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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1247/16364/ALeckieW190301.1.mp3
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Leckie, Bill
William Leckie
W Leckie
Description
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Two oral history interviews with Bill Leckie (1921 - 2021). He flew operations as a pilot with 216 and 77 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-03-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Leckie, W
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Right. Bill, good afternoon. How are you?
BL: Fine. Kind of alright.
AM: Right.
BL: Kind of alright. Not that brilliant.
AM: Right.
BL: I’ve just come back from, I had a couple of days with our son and we spent two full days as it were travelling.
AM: Right.
BL: And they took us to one of my old haunts where I used to spend as a young boy on my holidays in the summertime because it’s where my granny lived.
AM: Right.
BL: So I spent summer with my granny down at the seaside. Down in a place called Drummore which is in Galloway.
AM: Right.
BL: It supposedly has the name of being the most southerly village in Scotland.
AM: Right. And it’s called —
BL: Drummore.
AM: Drummore. Right. I know where it is now.
BL: There’s another one in Ireland, Northern Ireland but it’s got a different spelling.
AM: Right.
BL: But it’s still Dromore. Yes.
AM: Right. Let’s check actually.
[recording paused]
AM: Right. I’m sure that will be fine. I’ll put it further over. There we are. Ok. Right. So we were, so there so it was a bit sluggish to fly.
BL: Oh yes. It was but it wasn’t always a fast aircraft, plane but it was nice to fly.
AM: What about the landing in water? What was that like?
BL: Well, it was different to landing on land not that you’re cared of any different but you’re long the floor any period because it was such a long runway.
AM: Right.
BL: But, but you still had a certain distance to land in as I say but most of the landings float landings and again as I say I enjoyed flying. It was, I was sorry I didn’t get on to a squadron. So when I finished the conversion that way and then had to go back up to Canada. Up to Prince Edward Island to do a reconnaissance course. You had to do that as part of your training as a conversion for Coastal Command.
AM: Right. You said a reconnaissance course. Was that in the air?
BL: Yes.
AM: And was that also in the Catalina?
BL: No. Oh no.
AM: No.
BL: We didn’t do any Catalina flying once away from Pensacola.
AM: Right.
BL: That was the end of it. We went on to Stearmans.
AM: Oh right.
BL: And I had to do another course in that way. It was a funny way. A terrible waste of time that was. It took me nearly four years to get to a squadron.
AM: Yes. [unclear] yeah.
BL: I came back then but I came back to Harrogate and I was stationed in Harrogate for I think about six or eight weeks.
AM: Right.
BL: Waiting to get a posting.
AM: And presumably at this stage you assumed you were going to go to Flying Boats.
BL: We were still supposed to be going. That’s why we were being held up in Harrogate.
AM: Right.
BL: Waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. It was ok but I’d rather have been on and get on. But anyway, it didn’t happen and I did another course and this was on the [pause] I ended up on the early Chipmunks. We went down [pause] Oh, it’s the Central Flying School now. What do you call it down there?
AM: Was it the Empire Flying School or —
BL: Possibly it was, no it wouldn’t be Empire Flying School. It was. My memory is elusive.
AM: And whereabouts was this?
BL: This was still in the Harrogate area.
AM: Oh you’re still in the Harrogate area. Right.
BL: Yeah. As I was —
AM: So it’s in Yorkshire.
BL: Yes. It was all classroom work.
AM: Right.
BL: Until eventually I got posted to [pause] where was it? I’ve forgotten some of that.
AM: Don’t worry.
BL: The next thing that comes to my mind I was posted up to the north of Scotland up to a place called Forres.
AM: Right.
BL: And we had to do flying there. Again, I was in for Bomber Command and lost the Coastal Command. Come out of, been posted out of that and into Bomber Command.
AM: And when you were in Forres what aircraft were you flying there?
BL: When I got to the end of [unclear] [pause] I’ve forgotten.
AM: Was this part of the Conversion Unit to Bomber Command?
BL: I guess it would be. Would be [pause] no, I’ve come to a stop.
AM: So when did you move on to the Halifax?
BL: What?
AM: How did that come about?
BL: Well, that came about after the posting back down south when I was posted to York.
AM: Right.
BL: And from York I stayed around York all the time. I never left 4 Group.
AM: Right.
BL: Because that was the Halifax Group and I was always on the Halifax and I stopped there.
AM: So where did you, where did you join up? Or when did you join up with your crew? And how did you go about selecting your crew?
BL: I can’t remember the name of the place but I think it was probably Harrogate.
AM: Right.
BL: And we just sort of, you know mingled around and you know the lads who were looking for a skipper and I’d be looking for somebody and you’d get talking to somebody. You’d ask them if they were looking for a skipper and I mean if thought to yourself well he would do and the crew, he’s in, and if he said ok well then that was it.
AM: Right.
BL: That was to start you off. You picked your own crew.
AM: And did you have a sort of mixed nationalities on your crew?
BL: It started off that I was going to have, try to get a Scottish crew.
AM: Right.
BL: And I managed to a point up ‘til finding a wireless operator. I couldn’t find a Scottish wireless operator.
AM: Right.
BL: But the age old happened when I finally made my decision on a chap the following day a lad came up, a Scottish lad came up to me to say, Are you looking for a Scottish the wireless operator?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I was up until today.’ And I’d already agreed with the other chap and he was an English chap. Nice chap. I mean I liked him well enough but that would have been the whole crew would have been Scottish and —
AM: Right. That would have been pretty unusual I would have thought.
BL: Might have been. Yes. Might have been. And so my wife, who wasn’t my wife then. We were just engaged. But she bought scarves. Little Scottish scarves there. The Clan MacGregor scarves. And each one of the crew got one.
AM: Right.
BL: She bought a scarf for each of them.
AM: I have to ask you why was it the Clan MacGregor?
BL: Because that’s my Clan.
AM: Right. Right.
I’d accepted the Clan MacGregor.
Right. And everybody was quite happy to wear the MacGregor tartan then.
BL: Oh, I never thought any the [unclear] [laughs]
AM: So, so what was the sort of [conversion paid] with your crew like? I mean presumably you were probably the oldest in the crew. Was that right?
BL: I would say.
AM: Yeah.
BL: I would.
AM: And you must have also been very unusual to be engaged.
BL: Yeah. Well, I’ve, I’d known my wife for, or my future wife when I was seventeen to eighteen and that. She was seventeen and I was eighteen.
AM: Right.
BL: When we first went out on holiday.
AM: Right.
BL: And we just stayed together. I wouldn’t get married. We didn’t get married until after I’d finished. We just stayed engaged.
AM: Until, when you say after. You mean after the war.
BL: After the war. Yes. Right.
AM: Right.
BL: Yeah.
AM: And was that fairly commonplace for aircrew to delay getting married until after the war?
BL: I wouldn’t say it was commonplace. No. In fact, I think it was possibly the other way.
AM: Right. It was what you both were comfortable with.
BL: Yes. We were. My wife was of the same mind as myself. There was no point dead [unclear] the way I was. I didn’t know how long I could last and she would have been a widow. So, but it never came to it but we stayed friends. I don’t know.
AM: So after your conversion period with your crew you went to your first squadron. And what was your first squadron?
BL: 77.
AM: 77. So that was at, was that at Elvington?
BL: It was actually but I only spent about ten days there.
AM: Right.
BL: And we were all moved to Full Sutton.
AM: Right.
BL: To give Elvington over to the Free French.
AM: Right.
BL: The Free French squadron went to Elvington.
AM: Right. So how did you feel about leaving Elvington for Full Sutton?
BL: Didn’t like it.
AM: Why was that?
BL: Well, Elvington was a peacetime station. Full Sutton was new.
AM: Right.
BL: It had just been put up for the wartime so it wasn’t the same. Wasn’t the same accommodation.
AM: Right.
BL: But it was ok. We liked everything else but I mean I preferred Elvington.
AM: So tell me about some of the sorties you flew from Elvington or, or Full Sutton while you were still in Bomber Command.
BL: I feel —
AM: Do you want me to stop it for a wee bit?
BL: Ah huh.
AM: You can have a wee rest anyway.
[recording paused]
BL: [unclear] up to a point I think that was the last flight I did.
AM: Ok.
BL: That was five hours and thirteen minutes and —
AM: Just a wee —
BL: It was a raid. It was just part of a raid.
AM: Ok. I’ve switched it on. Bill, tell me just, tell me just a little bit more about your time on 77 Squadron at Full Sutton and what the kind of operational missions that you did there. What were the main types of target?
BL: Well, according to one that is printed in here they were flying bomb sites.
AM: Right.
BL: The first one I visited was at the forest of Nieppe in France. And the next one again that was the same one. Nieppe, in the same place. That same one. So that was twice I visited that. On the 5th and then on the 6th of August.
AM: And were these day sorties or night sorties?
BL: Day sorties.
AM: Right.
BL: Yeah. They were day sorties or was it a night sortie? Which was something to do with the German Army.
AM: Right.
BL: It was [unclear]
AM: Would that be —
BL: France.
AM: Would that be supporting the invasion troops?
BL: That was on August the 7th.
AM: Right. ’44.
BL: ’44.
AM: Yeah.
BL: And then I did another trip back to France. Back to a different oil storage dump. And the next target was [unclear] There was one on the 9th. The next one was on the 11th. It was the railway repair shops. And then on the 12th I went to a place, a Flying Bomb factory at Russelsheim.
AM: Right. Before you, if the sorties were you given on any briefing on the flying bomb itself and what it’s role was or —
BL: No, we never. Oh no, we knew about the bomb, what the flying bomb was alright but apart from that —
AM: It was just a target.
BL: it was a target.
AM: Right. And particularly on the day sorties did you see any enemy fighters or —
BL: No. I was, no. Not at all.
AM: Right.
BL: No. Never intercepted.
AM: And what about the flak on the night sortie to Russelsheim?
BL: Yes. There was some we had. I don’t know where it was. We went out to the bombing more or less the bombing altitude was high bombed then after we had bombed we made a crash dive to get down to five hundred feet or a thousand feet.
AM: Right.
BL: And came back. Low level flying all the way. That’s what we did.
AM: Tell me before you went on a mission like your last one to Russelsheim what was the sort of feeling like in the squadron and what was the attitude of people like?
BL: I don’t remember.
AM: No. What about your own crew? How did they —
BL: Like myself I think they accepted the fact that it was part of the job.
AM: Right.
BL: We were going.
AM: Right. And —
BL: I mean we’d never hear until we went to the briefing room where we were going.
AM: Right.
BL: We didn’t know the target. So we went to the briefing for it.
AM: And by this stage in the war were you, were you aware of the extent of Bomber Command losses or was it something that wasn’t talked about?
BL: I’d say that we were aware of it alright. Yes. It was because the posting came through to go elsewhere and I was quite happy to go.
AM: Right.
BL: Because I was getting out and being posted overseas. I knew that.
AM: Right.
BL: I was going overseas. I didn’t know when but it just it turned out it was Italy.
AM: And how, how did you find it’s difficult to remember this perhaps but what was the morale like on the station at Long Sutton at this stage of the war? Was it fairly buoyant or —
BL: Well, I would say it was. As I say I wasn’t one for, I wasn’t one for mixing.
AM: Right.
BL: So —
AM: So what, what was mess life like for instance?
BL: Well, it was just you went and you had your meal and chatted to someone or other and you got to know them.
AM: And what rank were you at this stage?
BL: I would be a sergeant.
AM: Right.
BL: At that stage.
AM: And by the way were all your crew NCOs or did you have —
BL: Yes. No, I had no officer crew.
AM: Right.
BL: No.
AM: And was that, how did that compare to the rest of the squadron? Were there a number of all NCO?
BL: No idea.
AM: No. No. I don’t think I would. So I mean the sergeant’s mess was obviously a kind of lively place. Would you —
BL: Oh yes. That’s right. Yes. Well, I mean I went right through from sergeant all the way up to flight lieutenant in the end.
AM: Right.
BL: So that was just the way it worked.
AM: So you said you were selected to leave 78 Squadron and go overseas. How did that come about? Do you remember? Was that a surprise or —?
BL: Oh, it was a surprise. Yes. What it was, it wasn’t a surprise entirely but it was a surprise as to where I went. I didn’t know where I went. It was just it was put on the notice board that there was two or three crews they wanted to go overseas. And I thought to myself well this is just, you know being in the UK and in the bombing stream you were a sitting target all the time and it was, it was danger. As much danger up there from other aircraft [unclear] as from the anti-aircraft so I thought that was kind of a thing. Time to get out of it and get overseas which is what happened.
AM: Right. And did you go overseas as a crew? Did your whole crew go with you?
BL: Yes.
AM: Right. And where did you go to?
BL: Started off in Naples.
AM: Right.
BL: And then we were sent from Naples to Brindisi.
AM: Right.
BL: And that’s where we stayed.
AM: Right.
BL: Until we finished the operation.
AM: Right. And what sort of sorties on the understanding you were no longer technically part of Bomber Command but you were still flying a bomber aircraft. The Halifax.
BL: Oh yes. That was the Halifax.
AM: Right. And what, what were these sorties?
BL: Well, the sorties were just to different parts mainly in Yugoslavia that the partisans occupied for a certain time.
AM: Right.
BL: But they were well within the German lines. Behind the German lines.
AM: Right.
BL: But there was, no there was never much activity in the German lines at all.
AM: And were you flying these as a single aircraft or as a —
BL: A single aircraft.
AM: Right. And what, what sort of things were you dropping?
BL: Oh, mainly ammunition or rifles and food as well.
AM: Right.
BL: General. General supply aircraft so you would.
AM: And were these dropped, were these drops from medium altitude or relatively —
BL: Yes.
AM: Right.
BL: About eight, eight hundred to seven hundred feet.
AM: Oh, seven hundred feet. So that was quite low really.
BL: Oh yes. I had to come down to eight hundred. Even came down to five hundred.
AM: And was this by day or by night?
BL: Sometimes by night but usually if it was by night it would be by moonlight.
AM: Right. Because presumably you had to try and drop really accurately.
BL: Well, yes. You had to do your best.
AM: Right.
BL: It was up to the bombing run really.
AM: Right.
BL: You know.
AM: And this was all in 148 Squadron.
BL: No. No. That was in 77.
AM: 77 Squadron, sorry. Right. And that’s all still in the Halifax.
BL: Oh yes.
AM: Was it the same version of the Halifax that you had flown on as a bomber pilot?
BL: Yes, it was.
AM: Right.
BL: But we soon changed to the, well you might say the Mark 2 Halifax.
AM: Right.
BL: But I did fly the Mark 1 Halifax for quite some time. That was the one with the triangular tail.
AM: Right.
BL: Instead of the square tail.
AM: Right. Ok.
BL: Yeah. And it wasn’t so good for stability.
AM: Right.
BL: Putting on the square rudders at the end when they made the change helped a lot.
AM: Right. And had they changed the engines as well at that stage or —
BL: No.
AM: That same engine.
BL: That came later.
AM: Right.
BL: [unclear]
AM: Right. And as well as dropping supplies and [unclear] did you drop any personnel?
BL: Yes. Joes as called them. Yes.
AM: What did you call them?
BL: Joes.
AM: Joes. Right.
BL: Joes.
AM: And did you have anything to do with them or were they just cargo.
BL: The person who had to deal with them was the chap who was the mid-upper gunner in the original crew. He was a dispatcher. He was known as the dispatcher.
AM: Right.
BL: He did a dispatcher’s course.
AM: Right.
BL: Special area in where these chaps who were coming in and they were going to be dropped you know by parachute so most of them had never done any parachute training you see so they had to be trained.
AM: Right.
BL: And so our dispatcher had to go along on a course.
AM: Right.
BL: A training course because he had to see them out and he was the one who organised them for getting out of the aircraft.
AM: And was it usually just one of these Joes or did you sometimes drop a couple of them?
BL: Oh, we dropped three or four of them.
AM: Right.
BL: Sometimes. Yeah.
AM: Right. Gosh. That must have been fascinating to say the least.
BL: I must say I never actually saw any of them.
AM: No.
BL: You know, the only one, I mean the dispatcher was the one who would speak to them generally speaking but very often they were local people. They weren’t really English speakers.
AM: Right. So they would, they would be Serbs or Croats or —
BL: Aye, could be. But it was the dispatcher who had to speak or did speak with them. None of the other members of the crew were involved.
AM: Right.
BL: And there was only one instance I remember where he talked, the chappie he had been speaking to could speak any English and we knew more or less where we were going. You know, once we had been given a target and it seemed according to this chap we were passing the town where we were going to be dropping this chap and he lived in that town and his wife was still living there.
AM: Gosh.
BL: And there were some lights in the town funnily enough. It wasn’t completely blacked out. And so we were dropping, dropping some on the hillside on a plateau.
AM: Really.
BL: The village he was heading for was down the road.
AM: Right.
BL: Eventually, well not eventually but when we came back [unclear] but they didn’t make it and they complained that we dropped them not in the exact spot. But we dropped them where we were told to drop them and the reason that was given, nothing was officially said but the reason that we got to know about the fact that we dropped them as far as the lad said we dropped him in the wrong place and that was done on purpose because they didn’t want the Germans to know there was anybody down on the ground who could see there was going to be a drop in this area. So that was that. So the actual dropping spot wasn’t known until we were briefed that night to go.
AM: Right. Right.
BL: So —
AM: And did you do any, any drops over southern Germany or —
BL: I couldn’t tell you that.
AM: No. I remember reading somewhere —
BL: I don’t think so.
AM: I remember reading somewhere that you were involved with a drop that took place near Berchtesgaden.
BL: Yeah. No. I didn’t do anything like that. No. We were in the Balkan Army.
AM: Right.
BL: That was all that we were in.
AM: Right. I think somebody said you were involved in this project called, which became the film, “The Monument Men.” Is that correct?
BL: Oh yes. They did portray that. Yes.
AM: Right. So what happened with that? What was the story behind it?
BL: Oh, well it was to do with the Germans had, had captured a lot of stuff. Hitler’s souvenirs or whatever you call it and they wanted to come through. I mean this was at the time when Jerry was in retreat, you know, moving back. And they were supposed to destroy a collection of paintings and one thing, and artifacts and one thing or another which were being held in this area. And the chaps we were dropping they were going down to safeguard these things.
AM: Right.
BL: They were being dropped in the areas so we dropped them in the area and they then made their way down in to the village and I think, I don’t know what really happened after that but they was lads that we had dropped down. They were supposed to be going down to and they were going to take over and [unclear] or something. I don’t know. Something to do with safeguarding these supposedly at the point priceless things that Hitler had, you know —
AM: Requisitioned.
BL: Requisitioned. Yes.
AM: Right.
BL: Yeah.
AM: Gosh. So you finished the war still in in the Balkans flying.
BL: Oh yes. Yes.
AM: Right.
BL: I was posted from there down to, you know Italy. Down to Brindisi.
AM: Right.
BL: And what was lifelike in Brindisi at that stage of the war?
AM: Very [pause] very easy I think. There was nothing much different about it and we sort of in some ways you made your own amusement and whoever your friends were and as I say I was much of a loner. I didn’t go out much at all. So I didn’t go down into the town of Brindisi like some of the lads would go down there and they didn’t know where they were by the time the night went out. I’m afraid that was never my style but —
BL: So what was it like the sort of the day or the couple of days around when the war actually came to an end? What was the atmosphere like?
AM: Well, I wasn’t, I wasn’t in the squadron. I was on 216 Squadron at that time.
BL: Right. So you’d moved on from the Halifax.
AM: I’d moved on from the Halifax. I was flying a Dakota.
BL: Right. And —
AM: And that was immediate.
BL: Right. So you moved before the end of the war.
AM: Oh I did. Yes.
BL: From Brindisi to Italy.
AM: Yes. That’s right.
BL: Right. Right.
AM: So that’s quite a change going from the Halifax to the —
BL: Oh of course. I quite enjoyed that. I did quite a lot of flying in the Dakota anyway.
AM: Right.
BL: Before that.
AM: So when the war came to an end you were in Italy.
BL: Yes. Maintenance.
AM: And you were a flight lieutenant by now. Is that right?
BL: No. I was a pilot officer.
AM: Pilot officer. Right. Sorry. Right. So where were you when you were commissioned? Were you in Italy or in Egypt?
BL: Italy.
AM: Italy. Right.
BL: I think. [pause] Yes. I was in Italy because I had to go across to Algiers to get my uniform.
AM: Right. Was it your uniform was made in Algiers? Your uniform was made in Algiers.
BL: I don’t know about being made there but —
AM: But that’s where you had to go.
BL: That’s where the stores were.
AM: Gosh. So you took an aeroplane over to get your uniform.
BL: I had to go.
AM: That’s brilliant.
BL: As a passenger.
AM: Right.
BL: Yeah.
AM: So how long did you spend in Egypt on 216 Squadron?
[pause]
AM: I can switch this off for a minute. We can have a wee rest.
[recording paused]
AM: Bill, I know you’re looking at your logbook at the moment but what was the total number of operational hours that you flew?
BL: Two hundred and sixty in round figures.
AM: Gosh. So when you retired from the Air Force you were flying —
BL: I didn’t. I was in the Reserve and stayed on in the Reserve and I would do weekend flying.
AM: And what aeroplane was that on?
BL: That would be on the Tiger Moth.
AM: Right. Right.
BL: Later on I went on to Chipmunks.
AM: Right. Which must have been quite good fun.
BL: Oh yes. It was a much improved. Much improved.
AM: And just to conclude tell me a little bit about the latter part of your life because you went back into professional flying didn’t you?
BL: Oh, I did. Yes. I did. Yeah.
AM: And what did you do?
BL: I was flying the thing it was just a Transport Squadron. Not a squadron. It was a, I was down for flying at the weekends when I first went back having finished in the Air Force as such. But I went to [pause] to Perth and we got there at the weekends and flying up there and did some link work for one thing. And then eventually a staff pilot’s job came up which I applied for and got and that started my career.
AM: Right.
BL: And started flying fully on the full time in Perth.
AM: And which, which company did you go to fly with?
BL: Airwork.
AM: Airworks?
BL: Ahum.
AM: Right. And after that?
BL: That was it.
AM: Right. Did you not move to Aer Lingus?
BL: Oh yes. Sorry. Yes. I left Airwork and went to Aer Lingus. That’s right.
AM: Right. And what, what was your, what was your final aeroplane with Aer Lingus?
BL: The three hundred. The Boeing.
AM: Boeing 737.
BL: The Boeing 737. That was it. Yeah.
AM: Right. And that was your, if you were to, this is a terrible question but if you’d to fly one aeroplane again what would you choose to fly?
BL: What would I choose to fly? [pause] Well, I always enjoyed flying a large aeroplane. That’s what I wanted to do and what I got to do. So I suppose you might as well say the [pause] I think possibly the Dakota would be the aircraft —
AM: Right.
BL: [unclear] to fly because it was a nice aeroplane to fly. Very tricky to land but not much. You could make a mess of it. So, you could. So I’d say the Dakota.
AM: Right. Well, Bill Leckie, Captain Bill Leckie, Flight Lieutenant Bill Leckie, thank you very much indeed.
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Interview with Bill Leckie. One
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Alastair Montgomery
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-03-01
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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ALeckieW190301, PLeckieW1901
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00:38:00 incomplete audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Bill would spend his school holidays with his grandmother in Scotland. He went to St Edward Island in Canada to do a reconnaissance course, after which he went to Harrogate to await posting. He did another course on Chipmunks before being posted to Scotland, leaving Coastal Command to join Bomber Command working on the Halifax. His crew, which joined 77 Squadron at Elvington, were all Scottish. They mainly did operations to Yugoslavia dropping weapons, food and occasionally personnel by parachute. The crew went overseas south of Naples. He was posted to Brindisi and then spent time in Egypt with 216 Squadron. Bill ended his RAF career as a pilot officer and was commissioned while in Italy. Post-war he got a full-time pilot’s job with Airworks before moving to Aer Lingus, flying Boeing 737.
Spatial Coverage
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Canada
Prince Edward Island
Great Britain
Scotland
England--Harrogate
England--Yorkshire
Italy
Italy--Naples
Italy--Brindisi
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Temporal Coverage
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1944
216 Squadron
77 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
Halifax
pilot
RAF Elvington
RAF Full Sutton
Special Operations Executive
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1247/17040/PLeckieW1901.2.jpg
66b1611784af6fa1e98248f944c26165
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1247/17040/ALeckieW190322.2.mp3
ed629a3eb9fa65452055ce8345280bde
Dublin Core
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Title
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Leckie, Bill
William Leckie
W Leckie
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Bill Leckie (1921 - 2021). He flew operations as a pilot with 216 and 77 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-03-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Leckie, W
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AM: Right. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Alistair Montgomery and the interviewee is Mr Bill Leckie, Flight Lieutenant Bill Leckie or Captain Bill Leckie. The interview is taking place at Bill’s lovely home in Troon. Bill, good afternoon.
BL: Good afternoon, Monty.
AM: Bill, tell me just a little bit about your family background and where you lived prior to joining the Royal Air Force.
BL: Well, to go back to where I was started living. That was Glasgow. I was born in Glasgow. I lived there for about seven years and then my father, he suffered with bronchitis. He had been a heavy smoker and that’s his problem. It was his problem, and he was told he would have to get away from the city so he got a transfer to the more or less the country which was fine because he was a country born himself and brought up in the country, and same with my mother. They were both country people so they were quite happy and there was, he got a place with a bit of ground attached to it which he never really managed to make it, you know [pause] you know, a living from. But he got some a poultry farm he ought to expand it in to but it never took place. So, I was brought up on that basis in the country, and then that was fine. And when I was, oh what would I be now? I think I would be what, eighteen when I joined the Air Force. I did want to join as a boy service but my mother and dad wouldn’t agree to it, and so I had to wait until the war came along and I was called up.
AM: Right.
BL: And I spent five years in the Air Force.
AM: So, when, when you were called up where did you go for your, for your basic training?
BL: That was mainly [pause] I’ll get the name in a minute. Babbacombe.
AM: Babbacombe. Right.
BL: Yeah, Number 1 ITW. Babbacombe.
AM: Right. By the sea.
BL: By the sea.
AM: Right.
BL: That’s where I did my ITW as they called it.
AM: Right. So —
BL: I was called up and I went to St John’s Wood in London. That was my first full time encounter with the Service as such. From being called up and going along and signing in and being asked what I wanted to do, that was about I think about three months before I finally went to, well I went to St John’s Wood first of all.
AM: Right.
BL: As a reception. And from St John’s Wood I went down to Babbacombe to do my ITW.
AM: Right. And what was that like?
BL: That was fine. That was good. Quite, fairly intensive, but I don’t think we were, we were too badly done by.
AM: Right [laughs] and did you know at that stage that you were going to undertake pilot training?
BL: I knew at that stage. Right from the beginning.
AM: Right.
BL: Because that’s what I asked to be, you know at the initial call up. They said, ‘Oh, what would you like to be?’ And I said, ‘A pilot.’ They sat reading my papers and fortunately enough my name must have come out of the hat. I don’t know.
AM: Right. I mean did you do any specific tests to assess whether you were better as a pilot or as something else then?
BL: No. No.
AM: Right.
BL: No. I went straight on to the pilot course.
AM: Right. So when you finished your square bashing what happened then?
BL: Oh. What did we do after that? Oh, yes. We rolled up to, oh what was the place? The aircrew centre at, near Manchester.
AM: Right.
BL: And I spent, I expected to spend quite some time there. Instead all I’d spent was three days and I was put on a, you know, what would you call it? A group, and we were told we were going overseas.
AM: Right.
BL: And simply because they came up to, to Greenock, I mean I recognised the place. I knew where I was, but I was just when we got off the train and then straight on board the ship, you know.
AM: Right.
BL: The train ran out on to the jetty where the ship was moored.
AM: Right.
BL: And that was me on my way across the water there over to Canada. We arrived in Halifax.
AM: Right. And was the, was the sea crossing uneventful?
BL: Uneventful.
AM: Right. Thank goodness for that.
BL: Yeah. We had a fast ship and we had another ship which kept us company.
AM: Right.
BL: It wasn’t, you know a Navy ship or anything like that. A ship that had been converted into I think, what did they call them?
AM: A troopship.
BL: Yeah. A troopship. Yeah.
AM: Right.
BL: I think so. Yeah. Well, the first ship and then another ship. I don’t know what the other ship was carrying but I think it was a troop ship as well.
AM: Right.
BL: And we had this ship escorting us.
AM: Right.
BL: And we eventually finished up in Halifax. We got on the train in Halifax and that took us down to Detroit. We went to Detroit from there, and we spent what you might say initial training in Detroit, probably part of it, and when we finished our time in Detroit which was a kind of square bashing effort we moved down to Pensacola.
AM: Right.
BL: That’s where we started to do our flying properly. We did a few trips in Detroit so we did on a, it was an old biplane to begin with and then we got a slightly newer Stearman. But anyway down to Pensacola and there we flew the old MP1 as it was called which was an aircraft that the American Navy had built themselves. They built aircraft during the war, but the original aircraft, and then we got off them on to more modern Stearmans and finished our flying then.
AM: And how did you find the flying training? Was it a challenge or did you find it fairly straightforward? Or —
BL: Oh, no. Well, to me it was a challenge. I had to keep myself, you know [pause] I never found it easy. No. No. No.
AM: What was the element you found hardest? Was it instruments or aerobatics or —
BL: Aerobatics.
AM: Right.
BL: Aerobatics. I don’t think I could have been a, you know, a fighter pilot. I don’t think so.
AM: Right.
BL: So, I got what I wanted. The big aircraft. And that’s what I got. I actually didn’t. I mean, I had, when I was chosen to go on to the Flying Boats that was what I had in my mind and I thought I’d got them but no.
AM: But you did some Catalina flying in America.
BL: Oh, yes. That’s right.
AM: Tell me a wee bit about that. What that was like?
BL: It was just all training. There was never any, you know actual what you might say offensive work but it was all these long trips training. I think that the longest trip we did, in my mind anyway was the twelve hour trip.
AM: Oh gosh.
BL: And they were just in a sense letting you see what it was like to travel [laughs] You know.
AM: And was it easy to fly? The Catalina.
BL: No. It wasn’t easy to fly. It was a very sluggish aircraft.
AM: Right.
BL: If you wanted to make a left or a right hand turn you had to think about it, you know quite a little while before you went into the turn and that because even though you used the controls she was very slow at responding to them. So you were always, in a sense you had to be ahead of yourself but other than that they were fine. Yeah.
AM: So, so then you finished in the Catalina is that when you came back to —
BL: Yes.
AM: To the UK.
BL: Sent back to the UK to wait for a posting to a Boat squadron.
AM: Right.
BL: I never knew whether I would. I was to be going on a Short Sunderland or the Catalina again and I didn’t know. We were, we stayed in Harrogate for, I think for six weeks waiting on a posting.
AM: Right.
BL: We came back to Harrogate from the States.
AM: So there you are in Harrogate fully expecting to become, to become a maritime pilot. To become a Flying Boat pilot.
BL: That’s what I expected to go on to.
AM: Right. So, tell me what actually happened then.
BL: I don’t know. It just happened. There was no postings came up for a Boat squadron.
AM: Right.
BL: And I then had to go to Little Rissington and convert in to the Bomber Command.
AM: Right.
BL: From, oh I forget now. What was the [pause] it doesn’t matter, I think. No. The flying, the Flying Boat commander. What was that called again?
AM: Maritime.
BL: It was maritime anyway.
AM: Yeah.
BL: Yeah. So, as I say I went to Little Rissington, converted on to an, on to an Oxford and then from the Oxfords I finally got posted to a squadron to do an OTU which was up in the north of Scotland at Lossiemouth.
AM: Right.
BL: I think it was.
AM: And what, what did you fly at Lossiemouth?
BL: Wellingtons.
AM: Right.
BL: To begin with it was Whitleys. We had a Whitley to begin with.
AM: And did you have your own crew at that stage?
BL: No. No. Not all of it. And I never flew in a Wellington. That’s not right. I flew the Whitley and I had a part crew.
AM: Right.
BL: I think I was missing an engineer. Yeah. I think it was the engineer and then from, from there I was posted down to York. And then from York I was posted to [pause] no. I must have done another. Before that happened I was posted to Stoke Orchard for some AFU flying.
AM: Right.
BL: And then from there I was posted up to Forres actually. More so than Lossiemouth. I didn’t fly from Lossiemouth. It was Forres I flew from, and I flew the Whitley then.
AM: Right.
BL: And then from there I was posted down to Harrogate and then I joined 77 Squadron.
AM: Right. And what, what aircraft did they have then?
BL: There they were the Halifax.
AM: Right. The Halifax.
BL: Yeah. That was Group. 4 Group. And 4 Group were Halifaxes.
AM: Right. And had you crewed up by this stage?
BL: When I got to Harrogate that was when I picked up my engineer.
AM: Right. So how did, how did, tell me a little bit about this process of getting your crew together then.
BL: Well, that was left up to ourselves to pick who we wanted and I had it in my mind I wanted to have an all Scottish crew.
AM: Right.
BL: And I nearly achieved my purpose. I had all, I had I would say six crew plus myself and I had five, and needed an engineer. No. A sparks. I had an engineer. There was a sparks I was missing.
AM: Right.
BL: A wireless operator.
AM: Right.
BL: I couldn’t get anybody who was Scottish. This was what was, we were given, I think we were given a week, I can’t remember but they had to be, had to get it done. If you didn’t get it done yourself then they would do it for you. Whoever was in charge. And I had got the five and I was left with one and that was the engineer and I had a day to go. That was all. So, I thought well I’ll have to pick on somebody. I did ask a chap and he was quite happy. Yes. That was ok. He would come and join them and blow me down but the next day a chap came up to me, a Scottish lad and this chap who had asked to come as, you know the last member of the crew he was English and the lad who came up to me the next day was Scottish. I just missed out on the all Scottish crew.
AM: Right.
BL: So I don’t think there would have been too many of those, you know.
AM: No. I don’t think so at all. So, by the time you got to the squadron about how many Halifax sorties had you done on the OTU, roughly?
BL: I would say very few. I mean my first operational trip was to a place called Russelsheim in Germany. And I only did I think three or four trips altogether when I found myself in the CO’s office saying to me that there was a posting he would like to, ‘Would you like to go on a posting somewhere else?’ He said. And I said, ‘Yeah. I don’t mind.’ He says, ‘Well, we’ll have you posted and your crew and you’ll be leaving tonight.’ Just like that [laughs] And that’s what happened and we moved, we flew down to [pause] it’s a Transport Command station in the south of England. Still in operation today and I can’t think of the name of it.
AM: Was it, was it Lyneham?
BL: No. No. No. It wasn’t far from Lyneham but it wasn’t Lyneham. It was another name. So we spent a night. Yeah. We spent the night there. We flew down there and spent the night and the following night we boarded a Hudson not going, not knowing where we were going. Just going on to, there was, you know another crew and ourselves and flying out as passengers. Nobody told you where you were going and it wasn’t, the first place we touched down at on the way out was Gibraltar to refuel and get breakfast. We had breakfast of bacon and eggs.
AM: Right [laughs]
BL: And then we took off and we flew along the north coast of Africa until we got to [pause] I can’t remember now though I did, I think we [pause] yes we landed at what was called Cairo West. It was an airfield. The airport or the airfield was in the desert.
AM: Right.
BL: And that’s where we landed and that was with 216 Squadron, which was the squadron I had been posted to. That’s where it operated from, this squadron in the desert.
AM: And this was still on the Halifax.
BL: And they were flying DC3s then.
AM: Right.
BL: Left the Halifax behind.
AM: But you flew the Halifax in Italy did you not?
BL: When I went up to, when I went up to there. When I got posted there. From there I got posted up to Naples and then in Naples I was posted down to Brindisi and they were fitted out with Halifaxes.
AM: Right. Which Mark of Halifaxes was that?
BL: It was the Mark, the Mark 2 I think it was.
AM: Right. And what was the, what was the role of that squadron?
BL: That was a special duties squadron.
AM: Right.
BL: So that was simply feeding the guerrilla fighters, if you like with guns, ammunition, and food and clothing and they would go and do drops wherever they set up a dropping zone.
AM: And was, whereabouts were these drop zones? Yugoslavia or —
BL: Mainly in the Yugoslav. Mainly in the Balkans.
AM: Right.
BL: Various places in the Balkans and usually they would be somewhere in a clearing in the hills. There was usually hills around about you.
AM: Yeah.
BL: You seldom got a, you know a dropping zone which was clear.
AM: And were these drops being done by day or by night?
BL: By day.
AM: Right. And what sort of height were you dropping from?
BL: About eight hundred to five hundred feet.
AM: Oh, my God. And was it mainly stores or people or both?
BL: No. There was some people. Joes we called them. We went some, there were two or three flights with Joes on board but mainly it was supplies.
AM: Right.
BL: It was. And —
AM: I understand you were involved with dropping some of the agents involved with the recovery of the Nazi art, is that correct?
BL: That’s right. Yes. That was as I say. That took place. Not that I knew it at the time but there is a book written about it.
AM: Right. This one. “The Monument Men.” Is that it?
BL: The, “Monument Men.” Yeah.
AM: Right.
BL: Right. Yes. I flew them in to where we had to drop them off and where they were going was we landed on a plateau and as I say it was Norway. We didn’t land on the plateau. We dropped them off over the target.
AM: Right.
BL: And it was snow covered at the time. It was in the wintertime, and we left them at that and where they were going was down in to the valley and we could see the lights.
AM: In to Berchtesgaden area was it?
BL: Pardon?
AM: Was that at Berchtesgaden in southern Germany? Or was it —
BL: No. That wasn’t the name. There’s another name for it. It’s mentioned in the “Monument Men.”
AM: Right.
BL: But I can’t think of it. Anyway —
AM: Did you ever have a chance to talk to these people you were going to drop?
BL: I didn’t but my mid-upper gunner did.
AM: Right.
BL: Well, that was his previous job. That’s what, he’d been trained as a mid-upper gunner but when we were flying as the special duties which we had done most of, we had only done three or four bombing trips. He got talking the odd time but most times the people, they didn’t speak English or they wouldn’t speak English whatever way it was. They didn’t say anything about what they had to do.
AM: Right.
BL: There was, there was one story came back to us. I think it really came back to us. One story came back. One story came back saying we’d dropped them in the wrong place and well as far as I was concerned and the navigator was concerned we dropped them where we were told when we got our briefing before going off on the flight. And sometime later we discovered that it was a habit of the ops people that they would be there telling us where we were going. Not telling us where we were going but telling us a false place. In other words the idea that was that somebody had been talking to us, or we inadvertently said something about where we were going to do the drops but we wouldn’t be there because that was all changed.
AM: So it was a decoy really.
BL: It was a decoy. Yeah.
AM: Right.
BL: And the final dropping zone we got when we went to our final briefing, not until then.
AM: Let, let me just take you back a bit to your, your early bombing sorties on, on the Halifax when you were still based in, in Yorkshire.
BL: York.
AM: Yeah. At Elvington and Full Sutton. What was your first bombing sortie? Was that a day sortie or a night sortie?
BL: No. It was a night sortie.
AM: Right.
BL: I went as a second pilot actually.
AM: Right. And what was that like having for the first time — ?
BL: We were bombing from I think about ten thousand feet and that was just you know all the lights and everything else. I’d never seen anything like it.
AM: No. There was a lot of flak.
BL: Yes. There was some flak. Yes. But I just did the one trip, you know.
AM: Right. And then you went off with your own crew.
BL: Yes.
AM: And what were the first bombing sorties you did then?
BL: Well, again that was just the [pause] the next day. I never knew what we were dropping you know in a sense of what our bomb load was.
AM: Right.
BL: Never, never sort of saw into that. The only thing was that there was one trip we had to do and that was daylight trip. We were supposed to be bombing behind the British lines but before we got there. I mean in France this was.
AM: Right.
BL: But before we actually got to the, where we were supposed to be dropping these behind the British lines, as it were word came through the radio operator that we had to return home and drop our bombs in the Channel. The operation was off. It was cancelled. And of course they didn’t want you landing with live bombs.
AM: No.
BL: At the airport. So that’s what happened. That was the only time it did happen and we dropped them in the, in the Channel.
AM: Right. So these were sorties to support the British troops in Normandy.
BL: That’s right.
AM: Right. And did you do any sorties against the V-1 sites or —
BL: No. No. Aye. Probably we did. But I didn’t —
AM: You mentioned Russelsheim in Germany.
BL: Yeah. That was the very first trip I did.
AM: Right.
BL: That was a night trip.
AM: Right.
BL: But I think that’s why it sticks in my mind.
AM: I can imagine. And were most of those sorties you did at that stage day trips?
BL: No. No. Only because, only, we only did three or four trips. I should go and get my log book and look it.
AM: Yeah. You can do. [unclear]
BL: That’s fine. That’ll do it.
[recording paused]
AM: Perfect.
BL: I think it was Full Sutton. That was where I was at, look.
AM: Yeah. Bill, if you can just tell me a wee bit about what life was like at, at Full Sutton.
BL: Well, I can’t say that there was any outstanding other than just if there was an operational on we’d get our briefing during the day we had, spent at you know in the camp or went in to York. Like I say I spent a lot of time on my own. I didn’t go around with a group of lads.
AM: Right.
BL: I was, I suppose I was considered a loner.
AM: Right.
BL: So there was nothing.
AM: So, what was, what was the social life in the mess like?
BL: Well, it was alright. I mean, I just met up, you know, I knew a few lads. There was one other chap that we were, I was quite, kind of friendly with that kept in touch after the war as well but he has died. He died several years ago.
AM: Right.
BL: I’m trying to remember now. Something about [pause] you see my memory’s gone now.
AM: I think all of us suffer a bit from our memory’s fading a wee bit.
BL: My memory’s gone for lots of things.
AM: So when you, when you, when you left the RAF and, and joined the Reserve where did you move to then?
BL: Well, we used to go to Grangemouth.
AM: Right.
BL: And we’d go there, you know for I would not only get there on a Sunday I didn’t get there every weekend and I never spent a weekend at Grangemouth but I went there and did fly in a Tiger Moth over there.
AM: Right.
BL: So that was really what we did at Grangemouth.
AM: And what sort of flying was that in the Tiger Moth? Was it flying cadets or —
BL: No.
AM: Just training.
BL: Just training. We had a good commander there. You’d go off, off solo.
AM: Yeah.
BL: You know, you passed out and I mean most of the flying was done solo so that was interesting. And as I say was [pause] I’ve forgotten the name of it.
AM: And where were you working at this stage?
BL: Well, to begin with, before I joined up I was working in a cinema as a projectionist.
AM: Right.
BL: And when I came back I went back to the company and I got a job back again as a projectionist. And then from there I left that and I went to work at the Hoover people in the Hoover factory. That was just simply a production job. I was just checking out the, the [pause] what would you call it now, what would you call it? The electric. They were making electric motors.
AM: Yes.
BL: And that was a question you had to check. Just, I mean it was a dead simple job.
AM: And was this at Cambuslang?
BL: That was at Cambuslang.
AM: Right.
BL: That’s right.
AM: So, what did the people around about you think about having an RAF pilot working in the Hoover factory? They must have remarked on it.
BL: Well, I don’t think anybody knew. I don’t think anybody were any the wiser.
AM: No.
BL: I never talked about it.
AM: You never told them.
BL: No.
AM: Right. That’s amazing. Right. I suppose that must have been quite common after the war. That people went from being, you know aircraft captains.
BL: Oh aye.
AM: To being, working on a shop floor.
BL: Yeah. Well, you see I was lucky enough, I don’t remember now but I mean as I say I joined up in the Reserve, and there was an exhibition in Glasgow in the Kelvin Hall and the RAF VR had a stand there. So naturally I went along there and talked to them and that’s when I joined up again.
AM: Right.
BL: Went back into the Reserves and then started going to Grangemouth and doing some flying from Grangemouth. And then Grangemouth closed down and I went to Perth. Again, it was just weekend flying for a wee while but eventually I got a job in Perth as a staff pilot.
AM: Right.
BL: That’s what started me off.
AM: Right.
BL: You know. Up until then I was just sort of dodging around. I really hadn’t a proper job, a fixed job when I came back.
AM: And were you married by this time?
BL: I’d got married by then. Yes.
AM: Aye. So you needed a steady job.
BL: Yeah.
AM: So where did you go from [Airworks]?
BL: Aer Lingus
AM: Right. So you moved to Ireland.
BL: We moved to Ireland. Yes.
AM: Right.
BL: That’s right.
AM: And when you started with Aer Lingus what were you flying?
BL: A DC3.
AM: Right. So, that was something you knew.
BL: That’s exactly. That’s why I got the job.
AM: Right. And how long did you fly the DC3 with Aer Lingus for?
BL: Quite a long while.
AM: Right.
BL: Because that’s all they had.
AM: Right.
BL: Were DC3s but eventually they got —
AM: Was it a Viscount?
BL: Viscounts.
AM: Right.
BL: Viscounts. That was it. They got the Viscount and then they got the others. What was that called? It was a Dutch plane. F something.
AM: Oh, F-27.
BL: F-27, that’s right.
AM: Yeah.
BL: I knew those so I flew those.
AM: Right. Nice aeroplane.
BL: It was. Yes. And what did I do after that?
AM: Did you not finish on the Boeing?
BL: I might. I finished on the Boeing at Aer Lingus. Yes.
AM: Right. So, it was the first —
BL: When I went to Aer Lingus that was the last employer I had.
AM: Right. And what, was the Boeing 737 the first jet aeroplane you flew?
BL: I would say so. Yes.
AM: I think that’s fantastic.
BL: Yes. I went to the States to convert on to it.
AM: Right.
BL: Yeah. Yeah. So it was, in fact it was the first 737 to be flying in Europe. So it was.
AM: Right.
BL: At that time.
AM: Right. So that’s quite an accolade to go over and pick up the first 737.
BL: Yeah.
AM: And when you retired you were on the Boeing 737.
BL: Yes.
AM: Right.
BL: Yes. I never left them. Oh, well I did actually. I flew the 70, 720 for a while. I did, oh I spent the best part of a year I think, six months or a year as a navigator. They were short of navigators.
AM: Gosh.
BL: At one period when they were flying the Atlantic and they were using the 720 I think it was. And I flew in that as the navigator. Didn’t fly as a pilot.
AM: Right.
BL: I was a navigator because I had my navigator’s licence.
AM: Right.
BL: And then when I finished that section I got moved into the pilot’s seat. The co-pilot, and just continued from there and eventually moved over in to the captain’s seat.
AM: Right.
BL: Finished my time as a captain. I wish in a way you know it was all down in writing and not up here.
AM: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
BL: Because I can’t remember.
AM: Yeah.
BL: I can’t remember now an awful lot. My memory is actually worse now than it used to be.
AM: Bill, it’s a remarkable story and it’s been a great pleasure listening to you, and meeting you and hearing the story of your life.
BL: I’ve been [pause] It’s been an enjoyable life.
AM: Yeah.
BL: I’ve been lucky. Very lucky, with all the different places I went to. Were able to fly from.
AM: Yeah.
BL: With different aircraft.
AM: And flown some lovely aeroplanes. Bill, thank you. I’ll switch that off now.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bill Leckie.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alastair Montgomery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-03-22
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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ALeckieW190322
PLeckieW1901
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:39:32 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Leckie Bill was born in Glasgow but moved to the countryside as his father suffered from bronchitis. Initially working as a cinema projectionist, Bill joined the Royal Air Force at the age of eighteen, enlisting at St John’s Wood in London as a trainee pilot. Bill undertook basic training at RAF Babbacombe in Devon before being sent overseas to Halifax, Canada. He was then sent onwards to Pensacola for flying training, where his flying training included Stearmans. Bill found aerobatics hard and thought he would prefer flying the flying boats. He flew Catalinas, which he describes as sluggish and slow to respond to control inputs. Bill was then sent back to Harrogate in the United Kingdom waiting for a posting, expecting to be sent to fly flying boats as part of Coastal Command. Instead he was sent to Bomber Command at RAF Little Rissington where he trained on Oxfords before being sent to an operational training unit at RAF Lossiemouth. There he flew Whitleys and Wellingtons. Bill was then posted to 77 Squadron in Harrogate to fly the Halifaxes. With his Scottish crew, he took part in a handful of operations from RAF Elvington and RAF Full Sutton. Later, Bill was flown to Cairo via Gibraltar to join 216 Squadron. Bill was also stationed at Brindisi in Italy, flying the Halifax Mk2 as part of a ‘special duties’ squadron dropping supplies and agents, mainly in the Balkans. He took part in dropping agents sent to recover the Nazi’s looted art works. After the war, Bill returned to his job as a cinema projectionist and then later joined Hoover, working in production. Later, Bill moved to Ireland and flew with the airline Aer Lingus, where he flew several types, including the Douglas DC-3 pilot and Vickers Viscount. Before his retirement, Bill was flying some of the first Boeing 737 jet airliners in Europe, having been trained in the United States.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Andy Shaw
Julie Williams
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
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia--Halifax
United States
Florida
Florida--Pensacola
England--Devon
England--Yorkshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Harrogate
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Cairo
Italy
Italy--Brindisi
Ireland
Florida
Great Britain
216 Squadron
77 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
C-47
Catalina
crewing up
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Heavy Conversion Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Elvington
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Little Rissington
RAF Lossiemouth
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stearman
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/562/8830/AWinterP160418.2.mp3
f845e45061463aeac09c3f83a2be823e
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
Winter, Phillip
P Winter
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Winter, P
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview Sergeant Phillip Winter, (748547, 144466 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 102 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-04-18
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: That’s that one. Ok, we are ready to start. This is Andrew Sadler, uhm, interviewing Phillip Winter at his home in Bromley on the 18th of April 2016 on behalf of the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. Thank you for letting me come, Phillip. Uhm, can you, can I start with some general questions about your background?
PW: Yes, sure.
AS: Where, you told me that you’re ninety-nine years of age and we are here with your wife who is ninety-five. Where were you born and when?
PW: I was born in Herne Hill in 1917. My mother was in [unclear], uhm, well that’s it, yes. [laughs] My mother was in [unclear] Herne Hill, I never fathomed why. My father was in the trenches and her father was in a pub in Tunbridge Wells and my first memories are of the pub in Tunbridge Wells, uhm. Why all this happened I don’t know, but my mother went to stay with her father and mother and my father came over the war, uhm, a bit of a broken man.
AS: But he survived?
PW: He survived, yes, he had a minor wound to his hand, but he survived, but uhm, mother told me that if they were out and a car backfired, he’d lie on the pavement straight away,
AS: So he was very badly affected by it.
PW: Shell shocked, yes, yes.
AS: And so you, when you left school, what did you do when you left school?
PW: I was a civil servant. I took the competitive exam at the clerical class and that year they took seven hundred and I came five hundred and twenty fifth, so I was in. And when they asked me what I wanted, I said: ‘Air ministry’ and it came back, board of education. So, I was in the board of education, teachers’ pensions department, which couldn’t have been duller and uhm, by the end of 1938 I was fed up and my brother had taken a short service commission in the RAF, and I thought: ‘Well, I’ll take a short service commission, but first I want to know if I can fly’. And I joined the RAFVR, stayed in my office and joined the RAFVR and went down to Gravesend and then in July ’39 I did my first solo in a Tiger Moth and uhm.
AS: What was your reason for joining the RAF rather than going into any of the other forces?
PW: Because I liked flying, I liked the idea of flying. Ehm, when I was a little boy of twelve and my brother was ten, nine, nine or ten and we were living with my grandfather in the pub in Tunbridge Wells and one of the post First World War flying circuses came to Tunbridge Wells and over the dinner table one day my grandpa put out a ten [unclear] and said: ‘Go and have a fly’. So, the barmaid took us down to the field in the afternoon while this, where this flying circus was, and I had my first flight ever. And after that I just wanted to fly. It was wonderful, looking around, seeing the world from a different angle.
AS: Did your father’s experience of the First World War have any part in your decision?
PW: No, not at all. No.
AS: No. And so, when you joined the RAF, how was it that you came to become into Bomber Command?
PW: How? Well, I joined the RAFVR and of course at the beginning of the war we were, VRs were caught up straight in fact on the first of September and trained, went to Cambridge, inhabited the colleges, did, uhm, I did, initial training wing, uhm, and from there. Where are we, what was the question?
AS: It was, it was, uhm, why you were in Bomber Command.
PW: Ah, that’s it. Well, when I finished my training, uhm, I was asked what I wanted to fly, and I said: ‘Bombers’, because in those days there was a Fairey Battle, single-engine bomber and I was trained on single-engine aircraft, so I thought that would be alright. While I was on leave, uhm, my posting to a Fairey Battle OTU was cancelled and I was sent to Abingdon. And, much to my surprise, Abingdon was twin-engine Whitleys OTU, so I had to convert from single-engine biplanes to twin-engine monoplanes with retractable undercarriages and flaps, uhm, was quite a trial but I managed to, I managed it. Uhm, I had a night flying crash which set me back a bit, but eventually I passed out and was posted to 102 Squadron in Yorkshire, at Topcliffe they were. Uhm, from then on, ah, [sighs] it was extraordinary, I did three trips as a second pilot. Obviously, you had to do several trips as a second pilot, and on my third trip the, uhm, I was back in the navigator’s seat, while he was in the bomb aimers position in the front and uhm, we were coned in searchlights and everything in the district opened up on us and I got a, a lump of shrapnel, straight through my left ankle. Uhm, anyway, we got through, we got back and uhm, I was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, where they tried to make my foot better, but there was a hole straight through the ankle and out the other side. Uhm, from there I went to RAF hospital at Ely and uhm, they managed to fix it and sent me to a rehabilitation unit at Hoylake, in Cheshire, but it wouldn’t work, I had so much pain. They said: ‘You will have to go back to hospital and we will fix it, so that it doesn’t move’. So, since the age of twenty-four my left foot has been glued to my left leg [laughs] uhm, and I’ve been lame. Well.
AS: Can you tell?
PW: So, my operational career was very limited, three trips, but uhm, I got back to flying eighteen months later at Driffield for towing targets for 4 Group Bomber Command [unclear] out over the North Sea, which was good, I enjoyed it. Then, an aircraft called the Martinet, there’s a photograph.
AS: So, uhm, how long were you actually, how long was it before you actually had to give up operations?
PW: Well.
AS: It’s in your logbook.
PW: [shuffling] Whitley, Whitley, Whitley, Whitley. June, June the 12th ’41 was the night I got wounded and then I was back on flying a Tiger Moth. [shuffling] December '42, so June ’41 to December ’42, I was eighteen months in hospital and rehabilitation unit, uhm, and then went back to towing targets, that’s the, some of our lot.
AS: And you were the pilot obviously.
PW: Yes.
AS: And, uhm, and did you do that then for the remainder of the war?
PW: No, I didn’t. Uhm, when Europe was invaded, we didn’t have to, we were moved about, and I was sent to Tempsford to fly Oxfords, which were used for training resistance workers who had been dropped over the other side. Uhm, secret R/T operators, I was just the pilot, uhm, involved a bit of night flying and after that.
AS: Was this part of the Special Operations Executive?
PW: Yes, yes.
AS: So, you, you didn’t know who you were carrying presumably and?
PW: I didn’t know their names or anything about them. I was carrying the instructors and the people, the resistance workers who were being taught to use certain, very secret R/T operators [unclear] ground to air communications. So, I didn’t really know anything about it, I was just the pilot and coupled with that I was also, did long cross countries, training bomb aimers to map read not to a town or a village but to the corner of a field, uhm, that was, I enjoyed that, yes. And then for the last months of the war, I was posted to Lyneham, Transport Command, operations room, I then held the rank of flying officer but to begin with I was a volunteer as a sergeant pilot. That’s a very brief history [laughs].
AS: Yes. When you, uhm, so, what happened when the war ended, what did, how, were you demobilised then?
PW: Yes, I was, uhm, demobilised, here we are, [shuffling] 20th of December 1945.
AS: And I mean the crew that you,
PW: And then, I was very glad to get back into the civil service. You see, I told you I’d think forth of resigning from the civil service and taking the short service commission, but that I wanted to see if I could fly first, and discovering that I could, but I’d no sooner discovered that I could then the war was on and I was in my uniform having to do as I was told [laughs].
AS: Uhm, when.
PW: When I came out, I was very glad that I hadn’t left the civil service. I was in what was then the board of education, which was a non-cabinet post, was ruled over by a president. And uhm, at that time, I was lucky because the 1944 Education Act had been passed, uhm, secondary education for all and of course the education department just blew up like a balloon. And I was lucky, I worked hard and went up with it, had my first, well after, when I was demobbed I went straight back to my old department, which was teachers’ pensions. Uhm, and I worked hard and got promoted and then I was moved to the main office and got a post as a higher executive officer in schools’ branch, which dealt with local authorities and schools. And then, I was posted to establishments branch which I hated and then a curious thing, uhm, a man at the V&A Museum had retired and they wanted somebody to fill his shoes. So, I applied for that, I thought this would be very interesting. So, I applied, and I succeeded in the competition and became deputy and museum superintendent. Uhm, after about a year, the superintendent moved on and there was a competition for his job, but of course I was sitting pretty. So, I became the museum superintendent of the V&A with a flat in the museum and I brought up my family there.
AS: Oh, marvellous.
PW: [laughs] And, well about 19 [pauses] ‘48, ‘45, yes, about 1945, the, uhm, Education Department took over responsibility for the staff in all the national museums and they wanted somebody who knew about staff in museums, which I did after thirteen years, uhm, to take charge of it, so I finished up as a senior principal, uhm, and retired at fifty-eight.
AS: What age did you leave school and join the civil service?
PW: Uhm, [pauses] sixteen, seventeen.
AS: When you, uhm, went out on your three missions, uhm, and you were injured, were any of the other crew injured or?
PW: No, no. But I met the man who was skipper that night, a chap called Oscar Rees, he’d done two Bomber Command tours, a tour on Pathfinders and he got a DSO for bringing back an aircraft with everybody dead or wounded except him and he got a DFC as well and a Pathfinder badge. I met him in the ops room at Lyneham, wonderful chap called Oscar Rees and I haven’t been able to get in touch with him. Amazing.
AS: Excellent. Let me just.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Phillip Winter
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Sadler
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
2016-04-18
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AWinterP160418
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:20:01 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Philip Winter worked in the civil service before he volunteered for the Air Force. He trained as a pilot and flew three operations with 102 Squadron before he was wounded in the ankle. After recuperating he flew towing targets for air gunnery practice and transport for RAF Tempsford. After the war he worked for the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Yorkshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941-06
1942-12
1945-12-20
102 Squadron
4 Group
aircrew
Anson
Battle
Martinet
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Abingdon
RAF Tempsford
RAF Topcliffe
Special Operations Executive
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/9640/PMooreWT1508.2.jpg
46d70c19f0283282b575e00c8060bca7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/9640/AMooreWT150728.2.mp3
c01c152b10f0fbf9438d9f8a3ee5b0c3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
Rights
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Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
This is Andrew Sadler interviewing Mr. William (Bill) Moore at his home in Woking on Tuesday 28th July 2015 for the Bomber Command Archive.
AS: Thank you Bill for allowing me to come and interview you.
BM: You’re very welcome indeed.
AS: Can I start with some background information, where and when were you born?
BM: I was born in Dunoon in Scotland on 26th August 1924
AS: And um, can you tell me a bit about your family background?
BM: My, my father was a regimental sergeant major in the Invergyle Southern Highlanders, my grandfather was a chief petty officer in the Navy, we’d twenty two children, I am one of a family of five and, um, I first got in touch with the, err, Royal Air Force as a cadet with the Air Cadet, Air Cadet Association, which was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps.
AS: And presumably your father, was your father involved in the First World War?
BM: Yes my father and my grandfather was in the First World War, my grandfather was also in the Boer War and he was also in the First and Second World War, and my father was in the First World War and he was called up for the Second World War to the Colours and, um, later stood down when the BEF went to France, and he later took over the, what became the Home Guard for the whole of the County of Argyle in Scotland.
AS: Did he talk about his experiences in the First World War?
BM: Yes he um, he was a Royal Scottish Fusiliers and um, he was in quite a number of the big, of the big battles, and, um, then he was taken, he was taken prisoner in late 1917 and he was shipped out to Poland then and, he was wounded in the legs, he was given very good treatment by the German, um, medical people at that time.
AS: And how did you come to join up into the Royal Air Force?
BM: Oh that was through the, the Air Cadets which was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps. The reason for that was I had been a drummer boy in the band of the Argyle’s and um, I fancied the Air Force after having two flights at a place called Montrose quite a long time before the war started.
AS: Can I just stop what, - okay we are restarting now after closing the windows
BM: Right
AS: Noise outside, sorry you were telling me about how you came, you joined the Royal, the Air Cadet Force.
BM: That’s right the Air Cadet Defence Couriers
AS: And why did you do that, what made you interested in?
BM: So it was after I had two flights we’er with the Argyles as a drummer boy in the Band at Montrose on the east coast of Scotland.
AS: And that made you want to fly?
BM: That’s quite correct.
AS: So what year did you actually join up to the Royal Air Force?
BM: Well for the, well it was 1940-41 when I was in the Air Defence Cadet Corps and then of course when the Air Training Corps started I joined that immediately and, err, on the Monday night I joined up and um, of course naturally I had no rank and then the Friday night of that week I was made a flight sergeant in the Air Training Corps, within one week.
AS: And can you tell me how that came about?
BM: Oh the experience of the Air Defence Cadet Corps, that was why.
AS: So can you tell me about your training?
BM: Oh the training in the, in the Air Training Corps. Yes the Air Training Corps we, um, we attended night school classes in the school along with students who were actually full time students of the school, also members of the Air Training Corps and this was taken by Mathematics teachers and English teachers all the way through, and they had become officers in the Air Training Corps, and one gentlemen Mr. Ozzy Broon, he was the maths teacher and very good in navigation and um, he made it all very, very interesting for us and, um, later on I met up with him but that will come into this later on, um, but he was a person who really gave us the foundation in navigation and bringing us up through math and made it interesting for us.
AS: So what age were you at this time?
BM: By that time I was sixteen.
AS: And um, when you joined the Air Force could, you were immediately made a flight sergeant and what sort of work?
BM: No that, no that was just the Air Training Corps I’m talking about, and that was made immediately. Now what happened was that um, we um, when I was, um, seventeen and a quarter I actually volunteered for the Royal Air Force and um, because of my background in the Air Training Corps I, um, had all certificates following examinations that was, um, especially orientated towards air crew, and with that I was selected at Edinburgh to actually join air crew formally and I was given the silver badge and um, became a member of the Royal Air Force on reserve which was actually the, um, Auxiliary Air Force.
AS: And what year would that have been?
BM: That was, that was beginning, the beginning of ‘42, ‘41-‘42 yes.
AS: And can you tell me how you came to be in Bomber Command?
BM: Well that’s quite a story, but I’ll cut it short as much as possible, we, we were invited to London to Lord’s Cricket Ground where we were given the medicals etcetera and passed all these things and tests, various inoculations etcetera, etcetera, and um, we were billeted at Avenue Close, um, and fed at the, at the Zoo there, and of course, um, after a few weeks we actually were sent to Scarborough where I, I joined number 17 flight, of the air crew selection, and um, that was at, that was the beginning of our formal training with the air crew, Royal Air Force, the Royal Air Force. They, um, that was when we conducted drill, navigation, signals, um, engines, everything that you had to do in preparation to become a member of air crew, but not a specialist at that time, you were given that particular course so that you could be able to fit in somewhere along the line, we were actually called PNB, pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, at that time. That’s what we were, PNB. We um, I had at that particular time I had a flight and that flight, it was a mixed flight of British, French, Belgians and we graduated, we graduated from there and were given various jobs around Scarborough until I was posted to Scoon, now at Scoon in Scotland that was where we got, we got training on Tiger Moths, and then from there, after that was we, we seemed to be doing all right, we were sent to Brougton in Furness where we, where we did a commando course on, in other words it was an escapees course. If anything happened and you were on the other side then you knew what to do to try and get away, and that was where my army training had come in very good and I was appointed a section leader. After that we were posted to, to Heaton Park, Manchester and that is where we were either billeted on homes around the perimeter of the park or actually in the park. Firstly we were actually on the perimeter with a family and, um, that lasted for about two weeks, and then for about three weeks we were actually billeted in Heaton Park in Manchester, and um, then of course we were given various courses etcetera, etcetera, and, um, during that , during that time you got selected for, for to go for training in different parts of the Commonwealth and Empire. At the beginning I was actually getting posted to go to Rhodesia and the reason we knew that was because of the kit that we were getting, not South Africa but Rhodesia. We got on board the ship in Liverpool and um, on the Mersey, and we got on, we got on board the ship there and, um, it happened to be a ship that I knew very well which was brand new at the beginning of the war and I’ve actually got a model of it here, and um, we, we set sail and, um, one evening I, I was presuming that we near the Bay of Biscay, I turned round and I said to my friend, Alec Kerr, I said ‘Alec this ship is going the wrong way’, he said ‘you and your [inaudible] navigation, how do you know?’ I said ‘I’m looking at the stars’ and we landed back up in Liverpool again, we presumed then of course that the word had got out, that was probably a fleet of U-Boats hovering round about the Bay of Biscay and um, they changed their mind about sending us on that ship, which was called the Andes [spells it out]. We got back into Liverpool and we were there about um, two days on board the Andes, and the next thing we were told that we were being transferred onto another ship and um, I looked across and there was a three funnel boat over there, and, I said to this chap Alec, Alec Kerr, I said ‘Alec that’s a five, three, four over there’ he said ‘what’s a five, three, four?’ I said ‘I’m not telling you that’s a secret’. Well the five, three, four was the Queen Mary, the five, three, four was the number that the Queen Mary had in John Brown’s yard in Scotland, in Glasgow when she was getting built. Anyway we got on board that ship and the next thing we knew that we were in New York and we were there overnight, and the next thing we knew we were on the train and we were bound, bound for Canada and we went all up the, the East Coast of Canada and we arrived at Moncton, New Brunswick, and that was the home station in Canada for air crew who were going to be training under the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme. We were there for ten or twelve days, um, not in winterwear as it was six months of the year in Canada, you get a lot of cold weather and um, they just said ‘oh we don’t know anything about you, we’ll get a message one of these days and we’ll give you some uniform’ , so we walked around there um, at one time I used to say like a [inaudible] nanny, but as I say, in Canada there we walked along like squaws because we covered ourselves in blankets to keep warm, but that was only, that was only a gimmick, once you were inside you were nice and warm. Eventually we got kitted out we with Rhodesian Air Force kit which was very good indeed, it was far superior and a lot more modern than what we had previously, for items like shirts the collars were attached instead of getting two collars with a shirt, the great coats were extremely different and the average cloth was a lot finer, anyways that was one of the good points that we had there. The next thing we knew was that we were, I’d say sent across country and um, that was to be going on to various stations now – this was where our actual training began and we had landed in Moncton and then from there, as I say, we travelled by train across to Dauphin, Manitoba, and Dauphin, Manitoba was just a little bit bigger than a village at that particular time but it was really getting populated with the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force, and um, that is where we had bombing and gunnery courses on Ansons and Bolingbrokes. The Bolingbrokes, of course, was the Canadian/ American version of the Blenheim Mark IV which was a very good aircraft. We graduated from there and we went from there to aye, err, Portage la Prairie, Portage la Prairie, I’ve got photographs here and there we are at Portage la Prairie which is, and was, and still is today, one of the major stations of the Royal Canadian Air Force. I said today because I have met wing commanders and group captains who have just recently been in charge of Portage la Prairie, and that is where we did the Air Observer School, that was Air Observer School Number 7 which is navigation etcetera, etcetera, and that was on Ansons and Cranes. We, err, we had a mixed bunch there of New Zealanders, Canadians, and British and we actually graduated from there and um, that is the photograph of it there see.
AS: And you’re on the front row, second from the left.
BM: That’s right [laughs] yeah. That is when I became an air observer, the air observer, of course, has got another name but in this interview I won’t say what it was called.
AS: You told me before.
BM: [Laughs] that’s exactly what it was, yes. Anyway, as far as we were concerned we err -
AS: I think could I, could I maybe I could say it
BM: Yes
AS: For the record you were known as the flying arseholes.
BM: That’s quite correct [laughs], that is quite correct, yes. Now um, with that, we were, we were given our wings there and that was a great occasion because we were made up to sergeants which was, the lowest rank by that time that you could have as air crew. Quite a lot of people don’t understand and don’t know was that right through, for a couple of years the war was on, there was fellow air crew were either AC2’s or AC1’s or LAC, leading aircraftsman and it was only after a while that the rank of sergeant was introduced for minimum rank for aircrew, there’s quite a number of people never knew about that but um, having come through the air cadets etcetera, etcetera, we knew people who were actually flying in operations who were leading aircraftsman and had done quite a number of operations as such and were never recognised as anything else. If they got shot down they never got promotion, they were still at the end of the war leading aircraftsmen. Then um, from Portage la Prairie, um, we got a jaunt down, down to America, I think it was just a matter of, they didn’t know what to do with us for a while and we went down to Florida, and we were flying on Catalina Flying Boats and doing maritime navigation which, from a place called Pensacola. We were there a few weeks and the next thing we knew we were back to Moncton, New Brunswick in Canada, and of course there wasn’t six feet of snow this time, it was a lovely spring cum summer day in Canada. We, we were there for just a few weeks and um, we were told we could have two kit bags and we said ‘why two kit bags?’, ‘well one kit bag you can travel with and if you get a flight back to the UK then that other kit bag will be sent on to you later on’. I was quite happy in one way, I didn’t need to fly back, I got on board a ship and then we were taken from Moncton, New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia. And when we got to Nova Scotia I recognised the ship and I said to my friend, I said ‘oh I don’t like that one’ and he said ‘why is that Bill?’ I said ‘because that’s the Empress of Japan’, he said ‘what!’, I said ‘yeah that’s the Empress of Japan’. Anyway we got on the ship and by that time it was called the Empress of Scotland, they had changed its name during the war from the Empress of Japan to the Empress of Scotland, and we boarded that and we were put onto D deck which is a long way down and um, when we, we tried to get up for the, for the boat drill for emergencies we found that we were only halfway up, so anyway we thought of a plan. If there is going to be an emergency and they want us up on deck why don’t we try and get a place to sleep on deck because it was summertime, anyway we weren’t allowed that. Anyway we eventually landed in the Clyde and from the Clyde we, we got on the train and we went to Harrogate in Yorkshire, and we were held at Yorkshire, in Harrogate for a short time and um, from there I was sent over to Halfpenny Green. Now Halfpenny Green was a mixed unit it was, a normal navigation advanced school for navigators so and there was also an advanced school navigating on, what will I say, um, yeah, this was to become a specialist on map reading, not just normal navigation a specialist on navigation by map reading and that was the section that I was detailed for. When I asked the ‘chiefy’ why I was a chosen, he said ‘why’ he says ‘because we found out that you’re a country boy’, ‘Oh,’ I said ‘that’s nice’, he said ‘also you’ve been around quite a bit’, I said ‘oh thank you very much’. Anyway, ‘chiefy’, the reason I called him ‘chiefy’ was because he was a flight sergeant and the reason you called them a ‘chiefy’ was because when the Royal Air Force and the Naval Service had been amalgamated during the First World War, a lot of the people from the Naval side came across and they were Chief Prison err, Chief um, Chief Petty Officers and they were the chaps who became the first flight sergeants in the Royal Air Force and the name ‘chiefy’ has been there ever since, ‘cos’ if you called someone a ‘chiefy’ today they wonder what the hell you are talking about, but anyway we could often make a few bets on that one, that’s on the side. But Halfpenny Green, we were flying there on the advanced Ansons, Mk V Ansons, which um, had completely closed bombing doors etcetera, etcetera, and of course it was ideal for map reading because your maps weren’t getting thrown about in the lower part of the cockpit when you are trying to do the map reading, but we didn’t realise why it was done, but in the Air Force, once you joined up, you volunteered ever after that, you did what you was told. Right now, I managed to go through that course, came through with very good marks and um, I was then posted to Desborough, um, at Desborough. We were crewed up and that was part of a Wellington crew and um, also flying there I was flying as second dickie, in other words we only had one pilot and um, I got the job within the crew of being the person to be able to, err, take off and land and of course do a bit of flying in between, in case of emergency I could always land the Wellington. That was because of the position and the type of training that we had got in the past. Now from, from Desborough we um, we were transferred to various stations and where I went to, I went to a place called Tempsford. Now Tempsford was one of Churchill’s most secret aerodromes, airfields, when you got there you had to, you had to sign the Official Secret Act which was slightly different from the one that you normally took. In other words this was top secret, anything you said outside of that aerodrome you could be held responsible, and taken into custody, or shot, if it was got the wrong way. The reason for that that came up during your last week of being at Tempsford. Now at Tempsford we, we were crewing with various people, the reason I say that is because being an observer from time to time I wasn’t with the, the same, same pilot, although for some time I was with a chap called Neil Noble and also with err, a young PO who was a chap called Murray, anyway that was very good indeed. Noble was from New Zealand, and err, he was an excellent chap and he was also a country boy and he was excellent for the type of flying that we were doing and likewise was Murray. Now what happened was that during that time at Tempsford that is where we did flying of taking people out and into France, quite often it was on, it was on Lysanders and you didn’t have much room in Lysanders because err, it being a small one engine aircraft and you were flying low and you were actually taking these people into France. It wasn’t the first time that we had to bring people back from France and on various occasions, the group had actually brought back four gentleman who later on became Premiers of France and they actually also were leading lights in the resistance movement, what we called the Maquis. Now one of the things that happened at Tempsford was that um, we later on had an aircraft and this aircraft was called a Hudson, now that Hudson was an aircraft, American one, which was designed to land on the prairies in America. It was heavily undercarriaged and it was ideal for what we did, it was a way from the Lysander with the single engine and was a twin engine aircraft and what was happening there was that we were carrying a lot of heavy goods for the Maquis. That was the bombs, sticky bombs, all sorts of bombs like that, grenades, ammunition, weapons, oh up to medium sized weapons which they could use without using vehicles to carry them about. Now there was one particular trip when we were on the Hudson and we were on one of the airfields that had been selected by the Maquis, now what had happened was the Maquis people, quite a number of them, had been brought over to the UK and they were given special training as to get airfields that we could land in, the idea being was that the drop zones or picking up and laying down of agents, and it was essential that they were kept on this secret list ‘cos only a few minutes normally that we were on the ground. On this particular occasion what happened was that we came into land and we landed very well, we got to top of the, I call it run section, we turned round and as we turned round we began to sink in the mud, well it felt like mud to us, I suppose it was only a wet piece of ground, and we sank down, and um, I said to the skipper, ‘oh were in trouble’, he said ‘oh we’ll get off all right’, so anyway the Maquis arrived and they got all their stuff out and um, the leading agent there was a lady and she cleared an area, got all the Maquis away and we were ready to take off and then we realised that we couldn’t get out the mud, or whatever it was. So anyway we were about ready for to put the bomb in the air trap and blow it up and then get the hell out of there, but anyway she said ‘no’ she said, ‘we think we’ll get you out of there all right’ and she got the people from a nearby village to come to try and help us out because they were on their way up they met what they call the German sergeant who was in charge of the village and he said ‘right where are you people going?’, ‘oh your big black aircraft, your big black aircraft is on the ground there and if we don’t get it out of the mud the Gestapo is going to shoot us and they’ll shoot you as well’. So his retort was back to hers was that he would look after the village, they could go and get the aircraft out, so anyway the people got all sorts of equipment and we managed to take off again, that was the longest that we were ever on the ground until a few years later, it certainly felt like hours and hours and hours but was, it was just over an hour and a quarter on the ground which was an extremely long period and we got away.
AS: Was this work part of what was known as part of the Special Operations Executive?
BM: We were working with the SOE, yes that’s exactly what we were doing. Now that was one of the moments where various escapades like that but that that was the one of the longest times on the ground. Quite often we landed in a field and of course one or two of the fields had been used in the past for gliders but of course nobody had been near them in years, not even the Germans had used them and that was why they, the Maquis, had actually selected them for us, and they had um, they hadn’t done any work on them as such just hoping that the odd tree stump or that, that we landed in was, would be avoided which they were quite good. There was quite often a brush, as we called it, on the ground but we managed to sweep that aside when you are landing and take off. Now the thing about that was that um, the area dropping and picking up and laying down of agents was essentially an extreme secret list and only a few minutes were allowed between knowing the target area and the take off and only the crew members concerned knew exactly where. As little contact as possible was allowed between any agents and the crew, I don’t care what people say, Americans and different books nowadays I will call them ‘Joes’, as far as we were concerned we had as little contact as possible so that if anything happened to them or happened to us we couldn’t divulge anything and neither could they, because later on Hitler had said that anybody with knowledge of the situation would be shot as spies, so as little contact as possible was allowed between any agents and the crews. The airfield contacts or landings were seldom used again and again, although there were one of two were very suitable among them was Paris and Chateauroux and various other ones, these were the favourite ones that they were ones that were used quite a few times.
AS: When you were working, when you were on those flights you were acting as an observer?
BM: An observer yes.
AS: And what was the role of the observer?
BM: An observer was, it was a navigator but also you did everything, you did everything.
AS: So, you were a backup if something?
BM: That’s right. The observer learnt to fly, that was one of the other things an observer did, later on of course that was taken over by, on the bigger aircraft, by the flight engineer, but in the early days that was the observer that did that, aye. Now later on, later on during the war once it became apparent with the advance of the allies in France, the role of 138 Squadron and 161 Squadron was diminishing so what happened then was that 138 Squadron we went back to Bomber Command and with that we went to Langar where we actually um, we actually flew on Lancasters and then the Lancasters and then of course we were, I’d say we were part and parcel of the Bomber Command operations and that was from Tuddenham, and at Tuddenham we lay alongside 90 Squadron which was one of the main, main squadrons that occupied Tuddenham right through during the war.
AS: And what year was that, that you became part of Bomber Command?
BM: That was beginning that was the beginning of ‘44-‘45 and that was from, we started there, the actual squadron according, according to the history, was that everything came into being in March of 1945 but of course it was long before that we were [inaudible] but that’s just from the history books. Later the events all changed and we were sent to Langar to receive conversant to Lancasters, which turned out to be the light of my life as the aircraft which was the one that I favoured best, and from Langar we went to Feltwall, Mildenhall, Methwold, and Stradishall for other special duty training and eventually to Tuddenham. We took part in many of the operations but on the big one to Potsdam our Wing Commander Murray took over as captain of the night. Now that Wing Commander Murray was a pilot officer that I flew with, aye, early in my career with 138 Squadron and he became eventually the, the squadron leader, wing commander for 138 squadron, he took charge of that. Along came the Operation Manna which gave us great pleasure in being part of and likewise to Juvincourt where we brought home many of our fellow air crew members who had been prisoners of war, and after a few weeks of PRDU work at Tuddenham we were allowed to transfer to RAF Benson where we took over our own Lancasters and became part of the operating across Europe and photographing the whole of Europe for um, the secret stations that Churchill had wanted when he was Prime Minister. So that was there crew there, the other air crew in Bomber Command where we did all our operations.
AS: And were you still working as an observer at this stage?
BM: Yes, yes
AS: You were still an observer?
BM: Aye
AS: And this is your crew next to a Lancaster?
BM: Yes, that’s the crew that we eventually had, yes.
AS: And which one is you Bill?
BM: [laughs] Probably go with the height you’ll maybe get me, [laughs] can you recognise me?
AS: I think you are the one on the left on that side on the right.
BM: Yes that’s me [laughs], that there the tallest one actually became the rear gunner .
AS: And were you always with the same crew?
BM: Once we, once we got to Tuddenham we were all with the same crew yes.
AS: So these are the same, so this is the same people?
BM: That’s right yeah.
AS: And obviously you all made it through the war?
BM: Oh yes.
AS: ‘Cos a lot did not.
BM: No, that is quite correct we were lucky.
AS: So when you were on the bombing raid can you tell me exactly what your role would have been?
BM: Oh we were, there were two things so we acted as a full navigator and sometimes as an electronic navigator and also a bomb aimer as well ‘cos we were qualified to do all these jobs.
AS: So you moved from one role?
BM: One role to another yeah.
AS: To another.
BM: In our crew everybody could do everything else except on the Lancasters. The skipper Neil Noble and, and myself were doing the flying, and also our flight engineer ‘cos he only joined us on the Lancasters ‘cos when we were flying in the Wellingtons and that we didn’t have, we didn’t have a flight engineer. The flight engineer were only brought on when we started with the Stirlings and Halifaxes and then the Lancasters.
AS: Can you tell me what it was like to fly the Lancasters as opposed to the Wellingtons?
BM: Oh yes, it was a much easier aircraft to fly than even the Wellingtons and the Wellington was a good one to fly.
AS: In what way was it easier?
BM: Well the, the, the controls were simpler, it was easier to control them than it was some of the former aircraft.
AS: And can you describe the procedure when you went on a bombing raid?
BM: Right, well what happened was once you were crewed and once you had done a few operations like mine laying and things like that, minor operations and then of course you were selected by crews that you moved up the ladder a bit and then of course you were formally taken on to the, I would say, the senior strength of the squadron, but our squadron did not like to put rookie crews onto the heavy stuff at first, you got a baptism of fire by, as I say, doing the mine laying jobs and various other ones which you weren’t so likely to have been involved in heavy enemy fire etcetera, etcetera. We were thankful for that because you were given that training and there was actually training in the actual thing. So what happened was that once you, once you were there then of course you had briefings where the whole crew was together, then of course you had briefings where there was selected sections of the aircrew, mainly the pilot, navigator, and quite often the flight engineer and radio operator were involved. When we were doing special duties with Lancaster’s we had the whole crew together ‘cos we felt as if everybody should know exactly what’s going on and not be a surprise to anybody with what we were doing because quite often there was raids that was known to only a section of a squadron and sometimes a full squadron, whereas if it wasn’t a joint operations with the other squadrons, or the other squadron are out and you lay down so that was how it went, but you were actually given as much information as possible about the targets, about where you were going, the flight, the enemy aircraft etcetera, etcetera.
AS: How many missions did you fly with Bomber Command?
BM: About thirty six.
AS: That was quite a lot wasn’t it?
BM: Yes it was quite a lot.
AS: It sounds as if you were lucky to pull through because?
BM: I was extremely lucky, I was extremely lucky, because with 138 Squadron we had, we had quite a [long pause, shuffling papers], with 138 Squadron, 138 Squadron had taken in nine hundred and ninety five agents, they’d taken in twenty nine thousand containers and they’d taken in over ten thousand packages. We lost seventy aircraft and three hundred aircrew, our motto was ‘for freedom’, that was 138 Squadron you know.
AS: Yes you had different people on different stations?
BM: Right, now also what did happen was that with 138 Squadron we had a flight of Poles, Polish chaps. Now what happened with them was that they was declared by the German forces that if the Poles were shot down they were to be treated as spies, so I didn’t like the idea of that and all the ones on our flight I taught them a bit of Gaelic, I gave them little addresses from on all the outer isles on the west of Scotland and I gave them Scottish names, and I told them if they got shot down they would have to use them as identification plus their rank and number, and I, ‘cos I do know that quite a number of them actually survived like that because they pretended to be Scottish, Gaelic, and where they pointed to on the map was where they came from and it was a real island but I gave them all different islands, and of course when they were on the squadron if they spoke to anybody they had to say who they were and not who they were in Polish.
AS: And why the Poles singled out for special harsh treatment?
BM: Oh because their country had been occupied by the Germans. They took it that they were, if they did that they were actually against them that was the end of it.
AS: Mmm, when you um, when you were flying with Bomber Command how often, you said you had thirty six missions, how far apart were they, were you?
BM: Well sometimes you might be on three nights in a row, sometimes it might be two, two in one week, but it was surprising just how much, just how of course some operations like mine laying and things like that were considered quite minor ones so you probably fitted them in in between times.
AS: And went you weren’t actually flying when you were on the ground how did you occupy your time?
BM: We kept ourselves fit, we played a lot of squash or we played a lot of rugby that was the two things we did as a crew because we could play together, and we were together, we were a crew.
AS: And when you were not flying you stuck together as a
BM: As a crew yes. We used to have, in the Nissen huts, we normally had two crews to the hut and we pretty well stuck together.
AS: And what sort of conditions were you living in, was it, were they good conditions or?
BM: Well, well when we were one squadron there was err, there was a Nissen hut set of accommodation which was two crews, as I say two crews about fourteen men to a hut and a potbelly stove in the middle and then of course your, your, your mess and that on the squadron was a Nissen type building. There was one or two squadrons which were peacetime ones, the RAF Benson was a peacetime one and there’s still peacetime one, but Methwold and quite a few of these other ones were established pre-war and the accommodation was slightly better, but anything that was rushed up during the war time was normally the Nissen huts.
AS: Now after the war, what, how did you, what happened after the war?
BM: Well what happened after the war, like what I said earlier on, was that we did some PRDU work from Tuddenham.
AS: What’s PRDU work?
BM: That’s Post RAF Reconnaissance.
AS: Ah.
BM: What we didn’t realise it was like a programme to see if we were suitable to do the job and there was three crews were picked, three, with their aircraft and we were sent over to RAF Benson and we then came under PRDU people there and, err, we photographed the whole of Europe, north to south and east to west, and we photographed the likes of the city of London, and other big cities from two thousand feet. Towns like Woking and this area would be from about five-six thousand feet and um, then the general countryside was anything from ten to twenty thousand feet, and we did that for the whole of Europe. We also had bases all over the country and also had bases in Norway, bases in South of France and various places like that, so what we actually did was that at one time, one time we landed at one, one particular station and it had been used as a transit camp and we woke up in the morning scratching like hell and we found out we had scabies so of course that was us isolated. We go back to our own station and we were isolated by the, by the medical people until we got rid of it, and then we, what we said, wherever we went after that we took our own kit with us so we didn’t get scabies.
AS: And this would have been after 1945 you were doing this?
BM: Yes
AS: And how long did you stay in the RAF for?
BM: Middle of 1946.
AS: And, and what did you do after you left?
BM: Well I went back into the building industry, and um, it wasn’t that long before I went to Rhodesia where I was supposed to have gone with the with the Royal Air Force and the idea there was that a federation was starting up between Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia, and um, I went out there and I went out as a general building foreman, and instead of staying four years with the company that I worked for I stayed fifty years. I built schools, universities, colleges, hundreds of local houses, all over the territories, and then of course gradually it worked out that Rhodesia was the only one that didn’t get its independence, Nyasaland 1963, Nyasaland was given independence then and became Malawi, and more or less at the same time Northern Rhodesia, which had been a Crown Colony run from Britain, they also had theirs, but Southern Rhodesia, which became Rhodesia, had been a self-governing colony since 1926 and they were not granted independence. And what happened was in 1926 there had been a vote there to say if whether they were going to pick up as a province in South Africa or stay as Rhodesia as an independent self-governing colony and the vote was to stay as Rhodesia self-governing colony, so if they’d had went the other way it would have been a province of South Africa.
AS: So what year did you come back to the United Kingdom?
BM: I only came back twelve years ago.
AS: Oh gosh. So have you, after the end of the war have you kept in contact with your crew mates?
BM: Oh yes, well I’ll tell you what, Jimmy Dugg, his great grandson is Israel Dugg who played full back for the All Blacks against the Springboks on Saturday and various other ones.
AS: So you kept in contact with them?
BM: Oh yes.
AS: Did you, um, I mean after the war?
BM: What happened in Rhodesia, put it this way what happened there was that I had, in the short term, I had reinstated the family business in the building trade, I found out that the contracts were not being run honestly as far as I was concerned and that’s when I said to my brothers ‘you can have the company I’m going abroad’, I had thoughts for Canada, I had thoughts for Australia, I had thoughts for New Zealand, and at the time they wanted people to go to what was going to become the Central African Federation, um, and that’s where I decided to go to. I had no regrets, no regrets at all. I was there from 1952-53 right up until I came here, came back here and that was in 2003, but during that time, as I said before, I built schools and hospitals and other things all the way through. I even, in 1960 the Queen Mother had come out previously and laid the foundation stone of the hospital in Blantyre, Nyasaland which she named the Queen Elizabeth Hospital then she came back in 1960 and declared it open, now of course it wasn’t just a hospital it was like a major township around the hospital that we built that what took us so long, anyway what did happen when we had a ball at Zumba, the capital, after she had declared it open etcetera, etcetera, and the following the morning the Governor, Glynn Jones came to me and said ‘I’ve got a job for you’ I said ‘No, no, no I don’t need no freebies sir’, he said ‘it’s for the old lady’, I said ‘what’s that’, he said ‘I want you to build a racecourse for her,’ I said ‘what! I don’t know anything about building racecourses’, he said ‘go and find a plan somewhere’ he says ‘I want you to build a racecourse for her’, I said ‘all right how long have I got?’ he said ‘you’ve got ten days’. So anyway I got my own crew which was about fifty-sixty chaps and I went along to Zumba Prison and I got hundred bandits from there, short term bandits, and I asked for all the ones who had been Queen Victoria men, or King George men, or Kind Edward men, people like that and I got volunteers and I looked after them. I said they would be rewarded which they were, properly and kindly, etcetera, etcetera, and we did the job, and instead of what you do today, putting up things in canvas, I did it all in pole and thatch, and um, she, what happened is that she went on the Ilala which is the ship that plies up and down Lake Nyasa, and Lake Nyasa is three hundred and sixty five miles long and fifty two miles wide and there are various ports along it that the Ilala used to either go into or stand off and it used to take cattle, people passengers, VIP’s everything, there were ten or twelve cabins on it so it wasn’t a small one. It was actually built in, in Scotland and taken out in pieces to a place called Monkey Bay where it was put back together again and floated on Lake Nyasa and she has been going there ever since [laughs].
AS: Excellent. Can I um [end]
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Interview with Bill Moore. One
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Andrew Sadler
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2015-07-28
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01:10:53 Audio recording
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eng
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AMooreWT150728
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Polskie Siły Powietrzne
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An account of the resource
William Moore was born in Dunoon, Scotland in August 1924 and joined the Royal Air Force after spending some time in the Air Cadet Defence Corps and in the Air Training Corps. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force at the age of 17 and completed his training in Canada, after which he qualified as an air observer.
William flew Ansons and Cranes and learned navigation in America on Catalina flying boats. He also tells of flying Lysanders and transporting agents for the Special Operations Executive into France. He also tells how he helped Polish airmen with different information to keep them safe if they crashed.
William flew a number of aircraft including the Lancaster, Stirlings and Halifaxes at different locations and was on 36 operation with Bomber Command, taking part in Operation Manna. He served with 138 Squadron and 161 Squadron. He also tells of his life after the war, when he went to live in Rhodesia where he helped to run the family business before returning to Great Britain in 2003.
Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
United States
France
Germany
Netherlands
England--Bedfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Staffordshire
Zimbabwe
Africa--Lake Nyasa
138 Squadron
161 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
aerial photograph
aircrew
Anson
Catalina
flight engineer
Halifax
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
navigator
observer
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
RAF Benson
RAF Desborough
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
reconnaissance photograph
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/812/10794/AEllamsSD170825.1.mp3
b0ffbbb061e351d003bc492ea0b449ee
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Title
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Ellams, George
G Ellams
Description
An account of the resource
60 items. An oral history interview with George Ellams the son of Wing Commander George Ellams OBE (b. 1921), and documents and photographs concerning his fathers service. He flew operations as a wireless operator with 223 and 199 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Stephen Ellams and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-10-06
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Ellams, G
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Ok. So, it’s Friday the 25th of August 2017 and today I’m with Steven Ellams in Manston in West Yorkshire. And we’re here to talk about Steven’s dad who was George Ellams, Bomber Command, and lots beside. So, I’m going to just stick that on the floor somewhere. That’ll do. And what I’m going to ask you Steve I know that you said your dad was born on the 16th of May 1921. So, what do you know about his early life? Where he was born. What his parents did.
SE: I did a visit to Liverpool a couple of years ago to trace his background and the family. And he was from Toxteth in Liverpool. And I’ve got his original school reports. I know he was in the Boy’s Brigade and I know that he was, on his signing up papers registered as a shop fitter.
AM: He was a shop fitter.
SE: And when I looked at that a bit closer it turns out it wasn’t quite what I thought. And the title shop fitter was more that he dressed dummies and that. So, I learned that my father was a window dresser come whatever else. Anyway, so the family, the Ellams family. It’s pronounced Ellams but Ellams people pronounce it different ways. They come from the Liverpool area and the Wirral. I’ve traced the family background. The two brothers which he had were both in the RAF at some stage and we traced that the elder brother was given the freedom of the City of Chester for being able to trace the family name back to 1066 or thereabouts. So, it’s quite a well-known ancient name. So, he being the younger of the brothers joined the RAF in 1938.
AM: Can I just wheel back a little bit?
SE: Yeah.
AM: Do you know what his parents did? What his, what his father did?
SE: Yes. His father, his father was a publican. Ran some different group of pubs in the Liverpool and particularly in the Birkenhead area. I’ve done a little bit of background on that and he was in the Merchant Navy. So, he, we’ve never been able to find exactly that part of his background particularly well but the part of the mother’s side which was extremely traumatic and something that we learned quite early on was that she committed suicide when he was fourteen. So, my father — and he found her hanging in a wood. So, we knew there was some really traumatic episode there. Now there have been other family members that we’ve traced since and there has been one of the family members has done quite an in-depth search on the rest of the family and the Ellams Printing Company have been part of that group and there are quite well documented, you know pieces in newspapers and that in the Liverpool area. And I’ve actually got the write up on his father’s death which was about 1967 I believe. So, we’ve got one or two pieces there. But the, the earlier background there was always the suggestion that his mother was Irish and his father was English but we’ve never quite been able to trace that. So, I’ve never gone back further than those bits of information.
AM: I’m trying to piece the dates together. Did you ever meet him then? Your grandfather?
SE: No. No.
AM: You didn’t.
SE: No. I never met them. Well, I certainly, obviously never met the mother. My father interestingly enough did seem to be adopted by a lady who, where she fitted in to it again we’ve got photographs of this lady but I think it was simply that she sort of took the boys under her wing when the mother disappeared. There was something there. But certainly, as far as the publican side is concerned, we’ve only got one photograph of the father in this particular pub and I have since traced that pub and that pub still exists in Birkenhead. In Wallasey. That’s where they went. And the school report and the details of that are all from the Boy’s Central School, New Brighton, Wallasey, and —
AM: So, that’s where he went.
SE: Yeah. And there’s some good information in there as to what his sort of level of education was like and he was obviously showing a little bit of technical skill at that time, I think.
AM: How old was he when he left school?
SE: I think he was about seventeen, eighteen. Something like that.
AM: So probably would have done school certificate then.
SE: Yes, he did. I think he did.
AM: He did it.
SE: Yes. I think it’s in there. Yeah. And then obviously he seemed to go straight into the RAF. Now, I believe it was his brothers —
AM: Via the window dressing.
SE: Yeah. I think it was his brothers that encouraged him to do that and certainly I haven’t been able to trace much other than his middle brother was, was a sergeant in the RAF. And the elder brother, and the one that got the Freedom of the City of Chester he ended up as the senior representative, chairman, call it what you like of the Prudential Insurance in Liverpool. So, he had quite an interesting career and he does come up in one or two searches when you google the name. And his name was John. The same as his father. So, both the senior brother and the father were both called John Ellams whereas the middle one was called Walter.
AM: Right. And then, yeah you knew that he went as a — so as a seventeen year old he joined the RAF and he went to Cranwell.
SE: Yeah. This has always been a bit of an anomaly as well because most people would know that if you went to a technical part of the RAF you would go to what was Cosford, Halton, St Athan.
AM: Yeah. Absolutely.
SE: And various other places and I always used to think it was a bit odd that he ended up at what would be the equivalent to the RAF’s senior —
AM: And that —
SE: Officer training. So, having then found loads more documentation. This was fairly recently when my mother died that we found that there was some paperwork to say that there were a group of individuals who were signed up to that college. And how or why it came about I don’t know but the list he actually kept so that he could trace some of these characters and you went as an apprentice, a craft apprentice, a technical apprentice to —
AM: To Cranwell.
SE: Cranwell. And you then went on to whatever station. And Aldergrove in Northern Ireland seems to be the station where he went immediately after that as a wireless operator. Obviously, Cranwell doesn’t do, do apprenticeships now. And of course, when I got to talk to Peter about this I said that he was always very proud of his hat band which was a particular type of colouring or squares or whatever the colouring was. Because when he was the senior training officer at RAF Cosford he used to go on about how he went to Cranwell and they were always sort of like, ‘Well, wait a minute. How could you have gone Cranwell if you weren’t a pilot?’
AM: Yeah. Why would you be?
SE: So, there were all these sort of anomalies in there. But I’ve actually got the list now of the apprentices that went to Cranwell in those years and I think Peter’s copied that now.
AM: Right. Yeah.
SE: Or I hope he has because that document must be pretty rare.
AM: It will have all been copied.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Did he ever speak about then? So, he left school with school certificate. Window dressing seems a bit —
SE: I know.
AM: Left field.
SE: I got the shock of my life when I got the documents from Innsbruck in Gloucestershire saying what his original occupation was.
AM: And you just don’t know. It might have just been the temporary job.
SE: Absolutely.
AM: Earn a little money.
SE: Absolutely. Absolutely.
AM: And but did he ever speak about actually joining the RAF and —
SE: No.
AM: Where he would have gone to sign up?
SE: No. No.
AM: So, somewhere there’s a bit missing there where he would have, he would have signed up.
SE: Yeah.
AM: They would have looked at him.
SE: Yeah.
AM: To try and decide — ok.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Which bit of the RAF then.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And somehow they’ve picked him out as being technically minded.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Which is where you then go on to find out that he became —
SE: Yeah.
AM: You know — a wireless operator.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, how did, from your, from the records that you got how long was it? You said he wasn’t at Cranwell very long and then —
SE: It seemed about a year that the sort of apprenticeship they did. It didn’t seem to be much more than that because the first major entry or tracing I could come up with was sort of ’40, ’41. So, there’s a bit of a gap between the beginning of the war and leaving Cranwell and going to Aldergrove. So, there’s this Aldergrove connection in Northern Ireland that I can’t quite piece together and then it seems to be that around that time he was obviously showing some aptitude and it was the case then that he went for flying training. Now, I do remember him talking about that and that his claim was that he could take off but he couldn’t land, and that he basically got turned down for —
AM: Right.
SE: Flying training. And this was when he was re-mustered then as a W/op AG.
AM: Right.
SE: And that’s when that logbook starts.
AM: And that happened to quite a few of them.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Where they showed the aptitude but for whatever reason they dipped out of the pilot training.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then as you say were re-mustered.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Because looking at the logbook.
SE: Yeah. It starts —
AM: At you say it’s got —
SE: With Defiants.
AM: This one starts with the Defiants.
SE: Yeah.
AM: In ’42.
SE: Absolutely.
AM: So, you’ve still got a gap there.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Where he would have had to have done some training to fly as a pilot.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Before he got to the stage —
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: Where they decided he weren’t going to be one.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And then he would have had to do his, his wireless op training.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, that was the beginning of the war. So he would have trained as an air gunner as well.
SE: Yeah. And that’s where it really starts for me.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Because he, he very early on I remember I was really into Airfix model making. And I bought a model of a Defiant. And that little brass one there is a Defiant. And he used to look at that and say, ‘See this thumb and you see those scars?’ He said, ‘That’s as a result of getting my thumb caught in the trigger on a Browning machine gun that’s on those turrets.’
AM: On the Defiant.
SE: And that’s when it starts there with the log.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And I’ve traced one or two of those aircraft. I think there’s one of them still, I’m not even convinced it’s not the one that’s at the RAF Museum. But I have done a bit of work on Defiants.
AM: Right. So, what’s, looking at the logbook which starts in January ’42. So, he was at Number 2 air gunner’s, Air Gunnery School.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And as you say was on Defiants.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And, and the remarks within the logbook are about the number of rounds hit.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Fired. And how long it took and what have you. All in Defiants.
SE: Yeah. I think the, as I understand it was the turret. In other words, depending on what aircraft you were likely to be posted onto you would learn and train on a similar type of turret. And I’ve been to the museum here in York where they’ve got a Bomber Command turret exhibition and they are quite specific these turrets. And they’ve all got different names and that and I do understand that’s where that came from. So, the high likelihood is you would then be posted on to an operational squadron which would have those type of turrets.
AM: That’s right. And yet —
SE: Or that’s as I thought it was. Whether that’s true I don’t know. But to go from there to Sunderlands.
AM: Well, yeah.
SE: I thought was a bit strange. And the other first aircraft you’ll see crop up there is a thing called a Lerwick and a Lerwick was a two-engine Flying Boat that had a very poor track record.
AM: That’s it so, so —
SE: So, he went to that first which was presumably the Conversion Unit, and then finally on to Sunderlands.
AM: Even just on the first page where he’s at the Air Gunnery School he’s in the Defiants. Quite a number of the pilots that he was flying with were Polish.
SE: Yes.
AM: By the looks of the names.
SE: Yes. Yes.
AM: And when he starts off you’re looking at the number of hits — one percent, six percent, seven percent.
SE: Yes [laughs] it’s not very good is it?
AM: And then the very, well then he had a go with no drogue.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So they’re not following it around anymore.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then all of a sudden he gets thirty four percent in two hundred rounds.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then it stops and then he moves to number 4 CO Training Unit.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And that’s when as you say he ends up on the Lerwick but then latterly on the Sunderlands. So —
SE: Well, one of, one of the interesting things about, which I do remember he did talk about that because as a kid you’d get into air guns and pistols and whatever. And again because he was senior training officer at RAF Cosford we had access to all the facilities so he’d say to me, ‘Do you want to come down to the range and we’ll get that rifle of yours sorted out?’ And I do remember him saying that, ‘You may have seen in my logbook about the target shooting and the percentage hits and that.’ And I said to him, ‘How did you ever know they were your bullets that were hitting it?’ He said, ‘You painted them.’
AM: Yeah.
SE: He said, ‘You had all different coloured bullets so that whoever was hitting it you could identify then.’ So, I said, ‘Oh,’ you know. And I then asked, you know about the, the success rate, and he said, ‘Oh, I was never that good,’ he said, ‘But,’ he said, ‘You got passed out on anything that was reasonable.’
AM: And actually depending what plane they were on you talk to lots of gunners and they never actually fired a gun in anger.
SE: Probably not.
AM: They never needed to.
SE: Yeah.
AM: They knew how to take it apart.
SE: Yeah
AM: Anyway.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, back to your, your dad. And in, in March — so February to March through to April he was on the Sunderlands. Did he ever talk about why? Why did he end up on Sunderlands?
SE: No idea. That one’s always been a bit of a mystery. I think the fact is that he was showing an aptitude for the radio side and the radar side and the Sunderland was a very good platform to put lots of equipment on. And it’s obvious through the log that he was learning a lot of stuff.
AM: Yes.
SE: And finally became the squadrons signals officer and was again on various courses and bits of upgrade. Came back to the UK for, again upgrades on different radios and wirelesses. So, I think there was an element there that they were starting to see again that he was moving more —
AM: Yeah.
SE: To the technical side than he was either the flying or the ground side.
AM: Because in, in that whole period most of it is exercises with valves.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Two way, all the way, so we’re talking about radio stuff.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And there’s only one air to air gunnery. A hundred and fifty rounds fired. Nil stoppages. Everything else is about —
SE: Yeah.
AM: Wireless. The wireless side of it.
SE: There’s one entry there which I I will tell you about because I think it’s the most fascinating thing is an entry coming back to the UK from West Africa and it says specifically that they were attacked somewhere over the Bay of Biscay.
AM: Is that later on you’re talking?
SE: Yeah. They were attacked by an ME110. Now, the captain of that aircraft, it gives his name there. And I thought what’s the chances of this chap being alive still? And I then went to the Sunderland Flying Boat Association which is run by a chap who’s written many books on the subject and I contacted him and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this, what’s the chances —’ He gave me the current list of live pilots from that time. This is going back about ten years now. I rang the number. The guy was still alive. He was ninety two. And I said, ‘I’m Steve Ellams. I’m the son of what would have been Pilot Officer Ellams in those days,’ And he basically said, ‘I remember that trip,’ he said, ‘We got absolutely shot to bits. Nothing was below the water line. We landed at Calshot which is on the south coast,’ and he said, ‘Everybody got off, looked at each other and said that was a close one.’
AM: Yeah.
SE: And as I said it’s in the log there that he read. He remembered it. The pilot. Again, my father not being alive to verify any of this so I can only go by what he said.
AM: Absolutely.
SE: On that particular occasion.
AM: Because then I’m still looking at the logbook. April ‘42. Now, he’s posted.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But not on Sunderlands.
SE: Yeah. He did about eighteen months I think it was.
AM: Yeah. And I’m looking at the different pilots he flew with.
SE: The most significant is the early bit where you see he is on L5805 for about a month.
AM: He is. Yeah.
SE: And L8, I’ve checked this. I’ve got the records. L5805 disappeared in the middle of an operation in nineteen, was it ’41 or ’42?
AM: ’42.
SE: ’42. And the pilot is a, is a chap called Pybus.
AM: Pybus, yeah.
SE: And he was a New Zealander. Now, he has a memorial to his name in Auckland in New Zealand.
AM: Right.
SE: He and the whole of that crew disappeared. But you’ll note my father wasn’t on the crew that day it disappeared. Now, I believe this is where he has, or had this thing about Sunderland Flying Boats because if you look at the dates you’ll see the aircraft and the crew don’t appear for a month. Now, you’re in West Africa. Where are you? What are you doing?
AM: Yeah.
SE: Now, we know he suffered malaria all his life and we think, I’m not certain, I haven’t got his RAF medical records but I’m pretty convinced he got malaria. He didn’t go on that trip. The crew disappeared.
AM: And he was in hospital.
SE: He was still there. And I think he’s had a little bit of a sort of thing about that ever since.
AM: Right. Because as you say he was, he was in the Mediterranean by then. He joined 95 Squadron. He was posted to 95 Squadron, 14th of April ’42.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then in terms of thinking about where he went —
SE: Yeah.
AM: The significant one is that after three days of engine tests they went from Calshot to Mountbatten to Gibraltar to the Mediterranean.
SE: Yeah.
AM: To Freetown.
SE: Which is —
AM: So they were —
SE: British West Africa.
AM: Yeah. Absolutely.
SE: They operated there for most of that. Yeah.
AM: All over that area.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Escorting the Queen Mary.
SE: Yeah, they had, they had quite a chequered background but according to most of the material I’ve read on 95 they were, they were just doing fourteen hour sorties into the middle of the Atlantic. It was an extremely boring time.
AM: Yeah. Because some of the, apart from the transit ones that were getting them —
SE: Yeah.
AM: From somewhere to the somewhere else.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: They are quite short. Relatively anyway. Short flights.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And so from May ’42 he was the second wireless operator.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then from mid-May became the first.
SE: Yeah.
AM: WOM.
SE: Yeah. And the main, the main aircraft that seems to have survived right through with his time was EJ 144. Now, that aircraft was finally written off some time in ’44 after he’d left the squadron. But I’ve got pretty good records from 95 via John Evans, as I say. He’s the guy who’s done all the books on the Sunderland and he’s got a very good record of this lot. And it just seems to be that apart from a couple of crashes that they had and they’re mentioned in there where they’ve had one or two issues and I’ve got those photographs and those photographs have been published in, in John Evan’s book. And, I think in one or two other aviation books as well. So, again he never mentioned Sunderlands. He never mentioned crashes. He never mentioned this business in the middle of the Bay of Biscay with the ME 110.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And you sort of think but having visited the RAF Museum and clambered aboard the Sunderland they’ve got there and realised that this thing that you can see above your head as well was a pretty big aircraft and that you can sleep on it. You could —
AM: Oh yeah.
SE: You had quite a nice little setup on there. You’d have bacon butties.
AM: It’s a lot bigger than being inside a Lancaster?
SE: Absolutely. It’s a huge thing. And I think that they had a reasonable time. But one thing I do remember is that [pause] oh, it’s my chair. I wondered where that squeak was coming from. One thing I do I remember — when we were in Singapore we found an abandoned canoe on a beach. And he said to me, ‘We’ll have that, do it up, and we’ll call it Archimedes the Second.’ And I thought, so where’s that coming from? Not realising ‘til many, many years later that Archimedes the Second was EJ 144.
AM: Right.
SE: So, he called it after the particular Sunderland Flying Boat. And we got a close up of the hatch on EJ 144 on a, we got a photograph up on it and we pulled it in and sure enough you can see it. And according to John Evans it’s one of the very few Sunderlands that actually had a name.
AM: Right.
SE: So, somebody named it Archimedes the Second.
AM: I’m looking at carrying on at the other stuff that he was doing. And then August, September and October was spent on the ground as a squadron, as the squadron, you mentioned, squadron signals officer.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. So again going technical more and more.
AM: Yeah. You can see where it’s heading, can’t you?
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And then back to his Sunderlands.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Through December. I should know this but I don’t. Where’s Mountbatten.
