1
25
98
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/295/3614/PWallerT1601.2.jpg
34b5bd0d1f27bcf9d0cae341c896cccd
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/295/3614/PWallerT1602.2.jpg
26ffcde9850fda590233a0e075018031
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
Waller, Tom
Tom Waller
T Waller
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Corporal Thomas Waller (- 2018, 1096366 Royal Air Force) a memoir and photographs. Tom Waller was a fitter/armourer with 138, 109 and 156 Squadrons and served at RAF Stradisall, RAF Wyton, RAF Warboys, and RAF Upward.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Thomas Waller and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Waller, T
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
156 Squadron armourers at RAF Warboys
Description
An account of the resource
Seven airmen, five wearing tunics and two wearing leather jerkins in front of a wheeled trolley. One airman kneeling in front has corporal stripes and one standing behind has hands on the shoulders of man in front. All are wearing side caps. In the background a single storey building with a small smoking chimney pipe on the left side. On the reverse 'Tom Waller, 2nd from the right. 156 Squadron Pathfinders 1943, RAF Warboys, outside the armoury'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PWallerT1601, PWallerT1602
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
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.
156 Squadron
ground personnel
Pathfinders
RAF Warboys
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2067/34118/BFranceAMStimpsonMCv1.2.pdf
f0ed0aa35f635faae6cf52796ddc629a
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
Stimpson, Maurice Cecil
Description
An account of the resource
124 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Maurice Cecil Stimpson DFC (1921 - 1944, 155249 Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, documents, and pennants. He flew operations as a pilot with 156 Squadron and was killed 15 February 1944. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Tony France and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on Maurice Cecil Stimpson is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/226992/">IBCC Loses Database.</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-22
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
Stimpson,
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] This is the time line for the life of Flt Lt Maurice Cecil Stimpson
(08-09-1921 / 15-02-1944) Service Number 155249 Log book No. 68466. [/underlined]
08-09-1929 [sic] Born in Harrow Middlesex
Parents Harry Stimpson and Nellie Louisa Stimpson (nee Titbbit.
Living at Parkfield Lodge, Headstone Lane, Hertfordshire.
Attended Headstone Lane School now known as Nower Hill School Pinner.
There is now a Wooden Monument to Maurice. (Not sure yet when this was created and who paid for it.) It was rededicated by the RAF on Friday the 9th of November 1984.
Attended by Maurice Sister also Nellie Louisa France (Nee Stimpson born 09-03-1915 and passing 24-04-1986 and her surviving son Tony France born 10-03-1948.
There is no date for Maurice starting or finishing at Headstone Lane School yet.
Mr. Nagle current liaison with Nower Hill has been asked if he can provide this information.
01-09-41 joined RAF almost twenty.
01-09-41 / 04-10-41 LONDON A.C.R.C. (Number 1 Aircrew Receiving Centre, that was a receiving centre for new RAF recruits, in Lords Cricket Ground in London between 1941 and 1944.)
04-10-41 / 16-12-41 SCARBOROUGH 10 I.T.W. (The six week training programme at the ITW was designed to improve discipline, physical fitness and mental alertness and provide a sound basic knowledge of the Royal Air force.)
17-12-41 / 07-01-42 PERTH E.F.T.S. (With the outbreak of war the RFS became No 16 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) and the head of Air Schools was re-commissioned as an RAF Officer. ... If they were considered suitable they were posted to begin their training at an RAF Elementary Flying Training School to fly light aircraft.)
Diary comment Flying duel Tiger Moth D.H. 82 7hrs 55minutes
14-01-42 / 01-02-42 MANCHESTER P.D.C. (The Professional Development Center (PDC) provides resources and tools needed to become self-motivated, competent, highly skilled leaders and followers)
01-02-42 / 13-02-42 Chateau Therry [sic] Ship from Greenock to New Brunswick.
Chateau Thierry (AP-31) was built in 1921 and served with the Army until transferred to the Navy on 15 July 1941. 1941 – The ship was transferred to the Navy on 15 July and was commissioned on 6 August.
13-02-42 / 23-02-42 Moncton CANADA 31 P.D.C.
25-02-42 / 29-03-42 Turner Field U.S.A. (Construction of the base and airfield, named Air Corps Advanced Flying School, Albany by the United States Army Corps of Engineers began on 25 March 1941.
Diary Comment Flying P.T.17
29-03-42 / 02-06-42 PRIMARY DARR AREO TECH U.S.A. The 29th Flying Training Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Western Flying
[page break]
Training Command, and was disbanded on 16 June 1946 at Napier Field, Alabama. The wing controlled World War II Phase One primary flying training units of the Army Air Forces Training Command. Headquarters at Moody Field, Georgia for most of its operational service, it controlled contract civilian-operated pilot schools primarily in the Southeastern United States.
02-06-42 / 05-08-42 BASIC MACON GA U.S.A On August 17, 1941, the first class of British Royal Air Force cadets arrived at Cochran Field. Until June 1942, Cochran was used exclusively for British training. Liaison was maintained between the RAF and the Army Air Force through a Royal Air Force Administrative Officer. British cadets differed significantly from American cadets. Firstly, British physical requirements were much lower than for American cadets. The British were either from 17 to 21 years of age or over 27 years old. Many of the older cadets, married with children, worried about their families back home. The giving of tactical training and attendant discipline, along American lines and pursuant to traditional American policy, concerned and irritated the British cadets. They believed that if they had to be trained in the U.S.A., they should be subject to British discipline and be taught British tactics – the Americans should handle flight training only. In addition, unlike American cadets who grew up operating a farm tractor or automobile, the most complicated device operated by the average British cadet was a bicycle. Some training bases reportedly taught British cadets how to operate a motorcycle before attempting any flight training. The last British cadets completed training in the U.S.A. in March 1943.
05-08-42 /09-10-42 ADVANCED VALDOSTA GA U.S.A These facilities were home to nine school squadrons and three base squadrons that supported a maximum capacity of about 4,100 personnel. The initial group of 140 military personnel arrived at Moody on November 25, 1941. Although the $11.5 million construction of Moody Field would not be officially completed until June 1942, the first class of 50 U.S.A. Army Air Corps Aviation Cadets arrived Feb. 19, 1942. By the spring of 1942 the personnel at Moody numbered 3,000 enlisted, 350 officers, 450 flying cadets, and 20 nurses.
09-10-42 GRADUATED
12-10-42 / 27-10-42 MONCTON CANADA P.D.C
27-10-42 / 06-10-42 Possibly travelled home on the Chateau Therry Ship from New Brunswick to Greenock. The ship name has been deleted form[sic] the personal diary.
Boarded the ship on the 27th set sail at 10.00 hours on the 30th anchored on the 4th of November in thick fog delayed disembarkation left ship on the 5th at 15.00. Marvellous reception by the people. Train journey home arrived at 04.00 having started travelling at 09.00 the day before.
05-11-42 / 15-12-42 P.R.C. HARROGATE
15-12-42 / 27-12-42 6.P.A.F.U. LITTLE RISSINGTON
27-12-42 / 18-02-43 6.P.A.F.U WINDRUSH
[page break]
18-02-43 / 01/03/43 1517 B.A.T.CHIPPINGWARDEN
01.03.43 / 30-03-43. 6. P.A.F.U. WINDRUSH
30-03-43 /17-06-43 30. O.T.U. HIXON / 30. O.T.U. SEIGHFORD
07-06-43 MADE PILOT OFFICER BACKDATED FROM 11-09-43.
22-06-43 / 09-07-43 1662 CON. UNIT LINDHOLME
09-07-43 / 17-07-43 1662 CON. UNIT BLYTON
[underlined] 23-07-43 156 SQUADRON OPERATIONAL [/underlined]
24-07-43 HAMBERG, Lancaster ED990
CREW Leonard Overton. Bomb aimer, Clements Navigator, John Arcari wireless, Thomas Cable Flight Eng, D. Davies second Nav, Fredrick Sunderland Air Gun, Alfred Barnett Air Gun, Maurice Stimpson 2nd Pilot.
27-07-43 HAMBERG, Lancaster ED990
CREW Leonard Overton. Bomb aimer, Clements Navigator, John Arcari wireless, Thomas Cable Flight Eng, D Davies second Nav, Fredrick Sunderland Air Gun, Alfred Barnett Air Gun, Maurice Stimpson 2nd Pilot. (This entree was not on the 156 squadron list but is recorded in red in the log book)
02-08-43 HAMBERG Lancaster W4950
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton. Comment Returned Icing
17-08-43 PEENEMUNDE Lancaster JA697
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson, Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
22-08-43 LEVERKAUSEN Lancaster JA674
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson, Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
23-08-43 BERLIN Lancaster JA921
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson, Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton. Comment Returned early.
27-08-43 NUMBERG Lancaster JA674
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton. Comment Landed Tangmere shortage of Petrol.
[page break]
31-08-43 BERLIN Lancaster JA674
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
03-09-43 BERLIN Lancaster EE173
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
05-09-43 MANNHEIM LANCASTER EE173
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton. Comment combat with E/A 109.
06-09-43 MUNICH Lancaster EE173
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton. Comment 1st Marker.
16-09-43 MODANE Lancaster EE173
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
29-09-43 BOCHUM Lancaster JA912
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Harry Toon, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
04-10-43 FRANKFURT Lancaster JA975
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
07-10-43 STUTTGART Lancaster JA912
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
8-10-43 BREMEN Lancaster JA912 CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson
Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
29-10-43 PATH FINDERS BADGE
[page break]
29-10-43 FLIGHT LIEUTENANT BACK DATED FROM 01-11-43
22-10-43 Frankfurt Lancaster JA912
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
10-11-43 MODANE Lancaster JB113
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
[underlined] 29-10-43 Pilot Officer M.C. Stimpson (155249) AWARD OF PATHFINDERS BADGE [/underlined]
17-11-43 MANNHEIM Lancaster JA912
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
22-11-43 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
23-11-43 BERLIN Lancaster JA674
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
26-11-43 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, Harold Robinson Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner A N J Hinds, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
02-12-43 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, W Coyne Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
03-12-43 LEIPZIG Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, W Coyne Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
16-12-43 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
20-12-43 MANNHEIM Lancaster JB223
[page break]
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
23-12-43 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
29-12-43 BERLIN Lancaster JA925
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
01-01-44 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
02-01-44 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
05-01-44 BERLIN Lancaster JB228
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, John Wright Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
27-01-44 BERLIN Lancaster JB226
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, R Hill Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
28-01-44 AWARDED THE D.F.C.
28-01-44 BERLIN Lancaster ND453
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, John Wright Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
30-01-44 BERLIN Lancaster ND504
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, John Wright Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
[page break]
10-02-44 PRESENTED TO THE KING AND QUEEN AT WARBOYS. Recorded in personal diary and the occasion is detailed on page 94 in the book The Pathfinders (picture of the King and Queen)
10-02-44 Gentleman's evening Pinner with the Colne Valley Electrical Company. Presentation of a cheque and mug for being awarded the D.F.C. Also picture of the evening and paper report. (Maurice's employer before joining up.) Recorded in personal diary.
14-02-44 Went to picture with Hunts, Joe, Johny and I went to see Crash Dive by Tyrone Power. Quite good. (Last diary entry)
15-02-44 Last letter he wrote home was to Marion (Not sure who this lady was but many letters were sent to Marion)
15-02-44 BERLIN Lancaster ND504
CREW Pilot Maurice Stimpson, Bomb aimer Johny Jackson, Navigator, John Wright Wireless Walter Catchpole, Flight Eng Joe Gurton, Up Gunner Bill Smith, R Gunner Roy Dutton.
[underlined] COMMENT: FAILED TO RETURN [/underlined]
[underlined] Personal details of some of the crew. [/underlined]
Bill Smith – 24 Fore Street Seaton Devon.
Roy Dutton – 136 Arabella Street Cardiff.
Joe Gurton – 44 Mountgrove Road Highbury, London.
Walter Catchpole – 294 Beccles Road Lowestoft (Possibly Oulton Broad after Beccles Road)
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
A Biography of Maurice Stimpson
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Maurice covering his birth in 1921 to his death in February 1944.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Harrow
England--London
England--Scarborough
Scotland--Perth
England--Manchester
Canada
New Brunswick--Moncton
United States
Georgia--Albany
Georgia--Valdosta
Georgia--Macon
England--Harrogate
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Munich
France--Modane
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Leipzig
France
Georgia
New Brunswick
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Lancashire
England--Yorkshire
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.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BFranceAMStimpsonMCv1
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Seven typewritten sheets
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
156 Squadron
1662 HCU
30 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Blyton
RAF Chipping Warden
RAF Hixon
RAF Lindholme
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Seighford
RAF Warboys
RAF Windrush
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1414/28283/MWareingR86325-161005-57.1.pdf
5bcd0d87ba83800dcfd887d036d2d75e
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
Wareing, Robert
R Wareing
Description
An account of the resource
258 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Robert Wareing DFC* (86325 Royal Air Force) and contains his flying logbooks, prisoner of war log book, memoirs, photographs, extensive personal and official correspondence, official documents, pilots/handling notes, decorations, mementos, uniform badges and buttons. He flew operations as a pilot with 106 Squadron. After a period of instructing he returned to operations on 582 Squadron but was shot down and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Andrew Wareing and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-05
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
Wareing, R
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A F Hill’s flying log book extract
Description
An account of the resource
Flying log book extract for A F Hill, navigator, covering the period from 13 April 1944 to 7 August 1944 when he was missing on operations. He was stationed at RAF Warboys and RAF Little Staughton. Aircraft flown in was Lancaster. He flew a total of 25 operations with 582 squadron, 9 Daylight and 16 night. Targets were Essen, Somain, Montdidier, Nantes, Montcouple, Foret de Cerisy, Laval, Longues, Fougeres, Lens, Les Hayons, Blainville sur L’Eau, Villers Bocage, Oisemont Neuville, Nucourt, St Philibert Ferme, Colombelles, Mont Candon, Foret du Croc, Les Hauts-Boisson, Stuttgart, Coquereaux, L’Isle Adam and Mare de Magne. Evading capture he returned to the Great Britain by naval vessel on 14 September 1944. His pilots on operations were Squadron Leader Wareing, Wing Commander Dunnecliffe and Pilot Officer Sexton.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Sixteen photocopied pages
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
MWareingR86325-161005-57
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1944-06
1944-07
1944-08
1944-04-26
1944-04-27
1944-04-30
1944-05-01
1944-05-03
1944-05-04
1944-05-07
1944-05-31
1944-06-01
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-07
1944-06-09
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-24
1944-06-28
1944-06-29
1944-06-30
1944-07-02
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-07
1944-09-14
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Cara Walmsley
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Cambridgeshire
France--Abbeville Region
France--Bayeux Region
France--Caen Region
France--Calais (Arrondissement)
France--Dieppe (Arrondissement)
France--Dreux
France--Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine)
France--Laval (Mayenne)
France--Lens
France--Lille Region
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Longues-sur-Mer
France--Montdidier (Hauts-de-France)
France--Nancy Region
France--Nantes
France--Normandy
France--Nucourt
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Somain
France--Villers-Bocage (Calvados)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Saint-Philibert (Morbihan)
France--Forêt du Croc
France--Coquereaux
582 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Lancaster
missing in action
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Warboys
tactical support for Normandy troops
V-1
V-weapon
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1903/36342/PSparkesW17010033.1.jpg
93bcb6af3305f508ca17b873bbbeba96
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sparkes, Ned
William Sparkes
W Sparkes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-07-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Sparkes, W
Description
An account of the resource
56 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant William "Ned" Sparkes (1601722 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book and an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and documents including descriptions of his operations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 431 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Clive Sparkes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
A.O.C.'s inspection Warboys 1963
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1963
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1963
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
Description
An account of the resource
Top left - three quarter length image of an Air Marshall shaking hands with an airmen wearing tunic with half brevet and medal ribbons. Another warrant officer stands to the right.
Top right - document concerning W.O Sparkes i/c servicing control section. Comments on 257 Squadron's servicing control. Mentions that W.O Sparkes was a wartime aircrew flight engineer, rose to rank of flight lieutenant before discharge and re-enlistment.
Bottom right - photograph with an Air Marshall in centre with a flight lieutenant behind left and two warrant officers to the right. All wearing tunics.
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs and one printed document mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PSparkesW17010033
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
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Sparkes, Ned. Album
aircrew
flight engineer
ground personnel
RAF Warboys
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/530/25990/MShawSR3002545-160211-15.2.jpg
64233735a3dc7bb38205a8314df55045
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Shaw, Stanley R
S R Shaw
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Shaw, SR
Description
An account of the resource
37 items. An oral history interview with Stanley Shaw (3002545 Royal Air Force) Photographs, documents and his log book. He served with a Repair and Salvage Unit and attended many crashes. He later served in North Africa and the Middle East.
The collection also contains two photograph albums; one of his RAF service and one of his time in a cycle club.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Stanley Shaw and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-01-14
2016-02-11
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Aircraft Recovered by No 9 Party, 54 MU
Description
An account of the resource
A list of 29 aircraft recovered during 1944-45 by No 9 Party, 54 Maintenance Unit.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stan Shaw
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten list
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MShawSR3002545-160211-15
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Thurleigh
England--Ely
England--Felixstowe
England--Desborough
England--Northamptonshire
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
B-17
B-24
B-25
Battle
C-47
Halifax
Lancaster
Mosquito
P-51
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Bourn
RAF Castle Combe
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Desborough
RAF Duxford
RAF Felixstowe
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Graveley
RAF Henlow
RAF Hethel
RAF Kimbolton
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Mepal
RAF Oakington
RAF Podington
RAF Stradishall
RAF Sutton Bridge
RAF Swannington
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Tempsford
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Watton
RAF Woodbridge
RAF Wratting Common
Stirling
Walrus
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2324/45251/LCamlinAE1806468v1.2.pdf
d82d1b74352f253eb486421367332988
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
Camlin, Alan Edwin
Description
An account of the resource
7 items. The collection concerns Alan Edwin Camlin DFM (196717 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, correspondence, documents, and objects. He flew operations as an air gunner with 7 Squadron.
The collection also contains John Francis Bank's log book and other papers. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 192 Squadron.
The collection was donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Janet Camlin and catalogued by Lynn Corrigan.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-20
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
Camlin, AE
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Alan Edwin Camlin's 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 Alan Edwin Camlin, air gunner, covering the period 12 November 1943 to 12 January 1946 and detailing his training and operations flown. He was stationed at No.7 Air Gunner School RAF Stormy Down, No.11 Operational Training Unit RAF Oakley and RAF Wescott, No.26 Operational Training Unit RAF Wing, 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit RAF Shepherd's Grove, No.3 Lancaster Finishing School RAF Feltwell, Navigation Training Unit RAF Warboys and 7 Squadron (PFF) RAF Oakington. All of his 46 operations, 29 night and 17 day, were flown in Lancasters with 7 Squadron. During one day time operation Alan was wounded. Targets in France, Germany and the Netherlands, were to Boulogne, Calais, Bochum, Bottrop, Bremen, Chemnitz, Cleve, Cologne, Dessau, Dortmund, Duisburg, Dülmen, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Hanau, Hannover, Jülich, Kamen, Karlsruhe, Kiel, Leipzig, Mainz, Mülheim, Munich, Osnabrück, Nürnberg, Stuttgart, Wanne Eickel, Wilmhelmshaven, Worms and Venlo. He flew one Operation Manna flight and one Operation Exodus flight. His pilot for 45 operations was Flight Lieutenant Rawson and for one was Wing Commander Cox.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-09-03
1944-09-11
1944-09-13
1944-09-15
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-20
1944-09-27
1944-09-30
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-16
1944-10-19
1944-10-20
1944-10-23
1944-10-24
1944-10-25
1944-10-28
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-09
1944-11-10
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-16
1944-11-18
1944-11-19
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-12
1944-12-13
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1944-12-24
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1945-02-02
1945-01-03
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-14
1945-04-15
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-27
1945-02-28
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-09
1945-03-11
1945-03-31
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-22
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Great Britain
Netherlands
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Calais
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Dülmen
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Jülich
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Munich
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Worms
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
Wales--Bridgend
Netherlands--Venlo
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
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
LCamlinAE1806468v10001
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
Lynn Corrigan
11 OTU
1657 HCU
26 OTU
7 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Feltwell
RAF Oakington
RAF Oakley
RAF Shepherds Grove
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Warboys
RAF Westcott
RAF Wing
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/809/22583/LEdmundsAE430709v1.2.pdf
3cb999f857acfe6ff694b39669f8441c
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Edmunds, Eddie
Albert Ernest Edmunds
A E Edmunds
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history with Eddie Edmunds DFC (b. 1917, 430709 Royal Air Force), his log book and one photograph. He flew operations with 106 and 608 Squadrons. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Albert Edward Edmunds and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edmunds, AE
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Albert Edward Edmunds’ pilots flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Pilots flying log book for A E Edmunds, covering the period from 18 August 1941 to 4 October 1945. Detailing his flying training, Operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Penhold, RAF Hatfield, RAF Prestwick, RAF Dishforth, RAF Kirmington, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Wigsley, RAF Syerston, RAF Peplow (also known as RAF Childs Ercall), RAF Church Broughton, RAF Hixon, RAF Barford St John, RAF Downham Market, RAF Warboys and RAF Gransden Lodge. Aircraft flown were, Tiger Moth, Oxford, Hudson, Ventura, Wellington, Manchester, Lancaster, Martinet, Mosquito and Mitchell. He flew a total of 44 night operations, 30 with 106 squadron and 14 with 608 sqaudron. Targets were, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne, Lorient, Milan, Bremen, Nuremburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Essen, St Nazaire, Kiel, Spezia, Dortmund, Pilsen, Bochum, Oberhausen, Krefeld, Berlin and Schleissheim. His pilot for his first 'second dickie' operation was Pilot Officer Lace. The log book also list his post war civilian flying.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LEdmundsAE430709v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Alberta--Red Deer Region
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Derbyshire
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Shropshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Oberschleissheim
Germany--Stuttgart
Italy--La Spezia
Italy--Milan
Scotland--South Ayrshire
Alberta
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1942-12-20
1942-12-21
1943-01-27
1943-01-28
1943-01-30
1943-01-31
1943-02-02
1943-02-03
1943-02-04
1943-02-07
1943-02-08
1943-02-13
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-16
1943-02-17
1943-02-21
1943-02-22
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1943-03-10
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-13
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-08
1943-04-09
1943-04-10
1943-04-13
1943-04-14
1943-04-26
1943-04-27
1943-04-30
1943-05-01
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-06-11
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-06-14
1943-06-15
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1945-03-13
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-18
1945-03-21
1945-03-22
1945-03-23
1945-03-26
1945-03-27
1945-03-28
1945-04-02
1945-04-03
1945-04-11
1945-04-12
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-16
1945-04-17
1945-04-19
1945-04-20
1945-04-21
1945-04-22
1945-04-24
1945-04-25
1945-06-02
1945-06-07
1945-06-12
1945-06-19
1945-06-27
1945-07-09
1945-07-23
1945-08-03
106 Squadron
16 OTU
1654 HCU
27 OTU
30 OTU
608 Squadron
83 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
B-25
bombing
Cook’s tour
Flying Training School
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Manchester
Martinet
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Barford St John
RAF Church Broughton
RAF Dishforth
RAF Downham Market
RAF Gransden Lodge
RAF Hatfield
RAF Hixon
RAF Kirmington
RAF Peplow
RAF Prestwick
RAF Syerston
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Warboys
RAF Wigsley
Tiger Moth
training
Ventura
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2563/44428/MParryWE1172401-220531-06.1.pdf
d7b2535d59dc5249b5da2b66d602bece
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
Parry, William Edward
Parry, W E
Description
An account of the resource
34 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer William Edward Parry DFC (1912 - 1996, 1177401 Royal Air Force) and contains his decorations, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 9 Squadron.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Frances Lee and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-05-31
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
Parry, WE
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
Andover's Lancasters
Description
An account of the resource
A lecture given to Andover's Archaeology and Local History Society on 23 February 1996.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1996-02-23
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Andover
Germany
Germany--Essen
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Nuremberg
France
France--Paris
Germany--Munich
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Italy
Italy--La Spezia
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Poland
Germany--Braunschweig
England--Great Yarmouth
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
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Eight printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MParryWE1172401-220531-06
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.
156 Squadron
44 Squadron
50 Squadron
617 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
crash
ditching
flight engineer
Grand Slam
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
killed in action
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
military discipline
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Bardney
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF hospital Rauceby
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
Spitfire
take-off crash
Tallboy
Tirpitz
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2380/LAndersonAA428289v1.2.pdf
357f3a160f67920aa88d481a2db49408
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
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
Andy Anderson's flying log book for pilots (incomplete)
Description
An account of the resource
Incomplete pilots flying log book for A A Anderson covering the period from 19 April 1944 to 31 May 1945. Detailing his training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Bitteswell, RAF Bruntingthorpe, RAF Winthorpe, RAF Syerston, RAF Metheringham, RAF Warboys and RAF Coningsby. Aircraft flown were, Wellington, Stirling and Lancaster. The total number of operation shown are 23, 14 night with 106 Squadron and nine night with 83 Squadron. Targets were, Rheydt, Dortmund, Karlsruhe, Kaiserlautern, Brunswick, Bergen, Dusseldorf, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Harburg, Trondheim, Munich, Horten Harbour, Danzig harbour, Bohlen, Lutzkendorf, Wurzburg, Molbis, Cham, Komotau and two Operation Exodus to Rheine. His first or second pilots on operations was Flying Officer Sayeau.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
37 photocopied pages
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
LAndersonAA428289v1
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 Australian Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1944-09-19
1944-09-20
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-17
1944-12-18
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-08
1945-05-10
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Poland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheydt
Germany--Steinfurt (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Würzburg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdańsk
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
29 OTU
83 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/14954/EDonaldsonDWOCRAFFoulsham450331-0001.2.jpg
38b8229adb4c4630af76bd7adcd14ca5
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/14954/EDonaldsonDWOCRAFFoulsham450331-0002.2.jpg
2e37f396aef60ce1de25d71fa6b478dd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
19
70185 A/W/Cdr. D.W. Donaldson, RAFVR.
192 Squadron,
R.A.F. Station,
Foulsham,
Nr. Dereham,
Norfolk.
To:- Officer Commanding, R.A.F. Station,
Foulsham, Nr. Dereham, Norfolk.
Date:- 31st March, 1945.
Subject:- [underlined] APPLICATION FOR A TEMPORARY RELEASE. [/underlined]
Sir,
I have the honour to apply for a temporary release from the R.A.F. for a period of from six to nine months. This is to enable me to work and sit for the Solicitor's Final Examination.
When mobilised at the outbreak of war in September 1939, I was a Solicitor's Articled Clerk. I had completed my articles and was working for and was about to take the Final examination in November of that year.
This release would only commence on the completion of my third and present tour of operations, and subject to my then not being required by the R.A.F. for the above period of six to nine months.
Attached are details of my service career since September 1939. My demobilisation Group is No.22.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your Obedient Servant,
D.W.D
Wing Commander,
[underlined] Commanding 192 Squadron. [/underlined]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Application for temporary release
Description
An account of the resource
Letter from David Donaldson to station commander at RAF Foulsham requesting temporary release for a period of six to nine months in order to study and sit solicitor's, final examinations. Enclosed document listing his service since September 1939 which includes target towing, training, operational tours on 149, 57, 156 and 192 Squadrons, tours at 3 and 100 Group and Atlantic ferrying.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
D Donaldson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-03-31
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Correspondence
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
EDonaldsonDWOCRAFFoulsham450331
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
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
England--Oxfordshire
England--Berkshire
England--Suffolk
England--Hertfordshire
England--Lincoln
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-31
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
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
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One-page typewritten letter and one page typewritten document
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Frances Grundy
100 Group
149 Squadron
156 Squadron
192 Squadron
3 Group
57 Squadron
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Halifax Mk 5
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Evanton
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Warboys
RAF West Raynham
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1279/17566/YPearceAT1874945v4.2.pdf
a2351da247af3b1b94f5f4679bb41f42
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
Pearce, Arthur
A T Pearce
Description
An account of the resource
140 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Arthur Pearce (1874945 Royal Air Force) He served as an air gunner with 12, 170 and 156 (Pathfinder) Squadrons and completed a 44 operations. After the war, on 35 Squadron he took part in the June 1946 Victory flypast over London and a goodwill visit to the United States. It contains his diaries, memorabilia and photographs.
The collection also contains an album concerning his post war activity with the Goodwill tour of the United States.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Steve Allan and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Pearce, AT
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Bank Holidays, 1944
[page break]
PERSONAL MEMORANDA
Sgt PEARCE
[page break]
Bank CITY 6001
G.T. HOP 1293
N.S.D. CITY 3623
G.W.R PAD 7000
Parry G.I P 3832
TENY KIN 5052.
[indecipherable word] EUS 6292.
MESS Seiford 61.
K.C. SER 4200.
Club TEM 3135
[page break]
1944 JANUARY
1 SATURDAY
[deleted] GIP 5852, KIN 3032, UES 6292 [/delete]
7412
Stalag XX13 (84)
Germany
2 SUNDAY
J.W. Simmonds
3 Malmesbury Road
South Woodford
E. 18
SG Parry
189 Gipsy Road
West Norwood
S E. 27
GIP 3832
[page break]
3 MONDAY
FX.115112. LDG AIR. PALMER JJ JEa/AG.
825 R.N.A. SQDN.
c/o GP.O LONDON.
Joan White
238 New Kent Road
London SE. 1.
[underlined] 4 TUESDAY [/underlined]
14423672
4th Batt C. Coy.
No.1. IR.T.D.
C.M.F
[page break]
5 WEDNESDAY
letter from home, wrote home.
Irene Hudd,
28 Upper Kenton St
Thorne
Nr Doncaster
Yorks.
6 THURSDAY
letter from Flo
[page break]
7 FRIDAY
[blank page]
8 SATURDAY
letter from Flo.
[page break]
9 SUNDAY
letter from Mum
10 MONDAY
went to Belfast good time.
[page break]
[blank page]
[page break]
13 THURSDAY
[blank page]
14 FRIDAY
Leave. Sgt. Tapes Belfast
[page break]
15 SATURDAY
arrived at home
16 SUNDAY
London. Pleasant surprise good time
[page break]
17 MONDAY
good time
18 TUESDAY
good time
[page break]
19 WEDNESDAY
good time
20 THURSDAY
good time
[page break]
21 FRIDAY
good time
22 SATURDAY
saw Bill.
Ring. Lovely night
Cable
[page break]
23 SUNDAY
good
24 MONDAY
good
[page break]
25 TUESDAY
good
26 WEDNESDAY
good
[page break]
27 THURSDAY
good
28 FRIDAY
good
[page break]
29 SATURDAY
good
30 SUNDAY
Cable
good week end
[page break]
31 MONDAY
very good time
FEB. 1 TUESDAY
Worried browned off
[page break]
2 WEDNESDAY
still worried and browned off
3 THURSDAY
good tan
[page break]
4 FRIDAY
good time in county
5 SATURDAY
browned off
[page break]
6 SUNDAY
things going wrong.
7 MONDAY
Birthday [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted]
Smashing time
[page break]
8 TUESDAY
went to Parry.
Good time Joyce
Silvia
9 WEDNESDAY
Flos Birthday
not so good
[page break]
10 THURSDAY
[boxed X] trouble
Bad
11 FRIDAY
County. not so good
[page break]
12 SATURDAY
[deleted] Four indecipherable words [/deleted]
13 SUNDAY
still felt bad.
[page break]
14 MONDAY
Cable.
good leave untill [sic] last few days
15 TUESDAY
Hixon 2-45.
[page break]
16 WEDNESDAY
Met pilot [indecipherable word] and crew. O.K.
Wing/Co. Caulson
P/O Stevens
P/O Soo.
P/O Davies
17 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
18 FRIDAY
[blank page]
19 SATURDAY
Wals Birthday
[page break]
20 SUNDAY
[blank page]
21 MONDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
22 TUESDAY
[blank page]
23 WEDNESDAY
Marina Birthday
[page break]
[pages missing]
28 MONDAY
Roses Birthday
29 TUESDAY
Leighford
1 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
2 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
3 FRIDAY
plenty of cloud Bashing
4 SATURDAY
still cloud bashing
Stafford good time plenty of fun.
[page break]
5 SUNDAY
bags of flying,
good crew.
6 MONDAY
still bags of flying and doing grand job.
[page break]
7 TUESDAY
grounded.
Very good time
8 WEDNESDAY
plenty of cloud Bashing and Bombing
[page break]
9 THURSDAY
more Bombing
10 FRIDAY
went to Stafford with crew. very good time. plenty of fun.
[page break]
11 SATURDAY
dingy [sic] Stafford plenty of fun
12 SUNDAY
Cloud Bashing
[page break]
13 MONDAY
more Cloud bashing no time off
14 TUESDAY
went sick. Hospital
[page break]
15 WEDNESDAY
Hospital
16 THURSDAY
Hospital
[page break]
17 FRIDAY
Bombing.
Not so good Hospital
18 SATURDAY
Hospital
[page break]
19 SUNDAY
Hospital
20 MONDAY
[author indicates he’s in hospital]
[page break]
21 TUESDAY
[author indicates he’s in hospital]
22 WEDNESDAY
[author indicates he’s in hospital]
[page break]
23 THURSDAY
Hospital
24 FRIDAY
flying
[page break]
25 SATURDAY
Bombing
26 SUNDAY
Cloud bashing
Bombing
Pilot hurt.
[page break]
27 MONDAY
48 hours leave
3-31 Stafford
dispointed [sic]
Pilot in Hospital
28 TUESDAY
good time in county
[page break]
29 WEDNESDAY
Cluston 5.38
Pilot Bad
30 THURSDAY
easy time
[page break]
31 FRIDAY
pressure test
48 hours. Leave
5.48 Stafford
APRIL 1 SATURDAY
Good time.
hard going
[page break]
2 SUNDAY
Uaston 12.00
all was well
3 MONDAY
Browned off
[page break]
4 TUESDAY
[deleted] Met New Pilot Sgt [indecipherable word] [/deleted]
5 WEDNESDAY
nothing to do no pilot or Wireless/opp
[page break]
6 THURSDAY
[blank page]
7 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
8 SATURDAY
flew with madman.
9 SUNDAY
[deleted] almost killed [/deleted]
[page break]
10 MONDAY
very easy day.
A good night out.
11 TUESDAY
nothing to do.
[page break]
12 WEDNESDAY
Volenteered [sic] to go on Balls eye.
Good things
13 THURSDAY
easy time
[page break]
14 FRIDAY
still nothing to do.
15 SATURDAY
good time in town bags of fun
[page break]
[missing pages]
20 THURSDAY
good time at Dance
21 FRIDAY
end of long rest
Posted
[page break]
22 SATURDAY
back to Hixon New Pilot Sgt Keeler.
23 SUNDAY
plenty of flying
new Pilot O.K.
[page break]
24 MONDAY
cloud Bashing
25 TUESDAY
cloud Bashing Bombing
[page break]
26 WEDNESDAY
grounded bad weather good time in town
27 THURSDAY
Cloud Bashing bad Crash
[page break]
28 FRIDAY
felt bad. No flying.
29 SATURDAY
flying again
[page break]
30 SUNDAY
Bombing
MAY 1 MONDAY
Cine Bombing
[page break]
2 TUESDAY
Bombing
3 WEDNESDAY
night off. good time Plenty of fun.
[page break]
4 THURSDAY
grounded
5 FRIDAY
grounded
[page break]
6 SATURDAY
grounded
7 SUNDAY
grounded
[page break]
8 MONDAY
grounded lost leave.
9 TUESDAY
48 hrs leave. Stafford 9-48.
[page break]
10 WEDNESDAY
disapointed [sic] but had good time
12 + 13 11 THURSDAY
Claston 8-30 a.m. Met new “Wop” Flt. Sgt Stricket
[page break]
12 FRIDAY
Cloud Bashing
13 SATURDAY
Cloud Bashing
[page break]
14 SUNDAY
long trip bombing plenty of trouble every [deleted] the [/deleted] thing wrong. I was nocked [sic] out. Pilot in trouble but all ended well Balls eye.
15 MONDAY
lots of flying
[page break]
16 TUESDAY
busy night Mick killed
17 WEDNESDAY
hopes of leave. Steve got F/O.
[page break]
18 THURSDAY
13 days leave. Stafford 5.48.
19 FRIDAY
Joe home. very good times
[page break]
20 SATURDAY
plenty of fun [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] Flo. old feeling again but held my own.
21 SUNDAY
pleasent [sic] time
[page break]
22 MONDAY
good time with Sal. good time with Joan
23 TUESDAY
Stepney good time Good time with Joan, plenty of fun
[page break]
24 WEDNESDAY
went to Totenham [sic] took Joany out from bank. Plenty of fun.
25 THURSDAY
County plenty of fun
[page break]
26 FRIDAY
Stepney, baby. Good time
27 SATURDAY
took Joan and Betty out. Stepney. Party. good time but worried
[page break]
28 SUNDAY
went out with Flo. Jess and Joe, hard time trouble
29 MONDAY
Bad time
[page break]
30 TUESDAY
Bad for me
31 WEDNESDAY
Kings Cross 12-45 Doncaster 4.10 Boston Park.
[page break]
1944 JUNE
1 THURSDAY
Bill Charlie O.K.
2 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
3 SATURDAY
day off, Thorne Plenty of fun.
4 SUNDAY
day off Thorn More fun.
[page break]
5 MONDAY
Stones O.K.
6 TUESDAY
The day.
