said, ‘Tommy said we’d not, we’d not make it from the trip but we did make it’. And they were the factors that kept you going. Much obliged. I’m going to finish, sorry.
PL: Well, can I say thank you so much. That was a fascinating interview.
RC: I hope that was as good as you want.
PL: Thank you very much for being so generous with your time. So, recommencing with Ray Charlton. So we’ve just been talking about a fascinating story about Wesel ‒ . Would you like to share that with us Ray?
RC: Yes, I just recalled the trip to Wesel, which was on the edge of the river and Montgomery had moved his troops back three thousand yards. And I said to our CO, ‘Tell him as an insult to go back three thousand yards that’s allowing us to make all that much mistake.’ Anyway we were flying over about twelve thousand feet and the flak in front of us was quite heavy. Anyway we pressed on. And suddenly underneath us we heard a rush of noise, a heavy wind noise, and we were looking out watching and we could see anti-aircraft guns being shot out of action. They’d been firing one minute and nothing the next and that’s what had happened. Every time one fired the artillery boys pinpointed the site and aimed [?] it out. Well on one of my initial visits to Salisbury [other], Salisbury, we’d got a packed lunch with us, and we saw Philip ‒, Prince Philips’ regiment. Well I said, ‘We ought to go in here’ (‘course it’s not the present Prince Philip. It’s the previous one). And we had ‒, we were enjoying our lunch on the lawn, and obviously one of their men came and joined us, ‘Were you in the regiment?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, only the RAF regiment’. ‘Oh, I don’t know about those’. I said, ‘We’re all aircrew’, He said, ‘I don’t know much about them’. I said ‘Well, we did bomb Wesel. ‘Did you? You must meet our sergeant’. I said ‒. He went to find the sergeant but he couldn’t leave his post, he was on the door. Oh, he asked us to go to him and when I went to approach him he grabbed my hand and shook it so hard it hurt. I said, ‘What’s this for?’ He said we were told about you boys coming to raid it to help us. We were told to expect to lose two thousand men in crossing the river. He says, ‘And I was to lead the men over and establish and put the machine guns out of action’. He said, ‘When we got there not a single shot was fired at us. We never saw a single German, only dead ones, and he says, ‘How on earth did you do it?’ I says, ‘Just bombed’. ‘How did you get through all that flak?’ I said, ‘You ignore it’. I said to the sergeant, ‘We ignored it. Had to do. It was heavy to start with but it dwindled off to nothing. It was just one gun firing in one spot positon and that kept firing. He must have had a load in and we just thought nothing of it. To us we’d done a job.’ He said, ‘Well I shall never forget it. You saved two thousand men from this company, this regiment.’ He says, ‘That’s something to do’.
Pl: Wonderful.
RC: But he said, ‘And we achieved our objective. We never saw anything. They must have cleared all out, they must have moved out. ‘Cause they expected you’d have to go through every house and route out snipers but there wasn’t one to be found anywhere. The survivors said the bombing was so accurate and so intense that nobody could live through it, so we were quite happy. We did an easy job and that was it.’ And there we are.
Pl. Thank you Ray.
PL: This is Pam Locker and I’m in the house of Mrs Jean Mary Charlton, who was also ‒. Her first husband was called Robert Mott and her maiden name was Gilliatt [?]. And this forms a complement to another interview, with Mr Ray Charlton, about his experiences in Bomber Command. So, Jean, would you like to stat by telling us a little bit about what you were doing at the start of the war perhaps?
JC: I was in training for Nottingham City Hospital. D Day I was at training school [unclear]. Very little idea about what we were going to face. We saw the most horrific things, soldiers coming in still in uniform, covered in blood, just bound up, legless, armless. It was a horrible thing to have to remember really. But on the Saturday at the Goose Fair in Nottingham we decided we’d all go to the Goose Fair, so four of us went together. Four airmen came up and said ‘Come on girls, come and have a ride’. Of course, I was left with the old man, wasn’t I? Which was Bob. That was 1954, as far as I can remember. I think that’s right.
[Other]: ’44.
RC: No, ’45.
JC: ’45, sorry, I had it the wrong way round. We did a tour of Nottingham Castle and left and [unclear] ‘Will we see you next weekend?’ Then when they turned up there was Bob. We married a year later, came to Southampton to live, ‘cause I brought up seven children, that’s the youngest, and I decided to go back to nursing, went to the local children’s hospital and fourteen years in the district [unclear]. In the meantime Ray came down to Southampton and said, ‘Oh, I know someone who lives here and in that road ’ as he passed it, ‘I’ll go and look him up’, knocked on the door, ‘cause I was at work [unclear] and then he opened it, ‘Who are you then?’ He said ‘I’m Ray Charlton, the Flight Engineer’. Anyway, he stayed the night and went off again. A month later we were celebrating Christmas, my eldest daughter was home from Saudi Arabia, and we were going to have a special weekend, and Bob suddenly became ill and he died twenty-four hours later, a heart problem. And so I phoned Ray [unclear] and then, of course, I went on and moved into a flat, didn’t I, on my own? ‘Cause we gave up our house [unclear].
PL: So you moved house?
JL: I went to a flat. I was working for the district, it was this side of town, you see, and I kept in touch with Ray, wrote Christmas cards and things, and my granddaughter, she was at college, I was house-sitting for my son and Ray phoned up, could he pop in and see us, as he was at an RAF meeting in Bournemouth? And he came in, drove round Southampton, and from then on he started phoning me, to go to Leicester for the weekend, and they used to say, ‘We never know where you ae mum’ [laugh], and then we married, it took about ten years to make our minds up, didn’t it? To marry. We’ve been married twenty-three years. So we moved, now, as I say, he married me for my pension fund [laugh]. But we’ve been up to Lincolnshire, to East Kirkby, every year, haven’t we?
RC: Yes, every year.
JC: I used to drive up but in recent years the family would take us. We would miss it, wouldn’t we?
PL: It’s a very romantic story. So, just to be clear for the tape, one of the most extraordinary things about this story is that you were married to two men from the same crew.
JC: Yes, the first one was with me since I was eighteen.
RC: Do you remember when I Bob says to me, ‘Who are you?’
JC: Yes, I mentioned that. I think that’s me finished.
PL: Do you want to add any stories ‒. Have you got any memories that Bob shared with you about his experiences in the war?
JC: Well, not a lot, because he used to say, ‘We never had any problems’. They were all such a good crew together. Had little jokes between them but nothing that was [unclear]. Sorry, my voice isn’t clear.
RC: I think that was the trouble, there was never any ‒
JC: Friction between you, was there?
RC: No friction and no crystal to shine. We just ‒, just went smoothly on.
[Other]: Two crews.
JC: Yes, Bob flew with two crews. The first crew he was going for the aircraft and his knee gave way, so he had to go and have a cartilage operation.
PL: Right.
JC: And that’s how he came to join Ray’s crew, when he came back. We did meet one member of the crew at East Kirkby didn’t we? And I think we were chatting all day long to him [unclear].
[Other]: He thought dad had died. He thought dad had died.
RC: Well, that’s how we feel about the Pantons, isn’t it?
JC: Yes
RC: At East Kirkby. I’ve had some lovely letters from both of them and their wives.
JC: Yes. I miss Sharon [unclear].
PL: So Jean, is there anything else that you want to ‒.recorded for either Bob or Ray you would like included?
JL: I can’t think of anything.
[Other]: He used to say how tired he was mum, how he used to fall asleep standing up on the train.
JC: On the train. He used to come down to Southampton and, of course, he could never get a seat, and he would be stood there sound asleep. You’ve said the same thing about being on the, um, trains coming home and being asleep.
RC: When the parson and four of his parishioners, they wanted me to give up my seat, and he said, ’You leave him where he is’, and he says, ‘Every time you wake up your eyes span the whole window’. So he says, ‘Open your overcoat’ and I did, you see, he said, I knew you were aircrew’, he says, ‘As soon as you open your eyes that window’s searched.’ He said, ‘You do it automatically’. I said, ‘That’s how we lived’, but these women, they were with him, his parishioners, thought I was terribly rude not offering my seat up.
[Other]: What about getting the bacon mum? They used to go into the mess of the sergeants and pinch what was left of the breakfast.
JC: Yes.
{Other}: Do you want to tell that one?
JC: You can tell it.
PL: So, the next person to speak is Vanessa ‒
[Other]: Standley [?]
PL: Standley, who is Jean’s youngest daughter.
VS: Dad used to have supper in the evenings and the one thing that always made us laugh was dad liked everything with brown sauce and he loved cheese. We went to a reunion at East Kirkby a few years ago and bumped into someone who remembered dad from flying at East Kirkby and started to tell us some stories and one of them was that dad and someone else, I don’t know the name, used to sneak into ‒ I think it was the sergeants’ quarters when it was empty in the evening, and if there was some cheese left, ‘cause obviously they were on rations, they used to toast the bits of bread on the electric fire and put cheese on and brown sauce and they’d sneak back, you know, it was their secret. And I thought that was great ‘cause all through my childhood the one thing my dad always had was bread, cheese and everything came with brown sauce.
PL: So, is there anything else anybody would like to add for the record before we close?
JL: No.
PL: Well, thank you all very much. Your family has an extraordinary story with extraordinary connections, so thank you very much for sharing it with us.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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ACharltonR160720
PCharltonR1602
PCharltonR1603
Title
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Interview with Ray Charlton
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:19:22 audio recording
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2016-07-20
Description
An account of the resource
Ray wanted to join Bomber Command but after going to RAF Paignton, he was re-mustered and went to RAF Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey where he decided to train as a flight engineer. He was posted to Bridlington and this was followed by a six-month course at RAF St Athan. He explains why he refused commissions at various times.
Ray was posted to Bomber Command, initially on Stirlings at RAF Swinderby and then RAF East Kirkby. He crewed up with four Australians and two other English men. He mentions the difficult conditions and crews who did not return. The mid-upper gunner faced several issues before being replaced due to injury.
Ray does describe some of the events on his tour: going round Mont Blanc; an encounter with a German fighter plane; instrument failure, going to the oil fields in Poland; insufficient petrol; the ground crew mixing up oil and coolant when diverted to RAF Tarrant Rushton; almost being hit by a trainer Lancaster crew when trying formation flying. He did, however, later find out that they had saved the lives of 2,000 troops crossing the river at Wesel.
When Germany surrendered, Ray was sent on leave, and then Scotland and Grantham for a commissioning course. He became a pilot officer and was posted to Iraq where he was made adjutant of 1 Squadron.
Ray explains how he felt about the treatment of Bomber Command.
Before his death, Ray’s wife, Jean, was married to another crew member, whom she met while training as a nurse.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Wales
England--Lincolnshire
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany
Poland
Europe--Mont Blanc
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Iraq
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Sally Coulter
57 Squadron
630 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crewing up
flight engineer
love and romance
military living conditions
military service conditions
Nissen hut
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Eastchurch
RAF St Athan
RAF Tarrant Rushton
superstition
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/785/9340/PTurnerHA1801.1.jpg
ee4d9c570a3678bd6343b3c5957fb700
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/785/9340/ATurnerHA180829.1.mp3
e8342d61f314b839367caf2cfbcc9535
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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Turner, Bert
Herbert Alan Turner
H A Turner
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bert Turner (b. 1923, 1607412 Royal Air Force). He completed 31 bombing and supply operations as a flight engineer with 196 Squadron. He was shot down twice.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-08-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Turner, HA
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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MH: We’re now running. So, we just had Bert, thank you for giving your time up and also to Peter for giving his time up as well. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command. The interviewer is Martyn Hordern, that’s me. The interviewee is Herbert Turner. The interview is taking place at the Tri-Services and Veteran’s Support Centre, Hassell Street, Newcastle, Staffordshire. Also present is Peter Batkin, a friend of Bert. The date is the 29th of August 2018. So, we’ve obviously just, when we’ve asked you Peter, Bert sorry that your date of birth was the 23rd of December 1923. Where were you born?
BT: London.
MH: Whereabouts in London?
BT: 99 Ledbury Road, Paddington.
MH: Paddington.
BT: I think it’s Paddington. I wouldn’t be sure.
MH: No.
BT: It’s either Paddington or Kensington.
MH: What sort of family did you come from? A large family, a small family?
BT: Mum and dad and six kids.
MH: And where did you —
BT: I was the youngest but one.
MH: Right. I’m just opening my bottle of water of here so apologies for the fizz. Had your dad served in the First World War?
BT: Yes, he was in the RAF, in the RFC.
MH: Right.
BT: As it was then. I found a photograph the other night of my dad in his tropical kit for the Dardanelles.
MH: Right. So he’d served at Gallipoli.
BT: Hmmn?
MH: In Gallipoli. The Dardanelles. Wasn’t it Gallipoli, yeah?
BT: Ahum.
MH: James, dad was in Gallipoli as well.
BT: He, yeah, my dad and his three brothers fought in the First World War.
MH: So, what was life like growing up in the 1920s in London?
BT: We were alright. We probably, practically lived in Kensington Gardens and the parks and that. And they say, they say it was the hungry years. I didn’t know. I never went hungry. We always had something on the table. Mum was main cook and that was it. We, I went to school at St Stephens in Paddington. Did all my schooling there from the time I was three ‘til I was fourteen. Then I got a, I started work. I worked at Lyons in Cadby Hall, as an office lad. I didn’t like that. Went to McVities Biscuit factory and I finished up in the London Co -op as a delivery boy until I joined up.
MH: So —
BT: And that —
MH: At that point you were you were sort of like as I say a young teenager just before the war started.
BT: Yeah. Well, we in the Scouts and the Cubs and then I transferred to the ATC. 46F Squadron in Kensington. I’m trying to think. It must have been what? Nineteen 1940, 1939 I suppose, I joined the ATC. Of course, we went all through the blitz. But as, as I remember it all I ever wanted to do was fly. That was the be all and end all. I mean Ball and Mannock and all of those, they were my heroes and —
MH: And where did that come from. Do you know that?
BT: I’ve no idea because nobody [laugh] nobody else in the family wanted it but my my idea was I wanted to go straight in to the Air Force as a lad. A boy. And my mum wasn’t having that. Only rogues and vagabonds were served, went in the Services.
MH: What was your dad’s view having served in the First War?
BT: Dad never, dad never argued with mum. They were both short, small people. Mum was just under five foot and dad was just over five foot. About five foot two. But only slight people. Very. But I can’t remember them falling out. They never fell out in front of us.
MH: No.
BT: I’m not saying they didn’t fall out but —
MH: So so you mentioned —
BT: A pretty, a pretty average sort of life.
MH: Yeah.
BT: It was a family and that was it.
MH: How did, how did the Blitz affect you because obviously you were in London and it’s 1940?
BT: Not a, not a lot. We used to go, we used to go out fire watching at the shop in Barlby Road. We were, we used to go messaging with the ARP and that sort of thing. But it never seemed to, I know it sounds ridiculous but it didn’t seem to affect life.
MH: No.
BT: It, life went on.
MH: Yeah. But you could see the after affects I assume of the raids.
BT: You’d get up in the morning and there had been a bomb here or a bomb there sort of thing and you saw different things I mean, like toilets hanging on a wall and that sort of thing. It seemed remarkable. But my, my life just seemed to carry on sort of thing until I was seventeen and a half and then I went to Acton and volunteered. And mother wasn’t very pleased about that. ‘You’ll go quick enough but —’ she said, ‘They’ll send for you quick enough.’
MH: Yeah.
BT: I said, ‘Yes, but I want to go in the Air Force, mum.’ So, that was it.
MH: Did she have to sign you in at that age or were you old enough to sign yourself?
BT: No. I signed myself in [pause] and mother didn’t speak to me for ages. She didn’t, didn’t want to know. We’d already got, I’d already got two brothers in. One in the Air Force and one in the Army and mum said that was enough. But I said, ‘It’s got to come mum. I’ve got to go.’ So that was it.
MH: And the truth be told you wanted to go though.
BT: I wanted to go. Yes. Oh yes, I was. I thought it was going to be all over before I had my chance. But I went to Acton and volunteered and I had to go to Oxford for three days for, you know I don’t know what they called it, an interview with, and exams. And they told me I could go in as a flight mech and [pause] I could study to be a pilot if I wanted. Fair enough. And they called me up on August the 2nd 1942. I went to, from [pause] went to Penarth for seven days where they kitted us out. And from Penarth we went to Blackpool where I did my square bashing and, in civvy digs. We were there ‘til December I think it was and we marched out to Halton in December ’42.
MH: And that’s when you went to a, to a squadron then, did you?
BT: No. No. That was, that was training school.
MH: Right.
BT: I started my flight mech’s course and they put a notice up on orders. They wanted flight engineers. So we, a lot of us volunteered and we had to go down to London for our medicals and I was accepted. And about February we were posted to St Athans in Wales where we did our flight engineer’s course. And [pause] we had a funny experience there. We were all out on the, not the outside the hangars where the school was for a NAAFI break and all at once somebody says, about four or five hundred blokes stood around and all at once somebody shouted, ‘Jerry.’ And everybody drops to the ground and looked and three, three German aircraft flew across. The only thing was they were wearing RAF roundels [laughs] They were captured aircraft. But that was amusing. And then it was 1943, mother died while I was at St Athan and that was a blow. We [pause] we didn’t get over that. But I finished up, I passed out at St Athan. I think I got about sixty five, seventy percent. It was a pass anyhow through and I got my tapes and my brevet. We moved from St Athan to 1657 Con Unit at Stradishall, just outside Newmarket and while I was there I crewed up and met my crew, Mark Azouz, John Greenwell, Leo Hartman, John McQuiggan, Teddy Roper, Pete Findlay and myself. And we started flying Stirling 1s and we did our day circuits and bumps. Started night circuits and bumps. And we did a couple of circuits and bumps with the instructors on board and the skipper screened, turned around, he said, ‘I’m getting out,’ he said. ‘You take it around for one yourself and put it to bed.’ And my instructor said, ‘If he’s getting out I’m getting out. You’re on your own.’ [laughs] I thought fair enough. Off we went. Undercarriage up and away we went. Anyhow, skipper said, ‘Undercarriage down.’ And the undercarriage wouldn’t play.
MH: And this was the first time you’d flown solo as a crew.
BT: Yes. So well, we did all we could think of which I don’t suppose there was much. Told them downstairs that we were having trouble with the undercart. Anyhow, we eventually, we had to try to wind it down by hand. We got one leg down but we couldn’t get the other one. So, we got one leg down and that was tighter. They decided that we were going to have to land at Waterbeach. Then halfway to Waterbeach they decided the best thing was to land it on Newmarket Race Course. So, skipper put her down on Newmarket Race Course.
MH: And you got the one leg back up again.
BT: One leg up and one we, they managed, we managed to break the lock on the starboard, no, port, port leg and the skipper took her in and we landed and I think she was, she was a mess. And we all got out and climbed out and we were all standing on one of them rings and the ambulance driver came up and looked at us and he counted us and he turned around and, ‘What, nobody hurt?’ And we, nobody had a scratch so that was it. And then we were called in the flight office the next day and wingco was very annoyed. He told us we’d broken his aeroplane. That was, that was the end of that. Anyhow, we got away with it and we finished up we were posted to 90 Squadron at Tuddenham just before Christmas and we did, I don’t know, it was six or seven trips. We did a mine laying to Sylt, Kiel and that sort of thing and then at the time they were busy bombing the French factories for the Doodlebugs and that. And we did a couple of them. And then they posted us away to Tarrant Rushton to go glider towing and para dropping. We went [pause] we went to Tarrant Rushton, we were only there for oh, a couple of weeks, a couple of three weeks as I remember it. It doesn’t, doesn’t gel very easily but I don’t think we operated from there. We, we took over Keevil from the Americans in around about March ’44 and we were glider towing and doing supply drops in France for the SOE.
MH: What sort of stuff were you taking over to the SOE? Did you know what you were taking?
BT: No. No. It was all in canisters or baskets or anything. Occasionally we would have a couple of bods we’d take over. SAS people initially. A lot of them were Poles.
MH: Were there, was those trips quiet trips or —
BT: Sometimes, it was but we did [pause] D-Day came up and they decided that we’d got to, all aircrew had got to fly with sidearms so they issued us all with .38 pistols and you can imagine nineteen, twenty year old kids playing cowboys and Indians. But we woke up one morning and went out to an aircraft and they’d painted the white stripes for the invasion. That was, all came as such a surprise that nobody knew anything about it until it was done. But the mechs were standing on the wings painting these blooming white stripes with brooms. Then D-Day came up. We were ready to go on the 5th. But no. We were ready to go on the 4th and it was cancelled. And then they gave the order that we were going on the 5th and we took the paratroops over D-Day on the, we took off on the 5th you know.
MH: Yeah.
BT: Early morning to —
MH: What planes were you flying then?
BT: I beg —
MH: What planes were you flying then?
BT: Stirling 4s. Yeah. We took twenty paratroops over, dropped them off and that was it.
MH: What was that like that you were flying across then?
BT: Do you know, do you know Peter will tell you, I’ve said this so many times before. It was one of the quietest trips I remember.
MH: No flak. No —
BT: We, we saw barely anything. It, it surprised, it, it sounds ridiculous when you first say it but as far as I was, we were concerned it was one of the quietest of our trips.
MH: And the paratroopers. Do you remember what —
BT: The paratroops went in.
MH: What battalion were they from?
BT: Hmmn?
MH: Do you remember what battalion they were from or [pause] Do you remember what —
BT: No. No. No. No, we didn’t have a lot to do with them. Chatted to them and all this, that and the other, you know.
MH: British I assume.
BT: Yes. Yes. It, it was just another trip. And then we did a trip to France and a delivery for the SOE. Arms and whatever and we got there and when you went on these SOE things all you were looking for is five bonfires and we found it. And when we got there Jerry was waiting for us and it got nasty. First, we went in, dropped what we got, came out of it. There was a light flak gun busy after us but we got away with it and he never touched us and we flew in and checked for a hang up. Well, on a Stirling there’s a step and it’s across along the width of the bomb bay and the bomb bay on a Stirling is three different sections. That’s why it can’t take big bombs. And in this step there was three little glass windows only about the size of a tin. You know, a pea tin top and you held a torch against one end and someone looked at the other and if they could see the torch you hadn’t got, the light, you’d got no hang-ups. If they couldn’t you’d got a hang-up. And we had three hang-ups of containers.
MH: Just hadn’t been released from their old —
BT: They hadn’t dropped. So it was skipper turned around and said, ‘Well, they never touched us that time. We’ll take them back.’ Which thinking about it afterwards was a stupid idea but we didn’t think about that at the time and I said, ‘Well, somebody will have to give me a hand.’ I said, ‘Two of them I can drop myself but the other one’s the other end of the aircraft.’ So, ‘Well, McGuigan can drop the other one.’ So, fair enough. And when you drop them you just pull a bolt back and they drop. But they drop without a parachute. A parachute won’t open for some reason. I don’t know why. So anyhow, skipper goes and we go around and just as Leo said, ‘Drop them,’ dropped a, Jerry hit us and he put the starboard outer out of action, damaged the starboard inner and peppered us a bit. None of us were touched. Fair enough. We came out but the skipper shouted for me and I went up and he turned around and said, ‘The starboard outer won’t feather.’ I said, ‘Well, use the —’ [pause] he said, ‘The starboard’s running out.’ ‘Feather it.’ He said, ‘It won’t feather.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ So I said, ‘Get Pete out of his turret,’ because the torque on the prop on the starboard outer could possibly take the rear tail up. The fin and rudder. So we got Pete out of his turret and just as we got Pete out the props flew off somewhere over France and we flew back. We landed, landed at a place called Colerne just outside Bath. And they were, they were surprised to see us naturally so, but they were flying Mosquitoes and Spitfires. And I remember the CO there turned around and very unpolitely, turned round at the skipper and said, ‘I don’t know whether you’re a fool or a hero bringing this abortion in here.’ But anyhow the skipper got a DFC for it and we went back to Keevil.
MH: What, what was it like? You’ve had, you said your early flights were fairly sort of just dropping mines and that. I take it you’d never been really shot at had you in those first flights before you did your —
BT: Oh, we’d been shot at but not as badly if you know. It was just part of the —
MH: Yeah.
BT: Somehow or another it [pause] it didn’t seem to be a part of the equation that you got [pause] I don’t know why.
MH: And, and so and then you go to drop these supplies off and you go back round again.
BT: Yeah.
MH: And then you get hit.
BT: My point, thinking about it afterwards it was supposed to be a secret mission [laughs] Well, Jerry’s there shooting at you. These blokes have got to pick, down there have got to pick these containers up and they’re not light by any manner of means and disperse and get them off and Jerry’s on the doorstep. So all you’re doing really is handing it to Jerry.
MH: And what, what were your thoughts when the plane got hit?
BT: What can I do?
MH: Did you ever think you’d never get back?
BT: No. It never. Do you know, I can’t remember that at all. In any, I got, in any event I could never think of, it never entered my head that we were going to get hurt. Then after that it was we did a, there was an Operation Tonga as I remember it and it was a massive air drop to the south of France of containers for the French. Free French. That was, I think that was the only time that we flew then with other aircraft at daylight. Then I got married. I married a WAAF on the station. We got married on the Thursday. We had three days leave in London. We got, came, we went back and they shut the gates for Arnhem. And on the 17th of September we took a, took a Horsa to Arnhem and we went again on the Monday and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all. The opposition we met was practically negligible. On the Tuesday we had apparently there was Air Ministry issued an order that all intelligence officers were to fly a mission. Well, my skipper was a Jew, as was the bomb aimer and the intelligence officer we had was a Jew so I suppose we would keep it in the family and he decided to come with us and of course they just gave him a helmet with a mic and a, earphones on. No, no oxygen mask or anything. And I used to go up second dickie when bomb aimer went down to the bomb aiming position but he’s sitting in my seat. So I’m halfway down the fuselage and in a Stirling that’s it. You can’t see anything. You’ve got to stick your head out the astrodome to look around sort of thing and flying along quite happily. Go to, got to the [unclear] where we turned in to the target and we were flying along quite happily and all at once, ‘There’s flak over there.’ [pause] ‘There’s flak.’ The skipper turned around. He said. ‘There’s flak where?’ He says, ‘Over there.’ He said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘That’s port.’ He says, ‘And the other side’s starboard.’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And it’s a long way away don’t worry about it.’ I thought to myself things are getting tricky. Jerry’s getting naughty. So I went down and stuck my head out the astrodome. Oh, well away in the distance is a few bursts of flak. We went in and we dropped our Horsa and went back home again. And then we went again on the Tuesday and Jerry got organised and it was rough. We had a rough and we were jocking through this lot the skipper turned around. He says, ‘Flak,’ he says, ‘I wish I’d got him with me now.’ He said, ‘I’d show him flak.’ We got away with it. They knocked us about a bit and we got a few holes in but we were fair enough and we, we got back and that was our thirtieth so we thought that’s it. No more. A rest. And on the Wednesday night they told us we’d got to do another one on Thursday. We’re short of crews. Fair enough. So on the Thursday morning we goes out to the aircraft and the skipper walks along and his scratching cats are missing and he’s got a bar on. What’s this? So, he anyhow, the skipper’s got his commission. Pilot officer. He got awarded a, promulgated with the DFC same day. So, we’re on for Arnhem, Thursday. Go out to the aircraft. Run it up. We couldn’t get revs and boost on. I think it was the outboard inner. One of them was playing up anyway. Doesn’t matter. Couldn’t get it to turn. ‘Take the spare aircraft.’ So you had to move everything that we were carrying to the spare aircraft and the rest of the lads had taken off so we were about twenty five, thirty minutes behind them taking off and skipper said to Leo, ‘Cut corners. Let’s get back with the lads and we can go over together.’ But we got there just as the lads were coming out and we had to go in on our own and it was rough. We got shot up a bit and it happened. And while we were over Arnhem this is a bit cheeky but still I went second dickie. McQuiggan, the wireless op went down the back because we were carrying baskets. Big baskets that had to go out and two Army dispatchers were flying with us and McQuiggan went down the back to supervise that.
MH: Were the dispatcher’s jobs to push the stuff off?
BT: Yeah.
MH: Was that their job?
BT: Yeah. Well, the Stirling had a big hatch at the bottom, in the, at the bottom of the fuselage near the tail where the paratroops dropped out and we used to have to push a, an A frame down and peg it in to stop the paratroop bags wrapping around the elevators. So McQuiggan’s down there doing that and we went through and as I say Jerry knocked us about a bit and we got through and McGuigan come up from the back and I went back to my own station and McGuigan come up and he, he’s covered in blood from head to foot. I looked and I thought where do you put a dressing? And I don’t know, ‘Where are you hit, Mac?’ He turned around and he said, ‘The elsan.’ I said, ‘The elsan?’ A shell must have burst under the aircraft, and the elsan, the chemical toilet is held down by three bolts and it had taken off and it had thrown it all over McQuiggan. And elsanal fluid is the same colour as Jeyes fluid and he’s —
MH: He’s not covered in blood.