SE: Mountbatten. It’s just —
AM: Gibraltar to Mountbatten.
SE: It’s just off the south coast. It’s at Calshot. It’s the, it was the RAF Sunderland Flying Boats.
AM: Right.
SE: Yeah.
AM: EJ. There we are EJ 144. So, all the way through 1943 we’re back in around Gibraltar. Back to Bathurst doing lots of escort duties.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And he describes himself as gunner signals at that point.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. And occasionally he’d be navigator as well I think.
AM: Yeah.
SE: On one or two trips. So they obviously had a grounding in most of the sort of basics and flying was obviously something that he was never going to pursue after that early knock back I suppose you’d call it.
AM: Do you know you look at it and — so into March ’43 and on Sunderland EJ 144 now with the same pilot throughout now.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, we’re now with flying officer [Calcut?]
SE: Yeah.
AM: Having had a number of different —
SE: Yeah.
AM: Pilots until then.
SE: And he went on to become the commanding officer. And I, believe it or not met the guy when we were based at RAF Brampton. So we’re talking 1968, 1969. This chap came into the officer’s mess. My father looked at him and said, ‘My God, I haven’t seen you since — ’ whenever. And he introduced him. And I thought wow there’s a Sunderland connection for the first time. And again —
AM: So, how old would you have been then?
SE: I was about seventeen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
AM: Yeah. Ok.
SE: Maybe I was a bit older. Eighteen. No. I was just about going off to university.
AM: Right.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Because I mean you look, you just look at some of the entries and think I just wish I could ask him about this one.
SE: Yeah.
AM: The ten hours fifty plus during the day. Plus two hours ten at night, anti-blockade runner patrol.
SE: You realise that, you know we do a trip from here to Hong Kong. It might be what ten, twelve hours and we think that’s heavy going. But you’ve got your drinks and you’ve got your meals whereas these guys are fourteen hours in the air.
AM: Absolutely.
SE: Out in the middle of nowhere and nowhere to go.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. There’s some. There’s a couple of fourteen hours. Twelve hours.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: See the last one on that page.
SE: Well, you think you’d go do-lally just looking at the sea all the time.
AM: Yeah. Yeah.
SE: I mean, the Atlantic is the Atlantic however you play it out. And you’d think gosh if you were out over there for those numbers of hours it would be quite exciting to see a submarine or something surface.
AM: And just looking at that date. That’s March. So he was out virtually every day. Virtually every day.
SE: This is why I’ve always queried that gap in the log when that crew disappeared because you couldn’t possibly be on holiday or just sitting on the ground. So, I’m convinced that that’s when the malaria got him.
AM: And the submarine attacked one.
SE: Yes. There was one or two occasions they did actually get to do something.
AM: Yeah. Anti-submarine patrol again. Oh, see, you look at that one. So, we’re in April 1943 now. On the Sunderland that he was on for ages and ages with Flying Officer [Calcot?]
SE: Yeah.
AM: “Searching for survivors we sighted lifeboat.”
SE: Yeah.
AM: But we don’t know whether they actually found any.
SE: We know there’s lots of stories about Sunderland crews landing to pick up people. We’ve got some fantastic stuff in John Evan’s material about even a Sunderland being towed by a ship back to base. There’s some fantastic stories with Sunderlands. I mean, they were such a versatile plane. And to be able to put one down in the Atlantic and get off again must have been almost impossible with, you know the rise and fall of the waves alone.
AM: We’ve got April ’43. The port outer seized and the prop stopped.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. There’s the, I’ve got the photographs of some of the crash landings and there’s one with a wing tip gone and another one with a chunk out the tail. And John again has put together the photographs I’ve sent him with the squadron records and said this is what happened. And so I’ve been able to piece it together from that.
AM: Yeah. Because that one where the — so when the port outer engine seized and the prop stopped and then the very next day engine change.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Full engine change. Straight out again.
SE: Yeah. Absolutely.
AM: Even though there was a small oil leak.
SE: Yeah. And learning again more about Sunderlands you know that they could actually get these gantries over the wings and lift the engines off. And of course the worry, as I then learned is that if an engine seizes and the prop keeps spinning or whatever it just literally just shakes the engine apart and can do more damage if you don’t get it sorted.
AM: Well, yeah. 26th of May, convoy escort OC 5. Didn’t meet them but crashed on landing.
SE: Yeah.
AM: The port float was written off at Port Etienne.
SE: Yes. I suppose quite symbolic and I think that’s the one I’ve got the photographs of. One of those, you know, things hanging under the wings there.
AM: Yeah. I’m looking up at the model you’ve got.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And these are the floats.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Under the wings.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: So —
SE: They’re quite big. I mean, you know. They’re quite sizeable objects. They’re made in presumably lightweight metal but I’ve seen one or two in various museums.
AM: Right. I’m just flicking through the Sunderland ones now because I’m interested to see what he then moves onto. So, there’s lots of the same. I’m sure it wasn’t the same at the time but [pause] because then we get as far as August ’43 and he was posted. So, he wouldn’t have been doing operations counted in the way that they counted them in Bomber Command at the time.
SE: Correct. Correct.
AM: However, it’s clear that they were out virtually every single day.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Doing quite long flights.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, I don’t know, maybe you do. Was there a point at which they said, right you’ve done x number of hours now, that’s it? You’re off. So, so in Bomber Command it would have been, ‘That’s it. You’ve done a full tour.
SE: Yeah, looking at the way the personnel seemed to change it seemed to be based on exposure and experience. So that I’ve always taken it as read that it would be the numbers of hours that, not maybe in the air but using the equipment.
AM: Right.
SE: So, his expertise would have been building up now on radar and various forms of electronic communication and that would be the reason he was posted on. To then go on to do more training which appears to be the case before he goes back to flying again.
AM: Well, yeah. I mean following, not the usual pattern but a pattern that quite a few followed then they would have finished their tour of operations or however you described it and would become an instructor. They’d end up at an Operational Training Unit.
SE: Correct.
AM: Training.
SE: And that seems to be the case because he goes to OCU.
AM: And that’s what he’s got.
SE: With Sunderlands.
AM: Yeah. It’s number 4 COTU.
SE: Yeah.
AM: At Alness.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Where was Alness?
SE: Somewhere up in Scotland.
AM: Is it?
SE: I think it’s up Oban way. Somewhere up there.
AM: So, we’re August, September now. And straight away he’s instructing. And describing the exercises he does and who with but then another one where pupils not found but I’m fit to go solo. I’m adding a few extra bits there.
SE: Yeah.
AM: He doesn’t say I am he just says fit to go solo.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So then in to December ’43 still an instructor on Sunderlands.
SE: Yeah. So, for somebody who had so much time on Sunderlands its, it’s remarkable —
AM: Yeah.
SE: That he just never spoke about them.
AM: Yeah.
SE: I mean his nautical side he did speak about because they used to, you had a captain of a Sunderland not, not a pilot. And he used to talk about mooring up and you know there was a definite sort of leaning towards that side. Whenever we used to go out on a boat or whatever he would say, ‘Oh, you’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that.’ So, I think he took to that side of it. But the actual Sunderland. The aircraft. The stories. All the stuff that’s in that book. Nowhere did he ever talk about it.
AM: Just, no.
SE: No. Even when I made the model he just sort of went, oh.
AM: Alright then. And now here we’re coming to January and February ‘44 and this is the first time radar’s actually mentioned by name.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: But, but he also does an air to sea rescue duty but no trace of survivors. So, there were —
SE: Well, I think what, what, again from John Evans, John Evans’ material that it appears that when you were on an OCU of some sort you were still, if you were in the air and something took place you would be sort of commandeered.
AM: Still operational.
SE: And you’d be expected to go.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And help out as it were.
AM: And by April ’44 qualified to operate and instruct pupils in Mark 3 radar equipment.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And just before that he’s done his radar instructor crew courses [pause] Which then takes us onto [pause] from Scotland.
SE: Out to the Caribbean.
AM: Out to the Caribbean.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Nassau.
SE: To be re-mustered again.
AM: Yeah.
SE: To join up with the crew. Now, I’ve got the photograph which Peter will have of the crew that they joined up with. And according to the archivist at 223 he was able to name all those characters but in one or two of the publications they’ve got the notations wrong or they haven’t got the right caption. Because, I’ve queried how come my father’s not listed on some of the photographs but he’s on them and vice versa. So, we’ve got a little bit of an anomaly with the record keeping as to which crew he was with. That’s pretty clear in the, in the documentation. But on the photographs, and apparently this is a common thing that they get a photograph from somebody. They haven’t quite got the caption right or the names are wrong or something like that.
AM: Yeah.
SE: So, he ended up on coming back from being re-mustered or crewed or whatever they did out in the Bahamas. The photograph’s there, and then came back to 223 at Oulton.
AM: Yeah. So, he goes to Nassau. To Number 111 Operational Training Unit. So, we’re coming back to going on operations again.
SE: Yeah.
AM: One, oh the transit is on a Dakota. Yeah. So, that makes sense. Off we go in a Dakota. And then he’s on Liberators.
SE: Yeah. Now, again why Liberators? I don’t know. I could see the connection between Sunderlands and Stirlings because they’re made by the same people — Shorts. So, I would have thought that you would again keep people on similar. It’s a bit like saying you’ve always been with British Leyland.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Or you’ve always been with Ford. That’s how I understand it. And so it means that you would be familiar with a lot of the equipment and the things that are on those planes. But Liberators? American. Don’t know where that would fit in to be honest.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Just presumably where they did their training and its obvious from again the way its reading that there was —
AM: Well, and if you think about when it is. I have absolutely no idea if this is relevant or not but we’re after D-Day now.
SE: Yes. I wondered. And that’s, again he never ever mentioned about, again the period of the war where I always thought well he must have been involved in D-Day. As you would anybody that was in the forces but you see there that he was well clear of that.
AM: Yeah. There’s because the gap is —
SE: Yeah.
AM: That he did his final instructor crew the 1st of May ’44.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then the next entry is the 15th of June 44. So that period —
SE: Yeah.
AM: Of getting ready for D-Day and —
SE: Yeah.
AM: D-Day.
SE: Well out of it.
AM: And then all of a sudden he’s on American bombers.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting. And again, it could be and I would like very much to get hold of his medical records from the RAF.
AM: Yeah. Could have had the malaria again.
SE: Yeah. I think again there’s been, something happened in and around that time that’s knocked him out because there are these gaps where you’ve thought well what were you doing for that period?
AM: And at such an intense period.
SE: Yes. Exactly.
AM: When they’re not going to send them all home doing nothing are they?
SE: No. Not at all. Not at all. No.
AM: Yeah.
SE: No. And then from RAF Oulton where he didn’t seem to be there long before again he’s recruited to go to another training establishment or course or whatever. And then from there he’s bounced on to North Creake. Now, being as both those squadrons are Special Operations Squadrons with 100 Group you can see that there would be a progression then to where ever you can do the job. Train at the same time. Use the expertise. Now, again I never understood what RCM meant in the logbook until somebody pointed out it was Radio Counter Measures and Radio Counter Measures being anything to do with throwing metal bits out of the aircraft to doing signal —
AM: They dropped the —
SE: Signal, yes. Or as I now understood that a lot of it was putting —
AM: Windows.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Sorry.
SE: Was it Windows? And putting out a lot of duff gen. So, in other words they were sending signals out within the main bomber formations to say we are actually something else. And it wasn’t for some considerable time did I put all that together and realise that these Stirlings were a pretty clapped out aircraft in amongst the main formations.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Doing all of this.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And they were doing it in patterns. And I’ve now managed to acquire three publications on the subject and it’s fascinating because we’ve now been able to trace the main pilot. We can see he was the guy who he was with most of that time and they did these like figure of eight patterns in the sky.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Or did a box or whatever out into the North Sea over the particular target areas. Sometimes they weren’t involved in actually bombing. They were just up there, you know messing about if that’s the right term. Whereas where you’ve got an entry that’s in red with a target then they were bombing, so —
AM: Yes.
SE: We know then that some of them were involved in actually dropping munitions and others weren’t. And again he never mentioned it. He never used to say oh we dropped all these bombs on so and so but through those publications I’ve learned a tremendous amount of what they were up to.
AM: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because he was posted. So, he was posted to 223 Squadron.
SE: Yeah.
AM: On the Liberators. And as you say by October some of it is in red now so we’re on operations. Just, “Patrol as briefed” operations.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So we don’t know what the patrol was.
SE: No.
AM: And then [pause] and we’ve got a gap again. October ’44.
SE: That’s when I think he was another signals course.
AM: Right.
SE: Going to —
AM: Oh yes. Yeah.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Yeah. Quite right.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, posted for a signal leader course.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Which takes us to January ’45.
SE: Yeah.
AM: 199 Squadron, North Creake.
SE: Yeah.
AM: As you say, Stirlings.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And now we’re out over Germany.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So —
SE: Yeah.
AM: We’re out, we are within Bomber Command as support. Stuttgart. Metz. Eindhoven. Liege.
SE: Yeah. One of, one of the things that we learned as well from the archive of 199 is that according to that logbook they flew the last operational sortie.
AM: Right.
SE: And the aircraft was N-Nan. And we’ve got the photograph in the album which Peter’s got where it’s, the caption says, “Last op,” and “A dusk take off.” And I always thought that was significant. And that tallies with the operational records from that squadron to say that they were on the very last operation actively, with Stirlings at 199.
AM: Yeah. It’s just all described as bomber support. You desperately want to grab him and say, ‘Yeah. But what did you do? What did you do?
SE: I mean I don’t know whether his Morse code was sending out or whether they were doing it verbally or what they were doing. But I would assume that the, the duff gen as I call it or the disinformation would be giving wrong positions, or saying that the formations heading to — where ever.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Or I just don’t know what they were doing other than —
AM: Because for everyone else it would be radio silence.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So —
SE: Yeah. And radio counter measures. It makes you think oh they’re bouncing signals back or they’re, you know, defending something somehow. But I really just really don’t know what all that was about and I know, as I said earlier that he was fluent in Morse code. I mean he could tap out anything.
AM: And with Flight Lieutenant Lind. Did you ever —
SE: Ray Lind. We’ve got photographs of Ray Lind. He got a DFC and bar. He was quite an accomplished pilot and he went on to stay in the Air Force for a while. And there is some correspondence between him and Ray Lind so they were obviously quite good pals. But whether he’s still alive today I don’t know. He may well be because he was about a similar age. And let’s be honest if he’d have, if he’d have lived he would have been now the same age as Bill Barford. So that would take him to ninety [pause] wait a minute, ‘21 ‘til now.
AM: What would your dad be? Ninety — your dad be ninety six if he was still alive.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. Bill was, yes. Bill was ninety five, ninety six. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Yeah. Yeah.
AM: So, bomber support. And that finishes then in March ’45.
SE: Yeah. Yeah. And the war ended not long after that.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And then he ends up just after the war.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Signals officer.
SE: Yeah. And then the, the real sort of career takes off where he is now re-categorized for major aircraft. That’s anything with four engines from what I could see where he became a VIP crew man. So, in other words, according to all of that — and there’s some very interesting names in that logbook. There’s people like Sir Pirie. Oh, wait a minute. What’s his name? What would have been equivalent terms today of the Minister of defence or various other VIPs and you’ll see later on in the logbook that they were flying all over world. They were flying important people. And he, having this particular category as a wireless operator, air gunner, signaller, whatever. And I’ve got, which I only really looked at today for some reason. I’ve never really paid any attention to it before but there was a little diary thing here which was in amongst a lot of his other affairs. And this is called, Aircrew Categorisation Card. Wireless operator air. Now this dates from — the very first entry is the 7th of March 1946. And it’s saying, qualified VIP on all types of service aircraft and equipment. And it basically goes on that each time there was some other aircraft or whatever then you can see that it goes on where you’ve basically got a record of you are one of the number one people now for taking VIPs around. And you’ve got, and if you look at the very back of the book there’s a, there’s a little sheet in the back cover that says — it’s almost like saying if you stop me I’m the person that you should be paying attention to because I’m the person who knows what I’m talking about. I’ve never seen that before.
AM: Pretty much. Yeah.
SE: I’ve never read it before. And I suddenly saw it today and I thought, oh wow, look at that, you know.
AM: Is — did I just see or am I [pause]
SE: And the range of aircraft that he ended up in.
AM: That’s exactly what I’m looking at now.
SE: Oh, it’s huge. It’s huge.
AM: That’s exactly what I’m looking at now.
SE: If you look at the back pages of the logbook you’ll see. It’s got — what aircraft type have I flown? That I’ve flown on. And I think it’s the last but one page in the back there. Go back. Go back further. Yeah. There.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And it’s got and then I think it goes to the actual aircraft there.
AM: Yes.
SE: And you start thinking wow that was a fair number of aircraft that you flew on there.
AM: And he did get to fly a Lancaster.
SE: On one. Yeah.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Even though he never mentioned it. And when we were younger I’ve got photographs of me on the strip at Changi where a Lancaster landed that’s the very one that’s Just Jane. I’ve got a real association with Just Jane up at East Kirkby.
AM: Yeah.
SE: And I clambered aboard with him in 1965 when it came through on its way back to the UK. I climbed aboard again in the mid-70s when it was the gate guard at Scampton. And I had no idea until my wife bought me a present for, I think a fortieth, fiftieth birthday something like that to do a night flight over on Just Jane. And I was over there and I kept thinking there’s a bit of déjà vu going on here and sure enough it turns out to be the same aeroplane which I had no idea.
AM: Just shows you.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Have you actually counted up how many —
SE: No.
AM: Bomber command operations he did?
SE: No. No. Never did. I know there’s a, there’s one commendation thing in here which I’ll just show you which I thought was quite an interesting one which again is getting very friable now. This one. That one.
AM: Right.
SE: Now, that one as I say is quite a rare one. I’ve not seen one of those before and its getting quite thin on the, you know the print. But I think Peter picked up on that one.
AM: Yeah. I’m just trying to see a date on it but this was 199 Squadron.
SE: It doesn’t. I know. I couldn’t find a date on it either. I thought that’s a bit silly that.
AM: But this is for meritorious service and good airmanship.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And it’s, a full operational tour has been completed without having been involved in any accidents or ever having an unnecessary cancellation or abandonment of an operational sortie.
SE: Yeah.
AM: I’ve never seen one of those before.
SE: No. I’ve not seen that before. And that’s 199. So, again that that’s must have been the last trip or the last trips that he did.
AM: I wonder who that was signed by because it’s been approved by somebody for —
SE: Yeah.
AM: The Air Vice Marshall, Air Officer Commanding, HQ, 100 Group.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But I can’t read the actual signature.
SE: No. No. No.
AM: So, that takes us to the end of the war. So, obviously I’ve got this great big thick logbook here that goes on many years after the war.
SE: It explodes after that.
AM: So, tell me a bit about — I’ve forgotten when you said. You were born in ’52.
SE: Yeah. I was born at Ramsgate.
AM: So, but what do you remember before we come onto you. What — so what do you remember if anything about — they would have got to the end of the war.
SE: Yeah.
AM: So, there’s two pathways for people to go then. They could either stay until they’re demobbed.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Or they can stay on. And obviously your dad stayed on.
SE: Yeah.
AM: Did he ever talk about why or —
SE: No. I remember he, he, obviously there was the connection with my mother and he was based somewhere around Manston.
AM: Right.
SE: Which is on the Kent coast. Where he met my mother. And obviously she was from Ramsgate so the connection there must have probably thought well I’ll stay in that area. And he got posted to, or he was the commanding officer of a secret radar station on the south coast called Foreness.
AM: Right.
SE: Again, you can see the connection with the expertise —
AM: Yeah.
SE: In radio or radar. So, that’s about 1950/51. Now, by then my sister was born and she was born in Singapore because he spent considerable years number of the years after the war in Singapore doing all this VIP flying. So, from the time that the war ended and him doing the VIP stuff they were in Singapore for three years. And there’s a lot of —
AM: Sorry. When did your mum and dad marry?
SE: They were, they were married in 1949.
AM: Right. Ok.
SE: So, between ’49 and ’51 they were in Singapore. My sister was born there and my mother was — no it may be even earlier than that because my mother said on many occasions that when she went to Singapore she was one of the very first wives to go back to Singapore after the Japanese occupation. And they still had Japanese prisoners of war as servants, and doing jobs. And my sister was born in Changi Hospital and she was the very first English, or white person to be born in the hospital after it was re-opened. Because if you know anything about Changi and you know anything about that hospital and the things that happened at that hospital —
AM: I do. I do.
SE: We’ve got quite a good history of that and I’ve got several books on the, on the history of Changi. Now, so, so they came back from Singapore ’50, ‘51ish or whenever it was. And then he went to Foreness and Manston. He was, he was sort of seconded from Manston to Foreness. I think Manston at that time was an American Air Force base so there was a connection there. And then at Foreness he had this challenge. My mother tells me about this challenge where he said to get the respect of his underlings he would have to climb the tower. Now, it was only last year that I had a connection with Foreness, from their archive people to say that this was true and that the tower existed and they sent me a photograph of the tower. And apparently he climbed this tower singlehandedly. Well, you had to to maintain it. So, he said, ‘Well, if you’ve got to maintain it I’ll get up and have a look at it.’ And I was sat on the beach as a six month old baby with my mother with this all going on. And I’m like — oh sorry love.
Other: I have to go.
SE: We’ve got to go have we?
Other: Yeah.
SE: Ok.
[recording paused]
AM: Right. Ok.
SE: What we can do. You can obviously keep that there and I can now do you a follow up to that. I’ve got one of those. And I can do the bit that’s missing if, assuming you want the up to date stuff. I wasn’t sure whether you really wanted to go that far.
AM: Yes. Ok. So, what we’re going to do we’re going to pause the interview now.
SE: Yeah.
AM: And probably recommence at some later point when hopefully you’ll be able to tell us about your childhood.
SE: Yeah. By all means. I mean —
AM: About your dad and the RAF.
SE: Yeah. I mean —
AM: And your dad in the RAF.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But also what he talked about to you and what sort of impression that made on you as a child.
SE: Yeah. I mean the sort of thing that I like to remember is the, the coming home in the evening in uniform. He’d come home and he’d say, ‘Do you fancy going down to the bottom of the runway? Because there’s a whole load of Mosquitoes down there that are being broken up. And you can go down there with a hacksaw and a chopper and go and get some wood and you can make yourself a model out of it.’
AM: Absolutely.
SE: So, I know as a kid I was vandalising aircraft.
AM: The wooden wonder. Chopping it to bits.
SE: Yeah. No. We could certainly do that.
AM: Did he ever talk about, you know the, the thing about bombing. Well, mind you he didn’t bomb then as such. He wasn’t, he was an operator. He was —
SE: No. No. No. He never mentioned it.
AM: He was on support wasn’t he?
SE: Never mentioned it. Never mentioned it. I mean it was only, it was only just recently when I, when my mother died that this parachute bag appeared. I mean this bag as I say it’s got his, it’s got his name on it as a, as a pilot officer and it just was up in the attic for, I don’t know how long, you can see the W.
AM: Yeah.
SE: Oh. Air Ministry on there. And, as I say, and PO. Now, that must go back to Sunderland days, and this is his parachute.
AM: Pilot officer at that point so —
SE: Yeah. So, this is his official parachute bag. So, you know they must have got on board each time with these parachutes and thought one day I might have to jump out. But anyway —
AM: Yeah.
SE: But, yes if, if that’s the case Jackie we’d better get a shift on.
AM: So, we’ll leave it there.
SE: Yeah.
AM: But I’m sure there will be a second instalment to come.
SE: Yeah. I’ll just show you this little thing. They paid me through you —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Steven Ellams
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-08-25
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AEllamsSD170825
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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00:53:06 audio recording
Coverage
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Civilian
Second generation
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
Steve Ellams is the son of a wireless operator who flew in a number of different aircraft. During the war he flew initially in Sunderlands overseas before being posted back to the UK. He started operational flying in Bomber Command with 199 Special Duties Squadron.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
199 Squadron
223 Squadron
95 Squadron
aircrew
B-24
Defiant
Me 110
RAF Alness
RAF Cranwell
RAF North Creake
RAF Oulton
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Sunderland
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/45959/SSmithRW425992v10004-0002 copy.1.pdf
8c565c94f5bd602d984256cc89676d7a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith 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
2019-03-25
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
Smith, RW
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Bob Smith's Memoirs Book 4
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bob Smith
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Scotland--Aberdeen
Scotland--Paisley
England--London
England--Thetford
Norway
Norway--Oslo
Germany
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Switzerland
Germany--Stuttgart
England--Ely
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Chemnitz
England--Brighton
Netherlands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Liverpool
Malta
Egypt
Egypt--Suez Canal
Western Australia--Fremantle
Victoria--Melbourne
New South Wales--Sydney
Queensland--Ipswich Region
Queensland--Maryborough
New South Wales--Cootamundra
Canada
Alberta--Edmonton
Nova Scotia--Halifax
England--Sidmouth
Nova Scotia
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 Australian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Canadian Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Describes his service after completing his tour and the journey back to Australia.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
40 printed sheets
Conforms To
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149 Squadron
15 Squadron
3 Group
617 Squadron
622 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
B-24
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Cook’s tour
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Gee
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
ground personnel
H2S
Lancaster
love and romance
mess
mine laying
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
radar
RAF Desborough
RAF Honington
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Mildenhall
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tempsford
RAF West Freugh
Special Operations Executive
sport
V-2
V-weapon
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/656/8929/AWilsonJ161231.1.mp3
930df0a00d934d17a8714a098fe71eb3
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Title
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Wilson, Joseph
J Wilson
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Wilson, J
Description
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Four items. An oral history interview with Flying Officer Joseph Wilson (1923 - 2019), 1486434 Royal Air Force), his log book, identity card and a photograph. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 102 and 76 Squadrons before being posted to 624 Special Duties Squadron where he dropped supplies and agents to the resistance in Southern Europe.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jenny Wilson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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2016-12-29
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Flying Officer Joe Wilson at 3.15 in the afternoon on Thursday 29th of December 2016 at his home in Billinge. Joe, can you confirm for me please when and where were you born?
JW1: When and where? Oh, I was, I was born in Orrel Road, Orrel, 18.5.23.
BW: And how many other family members were there in, in your family? Did you have any brothers and sisters?
JW1: Oh yes. I had, I had a brother and sister.
BW: And were you the middle child or —
JW1: I was the youngest, the youngster [slight laugh].
JW2: You, you had step-sisters and brothers.
JW1: But they weren’t —
JW2: They were older, weren’t they?
JW1: Oh yeah, they weren’t — as you say, step-sisters. They weren’t my —
JW2: They weren’t yours but they all lived together.
JW1: All lived together, yeah.
BW: With me during this interview —
JW1: I beg your pardon?
BW: With me in this interview is Joe’s daughter Jenny, who will also be, um, prompting further information and assisting Joe with, with some of the answers just to help his recall of memory. So what was your early life like Joe, growing up round here?
JW1: What was?
JW2: What was your early life like? How would you describe it, growing up round here? Was it a normal happy childhood or —
JW1: You mean, as a civilian you mean.
BW: yes.
JW1: I had a very, very — I was getting five bob a week as a —
JW2: As a child?
JW1: As a child, yeah.
JW2: As a child — is it OK for me to — as a child you, um, your father was a miner.
JW1: Pit. Yeah.
JW2: And your mother —
JW1: A school teacher.
JW2: Was a school teacher.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: And your mother married her sister’s widower.
JW1: My mother married —
JW2: Your mother married your sister’s, your, sorry, her sister’s widower.
JW1: Who was that?
JW2: So, um, that was Nellie died and William married Agnes, your mother, and then had three more children and you lived in a semi-detached house, 176 —
JW1: Orrel Road.
JW2: Orrel Road. That was when you were five. Before that you’d lived in a, in a terraced house. So when you were five you lived in 176 where you stayed for quite a long time.
JW1: That’s OK.
JW2: That’s right, yeah. But you had a happy child — would you say you had a happy childhood?
JW1: [slight laugh] Not really.
JW2: No?
JW1: No.
BW: Were your parents strict Joe?
JW1: I beg your pardon?
BW: Were your mum and dad strict with you?
JW1: Not really. My father worked in the pits, down the pits, five shillings a week and my mother was a school teacher, wasn’t she?
JW2: Yes.
BW: And where did you go to your school yourself? Do you remember?
JW1: Nearby, yeah. It was a Catholic School, St James’s, Orrel, yeah.
BW: And what did you like learning there? Were you there until age fourteen or did you leave? Was it a primary school and you left to go to another school or what?
JW1: I was, I was there most of the time I suppose, yeah. Not altogether.
JW2: Do you recall that you, er, left — when you left St James’s do you remember which school you went to then?
JW1: After St James’s. You mentioned the name [unclear].
JW2: I think there was three children from St James’s from your year that went to West Park Grammar School.
JW1: Grammar School, St Helens, yeah.
JW2: And one of them was John Orell, who was your friend from Rock House in Upholland, and the other was Brenda Green.
JW1: Brenda Green.
JW2: And John Orell also went into the RAF during the war.
JW1: Was he lost in the war?
JW2: He was. You told me that the, um, time you had at the grammar school was limited because a lot of your teachers were conscripted. Would you like to say something about that?
JW1: Conscripted? What do you mean by that?
JW2: They went into the war. They, they had to sign up for the war when you were at West Park Grammar.
JW1: Oh yeah, yeah.
JW2: You told me that you wanted to leave school because you didn’t like art and you had to do art and lost some of your favourite subjects.
JW1: That’s true.
BW: What didn’t you like about art Joe?
JW1: I couldn’t draw.
JW2: Didn’t like it.
BW: Didn’t like it. What were your favourite subjects then?
JW1: Mathematics, I suppose. My mother was a school teacher.
JW2: And her nickname was?
JW1: Eh?
JW2: What was her nickname?
JW1: I don’t know.
JW2: Mrs Metric.
JW1: Was it? I’d forgotten.
JW2: And she was very literary, as you are, and you loved poetry.
JW1: Oh yeah. Loved poetry. Yeah.
BW: Do you recall what were you doing when war was declared? Were you at home that day?
JW1: Well, I was at school that day wasn’t I when war was declared?
JW2: I don’t know.
JW1: 1939. Born ’23. I was probably in the top class, sixth form, er, sixth form. I was —
BW: This is Brian Wright interviewing Flying Officer Joe Wilson on the afternoon of Thursday 29th of December 2016 at his home in Billinge, Lancashire. With me is his daughter Jenny Wilson who will also be adding information, prompting and asking questions of Joe to help clarify some of the information. So, we were just talking before, in the first part of the interview Joe, about you being a trainee pharmacist and you’d heard that war had been declared and you decided to join the RAF and there were two reasons. One of which was pay and the other of which you thought was glamour. Is that right?
JW1: Probably.
BW: And you thought the uniform would help you attract more girls?
JW: Yeah.
BW: I believe you wanted to train as a pilot?
JW: Yeah. I was, I was in a reserved occupation there but yeah, pilot only, yeah. In fact I wasn’t allowed to — because I got, I got [unclear] I wasn’t allowed to apply for anything else. Pilot or observer, they were both the same, er, price, wage, same wage.
BW: And it was more money than what you were on as a pharmacist?
JW1: As a pharmacist. It was do you mean fully trained?
BW: Yeah.
JW1: I was about, I was getting about two pounds a week then but, er, I worked till half past seven through the week and, er, 9 o’clock Saturday night. That was what I should have done but I, I always had plenty of — what do you call them? What do you call them where they —
JW2: I’m not sure. Oh, they had a lot of outlets?
JW1: The Air Force.
JW2: Oh, the Air Force. I’m not sure. Barracks?
JW1: Eh?
JW2: The barracks.
JW1: Before I joined — I’ve forgotten. I was, I know I was a, I was a, so they say a laughable airmen [?] really.
BW: Where did you sign on or sign up? Did you sign you in Wigan? Was the nearest recruiting office in Wigan?
JW1: Yeah, oh yeah.
BW: And where do you go from there? Do you remember where did they send you for training?
JW1: It, it was overseas but I can’t remember where?
JW2: Initially, I don’t think it was overseas. I think you started your training in this country.
JW1: I probably started, yeah, but I didn’t finish.
BW: Did you actually get on to do pilot training in the first stage or were you drafted to be an observer instead?
JW1: Well, I was, I had, um, I wasn’t considered good enough to be a pilot really.
BW: Did you actually get to learn to fly a plane at any stage or were you just told that at the beginning?
JW1: No, I never saw, never saw an aeroplane in those days.
JW2: He did [emphasis] get to fly.
BW: I think you said you flew a Tiger Moth, didn’t you?
JW1: Oh, well yeah. Yes. What do they call it when you do a couple of hours just to see whether you were going to be air sick or, you know, not suitable, really. That was the idea. It wasn’t, it wasn’t to teach you anything really. [JW2 talking quietly in the background]
BW: So, you started on a flying course in this country doing a couple of trips on a Tiger Moth and then you were told you weren’t suitable to be a pilot. Is that right?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And from there you went on to train as a bomb aimer instead. Is that correct or did you go into air gunnery?
JW1: No. I wanted to be a — no I wasn’t a gunner because the pay was terrible. It was terrible as a pilot but it was better than an air gunner’s pay.
JW2: Joe, your grandson recalls you saying that you learned, you were learning how to fly in Hamptons and Wellingtons?
JW1: Hampdens.
JW2: Hampdens, sorry. And Wellingtons. Is that correct?
JW1: Yeah. I know I went solo as, as, er, training to be a pilot when I was about, well I’d only be eighteen, that’s all.
BW: You were flying solo?
JW1: I was, I did, to be in a flying job really. I was but I only did a very, very short time.
BW: What do you recall about your training to be a bomb aimer?
JW1: I didn’t like it [slight laugh]. I didn’t like joining it but after a while it became a better, better paid job, slightly paid better, but that was about all really.
BW: And I believe you went up to an Operational Training Unit at Lossiemouth, number 20 OTU?
JW1: Number 20. Yeah.
BW: Would that have been 1942?
JW1: Probably. Yeah. ’42. I was born in ‘23. I was nineteen then.
BW: What do you recall of your time up in Scotland? Anything?
JW1: Well, I had relatives close by. My wife was a Scot, eventually.
JW2: Event— but you hadn’t met her then.
JW1: No. I hadn’t.
JW2: You hadn’t met her then. Later on you had relatives in Scotland but when you were nineteen I don’t think you had relatives in Scotland.
JW1: I didn’t like it then [slight laugh]. I’m surprised anybody cares these days about it.
BW: From then on I believe you went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Pocklington, 1652 HCU is that right?
JW1: Pocklington. Yeah.
BW: And do you recall the people you met there? The crew you met there?
JW1: I don’t recall it but some— somebody, one of them was here and mentioned it to me to bring it back to me, I suppose. That’s all. Five bob a week wasn’t much working about fifty hours or more. That was all I got. Five shillings.
BW: Your log book shows that you were training on Wellingtons and your pilot was Sergeant Griffiths.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: What do you remember about Griffiths?
JW1: Nothing really but if, if somebody mentions something it would bring it back to me. He was a Scot, I know that. I don’t remember. I don’t remember.
BW: You did a lot of cross country training and some of it was at night, flying Wellingtons.
JW1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
BW: And you’re up at the front in the nose.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: What, what was like that?
JW1: Bloody cold. It was — we got all the breezes there. It was considered, it was quite laughable to everybody that I was a pil— I was going in for a pilot, yeah. I’m trying to think what we called it. Nobody has ever talked about it since then so I don’t remember.
BW: So, from your log book you left training on the Wellington on the 20th of September 1942, having done just under twenty-three hours day flying and thirty-one, sorry, forty-seven hours night flying?
JW1: How many years, forty-seven?
BW: Forty-seven hours, forty-seven hours. You then joined the conversion unit early in 1943 and you learned to fly Halifaxes. And your pilot on the Halifax was a Sergeant Griffiths. Do you remember the names of the other crewmen at all?
JW1: Not off-hand, no, but if anybody mentions them it would bring it back to me.
JW2: Can you remember anything about somebody called Marsh, Wilf Marsh?
JW1: Wilf Marsh. He was an observer. He wasn’t very athletic really. He was quite a fat lad.
JW2: He was married wasn’t he?
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: Was he the only married one on your crew?
JW1: As far as I recollect, yeah.
JW2: Right.
BW: There was another crewman, Flight Engineer Charles Walker?
JW1: I don’t remember that.
BW: No. Navigator, er, Anthony Holmes, or Tony Holmes.
JW1: Do you know, I don’t remember that even.
BW: No [clears throat].
JW1: I don’t know why they are interested.
JW2: It is interesting dad.
BW: It looks like your regular aircraft was code letter P. Do you have any recollections of P? Did you have a nickname for the aircraft at all? Was it —
JW1: I don’t recollect P. I’ve forgotten what you were —
Other: Is he talking about the nickname for the aircraft?
JW2: Yes.
Other: It was something ghost. Something ghost related.
JW1: What’s that?
JW2: Can — did you call the Halifax — did you have a name for, a nickname for your aircraft? Your grandson seems to remember that it was something related to ghosts.
JW1: I don’t remember.
JW2: You can’t remember.
JW1: I don’t remember.
BW: So, you haven’t done many trips. You’ve done about nine or ten trips maybe, in the early part 1943, most of them in March. Do you remember where you were flying to, what your targets were, in March ‘43? Were you flying to the Ruhr, Ruhr valley?
JW1: I can’t [clears throat] recollect them but if someone jogged my memory and told me, gave me a name, I might.
JW2: Do you recall that you did — you got some time off when you did a reconnaissance trip. Can you remember that?
JW1: I got what?
JW2: You took some very good photographs of a target or your plane did and, um, they were so helpful that they gave you some time off. Can you recall that?
JW1: No.
JW2: Well, you told me it was an armaments factory at Essen?
JW1: Essetene [?]
JW2: No Essen.
JW1: Oh, Essen. Oh yeah.
JW2: And you told me they were so pleased with the helpful photographs for target information that they gave you some days off.
JW1: I can’t remember.
JW2: You can’t remember that, no, no. It might have been Krupps.
JW1: Krupps.
JW2: Might have been Krupps. Does that sound —
JW1: I think we lost, if I remember rightly, fifty-five one night, from, mostly from —
JW2: Bombing.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: There are some details, some brief details here. Your second operation, in March 1943, was gardening.
JW1: Was what?
BW: Gardening. Which means mine laying.
JW1: Oh yeah, gardening, yeah.
BW: Do you remember anything about dropping mines in the water?
JW1: No. It was cushy but no. I mean, we were not didn’t go on trips anything like as dangerous as that was. They, they were all mine laying operations, just round, round the drome, that’s all.
BW: And then your third op at night was to Essen, followed by three days later Nuremberg.
JW1: We lost about fifty aeroplanes.
BW: On the Essen raid?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And then you went a few days later to Nuremberg.
JW1: Oh yeah. That was a long one.
BW: That’s deep in Germany. And then the night after that you went to Munich which is in the south of Germany.
JW1: I remember the name but I don’t remember anything about it really.
BW: You then had one raid at Stuttgart, followed in April by another trip to Essen and this is, I believe, is interesting because your comment in your log book says you were coned for eleven minutes. You were in the searchlights for eleven minutes. Do you remember that?
JW1: No.
BW: And you got back to base and you had to go and see the CO, the station commander, following that and he took you up for a flight. His name was Gus Walker.
JW1: Oh, ay. I don’t remember. I remember the name, that’s all. Yeah.
BW: I believe what happened, you were lucky to survive the raid over Essen, being in the path of the searchlights for so long.
JW1: Lost fifty, fifty planes.
JW2: But then when you got back the station commander took you and the rest of the crew up for a flight to show you how to, to show your pilot Griffiths how to take evasive action.
JW1: Oh yeah. I don’t, don’t remember anything about that either.
JW2: I think, I remember you saying that, um, you weren’t sure — you wanted to call him, ‘Sir,’ and he said, ‘Call me Gus.’ Can you remember that?
JW1: Who, who was that, Gus? Who was it?
JW2: Who do you think it was?
JW1: I don’t know.
JW2: Gus Walker.
JW1: Oh yeah. Little fella.
BW: Air Commodore with one arm.
JW1: Was it? Oh yeah. He was quite well famous then, really. Gus Walker.
JW2: He showed you how to do evasive action.
JW1: Yeah. Throwing the plane about, yeah.
JW2: You told me that you that you’d waggled your plane before you learned how to do evasive action.
JW1: Yes. I did that. That were evading.
BW: Just dipping the wings.
JW1: Yeah. Yeah. Why do they want to know all—
JW2: Can I — I think that it’s something that would be quite interesting for — you were doing your bombing trips and you, you had a strategy that you think helped you, your crew to survive. Can you remember what your strategy was because I think Brian would be interested?
JW1: Just dropping markers, you know, that’s all really. We, we didn’t bomb anything then, we just gave the impression that we were going to go that way and they all turned and went that way and we went the other.
JW2: You told me — is it OK to — you told me that when you were in the briefings you always took a great interest in why they would navigate a particular way and you asked a lot of questions so sometimes you would say so why, why would we take that route and not this route and you seemed to be asking pertinent questions about the route.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: You did use the stars. You said that you used the stars and sextants to work out where you were and you felt your mathematics helped with the navigating because your role was a navigating as well, wasn’t it?
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: But you told me as well that your aim as soon as you knew where you had to go to was to get there as quickly and efficiently as you could. So I don’t think that you always went with the column when you flew with your crew. Can you remember?
JW1: Well, I only remember it as much as you’re, you’re talking about now but —
JW2: Tell me what you remember about not flying with the column.
JW1: Well nothing really accept —
JW2: That’s a shame.
JW1: Where was it? Where was that?
JW2: You told me that you had that as a strategy that you would, you didn’t fly with the column.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And that it was such large numbers that did happen, that people would go astray and then return to the column further on. You told me that on occasion you would still be circling the target when the Pathfinders arrived so by the time the target was marked — do you remember what would happen? What you would do?
JW1: No. Go on.
JW2: You told me that you would bomb it and you would be on your way back when the rest of the column was arriving.
JW1: Yeah. I [clears throat ] I wasn’t — I hadn’t been in the Air Force but I knew more about navigation and, you know, the work of the pilot or whatever, flying, in those days. Yeah.
JW2: There was a question about why you were chosen to do — work with 624 because 624 was special ops and the dangers were very different. You could fly into a mountain if you did not know where you were going so there was a question about whether you were chosen for the special ops work because your navigation was so good.
JW1: I think that’s probably true.
JW2: Because you tended to reach your target and come back before the others.
JW1: But I was a bomb aimer, not navigator. Bomb aimer.
JW2: No you weren’t but you told me you that helped with the navigating.
JW1: Oh probably.
JW2: So you were the bomb aimer, yeah. And you felt that your matriculation helped you with the navigation.
JW1: Oh yeah. I just got —
JW2: Was the observer not bomb aimer and navigator.
BW: Observer was a generic name. The trades tended to be, um, how can I say? Co— combined, in that you could be called a — it dates back to the First World War when the pilot was also listed as an observer but then the trades began to separate and some of them retained the old title of observer as well but, strictly speaking there would be, in the Halifax, there would be the pilot, navigator, wireless operator, um, bomb aimer and three gunners, front, back and mid upper so —
JW2: Did I speak too much then? Was that too —
BW: No, that’s alright. That’s alright. [clears throat] I believe when you were flying on operations before you went to, um, the briefings that you would take communion as well as a Catholic?
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: So did you attend services every time or just occasionally?
JW1: Well, all the time then, yeah.
BW: And do you feel your faith gave you comfort or, um, support?
JW1: I think so, yeah, yeah. Support, yeah.
BW: Did the other crew members go with you or not?
JW1: No, they didn’t. They were — I was the only Catholic there. I don’t know what you’d call them.
BW: But they I believe also felt reassured when you —
JW1: They what?
BW: They felt reassured when you’d been you to the service and had communion as well. Is that right?
JW1: Say that again. They felt what?
BW: They felt reassured that you’d had communion before you went flying.
JW1: Oh they liked that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
BW: Did that make them feel they feel like they had God on their side?
JW1: They thought it was a safety movement really.
BW: So you was bit of a talisman for them. You were a bit of good luck charm.
JW1: Very likely, very likely, very much likely because I was quite young then. In 1940 how old would I be? Twenty-three? Born in ‘23 to ’40. Oh, phew —
BW: Seventeen.
JW1: Seventeen would it be?
BW: But you were slightly older than that. You were nineteen and twenty when you were on these operations.
JW1: On ops, yeah.
BW: Did the rest of the crew have good luck charms or mascots?
JW1: I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.
BW: No? But with that and your skill as a bomb aimer/ navigator they must have felt they were going to come back every time with you on board.
JW1: Oh yeah. It was, it was the relationship with the pilot and the bomb aimer and the navigator in between, yeah.
BW: And when you were over the target didn’t you have control of the aircraft?
JW1: Oh, I sat next to the pilot to help him with it. He sometimes he’d take so much evasive action he, he would be out of action, you know. He’d lose control of it really.
BW: And were there any instances over the target when you had to take control if he lost it?
JW1: Well, no. I was alongside, alongside the side of the pilot. I’m trying to think now. We were the first to bomb there usually, you know, because I was — well I’d been in the sixth form at the grammar control, you know, as a mathematician so what they thought was difficult wasn’t to me.
BW: You obviously have a logical or engineering type, mathematical type thinking pattern or brain, don’t you? You were a, um, pharmacist before the war but then you had this mathematical/ logical skill to see them accurately and quickly to the target and come back. And what was it like for you over the target being in the front, very front of the Halifax? Can you remember what you would do?
JW1: Well, not really but bomb aimer, navigator or observer was two people.
BW: Did you feel you worked well as a team then?
JW1: Sorry?
BW: Did you feel you worked well as a team?
JW: I think so, yeah. I knew more mathematics than any one of them in the crew, even the pilot ‘cause I’d been in the sixth form at the grammar school.
BW: You had to lie prone in the front of the aircraft, looking through the nose, looking through the glass canopy down at the target and tell the pilot to stay on course or to manoeuvre so that you could drop the bombs accurately. You also had to keep the aircraft on course for another thirty seconds so a photograph could be taken, didn’t you?
JW1: Yeah. Yes.
BW: And did you take the photograph?
JW1: Pardon?
BW: Did you take the photograph?
JW1: Well, I told them when they should be, er, marking the, you know, the ground, what you call it? Phenomenon, ground — I don’t know what you call it really but they weren’t con— weren’t considered worth talking about, um, bomb aimers, you know — they thought we knew nothing about navigation and flying, flying an aircraft.
BW: And do you recall what you might have seen on the ground below you when you were over the target? Could you see searchlights and fires?
JW1: Oh, searchlights, yeah, yeah. They would very often have, where the target was, um, stations nearby where they could light the, you know, they could light the searchlights in the hopes that anybody up, up above would think they were the target. I weren’t. I didn’t. I knew more navigation than the navigation officer because I’d got through to sixth form in grammar school in mathematics.
BW: But you could tell the difference between decoy fires, which is what you’re talking about, and the actual target you were aiming for.
JW1: Yes. The fires and the decoy would still be there after we’d done about half a dozen or more of them trips because it would still be there lit but, er, I don’t think any of the others knew anything like as much navigating as I did you know. They, they just obeyed, obeyed the lights really.
BW: Do you recall the different colours of searchlights that you would see over the target?
JW1: No. No recollection, no.
BW: There was one, called a master beam, which was a blue beam and it was radar controlled so if it locked onto an aircraft all the other yellow or white lights would, would lock on, would switch over and lock onto it.
JW1: Yes. That’s true, yeah.
BW: Did it happen to you at all?
JW1: Sorry?
BW: Did it happen to you and your crew at all?
JW1: I don’t remember really.
BW: You talked of a raid on Essen when there was over fifty aircraft were lost. Did you see any of the other aircraft being shot down?
JW1: Yes. All the time. All the time but, er, we made a good partnership, the pilot and observer and myself and we used to go higher up than they did so really the anti-aircraft shots were at a lower level really.
BW: So you flew above the level of the flak. That’s what you’re saying. You flew above the range of the guns.
JW1: Did I say that? I don’t remember that.
BW: Well you flew, you say that you flew higher than the rest of the aircraft presumably because you were then higher from, above the guns.
JW1: So we could dive down and allude, well, the defenders, you know, down below, really. Yeah.
BW: And when you were briefed about the target did you question the height and the positon at which you were going to bomb these targets? Did you think you could do better?
JW1: Did I question what?
BW: Did you question what they were briefing you about when they, when they told you where you should bomb the target, what direction you should come from and what height? Did you try and do it differently?
JW1: Did I what?
BW: Did you try and do it differently?
JW1: I forget really. We were a lone aircraft. One, you know, we — and all the rest of the bombers went on the official target I suppose but I didn’t.
BW: And what made you do that? Why did you decide to do that?
JW1: Well, I’d been long before I joined the Air Force we studied the tactics, you know, we knew what was expected of us really, I suppose, so very often I could go in and out of the target and be on my way back from the target and not have any anti-aircraft anywhere near us, you know.
BW: So your aircraft never got hit?
JW1: Never got hit? I’d forgotten about that really.
JW2: You did say, you did say that you got shrapnel in your face.
JW1: I did yeah. Little sparks, yeah, but I could have been on my way, not at the target but defence, on the way to the target. I could have been miles away.
BW: Do you recall when that happened?
JW1: No.
BW: But it wasn’t serious enough for you warrant you spending time in hospital?
JW1: Well, I didn’t tell them I was hit. I didn’t lead the life that was expected of me from the rest. I was keeping clear of the rest of the bombing — what did we call the list of, tier?
JW2: The column yeah.
JW1: Did we call it a tier?
BW: I don’t know.
JW1: T I E R.
BW: So while everyone else is flying the official route, while everyone is flying the official route and doing what they were told presumably you’ve given the instruction to the pilot as where to go and what to do, to stay out of the away from the main force?
JW1: Tell the pilot to stay away from — oh the pilot of our aircraft you mean? Oh yeah. I was in and out of the target before the rest of them had started bombing really, very often.
BW: Even before the Pathfinders arrived.
JW1: Yeah, yeah. It was handy being a, a Pathfinder because we got extra defence, if you like, and we could bomb the target and then go and mark nearby and, you know and a lot of them would bomb where we dropped these markers, really.
JW2: We need to clarify this but you told me that you had advised that it would be a good idea to drop false markers.
JW1: Oh, we did that. Yeah.
JW2: Who did that? Did you do that as, first of all, you requested that, that as a strategy? You put it forward?
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And what happened then?
JW1: Well it meant there were fewer bombers going to the target, fewer who should have been on the target, dropping bombs nearby and they were glad of it because it kept them out of serious anti-aircraft fire. I’m surprised they’re interested in this so many years after [slight laugh].
BW: That, that was about your time on 102 Squadron and you then moved to number 76 Squadron at Linton on Ouse and according to your log book you changed pilot. You then had Sergeant Povey.
JW1: Yes. Les, Les Povey.
BW: Les Povey. And your original crew at 102 Squadron apparently were shot down and killed after you left.
JW1: Shot down what?
BW: They were shot down, they were brought down and killed on a mission, weren’t they?
JW1: Were they killed? Yeah.
JW2: You were supposed to go on that trip and we, we —
JW1: Which trip?
JW2: It was a, a raid on an armaments factory in Stettin and it was a birthday present for Hitler.
JW1: For whom?
JW2: For Hitler. It was on the 20th of April 1943 and you were supposed to go on that trip but you had cold sores on your face and couldn’t wear your oxygen mask.
JW1: No. I wasn’t allowed to go.
JW2: You were not allowed to go but you did go to the briefing.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And someone else went to that briefing as well. We met him later. Tom Wingham wrote about it in a book called, um, “Halifax Down” and he said that people were very anxious about the trip because it was a full moon and they were advised to go high over the Channel and low over Denmark to evade anti-aircraft. So we, we read about that afterwards. So your crew were lost. You waited for them to come back. You waited on the runway for them to come back.
JW1: And why wasn’t allowed? Tell me again why wasn’t allowed to go with them?
JW2: You had cold sores on your face and you couldn’t wear your oxygen mask. Can you remember waiting for them?
JW1: It’s coming, coming back to me yeah. Just a very slight recollection that’s all.
JW2: You told me that beyond a certain time you knew that —
JW1: They couldn’t get back, yeah.
JW2: That they were either going to be prisoners of war or the plane had come down or there was a vague hope that they’d landed somewhere else in the country but you waited.
JW1: That’s true yeah.
JW2: Can you remember what happened when you saw your name with another crew after you lost your own crew?
JW1: It was the pilot that was —
JW2: No. After you lost your crew and you saw your name was put on a board with another crew ready to go off again. Do you recall what you did?
JW1: No.
JW2: You put it in your back pocket. You put your name off the crew list and in your back pocket and then what did you do?
JW1: I don’t know.
JW2: You went home.
JW1: Did I?
JW2: And when you walked down the front path your mother had just received a telegram saying you were missing in action.
JW1: In action, yeah. They thought I’d gone with the crew, yeah.
JW2: This was the same period of time that someone at The Stag asked if you were dodging the column.
JW1: And he was chucked out the pub.
JW2: He was because your father and the landlord knew why you were home. You were absent without leave because you’d lost your crew.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: Can you remember seeing your crew’s families, going to see the crew members’ families?
JW1: No, I can’t remember it.
JW2: I think you wanted to tell them what had happened because you knew they wouldn’t learn for a long time.
JW1: I can’t remember.
BW: If I read you the names of the crew that were lost would that help?
JW1: Go on.
BW: Your pilot was Wilfred Ambrose Griffiths, the second pilot on that raid was Thomas Samuel Eric Bennett, a New Zealander.
JW1: A what?
BW: A New Zealander. He was from New Zealand.
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: The flight engineer was James Thomas Smith.
JW1: I don’t remember any of them really.
BW: There was Wilfred Charles Marsh.
JW2: Wilf Marsh.
JW1: Wilf Marsh, yeah. I do remember him. I do remember.
JW2: How do you remember him?
JW1: I remember Wilf Marsh but I need some, for somebody to remind me what —
BW: He was one of the oldest of the crew.
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: He was thirty-one.
JW1: Thirty-one?
BW: The same age as, er, Tom Bennett. The other observer on the crew list was James Campbell, James Kenneth Campbell. You knew him as Ken.
JW2: Ken Campbell. What do you remember about him?
JW1: Nothing.
BW: The — you mentioned this guy before, the wireless op, the wop, AG, Sergeant Arnie Jenkinson.
JW2: Jinxy [?].
BW: Arnie Jenkinson.
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And the two gunners were Alex Cuthbert Weir. He was Canadian. Do you know if he was the mid-upper or the —
JW1: Pardon?
BW: Was he the mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner? The Canadian?
JW1: I forget.
BW: And the last one was Sergeant Bertram Charles John White.
JW1: John what?
JW2: White.
JW1: I don’t remember.
JW2: Can I try and jog your memory about Arnie Jenkins?
JW1: Son.
JW2: Son, yeah. You said that his mother had a haberdashery shop, 360 Ashton New Road.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: Do you remember?
JW1: It’s coming back to me when you mention it.
JW2: What about your Magdalene? Your Magdalene used to make clothes and she knew that family didn’t she?
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: Or she met them through you, I don’t know.
BW: Well, I had so many that I had to recall and the crews, but she would, I would expect this one to remember, you know, the one you — that parents, do remember, yeah.
JW2: Ken Campbell was from Widnes.
JW1: Was he?
JW2: Yeah.
JW1: I went there didn’t I?
JW2: I think you went to —
JW1: And they didn’t want to know me.
JW2: You went to 360 Ashton New Road but that was Arnie Jenkins’ house.
JW1: Jenkinson.
JW2: Jenkinson, yes, sorry. But he was an only child and it’s a shame you didn’t go back.
JW1: Was he lost?
JW1: You, you told me his mother couldn’t speak to you. She was so upset and she had to hurry off the doorstep and when you got muddled up in your older age and you thought it was because you’d replaced, they’d replaced you but Arnie Jenkinson wasn’t replaced, wasn’t the replacement for you. Ken Campbell was and he was from Widnes.
JW2: I’ve forgotten.
JW1: I think it would be hard for anybody to see a familiar RAF uniform on the doorstep and know you weren’t going to see your son coming back.
JW1: Yeah. I can understand that.
BW: So, you went drinking in the local pub when you were at home called The Stag?
JW1: Yes. They said I was dodging the column, the other people, yeah, so I left and didn’t go back there.
BW: And was your dad a regular in the pub as well?
JW1: He was but he wasn’t — he worked down the pit. He wasn’t a member of the crew really.
JW2: Was he proud of you?
JW1: Eh?
JW2: When you came home in your uniform was he proud of you?
JW1: Oh yeah, yeah.
BW: Did your family ever worry about you when you were on the raids?
JW1: Well, they wouldn’t acknowledge that they were bothered, you know, but they were.
BW: And you used to cycle home to Wigan from Pocklington.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
BW: Did your family make a fuss of you when you went home each time?
JW1: Well there was only my parents really there. The rest were based either in the Army or the Air Force. I don’t know where they’d be.
BW: So, you being the youngest, when you came home you were spoiled by mum and dad were you a bit.
JW1: A bit yes.
BW: Did your dad take you out drinking?
JW1: Did what?
BW: Did your dad take you out drinking or not?
JW1: He did after a while but he, you know, he didn’t like me being in the pub really.
JW2: You told me that he used to ask you to put your uniform on.
JW1: Yeah, I know he liked it. You got special treatment in the pub even if they didn’t know you personally, you know.
BW: Did people buy you drinks when you went in the pub with your uniform on?
JW1: Phew. Not really, er, occasionally one might but, um, it was, er, it was —
JW2: What can you say about the bottles of whisky that you used to bring home?
JW1: I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.
JW1: You told me that you were given bottles of whisky and you used to bring them home in a kit bag and give them to your dad.
JW1: Where did I get the whisky from?
JW2: I don’t know. I don’t know.
JW1: I’ve forgotten myself.
JW2: From Pocklington somewhere.
BW: You were based at Yorkshire with 102 Squadron at the time the dams’ raid took place.
JW1: A what?
BW: The time the dam busters’ raid took place.
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: Were you feted at all because you were part of bomber crews?
JW1: Was I what?
BW: Were you feted at all? Did people make a fuss of you when you went home at that time, simply because you were in bomber command?
JW1: Oh yeah.
BW: And did the uniform pay off? Did you attract many girls?
JW1: No. I had a girlfriend of my own, Cathleen McGraw.
JW2: I’ve been told that your half brothers and sisters had children who used to dote on you. So they would be your nieces and they used to dote on you and there was photographs hanging up in your brothers and sisters houses of you in your uniform. They all recall a particular photograph of you in your uniform.
JW1: I can’t remember.
JW2: But I was also told that you wore leathers like Marlon Brando and you had a motorbike. Can you remember having a motorbike?
JW2: Did I have a motorbike?
JW2: Did you have a motorbike then?
JW1: I had a motorbike once upon a time but it was only for a few days and then —
JW2: Oh right. OK.
JW1: I got a little aeroplane [slight laugh]. I was lucky to survive really.
BW: And you had a few months flying with 76 Squadron at Linton and then Holme on Spalding.
JW1: Holme on Spalding where?
BW: Do you remember much about that base?
JW1: Pardon?
BW: Do you remember much about that base?
JW1: Not really.
BW: There were some accidents, um, at Pocklington and at Holme on Spalding by Halifax crews coming back that crashed. Did you see any or hear of any crashes?
JW1: No, I didn’t realise that. We were usually the first back because I, I’d studied navigation and mathematics at the grammar school, you know. I knew more about it than the navigation people on the squadron.
BW: From your log book on the 10th of August 1943 you started flying with 138 Squadron at Tempsford. Now that’s down south in Sussex and it was a special duties squadron. Did you volunteer for special duties?
JW1: No but I was — but they thought I was good enough for it I suppose.
BW: So, somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said you’re going down south?
JW1: Yeah. Mind you, it wasn’t as a hazardous a place as the squadron, going from the squadron, you know, up north. The German fighters would be patrolling along the coastline waiting for them to go.
BW: Waiting for you to go out?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And did they patrol waiting for you to come back as well?
JW1: They would be, yeah, but we were, didn’t come back as a —
BW: A squadron.
JW1: Yeah. We came back individually all over the place.
BW: Did you see any action with night fighters or —
JW1: Oh yes. We saw them. We saw planes going down sometimes but my pilot, the second pilot I had, could get higher up than they, they were.
JW2: Can you, can you recall why Les Povey was such a good pilot?
JW1: No.
JW2: Because he’d been a gold prospecting pilot before the war, in Africa.
JW1: Was he? I’ve forgotten.
JW2: That’s what you told me. He was a gold prospecting pilot so he was a very experienced pilot before he joined up.
JW1: I’d forgotten that.
JW2: And he was older as well.
JW1: He was almost forty then.
JW2: And he looked like Errol Flynn.
BW: And you moved with him down to Tempsford.
JW1: Yes.
BW: So what happened to the rest of the crew? Did they just keep you and Les together?
JW1: I don’t recollect what happened to them but they, very often, with other crews a very experienced person, trying to get them out of that aircraft and, you know, with the special squadron and we came in that category.
BW: And you moved then in August ‘43 abroad. You went and flew to Blida in Algeria.
JW1: Blida, yeah.
BW: To join 624 Squadron.
JW1: Blida was in, er, I don’t know what you’d call it now, with a lake. What do you call it now?
BW: So, we were talking just before Joe about your transfer to the special duties squadron, when you flew to North Africa, to Blida in Algeria. What do you remember about that?
JW1: Very little, if anything really, but because I’d been learning maths at school and, you know, they used to, even though I was one of the least experienced, er, air people, air crew they, er, still wanted me to tell them about it, you know.
BW: And you conducted operations, again in a Halifax, but you were dropping supplies and spies I believe in different parts of Europe.
JW1: Oh yeah, yeah. I’d forgotten about those. I’d forgotten details of them.
JW2: You told me that you can remember, um, dropping agents that were also dangerous people.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: And that they —
JW1: They were let out of jail you mean?
JW2: Yes and you told me that, that one of them — do you remember one particular case where he was dropped with handcuffs and when he landed he would be able to access the key to unlock himself because it was zipped up inside his outfit? Do you remember that, um, Jim Rosbottom was the despatcher?
JW1: I’ll just have a sip.
JW2: Jim Rosbottom was the despatcher.
JW1: Jim. It wasn’t Jim.
JW2: Jim Rosbottom.
JW1: It wasn’t Jim though was it?
JW2: Yes he was the despatcher and you said that he was the despatcher and you said he used to tie himself to the fuselage when he was dropping some dangerous people to ensure that he didn’t get pulled out of the plane as well.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: And he also used to, he used do his own form of bombing sometimes by throwing whole packets out, of leaflets out instead of cutting them up sometimes.
JW1: Oh yeah [slight laugh].
BW: Did you ever talk to these agents that you were dropping?
JW1: I forget that really. I think they were kept apart from us, you know, in the aircraft so we wouldn’t do.
BW: Were they put on at the last minute after you’d all been briefed and got in the aircraft?
JW1: Not really. They’d been let out of jail to do that job. Is that my tea, love? Is that mine? I’ve got a recollection of it, yeah.
BW: What did you do?
JW1: I don’t know. I just put it inside my satchel with my shirt over it [slight laugh].
BW: So, you were told to leave your log book with the CO and you took it instead when he wasn’t looking. He nipped out the office and you slipped it under your shoulder and put your jacket over?
JW1: Very likely.
BW: And you flew, on these missions you flew to quite a few different places. You flew to Yugoslavia and you flew to the south of France, Corsica and Italy as well.
JW1: And what?
BW: And to Italy as well. Do you remember how you dropped the supplies to the resistance, the partisans?
JW1: Not really. I’ve not thought about it. I’ve not kept the memory going. I used to know it.
BW: But there was another member of the crew, Jim Leith.
JW2: No he was a different. He was in 624 but they were not dad’s —
BW: In a different aircraft.
JW2: But dad, you told me about when you went over the — is it the Samarian Gorge, is that right?
JW1: Go on.
JW2: Is that right. Is it called the Samarian Gorge in Greece?
BW: I don’t know to be honest.
JW2: And you told me, you told me that your Halifax was so heavy with your load that you had to jettison it and when you got back you had a lot of explaining to do because you discovered what your heavy load was. Do you remember what your heavy load was? It was gold bullion but you didn’t know you were carrying it.
JW1: No.
JW2: I wonder whether that was an orthodox war practice and I wonder who found it.
JW1: People used to, if you were dropping money or gold, they would to take a bit of it for themselves.
JW2: Off the flight, yeah. Well, you would have crashed into a mountain, you would have crashed into the Gorge, if you hadn’t dropped it because you were losing height.
JW1: Oh, happy days [slight laugh].
BW: Were all of these flights at night?
JW1: Yes, as far as I remember. I think there may have been the odd one, overseas ones, that were in daylight.
BW: How did it feel when you were flying these missions as opposed to being over Germany?
JW1: Oh it was a lot easier.
BW: Just because it was secret did you feel any heightened sense of danger?
JW1: Not really, no.
BW: Did you treat it like any other sort of job?
JW1: Yeah.
BW: And what was it like when you on the base in North Africa. What were the facilities like? Can you remember? Was it a rough strip?
JW1: Not really but it was fairly close, you know, to Britain.
JW1: Do you remember that you almost got into trouble one night because you snuck out somewhere to go drinking and, er, or for a night out and I think you missed your transport back and you had to come through territory that you didn’t know very well but you had to walk all the way through the night to get back on for parade the next day.
JW1: I’ve forgotten.
JW2: You’ve forgotten that? Do you recall, um, do you remember that you got fined and you thought it was a miscarriage of justice?
JW1: No.
JW2: What do you remember about the, the revolver that you left on the plane, the Halifax overnight?
JW1: Nothing. I know, er, I took a revolver, you know, in case we were shot down and we —
JW2: You left it on the plane and it went missing.
JW1: Oh yeah.
JW2: And you got hauled up for questioning about it and I seem to remember that you said in your defence — well they said you should not have left it on the plane because it was in your care, and you said, ‘Well maybe we should have taken the Browning off the plane as well.’
JW1: Take what?
JW2: Maybe we should have taken the Browning off the plane as well because there’s an armed guard there. Anyway, they, they didn’t accept your response and they fined you. So you had to pay. Can you not remember what your fine was? You were fined a few pounds for losing that revolver or not looking after it so somebody took it but you were very annoyed about it.
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: Because there was an armed guard and it still went missing.
BW: Your CO, when you were in North Africa, your CO was Wing Commander Stanbury. Does the name ring any, ring any bells with you?
JW1: Oh, [unclear] . I remember the name, Stanbury, yeah. Because they had a shop or something then didn’t he?
BW: No. No.
JW2: Clive Stanbury?
JW1: Clive, yeah.
JW2: What do you remember about him?
JW1: Not much.
JW2: Do you remember him asking you to do another mission when you done your two tours?
JW1: What did I say, ‘Bugger off?’
JW2: I’m not sure [slight laugh]. I think you said you didn’t have to do it. You told me at the time that you felt this particular one would be suicidal.
JW1: I’ve forgotten that one. I’ve forgotten the incident.
BW: So it was a case of one more trip but you said, ‘No.’
JW1: I bought these carpets while I was there.
JW2: That was much later.
JW1: Eh?
JW2: Yeah. That was much than that, dad.
JW1: Was it?
JW2: Yeah.
JW1: I thought it was from the Air Force?
JW2: No, no they weren’t.
JW1: Are you sure?
JW2: Yeah.
JW1: I’ve forgotten then.
BW: Your last operations were in early March 1944 and then you flew back in a Dakota by quite a circuitous route, by the look of it. You got lifts here there and everywhere through Egypt and then you went down to Bulawayo in Rhodesia.
JW1: Oh, yeah. Was I instructing there?
BW: It doesn’t say so but did you come an instructor after the war.
JW1: Afterwards yeah. For a bit until I was demobbed.
BW: And what do you recall about being demobbed? Were you happy the war was over?
JW1: I think I must have been but I don’t recollect much. Do you do many operations with people such as I?
BW: Yes.
JW1: And did as many aircraft, as many trips as I’ve done?
BW: Some have but not many because usually after thirty ops that was it. That was the end of their service but you went on to do forty-seven.
JW1: I did forty-seven trips? Amazing.
BW: In total.
JW1: Amazing.
BW: And were you ever injured at all during that time?
JW1: Sorry?
BW: Were you ever injured at all during that time?
JW1: No.
BW: You mentioned that you received some shrapnel in the face.
JW1: I don’t remember.
BW: At one point.
JW1: It’s gone out of my head.
BW: It must, it must not have been a serious injury. What happened after the war? Did you continue in the RAF?
JW1: Not really. I was chucked out. They didn’t want me then after the war. Well, I say they did but a group of them from the local squadron, er, knew who I was, you know, and I’ve forgotten anyway.
BW: Do you remember when you left the RAF?
JW1: No. What does it say there?
BW: Would it be about 1946?
JW1: ’46?
BW: Would it be about that or was it ’45?
JW1: Oh, forgotten.
BW: What did you [clears throat] what did you do when you returned home? Did you —
JW1: What job did I do?
BW: What — did you meet up with your girlfriend?
JW1: I’ve forgotten that even. What did I do when I came out of the Air Force?
JW2: Well you’d broken up with Cathleen McGraw because you were a Catholic and she wasn’t and it was, it was irreconcilable I think and you went to teacher, you went to teacher training.
JW1: Where at?
JW2: Strawberry Hill in Twickenham.
JW1: Where?
JW2: Strawberry Hill. Richmond was it?
JW1: Yeah.
JW2: And you met my mother when you were teacher training. You were in her classroom. You were an assist— you were learning how to be a teacher and she was already a teacher.
JW1: Where is she now? She’s not with us?
JW2: No. Its twelve years since —
JW1: How long since?
JW2: Twelve years.
JW1: Was it?
JW2: Mm. [background noises]
BW: [pause] Do you remember anything else from your teaching days?
JW1: Did I what?
BW: Do you remember anything from your teaching days? Did you back come up here to teach or did you stay down south in London.
JW1: What’s he say?
JW2: Well, you fell in love with my mum.
JW1: Where was she?
JW2: Well, she was down south and you decided to go, when everyone else was on rations, you decided to go and live in Rhodesia and you, you got married secretly in London. Your family didn’t know because you’d — it was complicated because you had broken up with your — someone who was still visiting your mother’s house and, um, you got married and then you went to live in Africa for five years, Rhodesia, and then you came back and had my brother John. And so after that you were teaching in Rhodesia, in Cyprus, Limassol, and Korea.
JW1: I’ve forgotten that.
JW2: That’s what you did.
JW1: Runcorn [?] before you retired.
BW: OK.
JW1: That it?
BW: What do you, er, what do you think of the commemorations being given for Bomber Command?
JW1: What do I think about what?
BW: The commemoration, the remembrance that’s being given to Bomber Command now?
JW1: I don’t know. I think I went to one and I wasn’t allowed to — for some reason or other. The first one, early in the — I wasn’t allowed to join the rest of them because I, I was in civvies really. You know, to be in civvies, they wouldn’t acknowledge that, what we’ve been talking about now.
BW: So did they not mention Bomber Command? Was, were you sort of side-lined a little bit?
JW1: Yeah. They didn’t mention it. They were glad to see the last of me ‘cause I knew more about it than what they did, you know, being left in England.
BW: But what about the respect or the commemoration that’s being paid to veterans of Bomber Command now. How do you feel about that?
JW1: Never thought about it.
JW2: We went to it dad. Were went to the celebrations. A statue showing several airmen on the way back from ops looking tired and dejected and, and, um, exhausted that was unveiled and it was very powerful. We went up there when the Queen opened it at Bomber Command and we, the whole family went with you to that and you went, you went up to the statue. After all the fuss had gone down and we had a few, we had some beers at the area where we were, and then we went just to look at it when the crowds had gone down but the crowds were still there. And there were a lot of people asking for your autograph and they wanted you to shake hands with other veterans and lots of photographs were taken. I think you were surprised at all the fuss then as well. But there was a big campaign to, to, um, to acknowledge the role that Bomber Command played in the war because some people think you were ignored or that you were demonised. Bomber Command did not get a campaign medal.
JW1: No.
JW2: And it took till a few years ago for you to get a clasp.
JW1: I never got it.
JW2: I need to apply for it yet.
JW1: Eh?
JW2: You are entitled it and I need to apply for it for you.
JW1: You can have it if you get it.
JW2: Right, thank you. I’ve got it on tape now.
BW: It’s official. OK, well that’s all the questions I have for you and thanks to you Jenny for all your help.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Joseph Wilson
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Brian Wright
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-12-31
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Sound
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AWilsonJ161231
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Joseph Wilson was training to be a pharmacist when he volunteered for the Air Force. He trained to as a bomb aimer and completed 47 operations with several squadrons. He recalls flying a Tiger Moth early on in training and discusses mine laying and bombing operations. He later flew with 624 Special Duties Squadron dropping supplies and agents to the resistance in Southern Europe. He became a teacher after the war.
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Temporal Coverage
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1940
1942
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Format
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01:27:34 audio recording
102 Squadron
138 Squadron
624 Squadron
76 Squadron
Absent Without Leave
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
Halifax
memorial
Pathfinders
RAF Pocklington
Special Operations Executive
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1093/11552/PRichardsHJ1807.1.jpg
e9d3ee17efe52dc06e2593c9249ef399
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1093/11552/ARichardsHJ180219.2.mp3
bd7288acde305764a090df198fd0dad8
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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Richards, Harold James
H J Richards
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Harold James Richards (1922 - 2020, 1451874 Royal Air Force) photographs and his log book. He flew operations as a navigator with 297 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Harold Richards and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-02-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Richards, HJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. The person being interviewed is Harold James Richards. Also known as Rick to his family, and Harry. The interviewer is myself, Cathy Brearley. Also present is Marion Giddings who is Harry’s neighbour. And the date today is Monday the 19th of February 2018. This interview is taking place at Harry’s home in Lincoln. So, first of all Harry I’d like to thank you for giving us this interview. And please could you begin by talking a little bit about your childhood. Where you were born and where you grew up and about your family and your early years.
HR: I was born in Lincoln. A couple of miles from here. And I lived in Lincoln all my childhood really. And moving around various parts in that sort of area. In the centre. The centre sort of in Lincoln. And then I did my schooling in Lincoln. And eventually left school when I was eighteen which was fast approaching the outbreak of war.
CB: Yeah. What line of work was your father in? And your mother if she worked?
HR: What?
CB: What line of work were your parents in?
HR: My father was a printing operator. Operated some sort of printing machine for one of the local papers. Mother didn’t work of course because I had a sister and two brothers. All older than me. I was the babba of the family. And [pause] well, my normal school life came to an end when I was sixteen actually. And I went and started my first job in the National Health Service. Well, it wasn’t the National Health Service then but it was a health service. And —
CB: And what was that you were doing?
HR: Clerical. And I stayed in that until I decided it was getting a bit — time for call up. So, I made the decision that I would volunteer. And at that point I volunteered for the air force having had previous training with the Air Training Corps and things like that. Sort of local interests with the airfields local. Scampton and Waddington you see. They were all on the go in those days. And eventually in oh would it be ’41 I was called up to [pause] Well, I joined up. Let’s put it that way.
CB: Yes.
HR: I can’t remember where I went to. I know where I went to but I can’t remember the name.
CB: Yes. Yes.
HR: And eventually one of the places I went to in my call up area was Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. Stayed down there and then ultimately I was brought into the service. Joined up. And joined up as a trainee aircrew and did my training. Part of which was in Scarborough. And eventually, having finished my, that sort of training I was then joined a flying school. Flying training. But I didn’t do very well at that. I wasn’t a blue eyed boy there and eventually I was told that they could do a lot better without me so I had to re-muster. And at that stage I was in Carlisle I think and my next move actually was on board ship. And I was sent to South Africa to [pause] not complete but to start a new period of training. And I did precisely the same in Bulawayo as I’d been doing in Scarborough. Slightly, the temperature was slightly different [laughs] And eventually I moved up the ladder there and finished my elementary training and was then signed on for air observer. And at that time I went to [pause]
[recording paused]
CB: So it was near —
HR: Near Pretoria.
CB: Right. Ok. Can I just ask you a few questions about some of the information you’ve already given?
HR: Yeah.
CB: When you went to Lord’s Cricket Ground how long were you there for and what happened there?
HR: A flying visit [laughs] Not really a flying one but in and out. There was no training or anything there. It was merely a sort of attestation. That type of thing, you know.
CB: So that’s the enrolment paperwork.
HR: But it sounds good in your —
CB: And did you have a medical somewhere?
HR: Yes. I would have had the medical in the first one I went to which was the main [pause] the main joining up place. I can’t think of the name of it. That’s my trouble.
CB: That’s ok. And then flying school in Carlisle.
HR: Yeah. Well, that was just —
CB: Tell me about Carlisle. What happened there? How long were you there for?
HR: About two months. I was flying. Part of my sort of my pilot’s training course but that that was I found I got my final papers from them. And as I say it finished up on the boat out to South Africa.
CB: And what aircraft did you fly on your training?
HR: Magisters .
CB: Sorry?
HR: Magisters.
CB: And then you went on the ship to South Africa.
HR: And then we went on ship to South Africa.
CB: And how long did that journey take?
HR: Not very long because we went sort of on our own and — no. Sorry. We went with an escort. We were in a — what did they call it? Convoy. Went in a convoy. So it took us about three weeks I think.
CB: Right.
HR: And then we landed in Cape. When we landed in Cape Town we got on board the train which took us up, all the way up country to Bulawayo in what was in those days Rhodesia.
CB: So, what happened during those three weeks on ship?
HR: Nothing. Apart from just keeping yourself occupied really. As far as I remember. I suppose we would have had talks and lectures and things like that. They’d obviously have to keep up the, the appearance.
CB: Of training.
HR: [laughs]
CB: So when you got to Bulawayo —
HR: Yeah.
CB: What happened there?
HR: I did a — I went back to elementary training. Nothing to do with flying. I went back on to the same as I’d done in this country. And I did that course and then it was from there that I moved over to Pretoria and started my [pause] Well, I suppose in those days it was air bombing course.
CB: And how long did that last?
HR: Can you leave that? I’ll get it but it’ll be in the —
CB: It’ll be in your logbook. Yes. Ok. Yeah. Yes. So —
HR: And after that it was a question of coming back to this country and eventually I was posted to the squadron which was 297 Squadron. And it was posted, it was at a place called Stoney Cross in Hampshire. This was just a — I suppose a temporary thing. And the peculiar thing was when I got there I realised that it was partly an army camp. But I didn’t make the connection at that stage. It was only later that I sort of realised the connection between 297 Squadron and the army which I’ll tell you about later.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can tell me now whilst we’re talking about it.
HR: Well, I mean eventually when I got on the squadron we used to do quite a bit in the way of cross country trips and sometimes we used to take paratroops with us. And at other times we used to take gliders. So there’s the army connection coming in like sort of at the beginning.
CB: And what was the aircraft you were in at that time?
HR: Albemarle.
CB: That was — and you were bomb aimer and navigator.
HR: Well, I was trained as a, as a navigator and a bomb aimer which you see in the logbook. But there I tended to be more on the bomb aiming side because I spent quite a bit of the time map reading. And by that I mean we used to do a lot, an awful lot of what we called cross country’s. And we’d go off in a, in an aircraft with either troops to drop at a dropping zone or pulling a glider with troops aboard which was similar to a DZ. A dropping zone.
CB: Yes. So what were your early thoughts when you first arrived on squadron and were in aircraft?
HR: Well, to be quite shattered. Well, to be quite honest I was shattered because Stoney Cross was miles away from anywhere. It was about fifteen miles from Southampton and I think about ten from — I’m trying to think of the name of the other place in the other direction.
CB: Portsmouth.
HR: No. It was only just a smallish place. But I mean any place was was home for, from the camp, you know.
CB: So, you were quite a long way from home weren’t you really?
HR: Quite a lot. Well, I mean we were more or less just outside Southampton in effect. Which was a fair distance.
CB: Do you remember getting much leave to go home and see family?
HR: Well, yes. I suppose we had. We had quite satisfactory. I didn’t, didn’t concern — didn’t concern me much actually. I was courting at the time but I wasn’t married so it, I hadn’t got the claim to be getting home at every touch and turn sort of thing.
CB: So, was your girlfriend in Lincoln at the time?
HR: Sorry?
CB: Was your girlfriend in Lincoln at the time?
HR: In Lincoln. Yeah. She lived up at — on the Nettleham Road in those days. So —
CB: What about written correspondence? Letters. Were you a good letter writer?
HR: Oh, we had them. Just the same as everybody else really. We didn’t have any, any problem. But as I say we spent quite a lot of time in the air. In fact I had one of my pals he couldn’t stand the pressure and he had to give it up. Well, had to give it up. He was medically unfit to carry on so you can imagine that it was pretty hectic at that time. Well, that more or less carried on then right the way through until we got to the sort of D-Day.
CB: And what were conditions like at, on base?
HR: Well, they were Nissen huts. Nissen huts right out in the country.
CB: Was it cold in winter?
HR: No. I don’t think it was. I can’t ever remember it being sort of snowy. It was somewhere in the middle of the — is it the New Forest down there? Is it the [pause] You could tell it was a bit isolated.
CB: What about other nationalities who were there?
HR: We didn’t have any. They were all —
CB: All British.
HR: As far as I recall, apart from the Scots and Welsh and that sort of thing we didn’t have any foreign. Not that I’m aware. I can’t remember to be quite honest. I don’t even remember my own. My own crew. I mean I remember them basically but if you asked me to describe them or say what nationality they were I wouldn’t know.
CB: Ok.
[recording paused]
CB: So you went on a trip in to the village.
HR: Well, it was not a, not planned at all. It, it was just that I was so I suppose isolated at the time. It was fairly early on. I thought oh damn it. I’m going to have a walk down to the village [laughs] or to a village. I wasn’t sure quite where. So, I walked down this, the camp road and got to the main road at the bottom and before I’d done a lot of map reading I turned left. I walked about, oh a mile along that road. Nothing happened. I thought I’ll turn around and go back. So I went back. I thought well I’ll go on. A bit further on. And that’s when I went to Ringwood. And that was when I, I didn’t actually buy the ring at that time but I spied the ground at that time.
CB: For your wedding ring.
HR: For my wedding ring. Not necessarily but I saw there was a jeweller there and so that was it. But that was the sort of isolation that I felt at that time.
CB: And did you choose your wife’s wedding ring from the same place?
HR: Sorry?
CB: Did you choose your wife’s wedding ring from the same place?
HR: I could have done. I don’t recall actually. I definitely remember doing this. But no I think she probably came with me when I, when I bought that because — well actually we didn’t get married until what, two years after I came out of the air force. So that would put us up to 1948. So, it was a bit early then. We’re talking now about, I suppose ’42. Something like that. ’42 ’43 when I was down there.
CB: Can you tell me something about the navigational aids that you used? Either in training or in flight.
HR: Yeah. Basically in my training I tended to do the normal. I can’t remember the technology now. The normal one where you had ordinary — had to do it all by maps and plotting and things like that. I mean these days they’ve got things. Not these days but later on we had things called Rebecca. Which was a type of homing signal. And of course there was what they called Gee. That was another one.
CB: I’ve heard of Gee.
HR: You’ve heard of Gee have you?
CB: Can you explain how it worked?
HR: It’s, oh don’t ask me how it works. No. No. I’m afraid that was a bit beyond me. I, because by that time I was more or less concentrating on the bomb aiming side of it. Other than the navigational map reading which was obviously necessary in these SOE cases.
CB: So, where did you go to after being down near Southampton?
HR: Stoney Cross. I’m a bit vague as to where I, where I was stationed other than I remember a station some time up in Yorkshire. I think it was Hutton Cranswick or, oh Linton on Ouse. Linton on Ouse was one that I was at. But that was later on. I can’t remember. I was also at Brize Norton for a while. But those tended to be later on. I think there must have been some earlier ones. I think there was one called Hutton Cranswick or something like that. That was up in Yorkshire.
[pause]
HR: But those all tended to be later on. I can’t think. I’ve been trying to think of what, what camps I was on but I think I was basically at Stoney Cross most of my early time. Unfortunately, my logbook doesn’t show it you see other than I could probably work it out by the trips we went on. Because I always put on the logbook the actual route that we were taking.
CB: So, how did you come to be involved with the SOE operations?
HR: Well, it must have been from the start. I wasn’t aware of it other than the fact as I say that we’d got army connections. That was the only thing that made it any different from these, these places up here. Of course the other thing is that whenever one went on an op you went on your own. I mean, you didn’t, you didn’t go up in a flurry like they do for the Bomber Command. You see they go up and there’s probably twelve aircraft go off at the same time. Well, we used to just sneak off at all sorts of different times.
CB: And how much notice would you get?
HR: We would know on the day we were going. They would tell us in the morning you see. And then probably we’d have some sort of a briefing in the afternoon. Wouldn’t be a great deal because obviously they wouldn’t know a great deal. They’d just say you go across the Channel and then when you get get there then you just find your way from there sort of thing. That’s how it used to work.
CB: And was most of this work done at night? When you were doing the drops.
HR: Oh it would all be at night. Yeah. There was no, well there were a few, a few day trips but they weren’t I remember one day trip we had to to Oslo. But that’s the only time I can ever remember that we went in the daylight.
CB: And I’ve read that it was often the drops, the night drops were often scheduled around the phases of the moon and so that you would have some light.
HR: Well it could. We had nothing else you see.
CB: Yeah.
HR: You see, you imagine when we, that the the practice was that one would take off from your ‘drome, go across the Channel at about what? Three hundred feet. Very low anyway. Before you got to the coast you’d start to climb to make sure that you were sufficiently high enough to get out of the range of the guns or whatever and then of course when you got the other side you had to drop. And the rest of it you see was at about what? Three hundred feet. Well, there’s nothing. You can see nothing at night at three hundred feet. I mean you can’t look for trains or bus stations or things like that you see. It’s a question of looking for places where there was, well forestries or woods. That was another darker sort of area you see that you would find on your maps and —
CB: So, it’s quite dangerous then isn’t it?
HR: Well it wasn’t, it wasn’t —
CB: Rather than obviously open spaces.
HR: Although we were lucky actually because whenever they gave you somewhere it was usually in a reasonably unbuilt, not built up area because obviously you see these people were having to come out to receive you as it were. So, you could only really go in the moonlight where you would get the moon, picking up or picked up by the water if there was any lakes or rivers. That was another thing. If you got on a river you were alright because you could follow it you see.
CB: And did the people on the ground use torchlight to help you?
HR: They did. They did but it was a slow sort of situation because obviously they were careful and so were we. So I mean when you got to what you thought was roughly where you should be you just had to look and see if there was any, any possible lights. I mean these lights were given at a certain signal to give which we would be informed of. They’d be saying, well they’d be flashing out whatever. The signal. And then at that point then you could start doing, offloading your containers or whatever you were taking.
CB: So, it would be a different signal each time. What sort of —
HR: Oh yes. It wasn’t general. No. It was just a—
CB: And what sort of a signal might it be? Was it based on Morse code signalling at all?
HR: Oh yeah.
CB: Yeah. So would it be a code word maybe?
HR: It could have been a code word. It could have been anything really as long as it was something that wasn’t easily sort of dis well not discernable but able to work it out quickly.
CB: Do you remember any of the signals that were —
HR: No. I don’t. No.
CB: Particularly given.
HR: Actually it used to be the job of the gunner to flash the signal but — or the navigator often did because I was, as I say I was busy trying to locate what we called the DZ. The dropping zone.
CB: And I imagine it was a mixture of dropping agents as well as sometimes supplies.
HR: Well, we didn’t have any agents dropping. They were, they were a completely different concern as far as we were concerned because obviously they used to fly from Tempsford on the north, Great North Road there. That was their, their headquarters.
CB: I understand.
HR: And they had their own squadron there actually. In fact if you look at this book they’ll tell you that 138 Squadron was, was their actual, the squadron that did all the —
CB: The agent drops.
HR: Taking the agents. Plus of course the Lysanders. They used to do a lot. You’ve seen these funny little Lysanders. Well, they used to do a lot of that sort of thing.
CB: I see. Yes. Yes, the —
HR: No. Ours was completely material. We used to drop containers which contained all sorts of things.
CB: Yes. The book you refer to is a book that both Harry and I both have called, “Forgotten Voices of the Secret War,” by Roderick Bailey. Which is about SOE operations. So, what sort of supplies would you be dropping?
HR: Well, frankly we wouldn’t know. I I don’t know anything that I dropped other than the fact that it was a container.
CB: What sort of size container was it? In feet for example.
HR: Well, it always liked a coffin but it was obviously bigger than a coffin. But that type of thing along. Well, have you seen them in these books? That’s the type of thing. And they had all sorts of things that —
CB: They must have been quite robust to have withstood being dropped from —
HR: Oh yeah.
CB: So high.
HR: Well, we used to drop about what three hundred or something like that you see. And it was on soft soil hopefully. If nobody was in the way.
CB: Would you have to go around for other drops or would you be able to —
HR: Oh no. It would be one drop and off. Oh yes it was, it was paraphernalia to do all. Get the aircraft in position and get it with the, with the wheels — well some. Most of the time they’d put the wheels down to give you more resistance and the flaps and all sorts making it as easy as they could. Comparatively so. So, of course as soon as you dropped them everything was brought up. Wheels up and the flaps up and we were off. But it was just one. One trip around.
CB: And would you typically fly with the same pilot and other aircrew?
HR: We had our own, we had our own crew. Yeah. The crew was, was more or less fixed. In fact I had one. I had one, one fella well you’ll see in the logbook for about half my period and then I had another one. Changed me over.
CB: Do you remember the names?
HR: Yeah. Shortman, Flight Lieutenant Shortman was the first one. And the other one was Millnoy.
CB: Mill —
HR: Flight Lieutenant.
CB: Millroy.
HR: Millnoy.
CB: And the aircraft?
HR: I only remember them because I’ve got them in my logbook you see.
CB: And what was the aircraft you were using for that?
HR: Albemarle for that one. I’ve got a photograph actually but you can’t see a great deal of it.
[recording paused]
CB: So, can you tell me about how you went around the country in the aircraft showing them to other RAF bases.
HR: Well, prior to the invasion we had the task of going around the different areas of particular defences that might be involved in any sort of attack. Either by the Germans or us going over there. And these aircraft were specifically being used. All the British and all the, the allied, all the allied aircraft were marked with this particular white marking on the fuselage. And we went to Linton on Ouse in Yorkshire. We went up to Turnhouse in Scotland. And I think we went to another place in, in Hutton Cranswick. I seem to remember that. That was up in Yorkshire. But operationally I don’t think we moved from Stoney Cross. I can’t ever remember, except moving to Brize Norton and that was specifically for the D-Day and Arnhem and the crossing of the Rhine. I think we went from Brize Norton for, for those. But in turn we went from Brize Norton to the one on the coast in, in Kent. Oh God, what’s the name of it now? Well known one. Right on the tip of the coast there.
CB: Not sure.
HR: Well, that was the one we actually went from for those three. On those three occasions.
CB: So tell me about D-Day.
HR: Not much to tell. No. We were unfortunate that we lost a glider. How —?
CB: Did that ditch in the Channel?
HR: Oh. We got over the coast. Oh we were virtually there. Well, sort of midway between the water and the, the battlefield as it were at that time. So we were within a matter of miles but it just disappeared. Unfortunately.
CB: Yes. Yes.
HR: I never heard anything about it but then naturally one wouldn’t.
CB: And Arnhem.
HR: Similar. Similar.
CB: Similar loss.
HR: But we didn’t get as far there. In fact, when you see the logbooks you’ll find that I think we did an hour and a half on D Day and an hour to Arnhem. Something like that.
CB: And the Rhine?
HR: And the — we crossed that alright. Yes. We did that. Five hour journey. Five. Five hours seventy five I think it was. Something like that.
CB: And that, was that dropping supplies?
HR: That was taking, that was taking troops. We took gliders. Those were glider. Glider towings. So we lost the glider which was the annoying part because we don’t know what happened to the men. But what happened? I’m not suggesting anything.
CB: That indicates the degree of difficulty of the actual role.
HR: I mean it could have been something that broke. Could be a, you know sort of the rope. The rope. The wire between plane and glider broke. Came undone. No idea.
CB: So how many troops would fit in a glider typically?
HR: Oh not a lot. About ten to twenty I should think. Something like that. They’d be just like, just like, you know what an aircraft looks like inside. You know, forget all about the driver and his sort of area and I mean you’ve got the whole of that because there wouldn’t be anybody there. There would be a pilot. A couple of pilots you see with a glider pilot with a glider. And they would take over you see once the thing was released. But they’d just be pilot on either side. Probably about, there might be about seven or eight on either side of the fuselage. It depends on the size because you had, you had two types of glider at that time. We had the Hamilcar which was the big one. And then we had the smaller one which was the [pause] oh my God what did they call that?
CB: I’ve heard of Horsa gliders. I’ve heard of Horsa gliders.
HR: That’s right. Horsa. Yeah. Well, they were the smaller ones. But the bigger one was the [pause] was the other one.
CB: Do you know if that’s something that men would volunteer for? To go in a glider. Or would they be ordered.
HR: It would be part of their training. Part of their duty. I mean they didn’t mind which way they went as long as they went. These lads. They were [laughs] as we call it muck and nettles [laughs]
CB: And I imagine there’s a lot of risks in safely landing a glider as well.
HR: Well, providing the, the area is right to land there shouldn’t be any difficulty because after all you take them to what they called the dropping zone and that’s, that’s perfectly clear. The difficulty is that if it gets in to rough territory then it gets difficult because I mean there’s no engine or anything like that to help them land. So it was just a question of going into the ground really. Trying to get a long clear run.
CB: And what sort of height would you be at?
HR: Oh not very high. When we were towing them we’d only be about fifteen hundred or something like that.
CB: And the Rhine operation was a more successful one.
HR: I don’t know much about that because we went straight there and straight back. I’ve got no idea what happened there.
CB: Was that lots of gliders went at the same time on that one?
HR: Would have been. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been quite a sight I would think from the ground.
CB: What sort of number?
HR: Hmmn?
CB: What sort of number?
HR: I honestly don’t know. I honestly don’t know because obviously it’s something that we would look upon it as a normal sort of process I suppose but —
[recording paused]
CB: So are there any other particular events or moments that you recall for any reason? Either humorous or particularly dangerous or near misses.
HR: I can’t think of any near misses. I mean the procedure was — on an ordinary operation the procedure was quite simple. We, we would have a briefing. But again unlike Bomber Command we went in singles. We didn’t, we didn’t go in, in loads. And then the idea would be flying sort of very low over the water and climb up to keep out of the way of ack ack stuff. And then immediately you got over there, drop and then it would be a question of map reading yourself to wherever you were going.
CB: I imagine you were kept fairly busy during —
HR: Well, I didn’t do anything other than map read the whole time that I was once I got to the coast that was it. I mean I was immediately confined to the nose and that was it. And I would sort of help the navigator if he was in any sort of trouble. If he sort of said, ‘Can you, can you see anything down there?’ And it would be a question then yes or no. And then we would be praying that somebody would be coming out to meet us. We would aim to get to a particular place. We’d know where it was. We’d get what they — a map reading reference. And we’d, they’d be aiming for that. They’d have picked a course to get there. And then it’s a question of looking. Trying to see something as you went past.
CB: Did you typically go to France?
HR: Oh yes. Yes. I had I think about three journeys there from what I can recall.
CB: Where else did you go other than France?
HR: Oslo.
CB: You mentioned Oslo.
HR: Just those four places because my ops actually only totalled, I think about ten. Something like that. And that included some of these aborted ones. So I didn’t have a great deal of experience on that.
CB: What sort of things were you able to see from the air that you could use as landmarks other than obviously rivers and train lines?
HR: Well, just rivers really. And, and trees. The forests or parks or anything that gave a darker sort of appearance from I mean because you’ve got to remember you were whizzing along at about three hundred miles an hour. Two hundred and fifty. That sort of speed. So you didn’t have a lot of time to see anything. But I mean you just set, set course from a particular point and then that was it. Well, then once you got to what you thought was a sort of vicinity of where you wanted to be it would be all eyes out trying to find this lamp that you’re supposed to be looking for. And then of course once the lamp was sighted then you would do a couple of circuits probably just to make sure that it wasn’t somebody just going to see the cows or something like that. Just to see that they were the right sort of people. And, and then it, once you got agreement I mean there would be signalling between us and the ground. Once you got communication as it were then it would be as I say preparing the aircraft to make the drop. You’d have to find out which way the wind was coming. Obviously to be going into the wind to drop it. To, you know, make it that much easier. And once they, once the people on the ground started to collect they’d make a line for you. And the idea would be to drop the containers on that line of lights. And if everything went ok well then it would be a question of putting the aircraft back into flying mode and off.
CB: And over the time you probably flew in a lot of aircraft. A lot of different aircraft as part of your training and operations. Which was the first aircraft you ever went in?
HR: I should think it was probably when I was flying pilot. Tiger Moth. And then a Magister. And then I started on the, the other navigational ones and they were things like Oxford. Oh I’ve got a list of them somewhere. I don’t know whether I can —
[recording paused]
CB: So you flew in a lot of different aircraft and you have a list there of all the aircraft you flew in.
HR: I have. Well, prior to re-mustering I was on a pilot’s course and I flew then in Tiger Moths and Magisters. And then when I was removed [laughs]
CB: Relocated.
HR: I was scrubbed [laughs] and I went navigator/bomb aimer and I flew in Albemarle, Halifax, Wellington, Stirling, Whitley. Or as part of my training on, at navigation school I was in Ansons and Oxfords. I’ve just turned up a little note here. Operations. All I’ve done with this is that I’ve made a note of the time. The duration. And there’s one, two, three, four, five, six. There seems to be six of these that we’ve been talking about. These special deliveries. And then there’s one to Norway. I’ve said that. I don’t know what happened to that. I don’t remember very much of it. It was six hours anyway. And then I’ve got D-Day an hour. Then there was a trip when we did forty minutes. The aircraft was defective. And then there was one. The Arnhem one which was another hour. And the Rhine crossing — 5.25. So that, that was the operations.
CB: That’s a lot of different aircraft. Do you remember how, how different they seemed from each other? Obviously there’s a big difference between a Tiger Moth and a Halifax for example, isn’t there? What were they like to fly in? The different aircraft.
HR: I don’t think there was much difference frankly. Other than the fact that the, as I say some of them were faster than others and some were more defensive then others. More. Not that we ever were attacked. Although the funny thing was, I’ll tell you this, one of my pilots — are we on?
CB: We are.
HR: One of my pilots had a thing with his friend who was another of the pilots of the squadron of who could be attacked the most on these trips. And they used to have an examination when they returned to base to see whether there were any bullet holes anywhere. But that’s, that’s the sort of thing that you get. But that was my first pilot. Shortman. Flight Lieutenant Shortman. But the other one I didn’t do so well with him. He was the one that did all my failings.
CB: Did you have any lucky mascots that you took with you?
HR: No.
CB: I know some people did, didn’t they?
HR: Oh I’m sure they did. No. I’m afraid I was very fatalistic about it, you know. If it happens it happens.
CB: I was going to ask you if you were frightened. Or thought about it.
HR: No. I don’t think — I think the only time I felt a bit scared was as I say when we went to Norway it was — I was going to say a new country and didn’t quite know what might, might happen. And I got a feeling that there was other planes in the sky at the same time as us which I hadn’t had before. And I was a bit, wasn’t too happy then. I was pleased when we came away. Because we’d done an awful, we’d done six hours, you see which was about another two hours on top of our normal trip. But no. No. It’s just one of those things really I suppose.
CB: Did you have any particular rituals or habits or things you did?
HR: No. No.
CB: Do you remember others having those things?
HR: I can’t say that I do.
CB: And then the war came to an end.
HR: Yeah. Well, of course when the war came to an end it was, as far as I was concerned it was the end of the, of my career in the air force. Although I could have stayed on. For a time anyway. But of course it wasn’t. I already had a job. I’d got a job with the Health Service in those days.
CB: Did they keep your job for you, after the war for you?
HR: Oh yes. I was told that when I came back it would be there. So I came back and of course the pending wedding at that time of course because we got married in ’48. So, it was only sort of two years later. And so I, I decided that that was, that was the end. And I think that’s the end of my story.
CB: And what was your wife’s name?
HR: Vera.
CB: And then you remained in Lincoln ever since.
HR: Oh no. No. I’ve, when I, when I started up sort of back at hospital there I spent — well I was forty four years in the National Health Service. Or rather that and its predecessor. And I had a, funny thing I was going to show you this Marion.
[recording paused]
HR: Yes.
CB: So, you went back in to the Civil Service and you were in St Albans.
HR: I did. And I spent a total of forty four years in the National Health Service and the prior service. And eventually came back to, to Lincoln. And that’s really the story of my wartime I suppose.
CB: Was it usual for people’s jobs to be kept for them until after the end of the war?
HR: Well, mine was because I specifically, specifically asked whether it would be. And when I was told I obviously took advantage of it. But had they said no, well then I would probably have stayed on in the air force. For a time anyway. Because I’d got up to warrant officer by then you see. So it was far as I could, I could get without going in for a commission. Which I probably would have gone in for, you know. If I’d stayed in.
CB: Was that something that the NHS typically did was to hold everybody’s jobs for them or was there only certain jobs.
HR: I suppose. I suppose it was actually.
CB: What about people in other lines of work? Were they, did their employers keep their jobs for them?
HR: Oh I don’t know, that I can’t, that I can’t. I wouldn’t like to say.
CB: And are you in contact with any other people that you served with?
HR: No.
CB: Or part of any of the RAF Associations?
HR: No. Funnily enough after, well at the Spire when they had that function on the, in January that Marion was talking about I met somebody from [pause] I think it was somewhere sort of Northampton or somewhere like that. He had something to do with a group of people called — I can’t think what they called them now. I’ve got a letter from them. They want me to go and join them at some function [pause] I think its October.
[recording paused]
CB: So, is there anything else can you think of that you would like to talk about?
HR: I don’t think so. I think you’ve got a — we seemed to have spent quite a long time and I think you’ve got something to write about even if it’s, doesn’t get to the top of the class. It’ll be something to include in your list.
CB: Well, thank you very much for your time Harry. It’s been an absolute pleasure to meet with you and it’s been very very interesting. Your memories. And in particular because they are slightly different from other interviews and oral histories that have been collected because your role was a specialised role. And in that way was slightly different from others that we have interviewed. So thank you ever so much for your time.
HR: It’s been a pleasure.
CB: You’re welcome.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harold James Richards
Creator
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Cathy Brearley
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-19
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ARichardsHJ180219, PRichardsHJ1807
Conforms To
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Pending review
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Format
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01:00:49 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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France
Great Britain
Norway
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe--Bulawayo
Description
An account of the resource
Harold Richards from Lincoln was working in the health industry before he volunteered for the RAF. After trying to be a pilot he trained as an observer. He was posted to 297 Squadron at Stoney Cross where he and his crew dropped supplies to the Special Operations Executive and Resistance in occupied France and Norway. They then took part in glider towing during D-Day, Arnhem and the crossing of the Rhine. Harold flew in a number of different aircraft including Albemarle, Halifax, Wellington, Stirling, Whitley, Anson and Oxford. After operations one of his pilots used to compare bullet holes in the aircraft with his pilot friend as a competition.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
297 Squadron
aircrew
Albemarle
Anson
coping mechanism
Halifax
Hamilcar
Horsa
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
observer
Oxford
RAF Stoney Cross
rivalry
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/188/2481/BWardCWWardCWv1.2.pdf
18f5d8d6f561999052eca73c0631f2ed
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
Ward, Charles and Margaret
C W Ward
M Ward
Margaret Pratt
M Pratt
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with cipher operator, Sergeant Charles William Ward (7015946, British Army) and wireless operator, Margaret Ward née Pratt (17546, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). Both served in the Special Operation Executive in North Africa, Italy and Greece. The collection also contains a diary, British Army paperwork, and four photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Charles and Margaret Ward and was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-18
Identifier
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Ward, C-M
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
ARMY HISTORY OF CADET ENSIGN MARGARET PRATT & SERGEANT CHARLES WARD
As the war clouds gathered over Europe in 1939 the government decided that as a precaution young men aged 20 would be called up for six months to train as a reserve for the armed forces. My call up papers arrived telling me I was to report on Salisbury Plain to train in the Royal Artillery.
However, before the due date arrived war was declared and I was switched from the Artillery to the London Irish Rifles and on October 18th I was to report to one of the main London railway stations from where we were taken on the underground railway, our destination being Southfields station, SW18.
On disembarking we were marched down Wimbledon Park Road to Barkers Sports Ground which was next to Wimbledon Tennis Courts. There we were kitted out with our Army uniforms, part of which were puttees which, I suspect, were left over from the First World War.
Training began, often in the tennis court grounds and on Wimbledon Common, which included marching, rifle and Bren Gun training. Once proficient we were moved around the country doing guard duty in various places including the [underlined] Air Force Records Office in London and Tangmere Airport. [/underlined]
This was followed by a stint in the south which included Chichester and Goodwood race course during which time we were engaged in erecting Danet Wire defences on the beaches against an expected invasion. We were somewhat alarmed one day when we encountered a small party of army personnel with mine detectors sweeping the sand who said that the previous day they had lifted three mines.
We then had quite a few more moves which included spells at Gorleston, Thetford where we were employed in harvesting sugar beet, Altrincham, London Colney, Knutsford, Malvern, Haverfordwest, and Tenby. During most of this time I was engaged in the training of new recruits, mainly from London, who, once up to the required standard, were posted on to other units.
The repetitive nature of this training routine began to [underlined]pall so when volunteers were called for as pilots in the RAF I decided to volunteer. [/underlined] This entailed a day in London where med1cal and educational tests were earned out and I emerged with a document which I was [underlined]told to present to the CO on arrival at my first RAF station. [/underlined]
However, this was not to be as our unit was immediately posted to Cumnock, Scotland, to be part of a new special Brigade of tanks and infantry which [underlined]meant all transfers to the RAF were stopped. [/underlined]
This was my first time in Scotland, we were under canvas in a field that had quite a slope to it and the rain went on and on and on. The rainwater was constantly running under the duckboards of the tents and the field was a quagmire. Going out in the evenings meant carrying a clean pair of boots under one's arm to be changed into once we reached the road, the mud coated pair to be left under a hedge and changed back into on our return to camp. Eventually the Brigadier came to inspect and immediately ordered billet accommodation to be found.
[underlined]We were then shipped to North Africa as part of the 151 Army invasion landing at Algiers. [/underlined] From there we were moved by train up the coast towards Tunisia. The train, of course, was all cattle trucks and there was a dearth of fuel for the engine so quite a few stops were required to gather wood, though that wasn't our worry.
Our worry was liquid refreshment and during one of the fuel stops we managed to find a sheet of metal which we placed on the floor of the cattle truck so that we could light a fire and make tea. This only happened once as the heat from the fire set light to the floor of the truck.
Arriving at our destination we disembarked and dispersed into an orchard which gave us good cover, especially from the air. After this I began to keep a brief diary of events which follows.
Dec. 7th, 1942
Travelled in TCVs [troop carrying vehicles] over high mountain range from hide out area. Crossed into Tunisia. Slept in open.
Dec. 8th.
Woke up wet through. Raining like hell. All trucks bogged down and had to be pushed onto road. Eventually moved off still miserable and wet. Stopped the night on side of road. Slept, or attempted to in TCVs. No wash or shave.
Dec. 9th.
Still raining but managed morning cup of gunpowder. Continuing our nomadic existence we dished up breakfast on the move. Stopped for a couple of hours and made dinner. TCVs left us and we started to march. Still no wash or shave. Took up defence position on knoll in range of mountains. No food. Rained all night. Slept with greatcoat and gas cape among rocks. Worse than last night. Fell half-way down cliff face in dark.
Dec. 10th.
Still raining. Clouds all around hill top. Made shelter to sleep in. Had to carry food etc up to knoll. Everything still wet through but stopped raining in evening. Still no wash or shave.
1
[page break]
Friday Dec. 11th.
Fine morning except for mist. Stand to. Breakfast. Had quite a good night's sleep. Everybody washed and shaved. Carried all ammunition up. Laid tele[telephone] line from 15 pi to us. Sent out patrol up mountain track for about 5 miles. Did guard. Fine night except for short shower of rain.
Saturday Dec. 12th.
Very good morning with few clouds and sun out. Most things were dried out. Made shelter for all section. Sent out another patrol about 10 miles through mountains to El Agula. Good night's sleep.
Sunday Dec 13th.
Another fine morning but a little cold. Very fine day. Nothing unusual so far. Called out to stand to at 20.10 hrs. Stood down at 21.30 hrs.
Monday Dec 14th.
Another quiet day with everything normal.
Tuesday Dec 15th.
Same as yesterday. NAAFI supplies came up so we had a few extra cigarettes, soap etc.
Wednesday Dec 16th.