[page break]
7 WEDNESDAY
on Charge. got away with with it
8 THURSDAY
Fred got his Comision [sic] Thorne. Morends [sic]
[page break]
9 FRIDAY
Irene. Smashing girl a very good time plenty of fun. Pleasant suprises [sic]
10 SATURDAY
Background danger. Irene. Smashing time More fun Wally went home. Charlie, Bill Posted
[page break]
11 SUNDAY
“P/O Keeler”
12 MONDAY
Stones O.K.
[page break]
13 TUESDAY
Posted Sandtoft Pool
Epworth. good time bags of fun.
John got Married
14 WEDNESDAY
Epworth O.K. bags fun
Whiteheart Raynor.
Doreene
[page break]
15 THURSDAY
Hopes of Posting
Epworth good time Joan. Plenty of fun.
16 FRIDAY
Bill & Charlie Posted.
[page break]
17 SATURDAY
Epworth. good time Plenty of fun Peggy.
18 SUNDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
19 MONDAY
[blank page]
20 TUESDAY
Posted to Blighton
Met Engineer JOE.
[page break]
21 WEDNESDAY
Posted Ingham.
Bill and Charlie again
Castle
22 THURSDAY
Went to Lincoln good time bags of fun.
[page break]
23 FRIDAY
flying.
24 SATURDAY
flying
Lincoln good time plenty of fun
[page break]
25 SUNDAY
flying
26 MONDAY
flying
[page break]
27 TUESDAY
flying
28 WEDNESDAY
flying
[page break]
29 THURSDAY
flying
30 FRIDAY
flying
Lincoln good time
[page break]
JULY 1944
1 SATURDAY
Posted to Blyton
2 SUNDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
3 MONDAY
[blank page]
4 TUESDAY
[blank page]
5 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
6 THURSDAY
flying Bombing
[page break]
7 FRIDAY
Gainsborough. good time fun.
8 SATURDAY
Gainsborough. good time plenty of fun.
[page break]
9 SUNDAY
[blank page]
10 MONDAY
Lincoln. Gainsboro [sic] photo
[page break]
11 TUESDAY
flying
12 WEDNESDAY
flying Geordy killed
[page break]
13 THURSDAY
flying
14 FRIDAY
[deleted flying [/deleted]
Gainsboro [sic] good time
[page break]
15 SATURDAY
Lost Navigator
16 SUNDAY
Gainsboro [sic]. good time
[page break]
17 MONDAY
New Navigator. Flying. F/O. Yule.
18 TUESDAY
flying New Nav O.K.
[page break]
19 WEDNESDAY
Gainsboro [sic].
20 THURSDAY
flying
[page break]
21 FRIDAY
flying Bombing.
22 SATURDAY
flying
23 SUNDAY
flying Ballseye.
24 MONDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
25 TUESDAY
[blank page]
26 WEDNESDAY
Posted Hemswell 6.25. Lincoln
[page break]
27 THURSDAY
[blank page]
28 FRIDAY
11.15. Kings X.
[page break]
29 SATURDAY
[blank page]
30 SUNDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
31 MONDAY
Gainsboro [sic].
AUG 1 TUESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
2 WEDNESDAY
Gainsboro [sic]
3 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
4 FRIDAY
[blank page]
5 SATURDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
6 SUNDAY
flying
7 MONDAY
Gainsboro [sic]
[page break]
8 TUESDAY
flying
9 WEDNESDAY
flying Dingy [sic] 8.30
[page break]
10 THURSDAY
[blank page]
11 FRIDAY
Posted to Squadron No 12. Wickenby
[page break]
12 SATURDAY
No.1. O.K. Cornfield “Falaise”
13 SUNDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
14 MONDAY
7. days leave Lincoln 1.55 Kings Cross 6.15
15 TUESDAY
good time
[page break]
16 WEDNESDAY
good time
17 THURSDAY
good time
[page break]
18 FRIDAY
good time
19 SATURDAY
good time fun
[page break]
20 SUNDAY
good time fun
21 MONDAY
Kings Cross 5.40
[page break]
22 TUESDAY
Guns OK.
23 WEDNESDAY
year.
[page break]
24 THURSDAY
[blank page]
25 FRIDAY
No 2. O.K. “Russelsheim”
[page break]
26 SATURDAY
[blank page]
27 SUNDAY
flying guns O.K.
[page break]
28 MONDAY
[blank page]
29 TUESDAY
No. 3. Cornfield O.K. “Stettin” Paddy killed good fellow real Pal
[page break]
30 WEDNESDAY
Lincoln good time
31 THURSDAY
[blank page]
1944 SEPTEMBER
1 FRIDAY
Lincoln good time
2 SATURDAY
flying
[page break]
3 SUNDAY
No.4. O.K. “Eindhoven”
4 MONDAY
Lincoln
[page break]
5 TUESDAY
No 5. O.K. “Le Havre”
6 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
7 THURSDAY
Lincoln good time
8 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
9 SATURDAY
Lincoln
10 SUNDAY
No. 6. O.K. “Le Havre”
[page break]
11 MONDAY
[blank page]
12 TUESDAY
No 7. O.K. “Frankfurt”
[page break]
13 WEDNESDAY
[deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] flying
14 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
15 FRIDAY
[blank page]
16 SATURDAY
No 8. O.K. “Rheine Hopsten”
[page break]
17 SUNDAY
[blank page]
18 MONDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
19 TUESDAY
[blank page]
20 WEDNESDAY
No 9. O.K. “Calais”
[page break]
21 THURSDAY
Lincoln
22 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
23 SATURDAY
No. 10. O.K. “[deleted] Calais [/deleted] “Neurs”
24 SUNDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
25 MONDAY
No.11. bombs back not so good. “Calais”
26 TUESDAY
No 11 OK. “Cap Griz Nez”
[page break]
27 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
28 THURSDAY
Lincoln 6.25. 7. Days leave.
[page break]
29 FRIDAY
Watch Bill good time Ted
30 SATURDAY
good time
[page break]
OCTOBER 1944
1 SUNDAY
Bill Home good time
2 MONDAY
Bank good time
[page break]
3 TUESDAY
good time
4 WEDNESDAY
good time
[page break]
5 THURSDAY
Reggie good time
6 FRIDAY
Kings X. 5.50
[page break]
7 SATURDAY
[blank page]
8 SUNDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
9 MONDAY
[blank page]
10 TUESDAY
flying F.A.
[page break]
11 WEDNESDAY
flying A.F.
12 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
13 FRIDAY
flying F.A.
14 SATURDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
15 SUNDAY
Posted to. [indecipherable word] Lincs
Binbrook.
16 MONDAY
flying Picked up new kite 190. Squadron.
[page break]
17 TUESDAY
Grimsby. good time
18 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
19 THURSDAY
No 12. O.K. “Stuttgart”
20 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
21 SATURDAY
Louth good time Watch.
22 SUNDAY
New Squadron. 170 Dunholme Lodge
[page break]
23 MONDAY
[blank page]
24 TUESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
25 WEDNESDAY
No. 13. O.K. “Essen”
26 THURSDAY
Lincoln
[page break]
27 FRIDAY
[blank page]
28 SATURDAY
No 14. O.K. “Cologne”
[page break]
29 SUNDAY
[blank page]
30 MONDAY
No 15. OK. “Cologne”
[page break]
31 TUESDAY
No 16 OK. “Cologne”
NOVEMBER 1 WEDNESDAY
Party. Black Bull good time
[page break]
2 THURSDAY
No.17. OK. Dusseldorf
3 FRIDAY
Lincoln
[page break]
4 SATURDAY
P.F.F. ?
5 SUNDAY
Posted Warboys P.F.F.
[page break]
6 MONDAY
Warboys. 2.9. Kings X. 4.2. Joe. Good time
7 TUESDAY
Kings X. 6.40.
[page break]
8 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
9 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
10 FRIDAY
test OK. Dinghy Cambridge
11 SATURDAY
flying
[page break]
12 SUNDAY
flying
13 MONDAY
flying Huntingdon
[page break]
14 TUESDAY
Post. Upwood. Squadron. 1.5.6.
15 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
16 THURSDAY
[blank page]
17 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
18 SATURDAY
[blank page]
19 SUNDAY
flying
20 MONDAY
[blank page]
21 TUESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
22 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
23 THURSDAY
flying
[page break]
24 FRIDAY
[blank page]
25 SATURDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
26 SUNDAY
[blank page]
27 MONDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
28 TUESDAY
[blank page]
29 WEDNESDAY
No 18. “Essen”
[page break]
30 THURSDAY
No 19. “Duisburg”
DECEMBER 1 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
2 SATURDAY
[blank page]
3 SUNDAY
No. 20. “Urfurt [sic] Dam”
[page break]
4 MONDAY
[blank page]
5 TUESDAY
No 21. “Soest” ears bad
[page break]
6 WEDNESDAY
No. Grounded ears bad.
7 THURSDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
8 FRIDAY
[blank page]
9 SATURDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
10 SUNDAY
[blank page]
11 MONDAY
leave Peterboro [sic] 3.58 Kings X. 5.25
[page break]
12 TUESDAY
good time Bank. Ted home Flo
13 WEDNESDAY
good time
[page break]
14 THURSDAY
good time County Flo. Dolly O.K.
15 FRIDAY
good time. Dolly
[page break]
16 SATURDAY
Ted good time. plenty fun
17 SUNDAY
good time Ted ship Dolly.
[page break]
18 MONDAY
Kings X 5.50 Peterboro [sic] 7.30
19 TUESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
20 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
21 THURSDAY
No 22. “Bonn”
[page break]
22 FRIDAY
Mess Dance Audrey O.K. Pat.
23 SATURDAY
Peterboro [sic].
[page break]
24 SUNDAY
Sqd Dance Audrey OK
25 MONDAY
Dance Ramsey Audrey. O.K.
[page break]
26 TUESDAY
[blank page]
27 WEDNESDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
28 THURSDAY
No 23. “Opladen”
29 FRIDAY
[blank page]
[page break]
30 SATURDAY
No 24 “Cologne”
31 SUNDAY
No 25. “Osterfeld”
[page break]
Flight 8/113
RAF. Stockleigh Rd
Regents Park
London. S.W.1.
E Flight
6 Squadron
18 I.T.W.
Bridlington
Yorks.
Hut 55.
D. Squadron
N.1. E.AGS,
R.A F Bridgnorth
Salop
[page break]
11 Course
12 A.G.S.
R.A.F.
Bishops Court
N. Ireland.
Sgts Mess
R.A.F. Hixon
Sgts Mess
R.AF. Leighford
Sgts Mess
R.AF. Hixon
Sgts Mess
R. A. F. Boston Park
Lindholme
Yorks
[page break]
Sgts Mess
R.A.F. Sandtofts
Yorks
Sgts Mess
R.A.F Blyton
Lincs
Sgts Mess
R.A.F Ingham
Lincs
Sgts Mess
R.A.F. Hemswell
Lincs
[page break]
Sgts Mess, Red
Wickenby,
Lincs.
Sgts Mess
[indecipherable word]
Lincs
Sgts Mess
Dunholme Lodge
Lincs
Sgts Mess
Warboys
Hunts
[page break]
Sgts Mess
Upwood
Hunts
Sgts Mess
Wyton
Hunts
Sgts Mess
Warboys
Hunts
Sgts Mess
Wyton
Hunts
Sgts Mess
Graveley
Hunts
[page break]
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
Arthur Pearce Diary 1944
Description
An account of the resource
Memorandum items addresses of friends and acquaintances, mentions many days/evenings out and what sort of time he had in Belfast, Lincoln, Gainsborough and many others. Mentions various journeys and postings, lists birthdays. Jots down daily activities and feelings. Mentions crew and other he flew with and comments about them. Entries for days flying and activity. Entries for news of acquaintances and colleagues, some of whom were killed. Mentions posting to 12 Squadron at RAF Wickenby, 170 Squadron at RAF Dunholme Lodge and to RAF Warboys for Pathfinders. mentions many targets from August to December 1944.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
A Pearce
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Multi-page booklet with handwritten entries
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YPearceAT1874945v4
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Yorkshire
England--Doncaster
England--Lincolnshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Northern Ireland--Belfast
England--Staffordshire
France
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Calais
France--Le Havre
France--Falaise
England--Lincoln
Netherlands
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Germany
Germany--Cologne
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Essen
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Soest
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Düsseldorf
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-25
1944-08-29
1944-09-03
1944-09-05
1944-09-12
1944-09-16
1944-09-20
1944-09-23
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-10-19
1944-10-25
1944-10-22
1944-10-28
1944-10-30
1944-10-31
1944-11-02
1944-11-30
1944-12-21
1944-12-05
1944-02-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Christian
David Bloomfield
12 Squadron
170 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
Pathfinders
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Hixon
RAF Sandtoft
RAF Warboys
RAF Wickenby
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1279/17438/LPearceAT1874945v1.2.pdf
e35e6116419f7eb8f03d67b018b5f883
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
Pearce, Arthur
A T Pearce
Description
An account of the resource
140 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer Arthur Pearce (1874945 Royal Air Force) He served as an air gunner with 12, 170 and 156 (Pathfinder) Squadrons and completed a 44 operations. After the war, on 35 Squadron he took part in the June 1946 Victory flypast over London and a goodwill visit to the United States. It contains his diaries, memorabilia and photographs.
The collection also contains an album concerning his post war activity with the Goodwill tour of the United States.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Steve Allan and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Pearce, AT
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
Arthur Pearce's air gunners flying log book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LPearceAT1874945v1
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
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
Description
An account of the resource
Air gunners' flying log book for A T Pearce, covering the period from 2 December 1943 to 25 November 1946. It details his flying training, operations flown and post war flying. Arthur Pearce was stationed at: RAF Bishops Court, RAF Seighford, RAF Hixon, RAF Ingham, RAF Blyton, RAF Hemswell, RAF Wickenby, RAF Kelstern, RAF Dunholme Lodge, RAF Warboys, RAF Upwood, RAF Wyton, RAF Graveley and RAF Stradishall. Aircraft flown in were: Anson, Wellington, Halifax, Lancaster and Packet. He flew a total of 45 operations, 7 Daylight and 5 Night-time operations with 12 Squadron, 2 daylight and 4 night-time operations with 170 Squadron and 4 daylight, 23 night-time operations, operations Manna and Dodge with 156 Squadron. Post war Pearce flew a goodwill tour of the USA with 35 Squadron. Targets were: Falaise, Russelsheim, Stettin, Eindhoven, Le Havre, Frankfurt, Rheine Hopsten, Calais, Neuss, Cap Griz-Nez, Essen, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Duisberg, Urft Dam, Soeste, Bonn, Opladen, Osterfeld, Magdeburg, Hamborn, Dortmund, Pforzheim, Mannheim, Chemnitz, Dessau, Misburg, Nurenburg, Hanau, Lutzkendorf, Hamburg, Kiel, Plauen, Berlin, Schwandorf, Heligoland, Wangerooge and Rotterdam. His pilots on operations were Flying Officer and Flight Lieutenant Keeler.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Poland
United States
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Suffolk
France--Calais
France--Falaise
France--Le Havre
France--Pas-de-Calais
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Euskirchen Region
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hanau
Germany--Hannover Region
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mücheln (Wettin)
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osterfeld
Germany--Pforzheim
Germany--Plauen
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Schwandorf (Landkreis)
Germany--Soest
Netherlands--Eindhoven
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Leverkusen
Germany--Wangerooge Island
Germany--Urft Dam
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-09-03
1944-09-05
1944-09-10
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-16
1944-09-17
1944-09-20
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-25
1944-09-26
1944-10-19
1944-10-25
1944-10-28
1944-10-30
1944-10-31
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1944-11-03
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-03
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-21
1944-12-28
1944-12-30
1944-12-31
1945-01-16
1945-01-17
1945-01-22
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-01
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-03-19
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-10
1945-04-11
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-17
1945-04-25
1945-06-02
1945-07-13
1945-08-13
1945-08-15
1945-09-25
1945-09-26
1946-01-02
1946-01-03
12 Squadron
156 Squadron
1662 HCU
170 Squadron
30 OTU
35 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Goodwill tour of the United States (1946)
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Blyton
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Bridlington
RAF Dunholme Lodge
RAF Graveley
RAF Hemswell
RAF Hixon
RAF Ingham
RAF Kelstern
RAF Seighford
RAF Stradishall
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Wickenby
RAF Wyton
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1921/41044/LHenningtonAJM154960v1.1.pdf
38c80e5a6f6c2ae7710ee401d4803876
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
Henington, A J M
Henington, Albert John Maurice
Bertie Henington
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
2017-08-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Henington, AJM
Description
An account of the resource
32 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Albert John Maurice Henington (1604946, 154960 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, diary, photographs and documents. He flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Tim Henington MBE 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
Bertie Henington's Royal Canadian Air Force Flying Log Book for Aircrew other than Pilots
Description
An account of the resource
A J M Hennington’s Navigator’s Flying Log Book covering the period from 02 September 1943 to 30 July 1946. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as navigator: Brüx, Dortmund-Ems Canal, Düsseldorf, Friedrichshafen, Gdynia, Gottingen, Gulf of Gdansk, Hamburg, Harburg, Horten, Ladbergen, Leuna, Mittelland Canal, Munich, Neubrandenburg and Oslofjord.
He was stationed at RCAF Rivers (1 CNS), RAF Dumfries (10 OAFU), RAF Silverstone and Turweston (17 OTU), RAF Wigsley (1654 HCU), RAF Syerston (5 LFS), RAF Metheringham (106 Squadron), RAF Warboys (PFNTU) and RAF Coningsby (97 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Lancaster and Lincoln. He flew on sixteen night and one day operations with 106 Squadron and three night operations with 97 Squadron, total 20 plus two mining and three Exodus.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
Poland
Germany--Böhlen
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Harburg (Landkreis)
Germany--Ladbergen
Germany--Borna (Leipzig)
Germany--Munich
Germany--Neubrandenburg
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Germany--Altenburg (Thuringia)
England--Cumberland
England--Lincolnshire
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Scotland--Dumfries
Norway--Horten
Norway--Oslo
Poland--Gdynia
Canada
Manitoba
Czech Republic--Most
Czech Republic
Atlantic Ocean--Oslofjorden
Germany--Friedrichshafen
Germany--Göttingen
Germany--Ladbergen
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Munich
Czech Republic--Most
Manitoba--Rivers
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
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-11-06
1944-11-11
1944-11-16
1944-12-13
1944-12-16
1944-12-18
1944-10-19
1944-12-28
1945-01-07
1945-01-13
1945-01-16
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-13
1945-02-14
1945-03-20
1945-03-21
1945-04-07
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
HenningtonAJM154960v1
106 Squadron
97 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
mine laying
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Coningsby
RAF Dumfries
RAF Metheringham
RAF Silverstone
RAF Syerston
RAF Turweston
RAF Warboys
RAF Wigsley
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1828/33480/LEylesCW900473v1.2.pdf
a038425e4a9f5517c2dbf625c248732f
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
Eyles, Bill
C W Eyles
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-04-10
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.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Eyles, CW
Description
An account of the resource
51 items. The collection concerns Bill Eyles DFM (900473 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book. notebooks, correspondence and photographs. He flew a tour as a bomb aimer with 78 Squadron and later a second tour with 35 Squadron Pathfinders.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Hazel King and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bill Eyles observer's and air gunners flying log book
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
LEylesCW900473v1
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
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Observer’s and air gunner’s flying log book for C W Eyles, bomb aimer, covering the period from 9 July 1942 to 14 October 1944. Detailing his flying training, operations flown and instructor duties. He was stationed at RAF Dumfries, RAF Abingdon, RAF Stanton Harcourt, RAF Linton-on-Ouse, RAF Breighton, RAF Warboys and RAF Graveley. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Battle, Botha, Whitley, Halifax and Lancaster. He flew a total of 62 operations with 78 Squadron and 35 Squadron. Targets were Dortmund, Dusseldorf, Essen, Wuppertal, Krefeld, Mulheim, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Aachen, Montbelliard, Hamburg, Remscheid, Manheim, Nuremburg, Foret de Cerisy, Fougeres, Rennes, Lens, Sterkrade, Laon, Middlestafte, Oisemont, Velleneuve st George, Maquise-Mimoyeques, Caen, Catelliers, Nucourt, Rollez, Les Nandes, St Philibert Ferme, Foret de Nieppe, Bois de Cassan, Douai, Russelsheim, Le Culot, Stettin, Bremen, La Pourchinte, Le Havre, Bottrop, Calais, Saarbrucken, Fort Frederick-Hendrick and Duisberg. His pilots on operations were Flight Sergeant Jenkinson and Flight Lieutenant Forde.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Bayeux Region
France--Caen
France--Calais
France--Douai
France--Fougères (Ille-et-Vilaine)
France--Landes Region
France--Laon
France--Le Havre
France--Lens
France--L'Isle-Adam
France--Lumbres
France--Montbéliard
France--Nord-Pas-de-Calais
France--Nieppe Forest
France--Nucourt
France--Oisemont (Canton)
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Paris Region
France--Rennes
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Germany--Remscheid
Germany--Rüsselsheim
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Wuppertal
Poland--Szczecin
Scotland--Dumfries and Galloway
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Saint-Philibert (Morbihan)
France--Les Catelliers
France--Rollez
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-05-27
1943-05-28
1943-05-29
1943-05-30
1943-06-21
1943-06-22
1943-06-23
1943-06-24
1943-06-25
1943-06-26
1943-06-28
1943-06-29
1943-07-09
1943-07-10
1943-07-13
1943-07-14
1943-07-15
1943-07-16
1943-07-24
1943-07-25
1943-07-26
1943-07-27
1943-07-28
1943-07-29
1943-07-30
1943-07-31
1943-08-02
1943-08-03
1943-08-09
1943-08-10
1943-08-11
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-10
1944-06-16
1944-06-17
1944-06-18
1944-06-22
1944-06-24
1944-06-27
1944-07-02
1944-07-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-06
1944-07-07
1944-07-09
1944-07-10
1944-07-12
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-31
1944-08-01
1944-08-03
1944-08-04
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-08-15
1944-08-16
1944-08-17
1944-08-18
1944-08-19
1944-08-31
1944-09-05
1944-09-06
1944-09-08
1944-09-09
1944-09-10
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-05
1944-10-06
1944-10-11
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
10 OTU
1652 HCU
20 OTU
35 Squadron
78 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
Battle
bomb aimer
bombing
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
bombing of Luftwaffe night-fighter airfields (15 August 1944)
Botha
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Abingdon
RAF Breighton
RAF Dumfries
RAF Graveley
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Stanton Harcourt
RAF Warboys
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1770/31029/BCleggPVLangAGv10003.1.pdf
13b407b4f35f848ca8db13e91e8d8071
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Lang, Alastair - folder
Description
An account of the resource
Fifteen items. Contains description of the terrible three, a biography of Squadron Leader Alastair Lang DFC, photographs, a portrait, details of his flight engineer, operational diary, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and extracts from his log book.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clegg, PV
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
Biography of Squadron Leader Alastair G Lang DFC
Description
An account of the resource
One of three friends at RAF Warboys along with Peter Isaacson and Lighton Verdon Roe. Notes that Lang did 19 operations with 150 Squadron, 3 while on Operational Training Unit and 28 on 156 Squadron before his aircraft blew up over a target and he became a prisoner of war. Writes of friendships and activities and japes of the terrible threesome at RAF Warboys. Concludes with account of operation to Dortmund when his aircraft exploded and he and his flight engineer were somehow thrown out. Followed by general biographical details of wartime and post war career.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Scotland--Moray
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1942
1940
1942-09-21
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Nine b/w photocopied sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCleggPVLangAGv10003
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
PV Clegg
12 Squadron
150 Squadron
156 Squadron
617 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Distinguished Flying Cross
ground personnel
Lancaster
Lincoln
Meteor
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Biggin Hill
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Newton
RAF Warboys
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag Luft 3
training
Wellington
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/743/31060/BCleggPVVerdonRoeLv1.2.pdf
83bc6da28284a7e751660162e8b591d5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Clegg, Peter Vernon
P V Clegg
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items and five sub-collections. Main collection contains a log of Pathfinder operations from RAF Wyton 1943 -1944, histories of the Avro repair facility at Bracebridge Heath, and Langar, a biography of Squadron Leader David James Baikie Wilson, biography of Squadron Leader Lighton Verdon-Roe, a book - Test Pilots of A.V. Roe & Co Ltd - S.A. 'Bill' Thorn, and two volumes of book - Roy Chadwick - no finer aircraft designer, Sub-collections contain a total of 29 items concerning the Aldborough Dairy and Cafe as well as biographical material, including log books for Alan Gibson, Peter Isaacson, Alistair Lang and Charles Martin. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1772">Aldborough Dairy and Cafe</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1768">Gibson, Alan</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1769">Isaacson, Peter</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1770">Lang, Alastair</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1771">Martin, Charles</a><br /><br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Clegg and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clegg, PV
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
Biography of Squadron Leader Lighton Verdon-Roe DFC RAFVR -156 (PFF) Squadron
The antics of Lighton, Alastair Lang and Peter Isaacson
Description
An account of the resource
Second son of Sir Alliot Verdon-Roe founder of A.V. Roe & Co Ltd to be killed in the RAF Bomber Command in WWII. Starts with b/w photograph of head and shoulders portrait of an RAF officer wearing tunic with pilot's brevet, medal ribbon, pathfinder badge and peaked cap. Continues with early life, joining the Royal Air Force, training and posting to one of the first pathfinder squadrons. Goes on to describe his operations from September 1942 including losses on the squadron. Introduces his friend Alastair Lang and describes various antics and further operations. Gives description of marking, H2S, Oboe and Mosquito aircraft. Writes of Peter Isaacson's arrival on the squadron and of further activities, antics and operations. Continues with account of Pat Day, their intelligence officer and further operations including one to Dortmund where Lang was shot down. Describes Lighton's last operation to Duisburg from which he failed to return. Concludes with round up and stories of Peter Isaacson and Alastair Lang.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
26 b/w photocopied sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BCleggPVVerdonRoeLv1
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 Australian Air Force
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Shropshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany
Germany--Flensburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Saarbrücken
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Cologne
Italy
Italy--Genoa
Italy--Turin
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Hamburg
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
France
France--Lorient
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Kiel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1942-09
1942-09-01
1942-09-02
1942-09-13
1942-09-14
1942-09-16
1942-09-17
1942-09-19
1942-09-20
1942-09-18
1942-09-19
1942-08-18
1942-08-19
1942-08-28
1942-08-29
1942-10-15
1942-11-07
1942-11-08
1942-11-20
1942-11-22
1942-11-23
1942-12-09
1942-12-11
1942-12-20
1943
1943-01-30
1943-02-02
1943-02-03
1943-02-04
1943-02-07
1943-02-13
1943-02-16
1943-02-19
1943-02-24
1943-02-25
1943-02-28
1943-03-01
1943-03-03
1943-03-04
1943-03-08
1943-03-27
1943-03-19
1943-03-21
1943-03-28
1943-03-29
1943-03-30
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-12
1943-05-04
1943-05-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
PV Clegg
156 Squadron
35 Squadron
460 Squadron
7 Squadron
83 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Flying Training School
H2S
Halifax
killed in action
Lancaster
Mosquito
Oboe
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Breighton
RAF Shawbury
RAF South Cerney
RAF Warboys
RAF Wyton
Stalag Luft 3
Stirling
target indicator
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1769/31028/BCleggPVIsaacsonPv10003.1.pdf
665b73bebf873fd2841c1e103e2a85a6
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Clegg, Peter Vernon. Isaacson, Peter - folder
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. Contains photographs, biography of Wing Commander Peter Isaacson AM, DFC, AFC, DFM RAAF and extracts from his log book covering a journey from England to Australia.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-02
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Clegg-PV
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] Wing Cmdr Peter Isaacson, AM, DFC, AFC, DFM [/underlined]
lives in Melbourne, Australia, and is a highly decorated Royal Australian Air Force pilot who survived two tours in Bomber Command in Britain in World War II, the second one in a Pathfinder squadron. He and his Australian crew were then asked to fly a new Lancaster by themselves all the way to Australia, but for the first time ever, taking a westbound route across Canada, the USA, and [inserted] several [/inserted] island stops in the Pacific. After spending the rest of the war demonstrating this Lancaster all over Australia and New Zealand, Peter began his own publishing company [inserted] in Melbourne [/inserted] and by the time he retired in 1997 had become a legend in Australia in printing and publishing.
The idea for flying the Lancaster to Australia originated in R.A.A.F. Headquarters in London early in 1943, and Peter Isaacson had been selected as pilot as he was known personally to
[page break]
2 –
the Air Officer Commanding R.A.A.F. HQ. However, the C.O. of the Pathfinder Group, Air Commodore Don Bennett, was adamant at not releasing Peter until he had completed his tour, and so although told on February 16th 1943 he was to take this Lancaster to Sydney, Peter did not fly his last mission until the night of March 29th/30th.
Peter flight-tested his new Lancaster at Avro’s Woodford factory [inserted] early in May, and then flew it to Colerne to be fitted out for the long journey ahead. [/inserted] Then with his Australian crew, plus a new rear-gunner (to replace an Englishman) and a fitter to look after the Lancaster en route, they set off on May 21st to fly firstly to Prestwick, to refuel, and cross the North Atlantic. Then began an epic journey in the self-same mould of those pre-war intrepid trail-blazers to Australia – the difference being Peter was flying westbound (not eastbound) in order to avoid Japanese held territory in South-east Asia.
[deleted] As [/deleted] [inserted] Soon after [/inserted] the start, the auto-pilot failed to work and so Peter flew “Q for Queenie VI” all the way by hand, without having a co-pilot to assist him. They usually flew at night, and so they left Prestwick at 22.10 on May 22nd 1943, landing 15hrs 15 mins later at Dorval, Montreal. It was reminiscent of
[page break]
3
Alcock and Brown’s famous first Atlantic crossing – for dense icing cloud extended from sea level up to 19,000 ft. Peter flew at 19,000 ft for spells, but came down to 7,000 ft to relieve the crew having to be on oxygen at the higher levels. Navigation was not easy, but then Peter’s crew was a highly experienced Pathfinder team.
After Montreal, it was to Uplands (where Peter reminded the instructor who nearly failed him as a pilot that instructors could be wrong, too!) and Toronto where Canadian Lancasters were being made, and Peter’s Lancaster received a routine servicing. Lord Burghley (Britain’s Controller of Overseas Supplies) and Gp. Capt. Wincott (RAF Liaison Officer) joined them there, [inserted] to fly to Sydney [/inserted] plus an American pilot to help with radio transmissions across the northern USA to San Francisco.
It took 13 hrs across to California, then a 12 1/2 hr flight to Honolulu. Peter then took off for Canton Island and [inserted] immediately [/inserted] ran into an extremely violent tropical storm. The Lancaster was thrown about in the turbulence, and lightning danced all over the aircraft. All the radio aids burned out, and suddenly all four engines cut out. Peter glided
[page break]
4
the aircraft as slowly as possible, but they were right down to 3,000 ft over the Pacific before his Flight Engineer managed to start one engine, then gradually the rest. However, it took them another hour to get a radio working and a bearing to [inserted] get them to [/inserted] the nearest atoll with an airstrip – Palmyra
From there, Peter flew at 1,000 ft over the Pacific to avoid the storms, [inserted] stopping [/inserted] at Canton Island and Fiji, landing at last on Australian soil at Amberley R.A.A.F. station [inserted] near Brisbane [/inserted] and finally Sydney the same evening. They were met by “Ministers, Brass Hats, Press and speeches”, as Peter put it.
Peter and his crew then displayed “Q for Queenie” all over Australia and New Zealand for the next 16 months, giving short flights to almost everyone of note – from the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Governor General, Ministers, and V.I.Ps, to thousands of schoolchildren, (often 40 at a time) as well as everyone who bought A£ [deleted] 250 [/deleted] [inserted] 100 of [/inserted] War Bonds and wished to fly in the Lancaster.
Never before, or since, has a four-engined bomber “buzzed” so many cities, or “beaten up” so many schools, camps, R.A.A.F. stations, and isolated villages. What anoyed [sic] Peter, however, was that everywhere they landed, his crew always wanted
[page break]
5
a cup of tea before continuing!
[deleted] Finally [/deleted] [inserted] During this time [/inserted] Peter made his most legendary flight of all [inserted] on Oct 22nd 1943 [/inserted] – after “beating-up” parts of Sydney, he descended to 11 ft over the water and flew [inserted] eastbound [/inserted] [underlined] under [/underlined] Sydney Harbour Bridge (and was captured on film). It was a toss-up whether he was court-martialled – but instead he was awarded the Air Force Cross for the epic flight to Australia!
Peter Isaacson was born in London on July 31st 1920, his Australian father having come to England during the Great War as a soldier, and later married his English mother. Both parents had, however, been descended from Baltic and European origins.
The family moved back to Melbourne in 1926, and Peter attended Brighton Grammar School and Melbourne University, before leaving at 16 to start work for a newspaper group.
In mid-1940 he was selected for the R.A.A.F. Air Crew Reserve, and in December began a flying training course in Australia, finishing advanced pilot training in Canada at Uplands. From there it was to England, to 27 O.T.U. at Lichfield and then 460 Squadron (R.A.A.F.) near York.
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6.
Peter had already flown two operations – the famous “1,000 bomber raids” – while at O.T.U., and with 460 Squadron and a mostly Australian crew, he went on to complete 29 in all.
After 22 he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for “showing fine offensive spirit and great determination”, and commissioned as a Pilot Officer.
Peter then volunteered for the Pathfinders, and in 156 Squadron went on to complete 44 operations before the flight back to Australia. When he joined the squadron at Warboys in January 1943, he helped convert two of their pilots onto Lancasters, and subsequently became close friends of both – Alistair Lang and Lighton Verdon-Roe (son of Sir Allcott Verdon-Roe, the first man to fly in England, and founder of the firm that made the Lancaster).
The three of them, [deleted] together with another Australian pilot, [/deleted] were known by their C.O. as “ the [deleted] Fearsome Foursome [/deleted] [inserted] Terrible Threesome [/inserted]”, as they got up to all kinds of pranks which although often foolhardy, did much to lift the morale of the squadron at a time of increasing losses. The presence of a pretty WAAF Intelligence Officer [inserted] also [/inserted] had
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7
them all rushing back after operations to see who could be first to be interrogated by her!
Near the end of this tour, Peter’s Lancaster was over Berlin on the night of March 1st/2nd and had just released its load of markers on the aiming point when an ack-ack shell exploded near the tail, and a load of incendiaries from a Lancaster above hit them amidships, wounding the gunner, destroying his turret, and jamming the control cables to the tail. They did not explode, but left gaping holes in the fuselage where they exited. The Lancaster immediately went into a steep dive, everything loose cascading into the nose. They all thought this was the end, but Peter planted his feet on the instrument panel to try to pull the control column back, and the Flight Engineer, [deleted] and [/deleted] [inserted] and [/inserted] Bomb Aimer [inserted] [deleted] and Navigation [/deleted] [/inserted] came to pull too. After dropping from 17,000 ft the Lancaster slowly came level again below 3,000 ft, and they attempted to plot a course home. At low level, down to under 1,000 ft now, they inadvertently flew right across the centre of the heavily defended Ruhr, blinded by searchlights and hit repeatedly by flak – but survived [inserted] in this maelstrom to [/inserted] somehow creep back to Warboys. Their C.O. was so astonished at the damage, that he opened the Officer’s Mess bar for [inserted] all of [/inserted] them at 5 am in the morning! And Peter
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8.
received an immediate D.F.C. and his radio operator and navigator the D.F.M., for bringing the Lancaster back safely.
Sadly, during the early part of May, Peter’s friend Lighton Verdon-Roe and his crew perished over Duisburg, and Alastair Lang became a P.O.W. when his Lancaster exploded over Dortmund. [symbol] [inserted] [symbol] He died on Sunday October 28th 2007 at Collingbourne Ducis. [/inserted]
Peter retired from the R.A.A.F. in Australia on February 21st 1946, and bought a local newspaper, beginning a career in publishing and printing that was to last 50 years. His company, Peter Isaacson Publications eventually grew to employ 370 staff in Australia and New Zealand, publishing over 60 titles. He also started a company in Singapore, Asian Business Press, that employed 142 staff and published 14 titles. Always a very “hands on” character, Peter won many awards for his own editorial columns, and always stood up for minorities, for the Aborigines, for people of all religious faiths, and for the role of the RAF Bomber Command in Europe. [inserted] He denounced intolerance and bigotry. [/inserted] He ran his businesses firstly to become, and remain the most respected in Australian and Asian publishing; secondly for the benefit of his employees, and only lastly to make money. He always put all the
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9.
profits back into the business.
He founded in 1969 what later became the Pacific Area Newspapers Publishing Association, and was made an Hon. Life Member in 1987. He became Chairman or President of many local Melbourne and national associations to do with newspapers and publishing, helped raise funds for charities, and for the upkeep and expansion of the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance – an impressive war memorial.
Peter was admitted to the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for 1999, for “services to the print media, and the community”, before finally selling off his group of companies – by now the largest remaining independent one in Australia – to Tony O’Reilly’s Australian Provincial Newspapers.
Wing Cmdr. Peter Isaacson, A.M., D.F.C., A.F.C., D.F.M, [deleted] leaves [/deleted] [inserted] married [/inserted] his wife, Anne, [deleted] who he married [/deleted] in Melbourne in 1950, and [inserted] they have [/inserted] two sons, Tony and Tim.