BT: Anyhow, we got, we’re flying along and skipper asked Ginger for a course to Brussels. We’re flying on two engines. Well, we’re moving on two engines and I looked out the astrodome and I’ll never forget it. I looked up and there’s six fighters and I thought they were Tempests. And I wouldn’t mistake a 109 for a Tempest. A 190, yes. And I still say they were 190s. The Air Ministry said there were no 190s flying [unclear] Anyhow, they decided that we were going to be their meat and they, they came for us. Well, the rear gunner shot the lead aircraft down. The lead fighter blew up. I saw it with my own eyes. But then they got nasty and skipper gave the order to abandon aircraft and we baled out over a place called Niftrik and we, the Army picked us up. We got landed, four of us finished up in a farm house in Holland and, but they gave us egg and bacon. Then the Royal Horse Artillery picked us up, took us back to their camp, give us a night’s kip and put us in a lorry to go back to Belgium. And just as we were moving off, well we got to a crossroads somewhere or other and the Redcaps, Army Redcaps waiting there. ‘You’ve got to leave this and get out, sir.’ So we got out and we were lay in a ditch for I don’t know and in the finish we, we were walking across a field in Holland and the Americans picked us up and took us in to Veghel. And we got in to a Veghel, we spent the night there. And the next morning the Green Howards relieved that and the paras were coming out of Arnhem and I can’t think of the general, was it who was on the ground but he came out and there was a staff car waiting for him and he had, he went in the side car err in the staff car and before, there were five actually. Another crew bloke I don’t know he was now got in with us and we went in that to Brussels. We spent the night in Brussels and flew back to England the next day. We got in to England on the Sunday. The put us in a coach to take us to the Airworks in London and of course it was almost passing my home so I turned around to the driver and said, ‘You can drop me here. I’m going to see my dad.’ And, ‘You can’t.’ I said. ‘I’m going to.’ I said. So, I got out and I’m carrying a box like a wooden box, a tomato box with peaches and grapes from, and apples from Holland. And I got out the car at the, on the Western Avenue and I stopped a bloke in a car and he took me home [laughs] And I gave him a peach and oh he was quite happy. And I, we lived in quite a big house in London in Chesterton Road at the time and you had to go all round the house and in through the scullery door at the back and the dark passage from the scullery in to the kitchen. And just as I walked up the passage my dad come out of the kitchen and he took one look and passed out. And my brother was with him, he was on leave and he came out and he said, ‘What are you doing here? You’re dead.’ Thanks very much. They’d had telegrams, “Missing believed killed.” Because none of the boys had seen us. Seen us bale out.
MH: No.
BT: I had something to eat. My dad took me to Paddington Station. Well, my dad paid my fare back to Keevil. I never had that money off the Air Force either [laughs] And I’m standing on Paddington station, a sergeant. My trousers were ripped, I’d got no collar and tie, I was wearing a bit of orange supply chute around my neck, got no cap. I was wearing one flying boot and one flying boot that I’d cut down because I’d got an ankle wound and two MPs parading up and down in front of me and clearly they could see [laughs] And eventually they come across to me. ‘Sergeant, you’d best come with us.’ And they took me to the RTO and the RTO officer gave me a bed and they woke me up with a cup of cocoa. Put me on a train for Keevil and when I got back to Keevil of course I’d got no money. I got no money for the bus. One of the airman had to pay my fare. The bus driver wouldn’t let me on the bus without the fare. So, when the airmen paid my fare and I got back to Keevil and I thought well, I’d better go and see the wife, so —
MH: Bearing in mind you’d only been married a few days at that point.
BT: Yeah. I’d been married a week exactly when we were shot down and she’d been told that she was a widow. So anyhow, I walked in, up to the cookhouse and she come running out and the first thing she said to me was, ‘You stink.’ ‘Thanks very much.’ Anyhow, I finished up, I went up the billet and had a wash and had a shower and went to sick bay to get my ankle dressed. Hospital. So they put in the blood wagon and sent me over to Ely. And I’d hopped all over Holland, I’d hopped halfway across England, I got out the ambulance. I had to hop all over the hospital and they x-rayed it and all the rest and, yes. Fair enough. Nothing wrong. Dressed it and put it back and I went back to Keevil in sick bay. Well, my wife had to go in hospital for an operation about three days later so I turned around to the quack, I said, ‘Can I go in the blood wagon to see the wife at Ely?’ ‘You can’t,’ he said, ‘You’re, you’re a stretcher case.’ I thought thanks very much. So we, anyhow we finished up we stayed at, I was in dock for ten days I think and on the Saturday they let me out and I got, I was sent on survivor’s leave. And my wife came with me, and we had to travel from Keevil to Stoke on Trent. We got to Bristol and we had to change stations at Bristol. Anyhow, we got on the train and like all wartime trains it was packed and I’m standing there and the porter slung a case in and of course hit my ankle and didn’t know what it had done at the time of course. But I finished up the journey sitting on kit bags and God knows what. And when we got to my wife’s home my wife took the dressing off and had a look and it had knocked the scab of the wound. So, anyhow, I had my leave and went back and while we were on leave we, they’d moved from Keevil. I think they’d gone from Keevil to Shepherds Grove. And we got, when I got to Shepherds Grove we, I went and reported sick and I’m back in bed again. And anyhow it all went well in the finish and that was it.
MH: Could we just go back to when you got shot down and you parachuted out of a plane had you ever parachuted before? Had any training to parachute?
BT: Never had any training at all apart from someone saying, ‘Well, you put the chute on here and you pull this. Oh no, we never had parachute drill. We had dinghy drill but I never, we never had —
MH: What was dingy drill?
BT: Eh? They used to take you to the local swimming pool.
MH: Baths.
BT: Swimming baths, and they’d throw a seven man dinghy in the water upside down and you wear a flying suit and a Mae West and you’d got to go in there, swim in, swim to the dinghy and turn it upright. It’s quite a job and it was. On the bottom of the dinghy there’s two hand holds and you have to hold these hand holds, pull them towards you as much as you can and then jump on the bottom of the dinghy to turn it over.
MH: Right.
BT: You finish up underneath it and that was, that’s the only dinghy drill we did.
MH: And what height did you bale out at then?
BT: Around about three to four thousand feet.
MH: And did the parachute open straight away or did you have to have a rip cord?
BT: On, on rip cord.
MH: And did anything happen on the way down?
BT: Yes. Jerry tried to kill us.
MH: Would you mind just sort of giving a bit more detail to that?
BT: Well, we all, we all baled out. The rear gunner was killed in the aircraft. The navigator went out the front and I went out of the parachute hatch and we were shaking hands on the way down and a Jerry fighter decided we were his meat and it was very naughty. But he didn’t notice the Thunderbolt behind him and the Thunderbolt, American Thunderbolt shot him down. But they shot the skipper. The skipper was killed.
MH: On the way down.
BT: On the way down on his ‘chute. Well, he was wounded. He died in hospital. So I was told.
MH: And when, when the Germans were flying at you could you feel the bullets whizzing past or, or was you just, is that what —
BT: It’s no good saying yes.
MH: No.
BT: I can’t remember.
MH: But you knew what they were trying to do?
BT: We knew what, as I say the navigator and I, Ginger and I we flew, we dropped together. We dropped in a field together and because [pause] Germans wear field grey, well, we were lying there in a field and there is a grey bloke, a grey dressed bloke dressed, heading for us. And Ginger turned around, he said, ‘Bert, shoot him.’ I said, ‘You shoot him.’ He said, [laughs] ‘I’ve lost my gun.’ And it was a good job we didn’t shoot him. He was a Dutchman wearing one of them navy blue boiler suits that had been washed and washed [laughs] and just looked like Jerry field grey.
MH: So, that point where you dropped down were you, were you behind German lines then or were you —
BT: It was a very fluid situation. Nobody knew who was where or any, if you understand what I mean. There was no front line or, it was all the time I was in Holland you couldn’t say where you were. You were in safe ground sort of thing.
MH: Yeah.
BT: It, one minute you’d be talking to your own Army sort of thing. The next minute there were Jerries but [pause] we saw, we saw a Jerry, a Jerry Tiger tank. It came looking round. Smelling around. But we had nothing to with the job. Didn’t get involved with it.
MH: What was, what was going through your mind then? You’ve been shot down, you’ve been parachuted, the Germans are trying to kill you on the way down, you’re now not quite sure where you are. What was going through this young man’s mind?
BT: I don’t know what was going through my mind. All I knew, all I could say, think was we’d got to get to the Army. We’ve got to find it [pause] I know it sounds ridiculous but I can’t remember being scared. I should have been. I should have been but I can’t remember being scared. At times now I have nightmares but it didn’t seem to work then.
MH: No. I take it you weren’t given any training how to, you know if you parachuted over enemy territory how to evade the enemy.
BT: Pardon?
MH: Were you given any training to evade the enemy?
BT: We were given lectures. You know. What to do and what not to do but it —
MH: And how did that bear out in reality when you actually got there? Did it actually make sense?
BT: It didn’t bear out because there was no one to help us if you understand what I mean. We didn’t, we didn’t run in to civilians. The only time I saw any civilians during that period was when we landed and we were taken to a farmhouse. They took us. We went in to the farmhouse and there must have been the district in this farmhouse trying to, wanting us, getting round to us you know and they couldn’t do enough for us.
MH: No.
BT: But when, once the Army picked us up I don’t, I don’t think we spoke to a civilian until we got to Brussels.
MH: And your ankle injury. How did that, what was that? What had you done to yourself?
BT: Well, the only thing [pause] I don’t know. I was the only one who was scratched apart from Pete. Pete was killed. I didn’t realise I’d been touched until we landed and then when we dropped off I felt it. But whether [pause] the only thing I could think of was a piece of shrapnel. But where it went heaven knows. There was no, nothing there. Still got the scar for it.
MH: I can imagine.
BT: It wouldn’t heal. Once the scab had been knocked off it wouldn’t heal and I was in dock oh quite a while. I remember the Group MO came to, to visit and he looked at it and they were, our, our, the squadron doc was looking after me and he turned around and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘You can’t do anything else,’ he says. ‘Just keep pouring it in.’ Yeah. But at the time I was under the weather. I was having boils and I had a Whitlow on my finger and that was, that was amusing. I I went home on leave with a Whitlow and that night, oh God I was in agony and my dad came in to me and he said, ‘What’s the matter?’ And I said, ‘My finger.’ ‘He says, ‘Go to the hospital in the morning.’ So I went to Du Cane Road Hospital and they had a look. ‘Oh yes. Sit down. Sit. I’ll send someone to you.’ So I sat down and two blokes came and they were rugby three quarterbacks I think. They were both about seven foot tall and fifteen stone like Peter and they said, ‘Are you the airman with a Whitlow?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Come on.’ And Du Cane Road is a teaching hospital and they took me in a theatre and there are all these seats up there and we sat down at this table and he turned around and he said, ‘Put your finger —', he put a block on the table, ‘Put your finger on there,’ he said, and he sprayed it with some blooming stuff and it was, yes, and he was chatting away quite happily and he picked up a scalpel and he banged on my finger and it just went thud and then he promptly cut it all the flipping way down and wrapped and turned round, ‘Come on.’ And we went to the plaster of Paris place and they put a splint on on my hand. Then they bound my hand up like a boxing glove and I said, ‘How can I get my jacket on?’ Fair enough. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’ll pin your jacket up, put you in a sling. Fair enough. Then he gave me two pills. He said, ‘You’ll want them tonight.’ So, I said, ‘Thanks very much.’ ‘Now, you can go home on the bus.’ ‘Thank you very much.’ So anyway, I went out of the hospital on the bus and I’m standing at the bus stop and these two old ladies standing there. I heard one say to the other, ‘That poor boy,’ she says, ‘I wonder how he got his arm — [laughs] I thought to myself, I wonder if they would smile if they knew it was a Whitlow. But that was it and then for the next four months nobody wanted to know me. I used to go back to camp and oh, nothing. Go away. Go on leave. And I was on leave on and off for about four months. Then what, I don’t know how true it is or what it is but they were on about something that we’d been behind enemy lines and we’d come back and if we went again we could be shot. What it is I don’t know but anyhow, it was—
MH: They didn’t want to be associated with you just in case you got shot down again or something.
BT: No. Anyhow, we they decided that we could [pause] I stayed on leave and I was home on leave with the wife at night. Just got in bed. Gone to bed. The doorbell goes so I go to the door. ‘Yes?’ Telegraph boy. Well, I’d still got a brother in the Army and I thought, Derek. No. “Flight Sergeant Turner.” Oh. “Return to unit.” Oh. The next day I go back to unit. ‘Wing Commander Baker wants you.’ ‘Oh, right.’ Goes to see Wing Commander Baker. ‘Ah, Turner. I want to do some flying.’ ‘Yes,’ What’s that to do with me? ‘But my navigator and my flight engineer are sick.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ ‘Well, Greenwell’s decided he’ll fly with me. You don’t mind do you?’ Well, how the hell do you say no to a wing commander? So, ‘Yes, sir.’ So fair enough. ‘We’re doing a cross country tomorrow.’ Fair enough. So we do a cross country with Wing Commander Baker. Now, my pilot was good. I’m not saying Wing Commander Baker was bad but my pilot was good. And the Stirling that they got ready for us they filled with Australian petrol. So, when we come in to land we’re down the runway. Oh dear. A few nights later he decides we’re doing a bullseye on Leeds so we do a bullseye on Leeds and they put the same petrol in the plane and we come down [pause] oh dear. And Wing Commander Baker turned round, he said, ‘That’s twice I’ve done that.’ And Ginger said, ‘Yes, I know sir. We were with you both times.’ ‘No need to be nasty, Greenwell.’ ‘No sir.’ Turner. 19th of February the tannoy goes. ‘Flight Sergeant Turner report to Wing Commander Baker.’ ‘Yes sir.’ Down to Wing Commander Baker. ‘Ahh Turner. My navigator is better so we don’t need Greenwell.’ So I said ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘But Morgan is still bad.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘Well, I want to operate.’ Oh dear. That’s a bad idea. ‘Yes.’ ‘You don’t mind do you?’ ‘No sir.’ ‘Right.’ So, December, February the 20th and we know the war’s nearly over and they’re trying to keep Jerry this side, this side of the Rhine. They don’t want him to reform on the other side of the Rhine so they’re knocking down all the bridges on the river to stop him and we got the job. So we flew to Holland and we attacked this bridge at the Waal. On the Waal at a place called Rees and it was a nightmare. It was the worst night. The worst trip I ever had. And then just to cap it all Jerry jet jobs were on the job. So we were shot up by the flak and shot down by a Jerry fighter.
MH: Jet fighter that shot you down was it?
BT: And out of the, out of an aeroplane I jumped again. I landed in a pig sty up to my flipping knees and I didn’t know whether I was in Germany or Holland or where I was. I’d no idea. I was on my own. And then a soldier came marching through the blooming door and he said, ‘Where is he?’ I said, ‘Who are you after?’ Oh, he said, ‘You’re English.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘I was told it was a Jerry.’ I said, ‘No.’ So we went back. I went back to them and I was, I was no how. I remember him giving me a glass of rum and they took us back to a place called Tilburg, I think it was. and flew us home in an air ambulance. But Wing Commander Baker and Flight Sergeant Gordon were killed. And that was the end of my flying career.
MH: What were your thoughts the second time you floated down from a plane?
BT: I couldn’t tell you what I thought. I don’t know. I don’t, honestly. As far as I know I was terrified and [pause] at —
MH: What sort of height did you drop from this time? Similar sort of height?
BT: Hmmn?
MH: What sort of height did you parachute from this time?
BT: About seven thousand feet.
MH: Oh, that was a bit further up.
BT: And we were pretty high.
MH: I take it the two that lost their lives were they did they lose their life in the plane or as a result of the plane crashing? Didn’t they get out or —
BT: I don’t know. I don’t know. All I remember is Baker telling us to bale out. The navigator, bomb aimer and the wireless op and myself got out.
MH: What was it like suddenly seeing these jet powered planes? I take it you’d heard about them before then or —
BT: No. It was the nearest thing I could put it down to it’s the same as looking at one of these sci-fi comics. You know. It just didn’t seem real.
MH: No. Extremely quick.
BT: Hmmn?
MH: Were they flying extremely quick?
BT: It seemed they were there and gone you see before you looked, you know. It [pause] it’s, it’s an episode I can’t really remember and I’m not sorry about that.
MH: No. I can appreciate that. So, at that point you then become a twice holder of the Caterpillar Club badge.
BT: I I never got the second one.
MH: Didn’t you? Oh right.
BT: No. I did get the first.
MH: Oh right.
BT: The first, on my jacket. Oh God. Excuse me.
MH: And I take it, do they come from the manufacturers of the parachutes?
BT: The first one [pause] this one the adjutant of the squadron applied for it and got it for all of us. But the second one I heard nothing at all.
MH: Can I take a picture of that before we finish, Bert? If that’s ok?
[pause]
MH: So they owe you one then.
BT: Yeah, they owe me, they owe me the train fare from blooming Paddington to Keevil. Well, my dad my dad paid.
MH: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that was the, that was it for your flying then after that second one.
BT: Yeah. I finished flying then. I went to [pause] I went to Gillingham in Kent in the office. I was tootling around there and the Warrant Officer Powell came to me one day. He said, ‘Ah, Mr Turner.’ I’ve got my WO for Arnhem. When I got back to Shepherd’s Grove, I think. Shepherd’s Grove. Not, yeah Shepherds Grove, the wing commander was a South African captain and he turned around and told, he said, and he turned around, he told me, ‘I’ve put you in for an award,’ he said, ‘They refused it. So you’re having your warrant. Money will do you more good anyhow.’ And that was it and I went to Gillingham and Warrant Officer Powell came to me. He says, ‘I’ve found a job for you.’ I said, ‘Oh, yes?’ ‘Yes.’ He says, ‘There’s an orderly room at Roborough.’ He said, ‘I want you to go there and run it.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not —’ ‘Oh, you’ll manage.’ He said, ‘You’ll manage.’ He said, ‘You’re in charge.’ I said, ‘Am I in charge?’ He said, ‘You’re the only one.’ So I went to a little aerodrome just outside Plymouth. A place called Roborough, and I think it was run by ex-aircrew. Every, everywhere you looked there were aircrew that had finished. Of course, the war had finished and it was, it was, it was an eye opener. We went there and as I say I was orderly room clerk and station warrant officer. The CO was a chap called Hill. Henry Horace Hill. He was a flight lieutenant observer and he used to mess at Plymouth and he used to travel by motorbike and sidecar from Roborough to Plymouth.
MH: When did your demob come along then?
BT: Yeah. Then demob came and I went bus conducting. I went down the mines. I tried, I went to oh, TI Industries, Simplex and I couldn’t settle anywhere. I don’t know why. But then I went to a place Cartwright and Edwards to, on a pot bank. And I started dipping and finished up on the kilns and that was it. I finished up. I did thirty five years working for a pot bank.
MH: Any thought of going back to London? Was it always that your wife —
BT: It’s never bothered me. I like, I’ve been down to visits but when mum died the family broke up. It, of course the problem was we were all away from home at the time. I mean my brothers were in the Air Force, in the Army and I married as I say and I came up to Stoke on Trent. Derek married and he went to Manchester. We corresponded for a bit and then then somehow or other it, you know how it is. Things don’t go as you plan and we lost touch. I don’t know where any of my family are now [pause] No idea. But [pause] I haven’t, I don’t miss London at all.
MH: So when we just go back to when you, just for my benefit and I suppose the people who will listen to this interview. What was your, what did your job entail on the Stirling? What was your —
BT: Main, mainly you were watching petrol consumption and changing tanks.
MH: To balance the plane out and —
BT: No. For, a Stirling’s got fourteen petrol tanks.
MH: Right.
BT: At least. It can fit another six. I know it sounds stupid but it is. There’s a little bomb bay at the root of the wings and it’s room for three bombs. Or three petrol tanks in each.
MH: Each side.
BT: Wing each side. We had, one holds three hundred and twenty gallons, two hundred and forty and then as it gets towards the it’s [pause] [unclear] of petrol but you had to change tanks. But you always got rid of your small tanks first.
MH: Now then, you ended up flying, was it Stirling 4s was the last Mark you flew?
BT: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: Now, were they, how did they differ from the, I think you said you flew Stirling 1s at the start, didn’t you?
BT: Well, there was no front turret and there was no mid-upper turret on a Stirling 4. They took the turrets out. And there was a big hole cut towards the rear of the fuselage where the paratroops jumped or dropped out.
MH: And that, the plane was principally marked as a Mark 4 because they did it for parachutists and —
BT: Yeah.
MH: Dropping supplies.
BT: Yeah.
MH: And what have you.
BT: Yeah.
MH: So did you lose some of your crew from when you first started?
BT: Oh yes. We lost a mid-upper gunner. Yeah. A mid-upper gunner that we’d [pause] Teddy Roper. We lost him. I never heard what happened to Ted. He, he was an Essex boy as I remember. Essex or Kent. And he had a girlfriend Penny [ Lopey ]
MH: The things you remember.
BT: The things you think of.
MH: Yes. And did you keep in touch with any of your crewmates after the war?
BT: The last one, Leo. The last one.
MH: Yeah. Leo Hartman.
BT: Leo Hartman. He died at Christmas.
MH: Oh dear.
BT: Yes. I’ve got a copy of his logbook.
MH: Was that the logbook you mentioned to me earlier on when we first met?
BT: Hmmn?
MH: That you had lost your logbook.
BT: Yeah.
MH: And you said that you had a copy of one of your crewmate’s.
BT: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: So, you kept in touch with Leo all the way through up until he passed away.
BT: Well, we did. Just Leo didn’t go on the last one. Leo. Leo, when we came back from Arnhem Leo went to London and he never, he never, he went to Uxbridge and stayed there ‘til the end of the war ‘til he was demobbed. But we kept in touch. I kept in touch with Pete Findlay until he died. But McQuiggan wasn’t interested and Ginger, the navigator he was too far away. He was up, he lived at Fencehouses in Durham.
MH: Right.
BT: That way. And we went in, he went to take up, to a pub. Became a landlord I believe. He got a DFM for the trip we did to France and he died of cancer. Thirty odd years. He was sixty something when he died. And I I met Pete [Bodes] brother and his wife.
MH: That was your rear gunner.
BT: Yeah.
MH: Was that a difficult meeting?
BT: Yes. They want particulars and it’s not nice. Did he get, did it hurt? I don’t think being hit by a cannon shell hurts. But, he had a girlfriend on the station, a WAAF and she had that you know that purple mark on her face.
MH: A birthmark.
BT: Yeah. And it was rather bad and she’d been up to, for some reason and [pause] and I had [pause] when you get talking like this it, it comes back.
MH: Like I said before if there are things you don’t want to talk about then just say.
BT: But, no. It [pause] it’ll pass.
MH: So, we’ve got all these thirty one, thirty two missions that you’d fly in the end.
BT: Thirty one. Yeah.
MH: What was life like in between? You watch these television films of, sort of flying boys down the pub and then back to reality.
BT: I get so cross at times when I watch these films. It’s, I mean I watch the Dambusters and I’m ready to hit someone.
MH: Because it’s not how it was.
BT: They get it so wrong. Well, I mean they’re, they’re supposed to have advisors and when they get the basics wrong it’s time to pack up. Now, you take the Dambusters. It’s nothing. It’s wrong, but it’s nothing. They’re having egg and bacon before they go. They sit down for a meal in the film. You didn’t have egg and bacon before you went. You had egg and bacon when you came back and blokes used to joke, ‘Can I have your egg if you don’t come back?’ And if you look, you watch there’s three Lancasters taking off in line abreast on a grass aerodrome. On a grass airfield. Carrying mines? They’d dig in.
MH: You’d take off one after the other on a hardstanding. A hard strip.
BT: Used tarmac runways. You know, I mean it’s only [pause]
MH: But that’s film for you, isn’t it?
BT: Yeah. Oh yeah.
MH: I think we’ve, we’re probably coming very close to the tape running out. Not that there’s a tape
BT: Yeah.
MH: But another fascinating hour and a half. Is there else that you think you need to tell me? You want to tell me.
BT: I don’t think so. It’s, I mean, I’ve always [pause] I’ve always thought I had a good war. I had a pretty clean war. It’s only when I think of the last op that I get a bit maudlin. It, I was lucky. But I met some decent people. I, we go, we are very fortunate we’ve, we’ve got in with a group, “D-Day Revisited,” and we go to France every June. And we go to Arnhem because I make a point in September of going to Arnhem and going and seeing the lads. I take a wreath to the skipper and he’s still the skipper seventy odd years later. But we go to, go to a little village in France, Arromanches and we were there this year and Pete turns around to me and said, ‘Bert, two blokes here want to shake hands with you.’ I thought right. Turned around and there’s a group captain and an air vice marshall. And I turned around to him, I said, I pointed to groupie, I said, ‘That’s God.’ I said, ‘And that one I don’t know.’ But I mean they’re nice chaps. They’re, they talk to me as if we’re equals and all the rest. You wouldn’t dream of it happening [laughs] I mean, I don’t, I don’t think I spoke to our group captain, and I couldn’t tell you his name, in all the time I was on the squadron.
MH: Different times.
BT: But we meet these chaps and they seem to be interested.
MH: I don’t think they seem to be, I think they are Bert. I think they are being polite.
BT: Did you say you wanted a photograph?
MH: Right. Right. So, I think I’ve asked all the questions. Thank you for giving your time. I know there’s some difficult things we’ve talked about but as you say, you know —
BT: I’m sorry if it’s been boring.
MH: Quite the opposite. It’s been fascinating. Its been absolutely fascinating. It’s been a privilege to sit and listen to you.
BT: It’s —
MH: And I think the important thing is in the future people will be able to listen to your words.
BT: Oh.
MH: And the things that you did, and I think we have to remember you were a twenty something young man, weren’t you?
BT: Well, this is it. We were. We were kids. We were, we were enjoying ourselves. We, it was a big adventure.
MH: Yeah. When you get older you start to look back and think well as you get older and experience affects you do different things.
BT: Oh, that’s a different matter, isn’t it?
MH: Yeah. It is. Right. I’m going to turn the tape recorder off. We’ve been going for oh an hour and twenty six minutes so its twenty five past, twenty six minutes past two.
BT: Oh, are you alright, Peter?
PB: I’m alright. Yeah.
MH: Peter has been very well behaved. I’m very grateful, Peter for your time as well.
PB: You’re welcome.
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 Bert Turner
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Martyn Horndern
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATurnerHA180829, PTurnerHA1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Description
An account of the resource
Bert Turner was a member of the Air Training Corps before the war. He volunteered for the Air Force and was called up 2 August 1942. After training he became a flight engineer with 196 Squadron. He flew some bombing and mine laying operations before the squadron was transferred to Transport Command. He remembers dropping supplies to the Special Operations Executive and paratroopers on D-Day. His Stirling was hit by anti-aircraft fire on a supply drop over France but they managed to return to England. He was later shot down by Fw 190s over Holland. His rear gunner was killed he describes how they were attacked while on their parachutes. He was wounded in the ankle by shrapnel. He evaded and met up with Allied troops. After returning to operations after a lengthy convalescence, he was shot down a second time by a Me 262 over Germany. He discusses the role of the flight engineer on Stirlings. When Bert returned to London he decided he was so close he would go and visit his father not knowing that he had received the telegram saying he was missing presumed killed. When he saw his son he thought he was a ghost and passed out.
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Dorset
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
Netherlands--Arnhem
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
Format
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01:23:36 audio recording
Contributor
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Julie Williams
1657 HCU
196 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
Caterpillar Club
crewing up
evading
flight engineer
Fw 190
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
Me 262
medical officer
military ethos
military service conditions
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Keevil
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Tuddenham
shot down
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/751/10750/PCookJH1701.1.jpg
81323cdafc31bb66e836e5b0ba2201ff
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/751/10750/ACookJH170118.2.mp3
85280a29406287aa006ef455c66449b1
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
Cook, Joseph Henry
J H Cook
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer (1925 - 2018, 1894875 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a n air gunner with 630 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Joseph Cook 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
2017-01-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Cook, JH
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CJ: We’re on. Ok. This is Chris Johnson and I’m interviewing Joe Cook today for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. We’re at Joe’s home in Kent and it’s Wednesday 18th of January 2017. Thank you, Joe for agreeing to talk to me today. Also present at the interview are Vi Jarmin, Joe’s partner. Joe’s daughter Beverley Maltby and her husband Michael. So Joe, thanks very much for talking to us today. Perhaps you could start by telling us about your early life and where and when you were born and your family background.
JC: Very, very simple. I was born in Sidcup in Kent on the 2nd of June 1925. I’m, I’m living with my grandparents for a little while and my mother and father and then we moved. And we moved to Brockley and more or less orientated around Brockley. My early life. I went to school at Blackfen. And then of course I went to the, what do they call it? Basic school. Elementary school. And, and then I got a scholarship for going to Brockley Central School. Brockley Central School was a marvellous school because we took the Oxford General School Certificate and we took the London Chamber of Commerce Certificate of which I’m proud to say I got the Oxford Certificate and I got the forces of it with the London Chamber of Commerce with a Book Keeping Distinction. That was my basic education. Because of the background I was able to go straight into a job. And I went to, oh [pause] I went in to a solicitors I think it was. Something like that. I was only there a couple of days and it fizzled out. Something went wrong. I then ended up in Twentieth Century Fox Films. I found my own job because it paid twice the money that the others did. So, at Twentieth Century Fox Films I was working in the assistant, whatever, I forget what they call it now. Anyway, it was logging films and how much they would produce and etcetera. I was there until I went in the services. I met my first wife, my wife there and we were married obviously in 1945. I wouldn’t marry her until I finished flying because I said, ‘You can’t get married to a cinder.’ Because all aircrew got terribly burned. So therefore I married in 1945. 20th of October. And I produced eventually [laughs] a long time my daughter who is over there. And that is all I’ve produced because my wife had trouble with TB etcetera. So I wouldn’t let her have another child. My fault. I wouldn’t let her have another child. And I was married for forty six years. My partner over there God bless her heart. I’ve been with her for twenty five years. I’m sorry. And I’m still with her.
[recording paused]
CJ: So, Joe. You were working at Twentieth Century Fox after leaving school. So how did you come to join the RAF and when was that?
JC: Well, after leaving school I was conned into the war because I was a fire watcher etcetera. And every night I had to sit up all night fire watching. And then, and what did I do then? How did I, you said how did I come to get in the Air Force? Well, it’s quite simple really. I didn’t want to go in the Army. Quite simple. But I always fancied flying. I wanted to fly. But I, at that time there was no vehicle to take me flying so I joined the RAF. Now, I had to volunteer for aircrew. As you know they were all volunteers. I volunteered and they accepted me straightaway because of my education. And I had no problem with that. My three days medical at Euston House went through ok. Fine. No problem. So there I am. I am sent to St John’s Wood, in the recently completed flats as, as a base. And I did my three weeks square bashing and knocking me into making me. They knocked you down so that you [pause] sort of thing was you’d clean your shoes. By the way aircrew always wore shoes. You’d clean your shoes and they were, oh you know you’d bone them and all the rest of it. And then the corporal would come in in the morning and inspect. ‘They’re bloody filthy your shoes. Get them cleaned.’ They, it was there to break you. Right. Then you want me to carry on now? From St John’s Wood I went up to Bridgnorth. Initial training. Which was square bashing and all sorts of funny things. From Bridgnorth I went to Bridlington where I did such things as Morse Code. I had to send and receive Morse Code at ten words a minute. Then Bridlington was a learning base for the, as I said Morse Code and other attributes for the Air Force. I then went from Bridlington. Remember that? Where did I go from Bridlington? Oh, I know. Bridgnorth. Not Bridgnorth. I can’t quite get it.
CJ: Was it Evanton?
JC: Huh?
CJ: Evanton in Scotland. Was that it?
JC: No. No. I went to Scotland for my AGS. I’m just trying to think where I went.
[recording paused]
CJ: So you did your basic training in Bridgnorth, Joe.
JC: Yeah.
CJ: And then Bridlington.
JC: Yes.
CJ: So, how did the training go from there and how were you picked for a particular role?
JC: Well, I wasn’t, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But what I wanted to do was kick Jerry up the rear. And the only way to do it was get in the Air Force and get flying. Well, as I say I went to 8 AGS near Evanton. I was trained as an AG. I was flying in Ansons and then, I always remember flying in the Anson. The first flight I ever made they lined us up. Sprogs. Right. There’s a few of us. Eight of us, I think. We were going to fly that morning. ‘Right. You. You. You and you,’ and then it came, ‘You.’ Me. They gave me a handle. And I looked at it and I said, ‘What’s it?’ He said, ‘Up on the wing.’ I had to get up on the wing. Put this handle in the socket and turn it around to start the engine [laughs] Oh dear. And of course once you got one going on an Anson you can get the other one going. But I was sliding about on the wing because it was frosty that morning. You know what Scotland’s like early morning.
CJ: So how did you come to be selected as an air gunner rather than any other role?
JC: Ah. That was at Euston House.
CJ: Ok.
JC: You were in front of a load of gold braid and he, he said to me, ‘Right. We’ve assessed you. You’ve got everything. We have decided that you will be pilot, navigator or bomb aimer.’ And I said to him, ‘I don’t want it.’ He looked at me. He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘I don’t want it. I want to kick Jerry up the rear,’ as I said. So, he said, ‘Well, we’re losing so many AGs.’ I said, ‘I’ll have it.’ So that’s how I became an air gunner. I had all the qualifications to be a pilot but I didn’t want it. And I said, ‘It will take at least nearly a year to train me as a pilot. It’s too late. The war will be over.’ That was the reason. And he looked at me, the groupie and he said, ‘You silly little sod,’ because at that rate they were losing them, losing them so rapid. Anyway, I decided that I would do that.
CJ: So you were training on Ansons in Scotland. And how long was the training for?
JC: Oh. I got up there in [pause] oh around about Christmas time. And then I was trained at D-Day. Now, I’ve got a little story I can tell you about that. I got my AG brevet. Very proud of it. Parade. Get your brevet. And then we were posted to Operational Training Unit, Silverstone. We got on the train but we didn’t go to Silverstone. The bloody thing kept, sorry it kept going and going and we ended up at Tarrant Rushton in Devon. When we got there they said, ‘You are not allowed to go outside the camp. You are confined to camp. You cannot write any letters. You cannot use the telephone. You cannot do anything.’ Everything hush hush. Of course, we didn’t know. We didn’t realise what was going on. They didn’t tell you, did they? They didn’t tell you anything. Why I was sitting on the train suddenly, oh stay on the train because you’re carrying on. And so therefore what we didn’t know was this, that it was about oh a few days, quite a few days before D-Day. Why were we sent to Tarrant Rushton? It was quite simple. This. They gathered together all the people who had just been, got their wings. Pilots and all the rest of it and they’d sent us to Tarrant Rushton and they sent us to fly clapped out bloody Stirlings. And they were clapped. And when we got there we said, ‘What’s all this? Why are we doing this?’ They said, ‘You’ll find out.’ Wouldn’t say a thing. They found, we found out alright because we had to load these Stirlings up with leaflets. Fly over to Calais. Drop them on Calais and Boulogne etcetera and we were chucking these bales of leaflets out and one bloke said to me, ‘What’s all this about? What are these leaflets saying?’ He said, ‘It’s in French.’ I said, ‘That’s alright. I’ll read it to you.’ And what it was saying, “Get out of Calais. Get out of Boulogne because we are invading and we are going to bomb like hell.” So please, Froggies get out. ‘Get out of Calais,’ etcetera. That’s what it was all about because you know as well as I do it was a spoof. Well, we were chucking these leaflets out and it counted as an op because we were going over, over enemy territory really. That was the first four. And chucking these leaflets out and on the way back of course this bloody old Stirling packed up. One engine packed up. And then we thought well blow this. Nursed it back over the peninsula. The Devon Peninsula. And then another one went. And on a Stirling no chance. Got to get out of it. Got to jump. Which I had to do. So I jumped out of it and come down on a tree. With a Land Girl with a pitch fork at the base of the tree to ram it in me. Wouldn’t believe that I was English. Got the, they sent, a lorry came around and there was the rest of the bods in it. And they took us to the farmhouse and obviously then to the station. But that, that was my initiation. That’s what D-Day was to me. Dropping leaflets for four days on Calais, Boulogne, Liege etcetera. So I had only just been trained. And it was so daft that when D-Day had been going for about a week or two we were posted and we were posted to the Operational Training Unit to be trained [laughs] You know. And went there and went on to Wellingtons. The old Wimpy. God bless her. And I did my training on that. We did cross countries. We did ten hour trips. Not ten hour trips. Eight hour trips etcetera. And I finished my OTU and how did we get crewed up? Easy. Big hangar. Type 2 hangar. Right. A hundred engineers. A hundred AGs, a hundred pilots all in this hangar and then the group captain gets up, gives a little speech and then says, ‘Right. Form yourselves into crews.’ He said, ‘Mingle amongst each other, walk around, pick who you think would be a good one.’ So I, I had a friend with me and I said to him, ‘It seems to me that the tall ones, the pilots, are bloody good. They seem to survive.’ So we looked for a tall pilot. And it happened to be a Canadian. And Mac, so we looked up at him and said, ‘Oi. You got two gunners?’ So he said, ‘No.’ ‘Do you want two?’ He said, ‘How good are you?’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I got eighty four percent on my passing out.’ He said, ‘Oh. I’ll have you.’ So, that’s how it was done. In this big hangar. Then you walked out of there and you were a crew and you were brothers together and just went through it all. You were so close. I can’t explain it. Closer than brothers. The sort of thing was we were booked for ops and then all of a sudden our engineer went sick and he went, turned around to the flight commander and said, ‘I’m not flying.’ He said, ‘No?’ ‘No. Mitch has gone sick. Won’t fly without him.’ ‘Oh. Alright,’ He said, ‘We’ll put a spare crew on.’ That’s how it was.
[recording paused]
CJ: So Joe, you tell me how you were all in a hangar together and sorted yourselves out as a six man crew. So where did you go from there?
JC: Well, this was done at Silverstone. Silverstone in [pause] where was it? I’ve forgotten the name of the county. Anyway, it was at Silverstone. The race track then as it was. And we were flying Wellingtons. As I said a six man crew because it didn’t have a mid-upper turret so you just, you carried the other bloke but you were the one in the turret. Then we, we did all the usual things. Training. Long trips. High level bombing. Gunnery. Etcetera etcetera. And finally you were posted to a squadron and — no. Sorry. Missed a bit. From Silverstone you went to Wigsley. Wigsley was a Conversion Unit. You went from two engines to four. To Wigsley, flying Stirlings. I hate the things. And then from Wigsley you went to a Lancaster Finishing School. And then and at that point we knew we were going on Lancasters. We dreaded the thought of going on Stirlings or Halifax. Halifaxes. So we went to Number 5 Lancaster Finishing School at Syerston. All around Lincolnshire. And then from there we were posted to the squadron. And that’s when I went to East Kirkby. I did all my operations, well twenty six of them. I think, I don’t know. I think it was twenty six from East Kirkby. But I’d already done four from Tarrant Rushton so I’d done my thirty. We were now a fully-fledged crew on a squadron. And on my first trip we’re getting on to this are we? My first trip was the Dortmund Ems Canal. The dear old Dortmund Ems Canal. We used to come up time and time. As fast as they built it up we knocked it down. That was my first trip. You’ll find it in my diary that I wrote. Every time I came back from a trip I sat with pen and ink. Where is it? I sat with pen and ink and wrote down how I felt and all the rest of it. I can’t see it. Oh.
[pause]
JC: There it is. One diary. Now, there’s I’ve lost the other book so there’s only twenty trips in here. I don’t know where it went to. It’s the last one. Last twenty. As I said, Dortmund Ems Canal was five and a half hours. “I felt nervous but got on ok. Saw a Lanc go down and burst into flames in the ground. We did not get coned by tracer or searchlights. I felt pretty fatigued when we got back.” Now, I won’t go right through this because there is too much of it. Now, people say to me, ‘What were the fascinating ones that I did?’ Well, there weren’t really. There was only one target that I personally thought I’d got my lot and that was Politz. Now, Politz is an oil manufacturing conversion place near the Russian border. I went to Politz twice. The second time, and it was a long trip. Ten hours. The second time on the run up to bomb we were running up, steady, steady and all the rest of it and all of a sudden out, a bloody ME Messerschmitt 262 jet came for us and he was putting shells through the top of my turret. He didn’t, he missed us because I had already given Mac evasive action. And as you probably know once you’re attacked the tail gunner takes control of the aircraft and he has to do what he was told. And I gave him a corkscrew and we were lucky there. He went over the top. I’m watching this bloke and it was fifty nine degrees below zero that night. So I’m watching him and let him come in and then I went to open fire and all my four guns were frozen. The oil on the breech blocks, very thin bit of oil had frozen and not one breech block went forward so the guns didn’t fire. And I yelled out to Mac, I said, ‘I can’t fire. I can’t fire. The gun’s useless.’ And he said, ‘Oh. Oh. What’s he doing?’ I said, ‘He’s wheeling around. Wheeling around. He’s coming in for the kill now because he knows that we’re defenceless. My turret has no defensive fire.’ So, I said, ‘That’s it.’ And Mac said, ‘Right. Prepare to abandon aircraft.’ I can remember his words today. So I went to open my turret doors and they’d jammed. I thought. That’s it. This is it. I’m stuck in here. I’ve got an ME262 wheeling around, coming in for the kill. It’s my lot. This is death. This is what death is all about. And then all of a sudden there was a bloody great explosion. We were splattered with bits. What had happened the rear gunner and I didn’t even know the Lanc was there. He got him in his fuel tanks and up he went. And we were splattered with debris. And I yelled out to Mac, ‘Enemy aircraft destroyed. Enemy aircraft destroyed.’ These are my actual words because I can remember them as if it was yesterday. And he said. ‘Right. Resume stations.’ Thank Christ for that otherwise I’d still be up there. And that’s my worst trip. Politz. I had others. Now, in, in here you will see that Heimbach Dam. Even, we went to a dam to blow it up which we were a success at blowing up. In my diary I say, “ME109 sighted just before target. Focke Wulf 190 passed underneath at two hundred feet. Attacked another aircraft to starboard.” Then as we, once again we used bombs on this. Not the bouncing bomb. Heimbach Dam. We ran up to the dam and there was a bloke, well a kite further down. We were on the run up. And they’d got two blooming great guns on the ramparts and they were pointing at a set point of our, where would go in for a run up. So that bloke I said was ahead of us. They got him. Blew him to bits. I thought ooh. But they couldn’t reload the guns quick enough because they were a heavy gun. We went over the top. We dropped our bombs and I saw the dam go. I saw it break and go. We, we got a direct hit fortunately and it was well worth it to see that dam go. But then people would say, ‘Oh, you were a Dambuster.’ No. I was not. I was not a Dambuster. Yes, I went and blew a dam up yeah but that doesn’t make me a Dambuster. When you think of a Dambuster you think of 617 squadron and nothing else.
CJ: So what was it like on the station for — perhaps you can take us through when you knew when you were going on ops. What was the atmosphere like? And what sort of preparation did you do before you went out on a trip?
JC: Before you went out on a trip if you were billed for ops that night then you went to the crew room and your flight commander of each section like gunnery, like engineering, like w/ops etcetera. You were all [pause] what’s the word? You were, you were given all the, all the gen and all the griff and the big map on the wall and that was the first time that you knew where you were going. There’s a sequel to that because we never knew where we were going. Blooming ground staff did. Because we used to go up to the ground staff and say, ‘Oi. What’s the petrol load?’ And he’d turn around and he’d say, ‘Sixteen eighty.’ Oh, got a short trip tonight. Oh, lovely. But if he turned around and he said, ‘Twenty one fifty four.’ That’s two thousand one hundred and fifty four gallons of fuel. That is a long trip. You’re going to be up there just over ten hours. And in the cold, I mean I below zero all the time virtually. Thirty below zero. But you wore an electrically heated suit. The trouble was typical of a lot of equipment your right hand would burn, your left hand would freeze. Your right foot would be [laughs] the same conditions sort of thing. And in the end you used to switch if off. But you had another suit under it. And under that you had silk underwear etcetera. And a naval white sweater. So it was just about tolerable. I never got frostbite fortunately but I had five pairs of gloves on. You’d wonder how I pulled the triggers but I did. It was the cold that used to get you. Now, when you look at the turret the one I used to fly in anyway, you will see that all the Perspex has been taken out. There’s nothing there. It’s to open air. Completely. Now, why did we do that? Simple. If you got a tiny mark on that Perspex, just a little mark or whatever you’d be there. So took all the Perspex out for clear vision and you were to open air.
CJ: And this was the mid-upper turret you were in.
JC: No. The rear gunner.
CJ: The rear. I beg your pardon.
JC: I had four Browning machine guns. Just to sequel that I had four Browning machine guns. I had five thousand rounds per gun. I had twenty thousand rounds of ammunition and I could only fire a few seconds. Otherwise they get red hot.
CJ: So you were saying about the briefings and when the curtain was pulled back —
JC: Yeah.
CJ: You knew where you were going.
JC: Yeah.
CJ: Do I assume that some places were considered easier targets than others?
JC: Oh yes. Yeah. Because you sort of think the tape, the red tape would be going across the map and it would end at Chemnitz. And you’d hear the blokes go ahh. Or Berlin again. Because this friend of mine, Johnny Chatterton, he went to Berlin so many times that they gave him a season ticket. Oh dear.
CJ: So that, are there any other notable raids that you remember? Any notable trips?
JC: Any notable trips?
CJ: Trips that you went on that stood out there.
JC: Yes. There’s another one in here. I went to Rositz. Synthetic oil. I went to Politz. I went to a lot of them. Now, at Politz where I nearly copped my lot and I really did. Now, I’m saying there if I may just briefly read this, “Target Politz oil installation. Flak fairly heavy. Red cannon fire continuous over Sweden. Searchlights. Some in target area and over Denmark. Fighters. Two JU88s seen over target. JU88 shot down and destroyed by us.” What really happened was that the JU88, he came up and I said to the skipper, ‘Whatever he does, you do.’ And if he, in other words if he dives you dive with him and keep him in the sights all the time. So mid-upper gunner and myself I raked the canopy. Killed the crew instantly. And that was it. Down she went.
CJ: Ok.
JC: That was a JU88, and that was at Politz.
CJ: So then you, you said you finished your thirtieth op with that squadron because you’d already done four before.
JC: Yeah.
CJ: So, how did it feel when you’d all done your thirtieth?
JC: Well, I can’t explain it because you see we were so used to expecting to die. You didn’t expect to come back. You didn’t expect to do thirty. You were elated. Yeah. Obviously you went in the mess and got a few sherbets down [laughs] Oh, what was I going to say? [pause] There’s little incidents that happened all the time. Such as crew bus. Two crews in the bus. The old crew bus. And it just started going around the perimeter track and one crew their bomb aimer more or less, I don’t know what he was doing. Ah. So he ran after the bus and tried to jump on it. He didn’t. He missed. Cracked his skull. That was it. And of course you’d the sequel of the egg. You know about the egg. Of course you do. When you came back from an op you got an egg. You didn’t get bacon. You got an egg. And it was looked forward to. ‘Cor, crikey I’ve got an egg tonight [laughs] you know, when you got back. But the jokey, jokey thing is that this actually happened. The bloke next to you and he says, ‘Eh mate,’ he said, ‘If you don’t get back tonight can I have your egg?’ And then another thing that happened which aircrew were very boisterous. One bloke went round the back of the servery and he pulled the string of the WAAF’s overall. Well, it was so hot in the mess the overall opened, didn’t it? And she’s leaning forward putting an egg with a slice. You can imagine can’t you. Plop. Now, the other thing concerning WAAFs was we were always playing tricks. One bloke had the brilliant idea he got a bit of wood square and in every hut there was an iron, oh what do you call it? Fire.
CJ: Stove.
JC: Stove. Yeah. So what does he do? He climbs up on to the roof. It was a flat roof for the WAAF quarters. He climbs up on the roof. He gets this bit of wood and puts it on the chimney and holds it down. Then he [laughs] after a few minutes the doors fly open and all the WAAFs come charging out in their underwear. And it was, it was funny you know because they’d got their civvy underwear on.
CJ: How did you feel Joe when you had, when you came back and there were empty tables?
JC: Well —
BM: He didn’t think about it.
JC: I didn’t think about it. I’ll give you an instance of it. Two crews to a hut virtually. Then two crews to a hut. You come back after an op. You’re dead tired. You’d had your egg. You’d gone up the road to the hut, get in the hut, get in the pit as we used to call bed and put your head down and you’d sleep. And then all of a sudden there’s a noise. Clank bang bang bong. You put your head up and there’s a whole bunch of SPs. You could always tell because of the arm bands. You’d look up and you’d say, ‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’ ‘Oh, won’t be long. Won’t be long, chiefy.’ That’s what a flight sergeant was called. ‘Won’t be long chiefy. Just taking the other crew’s gear out.’ This is 3 o’clock in the morning. ‘Well, what’s happened?’ ‘Oh. Well, they got the chop last night.’ Put your head down and go to sleep again.
CJ: So, you finished your thirty ops. And what did you do after that? After you’d over your sherbets.
JC: Well, I wanted a job obviously. I applied to Cossor to Lissen, all, all the old radio manufacturers because of, that’s another thing you didn’t know. I was a radio amateur as well and I had a radio amateur’s licence. So I applied and I thought I’d be in there. Didn’t want to know. ‘Sorry. Can’t give you the job.’ Well, what’s wrong?’ You know, ‘I’ve got City and Guilds in radio.’ ‘What’s — ’ ‘Sorry can’t give you. The reason being. You’re ex-aircrew.’ That was the reason. You were a bloody pariah. You’d been killing people sort of thing. Of course, they’d been over here killing us. I mean I used to say to them, ‘Exeter, Plymouth, Hull,’ etcetera. Shall I go on?’ But of course that [pause] funny us English.
CJ: So after your thirty ops you were demobbed then, were you?
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
CJ: Ok. And then you were looking for a job.
JC: Yeah. And I couldn’t get one. So there was, friends of mine had come out of the Army. A couple of them. They were in to radio and whatnot and we discovered that radiograms as we used to call them or if you could get a radiogram so we said there’s a market here. We’re in. What we did we got hold of all the old turntables. Plenty of them about. And then we built the radio part and the amplifier and we had, knew a bloke who made cabinets. So wooden cabinets to house the radiogram and we were making a damned good business out of it. And then what happened then? Oh yeah. [pause] Because of the radio business a firm down in Barking, Essex they’d heard of me because a, once again a friend of a friend and they said, ‘Well, would you come and set up our radio equipment?’ Which I did. Then I thought to myself well I don’t know. I can do better than this really. Because I’d got the, what do you call it the [pause] the knowledge as well as being able to make the radios and all the rest of it. I got all that so we, I decided I could do better. And I just put a word around and before I knew it Vidor at Vidor at Erith came after me and said, we want you sort of thing. And I went to Erith, Vidor as a buyer. Because of my knowledge and because of my mechanical aptitude I became a technical buyer at Vidor when they were making the little portables. And then while I was there I was head hunted by Decca. And Decca came after me and said, ‘We’ve heard all about you. We know what you do and you know, makes you tick,’ and I became the, in the Decca radio and television side I became the chief buyer for the bits and pieces. And then to finish the story I, I was there, oh quite got a long time. And then once again a friend of mine I worked with at Vidor he wanted to come and see me. He did and he stayed until about midnight and I wondered what the hell was going on. And then I said, ‘Hey Jim, what are you up to?’ So he said, ‘I’m offering you a job ain’t I?’ And I said, ‘But you can’t match what Decca’s giving me at the moment.’ He said, ‘Try me.’ And I did. And he said, ‘Right. I want you. I want you to set up a company with departments and all the rest of it because we have a device which we — ’ A device which they’d patented. How to measure or weigh by means of air pressure. Not electric but air pressure. Now, this was a good thing. I saw the potential because all the big manufacturers of, that were using, making things which were explosive. That was the answer. So we got going into a very good business and it, it really went well until, until twenty years later. The electronic boys found out how to do it. Make it spark. Spark positive. Whatever you’d like to call it. In other words if there was a spark there wouldn’t be an explosion. So they were beating us then at our own game and unfortunately we went down this pan. Or the company did. By that time I was a director of that company. I was also a director of five others. So I took their little engraving, well part it we owned was an engraving company. So I took that and I went up to Leicester. That’s where it was based. There was only two people. I made the third. And I worked away and I got contracts for BBC. People like that. Big contracts. And once again I was doing all right. So I worked away there and sort of set myself up for a pension by an annuity which I’ve still got today. And then of course time to retire. There you have it.
CJ: There you go. And I think you said earlier that you, you didn’t marry until the war was over. Was that right?
JC: That’s right. I said to my late wife, ‘I will not marry you. Not until I finish flying because I don’t want you to be left with a cinder.’ Because aircrew used to get horribly burned and I wasn’t going to have that. That’s why I didn’t. So October ’45 we were married. And that’s the bit. Married. The vicar was available. Just got hold of him. It was the big church in Brixton. Acre Lane where the big church was and we were married in that church. Now, we managed to get the vicar but we didn’t have a choir, we didn’t have anything like that. We didn’t, we didn’t even have a car to take us. We had a car but halfway there because of the war and bald tyres it got a puncture and we had to walk the rest of the way to the church. And we got married the 20th of October 1945. And I was married for forty six years. Forty seven years. Then you know this. I’ve told you the story about Vi and I and the motorbikes.
CJ: So I think you said you had a common love of motorbikes.
JC: Yeah.
CJ: And Vi lost her husband as well.
JC: Yeah. What I did, when we said oh well we’ll get together we did. But to get married was such a mishmash I can’t, I don’t, I won’t explain it now but it caused a lot of problems or would have done. So we became partners. And I said to Vi, ‘We’re going to have a look at the world.’ And she’d not, so she’d been to Israel. Where else did you go love? You went to Israel. Where else?
VJ: Everywhere that we could.
JC: Eh?
VJ: Everywhere that we possibly could get.
JC: Well, yeah that’s when I said to her, ‘Right. Well, we’re going to see as much of the world as we can,’ and we did. And we went, that’s why we’ve been to Canada, the states. You name it.
CJ: And did you carry on biking on after the war?
JC: Oh yeah, yeah. Carried on biking. After the war. You see because my friend Stanley was Vi’s husband.
CJ: So what was your favourite bike?
JC: Hmmn?
CJ: What was your favourite bike?
JC: Well, my favourite bike was a Vinny. A Vincent. But my wife wouldn’t let me. They had them. They had one. They had a Vincent. Look. There’s one on the wall up there. They had them. But my wife said, ‘No. No. It’s too fast. No. No,’ she said, ‘I’ll leave you if you get one of those.’ No. I didn’t have one. I had a Triumph. A Triumph 650. Which wasn’t bad. I used to get a fair old speed out of it.
CJ: And coming back to the RAF did you keep in touch with the rest of the crew after the war?
JC: Oh yeah. Yes. I did. But gradually, unfortunately the engineer died of [pause] Oh dear. Cancer. It was cancer, wasn’t it?
VJ: Yeah.
JC: He died. And then I lost touch because well a lot of them disappeared. I’ve since discovered that I’m the only one alive. The rest have gone.
MM: When did Mac die?
JC: Eh?
MM: When did Mac die?
JC: I can’t remember.
VJ: About three or four years.
JC: When was it?
VJ: About four years ago.
JC: Eh?
VJ: Four. Four years.
CJ: Four years ago.
JC: Four years ago. Yeah.
CJ: So I gather you went up to East Kirkby for Mac. Is that correct?
CJ: Yes.
CJ: What was that all about?
JC: Well, his daughter was scattering his ashes in the little field of Remembrance up there. That’s why I went up there. We all went up there. There was a gang of us. Of course, scattered his ashes. I simply broke down.
CJ: And were you in a Squadron Association?
JC: Oh yes. It’s in this. Plenty of them. I’m in the Squadron Association and I still get a newsletter every year. I used to go up to the dinner and dance and whatnot. I used to. Now, I couldn’t. So —
MM: You tell him about Johnny Chatterton and Mike Chatterton.
JC: Well, Johnny Chatterton was the test pilot 630 Squadron. He’d just finished his second tour. He was looking for a crew. We’d finished ours and he said, ‘I’m going to take you over pro tem.’ And he did. He took us over for [pause] oh, I don’t know. About a year. Something like that. And finished our time at 630. Disbanded in July. July ’45. So when we disbanded that was it. Johnny tried to get the rest of the crew to go with him but they wouldn’t have it. They wouldn’t have it.
MM: But his son flew the Memorial Flight, didn’t he?
JC: Oh yeah. Mike Chatterton was, was also in the flying game if you like and he, he used to fly the Lanc. Not fly it. Well, he did but —
CJ: This was the BBMF Lancaster.
JC: Yeah. He flew that but the one at East Kirkby when they first got it running, the four engines and he did the first taxi run. When he finished the taxi run he said, ‘I had a bloody hard job to hold it down,’ he said, ‘It wanted to get in the air. Wanted to take off. I had to hold it down.’ Now, Mike Chatterton, he became a wing commander I think. He’s retired now, of course. The Chattertons own the farm which is near East Kirkby actually. Now, that’s a funny thing you see because Johnny Chatterton was born in a little house which is in, was in the middle of East Kirkby.
CJ: What a coincidence.
JC: Yeah.
CJ: Now, have you anything else you’d like to tell us, Joe?
JC: I’m just having a think. What I’m me and my, my beloved partner are carrying on. We’re still together and we don’t know how long because she’s eighty seven. Aren’t you?
VJ: Six.
JC: Eighty six.
MM: She’ll kill you if you don’t know.
JC: And of course I’m ninety one. You had to be that age to do what we’d done because it was at the end of the war. I can add, people say, ‘Well, were you frightened?’ Etcetera. No. Not a bit.
MM: Would you do it again, Joe?
JC: Oh, of course not. I’ve got more sense.
CJ: Well, thanks very much for talking to us today, Joe. That was brilliant. Thank you very much indeed.
JC: Yeah. Right.
[recording paused]
CJ: So, tell me Joe did you ever get wounded when you were flying on ops?
JC: Very slightly. I wouldn’t say I really got wounded. What happened was that the flak that came up, came through the turret and caught my right outer gun. In doing so it knocked the back plate off which has the return spring etcetera. And it’s the buffer plate for the [pause] oh dear. I’ve forgotten the name of the —
CJ: The breech.
JC: Eh?
CJ: The breech.
JC: No. It goes backwards and forwards.
CJ: The bolt.
JC: At a fast rate.
CJ: Ok. The firing pin.
JC: Eh?
CJ: The firing pin.
JC: No. No. No. It’s the breech block.
CJ: Ok.
JC: And the breach block came back and came straight out and landed in my lap actually after it had hit the side of my head. Taken my helmet. It took, you know the helmet round bit. The telephones, if you like. Took that off and creased the side of my head and when we went to get debriefed chappy there said, ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, ‘Debrief quick,’ he said, ‘You’ve got to, better go up sick quarters because you’re bleeding.’ I went up sick quarters and the, I don’t know who it was in charge. I can’t remember. But they cleaned up the, where the wound if you like. Cleaned it up and then looked at it and he put an adhesive plaster or a tape on it. Took one step back and said, ‘Yeah. Yeah. Fit for flying tomorrow.’
CJ: Well, thank you for that Joe.
[recording paused]
CJ: So, Joe would you like to tell us about any incident when you actually shot an aircraft down?
JC: Yes. I can because I have my diary which I wrote in. Every time I came back I wrote what it was like. So I can tell you that on the 8th and 9th of February ’45 the target was Politz which was an oil installation north of Stettin. And I go on to say, “The flak was fairly heavy. Red cannon fire continuous over Sweden. Searchlights, some in target area and over Denmark. Two Junkers 88s seen over target. Then Junkers 88 shot down and destroyed by the mid-upper gunner and myself and the bomb aimer two minutes before bombs gone. This was a very tiring trip being airborne for nine hours forty five minutes. Flown over for, eighteen hundred miles. Crossing Sweden and Denmark and the Baltic. The Swedish AA fire was very accurate and a lot of ‘dive ports’ had to be given to avoid it. That was two minutes from the run up to the bombing run. Then the mid-upper sighted a Junkers 88 on port beam level. The mid-upper and bomb aimer opened fire. The 88 tried to drop behind. I yelled out to the skipper, ‘Throttle back. Whatever he does you do. Don’t let don’t let him go up or down or sideways or anything.’ And then at approximately range is seventy five yards I fired in to the canopy and killed the crew. Both the gunners, the other two other than myself kept firing and strikes observed on both engines and it eventually broke away and the bomb aimer saw it crash in the target area. And it was reported also by other crews. Numerous explosions and thick black smoke with flames intermingled came up from the target. Visibility was very good. No cloud. And marking was bang on. No doubt Politz was well and truly pranged this time. It seemed ages in the air. Especially on the return across the North Sea. There was not much AA fire over Denmark but Swedish gunners were very active. No fighters were, were observed after the 88. This provided enjoyment of aerial warfare.”
Well, thanks very much Joe.
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 Joseph Henry Cook
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Chris Johnson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-01-18
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ACookJH170118, PCookJH1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:04:02 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Completing school and moving on to work at 20th Century Fox Films, he worked as a fire watcher at the beginning of the war before joining the Royal Air Force. He states that he did that because he always wanted to fly and didn’t want to join the Army. He was sent to St. John’s Woods, for square bashing, which he thought was to ‘break’ the aircrews, before completing his initial training at RAF Bridgnorth and then onto RAF Bridlington to learn Morse code. He turned down being a bomb aimer in Anson and trained as an air gunner instead, after being told that they had the highest loss rate. He eventually travelled to RAF Tarrant Rushton just before the D-Day landings, being sent to drop leaflets over France in old Stirlings. Upon completing one of his first four operations, he baled out and landed in a tree. Joe was transferred to Wellingtons, flying training eight-hour trips. Joe also recounts several experiences on operations, including two near misses and flying at low temperatures. He didn’t think about losses, purely as they were so tired. Decommissioned in July 1945, Joe struggled to find work following the war, with people not hiring him as they believed he had killed people. He remained in touch with his crew and he also joined the squadron association. He states that he was never frightened throughout the war, but that he wouldn’t do it again, as he has more sense now.
Contributor
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Sam Harper-Coulson
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Germany
Poland
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Urft Dam
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-07
630 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bale out
bombing
crewing up
fear
Fw 190
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Me 109
Me 262
military ethos
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
propaganda
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Silverstone
RAF Syerston
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/177/11356/LBattyPH220759v1.2.pdf
14a45ff205dd3cf87ee5b5b106fa8586
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
Batty, Philip
Phil Batty
P Batty
Description
An account of the resource
19 Items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with Philip Batty (b. 1925). He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis early in the Second World War, his wartime service with 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner, and his long post war career. The collection also includes a number of group photographs of airmen after training, photographs of aircraft in southern Africa, his log book and propaganda material.
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
2016-10-14
Identifier
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Batty, P
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
Philip Batty's flying log book for navigators, air bombers, air gunners and flight engineers
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book for navigator’s, air bomber’s, air gunner’s, flight engineer’s for Philip Batty, wireless operator, covering the period from 7 February 1944 to 31 October 1949. Detailing his flying training, post war flying and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Madley, RAF Staverton, RAF Dumfries, RAF Husbands Bosworth, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Sturgate, RAF Linton, RAF Weathersfield, RAF Tarrant Rushton, RAF Silverstone, RAF Heany and RAF Thornhill. Aircraft flown in were, Dominie, Anson, Proctor, Wellington, Lancaster, Halifax and C-47. He flew 4 Dodge operations to Pomigliano and Bari with 50 squadron. He also carried out paratrooper, supply drops and glider towing with 297 squadron.
Creator
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Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
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One booklet
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
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LBattyPH220759v1
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
Italy
Zimbabwe
England--Essex
England--Gloucestershire
England--Herefordshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Northamptonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Italy--Bari
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Scotland--Dumfries
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
Zimbabwe--Gweru
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1945-08-21
1945-08-25
1945-09-07
1945-09-10
1945-09-13
1945-09-15
1945-10-02
1945-10-04
1945-10-08
1945-10-10
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
1661 HCU
1665 HCU
297 Squadron
50 Squadron
85 OTU
97 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
C-47
Dominie
Flying Training School
Halifax
Halifax Mk 5
Halifax Mk 7
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Dumfries
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Madley
RAF Silverstone
RAF Staverton
RAF Sturgate
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Weathersfield
RAF Winthorpe
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1071/11528/APerryJE160115.1.mp3
b6c636650aae4fb0f573af0c56f4d4b1
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Perry, Jack
John E Perry
J E Perry
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jack Perry (b. 1920, 617795, Royal Air Force). He served as ground crew with 83 Squadron at RAF Scampton but also flew three operations as an air gunner.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Perry, JE
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: So this is, this is Nigel Moore. It’s the 15th of January 2016. I’m at the home of Mr John Perry in [deleted ] Welwyn Garden City. So, tell me a little bit about your childhood and growing up before you joined the air force.
JP: Very interesting. Yeah. Well, I was born in Wimbledon 1920 and never saw my father because he died before I was registered. My mother died when I was six years old and I went to live with one of her younger sisters in Poplar. All I remember about that was being dressed in a grey suit with a bag. Going to school at Queen’s Road, Wimbledon and passing the Royal Arsenal Co-op where they had all the carts garaged there. That apparently was where my father worked after he came out of the army. And I got, as I say one morning I went to say goodbye to my mother in bed. She was in bed. I just went back and saw my granny coming and I said, ‘Mummy won’t speak to me.’ I went on my way to school. And she’d died of consumption. Apparently my father had died with it before that. Put his down to a result of first war gas according to my cousin later on. She was a bit older than me. Now, I remember my mother’s funeral. We were, my brother and myself and my cousin Winnie. And my mother’s younger sister, Auntie Mabel had a pram. And we weren’t allowed to go to the burial or the funeral so we were on the kerb outside the house. As I say after that I just know I went to one Auntie, Jessie in Poplar. And my brother, who was three years older than me went to Auntie Ethel in Romford. And that’s Winnie’s mother. My cousin. I can’t remember much about it except that we lived in a bungalow on a newly erected square of bungalows. And my mother or my father were either caretakers there. That’s my auntie I should say. I remember the 1926 strike. All the marchers in their peaked caps and corduroy trousers tied at the knees marching. And then apparently my uncle he worked in the docks. East India Docks. Whatever he was. A caretaker or something or other. But anyway, I just remember doing one of two things with my auntie like giving me a bunch of wooden skewers to go and get some sausages from the butcher. And climbing up the iron railings in the tenement buildings that were there empty. The next thing I knew I was in a Church Home. And I remember the morning there I was standing in the room with all the rest of the children that were there and I know I wet myself and I had to go before the head man there. He was in his surplice and that. And I can’t remember much about it except that he had this board on the desk and he give me a hit with it. A Cribbage board it was as I know now. Now all I remember is that I used to be taken from there to school with a young school teacher. Used to take me on the bus every morning to school. Then after that I remember going to, in hospital for me adenoids and tonsillectomy. They were done and I got scarlet fever develop whilst in the hospital. And they took me across the bridge from the hospital to the workhouse and I was in the workhouse there for two weeks in bed, I remember with scarlet fever. And then a lovely old gentleman, I shall always remember him with his beard and that, came and took me away from there to a place at Fairlight, at Hampton Hill in Middlesex. All I can remember about that is that we used to sit around in the evening and he’d play this big phonograph. He’d got a big, with tubular discs. He used to play that in the evening. I remember then from there I was boarded out to a footballer in Hamptons. I don’t know where it was actually but, and all I know is that he and his wife they’d got two daughters and he used to take me with him to the football every, when he went training and playing. He used to sit me in the stands. I’m not sure now, I know they wore blue jerseys. Whether it was the original Wimbledon or whether it was Chelsea. But after a few times there I was taken back into care because, I don’t know the reason why but I was picked up with this social worker in a big browny red Talbot motor and taken to New Malden in Surrey. Children’s Home. There because I was born in Surrey so I was their responsibility. I remember that. When I apparently showed signs of bad temper or something or other they used to put me in the gas cupboard under the stairs and shut the door until I stamped it out and screamed at them. And then I remember I ran away from there, from this New Malden and I got as far as Teddington I think and I was picked up by the police and returned. I was about nine then, I think so [pause] Then I was boarded out again from there. Oh, when, I was labelled uncontrollable what they used to do, one of them, the masters of the house was as a punishment he used to take me down to the shed in the garden where they had a boxing ring rigged up. Put me in there with an older fella to knock me about a bit. To punish me it was. But as I say I loved it all because I loved fighting. And then I got boarded out again to other people. And I was going to New Malden Council School then. And it was somebody in New Malden. She’d already got two boy boarders. One of them was already working. And there again she used to put me in the cupboard under the stairs. And that was full of quart beer bottles. They were drinkers. Both of them. Her and her husband. I didn’t last long there. They took me back to this Children’s Home in New Malden. And then I remember I just started to go from council school to the newly built central, the first one, secondary modern school. West Malden Central School. I was put in to a 1b because I was only ten and the starting age was eleven. But this 1b was full of children that had qualified through exams. I was still only eleven. And when I passed the certificate for going to grammar school but at that time, going to grammar school everything you had had to be paid for so being a council boy nobody would do it so I, I didn’t go. I remember I picked up again then to go to, oh as I say when I first went to New Malden Children’s Homes and I was there, first day registered my, met my registrar there. When I was asked my name I said, ‘Jack.’ I was called Jackie. He said, ‘No such name. The name is John.’ So from then, that time on I became John all through until I was still in the air force. I was still as John. But I deviate. I was picked up at this Children’s Home in West Malden by a man and woman. They had, at that time a Vauxhall racing car. There was only fourteen of them built. And I was in the dickie seat at the back and I was taken in that car with them up to Shropshire in the West of England School of Handicrafts. I was eleven then. Because I was a little bit more intelligent or advanced then some of the other inmates there because most of them were cripples or parental rejects for fits and all that sort of thing. And they just started taking people from council homes too. And I was one of them there. Because I was a bit more intelligent I was asked or told to be companion to their only son, Tom Parker. And that’s how it stood. He was, had a governess. And I think I was just in there. I remember, as I grow older I did quite a lot of things. I know I was about fourteen I think, one of the masters who was a Territorial Army lieutenant he got me interested in the military. And I passed an exam to go to the Royal Ordnance Corps. Boy entrant. Gosport. And I was on my way there. Had to go to report to the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry Barracks. And I got to the barracks and he wasn’t there with me, this guy. He’d gone or something. But at the [pause] registrar or whatever they call them in there and they said, ‘We want your parent or your guardian to sign this,’ and I’d got nobody. So, they called up Petton Hall and they came and fetched me back again. And I carried on and I remember doing a lot of carpentry work and also helping rebuild a lorry with a, renewing the engine and that. And then, but they were pumping their own electricity there with a big Crossley gas engine. And I got I had to do that in the morning. It was fed by an anthracite boiler with a drip feed to supply the gas. I did that and then they had a, they started building the stables into another home for people and I got put on to help the electrician there. The electrician, plumber and brick layer from outside and each one had an apprentice if you can call them that. And I had to apprentice an electrician then. That’s where I learned my trade. There until I was eighteen. Another one of the masters got me thinking about going and I remember I went and I caught a train and went to Birmingham. To Snow Hill Station. Come out and there was the RAF recruiting office. I went in there and did the entrance exam. And then I joined the air force at the age of eighteen. I went down to West Drayton. At West Drayton I was kitted out and had my hair cut and the king’s shilling and then I went to Uxbridge for the initial training. Three months. That was drills and things like that. I remember I was good at football. We were playing a match between the squadrons. Flights or what there. And then a Fulham scout was there watching me and I think about half time he left because I finished up on the ground most of the time, being small. Then one of the PTI instructors was a RAF boxing guy and he used to take me down to the boxing ring and have, showed us about because I loved it. The boxing. Until one time I was boxing against a Halton apprentice. Seventeen year old apprentice. And he gave me two pokes and I was on the floor. I thought that’s me finished. I went from there to Henlow camp for electrical training and, and that I was there about eight to ten months. I remember seeing on the flying field there the monoplane and I thought that’s new. And it was a Hurricane that was under test. And that’s the first of the Hurricanes then before they started going. Anyway, I, come the July 1939 all my entry were posted. We hadn’t finished the course or anything but to various sections then. As I say, in this entry that apart from people and an AMIE chappy and another one that’s national, national certificate. Another one who had been an electrician in the theatres. So we were all posted to different places. I went up to Scampton. And I remember going there and joining 83 bomber squadron. That [pause] and initially I was put into a bell tent because accommodation wasn’t ready for months. Apparently they were just starting to receive the Hampden aircraft squadron. They already had one electrician there with the squadron and he’d probably been some time with them. They couldn’t find work for me so I was sent over to work in the battery charging room with a civilian operator there they had. And then I remember the day that war broke out then. September the 4th. They had this tannoy message over there. I was just walking in the, between meals and things and they said, ‘The next time you hear this you have to all go down in the shelters.’ I don’t know what happened after that. I know it was a sunny day. And I just remember that they had another electrician posted to them and he was sent to the battery room and I was taken out of the battery room to the maintenance hangar. And I was there for a bit. We had, I made friends with another Southern Irish chappy that had joined up for the war and then he was my friend then. And I remember he’d done a minor service on a, on a Hampden aircraft and he’d gone on leave and he hadn’t signed up for it. So I, I was told have a look and see or sign for it by the NCO in charge. I checked it over and signed it up. They took it out for engine runs and when they went to start it, it caught fire. And then I know one of them came from Farnborough to inspect it and check what may have happened. And the guy that came was an electrician, Jimmy Phillips that had been on the course with me at Henlow. As I say, he’d been a National Certificate holder so he got on all right. And what they found was that when they pressed the button to start the engine up with the ground plugged in that the relay, something like that, had arced between the things and they’d sparked and caught fire. Anyway, of course they had to, Handley Page sort all that out and put rubber sleeves on so that it couldn’t happen again. And I remember that both Paddy and I were sent out. That more aircraft had come and we were designated to flights. About ten or twelve aircraft in each flight. I was in B flight and then service them. Daily servicing, DIs and sign up for the 700s so that they could fly. I remember that on one occasion I, the, the bombsight selector was showing that a fault, amber light, a fault on something. An earth on the system. And I remember it took me about forty eight hours to trace that right back to where it was, and it was a tail wheel microswitch had frozen solid and causing the short. So Handley Page had to send a work crew out to sort that out and they had a gel mixture in all microswitches exposed to the weather. And then I remember being on duty crew which we used to do. And in the first instance the first duty crew I think I had to go out with the flashing beacon to some distant part of Lincoln. And that was an all night job. Brought it back in the day time. Another time, duty crew, we had just had all the runway lit up with glim lamps that were battery operated lamps for the flare path and goose necks with paraffin and the chance lights, one at each end of the flare path. And we’d just got them all lit up for the aircraft returning from a bombing raid when a Junkers 88 joined the circuit and strafed the runway. It was a pretty sight with green and yellow and tracer bullets. A couple of our returning aircraft gave chase. I don’t know what happened to them or him. And then, oh and so one night when we were, Paddy and I were out and we came, we were on the way back to camp and we came back the top of the airfield way with a mini cab. I can’t remember why. But we were just off the aircraft, airfield and this aeroplane, one of ours, crash landed. Out of, out of the aerodrome precincts in the field. I remember Paddy and I stopped the car and ran over to help them out. And we were the first people there. The ambulance came and everybody was alright. I think that there was a burning thing. Then the ambulance brought us back to camp and took us right back to the Red Cross. Their place because they’d take the passengers to be checked over. I don’t remember much else there [unclear]
NM: You, you mentioned you had three, three flights as a —
JP: Oh yeah. I’ll come to that.
NM: As an unofficial gunner. How, how did that —
JP: I’m coming to that. That was at Scampton with the squadron. Just after the war broke out a DRO was posted up for tradesmen to volunteer for air gunners. To sit in. And three of us from the squadron or flight, or anyway in the billet, volunteered and as I say I was very pleased to. We had a week’s training with the armoury sergeant who was the first air force person I’d seen in khaki. He was a sergeant obviously and he showed us how to strip the guns down, rebuild them, oil them. The Vickers K gun. And then took us out for target practice. And I remember it was stupid it was nothing to do with guns, K-guns or anything like that was a Hispano Suiza, a big gun. And firing at a Messerschmitt 109 target board. And then when we’d done that we were, I personally was given a crew place. And we were designated to go to Kiel and it was a paper, just paper delivery. We were told not to fire the guns unless fired upon or the pilot told us to. Otherwise we were just there to make weight. We did one trip there and another trip with the same purpose to Wilhelmshaven. And then a third trip was a camera study of the pens. The submarine pens at Wilhelmshaven. We were, we were told that we’d got to be registered and, but we were going to have a medical test before we went to do the air to air firing at North Coates. And then when I was having the medical, I remember it was in the barrack room then, the guy just said no and, ‘You’ve failed your medical for eyesight.’ Never did tell me what it was. It was just an eyesight test. So I never qualified. I know one of the other people, he did. I was very proud of the squadron because the 83 Squadron was commanded by Wing Commander Snaith of the Schneider Trophy. Renowned I think. And I used to follow that when I was a kid. And the aircraft. That was, that was alright until I got posted away and found myself up at Turnhouse in Scotland and there I was put on the, into an office. K4 area. I was, I had to be interviewed by the group captain of the Turnhouse. And then we, he had us go to him and swear to secrecy. It was the Duke of Hamilton was the group captain I remember. Anyway, I found myself out in the civilian lodgings on the decoy sites just being built up in Edinburgh area. I was there on this decoy site. The first one at east of Kinleith, which was at the foot of the Braids Hill. The decoy site was on Braids Hills just outside Edinburgh. And all I’d do there was check the circuitry of the fires and the diesel machines and everything there. And then I had to train ACHs and I was posted to a site at Millerhill and made area electrician. So I had a dispatch driver with a sidecar to go around the other sites checking the batteries and the, checking out the circuitry. The, the flight lieutenant in charge of the unit K4, all said, everything we had a code word — Starfish. If you were ever approached by anybody, Secret Service police or anything like that you just had to say, ‘Starfish,’ and you’d go on your way. It was a secret code. Anyway, he said that, ‘You’re doing the area electrician. I’m going to get you promoted.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m a Group 2 tradesman. I’m as far as I can go.’ And he, he got in touch with Colonel Butcher, MOD and he applied to the Air Ministry to get me in. The Air Ministry apparently turned back and said, ‘Unfit for NCO material.’ And I could only ever assume that that was because I’d passed my eye test to be aircrew. Because they’d already made then aircrew all had to be NCOs when I was there. In my flights I was just given a sergeant’s stripes during the flight as protection in case you were taken prisoner. And that applied to all the wireless operators. They were only Group 2 tradesmen as well. And then, as I say, but I was so proud of 83 Squadron. I was very disappointed when I left them because already they’d had John Hannah a VC. And to my knowledge they had done the first two bombing raids to Italy which was a two way and they lost a lot of aircraft on that. And then part of the hundred bomber attack on Berlin, I think it was. And of course Handley Page were adapting these aircraft for all sorts of things. 83 Squadron and 49 which was the other squadron at Scampton they had Barry Learoyd as a VC for his antics on a raid on the dams which was unsuccessful but he stayed there and watched everybody drop off their bombs apparently. And he was the leader. But then they had adapted for mine laying and everything what they did. Anyway, I digress again there. When I, when I had this promotion turned down the, my senior officer there said, ‘Well, we’ll send you for Group 1 training,’ which had just started up in electrics. Group 1. And I was sent back to Turnhouse waiting for permission there and he said, ‘We’ll get you there and ask to have you back again.’ Anyway, something happened at Turnhouse. I was in the cubbyhole. I was working on a microswitch again there. That was the first place I saw WAAFs working on Spitfires. Laying on the tail planes while they revved them up. Wonderful. Anyway, a posting came for somebody else there and they were posted and they they didn’t take the posting because they were compassionate posting to Turnhouse for reasons of family or something like that. So I was put on there and I was promised that the posting would follow me through. But that’s how I got on to the glider units. First and foremost I had to go to a place called Lasham to start up a Heavy Glider Maintenance Unit. And I remember I had to pick up some of my belongings from the civilian billet and I missed the 10 o’clock train out of Edinburgh to London in the morning. I had to wait until 10 o’clock at night to get another one and of course consequently I’d missed all my connections. I got down to Hook and I had to go from there to RAF Odiham. I used public transport to get there and the transport arranged to pick me up there had gone back. And I was three days at Odiham. They said, in the cook’s hut, of course it could be anytime and they were people that were early risers and that, the cooks. So, anyway I did get to Lasham and I was there, I think two weeks. I know Christmas time was on there. The aerodrome wasn’t ready. Nowhere near for reception. And all we had were Nissen huts. I remember me and another of my colleagues we took up an option of going to Polk’s Photographic Works Christmas party. And I remember coming out of that to get my transport back from that and being set upon by two Royal Marines. And then a Royal Canadian military policeman come and banged them up and carted me off to their billets. And I was there overnight. And they took me back to Tarrant Rushton in the morning and, not Tarrant Rushton. Lasham. And they immediately sent me to the Red Cross place to be checked over for any broken bones or severe bruising. That’s how I spent my Christmas. Then we were taken by bus to Hurn Airport where we started forming this Heavy Glider Maintenance Unit. We didn’t have much to do with the gliders at the time. All we were doing were wiring up the tow ropes for the intercom with don 8 wires. And then we were, I think it was the [pause] mostly to do with the Army Airborne Div. Training their pilots and that. Anyway, we, we were all bundled off up to West Kirby in Liverpool and kitted out with khaki wear and given a sten gun and ammunition. Put on a boat. And that was in Liverpool and we went from Liverpool up to the Clyde to join a convoy and we were, we were on the Duchess of York, the liner. And I remember my accommodation there was on a table. They did have hammocks but I couldn’t get in them. And we went there. This convoy sailed to North Africa. I remember going there. A two man submarine came up there. It was a Russian two man submarine waving their arms to us. Anyway, we were docked at Algiers. And you’ve never seen a most unruly rabble. Everybody just straggling one after the other. We finished up with all our gear and arms and ammunition at a transit camp there and just asked who you were and they sent you to a portion of the transit camp. And we were there overnight and then we were put on a train. Three day journey to go over to Morocco. Or the borders of Morocco. To a French Foreign Legion base. And we were there. And then we were, five of us were taken in the group captain’s Wellington bomber, it was an unarmed Wellington bomber. And flown from there over to Tunisia. I remember you could see the, going over the Atlas Mountains and the shepherds and that. On top of the hills and that. That low. Anyway, we got to this Kairouan in there. That’s where we formed the unit prior to the invasion of Sicily I think. But that, that was, I don’t know how the gliders got there or anything. Or the Halifaxes that towed them. They must have, they were all unarmed and they must have flown out but anyway there was quite a number of them and a few Wacos. And the Americans had Wacos and Dakotas. And then, then they did the invasion and talk as if some of the Americans even dropped their gliders at Malta. Anyway, and then there was a question there of retrieving a Halifax that was down. We went over with another Halifax. I wasn’t even with the Halifax squadron. I was a glider person. But I think I was senior electrician or something like that. Anyway, we got there. The mafia were guarding it and said give us forty eight hours and then we’d have to burn it. Anyway, but they got it back. Then of course we came back again on the Samaria back after there. And we were finished up at Netheravon in Wiltshire. And from there we went on disembarkation leave. I’d still got my sten gun and bullets. I thought, well I don’t want to take these home so I dumped them outside the armoury door. Everybody else had got rid of theirs somehow or other. Anyway, when we came back to Netheravon we were flown in the gliders there to Tarrant Rushton. That’s [pause] I didn’t like that trip at all. It was horrible. I was boiling hot and sick. I was glad to get out of it. I thought of the poor devils that had to go and fight in this afterwards. Anyway, there we did a lot at Tarrant Rushton training the airborne pilots and we took delivery of the heavier glider, Hamilcars and they took tanks and tank crews. Minor small tanks. And then, and then the night before the invasion of, on D-Day we were all lined up with these gliders and the Hamilcars again. And then they were, didn’t know what they were going to do but I remember seeing the Ox and Bucks Regiment marching on to the parade grounds. And then they all queued up ready and the Halifaxes lined up to take off. And then at [pause] I remember sitting on a Horsa glider. I was doing the intercom connection lot into the glider. Had a bit of trouble with it and I went over to talk to the pilot and asked him to check it out. I looked around and a load of kids with a rifle stuck between their legs. Only seventeen and eighteen. It made me feel absolutely sick. They must be sending these somewhere. Only kids. Anyway, about 11 o’clock at night there was this armada of lit up aircraft flying over and our lot just had to join them. They were apparently going to establish a bridgehead subject to the seaborne landings. Very nice. And then of course later on we had the airborne there. They did Arnhem. That was after but I wasn’t involved in the crossing of the Rhine at all. I was in hospital then. Anyway, that’s where I finished my time. At Tarrant Rushton. All I got as a thank you was thirty six pound I think for pay. Reserve payment and thirty six pound gratuity. And I just recently had a Legion of Honour from the French nation saying thank you for deliverance. Lovely. I’ve got a written notice. Somebody said thank you. Made me so proud. That’s about it. Except that I got married and that and had a family. And then of course —
NM: That’s quite some story. That’s quite some story. So, you stayed at Tarrant Rushton after D-Day.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
NM: Right through to —
JP: Right through to —
NM: The end of the war.
JP: VE. VE yeah.
NM: And then you were demobbed.
JP: I were demobbed in March 1946. We’ve got it all down here somewhere [unclear] [pause] my service record is a bit haphazard. And that’s 83 Squadron. 1941.
NM: Ok. I’ll look at those in a minute can I?
JP: Yeah.
NM: So, so after the war what happened? Tell me after the war.
JP: Well —
NM: After your demob.
JP: I was very lucky. I, I got [pause] we were in, my wife and I and the eldest son were in digs in Wimborne. I looked for work. I got a job with Asian company in Bournemouth. Electrician. But on an air force recommendation that they wouldn’t take me on as a skilled man. They took me on as a man mate. I got four pound ten a week I think. That was six months. But I was put with a sixty year old man and I became his hands and that. I was with them, I can’t remember, a few years but then I got a local job at [pause] one of the foreman that I was working with. Asian company on a building in Bournemouth. We did renovation of all the hotels that the Canadians and Americans had, ravaged I think it’s called [laughs] The word. And this time we were doing another job repairing a restaurant. And this guy started up a business with a friend in Wimborne. He asked me to go there with him. That’s where I worked for a bit doing council house erections and odd jobs around. I became a washing machine, Bendix engineer. Did all sorts of things. And then I went to an engineering firm. This was after we’d got our house. Council house in Wimborne. My neighbour, an engineering firm wanted an electrician and he said, ‘Come and do it with us.’ So I did. I went there and used to do the servicing of the machines. And then we had a little section where they started up doing cards. Soldering and that. Anyway, they went bust, and I started looking for jobs. I went to Tarrant Rushton where flight refuelling were starting up. Well they were still in operation. And I couldn’t get a job there. [unclear] around the bend. I finished up at de Havillands in Christchurch. I went there and they took me on straight away. And also I met friends of a, worked for Mace and Co were there in an experimental department. As I say we were the experimental. We were doing the 110 Sea Vixen eventually. And they were also doing the production of Venoms. Sea Venoms and that. So, now I did that. As I say I went to Hurn Airport and was working night shift on servicing aircraft. Flight testing. As I say I went from there on loan up to Hatfield when the Sea Vixen’s were transferred from Christchurch up to Hatfield. I was doing experimental there. I’ve got here [pause] We were doing the Nimrod. Servicing the Comet into a Nimrod. That was all on the secret as well. And then of course I went over to the flight test for the [pause] they were still doing the Comet 4s in the flight test there. [pause] I don’t know, I’ve forgotten the name of it now [pause] Before the 146 anyway.
NM: Trident.
JP: Trident. Yeah. I went to China on delivery. Aircraft to China. Couple of times which was very good. And we had a Christmas at the Chinese expense up in Peking. That was quite an experience. We went to see Mao Tse Tung laying in state. And believe it or not we marched right up to the front of the queue. Then of course I was, I transferred under pressure to go into the inspection department. And then I did very well there. As I say I finished up doing the final inspection for flight electrical. I don’t think, there’s nothing else to say.
NM: And that took you to retirement did it?
JP: Well, I took my pass, my retirement pay about a month I think. But I was stuck here at home mowing the lawns and that.
[recording paused]
JP: Alright?
NM: Yeah.
JP: Down south. I went and got a job down at Swallowfield Service Station serving the public with fuel and that. Did that for five years. And then they, actually they closed down because the tanks got, had to be filled up with concrete because they were serving up dirty fuel. But I was seventy then so I had to settle down in retirement. That’s my life.
NM: So when you look back at your time, your service during the Second World War what, what are your reflections?
JP: Well, the biggest and most is the neglect of what 83 Squadron and subsequently 49 and the other people did before the public noted. I mean of the Dambusters they seemed to have taken over and the others are forgotten. They hurt me. I know that Guy Gibson, the big man. He was a pilot officer at Scampton in 83 Squadron in the beginning of the war. I remember him coming back visiting when he was the big Pathfinder. I don’t know why he came back to visit. Whether he came back to visit Barry Learoyd who was then ADC of 83 Squadron, he transferred from 49 or he was just sussing out the place because he was taking it over. I wasn’t there long enough to find out. I did know that while I was there Waddington started taking delivery of the Manchester. And the thing was it was an utter failure. The wheels were too big or something. That was the forerunner of the Lancaster.
NM: So did you volunteer for going to Edinburgh and then the gliders or or were you posted?
JP: No. I was posted there. No. Actually, when I got posted to Edinburgh I was living with my wife in Lincoln. And she went home to give birth to my eldest son and I, I wasn’t able to go. I only had a forty eight hour pass to get married. And when she was giving birth to my son I wasn’t allowed any leave at all. Then I was posted up there. As I say, to the glider squadron. It was because the person that had been delegated to do the transfer, that was a compassionate posting to Turnhouse and as I was there waiting for a posting I was the one that got put on the [pause] I didn’t mind. Because they did say that the, going to Group 1 training, ‘And when you finished we’ll have you back again.’ There was a promise. Once I got to the glider unit I was no longer an electrician. I was a Terry of all means. I used to do the picketing. All we did with gliders was hump batteries backwards and forwards to the charging unit. And then we’d do all the picketing down at the aircraft. And latterly with the Hamilcar gliders I used to drive the track, tractor to tow the Hamilcars off, off the grass into the hardstand. That’s what my job was really. Just preparing them for the runway.
NM: Tell me a little bit more about the three unregistered operations you did to Kiel and Wilhelmshaven.
JP: Oh that.
NM: How did you feel about those raids?
JP: Well, I thought I was at last going to fly. And all the, at the time the, as I say the radio operators were the only air gunners that were there. And the, when the Hampdens, they’d got a seat for air gunners at the back they hadn’t got any trained air gunners. And they asked for volunteers and we had the course there but each time at the briefing we were told not to fire unless fired upon or attacked. Or unless the pilot told you to for any reason or other. We were just make weight. I know that the bomb aimer was the one that dropped the packages of leaflets. And also, I think on the last trip for the photography, I think he did the photographing from his position in the nose. But the only thing about it was that I remember we got caught in a searchlight. I thought when they said my eyesight was defective that it might be because the searchlight had affected it. But subsequently, years later I found out I’d got a lazy eye. So I’ve still got that.
NM: So, apart from the searchlights did the three trips pass without incident or were there —?
JP: No. No incident at all. Just a cold flight because we only had the helmet and the jacket. They would do, they of course used to start off in daylight to do their raids.
NM: So, these were daylight raids were they?
JP: Yeah.
NM: So what did you feel looking down across occupied France and Germany itself?
JP: Well, France wasn’t occupied then of course. I mean we’d only just declared war on them. Apparently the French Ministry had asked the British Ministry not to bomb Germany for fear of reprisals. So I believe. They were, all initially we were doing were bombing marshalling yards and shipping. I think that the biggest was, although I wasn’t involved with it at the time was Dresden. When that chief air vice marshall decided to throw caution to the wind and kill civilians as well. There’s others, that was a thousand bomber raid. But I was very sad to leave 83 Squadron. I was very proud to be a member of it. I do think that they, like the Dambusters were the super squadron.
NM: Have you kept in touch with 83 Squadron at all?
JP: No.
NM: Joining reunions or associations at all?
JP: No. No. Not at all. No. I [pause] my, when I was, I wasn’t even offered an extension because I only signed on for six years and no reserve in the first place. But then I did nearly eight years. As I say when I saw all those kids although they might have been trained I was just disgusted with the air force.
NM: Why?
JP: I just felt that we’d be sending them to die. Took me a long time to get over that. And then of course we heard the next day about the, the seaborne invasion.
NM: So your feelings about D-Day were mixed were they?
JP: Yeah. Very. I was proud to be part of the armada on that. Whatever it was for. We didn’t know. But as I say subsequently it come out it was to establish a bridgehead.
NM: So, how have you recently got involved with the Bomber Command Centre then? How did you hear about that again?
JP: I think my son Paul picked up on it on the computer.
NM: So tell me about your Legion d’Honneur from France. How did that come about?
JP: Oh my daughter. She lives in Sandy in Bedfordshire. She said the, the mayor, the mayor in the local paper put a notice. The French authorities, War Office wanted to contact all those that had taken part in D-Day. Apart from the official landers those that had helped in the behind to notify them because they were offering to reward them. And I, she told me, I wrote to the mayor there they put my name forward to the War Office and they sent it over to France and I thought they’d forgotten all about it because I wasn’t actually part of D-Day. Pre D-Day we were. There’s a lovely letter there. And believe it or not there was eight hundred of us applied. They said they, they would do the awards if we wanted it. That they would arrange it but they’d got so many to do that they couldn’t possibly do. They were very good.
NM: So how do you feel Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
JP: Well, I don’t know much about it really. Obviously they’re doing their stuff all over the place with the Vulcan and things like that and the involvement in the Falklands War.
NM: Do you think the veterans of World War Two have been fully recognised?
JP: Well, now they’re beginning to be. But not before. I mean, I myself, but I feel apart from me it’s a memory, they’re forgotten. [unclear] All those aircrew lost. No recognition. It’s only that somebody wanted to revive D-Day. Not D-Day but Dambusters. Brought them to light. Then after that then people started thinking about Bomber Command as a whole. Because there weren’t only Hampdens. There were Wellingtons, Whitleys. They were the heavy bomber of the day and of course when the initial landings in in France they were still, fighter planes were all mono, all biplanes. The only monoplane they had was the Fairey. Fairey Battle. Light bomber. All they had over in Dunkirk and that. Then of course the Hurricane was a major fighter plane in the Battle of Britain. And then Spitfires of course were the master aeroplane.
NM: Ok. Shall we, shall we leave it there? Or —
JP: Well, I, yeah. As I say the decoy. Always assumed that the Germans were never going to bomb Edinburgh anyway because Hitler decided that was where he was going to be his seat. But some of them down south. They really got wiped out. The decoy sites. It’s all hearsay.
NM: So, so during the interview you said your real name was Jack. Which of the two names do you prefer? Jack or John.
JP: Jack. That’s how I’m known now mostly. Except in official circles. As I say, my wife, how she did it she found my relatives. My brother and my Auntie Ethel and Uncle Edgar who I remembered when I was a boy with mother. I always used to go to the greenhouse with him. And still, when I saw him he’d still got at Aunt Ethel’s a greenhouse with tomatoes.
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 Jack (John) Perry
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nigel Moore
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-15
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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APerryJE160115
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:26:55 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Dorset
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Description
An account of the resource
Jack (John) Perry was orphaned at the age of six. He lived with family, a Children’s Home and various foster homes. Named Jack by his parents he was forced to be known as John when in children's homes, a name he continued to use during his RAF service. He has since reverted to Jack. He volunteered for the RAF as soon as he was old enough just before the outbreak of war. He trained as an electrician and was posted to RAF Scampton. He flew three operations as a stand in air gunner but failed the medical to become air crew. He was present when a Ju 88 had intruded with the returning squadron and strafed the airfield. He was posted to RAF Turnhouse and then Tarrant Rushton with the glider squadron. After the war he went to work for de Havillands in their experimental section.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1941
49 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
decoy site
ground personnel
Halifax
Hamilcar
Hampden
Horsa
Ju 88
Manchester
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
propaganda
RAF Scampton
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Waddington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1081/11539/APragnellJ160526.2.mp3
b1d5d9b341a280f4d84f05cf037014fc
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
Pragnell, Jack
J Pragnell
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jack Pragnell (b. 1921, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as an observer with 51 and 102 Squadron. His twin brother was killed in action 16 December 1943 flying with 432 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
2016-05-26
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
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Pragnell, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DK: So this is David Kavanagh on the 26th of May 2016.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Interviewing Jack Pragnell at his home. Ok. So if I just put that there. So if you just talk normally. If I keep looking over it like this I’m just checking that it’s still working.
JP: Yeah. Ok.
DK: So that’s out there. What, what I wanted to do was really just talk through your experiences before the war maybe.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: What you were doing then. Why and how you joined the air force and what you did in the air force.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And then later on afterwards. So, to start with perhaps if you could just say what you were doing before the war.
JP: Well, before the war my twin brother and myself we were together all the time by the way. I’d got an identical twin.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
JP: So we worked at, at Manfield Shoe Factory. In the office. Until, well we had, we were quite poor. We had to leave school at fourteen although we were at grammar school. We caught up on night school and everything so we did all that. And then come the sort of seventeen or so when I was a bit of fed up and wanting to move couldn’t do it because I was coming on to eighteen. And nobody had got a job there.
DK: No. No.
JP: And jobs were scarce for people. So we, we did a lot. Played a lot of sport. Enjoyed life thoroughly. We were both pretty good at sport and did very well at school and we were in the Boy’s Brigade and went to camp with them. And it was a lovely time. And then come the time when conscription was being, when none of us — all I knew of conscription was the First World War.
DK: Yeah.
JP: The filth and the degradation and the death in the, in the trenches. And we sort of wanted the glory boys you know. So we said, ‘Let’s go,’ and four of us got together one afternoon. Packed up our work and went off ostensibly to join the Fleet Air Arm because we liked the uniform.
DK: Right.
JP: When we got to the depot at Dover Hall it was the RAF recruiting place. The Fleet Air Arm was at the Naval place. In a different place. So anyway, we were talked into joining the air force. We had a few tests and we were accepted on the pilot navigator thing. Three of us. One was ill and went away. He came twelve months later and was a W/op AG but he was one out. So the three of us then waited as you did. Signed on. Waited. And we went to the place where they — Cardington.
DK: Cardington.
JP: To be signed up. Funny thing there. We go through. People didn’t know the difference. Absolutely identical. So he goes, my brother goes through and I was taken ill. So I was parked in to sick quarters for a week. When I came out he’d already gone through and been accepted on the pilot navigator thing. So I follow through and did the tests and one of the doctors said, ‘Well, we saw you last week.’ I said, ‘That was my brother.’ ‘Your brother?’ I said, ‘My twin brother.’ He said, ‘What did we do?’ ‘Oh you passed him.’ ‘Alright, you’re through.’ [laughs] So then we waited. This waiting time of several months, you know as everybody had to wait. And we were called up to Babington in London there to be — no. It was in the south. To be kitted and equipped. Near Bournemouth. Equipped and marched and inoculated and equipped and marched and inoculated. Incessantly. And then we went to Stratford on Avon at ITW. My brother and myself shared the Venus Adonis Room in the Shakespeare Hotel. Absolutely stripped clean. You know what I mean. I’ve been since and had a look. It’s a different kettle of fish. So then from there, after a few weeks of this, ‘You’re going.’ Didn’t know where. We were equipped with tropical equipment and, a kit bag full of that. And one night we were, well we were then taken to West Kirby near Manchester there. We were there for, I should think maybe a week or so and suddenly one night we were taken out at night and marched into the Glasgow station and climbed on a train outside the station and straightaway to a boat. The Moortown. The tramp steamer converted. And the filthiest, dirtiest old shabby ship you never saw in your life. It was an army boat and of course we were cadets there with a white flash in our hats oh and they took the mickey out of us left, right and centre. And we had the, under the bottom. Five weeks on that boat. Trudging. We didn’t know where we were going. We set out to the middle of the Atlantic we thought. Then suddenly we turned to port. Half of them sheared off. And with that I understand they finished up in America or Canada. We then went, they said, ‘Oh you’re going to Rhodesia.’ Well, we’d heard of Rhodesia but it was a long way away. Well, we went through. We couldn’t get off the boat. We had salt showers. It was purgatory. So, and the food wasn’t great you know, out of a big cauldron. But we got there. We finished up in, we went around the Cape. We thought where the hell are we going now? Sailed around. Finished up in Durban.
DK: Right.
JP: Lovely place Durban. It was lit. The sea was dark there. All the lights and what not. But there on the sea front was a dance hall and fairy lights. It was like heaven. And we were there a couple of weeks or so and the people were marvellous to us. They were queuing at the gates to take us out. And my brother and myself being identical twins we were snapped up, you know.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And they took us all over the place. And we then got on the train. It took three days. One of these slow moving things with the old wagon at the back. We could get off and walk with it. Finished up in Bulawayo. It’s in Southern Rhodesia. Well after a few weeks there at the ITW again we were marched, we were inoculated. But we had a lovely time. People took us out. They queued at the gates to take people out. But then, being the two of us we got special treatment you know. So we had a lovely time. It was hard work. It was hard work but we still relaxed well and played well.
DK: So what sort of work were you doing in Bulawayo then?
JP: Well, that was a holding camp.
DK: Right.
JP: A sort of ITW.
DK: Right.
JP: It was, actually it was the old cattle market and we slept in the, where the cattle slept. With a blind down the front and —
DK: Yeah.
JP: Wooden sort of flooring. It was a bit primitive. And so were the quarters. But we loved it anyway.
DK: So the training you were doing there. Was that for, as a navigator or pilot?
JP: We were then on the pilots navigator.
DK: Pilot navigator.
JP: It was the top course. Yeah.
DK: Right.
JP: And we were doing navigation. We were doing star recognition. We were doing pilot recognition. We were doing aircraft. The whole gamut of night after night day after day.
DK: And did it include training as, flying?
JP: Oh that was all training. It was nothing but training with a bit of time off now and again. It was very hard graft. We loved it. We played a bit of football and a bit of, quite a bit of cricket in the spare time. Then we were picked out. ‘Right. You’re going off to pilot training.’ Went to Gwelo which was in the back woods of East London there. Of south, what’s the name? Southern Rhodesia. Well, I promptly had the bane of my life in the air force. Every so often I got tonsillitis. And it got every course I went on I had to have a few of days in dock with this tonsillitis. And I went in dock in the middle of the pilot training.
DK: Right.
JP: It was on Tiger Moths. I’d soloed but I was a bit ham-fisted. We’d only had a bike up until then. That hadn’t even got a three speed. So we trained and then they came along. The CFI came. I was behind because I’d had this week off and you could not get behind. It was push push push. This CFI, the Chief Flying Instructor came and he looked me up and down and said, ‘Well, come on.’ So I took him up. Landed him. Well, of course the tension of him being there and I was a very raw pilot. But he, he would have gone through the ceiling when we landed, you know. In a Tiger Moth on a grass field it was I thought. So I landed him. He looked me up. He said, ‘Well, what’s your navigation like?’ I said, ‘Well, quite good.’ He said, ‘I think you’ll make a better navigator than a pilot. You’ll be alright on these.’ The next step were Harvards of course. The killers.
DK: Yeah.
JP: He said, ‘You’ll kill yourself I think.’ And they were. A lot of people were. These decrepit Harvards. So, my brother got himself taken off and we were allowed to go together. We sat there and waited, oh two or three weeks until a course came and we were taken down, all the way down to East London. On the Cape.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And there we did the full observer course. Navigator, bomb aimer, air gunner. Again played a lot of sport. Again, taken around a bit. Again went out together. It was a lovely life because we did everything. See whereas if I had gone on my own I’d have had to look for a comrades.
DK: Yeah.
JP: I’d have had to look for a mate. There was two of us. We’d always got a mate.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And we were so much alike. We, well we were a part of each other. Absolutely. Dressed the same. Shared our money. Shared our clothes. Shared our uniforms. And got on ever so well together. Bane of the life of the instructors who didn’t know who they were talking to [laughs]
DK: Yeah.
JP: But anyway, we did well. We passed out from there. And then we had about three weeks at Cape Town waiting to come back. And then we came back alone. Not, we went out in convoy for the five weeks. Very slowly. Very tedious. The Prince of Wales and the other one going up and down. Of course they sailed on to the Far East and that was when they were sunk.
DK: Right.
JP: We were the last lot to see them when they went off.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But we came back alone on the Otranto. Which was a, was a merchantmen. In fact on the way back picked a boat load of survivors from [pause] from a boat from Argentina. Something Star. A meat boat.
DK: Right.
JP: And the women and children. We picked them up and brought them back. Then we got back here and due a bit of leave. And then posted to Yorkshire. To Driffield.
DK: Right.
JP: The main place there. And we were crewed up. Well. No. First of all we go on to a Conversion Unit.
DK: So which? Can you remember which Conversion Unit?
JP: In Lincolnshire somewhere.
DK: Right.
JP: It was Norfolk or Lincolnshire and I forget where it was.
DK: This would have been one —
JP: It’s a well-known one.
DK: Right. But this would have been one of the Heavy Conversion Units.
JP: Yeah. They were flying Harvards and the other things. The other four engine jobs. You know. The first ones.
DK: The Stirlings.
JP: The twin engine job. No. Not the — the two engine.
DK: The Anson.
JP: No. No. We’d done our training in Ansons.
DK: Yeah.
JP: No. Bigger ones.
DK: The Wellington.
JP: No. No. Different from them. Wimpy was there.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But the Wellingtons. They were ones that crashed a lot. They put four engines on them in the end and called them the Halifax.
DK: Right. The Manchester?
JP: Yeah. I think it was that.
DK: Manchester. Yeah.
JP: Yeah. So we as we got there we saw one plough in. Yeah. Now, the next morning they said, ‘Now look. We’re looking for bomb aimers. You’re a qualified bomb aimer and a qualified navigator. It’s equal pay. Equal terms.’ But you see then all the crews then were becoming not six crews but seven crews. And there was a great shortage of bomb aimers to add to the crews. So they asked for volunteers to go straight on ops, perhaps with the odd cross country, without doing a con-unit. So about ten of us stepped forward and within a couple of weeks we were crewed up at Driffield in a squadron. And a couple of cross country’s — ready for ops. Well then my pilot, we were the odd one in the crew then but we were in the crew. I was in the crew as a bomb aimer and in charge of the bombing and that. I didn’t have a bloody clue. So anyway the biggest bomb I’d dropped was the sort of five pounder in practice. Anyway, we soon caught up. They put us through the mill and so unfortunately they, the crew went on some operations. And the pilot went on his expertise, expert, expertise trip. You know, with a crew.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: And they were missing. So the crew was broken up and I was floating around. I was lucky because looking for a bomb aimer was a crew where four of them were on their second tour. The pilot was a flight lieuy. The navigator was a flying officer. The gunner was warrant officer and a whats-its name. And they were looking for — and there was I, a youngster, shovelled into this lot.
DK: With an experienced crew.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: So I was lucky.
DK: Can, can I just check. Which squadron was this with then?
JP: 51 then.
DK: 51. Right.
JP: 51.
DK: Ok.
JP: And my brother, who was with me at the time.
DK: Yeah.
JP: On our, when we got there we had to, we knew we’d got to part. And we got a great pile of kit in the middle of the room and it was one for you, one for me. It broke my heart, you know. The first time we’d been parted or anything like. And we shared it. Now he got into a crew as well but it was a time when the Canadians were breaking away from 4 Group to form 8 Group.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And the rest of his crew were Canadian. Most of them. Four out the six. Or five out the six. And they opted to go Canadian. Well, he went with them. Now, strangely enough they were doing some operations. They were doing minelaying or what have you. And his pilot went on an expertise trip. Was missing. So, they again were crewed up. We stayed in the area and he got most of them together. They still stayed with the Canadian group but he got a bit behind then whereas I was straight on ops. I mean by January I’d done two or three ops to Lorient and places like that.
DK: So which type of aircraft were you on in 51 Squadron then?
JP: A Halifax.
DK: A Halifax. So —
JP: Halifax. It was all Halifax from then on.
DK: So all your operations were Halifax.
JP: And so was he. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: It was Yorkshire.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: They were all in Yorkshire. Around about. Well Pocklington actually. Snaith.
DK: Snaith.
JP: Was the one we were at for 51. So we did, I did, we did about half a tour with 51 and we were doing well. We were one of the crack crews and I became, although I say it myself, pretty good. I went to learn. And we did, the farce of, you know observation star sort of things. Astro. Well that was a farce. A complete and utter farce. You couldn’t do it. You know the old joke goes about they were lost and the navigator, the pilot said to the navigator, ‘Go and take an astro fix will you?’ He said. So the pilot comes back, ‘Take off your hats. You’re in St Paul’s Cathedral.’ And it was about like that. That’s the old story that got around, you know. Anyway, half way through the tour we were taken from, our pilot was promoted to squadron leader so we went to Pocklington where he took over a squadron as a squadron leader. And finished my tour there. And I had a very hot tour. We all did in there. I mean I had a very very warm tour in the end of ’42 and ’43. That was the heat of the losses.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And I was one of the lucky ones.
DK: Can you remember the name of your pilot at 51?
JP: Yeah. Squadron Leader Hay.
DK: So he went on to Pocklington then with 102.
JP: Oh yes. And took the crew with him.
DK: And you went with him.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And he then went as an instructor. I understand afterwards he had a bit of a crash and nearly wrote himself off. He was a bit wild. He was a typical, you might say a very early pilot. Mad as a bloody hatter but brilliant pilot. And the navigator then stayed but the chap doing the bomb aiming, no he was doing the navigation. That’s right. And I was then then the bomb aimer. He was a second tour man. He’d done his first flying on single engine stuff in India. He hadn’t got a clue. He had not got a clue. So we got lost on the way back from [unclear] We called Mayday and we were flagged up by searchlights flagging us up to get us home. So after that he was taken out of the crew. They got a pilot, they got an officer who was already a qualified, well-qualified navigator to take over the navigation and I then took over the bomb aiming.
DK: Right.
JP: So, from then on, apart from the fact we had a very very hard tour. And we had the toughest of the tough it was good plain sailing until they finished their, about four of them finished their second tour. I’d still got ten ops on my first tour. So their second tour was twenty, mine was thirty. So I was an odd Joe and I flew with seven different pilots. Sprog pilots, experienced pilots, wing commanders, squadron, to fill the gap. I was lucky. I mean pure luck that that I came through.
DK: So, how many operations did you do all together then?
JP: Well, counting two abortive when we had to go, they counted. And in fact we’d done a bit of operational out in South Africa. Out in South Africa, looking for Jap subs. I did a total of twenty seven full ops but the other two counted and the others patched together so really it counted for the thirty ops. I say it was twenty seven. But it was about, when you take the, what they counted. And I was ill. I’d suffered from the tonsillitis. I’d been in and out of dock. And just until my last op came. My last op was to Berlin. The one before it was Peenemunde. So you can tell it wasn’t easy. So I was taken, I was booked in to go when my tour finished. So I was now, they told me when it would finish and I was ready. Waiting for this last op to come. I was to go in to the hospital the following week to have my tonsils out. They were the bane of my life. So I got to bed. Tannoy. Would I report to sick bay. They’d made a mistake. The hospital was the next day. So I go in and of course I didn’t realise my body was upset. I mean you think the tension and that. You didn’t realise. They nearly killed me. They apologised afterwards. They should not have operated. It wouldn’t stop bleeding and they had to go deep. And afterwards, after a week I was like a wraith. Lost no end of weight and, and I came [laughs] when I went out the doctor said, well he said, would you, I’d been to Berlin the night before. When I got in there it was on the news about the Berlin raid. I said to the bloke, ‘Yeah, it was pretty rough.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, I was there.’ ‘He was there. He was there.’ All the nurses gathered around. I was the hero [laughs] So ,so anyway it, I came home on a bit of leave.
DK: So you, so you survived a trip to Berlin and then —
JP: Yeah.
DK: Were in hospital.
JP: The next day I was having my tonsils out.
DK: Oh dear.
JP: Now, my twin brother was on the way and they’d transferred from Halifaxes to Lancs.
DK: Right.
JP: And their first Lanc trip was a Berlin which was the Berlin following the one I went on. The last Berlin in ’43. And I was on the one before when we lost a lot of aircraft. But he was on that one. The first trip in a Lanc. They were shot down and killed over Leeuwarden in Holland.
DK: Oh dear.
JP: So that was it. It broke my heart that did. I didn’t know what to do with myself. And I was shovelled around then.
DK: Can you remember which squadron your brother was with?
JP: It was [pause] an American in the Canadian air force. I did, well names have got me.
DK: Yeah. Ok.
JP: I think it was 425. It was something like that. One of the Canadian squadrons in the north.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Yorkshire. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We met from time to time. In fact the Canadian uniform was a bit better than ours and he came down one day with a pilot’s uniform on. I said, ‘What —?’ He said, ‘Well my pilot is staying with us but he’s a Yank so he’s transferred to the Yanks. Still as a pilot.’ Getting double pay sort of thing and more comfort, ‘And this is his uniform.’ So he swapped my old one for this and I had a new uniform.
DK: Oh well.
JP: Well, I said at the last thing when we were in East London we were qualified and we got pinned things on. Our things for South African officers to come around, a general or something, and pin them on and a band played. That sort of thing. So the last, we had a course dinner, the menu’s in there. And this flight lieutenant gets up and, words of wisdom, he said, ‘Now, there’s one thing I’d like to say.’ I’ll never forget this. ‘Before we go out tomorrow on parade you’ve got to look your best,’ and he said, ‘And Pragnells get your bloody hair cut.’ [laughs] See we’d both got double crowns. When you cut that short it stands up like a hedgehog [laughs]. And they didn’t know the difference anyway. We got away with blue murder.
DK: So, what, what was your feelings about flying in the Halifax then? Was it a [unclear]
JP: Well, we worshipped the Halifax. Yeah. See, it’s a lost machine now but it did more. It towed gliders, it did Met, it did bombing, it did transport. It did everything, the Halifax. Whereas the Lanc
DK: Yeah.
JP: Faster, higher, newer, only did bombing. And of course we hadn’t got all the equipment. We had to manage with the old Mark 9 bombsight where we set our own. And it was impossible to take an astrofix because you couldn’t get it steady enough. We set the bombsight ourselves. Well inaccurate because you can’t get the exact speed. Now the Mark 10, the last few I got, the speed, the speed and that was fed in, and the height, was fed in electronically. But we had the, the what’s the name box for a few but they had all the latest equipment. We just had DR and that was it.
DK: Yeah.
JP: So, we, I mean we worshipped the Halifax. It took us there. Got us back. And now mention the Halifax you’re treated with scorn, ‘that bloody thing.’ Yet it did all. It was like the Hurricane and Spitfire. Hurricane did the work. The Spitfire got the credit because of the name.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Hurricane. Lanc got the credit because new aircraft flying higher, faster than anything and got all the credit. But we did a hell of a lot of work. In fact we got to, say about twenty thousand feet. They were above us but below us were the Stirlings and the Wimpies and the Wellingtons. We did our bombing runs on them and they did their bombing runs on us [laughs] yeah.
DK: Could you, could you actually see much at night then? Could you see?
JP: Well, it depended on the cloud.
DK: Yeah.
JP: I mean the Peenemunde raid was a one off. It was absolutely clear moonlight. It was like daylight and we went in at fifteen thousand lower. And it was a must. It frightened the life out of us. They briefed us. They said, they locked the doors and you mustn’t breathe a word. If a word gets out we’re finished. It’s got to be deadly secret to get this place where they’re making the V-2s or V-1s. And so all this. It’s dangerous. And you’re going out at a lower level. And you’ve got to go whatever the weather. If you don’t go tonight you’ve got to go to it and then it will be twice as bad because by then the Germans probably would have known.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And they did a fake run to Berlin. So we got over Denmark and we got to Flensburg and we were coned. Now to get coned was suicide. When you’ve got a bomb load and once they got you in the cone of light you couldn’t see and the only way out was to get down below the angle. So you came down with a loaded bomber and you had a job to pull out. It was almost suicide to get caught. And they either fired up the flak or get the night fighters on you. But of course we were lucky. The night fighters had all gone —
DK: Yeah.
JP: To stop this, what was going to be a trip to Berlin. And they weren’t there. So that was just an incident where I had the luck, you know.
DK: At the briefing for Peenemunde —
JP: Yeah.
DK: Did they tell you what was being made in the factories?
JP: Yes.
DK: They did.
JP: Yes. We knew about this WAAF. WAAF had seen the photograph. And the, and the Poles had already, give them credit, the Poles were the bravest of the brave. They pinched a chunk of wood and they’d got it over through Sweden. So we’d got more idea and also don’t forget our Buckinghamshire team was taking the secret doc, the secret meetings of the Germans.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: They could learn. So we knew more than they thought we knew. They told us all about it and said what it was and said we’d got to wipe it out because it was the V-1 then and that was creating havoc. It was frightening. You know, putt putt putt and down it came. And it was creating a bit of panic. And when the V-2 came it didn’t even make that sound. Explode half a town you know. So, they told us we’d got to go and we’d got to get it. Now, the Yanks followed a day or two later. But the Yanks got all the credit. They weren’t even there. On that Peenemunde raid where we dropped people in to sort of stifle it and that, the RAF did it. Yeah. When we got there not a sound. It was way way way into Denmark. Past the Kattegat up in the Baltic and we went on in straight line as if we go up to Sweden or turn starboard to Germany. To Berlin. That was up there. And suddenly we were, we knew we’d got to find this place. They stuck out in the water. This sort of bulbous sort of bit of land. No searchlights. No flak. And as we turned to go in, oh then all hell was let loose. We were on the first wave. So we were through and out. Out the other side before too much trouble. But those that followed got hammered.
DK: Yeah. Could you see much of the target as you dropped your bombs at Peenemunde?
JP: No. You could see the, that raid yeah you could see the huts and the buildings.
DK: Yeah.
JP: But normally when you were at twenty five thousand and don’t forget you’re not going to a flat surface. You’re going to a sea of fire. Flames. Kites going down. Green and red, what’s the name of it on the ground and the searchlights and night fighters. So you, you didn’t see much. And it got all smoky if not cloudy. So, on a good night going in you could pick out the rivers and the main road. The [unclear] were light. They were like big white sort of lights. And the, and the woods. Well later on of course when I then went on to glider, glider towing, paratroop dropping at low level a different kettle of fish. We map read everywhere then on the shape of the woods and the rivers. But you only saw the minor ones up there. You could see enough. Well you could say look there’s a load of flak ahead. That’s probably, you look at your map, that’s probably the town of so and so. Go to starboard to avoid it. And then the pilot would say, ‘How far do you think we are Frank from — ’ and I’d sort of, ‘Ten miles.’ Alright. It was a good crew and they relied on everybody.
DK: Can you, can you still name your crew then?
JP: I can. Yeah. Well. Ron Hay was the pilot. Dougie Henderson was the rear gunner. John Garland was the w/op AG. The rear, the mid-upper gunner was a young lad who lost his life in a car, in a coach accident when we’d only had him a week or two. And then an Aussie joined us, Arthur Evans. And we were friends. And the navigator. I hardly spoke to him because he was in his little enclave and he was an officer. We were all NCOs except Doug. Well, when they finished the tour the pilot he had us in. He said, ‘Well, what can I do? Would you like me to recommend you for a commission?’ The rear gunner said yes. I said, he asked me, I said no because I was not going to get beyond my brother. Imagine. Identical twins. One walking down the street with a commission and one not. I couldn’t do it.
DK: No.
JP: So I said no. I was offered it. Only if I’d taken the chance I’d have done probably a lot better but I wouldn’t take it.
DK: Did you find that a bit difficult that your crew, some of the crew were officers?
JP: Yeah.
DK: And yourself NCO. So you wouldn’t mix socially or —
JP: Yeah. You wouldn’t mix socially unless they would. But they weren’t really allowed to. They did up to a point. We’d go out for a drink now and again but then we’d go our own way.
DK: But you didn’t see that as a problem in the crew itself.
JP: No. No. No. We were all mad and all equally sort of wanted to go. And I never saw, I did with a couple of crews I flew with, saw much panic. You see the bravery was not going on ops where you were shot down. Because you didn’t expect to be. You hoped not to be. The bravery was going the next day and the next day. I mean in successive. In there you’ll see I did four ops in five days. Absolutely tired out. It wasn’t just the op. The next day you had to go to get your aircraft ready. If there was not a malfunction you had to go and do a little flight test. Had to get all the equipment ready and be briefed all day. So you never got any sleep.
DK: No.
JP: And of course when you got to bed you were too tired to sleep and too exhilarated. There was a certain exhilaration when you got back.
DK: I was going to say how did you feel as you got out of the aircraft after, after the mission? After the operation.
JP: Happy. You know. Very contented. Very very pleased with life. And we used to, we didn’t feel boastful or anything like that. We’d got to go to be debriefed of course with the old padre there. And he used to hand out the fags and I didn’t smoke so I used to give mine away. And then we had, always looked forward to egg and chips. Egg and chips. And if any crews were missing we ate their eggs. But you wouldn’t know. See, you only knew your own crew basically. You knew the others in passing but everything was, everything was together. You trained together, you flew together and you went out together. Had a drink together. You see you were right out in the country. Not much you could do. So you got the old bike and went to the nearest pub. And if they hadn’t got any beer we’d go to the next one. And then we’d find a little social dance. That sort of thing.
DK: Yeah.
JP: You couldn’t do anything. Occasionally we got in to York. I went to Leeds a couple of times. And I believe, and I can’t remember how but I went to Sheffield once. Didn’t get on there because we hadn’t got time. We’d just go for the evening and wander around and have a drink and —
DK: And then.
JP: That was it.
DK: As you were then told the next day another operation how did you feel then as you were getting in the aircraft?
JP: Well, quite, quite glad really. You were getting through them. I remember I sort of started putting a number by my ops. And, and so they said, ‘We don’t count. We don’t count the ops. We just do them.’ But you did. In your mind. You knocked another one off. And it got more sort of you know the early, oh yeah but when you got in your twenties and people all around you were missing. You didn’t know whether they’d been shot down, whether they’d finish their tour, whether they’d left. And all this. It was come and go all the time. You couldn’t settle anywhere. Only with your own crew.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Because if you made friends because they were missing the next night. That wasn’t to say they were missing. They were posted away to somewhere else. It was a come and go. So there was that community of crew. They were more or less everything. And you got on well with them. Well most of them. Some, some you didn’t. But you were so closely knit together and there was a camaraderie about it. And I met two crews that panicked a bit. One of them supposed to be one of the, actually I flew with them a couple of times. And they’d done well on the thousand bomber raid and the pilot had got his, had got a gong out of it. So they were supposed to be a good crew. But they got behind somehow and the bomb aimer had gone, I reckon he’d gone to LMF. Lack of moral fibre. They used to take them out and strip them, you know. Lack of moral fibre they call it. Nerves didn’t count. None of this psychology or that sort of thing. You were whipped away. If you were an officer, reduced to, well kept your commission but reduced in rank to the menial jobs. If you were an NCO you lost your rank and everything else.
DK: And this crew. Did you think the bomb aimer then was, had had some problems?
JP: The bomb aimer had a lot. You see, I was the one who, well out of them I’d done a bit of flying on the Tiger and the Anson and whatnot. More than they had, some of them. And I was the one who used to help the pilot at his take off because you needed two. One to help push it up.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And I was the one that helped him on landing. And, and I was the one he referred to. Now, you see if you go to Berlin you’ve got over an eight hour trip. Well the pilot can’t get and have a quick wee. There’s nobody there. Now on one occasion he put it into George which was the automatic pilot, ‘Here you are Prag. Have a go at this.’ And I held this, frightened to death while he went and had a quick wee. But they relied on you so much.
DK: So your job also included flying the aircraft then when he needed a break.
JP: Well, it didn’t really but it depended on the pilot. He used to let me have a go now and again but when he was a, I didn’t, I wasn’t good enough to sort of take it on and like it.
DK: So, on, on a typical operation then as, as you as the bomb aimer.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: What was your role when you got on the aircraft and you took off? Are you helping the navigator?
JP: Well, the navigator. He was in his little sort of hut thing and I, I didn’t want to be a navigator because you couldn’t see what was going on. You could only hear. Whereas a bomb aimer you had the freedom of the aircraft.
DK: Right.
JP: And you were more or less in charge of that part of the aircraft in many ways.
DK: Did, did your job involve anything to do with the bombs before they went on the aircraft? Would you check them?
JP: No. The armourers did that.
DK: Right.
JP: You saw them and watched them winch them on but it was the armourers that did it. You knew how to, if it didn’t go off they’d was a little pannier thing you could undo and pull a toggle and get it, release it.
DK: Yeah.
JP: You’re not supposed to, you couldn’t bring them back because you couldn’t land with them or they’d have gone up and blown you up. And if you’d still got them when you got back you had to drop them in a dropping zone. Ours was in, in the North Sea. And —
DK: Did you have any that didn’t drop? That you, you had to —
JP: I believe, I didn’t know but the flight engineer, he was often, he was a Scotsman and he was often half drunk. He said there’s a couple of, a couple of bombs there. So I went down to look. I pulled the toggle but whether it released the bomb or not I don’t know. But I think once, yes in the North Sea there. See, you got, what’s-it Glenn Miller lost on a place like that when they came back and dropped their bombs. They reckon that’s where, how he lost his life.
DK: Yeah. As you, as you’re approaching the target then.
JP: Yeah.
DK: You’re in the front. You’re looking down.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And then what’s your role there? Do you arm the bombs and then drop them?
JP: Well, you do the map reading in. The pilot, the navigator’s supposed to get you within range and then it was yours and you do the, you see the target where the green and red flares were. And the Pathfinders above were saying bomb on the green flares because there had been an accident and the red had drifted away. Or bomb on the red. Or right between the two. So you directed it in between all the flak and the flame to where you think the target was. And you go on, you know, ‘Left. Left.’ You said, ‘Left. Left.’ And ‘Right,’ So if you said the same so you didn’t get the same tone.
DK: Right.
JP: ‘Left. Left. Steady. Steady.’ And when you were approaching you had the bomb doors open. You had to open them ready and you kept them open ‘til after you’d dropped your bomb for the photograph. As you closed the doors so the photograph was cut off. So you had to, as long as you, the time was how long your bombs would take to drop and each bomb had a different timing because they were different. Smooth or whatever. And they were different weights. So they had the speed they entered so all that had to be entered on your bombsight. So it was done automatically later but we had to enter it on a height bar and, and another knob here, another knob there. And then we got the information as we flew. And then you’d drop it as you said, ‘Bombs gone,’ And then you get the panic. ‘Get rid of them. Go.’ And you’d got you had to be cool, calm and collected until that photograph went off. The flash went off. Because that was taking, you see the bombs didn’t go down like that. They go on an arc with the speed and they were there. They’d say, oh bomb here. They’d land over by you, you see. So we had to wait that time. It seemed like an age. And you couldn’t turn around and come back because you were going in to your own people. You had to fly on over Germany and then so many miles they’d either turn. You didn’t know whether you were going to turn port or starboard to find the way out.
DK: As, as the bombs left the aircraft could you feel the aeroplane.
JP: Yeah. You felt it go. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And what, what was the crews reaction as they’re waiting for you to drop the bombs?
JP: [laughs] Going mad. ‘Close the f’ing doors,’ [laughs] And I used to, I was the youngster you know. They were all older than I was. I was supposed to be cool, calm and collected. The pilot was good. The pilot would do everything you told him to do and yet he was probably the most experienced pilot in the Group. So we got all the big jobs. The Berlins and the Peenemunde and we got the Hamburg raid when we wiped it out with Window. It’s all in there in that book of mine. Yeah.
DK: Can I have a look at the logbook?
JP: Yeah.
[pause]
JP: Now, that’s precious. If you look in the back there’s all the stations, all stations of it and there’s a picture of myself and my brother there in that envelope.
DK: Can I?
JP: Have a look at that. Yeah.
DK: I’ll be very careful with it.
JP: That’s alright.
DK: You were alike [laughs]
JP: We were nineteen there. That was taken just after we got home from South Africa
DK: I don’t know how people told you —
JP: They didn’t.
DK: Yeah.
JP: They didn’t. You can see. You can see why we were known as, we were known as Prag by the crew.
DK: So are you on the left or the right?
JP: I think on the left.
DK: You think [laughs]
JP: From me it would be the left.
DK: Left. Right.
JP: Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Lovely.
JP: Broke my heart when he was killed. Part of me went. And I had a hell of a time after that. I wasn’t happy.
DK: No. I can understand.
JP: It’s got all my qualifications in there of course.
DK: So I’ll read this out for the recording. So you were on Ansons here. This was in Rhodesia.
JP: Yeah. That was —
DK: East London.
JP: The Navigation.
DK: Yeah. East London.
JP: Yeah. That was South Africa.
DK: South Africa. Yeah. Yeah.
JP: And the Oxfords were bombing.
DK: So you were on Fairey Battles as well.
JP: Pardon?
DK: Battles. Fairey Battles.
JP: Yeah. That was the gunnery.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We used to fire at a drogue being towed by, what have we got here?
DK: And Oxfords.
JP: Oxfords. That was the gunnery.
DK: Yeah.
JP: That was the, you know, the bombing.
DK: That’s South Africa. So it’s 102 Squadron. And then it says 1652 Conversion Unit.
JP: Yeah. That, well we went there for a couple of weeks. That’s all. You see I didn’t get, I didn’t start until late in 1942. Yet I was doing my ops in ’42 and ’43. Yeah.
DK: And then on to 51 Squadron at Snaith.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: So that’s Halifaxes.
JP: Yeah. See Pocklington was the holding unit then.
DK: Right.
JP: The head of the Group.
DK: So Lorient, so Cologne.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Wilhelmshaven.
JP: Yeah. Wilhelmshaven. Yeah.
DK: It says here Nuremberg. Engine. Engine u/s. Bombs jettisoned.
JP: Yeah. We had to come back. Yeah. We got there and more or less had to drop the bombs and had to come out. That counted as an op because we’d got more than half way I believe.
DK: So this is February 1943. And then there’s Cologne. And then St Nazaire in France.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So Berlin on the 1st of March.
JP: Yeah. I did three Berlins. And you’ll find there were ten Essens as well.
DK: Right.
JP: Three Essens in there.
DK: So the 1st of March was Berlin.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 5th of March, Essen.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 9th of March, Munich.
JP: Yeah.
DK: The 12th of March, Essen.
JP: Well, would you get a harder tour than that anywhere? Suicide.
DK: Well, you had a bit of a break here. It’s the 26th was Duisburg. And then 27th of March, Berlin again.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So then April. 3rd of April, Essen.
JP: Yeah.
DK: April the 4th Kiel. The 8th of April, Duisburg. The 14th of April, Stuttgart. And then they’ve given you another rest here [laughs] May 13th Bochum.
JP: Bochum.
DK: And then?
JP: Dortmund. Bochum.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Dortmund. Dusseldorf.
DK: And then 23rd of May, Dortmund.
JP: Yeah. They were all the Ruhr Valley.
DK: 25th of May, Dusseldorf. Sorry. So July the 24th was Hamburg.
JP: Yeah.
DK: So that would have been the big raid on Hamburg.
JP: That would have been the [pause] when we wiped it out with the firestorm yeah.
DK: And then 25th of July, Essen. August the 2nd , Hamburg. August the 8th Nuremberg. Milan.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Milan, Italy.
JP: We didn’t get there. We got, we couldn’t get over the, had engine trouble so we got as far as the Alps. Had to turn around and come back.
DK: So that, it actually says engine u/s. Bombs jettisoned.
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: And then August the 17th Peenemunde.
JP: Yeah.
DK: And it says you landed back at Middleton St George.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. We couldn’t get in. We were fog bound. Our place.
DK: Right. And then August 22nd Leverkusen. 23rd of August, Berlin again. So that, that presumably would have been, oh it says you were then screened from operations.
JP: Yeah.
DK: September 1943.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Wow.
JP: In the further ops you will see, if you turn over, on the, when I re-mustered. I couldn’t stand Training Command after my brother was missing. And I had a row with the wing commander. So I volunteered for another thing and found out it was glider towing.
DK: That was with 298 Squadron.
JP: Yeah.
DK: Tarrant Rushton. So, you were, you were towing the gliders then.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. We took a Hamilcar in the big bugger.
DK: Hamilcars. Yeah.
[pause]
JP: Then I did an instructors course at Number 1 Air Armament School, Manby. Which was, by then, by that time the war was, we weren’t needed after that. They didn’t know what to do with us.
DK: Yeah. So, so, that’s May 1945. You’re on Wellingtons then.
JP: Yeah.
DK: What was that like? Flying Wellingtons after the Halifax.
JP: Wellington was probably the best aircraft of the war. It did everything.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And it was still going strong at the end of the war.
DK: And that was —
JP: Very strong. You know the geodetic construction.
DK: Yeah.
JP: And it stood up to any. It burned because it was fabric. You could reckon if a Wellington crashed it was going to burn. We did crash in it. Is it there we crashed? A ten minute trip.
DK: Was that at Manby?
JP: No. That was later on. During that time. So, when I was in Training Command. On one of the odd trips.
DK: Yeah. So [pause] so when, when did you leave the air force then?
JP: When? It’s in my book. My service book there.
DK: So would it have been about that time?
JP: No. It was —
Other: ’46 I think.
DK: ’46. Ok.
JP: It was a bit later. 1946 I think. Yeah.
Other: Yeah. May. May ’46.
JP: Yeah. I did just over five years.
DK: Yeah. And what did you do after that? When you —
JP: Well, I didn’t know what. I wasn’t going back to my job. I couldn’t stand the thought of a tin pot office job. And I had straight, I had a couple of months leave and about two hundred quid to spend. You know, as the generous air force. And I was walking home one day having told Manfields. They offered me a job. Offered me a good job. I couldn’t go back. Couldn’t go back indoors. So, I was walking home along St George’s Avenue which was by the technical college and out shot one of the teachers who was my old teacher when I was at school. And he’d been an officer in the cadets. So I used to meet him at the odd dance at the Salon and whatnot. And he used to speak. So he said, ‘Hello,’ he said. Well I was demobbed. He said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’ve got a couple of hundred quid in the bank. I’ve got a couple of months leave and I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ I said, ‘I’m not going back to my old job although they said I could. It’s a waste of time. I’m not going back there.’ He said, ‘Well, why don’t you take up teaching?’ I said, ‘Well can I?’ He said, ‘Well, you’re a qualified instructor to start with.’ Which was better than a teaching diploma. He said, ‘And furthermore you were one of my bright lads,’ he said, ‘Yeah,’ he said. I said, ‘What do you do?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ll get the papers and I’ll sign. I’ll recommend you. You’ll have to get another recommendation and get the papers filled in and then wait.’ Well, I did this. Within about a fortnight I was accepted. And they sat down, ‘You don’t need to be qualified. You can start straight away.’ I was teaching within a month. A class of my own in a school. Well, I had that for about eighteen months. Then I went to college then and then after a few years I got a headship. Then a bigger headship. And that was it. Twenty odd years ahead. I was a magistrate for twenty seven years in addition.
DK: Oh right.
JP: And all sorts of other things.
DK: So how, how do you look back on your time in Bomber Command now? How do you feel about it after seventy odd years?
JP: A bit of a joke. And, you know, the bombastic sort of people there. Well one wing commander. I was introduced. When we went back for my second tour they were crewing up from all over. And I was the one who had done most. I’d done a tour of ops. None of the others had. So, we went through, ‘Now, what have you done?’ I said, ‘Well, you can ask the others. Well, I’ve done a tour of ops.’ ‘You did what?’ I said, ‘A tour of ops.’ ‘On what aircraft?’ ‘Halifaxes.’ I learned afterwards he’d flown Halifaxes. And he tapped his chest, the bombastic bugger and said, ‘And didn’t you get one of these?’ I said, ‘No. My name didn’t come with a NAAFI ration.’ He went mad. ‘These have to be earned,’ he said [laughs] He didn’t like that and I didn’t like him. I had a big row with him later though. You see I missed out through being ill. Immediately afterwards for two to three weeks I wasn’t there and that was when things were being disposed of. I was told I was getting a gong. I didn’t get it.
DK: Oh really.
JP: I was also told, I went up for commission but didn’t get it. I think it had gone before that I’d had a row. When my brother was finally reported killed my mother was suicidal. And we were on then glider towing. Now, that half of England nothing was allowed out. No phone call. No letters. No anything. You were not allowed out if you were in that, in the forces because of the secrecy of it for D-Day. This went on for several weeks. Well, my father sent a pre-paid telegram. And mum, they knew I was back on ops because his friend in the Bournemouth had told him. He’d got a friend there. But didn’t know what ops. And of course she got the wind up. Thought it was like my brother. And then she was suicidal. And I didn’t know what to do. So he wrote and said, ‘Look, you must come home.’ So, I went to the wing commander. This bombastic devil. He didn’t think much of me and I didn’t think much of him anyway. I let it be known. So I sat I’m on my own [laughs] frequently. So anyway, he, he was there in the crew room surrounded by people. I said, ‘Look, it’s important. Could I have a forty eight hour pass?’ ‘Forty eight hour pass. Why?’ I said, ‘Well, my twin brother has finally been reported killed and my mother’s suicidal.’ ‘Well, what good can you do?’ I looked him up and down. I said, ‘I’ll bloody soon show you what good I can do,’ I said, ‘For one thing my MP will know. Another thing the Daily Mirror, which was the forces favourite, that will know. And another thing you will be on the bloody grass.’ He looked at me and I turned around and walked away. I took the forty eight hour pass. And when I was home my mother made me promise not to fly again. I was heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do. I mean I was on my own. I was no longer had to, got a mate. I’d been a loner. When he was missing I became a loner because I couldn’t, couldn’t gel.
DK: No.
JP: So I went back and I said, ‘Look. I’m not flying anymore.’ Well, the crew couldn’t understand it. They could understand but they knew why. The CO, well the CO was the one I’d had the row with. But the one below him, the squadron leader, he was a lovely bloke. He was a bit older and a bit more understanding. And he had a bit more authority really. He was long established. And so I used to have to report to him every day. He said, ‘Will you fly?’ ‘No.’ He said, ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘Normally if they can’t fly they are stripped of their rank and that,’ he said, ‘Because you’ve done a tour of ops we feel we can’t do that to you but,’ he said, ‘Your crew is standing by.’ And D-Day was, turned out to be about a fortnight later. ‘Is waiting. And you’re one of the leading crews. But the crew can’t fly without you. So, at the moment the wing commander realises that he should not have said what he said. He hasn’t reported it. But Group want to know and they’ll have to.’ So anyway I was standing on my own in the navigator’s room just looking around. And nobody wanted to know me. I was a bloody pariah you know. And in comes this wing commander. And he looks me up and down. ‘Pragnell.’ ‘Yeah.’ No sir. I never called him sir again in my life. He said, ‘Well, I want to fly up to Wing.’ We thought he had a lady friend at Wing. Near Leighton Buzzard there. He used to go frequently. Perhaps it was a Group meeting. I don’t know. He says, ‘I want a crew.’ He said, ‘Will you fly?’ I looked him up and down. I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Right,’ he said , ‘We’ll get a crew together,’ and so and so. So, I had to go round and get a gunner and a what’s the name and we flew him up there. I flew him up there. Got him there. I didn’t bother to navigate. I map read him up because I was good at that by then. I’d map read over France and very good at it. So anyway I got off for the sake of the other lad I got a proper course. Flew him back. We got back to Brize Norton. That was our headquarters. And he said, ‘I know where I am.’ So, ‘Right.’ So he flew back and dropped us off and I then went back in to my crew. And then came D-Day of course. So then very shortly after D-Day, now whether it was because I was more experienced as I was or whether he didn’t like me as I think it was I was taken out of my crew within, with several others. But whole crews. To form a new Conversion Unit up near Nottingham somewhere. To train for the Far East.
DK: Right.
JP: And we, well as soon as we got there the war virtually finished so we weren’t, we were posted all over the place then. So I was taken out. Not, with this other crew and flown up to this place to help form this unit. Well, we got together, did a bit of instructing but then the runways apparently wouldn’t take the weight of the bigger aircraft. So we moved to Saltby, which you probably know. Lincolnshire way.
DK: Yeah.
JP: We went there in convoy and I was given charge of a couple of lorries. A handful of erks and a lorry load of stuff to go down and went through Burton on Trent and through there. And I got relatives in Burton on Trent so, ‘We’ll have an hour here lads.’ So we stayed there and I went and saw my relatives and had a cup of tea with them and we went back in to Saltby. And I got the best billet. Well, that didn’t last long. We moved on again. We went to Marston Moor. We went somewhere else. That’s all in there where we went to. And we weren’t wanted. Because they’d got so many like us that had finished their ops they didn’t know what to do with them.
DK: No.
JP: They made lorry drivers and engine drivers out off of lots of them. And I got a lovely little number myself. I I got in to a department. Only a flight lieutenant and he was in charge of the bombing equipment and the distribution of it. And the bomb dump was absolutely full. Old wings, parts of engines, mechanical stuff. And it was brimming over. And he gave me the job with a lorry and a couple of erks who knew what they were doing, and a driver to go out each day. And they sorted out the pick of the stuff. Expensive metals. And we’d go to York every day. We’d drop this off. And go back there the next day. Marvellous time I had. And I, and there’s all sorts of things going. You know you couldn’t get coat hangers for love or money. Now, there was, hanging all around this room where the gas capes had been there were three coat hangers on each peg. Little did the flight lieutenant know. A bit later there were only two of these coat hangers on each peg. When he came to me one day, he said, ‘Oh, you can have a coat hanger.’ ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ All my mates had got coat hangers. Another time he came and said, ‘Well we’ve got so much stuff.’ They’d got farming equipment, barbed wire, these stakes that went in and the farmers were crying out for stuff. He said, ‘We’ve invited some of the local farmers to come and have some. So,’ he said, ‘Go and see to it.’ So I went up there and there were these farmers with their tractors. ‘Well, what can I have?’ ‘I don’t know. Have what you like.’ They were loading on the barbed wire and I came in for a lot of eggs that day. It was a lovely time. I was completely in charge of myself and nobody bothered me.
DK: But the stuff was being used. It was being used usefully on the farms though wasn’t it?
JP: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
JP: Yeah. They were very friendly actually. The farmers. It was back up in Yorkshire of course see. Where I knew. All my flying. That was Linton on Ouse this was.
DK: Right.
JP: Yeah. Yeah. At the big one up there. But the rest of it was Pocklington and Elvington and Snaith. And my twin brother was Holme on Spalding Moor and Northallerton and around there. Yeah. It was in Northallerton that one of them took my tonsils out. That was a joke. He said, ‘Well, come on. You’ve got to go.’ So I had to get up and get dressed and I got an ambulance to take me. And it was the old ambulances. No sirens. It was ring bells. And everywhere we went for a bit of fun he rang the bell. And the people were lining the street. And when we got there he rang the bell. Pulled up. People were watching. And I climbed out [laughs] I saw life.
DK: Oh dear. Ok. Well that, that —
JP: Sorry to bore you but —
DK: No. That’s, that’s great. I’ll stop it there.
JP: Yeah.
DK: That’s been marvellous. Thanks, thanks very much for your time.
Other: When you’ve stopped it —
DK: Still going.
JP: Well, if you want to —
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 Jack Pragnell
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
APragnellJ160526
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:02:19 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Training Command
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Pragnell and his twin brother Thomas volunteered together for the RAF and trained together. Jack flew operations as a bomb aimer with 51 Squadron. His brother joined a Canadian crew. Jack was plagued with health problems and was suddenly told his operation to have his tonsils removed would be taking place the next day. It was only during his convalescence that he realised just how the stress of operations had already affected him. His brother and his crew were shot down and killed which devastated Jack. After his tour he joined Training Command before joining 298 Squadron towing gliders.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
South Africa
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
England--Dorset
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Milan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
102 Squadron
298 Squadron
51 Squadron
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
fear
Halifax
Hamilcar
lack of moral fibre
RAF Pocklington
RAF Snaith
RAF Tarrant Rushton
training
Wellington
-
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/1401/27313/LMooreD1603117v3.1.pdf
d8d6cf6ce43996cae19c8d76e4db597b
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
Moore, Dennis
D Moore
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-05-06
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
Moore, D
Description
An account of the resource
37 items and two albums.
The collection concerns (1923 - 2010, 1603117, 153623 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, documents, photographs and two albums. He flew operations as a navigator with 218 and 15 Squadrons.
Album one contains photographs of his family and his training in Canada.
Album Two contains photographs of his service in the Far East.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Terrence D Moore 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
Dennis Moore's personal flying book, Thrre
Description
An account of the resource
Ministry of Civil Aviation personal flying log book for D Moore, covering the period from 8 November 1946 to 10 July 1949. He flew with Silver City airways from London Heathrow and Blackbushe, with Flota Area Mercante Argentina from Beunos Aires, Flight Refuelling Ltd from Tarrant Rushton Airport. Aircraft flown in were Lancastrian, Dakota, Sandringham, DC4, Mosquito, Lodestar, Constellation, DC3, Wayfarer, Freighter and York.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Dennis Moore
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
LMooreD1603117v3
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Argentina
Great Britain
Argentina--Buenos Aires
England--Dorset
England--Hampshire
England--London
Heathrow Airport (London, England)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1946
1947
1948
1949
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.
aircrew
C-47
fuelling
Lancastrian
Mosquito
navigator
RAF Tarrant Rushton
York
-
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/2177/38156/LKeenEDL1451093v1.2.pdf
2d702cd335f923bcae0a0621a181cb47
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Keen, Eric
Eric D L Keen
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. Collection concerns Eric Keen (1451093) a Stirling flight engineer he flew bombing operations and then glider towing/paratrooper dropping all with 196 Squadron. Collection contains his log book, photographs a letter and memento 5 Franc note.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Steven White and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-05
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
Keen, EDL
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
Eric Keen's navigator's, air bomber's and air gunner's flying log 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
British Army
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
LKeenEDL1451093v1
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for E D Keen, flight engineer, covering the period from 30 July 1943 to 18 May 1946. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Woolfox Lodge, RAF Witchford, RAF Leicester East, RAF Tarrant Rushton, RAF Keevil, RAF Tilstock, RAF Saltby, RAF Marston Moor and RAF Linton-on-Ouse. Aircraft flown in were Stirling, Anson, Blenheim, Audax, Dakota, Oxford, Halifax, Lancaster, Liberator and Master. He flew a total of 24 night operations with 196 Squadron. Targets were Boulogne, Montlucon, Modane, Mannheim, Hannover, Kattegat, Kassel, Bremen, others were special duty operations including Paratrooper drops, supply and container drops. His pilots on operations were Warrant Officer Holloway and Flight Sergeant Green.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-09-08
1943-09-09
1943-09-15
1943-09-16
1943-09-17
1943-09-19
1943-09-20
1943-09-23
1943-09-24
1943-09-25
1943-09-27
1943-09-28
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1944-02-11
1944-02-12
1944-03-11
1944-03-12
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-07-03
1944-07-04
1944-07-12
1944-07-13
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-08-27
1944-08-28
1945
1946
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.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Dorset
England--Leicestershire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Brest
France--Modane
France--Montluçon
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Mannheim
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
Mike Connock
1665 HCU
196 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-24
Blenheim
bomb struck
bombing
C-47
flight engineer
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oxford
RAF Keevil
RAF Leicester East
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Saltby
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Tilstock
RAF Witchford
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2255/40602/ADaviesPO221105-AV.2.mp3
24c21d41f52c2fb363f1a02d61a5a2d5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Davies, Peter Offord
P O Davies
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Captain Peter Orfford Davies (b. 1922). He served with a Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the Royal Artillery at various RAF stations. He later retrained as a glider pilot and flew during the Rhine Crossing.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-11-06
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
Davies, PO
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
TO: Good morning, good afternoon or good evening whatever the case may be. My name is Thomas Ozel and the gentleman we’re interviewing is Mr Peter Davies and we’re recording this interview on the 5th of November 2022. So, could you tell me a bit about where you were born, please?
PO: My home town is Coventry. The city of Coventry in Warwickshire. I was born in a company house. My father worked for a company and we lived on the company’s estate. I went to a normal sort of school. I was never brilliant as a student. I failed my Eleven Plus but I did manage to get through an art examination and I went to the city’s Art College for two years prior to joining the forces at sixteen.
TO: And when you were growing up were you interested in the Army?
PO: No. Not at all. I mean okay you know we were children. All our fathers invariably of course had been in the First World War and there were First World War relics knocking about. I mean in a garden, one of the back gardens on the company estate one person had the fuselage of an aircraft. Steel helmets were commonplace. We used to fight battles and things like that but as for a military my first brush I suppose with the military would have been I was taken by an aunt of mine who lived in South London and we went to Woolwich on a Sunday morning and on the Parade Ground there there were the horses and all the troops lined up and one thing and another. But I can’t honestly say that the military appealed to me at that time. I suppose like most children I didn’t know really what I wanted to do and I lived in a fantasy world. It really, yeah.