Reached the ripe old age of 24. I am getting old. First air mail letter card issued to us. Guaranteed to reach home for Christmas.
Thursday Dec 17th.
Plenty of air activity this morning. Constant rumble heard in distance all round.
Friday Dec 18th.
Best day yet. Saw three dive bombers but long way off.
Saturday Dec 19th.
Cloudy today with occasional showers. Warned to move off at dusk. Moved about 9 miles back to rest of btn. [battalion]
Sunday Dec. 20th.
Settling down in new position. Cold and showery. Orders to pack up ready to move again at 11.30. Took up fresh positions and dug in.
Monday Dec 21st
Moved again after breakfast nearer road. Stayed there rest of day and moved up towards Medjez-el-Bab in evening. Stayed night in farm. Slept in haystack.
Tuesday Dec 22nd
More air activity. Moved into building. Good sleeping quarters. Rained like hell during night.
Wednesday Dec 23'd.
Still bad weather holding up attack.
Thursday Dec 24th.
Still raining. Warned to move up and stop Germans taking Skins (Enniskillen Fusiliers) prisoners. Averaging eight a night. Moved up into position after dark. No sign of enemy at all. Dug in. Rained hard all night.
Friday Dec 25th.
Still occupying positions in hills. Still no sign of enemy. Suspected to be occupying farm. Attacking tonight.
Saturday Dec 26th.
Moved forward in early hours and attacked farm but enemy had evacuated. Rest of day spent resting. More rain. Moved back to coy. [company] position. Very cold.
Sunday Dec 27th.
Quiet all night. Rested all day. Attacked another farm at dusk still without success.
Monday Dec. 28th.
Called out in early hours but false alarm. Weather turning very nice again. Evacuated position at dusk.
Tuesday Dec 29th.
Took up position guarding AT [anti-tank] guns on hill. Weather fine but very windy. Letters arrived, five for me. Village in valley shelled and taken by enemy.
2
[page break]
Wednesday Dec 30th
Orders to be ready to move within one hour. Travelling south to Sfax and Souse. Outlying farms shelled from village. Quite a good day, warm sun.
Thursday Dec 31st.
Not moved yet. Artillery duel going on in valley. Convoy shelled. Move cancelled.
Friday Jan 1st 1943.
More shelling today. NAAFI supplies arrived. Went out on standing patrol all night. Extremely cold.
Saturday Jan 2nd.
Came back from patrol and slept morning. Increased air activity. One plane shot down. More shelling in Goubellat.
Sunday Jan 3rd.
Went out on day patrol visiting farms on Goubellat plain. Nothing doing. More mail.
Monday Jan 4th.
Hell of a wind and rain during night. Still windy in morning but no rain. More air activity.
Tuesday Jan 5th
Nothing much today. More shelling and air activity. Capt. Grant, Sgt Silverman, Rflm [rifleman] Scanlon and Sherrif failed to return from patrol.
Wednesday Jan 6th.
Smashing day so far. Wind dropped and sun very warm. Nothing doing.
Thursday Jan 7th.
Took over 13 platoon position for day while they did patrol.
Friday Jan 8th.
Dug dugouts for section, now sleeping below ground level. Quite dry.
Saturday Jan 9th
Strong wind got up during night and slight rain. Improved trenches in morning. Compulsory rest in afternoon as whole coy [company] on patrol at night. Went out on patrol but nothing doing. Took over rest of platoon as pi com [picket commander] and sgt [sic] patrol out.
Sunday Jan 10th.
Rested all day after night patrol. Rained like hell all day and night.
Monday Jan 11th.
Rain stopped during night but still a bit cloudy. Tank battle in progress on Goubellat Plain. Enemy tanks ran but ground very bad and tanks getting bogged. H Coy sent out to capture anti-tank gun in farm. Took position but suffered casualties. Two sgts [sic] and two riflemen dead and some wounded. We in reserve were to go and cover bogged tanks until LAD [light aid detachment] got them out but they managed to get out themselves before dusk. Two tanks were knocked out, one burned all night. Plan altered, 14 pi [picket] to go out and help H Coy in. Got there but H Coy had started back on different route. We came back and met them on road. Got back to camp at approx. 01.30 hrs. hot soup, cup of tea and a small nip of rum very welcome. Good show by H Coy and supporting groups which included mortars, machine guns and artillery plus the tanks. Enemy abandoned guns and ran. Stuff captured included bottles of champagne, boxes of cigars, rations, guns, rifles, pistols etc.
Tuesday Jan 12th
Slept during day getting over long trek last night. Artillery again active firing onto plain. Bombs dropped by plane just behind our position.
Wednesday Jan 13th.
Went out on standing patrol on road junction. Too confident of position and wound up in Goubellat. Got 3 tins of beef and one carrot which we ate when we got back to the road junction. Stan went out on patrol at night and laid mines. Bumped enemy and got machine gunned but no casualties. 15 platoon came back from all-day patrol had been mortared. Two very slight casualties.
Thursday Jan 14th.
Nothing doing today. Terry went out on all-night patrol. NAAFI supplies up again. Rumours of mail again.
Friday Jan 15th
Orders to be ready to move at dusk. Busy packing during day. Moved at 01.30 hrs Sat. morning.
Saturday Jan 16th.
Northants regiment took over position in early hrs. One of first Battns [battalions] to land. Got within nine miles of Tunis before they knew big push was off. Had with them one prisoner who had run of Bttn [sic] [battalion]. Ate, slept and went into action with them bringing back wounded and dead. Helped generally all round. Moved by TCV to harbour near El Arrouser where we slept all day. Moved off in early morning into farm.
3
[page break]
Sunday Jan 17th.
Stayed in farm all day. Everything quiet.
Monday Jan 18th.
Big battle raging this morning. Took up position and dug in. Rumoured seven enemy tanks knocked out and they're on the run but still plenty of firing going on. Dive bombed on road. One JU 88 shot down and burst into flames. Good show. Bags of low level bombing on roads and Bou Arada. Got one shot off at one plane. Ten spits escorting bombers came over. Saw one plane go down in distance and nine spits came back, looks as if one lost. RAP bombed and evacuated to our farm. Skins reported to be doing well. Plenty of artillery going. Truck going forward all day with ammo. Misinformed - all Spits returned, must have been enemy plane shot down making two on this plain. Moved up left of Bou Arada, took up position from RB. Res [Royal Engineers] blew up enemy tank during night near our position.
Tuesday Jan 19th.
Orders to move at 11.30 to take up position near Skins. Moved onto plain through Bou Arada and got mortared to hell. Managed to dive into wadi but one landed right in and Stan got hit bad. Don't think he'll pull through. Connery and Ted also hit but will survive. Mr Hardwick hit but made his own way out. Continued and took up position on hill. Dug in.
Wednesday Jan 20th.
Went in to take hill in early hours. Moved forward with 13 and 15 forward, 14 in reserve. First hill clear. Second hill clear. Third hill all hell let loose. 14 platoon and a few odds and ends drew back into hollow. Moved out to help other coy take hill. Reached top but driven back by tanks into hollow. Mortared in hollow for hours. One dropped in own mortar pit. Cpl Howe and three others caught it. Another dropped near and Blair got a piece in his back. Major went back for MO [medical officer]. FOO took over (Capt [sic] Atkins). Hell of a man. Cool as a cucumber. Got injured out. Got artillery to lay smoke screen then all dashed out back to wadi. Checked up on strength of approx. 30 men left in coy. Got food up, blankets etc. and other coys went forward to hold position on first hill. Our coy slept in wadi.
Thursday Jan 21st
00.300 hrs. Hell let loose again. Attacked by tanks supported by infantry. Caught entirely by surprise and scattered. I made off with Terry in direction of Bou Arada. Machine gun fire all along top of wadi. Got out and crossed road into ploughed field and ran like hell. Tracer flying everywhere especially to our right and left into farms where 25 pounders were. Got right away to farm where we first came to and met Les. Walked along road (met Boe?) to El Arousa and picked up by water truck and arrived at A echelon. Had good breakfast and got down to sleep about 10.30. woke up at 11.45 and told we had to go back by truck with rations. Got nearly up there and mortars started in front of leading truck. About turned and went back to El Arousa. Stayed there until dark then went half way up by truck and walked the other half. Got to carriers position and had food and slept there all night. Reported back to battalion and coy was less than a platoon strong.
ELABORATION OF BRIEF DIARY ENTRY
lt was described to us as the final squeeze on Rommel's army with our objective the capture of Medjez el Bab, the gateway to Tunis. My company of the London Irish Rifles were in the hills on the right of a gap to the Goubelat Plain but were to launch our offensive from the hills on the left of the gap. This was on Wednesday, Jan 20th (see diary).
lt was decided to move us across the gap in broad daylight, which meant we were a sitting target in full view of the enemy through the gap until reaching the cover of the hills on that left hand side. Sure enough they allowed us to get into the middle and then opened up with everything they had.
We moved as quickly as possible between the stops we had to make going to ground when the sound of incoming shells were heard. We eventually reached a wadi which we thankfully dropped into and began moving in comparative safety towards our final position.
As a down to earth Yorkshireman I don't think I imagine things but from where I do not know I suddenly heard one word which brooked no argument, Run. Calling to my section to run I set off at high speed along the wadi and had just rounded a bend when I heard a shell explode behind me. I quickly returned and found that the shell had fallen right in the wadi on the spot from where I had started to run. Whether they had not heard me or whether they were slow off the mark I have no idea but the end of my section had been hit and two of my men (Lance Corporal Ted Gant and Rifleman Connery) and Corporal Stan (I think his surname was Meager) the leader of the following section were lying badly wounded. I patched them up as best I could and stayed with them until the medical corps personnel came and evacuated them.
I have checked on the Commonwealth Graves Commission web and found all three died of their wounds, Stan Seager and Connery are buried at Medjez el Bab and Ted Gant at the Thibar cemetery. I have written complaining to the War Graves Commission that their records list all the London Irish casualties as being members of the Royal Ulster Rifles yet all the gravestones give the London Irish Rifles, which could be most confusing.
The next morning we launched our attack which turned out quite a disaster and the remains of our company were holed up in a large depression in the ground being constantly shelled. With us was the Ras [royal artillery’s] forward observation officer and his wireless operator. He ordered me to go to the top of the depression to locate the source of the constant shelling. At the top I found a small hollow in the ground, and I thought at the time it was about the size of a grave. From there I saw the shells were coming from a farm house on the plain. Returning to the depression I discovered that a shell had fallen in the place where I had been lying and others who had been with me were injured.
4
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The officer decided that our position was much too dangerous and sent a message to the guns to lay down a smoke screen and under that cover we all rapidly retreated to a wadi which gave us much better protection.
DIARY CONTINUED
Friday Jan 22nd.
Btn [battalion] in terrible state, only about 300 strong but people rolling up all day. Took up defensive position on hill at night. Everything quiet tonight except for a bit of artillery duel.
Saturday Jan 23rd.
Came down from hill for day and got a little organised. Three letters from Elsie but lot missing. Weather beautiful lately.
Sunday Jan 24th.
Nothing much today. A little shelling but no air activity. Reinforcements arrived.
Monday Jan 25th.
Same as yesterday but spits put in an appearance. They got Paddy Ward and a L/Cpl [lance corporal] from F. One of the boys suggest we stay awake tonight and watch the Eighth army go by. Took over one of H Coy's [companies] position as two of their platoons have gone on jobs. Mail up again. Five letters.
Tuesday Jan 26th.
Little shelling by us today but no reply so far. Capt Atkins the FOO [forward observation officer] with us in the hole reported killed today by enemy patrol in OP[operation] at Mosque Hill. NAAFI supplies up today. 100 cigs, 2 bars choc and bottle of beer. Poles reported to be giving themselves up.
Wednesday Jan 27th.
Rain today. Ground in terrible state. Pay. Preparations for moving out destination unknown. Heavy shelling by our guns. One or two shots fired in reply. Two spits just gone over. Aircraft from both sides very scarce these days. Moved out at dusk. Took us practically all night to move four miles.
Thursday Jan 28th
Looks like rain but it's kept off so far. Artillery still banging away. Rumours we're taking over that memorable hill 268 from the Guards. Spits over again this morning.
Friday Jan 29th.
Moved out at 05.00 hrs. Relieved by RBs. Went back about four miles into olive grove for rest and reorganisation.
Saturday Jan 30th.
Good night's sleep. Not much work during day. Everything quiet.
Sunday Jan 31st.
Other coys sending small numbers back to A echelon for 48 hrs complete rest. Managed to get a much needed hair cut. Still quiet.
Monday Feb 1st
Marvellous bath today, first since we arrived. Went about fifteen miles for it but was worth it. Some of the lads saw Stan and Connery's graves.
Tuesday Feb 2nd.
Bags of rumours but nothing definite yet. Moving out at dusk to take over from RBs on road junction. Five from platoon went back for 48 hrs. NAAFI up again. Bottles of beer, bags of fags, no wonder they're scarce in England, soap, blades, envelopes, paper etc. Everything now packed ready for move. Sent home £15 today. Moved up and took over from RBs.
Wednesday Feb 3rd.
Fairly quiet day. Some shelling by us and a little by them. Two planes came down and machine gunned on plain. Dive bombers on other side of plain.
Thursday Feb 4th.
A few planes over this morning. New Coy [company] Com [commander] took over this morning. Stukas over at tea time again. About 15 dropped bombs behind hills other side of Bou Arada. One shot down in flames.
Friday Feb 5th.
Nothing much today. A little shelling by us but only three shots in reply. Mail up, 6 this time.
5
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Saturday Feb 6th.
Very cold today. Rain in afternoon. We're sending one or two shells over just to let them know we're still here. Rumour we're going out of front line for refit. Hope it's true. Wrote five letters. Terry accidentally shot himself in leg.
Sunday Feb. 7th.
Rain during night but not too bad now. More mail 5 this time. Patrol went out but found nothing.
Monday Feb 8th.
Cold this morning. Stukas over plain just after breakfast. Too close to be comfortable. Hurricane Bombers with Spit escort over Goubellat plain. Rumoured they were after tanks.
Tuesday Feb 9th.
Shelled this morning, couldn't expect much else gulley looks like a car park. We replied but don't think they've got him. Quietened him a bit though. Stukas over plain again.
Wednesday Feb 10th.
Nothing much again today. F Coy patrol had clash last night. Two casualties. He dropped another two shells pretty close today. No damage though. Rained like hell in evening and all night.
Thursday Feb 11th.
Rain off but still dull. Knee-deep in mud. Good news. Communications cut between Tunis and Bizerta. Bebe and five warned for patrol tonight.
Friday Feb. 12th.
Nothing much today. Few shells very close. Still too bad for aircraft. Guns 48 hrs silence.
Saturday Feb 13th.
Fine day. Fighter bombers over at tea time dropped shower just over the hill. Thought he was after us for a minute. Guns broke silence plastered Jerry digging in on hill.
Sunday Feb 14th.
Another good day. Few NAAFI supplies up. Lot of activity at night near Skins position, guns blazing away practically all night.
Monday Feb 15th.
Haze over both plains today. Guns still bashing away at intervals. Planes over plain, 1 down.
Tuesday Feb16th.
Moved section over to new day-time position. Name submitted as compositor for First Army newspaper. Shells dropped three hundred yards away. Advised pi. com. position was no good and moved back to old place.
Wednesday Feb 17th.
Fairly quiet today. Spits over. Put up tents. Got new suit and boots. Look good enough to go to a dance.
Thursday Feb 18th.
Quiet day today. Very misty.
Friday Feb 19th.
Went to Gafour for a bath. Spent day there, quite a change. Rained in evening.
Saturday Feb 20th.
Nothing today. Haze over plain again.
Sunday Feb 21 51.
72 guns moved up and some Churchill tanks. Think the 11th Armoured are relieving us soon. Went for information on the PIAT. Earmarked as instructor for NCO's cadre when Batt. comes out of front line.
Monday Feb. 22nd.
Nothing in morning. Stukas over twice in afternoon, bombs dropped 400 yards away. Few shells over too.
Tuesday Feb 23rd.
Quiet today, four shells about four. Few shells again after Skins put on a small show. Killed about thirty, took eight prisoners.
Wednesday Feb 24th.
More shells and Stukas over again on Skins position. Left in evening for 48 hrs rest at A Echelon.
Thursday Feb 25th.
Went to Gafour for a bath. Baths moved. Returned to camp for dinner to find tanks and lorry borne infantry had broken through at Tally Ho corner. Rumoured F Coy surrounded. Two tanks knocked out and one surrounded. Action still going on.
Friday Feb 26th.
Full night's sleep. Everything seems to be under control this morning.
END OF DIARY
6
[page break]
At the end of hostilities in Tunisia we had a time of relaxation and on the touchline at a football match our CO found me and said he had received a communication which meant he had to ask me, as I had earlier been accepted to be trained as a pilot, if I was prepared now to volunteer as a glider pilot. I had no hesitation in saying I would much rather have an engine to rely on as a pilot. It was also suggested I be given a Field Commission but I felt it prudent not to accept as the German snipers were taking a heavy toll of officers in the area.
We subsequently did a training exercise which entailed quite a long march, followed by a mock attack practising house clearing, then a march back to base. I got a knock on the knee during this which aggravated an old injury I had earlier sustained playing football which left me with a swollen knee and a pronounced limp. On the march back the CO, going by in his vehicle spotted this and stopped to ask what the trouble was. He ordered me onto a truck and said I must report sick on arrival at base.
This eventually resulted in concentrated treatment of hot and cold compresses, which didn't do very much for the situation so I attended a medical assessment panel and was regraded A2 on 23rd July 1943. I was sent back to a transit camp at Philippville, which was a very boring time - no reading matter, and walking anywhere was impossible, just eating and sleeping. After some time I was transferred to the transit camp near Algiers- back to where I had first set foot in North Africa. But still the same routine until one day I espied on the [underlined] notice board an announcement that an educational unit would be coming to the camp and requesting volunteers to undergo tests with the object [/underlined] of finding suitable work for them. Mine - was the first name on the list.
We spent a morning doing maths and English papers. During the assessment of these in the afternoon there was a mechanical aptitude test. Then an interview to discuss which kind of employment would be suitable. I had previously applied for employment as a compositor on the Stars and Stripes newspaper which we had heard was to be started in Algiers so suggested this as a possibility. The [underlined] officer didn't hold out much hope of that materialising and suggested I would good cipher operator. I welcomed this and waited patiently for the outcome. [/underlined]
A week or so later I was called into the office where I was given a moving order for six people. Quickly scanning through to see where we were going I couldn't find a destination so returned to the office only to be told we were to be picked up by truck. When the truck arrived I asked the driver where we were going. Much to my surprise the answer was "I'm not allowed to tell you.
I wondered what I had let myself in for and was even more puzzled when we arrived at a camp gate with armed guards and everything enclosed in barbed wire. On entering the camp I was even more surprised to find it occupied by Army, Navy, Air Force, civilians and girls (members of the FANY, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). There were also a number of other nationalities.
[underlined] This was Massingham, a wireless station sending and receiving messages to [/underlined] and from agents dropped into southern France and Italy. It consisted of a number of holiday villas right on the beach of the Mediterranean. As all the villas were fully occupied we were directed to a tent as our accommodation.
We then embarked on our training as cipher operators. This meant serious concentration working on squared paper doing double transposition. One mistake and the message wound up gibberish. Once up to the required standard we were then assigned to a team, alongside FANY coders and wireless operators working in shifts to cover 24 hours. If we ran out of current wireless traffic we then tackled the indecipherable messages.
[underlined] My only meeting with Colonel Gubbins was a surprise.[/underlined] On duty one evening the telephone went and on answering a voice said come down to villa ? (I don't remember the number) and collect a message for London. I replied that I would send someone down immediately. Back came a rather impatient "You'll come yourself” and the caller rang off. Somewhat aggrieved I hastened down fully intending to have words with this man only to discover it was Colonel Gubbins, I didn't even know he was in the camp.
[underlined] Margaret and I met at Massingham. She was a Cadet Ensign in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (EANY). [/underlined] We worked shifts covering 24 hours sending and receiving messages from the agents, all of whom had a particular time for contacting base.
Leisure time was non-existent outside the camp so the sergeants' Mess decided to organise a few dinner dances to which the FANYs were invited. Over a number of these Margaret and I became dancing partners. This came to an end when a number of us got a moving order to join a group being sent into Yugoslavia. We were to fly to Bari in Southern Italy to-join them.
Margaret and I exchanged addresses with the suggestion that if ever either of us were in the vicinity of the other we would endeavour to make contact.
On the night we were due to fly out we had the most violent thunderstorm so the flight was postponed until the following night, We took off in a Dakota to fly directly to Bari but half way there one of the plane's engines began to misfire. The pilot decided there was no possibility of getting over the mountains to Bari so we made an emergency landing at Naples.
7
[page break]
After this further delay we eventually arrived at Bari and were taken just down the coast to Torre-a-Mare only to find that the group we were to join had been assembled at Monopoly ready for entry into Yugoslavia and the numbers had been made up from personnel at Torre-a-Mare and we then had to take their place Torre.
Margaret and I corresponded between Massingham and Torre until some weeks later I deciphered a message from Massingham with a list of names of FANYs who were being sent to join our unit. By this time I was beginning to realise how much I had been missing Margaret and quickly scanned the list to see if she was one of those joining us. Imagine how excited I was to discover that her name was there.
I quickly made contact with her and resumed our friendship. Our love for each other blossomed and we spent much time together in our off duty periods. We also managed to get a wonderful week's leave in Rome together with two friends, Joyce and John. The two girls stayed in a hotel which had been taken over by the YWCA [Young Women’s Christian Association], and john and I stayed at a nearby house owned by a very pro British Polish Countess who stipulated "no vino and no signoritas”. [sic] She was very happy to learn of Margaret and Joyce at the YWCA.
We got engaged on 28th February 1945 sitting on the rocks by the sea at Torre-a-Mare but we kept it under wraps as two of our friends had been married in Bari, I was best man, and they had been posted apart shortly after the wedding.
In May 1945 I was granted one month's home leave under the LIAP scheme and we began writing to each other every day we were apart.
Eventually Margaret was sent up to Sienna from where she got leave and hitch-hiked almost the length of Italy to spend time with me at Torre.
When she was posted back home I got some leave and hitch-hiked up to Sienna to see her before she sailed. I managed to get a lift on the baggage truck carrying the kit of the party gong home and we had a last evening together in Naples.
I returned to Torre-a-Mare and was then transferred to The Royal Corps of Signals. There I was trained to operate Type X cipher machines.
Along with a wireless operator I was then posted to an Italian -division which was supposed to be based at Rimini. Disembarking from the train we went into the RTO's [rail transport officer] office to find where the division was only to be told it was at Lake Como.
After a night in Rimini we caught a train up to Lake Como which, on arrival, looked an ideal place to spend the rest of our time until demob.
However, we soon found out that was not to be as it was just a training unit. The division was at Verazze on the coast west of Genoa. To get there we had to first get a train to Milan then another from Milan to Genoa. We managed to eke out our stay in Milan for a few days before getting the train for Genoa.
This was a single carriage train and I found myself placed technically in charge even though I had no knowledge of the workings of a railway, let alone an Italian one. The journey through the mountains was very enjoyable and the scenery through the mountains breathtaking.
At Verazze we were billeted in a hotel right on the beach so most of our time was spent swimming and sunbathing as the only work we had consisted of enciphering and sending to HQ a weekly message to report that we had passed no groups of traffic during the previous week.
This holiday lifestyle eventually came to an end and I was transferred to Athens from where I was demobbed. We sailed from Pireas to Taranto but on arrival the sea was too rough for us to dock so we anchored in the bay until such time as the rough sea abated. Washing and shaving on deck in the morning was quite a feat as one had to continually grab the bowl of water before it slid out of reach.
From Southern Italy we then journeyed by train in stages across Europe to the channel port before crossing to England and being demobbed at Aldershot.
I then journeyed to Wimbledon Park station and walked down Wimbledon Park Road to No. 50 where Margaret's parents lived so I began and finished my war service in the same road, a place I had not heard of before. We married soon after in march [sic] 1946 and are still very happy after 65 wonderful years together.
Recently we were clearing out our loft and discovered the letters we wrote to each other and have spent some interesting evenings re-reading them.
8
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
Army history of cadet Ensign Margaret Pratt and Sergeant Charles Ward
Description
An account of the resource
Memoir and diary covering Charles Ward's call up to the Army and early training. Mentions that he applied to transfer to the Royal Air Force and although accepted, all transfers were cancelled due to imminent operations. Describes in detail fighting in Tunisia. Explains that after North African campaign was over, he was transferred to secret work as a cipher operator in the Special Operations Executive. Describes how he met his future wife Margaret a wireless operator and some details of Special Operation Executive activities.
Creator
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Charles Ward
Format
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Eight typewritten pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Diary
Identifier
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BWardCWWardCWv1
Coverage
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British Army
Spatial Coverage
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Algeria
Algeria--Algiers
Italy
Italy--Bari
Tunisia
North Africa
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
Contributor
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David Bloomfield
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
final resting place
love and romance
Special Operations Executive
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/150/1571/PBellinghamPF1602.2.jpg
249a7f80083ee604a3acfc4b9e41b2c6
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/150/1571/ABellinghamPF161121.2.mp3
927964b5233017d1c89457d142da31c4
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
Bellingham, Peter
Peter F Bellingham
Peter Bellingham
P F Bellingham
P Bellingham
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer Peter Frederick Bellingham (b. 1923, 1391638 Royal Air Force), a photograph and his log book. Peter Bellingham trained in South Africa as a bomb aimer and flew 30 Special Operations Executive operations in Halifaxes and Stirlings with 138 Squadron from RAF Tempsford.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Bellingham and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-21
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Bellingham, PF
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: And it’s now rolling. So my name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 21st of November 2016, and we’re in Whitfield near Brackley speaking with Peter Bellingham about his life and times before, during and after the RAF. So, what are your earliest recollections, Peter?
PB: Well, I was born in Charlton in London, SC18, at three – believe it or not I can remember, 3 Kinveachy Gardens [CB laughs], and I left when I was three years old. My parents bought a house in Welling in Kent. In those days it was in Kent, I believe it’s part of Greater London now, and it was very, very agricultural. We were part of a large estate, but our house actually overlooked a farm and you could not, not see another house at the rear. My father was at Siemens [emphasis] the electrical company, and he unfortunately died when he was fifty, just before when he was going to be made a director of Siemens. He had a very – he was in the First World War in the artillery, in the Territorials, and he stopped in the Territorials and was commissioned, and then he joined the Home Guard and ended up as a Lieutenant Colonel, Honorary Lieutenant Colonel after the war. In fact he led the parade of the Home Guard at the march past of the Victory Parade in London. Unfortunately he developed a brain tumour, they don’t know why, but it killed him in 1947 when he was fifty. That’s really enough about my parents. My mother carried on, she never married again, and she died when she was about eighty, I can’t honestly remember off hand. I went to school in Welling in Kent, which was in Kent then, and I spent the last two years at a Iris [?] technical college. I was destined to be an engineer because [laughs] I was good with my hands, and that, in my father’s view made me an engineer. But unfortunately, I left school in July of 1939, sixteen years old, and war broke out on the September. It wasn’t my fault incidentally [GG laughs] and I really, I was going to be a student of engineer, but all of those things stopped in the war, and I never got round to doing it, but I went into the Post Office Engineers for a short while. And I remember the Blitz very well, from the outskirts, and I remember walking home one afternoon, late afternoon, and watching the first daylight raid on London, and seeing all the fires from, on a wide arc, ooh something like about forty-five degrees I expect, and then making a resolution that I was going to be a Spitfire pilot. I didn’t as I say, I joined the Post Office Engineers as a makeshift job really, and in 1941, I’m not sure exactly when, but the government or the Air Ministry decided that they would recruit pilots and observers who had reached the age of seventeen and a quarter [CB laughs] and then they would attest them and then send them back in civvy street and call them up when they were ready for them. I was a bit over the seventeen and a quarter mark, but I did volunteer and went to Adastal House I think it was, in London, where I was – I didn’t have to move to London, I travelled to London each day for three days, and I did my attestation there. That was very simple for anyone just left school, mathematic test, intelligence test, and an essay on a choice of subjects, which I chose the importance of Gibraltar, a medical and I was duly accepted into the RAFVR, RAFVR [emphasis], as a pilot under training. Was given a little lapel badge RAFVR and a number 1391635AC2, pilot under training and sent home to be called up [emphasis] when necessary, when ready. In the beginning year, I’m not sure as, I think it was January of forty-two I was called up and went to Aircrew Receiving Centre, I think it was Number 1 Aircrew Receiving Centre, headquarters was at Lourdes Cricket Ground, and we were there for just short of three weeks. We ate and dined in the zoo [emphasis] [GG laughs] and we lived in the high class hotels [CB laughs, clears throat] overlooking, or near St Johns, in St Johnswood, very near the Lourdes Cricket Ground. But of course, instead of one bedroom for one person or two, there was about ten or twenty in it [laughs] but we slopped around there for nearly three weeks, and we were in flights of thirty, and then on the Thursday of the third week we were paraded out, and we were assigned to ITW, initial training wings. There was about ten or twelve of us that was left standing with nowhere to go and Corporal Speller, I remember his name [CB laughs], Corporal Speller, probably even an acting corporal [laughs] and he said ‘look,’ he said, ‘I’m not allowed to tell you this,’ but he said ‘you’re going to Southern Rhodesia, but don’t tell anyone I’ve told you.’ So sure enough, we were sent home to report to Blackpool on the Monday at the beginning of the fourth week in the Air Force. We did a bit of square bashing and getting inoculated and one thing and another at Blackpool, and then after a little while we were shifted up to Liverpool and kitted out – I can’t remember whether we were kitted out at Liverpool or whether we were kitted out at Blackpool, but we kitted out with tropical kit and had ATT and TAB injections and blood tests and whatnot, and then we were told by a very, very gnarled group captain that just because we’d got our tropical kit ‘means that you’re going to the tropics, it’s all done to fool the enemy’ [emphasis] [CB laughs]. So eventually after a week or two of medicals and one thing and another, we went off to Liverpool where we were stuffed almost into a boat, and we wallowed around for a week [emphasis]. After a week we sailed up to Scotland [emphasis], I’m not sure where, where we formed a huge convoy, and we left after about a week, and we headed north-west, more north I think than west, and it got very, very cold, and we began to think the group captain was right and we were going off to America or Iceland or somewhere [laughs] but we gradually turned south and we ended up after a while at Freetown. Incidentally, the convoy I counted I think it was over seventy ships, it was a huge [emphasis] convoy. In the middle were the troop ships, so there were all the Empress boats, the Empress of India, the Empress of Australia. I was in a uni, a Union Castle liner, the Arundel Castle, and that was pretty grim. We had a mess room, which I suppose there must have been about thirty people in, and then above the tables we had our hammocks which we strung. Well, as I say, we arrived – I could, I counted, did I say I counted about seventy ships [emphasis] I think it was. Huge [emphasis] convoy, the aircraft carriers and all sort of things, and lots of crumps [?] in the night and various rumours that floated around, and we arrived at Freetown. I can’t remember whether it was Sierra Leone but its Freetown [emphasis] and we were there for a week. It was jolly hot, and then we went off again south, and we ended up at Cape Town after about six weeks [emphasis]. And we spent a couple of nights at, days, nights, at Cape Town, and then we took a wonderful [emphasis] train journey up through the Hex River Mountains, to Southern Rhodesia in Bulawayo. We went to ITW I think it was, Initial Training Wing, which was completely different from other ones in Canada and England, in that you did six months at Bulawayo just on the ground course and went up to the wings exams, and I graduated from there. Had a wonderful holiday at Victoria Falls and then went up to EFTS, Elementary Flying Training School which was at Belvedere, which I think is now Harare [?] Airport. But it was the main airport in Salisbury in those days. But unfortunately I didn’t make the grade as a pilot – the old story you know, that they either had to ban everyone else from the air or ban me [CB laughs] so they banned me, but I, I did, I was very disappointed when I failed my, my flying. And then I was called in front of somebody and they said ‘but we have a marvellous new category. They’re splitting the observers into navigators and air bombers, and as an air bomber, you will continue your flying lessons and you will end up with a double wings brevy with a B in instead of RAF, and you will be the second pilot.’ So I thought that sounded good so I said ‘yes.’ So I went down to South Africa and went to East London, I can’t remember the name of the school. It was groundwork, very, very simple because I’d done it all before it was very simple stuff. And then went to Port Elizabeth, that was 42 Air Squadron, it’s all in here [bangs hand on something, presumably his book]. And then graduated as an air bomber [emphasis]. It was a bit early in those days for air bombers, and we were presented with the old O [emphasis] brevy, and we didn’t get that changed until we got back to England. Well we messed about in Cape Town which was a wonderful holiday, and then we sailed for England in the Moritania [?], and whereas coming out we took about six weeks, I think we took about ten days to get back to England. Very, very wonderful. I will say that when I was at East London I think it was – Port Elizabeth I think it was, I’m not sure where it was – anyway we, it was very much like a peacetime. We never did any work at weekends and we used to spend a lot of time at the sea. Beautiful surfing, without a surf board, we didn’t have a surf board in those days, and they had a boom [?] across the bay, a shark boom, which was supported by a big steel metal cable, and we used to, flew out to this cable and have a rest and then swim back. And this was I think for me the most scariest time for me in the war. I’d swam out once to this cable, by myself, and I was sort of hanging on resting and there was three fins, so I thought ‘oh my God I’ll get back inside.’ So I swam back inside and to my horror I found these three fins were circling me [laughs]. Course they were dolphins, but to me they weren’t dolphins [CB laughs] they were sharks [laughs]. And I swam like hell and clambered up the beach, and that was I think that was one of the most, if not the [emphasis] most scary time in the war believe, believe it or not. So anyway, we graduated, came back to England, went to Harrogate to wait for our kit, the CO of the unit there was Squadron Leader Legames [?], the English and Kent wicket keeper, and then we went off to Millom AFU. I don’t remember the number. The AFU is Advanced Flying Unit I think, I don’t remember what it was called. Millom is just opposite Coniston, and we had a lovely month or six months there, but we could get into Coniston in the Lake District there, beautiful. And it was there that unfortunately I found out that my brother was shot down, eventually became a prisoner of war. But then from three we went to Number 11 OTU, operational training unit at Westcott, with a satellite at Oakley. And I will just mention, you probably are aware but I’ll just mention, that’s where the individual aircrew, apart from the engineer, were pushed into big hangar or room, and told to sort yourself out and become air, a, a crew. And someone came up to me and said ‘are you crewed up yet?’ and I said ‘no,’ and they said ‘well come and meet who we’ve got.’ And there was a pilot, who was ancient [emphasis], he was about thirty-two [both laugh] and he seemed a very decent chap, and the others, so we were crewed up with a pilot, navigator, air-bomber, wireless operator, and two gunners. Six is that? Is that six?
CB: Mhm.
PB: Should be anyway. And, so we bombed around there, and did our flying training. We had several episodes. We had one particular episode where as we came into land, the Wellington, the radial Wellington was subject to pushing out flames from the engines – it was a radial engine. And this time we decided that it was more than usual and that the engine was on fire. So he called, the pilot called up and we were told to land on the runway and come to a halt and switch everything off and we’ll be sorted out. Well we were sitting there thinking ‘oh thank god we’ve made a nice safe landing on one engine,’ and there was a great war [emphasis], roar, and [laughs] Wellington [?] took off and sailed overhead. We found out afterwards that it was an instructor pilot thank God and we dived out of the aircraft but before we could get very far away the blooming Spitfire took off [laughs]. The wing commander and the squadron leader ops [?] whatever he was called, they came flying [emphasis] out and they, they blew their top and they said ‘you knew very well that it pushes out flame,’ and we said ‘well no it was more than that, it was the engine was on fire, and you press the gravendor [?] switches and you know, that kills the engine and ruins it.’ So anyway he said, more or less, ‘I’ll have your guts for garters [laughs] if you, you’re wrong’ and we weren’t wrong, but I should imagine someone really got called over the coals for it, because obviously the caravan that they have at the end of the runway which gives you a green light to takeoff, and the flying control weren’t in control [emphasis], and we never heard anything so we presumed it was on fire. Well we’re convicted it was on fire. Another little episode we had – we had many a sort of scrape with single engine landings and what thing or another. It was notorious [emphasis], the Wellington at an OTU, officers, operation training unit, for accidents. But one of them which was damned nearly my demise, was that some boffin at Air Ministry decided that it would be a good idea for air crew to have a sort of maintenance exercise, so if they were shot down in the middle of Berlin they could patch up their aircraft and takeoff. It’s a wonderful idea but absolutely useless I think [CB laughs]. Anyway, one very, very foggy day, we were sent out to, what do they call them now, the dispersal units, and there was this Wellington and we went round and did our job. I finished mine, and I went round to the rear gunner, and of course the Wellington rear turret was right on the ground, I mean the aircraft in those days did three point landings, they didn’t have tricycle things. And the two guns were sticking out, and I was leaning against this machine gun, a Browning, right into my ribs, and I suddenly thought ‘well that’s not a very bright thing to do.’ So I moved across and because it’s all open at the back, and I had the two guns either side of my ribs, and I was just about to speak to the rear gunner and the damn thing went off [both laugh]. There was a huge whine [emphasis] as the bullet travelled and we knew we were somewhere around the houses, and we thought ‘my God.’ And the mechanic saw the machine gun is if there’s one up the spout, if the breech goes forward it goes off bang and that’s it, and someone had obviously left one up the spout, which is a thing you shouldn’t do. But we kept very quiet and no one was reported killed [laughs] so we thought we were alright [CB laughs]. Eventually we were messed around a bit, I won’t say where we went, I can’t honestly remember, but we ended up at 17 HCU, a higher conversion unit at Stradishall, and there we converted to Stirlings [emphasis] which was a great thrill, wonderful aircraft to me. And the very, very remarkable, not remarkable, memorable [emphasis] thing of that place was we were, took off once on some night trip, and – I can’t remember now, perhaps it wasn’t night. But anyway, took off and one of the wheels, the tyres burst, and the distance on the ground to the cabin was about twenty-six feet I think on a Stirling. You’re nodding, I think, I think that’s right. Anyway, we were fortune with the squadron leader, the flight commander and instructor, and he said ‘well that’s it,’ he said ‘we’ve got to do a belly landing’ he said, ‘we can’t land because if you try to land on one wheel, you’ll just, as your speed decreases to about eighty you would just drop a wing and you’d cartwheel and that would be the end of that.’ So we went to Woodbridge –
CB: Mm.
PB: Have you heard of Woodbridge? Woodbridge was a particularly designed aerodrome. I think, I think [emphasis] it was about a quarter of a mile wide and about four miles long. Now that’s probably an exaggeration but it was a huge [emphasis] airstrip basically, and it was designed for shot up aircrafts to come and land on it, you know if they got people who were injured, or the aircraft. So we were told to go and land at Woodbridge and go get rid of our fuel. So we bummed [?] around and dropped our load of fuel and then we went in. And I say, fortunately we were with a, with a squadron leader and he did a wonderful belly landing, and of course the danger is that if the props are milling around, or even the sparks, and ‘poof,’ you know, you go up like anything. But I can remember seeing a blood wagon one side and a fire engine on the other. Whether or not they operated the fire engine I can’t remember, but anyway we came out and we were okay, it was wonderful [emphasis]. So eventually, we were to be sent to a squadron. Now, as I said my, my pilot was a, I think he was a journalist but his father was the equivalent of an MP, and he had a lot of clout and he was a great mate of the High Commissioner, would his name be Fraser? Memory’s – but anyway, he came back from, from a leave once, a weekend or something, and he said ‘ooh’ he said ‘I’ve met an old friend of mine that’s just finished a tour of operations with a special duty squadron.’ Now he said ‘I can’t, he won’t tell me what it’s all about but,’ he said ‘for God’s sake try and get on that squadron. It’s 138 Squadron.’ So as I say, this chap had a certain clout and he came back and he said ‘how do you feel?’ And we said ‘oh yes, anything’s better than the bluming’ old coffin run or whatever you’d call it,’ so sure enough we got posted to 138 Squadron [emphasis]. Well we had a wonderful welcome, Wing Commander Burnett, he was a Canadian, and there was another crew with us, and he paraded us, well we went into his room and he said ‘well,’ he said ‘I’ll be honest with you’ he said ‘the sooner I can send you back the better, because’ he said [laughs] ‘I don’t want Stirling pilots, we operate Halifaxes,’ but he said ‘don’t mose around or anything and keep your head on the ground.’ And he called us in the next day and said ‘well I’ve been told that I’ve got to accept you because we’re going to transfer to Stirlings’ [CB laughs]. So that was [laughs] quite a start but we did. And we had to do a certain amount of training obviously because it was a different type of operation. The air, mid upper gunner was made a dispatcher. He didn’t get a different brevy but he was called a dispatcher, they did away with the mid upper turret on the Halifax and later on the Stirling, and he was sent on a parachuting course, and I had to go on a map reading course for about a month [emphasis] I think it was. And the pilot had to transfer onto Halifax, which was quite easy really. And we, that’s what we did. Oh, to go back [emphasis], it was quite true to start with that I did do a lot of pilot training, a lot of link [emphasis] work, you know, the link trainer, and on a, on a Halifax I was a second pilot, and on a Stirling that was wonderful – I liked the Stirling that was wonderful. We had great armour plating seats and there was dual control it was really lovely. But later on, the Lancasters of course the engineer was the second pilot, so we started off on ops. I, my first op, the navigator, the bomb aimer and the pilot had to do an op with an experienced crew for the first op so we did those and then we started doing our normal ops. And a very strange thing happened to me, and it was after somewhere around five ops. We used to get bacon and eggs, we were very privileged, we got bacon and eggs before we took off, and I went down after several ops and I began to feel awful. My head felt it was imploding [emphasis]. I can’t describe it but I just couldn’t, I couldn’t, couldn’t do anything. And so I got up and paced around, and then we went out to the aircraft and believe it or not when we got in the aircraft I was perfectly alright. And it happened for two or three ops, and I really don’t know what it was but I think it must have been an anticlimax. My father being in the Great War, and sometimes unbeknown to him I sometimes used to hear some of his stories with his friends, and I had a great worry that I would not be able to make it, and I think it was all to do with that, I don’t know. Unfortunately it only happened a couple, three times and I was alright ever since then, perfectly alright. We had more or less a trouble free, more or less a trouble free tour of operations, and I finished, but I tell you that the squadron, in fact the whole, whole, both squadrons, 161 was the sister squadron, we were very lax in our discipline. We, we didn’t have parades and our type of mission was the fact that there was very rarely more than one aircraft on a target. I think there was sometimes two but I don’t think there were more than that. And believe it or not – well we couldn’t have a general [emphasis] briefing like they do on the films and things, we had individual briefings, and the pilot, navigator and air bomber, they went in and we discussed our route, and we chose our own route [emphasis]. I mean it doesn’t sound possible but we did. We used to say ‘right, well from experience from both us and other crews, we don’t want to go over that place, and we don’t want to go there,’ and we used to choose [emphasis] our own route to the target. And we used to fly low, I mean how low to give you an example was that once the rear gunner said to the pilot, ‘oh skipper, can you please go up a bit, I’m getting absolutely soaked with the slipstream.’ And I can remember going across Denmark once and seeing, I think it was a bungalow I can’t remember exactly, but seeing a house or a bungalow lit and the woman cross over and then the lights went out. That’s, I mean that’s how low we were. And I think that’s really what saved our bacon, being so low, because we were unexpected and too low for the radar and various things. We used to navigate mainly by map reading. Very, very difficult to get fixes whether they were radio or G-fixes, but the ideal thing was bends in rivers of course and woods [emphasis], and the woods on the continent were absolutely perfect [emphasis] on the maps and we used to plop from a corner of a wood to a bend in a river and – so we would arrive and the targets were invariably lights, three lots of lights a hundred metres apart, obviously, you know, downwind. And we would approach and they would signal up and we would – obviously each, each target had a different signal, an A, a B or something, and we used to go in and we used to drop our load and the dispatcher would push the parcels out, whatever they were, at four hundred feet, and if we had any what we called Joes [emphasis], agents onboard, that was six hundred feet, and they jumped with a static line, and the dispatcher used to make sure they went – I don’t know if they used to kick them out the back door or not [GG laughs]. I don’t think they had to they were wonderful people. And that was it. We got shot at once or twice but nothing to worry about. One day we were told that we couldn’t make base, and we’d have to go to Woodbridge, and that was quite an experience because the whole place was covered in fog and they’d brought out a new thing called FIDO, have you heard of FIDO? Basically I think it was cans of fuel [emphasis], kerosene, diesel, something, each side of the runway, and they’d generate so much heat that the fog would lift. Well I think we must have been one of the first crews to do it, because when we went in we were on a Stirling and we had dual control, and when we went in, we went in and obviously we couldn’t see the land but, at that stage, but we were tossed around like a cork in the ocean. I mean one minute there was nothing on the clock and the next minute there was eighty and – anyway we got down and we were okay and that was at Woodbridge and then came back. Erm, we had, as I say, no real discipline [emphasis], no parades, nothing like that, and one day we, we were stood down – I mean the fortune [emphasis] thing as regards us was we only operated I think it was about ten days, ten days either side of full moon for obvious reasons, and this was during the operational period, but we used to do two nights on ops and then one off, and on our night off and the next day we weren’t flying, we took our ground crew out for drinks which we did regularly, and we got a little bit too much to drink. We were all NCOs at the time, the crew, and we went to sleep and then someone came rushing in and said ‘God you’re in trouble, they been tannoying [?] for you from the flights, you’ve got to report to the flights,’ which was almost unheard of. Anyway we, we went down and the Squadron Leader Rothwell, he was as mad [emphasis] as hell, and he said, you know ‘I’ve been looking for you, you’re in front of the wing co.’ And we went in front of the wing commander, who gave us a bit of a ribbing, and said ‘right’ he said, ‘I’m sending you to Sheffield,’ and that was a discipline course of three weeks, and it was where Spitfire, well [emphasis] where fighter pilots who landed with their wheels up – I mean we were far too valuable [emphasis] to get court martialled but we had to be punished [emphasis]. But after about three or four days, we got returned to base, and there we learnt that the whole trouble was that our flight commander, Squadron Leader Rothwell, he was about twenty-two I think, or twenty-three, and he was like a, you know, like a big school boy. And he thought it would be a brilliant idea to post the, we were A flight, B flight commander to the Far East, but unfortunately the Squadron Leader Brogan, he was married and got a little baby and they lived out, probably unofficially, but he was very, very upset, and he did it officially through the Orderly Room. I mean you don’t argue with a squadron leader, or you shouldn’t do [CB laughs] and a lot of friends, and probably the same rank as him said ‘look, you just coming [?] yourself too long, it’s no good it’s gone beyond a joke,’ and they told this Squadron Leader Brogan and they almost, I hear, they almost came to fisticuffs. We didn’t learn this until we got back. Now the reason we got back after three days was [laughs] because Rothwell, he went on an op – now it’s conjecture that he might have taken the op that we should have taken because the squadron leader was only allowed to do so many ops a month and a wing commander so many, and it’s conjecture that he might have taken our place. But anyway he, he went down on his, I think it was about seventy ops he did, seventy, seventy-two, and he went down by hitting the cables of balloons just off the coast of Holland, and he was taken a prisoner of war. And of course he gets to a PW camp, POW camp, and it’s [?] the flight commander [laughs]. My brother [emphasis] was under him but he never, isn’t it coincidence [emphasis], he never –
CB: Phshhh –
PB: Admitted to my brother that I was, you know, on his squadron. But anyway, perhaps it would have been best if wing command, if Squadron Leader Brogan had gone to the Far East because he was appointed CO [phone rings]. Oh, would you excuse me?
CB: I’ll stop it for now. [Tape is paused]. Brogan should have gone to the Far East.
PB: Pardon?
CB: Brogan should have gone to the Far East.
PB: Yes, I think he should have gone to the Far East, because he became wing commander of 161 Squadron and was shot down and killed shortly afterwards. So – and we had a habit of that. We had a – Watson, Squadron Leader Watson was a flight commander, I think it was, he took over from Rothwell, and he was made wing commander of 161 and he was shot down and killed so, it seemed to be a death warrant, going to wing commander 161. So anyway, what happened. So we were commissioned. In fact, our pilot, his commission came through before he actually went to Sheffield and he went to Sheffield as an officer, which was a bit better. My commission came through a couple of months later. What else happened – well we – it was a wonderful squadron, wonderful squadron, and I went through and finished my ops, did thirty ops. Went to France, Denmark, oh we did a trip to Germany, that was a bit out of the ordinary. That was in the Battle of the Bulge, you know, the Ardennes campaign. And our squadron and 161 Squadron were sent off to a just inside Germany to do a spoof attack, and we dropped dummies and fireworks and things to, you know, spoof attacks. So that was, that was, yes, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, went to Norway several times. I think the longest trip I did was ten hours fifty-five minutes. We, we used to take off and go to the target if we could find it, and then we’d come back to Lossiemouth or Kinloss and come back from there. Well them, then in, right at the end of the war, it was March – oh we did about the last op, with others, different [emphasis] targets, to Norway. No I think I must have – my last op was Denmark [emphasis], but anyway in March, I was finished my thirty ops, and the squad – 138 Squadron was, went to onto Lancs, and they retrained on Lancs, but they didn’t, I don’t think they ever did much after that because it was the end of the war. And I came to, up here Turweston. That was 17 OTU. And, well Turweston was the satellite of Silverstone, and I came as in instructor. I took an instructors course, a group instructors course, a Bomber Command’s instructor course and then a bombing leaders course, and saw out my time up here and then at Silverstone. They shut this place down and then I went to Silverstone and I was demobbed in 1946. I had a chance of a short service commission but by that time I’d got engaged to my present wife and I wouldn’t take the risk, I thought ‘do you know, there’s not the huge future for me,’ and I left the Air Force. I went back for a short while into the Post Office but I wasn’t at all happy and I came farming. My father-in-law had quite a large farm in those days, here in Whitfield, Manor Farm, and we got married and I, I worked on the farm. Do you want to know anything more of what I did?
CB: Yeah sure.
PB: Erm –
CB: Because farming’s a pretty varied experience in itself.
PB: Well that was, I thoroughly enjoyed farming – in fact of my son till carries on farming, and his son. I became chairman of the parish, I think mainly because no one else wanted to do it. I became church warden and we, the rector, he retired, and me being church warden, I had to take over the duties of – and I, they, we were priests in charge of Mr Payne at Sareshom [?] and he didn’t want to be, he said ‘I’m not going to be the chairman of the parochial church council’ so I had to be the chairman of the parochial church council, and eventually I, I left being church warden, and I went into Rotary, I became president of Rotary, Brackley, and I’m a [coughs] I’m an honorary member of Brackley Rotary, and I took up golf [emphasis] and I was a member for many years at Buckingham, and then a member at Silverstone, and I’m actually [coughs] an honorary member of Silverstone, and I got two sons. One’s coming up sixty-seven and one’s coming up, what would he be, about sixty-five in October I think. Got four grandchildren, one grandson and three granddaughters, and five great-grandchildren – what have I got? Three, three great-granddaughters and two great-grandsons. And my son, my eldest son still carries on the farm. But unfortunately the HS2 is going to go straight through his house. And my wife unfortunately, about four years ago, she got Alzheimer’s and she’s in a home now. She’s, she’s struggling, put it like that. I’ve got erm [pause] authro, no – what do you call it?
CB: Osteoarthritis?
PB: Arthri - that’s right [pause] osteo – one of bones. Anyway, arthritis in the knees, I’ve had a cataracts operation in the left eye, I've got material, material degeneration in the left eye and bleeding, bleeding in the right eye, and bleeding in the right eye, which I have injects for so [laughs]. You know [laughs] I’m struggling –
CB: And you’re only ninety-three.
PB: Pardon?
CB: And you’re ninety-three.
PB: I’m ninety-three.
CB: Yes [laughs].
PB: I’m ninety-four next birthday, yep. And I think that’s, that’s all –
CB: What kind, what kind of farming was it, arable?
PB: No, no it –
CB: It’s livestock is it?
PB: I had a mixed farm, but my son’s turned it into a very large dairy farm. He’s got five hundred head of cattle and he’s got a milking herd of two hundred cows, but it’s all going to stop I think in a few months time. I don’t know what’s going to happen [coughs]. Which is rather a shame really. My in-laws came here in 1914 [CB laughs] and [wrapper rustles] it was a big farm then, it was about five hundred acres [continued rustling]. But that’s, that’s, I think about it – would you like a sweet?
CB: Thank you.
[Tape paused and restarted. Rustling continues]
PB: Shortly [?] I was –
CB: So where, where did you meet your wife?
PB: Well that’s what I was saying –
CB: Yes –
PB: My wife, Stella –
CB: Yeah –
PB: I, I met her at an officers mess party up at Turweston here, in about April of forty-five, and erm, we hit it off straight away [zipping noise] and we got married in 1947. [Puts something, presumably a sweet, into his mouth.] Sixty-nine years ago, isn’t it?
GG: Mm.
CB: Quite a while.
PB: Pardon?
CB: Quite a while.
PB: Quite a while.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
CB: That’s very useful because it’s covered right through your working life, but going back to 138 Squadron, what were the crew members like, individually?
PB: Erm –
CB: So the pilot was quite old.
PB: What, what my crew –
CB: Yeah, yeah.
PB: - In particular? Well there was one [emphasis] one, erm, odd one, and as I said before – I didn’t mention actually, what I didn’t mention was that when we went to Stradishall [emphasis] to pick up a, to train on a Stirling bomber, we picked up a flight engineer. And he was always [emphasis] the odd one out. He was married, but we know that he had a girl in the village [CB laughs] and he was the odd one out. Otherwise all the other crew we were very close, we used to – right from our Westcott days, our OTU days we used to go out to out to the pub to drinking together and – we did drink too much in the war, there’s no question at all. But another very interesting thing which I might add, was I had a friend there who was a, a Lysander pilot on 161 Squadron, Bob Large. I don’t know whether that name’s cropped up at all.
CB: No.
PB: But Bob Large was an ex-one squadron [?], fighter of, erm, what – Battle of Britain pilot. And his wing commander was a chap called Boxer, who ended up air marshal or very high rank indeed. He’s dead now but he’s very high rank. And he wasn’t terribly popular this Box, Boxer, but Bob Large, he was a very popular chap. Flight Lieutenant Battle of Britain pilot, and he was, erm, what’s the word – framed [emphasis] if you might like to put it, by Boxer because one night when birds were grounded there was no flying at all, Boxer knew that Bob Large had gone off to the pub, local pub, and he put out a tannoy for him, and of course he didn’t turn up, so he court martialed him. And the rules of court martial are the court can’t have people that are on the same squadron on same unit, so the way they got over it, they posted the court, several of the senior officers, to other stations for the court martial. But he was found guilty and the facts were there and he was sentenced to be cashiered [emphasis]. And he told me afterwards – I’ll tell you why, he told me afterwards that he, he told me afterwards that he was the only one as far as he knew that was reprieved [emphasis] by the king, and the king stepped in and said ‘no.’ So he was, he lost two years seniority which was, didn’t mean much at all to him, but I didn’t learn this until after the war, and the reason I learnt this, going back to Peter Westcoombe [?], he invited me to, to Bletchley when they opened an SOE section, and he introduced me to the director who was a woman, I didn’t catch her name, but afterwards I was chatting to her. ‘Oh, my father-in-law was at Tempsford,’ I said ‘oh yes, when was he there?’ such and such. ‘Oh I was there then, what was his name?’ ‘Large.’ I said ‘good gracious me,’ I said ‘I know Bob Large very well, I knew him very well,’ and he gave me his, she gave me her telephone number and I rang him and we had a long conversation and he told me that he, he said ‘I’m sorry,’ but he said ‘I did deserve to be cashiered,’ you know, ‘I knew I was wanted for, I should be available,’ but of course as I said the birds weren’t flying. But anyway, he, he went back and lost his seniority for two years and ended up flying commercially for different people [CB laughs]. But, and he bought back that, what was her name? Violet, Violette Szabo?
CB: Szabo.
PB: He bought her back once –
CB: Mm.
PB: From France. And in this book – you should, I’m not going to let you have this unfortunately, I don’t want this to leave my – but if you, if you want [emphasis] you should be able to get it from the library –
CB: This is “By Moonlight” –
PB: And, erm –
CB: - Is the name of the book.
PB: In there it said that, which is unbelievable [emphasis] but I’ve read it and it said that only two Lysanders were missing on ops in the war. Incredible [emphasis] isn’t it?
CB: Extraordinary.
PB: And one [emphasis] of them was almost certainly shot down by a Mosquito [CB laughs] in mistake for a Fieseler Storch. And you remember, course the last pin point of it, well they knew when it was shot down, but when the Mosquito reported that it had shot down a Fieseler Storch at such and such a place, there was no doubt the Mosquito shot it down. You can’t really blame the Mosquito I suppose, but, yeah.
CB: And it was in the night.
PB: Well there are – if you look at the history of 138 and 161 – 138 in particular, the, the heroes, illustrious people that were associated, it was, they were, the chap that did the Amiens prison break out –
CB: Mm, Pickard.
PB: What was his name?
CB: Pickard. Pickard [emphasis].
PB: Yeah Wing Commander Pickard. He was on, I think it was 138 Squadron.
CB: Mm.
PB: ‘Cause 138 Squadron were started as a flight, and it was the King’s Flight. The group captain, who was still a group captain when I was at Tempsford, was chap called Fielding, Mouse Fielding. And he was the King’s Pilot, and there was all the different squadron officers and people. They were all on, they all wore, they all wore scarlet [laughs] lining to their jackets. And as I say, it started as a flight, it, it really – you really, I’m not going to lend you this because things go astray –
GG: Mm.
PB: But if you can get a copy, then it’s quite interesting reading.
CB: Hmm, mm.
PB: But, erm. It started off as a flight and they flew these two engine things to Poland and places and then gradually they got more sophisticated and they were landing Hudsons as well in the war. That was 138 Squadron, one, one, 161 Squadron I mean. But, and then they split one, 138 and 161 they made, and all the landing people like the Lysanders and the Hudsons were 161, and the heavies were 138.
CB: Now when you arrived at Tempsford, you didn’t know what you were in for –
PB: No –
CB: You said earlier –
PB: No.
CB: But 138 and 131 had a specific –
PB: 161.
CB: 161, sorry – had a specific requirement to re-affirm [emphasis] their –
PB: Well as Churchill said ‘set, set’ er –
CB: Official –
PB: ‘Set France alight.’
CB: Yes but Official Secrets Act you had to go through that again, so what was that? Tell us what that was.
PB: The Official Secrets Act?
CB: No, no. You had to reaffirm it because of what you were doing.
PB: You know I don’t remember that.
CB: Okay.
PB: I don’t remember, but we were, as I say it was very, very laid back, and when the wing commander Burnett said ‘well I’m afraid I’ve got to accept you, I, we’re going to re-master with Stirlings soon,’ so –
CB: Mm, [laughs].
PB: ‘I’ve been told that, you know, I’ve got to accept you.’ And he didn’t say, you know, ‘keep your head down’ or anything, he just said ‘welcome to the squadron.’
CB: Yeah.
PB: And we went our separate ways, we, as I say I had to go on an intensive map reading, low level map reading round England [CB clears throat]. The mid upper gunner was, lost his guns, lost his turret, and he went on a parachute course to Ringwood I think it was. And [pause] it was, looking back it was amazing really how informal [emphasis] it was.
CB: Mm.
PB: And I mean it was unbelievable when you hear about it and when you see these big briefings where, you know, ‘your target for the night is Berlin, urghhhh,’ [CB laughs], I mean we had nothing [emphasis] like that at all. We, we just used to go into a room, pilot, navigator and air bomber [CB clears throat], and they’d say ‘your tar’ – and there again [emphasis] I don’t know whether you realise this, I haven’t mentioned it, but your target was given a code name, and all of France was part of a horse, have you heard that?
CB: No.
PB: Yeah, the – it was Saddle One or Girth Two or Stirrup One or Denmark, I don’t remember what Denmark or Norway were, but they were never anywhere [emphasis], not in my logbook, it’s just Operation France or Operation Denmark, there’s never any mention – there must be some records in the Ministry somewhere of where these targets were.
CB: Mm.
PB: I remember we were in the South of France and that was no problem at all [emphasis]. There was a great big bonfire and we had a thing called S-Phones, which was new to us, and it was a walkie-talkie thing from about fifteen miles, and also it had red and green direction finding onto the target. So we went and dropped our goods, and then this voice said, oh it said ‘when you go back to England, will you look my sister up?’ [CB laughs.] ‘She lives at such and such a place,’ and we said ‘there’s no way we’re gonna look his sister up’ ‘cause if that got out we really would [emphasis] be for it, you know. So I’m afraid his sister never got the message, but erm, it was – I mean we used to drop our, we used to fly [emphasis] and then ascertain with the signal that it was the target and then we’d continue and drop our load and we’d go [emphasis], not because we were frightened but because it would give the enemy a clue if an aircraft was circling around.
CB: Sure.
PB: Erm –
CB: So if you missed a target what did you do?
PB: I’m afraid you just came back.
CB: Right.
PB: I didn’t, I didn’t lose many, I think of the thirty I did I probably didn’t, didn’t make six or something like that.
CB: Mm, so –
PB: I mean several of them were in Norway. I don’t know whether you’ve been to Norway but it’s a lot of snow [emphasis] in Norway –
CB: Mm.
PB: And if you’re given a target in Norway believe you me, it’s very [laughs] it’s very difficult to find.
CB: Identification points are very difficult aren’t they?
PB: Pardon?
CB: Identification points –
PB: Yes.
CB: Are very difficult.
PB: Yes.
CB: So could you just, can we just look at the briefing and how the sortie went? So at the briefing, how would that go?
PB: The debriefing?
CB: No, at the briefing itself, beforehand, so –
PB: Well as I say it was the pilot, navigator and air bomber and the others weren’t really concerned, they were just concerned with their job.
CB: Mm.
PB: And if there was any new things with gunnery or new things with signalling they would be told, but the actual trip, we sometimes had an agent [emphasis] who’d come back and he’d tell you what the business was like, but no, we were told that ‘this is your target, there it is, here’s your maps and which way do you intend to go?’ so you know, we’d say ‘well from past experience and what other crew have told us, it’s no good crossing the coast there, we think we should cross here,’ ‘yes,’ you know, ‘we agree with you,’ ‘and then we’ll go to this bend in the river, or this edge of a forest, road junction, avoid towns of course,’ and we’d get there.
CB: What – how would you plan the heights that you were flying at?
PB: Just low [laughs]. Damn low, as low as you could.
CB: Mm.
PB: And I think that’s what saved us a lot.
CB: Mm.
PB: That’s not on is it?
CB: It is, yeah.
PB: Pardon?
CB: It is now [emphasis], yes.
PB: Oh –
CB: Yeah.
PB: Oh, I won’t say anything more –
CB: What? Well I can stop for a moment.
PB: Well I just mentioned that we had a shortage of crews once –
CB: Yeah.
PB: And you can check it up, but erm, we had a shortage of crews before I got to the squadron, not sure when it was, it was something like, could have been June or something 1944, but they said ‘well obviously the best squadron is to have three aircraft from the Dambusters Squadron,’ and they sent three aircraft that promptly shot [?] the place up, marvellous flying marvellous pilots and everything, and everyone stared in awe, and they parked their aircraft and our ground crew went and said ‘oh no you can’t go in here we’ve got secret equipment,’ great fuss you know, so they said ‘alright, we’ll refuel and here’s your, what you’ve got to do.’ But unfortunately for them out of the three only one got back. And – is that on?
CB: Yeah.
PB: I got my theories and I’ll probably be court martialed [laughs] or something for this –
CB: Not now you won’t [laughs].
PB: [Laughing] I’ve got my theories that the reason that the 617 Squadron lost so many planes on the dam raid and also for a short while afterwards they, they really come, came unstuck was because low level to them was not low level what I call –
CB: Mm.
PB: And I mean the most vulnerable [emphasis] place to be is about three-thousand feet. I’m not saying they flew at three-thousand feet but I think that if they’d have flown a bit lower – I don’t know about this I’m talking a load of rubbish I know, but I think if they’d have flown a bit lower they might have got away with it, you know, but that’s – but they certainly came to us and, and out of the three only one got back.
CB: And what were they doing when they were with you?
PB: Pardon?
CB: What were they doing when they came to you?
PB: Well they’d just done the dam raid –
CB: Yeah but those three [emphasis], what did they, what, what were they doing?
PB: [Pause] what when they came to us?
CB: Yes.
PB: Well they were doing just the normal job that we did, because we were so short of crews we wanted, you know –
CB: So they were dropping supplies as well?
PB: Yes, yes.
CB: Right.
PB: Dropping agents, I don’t know about agents, I don’t think they dropped agents, there’s no mention of agents being killed, but they certainly were dropping supplies –
CB: Mm.
PB: And two of them, whether they were shot down or not I don’t know, but it said that only one returned to base, which, I think Cheshire was the wing commander and he wasn’t very pleased about it, but erm, yeah.
CB: So when you were on your ops then, what was the division of labour? Because you were right out, right out at the front, you were – were you feeding stuff back to the navigator or were you telling the pilot directly where to go?
PB: Erm, I was mainly in the second pilot’s seat, I did my map reading from the second pilot’s seat. And then when we were over the target obviously I was in the nose, but I didn’t have a bomb site, we just flew down the, the lights, bonfires or torches or whatever they were, and dropped, as I say, it was four hundred feet for parcels and the canisters and six hundred feet for agents.
CB: So at what stage from the target would you be moving to the bomb aimers position? How many miles out?
PB: Well when we were probably on the circuit. Just before we went, just before we, we – I made sure if possible that we were at the target and check that I was sure we were on the target I think we got the signal, then I would go into the bomb aimer’s position.
CB: Mm.
PB: But it wasn’t a question of getting anything fixed up. All you did was select the bomb switches and then press the button when the pilot flew down the –
CB: So the stores are all in the bomb bay –
PB: Pardon?
CB: The supplies are all in the bomb bay, and –
PB: Yes, and in the fuselage –
CB: Right.
PB: Packages.
CB: And could you drop the lot at the same time or did you have to have a sequence?
PB: Well there was a sequence which was automatic on the, on the –
CB: On the release.
PB: On the release –
CB: Mhm.
PB: I mean, I think it was almost instantaneous you know, one one one one, wasn’t a question of the whole [emphasis] lot together and it wasn’t a question of many seconds in between. It was a question sort of one two three four five, like that.
CB: Were they just dropped as they were or did they have parachutes?
PB: [Pause] they had parachutes [emphasis].
CB: Right.
PB: Yeah [laughing] yeah. For a minute [laughs, GG laughs] I couldn’t remember, but no I do remember they had parachutes, yeah, yes.
CB: Including the ones that were pushed out by the dispatcher?
PB: Oh do you know – I would imagine so but I don’t know [emphasis].
CB: With a static line? [?]
PB: I think if they’d have landed [coughs] without, they’d have smashed when they hit the ground.
CB: Mm.
PB: [Coughs]. But [pause] but –
CB: So you’re going over the target and you’ve dropped your supplies. How did you proceed back from there?
PB: Well the navigator had already worked out a course for home, and I don’t think I took much of a part. I, I think I’d checked obviously on what was going on –
CB: Mm.
PB: But I think the navigator gave the courses and we got back home [emphasis]. But the unfortunate thing was that after the V1s started we were ordered, all aircraft were ordered to come back into England over ten-thousand feet, and that was a damn nuisance. I had a friend that was shot up with the Royal Navy, and he was flying at a nice comfortable ten-thousand feet and the – that’s, that’s the story – is that on?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
PB: Well this is the story – I can’t remember the pilot’s name now. He was a New Zealander and he got shot up by the Royal Navy and he said ‘fire [?] the colours of the day [emphasis].’ Well the colours of the day were in a varied [?] pistol above the signaller’s head, in the roof. And he didn’t know what to do, and when they landed, the pilot was absolutely mad [emphasis] and he said ‘you stupid idiot,’ or words to this effect, probably more tastier than that [CB laughs], but he said ‘look,’ he said, ‘here’s a pistol, you just press it.’ [Laughs, GG laughs]. And he pressed it and set fire to the aircraft [all laugh]. And I don’t know whether it was a – I think it was probably superficial damage but, erm, yeah.
CB: So, the point, am I right in saying, of flying above ten-thousand feet was so that the people on the ground would not be shooting at higher level aircraft? Because they were shooting at the V1s.
PB: Yes, yeah. But, erm, we were, we were shot up by the Americans once as we, as we were going into the tar – well not going into the target but crossing our lines, and I suppose you can’t blame them really if they hear or see any aircraft they’re going to take evasive action, but – there were lots of instances. I remember a friend of mine he became a roommate of mine when I was first commissioned, and they couldn’t make the, the height [emphasis] above the clouds, the cumulonimbus, and the pilot went underneath and they got struck by lightning, and he was blind for a week. He walked around with the dark glasses, but he got his sight back. But he ended up with a DFC, he shot down two one-nineties [emphasis] which was very unusual.
CB: Was he mid upper or rear gunner?
PB: He was a rear gunner. He – and there again, coincidence and everything, he, he was my roommate, we were both commissioned together and he finished his tour just before me, and he went away, I lost touch with him. And years later my brother had returned from being a prisoner of war, and he was made CO of a, of an aircrew reclassification unit in Hereford I think it was, where the, all the redundant aircrew were put other jobs, you know, administrative jobs and various things, and who should be one of his pupils but this flying officer Dunning? Very strange.
CB: Hmm.
PB: But a story about him which is perfectly true and a modern person wouldn’t believe it I don’t think, but we used to go, about a flight of thirty, and have our different injections, TAB and ATT and blood tests, and he was a Liverpudlian, or near, near Liverpool, and he lined up and he had his injection, I don’t know which one it was, and within milliseconds [emphasis] he collapsed, and they said ‘oh my God,’ you know, ‘another wimp.’ Put him on the couch and then someone happened to look and said ‘my God he’s gone the colour of crimson’ [emphasis]. So they called, you know, the hospital, and called his mother [emphasis] actually, his father was in the army. But he was touch and go, and what had happened was, you, I don’t know about in your time, but in those days the doctors just used a needle until it was blunt. I mean there was no question of use once and throw away, but unfortunately for him the doctor had changed shift and put his syringe down with the serum in it and the next doctor picked it up and gave this friend of mine the lot, and this previous doctor had put about five doses in the syringe [emphasis].
CB: Jeez.
PB: And the doctor that took over didn’t realise this and he gave this friend of mine the whole [emphasis] lot.
CB: Jeez.
PB: And it damn nearly killed him.
CB: Mm.
PB: I mean, I know that’s true because he told me, but.
CB: Mm. Hm.
PB: We had another crew that – if they were right down in the South of France, I never did have the luxury of doing it, but if they were right down in the South of France, very often they would fly through to Northern Africa, Algeria I think it was, Blida [emphasis], is Blida North Africa?
CB: Mm.
PB: And they would refuel and everything and then come back, and I think probably drop some more supplies on the way back, but this crew, they started back and they’d got all the goodies which you’d never see, oranges and things [CB laughs], and they started losing height, and I think that part of Africa, I think was a thousand feet above sea level, but they gradually lost height until throwing everything that was movable [emphasis] over board, they said ‘it’s no good’ and they’d seen a, a ship which was lights on and they landed by it. And it turned out to be a, a Portuguese ship, neutral ship, and in the ditching, this friend of mine who’s an air gunner, he got a DFM for it, he rescued someone, but one of them was killed. I can’t remember who it was, and they came back to England and they, they were landed somewhere in Portugal and they flew back. But talking of that sort of thing, is this on?
CB: Mm.
PB: There’s a friend of mine who’s well tabulated, he’s, he’s in Max Hastings’ “Bomber Command” book – did I say a friend? He was a brother-in-law actually, my [CB laughs] wife’s sister’s husband, chap called Bill McGrath. Have you heard of him?
CB: Nope.
PB: Well he’s in the official history and everything. And he was a pre-war observer, and he was on the Blenheim Squadron, eighty-seven I think it was. Anyway, he was on the squadron and the Battle of France, before the Battle of Britain, Battle of France, and they used to go out in formation in Blenheims at about ten-thousand feet, and really get messed up, and he went out one trip and he was the only crew to return, and the next trip he went out the whole lot were shot down. And this is absolutely true, it’s, you know, it’s in the official recordings, and he was, he ditched [emphasis] and he was badly injured. He lost the sight of one eye but he never lost the eye, and he was injured but he was made a prisoner of war. He escaped [emphasis] three times [CB laughs]. And the first time, or second time he was recaptured, and the second time he gave himself up, the two of them because they were so cold and hungry, and the third time they made it from Paris, all the way down through France, over the Pyrenees and he got a [pause], what do you call it, erm, a military medal for it. But he carried on flying [CB laughs]. He was instructing [emphasis] and carried on flying, but he hadn’t got sight in one eye, he’d lost it. But he used to memorise the sight chart, and one day he, they changed the sight chart and they said ‘my God you’re blind’ [CB laughs] and he said ‘yes,’ so they says ‘right,’ and he was Irish, Northern Irish actually, or Southern Irish, Irish, and they said ‘right, you’re –’ he was a warrant, I think he was a warrant officer, sure he was a warrant officer. Anyway, he was, erm, reduced to a ground duty job and lost his seniority, and so, being Irish he wrote to his mother [emphasis]. He said, knowing that the letter would be, you know, scrutinised –
CB: Mm.
PB: And he said ‘I’m seriously thinking of leaving. I’m, I’m, I’m Irish so I can [emphasis] leave,’ said ‘it’s disgusting treatment,’ and the CO got to hear, course, course it was –
CB: The censor read it.
PB: Pardon?
CB: The censor [emphasis] read it.
PB: Censored, yeah. And he went in front and he said ‘what’s this McGrath,’ and he said what had happened, and he said ‘oh well don’t do anything,’ he said ‘we’ll see you’re okay.’ And he got commissioned in the [coughs] what was called Flying Control. But that’s the way they treated them. If he’d not been Irish he would have lost all his flying pay and his rank and he was, it was, yes he was – and he’s quoted in I think it’s Max Hastings’ book “Bomber Command,” Bill McGrath [emphasis]. We used to call him Mac but he’d referred to as Bill McGrath. My brother, they [laughs], they say that all air crew are volunteers. I don’t think that was strictly [emphasis] true to be perfectly honest, probably ninety-nine percent, but my brother did the same as me and he was older, and he was attested and they said ‘yes okay,’ you know, ‘pilot under training. Now do you want to come in the Air Force or do you want to wait to be called up?’ ‘Oh no’ he says ‘I want to come in the Air Force,’ so they called him up and put him on a wireless operator course at Yatesbury, Wiltshire, and then when he passed his wireless operator course he said ‘well,’ you know ‘what about my pilots course?’ And they said ‘oh God no,’ they said ‘you’re a wireless operator flying, and you’ve got to do fifteen ops’ or something so he was I think an LAC when he came out of the radio school, and he went on about a six week air gunners course [laughs] and came in as a sergeant, wireless operator air gunner, and then eventually he was told that he’s got to do fifteen ops and unfortunately I think he was shot down on his fifteenth op, but he was a POW, but, yeah.
CB: How did he get on with that?
PB: Not at all well [emphasis]. He’s, he’s one that just didn’t – he was, he was I suppose only [emphasis] sounds awful, but he was about two years as a POW from August forty-three until about May of forty-five, and he stopped on the Air Force for a little while, for about three or four years, and he left the Air Force and got quite a nice job in the city and then he was, they used to go and have a ploughman’s lunch and he suddenly got up and he was vomiting blood in the gutter, and he got a burst ulcer, but he recovered from that. But the POW business really [emphasis] upset him and he couldn’t go on the top flight of a bus [emphasis] and all sorts of silly things. He held a job, but lived on drugs and then eventually they killed him, you know, the drugs were just too much, and –
CB: Mm.
PB: And, he was in his sixties when he died, but [pause] he was just one that didn’t take to being shut up.
CB: Mm.
PB: Incidentally, he said that they were, erm, what’s the word [pause], released [emphasis], that’s the wrong word. I can’t think of words nowadays, by the Russians [emphasis].
CB: Mm.
PB: And they all started to go out of camp and the Russians were really [emphasis] nasty, and the senior camp officer went to the Russian colonel and said, you know, ‘we’re on your side,’ so he said ‘oh yes of course’ and so he said ‘okay, now is there anything you want?’ and he said ‘well we’re very short of food,’ and my brother said they were terrible [emphasis], they were barbarians [emphasis], they used to go round to the farms and places, and they said ‘oh we want that pig, we want that,’ and if they said ‘oh no,’ bang [?] they’d shoot them, and when he came back, and he wasn’t the only one, he said to me ‘we should go straight [emphasis] into Russia now,’ and he was convinced [emphasis] that there would be trouble with Russia. He wasn’t far wrong but it didn’t develop into anything, but he, he was convinced [emphasis] that Russia wanted tackling straight away –
CB: Mm.
PB: But, erm, yes. I’ve been prattling on – I don’t know what you, probably –
CB: When you –
PB: Edit a lot of this [laughs].
CB: Well, you –
PB: [Laughing] cut it out.
CB: When, when you were on, on an operation [clears throat], what were you actually doing most in the – how were – what was your task during the flight?
PB: Map reading. Very intensive, I mean it’s, it’s like if, it, well it’s a bit more intensive obviously, but if you go from here to Scotland all with a sat-nav. They call them sat-navs?
CB: Mhm.
PB: You know, you sort of concentrate, ‘oh you turn right here, you turn left here, go over the roundabout,’ well I mean that was my job, I never had time to – unless they said ‘there’s an enemy aircraft’ or ‘there’s an aircraft’ or something I never, I never left the map, I was, you know, concentrating on the map, making sure that we were on track.
CB: And you could do that perfectly well from the co-pilot’s seat could you?
PB: Yes, yes. You could see pretty well. Yes I didn’t, I didn’t very often get down in the bomb bay until as I say, until we’d got right near the target, and identified the target. And the target was, each target had its code name, which sometimes was a lovely audislamp [?] and sometimes seemed to be a candle [laughs] yeah.
CB: And, er, it was only in the later part of the war that you had the walkie-talkie link?
PB: Yes we only used it once and that was getting on for the end of the war in the South of France.
CB: Yeah, so apart from that, how were you identifying your target when, say, the outside visual, immediate visual distance, so at twenty miles how would you be getting close to be sure that you were on target?
PB: Well you, you, you got as near as you could until you saw the fires or the lights, and erm –
CB: ‘Cause we’re in the dark aren’t we?
PB: Pardon?
CB: We’re in the dark all the time.
PB: Oh, well [emphasis] it was moonlight –
CB: Moonlight.
PB: And believe you me, flying sometimes like ten days each side of the moon, full moon, it was almost like daylight.
CB: Oh, right.
PB: And once they could hear you coming, and it didn’t take much to set fire to these bonfires –
CB: Mm.
PB: Or to have a light and flash the light –
CB: Mm.
PB: And they were always, you know, downwind, upwind, wind was – and there would be three of them, a hundred metres apart, and at the downwind end there was someone would be there, with a bit of luck it would be a nice audislamp [?] and if you were a bit unlucky it would be a dodgy flashlight [emphasis] which would [pause]. But it was remarkably [emphasis] efficient actually. I don’t know – I suppose somewhere along the lines someone could find out what the percentage of successful drops were, but I think they were fairly high.
CB: Mm.
PB: I’m not sure but I think I missed – I could do it now if counted them, but I think out of thirty I think I missed the target about six times.
CB: Mm.
PB: And as I said, two or three of those were in Norway, and that was, that was –
CB: Mm. Very difficult.
PB: Really horrendous [emphasis]. Flying over that snow, it was very difficult indeed.
CB: Erm, how often was the aircraft attacked [emphasis] during your operations?
PB: We were very lucky, we were hardly attacked at all. Very [emphasis] lucky indeed, I mean – in fact I think, I think you’ll find that if you were attacked you’d usually had it, because there’s no way of bailing out at that height.
CB: Mm.
PB: So I mean you’d – and if you’d crashed you’d – like this squadron leader chap, flight commander, I mean he hit a balloon cable the story is there –
CB: Mm.
PB: And he was, I think all the crew was safe [emphasis], but erm. If you were actually shot down at that height there was very little chance of [pause], yeah.
CB: But it was quite difficult for the night fighters to get down to you because their radar wouldn’t work against you close to the ground.
PB: No, no that’s [coughs] their radar?
CB: Yeah.
PB: No, no their – and of course unfortunately our radar [laughing] didn’t work when we were close to the ground.
CB: Mm.
PB: But –
CB: And did you have Monica?
PB: Hmm?
CB: Did you have Monica to test, to check if anything was following you?
PB: Did we have –
CB: Did you have the Monica receiver?
PB: No. No, we never had them. No, all we had was G.
CB: Yeah.
PB: And, and just on the one trip we had these things called S-Phones.
CB: Mm.
PB: But they only operated about something like fifteen miles away from the target –
CB: Mm.
PB: And it was a walkie-talkie thing, and then it had red and green and you could home in on the red and green [pause]. Yeah I personally don’t think there’s enough credit given to the resistance, I mean when you read of – you see that, what was his name, the armaments boss of Germany?
CB: Oh, Speer [emphasis].
PB: Speer.
CB: Mm.
PB: And he said that, erm, many more attacks and Germany were finished.
CB: Mm.
PB: And yet –
CB: Particularly after Hamburg.
PB: Yes, but you see I never – I, I, I’m a great admirer of Churchill, but he was a politician, and I’ll never [emphasis] forgive him for what he, his action [emphasis] he took after the Dresden raid.
CB: Mm.
PB: Now, I’ve got the official history of the RAF, three or four volumes of it, and it’s all [emphasis] tabulated there, letters and memos and things, and Russia wanted Dresden bombed [emphasis on last four words]. And they told Churchill and Roosevelt they wanted Dresden bombed. And Churchill said ‘yes, yes, okay.’ And the chief of the air staff did as he was told, and they said to Harris, Bomber Command chief, ‘we want you to bomb Dresden.’ Now it’s documented [emphasis] that Harris said ‘there’s no point [emphasis], absolutely no point, it’s civilian [emphasis] sort of population and it’s a lot of rubbish to say that’s it’s a complication of troops coming,’ and for two weeks he stalled, and then – I’ve got all this in print [emphasis]. And Churchill said ‘look, if you don’t do as you’re told you’re out.’ So he was an officer, he did as he was told and bombed Dresden. Within a short while, I don’t know whether it was days or weeks, days I think, Churchill was up in parliament condemning the raids on unnecessary civil populations. And of course, another thing which I won’t forgive him for which is all the same thing, was that he never gave Bomber Command a campaign medal.
CB: Mm.
PB: I mean, there was the Italian campaign, there was the Burma campaign, but never [emphasis] Bomber – I got a clasp, I got a Bomber Command clasp [coughs] a nice fibre [?] campaign [laughs] clasp.
CB: Did you get your French Legion of Honour?
PB: No, no, never got that. I never said I deserved it, I don’t think I did anything more than what hundreds of other people did. But I do think that the French should, perhaps they have done, honour the French Resistance more, I think they – and I think our government should have recognised the French Resistance, definitely. I mean there’s a story, one of the stories I remember – I used to read a lot of war books after the war, and there was a great big unit, regiment or something, from the south, and because of the French harassment, the resistance, Maquis Resistance. They took not days but weeks [emphasis] to get up to Normandy, and they, these things aren’t recognised [emphasis], you know, there’s –
CB: Mm. When you got to the end of your tour of thirty, how did you feel?
PB: [Pause, laughs]. Believe it or not, I applied to carry on with the squadron that were due to go out in the Far East [laughs]. I must have been mad [laughs] I think, I must [laughing] have been mad. But, my, my pilot as I say, he had a bit of clout, and he stopped on, on the squadron when it changed to Lancasters, and he got a job as an instructor, or a coordinating chap, but my, the present, the flight commander at that time, he asked people that were in the know, our bosses, if I could go as his bomb aimer but they wouldn’t let him, they said ‘no, he’s done his thirty ops and that’s it, he’s finished.’
CB: Mm.
PB: Tony Darsefton [?], and I read after the war that he was killed in a civil air crash. He became a civil airline pilot and was – I saw in “The Telegraph” obituary that he was killed.
CB: Mm.
PB: But, oh life is full of ifs.
CB: What would you say was your most memorable point about your RAF service?
PB: Most memorable [emphasis] point [pause]. I can’t answer that, you know, I, I’d have to have an hour to think about that I think. I suppose it must be when I did my last op. I suppose it must [emphasis] be really, to think that I’ve – and then again you see ,the war when I finished was nearly over, so I’d got every chance of surviving the war. Sounds melodramatic but, erm. But one never, one never actually thought about dying or getting shot down or anything, or, if you – I mean one or two friends [emphasis] were killed, but a lot of them were ships [?] in the night, ‘oh hasn’t that one returned tonight?’ and that sort of thing, you didn’t, you didn’t know too many people intimately.
CB: And after the war, did the crew keep together, in touch?
PB: Well [coughs] the short answer to that is no [emphasis], but, erm, I did have one of my, the mid upper gunner, dispatcher [coughs] he came to my wedding, and the rear gunner, he came and brought his little daughter, but it didn’t last long, just the one visit.
CB: Mm.
PB: And there were two squadron reunions I went to, but I’d grown so away from that sort of life and the majority of people that I’d met from the squadron were sort of used car salesmen [both laugh], and I just, I just lost touch with them really. And I lost touch with my actual crew members, even the one that came to my wedding, and the one that came and visited us when we were both married and had children.
CB: When you were commissioned just after the pilot, what effect did that have on the social events of the crew?
PB: None at all. No, I mean, I was still a Christian name and we were Christian names, and – in fact, erm [laughs] to get commissioned I was called into the, well not called [emphasis] in that sounds a bit haughty, but I was, called, well called, I can’t think of any other word, to the orderly room and they said ‘oh your commission’s through’ [CB laughs]. I said ‘oh, okay, what do I do?’ They said ‘oh just report to the, the officer, the mess officer’ or something, so I went up to the officers mess and said ‘oh, commission,’ ‘oh yes,’ they said, ‘this is your room now,’ and [pause], I don’t know, but I mean, I just took my, I was a flight sergeant, I just took my stripes off my battle dress and put the ring on my shoulder [laughs]. And I was fortunate that my brother [emphasis] his uniform was at home, and I was easily, it was easier to go home for me from Tempsford in Welling, to Welling, and I used his uniform, and I went to my tailor in London, and I had my uniform made by my tailor, you know, who made my suits and things.
CB: Mm.
PB: An, but that was being commissioned [emphasis]. I mean the, I think the naval and the army people will be horrified [emphasis, laughs]. As I say, one minute I was a flight sergeant and the next minute [laughing] I was an officer.
CB: Mm. And was the navigator also commissioned?
PB: Eventually yes.
CB: But not then.
PB: No he was, he was [pause] – he must have been commissioned when were on the squadron. Oh I – he was about three months after me, that’s right, ‘cause I was commissioned probably in about the August [emphasis] of forty-four.
CB: And the engineer?
PB: No, none of the others were commissioned.
CB: Right.
PB: And again [emphasis] I don’t – you see, as a pilot, navigator and air bomber, you were automatically a flight sergeant after twelve months. But I don’t know whether the air gunners were or whether they have to do – I think they had a bit of a hard task, you know, they probably had to wait a couple of years.
CB: Mm.
PB: I don’t know how long you were between flight sergeant and warrant officer. Might be twelve months, or – but I was never a warrant officer, I was, I went from flight sergeant to –
CB: Rigjhy.
PB: And my pilot [emphasis] of course one day he was a flight sergeant, on the next day he was a flight lieutenant [emphasis].
CB: Oh.
PB: Acting flight lieutenant. Well, not on the next day but within a month certainly.
CB: Mm.
PB: But he was never a pilot officer. I think he was a flying officer from flight sergeant and then a, then an acting flight lieutenant.
CB: Why would that be do you think?
PB: Pardon?
CB: Why would that be?
PB: It was a pilot’s Air Force [laughs].
CB: Now, Tempsford was a wartime constructed airfield. What were the facilities like?
PB: Very good really, very good. I mean, as a, as a flight sergeant I think there was just our crew in the Nissan hut, there might have been a couple of crews. But when I was an officer, I was given a room with this chap I mentioned before, who had the injection and – in a house called Hassles. And it was a country house which the group captain lived in, and he entertained a lot of these important agents, and we had a room, ooh I think it was bigger than this room, with twin beds, above the stable block. And the group captains batman [?], we shared a batman [?] and we shared him part time, and he used to give us the odd gooses egg from the group captains [laughs] flock of geese. But it was very comfortable, it was a bit bigger than this room I think, very, very comfortable.
CB: Hmm. This is about eighteen square.
PB: I think this is [emphasis] about sixteen square, yes, I’m not sure but yeah, it was bigger than this room. Bit, bit bigger than this room and it was very comfortable, and we had – it was about a mile away from the ‘drome, and the, erm, this – he was made the flight commander after Rosswell [?], no after Watson moved onto to – Watson followed Rosswell, and Watson was 161 Wing Commander and got killed, but the chap that followed Watson was Tony Darsefton [?], and he used to live out at Hassles, he had a separate room, and he used to give us lifts in and it was, we’d always be able to get RAF transport if we had to go into the, well we had to go in. But it was, the discipline [emphasis] was almost non-existent, it really was. It was very laid back, but we did our job.
CB: The aircraft went of individually presumably, rather than in pairs or more?
PB: Well, well you couldn’t [emphasis] – I mean you couldn’t, obviously [emphasis] you couldn’t have a mass briefing because you’d have on the squadron alone you might have twenty different targets. I mean each flight consisted of about twelve aircraft I think, and twelve crews, but of course they weren’t all on the same night, but erm, but it was a very [emphasis] exciting time, and of course we got a lot [emphasis] of leave, we got a terrific amount of leave. We used to get I think it was something like ten days one months and six days the next. I was always [emphasis] home. And you used to get, as an officer, as a pilot officer, you used to get a first class travel warrant. In fact it didn’t apply to me, but most [emphasis] of the people [coughs] lived [coughed] up north, they used to put an aircraft on for what’s called a night flying test [CB laughs]. And they’d take them off to York or Scotland for their leave, and then lay on an aircraft to pick them up [emphasis]. Bloody selfish I suppose really [CB laughs], but it was done, I mean they –
CB: Mm. And they could have flown you to Biggin Hill.
PB: Hmm?
CB: And they could have flown you [emphasis] to Biggin Hill.
PB: Yes [laughing], yes I’d have more job to get from Biggin Hill to Welling [both laugh] than from Tempsford. The train was very good from there, yes. Very –
CB: Final –
PB: Very exciting times and –
CB: Right. So what was the most exciting thing do you think?
PB: The most what?
CB: The most exciting [emphasis] event that you had.
PB: In the Air Force? [Pause.] I don’t know.
CB: ‘Cause they were all exciting.
PB: Erm, some of them were boring. I mean the, the trips to Norway, I mean they were five hours there or so and five hours back, they were very [emphasis] boring. And we didn’t have any television or – I suppose we could have got the radio, I don’t know, never tried, but – they used to give us wakey-wakey tablets.
CB: Mm.
PB: I don’t know whether they worked or not –
CB: Benzedrine.
PB: Hmm?
CB: Benzedrine tablets.
PB: Was it?
CB: Mm.
PB: I don’t know whether they worked – I never, never gave them a chance to work. We used to do as we were told a lot. Not always, as I say I got into trouble for oversleeping. You see, going – is this on?
CB: Mm.
PB: Oh perhaps I –
CB: Go on.
PB: Well you can cut it out if you don’t want it –
CB: Yeah.
PB: This, this engineer, flight engineer, he wasn’t [emphasis], he’d gone to flights, and he wasn’t affected by our absence from flights when we went up to Sheffield, and yet you’d have thought he’d have said ‘ooh my God that’s my crew, I’d better go and wake them up and tell them that’ – I don’t know, very strange. But he was a real loner [?][emphasis] sort of chap, you do get them I suppose –
CB: He was the only one married, was he?
PB: He was married.
CB: He was the only one of the crew?
PB: No [emphasis], no, no the wireless operator, wireless operator air gunner was getting on a bit, he might have been twenty-eight or something [CB laughs], he was married with a child, yes.
CB: So you returned from an operation, and had a debrief.
PB: Yes.
CB: How did the debrief go?
PB: Erm, very simple really. I mean you’d – we had to fill out air bomber – one of my jobs to fill out a weather report. Mostly, obviously, the only thing you could report was well, fog I suppose, but was the cloud formations and different heights, and in those days I, I knew what the cloud formations was. I can’t say I do now. And what interference we had, erm, whether, whether it was easy to find, whether there was a good reception or whether it was a terrible reception. There were lots of stories – one story that floated around, I don’t know how true it was, but I think there might have been two crews, but there was one crew that went to this target, and they flashed their identification but it wasn’t quite perfect [emphasis] for some reason, and they thought that they’d best to not drop their load. I thought ‘this is a bit suspicious,’ and after several attempts this signal didn’t come through clear, I mean if it was dot dash dash dot they’d get the dot dash and then they might not get the dash dot. So they decided to bring this stuff back, and – this is rumour [emphasis] as I say I don’t know how true it was, but the story was that these resistance were surrounded by Germans, and every time they went up to, you know, press the signal, they were shot and killed, and if they’d have dropped the containers they would have stood a good chance of putting up a resistance. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, you got all sorts of things.
CB: Mm. Could have worked all ways.
PB: But the stories that are true and I’ve read in a couple of these resistance books – I used to get a lot of books after the war. And it was terribly [emphasis] laid back, gosh [emphasis]. In some cases there was a chap that was dropped, and he went to his safe place and the thing is you don’t walk in and rap on the door and say ‘hello, I’m here,’ you sort of observe the place and, and sure enough he kept an eye on it and it looked safe. So he went in and they said ‘oh come in’ in English you know, ‘come in,’ and they were talking in English [laughs] and he was absolutely flabbergasted [emphasis] at the lax security, but –
CB: Did you ever get to talk to the agents, you were dropping?
PB: Yes, yes. We had – on several of the drops we had an agent that had just come back, and he would give you a few tips, I can’t remember what they were but he could have told you that so many miles south west of the drop there was a German fighter unit or an AK-AK battery or something, which you know, did prove very useful.
CB: Mm.
PB: We did – yeah we had quite a lot of – and sometimes they were a bit of an organised talk by an agent who to tell you what was going on, but of course the tragedy was, I think it was the Dutch [emphasis] – don’t know whether you’ve heard of this, but the Dutch resistance was penetrated [emphasis] –
CB: Mm.
PB: Did you know this?
CB: Yep.
PB: So I’m, I, if I tell you –
CB: Go on, keep going.
PB: I’m only repeating –
CB: No keep going, keep going.
PB: Well as far as I know, they have a call which if they don’t use it, the signallers, then they know that they’re captured. And this signaller, he didn’t use his call sign, and the chap the other end he said ‘oh he’s just forgotten, don’t take any notice,’ and there was one chap at Baker Street which was SOE headquarters, who said ‘I don’t like this at all’ but he was more junior, and they said ‘no,’ you know, ‘everything’s alright don’t worry.’ And unfortunately they were just pitching agents right left and centre into the hands of the Nazis.
CB: Mm.
PB: And it wasn’t until sometime afterwards that they closed the whole circuit down.
CB: Mm.
PB: I, I never did do a trip to Holland.
CB: Mm, tragic.
PB: It was, it was infiltrated.
CB: Now you talked earlier about your later contact with Bletchley Park. To what extent were you aware of any contact while you were in 138?
PB: Was I [coughs], sorry, was I –
CB: Aware of contact with Bletchley Park?
PB: None, none at all. Well, funnily enough, the only contact which we had, and I didn’t realise the significance of course, but when I met my wife up here at this officers mess which would have been about April 1945, they’d imported a lot of Bletchley Park girls, and these two girls were standing by the fireplace there, and a friend of mine said ‘they fancy you,’ and I said ‘oh don’t talk such nonsense,’ you know, I said ‘go on’ I said ‘you’re a lady-killer, you go and ask them for a dance.’ [Laughs] so he went over and he came back and said ‘no they want to dance with you.’ I said ‘oh well you don’t know to treat women.’ So I went and it happened to be my future wife, and erm, I said, you know ‘would you like to dance?’ And they said ‘well, we’ve got the tip that the food’s coming up,’ course my brother-in-law’s, you know, here, the chap that was escaped from POW. So, but that’s how I met Stella. But what, who I thought [emphasis] was a girl, civil servant from Bletchley Park was actually Stella. But that’s the contact I had with Bletchley Park but I didn’t know exactly, I just thought they were evacuated civil servants, but, we didn’t, we didn’t know an awful lot to be perfectly honest. I mean, I met a chap in Rotary, I went to a, what do you call it, a district do, and this chap said he lived at Sandy, I said [CB laughs], ‘oh’ I said ‘I was stationed at Tempsford,’ he said ‘ooh were you?’ I said ‘yes,’ he said ‘well,’ he said ‘do you know, when your aircraft flew out they used to come found and padlock all the telephone boxes.’ I couldn’t really see the point of that but he assured me it was true. But it’s – they never, the Germans never attacked Tempsford. I’m sure they must have had some clue about it, they must [emphasis] have done. But, they, they never attacked Tempsford. They did have one huge raid in about March I think it was, in forty-five, and it was really like, like picking cherries off a tree for them. Because they sent a whole lot of fighters and they followed the bombers in as they landed and they were absolutely sitting ducks and they did do a lot of damage that particular time.
CB: Mm.
PB: But they never actually singled – as far as I know they never singled out Tempsford at all.
CB: Mm.
PB: You never know what dealings went on in war. There’s so much going on. I mean it’s a well known fact that we were dealing with Sweden and Germany were dealing with Sweden, and [laughs] you know it was sort of like this.
CB: After you’d finished your tour you went to the OTU, so how did that –
PB: Up here?
CB: Yes. So how did that work? What did you do there?
PB: I didn’t like it to start with, I didn’t like it a bit. But of course I met Stella shortly afterwards, my wife, and that made life very agreeable. I spent most [laughing] of the time playing tennis down here. But far as the work was concerned it was very good because I did a lot of flying instructing, I didn’t do much ground instructing. To be perfectly honest I didn’t know much [laughs] about the ground. I couldn’t very well say ‘when you get over the target you do this’ [laughs] because I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about main force bombing.
CB: So you went up with the trainee crews in the Wellingtons?
PB: Erm, only with an instructor pilot. I never went up with just a trainee crew. I went up – sometimes on the cross countries where there was a bombing attack afterwards or a, what do you, a bullseye [emphasis] they used to call – where you went to London and you took an infrared photograph of the target. But I don’t think I ever flew with, with a trainee crew there was always an instructor pilot with me.
CB: So what were you doing as an instructor at the OTU?
PB: I often wonder [laughs] ‘cause I couldn’t tell ‘em how to operate the bomb site. Erm, I don’t know, it’s just one of these things that, you know, you’ve got to have an instructor. Well I can understand having a pilot instructor. To a certain degree I can understand having a, a navigator instructor, but why you need an instructor to, to – ‘cause you should know how to use the bomb site on the ground before you fly up. They had, I forget what it was called now, but the bomb site that I trained on was called a setting bomb site. A very, very primitive thing which you set the course, the air speed, and told the pilot to fly on a certain course, and a certain speed, and you dropped the bombs and they were miles [emphasis] away [CB laughs]. They really were miles away. Well I don’t know about miles but – the story, there’s one story which was round, going around, and this Polish [emphasis] crew, and you did a – last trip you did was a cross country, and you ended up from an OTU, a training point of view, you ended up in the Severn or one of these bombing ranges and you dropped a couple of five-hundred pound bombs [emphasis], and the story is that this Polish crew went up and they said ‘to blazes with this, we’re not wasting this on the sea’ [CB laughs] ‘we’re going to take this off to France.’ Have you heard?
CB: No.
PB: And the – I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but the story is that they went off and they dropped their bombs over in occupied Europe. And I think they got told off a bit but they were Poles, and I met several Poles and they were great people, really great people, really were. And good pilots come to that.
CB: I think we’ve had a good run, thank you very much.
PB: Well I told you a lot of –
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Peter Bellingham
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ABellinghamPF161121
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IBCC Digital Archive
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2016-11-21
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02:05:02 audio recording
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Pending review
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eng
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Sound
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Peter Bellingham worked as a post office engineer before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He trained in Rhodesia and South Africa and completed a tour of operations as a bomb aimer, dropping supplies with 138 Squadron from RAF Tempsford. He describes the different roles each crew member was given, the briefing, the lights which signalled the target, the release of the parcels, supplies and agents, and the debrief. He then became an instructor and after demobilisation in 1946 he worked in agriculture.
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Great Britain
South Africa
Zambia
England--Bedfordshire
England--Cumbria
England--Suffolk
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Katie Gilbert
11 OTU
138 Squadron
17 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
bomb aimer
bombing
briefing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
crewing up
FIDO
Flying Training School
Initial Training Wing
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
RAF Millom
RAF Silverstone
RAF Tempsford
RAF Turweston
RAF Woodbridge
Special Operations Executive
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/262/3410/AGouldAG160708.2.mp3
73437c87dfac06a7e6749cfe5ed84141
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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Gould, Allen
Allen G Gould
Allen Gould
A G Gould
A Gould
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-seven items. Concerns Allen Geoffrey Gould (b. 1923, 1605203 Royal Air Force). He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and the Special Operations Executive. Collection consists of an oral history interview, his log book, flight engineer course notebooks, pilot's and engineers handling notes, mention in London Gazette, official documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allen Geoffrey Gould and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Gould, AG
Requires
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Sgt. Allen G. Gould – 1605203, was born in 1923, after leaving school in Bournemouth at 13, he worked for the Danish Bacon Company until being called up in 1943. Choosing to join the RAF, initially wanting to be a Navigator, he ended up as a Flight Engineer, flying in the Short Stirling Mk. I, II, III and IV variants. Training at RAF St. Alban, then the Heavy Conversion Unit. Allen joined No. 620 Squadron, flying from various bases, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Leicester East and then RAF Fairford. The roles for this squadron were not just bombing missions but Minelaying, Supply drops, Glider Towing and Paratrooper drops. He took part in D-Day, dropping paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Division over Caen, France on the night of 5th June 1944, returning on the 6th towing a glider of heavy equipment. He was also a part of Market Garden, towing a glider on 17th September 1944 and returning on the 19th and 21st on supply drops. There were also numerous drops on behalf of Special Operations Executive (SOE) as well as Special Air Service (SAS) dropping supplies and paratroopers.
Andrew St.Denis
Allen Gould was born on 16 June 1923 in Bournemouth. He left school at fourteen and worked for the Danish Bacon company until he was called up. His father having spent four years in the trenches, in WW1, advised him against joining the Army, so he volunteered for the Royal Air Force.
He joined the RAF on in October 1942 and following basic training he attended the first-ever direct entry, Flight Engineers’ Course at RAF St Athan.
On completion of flight engineering training, he joined up with his crew on 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Stradishall, then moved with them onto 620 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh and later RAF Leicester East.
The squadron later relocated to RAF Fairford where they trained to tow gliders. He was billeted with 12 others in a Nissan hut, conveniently close to a trout stream. They often caught trout, away from the watchful eye of the bailiff and cooked them in a tin on the large coke stove that heated the hut. The illicit bounty was a most welcome supplement to the barely adequate daily rations they received.
Direct out of training with no aircraft experience he had to earn the trust of his crew who up until then had only come across experienced flight engineers. On only his second operational trip and flying with an inexperienced crew, they arrived late over Ludwigshafen, where they found themselves alone and under concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft was being peppered and was full of holes while the pilot was executing extreme manoeuvres trying to avoid further damage. A fuel tank was hit and Allen had to work hard to ensure the engines received sufficient fuel to keep running. At the same time he had to make sure there would be enough fuel remaining to get back to the south coast of England for an emergency landing. As the aircraft approached the runway, the airfield lights went out and the pilot announced he was going to do another circuit. Allen told him, bluntly, he couldn’t as he didn’t have enough fuel, so the pilot made a steep turn and conducted a blind landing with no fuel to spare. Allen bonded well with his crew and in their free time they would often all go out to the pub together.
Throughout his tour his squadron undertook a variety of roles, much of was it in support of the Special Operations Executive personnel, operating covertly in occupied Europe. They also trained to tow gliders and dropped parachuting troops on D Day.
Allen completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and he totalled over 460 flying hours on Stirlings. PGouldAG1610.2.jpg (1600×2310) (lincoln.ac.uk)
For his services to 620 Squadron, he was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for distinguished service. MGouldAG1605203-160708-13.2.pdf (lincoln.ac.uk)
Post war, he married his wife, Norma, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. PGouldAG1601.2.jpg (1600×2412) (lincoln.ac.uk)
Allen was discharged in October 1946 having attained the rank of Warrant Officer. PGouldAG1604.1.jpg (1600×2330) (lincoln.ac.uk)
He returned to the Danish Bacon company where he worked for another 40 years.
Chriss Cann
October 1942: Volunteered for the RAF
January 1943 - July 1943: RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer Training
July 1943 - September 1943: RAF Stradishall, 1657 HCU, flying Stirling aircraft
September 1943 - December 1943: RAF Chedburgh, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
January 1944 - March 1944: RAF Leicester East, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
March 1944 - April 1945: RAF Fairford,620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
8 October 1946: Released from service having attained the rank of Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the eighth of July two thousand and sixteen, we’re in Oxford talking to Allen Gould about his experiences flying Stirling’s in the war. Allen what are your first recollections of life with the family?
AG: Well I went to school at Winton and Moordown council boys school in Bournemouth, erm, left when I was fourteen, which irritated my father, ‘cos he hadn’t got the money to pay for me to go to grammar school, there were only two seats allocated to our school, after the erm, eleven plus, and, erm, everybody there failed except for the doctor’s son and the councillor’s son, who both got a grammar school seat, which I would have loved but there you are, because in those days that was the only way you could get to university, grammar school first and then go, [pause] and I left school at fourteen, got a job with the Danish Bacon Company, [pause] a shit house firm right from the start, I was there for, getting on for forty years, after the war I came back there and erm, and then I, my nerves got back to normal when I was, after I had been away from the air force for, ten or twelve years, and erm, I got another job, which I was quite pleased about but they wouldn’t let me take my pension with me which my new firm offered to do and treat it as though I had been there all that time, but they didn’t, they made me take the whole thing out, not the part they paid in, all I’d been paid in, they made me take that out as part of my last week’s wages there, ‘cos the income tax that week would frighten anybody, [laughs] and that was it, and I was there until I got called up, with erm, three other fellas, I was the only one that came back without any damage, two of ‘em got killed, one of them finished up with one leg about three inches shorter than the other, I was the only one that was alright when I came back, and then went on the road and did commercial travelling, up and down the country, and I did that with a new firm I joined, Patrick Grainger and Hutleys, nice firm based in Fordingbridge, [pause] so I was up at half past five in the morning going to work, driving up to Fordingbridge, and picking up one of my drivers along the way [pause]
CB: Ok, so, you started with the bacon company, how did you come to join the RAF?
AG: Well, I rather fancied it you know I mean when I was called up my father had done four years in the trenches and he said ‘no way are you going into the army, my cocker’ so I said ‘ Oh alright I’ll take your advice on that’, so I put my name down for the RAF, and when it came to a choice between this and that and I thought flying, oh wow, let’s have a go at that.So, er, I, finished up in Blackpool getting my uniform and one thing and another, and then erm, posted from there down to St Athans, on this first directory, first direct [emphasis], flight engineers course, because they were losing so many flight engineers who’d taken a long time, a really [emphasis] long time in training and they couldn’t afford it any longer. So we were pushed through, erm, six months and I was out on the squadron, at erm, Stradishall and then in the finish we wound up at Fairford and we were there for years, [pause] the only other aerodrome we flew from during that time was from Hurn, just outside Bournemouth
CB: So, you did your training at St Athan, what was the training that you did there?
AG: Direct entry flight engineer
CB: Yeh, but, what was involved in that?
AG: Well, really all it boiled down to was, looking at pictures of engines and exploring the airframes, and one thing and another, so when we were flying I was always on the move, bouncing up and down on me toes for up to twelve hours if we went down as far as Switzerland, ‘cos flight engineers don’t have a seat [pause]
CB: Ok, so on the training though there’s a lot of aspects of the aircraft?
AG: Yeh
CB: So, what aspects were you dealing with, you talked briefly about airframe, but what else were they focussing on?
AG: Oh, erm, the engines and erm, more particularly the amount of fuel they would be using and heights we were going to, how it objected on the fuel take up and er all that sort of thing
CB: So, on an aircraft the size of the four engine planes, how many tanks would there be on those planes?
AG: Err
CB: Fuel tanks
AG: Numbers two and four, and one, two and three in each wing
CB: So, what was the flight engineer’s job in that?