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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Biography of Wing Commander P Isaacson AM, DFC, AFC, DFM RAAF and research related to same, part of 156 (PFF) sqn with AG Lang and L Verdon-Roe
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Isaacson biography relating to him surviving two tours in Bomber Command and then to being asked take a Lancaster to Australia westabout and describing his journey. Continues with early life moving to Australia, being selected for RAAF aircrew reserve in 1940. After training in Canada he returned to England and after O.T.U went to 460 Squadron. After completing 29 operations and award of DFM he then volunteered for pathfinders on 156 Squadron and went on to complete 44 operations. Tells of meeting Alistair Lang and Lighton Verdon-Roe at RAF Warboys. Continues with details of operation to Berlin when they were hit by anti-aircraft fire and incendiaries from aircraft above and subsequent actions for which he was awarded and immediate DFC. Concludes with post war events and activities.
Format
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Nine b/w photocopied sheets
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Personal research
Identifier
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BCleggPVIsaacsonPv10003
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Victoria--Melbourne
Canada
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
England--York
England--Huntingdonshire
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Dortmund
Victoria
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
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
Contributor
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Tricia Marshall
Creator
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PV Clegg
156 Squadron
460 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb struck
bombing of Cologne (30/31 May 1942)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
ground personnel
Lancaster
mess
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
promotion
RAF Lichfield
RAF Warboys
training
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/834/18899/YGeachDG1394781v5.2.pdf
10162827a32d552c966e4454065fa9f0
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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Geach, David
D Geach
Description
An account of the resource
<a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/"></a>52 items. The collection concerns Warrant Officer David Geach (1394781 Royal Air Force) and contains his diaries, correspondence, photographs of his crew, his log book, cuttings and items relating to being a prisoner of war. After training in Canada, he flew operations as a bomb aimer with 623 and 115 Squadrons until he was shot down 24 March 1944 and became a prisoner of war. He was instrumental in erecting a memorial plaque to the Air Crew Reception Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. <br />The collection also contains a scrap book of photographs.<br /><br />Additional information on his crew is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/218400/">IBCC Losses Database.</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Harry Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-14
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Geach, DG
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
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GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
NO. 288
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[underlined] Wednesday 17th March. [/underlined]
Back in England again, gee! its great to be home, I don’t know how fellows must feel being overseas 10 years or so, 8 months was enough to make me feel really thrilled at the sight of old England again. Beg pardon! I should have said Scotland, for it was up the firth of Clyde we slipped and anchored off Greenock. It was a nice morning & the fields & hills looked really pleasant in the sunshine. As we slid along we were shot up by Hurricanes and Martletts from the Auxiliary Aircraft Carriers. There were quite a few of the latter, converted merchant men turned into A.C. Carriers, quite large some of them. Beside this, the usual swarm of naval craft lay around. Destroyers, & corvettes slipped past, & occasionally the sleek black hulk of a submarine would slide along; in the distance. There was a Catalina station, with quite an amount of activity going on. One of the “Cats” landed quite close to us in a flurry of foam, nice looking jobs! We anchored just by three aircraft carriers & the modern battleship Howe, there was quite an amount of Aldis flashing, but far beyond our limited 8’s. I was glad I was on guard as I had a fine view, whilst all the others weren’t allowed up on deck.
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We docked on the 15th about 3 pm and it was 24 hrs. before we got off her. Being as there were no large docks as at Boston & New York everyone had to be taken off in lighters, & there were a good few thousand to go ashore. The lighters seemed like little toys alongside the Queen Elizabeth, although in reality they were quite large two funnelled vessels. Pumping oil in was a large tanker she really was a size, a smart looking American ship, with the T of the Texaco Oil Coy. on her funnel covered by the grey war paint. We struggled into the boat in full webbing lugging the kit bag, that everyone had crammed with cigarettes, chocolates, cosmetics, & heaven knows how many with stockings, for everyone at home. Quite a delay ensued before the lighter was packed to capacity, then away she went. My God as we passed alongside the Q.E. we could get an idea of her size, she was immense. As we drew further away, & saw the cluster of ships around her, dwarfed to doll size, looking like a duck with a swarm of ducklings we realised what a prize it would make for Jerry U Boats. No wonder they had claimed to have sank her, that made us laugh when we were on it. She really had a rakish cut, though, and as we neared the dockside, gazing back through the [deleted] Deff [/deleted] half mist, I was glad I had had the opportunity of travelling on the two largest ships afloat.
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On the dockside we had the inevitable hours wait with packs, full webbing on, but being as it was our priviledge [sic] to moan we indulged in it to the full, & were cheered by it. The troop trains were drawing away and at last our turn came. Comfortable seats were taken, our mass of webbing crowded everything out of the way but nobody worried away we [deleted] wend [/deleted] went, into a lovely drizzling evening, it may sound dim, but were we glad to see the rain again, after months of continuous snow without a drop of rain. It must have appeared depressing to the Canadians, raining on their arrival, bearing out tales of the island when it always rains, that they had heard, but to us it was home & heaven. Everyone waved out of windows & from streets as we slid along, everything was so friendly. Some of the fellows tackled the canned rations they had of Beans & Hash etc. but I stuck to the Biscuit & Sweet ones. Into Glasgow we rattled, onto Edinburgh when the NAAFI gave us tea on the platform, & so to Harrogate. Here we were assembled in the [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] dim light & pushed into lorries & away we went to Pannel Ash, three miles out of Harrogate to a large school. Here we whizzed around getting bedding & filling forms and having an eagerly awaited breakfast. However I am getting tired so I’ll continue in my next entry.
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[underlined] Sunday 21st March [/underlined]
As I said we arrived here at Pannel Ash, about 5.30 AM. on the 17th & they told us to be on parade at 8 A.M. to start the whirl of kitting, form filling and heaven knows what else before we went on leave. It sounded a line of bull to us, but the magical word leave was enough to keep us moving. We rapidly discovered that there were two of the biggest b-s I have seen here, & the two most influential. No 1 the C.O. and No 2 the W.O. I can truthfully say the C.O. or Sqdn/Ldr was the most illiterate fellow I have ever seen holding a commission. They say [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] he was an N.C.O. pre-war & just got a lucky push. The W.O. vies with him for our hatred, he is a fat red faced guy & a real nasty piece, just loves to catch one of us N.C.O’s with something wrong. It is something like a Gestapo purge, they are [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] possessed with the idea, that because we have come back from overseas we are no longer fit for aircrew, are a pack of scare-crows, are unruly & undisciplined etc. etc. Admittedly the Guards could give us a few points on smartness but hell! we haven’t had time to get back into the rut of drill again. Our job doesn’t depend on whether we can drill smartly either, a point which they always try to hammer in.
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We have whizzed about filling in reams of forms, kitting up to the English scale once more, this was a scream Some of the fellows had thrown away nearly all their service kit in order to make room for their presents, & they certainly had some 664B action. When they can’t think of anything for us to do, we drill, with the C.O. binding continually. The latest purge is haircuts, & as mine hasn’t been trimmed for about 6 – 7 weeks I’m right in the line of fire, guess I’ll need a lawn mower on my mop. On the evenings that we can get away we generally walk into town to see a show, the trouble with this town is it is [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] lousy with aircrew. When we first arrived we were so tired that we got some bed hours in, & wrote letters with the old 2 1/2' stamp on again. It was quite good to write a letter, & in a couple of days get a reply come buzzing back. The family & Mary had a surprise as they didn’t think I would be home for a couple of days, Mary is trying to get leave at the same time as myself. We should be going on leave pretty soon now, yippee! will we hit the high spots, & guess I’ll be glad to hand over their presents after lugging them quarter way round the world & guarding them, ah! well it wont [sic] be long now.
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[underlined] Thursday April 8th [/underlined]
Time certainly has flown by, but in a glorious fashion, since I made my last [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] entry. In the last couple of days we got packed, stowed our flying kit, & personal kit in the in the cellars & were all ready to move. The great day was Wednesday the 24th. and the coaches came to take us to the station. All the A.G.’s had gone a couple of days before, but only for 7 days, as they needed them, I felt sorry for them as we were all getting 14. After some waiting the train drew in, & we piled in heartily, it was well organised, all the London fellows were in one train those going South, Portsmouth etc in another, & Midlands & North a third. We got a good seat & old Fred Porce was opposite me so we arranged to travel on the Met to Plaistow together. On the journey we dozed & ate a little of the rations, & thought & made plans of what we would do on leave, then finally we drew into London, bang on! Fred had a monster kit bag crammed with tinned goods, & it certainly was a weight, we both had to drag it along to get on the Met. Sinking into a seat, not daring to remove our packs, for fear we wouldn’t get them on again, we soon became wedged, & I had the devils
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own job to struggle out, when we reached my station. It was really great to get home again, there was a great welcome, everyone saying things together & I know, I forgot lots of the things I wanted to tell them. Mary & my sister certainly were enthusiastic over the cosmetics, most probably be run in for hoarding.
Leave time as usual simply whirled by, shows & films, different people to see, & places to go. I saw Frank Pritchards mother, apparently I just missed him at Greenock, he went back on the Queen Elizabeth, they must have embarked the morning after we disembarked. Life always seems to be like that just missing people, well, I hope he likes Canada, one thing he won’t get the hellish winter conditions I had. I could kick myself missing the mildest winter England had for 17 years, & catching the coldest Canada had for 19 years. Anyway time flew, & yesterday it was time for me to return, they ran a special train for us, good show, & at 5 PM I met Norman & all the boys, & back we travelled swapping stories of leave. Harrogate once more, & in the Grand Hotel, where we were billeted when we arrived from Hastings, & so here I am.
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[underlined] Wednesday 14th April [/underlined]
We are ‘squaddied’ now, (placed in a squad) and waiting for the lectures to commence. Still the memories of our leave keep coming back to torture us, in heaven knows when we will be home again. Won’t be till after O.T.U. I’d wager, some fellows say we get some after AFU but I doubt it. Most of the fellows here whilst they are waiting for a posting are sent to Whitley Bay on a 4 week Commands Course with the RAF Regiment, I don’t quite know whether I relish the idea or not. The first few days we were back we didn’t do anything merely route marches, occasionally if we had a decent fellow in charge we would lay down in a field for the afternoon, but that wasn’t often. That state of affairs rarely lasts long however & we were soon put in a squad and commenced lectures. These are held at the Majestic Hotel, & we parade and march there each morning and afternoon. The lectures themselves are the same as they are anywhere the inevitable Signals, Armaments, Aircraft Rec, & Bombing Theory, they certainly cheese us, & I have a hell of a job to keep awake.
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There is quite a bit of P.T. as well, & we always have to run up to the Crag or thereabouts then turn off, for a general town of Yorkshire, around 5 miles or so. A fellow who was already in our room when we arrived, (a pilot on singles) is on the permanent P.T. squad, this is a hell of a racket. You are put on this when you have finished all the lectures. They parade in the morning in P.T. kit, or more often than not trousers, vest & jacket, then after roll call, go for a run by themselves to the Cing Café & sit there gazing at the view, & eating scones & supping tea till nearly dinner time, then they trot back for their midday meal. In the afternoon they repeat the process, maybe add a game of football, if they feel energetic, always ensuring that they finish in plenty of time for an early tea, & a quick get away to the cinema. Still you can’t blame them, they’ve been here nearly four months & I’d be really fed up.
Looking around at the thousands of aircrew here, & hearing of the thousands of Canadians & Australians at Bournemouth it amazes me. All these aircrew hanging around waiting to get onto operations and they can’t, & it goes right to the
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bottom of the ladder, to the fellow just joining up for aircrew who has to wait nearly a year after he has been accepted, to get into the RAF. If only we could clear the bottlenecks & get all these fellows on ops’ what a mighty bomber fleet we should have. Surely it isn’t the shortage of aircraft, we should be turning out enough by now. It must be a bottleneck at O.T.U. & AFU & not enough to cope with the flow of crews, or the most likely explanation they have been piling up here, owing to there being limited flying during the winter. I daresay there will always be the same situation here, though. As for myself I’m quite content, we have a decent room, Norman, Henry, Jack, & Ron & myself all together. There’s a wash basin in the room & a bath room next door, which is good. The food isn’t bad either, it is a rush for meals now that we are on [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] lectures. There isn’t much to do in town but go to the cinema I have been six nights running, but there’s nothing else available. One thing about coming in at night the lights are switched off at 10.30 PM by a master control, so we always creep in, in the dark, stumbling over things. Rumours of leave here are as prevalent here as at any other posting centre, but after a while we discredit them all.
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[underlined] Wednesday April 21st [/underlined]
Norman, Harry & myself are still here, but Ron & Jack are at Whitley Bay now, getting that cave man complex on the North Sea now. The went off in the traditional RAF style full webbing etc, & kidding us about our getting posted up there when they had nearly finished. Us not to be outdone assuring them, that there was an AFU posting on the way & they were merely clearing the dim ones out. I wouldn’t mind betting we’re “joes” though & get sent up there shortly. In the meantime we are just continuing with lectures, we have had one period of wet dinghy drill. We went in the swimming baths, belonging to a school, now occupied by the Civil Service. Being as the changing accommodation in the boxes is inadequate a lot of fellows changed on the spectators seats at the far end. There are a lot of full length windows, & as the boys changed & stood there in the altogether, quite a lot of the female Civil Servants opposite found a sudden lack of interest in their work. We have to don full flying kit and Mae Wests, & as a crew jump in & swim to the dinghy & climb in. It wasn’t so bad in the water, but when one went to climb into the dinghy, their weight
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soaked, with water, became apparent, & it really was a struggle to get aboard.
I have been with Norman to visit his Aunt & Uncle living here. His Uncle is in the Civil Service & took us to their club they have on the Ground Floor of a Hotel. Its a nice place with refreshment bar, dance hall, games & card rooms, we went to a nice dance there the other day. It is so nice to meet someone like that, because Harrogate is a hell of a place if one knows nobody. Being as it is crammed full of aircrew & soldiers, every place of entertainment is bound to be packed. There is nowhere to go but the cinemas really cos the dances are pretty dear. Most probably with the idea of keeping the services away, because the citizens really resent the troops being here, & hate the war being forced on them. It really is a “Forget the War”, town. The solitary Y.M.C.A. & a couple of small Forces Canteens do sterling service, but are overwhelmed & can’t cater for all their customers This leaves the troops at the mercy of the money grabbing café owners. The Copper Kettle being one, 2 small sausages & a few chips being 3/6’, out of an ordinary soldiers 2/6 a day its not even funny. Yes this town certainly wants re-organising & a few of the rackets squashed.
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[underlined] Tuesday 27th April [/underlined].
We are on the point of recommencing our flying in England we have arrived at our Advanced Flying Unit, at Bobbington near Stourbridge. So we did steal a march on Ron & Jack after all, I bet they are annoyed about it, but still most probably they will be posted soon. They called us all out together all our little clique, & when they said Bobbington we jumped for joy as most of us are Southerners and didn’t fancy going up North again. There was quite a dash around & quite a bit of bull with kit inspections & parades, clothing parades, & Heaven knows what else. Bags of waiting around & queuing as usual, arguing and scrambling for different things. At last all was done & our kit was left downstairs in the lobby ready to go next morning. We went out in the town to have a last night celebration, I am a bit sorry now that I have left there, as it was pretty good there, and I had some decent times with Norman’s Uncle & Aunt. Still there it is the training system doesn’t worry about individuals, & it is the only way I guess. Anyway after that last night we staggered in rather merry & noisy stumbling through the pitch black corridors of the hotel.
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Up the next morning bright and early, early anyway I dunno so much about the bright. With bull to the last we had to parade in full webbing and march to the station. We got fixed up on the train O.K. & commenced our first stage of the journey to Leeds. It was crazy weather, raining like anything, when we arrived at Leeds we were going to have a stroll around but the weather deterred us. The train to Birmingham was crowded & although we had a carriage reserved, bags of civilians crowded in & as there were elderly women & women with babies, we gave them the seats, but boy! was it a squash. At Birmingham we darted around unloading the kit & dashing over to another platform to catch the Wolverhampton train. We were beginning to look like porters after lumping the kit around all the time. The train had to wait a few minutes until we had loaded everything, the guard was a bit peeved but there was nothing he could do. Off we bowled and then found we had left Norman behind, nothing could be done then so on we went. At Wolverhampton there was a lorry waiting so we loaded it all on & climbed on the kit. We were rather shaken by the distance we were from the town through miles of country lanes until we finally arrived here.
They say that first impressions are often misleading, & I hope so, because our first impressions of this place is that it is a bloody awful station. We are in a damp Nissen hut with a concrete floor, that clouds of white dust rise from on the slightest stir of anything. Being ‘pupils’ as we are termed we aren’t allowed to eat in the sergeants mess, they say it isn’t large enough. We may go into there for letter writing etc. after 5.30 P.M Our meals are in the airmen’s mess, and we queue up amongst all the a.c’s and it is no exaggeration that we get less food than them. I have experienced it many a time the WAAF has given the fellow in front a ladle full, & had one ready for the next chap. Then looking up & seeing they are aircrew they tip half of it back. The mess is terrible and so is the food. All this we have found out in our few hours of being here, tomorrow we start the course. Our ablutions is a place not finished, no bowls or mirrors, just a line of taps containing freezing cold water – grim isn’t the word for it. By all accounts aircrew are disliked on this station by all & sundry from the Groupy downwards, we meet him tomorrow. – Norman has just rolled in he followed on the next train, had quite a shock when he found we had gone.
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[underlined] Sunday May 2nd. [/underlined]
We have been here long enough to dislike the place entirely, & the sooner we leave here the better for all of us. On our first day we met the W/O in charge of the school, Alves his name is, & we didn’t take much of a liking to him. He gave us quite a few warnings with a long list of “Donts”, [sic] & impressed upon us how the “Groupy” disliked aircrew and was always ready to catch them out, then he marched us off to see the big noise himself. All the time he was marching us along in threes he was binding “Stop that talking”, and “Swing those arms”, just like the old I.T.W. back again, it gets a bit cheesing at this stage. We had the ‘welcome’ address in the station cinema a rather bare place that is still undergoing completion. The Groupy bore out all the stories we had heard about him, a rather mean faced individual. During the talk he broke off three times to tear a strip off a poor M.T. driver who had the misfortune to be starting his lorry & drowning the old man’s voice, what a type. Quite a lot of his talk was devoted to the subject of WAAF’s we weren’t to go around with them or associate to any given extent, & if he caught anyone near the WAAF site it would be too bad. Anyone would think it was a convent here, still from what I’ve seen of the WAAFs here, I can’t see anyone wanting to associate with them.
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Our day is quite a long one here, we rise & have our icy wash then dash over to the airmen’s mess to queue for our “breakfast”. Back to the hut to dash around making up our beds & sweeping the floors, then on parade at the unearthly hour of 7.45 A.M. Even at I.T.W. we went on parade at 8 A.M. nowhere have I seen it as early as this, a quarter of an hour doesn’t sound very much, but one can pack an awful lot into it in the morning. Lectures are from 8 AM. to 10.15 then a quarter of an hours break, lectures from 1.30 to 5 P.M. a half hour for tea, then back for an hours lecture 5.30 to 6.30. The latter is the worst of all I think, we have to dash from the classroom to the mess, which takes about 6 mins, queue for our meal, bolt it down then dash back to the classroom, all in half an hour, we’ll all be suffering from indigestion before long. Unless the instructor taking us is willing to let us off a little early then we are unable to catch the 6.30 p.m. bus into Stourbridge.
Each day we have an hours P.T. & there is a mad F.O. for the P.T. officer, at least we call him mad, he is one of these very keen types he used to be a champion swimmer before the war. The first
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time we went over the assault course, it was pretty gruelling. Twice round a half a mile track then into a veritable maze of climbing over walls, crawling under wire, balancing along poles ten feet high. One part was swinging along on a single rope across a pond until we were able to wrap our legs around a tree & pull ourselves in. The P.T. instructor a Cpl that was showing us got about three quarters of the way across to the point where the rope sagged the most & there he fell in. He had his long blue P.T. trousers on too, boy! did we laugh, needless to say he didn’t join in. Twice we have been on hellish long cross country the P.T. officer being bang on at running cracks along at a hell of a pace. Then he binds us because we dont [sic] do so well & shoots the bull about being fit for flying etc. We bind him back, & tell him to have a crack at aircrew it is quite a scream. The trouble is we generally arrive back at about 12.45 & have to wash & dress & dash for dinner in three quarters of an hour, so invariably we arrive back late for classes.
The NAAFI here is a pretty good one, we have our break there, they have a good selection of cakes. In classes we are doing all the old familiar Bombing Theory over again, & using the Bombing Teacher. We do our flying on Ansons, seems we are never free from them, I’m really cheesed of winding that undercart up & down.
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Yesterday, May Day, was our day off, not because the RAF favoured the Labour Party, but it just happened that way. After quite a bit of wangling they finally granted us the priviledge [sic] of getting off an hour earlier [inserted] Friday [/inserted] There was a bus running at 5.30 P.M. & we went into town on that & there caught a bus to Birmingham, we were able to book beds at the Services Club that night. Jimmy Selkirk, Harry & I went out on the beer as Norman had gone by train to Oxford as his fiancé was there spending her leave. We eventually found a pretty low dive & finished the night there. The next day we wandered around for awhile, then went to a cinema, & travelled back on the 9 P.M. bus to catch the 10.30 P.M. from Stourbridge to the camp.
The other day we had our flight photograph taken, we all agreed to look cheesed in it, to register our disappointment of this place, & it came out pretty well. We have been to the station cinema here, they charge us 1/- it isn’t too bad, if only they didn’t have rows of old seats on the same level. Because if one is sitting a fair way back it is impossible to see over all the heads on the same level as yourself. I wonder if we will get leave after this place, I hope so, there are the usual rumours floating around, first we will then we wont, [sic] I guess we wont [sic] know till it arrives.
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[underlined] Sunday 7th May. [/underlined]
I should say roughly half our time has passed here, as most chaps remain here a [deleted] fortnight [/deleted] [inserted] month [/inserted] anyway roll on the next fortnight, & lets get to hell out of here. It is a fairly hum drum existence with the lectures & so forth. On Monday we had a pleasant diversion in the form of wet dinghy drill, in Stourbridge baths, I rather like it as we are able to swim about afterwards – Turning the large bomber dinghy over when one is in the water with full flying kit, will be some job in the North Sea, I reckon. It isn’t too bad in the baths, but then there is no rough sea or wind to contend with.
The F/Sgt in charge of us is a pretty good guy, pretty quiet, & got quite a bit of service in, he is thoroughly cheesed with the station. Beside the famous old Theory of Bombing lectures he takes us on the Bombing Teacher. We were up there the other day & looking from the open window, when old Alves went dashing past. Tom Alan commented “Old Alves is on the warpath”, boy! he must have had keen ears because he called us down & bound us rigid. For the Gunnery lectures there is an F/O A.G with a V.F.M. he is a Welsh chap, shoots a fair amount of lines, but is really a good type, his lectures make a welcome break. For the aircraft rec. there is a nattering little sgt A.G. who absolutely cheeses everybody, nobody likes him. The other chap a tall F/Sgt is a good egg though, livens up the epidiascope slides with an occasional nude woman.
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The map reading periods are O.K. too. the F/O who takes us did his tour out in Abyssinia, I believe it was on Valentine or some obsolete kites. Thinking of it, it must have been a pretty easy tour, but he is a good chap, a Flt/Lt D.F.M. who is also there, shoots bags of lines, but they are worth listening to & at this stage, we are ready to lap up all lines. A chap who ‘nattered’ to us the other day about ‘ops’ in the Middle East, said at the beginning of the campaign, the crack Italian liner Rex was in the harbour at Tobruk. They were briefed to attack & did so, but they were made to bomb with 25 lb H.E. naturally they were like pin pricks, & that night she whipped up steam & was away. An Air Commodore was slung out of the RAF for that. We went out on a lorry the other day for practical map reading, & drove around the lanes, stopped & had to find where we were & make tactical sketches. About three times we did this, & then had to change into our P.T. kit, that we had brought, leap out of the lorry & run the 3 miles back to camp. It rather reminded me of the hunt with the hounds leaping from the van & tearing down the road. We have been on Groupie’s parade, & he certainly is down on aircrew, the parade was a real bully one, bags of shouting & everything. He whizzed through the permanent staff without saying much, & when he came to us, he went really slow & bound practically everyone rigid, & the W.O. almost wore his pencil out, taking names.
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Yesterday was our day off again & once more we spent it in Birmingham. We were unable to get in at the Services Club & had to go to a large house converted into a hostel, it was pretty good. This week saw the commencing of our Flying here, I made three flights all day bombing exercises. The first one was Wednesday, & came off alright, there is a village fairly near the range & that made me twitter. It is a bit more awkward to bomb from the kite than from the Canadian Anson, because there is no perspex panel in the nose. Also the sliding panel is metal, not perspex, this necessitated having it always open, causing quite a draught. On Friday Harry Jamieson & I did two more flights with an ex-operational pilot F/O Ryan. It was pretty grim because he hadn’t the technique of the steady bombing runs, like the regular B.G pilots. The kite would be bouncing around necessitating us giving corrections & sometimes we would be nowhere near the target so we had to call ‘Dummy Run’. He would scream & bind & curse like the clappers, & said “It’s a bloody good job you’re not over a target”. That kind of stuff never gets anybody places though, & only leads to a bad exercise. We do a few of these Day Bombing trips, maybe some Night bombing, & then some Night Combined exercises. These are only cross countries but they give them the high sounding titles. We’re beginning to get really cheesed with all this training, no wonder chaps get stale, & lose all their interest & enthusiasm.
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[underlined] Friday 14th May. [/underlined]
Life still flows in its uninteresting way, we have done some map reading trips. We go on a small cross country of 3 legs, with the pilot & 3 B.A’s each who map reads one leg of the trip. They are O.K. if you get a decent pilot, who puts the Forces programme on the intercom, & is fairly tolerant with the map reading. I was up with ‘Taffy’ Evans & Norman Griffin the other day & we had a binder! Poor old Taffy chopped in the mire, by losing himself completely. The pilot was one of those tricky individuals who would fly the aircraft so a village was directly under the nose, & out of sight, & then ask you suddenly where it was. We coped anyway.
I had a good laugh the other day, whilst standing by in the flight hut for a day bombing exercise. There were a couple of chaps from the previous course there, also detailed for a bombing exercise. Like us all they weren’t very keen on it, but the antics of one of them kept me in fits. He was small with dark wavy hair, & a perfect cherub face, chubby rosy cheeks etc. looking about 17. Every few minutes he would pop to the door & gaze at the sky. Any cloud, no matter however small, was greeted with a beaming smile & the exclamation “Wizard” drawing out the last syllable, as it meant there was a faint hope of the exercise being cancelled.
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Whilst every time the sun burst forth he would scowl & slump disconsolately back in his chair, resigning himself to Fate. In the end they took off & so did we.
The lectures are still as binding & unvarying. Yesterday our “Chiefy” was taking us on Bombing Theory & although he is a good chap, he is a real lousy lecturer. Bombing Theory being one of the driest subjects in itself he succeeded in putting half the class to sleep in a quarter of an hour. Then a Sqdn/Ldr Education Officer from Group slipped into the room, & after listening for 10 mins, took over the lecture. For the next half hour, it even became quite interesting, & some points were cleared up, which I for one had been doubtful over for a long time.
So far rumours that we will not get leave at the end of the course have gained strength, I hope they turn out false. When the last few days arrive W/O Alves gives the Senior Man a list of the O.T.U’s to which we are to be posted & then the course is left to sort them out amongst themselves, I hope we get some decent ones.
Norman has had an old cycle of his sent up, it is quite handy for getting around on, and half the course use it. It might be a good idea to get one if I land on one of there really dispersed drones I hear about. I played a game of football earlier & am just beginning to feel the effects, so I’ll have supper at the NAAFI & turn in.
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[underlined] Thursday May 20th. [/underlined]
We had our day off on Tuesday, & a crowd of us caught the bus outside the camp into Wolverhampton. The morning was spent looking around the town & then after dinner in a nice little café we found a decent park & spent the afternoon. After tea in the Forces Canteen above Surton’s we got down to a steady pub crawl. I have never seen a place like it, for so many girls of 16 – 17 in the pubs. Old Pete Rawlings had quite an amusing encounter with one, but this is not the place to disclose it. Anyway after closing time, four of us wandered around in a happy stupor till we sobered up a little & realised we had better look around for means to return to camp. We finally phoned a taxi who took us right into the camp, & off we bowled to bed.
As far as the flying part goes we are on the last stages, that of day and night cross countries. I don’t know which one the greater bind the latter gets it by a narrow margin, I think. It will be a relief to get to O.T.U. & go on a really organised X country. So far I have been on two day trips & five ‘scrubs’, it is an inoffensive word – ‘scrub’, but conceals a lot. When we are due for a day X country we hand our names into the Guard Room & then at 5.30 or 6 AM an S.P. rudely awakens
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us, to tear off for early briefing, breakfast & take off at 8.30 A.M. – there are afternoon X countries but I haven’t had the luck to get on one yet. It is binding to get up, see the rain, & knowing in advance it will be scrubbed, tramp 10 mins through the rain to the briefing room, & wait until they inform you officially it is cancelled. Now we are getting wise & only two going up, one with Norman’s bike to nip back & arouse the others if by chance, flying is on.
On a night cross country, our main function is winding the undercart. Actually we are supposed to do some infra red bombing, but no-one has been known to see the target, the pilot hates stooging around, & the navigator is chomping to set course. Consequently we sit & shiver in the darkness, maybe once in a while giving a beacon position to the Navigator, or taking over the controls while the pilot dives to the back. We had a little excitement on one trip when the weather was closing in over the airfield when we returned, but we got in O.K. The only good thing about it is we sleep the next day, & it breaks the monotony. A kite crashed the other day killing the occupants, they weren’t on our course. The S.S.Q. backs onto our billets though & the blood wagon was outside with the bodies in while they were getting things ready inside. It was a fairly sobering thought, but I guess we shall see more of it, the closer we get to ‘ops’.
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[underlined] 25th May. [/underlined]
Once more a change of address, I am now at my O.T.U. at Hixon, Staffs, having arrived here today. Most of us came here, some went to Whitehead & four to Lossiemouth. ‘Taffy’ Evans has gone to Whitehead & ‘Buntie’ Rogers, Norman, Jimmy, Harry, & most of our clique are still together. Naturally the Lossiemouth posting wasn’t wanted, there being no Scots on the course, so it was drawn for, I thanked the Lord my name didn’t come out of the hat.
Anyway the usual clearance procedure was got through & we were driven by lorry into Wolverhampton this morning. There was a couple of hours to kill before the train & we spent them in town. Although the distance from Bobbington to Hixon isn’t so great as the crow flies it took us a few hours by train with the changing. Transport came out after we phoned from Stafford station, & I was surprised to find the airfield was 8 miles, out from the town, at least – somebody had told me it was nearer than that.
We are all in the same hut, they are not Nissan huts, but kind of asbestos boarding & wood, on concrete bases, much better & larger than the Nissan hut. Each collection of huts is called a site & given a number, the site with the mess etc. is called Command Site, these sites are dispersed over a wide area, & are a considerable distance from the airfield. Apparently a cycle is a very handy thing, Pete Rawlings has one now.
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A course arrives here every fortnight, & we are No 17 course. After nearly a fortnight of ground training terminating with exams, we commence flying, by this time we have ‘crewed-up’ of course. This is the stage where we crowd of Air Bombers will finally split up, because inevitably after each of us joins a crew we shall go about with them, I shall be sorry, because we have been together a long while, but this breaking up of friendships happens again & again in the RAF as ours is an odd course number (17) we move to the satellite airfield, Seighford, when we have completed our ground training & finish our O.T.U. there. It is situated the other side of Stafford & is more dispersed than this, but there is a lot less discipline, as chaps say who have been there.
As usual on arrival at a new place, we have been pumping all the fellows that we can find on the various aspects of the course, & every conceivable thing attached to it. We haven’t collected much ‘gen’ yet though, beyond the fact that we parade outside the mess, after breakfast tomorrow, with the rest of training wing personnel, & then the S.W.O. will march us to the Training Wing for roll call. Apparently this is an everyday procedure & is fairly strictly adhered to. I have written off the letters to home & Mary as usual on arriving at a new station, with the address & what gen is available, & now I’ll close this entry and get into bed I think, then tomorrow I’ll start one of my last stages towards a squadron.
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[underlined] June 1st. [/underlined]
Things have changed somewhat since I last wrote. I have just returned from a compassionate 48 hr pass, which I went on when I received some very bad news from home. The C.G.I. said that I would have to revert back a course, so I am staying here on 17 course, whilst the boys on 17 go over to Seighford. We would have broken up anyway so maybe it is just as well this way. They finish their ground training this week and then my course commences the following week.
This O.T.U. course lasts approximately 3 months, after the fortnights ground training, it is all flying training with an occasional lecture slipped in. Half of the time, (the first half of the 3 months) is day flying, & the other or second half night flying. The exercises are similar in each case, we commence circuits & bumps with an instructor, then after our pilot has flown solo with us as a crew, we complete our circuits & bumps without the instructor. Then day bombing with a ‘screened’ or instructor pilot & a ‘screened’ Air Bomber after the first exercise, we do the rest alone, there are quite a few of them too. The same procedure is followed for gunnery & fighter affiliation, although most of the actual firing exercises are done with four gunners & a ‘screened’ gunner in one aircraft. Then we do a cross country with a ‘screen’, & afterwards another couple by ourselves, each longer in duration.
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The same procedure is followed for night flying, as far as is practical. Then at the end of the course comes the pièce de resistance – a leaflet [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] or “nickel” raid on France. I hope we are able to do one, as sometimes the weather prevents it & crews do a “bullseye” instead. This is an exercise over England, combining Fighter Command & the ground defences, except ack ack naturally. It isn’t that I am all that keen to see what the other side of the Channel is like, but I think it affords quite good practise, before going to a squadron and the real thing.
From what I have seen of the actual station here it isn’t too bad. The mess is about 8 minutes walk from our site, & the food is pretty good, (a lot better than Bobbington anyway) it is laid out fairly well too, & the waitresses serve us sitting down. The ante room & billiards rooms are quite large, & the station cinema, isn’t too bad, they are improving the latter I believe. Getting in & out of Stafford is rather a snag, there is a liberty bus from the Guard Room of an evening, but we are required to book seats the previous day by dinner-time, & as we rarely know that far ahead if we are going in, it is generally by taxi that we arrive there. At the moment I am acting as runner in the Discip Office until the next course commences, I wonder what sort of chaps they will be. Pete Rawlins has crewed up with the pilot that I originally had, he seemed a decent chap.
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[underlined] 8th June. [/underlined]
Well, I have been on the course nearly two days now. There wasn’t much for me to do last week stooging around in the Discip. Office, so I was given a 48 hr pass over the weekend. So I said goodbye to all the boys as they moved over to Seighford during the week end, though I shall see Norman a couple of times in Stafford if we can arrange it. I was lucky travelling into Stafford, I had just come out of the Guard Room with my pass, when an MT Corporal said “Going into Stafford, Sarge?”. So in I travelled in style, lolling back in the Groupie’s car, the driver was going to meet the Groupie at the station.
When I returned yesterday I had expected to find the billet empty, but I had switched my things to the corner bed, just on the off chance, somebody might roll in. They certainly had – a whole room of Canadians, pilots, navigators, and Air Bombers. On the whole they seem a pretty decent crowd, pretty noisy, but full of life and really generous & anxious to be friendly, I like Canadians quite a lot, anyway. I had to smile, because as soon as they found I had been on the previous course, they kept asking me all sorts of ‘gen’ about the course, in exactly the same manner as I had done a fortnight earlier. It was precious little I could give them. Then today we started the ground work, it was exactly the same as my first few lectures on the last course, they follow a strict pattern here.
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[underlined] June 13th. [/underlined]
I have arrived at a stage which will play a most important part in my immediate future – I am crewed up. In a bomber a man’s life is wholly in the hands of his crew members, and the closer they are together, and the better they are as a team, then the more chance of survival they have. I [deleted] a [/deleted] had always understood that considerably rare, and quite an amount of time was allotted at O.T.U’s for the purpose of selecting crews. Hixon has proved the fallacy of it, everyone starts the course separately as a course of pilots, & course of navigators or Air bombers – W/Ops etc. They remain in their classes for the first lot of lectures and hardly have any chance of meeting the various other categories of air crew, the only chance being in the mess or the billet. Suddenly like a bolt from the blue it is announced that everyone must be crewed up in two days or else they will be allocated by the instructors into a crew. A mad flap then starts, people go wandering about, staring into each others faces, vainly trying to sum up whether a person will be an asset to crew up with – or otherwise. Having experienced this on the previous course, I thought it best to let matters take their own course.
Friday night, I was sitting in the mess, after writing a few letters, having a quiet drink & waiting for the sandwiches to arrive for supper. At the next table to me, were two Canadian
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pilots from my billet, McCann who slept next to me & Cecil Kindt who slept opposite McCann. They had been drinking for a while and were both pretty mellow, as Kindt went out to get some more drinks he [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] leant over me and said, “Mac said would you join him at the next table”, so I moved over to where McCann was sitting.
We chatted for a couple of minutes, then he asked if [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] I was crewed up with anyone. When I replied in the negative, he said “Well how would you like to sling in with me, and be my bomb-aimer?” I rather liked him, and so I had found a pilot. Cecil Kindt returned with the beer and we had a drink to it. Well, I think I had better put on record my impressions of Mac, as he is always called, & the other crew members. Len McCann, though I’ve never heard anyone call him Len, is only about 5’ 4”, and almost as broad. He said he has lost a lot of weight over here, & that he weighed 220 lbs in Canada, so he must have been tubby. For his weight & size though he isn’t so very fat, he has some superfluous flesh but is extraordinarily thickset under it. The amusing part of him is his neck which is very short & seems almost as thick as his shoulders are wide, actually he takes an 18 1/2" collar. The other fellows often call him for no reason at all, just to watch him turn around.