TO: And was your father in the First World War?
PO: Oh, yes. My father was. My father actually joined the volunteers before the Territorial Army was formed before the First World War and he served. He was in the Royal Army Medical Corps in actual fact and he served throughout the war you know. I think he came out of the forces in 1919. But after that there was no [pause] nothing. I mean he didn’t talk a lot about it. He had, you know a normal traumatic experience like most people in the First World War which was absolute carnage you know. I mean he talked about tying people to tree stumps to stop them harming themselves and that sort of thing. You know, it really was a terrible war that the First World War. Oh yes. The Second World War was nothing like the first. Although having said that before the war we were all our training because I joined the Army in ’38 it was second, it was First World War based. You know, we were digging trenches and doing things which were ludicrous really for the age that we were in at that time. There we are.
TO: And when you were at school were you taught about the First World War?
PO: No. No. All that I know is one of my masters at school was, he had been in the forces and I I quite admired him but I mean absolute childish way, you know. He’d been in. He’d been in the war and he was a big man and he was, he was a kind guy and as such I took to him and, yeah. But no. Really the First World War wasn’t talked about. I think it was too raw really.
TO: And were you taught any other military history though?
PO: The usual thing about the Romans and stuff like that but it, it went over our heads you know. It, it was, it was just, I mean my schooling, a lot of my schooling was learned by rote. There was no discussions and things like that. It was this is it and that’s it. You absorb it or you don’t sort of thing, you know. I mean the funny thing is that, you know sort of you look back and you think gosh, you know what a load of rubbish we were being taught at times. I mean the Empire was the great thing you know. We were great believers that Britain was the greatest country on earth and that we were kind to all these people who we ruled over and in actual fact of course we were anything but. We were taskmasters and slave masters. Yeah. Oh gosh, yes. No. Funny old life. Funny old life. Looking back you realise what. what was true and what isn’t true and I don’t know. Life just goes on.
TO: And were you interested in aircraft at all?
PO: We were. In Coventry there was a company called Armstrong Whitworth and we had an aerodrome called Bagington which is now Coventry. I don’t know what they call it now. But there, from there private aircraft flew and when I say private aircraft we used to get lots of, well no, not lots but an Autogyro or helicopter come over and we used to shout to them sort of thing as children you know. And then the first time I flew Alan Cobham’s Air Circus came to town and I emptied my money box and paid five shillings for a flight. So I was, my first flight would be, I’d be ten maybe. So that was my first flight. Okay. Looking back I suppose I sort of boasted about I’d flown as it were because that was unusual and five shillings was a hell of a lot of money in those days. It was to me anyhow. But that was the first time I flew. But after that I can’t say I hankered to fly, you know. It wasn’t, it didn’t grab me as such.
TO: And what do you remember from being in the air?
PO: The thing that I remember actually was that we, the aircraft we flew in would be, we’d got about eight seats in and there were just cane chairs bolted to the floor sort of thing you know and you just got in and I sat on the what I now know as the starboard side. But, and as we flew around the city we banked and the people on the port side could look down at the town and the city and I was on, all I was looking at was sky. So I did get up to have a look and I got screamed at by two old ladies who said I’d turn the plane upside down and made me sit down again. So it was rather disappointing in some ways. But that’s the first time I flew but after that I can’t say I hankered to fly as such you know. I mean we’re talking in the days of the R100 and the R101 airships which of course the R101 I think it was flew over our school one day. That was, that was quite something to see this leviathan of the air floating by almost silently as it were you know. I mean it really was ginormous. Yeah. Oh yeah. But no, flying I can’t say particularly was to the fore of my thinking as a child.
TO: And did you hear about when the R1, was it the R101 had crashed?
PO: Oh gosh, yeah. That, that crashed at Beauvais in France. Yes, oh yes. A friend of ours was an artist and he actually did a painting of it which he sent off to London hoping it would be included in an exhibition. It didn’t make it but it still went to London this. But I remember this painting of the R101 in its crashed state as it were. Oh yeah. Gosh. Yeah. A long time ago that. Everything is a long time ago with me.
TO: Do you remember what kind of plane you were in on your first flight?
PO: All that I know it was a biplane. I mean the, the Air Circus that came had various I presume, it is a presumption that they were Bristol fighters and stuff like that. Maybe the odd Fokker. I don’t remember. I mean all that I know is that it was magnificent. These guys flying around and throwing the things about but you know. It was. It was just exciting. Yeah. But as for type. No. No. The first type I remember is I used to scrounge flights in Whitley bombers and in Wellington aircraft on night flying tests and stuff like this. Although I was in the Army I was, at the time I was stationed on RAF airfields and you know I used to sneak off and go and scrounge flights. Why I did it I don’t know. It was I suppose it was, A it was something different and B, I was fed up anyhow. But yeah, but I can’t say it ever really grabbed me as such. It wasn’t the apogee of my sort of, it wasn’t that important to me. I did it and that was just fun. God knows what would have happened if we’d of crashed because everybody else would have been on the, on the documentation but my, my remains would be a mystery to somebody or other. Oh yeah. Because regularly these aircraft regularly came to the ground in the wrong place. Oh yes. Yeah. I suppose looking back it was dicey but you know, so what?
TO: And when you were, how was it you arranged with the crew to be aboard these bombers?
PO: Sorry?
TO: How, how did you arrange with the crew for them to allow you on the bombers?
PO: Well, I would just go up and say, ‘Hey,’ you know. I was sort of, ‘Could I have a flight with you?’ And so I suppose I did get rejected on occasions and others they said, ‘Yeah. Go on. Get in.’ Sort of. It was I mean it was just so casual. I mean it really was casual but it was, it was good. It was good. Yeah. Yeah, the old Whitley bomber. Gosh. Made in Coventry and there I am flying in the damned thing. Yeah. Oh, it was good. Yeah. That was my first sort of well that was my first war time flying shall I say. Oh yeah.
TO: And can you tell me about when you joined the Army?
PO: I, well I joined the Army. I originally joined the [pause] the county Infantry Regiment, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and when the, we’d just come back actually from annual camp when the war broke out and my battalion went to France. But I was at that time I’d just become a private. I had been a boy soldier up until my birthday, my seventeenth birthday. So at seventeen I became a private but I was still considered too young to go to France so I got put into another battalion and we were doing guarding vulnerable points and things all over the UK. And then that battalion I don’t know quite why but I then got transferred into the Royal Artillery and so I became a gunner and that was considered by the War Office as my parent regiment. God knows why because my parent regiment really was the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. But I, we guarded airfields and power stations and stuff like this. I had twelve guys. I mean I became an NCO in promotion sort of thing and I just had twelve or fourteen guys and a forty millimetre Bofors gun. I was part of the defence of various radar stations and stuff like that from the north of Scotland down to the south of Devon. And one day I saw a thing on Orders about the Army Air Corps and I think the real come on as far as I was concerned was there was flying pay on top of my meagre normal salary as it were as a, as a bombardier which is equal to a corporal. And so I applied to join the Army Air Corps. I went to London and did my aircrew medical and all the educational stuff and whatnot which I duly passed and found myself on Salisbury Plain as part of the Army Air Corps which it was then. My cap badge is an Army Air Corps cap badge. But I was in the glider pilot regiment and so that was the beginning of my sort of wartime flying shall I say such as it was. My wartime flying. I mean I went to EFTS of course and learned to fly powered aircraft first because they’re easier to fly than a glider which flies like a brick and then eventually I found myself in a squadron. We had, they were Horsas. The, you know the one everybody thinks was the wartime glider and then I found myself posted or attached to the 9th US Air Force on liaison work and I was flying, flying in Dakotas and whatnot all over the country one way and another. And then after Arnhem when we lost so many people I went back to squadron and I found myself flying Hamilcars which we had one squadron, C Squadron which was a heavy lift squadron and so I flew a Hamilcar glider. And then when the war finished we found ourselves at Fairford and we were converting on to the American Waco CG-4As to go to the Far East. Then lo and behold they dropped the atomic bomb and we all cheered and knew we were going to live as it were. But it was a very free and easy life in so many ways. Highly disciplined I can tell you but boy it was, it was good. Yeah. We were a happy lot, you know. The Army you know was just sort of an average sort of guy’s experience I suppose. I mean [laughs] and that’s how it went. I’m sorry. It’s not very interesting really is it you know? Yeah.
TO: And in the late 1930s did you hear about Hitler in the papers?
PO: Oh yeah. I I remember as a child hearing my father talking to somebody who said that they thought that war was inevitable. I know my father before the war he was in the ARP. He joined the ARP and he used to go once a week for training as it were and he became an ARP warden. But that’s the only, I mean it meant nothing to us as children you know. That was life I suppose like life out there today is you know. I mean the kids out there today you know they’re all nipping around with their I-pads and one thing and another and their thumbs are going like nobody’s business on their phones. It’s all, all strange to me but it’s their world and that was our world, you know. We were, we were very innocent really. I mean we relied entirely on really as much as anything on newspapers for information whether it was slanted one way and another by the government or political parties just that was it that was life. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: And do you remember the Munich Agreement?
PO: Oh yes. I remember Chamberlain coming back and waving his bit, piece of paper about saying, ‘Peace in our time.’ I mean in 1938 there were I remember them digging trenches and covering them over and making, you know air raid shelters of sorts. I mean in my home town I remember them building a huge shadow factory for producing you know, well aircraft and bits you know sort of thing. It was everything was pointing towards war but I mean it sounds silly but that was just how it was. You know. We were very subservient I think looking back. We didn’t question as the young people today would question the authorities shall I say. Oh yeah. Yeah. As I say to me it’s just how it went.
TO: And what do you think of Chamberlain?
PO: Well really, I looking back I think in some ways he was weak but you know I suppose he did, with the aid of the civil servants who really run this country he did the best he could do to try and placate Hitler and you know keep a peaceful world as it were because the alternative was pretty grim as it turned out. Yeah. He did his best and failed I suppose in some. Well, no. Perhaps he didn’t fail. I don’t know. I really have no great opinion of him one way or another. You know, as I say I just roll over and accept it.[laughs]
TO: And what do you think of Churchill?
PO: The right man at the right time. He could have been full of bluster and everything else but he he came on to the scene. I mean when you look at Churchill’s background I mean gosh there’s a man who changed sides so often one way and another. He was very astute in that respect but as a wartime leader I think he appealed to the populace, the general populace and you know he really sort of put a bit of fire into the belly of the nation and said you know this is it. We’re going to beat these guys and we all fell in line behind him and did what we did. Oh yeah. He was okay. I just wish he hadn’t have put his name forward and got beaten at an election. He should have left when he was at the top of the heap sort of thing. But yeah, I mean some of the things that have come out since I don’t know. They don’t do him any service I think but he was, he was a man of the time without doubt. Oh yeah.
TO: And can you remember the day the war started?
PO: Oh yes. I was blancoing my equipment at the time and polishing my brasses [laughs] yes. I remember that. The sort of, it was I think it was 11 o’clock in the morning on a, I think it was a Sunday morning. I think it was a Sunday morning and yeah I was actually blancoing my equipment. So yeah I remember that but again there was no great panic or anything. It was just, ‘Right. This is it.’ You know, sort of thing. Because we honestly thought when we came back from camp that you know war was inevitable. That all the, all the signs were there you know. You didn’t have to read the runes to a great degree to realise that you know we were going to fight these guys who wouldn’t behave themselves so to speak. Yeah. Oh yes. I remember that Sunday well and truly. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: And were you in the Army already when the Munich Agreement —
PO: Yes.
TO: Happened?
PO: Yeah. The Munich Agreement.
TO: Yeah. When the Munich Agreement was signed were you already in the Army then?
PO: I joined the Army in October 1938. Now, when the Munich Agreement was signed I don’t know.
TO: Around about that time I think.
PO: Yeah. It was. It must have been fairly close. A month either way. September or November so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. But you know it [pause] we just obeyed the rules. I mean I lived in a regimented sort of environment and did as I was told and kept my nose clean. Or did my best to keep my nose clean. Yeah.
TO: And do you remember was the Army making preparations for war when you joined?
PO: Our training basically was for the First World War. Okay, I mean when I think about it they said aircraft would be doing reconnaissance flights and attacking us and things like this and that we were to sort of budge together as if we were shrubbery sort of thing. But what a load of rubbish, you know [laughs] The thing to do as if you were being attacked from the air is to scatter. You stand more chance of living instead of being in one lump as it were. Oh yeah. I mean digging trenches and stuff like that okay they have their place. And scrapes and fox holes and stuff like this you know became the thing but you know looking back we were being taught to fight the last, the First World War and, you know it didn’t work out. I mean when you think of the speed of the Blitzkrieg across France I mean, and Dunkirk I mean we really got our backsides kicked. Well and truly. We weren’t, we weren’t really ready for war I don’t think. I mean okay everybody knew it was coming but nobody sort of we’re not I don’t think as a nation we’re aggressive in that sort of way or we get that worked up about things. I think we, we tend to sort of be very resilient to how things are and just accept them. I could be wrong of course. Well and truly wrong. I so often am.
TO: And did you do any training with tanks?
PO: No. Oh no. Good gracious me. No. We, in my battalion we had two Bren gun carriers. That was our armour. Yeah. That was it. I mean we were chuffed to billy-o when we got two, two Bren carriers. Things with tracks on you know. Oh yeah. This was the latest thing. But yeah, pathetic when you think about it. No. No. Tanks were, well of course the cavalry regiments turned over to tanks and became the Royal Tank Corps or the Armoured Corps but we didn’t see any signs of them. Oh no. Very sort of us and them in a way I suppose. Yeah. There was no sort of cooperation in any. We were in it and they were that and never the twain shall meet sort of thing. No. Looking back I mean what a different world we live in today militarily. Yeah. No. No. Funny old life. As I say it was good. I mean it suited me and you know I was happy and I had an easy war really and here I am an old man.
TO: And did you do, did the Army do any training with aircraft at all?
PO: No. No. None whatsoever. Not prewar. No way. Oh gosh no. Whether the budget wouldn’t allow it or what I don’t know. It was as I say the thinking of the War Office as it would be I suppose and the politicians didn’t sort of, I don’t know. I mean you know you’ve got to remember I was a teenager and as such you know I was malleable and obedient and did what I was told and didn’t do an awful lot of thinking I suppose. We were living day to day and you know today is the important day and tomorrow will look after itself sort of thing. Oh yeah. No.
TO: And what was the process for you joining the Army when you were sixteen?
PO: I saw an advert and I thought hey that’s great. And that was it. Yeah. That just fired me. I thought that sounds good. So, you know as simple simple as that. I remember I had a piece of paper that on it said that the Army won’t make you rich in monetary terms but in terms of friendships and whatnot you’ll be one of the richest people going. And it’s true. It’s true. The Forces, the pay is, it’s different today but in my day I mean I started out on what was it? Eight shillings a week I think it was, you know. But the friendships I’ve got I mean as I say when the turn out that I got on my hundredth birthday from the Army Air Corps really makes you realise that you know you belong to a big family. Yeah. Oh yes.
TO: And did the Army know you were under sixteen?
PO: Oh yes. I had to get permission from my parents to, to join at sixteen. I couldn’t just walk in and say to a recruiting office and say I wanted to join. I had to go home with a piece of paper to get my parent’s permission to join at sixteen as a boy soldier. Yeah. Oh yes. My, my mum I don’t think it was, in retrospect I don’t think she was very happy about it but my father eventually signed my papers for me. So you know but it, I as I say I couldn’t just walk in to a recruiting office and say, ‘I want to join.’ And they say, ‘Right. Welcome. Here’s a shilling. You’re now a member of the Armed Forces.’ Sort of thing. Oh no.
TO: And were you the youngest soldier who was there when you joined?
PO: I would say I was. Yeah. Yeah. I was. I don’t remember any other boy soldiers. I mean I just got thrown into C-Company and was, that was it. I became a runner. In other words, I became a guy who sort of was at the beck and call of the headquarters office sort of thing. Take this message here. Take that message there. Do this. Do that. That was my life originally until such time as when the war broke out of course things changed then. Suddenly as I say I was by then I was a private anyhow. I mean I went on to fourteen shillings a week then. But my life as a boy soldier was very much I mean there was no I wasn’t allowed into the licensed bar shall I say. When we were in camp for example down in Arundel just before the war there was what then knew as a dry canteen and a wet canteen. The wet canteen they sold beer and spirits and stuff. I wasn’t allowed in there. I could drink tea and cocoa or coffee but I couldn’t drink ale as it were. I couldn’t gamble whereas all the others were gambling like billy-o on housey housey and what’s known as bingo today and or poker and all these games they were playing for money. Oh no. But then I hadn’t got any money so [laughs]
TO: How did the other soldiers treat you with you being younger?
PO: Just, just the same as anybody else. Just the same. They obviously in retrospect I mean I’ve written about it but in retrospect I mean when we went to camp for example there were I don’t know how many of us in, in a bell tent. You know a pointed tent with a pole in the middle and you slept with your feet to the pole and there were panels in the making of the bell tent and you got a panel and a half or two panels if you were lucky depending how many were in the tent. But the old soldiers of course got furthest away from the, from the opening of the tent but muggins here [laughs] where was his bedspace? Right where the opening was. So anybody coming in at night or a lot would put their feet on me or if it rained I was the one who was going to get wet sort of thing. But I don’t know. They just treated me as, maybe they treated me [pause] I don’t know. I mean, they were a rough tough old lot. They weren’t, they weren’t sort of how can I put it, parental in any way shape or form or [pause] I don’t think they made any sort of difference to them. I was just another squaddie. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you know I used to get into all sorts of mischief one way and another and they’d say, ‘Oh it’s PO.’ Because my initials were PO and they’d say, ‘It’s young PO’s done that.’ And I, you know I’d get away with murder at times obviously doing daft things but the guys in the platoon just treated me as one of themselves. Oh yeah. Oh, it’s [laughs] it was a happy life as far as I was concerned.
TO: And how did the officers treat you?
PO: Cor that’s a good question. [pause] Well, the officers in the battalion I suppose would treat me just as a private soldier. No demarcation. ‘Oh, he’s young so we’ll make allowances for him.’ There was none of that. But after, when the war was on I mean our officers were mainly people who had been in the Territorial Army or came in from and were created officers for all their Army experience was zilch. And then I mean on one occasion I went to sleep on guard. I should have gone on guard and I said to the, it’s so casual they gave me the rifle because we had one rifle and five rounds of ammunition and nothing else sort of thing. And the guy who came off guard came to me, woke me upon and said, ‘Right. Your turn now.’ So I said, ‘Okay. Put it down there and I’ll get up.’ And I went to sleep and it was 6 o’clock in the morning when I woke up and said, and we were, the whole unit were moving that day and the officers discussed whether they could put me on a charge and they said they couldn’t put me on a charge because it was a Sunday. And you know I knew more about the Army than they did. That they were fielding. I suppose these so-called officers would be grammar school guys and not even university guys. Just guys who had done well at school or got the right connections and they became officers. No. I really had little to do with officers. No. Not until much later on. Then I was instructing officers then. Sandhurst guys and one thing and another. Oh yeah.
TO: And can you tell me about when you first starting working on gliders?
PO: Yeah. I went to a place called Stoke Orchard where there were Hotspur gliders. Now they carried nine guys but they were never used operationally. They were considered a waste of time I suppose and I [pause] our instructors were RAF pilots. Presumably either they’d done a tour of operations and were resting or, but I mean my instructor was a Sergeant McCain. I remember him. He was mad. And we were being towed by, off the ground by a Miles Master aircraft and I don’t know how long it was before I soloed on the gliders. But one day I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t grab it one day and I picked my parachute up because we all wore parachutes when we were flying the Hotspur and I picked my parachute up and got up, left and went and laid down on the grass and told them I wasn’t doing any more. I’d had enough. And I really blotted my copy book there but nothing was ever said. The following day I went back to McCain and we got on with the job as it were. But it that was my first experience of when you come off tow there’s no sound of course and it’s a bit like the Hotspur had got a wingspan big enough that you could use thermals and stuff like this. So it was a bit like being a bird. It was quite something. So that was my introduction and when I left GTS then went to Horsas which were far bigger and being towed off the ground by Dakotas and I mean the Hamilcar of course could only be towed off the ground by a four engine bomber. Halifaxes of 38 Group. They were our towing squadron. But you know the hardest work I suppose of flying a military glider is making certain that you’re in the right position in respect of the towing aircraft because you could get the towing aircraft if you went too high on tow you’d pull the nose of the towing aircraft down you know. And if you went too low you’d stall the, unless they chopped the connection of course. But yeah, it was, well it was just different I suppose. It was, it was just flying and, you know we were doing circuits and bumps day in and day out during the night night flying and stuff like this. Night flying was good because you got a night flying supper which amounted to bacon and eggs and that was great. I’ll tell you there’s a profit in everything if you look for it. Yeah. But yeah. Flying as I say the minute you came off tow there’s only one thing and it’s down. And I mean we never flew a Hamilcar without nine thousand pounds of ballast in it you know because the wingspan was so great that you’d just float and float and float, you know with that. But the Hotspur was as I say was very malleable. The Horsa you could do, put the big flaps down and do dive approaches and things like that but the, the Hamilcar was I mean it was bigger than the towing aircraft so you know they were, they were big. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a picture of a Hamilcar. I’m sure you must have done. But yeah. Yeah. Now, if you’ve got a tank underneath you you know you weigh quite something. I know that we were overloaded on the Rhine crossing that’s for sure. On the Rhine crossing of course like so many others we got we lost all our flying controls as we were being hit by anti-aircraft fire. That was interesting but all that we were left with was the tail trimmer and we were lucky actually because we’d just come off tow and got into sort of our optimum gliding speed and then we lost a great chunk of wing and all our flying controls got severed with the exception of the tail trimmer. So we were already at the right attitude but direction you know we had no control over which way we were going and we were going the wrong way. We weren’t going towards friendly territory. We were going into the enemy territory [laughs] big time but we could do nothing about it. But there you go. When we hit the ground eventually it was, it went to stand on its nose and I got thrown through the Perspex canopy. And I remember I got out, I picked myself up, shouted for a Bren gun which I’d, was my weapon of choice. And one of the gunners I’d got a seventeen pounder gun and truck in the glider and I remember the guy saying, ‘The sergeant’s trapped.’ And I said, ‘Never mind the sergeant being trapped throw me down my Bren gun.’ And I found myself sitting under a dyke with some angry people one side the dyke and me the other trying to eat a Mars bar. [laughs] I mean it’s crazy isn’t it? Talk about adrenaline flowing you know. I just sat there eating a Mars bar. We were getting mortared of course. Oh yeah. It was, I spent the rest of that day running away. How’s that for a big bad soldier [laughs] running away. No. Where was I? It was, it was a good life you know. I was happy in the Army. Yeah.
TO: And what else do you remember about the Rhine crossing?
PO: Well, the first thing I recall we were third in the, in the stream, in the Hamilcar stream and the glider on my port side carried a tank. And to load the tank they would back it in to and shackle it down. And I remember seeing the back end of the glider break open and the tank come out backwards with the guys, the crew a couple or three other crew sitting on the outside of the tank falling off and the tank turning over and going and crashing to the ground or into the Rhine. I don’t know where it went. It made a bloody big hole wherever it went because it was, it was at three thousand feet so you know a tank at three thousand feet wouldn’t bounce. That would really make a good hole when it hit the floor. So that was my first memory of it. Then the smoke which was being generated on the west bank to cover the invasion by, or the incursion by troops on the ground obscured an awful lot of what we were trying to look for to get ourselves, make certain we were landing in the right place and as I say then getting hit. And getting hit was that was funny because I remember looking at the port wing and thinking ‘My God that’s a bloody big hole’ because we lost a great chunk of port wing. We really did. How we kept flying God only knows but you know, we did. As I say we lost all our controls and got hit again well and truly and that was it and then as I say we had no choice in our direction. That was being dictated by where the controls were set and the whims of the wind or what have we. I don’t know. Yeah. I’m sorry but it’s so, you know in retrospect I look back and think how lucky I was but you know I can’t say at the time there was I suppose the adrenalin is flying like the clappers you know. Let’s face it. You know, you don’t think you’re going to die. No way did you think that you were going to die. You just thought, ‘Hell’s bells, that shouldn’t have happened,’ sort of thing. That was it. I’m sorry to disappoint you but you know that was how life went.
TO: And were you badly hurt when the plane landed?
PO: No. Not at all. Not at all. No. No. As I say I got flung. As the aircraft, as the glider tipped up it threw, the cockpit as you know is on the top and it flipped up on to its nose. I thought it was going to turn over and that happened more than once with others where they and the pilots just got crushed. You know, because the load would be on top of them. But it flipped up and I went through the Perspex canopy onto the ground as I say. Then I must have shaken myself and shouted for a Bren gun and then went and scurried very quickly on to the shelter of this dyke and got my Mars bar out [laughs] I’d have given pounds for a drink of water at that stage I can tell you. Oh dear. But oh. I don’t know that I can tell you any more about how I felt you know. I mean I don’t know about your bomber guys but I mean they they thundered on for hours and hours and hours the, on an operation. The real exciting bit if you can call it exciting is when you get there and that lasts what two minutes maybe you know sort of thing maximum you know off tow and you’re going down you know. Oh yeah.
TO: When you were in the cockpit —
PO: Yeah.
TO: When you were coming in to land were you wearing a helmet?
PO: Do you know I don’t know if I’d got a steel helmet on or not. I know I very very quickly put my red beret on. That, that [laughs] sounds daft doesn’t it? But yeah. Yeah. I must have done. I must have done. If I hadn’t had, if I hadn’t had a steel helmet on I’d have really hurt my head. Yeah. So I must have done. Yeah. I’m fairly certain I did thinking about it. But as I say I quickly discarded it and put my red beret on and there I was a big bad airborne soldier so be careful because you’re dealing with the crème de la crème of the British Army so to speak. Yeah.
TO: Did German soldiers attack your glider?
PO: Oh yeah. They mortared it. They obviously they could see the tail of the aircraft sticking up like a signpost so they knew and they’d see it come down. I mean without a doubt they’d know. I mean it’s big enough to see it isn’t it if it’s a little thing and we were getting mortared straightaway. I mean the earth was jumping up and down all around the place like nobody’s business. Of course, we left. We moved from there and joined up with some Irish guys and some of the Ox and Bucks thing and we decided they weren’t the best people to go with. Beauman and I the other pilot in the glider. It was a question of somebody an officer say sergeant so and so sergeant so and so is dead sir. Sergeant so and so. Corporal so and so. Corporal so and so is dead sir. We thought we don’t want to be with this lot. This sounds a bit iffy. So we left them and ran ran away somewhere else and joined up with some others and then eventually we sort of fought our way back to where we should be as it were which was quite some distance actually. We were quite a way from the Hamilcar. Yeah. But oh no. I mean the, I remember the Americans coming in as we were I’ll call it retreating [laughs] and a glider landed twenty or thirty feet from where we were and not a soul got out. The Schmeissers just ripped the glider apart and not not one person got out. So that would be what? Twenty two guys just dead before they’d even had a chance to get out of the glider. I mean it was. It was quite hairy in the initial stages. Then we obviously had total control of the area and that was it. Yeah. Just hid in German foxholes and stuff like that.
TO: Had the Germans installed anti glider obstacles?
PO: I can’t say I saw any. I can’t say. Well, you see we we landed in the wrong place. We landed where we shouldn’t have been so to speak. We, our, the aircraft I was in lost total directional control so we went probably I don’t know probably way past where we should have been as I say. We were out on a limb you know. So, so no, I can’t say I saw any, any anti-aircraft landing posts and stuff like that that they seeded the grounds within some areas because obviously I mean the first German I took prisoner he demanded to know where we’d been. He said to me in good English, ‘Where have you been?’ and I said, ‘What do you mean where have we been?’ He said, ‘They tell us English flying troops come and we hide in the woods and wait for you. You not come. Where have you been?’ [laughs] Yeah. So we weren’t unexpected. But no but that’s it as I said. Very sort of ordinary experience I suppose.
TO: And the I think you said there was a seventeen pounder gun in the Hamilcar.
PO: Yeah.
TO: Did they manage to get it out?
PO: God knows. I never [laughs] I don’t even know what happened to the gun crew. I really don’t. Presumably they’d get their sergeant out who was trapped. How he was trapped I haven’t a clue, you know. It’s, I don’t recall seeing any of the gun detachment that was there. You know, getting out. I mean how many of them would get injured God only knows. You know. Whether the quad truck that was the towing vehicle whether that set forward I mean it would have been chained down but you know when you hit the ground at a fair old rate of knots and you know, the shackles and stuff would probably get pulled out of the strong points anyhow. So, but I mean I never saw any signs of the, as I recall of the gunners or I mean certainly the seventeen pounder no that never as far as I know never came out. Never came out.
TO: And how long was it before you met up with other allied soldiers?
PO: I suppose it would be maybe twenty minutes. Something like that. I mean we were skulking along and trying to keep out of the way of these angry people. I mean two guys [laughs] Two guys and a Bren gun and a rifle I wasn’t going to take on the Wehrmacht.
TO: So was it only mortars landing it at you or soldiers shooting at you as well?
PO: Yes. It was my memory is of mortars. Yeah. Being mortared. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly there was certainly plenty of that. Yeah. And as I say it wasn’t until we got with some other troops that we as I say the guys in the American glider they just got, I mean we were sort of trying to keep out of the way and these guys with their Schmeissers and MG 42s boy they really ripped into these Americans. I mean they were landing all over the place. But the one that really did I remember vividly is this thing came skidding to a halt. Made a beautiful landing he made but nobody got out. Nobody got out. They all got killed before they got out. Yeah.
TO: How far away from you was that glider when it came in to land?
PO: Twenty feet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s all. I mean we were shouting. We shouted at them daft as it sounds, ‘Get out. Get out.’ But it was too late. The Germans were there just the other side of where these Americans were landing. Again obviously in the wrong place really and yeah they just got killed. Yeah. Oh yeah. And my I suppose my other memory is the first night I went to find some tea. Find something to drink and I found a field hospital sort of. Not a posh place by any means. It was just a house that had been taken over as a field hospital and I was outside and a surgeon came out. He was covered in, in blood and one thing and another and there were all these dead guys lying lined up outside and he said to me, ‘Have you ever seen [pause] have you ever seen a man’s brains, sergeant?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And he said, and he lifted the helmet of one soldier and his whole of his cranium was in the helmet and in the bowl of his head was his brains. Yeah. I mean it could have been it looked just like meat to me because I didn’t know the guy or anything you know. But it was there must have been thirty or forty bodies all laid out by this field hospital sort of thing. But yeah, funny old [pause] God. Yeah.
TO: And as a sergeant what were your responsibilities once you were on the ground?
PO: We were supposed, supposed to get to Hamminkeln where the headquarters was. That was our, I mean you know sort of the basically of course we were quite valuable in the time and money that had spent on training us as Special Forces in a way. That’s gilding the lily a bit but you know sort of thing. I mean at D-Day for example. Guys who landed on D-Day they were back in the UK within twelve hours. Glider pilots, you know. Arnhem of course was a very different ball game. They didn’t come back until well the battle was over basically. The guys from Arnhem because we were planned to go to the Far East you know. Oh yeah. So that’s it. I’m sorry. It’s so mundane really. There’s no great heroics or anything like that in it whatsoever. I was just doing a job that I was trained for and you know it was my memories are good. The only thing is all the guys I knew have all fallen off the log. I think I’m one of the last ones. I don’t know of any others at the moment I must admit. There must be the odd one somewhere or other.
TO: What was your unit’s objective for the Rhine crossing?
PO: Basically to get this seventeen pounder gun and whatnot in the, to the right place so they could take part in the battle order or whatever. And we failed miserably because we wrecked it. Yeah. Nothing more that. Nothing more than that. To get it there safely. I mean the hard work really was the tow, you know. It was a long tow and you know if you’re fighting the aircraft all the way. The glider all the way it just doesn’t, it just didn’t sail along on its own. You know, you’re working all the time to keep the thing in the right position and you know talking to the tug crew as it were. Yeah. I mean it’s like your bomber boys. I mean the minute they take off Lancasters haven’t got automatic pilots and stuff like that. They’re working all the time and their objective is to get to the target and get back. As for the bombing and all the rest of the navigation and whatnot that’s not their responsibility. The pilot’s job is to the get the aircraft there safely and get it back safely if they can. And that was, that was it. Yeah. No, there’s some very brave men and I can’t say I’m one of them [laughs] I just knew some very brave men. Believe you me.
TO: Do you remember anything about the briefing for the Rhine crossing?
PO: About the —?
TO: Briefing before you left.
PO: Yes. We were promised total aircover which didn’t appear. We had some air cover because I remember talking to the guys down below. They couldn’t see anything and I remember telling them what I could see. And I could see aircraft either getting shot up or parachuting down and I sort of gave them a bit of a running commentary of what was going on as it were. But other than that the flight was pretty uneventful you know sort of thing. You could see an awful lot of the ground. We were at three thousand feet. Just over three thousand feet and of course at three thousand feet you see an awful lot of the ground so I could tell them, you know, ‘We’re just wide of Calais at the moment.’ Because of course Calais was still in German hands so we sort of went around Calais and whatnot and then like I say I could see four Thunderbolt aircraft on our port side or whatever and sort of its whether whether they listened or not I don’t know.
TO: And did you talk much with the co-pilot?
PO: Oh, well I suppose we must have. Bert and I must have sort of talked to one another but I don’t recall it to be honest with you. I really don’t. We were just flying you know.
TO: And what did you say to the tug crew on the radio?
PO: Well, the thing I do remember is we thanked them for the tow. That was, that was about the size of it sort of. When we got to the other end I mean we probably had a couple of words with them during the tow you know sort of thing because there was a sort of a telephone wire inside the tow rope which was a damned big rope I can tell you [pause] But yeah. No, that’s about it I’m afraid.
TO: Looking back how do you feel about the airborne operation on the Rhine?
PO: Well, it was the biggest operation there was without doubt. I mean I’m glad I was there. As I say it was part of my education [laughs] as it were. No. I was just proud to be a member of a regiment that covered itself in a reasonable amount of glory and my real feeling I suppose is that I felt privileged to have known so many brave men and I really did do you know. And I mean as I say the friendships that resulted from being in I mean I know I knew more people after the war who were in the regiment than the Royal Artillery Regiment I was in or the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, you know. And now as I say the Army Air Corps have, you know taken over the modern Army Air Corps and they’re very shall I say friendly towards me sort of thing. Yeah. Oh yes.
TO: And when did you hear about Operation Market Garden?
PO: I was with the American 9th Troop Carrier Command at the time and my boss was one of the original parachutists that went to Bruneval and he was a sergeant at the time of Bruneval and his name was Luton. And I remember Luton saying to me he was, he was very upset about the losses at Arnhem. He knew there was a battle going on. We knew there was a battle going on but he was very upset because of course he was, they were mainly paras at Arnhem and you know he was sort of, as I say quite upset at the thought of all his mates fighting there and A he wasn’t there or B he was you know sort of feeling sorry for them losing their lives. I don’t know. But that’s my memory of Arnhem. As I say the minute Arnhem was over I found myself very quickly back into a fighting unit as opposed to living high off the hog in the, with the American Air Force. Oh yeah.
TO: And were you worried that the Rhine crossing would end like Arnhem?
PO: No. No. Oh no. No. No. We couldn’t lose. That was the attitude. We couldn’t lose. I don’t know if that’s the time that we were told two of us out of three would probably die but you look at the other two guys either side of you and think oh I’m sorry for you. But no. I don’t recall it. No. I think the briefing probably took an hour. Maybe a bit more than an hour and of course we talked to the tug crews you know and that sort of thing but [pause] funny old life.
TO: And do you think the Rhine crossing could have gone any better or do you think it was that was just how it would have gone regardless?
PO: I, the first thing that happens to any battle plan is it‘s going to go wrong. Now I can’t say that it went really wrong. It went wrong as far as I personally was concerned because of what happened but I think in the main it was to a large degree I think an awful lot of the Germans knew the writing was on the wall. I think, you know they could see that the amount of, of forces against them were totally overwhelming and where we’d got everything I think they’d got very very little. I think it was, yeah. I think you’d put it down as a success. I don’t think the losses were anything as great as they thought they were going to be. I mean I don’t honestly know what the percentage of losses was but yeah I think it was, you know a success. Especially after, after Arnhem. I mean that really was carnage that. Yeah. The battle for the bridge was well it was hopeless wasn’t it?
TO: And what did you think of the airborne generals like Gale or Urquhart?
PO: I actually saw Urquhart at one of the big, as I saw Eisenhower at one of the big demonstrations or practice jumps and stuff like that when I was with the 9th Air Force and they came across as being very very competent guys. I mean Windy Gale and, you know [pause] I think that this sounds silly in a way but I think we had the best officers that you could possibly have. They were. They were really all, they weren’t that gung-ho that they’d walk into the Valley of Death willingly. But they’d make bloody certain that if they had to walk into the Valley of Death you got the impression that they were going to take an awful lot of people with them. Yeah. I mean Gale yeah. Yes. Our leadership was good. Our leadership was. I think we had the crème de la crème of officers without a shadow of a doubt. Very very strict but very human and skilled in what they were doing. They really were. I mean a lot of them of course never went to Sandhurst or anything like that. They were wartime people but boy they were the right guys in the right place. Yeah. I mean when you think when I joined the glider pilot regiment in my intake there were a hundred and thirty of us got through the selection. I mean we lost a hell of a lot in the selection in London on academic or physical capabilities you know and then as I say a hundred successful candidates from that. From the aircrew medical and all the rest of it thirty of us finished up and out of the thirty of us I think probably eighteen, twenty of us actually went flying you know. They couldn’t hack the basic training. You know I mean all that you’d got to do if you didn’t, if you couldn’t do it you could just say, ‘I’m leaving.’ And they’d give you a railway warrant back to your parent regiment. There was you know if you can’t do it we don’t want you. And they made it very very obvious. I mean you’d just got to be very very determined to stay in the regiment and and meet their qualification requirements as it were. So yeah. I mean it was, it was a regiment full of course of people from all regiments in the British Army. I mean I’ve made great friends with a guy who had been a schoolteacher but he was Armoured Corps driver operator and when we were doing exams he’d sit next to me and I’d help him with, with my answers and he’d help me with his answers. So we got through that way sort of thing. But it’s I mean some guys as I say got flying and just couldn’t fly. I mean it sounds silly but they just hadn’t got the aptitude. Others managed to kill themselves. You know, it’s [pause] No, it was a super super regiment. A super regiment. Of course, it got disbanded after the war. No, no requirement. Yeah. So that’s it. I’m sorry but you know it‘s probably not what you wanted but that’s what you’ve got.
TO: This is amazing. Thank you for telling me.
PO: Pardon?
TO: This is amazing. Thank you for telling me.
PO: Oh, I don’t know about that. It’s just that it was just how life was I’m afraid. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: And what did you think of General Montgomery?
PO: Never had anything to do with him. Again, I think when he went to the 8th Army after Auchinleck and those failed miserably in the desert that he was again the right man at the right time. He was, he’d got sufficient common sense that he could despite what he might feel internally he appealed as one of them to the troops under his command and sort of said, ‘Right. This is it. This is what we’re going to do.’ And do it. And I mean good God with the desert Army. I mean they’d been battered by losing Tobruk and even, I mean good God Rommel even got into Egypt and along comes this guy with his old peculiar ways and attitudes and one thing and another but as far as the troops were concerned this guy knows what he’s doing and we’re going to you know we can do this and we’re all together you know. He’s with us and we’re with him. So his PR was extremely good. But I mean I never met the man or he never impinged as far as I know on my, my military life as it were. Oh no. No.
TO: And did you have any popular songs in the Army?
PO: Oh gosh. Yeah. Before the war we used to march and sing songs. One was about a boxing match. “Have you heard of the big strong man who lives in a caravan?” I mean crazy words but not, not popular songs. Not not popular. Very, very much sort of Army songs and of course an awful lot before the war. Of course an awful lot of the soldiers were, had been up on the North-West Frontier you know. In Afghanistan and places like this so they were all hardened. Quite a lot of the real hardened tough thick soul guys you know. What is said in the book was absolute and you didn’t query anything and they were just tough guys. I mean when I think about it at sixteen I got thrown in with guys old enough to be my father and life just, that was I just accepted it you know. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end but I mean I look at some of the young people today at sixteen and good God it would kill him. Whereas with me it just that was my life. Oh yeah.
TO: Did you have any favourite wartime entertainers?
PO: Wartime?
TO: Entertainers.
PO: I only ever once saw an ENSA concert. My biggest regret is that I was at the time at Exeter and Glenn Miller came and I didn’t go. I wish to God I’d gone because he was at, he came to Exeter with the US Air Force Band. Yeah. But other than that I saw one ENSA. No, I did see an American entertainment once. Yeah. So I saw one ENSA concert and one American one but my biggest regret is I should have gone, why I don’t know but Glenn Miller. Yeah. But there you go. What’s past is past. You can’t alter the past.
TO: So what happened after you’d met up with Allied troops at the Rhine? Did you start advancing with them?
PO: No. We got we were, the glider pilots got taken out of the line. We went back to a transit camp and two days or three days later we were flown back from [unclear] to in actual fact we went back to Brize Norton. We landed at Brize Norton and then from there we dissipated to our various squadrons. So, oh no. We didn’t. We didn’t do an awful lot of fighting believe you me. As I say I did more running away than fighting.
TO: Did you ever actually use the Bren gun in combat?
PO: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A bit. Yeah, it was. I mean on one occasion we were with a group of about eight or nine troops. What regiment they were I haven’t got a clue but they were there were two young officers with them. I remember that and we were there in this wood and lo and behold about forty Germans went across and these guys stood up, put their binoculars up to their, and said, one said to the other, ‘Jeremy, there are some Jerries over here.’ And I thought you don’t need [laughs] I’m on the floor I can tell you keeping my head down. I could see them. Didn’t need to stand up with binoculars to look at these Germans but we we let them go. You know it was over. We knew it was over. You know. No point in killing them. We’d done our fighting. As I say we were on our way back to the transit camp to be flown home. Yeah. So as I say I had a very easy war. I really did.
TO: Was the Bren gun a good weapon?
PO: Yes. I was happy with it for all it [pause] I mean when we were running away around my waist I had got a lanyard and the barrel catch would occasionally catch on to this and the guts of the Bren gun would fall out and I’d have to stop. Now, I was in a, there were about I don’t know about fifteen or twenty of us sort of sneaking away and I’d stop and put the Bren gun together again very quickly. But every time I stopped somebody would pass me and I think I nearly finished up at the tail end of this little, little group who were running away. Yeah. Talk about, but it was, it was a good weapon. It was a good weapon. Very slow rate of fire when you consider that like the Germans I mean their weapons, automatic weapons were, were like sewing machines you know. Zzzz zzzz zzzzz where as ours went bang bang bang sort of thing. Yeah. Oh yes. Very. I mean, I forget what the rate of fire of a Bren is at the moment. Something like a hundred and twenty a minute or something. But yeah, it‘s, it was a good, a good weapon. It lasted throughout well. Lasted well throughout the war and beyond. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: And can you tell me about the training you did in gliders? Like when you were practicing landings.
PO: Well, yeah. I mean the skill in flying basically is landing. Taking off is pretty straightforward and easy really as long as you obeyed the rules. Landing is, is always the problem but you know the more you do I mean we would do maybe with a Hamilcar for example we would do if we were flying we’d probably fly for ten minutes on a circuit and then land and roll to a stop. The tug wagon would come out and pull us back to the start and we would, and we just did circuits and landings. I mean the clever bit is landing it in one piece and well that was it, that was it you know. I mean landing a Tiger Moth is far harder. I found far harder because you basically do a three point landing you know. You’re virtually at a stall whereas with the glider you flew in at whatever the airspeed was and plonked it on the floor and it was a very, very forgiving aircraft really. I mean okay you could have some hard landings but in the main you know you just fly them straight on to the floor.
TO: When you were heading towards the landing site —
PO: Yeah.
TO: Did you have to be on the look out for things like tall trees or power lines?
PO: On transit no because we were flying above any possible obstructions. Our landing sites were usually I mean operationally our landing sites were fairly open land. I don’t honestly recall being warned of any. The only obstructions I think we were ever talk about was sort of hedges or barbed wire fences type of thing. Other than that pylons and stuff where we were I don’t think anything like that existed to be honest with you. No. No. Oh no. If there were I don’t recall it I must admit. I can’t even recall seeing a pylon. Okay. You’d get the telephone wires and poles like that but you know they were on, on the road as it were as opposed to being in the fields. Yeah. I mean there were some big fields in Germany believe you me.
TO: And was it a field you landed in in Germany then?
PO: Well, it was we actually landed in a very small field I can tell you [laughs] yeah. It was without doubt we were running out of space big time but once it dug into the ground you know as I say we had no control so once we hit the ground the ground was very soft and we pulled up a bit smartly and as I say then it stood on its nose. Yeah. Yeah. But [pause] yeah.
TO: And before the Hamilcar crash landed in Germany did you, were you telling the, everybody on board to brace for impact or —
PO: No. I didn’t. I doubt, once we were hit I think we were a bit too busy to talk to anybody down below. I mean we were already in in free flight when we were hit so we were you know looking for where we ought to be and then we were hit and it was just a question of fighting the aircraft. I mean when you think the tail trimmer was only about that size on a Hamilcar. That’s the only control we’d got and that only altered attitude. Directional. We were just sitting tight and you know our buttocks were very tight together [laughs] and hold on. We’re going to hit the ground boys. What they thought down below I haven’t got a clue. In fact, I don’t honestly know whether the actual fuselage where the load was I don’t even know if that was ever hit with ack ack fire or small arms fire or anything. I really don’t. I just know that we lost this great big chunk of port wing and then all our controls. We got hit in the fuselage and all our controls went out the window. And that was it.
TO: And do you know which, what kind of guns were shooting at you?
PO: Just about everything. I mean when we got on the ground there was an immediate resupply by a Liberator aircraft and they came over at about two hundred and fifty feet. That was all. With their bomb doors wide open dropping all the resupply kit and near us there was, must have been an anti-aircraft battery. They were good. They shot down about four of these Liberators just like that. Bang bang bang you know. Lots of noise and whatnot but whether they were eighty eights or forty mil or thirty mil Oerlikons or what I haven’t got a clue. But lots, there was lots of ack ack fire believe you me. Oh yes. I mean, you know what a lovely target. A great big glider flying along slowly. I mean if you can’t hit that you shouldn’t be in the shooting game. Oh dear.
TO: And did the, you, did you or any of your men manage to pick up any of those resupplies?
PO: I didn’t personally. No. No. In fact, I lost quite a bit of kit. I mean I came out of that with my Bren gun and one magazine. That was all I’d got. A Bren gun and a magazine and that was all I came away from that aircraft and as I say as for the gunners I don’t know what they did. I mean whether they, whether they got mortared and you know were sort of damaged or what I don’t know. I really don’t know. I should have. Not that I say I should. I know an armoured regiment spoke to me about this tank falling out of the glider but as for the seventeen pounder guys I don’t know what happened to those gunners. I really don’t know. Yeah.
TO: So did you only have one clip of ammunition when you took the gun away.
PO: Yeah, I just I just had one. One magazine in the Bren gun and believe you me if the rabbit had have popped it’s head up near me it would have got the lot I can tell you [laughs] yeah.
TO: So did you use the ammunition at all or did you not?
PO: I used some of it. Not all of it because you know targets don’t stand still sort of thing. You know what I mean. I mean it’s so easy. You see some of these things on television these days where they’re letting off their AK47s and they seem to rattle it out and its cost is no no consequence to them. They’re not bothered. No. There was no resupply as far as I was concerned at the time. Oh no. I mean we went to clear a wood and as I say it’s [pause] I don’t know.
TO: So did you join up with a group of other soldiers and eventually met up with other allied soldiers?
PO: Yes. Eventually yeah. We, yeah we, we met. Now, again I don’t know if they were Irish Fusiliers or whether they were Ox and Bucks. I know that we were, we were told or asked to go and clear a path to a wood across these open fields and all the way across. Beauman and I joined these guys and I I think they must have been Irish guys because all the way across these other guys were saying, you know, the effing Ox and Bucks. We’ve got two effing glider pilots here but none of the effing Ox and Bucks want to come with us so to speak. But we hared across these fields and got to the wood as luckily there was nothing in the wood which was just as well. But all, and I just remember going across a barbed wire fence and dashing across this field in the open and I thought this is a bit dicey but, you know. Oh yeah. All part of life’s gay pattern.
TO: Did you feel relieved though when you met up with the allies who’d crossed the Rhine?
PO: I must have done. Must have done. Yeah. The first troops I think I met that I can recall were a Canadian armoured regiment and they, they were quite happy. And then we met some troops that had come over the Rhine and they couldn’t believe that we’d left the UK only the day before and that we’d be back in the UK within a week because they’d been there since D-Day. Yeah. I mean some guys had a really rough war. They really did. I mean you know gosh just as well I didn’t stay in an infantry regiment.
TO: Do you happen to hear, be familiar with the name Koppenhof Farm at all?
PO: No.
TO: Okay. Just asking because there was a soldier I interviewed ten years ago who had been in the Royal Ulster Rifles. He landed in the Rhine crossing.
PO: Yeah.
TO: In a place called Koppenhof Farm and because he well it must have been relatively close to Hamminkeln.
PO: Yeah.
TO: Because he said his commanding officer died when his glider, when their glider crashed near there but I just wondered if maybe you had been in a similar area but —
PO: Well, I might have been. I mean I know we crossed the railway line a couple of times to get where we wanted. Well we got back to Hamminkeln. That’s where we, I finished up. In Hamminkeln.
TO: Yeah.
PO: But of course on the railway station there there was two wrecked gliders. They’d landed right on the blooming railway line. Right on Hamminkeln itself.
TO: That was one of the gliders though that this man was talking about because he said his commanding officer was a chap called Major Vickery who was in one of the gliders that crashed into the railway station and he was killed.
PO: Ah well there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I remember seeing that glider. Yeah. Equally I saw a Horsa fly in to a tree and just break up like a box of matches being thrown everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Exciting times at the time. Yeah.
TO: And did you happen to see any German civilians when you were there?
PO: Oh yes. Yeah. Actually, I met children rather than adults because one lad he was part of the Todt [?] Labour Association and he said that the Germans had lined them all up and more or less said, ‘What are you?’ And if you said German Jew they shot them. Terrible as it sounds this is what he said to me. But I remember we, I’d got some soap. Don’t ask where it came from. I really don’t know. I must have looted it out of somebody else’s stuff and I gave him this soap. Well, you’d think I’d given him a bar of gold. I mean he put it to his nose and of course the smell of Lux soap as it were. Yeah. I don’t know what happened to that kid. He stayed with us for quite a few hours and then disappeared. Whether he was being street wise or what I don’t know. No. I didn’t of course there was a non-fraternisation ban on so you weren’t supposed to talk to any German civilians but where we were there was only the odd farmhouse and stuff like that you know outside of Hamminkeln itself there was nothing. I mean I went to Goch to look at Goch. By jingo that was, that had been fought over a couple of times. That was a total wreck that town. But no. Yeah. So then we got on. I’m sorry, that’s, that’s me such as it is.
TO: Did you get to talk with any other German prisoners?
PO: No. No. I, I was sent to guard some prisoners. There must have been I don’t know a couple of hundred of them and all I’d got at the time was a fighting knife. That’s all I’d got. My fighting knife. And they were all standing there and sitting there and one thing and another and one of our officers came up or an officer came up. I don’t know if he was one of our officers and spoke to one of the German officers and this German officer spit at him. And I thought he’s going to kill him. I really did. But believe you me there I was with all these prisoners so called all very happy I think to be prisoners but just as well because if they’d have raised up and started to make any trouble I’d have, I’d have been off like a rocket I can tell you on my own with all these guys. Yeah. No. Yeah. That’s it. All little sort of vignettes of memory coming up here one way or the other.
TO: And what happened when you got back to Britain? What were your responsibilities then?
PO: Well, the first thing was when we got to Brize Norton the Customs and Excise people wanted to know what, what we’d brought back with us and of course we’d got nothing basically. We were just us. And then I went back to to Tarrant Rushton which was down near Bournemouth. It was, that’s where my squadron was based so I went back there in the hut. Got in the hut and I think there were only two of us left out of the hut who came back. So we lost, out of, out of the hut we must have lost I don’t know about ten guys I suppose. Yeah. Because we then sorted out all their kit. I remember sorting out their kit. Yeah. I had enough handkerchiefs to see me through the rest of my service career I think out of these guys kits. I wasn’t, wasn’t sending those home to their wives and daughters. Handkerchiefs. They were like gold. Yeah.
TO: And did your co-pilot come back with you?
PO: Yeah. Oh yes. Bert and I came. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah. And, and also Bert wasn’t in my, wasn’t in my hut funnily enough. Who was with me? Was it Geoff Higgins? There were two of us in our hut. That was all out of the ones that left only a week before sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
TO: And do you remember the day the war ended?
PO: Oh, very much so. I was at Fairford the actual day the war ended when, because we were converting then onto Wacos to go to the Far East. Being lectured about Bushido and all the rest of it. What a load of rubbish. How to behave if we were taken prisoner by the Japanese. Good God. The Japanese would have just killed us the way it seemed they were inclined to treat their prisoners. But yeah, that was it. We all cheered. We really did and then of course we started getting parties you know. The Australians would be going home so we’d have a party in the mess for them and then the Canadians were going home. You know. And these were RAF people not glider pilots. RAF people out of 38 Group towing. Halifax pilots and stuff like that, you know. Tow pilots. Yeah. Yes. Happy days that was. Yeah.
TO: Do you remember what you did to celebrate?
PO: Yes. Now, let me think. VE Day. VE Day what I’ve just been saying was VJ Day thinking about it. VE Day I was on leave. I was in London with my, my future wife. Yeah. We had a great day. That was a great day dancing like idiots around Trafalgar Square and one thing and another. That was really a super day that. But the whole world was you know celebrating. The fact that there was still fighting going on in the Far East didn’t mean anything. It was, you know the European war had finished. Great. We were going to have a great time and it was [pause] It was. Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Then I got married and was married for seventy two years. That’s a long time.
TO: And what are your thoughts on how warfare has changed in the time since?
PO: Oh, it has totalled. I mean the first war if you like was in Northern Ireland and that was terrible. You know. You didn’t know who, who your enemy was. I mean, I was still in the Forces but I wasn’t involved in any way, shape or form in Northern Ireland. I’d have hated to go to Northern Ireland from what I’ve been told by Royal Marines as much as anything. But I mean the war in Afghanistan that was a waste of time and money in so many ways. If the Russians couldn’t do them I mean the Russians had a go at Afghanistan and failed miserably and the Americans and ourselves what have we achieved? Nothing. It’s as far as I’m concerned I might be very uneducated in that sort of respect but I I think that the shape of warfare is so different. I mean I got a letter from a lieutenant general the other day saying that his daughter was currently in the Royal Artillery but she was just flying drones. Now, I mean you know drones. Good God in my day something like a drone would have been [pause] just imagine a drone being over the battlefield in the Second World War. But here now of course young people are sitting in a hut in Lincolnshire flying drones out over the Far East. Warfare has changed just so much. In many ways its frightening. As long as we, these little wars I mean the war that’s taking place at the moment in, you know with Russia and with, what’s the [pause] come on what’s the name of the country? I’ve lost it.
TO: Ukraine.
PO: Ukraine. I mean we’re supplying them with weapons and what are we doing? I wouldn’t mind betting it’s just a proving ground for our latest technologies to see how well it works you know. As long as we keep away from the atomic business. That’s the frightener. That really is the frightener. I mean I remember after the war when I was at a conference and they said the Russians are only two hours flying time away and we were on about going nuclear after, after forty eight hours. We would have gone nuclear and stuff like this. That was frightening at the time. I mean since then, I’m now talking of 1950s and now, now things have got even worse. No. As long as Putin doesn’t go over the top because that could be, really could be terrible. Terrible. What do you think about it?
TO: I just think it’s probably the most as it were filmed, media televised war we’ve seen. It’s almost every action is being filmed on either a phone, a drone or a camera somewhere. It’s probably the first war where you’re almost watching it in real time if you like.
PO: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True. Very true. Yeah. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that. Yes. It’s so immediate isn’t it today? Yeah.
TO: Have you watched any of the things like the footage that’s been almost live from the front line?
PO: Oh yeah. I, I’ve seen what everybody else sees on on the box you know. Some of these war reporters I mean good God. Talk about putting themselves in to danger but of course it’s such a big country isn’t it? It’s huge. I mean it’s the size of France and Germany I understand. Well, France is a damned big country on its own let alone tack Germany on to it. And here you’ve got to so I don’t know. I mean I can’t see the Russians winning that war. The West won’t let them win it. But the ramifications of it affect everybody. I mean like these grain convoys and stuff like this and taking out power supplies for the civilians and terrible you know. It’s diplomacy failed totally. You know. We can’t talk to you so we’ll fight you. No good.
TO: I’m afraid I’m out of battery on my camera at the moment. Would you mind if we stop there?
PO: Yeah. [unclear] yeah.
TO: Thank you very much for speaking to us. It’s been wonderful.
PO: No, well, I as I say when I think when you, when you screen through that you’ll be very disappointed that my war was a totally different war to almost everybody else’s I think. It doesn’t, there was no great heroics in it. It was just the way it was. Yeah. Well great. Well, that’s very kind of you to be so generous with your comment and I wish you well with your project.
TO: Thank you. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Peter Offord Davies. Part One
Creator
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Tom Ozel
Date
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2022-11-05
Type
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Sound
Format
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01:57:18 audio recording
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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ADaviesPO221105-AV
Coverage
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British Army
Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Description
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Peter was born in Coventry. Although in the army, Peter was stationed on RAF airfields and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in October 1938, aged 16, transferring to the Royal Artillery. He then joined the Army Air Corps (AAC) and was part of the Glider Pilot Regiment.
Peter first learnt to fly powered aircraft at Elementary Flying Training School and was then attached to the 9th United States Air Force. He flew in C-47s, then went back to C squadron, flying Hamilcars. When the war finished, Peter went to Fairford and converted onto Waco CG-4As to go to the Far East.
Peter discusses the time leading up to the Second World War, his views on Chamberlain and Churchill, and how prepared the country was for war. He describes his training and time as a boy soldier.
He trained at RAF Stoke Orchard on Hotspur gliders, towed off the ground by Master aircraft. When he left Glider Training School he went on Horsas, towed by C-47s. Hamilcars needed four-engined bombers: 38 Squadron Halifaxes. Peter describes flying these different gliders.
Peter recounts in some detail the Rhine crossing in which they were hit by anti aircraft fire and landed nose down before escaping to Hamminkeln and ultimately returning to RAF Brize Norton and then to his squadron at RAF Tarrant Rushton. He talks about his Bren gun.
Peter expresses his pride and the many friendships made. He also praises several generals for their roles in the war.
Peter discusses the VJ and VE Day celebrations and how warfare has since changed.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1945-05-08
1945-08-15
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Dorset
England--Oxfordshire
Germany
Rhine River
Germany--Hamminkeln
Contributor
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Sally Coulter
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
38 Squadron
anti-aircraft fire
C-47
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
Halifax
Hamilcar
Horsa
military ethos
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Tarrant Rushton
training