AG: Well. I had to control that, when the pilot was fiddling about with the controls, I was watching the dials and making sure that everything was as it should be, erm, we only got into real trouble on one flight, erm, when we were still sort of, an inexperienced crew, we had to, erm, join bombers going to Mannheim Ludwigshafen and we were bombing the Ludwigshafen, and being a sprog crew, ‘cos we got there ten minutes late all the others had gone through, so we were going over on our own and we were really getting bashed. Our pilot was doing mad dives and turns to get us out of it, the only thing that we lost was the number four tank in the starboard wing, so I had to run all the engines off that to make sure we used everything we possibly could, and, we did, just save enough to get back to an emergency aerodrome on the south coast, whose name I’ve forgotten to be honest, and we were just going into land and they turned all the lights off, and the pilot said ‘I’ll do another circuit’ and I said ‘ you can’t, you haven’t got enough fuel’, I’m afraid that became a funny word to them because every time he saw me in future he said ‘We can’t, we haven’t got enough fuel!’. So, he did a sweep to the left up on one wing and came straight back in and landed, lights or no lights, he was going in, and we did, I said to the bomb aimer, who was also the second pilot afterwards ‘how did you, er, cope with that ‘? He said ‘well’, he said ‘you know when the undercarriage is down you get a green light’ he said, ‘and if it’s not you get a red light’ So, he said ‘we were as bouncing down the runway and it was going red, green, red, green, red, green, red, green’, [laughs] I said, ‘Oh, thanks very much, cheered me up no end that has’
CB: But, it stayed down?
AG: Oh, yeh, we got down no bother, we just got enough. The pilot came out the following morning and said ‘Look, if we’ve got any fuel left, I’m gonna kick your arse all round this aerodrome’, so I dipped every tank, he and I walked across the wings and I dipped every tank, and it was just enough left in one of them to damp the end of the dipstick, so he shut up after that [laughs]
CB: So, it was reassuring that the gauges were accurate
AG: Well, I wondered if that was what finished up with that MiD of mine, ‘cos they must have made a note of it because we had to abandon the aircraft there and get a lift back to our aerodrome at Fairford, we just left them on this, at this other aerodrome, whose name I don’t remember unfortunately
CB: So, MiD is, mentioned in despatches?
AG: Yeh
CB: Right
AG: Yeh, so somebody must have made a note of it, I expect my pilot went back and said, ‘he was right you know, we didn’t have any fuel’ [laughs]
CB: Saved the crew, effectively
AG: Well, there you are, yeh, so, perhaps that’s what I got it for
CB: So, the reason I asked you about the training is, because clearly, it was focussed on, what in those days was state of the art aircraft, the first of the heavy bombers was the Stirling,
AG: Hmm
CB: but it was different from the other bombers, in that it had electrical circuits for so many things where others would use hydraulics
AG: Oh, yes
CB: In your basic training, what emphasis, was there, on hydraulics and electrics, in the training at St Athan?
AG: Well, skimming over it, as it was a direct entry course they didn’t waste a lot of time, I’ll tell you
CB: How did you come to do flight engineering, because you, had you, when you were working for the bacon company, had you been involved in technical matters then?
AG: No, no
CB: So, how did you come to be selected to train as a flight engineer?
AG: Well, I think they wanted when we were in Blackpool, they wanted flight engineers more than anything because they’d lost so many, and erm, I was automatically put onto that, you know, I’d erm, I think I put my name down to start with for navigation, but never got to that [pause]
CB: So, you finished the training after six months and how did you feel at the end of the training about your knowledge of engineering and aircraft?
AG: Well, I thought at the time that it wasn’t up to scratch, really, I mean, when I thought of the work that previous flight engineers had, had to do, different courses and out on a squadron for six months and then come back and do another course, I mean what we, what they went through to get us out was quick and easy, you know, and that sort of thing.
CB: So, the process for crewing up aircrew, was that at the operational training unit the crew got together, the flight engineer didn’t join until the heavy conversion unit?
AG: That’s right
CB: So, what was the crew like when you, how did you come to join an existing crew that had been on Wellingtons?
AG: Well, they were a bit iffy about having a direct entry flight engineer
CB: Were they?
AG: Because they were told I was one, and they’d never heard of anybody like that, you know, and they thought they were going to get somebody who had been out working on aircraft, on the flights, on the aerodromes, but they didn’t they got me and er, until this second trip, when I got away with this fuel business, after that we were, they relied on me, really, and er, were extremely friendly
CB: As a crew, what were the ranks, was the pilot always commissioned or was he only
AG: Oh yes
CB: Commissioned later?
AG: Yes, the pilot and the navigator and the rear gunner were all commissioned, [pause] and the wireless operator was a sergeant like me when we started flying together [pause]
CB: Ok, so you joined at the heavy conversion unit, where was that?
AG: Stradishall
CB: Right
AG: I do remember that name
CB: And how long where you at Stradishall?
AG: Oh, only about a week [pause], then we went up to Fairford and started ops
CB: Right
AG: Our first one was erm, minelaying, off erm, [unclear] Byrum [?] I think I got the name right, other side of Denmark, going down towards where the Germans were
CB: The far side of Denmark?
AG: Yeh
CB: The Swedish side?
AG: That’s right, yeh, yes, I remember coming back from there, we were flying along and you could see all the Swedish coast, all lit up, the pears, the piers and everything, all the lights
CB: Didn’t do you any good from a silhouette point of view, did it?
AG: No, it didn’t, no that’s true, yes, the only other place, that er, we were worried about the silhouette was erm, we did erm, three or four trips to Norway, supplying free Norwegians, who were up in the mountains, we had to look out for them and then drop stuff to them, funny enough, I see in the paper, that it was only last year, that they found some of the stuff that had been dropped for these people, that they never found and it was still in the snow, but when we were flying over there, we only went up there on a really full moon at night, and we could see our shadow going across the snow, well if anybody had been up, all they had to do was to look at the, moon and our shadow and they knew exactly where we were, and of course the only thing we had to worry about there, was the right up in the north of Denmark was this big German fighter unit, they used to cover the North Sea and out in the Atlantic and all over
CB: So, you were supplying the SOE, the Special Operations Executive in that case, weren’t you?
AG: Yeh, that’s right
CB: So, are you saying that the squadron, 620, had a variety of roles?
AG: Oh yes, we erm, D Day, we dropped parachutes on Caen bridge, and then we had to go back and come over again in the afternoon with gliders, with heavier equipment, down in the same place
CB: So, on gliders, where did you train for towing gliders?
AG: At Fairford
CB: What was the main activity at Fairford then?
AG: Well, the main activity there, was putting us out on raids or supply trips, which went on for years
CB: Rather than bombing you were supplying agents
AG: Yeh, oh yeh
CB: Right
AG: We did bombing raids as well, because I remember we, that, our troops on the ground had got this, surrounded this wood which had got the Germans in it, and we had to go over and bomb these German troops in this wood, and we had a plane going over there about every ten minutes so they wouldn’t get any rest or peace and we just had to keep on bombing this wood
CB: And the effect?
AG: Well, it seemed to work alright, but erm, [pause]
CB: And what about the bombing then, other bombing, what other tasks were there? So, you talked about mine laying
AG: Yeh
CB: Well, let’s just cover minelaying for a bit, mine laying was at a low level wasn’t it
AG: Oh yes
CB: What height were you doing the mine laying?
AG: About five hundred feet
CB: Right
AG: And erm, after that I think, we were mainly doing supplies, down over France, to anyone who needed it, and we did take some paratroops over there, Occasionally we had some odd characters, there was a bloke arrived there, put his parachute on, and he’d got a very smart suit on and a bowler hat, and he was, we were dropping him outside some village, where he had to get in by himself after he landed, and pretend to be the mayor, which is why he was so smartly dressed [laughs]
CB: This was after D Day, was it?
AG: Oh, yeh, yeh, well after, yeh, and then we were sent down, a little while after that, we were sent down to Italy, ‘cos I think they had some idea of us towing gliders from Italy with heavy equipment across to Greece, but it didn’t come to anything, we been there about four or five days, and the whole thing in Greece, came to a grinding halt, so they just said, no we don’t need you and we came back to England. That picture there, is erm, when we were in Italy, Pomigliano, I think it’s a little aerodrome, not far outside Naples, [pause]. Not that we were looking forward to trying to get off there with gliders, because they’ve got these great big heavy power lines right across the end of the runways, we couldn’t see how the hell we were going to get high enough to get the glider over those
CB: Well, it’s the wrong side
AG: Fortunately, we never had to try
CB: Right, it was the
AG: We were a bit worried about that [laughs]
CB: It was the wrong side of Italy to go to Greece anyway wasn’t it?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh
CB: But, the gliders were on this airfield as, well, were they?
AG: Well, no, we didn’t get as far as that
CB: Right
AG: They would have been coming from somewhere else
CB: Yeh
AG: But they stopped it in the end, said it wasn’t necessary, Greece was in a hell of a mess at the time anyway and our troops were in there, so they didn’t need the gliders, so, go on home, so we went, back to England
CB: What was the balance between supplying, agents, in activity and doing bombing raids?
AG: Very few bombing raids, it was mainly, either supply, or erm, taking people over there. I remember we had to go to an American aerodrome and pick up some American paratroops, I was very sorry for them, ‘cos the sergeant in charge said ‘have you got a gun’ I said ‘well yes, of course I’ve got my usual forty five issue’. He said ‘right, well if the first bloke refuses to jump shoot him, I shall be pushing from the back and you go out anyway’ and I thought well that’s a fine way, and I didn’t even unholster the gun ‘cos I had no intention of doing it, but erm, I’m afraid with some of these Americans I was very sorry for them, they were shit scared and badly trained, still
CB: In what way were they badly trained?
AG: Well, they’d never done a jump before, this is why he thought the bloke in front might stick his toes in and refuse to jump out, ‘cos in the Stirling, it was a big hole in the floor and you went out that way, you didn’t go out the door, ‘cos there was always the danger of being caught by the wing, by the tail, plane as it came by, so, the Stirling had a hole in the floor, and erm, these people hadn’t done any jumps at all
CB: How extraordinary
AG: Yeh well this is it, you know, they got in and clipped on
CB: They had a static line to clip on?
AG: Yeh, that’s right, yeh
CB: But, they all went?
AG: Oh yes, they all went out, no bother at all, but erm, I won’t going to shoot anybody anyway, I was very sorry for them
CB: Now, on the supply raids and when your’e dropping, trips, when your’e dropping material and people, this is largely low level is it?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh,
CB: What sort of height?
AC: Particularly with people because you had to drop them from a reasonable low height, it’s no good chucking a parachute out you know, at eighteen thousand or something like that, and hoping he’s gonna get down to where he should, because if there’s any wind blowing he would land miles away
CB: So, what height were they being dropped?
AG: Oh, between five and six hundred most of them I think, as far as I remember
CB: And most of this is in the dark, is it?
AG: Oh yes, yeh of course
CB: How did the navigator find the target for this, because you’re on your own when you do this?
AG: Oh yes, yes, oh yeh. Well, he was told, you know, where to go and miles from wherever, and er, we just had to find it, or he did
CB: Were there electronic devices used to help?
AG: No, no, we didn’t have anything like that, we had an, erm, sort of a semi radar thing, in the plane which was the start of that sort of thing, but erm
CB: Was that H2S or different?
AG: I have no idea
CB: Or other words, a mapping radar, was it?
AG: Yeh, well, it showed up, you know, things like mountains and things like that, but that was all, I mean it was fairly beginning things
CB: So, when did you start, flying with 620 Squadron?
AG: Erm, [pause], oh dear, [pause], well, it was after I’d done my six months at St Athans, so that would be
CB: So, when did you go to St Athan?
AG: Erm, so that would be erm, [pause] when I were called up, I went to Blackpool, so it would be, erm, [pause] beginning of forty-three, I suppose
CB: For six months?
AG: Yeh [pause], or was it forty-two for six months? and then on, [pause] difficult to remember because
CB: So, when in forty-one did you join, what time of year?
AG: Oh, in the September
CB: Ok, so then you went to Blackpool?
AG: When I was called up, yeh
CB: Yeh
AG: I developed scarlet fever, the week I was called up, so the doctor said I’d got to stay there, I was in bed, with a blanket over the door, which had been sprayed by my mother, to keep the germs in the bedroom [laughs] and then so when I got to Blackpool, I had to report sick with scarlet fever, and the bloke said, ‘how long have you had it’? and I told him, and he said ‘no, that’s alright, you can carry on’ [laughs.] Yes, I remember that, I was sitting there and the nurse came round and said ‘why have you come’ and I said ‘’cos, I’ve got scarlet fever’ and I could see these two blokes, either side, go like that [laughter]
CB: Amazing, [pause] so, how long were you at Blackpool?
AG: Erm, oh, must have been about, I was there quite a long time
CB: You did your square bashing there, did you?
AG: Yeh, must have been, what, three months, oh, we were not only square bashing, I was, out digging in some place where they were putting in, erm, assault courses for people to practice on, we were out digging that, while I was there, they didn’t waste us.
CB: So, that would take you to Christmas?
AG: Yeh
CB: So, you went from Blackpool to St Athan?
AG: Yeh, well, I couldn’t tell you when
CB: So, that sounds like the beginning of forty-two, we’ll check it out anyway
AG: Yeh
CB: And you were there six months, so you would have joined the squadron
AG: Yeh
CB: When?
AG: I went from there, straight to Stradishall and joined up with the crew and then we finished up in Fairford
CB: But, you were involved in operations in D Day?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh
CB: How many tours did you do?
AG: Only the one
CB: Right, and how many ops did you do?
AG: Oh, thirty-two, something like that, just over thirty, a fraction over thirty
CB: I’m going to stop just for a mo.
AG: Yeh, right
CB: We are just going to talk a little bit about the crew, we’ve talked earlier about, when Allen sorted out the fuel distribution arrangements and how they were short of fuel, and that got him accepted, but how did the crew gel?
AG: Oh, very well, erm, our pilot had a car, I don’t know where he got it from, but he had a car at Fairford, and erm, we used to go out at night, to one of the local pubs, all of us
CB: All seven of you?
AG: Yeh, oh yeh, I think we meshed very well actually
CB: Right, and how well equipped were the pubs for supplying thirsty air crew?
AG: Oh, very well, particularly the one we used to go to which had a lot of really nice-looking girls serving there, which always started my pilot, [laughs] away [laughs] if he got half the chance [laughs]
CB: Yeh, and did they ever run out of beer?
AG: No, never, never, yeh
CB: So, part of the crew was commissioned, and part of it was NCO?
AG: Yeh
CB: So, what were your quarters like as an NCO?
AG: What were my what?
CB: Quarters, where were you?
AG: Oh, I was just in a billet with, twelve other people
CB: Right, so, what was the billet, a Nissan hut?
AG: Yeh, a Nissan hut, yeh, and at Fairford, we were right down the bottom of the hill, by the stream, where we could go fishing for trout, very naughty, and we knew what time the bailiff used to come round, and make sure there was nobody fishing in this trout stream, and so, we always used to make sure we weren’t down there when he came by [laughs]. No, I used to like trout, done on a coke stove
CB: Is that the coke stove in the Nissan hut?
AG: Yeh, yeh, that’s all the heat we had in there, was just one of these big coke stoves
CB: So, what was the recipe then, how did you deal with it, so you got the trout?
AG: Oh, put it in a tin on the top, after gutting it and chopping it, putting it on, and just standing it on the stove until it was cooked, knowing what the food was like, you know, we was always trying to add to it [laughs], one way or the other
CB: Were you normally hungry or was the normal amount adequate?
AG: Well, it was for me but I don’t think it was for some of them, but er, no, I always, I always, seemed to get on fairly well. The only funny thing that happened down at that Nissan hut that we were in, eh, one of the blokes had gone into town on his bicycle, when he came back, he’d thrown the bicycle over the fence, not realising, that he’d thrown it into a sewerage pit, so he climbed up and jumped in after it he turned up at the back door of the hut covered in green muck, and we threw things at him until he went away and got in the shower with all his clothes on [laughs] we weren’t going to let him in [laughs] Yeh, I can see that bloke standing there now
CB: How many uniforms did you have? He had to dry it out, first did he?
AG: Er, well, you really had one and a spare which you kept, you kept one, you know, for parades and one thing and another, and a spare, and of course when I became a warrant officer, then I was never short of clothes and it was all extremely smart, and I had more spares than I could cope with
CB: At what stage did you become a warrant officer?
AG: Oh, in my third year, because you went up one rank every year, this is why we had flight lieutenant rear gunner, he’d gone [laughs] gradually up [laughs] anyway
CB: So, you, worked well as a crew?
AG: Oh, yeh, really well
CB: And, erm, how did the food come, if you were flying at night, before you
AG: Well, we had to eat before we went
CB: Right, so what was that
AG: If it was a night flight
CB: Ok, what did you get?
AG: Well, anything that was going, you know, I seem to remember a lot of sausages in those days, I suppose they were easy to come by and easy to make so, they were alright, yeh
CB: Did they keep pigs on the station?
AG: No, not that I ever saw
CB: And, when you landed after an op, what did you get for food?
AG: Eh, well roughly the same thing again, whatever was available, you know, but erm,
CB: Bacon and egg?
AG: Oh yes, yes, we always had that, the only thing that I remember about coming back late one night, before we’d taken off, I’d gone out to the aircraft with a bicycle and had a look round like, as I usually did, and er, when we landed I got on the bike and whizzed off back, and, in the meantime they’d put a barbed wire fence across the bloody path and I rode straight into that and went flying, pitch down, and I got barbed wire cuts all up one arm, and of course, we hadn’t been debriefed or anything, so in between take off and being debriefed, I’d been wounded, I was entitled to a wound stripe, and I thought I shall never have the cheek to wear it, so I didn’t, ‘cos it wasn’t my fault they’d put a barbed wire fence up there
CB: Now, you’ve raised an interesting point there, the wound stripe, how was that allocated and then shown on the uniform?
AG: Well, you had an upside down v, a little red v on the bottom of your left-hand sleeve, I mean I’ve seen
CB: On the wrist?
AG: I saw a bloke once, he’d got fifteen of these all up this arm, so I thought, he must be ruddy unlucky [laughs]
CB: So, this will come as a result of aerial combat of some kind, would it?
AG: Oh yeh, oh yeh
CB: So, how often were you hit and by what?
AG: Well, the only time we were hit, hit badly, was when we were so short of fuel, because they’d absolutely peppered the aircraft, it was full of holes all over, up in, down, and underneath, under the tanks in the wings and everywhere. It was our own fault because we’d arrived ten minutes too late, we blamed the navigator, the rest of the bomber crews had gone on by, so we were flying over Ludwigshafen on our own, we were getting pasted
CB: No fire?
AG: No, fortunately
CB: And er, so that’s flak, so what about fighter attack, how often did you have those?
AG: No, we were lucky, we never had one, ever, [emphasis] although our gunners were ready, but we were lucky to get away with it, particularly when we were doing those Norway trips, ‘cos we’d got no cover there at all, and everything was wide open, you could see our shadow moving across the snow, and this German fighter place up in the north of Denmark, was huge, God knows how many fighters they had there, but we were lucky, we got away with it every time we went to Norway we got away with it without seeing one. The only time we got shot at in Norway, going up the creek to Oslo, and we had to go over Oslo and up into the mountains, to drop this stuff, and in the creek was three islands, one there, one there and one there, and they all had German flak guns on, fortunately, we came in so low that we were leaving a wake up this creek, I looked out and I could see it
CB: On the water?
AG: On the water, and this island was firing at us and hitting the other island, which we thought was quite good [laughs] but when we got to the third one of course, we were just taking a chance, round and round and out quick and after that it was just up over Oslo and into the mountains [pause] interesting, it was only last year that it was in the paper that they found some of this stuff up there that had been dropped, and the people up there never found it
CB: Where they able to find out who had, which aircraft had dropped it?
AG: No, no, they couldn’t find out anything about it at all
CB: So, you said, earlier, that the, Stirling was grossly under-rated, and you thought it was a brilliant aeroplane, what was so special about the Stirling in your perception?
AG: Well, the fact that it was solid metal, you know, it would stand up to practically anything, and only get minor damage, and of course the engines were superb, far better than anything on any of the other aircraft
CB: So, what engines were on the Stirling?
AG: Oh, those Bristol Radials
CB: Hercules
AG: Yeh, I know that we started off with two, two banks of pots and finished up with three, and erm, they were really good, far better than these Merlin engines, ‘cos these would take punishment, the others wouldn’t
CB: Going back to your training, looking at your training manuals, books you filled in, erm, exercise books, when you were training, there, there’s a section on everything but, the significance of the Stirling was it was, it had so much electrics on it, so how well were you prepared at St Athan, for going onto an aircraft that had such a large amount of electrics?
AG: Oh, pretty well, I think I never had any trouble with any of it, the only thing I nearly did one night, was to cook the pigeon, they gave us, in case we came down in the North Sea, and we were sat in a dinghy, there you know, waiting to be rescued, they gave us a pigeon that we could put on out last position and send it off, and I put this pigeon on the floor and I didn’t realise until I got back, that I’d stood it up against this heating pipe that was coming through from one of the engines, I thought the bloody thing will be cooked, but it was perfectly alright, thank goodness [laughs]
CB: Just gone deaf
AG: Well, it must have been warm, which was more than the rest of us were on some of these flights
CB: Where was the warmest part on the aircraft?
AG: At the end of this pipe that was coming through from the inner starboard engine
CB: That was the heater for the fuselage, was it?
AG: Yeh, that’s right, yeh
CB: So, what were the things that were electric, driven electrically, on the Stirling?
AG: Well, practically everything, I mean, I’d got a bank of dials in front of me where I was, which were, erm, you know, gave you an indication of how much fuel was in each tank, ‘cos you had one for each tank, starboard and port, and that was all run by electrics, I mean, if you lost your electrics, you’d got no guides at all, that sort of thing, but we never did, fortunately
CB: And, were any of the flying controls electric?
AG: Ah, the only thing that I knew about, that was my job, was the undercarriage, which was electric, down and up, but, erm, if that had failed I could do that by hand take me about half an hour I should think [laughs] ‘cos it was really hard work, but er, that you could do
CB: And, what about the trimmer? so, in the flying controls, were the trimmers electric?
AG: Erm, yes, but that was done either by the co-pilot, the bomb aimer or the pilot, I never had anything to do with that
CB: You said earlier that you had to stand up all the time, but did you have a seat for take-off and landing?
AG: Well, I had to sit on the parachute
CB: Where?
AG: The type of the parachute was the cushion type, with the two, rings at the back, which you just clicked onto your harness, which was there at the front, you just clicked on, yeh that’s right, on the front, [pause] and as it was that sort of thick, and that big, we used to sit on it
CB: Now, thinking now, about the take-off and landing, as the engineer, to what extent, were you involved in helping with the take-off with the throttles?
AG: Not at all, the pilot did it all and I used to watch the dials and make sure that there was nothing I had to tell him
CB: So, were you sitting next to him at that point, or
AG: No, no I was
CB: You were standing?
AG: No, I was either standing, bouncing up and down on me toes or, sat on the parachute looking at all this, wall of dials in front of me
CB: And erm, with most flight engineer tasks, positions, er, logs had to be taken, so,
AG: Oh yeh
CB: What logging did you do and how often?
AG: Well, you had to do one for every flight
CB: But, during the flight, what did you have to record?
AG: Well, if anything went wrong or, we needed something that wasn’t there or whatever, you had to put it in the log, you know, but erm, I never seemed to have any trouble with that, we were lucky really, we really were lucky
CB: From what you have said, fuel management is a key matter, so, of the tanks, in what sequence did you, use for fuel, you’d have one for take-off and then how did you distribute the fuel?
AG: Well, there was two big tanks, number two and number four, in each wing, and you used those for take-off particularly if you were towing a glider because you used a lot of it, and er, once you were up and on a long, fairly longish flight, because we did, we had to go twelve hours sometimes, which took us nearly down to the Swiss border, to supply, Free French that were in the hills there, in the foothills, and erm, as I said, it was, by the time we got back to base again, we’d been out twelve hours
CB: And erm, in terms of the next range of tanks, how did you switch, in what sequence did you use the fuel?
[background noise]
AG: Well, you used the little ones, number one and number two
CB: Which are on the wing tips?
AG: Number one and number three, out, at the far end, you use those first, on both wings, and you tried to keep them going to the engines, you got [pause] like two engines there, and two engines there and you had to keep them going, from the same tanks, pretty well for the same length of time, so you’d know exactly what type of tank was going to be empty, you didn’t have to look at your dial until it went empty, I mean, you had to do it by time, and er, whatever revs were on the engines
CB: And, setting the revs on the engines, and the pitch of the screws, who dealt, did that?
AG: Oh, that was the pilot, did that
CB: Right
AG: And if you didn’t like what he was doing, you had to tell him and he had to alter it
CB: And to what extent was it necessary to synchronise the engines in flight?
AG: Er, not a lot really, we had an extremely good ground crew and normally we found that they’d adjust, perfectly, [pause] because we really relied on our ground crew a lot and we had four really good blokes
CB: And did they come out with you, in the evenings sometimes or did they?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh, oh yeh, we thought a lot of those fellas, in fact I gave one of them my bike, when I left, when I was posted away from the squadron, erm, I gave him my bicycle, which I was sad about, but, he deserved it
CB: So, you come to the end of your tour, and you did thirty, thirty-two operations, what did you do after that?
AG: Well, we only had one flight after that because the officer’s mess had run out of beer, we had to fly over to Northern Ireland and bring back a load of beer for them [laughs]
CB: Must have been an arduous trip!
AG: Oh yeh, [laughs] because we’d have liked to have gone on over there and done something, really naughty, because at that time the IRA were building bonfires in the shape of arrows, pointing, to where the aerodrome was
CB: Oh, for German bombers?
AG: That’s right, yeh, bastards [emphasis]
CB: And, how long had they been doing that for?
AG: Practically, since the war started
CB: And how were they dealt with?
AG: Well, they should have been bloody shot, but we never got around to it! It’s like that bloke McGuiness, I mean he’s in the Irish government now, he was the one that started that Bloody Sunday, he was the one on top with the rifle, firing at our troops what did they think, that we weren’t going to fire back? I don’t know, that bastard should have been shot, and you can write that down and put my name on it [laughs]
CB: So, the arrows bit is interesting, how long did that go on for?
AG: Oh, quite a long time during the war, [pause] yeh, swines
CB: And, what did the beer taste like when you got it back
AG: Oh, that weren’t for us, that was for the officer’s mess, we weren’t allowed to touch it
CB: Didn’t you sample it to make sure it was ok?
AG: No
CB: So, your last flight was keeping them topped up, then what did you do? So, you’ve left the squadron now
AG: Oh, well, I was erm, posted away then, and er, [pause] and finished up at a place called Burnham Beeches
CB: In Buckinghamshire?
AG: Yeh, and erm
CB: What happened there?
AG: Well, nothing really, I don’t think they knew what to do with us, I mean that was where I learnt how to play tennis, one of the blokes there, he’d been champion of Yorkshire for two or three years, and he gave me one of his racquets, and I’ve still got it, I’d still use it, if I played tennis, which I thought was very nice of him, and er, we went rowing on the river there and all sorts of things. As I said they didn’t know what to do with us, we were just keeping out the way
CB: So, we’re after Arnhem now aren’t we, so
AG: Oh yeh
CB: So, what sort of time are we talking about? In the autumn or are we later?
AG: Oh erm, [pause] now, I think I went there if I remember rightly, I went there in er, January, February somewhere like that, fairly early
CB: Forty-five
AG: At Burnham Beeches and we were erm, we’d taken over this big country house that was there, and erm, they just kept the top floor, to live in, and we had the offices all down below, and er, working in there
CB: Doing what?
AG: Well, I was sat in the office there, and it was a most peculiar effort, if they, had a man posted from Edinburgh to Glasgow, an RAF policeman, he had to come all the way down to us, be booked into my office and booked out again, and given travel warrants and away he went, most peculiar efforts, still there you are, you wondered who was running these things sometimes
CB: And then after, how long did that go on for?
AG: Oh, I think I was there for about erm, three or four months [background noise] and then I was posted to Leicester
CB: Leicester East? The airfield, Leicester East?
AG: Oh no, no, no, no, just somewhere in Leicester, erm, and erm, I was there for about a fortnight or so I think, and then I went back to Burnham Beeches and got discharged, and went to London and picked up my civvies
CB: Then what? So, you’re discharged, demobbed, what did you do then?
AG: Well, I went home and had a week off and then I went back to work for the Danish Bacon company, shit house firm
[background laughter]
CB: Would you like to explain why they were like that? What was it that was so upsetting about the Danish Bacon
AG: Well, because I’d
CB: Company
AG: Been here for nearly forty years, until I got another job and I wanted to take my pension and money, put it into this new firm and they were going to treat it as though I’d been there all the time, so I’d have had a really good pension when I did eventually retire, but they wouldn’t do it, they made me take all the money out and it was only what I’d paid in, nothing of theirs, and I had to take it out as my last week’s wages and the income tax was unbelievable, not a nice firm, fortunately, they went out of business after that
CB: Right, so
AG: It went broke
CB: When did you leave them?
AG: Ah, [pause] I’m scratching for the year, [pause] I can’t remember to be honest
CB: So, you left the RAF in forty-five
AG: Yeh
CB: How long did you stay with the Danish Bacon people?
AG: Er, oh another [pause] eight or nine years
CB: Then what?
AG: Then I got this offer of this new job
CB: At?
AG: Patrick Grainger and Hutley’s, at Fordingbridge
CB: What were you doing there?
AG: I was assistant manager and I was also travelling round, seeing some of their customers, and building up trade of course
CB: Ok, we’ll just have a break there, thank you
CB: So, you kept staying, kept with Patrick Grainger, who’d then been taken over by Danish Bacon until you retired after forty years. We are now going back to flying, so when you were flying Allen, as the engineer, you had to log various things because it was important to see how the plane was performing. What were you logging?
AG: Well, if you have a look at this, its erm, oil pressure, oil temperatures and cylinder temperatures
CB: Right, ok, and how often were you doing that? Did you have to do it at a particular time? Every hour?
AG: Yeh, well, this, if you look at the times down the left-hand side, its roughly about every fifteen minutes, I think
CB: Right
AG: But, I had another line, right the way across
CB: Yeh, so, when you got back, you, the aircraft lands, we didn’t get on to debrief, but, you’re the engineer, when you get out of the aircraft, who’s the first person you speak to, is that the Chiefy?
AG: Erm
CB: Your ground engineer?
AG: No, I wouldn’t see anybody until I got back into the debriefing hut
CB: Ok, so at debriefing, what would you be doing?
AG: Well, I had to hand my log in
CB: Right
AG: And erm,
CB: That you’d been completing in the flight?
AG: That’s right, yeh this one
CB: Yeh, ok, and then what, who was the person that looked at that?
AG: Well, they used to take them all away, and erm, if I remember rightly, it was the chap who was in charge of all the, erm, maintenance and all that stuff, he’d go through it, and any anomalies he’d then probably come, and ask you what happened then and [unclear]
CB: This would be the station engineering officer?
AG: Yeh
CB: Who would be dealing with all of that or one of his erm, people?
AG: Well, it was a bloke in charge of erm, all the ground crews
CB: Yeh, yeh
AG: He’d want to see that
CB: Now, would you then join the rest of the crew for the crew debriefing, what would happen?
AG: Oh yeh, yeh, we would all go and sit down together
CB: Where would that be and who would you see?
AG: Well, the CO would be there and a couple of his underlings and erm, they’d just go through the whole thing, right from the take off and erm, and talk to the pilot about what happened here and what happened there, and did he have any trouble, and went right through and made sure that we’d put either the bombs in the right place or erm, or supplied the people that were in the exact same spot that they were supposed to be in, because sometimes all you would get was one bloke flashing a morse letter on his torchP particularly if we were on one of those Norway trips, we used to go miles over the snow, and there would be some poor bugger right up in the mountains, with his torch, and then we would drop all these containers down there, so, what they did with them after that I don’t know, whether they towed them away or what
CB: So, the debrief, covers all the aspects of the flight?
AG: Yeh, oh yeh
CB: And, bearing in mind in many cases, your, you were a special duties squadron, so you were supplying SOE, to what extent were there SOE people there, during the debrief?
AG: Well, we assumed that, you know, there would be one or two officers there that we didn’t know where they come from, so it would have been them
CB: They were the air force officers?
AG: Yeh, it was either SOE or SAS
CB: Right
AG: Yeh
CB: What was the most memorable thing about your operational career, on operations?
AG: Oh, that one when we just got back with hardly any fuel, [laughs] the only thing that stands out in my mind
CB: Now, the aircraft had been peppered, pretty badly, why was it, it didn’t catch fire?
AG: Well, it was the way they were built, this is why we like the Stirling’s, there was nothing there to catch fire
CB: Did you have self-sealing fuel tanks?
AG: Well, up to a certain point but, that time we got caught with it, I mean, it had blown a hole about that big and of course that self-sealing didn’t work, over that size
CB: But the tank was empty anyway?
AG: Well, yeh, I ran all four engines on it, until I could see there was nothing left, and just went switching from one to another, then eking it out as well as I could, until we got back, right [hand clap] good
CB: Finally, where did you meet your wife?
AG: Ah, when I was at St Athans
CB: And what was she doing there?
AG: Well, she was doing this erm, mechanics training course, which she finished up doing, erm, I don’t think she was ever on, erm, an operating squadron, er, she was at this aerodrome down by Exeter, I went down there to see her once or twice, and erm, you know, that was it
CB: Was she on the flight line looking after the aircraft, or in the hangar?
AG: Oh, both, because erm, the only thing she ever moaned about it was the fact that they were working out in the rain, with no cover and erm, the only way they could get dry was to go in and stand with all their clothes on by this coke stove, get it red hot and stand there and hope their clothes dried, which is why she finished up with really bad arthritis in her legs, I reckon, because of that
CB: So, when did you meet her, oh you met her when you were at St Athan
AG: Yeh
CB: When did you marry?
AG: Oh, about er, about ten years later [pause] I can’t remember what year it was that we got married, no idea
CB: Sounds like about nineteen fifty-three?
AG: Hmm, probably, somewhere around there [background talking] yeh, one thing I should remember and I don’t
CB: Thank you very much
AG: Oh, it’s alright sir
CB: On the minelaying, you were talking about, so this is, the other side, having to fly the other side of Denmark
AG: Yeh
CB: How did that raid go, were you high up and then went down or, and how did you do the mining run
AG: Well, it was our first op that was, erm, well it was just a question of relying on the navigator, ‘cos I didn’t know where we were going, and erm, anyway, we had to come down really low, off this island I think it was called [unclear] Byrum [?] and er, drop these mines right across the erm, entrance to the harbour. If anything had come in there, they would have gone off, so, and then we came back, and flew up between the other side of Denmark and Sweden, and watched all Sweden being lit up, lights on the piers and all the way along the sea front, looked beautiful, we ain’t seen anything like that for years
CB: And then you were, we’ve got a picture here, of your, aircraft, on the flight line ready for take-off for Arnhem, so, could you talk us through that one?
AG: Well, erm
CB: What were you carrying?
AG: Well, the first day was alright, we were just carrying supplies, the only thing that buggered up Arnhem was the Americans, again, as usual. Erm, our troops took the first bridge, the Americans were supposed to take the second one, and we dropped our troops on the third one, and they’re the ones we were supplying, and erm, of course the Americans made a cock of it and couldn’t take theirs, which left our blokes on the third bridge sticking out on their own, and unfortunately, the intelligence was so bad, that nobody realised that, just a little way, away from there, there was, a big mass of Germans, who had taken back for a rest from the Russian front, and they had got their tanks and everything there, and our blokes on the third bridge didn’t stand a chance. They were gradually surrounded, erm, we went over there again and dropped more supplies, but the third day when we went over there, we didn’t realise but we were dropping to the Germans, and that we were sitting ducks at that height, fortunately, our pilot decided not to climb away and leave us vulnerable, he went down even further, and went in between the two milk factory chimneys and came out over the sea, clever bloke
CB: At what height were you dropping?
AG: Oh, about five hundred feet
CB: And how much stuff did you drop, it was in containers with parachutes, was it?
AG: No, it was all in, yeh, it was all in containers with parachutes, because we were, the first and second time actually dropping to our troops, it was the third time when we weren’t and didn’t realise it
CB: What was in the containers?
AG: Oh, small arms and food and supplies, and all that sort of thing
CB: Right, anything else? Good, thank you
AG: And we were erm, the planes were being loaded up, for supplies to the French, in some area, and er, we were walking out and one of the containers fell out the plane, and hit the ground, so we all went flat, so we thought knowing what was likely to be in them. Anyway, when the dust had settled and they hadn’t gone off, we walked over and had a look in this container, half of it was full of socks and the other half was full of durex, and I thought the French don’t need those [laughter] and they don’t use them anyway, [laughter] and I thought well, that’s a bloody fine thing, we are risking our necks taking over socks [emphasis] and anyway [laughter] that’s what wars all about I suppose
CB: They’d say that’s what they put in them before they chucked it
AG: Yeh, I’d forgotten, yeh, I’d forgotten about that, and I suddenly thought about this thing dropping down, and we all dived flat, because we reckoned it was going to blow up, but it didn’t, and we walked over to have a look, and that what was in it, socks and durex [laughs]
[Other] That’s the first time I’d heard Dad be angry about the Americans
AG: They were normally shit scared and badly trained
CB: The Americans?
AG: Yeh
CB: Right, erm, thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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AGouldAG160708
Title
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Interview with Allen Geoffrey Gould
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:10:32 audio recording
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Date
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2016-07-08
Description
An account of the resource
Allen Gould grew up in Bournemouth and worked for the Danish Bacon company until volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron from RAF Fairford. Post war, he married his wife, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. He returned to the Danish Bacon company and worked there for another forty years.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Norway
Wales
England--Gloucestershire
England--Suffolk
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Italy
Italy--Pomigliano d'Arco
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Chris Cann
620 Squadron
aircrew
animal
bombing
flight engineer
mine laying
RAF Fairford
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/188/3512/PWardC-M1609.2.jpg
f90d4fbaaa1556accc59969f06af006b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/188/3512/AWardC-M160219.2.mp3
fd12fd656fedc1f1c9c5db125ddaf11e
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
Ward, Charles and Margaret
C W Ward
M Ward
Margaret Pratt
M Pratt
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with cipher operator, Sergeant Charles William Ward (7015946, British Army) and wireless operator, Margaret Ward née Pratt (17546, First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). Both served in the Special Operation Executive in North Africa, Italy and Greece. The collection also contains a diary, British Army paperwork, and four photographs.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Charles and Margaret Ward and was catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-18
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ward, C-M
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.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
CB: My name is Chis Brockbank and its Friday the 19th of February 2016 and I’m in Aylesbury with Charles and Margaret Ward, both of whom were in the SOE, the organisation people weren’t supposed to know about but, er, was dealing with clandestine work not just in Europe but elsewhere. And I’m going to start talking with Charles with his earliest recollections and how he came to join the SOE and what he did. So Charles what’s the starter on that?
CW: I was born in Yorkshire in a mining village and, um, eventually went to school at, a grammar school, and eventually I — there was no, very much work around up there but eventually an uncle and aunt came to visit us, who lived in Dartford in Kent, and they said where he worked it was a printing firm in Dartford, and where he worked they needed an apprentice, and I was fifteen at the time and they said if I would like to I could come and live with them and be trained as a compositor. So, I jumped at the chance and so I moved down to Dartford in Kent and, er, was being trained as a compositor. When the war clouds were gathering around, er, the Government decided that twenty-year-olds would be called up and trained ready for war and I received papers to join the Royal Artillery on Salisbury Plains but before the due date to report I was — war was declared — and I was called up to the London Irish Rifles and had to report to a station in London and, um, reported there. From there, from there we then trained onto the London Underground and taken to Southfield Station in South West London, um, marched down the road to Barkers Sports Ground, next to Wimbledon Tennis courts, where we were to do all our square bashing and training. And this happened for several weeks, er, before we were fully trained and then from then on we were stationed in many parts in England, various places, and eventually the battalion was training new recruits to go and be transferred out to other units and, um, I got fed up with the repetition that this was giving us [slight laugh] and by that time the Bat— the Battle of Britain had started and they were running short of pilots so they said they’d like volunteers from the Army to join the Air Force, so I volunteered. I was taken down to London, interviewed and passed all the tests and they said, ‘We’ll train you as a pilot. Go back to your unit and then you’ll hear from us.’ Having got back to my unit the, um, we was — then a few weeks later I — they stopped all transfers to the Air Force. We were taken up to Scotland to join a special unit being formed of tanks and artillery. This was prior to being shipped out to North Africa. So we went out to North Africa and landed at Algiers. From there we moved forward up into Tunisia where we had over a year of fighting the Germans in North Africa. It was quite a horrendous time really. We lost quite a few of our people and I have been out since to visit the graves of three of my men that got killed out there. And then, stop, I don’t know where I’ve got to.
CB: So we’ve talked about Charles joining in 1940. Then he moved around a lot he said. What, what were you doing in that time specifically?
CW: We were doing guard duty on airfields and RAF records office and things like that. I distinctly remember my twenty-first birthday was on guard duty at the RAF offices in the snow [laugh] and, er, after that we were training up people being drafted in to us and then once they were trained they were drafted out to other units. And this was getting too boring so I volunteered for the RAF and got accepted and, having got accepted, they then decided that our unit would join a special unit being assembled in Scotland ready to go out to North Africa of tanks and artillery.
CB: So which year are we in now?
CW: That’s 1942.
CB: Right. Operation Torch.
CW: Yes.
CB: Right, OK. And where did you land?
CW: We landed in Algiers. It was a troop carrier just in, in the port in Algiers. We were then trained and taken up the coast to towards Tunisia where we were then taken into the mountains, er, as a defence ready for attacking the Germans.
CB: And were you at this stage on tanks or were you on anti-tank weapons or what were you doing, infantry?
CW: We didn’t see the tanks in, on that occasion apart from on the plain, the Gudlat [?] plain in front of us. You could see the tanks moving but we were stationary until we did an attack one day on hill 286 and, um, we had we had to move from our position in broad daylight to get into positon to start an attack the next morning at dawn and this was in full view of the enemy and I said to my people, ‘As soon as we get in the middle of this area we’re gonna — all hell will break loose. We shall be bombed.’ Which we were and the only casualty we had was our platoon commander got shrapnel in his back and we eventually dropped into a wadi, which I thought would be quite safe, and we moved down this wadi and — to get to the position where we would form up for the attack the next morning. And, er, moving down this wadi what I heard from nowhere, I don’t understand where it came from, which is probably my guardian angel, one word which said, ‘Run.’ So I shouted to my chaps, ‘Come on!’ Ran down the wadi, turned the bend and no sooner got round the bend then a shell fell right in the wadi, injured three of my people. I went back, patched them up as best I could and stayed with them until the stretcher bearers came, er, then continued on to do the attack the following morning. The following morning we did this attack, um, because we’d lost our platoon commander the, the other two platoons were in advance and we were in reserve and we went over the hill and nothing happened; over the second hill, nothing happened; over the third hill and all hell broke loose and they, they were just machine-gunned. We lost about seventy-five per cent of our personnel during that battle [sniff] and then we were formed up in, dropped into the wadi again, for protection, stayed there overnight but at dawn the next morning there was a counter attack, so we just had to get out of it and, er, we all retreated and after that battle we were rested, er, and [sniff] can you stop a minute? [background noise]
CB: Right, we’re just getting a bit more detail on this [clears throat].
CW: When the attack went in and the two platoons in front were machine-gunned, um, the rest of us were left in a large depression in the ground being shelled and I suddenly discovered with us was a, a Royal Artillery observation officer with a wireless set and he, he ordered me to the top of the hill to find out where the gun was firing from. So, off I went to the top of the hill, saw that it was coming from a farmhouse down on the plain, got back to where our positon was and found out a shell had dropped exactly where I had been lying.
CB: Wow.
CW: So, um, that was —
MW: Smokescreen.
CW: Yeah. He then ordered a smokescreen and we were then able to get back to the wadi and then —
CB: He got his guns to fire a smokescreen?
CW: Yeah. He radioed back and got the guns to put a smokescreen down so that we could get out. So, off we went and back to this wadi and from the wadi we had the counter-attack. So we had to retreat and reform up eventually with only twenty-five per cent of the battalion.
CB: Amazing. OK. So then you rested a bit, then what?
CW: We, we were rested and re-enforced and we did an exercise, which was a ten mile march and, er, did a mock attack of house clearing, during which I banged a knee, which had been damaged in football previously, which began to swell and we did a ten mile walk, marched back and half way back I was limping with this knee problem. The CO drew up in a truck beside me and said, ‘What’s your trouble?’ [slight laugh] And I said, ‘I just banged it and, you know, it’s swollen up.’ He said, ‘On the truck. Report sick when you get back.’ Which I did and, er, we had hot and cold compresses and [unclear] on it, which had no effect whatsoever and eventually they said, ‘Well, you’re no good to be infantry. We’ll have to down-grade you.’ So, from being A1 I was downgraded to B1, sent back to a transit camp at Philippeville. There with — I couldn’t walk about because it was painful, I had nothing to read and it was so boring [slight laugh] I was just going mad. I then was transferred to another transit camp at Algiers, just outside Algiers, and same thing, nothing happening, nobody took any notice of us. We just stagnated there until one day on the notice board there came a notice to say that an education unit would be arriving and anybody could volunteer and they would try and find you something to do. So, I was top of the list and they came. Education test in the morning: English, maths, geometry [?], starting from the simplest and going up as far as you can, even Pythagoras and beyond if you could. And whilst they marked the papers in the afternoon they would give us a mechanical aptitude test. They threw you a locking piece and said, ‘Put that together and then you’re going for an interview.’ And, um, the officer said to me, ‘What would you like to do?’ And I said, ‘I’d heard they were starting an Army newspaper in Algiers and I was a compositor. I would go on the army newspaper.’ And he just laughed and said, ‘I don’t think there’s not much chance of that. What else would you like to do?’ So I said, ‘I don’t care as long as I do something. I’m going mad just doing nothing.’ He said, ‘I think you’d make a good cipher operator’. I said, ‘Suits me.’ [slight laugh] A week later I’m called into the office and given a move— moving order. There were six of us on this moving order and I walked outside, quickly looked to see where we were going to — no destination. So I shot into the office and said, ‘There’s no destination on here.’ ‘You’re being picked up,’ he said. So, the driver came and I said, ‘Where are we going?’ And he said, ‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’ [laugh] So, I wondered what I’d landed myself in for. Off we went in the truck and the other side of Algiers it was a, a large holiday home complex built on the sands, villas all on the sands, being surrounded by barbed wire, guards on the gate, and in we went. Going inside there was Army, Navy, Air Force, civilians, and everybody including girls [augh] and this was a radio station which was — belonged to SOE, working to the agents in France and Italy and Yugoslavia. There I was trained as a cipher operator and worked there for quite — a year, worked there for a year. During that time the sergeants’ mess decided that for entertainment we would do dinner dances about every fortnight and invite the FANY girls who were on the camp. They were radio operators and secretaries and, um, there we had these dinner dances. I teamed up with a Margaret, a different Margaret, I teamed up with a Margaret as a dancing partner until such time she went on leave and then I teamed up with Margaret, who’s now my wife, and we had a year working together on the same camp until such time I got a moving order to say I had to go to Yugoslavia. We exchanged addresses and said, ‘If you’re my way pop in, you know, it would be good to see you.’ And, er, off I went to the airport. We had to fly to Bari, then down to Taranto and then get the boat over to Yugoslavia. Having got to the airport there was the most violent thunderstorm. The plane couldn’t take off so a twenty-four-hour delay. Took off the next night. Halfway across the Med, er, one of the twin engine, one of the engines of this twin engine Dakota, started misfiring so the pilot said, ‘We’ll never make it over the mountains to Bari. We’ll have to land Naples.’ So, down we went to Naples, another delay. Eventually we got to Bari, walked into the office in Bari and they said, ‘Oh, sorry. We’ve sent people from here to Yugoslavia. You’ll have to take their place here.’ So, er, settled in at Bari. So, a month later I’m de-ciphering a message which said the following FANYs will be joining your unit so I quickly looked down and fou— found Margaret Pratt was on the list. And I quickly made contact with Margaret and we had another year together in Torre al Mare, just below Bari, in Italy. There we got engaged. Can you stop there?
CB: So, we’ve talked about you being in Algiers and then going to Bari in Italy. At this time you’re a trained cipher operator but what exactly did a cipher operator do?
CW: He made plain language into codes which could be transmitted by wireless and we started off with the agent had, um, a book, a book and we had to copy exactly the same and they, um, used pages and lines and the number of words in the line on squared paper. And then the A in the line was numbered 1 and second A, 2 and all through the alphabet. So we had numbers on top of the lines and then you read down and wrote across for a second identical one. So it’s a double transposition and, um, this was then transmitted by wireless and the agent could reverse the process the other end to get the plain language out but it had to be exactly right because if they made a mistake or if you made a mistake it was indecipherable. So, we had a number of indec— indecipherables obviously and when we weren’t busy with doing traffic at the time we had to work on the indecipherables to see — and we got to know that some agents did certain things so we could remember and do exactly the same to get them back to plain language. And then eventually we moved on to one-time pads which were figures, er, which were just ad-lib figures, you know, nothing about them. So, you had a one-time pad and the agent had a one-time pad and they had theirs on silk, printed on silk, which was easily got rid of if, er, if they had to if they were captured.
CB: So, here we are in a situation where you’re in the home station and the agent is, in this case, Yugoslavia, how did they get out there, the agents, and the, other staff?
CW: They had submarines and boats, um, which went across at night and this is one of the things that we decipherers had to send the night recognition signals and the places where they were going to be landed so that was — and if, if they didn’t get the recognition signals by flashlight they would— they wouldn’t row ashore.
CB: Right, and to which extent were aircraft used in this job from Italy?
CW: They, they were used as well to drop agents in, er, mostly dropping them rather than landing them. All the landing I think was done by sea.
CB: So, would they take any equipment with them or would that be a separate sortie in order to supply them?
CW: Mostly they took their wireless sets with them but, er, if they got damaged or anything we had to drop others by parachute.
CB: OK, and did they stay they all the time or were they plucked out every so often?
CW: They came back for reports occasionally.
CB: They did? Right. What was the survival rate like?
CW: We don’t know really because it never, the news never got to us.
CB: Right. I’ll just pause there a mo. It’s just worth stating here that this isn’t a regular Army operation, this is SOE, so you had a reporting line that wasn’t directly in the Army was it?
CW: No it wasn’t but before the SOE this is, I was on a football match, um, when we — after the North African campaign finished, um, on the touchline watching the football, and the CO came round and pulled me out and he said, ‘I understand they accepted you for training as a pilot two or three years ago?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ He said, ‘They want to know if you’ll volunteer as a glider pilot.’ Which was obviously for the invasion of Sicily of Italy and I politely refused. I really didn’t fancy not having an engine with me.
CB: Yeah. Interesting so this is your CO? How did the rankings go? I mean, that was the same as a military rank but you were kept separate, same as an army rank.
CW: Well this is Army, before the SOE.
CB: This was before, sorry, right. So, now going to SOE, what, how were you categorised there in terms of — because you were separated, how did that work?
CW: We were still Army ranks and obtensibly in the Army, what they call it? Signals unit. The stations had various names. The one in Algiers was called ISU6 or Massingham. We had an air, an aerodrome at Blida, inland, where the dropping containers were filled for dropping in southern France.
CB: So, Massingham is the, the station code name for North Africa in Algiers?
CW: Yeah. That was the station called Massingham, yes.
CB: Yeah. So, was there a dedicated airfield for your people?
CW: Blida. Well it was at Blida but because it was so secret [slight laugh] it wasn’t, er, common knowledge. We also had a submarine in the harbour at Algiers.
CB: Oh did you?
CW: That went over to France and surfaced and rowed people ashore, yes.
CB: So, you were training people, were you? To go to Blida, the aircraft, Air Force station before being delivered or were they trained before they came to you?
CW: They were trained on the camp at Massingham.
CB: They were? Right. Yeah. And this is really for supplying France before you got, before the North African war finished, is that it?
CW: No, that’s after the war had finished.
CB: It had finished. OK, so when you went to Italy, to Bari, that was well after the invasion of Italy?
CW: Yes. The war was going up. Po valley was still a war zone, up in the Po valley.
CB: Right up in the north, yes, so they had capitulated anyway but we’re talking about 1944, are we?
CW: Yes that’s right. It was at the tail end of the war.
CB: OK, so how did it progress after this supply you were talking about, Yugoslavia. How long did that go on for and what happened afterwards?
CW: Well, that was quite involved because, um, you had Mihailović they backed to start with and eventually they moved over to Tito and —
CB: Mihailović was the loyalist, royalist? Yeah.
CW: I think most of the people were more concerned with what happened after the war rather than what was happening during the war.
CB: Right, so Tito was the communist and he was the one you were backing then?
CW: Yes, that’s right.
CB: OK, so we’ve come to — have come to the end, have we reached the end of the war yet or did you go somewhere after Bari?
CW: Yeah, when the war finished —
CB: What did you do?
CW: I did, er, a quick course on Typex machines, which is a keyboard, and then transferred to Athens where I spent a few months before being shipped home for demob.
CB: And what did you do in Athens?
CW: Well, basically enjoyed ourselves [laugh]. There was nothing much to do really. The war was over and we just had various messages to transmit, encipher and decipher but not many.
CB: Right, right. So, just going back a bit on the SOE front, the ordinary forces didn’t know about SOE?
CW: No.
CB: And how did you explain away that you were separated from them and why?
MW: We never mixed with them did we?
CW: Yeah. It didn’t occur. The only time we had any trouble really, if any of our people were picked up by the military police and then they were [laugh] had to be got out of gaol, as it were, by people from our camp, to go and say well, ‘These are our people. You’ll have to let them go.’
CB: But not knowing, not telling them why?
CW: Yes. ‘Cause the Unit said they didn’t know about ISSU6 and Force 399 and Force 133 —
CB: OK.
CW: All odd names they had.
CB: Yeah. So mentioning those, in sequence, what were they? So, ISSU6 iss MI6?
CW: ISSU6 was at Algiers but it was also called Massingham.
CB: Right. OK.
CW: And then going to Italy it was Force 399.
CB: Right. OK. Technically a signals unit as far as you were concerned?
CW: Yes.
CB: OK. Then what, what else were there in titles? What were you called when you went to Athens?
CW: I was back in the Army then. I was transferred from SOE back into the Army.
CB: Oh were you?
CW: After the war was over and trained on Typex machines and doing enciphering and deciphering for the Services.
CB: Right, so in the light of the fact the SOE was the “invisible force” you couldn’t talk about it. How did you assimilate back into the army without people tumbling to what you’d been doing?
CW: Nobody ever asked any questions, just assumed that I’d been transferred from a different army unit.
CB: Right. Right. OK. [background noise]
CW: Initially training on rifles.
CB: In the Army.
CW: In the Army on Rifles, Bren guns, and the PIAT, the projector [?] infantry anti-tank gun, but with the SOE there was no need to carry arms at all.
CB: So you went, after the end of the war in Europe, you returned, you reverted to the regular Army. Was that the point at which you did?
CW: Back, back into signals.
CB: VE, on VE Day.
CW: Yes.
CB: Right.
CW: Yes, into Signals and posted to Athens.
CB: Yeah, and what happened in Athens? Did you stay there right until your demob in 1946?
CW: Yes, I was demobbed from Athens, back to Taranto all the way up to Italy.
CB: By train.
CW: Up the French coast by train.
CB: Then after the war what did you do Charles?
CW: After the war, interestingly enough, um, I made straight for somewhere I’d only been once before which was Southfield Station, where I marched the other way down Wimbledon Park Road to where Margaret’s parents had a house [laugh] met her [laugh] and where we got married. So, having started the war there I ended it there.
CB: That’s where you met Margaret in the first place was it?
CW: No, Algiers. I met her in Algiers where I met her in the first place.
CB: Oh you didn’t meet her until then even though she was on the doorstep. Right. So, you’re out of the Army, what did you do then?
CW: Continued my training as a compositor for, er, six months before I was fully qualified, worked at two or three printing offices before joining the News, Chronicle and Star newspapers.
CB: And how long did you work there or what did you do there? Did you always do compositing or did you do something different later?
CW: I was a Lerner type operator and I —
CB: Which is a type of printing machine.
CW: Yes, it does the metal from which you print the newspaper from and, um, I did this and until such time as the owner of the News, Chronicle and Star decided to sell the newspaper and we were made redundant. From there I went on to the Daily Mirror as a Lerner type operator until such time photo composition came in. And I’d done some teaching at the London College of Printing and kept up with technology so I knew a little bit about this. So I was one of twenty people who were training the rest of the staff at the Daily Mirror in the new technology, um, until such time everybody was trained up and they employed another hundred people while we trained them and then when these, they’d all been trained they asked for vol— volunteers for redundancy so I retired two years early.
CB: And in retirement what have you been doing?
CW: In retirement [laugh] we bought —
CB: Well, its some thirty years ago.
CW: We then bought another nine and a half acre smallholding [laugh] which was basically to help our two sons out. They bought a business with agriculture machine and they had nowhere to store it so we decided this, this [cough] could be where they could store it but we didn’t bargain on nine and half acres with thirteen triple-span greenhouses [laugh] so, so we worked there, we filled these with strawberries which was a nightmare because, um, we had to employ many people, picking strawberries, and because they were in greenhouses they had to be very careful they didn’t touch the strawberries themselves. They had to pick them by the stalk and, of course, we had to employ all sorts of people and this went on until such time as the Ministry of Agriculture asked us to do, to do an experiment with a new variety they’d brought in from Holland. So, they supplied us with the plants for a whole greenhouse and these we grew until such time they were ready for harvest and, er, Margaret went out one day and these nice looking strawberries were all flopped and this was vine weevil. They’d got into the plants and as they — it spread so quickly everywhere we had to have the whole of the greenhouses sterilised and, um, and then we, then we went over to the production of asparagus. We filled them with asparagus.
CB: Less temperamental.
CW: [slight laugh] And didn’t need so many people to harvest.
CB: Yeah. Right.
MW: We did that for twenty, twenty-seven years.
CB: So asparagus worked as well as a good earner.
MW: Oh yes.
CW: Well, because it was early we got it in early in the greenhouses it commanded a good price and we took it, had it shipped down to Convent garden
MW: And Spittalfields.
CW: Yeah and one day, um, the wholesaler phoned up and said, ‘That lot you sent today, we want the same lot tomorrow. It’s going to the, um, the Queen’s banquet when Lech Walesa comes over.’ [laugh] Which was rather —
CB: All the way from Poland.
CW: Yeah.
CB: Gosh. Right. What did you do? Did you sell it or the kids ran it?
CW: Well, we ran it until — how long ago is it? Ten years ago now?
MW: Ten, yes.
CW: And then we sold it and retired.
CB: Aged eighty-six. Yes. Very good. We’ll stop there a mo. [pause] So, we’ve talked about the fact that when you were in the war your unit was quite separate from anyone else so there wasn’t a temptation to get into conversations with other units [clears throat] about what you did. But after the war, we’re now in civilian life, people tend to be nosy. To what extent did the, er, history of your experiences in the war come up in conversation and how did you avoid indicating anything about SOE?
CW: By and large for myself because I done quite a bit in the army proper, as it were, I could say what there was to be told about that and keep quiet about SOE.
CB: But did you have to be on your guard all the time?
CW: Not much. I don’t remember people, you know, delving deep about these things at all.
CB: No. So, why didn’t people talk about their experiences in the war?
CW: I think they were just happy that the war was over —
MW: And they wanted to forget it.
CW: They’d had a tough time, er, rationing was still in being. So I think they were just happy to get on with their lives and rebuild the —
MW: And we, we started a family straight away didn’t we?
CW: Yes.
MW: And you just put the rest all behind you. I mean they, they like, they like the fact now that we have kept records and they’ve got it all down now.
CB: Yeah, but in the earlier time when children are younger children have a huge curiosity so to what extent did they try to prompt you to tell you, tell them.
CW: I don’t remember them ever asking about the war. It’s not until you get into the teens or older that people begin to enquire.
CB: So at what stage do you think it was the wraps came off and you were about to talk about SOE freely.
CW: Well, it was after sixty years.
MW: Yeah. Once there started being publications. I mean I’ve got, I’ve got one that’s got my —
CW: Photograph in, yeah.
MW: Yeah, one, er, that the FANY officer did. The book “In Obedience To Instructions” is the title of the book, um, and the other girl who was at university [background noise] who got, got us to supply her with information. And I mean in the thing, you know, they put at the back, people that have contributed information —
CB: The credits at the back
MW: But that was well, well on.
CB: We’re talking about the ‘90s?
CB: Before the sixty years were up, um, certain publications began coming out by the higher ups more than we did. [background noise]
CB: Yeah, OK. Right. Thank you. So, after talking with Charles we’ll move to Margaret —
MW: Yeah, I’m going to move out to the bathroom, OK?
CB: That’s alright. What was the thing that was most memorable in what you did then Charles?
CW: [slight laugh] A message from Mr Churchill to his son Randolph, who was in Yugoslavia, to say, ‘Congratulations on your birthday’ [laugh] and one going back the other way from Randolph to Mr Churchill saying, ‘Congratulations on your last speech.’ [laugh]
CB: Which you could take how you like. [laugh]
MW: When you got the phone call from, from Gubbins you didn’t know it was him.
CB: And the other, other funny one, yeah — Gubbins being the top man.
CW: Top man in SOE.
CB: Yeah.
CW: In Algiers I was on duty, on night duty, and the phone rang and I picked up the receiver, ‘Will you come down to villa number so-and-so?’ I can’t remember the number. ‘I’ve got an urgent message for London.’ ‘I’ll send someone down,’ I said. ‘You’ll come down yourself.’ Bang went the phone [laugh]. When I got down there [laugh] it was Colonel Gubbins, head of —
CB: And you didn’t know he’d come there?
CW: Didn’t even know he was on the camp.
CB: Such was the secrecy of what you did that nobody knew who was anywhere I suppose.
CW: Obviously he’d been the Cairo.
CB: And he was on his way back.
CB: One final thing, did you have a code name?
CW: No but agents did.
CB: Right. Now we are going to talk with Mary, er, Margaret about her experiences. Now Margaret started earlier on. Can you start with the earliest recollections you’ve got and how you came to join the FANY and SOE?
MW: Right, er, I was born in Southfields, South West 18, in London, and went to the local school and eventually progressed Greycoat Hospital Girl’s School in Westminster. The present Prime Minister’s daughter goes there now. All the girls in our family went to Greycoat Hospital. When the war broke out I was fifteen and I was on holiday with my mother in Ireland. My father was head of Ministry of Pensions and because of the threat of bombing if the war started they’d already evacuated up to Blackpool. My father contacted us and said under no circumstances were we to return to our home in London. We had to come straight to him in Blackpool, which we did. My father had always wanted one of the family to be a civil servant and he was delighted when he was able to get me a job as a part-time civil servant, the lowest grade there was, so low that it is recorded in Hansard that I earned thirteen shillings and sixpence per week less four pence for a stamp. It became very evidence that the landlady looking after these civil servants who’d moved up there was not keen on housing relatives as well, so we were able to persuade my father to let us go back to London, on condition that we moved out if bombing got serious. So this we did and I did one or two jobs. I think one was with a printing firm and then, er, I was just coming back from work and the sirens were going. I was on my bike and I got back in, quickly got under the stairs with my mother and a friend and the house began to shake and, er, the next thing we knew, or discovered afterwards, a land mine had fallen in the street backing onto us and blown out our back door etcetera. So, as we promised my father, we moved out to Leatherhead and the old, what would have been the old Hoover company there was being used as a, as an arms, you know, what do you call it? For making arms and I had to test the strength of shells. A most boring job.
CB: This is an ordinance factory?
MW: Yes, whatever it was called, um, but I also helped at the, what had been a blind school normally in peace time but it had been taken over from one of the London hospitals that were being cared for, mostly diabetic children, and I enjoyed the work there and I, I admired the way the, the si— the sisters, the ward sisters, cared for people and I began to think this is something I would like to do. At sixteen I was allowed to get a job at Epsom, er, in a hospital there but I was longing for the day when I was eighteen and could start training properly. Unbeknown to me, my mother who hated being on her own had gone off to Guildford RAF Recruiting Office and said she would like to join the WAAF but knew she was over age but the officer there, the recruiting officer said, ‘Well, you don’t look over forty so you won’t have to give me a birth certificate. Just fill in this form.’ When my mother looked at the form, my brother who was nine years older than me was al— already a Fleet Air Arm pilot, my sister, six years older than me, was in a res— reserved occupation as a qualified physiotherapist and English teacher. So my mother realised that the mathematics didn’t add up, that this was possible, if she put their ages in. And the officer said just put in ‘of age’ for your more older children and put my true age which she did because she didn’t want to stop me from doing what I wanted to do, was do full training as a nurse in London. So, that was her off, off into into the WAAFs and she knew she couldn’t at all attempt an, an officer’s post because she’d have to produce her birth certificate. She did her square bashing funnily enough at Fleetwood which was just next door to where my father had got his Ministry of Pensions job in Blackpool. I did a year’s training and was on, put on skin ward and as a result of that, handling ointments and various medication, my hands both broke out in bad eczema so I was given six, I was given a month’s sick leave and when I got back they said, ‘We’ll put you on the wing, the where you don’t have to do scrubbing up and what have you, diabetic wing.’ That’s it. And, er, within a month it was all back again so they said, ‘Well, we’re very, very sorry but I’m afraid you’re going to have to finish your training. We can’t keep you on.’ So, I rang a friend who I knew had to give up and I said, ‘What am I going to do? I won’t get through the medicals for Army, Navy, Air Force, I’m no good for the land army and I don’t want to have to finish in a munitions factory after what I’d had to do with these wretched shells. So she said, ‘Go to this address in Baker Street. I can’t tell you any more but you won’t have a problem.’ So, along I went and the first thing they said to me was, ‘Well before we can talk to you need to sign the Official Secrets Act and you will be bound from conveying anything that you’re told here. You won’t be able to speak about it.’ So, I thought, ‘Oh gracious, what have I got ahead of me here?’ So, I did that and then had an interview and they said, ‘Well it will mean we think you’ll make a good wireless operator but it does mean joining the FANYs which is the First Aid Nurses Yeomanry.’ So I went along with all this so went to Henley to train with Morse code and after some months the sergeant came in and said, ‘They want volunteers for overseas. I’ve got forms here. Put your hand up if you’re interested.’ So I stuck my hand up and he said, ‘If you’re under twenty-one you must have parental consent you know, I’ve got the forms here for you if you want them.’ I then wrote a letter to my father, um, not thinking, you know, it was anything special, just to say, ‘Please can you sign the enclosed form? I want to go overseas.’ It was a time when all the troop ships were being torpedoed in the Med and yet, bless him, he agreed to sign it. Then, um, I’m trying to think what happened then. Yes, I — I’ve just written all about this to the — do you want to see?
CB: We’ll just stop for a mo. [background noise]
CW: An account I’d written of my embarkation and I thought the FANYs might be interested in it because the so-called colonel had taken over the, all of the other information. I had this embarkation letter and it’s amusing reading it all. I mean I don’t know if this would be useful.
CB: That would be useful. Just keep rolling. Can you tell us please?
CW: So, this was all about the embarkation and a disguised description of how we got to Liverpool and got on the dock and most of the group went off somewhere but another girl and myself were put in charge of the luggage. And we were standing on the port side and the troops all up on the ship. I never realised how big the ship would be and it was the Monarch or Bermuda (I’m allowed to say that now). And the chaps on board were throwing pens down, pens, pennies down to us and my friend and I were gathering all these up and luckily found a Salvation Army chap we were able to hand them over to. And then once our luggage was dealt with we were able to join the others and go on board and that was when the next thing we knew we were in Algiers.
CB: OK. So on the boat you’ve got lots of people, literally thousands?
MW: Yes the FANYs were allocated some very nice accommodation, about ten in a cabin. There was a little bit of controversy with the Queen Alexandra nurses, who thought we were in their cabin and they were in ours, but we got that sorted out. I was absolutely amazed when we went for our first meal to see beautiful white cloths and white bread which I hadn’t ever seen for years with rationing and the way you couldn’t have white bread in England and when we had time to go round the ship I was horrified to see how all the ordinary soldiers just had to sleep on, on slings just tied up.
CB: Hammocks.
MW: Mm?
CB: Hammocks.
MW: And we were in complete luxury really. I got a top bunk with a porthole window beside it and, you know, we just enjoyed the journey really.
CB: So you’re on the boat and you find yourselves —
MW: We arrived at Algiers and we were transported to this wonderful camp, if you can call it a camp, it was a long expanse of lovely sand dunes, right adjacent to the Mediterranean, which had been a holiday place for French people with these beautiful —
CW: Villas.
MW: Villas, um, dotted all along it. So about six of us shared a villa where we could just run out of the front of it, straight into the water. We were even able to swim on Christmas Day which was wonderful. And that side of things was fine. We had a team of wireless operators like myself and we used to work on schedules, day and night schedules. I hated the night schedules because when you wanted to get back to your bungalow at night in the pitch darkness you’d got troops patrolling all the time and most of them were, were troops that that been, were found they couldn’t cope with the sev— severity with actual fighting so I was always afraid that one of them would suddenly turn round and think I was an enemy approaching. Other than that I think was all quite straightforward. There was these dinner dances that the sergeants’ mess ran and that’s where I came in contact with my husband Chas. The —we were supposed to have meet with the officers’ mess but we found the sergeants’ mess a far more lively place to be and we worked on our schedules and you had to be very, very carefully because the Germans were always trying to van— to jam the air lines and you’d got to be careful that you listened intently so that you didn’t make mistakes and avoid asking the agent to repeat anything. And one strong rule was that if ever you were on the air and — contacting an agent and he put in Q U G IKAK, which in ordinary language, is ‘I’m in imminent danger, close down.’ And you weren’t allowed to put another pip on your key and then the rule was for weeks and weeks afterwards you still kept trying to contact the due schedules for that agent in the hope that he hadn’t been —
CB: Compromised one way or the other.
MW: And I was delighted the once it happened to me, it was about six weeks later the agent came up in his due schedule, his or her, because we never knew whether it was a man or woman that we were contacting.
CB: And what country was he in?
MW: In, in France.
CB: He was in France. Right, OK. So, all of yours were in France at that time?
MW: Yes.
CB: Not Italy?
MW: Not so far as I was aware.
CB: No. OK. So, just taking a step back, when you were in the FANYs what rank were you and how did the promotion go?
MW: You just went in straight away as a cadet ensign.
CB: You did, right. And would you like to describe what is an ensign is in those days?
MW: I haven’t a clue.
CB: It’s an officer’s rank isn’t it?
MW: Mm?
CB: It’s a woman officer rank.
MW: Nobody every explained it to us. That was what we were and that was it.
CB: OK.
MW: The actual bases which is just out of Bari.
CB: So, you’re in Massingham and you’re there for how long?
MW: A year.
CB: And then what?
MW: And then transferred to Italy.
CB: And what did you di there?
MW: Carried on the same way, sending and receiving messages.
CB: Where were the agents of yours then?
MW: They could have been anywhere. They could have been in Italy. They could have been in Yugoslavia?
CB: But not France?
MW: I think we, had we finished in — you’d better switch off.
CB: So, in your perception Mary you’re dealing with, as a radio operator, which is different from doing the other side that Charles was doing, so the agents you, you saw them did you at Massingham before they went?
MW: Yes, you know, they had all the agents there obviously.
CB: And they, when they then went from Massingham to the airfield, which was where?
CW: Blida.
CB: Blida and then they were flown. Do you know what planes they were flow in?
MW: No idea.
CW: No. We were never told.
CB: The security worked so tightly you didn’t know the simple steps because that would compromise what was happening?
MW: We knew that some of them were going over in our little subs and going ashore there.
CB: And the others were parachuted in?
MW: Yes.
CW: And the arms and ammunition and uniforms and things were done up in containers and dropped from Blida.
CB: That was done separately was it?
CW: Yep.
CB: So you would know what the signals were. Were you telling them, when you were doing the radio part?
MW: Well this was the part that was disappointing in a way because he knew what the message was but it didn’t mean a thing to the wireless operator so you’ve no idea what message you’re sending them.
CB: No. So you got the boring message which is vital but Charles has got the detail which is being coded?
CW: Yes. The recognition signals, the coordinates where you dropped he agent or supplies or what have you. Yes it was all —
CB: Yes and how did you make contact with the agents yourself Margaret?
MW: Well, by schedule. You were given a schedule, at a certain time you were given a code that you’d got to put in, you know, in Morse code to make contact with that agent and what to expect.
CB: And you’d wait for a reply would you?
MW: Reply, yes.
CB: Was it like the nine o’clock news or did the contact time change? So, what I’m saying is did you always contact the agent, each agent, at the same time or would it vary?
MW: I think it varied but we, you know, were told what the schedule was, what time we were supposed to be on to that person.
CB: Right. How often did you meet agents yourself?
MW: Well, they were around all the time at Massingham weren’t they?
CW: I never met any personally.
MW: Not to talk to did we?
CW: There were a lot trained on the camp but they were all separate, you know, we never got —
CB: So on the camp there were cells effectively cells of operation was there, so there was just to do with radio, one that was to do with cipher, different hats?
CW: Well, it was a radio station, you know, the, they all worked together, you know, on the thing but the agents were trained there and I never got contact with any of the agents. I just knew they were being trained.
CB: What nationalities were the agents Mary, Margaret, sorry?
MW: All sorts weren’t they Chas? Very difficult to know.
CW: Well, a lot were English, French-speaking English. Men and women. French people as well. One, a special one was an Indian, Khan, he was —
CB: Khan is a famous one actually, isn’t he? Yes, yeah, right, OK. So, after Italy, so you’re there in 1944 and ‘45, what happened when the war stopped? Where did you go from Italy?
MW: In, in Italy I, it’s again quite a comical thing, family thing, that my father had always said, ‘By the time you’re twenty-one they’ll be nothing left for you to do.’ What it turned out to be on my twenty-first birthday we were due to fly up to Sienna up to the north of Italy, um, a group of us, and there was fog and problems. So, the plane couldn’t take off so we had to go back to our billets and try again the next day and I thought well now my father can’t say there was nothing left for me to do when I was twenty-one because that was my first trip in an aeroplane. When we got to Sienna there was very little, um, messaging going on. We were just pursuing hobbies and needlework and various things to pass the time until, of course, the end of the war came. During that time I was in Sienna obviously I was missing Charles very much so I got some leave and I did a hitchhike down to Naples, stayed at the YWCA overnight, and then asked them where I ought to get a vehicle to take me across the mountains to Bari and they said, ‘Well, go to this filling station, get an American or a British truck. Whatever you do don’t get on an Italian truck and you must be mobile by 10 o’clock otherwise you won’t be over the mountains before dark.’ It got to 10 o’clock and no American or British truck had come in and I thought when you’re twenty in those days you didn’t know the sort of things that go on now. I thought, ‘Oh blow it. I’ll chance an Italian truck.’ I was sitting up between these two Italians driving up the mountainside where the drop was absolutely sheer on the right and if it went over it would be completely down the bottom and we got flagged down by an American despatch rider and he was horrified when I got out the cab. ‘What on earth are you doing there?’ ‘It was the only vehicle I could get.’ And so, he immediately flagged down an American jeep that had got one soldier in it and said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he said, ‘Right down the toe of Italy.’ ‘Well then in that case can you take this young lady? She wants to go to Bari.’ And I got in there as happy as Larry.
CW: But he flagged it down because it was badly loaded.
MW: Yes, the — that’s why he flagged the lorry down because he said any minute he could go down the mountainside because it was so badly loaded so obviously that’s why they told me not to get in an Italian truck.
CB: Fascinating. So, when did you learn about your demob?
MW: When we were up in Sienna. It was sort of November-time wasn’t it, when —
CB: November ‘45.
MW: Yeah, and there again he was very crafty, my husband. He got some leave and came up to officially in quotes “see me off” and he got very friendly with our commandant, and he duly shook hands with her and said, ‘Goodbye.’ And away we went. At our first comfort stop who should bail out of the luggage truck was Charles. So that we had another evening in Naples before I embarked for home.
CB: Fantastic and from Naples did you take a boat?
MW: Yes.
CB: Where did that go? Marseille, Southern France, was it?
MW: Yeah. Must have done. I can’t remember where it went,, I just knew i was going home.
CW: It was home back to England.
CB: When you got back to England then what?
MW: Well, then I went back to Southfields, to where my mother and father’s home was and waited, got the — oh, that’s another thing. I did get a job there while I was getting ready for the wedding. We were going to get married as soon as he got back and I took a job in a day nursery, looking after little toddlers, and the cook there was a very ample lady. She said, ‘I hope your husband’s got a good job because you won’t manage on less than ten pound a week.’ And I thought, ‘Horrors, he’s got his, his apprenticeship to finish. There’s no way he’s going to get ten pounds a week and he’s got to get to Dartford every day from Southfields.’ But I didn’t dare tell anybody that there was no way going to afford it. But we managed, didn’t we? We got all sorts of second hand stuff and we got though.
CB: So how long did your job going on for or it didn’t last?
MW: Oh once we were married because we wanted a family.
CB: And your mother came out of the RAF?
MW: Oh she came out. She did about three years I think but as I say all the different officers she worked with said you ought to ask for a —
CW: Commission.
MW: Yeah but she didn’t because she knew she’d have to find her birth certificate. We were crazy.
CB: Right. What would you say would be your most memorable point of your service in the SOE?
MW: I don’t know that there was — I suppose the most memorable point was that we knew, I knew, we were going to go where he’d gone.
CB: To Bari.
MW: Yeah. That was the highlight.
CW: Yes because I, having supposedly gone to gone to Yugoslavia, I was in Bari and I wrote to her that I was in Bari and not Yugoslavia. [laugh]
CB: Right. So that made you feel better.
MW: Yeah.
CB: Right. So, we’re back talking with Charles a bit more about the delivery of agents into places like France. So, how do did that work then?
CW: Hughenden Manor worked — did maps for the pilots, detailed maps for the pilots, as to where they had to go to, which was absolutely brilliant, and this went on all through the war.
CB: And, er, the pilots that delivered, this is where they’d land but not just that but it’s where they were parachuting dropping as well?
CW: Yeah parachute drops and dropping agents and dropping agents up, not only dropping agents, Government people as well.
CB: Oh were they? Yeah. Any prisoners?
CW: No. I don’t think they brought any prisoners back as far as I know.
MW: But they brought agents back didn’t they? Picked up people as well as dropping humans.
CB: Yeah, and what was the major activity really of the, of flying people? Was the delivery of arms, ammunition and stores in general pretty busy?
CW: It, it was especially in the last bit of the war where —
CB: From D-Day.
CW: Yeah, where the Mace [?], yeah after D-day the Maces [?] were all organised and armed and used to delay German troops coming up to the coast.
CB: Right, so doing you cryptography, your coding, then you were seeing all the instructions?
CW: Yes. Yes.
CB: And the detail must have been quite fine in terms of finding the places?
CW: Yes it was all coordinates for exactly where they were but really and truly it didn’t mean anything unless you’d got a map where you could sort it all out but we didn’t have the opportunity.
CB: Right. Good
Dublin Core
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AWardC-M160219
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Interview with Charles and Margaret Ward
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:18:11 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Chris Brockbank
Description
An account of the resource
In 1940 when Charles was twenty he received papers to join the Royal Artillery and went into the Royal London Rifles. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was accepted but instead of joining the RAF he was ordered up to Scotland to join a special unit of tanks and artillery, then posted to North Africa in 1942. Charles describes a battle in Tunisia in which seventy-five per cent of the battalion were killed. While confined to camp with an injured knee an education unit arrived and, after taking a number of tests, he was posted to Special Operations Executive and worked in Algiers and Italy as a cipher operator. Charles describes his work as a cipher operator including giving coordinates for planes to drop agents and supplies. He met his wife, Margaret while in the Special Operations Executive and Margaret gives an account of her work as a wireless operator. She also describes how her mother joined the WAAF even though she was over forty.
Coverage
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British Army
Spatial Coverage
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Algeria
Algeria--Algiers
Italy
Tunisia
North Africa
Contributor
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Christine Kavanagh
aircrew
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
ground personnel
Special Operations Executive
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/8757/PMooreWT1506.2.jpg
ba450a2587f7d4bdd809b39eda3c5fa9
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/307/8757/AMooreWT160318.1.mp3
06f88d173f760d9f30a9e3038f1f9794
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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Moore, Bill
William Tait Moore
William T Moore
William Moore
W T Moore
W Moore
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Three oral history interviews with William Tait "Bill" Moore (1924 - 2019, 1823072 Royal Air Force) and five photographs. He served as a navigator with 138 Squadron.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-28
2016-03-18
2016-07-06
Rights
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Interview Agreement Form - Moore, WT, William Moore-03
Identifier
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Moore, WT
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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CB: My name is Chris Brockbank and today is the 18th of March 2016 and I’m meeting with Bill Moore who was an Observer with the RAF and he is accompanied by his friend Tony Boxall. And we’re going to talk about Bill’s life from the earliest days to the periods after the war. So, Bill, could you start by telling us about your early days?
WM: Well, I was, I was born in a town called Dunoon in the West of Scotland in 1924 and I was, at that time, I was the eldest of three children, I became that, and then of course what happened? We moved house from a little single ended cottage and we moved in to a brand new council house. And of course we gradually became a family of five. I was the eldest of course, as I said, with —
CB: Keep going.
WM: With two sisters and two brothers. My, my father was a slater and plasterer, Builder, and my mother had been what later on in life people called them Land Army girls because she’d done that during the First World War and my father had been in the Royal Scots Fusiliers right through, right through the First World War. And later on he, he was, he was taken on ship board to India where they, they actually were the garrison at various towns for a, for a few years up to there, you know. Alright. And then, and then of course what happened was that he came back to Dunoon and met and married my mother and as I say he also then went back into the building trade, you know. That is the sort of life that people did, they were in the army and then back into Civvy Street and later on in life that’s exactly what happened to us. Now, I, I attended Dunoon Grammar School all the way though, Right from the infant class right through into, into High School and I enjoyed it. I was never a person who didn’t enjoy school and at the same time after school I worked in various sort of capacities like in butchers shops and deliveries and all these sort of things that, in those days, people had to do to help augment the family incomes. I left, I left school when I was thirteen. The reason why was because the incomes that they could draw at that time wasn’t sufficient to keep the family going and being the eldest one I was out of school, as I say, at thirteen and I [pause] I was employed. I was employed by people called the Richmond Park Laundry which is, or was at that time, the biggest laundry in Glasgow but which is now gone. Then what happened then was, was that the war clouds were coming and I joined the Air Defence Cadet Corps. The Air Defence Cadet Corps was the forerunner of the Air Training Corps. And of course to do that we had to go to Abbotsinch, which is now Glasgow Airport and that was where we, we got the feeling for the Royal Air Force. Also that was where I saw my first Wellington and we certainly fell in love with it because all the other aircraft that we had seen from there, there on for many years was all the old ones that had been scattered around the country. Then of course, when the, when the Air Training Corps started we changed over, we volunteered for that and on the, on the Tuesday night I joined up and signed up. I went back again on the Friday night and the Friday night I became a flight sergeant which was instant promotion. And the reason for that was, was that I had been in the Air Defence Cadet Corps. We er, what we did was we, we had courses run in the Dunoon Grammar School by teachers who had become officers in the Air Training Corps and one particular gentleman there — Mr D. J. McDermid was the one that I’d looked up to for many years through the Boys Brigade and other organisations like that. And also a Mr Oswald Brown. And Mr Oswald Brown was the mathematics teacher and of course he was the one who actually taught us the rudiments of navigation. And we did that until we were old enough to, to volunteer for the Royal Air Force. Now, during, during that time we sat the examinations and all the way up through till we were actually ready for the aircrew selection. When I was old enough I went to Edinburgh and I was on the selection course there. I come out with very high marks and I got my little silver badge and I then became a member of the Royal Air Force. We, we didn’t get a number but we had various facts and figures written down about what we were. Then of course you had to wait your turn until such times as, as they had space for you. Well that’s what they said. So you got called up and then of course you were VR. And we eventually went to London and, of course, with that of course that was ACRC and that was at Lord’s Cricket Ground along with many other people which was quite strange. I met one or two chaps that day from all over the country, Some of them that I was with for quite a long time and before we actually finished at ITW. From, from London of course we went to ITW and my ITW was Number 17 in Scarborough based at the [pause] now what was it? Based at one of the, one of the hotels in Scarborough. And likewise of course in Scarborough there was about five other different ITWs. My, my hotel that I eventually landed up with was the Adelphi Hotel which was right above the Italian Gardens in Scarborough itself. In the Italian Gardens there was all the swimming pool and all the little offices attached to the swimming pool and that is where we did all the navigation and training like that, in the actual [pause] actual course at Scarborough. The gymnastics, the PT and all that other stuff was held at Scarborough College which was a very good asset. We had our own swimming pool in the Italian Gardens so that was also very good for us. Most of our drill and disciplinary actions was taught on the esplanade in front of the Adelphi Hotel and above the Italian Gardens. We [pause] we had a small, a small flight, and a few days after we were beginning to settle down, we got quite a surprise and we had a group of Belgian boys came across and joined us. They joined us there and it was a very good experience because most of them had been through High School and their English was very good compared with our limit in French or whatever dialect they said that they spoke. But it was very good because we got a good background of the continent which most of us had never had. Well, on completing of the ITW course I was given a job which was a temporary thing, I became the rations officer and I used to deliver all the foodstuffs from the main offices in Scarborough to all the different ITWs and that lasted for a couple of weeks. It was very good to get a responsibility like that because you really had to make sure that everything was right on the button. Otherwise, the sergeants and people in charge of all the kitchens as you went around certainly were very tough on you. During, during that particular time we, we went round all, all the various ITWs in Scarborough and as a matter of courtesy we actually visited one after the other and they did the same to us. And then of course we used to always go on a journey, see all the different church parades, you know. And an aside to one thing was my great friend here — and Ernie Taylor his name, who later became a fighter pilot in Spitfires and Hurricanes and Mosquitos, and although we were in Scarborough at the same time and been on parades at the same time and did various other things we never actually met up and we didn’t meet up officially until I came here in nineteen eighty — [pause] I beg your pardon, in [pause] yeah, 1983, when I returned from Africa. But that’s a different story, I can come back to that one. When people had vacancies for us then we went to different places from Scarborough. Well the first place that I went to was to Scone, Scone in Scotland. Just outside of Perth, and that was where we were, we were flying on Tiger Moths. We did the course there And anybody who has ever been to Scone Airport always remember that they had a bump in the, in the runway and when you went down there you lost the horizon, then all of a sudden you were airborne, and if you missed the bump you were always in trouble. But that was it, it was a good thing to know. And the instructors there were mainly, mainly chaps who’d, who had served all over world with the Royal Air Force. A lot of them had been out in the desert, various ones, And they had been recalled for to train people like us. Especially at Scone near where we were. Well we, we actually graduated from there and in those days you said that you were a LAC, Leading Aircraftsman, Which was quite good, It meant that you got a few more shillings in your pocket but that was about all it was. Sometimes they didn’t even have time to issue the propeller to you, but before you knew where you were you were away doing something else. But anyway, what happened to us, I say us because there was a few from 17 ITW, we, we went to a place called Broughton-in-Furness. Now Broughton-in-Furness — that, that was a, like an escape course, or a commando course or whatever you wanted to call it but really and truly it was like an escape course and you were taught all the rudiments of, of the bush. Well, as a matter of fact being a country boy I quite excelled in that and I got the red lanyard again which I already had when I’d been at Scarborough which gave you a little bit of authority, but as soon as the parades were off you took the lanyard off and that was it. But the lanyard, lanyard was just to give you that bit of authority for parades etcetera, etcetera. From, from there we went to, to Manchester, to Heaton Park. Now, Heaton Park you were either billeted in the Nissen huts which was standard accommodation, about fourteen men to a hut, or you were lucky enough to be billeted outside in somebody’s back room, Or front room, And we enjoyed that for, for a couple of weeks. We were actually put in to a lady’s front room, Two of us, And that was a chap called Alec Kerr and myself, And Alec was one of the ones that, from Peterborough, that I had met on that first, first day in London. It seemed to be that we kept bobbing up wherever we were on, maybe because Kerr and Moore was near enough on the alphabetical list. But anyway we shared the room there and if we gave the lady a half a crown a week each she used to leave the window open so that there was no bother about coming home at night time. But that was, that was more or less just across the road or nearby to Heaton Park. We never took advantage of it, always made sure that we were in before midnight although you were supposed to be the same as the camp, in about half past ten, you know. Well once we got over that stage we were called up into the park and put into a Nissen hut, the same as everybody did, and then we did some more drill and discipline and listened to the Royal Air Force tunes that was drummed into you so that you’d know whatever was being sounded was what you did. And of course if the, if the tunes came up to a certain degree then you had to — whatever you were doing — you had to march to attention, and if you got caught not marching to attention when these tunes were being played you found yourself on KP or something else like that. I managed to avoid that so I was quite lucky. Maybe it’s because it was drummed into my head that you always smartened yourself up whenever these tunes were played. Anyway, we, we eventually got we didn’t really do a lot of, we had a lot of talks on various things but we didn’t do any stuff for examinations. But all of a, all of a sudden you began to, you began to assemble in to different groups, your name was put here and then was put there and it wasn’t alphabetical either and the next thing you knew that you were ABC or DEF or whatever else it was, and eventually these groups were how you were going to be posted away from, from Heaton Park. And with that at Heaton Park — Heaton Park I was, I was KL and KL and M was quite good for me, I didn’t know too much about it and neither did anybody else. But one day, one day we were fitted out with kit and we were told that we would probably go to Rhodesia, And everybody said, ‘Oh. We’re going to Rhodesia. Oh that’s — that’s a cushy number there. You go all the way in the boat and then you go to Cape Town and then you go on a train and you go all the way up to either Salisbury or Bulawayo.’ Well everybody thought oh this is, this is good, anyway , that was a special uniform you got for going to Rhodesia, it was different from those who went to South Africa. Anyway, what happened then was that we, we started assembling in these groups. So the groups one day were 12 o’clock noon, the bell went and we formed up and the next thing we were told, ‘Get your kit together. You’re off.’, ‘Oh. We’re off. Where are we going?’, ‘We’re not telling you where you’re going. You’re off.’ So we got all this kit and we went to Liverpool and [pause] a little memento here of a ship called the Andes, A N D E S, which was a brand new ship just before the war. That ship had come up the Clyde in to the Holy Loch in all its glory because it was supposed to be on the South American run. And it was a beautiful ship, all brand new, And we boarded this ship in Liverpool. And who was beside me? Alec Kerr. Oh, ‘Alec. How did we manage this?’, He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He says, ‘Just the names seemed to come up again and we’re here together.’ I said, ‘Oh good.’ So, anyway we went down to K deck, I thought it wasn’t bad, it was well down in the ship but being a new ship it was quite good. Anyway, we, we stayed there overnight. The ship didn’t move. And we had another fellow with us there and his name was Ted Weir, and Ted Weir was thirty three. Thirty three. And we were only leaving UK. So he said, ‘My God,’ he said, ‘my wife’s expecting a baby,’ and we said, ‘What? You’re an old man for having a baby.’ He said, ‘Yes. I’ve just got word.’ I said, ‘What are you going to do?’ He said, ‘I’m going to slip off tonight and go and see the baby. In case I never get another chance.’ I said, ‘Alright. Alright Ted. How are you going to do it?’ He said, ‘I’m going to go down the anchor [inaudible].’ I said, ‘Well if you don’t come back you’re in big trouble.’ Anyway, about 2 o’clock in the morning and he came back. We hadn’t moved. So Ted Weir, thirty three plus, had seen his baby, a little boy with ginger hair like him, so he was quite happy. But we never saw the baby, we never saw photographs but we were told plenty about him. So anyway around about mid-day the next day the Andes took off. So anyway away we go, away we go down the Mersey and around the top of Northern Ireland. We were sailing well and it was good weather, we went, ‘Oh this is a piece of cake. Nice cruise we’re on on a ship.’ So there we go. Judgement, you know. I said, ‘We’ve left. We’ve left Ireland now. We’re heading for the Bay of Biscay.’ Anyway, that night we were up on a deck and I said to, I said to Alec and Ted, I said, ‘This ship’s going the wrong way.’ And they said, ‘You and your Clyde navigation.’ I said, ‘Me and my Clyde navigation. We’re going the wrong way.’ So, in the morning we were back in Liverpool, right back where we left. Anyway, we wondered what was going to happen there, so we were told to keep our kit all close together and all the rest of it. Anyway, I looked across from where we were, out and I said to, I said to Alec, I said, ‘The 534.’ And Ted Weir said, ‘What’s the 534?’, I said, ‘I’m not telling you. You might be a spy,’ you know. He says, ‘Come on Bill. Tell me. What’s the 534?’, ‘Oh a 534’s got three funnels hasn’t it?’ He said, ‘Yes.’, ‘Well that’s the Queen Mary.’ [pause] So we, we were twelve hours later, we were on the Queen Mary and the next thing we knew we were heading west. So where did we go? We landed up in New York. We were only in New York about twenty four hours, a bit longer. We had a great crossing, everything was fine. And as I say we got in to New York and we had a bit of shore time which was unusual. We were given strict instructions that you would be in the chucky if, if you didn’t come back in time. So anyway they trusted us so off we went, came back, and we, we were taken to the train station as they call it there. And we were all put on these lovely trains with beds and everything, you know, so, oh this is ideal. Anyway, it was American trains and sometime, sometime the following morning we pulled out and we wondered where, where we were going. There was all sorts of bets on, we were going to Arizona, we’re going to this, we’re going to that. No, no, we didn’t go there. We went to Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada. And that’s where we, where we started getting a bit of trouble because we, we didn’t have much uniform. Some of it, we’d changed some of the stuff, you know. Typical Air Force . You weren’t allowed this if you had that and things like that. Anyway, we walked around there and the saying up there was like a squaw and later on in life I used to call like a ‘Matabeleland nanny,’ you know. Anyway, we got up there and Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick was the centre in Canada where, where people were sent all over Canada and sometimes down to the States etcetera, etcetera, you know, so once we get up there then we found out what we were actually going to do. Anyway, Alec Kerr and Ted Weir and myself, we were still together and, well it was more luck than judgement, and we didn’t do much there. As a matter of fact we learned, we learned all the names for Canadian names, American names for things. Pie a la mode for a sweet and this, that and the next thing. All the fancy things which we thought we might be getting to eat. Although the diet there was terrific compared to what we had in the UK, the UK diet was excellent. Plain Jane and no nonsense but when we got to, we got to New Brunswick we even got ice cream and things like that. Anyway, one day we, our names appeared on, on a notice board and we were deftly got different parades as people called it in the Air Force , you know. Now, when you join the Air Force you volunteer, butthat’s the last time you ever volunteer for anything, so by this time we were just told what we were going to do. So some people were down for pilots, some people for navigators, some people for wireless operators, all sorts of different things come up, you know, and then of course there was various other bits and pieces that came up, you know. Anyway, we went off in the train and about five, about five days later we got to Winnipeg. We changed trains in Winnipeg, all the way across to Canada to there. We’d actually been in one train and one bed and we used to get off and stretch our legs and get an hour or so while they put new coal and stuff on the, on the train and then we went back on and away we went to the next station. And we had quite a wee bit, and there was one, there was one time I was off and somebody says, ‘You’d better have a haircut’. I said, ‘Alright. I’ll have a haircut’. So I went in and typical me, you know, I went in and I said, ‘Can I have a haircut please?’, ‘Yes. How would you like it?’, ‘Oh I don’t want it, I don’t want it too short and I don’t want it long otherwise I’ll be in trouble’., ‘We’ll give you a Canadian one’., ‘Ok. Fine’. Anyway, I got settled back in the chair and the next thing I knew it cost me fifteen bucks because I went to sleep. I’m still a person who could go to sleep with just sitting, sitting around for a few minutes. Anyway, when I woke up, he says, ‘Yes. You agreed. Every time I told you what you wanted you nodded your head’. I said, ‘Oh. Thank you very much’. So I was fifteen bucks short. Anyway, that was alright. Well, eventually from from Winnipeg we went up to Manitoba. Dauphin, Manitoba. Right up, right up in the top of Manitoba itself, right up north, Dauphin and Paulson and various places like that. And we looked around for the town. It was a hamlet. Dauphin wasn’t too bad but Paulsen, I think it was twelve, twelve houses that was there, you know and we had, we had more people in the camp then there were civilians around us, you know. Anyway, that was quite good. We, we went training there and we did, we did the basics of gunnery there, and started off with the, we had 22s and we did a lot of clay pigeon shooting in the hangars because by this time there was six feet of snow outside, you know. And we didn’t, we didn’t go very far, but we got one or two flights in those Ansons, the early ones, so that wasn’t bad. Getting us accustomed to, to flying as they called it and then, and then of course what happened after that was that they began to tell us what we were going to do. Well some of the chaps, some of the chaps were down as pilots and they went off to another ‘drome nearby. Some of us took in navigation, and some, some took in wireless and gunnery. But what we did was we did the whole lot, we did POSB, you know. And that was, that was the, we all took the full course pilot — pilot, observer, navigator the whole thing, you know. We were beginning to find out what it was all about. It was very gentlemanly, there was civilian pilots and civilian instructors, things like that. All sort of chaps in their early thirties — early forties or thirties and they were our instructors. Anyway, about a few weeks later we were divided up again and this time it was a full, a full gunnery course that we did, everybody had to do that. We had a full gunnery course, and then we had a wireless course, and that kept us the whole time. Even the gunnery course kept us going the whole time. And you might, you might have, instead of maybe having five or six courses for gunnery or something like that they slackened down so you were beginning to realise what you were actually going to do. So what we did then, what we did then was we went across to the pilot’s school. They never told you whether you failed or otherwise. They would say we need seven pilots and that was seven pilots. The first seven in the list became pilots and the rest of us then went in for, for navigation and bomb aiming, and we still carried on with the wireless and we still carried on with the gunnery. Then of course we went up and the next thing, the next thing what we knew was we were concentrating more on navigation than we were anything else although we still carried on every now and again, keep our hand in at wireless, at wireless and gunnery. Well we actually graduated in each of these places and were passed on to different, different sections there and then we had a big change. We went over to Dauphin. Dauphin, Dauphin was quite, quite a town by their standards, there were shops in the village and places like that and we got quite friendly with the local people, and I got friendly with a couple who’d come out from Scotland many years ago. And they had a grown up family of a son who was already in the Air Force and a daughter and there was another girl who stayed with them and she was the fiancé of the son. Anyway, that’s another little story. Anyway, we were quite friendly with them and visited them when we could and had the usual, we had our Christmas lunch there for a start. We went to dances, we went to everything in our spare time, the usual sort of thing. Made ourself, we were told to mix which was very good. And then of course we went up through and you actually, you actually graduated or you failed. If you didn’t graduate and you failed then you were sent to a straight gunnery school and that was, that was to be, that was just to be on a gunnery course. There was no shame to it, it was a good course. Other people went to wireless operator and gunnery, that was also a good course but certainly a little bit different. Anyway, we did, we went on to the straight navigation course and that was, that was fine. Then of course we graduated. You didn’t get any, any stripes, you didn’t get any. You just, just moved out and of course by that time they had, they had AC2s and AC1s instead of the, instead of the LACs so we never did get these props, but we were changed from LACs to AC1s. Anyway, the next thing we knew we had, we had a week’s leave, a week to ten days leave and which was very nice. We got rail warrants for where we could go and all the rest of it, that was ideal. And then we came back and when we come back from there we actually got posted to different places and I got posted to a place called Portage la Prairie. Now Portage la Prairie is a very special, a very special school. Portage la Prairie was Number 7 Observer School. In other words you are doing things slightly different from navigation and we concentrated a lot on [pause] on different, different subjects and one of them of course was low flying and be able to map read. That was quite easy in Canada but, anyway, later on it was a different story. But that was, that was Portage la Prairie. Now Portage la Prairie is still going today and every four years the commandant of Portage la Prairie comes across here to the UK and he and his family take up residence here, and I have, I have met three different families now that came from Portage la Prairie. Anyway, going back, going back to Portage we did this specialised training, navigation etcetera, etcetera like that and observer training and then we, we went in to, we went into Winnipeg. We went to Winnipeg and we attended various courses in there which we didn’t really know what it was all about but it was courses that we were really specialists in. That was what it was, we were specialists in different things, you know. Then we went back of course to, we went back of course to the main station again, and then we got leave. We got some leave and I managed to, I managed to get to see quite a bit of Canada. And then the next thing we knew we were back in Moncton. Moncton, New Brunswick. In Moncton, New Brunswick we had, we had maybe a week or a couple of weeks or whatever, whatever was, until we actually got sent back to the UK. Now, when, when that, when that happened you were called in to a room and we were allowed two big full size kit bags. One that you could take your Air Force kit in and one that you could put all your civilian stuff in, including all the things that you’d bought when you were in Canada and the States and things like that. [pause] And then of course what happened, you were told that you might have a preference of flying back which meant that you could only take one, one kit bag with you and that would, that would be your service kit bag and the other one would come later. On the other hand if you, if you went by sea, returned by sea, you could take the two of them. So at that time everybody thought, ‘Oh well. Everything we’ve saved up for is in that other kit bag.’ [laughs] So we opted to try and get back by, back by sea. So anyway that did happen and we went down, we went down to, [pause] we went down to the railway station this day with all our kit and there we were heading towards the sea. So we went down and when we went down there, there was a ship there. And this ship that was in the dock, I recognised it, and I was just saying to the fellows that were with me, my other two friends had gone, but other ones, I said, ‘This looks like the Empress Line, you know’, ‘Oh. Empress. How do you know that?’ I said, ‘They used to sail down the Clyde every Friday night and we used to watch them, you know. So, anyway, this one turned out and it was named the Empress of Scotland, you know. As I was walking around it I picked up a little bit of information. It used to be the Empress of Japan and during the war they had changed it, changed it from the Empress of Japan to the Empress of Scotland. So, that was Halifax that we were in. So what we did was one day we up-anchored and away we went and of course as we were going out there we were, we had some little ships, something like the corvettes that we had in the UK, and they followed us out quite a bit in to the Atlantic. Then one morning they weren’t there, so you were on your own. Anyway, we, we were sleeping once again away down in the depths of the ship and we said, ‘You know, if we go down there and we are in the mid-Atlantic and we get torpedoed I don’t think we’d ever get out of there you know’, because we timed it and the timing was pretty good because we’d done two or three different runs. And we said, ‘Oh bugger it. We’ll try and sleep up on deck’, but by this time it was summer weather so we actually slept up on deck. And then one day I looked up and I said, ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I know where we are’, I said, ‘We’re heading for the Clyde’. And we did. And we sailed right up the Clyde, up to Gourock and we lay off Gourock there and I saw a lot of the older men who were working on the boats there that I knew from my home town. Dunoon area. But we weren’t allowed to talk to anybody. We were told, ‘No, No, No, No, We don’t want anybody to know where you’ve come from or anything like that.’ So we got down and got onto a boat which was called the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Mary 2 was a passenger boat that used to ply between Gourock and Greenock and Dunoon on the Clyde but she was bare by this time and she was painted grey the same as the rest. But she was used to ferry people from the liners across to Gourock or Princes Pier, and what happened then was that you went on a train to somewhere, you know. And of course eventually, eventually we did that. And we landed up, landed up in, we landed up in Yorkshire, that’s where we got to, you know. And we got there and we were billeted in one of the colleges and that was great. There was running hot and cold water and things like that and at night you could get out and you could go up to the pub because you’d already been given some money, British money, and we had two or three days there, you know and during this time this friend of mine and I’d met up with Alec Kerr again and we, we went in to this pub and I looked in this big mirror, you know and I said, ‘Look, I know that chap, that Canadian over there’. He said, ‘No you don’t’, I said, ‘Look. I’ll bet you a couple of pints’. He says, ‘Are you sure? Alright I’ll take you on’, ‘Alright’. I said. I said, ‘Yeah. I’m sure. Are you betting against me?’ He said, ‘Yeah. You don’t. There’s so many Canadians here’. Anyway, I went up to him and I said, ‘Oh by the way that was a nice wristwatch that you gave to your girlfriend at Christmas’. He was just about ready to put his [inaudible] up. He said, ‘Why?’ I said ‘Because I took her to a dance’, you know. And I said, ‘Draw that back’, I said, ‘Your names Nicholson, you know. And your, your girlfriend is staying with your mother and father because your parents are working on the railway’, you know. [laughs]. So what he was going to do to me, you know. Anyway, it was quite fun. We had, we had these couple of pints and we had a good night and he had to go his way and we went ours, I never saw him again after that. But it was quite strange. By the time I got home my mother and his mother had been corresponding, you know and she knew all about him and all the rest of it and that was it, you know. And apparently, apparently, the other one knew all about me, you know. [laughs] But from there, from there we, we were, we were back in the Royal Air Force, you know. It was entirely different again you know. Back in the Royal Air Force. This time we were shipped, shipped down to [pause] where would we call it? [pause] My kid’s staying there at the moment. I’ll get back to it. Let me get this. [pause] What — it was a station. The station is Halfpenny Green, you know and we, there were several of us went there, about a half a dozen, but other ones were scattered all over the place, you know. And once, once we get into Halfpenny Green we discovered that we were on specialised training of low level flying on the, on the new Anson, you know. And we did all sorts of stuff but this time of course it was Royal Air Force pilots and they were a lot of chaps who had actually been on service and they’d been lucky enough to have done a tour on something or someway and landed up there on the same as us, low level flying. But as I say most of them were actually stationed there and knew they were there for a while. Anyway, we went, we went there and we actually wondered why we were doing this because really and, really and truly it was just about the only thing we did. We did the night flying and we did this, we did that. We was also a lot of it was either moonlight or daylight. Anyway, what happened then was, of course what we didn’t know was that we’d been selected, selected for duties where, where your low level flying and stuff like that was good, you know. Of course, anyway, by that time that was one of the things we wondered why but you never asked too much. And then of course you had some night flying where you’re up flying low over Wales and all the rest of it and going, actually doing bombing runs under different bridges there and things like that just to keep your hand in, and then eventually we went to, we went to different, different stations again, you know. From [pause] from there [pause] sorry about that.
CB: Do you want to stop for a mo?
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
[Recording paused]
WM: I had a break there.
CB: We’re re-starting.
WM: Fine.
[pause]
CB: Ok.
WM: From there we were actually transferred to a secret ‘drome. We didn’t believe it was secret until we got there. As a matter of fact on the way everybody was saying it must, it must be like an ordinary station, and then as we, as we get nearer there with the talk that was coming back to us it really was secret, and that turned out to be Tempsford. Now, the big thing about that was, was that the first thing you did when you get inside you get lined up and you had a nice, sort of friendly talk. And they said, ‘Right you’ve now got to sign the Secrets Act again but this time it’s for real.
CB: Right.