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He cannot swivel his neck as we do, but has to lift his shoulder & turn as one would with a stiff neck, yet the action is not a slow one; he takes all the kidding in very good part. In features he strikes me as very similar to the comedian Lou Costello, having the same cheery round face & turned up nose. He had his hair cropped right short in Canada & now stands up in a mass of wiry black bristles. With a short bristly moustache this completed my description of Mac, with whom I shall be for long time – I trust.
I asked Mac if he had a Navigator, & when he said he had one in mind, I told him of another one, who seemed quite a ‘gen’ chap to me. He was a Canadian & Mac knew him & told me he was a real farmer, & that he always ‘nattered’ nineteen to the dozen, so we didn’t ask him. On my advice Mac tackled the navigator he had in mind, just in case somebody else should snap him up. Nobody had, and he became our navigator.
His name is Ken Price, also a Canadian, and I cannot give a better description than say he is the exact image of Gary Cooper. It may seem as though I am rather a film fan, but the resemblance is remarkable. He is tall & lean, very quiet and reserved, and seems a thoroughly decent chap all round. By all accounts, from what the other navigators say he is a darned
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good man at his job.
Then this afternoon Mac introduced me to the wireless/op. he had chosen. Bill Bowery is his name, and he is English coming from Sunderland. He seems quite a keen type and knows his gen, his broad “Geordie” accent tickles us, but it is nowhere near as broad as Jimmy Selkirk’s was, or others I have heard. In appearance, he is about 5’ 8” well set, with straight auburn hair, brushed down, he seems to have an expression as though puzzling or enquiring over something, & that may be a good thing. Anyway there are four of us now, we shall get a rear gunner in a day or so, & the five of us do O.T.U. together.
Mid/Upper Gunners do their Gunnery School somewhere and then join us at the end of the course, generally in time for the “Nickel”. As we are flying Wimpeys there is no accomodation [sic] for them, & it would be a waste of time their coming here all through the course. Also in Fighter-Evasion Tactics the Rear Gunner gives all the instructions, as the co-operation between the pilot & him is the result of their training at O.T.U. The remaining member of the crew, the Flight Engineer we will pick up at our Heavy Conversion Unit, and then we will be a full crew of seven. I hope the other three members will be as good as these, & we should have a rattling good crew.
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[underlined] Thursday 17th June. [/underlined]
On Monday we found ourselves a rear gunner. Mac had noticed a chap who looked pretty keen, but I had heard him ‘nattering’ away and didn’t go much on him. I had another one in mind, fairly similar in appearance to the above mentioned one, and pointed him out to Mac, so he told me to go ahead and contact him.
Nobody has asked him to crew up, and he agreed to pitch in with us. He is a pretty decent kid, he is only 18, I know I’m only 19 myself but he looks very young and he is only about 5’ 5” and slimly built. He is a Londoner and comes from fairly near me, the most important thing, he seems to know his ‘gen’ on gunnery pretty thoroughly. His name is Johnny Watson.
So there we are the five of us, who will do O.T.U. together as a crew and pick up the other two afterwards. Somehow I can’t help wondering sometimes what lies in store for us, and the ability of a crew counts for such a lot in emergencies. Still ours looks pretty good to me, even though it does seem rather early to say it.
At the moment we are completing our ground lectures, and then tomorrow we start our exams. They aren’t actually long ones, or terribly important, although if one makes a pretty poor showing they are liable to be put back a course. The only subject
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I am hazy on is gun turrets, I had hardly any instruction on them at B. & G. School, then here a couple of hours were devoted to it. As it happened I was at the back of a crowded class room, and the diagram being on the wall, well I just couldn’t see a thing.
We have had some lectures together as a crew although for the majority of them we remain in our aircrew categories. There is an old Wellington Mk I in the Airmanship Hangar, & is sitting on supports, so that undercart drill can be carried out. We scramble all over it, learning the positions of various things, petrol cocks, escape hatches, crash positions, oxygen bottles, dinghy releases, & a 101 other things necessary to learn in an aircraft. A couple of times we have scrambled out of it, on dinghy or baling out drill – hope I never have to use either. The Wimpey is a real battered old thing, but it was used for the “1,000 bomber” raid on Cologne. Apparently to make up a 1,000 aircraft they called on all the old kites at O.T.U’s & anything that could get airborne was used. If the public had only known some of the old kites that were used they would have had a shock.
The airmanship instructor, Sgt Peacock, did a tour on Lancs as a mid/upper gunner and saw quite a bit of action apparently. One would think he would at least get a crown at the end of the tour, but his is well overdue.
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[underlined] 21st June [/underlined]
‘Midsummer’s Day’ – it certainly has been glorious weather too, I’m afraid the long daylight evenings mean later day flying for us and consequently less evenings off. We officially started our Flying Course today, though our crew weren’t on today, we commence our circuits and bumps tomorrow.
The results of the exams were posted up today. I had done well in everything but Turrets, on which I made a horrible ‘boob’ – it was as I expected Macgillvray the Canadian pilot opposite me in the billet was cursing because his Bomb Aimer, another Canadian named Dodson, had come bottom in the B/Aimer course. Apparently Dodson is a bit of a woman chaser, & didn’t bother staying in to do any swotting for the exam. Macgillvray was giving forth “He wants to get down to some studying instead of getting on the nest so much”, and so forth. The most amusing part is that Macgillvray is one of the biggest wolves I’ve known. He has a stock of Tangee lipsticks & cosmetics, with a few silk stockings which he uses as bait for the women, - he says. I have never known him to part with anything in the fortnight he has been here & he has been with a couple of women. It is dead funny to hear Mac slang him about them, as Mac has very little time for women. He isn’t a misogynist but he just doesn’t bother. Anyway most of his remarks although screamingly funny are quite unprintable.
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We are all in ‘A’ Flight, a whole course comprises a Flight which goes round in strict rotation, as the courses commence Day or Night Flying. Our Flight Commander Sqdn/Ldr. Ford seems quite O.K. he gave us a welcoming natter, and was very much to the point regarding keeping the crew room tidy, punctuality etc. still he is quite right in stressing these points. This afternoon I squeezed in an hour’s practise on the Bombing Teacher. There is a system here where the various aircrew categories each have to put in so many hours practise on exercises relating to their own particular aircrew duties Bomb Aimers have to do 20 hours in the Bombing Teacher, 10 hours on the Link Trainer, and 6 hours operating a secret navigational instrument. Navigators have to spend quite a few more hours on this instrument than we do, and also take a certain number of astro-shots. W/Ops have to get [deleted] [indecipherable word] a stated number of Q.D.M’s fixes etc. & Gunners get so many hours, spotting turret training, and other exercises, I haven’t found out what the pilots do yet. All the exercises which are carried out on the ground, that is practically everyone’s except the W/Ops have to be fitted into our spare time. That is when we are hanging around the crew room & not flying, then we can nip across & tick off an hour in the Bombing Teacher or the Link. During the rest of the course, although we are flying most of the time, we still have some lectures, as crews on matters of general interest & importance.
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[underlined] 27th June [/underlined]
Sunday again – although it is very similar to all the other days of the week, here. We have a Church Parade, first thing, all the pupils fall in at Training Wing and then march to the airfield, along the perimeter track, to a temporary parade ground outside a hangar, its about 1 1/2 miles from Training Wing. Anyway all the station is on parade there, & we take our place, the Groupie then rolls up for the flag hoisting, inspection and so forth. The flag is flown on a double line & pully attached to the extension of the hangar roof, where the door slides back into. Today the S.P. that was doing the flag hoisting pulled the flag up O.K. then when he gave a pull to unfurl it at the top nothing happened. He pulled & pulled & still no joy, the poor devil got very red in the face as the Groupie was waiting to give the order “General Salute”. However there was nothing else for it, & shamefacedly he hauled it down, & not daring to risk it again, pulled it up already unfurled. After the salute we had to march off in squadrons to another hangar where the pulpit was an RAF lorry covered with the Union Jack and a piano, for hymn singing on. When this was over we were marched off dismissed, and then everything carried on as in a normal day. On all stations when flying is done there is no break for Sundays as they had in the peace time RAF, funny how one almost loses track of the days that way.
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Although we are still on the circuits and bumps stage we are about at the end of it, and will soon be onto some more interesting exercises. All of the crew except the Navigator fly on circuits & landings, & he is lucky not to, it gets pretty binding after the first hour or so. When we first started a ‘screened’ pilot flew with ‘Mac’ giving him the ‘gen’ and everything, and after a little while let him go solo. We were a little apprehensive, in case the short time given, wasn’t enough to let Mac become acquainted with the new cockpit layout. However everything went O.K. and then we continued on our own with circuits & bumps. It hardly seems as though we are off the ground before we are getting ready for the approach & landing. Some of the landings we bump up & down quite a few times & Mac [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] refers to these as the “Grasshopper Blues”. I sit in the collapsible seat, for the second pilot, & it is O.K. seeing everything that goes on, but I wouldn’t like to be in the W/Ops position, feeling the bumps & jarrings, without seeing what was what. For some of our circuits we go over to Seighford and do them there. Actually if we could fly continually we could do them all in a couple of days. However in order to make the aircraft go round, & keep all the crews at the same stage in training, we are allotted the same length of detail. Sometimes a crew does get ahead of the others by luckily striking good weather every time, & never scrubbing an exercise through snags.
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[underlined] July 4th. [/underlined]
American Independence Day – I expect all the Americans around here are making whoopee. There are always a lot in Stafford, they come from the large transit camp at Stone, a small town 6 – 7 miles from here. All American aircrew, I believe, entering or leaving the country pass through there.
We are making steady progress on the course, we have managed to get three bombing exercises done, we are a bit ahead in that respect but behind in Fighter Application & a couple of other things. As I said before it is a matter of luck sometimes the kites are U/S & that puts us behind on that type of exercise for a while, it pretty well evens up at the end though. On the first bombing exercise we went up with a ‘screened’ pilot & a ‘screened’ bomb aimer. Mac had never made bombing runs before, it is only pilots that have been instructors, & staff pilots at B & G schools who have that experience. The ‘screened’ pilot was there to instruct Mac on how to make the corrections of course, that I asked for, & various other little points. There wasn’t very much need for the ‘screened’ bomb aimer, as bombing is very similar on whatever aircraft one flys in. The main point, he was there to point out, was in the method of giving corrections of course. In Ansons the pilots could flat turn them, thus the sighting angle was practically round when you gave “steady”, and a good pilot could hold it practically as it was. However a Wellington has to have banked turns, consequently if the bomb
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aimer waits till the target is in the drift wires of the bomb sight & then gives “Steady” – the pilot flattens out and the target is then way off to one side, so it requires some practise to estimate when to say “Steady” thus making the target come into the drift wires when the pilot flattens out.
Poor old Mac has a hell of a time on run ups, he is so small that he can just see out of the windscreen. He watches the target whilst making his run up, & then when I give a correction, he slides down in his seat to kick the rudder bars, & his head is below the windscreen level, so then he has to pull himself up again to look out. He told us he is actually just under the height standard for a pilot but flannelled his medical.
We did a low level bombing exercise yesterday, & once more took up the two ‘screens’. My first bomb overshot by about 300 yds, & so did the next, I checked every setting on the bombsight, & all were correct, so I called the ‘screened’ bomb aimer & told him, & he could find nothing wrong. So I tried the third one & that was 300 yds overshoot again, then I realised I was taking a line of sight with the back & fore sights as for high level, whereas for low level bombing the back sight, & front beads are used. I told the screen & he told me to carry on & they would make the exercise a grouping one. That is by maths they discount the different sighting & work out where the bombs would have landed, using the front beads. The exercise came out to 47 yards so it ended O.K.
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[underlined] 10th July [/underlined]
The time is slipping past and we are well on the way to finishing our day flying. We had rather an amusing incident the other day, amusing that is to everyone but Mac. He always taxies rather swiftly & as we were passing the control tower, we reached the part where the perimeter track, dips a little. Consequently we gathered speed and started to swing, instead of throttling back & braking, Mac decided to open up the opposite throttle to swing us back. However he over-corrected and we swung back across the perimeter track & onto the grass the other side, in the direction of the runway. Again Mac opened the opposite throttle, and again over-corrected, & we crossed the perry-track once more & raced towards a hangar. Mac clamped on the brakes for all he was worth but it wasn’t enough, the hangar doors were fully open, & we struck the edge of them with our port main plane & sent them thundering across. It must have shaken the people inside to see the hangar doors suddenly move swiftly. From our point of view it was quite amusing, one moment there was hardly a soul [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] in sight, then with the same effect as if someone had kicked an ant-hill, people came pouring out from the hangar, & clustered around the kite. The pièce de resistance was the fact that we had cut clean through the ropes that held the Groupie’s flag & this was now drooped nonchalantly over our astro-dome. – Groupy took a dim view of it. Poor Mac sweated blood, but he only got a strip torn off, but the kite had a mains-plane changed.
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[underlined] 17th July [/underlined]
We had an enjoyable night in Stafford this week, as usual we got set into a regular pub crawl. Old Mac is all against this, he likes to get settled in at one pub and stay there all night drinking steadily. His words of wisdom are “Jeeze, you’re wasting valuable drinking time, going round looking for other pubs, - sit here”. I have never seen anyone drink so much, and affect them so little, it is amusing. He can knock back the pints and I have never seen him, what you might call drunk, merry yes, but inebriated – never. His personality is amazing everyone everywhere gets to know him, & all like him, he will sit and ‘natter’ with people for hours, and tell the most amusing stories of his life in Ottawa, and recount anecdotes of his numerous friends. He certainly is a tonic to have around. While we were in Stafford we saw the Gunnery Leader, he is an Aussie Flt/Lt, and a real lad when he is sober. Now he was out on the beer, evidently, & was strolling down the High St, with his hat on the back of his head, a dingy old battle dress on, & swinging, a gent’s black umbrella, rolled up (where he got [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] it from I dont know). On his other arm was a real brassy blonde – he certainly doesn’t give a damn.
All our bombing exercises are finished and two of our three cross country trips, I have one more gunnery trip to do, and so has ‘Nipper’, thats [sic] what we call Johnny now. I rather like the Air Firing trips which are carried out in Cardigan Bay, then
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they generally fly to Rhyl, & fly at about 30 – 50 ft just a little way out from the shore. There are always lots of holiday makers there. Cecil Kindt had a strip torn off the other day, through an Air Firing accident. They were sent out over the Wash to fire so many rounds into the sea, this in itself is pretty boring and the gunners always look round for some sort of a target. His rear gunner spotted some sort of an old hulk and fired at it on a couple of runs. Apparently it was a wreck & their [sic] were a couple of divers, & salvage men working on it, & one leapt into the water, because of the bullets. God knows how the rear gunner didn’t see them, anyway they got the kite’s letter, phoned to the shore, & by the time Cecil landed the pressure had been put on Sqdn/Ldr Ford as he gave it to Kindt hot & strong.
Macgillvray has been providing laughs all round with his amorous adventures. Not so very long ago he met a nurse in Nottingham, a very nice girl by all accounts, a widow, anyway it wasn’t long before Macgillvray was staying at her flat. However he couldn’t get to Nottingham very much so he began associating with a WAAF Sgt here on the camp. One thing about him he admits openly what he is after, anyway she wasn’t that type, but after a little while with Macgillvray she was. Now she is crazy over him, & runs about after him, whilst he is very off handed. At the same time he meets an A.T.S. girl, on leave who lives in a house, a couple of hundred yards from our billet. It didn’t take him very long to string her along
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as well, so there he is with three strings to his bow at the same time – no wonder he looks a wreck. The amusing incident arose the other night when the WAAF Sgt saw him coming out of a corn field with this blonde A.T.S. She was furious & drinking with him the next night she said “Don’t let me see you with that – tart again,” which for her is a very strong word. Jokingly one night she said she was the “Three-hook Wonder”, hook meaning Stripes, Macgillvray, & Mac, who also knows her well, immediately changed it to the “Three-Hook Blunder,” & later cut it down to “The Blunder,” & so it has remained – poor girl.
They are a pretty decent bunch of fellows in this hut, we have had a little reshuffle in order to get crews together. Some of the original Canucks are in other huts, whilst Johnny, & Bill are now in here so we have all our crew. Macgillvray has his Navigator – Lance Weir, & his Bomb Aimer Dodson, both Canadians in here. Weir is a really decent chap, very quiet spoken, some of the boys kid him & call him “Toody-Fruit,” because he has a habit of rubbing talcum powder over his body. Frankie Allen, pilot, Yelland, navigator, & Tom Hughes – bomb aimer, all Canucks form another crew. Hughes is very decent, I have only one pair of pyjamas & when that was at the laundry he saw me dive into bed in the altogether, & asked the reason. When I [deleted] said [/deleted] [inserted] told [/inserted] him he tossed me a Canadian Comforts pair & said “Keep it, I’ve got five other pairs”, it was good of him. Their rear gunner Rose, an English chap is here, a small comical fellow, they call him John L. after the boxer Sullivan, because he wears long pants like him. Cecil Kindt, with Sam Small, navigator, and Macdonald, b/aimer, all Canadians, complete the hut.
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[underlined] 22nd July [/underlined]
We are now the senior course here, and have now moved on to become the ‘night-flying’ flight, tonight we expect to start our night circuits & bumps, some of the chaps commenced last night. They hoped to squeeze us a 48 hr pass in between the end of day flying & the start of night, but we were a little behind as a course through unavoidable incidents, so we had had it! I am sorry the day cross country trips are over, as I really enjoyed them, we generally flew to Rhyl, and I camera-bombed the pier. Then drill was done as if we were on an ‘op’ & that was our coast we were leaving. We then flew across to the Isle of Man which separated the enemy coast, & I would camera-bomb the quay at Ramsey. With a brilliant sun, & flying in our shirt sleeves everything looked lovely. The sea was a sparkling blue and invariably there would be a huge convoy spread about, a never failing source of interest to us. However we had been warned to keep well clear of them, as the naval gunners were very trigger itchy, and one of our crews had been fired on by an aircraft carrier. We would fly across the Isle of Man, head North, then turn in at the English coast once more, & return to Cannock Chase for a bombing exercise of 12 practise bombs on the range, & then return to base. The rations were pretty good, we always saved our tin of orange juice to drink on a morning after the night before it was very good, I suppose we will get the same on night X-countries.
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On the first one we had a ‘screened’ pilot, then the next one did by ourselves, the third & largest, we carried a full bomb load of 250 lb H.E’s filled with sand, except one which was live. This I had to bomb on a sea range with and photograph the splash. We had a ‘screened’ bomb-aimer/navigator on this one, an F/O pretty decent chap. [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] [inserted] He [/inserted] asked Mac if he would let him do some tight turns over his home in Aberystwyth as we were passing over it. Mac agreed but quickly retrieved the controls when he saw we were almost stalling.
For night flying we report to the flight just after 6 P.M. to see what is on, naturally it is broad daylight then. Then if we are not on till late we can go to the Station Cinema, as we did last night. It is the usual effort, it is in the lecture hall, when we first came the cinematograph was mounted on a large table, so if one sat well back, the noise of the machine drownded [sic] the sound track. Now they have built a brick projection box, and have provided a wooden platform for the dearer seats – with the usual front two rows reserved – Officers Only.
Looking back at my last entry, I see I have forgotten to mention ‘Pinky’ Tomlin. He is a Canadian Bomb Aimer, but his pilot, & navigator are commissioned, & his W/Op & R/Gunner are in another hut so he is ‘one alone’. He is pretty tubby & really loves food, he bought himself an electric [deleted] plate [/deleted] [inserted] heater [/inserted] to use as a grill, & cooks things from the numerous parcels he receives from home. He was a scout master back in Canada – not a bad chap, rather hail-fellow-well met.
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[underlined] July 30th. [/underlined]
Night circuits and bumps are almost completed for us – Thank God! – they really are binding. We follow exactly the same procedure as with our day flying, first of all with an instructor, then Mac solo’ed and we carried on by ourselves. The first couple of times were O.K. but then it grew monotonous staring out into the blackness, with just the circuit lights to relieve the unbroken darkness. I suppose an artist gazing at them would murmur “Pearls cast upon a black velvet background”, but to us they mean “Keep me under your port wing, and fly at [symbol] 1,000 ft.” The Dren lighting takes some getting used to, the flarepath lights are only 15 watt bulbs and are hooded and secured to give a 15o vertical, and 40o horizontal spread of light, only in a down wind direction. Consequently one can only see them, immediately facing into them, as soon as we have taken off we can no longer see them. It was funny when Bill first saw this, he is generally working on the radio, then he looked out of the astro-dome for the first time on night take off, and called on the A/T “Hey! they’ve switched off the flare path now we are airborne”. Johnny has the worst job, sitting right at the end of the kite, cramped in his turret, and feeling all the crashes and jars of landing far more than us. Every now & again, I go lurching along the catwalk with coffee for him. Bill was quite eager to sit in the cockpit, so I change places with him sometimes & listen to dance music on the radio.
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We get more time off now than we did on night flying, our day off now becomes a night off. So we have the day off after night flying, then that night off & the following day until 6 P.M. Should night flying be scrubbed the night before, then one can make two nights and two days out of it, providing one hasn’t put in a pass. On a couple of days off we have been into Birmingham and stayed at the Services Club. At least we did the first time, the second time they were full up, so we had to doze in arm chairs & so forth. Mac took me into the American Red Cross, I didn’t think we could go in there, but it was O.K. The food in there is very good indeed, I believe it is sent over from the States. I took Johnny in there on our second visit and he thought it was an excellent place, they are certainly superior to our Services Clubs.
There is another instructor in the Bombing Section now, a Sgt Bomb Aimer, just finished his tour of ‘ops’, Sgt Mason his name is, quite a decent fellow. He gave us a ‘natter’ on what life was like on a squadron at the moment. It certainly cleared up a few points and provided a shock. According to him it is a pretty odds on chance that a crew will get the chop before finishing a tour. On his squadron only about 4 crews finished, as far as he could recollect all the time that he was there. It certainly isn’t a rosy future anyway, still there’s always the chance we will be one of them to come through.
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[underlined] 5th August [/underlined]
We have only about a fortnight left before we finish here, one crew became well advanced so they were sent over to Seighford onto 17 course the previous one to ours. At the moment we are on Night bombing exercises, and somehow we always seem to be ‘joed’ for the very last detail. Consequently we hang about all night waiting to take off, and finally get the exercise in between 6 & 7 A.M. when it is beginning to get light. Then we arrive back in the hut to find all the others are up and have been for hours – they nicknamed us “The Dawn Patrol”.
Our first prang on this course occurred the other night. There have been some major prangs on other courses while we have been here, and a few minor ones [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] on our course, this was our first major one though. We were circling the airfield waiting to land, when we saw a kite overshoot, prang and burst into flames, not far off the end of the runway, we couldn’t see much detail at all. So we continued to circle and await instructions, then all lights were extinguished and we were ordered to land at Seighford. Over we went and lobbed in then with three others crews, and naturally were wondering what had happened.
We had a meal in the mess, & then as there was nobody around to fix us up with beds, we had to doze on chairs in the mess. After breakfast, which was quite early,
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we decided to sleep on in the ante-room, as Hixon was going to phone when we were to return. However the C.M.C. had locked the ante-room, & said it was always out of bounds in the morning, and would make no exception for us – nice type. So we had to sit on the grass outside the mess for a couple of hours.
I met Derek Ashton over there, they will be finished in a day or so, & so would I if I had still been on that course. I couldn’t have had a better crew than what I have now, though. Ashton said they liked Seighford better than Hixon as there was no ‘bull’ there and it was a lot easier to get into Stafford. The only snag is, it is far more dispersed than Hixon is.
We didn’t get back to Hixon before 1 P.M. as we were held up for brake pressure. It turned out to be Carr’s crew who had pranged. They were making a flapless landing with an instructor, owing to trouble with the flaps. The instructor was flying it, and he approached too fast, overshot didn’t make it, and crashed on the railway lines, when the kite immediately caught fire. Luckily they were all unhurt except Sgt Mann, the ‘screened’ bomb aimer, he was burnt slightly on the face, and has been admitted to hospital for a short while. It seems Fate that he should get through a tour unscathed and then have this happen at O.T.U.
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[underlined] 12th August [/underlined]
Only a week to go, and then most probably we shall fly over enemy territory for the first time – on a ‘nickel’, I hope we do one anyway. The course is split practically in half with the first half slightly ahead of the others – we are in the latter. I said goodbye to Norman and the boys on 17 course, when they came over here, they have to get cleared here as well as at Seighford. Pete Rawlings was chatting to me about his skipper, he was the one I would have had on 17 course. He said he was a damn good pilot, but he would ‘natter’ such a lot on the inter-com. – I should have hated that.
We certainly get good meals on night flying, they have opened, a place especially for us near the cinema. It is a pukka little cook house, with a Cpl & two WAAFs, just for our flight. The Cpl is a good type & we get steaks & eggs for our flying meals, it is bang on. Although we are not supposed to officially, we go there for supper, if there is no flying detail for us that particular night. There is a real craze for cards now, & Hughes, Mac, Bill, Johnny & myself & various others, often play Blackjack & Pontoon, of a night if we aren’t on. We start in the evening & play till the small hours & then stagger down to see what Flying supper is. The Canadians are fond of playing “Shoot”, & have a school regularly in the locker room.
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If night flying is scrubbed for everyone, most of the boys turn in at 11 P.M. or so, in order to have the next day free. However Mac & a couple of others hate getting to bed at that time, preferring to turn in late, & sleep the following day, as if night flying was on. They generally get Pinky Tomlins, electric heater out, & cook things out of their Canadian food parcels. Mac is really amusing when he gets nattering about “Chicken soup with noodles”, & “weeners” & various other Canadian foods. Naturally they kick up a fair amount of noise, and the boys trying to sleep shout out uncomplimentary remarks to Mac, as he is generally telling an anecdote or a story about back home. Then he immediately bellows back “- this is a night flying hut, get out of that bed, you lazy so & so”. The amusing part is the following day, when they are all up & about, & Mac is trying to sleep through the noise. He will sit up & shout “Quiet, let a guy get some sleep”, & they laugh & generally Hughes will give him a shake & say “Come on McCann this is a night flying hut”, & various cracks until Mac aims a boot. They are a good bunch of boys though.
Another good thing about this night flying is that we don’t bother about the C.O’s billet inspection every week. We just put a notice on the door “Night Flying Hut – Do Not Disturb”, & funnily enough nobody does.
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[underlined] 19th August. [/underlined]
Our O.T.U. Course has now ended, the perk was last night when we did a “Nickel” to Rennes. The first lot of our course left a few days ago, they had to do a ‘bullseye’ exercise to finish as there were no “nickels” laid on. They got 10 days leave, & posted to Lindholme to go on Lancasters, that is where we will go, everyone goes onto Lancs from this O.T.U. We had another cross country to do, the usual long stooge right up to the Orkneys, with airfire and bombing at Caernarvon – what a farce.
Yesterday we were told that all the remaining crews would finish with a ‘Nickel’ that night, & we have to take up the kite we would be flying in and Air-Test it. The tail trim proved to be U/S on ours & another was put on, with another crew air testing it. At evening time we assembled in the intelligence room for briefing, it was a pukka briefing, like they have on a squadron, with the Sqdn/Ldr Intelligence Officer taking it. Then the C.O. & a couple of other officers said a few words, & briefing was over, they even had an S.P. on duty outside the door. We put all our personal belongings in an envelope with our name on it, collected our escape kits & foreign money, then off to the locker room to dress.
Half of the crews were going to St. Malo, and the rest of us to Rennes, we were flying the same track & course to Isigny at the base of the Cherbourg peninsula, & then to Avranches our next pin point, where we would continue our various ways. Soon we were all dressed, then into the crew bus & out to the kites.
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They were lined up together, & as R/T isn’t allowed on any ‘ops’ take-offs, a yellow verey was to be fixed from control for the signal to start up engines, then a green verey, when it was time for the first kite to start taxying out. The photographic vans drove out with the camera magazines, & the LAC, rather a gigolo type, who handed up mine, uttered the famous words “Wish I was coming with you”. Suddenly up went the yellow cartridge & the ground crews leapt into action, and the roar of engines shattered the summer’s evening. Johnny then called up to say none of the lights would work in his turret, & the spare fuses had no effect. This caused quite a flap, ‘bods’ went dashing everywhere, & both an armourer & a fitter came dashing along when it was a job for an electrician. During this time the green verey went up & the first kite taxied out, Macgillvray was next, on our right and he waved to us, as they went out, we were still waiting there as the kites on our left followed Macgillvray out, & soon we were sitting there alone. The Groupy came whizzing over in his car to see what the electrician was doing, but at that time one came along with the fuses that had to be changed inside the fuselage. So everything O.K. at last, we taxied out by ourselves, the others all having taken off. All the officers were on the control tower and they waved as we went past, then onto the runway, a green from the A.C.P. and off we went. The others were circling base to gain height, & there was 10 mins to go before setting course, so we were O.K. for time. We set course with them, & made up our height by the first turning point.
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It was quite dusk as we crossed the coast near Southampton, & it was quite dark when Ken said “We’re getting near the enemy coast”. I strained my eyes to peer through the darkness, & after a little while made out the long narrow neck of land, that I had memorised so well as the Cherbourg peninsula. Then I saw my first flak, the sudden whitish flashes on the ground, & after a brief while, the flashes (like twinkling lights but not so harmless). I felt a sense of false confidence, as it seemed remote from us, but the truth was there wasn’t very much flak, and nobody would have worried much. I told them we were starboard of track, & we altered course & soon crossed the enemy coast. Johnny said there was quite a bit more flak going up at the chaps behind us.
I pinpointed the river at Avranches, & after a while we came to the dropping place, it was 15 miles S.E of Rennes owing to the wind. We had to follow the bombing procedure, & drop them by a distributor in order to space them out. A sudden shout from Johnny caused a flap, & as he said “There’s thousands of them floating everywhere,” I cursed him as I wanted to give the order “Close Bomb Doors”. Eventually we shut him up and returned to base. It was an uneventful return journey, & we landed tired but happy (admittedly mainly because we were going on leave). Carr got quite a bit of flak over St. Malo.
We slept in this morning for a while & then got going on our clearance chits. Mac has met the Mid/Upper who has joined our crew, but the rest of us haven’t seen him yet. Tomorrow morning we will complete our clearance chits, then off on 10 days leave, before going to a Con Unit. So goodbye to Hixon.
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[underlined] 29th August. [/underlined]
Since I last wrote various changes have taken place. On the morning of the 20th, the day we [deleted] went [/deleted] left Hixon, we reported at the Adjutant’s office for our warrants & passes. He came out very apologetically & said a last minute change of posting had occurred, we were to go on Stirlings & report to a Con. Unit at Woolfox Lodge, after [underlined] 6 [/underlined] days leave. Losing four days leave didn’t seem too good to us, also we had heard pretty duff reports of Stirlings on ‘ops’. Still off we went – the orderly room had told us the Con Unit was near Cambridge & the warrants were made out to there.
I caught the evening train back, but when I went to the Cambridge R.T.O. they said Hixon Orderly Room had boobed, & Woolfox Lodge was near Stamford. As there were no more trains that night, I had to spend the night in the Nissen hut there, rather grim. In the morning I met Johnny & Pinky Tomlin, & we travelled to Stamford, we had to change at Peterborough and there met some more of the boys. At Stamford we phoned for transport, but it was a few hours before it arrived and we had [deleted] dinner [/deleted] lunch in the George Hotel. Mac & some of the others arrived here yesterday and are in the hut near to ours, and today we have been tramping around with our arrival chits, but as the course commences for us tomorrow we won’t bother to finish them. This course has already been on a couple of days, they were as unprepared for us, as we were for coming here.
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[underlined] [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted] 5th. [/underlined]
First, I had better bring my crew up to date, as we have a full crew now. Don Keeley the Mid-Upper Gunner, who joined us as we left Hixon is tall & very dark, his face has been sunburnt so much it leaves one with the impression almost of an Indian, he is quiet a good looking chap & seems very decent. Our engineer was allotted to us by the Engineering Leader, and is a Welshman, Jack Barker. He is about 5 ft 5” with a cheerful face, & crisp wavy hair, we haven’t had a lot to do with him yet, as quite naturally he still goes around with the engineers who came with him as a course, from St. Athens, I think I can safely say that we have got a very good crew, though.
This station is far more dispersed than Hixon was. It is cut in half by the Great North Road, to the East of the road is the airfield itself, whilst to the West are the living & communal sites. Our billet is a quarter of an hours walk to the mess, then from the mess it is a 20 min walk, to the other side of the airfield where training-wing is. There are no ablutions on the sites, and washing kit is stolen if it is left in the ablutions by the mess, so we wash from an old rain water tub at the back of the hut.
We have a ground course of a week to 10 days here, comparable to that at O.T.U. only bringing newer work into it. At last I have met the MK. XIV Gyro Bombright, the one I shall actually use on ‘ops’ – it certainly is a bag of tricks. In a day or so we will have our exams, & then commence our flying on Stirlings.
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[underlined] 14th [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted]. [/underlined]
The exams are over, everyone passed O.K. and we are now underway with our Flying Conversion. For the engineers, this is when they fly for the first time, as they pass out from there [sic] training school, and come straight here to be crewed up, without ever having flown before. It seems pretty hard on them, to have only a few hours air experience before they arrive at a squadron and go on ‘ops’.
Stirlings are the largest 4 engined bomber there is, and the cockpit is certainly a height from the ground. They have a long undercart, & it is quite a common prang, to see an undercart wiped off, as the aircraft have a tendency to swing & if one brakes severely & swerves, the undercart is quite likely to go. I have to fly as second pilot in there, and attend to boost, revs, flaps & undercart, it takes both of us to get the kite off the deck & they take a hell of a long run.
For a lot of our circuits and bumps we flew over to a Yankee airfield, they had Fortresses. We used to fly there for 2 hours or so & then return. Before Mac had soloed, he was taking off there, & the kite swung viciously & shot across the grass straight towards a Fort. There were some mechanics working on it, and they looked up to see a Stirling thundering at them, without pause they leapt off the wing, fell over picked their selves up & dashed off. If it hadn’t been dicey, it would have seemed ludicrous, however, the screened pilot took a hand, pulled at the controls, & we took off right over the Fort. Mac soloed O.K. a little later, & now we are on X-countries.
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[underlined] 22nd [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted] [/underlined]
Our Con. Unit is nearly over, & we shall soon be on an operational squadron, different instructors speak in glowing terms of their old squadrons, & advise us to try & get posted there so we don’t know where we are. At the moment we are commencing our night X country period, this is a tricky airfield to taxi on at night.
Macgillvray has been going out with a WAAF M.T. driver here, & at last it seems like the real thing he is talking seriously of marriage. When he left Hixon, “The Blunder”, went into Stafford with him to stay the night, & then spins a 48 hr pass with him at the Strand Palace. Macgillvray was half & half about telling her to go, however when he arrived here he wrote, & told her he didn’t want to see her again. She wrote back & said as soon as she got a pass she was coming to have it out with him. Then a letter arrived yesterday saying she would arrive in the evening, & would he meet her in town. Macgillvray religiously stayed in camp all evening, & every now & again the phone would ring for him, it was her, phoning from Stamford, & it was really funny to see him keep telling chaps he wasn’t in. Suddenly, the boys came in with the news, she had come out on the 10.30 P.M. bus, & fixed up with the WAAF Officer to stay the night. Macgillvray was off to his billet like a shot. [deleted] Next [/deleted] [inserted] This [/inserted] morning, the Blunder, was in the dining hall, early, & waiting behind the servery, when Macgillvray came in, she dashed out, & told him exactly what she thought of him, in a loud voice. Everyone listened interestedly, & the cooks even ceased serving in order to hear clearly, Mac went deadly white, & after a while walked out, with the Blunder behind. Anyway that was exit to the Blunder. We’ve certainly had some laughs here.
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[underlined] Wednesday [deleted] August [/deleted] [inserted] September [/inserted] 29th. [/underlined]
At last the time has arrived, and what a time I have had to wait for it, 2 1/4 years ago I volunteered for aircrew, & right up till now I have been training for the real job, & we have arrived at last on a squadron. It is a new squadron just forming, No 623, and we are stationed at Downham Market with No 218 squadron. We left Woolfox about 8 AM. on Monday, and caught the 9.15 AM. to Peterborough, where we arrived about 10.15 AM. Deciding to spend the day we trooped out and started off with a large meal in the Silver Grill, a very satisfying start. During the afternoon we looked over the Cathedral, and afterwards went to the cinema to see Tyrone Power in “Crash Drive”, pretty good. Another large meal at the Silver Grill then off on the 6.46 PM. to Downham Market. Naturally the trains were late and we reached Downham Station around 10 PM. & phoned for transport. When it arrived we threw the kit on, we were getting rather cheesed with it by now, after lumping it on & off different trains, and out we went.
It was rather a grim reception, they told us we couldn’t have a meal, & then we found out there was no accommodation for us. So we drove round in the dark in a lorry and they found room for us in ones & twos with the erks, it was pretty grim organisation.
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They locked our kit up in a hut, my overcoat & groundsheet amongst them, so of course it poured of rain during the night & the next morning. Being as the station is all clay like most of the Fen country, it was one helluva mess. Like all Bomber Stations it is horribly dispersed, & we tramped around miserably in the wet, with our arrival chits. The mess was large and new, & very bare, & the food just happened to be pretty grim, so I’m afraid we took a rather poor view of the station, things look a little better now though.
There is a rigged up cinema & I believe they have occasional shows there, but there isn’t a lot of entertainment available. The town [deleted] of [/deleted] or village of Downham is only 15 mins walk from the mess, but there isn’t much life in there. They have one rather ancient cinema with old films & a dance hall, that is always over crowded & 21 pubs, the latter is over shadowed by Stamford’s 63. I don’t think we will be going in there very much. There were three crews arrived from Woolfox together, Pete, Macgillvray & ourselves, Carr is travelling down too today, as he hadn’t finished his flying at Woolfox. We are binding for leave as most crews get it on arrival but our efforts haven’t been successful so far. Our first two ‘ops’ here are mining trips & the pilot was a second “dickey” (pilot) trip, before we start we have to do a bullseye though.
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[underlined] Monday 4th October. [/underlined]
Things are looking quiet a bit better now, the mess seems comfortable, & the food really is good. Up till Saturday we didn’t do much, mainly hung around & had a few lectures, & got our kit into the parachute section. This is a new idea, they have a large room, with lockers, & hang our kit up properly, to dry etc, also testing it each time, then when we want something we go & ask for it & they bring it out. If they have found any stuff U/S they tell us what it is so we can change it, it’s a good scheme. The essentials such as chute, harness, helmet, boots, & ‘K’ type dinghy, are laid out already when the crew is on ‘ops’. No waiting or anything its quite a good scheme. We drew our electrical kit & our new flying boots, from stores, there [sic] boots are the new type with leather boots as bottoms, they have a knife in the side to cut the upper off, should we land in enemy territory, & thus leave a fine pair of walking boots.
On Saturday our bullseye arrived and we were briefed in the afternoon for a 7.50 PM take off. We got away a few minutes late but with no mishap & climbed over the drome then set course for Bedford, this was the starting gate of the bullseye. About 15 mins after we left there, we were coned by about 20 beams & passed on to other cones. We were diving all around the sky but we were
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held pretty well for around 10 – 15 minutes, before we got out. At Portsmouth we were held for around 2 minutes, & again at Beachy Head, then we headed for the target – London. We came in over Croydon & Lewisham to run up to our target, Westminster Bridge. There were about four cones in action with about 30 beams in each, and they all had a kite in, jerking like mad. Whilst they were occupied we were able to slip in smoothly on our bombing run without interference. The searchlights blinded me a bit though and I was unable to get a good line of sight on the bridge, but took the photographs. The black out of London was pretty grim, there were bags of lights about, & the docks were clearly lit up along the river & so were the main railway stations. I don’t think I would fancy an attack on London though, the defences seem pretty hot. After London we went to Bedford again where the bullseye finished, so we had no engagements with fighters. From here to base then up to Goole and back on another I.R. stooge. It was pretty nippy & poor Johnny & Don in the turrets were frozen stiff. There were hardly any fighter interceptions I guess the fighter boys didn’t feel like playing. Anyway back to the bacon & egg, the usual natter with the other crews on various points & then off to bed, for a nice lengthy sleep.
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When we got up at dinner time yesterday it was to be told that we were operating that night – mine laying, it rather shook us. Briefing was at 4 PM. & we learned we were going off the Frisian Is. (a fairly short trip) & taking 6 x 1500 mines. Back to the mess in the bus for the operational meal, then over to the billet, where like old men we clamber into our long flying underwear. Even though it is all pure rayon lined it makes me itch, just not used to long legs & sleeves I guess after jockey shorts & singlet. Our next move is back down to the dressing room in the parachute section, where we collect our kit. We never put the stuff on otherwise we would sweat moving around & then it would freeze when we got up & defeat the clothing. Out to the kite in the bus then, dump the kit on the grass & everyone climbs in for their last minute check of their equipment. Whoever D.I’d the first turret did a poor job, because the reflector sight was left on & the guns weren’t loaded, so I got cracking on those & tested the tuner, then climbed down for my initial bombing check. The engines were run up, tested, then shut down again & we climbed out for a smoke and sign our various forms. The Wing Comdr & Sqdn Ldr drove out to give last minute tips & see if there were any snags, then we all climbed aboard again, fully dressed now, all hatches closed, & taxied out.
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The first aircraft was due off at 7.35 and took off dead on time, we were third, got the green from the ACP opened up & away we went. They are a bit of a job to get off with a heavy load & we didn’t miss the trees by much but we made it. We set course for Cromer, where we were leaving the coast, at 1500 ft, we were staying at that height so Jerry couldn’t pick us up, then climbing to 5,000 ft at the last moment to avoid any flak ships. Everything went fine, poor old Ken was sick again, he certainly has guts to keep flying and navigating when he is often queer. We had to climb quickly at the mining area, & the revs wouldn’t increase for the minute, consequently we nearly stalled. At 1500 ft with that bomb load we would [deleted] dive [/deleted] have dived straight into the waves, it was touch & go for a minute but worked out. The mines were dropped, one [deleted] f [/deleted] could feel them drop, & back we went. When we got back to Cromer there were lots of searchlights & they picked us up, but shut off when we flicked our nav lights on & off. They suddenly coned a single engine kite so we watched it like hawks just in case, there have been a lot of intruders around this area. There was a large fire about 50 miles off the port bow, enemy activity maybe. We landed O.K. though were interrogated & off to the mess, when the siren went so we had just dodged it, still we were safe then. A bang on supper then off to bed for another good rest.
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[underlined] Thursday 7th October.. [/underlined]
Life is proceeding along fairly smooth lines, and we are pretty well settled in. The other night when we did our mining trip, the main force went to Kassel. Clarc Carr went with another pilot to get his second ‘dicky’ trip in. The pilot he went with had 23 trips in & was on the point of completing his tour, but they never returned. Poor old Clarc, he was one of the best chaps I have met, he never got in a temper with anyone, yet he was pretty tough, it’s a shame that such fellows have to go. It really shakes us when fellows we have been with for a long while get the chop, brings it home the hard way. They have sent his crew home on 3 days leave, I don’t know what they are doing after that, whether they are returning to ‘Con’ Unit to pick up a new skipper, or stay here as ‘spares’, the former would be better I should think.
Speaking of spares they grabbed Don, our mid upper to go in somebody else’s crew on Monday for the raid on Frankfurt, as their m/u.g had gone sick. It was rather a nerve I thought both asking a crew to fly with a chap they didn’t know, & worse for the gunner to fly with a strange crew. They did the same thing to Smith, Macgillvrays rear gunner, if they keep this thing up they will
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soon be doing away with the crews & just have a pool that they draw on, I always thought that if somebody was sick in a crew the whole lot was declared U/S. there is a word they have when referring to men they call them ‘bodies’ or ‘bods’, & how right it is, you are just merely a figure on paper. Every morning the big noise walks into the flight office & asks the flight commander “How many crews have you, fully operational?”, and then demands those that aren’t be made so in as short a time as possible. That is all they are interested in, is, how many crews have they available for an ‘op’, regardless of how much flying you’ve done, just recently some of the chaps have been on the main force 3 out of 4 nights. Anyway all kites returned from Frankfurt O.K. and Dan gave us a vivid description, it was very interesting but I guess we will be seeing all we want of it very shortly.
Tuesday night we were on ‘stand down’, but Wednesday we were briefed for a long mining trip to La Rochelle, right down near the Spanish border. There was a hell of a front expected at base around 6.30 so they were rushing us off at 5.50 & come back to meet the front over the Channel & battle through it. There was severe icing from 7 – 15,000 so we had to try & climb above it, not an easy job in a Stirling, the extent was possibly
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right up to the London area as well. The briefing & everything was terribly rushed & we tore around in a mad flap to get everything done, and we were all dressed & on the point of going out to the kite when they scrubbed it, what a life, tonight we were in it again but it was scrubbed once more.
Last night I decided I would see what Downham was like so I ambled in with the boys & was I cheesed. I had seen the [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] film on at the little cinema, so all there was to do was sit in a smokey pub, & swill lousy beer. At last the smoke made my eyes ache so much I came home. Macgillvray was on a short mining trip last night, & a Picture Post reporter was going along. They sent down 4 camera & news men, & took photographs of them having an operational meal & were going to take bags more in the kite, but it was scrubbed, what bad luck, a chance like that only comes once in a life time. The traditional RAF bull was in evidence, for the photograph they had a spotless table-cloth, cream crackers on the table, & a Cpl WAAF waiting on them. Actually we queue up for our meals & a long one at times & eat of [sic] bare dirty tables, & the only biscuits we see are hard dog ones. – We did our first day flying, here, today, took two kites up on air tests, we were doing a loaded climb but that was scrubbed, at least we know what the drome looks like in daylight now.
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[underlined] Sunday October 10th. [/underlined]
We look like having our first leave in a few days we are officially due to go at 0700 hrs on Thursday 14th, until the following Tuesday midnight. The chaps generally get away on the Wednesday, & if they are very lucky & they aren’t on ops on Tuesday they get away Tuesday afternoon which is pretty good. I only hope we are that lucky, Mac has to do a second dicky & if he gets that in tomorrow night we may be on ops the following night (Tuesday) & mess things up a bit. Should it be scrubbed tomorrow, Mac will go Tuesday & we can go Tuesday afternoon, I am afraid we are unscrupulous enough to hope that the weather is lousy tomorrow night. He has got his Flight through at last, & is now ‘Chiefy’ McCann, it is well overdue, but the Canadians get back pay on crowns, one of the numerous ways they are better than the RAF, so he has about £16 back pay to come. The comical part is that after all this waiting & binding now it has appeared in P.O.R’s the stores have no crowns so he is unable to wear it – poor Mac.
Friday night we went on our long mining trip, off Bordeaux in the estuary of the Gironde. We took 4 1,500 mines a fair weight, our all up weight was 69,784 lbs. The briefing was at 6.0 P.M. it shook us but they were having a late take off because the room was nearly full & they were waiting for it to die down as the German fighters have an easy time in the bright moonlight. The bus took
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[inserted] [newspaper cutting showing a WAAF with a mine] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
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us back [missing words] as our operation [missing words] wasn’t until 8.45 we had bags of time to fill in. Lots of Forts went over then & we watched them the next day we learned they had been to Bremen. We had our egg & at 10.25 the transport took us back, we didn’t have to struggle with our kit as we had taken it out in the afternoon. The run up & testing commenced, then shut down while we donned our kit & start up once more. We took off bang on time & 5 mins later set course. Old Petch who was the only other one beside us going swung on take off & hit his undercart against some iron rails for fog lighting & they wouldn’t let him take off, consequently we were the only ones from this station that went.
It was practically 10/10ths cloud down to the coast, it cleared there & I was able to get a wizard pin point on Selsey Bill, our crossing point. The moon was like a searchlight & we felt all naked illuminated up there, it set quite a bit after they told us it did, because there was the time of setting as seen by a ground observer, whereas we were at 12,000 ft. The cloud built up more & more over the Channel until it was 10/10ths again on the French Coast and we were unable to pin point. It remained like that most of the way, the least it was, was 7/10ths, approaching the target area it began
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to clear & I got down into the bombing hatch ready. I was determined to get my night vision up to scratch because if we couldn’t pin point we had to bring the mines back. The green indicator target on the VCP was glaring on my vision panel like a searchlight so I piled my long cushion over it. Then I wanted to see my target map so hopped to switch on the light for a brief second, next the cushion fell down & the light glared again, I dove back at that. I was hopping around like a rubber ball, & sweating lest I should miss the coast & be unable to pin point. Suddenly I saw it, it was pretty dark, I could make it out clearly though, then we passed out to sea over the first island & swung out to rear to clear the island defences. Then altering course we swung in for the mainland once more, I was straining my neck, thats [sic] the worst of the Stirling bomb aimers window, the Lancs have a beauty. After a bit I made it out we were heading up the Gironde estuary, so we made a left hand turn & came bang on the corner of the estuary, which was our pin point. Setting course on a D.R run we dropped the eg O.K. & set course home. Just after we left the flak began to open up on the islands & one searchlight probed around, but they weren’t near us.
Stooging along happily with thoughts of home & bed we were shaken by a show of
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flak suddenly thrown up. We had got a little port of track & were too near Nantes, they had some accurate heavy flak down there, because of the Fort raids on the U Boat Bases. Anyway they were too accurate for our liking the first burst exploded with quite a crash underneath us & burned the kite a bit. We did some hectic weaving & finally got clear, it was a sticky moment though that predicted stuff is deadly they reckon to get you on the first burst. Nothing happened on the way back beyond sighting another Stirling, the cloud thickened over England, & when we reached base they diverted us to Tangmere, although we could have got in. So we had to fly back all the way we had come down to the South Coast. Arriving there after 6 hrs 40 mins flying we found 11 other Stirlings there. We had a meal, & the guy told us you can sleep as long as you like they gave us good accommodation, boy! we needed sleep. Hardly had we laid our heads down when they dragged us out saying we had to return right away. Then we had to wait 3 hours before we were re-fuelled & away. Two squadrons of Typhoons scrambled while we were there, straight off down wind a lovely night. Flying back to base I could hardly keep my eyes open we had had no sleep for nearly 36 hours. We certainly slept well on return. Today there hasn’t been anything doing because of the lousy weather. Jack Spackly & Ron Winnitt have arrived here, they were with me from Manchester & all through Canada, I was glad to see them arrive here, they are in 623.
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[underlined] Sunday October 24th [/underlined]
It is a fortnight since I last made an entry but I have been on leave during that time, & following my maxim of never letting work interfere with pleasure I made no entries in here. I had a fine leave, Mary was able to get the time off & that made it just right we saw a couple of shows, popped around to a few friends & had a wizard time. There was one disappointment overshadowing it though, Ken didn’t come on leave with us, it all began a little while before - . A fair number of times through his earlier training, so he tells me, and during the time we were with him at O.T.U. and on Conversion Unit, he was sick during trips. He tried hard, by doing everything he knew to overcome it, but unsuccessfully. Then on our first mining trip to the Frisians he was sick at the target area & we had to rush to drop them & there was a fair flap resulting as I have previously mentioned in the kite nearly stalling in. Poor Ken, he reckons he is to blame but I don’t think he has anything to worry about, out of the lot I think he did his job the best & the smartest. He was sick a lot on the long mining as well so he reported sick a couple of days afterwards to see what the M.O. could do.
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He was given some Anti-Air Sickness capsules, & tried them without effect, so the M.O. grounded him for a little while. Then they took Ken’s case up a little more & the Wing Comdr said he would have an interview with him. This was the position on the day we were going on leave Tuesday 12th, Mac also hadn’t done his second dicky trip. So Ken was hanging around all morning waiting for the Wing Co to say he would see him, & we were worried in case he wouldn’t catch the 3.51 London train with us. We left him waiting at the camp & told him to whizz down on his bike if there was a chance of catching the train, if not, to follow us down on the later train. On the road we got a lift to the railway station in an army lorry & had a cup of tea in the café next door. Waiting on the platform later, the [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] train was almost due in, when Ken came dashing up. Everyone was overjoyed because we thought he had just made it, but he told us the Wing Comdr. had cancelled his leave and he had to remain behind to get 15 hrs Fighter Affiliation in, to see how often he was sick & then go before a Medical Board. My God! as if anyone wouldn’t feel lousy after 15 hrs. Fighter Affil. Also with the weather as it had been, a stinking yellow fog, there didn’t
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appear to be much chance of flying. It was a hell of a twist all the way round, and poor Ken was on the receiving end. There was nothing to be done, however, so off we had to go without him. I felt pretty rotten though seeing him standing there watching us go on leave, & having to ride back & spend a week by himself.
As I said previously I had a fine time, the days flew swiftly as they always do, & the last day arrived. I had arranged with Johnny to meet at 5.30 in Liverpool St to catch the 5.40 P.M. However he arrived up from Bristol early & came over to my place, so we travelled up together, & met Jack on the station. The train was very crowded & we had to bunk in the luggage room, at the first stop, Bishops Stortford, lots of people got out & we got a seat easily. At Cambridge there was about a 20 minute wait so the three of us got out for a cup of tea. A porter told us it wouldn’t be going for a while yet & we had plenty of time. We were only in the canteen for about 3 minutes and as we emerged, saw the train about a quarter of the way along the platform. I broke into a sprint with Jack about 10 yds behind and Johnny 10 yds behind him. Down the platform we raced, porters shouted out “Clear the Way”, and people skipped
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nimbly aside, luckily the platform was fairly empty. Some people shouted encouragement, other shouted “You’ll never make it”, but unheedingly we pounded quickly on.
One American soldier told us it was just like the races, first I flashed past, and he turned to watch me when Jack whizzed by. As he swivelled his head to watch him Johnny shot past, so he ran after us to see the result. Down the whole length of Cambridge platform we raced & closed the distance to about two yards, I had already selected the door I was jumping for, when we reached the blacked out part of the platform. There were no lights at all & it was as dark as the pit, I tried to maintain speed but cracked against a pillar and spun around like a top. So the chase was abandoned & we stood watching the tail light disappear into the darkness. We were in rather a fix as all our kit was on the train, none of us had hats & Johnny had no belt either. After hunting around & getting wrong directions from a few people, we contacted a porter, and old sweat from the last war, who was very helpful & took us to a fellow, who sent off a wire to the different stations telling them to take our kit off the train & send it to Downham. That done, with certain misgivings as to whether it would work out we went over to the A.T.O.
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Here we phoned the camp and told them we would be arriving late & fixed things up. That done we adjourned to a nearby pub & treated our helpful porter to a few. After that it degenerated into a regular crawl, hatless & hands in pockets we rolled round Cambridge. Greatly warmed by the beverage, we didn’t notice the hardness of the bunks, & I didn’t suffer as I did on the previous occasion I slept at Cambridge ATO. We travelled on to Downham on the 8.13 AM. next day & arrived about 9.15. As I feared they hadn’t any of our kit there, so I thought “Goodbye to that”. It rather shook the S.P’s in the guard room when we rolled up with no hats or anything, they didn’t say anything, though, I shudder to think what would have happened at a training unit under similar circumstances. Within an hour of arriving back we were flying on an air test, maybe they thought we would forget how.
We haven’t done much since arriving back, the weather has been pretty rough. The situation regarding Ken appears pretty obscure, he didn’t get much flying in as he predicted, now he is just hanging about to see what the score is. I hope they wont [sic] take him out of the crew he is such a decent chap. Its growing late & the other guys are binding for the lights out, so I guess I’ll put more next time.
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[underlined] Thursday 28th October [/underlined]
The weather still remains duff, after days of rain, it has changed into pretty thick fog every day. The last time we flew was over a week ago when we did a loaded climb in “D”, we now have I for Ink, instead of D. For the time being Ken is out of the crew, we are all praying it wont [sic] be for long although we have another decent chap in his place, Les Gray another Canadian. The whole situation is pretty vague, Ken himself feels he would rather not go on in case he should be sick one time & we wandered into a flak area whilst he was sick. As for us, we would put implicit faith in him whatever happened, & I just hate to lose him. So nobody knows what is going to happen, we’re just keeping our fingers crossed.
To keep ourselves amused now quite a bit of our time is spent in seeing films, I have seen a couple of decent ones on the camp recently. The other day they had the power off all day, no electric light, wireless or anything, I certainly think they ought to get there [sic] fingers out with the lighting in the ante room, it is very dim. Last night seeking amusement further afield, Mac, Jack, Don, Johnny & myself went in the liberty bus to Kings Lynn. We had a good meal when we arrived there, & then saw a decent show, coming out from there, Jack, Johnny & myself
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went into a dance, while Mac & Don went to the Duke’s Head for a meal. I think they had the best of the deal, because the dance was pretty corny, & then when it finished at 10 P.M. we were tramping all over the town trying to find a place with something to eat without success, it was pretty grim.
We got back to the bus O.K. & off we went, by this time a thick mist had rolled in, add to this the fact that our driver had a fair number of drinks under his belt, & we went weaving all over the road. It wasn’t long before we went into the ditch, & a fellow raised a laugh by asking “Does this count as an op?” We lifted the thing out of the ditch, then he found he had taken the wrong turning so back we had to go. It took us 1 1/2 hours to travel a 25 minute journey, we heaved a sigh of relief when we arrived back here. It would be that night too that they had an ENSA show at the camp and who should be in it but Pat Kirkwood, I would have liked to have seen it. Our next leave is due on the 24th November & I have written to Mary & told her to book some shows up. It is rather a long chance, that we will be there on time, even providing all goes well. Still I think it is worth trying. Ah! well I’m tired we didn’t get much sleep last night so I’ll turn in.
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[underlined] Monday November 1st. [/underlined]
Friday was just one of those uneventful days, though the mist seemed to have lifted a bit, a few very keen types were speaking eagerly of the prospects of flying, but the main horde, including all of our crew, nearly, retired to the mess early & buried theirselves [sic] in the newspapers, springing up eagerly to get in the dinner queue. That evening we went into town to see an Abbot & Costello film, it wasn’t bad, with a simple meal of fish & chips, we wandered back, what an uneventful life this is. Saturday was no better, but we really put some work in on the kite harmonising all the guns. We made quite a job of it, having Bill & Jack run backwards & forwards with the harmonisation board. The only thing that marred it was the fact that both Johnny & myself broke our lateral levelling screws on the reflector sights, necessitating harmonising them over again. We have been informed that it is nigh on impossible to get any small nuts & bolts of that type, so we are waiting for them, meanwhile the kite is unable to go on ops without the two reflector sights harmonised. So a kite has to stay back because of two nuts & bolts. Just a classic example of the important part played by the small cogs in the big wheel.
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Yesterday the weather seemed to be better, but there was nothing doing in the morning so we put in quite a bit of work on the kite. In the afternoon though there was a sudden flap, to get as many aircraft airborne as possible, so off we went for our air test. We have a new kite now I Ink instead of D Dog that we used to have, yesterday was the first time we had flown in it. She seemed a pretty decent kite, if we can do a loaded climb on it, & see how much height we can get out of it, it will be O.K. In the evening I just remained in the mess & went over to the hut early, I just seem to be in a state of lethargy here, with no inclination to do anything. We tried to get the fire going in the hut, these stoves are grim things at times. All the time we are chopping fences down & scrounging wood & ‘borrowing’ coal from out of the dump opposite. Most times that we light it, huge clouds of smoke belch out in every direction and there is a frantic rush for the doors to breathe some fresh air in. Last night was an exception though, the fire lit right away, & it gradually warmed up until it was giving out a heat like a blast furnace. It isn’t very often that we get it to go like that though, still I am nearest to it, I had that in view when I chose my bed.
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Today we had quite an interesting time, the morning we spent going round the bomb dumps. Practically all the bomb aimers went out, and at the dump we saw how the carriers are fixed on, & then at the firing point how they are flared. It was quite a sight in the dump to see all the rows of bombs laid out in their rows behind the blast walls. The corporal who was giving us the gen set a 4 lb incendiary off for us to show us how they went, boy they certainly burn, they seem better than the ones the Jerries dropped on London in the blitzes. We handled all the equipment & all of it was quite different from the stuff we had been taught throughout training all that was obsolete a good while before. Finally we went out to the kites to watch them bomb up & then try the various ways of releasing hang ups, it was quite a useful morning.
This afternoon we flew again, to level the bomb sight, & then to continue to Goodestone for a bombing exercise. It went off pretty well, but I don’t know how they are going to figure out where bombs are where, because we didn’t have 3073’s and didn’t inform the range as we dropped each one. As there were at least four kites bombing, they seemed to be showering down. Most certainly there will be some news in the morning.
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[underlined] Thursday 4th November. [/underlined]
There has been some flying recently but not a lot we have been up on a couple of air tests but on the whole the weather is still rather grim. We have been putting in quite a bit of work on the kite, Johnny, Don & myself have had our guns out & cleaned them. They were in a hell of a mess as they were packed with grease, then somebody borrowed our kite & the dope of a bomb aimer fired my guns, mucking things up well & truly. We have got them back again now. Tuesday afternoon they gave us a stand down, its funny no sooner do they say stand down & the fellows have started trekking into the different towns, when the old sun comes out & things are fine again, I bet they gnash their teeth.
All of us except Mac caught the 2.3 P.M. into Cambridge, had a look round, & a decent tea then booked our beds in the W.V.S. Afterwards we saw a show, then diving into a pub for a drink we landed in a flight passing out party. They had just finished their exams at Cambridge I.T.W. & were celebrating, when we entered somebody said “Here’s the gen boys”, at which I nearly fell over. Still they plied us with free beer so that was bang on, they also asked quite a bit about their future training & ‘ops’. Maybe quite a few lines were shot, but we had enough shot at us
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during our training so it was our turn. They all had bright blue uniforms, ‘bully’ white belts, close cropped hair, a general sprog appearance altogether. I shudder to think I was like that once, though not to such a degree, but I was & so must everybody who goes in for aircrew, we didn’t notice anything strange then. They had various toasts & I’m afraid I smiled a little cynically when one chap said “Goodbye to all exams and binding”. Still we had a good time, followed by a meal in a nearby café & then to bed. We rose at 7 AM. & went round to another W.V.S. place for our breakfast, then from there to the station to catch the famous 8.13 AM. to Downham.
They were taking a squadron photograph, & naturally Jack & I had to roll up late and miss being in it – such is life. Last night they had an ENSA show to which we went and surprisingly enough it was quite good, we almost got in without paying, but not quite, it would have helped our financial status quite a bit. Today we had to take the Flight Commander’s kite up an [sic] Air Test it, a doubtful priviledge. [sic] The bind was it was 12 midday when they rang the mess and told us & we were already in the dinner queue, so out we had to go & tramp back to the flights. We came down fairly late so didn’t go back again, but phoned into town & booked our seats for the cinema it was a good film, though I’d seen it before.
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[underlined] Sunday November 7th [/underlined]
Friday was quite a busy day, in the morning there was a smashing lecture by a Dutch F/O who had been shot down in a Lanc. & had got back from Holland. We had been listening to him for about 10 mins & lapping every word, when they came in and dragged us up for flights affil. typical RAF. The bind was there were two crews in the same kite, ourself [sic] & Bennett. We stooged around for over an hour but the fighter didn’t show up, so back we had to go, I was pretty cheesed about missing that lecture though. They put us up again in the afternoon, & after a bit of stooging around, boy! that fighter could fly. I sat in the Wops seat all the time, listening to “Music While You Work” poor old Bennets Engineer was sick, he must be quite a lot because he had a paper bag ready with him. I felt a bit grim once or twice, because they were really throwing the kite around. I am O.K. if I can see out to see whats [sic] doing, but if I am in the middle of the kite unable to look out then its rough.
Ken has gone on leave at last, this was the one he missed when we went, he has gone to Iver, Bucks & to London. I have told him to pop in at my house I hope he does. Meanwhile he has let me ride his bike which comes in very handy at this blasted place. Friday
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night it was given out on the radio that F/Sgt Aaron who used to be with 218 had been posthumously awarded the V.C. The citation said his courage had never been surpassed, & by jiminy they were right. In absolute agony & with severest wounds he had diverted the kite on from Turin to N. Africa, where he died 9 hours after, it was a marvellous show! The air bomber who flew it & landed it, belly landing, with 4,000 lb still on received the C.G.M. & most of the crew the D.F.M. They arrived back from Gibralter not long ago, with tins of sugar & heavens knows what else besides.
All our trips recently have been in other kites ours was U/S, when we came down from a flip they found the tail plane was only secured with about 3 nuts & bolts, we nearly had it that time. Yesterday it was put serviceable again & we had to take her up for a couple of hours. It had rained cats & dogs in the morning so there was a stand down & we were the only joe’s flying, & Saturday afternoon too. We were caught in some hellish storms but dodged them, then found parts with clean weather, & played tag with the cloud tops it was good fun. I broke a bigué and then we couldn’t get the undercart down, so poor old Jack & Bill had to set to & wind it down. We all held our breaths when we came in but it didn’t collapse & we were O.K.
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The Wing Cmdr was attacked by a JU88 on a gardening trip to the Baltic the other night, & they claimed it shot down. Who is to dispute them, I bet they went nowhere near the thing, as everyone else thinks & its popular talk that the Wing Cmdr. may get a gong for it whether its true or not I don’t know. There is something funny going on Stirlings haven’t operated against a land target for a month now, & there are all sorts of rumours going around. We are going on Coastal Command, are going out East, are converting onto Lancs, are towing gliders, are only going to do mining trips, these are but a few of the speculations floating around, there certainly seems to be something in the air. The most obvious solution I think is they are waiting until a .5 mid under gun is fitted, we also have to operate this, quite a few jobs we have now.
It has been bitterly cold all day today, whilst harmonising my front guns I gashed two fingers & I didn’t feel it, nor did it start to bleed for a good while, my fingers were so frozen, it’s a real touch of winter. There are two fires in our huge ante room & that is the only method of heating the place. Consequently there is a circle of fellows packed tightly around it, & another circle around them waiting for someone to vacate a chair at which there is a mad rush. The rest of the fellows just have to hover around hoping to catch a glimpse of the fire or of moving into the outer circle.
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[underlined] Thursday 11th November. [/underlined]
The cold weather continues, it takes ones breath away just walking down to the flight, I am glad there are no ‘ops’ on from this station nowadays. I wonder what is happening, it certainly is funny, Stirlings off ‘ops’ all this time, must be something behind it all. The rumours are flying as thick as ever, but nobody has any definite ‘gen’ at the moment. We will find out in due course I daresay. Yesterday we went on rather an interesting trip, an Eric, which is a daylight bullseye. Naturally the only defences we had to combat were fighters, & we didn’t have any engagements, so everything went smoothly. Our route took us across London three times, & pin pointing became very interesting, as I found the various places I know. The balloons were quite a sight, flying at their operational height, there seemed literally hundreds of them. Old Father Thames looked grand in the sun with the boats chugging slowly up & down, there was a fair amount of shipping off Tilbury & Grays & a convoy at Southend. At Chatham there were a fair amount of naval vessels, but nothing like peace-time. We followed the Thames up to attack our target Tower Bridge, there was a certain amount of difficulty in finding this owing to cloud that had rolled across. We eventually made it though.
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Being used to stooging along by ourselves at night it was a novel experience for us to see about another hundred bombers all around, on the same course & height. It was rather tricky at turning points, some kites E.T.A’s would be due slightly before one’s own & they would turn & come cutting across, diving underneath, or lifting above, there must be some close shaves at night, which the darkness hides. When we returned to base the weather had changed down so we had to stooge around for a bit, but we landed quite safely.
Our leave is due on the 24th, and we are beginning to make our arrangements, praying to the Lord, that nothing crops up & we lose it. I had a letter from Bill today, saying that old Bob Blackburn, who was in our room at I.T.W. had got the chop on his 13th over the Ruhr. He always maintained there was nothing in superstition & insisted on third lights, I guess it was just Fate that it should be his 13th, I hope he managed to bale out safely. We lost a crew the other night on a long mining off the Spanish border, Johnston was flying with them as rear gunner, it was his first trip. He was in Carr’s crew that is the second one gone, these mining trips certainly don’t seem to be such a stooge nowadays.
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[underlined] Sunday 14th November. [/underlined]
What a hum drum life this is, & a cold one. Rush for breakfast, fight to get a wash basin then trudge down to the flights. Knock around in the Bombing Office for a while to see the score then out to the kite for a D.I. It’s a hellish cold job polishing the perspex on the first turret, especially the outside I have to mount a rickety iron ladder, & perched up there 25 ft in the air polish away vigorously with frozen hands, each movement causing the ladder to sway. We generally continue to get back to the flights at 11.15 AM. in time for the NAAFI van. Then back to the mess, with more chances than one of being called back for an air test, just as we are about to go into dinner. The afternoon’s procedure is very similar, if we aren’t flying, it is link or Gee, Astro or something, until we scuttle back to tea. Over to the billet, then, to coax a fire into the stove & all huddle round it. Gangs of fellows scour the immediate vicinity of the huts for wood, posts are pulled up & everything of an inflammable nature seized upon. There is a huge coke dump opposite & every evening sees a dozen fellows or more filling buckets & other articles. These stoves are quite our pride & we take an experts delight in raising a large fire in a short while.
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If we aren’t writing letters we are listening to records on a gramophone that Bill managed to ‘borrow’ from the W/T section, I wish we had a wireless here, though. Sometimes we attend an ENSA show, the one this week wasn’t so bad. Friday afternoon we had a stand down so Jack, Johnny & myself bowled into Cambridge again, following the routine of our previous visit, but not having the luck to fall into any flight parties again. So far this month we have gone in quite a few flying hours the weather has been lousy on quite a few trips. Last night we were stooging round in a rain storm trying to find a bombing target before we were recalled, Saturday night, too. The other day Mac, Johnny Don & myself went up with Wiseman’s crew for Air to Air firing over the Wash. After landing & unloading the blasted ammo. when it came to my turn the Martinet ran out of fuel & had to return.
The other day on our Air Test, Mac feathered the starboard outer to test it, but couldn’t unfeather it. After a few unsuccessful attempts we gave up & landed with it feathered, & got down O.K. too. If it isn’t the undercart refusing to come down, its something else. Still old I Item is quite a good kite now, & we can get a fair turn of speed from it.
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[underlined] Thursday November 18th [/underlined]
Quite a lot of things have happened in the few short days since I made my last entry. First like a bolt from the blue came the news that the squadron was being disbanded. It was quite a shock we are supposed to be moving to Chedburgh shortly & there given individual postings. Everyone is thoroughly cheesed about it, we were just getting settled in here too, all the top bags, Bombing, Nav & Gunnery Leaders are fine fellows, one couldn’t wish for a better bunch, I guess that’s typical of the RAF when one gets a piece of cake, they aren’t allowed to eat it. 214 squadron which is at Chedburgh is coming here in our place & we are gradually breaking up. They say we are converting to Lancs & if so it may be time that Stirlings are gradually dieing [sic] out of Bomber Command & the Lancs taking their place. If we are moving in a few days, as the tale says, then it will mess our leave up, after all our arranging, its driving me nuts, we never get a leave that works out smartly. Johnnie Smythe a Nav. from Sierra Leone has had a letter from the people there saying they want to adopt 623 Sqdn. & have collected 100 to £150,000 for our benefit – phew! that’s over £250 per head ground & air crew, of course it would be used for the betterment of the squadron, building a wizard crew room, & various other things.
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The Wing Cmdr. has been up to Group to raise Cain, I don’t know if he has had any satisfication, but I & everyone else hope we stay here together. Monday night we had our Sqdn party, strictly bachelor, the air crew paid for it all, & invited the ground crew to show their appreciation for their maintenance of the kites. There was lots of beer & everyone was happy especially old Mac he was well under, a gang of them started down the mess before the party, then rang Downham for a taxi to take them to the party 200 yds away. There was a championship table tennis match between a couple of top notches in peace-time & then the winner issued a challenge. Ginger Morris who used to play for England, had been waiting for this to just bowl out & beat him. The only fault was Ginger had been imbibing heavily & consequently could hardly see the ball, so lost easily. At 10.30 P.M. it broke up and Mac got in at 5 AM. he had wandered over to the mess to shoot the bull & fell asleep there.
Poor Johnnie has been feeling grim and was very bad the other day & went sick, & they chopped him in dock with flu. Jack was also feeling bad but has recovered, but Don is in bed very queer & I feel it myself, what a crew, but this place is enough to give people all the illnesses under the sun.
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Tuesday night, six Canadians came & gave a concert show, they were a travelling party all [indecipherable word] & they put up quite a performance too. Last night there was an ENSA show which I thought rather good, so we haven’t done too bad for entertainment. Today held a big shock for quite a few people, Group came through to say there was a big do, & 218 & 623 were on the main effort. All crews available were put on, & after 6 weeks they thought it was a laugh & a joke, but realised it was true. Mac was due to go on a second dickie with Sqdn/Ldr. Overton, but it was scrubbed at the last minute as Overton’s Navigator was sick. Petch has gone with Flt/Lt. Willis, & Macgillvray with Flt/Lt. Nesbitt, I hope the morning saw them all back safe & sound. Apparently we are still an operational squadron, but for how long is the question. There is also a fair amount of mining & a new crew is taking our kite, so Don & I were out there this afternoon checking on the turrets.
The other afternoon we had a wizard lecture from a Lieutenant in the Navy. He had quite a few experiences to recount he had been on the Greton in the Graf Spee battle & in the U-Boat War, & seen quite a bit of excitement in the Med., he was very interesting to listen too. [sic] His story showed both sides of the picture too, we weren’t always winning. He said a good word for mining, the results of which were definitely assessed as 1 ship sunk every 11 mins which is good going.
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[underlined] Sunday November 21st. [/underlined]
The squadron definitely is disbanded, though in the meantime it is fully operational. The Wing Co. leaves on Dec 6th to some O.T.U. I believe. Sqdn/Ldr Smith adding his D.F.C. to his D.F.M. is going to an O.T.U. also, - as a flight commander, he has both his tours completed now. The Navigator Leader has already gone, & the Wing Co. has been asking crews what squadrons they would like to be posted to, but nothing is promised. Anyway it appears we are remaining in 3 Group & not going onto Lancs, so that is one theory squashed. Right now we are just praying that nothing will crop up to cheat us of our leave, there are only two days to go. We have arranged to get on the 11 AM pay parade Tuesday & hope to catch the 11.48 AM London train.
Three kites were lost from here on Thursday’s trip to Ludwigshaven – one from 218, & two from 623. Poor old Ray Bennett was one, Johnny Smythe was his Nav. I only hope they baled out, F/Lt Wallis was the other & Petch was with him on a second dicky. That leaves only Macgillvray & us with complete crews from Hixon. P/O Ralph & F/Lt Nesbitt turned back with engine trouble, so it wasn’t too good for 623. It was even grimmer on Friday night, they were going to Leverhulme or something a small place just north of Cologne, & a pretty easy trip it turned out.
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623 only managed to get two kites off the deck, & there was hell to pay, there was quite a bit of finger trouble, though. They said Group sent through the bomb load too late, but then it was the armament officers first experience of bombing up for ‘ops’. Bombs were being sent out to kites that were U/S with engine trouble when others were standing there with engines running merely waiting for bombs, consequently most of them never got off in time. They told one chap to take off 5 mins after time & catch the force up, he told them what to do. Another just got off & set course over the runway in his take off. Wiseman was waiting for one more 1,000 lb H.E. when the Armament Officer said that’s O.K. take off without it, this made the C. of G somewhere in the region of the rear turret – Wiseman’s reply was rather flowery. So poor old Mac didn’t get off again & still has to get his second dicky in. All the kites got back safely but were diverted owing to local fog, one of 218’s was pretty shot up by flak, and pranged at Chedburgh. The kites that were on mining also returned safely. Nesbitt has been told that his tour is completed now, so they are screening him after 24 trips, still that’s enough for anyone, and if I had that number under my belt I would feel very contented.
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Johnny seems a lot better now, we have popped in to see him each day, & he is having a regular rest cure, he intends trying to come out tomorrow as he doesn’t want to miss his leave – nor do any of us – keen types. Ken & I went to the camp cinema the other night, quite a good show but the place is like an ice box. There is a real fiasco here, the water supply is being cut right down, apparently the camps normal consumption is 52,000 gals a day, & the water company will only supply 10,000 gals daily, until their reservoir rises. Consequently all water on the sites is cut off & we cant [sic] have any baths or showers, & now we have been informed we are not supposed to wash or shave in the mess ablutions. This means not washing or showering day in, day out, I wonder what the M.O. thinks of it! There are a couple of water carts that come round the sites & people fill up old cans etc. Even of we hand round all cans we are never on the sites, our whole day is spent down the flights or in the mess. The whole situation is preposterous and it’s a pretty poor show for an RAF camp.
I went into town last night, for the first time for over a week, it was a real pea souper of a night & we muffled right up. The film was quite a decent one, & a drink after made a little break out of the monotony.
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[underlined] Wednesday December 1st. [/underlined]
Another fair interval since I last made an entry, & for the old reason that I have been on leave, we arrived back last night. After all the sweating & heartbreaking we eventually got away on Tuesday, & we did sweat as I will account. On the Sunday, before going on leave, when I last made an entry there had been rumours of something big coming off the following day, as all Ground Crew N.C.O’s had been ordered to have their kites in really tip top condition. Monday dawned a thick misty day, visibility wasn’t more than 50 yds, Jack & I danced for joy as Mac couldn’t possibly do a second dicky that night & we would definitely go on leave on Tuesday, what a fine world it was. Down at the flights a rude shock was awaiting us there was ‘ops’ on that night & Mac was going as second dicky to Sqdn/Ldr. Overton. Everyone thought it must be a farce, it was bound to be scrubbed, the Met reckoned it would clear though. However out we went to the kite & gave it a thorough D.I. because Sgt Ralph was taking it. Gradually the weather cleared, and gradually our hopes sunk, because if Mac got his trip in we would be definitely on “ops” the following night instead of on leave. Every few moments we would gaze at the cloud formations & the fast disappearing mist & try to cheer each other up, although we all felt we had had it.
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We had found out all tanks were to be filled that meant Berlin or Italy & it all pointed to The Big City. Briefing was at 2.30 P.M. & off they went & I went out to the kite again, Johnny was still in dock as his guns had to be checked but Johnny Hyde the Gunnery Leader was out there to do them. At this time the sky clouded over really black, & everyone was certain the Met had boobed. When large drops of rain fell I could have danced for joy, but as though the Met had exercised a superhuman influence the skies miraculously cleared as take off time grew near. The crew came out to I Item & I spoke to the Air Bomber for a bit & happened to see the Nav’s charts, & Berlin it was. I wondered whether Mac was twittering inside, Overton was taking Les Gray, our Nav. who had only done a Nickel before. What a task without even having done a Mining to navigate to Berlin & back. When the actual take off started the weather wasn’t too good but they went, they scrambled at 5 P.M. & set course 5.30 P.M. with our best wishes. During the evening five kites returned early but old Mac wasn’t amongst them, they were mainly 218’s kites too. So off we went to bed, hoping to hear old Mac come banging in at about 2 AM he did. It had been a fairly quiet trip he said, cloud cover all the way, & no fighter sightings. Les’s navigation had been bang on & he was personally congratulated by the Groupie.
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There had been a lot of reporters and photographers there & someone said a B.B.C. chap, lots of lines were shot anyway, we listened to all the story & then sank back asleep. When the morning came it seemed as though our luck was really out, it was clear as a bell. Jack & I grabbed two bikes & dashed down to the Flights to see whether we were on or not. What an anxious half hour that was, the Wing Co. rang for P/O Ralph who was acting Flt/Comdr. then & he came out with lots of papers etc. our hearts sank, but then he said “Nothing on, only mining” we could hardly believe our ears. Back we tore & dressed up for pay parade & a speedy get away. We reckoned without Pay Accounts, with their typical efficiency they paid us at 11.45 AM instead of 11 A.M as it was supposed to be. So we missed the 11.47 train, still nothing mattered then we were off & going home. Scorning the RAF food we had a dinner in Sly’s Café then a drink & homeward bound.
I had a fine leave although the weather wasn’t so hot, that night (Tuesday) it was Berlin dunno if any Stirlings went but we didn’t send any at all. During the leave I saw quite a few shows, among them the new film “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, also read the book, both very good. We arrived back O.K. without any incidents we only stopped 5 mins at Cambridge so couldn’t recreate our previous escapade.
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Johnny was looking very seedy going home, as he had only come out of the dock that day, he wangled round the M.O. He came back looking fit though, we all seemed to have reduced our colds. Ken had been down to Pastow for his Medical Board, & has been taken off flying. So we have definitely lost him, it is goodbye to a fine Navigator & one of the finest fellows it has ever been my priviledge [sic] to meet. We are lucky to have an equally good chap to fill his place they are much alike in many ways. Old Jack Yardley the W/Op who is in our hut & also suffered with air sickness went down with Ken & he is also off of flying.
This morning we did the inevitable Air Test, it always happens the day one returns from leave. I Item is still here, someone buckled a wing tip whilst we were away, there are only four kites left now, they have ferried all the others away. So we should be leaving in a few days, but where to nobody knows yet, rumours are flying as thick as ever. One thing that is definite 214 Sqdn are arriving here on Monday so we will have to leave by then. It is so cold as anything today, there was a frost like snow this morning. If this weather continues & gets worse during the winter I would welcome a posting to Italy or somewhere warm. Talking of warmth, I think I’ll turn in, bed is the best place to warm anyone up.
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[inserted] [newspaper cutting about the raid on Berlin with a photograph of the crew led by Flying Officer Wiseman, and including Sergeant Twydell, engineer; P/O Craig, Sergent Foreman, Sergeant Copley F/Sergeant Brasington, F/O Theriault, and Flight Sergeant Macgillvray, second pilot] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
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[underlined] [missing words] December. [/underlined]
The cat is out of the bag, & there were a few surprises in the bag too, the gen has been dished out as to where we are all going. We all leave tomorrow on the 2 P.M. train, except for those who were due for leave & they went today, (our luck was in we were the last ones to get away, all leave was cancelled after we went). The Wing Co. went a few days ago to 90 Sqdn at Tuddenham, & P/O Ralph, Macgillvray & somebody else are going as well. After all this time then we are parted from Mac, it’s a pity, we two crews have been together a fair while, we are the only ones from Hixon now. By the by. Macgillvray appeared in the newspapers, there was a large photograph of old Wiseman & crew being interrogated upon their return from Berlin, & Macgillvray was in as second pilot quite celebrities now. That B.B.C. chap was here he gave a hell of a ‘bully’ story after the 1 P.M. news the following day.
To resume we and about six other crews are off to Waterbeach to convert onto Lanc IIs. As they have Hercules engines, we wont have Jack, as he won’t have to take another course. Four or so of the crews have gone on leave, today as they are due for it & they arrive there a week after us. It came as quite a surprise we all thought we were set on Stirlings, it will be quite a
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bind, circuits & bumps & screened cross countries all over again, oh hell! There is a squadron there as well 514, I wouldn’t mind being put on that, pray to the Lord we are. Four chaps are being transferred to 218 Sqdn. Overton & Wiseman are amongst them, they say Overton will have to revert to F/O. Nickie Nesbitt went back to P/O & Vickers the Engineering Leader did also, daresay they will have ‘em back again soon though. Some of the postings were to 199 & 149 Sqdns I believe. Last night we were put on the main effort, right in the middle of getting cleared from here, quite a flap. It was only 2, 4 & 6 tanks and 8 x 1,000 lbs & 6, x 5,000 lbs, as it must have been to these rocket gun emplacements they are building to shell London. It was scrubbed though, the minings went & poor old P/O Puch got the chop, his B/A Sutherland was a good guy, they were only an a short mining, too, quite shaking.
The latest Berlin raid where they lost 41 two war correspondents are missing, one got back though, gee! if they were paying that reporter £200 for going on a mining trip, heavens knows what those boys were raking in. One thing is sure from the way the Lancs are operating nearly every night whatever the weather, our tour will be over pretty soon one way or the other. We were paid today & finally cleared from here, last night we went into town to the dance & to the Crown for a farewell ‘do’ before we said goodbye to the hallowed precincts of Downham.
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[underlined] Thursday December 9th. [/underlined]
This entry is being made at Waterbeach, another new station this is my eighteenth station since I have been in the RAF, like Crosby & Hope I certainly get around. We left Downham Monday dinner time, and in the rush I missed saying cheerio to Ken, and was sorry but I have written to him. As usual when they tell you transport will be waiting, there was none, so we walked it was about 15 mins to the billet. The tales of the billets etc. being good inside the camp are quite true, the only snag being we aren’t in the camp. Our quarters are in the inevitable huts “Con Sight” as we call it though it is listed as Conversion Site. The Con Unit (1678) is almost entirely separate from the squadron we have our own mess about 5 mins walk from the hut. The food is good, better than at Downham, but the mess is bare, empty & cold. Not being many crews here either, it is generally isolated, & not very cheering. The squadron have a smashing mess in the camp, with living quarters above, very handy, wish we were in it.
I think the most shaking thing is that breakfast finishes at 7.45 A.M. right on the dot, so we have to be up really early. Then breakfast over we wash & are supposed to be at the flights at 8.15 A.M. It is a 25 min walk too, so we have to start out in time. There is [underlined] P.T [/underlined] 8.15 till 8.30 AM. then lectures.
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The walking is rather a bind as we didn’t expect it here, poor Mac is looking somewhat slimmer, as he lost his bike at a [deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] wild party, before leaving Downham. Tuesday was occupied with filling in the arrival chits as usual, then yesterday & today we have had ground lectures, weather permitting we may commence our circuits & bumps tomorrow. There was nothing new in the ground work, the bombing side of the Lanc. is simpler than the Stirling. We carry cookies on there now, there is no second pilot, so I have lost my comfortable seat. This is compensated by the much better bombing compartment, there is a fine huge vision panel in the nose, no more straining one’s neck to get a line on the target. One also enters the turret from the bombing compartment, so there is no chance of being locked in the turret. The performance of these aircraft are pretty good, especially speed & climbing power.
Tuesday afternoon we went into Cambridge, there is a pretty decent bus service to & from there. In the village there isn’t a lot of life but a couple of decent pubs do a good trade. I have just heard from Bill Taylor, & he tells me poor old Jack is missing now, he was on the same squadron as old Bob Blackburn who is now reported killed. Its pretty grim to hear of the old pals getting the chop, wonder if I’ll be alive at the end.
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[underlined] Monday 13th December. [/underlined]
The weather at this place is as bad as at Downham, I didn’t think there could be another place as bad. Mac’s day circuits & bumps are now complete & we are ready for a day cross country which finishes the day flying & then on to night c & b’s. I rather like the lay out of this station, it is very neat and compact, of course that is because it was a peace time station. I wish we were billeted in the camp although I understand the food in the permanent mess isn’t as good as in ours. On Friday the Duke of Gloucester came down to inspect the camp, we knew a full 24 hrs before who it was, the old grape-vine certainly defeats security. On the Thursday morning the Bombing Leader asked us who it was as he wasn’t able to find out. Our six crews were joined for a cheering party we had to line up opposite a line of WAAF’s at the gate & cheer when he left. I haven’t been on P.T. yet I have a hard enough job to get up in the mornings. Mac has managed to scrounge an official bike now, that is one thing he moves fast for. Every Wednesday they have a C.O’s parade and march past, there is a fair amount of bull here considering they have an operational squadron, I guess it is because they have the Con Unit still, yes, the more I think of it, the more easier 623 appears.
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[underlined] Tuesday December 21st. [/underlined]
We are now back on an operational squadron again, 115 Sqdn at Witchford near Ely. Our course finished here last [inserted] Sunday [/inserted] night and yesterday & this morning we were completing our clearance chits. It wasn’t such a bad place, & the work was pretty easy, the ground work was nothing new at all, except a new photo flash fuse. Our first flip was a day cross country at 23,000 ft, a really binding trip, 10/10ths all the way, just sit there and freeze about 25o below. Then after the night circuits and bumps, we were on a Bullseye, Sunday night. Or rather a Flashlight exercise, because the I.R. bombing is abandoned over London, & they have a target of three red lights to simulate T.Is, & at various distances of a couple of miles altogether were white lights flashing various Morse characters, so on the photograph, one could tell in theory how near the bombs would have landed. That trip was a cold one as well but we had a hot time with the defences, a solid belt of searchlights all the way round, & a hell of a cone sight over the target, we were picked up on our bombing run & they sure dazzled me. We rather preferred to remain at Waterbeach with 514 Squadron owing to the compactness of the station. They don’t operate such a lot, the other night they landed at Downham Market, practically all kites were diverted. It was a black night, & the Met boobed badly, all England almost was fog bound, & we have heard from reliable sources that 65 kites either crashed or had to be abandoned owing to weather. With the 30 kites lost that made 95 kites, the public will never know of that.
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The transport brought us by road from Waterbeach it is 13 miles & when we reached Witchford there was a howling gale & the rain was lashing down. Nobody knew where we were supposed to be billeted & we were driving around the place, dashing in & out of huts, until soaked to the skin, we eventually found one. Roger’s crew is in the hut with us, we are on 4 site & it is about two miles from the mess. I have seen some dispersed stations but this is the worst of them all, the mess is a 30 min walk from the flights as well, we certainly use Shanks Pony here, it is killing Mac he hasn’t done so much walking for ages. The usual thick mist is everywhere that is the trouble in East Anglia. Everything about the station & squadron seems to be grim, at one time it was a happy squadron & contented, but this station has got everyone down a lot; they have only been here 3 weeks. To give a typical example of the way the place is run, they moved here via Berlin. The crews were sent off to Berlin from this base & on return had to land here, what a fiasco that must have been, tramping round in the dark trying to find billets etc. Leave here is about every 12 weeks, its incredible, they don’t appear to worry whether you have any or not. There is no operational meal before ops, just tea & a couple of sandwiches & the rations are pretty small, & no coffee. No transport is organised to take us into Ely, & there are hardly ever stand downs, there appears to be a complete lack of interest in air crew, oh! well I’m too cheesed to write any more.
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[underlined] Monday 27th December. [/underlined]
Xmas is over now, & I’m none too sorry really, it wasn’t a lot to shout about. Now we are settled down a bit better, but its hard to shake off the feeling of being cheesed here, everyone is, the old chaps of 115 Sqdn, the fellows on 196 the sqdn that was here before, & ourselves the mix crews from 623. The Bombing & Engineering Sections are in the same room, the Bombing Leader is a decent chap, but I don’t see how you can get to know the other bomb aimers, they don’t make any advances or anything. We flew the second night we were here on another Flashlight exercise, & were getting around O.K. but as we were running in towards London for the target, all the searchlights began homing us away from London, so we realised there was an air raid in progress, & beetled back to base. There they told us over the W/T to continue with our exercise & we had to beetle up North & keep cracking around. The trip took us 6 1/2 hours & they didn’t give us any rations at all, I was absolutely frozen, & had an electric waistcoat on, but that didn’t keep my legs warm, I was glad when we landed. On Thursday night, Mac did his second dicky they have to do them on these kites as well, of all places it was Berlin again. Thats [sic] two second dickeys he has done there now, packing ‘em in alright. I think it is a terrible feeling waiting around for them to come back I would rather go myself, he returned O.K. there was one missing from here.
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On Xmas Eve afternoon Bill & I cycled the 26 mls to Waterbeach & back to collect the Xmas mail for about a dozen fellows, we could have used a truck coming back. That night we all went into Ely to the Lamb Hotel to commence the celebrations. What a night it was, & what a head I had next morning. On Xmas Day the officers mess invited us over in the morning then came over to our mess in the afternoon, it was more of a drunken brawl than anything else. Bags of broken bottles & glasses, it is grim like that, we were supposed to serve Xmas dinner to the airmen, but I felt too grim to go across. Our tea that night was really wizard, it was served buffet form, & there were sausage rolls, cakes, pastries, sandwiches, sardine on toast, spam & chopped egg, trifle & cream cake it was grand! There were two fights, because tempers were rather frayed after drinking. Afterwards we all tramped into town to have our Xmas Dinner for the crew, in the Lamb Hotel, it was pretty good, we were in bed pretty early that night. Boxing Day was very quiet, we had our turkey dinner at 7.30 P.M. it was well served, afterwards there was a dance in the mess. There wasn’t a single decoration in the mess for the Xmas just lovely & bare. Anyway that was the end of the festive season, & this morning we donned battle dress once more & got cracking on the same old grind.
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[underlined] Thursday 30th December. [/underlined]
We have made a start at the squadron now, they don’t waste a lot of time, last night we began ‘ops’ here with a trip to Berlin. The pre-briefing was at 1.30 P.M. & Les & I got cracking on the maps and charts before all the crews arrived at 3 P.M. for the main briefing. Our route was worked out to try to bluff Jerry in believing the attack was being carried out on Leipzig or Magdeburg. We went straight for those places and as Mossies opened the dummy attacks on both towns we suddenly turned north & headed for the “Great City”. Taking it on the whole it wasn’t a bad trip twenty kites lost when over 700 were sent.
The trouble with these early take offs is that we don’t get a meal before we take our kites away & start dicing. At the end of briefing there is a mad rush to grab a cup of tea and a couple of sandwiches at the back of the room; then down to the locker room to change. Out we lumber to the transports, & they take us to the waiting kites. Here we dump all our heavy kit & climb in to check all our equipment & run the kite prop to see everything is bang on. Then we shut her down, & climb out to complete our dressing, a few minutes for a smoke for those that need it, then 20 minutes before we are due to take off we climb aboard again & start up. As the time approaches we taxi out & take our place in the line, then one by one [missing words]
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Round & round we circle, then as the time for setting course arrives we make the last circuit and away we go. By this time we are at about 13,000 ft & generally by the time of crossing the English coast we are a little [deleted] of [/deleted] over 15,000 ft. I carry out all my Bombing checks & put the front guns on Fire, all ready for something, we begin our vigilance here, as the German fighters often operate right across the North Sea. At our turning point we are at our operational height of 20,000 ft, & we set course for the Dutch Coast. Approaching the coast the flak can always be seen coming up from Texel or other equally well defended spots. The cloud was 10/10ths awarding us a natural protection from the searchlights.
Every now & then along the south some place would start throwing up flak, if it came close we weaved but generally didn’t bother. Quite a few times a fighter would drop three flares, lighting up quite an area of sky, if they were too near for safety we corkscrewed quickly, with everybody searching the sky carefully. The searchlights would also shine on the clouds in large concentrations causing us to be silhouetted to any fighter above. Two markers were dropped on the route to guide us away from hot spots, we didn’t see the first, but the second at Leipzig was plainly visible. The dummy attacks had commenced & there were some red & green T.I’s & a few bombs, they were certainly throwing up some flak, we had to nip in between Magdeburg & Leipzig, it was very warm & we got away as soon as possible.
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Just after leaving Leipzig I had a momentary panic when three ME110’s came whizzing past us going the opposite direction to Leipzig, I guess they came haring back later when Berlin opened up. We were running into a head wind coming up to the target & I thought we were never getting there; the T.I’s were burning there, & the cookies exploding, & the flak was pouring up, although it wasn’t too heavy; but we never seemed to be getting any nearer. As we eventually approached I could see the glow of a large fire reflecting on the clouds. Then “Bomb Doors Open” – “Running Up”, “Left Left” “Steady” “Bombs Gone” “Bomb Doors Closed” & away we went. The return journey was much the same as the outward, but we found the W/Op had turned the inter-wing balance cock the wrong way & we had lost 200 galls. So we had the worry of whether we would be able to make it or not. We crossed the English coast O.K. and were trying to make base, when the fuel warning lights started to flicker meaning we were almost out. There we were at 400 ft to [sic] low to bale out & unable to use up petrol to climb, just expecting the motors to cut at any moment. Suddenly a drome appeared & we screamed in there without announcing or anything but we were down & that was the main thing. It was a P.F.F. place Warboys, we didn’t get the egg there & had to sleep in a chair in the mess, so it wasn’t so good, next morning we flew back to base, & had a badly needed sleep. There was one missing from here which wasn’t so bad, however that was our first major ‘op’ over.
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[underlined] Monday January 3rd [/underlined]
Well that’s another year gone and 1944 is here, I wonder if this year will see Germany out of it, somehow I doubt it, though I think she will be well on the way. Last Friday ‘ops’ were on, so we had visions of seeing the New Year in over the other side. Briefing was at 3 P.M. again and the target was Frankfurt, it was an attempt to fool the Jerries and make them think we were going to Berlin, somehow I don’t think it would have been successful, anyway just as briefing it was scrubbed and we didn’t cry over it. There was a New Year’s Dance on in the gym, so we went there and got pretty merry, eventually getting into bed around 4 A.M.
Getting up well the worse for wear in the morning we were shaken to find there were ops on again that night. Pre briefing was 1.30 P.M. but the main briefing wasn’t until 9 P.M. there being an operational meal before we took off. The target was once more Berlin, this time we were going in from the north with a dummy attack on Hamburg though I wasn’t so sure that that would fool them. Take off was at a quarter to one in the morning a hell of a while to wait up till. This time they sent the fighters out to meet us and the fun started right over the Dutch coast. The flak was as eager to greet us as ever.
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About 10 mins after we had crossed the Dutch coast I saw a burst of tracer go streaking across the sky then suddenly flames burst out on a Lanc & she slowly peeled over & went spiralling down through the clouds, then a few seconds later a huge glow shot up – poor devils. It couldn’t have been more that five minutes afterwards when Johnny the rear gunner screamed “Corkscrew Port”, I thought “here it comes” & gripped on. I guess whoever they are they all feel a bit of panic at such moments, I know the flesh on my back crawled as I kept anticipating the feeling of bullets ripping into my back. However we dodged him, it was a JU88 who came screaming down and fired a burst at us, he broke off the attack though. The flak in the target area was quite a bit heavier this time & it was really close, the return journey took us a fair bit longer as we were pushing against the wind. There were quite a lot of fighters lobbing down three flares at a time, it certainly is a hell of a feeling when one is battling along in the dark, & suddenly one is lit up as plain as daylight, & the feeling that every fighter in the sky is leering down at you is no fun. Mac generally swears and corkscrews viciously. We got back to base without mishap, shot the lines at interrogation then trotted off to another bacon & egg meal. There were 28 missing on that raid out of about 450 kites so it was heavier losses, none were missing from here which was good but 3 didn’t take off, and 3 turned back. ‘We got to bed at 10.30 A.M.
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At 2 P.M. we were awakened by the Tannoy blaring for all Navigators to report to the briefing room at 4 P.M. for pre-briefing. My God! there were ops on again & we were feeling nearly dead from lack of sleep already. It certainly set me back when going into briefing the target map showed Berlin again, gee! three times in five nights to the Great City it was pretty rough. Take off was at 12.20 P.M. because we were fighting to avoid the moon, even then it wasn’t set when we took off, but it had set before we reached the enemy coast. Things were pretty lively because there was a ninety mile an hour gale blowing and we had to go straight to Berlin, with no dummy attacks, & boy were they ready for us. For miles around the target it was like day with lanes of flares and kites whizzing around. It certainly was hectic over the target, I was expecting a fighter attack at any moment, & when the bombs had gone I got in the front turret & scared old Mac by flashing the guns backwards & forwards. Altogether we were in the thick of it for nearly 25 minutes it seemed like 25 years. I thought we would never get clear of there. It took us 2 1/2 hours [deleted] for [/deleted] to reach the target & 4 1/2 hours returning, because we were battling almost head on against the gale, it seemed an eternity before we reached the French coast. We reached base O.K. & tumbled in at 10.30 A.M. & boy! did we need the sleep, we lost one from here & I believe 27 on the whole effort.
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[underlined] Saturday 12th January [/underlined]
Its quite a while since I wrote here, but as usual I have been on leave in the meantime. There were no ops on the Tuesday after I last wrote, but on Wednesday there were. It was to Stettin & the route was all around Norway & the Baltic, then the stream suddenly headed south to Berlin, where Mossies started a dummy attack & the main force suddenly swung west to Stettin. The trip was terribly long 8 hr. 32 mins at the minimum & it was cutting it fairly fine with a full petrol load. At the last moment the route was lengthened by another three quarters of an hour, so that if we had made the trip we would have landed in the North Sea, consequently all Lanc IIs were scrubbed, the I’s & III’s went though & only lost 15 I wouldn’t have minded going. The next morning at two hours notice we were told we were on 7 days leave & had to rush around to get away that day.
We returned Thursday night, & got to bed about 1 A.M., then as it was the 4th day after the full moon, we were sure there would be no ops. Because 4 days before & 4 days after the full moon is the moon period & there are no ‘ops’. However Chopper Harris shot us up by putting ops on, after the morning air Test we dashed off for dinner then Les & I went back for 1.30 pre-briefing. The target was Brunswick, the place that the Forts went to a couple of days previously. They attacked aircraft factories about 20 miles from Brunswick, & we attacked the town.
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It was a real daylight take off, & when we were approaching the Dutch Coast it was quite light behind us, so I was expecting a head on attack. The weather was quite clear so the searchlights were active, there was quite a cone on Texel, & three large dummy fires as well, they must have quite a faith in the dimness of Air Bombers to bomb there. Our route took us quite close to Bremen, & there was a T.I. marker there cascading yellow. Later as we were getting close to the target we had to come really close to Hanover, & they were pretty active there. She had a hell of a lot of searchlights and if anyone strayed across the old flak would poop up. The attack started when we were a quarter of an hour from there, down went the T.I’s & up came the old flak. At briefing they said it would be pretty quiet, and that the Americans had destroyed 150 fighters for us – lovely it sounded. However there was quite a bit of flak and damned accurate, & more fighters milling around there us & other crews had seen before. I saw four kites go down in flames, [inserted] & burst [/inserted] on the ground, it was really grim. There was a lovely fire burning a huge thing with the green T.I’s in it, then a minute later our load went crashing down to help the conflaguration. The return journey wasn’t so bad there were numerous red flares dropped that burnt for a very short [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] while, not like the usual fighter flares. We landed at 10.20 A.M. came butting back to beat the moon rise, we lost Blackwell & Christianson two senior crews, which was pretty grim, 38 [missing words], it certainly was no easy raid.
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[underlined] Tuesday January 18th. [/underlined]
The weather certainly is grim, we haven’t flown since Friday, there has been a thick fog, and these last two days it has rained, but tomorrow promises to be clear so I guess there will be ops on then. According to the Press the Brunswick raid was fairly easy, they certainly harped out some guff, one of them said there were no fighters over the target & the Luftwaffe was fooled. I was looking at the official list of combats & sightings over the target, & there really were some. One chap from here claimed a confirmed & a probable. Three times over the target Bill the W/Op. happened to knock our huge nose light on, it put five years on my life, ‘cos the first time nobody knew who did it, & I was crouched there with my hands over it, & cursing like a madman. F/Sgt Foggarty who was with us put up a damn good show, over the target he was attacked consistently for half an hour by fighters & an engine (stbd inner) hit by cannon shell. He feathered it and it fell right out, he came down from 23,000 ft to 7,100 ft before he could pull out, & had to stay down low all the way. He sent out an SOS because he thought he wouldn’t make it, & the Jerries followed our homing procedure identically. They homed with searchlights to a ‘drome in Holland, lit it up & gave him a green, luckily his Gee operated and he battled off in a hurry. He crash landed with 3 engines, one bust tyre, no flaps or brakes, & nobody hurt. The engineers right arm & leg were rendered useless over the target & he carried on, but they both got a gong. Beside the two we lost we had three kites written off through fighter attacks, Waterbeach lost two. Dimmock was one of them he came back from leave with me the night previously.
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[underlined] Monday January 24th. [/underlined]
Still no more ops, in a week, at least no ops that we have completed. Last Thursday we were on the Berlin trip, it seemed a pretty good route, but there was a terrific long sea leg up to Denmark. I hate that, I don’t mind baling out over land ‘cos you have some chance, but there is no sense in baling out over water as by yourself in a Mae West, a chap wouldn’t last a couple of hours. So the only thing is ditching, then if the kite is out of control & we are unable to ditch, we’ve had it. However soon after taking off we couldn’t see any other kites & Johnny & I were picking up opposite drifts from what they should have been. Suddenly Mac checked his compasses and found they were all haywire, we were well off track, and crossed the coast at Ipswich instead of Cromer. Then trying to steer a straight course we went round in a huge circle. It was impossible for us to go on so we tried to jettison fuel in order to land. Mac & Jack tried to jettison fuel to bring our load down, but were unable to do so. We had to jettison the cookie, and flew sixty five miles out from the coast & let her go. So back we went, & were we cheesed, & hate a turn back, it was our first. Jimmy Rodgers returned earlier with a U/S rear turret & W/O Robbins with a U.S Rev counter, Anderson got lost & bombed Wilhelmshaven & I believe F.O Ogden came back after 4 1/2 hrs we were airborne 2 hrs. We lost P/O Canning, on his 19th trip.
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The following night we were going to Magdeburg, with a dummy attack on Berlin, by 15 Mosquitoes, & 20 Lancs (dont [sic] fancy that). There were 690 kites detailed, quite a few for a place that size, we were taxying out, & were almost at the flare path when the kite in front of us became bogged, it was old Howby in F, Freddie. The dim of an ACP let us get right on top of it, before flashing a red, so there was no room for us to turn & go round the perimeter in time to take off. There were other guys in the same position as us & there we all sat whilst the minutes ticked by & we were scrubbed, did we curse. In all eight kites didn’t take off & we lost one, Waterbeach lost four, which was grim, and they say six returned early, I don’t know if thats [sic] right, if so only six kites got to the target & back, it certainly was a chop raid.
Hardwick the chap who was at OTU with us has 5 weeks more [deleted] week [/deleted] grounded, he is cheesed. He gave us some news of fellows at OTU. Doc & his crew are P.O.W’s poor old Cecil Kindt had the chop, Chiefy Young is a P/O with 15 in & his navigator Shields has his W/O they have [deleted] [indecipherable letters] [/deleted] been doing O.K. Bouchard is O.K. with 9, old Towne is in jail, stripped for beating up a town low level. Mac met, Pat Macguire, who was Petch’s Navigator, in London, he said Petch was killed outright. They have an English chap who was a staff pilot in Canada. Ray Bennett was killed outright, but Johnny Smythe his dark navigator is a P.O.W. I don’t know about the rest of the crew.
[page break]
[underlined] Sunday 30th January [/underlined]
Everything was peaceful until Wednesday & then ‘ops’ were on again, bags of twitter, we beetled out to old G George to see everything was bang on. The weather wasn’t too hot & everyone was sure it would be scrubbed. When we found out it was Frankfurt, we were certain we wouldn’t go as before we had been briefed for it & hadn’t gone, sure enough it was scrubbed. The Forts went there the other day though, (yesterday in fact) 800 bombers, they certainly must have wanted to rub that place out. However the following night (Thursday) we were dicing once more & it was the old Faithful Berlin again. It seems strange but I have on obsession for that place, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I like it, that would be plain dumb, but I am less disturbed when we go there than anywhere else. Why I am at a loss to explain as it is the longest & hardest trip we will ever have to do. All I know is I wouldn’t mind doing quite a few there, I hope it isn’t a fateful fascination & we get the chop over there.
We had a strong westerly wind blowing behind us & the outward trip only took 2 1/2 hrs, whilst the return took 5 1/2 hrs. Our journey wasn’t too bad, we had a nasty moment when Les told Mac to turn on a course of 037o & Mac thought he said 137o. We were on it for 2 minutes before I saw a Lanc. cut across us & I queried our course.
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings regarding a gale over Berlin causing fires to rekindle] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
This caused us to stray over, Brandenburg I believe it was & by jimini their predicted flak was damned accurate. It burst at the dead same height about 200 yds in front & another lot off the starboard beam. Another few seconds & we were flying through the black smoke puffs. As we saw the P.F.F. flares go down (they were a couple of minutes early) the first fighter flares dropped. Some of the kites had obviously arrived early & been stooging around, waiting for zero hour, because the flak had been going up for a while already. By the time we arrived, we were in the blasted last wave as usual, there were scores of yellow fighter flares making a lane into the target & another one out of it. There was one fair sized fire going but not so big as I have seen, just after the W/Op watched my cookie go through the clouds he reported a huge explosion. I smile to think it might have been me, but one can never tell what happens in a concentrated attack like that.
Two minutes after the bombs had gone, Don the Mid Upper spotted a fighter, & called to Johnny to watch it. Then we heard Johnny’s excited voice over the inter-com, “Its a JU88, he’s coming in he’s crossing over now, get ready to corkscrew port, - corkscrew port go”. I was scrambling up to the front guns & just reached there in time. Our corkscrew was so violent that neither of the gunners were able to open fire, it also
[page break]
must have surprised the Jerry because he overshot above us, & skidded in a stall turn about 200 yds away from our nose. I remember thinking “My God what a bloody size he is”, somehow I had never realised how large a 66ft wing span was for a fighter. Anyway he was in the wing right & a no deflection shot my fingers squeezed & I nearly whooped with joy, when I saw the tracer striking the rear of the port engine & the [deleted] sp [/deleted] mainplane between the engine & the fuselage. Then he dived down to port at a hell of a speed & my little bit of fun was over. It shook me that I was the one to open the attack, as the B/A’s don’t often get a crack. I think it rather shook him to be fired at from the front as he didn’t break away there again.
The battle really started then, & it was a battle too. Up he came from underneath, & Johnny yelled “corkscrew” & opened fire, we could hear his guns shattering, & we were zooming around the sky. Johnny said he hit the port engine again, as I hit it previously & some sparks & flames shot out then subsided to a glow, I think everyone thought we had had it then, though I must hand it to that fighter pilot he really had guts. Round he would come firing right in close & both our gunners would return the compliment. We were corkscrewing violently all the time and my stomach felt as though it was being torn apart & my head smacked against the perspex. Mac & Jack were both thrown against the
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings of the Berlin raid from two eye-witnesses] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting regarding the 12th major bombing raid on Berlin] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
roof too. Every now & again a huge stream of tracer would pour across the top of us, & my mouth was dry with fear as I saw the cannon shells exploding at 600 yds. The gunners would be shouting “Corkscrew keep corkscrewing – here he comes again,” then the guns would chatter & we’d roll around. When it came to the break aways I kept praying he would come up to the front & I could get another crack but he never did. I would yell “Where is he?” each time but he would dive right down underneath & they would lose him, it was a separate sighting & attack each time. He made 7 attacks on us, I thought it would never end, on the third he hit us in the elevator trim. Then on the fifth attack a cannon shell exploded in the port wing & bullets ripped through the port inner nacelle. Though we couldn’t tell where the damage was we could only feel the hits. However we gave him quite a bit of punishment, we all hit him, & on the seventh attack, the glow in his engine suddenly became brighter & he dived down & that was the end of the attack, we claimed him as a probable. The whole engagement lasted 18 to 20 minutes it seemed like years, I had one moment of real fright in it. In the middle of a corkscrew with squirts of tracer everywhere I felt a violent blow in the left leg & thought “Hell, I’ve been hit” but it was all the heavy bundles of window that had shaken loose & crashed on my leg.
[page break]
We were at 18,500 ft when the attack started & were down to 13,000 ft at the end, the corkscrews were so violent, the Elsan came right out & was all over the floor & the ammo from one of Johnny’s tanks was all out. My God I was really thankful we had seen that through, one doesn’t often get continuous battles like it. Mac had a fair amount of work with no elevator trim but there was nothing vital hit and the kite flew O.K. We managed to get back on track but we were pretty late, everything went pretty well until it came to the part we squeezed between Frankfurt & the Ruhr. Everything was O.K. until some wicked predicted flak shot up about half a mile to the starboard, there were only three bursts then suddenly there was a Lanc. with flame pouring from the nose & three of her engines. She held her course for a short while, then swung round in a huge circle, came behind, assumed course for half a minute or so then plunged down, I hope they got out. I thought the return journey would never end, I hate it as long as that. We came out pretty well south of track, but we were back O.K. a fair few landed away through lack of fuel. The bullets that ripped through the port inner [indecipherable word] punctured the tyre, but we didn’t know, and landed with a flat tyre, swerved off the runway & there we were. The crash wagon & blood wagon tore out, & they insisted on us riding in the blood wagon.
[page break]
The M.O. insisted upon giving us some capsules, to make us sleep that night & wouldn’t let us go on ops the next night. He knew his ‘gen’ because when we woke we were pretty dizzy & weak from their effect & couldn’t possibly have operated. It was Berlin again, another 8 hr effort, it was a shambles here. They only got 9 out of the squadron airborne, & 2 of these returned, leaving 7 to go on to the target. Out of these 7 we lost 2 which is pretty grim, F/Lt. Aarvin & P/O Tyn were the ones missing. From the night before we lost F/O Harris & F/Sgt Morris, old Morris had been with us at Downham, they said he was in a dinghy, at least he was going to ditch, but they heard no more. Friday night, the RAF Bomber Command Band gave a performance here & was very good, Saturday there was a stand down we went to a camp dance. G George is U/S for a fortnight or so & we were going to take another kite tonight but they were so short of kites they couldn’t put us on. We are right hard up for kites now, two had a head on crash when taxying, nobody was hurt, but the kites are really ripped up. Another had incendiaries through it, they only sent 11 tonight, it was Berlin again, Chopper is really pushing ‘em in again. Old Foggarty has been awarded the DFM for the show he put up, I thought he would. So 623 has made a start here anyway. I wonder if we will be going to Berlin much more I should think it must be pretty well smashed up, they haven’t been able to get photographs for awhile.
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting saying that the Battle of Berlin is almost won and suggesting that Breslau may be the new Capital.] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
[underlined] Monday February 7th. [/underlined]
A week has elapsed since I last wrote, a week of doing practically nothing. That Sunday raid on Berlin was the last op there was, we got eight kites off I believe, & lost poor old F/Lt Hicks. He was the Asst. Flight Commander in our flight, a [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] ‘Newzie’ & a good chap it was his 24th. There were no ‘ops’ then for a few days & then the moon period commenced. Our kite won’t be serviceable for nearly three weeks so they have given us J Johnny, Hicks’ old kite it was U/S & he took another when he got the chop. Sqdn.Ldr [indecipherable name] the ‘Corkscrew King’ had a real do. They had a contact on the Monica & instead of corkscrewing as they were told he asked the gunners if they could see anything. They were looking down & said “No”, & a fighter sitting about 10o up gave them a long burst while they were straight & level. He raked them right along, the rear turret smashed, the mid upper had about 20 fragments pass between his legs. A couple of cannon shells exploded in the fuselage, the [deleted] [indecipherable letter] [/deleted] D.R. Master Unit was hit, a large hole in the main plane, one prop damaged, Boy! they were really shot up. The only one who was hurt was the A/B who had a small piece of flak in his behind. We have been informed that the old Groupie has detailed us for an hours circuits & bumps for the bad landing we made returning from Berlin. That was with a burst tyre. God knows what he wants, I don’t even believe he knows we were shot up.
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting regarding the raids on Berlin] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting with a photograph of a Halifax III] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
It seems pretty definite that the German [indecipherable word]. is evacuating from Berlin to Breslau, its another 200 miles to the South East, surely they wont go there from here, it would be about a 10 hour trip. There is some talk that the tour is being reduced to 25 ops as they are pretty grim now with the Berlin trips, it seems pukka ‘gen’ I hope it is. During the week we have been doing loaded climbs on J to test her starboard outer now it has to be changed. We have also been trying to get some GH Bombing in but the weather isn’t so good. Yesterday we had the day off, they are giving crews a day off during the moon period. Johnny & I went home catching the 1036 AM. Sunday, & travelling back on the 8.20 AM. Monday, I had a wizard time.
On Saturday night we lost a kite on the Bullseye, it was Bishop who was at Downham with us. Poor old Jack Speechly was the Bomb Aimer, I had known him 18 months ever since Manchester, we did our training in Canada together, he was a rattling good chap. They had an American pilot with them, they were all killed, & they don’t know how it happened yet. The crash was found with them all in it, its really grim. That’s three of the crews that were with us at Downham gone now P/O Whitting Ginger Morris & now old Bishop, boy! I only pray we see the tour out & so do all the others. There’s nothing much happening, consequently there isn’t much to make an entry of, think I’ll snatch an early night.
[underlined] Sunday February 13th. [/underlined]
The moon period has definitely finished now and our period of rest is over. Once more ‘Chopper’ whipped a day off the end of it, we were briefed for Berlin & were out at the kites with about 30 mins to go before take off when it was scrubbed. The reason being the bad weather at base on return, it was pretty grim, & was a [deleted] poo [/deleted] wonder it wasn’t scrubbed before. I wouldn’t have minded the trip, because for a change it was a long trip out, & a short trip home. Last minute scrubbings are worse than some ‘ops’ I think after being keyed up all that time, still it shows there is still some of the Big City left there.
We haven’t done much this week, as the weather has been pretty duff, most of the time we tried some GH Bombing nothing came of it, owing to climate conditions. The other day we were up in a hell of a snow storm, all the time we were running before it & trying to find a way out. All the countryside looked pretty Christmassy with a coating of snow over the fields & villages. As I was in the rear turret all the time I was more interested in keeping warm. Our turrets got in grim condition during the moon period and we had to work like the devil all day to get it in shape. I was late for briefing through it and had a hell of a flap trying to get my tracks & maps all ship shape.
[page break]
All Jimmy Rodgers crew went to Cambridge on Friday, as two of [deleted] Jim [/deleted] Bishops crew were being buried there. It is terrible really four of them were married & a couple engaged, old Bishop was only married at O.T.U., I would never get married in war time for that reason. Looking at it soberly with all the chaps getting the chop it seems a hell of a mugs game still there it is.
There has been a fair amount of entertainment this week, we had a night out in Ely with a wizard meal in the KUMIN Café. On Wednesday night there was a dance in the gymnasium, then Thursday night we had a big social in the mess. They even went to the extent of polishing the floor, & in our grim mess that really is something. It went on until 1 AM. & there was bags of beer & eats, the food was very good, marzipan cakes, sausage rolls etc. £25 was allowed for it, so it should have been good. On Saturday there was another dance but I was cheesed with that & don’t think I will bother going again.
The siren is going now & there is some gunfire, be quite comical now, with us refraining from bombing Berlin owing to the met. here, & the Jerries using the same conditions to bomb us. They have left the bombs on the kites & only drained the tanks to 1500 so it looks as though they will be parking us along tomorrow. I guess now they have started again, Chopper will try & really finish Berlin, hope he doesn’t finish us.
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings regarding the continuing raids on Berlin and their effect] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[duplicate page]
[page break]
[underlined] Thursday 17th February. [/underlined]
All was quite [sic] until Thursday, when ‘ops’ were on again, & there it loomed on the briefing room chart, the [deleted] G [/deleted] Big City once more. It was another daylight take off, quite a sight to see all the kites streaming over the coast at Cromer. The first leg was a terrific long one up to Denmark, & it was quite light most of the way, but luckily got dark by the time we were crossing the coast. Those Danish islands can certainly poop up some flak, & I was glad when we hit the Baltic Coast. The last leg to the target was a terrific long one, straight to it, I couldn’t see that the Jerry would be fooled regarding the target, even though there was a spoof attack on Frankfurt-on-Oder. The P.F.F. boobed by sending the flares down before zero hour, & the flak certainly opened up. It was the heaviest I have seen there, I think he was relying more on that than his fighters. Running up I could see about six Halifaxes beneath us, they seemed quite happy as the flak was all bursting between 18 & 21,000 ft. We were carrying just one 8,000 lb cookie, which is quite a goodly size, it was handy in the way that immediately I said ‘Bombs Gone’ Mac could whip the Bomb Doors shut.
Bomber Command was trying new tactics this time the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd waves went one way, & we in the 4th & 5th waves went a bit south of them along another route. The idea was to split the fighter forces, & I think it succeeded we only saw two all night, one ME110 just after
[page break]
[inserted] [two newspaper cuttings regarding the raids on Berlin] [/inserted] [duplicate page]
[page break]
[inserted] [newspaper cutting about obliterating bombing techniques]
[page break]
leaving the target flashed across our nose. We ran into some flak though, getting off track a bit we stooged right over Magdeburg. Beside window there were two huge packets of nickels to throw out so I was sweating like anything shovelling it all out. Not much happened on our return journey apart from a few fighter flares & some rockets. We saw a kite go down in flames over the North Sea, I should hate to get the chop right back there. Two were lost from here, F/S Whyte who had 16 trips in & F/S Ralph who was with us at Downham. He had Pinky Tomlin, Petch’s old B/A, who arrived with a new skipper F/O Nice, beside losing his B/A he lost his rear gunner who went as a spare with Whyte. I hate this spare business they always seem to get the chop.
Yesterday we were briefed for Berlin, then scrubbed, then again tonight & were out at the kites before being scrubbed, the weather was terrible both days, yet they wait till the last minute before scrubbing it. We were read a message from Chopper Harris C in C. congratulating us on the progress of the Battle for Berlin. After the usual flowery comments on our ‘courage & steadfast spirit’ he said we were well ahead of schedule in the obliteration of the capital. He also said the Allied Command considered it the most important battle of all land, sea or air battles fought & yet to fight in the war. There was a long list of reasons of its immediate need to be liquidated, & he said he had to rush us to finish the job as the lighter nights and the Northern lights would soon be making their appearance. Well I hope there isn’t many more trips to be done there.
[page break]
22
[underlined] 60/520 [/underlined]
8
196
2443
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
Book 5, Return to UK
Description
An account of the resource
Fifth and final diary kept by David Geach chronicling his time training and on operations. He writes about his return from Canada on the Queen Elizabeth then his training in England which began with arriving at the Posting Centre in Pannal Ash, Harrogate. He was then posted to AFU Bobbington, training on Ansons. From there he went to O.T.U. Hixon and satellite station Seighford training on Wellingtons. He then went to Flying Conversion Unit Woolfox Lodge to train on Stirlings. Once training was complete he was posted to RAF Downham Market on 623 Squadron flying Stirlings on operations. When 623 Stirling squadron was disbanded he was transferred on to Lancasters. He was posted to Flying Conversion Unit 1678 at RAF Waterbeach to train on the Lancaster and then on to RAF Witchford where he undertook operations over Germany, including a number on Berlin. Covers the period 17 March 1943 to 17 February 1944.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Geach
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One handwritten diary
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YGeachDG1394781v5
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
Scotland--Greenock
Scotland--Glasgow
Scotland--Edinburgh
England--Harrogate
England--Whitley Bay
England--Bournemouth
England--Stourbridge
England--Birmingham
England--Wolverhampton
England--Stafford
Canada
Ontario--Ottawa
Atlantic Ocean--Cardigan Bay
Wales--Rhyl
England--The Wash
England--Nottingham
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Isle of Man
England--Cannock
Wales--Aberystwyth
Scotland--Orkney
France--Saint-Malo
France--Rennes
France--Isigny-sur-Mer
France--Cherbourg
France--Avranches
England--Southampton
England--Stamford
England--Cambridge
England--Peterborough
England--Bedford
England--Portsmouth
Netherlands--Friesland
England--Cromer
France--La Rochelle
France--Gironde Estuary
France--Nantes
England--King's Lynn
Italy--Turin
North Africa
Gibraltar
England--Thames River
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Berlin
England--Ely
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Hamburg
Norway
Netherlands--Texel
Germany--Bremen
Denmark
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Germany--Brandenburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Hannover
England--Sunderland (Tyne and Wear)
Poland--Szczecin
Poland--Wrocław
England--Southend-on-Sea
Italy
Atlantic Ocean--Firth of Clyde
Poland
France
Ontario
Germany
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Bedfordshire
England--Durham (County)
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northumberland
England--Sussex
England--Staffordshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
England--Selsey (West Sussex)
Wales--Caernarfon
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
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Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-03
1943-04
1943-05
1943-06
1943-07
1943-08
1943-09
1943-10
1943-11
1943-12
1944-01
1944-02
115 Squadron
149 Squadron
1678 HCU
196 Squadron
199 Squadron
214 Squadron
218 Squadron
30 OTU
514 Squadron
623 Squadron
90 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aerial photograph
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
bale out
bomb aimer
bombing
Catalina
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
entertainment
fear
flight engineer
Gee
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
incendiary device
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Me 110
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Mosquito
navigator
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Downham Market
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Hixon
RAF Lindholme
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Seighford
RAF Tangmere
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Warboys
RAF Waterbeach
RAF Witchford
RAF Woolfox Lodge
Red Cross
sanitation
searchlight
Stirling
target indicator
target photograph
training
Typhoon
Victoria Cross
Wellington
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/822/46868/LFlintCE1812492v1.2.pdf
0b062922832332a36231a7eb1ab79acc
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
Flint, Charles
C Flint
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Charles Flint (1925 - 2019, 1812492 Royal Air Force) and his log book. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 115, 178, 70 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-21
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
Flint, C
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
Charles Flint's Royal Air Force Flying Log Book for Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s, Air Gunner’s and Flight Engineer’s
Description
An account of the resource
C E Flint’s Flying Log Book covering the period from 18 December 1943 to 03 October 1946 detailing his flying training and operations flown as Wireless Operator. He was stationed at RAF Madley (4 Radio School), RAF Bishop Court (7 Air Observer’s School), RAF Upper Heyford (16 OTU), RAF Woolfox Lodge (1651 HCU), RAF Witchford and RAF Graveley (115 Squadron) RAF Warboys (ALGT course), RAF Dunkeswell (16 Ferry Unit), RAF Fayid (178 and 70 Squadrons) and RAF Shallufa (70 Squadron). Aircraft flown in were Dominie, Proctor, Anson, Wellington and Lancaster. He flew on four night and one day operation (total 5) plus three Operation Manna supply drops, eight Operation Exodus repatriation operations and three Operation Dodge flights to Italy with 115 Squadron. Targets were Huls, Hamm, Heligoland and Potsdam. Pilot was Flight Lieutenant Hooper.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03-17
1945-03-20
1945-03-27
1945-04-05
1945-04-18
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Hamm (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Potsdam
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Devon
England--Herefordshire
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
Northern Ireland--Down (County)
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
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
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
Terry Hancock
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LFlintCE1812492v1
115 Squadron
16 OTU
1651 HCU
178 Squadron
70 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Cook’s tour
Dominie
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Proctor
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Dunkeswell
RAF Graveley
RAF Madley
RAF Shallufa
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Warboys
RAF Witchford
RAF Woolfox Lodge
training
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/81/7914/LGodfreyCR1281391v10001.2.pdf
2bb4feee369606f050f7e0e0563b6922
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
Godfrey, Charles Randall
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Description
An account of the resource
64 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Charles Randall Godfrey DFC (b. 1921, 146099, Royal Air Force) and consists of his logbook and operational notes, items of memorabilia, association memberships, personnel documentation, medals and photographs. He completed 37 operations with 37 Squadron in North Africa and the Mediterranean and 59 operations with 635 Squadron. He flew as a wireless operator in the crew of Squadron Leader Ian Willoughby Bazalgette VC.
The collection has has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by David Charles Godfrey and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
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
Godfrey, CR
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-18
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
Charles Godfey's observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGodfreyCR1281391v10001
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Egypt
France
Libya
Greece
Germany
Gibraltar
Great Britain
Netherlands
Scotland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Belgium--Haine-Saint-Pierre
Egypt--Alexandria
Egypt--Cairo
Egypt--Ismailia (Province)
Egypt--Marsá Maṭrūḥ
Egypt--Tall al-Ḍabʻah
England--Berkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Cumbria
England--Devon
England--Gloucestershire
England--Hampshire
England--Kent
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northumberland
England--Oxfordshire
England--Rutland
England--Shropshire
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Yorkshire
France--Angers
France--Caen
France--Creil
France--Mantes-la-Jolie
France--Nucourt
France--Rennes
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dorsten
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düren (Cologne)
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Mönchengladbach
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Osterfeld
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Troisdorf
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Wesseling
Greece--Ērakleion
Greece--Piraeus
Libya--Darnah
Libya--Tobruk
Netherlands--Hasselt
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Scotland--Moray
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
England--Cornwall (County)
North Africa
Libya--Banghāzī
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Libya--Gazala
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1942-03-23
1942-06-10
1942-06-11
1942-06-12
1942-06-13
1942-06-14
1942-06-15
1942-06-16
1942-06-17
1942-06-18
1942-06-19
1942-06-20
1942-06-22
1942-06-23
1942-06-24
1942-06-25
1942-06-26
1942-06-28
1942-06-29
1942-07-02
1942-07-03
1942-07-05
1942-07-08
1942-07-09
1942-07-10
1942-07-12
1942-07-13
1942-07-15
1942-07-16
1942-07-17
1942-07-19
1942-07-20
1942-07-25
1942-07-26
1942-07-28
1942-07-29
1942-07-31
1942-08-01
1942-08-06
1942-08-07
1942-08-08
1942-08-09
1942-08-14
1942-08-15
1942-08-16
1942-08-17
1942-08-18
1942-08-19
1942-08-21
1942-08-22
1942-08-23
1942-08-24
1942-08-25
1942-08-26
1942-08-27
1942-08-28
1942-08-29
1942-08-30
1942-08-31
1942-09-01
1942-09-03
1942-09-05
1942-09-06
1942-09-08
1942-09-09
1944-05-06
1944-05-08
1944-05-12
1944-05-13
1944-05-27
1944-05-28
1944-05-29
1944-06-05
1944-06-07
1944-06-08
1944-06-09
1944-06-12
1944-06-13
1944-06-15
1944-06-16
1944-06-23
1944-06-24
1944-07-07
1944-07-09
1944-07-10
1944-07-14
1944-07-15
1944-07-16
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-28
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-01
1944-08-04
1944-11-17
1944-11-18
1944-12-04
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-12
1944-12-15
1944-12-18
1944-12-24
1944-12-28
1944-12-29
1945-01-01
1945-01-02
1945-01-05
1945-01-07
1945-01-08
1945-01-23
1945-02-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-04
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-02-18
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-22
1945-03-24
1945-03-25
1945-03-31
1945-04-11
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-25
1945-04-30
1945-05-05
1945-05-07
1945-05-15
1945-05-22
1945-06-08
1945-06-18
1945-08-03
1945-08-05
1944-06-06
1944-08-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
Observer's and air gunner's flying log book for Pilot Officer Godfrey from 3 of February 1941 to 25 of September 1945 detailing training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Aircraft flown were Dominie, Proctor, Wellington, Hampden, Anson, Defiant, Martinet, Stirling, Lancaster, C-47 and Oxford. He was stationed at RAF Manby, RAF Bassingbourn, RAF Harwell, RAF Lossiemouth, RAF Downham Market, RAF Hemswell, RAF Wittering, RAF Abingdon, RAF Upper- Heyford, RAF Upwood, RAF Gillingham, RAF Cranwell, RAF Melton Mowbray, RAF Church Fenton, RAF Market Drayton, RAF Waddington, RAF Upavon, RAF Sywell, RAF Carlisle, RAF Linton-On-Ouse, RAF Newbury, RAF Cottesmore, RAF Brize Norton, RAF Exeter, RAF Andover, RAF Hampstead Norris, RAF Hythe, RAF Gibraltar, RAF St Eval, RAF El Dabba, RAF Shaluffa, RAF Abu Sueir, RAF Almaza, RAF Blyton, RAF Ingham, RAF Marston Moor, RAF Leeming, RAF Acklington, RAF Middleton St. George, RAF Newmarket, RAF Moreton-in-Marsh, RAF Leconfield, RAF Skipton-on-Swale, RAF Wyton, RAF Warboys, RAF Westcott, RAF Gravely and RAF Worcester. He completed 37 operations with 37 Squadron in North Africa and the Mediterranean and 59 operations with 635 Squadron to targets in Belgium, France and Germany. Targets included: Heraklion, Piraeus, Derna, Tamimi, Benghazi Harbour, Gazala, Mersa Matruh, Ras El Shaqiq, El Daba, Tobruk, Fuqa, Quatafiya, Düren, Munster, Mantes- Gassicourt rail yards, Haine St. Pierre rail yards, Hasselt rail yards, Rennes, Angers rail yards, Caen, Ravigny rail yards, Nucourt, Wesseling oil refineries, L’Hey, Kiel, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Notre Dame, Trossy St. Maximin, Karlsruhe, Merseburg, Essen, Ludwigshafen, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Mönchengladbach, Troisdorf, Dortmund, Nuremberg, Hannover, Munich, Gelsenkirchen, Mainz, Wiesbaden, Osterfeld, Kleve, Wanne- Eickel, Chemnitz, Wesel, Worms, Hemmingstedt, Dorsten, Bottrop, Osnabruck, Berchtesgaden, Ypenburg and Rotterdam. Notable events are that Charles Godfrey undertook a search and rescue operation in a Defiant and during the operation to Trossy St Maximin 4 August 1944 his aircraft, Lancaster ND811, was brought down by anti-aircraft fire. Whilst he survived and evaded, his pilot, Ian Willoughby Bazalgette was awarded the Posthumous Victoria Cross. The hand written notes added to the end of the log book give a description to the crash, and his attempts to evade capture. Pilot Officer Godfrey also took part in Operation Manna, Operation Exodus and Operation Dodge.
11 OTU
15 OTU
20 OTU
37 Squadron
635 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
Bombing of Trossy St Maximin (3 August 1944)
C-47
Cook’s tour
Defiant
Dominie
evading
Hampden
killed in action
Lancaster
Martinet
missing in action
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
Proctor
RAF Abingdon
RAF Andover
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Blyton
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Carlisle
RAF Church Fenton
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Cranwell
RAF Downham Market
RAF Graveley
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Hemswell
RAF Ingham
RAF Leconfield
RAF Leeming
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Manby
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Melton Mowbray
RAF Middleton St George
RAF Moreton in the Marsh
RAF Newmarket
RAF Skipton on Swale
RAF St Eval
RAF Sywell
RAF Upavon
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Upwood
RAF Waddington
RAF Warboys
RAF Westcott
RAF Wittering
RAF Wyton
shot down
Stirling
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
Victoria Cross
Wellington
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/183/2381/LWoodC1451225v1.1.pdf
216ec66745b3d4c0ff1f52309fe0300c
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
Wood, Colin
Description
An account of the resource
15 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Colin Wood (1922 - 2021, 1451225 Royal Air Force), his log book, service record and seven photographs including pictures of some of his crew. Colin Wood trained in Canada and flew operations as a navigator with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham. His crew were:
428289 - Andy A Anderson, pilot
1593692 - D Evans, flight engineer
1451225 - Colin Wood, navigator
1564707 - G H McElhone, bomb aimer
1873924 - P Thomas Tobin, wireless operator
1584474 - Vernon R Grogan, mid upper gunner
1595586 - R O Day, rear gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Colin Wood and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Wood, C
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
Colin Wood's Royal Canadian Air Force flying log book for aircrew other than pilot
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training, operational career and and post war flying of Colin Wood from 8 July 1943 to 7 February 1946. He trained in Canada and in Great Britain and was stationed at RAF Metheringham, RAF Coningsby and RAF Full Sutton. Aircraft flown in were Anson, Wellington, Stirling X, Lancaster I and III, Lancastrian, Dominie. He flew 25 night operations with 106 and 83 Squadrons to targets in Germany, Norway, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia: Bergen, Bohlen-Leipzig, Brunswick, Cham, Danzig, Dortmund-Ems canal, Dusseldorf, Harburg, Horten harbour, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Komatau, Lutzkendorf-Leipzig, Molbis-Leipzig, Munich, Trondheim and Wurtzberg, His pilot on operations was Flying Officer Anderson. Colin Wood also flew operation Exodus to Rheine and two operation Dodge to Bari. Additional remarks include corkscrew training, H2S, and stowaway Olive on cross country flight. Post-war 231 Squadron.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWoodC1451225v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Norway
Poland
Scotland
Czech Republic--Chomutov
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Kaiserslautern
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Munich
Germany--Rheine
Germany--Würzburg
Italy--Bari
Manitoba--Winnipeg
Norway--Bergen
Norway--Horten
Norway--Trondheim
Poland--Gdańsk
Scotland--Wigtownshire
Czech Republic
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Manitoba
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-09-23
1944-09-24
1944-09-26
1944-09-27
1944-09-28
1944-10-14
1944-10-15
1944-10-28
1944-10-29
1944-11-03
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-11
1944-11-12
1944-11-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-23
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-12-14
1944-12-15
1944-12-16
1944-12-17
1945-02-19
1945-02-20
1945-02-21
1945-02-23
1945-02-24
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-03-06
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-03-14
1945-03-15
1945-03-16
1945-03-17
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-09
1945-04-17
1945-04-18
1945-04-19
1945-05-10
1945-05-31
1945-09-13
1945-09-15
1945-09-29
1945-10-01
106 Squadron
1661 HCU
29 OTU
83 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Cook’s tour
Dominie
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lancastrian
navigator
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bitteswell
RAF Bruntingthorpe
RAF Coningsby
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Metheringham
RAF Syerston
RAF Warboys
RAF West Freugh
RAF Winthorpe
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/563/30558/PEdwardsAE16010001.2.jpg
2a0c734eb1a73966cf6a739b20dfba3a
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
Edwards, Allan Ernest
A E Edwards
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Edwards, AE
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. Collection concerns Warrant Officer Ernest Allan Edwards (b. 1924, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a flight engineer with 514, 7 and 582 Squadrons. Collection contains an oral history interview, biography, list of 42 operations and photographs of aircraft and people.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Ernest Allan Edwards and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-24
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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
Crew and aircraft
Description
An account of the resource
Top - seven aircrew all wearing battledress standing in two rows. Captioned 'Geo Wilcock (Nav 1), Nobby Clarke (Nav 11), Dave Hicks (W/Op), rish Miller (pilot), Sid Loseby (R.G.), Ron Baker (M.U.G.), Allan Edwards (F.E.)'. Titled 'Warboys Huntingdon March 1944'.
Bottom - front quarter view of a Lancaster on hardstanding. Titled 'Waterbeach 514 Squadron March 1944'. Captioned 'Lancaster Mk II LL684 A2"B" after having completed 3 operations. Shortly afterwards the photo was taken this aircraft was reported missing --- Frankfurt 22/23 March 1944'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1944-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PEdwardsAE16010001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Cambridgeshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-03
1944-03-22
1944-03-23
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.
514 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
dispersal
flight engineer
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
navigator
pilot
RAF Warboys
RAF Waterbeach
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/11929/[1]DAVID AND THE RAF2 [2].pdf
35b5401702ea96880cafe22e9866fad0
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DAVID AND THE RAF
My brother David’s very distinguished wartime career with the RAF - two DSOs and a DFC, and promotion to Wing Commander at 28 - warrants a separate appendix to these family notes. He has kindly helped me to compile it by giving me the run of his log books, and I have supplemented them from a number of other sources.
He became interested in flying in the early 1930s. I recall him taking his small brother of 9 or 10 to an air show at Eastleigh and abandoning him while he went up as passenger in a Tiger Moth doing aerobatics. That may well have given him the incentive to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1934 as a weekend pilot. He did much of his training at Hamble, on the Solent. When war broke out in September 1939 he was called up immediately and had to abandon his legal training. He spent the “phoney war” towing target drogues at a bombing and gunnery school at Evanton in Scotland. His log books show him rated as an “average” pilot.
At the end of April 1940, just before the Germans attacked in the West, he went to Brize Norton for intermediate training (earning an “above-average” rating) and then to Harwell for operational training on Wellingtons, the main twin-engined heavy bomber of the early war years. On 20th September, just as the Battle of Britain was ending, he was posted to his first operational squadron, No 149, part of No 3 Group, at the big pre-war air station at Mildenhall. His first operational sortie was over Calais towards the end of September, no doubt to attack the invasion barges.
Over the following five months he took part in some 31 night raids. The German defence at this time was relatively feeble by comparison with what was to follow, and so the tour was correspondingly tolerable; however bitter experience had shown that day bombing was much too costly, and the night bombing techniques were very inaccurate. His first raid on Berlin, at the end of October, was particularly eventful; they got hopelessly lost on their return, came in over Bristol, and ended up over Clacton as dawn was breaking with very little fuel left. There both the Army and the Navy opened up on them, and even the Home Guard succeeded in putting a bullet through the wing. They eventually made a forced crash landing at St Osyth. The Home Guard commander, a retired general, entertained him generously and he finally got back to Mildenhall where his Group Captain forgave him for the damaged aircraft and advised him to go out and get drunk. He took the advice, and in the pub he met a WAAF whom he married eight months later (maybe that is why he remembers that particular day so well.)
The gauntlet of Friendly Fire seems to have been a not uncommon hazard to be faced. On another occasion, when he had to make three circuits returning to Mildenhall, the airfield machine gunners opened fire on him from ground level; he thought they were higher up and judged his height accordingly, and narrowly missed the radio masts which were not, as he thought, below him.
The longest raids on this tour were trips of over ten hours to Italy: to Venice, which they overflew at low level, and to the Fiat works at Turin. He described the latter raid, and the spectacular views of the Alps it afforded, in a BBC broadcast in December 1940. The commonest targets were the Ruhr and other German cities, and some raids were made at lower level on shipping in French ports. The raid which won him the DFC was on 22nd November, on Merignac aerodrome near Bordeaux, which “difficult target he attacked from a height of 1,500 feet and successfully bombed hangars, causing large fires and explosions. As a result of his efforts the task of following aircraft was made easier ......... He has at all times displayed conspicuous determination and devotion to duty.”
It was at Mildenhall that he featured in a series of propaganda photos by Cecil Beaton,
“A Day in the Life of a Bomber Pilot”; they were given a good deal of publicity and in fact David appears in one of them on the cover of the recently published video of the 1941 propaganda film “Target for Tonight”, also made with the help of 149 Squadron - though he did not take part in the film. Beaton describes the occasion at some length in his published diaries, though he has thoroughly scrambled the names and personalities, and he “demoted“ David from captain to co-pilot in his scenario.
On completion of this tour, early in March 1941, David was detached on secondment to the Air Ministry to assist with buying aircraft in North America, and later to ferry aircraft within North America and across the Atlantic - he flew the Atlantic at least twice in Hudsons, taking 12 hours or more.
The “chop rate” in Bomber Command increased substantially during the first half of 1941. [Footnote: The average sortie life of aircrew in the Command was never higher than 9.2 and at one time was as low as eight, and during the dark days of 1941-1943 the average survival chances of anyone starting a 30-sortie tour was consistently under 40% and sometimes under 30%. In one disastrous raid, on Nuremburg in March 1944, 795 planes set out, 94 were shot down and another 12 crashed in Britain. During the war as a whole, out of some 125,000 aircrew who served with Bomber Command, 55,500 died.] This coupled with increasing doubts about the value of the results obtained led to a serious decline in aircrew morale. During the summer of 1941 the Germans had considerable success with intruders - fighter aircraft attacking the bombers as they took off or landed at their own bases. At the end of September David returned to No 3 Group and joined No 57 Squadron at Feltwell, still with Wellingtons. His third raid, over Dusseldorf on October 13th, was particularly difficult; they were badly shot up and with their hydraulics out of action they crash landed at Marham on their return. After two more raids the strain finally proved too much and he was admitted to hospital just before Christmas 1941; for the next two months he was there or on sick leave. From then until mid-July he was Group Tactical Officer at HQ No 3 Group, and not directly involved in operations. In July 1942 he was posted to No 15 Operational Training Unit, at Harwell and Hampstead Norris, where he spent six months as a flight commander flying Ansons and Wellingtons, though he did participate in one raid on Dusseldorf while he was there.
In spite of the appointment of Harris early in 1942 and the introduction of the Gee radio navigational aid, results were still considered disappointing, particularly over the Ruhr, and serious questions were raised about the future of Bomber Command. To improve matters, in August 1942 the elite Pathfinder Force was set up under Don Bennett, albeit in the face of considerable opposition from most of the group commanders who were reluctant to lose their best crews to it. At least initially, all the crews joining it had to be volunteers, and to be ready to undertake extended tours. Their task was to fly ahead of the Main Force in four waves: the Supporters, mainly less experienced crew carrying HE bombs, who were to saturate the defences and draw the flak; the Illuminators, who lit up the aiming point with flares; and the Primary Markers and Backers Up who marked the aiming point with indicators. Their methods became more and more refined as the war went on. The increased accuracy required of them, and their position at the head of the bomber stream, inevitably exposed them to greater danger and a higher casualty rate than those of the Main Force.
No 156 Squadron was one of the original units in the Force; it operated from the wartime airfield of Warboys with Wellingtons until the end of 1942 and thereafter with 4-engined Lancasters, the very successful heavy bomber which was the mainstay of Bomber Command in the later years. The squadron flew a total of 4,584 sorties with the loss of 143 aircraft - a ratio of 3.12%. David joined it in January 1943, again as a flight commander. In the following four months he carried out a further 23 raids (all but one as a pathfinder) in Lancasters. The log books note occasional problems - “coned”, “shot up on way in”, “slight flak damage”, and so on. [Footnote: "Coned" = caught in a cone of converging searchlights, an experience which he says put him off hunting for life.] Much of the period became known as the Battle of the Ruhr, though other targets were also being attacked. He told me once that the raid he was really proud to have been on was the one where instead of marking the targeted town (I think Dortmund) they marked in error a nearby wood, which the main force behind them duly obliterated; only after the war did the Germans express their admiration for the British Intelligence which had identified the highly secret installation hidden in the wood.........
One of the pages in his log book has a cutting from the Times inserted, evidently dated some years later, recalling how in April 1943 the spring came very early and the hedges were billowing with white hawthorn blossom. This puzzled me until I read in a book on 156 Squadron how that blossom had come to have the same significance for them as the Flanders poppies of the 1914-1918 war.
David was promoted to Wing Commander half way through the tour (pathfinders rated one rank above the comparable level elsewhere), and awarded the DSO towards the end of it. The recommendation for this said that he had “at all times pressed home his attacks with the utmost determination and courage in the face of heavy ground defences and fighters. As a pilot he shows powers of leadership and airmanship which have set an outstanding example to the rest of the squadron” - and Bennett himself added, noting that David had just flown four operational sorties in the last five days, “he has provided an example of determination and devotion to duty which it would be difficult to equal.”
On the end of this tour in June 1943, he was sent to command No 1667 Conversion Unit at Lindholme and later Faldingworth. In December 1943 he transferred to a staff appointment at the headquarters of the newly formed 100 (SD) Group at West Raynham and later Bylaugh Hall. At this stage in the war the methods of attack and defence were growing increasingly complex, and this group was formed as a Bomber Support Group, including nightfighters, deceptive measures, and radio countermeasures (RCM). In June 1944, just after D-Day, he was given command of No 192 (SD) Squadron based at Foulsham, another wartime airfield. This squadron had been formed in January 1943 as a specialist RCM unit, and it pioneered this type of operation in Bomber Command; it flew more sorties and suffered more losses (19 aircraft) than any other RCM squadron. While RCM and electronic intelligence were its primary purpose, its aircraft often carried bombs and dropped them on the Main Force targets. RCM took a number of forms - swamping enemy radar and jamming it with “window” tinfoil, looking for new radar types and gaps in its coverage, deceptive R/T transmissions to nightfighters, and so on - and one of the attractions of the work was the considerable measure of autonomy, and the freedom to plan their own operations. These extended to tasks such as searching for V2 launch sites (recorded as “whizzers” in David’s log book) and trying to identify the radio signals associated with them, and supporting the invasion of Walcheren in September. The squadron was equipped with Wellingtons (phased out at the end of 1944), Halifaxes and Mosquitoes, plus a detachment of USAAF Lightnings.
This role was the climax of his career, and lasted until the end of the war and after. It involved him in 25 operational sorties, all in Halifax IIIs, the much improved version of this initially disappointing 4-engined heavy bomber. They carried special electronic equipment and an extra crew member known as the Special Operator. The record of these sorties in the log books, for the most part so formal and statistical up to this point, becomes a little more anecdotal: “rubber-necking on beach” (when he took two senior officers to see the breaching of the dykes at Walcheren), “Munster shambles”, “Lanc blew up and made small hole in aircraft [but only] 4 lost out of 1200!” The furthest east he went was to Gdynia in Poland; on returning from there he had the privilege of becoming the first heavy aircraft to land at Foulsham using the FIDO fog dispersal system. “Finger Finger Fido” was the cryptic comment in the log book.
A number of these sorties were daytime; on one of them, on September 13th, he was chased home by two ME109s which made six attacks on him. One of them opened fire but thanks to violent evasive action his aircraft was undamaged: his own gunners never got a chance to fire. No doubt it was skill of this sort, as well as his survival record, which gave his crew great faith in David’s ability to get them home safely. An encounter on December 29th 1944, on a Window patrol over the Ruhr, was not quite so satisfying; they claimed to have damaged a Ju88 which subsequently proved to be an unhurt Mosquito X from Swannington - and the Mosquito had identified them as a Lancaster. The log entry concludes “Oh dear. FIDO landing, flew into ground. What a day.”
He was awarded a bar to his DSO in July 1945. The recommendation, made in March, recorded that “since being posted to his present squadron he has carried out every one of his sorties in the same exemplary fashion and has set his crews an extremely high standard of devotion to duty and bravery. This standard has had a direct influence on the whole specialist work of the squadron.
“He has been personally responsible for the planning of all the sorties carried out by his special duty unit and by his brilliant understanding and quick appreciation of the everchanging nature of the investigational role of his squadron, much of the success of the investigations performed by his aircraft can be attributed to him. He has shown himself to be fearless and cool in the face of danger, and towards the end of his tour made a point of putting himself on the most arduous and difficult operations.
“Both on the ground and in the air he has been untiring and has not spared himself in his efforts to get his squadron up to the high standard which it has now reached.”
The squadron was disbanded in September, by which time David had completed 501 hours of operations against the enemy in 86 sorties, the great majority of them as captain of his aircraft. He had no ambition to make a permanent career in the RAF; he has commented to Richard that this fact gave him a degree of independence in his dealing with his superiors that he thinks they appreciated and valued. He was demobilised in November and returned to his interrupted law studies.
* * * * * * * * * *
I showed these notes to David, who thought them well written but suggested that they gave a twisted view of the reality - a reaction that I can understand. Since then, however, I have managed to contact one man who flew with David: H B (Hank) Cooper DSO DFC, who first met David in 149 Squadron which he joined in January 1941 as a wireless operator / air gunner for his first tour, and later did two tours as a Special Operator in 192 Squadron, the second of them under David's command. On two occasions he flew as a member of David's crew.
He has written of David that "he was always completely fearless and outstandingly brave and pressed home his attacks to the uttermost. As the Squadron's CO he generated loyalty and warmth, he was an outstanding model to follow. He spent much trouble and time encouraging his junior air crews as well as helping and seeing to the needs of the ground technicians who serviced the aircraft, generally in cold and difficult conditions. He was completely non-boastful, in fact he belittled his own actions (which were always of the highest order) when discussing air operations. [That rings very true!] He was an outstanding squadron commander in all respects, much liked and completely respected by all his air crews and ground crews."
G N D
March 2002
Dublin Core
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Title
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David and the RAF
Description
An account of the resource
Account of Wing Commander David Donaldson's RAF career from his early interest in flying and joining the Royal Air Force volunteer reserve in 1934, call up in 1939 and operational tours on 149 Squadron, 57 Squadron, flight commander 156 Squadron pathfinders and commanding 192 (special duties) squadron. Includes training, descriptions of notable operations and incidents, postings between tours to headquarters and training units, pathfinder techniques, radio countermeasures and award of two Distinguished Service Orders and a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Creator
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G N Donaldson
Date
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2002-03
Format
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Four page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BDonaldsonGNDonaldsonDWv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Hampshire
England--Hamble-le-Rice
England--Eastleigh
England--Oxfordshire
England--Norfolk
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Scotland--Evanton
England--Suffolk
England--Huntingdonshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Bristol
England--Essex
England--Clacton-on-Sea
Italy
Italy--Venice
Italy--Turin
Germany
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Dortmund
Netherlands
Netherlands--Walcheren
England--Berkshire
France
France--Bordeaux Region (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Poland
Poland--Gdynia
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Gloucestershire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1934
1939
1940-04
1940-09-20
1940-10
1940-12
1941-10-22
1941
1941-04
1942
1942-07
1942-08
1943
1943-01
1943-04
1943-06
1944
1944-06
1944-09-13
1944-12-29
1945
1945-07
Conforms To
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Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Frances Grundy
100 Group
149 Squadron
15 OTU
156 Squadron
1667 HCU
192 Squadron
3 Group
57 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
FIDO
forced landing
Gee
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 109
Mosquito
Operational Training Unit
P-38
Pathfinders
pilot
propaganda
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Evanton
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Warboys
RAF West Raynham
target indicator
training
Wellington
Window
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
D.W.D
Born 31.1.15 at The Elms Peartree Avenue Bitterne Southampton
Education
1915 – Sept 1923 Miss Jane Mary Neale Nurse
Miss Dorothy Mary Blake Governess
Sept 1923 – July 1928 Newlands Seaford Sussex
Sept 1928 – March 1933 Charterhouse Godalming Surrey
May – July (incl) 1933 Mdme La Comtesse de la Rive
St. Avertin, Tours, Indre et Loire, France
October 1933 – June 1936 Trinity College Cambridge
Law Tripos Pts I & II
October 1936 – September 1939 Articled Clerk to Solicitors Messrs Stephenson Harwood & Tatham 16, Old Broad St. London E.C.3.
R.A.F
13.VIII.34 Joined Reserve of Air Force Officers Class AA2 (P.O. on probation)
Trained mostly at Hamble ATS. Avro Cadets [inserted] & B2 [/inserted] and Hawker Harts and variants One annual flying training at Hanworth Some ground training in London One attachment to RAF Calshot
1.2.38 Transferred to RAFVR
13.VIII.39 Appointed for a second 5 year term
[page break]
2
RAF (continued)
3.9.39 Mobilised and posted to RAF Evanton (Scotland)
No 8 Air Observers School later No 8 Bombing and Gunnery School.
Target Towing on Henleys
27.4.40 After applying to go on ops posted to No 2 S.F.TS (Service Flying Training
– 9.8.40 School) Oxfords
10.8.40. Posted to RAF Harwell No 15 Operational Training Unit – Wellington
– 19.9.40 Joined up with crew incl P/O Ken Lawson & P/O Gordon Woollatt, Sgts Bell [indecipherable word] Frankie Bullen & Lewis (N.Z.).
20.9.40 Posted to R.A.F Mildenhall No 149 Squadron.
– 7.3.41 Wellington ICs.
31 Ops
Dec 1940 Acting Flight Lt.
6.1.41 Engaged
Jan 1941 DFC.
8.3.41 Detached to Air Ministry for British Purchasing Commission, New York.
Went there by convoy in a Dutch Boat. Sent from New York to Montreal [deleted (P) [/deleted] (by train) to C.P.R . Air Services Ltd (Atfero). Ferried Hudson V to Gander Newfoundland (8 June) and thence to Prestwick 14 June.
19.6.41 Married to J.D.
Sent back to RAF to take a Wellington with special tanks out to USAF – Took aircraft to Kemble July and stayed with Bathhursts at Cirencester. Then to Nutts Corner North Ireland – Joyce joined us – then on 6 August to
[page break]
3
Reykjavik Iceland. Saw Churchill – signing Atlantic Charter with Roosevelt. 21 August to Gander Newfoundland. St Hubert Canada and on 27 August to Wright Field Dayton Ohio U.S.A. – over Niagara –
6 September took Hudson III to Gander and then to Prestwick.
26.9.41 Posted to 57 Squadron & then Methwold. After 5 abortive raids & one or 2 prangs went sick with flying strain (& fright). Posted to S.H.Q Feltwell (20.XII.41) in hospital at Ely and Littleport. 24/12/41 – 30.1.42.
Sick leave 31.1.42 – 27.2.42.
Lost acting rank of S/L & reverted to F/L.
9.3.42. Posted to H.Q 3 Group at Exning – Tactics Officer
Recovered acting rank of S/Ldr
15.7.42 Posted to No.15. OTU Harwell (G/C Fogarty) for instructing duties at Hampsted Norris on Wellingtons (W/Cdr T Rivett Carnac) – 1 Operation (10.9.42).
18.1.43 Posted to No 156 Squadron P.F.F at Warboys (W/Cdr T Rivett Carnac) – Navigator Ken Lawson
6.3.43 Flight Commander & W/Cdr.
23 Ops. D.S O. 15.5.43.
21.6.43.Posted to 3 [inserted] 100 [/inserted] Group as W/Cdr Air 1 (or DSASO) [inserted] Faldingworth Bylaugh Hall 1. [deleted] Ops [/deleted] Op in Beaufighter as passenger on [/inserted] instruction (20.XII 1943
12.6.44 Posted as W/Cdr C.O. 192 [inserted] (SD & BS) [/inserted] Squadron at RAF FOULSHAM
23 ops – 17.7.45. Bar to DSO
V.E Day 8.5.45.
22.8.45 192 Squadron Disbanded Flying Wing Radio Warfare Establishment
6.9.45. Posted to H.P 100 Group as W/Cdr Ops
1.10.45. Posted to 100 P.D.C Uxbridge
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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David Donaldson's CV
Description
An account of the resource
Service history of David Donaldson including postings, promotions and awards.
Creator
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David Donaldson
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Frances Grundy
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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Three handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BDonaldsonDWDonaldsonDWv10001, BDonaldsonDWDonaldsonDWv10002, BDonaldsonDWDonaldsonDWv10003
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
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
100 Group
149 Squadron
15 OTU
156 Squadron
192 Squadron
3 Group
57 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
fear
Hudson
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
RAF Evanton
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Methwold
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Warboys
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1213/15106/LDonaldsonDW70185v1.1.pdf
1a7c7740b88e474aee2629a899eb7201
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Donaldson, David
David Donaldson
D Donaldson
Description
An account of the resource
309 Items and a sub-collection of 51 items. Concerns Royal Air Force career of Wing Commander David Donaldson DSO and bar, DFC. A pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Reserve in 1934. Mobilized in 1939. he undertook tours on 149, 57 and 156 and 192 Squadrons. He was photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF Mildenhall in 1941. Collection contains a large number of letters to and from family members, friends as well as Royal Air Force personnel. Also included are personal and service documents, and his logbooks. In addition, there are photographs of family, service personnel and aircraft. After the war he became a solicitor. The collection also contains an oral history interview with Frances Grundy, his daughter.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Anna Frances Grundy and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-02
2022-10-17
Rights
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
Donaldson, D
Grundy, AF
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Cutting from the Times that was attached to the page with the entry for October 23rd 1940
THE TIMES WEDENESDAY DECEMBER 30 1953
[Photograph of a stone archway] The gatehouse entrance to St. Osyth’s Priory.
SALE OF ST. OSYTH’S PRIORY ESTATE
NEW OWNER’S PLANS
St. Osyth’s Priory estate, on the Colne estuary, near Colchester, Essex, has been bought by Mr Somerset de Chair. He intends to preserve the priory, which is in excellent architectural condition and includes a flint and ashlar gatehouse erected in 1475.
This historic place was bought in 1949 by the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds Friendly Society from Brigadier-General K. J. Kincaid-Smith for £30,000. It was then planned to build a war memorial in the grounds and to restore the thirteenth-century chapel.
St. Osyth’s Priory derives its name from Osyth, granddaughter of Penda, King of Mercia. When the Danes sacked the property, they killed the nuns and beheaded the Prioress Osyth. The priory was founded by Richard de Balmeis, Bishop of London, in 1118, on the site of a nunnery, but the earliest surviving building is the small chapel, with its fine groined arches supported on slender pillars.
Mr. de Chair informed The Times yesterday that he hoped to work the priory farm, and might convert the gatehouse into a pied-à-terre.
Lofts and Warner. Of London, and Percival and Co., of Sudbury, have acted as agents for the vendors in the sale of the estate.
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Newspaper cutting that was attached to the summary page for April 1943
THE COURSE OF NATURE
THE “MIRACLE OF SPRING”
FROM A CORRESPONDENT
The fine weather since Easter has brought things on. There is again the miracle of Spring. It is perhaps a minor miracle compared with April 1943, when by St. George’s Day the trees were leafy as in June, and the hedges heavy with the scent of hawthorn, so that many, seeing and smelling the billowing masses of white blossom, were content that this was out, and, not waiting for the following month’s exit to give permission, too hurriedly cast their clouts.
If in the woods there is as yet no density of green above, nor bridal white of wild cherry blossom, there is no lack of green and white below, for the bluebells, soon to bloom, have raised a thousand gleaming dark green spears, in contrast to which there are the dainty pale green shamrock leaves of wood sorrel, graced by pendant silver bells, most delicately veined. Pendant, too, on a dull or cloudy day, but raise and opening wide to the sun, are the white wood anemones, which now make a starry heaven underneath the trees. There are other stars, the glossy bright gold stars of the celandines, and, in ever-widening constellations, the “milky way” of primroses. In woodland, too, as well as in meadows, one finds the “lady-smocks all silver white” (though more usually the palest shade of mauve) as well as “violets blue,” which may be pale wood violets if the spur is darker than the petals or dark wood violets if the spur is paler, and it is often a creamy white. Such is the absurdity of some English names. Add to these the quaintly attractive green flowers of the moschatel, the small white flowers of the barren strawberry, and, where the ground drops to the merest trickle of a woodland stream, the pale gold of the golden saxifrage, and one has, indeed, a few short weeks from ice and snow, “the miracle of Spring.”
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THE TIMES
THE REGISTER [Crest]
DEBATE: THE HUTTON REPORT page 80 ▪ COURT & SOCIAL: MANOR OF DULWICH page 82
OBITUARIES
WING COMMANDER DAVID DONALDSON
Pilot who bombed Hitler’s invasion barges in Calais harbour and flew with the Pathfinders
[Photograph of a pilot leaning against the wing of an aircraft] Donaldson with a Wellington of 149 Squadron: the type was the mainstay of Bomber Command earlier in the war
IN WHAT was, given the cruel statistics of wartime flying, a remarkably long career on bombing operations, David Donaldson flew his first raids during the Battle of Britain in September 1940, when Bomber Command’s techniques were in their infancy, and he was still there at the end. He participated in Pathfinder ops in 1941, by which time the whole strategic air offensive had taken on a much more scientific cast and was beginning to achieve results. And he was still airborne over enemy territory on electronic countermeasures missions in the last months of the war, by which time the RAF, and the US Army Air Forces were masters of the skies over Western Europe.
In four tours of operations, Donaldson flew 86 sorties, a figure which put him well above the average survival chances. During Bomber Command’s worst days in 1941 and 1942 (if one discounts the virtual suicide missions against heavily defended German naval bases in December 1939), the average life in the command was as low as eight sorties.
David William Donaldson was born in 1915 at Southampton, a son of the managing director of the Thorneycroft shipyard. He was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a keen rower. Taking a boat over to Germany with the First Trinity Boat Club in the mid-1930s, he enjoyed the hospitality of boat clubs in the Rhineland – and at the same time became sharply aware of the culture of aggression that was taking over the German psyche with the advent of Hitler.
In 1934 he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve as a weekend pilot, and did much of his flying training at Hamble. After graduating at Cambridge he had joined a firm of solicitors in London. But his articles were interrupted in September 1939 when he was called up.
After basic training he did operational training on Wellington bombers and on September 20 was sent to 149 (Wellington) Squadron at Mildenhall, Suffolk. No 149 had already been involved in some desperate missions: the forlorn-hope attack on German shipping at Wilhelmshaven on December 18, 1939; the equally hopeless attempt to stem the German advance in the Low Countries in May 1940; and a brave but futile transalpine lunge at Genoa in June after Italy had opportunistically entered the war on the German side. Now it was ordered to attack invasion barges which had been collected in Channel ports, and Donaldson’s first sortie was a daytime raid on Calais harbours.
With the end of the Battle of Britain, No 149 was redirected to strategic bombing. This was soon to be revealed as far too dangerous against flak and fighter defences by day, and was therefore conducted by night, which (frequent) bad weather made locating targets extremely difficult in the state of development of navigational aids at the time.
During the winter of 1940-41 the main effort was against targets in the relatively close Ruhr, but there was a much longer sortie, to Berlin, in vile weather, in October. This ended with Donaldson’s Wellington becoming completely lost on the return trip. At length, with fuel running perilously low, he achieved a casualty free forced manding at St. Osyth, near Clacton.
There were further attacks on northern Italian industrial cities, one of which, an attack on the Fiat works at Turin, Donaldson was asked by the BBC to describe a radio broadcast in December 1940. Instead of dwelling on the difficulties of such a mission, he eloquently described the majesty of the snow covered Alps for his audience.
Donaldson won his DFC for a highly successful raid on Merignac aerodrome, near Bordeaux, which he bombed from a height of 1,500ft, destroying its large hangars. Further publicity for these early efforts by Bomber Command came from his featuring in a series of propaganda photographs taken by Cecil Beaton, entitled A Day in the Life of a Bomber Pilot. Once of these, which features the aircrew of a 149 Squadron Wellington at Mildenhall, adorns the cover of a recently published video of the 1941 propaganda film Target for Tonight.
Donaldson was “rested” after completion of his tour in March 1941. But there was still plenty of flying to be done. He was seconded to the Air Ministry to help buy aircraft in the US. This turned out to involve hazardous ferry flying across the Atlantic of American aircraft that had been purchased, notably the invaluable Hudson long-range patrol bomber for Coastal Command.
In September Donaldson returned to operations with 57 Squadron, another Wellington unit. Bomber Command was faring no better than it had been earlier in terms of results, and an improvement in German air defences was increasing the rate of losses among aircrew, with corresponding effects on RAF morale. No 57 was roughly handled. In a raid over Düsseldorf in October, Donaldson’s aircraft was badly shot up and limped home without hydraulics. The undercarriage could not be lowered and the sortie ended with a crash landing at Marham. After several more raids Donaldson succumbed to the strain and at the end of the year was admitted to hospital.
After a period of sick leave he was posted as group tactical officer to 3 Group, but in July 1942 the air beckoned again when he was posted to No 15 Operational Training Unit for six months as a flight commander. Though this was not supposed to be a frontline unit, he did get in one operational trip, to Düsseldorf, during this period.
Then, in January 1943, he was appointed a flight commander to 156 Squadron, one of the original units of the Pathfinder Force, which had been making strides in the improvement of bombing through its marking techniques since its formation under the Australian Don Bennett six months previously. The four-engined Lancaster was now the mainstay of Bomber Command and both the weight and accuracy of the air offensive began to assume a different dimension. With No 156 Donaldson carried out 23 raids, and was awarded the DSO and promoted to wing commander at the end of his tour. Bennett himself said of Donaldson, “He has provided an example of determination and devotion to duty which it would be difficult to equal.”
Rested again in June 1943, Donaldson commanded a conversion unit and then went as a staff officer to No 100 (Special Duties) Group. The air war had changed out of all recognition and the need to be able to jam and confuse the enemy’s radars and radio direction beacons was well recognised.
In June 1944, just after D-Day, Donaldson was back in the air again in command of 192 (SD) Squadron. Flying a mixture of Wellingtons, Halifaxes and Mosquitoes, over the remaining months of the war No 192 sought out and jammed the enemy’s radio and communication systems using methods ranging from the well-tried “window” – dropping steel foil strips – to more sophisticated electronic deception techniques.
Leading the Squadron in a Halifax III, Donaldson flew 25 more sorties, some of them in daytime. On one daylight operation he was attacked by two Bf109s. Rather than trying to shoot it out against the cannon armed fighters with the Halifax’s 303in machineguns, Donaldson chose to evade the foe by violent and skilful evasive action, and brought his aircraft and crew safely home. He was awarded his second DSO in July 1945.
Donaldson had no ambition to further a career in the RAF and on demobilisation he resumed his law articles and qualified as a solicitor. After four years in the City firm Parker Garrett he joined National Employers Mutual Insurance, where he was at first company secretary and later a director. He left NEM to become chairman of an industrial tribunal, which he greatly enjoyed, presiding over some notable cases. He finally retired in 1987.
His wife Joyce, whom he married when she was a WAAF officer during the war, died in 1996. He is survived by a daughter and two sons.
Wing Commander David Donaldson, DSO and Bar, DFC, wartime bomber pilot and solicitor, was born on January 31, 1915. He died on January 15, 2004, aged 88.
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DAVID AND THE RAF
My brother David’s very distinguished wartime career with the RAF – two DSOs and a DFC, and promotion to Wing Commander at 28 – warrants a separate appendix to these family notes. He has kindly helped me to compile it by giving me the run of his log books, and I have supplemented them from a number of other sources.
He became interested in flying in he early 1930s. I recall him taking his small brother of 9 or 10 to an air show at Eastleigh and abandoning him while he went up as a passenger in a Tiger Moth doing aerobatics. That may well have given him the incentive to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1934 as a weekend pilot. He did much of his training at Hamble on the Solent. When war broke out in September 1939 he was called up immediately and had to abandon his legal training. He spent the “phoney war” towing target drogues at a bombing and gunnery school at Evanton in Scotland. His log books show him rated as an “average” pilot.
At the end of April 1940, just before the Germans attacked in the West, he went to Brize Norton for immediate training (earning an “above-average” rating) and then to Harwell for operational training on Wellingtons, the main twin-engined heavy bomber of the early war years. On 20th September, just as the Battle of Britain was ending, he was posted to his first operational squadron, No 149, part of No 3 Group, at the big pre-war station at Mildenhall. His first operational sortie was over Calais towards the end of September, no doubt to attack the invasion barges.
Over the following five months he took part in some 31 night raids. The German defence at this time was relatively feeble by comparison with what was to follow, and so the tour was correspondingly tolerable; however bitter experience had shown that day bombing was much too costly, and the night bombing techniques were very inaccurate. His first raid on Berlin, at the end of October, was particularly eventful; they got hopelessly lost on their return, came in over Bristol, and ended up over Clacton as dawn was breaking with very little fuel left. There both the Army and the Navy opened up on them, and even the Home Guard succeeded in putting a bullet through the wing. They eventually made a forced crash landing at St. Osyth. The Home Guard commander, a retired general, entertained him generously and he finally got back to Mildenhall where his Group Captain forgave him for the damaged aircraft and advised him to go out and get drunk. He took the advice, and in the pub he met a WAAF whom he married eight months later (maybe that is why he remembers that particular day so well.)
The gauntlet of Friendly Fire seems to have been a not uncommon hazard to be faced. On another occasion, when he had to make three circuits returning to Mildenhall, the airfield machine gunners opened fire on him from ground level; he thought they were higher up and judged his height accordingly, and narrowly missed the radio masts which were not, as he thought, below him.
The longest raids on this tour were trips of over ten hours to Italy: to Venice, which they overflew at low level, and to the Fiat works at Turin. He described the latter raid, and the spectacular views of the Alps it afforded, in a BBC broadcast in December 1940. The commonest targets were the Ruhr and other German cities, and some raids were made at lower level on shipping in French ports. The raid which won him the DFC was on 22nd November, on Merignac aerodrome near Bordeaux, which “difficult target he attacked from a height of 1,500 feet and successfully bombed hangars, causing large fires and explosions. As a result of his efforts the task of following aircraft was made easier … He has at all times displayed conspicuous determination and devotion to duty.”
It was at Mildenhall that he featured in a series of propaganda photos by Cecil Beaton,
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= 2 =
“A Day in the Life of a Bomber Pilot”; they were given a good deal of publicity and in fact David appears in one of them on the cover of a recently published video of the 1941 propaganda film “Target for Tonight”, also made with the help of 149 Squadron – though he did not take part in the film. Beaton describes the occasion at some length in his published diaries, though he has thoroughly scrambled the names and personalities, and he “demoted David from captain to co-pilot in his scenario.
On completion of this tour, early in March 1941, David was detached on secondment to the Air Ministry to assist with buying aircraft in North America, and later to ferry aircraft within North America and across the Atlantic – he flew the Atlantic at least twice in Hudsons, taking 12 hours or more.
The “chop rate” 1 in Bomber Command increased substantially during the first half of 1941. This coupled with increasing doubts about the value of the results obtained led to a serious decline in aircrew morale. During the summer of 1941 the Germans had considerable success with intruders – fighter aircraft attacking the bombers as they took off or landed at their own bases. At the end of September David returned to No 3 Group and joined No 57 Squadron at Feltwell, still with Wellingtons. His third raid, over Dusseldorf on October 13th, was particularly difficult; they were badly shot up and with their hydraulics out of action they crash landed at Marham on their return. After two more raids the strain finally proved too much and he was admitted to hospital just before Christmas 1941; for the next two months he was there or on sick leave. From then until mid-July he was Group Tactical Officer at HQ No 3 Group, and not directly involved in operations. In July 1942 he was posted to No 15 Operational Training Unit, at Harwell and Hampstead Norris, where he spent six months as a flight commander flying Ansons and Wellingtons, though he did participate in one raid on Dusseldorf while he was there.
In spite of the appointment of Harris in early 1942 and the introduction of the Gee radio navigational aid, results were still considered disappointing, particularly over the Ruhr, and serious questions were raised about the future of Bomber Command. To improve matters, in August 1942 the elite Pathfinder Force was set up under Don Bennett, albeit in the face of considerable opposition from most of the group commanders who were reluctant to lose their best crews to it. At least initially, all the crews joining it had to be volunteers, and to be ready to undertake extended tours. Their task was to fly ahead of the Main Force in four waves; the Supporters, mainly less experienced crew carrying HE bombs, who were to saturate the defences and draw the flak; the Illuminators, who lit up the aiming point with flares; and the Primary Markers and Backer Up who marked the aiming point with indicators. Their methods became more and more refined as the war went on. The increased accuracy required of them, and their position at the head of the bomber stream, inevitably exposed them to greater danger and a higher casualty rate than those of the Main Force.
No 156 Squadron was one of the original units in the Force; it operated from the wartime airfield of Warboys with Wellingtons until the end of 1942 and thereafter with 4-engined Lancasters, the very successful heavy bomber which was the mainstay of Bomber Command in the later years. The squadron flew a total of 4,584 sorties with the loss of 143 aircraft – a ratio of 3.12%. David joined it in January 1943, again as a flight commander. In the following four months he carried out a further 23 raids (all but one as a pathfinder) in Lancasters. The log books note occasional problems – “coned 2”, “shot up on way
1 The average sortie life of aircrew in the Command was never higher than 9.2 and at one time was as low as eight, and during the dark days of 1941-1943 the average survival chances of anyone starting a 30-sortie tour was consistently under 40% and sometimes under 30%. In one disastrous raid, on Nuremburg in March 1944, 795 planes set out, 94 were shot down and another 12 crashed in Britain. During the war as a whole, out of some 125,000 aircrew who served with Bomber Command, 55,000 died.
2 “Coned” – caught in a cone of converging searchlights, as experience which says put him off hunting for life.
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= 3 =
in”, “slight flak damage”, and so on. Much of the period became known as the Battle of the Ruhr, though other targets were also being attacked. He told me once that the raid he was really proud to have been on was the one where instead of marking the targeted town (I think Dortmund) they marked in error a nearby wood, which the main force behind them duly obliterated; only after the war did the Germans express their admiration for the British Intelligence which had identified the highly secret installation hidden in the wood …
One of the pages in his log book has a cutting from the Times inserted, evidently dated some years later, recalling how in April 1943 the spring came very early and the hedges were billowing with white hawthorn blossom. This puzzled me until I read in a book on 156 Squadron how that blossom had come to have the same significance for them as the Flanders poppies of the 1914-1918 war.
David was promoted to Wing Commander half way through the tour (pathfinders rated one rank above the comparable level elsewhere), and awarded the DSO towards the end of it. The recommendation for this said that he had “at all times pressed home his attacks with the utmost determination and courage in the face of heavy ground defences and fighters. As a pilot he shows powers of leadership and airmanship which have set an outstanding example to the rest of the squadron” – and Bennett himself added, noting that David had just flown four operational sorties in the last five days, “he has provided an example of determination and devotions to duty which it would be difficult to equal.”
On the end of this tour in June 1943, he was sent to command No 1667 Conversion Unit at Lindholme and later Faldingworth. In December 1943 he transferred to a staff appointment at the headquarters of the newly formed 100 (SD) Group at West Raynham and later Bylaugh Hall. At this stage in the war the methods of attack and defence were growing increasingly complex, and this group was formed as a Bomber Support Group, including nightfighters, deceptive measures, and radio countermeasures (RCM). In June 1944, just after D-Day, he was given command of No 192 (SD) Squadron based at Foulsham, another wartime airfield. This squadron had been formed in January 1943 as a specialist RCM unit, and it pioneered this type of operation in Bomber Command; it flew more sorties and suffered more losses (19 aircraft) than any other RCM squadron. While RCM and electronic intelligence were its primary purpose, its aircraft often carried bombs and dropped them on the Main Force targets. RCM took a number of forms – swamping enemy radar and jamming it with “window” tinfoil, looking for new radar types and gaps in its coverage, deceptive R/T transmissions to nightfighters and so on – and one of the attractions of the work was the considerable measure of autonomy, and the freedom to plan their own operations. These extended to tasks such as searching for V2 launch sites (recorded as “whizzers” in David’s log book) and trying to identify the radio signals associated with them, and supporting the invasion of Walcheren in September. The squadron was equipped with Wellingtons (phased out at the end of 1944), Halifaxes and Mosquitoes, plus a detachment of USAAF Lightnings.
This role was the climax of his career, and lasted until the end of the war and after. It involved him in 25 operational sorties, all in Halifax IIIs, the much improved version of this initially disappointing 4-engined heavy bomber. They carried special electronic equipment and an extra crew member known as the Special Operator. The record of these sorties in the log books, for the most part so formal and statistical up to this point, becomes a little more anecdotal: “rubber-necking on beach “ (when he took two senior officers to see the breaching of the dykes at Walcheren), “Munster shambles”, “Lanc blew up and made small hole in aircraft [but only] 4 lost out of 1200!” The furthest east he went was to Gdynia in Poland; on returning from there he had the privilege of becoming the first heavy aircraft to land at Foulsham using the FIDO fog dispersal system. “Finger Finger Fido” was the cryptic comment in the log book.
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= 4 =
A number of these sorties were daytime; on one of them, on September 13th, he was chased home by two ME109s which made six attacks on him. One of them opened fire but thanks to violent evasive action his aircraft was undamaged: his own gunners never got a chance to fire. No doubt it was skill of this sort, as well as his survival record, which gave his crew great faith in David’s ability to get them home safely. An encounter on December 29th 1944, on a Window patrol over the Ruhr, was not quite so satisfying; they claimed to have damaged a Ju88 which subsequently proved to be an unhurt Mosquito X from Swannington – and the Mosquito had identified them as a Lancaster. The log book entry concludes “Oh dear. FIDO landing, flew into ground. What a day.”
He was awarded a bar to his DSO in July 1945. The recommendation, made in March, recorded that “since being posted to his present squadron he has carried out every one of his sorties in the same exemplary fashion and has set his crews an extremely high standard of devotion to duty and bravery. This standard has had a direct influence on the whole specialist work of the squadron.
“He has been personally responsible for the planning of all the sorties carried out by his special duty unit and by his brilliant understanding and quick appreciation of the everchanging nature of the investigational role of his squadron, much of the success of the investigations performed by his aircraft can be attributed to him. He has shown himself to be fearless and cool in the face of danger, and towards the end of his tour made a point of putting himself on the most arduous and difficult operations.
“Both on the ground and in the air he has been untiring and has not spared himself in his efforts to get his squadron up to the high standard which it has now reached.”
The squadron was disbanded in September, by which time David had completed 501 hours of operations against the enemy in 86 sorties, the great majority of them as captain of his aircraft, He had no ambition to make a permanent career in the RAF; he has commented to Richard that this fact gave him a degree of independence in his dealing with his superiors that he thinks they appreciated and valued. He was demobilised in November and returned to his interrupted law studies.
…….
I showed these notes to David, who thought them well written but suggested that they gave a twisted view of the reality – a reaction that I can understand. Since then, however, I have managed to contact one man who flew with David: HB (Hank) Cooper DSO DFC, who first met David in 149 Squadron which he joined in January 1941 as a wireless operator / air gunner for his first tour, and later did two tours as a Special Operator in 192 Squadron, the second of them under David’s command. On two occasions he flew as a member of David’s crew.
He has written of David that “he was always completely fearless and outstandingly brave and pressed home his attacks to the uttermost. As the Squadron’s CO he generated loyalty and warmth, he was an outstanding model to follow. He spent much trouble and time encouraging his junior air crews as well as helping and seeing to the needs of the ground technicians who serviced the aircraft, generally in cold and difficult conditions. He was completely non-boastful, in fact he belittled his own actions (which were always of the highest order) when discussing air operations. (That rings very true!) He was an outstanding squadron commander in all respects, much liked and completely respected by all his air crews and ground crews.”
GND
March 2002
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Temple Bar 1217
TEL. Extn. 2631
Correspondence on the subject of this letter should be addressed to:-
PS. THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE,
AIR MINISTRY S. 7. E.
and should quote the reference:-
S.7.e/79693.
[Crest] AIR MINISTRY,
LONDON, W.C.2.
26 March, 1949.
Sir,
I am directed to refer to your letter dated 21st March, 1949, regarding those awards due to you in respect of your service in the 1939/45 World War, and to inform you that your entitlement to the 1939/45 Star, Air Crew Europe Star with the France and Germany Clasp, and the War Medal has been established. These awards will be despatched to you shortly.
2. It is regretted that as you did not complete three years wartime non-operational service in the United Kingdom, the Defence Medal cannot be authorised. The Air Efficiency Award will not be ready for issue for some time. Application will not be necessary, but I am to request that you will notify this Department of any change in your permanent address, so that the award may be sent to you as soon as it becomes available.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
[Signature]
Wing Commander D.W. Donaldson, D.S.O., D.F.C.,
1a, Crescent Place,
London, S.W.3.
[Crest] Rep’d 29/3/49 & pointed out total of No of service in UK was 3 yrs 4 mth 120 day
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David Donaldson's pilot's flying log book. One
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LDonaldsonDW70185v1
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Pilots flying log book for David W Donaldson. This is a newly bound compilation of 3 log books covering the period from 12 March 1938 to 19 September 1945. Detailing his flying training, operations flown, Instructor duties and special duties flying. He was stationed at RAF Hamble, RAF Hanworth, RAF Evanton, RAF Brize Norton, RAF Harwell, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Feltwell, RAF Wyton, RAF Exning, RAF Hampstead Norris, RAF Warboys, RAF Lindholme, RAF West Raynham, RAF Bylaugh Hall and RAF Foulsham. Aircraft flown were, Cadet, B2, Hart, Hind, Magister, Henley, Oxford, Wellington, Hudson, Mentor, Anson, Lancaster, Tiger Moth, Halifax, Proctor and Moth Minor. He flew a total of 86 Night operations, 31 with 149 squadron, 5 with 57 squadron, 1 with 15 OTU, 23 With 156 squadron and 26 with 192 squadron. Targets were, Calais, Le Havre, Flushing, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Duisburg, Merignac, Mannheim, Turin, Bordeaux, Lorient, Bremen, Venice, Wilhelmshaven, Hannover, Brest, Cherbourg, Dunkirk, Dusseldorf, Emden, Milan, Nurnberg, Stuttgart, St Nazaire, Kiel, Frankfurt, Spezia, Dortmund, Pilsen, Munster, North Sea, Walcheren, Bochum, Hagen, Merseburg, Gdynia, Wiesbaden, Politz, Chemnitz, Ladbergen, Dessau, Stade, Moblis and Berchtesgarten. His first or second pilots on operations were Pilot Officer Woollatt, Pilot Officer Morrison, Flying Officer Henderson, Sergeant Horn, Pilot Officer Garton, Pilot Officer Pelletier, Sergeant Wilson, Flight Lieutenant Meir, Major Leboutte, Flying Officer Parr, Wing Commander Chisholm and Wing Commander Willis. The log book contains newspaper clippings and a summary of his exploits written by his brother.
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
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1940-09-25
1940-10-01
1940-10-02
1940-10-09
1940-10-10
1940-10-13
1940-10-14
1940-10-15
1940-10-16
1940-10-21
1940-10-22
1940-10-23
1940-10-24
1940-11-06
1940-11-07
1940-11-08
1940-11-09
1940-11-13
1940-11-14
1940-11-15
1940-11-16
1940-11-17
1940-11-18
1940-11-19
1940-11-20
1940-11-22
1940-11-23
1940-11-28
1940-11-29
1940-12-04
1940-12-05
1940-12-08
1940-12-09
1940-12-20
1940-12-21
1940-12-23
1940-12-24
1940-12-28
1940-12-29
1941-01-02
1941-01-03
1941-01-09
1941-01-10
1941-01-12
1941-01-13
1941-01-29
1941-01-30
1941-02-10
1941-02-11
1941-02-12
1941-02-14
1941-02-15
1941-02-21
1941-02-22
1941-02-24
1941-02-25
1941-02-26
1941-02-27
1941-03-01
1941-03-02
1941-09-30
1941-10-01
1941-10-03
1941-10-13
1941-10-14
1941-10-22
1941-10-23
1941-11-26
1941-11-27
1942-09-10
1942-09-11
1943-02-13
1943-02-14
1943-02-15
1943-02-19
1943-02-20
1943-02-24
1943-02-25
1943-02-26
1943-03-08
1943-03-09
1943-03-10
1943-03-11
1943-03-12
1943-03-13
1943-03-22
1943-03-23
1943-03-27
1943-03-28
1943-03-29
1943-03-30
1943-04-04
1943-04-05
1943-04-10
1943-04-11
1943-04-13
1943-04-14
1943-04-26
1943-04-27
1943-05-04
1943-05-05
1943-05-12
1943-05-13
1943-05-14
1943-05-23
1943-05-24
1943-05-25
1943-05-26
1943-06-12
1943-06-13
1943-12-21
1943-12-22
1944-09-03
1944-09-13
1944-10-03
1944-10-25
1944-11-04
1944-11-05
1944-11-18
1944-12-04
1944-12-05
1944-12-06
1944-12-07
1944-12-18
1944-12-19
1944-12-29
1944-12-30
1945-01-05
1945-01-06
1945-01-28
1945-01-29
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-08
1945-02-09
1945-02-14
1945-02-15
1945-03-03
1945-03-04
1945-03-07
1945-03-08
1945-04-02
1945-04-03
1945-04-07
1945-04-08
1945-04-25
1945-04-26
1945-05-12
1945-06-23
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Mike Connock
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Czech Republic
France
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Netherlands
Poland
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Czech Republic--Plzeň
England--Berkshire
England--Cambridgeshire
England--London
England--Hampshire
England--Norfolk
England--Oxfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
France--Brest
France--Calais
France--Cherbourg
France--Dunkerque
France--Le Havre
France--Lorient
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Berchtesgaden
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Leipzig Region
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Munich
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Stade (Lower Saxony)
Germany--Steinfurt Region (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Italy--Milan
Italy--La Spezia
Italy--Turin
Italy--Venice
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Netherlands--Walcheren
Poland--Gdynia
Poland--Police (Województwo Zachodniopomorskie)
Scotland--Ross and Cromarty
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
France--Mérignac (Gironde)
100 Group
149 Squadron
15 OTU
156 Squadron
1667 HCU
192 Squadron
57 Squadron
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
Bombing and Gunnery School
Cook’s tour
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Flying Training School
Gee
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hudson
Lancaster
Magister
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
Proctor
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Evanton
RAF Feltwell
RAF Foulsham
RAF Hampstead Norris
RAF Harwell
RAF Lindholme
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Warboys
RAF West Raynham
RAF Wyton
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington