1
25
36
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2566/44250/MJonesTJ184141-220105-120037.1.jpg
8502ef604c52a462e5b9e0c0b00a3da4
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2566/44250/MJonesTJ184141-220105-120038.1.jpg
6b81654edd855c3cce47e0b7994d372d
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
Jones TJ. Aircraft photographs
Description
An account of the resource
129 aircraft recognition photographs.
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
Jones, PW
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
Ventura
Description
An account of the resource
Side view of an airborne Lockheed Ventura.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
United States Army Air Force
South African Air Force
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MJonesTJ184141-220105-120037, MJonesTJ184141-220105-120038
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
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/551/27009/MLancasterJO103509-170308-010001.1.jpg
9eb5ad57db9dad590d41600eac977d09
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/551/27009/MLancasterJO103509-170308-010002.1.jpg
82f4c55b2e79df02ac6c2c9e974a92f7
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/551/27009/MLancasterJO103509-170308-010003.1.jpg
cae1cb1f4138bdaee4672b4b94eb9a70
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
Lancaster, Jo
John Oliver Lancaster
J O Lancaster
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lancaster, JO
Description
An account of the resource
17 items. Two oral history interviews with John Oliver 'Jo' Lancaster DFC (1919 - 2019, 948392, 103509 Royal Air Force), photographs and six of his log books. Jo Lancaster completed 54 operations as a pilot with in Wellingtons with 40 Squadron, and after a period of instructing, in Lancasters with 12 Squadron from RAF Wickenby. He became test pilot after the war and was the first person to use a Martin-Baker ejection seat in an emergency.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jo Lancaster and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-18
2017-03-08
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.
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
John Lancaster DFC
Description
An account of the resource
A summary of the aircraft that John has flown and a list of his flying awards.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three printed sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MLancasterJO103509-170308-010001,
MLancasterJO103509-170308-010002,
MLancasterJO103509-170308-010003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Coventry
England--Warwickshire
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
aircrew
Albemarle
Anson
B-17
B-24
B-25
B-26
Beaufighter
Blenheim
C-47
Dominie
Halifax
Hampden
Harvard
Horsa
Hudson
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lincoln
Magister
Martinet
Me 410
Meteor
Mosquito
Oxford
P-51
pilot
Proctor
Shackleton
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Swordfish
Tiger Moth
Typhoon
Ventura
Walrus
Wellington
Whitley
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/26030/MDentonDH1256316-200114-020001.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/26030/MDentonDH1256316-200114-020002.2.jpg
7a45273a7f148818151d131f4128bc5e
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] OBITUARY TO WING COMMANDER DENNIS. [/inserted]
[underlined] GROUP CAPTAIN D F DENNIS DSO DFC AND BAR AFC RAF (RET’D)
behind the sad announcement of the death of Group Captain Dennis there is a life of sservice [sic] and dedication to the Royal Air Force which should not go unrecorded, because his contribution ia [sic] at the heart of the traditions of our great service.
Born in 1915 Group Captain Dennis joined the RAFVR in 1937 and in 1938 started flying training at Hamble on Avro Cadet aircraft. After a number of training courses, on Hind, hart, Audas and Anson, at the outbreak of war, he joined no 21 (B) Squadron in 1940 flying Blenheims and his first operational sortie was attacking targets in the Amsterdam area in January 1941. There then followed night operations to Cologne, hanover [sic] and Wilhelmahaer, writing book comments ‘Caught in many searchlights, heavy flak – 3 runs at 1200 ft, gunned aerodrome, turret hit’. April saw a switch to successful anti shipping strikes and in May 1941 on a detachment to Malta – 14 hours each way via Gibraltar – successful anti shipping strikes were exectued [sic] hitting one destroyer and sinking two 5000 ton freighters. After 30 operational flights, a ‘rest tour’ at the Blenheim OCU at Bicester proved almost as hairy as the operational flying and having trained a considerable number of pilots to fly Blenhiems [sic] he returned in July 1942 to 21 (B) Squadron for a second tour, this time on Lockheed Ventura I’s. By September 1943 having completed 34 operational sorties, he returned to the Bicester OCU as Cheif [sic] Instructor this time on B25 Mitchells.
The build up to D-Day was in progress when the then Squadron Leader Dennis rejoined 21 (B) Squadron on Mosquito’s, as Flight Commander after 3 days coversion [sic] was on the first night operational sortie of his third tour. In two months he carried out over 30 operational sorties, day, low levl, [sic] and night interdiction, and became the CO of the Squadron. On the night of the 29th july [sic] 1944 having carried out an interdiction sortie in Southern Germany, with his navigator Flying Officer Grantham, his Mosquito, was hit by flak which put one engine out of action, the propeller would not feather and only by maintaining full power on the other engine could he sustain flight, albeit in a slight descent. Arriving in darkness at the recently recaptured area around Caen in northen [sic] France he found an emergency landing strip put the aircraft down without injury to himself or the navigator but the aircraft was a write off. the [sic] next night he was back at Thorney Island carrying out night flying training and at that time it was not unusual to carry out two X 2 hour 30 min operational sorties in one night. In October 1944 he handed over 21 (B) Sqn and joined 2 Group for a ‘Staff Job’ having completed 3 operational tours with a total of 105 operational sorties. So ended his war – he had been the proud reciepient [sic] of the Distinguished Service order and two Distinguished Flying Crosses, the citations for which are given below.
Having completed a Flying Instructors course and the Day Fighter Leaders Course he became the CO of the No 111 Squadron flying Spitfires in the Middle East and was CO of RAF Udine in Northern Italy in 1947. After staff appointments at Group and Air Ministery [sic] level he became Station Commander and Wing Leader at RAF Honily – those were the days of Vampire wings and he flew on just about every flyable day. After completing No 8 RAF Flying College Course at Manby, Wing Commander Dennis joined A & AFE Boscombe Down in 1957 flying mainly Swift, hunter, Javelin and Gnat aircraft, and it was whilst carrying out spinning trails [sic] that failure to recover from a spin resulted in a Martin baker let down from less than 4000 ft. In recognition of his sterling work at Boscombe Down he was awarded the Air Force Cross.
As a Group Captain he served at 13 Gp HQ, was Station Commander at RAF Basingbourne and was Air Task Force Commander bruei. [sic] His son John became a RAF pilot but was tragically killed in a Canberra flying accident in 1973.
Group Captain Dennis’s life was a life of service to the Royal Air Force and his country – he will be sadly missed and well remembered for his determination, kindness, compassion and ‘the human touch’.
R.I.P
[page break]
[underlined] EXTRACT FROM LONDON GAZETTE DATED 10th June 1941 [/underlined]
The King has graciously pleased to approve the following awards in recognition of gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution of air operations:
[underlined] Distinguished Flying Cross [/underlined]
[underlined] Pilot Officer David Foster Dennis (64274) Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve [/underlined]
[underlined] No 21 Squadron [/underlined]
This officer has displayed great skill and daring in attacks against enemy merchant ships and escorting vessels. In May 1941, he attacked a merchant vessel of about 5000 tons, obtaining hits which caused the ship to founder. The next day he attacked and secured hits on an enemy destroyer ship. A few days later he executed an attack against a merchant ship in convoy and as a result of his bombing, the ship took a list to starboard emitting much black smoke. On these occasions, Pilot Officer Dennis showed the greatest determination.
[underlined] EXTRACT FROM LONDON GAZETTE DATED 18th MAY 1943 [/underlined]
The king has been graciously pleased to approve the following awards in recognition of gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution of air operations:
[underlined] Distinguished Service Order [/underlined]
[underlined] Acting Flight Lieutenant David Foster Dennis, DFC (64274) Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve No 21 Squadron [/underlined]
This officer has participated in 53 Sorties invariably displaying exceptional skill and determination. One afternoon in April 1943, he flew the heading aircraft of a bomber formation detailed to attack railway installations at Abbeville. During the operation much fighter opposition was encountered and his formation was subjected to simultaneous attack from the rear and ahead. In the engagement, Flight Lieutenant Dennis displayed inspiring leadership, proving a tower of strength. By his personal example and sterling qualities, this officer has contributed materially to the high standard of morale and efficiency of the squadron.
[underlined] EXTRACT FROM LONDON GAZETTE DATED 27th OCTOBER 1944 [/underlined]
The King has graciously pleased to approve the following awards in recognition of gallantry and devotion to duty in the execution of air operations:
[underlined] Bar to Distinguished Flying Cross [/underlined]
[underlined] Acting Wing Commander David Foster Dennis, DSO DFC (64274) RAFVR 21 Sqn [/underlined]
Wing Commander Dennis has commanded his squadron with marked success. One night in August, he was detailed for a particulary [sic] hazardous attack on a transporter bridge across the Seine. the [sic] enemy defences in the area were extremly [sic] heavy. Disregarding the opposition he led his aircraft in to the attack scoring hits with his bombs. Wing Commander Dennis has completed very many sorties including numerous night attacks. His leadership initiative and courage have been of high order
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
Obituary to Wing Commander Dennis
Description
An account of the resource
Two typewritten pages, one is an obituary for Group Captain DF Dennis DSO, DFC and bar, AFC, RAF (Retd), the other are the extracts from the London Gazette reporting the award of his DFC, DSO and Bar to DFC.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MDentonDH1256316-200114-020001, MDentonDH1256316-200114-020002
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
21 Squadron
B-25
Blenheim
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Service Order
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Bassingbourn
RAF Bicester
Spitfire
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25932/PDentonDH20015.2.jpg
b019911ca69d655e1a070a74ca8ad1b9
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Ventura
Description
An account of the resource
Air-to-air view of aircraft airborne, in close formation, squadron letter K.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentonDH20015
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25908/PDentonDH20032.2.jpg
d13530db39259eafd74d4e5dfca9d51a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25908/PDentonDH20033.2.jpg
fe4e1d61027786f57862450a53f1e5c8
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Venturas
Description
An account of the resource
Five Venturas in a parked in a row, engines running, on reverse '21 Squadron Venturas'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentonDH20032, PDentonDH20033
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
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
21 Squadron
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25893/PDentonDH20040.1.jpg
295b88b2408430b007ec3d239260dba8
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25893/PDentonDH20041.1.jpg
d31e11e90cd81f5910867bd2703cda3d
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Venturas
Description
An account of the resource
Five Venturas parked in a row, many airmen standing around, on reverse '21 Squadron Venturas and groundcrew - Feb 1943'. Sixth from the left is Leading Aircraftsman Herbert John Nassau ( 1920-1969).
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-02
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentonDH20040, PDentonDH20041
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Pam Nassau
21 Squadron
ground crew
ground personnel
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25201/PDentonDH20083.2.jpg
84108cf5f9c8613c55bdfeaec3a1924d
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Wing Commander R J Pritchard
Description
An account of the resource
Wing commander, upper torso wearing his flying helmet standing by the right rear fuselage of Ventura, AE856 "Hell's a-poppin" YH-Z with cartoon of Donald Duck in flying gear and roundel visible.
Wing Commander Pritchard was the officer commanding 21 Squadron in mid 1942 and led the squadron on Operation Oyster.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentonDH20083
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Bob Langham
21 Squadron
aircrew
nose art
pilot
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25068/PDentonDH20097.1.jpg
3f87611ad5e544def2094260a2a2e779
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/25068/PDentonDH20098.1.jpg
91b4b77cc389720cd1affa2d98f4fe56
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
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
Venturas
Description
An account of the resource
Two air-to-air photographs, one of four Venturas in formation the second of six. One aircraft has Donald Duck nose art on the fuselage between the wing and the turret.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PDentonDH20097, PDentonDH20098
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. Bomber Command
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
nose art
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1673/PBanksP15010146.1.jpg
dc60310fcc9bc2ec2704fb2d15f60909
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Royal visit to RAF Methwold and partially unexploded bombs
Description
An account of the resource
At the top Queen Elizabeth accompanied by a group captain pilot in tunic with peaked cap walks between two ranks of Royal Air Force personnel on parade. In the background Venturas. Caption '1943 Methwold'.
In the middle are two views of case of a partially exploded bomb. Caption '1 & 2 partially exploded defective German 500 lb bomb'.
At the bottom two views of an unexploded bomb lying on concrete. Caption '3 & 4 unexploded bomb'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010146
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
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
Photograph
RAF Methwold
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1582/PBanksP15010113.1.jpg
6f1ba18c00e4d9a7af6729d0e91ad4b7
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visit Royal Air Force Methwold
Description
An account of the resource
King George VI in RAF uniform shakes hands with a sergeant at the near end of the rear rank of airmen parading on grass. To the King's right, two other RAF officers. In the background Venturas are parked in two lines.
Top right a group of officers including one Women's Auxiliary Air Force stand in front of a tent, towards the left of the group Queen Elizabeth looking left and talking to an officer. In the background trees.
Centre a ground to air view of a Ventura flying left to right with clouds in the background. Trees on the horizon at the bottom.
Bottom left King George VI walking to the left talking to an officer. Behind Queen Elizabeth walks taking to two officers. To the rear an officer and a civilian stand. In the background a Ventura with other aircraft left and right.
Bottom right Queen Elizabeth accompanied by an officer walks towards the end of the rear rank of airmen parading on grass. To the right a the front rank of officers and in the background a Ventura.
Captioned 'Methwold 43, The Ghost of 21 Sqdn (11 out of 12 a/c failed to return from sortie, S/Ldr Meridith only survivor and he was well shot up with all his crew dead, New Zealand Sqdn, Methwold, 487 Operation Ramrod 3 [...]'.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-05-03
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Five b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010113
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 New Zealand Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-05-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
21 Squadron
George VI, King of Great Britain (1895-1952)
RAF Methwold
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1562/PBanksP15010101.1.jpg
2a6298f8bfe9c4520d6c3c46678a1915
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1562/PBanksP15010102.2.jpg
0ed4dfc05a2b1b9e4677ec74e44fe828
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Dunkirk, Den Helder, Vlissingen and Ventura over Ijmuiden
Description
An account of the resource
Top left an aerial vertical photograph of Dunkirk docks. A river runs from the sea bottom centre in a curve to top centre. Docks with moles and basins are to the right and the town is to the left of the river.
Top right an aerial vertical photograph of Den Helder. There is open sea in the bottom left with coastline running diagonally from mid left to bottom right. A river mouth at centre has fortification and sea wall on the left and dock basins and town to the right. There is an inlet from river to basins half way up river on the right bank with bomb explosions to its right.
Bottom left an aerial vertical photograph of Vlissingen town and docks. A triangular peninsular points upward into open sea at the top. On the left an inlet leads to inland to a large dock basin which connects to small basins above in the centre of a town. A Ventura is just about to cross the coast. Photograph caption 'A226 FEL 24643 5 11000 HV464'.
Bottom right an aerial vertical photograph of a Ventura flying right to left over a canal running top right to bottom left. The canal splits into channels in the town of Ijmuiden. Annotated 'Ymuiden [sic]' Photograph caption '3187 13.2.43//V5 8,800 ST 21'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010101, PBanksP15010102
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.
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Dunkerque
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Netherlands--Den Helder
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Netherlands--Ijmuiden
Netherlands
France
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-06-24
1943-02-13
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-06-24
1943-02-13
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
aerial photograph
bombing
reconnaissance photograph
target photograph
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1555/PBanksP15010096.2.jpg
94b084e62e54b7b7ce55d61dd29e4e21
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Ventura over Ijmuiden
Description
An account of the resource
Aerial vertical photograph of Ventura flying over canals and town. A Ventura coded YH of 21 squadron flies from right to left. Below is a canal which splits into a number of channels and a branch goes up into the town on the left side. Town buildings on both sides of canal. Caption '"Ventura" over Ymuiden [sic]'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010096
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.
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Netherlands--Ijmuiden
Netherlands
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-02-13
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-02-13
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Stuart Cummins
21 Squadron
aerial photograph
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1539/PBanksP15010091.2.jpg
7ed79bf73d407273e2eb299dd5947a05
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Ventura over Dunkirk and Dunkirk docks
Description
An account of the resource
On the left an aerial vertical photograph of town, canal and docks. A canal zigzags from top left down, right and the left back towards dockyard in the bottom left. A town with dwellings and industrial areas lies mostly to the right of canal. The front portion of a Ventura can be seen half way up the right side flying right to left.
On the right an aerial vertical photograph of interconnected dock basins. On the left open sea with coastline running top to bottom. Towards the top an inlet with sea walls either side. Just below the middle on the coast a narrow waterway leads to a series of inland interconnected dock basins. To the right of the basins a canal and town.
Captioned 'Dunkirk'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two b/w photographs mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010091
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.
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
France--Dunkerque
France
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
aerial photograph
bombing
target photograph
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1535/PBanksP15010087.2.jpg
907d3e394047563a3774ccb304f40bf0
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Ventura over Flushing
Description
An account of the resource
Aerial vertical photograph of coastline with town and docks. Coastline runs from mid left to right with a broad peninsular in the centre on which is a large town with docks. There are five jetties/piers running out into the sea. There is a Ventura above the town flying left to right. To the right there is an inlet leading to three large inland dock basins as well as smaller dock basins in the town. Canals lead off the large basins. Captioned 'Flushing'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010087
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.
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Netherlands--Vlissingen
Netherlands
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated (cumulative polygon)
aerial photograph
bombing
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1509/PBanksP15010073.1.jpg
ae1c5438ebeac29c1ed5f0772f08151b
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
Rotterdam Docks
Description
An account of the resource
Aerial vertical photograph of Wilton Shipyards. On the left the Nieuwe Maas river with entrance to Vijfsluizen basin (Wiltonhaven). Several small craft are leaving it and spreading out on the river. Just inside the entrance, on the top side, several jetties have ships moored alongside. There are more ships moored further to the right towards the end of the basin - three are in floating docks with gangways connected them to shore. Dockyard buildings along the top side of the basin, including a shipyard with a ship on a launching slipway. Four bomb impacts can be seen in the river to top side of the basin entrance; series of bomb explosions stretching from the jetting to the right of the entrance, diagonally to the bottom side of the basin. Captioned 'Rotterdam'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010073
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.
Atlantic Ocean--North Sea
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Netherlands
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Geolocated
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-03-28
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-03-28
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Stuart Cummins
464 Squadron
487 Squadron
aerial photograph
bombing
target photograph
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1466/PBanksP15010053.2.jpg
56a7af84952ba879ea5c407a784593c5
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
464 Squadron personnel in front of Ventura
Description
An account of the resource
Approximately 100 personnel in four rows in front of a Ventura. Most of the front row are officers wearing peaked caps. The remaining rows are mostly airmen. In the background an open grass area with a church on the horizon on the left. Captioned '464 Squadron "Ventura"'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010053
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
464 Squadron
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/141/1465/PBanksP15010052.2.jpg
a881a9a9e6900f8d4d4acd2081fdfa20
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
Banks, Peter. Album one
Description
An account of the resource
134 items. The album contains pictures taken at RAF Methwold and Feltwell, Battles in France as part of the RAF Advanced Air Striking Force in 1940, 2 Group target photographs, and Venturas and Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires. There are also a number of aerial photographs of cities and targets in the Ruhr and the Low countries taken at low level during a sightseeing Cooks tour after VE Day. <br /><br />Return to the <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/140">main collection</a>.
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.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One photograph album
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP1501
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
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
487 Squadron personnel in front of Ventura
Description
An account of the resource
Approximately 100 personnel in three rows sitting and standing in front of a Ventura. Personnel towards the centre of the front row are wearing officers peaked caps. The remainder are airmen wearing side caps. In the background two hangars, the nearest with the door open. Captioned '487 Squadron "Ventura"'. Handwritten annotation bottom left 'NZRAF Later Mosquito prison raid Op Jericho'.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
One b/w photograph mounted on an album page
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PBanksP15010052
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. Bomber Command
Royal New Zealand Air Force
Royal Air Force
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Photograph
487 Squadron
hangar
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/26031/MDentonDH1256316-200114-010001.2.jpg
13b6f96f529c962651061f49dbe27216
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1576/26031/MDentonDH1256316-200114-010002.2.jpg
8c5525551d769bdf3c1734653b2b5adb
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
Denton, Dennis Hugh
D H Denton
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
2020-01-14
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
Denton, DH
Description
An account of the resource
59 items. The collection concerns Dennis Hugh Denton (b. 1920, 1256316 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, documents, album and photographs. He flew 62 daylight operations with 21 and 226 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Angela Sadler and Pamela Hickson and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[inserted] DETAILS TYPED BY WILF CLUTTON IN EARLY 1950’s AND SENT TO MY SON RECENTLY.
W CLUTTON – AIR GUNNER – RECOLLECTIONS. [/inserted]
[underlined] 21 SQUADRON
PERSONAL [/underlined]
Date of joining Squadron June 1942.
Date of leaving October 1943.
[underlined] Crew [/underlined] Pilot Sgt. I. Bellis
Navigator Sgt. E. Pennell
W/OP Under Gunner Sgt. W.J. Clutton
Turret Gunner Sgt. D. Denton
[underlined] Squadron Principals [/underlined]
June 1942 W/CR Pritchard
June 1942 S/LDR P. Shand
July 1942 S/LDR R. King
Sept 1942 F/LT D. Dennis
Jan 1943 S/LDR Blome-Jones
July 1943 S/LDR D. Dennis
July 1943 W/CDR R. King (shot down at Abbeville)
[underlined] Bases [/underlined]
June 1942 Bodney, Norfolk.
November 1942 Methwold, Norfolk.
1st April 1943 Oulton, Norfolk.
19th August 1943 Hartford Bridge, Surrey. (now Black Bushe)
October 1943 Conversion to Mosquitoes. Pilots and Navigators to Sculthorpe? W/OPS and Gunners to West Raynham
[underlined] Aircraft. [/underlined]
June 1942 to July 1942 Blenheims (No ops. during this period except for 2 or 3 A.S. Rescues)
July 1942 to October 1943 Venturas (Day bombing only)
October 1943 to ? Mosquitoes.
In June 1943, it was rumoured we were to convert to Mitchells. Two Mitchells arrived. All crews made at least one flight. All members of a Canadian Crew, except for Rear Gunner, were killed on take off in one of these aircraft – Pilot forgot to unlock one of the controls and hit a Ventura in dispersal.
[page break]
[underlined] GENERAL [/underlined]
The fore-going has been just a brief resume of activities from June 1942 to October 1943. It was without a doubt, my happiest period during six years service. Co-operation and comradeship between Air and Ground crews could not have been better. We suffered quite a number of losses. Of the original crews at Bodney only three or four crews remained when the squadron converted to Mosquitoes. Upon reflection I can only remember S/Ldr. Dennis and crew and ourselves at that time. One incident worth recording concerns a raid on Zeebrugge [underlined] No Flak No Fighters. [/underlined] We were no. three to P/O Pratt when upon diving away from the target his aircraft side slipped into ours. His wing caught ours and immediately crumpled. His tail fins then hit us underneath. We received only minor damage but the last we saw of Pratt’s aircraft was hitting the sea off Zeebrugge – an unforgettable memory. But perhaps the most hectic trip, and an example of super leadership by S/Ldr. Dennis, was an attack on Abbeville. Twelve aircraft took part (2 boxes of 6) – we were no. 3 on the S/Ldr. in the first box of 6. Upon reaching the French Coast our Box was attacked by a Squadron of German Fighters (FW 190’s I believe). They were immediately engaged by our Spitfire escort and a ding-dong air fight began. We weaved all over the sky but kept on course. Before we reached the target, another attack on our Box was made and our no. 6 was shot down. Our bombing run commenced at the same time as another attack. Naturally it was “steady, steady” all the way until “bombs away”. No. 4 was hit by cannon shells and her nose burst into flame. It was a nerve racking period made more so by the fact that no. 4 did not go down immediately but remained in formation – a flying torch and still bombed up. However, down she went as we let the bombs go. It was a direct hit. We made for home being attacked all the way to the coast. In the last attack our no. 2 was shot down leaving 3 out of 6. At interrogation it appeared abvious [sic] that all the attacks were directed at the leading 6. The 2nd box got away scot-free. There was no doubt that but for the leadership of S/Ldr. Dennis, it might have been a lot worse and we did get through to the target and hit it. Shortly afterwards S/Ldr. Dennis received the D.S.O.
I am unable to give any information about 21 as a Mosquito Squadron except that my pilot Bellis received the D.F.C. and that Navigator Pennell was hit by a cannon shell whist [sic] on a low level and had to have his leg amputated. Denton and I were together for a second tour with 226 Squadron.
To conclude Bellis, Denton and I eventually aspired to the rank of Flight Lieutenant. Pennell, of course, was discharged from the Service. To the best of my knowledge, all are alive and kicking.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Notes on 21 Squadron and Dennis Denton's crew
Description
An account of the resource
Notes written by Wilf Clutton in early 1950's
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Wilf Clutton
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Two typewritten pages
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MDentonDH1256316-200114-010001, MDentonDH1256316-200114-010002
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Surrey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
21 Squadron
aircrew
B-25
Blenheim
crash
Fw 190
Mosquito
RAF Bodney
RAF Hartford Bridge
RAF Methwold
RAF Oulton
shot down
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020001.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020002.1.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020003.1.jpg
1d8289ddb44b3be338e06b9de00ff610
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/501/22414/PCurnockRM17020004.1.jpg
e1dd1c6068ff6e9feacfdd94c802b774
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
Curnock, Richard
Richard Murdock Curnock
R M Curnock
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Curnock, RM
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. 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
92 items. An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Richard Curnock (1924, 1915605 Royal Air Force), his log book, letters, photographs and prisoner of war magazines. He flew operations with 425 Squadron before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Richard Curnock and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
British, American and German Aeroplanes in Operational Service
Description
An account of the resource
Plan, head-on, angled and side views of 65 aircraft in use during the war.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
The Aeroplane Spotter
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Four printed sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Training material
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
PCurnockRM17020001,
PCurnockRM17020002,
PCurnockRM17020003,
PCurnockRM17020004
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
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
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.
Anson
B-17
B-24
B-26
Beaufighter
Blenheim
Boston
Catalina
Defiant
Do 16
Do 18
Do 24
Halifax
Hampden
He 111
Hudson
Hurricane
Ju 52
Ju 87
Ju 88
Lysander
Manchester
Me 109
Me 110
Oxford
P-38
P-40
Spitfire
Stirling
Sunderland
Ventura
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1253/16650/PHarrisJ1901.2.jpg
37f8e76c3007a5907c8d5e5767aac5ec
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1253/16650/AHarrisJ190131.2.mp3
f2e60b853eb7f0eb7e4f2d66a84fd858
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
Harris, Jack
John Harris
J Harris
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Jack Harris (b. 1920). He served as a navigation instructor before flying operations with 550 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-01-17
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harris, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PS: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Patricia Selby. The interviewee is John Harris. The interview is taking place at [buzz] Tunbridge Wells [buzz] and the date is the 31st of January 2019 and it’s 10am. When were you born, John?
JH: I was born on the 21st of September 1920. I was born in Gillingham, Kent which at that time was the largest borough in Kent with a population of sixty thousand people who depended heavily on the Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham which was a very big employer, and there were also other army units at Old Brompton and other places in Chatham. I was born in very modest circumstances, I suppose. It was a traditional family residence with a front room which was kept under wraps Monday to Saturday and opened up on Sunday when relatives or friends came for tea and that was the big social point of the week. Yes. Very, very modest beginnings. And then when I was aged about four, my parents who had both been shop assistants decided to open up their own shop which was a confectionist and tobacco shop. And we moved to 465 Canterbury Street say when I was about three or four. I was still on a little tricycle and the garden path had to be widened slightly to take my tricycle. I remember that. Living as a small boy in a sweetshop was a mixed blessing [laughs] and it was easy to overdo the pleasures particularly as I soon found my way around the sweet shop. Where the best chocolates were kept and such. So I was brought up with a pretty sweet tooth. Yes. But anyway I went to Napier Road Elementary School at the age of five and stayed there until the age of ten when I got a scholarship to go to Gillingham County School for Boys in Third Avenue Gillingham, which was a fairly new school. It had probably been built four or five years before, and it had a school of about four hundred pupils. It had very big playing grounds with cricket pitches, rugby pitches and a hockey pitch and unusually it had its own swimming baths which was pretty small. About twenty yards. Twenty five yards long or so. But it was quite unusual for schools to have their own swimming pool. Yeah. So I [pause] stayed at the County School and took two exams in about 1935, and I was then aged fifteen. And at that time the government was very worried about the spread of venereal disease and they decided that students in the fifth form, who would be aged about fifteen, would be given talks or lectures on the dangers of venereal disease. And we were the first class to start this new instruction. The physics master gave the lesson. It was unfortunate because he had a slight stammer which was a legacy of the Great War. But his lecture was built around a series of photographs which he passed around for all the boys to see and these boys, these photographs showed up in considerable detail what could happen to your private parts if you caught gonorrhoea or syphilis and it wasn’t a terribly happy experience. And it had a very, very daunting effect on, on my life and I was a slow beginner. So that affected me quite a bit really. That you didn’t want to, to get involved with that sort of thing you see.
PS: Yeah.
JH: So it put a considerable break on my social activities with the other sex [laughs] But there we are. That was what the government wanted to do. And of course in a way their lesson got home because we were all pretty scared about the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. So when I was sixteen I passed the matriculation exam with quite good results. Distinction in maths and French. And I then sat the entrance exam for the Civil Service to become a Civil Service clerk. And there were exams held in every big city and I had to go up to London to the Civil Service premises at Burlington Gardens. And there in a big hall they’d assembled about two or three hundred desks and we all had to sit down and take this exam. They came around, put the question paper on your desk and then they said: ‘You can turn the paper over and you’ve got two hours to complete the paper.’ [laughs] Quite, quite, quite a stiff test. I mean you know it was pretty important and you could see the other two hundred and ninety nine you were competing with [laughs] Yes. But I managed to pass that exam. I also took the exam for the London County Council to be a clerk with them and passed that as well so I got jobs offered with both. But I accepted the job with the Civil Service as a clerk and started off in the Intelligence Department of the Air Ministry in, I think it was June or July 1936. You see. Yeah. Yeah. Because I, I had to wait for the inter-house cricket competition to be finished because I was the best batsman in our house cricket team. [laughs] So how little things influence things. But anyway I started work and they started me off in a section in air intelligence which dealt with security. Well, the word intelligence was pretty, sounded pretty well to a young boy, you know. And we were responsible for security in the Royal Air Force and we had contacts with MI5, the counter intelligence agency that rounded up foreign spies. The RAF liaison officer with the Secret Service was a friend of my boss in, in our department and he was always coming in once a week for a chat and so on. Not, not that he said anything of importance. It was just social chat, you know. But anyway [pause] I started that job, I think in 1937, and then when war broke out [pause] one Friday we were told to pack everything up and tie it up and label it and put it in desks, filing cabinets and cupboards. All these cupboards, cabinets and desks were labelled and so on. And war was declared on the Sunday morning and on the Friday afternoon we, we cleared up everything and put it in the cupboards and filing cabinets and we were given railway warrants to go on the Saturday to a school at Harrow and Willesden. This school had been evacuated. The children were all sent away to Devon, Cornwall, Wales and so on. That was a mass evacuation. So we arrived at this school. Our desks, cupboards and filing cabinets were in a classroom. Well, we were provided with a telephone. We were all there on the Sunday morning. We heard Neville Chamberlain declare war and about fifteen minutes later the air raid warden siren sounded and we trooped off into air raid shelters built in the playing fields. But of course nothing happened. It was a false alarm. So the Air Intelligence Department from Kingsway London had been evacuated to a school at Harrow in North London. Yeah. It was, it was, just a Grammar School. A secondary school like, like ours in Gillingham, you know. But I mean it was quite amazing how the move was done and the telephones were connected and working all, all within a twenty four or a thirty six hour period. In some ways it says quite a lot for the planning that was involved. Yeah. Yeah. We, we stayed at Harrow for about a month. And this was the period of the Phoney War. Nothing was happening and then they moved us back to central London. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember that, and although young men were conscripted for military service on their eighteenth birthday, I was exempt from conscription because I was in what was called a Reserved Occupation and if, if they thought the job you were doing there and then was more important to the war office, war effort then being in the army or the other services you got exemption from the call up. So I carried on as a Civil Service clerk. But then when Dunkirk came along in May and June 1940, the Civil Service bosses relaxed the rules and they said that young men like me could be released to join the services if you wanted to be aircrew or a glider pilot or a parachutist. So I applied to be aircrew straightaway and I went before an Aircrew Selection Board at Uxbridge and got through all that and they accepted me as a trainee pilot. This would be about July or August. [pause] Oh God, my memory’s failing me. God.
PS: Don’t worry.
JH: Yes. This would be about July 1940 but the RAF training machine was so overwhelmed with new people coming in, that they couldn’t accept me for two or three months and I had to wait until mid-October 1940 when I was sent down to Babbacombe on the outskirts of Torquay which was the Receiving Centre for new trainee pilots. And we went to Babbacombe. It was a Receiving Wing it was called and you were attested. You took the Oath of Allegiance and you got a service number and then we drew a uniform, an RAF uniform and we started introduction to RAF drill and early lectures on Royal Air Force law and so on. And we were only there for a fortnight when I was posted to Number 5 Initial Training Wing at Torquay where we were in a requisitioned hotel called the Elfordleigh. And there were three flights of students with fifty student pilots in each flight and we started off our pilot training with lectures in air navigation, meteorology, the principles of flight and beginning to be introduced to machine guns and how they worked and so on. And of course there was lots of drill involved and a certain amount of sport. That course lasted eight weeks and we finished just before Christmas 1940 and we were due to go on to an Elementary Flying Training School to start to learn flying Tiger Moths. But first of all it was winter time and all the RAF airfields then were grass airfields and in the winter they got too soft and boggy and couldn’t be used for flying. Also, the training machine was being overwhelmed by this new influx of would be pilots and there was no flying unit we could go to and they sent us to Paignton just to mark time, and waste time for two months until we could be sent away to start flying training. So I didn’t start my flying training until February 1941 when I was sent to Fairoaks near Woking to start to learn to fly on Tiger Moths. Fairoaks was a grass airfield. It was also belong to an aircraft factory in the corner of the airfield which was making certain planes. I can’t remember what they were, but anyway, anyway we started flying training in Tiger Moths. The instructor sat at the front. No. Sorry. The pupils sat in the front cockpit. The instructor was behind and the instructor gave you instructions with a gosport tube. He spoke down a tube which came in to your earphones and of course you started off with circuits and landings, learning to fly the thing and land it. To do local flying and then a little bit of cross country flying and that was it. We did about forty or fifty hours on Tiger Moths and then we were ready to go on to the next stage of flying training and I went up to a service flying training school at Grantham in May 1941 to learn to fly Oxfords which were a twin engine trainer. And again you did circuits and landings, local flying, you did formation flying, you did some cross country, you did some bombing exercises on a bombing range and you finished up by doing night flying. Grantham wasn’t a good airfield for night flying because the airfield was shaped like an inverted saucer and you couldn’t see the far end of the airfield. Also it was alongside a main road with telegraph poles and telegraph wires so it wasn’t good. So the night flying was meant to be done from a World War One grass airfield on the other side of Grantham which was called Harlaxton. But at the end of the runway, the end of the flare path at Harlaxton, there was a factory making twenty millimetre cannon for Spitfires and Hurricanes and it was a priority job to get these British fighters equipped with this twenty millimetre cannon and they were scared that if the flare path was laid out at Harlaxton it would attract German intruder bombers and the bombs could fall on the factory. So they stopped us flying from Harlaxton at night and we were sent up to Ingham just north of Lincoln which was not a proper airfield. There were no buildings of any sort. Just tents, telephone and slit trenches. But it was a grass airfield of course. A farmer’s field converted to an airfield, but you could lay out a portable flare path which gave you eight or nine hundred yard take-off and landing strip. So we went up to Ingham and my instructor did three or four dual circuits and landings with me at night. And then he got out and he said: ‘You’re on your own. Go and do your first solo night take-off and landing.’ So I taxied to the end of the flare path, got the green light and the Aldis lamp from the flare path controller who was at our end of the flare path and he gave me a steady green, so I opened the throttles and took off down this flare path. I’d got about two thirds of the way down this flare path when I noticed in the corner of my windscreen there was a reflection of five or six bright yellow flashes behind me. Well, I knew what they were. A German intruder bomber was dropping a stick of bombs along our flare path chasing me up the flare path. Well, I saw the flashes from the first five or six bombs. When the last two bombs burst, I heard the crump of the burst and got the push of the blast so it sort of helped me down the flare path. Anyway, I got into the air, climbed up to about forty or fifty feet, retracted the undercarriage, put out my navigation lights because I didn’t want the German bomber to pick me up and shoot me down. And I turned cross wind and looked back and our flare path had been turned out you see. It had been turned off. They had turned it off. In those days each RAF airfield, when flying at night, had a red beacon which was portable and it was located within a mile or two of the airfield and it flashed two Morse Code letters. So for Ingham our pundit was flashing I and, I for India and N for nuts you see. So I went to this portable flashing beacon at a height of about a thousand feet and circled it for a minute or so and then I thought well this isn’t a good place to be because the German will come to the beacon anyway and look for me. So I mean I turned off my navigation lights so I had no contact with the ground. No radio. So I didn’t know what to do. My own flare path had been put out. I, I had to find another flare path. I’d, I’d got about three hours fuel left to fly but dawn was still four or five hours away so somewhere I’d got to find a flare path and make a landing at night and I’d never done a solo night landing before. So I formed a little plan and I flew south for five minutes looking for a flare path. Came back to our beacon. Nothing. I flew east for five minutes, came back, nothing. I couldn’t fly west because we were getting near the hills. Getting near the Pennine Hills. So then I flew north for five minutes and I was flying now at about two thousand feet and I was just looking for a flare path and suddenly I saw what was called a hooded flare path. It was a proper flare path with two lines of lights you see, but there was a hood over the lights so you could only see the lights from low level. You couldn’t see them from high up. So I lined up on this flare path, set my gyro to make sure I’d got the right heading, did a circuit and landing, dropped my wheels down, down downwind. Came around, put my flaps down and landed. I’d had no radio contract with the airfield and I landed on this flare path which was actually a runway and it was an airfield being used by a night fighter squadron flying Defiants and they had a couple of aircraft up looking for the German bomber that had bombed my flare path you see. Well, of course I was a big surprise to them. It was, they had no warning of my arrival. As I came over the end of the runway, the runway controller in a caravan at the end of the runway told his ops room that he’d got a stranger. An Oxford had just landed. Well, they shepherded me to a dispersal and I switched off. So both I and the aircraft had got down in one piece safely albeit to a completely strange airfield. But it had a happy ending you see [laughs] So that was quite an introduction to night flying.
PS: Yes.
JH: Yeah. We’ll have a cup of coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
PS: Right. Ok.
JH: Yeah.
[recording paused]
PS: You’re on.
JH: Well, [pause] about ten days after that incident where the Germans bombed my flare path I finished my flying course on Oxfords. And I received my wings on the 2nd of August 1941 and I was commissioned on that day. And then all the big tailors; Gieves, Orchid and so on had representatives that they sent to officer’s messes and you could be measured for your uniform and it would be made up and then you’d have a fitting. And you could get your uniform within oh two or three weeks. It was quite well organised. Unfortunately, I had come top in my navigation exam. And when I finished this course on twin engine Oxfords and got my wings, they made me a navigation instructor and I was sent away to a navigation instructor’s school at Cranage in Cheshire and we spent six or eight weeks learning a bit more about navigation in general but specialising in astro navigation using sextants to take shots of the stars, the moon and the sun. And you could get position lines from your sextant readings and plot these on the chart and get a fix. If you had taken shots on three stars you could get a fix which should give you your position at night to an accuracy of about ten miles which was a lot better than they’d had up ‘til then. So there was all this emphasis on astro navigation and particularly on the various star constellations and we had to get out and identify these at night when, when the sky was clear enough and so on. But the RAF had great hopes of astro navigation but it was overtaken by other better means of navigation soon after so it didn’t catch on as a mainstream of navigation. It was always a back up aid if you needed it. Yes. Yes. So [pause] I did about a six or eight week course at Cranage and I was then qualified to teach navigation. And you’ve got to remember I was only twenty one. Still pretty young. Yeah. So they sent me down to Number 3 Service Flying Training School at South Cerney near Cirencester and I taught navigation to each group of student pilots that came along. And they had to get enough in to, to pass navigation exams and so on. Each course consisted of fifty student pilots and they were learning to fly Oxfords and we were teaching them navigation. Each course of fifty students included eight or ten Polish pilots. And these had been perhaps members of the Polish Air Force or young Polish men wanting to fly who’d used an escape route to get out of Poland and be passed down through five or six countries. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania into Turkey and finally they’d reached the RAF in Palestine and there they’d be vetted to make sure that they weren’t German spies. But then they would be accepted into the Polish Air Force and sent to England for training. So that’s why we had a lot of Poles on each course. Now, the training included some exercise learning how to drop bombs from two points of view. One being the pilot accepting instructions from the bomb aimer about getting on to the aiming point and the other being the actual bomb aimer who was guiding the pilot and giving instruction to the pilot to make sure that he lined up properly on the aiming point. And a bombing detail consisted of two pilots in an aircraft flying to the practice bombing range which was on mud flats in the Severn Estuary and took about ten or twelve minutes to fly to the bombing range. And then one pilot would go down to the nose where the bombsight was and he would guide his pilot friend to drop six practice bombs on this bombing range and they would change over and the other would do the bombing and the other would do the flying in the pilot’s cockpit. So the actual dropping of the bombs took about fifty minutes and with flying back to base the whole flying detail would be about an hour and twenty minutes or an hour and a half. [pause] One day, two Polish pilots took off to do this practice bombing exercise but they took a long time to come back and the Oxford only had fuel for about four hours flying but these two Poles didn’t come back to South Cerney and enquiries were made as to whether anybody had reported an Oxford crashing somewhere. They, they thought they’d crashed you see. Well, after about four hours these two Polish pilots returned. They hadn’t got any practice bombs on board. They’d dropped them all. They’d flown out over the English Channel at low level to get below the German radar screen. They got to the French coast. They flew up and down the French coast until they came to a German barracks flying a swastika flag and they dropped their twelve practice bombs on the German barracks. [laughs] Now, these practice bombs were very small. Only about eleven or twelve pounds each. They were just filled with magnesium powder so that you could plot them to give a cloud of dust. But they had a small explosive charge that gave a flash. That was all. But anyway, after about four hours these two Poles returned and they said what they’d done and of course everybody was a bit upset because they completely ruined a day’s flying programme. Apart from causing concerns about a missing aircraft, they’d ruined the next couple of day hours that aircraft was due to fly. So the chief instructor had to tear them off quite a large strip but at the same time he had to admire their aggression. [laughs] They weren’t going to waste any practice bombs. So I carried on instructing at South Cerney until May 1942 when I was posted to Canada to become a navigation instructor at a new Operational Training Unit that was being set up in Canada. But we ran into some problems straight away. The Operational Training Unit we were going to was meant to fly Hampden twin engine bombers and the crews were meant to be trained for night operations in Bomber Command. And that is where astro-navigation still played some considerable part. But unfortunately, the airframes for the Hampden bombers were made in Canada so the airframes were available but the engines were Mercury engines made by the Bristol Aircraft at Bristol in England. Well, the engines for the Hampdens never arrived. They’d been put on a ship to cross the Atlantic and the U-boats had got it and sent the ship to the bottom. So we had no engines. And of course you can’t do anything with a bare airframe. So for four or five weeks we were in limbo with virtually nothing to fly. So they made an emergency decision. The Air Ministry had ordered from Lockheed Aircraft Company at Burbank in California a number of day twin engine bombers called the Ventura which was an adapted version of the Hudson maritime patrol aircraft. Well, the Ventura used the Hudson wings and the Hudson wings were built for flying for long periods at low level, at low speed on maritime patrols you see, and the wings weren’t suitable for a day bomber which had to be a high speed bomber. So the concept of making the Ventura a day bomber never worked out. We, the RAF did order a small number. Perhaps seventy or eighty aircraft. They equipped three squadrons in Bomber Command but the casualty rate was too high and they couldn’t get away from German fighters. They couldn’t defend themselves and the casualty rate was just too high so the Ventura was never a success as a day bomber as it was meant to be, but it was quite an interesting aircraft to fly. It had very modern systems. The Americans were very good with instruments, electrics and auto pilot. Much, much better than actually the RAF equivalent and it was still an interesting aircraft to fly. So I carried on flying Venturas at Pennfield Ridge in New Brunswick, Canada which was one of the Maritime Provinces and heavily dependent on forestry, agriculture, orchards and fishing and so on and generally a rather poorer part of Canada. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I stayed on teaching navigation and then they made me a staff pilot on Venturas and I could lead students on formation flying and certain air firing exercises and so on. So I did quite a number of hours on Ventura aircraft. So then in January ’44, I was sent back to England on a troop ship from Halifax in Nova Scotia, and I came back on a troop ship called HMS Andes which when war broke out had been under construction. So it was a fairly new ship and they were able to finish it as a troop ship and it could take, you know, several hundred RAF people. So we were, I think I was on one of the top decks. A deck it was, and a cabin with six bunks in it. Three double tiered bunks occupied seven officers. The seventh had to sleep on the floor so we took it in turns to sleep on the floor. But we didn’t come back in a convoy. The Andes was fast enough to make the Atlantic crossing unescorted and if you could cruise along at seventeen or eighteen knots you were probably going fast enough to avoid the U-boats and so on. So we came back to Gourock in the Firth of Clyde at Glasgow. That was our landing point. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry, I’m wrong there. We came back to Liverpool. We landed at Liverpool. We landed at Liverpool, yeah. Sorry. And then I started my training with Bomber Command and I went to Number 30 OTU at Hixon, near Stafford, flying Wellington bombers. I was the pilot and I acquired a crew of; navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and one air gunner. So we became a crew of five and we did all our circuits and landings, local flying, cross country, bombing exercises, air firing exercises, formation flying, fighter affiliation and night flying and so on. And then after about eighty or ninety hours on Wellingtons, we finished that course and we were ready to go on to the next step on the Bomber Command training ladder, and we went to a Heavy Conversion Unit at Sandtoft near Doncaster to learn to fly the Halifax four engine bomber. And there I added on a flight engineer and a mid-upper gunner to my crew. So at that point we became a crew of seven and we did the same sort of exercises; circuits and landings, local flying, cross countries, bombing, air firing, fighter affiliation and night flying. So we did forty hours flying on Halifaxes and then we were sent to Number 1 Lancaster Finishing School at Hemswell where we all did a quick conversion course on to the Lancaster and it was just circuits and landings, day and night flying and I think one cross country. We were only there for about two, two and a half weeks and then we were qualified Lancaster crew and I was posted to Number 550 Squadron flying Lancasters based at North Killingholme near Grimsby. We arrived about teatime on the 30th of August 1944 and there was an air of gloom everywhere because that day the squadron commander, a wing commander had been shot down on a daylight raid on a French target but unfortunately he didn’t come back. So we did a couple of cross country exercises on the squadron, particularly getting used to a navigation aid called H2S which was a downward looking radar which gave you a picture of the ground and you could identify towns and water features which helped a lot with the navigation. So we did two or three training exercises with the squadron and I had to start my tour by doing a second pilot trip with an experienced crew which I did on the 10th of September 1944 and the target was Le Havre port. And we attacked it in daylight so the whole sortie was very short and we were only over the target for two or three minutes and we hardly saw any flak. Just a few puffs of smoke. A few. But it wasn’t much good from the point of view of getting me used to enemy defences. So our first raid as a complete crew was a night sortie on the 10th of September to Frankfurt and we went on a totally clear night with no cloud. But Frankfurt and Mainz it’s twin city had about two hundred searchlights and they were all alight as we came over this target and you could see three or four aircraft had been coned by, you know twenty or thirty searchlights each, and they were being plastered with flak. So that didn’t do the morale a lot of good. But anyway, we, we got through all that alright. That was a flight of just over seven hours. And then we started to do three or four daylight raids on targets in or near Calais. There was a gun site that was firing shells into Dover and southern England. There were a lot of German troops in Calais which were trying to stop the allies capturing the port because we wanted to get the port for the port facilities it offered you see. Loading supplies and so on. Yeah. So we did three or four day sorties and then we [pause] we were sent on one daylight raid in October, early October, to an inland port on the River Rhine at Emmerich which was being used to bring German reinforcements in. And they sent us in in daylight at a height of eleven thousand feet which was pretty low and the German flak gunners had no trouble in picking you up as target. And suddenly a flak shell burst about thirty or forty feet in front of me. Fortunately just below me. Just a few feet below. I saw the red flash as the shell burst. I jumped out of my skin. I knew I was going to be severely tested in the next few minutes. There was one very loud bang which we found out when we landed was because a blind landing aerial on the outside of the fuselage just below, just by my left knee had been shot clean away. And we took a lot of flak fragments in the port wing and one fragment punctured one fuel tank and the mid-upper gunner reported fuel streaming back from this tank and I could tell from the petrol gauge that it was leaking pretty badly. The needle was going down. So we had to run all four engines off that one tank to make best use of what fuel was remaining in it. And I checked around with the crew. Nobody was hurt. We were all unharmed. That was a bit of a surprise in a way. And when we landed we found we’d got over seventy holes in the port wing in the bomb bay doors of the fuselage and so on. So we’d taken quite a pasting from this flak shell. But anyway, we got back alright and then we set out to do a lot of night raids on mostly targets in southern Germany like Stuttgart, Munich, Leipzig, Nuremberg and so on, interspersed with raids on Ruhr Targets like Essen and Dusseldorf and then three raids on Cologne we did as well. On one of the Cologne raids we were hit by flak again but that time minor. We only got ten or twenty holes. Yes. Yes. So there was one particular episode during my tour with 550 Squadron. About halfway through our tour, our flight engineer fell off his motorbike and broke his wrist and he was out of action for five or six weeks, in which period we carried on flying doing six raids with a replacement flight engineer. So when my crew had finished their thirty raids, the flight engineer had only done twenty four because he’d missed six of them. So I got the whole crew to volunteer to fly six extra raids to finish off the flight engineer which meant that I as a pilot did thirty seven raids all together, because I’d started with the second pilot trip you see. So I, there weren’t, there weren’t many people on the squadron that had flown more raids than that. Yeah. And we, we got through the tour alright. As long as you were in the middle of the bomber stream you were relatively safe from night fighters. The night fighters were the biggest danger because with their twenty millimetre cannon firing upwards they came underneath you and you couldn’t see them and they fired up in to your fuel tanks and engines and so on, and usually the first burst was pretty fatal. But the night fighters were looking first for bombers on the edge of the bomber stream where they would be easier to pick up you see. But I had a good navigator and he kept me in the middle of the bomber stream and we were never attacked by a night fighter. So I take my hat off to my navigator there. He was really responsible for the crew coming, coming back unharmed from all these raids. Yeah. Yeah. We finished up. Our next to last raid was the Dresden raid where we, we flew for ten hours twenty minutes. And unfortunately when I started up my own aircraft, the brake pressure was too low and we couldn’t taxi out and take off. We had to switch quickly to the reserve aircraft which was already bombed and fuelled up. So we were taken to the reserve aircraft and we flew the sortie in the reserve aircraft. But not surprisingly the reserve aircraft was a very tired out aircraft and possibly had a twisted fuselage. It didn’t fly too well and I had to use much more fuel than usual in climbing up to altitude and we started to get a bit short of fuel and coming back across France we realised we didn’t have enough fuel to get to North Killingholme, so we landed at an emergency airstrip at Manston in Kent. Just next to Ramsgate. And we landed there about ten past seven in the morning just as it was getting light. Yeah. So, that, that was that was a long, long sortie. Ten hours twenty minutes was our longest sortie. That’s ten hours twenty minutes from take-off to landing. But that means, what with starting the engines during the early take off checks, taxiing to the take off point, taxiing back after you land, I’d been strapped to that seat for over eleven hours you see. Quite a long time isn’t it? [laughs]
PS: A very long time.
JH: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Ok. So shall we have a rest now?
PS: Yes.
JH: Yes. Yes. Yes.
[recording paused]
JH: I’d finished my tour and I was posted in early March 1945 to a Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit at Sandtoft where I was an instructor and deputy flight commander. And of course we were training crews on the Halifax first and then they would go on to the Lancaster. And the war with Japan was still on and they were due to go up to the Pacific Islands to bomb Japan but Japan came out of the war in, I think it was August 1945, and obviously there was no need to carry on training crews. So we had a very awkward period where they didn’t really know what to do with all the aircrew they’d got, and holding units were set up just to [laughs] just to sleep and feed them but not, not really knowing what to do with them. So it was a rather awkward time. And I had a stroke of luck. I took some leave and my home was in Gillingham in Kent so I went up to London quite a lot. And I was walking the streets of London and I met a squadron leader who I knew and we started chatting and he, he was in charge of pilot postings in the Air Ministry and he said to me: ‘You know, pilots and aircrew are going to have a difficult time for the next few months until everything gets sorted out, but — ’ he said, ‘If you like I could get you a job in the Air Ministry.’ Well, I leapt at it you see. So I was posted to the Air Ministry on the 1st of October 1945. And first of all I was a flight lieutenant but fortunately in about March ’46 they made me an acting squadron leader and I was pretty pleased with that at the age of twenty five. Life was looking pretty good. And then a month or two later about April or June, April or May ’45, they gave me a permanent commission which I accepted as quick as I could and I was going to stay in the RAF permanently you see. So that was a lucky break for me. Yeah. So then in March 1948, I went back to flying duties and had to take a refresher course flying Oxfords at Finningley near Doncaster for six or seven weeks. And then I was posted to an Operational Conversion Unit flying Dakotas at North Luffenham near Oakham in Rutland and I acquired a pilot and a wireless operator, so we were just a crew of three and we learned to fly a Dakota transport aircraft and the Dakota could transport about thirty or forty troops. It could drop paratroops. It could tow gliders, and you could also drop containers as supply dropping to troops on the ground. So we had to practice all those exercises. But the main thing was doing a long cross countries to get the navigator exercised and so on. So that was fine. And I carried on until March 1948. No, sorry. [pause] I carried on ‘til February ’49. That’s right. February ’49 when I was posted out to the Far East and we went up on a troop ship the Devonshire which was the services troop ship, you know. Yeah. Now, we’ve got —
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jack Harris. One
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Patricia Selby
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-01-31
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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AHarrisJ190131, PHarrisJ1901
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:15:33 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Jack Harris was born in Gillingham, Kent. At sixteen, he undertook employment as a clerk in the intelligence department of the Air Ministry. He describes the brief evacuation of his department to Harrow in 1939 and receiving permission to leave his reserved occupation and volunteer for aircrew in 1940, when he was sent down to Babbacombe. Harris began training as a pilot on Tiger Moths in February 1941 at RAF Fairoaks, followed by Oxfords at RAF Grantham and RAF Ingham. Harris describes night flying at Harlaxton before going to Ingham. He describes his first solo night flight, when a German intruder bomber caused the landing flares to be turned off, forcing him to find an alternative airfield to land. In 1941, Harris was made a navigation instructor and was sent away to a navigation instructor’s school at RAF Cranage in Cheshire. He then served as a navigation instructor for pilots at RAF South Cerney until May 1942, when he was posted to an Operational Training Unit in Canada as a staff pilot leading Ventura training exercises. In January 1944, Harris returned to England and trained on Wellingtons at RAF Hixon, Halifaxes at RAF Sandtoft, and converted to Lancasters at RAF Hemswell. In August 1944, he joined 550 Squadron based at RAF North Killingholme and completed thirty-seven operations. He compares his first daylight operation accompanying an experienced crew to Le Havre with his first solo pilot operation at night to Frankfurt. He also recounts anti-aircraft fire puncturing a fuel tank and seventy holes into their wing during a daylight operation over the Rhine River, and his penultimate operation to Dresden. In March 1945, Harris was posted to a Halifax Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Sandtoft. Finally, Harris describes receiving a permanent position in the RAF in 1946 and training to fly C-47s before being posted to the Far East in 1949.
Contributor
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Tilly Foster
Julie Williams
Steph Jackson
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Surrey
England--Lincolnshire
England--Gloucestershire
England--Staffordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Harrow
Canada
France
France--Le Havre
Germany
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Dresden
Rhine River
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1940
1941-02
1942-05
1944-01
1944-08
1946
1949
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
30 OTU
550 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
C-47
Flying Training School
H2S
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Initial Training Wing
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
pilot
RAF Cranage
RAF Fairoaks
RAF Grantham
RAF Harlaxton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Hixon
RAF Ingham
RAF North Killingholme
RAF North Luffenham
RAF Sandtoft
RAF South Cerney
RAF Torquay
recruitment
Tiger Moth
training
Ventura
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1977/38294/SPalmerRAM115772v10037.2.jpg
55862117759b1010282cbde9848574c3
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
Palmer, Robert Anthony Maurice
R A M Palmer
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
2017-10-30
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Palmer, RAM
Description
An account of the resource
38 items. The collection concerns Squadron Leader Robert AM Palmer VC, DFC and Bar (115772, Royal Air Force) and contains his log books, photographs, fact sheets, newspaper cuttings, documents, correspondence and a substancial history of his last operation. <br /><br />He flew one hundred and eleven operations as a pilot with 75, 149 and 109 Squadrons and was killed 23 December 1944 when leading a daylight operation as an Oboe marker.<br /><br />The collection also contains 51 items in a <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2178">Photograph album</a>.<br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Penny Palmer and catalogued by Nigel Huckins. <br /><br />Additional information on Robert AM Palmer is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/221528/">IBCC Losses Database</a>
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
Bomber Harris fact sheet
Description
An account of the resource
Gives brief biographic and service details. Drawings of aircraft and squadron/group badges as well as portrait of Marshall of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur T Harris Bt, GCB,OBE,AFC,LLD, Air Officer Commanding in Chief, Bomber Command 1942-1945. 'A tribute to Sir Arthur to mark his 90th birthday 13 April 1982'.
Creator
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Pathfinder prints Wellingborough
Temporal Coverage
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1982-04-13
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Format
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One page printed document
Publisher
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Pathfinder Prints
Identifier
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SPalmerRAM115772v10037
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.
1 Group
2 Group
210 Squadron
3 Group
31 Squadron
38 Squadron
44 Squadron
5 Group
50 Squadron
6 Group
8 Group
B-17
B-24
B-25
Battle
Blenheim
Boston
Halifax
Hampden
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Manchester
Master Bomber
Mosquito
Stirling
Ventura
Wellington
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/231/3604/PSpencerAHG1701.1.jpg
65cd99eb9fc28251abf8fb8fadf3114d
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/231/3604/ASpencerAHG170227.1.mp3
6b18db56623f80f8bd93869166ae985a
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
Spencer, Arthur
Arthur Humphrey George Spencer
Arthur H G Spencer
A H G Spencer
A Spencer
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. An oral history with Flight Lieutenant Arthur Humphrey George Spencer (b. 1921, 1311996 and 145359 Royal Air Force), a memoir and an essay. Arthur Spencer trained in the United States and flew two tours of operations as a navigator with 97 Squadron at RAF Woodhall spa and RAF Bourn. He later became 205 Group's Navigation Officer. He flew with British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) after the war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Arthur Spencer 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
2015-10-02
2017-02-27
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. 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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Spencer, AHG
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PL: My name’s Pam Locker and I’m in the home of Mr Arthur Humphrey George Spencer *********** on the 27th of February 2017 at 10 o’clock. And if I could just start off by saying a very enormous thank-you on behalf of the Bomber Command Digital Archive for agreeing to talk to us and to share your memories. So if I could start by — Perhaps you could tell me a little bit about your family and how you first became involved with Bomber Command.
AS: Ok, well, I was born in Salisbury, Wilts, but my parents must have moved to Southampton before my memory begins and I was brought up in Southampton. I enjoyed school. I went to a very large Boys’ Grammar School and I was in my first year in the Sixth Form at the time of the Munich crisis and there was obviously going to be a war and as I finished school, the war broke out. In fact the first year of the war was during my last year at school. Obviously the Air Force were recruiting madly at the time of the Battle of Britain and I had grown up on the literature of the First World War. Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and that sort of thing and realised that warfare in the trenches was pretty horrible. Richard Aldington wrote a very good novel called “Death of a Hero” which I still think is one of the best novels ever written and, so I volunteered for the Air Force and after the usual waiting around period, I found myself in the Air Force. Initially as a, an under training pilot but I didn’t make the grade as a pilot, although I got more than half way through the course. I was very late washing out as the Americans called it. I was in Florida. And so I re-mustered as a navigator and was sent back to Florida, to the United States Naval Air Station Pensacola, to undergo a navigation course. I never failed to be horrified at the inadequacy of the practical training on that course. If I’d had been at an RAF or RCAF Navigation School, I’d have had about a hundred and fifty hours in the air, undertaking navigation exercises. At Pensacola, I had less than thirty hours of flying. All of it over the Gulf of Mexico and never once experienced navigating an aircraft. The American naval way of doing things was to send up about eight people together and two of them would practice taking sun shots with a sextant, two of them would practice using the drift meter, two of them would be firing guns and two of them doing something else which I’ve forgotten, but completely inadequate. However, the theoretical side of the course, the classroom side, was excellent. It was run by an American naval officer, navigator, assisted occasionally by the RAF liaison officer and I did have a very, very good theoretical background. We were told, towards the end of the course, that the top six to, in the final examination, would ferry an aircraft home, so my first flight as a navigator was ferrying a Ventura across the Atlantic. We went to — the top six went to Dorval and then flew, after crewing up with a very experienced American civil pilot and an equally experienced wireless operator and a second pilot, who was, like ourselves, had just finished his course. We were allocated a Ventura. Little two-engined aircraft which we had to deliver to Prestwick. We, all the aircraft being ferried across at that time flew to Gander in Newfoundland and then these little aircraft had to wait for a tail wing component to get across the Atlantic. Now I was stuck there with another navigator who’d been an acquaintance at Pensacola, but not a particular friend, but because we were stuck there for a fortnight together waiting for a tail wing, we became very good friends and by co-incidence, he was sent to the same squadron as myself and when he retired from a very senior position in industry, he came to live in Somerset and so we remained lifelong friends. And, he died a couple of years ago. His family were good enough to ask me to make the eulogy at his funeral and his wife is now in a nursing home near Taunton. We try and see her every third week because her son lives in Australia and her daughter lives in Germany so we are the local contact. His name is George Brantingham and I mention this because he plays a fairly important part in a later stage of the story. Anyway, we got across the Atlantic successfully and after further training, I got to Bomber Command Operational Training Unit at Upper Heyford. Number 16 OTU. And one of the most important things you do at Operational Training Unit is to crew up into a crew. And in the literature, you find horrific stories of people being put into a hanger, twenty pilots, twenty navigators, twenty wireless operators and so on and being told, ‘Sort yourselves out.’ And I read this sort of thing time and time again. It was much more civilised fortunately at Upper Heyford. We were told that the course would be four weeks ground school and then the pilots would go off to a satellite airfield to learn to fly Wellingtons and then they’d come back and we would spend the last six weeks of the course flying cross-countrys and so on together. And we’d only been there two or three days when George, my friend, George Brantingham said to me, ‘I’ve got myself a pilot.’ Well I hadn’t really thought about it at that stage but I said, ‘You were quick off the mark, George. Who is it?’ And he told me it was a Sergeant Tracy, a larger than life American who’d gone north over the border to join the RCAF. And so at the next opportunity, I contacted George and said, ‘I hear you’ve got yourself a navigator. Can you recommend a pilot to me?’ And he thought for a minute and he said, ‘Well I reckon young Jimmy Munro is about the best pilot on our course.’ At the earliest opportunity, I found Jimmy. A very fresh-faced eighteen year old Canadian and I said, ‘Have you got a navigator yet?’ ‘No.’ ‘What about taking me on?’ ‘Ok that’s fine.’ And that conversation is probably why I’m here today. If I’d had a different pilot I might well not have been. But he was, as Bill Tracy had said, an incredibly good pilot. He’d grown up on the Ottawa River in a little hamlet called Fitzroy Harbour and part of his boyhood was canoeing on the Ottawa River and he handled a Lancaster just as well as he handled a canoe. And so we got through our OTU successfully. Went to Swinderby, just outside of Lincoln, to convert to Lancasters and so to 97 Squadron, fairly late in December, before Christmas, but fairly late in December 1942. Can I stop there a minute?
AS: Talk about —
PL: Re-starting, re-starting recording with Mr Spencer.
AS: Right, well, 97 Squadron in fact didn’t unleash us against the enemy right away. They gave us quite a bit more training before they decided to let us fly Lancasters, one of their precious Lancasters, on Operations. 97 by the way, was one of the very first squadrons to be equipped with Lancasters and part of their history was the daylight Augsburg raid of 1942. And some of the crew who took part in that raid were still at Woodhall Spa when we joined the squadron. Our first Operation, like all first Operations was mine-laying down on the Gironde estuary, near Bordeaux, and then we set about operating mainly to the Ruhr, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Munich, Wilhelmshaven. All in my Log Book. And the incident I want to talk about a little bit, is on the 19th of March 1943, when I flew with one of the Dambusters. Co-incidentally, he was also Munro but whereas my pilot was Sergeant Munro, this was Flight Lieutenant Les Munro, which is a name you may possibly have come across before now. Well, the three crews went from our squadron to join 617, but they started intensive low-level flying training before they left, before they left Woodhall Spa. And on one of these occasions, Flight Lieutenant Munro’s navigator was quite badly gashed across the forehead in what we would now call, nowadays call a bird strike. Now these three crews weren’t screened, was the word which we used for Operations, they were still taking part in Operations, and he was scheduled to go on Operations, but he didn’t have a navigator. Jock Rumbles, his navigator was too badly injured to go, so I was allocated to him. And that morning I flew an air test with him. You nearly always did an air test before you flew Operations at night. Twenty-five minutes. But Operations were cancelled before we even got to briefing. So although I flew with him, I didn’t operate with him. At the time I was very glad not to, because it was regarded as a bit dicey operating away from your own crew. You were very much a Unit as a crew but in retrospect it would be nice to be able to say I’d flown an Operation with one of the Dambusters. But I didn’t think that at the time, I was glad not to go. Well we continued flying, building up Operations ‘till we moved down to Bourn in April 1943 to join Pathfinder Force. We had another intensive period of training. Normally when crews joined the Pathfinder Force they went to Upwood, the Pathfinder Training School, but because we moved as a squadron, the Unit’s instructors came to us and we did a lot of intensive training. I remember Bennett. He was frequently with the squadron. He was the AOC at Pathfinder Force, of course. And one of the things he said was, ‘Of course the really important people in the crew are the navigators and bomb aimers. The pilots are only the chauffeurs to get them there.’ Which was very good for our morale, of course, as navigators. And by the time we’d finished our Pathfinder Training, it was May. Nights were very, very short indeed. And so virtually all our early Pathfinder Operations were to the Ruhr and the Ruhr took about three hours, three and half, four hours. Anywhere else in Germany took much longer. You couldn’t get there and back under cover of darkness. So we went to the Ruhr. Can we stop a second again there?
PL: Of course.
PL: Re-starting the tape.
AS: Pathfinder Force had been formed sometime fairly early in 1942. It happened after all Bomber Command had been equipped with cameras which took automatic photos when bombs were released. And when these early pictures were analysed, it was found that something like five percent of the aircraft dropped their bombs within three miles of the target, or something like that. Some infinitely small number of bombs were getting anywhere near the target and one of the measures adopted was to form Pathfinder Force which was then equipped with the, what was then the state of the art radar operation and all the other new instruments that were coming in and our job was to go in and either light up a target or more frequently mark it with bombs which were called target indicators which would burst barometrically at three thousand feet over the target because frequently the target couldn’t be seen once bombs started going down with so much smoke and dust coming up. But these target indicators hung on a parachute at about three thousand feet but they only lasted six minutes so they had to be backed-up fairly frequently. And the main Force coming along behind would bomb on the target indicator, not worry about finding an actual building or railway yard or docks or something like that to — Anyway, as I say, our early Operations in Pathfinder Force were all the Ruhr because the nights were so short. And we expected to be going to the Ruhr on the 16th of June. We’d done an air test in the morning and a bit naughtily we’d been shooting up a train just outside of Cambridge, diving at it, flying alongside it and the passengers were obviously enjoying it, they were waving back to us enthusiastically and the engine-driver was obviously enjoying it too, because he leaned out of his cabin and gave us a sign. [laughs] And er, but when it got a bit close into Cambridge, we decided we’d better go home, so we flew back to base. And when we got back to base, there was the Flight Commander’s van waiting in dispersal and we thought, ‘Oh dear. We’re in trouble,’ because we were flying quite low enough for people to see our identification letters, ‘OF-J Johnny’, and there must have been some senior officer on board, we thought, who’d got on the phone, the blower we would have called it then, as soon as he got into Cambridge and complained about these young idiots who were risking their lives in an expensive aircraft. However the Flight Commander was not there for that reason. The Flight — Jimmy opened the window and the Flight Commander called up, ‘Jimmy. You’re to take a week’s kit and fly up to Scampton after lunch.’ ‘Ok. What for?’ ‘I don’t know. You’ll get all the gen when you get there.’ So we weren’t in trouble. We found, when we got back to the mess, that four crews were going to Scampton. Now Scampton of course was the home of the Dambusters. So our attitude was, a little bit ambivalent. On the one hand, what a compliment to be one of only four crews in Pathfinder Force to be selected to take part in some special Operation. On the other hand, were we really awfully keen to be, take part in some Operation with a squadron which had only done one Operation, but on it, had lost about forty-five percent of it’s aircraft. [laughs] So, as I say, our thoughts were a bit ambivalent but there was nothing we could do about it. So we packed our kit after lunch and flew up to Scampton and when we got there, we were eventually four aircraft as I say. I’ll name the four captains. Jimmy, now a Pilot Officer, Pilot Officer Jones, Pilot Officer Munro, Pilot Officer Jones, who’d been one of the other crews that joined 97 from Swinderby in, at Christmas and two older pilots who were just coming back to 97 for a second tour. Because 97, a two-flight squadron at Bourn, at Woodhall Spa, had grown to a three-flight squadron at Bourn, so a lot of new crews coming in. So four crews were taken along to a briefing room and there, an elderly captain, a Group Captain, told us why we were there. When I say elderly, he was about thirty-five. But, er. [laughs] You know, we were all in our teens and young twenties so he seemed elderly. I’ve researched him since, and actually and I’ve found he was thirty-four at the time. [laughs] Anyway, he told us that we would be assisting Five Group, they were, of course based all round Lincoln, on a special Operation which would take place in the near future and we would be lighting the target and marking it for the aircraft of Five Group who would provide the main Force. Ok. Where? Well he either couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us when. ‘It’ll be in the next few nights, because you need a full moon to reach a pin-point target.’ And he also told us that for the next couple of nights, we would be practising over Wainfleet Sands which was a bombing range on the Wash. And that we weren’t allowed to go into Lincoln, which seemed a pity, but, still, we were confined to camp. Well after a couple of nights practising over Wainfleet Sands, we — going back a little bit, we were told as the Pathfinder crews, we had to decide the plan of attack. And what we decided was that two aircraft, ours and Pilot Officer Jones would go in first and lay a line of flares either side of the target and the other two would come along and mark it behind us. Aft er a couple of days practice, we went to briefing, and I think it was the only time I ever went for a morning briefing, and we were told where the target was, and it was the old airship shed at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. And they were manufacturing there some new radar devices which would no doubt improve the defences of the Ruhr and it would be in our own interest to make sure that this attack was well-carried out. But that if it didn’t occur in the next few nights, it wouldn’t take place at all because it needed good weather and a full moon. And then at the end of the briefing, almost off-handedly, we were told, ‘Well. Friedrichshafen is much too far into Germany for you to get there and back under cover of darkness so you’ll fly straight on over the Mediterranean to Algiers. Algiers and Tunisia of course having recently, having been taken by Operation Torch, the attack on the west side of Africa. Mainly French and American but it had given us airfields in North Africa which we could use. And after briefing, we could go to stores and draw some tropical kit. Which we did. None of us of course had badges of rank on this basic tropical kit which caused one or two problems when we were in Algiers, but I’ll come to that later. Well the afternoon was a lovely afternoon and we thought, ‘Ok.’ But we kept in touch with the Met Office and they got increasingly pessimistic as the afternoon went on and very close they said, ‘No. It’s not going to happen tonight.’ So we wasted our time the next day and the Met Office were becoming more optimistic and it looked as though we would go and apparently a Met Flight, Meteorological Flight, a Spitfire, went out over southern Germany and reported that the weather was good, so Operations were on. So we loaded up our kit and we took off that night at twenty to ten. That was Double British Summer Time of course and as we took off from Scampton, which incidentally was an all grass airfield. There were no runways there which surprised us that the Dambusters had been operating from an air— and of course we had a terrifically heavy load, over two thousand two hundred gallons of petrol in order to do the long flight to Algiers, so it was quite a struggle getting the thing into the air but we all got into the air and as we looked round, there were aircraft coming up from all the other Lincolnshire airfields and we set off and flew to Reading which was the first turning point. And from Reading to Selsey Bill, down on the south coast and we got there too early to cross over to France. We would have arrived in daylight and fighters patrolling the south coast came up and flew around us and waggled their wings at us which we took to mean they were wishing us good luck. And as darkness began to fall, one or two more adventurous spirits certainly set course earlier than I intended to let my pilot go but I’d done my calculations very carefully and we would get to the French coast at darkness, not into daylight. I had no wish to be over the French coast in daylight. We crossed the French coast at a little seaside town called Cabourg and I thought perhaps I’m the only person of the, what, five hundred airmen above Cabourg who’s been there before because at one stage of my education, about the third year of Grammar School, the Headmaster had said to my parents, ‘He’s doing very well in most subjects but his French is not very wonderful.’ And that was an understatement. And he recommended an exchange with a French boy and the school being right on the French coast, along the south coast, many exchanges took place every year, of course, and I was lucky enough to go three times to the same little town in Normandy, and the nearest seaside town was Cabourg, so I was taken to Cabourg quite a lot as a fourteen, fifteen, sixteen year old. Anyway we crossed at Cabourg and the Germans fired off light flak at us but light flak burns out at about twelve or thirteen thousand feet and we were up at about twenty thousand so we sneered at it a little bit and put our noses down to, as we’d been ordered to do, to go quickly through the fighter battle on the French coast and the next turning point was Orléans. Very badly blacked-out and then we turned east towards Switzerland and the weather deteriorated a bit but I’d got a drift on and an occasional light and I was pretty certain that whatever the weather, we’d see the Rhine, because even at that far from the mouth of the Rhine, it’s still a very big river. And just about as, on the ETA, Estimated Time of Arrival I’d given the pilot, he and the bomb aimer shouted, simultaneously, ‘Rhine coming up.’ And there was Basle. Basle of course is part of Switzerland. We shouldn’t have been over Switzerland but we briefed to go over Switzerland, so there we were. And we flew along the, roughly along the border between Switzerland and Germany to a point on the south side of the lake. The south side of the lake being in Switzerland and we were to orbit a little headland on the south side of the lake and then we had worked out it would take three minutes to cross the lake and three minutes before Zed, the time at which the Operation was due to begin, we set out and made our way across the lake. As we crossed the lake, the bomb aimer looking down vertically, was able to say, ‘Crossing the coast now.’ And I then counted down twelve seconds and after twelve seconds, start releasing our flares. Well, I couldn’t do any more then and I stood up in the astrodome and looked out and watched the flares bursting underneath us and when the fourth flare went, and there was no sign of other flares, they were on our left-hand side, I thought, ‘Oh goodness, have I committed some dreadful boob?’ Because there was terrific responsibility, of course, upon me and the navigator of the other aircraft. But as our fourth flare went down, a line of steerers [?] started appearing about half a mile away on the left-hand side, on our port side, and there was this enormous aircraft hangar clearly illuminated between the two lines of flares. And we were going to drop twelve flares initially and we continued and as we dropped our last flare, and I still couldn’t tell you which happened first, but two things happened, a green target indicator had burst right over the roof of the factory and we were coned in searchlights. Now, coned in searchlights is not a very nice experience I can assure you. We had been coned three or four times before and it seems to take an eternity to get out of this cone, if you’re lucky enough to get out of it. So, eventually we, Jimmy twisted and turned and twisted and turned but we couldn’t seem to shake it off and he turned about and put the nose right down and we dived out over the lake and shook them off. And we were supposed to go back to the lake after we’d finished our first, but we didn’t expect to go back to it like — that method, but there we were circling over the lake and after a few minutes, the Master of Ceremonies as he was called, master bomber, the Group Captain, had called for us to go in and lay a second line of flares and again we were coned but we got out of the cone fairly quickly that time and we had a couple of bombs, the small bombs we were carrying, we dropped those and back out over the lake and after about twenty minutes, the Master of Ceremonies declared that the raid was over and we should make our way to Algiers. He reminded us that we were very close to the Alps so that we should climb hard through the Alps and, ‘See you in Algiers.’ So we climbed hard through the Alps and, which was a lovely experience, I mean, you may well have crossed the Alps in a modern airliner at thirty thousand feet with the lights on, as I have, and looked down and thought, ‘Well. There are the Alps.’ But when you’re only just above the top and there’s no light in the aircraft and the full moon is shining, absolutely lovely. Wonderful experience. I shall remember all my life. We crossed the Italian coast somewhere close to Genoa and then we got down low, down to the sea, to keep beneath the Italian radar in Sardinia or Corsica and made for Algiers. When we got to Algiers, there was a terrific fog and we thought, ‘Well, the sixty aircraft are going to be directed out to sea and the crews are all going to be baled out,’ because you couldn’t see a thing and people were calling up, ‘I’ve only ten minutes petrol left.’ And there were no modern aids there of course. But there was an American flying control officer with enormous initiative and he got on the end of the runway in a jeep and fired Very cartridges up through the mist. And I shall always remember what he shouted, ‘The first man to make home base wins.’ [laughs] A baseball expression I assume. And the sixty aircraft landed with — one of them, there was a dead bomb aimer on board, who’d been hit by flak over the target, one from Woodhall Spa actually with the squadron that had been formed there when we left. And so we had a couple of days in Algiers. A lot of sunshine. Eating some of the fruit that we hadn’t seen for years in England and then on the way back we bombed Spetzia which was a bit of an anti-climax really because the, only two of the Pathfinder aircraft were serviceable. Two of them had to stay and come home more slowly. Ten of the main Force aircraft had been damaged over the target so we dropped our bombs fairly quickly on Spetzia and back to Scampton. It was an anti-climax really after the — and there we are. We flew back to Bourn that evening after sleeping for the day and Bennett was there to meet us, the AOC, and he was absolutely livid. Relations between him and Cochran were notoriously bad. Cochran was the AOC of the Group, Five Group. And he said, ‘It’s nonsense using four aircraft. If one had been shot down or — you should have used twenty.’ And he felt that the Pathfinders had only been used so that they could be blamed if something went wrong. He was not a happy man. And there we are. That was Operation Bellicose. The raid on — The first shuttle service operation. It was thought at the time that it might be followed by quite a few more but it wasn’t because of the difficulty of serving Lancasters in Algiers. You would have needed a whole force of ground crew out there to — So it wasn’t a one-off, it did happen, I think once more, with a very small group of aircraft but didn’t become a habit. Can we stop there again?
PL: Re-starting tape.
AS: The attack on Spezia, on return from Friedrichshafen, was in fact our thirtieth operation which is the end of a tour. And we expected to go off on our three weeks’ Leave. In Pathfinder Force the arrangements were for a tour of operations were a bit different from those in the rest of Bomber Command. In the main Force, you did thirty operations, then you were given a rest which was said to be at least six months. You were probably an instructor at an OTU and then you could go back for a second tour of twenty operations. But in Pathfinder Force, they didn’t see the point in dispersing a crew after thirty operations. Having got an experienced crew together, hopefully a successful crew together, why not keep them together. So after thirty operations, you got three weeks’ Leave and then you came back and did another fifteen. Not twenty. And to recompense you for going straight through, this was then reckoned to be two tours. Anyway we got back from Spetzia, our thirtieth operation, confidently expecting to go on Leave the next day but the pressure was on and the flight commander, Wing Commander Alabaster said, ‘You’ll have to do two more operations before you can go on Leave.’ So we did two more operations. Both to Cologne. And then we drew our railway warrants and ration cards and went off on three weeks’ glorious Leave and got back in time for the Battle of Hamburg. The first raid on, of the big raids on Hamburg had already taken place while we were still on Leave, on the last night of our Leave. And I’d have liked to have been on that one because as you may know, that was the first night that Window was used. These metallic strips that people dropped. Well they were still very effective when we went the next night and the next night. But I’d have liked to have been able to say I was on the first Windows Operation, but I wasn’t. I was on the second. So at the Battle of Hamburg, and a trip to the Ruhr as well, and then — I’ve lost my place in my Log Book but I shall find it in a moment. [a short pause as he turns pages] It was pretty obvious to us that after Hamburg, Butch Harris, the AOC of Bomber Command, would be looking at Berlin as his next main target. And we got to the middle of August, and you could usually get some idea of targets from the bomb load and the petrol load which was published first thing in the morning on the list of crew, the Order of Battle as it was called. And it looked, for all the world, as though it was a suitable bomb and petrol load for Berlin. And we were a bit astounded because it was full moon and at that time, flying far over Germany in the full moon was not very healthy. The German Fighter Force was becoming increasingly skilful and morale dropped a little bit in the squadron at the thought of going to Berlin in the night of the full moon. But there again, there was nothing we could do about it so we went to briefing and there was a red line — at the end of the briefing room there was a great map across the end wall of course, and there was a red tape attached to the map, going well on the way towards Berlin, but not to Berlin itself. And we were eventually told that the target was Peenemünde. No one had ever heard of Peenemünde of course. So briefing continued and we were told that this was a very important German radar research station. Not a word about rockets of course. And we went through all the usual briefing, the Met Officer, the navigation officer on the route, the bombing leader on the bomb load, the signals officer on the signals to be used, so on and — intelligent officer on defences. But there were a number of additional things. We were told that there would be an attack by seven or eight Mosquitoes on Berlin, which would hopefully keep the Fighter Force away from us. We were told that there would be a massive number of night fighters operating over Germany that night. We were told that we’d be dropping our bombs and target indicators not from twenty thousand feet as we usually did but from eight thousand feet and that there would be a master bomber. And this was the first time a master bomber was being used on a really big Operation. Obviously Guy Gibson kept in touch with his nineteen aircraft on the Dams raid and on that Friedrichshafen raid, we had a master bomber, but it was only sixty aircraft. And this was the first time that a really large force of nearly six hundred aircraft had a master bomber who circled the target and explained to the main force, which were the most accurately placed target indicators to aim for. And also, told when the aiming point was to be changed because the aiming point for the first wave, and we were in the first wave, was the dwelling quarters of the scientists and technicians working at Peenemünde and the second wave was the attack on the factory and the third wave was the attack on the experimental station. So we had our briefing and went and had an operational meal and drew parachutes and escape kit and got dressed and out to the aircraft and a chap with the ground crew as usual and we took off at twenty fifty. Ten to nine. Which was Double British Summer Time, so it was still light when we crossed the coast at Southwold. And out across the North Sea. Again, a lovely night. You know the navigator of course worked behind a black-out curtain over his maps and charts but I couldn’t resist popping out frequently to have a look at the sun and the moon as it came up, shimmering on the sea, silver, and there was hardly any wind and it was absolutely beautiful. And there we were going off to deliver bombs to people. It took about an hour and ten minutes to cross the North Sea and as we approached the Danish coast, there was some activity over on our starboard side and searchlights and flak and the searchlights coned an aircraft and eventually the flak got very close and the aircraft burst into flame and flaming bits started dropping into the sea. And I sometimes give lectures on this to groups like Probus and so on and I always say that I ought really to have felt enormous sympathy for that crew and I probably did but foremost in my mind was the thought, ‘What a rotten bit of navigation.’ Because if they were ahead of us, there must have been another Pathfinder crew. In fact there were other Pathfinder crews and yet their navigator had allowed them to wander over Flensburg, the northern-most town in Germany which was very heavily defended. And they’d paid the price for it. However there was nothing we could do about it so we continued on our way. It took about twelve minutes to cross Denmark and then down over the Baltic Sea. Masses of islands of course. Hundreds of islands, so navigation was a very simple matter. As we got close to Peenemünde, I’d given the bomb aimer and the pilot the ETA and there was a shout from the bomb aimer, ‘There’s a smoke screen ahead.’ And so there was. I’d popped out and had a look and there was a smoke screen over, as we thought, right over the target. And so it was. But a smoke screen blows in line and when you’re like my four fingers, and when you’re looking at it from a distance you can’t see, but as you get increasingly over the top, you can see down, so as we got nearer to the target, we could in fact see the target.
PL: So there were gaps in the smoke screen where you could see down.
AS: Yes, yes. Oh yes, yes. They weren’t — The smoke containers which sent the smoke up were spaced across. They couldn’t have them absolutely close together so there were gaps between these lines of smoke, the wind blew the smoke across, but — So there were some TIs already down. The —
PL: TIs?
AS: The master bomber informed us which were the most accurately placed, so we place our TIs and our bomb, one four thousand pounder there. Hopefully over the living quarters of the scientists and technicians. And there was no defences whatsoever. It was probably the easiest trip we did. And on over the target to take our photo. You had to stay straight and level for twenty-five seconds once your bombs had gone so that the photo could be taken. And then we turned away. We didn’t fly exactly back on the same route because of course we’d have been flying on to the incoming aircraft but just south and once again, out over Denmark I made sure that my pilot stayed well clear of Flensburg. Back across the North Sea, dropped down to — we’d climbed after bombing at eight thousand feet. Back down to where we could take off our oxygen masks and have a cup of coffee and the radio officer had got some light music on the wireless and we had our sandwiches and so back to Bourn. And 97 Squadron had sent eighteen aircraft. One of them had returned early with engine trouble, the other seventeen got back. Not a scratch on them. And so, went to the parachute section first thing to — after a word with the ground crew while we were waiting for transport. Get rid of parachute, back to de-briefing and we were all fairly delighted it looked as if it had been a successful Operation. But one of the things we’d been told at briefing, which I should have said before, the very last thing was that it was essential that this Operation should be successful and if it were not successful, we should have to go again the next night and the next night irrespective of casualties. Now, the first night, you can rely on surprise but if you had to go a second or third time, you couldn’t. So that did concentrate the mind a little bit. So, and so to bed. Operational meal, traditional eggs and bacon and so to bed. Now I’ve always been an early waker-up. Quarter past six this morning. Quarter past six virtually every morning. And I was an early waker-up during the war and even if we were not back ‘till three or four o’clock in the morning. Most of the squadron would sleep through ‘till lunchtime. I never once missed my breakfast. I wouldn’t say I was first up in the morning but I was always in the Mess by nine o’clock. I’d get up about eight and have a shower, because you always felt dirty after a night out in a bomber. They were pretty dirty smelly things, these big bombers. And I would go to breakfast and then I would normally sort of spend the morning hanging around waiting for the crew, the rest of the crew to come round. I’d write up my Log Book, I’d catch up with my correspondence, I’d try the crossword in one of the posh papers and I might practice my snooker skills ‘cause there was no one else in the billiard room. And so on. But that morning, I didn’t do any of those things, I walked up to the Intelligence library to have a look at the photographs, to see how successful, with the thought of that threat still hanging over us. And when I got there, I knew of course from what I’d seen the night before, that it was likely to be successful. And so it proved to be but what absolutely astounded me was that we’d lost over forty aircraft. But I didn’t — Apart from the chap that we’d seen chopped out over Flensburg, we didn’t see any sign of any defences. But what had happened of course, that these German fighters had been circling over Berlin and then the attack was on Peenemünde. It’s only about twenty minutes flying from Berlin to Peenemünde, so those fighters which still had enough petrol and many didn’t, many had to land and refuel, but some of them were able to fly up to Peenemünde and they got in the third wave. And the third wave lost about twenty percent of their aircraft. One in five. The second wave was somewhere in between the two. I think they lost about eight or nine percent of their aircraft, but not as bad as the third wave. So Bomber Command did lose a lot of aircraft that night. And, but at least it was successful. We didn’t have to go again. And that was our fortieth Operation, so we had five more to do to finish our tour. It really was Berlin the next two but by that time, the full moon had gone and we did a couple over to Berlin and we went to, I think, to Nuremberg and once to the Ruhr. And then our last trip was coming up. We did our forty-fourth trip on the 31st of August. Our last trip was coming up and we were briefed to go on the 1st of September to Berlin but Operations were cancelled and the same happened on the 2nd we were briefed to go to Berlin and Operations were cancelled. Now the corporal in charge of our ground crew, a young married man, and the ground crew of course, used to work outside in appalling conditions, not in a warm hangar but out at dispersal. And, they, this corporal was due to go on Leave when we got back on the 2nd after our final Operation, but it was cancelled on the 1st, he wouldn’t go on Leave. When it happened again on the 2nd he wouldn’t go on Leave. He insisted on staying until we had completed our forty-fifth Operation. Well, on September the 3rd, that morning, the invasion of the mainland of Italy started. And we thought, ‘Oh. It would be a nice cushy trip to Milan or Turin for our final Operation,’ because they were really a long way but they were fairly cushy targets. The Italian defences weren’t very wonderful. And. But it wasn’t. We didn’t know of course, but apparently an agreement had already been made with the Italian government that the Italians would surrender and we would stop bombing their major cities. It was Berlin again, by a long route back over Sweden again. Over neutral territory. And we got back and that was our forty-fifth Operation. And most of us decided that, that was enough, but unfortunately Jimmy and two of the gunners stayed with him and it wasn’t. And so there we are. That’s the end of my life in Bomber Command.
PL: That is absolutely wonderful. Thank you very much indeed. Can I just ask you a couple of other things?
AS: Um hum.
PL: The first. So what did you do, so after the war, what did you go on to do then, after you left Bomber Command?
AS: Well, as I said, Bomber Command was equipped with the state of the art radar. And just after I finished Operations, and I mention the fact that Africa had now been cleared of the Germans, and if one listened to the news during ’42, ’43, you heard about a Bomber Force from the Middle East attacking Tobruk, and Benghazi, and it was pretty obvious that when airfields became available, these aircraft would move over to Italy. And, an advert, it wasn’t phrased as an advert, a notice appeared in Daily Routine Orders, asking for someone to instruct in this state of the art radar overseas. Now it didn’t state where overseas, but one didn’t need to be a genius to realise it was going to be the Mediterranean theatre and that these aircraft — so I thought, ‘Well that sounds interesting.’ And I’d only recently been Commissioned. I was a Pilot Officer and it was advertised as a Flight Lieutenant vacancy so I thought, ‘Well, have ago at this.’ And I applied and after the usual air force delay, I found I was accepted and I went home to Southampton on a week’s Embarkation Leave and when I got back, the squadron were kind enough to divert an aircraft, ‘cause I had to go to Blackpool which was the Embarkation Centre, they diverted across country to take me up to Blackpool, which would have saved a nasty train journey. And, I, eventually, we were kitted out for overseas there and had various inoculations and so on, after about a fortnight in Blackpool, up to Liverpool early one morning to get aboard a troop ship which went a long way out into the Atlantic to avoid the — ‘cause the Germans were still in France of course and they had aircraft operating from the south of France against convoys, but we didn’t see any sign of them and back into the Mediterranean and we docked in Algiers and I was in a transit camp there for two or three days and then down to Tunis which was Headquarters of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces. And there, a Wing Commander looked after me and told me what I was going to do. And apart from the six Wellington squadrons they had, they had one Liberator squadron which was a South African squadron and a Halifax squadron and the Halifax squadron was going to be equipped with the same sort of apparatus that we had in Pathfinder Force and act as what they were going to call a Target Marking Force once they’d got across to Italy. Now that squadron was still in, in the desert, so after spending Christmas at, at Tunis, the Wing Commander and a mate of his, they found out that my French was pretty good so they took me down to Bône market, hoping to get some turkeys for Christmas, for the Mess. But, at the government’s expense, we flew this aircraft down to Bône but went to the market but there were no turkeys. We found a bag of fresh carrots. And I suppose fresh vegetables were something of a relief to people who were living on rations. And we took those back. They were gratefully accepted. And I remember on Christmas Day, I went for a swim in the Mediterranean with a WAAF officer. It was pretty cold, but we wanted to say we’d swum on Christmas Day and we also went and found the amphitheatre at Carthage which is very close to Tunis and I knew a little bit about the Punic wars and so on. So we went and explored Carthage, the amphitheatre at Carthage. And a few days after Christmas, before the New Year, I went down to join this Halifax squadron in the desert, at El Adem, just outside of Tobruk and they were merely sort of kicking their heels really because, waiting to go across to Italy. They would occasionally operate against Crete port installations where the Germans were still in Occupation of Crete. But they weren’t doing very much and I couldn’t do very much with them at that stage, ‘cause they didn’t have any equipment of course. I talked to them, but not very much. Eventually the ground crew all went off, back to the Delta, to go by ship across to Italy and we were left for a week. More or less living on our own devices with no ground crew and the CO, the Wing Commander didn’t have a crew so I was crewed up with him as a navigator and flew across to Italy and the night before we went, we even took the tents down and slept under the wing of the Halifax for the night and the Khamsin was blowing at the time so there was sand everywhere and during that week, a dirty old Arab who used to appear on a donkey which was much too small for him, and he’d have a bucket of eggs, tiny little eggs, but he would barter a half a dozen eggs for a cupful of sugar, so at least you could get a few eggs to fry. And. Anyway we flew over to Italy. All the airfields literally were around Foggia, that area which — [pause as he turns pages] This area around here, it’s, in fact, you’ve got the Apennines running up the middle and a few airfields there but there’s a lot of hills that side of Italy, of course but there were masses of airfields round there and we flew to one of those called Celone and eventually the squadron was equipped with the apparatus so that I got on with my work but eventually I was posted away from the squadron, back to the Group Headquarters because my responsibilities were to the whole Group, not to that squadron. And I decided that having read my Siegfried Sassoon about ‘scarlet Majors at the Base’ ‘And when the war was done, and the youth stone dead, he’d toddle safely home and die - in bed’ and you know, the Hotspur’s criticism of a staff officer assented popinjay in Henry 1V and I decided I ought to do a few Operations. Bennett had insisted on his Staff Operations operating occasionally. In fact on one night, two staff officers turned up and went with the same crew. Much to my surprise. And they went with a pilot with whom I’d done a training exercise once and frankly I wouldn’t have wanted to fly with him on Operations and neither of them came back. The whole crew went missing. Anyway, I felt as staff officer, I would set a good example by going occasionally. And a very interesting Op came up. I used to go to the meeting of the — air staff meeting every morning and there was a guard’s officer there who was responsible for liaison with the Resistance. And he came one morning and said that the Resistance in southern France were going to mount an attack on a German airfield and they would welcome a diversion by an attack on the airfield that night and I thought, ‘That sounds interesting. So. I’ll go along.’ And I went along with this Target Marking Force and dropped flares over this and there were obviously things happening on the ground and this was just before the invasion, so, as a result of that, the French gave me a Légion d’Honneur. [laughs] Which I’ll come back to in a moment. And I did two more with the Target Marking Force and two more in the Wellingtons because the Wellingtons increasingly were, as the Germans withdrew, were being used for supply-dropping over Yugoslavia and so I did a daylight with the Wellingtons over Yugoslavia, dropping supplies to what appeared to be a crowd of bandits in the hills above Sarajevo, who waved enthusiastically to us as the parachutes dropped down. And then a night one, dropped on a big cross, up in the hills behind Trieste and so that was quite interesting really. And eventually after about a year, the air force decided my, I’d done enough, that people were now fully trained and so they sent me home and I thought they’d forgotten about me. They sent me on Leave when I got home. I was on Leave for about five or six weeks. And of course the air force never really forget about you. I eventually got a telegraph to report to such and such a Wing Commander at Astral House, London and I went up and he said, ‘Well what do you want to do now?’ Which surprised me a bit because in the forces, they usually tell you what you’re going to do. [laughs] You know, I must have looked a bit perplexed, so he said, ‘How do you fancy going to Transport Command?’ And I said, ‘Alright. It’s a flying job?’ ‘Yes.’ So I went to Transport Command and flew Dakotas from Croydon to the continental capitals of liberated Europe. And during the Transport Command Training, one had been given the opportunity to get a Civil Air Navigator’s Licence. You had to get a certain percentage of the exams and you had to take an extra paper in Civil Aviation in the war but I did that and got mine. So just after Christmas ’46, there was an advert, again not really an advert, a notice in DRO saying that BOAC were again recruiting navigators. Anyone interested give their name to the Adjunct So I thought, ‘Well this is a good opportunity.’ And so I went off to BOAC. Everyone — there were an enormous number of people of course joining BOAC from the air force at the time and we all came to Whitchurch, just outside of Bristol to their Civil Training School and after a few weeks there, I was, a month, six weeks, I was posted to the flying boats at Poole Harbour. So I could live at home in Southampton and flying to Singapore and back. To Singapore and back took eighteen days for the crew in those days. Took five days for the passengers. No, three days to Singapore and five days to Australia. It was a different world. I sometimes, again, lecture to groups like Probus and Rotary about it because Civil Aviation was so different in those days. So there we are. End of story. Any questions? [laughs]
PL: Many, many questions. So, so then once, so that’s, that’s basically what you did then, you were in Civil, Civil Aviation for a few years.
AS: For eighteen months, yes.
PL: For eighteen months. And then — So how did you get into teaching?
AS: Well, I — in fact I had a place at Southampton University before the war and I didn’t take it up, but I went to a Training College because I wanted to get through fairly quickly. And the Training College in Winchester was giving a shortened course of eighteen months so I didn’t do what they called the Emergency Teacher’s Certificate of a year, but I did eighteen months and I was then qualified a teacher. And the school where I did my final Teaching Practice, the Head offered me a job. So. Which was just outside of Southampton and so I was with him for about seven years and then I came to a more senior post in Bristol. Bristol was one the earliest Authorities to go Comprehensive and then I got a Deputy Headship at the Thornbury. Which is ten miles north of Bristol. Quaint old town. And quite a long time as Deputy Head and I was, someone hinted to me that I ought to apply for this new school at Weston-Super-Mare and —
PL: Which is called —
AS: Priory School. You may have passed it.
PL: And that was a ground-breaking new school.
AS: Oh yeah. You may have passed it, if you came round the Bay, when you turned off the motorway, did you turn right by the Magistrates Court?
PL: I can’t remember.
AS: Almost immediately — or did you come right through — no, you didn’t come right through—
PL: I hugged the — I went on a windy road hugging the, the coast.
AS: Around the coast? Well, you almost certainly passed Priory School. Did you pass Sainsbury’s?
PL: Yes.
AS: Well it’s opposite Sainsbury’s. That’s Priory School, where they’ve just acquired two and a half million pounds to build a new science block and who have they invited to open it? [laughs] And what are they going to call it? The Spencer Science Centre. And the teachers who were trying to teach me science in the 1930s would turn in their graves at the thought of a science centre being named after me.
PL: Well, congratulations. What an accolade.
AS: Well, it’s rather nice isn’t it.
PL: It is. And your — ‘cause I think this is important as part of your story to include. So your school and your experience was used as a case study by the Open University.
AS: Yes. Shall I get the book and show you?
PL: I would love to see the book. Wait one minute though.
AS: Yes.
PL: I just want to, just to sort of wrap up the interview. There’s two questions I want to ask you. The first is, how your family fared during the war. I was interested to hear you say that they were based in Southampton.
AS: Yes.
PL: So did they — everybody stayed in Southampton did they, because —
AS: Yes. I think — The bombing raids on Southampton occurred just after I had left to join the Air Force. Well, there were several daylight raids but the night raids, the big night raids were just after. And after the first one, my father who was working there, continued there but he sent my mother up to Salisbury where we had — which is where I was born. Where we still had relatives. So she was there only during the first one. By the time I was coming home on Leave of course, they were both back in Southampton because the bombing raids were over. One of the things I noticed with my father, who was not a particularly demonstrative person, did come down to the station and see me off each time I went back from Leave and I’ve thought about that quite lot since then.
PL: Very touching.
AS: I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I was a spoilt only child. [laughs]
PL: They must have been incredibly proud of you. So my last question, which is a question that we’re asked to ask all of our veterans and our volunteers who speak to us is, your feelings about how Bomber Command were treated after the war. Would you like to make any comments about it.
AS: I was a bit surprised that when most of the Great War leaders were made Peers, Harris was not made a Peer. It didn’t worry me a great deal that there wasn’t a memorial. After all, a memorial is only a piece of stone or something with a list of names on. Part of the past. You know that was my only surprise really, that Harris was, didn’t receive the accolade that the other war leaders, Montgomery and so on received. But, Dresden of course, was held against Bomber Command but there was a lot of industry going on in Dresden. There’s a book by an academic at Exeter University, about Dresden, I think it’s out on loan to someone at the moment, but there’s a lot in there about all the industries going on at Dresden at the time. There we are.
PL: Well is there anything else, before we finish, that you’d like to record? About any of your experiences.
AS: No. I probably forgot one or two things on the way through but — [laughs]
PL: I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Well, I’d just like to say again a huge thank-you. That was an absolutely fascinating interview. Thank you very much indeed.
AS: Tell my wife that when she comes. [laughs]
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Arthur Spencer
Type
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Sound
Conforms To
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Pending review
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ASpencerAHG170227
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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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Pam Locker
Date
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2017-02-27
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01:11:54 audio recording
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eng
Description
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Arthur Spencer joined the Royal Air Force after leaving school. He began pilot training in Florida but then re-mustered as a navigator and trained in Pensacola. He completed two tours of operations as a navigator with 97 Squadron at RAF Woodhall Spa and RAF Bourn. He later became 205 Group's Navigation Officer. He describes dropping target indicators and Window. He was based in Algiers for some time and describes life there. He was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for providing air support for the Resistance in Italy. After the war, he worked for BOAC and then as a teacher.
Spatial Coverage
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Algeria
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
United States
Algeria--Algiers
England--Lincolnshire
Florida--Miami
Florida--Pensacola
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina--Sarajevo
Italy--Trieste
North Africa
Florida
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Contributor
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Cathy Brearley
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
16 OTU
97 Squadron
aircrew
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bombing of Hamburg (24-31 July 1943)
Bombing of Peenemünde (17/18 August 1943)
C-47
crewing up
ground crew
Master Bomber
military ethos
mine laying
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bourn
RAF Scampton
RAF Swinderby
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Woodhall Spa
Resistance
searchlight
target indicator
training
Ventura
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2231/40701/MBirdJH184015-180215-20.1.pdf
8f77186c954aef8db5693e1aaa927fe1
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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Bird, JH
Description
An account of the resource
50 items. The collection concerns Flying Officer J H Bird (b. 1921, 184015 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, note books, newsletters and a <a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2251">photograph album</a>. After training in south Africa, he flew operations as a pilot with 104 Squadron. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Lissie Wilkins and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2018-02-15
Publisher
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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.
Identifier
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Bird, JH
Dublin Core
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Title
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American Aircraft Notes
Description
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Notes kept by JH Bird during his training.
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JH Bird
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
United States Army Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Training material
Format
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34 handwritten sheets
Identifier
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MBirdJH184015-180215-20
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
aircrew
B-17
B-24
B-25
B-26
Boston
Catalina
Harvard
Hudson
P-38
P-40
P-47
P-51
training
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/316/3473/PPennLE1701.1.jpg
824abb2c2b7f455b204aa46be93d7f9a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/316/3473/APennL170622.1.mp3
0620d580b7438a89e75829dd538816b6
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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Penn, Lawrence
L Penn
Description
An account of the resource
Six items. An oral history interview with Lawrence Penn (b. 1922, 413929 Royal Australian Air Force) his log book and photographs. He flew operations as a pilot with 226 Squadron part of the Second Tactical Air Force.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Lawrence Penn and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-07-05
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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Penn, L
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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JM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean MaCartney, the interviewee is Lawrence or Lorrie Penn. The interview is taking place at Mr Penn’s home in Mosman, New South Wales, on the 22nd of June 2017. Also present is Mister Penn’s wife June. Ok, Lorrie, I’ve look at some details on your background and I see you were born in Cremorne.
LP: Yes, I do.
JM: And indeed as we were having a little chat to start with before we started the interview, you mentioned you were born in Cremorne,
LP: Cremorne, yes.
JM: In Murdock Street,
LP; In Murdock Street.
JM: In what street, yes, so that was obviously at home
LP: It was a proper hospital in those days but not now of course
JM: A proper hospital back then, was it? Right. No, ok, and that was in December 1922?
LP: That’s right. 27th, two days after Christmas, it was a dreadful time to be born.
JM: Indeed, indeed. And, did the family live round here so that you then went to school around here?
LP: Yes, I did at Cremorne initially then we, after about six years of age we went to Adelaide and then we went up to Cairns and then down to Coffs Harbour so I had, it was after I came back from Coffs Harbour that I had a couple of years at Trinity College and then went to Shore for three or four years,
JM: Right.
LP: And finished my education there.
JM: Finished at Shore, ok. In moving around, quite a bit of the countryside there in just what you’ve said, how did you find different parts of Australia? Do you have any particular memories that stand out for you in your early years of going around the countryside at all?
LP: Oh, I enjoyed it all, perhaps that’s where I gave them my interest in overseas, finding out what was going on overseas.
JM: And did you keep any friends at all down the track from those early years or?
LP: No, probably, as a country down from the other states but from Shore School lifelong.
JM: Right, yes.
LP: Just about, I outlasted them all I was [unclear]
JM: Yes, I guess that would be getting almost to the case now and so you did your intermediate at Shore.
LP: Yes, I did.
JM: And then
LP: And then left Shore and went into a bank as a bank clerk there until the war began.
JM: Right. Did you do leaving certificate as well?
LP: No, no.
JM: Just intermediate.
LP: Just intermediate.
JM: Intermediate, right, ok. And so you left, well before we go into your banking role, were you involved in sports or?
LP: Usual things.
JM: School.
LP: Yeah. Football and cricket. The main, think I did a bit of tennis.
JM: Bit of tennis, yeah. And around where were you living with you going to Shore were you sort of in this area or?
LP: Yeah, yes.
JM: Yes.
LP: Still Cremorne, Southern Street. Cremorne.
JM: Cremorne, ok. And so, did you then go to scouts or Air League or anything?
LP: In the school cadets, school cadets and after I left school I didn’t join, I just did tennis club after school.
JM: Tennis club, right, ok. And then into, let me think, so then you would have been probably started work being then in the Depression years.
LP: It’s been about 1938, ’37, ’38 when I left school and went straight into getting a job with the bank.
JM: Ah, yes, that’s true, that’s true, yes, so you were still at school in the Depression years potentially.
LP: I was in Coffs Harbour I think during [unclear].
JM: Coffs Harbour, right. Ok.
LP: My father was a theatre manager.
JM: Oh, ok, so.
LP: That’s why we went from state to state virtually and then when he retired, he finished up writing The picture show man, his experience because his father was also started off producing, not producing films, but showing films all around the rural areas up the North Coast there.
JM: Right, right.
LP: And my dad wrote a résumé of what happened to his youth and so forth and they made a movie out of it, they called The Picture Show Man.
JM: That’s right, that’s right, indeed. Uhm, so that would have been, picture shows would have been very much a discretionary expenditure so with the Depression that would have been quite a tough going for your father.
LP: It was tough going, yes. He was educated mainly in Tamworth there, in Tamworth, lovely town up the North Coast.
JM: Indeed. So, then when you, the family, your father retired, then is that when you came back to Sydney?
LP: Yes, well, Dad entered the army when the war started out, entered the army as a private and finished up as a Major, going through Lieutenant Colonel when he was finally discharged and Dad had a bit of trouble, just trouble and he had, he was medically discharged then.
JM: Ok. And, so then you went into the bank when you left school?
LP: Yes.
JM: And which bank was that?
LP: It was called the English Scottish and Australian Bank then,
JM: Yes.
LP: But it’s the ANZ now.
JM: ANZ, yes, the Esanda, wasn’t it its original name, the Esanda?
LP: That’s right.
JM: Yes.
LP: Yes.
JM: Yes, that’s right. Ok, so, you were, whereabouts were you based in the bank? Were you in the city or just?
LP: The first job was at the Spit Junction.
JM: Spit Junction?
LP: Yes [laughs] Very handy.
JM: Oh, ok, very handy, very handy.
LP: And then I went to the hill office after a year and a bit, to King George Street in the city of Sydney and did a little bit of relieving going to different banks when they were on holiday, the South was on holidays. I wasn’t very high up in the bank at all.
JM: Oh, you were only fairly young at this stage, I mean, Goodness gracious!
LP: [laughs] But, no, it is a dreadful thing to say but it was a fortunate thing for me was that the war started really because it made such a, I wouldn’t have met June.
JP: No. [laughs]
JM: Well, I think there are a lot of
LP: Because I met June in New York in, June was a child evacuee from England and she was only seventeen when I met her and I was nineteen and I just got my wings in Canada and we went to New York on leave
JM: On leave, yes.
LP: And met her there. Well, she met me really, because she picked me out a crowd of
JP: I was having lunch in this Hotel Edison and they asked me, the management, who would I like from that group of airmen over there, who could just come and have lunch with us. And I looked at all the faces and I picked Lorrie.
JM: Oh my Goodness gracious!
JP: He was invited over to have lunch with us
JM: Oh my goodness!
JP: We were both [unclear] management.
LP: We had only about a week to leave in New York. Then I went over across to England on the Queen Elizabeth then and of course won the war [?] over there but of course we didn’t have any correspondence between us for two years. It was just by accident that I met June when they, [unclear] girls were brought back to England after being evacuated.
JM: Right. We will come to a bit more detail about that shortly let’s just, you’ve got a little bit of to, we’ve got to go from your, when you were with the bank and then the war started and so then you enlisted, in September ’41, I see,
LP: That’s right.
JM: So, where, at Bradfield Park, I can see this, so that’s the normal enlisting place for most people there?
LP: Yes.
JM: So, and you did nearly three months at Bradfield Park.
LP: That’s right.
JM: But perhaps before I go a bit further, what made, was there any particular factor that caused you to actually go into the, choose the Air Force to enlist into or?
LP: I was always interested in flying. I remember Dad showed me a free joyride trip to an aircraft that was doing some pleasure flights around Manly and we went up there and that
JM: Sparked your interest.
LP: Sparked my interest.
JM: So that would have been what, do you remember how old you were when that was? Fifteen or so? Maybe earlier?
LP: It would have been earlier than that.
JM: Earlier than that?
LP: It would be about ten, I would say.
JM: Oh my goodness! So that didn’t prompt you to join the Air League at all?
LP: No, because I was still in Shore, at the Shore Grammar School and in the cadets, the cadets were mainly interested in the uniforms and these rifles, they would take their rifles home and all that sort of thing.
JM: And did you do any sort of like officer training in the cadets or?
LP: Yes, but I didn’t advance [unclear], no.
JM: You didn’t advance. Ok. And so, you had, so when came time to join up, then obviously Air Force was going to be the one that you were going to.
LP: Yes, I was going, definitely wanted to join the Air Force.
JM: Right, ok. And so, off to Bradfield Park and then off to
LP: Narromine.
JM: Narromine for your Elementary Flying Training.
LP: That’s right. Went solo there.
JM: Yes.
LP: Twenty courses and there were fifty of us on twenty course and there was only two of us left.
JM: My goodness me, yes.
LP: And this, do you know Tony Vine at all?
JM: No, I don’t know Tony.
LP: Anyhow, he is an ex naval submarine commander actually and he does a lot of commentating on Anzac Day for the ABC over the year and he took an interest in me and he rounded up and got all the stories of the whole twenty, I will show you the book afterwards that he’s written, released that only a couple of months ago.
JM: Right, right.
LP: Down in Canberra.
JM: Right, very interesting, I’ll have a look at it afterwards, yeah. So, Narromine, then back to Bradfield Park for
LP: The Japanese just came in then.
JM: Ah, about 40, yes
LP: We were all ready to hop on the ship and go to San Francisco, the war came in, they didn’t know what to do with us at the time so we went back to Narromine.
JM: Narromine.
LP: Where we refreshed the course. Things got straight and out what was going to happen and we went back and joined the ship and went to San Francisco, as First Class passengers, wonderful [laughs].
JM: Yes. And you were actually in Sydney then when the Japanese came into the harbour?
LP: I think I was still in Narromine.
JM: Still in Narromine, right, ok.
LP: Yes, still in Narromine waiting the war, so.
JM: Right.
LP: With the Japanese.
JM: But when the submarines came into the harbour at [unclear], you weren’t in Sydney.
LP: I wasn’t here, still in Narromine, pretty sure, yes.
JM: Ok, so off you went to, uhm, to San Francisco and.
LP: Yes, and we went by train up to Vancouver, a lovely, quite an eye-opener how lovely it was that trip and then from Vancouver to Edmonton.
JM: Yes.
LP: And we were held there for oh, four to five weeks I think in Edmonton, Canada.
JM: Ah yes, about four weeks looking at the dates here in your logbook, here at the record of service, yes, it was 9th of May until the 6th of June.
LP: That’ll be right, yes, that’ll be right.
JM: So, so what were you doing, any training there in?
LP: No, no, we were just being held there to. We had the medical, the Canadians were very keen to get the medical condition of whatever arriving there so we had dental and all sort of things, x-rays and things like that. Sports.
JM: Yes, a bit of sports to keep you active, I suppose.
LP: Keep us fit, yes. Waiting on a posting to a service training school.
JM: Right.
LP: Which was Dauphin, Manitoba.
JM: Whereabouts?
LP: Dauphin was just north, northwest of Winnipeg.
JM: Right. And how, was that another train trip?
LP: Yes, it was. Over the Rockies and a wonderful trip.
JM: And that would have been quite an experience then to see some of that scenery.
LP: Oh, it was. It was then.
JM: Yeah.
LP: Jasper and up very, many thousand of feet we had to go through the Rockies to and then down on the plains, from then on east of there of course it was flatter than a pancake until you got to the East Coast of Canada pretty well.
JM: Yes, yes, and what training did you do at Dauphin?
LP: At Dauphin? That was a service training school, and that’s where I got my wings, we had to, we were there for [unclear] several months and it was quite hot in Canada in summer.
JM: Yes, that’s right, June through to almost the end of September, so, you’ve got peak summer conditions, so, I guess therefore it was not dissimilar to Australia in that regard.
LP: Yes, in that regard it was.
JM: And how, how did the training go over there, was there?
LP: Oh yes, It went very well,
JM: And there were Canadian instructors presumably [unclear]
LP: Yes, I had Canadian instructors, we were training on the [unclear] aircraft, twin-engine aircraft and very nice aircraft.
JM: Right, and so, you did, you were flying with the instructor and then finally I presume you did your solo flight to get your wings?
LP: Yes. That’s right.
JM: Yeah. And how was that experience? What was your?
LP: Ah, it was wonderful, it went very well, went very well.
JM: Good. And that completely confirmed for you then that you were doing what you wanted to do.
LP: Oh, just, they wanted to because I topped the flying amongst our group. Then they wanted to send me to Prince Edward Island to go onto Sunderland flying boats and I, cause I wanted to get onto Spitfires and I went and saw the CO and set my foot and he more or less agreed that, alright, we’ll take away the Prince Edward Island job and commission went with that too but when I went to the other, when I went to the other service training school, the commission didn’t go with that posting [unclear] but we were posted to the Saint John, to a near field, Pennfield Ridge it was called and that was near Saint John, near the East Coast of Canada onto Venturas.
JM: Right.
LP: Now, these Venturas were twin-engine, like a big Hudson aircraft.
JM: Right.
LP: And, they were a bit heavy handed [laughs], heavy to handle but did alright but in the meantime they were, can I go on to what happened to Venturas?
JM: Yes, you can.
LP: Because they started off on, in England they were sent across, on operations and the first sortie over the English Channel into France that was then [unclear] two boxes of six and one Ventura came back out of the tour. Now, what really happened was normally was daylight bombing and normally bombing between ten and fifteen thousand feet because we were after the V1 sites mainly then [unclear] hours but normally we had a fighter escort Spitfires and Hurricanes which would be up about twenty thousand, twenty five thousand feet looking after us but they, the escort didn’t turn up, so the German fighters had a pretty good
JM: Picnic.
LP: Pretty good go at the Venturas.
JM: Venturas
LP: And that’s why after we got to England we did a conversion onto Mitchells, B-25s,
JM: Right. Ok, so.
LP: We’re getting ahead of.
JM: We just try, I find it easier if we can sort of keep it in sequence in that way, bearing in mind sort of when other people are listening, you know, at other times, it makes it a little bit simpler for them. But that’s not say that if you suddenly think of something we can’t accommodate that because it’s better to get it all. But, so, the Venturas, so you were training on these Venturas and at Pennfield Ridge, and then, as well as that, you followed that on with some about a month and a bit at Yarmouth.
LP: That’s right, at Yarmouth, in, we had to cross the Bay of Fundy to go down to, Yarmouth was still in Canada. There is a Yarmouth in England too.
JM: Yes, that’s why
LP: That’s why my parents thought that’s we’re gone to.
JM: Yes, that’s why a bit, wanting to just clarify what that, yeah, so, there’s Yarmouth in Canada and so, what did you do down in Yarmouth, more Ventura training or?
LP: Yes, more Ventura training.
JM: Ventura training. So, did you actually crew up at this point?
LP: Yes, when we got to Pennfield Ridge we crewed up.
JM: You crewed up there. So, how many because I’m totally unfamiliar with the Ventura, how many were on your crew on a Ventura?
LP: I had to choose a pilot and an observer who was not a pilot, a navigator and bomb aimer. And wireless air gunner and straight gunner.
JM: So, in terms of a Ventura, is it like, did they have, was it like a mid-upper gunner or rear gunner or?
LP: Mid-upper gunner.
JM: A mid-upper gunner. Right, ok. And
LP: Oh, sorry, it was only the straight air gunner was on the Mitchell and he was on one of those gun positions [unclear] down below
JM: Oh, like, down below
LP: Down below and underneath
JM: A lower, right
LP: The Ventura didn’t, it only had the top turret.
JM: Top turret, right. So what did wireless operator run that as well as the radio?
LP: As a gunner
JM: As a gunner
LP: As a gunner, and
JM: Wireless
LP: Wireless man, too.
JM: Wireless, right, ok. So, you had one, two, three, four, five crew on your Ventura.
LP: Ehm, one, two, three, four, actually, three, four because we didn’t have the straight air gunner.
JM: So you had a pilot, observer, navigator
LP: Who was all, observer, navigator was all, all one
JM: All the one, ok. So, pilot, navigator, observer, bomb aimer and wireless air gunner.
LP: Yes.
JM: Yes. Ok. And so, how did you go about your selection of your crew? Did
LP: They were all brought into the hall and we’d just say, would you like to come with me and you’d pick somebody if they were agreeable and that was it.
JM: And were they all, what nationalities were they?
LP: My observer, who was also the
JM: Navigator
LP: Navigator, was a New Zealander.
JM: Right.
LP: There’s with him and the straight air gunner, no, not the straight air gunner, the wireless air gunner
JM: Wireless.
LP: Was a Canadian
JM: Right. And bomb aimer?
LP: That was the observer’s job also. The observer was a navigator and bomb aimer.
JM: And what was he? Ah, he was New Zealander.
LP: He was a New Zealander and the wireless air gunner was a Canadian.
JM: And, so, that was your crew, you went then as a crew to Yarmouth.
LP: To Yarmouth.
JM: And did your additional training
LP: Yes.
JM: In Yarmouth.
LP: Yes.
JM: So then you got after that, any particular memories that, any particular experiences any of these training flights that stand out, any near misses or any interesting visit, interesting side trips as a result of [laughs]?
LP: Not really. I was lucky, the Venturas had the most powerful engine going at the time in the Air Force at two thousand horse power, a radial engine, and had a habit of catching on fire. Luckily I didn’t have that experience myself but we did a lot of formation flying at Yarmouth too, and we’d go out, ehm, select one doing the [unclear] for about half an hour and then change over so. The [unclear] Grant-Suttie was the captain of the leading aircraft I was formating on him and he had an engine failure and we were on a steep turn at the time and I, because he reduced speed because of the engine failure, I pulled off, I suppose I could so but our, my left wingtip hit his tail plane and my left wingtip came up like that, bent right up
JM: Bent right up
LP: Bent right up and of course when I landed and they asked about the other aircraft, the other aircraft, alright, I said, as far as I know, yes, Captain, I’m [unclear], he’s still ok, and I saw him land then and never got into any trouble, I don’t know whether he got into any trouble enough but
JM: But still the engine failed, I mean.
LP: The engine failed and it was down that they weren’t very good engines.
JM: Gosh, well that was an experience to
LP: Yeah, that was an experience.
JM: And again sort of required your resources to manage your way out of it, so.
LP: When you’re in a [unclear] like that and he wants to bank further because the engine fails
JM: So, probably more than forty-five degrees you’re talking about, judging by the position of your hands there, yes.
LP: Is very, I couldn’t do anything except try and sort of get my speed behind his, and we were very lucky that all this more or less still kept together and my wingtip hit his tail plane and, well, it squeezed up against, you say, because there wasn’t any big collision, we were so close anyhow.
JM: Close anyhow.
LP: So.
JM: Gosh! So, that was that experience and that was probably about the only one that you had.
LP: That’s the only one I had.
JP: Bird strike. The bird strike.
LP: Oh no. That’s way.
JM: That’s further down the track, is it? Ok.
LP: Way down the track. This is in the Air Force, I’m still training in the Air Force [laughs]
JM: We’re still, we’re back in Canada here. But whereabouts to sort of go to Halifax and uhm, I presume that’s probably but some of your experiences that’s at Yarmouth and then. So you moved both to Halifax and [unclear] and that was
LP: That was like a holding.
JM: Holding.
LP: Holding spot there and then we actually went by train down to New York
JM: Yes.
LP: To get on board the Queen Elizabeth. Right next door was the French one that was caught on fire.
JM: Fire.
LP: What was the name?
JP: Oh, that French ship. Yes, I remember that.
LP: About the same size as the Queen Elizabeth. Huge French.
JP: It wasn’t the Normandy?
LP: Normandy. That’s it! Good one! Is the Normandy, yes.
JM: Yes.
LP: It spend quite a long time in the New York wharf area.
JM: But when you went down to New York is when you had a week’s leave and when you.
LP: We had the weeks’ leave from Dauphin. That was where I did the [unclear]
JM: Oh, from Dauphin, ok, so whilst you were in Dauphin that had you the week’s leave, right.
LP: That’s right, isn’t it?
JP: Yes.
LP: From Dauphin.
JM: Dauphin, so
LP: [unclear] I got my wings, it wasn’t [unclear], no, because we didn’t have leave and we came before we went on board the Queen Elisabeth. Some memory?
JP: I can’t remember.
LP: You can’t remember, I can’t remember.
JM: No, that’s alright, well that’s
LP: Got in touch with you when I went to New York. No.
JM: No, so was probably around August or something that you had your leave in ’42, went down from Dauphin down to New York so
LP: I don’t think we were allowed so when we were embarking or anything like that.
JM: Right, ok, so that and how did you find your week in New York?
LP: Well, initially.
JM: Yes, that initial.
LP: With June.
JM: Yes, with June.
LP: Oh, we had a lovely time. We saw
JM: So, you met June at the beginning of the leave as opposed to
LP: Yes
JM: So, you had the whole week together basically
JP: I was just having lunch and he was the guest of management and I was guest of management.
JM: Guest of management, yes, no, but it was basically towards the, more as at the start of his leave so you then had a week, more or less a week together. Oh, that was wonderful.
LP: No, not all the time. But I went down to this hotel called [unclear] and the other one, he got his wings too, and we both went to this hotel Edison in New York because we could have two meals for the price of one [laughs]. And, oh, we were looking forward to it, we weren’t flush then.
JM: Oh, that’s right. Exactly, you were payed.
LP: And that’s when June sorted a group of airmen and said, oh, I’ll pick him.
JP: Pick him [laughs].
LP: So it’s all her fault.
JM: It’s all her fault, that’s right. And so, I guess, how long had you been in New York at that stage? June, you had some idea?
JP: Oh, I’d only been in New York probably about a year.
JM: A Year. But still at least you had some knowledge, say you were able to take
LP: You were fifteen, didn’t you?
JP: Fifteen, going, closer to sixteen.
LP: Ah, were you?
JP: Much closer to sixteen. Yes.
LP: June was about the, she was more of us in charge of the other girls going over
JP: That’s right.
LP: And she did three years, they been and she’s been living in New York about a year.
JM: A levels, you did your A levels.
JP: I did the leaving that took everybody four years, I did it in fifteen months.
JM: My Goodness me!
JP: And how I did it was that, where I was as a like a primary school but we had, the older ones, we had a separate cottage and this cottage, these lovely ladies would come and
LP: The Gool [?] Foundation
JP: The Gool [?] Foundation and they’d come and you know they talked me up when I wanted to do my homework for night now where was I? Uhm, what was I about to tell you?
JM: Well, we were just saying that you had, you’d been there about twelve months so that you had some idea about, you know, where to take Lorrie and
JP: Where to take Lorrie and everything and they just sort of got somehow round that we got in touch with each other
LP: When? After.
JP: I don’t know how we did it, whether it’s through my mother.
LP: No, no, no, I happened to be, this is after a two year period after I got to England.
JM: England.
LP: When we first left each other, I think I wrote one letter saying how lovely
JM: [unclear]
LP: I got one letter back, nothing for two years, I happened to be on leave in London and [unclear] officer by then and reading the paper and there was a little part in the paper that said, a lot of these girls were returning as they had been evacuated and gave the address of the headquarters there and I thought, oh, I might go, see if June [unclear] maybe and maybe I might pop in and see and she happened to be there at the headquarters when I popped in.
JM: At that particular time that you went and visited. How a coincidence.
JP: I was getting my papers to get on entertaining the troops had to join ENSO, which was Entertainments National Service Association.
LP: Join the straight, part of a straight play.
JP: Part of a straight play. And, you know I just had this, getting all this information and when Lorrie walked into the building and here you go.
JM: Well, there you go!
JP: Meant to be.
JM: Meant to be, that’s right. And so you became part of the entertainment, troop entertainment.
JP: Yes, I was always in, so, I went to a theatre school as a child through [unclear] and then we went to New York and then I had a very good, I had the best drama teacher in the world at that time called Frances Robinson-Duff and she gave me a free scholarship to attend her school and from there, well, I went back to England, the best way for me to use what I knew in theatre was to join the Entertainment National Service Association, which was a group that entertained troops in straight plays and things like that all over England and Scotland.
LP: You went up to the Orkneys at that time.
JM: Gosh! Yeah, so you, well.
JP: Unfortunately everybody would have been in the newspaper and I would have been in the [unclear] but Noel Coward who was like in charge of us, he was very conscious of keeping our privacy, he didn’t want that for us so he stopped that otherwise I would have had, you know, newspapers galore on what I was doing. It’s a shame.
LP: If June had stayed on , Noel Coward would have made sure that she had a good part.
JM: Gosh!
JP: No, he was like a father to me. Was fabulous.
JM: Amazing, yeah. Ok, we’ll come back to that because that obviously fits in with the story a bit further down the track, uhm, at the moment we just got you into England [laughs]
LP: Queen Elisabeth [unclear], because no escort at all
JM: You had no escort for [unclear], no.
LP: And one night, the Queen did a very quick, one hundred and eighty, three hundred and sixty degree turn because they knew there was a submarine, they were told there was a submarine after them, so I’m glad they had plenty of speed.
JM: Yes, that’s right. So you just did a massive turn around, you didn’t go by, there was one, I must check that, yes, there was one trip that actually went via Greenland. But because again a submarine concerns so did you either on this, on the Elisabeth did you meet, some of the chaps did watchers, did you do any, bridge watches or?
LP: Not on the Queen Elisabeth. But going from Australia to San Francisco, they loaded up guns and [unclear] as well because the war, looked like the Japanese could have come down from there on our way.
JM: But you didn’t do any bridge watch, some of the chaps did bridge watchers from the bridge. But no, so you just did some gunnery work, gunnery preparations on that over to San Fran, right, ok. So you ended up, from Halifax you ended Myles Standish, Bournemouth.
LP: Myles Standish, wasn’t that?
JM: That’s the departure before you went to
LP: Boston, wasn’t it?
JM: That be Boston, yeah, when you got onto the Elisabeth.
LP: Boston, we were held there for a few days and then went to New York onto the Queen Elisabeth.
JM: Yes, just, and so then into Bournemouth.
LP: Yes, held there for quite a while.
JM: About nearly two months basically in Bournemouth, so what sort of things were you doing in Bournemouth?
LP: Mainly parade and get a sport but we were bombed here.
JM: Really?
LP: We were bombed from the low level Focke Wulf, they got under the radar, they just fly over the water and it was a Sunday. If it hadn’t been a Sunday, half of us wouldn’t have been here because the parade ground was bombed. [unclear] my friend there, he got, [unclear] damaged, one thing or another, quite a few killed, civilians were killed at Bournemouth. Sunday the hotel was bombed, they couldn’t, they didn’t rescue anybody out there for a couple of days or two but they were having a great old time down the cellars [laughs].
JM: Down the cellars, well, at least they were safe, I suppose. And so, did your crew that you had been with, your New Zealander, your Canadian, they were all, they came across with you together on the plane, on the boat to Europe? And you’re at Bournemouth together?
LP: Yes, yes, no, I may have, my memory, I’m not too sure now whether it was just my observer and myself together and the wireless air gunner and the straight air gunner, we might have got together after the conversion onto Mitchells, I can’t quite remember that now.
JM: That’s alright, that’s ok. And.
LP: So, after we went after to Bicester.
JM: Towards had, no had two western first?
LP: Sorry?
JM: Tour western? Two western?
LP: Yeah, that’s right.
JM: Two western?
LP: Close to Bicester.
JM: Yeah well, in your entry you had two western then Bicester.
LP: Conversion onto the Mitchells [unclear].
JM: Mitchells.
LP: Two Western.
JM: And how did you find the difference between the Mitchell and the Ventura?
LP: Ah, beautiful aircraft, compared to the Ventura there’s no, hard to compare, the Mitchell was a beautiful aircraft.
JM: It was.
LP: I got a good one too, no, the aircraft varied but mine
JM: There were still two engine, weren’t they?
LP: Still two engines, yes.
JM: Yes. And what, you say they were beautiful aircraft, in what way?
LP: Well, we did a lot of formation flying again there and they were very responsive, very steady, fully aerobatic, not that we did any aerobatics with a bomber but they were capable of doing it. And Liberator, do you know the Liberator at all?
JM: No, not really, no.
LP: That’s a four engine.
JM: Four engine. Had another American one.
LP: The same that made the Liberator
JM: That made the Liberator
LP: Made the Mitchell
JM: Mitchell.
LP: And they are very similar, very similar. Matter of fact, those that went on to Liberators first went on to Mitchells to get the feel. Must show you, there probably a bit out of order but.
JM: Well how about we come back to that later on.
LP: Yeah, we’ll getting a bit thirsty
JM: Oh, ok, we will have a little bit of a.
LP: I mean, you, you must.
JM: No, no, I’m fine but we will just pause while you. We shall just continue on now with Lorrie has just shown me the book that Tony Vine has written on the history of the group of
LP: Group 20
JM: 20 course at Narromine.
LP: There were 50 of us.
JM: 50, so I’ll come, so I’ve seen the chapter on Lorrie which I will come back to afterwards. So, you were at
LP: [unclear]
JM: At Bournemouth.
LP: Yes.
JM: Sorry, then you went to Two Western and you were onto your Mitchell training here now.
LP: Yes, conversion onto.
JM: Yes, so, do you remember your crew there?
LP: Same.
JM: Same. Did you pick up an extra chap now?
LP: That’s where I think where I got the straight gunner, which was Starkey, he was another Canadian.
JM: Another Canadian.
LP: So I finished up with a New Zealander and two Canadians.
JM: Yeah, right, ok, and so from there, any particular experiences that come to mind when you were doing your conversion to your Mitchells?
LP: No, I think they, just the instructors started climbing up to twenty thousand feet and he wanted to demonstrate without our oxygen masks on and most of the chaps sort of passed out but I was very whizzy but I didn’t actually pass out. But, that’s one of, just off the top of my head, [laughs] not worth mentioning really.
JM: Right. Still showed you what would happen if you
LP: If you didn’t have your oxygen mask.
JM: If you didn’t have your oxygen mask, that’s right. So from there, uhm, off to Fulsome
LP: Swanton Morley?
JM: No, Folsom, briefly to start only three days, so, it was just a transit by the looks of the dates and from there Swanton Morley, so, Swanton Morley was you first posting, that was your when you were posted to 226 Squadron.
LP: That’s right.
JM: Yeah, so this was.
LP: Which is an RAF Squadron.
JM: An RAF Squadron, yes, that’s right. And so from, so you arrived at 226 in August ’43.
LP: That’d be right.
JM: August ’43, August ’43, ok and that’s when you started your operational activities?
LP: Yes, from Swanton Morley.
JM: Yes, ok and so, uhm, so mostly your ops were over Northern France, sort of?
LP: Yes, northern France, Holland and, mainly on the V1 sites, we didn’t know, they didn’t tell us what we were actually bombing, cause a big secret at the time. It just what they called a V1 bombing and nothing else, other things too but because these launching sites were right on the coast, crossing over, the flak was very heavy, just hop in and hop out as quickly as you could, drop your bombs.
JM: And so here you had, how many, need to go back to your, we go to the
LP: Operations?
JM: Operations, here, what sort of missions, ops?
LP: Well, as I was saying, they were mainly V1 we were
JM: V1.
LP: We were doing daylight bombings.
JM: Daylight bombings, yes, good, ok, so, any, how many times, do you have?
LP: Thirty ops was a tour.
JM: A tour, yes, that’s alright.
LP: A tour and at the end of the thirty ops I was asked to, would I do another ten ops, which I volunteered to do.
JM: Yes. So, that’s your assessments there, September, yes, so your first ops, your first ops started on the 19th of September basically by the looks of that and through there, lots of flights in between time affiliation flying and then November you really started doing, you really started into the ops, that’s 20th, 23rd, 25th, 26th, yep, 40th operation cooling [?]. So, what’s, any particular ops stand out in terms of, uhm, where, you know, little bit of flak here, we see in January, cloud over target did not bomb, so, French coast, cloud, what sort of, what sort of memories do you have of those ops there?
LP: There, only the amount of flak that was put up to just like the black cloud [unclear]
JM: Black cloud.
LP: And I got hit quite, my observer got shrapnel in his knee from the flak and my straight air gunner, he was up in the top turret and he, quite a big thing hit him behind but luckily it was the flat end that hit him, if it would have been the sharp end the side of, he probably would have been
JM: He probably would have been into trouble.
LP: Yes. Luckily the captain’s seat had armoured plating about that thick [unclear] at the back
JM: Right, so you were reasonably protected from.
LP: Yes, and we always wore a normal helmet, not helmet, see, metal hat, you know, we called it, we didn’t wear a cap so
JM: No, no.
LP: But, the ordinary ground soldiers a metal thing because of the flak, it might help us if a bit of metal came in.
JM: That’s right, and the injuries of those two chaps sustained, were they?
LP: They were in hospital
JM: They were in hospital, I say, it didn’t cause them to miss any ops or one or two ops that you had a substitute crew for or?
LP: No. [unclear]
JM: No, they didn’t miss
LP: We kept the same crew all the way through.
JM: All the way through, right, ok. And, did you have escorts? You said there was lots of flak, so did you still have escorts to provide you a bit of protection or?
LP: Well, as I said, the escorts were [unclear] fighters up to twenty thousand feet, we were bombing between ten thousand and fifteen thousand feet. Daylight bombing and so the escorts could see us from, but that be about ten or fifteen thousand feet
JM: Between you
LP: Between us and if any German fighters showed up they, with the height advantage,
JM: They would be able to come in down over the top of them and try to pick them off
LP: Yes. Keep them. They were herding us along quite nicely. But unlucky with that first Venturas when they didn’t show up and they eleven out of twelve were shot down.
JM: That’s right. So, how bigger Squadron was 226?
LP: It was quite a big squadron and there were about three or four at different stations, airfields, and for instance this called Halliday, was when I met June at the hotel, he was at another airfield, I can’t remember the name of it now, about three or four, there was even a Polish squadron, they made part of our wing, what they called our wing, and they were dreadful in that, they didn’t believe in, they flew straight in and low [laughs] all the time, because, you know, we were told, and it’s pretty true, that if you kept on a straight level flight for ten seconds or a little bit more than ten seconds, without changing your course or your height, you‘re bound to be knocked down. So we did a lot of course changing and height changing.
JM: That’s right. And whilst you were at the base there, uhm, what, at Swanton Morley, you would have some leave, what sort of things did you do whilst you were on leave at Swanton Morley?
LP: We were lucky that there was an organisation that, I’m trying to think of the organisation there that offered to take you into different homes in different parts of England and myself and a good friend of mine, Jack Barrel [?], who is another pilot, we both decided on going up to the Lake District and we loved it, we met a magnificent family up there, he was a soldier from World War I and he at the Battle of the Somme he had a leg shot off and his wife was a lovely Hewardson missy, Hewardson.
JP: They were lovely people.
LP: And that’s where we went up for our honeymoon, up to Kendal, Lake District, and we went and visited them, we just stayed at that hotel at Kendal in Lake District.
JM: Right. Gosh! And did you get back to them a couple of times?
LP: Yes, yes.
JM: So whilst you were at Swanton Morley, so having made the contact with this family, the Hewardsons, did you say it was?
LP: Hewardsons.
JM: Hewardsons, yes. And they, so you then went back.
LP: Very much [unclear] like part of the family up there. Made us very welcome, looked after us magnificently.
JM: Yes, yes, it’s interesting how these bonds did form and how much someone else has commented to me that you know how what an unknown contribution those families really made because of the support and the care that they gave, the service chaps was.
JP: It was amazing.
LP: Of course, something like Miss Macdonald and something about [unclear] and somewhere on the [unclear], was quite nice people, didn’t know them at all but that’s what the organisation was called.
JM: Right, so then you continued to
LP: We left Swanton Morley and went down to Camberley in tents. We were just about to go, D-Day was just about to come up.
JM: Yes, that’s what I’m going to say. What about D-Day, yes?
LP: Well, actually I just finished my tour, they called it, there’s a tour and a half but they called two tours tour because it went on to the extra ten ones, so I was on leave on D-Day.
JM: Right.
LP: In London I think.
JM: Right.
LP: But I then went on to the second [unclear] communication Squadron from there.
JM: Right. Right. So, so you finished your tour at, in beginning of June, before June basically, wasn’t it? It’s the tour the eleventh, that’s May 23, was basically the last op you did there? That when you and then you had your, you’ve been given your assessment on the 11th of June, which of course is after D-Day, so that’s why you were on leave for, well, on D-Day, so, yeah. So, you went, where did you have your leave? Were you down in London or were you up, up north?
LP: London, London on D-Day.
JM: Right, right. And were you in London at that point, June, or?
JP: I think so.
LP: Must have been.
JP: I must have been, yeah. Yes, I must have been, yes. We must have been together.
LP: I don’t know whether you had come back from America at that stage, do you remember what month it was that you came back? It wasn’t, I think it was after June that we met up again.
JP: We had a patch of two years so we didn’t see each other.
LP: Yes.
JM: Right, right, ok. So, could have been as part of that time there. Yes.
LP: Because I know what I mean, we got married on January the 4th, I remember that.
JP: 1945.
JM: Right.
LP: 1945.
JM: January 4th 1945 we were married.
LP: And we weren’t, it took a while before I [unclear] enough courage to ask her to marry me [laughs].
JP: Yes. And we were [unclear] together like three months before that. And before that I was in, I must have been in America.
JM: Yes, yes, yes.
LP: And I was at, based at Northolt.
JM: Yes. Because you, in June you switched to Ansons so did you do a conversion course to the Ansons or was it similar to, from the?
LP: No, hardly necessary. Just another [unclear], the two on the Ansons, the Anson was twin engine, but is only used as a communication aircraft really.
JM: Right, ok, so this was the start of your other Squadron posting, was it?
LP: Yes.
JM: And what was that Squadron called?
LP: 2nd TAF communications squadron.
JM: Right, and so that was Northolt.
LP: They had [unclear]
JM: Yeah, ok. So, that was. So actually you were at 226 moved to Hartford Bridge from Swanton Morley.
LP: Yes, that’s right, yes, that’s right.
JM: So, you’re still flying there, you’re still flying ops at that stage.
LP: Yeah.
JM: It’s just that you change bases there.
LP: Yes.
JM: Yeah, ok. So, with the TAF on communication, what was that involving?
LP: Mainly, flying quite higher people from on aerodrome to the other. Ten days after D-Day I was flying across the Channel with generals and
JM: You were attached to Montgomery’s headquarters.
LP: Yeah, but [unclear] you’re getting too far ahead, June.
JP: Am I? Ah, but that’s what you were doing.
LP: But we were doing a lot of work based in Northolt, flying to different airfields in England, mainly carrying VIPs from one place to the other, carrying some mail from one place to the other, but I think I ran about the tenth, ten days after D-Day which would be, what, 16th? I was flying across the Channel with VIPs.
JM: Right.
LP: And then shortly after the whole communication squadron went across [unclear] and we were based in the beachhead, close to the beachhead, beachhead.
JM: Right. So, that was, yeah, so you were in France and then Belgium. So, from, in August, you had one month in France.
LP: Yeah.
JM: And then three months in Belgium.
LP: That’s right. Yeah. And during that three months, a part of, got three or four weeks, myself and two other pilots were attached to Montgomery’s headquarters and do take his majors up to frontline and get information back and bring that back too.
JM: Right, so. That, August, yes, so, looking at your logbook again, yes it doesn’t quite give us the details it, just tells that you went like in August you went to a whole pile of interesting, Elson [?], Chartres and in another flight you had Reims, Saint Mo [?] and return, so you were obviously visiting forward posts in there to pick up information and then drop staff and that sort of thing there, so, yes, how was that as an experience compared to your fighting operation shall we call?
LP: It is virtually called a rest period, rest period really but we were open to enemy attack at any time.
JM: Did you have any escorts at that time? How many of you were, you just a single plane?
LP: A single plane.
JM: A single plane, so didn’t have any escort or anything like that. You and your rescue were on your own resources in terms of keeping watch for anything.
LP: Yes, well, I didn’t have a crew then.
JM: Oh, ok, you were only.
LP: When I left the squadron, finished the operations, that was the end of the crew.
JM: Right, ok.
LP: So, it was just you.
LP: And other pilots, they were all.
JM: Just a mix of second pilots, just like a two, two men crew running.
LP: Well, wasn’t even a two men crew. We were flying lighter aircraft and it was the one crew flying the passengers virtually.
JM: Oh, ok, so you didn’t actually even have like a second pilot or anything, was just you as the pilot and the passengers that you were ferrying.
LP: Even the Anson which was twin engine thing, you just flew that by yourself. I even accepted that the time I had Prince Bernard [?] in Canada he, we were in Brussels at the time, and he wanted to go to Eindhoven and I was chosen to fly him there in the Anson and he and his couple of aids there and general, a couple of generals there and they sat down in the back and he wanted to sit up alongside of me and Prince Bernard [?] and took off and the old Anson in those days, you had to wind the undercarriage up and it took off and he said, oh, I’ll do that and he wound the undercarriage up for me [laughs]. Very nice chap.
JM: And did you ever meet Montgomery?
LP: I can’t say that I actually met him. No, it’s a wonder I didn’t because as I say there were three of us with these light aircraft attached to his headquarters and one Sunday morning, it must have been a Sunday morning and the English Townsend, Johnny Townsend, were having a bit of a rivalry amongst us and we went up, and we had a bit of a dogfight, you know, [unclear] treetop level and we were doing [unclear] and having a real good older, I won by the way because I and he admitted that I was coming inside him on the turns [unclear], we landed and very shortly after there was a VIP attached to Montgomery that came up and said: ‘What have [unclear] I had a lot of trouble, you’re in a lot of trouble because there was, Montgomery was very religious type of chap and he was carrying out the church parade and of course we were flying [laughs].
JM: The church creating a racket.
LP: And disturbed his church service and we weren’t very popular then [laughs].
JM: Oh dear, oh dear.
LP: So, that’s one incident that happened.
JM: And so, it was quite a different experience than for you to be doing.
LP: We [unclear] as a rest period, weren’t nearly in so much danger really, except we often had to keep our eyes open all the time because we were as far as the aircraft went, we were very much on top of the Germans, from D-Day on the German Air Force didn’t trouble us very much.
JM: So, what, you had quite a number of flights in that capacity. So you went through until December ’44 was the end of Belgium and then from there you were down to Brighton and obviously you had some leave at that point because if you then went and got married in January, beginning of January ’45, your time in Brighton was December ’44 to February ’45 so you had some leave and you got married. Where were you married, in London?
LP: Yes. West Hampstead, wasn’t it?
JP: West Hampstead.
JM: Right. Right. Very good.
LP: And then we had the honeymoon up in Kendal, in the Lake District [laughs].
JM: Back with the Hewardsons again.
JP: Yes.
LP: That’s right.
JM: Yes, so that [unclear] marvellous and so, then you came back on the Rangitiki.
LP: Rangitiki, New Zealand ship.
JM: And did you come, you wouldn’t have come as well?
JP: [unclear] travelled.
JM: Travelled together.
JP: It was terrible because English [unclear] was good. But not the Australians. It was terrible.
JM: No.
LP; A well, I can tell you something about that. The Australians they couldn’t take their wireless back with them, but the New Zealanders did and when we got on board, and the New Zealanders were there [unclear] I was very hurt about that. Yes, would have made a big difference.
JP: [unclear] went first, it was several months before I was pregnant which he didn’t know about.
LP: I didn’t know about [unclear].
JP: Until I saw him again and it was terrible for me cause I had to wait in England for months.
LP: And June was very lucky to be allowed to travel being pregnant.
JM: Yes, well, there was a cut-off time before they.
JP: I got
LP: June had the influence of her grandfather.
JP: My grandfather he was head of the [unclear] shipping company.
JM: Oh, ok.
JP: And only through him did a get a birth I mean cause they’d never allow somebody expecting a baby on the ship anyway during the war.
JP: There were a couple of others that I know of that came through as pregnant, when they were pregnant but yes.
LP: But June was, Richard was born in October.
JP: Several months when I came.
LP: By the time we landed in Sydney, you were what? Seven months pregnant?
JP: Yes, seven months pregnant.
JM: Yes, seven months. And so then you were finally discharged, so you came through on the Rangitiki and then you were discharged
LP: October.
JM: October ’45. Yes. Just saying a bit of note here that is going to sort of jump out of sequence here which but when you were in 226, so you finished up in June, June ’44 we said, wasn’t it? That was your last op, yes, that was last op ’44, so were you, which plane were you on one plane only when you were in 226 or did you fly two or three different planes?
LP: No, only Mitchells, I only flew the Mitchells there and I had my own aircraft.
JM: You had your own aircraft, yes. No, it’s just that I noticed when I was looking up 226 to try and find out a little bit about 226 because I’d never come across 226 previously and one of the notes there said that there was a P for Peter, was a distinguished plane in 226 because it was the only Mitchell that completed one hundred ops. And I didn’t know whether you had ever flown on P for Peter or whether you would, if you’d happen to remember any one who might have flown on P for Peter.
LP: I can’t quite remember either. Does it tell you the aircraft?
JM: It probably does if I actually go back and have a look.
LP: When I was on leave towards the end in my tour, while you are on leave somebody else couldn’t fly your aircraft.
JM: Yes.
LP: And somebody did and the undercarriage didn’t come down when it went in to land, so he landed without a nose wheel, because Mitchells had nose wheels, he did a, he got his crew to go down the back and he finished his landing alone and he kept the nose off the ground all the time, got the ground crew to come out to pull the nose wheel struck down and they did but they didn’t [unclear] and when they were towing it away it came down
JM: Collapsed.
LP: It crashed. Oh, I was so annoyed. I did get another aircraft, a newer aircraft with newer engines, but it wasn’t nearly as nice to fly as the, H for Harry, I’ll bet you’ll find those.
JM: Well actually no, you, all you got is numbers so, I haven’t got any letters unfortunately.
LP: I’m sure there’s H for Harry anyhow.
JM: H for Harry, was it, there you go, no, there’s no letters, there’s just numbers, so. But anyway that’s alright.
LP: H, I’m sure there’s H, wasn’t Peter.
JM: Wasn’t Peter, right. So, back in, you were discharged as we said in December.
LP: October.
JM: October ’45, sorry, and because you arrived, which is a long time after you arrived back, cause you arrived back in March ’45 so.
LP: Yes, we refreshed the course [unclear]
JM: Oh, did you?
LP: Yes, on Oxford and then we went down to East Sale to do a pre endorsement on Beauforts.
JM: Right, because I suppose at that stage they were concerned about, you might have been going off to Asia, were you? For
JP: Yes.
LP: Yes, but before that I was going to go from the Beauforts on to Mosquitos at Williamtown.
JM: Right.
LP: And then the war ended.
JM: Ended.
LP: I wanted to get on to Mosquitos to [laughs]
JP: Yes. That was his love.
JM: Right.
LP: Yes, well I, yes, initially it was Spitfires but at the end, towards the end Mosquitos were lovely aircraft.
JM: Right, right. So did you actually fly?
LP: Mosquitos?
JM: No.
LP: I didn’t even get the posting to Williamtown.
JM: No, no.
LP: East Sale, you know where East Sale is?
JM: Yes, down Victoria.
LP: Victoria. That’s where the beau fighters were.
JM: Beau fighters were.
LP: No, not beau fighters, Beauforts, Beauforts.
JM: Beauforts, Beauforts. Right.
LP: And I did finish the course there and as I say the war ended then. [phone ringing] Thanks June.
JM: So, yes, so, well, that’s interesting that you had all that extra training [unclear]
LP: Excuse me, I gotta, he’s gonna call me back.
JM: Go back, so, then having done all these extra bits of training it never came to anything as such and the war ended so you were finally discharged in October ’45.
LP: Yes.
JM: And by which time June had arrived I assume, yes, yes.
LP: Yes, produced our son.
JM: Yes, your son.
JP: I had him at October 9th 1945.
JM: Right, right, so that was just before you were discharged, ok, uhm, and you were in Sydney here at that point.
JP: Yes.
LP: No, no, you were up at Burrell.
JP: Up at Burrell? Oh, sorry, I, when you said Sydney I meant Australia. Yes, I was up at Burrell.
LP: No, my parents were retired in a place up at Burrell, near [unclear], Gloucester Way.
JM: Ok, right, so there.
JP: So basically I was when I had the baby.
JM: Right, right, ok, so, that would have been a bit of a shock to the system and the whole country town there.
LP: It was, no telephone,
JP: I got on the phone and said to people in England and New York, I said, well look I’m up here, there’s no phone, no electricity, no toilet inside [unclear] [laughs].
JM: Dunny is down the back.
LP: Was a bit of a shock.
JP: [unclear]
LP: But I had told her what to expect.
JP: Oh yes, I wasn’t, you know, [unclear], I did it with fun.
JM: Yes, yes.
LP: Was lovely, June settled in there beautifully.
JP: Oh yes, no, they were lovely to me. When I first arrived, of course being a little English girl, I was all white,
JM: White, that’s right.
JP: And just, they went, ah, [laughs], who’s this? Where does she come from? [laughs]
LP: And June could make up beautifully and she looked lovely anyhow but all the local girls [unclear]
JP: Who’s this? [laughs] Where did she come from?
JM: That’s right, yes.
JP: What planet? [laughs]
JM: Yes, exactly. And so, when did you start your chartered business? You showed
LP: The air taxi.
JM: Air taxi out of Bankstown.
LP: Yes.
JM: Was that the first thing you did after the war?
LP: The first job that I went into, organized setting up the air taxi. I met a chap, a country chap that he and his wife looking for something of interest, they were pretty well off and we got on very well together and we went down to Canberra and saw Dragford [?], who is a politician and he managed to get two light aircraft from the RAAF at Richmond. So we got hold of [unclear], picked one up, all [unclear] up nicely and start to operate from then.
JM: So did you, whereabouts in Sydney were you living at this point? Were you out near Bankstown or were you travelling out there?
LP: Yes, yes, there was another airport chap that I got to know, at Dauphin quite well, and his parents were living at Bankstown at the time
JM: Right.
LP: And they put us up there until their daughter was born and then
JM: Yeah, right.
JP: [unclear] was born.
JM: Right, right.
LP: Yes, very kind of them.
JM: Yes, yes. So, and you, I think you said three or four years did you have your charter business for?
LP: Ah, about a year and a half.
JM: Year and a half was it? Right.
LP: It was all, because before we went broke.
JM: Right.
JP: Did the guard man threaten to put out some cost, which would put us out of business?
LP: Yes, I said we’re gonna charge [unclear] in air mile
JP: And then they were gonna put it up. And that would have put us out of business. So we had to give it away.
LP: I interviewed [unclear] and Mr Butler, whose Butler Airlines at that stage, he thought we could combine quite well but as [unclear] couldn’t carry on. I even took a couple just to keep this going in, even took a couple of jobs with [unclear] I think it was and the other place, in George Street down the hill.
JM: Down the hill?
LP: Down the hill from George Street near central.
JM: Oh, Mark Foyes?
LP: No, in George Street.
JM: Oh, George Street.
LP: George Street, was a well known
JM: Hordens?
JP: Hordens? Anthony Hordens?
JM: Anthony Hordens?
LP: Anthony Hordens? Yes, I was in, I didn’t smoke, so I got a job in the smoking factory.
JM: Oh, in the tobacco section.
LP: Selling cigarettes and so. Because they always had their battered up tins of cigarettes, fifty, used to be the old fifty tins in those days. And any ones that got battered, they virtually sold them and at this stage I was keen to get into Qantas so I used to do, every week go down to the recruitment place in Qantas and with my tins, battered tins of cigarettes and the recruitment officer, he was a smoker and he bought these battered tins from me every week which is quite [unclear]
JM: Had a little bit of a discount.
LP: Yes, a big discount. So, I think that helped me get into Qantas.
JM: Nothing like a little bit of encouragement.
LP: Exactly, exactly.
JM: For favourable, to view your credentials favourably.
LP: Yes.
JM: Well I mean, you did have the right credentials, let’s face it, so, I mean, that, yes.
LP: There were so many ex Air Force men who wanted to get in
JM: Yes, but they had the pick of the whole field, really.
LP: They did, they did.
JM: So, yes, yes. So, you joined up into Qantas in?
LP: Yes, 28th of March I think it was, 1948.
JM: Right, ok. So, then you started, you were doing domestic or international?
LP: No, international. At the same I was applying to TAA at the same time and they both came and said, come and see us. But the idea of just flying up Sydney, Melbourne, Sydney, Melbourne didn’t really appeal to me.
JM: Taxi run.
LP: And Qantas sounded a lot nicer to me. Don’t say good for June I suppose. Because overseas
JM: Because overseas, periods of absence, yes.
LP: We got two, sometimes three up to Japan because the Korean War had started then. And we took on the Skymaster DC4 we used to fly up to there and the troops landed there and their air force up there, [unclear], and you’d be up to three weeks away, probably because you had to wait for [unclear] ex-service people.
JM: Right. And so how long were you with Qantas for?
LP: Thirty years.
JM: Thirty years. Gosh!
LP: Yes. Thirty years with Qantas.
JM: So, you would have seen quite a number of changes in that time. Obviously, with different planes and
LP: Start off on the DC3 and then went on to the Skymaster DC4, the Superconny, Super Constellation, wasn’t very long and then went on to the 707, Boeing 707 and then the last five years I was on the Jumbo 747.
JM: 747, yes. And have you flown on the A380s at all?
LP: Yes. I have, as passenger.
JM: As passenger. Yes, yes, well that would have been a change again. From the 747.
LP: Like going to [unclear] on the [unclear]. Amazing.
JM: That’s right. And so, once you retired from Qantas in ’78, anything, did you do anything in particular after?
LP: Oh yes, I bought a farm. [laughs]
JM: Bought a farm, right.
LP: Yes, that’s why we just sold, that’s why everything in the dining room down there is chock-a-block. My son also owns another property out in the country and he’s had a big shed that with nothing in there and that’s chock-a-block.
JP: That’s chock-a-block. We’ve got stuff out there that [unclear] what we’re gonna do.
LP: And my son also has a place at [unclear] that’s painting off
JP: That’s his [unclear]
JM: Oh, it’s beautiful.
LP: Two people there during the night.
JM: Oh my goodness!
LP: Great grandchildren.
JP: The artist just did that for us.
JM: Lovely!
JP: That’s the back of the house.
LP: We’ve got the others to go down there and paint it.
JM: Paint it, gosh!
LP: Oh, he’s got a beautiful place!
JP: Oh, it’s beautiful.
JM: And whereabouts is your farm?
LP: At Burrell, near [unclear].
JM: Oh, back in, family, back in where your parents were, so, right.
LP: What happened was in about 1977 [unclear], no ’74, was that Dad came, he said, why don’t you buy the land around us, it was off the sale but 160 acers all together and buy that and when we go, it looks like they were going to go fairly soon, we will leave you the little house and leave you, make a nice little property for you when we go. So that’s what we did. I’m just about to buy a lovely home at Lake Macquarie.
JM: Oh, ok.
LP: Wangi Wangi.
JM: Wangi Wangi, yes, yes.
LP: It’s a waterfront [unclear] a little pathway.
JM: Yes, yes.
LP: People like to use the pathway on the other side of this bay and Dad came up with this offer and I can see we could help them at the same time and we changed over.
JM: Lovely. Oh, that’s a beautiful area up there I mean.
LP: It is.
JP: Magnificent.
LP: My mother came from this little township called Burrell, [unclear] Newcastle.
JM: Yes, that’s right. So, you had a very varied and interesting life.
LP: Very much so.
JM: And during, from your wartime experiences would you say there’s any one sequence of events that stays with you perhaps more than others or? One event or?
LP: Can’t say, can’t say. No, can’t say anything. I, we, the CO just before at the end of the tour recommended me for a DFC and then when he left the new CO came in, he called me and he said: ‘Oh, look, here’s this recommendation for a DFC, he said, well, I don’t know anything about you, but can you tell me what you did so we can write up a citation with, I said, I couldn’t think of anything, really [laughs]. And he said: ‘You write what you think might be the best thing in [unclear] the DFC, I said, oh, I thought is not a war to go on yet and I said, just leave it. And he wrote in and I got mentioned a special [unclear] left at then. But an AFC, an Air Force Cross I could have written down something and then because, you know, in formation with head boxers and six, I don’t know if you had, one leading aircraft had one formation on this side and then another one over there and then another one down here with two chaps, you’d have six aircraft all in one box of six, you’d re following me there?
JM: Yes, I am.
LP: And if you went up through cloud then, the idea was everybody to alter course 30 degrees for [unclear] and then climb up through the cloud and break through the clouds up and open it all the aircraft all over the place there and form one again [?]. Well, we had one chap, a fairly high air force official came to our squadron, he said, you know, the fighters, they four made up the fighters coming a lot closer and they form up and they go through the cloud in formation so the CO heard about that and he got a flight Lieutenant and said, give it a try and I’d hear about this and so the next time this went up through the cloud and I stuck in and kept formation all the way up through there and the other chap, that, this flight Lieutenant, he couldn’t do at the end the breakaway so I came up, oh, I was the only one that kept in formation. Well, [unclear] I could have written up something about that, an AFC. That’s the only other experience I can pass on to you.
JM: And what about down the years, did you manage to stay in touch with your New Zealand and Canadian crew chaps or?
LP: Not the Canadians, the, we went to a holiday, a bit of a holiday over in New Zealand and I met up with my observer then. Oh, by the way that business of flying through the clouds, after they found out that it could be done, after that all the operations, that they went up through cloud, we all formed up and went through in formation.
JM: You stayed in formation.
LP: After [unclear]
JM: So you brought about a change of procedure so to speak.
LP: Yes.
JM: And so the chap, Dennis, Dennis
LP: Lez Witham.
JM: Lez Witham.
LP: Lez Witham was my observer.
JM: Right.
LP: He was at Duneaton [?].
JM: And so you managed to keep in contact with him a little bit.
LP: A little bit.
JM: Post war.
LP: He became a, bonds, he was a
JM: Stock broker.
LP: Stock broker, yes, he became a stock broker.
JM: Right. Interesting.
LP: [unclear] when you get old, you can’t remember names [unclear].
JM: We’re talking about so long ago and so many thing have happened in the years [unclear] that’s quite, But the fact is that, you know, those experiences, the nitty gritties of the experiences stay with you and while some of the finer details may not necessarily be there, the whole overall experience is very much still part and parcel of you.
LP: But names of people [unclear] I mean you can’t and June is even worse than I am, terribly [unclear]. I told you about five times I don’t take milk in tea and I like milk in my coffee and but she asks me every time [unclear]
JM: Ah well, she is always planning for a change of taste, that’s what it is. [unclear] And did you keep in touch with any of, like training type people that you were trained with or did you make up, come because of being in Qantas you would have met up with a lot of service personnel, did?
LP: Not Air Force,
JM: Not Air Force.
LP: But of course, except my wireless air gunner, he married and we had a few [unclear] from her and sometime years ago now and she used to correspond a bit [unclear] and as I say, the observer, New Zealand observer we but the straight air gunner, no, he didn’t, didn’t hear anything from him. He was a character, he was only a short stocky Canadian, he was a real toughy [unclear], he was a good air gunner, [unclear] I liked the chap, I liked him.
JM: Well, that’s what you want, you want someone who is good at, everyone had to be good at their own jobs. That was part and parcel of the survival of the crew, I think, wasn’t it?
LP: Yes.
JM: Yes, so, and that you may not necessarily be best of buddies but you were able to work together and have that cohesion that was required to be a good team, to survive.
LP: I never had any trouble with my crew at all so very good, very good.
JM: I know it’s hard work so I do appreciate you were sharing some memory, many memories with me.
LP: It’s hard work trying to remember [unclear] no, I enjoyed it because it brings to day sort of [unclear] quite a few [unclear].
JP: Lovely memories.
LP: I wish I had this Mitchell, we had the whole squadron in front of a Mitchell and where that photo is.
JM: It’s in one of your boxes. You’ll find it one day, it will turn.
LP: Tony Vine has got, he took a lot of photos
JM: Photos
JP: We’ve got a lot of boxes in there.
LP: Yes, but he took a lot of photos to
JM: To put into the book.
LP: Yes, to put into the book.
JM: Well, if nothing else, we might wrap up then if there is anything else, unless there’s anything else that you can think of, that you want to mention.
LP: Can you think of anything else, June?
JP: No, no.
JM: So, we’ll wrap it up as I say and I.
LP: June wants to bring up the bird strike business with the Qantas of course but.
JP: Oh, not really. We’ll leave it.
LP: Ok. You brought it up, you brought it up.
JP: I know, but, definitely yes.
LP: We had a bird strike on a Jumbo Jet taking off from Sydney and it looked like we lost two engines on one side, during take-off. Luckily, number 4 engine came good again, otherwise it looked we were going to ditch in Botany Bay.
JM: Interesting.
LP: We came good [unclear] jettison, we were going to Singapore at the time, with about 300 passengers on board. So, we dumped our fuel and while we were dumping our fuel, of course that takes some time, [unclear] on the ground and engineering and they prepared another aircraft while we were dumping to go on to London eventually and Philip, Prince Philip, he’s been a night.
JM: Have you been sick?
JP: Yes, he’s been in hospital. For two days.
LP: And actually in 1963 we had a basing with Qantas, a four year basing in London to fly from London to New York and in 1963 the Commonwealth Games were on and he opened them, but I flew from London to New York.
JM: Oh good!
LP: And there’s a photograph over there that he gave to me heading up on the flight deck landing into New York.
JM: Into New York, he was like that,
LP: Yes.
JM: Even though he was a naval man. But he, I think he was very interested in
LP: He had a helicopter, so I [unclear] fly a helicopter, I asked him, when I first saw him, was I asked him, how as it like to fly a helicopter, he said it was like rubbing your head in [unclear] or vice versa. He was very down to earth, very down to earth, Prince Philip.
JM: That’s interesting, yeah, so, obviously you landed successfully back in Sydney and by which time the plane, the new, the replacement plane was ready so you just walked off and did you then crew that, fly or did they say that you’d done enough hours, that you had exceeded your hours by the time?
LP: I’d flown him from, you’re right, I’d run out of flight time. Actually we’d flown from London to New York and then [unclear] arrival on the minute and they reported right back to the CO to London, couldn’t imagine, can’t imagine how I came from London to New York and arriving on schedule to the very minute.
JM: A feather in your cap then for managing to do that, yes, that was wonderful.
LP: So there’s one of the things that come to mind.
JM: Mind, yes, so, four years in London would have been an interesting experience, so you
JP: Ah, it was wonderful. It was really possibly one of the best times of our life, with young children [unclear] growing up.
LP: We had a lovely double story home in [unclear] Water,
JP: [unclear] Water.
LP: Near the park.
JP: Pardon?
LP: Near the park.
JP: Yes.
LP: What’s the name? Buckingham, not Buckingham.
JM: St James?
LP: Windsor Park.
JM: Windsor Park. Right.
JP: Near Windsor Park. Ah, it was absolutely beautiful. We had the most wonderful four year posting, and the kids were the right age, weren’t they?
LP: Yes.
JP: Just entering their teens.
LP: And we would take them on holiday, over to, over to Europe.
JM: Over to the continent. And around and they gave you a chance to see your family again, I presume.
JP: Oh yes. No, it was absolutely fantastic. Couldn’t have asked for a better posting than that. No, we loved that.
JM: Would have been a lovely time for four years.
LP: I could have extended that posting for another two years except that our son and daughter, our son was eighteen and our daughter was
JP: Sixteen or something.
LP: Sixteen or seventeen. I thought that if we stayed another two years, they’ve never gone back to Australia.
JP: Back to Australia. You know, they would have got [unclear]
JM: Yes.
LP: So we came back and of course my parents weren’t very well.
JM: Very well by that stage, so [unclear]
JP: We did the right thing because it was for your parents mainly. Yes, no, it was the right thing to do.
LP: Yes, so, all. No, could we offer you a bit of afternoon tea now?
JM: Thank you, we will just wrap up here though, and just formally say once again thank you Lorrie very much and June for your contributions, it’s been so thank you indeed.
LP: It’s lovely talking to somebody that’s interested.
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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APennL170622
Title
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Interview with Lawrence Penn
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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01:48:11 audio recording
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Jean Macartney
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-06-22
Description
An account of the resource
Lawrence Penn grew up in Australia and worked as a bank clerk before he volunteered for the Air Force. He flew 40 operations as a pilot with 226 Squadron. After the war he had his own air taxi company and also flew for Qantas.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Australia
Canada
Great Britain
United States
England--Norfolk
New York (State)--New York
New York (State)
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
226 Squadron
aircrew
B-25
bombing
crewing up
love and romance
mid-air collision
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
pilot
RAF Hartford Bridge
RAF Swanton Morley
RAF Turweston
rivalry
Second Tactical Air Force
training
V-1
V-weapon
Ventura
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/39762/PDarbyCAH18020007.1.jpg
5a208aafcdf4e07bed43e5ab7968a551
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2200/39762/PDarbyCAH18020008.1.jpg
e63310d08942989ac4ba32b021e3d8c7
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
Darby. Charles Arthur Hill
Darby, CAH
Jack Darby
Johnny Darby
Description
An account of the resource
203 items. The collection concerns Charles Arthur Hill Darby (1915 - 1996, 154676 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs, documents and correspondence. He flew operations as a bomb aimer with 186 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard John Darby and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-02
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Darby, CAH
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
Three Lockheed Venturas
Description
An account of the resource
A colour postcard drawing of three Venturas.
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Artwork
Format
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One double sided printed card
Identifier
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PDarbyCAH18020007, PDarbyCAH18020008
Creator
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J. Salmon Ltd
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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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Darby. Charles Arthur Hill. Postcards
arts and crafts
Ventura