WM: If you talk about anything and it gets out anywhere you will be shot, that’s how serious it is. And as a matter of fact a couple of times the little pub there — The Wheatsheaf — was closed because they thought that it might have been that some information might have been getting out through the pub. There was always the chance that somebody might have said something, although , as I say, we were sworn to secrecy. Now, what we didn’t realise at the time was what we were going to do because nobody told us and nobody would tell us. Now, after, after about a week I think what had been they were actually assessing our characters as they could see them there. They began to take confidence in us and give us that little bit of confidence, you know, and then we found out what it was all about. At that time the CO come in and he spoke to us and he told us what it was all about. And then we realised to what extent the secrecy was demanded because not only was the fact was that the people you were taking in to the occupied countries were in danger of their life but you also were. And what was given to us was, ‘You don’t communicate with them, and they don’t communicate with you’. I do know for a fact that the Americans later on when they started getting into things they used to call the people Joe’s and things like that, but we were not for that at all. We did not say, we did not take, if you turned around and say, ‘You’ve got a bunch of Joe’s there’ well right away people would know you had a bunch of people and where they come from. But the big thing about it was that in most times you just went out on one aircraft to one airfield, and that wasn’t too bad at all. Although there was a couple of occasions where about twenty agents who had been rounded up and all shot out of hand by somebody who had given, given them away, and that happened to be a person of the same nationality. We don’t like to say exactly what it was, I know people have written about it. But on the other hand is this, that we don’t like to think that, that the people helping our agents once on the ground was people that gave them away but it’s a sad story to say that it was. The worst part of that from time to time was in Holland, you know. And the bad thing about it was that the man who was responsible for so many deaths at one time was actually based in London, you know. He was, he was a, he was a Dutchman, yeah, and of course the Dutch people are still horrified about that, you know. That their own people could give them away, you know. Anyway, what did happen was that we were told exactly what was going to happen was that you would be allocated a pilot because then by that time I was classified as an observer. You had your pilot and you and he actually spoke over about what was going to happen. Once we knew where we were going and how many people we were liable to be taking. Well the thing is this. You can all imagine about Lysanders, they can’t carry very many people, but the lighter the people were the more we could actually take and that was a fact. And of course we were, we were told all sorts to keep our weight down. Now, I can assure you that it wasn’t too hard to do that but at the same time you had to make sure that you kept within limits. Now, when, when an operation was on, whatever was going to happen, however you wanted to count it or name it then everybody, everybody who was concerned once again knew what was going on. They knew how secret it had to be, they knew that people’s lives were depending on it, whether it was the team flying them out or the people going out. Now, what did, what did happen was that going back, going back to the time of navigating and taking everything on the map-readings and being able to do that. Nine times out of ten we were jolly lucky but sometimes you might have been landing in a field which was next door to the one that you were supposed to be landing, and the ground wasn’t exactly good. But, of course, the fields that we were landing on had, nothing had been done to them since the pre-war days and one or two of them had been glider schools that people had been taught to glide from, because then these fields had been disbanded and walked away from, you know, and people kept away from them. But they were the kind of fields that were the best for landing on. They had been, they had been more or less gone over in early days because gliding, gliding in Europe was quite a sport before the war. It wasn’t too, too strong in the UK but in, in Europe it was very strong from time to time, you know. And of course, as I say taking, taking people in it was the big thing was to make sure where you were going, how long it would be and as much as possible you had to be exactly on time because a few minutes either way could have cost people their lives because there was people that was coming in to meet the ones that was being taken in and there was also people further along the lines to receive them, so everything had to be timed exactly. If you had strong headwinds going across to the continent and you might have lost twenty minutes or things like that. That was too bad but at the same time, at the same time you had to try and do something about it. And the best thing that we used to do was to try, try and get that little bit extra speed and keep down as low as we could, then of course you had, you had more dangers than you normally would have with wires and all the rest of it, you know. But everything was done more or less by moonlight and that was as best as we could do it. The big, the big thing about it was trust. Now, with the early, the early days there was quite a few of the chaps who were flying there had, had been flying over that area either as people who had money and could fly about etcetera, etcetera or they were people who had been in flying clubs, so they were the best people to get some of the ideas from of how you could do it. Now, the big thing too was that we had, we had some officers with us who were exceptional in whatever it was, whether they were pilots or whether they were navigators or whether they were doing exactly what we were doing, you know because [pause] when they, when they told you about things you certainly listened to them.
[pause]
WM: After a while we actually got, we got some twin-engined aircraft from America and with them they were quite good because they were actually designed to land in the Prairies in Canada or America and their undercarriage was strong. That the likes of the fields that we were operating on they could be taken in and that was, that was one of the good things that happened there. Now there was one particular night and we were loaded up with guns and ammunition and all these sort of things for the Maquis and we had our target where we had to take it to. Anyway, we set off and we had just the three of us in the aircraft. There was the skipper, myself and another chap who, well, nowadays you would call him a loadmaster or something like that. He was the chap that made sure that the load was alright, well maybe that was where the name came from, I don’t know, but that was what he always had to do. Anyway, this particular night we came in to this ‘drome which had been an airfield for, for the [pause] I beg your pardon, an airfield for the gliders. As we came up and we turned around we began to sink. And we felt, well, that would be alright. Nobby turned around and said, ‘Its alright Bill. Once we get rid of this stuff we’ll rise alright’. you know. So Jim, in the back, shouts, ‘Well I bloody well hope so. I don’t want to be kept around here for a while’, you know. Anyway, what did happen was that the Maquis came there with their person in charge, they got all their stuff away and off they went into the bush and that was the end of them. They were gone. Anyway, we tried to get out and we hadn’t got out at all, we’d got out a little bit. Not bad. Anyway, the leader of the group on the ground, and it was a lady, and what she says was, ‘We’ll get you out. Don’t worry. We’ll get you out.’ And we said, ‘How?’, ‘Oh we’ll get you out’. So she actually went to the village and she rounded up everyone in the village and of course they weren’t supposed to move, they weren’t supposed to go out after dark, but man, woman and child all came out to help get us out and of course they had to try and find articles that would help. Anyway, when they were half way up they met a German sergeant, and the German sergeant said, ‘Right. You people. You shouldn’t be out at night time. What are you doing?’ Or words to that effect. And she says, ‘We’re trying to get your big black aircraft out of the mud and the Gestapo’s going to shoot us all including you if we don’t get the job done’. So he says, ‘That’s alright. I’ll go and look after the village and you can get the aircraft out’. So, anyway, he went back to the village and they got us out, but that was about an hour and a half on the ground instead of, at the most, twenty minutes. And as I say when we took off that was one of the best take-offs we ever had because we made sure that she was up and ready to go. But the only thing, time, well, what used to happen to us was we used to get the odd chap on the ground who heard an aeroplane coming and you used to hear ‘bang, bang’ and he would shoot at us with a rifle or something like that, or sometimes even thought it was somebody with a shotgun because we didn’t know it at the time but when you got back again you found the results on your aircraft. And these old aircraft, they could take it you know which was, which was a big thing. But that that was the nearest that we got to ever being interned because we were, we were very lucky. I put, I put it down to each of us doing our own work, you know and able to do the job that we set out to do. There’s the big black box down there if you want to take it home and use it. Would you like to use it?
CB: Yeah.
WM: [laughs] Do you know what it is?
CB: No. What is it?
WM: What is it Tony?
TB: I don’t know. What are we talking about?
WM: In there. Around this side. [pause] Down.
TB: That. No. Where am I looking?
CB: We’ll have a look in a minute.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Over there.
TB: Ok.
WM: No. The big thing. The big thing down there.
TB: I don’t know.
WM: It’s alright. It’s been shifted. The girl shifted it. Sorry. I beg your pardon for this.
CB: That’s alright.
WM: It’s —
TB: Not this.
WM: No. It’ not that, Tony.
CB: We’ll have a look in a minute.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Sorry. Sorry about that.
CB: That’s alright.
WM: Ok. Not to worry Tony.
TB: Oh.
WM: I know where it is now.
TB: Oh.
WM: She shifted it. I’ve got somebody that comes in, I beg your pardon, anyway , as I say between, between our training and respect for each other and what we did, I reckon that is why we survived. And not only that but the code of silence that we had. Now, what did happen was that later on, later on, once, once it started getting where they didn’t need so many people on the ground in Europe then we moved over to Tuddenham and then to Bomber Command, you know. And then later on all the station and everything else moved away from Tempsford across to Tuddenham, you know. And what happened was that the chap that I was flying with in the beginning, a chap called Murray, by that time he was, he was our wing commander. And he was the wing commander for 138 Squadron after the war as well for quite some considerable time, you know. Now, what happened, what happened to me was that on Bomber Command we did, we did thirty six ops on Bomber Command over and above what we did for the other ones but from time to time, our people just called them trips, there was no such thing as tours with us. It was if the old man let you off for a few days you got off for a few days. If he couldn’t afford to let you go you didn’t get, that’s how it was and you also had to make sure that you didn’t talk about what you were doing there. And that wasn’t just on the oath but that was also on the comradeship that we, that we had there, you know. Anyway, after that, after the end of the war the next thing we did was to fly back, fly back all our ex-prisoners of war and we were flying them back and also we were designated to take displaced persons down through France, down to the South of France, you know, and they had special camps there for them, to help them get rehabilitated, you know. And one of the biggest ones was at Istres you know.
CB: The who?
WM: Ist ISTRVS. In the south of France.
TB: Istrvs.
WM: Then of course, after a while there was three crews selected with their Lancasters and their ground crews and we went to RAF Benson. And we didn’t know what we were doing at first but eventually we found out what it was and one of the things that Churchill wanted was to have everything photographed from the air. The likes of London and cities like that we photographed them all from two thousand feet, then smaller towns. went I down gradually to about ten, fifteen thousand feet, and then of course the countryside was at twenty thousand feet. We didn’t only do the UK and Ireland but we also did right from the North of Norway all the way, right down to the Mediterranean and as far around to the east as we could go and come back on the fuel that we had. And that was an operation that had been put in place by Churchill when he was still in office, you know.
CB: So this was coastline? Coastlines?
WM: Sorry?
CB: Just the coastlines.
WM: No. No. Internal cities. Everything.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: Now we had bases, we had bases in Norway, we had bases in France, we had bases all over. And that was 138 squadron.
CB: Then what?
WM: Then I went. I was told I wasn’t going to get made up to another rank that I thought I was going to get and —
CB: What was that?
WM: A warrant officer then. And I didn’t get that and by that time instead of going out on class A, I took class B which was an early release for anybody who had been in the building trade and essential industries like that and that’s what I did from there, I took that and back in to the building trade.
CB: So what did you do in the building trade?
WM: Well we, we started, we revamped the family business and carried out many jobs, many contracts, but in the end we were finding out that all the spivs were getting the jobs instead of honest contractors. And then one day I decided now that enough’s enough and I said to the family, ‘Right’, the younger brothers, ‘You can take over the business. I’m going’. I didn’t know where I was going to but eventually I landed up in Africa with the African, what it was, was that the, the Mandela, Mandela, which was a trading store in Africa had started up a building section and they recruited me to go and take over a dozen sights there, you know. And that’s when we started building the schools and the hospitals and the universities and all sorts of things like that. First of all in the Nyasaland, as it was and then, and then in the Rhodesias and then that became the Federation. And then that went ahead by leaps and bounds until the UK government gave the countries away. And then eventually I came back here after fifty years.
CB: Where did you retire to?
WM: Well I retired here because I retired supposedly in 1980. What happened, my wife didn’t want me around the house so I went consulting, and I was a consultant for the Zimbabwe government, Zambian government and Namibia and Mozambique and Northern South Africa wasn’t it? [pause] Yeah.
CB: What made you choose this area?
WM: Well, what happened was that I came, I used to fly around here but also the fact was that I came back here in 1991 when one of my nieces and nephews were staying here and he’d been given, got a job as a bank manager from Africa to be here. And I rather liked it, and eventually my wife and I decided to come here, you know, and now that all my family are either in here or down in the Bournemouth area.
CB: How many children have you got?
WM: Three. Three children and then six, six grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Yeah.
CB: What was your wife’s name?
WM: Phillis. P H I L L I S. Like that.
CB: Yeah. Ah fantastic. Yeah. And when was she born?
WM: On the 1st of February 1926.
CB: When were you married?
WM: The 3rd of January 1947.
CB: So when were you actually demobbed?
WM: The end of February 1946.
CB: Ok. You talked about a lot of interesting things and one of the questions really is, we haven’t touched on is, what were the planes you were using when you were with 138? On the agent’s side.
WM: The twin engines were Hudsons.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. And then of course we had the single engines then.
CB: Did you, did you fly in Lysanders?
WM: Yes.
CB: You did. Right.
WM: Yes.
CB: How many people could you take in a Lysander?
WM: Well it all depended on the weight that you were carrying, you know. Yeah.
CB: But if it was just agents.
WM: Well that was, well that was, you could get three in, you know.
CB: As well as you and the pilot.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok. And in the Hudson?
WM: Well the Hudson mainly was, we took quite a few people on board, yes, about ten of them but we were mostly on the Hudsons taking in supplies to the Maquis.
CB: So how often did you air drop the supplies? Or how often did you land them?
WM: Well on the air drop, on the air drop was between, between fifteen and twenty, yeah, and then the land drops. The land ones, we landed with them, the special stuff. That was about five or six. Five or six.
CB: Six people.
WM: No, No.
TB: Six times.
WM: Six drops.
CB: Six drops. Yeah. Right.
WM: Yeah.
TB: How many Lysander trips did you do?
WM: Eh?
TB: How many Lysander trips did you do?
WM: About twelve altogether.
CB: Twelve Lysander trips. Ok. And Hudson? Because sometimes you didn’t find the location did you? So —
WM: No, we went, no well, we always seemed to, always seemed to be quite lucky that way. We were, you know. You know turn around and say it might have been the field next door or something like that but it wasn’t far away. We always managed to get our targets and get our stuff away.
CB: But it took exceptional navigational skill in the dark to be able to get to these places.
WM: It was.
CB: So what was the, what was the real key to that?
WM: Well they told me I had a countryman’s eyes.
CB: Because not everybody could do it.
WM: No, that’s right. As I said right at the beginning when I told you about the Clyde and the Clyde navigation.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The stars and things like that. You know, as a, as a boy I used to wander the countryside in the dark and it didn’t matter what the weather was.
CB: Right. So you had an eye for it.
WM: Oh yes. Aye.
CB: So the navigation itself. What were you flying? What height were you flying on the transit?
WM: Well the, no more than a thousand feet.
CB: Right. So that made it difficult.
WM: It did.
CB: To see laterally.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And when you got to the target then, where you were going to land, how did you do approach that? Did you do a straight in or did you fly over and around or —
WM: It all depends. If you recognised it and the code looks right you went straight in. Sometimes you buzzed it a couple of times because you weren’t sure whether it was a decoy or not. Because once or twice where the Jerries had set up decoys.
CB: So you were warned off were you?
WM: Yeah. Well it was the people on the ground you know.
CB: That’s what I meant, yeah.
WM: They always seemed to manage to do something that upset the Jerrie’s decoys. However, there were one or two chaps [pause] that didn’t.
CB: Yeah. The, so you’re coming at a thousand feet. Is this a wooded area or does it tend to be open country?
WM: Well most of them were open areas that we landed in, you know. Oh yeah.
CB: And how would they know you were coming in practical terms. At the last minute.
WM: Oh well. I would say they had a rough time of when we’d be there. That was what it was.
CB: So were they using lights to identify?
WM: Sometimes you had lights because we used to even take the lights in to them, you know. And sometimes the remote areas — sometimes they, they had little bush fires.
CB: Right.
WM: I call them bush fires. That’s from Africa, bush fires.
CB: Yeah. Yeah. So in landing they were fairly small strips.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: So how did you know, because you’ve got wind to consider?
WM: Yeah.
CB: How would you know which direction to approach for landing?
WM: Well, well you’d try and find your winds on the way through.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: And what navigation aids were you using?
WM: Well mostly, mostly, most of it was the navigator’s computer. There was a computer on the knee. But nine —
CB: The Dawson Computer.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Nine times out of ten, nine times out of ten it was just the old fashioned hit and run, you know.
CB: You didn’t have Gee.
WM: Oh no, not at that time. We never got Gee until we were flying in, we never had Gee until we, we flew in Lancasters.
CB: Right. Ok. So when you, when you were loading up to leave in the winter what was happening? Was the aeroplane sinking in? Is that what you were talking about earlier?
WM: Yeah. That’s what you had to watch out for.
CB: What did they do to help that?
WM: Well our people were very good because you know they made sure everything was alright for us but the ones on the other side as much as possible they had firm ground for us, you know.
CB: So you land the aeroplane. You had to taxi back.
WM: Yeah.
CB: In order to take off again.
WM: That’s right.
CB: How long are you on the ground between?
WM: Well, as I say, about twenty minutes.
CB: Right.
WM: Well, some, some of these trips. Other ones were a wee bit longer you know.
CB: The Lysander could get in a pretty small spot could it?
WM: Oh yes. Yeah. As a matter of fact most of the first groups — they used to land on the roads.
CB: Oh did they?
WM: Oh yes. Aye. Used to land on the roads.
CB: Between the trees.
WM: Yeah. ‘Cause you could do that with the Lysanders. Aye.
CB: What was the loss rate? Did people tend to —?
WM: Well I’ll tell you about it if you give me a few minutes.
CB: Yeah.
WM: I’ll give you it exactly, you know.
CB: Right. I’ll stop just for a moment.
WM: Yeah. Sure.
[Recording paused]
CB: Right. We’re talking about the loss rates in 138 in the flying over Europe.
WM: 138 Squadron. The Royal Air Force Association. The Royal Air Force, I beg your pardon. Royal Air Force. At Tempsford, during the time we were there we lost nine hundred and ninety five agents.
CB: Blimey. So when. When’s that from when to?
WM: That was right through the war.
CB: Right.
TB: When you say lost do you mean —
WM: Lost.
TB: What? Captured by the Germans.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: We dropped twenty nine thousand containers.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We dropped seventy, we dropped ten thousand packages.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And there was seventy — seven zero aircraft lost.
CB: On the SOE operations.
WM: Yeah. And there was three hundred air crew lost. The motto for 138 squadron is “For Freedom”. “For Freedom.”
[pause]
CB: Right.
WM: It may be that you’ll come across some day — the United States Air Force 7th Airlift Squadron came to be with us and they actually adopted our motto — “For Freedom.”
[pause]
CB: Now, what were the aircraft used? Because we’ve talked about the Hudson —
WM: Yeah.
CB: And the Lysander.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: But were you using bigger planes as well?
WM: Oh yes. Of course. We used, used Stirlings and Halifaxes.
CB: In the squadron.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Part of the same squadron.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: So they had lots of different aeroplanes. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah. We used Whitleys. We used everything.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We used to say that the junk that the old man didn’t want they used to pass it down to us.
TB: How did the Stirlings and Halifaxes get off then because they needed quite a long runway didn’t they?
WM: Yeah. Well that was, that was fine there at Tempsford.
CB: Tempsford had a long runway so that was ok.
TB: But the other end?
CB: It’s a standard A airfield.
TB: The other end then. How did they didn’t actually — they didn’t actually land in those?
CB: They didn’t land those.
WM: No, no .
CB: They didn’t land at the —
WM: No. They were for the heavy stuff they were dropping.
CB: Yeah. So fast forward then to going to Tuddenham.
WM: Yeah.
CB: That was because the SOE bit stopped.
WM: That’s right.
CB: What did 138 do from Tuddenham?
WM: Well we were on Bomber Command.
CB: Yes. So what type of bombing were you doing there?
WM: Well we were on a lot of the big ones that was available at that time. Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: Including, including the various ones like [pause] Where was one? There was the Kiel one.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The Kiel. Then there was, was —
TB: Did you do Cologne?
CB: And a, so you did a lot of different raids there.
WM: Yes.
CB: What, what about D-day because you got the Legion of Honour.
WM: Yeah. On, well, apart from the Legion of Honour wasn’t only just for D-day.
CB: No.
WM: That was for all the stuff we were doing for the French, you know.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: But during D-day time what we were doing, we were dropping H2S. It seems a funny thing for us to be doing a thing like that, but H2S and you did so many trips during that particular time they just called it one. One day. One day. They didn’t call it, didn’t call it so many trips.
CB: Right.
WM: That was one day.
CB: Right. Ok. So what were you actually doing? What were you actually doing at that time?
WM: That was, we were dropping, we were actually dropping, dropping —
CB: Window.
WM: Window.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But at the same —
CB: Not H2S.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Because H2S is the radar isn’t it?
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Well H2S is our side.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Whereas, whereas the window was against the Germans so —
CB: Yeah. Quite.
WM: But of course, on the other hand we’d divert and do a short bombing run somewhere else. Somewhere, somewhere else.
CB: Oh as well.
WM: To try and convince them that we were all over the place.
CB: Yes. Yes.
WM: So one flight might go off after twenty minutes, another one after half an hour and go and drop something, and things like that.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So just on timings. When did you start with 138 squadron at Tempsford?
WM: When?
CB: When was that?
WM: When. In Tempsford? Well we went back to Tempsford at the beginning of March.
TB: What year?
WM: Yeah.
CB: Nineteen forty —?
WM: 1945.
CB: Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: But originally when did you go to Tempsford?
WM: Oh Tempsford. Not Tempsford, no, that was Tuddenham.
CB: Yeah.
WM: That was Tuddenham.
CB: Yeah. So when did you go to Tempsford?
WM: ‘41, ‘42
CB: Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right. And from then you went to Tuddenham.
WM: Tuddenham was at the end.
CB: Right. What did you do in the middle?
WM: Tempsford.
CB: Always Tempsford.
WM: Always Tempsford.
CB: Yeah. Ok. Good.
WM: It didn’t matter what job come up, we were a Tempsford squadron. Yeah.
CB: Ok. Good. Thank you very much.
WM: And that is, that is and that was very important was that we were. Well 219 Squadron came and joined us from time to time you know but I had nothing, I had nothing to do with them, you know.
CB: The same idea. You don’t talk to each other.
WM: Much the same idea. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Right. So when you were at Tuddenham and you were in Lancasters, how many sorties? How many ops did you do?
WM: That was thirty six.
CB: That was thirty six. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So that that until the end of the war.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Ok. And how did the crew get on?
WM: Oh, we had a great crew. What we, what we did, we went back to a place called Langar.
CB: In Nottinghamshire. Yes.
WM: In Nottingham. And that’s where we, where we picked up the rest of the crew.
CB: Right.
WM: And also there was one funny one we picked up, and what he was, he was the youngster, just come right out of university and we didn’t know how many languages he could speak but he could speak just about everything on the continent. And he used to carry his black box with him wherever he went and he used to, he used to speak into that. We never knew exactly what he was doing but we had an idea that he was talking to the German control.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And everything else like that.
CB: Yeah.
WM: A very important job, but as I say he was just straight out of university.
CB: But he was completely detached from the rest of the crew.
WM: No, no, no.
CB: On the ground I meant.
WM: He was a part of the crew.
CB: No. On the ground.
WM: Oh, on the ground. On the ground, yeah. He’d his own, he had his own station on the aircraft. Yeah.
CB: Yeah. Where was that?
WM: Yeah. He was behind the radio operator.
CB: Right.
WM: Because they had to work together on it.
TB: But you dropped food stuffs into Holland as well didn’t you?
WM: Oh yes. That, we were on, we were on that drop.
CB: On Manna.
WM: Oh yeah.
CB: Operation Manna. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: How many drops did you do on that?
WM: We did, at the beginning we did three in one, three a day.
CB: Right.
WM: We did that for about fifteen days.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Aye. Yeah.
CB: And what height would you be flying for that?
WM: Well some of it we were just over, some of it, at the beginning there was about a thousand feet, then it was down to six hundred, you know. But there was one, one little story which is quite, quite a good one. We, it was the first Sunday we were on the run and we were on our second, second run, anyway what happened, As we were flying up, you see what had happened the ladies, we called it ladies, we used to call it ladies they had made white crosses like that.
CB: The WAAFs.
WM: Yeah. Well we said that was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We didn’t really know but the women used to say it was them.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And what it was that became our drop zones.
CB: Oh I see. Right.
WM: And that was inside —
CB: In Holland.
WM: Football grounds and thing like that.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Enclosed areas. Anyway, what happened was as we were coming in and just about ready for the drop and I saw this other Lanc coming in like that.
CB: Oh.
WM: And I said, ‘You’re bringing sprogs, you know’, and we went a little bit that way and dropped because we couldn’t do anything else, we’d already gone, you know. More or less gone. Top they went and the stuff went outside and landed here.
CB: Right. On the outside of the designated area.
WM: On the railway, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Yeah. Anyway, what happened was that years later we’d just opened a rugby ground in Africa and I was saying, I said, yeah, I said one of the stories I was saying, ‘And there we were, we dropped the food’. This lad came across. ‘And the stuff fell outside on the bloody railway line’, you know. And I said, ‘It looked like a whole lot of little black ants around a sugar lump, you know. In Africa that was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: All of a sudden I had a hand on my shoulder, and I looked around and somebody bigger than Tony, or he seemed bigger than Tony. I said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘You nearly killed me’, I said, ‘What?’, ‘You nearly killed me’. I said, ‘How?’ He said, ‘That was, I was that first lot of black ants’. And there’s another lady here, she was at church with us on Wednesday and she was five year old then and what happened was that her mother heard the bombers coming in and she, her granny said, ‘Hide under the table. Hide under the table. We’re going to get bombed. Going to get bombed’. And her mother said, ‘They’re very low’. The next thing they saw these funny things coming down because that was before the arrangements were made.
CB: Oh.
WM: And that was on to like a golf course. An open area. It wasn’t any good for landing.
CB: No.
WM: It was undulating stuff, you know. And what, what happened was that as I say she was five year old and that was the stuff landing right in front of her, you know.
CB: Amazing.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Yeah.
WM: And she’s here.
CB: Is she? What an extraordinary thing.
WM: And the number, the number of people that I’ve met is terrific. Well Tony was with us.
TB: Yeah.
WM: Tony was with us. I had a photograph here. Well it’s not a photograph.
TB: Yeah.
WM: There’s a painting done by a Dutchman, you know that was bigger than that.
CB: Right.
WM: No. It’s not there now Tony. It’s gone, my daughter’s got it. Like that. A great big mural, yeah. And he had it, he gifted it that day we were up there at Lincoln and it shows you the Lancasters all coming in, dropping the food and all the rest of it, you know and he actually gave me one just bigger, a little bit bigger than that envelope there.
TB: But the Germans were allowed to eat the food as well that was meant —
WM: Oh yes.
TB: There were people.
CB: They were starving too.
WM: Oh yeah. Well that was one of the reasons why, why, well, do you know the story behind it? Right. The people in Holland, both indigenous ones and members of the German armed forces, were starving and two young Canadian officers, lieutenants, had been talking to their CO and said, ‘Hey man, can’t we do something about that? These people are starving’. And he says, ‘We’ve got plenty of food’.
CB: These were army officers.
WM: Yeah. ‘We’ve got plenty of food. Let’s give some to them’. He said, ‘How are we going to do that?’ He says, ‘Let us go in and see the German. See if he’ll allow it’. He said, ‘They might, you never know’. The two of them. No guns, no nothing like that, no knives, and they went in and they walked right into the German headquarters and demanded to see the number one. So they got in there and they put their case to them that the aircraft coming in wouldn’t drop bombs as long as you didn’t shoot at them, and we’ll drop food and you can share it. Of course he thought that was a good idea. You can share it. Anyway, that happened. So the first thing that people said was, ‘Where are we going to get containers?’ Everybody said, ‘138 squadron. They’ve got hundreds of them’, you know. And so we had. And what they, did they next thing we knew there was American, American trucks, Canadian trucks, all of that coming on to our secret ‘drome, you know, with food. And of course they were all loaded up and taken to us and put in these containers. That’s why I’m saying about contained looked like. They must have had quite a job trying to get into it of course, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But that, that was the first lot of containers that were been dropped. Then they used to drop them in the reinforced mail sacks, you know. Well they were, they were run up special. People were running up up them special night and day to drop, so we could drop, so we could drop them.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Some of them were great big things. They weren’t small, you know. Aye.
CB: So even at six hundred feet the power of the drop would have been —
WM: Oh well.
CB: Difficult for the —
WM: Well that was, that was —
CB: They were breaking.
WM: Well, that was the chance. Yeah. But most of our containers were alright because —
CB: Yeah.
WM: They were used to being dropped, you know.
CB: No. Quite.
TB: [inaudible] Lancasters were dropping the food?
CB: Eh?
TB: Were they using Lancasters?
WM: Lancasters. Yeah.
CB: Lots of squadrons did it.
WM: Oh yes. There was.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Aye.
CB: Right. What was the most memorable thing about your experience in the RAF?
[pause]
WM: It was when we were dropping the food to Holland and the response that we got. Yeah.
CB: What? What was the response?
WM: Oh terrific.
CB: In what way? How did they demonstrate it?
WM: Oh well. The crowds. Hundreds of people come out and waving to you and everything like that. And the, and the messages that was coming across, illicit radios and everything else. The airwaves were full of it. Aye.
CB: Were they?
WM: Aye. Oh yes.
CB: And then after the war did anybody go back to Holland to see? What?
WM: Oh yes. Yeah. Not only that, for quite a number of years they held food drops there, cheese drops. I was, in the beginning, alright but then I was away for fifty years. It still carried on during that time, and what used to happen was that the Dutch people came, came across on light aircraft and they brought all these little parachutes with these, you know these wee round cheeses and used to drop them at the various Royal Air Force Association homes on one special day at one special time. Yeah. And that was the food drops.
TB: ‘Cause you’re got a Dutch reward haven’t you as well? As well.
WM: Aye. I’ve got a Dutch medal. Yeah.
CB: What’s that called? What’s that called?
WM: Would you like to see it?
CB: Yeah.
[Recording pause]
CB: So we’re talking about your Dutch award for Manna. What’s that called?
[pause]
WM: I’ve got it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it.
CB: What’s it say?
WM: Thank you. “Thank you Canada and Allied Forces. Awarded the Medal of Remembrance. Thank you Liberators. 1945. To Mr W.T. Moore.”
CB: This is a plaque on the wall.
WM: Yes.
CB: Yes. Framed.
WM: Yes.
CB: Yes. And then after the war there were regular contacts but you were abroad.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So you didn’t get involved.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Since I’ve returned I’ve been highly involved with them.
CB: Yes. That’s really good. And this year, on the seventieth, last year just gone, the seventieth anniversary. Did you go to Holland?
WM: No. I didn’t. I didn’t manage to go.
CB: Right.
WM: But I had quite a number of Holland and Dutch people come here and saw me.
CB: Did you? Fantastic.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Can I just wind things back a little. Tell me about the crew. How, at Langar you crewed up. How did that happen?
WM: Well [laughs] it was an old RAF system.
CB: Go on.
WM: Open the hangar door, everybody goes in and they shut the hangar door and you’re told to, to crew up. In other words you have to try and find a crew. And well we were alright, Nobby and I were alright, we knew each other.
CB: That’s the pilot.
WM: That’s right.
CB: What was his name?
WM: Noble. Noble.
CB: Noble. Right.
WM: Yeah. Because I had a few pilots before that but he was the one they were going to fly Lancasters with, you know, and so then we —
CB: Who took the initiative in selecting the rest of the crew?
WM: Well, it just happened that, happened to be we that were standing around and this old man came around, you know and we said, ‘Oh he looks alright. He’s got experience. What’s your name?’ ‘Graham. Graham Wilson’, ‘What are you?’, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m a tail gunner’, We said, ‘Oh bugger off. We don’t want, you’re six feet and odd and you don’t tell us that’, you know. ‘You’re something else’, you know. Anyway, Graham Wilson became the tail gunner. He was, he was already twenty five plus twenty six.
CB: Yeah. An old boy. Yes.
WM: I know about that but —
CB: Yeah.
WM: And of course, then of course we had we had Jimmy Dagg. Jimmy Dagg from New Zealand and he became, he became our, [pause] well what he, what he actually did was he was our radar man. He was a radar man. He looked after all the radar equipment, and operating that as well. And then we had, we had radar, we had the wireless operator. We had a wireless operator and he was a signaller, Wireless Op/AG. He was a signaller as they called themselves, and he came from across the Clyde from me and his name was Dave Mitchell. [pause] Then of course the mid-upper, the mid-upper gunner, well he come from Canterbury. Peter. Peter Enstein and he and the family have a, have a hotel in Canterbury still, you know.
TB: You met up with one of them at the ITV do didn’t you?
WM: Sorry?
TB: You met up with someone at the ITV do.
WM: Yeah.
TB: Who was that?
WM: Well, that was that, that was the same ones that we met later on in life. Yes.
CB: Who was the flight engineer?
WM: The flight, the flight —
CB: Flight engineer.
WM: The flight engineer was Gus. He come from, he came from London, you know.
CB: Gus.
WM: Yeah, Gus Mitchell. Not Mitchell [pause] Oh what was his second name. Gus. Oh I’ll come back to him in a minute.
CB: Yeah. Ok.
WM: Sorry about that.
CB: Right. Now, anything else that we need to cover that comes to your mind particularly?
[pause]
WM: Well, just about [pause] Well I think we’ve been covering it in general. We’ve covered in general, you know.
CB: Yes.
WM: We haven’t gone into designated drops and designated flights and —
CB: Ok.
WM: Where people got shot up and things like that.
CB: Yeah. Well that’s —
WM: I haven’t done that.
CB: No. Can you do that?
WM: I haven’t done that on purpose.
CB: Oh right. Ok.
WM: I haven’t done that on purpose.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We were quite lucky. We were quite lucky. We went in, in to Bomber Command as a crew and we come out as a crew. We were lucky.
CB: Yeah.
WM: We, the pilots I had earlier on for the small and light aircraft and things like that the most memorable one to me was this chap as I say when I started off he was a, he was a pilot officer, you know, and he finished up as the, as the wing commander. And with that he [pause] he actually, well to me he was a person who deserved everything he ever got because he was, he was a first class team leader, he was a first class gentleman. If he told you a thing then he meant it, he didn’t elaborate on it, you know. And his name was Rob Murray. Of course he had various, various high decorations during his time.
CB: Yeah. Such as?
WM: Well he got all the high ones.
CB: DSO, DFC.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And bars?
WM: Well he did. He did, yes.
CB: So, when you were on operations, what was the most challenging thing on that? So you’re on the Lancaster —
WM: Well on a Lancaster the main challenging thing was to watch out for night fighters.
CB: Right.
WM: You know, by that time your navigational aids were good but the worst thing about it was the German night fighters. Because there were so many young crews, as I call them, shot down before they even left the UK. The likes of chaps just about ready to shove off the cliffs there, you know, they got shot down, you know.
CB: The night fighters were in that close were they? On the way to meet you.
WM: Oh yes. Now then and also at night time on the return trips. That was also the night fighters rejoice.
CB: Right.
WM: Oh yes. You don’t hear a lot about that but there was a lot of chaps were actually shot down here.
CB: Yeah.
WM: On the return.
CB: Yeah.
WM: On the return journey.
CB: And what about the British night fighters that were counteracting those?
WM: Oh well that was up to my Jimmy Dagg and our boffin boy to do that. To try and, try and keep our special signals going. Aye.
CB: So Jimmy Dagg was, where was he operating? Behind the signaller.
WM: Yeah. That’s right.
CB: And who was your bomb aimer?
WM: I did the bomb aimer as well as that because I did, I did the navigating and the bomb aimer.
CB: Oh did you? Right.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok. Right. And so when you were on the sorties in the night obviously.
WM: Yeah.
CB: In the squadron. Then what, you were in a stream.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Did you ever see other aircraft while you were there?
WM: Oh yes, yes. Oh yes, we did.
CB: How close did any of them get?
WM: Well I think sometimes within a hundred metres. And other than that you had to watch out for chaps who were either too low or too high. Or too quick on the bomb release. Yeah.
CB: Any coming down from above you?
WM: Oh yes. But you know the thing is that if you went straight through on the guidelines of what you were told to do you were much safer than if you tried to do something different.
CB: Right.
WM: Aye.
CB: So because you’ve got the extra person on board then you’re doing the bomb aiming as well as the navigation.
WM: That’s right. That’s right.
CB: So the practicality is on the run in. How far out from the target are you doing straight and level.
WM: Well a lot of that depended on the territory and the terrain and how it was at night time you know. But generally, generally in later days when the pathfinders were going it was twenty, thirty miles and more.
CB: And you are, you are not. You are releasing the bombs as the bomb aimer.
WM: Yeah.
CB: But you’re not controlling the aircraft. Is that right?
WM: No. Well you did control the aircraft.
CB: Oh.
WM: Because you were controlling the pilot.
CB: That’s what I meant, you’re telling the pilot.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Rather than having the remote.
WM: Yeah. Oh yes.
CB: Yourself.
WM: Oh yeah. The thing is as I often joke about coming out of the road here at night time I say to people, ‘Left. Left. Left. Left. Right.’
CB: Yes.
WM: You know.
CB: And then you had to do the photoflash afterwards. So how soon would that be after you’d released?
WM: Well that. All that, that depended on how the target was.
CB: Right.
WM: But what you did was you counted in. You say each, each lot of bombs were [pause] were going to go off at different heights because they were different types of bomb types you were going. It wasn’t just all the same type
CB: Ok. So what were the types?
WM: Well you had everything from the small incendiaries, well the nuisance bombs, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: The big incendiaries that used to drop and probably set two or three buildings going you know.
CB: Right. So your load would be a mixture of high explosive.
WM: That’s right.
CB: And incendiaries.
WM: Normally was.
CB: So the photoflash was to illuminate the target.
WM: Oh to try and, yeah.
CB: And when did the camera fire. How did that happen?
WM: Well that was timed, that, we didn’t —
CB: Automatic.
WM: We didn’t actually do the timing.
CB: Right.
WM: That was actually arranged ahead of time you know.
CB: So if you weren’t at the right height for the original calculation.
WM: Yeah.
CB: What happened?
WM: Well then, then of course they could give you, could give you, you know say whether you were actually within that area or not, you know.
CB: Yes.
WM: Oh yes.
CB: Ok.
WM: A lot of people turn around say now that it was scattered and all the rest of it but a lot of them didn’t realise that you might have had a change of wind. The wind might have went up from fifty or sixty knots to about a hundred knots.
CB: Right. And how did you detect that change?
WM: Well, well what you did was you were finding your winds all the time and that. You had to try and allow for that you know.
CB: But you’re not using a sextant.
WM: That was the old days.
TB: Looking out the window.
CB: So you’re using Gee.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Are you? And GH.
WM: Oh yeah. Yeah.
CB: And GH?
WM: And of course. Yeah. And otherwise H2S, you know.
TB: H2S. Yeah. Just a quick one —
WM: Once you, once you started on H2S you know it was a different story entirely.
CB: So what could you see with H2S?
WM: Well if you had water around you it was excellent. If you were going up alongside a canal you had excellent because the more water you had around you the better it was.
CB: The contrast.
WM: Yeah.
CB: So how did you use H2S? For navigation? Or could you use it for the actual bombing?
WM: Well we could use it, could use it for navigation. You could use it for bombing as well. Oh yes.
CB: But what was the downside of using H2S?
TB: The tracking.
WM: [laughs] You should know what that was.
TB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: That was as bad as the night fighter.
TB: Yeah. Yes.
CB: So the practicality of it is that you’d only switch it on occasionally.
WM: Well the trouble was the better you were on the other instruments, the better your crew were on the other instruments, the safer you were.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Once you got the run ups and different things like that you then you were taking your chances.
CB: Yeah. To what extent were you aware of the German system of upward firing guns in night fighters?
WM: Well the thing is, the thing is this. With that —
CB: The Schrage music.
WM: It was something, it was something your rear gunner was dreading because after a certain angle he’d no control over that at all but if he, if he was on his, on his proper lateral defences for the aircraft, fine . Now, it’s, you couldn’t turn, you couldn’t turn around, turn around and say that the rear gunner missed something you know because it was a big bit of sky you know.
CB: How many times did you get fired on from a fighter?
WM: Very seldom. I dare say we actually got fired directly on with the other ones but we were aware of them, you know.
CB: And did you do many corkscrews?
WM: Oh yes, quite a few. Quite a few of them. Yeah. That that was a lot of the targets like Kiel and places like that that was when you did a lot of corkscrews was on that.
CB: Yeah. And they were using box flak were they?
WM: Yeah. Well you see, along, along the canals and that you had your pockets because, you know, the canal was where there had been several good attempts or big attempts at different things. Like one night we went out on the Friday nights and we bombed this battleship, you know and we actually put it on its side, you know. And the Sunday night we were called up again and somebody said, ‘you’ve got to go and so and so’. And a voice chipped up and said, ‘Hey are you wanting us to right and put it back up the way it was before?’ [laughs] That was a fact, that’s what he said. That was actually recorded as being recorded. [laughs]
CB: So when you were bombing shipping what bombs were you using?
WM: You had a medium height bomb you know but we weren’t in for the shipping direct we weren’t in a lot of these special ones.
CB: Right.
WM: But dropping bombs. Dropping bombs in the submarine pens, nowwe had the big ones for them as well.
CB: You did carry the big ones.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Ok.
WM: But you see the thing is this. We had a modern, we had a modern Lancaster, the most up to date one, yeah, And the thing about them was, was that you were, you were dropping. Later on what we were doing although we thought we were dropping on submarine pens, it wasn’t. We were dropping them because the V2s and the V2s were in there and at the beginning we didn’t even know that there was V2s and V1s, we just thought they were submarine pens because the amount of damage that the government believed was going to come on the London area was going to be horrendous and there could have been, you know. It was bad enough the likes of people down this area knew about the V2s and V1s and things like that.
CB: Yeah. Sure.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Right. Do you want to stop there for a mo?
TB: How did they discover, the Germans discover —
[Recording paused]
CB: What was the role, the difference between you, sorry, the wireless operator and Jimmy Dagg. So Jimmy Dagg —
WM: Well the wireless operator had, as you say wireless.
CB: Yeah.
WM: He had his official work to do.
CB: Yeah. Signaller.
WM: Yes.
CB: Right.
WM: When Jimmy was doing this other thing you had, you had lots of stuff that was introduced that Jimmy used to use, you know. A lot of it, we never touched it, we never touched it, you know. Same as the, same as the youngster with his black box, we never saw what was inside that.
CB: So, Ok. Who was the youngster then?
WM: Eh?
CB: Who was the youngster?
WM: Well, he was young Weir.
CB: Oh he was young Weir was he?
WM: Yeah. Yeah.
CB: Right.
WM: But we never, well maybe a bit [laughs] [coughs] we didn’t, we didn’t treat him as a kid, you know, but we did actually look after him, you know, because by the time we were doing that we were, you know, we had quite a few things under our belts sort of thing, you know. Yeah.
CB: So he only came in later did he?
WM: That’s right.
CB: Right. Ok.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Where did you meet your wife and when?
WM: Oh I met my wife in 1944 in Dunoon, in Scotland.
TB: Up there.
WM: There it is. There. Up there.
TB: Yeah.
WM: That’s the picture up there.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But what it was, was we got, we got some leave and I managed to persuade the old man to give us a few days extra. And I said, ‘It takes us two days to get there and two days to get back again, you know’. And he said, ‘Ok’. So we got about ten, got about ten days and that, and that was the July of ‘44. As I say we thought we deserved a, we deserved a bit of a rest after what we’d been doing for D-day and all the rest of it, you know.
CB: Yeah. Yeah.
WM: Yeah.
CB: And how many other bombers did you see blow up?
WM: Quite a few actually but you were never sure whether it was your ones or the enemy that had been got at, you know.
CB: How do you mean your ones?
WM: I mean, I mean our aircraft. Some other Lancasters.
CB: Which, whether it was a German plane that blew up.
WM: Yeah.
CB: Or a British one.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Ok.
WM: Sometimes they went, they went puff too. Yeah. But no, no, it was hard to say.
CB: And your rear, Graham Wilson in the back.
WM: Yeah.
CB: At six feet he was squashed in. Did you have the later .5 machine guns in the rear turret?
WM: Yeah. Yeah. We had that. I’ll tell you what we did, I never mentioned this with —
CB: Previously.
WM: At one time from [pause] this was one of the sort of trips that we did from [pause] from Tuddenham. We, we went up to Abbotsinch and we got new engines put in, you know, and , well they turned around and said these ones were getting a bit old and so they were but we got these new engines put in.
CB: More powerful.
WM: Powerful. We could fly faster, fly further, fly higher, all the rest of it. Anyway, there was only three. So anyway we went up there and we got up to Abbotsinch which is now Glasgow airport, you know. I knew it as Abbotsinch as a kid, you know. Anyway, we left that aircraft. We had taken our own ground crew with us.
CB: Oh.
WM: We were told to do that, they also got leave, and we went home and all the rest of it. We didn’t scatter because everybody came and stayed with my mother, you know. Anyway, we got back and they had these new engines and the ground crew were back. They also had a couple of Scotsmen in the ground crew and we had to test these new engines and fly them around and give a report. So we used to take the chiefy, if you know what a chiefy is. Do you know what a chiefy is?
CB: Yeah. The chief technician. Yeah.
WM: No, no.
CB: The ground crew chief.
WM: No.
CB: Oh. Which one?
WM: No. A chiefy was a flight sergeant.
CB: Oh.
WM: [laughs] That is where it came from.
CB: Yes.
WM: The equivalent from the, from the Navy.
CB: Right.
WM: Was the chiefy.
CB: Right.
WM: And the flight sergeant became a chiefy. But anyway their chiefy came along and we got these engines back and had to run them up, so we did that and we had a couple of days flying around and one night in the, in the mess and the naval boys were shooting a line about HMS Forth and the submarines in the Holy Loch and they said that nobody could get near them, you know. Well, I’ll tell you what, I just, I never said a word and I’d told the crew already you don’t mention anything about. They might have guessed my accent a bit but, you know. Anyway, so anyway what we did we went into Paisley and we got a whole lot, a whole lot of little bags of lime, you know, and we loaded it up in the Lancaster and we took off. So, we had, we had permission to fly anywhere we wanted as long as it wasn’t in one of these defensive barrages, you know, whatever they call them. Anyway, we decided that we’d go and see The Forth. So we got in, we revved her up, we took off, we went across the Clyde to Erskine. We went up in to Loch Lomond and flew up Loch Lomond and flying low, used to flying low, then we jumped. We jumped over the section where the Norsemen used to draw their boats across Loch Lomond to Loch Long. And we jumped across there, down Loch Long, moved over into Loch Eck, down Loch Eck, Glen Massan and then we just opened up the throttle. Full throttle right down the Holy Loch and dropped all this stuff on HMS Forth and all the submarines and got the hell out of it, you know. Anyway, we got, we did, we went away down the Isle of Arran and all the way around about, the bottom of the Clyde, you know, and back up again about an hour later, you know. So, eventually we landed and this lieutenant commander sent for us, and we paraded in front of him, all scraggly buggers, you know. None of us had proper uniform on, we’d just what we used to use around the aircraft you know. Anyway, he says, ‘You’re all on a charge’. ‘Why sir?’, ‘Well it’s my Lancaster that did this, AC-Charlie, and I won’t have it’. I said, ‘What do you mean your Lancaster, sir?’ He said, ‘Well they’re based here and they’re my Lancasters. I’m in trouble for them’. I said, ‘Oh. Why’s that?’, ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘You made a mess of the Forth’. ‘Don’t you remember the other night in the mess? All these naval boys were saying it was impossible, you know’. ‘Well. Dismissed. We’ll see you later when you come back from your next job’. So we went up and went up north and we loaded up with bombs and eventually the idea was to go up into Leningrad, you know, so called Leningrad then, you know and the siege. A lot of people thought the siege was just like across the road there you know but it wasn’t, it was about forty or fifty miles away, you know, but at the same time old Jerry had it all wrapped up, you know. But the Russians had their great bunkers there that you could land a Lancaster on. Well they had, they used to say, ‘Watch the bloody holes in the runway’. But they used to fill them in all the time. Anyway we landed there, got under this big, what was supposed to be bomb proof shelters, you know. Well we knew what we were doing the other side but anyway that was it. So we stayed there until the wind changed because we couldn’t have the wind that we came in on otherwise we’d be flying over the Jerries’ lines immediately, you know, at low level. So we waited until the wind changed, right, Gulf of Finland, away, good.Back up were Russian bombs then, Back right down we dropped the Russian bombs. Now this was all his majesty’s ideas and I don’t mean the King either. This was Winston Churchill’s ideas to show what, what we could do, you know. Anyway, we went back to Lossiemouth and back again and back again and we were lucky, you know. We had a few chips and things like that. Anyway, the last time we got to Lossiemouth they said. ‘No. It’s finished. You did enough’. ‘Oh thank you very much. Where do we go now?’, ‘Go back to Abbotsinch.’ Back to Abbotsinch and all the boffins came up from the, from a factory which is, well the factory’s about twenty minutes in a motor car, you know. About five minutes in a aeroplane, you know.
CB: Yeah.
WM: But that’s where they used to make these engines, you know. Anyway, all the boffins were there. Took the, took the engines off, took them away again and then we went up to see the old man as we call a lieutenant commander. So we got up there and I knocks on the door. No lieutenant commander, full commander. And I said to the boys, I said, ‘Oh this is alright. He’s been posted somewhere’, you know. He wasn’t posted somewhere, he’d been promoted to full commander which is just under a captain in the Navy . Yeah. So I saw his secretary, a very nice young lady, I got on well with her, you know. Anyway, we said to her, ‘When can we see the boss?’ Well, she said, ‘I’ll make an appointment for you’,’ Alright’. The next morning appointment everybody had their best blues on, shining, buttons polished, boots polished. She led us in. He was out in his other office. ‘Come in. [pause] Morning gentleman. Why are you here?’ I said, ‘Beg your pardon sir. You’re the one who told us to come back here when we come back and you would sentence us to that escapade that we had’. ‘Don’t know anything about it’. I said, ‘But —‘, ‘I don’t know anything about it’. He said, ‘Good trips boys?’ ‘Yes’, ‘And they had theirs?’,’ Yes’. ‘My Lancasters’. So there it was. Nothing happened about it.
CB: That was lucky. Yeah.
WM: But the, there was a great friend of mine. He’d got a book, another book I think over there somewhere. Anyway, he’s written it. Peter. Peter Lovatt, you know.
TB: Oh that’s the bloke you met at the what’s name isn’t it?
WM: Sorry?
TB: That’s the one you met at —
WM: Oh right
CB: Is it there Tony?
TB: Yeah.
WM: Eh?
TB: Yeah.
WM: One on submarines, and one on this, and one on that.
CB: Yes. Lots of captains on HMS Forth.
WM: That’s right.
CB: Yes.
WM: And [pause] and of course as I say what happened was that I lost touch. And you know the Millies? [pause] Well the Millies are sponsored by the ITV and The Sun newspaper and one of the first ones that was done I was asked to go on it. Anyway, I’d been, I’d been speaking to a young lady at the Bomber Command luncheon on the Sunday.
CB: Yes.
WM: And this thing was going to happen about ten days later, you know. But at that time I didn’t know. So, anyway, what happened was that I couldn’t, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I’d written to him, we’d lost touch and that was it, you know. Anyway, I even got a letter from him. It took fourteen years to come to me, I got it though. Fourteen years to come to me. Anyway, I tried to find him, couldn’t find him. Anyway, on the, on the Saturday [pause] no, I’ll tell you a sad thing that happened was on the Sunday I’d been at the Bomber Command luncheon and my wife was dead and my children said, ‘No dad. You must go and we’ll see to everything at the moment.’ So, anyway on the Friday we had the service and on the Saturday morning my daughter got a phone call saying that I was wanted for something special for the Millies. We’d never heard about the Millies. Anyway, she got to know a bit more than I did and then apparently this lady went to work to try and find Peter and she found his son playing golf and then that led to them finding Peter. And then of course on the Wednesday I got a car that came here for me. I was warned about this. First of all they said black tie and wearing black tie is fine. The next one was lounge suit, yeah, that’s fine. Next one was blazers and badges, that’s fine, you know.Anyway, what did happen was that I took the whole lot and I got dressed here in the dickie suit. All the way down to London, just myself in this green tomato carriage. The next thing I knew we stopped at this hotel. ‘No. Keep in where you are’. ‘Where are we going now?’ ‘Just you wait and see. I’ve got my orders not to lose you’. I said, ‘Oh. Thank you’. So they took us to Number 10. So that was fine. So we had a photographic session and shaking hands and all this. And then we got taken back to the hotel. We went to the Dorchester first and we, we had drinks there and then they said, ‘Time up. Everybody in’. And we had buses by this time, great big buses, you know, and the driver had already told us that, ‘You sit in the place where you are because I’ve got you on camera and you don’t dare go and move. Or another bus’. Anyway, we got back to the hotel and somebody says, ‘How about dinner?’ ‘No. You’ll get dinner where we’re going’. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘We’ll take you there’. So we don’t know where we’re going. So all done up in dickie suits and medals and this, that and the next thing. And we get there and we’re at the War Museum and it’s all lined up like Hollywood. All these searing lights and all this thing and we get escorted up. Once again, in the bus they said, ‘Have you got your number?’ The bloke next to me, he keep talking away to me and he turned out to be with, he was the boss of the Royal Navy you know. And he was down in the dumps because they’d just took his aeroplanes away that day, you know. He wasn’t very happy with them, you know. On the other side of me was a young pilot officer who’d a brand new DFC up here, you know. Anyway, that was fine. Anyway, we got there and they said, ‘Right. As you come up if you get a green ticket you go to the right. You get a red ticket you go to the left.’ Alright. I got a red ticket. I’m going this way and all these film stars and all these other high [unclear] and had a great run ‘cause you meet everybody because that’s the idea of the two lots. Then all of a sudden somebody shouts out. ‘Ready. The doors will be open in five minutes ladies and gentlemen. And after you get in through the doors there’s toilets on the right and the left that you may use’. [laughs] Anyway, we get there and then of course they tell us what table we’re at. Then I find out that I’m with another five Bomber Command boys. Bomber Command. Five. Five and one is six. Something wrong. Anyway, we go back. We go, we sit down and we get our nibbles and this, that and the next thing and that’s the beginning of a good evening, you know. Plenty of wine coming around you know. Very nice. Good stuff. Then the next thing I noticed that there were people going up to the platform. So this man went up and this lady went up and this man went up and eventually, ‘Bomber Command. Table Thirteen.’ We go up. There’s still six. Anyway, we get up there and as we get up one of the chaps, about his size, what does he do? He falls down through the trapdoor. Honestly all you could see was he was down to about my size. [laughs] So, anyway, what happens then is that we’re beginning to get the idea there’s presentations going on. So we got this presentation, a beautiful glass ornament we’ll call it, a beautiful thing. We’ve got it. Anyway, what happened, we got that and everybody else had moved away when they got theirs and this presenter, that fella, same height as me, white hair and this young blonde girl. She was here and he was there and wouldn’t they let me move. No. Then the next thing was the roll of the drums. ‘Brrmbrrrm brummmm brmmm’. What happens?
TB: Peter comes in.
WM: They have it like that programme, “Your Life.” Eventually what happens, I get to see something. I thought to myself it can’t bloody well be. There’s Peter Lovatt there and of course they said to me, ‘What would you like to do tonight?’ I said, ‘I don’t know but I’m beginning to think my imaginations’, you know. Anyway, apparently my accent was broader than it should be. Anyway, what happened, It was Peter. They’d found him and they had him dickied up and they had him there after all these years. Yeah.
TB: [inaudible]
CB: Extraordinary.
TB: Yeah.
[Recording paused]
CB: We’re restarting. So what you’ve got is a plate here.
WM: Right.
CB: Yeah.
WM: Now —
CB: So they presented to you.
WM: Now, when we went in to the, when we went in there, on the table, there were lovely sets of plates were all on the table and of course everyone was admiring them and reading them. And then of course when we came back from being on the platform they had disappeared, you know. But unbeknown to us they’d made up bags. Extremely heavy, strong, beautiful carved out, set out plastic bags. Now in the audience was my friend. Who?
CB: This is your pilot?
WM: Camilla.
CB: Oh Camilla.
WM: Camilla and her husband.
CB: Right.
WM: So, anyway, what happened during the time we were going around and they went outside and then everybody came back inside after the toilet, you know. What happened then was that we were at the tables and the VIPs came around to greet us although everybody told us we were the VIPs and not the ones coming to greet us. So, anyway, the Prince of Wales and his good lady was coming around and they got to me and I was told that, you know, we could talk to them. They’re here, we could talk to them. You’re the VIPs and you can tell them any stories you like so long as you don’t go on too long, you know. Maybe they knew me. Anyway, what happened, when they came to me I said, ‘Good evening ma’am. Good evening sir. Thank you very much for coming tonight. We’re very happy to see you here’. I said, ‘By the way can I tell you a little story about your granny’. That’s to him. And Camilla takes out a wee book, I’ve got one of them here, yeah, h, a little book like that, you know, and her pen. I said, ‘This is a story’, I said, ‘In 1960 I built a race course for your granny and I was given ten days to build it while she went on a cruise up and down Lake Nyassa in Africa’, and of course then the ears were going but I hurried the story up. So, anyway, anyway Camilla’s busy writing and she says, ‘This is going to be our story at Christmas’. Christmas is only a few days away, you know. ‘This is going to be our story. Nobody knows that one’, you know. So, anyway she writes down all this stuff about what I told her and all the rest of it, you know. And I said, ‘I hope you can read that’, and she said, ‘Yes. I better’. I says, ‘Ok’. And Charles is watching her. Anyway, the next thing that happens, the next thing that happens is he says, ‘Is that all?’ I says, ‘Aye. I can tell you a lot of stories about your mum if you like too’, you know. He says, ‘Another time’, he says. I said, ‘Alright, we’ll make it another time’, [laughs]. Anyway, I’ve met them several times since. Anyway, what did happen the people on the platform turned about to these ones? Yeah. Now, he’s a secretary for Bomber Command and has been for generations. There’s myself there and this was my nominated girlfriend for the evening. Well the thing is this, she’s married now and got a baby now. [laughs] And this is the one that fell down the hole. Well there you are.
CB: Fantastic.
WM: This is us shaking hands on the — yeah. That’s my friend Peter Lovatt.
CB: Yeah.
TB: Have you heard from him since? Have you heard from him since?
WM: Oh yes. Aye.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Bill Moore. Two
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Chris Brockbank
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-03-18
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AMooreWT160318
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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02:45:48 audio recording
Description
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Bill Moore joined the Royal Air Force after spending time in the Air Defence Cadet Corps, qualifying as an observer. He tells of his family history in wartime and his transatlantic trip, landing in New York before heading to Canada for his training. He went to 138 Squadron and tells of his time flying Lysanders from RAF Tempsford, taking members of Special Operations Executive over the France and also of dropping supplies to the Resistance. He also tells that on one of these operations, his aircraft had to be helped by local villagers to get airborne again. As well as Lysanders, William flew in Hudsons, Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters in Bomber Command. Bill tells about 138 Squadrons part in Operation Manna - he received the Legion of Honour from France and also a Dutch Medal of Commendation. He also tells of his time after the war when he returned to the building trade working in Rhodesia and Zambia.<br /><br /><span data-contrast="none" xml:lang="EN-GB" lang="EN-GB" class="TextRun SCXW153699638 BCX0"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW153699638 BCX0">Please note: The veracity of this interview has been called into question. We advise that corroborative research is undertaken to establish the accuracy of some of the details mentioned and events witnessed.</span></span>
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Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Yorkshire
England--Scarborough
Canada
New Brunswick
New Brunswick--Moncton
France
France--Istres
Netherlands
Zimbabwe
Zambia
138 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
displaced person
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Hudson
Lancaster
Lysander
observer
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Benson
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Tempsford
RAF Tuddenham
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/295/3615/AWallerT151027.2.mp3
fabda2f9ca0e4a33deecf28b4415ef22
Dublin Core
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Title
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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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-27
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Waller, T
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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DE: So this is an interview with Thomas Waller. It’s at his house in Swanland. It’s the 27th of the 10th 2015. Approximately 10 past 10. My name is Dan Ellin and this is an interview for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. So Mr Waller could you please tell me what you did before the war and before you joined the RAF?
TW: I left school when I was fourteen. Worked on the fish docks. I left there when we came to Swanland in 1936. I went to work at the Blackburn’s which is now British Aerospace at Brough. I couldn’t stand being penned in there so I came and worked in the local village grocery shop. Wednesday was our half day so when I was in town one Wednesday I went in to the recruiting office and joined the RAF. I came home. Mother said, ‘Why did you do that for? You’ll not pass your medical.’ So I said, ‘Ah. Let’s see.’ So I went for my medical and passed A1. And she said, ‘Well you couldn’t have done.’ But I never found out why. So I joined up. Went in for MT driver but I’d joined up just at Dunkirk and they’d lost a lot of armourers in Fairey Battles so I became an armourer. Hadn’t the vaguest idea what it was – came home on leave, home and my brother he was a flight engineer. Ground crew. I said, ‘What’s an armourer?’ He said, ‘Oh guns and bombs.’ ‘Oh I don’t want to do that. I’m not doing that.’ He said, ‘It’s good pay. Good promotion.’ I said, ‘Money’s not everything.’ Anyhow, I went. Got on the course. And the lad next to me said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do this.’ So we filed up and down. Up and down. The tutor came around and said, ‘You two can stop messing about. Get on with it because we know you can do it.’ So we did. So we passed out flying colours so went out there in the armoury after it had finished. An officer come along and says, ‘Those whose names I call out please step forward.’ My name was called out. Go for fitter armourer to Credenhill in Hereford. So my mate said, ‘We didn’t want to do that, did we?’ I said, ‘No. But we’ll have to go won’t we?’ So we went and we enjoyed it and we got through that course alright and then I was posted to Stradishall. 138 Squadron. SOE Squadron. I wasn’t there very long because Tempsford was its main base and they decided to put all the SOE section together. So they transferred me to Wyton. But instead of Stradishall sending me to Wyton they sent me to Upper Heyford. So, when I got there they said, ‘Where have you come from?’ I said, ‘Stradishall.’ ‘Well you’re not supposed to be here mate.’ I said, ‘Well I have a railway warrant for here.’ ‘Well, we’ll fetch you up a bed for the night and feed you and see.’ I was there for a week and then they said, ‘We’ve found out where you should have been. You should be at Wyton.’ So they said, ‘Get your kit ready and come down to the orderly room tomorrow morning. Half past eight. We’re flying you over in an Anson.’ Oh, I thought lovely. My first flight. Here I go. I got to the orderly room. ‘You’re going by train.’ It’s got a snag. They took me to the station. Stood there. Thought got to get rid of him and make sure he gets on the train. So when I got to Wyton they said, ‘Where have you been?’ I said, ‘I’ve been at Upper Heyford.’ ‘Well what did you go there for?’ I said, ‘Well that’s my railway warrant.’ You know. So he said, ‘Well have you come through King’s Cross?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said. ‘Have you been stopped by the police?’ I said, ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘We’ve got them at your house looking for you.’ So I said, ‘No wonder my mother was agitated.’ So I settled down there and then, you know [pause] I eventually got to Wyton and the lads said, ‘Oh you’re our new armourer are you?’ So, I said, ‘Yes sir.’ They said, ‘Right.’ So we got settled in. Got working on the aircraft and then came home on leave. Got back off leave. Just got to the guard room and there was a terrific explosion. All the people came out the guardroom, the guard chaps. There’d been an explosion there, hadn’t there. Now had I been, not been on leave I wouldn’t be here now. So I’m one of the lucky ones and the billets at night with all the empty beds. It was really horrible to see it, you know. So we plodded on. Carried on. And then I was transferred from Wyton to [pause] from Stradishall. I went to Wyton and from Wyton I went to Warboys. To 156 Squadron. Start of Pathfinder force. And then they transferred over to Upwood and I went over to Upwood. And then I was there till 1946 and I was sent to a satellite drome near Stratford on Avon. With a dummy four pounder in the bomb dump, fifty rifles in the armoury. I was a corporal and there was me and another lad there with nothing to do. So when demob come I was glad to get out. But if I’d been on a proper station I would have stopped in because I really enjoyed the life. So I came home. Went back to my job in the village. And then at that time I was engaged to a WAAF in London so I got a job with Barclays Baking Machines. Went down to their factory in London and trained to be a mechanic. Service mechanic for the area. So we came back home again. But my lady friend said, ‘I’m not going to Swanland to live.’ So that brought that up. So I did it but I had to give it up because I didn’t have the money to buy a car or a motorbike and doing all the villages. And I walked from Holme on Spalding Moor to Easingwould carrying a wooden box with all my kit in. And I were going, and I went to one place, Newbold. And you’re allowed an hour and a half to service a machine and when I got there I had a new blade to put on. There were only a bus in the morning and one at night [laughs] so I panicked. I got it on. So I gave the manager my address. I said, ‘If anything happens send me a telegram and,’ I said, ‘I’ll come over,’ you know. Anyhow, everything was alright, thank goodness. So, but it was having walking from one village to another and buses it was that awkward so I gave it up. And I came back to the local shop again. Met a local girl and got married. And then I went to work for a local multiple store. Cousins. Down in Ferriby. And I used to go into the shop on the corner, a big shop on the corner where, down where we lived on a Sunday morning to do the bale machine for him and sort his yard out for him. So one day he said, ‘Would you like to come and work for me? I’ll give you a pound more than what you’d do down there.’ A pound in them days was a lot of money. And I had four children then. So I said, ‘Oh yes. Yeah.’ So I came and I was there for nineteen years. And then he brought his nephew into the business and of course he fell out with everybody. Fell out with me. It was horrible to work in. I was fifty five then and I thought where I go from here. Anyhow, Everthorpe Prison was advertising for a canteen manager’s assistant storeman. So I applied for the job. Went for the interview and then I got a letter saying no. The other man was there. He’d been a manager but I’d never been a manager. Anyhow, on the Monday they rang me up. Was I still interested in the job? I said why. Well the manager walked into the canteen on the Friday dinnertime and walked out. He said, ‘I’m not doing this.’ So he said, ‘The job is yours if you want.’ So I did nine and a half years there and took early retirement. So then my hobby was decorating. So I had a little business decorating.
DE: Right. I see. So you, going back to when you were working in, in the grocer’s shop and you had your early day off on Wednesday afternoon.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Why did you decide to join the RAF?
TW: I just did it on impulse. No real reason. I just, I just thought I’d go, you know. My brother was in the RAF so maybe that was one of the things as well, like, you know.
DE: Did you consider any of the other services?
TW: No. Never. If anything it was always going to be the RAF. So I got what I wanted but I didn’t get the job wanted.
DE: No. Because you wanted to drive.
TW: I wanted to drive. Yeah.
DE: Why. Why did you want to drive?
TW: I was always interested in driving and I learned to drive when I was at the village shop so. But I never passed a driving test. Because when the war came in 1939 just, just as I was taking mine and I’d only done driving down country roads and I did my test in the town. And I’d never been in front of a policeman before. And in Hull, there was a street in Hull where it was just a snake of people because when we had the ferry you’d see people going down , down the outside to the ferry. The policeman was waving me on you see and saying, ‘You’ve got to go hadn’t you?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, They’ve got to move for you,’ you know. He said, ‘Well, your driving’s alright but you need more experience in the town.’ Well the war came so I kept my licence going and it became a full licence after the war so –
DE: I see.
TW: So me being a clever man, I taught my eldest son to drive. So I said to him, ‘Well we’ll finish you off at a driving school because I’ve never passed a driving test.’ So I got these people to come. So I said, ‘No. I’ve never passed a driving test. But,’ I said, ‘I’ve done my best so will you take him and finish him off.’ So they went and they came back and they both got out the car and folded their arms. He said, ‘You taught him to drive.’ I thought – here it comes. He says, ‘We can’t fault him anywhere. We don’t know how he didn’t pass the test. He said, ‘We’re putting him for his test straight away because he’s brilliant.’
DE: Wonderful.
TW: I always say to him now, ‘Now you didn’t listen to what I said to you? Did you?’ He borrowed my car once. He said he wanted to follow the RAC rally. I said yes. It was in November and it was snowy and icy. I said, ‘Go to Harrogate and Howard House but whatever you do do no go on the moors.’ ‘Ok dad.’ 3 o’clock in the morning a neighbour came down, ‘They’ve had an accident.’ ‘I’ll kill him,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill him when he gets home.’ Looked out the window when I heard this wagon outside a few hours later. Looked out. I said, ‘Look at my car. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.’ ‘Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.’ I said, ‘What did I tell you?’ ‘Well.’ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘But when you was driving the car you were in charge of the car. You should have done what I told you.’ So every time we go up on to the moors there’s an archway. ‘That’s where I had my crash dad.’ I said, ‘Don’t keep reminding me.’
DE: Oh dear. So the RAF didn’t want you to be a driver. They sent you on the armourer’s course.
TW: Sent me on the armoury course because at that time – Dunkirk and we’d lost a lot of armourers on Fairey Battles apparently. So, and they were short of armourers so that was it.
DE: So what did the course entail?
TW: Well, it entailed making little parts for guns and that and then you sort of went on to turrets and how to look after guns and how to sort the turrets out and that, then finished that armourers course, called out outside. Then this officer calls through, ‘These names please come forward.’ So we stepped forward. We all went to be fitter armourers. I went to be fitter armourer. Should have been general if I wanted to go on bombs but I was just fitter armourer but I ended up doing everything. You know. Bombing up and everything. So [pause]
DE: And what was it like on an, on an operational station?
TW: Oh it was fantastic. The spirit amongst the lads and that. Yeah. They were brilliant. And the aircrew were brilliant as well. Especially if they’d been in a hangar for a service. You saw the pilot, ‘Are you going up for a flight? Can I come with you?’ ‘Yeah.’ So, the first time I went up it was in a Wellington. Well that was by mistake because it had been in the hangar for a service and they took it out on to the airfield and revved the engines up and then they usually took the crew down to the dispersal points. So I thought well I can go down. Get a lift back. So I went and I thought he’s revving his engines up. Well it was running up. ‘I haven’t got a parachute.’ ‘Don’t worry. None of us,’ there were two other bods there, ‘None of us have parachutes. Don’t worry.’ So any chance after that I got. So the Lancaster was next. So I said to the pilot, ‘Are you going up?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ So I went with him. So I was felt real happy and light headed. I thought oh this is lovely you know. I got a tug on my leg and this chap said, ‘How long have you been up there mate?’ I said to ten. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘Plug this into the intercom. Plug this in to the oxygen because if we come down quickly it’ll blow your ears out.’ Got on to the pilot, this, told him I was up there. So, anyway and then we got out over The Wash. I thought – panic. Only one engine. I thought, what’s happening? What’s happening? So when we got back I said, I said to the pilot, ‘How did you manage to fly on one engine?’ ‘Oh don’t worry.’ He said, ‘That Lancaster can fly on one engine.’ He said, ‘Guy Gibson’s done it.’ I thought, I said, ‘Thank God for that.’ I said. But he said, ‘I’d forgotten you was up there mate. It’s a good job the chappie saw. Saw your legs hanging down. Because,’ he said, ‘It put me in a spin because I could have damaged your ears if I’d come down too quick.’
DE: Where were you? In the mid-upper turret?
TW: In the mid-upper turret. Yeah. Lovely. Lovely sight from out there. And then when D-day started we was called out because previous to D-day – well about six months before we took all the front turrets out of the Lancasters because it gave them twenty five miles an hour more speed. So when D- day started we was all called out of the aerodrome to put these turrets back in again. Drizzling with rain. Just getting, it was just getting light. So I was out of the nose of the Lancaster guiding this turret in and the sky turned black. And all these aircraft come over with the white markings on and I shouted, ‘D-day’s started, D-day’s started.’ The most fantastic sight. So, we got, we got all the turrets put back in again. We had to – the time I was in the pilot’s cockpit. No scaffolding. Health and safety today would go up the wall because the only scaffolding they had was for the engine people. So you had to climb out over the and crawl along a little but to the turret to guide it in and check if you wanted. If anything had happened inside. Check nothing loose. It was moving slow. Check that there were no oil leaks. So you had to take the cover off and check the oil pipes and that and put it back on. They’d grab you by your collar and turn you around and you’d go back in head first.
DE: That sounds like a really interesting job that.
TW: It was. It was really good. I really enjoyed it. As I say had I been on a proper ‘drome when the war finished I would have stopped in. I did really enjoy it.
DE: What other sort of things did they have you doing then?
TW: Being a gunner armourer I should never have been on bombs. But I was put on to a bombing up crew. I mean I didn’t know anything about the fuses or anything but I was putting fuses in and then we got – when we got Mosquitoes they couldn’t get four target indicator bombs on. So I had to shorten the tails till we could get four target indicator bombs on. So we got that sorted out.
DE: What were target indicator bombs like then?
TW: They were, well I think they were about two hundred and fifty pounds and that and they had about a hundred candles in. So when it dropped all the candles came out and should have burned but they didn’t. But we’d be, we got pressed for – Professor Cox came down and we helped him to perfect this so that when they dropped if they snapped everything burned. So we used to go to Thetford Forest. Got it on to a Lancaster. Go to Thetford Forest. Wait for it to be dropped. Go and see. Our fourth attempt was a successful attempt so we achieved something.
DE: So did you have four different prototypes then? Is that how it, how it worked?
TW: Yeah. You did one and put it to one side. Then marked it number one. Then number two, number three, number four. And of course when number four dropped it cracked but with having the metal rods down the cap it didn’t – it didn’t snap the rods. So it all burned when it fell.
DE: I see.
TW: Yeah. So, so we was coming back from Thetford when the war finished, one time, we said, ‘What’s everybody cheering for?’ You know. We stopped and asked somebody. ‘Well the war’s over.’ So that was nice surprise for us coming back again.
DE: So what were the conditions like on the stations that you were working on?
TW: The worst one was Stradishall because it wasn’t a proper ablutions. It was more open than that. Very basic. But the rest of them were fantastic. Beautiful toilets and showers and everything. And the barracks were good as well. There was, you used to get each station I’d been on after that there were the parade ground and then there was four blocks at each corner of the parade ground. Four blocks of houses. For people, for the crews. The airmen to be in. So then you went off to your, on to the ‘drome and then you went on to your armoury and did your business.
DE: Right. So could you describe a typical working day then for me?
TW: We’d have breakfast and then start about 8 o’clock and you’d sort of check your turrets over and then go and have your dinner and then come back. And if there ops on you would, I would be bombing up which I shouldn’t have been and then you stood there for them to go off and if you was conscientious you were there for when they came back again. But that was the worst part. Waiting for them to come back again. ‘Cause you would think if yours was the last one in and it hadn’t arrived. You’d say, well there was another one to come in yet? Another one to come in yet? And he’d come limping in. Probably be shot up a bit and a bit of damage on the wings and that. Our aircrew were good. They never made any bones or anything if they were hurt or anything. Because one day we had the Americans come in. The fighters shot the ‘drome up right down the runway. Then the B17 came in. Got out, ‘Where’s the blood wagon? Where’s the blood wagon?’ Kissing the ground. Pathetic, absolutely pathetic. My brother, my brother was all for, all for the Americans. I said, ‘Well, you can have them. You can go over there and live with them.’ I said, ‘From what I’ve seen of them I think they’re pathetic.’ Then we used to go to the pictures in Huntingdon. We was coming out one day and Clark Gable, the film star, was walking in. Oh there’s Clark Gable there. With it being Americans there you see. Huntingdon was the nearest with a cinema so they used to come there.
DE: So what other things did you do when you had an evening off then?
TW: Well, when I had an evening off we, sometimes my mate and I would go right around the villages and then we got to this little village of Benwick. So we stopped and went in to the pub and got a drink and went outside at the back because they had a lovely bowling green at the back. And we sat and there was a couple sat next to us. So they asked, ‘Are you from the local ‘drome?’ So I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘Would you like a game of bowls?’ So I said, ‘Oh I’ve never played bowls.’ My mate said, ‘Oh come.’ We won them [laughs] and so they said, ‘Are you sure you’ve never played before?’ So I said, ‘No.’ I said. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘You’ve managed to get the right bias on the bowls because you managed to get them through, you know.’ So, anyhow they invited us over to, for supper. And we used to go over regular and they had two boys and a girl. Now, the girl she’s what, she’ll be in her seventies now. We’re still in contact with one another. I made her a doll’s bed. She had two boys. Her boys had boys but she’s still got the bed. She said, ‘I might get a great granddaughter one day so I’ll pass it on to her.’ So we were regularly in contact with her because the family were fantastic to go to. You come home on leave, ‘Are you going on leave?’ He said. ‘I’ll come around night before and we’ll give you some eggs.’ Come home with some eggs. And sometimes you’d come home with a chicken. My mother didn’t know she were born. When I was going with a WAAF in the telephone exchange and they used to cook for themselves so if they got kidneys and I was coming home on leave they‘d give me the kidneys because they never ate them.
DE: Right.
TW: So mother would have my kidneys which was a luxury in them days. Couldn’t get them from the butcher and that. So she did well did my mother with eggs and that. But my brother was a rogue. I came, on the first leave I came home on leave he was home on leave. So, I gave my mother my ration card and the money. She said, ‘What’s this?’ I said, ‘Well, my ration money.’ So she said, ‘Well Maurice never give me it.’ Give it me back. And do you know what he said? ‘It’s something that’s just started.’
DE: Oh. I see.
TW: I said, ‘No. It’s been going on since you’ve been in the forces so don’t talk daft.’ But her blue eyed boy could do no wrong could my eldest brother.
DE: And what was – what was he? Did you say he was –?
TW: He was an engineer but he had a painting and decorating business before the war.
DE: Right.
TW: But he was stupid. Get a lad to. Employed a lad to work when he should be working himself. And of course when the war started his business flopped because he had a load of credit. So after the war my mother said, ‘If anybody asks where Maurice is you don’t know.’ He went into partnership with a chap and I used to work with a chap at the bottom of the road here and his partner used to come to me for a box of matches and look at me because before the war I didn’t wear glasses. After the war I were wearing glasses. He’d look at me and he’d go outside and he’d be pondering. And he came every week. I thought well I know who you are mate but I’m not going to make myself known to you [laughs] Oh dear. So those were the days.
DE: You, you mentioned a bit earlier on about an, about an explosion.
TW: Yeah. That must, must have been when they were bombing up. Because I was coming back off leave so it had to be an evening one. And I just got through the gate and there was this terrific explosion. And the chap said, ‘By. Something’s gone up there.’ You know. So the next day we had to go out on to the drome. Looking in the crater. See if we could find anything. And three Lancasters looked like they’d been made of corrugated iron. All, every bit of them but I don’t know, as far as I can remember I don’t think the tyres had gone down. In the crater you couldn’t find a thing. And the only funeral from there was a WAAF driver. And she was stood at one of the Lancasters with a crew wagon and she was the only one that was killed. She was buried in Bransby churchyard.
DE: I see. And what had happened? Did you ever find out?
TW: All I can think of – it was a barometric fuse. ‘Cause they were very delicate and if they got knocked they could have gone off. And we had a lad from London and I don’t know how he became an armourer because he was thick. And he wasn’t in the billet at night so two of us said, ‘I wonder if it’s him.’ Tried to tighten it up and hit it with a hammer. ‘Cause if he had have done it would have gone off, you know. Because it was the only explanation we could think of ‘cause it couldn’t have gone up otherwise. But never did find out really. There was nothing to piece together to sort things out.
DE: Right. How did that make you feel when you were loading up the bombs?
TW: It didn’t bother me. You don’t. You don’t feel fear. I mean when you’re sat on top of the Lancaster you don’t think about falling off. In them days you didn’t have any fear in you. You was, you was bravado, you know. Fearless. No. It was a good job. I enjoyed it.
DE: How many people worked in the team that were bombing up these aircraft?
TW: It would be about four. It would be one upstairs winding the winch. Two or three downstairs. Especially if it’s putting the four thousand pounder on. To guide it so that it didn’t swing. Otherwise three could have done it because one upstairs doing the and the other two just guiding the bomb up till it got in to, as far as it could get. Until it go into its – I forget what they call it now. It’s anchorage.
DE: Right.
TW: Yeah. But Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do. Mosquitoes were the worst ones to do because you had to get in the back and wind the winch. Nearly crippled you.
DE: This was, this was by hand.
TW: All by hand. Yeah.
DE: Right.
TW: Everything was done by hand. Even the winches in the, winching them up in to the Lancasters. All hand winches. We weren’t modernised technically in them days.
DE: So it was quite hard physical work as well.
TW: It was. Yeah. But it didn’t bother you. You just took it as part of your – what you had to do and you just, you didn’t think about it. It was a job to do and you did it and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it anyhow so.
DE: Did you have any particular friends on any of the stations?
TW: One friend. But we lost contact after the war but we used to go out when we had time off on night time. We used to go out and cycle around the villages and as I say, going to Benwick. This couple. But that was the only one I had. But, I mean, in the group, the armourers, we were all friends and that. But you see you all go your separate ways and your lives change when you go into Civvy Street.
DE: Sure. Yeah.
TW: So you’ve got to adapt.
DE: What about the WAAF? Did you have anything to do with, with them?
TW: Well we’re still, we got engaged. We were still engaged when the war finished. And she came down for a holiday and she said [pause] I’d arranged for take her to see Richard Tauber in Old Chelsea. At the theatre. So we went there and when we came back there used to be an old man sat outside the Station Hotel. And I used to always give him a coin when I passed through. He was a really nice fella. And when, getting off the bus I wanted a halfpenny change but she wouldn’t get off the bus until the conductor come downstairs and give me a halfpenny. Then when we got home she said, ‘What did you waste money for? Going to the theatre.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, ‘I didn’t waste money.’ I said, ‘I treated you.’ I said, ‘I haven’t seen you for months,’ you know. I said, ‘Well what about you? I didn’t complain about you when you said you’d been here, there and everywhere.’ I said, ‘I’ve sat at home knitting a rug. I haven’t been wasting my time. But you’ve been gallivanting. You blamed me because you lost a pen because you had to write to me.’ I said, I’ve stood in – the girl’s on the phone, ‘Ringing you and you weren’t there.’ ‘I was.’ I said, ‘No you weren’t,’ I said. On Edmonton Green apparently there were four telephones and the girls on the exchange used to know me. ‘I’m sorry Mr Waller but there’s nobody there. We’re trying them all.’
DE: Oh dear.
TW: So I said I’m wasting my time. So it fell through. So we had a friend who’d been engaged and she’d packed in so she had, when you got engaged you could get dockets and units if you were going to get married. So we got our dockets and units so I managed to get a bedroom suite and two fireside chairs. I bought them. So it’s just before I went down to Edmonton. So I went down to Edmonton. She stood outside the gates of the factory, followed me home to my lodgings and then knocked on my door. And then they said, ‘There’s a lady at the door for you.’ I said, ‘There can’t be.’ She said, ‘Well she’s asking for you.’ ‘What the devil do you want?’ ‘I wondered if you’d like to take me to the pictures tonight.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Clear off.’ I said, ‘I’m not taking you anywhere.’ She sent a great big Pickford’s van down to my, our house to pick some stuff up. I mean the fool. She must have been a fool because I mean, she didn’t know what she was going to send for. And my mother didn’t know anything about it. When this chap got to the front door. ‘What do you mean you –?’ He said, ‘You mean to tell me I’ve come all this way for nothing.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to be collecting like.’ Anyhow, I wrote to her and said, “Why did you send a Pickford’s van down to our house for?” I said, “You didn’t want a Pickford van. A little pickup would have been done.” So she wrote back, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, don’t forget I paid for the bedroom suite. I paid for two fireside chairs. I paid for the tea set we had.” I said the rest of the stuff will just go in a cardboard box.” I said, ‘Just send for a little pickup.’ But you see her father was a police inspector and she thought it might frighten me a bit but it didn’t. So the Pickford van come. He said, ‘This is all I’ve got to pick up is it?’ She said, ‘Yeah.’ It was the same man that came before.
DE: Right.
TW: So he said my God. I thought I was coming to fetch a great big mansion box but a little portmanteau thing, you know. But she was [pause] I don’t think I’d have ever married her if it had gone on. She was a bit a one for herself. You know. Yeah.
DE: Sounds like it.
TW: And I was always wrong. And there was me. I had sore fingers from knitting. ‘Cause you couldn’t get canvas in them days so you used to wrap wool around a wooden ruler. Cut it. And then you got the right set. So you knit, put it in, knit a stitch and turn it around. Made some lovely rugs. I was very good at knitting. I knitted my first son’s christening shawl when he was born. Yeah. My sister was useless but I’ve got, I’ve got my mother’s genes because she was court dressmaker was my mother. But she would never help me because when I was growing up I wanted to be a dress designer. Oh no. No. No. No. I’ve dressed dolls as brides and they’re all over the world. I can make them ever week. People wanting them but my mother wouldn’t help me one little bit.
DE: Oh.
TW: And my sister couldn’t even, couldn’t even knit. It took her all her time to sew a button on. I could do the lot. In fact up until my children starting school I made all their clothes for them.
DE: Ok.
TW: Yeah. I was an industrious little lad. Used to have a nice decorating business. Go out at night decorating. And then when I retired I was with the prison service. They said, ‘Are you going down to London for a retirement course? They’ll explain all the things to do for getting a job and that.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘No. No. I’m not going.’ I said, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ ‘What do you mean?’ they said. ‘Well I’m going to do my decorating.’ ‘Oh, you’re going on this course.’ I said, ‘I’m not going on a course.’ I went on the course and I made twenty seven quid. I said, ‘What?’ Because I went to the cashiers. They said, ‘How did you get the tools?’ So I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ They said, ‘No. You went by taxi.’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said, ‘I went on the bus.’ ‘No. Taxi. You got a taxi back as well. When you go to London where do you get a taxi to?’ I said, ‘I didn’t. I walked.’ ‘No you didn’t.’ I said, ‘I walked.’ He said, ‘What hotel did you stay at?’ I said, ‘I didn’t stay at a hotel.’ I said, ‘My brother lived at Hatfield so,’ I said, ‘I commuted each day from there.’ ‘Oh no. You stayed at a hotel. Now that looks a good one. You stayed there’ And I thought, afterwards I thought well that’s all over the country happening. It’s an eye opener sometimes. And that was in the prison service. No. I don’t know.
DE: Strange.
[pause]
DE: I’m just having a look at my notes.
[pause]
DE: Was the, did the different stations feel particularly different? I mean you say you worked with an SOE squadron and you worked for Pathfinders.
TW: No. They’re all types sort of thing, you know. There was no sort of difference in it. The only difference was Wyton. The bomb dump was at the other side the main road.
DE: Right.
TW: But the rest of them were all on the ‘dromes.
DE: I see.
TW: No. But they were all the same, there was no difference in them. Just because they were different squadrons. There were no, the routine was more or less the same all the way through.
DE: Ok. And the target indicator bombs that you were experimenting with in Thetford. Were these the sky markers? Or the –
TW: The sky markers. Yeah.
DE: Yeah.
TW: Some some used to drop them in the cloud. A break in the clouds. And others used to drop down on the ground. And they were in different colours so there was a Master Bomber up above directing so if Jerry lit a decoy they’d change the colour. ‘Don’t bomb on red. Bomb on green.’ ‘Don’t bomb on green. Bomb on yellow.’ I wouldn’t like the Master Bombers job. To be up there all the time when the raid was on. Circling around.
DE: Yeah.
TW: No. I enjoyed it though.
[pause]
DE: And you say you, you chose to be demobbed because –
TW: I chose demob because I was on a satellite ‘drome. I had nothing to do and you just got bored. There was nothing you could do about it so you were glad to get out of it in the end. But that’s to say if I’d been on a proper ‘drome I would have stopped in.
DE: Right. I see.
TW: But I wasn’t so –
DE: What was the demob process like?
TW: Dead easy. Mind you I’ve always had a query with it. My demob. Because the medical officer examined me. Went and fetched another doctor. And I wondered why. So I’ve now developed an irregular heart beat so whether that was coming on then I don’t know but I’ve had this sepsis into regular rhythm.
DE: Right.
TW: When I was ninety two. Put me in the cubicle. ‘My God. We’re sorry. We shouldn’t have done that to you at your age.’ The cut off point’s ninety. I said, ‘Well it’s too late now isn’t it?’ He said, ‘Well you won’t get it done again. It’s back to normal. Its back to its regular beat again.’ Yeah. So they can’t do anything about it.
DE: Did you have much to do with the RAF medical services?
TW: No. Never.
DE: No.
TW: I’ve never bothered anybody. British Legion or anybody. I’ve bought my own wheelchair. Bought my own mobility scooter. I’ve a step son won’t part with a thing. He had a leg off. We’ve a wheelchair in there. We’ve a zimmer outside. We’ve two stools. I said, ‘You want to send those back.’ ‘Oh I might need them.’ I said, ‘You won’t need them.’ He won’t part with a thing.
DE: I see.
TW: They’re stood there. Brand new.
DE: Some people are like that though aren’t they?
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. You were showing me before we started the interview this research that you’ve been doing.
TW: Yeah.
DE: About the Halifax bomber crash. Could you tell me a little about that?
TW: Well it happened. We lived in Swanland. We came to Swanland in 1936. My parents left in March 1944. So I came back and knew nothing about it and then and a guy in the village wrote a book and there was a bit about it in there. And we were out one day with the church on an outing and yon side of Gilberdyke there was this model of where Halifaxes had crashed and there was two sort of intertwined. So I said, ‘Something should have been done about those two chaps who were killed in our village. Anyhow, a week or two went by and nothing happened so I thought I’ll take it on myself you see. So I thought he’s buried in Bury so he’s got to be a local lad. Got on to the paper and that. No. Couldn’t find anything about him. There was nothing about him at the cemetery and nothing about him at the War Graves Commission. No address or anything. So I got on to the records office and they rang me up and said, ‘He comes from Nottingham.’ I said, ‘Well, its seventy years since it happened. Can you tell me where?’ ‘Oh no. He came from Nottingham.’ So I wrote to tourist the board in Nottingham and they gave me the address of the radio station and the paper. The local paper were like the Daily Mail in Hull. They were useless. Two little pieces at the bottom. One, the modern Nottingham paper was in the Bygones letters in back of the paper. Two lines at the bottom. And the radio station at Nottingham were brilliant. They did a magnificent programme. But they rang me up to say would I go on the station but I was away on holiday and my son took the call. They said, ‘Well, tell your dad we’ll read out his letter out he sent us. We’d have liked to have him on it but we can’t change a programme now.’ So they wrote to me to tell me what they’d done and then [pause] I’ve got a blockage [pause] So, I got on to the tourist board and they said he’d come from Nottingham. So Radio Nottingham put a programme out and I heard nothing. Now, the other pilot, he came from Tottenham and he’s buried and I knew he was buried near his parents. Now, the War Graves just had the address of the church where he was buried so London University took it over from me but they couldn’t trace any relatives at all then. And then about four months after I started investigating I got a telephone call one night. ‘When are you having the service? I said, ‘What service?’ ‘For the airmen you found.’ I said, ‘I’m not because I haven’t found anybody.’ ‘He said, ‘I’m a nephew.’ He said, ‘We’ve just found out from Australia.’ I said, ‘Australia?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Eastern Australia.’ So how it got over there. Whether he’d been on the internet and that I don’t know. So he said can you arrange it. So I arranged a new service and about fifteen came down. They said, ‘Oh we owe everything to you. We thought he’d been killed over Germany.’ And they said, ‘But we’re grateful to you for what you’ve done. We’ll keep in contact.’ So Christmas come. I got a Christmas card. I’ve written letters. I’ve never heard a thing from them. Now, on the Monday night after it was on television a cousin who knew him – she rang me up. She said, ‘Oh I wish I’d known. I would have been there. Can I come over and see you?’ So she came over and we took her over to show where it crashed and the plaque in the church. And we took her to the cemetery to his grave. And then she said, ‘When was you born? And we found out we were born on the same day so it seems as though fate decreed that I should find him you know. His relatives. And we were keeping in regular contact with her. And we found out that he was with the 1160 Heavy Conversion Unit from Blyton near Gainsborough where he was killed. And so he was killed just up the road from where we live now.
DE: I see. And what, what was it that made you think it was important to tell this story?
TW: Well I think everybody who was in the air force should be recognised if it can be. And being out on this car ride and seeing that I thought well something ought to be done so that’s when I set about doing it. But I didn’t think I’d come against so many brick walls. But you do but you get through in the end you know. But the point I can never understand why his wife had him buried in Beverley. Why she told his family he’d been killed over Germany. There’s something funny there.
DE: Yeah.
TW: And you see all those there was about fifteen came. None of them knew him. There was his sister in law and his brother. Well not his brother because his brother had been killed. But his sister in law there and his nephews and that. But none of them knew him. Even his sister in law didn’t know him. But this cousin she’s brilliant. She keeps in, there’s a photograph in there of her and she always readily comes. What I want now when this gets seed I don’t know how they’re going to work it at the spire. In the plaques. But he’s Cumberworth and so whether they’ll put 1160 Conversion Unit in or not or whether it will just be a plaque with C’s on. Names of C’s.
DE: It’s alphabetical. Yes. I mean –
TW: Yeah. Cause I know a lady in the village she’s been down and she’s found her father’s name. And hers is J so I thought C must be up if J’s. J’s there.
DE: What’s there at the moment is 1 Group and 5 Group.
TW: Oh he must have been in one of them. She’s got – they gave me their memory card to put on the computer and there’s a picture of her pointing to her dad’s name.
DE: Yeah.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So I think this gentleman will be on –
TW: Cumberworth.
DE: Cumberworth will be on the next lot of names that go up. Yeah. Yeah. Leslie Cumberworth.
TW: So if I can manage to get a photograph sometime I’ll get one.
DE: Yeah.
TW: I can get and get a photograph and send it to his cousin. She’d be really grateful.
DE: Yeah. I’m sure we can arrange that when the names are up.
TW: Yeah.
DE: Yeah. So you said earlier you’ve never joined any squadron associations or any, any groups.
TW: I’ve joined the RAF Association.
DE: Right.
TW: Yeah. But Hull’s useless. Right from the very start, useless. They said they were short of money. So I did a mini market for them and I raised five hundred pound. And the lady who did the catering she did everything. Paid all her expenses like I do. Pay all expenses so everything you get is profits. I handed that money over to a flight lieutenant in cash and I’ve got a letter of thanks for a receipt. Where did that money go? I’m sure they’d have sent me a receipt if they’d got the money –
DE: Yeah.
TW: But I didn’t realise it at the time. It was afterwards I thought about it you know. And then I went down and I said I’d organise a competition. They said, ‘Oh you can’t do it because you’re not on the committee.’ I said, ‘I’m not joining the committee because I know what would happen. I’d end up doing everything.’ I said I like to everything. So, I said so I was working at Everthorpe then so I got a thousand copies done. So I said if you give every member ten copies you get a pound from every member. That’s a tenner each. If I give you a prize for the winner. So I gave them a lovely Parker, Parker pen and pencil set. That got pinched. ‘Cause they said I said to them when I went down I said, ‘Well you’ve got a prize to go with it so,’ I said, ‘Parker pen and pencil set.’ But it wasn’t there upstairs in the office.
DE: Oh dear.
TW: So I said, ‘Well have you started yet?’ So they said, ‘No. No. They said, so I started, ‘Oh you can’t start it. You’re not on the committee.’ So I said, ‘Have you started that?’ So she said, ‘No, not yet but,’ she said, ‘We’ll buy a prize out of what we make.’ I said, ‘No. I’ll give you another prize.’ When I do a thing I stand the expenses myself. I always have done. So I saw her a fortnight after. Four pound. I said, ‘You what? Four pound?’ I said, ‘I’ve done it twice and I’ve made over fifty pound each time.’ Then in 19 what 60s 70s fifty pound was a lot of money in them days. So I stopped going then ‘cause my son has joined as associate members.
DE: Yeah.
TW: And my daughter in law. Well the third time I went my daughter in law won the jackpot. You should have heard them. ‘You’ve only been here three weeks.’ I said, I went to the bar, I said, ‘Is this the way they go on?’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, I said we’re supposed to be an air force group,’ I said esprit de corps, where is it?’
DE: Yeah.
TW: I said we’ve joined and paid our money. So I went in one night and I sat in this chair and this woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, she said, ‘That’s my chair.’ I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ She said, ‘That’s my chair.’ So I got up. ‘Well it hasn’t got your name on it.’ So I said, ‘I’m not moving.’ And this was how good our club was. We had a trip to [pause] the memorial down in London. Castleford invited us back for supper. And they did a fantastic spread. Absolutely brilliant. So we invited them down to our club. I went down on the Wednesday night when it was due. There was only me and another fella in the club. The chap behind the bar, he said ‘We don’t usually see you here on a Wednesday night Tom.’ So I said, ‘Well, where is everybody?’ ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Castleford are coming tonight.’ ‘No they’re not.’ ‘Yes they are.’ With that the door opened. They all walked in. So I said, ‘I do apologise but I said, ‘You’ve picked the wrong club to come to because this is useless. This club.’
DE: Oh dear.
TW: I said, ‘I’ve just come in,’ I said, ‘And it’s obvious they’ve forgotten.’ So they had to dash out and buy pie, pea and chips. No. I wouldn’t join no committee. I used to run a coffee morning every Wings week. We raised quite a lot of money. Got some good, one prize we had was a Hornby Double O train set. Folks said, ‘We like your coffee mornings because you always have a good raffle.’ I said it’s the people that you know they can get something from me. Where you go to you know.
DE: Yes.
TW: Very generous. You know.
DE: So apart from that Association what do you think about the way Bomber Command’s been remembered over the last.
TW: Very poor. Very poor. I mean the spire when it was opened. Did BBC do anything about it?
DE: I think –
TW: No. Only local stations. But BBC, I mean there’s all the people around the country in bomber command. BBC should have been doing that as well. I think their biased.
DE: Why do you think that is?
TW: Well, why weren’t they there? I mean you don’t seem to get much about the RAF or anything like that on the BBC.
[pause]
TW: I’m an old man. I do things differently. If I get a letter I answer it straight away. Anything that I’ve done I do it straight away but today it’s so lackadaisical. I mean this cousin of the airman. I sent some things about the Association and some photographs. A month ago. I’ve never had, I rang her up and said I’m sending you this parcel. I’ve never had a telephone call, an email or anything to say she’s got it. I just can’t understand folks.
[pause]
DE: Hello. I’ll just pause it there a moment.
[recording paused]
DE: That’s fine I’ve just started it recording again. Sorry about the interruption. Is there anything else? Any other stories that you think you’d like to tell us?
TW: I don’t think so because we covered it pretty well cause my memory is not as good as it was and I get, I’m talking and I go blank.
DE: I think you’ve done very very well.
TW: Yeah. So but I think no I think we’ve covered it really well.
DE: Just one other thing I think you covered it in the phone conversation when we were arranging this. What do you think about the stories of people like yourself and ground personnel have to tell?
TW: Pardon?
DE: What do you think about the stories of ground personnel? How well do you think they’ve been remembered?
TW: They haven’t. Because somebody was saying if it wasn’t for ground crew the bombs wouldn’t have gone off. But we haven’t been remembered. You never hear anybody talk about us. We’re just a forgotten crew. But I’m not worried because I did my best so. They rewarded me with a mention in dispatches so I can’t complain.
DE: Oh. How. What was the story behind that?
TW: I’ve no idea.
DE: No.
TW: All I can think it was because we helped Professor Cox design his target indicator bomb and alter the tail fins for [pause] to get the bombs on to Mosquitoes. I can’t think of anything else that I’ve done that’s deserving of it. Because getting out on D-day I mean that was just part of the job I think.
DE: Yeah.
TW: So [pause] and my grandson has my medals and my certificate because he’s a keen, very keen on what his granddad’s done. So he said, ‘Can I have your medals granddad.’ So I said, ‘Yeah. You can have that as well.’
DE: That’s wonderful.
TW: Because I know you’ll look after them.
DE: Yeah.
TW: So this is I’ll be able to tell my son. Show his photograph of his granddad and what he’s done. And he’s got my war memoir so he’s got that so. So I’ve got something to show him when he grows up.
DE: Wonderful. Right. So I’ll press pause there and thank you very very much.
TW: Pleasure.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Thomas Waller
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-10-25
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AWallerT151027
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Dan Ellin
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.hh:mm:ss
Format
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00:56:09 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Thomas Waller volunteered for the Royal Air Force and hoped to be a driver. However, he undertook training as an armourer and was based initially at the Special Operations Executive 138 Squadron. He was posted to RAF Stradishall, RAF Wyton and RAF Warboys. He returned from leave on one occasion and had just arrived back on the station when a massive explosion occured. He helped to develop and test target indicators with Professor Cox. He recently undertook research into the details of a Halifax crash to make sure the airmen were remembered.
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Suffolk
England--Cambridgeshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
138 Squadron
156 Squadron
bombing
bombing up
crash
final resting place
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Lancaster
memorial
military living conditions
Mosquito
Pathfinders
RAF Stradishall
RAF Upwood
RAF Warboys
RAF Wyton
sanitation
Special Operations Executive
target indicator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/995/10626/PMossH1801.2.jpg
8fef87e0bf60954cc3caced45b9ca9a0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/995/10626/AMossH181114.1.mp3
010bf15446d62b4b91fa96ccbdb97bc0
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
Moss, Henry
H Moss
Harry Moss
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty items. Collection concerns Henry Moss (1925 - 2020, 3041799, Royal Air Force). He served as an air gunner with 138 Squadron at RAF Tuddenham. Collection consists of an oral history interview, his flying logbook, documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Henry Moss and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-10-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Moss, H
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Henry Moss, Flight Sergeant, served in the RAF between 22 October 1943 to 10 April 1946. He trained as an Air Gunner and was involved in bombing Kiel, Potsdam, Heligoland, and Bremen before taking part in Operations Exodus, Manna and Revue with 138 Squadron. Henry was demobilised in 1946.
Henry left school in Bradford aged 17½ just before the outbreak of war with no qualifications . He worked in a variety of jobs including a garment fitter where he made waterproof clothing for dispatch riders. Henry passed his National Service medical board and joined the Air Transport Corps which led him to choose to join the Royal Air Force.
Henry was ordered to go to Viceroy House in London to be fitted with his unforms and receive his inoculations before moving on with his next stage of his training. He was then posted to RAF Usworth in February 1944 for his primary training. This was made up of marching and learning to salute, and basic tests on arithmetic and writing to place recruits on their trade path. There were people from many different places around the globe. https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/28928
Henry learned how to strip down and re-assemble a Browning gun blindfolded but found this a pointless exercise as at altitude, it impossible to manipulate the small parts of the weapon with gloves on.
After RAF Usworth, he was posted to RAF Pembrey to the Introductory Gunnery Course at 1 Air Gunnery School flying Ansons. He did not experience air sickness and enjoyed flying. While here Henry learned about ‘offsetting’ the release of the bombs and how to aim accurately. He was surprised to learn that from his own records that he had scored 98.5% in the exam. Over his time at RAF Pembrey, he fired a total of 300 rounds. Henry was finally selected as an air gunner/wireless operator.
Henry’s next posting was to (26 OTU) RAF Wing on the Vickers Wellington, where he crewed up. His first pilot made a mistake during a landing and while the landing was safe, the pilot was sent home. His second pilot was Sergeant Crawford who he felt safe with for the rest of the war. From here Henry went to the 1669 Heavy Conversion Unit RAF Langer on Lancasters, and 138 Squadron RAF Tempsford. Henry flew to Kiel twice; both flights were at night and while he was involved in the sinking of the German ship Admiral Sheer, he did not see anything. Henry flew operations to Potsdam and a daytime operation to the Naval base on the island of Heligoland. He can remember being able to see the other aircraft and watching the torpedo boats below; he thought the operation was a bit of a ‘dead duck’. Henry’s final operation was to Bremen when they were hit by flak but ‘nothing vital was hit’. Henry referred to Operation Manna as ‘Spam Runs’
After the war ended Henry was involved, as a camera operator, in Operation Revue which was the creation of a digital map on mainland Britain as an aid to town and country. Henry was demobilised from Personnel Dispersal Centre 100 having achieved the rank of Flight Sergeant. In total he completed 436 hours 20 minutes flying. He went straight back to his previous job as a garment cutter in Bradford, but he did not stay in contact with any of ‘his’ crew.
Claire Campbell
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DK: Right. So this is, I’ll just introduce myself. This is David Kavanagh for the International Bomber Command Centre interviewing Henry Moss at his home on, what’s the date? Right. The 14th of November 2018. I’ll just put that there.
HM: Yeah.
DK: If you just speak normally. Yeah. That’s looks ok. So, if I can ask you first of all Henry what were you doing before the war?
HM: [laughs] [coughs] I had all sorts of jobs before the war. I left school just before the outbreak of war. Being in, I lived at Bradford at that time.
DK: Yeah.
HM: I was just leaving school. The boys without any qualifications went into the mill. Worked in the mill. From the mill I worked in a greengrocer’s shop. From the greengrocer’s shop I worked in a dye works. And then I went into garment cutting. Making waterproof clothing for the Army.
DK: Right.
HM: Cape down sheets, and dispatch rider’s waterproofs. And I stayed in that until I was called up at seventeen and a half.
DK: So what made you decide on the RAF then?
HM: Oh, I always fancied the RAF. I was in the ATC.
DK: Right.
HM: Previously to the RAF. And from the RAF at seventeen and a half it must have been November time 1943, got my call up papers to report to Viceroy Court in London.
DK: Right.
HM: That was a big block of flats that overlooked Hyde Park.
DK: Viceroy Court.
HM: Viceroy Court.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: I forget what the district was now.
DK: Yeah.
HM: But it looked over Hyde Park. And the mealtimes, part of the building went to the zoo in Hyde Park —
DK: Oh right.
HM: And were fed. And others, like myself stayed in the building. We got kitted out there with uniforms, inoculations and all that stuff. And I think it must have been sometime early December we moved up. We moved up to Usworth. A primary training. Normal primary training. Marching, saluting and all that stuff. To let, to let you know you’re in the Air Force.
DK: How did you take to that? Did you like it or was it something you, because you would you have done it in the ATC?
HM: Oh, it was something entirely new.
DK: Right.
HM: I was a bit apprehensive at first going down to London. First time really away from home.
DK: Yeah.
HM: In Bradford. A small town. Well, I’m saying it’s a small town. It’s a big town now. All on my own in a strange, trying to find this Viceroy Court. I found it rather daunting. But once I got there I was alright. When it came to moving of course we had transport from Viceroy Court to the station. Train laid on for us to go up to Usworth.
DK: Right. That’s where you did your —
HM: Northumberland.
DK: That’s where you did all your square bashing was it?
HM: Did all the square bashing.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Initial training.
DK: So at this stage then do you have any idea of what trade you wanted to do in the Air Force?
HM: I hadn’t a clue about it.
DK: So you hadn’t been divided out yet as to pilots and —
HM: Pardon?
DK: You hadn’t been divided out. Pilots, navigators, and —
HM: Oh no.
DK: No.
HM: Not up to this point.
DK: No.
HM: No. You hadn’t a clue what. What it was all about. You did various tests. Arithmetic tests and a bit of writing and so on. They decided I could go as a wireless operator/air gunner.
DK: Ok.
HM: I forget the name of the place we went to now. Anyway, whatever it was we did basically wireless operator or learning the Morse Code.
DK: Right.
HM: Practicing that.
DK: So, so these took the form of classes then were they of Morse Code. Morse Code classes.
HM: Yes.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Mostly. Yeah. There were Morse Code classes.
DK: And how many of you would be in there for the class?
HM: I should think about a dozen.
DK: Right.
HM: All tapping away going beep beep beep beep beep.
DK: And was it something you took to then was it? Something you found easy.
HM: I didn’t find it particularly easy but I managed it.
DK: Right.
HM: And also between the learning the Morse Code was learning about the Browning machine gun. The 303 Browning. Taking it to pieces. What it did. How many shots it fired. What the effective range was. And learned all those bits and pieces. I didn’t think a lot of that was necessary because if you got a fault with your guns if its more than just cocking and trying it again.
DK: Yeah.
HM: You can’t do anything because it’s so cold up there and you’ve got your gloves on and the tiny pieces. I found some of that was a bit superfluous.
DK: So what did the gunnery training consist of then? Were you, were you actually firing the guns at targets?
HM: Not at that time. No. It was just sort of introducing us to the gun.
DK: Ok. Right.
HM: Learning about it.
DK: And just taking them to pieces [unclear]
HM: Taking them to pieces and putting them together again.
DK: Yeah.
HM: We got so we could do it blindfold. And that was —
DK: Did they, did they time you then as you were?
HM: Oh no. They didn’t time you but as it got near the end of the course you’d have done it blindfold and somebody would take a piece out and you’ll be feeling all over for it. But the Morse Code. I passed on that alright. Passed on that, and we went to [pause] I can’t remember the sequence we went in but eventually we went to —
DK: Was it the Operational Training Unit?
HM: Burry training. Burry Port in South Wales.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
HM: To an airfield there. And that was gunnery training.
DK: Right.
HM: More or less a first shooting.
DK: So what, what —
HM: The, it was a Martinet aeroplane. That was a single engine type towing a drogue.
DK: Right.
HM: And you’d go up in an Anson. I think it was four of us went up in the Anson. Took it in turns trying to shoot at the drogue. The way they could sort out who’s was what, the bullets were painted differently on the —
DK: Oh right.
HM: On the bullet itself so if it hit the drogue —
DK: You’d know whose it is.
HM: Red was yours. Blue was somebody else’s.
DK: Yeah. So did you, did you find, presumably that was the first time you’d flown then was it? In an Anson.
HM: That was the first time I’d actually flown.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Yeah.
DK: So what was that like then?
HM: Well, then again it’s exciting.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Starting to fly. And that was, that was the feeling most of the time. When are we going to fly? What’s it going to be like? Will I be sick? Will I get airsick or —
DK: And, and were you?
HM: That was a worrying thing. Some did.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Most of us didn’t but —
DK: You didn’t then.
HM: I wasn’t airsick at all.
DK: So what was the Anson like? Presumably it was a bit cramped in there with four of you at the back there.
HM: It was a little bit. Yes. I remember that it was each side of the fuselage there was a little table and two of you sat at the table. You did this shooting at the drogue to see how well you could aim it and fire it.
DK: Yeah.
HM: They told you about offsetting for the distance.
DK: Yeah.
HM: And one thing and another.
DK: And was it, was it something you were, you were quite adept at? Could you, were you quite a good shot? Or —
HM: Not particularly [laughs] I must have been adequate because I passed through all right.
DK: Right. So —
HM: Then again we did a bit of Morse Code but not much of it. You just keep refreshing yourself.
DK: Yeah. So, so at this stage you could have still been —
HM: Oh, I could have been turned down. Yes.
DK: Turned down. Yeah. Or you could still have been a wireless operator as well then.
HM: I could have been a wireless operator.
DK: Yeah. So after your training then in Wales where did you move on to next?
HM: That [laughs] I can’t remember these places.
DK: Don’t worry. Yeah. Would this have been the, the OTU?
HM: Yeah. It would have been the OTU.
DK: It might actually be in the logbook.
HM: It’s probably in my logbook.
DK: Let’s have a look.
[pause]
DK: Right. So just for the recording then I’ve got number 1 AGS Pembrey so that was Gunnery School.
HM: Pembrey.
DK: Pembrey. Yeah.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Air Gunnery School. It’s got your results here. You look like you’re quite good.
HM: Are they?
DK: Yeah. Exam result ninety eight point five percent.
HM: Oh, well that’s not so bad [laughs]
Other: Wow.
HM: Yeah. Is that the —
DK: So you’re —
HM: Oh, that’s when we went to OTU is it?
DK: That’s the OTU.
HM: The Lancaster.
DK: Ok.
HM: Yeah. They were the actual flights.
DK: So that’s the flights in the Anson then.
HM: That was the flights. Yeah.
DK: So they’re from June 1944 and it’s got how many rounds you fired here.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Three hundred rounds. So one to three tracers. Two hits.
HM: [laughs] Two hits.
DK: You’ve got eighteen hits here.
HM: Yeah.
DK: It says total flying nineteen hours and forty minutes. All in Ansons.
HM: In the Anson.
DK: Yeah. So that’s at the end of the training.
HM: That’s the end of the training at Pembrey.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Yeah. Then we went to —
DK: It doesn’t actually say does it?
HM: It doesn’t say does it?
DK: So you’re on Wellingtons.
HM: Operational Training Unit.
DK: Right.
HM: In Wellingtons.
DK: So for —
HM: Then you did the crewing up.
DK: Right. So can you say a little about the crewing up then? How you all got together to form a crew?
HM: Well, you were all in a room. You chatted with various people and somebody you got on with and you’d say, ‘Oh you’re a gunner. Shall we crew up?’ ‘Yeah. We’ll be alright.’ Then you look for a navigator, or the navigator were looking for gunners. Or a pilot was looking for gunners. You finished with a crew.
DK: So, and can you remember your pilot’s name?
HM: Yes. Colin [Runji?]
DK: Right.
HM: He was an Australian.
DK: Australian.
HM: He was evidently quite a sportsman in Australia. Although being English we’d never heard of him.
DK: So he was quite famous in, in Australia then.
HM: He was quite, yeah something in Australia.
DK: Oh, here we go. At the back it says it’s 26 Operational Training Unit.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Does that ring a bell? 26 OTU.
HM: That doesn’t mean a thing to me.
DK: Right.
HM: But if you look in the records —
DK: Yeah.
HM: You’ll probably find it.
DK: Yeah. That was on the Wellingtons then.
HM: Yes.
DK: So that was between July ’44 and November ’44.
HM: Yeah.
DK: So can you remember much about flying in the Wellingtons? What it was like?
HM: Yeah. Well, we did a lot of take-off and landings. Training for the pilot. The air gunners had nothing to do. They just sat in the turrets.
DK: Right.
HM: And hoped for the best.
DK: So were you, for these training flights then were you sitting in the, in the rear turret?
HM: In the turret.
DK: Yeah.
HM: In the rear turret or mid-upper turret.
DK: Yeah. Would you be in the rear turret when you took off then?
HM: If I was in the rear turret. We used to swap around.
DK: Right.
HM: Sometimes be in the rear. Sometimes the mid-upper.
DK: Yeah. So how did you find the Wellington then as an aircraft? Did you feel quite safe in it?
HM: Oh yeah. Yes. No problems with flying with it.
DK: Right.
HM: They [pause]
DK: But you felt quite safe.
HM: What can I say? Oh yes.
DK: ’Cause you mentioned earlier about an incident where the pilot landed and he shouldn’t have done.
HM: Yeah. That’s in the Wellington.
DK: Right. Can you just repeat that? What happened?
HM: Well, I don’t, I don’t think I made a comment about it because we didn’t know that until after the flight.
DK: Right.
HM: He just disappeared. And when making enquiries we found that he’d been sent home or whatever it was.
DK: So what, what had he done wrong?
HM: Well, coming in to land he was doing a circuit. He come into what they called funnels. The pilot’s flying nice and steady ready to land. Got the gear down, the flaps down, and you as you were approaching you’re supposed to watch for a verey pistol.
DK: Right.
HM: Or you’re supposed to notice it if was fired. Well, this particular flight there’s a red verey pistol fired and evidently the pilot didn’t seen it.
DK: So if he had seen it he should have gone around again.
HM: He should have gone around again.
DK: Yeah. Because why would, do you know why it was fired? Was there something on the ground?
HM: Well, it would only be if there was somebody on the runway.
DK: Right.
HM: Ready. Getting ready to take off.
DK: Right.
HM: So he was sat at the end of the runway. You sort of went over the top of him.
DK: So there might have been a collision then.
HM: Oh, quite possible.
DK: So he just, he went. So you got a new pilot then.
HM: So we, started well basically we went to the end of that course and then crew up again.
DK: Oh right.
HM: With another. Make another crew.
DK: So you had to crew up all over again.
HM: All over again. And then really start the course again.
DK: Oh. So this is, this is when you would have then got the Australian pilot
HM: That’s when we got —
DK: The second time around.
HM: No. The first time.
DK: Oh the first time. Right.
HM: The first time it was an Australian pilot.
DK: Right.
HM: Then we [pause] I put my glasses away, I want them.
DK: Have you’ve got his name there?
HM: Yes. [Runji]
DK: [Runji]
HM: Lots of different pilots.
DK: Yeah.
HM: As [Runji] Then flew there. Warrant Officer Wild. [Runji] [unclear] [Runji] Watkins. But, but [Runji] was the main pilot at, in the OTU.
DK: Right.
HM: [ ] [pause] at the end of the course as I say we crewed up again.
DK: Right. So that’s the second time.
HM: This is the second time around.
DK: Right.
HM: When we flew with somebody called [Adey?], Flying Officer Bond. Then we got Sergeant Crawford who ended up our pilot.
DK: So —
HM: We flew with him for the rest of the time.
DK: So Crawford became your pilot.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Second time around. Right.
HM: Yeah. And he was a sergeant.
DK: Right.
HM: Evidently, as far as I can make out he was in the Air Force when war broke out. He was an engine fitter on one of the [pause] no, on one of the [pause]
DK: A pre-war thing was it?
HM: The [pause] big water platform.
DK: Oh the Flying Boats.
HM: The [pause]
DK: Seaplane?
HM: Just had a new one. Must have been commissioned just recently.
Other: Aircraft carrier.
DK: Oh aircraft.
Other: Aircraft carrier.
DK: I’m with you. I’m with you. Right.
HM: He was on an aircraft carrier.
DK: Right. Ok.
HM: Somewhere out east.
DK: Right.
HM: And as soon as war broke out and he asked to be remustered.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
HM: And then he came back to England. Then he went out Canada for his pilot’s training. Did his training in various aeroplanes.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Then he came back to England and then finished up.
DK: At the OTU.
HM: Yeah. The OTU.
DK: So that was Sergeant Crawford then.
HM: Sergeant Crawford.
DK: And was he a good pilot?
HM: He was. Yes.
DK: Yeah. You felt confident then with him did you?
HM: I felt very confident with him. Something else. I wish I’d made more comments.
DK: Yeah.
HM: About what went on.
DK: So how —
HM: On one of the [pause] No. It’s not there. On one of the flights, it was a night time flights everything was going all right. Taxied round, end of the runway. Started taking off. Just got off the ground and he had to close one of the engines down. There was something overheating or something and Mayday. Mayday. And he just flew around and landed again on one engine. So he must have been a reasonable pilot.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: That was a bit scary. You didn’t know whether the aeroplane would fly with the one engine or not.
DK: Yeah.
HM: But he made a very good job of it.
DK: Yeah. So you felt quite confident with him after that.
HM: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
DK: So did you have a conversation with him about what had happened to the engines, do you know or did you just —
HM: Well, it wouldn’t mean a thing to me.
DK: Right.
HM: It was a runaway prop.
DK: Yeah.
HM: I didn’t know what a runaway prop was. I still don’t.
DK: So after, how did you feel then about having to do the training twice? And have to go back again.
HM: Not very happy because it —
DK: No.
HM: The crewing up with [Runji] then having to go through it again.
DK: Yeah.
HM: That was annoying. But once we got —
DK: Crawford.
HM: Our pilot. Crawford. We were quite happy. We’d got a, we’d got a crew. We got on very well together.
DK: Yeah.
HM: And that’s the one on the, on the picture there.
DK: Ok. So just for the recording then just looking at your logbook then it says here you then went on to 1669 Heavy Conversion Unit.
HM: Yeah. That’s when we converted to the Lancaster.
DK: Right.
HM: And that was at —
DK: Langar.
HM: Pardon?
DK: Langar.
HM: Langar.
DK: Langar.
HM: Yes. Up in Nottinghamshire I believe it is.
DK: So that was at the Heavy Conversion Unit then and we’re talking February 1945. Is that? Or was it ’44?
HM: February. Oh it might have been.
DK: Yeah. Because that’s ’44.
HM: I joined the squadron in early March.
DK: Right. So the Heavy Conversion Unit then would be February.
HM: Langar, yeah. That was converting to the four engines.
DK: Right. So how did you feel? That was the first time you saw the Lancaster then was it? Close up.
HM: Yeah.
DK: And what did you think?
HM: Oh, we’re going up in those [laughs] How does it stay up there? But —
DK: So was it quite a change after the Wellington then?
HM: Yes. Because the Wellington, two engines it was a smaller aircraft. You think fine. But when you get to the size of a Lancaster. And in the Wellington you did evasive action.
DK: Yeah.
HM: But it’s hard doing evasive action in the Lancaster. A big aeroplane doing acrobatics. You wondered how it’s going to go but it went very well.
DK: Yeah. So you felt quite confident in flying in those.
HM: Yeah.
DK: I see here you flew as the mid-upper gunner.
HM: Yeah.
DK: What was that like then? What were the views like?
HM: Oh, the views was fantastic. I would say you could look all around.
DK: Yeah. And presumably it’s here that you got the extra crew because there’s more crew in a Lancaster than the Wellington.
HM: No. We still had the full crew.
DK: Oh right. In Wellingtons.
HM: We just had the same crew in the Lancaster as we had in the Wellington.
DK: Oh ok. So that was, that was just training then on the Lancaster just to get —
HM: Just training on the Lancaster
DK: Yeah. Yeah
HM: And getting used to it.
DK: Yeah.
HM: How to evacuate quickly and that sort of thing [laughs]
DK: Right. And then it’s got, looking at your logbook here we’ve then got March 1945 you’ve got to 138 Squadron.
HM: Yeah.
DK: So can you say a little bit about 138 Squadron? What they were?
HM: 138 Squadron is a mysterious squadron. As I say it was a Special Operations Unit before I joined. They were flying Lancasters. Before we joined they were basically Halifaxes.
DK: Right.
HM: And Lysanders. Their job was to take ammunition and food to the Resistance. So instead of going out in a bomber stream.
DK: Yeah.
HM: They’d go out in a single Lancaster to a field somewhere in France and drop the supplies to the Resistance.
DK: Oh right.
HM: Or the Auster. That was the single engined. Do you know the Auster?
DK: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
HM: Yeah. Fixed undercarriage. Single engine. If there was a special agent wanting to be picked up and brought back to England then they’d use the Auster.
DK: Right.
HM: Then again find somewhere. Find a field somewhere in France. Land. You’d probably drop an agent. Pick another agent up.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Pick one coming back then take off and bring them home.
DK: Right.
HM: Most of it was at night. Well, it was all night time. The nickname for 138 Squadron at the time was The Moonlight. Moonlight squadron.
DK: Right.
HM: Or Tempsford Taxis. Obviously they were based at Tempsford.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: And with the taxiing service in and out to France or Germany whatever. You got the taxi then.
DK: Yeah.
HM: But when, when I joined it was decided that they were not, it was after D-Day, that it was no longer needed because they take the agents in on the ground from there.
DK: Yeah.
HM: So they reverted to Bomber Command.
DK: Right.
HM: And that’s when I joined them.
DK: So by that point it was an ordinary bomber squadron.
HM: It was an ordinary bomber squadron. Yes. Whereas before, reading about it now when I, in the bomber squadron all the crews went to the briefing. With that there was just a pilot, navigator and bomb aimer.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Only those that need know knew where they were going and what they were doing.
DK: Right.
HM: So the air gunner would go along. Not knowing where they were going. They might discuss it amongst themselves.
DK: Yeah.
HM: But they weren’t supposed to. Go out and come back again but they weren’t allowed to discuss it with another aircrew.
DK: Right.
HM: Missions were never discussed between aircrews.
DK: So —
HM: It was very secretive.
DK: Yeah. So what, what then is kind of your role as an air gunner? What are you supposed to do?
HM: Yeah.
DK: On an operation.
HM: On an operation you just sit there in the turret scanning, looking for any enemy aircraft. Which I never saw.
DK: No.
HM: Never fired my guns in anger.
DK: Right. You’d have tested the guns presumably on the way over did you?
HM: You could do but we never did.
DK: Right.
HM: Well, we didn’t.
DK: Is that, I notice when you joined the squadron you’d gone on some training trips. One with an H2S radar.
HM: Yeah.
DK: And another one with GH bombing. Was that the GH bombing on?
HM: Yeah. That, that is basically for the navigators. Navigators —
DK: Yeah.
HM: GHS or HS2 and the Gee were all navigational aids.
DK: Right. And you’ve got something here. Just special training. You can’t remember what the special training was can you?
HM: Special training.
DK: Bit mysterious. Maybe you can’t tell me.
HM: I haven’t a clue.
DK: Ok. So looking at your logbook again then it’s got your first operation here was to Kiel.
HM: Yes.
DK: So what was it like then when you finally —
HM: Kiel?
DK: Got an operation?
HM: Well, it’s exciting. We hadn’t been in long enough. We hadn’t experienced a bombing raid. We didn’t know what to expect. I was excited. And well, we flew out. Nothing, nothing untoward happened.
DK: Yeah.
HM: There were searchlights and the flak but you expected that.
DK: Yeah. So you’ve gone out as the mid-upper gunner on this raid.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah. And can you remember seeing much of the target itself when you were over Kiel?
HM: Yes.
DK: What was that like?
HM: Basically if that’s Kiel you flew across, it’s like, where Germany and Denmark. It’s —
DK: The border.
HM: What do they call it?
Other: Jutland?
HM: The prominence of Denmark.
Other: Yeah. Yeah.
DK: A strip of land.
HM: There’s a border it goes across.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Well, we flew across the part of Germany which was close to the border with Denmark. And as you’re flying along you could, you could see the fire, ‘That’s it. That’s it.’
DK: Yeah.
HM: That must be the target.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Now, yes. And no. That’s not it. And we were flying along and the navigator made a mistake or something. We flew past the target. When navigator realised that he’d gone wrong we had to do a loop.
DK: Right.
HM: The pilot wouldn’t turn around and go that way because he’d be joining the bomber stream. He’d be flying against them.
DK: Yeah.
HM: So he went around that way and joined the stream again.
DK: Right. So you went over the target.
HM: So we then flew towards the target.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Bombs away. Let’s go home.
DK: Could, when the bombs were dropped did you notice any turbulence or whatever.
HM: Oh yeah.
DK: You were flying up.
HM: The result was that bit of lift.
DK: Yeah. So you’ve come back from your first operation then though it hadn’t gone according to plan.
HM: Yeah.
DK: How did you feel when you got back?
HM: Oh, it’s hard to remember [pause] We just thought well that’s that.
DK: Yeah.
HM: That’s it.
DK: Job done.
HM: That’s done. The job done.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Wait for the next.
DK: And did you have to go along to a debriefing, or anything? Were you debriefed?
HM: Yes. When you landed you went to debrief. And the intelligence office, officers there. The crew was all there. What was your experience? Did you notice anything? Did you? How did it go? Or as I say we’d no experience. Just a, just a normal flight. Just flak.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: Just searchlights. But nothing affected us.
DK: Yeah.
HM: It was all going on around you but —
DK: So your aircraft was never hit by flak then.
HM: Not that particular time. It was later on.
DK: Oh, ok. Ok.
HM: That was on the [pause] about a few days later we went again to Kiel.
DK: Right. I’m just looking at the logbook here. This is —
HM: Yeah.
DK: Just for the recording. You’ve gone to Kiel on the 9th of April.
HM: Yeah.
DK: And it’s
HM: That was our first one.
DK: And you’ve actually got here the German ship the Admiral Scheer sank.
HM: Oh, that was the second.
DK: Was that the second one?
HM: That was on the second one.
DK: Ok.
HM: No. There’s two there. And the Admiral Scheer was sank the second. That’s why we went back a second time.
DK: Right. And did you see the battleship down there?
HM: No.
DK: No.
HM: No. We were too high.
DK: Yeah. So you did, let’s say Kiel on the 9th of April. Then the 13th of April Kiel again.
HM: Yes. That was when the Admiral Scheer was sunk.
DK: Right. And then 14th of April you’ve then gone to Potsdam.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Yeah. The following night. We thought that was a bit rough is that. Two. One after the other.
DK: Yeah. And then —
HM: But then thinking about it ‘43 and ‘44 when the bombing was really going, they’d be doing that every week. Three or four times a week they’d be flying.
DK: Yeah. And then looking at your logbook again you’ve then done a daylight raid because it’s in green.
HM: Yes. Heligoland. Heligoland.
DK: Heligoland. So that was on the 18th of April.
HM: Yeah.
DK: ‘45.
HM: That was [laughs] A bit of a dead duck.
DK: Right.
HM: Heligoland, I don’t even know where it is. It’s just, as I say Denmark land. Germany. And it’s just a little island.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Evidently, it was a naval spotting station and spotting transport where our ships were.
DK: Right.
HM: And there again, there was a little bit of flak. There wasn’t a lot.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Because it was such a small island. No searchlights evidently because it was daylight.
DK: Yeah. Could you see a lot more of the other aircraft then in daylight? What was the —
HM: Yeah. You could see them around you.
DK: Yeah. But presumably you couldn’t see them at night time.
HM: At night time you couldn’t.
DK: No.
HM: I did once.
DK: Right.
HM: Then again I should have made a note of it. At Heligoland you could see the torpedo boats feeding away out from the island. The island was just one cloud of bomb bursts.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: You couldn’t see much of the land for the smoke and debris from the bombs.
DK: So that was hit quite hard then.
HM: Pardon?
DK: It was hit quite hard was it?
HM: Yeah.
DK: You say you saw an aircraft at night.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Was that quite nearby?
HM: That was a night flight. There again I don’t know which flight it was.
DK: No.
HM: Because I never made a note of it. I was in the mid-upper gun, mid-upper turret and suddenly there was this shadow went up. We were going and it went up in front of us.
DK: Right.
HM: I recognised it as a Lancaster. At night time. No lights. No nothing but there was this shadow went up in front of us.
DK: Right.
HM: If it had gone up a minute or two later or we’d been a minute or two earlier we’d have —
DK: Collided.
HM: Real come to.
DK: Was that, was that a bit of a frightening thing to see then was it?
HM: Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
HM: He was doing evasive action. I don’t see why they should do it at night.
DK: Right.
HM: Because you’ve got, I don’t know how many aircraft were on that raid but if you could have five or six hundred or the thousand bomber raid going over the target for some time. Granted the aircraft are stacked and the first ones would be higher, the ones behind them should be a bit lower.
DK: Yeah.
HM: But you’ve always got that creep. Someone’s got there a bit early. Some had got there a bit late. So there’s bound to be some mix up.
DK: Yeah.
HM: And if you start weaving about in a stream of aircraft. He, he couldn’t see any other aircraft.
DK: Yeah.
HM: All he is doing is just hoping for the best. His gunner must have seen something and told the pilot to corkscrew. But that was it.
DK: Yeah. Could have been, could have ended a bit disastrously couldn’t it?
HM: It could have done.
DK: So after that you’ve then done on the 22nd of April ‘45 a daylight raid to Bremen. Do you remember going to Bremen?
HM: Yes.
DK: And you’ve got here in brackets flak holes. Is that when you’ve been hit?
HM: Came back with some holes in it. Yeah.
DK: Right.
HM: Yeah.
DK: So what was that like then? When your aircraft was hit?
HM: Well it, quite normal. There’s plenty of flak, plenty of [pause] plenty going on and suddenly and there’s click click. ‘Has somebody dropped something?’ [laughs] No answer from the crew. Just as though you were driving along and somebody threw a stone at you.
DK: Yeah
HM: Or there was a mob throwing stones at you. But fortunately nothing, nothing was hit that was vital.
DK: Yeah.
HM: None of On the controls or oil pipes. It was just a hole in the fuselage.
DK: Right. Right. Was that anywhere near you? The hole in the fuselage or—
HM: I think it was actually by the bomb bay.
DK: Oh right. So almost underneath you then.
HM: Well, near. Yeah.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Just forward of the mid-upper gunner.
DK: So, so then you’ve got one more raid. What does that say? Operation the Hague. You see that one there. It’s a daylight one again. It’s a [unclear] one.
HM: Oh yes. Holland was starving.
DK: Right.
HM: They were all, they wanted some food. Somehow they made communication with the Germans. We could go in and drop food in Holland as long as we drove on a, or flew on a specific line.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Course. At a certain height. They’d let us go in and drop food and nobody would fire at us. Hopefully [laughs]
DK: So this this —
HM: So that was dropping food at the Hague. Holland.
DK: Oh right. Right. It is the Hague then. So that’s what became known as Operation Manna then.
HM: Operation Manna.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: We did that a couple of times I think.
DK: So that to the Hague then was the 3rd of May. And then you’ve got another one. Operation Manna on the 8th of May.
HM: Yeah.
DK: It looks like you’ve done two trips there.
HM: Yeah.
DK: Right. So could you see the people on the ground as you were dropping the food?
HM: Oh yeah. Yeah. You could see them walking about. There were civilians waving.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Looking up at you.
DK: So how did you feel about that then? Dropping the food after dropping bombs. It was it a bit different.
HM: Well, it felt a bit strange really seeing the Germans down there walking about [laughs] and you’re flying.
DK: So you could actually see the Germans down below as well.
HM: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah. So you were very low level then.
HM: Yeah. I think it was about a thousand feet.
DK: Right.
HM: Something like that. And then there was after that there’s Exodus.
DK: Yeah. Operation Exodus. So what was Operation Exodus like?
HM: That was bringing prisoners of war back.
DK: Right.
HM: We flew out. We flew to a base at Juvencourt in France. Picked up I think it was about twenty. Twenty ex-prisoners of war.
DK: Right.
HM: The sat around in the fuselage. We’d land. They’d come and climb in and find themselves a perch. Then we’d fly back again.
DK: Right. So how many of those trips did you do?
HM: About four or five I think.
DK: Right. And did you speak to the ex-POWs? Were they —
HM: Well, what we’d called, I mean to say you didn’t get much chance because you was in the turret. As soon as you landed it was basically loading them on
DK: Right
HM: And then taking off and coming home again.
DK: Right.
DK: So they were quite relieved to be going home were they?
HM: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah. Had some of them been a prisoners for a length of time do you know?
HM: I would imagine so. I’ve no idea. Like I said, we didn’t really get a chance to speak to them. Then again when you’re flying you can’t have a conversation.
DK: No.
HM: Because of the noise.
DK: Yeah.
HM: We could be this close. I could shout at you and not tell what I was saying unless you were watching me and could do a bit of lip reading.
DK: No. Just going back to that what were the conditions like then as a mid-upper gunner? Presumably you’re were very cold up there.
HM: It was cold. Yeah.
DK: What were you wearing?
HM: Well, you were wearing your normal clothes. In fact you got issued with some special underwear. Long johns and long sleeves.
DK: Yeah.
HM: There was a mixture of wool and silk. Climbed in to that and then your normal uniform on top of that, and then you’d have a padded, padded overalls thing on
DK: Right
HM: Like a boiler suit done up the front. And then you got your overall. The one that you see us wearing on some of the pictures I think. It’s just sort of a canvas flying suit.
DK: Right. So, so altogether then you flew well one, two, three, four, five. Five. Five operations.
HM: Five. Five operations. Yes.
DK: And then a couple of Manna trips and the Exodus trips.
HM: Yeah. Well, they weren’t counted as operations.
DK: No. No.
HM: The five as you go along. That would have been counted towards you —
DK: The tour.
HM: Tour.
DK: Yes. And that would have still been thirty if the war had gone on.
HM: Oh, it would have been thirty.
DK: So how did you feel then as the war’s ended? Were you quite relieved at that point?
HM: Yeah. I suppose we were.
DK: Yeah. And did —
HM: The airfield just, just erupted. I don’t know where they came from but there were verey pistols firing off all over the place.
DK: And just go back a bit. Did you meet any of your crew off duty at all? Did you get to know them?
HM: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah. So what did you do?
HM: Yeah.
DK: On your off duty time.
HM: We’d usually go along to the local pub. You get to know the locals.
DK: Yeah. And, and did you keep in touch with the rest of the crew after the war?
HM: No. We didn’t.
DK: No. No. So you’ve all gone your separate ways then.
HM: We all went our separate ways.
DK: You haven’t been in touch with them since.
HM: No.
DK: No.
HM: When I got married the wireless operator, I sent invites to them all but there was only the wireless operator turned up.
DK: Right. So —
HM: I heard later Howard, he’s always on the internet looking at things. Our pilot evidently emigrated to Canada.
DK: Right.
HM: And there was an obit. I’m presuming it was our pilot. There’s an obituary to a Flying Officer Crawford who had died in a nursing home. He was a bit older than we were. I think he was about twenty eight, twenty nine.
DK: Yeah.
HM: When we was only, I was nineteen.
DK: Yeah.
HM: So he was an old man.
DK: Yeah [laughs]
HM: Evidently this pilot officer Andrew Robertson Crawford had died in this nursing home in Toronto.
DK: Oh right.
HM: Who’d emigrated from England after flying with the RAF. That’s all that’s all there was it.
DK: Sounds like it would probably be him them.
HM: And a bit of what he’d done in Canada. He’d gone to college and qualified as some sort of engineer.
DK: Right.
HM: Although he was qualified with the RAF as an aero engineer.
DK: Yeah.
HM: He’d qualified as something else over there.
DK: So presumably you left the RAF quite soon afterwards then did you?
HM: Oh yes.
DK: Yeah.
HM: When I came home on leave I used to visit the place where I worked beforehand. The garment cutter.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: And one time I went the boss asked me, ‘Would you like to come out?’ I’d just met the wife then, or girlfriend and I said yes. He said, ‘I’ll try and see what I can do.’ Of course, if you’d got a job to go to and the boss enquired can you come home you were allowed early release.
DK: Oh right. Ok.
HM: So within about a week of that, seeing the boss and him saying yes I was on my way home. Demobbed.
DK: Wow. So it happened quite quickly then.
HM: Oh, it did.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Yes.
DK: Quite, quite unusual from some of the people I’ve spoken to. Hanging on for months before they got demobbed.
HM: If you, if you got a job to go to I believe it could be, could be done.
DK: Oh, ok. Ok.
HM: And evidently he wanted me back so —
DK: So, so how do you after all these years how do you look back on your time in the RAF? How do you feel now about it?
HM: Quite happy about it. I thought it was [pause] I thought it was a good spell.
DK: Yeah.
HM: It’s an experience you couldn’t have anywhere else. Yeah. It was quite, I found it quite a good experience.
DK: Yeah. You found it useful in later life then did you? Sort of that experience.
HM: Not really [laughs]
DK: Oh [laughs] Ok. I’ve just got your photo here.
HM: Yeah.
DK: I wonder if, are you still able to name, name the crew? So that’s, that’s to the recording here that’s a Lancaster of 138 Squadron.
HM: That’s a Lancaster of 138 Squadron.
DK: And that’s the one you flew on operations.
HM: Yeah.
DK: So do you know, can you name them all here?
HM: Yes. There’s —
DK: So that’s, that’s the ground crew presumably at the front there.
HM: That’s the ground crew. I can’t remember their names.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: That’s Ted Bramsgrove. He was the navigator. Then there’s me. Then there’s Tom Kelsall, he was the engineer. That was the pilot, Flying officer Crawford.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Eric Scott. He was the bomb aimer. Oh, what’s his first? Fry was his surname. He was the wireless operator. And Duncan MacGregor he was the other gunner.
DK: So he would normally be in the rear gun turret would he?
HM: Yeah.
DK: For the most part. Though you did swap over didn’t you, at times?
HM: We did swap over. Yeah.
DK: So they were a good crew then were they?
HM: They were. Yeah.
DK: Yeah. Yeah.
HM: Yes. He was a farmer. He was a school teacher. He was a shop assistant. I don’t know what Mac was.
DK: So quite varied.
HM: He was Irish. He’d come from Northern Ireland.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Belfast.
DK: So quite a varied background then.
HM: Oh yeah.
DK: Yeah. And that’s your ground crew there.
HM: That’s the ground crew.
DK: Yeah.
HM: Which looked after the aircraft.
DK: So did you have much to do with the ground crew at all? Or —
HM: Not a lot. No.
DK: No. You just wanted to make sure the aircraft was ok.
HM: You’d chat to them when you went out to dispersal to climb in.
DK: So that’s you there then. Second from the end.
HM: Yeah. Second on the left.
DK: Second on the left. Ok then, that’s —
HM: I’m thinking you must, I think Howard had that.
DK: Yeah.
HM: And he asked me what all the names were.
DK: Yeah.
HM: I think he sent that.
DK: Yes. If he hasn’t I’ll make sure he does.
HM: Yeah.
DK: That’s a great photo that. Ok then. I think that will do. I’ll, but thanks for that. I’ll turn off. Turn this off now. Thanks for your time.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Henry Moss
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
David Kavanagh
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-11-14
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.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AMossH181114, PMossH1801
Format
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00:55:40 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Henry grew up in Bradford and left school just before the outbreak of war. He had various jobs like working in the mill, a greengrocer’s shop, the dye works and then garment cutting for the army. At 17 and a half was called up in London where he was kitted out and had the necessary inoculations. He had been in the Air Training Corps so chose to apply for the Royal Air Force. He was told he could be a wireless operator air gunner, trained in Morse code and learned about the .303 Browning. The recruits were sent to RAF Pembrey in South Wales for gunnery training where they worked on Martinets and Ansons. They then went to 26 Operation Training Unit to crew up and fly on Wellingtons. Henry spent time at 1669 Heavy Conversion Unit in Nottinghamshire to train on Lancasters as mid-upper gunner. He was posted to 138 Squadron which was a special operations unit working on Halifaxes and Lysanders aircraft dropping supplies to the resistance. They also dropped off or picked up agents in France. Their first two operations were to Kiel. Henry recalled a daylight operation to Bremen in 1945 when they suffered a hole in the fuselage from anti-aircraft fire. During the war they did five operations in all, plus trips for Operation Manna and Exodus. The crew did not keep in touch after the war. When Henry was demobbed he went back to work for the army garment firm.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Yorkshire
England--Bradford
England--London
Wales--Carmarthenshire
France
Germany
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Kiel
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
138 Squadron
1669 HCU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lysander
Martinet
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Langar
RAF Pembrey
RAF Tempsford
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/462/8344/AAdamsT160616.2.mp3
f9bd5882560371415b633ba85a023cb1
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
Adams, Tony
Antony Hill Adams
A H Adams
T Adams
Antony H Adams
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Adams, T
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Tony Adams
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-16
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.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
DG: OK we're all set to go, I'll just have to, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, my name is Donald Gould and I'm interviewing Tony Adams at his place in Lingfield, a suburb of Sydney. The interview is taking place on Thursday 16th June 2016. Can you tell me your name please Tony?
AA: My name is Anthony Adams, I'm known as Tony Adams.
DG: And how old are you Tony?
AA: I'm ninety two.
DG: What, where were you born?
AA: I was born in Roseville one of the northside suburbs of Sydney.
DG: And what did your parents do?
AA: My father was an engineer and my mother was home duties mainly except during the Depression, she had to earn extra money and she did what they called Batik work, B,A,T,I,K it was dyeing clothes and so on.
DG: A bit unusual in those, in those days batik?
AA: Um.
DG: Yeah, and where did you go to school?
AA: At Roseville public school, and then after that I went to Sydney Grammar.
DG: And what, what, how old were you when you left school?
AA: I left school a few weeks after World War II began I was fifteen years of age.
DG: And what did you do, after, after when you finished school, what did you do after that?
AA: I studied accountancy, I went full time to a, a college, an accountancy college for one year and then I got a job as a junior clerk in a, in a company in the wholesale chemist area and I was there 'til I turned eighteen and then I went into the army, before, before the air force.
DG: OK so you were, you were, in Sydney when the War broke out?
AA: Yes.
DG: And why did you, why did you, what prompted you to join the air force?
AA: Well really two reasons, I'd heard all the stories of the first, first War and the terrible conditions and how soldiers, Australia diggers, had died and I was a very squeamish boy and I thought if I'm going to die I'm going to die quickly.
DG: [Laughs].
AA: But I really didn't think I was going to die you didn't put your name down for that reason, a lot of my friends where I lived were going into the air force and sounded more exciting than being in the army or the navy, [chuckles].
DG: And where, where did you enlist?
AA: Er, right here in Sydney at Willoughby actually.
DG: And what, what training did you, did they give you? What did they select you to do?
AA: Are we talking about the army or the navy?
DG: Oh no, that would be the air force.
AA: Oh well, after six months in the army I got my transfer to the R, double A, F and after initial training, rookie training, I was selected to be, to wireless training, radio training and I spent six months at Parkes in New South Wales doing that and having completed that course I then was sent to Port Pirie in South Australia for six weeks doing flying training there, air gunnery flying training and at that stage I got my wing so I was ready to, I graduated.
DG: You mentioned, you mentioned the army, how did you, how did you come to be in the army first?
AA: Well it was conscription in those days in Australia.
DG: Ah right.
AA: And you had to, you had to, as soon as you turned eighteen, you had to go into the service, aircrew R, double A, F aircrew you were all volunteers, but anyway it was I was called up into the Army within a few weeks of turning eighteen.
DG: And you asked to go to the air force and you did?
AA: I, I previously put my name down for the air force and, but there was a waiting list in a way and the Army grabbed me before the air force did.
DG: And what, you'd completed that training and when did you go overseas?
AA: Um, June 1943, 15th of June actually, I'm pretty good on dates [laughs] and that was by ship, an American troop ship across the Pacific to San Francisco, I was a sergeant then and then they transferred us onto a train at San Francisco, a troop train and a very, a very palatial troop train too 'cause we had a porter on each carriage who made up our beds.
DG: Oh boy.
AA: And shone our shoes even though we hardly got out of the train [chuckles] but anyway we went right across the other side of the US to a huge US army camp which was really for embarkation of American troops.
DG: Where was that?
AA: And it was.
DG: Can you remember where it?
AA: It was called Taunton, Massachusetts, nearest, near Providence and not far from Boston.
DG: Right. And then were you, you were only there a short time before you?
AA: About three or four weeks I think, yes.
DG: Right. And then, and then you embarked to Britain?
AA: Yes on the Queen Mary. The Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were going backwards and forwards to Scotland to the Clyde mainly with American troops building up prior to D-Day it was the year before though but the ship I went on, the voyage I went on as it happens I found out was the one when they carried the most number of troops onboard, there was about nearly fifteen thousand troops and a thousand crew.
DG: Oh crikey. And so you'd have been in Britain around by June, July, August or something in '43?
AA: 1st of August.
DG: 1st of August?
AA: Bank holiday. [Laughter].
DG: Right and when you got to Britain what did, where did they, where did they send you for further training?
AA: [Unclear] We were in a contingent of three hundred Australia and New Zealand airmen, we picked up the New Zealand airmen over Auckland on the way over across the Pacific and we landed in Scotland in the Clyde, and by train down to Brighton Sussex, south of England and the Australian and New Zealand air force had taken over the two big hotels in Brighton, the Grand and the Metropole, and we, they'd ripped the luxury hotels to bits and crammed us in there.
DG: And how long, how long were you there?
AA: Um, I think only perhaps six weeks, four or six weeks or something.
DG: Right, and what, what happened to you after that?
AA: I and about nineteen others Australians, who had to be, were going to be wireless operators in Bomber Command, were sent to do a further course flying on Avro Anson's at a place called West Freugh, F,R,E,U,G,H near Stranraer Scotland on the west coast and we'd do further training there, 'cause when we arrived there in England they said 'oh the radios that you used in Australia, trained on in Australia, no we use the Marconi sets here you've got to have further training'.
DG: Oh right.
AA: So we used to fly out from there over Northern Ireland and down to, down to Wales, England and I think we were there for perhaps two, perhaps two to three months.
DG: And then what happened to you after?
AA: Well then.
DG: You did that further training?
AA: We passed all the tests there and we were then sent, or some of us, we were spread out
to different places to what they called an operational training unit, OTU, and the one I was sent to and I think only one other of that course of twenty went to the same OTU which was in Bedfordshire.
DG: Which one of that? What number was that?
AA: It was called Wing, the village of Wing but nothing to do with air force.
DG: Right yeah.
AA: And we flew from the satellites round there called Little Horwood, H,O, R W, double O, D. And it was interesting that Little Horwood was about a twenty minute bike ride from Bletchley or Bletchley Park.
DG: Oh golly.
AA: And I knew a girl who worked at Bletchley Park I met her there and she was my girlfriend for the duration of the war while I was there.
DG: Did you know anything about Bletchley Park and what was going on over there?
AA: We had no idea what went on we knew there was a lot of, we saw in the local pob, pub, The Park Hotel at Bletchley, we'd see all these officers navy officers, air force and army officers but in those days you really didn't make any enquiries.
DG: Were you aware that it was something pretty Top Secret or was it just another, another?
AA: Yes, we believed it was Secret.
DG: Yes, yes. And then when did you go to a squadron after that?
AA: At that stage, that is where you formed up in your crew.
DG: Right.
AA: And through a process within a day you arrived there, the I think it was the CO came and gathered us all together and said, and there were about twenty pilots, twenty wireless operators, twenty navigators, twenty gunners, 'right oh you fellas you've got about three or four days to form yourselves up into a crew' and I did see a fella that I, I didn't know him except of course there were Canadians, New Zealanders, English men, Australians, I didn't know anybody except the fella that I went with and I looked and then after a day I saw a fella called John Faile[?] who was a year or two years ahead of me at Sydney Grammar. And I went, and he was a pilot, and I went up to him, 'Johnny do you remember me?' and he said 'oh yes Sydney Grammar?' and he said 'yeah you were the opening bowler in the third eleven weren't you?' [laughter] and he was the star from the first eleven but I said ' have you got a wireless op?' and he said 'look', he said, 'I was only just been yesterday talking to an English fellow and he, ah I've asked him to be my wireless op and he was somebody else [unclear] so I asked him, he said he'd come back to me later on today, I think so' he said 'I'd love to have you but I' said 'I'm but I'm perhaps committed to have this chap'. And anyway he did come back to me later and said McKay[?] the other fella is going to come with me, the English chap, luckily I didn't, it was luck there because a few weeks after D-Day that crew was shot down and all killed.
DG: Oh.
AA: Over France. But nobody else would ask me it was mainly the pilots were going round asking people and I was a bit of a wallflower [DG laughs] one Australian pilot did say, came to me and approached me, would I be interested and and I said 'yes, I'm not crewed up, thank you very much, would love to be in your crew' all our unit was Australian and quickly in talking to each other we said you know, 'oh where do you live?' he lived in Sydney and I lived in Sydney and 'where do you live Wal?' and he said 'Greenfield' and 'where do you live Tony?' 'Roseville', the next suburb but I didn't know him and we then formed up into a crew and in due course we acquired another gunner and a, and a flight engineer but we were a crew of four Australians and three English men.
DG: And presumably the flight engineer would have been English?
AA: Yes, the flight engineer was English.
DG: Yeah, yeah.
AA: And the two gunners were English.
DG: Oh right. And were you sent to a squadron after that once you paired up?
AA: No the next step was because we were going to be on four engine bombers mainly for the pilot at the OTU we were flying Wellington bombers, a twin engine bomber, so we had to do, went to a place called Stradishall, which was called a conversion unit, it was mainly for the pilots to learn to fly a four engine as against a twin engine bomber, and at that stage we then got an extra gunner, a mid upper gunner, and a flight engineer.
DG: And ah did you, what happened after that, after that conversion?
AA: Well we're ready to go to a squadron then.
DG: Right.
AA: But prior to that they went in training in case we got shot down, we went to a, what is called I think, a battle course, that was for a couple of weeks where we were instructed on all the procedures if we did get shot down how to get back, how to evade capture and things like that.
DG: Right.
AA: And we did exercises in relation to that.
DG: And what happened after, once you'd finished that?
AA: When we finished that, and that was at a place called Methwold, we were ready to go to a squadron and we went from there to Lakenheath which was an RAF establishment it was pre-war I think and we were there within a few days of arriving there we did our first operation.
DG: Can you remember what, when that would have been that you, you first joined the squadron?
AA: Ah.
DG: Any idea when that would have been?
AA: Yeah it was May 1944.
DG: Right. So that's [unclear] nearly a year after you'd got to the UK.
AA: Yeah that's right.
DG: A little time after.
AA: Yes.
DG: And what was the, what was the daily life like at the base? Just your daily routines and life in general how did you find that?
AA: Well, they would post up if you were flying on operations that night or later that day they'd post up in the operations room all the crews and that were to fly at that time, all their names and give you the instructions as to the time of briefings, the navigator and the pilots used to have a briefing first and then the rest of the crew would come in for an hour or two later to the main briefing and so that was what happened, they told you the time the meals were going to be, the time of the transport to your aircraft, because of course there were aircraft dispersed right round the aerodrome and your aircraft, you were allocated an aircraft, ours happened to be C Charlie and er [unclear] what [unclear] make of aircraft or sometimes they'd switch them around but anyway ours was C Charlie, we had our own ground crew at the dispersal and I think there were five in the ground crew crew and we'd be transported out there during the day if it was going to be a night operation we'd be going out and checking our equipment that sort of thing.
DG: And what, and what would happen then if you, if you were flying that night , after you'd checked the aircraft out and what would happen? Presumably you'd be going on a mission after your evening meal or would you or?
AA: Yes, yes but later on we did more daylight operations than than night operations. That was our, because that was our squadron. Now I haven't told you the aircraft we were then flying when we first joined the squadron was Stirlings.
DG: Right.
AA: And the Stirlings at this stage of the War had been taken off the bombing of German targets. The Lancasters and the Halifaxes were the ones being used for that sort of operations, the Stirlings couldn't get the height and didn't have the speed so the, we were what, we were called a Special Duties Squadron, and as soon as we got there it was realised, we realised, were told [emphatic] it was very secret what we were doing. It was in all Bomber Command squadrons to a degree but ours was more secret [laughs].
DG: Right.
AA: And because the operations we were doing that were so secret was supplying the French Resistance movement with supplies.
DG: Ah right.
AA: And we weren't allowed to keep a diary.
DG: Um.
AA: Actually our mail, outward mail, was censored I think, and so that was the sort of thing. So we were doing that sort of operation and, and dropping mines at the entrances of the ports there where they had the German, the German fleet, submarines and warships who were attacking the Atlantic convoys would try to keep them hulled into those ports.
DG: You were dropping the supplies to the French Resistance, obviously that was in France?
AA: Yes.
DG: Have you any, do you know what parts of France that you were doing it?
AA: Yes, we didn't do that many of them.
DG: Um.
AA: Erm, about in the area of Dijon.
DG: Right.
AA: I do remember one town called Digoin. Which was not far from Dijon, D, I, G, O, I, N. To, would you like me to go on and tell you a bit what the operation was [chuckles].
DG: Yes, certainly, yes.
AA: Because they were rather, you know?
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: Um we had to find a clearing in the forest, we only flew on very bright moon light nights because we flew at very low altitude under the German radar.
DG: You had all the co-ordinates and everything and you had to find that little spot?
AA: Yes.
DG: Yes.
AA: And the navigator and the bomb aimer had to be, co-operate very much. The bomb aimer would lie down in his, in his part there and would map read with a torch and say, 'tell the navigator we are over this river' or [unclear] 'tell', and then when I said Degoinge I remember they would go to a small town and then be given, at a certain speed, in a certain direction, to find that clearing in the forest. Um, going out there OK you find the thing, the place, no bigger than a football field.
DG: You're obviously at a fairly low altitude to be able to find them?
AA: We were flying at five hundred feet.
DG: Would that avoid radar at that height?
AA: Yes.
DG: Oh right, OK.
AA: Five hundred feet, you'd perhaps go, anyway we had loaded in the bomb bay canisters of supplies.
DG: What were they made of?
AA: Well we were never told but it was arms, ammunition.
DG: No, no but the canisters. What were the?
AA: Oh metal and they had a parachute.
DG: Oh right, OK, yeah yeah.
AA: And the bomb aimer to had to identify that we were dropping at the right place, to the right people they had to flash to us on the torch the letter of the day, the agreed letter of the day in Morse Code and then they would then the French men, or French women too I guess ,would put out flares and we would do a, virtually a bombing run, probably at a thousand feet or lower and the canisters then would get released and float down, full moon, and they'd come out with horses and carts from under the trees and load these canisters onto their trucks and onto their carts and disappear back into, into the trees.
DG: And how many canisters might you have?
AA: Oh, I couldn't really tell you.
DG: No, no that's absolutely, that doesn't matter.
AA: Yes.
DG: And what, and um, did you ever meet with any resistance when you were doing those? Any flak or fighters or did you get a pretty free run run having been flying in such clear weather?
AA: Pretty, yes pretty free, I think it was entirely free as I can tell you about one occasion.
DG: Um.
AA: As as I said I was, I looked after the radio and before we took off we all checked our equipment and I'd go out my radio was working perfectly. Then, er we took off they had what they called a group broadcast, we were in Bomber Command's No3 group, there was a number of squadrons in that group most of them going and bombing German targets. But we had this different sort of operation and you had to, my job was, every half hour on the hour and half hour listen in to a group broadcast where instructions may be given, to some of us or all of us, such things as you're diverted to another aerodrome because there's fog over yours where you're going back to or all sorts of things. Um, especially for those on the bombing German targets the wind direction had been changed and things like that. But anyway, we'd been going a while we were probably over the coast of France by this stage and my radio went absolutely dead and I reported it to the skipper, I said 'my radio's out of action' and he said 'alright just let me know when it's fixed ', it wasn't something that would stop us proceeding on this operation and I was quite a good operator but I was hopeless at fixing things and my wife will bear you out, I've never fixed anything in my life [laughter] but anyway I fiddled around in those days radios had valves before transistors [laughs].
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: And I was pushing and pulling and I couldn't get it to work and so I, somehow then the next half hour broadcast was coming up and I'm getting a bit frantic, I pushed it in and just as I pushed it in came, a message came through it started to work for the group cast, the message was for our aircraft, our call sign or one of them.
DG: Oh dear.
AA: You recognise your voice as it's called out, well you recognised your call sign just as clearly.
DG: Yeah, yeah.
AA: Um, this, the message was return to base. I said to Wal the Skipper, in the aircraft you didn't go on first names, or very rarely 'Wireless Operator to Pilot I've just received a message, return to base' and he said 'what's the trouble are all the Force going back?' 'I don't know, just me, just us 'he said 'are you sure?' so well I was a bit er, radio reception at five hundred feet is not that good.
DG: No.
AA: But I'm sure. He said ' Tony you're in trouble [chuckles] if you've got this wrong', and anyway he took my word for it so back we went and landed probably midnight or 1am, I can't remember and a British major who we sort of knew who co-ordinated these sort of operations on our base he came out to our aircraft and we said 'what's up major?' and he said 'well after you got took off and got to the other side we got, we got' I remember his words, 'we got word from the other side, a message from the other side, that the Frenchmen there had been captured and they had installed 3 [unclear] and 2 Bofor's guns awaiting your arrival'.
DG: Oh right. And you might have gone into that if your radio hadn't come back on the line again?
AA: I wouldn't have been talking to you now.
DG: No.
AA: If I hadn't got that message [unclear].
DG: Unbelievable,
AA: My radio was.
DG: Before, just getting backtracking a little bit, you mentioned the airfield you were at, I don't know whether I asked you your squadron number that you were in?
AA: It was RAF Squadron 149.
DG: RAF 149. And what field were you flying from at this stage?
AA: Ah, it would have been Methwold.
DG: OK, OK, and you did a number of these operations dropping?
AA: Not very many.
DG: Right.
AA: Er, one of the first ones we did was with the CO, our pilot was second pilot on this occasion so he could learn the ropes a bit, I think we only did about six of them.
DG: So you did those and dropping the mines.
AA: Dropping the mines.
DG: Did you have any interesting situations with those missions?
AA: Well, no they er only one and this was after D-Day and we were dropping mines at the entrance to Bordeaux which is on the west coast of France, the river there Bordeaux's on is called the Gironde, G, I, R, O, N, D, E, Gironde, it has a very wide estuary or mouth and we had to drop the mines there for the entrance, and we did that again at low level because it was after D-Day we weren't allowed to cut across France. We had to, came from Methwold up near Cambridge, we went right down to Lands' End and then went down the west coast of France, dropped our mines and then had to go back the same way, not cutting across France at all and we're coming up the coast after we'd dropped our mines, suddenly I'm standing in what is called the astrodome which is a perspex bubble on top of a fuselage, where I'm, if I'm not having a radio duty I'm keeping a watch out for anything and suddenly I see fazer coming up towards us from a light machine gun and I understand it was a flagship.
DG: Oh.
AA: Anchored off the coast and I would swear that those bullets [unclear] were going for our rear turret, but we weren't hit at all.
DG: And what was the reason for going, not going over France, going around after D-Day because of the hostilities was that?
AA: Yes, that's right.
DG: You wanted to keep out of the way?
AA: The anti aircraft were all around so that's what we did.
DG: Yes, yes.
AA: And by this stage because we had to, I then started getting messages, radio messages on Morse Code that our, Methwold and round there was fog bound I think, or the weather anyway and they kept sending us a different message to divert to another aerodrome, and then they'd say 'no don't go to that one' but finally we landed a Coastal Command base in North Devon called Shivenor, or Chivenor, and sat there the night, rest of the night and went home the following day.
DG: And after your operations what did you, there were some fellows who had problems with nerves and they were accused of having a lack of moral fibre. How did you, how did you feel about these fellows?
AA: Well I, I never struck, all the time I was there I never knew anybody that, didn't hear anybody, I'd heard that some had sort of been just quietly removed.
DG: Right.
AA: I, I didn't have any direct contact with anybody like that.
DG: And when you, how, how did you feel, how were your, how were your nerves, you knew you were going to fly a mission, how did you, how did you feel?
AA: Um, usually it's not going to happen to me.
DG: Right [laughter].
AA: And I must say the times we were flying the casualty rate was not as high as it had been, I can't say I'm a very brave person but it didn't, wasn't too upset. There was only, we haven't got on to the stage yet of when we, the Squadron converted over to Lancasters.
DG: Right.
AA: And we were then bombing German targets more.
DG: Right.
AA: Er, about three nights in a week, in one week, we had daylight, I think daylight, we had to go to a place called Honsberg in the Rhur Valley and, near Dusseldorf, and the anti aircraft fire was very bad [laughs] terrific.
DG: Right.
AA: And I saw aircraft shot down and so on and when I we went to briefing that day they looked up on the map on the big map of Europe on the wall it was Honsberg again, oh gosh and I think I was very, very touchy then that day, is this going to be my last flight? But generally speaking you just had a job to do it didn't, I wasn't terribly concerned.
DG: How did you feel once you were in the air, did that?
AA: Well you had your job to do and.
DG: Did that change your mind?
AA: I was fairly calm but if you saw, as we did on one occasion, an aircraft flying right alongside us, got anti aircraft fire in seconds it hit the wing and the blazing fuel from the wing spread backwards in seconds and the tail plane was alight and they circled away, we didn't see any parachutes, it would have crashed. That was a New Zealand squadron aircraft we, I found out in recent years.
DG: So you were, you were dropping the supplies from the Stirlings?
AA: Yes.
DG: Right, and er then you went to Lancasters, you got Lancasters?
AA: Yes.
DG: And ah you mentioned that that mission, what other missions did you, did you fly in the Lancasters? This is after D-Day is it did you say?
AA: Yes well we were still on Stirlings right through 'til September which was three months after D-Day.
DG: September '44 yes?
AA: September 1944. We were bombing in Stirlings we did some bombing raids on German targets [clears throat] Le Havre, the Canadians had the Germans troops surrounded in Le Havre and we were bombing the troops virtually, they the Germans had set up flying bomb bases or launching sites on the coast in France, lobbing them towards London and things..
DG: Oh yes.
AA: And we were bombing those sites, I think that was the main things we were doing on the Stirlings besides and doing minor operations of St Malo and other other ports.
DG: And what, what missions did you do in the Lancasters?
AA: Well they were virtually, they were all bombing of industrial targets in, in Ruhr Valley, Cologne, Essen, Bonn [coughs] more in daylight than er [coughs], excuse me, than at night time actually.
DG: Now when you were bombing, bombing these targets there would of course there would always have been civilians somewhere around, how did you, how did you feel when you were bombing these, that there were no doubt somewhere along the lines civilians were going to get killed.
AA: I virtually never even thought about it. We were given a target.
DG: Yeah.
AA: I don't know if it ever really crossed my mind very much. Er, just as a quick example, when I, I mentioned that I was, my virtually first job after the, when I left school or did, started doing accountancy training was with a chartered accountant only for a few months, and he was an auditor, and I'd go with him to the various places, companies to be audited. One of them was called Babcock and Wilcocks, at Regent Park in Sydney, and I'd go out there, didn't have a clue really what I was doing but I had a green pen to tick things, and what was some three years later this was when we were on the Lancaster Squadron, Lancasters we went to briefing, it would have been in November 1944 some three years later. 'Gentlemen your target for tonight is the Babcock and Wilcocks works at Oberhausen [strong laughter] but we were given a target.
DG: Yes.
AA: Now our squadron or most of the squadrons in No3 Group Bomber Command at this stage were, usual targets were bombing synthetic oil plants.
DG: Oh right yeah, yeah.
AA: And so that's what we were doing right through to the very last one we did..
DG: How many missions did you complete?
AA: Thirty six.
DG: Thirty six. So you did your, did your [unclear].
AA: [Unclear].
DG: Was that classified as, at one stage I think there were certain, there were certain, certain targets that weren't considered as dangerous as the others so you had to complete more, more missions to complete your tour, was that had you completed a tour?
AA: Yes.
DG: Yes.
AA: When we joined the squadron and were flying Stirlings [unclear] the standard was thirty. But then at some stage later, and I can't quite remember when, they said 'no you've got to do thirty five', and so eventually I did thirty five but one, I can't remember which one it was, we did what was called an air sea rescue mission, we went looking in the North Sea for RAF crews shot down during the night ditching. I think that may have been the one that we, they said 'oh you're near the coast' or something, I don't know and so they added on officially I did thirty six [laughs].
DG: Oh golly. And so then that pretty much, once you, that's pretty much the end of the War at that stage?
AA: Er, we did our last operation on the 6th of December 1944, that's five, five months before the end of the War.
DG: Right.
AA: Er yes.
DG: And did you, you've talked about a few things that happened, was there anything else any other particularly interesting things that you, that come to mind, that you might have been involved in?
AA: No er, [pauses] no really it was, I didn't realise until recently, I was looking at my log book, you imagine RAF Bomber Command is flying out every night and the US Army Air Force were flying and bombing sometimes the same targets by day.
DG: Right.
AA; But on adding up in my log book we, on Lancasters, we only did six at night and about, I don't know, fifteen or twenty or something in daylight.
DG: Right, right.
AA: Yes.
DG: And so what, when the, that was in November '44 you flew your last mission?
AA: 6th of December.
DG: Of December?
AA: Celebrating the pilot's 27th birthday.
DG: And what happened, what happened then, after you'd flown your last mission the War was still going on though?
AA: Oh yes, yes. Well at this stage they had aircrew too many aircrew really and I and other Australians but not only other Australians the majority, the flight engineer also came with me to a non flying station up at the north of Scotland near Nairn, where they were, we had various tests, what are we going to do with these people next sort of thing. And so we had aptitude tests and so on and it was once thought that I might become a wireless operator on a Walrus amphibian plane based in Northern in France to fly out and rescue people who were shot down in the sea but that didn't eventuate. And then I was, er said 'you won't be required as aircrew you'll probably be an intelligence officer'. And then we were virtually on leave on and off and really we were then based back at Brighton and word came through 'all you Australians are going to get sent home'. So I think it was at the end of April, around about the 20th of April 1945 I was on the ship on the way home, and Anzac Day 1944 er we were somewhere been going a few days.
DG: 45?
AA; And Anzac Day and I've still got the menu, I was in the Officers' Mess in this troopship, the New Amsterdam, I've got the menu that Anzac Day.
DG: Anzac Day 1945?
AA: Yes.
DG: On the, on the way home? Oh great.
AA: And then 2 weeks later it was VE Day and we were still on the water on the way home.
DG: Right.
AA: And a week or two after that we arrived in Fremantle for just a day refuelling and then round to Sydney and.
DG: What happened to you after the War?
AA: Oh well I was discharged well actually I [unclear] to the service, others got the discharge, I was transferred to R, double A,F reserve so theoretically they could call me up at any time I think [laughter] but anyway we'll call it discharge, and that was of course the War was going on against Japan, atomic bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered and within two or three weeks of War against Japan ending I was discharged from the air force.
DG: Right.
AA: And quickly back to my accountancy studies, I was half way through, I finished those and then started working as a commercial accountant in various, various companies throughout my mostly in accounting jobs had about four different companies I think I worked for, three or four, some well known companies, mainly it was Grace Brothers, and the final one was Brambles where I ended up for the last ten years as company secretary until I retired on my 60th birthday in 1984.
DG: And when, when and where, did you meet your wife, sometime after you came back?
AA: Yes, that was, I was, I was down on the south coast over a long weekend, the October weekend down to a seaside resort called Austinmer down near Woolongong, and I was there with a few of my mates and she was there with a few of her girls at the same guest house and we met on the beach and I asked her if she'd come out with me after we, after we got back to Sydney and within six weeks we were engaged.
DG: Right.
AA: [laughs].
DG: And you're still married? Great.
AA: Been married for sixty seven years.
DG: Did you, how many children did you have?
AA: A son and daughter.
DG: Oh great,great. And after, after um after you got back from the War how were fellows that came back from Bomber Command treated, how did you feel you were being treated?
AA: I think, I've heard a lot of stories where they said, you know, 'why were you over there, we were fighting it out here and the Japanese', I never heard a single thing [unclear] who come back from Vietnam being shunned and so on but er, I never got that impression they were, we were welcomed back and got a good job and which I think we had we were, we were, I don't know, I think we all well slotted into whatever we were doing before.
DG: Yeah.
AA: All my mates in the Bank, and they went back to the Bank, and.
DG: Do you still keep in touch with some of the fellows from your time in Engl[and], your time in Bomber Command?
AA: Er yes just a few.
DG: Yes.
AA: Just a few most of them have passed on really but.
DG: Do you ever?
AA: The navigator of our crew was Australian, he and I are the only two surviving members of the crew now.
DG: You and your navigator?
AA: Yeah.
DG: Right.
AA: Well I think that's er, that brings us pretty well up to date. Thanks very much for talking to me Tony I much appreciate it. Thank you.
AA: Right. Cup of tea now?
DG: Thank you.
AA: Or coffee would you prefer?
DG: Coffee but that's.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Tony Adams
Creator
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Donald Gould
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-16
Format
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00:56:07 audio recording
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AAdamsT160616
Conforms To
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Pending review
Type
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Sound
Description
An account of the resource
Tony Adams grew up in Australia and was studying accountancy when he was conscripted into the army at the age of 18. He later transferred to the Air Force. He trained as a wireless operator and was sent overseas to the UK in June 1943. After training he flew 36 operations in Stirlings and Lancasters with 149 Squadron stationed at RAF Methwold. After the war, he completed his accountancy training before retiring as Company Secretary for Brambles in 1984.
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
United States
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1943
1944
1945
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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.
149 Squadron
3 Group
air sea rescue
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
Lancaster
mine laying
RAF Lakenheath
RAF Methwold
RAF West Freugh
Resistance
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/150/1567/LBellinghamPF1397635v1.2.pdf
1fbc8b7942f76eed3db897aeedc910f4
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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Bellingham, Peter
Peter F Bellingham
Peter Bellingham
P F Bellingham
P Bellingham
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer Peter Frederick Bellingham (b. 1923, 1391638 Royal Air Force), a photograph and his log book. Peter Bellingham trained in South Africa as a bomb aimer and flew 30 Special Operations Executive operations in Halifaxes and Stirlings with 138 Squadron from RAF Tempsford.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Peter Bellingham and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-11-21
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
Bellingham, PF
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Peter Bellingham’s observer's and air gunner's flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
The log book covers the training and operational career of bomb aimer Peter Bellingham from 10 March 1943 to 21 February 1946. After training in South Africa he flew Halifaxes and Stirlings with 138 Squadron, taking part in 30 night operations over Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway. These were special operations involving the dropping of containers, packages and pigeons to agents, outcome logged either as ‘Joy’ or ‘No joy’. His pilots on operations were Strathearn and Flight Lieutenant Moffat. Landed with FIDO once, did a Cook’s tour over the Netherlands and Germany before becoming an instructor. Aircraft flown included: Oxford, Anson, Wellington, Stirling, Halifax and Warwick.
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
LBellinghamPF1397635v1
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1944-07-03
1944-07-04
1944-07-05
1944-07-07
1944-07-08
1944-07-09
1944-07-10
1944-07-11
1944-07-23
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-26
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-07-30
1944-07-31
1944-08-04
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-07
1944-08-08
1944-08-09
1944-08-10
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-29
1944-08-30
1944-09-28
1944-09-29
1944-09-30
1944-10-01
1944-10-04
1944-10-05
1944-10-15
1944-10-16
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1944-11-07
1944-11-08
1944-11-26
1944-11-27
1944-11-29
1944-11-30
1944-12-24
1944-12-25
1945-02-21
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-02-25
1945-02-26
1945-02-27
1945-03-04
1945-03-05
1945-06-19
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Denmark
France
Germany
Great Britain
Norway
South Africa
England--Bedfordshire
England--Buckinghamshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Suffolk
South Africa--Port Elizabeth
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.
11 OTU
138 Squadron
1657 HCU
17 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
aircrew
animal
Anson
bomb aimer
bombing
Cook’s tour
FIDO
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Manby
RAF Oakley
RAF Silverstone
RAF Tempsford
RAF Turweston
RAF Westcott
RAF Woodbridge
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1363/22876/LThomasAF1851072v1.2.pdf
7199e1de2e3454b37f272f2424a0d2d8
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
Thomas, Arthur Froude
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. The collection concerns Arthur Froude Thomas (b.1922 1851072 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, 7 photograph albums, and his decorations. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 90 and 149 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by S Thomas 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
2020-02-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
THomas, AF
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
Flying Officer A F Thomas’ RAF navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Description
An account of the resource
Flying Officer A.F. Thomas’ RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, from 4th November 1943 to 26th March 1947, detailing his training, operations, instructional and post-war duties as a flight engineer. Also contains several photographs of aircraft and occasional notes. He was stationed at RAF Woolfox Lodge (1665 and 1651 Conversion Unit), RAF Tuddenham (90 and 149 Squadron), RAF Wratting Common (1651 Conversion Unit), RAF Methwold (149 Squadron), RAF Feltwell and RAF Stradishall (149 Squadron). Aircraft in which flown: Stirling Mk I, Stirling Mk III, Lancaster Mk I, Lancaster Mk III and Lancaster Mk I (FE). He flew a total of 35 operations with 90 and 149 squadrons (8 day, 27 night). Targets in Belgium, France and Germany were: Abbeville, Amiens, Cherbourg, Courtrai, Dortmund, Essen, Frisians (mining), Gelsenkirchen, Gironde, Hattingen, Heligoland, Kamen, Kattegat, Kiel Bay, Kiel, Laon, Merseburg, Osterfeld, Potsdam and Regensburg. Several operations are listed as ‘Special’ or with unnamed targets. He took part in Operations Manna, Exodus and Dodge as well as going on Cook's Tours. His pilots on operations were Warrant Officer Poynton DFC and Flight Lieutenant Cowing.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LThomasAF1851072v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
Atlantic Ocean--Baltic Sea
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Norfolk
England--Rutland
England--Suffolk
Europe--Frisian Islands
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Atlantic Ocean--Kiel Bay
Belgium--Kortrijk
France--Abbeville
France--Amiens
France--Cherbourg
France--Gironde
France--Laon
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Essen
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
Germany--Hattingen
Germany--Helgoland
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Merseburg
Germany--Osterfeld
Germany--Potsdam
Germany--Regensburg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1943-12-20
1944-01-04
1944-01-14
1944-01-21
1944-01-25
1944-01-27
1944-01-30
1944-02-11
1944-02-12
1944-02-15
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-22
1944-02-25
1944-03-04
1944-03-05
1944-03-16
1944-03-18
1944-03-19
1944-03-20
1944-03-23
1944-03-24
1944-03-25
1944-03-26
1944-04-05
1944-04-09
1944-04-10
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-04-13
1944-04-17
1944-04-18
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-04-24
1944-05-07
1944-05-08
1944-05-09
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-02-25
1945-02-26
1945-03-11
1945-03-14
1945-03-17
1945-04-04
1945-04-05
1945-04-13
1945-04-14
1945-04-15
1945-04-20
1945-05-02
1945-05-07
1945-05-13
1945-06-01
149 Squadron
1651 HCU
1665 HCU
90 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Cook’s tour
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
mine laying
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Feltwell
RAF Methwold
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tuddenham
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Wratting Common
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/262/23789/LGouldAG1605203v1.1.pdf
9dd91522300ed555ad4b32db2caaac7c
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
Gould, Allen
Allen G Gould
Allen Gould
A G Gould
A Gould
Description
An account of the resource
Twenty-seven items. Concerns Allen Geoffrey Gould (b. 1923, 1605203 Royal Air Force). He completed a tour of operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and the Special Operations Executive. Collection consists of an oral history interview, his log book, flight engineer course notebooks, pilot's and engineers handling notes, mention in London Gazette, official documents and photographs.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Allen Geoffrey Gould 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
2016-07-08
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
Gould, AG
Requires
A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence.
Sgt. Allen G. Gould – 1605203, was born in 1923, after leaving school in Bournemouth at 13, he worked for the Danish Bacon Company until being called up in 1943. Choosing to join the RAF, initially wanting to be a Navigator, he ended up as a Flight Engineer, flying in the Short Stirling Mk. I, II, III and IV variants. Training at RAF St. Alban, then the Heavy Conversion Unit. Allen joined No. 620 Squadron, flying from various bases, RAF Chedburgh, RAF Leicester East and then RAF Fairford. The roles for this squadron were not just bombing missions but Minelaying, Supply drops, Glider Towing and Paratrooper drops. He took part in D-Day, dropping paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Division over Caen, France on the night of 5th June 1944, returning on the 6th towing a glider of heavy equipment. He was also a part of Market Garden, towing a glider on 17th September 1944 and returning on the 19th and 21st on supply drops. There were also numerous drops on behalf of Special Operations Executive (SOE) as well as Special Air Service (SAS) dropping supplies and paratroopers.
Andrew St.Denis
Allen Gould was born on 16 June 1923 in Bournemouth. He left school at fourteen and worked for the Danish Bacon company until he was called up. His father having spent four years in the trenches, in WW1, advised him against joining the Army, so he volunteered for the Royal Air Force.
He joined the RAF on in October 1942 and following basic training he attended the first-ever direct entry, Flight Engineers’ Course at RAF St Athan.
On completion of flight engineering training, he joined up with his crew on 1657 Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Stradishall, then moved with them onto 620 Squadron at RAF Chedburgh and later RAF Leicester East.
The squadron later relocated to RAF Fairford where they trained to tow gliders. He was billeted with 12 others in a Nissan hut, conveniently close to a trout stream. They often caught trout, away from the watchful eye of the bailiff and cooked them in a tin on the large coke stove that heated the hut. The illicit bounty was a most welcome supplement to the barely adequate daily rations they received.
Direct out of training with no aircraft experience he had to earn the trust of his crew who up until then had only come across experienced flight engineers. On only his second operational trip and flying with an inexperienced crew, they arrived late over Ludwigshafen, where they found themselves alone and under concentrated anti-aircraft fire. The aircraft was being peppered and was full of holes while the pilot was executing extreme manoeuvres trying to avoid further damage. A fuel tank was hit and Allen had to work hard to ensure the engines received sufficient fuel to keep running. At the same time he had to make sure there would be enough fuel remaining to get back to the south coast of England for an emergency landing. As the aircraft approached the runway, the airfield lights went out and the pilot announced he was going to do another circuit. Allen told him, bluntly, he couldn’t as he didn’t have enough fuel, so the pilot made a steep turn and conducted a blind landing with no fuel to spare. Allen bonded well with his crew and in their free time they would often all go out to the pub together.
Throughout his tour his squadron undertook a variety of roles, much of was it in support of the Special Operations Executive personnel, operating covertly in occupied Europe. They also trained to tow gliders and dropped parachuting troops on D Day.
Allen completed 32 operations as a flight engineer with 620 Squadron and he totalled over 460 flying hours on Stirlings. PGouldAG1610.2.jpg (1600×2310) (lincoln.ac.uk)
For his services to 620 Squadron, he was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ for distinguished service. MGouldAG1605203-160708-13.2.pdf (lincoln.ac.uk)
Post war, he married his wife, Norma, who was training as a mechanic at St Athan when he met her. PGouldAG1601.2.jpg (1600×2412) (lincoln.ac.uk)
Allen was discharged in October 1946 having attained the rank of Warrant Officer. PGouldAG1604.1.jpg (1600×2330) (lincoln.ac.uk)
He returned to the Danish Bacon company where he worked for another 40 years.
Chriss Cann
October 1942: Volunteered for the RAF
January 1943 - July 1943: RAF St Athan, Flight Engineer Training
July 1943 - September 1943: RAF Stradishall, 1657 HCU, flying Stirling aircraft
September 1943 - December 1943: RAF Chedburgh, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
January 1944 - March 1944: RAF Leicester East, 620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
March 1944 - April 1945: RAF Fairford,620 Squadron, flying Stirling aircraft
8 October 1946: Released from service having attained the rank of Warrant Officer
Chris Cann
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
Allen Gould’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book
Description
An account of the resource
Navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book for A G Gould, flight engineer, covering the period from 30 July 1943 to 13 April 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown. He was stationed at RAF Stradishall, RAF Chedburgh and RAF Leicester East. Aircraft flown in was Stirling. He flew a total of 29 operations with 620 squadron, 24 Night and 5 daylight. Listed targets were Borkum, Mannheim, Caen, and Arnhem. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Murray. The other operations were described as needed and involved the Special Air Service or the Special operations Executive, operation Tonga and operations to Norway and Sweden.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LGouldAG1605203v1
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
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
England--Leicestershire
England--Suffolk
France--Caen
Germany--Borkum
Germany--Mannheim
Netherlands--Arnhem
France
Germany
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1943-09-21
1943-09-27
1943-10-21
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1944-02-04
1944-02-05
1944-02-06
1944-02-11
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-18
1944-06-19
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-20
1944-07-21
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-29
1944-07-30
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-31
1944-09-06
1944-09-07
1944-09-12
1944-09-13
1944-09-17
1944-09-19
1944-09-21
1944-11-22
1944-11-27
1944-11-28
1945-02-02
1945-02-03
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-02-22
1945-02-23
1945-02-26
1945-02-27
1945-03-24
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
1657 HCU
620 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Leicester East
RAF Stradishall
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/536/24402/LWatsonK1589906v1.2.pdf
4819eef3a0b8270b7576fef405c5323a
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Watson, Joan
J Watson
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Watson, JB
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Joan Watson.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-04
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
K Watson’s navigator’s, air bomber’s and air gunner’s flying log book. One
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
Flight Sergeant K. Watson’s RAF Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, from 5th October 1943 to 23rd December 1953, detailing training and operations as a Flight Engineer. Also includes post-war duties with Coastal Command. He was stationed at RAF Woolfox Lodge (1665 Heavy Conversion Unit), RAF Witchford (513 Squadron), RAF Leicester East, RAF Fairford and Great Dunmow (620 Squadron), RAF Lindholme (230 OCU), RAF Wyton (44 Squadron), RAF Leuchars and Kinloss (120 Squadron) and RAF Gibraltar (224 Squadron). Aircraft in which flown: Stirling I, Stirling III, Stirling IV, Lancaster, Lincoln and Shackleton. He flew a total of 31 operations (4 day, 27 night) with 620 Squadron in France, the Netherlands and Norway. Most are logged simply as 'Special Duties', and consist mainly of airborne operations such as glider towing, paratoop dropping and resupply operations. On June 5-6th 1944 he records participation in operations Tonga and Mallard, part of the D-day Normandy landings. His pilot on operations was Flight Lieutenant Gawith.
This item was sent to the IBCC Digital Archive already in digital form. No better quality copies are available.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Leitch
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One booklet
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LWatsonK1589906v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Gibraltar
Great Britain
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Essex
England--Gloucestershire
England--Leicestershire
England--Rutland
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Fife
Scotland--Moray
Netherlands
Norway
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
1944-04-11
1944-04-12
1944-05-08
1944-05-31
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
1944-06-10
1944-06-11
1944-06-13
1944-06-14
1944-07-18
1944-07-19
1944-07-24
1944-07-25
1944-07-27
1944-07-28
1944-08-01
1944-08-02
1944-08-03
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-20
1944-08-21
1944-08-24
1944-08-25
1944-08-26
1944-08-27
1944-08-28
1944-08-31
1944-09-01
1944-09-09
1944-09-10
1944-09-13
1944-09-14
1944-09-17
1944-09-18
1944-09-19
1944-09-21
1944-11-01
1944-11-02
1944-11-04
1944-12-30
1945-01-21
1945-01-22
1945-02-07
1945-02-08
1945-03-02
1945-03-03
1945-03-24
1945-04-11
1945-04-12
1945-04-18
1945-04-20
1945-04-22
1945-05-30
120 Squadron
1665 HCU
44 Squadron
620 Squadron
aircrew
flight engineer
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Fairford
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leicester East
RAF Leuchars
RAF Lindholme
RAF Witchford
RAF Woolfox Lodge
RAF Wyton
Shackleton
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2247/40854/LRossB1610215v1.2.pdf
7b5247561438257d8e890678e1fac335
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
Ross, Bernard
Description
An account of the resource
37 items. This collection concerns Warrant Officer Bernard Ross (1610215, Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs and service record. Ross flew as an air gunner in Royal Air Force Transport Command, towing gliders, dropping supplies to resistance groups and carrying paratroops. He also took part in some bombing operations to Germany.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Paul Ross and Amanda Burnham, and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-07-25
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Ross, B
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
Bernard Ross' observers and air gunners flying log book
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Log book and record book
Format
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One booklet
Conforms To
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Pending review
Identifier
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LRossB1610215v1
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
Bernard Ross’ Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book covering the period from 05 of April 1943 to 22 April 1945. Detailing his flying training and operations flown as Air Gunner. He was stationed at RAF Penrhos (9 OAFU), RAF Seighford (30 OTU), RAF Thruxton (297 Squadron), RAF Hurn, RAF Brize Norton and RAF Earls Colne (296 Sqn) and RAF Tilstock (1665 HCU). Aircraft flown in were Blenheim, Wellington, Whitley, Albemarle, Oxford, Stirling and Halifax. He flew on two night bombing operations with 296 Squadron and and 22 glider towing/parachute drops and SOE operations with 296 Squadron and 297 Squadron, including D-Day, Arnhem and the Rhine Crossing. Bombing targets were Gravenbosch and Rees. His pilots on operations were Warrant Officer Beetham, Pilot Officer Godden and Flying Officer Fraser.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Great Britain. Royal Air Force
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-04
1943-05
1943-06
1943-07
1943-08
1943-09
1943-10
1943-11
1943-12
1945-01
1945-02-02
1945-02-14
1945-03
1945-04
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Oxfordshire
England--Essex
England--Staffordshire
England--Hampshire
England--Dorset
England--Lincolnshire
North Africa
Tunisia
Tunisia--Sidi Ameur
Germany
Germany--Rees
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Terry Hancock
1665 HCU
296 Squadron
297 Squadron
30 OTU
Advanced Flying Unit
air gunner
aircrew
Albemarle
Blenheim
Halifax
Hamilcar
Heavy Conversion Unit
Horsa
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Earls Colne
RAF Hurn
RAF Penrhos
RAF Seighford
RAF Thruxton
RAF Tilstock
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/330/3490/ASolinD170220.1.mp3
72bf807187c9aefe4305a0b3bcca21db
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
Solin, Donald
D Solin
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Donald Solin (427265 Royal Australian Air Force)
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
2017-02-20
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Solin, D
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Jean Macartney, the interviewee is Air Commodore Retired Donald Solin. The interview is taking place at Don’s home in Carrara, Queensland, on 20th February 2017, also present is Don’s friend Helena. Don let’s start at the beginning I believe you were born in Perth in 1924.
DS: Yes.
JM: Yes. And does that mean that you lived in Perth for your early years of?
DS: Until I was eighteen.
JM: Eighteen.
DS: And the day I turned eighteen I was conscripted of course into the RAF as everyone else was I think, and I ended up in well it was a crowd called, and there was a you know stopping, stopping the bombs, no bombs, you know. Anyway, er, we were tying explosives around bridges you know [unclear] that was our main watch that happened, concerns about the Japanese invasion and then we wouldn’t explode them, we would rush off somewhere and say yes they had exploded and after that we would go back untie them all again for tomorrow. Now that went on for several months and it didn’t appeal to me very much because I would always wanting to fly. So I pulled all the strings I knew which were not many, I had no one in particular to help me but anyway we made it finally. In the meantime being in the Air Force, er not very at there was an idea where we took twenty-one lessons prior to joining aircrew, and I started on a session of lessons, and for one way and another of course I then became switched over after a lot of trouble from the Army, and I then became an AC2.
JM: Right. Let’s just pause there for a moment.
DS: Yes.
JM: And go back before you were eighteen and you were conscripted, your schooling was in Perth so you —
DS: Ah t was all over the country.
JM: It was all over the country.
DS: Yes, all over Western Australia.
JM: What because your family were travelling or?
DS: Well mother had been, ‘cos she was a district nurse and she had been divorced for very good reason and there were two small children living with grandparents and I was one of those, been looked after very, very well, we lived in Donborough, and we had all the delights of being able to fish and swim every day, and go rabbit shooting, and fox hunting and god knows what, and it was all very good. So that was brilliant in-between until we got a bit older, not much doing, very little, so I had a lot of catch up to do of course as soon as we go on to these twenty-one lessons from the Air Force, and it introduced me to things like algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, which I hadn’t really done much more than hear about average schools don’t cover too much, I finished it but boys one year you can’t catch up too much, so anyway that was it.
JM: So that was like equivalent to an intermediate certificate?
DS: Yes I believe it was Union [?] University, Western Australia.
JM: Right.
DS: That was hard as I went back I was very good really but nonetheless so there was plenty of catch up work.
JM: And so you that would have been sixteen you finished sort of that schooling?
DS: Er, I finished schooling at fourteen.
JM: Fourteen.
DS: And left school then.
JM: At fourteen okay. So between fourteen and eighteen when you were conscripted what sort of things did you do?
DS: Nobody asked me that for a long time, but I, I got a job, any type of job all I wanted to do was to work and get a few dollars. Now I got a job with Harris [?] Centre the big hardware people in Western Australia and they were, they covered a whole lot of things and you could do everything from broom sweeping to filling bottles and I did all that, it was all right, l had a, they were a good crowd, very good. But that was it then that covered two years at least may be three out of the four, anyway and then —
JM: And was that in Perth?
DS: Yes, yes. And then I did something else for a pharmacist for some time until the day I was eighteen.
JM: And had your mother come back to Perth at this stage and you were living with her or were you had the grandparents moved in to?
DS: Yes she was back from er, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten. I think the last, her last country post was Greenwood [?] she was the matron at the hospital there, and I lived there for a while until the local [unclear] you can’t do that because the maternity ward is just so close to where you were sleeping and what’s going on there is not good for growing boys, something in that order so they said right oh well you’re out. So some very nice English lady who already had three children more than, more than she could manage was good enough to take me in. So that was it whilst we were in the country we were staying with this and finally we got together with mother in Perth for say about twelve months before the call up date.
JM: That’s call up, so you had your call up and sort of then from the time, well I think you did your initial training, in June 1942 at Clontarf, so that would make you twenty, a bit over twenty, about twenty and a half so then you were in the Army for about two years?
DS: Oh no, no, no.
JM: No, not that long?
DS: Probably.
JM: Right okay.
DS: I was only the Army for about three or four months.
JM: Oh okay, right.
DS: Not that that matters, and then we were in the course of doing these lessons from the Air Force the crowd that gave you lessons, I’ve forgotten, er but I’m not sure about the time but anyway —
JM: No, no, I think it was my actual, I’ve got an arrow in the wrong place I can see where I’ve made the mistake so that’s okay. So then you did your initial training at Clontarf and then did your pilot training —
DS: At Cunderdin
JM: Yes, that was when you were in to Tiger Moths.
DS: Yes we were on Tigers but then you did the solo bit.
JM: Yes.
DS: In time yes.
JM: So how long before you went solo?
DS: Six months, quarter hours I think it was something like that.
JM: And how was your experience first, of your first solo flight?
DS: Oh well, course all of you, you know, all of you are as proud as punch you can’t think of anything else really, er, but we were mostly very happy about that, but then it was only a matter of another weeks or a month or so we went off that job and of course on to —
JM: Avro Ansons? Ansons, Avro Ansons?
DS: Oh Ansons, yes, and of course they were very reliable you, you could make a dozen mistakes you know and they would still be in the air, but, er —
JM: Which was a little different to the Tiger Moth situation?
DS: Oh yes, oh well the Tigers you had do give them some respect because they were so gentle but really that’s about it the way you had to treat them and once you get used to that you’re right, gentle [unclear]. They used to say there was a saying, gentle treat them like a woman, and so that’s what we tried to do and that was successful. So we went on the job and that was another four months graduating [unclear] with hundreds and thousands of others, and then it was only a matter of days or may be weeks and we got the posting and of course the posting was to the UK. And well there was via Laporte.
JM: Freemantle.
DS: I went to Melbourne.
JM: So Freemantle to Melbourne.
DS: Melbourne.
JM: And then Melbourne to —
DS: Sydney by train.
JM: Oh okay right.
DS: And then there was an amalgamation of bodies and they got on, we went on The Matson Line.
JM: Right.
DS: The Matsonia [?]
JM: Right, so when would this have been?
DS: It was about the middle of ‘43.
JM: The middle of ’43.
DS: And, er, wended our way to the US and across the US, in the normal way, and then —
JM: Across to New York obviously.
DS: Yes, sometime in New York big camp [unclear] there, enormous place a small city in itself and then finally we got on a boat to England, that was the Queen Mary.
JM: Right the Mary, yes.
DS: All very nice that was the first of the [unclear] that could go unaccompanied by a whole of plethora of ships because they were fast, it was fast enough —
JM: To out speed the German U-Boats and all the rest of it?
DS: Subs.
JM: So did you land in Scotland, land in Scotland?
DS: Yes, yes, and finally ended up on the south coast.
JM: To Brighton?
DS: Brighton.
JM: Yes.
DS: Where there was a whole load of us and er, not much time there and then we were off to a whole load of different training, we’d go do this course, that course.
JM: You do your affiliation in a sort of is that where you first started flying Wellingtons?
DS: Er, Wellingtons was the first large aircraft yes, yes.
JM: So it was a conversion from your Avro Anson to your Wellingtons?
DS: The Wellingtons was the next. Did that, and it was a nice old aircraft really you know and of course it was the mainsail of Bomber Command early in the piece [unclear] you know a first class bomber. Always did stay as a bomber but of course less and less significance, anyway —
JM: And from that conversion course did you then get, is that when you were posted to 149?
DS: Oh no, no, no, oh crickey you can’t get away with that, there was half a dozen courses in-between, one on stars you know meteorology, another on beam landing systems, and another on some other, oh there was a whole load a plethora of reasons that we had to do another week here, or a week there, always in a tent it was winter, and anyway—
JM: In a tent did you say?
DS: Mostly in a tent somewhere?
JM: So you didn’t even have the Nissen hut?
DS: Oh yes, we lived in, we had our permanent time there, but when you’re posted off to a course somewhere you know you’re a week away from it.
JM: Right, so if this is approaching the end of ’43 you’re coming into the winter?
DS: Yes, I, I, I [unclear] a little bit because we had to have someone on patrol every night you know with the heater in the middle of the, of the unit you know there was thirty-six bodies I think in the, in the tin shed that we were in, but they were nice units but just made to put beds in after all, and we, but we had this fire in the middle and that was very useful, very useful. Anyway so it was only then a matter of getting another posting to another place and we then converted onto the next step up.
JM: Then the Halifaxes or Stirlings?
DS: Stirlings.
JM: Stirlings right.
DS: Stirling was the first four engine that we had and we loved it.
JM: How did you, what sort of differences would you feel you experienced between flying the Stirlings and the Wellingtons, anything stand out for you?
DS: Not really no.
JM: Only major difference is four engines versus two obviously —
DS: You just had to get your fingers over the fourth thing you know make sure that you had it covered, I remember having initial problems with it you know not my fingers but obviously it, it becomes easier, no trouble at all, so that was it amen, you finally get a post.
JM: Posting.
DS: A post, at we got ours at 149 Squadron, but, just out of London, north of London, and but ah her we go, we were quite happy to go, go off in a Stirling really but they had mainly Halifaxes and Lancasters there so, they’d only just getting the Lancs so what happened the first thing we did was oh you can’t fly that you’ve got to do a course first. In the usual way so we did our course on the Lancasters and about the last day or the second last day a posting came through from whoever does the postings in the UK to say your crowd, your crew 82 special duties.
JM: Right. Just before we go to that you by this time had a crew.
DS: Oh yes.
JM: So where did you crew up?
DS: Before we got in the four engine aircraft.
JM: So
DS: That was after the Stirling, after er, —
JM: At —
DS: After the Wellingtons.
JM: After the Wellingtons.
DS: After the Wellingtons yes, that was about crewing up time.
JM: That was crewing time. So who what sort of crew did you have, did you have a mixed, mixed crew then if it was 149?
DS: They were mixed.
JM: Oh no you weren’t actually on 149.
DS: We went into a, the expert way in which it’s done, your shoved into a room like so many cattle, and said, ‘Right everyone’s got to make their own crew, pick their own bodies, seven, seven each, and that’s it.’ Very scientific of course. So how much, how do you know who the hell unless you know people, and as a pilot you, you only learnt people’s names and friendships since you’d been on the course, so it’s the luck of the draw really right from day one. But of course that’s the whole of the Air Force then became Bomber Command is a story of the luck of the draw and if you’re really lucky you’ll be all right, [unclear] bad luck. So anyway we crewed up all Western Australians and that was my scientific method of ticking the box, a perverse, quite a perverse crowd, navigator for example who was subsequently killed in an accident we had in Italy, er, he was a great [unclear] of a person he was over twenty-eight most of us were still eighteen or —
JM: Twenty, I think you probably would have been about —
DS: Nineteen twenty.
JM: Nineteen twenty by this stage.
DS: So whatever it was, you weren’t all that old. Anyway you crew up and you ask what, what was the crew, I mean there was a bomb aimer from Sydney who had done nothing much but drift in his life but a nice guy, and then the wireless operator who, whose still alive we became you know real, real close, he’s the only member of the crew that’s still around other than myself, so and then we’d got an English engineer who had according to him had all kinds of experience in a Rolls Royce factory but in fact I think in practice had very little experience but a nice bloke but he was a womaniser and loved drinking, but you know all full crews had that I guess, [unclear] anyway that was it that was our crew.
JM: That was your crew. So you’re together you did your concluding together for Wellingtons sorry Stirlings and then you get the you’re about to start on Lancasters when your told you’re going off to, so you didn’t actually do any operations, do any ops?
DS: No less. No, I did no operations at all in England.
JM: In England right.
DS: As it happened at the time well it was something to do with someone who [unclear] because the timing was right it was just at the end of our conversion course. Obviously they didn’t want another crew although the squadron had have a number of losses but, er, and that was it. I would they made to go on oh you’re content for a week here, the posting [unclear] about a week second time down to somewhere in the South of England, we were then flying Stirlings and we had to press a button, right here we go it’s a brand new aircraft no hours on the clock. [unclear] you’ve got to give it every check possible, it’s yours, it’s yours if there’s any complaints feel free but give it now because it’s then yours, so we did just that.
JM: And this is a Stirling?
DS: Yes. Talk about it performing perfectly the whole time, we wouldn’t have given it back anyway so [laughs] there was no way, and that was the aircraft we took away with us.
JM: Right.
DS: Another week or so later they said, ‘Right you’re off to across Africa.’ We didn’t know you know we just got a posting that’s all, so we were posted to Radar Salem, North Africa [?] and we stopped there for the night and thought oh you know we’re on our way certain we were going to the Far East because they were very short, the Japs were getting the better part of the war there, so we reckoned we were on our way. But no it wasn’t that at all we got a posting to North Africa and another part of North Africa if you’d like to call it that, BNA, British North African Forces. And so we go to Algiers it was a place called Blida, big aircraft, a big Air Force base just outside of Algiers the capital, and they said, ‘Right oh you get this ops here.’ And we, we were in, we were actually posted to 624 Squadron that was our first post and we flew several on to [unclear], Africa South, but just across the Mediterranean from there. That was about the time there was a big upheaval when we, we lowered, took over, captured or freed up whatever, a lot of, held up ships, French, French warships, that were valuable to the allies but were being held up and put away the German fleet. Anyway so we thought oh we’re here for ages, but no we were there about four or five, six maybe six days, not sure, and a signal came through this time saying we’re going to the Far East, but no we’re going to Italy then.
JM: Right just before we get off to Italy, in those four, five, six trips, did you drop any bombs at all, were you just surveillance or what?
DS: All bodies.
JM: Sorry?
DS: We dropped bodies.
JM: Bodies right. Were they Special Forces or something?
DS: A whole lot of activity going on particularly in Southern France.
JM: So they were what Special Forces that you were dropping or?
DS: Oh yes, well we were in, of course still 624 Squadron was a part of the Special Forces, Special Bomber Command Forces. And then when we, we moved over to when we got the posting to Italy we found out that was Brindisi and that was Brindisi 148 Squadron which was still of course RAF, actually it was all RAF [unclear]. We had any, we had a mishap and [unclear], on take-off on one trip apart from that it was [unclear] aircraft.
JM: So how did you go with any particular damage to the airplane or?
DS: Well the aircraft was in pretty [unclear] shape I’m not too sure whether they could fix it up or not because we didn’t stay long enough to see what and you asked blokes about it, ‘Oh no, oh no, never heard of it.’ Anyway.
JM: So that was the most —
DS: That was the excitement.
JM: The excitement in those half a dozen or handful of trips, yep.
DS: Brindisi we got to.
JM: Got to Brindisi —
DS: Brindisi yes. We had, there was a Polish flight, really nice squadron on the other side of the airbase, we were on this side, whichever side you were looking at. They were operate, they operated absolutely separately from us and I have to say they were fearless, there were lots of days that we couldn’t fly because of the weather because of the distance, it didn’t worry the Poles they were always flying, and particularly a bit later on we had four trips towards Poland, er, we weren’t allowed to go fortuitously or otherwise a week or so before we got there, maybe it was that week, we were helping, we were trying to help the Poles, when the Russians were approaching and of course they had the German Panzer there, then they had the Russians coming that way. They appealed to every squadron everywhere, commanders in chief the lot, we want all the assistance we can get, anyway it was quite a game, half a dozen [unclear] as many as they had planes for about five hundred or more were lost over wasn’t over Warsaw but it was I would say the battle for Warsaw.
JM: But you weren’t on that particular mission?
DS: No, no, oh no fortunately, once again luck of the draw, and they said cancelled all, all, all those trips to Warsaw, Poland, but there were plenty of others till we [unclear]. We never ever had a prime aim or you’ve got to do this or you’ve got to do that. We just —
JM: Mission by mission basically.
DS: We were on call.
JM: Yes, yes, for whatever they decided they wanted to be the next target.
DS: One of the big thing was, or one of the big things if not the biggest, Tito of course was commander of the forces over the, over the war, and Tito was a very vigorous fighter, we weren’t too sure whether he, which side he was on but we were supposed to be helping him and each second or third crew were surprised you know we used to call it [unclear] with the Luftwaffe quite [unclear]. There were all kinds of things they introduced I remember a land mine in those days of course these things were about this round all big heavy —
JM: A couple of feet wide?
DS: Oh anyway all the holes in aircraft that you get in and out are square you see so we had to cut a big round hole to accommodate these, course we had —
JM: So these were the bombs that —
DS: Oh we didn’t drop them as bombs —
JM: You didn’t drop them —
DS: We dropped them as for TJ [?] forces when we dropped those kind of things, that was quite a frequent player because arms and ammunition actually were always short for on the other side. Mind you we didn’t know too much of what was going on, they very rarely opened up to say we’re going to do this, or you are going to do that, or you’re going somewhere, but you never ever well very rarely ever knew there was no fixed place. Mainly the trips at night when we were dropping bodies were in the dark and mostly on a hillside that was hard to find always of course, but that, that was all part of the, part of the act of course.
JM: And what, and you still had your initial crew?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: That you’d crewed up with —
DS: Yeah we had —
JM: That would have been 14 —
DS: 148 —
JM: Stages there, so that crew had come through from all each of these different stages, you still had the same crew?
DS: And we were all together except the navigator who we lost on the, oh what trip it was but it was on 26th December ’44, would have been ’44 or ’43?
JM: Probably ’43 I’d say.
DS: No.
JM: No ’44.
DS: And we crashed, I should never have ever really, this is off the record of course, but I should never ever have going forward we lost an engine on take-off, so many times it’s easy to turn back your excused you know so it’s just to press on, this was an occasion I thought we’d press on you know the old story, press on regardless —
JM: And you were taking off from?
DS: Italy.
JM: From Brindisi?
DS: Brindisi. When we got to about the Slavic Coast, the north coast it became pretty evident our engines were overheating and the engineer said, ‘Oh we can’t go anymore.’ Because dropping stuff we have to go low and then you’ve gotta, so it got to the stage that we thought we’ve gotta go back, and we went back cut across to Italy and we looked for a nice soft landing spot of course and we picked a fairly good spot it was a grape growing place in, a place called San Pico [?] if I remember rightly, and unfortunately you, you don’t know the aircraft but the Halifax was, we were flying [unclear] the navigator used to be way beyond the front and you had to climb two flights of stairs to go up, and at, on that particular flight we were loaded to the hilt, there were extra clothes and food it was Christmas time you know, and er, he just couldn’t get up the stairs he had the certain navigation equipment that he should have done this with but struggling up to get the stairs and sooner or later of course you know he the props flew off, the right, the right hand motor had been what do you call it not seized up, but it had been cut off because —
JM: Feathered?
DS: It was propeller, it had been feathered [unclear] but it had been freewheeling there’s a word for it special [unclear] anyway. So as soon as the prop hit the ground the bits just flew off and fortunately the pilot was just about that far in front of where the props fly off so it missed you know who, but unfortunately the navigator was right in the road and it cocked him, so I don’t know what number trip it was but we, that was, we flew on for months after that you know borrowed a navigator. You’ll have to excuse me I’ve got to go to the toilet frequently.
JM: We’re just resuming now we’re picking up on December ’44, so where you had —
DS: We did a number of very interesting trips following that —
JM: Following that —
DS: The most interesting one was when we took four very brave characters to the Hitler’s retreat[?] up in the mountains, of course we came from Southern Italy just a bit to the left, our big concern, biggest concern in getting there and getting back there was, there was a squadron of Messerschmitt 362 had moved into somewhere near Trieste, and of course we had the option of our own of doing our own navigation you know we were well away from this crowd, so we dodged them without any trouble, then we had to find this virtually a torchlight, and I said, ‘oh no trouble.’ We’ll follow the mountains close to the mountain peak of course and they were all mountain peaks [laughs] heck of a place. So anyway we finally estimated what we reckoned what was right, confirmed by the blokes we were carrying because the method of identification was pretty raw really, but that’s the problem we were happy when they was off, snow and it was desolate you know but very close to his headquarters, we flew around a long time looking for the place but anyway we’d done what we were doing for months no too keen on that trip at all but anyway —
JM: And they dropped successfully?
DS: Oh yes, yes, the drop was. Unfortunately we never or very rare ever heard back from the blokes as whether it was successful or otherwise. But obviously some of the operations were captured before the blokes got to the ground, because the, they’d been the fellas down there had been captured by the Germans and they were using the signals you see, but you know that’s war and I guess happens all the time. Anyway so that took us up till about they declared armistice in Europe and then of course we thought well we’ll get a week have a little rest and peace and quiet, but the next important job was flying all the oddbods all over the place back to Europe, and of course that was a very joyful task, but we didn’t partake because the next day or the day after another signal came through all Australians have got to be returned they wanted everybody in a hurry so that was it, and then we boarded the first ship, or a number of aircraft ready we’d got over to Egypt and we were on the banks of the river there, The Nile, for months, months, and then the war finally ended whilst we were there, they dropped the big bomb —
JM: Hiroshima?
DS: Hiroshima, that was it, end of story.
JM: And when you were in Egypt there you were just —
DS: Doing nothing.
JM: Doing nothing just waiting?
DS: Waiting, waiting, waiting.
JM: Okay backtracking to Brindisi again, you obviously because it was such a long period of time a long posting do you have any recollection of how many ops you did altogether?
DS: We did forty.
JM: Forty ops?
DS: Forty trips yes.
JM: Okay from Brindisi?
DS: No, no all told, our log books recorded, I don’t have mine I lost it mine years and years ago, Rod Harrison said we logged forty trips.
JM: Right, right. A fair reasonable number would have been while you were at Brindisi?
DS: Oh yes, yes.
JM: So what sort of things did you do in your down time during ops?
DS: I’m afraid we probably drunk too much red wine but I’m ashamed to say, but there wasn’t too much to do —
JM: That’s the point —
DS: And you had to fill in the day and every now and again of course they did say the weather was so terrible, but the Poles can fly but you can’t, so we got four days off we’d say right we’re off to, the favourite place was Pollina[?] in Sicily but that wasn’t very far away from Mount Etna, a road goes through from Pollina [?] up to, to the mountain, and you know it’s a story really but we got hemmed in there was the biggest snow of all time there were hemmed in just as we’d kind of settled in ready to come back [unclear] very little time.
JM: So what you’d driven up —
DS: Oh no, no, oh you’d get to the, the accommodation was in Pollina [?] a little place by the coast and then you would scrounge your way up there was plenty of vehicles going all the time Italian vehicles, so we got up there without any trouble it was the getting back of course we had to have a quick lessons in skiing, and you know we were trying all the time to do a bit of this and of course falling off most of the time but—
JM: So where did you get the skis from?
DS: Oh they loaned us to, they said, ‘Right you’re quite welcome to them just hand them into whatever centre it was back in the Pollina [?]. So I think one or two of them were badly bruised but we didn’t break anything except didn’t break any bones really they were badly bruised, lucky because when you can’t steer properly you’re bound to hit a tree and things like that, anyway we were much better skiers at the end of the time because it was a hell of a long way from up top down to where the road, where the snow stopped, a long way, unbelievable.
JM: Did you have any sense of time, sort of was it four hours, five hours, or any sense of timing at all?
DS: Really lots of time.
JM: And how did you sort of navigate, how did you know where —
DS: Ah well you know but it’s —
JM: You followed the road I presume?
DS: Yes, well more tried to follow the road but you knew if the road was east to west you knew that it was basically east to west or whatever it was, so that was one of our special trips, mind you we did quite a number of others. I don’t think we ever told the story, we were going north, north to Naples but anyway that’s another the story, but we were particular keen about Malta [unclear] never done this, never done that, there was a thousand rogues and vagabonds there, every street corner was covered with them, and of course if you were stupid enough to be out after dark you were asking for trouble, anyway we, we probably had a few drinks one day or every day I guess, but we it was after dark and we were still out and of course we got the greatest lashing of all time the whole crew.
JM: The whole crew?
DS: No there were only five of us there I think five out of the seven, the two other were too smart to come with us but probably a good idea of what was going to go off, but anyway —
JM: So how did you get to Malta?
DS: Ah, that’s another story. We had a, I’ve forgot the name of the type of [unclear] kind of a major repair very close to us, they fixed all kinds of aircraft from all over the place, so if they had anything that was flyable that we thought we could, that I thought we could fly we flew, so we had this water repair and we could [unclear] there was supposed to be —
JM: Another type?
DS: Another type, yes, that’s right. And we just squeezed in should never have had quite that many but anyway I was, I thought I could fly this in and so we did, I got it down there but very glad to leave it to someone else to fly it back because I don’t think I could have done it again but, and there were all kinds of other trips we could do.
JM: So just going back to you flew, so you got this aircraft it —
DS: Yes. Borrowed it.
JM: Borrowed it, flew over to Malta, had a bit of a day or so in Malta and then you in the evening you copped a bashing, and how did you —
DS: Get home?
JM: Get home then?
DS: I’m not too sure but we finally made it, there were some reprimands of course [laughs] but fortunately it didn’t extend beyond that, mind you they wanted, they wanted crews to fly, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t kind of send us off and say right you can go somewhere, but that was, it wasn’t our biggest adventure really, but these are the things that you know, all the aircrew, or nearly all aircrew were up to it one way or the other.
JM: No that’s right and of course the difference being with you being over there in Brindisi was very different to squadrons back in the UK —
DS: Oh yes.
JM: When they had leave they could go to London or wherever it was, but as you say sort of very much almost left to your own devices at Brindisi.
DS: We were entirely, entirely. Eventually it was rare when well Rome particularly was always a magnet to go up and you know you had to have your photograph taken in —
JM: For the —
DS: In all the places that were old and historic and that was all good fun but —
JM: So how many times do you think you would have gone to Rome?
DS: Oh several, several times.
JM: Any particular incidents stand out then?
DS: No, no real nasty incidents, we were stuck on the road sometimes, all you could see were Indians, and you know you think —
JM: How did you get to Rome?
DS: Always vehicles going, coming and going all the time, sometimes took an aircraft halfway if it was down for servicing or going back again, there was always a you know, never really anything exciting happened other than the historical photographs outside this place and that place, and of course seeing it, ah that’s right I forgot to mention our, our historic visit was the day we visited Rome and we had a special trip, an invitation from one of the padres that were training, under training here and they were quite a few of them a good number of Australians’. And anyway so we had this invite, special invite, a couple of cartons of cigarettes you know to do all this, so but we did it, and we had this personal interview with the Pope and received his blessing.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: That was a, we thought it wasn’t a big deal, but everyone else thought it was a big deal after, but it was exciting, and you can remember things you try to have a good look and see the big ring on his finger all that.
JM: So that was what a ten minute —
DS: Oh that was, we had an audience —
JM: An audience?
DS: There was a great crowd out the and we sat out there, he had a thing like this right up at the front, and at that stage he used to stand, I’ve read about it since, he’s now down on the floor level for some reason they cut out this special groove, ‘cos they were all first to get the blessings if there’s any blessings left [unclear] they on the floor, but anyway that was you know so at the time, but otherwise it was all pretty average, pretty ordinary you know, all we wanted to do really was to get home, and but we then spent four at least four months over in Egypt waiting for a ship before we got home, that was the time the bomb was dropped, the big one. We got home as peaceful civilians you might say.
JM: And when you were flying did you have any lucky charms, or any of the crew have any lucky charms, or have any suspicions that you used to that they following that anyone followed, ‘cos some I know that having talked to a few other chaps that you know other chaps did have lucky charms, and did certain things in a certain routine that you know never varied, I mean obviously the usual checks and all the rest of it.
DS: We were a pretty ordinary crew really, a pretty ordinary crowd. One of our, well it wasn’t a problem but for social aspects all the rest of the crew were under twenty-one years of age and we had these two blokes were twenty-eight and they were quite elderly.
JM: By comparison yes.
DS: Yes, so that, that upset some of them, well it didn’t upset them but it, it was divisive in as much as they didn’t all want to come with us, but mostly we drank too much anyway, nearly all the time if we could get booze but you couldn’t get good beer anywhere.
JM: Not in Italy I wouldn’t have thought.
DS: So you just drank what there was.
JM: What there was?
DS: So to cut a long story short, mother was very pleased to see us get back, she was down at the ship there so [laughs]
JM: I’ll say. And I didn’t check before did you have any brothers or sisters?
DS: I had a sister who joined the Air Force about the same time as I did and she became a radio operator and they used to be stuck up in the bush up around Jordan [?] or out north from Jordan [?] in the bush there, where the [unclear] that was it she —
JM: No it’s just that so for your mum there was only the one that she had to worry about coming back, returning from overseas, yes.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that was in you came back and then you ultimately were discharged in February 1946, is that right?
DS: Yes, that would be.
JM: Is that right?
DS: Yes. Had a week or two after we got back not very long, anyway.
JM: And then what did you do for the next few years?
DS: Well, they were very, very busy years, because when I was in the desert waiting for the ship we bought a store at Mingenew[?], do you know west at all?
JM: Not really that area no.
DS: You’ve gotta know Mingenew relatively speaking, it’s not the most salubrious town around, a typical country town, wheat and sheep, but all the good properties all the nice houses are way up in the [unclear] not many around town except the pub and our store that was good whilst it was there. I was there for not long a year or so but it was everything was rationed you know, milk, you were around at that stage or were you?
JM: Not quite no.
DS: But everything was rationed, I mean cigarettes and booze were most wanted, hard to get but you know, you couldn’t buy extra milk or cream or butter, a whole range of stuff, it was very difficult to even think that we were like life could have been like that, but anyway that didn’t last for long. I trained to be a schoolteacher, quite stupidly, god knows how I got the thing in that you know, but anyway so we left the store round there and a fortune with it for an academic career. And we were going fine, I was I did the teacher’s course and it was only two years.
JM: At Perth? Was this at Perth?
DS: At Perth yes. Became a I forgot what they call it something psychological and so and so expert you know, I only had about five minutes of training on the course. Anyway that was, that was good until and I was gonna, oh mother was happy with that, she said, ‘You’ve got a job for life son you’ll never get the sack, oh there’s permanent holidays’. Anyway so I was busy teaching, I had because of my training you know I did ended up as a special class of kids, children, and some of them had an IQ as low as fifty-five and that’s a if you know IQ’s that’s getting down a bit, nice you know, lovely children and all that but you know I was happy to stay doing this every day of the week. Ah in the meantime I’ve bought another store [unclear] you’re good at this and I thought should be a supplies store, and my wife said oh I’ll look after the store through the day and we had a manager in as well, he used to drink all, a fair drop, it was hard to get of course, and everything was sailing along beautifully for the first several months but until one day two big burly strong fellas came in and they were from the union the teacher’s union, and of course they said, ‘Oh we understand that you’re not in the you know, you haven’t joined the teacher’s union.’ And I said, ‘No that would be right I haven’t.’ They said, ‘Oh you’ve got to join the union otherwise you can’t stay, you can’t be a teacher you’ve got to be in the union.’ And I said, ‘Well, you serious about that?’ So I said, ‘Okay well.’ That was a very big silence and there we are I went off to the headmaster and that finished that job. [laughs] So no more, no more academic career for me.
JM: What, what sort of years was this, this was about ’48, well you said you did about two years training so are we up to about —
DS: No, no, no, not two years training.
JM: Teacher training I thought you said.
DS: Oh yes, yes that’s right yes.
JM: So are we up to about ’49?
DS: Well, what, two years on top of what after the discharge, would have been about right, I needed another six months to get a leaving certificate as well.
JM: Right.
DS: To allow me to do it.
JM: Do the two years.
DS: So there’s two and a half years, busy years, between drinking and, and school work, there was no spare time, oh and of course I got married in the meantime.
JM: I was going to say you mentioned your wife there, so we, I was going to find out, fit that in as well, when you got married and how, when you met your wife?
DS: Well, we met in the usual way, before I left we were both in the surf club.
JM: Which surf club?
DS: City Beach.
JM: City Beach.
DS: City of Perth, and it was you know, things were very rough and ready out there, we had a, although we had a nice, nice big shed for dressing and undressing, and we had a nice big heavy surf boat, which, which it took about eighteen blokes to just get off the ground, but we had to walk across the sandy beach you know to get it back up to the surf club. Anyway, that was, that was the recreation side, but I met Julie used to come along with several other elderly sisters, two elderly sisters and another one or two girls, and you know in the usual way we got to talking, a bit of this, a bit of that, and we decided it mightn’t be a bad idea all the rest of ‘em had said they were getting married, doing this and doing that. So we said that would be a good idea, but not till we got, not till I got back from overseas. So we did just that, got back from overseas and a couple of months later I still hadn’t turned twenty-one so it was pretty quick but it was all fixed, and she was very good she looked after the shop while I was still teaching, and then she took over the ladies section up at, when I bought the big place up at Mingenew [?], and of course you know very handy to have a wife, who suffered the most. [laughs] Very handy. Anyway you know and then the Korean War hit.
JM: So then yes, so what you decided to give teaching away?
DS: I gave it away, I packed up
JM: Yes you gave it away after that —
DS: And it wasn’t short, no it was about that time I started to get letters from Air Force Headquarters, and so they, they decided that things were getting serious again and we were needed to re-arm and the Air Force of course had let everyone go, a lot had gone [unclear], so the first thing they wanted was old aircrew back particularly, oh of course we were still on the active reserves so wanted to see you back, so that took some months of wangling and selling my business and you know cleaning up. And then you don’t have a house to go to, Air Force then had very limited accommodation, so you had wherever you went you had to buy your own house and you know self-accommodate, so we did that of course, you just get by. And then of course they said all of you we’d like you to stay and they gave you, you get up as your old rank was flight officer. So you go back as that and then, I don’t know whether that’s when I got a new number was it? Perhaps it was 051723. Anyway, so that was it, it was just a nice long career in the Air Force.
JM: But well yes. So you were still based in Perth at that time?
DS: Oh yes, that lasted about five minutes.
JM: And from there?
DS: Melbourne.
JM: You moved to Melbourne yep. And that how long were you in Melbourne roughly?
DS: A very short time.
JM: A very short time.
DS: So then you, you needed experience of course.
JM: Because at this point you’re not flying?
DS: No.
JM: Your in —
DS: I was doing a bit of flying but there were too many old war time pilots that had gone back and they were very, very jealous of their careers and they didn’t want any extra crew around, so they said, ‘Oh you better do this, you better do that, become a teacher you’ve got the qualifications.’ So I said, ‘No, no, no I don’t want to do that.’ And I took the job as equipment officer and, I, all I know about it, all the girls used to hand stuff over the counter, when you wanted clothing and stuff you know, I thought that’s what the equipment officer, that’s what they do. So of course, it is what they do, it’s a very small part of it of course, so that was my view of it. So we did this there was really no appreciation of time you know you get [unclear] So we got, till we got up to Canberra, and of course once you’re there you’re stuck there, you know it doesn’t matter what you do or say or where you wanna go. Oh we had a couple of years in the States.
JM: Okay, what sort of, heading up a base or something?
DS: No, no, no, they didn’t want too many strangers, too much for them. There was the nicest, kindest people in the world as long as you didn’t cast any shadow on the mishap or the US generally, well no, no trouble, I mean we enjoyed the place it was all very nice. So we had two years ensconced to the Air Force base, and I was the chief missiles man quite a new sidewinder missiles they’ve still got some a very basic missile but very, very effective.
JM: So what you were looking after their —
DS: Well looking after our interests or trying to.
JM: Or trying to.
DS: Yes. And that was an Air Force base where they’ve got a lot of [unclear] and we they were kind enough to lend me a, an F100 which was very modern aircraft and the gentleman with me the pilot he’d got a flare for me you know and it worked, and we saw it work it was all good fun.
JM: So that would have been a very different flying experience to your Stirlings and your Lancasters?
DS: Oh yes, a world apart, world apart, but mind you Bomber Command was Bomber Command and they had nothing better anywhere, and the States never got, never got up to the bombing raids because they were, their aircraft weren’t specifically built for that particular job whereas our aircraft were, and they might have been clumsy to get around them because there was bits of stuff sitting out the floor here you know, but they were essentially for carrying bombs, the more they could fit on the better, and they did just that. Well —
JM: And, except when they were used for transferring all the at the end of the war, after the war had concluded and were transporting all the troops back from, from Europe back to England, of course then it was a fairly difficult exercise trying to get the chaps you know I believe they just packed in and sat on top of their parachutes.
DS: Well in some parts in others they only had a handful of blokes.
JM: So how many, you did a few of those —
DS: No, no, I was ensconced in Egypt by then.
JM: Yes, yes, in Egypt by then.
DS: But my friends, who one was a Kiwi, another a great Englishman, and we were in close contact with and they had some terribly exciting trips to all parts of Europe picking up two blokes here and three blokes there for different reasons why there were only two or three there, and of course there were other sad scenes too where they got a lot of others, but anyway that was and I, we weren’t there, I missed out on all that I’d have loved to have been there, but so endeth the —
JM: So then, we were just talking about that flight you know comparing that flight for you in that F100 —
DS: Oh yes, yes. F100.
JM: Compared to the experience in —
DS: Oh, chalk and cheese.
JM: Chalk and cheese, yes that’s right. Again that’s more or less the fighter pilot which again you know as we said, we’re talking specifically designed for bombers, for bombing raids.
DS: Yes.
JM: So that’s a major, major difference there and then. So what sort of roles did you ultimately do in Canberra?
DS: Oh well, briefly I’d have to say pen pushing, there was a lot of politicking and inter-action with the department you know the crowd that were close to defence and —
JM: Defence affairs?
DS: No, no, defence affairs, there were well I should, I should be able to spout it off but I can’t, anyway that, there was a lot of as we got sent on a course, lot of politics.
JM: Foreign affairs?
DS: No, Air Force Headquarters.
JM: Oh Air Force Headquarters.
DS: You know you always had to be a bit careful of which side of the camp you know, we got a very nasty senior civilian in the Department of Defence, he was the first of the Defence Ministers that was oh rough, and gruff and anti-services, so there used to be this constant battle all the time you know to get, to get to do this to do that, now of course many years later there well and truly integrated, were into their department as well as they’re are with us and hopefully things work differently now sometimes they do, but anyway that’s not for me to say. But I enjoyed it every minute, the last couple of years when I was Air Commodore the last year anyway when I was briefly in charge of our branch, er, I used to be at work at seven in the morning, half past seven, but purely there was a load of stuff to do always, always working, always behind, but I always had my dilly bag and maybe a carrier bag, I’m afraid I wasn’t not much of a nightlife at home because had to do the books, the Air Force books every night, anyway that’s another matter, but I enjoyed it anyhow.
JM: Which Air Force books were those, which Air Force books?
DS: Oh, the books, the books, er, well our own branch in particular because we had thousands of blokes in the branch, but you so far away from most of them you only know the names of all those that are up close and we did it, we had a an Air Vice Marshall who was actually senior to me and he was posted to Defence so it didn’t leave too many others round our way, but that didn’t matter, we enjoyed, I enjoyed life, and going to the mess and having a few grogs, but not half as many as I drank as a younger bloke, not half as many.
JM: No.
DS: So it got to be different anyway.
JM: Oh that’s right, that’s right. And of course as well I mean you were going home to your wife and all the rest of it so that’s a totally different situation.
DS: Yeah well we flew over from Perth with, er, we only had one child at that stage, and he’s since dead, died, what we did bring over was a big cattle dog, I’d been, one of the blokes had come back from the Kimberley’s and he was a drover and he bought it origin magnificent countryman good family, he said, ‘There.’ But cattle, on the cattle side I can speak for exactly [unclear] crossed with a dingo, but he said, ‘He’s a faithful animal.’ So we had this, I called it “Aspetari, Aspetari Peter” so that was his name [laughs] not quite an ordinary dog’s name.
JM: Not quite.
DS: My navigator we used to in the end we used to call him, the navigator that replaced poor old Fred, we used to call him Aspertari which is Italian for going slow, or a derivation of that anyway. Anyway so we brought our big dog over, he used to bite anyone he could, oh he was always heeling and very, very rarely would he break anyone’s skin, but I bought a lot of socks for people, he used to grab it and anchor it you see, grab a bit of sock with it, there all good stories.
JM: That’s right yeah.
DS: All good stories.
JM: So when you, so you retired in what?
DS: Ah, it would have been, it was either ’80, ‘4 or ‘6, or ‘8, it was one of those multiples, I’m gonna say the middle one about ’86.
JM: About ’86.
DS: Yes, it’s very close to that anyway. So I didn’t need to retire I could have they wanted someone to take over the support command and then post another bloke into my job, so I went home and told the bad news to Julie my wife and she said, ‘Oh love, I just don’t wanna move again, I, we’ve been from there, to there, to there.’ So then we bought three or four houses along the road, none of them very good but good enough to live in for the time being, and that we’d, she’d had enough and I wasn’t far behind so I didn’t take much convincing so I threw it in. But you know there comes a time for everything.
JM: That’s right. And did you stay in Canberra then?
DS: Oh no, the day, oh we left the house and oh we came straight up to the Gold Coast that’s right. I bought a block of flats pretty clapped out they were but all they needed was a little bit of —
JM: TLC?
DS: Oh perhaps a lot of TLC.
JM: Okay.
DS: But anyway, that was, the story is they were right next to the Grand Hotel, you don’t know the Grand?
JM: Not really, where, which part are we talking about?
DS: On the coast, on the Gold Coast, at Labrador.
JM: Labrador, right okay.
DS: There’s this much water between us and the ocean.
JM: Goodness me.
DS: The road up there, anyway, I didn’t, we didn’t realise at the time what an asset it was but of course I don’t know why you know you get the urge when you’re younger and for some reason you want to do something else. Anyway this crowd came up from I don’t know Canberra probably and offered a price and it meant I made a few dollars, and I was silly enough to sell it, mind you the wife had worked too hard there and I wasn’t too keen about that either but, and so, I was stupid enough then to buy I think we bought some more flats but they, they weren’t as good, oh anyway that’s another story. I bought two more blocks of in Main Beach and they did become very valuable, but by that time I’d gone, we had a house a very comfortable place but you know there you are.
JM: Yes, by this stage a few years had passed by —
DS: To get away from the Air Force too, you can’t go to any of the, we went to the reunions till they finally wore out.
JM: Yes.
DS: But there’s a limit, there weren’t that many bods around here, but —
JM: So in terms of then maintaining contact you said that your wireless operator is still alive?
DS: Oh yes.
JM: And what was his name?
DS: Rod Harrison.
JM: And whereabouts is Rod?
DS: He lives in, um, oh, it’s 19 —
JM: No just the, Queensland, New South Wales?
DS: Oh sorry he’s in Perth still.
JM: Oh he’s in Perth okay right.
DS: Yeah, when we were younger and fitter we used to visit each other of course, his wife died at the end of the century and my wife died nine years ago, so we’d been on our own, he was foolish enough to remarry at the age of eighty-four but you know that’s life.
JM: And what sort of contact, you said made reference to a couple of other chaps that you’ve spoken to, a Kiwi chap and another chap are they Bomber Command people were they?
DS: Yes the Kiwi blokes gone he was with us in 14, 148 Squadron, yes he died, and the other guy I can’t remember.
JM: Can’t remember that’s okay that’s fine.
DS: It was bad enough remembering, you know ’cos I’ve been in the RSL for years and years and years, but even there the old timers have all gone and I’m the eldest member there certainly the only ex Bomber Command, so nobody knows anything about it, nobody cares, that’s my how I get the message, and it wouldn’t matter if you walked in with the VC tomorrow it wouldn’t upset any of them. Anyway that’s enough.
JM: So that’s —
DS: I’ll come back to one or two reasons, the luck of the draw and if your just lucky, and postings come up and they protect you, I mean I was protected with going to a special unit, how you’re picked for it, God knows and he won’t tell us, so you can never find out, but these things just happen that’s it.
JM: And it was good, it was good for you too that you were able to take your whole crew with you at the same time which makes a big difference because having that core of people around you to come back to, and when you came back, I mean obviously as you say they’ve all passed away now bar Rod but did you keep in contact with the initial ones?
DS: Oh except our engineer, the old Englishman and even nice correspondence didn’t elect any, he was that kind of a character.
JM: He just didn’t want to maintain contact with you?
DS: No, but he was a happy-go-lucky engineer. So, but you know that’s life, I’m very fortunate to be around I suppose although there are many bloody days I think that’s a misfortune, one of them is that I’ve gotta go to the toilet all the time, and I’ve gotta go again.
JM: You’ve got to go again. Well, is there any other particular things at this point that you wanted to bring up?
DS: No.
JM: Well we’ve covered a tremendous amount of territory there Don and I very much appreciate your, your candidness and —
DS: Well nothing to hide, nothing to –
JM: No, no, no, just being able to sit and reminisce that’s so important and I’ll thank you for it. Thank you
Dublin Core
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ASolinD170220
Title
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Interview with Donald Solin
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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01:32:13 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Creator
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Jean Macartney
Date
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2017-02-20
Description
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Donald Solin grew up in Perth, Western Australia and worked in a store before joining the Air Force. He served in Europe and North Africa. and flew 40 operations as a pilot with 624 Squadron, a special duties squadron dropping supplies and agents into occupied Europe. He was demobilised in 1946 with the rank of Flying Officer. He rejoined the Royal Australian Air Force during the Korean War and eventually retired with the rank of Air Commodore.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Algeria
Australia
Italy
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Mount Etna
North Africa
Contributor
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Jackie Simpson
148 Squadron
149 Squadron
624 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
crash
crewing up
Halifax
love and romance
pilot
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
Tiger Moth
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1359/22529/ASmithRW190325.2.mp3
d4141e837d5350df08734bd3233cd24b
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Title
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Smith, Bob
Robert Wylie Smith
R W Smith
Description
An account of the resource
125 items. An oral history interview with Bob Smith (b. 1924, 425992 Royal Australian Air Force) photographs, documents and navigation logs and charts. He flew operations as a navigator with 15 Squadron at RAF Mildenhall.
The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bob Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-03-25
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Smith, RW
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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LC: Okay, this is an interview with Robert, Bob, Wally Smith 425992, navigator, 15 Squadron, Royal Air Force. The interview is being conducted at the residence of Bob and Alma Smith [redacted] Boulevard, Queensland, on Monday 25th March by myself, Wing Commander Lee Collins of People’s History and Heritage Branch. This interview will be recorded and may be transcribed and will become property and part of the Historical Collection of the Royal Australian Air Force and Bomber Command and be available to future researchers. So Bob, thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed. It’s my privilege to interview you and to obtain your personal account of your experiences of service in the RAF and particularly as a navigator on ops with RAF Bomber Command during World War Two. So, I’d like to maybe begin the interview by, if you go back to your early childhood and upbringing, and your family and schooling before you joined the air force. So, your early life, so where were you born? Where did you grow up?
BS: Well now, I was born in Brisbane, back in 1924. My father had been in the World War One, he was a, wounded three times, and he was original in the 41st Battalion.
LC: 41st Battalion, okay, yeah.
BS: He came back and he, when he got married to my mother, you know, she was also in that, from that district, they rented a corner shop, at the corner, a corner shop, was at the corner of Ipswich Road and Victoria Terrace in Annerley in Brisbane.
LC: Yeah, yeah, yep.
BS: Now, well we grew up there, normal thing, and started school I think it was 1928, at the Junction Park State School. Now his mother had another daughter and a son-in-law who were managing the farm for her, the old family farm known as Greenwood, in Harrisall.
LC: And where was that?
BS: Harrisall, ‘bout two and a half mile, or a couple miles south east of Harrisall on the Malara road, on the road to what they called Malara, or on through to Kalbar, and Boonah, you know.
LC: Boonah. Yup.
BS: Well at the end of 1932, he had to, he sold the business and we went back to the farm. Went to, took up the farm, so the family, we went, while he was arranging transfer, my mother took the family, myself and my two sisters and young brother, went on holiday up to Maleny while dad organised the thing and he, he drove the horse and cart from Annerley up to the farm.
LC: And how far was that?
BS: Oh all day. And we come up, take it after there, well of course then we followed, we went up to the farm then and settled in with Granny Smith. Now we thought at the time, woah great, Granny Smith, you know, she must be famous, she’s had an apple named after her!
LC: Exactly!
BS: But we soon found out, but she was a wonderful person, mum, granny; she was an original. Between Granny Smith and myself, Granny Smith, migrated to Australia as a young girl in 1855 while Queensland was still part of New South Wales, you know. They moved to Queensland then a couple of years later and with her father she moved up to the, near to the district what they call the Pink Mountain Holding in about 1858, ‘59, something like that. They were then since at Churchill, a place called Churchill down where there was a cotton ginnery established, ‘cause cotton was the main thing in those days, you know. And that’s how they, the Smiths had to, worked up to Harrisall ‘cause they were given a grant and land to grow cotton. Now we started school then at Malara. In 1932 get on and I did a, went through there and did scholarship at the Malara School, at the Malara School and now by virtue that dad was a returned Digger, I won a Naracelle scholarship to attend the Ipswich Boys Grammar School as a boarder for two years, so ‘cause dad couldn’t afford to be, at the end of that, I did, I finished and while just before -
LC: What years were that, your last two years of high school?
BS: ‘38, ‘39.
LC: So that was your last two years at high school.
BS: Yeah, ‘38, ‘39, the, and when we finished, ‘39 just before we finished the junior exam, war had been declared over Britain, you see. Now, I came back with the scholarship and with the tertiary education opened up room for me to apply for work in the public service or the bank or thing, which I did, I applied to commence work in the bank in Harrisall, and I was accepted. Accepted as a temporary clerk on probation I think it was, whatever it was, and I was still a temporary clerk on probation when I went to join the air force two years later!
LC: So you are what, about seventeen, seventeen years of age at this stage?
BS: Yeah, now where, I went into the bank then. Now just after I joined the bank, I got a communication from school and from the air force, we were given notification to apply, if we were interested in joining the air force, ‘cause I always stated I would be, we could apply to be registered as air cadets by correspondence.
LC: Okay, yes, yes.
BS: So I took that offer up. I asked, got my parents’ permission do that there. Dad was quite happy that I go in to the air force in a way, although I realised what, what strain I did put on him, to go in, but not into the army, you know.
LC: So did you have any, what was the reason you were more interested in the air force than the army? Your dad was a Digger in the 41st Battalion.
BS: The air force, so I did that, I did the courses with the air cadets, get this thing, when I finished the tests each, as each step went along, the air tests, took ‘em to the headmaster at the Woolora School, he ticked them off, that okay and advised the air force, the air cadet training system okay, see me right, carry on.
LC: And that’s that exercise book you showed me.
BS: Now, when Japan raided Germany, raided -
LC: Pearl Harbour.
BS: Pearl Harbour then in December ‘41, there was a bit of a panic among the air force, because all of us, we couldn’t join the air force until we were nineteen, that means you, in those days to be, you had to go into initial training at about two months before your nineteenth birthday, so that you were ready then for flying, you couldn’t fly till you were nineteen, you know, or go overseas anything like that, volunteers, so and then also on the reserve at that time were a lot of unprotected occupations, school teachers, a lot of school teachers had applied and they were very keen to get school teachers to do the course and they could go on as instructors ‘cause they needed them for the Empire Air Training Scheme you know. The air force jumped at the crews then, that they would form what they call air crew guards and that means that we could go in and that avoided us being called up into the militia. It was quite good. So with that I then had to apply to the bank for leave then and that was granted and so in May 1942, it didn’t take ‘em long, air crew guard callups were held in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to bring up a lot of these, make sure the militia didn’t get us, you know, the army didn’t get us at that age. Although some blokes did, were called up for the militia apparently and, but they then told the militia to go to hell. They went in to the air force.
LC: Can I just step back one? You mentioned where you were when, you were at the bank when Germany, we declared war on Germany in ‘39 and then when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941, do you remember those times well? Do you remember sort of, you know in September 1939 when war was declared do you remember what you were doing or did you have any particular thoughts what were you thinking when something was declared? What was Bob Smith thinking?
BS: Just put the thing into working, getting organised in the bank, you know, winding the office clock every Monday morning, getting out the fresh blotting paper, gradually working in, getting on. No, but that was right. Still carried on, played a bit of sport around Harrisall, lived on the farm, where you learned a lot.
LC: What about December 1941, when, so, Australia had already been at war for a while-
BS: Yeah, that’s right.
LC: So in, suddenly you hear Japan has attacked Pearl Harbour, do you remember where, what you were doing when you heard that news?
BS: No, no, not much, we just thought ah, well things are coming and then of course we found out on the news about it, this going on and coming out and then it was all in the papers, conscription was gonna be brought in.
LC: Was there much an awareness before that of any concerns about Japan before war was actually declared, for a number of years?
BS: Yeah, there was, bit like, in 19, back just after we went to the farm there was a bit of concerns going on about Germany, you know, because we had German occupations and I remember an old German farmer that lived near us, we used to meet him now and again and ‘Oh you’re joining the air force eh, you’re going to go over there, good show, that Hitler he bad man’, you know things just sort of rolled one thing into the other. Then when we, when the call came up and we went in to, in May 1942 we were called down to Brisbane, to the recruiting depot. Went through all the jazz there, then that evening given our numbers and whatnot, told us to take the oath and all this business, and sign up and shoved on a train that night up to Maryborough.
LC: Right. So then when you then signed on do you remember where exactly in Brisbane that was? Where did you actually sign on?
BS: Eagle Street in Brisbane.
LC: Eagle Street, okay.
BS: Recruiting Depot. Number, number whatever Brisbane number 3 Recruiting Depot in Eagle Street in Brisbane.
LC: Now that stage, you were going in the air force, but did you actually have confirmation that you were going in as aircrew or were you just joining the air force and see what?
BS: No, we were going to be training as aircrew under Empire Air Training Scheme.
LC: Right, so you knew that when you went and put your hand on the bible.
BS: I asked that earlier about the thing there at that stage when you went in air crew were you aware of the dangers of flying over in Germany, things like that, you know, I said, well we were. Because I had two cousins from, who lived up in Maleny, they were both shot down in England, one in 1940 he was in early in a Blenheim, flying in a Blenheim, the other one, no he was in a Whitley and the other one was flying out of Libya, he crashed, he was shot down off Tripoli, rescued by an Italian ship, navy ship and taken to Italy. When they came down into the sea, he was badly damaged, these reports as they say, in Germany, in the German reports for the thing ‘received in damaged condition’, but he couldn’t walk, okay. Now he thanks the German doctors for getting him back to walking. Their spinal treatment, that was way above. They came, he was shoved from hospital to hospital in Italy and one night a Luftwaffe officer came in there, looked at him, and looked and he says we’re taking you back to Germany, I we think we can fix you. To a German Luftwaffe -
LC: Hospital.
BS: Which they did, and they got him. I think the bloke was a bit like Douglas Bader, I think they might have been sorry they did fix him up.
LC: [Laugh] So he caused more trouble after they fixed him!
BS: I tell you what, he caused them a bit of trouble! He was that sort of bloke.
LC: So he’s wonderful. What was his name?
BS: Cuthbertson. Guy Cuthbertson.
LC: And the other guy that was shot down in the Whitley?
BS: The bloke was Bill McLean.
LC: Did he survive?
BS: No, no he was killed. He was killed. They shot down, they’ve since found out the pilot that shot him down and got a rough idea of where he crashed into the North Sea. That’s all right.
LC: Okay, but you knew about this.
BS: Then my others, my brother’s, my mother’s other sister that lived in Ipswich, she had a son who was in the navy, he was in, he went down with the Perth, actually didn’t go down with the Perth, they found out later that he did get off the Perth, and they got ashore and they were murdered by the Indonesians who thought they were Dutch.
LC: Is that right? Okay. You know a lot of the survivors of the Perth were captured by the Japanese.
BS: Yeah, yeah. We more or less knew the dangers we were going in to, you know.
LC: So knew, all this occurred when you, before you enlisted. Okay, so you put your hand on the bible, you’ve gone up to Maryborough. So what happened at Maryborough?
BS: Route marches in the morning. First thing out, you’re up, got issued with your dungarees and stuff like that and a route march first in the morning, quite try to remind them we didn’t join the air force to march.
LC: What was that unit called?
BS: Eh?
LC: Do you remember the name of the unit?
BS: No, just Recruit Depot.
LC: Recruit Depot, okay.
BS: No, no, in that thing there, Maryborough, yeah, at the Maryborough airport, yeah.
LC: Okay right. Fair enough.
BS: We quick learnt to go into town, get a, probably walk in to town or get a, don’t know how we got in to town half the time or something, but to come home at night all you do was pick a, outside the pictures grab a bike, ride it home and leave it the main gate. Of course Maryborough soon got used to it I think if your bike was missing you went down to the base and there it was the next morning!
LC: You went down to the base. It was like an honour system.
BS: It was quite good. So when we finished our course there we were assigned to guard duties and I was posted through to Cootamundra, Number 2 AOS at Cootamundra.
LC: Cootamundra?
BS: Yeah. They, they looked upon the Queenslanders quite freshly, they gave us an extra blanket, we used to say they should also give us a WAAF, but they wouldn’t be in that.
LC: No, no, no!
BS: No, no. So we decide the better thing there was a newspaper in between the two blankets and that was quite warm enough, you know. Down to Cootamundra.
LC: It gets a bit nippy down there doesn’t it!
BS: It was a bit nippy, yeah. We found out. You could go on guard duty at least, but at least you could take a, have a heart or an ice cream, type of thing out leave it on top of a post or something it stayed frozen for the night, you know. Bit cheeky, you could crawl up in to an Anson or something now and again, and have a bit of a sneak look or if nobody was around, nobody looked around.
LC: What was that school there? What was Cootamundra, what was the purpose?
BS: Air Observer School, Number 2 Air Observer School and also 75 Squadron was formed there at the time. Now when we were at Cootamundra, a couple of things happened there, that’s the first experience we had of death in the air force, crews from the training unit, one of I think it was about 76 Squadron, or something like that, in a Beaufighter come in and they landed at Cootamundra, but must have done a tight turn in the thing and stalled and then crashed on take off. Well we were called out to the scene and I’ve got to thank an old, he was a fatherly sort of a corporal in charge of the guards or something like that, when we got out there he said to us young blokes, he said ‘Now listen you young fellers, don’t take this to heart. There’s nothing you can do for these fellers now, they’re gone; death is death. Accept it. That’s it.’ And it was wonderful advice, for what we.
LC: Yeah. Because they’re beyond suffering at that stage.
BS: We sat out there at the beginning of that and it was, it was a mess.
LC: You were guarding the aircraft were you?
BS: I can still remember the pilot, he was thrown out of it and his body was, what was left of it, was about well probably a couple of chain away. The second officer, it’d be his observer, was just a, every bone in his body had been smashed, he was just a lump sitting in that, in there, and they moved it out and what struck us then too was they come in, they picked up the pilot, bits, they come in and they looked out and on the thing and to make up a bit of weight, put in a bit of a sand bag, to make it look okay and that. So they’d get it back to the thing.
LC: To go for the burial later.
BS: While we, while we sat there, we, while there, time passed during the day with, I can still remember once, we had a young bloke from, he was from Sydney or something, looked out and he saw these rabbits running around over there, he’d like to shoot one. He said, ‘Well there’s one under the fence over there’, but we looked out and said ‘No, can’t see a rabbit there’, but there was a fair size of a stone, a stone there. ‘No, I’ll have a shot.’ Well he did. He was pretty good: he hit it, but the bullet ricocheted off that stone, and the whine of the bullet, well what was the funny part of that was, just after that whine there was the sheep all over the place, scattering, the whine then sheep going everywhere.
LC: Didn’t have to account for the bullet? He didn’t have to account for the bullet?
BS: Then also at night they’d have to occasionally send us out to the fuel dump which was about a mile out of town or something on the road and we’d live in a tent there, and unfortunately, we’d take a bit of fruit out or something and we trained the possums to eat out of our hand which we regretted later ‘cause they’d get up on the top of the tent and bash up and down and make a hell of a racket! They were a nuisance. Then to fill in a bit of time one night, we get on with things that, oh this is boring and whatnot. I’m to blame for this, the, I don’t know what it was that flew overhead us, something went overhead, but I upped with the rifle, had a shot at it and missed. Well it wasn’t long before boy they heard it back at the station, come flying out and we had to report to the CO the next day. So I told ‘em at the time, I said, ‘No, no’, I said ‘Look there’s a bloke coming along the fence there, and he was trying to get through, I gave him the order, halt or fire, and I fired a shot in the air, there were two shots and he didn’t get, so I fired another one’ and ‘Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, okay, righto, well you better get out the range tomorrow, you blokes, the company.’ So went out to the range. I don’t know what the report was I think, ‘cause when we come to the range they put us on two hundred yards. I got two bulls and three inners, and four inners with me six shots!
LC: That’s all right.
BS: When he said to me, ‘Oh’, he said ‘Don’t worry, that bullet wouldn’t have gone too far off him.’
LC: Excellent.
BS: I got him. But they tried to look through the fence to find a bit of clothing, and wander round the fence, but nothing was there.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Of course.
BS: That was all right. But that went off and then eventually came before, a few months to go we were called up to Number 2 ITS at Bradfield Park for initial training school.
LC: Where’s Bradfield Park?
BS: Bradfield Park at Ipswich, in Sydney.
LC: In Sydney.
BS: Linfield I think it was, the name, it was a, it didn’t have a very good name, old Bradfield Park apparently.
LC: Can I just ask a question first before you go there. You mention when you went to Cootamundra was the Air Observer School, now at what stage, did, how did they make the decision, you knew you’re going in as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, at what stage was the decision made which guys would go off as pilots and which ones would go off as navigators?
BS: At the initial training school.
LC: Right. How do they make that decision?
BS: That’s the idea of the Initial Training School, you go through all this training, various things, you know. They used to have a thing like a pilot, like kicking around to adjust your thing and I, I came through that when we went to the selection committee for the, after that, they just looked at it and say, they looked at it and say, ‘Oh, you’re a pilot.’ God. You’re above average at everything or something, like that you’re going to be a pilot. I said ‘I don’t want to be a pilot’ because not long before this came out rumour was getting around that those who were selected as navigators and air bombers were to go to Canada for training and then to go on to the new four engined aircraft that were coming in to operation over in England, you know. I said, boy go to Canada, that sounds all right to me. I said ‘No, no I want to be a navigator, my thing’s set on being a navigator’. ‘Why do you want to be a navigator?’ ‘Well I’m just interested in maths’, you know. He said ‘Well you got a good high score in your maths stuff like that. All right’, he says. So I went off happy as Larry.
LC: There you go.
BS: So we went off on leave then, home for pre-embarkation leave. And we had to be back at the embarkation depot number two it was, in Sydney, wasn’t it, embarkation depot, on the 10th of January. That was my nineteenth birthday.
LC: That was ‘43. January 1943. Yep.
BS: Yeah. 1943.
LC: That’s pretty quick from you know 7th 8th of December when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour to early January, that’s very quick.
BS: 19, yeah. So we got sorted out then. So that was us at the embarkation depot. While I was at home, of course naturally our farewells and whatnot, moving around and the normal things, you know, and I suppose one of those things but I was, somehow I never doubted, that I’d, that I’d be killed; I’d come back. It was just there, something, something told me and I believed it. So that stood by me.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Well it worked obviously.
BS: Never knew fear when I was operating, we never worried. We had a crew that, all the while, we only had one, but had a pilot, I can tell you more about him later on, but he was excellent and he always believed in: “you’re not in trouble till you’re hit”. You just carry on as normal; things are normal. There could be flak flying around you, could be fighters looking, lurking around. Until he hits yer, you just carry on, then you treat the position as it is.
LC: That’s right.
BS: That’s well, and he, I suppose this is what stuck to us when we, when we went into Canada, forgot now, oh where were we there?
LC: You’re at the embarkation point. Can I just ask one further question? At the Air Observer School, was there any flying training there or was that all ground school? At the Air Observer School did you do flying training there at Maryborough or was that-
BS: No, no, no.
LC: That was all ground school.
BS: No flying training, we weren’t allowed to fly, until you’re nineteen. Through Initial Training School at Bradfield Park, there’s no flying training there, anything like that.
LC: That didn’t really start till you got to Canada.
BS: It’s not till you go to, then if you’re a pilot you go to what they call an Elementary Flying Training School.
LC: Then on to the, you know, Tiger Moths and that sort of thing.
BS: Or a navigator to a nav course, to a bomber, to a bomb aimer’s course, to WAGs course, or wireless operators course, that sort of thing.
LC: So you’re at embarkation, so at this stage so you’d had some period on leave, some embarkation leave. So you got back to Queensland.
BS: Yeah, yeah, got back to Queensland and I went, caught the train then went down to Brisbane on the train and down to Sydney and while we’re at, attached to the embarkation depot at Sydney, we were allowed, leave was pretty good, lot of sports and that. A few, they put us through a bit of a experiment there. We were called up one day to go out to the University of Sydney, they were doing experiments on sea sickness.
LC: Okay.
BS: And what they, what we done, we were strapped to, we were put into stretchers and they were swung from ceiling to ceiling.
LC: Are you all willing volunteers for this?
BS: Out we went, oh, we’re given a lovely dinner, roast lamb and peas and whatnot sort of. Mine didn’t last too long I can tell yer! [Laughter] But we had one bloke there, they couldn’t make him sick. That was this.
LC: And that was handy training before you jump on board the ship.
BS: Yeah, and a lot of other things you could do, you could go on, there were lessons in sailing and swimming and all various things you get to do.
LC: So how long was this period?
BS: And then a few lectures during the day from blokes that coming back from England, that had completed all the latest on the war, or something like that, you know, intelligence reports, various subjects going through there while you’re on embarkation, but leave was pretty good, over weekends.
LC: So how long was that period, you know, of embarkation?
BS: We were there not all that long, about a month I got. We, I embarked on the 10th of February.
LC: 10th of February.
BS: On the Hermitage.
LC: The Hermitage.
BS: On a ship called the Hermitage. It was an Italian ship that had been, when war broke out in England and it was in the Suez Canal port and it was interned there, so it left.
LC: Okay, yeah.
BS: When Japan bombed Pearl Harbour the American government commandeered it, they took it over, moved it to the east coast of America to a place called I think it was Norfolk or something.
LC: Norfolk, Virginia.
BS: Yeah. For it to be converted to a troop ship.
LC: Okay.
BS: Armed, armed with guns on the rear and stuff like that, you know, it could do about, travel about twenty four knots or something like that I think and was regarded, it could zigzag a course and fast enough to dodge submarines, you know, so we ended up on the old Hermitage.
LC: Right.
BS: Now, get on the Hermitage, landed there, Woolloomooloo on the night, on the day of the 10th I think on the 9th, it might have been the 9th of February and sailed on the 10th anyway, of February.
LC: Did it sail on its own or were you part of a convoy?
BS: Eh?
LC: Was there any escorts or did you sail on your own?
BS: No, we sailed on our own. We, out of, the first day out of Sydney, we sailed from Woolloomooloo, the first day out of Sydney we were escorted by two destroyers. One was a Dutch destroyer and they get out but the next morning they’d gone.
LC: Yeah, ‘cause there was the submarine threat.
BS: More or less the zigzag course, then they got, put us on to lectures during the day and stuff like that, you know.
LC: Were you aware of the submarine threat, of the submarine threat while you were on board the ship?
BS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
LC: Did they have special, any drills?
BS: They did because they, on these lectures and that, we thought well this is a bit of a gem of an idea, the lectures, I thought, and I went round once on the deck, we’re allowed the deck space, you’re on a Yankee ship, now you only got two meals a day when transit, the American ships, you know, and I wander around looking, I’m on the deck and didn’t have a life jacket on, you see so I’m nabbed, Oi! No life jacket on the deck, down to kitchen duty. Three days kitchen duty but I tell you gee this turns out all right.
LC: All right!
BS: You can have three meals a day, you cart hot stuff around and although that’s where I got to like sauerkraut and saveloys and of course baked beans, typical Americans. And then after the three days, we get on, get up to wander round the deck, [unclear] I got nabbed again, back down the kitchen duty you see. But then we’re getting to on then, was on the last day of that when we called in to Pango Pango.
LC: American Samoa.
BS: No leave there, and word got around then the next stop would be Honolulu, we’d be given leave there, we would be stopping overnight you know, Pango Pango we stopped overnight. So I said well no after this we won’t worry about this ‘cause you know we better have a bit of leave in Honolulu, when we get there, if we get there. But just before we got to Pango Pango, I think it was about two days before, we drifted for quite a while one night. Now what it was there was some rumours around they think there was a sub in the area and they shut the engines off, something like that, but the next day we get going again and whatnot, if they’re worried about a sub or leaving any remark, then woke up during that day that it had taken on a lot of supplies for the north, to take the troops over for the North American landing and they had a lot of supplies on board, you know, but they had a lot of chocolates on, Chorley’s chocolates, and they’d gone bad in the Tropics, stuff like that, so these Chorley’s chocolate bars, they were leaving -
LC: Leaving a trail of chocolates.
BS: Leaving a trail of Chorley’s chocolates out, oh god.
LC: I can just picture that, a Japanese submarine following a trail of chocolates to the Hermitage!
BS: But they wouldn’t have caught up with us anyway ‘cause they were doing twenty four knots and that, they cruise along pretty well, it was not a bad ship like that.
LC: So when you’re not getting nabbed and doing kitchen duty, what was the standard routine on, you had lectures, training, PT?
BS: Yeah. You were on training or you could be assigned to gun duty at the back, but they soon gave that away to the Aussies, ‘cause they used to have to put up a weather balloon every so often, if Aussies were on the gun crew they shot at it.
LC: Took pot shots out of it.
BS: They popped at it. They’d get it. So we were out of favour. [Laughter]
LC: So the crew was all American were they?
BS: Yeah, but they had the canteen was open for an hour a day, you could get sandwiches there, and we’d generally get on. Now, while we were going across there, we had a group we called the Bunduck club, I don’t know how they got that name, but they used to, they sat around the deck. Well I never had much to do with them ‘cause I got sent down for kitchen duty. But this bloke had a gramophone, only had one record, it was “In the Mood”, and of course by the we time got down there and get to Pango Pango and going off on this one record the needle had had it, you know, [unclear] so when we go on the leg up to, going up to Honolulu they reckon they’ve got to, on back on the Bunduck Club, they reckon right we’ve got to get a gramophone needle when we get to Honolulu, you know. So we cruise along to Honolulu all right, with odd lectures and stuff like that. We managed to get by.
LC: So how long was the cruise?
BS: Eh?
LC: How long did it take to get to Honolulu?
BS: Four weeks.
LC: Four weeks to Honolulu.
BS: Well no, three weeks, we got the, we got six days, it was a week to Pango Pango, another week to Honolulu, another week to, or just about a week.
LC: Okay. So your time in Honolulu did it that, you said you had some leave. Did the ship go in to Honolulu Harbour or did it go in to Pearl Harbour?
BS: No, into Honolulu Harbour. Now we were split into two, one lot were given leave the afternoon we arrived there, it was about midday we arrived there about then, they were given leave till about eighteen hundred hours or something like that, then in the morning we were also given leave till 23:59 hours. So away we go, few of us, and this bloke out chasing this gramophone needle, you know. Now that’s the first time I’d ever struck traffic driving on the wrong side of the road.
LC: Oh yes, of course you did.
BS: So my mother went close to receiving that telegram!
LC: Oh dear!
BS: You look right and step out and the next minute, this thing come phoom, great negro driving this truck, bloody hell! Oh boys we got to look the other way! So we go round looking for this gramophone needle. Well, we’re getting shown everything: bloody knitting needles and darning needles and sewing needles, and all sorts of needles, you know. We had this bloke Russ Martin, Russ was a bit of a wag, real outgoing bloke, so we go into one place, and of course what we couldn’t understand, what we noticed also there was the large Japanese population in all the stores, and guards on every door, on every shop door.
LC: American guards.
BS: Yeah. And of course If any, they they stuttered they get shot, no muckin’ around. So we go in to this place, and old Russ no, no gramophone needle, you know, you’ve got to think thing you turn round and round and you put the thing down – ah you mean a phonograph needle!
LC: Oh right, yes!
BS: So then we’re right, we got our phonograph needle.
LC: Once you know the American lingo you’re all right.
BS: So we got that and another bloke and myself, Noel Hooper, we come out, and we’re wearing our tropical uniforms, Noel came from Nambour and he was shot down too, but evaded capture and died not long after the war, but he, we’d come on back and this Yankee bloke come and talk to us, what you got to do, would you like come and have a look at Pearl Harbour? He was a Yankee officer. Well, that’ll be great, but he took us to, we went through two check points, now at the last checkpoint we’re looking down on Pearl Harbour and now at this time it was about half past eleven, you know, we said to him ‘Listen we can’t go on we’ve got to be back on the ship by 23:59’, ‘Oh okay’, he said, no, no but we’d got that far, you know, he was quite willing to, take us down there. Generous, so he took us back to the ship then.
LC: But you didn’t quite get to Pearl Harbour.
BS: We got a chance to look down on Pearl Harbour. Just to look down on.
LC: Oh, you looked down on it. Could you see the damage?
BS: Yeah, yeah. So that, that was a bit of an experience.
LC: Well it would have been, yeah, only months after.
BS: Then we went, went back on to board the ship then sailed. And as for sitting out on the deck playing the gramophone record that was out of the question, ‘cause God it was cold! The seas were rough and cold eh, once we left Honolulu, oh, just lousy. Fortunately at Honolulu they must have anticipated this, we were issued with sheepskin jackets those, from the Australian Comforts Fund. They come in handy.
LC: Yeah. They would’ve. So where were you sailing to now?
BS: Going to San Francisco.
LC: San Francisco, okay.
BS: So we met then, came into San Fran after a couple of days of that, getting the seagulls around and whatnot, come in to San Francisco, under the Golden Gate Bridge, coming up the Golden Gate Bridge, the ship’s not going to go under there! Look that! But there was tons of room.
LC: Oh yeah, just a bit!
BS: Oh what a sight, you know. Pulled up opposite Alcatraz, the prison camp, and we were unloaded pretty quickly and put on to ferries to go over to Oakland, where we were put on to a train, we got a meal and put on to a train and then sent north to go up to, through, Oregon, Seattle and Vancouver. That was a⸻
LC: You didn’t get any—
BS: So on the train--
LC: So you didn’t get any time off in San Francisco, just normal movements.
BS: No, no, we caught the ferry across. We were away that afternoon on the train from Oakland, you know, and just with our wanted on voyage luggage or something, you know, not wanted on voyage would have been unloaded, it was following us somewhere. So we get, and that was an experience ‘cause to get on to the train then oh god it was comfort, it was warm and negro walking around, magazines, ice cream, anything, oh god everything, you’re whipping through, the damn thing’s going that fast you couldn’t count the telephone poles going past, you know. Boy this is not like the Queensland ride! [laughs] What a great trip that was.
LC: Did you do any stops on the way to Vancouver, did you stop on the way?
BS: Yeah, couple of stops at Salem or something.
LC: Or Seattle.
BS: All the meals were on the train. One thing we sort of noticed a lot, no fences between buildings, and a lot of them not painted, you know really a difference you know, different, fir trees right on up till we got nearly to Seattle and then we couldn’t get over, that’s when we first sighted Mount St Helens, blew up later there.
LC: That’s the one, yes.
BS: All the snow on top of it.
LC: Yeah, yeah.
BS: And then in to Seattle and then moved on then up to Vancouver.
LC: Right.
BS: Got to Vancouver and then, that was early morning, the meal, breakfast at the station, issued with Canadian currency and given the leave for the day. Now that was my first contact with Rotary. A bloke, a Rotarian, said you blokes come round, you like to look around? So he drove us around town and out to the Capilano -
LC: Yup. The Narrows.
BS: Where it is, the park out there, you know and looked out at about mid-day, he says ‘What I’ll do’, he says ‘I’ll take you round’ and he went away, come round, then he arranged to come back and pick us up, ‘You go out and wander around the park there, you know, I’ll come back and pick you up at about three o’clock or some [unclear] and take you back to the station, give you a look around town and take you back to the station so you can meet, you’ve got to be there at 1800 hours or something and head off up over the Rockies to Edmonton.’ So he did that.
LC: And he was with the Rotary.
BS: We had a pretty full day.
LC: So you’re back on the train again heading to Edmonton.
BS: That was one of the greatest days out, that trip up through the Rockies.
LC: Yeah. It’s still winter isn’t it?
BS: Yeah. The middle of winter, go outside, and all the rivers frozen.
LC: At this stage were given you any extra clothing? Had they given you any extra cold weather clothing at this stage?
BS: Oh no, the trains were air conditioned, we were warm as toast in there. We were just sitting there in our dungarees more or less, looking out, getting over and some of these blokes, the waiters on the train there too, looking out, look all the snow cover and down between the trees there’d be a clean line of snow, down, you know. And they’d tell us: oh the bears keep that clean so they can skid down. I don’t know whether they were pulling our leg or not, might have been. But we believed them anyway.
LC: Oh yeah well, why not.
BS: Then we got to this place called Avola, and they had to stop there, we had a couple of stops before that, you know, going past Mount Robson but we couldn’t get over not a tree on them, you know, just bare rock and snow. What a great water, water resource that is, you know, we could do with that here, just then it melts quietly during the summer and sends it all down through the Prairies and whatnot, and down through the Mississippi and whatnot. So I did, we eventually got to Avola, got there into things, fixed it up in camp and then we set off from Jasper to Edmonton. Now, there’s a bit of a hold up just outside of Edmonton when we get down a bit, and then we arrived at Edmonton. I tell you, you blokes are lucky, the temperature’s twenty six below, now you’ve gotta get out, there’s trucks here to take you out to what they call the Manning Depot at Edmonton, you know, M Depots, they don’t call them reception depots or anything, it’s like the embarkation depots were called Y depots, I don’t know what the Y stood for, but the Manning Depot. I get this, the temperatures this side and they’re gonna get the trucks out, I said the best thing to do is make sure you’re about the first on. I’m grabbing the back and everybody else piles in behind you, they went out and they told us there the truck driver said there, if you were, if the temperature was two degrees cooler, that was twenty six degrees Fahrenheit, minus twenty six degrees Fahrenheit, if two degrees further and everything would be closed, everything would stop, okay so. Anyway we got out, we got us to Edmonton all right. We back down, put into some barracks there. The first barracks we were in, they were older barracks and the ablution blocks and that were, oh, about a chain away or something, you know, twenty, thirty, forty yards away, something like that.
LC: In the cold weather.
BS: If you had to race across to ‘em, you know, if you did, you had a shower or anything like that and you’d come out and your hair was wet, time you got back to the barracks it was all ice! You got back in a hurry. But not long after we were transferred to new barracks just across the road and they were all air conditioned and the toilets, everything was inside all in the one building, you know, and then we got issued first of all at the Manning Depot got called and then to issue our battle dress and our instruction books, text books and that on various, meteorology and navigation and whatnot, you know, and the first day like that, we didn’t get, another bloke and myself we didn’t get our battle dresses that day because they’d run out of Australian battle dresses there, so we had to go back oh, about a week later and get ours, back to the Manning Depot.
LC: So this would have been the dark blue.
BS: So this was out of the aerodrome, yeah. This was out of the aerodrome. So we settled in then.
LC: So your course was starting there then?
BS: Settled in to lectures.
LC: And Go!
LC: Oh yeah, right on, you know. It was on.
LC: Almost the day you got there, you went right into it.
BS: Right into it, yeah. They didn’t muck about. They get on and you did certain amount of lectures before your first flight, you know and they had to be ready for that and got issued with flying gear and whatever. And all various things and that’s where I had, I mentioned to you there before, where one of our blokes, the three of us that were good mates and stayed together we, and one of them had gone out and met this girl or something, we went into the, what we couldn’t get over there, we went into the YMCA, the YWCA rather, no YMCA over there, YWCA. Terrific facilities, you know, indoor heated swimming pool, dance floor, bowling alley, cafe, you know, dining facilities, dance floor and all, oh, terrific, you know. And Eric, who met up with one girl there too the first day and tied up with and we were invited then to be the, there was a group called the Twentieth Century Club, this girl was Italian and she used to organise hikes and that of a Sunday and we would go on them you know and that, Eric must have been out somewhere and he met this other girl, and just on the lectures a couple of days later this, the phone rings, wanting to speak to Eric Sutton or one of his friends, and this is this girl, ringing up, going oh yeah, well look Eric’s told me about you two friends look I’ve got two lovely friends too she says and they’re quite interested in meeting, how about come out and come meet us and we can go shagging one night. And you know shagging. I come back to the instructor and of course after the haw-haws about the shagging and whatnot going on, the instructor explained that shagging in Canada is dancing! So we said yeah.
LC: That’s all right though still. [Laughter]
BS: So we went out. They were great kids, they put no pressure on us, they were just - we were brothers, and that’s the way it was. Now the girl I went with, her father, told us when we left, he come out, he couldn’t thank us enough, now look, I can’t thank you boys enough for what you’ve meant to our, these three girls. He said none of them have got brothers, and they’re good friends, you’ve put no pressure on them, apparently, well it’s, I don’t know whether he explained, there’s never any pressure like this, they couldn’t attend all the things, they couldn’t come to our passing out parade because they were occupied, one was away, on holidays, one was a schoolteacher, you know they had their thing, but they were great kids, and their parents.
LC: So the locals were very happy, very happy to have you around.
BS: Yeah. He was great. When we left, when we had to go on to embarkation depot when we left from there, he come out to the train, we went to his place, to go along, thing is he said ‘I’ll drive you all to the train. I’ll take you in to the train’ then, but the girls didn’t come with us. They just, well, said goodbyes at the house.
LC: So you’re training at Edmonton, so now what aircraft was that on? What aircraft are you on?
BS: Ansons.
LC: Ansons, yeah.
BS: And you did, you flew in pairs, you had two, you had a flying mate come in. The second one, the first one did the navigation, you did practical navigation, you’re on set courses. There were a number of set courses which you flew by day then you flew the same course by night. And they were all bush pilots, Canadians, leased out, the bush pilots and they, they flew by the seat of their pants, I’ll tell you that, they were good pilots.
LC: Was this medium level, low level navigation?
BS: No. Very, very seldom went above two thousand feet.
LC: Okay, right, so it was very much visual.
BS: Yeah, bit of cloud that forced you up, but no, down low.
LC: So what you are learning is primarily visual and dead reckoning and that sort of thing.
BS: Yeah, just dead reckon navigate. The second bloke, the second nav on that trip, you’d do the first trip and he’d do the second. Second nav sat there, he did map reading. He practised his map reading and the old Ansons there didn’t have automated wind up the undercart, he had to wind up the undercart, hundred and thirty six turns.
LC: Oh bloody hell!
BS: Bloody. They were good. The er, we had a couple of trips there I think were, were memorable. The first trip we went on, well, our first flight, we had a bloke, his girlfriend was a schoolteacher at a school just outside of Edmonton, something business well did he do that turn up, I was starting to get a bit airsick by the time we was finished, he’s getting [unclear] was down there looking through the window of the school.
LC: Is that right? Beating up his girlfriend.
BS: That poor old Lanc he must have thought it was a Spitfire I think, the Anson, you know.
[Other]: I’ll give you two minutes. I’ll give you two minutes.
LC: Okay. Alma’s just entered the room and we’re being told to take a break in a few minutes.
BS: Right oh.
[Other]: [Unclear] we haven’t even left Canada yet!
LC: Yeah, we’ll get there, oh we’ll get there!
BS: That was, you know, gave us the two minutes. Then we had a trip later on, which is a, which a pilot, one of the few pilots who didn’t, who was not always on course ‘cause the thing there, for training and for navigation over in England was a bit rich ‘cause you go, your first leg’s to Ellerslie, well Ellerslie, that’s the three wheat silos down the line there, so you see it, and of course they know it’s there. But we had a trip, we had to go to a place well down, was a long way down and we were over ten tenths cloud and a lot of them pulled back, they came back. We had to go to two thousand feet to get above, I said ‘No we’ll carry on’ [unclear] and the pilot gets there, I said right we should be over, oh hang on [pause] no, I just, oh Coronation, a place called Coronation, and he looks around, he come down, there’s a break in the cloud there, yeah, we went down. ‘Oh’, he said ‘We’ll have a look at the railway station there and see, should be there’s a railway station there’, so he gets down. So he runs along, I think he damn near ran the wheels along the train track, Coron-wheesh, just went like there, no chance, so he goes round again and we shot off a bit, yeah, Coronation, he said ‘Righto, we’ll climb back up.’
LC: You’re reading the signs on the station were you!
BS: Yeah, yeah, read the name on the station to make sure. ‘Oh’ he says, ‘That’s good.’ Well I think I got brownie points for that trip, come back the old nav kind of thing. You’ve got to thank the pilot, he flew the course you gave him, you know, not tracking it, you know. Well he had to, he couldn’t see the ground anyway.
LC: So how many training trips did you, flights did you do on the course before the end?
BS: I think, I think the course was about twelve days, twelve or fourteen day trips and twelve or fourteen night trips.
LC: Okay. And how many a day, was it sort of you know, fly, day off, fly, day off?
BS: Oh we finished there the end of July, it was only over a couple of months, it was solid.
LC: Okay so you’re flying almost every day?
BS: Yeah yeah yeah yeah, quite a few, weather’d stop you quite a few days stop you, then you’d have catch up, night time and whatnot.
LC: Okay, we might take a break in a second, but so basically we’re up to, you’re coming to the end of the, coming up to your passing out parade so when we come back after the break we’ll go from there to Halifax and then we’ll get stuck in to operations in the UK.
BS: To Halifax. We’re going on holidays to New York [unclear].
LC: Okay, this is part two, we’re reconvening at half past twelve after a very, very nice lunch and a cup of tea. Okay welcome back, Bob, okay, now we got to, we’re talking about the time at Edmonton on the Ansons, the, so at the end of your training there, so was that the stage where you passed out, with your passing out parade. Was that the stage where you actually, did you get your wings, your brevet at that stage.
BS: Wings, yeah. Navigation brevet and then we get on, [cough] and after we left as I said with, we had that, spent the last day with the families of the girls, the three girls we were friendly with there. One of the fathers drove us to the station so then we left Edmonton then, by train, at night, all across the prairies, down through Winnipeg to somewhere got off, changed trains then to go on down to New York, via by Niagara Falls had a few hours at Niagara Falls and a couple of days at New York, looking around there sort of. And then Noel Hooper, one who along with myself were commissioned off course, we came back early from New York to Montreal to pick up our pilot officer ribbons and that, you know, we were given our slip on the pay parade, last pay parade at Edmonton, here’s your commission, sort things out yourself, something like that. Then we decided there in Montreal no, we’ll just take that, we’ll just do the pilot’s thing hang on to our present uniforms and wait till we get to England to be issued with officers uniforms, you know [cough] and then we caught up with the rest of the crew, the rest of them coming back from New York, coming up to Montreal and then we head off by train then again and along the Hudson river to Halifax, arrived at Halifax at the Y Depot.
LC: Right, that’s embarkation depot.
BS: Yeah, we were, completed our clearances, as they say in Canada they’re clearances whether you’re arriving or going, they’re all clearances. Completed there and settled in to officers quarters and whatnot, you know and pretty well straight away the first day, the first couple of days exercises in the decompression chamber. The Y Depot, the air force’s Y Depot emigration there, was situated on the naval station so they had those facilities so we did the decompression chamber and then a bit of practice or what to do, how to get into a dinghy from off the wing sort of. Generally leave was pretty good, mucking round there. After a few weeks we suddenly got the call yeah, go on parade: we’re on to the Queen Mary.
LC: Right, okay.
BS: So right, get on to the Queen Mary and we were billeted, there were twenty four of us, we were up on A deck, A24 and run by the, under the Americans [unclear] sort of thing and as you know on the Queen Mary the top decks were reserved for Commonwealth troops, officers and even men, you know and non-commissioned officers and the ship’s crew and American officers like that, and I think they went down to about the first four or five decks and below that you were then below decks where the main force of Americans, ‘cause after we boarded the Mary, the Queen Mary we went then straight to New York to pick up Americans. They, and I believe on that trip we go, there were fifteen thousand personnel on board the Queen Mary for that trip over.
LC: Bloody hell! Oh dear.
BS: So you can imagine the Americans, particularly the negroes, and that who were confined to below decks.
LC: Yeah.
BS: Conditions there were rotten.
LC: Because it had been refitted, it wasn’t like normal passenger cabins.
BS: No, no, they were rotten. At our deck we had, we soon learned that we had to follow the yellow line down to our eating, our mess as you call it sort of is, and I think it was the green line down to the big cinema where they showed pictures at night, the entertainment area and stuff like, and another red line to go somewhere else. But it was sort of colour coded where you go.
LC: So how long was that cruise across to?
BS: So we arrived in America late one afternoon, they loaded all night I think, and got away late the next afternoon. Then for three days went on a zigzag course across to -
LC: And you’re with a convoy as well?
BS: No, no, no, on your own, the Mary was on her own, see the Mary operated, from, its regular run at that time was from Gourock in Scotland, across to Halifax to New York back to Gourock. I think the Queen Elizabeth was also on the run but I got an idea the Queen Elizabeth operated from Southampton, and come down south of Ireland, you know, across there. We come in to north of Ireland. Then coming in to north of Ireland we cruised in lately and we were greeted pretty well by few low flying aircraft coming in to meet us round the north of Ireland and in towards the, the Ayrshire coast, moving up into the Clyde into Gourock and the most moving part of that was the Band of the Royal Marines which was aboard, down on the open deck, just below where we were standing, thing we were standing on, played Land of Hope and Glory.
LC: Oh, okay, for the Yanks, for the Poms.
BS: Well you can imagine, the Americans, there were tears in their eyes because Britain then was the land of hope and glory, there’s no doubt about it.
LC: Hope and glory, yeah that’s right.
BS: Anyway, so into Gourock lined us up on to lighters straight into, early in the morning, ah, that was about midday when we came, straight on to lighters, over on to the railway station. I think we got a meal and stuff like that, waited there, then set off that night down to England.
LC: So what was your first -
BS: So that was, travelled all through the night and then in the morning woke up, we’re getting in to the outskirts of, down past the Midlands a little bit and the first evidence of bomb damage I think, and what struck us most too, was we sped through the Crewe railway junction, that train just rattled through there at a reasonable speed and you suddenly realise in those days all the signals that were probably operated by hand, no automatic stuff or anything like that. Rattled down and then further on after we come into the real bomb damage and into London and on down to Brighton where we were accepted. The officers in Brighton were taken in to what they called the Red Lion Hotel, along and then the NCOs were billeted up in the, the Metropole and one of the other hotels further up, bit west. So we settled in there for a while, then about the second night come in, I’m suddenly given the job on duty, officer in charge of one of the guns on the front. Right, on the front, go down to this gun and a couple of other gunners come there, sort of looked at it, what do we do now? I says ‘Well I hope they’re working. Well, we’d better fire a couple of shots just to make sure’, you know, so bang, bang bang, ‘Oh they’re right’, okay. Well of course it wasn’t too long before some officious looking English sergeant major of some sort came flying, ‘What’s going on here, what’s going on here? You’ll have to be court martialled’, I said ‘What’s the sense of us being here if we’re not out testing the guns?’ We’ve got to make sure they’re working.
LC: This is on the main, when you say the front, that’s that main area on the foreshore.
BS: That’s right, the long the esplanade. Along past the main, what do they call it? The pier. So anyway he settled with that, it was all right. You can do that. Then with, we’re on to lectures that day on the pier, and I think one of the lectures on the pier, we’re on there one day, and all of a sudden there’s, you had to go up a plank on to the pier and all of a sudden there’s an unholy explosion, something happened. They were mined and one of the mines on the pier had gone off.
LC: Oh bloody hell!
BS: Got off there okay, that was all right and then it was only a few days later most of the crew we went, suddenly got their transfers, a couple of us went to London to organise our uniforms, officers uniforms and stuff like that and get to know the Boomerang Club and what it meant, had a look around.
LC: Where was the Boomerang Club?
BS: Eh?
LC: Where was that?
BS: In Australia House.
LC: In Australia House, okay, yup.
BS: I opened an account at the National Bank there as I was a bank officer, and it was then all the, the bank was all boarded up and that, there was a bit of bomb crater damage across the road with the St Martins in the Fields and that is now the official air force.
LC: Certainly is.
BS: Organised the Boomerang Clun and got the way, air force headquarters were up in Kodak House, Kingsway. We’d come in to Kingsway on the train up and come down to Boomerang House and then do the runs around, did the run up through there, to Buckingham Palace and around, got to know a bit of the area sort of thing.
LC: So getting your uniforms, were there tailors there just did standard work?
BS: Yeah, uniforms were fitted, in Oxford Street I think it was.
LC: Was that one of those places like Gieves and Hawkes or Johnsons?
BS: One of the great ones, yeah, all made to measure, beautifully made and got that settled. [Cough] It was only after a couple of days then Noel Hooper and Johnny Honeyman and myself were transferred to an Officers Training School down in Sidmouth.
LC: That’s, where’s Sidmouth, what’s close, where’s that, that’s down on the south coast?
BS: In Devon.
LC: Devon. Right. Yeah.
BS: So right, we got shot off to there, that means we then got shot behind the rest of our blokes who went through the course with us, they all got, while we were away there they nearly all got transferred to advance training schools and round about. So down to the Officers Training School and that was an absolutely solid four weeks training, in air force history, protocol, everything, you know. Run by the RAF Regiment and largely designed to train you to, if you were shot down to escape. Now, first day there, we’re put through an obstacle course. Now I’d been doing a lot of work as an, because before we left the squadron to, to go to Halifax, no wait a minute, no that’s later on, no, and in Edmonton you know, that’s the next squadron, [unclear] group there, and the, I got through the, I did the whole course within the time.
LC: Yep. That’s the obstacle course.
BS: The obstacle. But only one thing the, one thing was two pine tree poles something long enough with bars across, you had to climb up one and go over the top bar, come down, I looked when I got up there and I thought I’m not going over bloody top of that: I went underneath it. They spotted it!
LC: Oh bugger!
BS: They got it. Now there’s only one other bloke that was within the time. Now about three days before we left, the course finished, we were still there, the whole course did that course and they all completed it, in time and everything, so it showed you how they built up our fitness, the fitness of all those blokes. We would do, get on this training course was how to avoid - if you were shot down and somebody shot at you - to avoid so you go through all this drill all using live ammunition.
LC: Oh, okay.
BS: So you had to know what a 303 bullet felt like that whizzed past you a foot or two away, you know, from the rear. No mucking round.
LC: Health and Safety wasn’t very big there.
BS: So right we go on a route march one day, come along, there’s a bang, crack, crack, bang! You‘ve got to, bang! Now I get back, tell us on that route march what did you hear, what was that first one as you were coming up? Oh, some bloke, somebody let off a couple of double bangers. Oh that sounds reasonable. The second one? That was a rifle. Where was he? It was behind us, to our right. Now, if you think he’s going to shoot again, what do you do? Which way do you go? He says you go to your right, you don’t go that way, to avoid the chance of hitting you again, you go this way, right, and down, that, and down. So do that. What was that? A grenade. You’ve got to know a grenade. So we do grenade practice, get in a sandbag area, and the blokes get in, and of course half way through the grenade practices you’re told what to do, if grenade falls, you get out. Half way through, what does the instructor do, oh shit! I dropped one! Your reaction has to be straight away. Boom. Out!
LC: How long did that course at Sidmouth go for?
BS: Four weeks.
LC: Four weeks and then straight from there to -
BS: Now when we, they give you an exercise to go on, on that practice. Now you set off at the, at the school or you go to a place just outside Sidmouth, there, set off to go to school, start from here, now you got till three o’clock this afternoon to arrive here – told you where you had to go – up was a place about oh, I suppose ten or twelve mile up to the north east. So right, away you go! And we get off, you can go individually or you can get into a group, this is, you’ve got to use your own judgement, you’re own, right. Well Noel Hooper and John Honeyman and myself, the three of us said okay, she’ll be right, well we were, of a Sunday morning we’d all go, the three of us would go on hikes around, we knew a place with a bit of a cafe up just north of the thing and that and talk in there and we’d hike, we’d do twenty or thirty mile of a Sunday; we were pretty fit. So we go to this cafe and Noel, John Honeyman come up with an idea, he said, ‘I’ve got something, I was up talking to a girl the other day and I’ve got this woman’s hat’, Noel takes out a woman’s hat, thought about it, so we go to this, cafe, sitting there, do you think we can get a taxi, can we get a taxi? The taxi says, ‘Yeah, I think there’s a bloke’, organises this, this taxi turns up, so we explained to him what we wanted, oh, you beauty, says, I can do that for you, we probably gave him five months of [unclear] we get it so we worked out, we get in this taxi. So Honeyman sits up in the back seat of the taxi like they do in English taxis, come in and you sit in the back seat not beside the driver, I’m in the front seat with the driver, lying down, Hooper’s in the back seat, lying down. So we’re driving this taxi round, up they get, gets along, we knew the route, we had a fair idea where this instructor would be too, you know, so we’re coming up, up along a road and there’s a ditch along this road and a tree up along there and Honeyman looks over there: there he is, over against that tree over there, look, oh yeah, okay make a note and we just, we kept going. And the taxi let us off, went up, went up to a place and dropped us off about two mile north of where we had to go and we walked that last two mile, came out of there so we’re coming in as a group. So three o’clock comes about, it’s about a quarter past two, a bit before three o’clock, he turns up, to this point, this instructor, and a couple of others. ‘Now right, are they all here? Who’s not here – the three Aussies.’ Next minute we walked in – ‘Where the hell did you blokes come from?’ Ah. ‘How did you get past me?’ ‘Oh we got past you all right, oh, we’re coming up this road and there’s a bit of a ditch along there, we’re coming up this road and we looked and we see and there you are up against a bloody tree we lie down again and we said oh no we can’t go on past there, look around, so we crawled back down the ditch and went down further along, along past a tree, there’s bit of a dip in the road went up past there went, come a bit past and a bit north again and then come out.’ Oh bloody hell, fair enough. ‘Well’ he says, ‘Bloody amazing how these Aussies always seem to put it over us in these things isn’t it’, he said, ‘But you did, get you went together, well okay you used your initiative.’ The day later he found out what happened.
LC: Well, it’s still initiative.
BS: And he still accepted it.
LC: Good! Well you used your initiative!
BS: That ended up, so anyway we ended up, passing the course and getting out. Got pretty good. The course had a screaming skull, there was, you gave certain duties. They felt sorry for me because, I know now why, but one was Sergeant Major of Parade or yeah, Commanding Officer of Parade and Reviewing Officer of Parade: they were Colour Parades. Now, what bloody happens, but who’s, when this time when they come on, Commanding Officer of Parade one week, who’s Commanding Officer of Parade the first? Me. You’re sort of the drill sergeant of parade, you see, sort of. Now, you’ve got to parade, you’ve got to be awake here, this is parade ground drill this is, ‘cause now you’re here and the parade’s there. Now, this is advancing, that’s retiring. That‘s to the right, that’s to the left. Now, if they’re advancing if marching, if they’ve to move to the right they’ve got to do a left turn, to the left of the, you know a left turn to the right of the parade, you’ve got keep your wits about you to get right turn, parade off, [marching commands] retreat or something like that there, about turn, there, quick march, come on, yell out, they’ve got to bloody hear you! [Laughing]
LC: You’ve got to make sure you got your left and right turns right.
BS: The, get down there, the parade will advance, about turn! Come on. Parade will move to the left, or to the right, left turn. You got it right, you got it right, that same instructor. And he was, yeah, that’s all right. There’s the same as CO on parade, you’re doing other things, Commanding Officer on Parade with bloody nothing to do but stand round.
LC: Exactly.
BS: He gets on, we trained a couple of those, one day before this, we were out when he was teaching us how to yell, you know. How to, you’ve got to throw your voice, now come on, get out here now. You’d get the blokes out, line up, march them down the road, he’d hang on till they’re about eighty to a hundred yards away. Right, give ‘em, tell ‘em about turn, about turn, well of course your voice wasn’t too good, they wouldn’t do it. He’d show you. Come on, I’ll show you how to go. Right, he’d get up, he’d get one of the other blokes there, up about turn so we’d head off this day, we’re going down, there’s three of us there and then another bloke, he was a Canadian I think, he said listen, us and the ones in front hesitate. All you blokes behind do an about turn, the other blokes in the front there the three four ranks in front keep going, so he’s there, well, about turn! well back he bloody comes. You buggers, I know what’s going on here! You organised that, didn’t yer! He knew bloody well. Oh yeah, there’s a good YouTube thing on the return of the Black Watch to Glasgow and that’s got, that. I’ve often wondered why one unit of the Black Watch carries the shoulders on the right arm and other one carries them on the left arm, you know that screaming skull there, it was a screaming skull there, you bloody heard his voice, they threw that voice. Bloody terrific.
LC: Amazing. So that was, was that all practice for your passing out parade, was it?
BS: That was all the thing. And they said review, now I found out later towards the end, find the thing it was, squadron, the CO after we were in training to bring the squadron back here, that I was supposed to be navigator of, and be promoted one above substantive rank, you know, which would have been to squadron leader. Now, when my report comes back was recommendation about if ever approved for rank above or substantive rank by wing commander or above to be approved, without further question.
LC: Okay. Is that right?
BS: Yeah.
LC: Oh, that would’ve been right.
BS: Now, none of that records on your things. It’s like those records come through, it’s like the nav records from training. I’ll get to that when I get, when we got to the squadron. So we got that, we come back then. And then when I got them we were transferred up to Scotland, to West Freugh. I was with a course, blokes that went through, also went through Edmonton but they were two courses behind us.
LC: Yeah. Because they didn’t have to do the officer training.
BS: Eh?
LC: Because they didn’t have to do officer training?
BS: No, no. They didn’t. Not too many did that. There were a few Aussies on it. A couple were there for disciplinary reasons.
LC: Okay!
BS: Well, one was a bloke had pranged a Wellington on take off at an OTU. He was sent there for disciplinary reason for some reason or other; I suppose he wiped the bloody aircraft off, you know. But he was only there for a few days, he was recalled back to the Operational Training, to the OTU because he was upsetting the staff, his crew, see they’d already had a crew organised he had his crew so he didn’t last too long. He went back and there were others who were called off the course back to squadrons or back to courses or something like that, yeah.
LC: Okay.
BS: But it was an excellent course on the history of the, the psychology of the British Army, the British and the history of the air force, protocols and whatnot. I was set up. So you know you benefited a lot from it. So we went back then, so we went to West Freugh and then that’s where you started training with staff pilots. They were air force pilots, not like the -
LC: Bush pilots.
BS: Bush pilots in Canada, yeah, they were air force pilots and so on. The first courses there were set courses too, on the navigator, they also had set courses that you flew at day and flew at night, about a half dozen courses.
LC: What aircraft was this on?
BS: Most of them were over the Irish Sea, back out, over to Northern Ireland, back of Bangor, or across to, towards Newcastle from Ingham, where they were allowed, they didn’t interfere with operations or you know.
LC: So what aircraft were you flying?
BS: So they were sort of training areas for flying schools and that. So right, we did those, we and in the old Anson the main things there was the, going on Anson once we had to watch the hills round Dumfries and that, Scotland, something there called Criffel, which was a fairly high peak you know it claimed if you had flown into it you know, like around Wales there and the old Anson wouldn’t fly through a hill.
LC: Not real well.
BS: We set off one day on a flight, actually I think it was to, to Newcastle. We had two flights, we had trouble to Newcastle. We, we start off, all of a sudden, the met winds were supposed to be about, I think only about twenty five knots or thirty knots or something, but they got up to about sixty or seventy knots, you know, bloody hell we’re flying along we, and suddenly they woke up, no, no, we were recalled, we’re gonna get there too soon, you know, recall. Well by that time we were, what the hell we were getting pretty close to round about Gretna Green or somewhere, round Dumfries there, something like that, we had to come back. Well, we’re going, coming back that bloody Lanc we had a ground speed I suppose, of twenty mile an hour at the most.
LC: Yeah, with that wind, yeah.
BS: Twenty miles an hour. We come back, now we come over couple of these high peaks and you could have damn near jumped out. And then on our night exercise to go to, we had a, go to Newcastle. That was to combine the Newcastle anti-aircraft with a practical exercise, you know.
LC: Okay yes, so they can have, they can see an aircraft.
BS: They get, do a thing, probably do a camera thing or gawd knows what. So we head north, but we had the same thing, getting pretty well along about Carlisle something, we were recalled - Newcastle was having an actual.
LC: Oh okay, having a real air raid.
BS: Air raid, a proper air raid.
LC: So the anti-aircraft guys having some real practice, okay.
BS: Then we had another interesting flight which was, one of our flights used to take us -
LC: And this is still on the Anson. This is still flying the Anson.
BS: On Ansons, these were on Ansons, nearly all our navigation exercises from West Freugh would start from Ailsa Craig, that was a well known landmark, off the coast of Ayrshire, you know, Ailsa Craig. You go there, and of course they’d take off, they get over Ailsa Craig and away you go, down to Anglesey, Wales and across and come back to Ballyquintin Point or somewhere in Northern Ireland. Now on that leg you’re flying straight over the Isle of Man. This day, crew one, mates the, one of the crews they were over cloud on this, they flew that, and coming down, coming back to the Isle of Man they’re over cloud and the Ballyquintin Point had to be back below under cloud at a certain height, you know, do something, and the, come down through cloud, what do they do, straight into the mountain on the Isle of Man. Killed.
LC: Oh dear.
BS: That was the first, first accident of on that crews in flight now on that course. Then when we got to, when we finished that course, okay -
LC: What was that course called?
BS: Advanced Flying.
LC: Advanced Flying Course.
BS: Over there, yeah, and flying and bit of conditions you get over there, crook weather and half the time you can’t see the ground. Now, I’d say the six, it was about five or six weeks we were at West Freugh we only saw the sun about for a couple days, on the ground, [emphasis] at twelve hundred feet, or fifteen hundred feet you’re up in sunlight.
LC: Was that just fog or low cloud?
BS: So we were then transferred to Chedburgh so that was the first indication that we, we’re heading for Bomber Command. Because Chedburgh’s Number 3 Group’s training, training, Operational Training Unit and where crews are formed, you know.
LC: Starting to feel a bit real now was it.
BS: Settle in to Chedburgh, went down, got in, settle into Chedburgh, settle in to officers quarters there, as they, so called, and straight on to a few exercises and a crews, and to train crews, instructors, fly with other pilots and stuff like that, you know. We’d be under as a navigator, they’d check your nav courses on the bomber, do a couple of exercises, nav you know. Come back and your logs would be checked, same as the pilot, he’d be under instruction or something like that. To do, that conversion on to Wellingtons, they’d be doing circuits and bumps and you’d be doing with odd crews circuits and bumps, navigator.
LC: On the Wellingtons.
BS: And then after that they’d say right, all passed, you passed, everybody’s passed the thing. Now, into that hangar and by tomorrow morning sort yourselves out into crews. It worked. It was the best, it was the preferred method. So I go along, get on a crew and next minute Ron Hastings come up to me he says, he says you got a crew? No. He says I’ve got two, two English air gunners here who’ve been through courses together and want to stay together, they were all right and another bloke was there which the name of the bomb aimer [unclear] bomb aimer, he hadn’t been taken to a crew, Bobby Burns, we take him, and then there was another, older bloke there Vic Pearce, nobody’d take him, came up to Vic. Vic had come off, an instructor, been an instructor for quite a while so he didn’t come through with crews that had been training, you know, so he didn’t have mates or anything get him sorted out with others going through. Now Vic said - oh God yeah, Vic, Vic had so many hours experience, so we formed a crew. And they said we’d be right.
LC: Okay, so it was basically as you said, that you’re just put in the hangar, and just sort it out amongst yourselves.
BS: So we set out. Then once you’ve got a crew, and then you’re under instruction out to the, out to the satellite ‘drome to do a few circuits and bumps with the pilot on his own you know.
LC: That’s still on the Wellingtons, still on Wellingtons.
BS: Still on Wellingtons, then back to the squadron, back to the squadron. Now the first exercise we had to go on, nav exercise, bombing and high level bombing and nav exercise supposed to be, you know, from that, from Chedburgh, we were in this aircraft – it was U Uncle the same as the first aircraft we had in the squadron. And so it was, the first thing Ron on his own and that, us all as a crew, so right we’re taking off, and I’m sitting as you do in the Lanc, you know looking at the runway flying past and all of a sudden the runway goes wheet, what’s that, the runway didn’t do that, the aircraft did that, the wing dropped. The fuel tank flap on the port wing flew open and stalled that wing.
LC: Oh god.
BS: And that wing stalled. And how that wing didn’t touch the ground, if it had touched the ground we would have been killed, would have piled in, probably gone up in flames, you know.
LC: Fully loaded aircraft.
BS: No, no bombs.
LC: No, no. But full fuel load.
BS: Right, and it took the pilot straight away, we get a call for [unclear] Uncle, that was our callsign [unclear] Uncle you’re in trouble, yeah we can see that, we’ll hand you straight over to a pilot, to a trained pilot, an instructor pilot to guide you in, guide you now from now on, you know. So he come on to Ron. Now Ron at that time, and he needed the, the bomb aimer to help him hold that stick right, right over down here, low, hold that stick to get that aircraft flying level ,to keep that wing up, you know. And I’m standing up at this time and he said, ‘Smithy, see that strip ahead of us keep your eye on it and guide us around to it will yer?’ So I, looking at it, yeah, yeah, she’s right, keep going, we’re right now, we can see it okay, get back to crash positions! So I get back and I crawl past the wireless operator. Now this is where I learned something. I should have tapped him on the shoulder and told him come down to crash position, but I just walked past, and got down to crash position, sat on, the two gunners were sitting there and I sat on the edge over beside the fuselage, out on the starboard, or the port side and there we go, next minute down, down, down, come in there, landed, you know. That instruction was to come around again. Now what we didn’t know, and I didn’t know, till thirty, forty years later until another bloke that was on that second nav course that went to, went to Chedburgh with us, they weren’t flying that morning, and the word had soon got around, ’cause all the sirens went, the fire brigade had to get out, the ambulance everything out on to the runway to meet this aircraft coming in to crash land you know and it soon word got around that it was Hastings’ crew and of course Keith Dunn, there was a navigator, this navigator that I met thirty years later, he knew, he knew Brian Hastings, our pilot ‘cause Ron’s father was in the Union Bank of Australia, and Keith was in the Union Bank of Australia, and they both worked at the [unclear] Hunter Street Branch of the Bank of Australia at the time you see, so he knew of Ron. And they thought oh god, don’t tell me it’s Ron, it’s Ron and Bob Smith because we’d become good friends and next minute goes on, we land. Just as we land of course, the land, the sometime, my son said to me at the time he says, and the pilot, the plane swerved, because the rear gunner left go of the, and the pilot couldn’t hold the stick there again, we’re still at flying speed and the son said to me once, that wonder the undercart didn’t collapse I said no, no weight on the undercart, that’s still at flying speed, the weight’s still all on the wings. You know. But it swung. Now, I felt the wheels touch the ground, [unclear] and went to stand up to get out, and the rear gunner had done the same, and he was a big bloke, and of course when we swung, when it swung there, he fell against me and bashed my head against the - well I got a blunt trauma.
LC: Is that what that scar is?
BS: Led to all my troubles later on, you know. Yeah. So, I’d been knocked out, I know that, ‘cause they told me then, they were laughing, what you laughing at, they said the field ambulance had just come back, Chedburgh, just came back [unclear] Uncle, if you pancake you haven’t pancaked here! So Ron took a look around, he looked around and he, and oh no, took a while, the wireless operator looked around said what’s going on, ‘cause wireless on, sitting on, listening to some bloody -
LC: So he didn’t know what because you didn’t tap him on the shoulder.
BS: No, no. He’s away in another world, what’s going on, so with the joke and I’d got up then too and we looked out and I could get up stand up well I said we’re back at Honington, this is, we recognise the screen, went out, so we told them then, they worked out, they sent a crew out to take us back, we had to go straight to the medical guy to get checked. A feller there told me there, he says well you’ve got a bit of a bump there, you got and, bit of a bump there and oh god, that eye’s bloodshot, that should come all right, if you get a bruise come out and a bruise comes out probably okay, but he said if it doesn’t you might have trouble later on and that’s what did happen. It had damaged the optic nerve as well, you know, and caused pressure and also caused that cancer, meningioma core something, which didn’t happen till I retired, you know, just after. I never mentioned, the bloke treating for me glaucoma the ophthalmologist in Brisbane, I never mentioned to him that I’d had a trauma there and he couldn’t work out why I was getting, you know. And with the, about three days later the skipper said to me, he says ‘You’d better go and see about that eye again, it’s still bloodshot’, I said ‘Oh it’ll be right, we’re not bloody losing you as a pilot, the way you handle this.’ So it just went on. It never worried me then till oh, 1960, oh about twenty years after, when I was at Cumbria, you see I noticed driving that little smirr in the vision of the eye, you know, so I went to the optometrist. Oh he said I’ve got to send you to an ophthalmologist, a specialist down in Brisbane he says you know, you’ve glaucoma, high pressure, glaucoma there, if I’d mentioned it then he might have said, you know, he said yeah, he did that, put in a bit of a valve up there, which was supposed to last, only supposed to last for twenty five years but was still going fifty years later!
LC: Bloody hell! That’s all right.
BS: But it looks as though, no, he says it’s been damaged under that optic nerve and he says it’s gradually getting worse, he said no, you’ll gradually lose sight there, then when I come up and got out, that tied the two together and went, put in for disability with it, you know, with the, the Vietnam boys got on to me, they went through with it and then they said that could see no evidence of sharp trauma or something, we’re not talking about a sharp trauma, we’re talking about a blunt trauma sort of thing, but the he come in had me allowed, traumas, these traumas they can move too and also are allowed that can form non-malignant growth, tumours can form, you know, on the skull if the skull’s been damaged slightly somewhere there.
LC: But at the time though that didn’t preclude you, obviously didn’t preclude you from flying after that.
BS: No we had, the old bloke, the, Ron always reckoned we disturbed the medical officer and his WAAF assistant, he couldn’t get rid of us quick enough!
LC: Okay.
BS: So we got that out of the road anyway and we kept going and completed the tour there, went on and had a few quick trips in the old Wimpeys, good experience, get on, nothing more greatly unusual, just the usual thing, lectures and stuff like that.
LC: So that point then -
BS: And of course a lot of lectures from blokes that’d already completed tours or had escaped, been shot down and escaped given a few clues on what to do, what happens over there you know and the present position [unclear] shot down and whatnot. Then from from Chedburgh then we were shot through to what they call 31 Base at Stradishall. That attached us to Chedburgh which is Stirlings, we were flying Stirlings to convert on to four engines and they, we also picked up a flight engineer there, you know. That was our first flight engineer that we had the problems with. Our troubles with, or Ron’s experience, unusual experience with aircraft went, now Chedburgh was on a plateau and it happens there one day they’ve got to do a take off, they’re doing the engine failure on take off see, so right, taking off and the old the instructor cuts an engine. What happened then? So Ron, put a little bit of extra revs on, not getting anywhere, couldn’t start the bloody thing again.
LC: Oh dear.
BS: But fortunately it’s on the plateau, the ground fell away from us.
LC: Of course, ‘cause you’re on the plateau
BS: So the ground fell away from us to give us a couple of hundred feet to do a bit of a dive to get up speed, get a bit of flying speed and then the engines would, so that, that worked out all right, you know, so he had a go, so he, he had a, so the instructor said well you handled that all right he says you might as well try a three engined landing. So righto, I know I’m no [unclear] right now, so he’s got’d to do a three engined landing, that was good experience. So that was a great, we got the [unclear] of Ron.
LC: How flights did you take?
BS: So we weren’t going to let him go.
LC: How many flights did you do then on the Stirlings, four engine on the conversion.
BS: Oh, between circuits and bumps and I wouldn’t know, probably about twenty. It’d be quite a few.
LC: Okay. Over two or three weeks.
BS: Quite a few various ones. We, one day there we had to deliver, we had a, got an instruction out just Ron, Ron and the flight engineer and the wireless operator, I think there’s only three of us. Ron come, said ‘Come out here we’ve, we’ve got to go out, we’ve got to do an air test,’ he said to me, ‘The CO’s taking us out’, so we get out to the Stirling, we’re told there, you got to go to Stradishall, well we knew Stradishall you can do a pub crawl to Stradishall. So we got in. There’s this gorgeous looking girl sitting up in the Stirling, on the nav seat. You’re to go over to Tuddenham.[pause] Don’t fly over five hundred feet, so Ron didn’t take any notice that extra nought, that means fifty feet, so right we go over, in your log book you don’t say landed, and then took off again, just come back and land back here, you’ll be met over there. So over we go, landed Tuddenham airfield, this girl to come in, she’s to be dropped over France that night, one of the Special Duties Squadrons, you know.
LC: Okay, so she’s one of the SOE agents.
BS: Yeah, yeah. Whether she’s parachute, or drop her by parachute or drop her or a Lysander or something, jumps in and jumps out, you know, well of course she was a lovely girl, could speak perfect English and French I suppose.
LC: Was she French was she?
BS: What?
LC: French was she?
BS: She was French, I think, I think she was French. I’ve got an idea she was. Yeah, yeah she was, that was an experience on the old Stirling, get on, and then once we got the flight engineer then, he’d come off straight on, well he was just straight to the crew come in from the course somewhere, plumped on and well I don’t know what good he does on Stirlings, on Pratt and Whitney engines or whatever they had, I don’t know, but then we went across to the Lancaster Finishing School at Feltwell for a few days and that was just circuits and bumps with the pilot under instruction. We get on to and a for a, oh I think about a few hours each, a couple of days up. That’s when I first met Keith Miller, cricketer. Ray Lindwall was there at the time and I think that’s where they met and Keith came over, something to do with the cricket, or something like that, and yeah, we had a game of cricket and get on and then we come along, we’re told then right you’re appointed to 15 Squadron. We pack up, there’ll be a, get your clearances, called round here, there’ll be transport, there’s a couple of other crews, I think there was one other crew went to 15 Squadron and another one came from another Lancaster Finishing School or something I think at the same time you know. So we moved across to 15 Squadron, got settled in.
LC: And where was that at?
BS: Went round to the nav section.
LC: Where was 15 Squadron located?
BS: At the nav section, that’s where these, where you realise how the training under the Empire Air Training System and then with the RAF was pretty damn thorough. Now, I walk into the, I go in to the nav section and our flight lieutenant, the nav looks at my things, oh you’re the sort of nav bloke we could do with, good on yer, we’re not going to have any problems with you, okay, so led away. There was another navigator there who’d just finished school, a bloke called Flying Officer Johnny Moore. He was the first Australian that finished a tour with 15 Squadron. He said ‘Well now listen, you blokes should be right. I’ve just broken the hoodoo on Aussies on 15 Squadron, I’ve finished a tour, I’m the first Aussie that’s finished a tour on 15 Squadron.’ And of course the two English blokes that were with us, they thought that’s a bloody good idea, if he’s got, finished a [unclear], we’ve got a fair chance of getting back too sort of business. But and [unclear] sort them out, but now.
LC: That was at Mildenhall.
BS: Yeah. Now at Mildenhall. On that, on that report it comes in for the flight engineer must have been a report to the flight engineer as well, there was some concern about our flight engineer, ‘cause in our first op the flight engineer came with us as a instructor. See the, on the squadron the nav officer can’t fly with the crew for some unknown reason, don’t know what that is, the, the COs can, I don’t think the flight officers can take a sprog crew, but the gunnery officer can take ‘em, the wireless officer doesn’t need to I don’t think [unclear]. So right, so we had the nav officer, the flight engineering officer, now which was fortunate, ‘cause change of wind, we were on the short runway, which comes out and goes in, went pretty well over the officers quarters, the old Mildenhall officers quarters, you know, and, on the short runway, now this is the first time that a pilot takes off with the full bomb load and full petrol load and we’re just starting to take off and he says ay, ay, ay get those things through the stick we’re on the short runway you’ll never take off, you’ll never get off if you don’t, so he rammed it full through, we got off.
LC: But this was your first operation.
BS: Yeah, yeah, this was our first op. But after that things were pretty good, was down to flying bomb base there, a good trip down, individually, flew in, we were on the second wave on this flying bomb base, dropped our bombs, light bit of, there’s a bit of light flak, no fighters things like that, they had a turn off down to the right and dive, go down towards where the troops had landed after D-Day, you know, and then go out over, that’s our first sight of the Mulberry.
LC: Oh yeah, Mulberry Harbour was it. Aramanches.
BS: What a sight, so we got down, good sticky at that and back to England.
LC: Now you mentioned to me earlier on that you did a sortie supporting D-Day. While you were still on your training, on Lancasters.
BS: Yeah, we went to north of France, that was down up off the north of France, went to, had to fly down and stop five miles short, well Gee set was operating good, and it was all right so five mile short, if you were out, if the navigator was out and he overshot by five mile, he could have been in trouble, he would have been in the defences on the coast, you know, but no, it was all, we just cruised along the coast dropping the Window out there. So then on the, after we did, there, that was in Uncle, which was a brand new aircraft, oh it was a great old aircraft, first one and our next trip there in Uncle, we did a couple of trips after it that Ron came with us, he was all right, he went in to to Fleurie de Louche, was an oil dump in the north of France and that was okay, no flak or anything like that. Then we went to Chalon sur Marne a railway marshalling yards just north east of Paris, or north west.
LC: Yep. And this was in support of the D-Day landings.
BS: Yeah, yeah and it was a pretty solid trip for navigation dodging the defended areas and stuff like that, and the, got over there, bit of flak, fair bit of flak, got back and the flight engineer, Ron, that flight engineer Ron then, he, he reported sick the next morning and he was still sick when we, when we were, went to Kiel. Now Kiel was an unusual target, the place we only got flak and searchlights, were a problem, you only got, the flak there was what they called flaming onions. Now it wasn’t the anti-flak gun, you know, the 135mil or the 128mil, it was rocket propelled 38mil because the rocket was over Peenemunde you know where they experiment with the rockets and that, Peenemunde, rocket, and this thing, and we took, and so we get to Kiel, now just as well when we arrived, Ron wasn’t with us - we got caught in searchlights.
LC: Ron Hastings
BS: Yeah. We got caught in searchlights, and these flaks, they’re amazing things, you’re looking at it, you get a light pinkish sort of a glow, and looking at it from the aircraft they just seem to go “deeee, wheest”, explode a few hundred feet above you. Right, we got out of that, got out of the flak all right, got back, okay, well, and then the next trip, one more trip I think was okay, he was all right with us, down to, that might have been Falaise, down to the Falaise Gap or something like that then we were sent mining down to the Gironde river.
LC: You’re dropping mines?
BS: Sea mines, into the sea lane of the Gironde river.
LC: Okay. I actually didn’t realised Lancasters did that.
BS: This was where Uncle’s, that Gee set in Uncle was a terrific Gee set. And I only used Gee, like most of us did, on, where you had a coastline. There were a couple of blokes could use it inland, they could pick up a lake, or a town or a slightly different signal from a forest, but I never got down that, picked up a Gee set, you know.
LC: That’s just, gives bearing doesn’t it.
BS: And so we go down, we had a fly over ten thousand feet over the Brest Peninsula ‘cause the Yanks were in there then, then drop down to eight thousand feet, down fast, the estuary of the Gironde river, bit below the estuary, cross the, cross over the river then, go on to a course 010 into the shipping lane, you know, now I’ve got the, the old Gee set was good, looking out and as soon as we crossed the coast a bit there, the bomb aimer gave the skip, said righto skip go on to 010 now on to the thing to drop the mine. And I looked at this if we’re on that we are going to be over the narrow part of the thing we’re gonna drop on the narrow lane, we’re not be on the thing, no, I said no, no, no, no, we can’t do this, we’re not in the lane, we’ve got to go round again. So round again we go. I said I’ll tell you when to turn. We went across, I watched it on the Gee set, and then this is it, righto, now, so right, we’re on course, beautiful, with the Gee set one thing we were right on target with it, you know. Now up we go, drop the Gee set, and it went, the instructions were there, to, on the last, on dropping the last mine to turn sharp to port and dive at two hundred and forty mile an hour, now, that’s what it is, sharp to port, and that’s what happened, just after we dropped the mine, the bit, they couldn’t get this straight away but when they did, we must have, there must been a hill, or were defending that gun position at Royan to the aircraft, where we were to drop the mines. By the time he was up, we were on a dive, and we had oh, tracer and that’s going, that only seemed to be going that far above the aircraft, but I suppose it was a bit higher, you know, but he couldn’t get down quick enough, we were driving too fast for him, and got out of his range, you know, and now by the time we got out through the estuary, Hastings was just about down in the mists of the waves. [Laugh] And of course when we get out there, I got cursed at, Smithy, you don’t do that again.
LC: Was that go round again?
BS: Now, what happened, [unclear] will know that either, when I was doing those cruise ships there and going through the history of there was a raid on Royan in January that cost five aircraft. Now, and the position of Royan, what it is, now if we had been on that first round, we were flying straight at that garrison, at that, he couldn’t have missed us. We’d have been straight at him, straight for him, at eight thousand feet and then when we turned on the thing, he couldn’t have bloody missed us. We’d have been gone for sure, you know. And at Royan, it’s very interesting the history on Royan, cost five aircraft, that garrison. A German, a French officer committed suicide over it. He got word to the Yanks that this Royan, they should get a message to the Bomber Command, they should bomb Royan, the garrison at Royan, is the only, the only French are left there favoured, on the side of the Germans see.
LC: Collaborators.
BS: Yeah. They were collaborators, yeah. Now what happened is, they did two, did two raids on that, the first raid went, bombed it, did bloody lot of damage, not too many civilians were killed, they were all, the warnings were given, they were all in air raid shelters stuff like that come out, and then when that stopped, they all come out of the air raid shelters, the guns are quiet, next minute another raid comes and a lot of them think, and a lot of them were still the old French, the German garrison’s still all right and of course a lot of in that area of France they were, they supported the Germans a little bit, round Bordeaux and that, ‘cause they provided employment, you know, bought their fruit and their vegetables, and the farmers, so. And those, in the second wave they were [unclear] by time the second wave, the a lot of the aircraft, I think there were five Lancasters went down, a couple of them collided and a couple didn’t make it, they had damage over the thing and had to prang [cough].
LC: Amazing yeah. [cough] So could you -
BS: Amazing. But what, see what happened there, when the, when the Yanks took over, when they took over Paris, and the Vichy French, you know, sort of come in and de Gaulle’s troops, the Free French forces up in the Brest Peninsula, they were given control of that area but they were not given the equipment to go and bomb, go and get stuck in to these other units at Royan and those places, you know, they just held back and held back and held back, they didn’t have the equipment. So when we came back we had to climb back over ten thousand feet over the Brest Peninsula again.
LC: Oh, bloody hell.
BS: Because at night time, the Yanks, anything up there’s not theirs so they just shoot at ‘em!
LC: So could you give me a sense then, of a, could you just run through a typical day if you’re on ops, how your day would start or [unclear].
BS: If you start like this. Well, I’ll give it you like this then, the, yeah, well after that we had no in flight engineer for a while, you know we got to do so – I’ll cover that in a minute - and then one day this engineer turned up, a Jock Munro, a Scottish lad, he turns up, Jock comes and straight into it. Well there’s, now Jock’s first flight was a trip to Stettin, nearly ten hours, in old Uncle again, and with its good Gee set, we got wonderful fixes all along the north coast of Denmark and that, you know, and down across Malmo and over Sweden, across Malmo, what happens over Malmo, anti aircraft sets up a fair dinkum, shot down about five of us, but there’d been a bit of story something before that they were, the Yanks had got stuff in to the Swedes about they were shooting and they were shooting going too low and not being fair dinkum and the searchlights were pointing towards Germany and all this sort of whatnot, but they and the Swedes must have thought they’d better do something about it, you know. So they shot down a lot, they were Sweden now.
LC: They were Swedes, okay, Malmo of course.
BS: Over Malmo. Yeah. So Jock sitting there, this is all right, we get over Stettin, and over Stettin was another target, the flak was heavy, searchlights again, searchlights got us, we got coned there again, it’s an experience being coned in searchlights, oh god, you just, you just, but they weren’t quite as severe in Stettin as they were in Kiel, ‘cause the atmosphere was pretty clear and stuff like that. In Stettin, by the time we’d bombed, I think we were on second wave, you know, and time we got there there was a fair bit of smoke down the ground, it was cloudy over the target area, the searchlight were rendered a bit ineffective, you know, so anyway then we got back, and when we get back over Stettin, over Malmo, there’s quite a few had held up one of their thousand pound bombs, was quite obvious, now and again boom, boom, and then all of a sudden -
LC: Oh dear.
BS: I’m looking out, I’m looking out and next minute this bloody almighty explosion, now, that was more, either that or he hit an ammunition dump or something down there or, or somebody saved his cookie.
LC: This round by Malmo, this is Sweden.
BS: Somebody saved his cookie, there’s this almighty explosion. What’s next? A blackout. [laughs] So now we go, now we’re headed out across over Denmark, down low over Denmark and that’s where we come out over Denmark, out, no we’re still a fair height then, we had to drop to two hundred and forty mile an hour down across the North Sea, to beat the sun, you know, so right, Ron sets the must have set it on Gee set two forty down to eight thousand feet, so right down to eight thousand feet, seven and a half thousand feet, seven thousand feet, oh look at Ron, give the old flight engineer a ring, see if Ron’s asleep – he was! Flight’s on Gee.
LC: Oh no! Single pilot too. Bloody hell!
BS: So what does that do? That, that gives us, puts us ahead of the rest of the squadron or anybody else that wanted to do the same, get back, you know, anyway, back we get and get back and I’ve got a note on one of those log sheet of mine, you’ll see the notice by the nav assessment officer - good trip spoiled by uncontrolled speed on the way home. But we arrive back a bit before the rest of the crews, which was, did happen a bit later, [unclear] but old Jock, Jock just stood there, as calm as you like, we said well, boy, this is the flight engineer we want on the crew.
LC: Oh, brilliant.
BS: And he did, he proved himself, another one Ron then, just after that was, we were on, was it more or less, wasn’t a typical day, out of typical day, one day we were on the battle order to bomb Stettin in the morning, a m raid on Stettin in the morning. Wake up at two o’clock for, get out of bed, get down to the mess and have a meal at three o’clock, half past three four o’clock, be at briefing at four o’clock, you know, over to briefing, stuff like that, get all that down. So away we go, this is all right, and we’re on the second wave here, this is on the second wave on Stettin, on Duisburg, Operation Hurricane, on the morning raid, the Yanks were following us, after, they bombed after us, and so we come in, old Jock’s carry on, but Ron this time, time we come up, our turn to bomb, just before we released our bombs, the Master Bomber gave the code word for “bomb at your own discretion,” ignore the, don’t worry about the thing, the target area’s been hit hard enough and bomb at your own discretion and now as soon as he said that, Ron come out, I can still, I can still hear it: he didn’t call the pilot, the bomb aimer by bomb aimer, ‘Hey Burnsy don’t bomb, don’t bomb a residential area!’ Just screamed like this, you know. Now, Burnsy, oh Burnsy said ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got a target ahead the same as this aircraft that’s just up in front of us, there’s a ship berthed beside a dock up on the Ems canal up just ahead of us’, I can see him, and this bloke I think has got the same thing, he did, and both our sticks of bombs get in there, but I can still hear Ron with that -
LC: Don’t bomb a residential area, yeah.
BS: Now I didn’t know till fifty years later when we met Ron over in Perth, went over Ron in the 1990s, to meet him: he was German descent.
LC: Okay, yeah.
BS: His father was, his family name was Hohenzonberg, it’s in the thing there, he was in the ANZ Bank, and had been transferred to Dubbo I think it was, well one of those places in New South Wales, in 1936. At the time when Hitler was starting to get a bit unpopular and the Germans, and the ANZ recommended to him that he anglicised his name, the family anglicise his name and Ron picked the name of Hastings, he was at high school at the time, Ron picked Hastings. That just explains it. I can see a lot of German in Ron: he was methodical, very methodical. The German methodical business. We’re not in trouble till we’ve finished. Old Ron. So there we are. And then we get back from, from Duisburg, what happened, about midday, get up and go and have dinner, you know, after debriefing and dinner, there’s another battle order out: we’re on it to bomb Duisburg again the same night.
LC: You’d only just finished!
BS: Back at, back at the darned briefing again at about seven o’clock or something, and too late to go to bed, just going, so we hung on kind of thing, go to briefing, get sorts out, and away we go.
LC: Did that happen often that you’d -
BS: No, no, no.
LC: It was just a mistake in schedule.
BS: Just the way it was, yeah, just the way, we had to catch up a bit I suppose. There were a couple did the two trips, maximum efforts, you know. It’s a saturation raid, and on we go. Over on the night, well of course going down no trouble finding it that night, the fires are still burning, you carried on and carry on and you look down on there and say how the hell would you like to be in Duisburg tonight, today, come back out, then on the way back out, it was bloody cold night, I think that might have been the night we got to a temperature about thirty five degrees centigrade outside, you know Lancs, the instruments, the temperature instruments were in centigrade, the speed, that was in miles per hour!
LC: Just to confuse things.
BS: So we’re on the way out, at twenty thousand feet and cloud tops and whatnot come out, and just I suppose oh, ten, fifteen minutes later, out of the Ruhr and then by that time, getting over probably over you know the top of Belgium, France somewhere, out of the Ruhr anyway, going, over France and there’s these cloud tops and all of the sudden there’s a bright moon shining on the cloud and this great canyon between the two clouds and the moon, you took one look and said what beauty. Now you look back there, now there’s what man has made, and look at that: what God has made.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Contrast.
BS: Just hits you, it just hits you, you know. You’re not meant to, and the Lanc with the purring you know old engines didn’t seem to interfere with it. You just sat there. You’re sitting on a platform and a lot of people never got the chance to see that, only now you know, night time. Beautiful sight. We got back to bed I think, got back to bed about two o’clock, four o’clock in the morning. We had to get over it, it was a long way, bit of a route out, come out four o’clock in the morning, we had to, we held up, no we weren’t held with briefing or anything. See a lot of, you’ve probably seen in a report with ninety five aircraft were shot down over, over Nuremberg one night, you know, the greatest loss in one night and somebody, they come out on the record books and operation books, ninety, over five hundred aircraft reported no problems; didn’t see anything. They won’t use their nous like. Now, you’re about a seven or eight hour, nine hour trip, you know, by the time you come back it’s got to be something bloody important before you tell these these interrogation, intelligence blokes, ‘cause when they get their teeth into something, they hold you up there for about a flamin’ hour, you know! No, nothing to report.
LC: Exactly, just want to get to bed.
BS: No, nothing to report, bombed on the markers, we think they were out a bit, but we bombed on the marker, get out and get back and get your cup of tea and get back into bed! [laughter] You’ve got to be practical. You’ve got to be practical.
LC: Yes. They probably knew it too.
BS: That was Bomber Command.
LC: Bob, do you want to take a short break?
BS: See that was a short, like a typical day, would be up, you’d be on the battle order, when you’d have to report for meals, then your briefing, then out to the aircraft and go and some things. Intelligence was quite good, we were always warned, after, some book I read once after the thing they went back to the mess and the hotel for a couple, [unclear] that was out, no way in the world would we go, ‘cause we’re always warned the old Bird in the Hand Hotel, they had ears in the walls and this was proved a couple of times, blokes would come back that were shot down they told us, we’d only given our name and numbers but they told us who our new CO was and he’d only been there a couple days.
LC: Is that right?
BS: Intelligence, we were put on to a target one night there when we flew in Sugar. Now Sugar was, Sugar’s dispersal point was out right against a sugar beet block, a bit of an old wire fence against it, so we get out and just as we’re ready to go out intelligence bloke comes flying in. Hold on, he says, time on target’s been put back an hour, word had just come through that Jerry’s changed the changeover, changed the shift an hour. So the idea was and then he woke up after a while, that if there were the shift coming on didn’t come on till half an hour later till that other shift had gone, the two shifts weren’t there together, that’s the idea [unclear]. So we go out to Sugar and we’re killing time you know, that’s when I took that photo that’s on the, and walked over to the fence to have a yarn to a couple of Land Army girls there and these two blokes, I don’t know where they come from, Cornwall or something I think, chipping the sugar beet - you boys flying tonight? Yeah. [Rural accent] You won’t be coming back here in the morn, be foggy. They were right too. Now this was, now what happened this night we got we went, on the way back we got recalled to - Mildenhall was closed for fog - and we were diverted to Honeybourne, down near Devon somewhere or some thing, Honeybourne, Honeybourne. Now you might realise Mildenhall is nearly on the Greenwich Mean Dateline, you know, and this night took us all, we’re never going west anyway, so you had nothing west on your chart, that was, so soon as that comes up, everything lines up greatly and sweetly must have lined up around Bomber Command, where the hell’s Honeybourne, what’s the lat and long of it, you know? But fortunately they came back with a Gee set, with the Gee reading for it, you know, so you got to a Gee on a certain channel, on 18.2 or something 18 02 or something, and follow that till you come to and you see the pundit, so that that worked out you know.
LC: Okay. You got in there and were okay.
BS: Yeah. So we got it and then we flew back the next day, you know. And then the last op, when we thought we were on the last one that was Dortmund. We come back, I, I got called up, the skipper come to the, down to the nav section, we’re on a bomb, on a battle order again to go to I think it was Gelsenkirchen I think it was, on the battle order that night, to go there and in this, after Uncle was shot down I didn’t tell you about the one we had the trouble at Homburg with after Uncle was shot down over Hindburg, you know, we got given another new aircraft: N Nan. So Nan, we’re in Nan for this to go to this event in to Dortmund in Nan, and get back, the skipper comes to us: we’ve got to go up and see the CO. He said well listen, you blokes, you’ve done your thirty trips, you’ve done one more as a matter of fact, he says now will you do another two to see the mid upper gunner finishes his tour? And Ron, that night over Hamburg when we got badly hit, Ron wasn’t in the best of things for that, that’s why he didn’t, wouldn’t take the, I think the CO could see, didn’t want him, want us to take him to as the Master Bomber to Hindberg, you know, so he Ron said no, no, no I can’t do any more, and I backed him, ‘cause I could see he was no good and also we had to consider three of the others, there were three others in the crew had completed.
LC: That was it then.
BS: Anyway, they, they saw their crew out and anyway, it was getting to a time when the risks weren’t all that great. Just, just the odd one, where the petrol became available to the thing, or the weather went against or something. weren’t all that great you know, or that unlucky shot, which does happen. Does happen, yeah.
LC: So when you’re officially told okay your tour’s over, what then happens, what then happens to you, once you’ve done your tour what do they do with you?
BS: Well, I was, we were given a fortnight’s leave, fourteen days leave. So I went back up to Scotland, moved around about, then when you came back, we were, I was posted as a navigator to a place called Husbands Bosworth, great name.
LC: They’ve got some great names in UK, don’t they.
BS: Husband Bosworth. So went and got our clearances, another bloke: Jim Claresbrook, he finished his tour. We used to fly together, we were the two lead navigators. There were three of us who were appointed what they called wind navigators. After a couple of trips when Met winds were out to billyo, they decided they’d have, get their main navigators to send back their wind, their wind speed what the wind they’d calculated at, and give it to the wireless operator and he would transmit it in code, right. So he was another wind navigator and the two of us always led the squadron on DH raids over the last few, last few six weeks or so. So Jim and I come in, so we go up to the CO’s office: he’s not in! But his offside is there, you know the old adj, he said oh the adj’s not in, but I’ll, just take a seat there if you want. He said there’s a bit of, bit of a mess, signal in from Bomber Command that might interest the two of you, better have a look at it on the table. We read it and this read two commissioned navigators who have just completed a tour of operations are to be retained on the squadron. One as a navigation assessment officer and one as a GH officer. Well Jim used to usually be at the GH lead, so we looked at them, so the adjutant comes in, we looked at him, and said look hey that job’d suit us, well you bloody beauties, he said, that solves a problem for me, doesn’t it, he said, I’ll cancel your postings, get back to the nav section!
LC: Okay!
BS: So Jim and I went back to the nav section where Flight Officer Webb couldn’t have been happier. Oh you beauties! I can do with you two back here so he’s laid down what he wanted. We could go, as long as one of us was there, that was right, the other one could be on holidays or do whatever he liked, as long as he was doing his duty wherever he was wanted somewhere else, that’s all right, and as long as we didn’t disturb him, he would, we could do briefings that he might not be, but he’d be there when the crews returned from operations, he’d pick up the turn, he would do that and he would always be in his room for an hour, an hour and a half after meal time, after meals, after he had his meal every day, he apparently he stood on his head behind the door or something and he had some separate yoga system or some bloody, he was an odd bod in some ways, very good bloke, but boy was he pleased to see us back there. So that was, that got him good.
LC: All right, okay well we might take a break now and then we come back just for a bit more final session and then maybe just cover the last stage of the war and the end of the war and demob and return to Sydney.
BS: That won’t take long, I’ll just cover that.
LC: Do you mind if we just take a quick break?
[Other] I’ll make another cup of tea, cheers.
LC: Okay, this is now part three, at twenty to three. So where were we Bob? Just sort of you’d done the end of your tour, you’ve gone back as a -
BS: Finished the tour, yeah.
LC: You’d been back there as one of a couple of navigators working back on the squadron.
BS: Yeah, yeah.
LC: So I asked you earlier on, what was your feeling though, when you, when you landed after that final mission on your tour how did you feel? Was it just, did you get out of the aircraft and sort of just -
BS: No well we didn’t know.
LC: Oh you didn’t know!
BS: The last time. We didn’t know until the CO told us, no.
LC: So did you know, did you know at the beginning how many missions you had to do to complete the tour or did they change that?
BS: Thirty. Though they lifted it at one place at one time to thirty five. Yeah.
LC: Okay,
BS: But that didn’t last long, they withdrew that.
LC: Okay, all right. So you hadn’t, had you been counting your missions as you went along, number eighteen, number nineteen.
BS: Put them in your log book, op one, op two, op three. Better not call them missions!
LC: Oh sorry. Ops, sorry! [Laughter]
BS: So we went down and then six months in I was called in to, after we settled in to the nav office with the nav officer outline what he’d be happy for us to do. Got tied up in a couple of enquiries about, one about a WAAF who had been promoted but it didn’t work and then another about an Aussie aircrew who had more or less referred to one of the girls in the Parachute Section as a Malvern Star who lodged a complaint when somebody explained to her what Malvern Star was in Australia!
LC: Oh dear! [Laughter] Oh dear.
BS: Called in all sorts of things, you know, but quite interesting, kept going, you know, kept up our our athletic training, we had a good athletics team there that sort. [Cough] At the end of the war after the end of the war when the, when the British Games were back in, the News of the World British Games at White City were on we entered a team for the 4 x 880. We come fourth in that, we should have won it, but we came fourth, we made a bad blue in the order of the runners, that worked out all right.
LC: Wonderful.
BS: Just with filling in time more or less, waiting, coming out here, you know. And then I, we got, eventually got called, they called down to Brighton then at about the end of May or something it was, time went around, at that point gave us leave weeks to do, up to Scotland a few times, round, just just more or less time was your own, got a bit boring as a matter of fact ‘cause you’re more or less waiting for a draft for a ship to come home.
LC: So at this stage, was the war in, Germany hadn’t surrendered at this stage, it was still the war in Europe’s still going.
BS: Europe had finished, yeah.
LC: Europe had been. So did it at any stage look like you may be posted or 15 Squadron deployed to the Pacific?
BS: We were, when we were called back I was in line then, 15 Squadron and 622 Squadron were forming a squadron of Lancasters and be supplied with Lancasters designed to carry the larger bombs, you know, to come out here to Australia, but when the RAAF or the Australian Government recalled us all to Brighton you know, that fell through.
LC: Okay.
BS: So if, if it was a decision made at the time without knowledge that the nuclear bomb was on the way, it was a very risky decision.
LC: Yeah, yeah. So would you have potentially then, so you said you were waiting for a draft to get on the ship to come back to Australia, was there any, was it definite at that stage you would demobilise or would you then come back and be part of the Royal Australian Air Force in Australia and go on operations with RAAF in the Pacific.
BS: You could do, some of them re-enlisted back in the air force, but no I, I wasn’t at that stage.
LC: So which stage, you mentioned earlier on you went up to Scotland when you’re sort of biding your time there, is that where you met Alma?
NS: Oh no, I’d met her before locally but then it wasn’t till we came back till, I was, after the tour and then, oh, a few month before we left home and was on leave, we sort of realised we had soft spots for each other.
[Other]: Ah!
BS: And agreed and worked out then, if when we eventually got the call to, on to the troop ship to come home, agreed that we’d correspond for a year, just give a year, kind of thing, and if we still felt the same way after twelve months we’d announce our engagement.
LC: There you go.
BS: And then get married. So that stuck to it, you know. Come back and got stuck into the war, I went back and we got married.
[Other]: Courted by correspondence for two and a half years.
LC: Two and a half years!
BS: Went through a heap of dry gullies and whatnot since, up and down like everybody else does.
LC: Yeah. Outstanding! So how many years have you been married now then?
[Other]: Seventy!
LC: Seventy years!
BS: A bit over seventy years.
LC: You’ve got your little card from the Queen and the Governor General and all that. Sixty.
[Other]: Sixty and seventy.
LC: Sixty and seventy, yeah.
BS: I got that from Queen Elizabeth, Bessie. When I got transferred to the squadron, I didn’t mention there before, but just a few days after we were there, the Royal Family paid a visit, that was one of the most interesting days I’ve had in my life.
LC: Yeah, is that right. Young Princess Elizabeth.
BS: When we found out that the old King he was, well, how he enjoyed talking to us, no errors in his speech, something like that.
LC: No stuttering?
BS: After he had visited the squadron and made an investiture over in the, in one of the hangars, and after lunch, we’d course we had all been given the protocol we had to follow with the royal at lunchtime: we couldn’t finish our meal before the King and we had to address him as Sir, the Queen was Ma’am, strict rules and tried to hide ourselves in the, in the lounge area after meal, till the visitors came in, was about three or four Aussies together, stood together over the side, the window near the main entrance to the officers mess, and when he come in to it he made a beeline straight for us.
LC: Did he!
BS: Yeah, straight for the, come over, how‘s it going, seemed to be very interested in what we were doing and whatnot, and one of the fellers said to him ‘You seem to be interested in something outside the window there, Sir.’ He says ‘I’m just looking-‘ where we’ve had that thing out there, I said ‘In that garden bed over there, they’ve whitewashed all the stones’, he said ‘I’d like to go over there and see if they’ve been whitewashed underneath!’ And that’s what his aide de camp told us, he says he’s with it all the way. He just get on, and when he explained a few things to us, to about Elizabeth was, made some remarks about one of the fellers gone up, we said to him well she could have come up and talked to us, he said oh no, there are -
[Other]: Are you recording this?
LC: Yes, yes.
BS: He says, there is a restriction he said, that made the Queen mother with the restrictions, but better not mention that.
LC: Not at all. Okay.
BS: But he was, he enjoyed it, and we gained the impression from him and from the aide de camp - that he’d given specific instructions that Elizabeth was not to be commissioned, she had to be, go through the ranks, and both her and, both him and her mother, were quite aware that since she’s been in the army and as a driver, she was learning quite a lot about boys. She had a real, he gave the impression she had a real fun attitude about her I can understand why she married a bloke like Philip, who’s the same as [unclear] tells things as they are.
LC: Yes. Exactly.
BS: The situation as it is.
LC: They only got married a couple of years later.
BS: Eh?
LC: They only got married about what, 1947.
BS: Yeah, yeah, you know just before that. Good on.
LC: So can I just get a general question then? You experienced some initial time training with the Royal Australian Air Force in Australia, and then you did the Empire Training Air Scheme, training and Canada, ops then, do you have any general observations of the efficiency of it all? The Empire Air Training Scheme?
BS: The whole, the general idea I think of the whole training was tremendous, it was really well thought out, it was tremendous. A Bomber Command squadron was a unique family: ground crew, aircrew they depended on one another and they treated it that way. I was on the squadron, there were two COs, the commanders of both squadrons made it quite clear that we were a family, [emphasis] we were brothers and sisters, the WAAFS. Now probably, might realise in all families now and again there is a black sheep brother and a black sheep sister, accept them, but that’s it. The ones that are, you’d treat them as sisters and I’d like to think that Bomber Command in particular goes down as one of the main factors in winning the war.
LC: Yup. That was going to be my next question.
BS: Because they tied up, they tied up so much of the German defences protecting their cities, that great heaps of guns and ammunition and manpower was not available to fight on their other, the African front or the Western Front., you know, gets on. When you look at it and I think some of their leaders recognised this at the end of the war, they suddenly realised that if they’d had this equipment available on the Russian front, or on the, down in Africa and the Middle Eastern Front, they’d have come out on top there. But they didn’t.
LC: So the, looking back at it now, while you were there on ops, did you get, you saw the sort of the targets you were bombing on a, you know, on a regular basis. Did you get much, were you given the opportunity to get much appreciation of the overall campaign? You got briefings on this is the way, this is what we’re trying and this is your part in it.
BS: At the time, the overall campaign particularly after D-Day and with the American Air Force bombing, we, we could see whether Montgomery and Churchill, or whoever was behind it, or Bomber Harris of Bomber Command, who had a definite strategy, don’t worry about the tactics, the strategy, you know. It was quite obvious to us that the Eighth Army Air Force had adopted Bomber Command strategy of area bombing, and by some great spin as I suppose you might call it, they somehow still got the word back to America they were still tactically, tactical bombing. ‘Cause we know some of their, some of their blues they were well out.
LC: Yeah. Well they bombed primarily, they decided to go mainly daylight bombing while the RAF -
BS: Well they only bombed daylight. Some of the things we‘re aware of, they’re well documented now too, in in histories of Bomber Command and the logs and that come in, the, bombed wrong targets, missed targets all together, didn’t take easy way out of things, you know, sort of. Yeah, yeah. Just got on.
LC: So have you got any observations about general command level, you said you had a couple of COs on 15 Squadron, other levels of command up the chain, did you have any observations and thoughts on, were they good commanders, from Bomber Harris down, were they, did you find them good commanders?
BS: Not really, no. That all seemed to work.
LC: Yeah, yeah. Okay.
BS: The general strategy, they had a good strategy, like I think Bomber Harris’ strategy: right, we’ll fight them on their terms - they started it, they get the same terms back, and that was it. And we backed him, his crews backed him.
LC: And now his statue is outside St Clement Danes.
BS: He never wavered from it, he never wavered from it, he never wasted time going round looking for photoshoots, making things for COs like politicians do today and COs and stuff like that, he had a job to do and he stuck to it and he never wavered.
LC: And was that generally, was that the general feeling on the squadrons at the time? Everybody had a deal of respect for this guy?
BS: Yeah, yeah. With us being the [unclear] squadron, yeah. I’d say so, yeah.
LC: So at the end you’re down there, down at Brighton, you’re waiting for your draft to get on the boat back to Australia so how did that all, that process all go, you eventually obviously?
BS: That’s good. ‘Cause we’d met a lot of blokes that had been taken prisoner of war, and coming back, you know and blokes that served on other squadrons so you met them again.
LC: Comparing notes!
BS: Went through along, yeah yeah. Made up for things. Then we could run around on the beach again, ‘cause the mines had been taken off, and all this sort of business, go to a few shows, and up to the Boomerang Club, a lot of blokes had ended up out in the Mediterranean too, see they’d come back to there, no.
LC: So how did the process work then? Suddenly you would have got a message at some stage, you’d got your slot, a spot on a boat to come home.
BS: At squadron there was a parade every morning at which Daily Routine Orders came out on, on that was, if a draft or duty the Daily Routine Orders who’s the officer in charge of the parade the next day and whatnot, sort of is, and you look at that and quite often you’d see the officer on the parade the next day is Flying Officer Joe Blow or something and you know Joe Blow is going on holidays up to some relatives and he’d be away for another three days so you or somebody else would stand in for him, that’d do and you knew darned well if you went away like that, and you got a leave pass, nobody worries about that sort of thing, and if you were away you’d send back a telegram, want an extension of two days, it was always granted. We’d go in to the Boomerang Club, we had our, collect mail and also we’d collect our pay there, going on your pay would accumulate, you’d go into Boomerang Club and get your pay up to date and then take it around and put it into your bank account at at the bank, you know round in Australia House, National Bank at Australia House. We had our contact, contacts in Australia House who would say to us there was no troop ship available for at least six weeks. So you knew right then any application for leave was going to be approved.
LC: Okay.
BS: No. But it was wasted time. And then when we got, when we did get out, I got home, I got on to the, we were told got to go on the Stratheden to come home, we came home via, through, called at Gibraltar and then at Port Said and Suez and then come around through the, straight around the corner down to Freemantle, you know, then up to Sydney. We had to wait, we had to slow down a bit after Freemantle ‘cause the Andes was coming, it left after us, but it had Queenslanders and New South Welshmen on board as well but the Andes was taking crews through to New Zealand and we had a few New Zealanders on as well that we’d picked up in the, coming through the Suez Canal and Al Quattara so the Andes caught up with us and that docked ahead of us in Melbourne so the New South Wales blokes and the Queensland blokes that were on the Andes got off and come on to, on to the Stratheden and that’s when my pilot, I met my pilot again, coming out, he’d come on the Andes and a couple of other fellers, you know, so we had a good yarn with Ron for a couple of days. We come on then up to Melbourne, shot out of Melbourne the next day up to Sydney, In the morning into Sydney, all on deck again to come through the heads, on to Sydney, into Perth at Woollamaloo again. The Queenslanders and that were the first off there and they got to shoot off out to Bradfield Park again, and told us what we had to do again, we had to be back and to be on the up at the, Gordon, to entrain to go on through to Newcastle and up to Brisbane, you see.
LC: So you did the rest of the way by train.
BS: Yeah, yeah. So when we get there that’s all right. When we come out it, I was, it was a bit confusing in a way, ‘cause when the draft come out, I was still on the draft as Flying Officer R W Smith, you know, but on my pay book and all, my war substantive rank of Flight Lieutenant had been, what they say, had been promulgated.
LC: Promulgated, yeah.
BS: Yeah, and they woke up to that just before I got on to the ship, you know, so right, but that didn’t make it, I didn’t worry about that. We get on to the train at Gordon to come home after killing bit of time. I raced back and saw an old lady I used to made her home available to me before we left, you know, and tell her I’d met a Scottish girl, she was a bit disappointed, she thought I’d pick a good Aussie girl, [laughter] but she said whatever you find probably right. So we got on the train, got in to Newcastle, [pause] Newcastle that night, yeah, that night and this Warrant Officer comes up, looking for Flight Lieutenant Smith, Flight Lieutenant Smith, yeah that’s me, you’re officer in charge of this contingent you know, no I said the first I’ve been told, he had a great heap and wad of papers that he kept to himself anyway, went and gave me through a bit of a run through what had to do sort of, you know, he’d go and then the next morning was the casino or something for breakfast and he come up and he turns up again he said now what’ll do is, we’re to be met, there are cars, RAC are providing cars to take us from the end of what was the junction – Clapham Junction, no - Brisbane -
LC: Brisbane, Run street?
BS: No, no, it stopped at South Brisbane, it stopped before South Brisbane, some there, maybe [unclear] airfield that it was, there was a some junction there, they’d be taking us from there, into the city and out to Sandgate, you know. Now when we get to Sandgate, they’ll take you right through to where you’ve got to congregate. The parents are all be up at this area here. Now I’ll parade them all, line them all, tell them up, call you up in to the front and give the order to quick march up to there and then when you get up to there we will be dismissed. I said righto, fair enough. So right, we get up to and do this: Quick march getting along, quick march, okay, there the parents there, I said well if I’m in charge of this bloody parade, I’ll just dismiss the damn thing! So we get up to court area, Squad Halt! Squad Dismiss! The bloody war’s over! Well I heard, I heard somebody say to dad waiting up there, my sister had said god, dad there he is up front. I heard some bloke say to my father – who was in the army you know in the army - is that your son, yeah, dad said to him I wouldn’t call the King my bloody uncle today. [Laughter] This old Warrant Officer looks over, he just sort of wandered off with a heap of paper.
LC: Brilliant!
BS: That’s what I said to dad, the war was over, the war’s just finished.
LC: The war is [emphasis] over. So what stage -
BS: They picked me up with my cousin who was in, had fought in Woolang Bay and got the, come out, wasn’t too good, and, ‘cause my younger brother now, couldn’t get over how much he’d grown. But now, my cousin Daniel Pampling, before the war Danny and I were great friends, ‘cause Alec was, quite a few years between Alec and myself, you know, a bit, eight years or something and Danny and I, actually we were close, we were as close as brothers, even after the war, we could talk to one another, about experiences, he’d tell of experiences with Japs, he was, he was hooked up all day in a heap of guinea grass with Japanese on the other side of it, they didn’t know, you know, and we could talk to things about that sort of, you know, Danny and I and get on now. When we came back Danny drove us down, he come back and on the way back, Dad used to take the cream into people in Harrisall, a Mrs Fresser, they were German, Karl Fresser and his mother, their son was in, was shot down and killed, about a year before I operated, you know, he’d only done a few trips, but he ended up on a, on a Pathfinder squadron and he was shot down on one of the Berlin trips, you know, in the winter of ‘43 ‘44. Well after that, she used to, I think she more or less adopted me as a son, she said to dad, she was always asking after me, you know. Now before we went home, back to Greenwood, to the farm, we come through Harrisall, dad wanted us to call on Mrs Fresser. [pause]
LC: Yeah. Oh nice, you popped in there did you?
BS: When I think about it I cry.
LC: So how did you -
BS: She was crying.
LC: Yeah. It’s a very, very emotional experience. Very emotional.
BS: Always called on Mrs Fresser. That’s how things change, never called her Pauline; and she always called him Mr Smith. You know, isn’t it amazing. Two sisters that, hey.
LC: So how did you find, you mentioned you were able to, your mate you were able to talk, your experiences with, how did you find communicating with other friends and family who hadn’t been, experienced it, was communicating was an issue or?
BS: I found that hard [cough] Mrs Fresser, but another great mate of mine, Jimmy Cossett from Boonah, Jimmy was shot down too, but he was murdered towards the end of the war, to meet his sister, you know, to meet the sisters or the close relatives of boys that had been killed. I had about three or four of them waiting to meet. It was a bit sobering.
LC: That would be very sobering, very, very emotional too I’d imagine.
BS: Little bit sobering. Anyway, we got, like Bomber Command blokes, we’re trained in the worst place to, it’s a game of life and death. There’s only two things we’re given to by our creator: that’s birth and death and death is it. That’s it. It’s like old Grey’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard: once they’re in there, all their joys are gone that’s it, the disappointments they had, well, and as Napoleon said what’s an honour or can any, any worth mean, what’s a posthumous award mean to the recipient?
LC: Exactly.
BS: Nothing. that’s why they cut out the posthumous awards.
LC: The French Army.
BS: Even with the Croix de Guerre and stuff like that. And they, of course they cut out all the Imperial awards too, like Distinguished Flying Crosses [unclear] and stuff like that. So you settled down there and that was it.
LC: So you were demobbed. Did you, did you have any sort of follow on support from the air force or the government?
BS: [unclear] I settled back into the war and then went back and got married. When we came back, after I married, we married, we shot to, Alma come to a different world, you know. And when we arrived was the best dust storm I’ve ever seen at Harrisall, when we got back to Harrisall to the farm, you know. And dad come in from the Territory, you’d better go into the bank they got a message for you, yeah, they want you to come back. I went back in, yeah, they wanted me to open a branch in Upper [unclear]. I did that, I went down and saw them, I opened that branch with a feller called Paul Gardner and he was a Rat of Tobruk. Now, and with a couple of a, couple of reunions we’ve had with our aircrew guards over later years there, come in, you realise in a way the bloody futility of, wars are not, not between two blokes, the people of the country. Now this Paul was a Rat at Tobruk, now at [unclear] on the corner of Kessel’s Road now where the Garden City or something, I had a relation bit further on had a strawberry farm there, but there were two blokes worked in the Department of Primary Industries as it was called then, you know. One was a, don’t know what he was, the other was a feller called Harry Warnenburg. Now, Harry come in to the bank one day to open an account something, and he’s sitting down talking to the boss, and Harry, he said to the boss, I’ve come out, no, I came out, I applied out here after, I think I was, came out from Germany after the war, and the war I was in Rommel’s Panzer Division over there. Paul said I was a Rat of Tobruk, he says oh we were around at Tobruk and they suddenly started talking to one another and they could remember things that both happened and seen there.
LC: Absolutely fascinating isn’t it, that’s incredible.
BS: Now there’s two blokes, ‘bout ten years before that, eight years before that they were fighting one another, or they weren’t fighting one another. They eventually come to the agreement, you found out the safest place on the war was on the patrol at night. Now, what you do as a patrol at night, if you’re coming round, you know the German’s there, so you maybe whisper something, you want them to overhear it, give ‘em a bit of false information, the German’s not going to let you know that he’s there, so he’s, he’s going to keep quiet too, get right so, and he said that happened on one particular incident that’s been well recorded with the Stuka shot down, with the one ack-ack gun that was there, got him fair and square first shot but it was a fluke, and they they immediately thought hello, hello, they’ve got a secret weapon and they stopped that raid and there were no raids for a couple days after till they worked out, somebody’d worked out for ‘em what it was. But there they are, two blokes, and then that blokes that meet at these things, that were prisoners of war, they’ve had their, over in England now at Bomber Command for quite a number of years there were get-togethers for trips down the Rhine every year. The blokes that shot ‘em down once they found out who shot them down.
LC: Have you every had the opportunity to meet any of the, any Germans?
BS: Only that feller.
LC: That bloke there.
BS: No German. I nearly did have one that had come over but he had gone back.
LC: Well Bob, I think that probably covers it, very comprehensively. But it’s been fantastic sitting down with you and hearing, hearing your experiences, but those, and your records that you’re graciously allowing us to copy, they will be a great complement to the recording of this interview so thanks again, thanks again for that.
BS: If you want to have a copy, a whole lot of those I’ll have a yarn with my sons, where to put them, you know. I happen to be a lad that comes from Harrisall which was on the doorsteps in Amberley, where my things’ll rest up there, with my grandmother that came out, between her and myself, the two of us, we’ve seen the whole development of that district. We overlapped by eight years on, on. But she was a girl, oh some of the stories, she was, she’s a wonderful woman, not like her two sisters. No, dad, bit like her father, they were get on. She had a way of telling you, if you did something wrong, she wouldn’t just chastise you, she’d say you know you’d better think about it, it might be very wise not to do that again.
LC: Yeah, just give you a hint, yeah.
BS: She’d make you think about it. It might be very wise not to do that again you know. I had a, made sure dad, mum sent us to Sunday School every Sunday morning, walk across the paddocks. I had a a Sunday School teacher, he was a Scotsman out here, he was killed later on out here, but you did something wrong in church or Sunday School he’d take you round the back behind the water tanks and give you a clout behind the ear.[laughs]
LC: Well it was effective. It was very effective!
BS: Well my dad gave me effective thing for being bullying. When I was a young lad, the bloke on this place next door, his father was a, was a champion rifle shooter, you know, the Queen’s medal, the King’s Medal they used to call in those days, go over to England, this feller annoying hell out of me, annoying things, I came to dad, said next time he does that heck, sock him one on the nose. Which I did.
LC: Didn’t bother you again?
BS: No, didn’t, not beat me. No, I got stripes in Ipswich Grammar. I’ve always been like that as a lad. Blokes’d have a go and I got caught Ipswich Grammar School having a fight in the in the thing one day, the old Dean come up and no ‘cause I, nobody would pick a fight with me because they thought he’s a bloody boxer! This bloke, when I came, I come in one day, I can still remember this like, how old would I have been ‘bout six, something, covered in bit of blood, so mum cleans me up, you know, I’m getting a hell of a dressing down, stop fighting, then all of a sudden it wakes up to mum that it’s not my blood: it was his out of his nose.
LC: What’ve you been doing!
BS: And of course dad, what you do? I just cuffed him one on the blood, on the nose. Dad said it was the best thing you could have done! I agree with that. Mum had the other one.
LC: Well seeing like Bomber Harris’ strategy, you started it, we’re gonna finish it!
BS: Yeah! Bomber Harris, he used to -
LC: Well that’s probably a good way to finish it Bob, so thanks for, thanks for the time, it’s been an absolute pleasure sitting down and talking about your experiences.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Bob Smith
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lee Collins
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-03-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASmithRW190325
Format
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03:30:53 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Bob Smith was born in Brisbane, Australia. He recalls moving to the family farm in 1932 and being a member of the Air Cadets during his school years. Upon leaving school, Smith undertook training as a bank clerk. Following the events of Pearl Harbour, Smith registered for the Royal Air Force as an air crew guard on the understanding that once he turned nineteen, he would train under the Empire Air Training Scheme. In May 1942, he was called up for initial training. He describes his first experience of death, while stationed at the Air Observer School in Cootamundra, and persuading the selection committee at Bradfield Park to alter his crew role status from pilot to navigator. On the 10th February 1943, Smith embarked from Sydney on the USS Hermitage. He recounts the details of the five-week voyage to San Francisco including kitchen duty on the ship, hunting for a record needle in Honolulu, and observing the damage at Pearl Harbour. Smith trained on Ansons in Edmonton, Canada, before traveling to Britain, where he attended Officer Training School in Sidmouth and the Advanced Flying School at RAF West Freugh. He describes the formation of his crew at RAF Chedburgh, training on Wellingtons and Stirlings, and receiving blunt head trauma on a training flight (which he traces health issues in later life back to). While stationed in RAF Feltwell for the Lancaster Finishing School, Smith recollects supporting D-Day by dropping Window along the coast of France, and using Gee during a mining operation over the Garonne River. Smith’s crew joined 15 Squadron, stationed at RAF Mildenhall, where he carried out 30 operations and remained on the squadron as a wind navigator. He details the events of his first and last operation, the process of morning and night-time operations, and flying over the Ruhr, Arromanches, Malmö, Duisburg, Stettin, and Dortmund. Finally, Smith describes demobilisation, reuniting with his family in Australia, and visiting Scotland to marry his wife, Elma.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tilly Foster
Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Australia
New South Wales
New South Wales--Cootamundra
United States
Hawaii--Honolulu
Hawaii--Pearl Harbor
Canada
Alberta
Alberta--Edmonton
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Devon
England--Suffolk
Scotland--Wigtownshire
France
Europe--Garonne River
France
France--Arromanches-les-Bains
Sweden
Sweden--Malmö
Germany
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Dortmund
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
Hawaii
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1932
1942-05
1943-02-10
Language
A language of the resource
eng
15 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
crewing up
debriefing
demobilisation
Gee
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
mine laying
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
observer
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Feltwell
RAF Mildenhall
RAF West Freugh
recruitment
searchlight
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/785/9340/PTurnerHA1801.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/785/9340/ATurnerHA180829.1.mp3
e8342d61f314b839367caf2cfbcc9535
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Turner, Bert
Herbert Alan Turner
H A Turner
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bert Turner (b. 1923, 1607412 Royal Air Force). He completed 31 bombing and supply operations as a flight engineer with 196 Squadron. He was shot down twice.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-29
Rights
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
Turner, HA
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
MH: We’re now running. So, we just had Bert, thank you for giving your time up and also to Peter for giving his time up as well. This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command. The interviewer is Martyn Hordern, that’s me. The interviewee is Herbert Turner. The interview is taking place at the Tri-Services and Veteran’s Support Centre, Hassell Street, Newcastle, Staffordshire. Also present is Peter Batkin, a friend of Bert. The date is the 29th of August 2018. So, we’ve obviously just, when we’ve asked you Peter, Bert sorry that your date of birth was the 23rd of December 1923. Where were you born?
BT: London.
MH: Whereabouts in London?
BT: 99 Ledbury Road, Paddington.
MH: Paddington.
BT: I think it’s Paddington. I wouldn’t be sure.
MH: No.
BT: It’s either Paddington or Kensington.
MH: What sort of family did you come from? A large family, a small family?
BT: Mum and dad and six kids.
MH: And where did you —
BT: I was the youngest but one.
MH: Right. I’m just opening my bottle of water of here so apologies for the fizz. Had your dad served in the First World War?
BT: Yes, he was in the RAF, in the RFC.
MH: Right.
BT: As it was then. I found a photograph the other night of my dad in his tropical kit for the Dardanelles.
MH: Right. So he’d served at Gallipoli.
BT: Hmmn?
MH: In Gallipoli. The Dardanelles. Wasn’t it Gallipoli, yeah?
BT: Ahum.
MH: James, dad was in Gallipoli as well.
BT: He, yeah, my dad and his three brothers fought in the First World War.
MH: So, what was life like growing up in the 1920s in London?
BT: We were alright. We probably, practically lived in Kensington Gardens and the parks and that. And they say, they say it was the hungry years. I didn’t know. I never went hungry. We always had something on the table. Mum was main cook and that was it. We, I went to school at St Stephens in Paddington. Did all my schooling there from the time I was three ‘til I was fourteen. Then I got a, I started work. I worked at Lyons in Cadby Hall, as an office lad. I didn’t like that. Went to McVities Biscuit factory and I finished up in the London Co -op as a delivery boy until I joined up.
MH: So —
BT: And that —
MH: At that point you were you were sort of like as I say a young teenager just before the war started.
BT: Yeah. Well, we in the Scouts and the Cubs and then I transferred to the ATC. 46F Squadron in Kensington. I’m trying to think. It must have been what? Nineteen 1940, 1939 I suppose, I joined the ATC. Of course, we went all through the blitz. But as, as I remember it all I ever wanted to do was fly. That was the be all and end all. I mean Ball and Mannock and all of those, they were my heroes and —
MH: And where did that come from. Do you know that?
BT: I’ve no idea because nobody [laugh] nobody else in the family wanted it but my my idea was I wanted to go straight in to the Air Force as a lad. A boy. And my mum wasn’t having that. Only rogues and vagabonds were served, went in the Services.
MH: What was your dad’s view having served in the First War?
BT: Dad never, dad never argued with mum. They were both short, small people. Mum was just under five foot and dad was just over five foot. About five foot two. But only slight people. Very. But I can’t remember them falling out. They never fell out in front of us.
MH: No.
BT: I’m not saying they didn’t fall out but —
MH: So so you mentioned —
BT: A pretty, a pretty average sort of life.
MH: Yeah.
BT: It was a family and that was it.
MH: How did, how did the Blitz affect you because obviously you were in London and it’s 1940?
BT: Not a, not a lot. We used to go, we used to go out fire watching at the shop in Barlby Road. We were, we used to go messaging with the ARP and that sort of thing. But it never seemed to, I know it sounds ridiculous but it didn’t seem to affect life.
MH: No.
BT: It, life went on.
MH: Yeah. But you could see the after affects I assume of the raids.
BT: You’d get up in the morning and there had been a bomb here or a bomb there sort of thing and you saw different things I mean, like toilets hanging on a wall and that sort of thing. It seemed remarkable. But my, my life just seemed to carry on sort of thing until I was seventeen and a half and then I went to Acton and volunteered. And mother wasn’t very pleased about that. ‘You’ll go quick enough but —’ she said, ‘They’ll send for you quick enough.’
MH: Yeah.
BT: I said, ‘Yes, but I want to go in the Air Force, mum.’ So, that was it.
MH: Did she have to sign you in at that age or were you old enough to sign yourself?
BT: No. I signed myself in [pause] and mother didn’t speak to me for ages. She didn’t, didn’t want to know. We’d already got, I’d already got two brothers in. One in the Air Force and one in the Army and mum said that was enough. But I said, ‘It’s got to come mum. I’ve got to go.’ So that was it.
MH: And the truth be told you wanted to go though.
BT: I wanted to go. Yes. Oh yes, I was. I thought it was going to be all over before I had my chance. But I went to Acton and volunteered and I had to go to Oxford for three days for, you know I don’t know what they called it, an interview with, and exams. And they told me I could go in as a flight mech and [pause] I could study to be a pilot if I wanted. Fair enough. And they called me up on August the 2nd 1942. I went to, from [pause] went to Penarth for seven days where they kitted us out. And from Penarth we went to Blackpool where I did my square bashing and, in civvy digs. We were there ‘til December I think it was and we marched out to Halton in December ’42.
MH: And that’s when you went to a, to a squadron then, did you?
BT: No. No. That was, that was training school.
MH: Right.
BT: I started my flight mech’s course and they put a notice up on orders. They wanted flight engineers. So we, a lot of us volunteered and we had to go down to London for our medicals and I was accepted. And about February we were posted to St Athans in Wales where we did our flight engineer’s course. And [pause] we had a funny experience there. We were all out on the, not the outside the hangars where the school was for a NAAFI break and all at once somebody says, about four or five hundred blokes stood around and all at once somebody shouted, ‘Jerry.’ And everybody drops to the ground and looked and three, three German aircraft flew across. The only thing was they were wearing RAF roundels [laughs] They were captured aircraft. But that was amusing. And then it was 1943, mother died while I was at St Athan and that was a blow. We [pause] we didn’t get over that. But I finished up, I passed out at St Athan. I think I got about sixty five, seventy percent. It was a pass anyhow through and I got my tapes and my brevet. We moved from St Athan to 1657 Con Unit at Stradishall, just outside Newmarket and while I was there I crewed up and met my crew, Mark Azouz, John Greenwell, Leo Hartman, John McQuiggan, Teddy Roper, Pete Findlay and myself. And we started flying Stirling 1s and we did our day circuits and bumps. Started night circuits and bumps. And we did a couple of circuits and bumps with the instructors on board and the skipper screened, turned around, he said, ‘I’m getting out,’ he said. ‘You take it around for one yourself and put it to bed.’ And my instructor said, ‘If he’s getting out I’m getting out. You’re on your own.’ [laughs] I thought fair enough. Off we went. Undercarriage up and away we went. Anyhow, skipper said, ‘Undercarriage down.’ And the undercarriage wouldn’t play.
MH: And this was the first time you’d flown solo as a crew.
BT: Yes. So well, we did all we could think of which I don’t suppose there was much. Told them downstairs that we were having trouble with the undercart. Anyhow, we eventually, we had to try to wind it down by hand. We got one leg down but we couldn’t get the other one. So, we got one leg down and that was tighter. They decided that we were going to have to land at Waterbeach. Then halfway to Waterbeach they decided the best thing was to land it on Newmarket Race Course. So, skipper put her down on Newmarket Race Course.
MH: And you got the one leg back up again.
BT: One leg up and one we, they managed, we managed to break the lock on the starboard, no, port, port leg and the skipper took her in and we landed and I think she was, she was a mess. And we all got out and climbed out and we were all standing on one of them rings and the ambulance driver came up and looked at us and he counted us and he turned around and, ‘What, nobody hurt?’ And we, nobody had a scratch so that was it. And then we were called in the flight office the next day and wingco was very annoyed. He told us we’d broken his aeroplane. That was, that was the end of that. Anyhow, we got away with it and we finished up we were posted to 90 Squadron at Tuddenham just before Christmas and we did, I don’t know, it was six or seven trips. We did a mine laying to Sylt, Kiel and that sort of thing and then at the time they were busy bombing the French factories for the Doodlebugs and that. And we did a couple of them. And then they posted us away to Tarrant Rushton to go glider towing and para dropping. We went [pause] we went to Tarrant Rushton, we were only there for oh, a couple of weeks, a couple of three weeks as I remember it. It doesn’t, doesn’t gel very easily but I don’t think we operated from there. We, we took over Keevil from the Americans in around about March ’44 and we were glider towing and doing supply drops in France for the SOE.
MH: What sort of stuff were you taking over to the SOE? Did you know what you were taking?
BT: No. No. It was all in canisters or baskets or anything. Occasionally we would have a couple of bods we’d take over. SAS people initially. A lot of them were Poles.
MH: Were there, was those trips quiet trips or —
BT: Sometimes, it was but we did [pause] D-Day came up and they decided that we’d got to, all aircrew had got to fly with sidearms so they issued us all with .38 pistols and you can imagine nineteen, twenty year old kids playing cowboys and Indians. But we woke up one morning and went out to an aircraft and they’d painted the white stripes for the invasion. That was, all came as such a surprise that nobody knew anything about it until it was done. But the mechs were standing on the wings painting these blooming white stripes with brooms. Then D-Day came up. We were ready to go on the 5th. But no. We were ready to go on the 4th and it was cancelled. And then they gave the order that we were going on the 5th and we took the paratroops over D-Day on the, we took off on the 5th you know.
MH: Yeah.
BT: Early morning to —
MH: What planes were you flying then?
BT: I beg —
MH: What planes were you flying then?
BT: Stirling 4s. Yeah. We took twenty paratroops over, dropped them off and that was it.
MH: What was that like that you were flying across then?
BT: Do you know, do you know Peter will tell you, I’ve said this so many times before. It was one of the quietest trips I remember.
MH: No flak. No —
BT: We, we saw barely anything. It, it surprised, it, it sounds ridiculous when you first say it but as far as I was, we were concerned it was one of the quietest of our trips.
MH: And the paratroopers. Do you remember what —
BT: The paratroops went in.
MH: What battalion were they from?
BT: Hmmn?
MH: Do you remember what battalion they were from or [pause] Do you remember what —
BT: No. No. No. No, we didn’t have a lot to do with them. Chatted to them and all this, that and the other, you know.
MH: British I assume.
BT: Yes. Yes. It, it was just another trip. And then we did a trip to France and a delivery for the SOE. Arms and whatever and we got there and when you went on these SOE things all you were looking for is five bonfires and we found it. And when we got there Jerry was waiting for us and it got nasty. First, we went in, dropped what we got, came out of it. There was a light flak gun busy after us but we got away with it and he never touched us and we flew in and checked for a hang up. Well, on a Stirling there’s a step and it’s across along the width of the bomb bay and the bomb bay on a Stirling is three different sections. That’s why it can’t take big bombs. And in this step there was three little glass windows only about the size of a tin. You know, a pea tin top and you held a torch against one end and someone looked at the other and if they could see the torch you hadn’t got, the light, you’d got no hang-ups. If they couldn’t you’d got a hang-up. And we had three hang-ups of containers.
MH: Just hadn’t been released from their old —
BT: They hadn’t dropped. So it was skipper turned around and said, ‘Well, they never touched us that time. We’ll take them back.’ Which thinking about it afterwards was a stupid idea but we didn’t think about that at the time and I said, ‘Well, somebody will have to give me a hand.’ I said, ‘Two of them I can drop myself but the other one’s the other end of the aircraft.’ So, ‘Well, McGuigan can drop the other one.’ So, fair enough. And when you drop them you just pull a bolt back and they drop. But they drop without a parachute. A parachute won’t open for some reason. I don’t know why. So anyhow, skipper goes and we go around and just as Leo said, ‘Drop them,’ dropped a, Jerry hit us and he put the starboard outer out of action, damaged the starboard inner and peppered us a bit. None of us were touched. Fair enough. We came out but the skipper shouted for me and I went up and he turned around and said, ‘The starboard outer won’t feather.’ I said, ‘Well, use the —’ [pause] he said, ‘The starboard’s running out.’ ‘Feather it.’ He said, ‘It won’t feather.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ So I said, ‘Get Pete out of his turret,’ because the torque on the prop on the starboard outer could possibly take the rear tail up. The fin and rudder. So we got Pete out of his turret and just as we got Pete out the props flew off somewhere over France and we flew back. We landed, landed at a place called Colerne just outside Bath. And they were, they were surprised to see us naturally so, but they were flying Mosquitoes and Spitfires. And I remember the CO there turned around and very unpolitely, turned round at the skipper and said, ‘I don’t know whether you’re a fool or a hero bringing this abortion in here.’ But anyhow the skipper got a DFC for it and we went back to Keevil.
MH: What, what was it like? You’ve had, you said your early flights were fairly sort of just dropping mines and that. I take it you’d never been really shot at had you in those first flights before you did your —
BT: Oh, we’d been shot at but not as badly if you know. It was just part of the —
MH: Yeah.
BT: Somehow or another it [pause] it didn’t seem to be a part of the equation that you got [pause] I don’t know why.
MH: And, and so and then you go to drop these supplies off and you go back round again.
BT: Yeah.
MH: And then you get hit.
BT: My point, thinking about it afterwards it was supposed to be a secret mission [laughs] Well, Jerry’s there shooting at you. These blokes have got to pick, down there have got to pick these containers up and they’re not light by any manner of means and disperse and get them off and Jerry’s on the doorstep. So all you’re doing really is handing it to Jerry.
MH: And what, what were your thoughts when the plane got hit?
BT: What can I do?
MH: Did you ever think you’d never get back?
BT: No. It never. Do you know, I can’t remember that at all. In any, I got, in any event I could never think of, it never entered my head that we were going to get hurt. Then after that it was we did a, there was an Operation Tonga as I remember it and it was a massive air drop to the south of France of containers for the French. Free French. That was, I think that was the only time that we flew then with other aircraft at daylight. Then I got married. I married a WAAF on the station. We got married on the Thursday. We had three days leave in London. We got, came, we went back and they shut the gates for Arnhem. And on the 17th of September we took a, took a Horsa to Arnhem and we went again on the Monday and it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad at all. The opposition we met was practically negligible. On the Tuesday we had apparently there was Air Ministry issued an order that all intelligence officers were to fly a mission. Well, my skipper was a Jew, as was the bomb aimer and the intelligence officer we had was a Jew so I suppose we would keep it in the family and he decided to come with us and of course they just gave him a helmet with a mic and a, earphones on. No, no oxygen mask or anything. And I used to go up second dickie when bomb aimer went down to the bomb aiming position but he’s sitting in my seat. So I’m halfway down the fuselage and in a Stirling that’s it. You can’t see anything. You’ve got to stick your head out the astrodome to look around sort of thing and flying along quite happily. Go to, got to the [unclear] where we turned in to the target and we were flying along quite happily and all at once, ‘There’s flak over there.’ [pause] ‘There’s flak.’ The skipper turned around. He said. ‘There’s flak where?’ He says, ‘Over there.’ He said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘That’s port.’ He says, ‘And the other side’s starboard.’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And it’s a long way away don’t worry about it.’ I thought to myself things are getting tricky. Jerry’s getting naughty. So I went down and stuck my head out the astrodome. Oh, well away in the distance is a few bursts of flak. We went in and we dropped our Horsa and went back home again. And then we went again on the Tuesday and Jerry got organised and it was rough. We had a rough and we were jocking through this lot the skipper turned around. He says, ‘Flak,’ he says, ‘I wish I’d got him with me now.’ He said, ‘I’d show him flak.’ We got away with it. They knocked us about a bit and we got a few holes in but we were fair enough and we, we got back and that was our thirtieth so we thought that’s it. No more. A rest. And on the Wednesday night they told us we’d got to do another one on Thursday. We’re short of crews. Fair enough. So on the Thursday morning we goes out to the aircraft and the skipper walks along and his scratching cats are missing and he’s got a bar on. What’s this? So, he anyhow, the skipper’s got his commission. Pilot officer. He got awarded a, promulgated with the DFC same day. So, we’re on for Arnhem, Thursday. Go out to the aircraft. Run it up. We couldn’t get revs and boost on. I think it was the outboard inner. One of them was playing up anyway. Doesn’t matter. Couldn’t get it to turn. ‘Take the spare aircraft.’ So you had to move everything that we were carrying to the spare aircraft and the rest of the lads had taken off so we were about twenty five, thirty minutes behind them taking off and skipper said to Leo, ‘Cut corners. Let’s get back with the lads and we can go over together.’ But we got there just as the lads were coming out and we had to go in on our own and it was rough. We got shot up a bit and it happened. And while we were over Arnhem this is a bit cheeky but still I went second dickie. McQuiggan, the wireless op went down the back because we were carrying baskets. Big baskets that had to go out and two Army dispatchers were flying with us and McQuiggan went down the back to supervise that.
MH: Were the dispatcher’s jobs to push the stuff off?
BT: Yeah.
MH: Was that their job?
BT: Yeah. Well, the Stirling had a big hatch at the bottom, in the, at the bottom of the fuselage near the tail where the paratroops dropped out and we used to have to push a, an A frame down and peg it in to stop the paratroop bags wrapping around the elevators. So McQuiggan’s down there doing that and we went through and as I say Jerry knocked us about a bit and we got through and McGuigan come up from the back and I went back to my own station and McGuigan come up and he, he’s covered in blood from head to foot. I looked and I thought where do you put a dressing? And I don’t know, ‘Where are you hit, Mac?’ He turned around and he said, ‘The elsan.’ I said, ‘The elsan?’ A shell must have burst under the aircraft, and the elsan, the chemical toilet is held down by three bolts and it had taken off and it had thrown it all over McQuiggan. And elsanal fluid is the same colour as Jeyes fluid and he’s —
MH: He’s not covered in blood.
BT: Anyhow, we got, we’re flying along and skipper asked Ginger for a course to Brussels. We’re flying on two engines. Well, we’re moving on two engines and I looked out the astrodome and I’ll never forget it. I looked up and there’s six fighters and I thought they were Tempests. And I wouldn’t mistake a 109 for a Tempest. A 190, yes. And I still say they were 190s. The Air Ministry said there were no 190s flying [unclear] Anyhow, they decided that we were going to be their meat and they, they came for us. Well, the rear gunner shot the lead aircraft down. The lead fighter blew up. I saw it with my own eyes. But then they got nasty and skipper gave the order to abandon aircraft and we baled out over a place called Niftrik and we, the Army picked us up. We got landed, four of us finished up in a farm house in Holland and, but they gave us egg and bacon. Then the Royal Horse Artillery picked us up, took us back to their camp, give us a night’s kip and put us in a lorry to go back to Belgium. And just as we were moving off, well we got to a crossroads somewhere or other and the Redcaps, Army Redcaps waiting there. ‘You’ve got to leave this and get out, sir.’ So we got out and we were lay in a ditch for I don’t know and in the finish we, we were walking across a field in Holland and the Americans picked us up and took us in to Veghel. And we got in to a Veghel, we spent the night there. And the next morning the Green Howards relieved that and the paras were coming out of Arnhem and I can’t think of the general, was it who was on the ground but he came out and there was a staff car waiting for him and he had, he went in the side car err in the staff car and before, there were five actually. Another crew bloke I don’t know he was now got in with us and we went in that to Brussels. We spent the night in Brussels and flew back to England the next day. We got in to England on the Sunday. The put us in a coach to take us to the Airworks in London and of course it was almost passing my home so I turned around to the driver and said, ‘You can drop me here. I’m going to see my dad.’ And, ‘You can’t.’ I said. ‘I’m going to.’ I said. So, I got out and I’m carrying a box like a wooden box, a tomato box with peaches and grapes from, and apples from Holland. And I got out the car at the, on the Western Avenue and I stopped a bloke in a car and he took me home [laughs] And I gave him a peach and oh he was quite happy. And I, we lived in quite a big house in London in Chesterton Road at the time and you had to go all round the house and in through the scullery door at the back and the dark passage from the scullery in to the kitchen. And just as I walked up the passage my dad come out of the kitchen and he took one look and passed out. And my brother was with him, he was on leave and he came out and he said, ‘What are you doing here? You’re dead.’ Thanks very much. They’d had telegrams, “Missing believed killed.” Because none of the boys had seen us. Seen us bale out.
MH: No.
BT: I had something to eat. My dad took me to Paddington Station. Well, my dad paid my fare back to Keevil. I never had that money off the Air Force either [laughs] And I’m standing on Paddington station, a sergeant. My trousers were ripped, I’d got no collar and tie, I was wearing a bit of orange supply chute around my neck, got no cap. I was wearing one flying boot and one flying boot that I’d cut down because I’d got an ankle wound and two MPs parading up and down in front of me and clearly they could see [laughs] And eventually they come across to me. ‘Sergeant, you’d best come with us.’ And they took me to the RTO and the RTO officer gave me a bed and they woke me up with a cup of cocoa. Put me on a train for Keevil and when I got back to Keevil of course I’d got no money. I got no money for the bus. One of the airman had to pay my fare. The bus driver wouldn’t let me on the bus without the fare. So, when the airmen paid my fare and I got back to Keevil and I thought well, I’d better go and see the wife, so —
MH: Bearing in mind you’d only been married a few days at that point.
BT: Yeah. I’d been married a week exactly when we were shot down and she’d been told that she was a widow. So anyhow, I walked in, up to the cookhouse and she come running out and the first thing she said to me was, ‘You stink.’ ‘Thanks very much.’ Anyhow, I finished up, I went up the billet and had a wash and had a shower and went to sick bay to get my ankle dressed. Hospital. So they put in the blood wagon and sent me over to Ely. And I’d hopped all over Holland, I’d hopped halfway across England, I got out the ambulance. I had to hop all over the hospital and they x-rayed it and all the rest and, yes. Fair enough. Nothing wrong. Dressed it and put it back and I went back to Keevil in sick bay. Well, my wife had to go in hospital for an operation about three days later so I turned around to the quack, I said, ‘Can I go in the blood wagon to see the wife at Ely?’ ‘You can’t,’ he said, ‘You’re, you’re a stretcher case.’ I thought thanks very much. So we, anyhow we finished up we stayed at, I was in dock for ten days I think and on the Saturday they let me out and I got, I was sent on survivor’s leave. And my wife came with me, and we had to travel from Keevil to Stoke on Trent. We got to Bristol and we had to change stations at Bristol. Anyhow, we got on the train and like all wartime trains it was packed and I’m standing there and the porter slung a case in and of course hit my ankle and didn’t know what it had done at the time of course. But I finished up the journey sitting on kit bags and God knows what. And when we got to my wife’s home my wife took the dressing off and had a look and it had knocked the scab of the wound. So, anyhow, I had my leave and went back and while we were on leave we, they’d moved from Keevil. I think they’d gone from Keevil to Shepherds Grove. And we got, when I got to Shepherds Grove we, I went and reported sick and I’m back in bed again. And anyhow it all went well in the finish and that was it.
MH: Could we just go back to when you got shot down and you parachuted out of a plane had you ever parachuted before? Had any training to parachute?
BT: Never had any training at all apart from someone saying, ‘Well, you put the chute on here and you pull this. Oh no, we never had parachute drill. We had dinghy drill but I never, we never had —
MH: What was dingy drill?
BT: Eh? They used to take you to the local swimming pool.
MH: Baths.
BT: Swimming baths, and they’d throw a seven man dinghy in the water upside down and you wear a flying suit and a Mae West and you’d got to go in there, swim in, swim to the dinghy and turn it upright. It’s quite a job and it was. On the bottom of the dinghy there’s two hand holds and you have to hold these hand holds, pull them towards you as much as you can and then jump on the bottom of the dinghy to turn it over.
MH: Right.
BT: You finish up underneath it and that was, that’s the only dinghy drill we did.
MH: And what height did you bale out at then?
BT: Around about three to four thousand feet.
MH: And did the parachute open straight away or did you have to have a rip cord?
BT: On, on rip cord.
MH: And did anything happen on the way down?
BT: Yes. Jerry tried to kill us.
MH: Would you mind just sort of giving a bit more detail to that?
BT: Well, we all, we all baled out. The rear gunner was killed in the aircraft. The navigator went out the front and I went out of the parachute hatch and we were shaking hands on the way down and a Jerry fighter decided we were his meat and it was very naughty. But he didn’t notice the Thunderbolt behind him and the Thunderbolt, American Thunderbolt shot him down. But they shot the skipper. The skipper was killed.
MH: On the way down.
BT: On the way down on his ‘chute. Well, he was wounded. He died in hospital. So I was told.
MH: And when, when the Germans were flying at you could you feel the bullets whizzing past or, or was you just, is that what —
BT: It’s no good saying yes.
MH: No.
BT: I can’t remember.
MH: But you knew what they were trying to do?
BT: We knew what, as I say the navigator and I, Ginger and I we flew, we dropped together. We dropped in a field together and because [pause] Germans wear field grey, well, we were lying there in a field and there is a grey bloke, a grey dressed bloke dressed, heading for us. And Ginger turned around, he said, ‘Bert, shoot him.’ I said, ‘You shoot him.’ He said, [laughs] ‘I’ve lost my gun.’ And it was a good job we didn’t shoot him. He was a Dutchman wearing one of them navy blue boiler suits that had been washed and washed [laughs] and just looked like Jerry field grey.
MH: So, that point where you dropped down were you, were you behind German lines then or were you —
BT: It was a very fluid situation. Nobody knew who was where or any, if you understand what I mean. There was no front line or, it was all the time I was in Holland you couldn’t say where you were. You were in safe ground sort of thing.
MH: Yeah.
BT: It, one minute you’d be talking to your own Army sort of thing. The next minute there were Jerries but [pause] we saw, we saw a Jerry, a Jerry Tiger tank. It came looking round. Smelling around. But we had nothing to with the job. Didn’t get involved with it.
MH: What was, what was going through your mind then? You’ve been shot down, you’ve been parachuted, the Germans are trying to kill you on the way down, you’re now not quite sure where you are. What was going through this young man’s mind?
BT: I don’t know what was going through my mind. All I knew, all I could say, think was we’d got to get to the Army. We’ve got to find it [pause] I know it sounds ridiculous but I can’t remember being scared. I should have been. I should have been but I can’t remember being scared. At times now I have nightmares but it didn’t seem to work then.
MH: No. I take it you weren’t given any training how to, you know if you parachuted over enemy territory how to evade the enemy.
BT: Pardon?
MH: Were you given any training to evade the enemy?
BT: We were given lectures. You know. What to do and what not to do but it —
MH: And how did that bear out in reality when you actually got there? Did it actually make sense?
BT: It didn’t bear out because there was no one to help us if you understand what I mean. We didn’t, we didn’t run in to civilians. The only time I saw any civilians during that period was when we landed and we were taken to a farmhouse. They took us. We went in to the farmhouse and there must have been the district in this farmhouse trying to, wanting us, getting round to us you know and they couldn’t do enough for us.
MH: No.
BT: But when, once the Army picked us up I don’t, I don’t think we spoke to a civilian until we got to Brussels.
MH: And your ankle injury. How did that, what was that? What had you done to yourself?
BT: Well, the only thing [pause] I don’t know. I was the only one who was scratched apart from Pete. Pete was killed. I didn’t realise I’d been touched until we landed and then when we dropped off I felt it. But whether [pause] the only thing I could think of was a piece of shrapnel. But where it went heaven knows. There was no, nothing there. Still got the scar for it.
MH: I can imagine.
BT: It wouldn’t heal. Once the scab had been knocked off it wouldn’t heal and I was in dock oh quite a while. I remember the Group MO came to, to visit and he looked at it and they were, our, our, the squadron doc was looking after me and he turned around and he said, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘You can’t do anything else,’ he says. ‘Just keep pouring it in.’ Yeah. But at the time I was under the weather. I was having boils and I had a Whitlow on my finger and that was, that was amusing. I I went home on leave with a Whitlow and that night, oh God I was in agony and my dad came in to me and he said, ‘What’s the matter?’ And I said, ‘My finger.’ ‘He says, ‘Go to the hospital in the morning.’ So I went to Du Cane Road Hospital and they had a look. ‘Oh yes. Sit down. Sit. I’ll send someone to you.’ So I sat down and two blokes came and they were rugby three quarterbacks I think. They were both about seven foot tall and fifteen stone like Peter and they said, ‘Are you the airman with a Whitlow?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Come on.’ And Du Cane Road is a teaching hospital and they took me in a theatre and there are all these seats up there and we sat down at this table and he turned around and he said, ‘Put your finger —', he put a block on the table, ‘Put your finger on there,’ he said, and he sprayed it with some blooming stuff and it was, yes, and he was chatting away quite happily and he picked up a scalpel and he banged on my finger and it just went thud and then he promptly cut it all the flipping way down and wrapped and turned round, ‘Come on.’ And we went to the plaster of Paris place and they put a splint on on my hand. Then they bound my hand up like a boxing glove and I said, ‘How can I get my jacket on?’ Fair enough. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘We’ll pin your jacket up, put you in a sling. Fair enough. Then he gave me two pills. He said, ‘You’ll want them tonight.’ So, I said, ‘Thanks very much.’ ‘Now, you can go home on the bus.’ ‘Thank you very much.’ So anyway, I went out of the hospital on the bus and I’m standing at the bus stop and these two old ladies standing there. I heard one say to the other, ‘That poor boy,’ she says, ‘I wonder how he got his arm — [laughs] I thought to myself, I wonder if they would smile if they knew it was a Whitlow. But that was it and then for the next four months nobody wanted to know me. I used to go back to camp and oh, nothing. Go away. Go on leave. And I was on leave on and off for about four months. Then what, I don’t know how true it is or what it is but they were on about something that we’d been behind enemy lines and we’d come back and if we went again we could be shot. What it is I don’t know but anyhow, it was—
MH: They didn’t want to be associated with you just in case you got shot down again or something.
BT: No. Anyhow, we they decided that we could [pause] I stayed on leave and I was home on leave with the wife at night. Just got in bed. Gone to bed. The doorbell goes so I go to the door. ‘Yes?’ Telegraph boy. Well, I’d still got a brother in the Army and I thought, Derek. No. “Flight Sergeant Turner.” Oh. “Return to unit.” Oh. The next day I go back to unit. ‘Wing Commander Baker wants you.’ ‘Oh, right.’ Goes to see Wing Commander Baker. ‘Ah, Turner. I want to do some flying.’ ‘Yes,’ What’s that to do with me? ‘But my navigator and my flight engineer are sick.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ ‘Well, Greenwell’s decided he’ll fly with me. You don’t mind do you?’ Well, how the hell do you say no to a wing commander? So, ‘Yes, sir.’ So fair enough. ‘We’re doing a cross country tomorrow.’ Fair enough. So we do a cross country with Wing Commander Baker. Now, my pilot was good. I’m not saying Wing Commander Baker was bad but my pilot was good. And the Stirling that they got ready for us they filled with Australian petrol. So, when we come in to land we’re down the runway. Oh dear. A few nights later he decides we’re doing a bullseye on Leeds so we do a bullseye on Leeds and they put the same petrol in the plane and we come down [pause] oh dear. And Wing Commander Baker turned round, he said, ‘That’s twice I’ve done that.’ And Ginger said, ‘Yes, I know sir. We were with you both times.’ ‘No need to be nasty, Greenwell.’ ‘No sir.’ Turner. 19th of February the tannoy goes. ‘Flight Sergeant Turner report to Wing Commander Baker.’ ‘Yes sir.’ Down to Wing Commander Baker. ‘Ahh Turner. My navigator is better so we don’t need Greenwell.’ So I said ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘But Morgan is still bad.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘Well, I want to operate.’ Oh dear. That’s a bad idea. ‘Yes.’ ‘You don’t mind do you?’ ‘No sir.’ ‘Right.’ So, December, February the 20th and we know the war’s nearly over and they’re trying to keep Jerry this side, this side of the Rhine. They don’t want him to reform on the other side of the Rhine so they’re knocking down all the bridges on the river to stop him and we got the job. So we flew to Holland and we attacked this bridge at the Waal. On the Waal at a place called Rees and it was a nightmare. It was the worst night. The worst trip I ever had. And then just to cap it all Jerry jet jobs were on the job. So we were shot up by the flak and shot down by a Jerry fighter.
MH: Jet fighter that shot you down was it?
BT: And out of the, out of an aeroplane I jumped again. I landed in a pig sty up to my flipping knees and I didn’t know whether I was in Germany or Holland or where I was. I’d no idea. I was on my own. And then a soldier came marching through the blooming door and he said, ‘Where is he?’ I said, ‘Who are you after?’ Oh, he said, ‘You’re English.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘I was told it was a Jerry.’ I said, ‘No.’ So we went back. I went back to them and I was, I was no how. I remember him giving me a glass of rum and they took us back to a place called Tilburg, I think it was. and flew us home in an air ambulance. But Wing Commander Baker and Flight Sergeant Gordon were killed. And that was the end of my flying career.
MH: What were your thoughts the second time you floated down from a plane?
BT: I couldn’t tell you what I thought. I don’t know. I don’t, honestly. As far as I know I was terrified and [pause] at —
MH: What sort of height did you drop from this time? Similar sort of height?
BT: Hmmn?
MH: What sort of height did you parachute from this time?
BT: About seven thousand feet.
MH: Oh, that was a bit further up.
BT: And we were pretty high.
MH: I take it the two that lost their lives were they did they lose their life in the plane or as a result of the plane crashing? Didn’t they get out or —
BT: I don’t know. I don’t know. All I remember is Baker telling us to bale out. The navigator, bomb aimer and the wireless op and myself got out.
MH: What was it like suddenly seeing these jet powered planes? I take it you’d heard about them before then or —
BT: No. It was the nearest thing I could put it down to it’s the same as looking at one of these sci-fi comics. You know. It just didn’t seem real.
MH: No. Extremely quick.
BT: Hmmn?
MH: Were they flying extremely quick?
BT: It seemed they were there and gone you see before you looked, you know. It [pause] it’s, it’s an episode I can’t really remember and I’m not sorry about that.
MH: No. I can appreciate that. So, at that point you then become a twice holder of the Caterpillar Club badge.
BT: I I never got the second one.
MH: Didn’t you? Oh right.
BT: No. I did get the first.
MH: Oh right.
BT: The first, on my jacket. Oh God. Excuse me.
MH: And I take it, do they come from the manufacturers of the parachutes?
BT: The first one [pause] this one the adjutant of the squadron applied for it and got it for all of us. But the second one I heard nothing at all.
MH: Can I take a picture of that before we finish, Bert? If that’s ok?
[pause]
MH: So they owe you one then.
BT: Yeah, they owe me, they owe me the train fare from blooming Paddington to Keevil. Well, my dad my dad paid.
MH: Yeah. Yeah. So, so that was the, that was it for your flying then after that second one.
BT: Yeah. I finished flying then. I went to [pause] I went to Gillingham in Kent in the office. I was tootling around there and the Warrant Officer Powell came to me one day. He said, ‘Ah, Mr Turner.’ I’ve got my WO for Arnhem. When I got back to Shepherd’s Grove, I think. Shepherd’s Grove. Not, yeah Shepherds Grove, the wing commander was a South African captain and he turned around and told, he said, and he turned around, he told me, ‘I’ve put you in for an award,’ he said, ‘They refused it. So you’re having your warrant. Money will do you more good anyhow.’ And that was it and I went to Gillingham and Warrant Officer Powell came to me. He says, ‘I’ve found a job for you.’ I said, ‘Oh, yes?’ ‘Yes.’ He says, ‘There’s an orderly room at Roborough.’ He said, ‘I want you to go there and run it.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not —’ ‘Oh, you’ll manage.’ He said, ‘You’ll manage.’ He said, ‘You’re in charge.’ I said, ‘Am I in charge?’ He said, ‘You’re the only one.’ So I went to a little aerodrome just outside Plymouth. A place called Roborough, and I think it was run by ex-aircrew. Every, everywhere you looked there were aircrew that had finished. Of course, the war had finished and it was, it was, it was an eye opener. We went there and as I say I was orderly room clerk and station warrant officer. The CO was a chap called Hill. Henry Horace Hill. He was a flight lieutenant observer and he used to mess at Plymouth and he used to travel by motorbike and sidecar from Roborough to Plymouth.
MH: When did your demob come along then?
BT: Yeah. Then demob came and I went bus conducting. I went down the mines. I tried, I went to oh, TI Industries, Simplex and I couldn’t settle anywhere. I don’t know why. But then I went to a place Cartwright and Edwards to, on a pot bank. And I started dipping and finished up on the kilns and that was it. I finished up. I did thirty five years working for a pot bank.
MH: Any thought of going back to London? Was it always that your wife —
BT: It’s never bothered me. I like, I’ve been down to visits but when mum died the family broke up. It, of course the problem was we were all away from home at the time. I mean my brothers were in the Air Force, in the Army and I married as I say and I came up to Stoke on Trent. Derek married and he went to Manchester. We corresponded for a bit and then then somehow or other it, you know how it is. Things don’t go as you plan and we lost touch. I don’t know where any of my family are now [pause] No idea. But [pause] I haven’t, I don’t miss London at all.
MH: So when we just go back to when you, just for my benefit and I suppose the people who will listen to this interview. What was your, what did your job entail on the Stirling? What was your —
BT: Main, mainly you were watching petrol consumption and changing tanks.
MH: To balance the plane out and —
BT: No. For, a Stirling’s got fourteen petrol tanks.
MH: Right.
BT: At least. It can fit another six. I know it sounds stupid but it is. There’s a little bomb bay at the root of the wings and it’s room for three bombs. Or three petrol tanks in each.
MH: Each side.
BT: Wing each side. We had, one holds three hundred and twenty gallons, two hundred and forty and then as it gets towards the it’s [pause] [unclear] of petrol but you had to change tanks. But you always got rid of your small tanks first.
MH: Now then, you ended up flying, was it Stirling 4s was the last Mark you flew?
BT: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: Now, were they, how did they differ from the, I think you said you flew Stirling 1s at the start, didn’t you?
BT: Well, there was no front turret and there was no mid-upper turret on a Stirling 4. They took the turrets out. And there was a big hole cut towards the rear of the fuselage where the paratroops jumped or dropped out.
MH: And that, the plane was principally marked as a Mark 4 because they did it for parachutists and —
BT: Yeah.
MH: Dropping supplies.
BT: Yeah.
MH: And what have you.
BT: Yeah.
MH: So did you lose some of your crew from when you first started?
BT: Oh yes. We lost a mid-upper gunner. Yeah. A mid-upper gunner that we’d [pause] Teddy Roper. We lost him. I never heard what happened to Ted. He, he was an Essex boy as I remember. Essex or Kent. And he had a girlfriend Penny [ Lopey ]
MH: The things you remember.
BT: The things you think of.
MH: Yes. And did you keep in touch with any of your crewmates after the war?
BT: The last one, Leo. The last one.
MH: Yeah. Leo Hartman.
BT: Leo Hartman. He died at Christmas.
MH: Oh dear.
BT: Yes. I’ve got a copy of his logbook.
MH: Was that the logbook you mentioned to me earlier on when we first met?
BT: Hmmn?
MH: That you had lost your logbook.
BT: Yeah.
MH: And you said that you had a copy of one of your crewmate’s.
BT: Yeah. Yeah.
MH: So, you kept in touch with Leo all the way through up until he passed away.
BT: Well, we did. Just Leo didn’t go on the last one. Leo. Leo, when we came back from Arnhem Leo went to London and he never, he never, he went to Uxbridge and stayed there ‘til the end of the war ‘til he was demobbed. But we kept in touch. I kept in touch with Pete Findlay until he died. But McQuiggan wasn’t interested and Ginger, the navigator he was too far away. He was up, he lived at Fencehouses in Durham.
MH: Right.
BT: That way. And we went in, he went to take up, to a pub. Became a landlord I believe. He got a DFM for the trip we did to France and he died of cancer. Thirty odd years. He was sixty something when he died. And I I met Pete [Bodes] brother and his wife.
MH: That was your rear gunner.
BT: Yeah.
MH: Was that a difficult meeting?
BT: Yes. They want particulars and it’s not nice. Did he get, did it hurt? I don’t think being hit by a cannon shell hurts. But, he had a girlfriend on the station, a WAAF and she had that you know that purple mark on her face.
MH: A birthmark.
BT: Yeah. And it was rather bad and she’d been up to, for some reason and [pause] and I had [pause] when you get talking like this it, it comes back.
MH: Like I said before if there are things you don’t want to talk about then just say.
BT: But, no. It [pause] it’ll pass.
MH: So, we’ve got all these thirty one, thirty two missions that you’d fly in the end.
BT: Thirty one. Yeah.
MH: What was life like in between? You watch these television films of, sort of flying boys down the pub and then back to reality.
BT: I get so cross at times when I watch these films. It’s, I mean I watch the Dambusters and I’m ready to hit someone.
MH: Because it’s not how it was.
BT: They get it so wrong. Well, I mean they’re, they’re supposed to have advisors and when they get the basics wrong it’s time to pack up. Now, you take the Dambusters. It’s nothing. It’s wrong, but it’s nothing. They’re having egg and bacon before they go. They sit down for a meal in the film. You didn’t have egg and bacon before you went. You had egg and bacon when you came back and blokes used to joke, ‘Can I have your egg if you don’t come back?’ And if you look, you watch there’s three Lancasters taking off in line abreast on a grass aerodrome. On a grass airfield. Carrying mines? They’d dig in.
MH: You’d take off one after the other on a hardstanding. A hard strip.
BT: Used tarmac runways. You know, I mean it’s only [pause]
MH: But that’s film for you, isn’t it?
BT: Yeah. Oh yeah.
MH: I think we’ve, we’re probably coming very close to the tape running out. Not that there’s a tape
BT: Yeah.
MH: But another fascinating hour and a half. Is there else that you think you need to tell me? You want to tell me.
BT: I don’t think so. It’s, I mean, I’ve always [pause] I’ve always thought I had a good war. I had a pretty clean war. It’s only when I think of the last op that I get a bit maudlin. It, I was lucky. But I met some decent people. I, we go, we are very fortunate we’ve, we’ve got in with a group, “D-Day Revisited,” and we go to France every June. And we go to Arnhem because I make a point in September of going to Arnhem and going and seeing the lads. I take a wreath to the skipper and he’s still the skipper seventy odd years later. But we go to, go to a little village in France, Arromanches and we were there this year and Pete turns around to me and said, ‘Bert, two blokes here want to shake hands with you.’ I thought right. Turned around and there’s a group captain and an air vice marshall. And I turned around to him, I said, I pointed to groupie, I said, ‘That’s God.’ I said, ‘And that one I don’t know.’ But I mean they’re nice chaps. They’re, they talk to me as if we’re equals and all the rest. You wouldn’t dream of it happening [laughs] I mean, I don’t, I don’t think I spoke to our group captain, and I couldn’t tell you his name, in all the time I was on the squadron.
MH: Different times.
BT: But we meet these chaps and they seem to be interested.
MH: I don’t think they seem to be, I think they are Bert. I think they are being polite.
BT: Did you say you wanted a photograph?
MH: Right. Right. So, I think I’ve asked all the questions. Thank you for giving your time. I know there’s some difficult things we’ve talked about but as you say, you know —
BT: I’m sorry if it’s been boring.
MH: Quite the opposite. It’s been fascinating. Its been absolutely fascinating. It’s been a privilege to sit and listen to you.
BT: It’s —
MH: And I think the important thing is in the future people will be able to listen to your words.
BT: Oh.
MH: And the things that you did, and I think we have to remember you were a twenty something young man, weren’t you?
BT: Well, this is it. We were. We were kids. We were, we were enjoying ourselves. We, it was a big adventure.
MH: Yeah. When you get older you start to look back and think well as you get older and experience affects you do different things.
BT: Oh, that’s a different matter, isn’t it?
MH: Yeah. It is. Right. I’m going to turn the tape recorder off. We’ve been going for oh an hour and twenty six minutes so its twenty five past, twenty six minutes past two.
BT: Oh, are you alright, Peter?
PB: I’m alright. Yeah.
MH: Peter has been very well behaved. I’m very grateful, Peter for your time as well.
PB: You’re welcome.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bert Turner
Creator
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Martyn Horndern
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-08-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ATurnerHA180829, PTurnerHA1801
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Description
An account of the resource
Bert Turner was a member of the Air Training Corps before the war. He volunteered for the Air Force and was called up 2 August 1942. After training he became a flight engineer with 196 Squadron. He flew some bombing and mine laying operations before the squadron was transferred to Transport Command. He remembers dropping supplies to the Special Operations Executive and paratroopers on D-Day. His Stirling was hit by anti-aircraft fire on a supply drop over France but they managed to return to England. He was later shot down by Fw 190s over Holland. His rear gunner was killed he describes how they were attacked while on their parachutes. He was wounded in the ankle by shrapnel. He evaded and met up with Allied troops. After returning to operations after a lengthy convalescence, he was shot down a second time by a Me 262 over Germany. He discusses the role of the flight engineer on Stirlings. When Bert returned to London he decided he was so close he would go and visit his father not knowing that he had received the telegram saying he was missing presumed killed. When he saw his son he thought he was a ghost and passed out.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Dorset
England--Suffolk
England--Wiltshire
Netherlands--Arnhem
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1945
Format
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01:23:36 audio recording
Contributor
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Julie Williams
1657 HCU
196 Squadron
90 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
Caterpillar Club
crewing up
evading
flight engineer
Fw 190
ground personnel
Heavy Conversion Unit
Me 262
medical officer
military ethos
military service conditions
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
perception of bombing war
RAF Keevil
RAF St Athan
RAF Stradishall
RAF Tarrant Rushton
RAF Tuddenham
shot down
Special Operations Executive
Stirling
training
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/260/3406/PGardinerEF1701.2.jpg
3d1d6163b01832b82e5e90e52d7d1125
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/260/3406/AGardinerEF170809.1.mp3
344ed80f38814e93bb28e5aed249c0bb
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
Gardiner, Ernest Frederick
Ernest Frederick Gardiner
Ernest F Gardiner
Ernest Gardiner
E F Gardiner
E Gardiner
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Ernest Frederick Gardiner (1923 - 2019, 1322805 Royal Air Force).
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-10-04
2017-08-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Gardiner, EF
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: My name is Pam Locker and I am here in the home of Mr Ernest Frederick Gardiner [address redacted] and Mr Gardiner’s daughter, Lynn Moult, is also with us. So I would just like to thank you again, Fred, very much indeed, on behalf of the Bomber Command Digital Archive for agreeing to talk to us.
FG: My pleasure.
PL: Thank you. So Fred, I guess where would, a good place for us to start is perhaps your childhood and a little bit about your parents perhaps, and how you eventually became part of Bomber Command, so.
FG: I was born in Banbury, 1923, and I went to a local Church of England school, called St Leonards, when I was five, until I was fourteen. And my father worked for Morris Motors at Cowley, Oxford, and my mother didn’t work, out, but she died when I was just coming up to ten years old and I was then looked after, supposedly, by my father’s spinster sister, but I think we looked after her rather than she looking after us; she was a bit useless! [Chuckle] Anyway by the time I was fourteen I went to work in a furniture factory and I was trained mainly as a french polisher. Then the war started when I was sixteen, and I thought, the job I had wasn’t reserved because it was furniture making, although they were changing over to making gliders, but I wouldn’t have escaped being called up, so I jumped the gun as it were, and joined the RAF rather than finish up in the trenches, haha. So I was called up after that, after I registered. I was called up in November 1941 and went through usual training processes. I went to initial training place at Padgate, near Warrington, where I was kitted up and then went on to Blackpool. I was in Blackpool in digs, civilian digs, for four months doing the usual military training plus initial learning of Morse code and signals. After that, I, after a spell of leave, I was posted to Number 10 Signals School at Madley near Hereford and that was to complete the course as a wireless operator which meant training on radio equipment, continuing Morse code training, we had to reach a speed of twenty words a minute. After that, another little spell of leave and then I spent four months in Leconfield, near Beverley, Yorkshire, and my job there was to fly as a wireless operator with trainee pilots. So we had a trainee pilot and an instructor pilot and myself, the wireless operator, and my job there was to collect bearings from different stations, so that they could be used by the trainee pilot, and that was quite a nice job, I liked that job, for four months and I had to go back to Madley for another three months to take what they called the Aircraft Facility, the aircraft level of training which, until then I was supposed not to have been flying, but that was very nicely ignored I think. And after training there and I was sent to do an air gunnery course, that was at Walney Island, Barrow in Furness, and we flew on Boulton Paul Defiants, sing, two seater fighters, to do our training and we had to fire Browning machine gun from the turret at targets being towed by other aircraft. That was quite exciting, and from there I went back to Madley, did a further course and from there I went to an Operational Training Unit, an OTU, where I was crewed up, and that was an interesting experience. We, there were I think twenty pilots, twenty navigators, twenty of all the categories, and forty air gunners, because there were two air gunners in a crew. And we were mixed up in a hangar and told to sort ourselves out into crews. It was a bit strange, but I think it was a very effective, very worthwhile because you couldn’t really complain after that you see, it was your choice. From there, after we finished OTU, which was a three month course, and flying Wellingtons and doing practice, all sorts of practice flights, short distances, doing short take offs and landings and longer trips up to about eight hours, flying from A to B to C all round the UK, at night as well, to gain experience, did all the job, each one of us doing our job. So, after that we went to train on Manchesters and Lancasters and we were then given a flight engineer join the crew, so there were seven of us. A short course and we went on to Bomber Command which was then at Syerston, near Newark, and we were there and did, well we did, we were shot down on our fifth operation. We did, the first one we did was to Essen and then we did three in a row to Hamburg and then we were on our way to Mannheim, Mannheim Ludwigshafen, its full title, and that’s where we were shot down, by Oberleutnant Petrich, I’ve got a photograph of him, so [pause] from being, being shot down, I was picked up in Belgium by the Belgian Resistance. I’d come down right in the far south east corner of Belgium, very nearly into Luxembourg, and I landed in the dark. It was, to be shot down was about the most horrifying experience I ever had, or likely to have and that’s quite terrifying, sitting there minding your own business and suddenly you’re surrounded by tracer bullets and things coming whizzing past you. In fact that attack killed three of the crew, they missed me and fortunately they missed the pilot and the bomb aimer escaped and the navigator escaped, and we all managed to bale out. Then, as I say, I was picked up by the Belgian Resistance and after five, five weeks of being taken from house to house, village to village, town to town, into France and finished up in a place called Fismes, F I S M E S, Fismes, near Reims, Reims, Reims. And I’d then met another Air Force chap, a New Zealand pilot, he’d been shot down, well he crashed, he crash landed and so the two of us finished up the last week or two in France and then the RAF sent a Lysander aircraft which landed just outside this town of Fismes and picked up myself and this sergeant pilot, New Zealand pilot, and a Belgian agent. This was a night time job, we were escorted up to a lonely field, torches were placed out to make up a flare path. The Lysander came in and landed over a haystack, which was rather unfortunate, because the field that it was coming in had been ploughed up, but where the haystack was, they’d left that strip. Fortunately the pilot managed to do a reasonable landing, and the pilot was Group Captain Verity and he’s written a book on this, these adventures, called “We Landed By Moonlight”. His name: Hugh Verity. I’ve got a copy. So we were picked up there and made a decent take off, came back to England in broad moonlight. Fortunately I don’t think the Germans were interested in one little plane, so we weren’t molested all the way back and we landed at Tangmere, which is near Chichester, and went into an RAF house, on the airfield, and the next day we were taken up to Air Ministry to explain where we’d been [chuckle] and kitted out again, rekitted out. So, back to normal again. But I went back, had some leave - month’s leave. I was a bit annoyed that my New Zealand colleague, he got six weeks and I only got four weeks, and he couldn’t even go home, to New Zealand. And after that I was posted as an instructor in radio, Morse code and also the Browning gun ‘cause I was an air gunner as well. And I served, I was sent down here to Southampton, to the University Air Squadron and I was there until I was demobbed which was a couple of years. Nice job that, very nice job that was. So back home and I didn’t want to go back into factory work – it was hard work, not very well paid, no pensions or anything like that - so I studied and got a commercial wireless operator’s qualifications and with that I got a job with a local firm here in the Channel Islands, Channel Islands Airways, and as a wireless operator, radio officers we were called now, and I did that job for a couple of years to and fro the Channel Islands and then eventually I was posted up to first Northolt, and then Heathrow and transferring from de Havilland Rapides, which were old fashioned two, bi-planes, bi-plane, and went on to um, Vikings, Vickers Vikings, and then - Viscounts - and I did, I think it was thirteen years, and did most of that on the Vikings, er Viscounts, but then they made the radio officers redundant, technology advanced [interference] and they didn’t need a wireless operator and so I was made redundant when I was forty, but that took me up to finding another job, which I managed to do as a technician with IBM at Hursley, and I stayed there till I was retired at sixty, and from there went, with my wife, to live in Chandlers Ford, how many years, er, well, until I was, until I was -
[Other]: Ninety.
FG: Yes, until I was ninety and then we both, my wife and I, both came to Sunrise Care Home and my wife was only here for a few months and she passed away so left me here on my own ever since. That’s nearly four years ago. I think that brings up right up to today.
PL: Well Fred, [Clear throat] that’s a wonderful story. Can I take you back to when you were in Bomber Command and ask you to describe your escape? You’ve talked a little bit about being shot down, which was very interesting, but can you tell us about, you know, once you’d landed and this extraordinary escape that you had, in a little more detail?
FG: Yes. Okay. I remember the horrifying moment when these bullets and shells came through the Lancaster, absolutely terrifying. And you think, I thought to myself it’s our turn, because you knew all the time all the raids were going on, quite a lot of aircraft shot down. Lancasters, quite a lot of those went and this feeling suddenly, when it happens to you, you think my turn, it’s our turn. Anyway, the Lancaster caught fire. It was my job to go back to a position in the fuselage on the floor of the aeroplane, where there was a handle which you could pull which released a big bomb, we had a four thousand pound bomb, that released it, in case the bomb aimer either wasn’t able to, or his equipment was damaged, so he couldn’t drop it from his position so it was my job to dash back and pull this handle and the bomb went down. By then the Lancaster was so well alight I thought well I’m not going back to my seat, I’m getting out. In fact the mid upper gunner was getting down from his turret so I thought oh well, the captain’s probably told us to abandon ship, so I went back to the rear door, which was my escape hatch, escape exit, and I, we’d never done a parachute drops as practice, but we’d been told just what to do, especially in a Lancaster where the tailplane is right up alongside the door and if you didn’t do it properly, it would hit you as you went out. So all these, this training, these lessons, came, came sharply to mind and I managed to get the door open, kneel on the, kneel on the door sill, head down, I’d already clucked my parachute on to the harness, put my arm across the parachute, not my hand on the rip cord. Now some people lost their lives by pulling the ripcord too soon and sometimes in [emphasis] the aircraft, that dead loss, so I thought no, you’ve got to be careful, put my arm across the parachute to cover the handle so that I wouldn’t pull it too soon, so I put my head down to miss the tailplane. When I think about it, I think I did quite well there, I was with it all the time, sharp, sharply thinking what I’d gotta do, so I went out head first, did a couple of somersaults, let the Lancaster get clear, pulled the ripcord, big jolt [emphasis], then it was all peaceful. Lovely, a lovely calm night, and a little bit of moonlight I seem to remember. Anyway, the starlit sky above, but looking down, trying to see the ground, was absolutely black. You can’t see a thing on the ground at night. And I was trying to see where I was gonna land, looking down, focussing several thousand feet, couldn’t see a thing, absolutely black and wallop, hit the ground! Parachute came gently down over me and got myself sorted out and I was just a few feet away from an electric pylon. [Laugh] So nothing to do then, but I rolled myself up in the parachute until it got light. And we had an escape pack, so I opened that. I had some Horlicks tablets and some tubes of cream and few other useful things: a compass and some maps, which were printed onto silk, like handkerchiefs. I sorted all that out and I was just going to make my mind up to move, there was a little track alongside where I‘d dropped and along this track came a chap leading a horse and cart, and I thought oh, well, I didn’t know whether I was in Belgium, Luxembourg France or Germany, they all come down there and very close together, so I stood up and I took a handkerchief out to wave, as a surrender [laugh] and I think this chap leading the donk, leading the horse. thought I was going for a gun and he dived under his cart! [Laugh] Anyway, when he saw I was harmless, he came out and shook my hand, ‘Comarade’. I thought is that French, German, comarade, sounds could be either, play safe. So he pointed back to where he come from and said ‘Comarades, Comarades’. I gave him a handshake and I set off in the direction he pointed. I had bare feet. When the parachute opened, the jolt takes your flying boots off and the socks come with them ‘cause it was fur lined so I was in bare feet [chuckle] so I managed to stagger down in bare feet, in the direction this chap had pointed, and I went down, I remember I had to go under a railway bridge and I came, quite quickly, came to a road with a signpost on it which said Rulles, R U double L E S, so I thought well, I don’t know where Rulles is, never heard of it, but this is probably where I’ll go so I got onto this little roadway and I saw some cottages about a hundred, two hundred yards away, so I set out, I thought well I’ve got to get some footwear before I do anything else, whether I can steal some or be given some, I don’t know, I didn’t know what really was going to happen at that moment, and then I heard a lorry engine coming down the road and I thought there’s only Germans got motor vehicles here: they’re Germans. And I’d just got to the first cottage and I thought I’d better get out of sight so I opened the door, fortunately it wasn’t locked, I just opened the door, stepped inside and closed the door behind me and looked out the window at the side of the door, and the truck went past, open truck with a covered, canvas covered top, but the back was open: German soldiers sitting in there, with their rifles! I though ah, they’ve missed me – only just! So I turned to see where I was and there was an elderly lady in the room, all in black I remember, and she burst into tears and I never knew, then or now, whether it was due to fright or sympathy, bit of both perhaps, very startled, must have startled her for that to happen. Anyway a chap came in from a room at the back, he shook hands with me, he realised who I was, and gave me a black raincoat and some boots, socks and boots! Thought doing very well here and told me to follow him, and I went with him and across the road and I remember, over a little bridge I think it was, to another house, and took me in there and several people gathered – I was an object of curiosity - and I said where am I in English, but nobody could understand me, and I couldn’t understand them very well, but eventually one chap said, ‘Ici Belgique’ – I was able to translate that, Belgium, that’s good. [cough] Am I going on too long?
PL: No, not at all, it’s fascinating. Keep going.
FG: So. Can we switch off a moment?
PL: Just pausing for a moment. Recommencing.
FG: I was now taken to another house where several people had gathered, and one chap could speak a little English, and eventually they found some civilian clothes. [Coughing] So I changed into these civilian clothes and I was then taken by bicycle and escorted by a young, another young cyclist to the next village, which was about two miles away, and when we got there I was taken to a priest’s house [background music] and he took me in and er, I was given a room, and I was pretty tired, this was, I’d had no sleep all night, and he took me up to a room, little room, with a very soft bed, and I went out like a light. I don’t know how long I was asleep, some time I think, and when, later on, when I was awakened, taken down to his study, he and his housekeeper were there and they had a radio which they had to, they could listen to English radio but they mustn’t let Germans hear them, so very quietly put the radio on and put the English news on, BBC, from where I learned that seven RAF bombers were missing that night. That was six plus me. So they gave me some food and so called coffee which I was told afterwards it’s made partly of acorns, it was, I found it was drinkable, and black bread. That sounded nasty but I’m not fussy, food has never been a problem, I don’t turn anything down, so I was very pleased to get some food and I was taken to another house where the lady was in the kitchen, and I was taken into the kitchen and she had a huge [emphasis] plum pie and she cut me a big slice of plum pie and that was rather nice! From there I did this bicycle trip to the next village and I was taken into a room and shown to a bedroom. And I, although it was daylight it must have been then about ten o’clock in the morning, I was absolutely whacked, tired, and they showed me into this bedroom, so I got undressed and I got into bed, and I remember nice, soft bed, and just about to, within seconds to go to sleep and a chap burst in and he said, ‘you are in the house of a collaborator, you’ll have to get out, come with me!’ So having just trying to go to sleep I had to get out of bed quickly, dress quickly and follow him out the back of the house and across into some pretty wild countryside in fact we walked across what must have been a First World War battlefield, it was all hillocks and undulating ground and my ankles I remember playing me up a bit. Anyway we plodded on until we came to this next village, that’s [emphasis] where I was taken in by the priest and I stayed there till the next evening and he said ‘oh, you’ve got to go on now.’ By the way, while I was in the priest’s house, I was sitting there with him, in his study, looking out the window, and two gendarmes came up the path, oh, what do we do now? Anyway, they came in shook my hand and Comarade, Comarade! They didn’t speak English, but very pleasant. I remember their names, and er [pause]. So later on, I was given this room and went to bed because I was needing sleep. And then when I got up later on, more food, and then the priest said oh, ‘you’ll have to carry on, go on from here, you come with me’ and off, we left his house and it was raining and I’d got, I was still in, I’d got these civilian clothes, but no, nothing to keep the rain out, I think somebody had taken this raincoat away from me, wanted it themselves I expect, so he put his cassock round me, and somebody had given me a little black beret, so I had this black beret and this cassock right down to my ankles, absolutely invisible in the night, good thing perhaps. So we set off from his house, getting dark, in fact it was quite dark when we came to the edge of some woods and the priest gave a whistle, which was answered by another whistle and a chap came forward and he was going to be my guide, and he had a pistol, he gave me one, showed me how to take the safety catch off, ‘put that in your pocket’ he said. So the priest left me with him and we set off through these woods, and we got a little way in, in darkness, and he said we must be a bit quiet, there’s a German encampment here nearby and we were just going past like a Nissen hut, a military hut, when the door burst open and a couple of German soldiers came out with their rifles and my colleague pushed me into the ditch and came in with me, and we lay still in the ditch and these two Germans came out and got on bicycles, and rode past us about as far as my daughter is to you, and of course they’d come out from a lighted room so they were a bit, not very, couldn’t see very well in the dark, but we could see very well, we’d been out in the dark for some time, but it was a little bit scary because my companion pulls his pistol out and trains it on the Germans, as they went past. [Motor noise]
PL: [Sharp intake of breath]
FG: I thought oh, don’t want a gun battle here, we’re not going to win against rifles. Anyway the Germans went away and we stayed put for a little while and went on with our journey to the next village where he introduced me to another family and things went more or less satisfactorily from there and I was there for a couple of nights, in fact I stayed there with this chap who’d rescued me, and then he disappeared and I had another guide, a lady this time and [motor noise] she took me, escorted, by bicycle, we both had bicycles, and we went through woodland on our bikes, a little track through the woods, and we came to another village where I was taken into the house of the Burgomaster, and I was sheltered in there and when it became evening I was taken down the road a little way to another house which was, I think a relative’s house, [motor noise] where I was given a bed for the night. The next day the Burgomaster’s sister, turned out to be, nice lady, and she again escorted me on the bike, quite a long way through woods, and we came out at a little town in Belgium called Bouillon. B O U I double L O N, Bouillon. I think it’s the place where the soup comes from. I went up a little track down, between the woods, to a little detached house situated nicely, quiet position, alongside a river, and it was a tobacco farm and my lady companion took me into this house, introduced me to the people there, they took me over and found me a room on the top floor, I remember it, and because it was a tobacco farm, this room I was given was lined with little cupboards and I was quite curious to know what was in these cupboards and they were packed full of cigars, hand made cigars, from the tobacco farm, but I didn’t try one because I’d tried the cigarettes and they were ghastly enough; I smoked then. And I was there for a fortnight and it was quite pleasant, out of the way, no traffic, no roads nearby, and alongside the river, and I went for a walk alongside the river, people across the river walking about on the path, but quite a wide river, River Semois, and so I stayed there for a fortnight and then one day a taxi turned up, and he just managed to get down this little track, to the house, and beckoned me, come with me, so I said goodbye to these people, got in the car and he took me into the village, into the town, at Bouillon, took me in to a hotel, dropped me off at a hotel, in fact once he’d dropped me off he shot off like mad, get rid of me, got rid of me quickly. I went into the hotel, into a room, there were several people, they were all Resistance people and one of them there was Flight Sergeant Herbert Pond of the Royal New Zealand airline, Air Force, so that was rather nice, I was able to speak fluently to somebody and have a little chat, and he said ‘they’re suspicious of me, they think I’m a German plant, can you help sort this out?’ So at least one of these Belgians or Frenchmen, I think one was a French Canadian, and he said ‘can you vouch for him?’ So I said ‘got any experiences you can remember?’ And he said ‘I remember I was on one station and there were some Australian crews’ - and they were always getting up to trouble -and they’d hijacked some chickens, live chickens, taken them up to their room in the barracks and thrown them out across onto the parade ground at night, you know, evening time, night time, and they had bets on which chicken could get furthest along, that’s Australians for you, so he said ‘I remember that!’ He said ‘I saw that!’ So I said to these Belgians, or French people, he’s, ‘no German knows what he saw that night so he’s a genuine.’ And he said ‘I think you may have saved my life there’ he said, ‘they held a gun against my head!’ [Laugh] I still get Christmas cards from him. New Zealand. So from there the taxi driver turned up again and took us across the border into France. In fact, we [emphasis] walked across the border and he took his taxi round through the official entrance and picked us up the other side, at a pub I remember, haha, and from there we were taken to a little town. Oh, we were taken first of all to, to this little local town, and we did a train, we were given a train ticket, some train tickets, yeah, this helper was a French Canadian, that’s right, he took us over there, and of course he could speak English and French, and bought us some rail tickets and we sat on the station, outside the station, while he went and got these rail tickets and Herbert Pond, the New Zealander, myself sat on opposite sides of a table, long table, and he brought us, he went to buy us some beer and while he was gone to get this beer from a kiosk, some bloomin’ German soldiers came down, propped their guns up against the table and sat down next to us, [chuckle] so we weren’t able to speak after that. But then he came back with the tickets and just indicated us, come with me, didn’t say anything, off we went, followed him onto the platform, he said ‘they’re your tickets, when you get to Reims’, is it Reims? Yes, Reims, he said ‘you’ll be met outside the station, at the station exit, by a lady dressed all in black and she’ll be wearing a red flower.’ So the train came in and we separated, myself and Herbert Pond, he said separate on the train, so Herbert went off on his own and I watched where the door was, went across the platform, and in most of the carriages there was a notice up: ‘Reserve Pour Les Troops d’Occupation’. I could read that, even though I didn’t know French, I could read that. Anyway, I could see that somebody was, a civilian, was standing in the corridor and I thought well if he can stand there, so can I, so I went to get on the train but a porter shouted at me and pointed at this notice. I ignored him, I got on the train and went and stood in the corridor and then, from nowhere, goodness knows where, a load of German officers came in and came aboard the train and came past me, the reserved coaches for them, so they took their places in the carriages and one even said excuse me in French, ‘excusez moi’, as he squeezed past me. I thought you don’t know I’m wearing an RAF vest! [Chuckle] Anyway, I stood in the corridor, quite a long journey from this place to Reims, yes, from Bouillon to Reims, and when we got there, got off the train and Bert Pond was, he got off as well, and there was the lady waiting for us, oh skulduggery, I thought this is, this is kids’ comic stuff that we’re doing, this, and followed her at a distance and she led us to a flat where we were given some refreshments and then, after a little while, we were taken to another place, where we stayed I think it was two nights, and that was actually in Reims. By now, we’d got to know this French Canadian and him telling us what was going to happen, he hoped. He said we’ve got to do another train trip so when the time came, two days later I think it was, and we went and got on this particular train and it was a suburban train, wooden seats, bit backward, you know, bit elementary. Anyway we got on the train and I remember we sat together, with our guide, and on the opposite row of seats, facing, were several French women and it looked as though they’d been shopping, they’d all got shopping bags and stuff. So again we couldn’t talk, but it wasn’t too far to go and when we got off we were taken to, er, now where were we taken to, another house in this village called Thiem, welcomed there by the family, I was trying to remember their names, I can remember their names given time. We were looked after well there and I remember lots of white wine was provided for us, bottles of white wine, all the time. So Herbert and myself, we settled in there for a couple of days and I remember being taken from the house into the yard at the side, there was a yard, with doors opening into big open spaces, I think they’d been stables or something, and in one was a Flying Flea. Did you ever come across or heard of Flying Fleas? [Cough] Excuse me. [Pause] Well the Flying Flea was a little home made aeroplane, that could, a real miniature aeroplane, very tiny, stubby little stubby wings and little stubby tail and it would only carry the pilot and I’d seen these flying at Portsmouth when I was a lad and they were highly dangerous of course! And I remember that these people had got one of these strung up on a wall, and the guide said ‘I think these people like to think they’re gonna fly to England in that but they’ll be lucky!’ But I do remember that Flying Flea. So we were looked after there for a couple of days and then we were told that the RAF was hoping to send a plane in to pick us up. Oh gosh, possible, and they said it may be any evening, any night, depending on the weather and other circumstances, so we just had to sit around and wait but after two or three days this French Canadian, he’s still looking after us, he said ‘the plane’s probably coming in tonight’ he said, we’ll set off at a certain time, in good time. So a party of us set off, there were about four or five Belgians, and I remember one of them was carrying a rope, in case the aircraft got bogged down, which had happened, in the past. So off we went following in a single line, no talking, had to keep quiet, until we came up to this field, level field, bit of consternation because it had been ploughed! But there was a strip left, strip of grass, with a haystack at the end, which was a bit tricky, and I being the signaller, I was told to give the signal, think it was the letter R I had to flash. And we had to, well we didn’t have to wait. The aircraft had already arrived and was circling round, and we had to run the last few hundred yards, I remember through mud, and we got there, put the torches out quickly, gave him the signal to land, signal came back. How he found that field, in the middle of France, in the dark, well he wrote a book about all this, as I say, I’ve got a copy. So we set up torches as flare path, gave him the okay signal, came in and landed, over this little haystack – marvellous pilot. Came to the end, turned round, came back to where we were waiting and I’d been instructed to take some parcels off the back seat. There was a little ladder fixed to the aircraft on the outside, I had to climb up two or three steps of the ladder, take these parcels out, hand down to the party below, and he kept his engine running of course and I thought oh, you know, Germans are going to come rushing out from all angles! But of course it was a very lonely spot, and I think he made a record afterwards, he was only on the ground for two minutes and myself and the New Zealander and the Belgian agent all piled in to a single seat at the back. It had one seat, I never got the use of it, I think I sat on the floor, no parachutes of course, or anything like that, and off we went, fingers crossed, and we came across in lovely, lovely clear weather, few searchlights about, but of course it was over France, not over Germany and I don’t think anybody was interested, Germans weren’t bothered about one little aeroplane. So we ploughed a nice trip back and landed at Tangmere near Chichester and went and thanked the pilot for coming to pick us up, Hugh Verity, yes, got his book up there. And we were taken into a, this RAF house and given a bed, the night, and the next day we were taken up to London, to Air Ministry Headquarters, go in there to be interviewed, and rekitted, new uniform, and sent home for a month, month’s holiday, so that was that.
PL: Can you remember what happened during the interview? Can you remember what happened during the interview? Did they, what did they want to know from you?
FG: Well, they wanted to know which towns and villages I’d been to and the names of the people, so I said ‘well I’m not too happy about giving names’, but as it was I think a Wing Commander or somebody senior, RAF man interviewing me, in fact I think there were two or three officers there, and so I had to cough up, should be all right, unless the Germans win the war! [chuckle] And so I was able to tell them, gave them all the details, seemed to be interested and then said ‘off you go for a month’s leave.’
PL: What an extraordinary story! How old were you when this happened, Fred?
FG: Twenty.
PL: And can you remember, I’m just curious, I mean how did you feel about all of this. I mean were you frightened, were you excited, were you? How did you feel?
FG: I was, when the bullets came through the Lancaster I was terrified! I wasn’t too bothered about baling out, and the funny thing was, I was looking down to see where I was gonna land, couldn’t see anything on the, it was all black, but I wasn’t, I wasn’t particularly scared, I can honestly say I wasn’t particularly scared, I was just getting on with it, as you can say.
PL: And during your escape, this extraordinary escape where, you know, every so often you would come in close contact with the Germans, what about then, did you sort of?
FG: No I just held me breath a bit.
PL: Held your breath a bit.
EG: Kept me fingers crossed. No, I wasn’t scared, no. Because at the back of my mind I thought well, if I’m exposed enough to give myself up, they’re not going to stand there and shoot me in cold blood, surely. I don’t think they would have done, and I’d have finished up as a POW, prisoner of war. But these people who were helping myself and Bert Pond, they were risking their lives, in a concentration camp, whereas we would have just been put in a prisoner of war camp. So they were the ones, they were the heroes, they really were.
PL: And did you find out what happened to them?
FG: Yes, um, [sniff] with my wife, we went back to Belgium, and France, and went round to see these all these people and they were absolutely delighted to see us, and see me.
PL: How old were you then? When did you go back?
FG: After the war, when was it, 1947? ‘46 ’47, yes, in fact, we were invited to go back any time and we actually had two or three holidays over there and I took the car over a couple of times. There was one, there was one family who sheltered me for a fortnight, well there were two families who sheltered me for a fortnight each. one family were the tobacco growers and the other family was a chap who spoke perfect English, he’d lived in England previously for several years, and he was an insurance man and a very nice, a very nice character [engine noise], I admired him very much and he was very pleasant, really nice man, and his wife was a very nice, very nice looking woman, and they had a daughter, same age as me, and they sheltered me for two weeks and they’d got some English books, which was very nice, Dickens books, which I was able to sit and read, and they put me up in a little room in the top of the house, in the attic, and I could go down and have breakfast with them and then they said right, ‘the housekeeper’s coming in to clean and you’ll have to go back and hide and keep quiet’, which I did, and she came in several times while I was there, apparently, and she never heard a thing. And she was ever so surprised after the war, when they told her that they’d got a British, a British airman had been hiding up in the loft. They never told her of course, daren’t trust anybody.
[Other]: About your hat.
FG: Oh, yes.
[Other]: Just tell the story of the hat. Tell the story of the hat.
FG: Oh yes, my wife and I were out in Belgium one day, visiting the people in this town, very nice little town called Floranville, where I was looked after for a fortnight in this very nice house and there was an article printed in the local paper giving my name and details, and it was read by a Belgian policeman, and he rang up our host, hostess, and said I know, I’ve got the cap belonging to this airman, could you pop over and get it? And he said er, [pause], ‘I’ve got your cap’, he said ‘I picked it up near where the bomber crashed’, he said, ‘and your name and number and rank is inside’ he said ‘and when I saw your name in the local paper’, he said ‘I realised that was you’, so he rang my hostess and told her, would we go and see him and if we did he would present me with my cap. Which he did.
PL: How wonderful! That must have been an emotional moment for you.
FG: Yeah. It was all quite an adventure. Yes, we went back to Belgium, my wife and I, several times, [cough] looked after us, ever so happy to see us and we had one of the couples back to stay with us for I think a week or ten days, and we were living up in Greenford at the time, but they came over and stayed with us. I thought it’s the least I could do, but I’m afraid most, if not all [emphasis], of the people I knew out there have all died ‘cause I had contacts with several of them for many years, several years, Christmas cards to several people, France as well. I didn’t feel I wanted to give people up like that, give them up casually, when they’d done what they’d done for me. So I kept in touch.
PL: Did they all survive the war? Did everybody that helped you, did they all survive the war?
FG: Um, a chap I met at one house, who’d taken my photograph for my passport, identity card, he was very careless the way he talked, spoke, and he’s partly, I was told, it was his own fault, he was picked up by the Gestapo and he was sent to a camp somewhere, but he died of typhoid and I was told afterwards it wasn’t due to what he did for you, it was because he had so much to say [emphasis] to everybody, let himself down, so he said that was just too bad. One of the ladies, she had a, she was discovered as helping, she was in the, what the Belgians called, the Secret Army, and she was sort of a member of these people and she’d been, I don’t know whether she was betrayed by somebody but the Germans came to pick her up, and in some way, she got up on to the roof of the house she was in and she was standing up by the chimney stack and one of the German soldiers shot her, in the leg. And when, they took her prisoner then of course, and she went to a concentration camp but they fixed her leg and when mum and I went over one time, she showed us this nasty scar in her leg where this bullet had gone in, but otherwise, the man who’d organised the flight out of France, organised the escape line, Belgian, and he was betrayed, and he was tortured and I learnt afterwards he threw himself out of an upstairs window to avoid this torturing, and killed himself. But as I was told, not particularly due to you, I’d have felt a little bit awkward, bit shocked really, didn’t want to think I was going to cause other people trouble like that, but apparently he was betrayed, by a so called friend. [Sniff] [Pause] Trying to think if there’s anything as a follow up.
PL: Going back to Bomber Command, what are your feelings about how Bomber Command has been treated over the years?
FG: I don’t know how to think about it to be honest. I don’t try to think about that. It was all done at the time, it was thought it was necessary and you know at the time, everybody’s saying, oh you know, course we were dropping bombs on civilians as well as on industry: ‘oh never mind, kill a few of them off’, that was the attitude, didn’t think much of it otherwise, and I must admit when I looked out at Hamburg burning I thought it must be terrible down there and it was. We learned after the war how terrible those raids were for the Germans. Six hundred bombers raided Hamburg three nights running. Then I went back as a civilian, because British Airways did a run, London to Hamburg, and I did those. [Laugh] Yes. Long time ago, it’s all in there and I’ve got a good memory.
PL: You have a fantastic memory. It’s been the most extraordinary experience, listening to your story, and is there anything else at all that you would like to mention or talk about as part of your interview?
FG: Well I’d like to give credit and thanks to all the people that really helped me, especially the Belgians and French, otherwise, I think that wraps up the war story.
PL: Well Fred, I’d just like to thank you again.
FG: That’s all right.
PL: For sharing your story.
FG: Pam isn’t it?
PL: It is.
FG: Do you mind if I call you Pam?
PL: Absolutely! It’s been just fascinating and it’s just I mean it’s like the most extraordinary story really of survival and of huge, huge value to the Digital Archive, so thank you very much indeed.
FG: You’re welcome. I quite enjoy talking about it still.
PL: Lovely.
FG: Some people who’ve had experiences like that don’t want to talk about it. Whether or not it’s because they can’t talk about it, haven’t got a very good vocabulary, and I’m not too bad at that am I?
PL: Very good.
FG: I don’t know what sort of accent I’ve got because it’s a mixture, but it’s northern Oxfordshire and it’s a little bit sort of rural, but apart from that have to live with it.
PL: It’s a wonderful accent, Fred Gardiner, thank you very much indeed.
FG: You’re welcome, Pam.
PL: So sorry, we’re restarting.
FG: You switched off.
PL: I’ve just started it again, so that we can hear about your work with the charter company. And you were flying?
FG: Yes, Halifax freighters. And I’ve written an account of my four, three or four months with them. I’ve got it written down the if you’d like to borrow it and read it at any time. That was interesting, very interesting, and quite dangerous.
PL: So that was after the war?
FG: Yes, immediately after the war.
PL: So what made it dangerous Fred?
FG: The way the aircraft were operated. [Throat clear] [Pause] Yes, it was a bit dangerous, in fact one of the aircraft had to ditch in the sea. They were coming back from Italy with a load of fruit, they got low on fuel or something, and I think they’d got a pretty poor wireless operator, and they had to ditch. Because on one trip I had to send a distress call because we were running out of fuel, in bad weather, over Norway, that was, that was a bit dodgy, I could see us ditching. [Cough] The aircraft was full of stockings, boxes of stockings, made in Britain, exported to Norway. And when we got to Norway there was low cloud, very low cloud, and Oslo is situated in some, between some nasty hills, not, I don’t know whether you’d say mountains, but pretty steep hills, and I flew with a very good pilot, he was really super, and it was my job, as the wireless operator, to get him bearings, radio bearings, that he could follow in to land, and the idea was I got lots of bearings from the ground station as fast as I could, one after another so that he could keep lined to the runway and come down until he could see it and you’d know if you were on the right course that there weren’t any high hills in the way, so that was satisfactory, but the weather was so bad that he overshot twice because he couldn’t quite make it. Up and round again, same procedure again, I think on the third attempt, third trip he managed to touch down. No, wait a minute, no, that wasn’t, that’s not true, on the third trip he didn’t make it and he said ‘I’m going to have to divert somewhere’ and - I don’t know why had a slip of memory there - so we set off going south from Oslo and we were getting low on fuel, and it was low cloud, everywhere, so I said ‘shall I send a distress call?’ ‘Yes’, he said, ‘you might as well.’ I sent a distress call and it was answered by a station, all in Morse code of course, this station’s callsign was S E A, I remember, Sea, S E A, and I didn’t know where SEA was so I had to ask the operator on the ground where are you, who are you? And they sent me a stream of stuff back and it proved to be a Gothenburg airfield, so we headed for that and I continued to get these bearings and give them up to the captain and he carried on flying towards them until in the end we got down quite low over the sea and Gothenburg people fired up some search rockets and a searchlight and Very cartridge lights because the weather was still very bad, and being over the sea we weren’t likely to hit any hills and when we got very close to Gothenburg and the pilot could see where he, just see where he was, he did a circuit round and he lost sight of it in the circuit, that was how bad it was, so he had to do that sort of approach again, using the radio. Anyway, after a couple of runs at it, he touched down, fortunately the runway was right on the edge of the coast and he flew over a sandy beach, onto the runway which we were able to do, and when we came to the end of the runway and sorted ourselves out and they got some people up to fill up the tanks and they came back and they said your tanks are more or less empty! I think I saved that, I think I saved that Halifax that day.
PL: Well, to have survived the war and everything that you went through then, you know, to have been lost in that way would have been just so terrible, wouldn’t it.
FG: Yes. Yes, I had a quite interesting time in flying. One or two little hiccups in BA, BEA actually, with engine trouble, engines failed two or three times I was on, engine failure. Very good pilots all the time, got us down on single engine. [Pause]
PL: Are you happy for us to end there?
FG: Happy?
PL: For us to end there?
FG: Yes.
PL: There’s nothing else you want to say? Is there anything else that you would like to say?
FG: Just have a quick think. [Pause] I don’t know if you like to, I’ve got a copy of my time with that charter company and I think it makes an interesting story, all in all, I don’t know if you’d like to read it?
PL: I’d love to read it, let’s end there then. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AGardinerEF170809, PGardinerEF1701
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Ernest Frederick Gardiner
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
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:25:04 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pam Locker
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-03-01
Description
An account of the resource
Fred Gardiner grew up in Oxfordshire and worked in a furniture factory before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He flew five operations as a wireless operator / air gunner from RAF Syerston before his aircraft was shot down. He gives a detailed account of having to bale out of his Lancaster at night, of meeting civilians who sheltered him in various locations whilst he and others avoided German soldiers prior to their rescue. After the war, he and his wife returned to thank those who had helped him escape and remained in touch with many of those who he came across.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Germany
Great Britain
New Zealand
Norway
Sweden
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Reims
Germany--Mannheim
Norway--Oslo
Sweden--Göteborg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
Carolyn Emery
aircrew
bale out
crewing up
Defiant
evading
Halifax
Lancaster
Lysander
Manchester
Operational Training Unit
RAF Syerston
Resistance
shot down
Special Operations Executive
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner