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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/186/2434/PMarshallS1513.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/186/2434/AMarshallS150508.2.mp3
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Title
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Marshall, Syd
S C Marshall
Description
An account of the resource
Ten items. The collection contains two oral history interviews with Warrant Officer Sidney Charles Marshall (1924 - 2017, 1594781 Royal Air Force), his decorations, training notes, photographs and a photograph album. Syd Marshall was a flight engineer with 103 Squadron and flew operations from RAF Elsham Wolds.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Syd Marshall and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-05-08
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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.
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AMarshallS150508
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Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre the interviewer is Mick Jeffries, the interviewee is Mr. Sidney Marshall. The interview is taking place on 8th May 2015.
SM: My name is Sid Marshall, I’m recording this for the International Bomber Command Centre on the 8th May 2015. I live in Boston, Lincolnshire, right then? I left school in 1938 at the age of fourteen which most people did in those days, this was about a year before the outbreak of war, so when that started I was still only fifteen, and I had gone to work with a local engineering, agricultural engineering I should say, we were repairing tractors and all kinds of agricultural equipment, and of course this I suppose was considered in war time to be extremely er important, farming, farmers were never called up and that sort of thing, and when I got to be eighteen I er discovered, in conversation with my boss that I was in a reserved occupation, which simply meant that my job was considered more important than me joining the forces, but I think there is a bit of peer pressure comes into it here, everybody keeps saying to me ‘when you joining up, when you joining up’ , and eventually I got a bit fed up with this and I discovered that if I volunteered for aircrew I could get out of it, this was about the only thing I could er go to do, er, which would get me into the forces and away from me civilian job. It’s quite a performance getting in as well, I had, I went one day I was out on the job and I knew the recruiting officer was at the local, [coughs] excuse me, was at the local Job Centre and er so I thought I would go and see them and to my surprise when I got there it was a young lady, and she looked me up and down and I was in my greasy overalls, I suppose I didn’t present a very good picture really, and she said you know I told her I wanted to volunteer for aircrew, and she said, ‘ you know you have to be absolutely fit for aircrew’, and she was sort of trying to be put me off I thought anyway I insisted, and of course that’s how it all started. I didn’t say anything to my boss about it for a start, but I had to tell him when I got called for a medical, I started off, I had to go to Lincoln and this was the same medical that was used for any kind of military service, they used to jokingly say if you had two arms, two feet, and you were felt warm, you were all right, [laughs] you’ve heard that before.
MJ: Yes
SM: Er, anyway I, eventually came round I had to tell him when I went to Lincoln, I said look, tell the boss ‘I said look I’ve volunteered for aircrew duties and I’ve got to go for a medical’, so I went and this was pretty simple really, and er, I there was then a break of probably a couple of months, and I then had to go to Doncaster which was the full aircrew medical. You had to go and be prepared to stay there for a couple of nights, so the thing was spread over three days really. So anyway I got myself to Doncaster, and I found the Selection Board and all that were in the top floor of a multi-storey shop, and er, the first thing you had of course was the medical because if you didn’t pass the medical then you didn’t go any further, and they were very very strictly, they didn’t exactly turn you inside out but very nearly, you had to blow up columns of mercury and hold them, and you had to do various exercises, you were given a much stricter medical then had been for you know for what I call ground crew job. Anyway I passed the medical okay and in fact if you didn’t that was as far as you went, if you hadn’t passed the medical you were sent home again, that got the first day over. The second day [coughs] because I hadn’t been to Grammar School I had to sit a maths and general knowledge sort of test, anyway as an engineer I had been taking lessons in er [coughs] excuse me, in science, er maths and technical drawing, and of course that had boosted my education enough and I managed to slip past the exam okay, and that was about the last thing on that day. The third day you went before a panel of officers and they asked you what you wanted to do, they interviewed you and er, I realised the fact that I hadn’t been to Grammar School was not going to help me and they said ‘what would I like to do?’, and of course I think everybody wanted to be a pilot originally, anyway I told them I had been studying at night school and that and they said ‘ oh I think you’ll just about make it’, but to try and put me off they said ‘we have got such a lot of applications we probably won’t be able to take you in for seven or eight months’, I think it was just a gag really to put you off. Anyway they then asked me was I what work I had done and as soon as I mentioned that I had been working in engineering for four years, ‘oh your just the chap we want you can become a flight engineer’ and I’m afraid my sealed, fate was sealed at that, so that’s how it all came about. I went back home anyway and told my boss that I’d be going shortly but I was another, I should think another two or three months before they called me up, and er, anyway that was it, he never got on to me about it I think he understood how I felt, and he did say, ‘well your job will be there when you come back’, which was fair enough wasn’t it. Anyway the time came round for me to go and I found myself on Boston Station early one morning with my little suitcase bound for Kings Cross. I got on the first train and er, when I got to Kings Cross there was an NCO working there, waiting I should say, and by that time there were seven or eight of us who were all going to the same place, we had to report to what they call the er, er, oh dear, RTO, that’s the Rail Travel Officer, and er she gathered us all up and then we set off on the underground to St. John’s Wood Tube Station. We got off the station there and there was a corporal there waiting, marched us in some sort of disorder to the holy, holy place, Lords Cricket Ground, that was where it all happened. The first day we got there, we were booked in, they took our names and that sort of thing, and then we were given a card with a number on it and told to go and sit in the grandstands until we were called, of course there were hundreds of other lads there, and er, eventually my lot was called, and you went in and you had another er medical, it was only brief, it was what they called, it had all these er initial letters in the forces, this was an FFI, free from infection, I don’t quite know what they thought what we’d had picked up in the interim, but anyway it wasn’t very severe that one, and we went on, and then er, the next then we got to er [coughs] we went and got kitted out, we were given a kit bag and you went down the line, and I was fascinated by how they got the size of uniform right, there was a sloping line on the wall marked off in feet an inches, and as you walked by one bloke called your height out [laughs].
MJ: [laughs].
SM: Another bloke put a tape measure round your chest and that’s why, that’s how they decided the size of uniform unit. So you finish up with arms full of stuff and a kit bag, and we stowed all that lot in there and that’s about all we did the first day, and of course the next day we had to kit ourselves up in uniform and something else that really tickled me was [coughs], we decided that, you’ve seen Poiroit on the television haven’t you in these very posh block of flats, well we were in one of those, mind you it wasn’t very posh, there was nothing much on the floor and each room just had a double bunk each side and that was it there was nowhere to hang your clothes up or anything else, if you aren’t wearing it, it lives in your kit bag [laughs] or hung on the end of your bed, and we er, and we were there in all for about three weeks, and when I wrote home my address sounded very good, and it was er, the house was called Grove Court Mansions and it was in Grove End Road, St. John’s Wood, London, which is a very posh address isn’t it, and of course when my mother wrote back, she said ‘ [unclear] lad you’ve got such a nice place’, I didn’t disillusion her, [laughs] I let her think if she was happy I would leave it at that [laughs], and we were there for about three weeks altogether, we started to drill, we had another full medical, we were divided up into swimmers and non-swimmers, and we started er the you know we had our meals by the way, the zoo of course was closed in those days, London Zoo, not being too far away we used their canteen that was our cookhouse, we had our meals there, and anyway time passed pretty quickly and we got to know er some of the other lads, there were four of us in this room and er, I, and we managed right the way through our training to keep together [coughs]. As I say in all we were about there for three weeks and then one night we were packed up and we were put back on the underground again back to Kings Cross Station, and they never tell you where you were going, and when you got to Kings Cross, I thought if you are going to Kings Cross you are going North. We got to er, overnight, we travelled at midnight, I think they put troops and that on the train at night to leave the trains free for the civilians in the day time, imagine that was the idea. Anyway we found ourselves in the early hours of the morning at er York, clambered out there and we were put on another train and er we arrived quite early in the morning at Scarborough, and here’s another posh address the place we went to there was called The Grand Hotel, and of course the forces used these places, they were empty in those days, nobody taking holidays were they, but it wasn’t very grand, but we didn’t have to worry us too much, because we had our breakfast there and then we were all drawn up outside and we were ticked off where we gonna’ go and they found there wasn’t room for us all at er Scarborough, so my flight which consisted of something like thirty of us were put on a train again and went to Bridlington, and this is where I did my, we got these letters again, this is ITW, Initial Training Wing, and when we were in London it was ACRC, which sounds a bit queer but it was Air Crew Reception Centre, you get used to all these letters don’t you. So this was where our initial training was going to be and in all I think we were there for about eight weeks, and it was the middle of winter and we used to do PT on the beach in the snow with the spray blowing off the sand, and do you know you never catch cold because you are fit aren’t you, and er when we went into the er Ex’, we were based in the Expanse Hotel, which I’ve seen since it’s still there, it is one of the top hotels, but of course they took us to these places ‘cause there was accommodation available didn’t they. We lived on the ground floor of the hotel in my particular case, and we were told when we went out to leave all the windows open get some fresh air in, well the sea was rough and the spray was blowing as well [laughs] which didn’t help matters. Anyway we were introduced then to our er instructor, a drill instructor, Corporal Horrocks, I won’t tell you what we called him, because would it be rude to mention it?
MJ: If you want to.
SM: [laughs].
MJ: It’s up to you.
SM: I won’t mention it, but you can guess what it was, he was a very nice chap actually, and er the only trouble was he was, we got lads there some of them from London, some of them from all over the country, and he was a Geordie, and you just couldn’t understand what he said a lot of the time, his favourite thing we used to drill in the streets, and of course along the seafront, no traffic about in those days as nobody had any petrol did they, and we used to be marching up and down there and I remember one occasion we came out of a side turning up to the promenade and he said something, he said ‘hey up [?]’, and we didn’t know if he said right or left and we parted company like that you know, one line went left the others went right, and there was a group of women coming up there with their shopping bags laughing their socks off at us [laughs], and of course he bollocked us as they say for that [laughs], but he was actually a very nice bloke he didn’t mess us about too much, and er we did, we had lectures in the Spa which is a sort of dance hall place there isn’t it, and we were, and I think the main thing was getting us fit, we sometimes we’d go jogging in just of a pair of shorts and if you like a vest if you like, and I remember on one occasion, while we had it I don’t know we had a rifle, a bayonet, a tin hat and all that and a gas mask, we never used any of those things did we? Anyway we, they took us one day, I’ve forgotten the name of the place there, seaside on the coast near er, and we all got out and er we had to march to the far end which was probably three or four miles and then we this lorry followed us up, we had to chuck all our kit in the back of the lorry get stripped off and run back, [laughs] this is all part of the getting fit process, and we had lectures as I said in the Spa, er it’s surprising we did drill instruct, drill we had to do shooting, we then started using, do clay pigeon shooting which was shooting at moving targets which I think was more akin to aircrew than anything else wasn’t it, anyway we were you know there in all for about eight weeks, and then we got at the end of the time we, it happened to be Christmas, we were very, very, lucky, we were sent home we had a ticket wherever you were going to get home and then we had to go back to London, so I was home for Christmas so that was very nice, I had a full week at home, and then I was back to Boston Railway Station again and down to Kings Cross and we had to return, and again we had to report to the RTO, that’s the Rail Travel Officer, they had these offices on all the main stations to you know supervise troops travelling about telling them where to go and all that sort of thing, and this time we were put on a train we knew were we were going, er we were put on a train to Wales, and we rode at first of all, I think we got as far as Cardiff and we had to change onto a slow local train then and this was taking us to our final destination for that, we pulled up er, went through Barry, and er we eventually stopped on the little wayside station it was at the bottom of cutting and it was one of those places where there was only about one man there he was the station master, the signal, the porter, and everything else, and er we got off the train there and er we then marched up there was a corporal, there always corporals aren’t they, corporal met us, with all our kit and that we were marched up to the RAF Station at Saint Athan, this was where we were to be for the next, I don’t know seven or eight months. In the war time you know the courses get shortened, I think the engineer’s course at one time would probably be nearer eighteen months, at the time I got there it was down to about seven or eight months, and er, if you had er, some people had engineering experience like myself didn’t find it too difficult, but some of the lads had never touched it and they of course you know an exam about every fortnight and if you didn’t get on very well you got put back a week, and I think if you got put back more than twice you were kicked off the course [laughs]. Anyway we were there for, let me just get my book, I’d only really got to er we’d just arrived at Saint Athan hadn’t we, for our training, I didn’t realise then how long it would be but we actually, er training of flight engineers lasted about seven months, and it covered all aspects of the aircraft, we had to know a little bit about everything, we had to know about the hydraulics, I mean the undercarriage and the bomb doors and all that sort of thing are all hydraulic, so then we had to learn about brakes because they’re pneumatic, and we had to learn about the engines and how to get the best out of them and keep in in an eye in view the amount of fuel we were using, if you opened the engines up too much the fuel consumption went up drastically and if you did that too much you might think you hadn’t got enough fuel to get home with again [laughs], this is the sort of things you had to you know get used to, but this is what we were taught to do, we had at the end of it we had actually we had an exam about every couple of weeks and if anybody was not quite up to scratch they were put back and did that section over again and you could do that twice but if you did it more than twice you got chucked off the course for taking too long [laughs]. All in all I was at Saint Athan for about seven months, you can’t really go into detail about it, it’s too technical and too complicated, but we had a [unclear] a list of all the things we had to do anything mechanical or anything that worked was my option, and my most important job really was in a Lancaster you know you got four engines and you got six fuel tanks and normally the two sides of the aircraft are separate, there is a valve in the mains bar[?] where you can open so you can transfer fuel from one site to the other, [sighs] but normally you took off on the middle tank, there was a tank between the engine and the fuselage, another one between the two engines and the third one was out in the, out part of the wing, so you’ve got, your wings are full of petrol and the floor underneath you was full of bombs, it’s not a very good situation really to be in is it, you don’t really want to get hit, and er, the most important job I had to do was, ‘cos an aero engine uses a lot of fuel er, anywhere between about twelve hundred and fifty horsepower each engine, in fact to put it an easier way a Lancaster did about one mile to the gallon, which is pretty [unclear], not far is it, and if you had a full load of petrol you could go out somewhere there and back and do two thousand miles and that was about your limit, you always had to keep at least a hundred or nearly two hundred gallons er back for landing you don’t want to be landing on your last gasp of fuel do you, and when of course they were arranging operations they took the weight of the aircraft and er then they [coughs] I had to look at the plan and calculate how many miles it was there and back, shall we say if was probably fourteen hundred miles there and back, and without going into decimal places the Lancaster did about one mile to the gallon, so okay fourteen hundred miles you want fourteen hundred gallons of petrol and they gave you two hundred gallons extra that’s your safety margin, so if all goes well you should arrive back at base with two hundred gallons of petrol, but it does allow for the fact you might get delayed, you might have a head wind which might make it take a bit longer to get back home again, you might not be able to land at your own base because it’s probably fog bound, so you have the hours grace, and I remember of one occasion we had to, we came over, got over Britain and we set off, er the bomb aimer, sorry, the navigator gave the pilot his last course back to base, we hadn’t been going long before we had a radio call through to say that we couldn’t land at base because it was covered in fog, and er we were to land I think it was somewhere in Norfolk, anyway that’s fair enough so we made a slight alteration of course and we are heading towards this not long after that we got another message to say we couldn’t land, it was Langham in Norfolk, can’t land there it’s now fog bound as well, so we start to circle around and they said to stand by, so did a wide circle round, we went round a couple of times, and I said to all of them [unclear] ‘we soon want to be landing somewhere because we are getting down on fuel’, and almost at the same time the wireless op, the mid upper gunner came on the, on the intercom and said ‘I can see a glow in the sky skipper it might be FIDO’, you know fog dispersal, so we made our way over there and we’d been told to stand by but we never got any further instructions I think they were struggling to find us anywhere to land, so we went on and we circled round over this and your call log if you were in trouble you called dark here, that was your trouble, it mean’t you were in difficulties, and our, our call sign was suedecoat, aircraft was C-Charlie, so you called ‘darkie darkie from suedecoat charlie’ and we got an immediate call back the usual lady’s voice, WAFS, ‘are you over an airfield with FIDO burning?’, so we think we are because we could see the glow in the sky so we came down a bit lower and er we called em again and they gave us landing instructions, and it was quite, I say it was a bit scary really, because do you know what FIDO was made of there were pipes laid down by the side of the fuselage, the runway, not too close to the runway, they were blocked off at one end and then holes drilled, a bit crude really, holes drilled in them and at the upper end near the entrance to the runway was a pump and a fuel tank and they were pumping neat petrol into these, and I don’t know who did it some brave guy must have gone out and lit it probably used a flare or something like that, and they only did about half the length of the runway but when you got lower you could actually see the flames and you usual drill was, er ‘yes Charlie you are clear to land call down wind’ that’s when you are coming down wind, so we called ’Charlie down wind’, you’ve got your wheels down, got your flaps down, [?] down, you then turn and say ‘Charlie Roger call funnels’ and your lights from the high up looked like a funnel that tapered into the runway, so they guided you onto the runway, in this case it was the flames, so we got on funnels they called ‘Charlie funnels’ they said ‘Charlie [?] mission is a Charlie pancake’ that means land, so we landed and there was a bar of flames and when we went over the bloody aircraft went ugh like than [laughs], like a kick up the backside, because tremendous heat from these flames literally lifted the aircraft, anyway we came in and we landed, I had my fingers crossed ‘cos I knew we’d got some damage, I said to Luke[?]the skipper ‘I hope to Christ we haven’t got a flat tyre if we swing off into that lot it will be unfortunate’, anyway we landed all right we taxied to the end and er a vehicle met us there and we followed it round, they took us round into a spare dispersal and of course you went through your drill close your engines down everything else, shut everything off, and er you can’t really leave anything in the aircraft so we went out loaded up with our parachutes and everything else which, we were then taken to a room where we was briefed, debriefed, and we discovered that the aircraft there were Mosquitoes, because one or two of them took off in that lot to go and bomb, so that’s they were using the flares to guide them, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, we heard this roaring come along, said ‘Christ it’s a Mosi’. Anyway we were debriefed, then we were given a meal and then we were given an armful of blankets and pointed toward a hangar, a Nissen hut, you go in there and there was Buckaroo [?] on the floor, it’s like dark brown lino on the floor usually isn’t it just so you can sweep it up, and you make your bed up and I think we was that ruddy tired, we just chucked the, we had three biscuits you know what biscuits are? Three padded squares that you put end to end, tuck a blank around it and that’s your base for your bed, I don’t know if we even bothered to do that we were that ruddy tired I think be then we just crashed out and went to sleep, we couldn’t get undressed ‘cos you’d nothing with you, trouble is when you got diverted like, you got no shaving kit, you got no ‘jamas or anything like that, you just had you were in what you were. Then we slept the sleep of the just there and next morning we went we found out, found the sergeants mess and had some breakfast, very much do it yourself isn’t it [laughs], and then we got, er we went to see, I think we went to see the CO or the squadron leader anyway, and he said ‘well you chaps look as if you are stuck here we can’t er, you’ve got some damage which your aircraft has got to be repaired before you can take it off again, you might even need an engine change’, and we discovered it was two days before Christmas and we knew we’d got Christmas festivities on at our base, ‘that’s bloody handy we are going to be stuck here over Christmas’, anyway our skipper went to see the adjutant and they had a bit of argy bargy with him and he came back and he said ‘we’re going home on the train’, we did we got [laughs] he’d got a , he’d got a ticket for the lot of us, so we the truck took us to the, I can’t remember where the nearest railway station was, um it might have been Cambridge even, I don’t know, I can’t remember now it’s a long long time ago. Anyway we got on there and we had to get on the train I think it took us to Norwich, then we had to go across to Peterborough, and then when we got to, we went through Boston and er we went back we got back to Grimsby, and then we had to get on a packed line from Grimsby to Elsham, now that railway train ran through Elsham that was still about three miles away from the camp, anyway we rung up and they come and picked us up, and you do, you don’t ‘cos we took our parachute with us and everything, and when you get on a train with your flying kit carrying your parachute you get some very funny looks off people [laughs], that was one of the most interesting things that ever happened to us, and anyway we had our ‘cos when you went on ops you emptied your pockets you’d no money, you’d nothing have you, you couldn’t even go in the sergeants mess and buy a pint as you’d no money. We had our Christmas there, and I, shows you in my book anyway, em I think we had Christmas and it was about four days after Christmas eventually one of our other crews flew us back to Graveley to pick our aircraft up, so we didn’t do anything for nearly a week [laughs] is that the sort of thing you’d be interested in?
MJ: Yes
SM: That’s a bit unusual and er.
MJ: Yes
SM: That was, we were halfway through a tour when we did that, but it’s just something that came to mind. I think er the first time we ever went out we got hit, I’m going backwards now. When you got the you’d finished your full training, ‘cos we did some further training after we got posted to a squadron and er we thought well we’d only done about nine and a half hours flying on a Lancaster, we did our ITW that’s interesting our heavy conversion[?} rather on Halifaxes, which wasn’t very good for me because I’d been trained to go on Lancs’ so I had to learn about Halifax a bit quick we did about sixty seven hours flying on heavy conversion unit[?} and then we went to Lancaster Finishing School and we went to Elsham we’d only nine and half hours flying on the Lancaster which wasn’t very much was it? We found out when we got there the reason was though because we’d, know you know what H2S is now the down [?] scanning radar and not all squadrons had it. The reason we went to the squadron was we were nearly there for nearly a fortnight before we did any operations because we’d never seen this apparatus before and the bomb aimer was the set operator so he had to learn all about the H2S and then we had to go on cross country flights using it to get the hang of it and get used to it so we were a fortnight really before we did any operations and of course we eventually we were ready [laughs], and that was I think it was the 14th October 1944, and er, the first, did I had already mentioned when we got, no I haven’t, um, so no I was going to say we got hit on our first trip didn’t I. We went our first trip was to Duisburg and er over the target we were going lined up you got, once your bomb aimer has taken over you can’t diverge you have to do what he says, he’ll say ‘left, left, steady’ and ‘right, right, steady’ and then when you dropped your bombs you also drop a photo flash and you take a photograph, well of course the photograph doesn’t want to happen until the bombs have hit the ground does it, so you going along straight and level over there you’re being shot at but you can’t do anything about it because you have got to keep straight and level and er then a light comes on on the dashboard telling you that the photographs been taken, and then you can open the throttle, put the nose down and get the hell out of it [laughs], and while we was over Duisburg I was also we used to have another job had to do was throwing bundles of Window, you know strips of silver paper, there was a chute in the nose of the aircraft and this stuff came in bundles with a bit of string looped through a brown paper wrapper, pull the string, tore the wrapper and you put it out the chute and it scattered all over and it caused blips on the radar which they couldn’t pick out the aircraft from the rubbish if you like, and I was down in the, down in the nose doing that, and of course er this pilot shouts out he said ‘come and look at this engine’, and I scrambled up and there were flames coming up out of the side of the end [?] port engine, and you remember to do your drill, the first thing you do is shut the fuel off, close the throttle, wait while the engine slows down then you know what I mean by feathering it, you know what I mean by feathering it , but if you don’t feather it the windmill will keep turning, so you have to turn the blades of the air screw so that the edge on to the wind so it’s stop turning and then and only then you can fire, fire extinguishers in the engine cowling, there’s two extinguishers in each engine fastened on the back plate and er you just press a button and er ‘cos there was flames coming out of the engine but we didn’t know what it was at the time and it went out, but we discovered afterwards if it had been petrol it probably wouldn’t have gone out, but a piece of shrapnel had gone through the side of the engine, smashed a hole the size of my palm in the engine casting and of course the oil spilled out and got on the red hot manifold [?] it was the oil that was burning fortunately for us not petrol, so that was our first time out we came back on three engines [laughs]. Just by way of introduction. Switch it off a minute. - Is it ready?
MJ: Yes.
SM: Well on this occasion I was asked to speak at a meeting which was a fundraiser aimed at raising funds for the new spire to go up on Canwick Hill, and I said I was wondering really what I could talk to you about, something I’ve often been asked about was what was it like to fly in a bombers stream at night, I said when you took off of course from your station you circled round over your own base until you had a time to set course, and I said there were several in er problems arose there because you’ve got people going right and people met head on an all this and collisions, so we had a special arrangement where we went from our base to Goole to Crowle to Scunthorpe and then back, all the aircraft in that area went round this big circuit instead of meeting other head on and that kind of thing and when it was your time to set course the navigator would tell you and you’d cut across and er so you set course at the right time, and well on this occasion I’m thinking about we often flew down to Reading and of course if there was no enemy activity over England you could keep your navigation lights on, you’ve got a red and a green light on your wing tip and a tail light that’s all you have got in’it, you don’t have any headlights or anything on car on aircraft, I said to you we flew down to Reading we changed course and then we [coughs], excuse me, we headed towards the coast and as we crossed the coast everybody starts to switch their lights off ‘cos you going in to over enemy territories and over the sea, so as up to then you can see one another ‘cos you’ve got lights on, now it’s all gone dark and it’s dark outside, I said the nearest thing I can give it to you is, you imagine you are driving down a motorway and everybody has their lights on and all of after time they start switching their lights off, first this one and then that one, and you finish up you are still bombing along there at about seventy miles an hour and now you can’t see one another, and I said you’ve got your eyes peeled you are looking in the dark because in an aircraft you you’re going a good deal faster er even with a bomb load on you probably cruising at about hundred sixty five or hundred and seventy mile an hour, and I said you find that er we used to have, I would sit beside the pilot, the pilot’s looking out in the front and over to his wing tip, I’m taking that side from the front round to the wing tip, the gunners are taking a quarter of the sky each at the back and if he is not doing anything else the wireless operator probably stood in the astrodome he’s keeping a look out as well, so you’ve got have five pairs of eyes looking out, and I said you see people sometimes coming when you get to a turning point everybody doesn’t always turn exactly the same you find somebody drifting towards so you have to go up a bit and he goes underneath you and then you turn and then you probably find you are chopping somebody else off, I said it was a bit scary, it was, that’s about as much as I told ‘em [laughs], and that was gonna’ last the rest of the trip wasn’t it, you didn’t put your lights on again until you were back over friendly territory at er it was a bit scary really the er you can imagine if it [unclear]. Anyway I er – I think that’s about it, was that any good? I remember being asked at a meeting some time ago to speak for a short amount of time I was at a loss to know what to talk about and I suddenly thought about to mention what it was like to fly in a column of aircraft at night, there could be three or four hundred aircraft all going to the same place, and er there would be spaced out of course, each aircraft had a time to be over the target and that sort of thing and it really meant that a raid that was gonna’ last er probably twenty minutes the aircraft flying at hundred eighty miles an hour roughly I mean, twenty minutes so that means that you’ve got a string of aircraft probably sixty miles long and that’s [perfectly fine until you get to a turning point when you find that er you’ve got you’ve got no lights on of course and er you might see a little bit of exhaust flame, but they carefully put some covers over the exhaust because it gave your position away to the fighters but also it mean’t so you couldn’t see one another either [laughs], it’s do debatable which is the worst situation, but getting along talking about what it was like at night if we were flying over England you could keep your navigation lights on providing there was no enemy action and I think on one occasion we flew down to Reading and then turned across head towards the coast as we got approached the coast everybody switched their lights off and of course you could see one another with your lights on so now we’re going along, your flying along at about hundred and sixty, hundred and eighty miles an hour and you can’t really see where you’re going, and on top of that you can’t see the other people who are going with you, er all you might get is a flicker of light now and then from something and er and I know it was the case of the pilot looking out the front and across to his wing tip and I’d be doing sitting at the side of him providing I wasn’t doing anything else keeping a look out, the gunners had got a quarter of the sky each er which they’re looking out for aircraft coming up behind you and er[coughs] excuse me – getting lost – I’m sorry I’ve lost my track.
MJ: That’s all right.
SM: The nearest thing I can tell you to flying along in a group of aircraft at night with no lights on, I want you to imagine that you probably driving down a motorway at night and everything is lit up as usual, headlights, sidelights, a bit of street lighting, you imagine what it would be like if suddenly the all the lights went off gradually, first one switches their lights off and then another, and you finish and you are still buzzing along probably sixty seventy miles an hour but now you can’t see one another and it was exactly like that in the air, unless somebody got very close to you, you couldn’t see them you had to keep a really good lookout, and er it was certainly the worst point was when you reached the point where you’re changed direction and you’ve got people cutting across the front of you and you went up a bit and let them go underneath or dived under or went underneath and so you could keep an eye on them and it really was quite exciting, never muind exciting it was ruddy dangerous really wasn’t it [laughs], but er that was what it was like, and er you had everybody provided everybody kept on time it wasn’t too bad but it was still a crush when something like three or four hundred aircraft all going to pass over the target in the space of about twenty minutes and er it really I think that was one of the most dangerous things apart from enemy action of course which er hopefully you’d avoid. – You asked me what I did on VE Day as it happens I was home on leave and of course as you can imagine there was great excitement everywhere and add to that we were very fortunate in Boston that the annual May Fair was there and of course this gave us something to do and I remember me meeting up with some of my friends I mean er a lot of them were away in the Far East and all over the place but there always seemed to be somebody you could meet up with, we’d got a couple of pals and then we got along with some er local people we had also one of my pals who was in the Navy joined us and we came across a I think it was a sergeant in the American Air Army and he seemed to be on his own a bit so we adopted him as well, and you know how it goes on these nights you [unclear] you pick up until you’ve got a little group don’t you and I remember particularly that we er went into one or two of the pubs and of course beer was always short in those days it wasn’t very long before they ran dry we came out of there and went somewhere else, there was a lot of toing and froing in that respect and by the end of the evening we had er several sufficiently to put is in a good humour I’ll put it that way, and I do remember particularly towards the end of the evening we had the sudden idea that we would swap clothes and I think I finished up the day with this American chaps tunic I think he was a sergeant actually, and one of my pals had got his sailors hat on, and we were all mixed up and we were going round, it was really very jovial and thoroughly I think we had a jolly good time and nobody considered the fact that we were improperly dressed or anything [laughs] silly like that it was just a jolly old night and a really memorable occasion, and it’s not the sort of thing that it happens every day very often is it?
MJ: No.
SM: Was that all right?
MJ: Sidney Marshall let me thank you on behalf of the International Bomber Command History Project, this is the end of the recording taken by Michael Jeffries on the date of the 8th May 2015 at three thirty. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Syd Marshall
Format
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00:44:58 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Creator
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Mick Jeffery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-05-08
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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.
Language
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eng
Conforms To
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Pending review
Identifier
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AMarshallS150508
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney Marshall grew up in Lincolnshire and worked as an agricultural engineer. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force at eighteen and trained as a flight engineer. On his first operation to Duisburg one of his Lancaster's engines was hit by shrapnel and they returned on three engines. Returning from another operation they had to divert and land at a station in Norfolk with the help of FIDO, as the aircraft was nearly out of fuel. He also discusses what it was like to fly at night over Germany as part of a stream of hundreds of aircraft, and his experiences of VE day celebrations in Boston.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Wales
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Duisburg
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-10-14
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Jackie Simpson
103 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
FIDO
flight engineer
H2S
Halifax
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Mosquito
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF St Athan
recruitment
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/881/11122/AHooperH151117.1.mp3
5e7a6420f296f4085886ac13cf4b3e54
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
Hooper, Harry
H Hooper
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Harry Hooper (Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a pilot with 115, 178, 70, and 38 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-17
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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Hooper, H
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
HH: My name is Harry Hooper and I’m saying these few words as I have been asked to about my life in the, probably in the Royal Air Force. But the reason I joined the Royal Air Force was that I’ve always been interested, since a very young person, in aviation. I was born on the north side of Heston Airfield. We had an old farm on the north side of the airfield and so I grew up watching planes, private planes, come in and land. Heston was the airfield that in 1938 Mr Attlee, I think it was Attlee, then prime minister, came back from meeting Hitler in Germany with a piece of paper which he proudly showed. And which proved to be useless because in the next year the Germans went to war. I was seventeen and one month when I actually joined the air force which was November 1941. I wasn’t actually called up. I was attested, by the way at Oxford University. I wasn’t called up ‘til the beginning of the following year. I flew Tiger Moths in what they called grading school which graded applicants for pilot positions in to, well, pilots. And the others went on to become, as it was then, observers or bomb aimers later. Wireless operators or air gunners. I was fortunate. I went to Canada. I flew the Fleet Finch. No one’s ever heard of it but I flew the Fleet Finch biplane. And then went on to the Harvard. And I gradulated, graduated. I came back to England. I was sent to Harrogate which was a holding depot for aircrew returning from abroad awaiting posting. But I was there for quite a while because at the time Fighter Command were losing so few pilots, relatively that is, whereas Bomber Command were losing very many. So it was decided that myself and others like me would convert onto multi-engine aircraft. And I went to Babdown Farm in the West Country and converted on to the Airspeed Oxford. After that I went on to OTU just outside Banbury and I flew the Wellington from there, which was where I picked up most of my crew. And then I went to a Heavy Conversion Unit where I converted from Wellingtons to Lancaster. Which is where I picked up the last member of my crew — the engineer. By this time, because of the long waits I’d had early on it was getting near the end of the war and I joined 115 Squadron, or we joined 115 Squadron when they were operating daylight raids over Northern France and Germany. Mainly the Ruhr area and they were using a very new system then which was called GH bombing. It was a GH system which was a form of navigation. It was further developed in to a system of bombing where the navigator guided the pilot along a certain line. And provided you kept at the exact height, at the time sixteen thousand six hundred feet and the correct airspeed of a hundred and sixty five miles per hour when he got a further indication or blip on his radar set he would just tell me to press the button. Which I did, having previously opened the bomb doors and the bomb load would fall away. Hopefully on to its target. We flew then, as they were daylights, in formation and it was mainly flying from south to north in the Ruhr Valley. And because of the accuracy of this system of bombing we were charged with taking out the very small refineries that the Germans had built as their main refineries had been bombed to pieces by both the RAF but mainly the US Air Force. And, but there were these very small units dotted along the Ruhr Valley utilising coal and turn it into Benzene and fuel which could be used. Either high octane fuel for aircraft or the lower octane for trans, motor transport. It was a great job. They usually tasked us at this job when there was cloud cover so that as we dropped our Window which was strips of foil we were above cloud and heading north. The westerly breeze would float the Window away from under us but we could see as we went along that the German gunners, radar directed gunners were picking up the chaff as we called it or the Window and directing their fire. So as we went north, sitting up there quietly at sixteen thousand five hundred feet about two or three miles to the east of us there were a line of ack-ack bursts as the German ack-ack, radar directed ack-ack followed our course but at about two miles away. However, if the cloud dispersed the Germans then went over to optical sighting and they were through the gap and on top of us within seconds. And very accurate they were. Fortunately, we didn’t get hit or sent down. And that was basically it. That was my war coming to an end. I enjoyed every minute of it. I shouldn’t say that I know. Not politically correct. But it was a gorgeous time. I made so many friends. My crew and I were then scheduled to go out to the Middle East. Take Lancasters out and convert the Middle East squadrons in 205 Group onto Lancasters from Liberators which were being returned to the US as they were under lease lend. We did that and I enjoyed another year in the Canal Zone. Basically then we were converted into trooping and we had small metal seats fixed either side of the fuselage above, on the top of the bomb bay. And we could carry up to sixteen passengers and freight in panniers. And we flew all across North Africa. Dropping off at all the old names — Tobruk, Benghazi, El Adem for Tobruk, Benghazi, Castel Benito and on to Algiers. We also flew up to Greece to, into Italy. All carrying passenger, mail, freight and various things until I was then posted to Palestine during the troubles in 1947 there. The troubles were that the then Israelis didn’t want the British there so they were actively engaged in guerilla warfare against the British. Which was quite interesting. That basically is it. That was my life. I had intended to sign on and carry on in the Royal Air Force but owing to the odd misdemeanours like stealing a, well not stealing but borrowing an army radar truck to get home one night from the Malcolm Club which was an officer’s club on the Bitter Lake. Along the Suez Canal. The Military Police thought otherwise and managed to stop us and I spent the night in a military jail. The next morning the wing commander came and got me out but that finished any thoughts I had of applying for a permanent commission. So that was about it and I left the Royal Air Force. And that’s me. Will that do you?
[recording paused]
MJ: Yeah.
HH: After further chat with Mr Jeffery I thought there were a few items I ought to add on to the previous dialogue which mainly concerned things that I got up to. Or my crew and I got up to. Whilst I was on the squadron at 115 Squadron flying out of Witchford near Ely I bought a car. A Singer le Mans sports car which was up for sale because its previous owner had, well, got the chop as it were and his parents decided they didn’t want it. And I bought it for seventy pounds. I had sixty five in the bank and I borrowed five pounds from a chum and I bought this ivory and green Singer le Mans. Basically, a two seat in the front and a small seat at the back. And with that car I would go into Ely from Witchford with six of us in this two seater, four seater car which was a bit of fun. And the amazing thing was that there were so many in the back that the front wheels hardly touched the ground. So that when we came to a bend I used to have to ask them all to lean forward to get the front tyres to grip so that we could turn which was great fun. Then I volunteered to go to the Middle East because the war was coming to an end. Tiger Force, to which I’d been posted was disbanded because the Americans had dropped the atomic bomb and we didn’t have to go out to the Far East. That being so I eventually ended up at Dunkeswell flying Lancasters out to the Middle East. I flew one out to Egypt. This was to enable the Liberators operated by 205 Group at the time to be returned to the US because they were lease lend aircraft and replaced by Lancasters. Far Eastern as they were then known. FEs. Having done the one trip and came back I thought, well this, that looked a good place to go. So I volunteered to go out with some of my crew. Some were old enough, one was old enough to leave the air force fairly early. He had, my bomber aimer had a wife and two children and was thirty four. But the rest of us were young so off we went to the Middle East where we enjoyed a most fantastic time. We were originally based near the Great Bitter Lakes. And that was great fun because one of the fields I was based at, Kabrit, was right on the south, or south western tip of the Great Bitter Lake. My billet opened, well I opened the door of the billet and could step straight into the lake, have a swim, come back and go to breakfast. But I chummed up with a chap there who was a bit of a lad as it were and we got up to the odd tactics. One of which was we would go down to Suez and have some fun there and then try and get back by hitching rides. And we hitched so far and then we were walking. And as we still had a few miles to go we saw an army camp, or an army spot with, which I believe probably was Army Signals or something. But they had fifteen tonners in there and so we got in and funnily enough it didn’t have keys. You just pressed the starter and it went. So my colleague and I jumped into the back of this fifteen tonner and roared off down the Treaty Road to get home. But within a minute or two we were stopped by the Military Police who put us in what we called the clanger overnight until my wing commander came and released me. Prior to that episode I had hopes of staying in the RAF. I had applied for a permanent commission. But of course this put the kibosh as it were on my hopes of a permanent commission as the group captain tactfully said, ‘I don’t think it wise for you to carry on, Hooper.’ And I said, ‘No sir. I think you’re right.’ So, that was it and I eventually ended up in Palestine during the troubles in ’47. I joined 38 Squadron who were Coastal Reconnaissance. And our work was mainly involved in patrolling off the coast of Palestine. They divided the section between Southern Turkey and Egypt into three. And so three aircraft would go out and we would fly north south, gradually turning, creeping away from the Palestinian coast until we found some of the illegal immigrant ships or a illegal immigrant ship. In which case we would then wireless Jerusalem and they would send out a destroyer to apprehend it and take these poor chaps and put them in a camp in Cyprus. And then they were fed back under the quota into Palestine. And I ended my days in Palestine enjoying the climate. We didn’t have much freedom owing to the troubles. You know, sleeping with a revolver under our pillow and that sort of thing. Eventually I was posted home and I managed to convince all and sundry that I should go back by boat and I had a beautiful trip back home. We went to Liverpool. From there I collected my gear, or tried to but it hadn’t arrived because it went on a different track or something. So I went home for two days to see my mother and father who I hadn’t seen for a very long time. And my sister by, who was younger than me, at the time was eighteen went out with her boyfriend to the pictures. And at around about 10 o’clock in the evening my neighbour, our neighbour came in and said, ‘I think you’d better go to the top of the road.’ We lived off, in a little cul de sac off the Harlington High Street. And whereupon I did and found that my sister, who had just got off the bus with her boyfriend had been knocked down by a motorbike and sidecar and killed. Which was a great homecoming. But one got over it eventually and that was the end of my sort of story at the time. I then worked for the Quaker Oats Company. An American company. They had a large plant. Factory. Mill. In Southall. And I spent about twenty odd years with them. I started there in the materials handling department unloading trucks and I finished up as the UK managing director for them. So, I had a fairly pleasant life there. I retired early because my son, who had just come down from Cambridge was very very ill in Paris and I had to go over and see him. And my wife developed cancer at the time. So I had a pretty rough time, or my son and my wife did. I had to try and look after them so I retired at fifty seven and did manage to look after them and we’re all around now. Of my crew only Charlie Flint, my wireless operator is still alive. The rest gradually died away. And we still remain, the two of us, the last of the [pause] what were we? KO was our squadron number. We were KO Roger. I had a model Lancaster made for me. I was at the Harvard Business School for some time and whilst over there they, some of the chaps found out I’d been in Bomber Command and got some information from somewhere. Somewhere. And they bought a kit which they made into a model Lancaster and labelled it KO Roger. And actually they sent it home by surface mail whilst I came back on one of the, either, I think it was the Queen Mary with some thirty thousand I think it was [laughs] American soldiers going to the UK for the war in Europe. And that’s about it. I enjoyed every second of my time as I still do. So there ends my tale. That’ll do won’t it?
[recording paused]
HH: I’m just showing Michael Jeffery the sort of captain’s map as we called them from a particular daylight raid I did with 115 Squadron. What we’re looking at here is the small captain’s map. It’s on a Mercator, Mercator projection and on it I have drawn the outward and the inward routes we took to the, to and fro from the target. The target in this case happened to be Dortmund. We flew out on what is apparently the red route and we flew back on what is shown here as the green or greeny blue route. We also put, on that same map one would have the height at which we would be flying, the speeds we would be flying at. And this was a sort of aide memoire to the pilot of the trip whilst the navigator did the whole of the actual navigating using the Gee system. The pilot had this so that he could keep that on his lap or in his pocket and occasionally look at it so he would know that, well we’ve got about five or ten minutes and then we turn to port and on to that. So it was just an aide memoire, a visual aide memoire to the pilot on, for the whole of the trip and it had data such as height to fly, speed at which we flew and so forth on it.
MJ: Thank you for that.
HH: That should do it I should think.
MJ: Okay. Right. On behalf of the International Bomber Command I’d like to thank Harry Hooper, Flight Lieutenant for his recording on the 17th of November 2015 at his home near Hook. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harry Hooper
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mick Jeffery
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-11-17
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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AHooperH151117
Format
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00:21:31 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Hooper enjoyed watching the planes at Heston Airfield as a child. He volunteered for the RAF in 1939 and began training to be a pilot. He flew with 115 Squadron and undertook operations over Northern France and Germany using Gee, including precision targets in the Ruhr Valley, also dropping Window and encountering anti aircraft fire. After his tour was completed he volunteered to serve in the Middle East. One evening he and a friend were hitch hiking back to camp when they decided to ‘borrow’ an army vehicle. They were caught by the military police and this effectively put an end to his hopes of staying in the RAF.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Libya
Middle East
Libya--Tobruk
Middle East--Palestine
England--Cambridgeshire
North Africa
Egypt
Egypt--Suez Canal
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1947
115 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Gee
Lancaster
military discipline
pilot
RAF Witchford
training
Window
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1258/17168/ABarronAJK190418.2.mp3
06ecd8bdb880ea29191d52bee25f38a6
Dublin Core
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Title
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Barron, Andrew
Andrew James Kelton Barron
A J K Barron
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Andrew Barron (1923 - 2021, 163695 Royal Air Force) He flew 38 operations as a navigator in 223 Squadron at RAF Oulton flying B-24s.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-05-10
2018-04-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Barron, AJK
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: This is Nigel Moore with Andrew Barron. It is now the 18th of April 2019 and I’m picking up with Andrew from the first part of the interview from where he was being posted to 111 OTU in the Bahamas from his training in Canada. So Andrew, would you like to take us on from there please.
AB: Yes. Well, I think I regaled you with the thing of the train journey across the plains of Canada. The, what do they call it? The something shield. This, there’s a huge granite shield which, which covers central Canada and borders the Great Lakes, I think it’s Lake Superior, the topmost of the Lakes and the journey took, I don’t know, two, three, four days, I’ve no idea, I didn’t keep any record I don’t even remember what our sleeping arrangements were on the train; there must have been sleeping arrangements. The thing stopped every so often and threw out a number of cadets for the various places until we got to Calgary which was the terminus and some of us were transported to this RAF Training School Boden, Alberta and I restarted the pilot training and managed to take about, I think, an hour, an hour and a half or so for my solo which convinced the, the management and myself that I wasn’t very good pilot material and so I had the choice, having been re-mustered to pilot, navigator or bomb aimer and of the number I decided on the Navigator B which was the equivalent of the pre-war observer who did everything. He navigated the plane, he dropped the bombs when they got there, he took the photographs if necessary: you name it he did it. And so I had an interlude at the Canadian Air Force Manning Depot at Edmonton which was partly of course full of new recruits waiting to be sent off for primary training and it was partly where the residue, the naughty boys and the failures were gathered together for re-mustering and I think I said about the Dominion troops’ antipathy to having to salute the Canadian Air Force flag on the parade ground and the Australians took it to the extent of getting the fire axes and chopping the flag pole down. I was more sort of phlegmatic about it and I would march round the other three sides of the square rather than go past their bloody flag and salute it. And I spent about, I don’t know, two, three weeks, four weeks at Edmonton and then I was posted to Bombing and Gunnery School at -
[Other]: Hello! Oh you’re behaving yourself, you’ve got your feet up!
NM: Good afternoon.
AB: We’re switching it off.
AB: So anyway I was posted to Mountain View, which was Number 6 Royal Canadian Air Force Bombing and Gunnery School in Ontario, not very far from Trenton which was the Canadian Cranwell, not that made any difference, and I had a fortnight, I think, to get there so I took advantage of that to, when, I had transport I suppose from Edmonton down to Calgary because the two railways, the, anyway the two major Canadian railways, one went through Edmonton, one went through Calgary and my ticket was from Calgary to Ontario so I had to get down to Calgary and for some reason, I’ve no idea why, I hitch-hiked because I must have had transportation provided from Edmonton and I had a number of things: I had a lift in a Model T Ford, I had a lift in a rickety old car which was full of Ukrainian settlers in, in Canada, there were about a dozen of them in this vehicle but they got me in somehow, with my kit and I ended up in Calgary in a small van full of eggs going to market in Calgary. And from Calgary I went west through the Rockies to Vancouver because my maternal grandfather had, as far as I know, when he was in the Royal Navy, been at Esquimalt which was the naval base on the island of Victoria, which was offshore from Vancouver and so I went there and it was interesting and I looked at the totem poles that were preserved there and I went to a National Park, which I don’t know if the park was named or anyway, running through this park was the Capilano Canyon which was about a hundred and twenty feet deep and was spanned by a rather rickety wire rope bridge. I wouldn’t have done it these days, I’d have had forty fits at the dangers, but in those days I went across this bridge without any qualms and looked down at the, at the waters roaring along a hundred and twenty feet below me and then I got on the train and went back to, and started on the voyage across Canada. And I had a marvellous ticket, it must have been about a yard long and you tore bits off, there were, you tore a bit off for breakfast and another bit off for the sleeping car and another bit off for lunch and so it went on across the country and my researches afterwards revealed that we went across at the magnificent speed of about forty nine miles an hour [laugh] across Canada! It took about, I don’t know, about four days and we arrived at Mountain View which was a typical Canadian military station, two story wooden hutments which were the barrack blocks or barrack blocks and we started our training. Several days ground work and then we took to the air and the bombing training was done in Bolingbroke aircraft which were the Canadian built Blenheim bomber and I think we, oh I don’t know when we went up in twos or, twos, oh we did our gunnery, no sorry, I got that wrong, we did our gunnery in the Bolingbroke, because like the, the Blenheim bomber it had a mid upper turret and we took three or four cadets at a time and we fired bullets which were daubed with paint: green, red, nothing, and, white, no not white, it must have been three, must have been just green and red and blank and you fired at a drogue target, like the same sort of thing as the windsock on an airfield and some hardy characters in a Harvard would fly along with, trailing this drogue behind them two or three hundred yards behind them and you’d fire at this thing and they’d count the number of coloured holes in it and that was your score and it was the bombing which was done in the Canadian built Ansons, the good old Anson and we flew and dropped little replica bombs, they were, I think they weighed about twelve or fifteen pounds and when they hit the ground they let off a little puff of smoke and chaps in observation towers took bearings of these puffs of smoke and of course got your, the position of your strike from that and so it went on. We did, er, actually, if you’d like to grab my log book there and will tell you what my brilliant score was, or if you’re not particularly interested!
NM: Well, we will catch up with your log book later if that’s okay.
AB: Anyway, we did about, I suppose it was about two months I think, at B and G and we were assessed on that. And we had a polyglot course. There was six New Zealanders and about a half dozen Canadians, some of whom were re-mustered; they were ground tradesmen. We had a couple of sergeants I think, got a photograph of them somewhere and then the rest was made up with Brits. We had one strange character, we had a Canadian Jew, Moses Levine, who came from Montreal – where else - and we worked the Canadian system, we worked ten days and then we had four days off and then we had another ten days and another four days off which was rather nice because we were able to get off on sightseeing and we went to Toronto which wasn’t very far away. We went to Niagara which surprised me, I’d expected, reading the books, my adventure books, when I was a boy, I’d expected that this, these enormous falls would be out in the middle of nowhere, but they weren’t. They were out in the middle of bloody houses and buildings and all sorts of things, which was a bit disappointing really, but nonetheless exciting, the Niagara Falls. We just looked at them, we didn’t go down on the boats and get wet, I don’t suppose we could afford it, those days. And then I had another spell; I went to Detroit and was entertained by an American family and introduced to this weird system of American house numbering, you know, they were in a house number sort of twelve thousand three hundred and sixty seven, or something like that, but in fact it was the, this grid system of long straight roads and they were divided up into blocks and the blocks were numbered in these weird sort of twelve thousand and ten thousand and what have you. Interesting. And then having successfully passed that, we were posted, or I was posted to Navigation School which was Quebec, Ancienne-Lourette, just outside an airfield a few miles outside Quebec city and away we went, and got there they said, ‘you’re too early you’re on the next course. Go away, go away for a fortnight and come back and join the next course!’ So away we went. I went, several of us, went down to New York, I forget how we got down there, no idea, probably went by bus or something, anyway, we went down to New York and I stayed at a, stayed at, not the Army and Navy, the, oh gawd, what’s the er, the military organisation, they’re not military, they called themselves military and they go around towns playing bands and they run, and they run anti-drinking, anti-drinking - the Salvation Army! That’s the one. They, the Salvation Army they ran, in my opinion, they ran the best canteens and the best hostels for servicemen during the last war. And anyway, I stayed in one of them, and did all the sights in New York, you know, went to the, went up the Rockefeller Centre or something, I think was the tallest building in New York at the time and we were, you know, given tickets to various shows which was good fun. The, it, rather strange to British eyes, they, you go to the cinema and sort of half way through the cinema showing there’d be a break and there’d be a stage show that’d come on. I don’t remember any of the artists who appeared and we were treated to, you know, like night club showings and being a very, extremely callow youth I didn’t get in to any trouble which I quite possibly might have done had I not been a callow youth. So anyway, that, oh and we went to the Statue of Liberty and that was interesting. And we met Americans who’d got no idea who we were and what we were and on being introduced to a Scotsman amongst our numbers they: ‘Is he on our side?’ Very ignorant of the outside world the Americans were, and still are in my opinion, but so anyway that filled in the period and I must have caught the bus or the train or something back to Quebec and the business started in, the serious business of learning to be a navigator and it was a, it was about a four month, four or five month course. The times, the lengths of the courses during the war varied; it depended upon supply and demand, you know. If, if the chop rate had been particularly high, losses high, and the RAF were short of airmen then the course length, core, was shortened and you got trained as a pilot in about five months. If times were easy and it, there, there weren’t the casualties it took six months to train you. I forget what ours was, at Ancienne-Lourette, look it up in my log book but it doesn’t matter really, we got to Anciennes-Lorette in the, I think in the September. I had no idea, not the faintest idea, I guess some chaps did know, but the Quebec Conference had only just finished, the Quebec Conference where Churchill and Roosevelt and all the other bigwigs had met in the Chateau Frontenac I think, the big posh hotel on the outskirts of Quebec, but I’d no idea, nor had I any idea that Wing Commander Guy Gibson, of Dambuster fame, had been sent out to North America to visit the various training establishments and stir up the troops and encourage them to go out and get shot down. I had no idea he’d been out there, he wanted to keep him out of the way actually. So anyway we settled down to training and learned how to be navigators. We did about a hundred hours flying, or just over a hundred hours flying, again in the sturdy Anson, a rather more stable machine than the Ansons that were doing all the flying in Britain; they were the original Mark I Ansons, and the ones in Canada had a wooden fuselage and they were all enclosed of course because of the rigours of the weather there and were generally a more formidable aeroplane and we did our navigation in them and the drill was that we were settled, [rustling] settled into pairs and I was paired up with Johnnie Johnson, a New Zealander, and the drill was that you flew out to some point, you navigated out to some point and the second navigator oh, he took photographs of things and did all sorts of things, sort of took bearings and generally made himself useful and when you got to, hopefully you got, well of course you did [emphasis] get to the place you were aiming for, because the pilots were all ex bush pilots who’d forgotten more about the countryside they were looking at than we’d ever likely to know! They knew the country like the back of their hands so of course if you were a little bit away from where you should have been going the pilot, he closed it all up for you so you could put on your chart where you had actually been and then he’d take you there and the other chap would fly back, would navigate you back to your base while you did all the fiddly bits and that went on. At the end of January we had our final tests, and final exams and passed out in due course as navigators and you knew, you knew what to do but your ability to do it was probably rather doubtful. So anyway the next step was that I was posted to a General Reconnaissance School on Prince Edward Island and the idea of that was, you spent about six or eight weeks at GR School and there were two of them: one was Canadian and one was British and I was of course sent to the Canadian one and that was, I had, I think again the mandatory two weeks’ leave to get there because I was commissioned and had to go and get my smart officers uniform which I did at Ottawa, Canada’s capital. Everything was covered in snow so I got really no particular recollection of that. Actually, I do have a recollection of it because it was the second time that I was very nearly airsick. We were, the whole of Prince Edward Island was completely obliterated in snow and ice and quite indistinguishable from the mainland or the Gulf of, the Gulf of St Lawrence and we, one of our exercises was flying at low level, something like about a thousand feet, or few hundred feet across the, this snow and ice and lying in the nose of the Anson with sort of hot, rubbery air blowing in your face and it was remarkably bumpy, this, this icy landscape, or ice-scape, and I was very nearly airsick. Anyway, oh, and it was a bit of a laugh really, because you’d, the exercises were to fly to Halifax which was one of the pushing off points for the convoys across the Atlantic and you’d fly down to Halifax and you’d count the number of ships in it and what sort of ships they were and fly back report that and the afternoon’s detail would fall on you and quiz you: what was there, how many were there, what were they like, did you see any battleships and so on and so on and you’d give them all the gen of course when they got back in the late afternoon or early evening, they say they’d all bloody well gone – the harbour was empty! [Laugh] So anyway we spent about four to six weeks doing that and we were passed out and I was posted down to 111 OTU, Operational Training Unit, which was Coastal Command’s, I think it was Coastal Command’s one and only operational training unit, it certainly was for the Liberators anyway, and I was posted down there and this wasn’t a very popular posting because everybody thought oooh, Nassau, that’s the, where all the bigwigs, the RAF bigwigs who are on a swanny posting to Washington and places like that in the United States and Canada, that’s where they all go for their leave over there and, you know, they like to go and inspect the troops at the OTU to see what they’re up to, but in actual fact you never saw hair nor hide of the, of these bigwigs at all and Nassau was, it wasn’t a bad posting at all. The only weird thing was that the, there were two bases, one was Windsor Field, I forget what the other was called, one was called Windsor Field and that was where the American B25 twin engined bomber was based and they were used [cough] as the intermediate conversion from the pilots who’d been flying Ansons, who’d got their wings flying Ansons and they converted to these B25 Mitchells and they, they usually had two pilots and a navigator. Well, I was different. I was one, I was with one pilot and I was a navigator on my own with just one pilot who’d trained in Canada, chap called Hedges, Pop Hedges called him Pop Hedges because he was about twenty, sorry, twenty five and therefore quite an elderly person in the aircrew, in the aircrew family. So in fact Pop Hedges and myself flew with a staff pilot from Nassau and then when we’d, when Pop was considered competent, we were, the two of us were posted to the other aerodrome at Nassau where we converted to the Liberator under the care of a pilot from the UK who’d completed about a half a tour on Liberators in the UK and was sent out to be a captain on his own and a pilot, sorry not a pilot, a navigator who’d completed half a tour and was now sent to Nassau to be the Chief Navigator too, and I was to be the second navigator. I’m getting a bit rambling aren’t I? So anyway we did this training in the Liberators and at the end of that there was an exercise, you had to complete an exercise, the Kingsley Exercise, which, in which you flew out to about half way to Bermuda from which had come a destroyer and you had to find this destroyer by you know, your expertise in navigation, which was all very well. Unfortunately the, you had to use two charts and they joined in the middle and there was a one degree longitude overlap. Now when I came to do my navigation I made a mistake: I missed this one degree overlap in the longitude so when it came to the crunch we had to do a radar search for this bloody destroyer, and the result of which was I didn’t do very well on my Kingsley exercise. I mean I would have gone back to the UK as the second navigator, that was my destiny, but it certainly would have delayed my transposition to the first navigator, not that it in the end mattered because we were shipped back to Moncton, the RAF Manning Depot in New Brunswick to await shipping back to the UK and then distribution to our various squadrons or whatever else we were destined for. And we were about three weeks at Moncton when we were suddenly posted back to the UK and flown back. We were shipped up to Montreal and put into a Liberator transport plane and flown back to the UK, where I phoned up my parents and found that the residence no longer existed, it had been flying bombed and was uninhabitable and I’d got nowhere to go when it came to my disembarkation leave, but my parents had scouted round and found accommodation for me, some friends or people they knew in the road in Sunbury on Thames put me up for two or three, for a couple of weeks and I was put up for a while. What had happened was, that a flying bomb had come over and had hit a house about four houses up the road from where we lived, blown that house to bits, blown the next house to bits, and destroyed the next house and the house after that had been pushed over on to ours and made ours totally uninhabitable: broken all the windows, torn off the roof and so on and it all got a little bit disjointed. That’s right, when I got back from that, we sat around at Harrogate in this distribution centre, waiting to be posted, expecting of course to be sent off to the various Coastal Command aerodromes around the country and then the posting list came up and all these crews were sent, were being sent to RAF Oulton, where’s that then, nobody knew, then on the train and we eventually ended up in Norfolk, looking at black painted Liberator bombers and wondering what our destiny was and we found that we were in Bomber Command [laugh] so I ended up in the blacked out bomber flying to Germany, not looking, not seeing what was happening. But much to the surprise and the dislike of most of the rest of my fellow postees who were [beeps] – oh must mind your – who were nearly all of course, all virtually - oh that’s my tea is it, oh – virtually all ex Coastal Command men and that’s what they expected to be going to. [Pause for tea!] Ah! So I ended up in Bomber Command and they said well, you can fly as front gunner if you like for the time – oh that’s right, the task of the squadron was to, initially, to fly what they called Big Ben sorties which were up and down the Dutch coast about fifteen or so miles out to sea from, more or less from the islands, you know, the Scheldt estuary up to, I forget what the name of the, Ijmuiden is it, some? I think it’s Ijmuiden, a town about halfway up the Dutch coast and we were spotting for V2s, the rockets, lifting off, because they thought at the time that the V2s were radio controlled. Well they weren’t actually cause we found that out later, and our job was to send off a signal that one had lifted off. What good it would have done goodness knows, because the, they were supersonic so they were never able to give any warning of their approach and they’d no idea where they were going anywhere. So anyway, like it or not, I did a few exercises in an Oxford which was the equivalent to the, equivalent to the Anson and another RAF twin engine trainer and the squadron had a, had one for communications purposes and it was fitted up with the Gee navigation equipment which we would have to know how to operate because that’s what we would be using in Bomber Command and you know, just one or two flights like that and I went off I think on the 13th of October on my first operational sortie looking for these bloody V2s and I bloody hated it. I was scared stiff, sitting up in this turret. The navigator and the front gunner had to crawl through a tunnel about two foot square which ran along the right hand side of the Liberator, the right hand side of its front nose wheel undercarriage, you had to crawl up that into a compartment [beeping] up front which in the US Air Force housed three men: the navigator, the bomb aimer and the front gunner. In our case it was initially the front gunner and the navigator, and it was draughty, the air came in all over the place of this ruddy gun turret and you could only, the only thing you could see was the deep blue sea below you, we were at about twenty thousand feet, and if you craned your neck round one way or the other and turned the turret you could just glimpse the wings, or the wing tips or perhaps the outer engines. I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all. And anyway, I did three of them and then they discovered, by which time they discovered that the V2 was not radio controlled so the Big Bens stopped and the squadron reverted to flying decoy operations. They did two kinds of decoy operations: you flew out with the main force pretending that you were part of the main force and after a time, after you’d cleared the German frontier you broke off in a separate direction and you then started throwing out bundles of metallised paper, they were like chaisy tain, chaisy tain.
[Other]: Daisy chain!
AB: No [laugh].
NM: Paper chains.
AB: Paper chains with metallised on one side and they were cut to the frequency of the German radars so that when they fell out as a bundle and opened and spread out into a great cluster, they looked like a bunch of aeroplanes so that one aeroplane would look like perhaps twenty or thirty aeroplanes so the little force of twenty or thirty aeroplanes which were detached and sent out on a separate heading would look like another main force heading for a different target. Anyway, this was what the squadron was doing. So I was walking through the flight offices, the avenue of flight offices one day when the Nav Leader, who was, I think if I remember, a flight lieutenant on loan from the B17 squadron on the station who’d done a tour and knew what it all was about, anyway he came out of his office and he said: ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘would you like to be Tony Morris’s navigator?’ And I said ‘Yes please.’ Well Tony Morris was one of the Canadian pilots who got a bit too close to the Dutch coast or they got too close to a flak ship, which was one of the ships the Germans had which was covered all over in flak guns and was posted out in estuaries and places like that, and their navigator had unfortunately stopped a piece of flak - in his backside. [Chuckle] And so was uncommissioned, so anyway I was offered poor old Jack Wallace’s place, he survived by the way and came back on ops later on in the next year. But anyway, I got his seat and, and away I went and I’ve often wondered if Tony had realised and, I think Jack Furniss was the Nav Leader, anyway, if the Nav Leader had realised that my sole experience had been you know, just an hour or two in an Oxford on a bit of Gee training but otherwise, I knew what to do, but I really wasn’t, I’d never had to try to do it! I mean the first operational sortie that I did with Tony was the first time that I had ever been entirely and solely responsible for the navigation of the plane from point A to point B and back again, you know unguided, but I did it and it’s hardly surprising that my logs and charts or logs at any rate, are covered all over with the Nav Leader’s blue pencil things - why didn’t you do this and why didn’t you do that and lots of this, but you know, I’d done lots of work but I hadn’t done anything with it, but we got there and back and after that it improved. My, my er, I differed in my ideas with the, than the, from the Nav Leader, the copy book way of navigating in, well really, in the air force, in any conditions, hasn’t changed, you fly along a course you’re given, you fly along a course which you expect will get you to your destination. You check your position and you find that it’s not on the line that you expect to be and if you project the line from where you started to where you are, it doesn’t lead to where you want to be so you have to make a correction. So the copybook way is to project ahead to where you expect to be in say in another ten or fifteen minutes time, well I mean in those days, ten or fifteen minutes time, in those, that time, you then calculate the new course that you’ve got to fly to get to the place that you want to be at. That’s the copy book way of doing it. Well I didn’t entirely agree with that. I mean if I was flying along and I got a position and I found it was off the course that we were supposed to be on, I would say right we are ten degrees off course we need to alter course twenty degrees to get back to where we want to go, so I’d do that, I’d just say to the pilot alter course twenty degrees right or left or whatever it was to get to the proper place, then I’d do it properly: work out the new wind or find out what the difference in the wind was and do it properly. But it, he’d scribble on it, he’d say what’s this? Guestimation? Well it was, yes, but it was intelligent guestimation but in my mind, I mean it was intelligent guestimation, anyway it worked because it was the way I always worked and we never got lost, we got there. We only got lost once [chuckle]. And that was as I say, I only looked out once; we were I think, I think it may have been Cologne and it was cloud covered and it was, they were using what they would call sky marking. The Pathfinder Force released their markers up in the air, blind if you like, and the main force aimed for those markers, instead of aiming for a marker on the ground they aimed for something in the air. Don’t ask me how it was done, I mean it was, you know, a clever business. And anyway, it was very colourful cause there were flares all over the place and I looked out and there were all these brilliant lights and the little twinkling lights which didn’t really register with me at the time with the bursts of the flak shells. It was very colourful. I wasn’t there to sightsee, I mean I was there to navigate and far too many aeroplanes were lost, because crew members did sightsee, gunners looked down on the ground to see what the, see where the bombs were bursting, see what the, all the coloured lights were doing: you weren’t there for that. And as far as I was concerned it was an uneventful tour. I didn’t see what was happening. I’ve got a copy of Mervyn Eustace’s, Mervyn Eustace was our second pilot and his, I want to, I must make another effort to get in touch with Mervyn’s son to see if I can get his assent to well, bluntly, publish Mervyn’s memoirs cause Mervyn wrote his memoirs just for his own and his family’s use. But Mervyn of course was in the cockpit and he saw everything all the time, every time [emphasis] and he, he’s also a bit more, um, dry humour, Mervyn, so I must, and of course his comments on the tour were highly coloured by the fact that he had come from peacetime Canada to wartime England. He went through the mill the same as I did, he went through Nassau and he came from Nassau to England by boat and he was sent to a manning depot of some sort at Chelmsford, no not Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Cheltenham, that’s right, Cheltenham, and of course it was a complete, complete new world to Mervyn, not only, the conditions, I mean the weather conditions, the ground conditions, he said he got hold of a, he bought a bicycle and he cycled round on this and many a time he said he’d have to stop somewhere and ask some of the locals where he was and how to get to Chelmsford and he writes that he thought they must have thought it was a funny old sort of war that this Canadian chap who didn’t know sort of how to, where he was – how did he get on over Germany! [Laugh] But er, and then the food, and the living conditions of course made a complete impact, I think the food, brussels sprouts particularly were a nightmare for poor old Mervyn, but I mean the average Brit at that time, we’d been at war for about five and a half years and the average Brit ate whatever you put down in front of him and was thankful for it, we’d been at war for five and a half years, the privations of British barrack life, I don’t remember them because I was used to the fact that in my father, my parents bathroom at Sunbury on Thames, ice formed on the inside of the windows, [laugh] you were used to bathing in that kind of conditions. But no, Mervyn’s got a lot to, to recount and as I say, in a dry humour he says, he quotes the fact that when they were shot up they were, this, what do you call it - a salvo of shells ringed them and exploded when Wallace was wounded and Wallace was wounded, and he said you know it changed his outlook because he’d, up till then the war had been really, a bit jolly, you know. You’d got a nice uniform, you travelled around the world, you got well paid, but now you suddenly realised that down there there were a bunch of men hopping about and clapping their hands and cheering because they’d nearly shot you down, they nearly killed you, that was what they were there for. [Pause] So anyway that’s how it went on. We, I think we operated at er, a higher rate of work, if you pick up Middlemiss’s I forget what it’s called, it’s the Bomber Command War Diaries 1939 ‘45, if you pick that up, they list every single sortie flown by Bomber Command and the troops who took part, the groups which were scheduled for it and the squadrons in the groups which took part, in squadron, in, it took part. The average squadron I suppose perhaps flew once every week, two weeks, something like that. Well if you look in my log book there were patches where we flew sort of six or seven squadrons more or less on alternate nights because when main force flew: 100 Group flew. In fact 100 Group flew more than that because there were many nights when the main force was stood down, probably because of weather, but they didn’t fly, 100 Group were sent out simply to stir up the Germans, to get them up in the air, [interference] particularly of course towards the end of the war because by then the night fighter force. People say, oh well the night fighter force was a spent force by the, by you know, by the time of Dresden, February ‘45, well it wasn’t exactly a spent force, there were a lot of them and, but it wasn’t as well trained and you know, it was still capable, four hundred aircraft, four hundred [\interference] British aircraft were lost between Dresden, which was on St Valentine’s night and the end of the war. It’s quite a lot of aircraft that, and [pause] but the Germans, they sent out, they harboured their forces, they sent out their aces first, you know the, because they knew that they were the men who wouldn’t go rushing in and attacking the enemy forces when they were out of range. [Timer noise]
[Other]: Sorry about that. It’s my watch.
NM: So can I?
AB: Yes, go on.
NM: You said that a lot of your operations were decoys with Window.
AB: Yes.
NM: Did you just provide the Windows screen or did you ever, always accompany the main force to the target?
AB: Well no, there was, the main stream was, what they called the Mandrel screen, Mandrel was the jammer which jammed the long range German search radars and the Mandrel screen was sent out in pairs, they were, I think they were equipped with Stirlings and they were sent out in pairs over the North Sea and then as the battle line moved east the, that became Holland and north east France, Belgium, the Mandrel screen was sent out and these pairs of aeroplanes would orbit like a racetrack, jamming away, and then every so often they would open a little window in the Mandrel screen so they would let the Germans see what was coming up behind it to confuse them and the Window force would as I say, would probably be leading the main force, the main forces, and I remember one particular raid when we were, where the turning point was Cassel and we came out of the Mandrel screen somewhere over Belgium I think or maybe north east France and then we, somewhere past the, crossing the Rhine, we were at the head of the main force and we broke off and headed for Cassel while the main force behind us carried straight on and it did one or two more zigzags but it ended up sort of pointing elsewhere, and the Window force was also reinforced, very often, by two or three aeroplanes carrying markers and bombs, particularly the Australians, hardly surprising, [Australian accent] they hadn’t come half way round the world, you know just to drop pieces of bloody paper all over Germany! So they insisted upon carrying bombs and they were in Halfaxes which still had all the bomb racks and everything else in them and they carried bomb aimers too, so to add to this bit of realism they would drop a few bombs and markers on some town to give a bit of realism. But it all worked very[interference] well. I mean It worked very well. [\interference]
NM: So did any your trips involve radio counter measures in your B24s?
AB: Sorry?
NM: Were you, did any of your operations involve radio counter-measures, in your Liberator or was it just [unclear]?
AB: Oh yes, I mean there were all sorts of gubbins. The reason why the Liberator and the Fortress were chosen for the role was because we carried an equipment called a Jostle which was a large jamming, piece of well, piece of jamming equipment and it was about two, two and a half three feet in diameter and about five or six feet long, or high whichever way you like to look at it, high, steel enclosed I think to give it a bit of durability and that, as far as I know, transmitted on the, all the known radar and voice channels that the Germans were using and as far as the equipment was concerned to fit it, to have fitted it to a Halifax or a Lancaster, you’d have had to have taken the turret out, lifted it out with a crane or something, drop the Jostle in and then put the turret back in, if it had gone in, as it was, all they had to do was to trundle the, all they had to do was trundle it over a pit, lower the Jostle into the pit, put in a new one and then go off again and the Liberator and the Fortress still had their mid upper turret in situ and serviceable whereas, was the thing with the Lanc or the Halifax, they’d have lost their mid upper armament and seriously depleted the armament of the aeroplane. And then, in addition to that, they would have all sorts of things, with all sorts of comic names: I mean Monica, [interference] Tinsel, Tinsel was the microphone which was in the engine compartment and the pilot would just switch that on and it made this [pause].
NM: You okay? [Pause] You okay?
AB: Hmm? [\interference]
NM: Are you okay?
AB: Oh no, Tinsel, Monica.
NM: So did you know at the time what the Jostle operators were using, and what Jostle was doing or were you not privy to that information at the time?
AB: Oh no, no, you, they were just special operators these two chaps, who were, well they were sort of attached to the crew really, I mean even their position in the aeroplane varied. As far as our aeroplane was concerned, G George, the um, there was a shallow space amidships, above the bomb bay, I think it was aft of the main wing spar and there was this, there was this space, I suppose it was about three or four feet deep and as wide as the fuselage and ten or fifteen, ten or twelve feet long and that had gear in it, I don’t know what, and these two chaps lived in that, they, that was their working position. But in some of the old, the aeroplanes, that was down on the flight deck on our aeroplane, G George, so you went in through the, you went in through the front, starboard, lets see: left port, right to starboard, yes, front starboard nose, bomb, er bomb bay door was operational and open, and you got out to the aeroplane and you ducked under, you ducked under the wing behind the, the engines and you climbed in through this door and as far as the navigator was concerned, in the vast majority of ops that I was on, I was always the last on board because you had such a hell of a lot of work to do and so you were whistled out to the aeroplane and you clambered on board through this open door, chucked all your gear in front of you and operated the lever to close the door and then you went through a doorway and there was the flight deck. And on your left was the wireless operator, on the right was the opening to climb through to the nose and in front of you was steps up to the flight deck itself if you like, with the two pilots. The flight engineer didn’t have any seat or anything, he just stood about like a spare prick, bit like the navigator, but on some of them, the, one of the special operators was in the wireless operator’s position, I don’t know where the wireless operator went to. The wireless operator was a bit of a, he was a bit spare, I mean his job really was only to listen out for signals from base, chief of which was perhaps hopefully the recall, [snort] but that was about all he was able to do, or send out an SOS when it came to it, came to it. That was the main thing really I think.
NM: So tell me about the time you could hear flak over the noise of the engines, it must have been -
AB: Pardon?
NM: Tell me about the time you could hear the flak over the noise of the engines, it must have been pretty close.
AB: Well yes! I mean, [Laugh] I don’t know, we were, I think we were somewhere near Cologne, and obviously we’d got a bit off track and we got the benefit of a flak burst, the er, and say, well close enough to hear it and I wrote in my log: ‘flak, I heard it!’ and the Nav Leader put in: ‘Gee, you must have been scared.’ Well I wasn’t actually, but I bet the others up on top were, who saw it all, I mean especially after they’d had the, you know, they’d had the benefit of the salvo which had put poor old Wallace out of action and given me my job. And I mean it was a bit the same as when they, I don’t know, heard the, hmm -
NM: You also had a near miss with a Lancaster, didn’t you, over East Anglia.
AB: Oh yeah. Yes.
NM: What happened then?
AB: See I mean, matter of luck, I mean there must have been countless, countless near misses of pilots who just managed to see each other in time. I can but presume that in this case the Lancaster pilot saw us in time and was able to pull up and we wendered.
NM: Did you see the Lancaster just as it missed you or did your pilot see it?
AB: Pardon?
NM: Did your pilot see it just as it missed you, the Lancaster?
AB: Yes. You what?
NM: Your pilots, did they see it?
AB: I don’t know, I don’t remember anybody saying anything actually. Well I mean whoever said it was a Lancaster with its wheels down. But, no we never, it’s funny that, you know. After the war it all fell apart, the, Mervyn Eustace disappeared more or less overnight, he was posted off back to Canada. I’m not quite sure about - I never had any, you know, it’s funny I never had any contact with the crew. Whatever books you pick up, you pick up all these books and they all say oh what a marvellous, how the, what a close knit organisation the average Bomber Command crew was, you know, this wonderful system they had where everybody was turfed into a big hangar and you were told to sort yourself out, [pause] I think it was a, it was a, is it, almost I suppose, a perfect system you might say. I remember my [interference] brother in law saying that, at least I went to his funeral and his old skipper who, funnily enough, had been in the, be in the same class as me in Wolverhampton Grammar School, George Sidebottom, saying that you know, they were looking out for a crew and they’d got everybody except a flight engineer and said somebody, one of his new crew came up and said there’s a flight engineer in the next room who’s looking for a crew, said a nice bloke, got a funny sort of name, Mendelski it was, [\interference] and that’s how Vic Mendelski got crewed up. But that never happened to me. As I say, I was just plonked in with Pop Hedges in Nassau and we were plonked in with Pop, with Pop Hedges and Tommy Steele and I was second navigator to Freddie Freak and that was it, no choice. So actually when, I never had really much rapport with them, at Oulton when we first got there, I think they tended, Tommy Steele, Freddie Freak and er, and er, dear god, what was the wireless operator’s name? Hmm. I’ve forgotten what, anyway, the wireless operator. I think they had a rapport because all three of them had done ops on Coastal so, you know, they knew what it was about. I never had any chums. The Canadians, I think tended to live together, hardly surprisingly, and one of the reason was they pooled their food parcels and so they didn’t sort of hang about the mess like we Brits did, but even so, it, so I never had a rapport and then Tony Morris, Tony Morris’s father I think I said, had been English, he’d been in the British Army in the First World War and then emigrated and Tony, when he went on leave, searched out members of the Morris family. Mervyn Eustace’s brother had done, had just done a tour in Coastal Command, no it wasn’t Coastal, in Bomber Command and when he went on leave [pause] you, you, no sorry, I was away somewhere else.
NM: Just one last question for you.
AB: Mervyn used, we used to call him useless, Mervyn Eustace, he used to go off and look out, look up his brother who’d just done a tour in Bomber Command, and they didn’t come anywhere near the mess when they were on leave so I never saw any of them and it was several years [emphasis] afterwards before I made contact and I think [emphasis] I made contact through um, Vowler, Ron Vowler who er, did a lot of research after ex members of 223 Squadron and then Tony Morris, he was a geologist, an oil geologist, and he did a lot of flying through London to the Far East or, you know, where the oil fields were and he always tried to contact me whenever he came through but, and certainly -
NM: Just one last question for you Andrew, when you look back and reflect, what do you think of your time in Bomber Command? What does that time mean to you?
AB: Pardon?
NM: What does that time you spent in Bomber Command, what does that mean to you now looking back over the years?
AB: Well, I don’t know really. I, I mean I don’t think it really sort of meant anything. It was just something which um, [pause] I suppose, I mean I joined the, I joined the University Air Squadron I suppose because I don’t know that I really thought about it actually. Ach, I don’t know really, I never sort of discussed anything with my parents as I say, as I said at the beginning I don’t remember ever being asked if I’d like to become a naval cadet. I was brought up in a, in a background of [pause] – yeah.
NM: Shall we give it a rest? Shall we? Thank you for your time.
AB: Yes, I don’t think I ever really thought, I never thought about what I was going to do after the war or anything like that. I think, I think our tempo of operations in 100 Group, in 223 Squadron was significantly higher than the average main force crew. As I say, if you look at Middlemiss’s diary of Bomber Command, you know, you’ll see that squadrons didn’t fly continuously, I think 100 Group, 223 Squadron flew at a higher tempo than those sort of squadrons, so I suppose from that point of view, yeah, we didn’t really have time to sort of ruminate and think what you were going to do afterwards.
NM: Okay, I think what we’ll do, we’ll finish the interview there, thank you for your time and your memories and -
AB: I felt I’ve been wandering off a bit this afternoon. Did you get that feeling?
NM: No, it’s. Absolutely fine, It was perfect, thank you very much. We appreciate all the information you’ve been able to give us. Thank you Andrew.
AB: [Interference] So what the fellers, up until D-Day didn’t I think realise was that the aircrew Europe was for all aircrew, I mean it wasn’t Bomber Command wasn’t the only part of the air force that was operational after 1939, I mean there was Bomber Command, there was Coastal Command, there was all sorts of people, there were the chaps who fought in France of course as part of the British Expeditionary Force, they were operational aircrew and if they hadn’t had the aircrew Europe they wouldn’t have anything, poor sods.
NM: So you didn’t mind too much that Bomber Command wasn’t recognised.
AB: No, no.
[Other]: It wasn’t appreciated or recognised.
AB: I mean it was a bit distasteful, [\interference] the fact that we had to wait about another seventy years for some recognition and we got the aircrew, we got the -
[Other]: The Bomber Command Clasp.
AB: The Bomber Command Clasp, which I mean was similar to the Battle of Britain and various other clasps for various special operations, but where do you end, end up like the Americans with a - [laugh]
[Other]: Getting a medal for joining, which the Americans do. Five minutes after they’ve joined they’ve got a medal!
AB: Yes, yes. Well, I mean good luck to them. I read a very interesting book recently Mud, Blood and-
NM: Okay, so we’re looking at -
AB: I’ve got the types of tasks that 100 Group had to, or at least the two squadrons had to carry out was, one was just the plain, was the plain spoof target, now that’s Cassel there, now you see we came out on this line, where there’re two arrows, we came out on this line and then we carried on to here and split off up to Cassel to make it look as if we were going to attack Cassel, the rest of the force didn’t, they went off somewhere else to make it appear that way. Then the other thing was when there were no [emphasis] main force operations at all the same sort of spoof force would be sent out just to get the Germans up into the air. Simply. Nothing more, no less than that. And then the other was the target cover where you were sent out with [emphasis] the Pathfinder Force, with [emphasis] the main force to the target and the first plane would be, would be timed on to the target at about five, seven, eight minutes before the bombs were due to go down and you’d fly round and round and Mervyn puts it rather dryly, that everybody would turn on the navigator and say: go on, you know, we’re nowhere near the bloody target, you’re lost, you know, nothing’s happening, we’re the only aeroplane over Germany! And then there’d be the markers would go down and he said then everybody would be clapping their hands and thanking the navigator. And you know, you’d fly round the target for however long you were told and in the meantime, somebody else from your squadron would come up and he’d [emphasis] be circling the target and you’d be just jamming any radars that you, and any voice transmissions that you could hear, or that your operators could hear, you’d be jamming those while you were flying round the target, of course the one you didn’t particularly want was the one where they’d all gone home and they’d left you to tootle along behind them. But I would like to, you know, turn this in to something a little more legible.
NM: Just to explain we are looking a map of Western Europe with Andrew’s pilots, all his operations during the war. [Voice in the background]
AB: The other one that you didn’t want to go near was Hamburg and the Elbe estuary and then of course you’ve got the eastern cities, you’ve got Berlin itself, you’ve got, I’m not sure what that is -
NM: That’s Leipzig.
AB: And there’s, is that? No that’s Munich down there, Dresden’s somewhere in here but they got it later on in the war. Never talked about it. Nobody ever talked, never talked to anybody in the squadron, oh we wasted our evenings singing silly songs, [laugh] singing rude silly songs, most of which I’ve long since forgotten: probably just as well. But you know, there was no glorification about it, was, you know and we’re too bloody busy to worry about things, as I say the, you went into briefing and the [creaking] guards drew the, locked the doors and would have shot anybody who tried anything, and then all the Group Captain, the Station Commander and all the, Navigation Leader and everybody else all trooped on board and the curtains were pulled aside and there was a bloody great map, quarter inch map of Northern Europe with the red lines all over it and you knew where you were going. Well, you didn’t, you knew where everybody, everybody was going and who individually went where, I’ve had no idea. Poor old Richard Ford and other historians have probed us endlessly to try to find out when you knew where we were going, I said I’ve no ideas. [telephone ringing] At some time they would be given the specific route that they were to fly because if you were in one of the spoof things you were all spread out, so that spread was achieved by giving you slightly different positions to which to navigate.
[Other]: They all started off in a group and then they split, and split, and split to make it appear a much bigger group.
NM: Right, yup.
[Other]: That was it, wasn’t it darling?
AB: Yeah, I mean the only thing I can remember is that I used to think that it was a big guessing game, that the German controller was, the German controllers were saying [accent] is it dis vun, or dat vun, or der uder vun, or whatever, you know. But in fact the command, I mean our command, Bomber Command for a start, and then 100 Group Command for a second thing and finally the station itself would get down to the detailed plotting of, well, G George from so-and-so go so-and-so and J Jeep for another one and so it would go on, but when that happened I’ve no idea, you know you just, you just did it, you bloody got on with it.
[Other]: Darling, did you tell Nigel about taking German speaking English people with you?
AB: No I didn’t actually.
[Other]: From time to time, and they used to countermand the orders the Germans were being given and said no, no, no, that’s the British talking to you.
AB: That was quite widespread actually, they were, you know, right throughout main force, there was a lot of that as well, you know, German speaking operators were carried on board to -
[Other]: Countermand the German instructions to their crews.
AB: yes.
[Other]: There was quite a lot of jiggery pokery that we know nothing about!
AB: Yeah.
NM: Well, I think I’ll conclude it there on behalf of the Centre, so thank you very much for your time, both of you.
[Other]: Well thank you for your time!
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Andrew Barron. Two
Creator
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Nigel Moore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2019-04-18
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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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ABarronAJK190418, PBarronAJK1901
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:57:00 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Andrew hitchhiked from Edmonton to Calgary and then on to Mountain View by train. Gunnery training was in a Bolingbroke which had a mid-upper turret; bombing training was done in an Anson. Andrew was then posted to navigation school in Quebec for four or five months. He passed out as a navigator and was then posted to a general reconnaissance school on Prince Edward Island for about six to eight weeks. When commissioned he flew on B-24s - the crew went about halfway to Bermuda on an exercise to find a destroyer. Andrew was sent to Moncton where he awaited being shipped back to Great Britain and eventually posted to RAF Oulton in Norfolk where he joined Bomber Command on 223 Squadron. The crew flew in an Oxford on ‘Big Ben sorties’ up and down the Dutch coast spotting for V-2 rockets. Later they did decoy operations flying out with the main force. Andrew then became a navigator on B-24s. He recalled the time when they flew over Cologne and could hear the enemy’s anti-aircraft fire over the roar of their engine. On another occasion they had a near miss with a Lancaster.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Atlantic Ocean
Canada
Germany
Great Britain
Netherlands
Alberta
New Brunswick
Prince Edward Island
Alberta--Calgary
Alberta--Edmonton
England--Norfolk
Germany--Cologne
New Brunswick--Moncton
Québec
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Ontario--Belleville
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Anne-Marie Watson
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
100 Group
223 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
Bolingbroke
bombing
Lancaster
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
RAF Oulton
training
V-2
V-weapon
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1258/17169/PBarronAJK1901.2.jpg
f6b3bac684a11f7127d93f5570e15270
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1258/17169/ABarronAJK190510.2.mp3
592fca1b7e87ec021b88a698e656db66
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
Barron, Andrew
Andrew James Kelton Barron
A J K Barron
Description
An account of the resource
Three oral history interviews with Flight Lieutenant Andrew Barron (1923 - 2021, 163695 Royal Air Force) He flew 38 operations as a navigator in 223 Squadron at RAF Oulton flying B-24s.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-10
2018-04-19
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Barron, AJK
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: Okay, so this is Nigel Moore, I’m with Andrew Barron and we’re going to catch up from where we started last time. So Andrew, can you tell me a bit about life on the squadron when you were off duty, when you weren’t on ops, what were you, how did you socialise, what did you do?
AB: I’m sorry, what was it you wanted?
NM: When you weren’t on operations, tell me about the squadron life, what did you do for recreation and down time?
AB: Drank too much and sang silly songs! Really, wasted my time I think would be the, the most succinct explanation. I had no social life really, on the squadron, as I’ve already explained. I was pitchforked into this half qualified crew in the Bahamas and I had really no sort of social contact with them. The captain had flown, as far as I know, half a tour in Coastal Command, so had the navigator and so had the, the chief wireless operator. The rest of us were all sprogs who were drafted in to the crew to make it up and we had no particular social contact. I don’t know what their, what they did. I don’t think Scotty Steele, the skipper, was very happy. He’d, his experience had all been Coastal Command long range patrols, flying at about a thousand feet, two thousand feet perhaps, over the oceans for twelve or thirteen hours, and he had no, he had, I don’t think he had any chums in the squadron either, they were all stranger to him and I don’t think he took to night flying in the, at high altitude in the Liberator, and in fact I think he had one or two rather dodgy landings and I believe [emphasis] he sort of disappeared from the squadron after a few weeks. The, I was pitchforked into this Canadian crew, and as I’ve explained, the skipper, his father had been in the British Army in the First World War in Mesopotamia, funnily enough the same as my father, and I think Tony used to go off searching up his English relatives up in the north of England. The co-pilot, Mervyn Eustace, his brother had just completed a tour in 4 Group, I think it was 4 Group, which was the, either 4 Group or 6 Group which was the Canadian bomber group and Mervyn used to go off to seek out his brother who was, um – god, what are they called - he was at Shawbury acting as an instructor to new crews coming over so that disposed of them and I just used to go home and as far as, when I was on leave, and as far as the rest of the time was concerned, I think we worked a rather more intensive pace in 100 Group than the average main force group. If you look in Middlemiss’s tome The Bomber Command Diaries you’ll find that, you know, a different, groups weren’t turned out, they didn’t operate at every night that Bomber Command was operating: 100 Group did. 100 Group went out with everybody. Either we went with the main force to jam the radars in the target area or else we were sent out with, as a diversionary force or if main force wasn’t operating we were sent out to stir up the Germans anyway. So you look at my log book and there’d be, perhaps, in a week we’d fly four sorties, maybe, five sorties; Bomber Command didn’t operate at that pace. So we didn’t have all that much of a social life in the mess anyway and some of us were bookish, and Ron Johnson, who was one of the squadron navigators, he studied music I think in his spare time in the mess. I just used to go in there and drink and when I’d had enough, or probably too much, I’d stagger off to bed and sleep it off until the next day. And we used to sing silly songs, you know, good night ladies and of course the WAAF officers never did go off to bed, they used to stay and listen to us. They were all schoolboy songs, just snippets of which I remember [chuckle] and that was it. I know, oh dear, think er, I’ve forgotten the chap’s name, but the fellow who more or less runs things in the little village of Oulton le Street organises the teas for all us chaps when we come up for our memorial celebration in a week’s time and he’s asked me sort of what were my impressions. I didn’t have any impressions of Oulton, you know, they were just houses there and we drove past the houses as we went to our various offices, the, there was an intelligence room which had digests of the previous night’s operations and you know, you could leaf through those and I remember my sort of impression of them was that if the losses had risen to two figures, you know, we hadn’t done a very good job, you know, we ought to have done better than that and it had various publications of, you know, trying to instil a better spirit in us I suppose, but I don’t think, well, as I say I [emphasis] don’t think, I don’t think, I’ve no idea what other people thought because we never discussed the previous night’s operations, we never discussed what we were doing. The jamming was highly secret and it was more than your life was worth to try to chat up anybody about what all these weird instruments were that were in the back of the aeroplane, you know, they’re not your business laddie, but would you like to have a spell in Sheffield in the RAF’s penitentiary for asking too many questions, so you didn’t ask any questions and we just wiled the, they er, wiled the, our life away if you know. One day some of us went up to town and bought ourselves revolvers and small arms of that kind and I know I got a Webley which had a 22 sort of insert in it and we used to go down and shoot at the trees on the Blickling Estate. It just really, wasted my time.
NM: Going back to operations, when you wrote to me, an email you described -
AB: Pardon?
NM: When you wrote to me an email recently you described how you were, on approach back to Oulton, you were overtaken by a German fighter aircraft on its way to shoot down a B17 ahead of you. Tell me about that.
AB: Oh yes, that was Unternehmen Giselle, trust the Germans to make Giselle into an unfortunate name like Giselle. Anyway, the Germans in, I think it was, it’ll be in my log book, but early March ‘45 they sent in I think about two hundred night fighters with the, they infiltrated the main force on its way back home and they kept schtum until they were over the UK and the planes were circling their bases coming in to land and they intercepted a B17 which was, of 214 Squadron, which was coming in to land and shot it down, literally, just about as it touched down and they were all killed, all the crew were all killed. And according to Mervyn Eustace the plane had actually flown past us as we were orbiting overhead, you know, waiting our turn to land, and of course as soon as the balloon went up we got the order to disperse and the, Tony said: ‘course for Brawdy navigator.’ Brawdy being somewhere down in south west Wales, so I gave him 270 as being the nearest westerly heading that came into my head and off we went. All the lights out, all the gunners at their positions and everything on an active basis and we stooged off into the darkness of the Midlands and after about twenty minutes I got a fix, you know, a Gee fix, not a, that kind of fix, and found a wind from that and did the job properly you know, and laid off a course for this place Brawdy and we got there about, oh I don’t know, about an hour later, something like that and kipped down for the night, flew back the next day.
[Other]: I’m really sorry to interrupt. Daddy, do you know what mummy’s pass code is for her?
NM: So you took part in the last operation of the war, tell me about that.
AB: Yes, we, it was um, a feint to Schleswig. It was when they thought that the Germans were going to mount an attack from the forces that they’d got in Norway. There were two things, there were, one was that they were going to launch an attack from Norway and the other one was that they were going to launch their forces from down in the Alps, I think, using Bertchesgarten as the operational headquarters but both failed of course and the Germans surrendered.
NM: So how many of your operations were in daylight and how many were at night time?
AB: Sorry?
NM: How many of your operations were in daylight and how many were at night?
AB: Oh, I only did four daylight, those were the Big Bens right at the very beginning, you know, when they thought that the V2s were radio controlled, but they discovered that they weren’t so that was finished. They realised that there was no protection against the V2s, no warning, nothing, they just came out of the blue, and er, ooh, and blew a, excuse me, I’ve got a bit uncomfortable there-
NM: Are you all right? Do you want to move?
AB: So, as I say, the Big Bens were closed down and we were put on to the, the ordinary Window diversionary sorties, well the, the three operations. One was the escorting of the main force, jamming whatever the special operators could pick up as we flew along with [emphasis] the main force and when we got to the targets, orbiting it for, oh probably eight or ten minutes, something like that and jamming anything that they could hear, they could pick up. That was the one operation then the second one was the Window spoof forces, where a couple of dozen or so mixed force of Liberators, Fortresses and Halifaxes went out from the Heavy Squadrons in 100 Group and they mounted a, a spoof; they would break away from the main force and pretend to be an attacking force on another target. I used to think at the time that it was all a big guessing game but in fact it was very carefully thought out and timed to convince the Germans that it was a genuine attacking force, it wasn’t just a, a spoof. And then if Bomber Command was stood down for the night, usually because of the weather, 100 Group would be sent out, a couple of dozen planes would go out, everything else, a Mandrel screen would go up to, to screen the approaching forces from the, from Britain and that was carefully timed and little gaps would be opened in it to allow the Germans to get a glimpse of the opposing forces coming behind the screen and we would be sent out to threaten some town or city. It was helped by the fact that one of the other squadrons, I forget what its number was, but it was an Australian squadron, they always carried a few bombs and markers cause as they said, [Australian accent] they weren’t gonna come half way round the world just to drop bits of paper over Germany! So they carried bombs but we never did. The Fortresses and the Liberators were both completely, all their bombing equipment had been all stripped out and so that was left to the Halifaxes and that was it and then on May 2nd it all finished.
NM: So when it all finished, what was it like on the squadron?
AB: I don’t really remember. I think everybody was sort of, you know, quite happy, have another drink. We were allowed to go on Cooks’ tours round the Ruhr, you know, to see what sort of damage had been done by Bomber Command and crews were left to pick their own routes. And I did a couple, I did one with Tony in a Liberator, they’re in here somewhere. [Noises of opening box, looking through papers] You see here’s November, November the 4th, the 15th, the 25th and then the 25th, 26th, 29th, 30th – well main force didn’t operate at that sort of strength. See the 25th of November was a Window, we had to climb to twenty four thousand feet. That was another of the advantages of the, the Fortress and the Liberator, they had a higher ceiling than the Lancaster. Then the next night it was a Window, again, and then three nights later another Window, and the next night another Window: busy, busy. And one or two other months were a bit like that. February: 20th, 22nd, 24th, 28th as I say you compare, and March 7th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, if you compare that with the Bomber Command Diaries it would have been different groups would have been out and not all the squadrons in all the Groups would have been turned out, so that over a fairly [emphasis] short period I flew thirty eight sorties. Even April, 2nd, 7th , 10th. The 2nd was a Window, the 7th was a target, Malbis, which is an, sort of a outskirt of Leipzig, and the 10th again was a Window all way to Dessau to Leipzig. The Russians are coming – show ’em what the RAF can do. Well, there was an element of that. And that was, as I say the Meritorious Service and Good Airmanship in that a full operational tour. I was only once uncertain of my position and that was I think on the 1st of January 1945 when I’d been very late to bed the night before, celebrating the New Year, and found myself on the ops list on the 1st of January, rather hung over, and I made some gross navigational error, I don’t know what it was, I’ve not been able to discover what it was, but anyway it, we ran out of Window. We ran out of engines actually, we ended up on two and a half engines for a start, and then we ran out of Window and so Tony decided to cut it short and go home but we didn’t get penalised for it which was what counted.
NM: You made it back home on two and a half engines did you?
AB: Yes, yes.
NM: Running low on fuel.
AB: Yes, but then you say, at the, I never did get on to the Cooks Tours; here we come. May the 2nd, that was the last operational sortie; that was the Window to Schleswig aerodrome: uneventful, thirty two, and then on the 5th of May we did an air test and on the 7th of May with Tony, we did a cross country: we went to Gravesend, Dungeness, Cap Griz-Nez, Ypres, Brussels, Aachen, Koblenz, Cologne, Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Krefeld, oh and so on and back home and that was the one I remember. It was a nice clear day, sun shining and we flew all over the Ruhr and the whole thing was glistening with the broken glass and in the whole length and breadth of the Ruhr there was only one railway train to be seen operating, so you know, it was, it was flattened. Mind you it was a bit deceptive because of course what the bombs did, they blew out the windows, they blew off the roofs, but they didn’t in many cases, they didn’t destroy the heavy machinery so that a lot of production carried on. That was on the 7th and then on the 26th I was called in to, I was at RAF Swannington at that time – I’ll tell you about that in a few minutes - on the 26th of May I did a trip in a Fortress of 223 Squadron and that was a rather limited one. We did Cap Gris-Nez, Antwerp, the Ruhr, the Mohne Dam, Vimy Ridge and back to Oulton. I was rather keen on Vimy Ridge because when I was a boy, one of my father's friends in Wolverhampton was actually a Canadian who’d come over with the Canadian forces and had decided to stay in England after the First World War, and of course Vimy Ridge was a Canadian operation, they organised the whole thing themselves and it was a majority of Canadian forces who took part in it and they captured the Ridge and it put Canada on the map. After that Canada got its independence.
NM: When you flew over the Ruhr and places like the Mohne Dam what did, can you remember what you thought at the time looking down at all the damage?
AB: Pardon?
NM: Can you remember what your thoughts were when you flew over the Ruhr valley and saw the damaged cities?
AB: Not really. No, I, you know, I didn’t feel vengeful, or sort of there you are you bastards, you got what you asked for.
NM: Was it just professional detachment?
AB: I just noted the fact that the place was just a carpet of broken glass glistening in the sunshine. I don’t think, I mean, again, I can only speak for myself, I can’t speak for others cause I never asked them anything, but I don’t think, I don’t think many fellows had a vengeful feeling, you know, we got in to the war and we won it and that was it. You know, I don’t know if fellers whose fathers had been in the trenches in the First World War used to talk about it with their fathers or if they did, what they had to say about it. No idea, it was, you were just there and you did it.
NM: Tell me about your RAF -
AB: Pardon?
NM: Tell me about your RAF service after the war.
AB: Er, yes, well of course, I remember vaguely being posted up to Yorkshire, to, and according to my log book where you can record your units at which served as observer, 223 Squadron 7th of May ‘45 and then the 10th of May, 77 Squadron, Full Sutton, Yorkshire for a day: got 10th of May to 11th of the May and then the 11th of the May, of May I was posted to 102 Squadron at Pocklington until the 15th and I do have some record of that. RAF, 102 Squadron, 1st of June: local flying: circuits and bumps. And 7th of June: more circuits and bumps. And this went on until the 9th of June, was a busy day, flew four sorties, to, we flew to Snaith where we picked up a load of bombs, thirteen by eight by thirty pounds and we flew out to sea somewhere and dropped them in the sea, I ask you. We did three of those.
NM: That was in Halfaxes.
AB: And that was with, yes, in the Halifax, that was with Flying Officer Briscoe as the captain. Well Flying Officer Briscoe had been a pre war University Air Squadron pilot and had learned to fly, he’d actually got his wings as a cadet in the University Air Squadron and he was an ex, he worked in the Air Ministry as a Civil Aviation, came under the aegis of the Air Ministry pre war, and John Briscoe was a member of that organisation so the instruction came round that we were destined to be Tiger Force to go out to the Far East and teach the Japanese what was which, but obviously some time in June the decision was made that you had to be a volunteer to go out to the Far East and John Briscoe had decided he didn’t want to volunteer, so that was that. He disappeared. And then mixed up in the middle of that you see it says here, 102 Squadron: 11th of May to 15th of May, June disappears and then I was, on the 15th of May to the end of May I was sent down to RAF Swannington which was one of the 100 Group night fighter bases and was the home of 85 Squadron and 157 Squadron and I was sent down there to learn these Mosquito navigators how to do the job properly. I felt a right bloody lemon cause there was me, you know, nothing on my chest but a few hairs and half these blokes had got DFCs and DFMs, and DSOs and you name it and so as I say I felt a bit of a lemon and then I was, that was cancelled and I was sent back to, I suppose I was sent back to 102 Squadron. I remember one of the Mosquito fellers flew me up to Pocklington to rejoin 102 Squadron or whatever it was. And then Japan collapsed and I wanted to, I decided that I didn’t want to go back to college, that I’d stay in aviation, there was a future in aviation and I’d stay in aviation and become [cough] a civil navigator, little knowing of course at the time that the pilots were busy manoeuvring all the other crew members out of their seats; the pilots were going to take over the navigation, I don’t know what was going to happen to wireless operators, I think they were just going to disappear because it was all going to be voice transmission over the oceans and everywhere but anyway I decided that I’d stay in civil aviation and [cough] what I needed was experience of long distance flying, you know, to present to some prospective employer that I was the right sort of material that they wanted. So I tried to, [cough] I tried to get in to one of the squadrons that was doing these long range passenger work, I think I mentioned that the Lancasters and Halifaxes were re-employed to fly out to the Far East and come back with, you know, fifteen or couple of dozen squaddies who were due to be demobbed because the airmen and soldiers in India and the Far East were getting very restive because they knew that men were being demobbed in Europe and they weren’t and they didn’t like that and there were some near mutinies. But so anyway, I left Pocklington, presumably I left Pocklington, according to my log book it said 102 Squadron and actually the next entry, 102 Squadron, oh that’s right, Pocklington, 31st of May to the 11th June ‘45 and then I entered into an interesting period, during which I was crewed up with a, I forget what his name was, Purvis I think, who’d been, a man who had been flying Halifaxes and we were posted to Mashing, we were posted to Great Dunmow, Earls Colne, about a half a dozen aerodromes in 38 Group in Essex. We were posted to them and we’d get to them and they’d say: oh no you, you’re Halifax trained, we’re flying Stirlings in this squadron so, you know, go away on leave and so I stayed on leave until [laugh] until the 13th of November 1945 when we arrived at Shepherd’s Grove which is just east of Bury St Edmunds, 196 Squadron and it was flying Stirlings in 38 Group and they said, oh yes, you know, no problem old boy, you know, we’ll convert you on the squadron and this is in fact what they did because I stayed with them until March of 1946. And in March 1946 I was posted to the Empire Air Navigation School at Shawbury to become a specialist navigator which would hopefully improve my possibility of gaining a permanent commission in the air force. Well in fact, I didn’t get, I was turned down, I don’t know why. In those days you weren’t told if there was something unsatisfactory in your RAF career. There is now apparently, they have to tell you and you have the right to, I forget what the wording is, anyway, you can complain against the fact that you were turned down for a permanent commission or whatever but in those days you weren’t so I ended up at Shawbury and I spent probably two months at Shawbury, learning to be an advanced navigator, which in fact was a load of old rubbish because you know, we thought it was a laugh a minute you know, the RAF had got its fingers on all sorts of German navigation equipment and they thought it was a bit of a laugh but in fact of course, it wasn’t; the Germans, certainly in 1940 were well advanced on the RAF. The RAF’s pre war navigation was, well it wasn’t a joke, it was very much less [emphasis] than a joke, the RAF hadn’t got any idea how to bloody well navigate at night or at long distance and they would land near a railway station and ask them where they were all that sort of stuff. The Germans had this nichbein, bent knee, I think that’s what it meant, they had this nichbein equipment which enabled them to bomb Coventry with considerable accuracy in 1940. [pause] It erm, and they had various other bits of equipment; they had a thing called the kirskopler which was really just a method of following a defined track, what the RAF, when we were training in Canada, was look down on on its nose, called track crawling, where you, you followed the track that you’d been given to fly and when you’d found you were off track, you made a correction of course to get back on track, which I used to do, much to the disgust of our Navigation Leader of course, who used to call it guestimation. But we thought we were going to be the bees knees, but in fact of course I mean even at that time the airlines were busy phasing out the navigators, as I said, they were training pilots to be navigators and there were two or three rather advanced BOAC pilots who, who had cottoned on to this jet-stream business, you know, they had been transatlantic pilots and they had noticed that you got these very strong winds and they happened under certain meteorological conditions and I mean you know, proper navigation, it took off after that, but I didn’t know of course all that, it was happening. So I quite happily went to Shawbury and did the short N navigation course which didn’t get me a permanent commission or anything like that. So I left Shawbury and was posted to Tarrant Rushton down in Dorset which was within weeks of closing and I was posted in as deputy Station Navigation Officer, a high faluting title. My boss was V. J. Wright I think, who’d been a bank manager in Great Dunmow and he was the Station Navigation Officer and it was interesting, they’d taken part in Arnhem. Incidentally I forgot to mention that at 196 Squadron where we finished our tour round East Anglia and were given a home, every man on the squadron had been shot down over Arnhem, it was that bad, and one of them had got the MC and they reckoned he would have had the VC if he hadn’t shot his mouth off quite so much about his exploits once he’d been shot down; I forget what his name was. Anyway, and then when Tarrant Rushton closed down and I left there with a truck full of surplus instruments of various kinds: I had three or four sextants and that, because the worst thing you could do in the air force was to end up with a surplus on your inventory. When you came to close down an inventory you couldn’t show any surplus equipment because, well, where did it become surplus from? And then of course there was a long and tedious investigation as to why [emphasis] this particular piece of equipment was surplus to requirement? So in the, anyway, from there I was posted to Netheravon which was one of the first World War One RAF aerodromes and in the foyer of the officers mess they had a, oh I don’t know, one of these pre First World War rotary engines on a stand and the story was that when they were doing some [cough] excavating there they’d dug this engine up [laugh] and it was on display. The, the Chief Technical Officer, he was a bit more down to earth, he said, oh he said, you know what happened there, they found it was surplus to somebody's inventory and they buried the bloody thing. Well they might have done, but anyway, they had this thing on display there. It was an interesting unit. It was the Heavy Glider Servicing Unit of 38 Group and they had the Horsa gliders which was the, no, the, yes it was the Horsa glider, which was the man carrying glider in use in the British forces. They used to carry about, I think it carried about a couple of dozen soldiers, you know, volunteers, you, you and you, you – you’re all volunteers. They landed hours before D-Day on the west, on the eastern side of the British Sector and their job was to capture the bridge over the river Orne which bordered the western edge of the, of the zone, the landing zone, and they did this and it was abs, we, it’s worth a visit if you get the chance. These gliders, they landed these bloody gliders within feet, [emphasis] I mean feet [emphasis] of the targets that they were supposed to land the things on. Mind you, the chop rate was pretty terrible. I think about half the glider pilots were killed of course because they, it had made these heavy landings in the darkness and very often they came to rest on these steel girders which the Germans had buried in the ground as a deterrent to that sort of thing. But it was an incredible job, they, they, this glider force, who were, I think they were the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry, you know, they were just volunteered for the job and they did a, anyway they had these Horsa gliders at Netheravon and they used to do all sorts of experimental things, like snatching them. You know, you’d sit in the glider and the tow rope would be taken out in the front and a big loop put up on a pole and a Dakota would come roaring over the top trailing a hook and this hook would engage in this loop and literally pull the glider off the ground; it was quite exciting. I mean you, I did it both sitting in the glider and sitting in the Dakota and the glider took off with a bloody great jerk and the Dakota came sailing over and the airspeed indicator read something like about a hundred and, I don’t know, a hundred and thirty, a hundred and fifty knots and the hook would take and this bloody great drum in the, in the Dakota would start spinning round and the airspeed would go “eurgh” and fall down to about eighty knots, very exciting. But, er, I spent some months doing that and then where was I, at H, yeah, the Heavy Glider Servicing Unit, oh that’s right and then I was in June ‘47 I was posted to TICU, Transport Initial Conversion Unit at Bertram Newton which was very nice because that was a pre war station as well. I mean Netheravon was very nice cause it was pre First World War station and it was, that was very pleasant. I used to have a running battle with the adjutant there, Ross Beldin, because I used to go off every weekend, used to go back home every weekend and I was busy courting then and on Monday mornings I’d catch the local train cause Dorothea lived in the next town up towards London, so I’d catch this train and meet up with her at Hampton station and when we got to London I’d walk her across to her office in the city and say goodbye to her and then I’d get off to Waterloo station and catch the nine something to Salisbury, where I’d get out. I’d had breakfast on the nine o’clock train, very civilised, and I’d get off at Salisbury and the glider pilots, there were always a load of glider pilots on the train and they’d always got transport, you know, they’d got their own jeeps and that, so I’d get a lift up to Netheravon and I’d sneak in to Netheravon just about round lunchtime and the Adjutant, the Station Adjutant, Flight Lieutenant Beldin, he knew I was up to something, he knew I was absent on Monday mornings but he never managed to catch me and, until one day he saw me after lunch I think, and he ‘oh!’ he said, ‘the CO wants to know where you were this morning.’ So I gave him some cock and bull story, ‘oh well,’ he said, ‘he wants a report about it,’ he said, ‘so let me have it this afternoon.’ So I thought you sneaky bastard, he doesn’t know I’m missing in the mornings, so anyway I went back to my room and wrote this report and took it up and there was nobody in the adjutant ‘s office so I thought ha, I’ve got you you bastard, so I knocked on the CO’s door to give him this report and the bloody adjutant was in with the CO, he said: ‘oh yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll give it to the old man, thank you very much.’ And that was the last I ever heard of it, but he, later on, he got dismissed from the service for having hanky panky with a WAAF when, the days when it wasn’t allowed to do that sort of thing I think. It’s a bit, they’re a bit more open these days, but not in those days they weren’t. So anyway, I went up to TICU and that was quite pleasant, but it was just classroom work and I wasn’t getting any flying, and I thought well sod this so I deferred my leaving the air force by about two years I think, but I realised I was wasting my time, the air force wasn’t going to give me what I wanted so I packed that in and after about, I don’t know how many months at TICU, oh, about six months, 23rd of June to the 2nd of December 1947 I came out and I went to ooh, something aviation training limited and got myself a civil licence which again was full of esoteric rubbish, you know: how to construct a chart and all sorts of things that you, you never saw in a year’s, so anyway I got my licence. There weren’t any jobs going and I was very lucky, I got engaged and I got a job, I think it was advertised in the Telegraph or something like that, as a navigation instructor at one of the RAF’s Reserve Flying Schools. They’d reconstituted the Volunteer Reserve after the war and I got a job at Castle Brom with number, forget which number it was, it was either 5 or 18, 5, 5 RFS at Castle Bromwich, which is all blocks of flats now, and that was quite interesting, I learnt a lot there. I learned not to shoot lines, because I discovered that I was talking with, many of my reservists had forgotten far more about operational flying than I knew. One chap had been flying Vickers Wellingtons, which was a single engined RAF long range bomber pre war [laugh] an antiquated machine and he was flying with a squadron of them from, I think from Khartoum actually, and when Italy entered the war on Germany’s side, he said they had to go and bomb Eritrea and Italian East Africa and he said they used to get the wogs, they used to get the natives to light a bonfire at a deter, at a designated position sort of way out in the desert a hundred, hundred and fifty miles away from Khartoum and they’d fly to that and find a wind from it and then they’d use that to navigate round Italian East Africa. [Laugh] Very crude navigation, but that was the standard of RAF navigation, you know, I mean the first sorties that the RAF flew over Germany in 1939, 1940 were ridiculous. I mean the Germans were in fact well ahead of us. Well that’s it then.
NM: So, Castle Bromwich, what happened after Castle Bromwich?
AB: Pardon?
NM: You were at Castle Bromwich?
AB: Oh yes! I spent about eighteen months, two years at Castle Brom and the Chief Flying Instructor left and went down to Fairoaks, which is near near Woking, and he contacted me and he said he had a vacancy for a Chief Ground Instructor would you like to come down and have it? It was another, I don’t know fifty, hundred pounds a year pay better of, which mattered in those days. I mean you know, when I started my pay was about four hundred or four fifty a year and we lived quite happily on that too. So anyway, I accepted his offer and we bought a caravan and lived in that. Somebody towed it down to Fairoaks for us and we lived quite happily in that and I spent about another three and a half four years doing that, until - I’ll give you the date - until 19th of June ‘53, 19th of June ‘53 when the government of the day decided that the next war was going to be a push button war and there wouldn’t be time to call up Reservists let alone retrain them, so the Volunteer Reserve was shut down and we all had to look for other jobs and the best offer I got was as a flight navigator with Scottish Aviation flying Yorks all over the world and I did that for five years until they decided that they weren’t going to do that sort of flying any more, but I enjoyed it. Whether it trained me for married life I don’t know, probably not.
NM: So after Scottish Aviation?
AB: But er, pardon?
NM: After Scottish Aviation?
AB: Yes, I was flying Yorks. The York was the transport plane developed from the Lancaster in the, in the 1940s and of course it was basically the RAF’s only heavy transport aeroplane. Churchill used one for flying around about all over the world and it was extensively used. Wasn’t a bad plane. Climbed like a lead balloon, terrible rate of climb, you know, about five hundred feet a minute or something. So it took me a long, long time to get used to the modern aeroplanes’ rate of climb. You know, you get in the thing, you sit on the runway and the pilot calls out rotate and the next thing you’re about three thousand feet up in the air!
NM: So what did you do after Scottish Aviation?
AB: Pardon?
NM: What did you do after Scottish Aviation?
AB: I became an air traffic controller, which um -
NM: Where was that?
AB: Well actually I was flying from Stansted with Scottish and I became an air traffic controller and at that time one of the training stations was Stansted so fairly naturally they posted me to Stansted to do my initial training and from there I went to Gatwick. I didn’t get on very well with the Civil Aviation Authority. At the time it was, hmm, it was a government department then still, and I forget which government, I think, which department it was in then. Anyway, I did me training at Stansted and then I was posted down to Gatwick and did further training and you had to validate at the end of your second training station’s time and you passed the eagle eye of the deputy chief, act, in the, no I forget what, we went through department after we started out as the Ministry of Civil Aviation, then it became the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, then it became the Ministry of Transport and so it went on as governments changed they changed the nomenclature of the thing, anyway I didn’t get on very well and I was very nearly thrown out, but given another lease of life and sent to Blackbushe, which was, which is west London, sent to Blackbushe to have another go and I did that and that actually passed out from there and then I was posted back to Stansted but -
NM: You stayed at Stansted for the rest of your career?
AB: Pardon?
AB: Did you stay at Stansted for the rest of your career?
AB: Well, no, I didn’t actually, I was posted back, I went to Blackbushe and then from Blackbushe I was sent back to Stansted and I qualified at Stansted and I stayed there and then they brought in the requirement that you had to qualify on radar before they would grant you permanent status and so I was sent to London to qualify on the radar at, not actually at the airport itself, but at the Area Control Centre. Civil Aviation was becoming more and more organised. When I first joined it was very much do it yourself, where do you want to go to old boy, oh so and so and so and so, well put the ruler on the map, draw a line on it then go, but then the system of airways percolated over from the States and controlled airspace, where you couldn’t fly, or you could only fly, in certain areas, you know, by obeying strict control rules. Well anyway the first such centre in, was established in the UK in London and I was sent there to train up on the radar and oh, it was interesting and it became a matter of domesticity. I used to spend my afternoons off driving round the countryside looking at houses which were as far the other side of Heathrow as I was living at the time, so ,I one day somebody said, ‘oh,’ he said, ‘would you like to go back to Stansted?’ I said yes please. Somebody who’d been posted away from Stansted needed replacing so back I went to Stansted and I got the radar ticket at Heathrow and Stansted had everything except [emphasis] radar, they didn’t have any radar! But that didn’t matter, I’d got the rating so I didn’t have to worry about. I stayed at the Heath, at Stansted all the rest of my time and I enjoyed it. It, for a junior controller it was a rather satisfying job, you had the responsibility. I mean at somewhere like Gatwick or Heathrow, if an aeroplane came in and called up some kind of emergency you had to call the watch supervisor and if it was a bad enough emergency you had to call the, the Chief Air Traffic Controller of the whole kaboodle, but if it happened at Stansted - [pause]
NM: So if it happened at Stansted you -
AB: Pardon?
NM: If it happened at Stansted, an emergency, you had to take responsibility yourself did you?
AB: Oh yes, you were quite a junior, I remember we had, we were still a civil, a civil service department and the boss man was the Commandant and he used to go home at five o’clock and he didn’t want to know about the place, he expected the duty controller to look after things when they were gone. We had a KLM aeroplane come in to refuel on its way to New York and they poured the petrol in and it started leaking out and so it ended up that they had to defuel it to the point where it didn’t leak any more and then fly it off to Amsterdam where they could either change it for a serviceable aeroplane or fix the leak and so normally Stansted closed at eleven o’clock at night but the duty controller had the authority to extend the hours for three hours, you know, under various circumstances, so I extended this and it got to three hours and this crisis had developed and as I said to the point where they could defuel the plane and then fly it off to Amsterdam, so I said well, you’d better do that and it ended up that I shut the airfield and I was passing, as I was driving home, I was passing the fellows who were coming in to open up for the morning and the next day when I was on duty the commandant rang up, and he said, well he said, who authorised [cough] all this and I said well I did, and I explained the circumstances and that was it, you know. Nobody else was involved. So, and you know those sort of things happened, you know, you weren’t expected to call in higher authority, you were [emphasis] the higher authority on duty and you were expected to get on with it, make your decisions and justify it, but the blokes at Heathrow used to think we were a load of drongoes, you know. Well Heathrow, of course, like all these big airports, it’s an entirely different thing: it’s time is what matters at Heathrow and New York and all these other places, you know, you’ve got to, everything’s got to go on time, you’ve got to, you can’t afford to have fifteen seconds’ time wasted between aeroplanes, I mean that’s how you don’t get the movement rate. I mean Heathrow gets its movement rate by the fact that the planes are coming in like that, and they’re fifteen seconds apart and that’s it. It’s got to be fifteen seconds, not fourteen, not thirteen, fifteen and if you don’t make that they don’t want you.
NM: Andrew can I take you back to something you told me last time we met. You mentioned a man called George Sidebottom. Was he in Bomber Command?
AB: Oh yes, George. I was at school in Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Grammar School, George and I were in the same class in Wolverhampton Grammar School.
NM: And did you say he ended up in Bomber Command?
AB: That’s right, yes, a few years later. He ended up as my, brother in law’s skipper in Bomber Command and he was in, I think 100 Squadron in Grimsby, I’m not quite sure which group that was in, whether that was in 3 Group I think, but I’m not sure, Grimsby. And my brother in law was his flight engineer and they’d had to abort two operations due to mechanical trouble but the CO wasn’t very receptive to that and told George in no uncertain terms that if he did it again he might very well find himself down the mines, so they were pressing along, they’d got some mechanical trouble, I don’t know what it was, I’ve forgotten, and anyway they were on their way to Leipzig and I think about the about the 13th of February 1944, something like that, be in the book and well it’ll be in, I’ve forgotten, the chap who has the record of all the Bomber Command casualties. Anyway they were chugging along and they were attacked and they were shot up and they were badly enough shot up that George said look chaps, he said, you know, we’re not going to make Leipzig, let alone get back to base, so he said I give you the option of baling out now, so they all decided to bale out and they all got away with it and apparently when the news got back to Grimsby that they’d all baled out there was a bit of a oh yes, hmmm, you know, hmmm, he’s done it twice, got away with it the third time, but my sister in law told me that, or told us, that she was reading some book and it was a reminiscences of a German night fighter pilot and he quoted this, he quoted this plane, this sortie you know, serial number, everything and you know, it was proof that -
[Other]: Are you taking a plate and a fork please?
AB: Oh thank you my darling.
NM: Lovely. Thank you very much.
AB: And it was proof that George hadn’t just done a “come on chaps let’s finish the war”.
[Other] [Unclear] on the table darling.
NM: I’ll just grab that if I may, thank you very much, lovely, thank you.
[Other]: What’s wrong, take another piece.
AB: And it got back to the squadron that – thank you darling - that it was a genuine one that they’d all baled out and Vic and, Vic and one of the other crews, they were picked up about two days later, but two of the crew got all the way to the, I mean they baled out near, oh, well near Potsdam, quite close to Berlin, but two of the crew got as far as the Dutch frontier and they pinched a couple of bicycles and they’d cycled across this bridge into Holland and for some reason or other they were sort of unsure, they were uncertain of where they were or something and they turned round and went back and they were challenged and apprehended by one of the German Volksturm, one of the German Home Guard [laugh] and Vic ended up in Heidekrug which was as far north west as you could get in Germany, it was right up in the tip top tip of east Germany and of course when the Germans, or rather when the Russians started advancing seriously across Poland and then into East Russia, the, East Germany, the Germans evacuated and Vic ended up on the Long March. That was rugged. Couldn’t look a turnip in the face after that.
NM: But he survived and was repatriated, yes?
AB: Mmm?
NM: He survived and was repatriated?
AB: Hmm.
NM: So he was a prisoner of war until the end of the war.
AB: Yes, eventually, the, [eating] they ended up in central Germany somewhere, I don’t know where.
NM: So his name was Vic, and what was his surname?
AB: Mendelski, Victor Mendelski, I think it was 100 Squadron and it was about, round about, round about February 13th I think, something like that. And as I say, it’ll be in Bill Chorley’s books. You’ve got those have you?
NM: We’ve got access to them.
AB: You’ll find it in there, something through that.
NM: Okay, just to finish with then, you’ve been going to the 100 Group reunions for a few years now.
AB: As I said, when Scottish packed up we all had to find other jobs and a number of them got jobs with the Civil Aviation Flying Unit which was based at Stansted and which was responsible for, it was responsible for the flight checking of all the radio aids, the navigation beacons, all the instrument landing systems and so on throughout the country and some of them abroad and they also did the flight checking of applicants for pilots’ licences and then for instrument ratings because one of the things that devolved from the airways system and all the control zone system that I mentioned earlier on, was that pilots had to be able to fly on instruments, had to have an instrument rating, and Stansted did all the examining for that. Well I got to know a few of them who’d been at Reserve Flying Schools and after I retired these chaps said, oh he said why don’t you join the Aircrew Association, which was an association which was open to [cough] all aircrew, everybody, cooks, stewards, the lot of them if they’d been flying, one of the chaps his wife had been an air steward in the RAF, she was a member, anyway, but I did join but I didn’t take to it, it was a, perhaps I shouldn’t say this but it was full of air gunners for one thing! And they used to meet at a pub in Saffron Walden which was not really convenient for me and perhaps I’m not the club-able type, a great cry of I’ll say rises to that, but so I dropped out, but during my membership I saw a notice in their magazine of a memorial stone being dedicated at Oulton, you know where I’d flown from, so I thought oh well I’ll go and go up to that so I went up to Aylesham and stayed in a B & B there and I happened to meet a fellow Squadron Leader, Richard Forder, a retired engineer who was researching the fate of one of the three Liberators that was lost from 223 Squadron, it was, oh I forget, it was captained by, he was either Flying Officer or Flying, or Flight Lieutenant Ayres, nicknamed Lou Ayres naturally, who, one of whose gunners Richard Forder had met when he was a small boy, I forget where he was, he was somewhere in the West Country, Shropshire, somewhere like that, and he’d met this chap, this RAF sergeant who’d given him some toy trains as a souvenir and this chap had been one of the casualties of this, [cough] of this flight and Richard was researching it and I’d been on the same detail. We’d done a spoof, a Window feint to Cassel. We’d come out from, we’d split off from the main force which had gone on to somewhere in the east, Leipzig or somewhere like that and we’d formed a force which flew on up to Cassel which some of the Halifaxes had bombed and we turned back from Cassel and gone home and on the way back from Cassel, Lou Ayres was shot down and we passed over his, over the wreckage of his flight and I was able to provide Richard with all sorts of information, you know, flight times and all the rest of it and proved the accuracy of my navigation, [laugh] reasonably. So that’s how I got involved with the 100 Group Association, kept it up ever since.
NM: You’ve got the next one next week I gather.
AB: We’re meeting the next, what’s the date today?
NM: 10th. May the 10th.
AB: Next weekend. Come along some time.
NM: Really looking forward to it.
AB: We congregate at the memorial stone which is on the eastern end of the old Oulton airfield. It’s about half past three, four o’clock, four o’clock something like that and say a few words, and I usually get asked to, well there’s two things, there’s the one: When you go home tell them of us and say for our todays, we gave, for your tomorrows we gave our todays. I can relate to that. And the other one is, the better known one, is the, what is it, it’s the, oh I’ve forgotten, it’s the [pause] no I’ve forgotten. But I, to which I can’t relate because it’s the one that says about the fellows, for their tomorrows we gave our todays or something like that and I’m thinking I bet they bloody well wish they’d still got their tomorrows.
NM: I think that’s a very good point on which to finish. So thank you very much for your time Andrew. Shall we finish the interview there?
AB: It’s [crockery noise].
NM: Shall we finish it there?
AB: I think so yes.
NM: I think that’s a good place.
AB: Yes. I never, you know it was, I stayed in aviation, as I say, I met all sorts of chaps when I was in the Reserve and I learnt not to shoot a line and then after the Reserve I went flying with Scottish and there were a few occasions where I was rather more frightened than I had been at any other time in my aviation career and because I was a married man by then, I’d got responsibilities and I was rather more aware of the fallibility of aeroplanes and of course, in something like the York, you used to have to fly through it not over it and the prospect of having to fly through the Monsoon was not something which you exactly looked forward to, I mean the rain was so heavy that you could barely, oh haven’t got my civil log book with me, you could barely see the inboard engines, let alone the outboard engines, but I mean it was real flying and you had to do it yourself.
NM: Very good.
AB: Mind you, there’s still real flying going on as that Russian aeroplane the other day. Not very funny.
NM: No indeed.
AB: Has there been anything more in the press about it?
NM: I haven’t seen anything since the accident itself, sorry. Andrew, can I just finish by saying thank you on behalf of the IBCC for giving us your story. Much appreciated. You’ve given us a lot of time.
AB: What’s the next step now? You get it -
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Andrew Barron. Three
Creator
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Nigel Moore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-05-10
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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ABarronAJK190510, PBarronAJK1901
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
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01:56:35 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Andrew said that during leisure time the crew drank, sang silly songs but didn’t really socialise much. He recalled an occasion when the Germans sent in about 200 night fighters infiltrating the main force on its ways home. They shot down a B-17 as it came into land and all crew were killed. The German aircraft had passed Andrew’s one as it was waiting to land. He mentions four daylight operations: over a fairly short period the squadron did 38 operations. Andrew remembered on 1 January 1945 he was on operations and made some gross navigational error – he had been up late on New Years’ Eve and had drunk quite a bit. May 1945 ended operational flights: on the 26th Andrew did a trip with 223 Squadron from RAF Swannington, in a B-17. When the war ended, they were allowed to go on one of the Cooks tours around the Ruhr to see what damage had been done. Andrew was then posted to 102 Squadron at RAF Pocklington doing local flying with circuits and bumps. They did three flights in a Halifax disposing bombs into the sea. Following various postings, he was demobbed and trained for a civil license.
Contributor
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Sue Smith
Anne-Marie Watson
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Norfolk
England--Yorkshire
Germany
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
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1945-01-01
1945-05
Conforms To
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Pending revision of OH transcription
100 Group
102 Squadron
157 Squadron
196 Squadron
223 Squadron
85 Squadron
B-17
B-24
bombing
C-47
Cook’s tour
demobilisation
Halifax
military living conditions
RAF Pocklington
RAF Swannington
shot down
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1762/30389/PSmithJJ2001.2.jpg
5af2792c8819245dd9c0ec38c9afc30c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1762/30389/ASmithJJ201227.2.mp3
0a602ddff875a9df408937afc9059a58
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Smith, John James
Jim Smith
J J Smith
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Jim Smith (b. 1929, 2481850 Royal Air Force).
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-12-27
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. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Smith, JJ
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: So, my name is Nigel Moore. I’m recording this interview on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln. It’s Sunday the 27th of December and I’m in my house in Bushey, Hertfordshire. I’m going to be interviewing John James Smith, known as Jim who happens also to be my father in law. Jim was born in February 1929 in the village of Gretton where he still lives. Gretton is in the northern part of Northamptonshire and very close to the border with Rutland and Leicestershire. It is also located at the top of the southern escarpment overlooking the valley of the River Welland. So, Jim, tell me about the first ten years of your life before the war. What was life like in the village?
JS: Very quiet. You know it was a small village. Only about six hundred people and we just carried on a farming life really. Though with Corby so close Corby was a steel town making tubes. In fact, it made the tubes for the Pluto and most of the men either worked on the farm or at Corby in the steelworks.
NM: So, what about schooling in your family?
JS: Well, we all went to Gretton Primary School and at thirteen, I got a scholarship to go to the Corby Technical College which is about five miles away. Used to have to cycle that every day. Night, night, night and morning.
NM: So, what, what, what changed in village life when war broke out? Because you, you were ten when war broke out
JS: Yes, well —
NM: What changed?
JS: Well, suddenly about forty children came on the train from London and they all went, issued out to various people. And the people opposite us, an elderly woman she had two boys and she said, ‘Oh, no. I want two girls.’ But she had to have two boys. Two boys. And these children hadn’t seen any green fields at all. They came from inner London and hadn’t seen the countryside at all and the first night, first day the two, two boys went down to the river and on the way they came to across a field of sheep and it started to rain. So they tried to get the sheep to go in the hovel but the sheep wouldn’t cooperate with them so they took their coats off and put them over two sheep, two of the sheep and got wet through themselves. They came back up and the woman said, ‘Where are your clothes?’ They said, ‘Oh, we couldn’t get the sheep to go in the sheds so we put our coats on the sheep.’
NM: So, did, did you village children mix at all with the evacuees?
JS: Yes. We did. Yes. They brought two, two teachers with them but one of them quickly disappeared and the other one he was a bit odd. He used to cycle around the village with his tin helmet on and his trilby on top of that and he was an odd sort of a character he was. So we suddenly had these thirty or forty children came into the school and of course we, our education suffered. And the men in the village came up to the school and dug trenches in the garden so we would have somewhere to go when, when the air raids started but of course we never, never went in the trenches at all and we all, the school issued, was the issuing centre for the gas masks. So we all had our gas masks from there and most of the people in Gretton had their gas masks from there as well. And the children, the very small children had a container with the, they put the children in and that was their gas masks.
NM: So did you all have air raid drills at school?
JS: Not really. No. We, they built blast walls around the cloakrooms and we went and sat in there but they were the only air raid precautions we took.
NM: Did you get the Anderson shelters to dig in your gardens?
JS: No. But there was a few in the village and they, they built above ground shelters but nobody ever used them. We used, we used to sit under the table downstairs during the alarms, when the alarm went off. And we had two radio, aircraft air raid sirens. One was at Uppingham which was always going off that was. We didn’t take any notice of that one. And then the one at Corby and we always took notice when that went off. But there were some ack ack guns at Corby. But they only fired about once or twice. Corby itself was a steel town and had Bessemer converters which were open to the skies and it’s a wonder really that they didn’t come and bomb them. But we had smoke cannisters all around Corby and they were lit and the smoke came out when the air raid sirens went.
NM: So, were there air raid wardens in the village?
JS: Yes.
NM: Firewatchers.
JS: Yes. Fire watchers. My father was an auxiliary policeman and there used to be about four or five of those used to walk around the village every night telling people to put the fire, put the light out if their blackout curtains weren’t good.
NM: Can you remember the night that Coventry was bombed in November 1940?
JS: Yes. We, we could see this glow in the sky and we wondered what it was. The planes were droning over us and in fact one was shot down but you could see the clouds of, well the sky was lit up with the explosions over Coventry and this plane was shot down by a Defiant and it was shot down over the village. We were outside and we saw all these tracers going over and in to the German plane and that landed, well crashed about five miles away at another village. All the people were killed in it.
NM: So, at this point you weren’t under the table in the kitchen then.
JS: No.
NM: You were out watching.
JS: That’s it [laughs] it was mid-evening that was. So it wasn’t, we hadn’t got up and gone under the table. We were standing outside and you could hear the drone, the planes droning over all night long. But that was the only action we saw.
NM: Were you aware that night that it was Coventry?
JS: No. No. We didn’t know what it was. We could see this glow in the sky and we didn’t, somebody said, ‘Somebody’s getting it.’ And we didn’t know who it was. But I had an uncle. He lived in Coventry and he said they went out and stood on a hill overlooking the town, city and they saw this parachute coming down and three or four of them said, ‘We’ll go and get him.’ And they went running towards it and suddenly found themselves on their back. It was a land mine. But no, it was very disappointing the next morning. Very depressed to see the city in ruins.
NM: So, you saw German aircraft that night.
JS: Yeah.
NM: What about other occasions during the war? Did you see any German aircraft at all during the war?
JS: Well, we didn’t, no. There was a lone raider, raider came over during the day and that machine gunned some farmers in the, in the valley but it was shot down near Peterborough. And one night we were all laid in bed and we could hear this plane going over and mother was saying, ‘That’s one of theirs.’ And father said, ‘No, it’s not. It’s one of ours.’ All of a sudden the bedroom lit up and he dropped about forty incendiaries in the valley below us and luckily all in the fields. If that had dropped on Gretton which had a lot of thatched cottages it would have been really serious. But the next morning I rode down to the valley to the site and collected a lot of bits of incendiary bombs. I’ve still got one somewhere in the house.
NM: So, were you the only child there or did you all, all the boys —
JS: No.
NM: From the village go down and all the girls as well?
JS: There were a lot of boys went down but you know it was scattered over two or three fields and we collected all the bombs, bomb bits we could find. All the fins at the bottom of the bombs. Some of the, one or two of them fell in the river itself but they didn’t go off. Or didn’t do any damage.
NM: So, did the Corby steelworks themselves get any damage at all during the war?
JS: No. That was very lucky really. No. Only once. Had got a new post office in Corby which hadn’t been opened and the bomb, one bomber came over dropped a series of bombs and one of them dropped outside the Post Office and opened the Post Office up for them. But the steelworks itself didn’t have a bomb dropped on it at all which was unusual because, you know these Bessemer converters going straight to the sky.
NM: Was there an occasion when one crashed in to the steelworks?
JS: That was an American.
NM: Oh, ok.
JS: A Lightning which, at that time I’d gone to the Corby College and we were at lunchtime and we heard this bang and looked up and the Lightning was coming down. Falling out of the sky. The pilot had parachuted out and it fell on, fell on the steelworks but fell in place with nothing there. Didn’t do any damage. And the pilot, he landed at Great Oakley which was about three or four miles away.
NM: So you’ve no idea why. Why he crashed.
JS: No. No. The plane exploded. Came from [pause] what is it? I can’t think. I can’t. About, an airfield about five miles away. We were surrounded by airfields. American and British.
NM: Yeah. So, in fact, the nearby airfields to Gretton were Cottesmore, Wittering.
JS: Yeah.
NM: North Luffenham and Spanhoe.
JS: Yeah.
NM: Can you give some description of the aircraft traffic you saw during the war? Those airfields.
JS: In the early days of the war they, at North Luffenham and Cottesmore they’d got Lancasters. No. Hampdens and Whitworths and they came over. Took a long time to get over from one side of the, one side of the sky to the other. Just limped over but we didn’t really see many. We saw more of the Yanks when they came to Spanhoe and they had gliders there and they used to take them up. When they got over Gretton they used to let them go and the gliders used to glide down to Spanhoe Airfield. And during, during the D-Day landings and also during Arnhem the roads were all closed round, around Spanhoe and we saw the gliders going off and saw masses of Flying Fortresses from various airfields, you know. Quite a few airfields and Flying Fortresses. One Sunday morning I was at work and suddenly there was a big explosion and one of the Flying Fortresses had failed to take off. All the crew got out, got out and the plane exploded and that evening I cycled over to Deenethorpe which was the airfield and got a belt of .5 ammunition. The police were there but they didn’t say anything to us. I flew away with, I come away with about a dozen .5 ammunition which my father took the bullets out, tipped the gunpowder out and lit that and that just flared and then he put the cartridges in a fire and they went all they detonated. Blew up then. So that was only the only real excitement we had.
NM: So, can I take you back to Spring of 1943 when the Lancasters with 617 Squadron were practicing —
JS: Oh yes.
NM: Over the Eye Brook.
JS: Yeah.
NM: Although, of course you didn’t know who they were at the time.
JS: We didn’t, we didn’t know what it was even. We didn’t know there was a reservoir there but you know in those days we didn’t know what was happening in the next village let alone five or six miles away. We could see these Lancasters coming low over about five miles away and as they come over they fired Very lights at them and we certainly knew afterwards that they’d been practicing at the Eye Brook Reservoir for the Dambusters. That was one of the two reservoirs they trained at.
NM: So, how often did you see them? Was it frequent or was it —
JS: Well, we saw them for about a week. Every night for a week or so and then suddenly they stopped and we realised afterwards what they were all about.
NM: So, they’d come over at night would they?
JS: Well, it was, it was dusk sort of thing. We could see them. That was the other side of the valley from us. So we could see them coming over and these Very lights being fired as they went over.
NM: So, moving back to 1944 again and D-Day and Arnhem. Did you see the gliders go off as it were?
JS: Yes.
NM: [unclear]
JS: We saw a lot of gliders going off. We didn’t know anything about it off course until afterwards. All the roads were closed and you weren’t allowed anywhere near Spanhoe. And the gliders went off and of course they didn’t come back, a lot of them. There’s a memorial at Spanhoe showing all the people who died on the various raids. On various operations that took part.
NM: It must have been an impressive sight. Was it?
JS: Yes. It was. Yes. Most impressive was the Flying Fortresses. Masses of them going over. I don’t, as I say there were four or five aerodromes around us and there were masses of these Flying Fortresses flying over. We didn’t, didn’t know at the time what it was all about but you soon found out of course.
NM: Now, during the war of course you went from being a ten year old schoolboy to sixteen by the end of the war. So, tell me —
JS: Yeah.
NM: Tell me about your development during, during those six years.
JS: Well, at thirteen I left Gretton and went to Corby Engineering College and I used to have to cycle there morning and evening. We didn’t see a lot. We saw all these smoke cannisters but never saw them lit. But one night, one evening when I came home from school the ground was covered in these plastic, white plastic pictures of foil. We didn’t know what that was about but of course it was practising the radar and they were all over the place they were. Had bits of foil all over the hedges everywhere.
NM: So, this was Window was it?
JS: Yeah. Windows. Yeah.
NM: So, at Technical College you were training for what? What was your —
JS: Engineering training.
NM: Engineering training.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, most of the people there went in to the steelworks or part of the steelworks.
NM: So, by the end of the war you were still going to that Technical College.
JS: Yes.
NM: What, what can you remember about VE Day itself? What happened in the village? How did you feel about it all?
JS: Well, everybody was very pleased of course and they had a big bonfire in one of the fields and a greasy pole. I’ll always remember that because most of the men would try and climb up this greasy pole and not succeeding. And in the end they pushed this chap up with two poles under his feet. And when he got to the top and got the flag he got a small pig and piglet and that’s the only real thing I can remember really about the VE Day.
NM: So after the end of the war I know you did National Service. What happened between you, the end of the war and you doing your National Service?
JS: Well, there was one other thing with regard to the Americans they decided, well with their, with our Army cadets they said they’d take us all up. And they took two Dakotas. We sat in the Dakotas. No seats of course. We sat on the floor and they took us up on one Sunday afternoon for about half an hour and flew around and then we had our tea up there. Had cakes which I hadn’t seen before and it was very very very good of them. And then when the rationing was on you had to cycle to Corby every Saturday and get cakes which weren’t available in the village.
NM: Was there any other impact of rationing on, on the village life?
JS: Well —
NM: Were allotments and home grown —
JS: Yes.
NM: And all that?
JS: There were a lot of allotments there taken over. My father had what? A ten pole. Twenty pole. Which was quite a big bit to dig and grow mainly potatoes. And then we had a Pig Club in the village and well a lot of people kept a pig in the back garden and every Sunday they used to go around looking at everybody’s pig and having a drink in everybody’s cottage and they finished up finally the worse for wear. My grandfather, he kept a pig and as I said we had some people from, lived in Coventry and when they used to come down my father, my grandfather used to hang their hams up in the, in the living room and when they, when they came down from Coventry they always wanted to take one of the hams back. So, in the end when he knew they were coming he used to take his hams down and hide them in the other room.
NM: So, when did you graduate from Technical College?
JS: Well, when I was fifteen, fifteen and a half, sixteen and started work straight away and spent five years as an apprentice. And at the end of the five years, on my twenty first birthday when I got on top rate of, for the money I had my calling up papers. I always remember when I started as an apprentice. I got twenty nine and nine pence a week for forty seven hours and when I’d just got on top rate, on the same day I got my call up papers to go on National Service and spent two years, well eighteen months but due, due to the crisis, Suez I think it was it put up two years. But I, I was lucky. I got posted to an aerodrome near Rugby which was only about forty miles away and I used to come home every weekend.
NM: So, you did your National Service with the RAF.
JS: Yeah.
NM: From 1950 then when you were twenty one.
JS: Yeah.
NM: So how come you ended up in the RAF as opposed to the Army?
JS: Well, we had, we went to Northampton to have our medicals and while we were there they had an Army and a Navy and an RAF chappy there and they asked you where you wanted to go in. I said the RAF. They said, ‘Why?’ I said ‘I don’t like marching.’ That was good enough. I got in the RAF. But a lot of, a lot of them went in the Army which they didn’t like at all. And one or two got in the Navy. But most of us went in the RAF and I went to Padgate to do National Service training and after six weeks had an interview and they sent me to a training college. At Weeton I think it was. Near Blackpool. And we had an eighteen month course in six weeks there and after we came out of there they posted me to Church Lawford near Rugby and I spent the rest of the time there.
NM: And what was your role at Church Lawford?
JS: Well, I was on the maintenance side of the earth moving equipment and I used to have to go out to various sub-contractors to sign off the work they had done and I always used to arrange for it to be on a Friday so that I could go straight off to, on leave for the weekend.
NM: So you could go back home for the weekend.
JS: Yeah. I was, by that time I’d been made up to a corporal and there was a, you had a security patrol every six, seven weeks and you had to spend all the weekend on the camp. So I used to arrange it so that on the Friday I used to be away from there to another civilian place. One of them was at St Albans and we stayed at the RAF camp there at, at somewhere. On the De Havilland site I think it was. And I used to arrange so that I went on Friday. So, they used to, when they used to ring up seeing where I was they’d say, ‘Oh, he’s on detachment.’ And by that time you’d be on detachment for seven or eight weeks before I’d be sent somewhere else and they realised I was still on the camp and so I didn’t do it. I only did security patrol once.
NM: So you spent the whole two years at RAF Church Lawford did you?
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
NM: Were, were any other trips involved? Did you get any flying at all?
JS: No. No. I didn’t see any aircraft at all while I was in there. Oh, I went, I went, they sent me up to Acklington to repair a tractor. RAF Acklington and they said, ‘We’ll take you to an airfield in in Birmingham and a plane will come and pick you up.’ So, they dropped me at this airfield. All the hangars had, all the control places windows had been smashed. I stood there wondering why, what was going to happen and all of a sudden this Avro Anson dropped out of the sky, picked me up and took me up to RAF Acklington. And after repairing the tractor I come back on a lorry all the way from there to, to Rugby. Stayed overnight at, in Doncaster. At the airfield there.
NM: So at the end of your National Service you went back to the, back to the steelworks?
JS: Yes. Yes.
NM: At age twenty three. Yeah?
JS: Yeah. I went back and they put me straight in the drawing office so I didn’t actually go to do any work in the workshop itself. I just stayed in the workshop, in the drawing office for six or seven years. Then started doing various, started building various things outside and I used to go and look after those.
NM: Such as? What were you —
JS: Well, the —
NM: Mostly involved in?
JS: Well, the most, the biggest one was the ropeway aerial ropeway which was six miles long from Rothwell to Corby. And I was a clerk of works on that so I oversee the work on that to get that working.
NM: So, this was to try and get, is this is to get the ironstone from the quarry —
JS: Yeah.
NM: To the steelworks.
JS: Yeah.
NM: This six mile ropeway.
JS: They were going to build another big dragline but that, and this ropeway was going to provide the iron ore for it but they cancelled it. The big dragline. So really it was surplus to requirements the ropeway. But it stuck around for four or five years and then they cut it all up.
NM: So, you were involved in all the, how many quarries were there around Gretton and Corby that you were working with?
JS: Oh I don’t know. About eight or nine I should think. Yeah. With large draglines in four of them and various smaller ones in the others.
NM: And how long did you take, take on that role for?
JS: Until, well until I was made, after about six, seven years I was made engineer in charge of maintenance of all the various areas and I stayed there until I was made redundant in nineteen [pause] I don’t know what it was now. No. I can’t remember.
NM: Was that when the steelworks closed?
JS: Yeah.
NM: Right.
JS: That was ’59, I think.
NM: And what did you do? What happened after that?
JS: Well, I got a job. Well, I knew one of the chaps in the steel, in the tube works. Used to go on the same manager’s mess tables as him and he said, ‘What are you going to do when you’re made redundant?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go on quality assurance. Come back to haunt you.’ Because he was in charge of quality assurance for the two works and he rang me up and said, ‘Were you serious?’ I said, ‘Oh yes.’ He said, ‘Well, Lloyds Register of Shipping want somebody and would you be interested?’ So I said, ‘Yes. Yes, I would. Yeah.’ So, he said, ‘Go to Birmingham and see the chief, chief surveyor there and he’ll take you out to lunch.’ And I went to the Birmingham office and he said, ‘Oh, I’m too busy to see you today,’ he said, ‘Can you start next week?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And that was my interview for Lloyd’s Register of Shipping. Somebody else had joined from another area at the same time as me. He said, ‘How did you get on at the interview?’ I said, ‘I didn’t have one.’ He said, ‘Oh, I had terrible one,’ he said. ‘They grilled me for about an hour,’ he said [laughs] So mine was just, ‘Can you start next week?’
NM: So, your last part of your career then was with Lloyds inspector.
JS: Yeah. Yeah. Lloyds. Yeah. And then I had a stroke when I was fifty nine and so I didn’t work after that. That’s been thirty odd years ago now.
NM: So that just about covers everything.
JS: Yeah.
NM: I had on my list.
JS: Yeah. And me.
NM: Have you got anything else to —
JS: I don’t think so. No.
NM: Add to that.
JS: No.
NM: When you look back during the war what was your overall impressions of growing up between those formative years of ten to sixteen and then with such major events going on around you. What was your —
JS: We didn’t really know much about it. As I say we lived in a village and we didn’t really know what was happening in the next village let alone what was, what was happening in the world. I remember on D-Day I was doing a trig lesson and I put in the top of the page, “D-Day.” And that’s really all I knew about it. So it didn’t really affect me much at all.
NM: Ok.
JS: Yeah.
NM: Very good. Thank you very much.
JS: Thank you.
NM: We’ll finish the interview there. Thank you very much.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John James Smith
Creator
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Nigel Moore
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
2020-12-27
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:34:46 Audio Recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ASmithJJ201227, PSmithJJ2001
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
John Smith grew up near Corby surrounded by aerodromes so he was used to the sight of aircraft. He observed Lancaster aircraft practicing for the Dambusters raid over Eye Brook Reservoir. He also witnessed glider practice and was impressed by the sight of the Flying Fortresses flying overhead. He also witnessed the German aircraft flying overhead to bomb Coventry and witnessed a German aircraft shot down. After the war he spent his National Service in the RAF at Church Lawford.
Temporal Coverage
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1940-11
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Northamptonshire
England--Corby
England--Coventry
England--Warwickshire
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
617 Squadron
animal
B-17
bombing
childhood in wartime
Defiant
Eder Möhne and Sorpe operation (16–17 May 1943)
evacuation
home front
incendiary device
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
P-38
RAF Church Lawford
RAF Spanhoe
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2256/40605/PFeltonM2201.1.jpg
897c45b883850d8a0b5e5c3ae1fba82a
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2256/40605/AFeltonM221114.2.mp3
0914d71570380c64e084251661234a6e
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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Felton, Monty
M Felton
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Flight Lieutenant Monty Felton DFC. He flew operations as a navigator with 10 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-11-14
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Felton, M
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
NM: So, today is the 14th of November. I’m with Monty Felton, DFC in his home in North London. My name is Nigel Moore and I’m going to ask Monty about his service with Bomber Command. So, Monty can you start at the beginning and can you start to tell me when and where you were born and about your childhood and growing up?
MF: I was born on the 6th of November 1923. In fact, it was my ninety ninth birthday on Sunday before last. When I was, I was born in Middlesex Hospital. Not Central Middlesex but Middlesex Hospital which was off Oxford Street in London and as I understand it Winston Churchill was born in the same place. Not that that makes me any more famous but there we are. When I was a young baby we moved to Thornton Heath which is a suburb of Croydon and we lived over the tailor’s shop which my dad had opened. We lived in very modest accommodation. It was an old property. We didn’t have a bathroom and to go to the lavatory one had to go around the back. So as you can see my background was not exactly very exotic. Nevertheless, we coped. I can’t ever remember being short of a meal and I was well looked after. We lived there, I went to school just up the road and then I got a scholarship to Selhurst Grammar School which was in West Croydon. Not too far. When I was at school at Selhurst Grammar this was a fee paying school but they took in scholarship boys and I was one of them. If we go through now to the beginning of the war Selhurst Grammar were evacuated to I suppose what was thought to be a safer area but in fact it was Brighton and Hove which I would have thought was even more vulnerable. We went there in the very first day or two of the war and I went to I think it was Brighton and Hove Grammar School. We shared. They went in the morning, we went in the afternoon or vice versa and I took my what was then matriculation exams which is really the equivalent of today’s GCSE. And having taken the exams I got home and I suppose I must have got home around about March April 1940. I then got a job with a firm of chartered accountants in Doctor’s Commons which was a small turning near the Bank of England and was occupied very largely by firms of solicitors and accountants. Doctor’s Commons doesn’t exist anymore but it does get mentioned two or three times by Dickens in “David Copperfield” and in “Pickwick Papers”. I’m a very keen reader of classics. Particularly Charles Dickens. Where are we now? I got this job at accountants and after being there for a very short time I became articled. That means that you had to serve five years articles because there was no other way that you yourself could sit the exams and become a chartered accountant. The procedure in those days was the firm to whom you were articled charged a premium which was normally about two hundred and fifty guineas. Lord knows what’s the equivalent of that today but it’s a large sum of money. My dad didn’t have two hundred and fifty guineas and as I’ve said before I doubt if he had two hundred and fifty buttons. But the arrangement was made that I would pay off this money over the very small salary that I would earn over the five year period. In fact, it didn’t really happen because after about eighteen months I then joined the RAF and my articles ran on and indeed expired before I left the RAF. So we got a bit of a [laughs] a bit of a bargain in that respect. It’s strange because if somebody starts to work for a firm of chartered accountants today they get a decent salary and they receive tuition. When I joined this firm I remember the man I was articled to was named Horace Brett and he never spent one moment teaching me anything. In the firm there was a chap working there who was two or three years older than me and he was flying about in the room and he was going to become an RAF ace and was very sure of himself. He went off to have an interview. I think in those days the interviews were in I think it was Bush House in Aldwych. He had this interview full of confidence and they turned him down. So either he suggested or I got the bright idea that I’d go for an interview entirely confident that if they’d turned him down they certainly wouldn’t accept me but for some peculiar reason they did. So I continued working for a while and then I was sent off for my medical. I think I went to Catterick and it was a very detailed medical and I again I thought well I’ve never been anywhere, I’ve lived a very protected life and I thought they won’t accept me. I’m not the right material. I’m not a big strong fella. But they did accept me. So after the medical I was then called up and I went for the first two weeks of my RAF career if I can call it such. I went to Lord’s Cricket Ground to be kitted up and then I stayed in a block of flats in Prince Albert Road called Viceroy Court which was a rather swish block of flats but not when we of the RAF went there because they stripped out everything of any value including the carpets. The whole lot. And we slept in not double bunks but three in a bunk. We stayed there for a couple of weeks. We had some corporal chap busying us about but we did learn cleanliness. Not personal cleanliness but cleanliness of keeping the room. If he found a speck of dust we were in trouble. We had our night vision test in the next door block of flats called Bentinck Court, I imagine they both blocks are still there and I think there were sixteen images flashed on to a screen. We sat in a dark room and you had to identify them. They were things like a Maltese Cross, a silhouette of an aeroplane, that sort of thing. I think the pass mark was twelve. I scored eight and I think they, they decided I’d have to sit the exam again which I did and the second time I scored seven but it made not the slightest difference. Everything proceeded as if I was an ex, absolute expert. From the flats in Prince Albert Road let me think. I was then sent to ITW, Initial Training Wing in Torquay and we stayed in the Grand Hotel which was near the station but again it was a posh hotel but was stripped out of anything that mattered. And I think we were in ITW for about three or four months. I can’t remember. And the purpose of ITW was number one to teach us the principles of navigation and secondly to get us really fit. All the time I’m believing that I will never get anywhere near an aeroplane. I won’t go into the detail of navigation because people will already know but in essence if you’re flying an aeroplane the wind direction and the speed of the wind carries the aeroplane in the same way as a tide carries a boat and therefore the navigator has to work out what the pilot should be flying. What track he should be flying so that taking in to account the wind he got correctly from A to B. So we used to sit at ITW in what was really a school room and learn on pencil and paper the calculations and the principles of navigation. We also were made fit. We marched at a very much quicker pace than normal. We went for runs and after a run we ended up in the sea and we were really put through it. So that by the time we completed ITW we were in really good shape and as I’ve mentioned so often from that moment onwards we didn’t have any need to have physical exercise and by the time we got to a bomber squadron our condition was probably infinitely worse than before we ever started. I suppose this is typical of the RAF. When I finished at ITW I was then posted to a airfield at Bishops Court, Northern Ireland which was, I don’t know, eight or ten miles or so from Belfast. It was strange because most chaps, pilots and navigators were sent for training either to Canada or to what was then southern Rhodesia. For some reason or another they sent me and I’m not sure, it might have been one other chap they sent me to Northern Ireland. The result of which of course I finished my training appreciably quicker than those who had gone abroad. At Bishops Court we flew Ansons. Comparatively small two engined aircraft. I’d never flown in an aeroplane before. On my first flight I sat in my navigator’s position and was promptly sick which wasn’t exactly very distinguishing. We flew about a hundred hours or so, part day and part night in Northern Ireland. And I don’t know if it’s really of any interest but on our day off we used to go into Belfast and we used to feed ourselves at a store there which was called I think Robinson Cleaver but I’m not certain. What I do know is we used to go there for lunch and have turkey with all the trimmings and then we went back at the end of the day for supper and had chicken and chips. Northern Ireland went all well at Bishops Court and at the end of the course I passed and became a navigator and instead of being an AC2, Aircraftsman Second Class which was known as the lowest form of animal life I then became a sergeant. Every, not just me, everybody who passed became a sergeant. Interestingly enough when I’d finished they marked my logbook, ‘A well above navigator.’ And in retrospect because navigators were much fewer than pilots everybody who entered the RAF wanted to be a pilot. Many navigators were blokes that didn’t pass as pilots but that didn’t happen to me. So I was a well above average navigator which in retrospect I rather suspect that many others were also well above average navigators. But I was then sergeant. Can I break for a moment?
NM: Of course you may.
MF: I’ll get myself a drink of water.
NM: Of course. No problem at all. You’re doing really well.
[recording paused]
MF: Right. Right. I left Bishops Court and I was posted to an airfield in, at Kinloss in Scotland and there we continued our training on Whitleys which were again old two engine aircraft. They were known as flying coffins because that was the something resembling the shape of the fuselage. We flew again day and night. It was a little more dicey because Scotland’s got a lot of mountains. So hopefully we got through alright. One of the experiences I had at Kinloss is we went in to, I say we, individually went into a room which was a simulation of flying a trip. You sat at a desk. You had all the navigation equipment. You were given a target. There was a noise as if the engines of an aeroplane were working and it was hard work because the only difference from normal is the clock went at twice the speed. So you had to do your best to get cracking. That takes into account Kinloss. From Kinloss I was posted I think to Rufforth in Yorkshire where we were introduced for the first time ever to the Halifax four engined bomber. As I’ve said so often we of the Halifax people have always been a bit cross that the Lancaster is the beginning and the end of everything. The Lancaster. The Halifax was the poor relation. Exactly the same as in Fighter Command. You ask fifty people what aircraft flew in Fighter Command forty nine would say the Spitfire. With a bit of luck one might say the Hurricane and the Hurricane did exactly the same job. At Rufforth we started flying with the Halifax and one of the things that happened was our pilot and the crew went on circuits and bumps. What that was is you flew in, you took off, flew in a wide circle around the airfield, came in to land, bumped the wheels on the runway and then took off again and did this circle trip perhaps three or four times. I, of course, you didn’t need a navigator just to circle the airfield, albeit a wide circle and I never believed in flying if I didn’t need to so I used to stop at home. Stop in the airfield and if it was night I would go to bed. After training at Rufford, Rufforth I think the airfield was called we were then posted to Melbourne which was Number 10. Number 10 Squadron. Melbourne being a little village about eight or ten miles from York. The first thing that happened is you had to build a crew. This meant that for the first time ever because so far I’d only mixed with navigators, for the first time we were in rooms where we met pilots and engineers and wireless operators and bomb aimers. The whole thing. And the plan was that you would see people that you thought that you might like and somebody might like you and you’d get together and before you’ve finished you’ve got a crew. I remember I saw a young chap who was a pilot and I thought well he looks reasonably decent. I said, ‘Have you got a navigator?’ He said, ‘No.’ ‘Right.’ We were together. I think it might have been the next day but I’m not sure whether it was any longer I was called into perhaps the adjutants office or somebody’s office and told that I was flying in the crew of George Dark who was the pilot. I didn’t have any choice. What happened was they built a, in all modestly say a rather special crew. George Dark was a man of about thirty three. A very experienced aviator. Had never been on ops but had been a, had been an instructor and he knew how to fly. My mid-upper gunner and my wireless operator were both starting their second tour. My bomb aimer was a highly educated man from I believe Czechoslovakia. A bit older than me. Perhaps four or five years older. Spoke the most beautiful elegant English. A bit snooty because we were all a bit below his level. My rear gunner trained in Canada and he really became top of his class because he was given a commission straightaway as soon as he’d finished training. He, his name was Eric Barnard. He was my best friend and we remained friends until he died which was perhaps five or six years ago. In fact, he was, when he was I think eighty eight and a half he remarried having been on his own for many years. He remarried and at eighty I was his best man. I don’t suppose that happens all that often. Where are we now? We started off at Melbourne and our first outing was what was called a bullseye and that was a flight as if we were going on a raid. We entered into Germany but then we turned back and came home. The idea being that we would be ahead of the main stream and it was thought we might mislead the Germans as to where the target really was. The main problem a navigator had was the direction of the wind and the speed of the wind because if there was no wind there would be no need for a navigator because you would just, the pilot would just fly where he had to go and that would be the end of it. The, the briefing we had before an operation included the Met, the Met people and they would give us a forecast of what the windspeed and direction would be at varying, varying heights up to the time of the target. So if you were flying to Hanover you would be told what the windspeed and direction was going up to say twenty thousand feet. Now, invariably our first turning point from York was Reading and we flew at say two thousand feet to Reading. It didn’t often happen but very occasionally the forecast wind for Melbourne to Reading wasn’t right so we’d then would wonder what it was going to be like at thirty thousand feet but we struggled. We got there, thank the lord and moreso we got back. With George we did a total of twenty one trips. Everything went pretty well. The only trouble was that after several trips George began to get trouble with his throat and a result of that is sometimes when we ought to have been on a raid we weren’t because he wasn’t fit and it got to the stage sometimes that if we weren’t on a raid other crews would all say, ‘Well, George Dark’s crew are not on. It must be an easy target tonight.’ Eventually after we did twenty one trips George couldn’t continue. So I had to find another pilot. Strangely enough I was on leave and I travelled back on the train from Euston to York and I met a bloke whose name, whose surname was Wood and he was a pilot and wanted a navigator. Thank you very much. I thought that the next day when we got to Melbourne we would have a trip or two for the next two or three days to get used to each other. It didn’t happen like that. The next night we were on ops. With George although the discipline in the air was very strict obviously we still spoke to each other in a friendly way. For example, if I saw the pilot was off course by five degrees I’d say, ‘George, you’re off course. Get back on.’ And if I wanted although it was unusual to speak to my friend Eric who was in the rear bubble, in the rear turret I’d say, ‘Eric, how are you doing?’ ‘Fine.’ With Flight Lieutenant Wood he was a very serious man and believed in following the rules exactly. The result of that was that when I flew with Flight Lieutenant Wood if I wanted him I’d say, ‘Pilot to navigator.’ I beg your pardon. I would say, ‘Navigator to pilot.’ And if he wanted me he would say, ‘Pilot to navigator.’ It was very formal. I keep referring him, referring to him as Flight Lieutenant Wood because although I flew with him on eleven operations I never knew his first name. Very odd. Very odd. Anyway, we finished our tour of thirty two trips and as I’ve said so often by the grace of God I did the tour and never got so much as a scratch.
NM: I think that’s a very compelling story but can I take you back a little bit?
MF: Please.
NM: You obviously became a navigator very very early in your RAF career. How come you got identified as a navigator quite so early as the ITW?
MF: Yeah.
NM: Were you, did you volunteer to be a navigator and say that’s what you wanted or were you selected as a navigator? How, how did you get to be navigator?
MF: Well, it’s only that when I was accepted as a member, as a prospective member of aircrew I chose to be a navigator simply because I thought I’d never be a pilot. I mean I couldn’t drive a car, I only used a bicycle and I was very good at maths at school. So I thought a navigator would be the right position for me although in truth you didn’t need any maths at all to be a navigator because it was all calculation and when you were actually flying a bomber you had navigation aids. You had, the most useful tool was called Gee which was a cathode, a cathode ray tube. A round tube where you would get two signals and if you plotted the signals on your map where the signals crossed was where you were. The only trouble was that the Germans used to send up what was called Grass which was like blades of grass covering the lines on the cathode ray tubes so eventually the Grass was such that you couldn’t pick up the signal and then we got the system where we changed the cathode ray tube, the cathode ray tube into another one and it was sort of all cat and mouse but as I said we got there and we got back.
NM: So what was the dates of your tour? When did you start your first operation through to your thirty second.
MF: Now, this is difficult because I’m not, I’m very good at remembering but I’m not all that terribly good on dates. Let me think [pause] I think I finished the tour shortly after D-Day.
NM: So the summer of ’44.
MF: Yes. Maybe a bit later than that. Because of George’s throat trouble we were on the squadron a lot longer than most crews because most crews who were successful in completing the tour took perhaps four or five months at the most and I think we were on the squadron for probably seven months at least.
NM: Ok. So you started late ’43 then. Your, your tour.
MF: Something like that. As I say it’s difficult to remember dates. I’m good at events but not on dates.
NM: So thirty two operations. You must, were any of those stand out operations? What were your targets and what were the, any particular incidents —
MF: Yes.
NM: You can remember?
MF: Yeah. One of the areas that we went to a few times was the Ruhr. The Ruhr was the heavy industrial area of Germany and there were lots of raids on the Ruhr. I think I went twice to Essen and once to Duisburg and once to Bochum and I also went once to Dortmund. And as I’ve mentioned previously my son who is a very keen Tottenham Hotspur supporter his team some several months ago played the Dortmund team in Germany and he went with a group of people and I think stayed a night or two. Now, I remember saying to him, ‘If you get chatting with any of the locals don’t tell them your dad visited here many many years ago.’ Apart from the Ruhr incidentally going off at a tangent there was a chap, I hope Neil it wasn’t you, I don’t think it would have been. There was a chap appeared on the tv programme “Mastermind” and his specialist subject on which he was answering, answering questions was Bomber Command and he was very very knowledgeable and the questions that he was asked I didn’t know the answers to. But there was one question that he was asked that he didn’t know the answer and I did and that is, ‘What was the name given to the Ruhr area where many raids took place.’ The answer is it was known as Happy Valley. He didn’t know this. Another incident of some concern is that at one time we went on a afternoon raid. We didn’t do many, many daylights but we went on an afternoon raid to somewhere or other, I can’t remember where and when we turned to come home we were told that our airfield at Melbourne was fog bound and we were diverted to an American airfield in Knettishall which was in Suffolk. They flew flying fortresses and they’d never had an RAF bomber there before and they were really very generous to us. They made a fuss of us. I smoked in those days and I had an American navigator attached himself to me and I said, ‘Could you get me a pack of twenty fags?’ Off he went to the PX and came back with a carton of two hundred. Life was very different there. We stayed I think for two nights. The reason was that the Halifax had Bristol Hercules engines and one of our engines engines sounded a bit dodgy so we had to wait for an engineer to come and put it right. For breakfast for example we would have scrambled eggs. Real eggs not the powdered stuff of those days. Scrambled eggs. As much as you liked. Maple syrup. It was all very very nice. In the evening they had a dance there. They had, I think they were called, “String of Pearls Orchestra,” who played all the Glenn Miller stuff and they imported a coach load of young ladies up from London for dancing partners for the American aircrew. But it was very proper because the girls were very clearly escorted and looked after. That was Knettishall. The next real adventure was that we took off one night, again I can’t remember the target I’ve got an idea it might have been Hamburg although we did go to Hamburg on some other occasion. We took off one night and immediately lost an engine. Now, normally if you lost an engine halfway on to, on to the target you’d continue on the basis of press on regardless but you wouldn’t set off on a raid with only three engines. The drill was that you then had to fly out to into the North Sea I think for about seventeen miles and drop your load in to the sea because you couldn’t come back and land with a bomb load. So we did this. We flew out, did our bomb drop, turned around and immediately lost a second engine both engines being on the same side. On the starboard side. Now this was where George distinguished himself because he could fly [emphasis] and I think we started back and I think we began to lose a bit of height but he kept, he kept us going. Now, I then planned a course to take us to Carnaby. Carnaby was an emergency airfield in York, in Yorkshire. There were three. Three emergency airfields. One was Manston and strangely enough this is, Manston is where all the boat people crossing the Channel these days are being put in the first instance. One was in Manston, one was in Woodbridge in Suffolk and one was Carnaby in York. The, these airfields didn’t have bombers. They, I don’t think they had aeroplanes at all but what they did have was very long and very wide runways so that if an aircraft was in trouble it would have a much better chance of landing because the pilot had the space. So I plotted a course. A course to Carnaby and when we were getting near Carnaby and I’ve said before I’m not making this up believe me when we got near to Carnaby George said, ‘I think we’ll go on to Melbourne because I’ve got a dental appointment tomorrow.’ So I then replotted a course from Carnaby to Melbourne. When we got there they could see that we were flying on two engines. We got down. The station ambulance and the station fire engine met us but thank the lord they weren’t needed. I think really that takes me to the end of the first stage of all I want to tell you but you may want to raise something.
NM: Yeah. Did you go further afield than the Ruhr? Did you go to places like Peenemunde or Berlin? Nuremberg.
MF: No. I never went to Berlin, I never went to Nuremberg and I didn’t go to Dresden.
NM: No. You finished before. Long before Dresden hadn’t you? That’s right. So does any one of your operations apart from this one where you came back on two engines does any one of your operations stand out with anti-aircraft fire or fighters or —
MF: Well, I know on one operation the rear gunner saw a night fighter and we did a corkscrew which was a bit horrendous and I think he claimed to have shot down the night fighter but it was never verified. That was a bit shall I say, I can say adventurous at ninety nine years old. It wasn’t adventurous at the time. Anything special? Well, I’ve told you about our supposed landing at Carnaby. I’ve told you about our trip to the flying fortress airfield. No. I don’t think anything very special.
NM: Okay. Can you talk me through a day when operations were on? From the time you got up.
MF: Yes.
NM: Through to the —
MF: Now that I can do. On the squadron you’d wake up about eight o’clock or whatever and go and have some breakfast. And if there was going to be ops that night you knew the first call would come at about ten, 10.30 which is when the crew list went up. So if you were on ops that night you knew about half past ten. So there was then an anxious period until about 1 o’clock when you were waiting to hear what the target was. 1 o’clock you would have some lunch and then you would have your first briefing when they advised you of the target. When they advised you of the height you would fly whether you were flying on the first, second or third wave. And one of the points when you went to a target is you never flew straight there. You flew in doglegs. All designed to confuse the enemy. Also in that connection one of the things that bombers did was to throw out packets of strips of metal like aluminium. Aluminium strips which was called Window and that was indeed, on the Halifax that was the job of the navigator because the navigator was in the nose of the aeroplane. Not right in the nose because the bomb aimer was in the nose. The navigator was sat behind the bomb aimer and there were two little steps up to the main body of the aircraft. On one of the steps there was a flap and if you folded back the flap it was open and that’s where you deposited the packages of Window. That was the navigator’s job. Where was I?
NM: Describing your briefing.
MF: Oh yes. Thank you. You see. I don’t remember as well as I should. Yes. So, you’d have your briefing and then you’d go off and have a meal. The meal was always egg, sausage, bacon, chips. A nice meal. Then you would go back for a further briefing when the Met officer would tell you all about what the windspeed and direction would be. And I think one or two other officers spoke to you, gave you information and then you got dressed. Now, most of the crew, I think all of the crew except me dressed in Bomber Command clothing. That was a very thick fur lined jacket, fur lined boots and so on. The nose of the Halifax was quite warm for some reason. I never put a jacket on. I never put boots on. I was comfortable. The only thing I did have is as I suppose all navigators I used to have some silk gloves because you needed to use your hands in maps, drawing diagrams on maps and so on and if you didn’t have gloves your hands would freeze up. For example, if you were flying and wanted to have a pee there was an Elsan at the end of the aircraft but if you went back to the Elsan and came back again you would need to take a oxygen bottle because once you got to over fifteen thousand feet you needed to have oxygen. If you took the oxygen bottle in your hand by the time you got back the bottle was frozen to your hand and that could have been awful. Oxygen was absolutely necessary because after fifteen thousand feet if you didn’t have oxygen you would eventually die. So yes, you had your briefing and conversely when you’d finished your raid and landed you then had a debriefing. You went into a room. Each crew sat, sat a different table and you were, every member of the crew was asked questions relative to the job they did. So I was asked, ‘What was the wind like?’ ‘What was the target like?’ ‘Did you get to the target?’ All of that sort of stuff. I often remember saying that at one debriefing there was a rather elderly chap sitting next to me who I didn’t take any notice of because you know, you’re tired. You want to get home. You want to get back, have a meal and get to bed. He was saying, asking me all sorts of little questions and I was getting more and more irritable and I eventually remember much to my shame saying to him, ‘Well, if you’re so interested why don’t go on the dot dot dot trip.’ He didn’t say a word but somebody nudged me and they told me that he was a high ranking officer with gold on around his cap who was making a survey or making enquiries and he was very nice. He knew I was tired and he didn’t report me. He didn’t say a single word. And after the debrief, well when you got to the debriefing on the table was cigarettes, tea and rum and then you left the debriefing and went back and had the same meal as you’d had before the trip and then you wanted to get to bed.
NM: Yes, I can imagine. I can imagine. What about off duty? What was the off duty like?
MF: Sorry?
NM: What was the off-duty life like at the station when you weren’t flying operations?
MF: Yes. That’s a very interesting question. Off duty people were very laid back. I mean for example halfway through my tour I met somebody when I was walking about. I was a sergeant. Somebody said to me, ‘You’re now an officer. Go and get yourself measured for an officer’s uniform.’ Just like that. No, whys and wherefors. So I became a pilot officer. Now, it was all very relaxed so that if anybody was to salute you on the squadron you’d have a heart attack because that didn’t happen. So I became an officer. The only difference was I lived in the, I dined in the officer’s mess instead of in the sergeant’s mess. I don’t doubt that the food was exactly the same. As I think several of the crew were given commissions at the same time. The only difference was we were allocated a batwoman, a WAAF batwoman and all she did for us was to make our beds in the morning. But as I’ve said previously my mid-upper gunner was a Welshman. A very well-built robust man, a good looking man and he spoke with, he spoke with a Welsh lilt and Rose, the batwoman I think did rather more than make his bed but there we are.
NM: So did you socialise with the rest of the crew? Did you go to pubs? Dances?
MF: Well no. I socialised with Eric. We used to go, you’ve prompted my memory, we used to go when we were on a night off into York. We’d go on the local bus. The first thing we would normally do is go to have a drink. I wasn’t a drinker. I mean one pint of beer was every bit as much as I could manage but we’d go for a drink at what was called Betty’s Bar. Bettys Bar was crowded with RAF, with bomber people having a drink and in the basement of Betty’s Bar was a very big mirror where aircrew used to scratch their names. Betty’s Bar, after the war became Betty’s Tea Rooms and it became very very fashionable with visitors to York. Particularly Americans. It was an expensive afternoon to have a tea there and people lined up to get in. But the mirror I believe was still there although it was badly cracked and I think there were one or two other branches of Betty’s Tea Rooms. When we were in York there was a building not far from the abbey called the De Grey rooms and on the first floor of De Grey rooms there used to be a little dance. Two or three musicians and local ladies and there was dancing there. I never got very successful because I wasn’t a big handsome fella but nevertheless that was the De Grey rooms. Now, Eric and I, I’m rather going off at a tangent if you don’t mind. Eric and I used to go back to York after we’d both been demobbed. Some years after. We used to go back every year to visit Melbourne and we used to go on to the airfield and there was a caretaker’s building at the entrance and we used to ask him if we could drive on because the main runway was still in being. It was, Melbourne was an experimental farm or something of that sort but we used to drive to the end of the runway and I had a fairly powerful car and we used to drive down, get up to a hundred miles an hour as if we were going to take off. Yes. We used to go, oh when we used to go back to visit York we’d go to Betty’s. We’d go to the, Hole in the Wall which was a well-known pub not far from the De Grey rooms and we’d go to the De Grey rooms which on the second, on the first floor instead of being a dance place was a second hand books, book dealers and we went fairly regularly. I mention incidentally my mid-upper gunner the handsome Welshman after some years he lived a very spectacular life. He ended up as a painter in Paris and he also was in South Africa and he’d been married I think about three times but he got ill and he was ended up in an RAF Benevolent Fund sponsored place in, now what was the name of the place? I can’t remember at the moment. It got quite famous this place of some years ago. It was given, it was given some honour. I can’t remember. But he was in a home there and we used to visit him. Eric and I used to visit him once a year and I used to smuggle a bottle of Scotch in for him. But then in due time he died. He became wheelchair bound and eventually he joined the aircraft in the sky.
NM: So, how did you cope with the strains of operations?
MF: That’s again an interesting question. Basically, you coped because you hadn’t got the nerve to pack up. Now, what happened was as a navigator I had a window which I, a little small window. I don’t know why it was there but it was there and I had to draw a curtain across because you needed an Anglepoise lamp to work and that would show a light. Every trip I made I never ever drew the curtain to see what was happening down below. I never saw the fires. I never saw anything. I thought I’m better off putting my nose down and doing my map work and thank you very much. But to answer your question very seldom a chap found he couldn’t go on and he went what was called LMF. That’s lack of moral fibre. If he went out LMF the authorities treated him very badly. He was stripped of his rank and he became a nonentity. Unlike the Americans who apparently if one of their chaps went LMF they sent him back to the States for psychological treatment and then got him back to the UK for flying again. I didn’t feel better or worse for the whole tour. I gave a little chat to the school of my granddaughter when they were seven year old boys and girls. I only chatted for ten minutes just to give them the flavour and of course I was very careful as to what I said. One little girl said at the end, ‘Were you frightened on your first trip?’ And I said to her, ‘No, my dear. I wasn’t frightened on my first trip. I was frightened on every trip.’ And it’s absolutely true but I didn’t feel any worse or any better. The only time I felt better was when I landed on the last trip.
NM: And you knew it was the last trip. Yeah. So you were awarded the DFC at the end of your tour. Was the, was it a cumulative award or was it for any particular incident?
MF: I think the only reason I got the DFC and two or three others of the crew did as well was simply because we were made a special crew as I mentioned at the, earlier in this discussion. As I said the pilot was a very experienced man. We had two chaps doing their second tour. We did our tour. We got there every time. We got back every time. We did what we were designed to do and I didn’t do anything what one would call particularly brave or heroic or heroic. I just did my job.
NM: So what happened when your tour finished?
MF: Well, we now enter a new area. Let me have a drink of water and I’ll go on.
NM: Of course. Take a break.
MF: How far do you want me to go?
NM: As far as you want.
MF: When my tour finished the RAF really didn’t know what to do with ex-aircrew blokes who’d done their tours. They had to do something with them but excuse me [coughs]
NM: Are you alright to carry on?
MF: Yeah.
NM: Are you sure?
MF: They had to do something but we had no skill other than flying bombers. They sent me to an RAF base in Hereford. I think it would be a good idea if you don’t mind shall we stop and I’ll make a cup of coffee?
NM: Yes. That’s absolutely fine. Absolutely. Are you alright to carry on?
MF: Sorry?
NM: Are you alright to carry on.
MF: Yeah. I will be.
NM: Okay. Alright.
MF: Will you have coffee?
NM: Yes, please if there’s one going. Thank you very much.
MF: Yeah.
NM: Its much appreciated.
MF: I get a bit shaky. My hands are inclined to shake.
NM: You’re doing brilliantly.
MF: Help yourself.
NM: I’ll just grab one of those. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You’re doing brilliantly to be independent at ninety nine.
MF: Well, [pause] life can be a bit difficult these days because my wife has dementia and she’s not very good. She’s very cheerful at times but we have really bad times too.
NM: Yes.
MF: And I spend, we have a carer comes in for an hour every morning but I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to continue.
NM: I understand. My mother in law’s has got dementia.
MF: Really?
NM: So I know. I know what you’re going through. Yeah.
MF: I say to my kids you know all the problems that we have now will be solved is if I pop off and my wife can go into a nice, a very nice care home. But I don’t plan on popping off any sooner than I need.
NM: Very glad to hear it.
MF: Help yourself please.
NM: I’m fine. I’m fine. Thank you.
[recording paused]
NM: Okay. Yes. So, yes, you were sent to Hereford.
MF: Yes. Hereford was not an airfield. There were no aircraft there but it was an RAF base where they trained accountants. That is accountants to work within the RAF. We went there and I met up there with a, I don’t know a couple of dozen also ex-bomber people and the idea was that they were going to train us all as accountants. What happened is that young men who entered the Air Force direct to be an accountant they were given a commission to pilot officers, went to Hereford for their training. When they got there they were all sprogs. All new. They used to on their first day on the parade ground they got together, fall in, left turn, quick march and that sort of thing. They tried to do the same thing with us ex-bomber people but we didn’t do that sort of thing. I mean we used to turn up if we were sent to parade at 9 o’clock we’d turn up more or less, more or less within time. Some of us had caps on. Some didn’t. Some had ties. Most of us were smoking. I was a heavy smoker. But we came to terms eventually but none of us were interested in this accounting lark so we did our course, six weeks, eight weeks whatever, sat the exams and everyone failed. And as I’ve said one bloke only just failed and that was me. So they offered for me to do another three weeks when I would pass but I declined this offer. So as a punishment they sent me with all the AC2s, AC1s working there, all the chaps that were in trouble they sent me with this lot to pick potatoes. I think this was about September. Well, we went to a farm and the drill was you worked in pairs each holding one corner of a sack and the tractor went and threw up the potatoes and we picked them. I was there for I think four days. I had a marvellous time. The weather was beautiful. We used, you can imagine we didn’t exactly exert ourselves but we used to pick some potatoes and have a rest. Pick a few more. Then the farmer owner used to provide us with hot sweet tea, cheddar cheese, as much as you wanted and crispy bread and we really enjoyed ourselves. After four days they called me off this because they could see we were getting nowhere. So they then sent me to an airfield at Halfpenny Green which is near Wolverhampton. When I got to Halfpenny Green there were I think Ansons there and what happened at Halfpenny Green was that navigators who had trained in Canada and had come back to the UK had to have a course, a sort of acclimatisation or whatever you’d call it. So you used, they used to do sort of cross country journeys, I suppose an hour and a half or thereabouts and they made me do the same. And I was very experienced but nevertheless they all, these blokes all took off on their Ansons and I had too as well. Fortunately, the pilots there were also ex-aircrew chaps so I never took this very seriously. I would say, ‘Look just fly over here and fly over there and then fly back and thank you very much.’ So, we were there for about, oh I don’t know a few to a couple of months. Strangely enough one of the navigators who’d come back from Canada who I became friendly with was a bloke called David Hawkins. After the war I qualified as a chartered accountant which I’ll come to later if if you want me to go that far. He also qualified a year after me. I entered the profession. He went in to industry and he ended up as a main board director at Nat West Bank. But we were very matey and he made big bucks but it made no difference. We were good friends. Unfortunately, towards the end he also became a subject of dementia. What used to happen we used to meet two, every couple of months with our wives for a meal and he would say to me, ‘Monty, you play golf don’t you?’ I’d say, ‘No, Dave.’ I was the only person in the world that called him Dave. I’d say, ‘No, Dave. I play tennis.’ During the course of the dinner he would ask me this at least eight times and it was a shame but you know. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
NM: Indeed. That’s right.
MF: I don’t know what’s led me on to talking about, anyway, we went to Halfpenny Green and I finished a course there and once the course had finished again they didn’t know what to do with me. So they sent me to an airfield in, near Doncaster where there were Oxfords, twin engined Oxfords at Doncaster as I say. And this place was where pilots coming back to the UK from abroad, from probably the Middle East or somewhere like that had to have an acclimatisation. So I saw nobody took any real notice of me because as you will have been told time and again provided you had some papers in your hand and walked about looking busy nobody interfered with you. I appointed myself navigation officer of this arrangement for new pilots. They used to do a fortnight, two weeks training flying these Oxford aircraft around about and I used to set as self-appointed navigation officer I used to set the trip for them and when they went off I used to sit in my office and do whatever I wanted and they all came back. After quite a while the powers that be had said, ‘You’ve got to fly once a week.’ Because these blokes used to fly most days. Most days for a fortnight. So I was required to fly once a week which I didn’t really like very much and when the list came in of the next intake I used to have a look at all the blokes and pick the pilots that I thought was most reliable and I used to do a little trip and that was that. So in due course I finished at Doncaster. We’re now getting to about let me think [pause] we’re getting now to about the end of 1945. Perhaps a bit earlier. Perhaps a bit sooner. Perhaps about September ’45. Something like that. Anyway, I finished at Doncaster and they then sent me on indefinite leave which was fine. I was engaged to my late wife then. Her parents had a big flat in Chiswick. Unfortunately, my mother had died in nineteen, I can remember, in December 1941. I was in the RAF of course and after the war my father packed up and went to live with one of my sisters in Southend. Westcliffe. So I stayed with my girlfriend’s parents and they were very nice to me and I was on indefinite leave which went on for a few months. I then, I think it must have been about December, December ’45. Thereabouts. I was on indefinite leave. I then married my late wife in July ’46. She was, I was twenty, not quite twenty three. My grandchildren are amazed because nobody gets married at that sort of age anymore. My late wife was two days short of twenty one and in those days under twenty one you had to get permission from the bride’s father and I was very very fond of my late wife’s father and I used to tell him I didn’t, ‘I got permission from you. I got permission from you. It was a big mistake.’ But we had fun. Anyway, after a few months, about June ’46 I was summoned to RAF Uxbridge and I was given a job which I didn’t really have a clue about dealing with the paperwork of chaps who were being repatriated to their home, home countries Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and so on. Chaps who had finished their periods and were ready to be demobbed. And what I had to do was to look at their papers and I had a couple of rubber stamps which I had to stamp and I really didn’t have much idea what I was doing and I wasn’t very interested either and I banged the rubber stamps all over the place. Off they went. Everybody was very happy. One thing I must tell you when I was at Uxbridge this would have been about September 1946 they had a dining in night. You may know about dining in nights but it’s an evening when all of us, when I married I got a sleeping out pass. All officers had to stay in for dinner that night. Best blues on, all properly turned out and you all sat down and you had a meal and they had port and you passed the port. Took it from the right hand and passed it to the right hand of the chap sitting on your left. All very formal. When I was there they they said to me I don’t know who, the commanding officers or whatever, I shall be Mr Vice. Which meant that either during the meal or before the meal, I can’t remember the chairman appointed for the night would say, ‘Mr Vice. The King.’ Was it the King in ’46? Yes, it was. ‘Mr Vice, the King.’ And my job was to stand up and say, ‘Gentlemen, the King.’ All stood up and had a drink. I think the reason I had this very auspicious appointment was because I was ex-aircrew and they didn’t have these sort of people at Uxbridge. Anyway, got to December I was demobbed. Blow me I was demobbing all these people at Uxbridge and they sent me up to Padgate to get demobbed which I did. Now, that’s the end of RAF. Whether you want me to continue into my private life thereafter I don’t know.
NM: I would very much like you to please.
MF: Sorry?
NM: I would very much like you to continue.
MF: Oh well, right.
NM: Life after the RAF.
MF: Sorry?
NM: Life after the RAF.
MF: Very good. Up to when?
NM: This morning if you want.
MF: What? [laughs]
NM: Up to this morning if you want.
MF: Oh, deary me. Right. In January ’47 I wasn’t qualified of course although my articles had expired. I got a job with a firm of chartered accountants in Oxford Street, Levy Hyams and Co who you won’t need too much imagination well to come to the conclusion they were a Jewish firm and we’re Jewish as you will have gathered. I worked for them but I had to think in terms of becoming chartered myself and I’d previously before I entered the RAF did a correspondence course. But I couldn’t attune myself to the idea of doing a correspondence course while I, while things had changed so much so after I’d been working at this firm for, I don’t know six months I enrolled at the City of London College which was in Moorgate. And I worked very hard in that period because I worked from nine to five in the office and then I used to grab a sandwich and a coffee, go to the City of London College and sit for lectures between about six and 9 o’clock and this happened Monday to Friday. So I did this and then in November ’48 I sat my exams and became a chartered accountant. Of course, by November ’48 I was married to the lady I mentioned to you earlier and my first son was born, I think in the August of 1948. So I continued working once I’d qualified for the firm in Oxford Street and they then put me into a separate office so I didn’t go out doing any auditing any more but I dealt with tax matters and correspondence and so on. After, I don’t know eighteen months or whatever I thought I’m not doing this. I’m going to set up on my own. So I packed up. When I gave my notice in they said, ‘Oh well, we had intended to ask you to join the firm as a partner.’ But it was too late then. So I started on my own. I was living in Fulham at the time. When I got married we got the top part of a house in Fulham which I rented and I lived there until 1951 and for my sins I became a fan of Fulham Football Club and I still am. God help me. So I set up on my own and we, I bought a three bedroomed semi-detached house in Fulham in 1951 because I lived in the flat. Not in Fulham. I’m misleading you. I bought a three bedroomed semi-detached house in Greenford in 1951 having lived in Fulham for five years from ’46 to ’51 and I set up on my own account. All I had was a card table, a typewriter and I was sort of in business and I had one client. So I had to make a living. So I then started lecturing. Lecturing would-be bank people in bookkeeping and so on. I used to go there a couple of nights a week and earn a few bob. I also got to working a job for a correspondence course marking papers of other people’s that were studying and also I got two jobs doing part time stuff for two other firms of accountants. Strangely enough one of the firms I worked for they had a client of big coffee importers and exporters and I did their audit and when the chap I worked for either died or retired they asked me to take the account over as my own client. And that continued all the way through my career. I also worked for a, I think an unqualified chap who had an office in Kilburn and he had a client who was a solicitor and in due course again the solicitor instructed me and eventually there was a firm of solicitors of, I think four partners and various clerks and I had them as clients until I retired. After a while the solicitors had offices in Half Moon Street on the third floor of a quite old building but it was a prestigious address. Half Moon Street, London W1. Turning off Piccadilly. So I got two rooms on the fourth floor. There was no lift and the lavatory was two and a half floors down and mainly I used to visit clients because I couldn’t expect clients to come up this old building for four floors. But anyway, I progressed and I made a living. I then got I was in Half Moon Street for quite a few years and at one time I got my first car and Dave Hawkins who I mentioned earlier in this discussion came with me and picked up this car. It was a Standard Eight from showrooms in Berkeley Square. I was frightened to drive home and he drove the car home to Greenford for me. Subsequently you could drive to the West End. You could park in Piccadilly. You could park in Half Moon Street but it became less and less available. Eventually I used to drive up and park in Hyde Park because you could park in the perimeter there. But after a while I would find I’d park the car in the morning I couldn’t remember where it was in the evening. But we got by. So I then got offices in Wembley Park. It used to be the Prudential and it was basically a shop with one office behind. I worked there and then I got one partner and we extended out the back. And then I got two more junior partners and we extended. We extended again at the back and I continued to work there until I retired in December 19 [pause] wait a moment in December 2090. That’s right. Thirty two years ago.
[redacted]
I then retired in December 2090 and have done nothing meaningful since apart from amusing myself in my office.
NM: And playing tennis I gather. You mentioned that earlier didn’t you? So how have you occupied yourself during your retirement?
MF: Sorry?
NM: How do you have any hobbies you carried on during your —
MF: Yes, I —
NM: Retirement?
MF: Yes. I can’t remember [pause] twenty five years ago before I retired I started to play tennis and I got very committed to tennis because I found it enormously enjoyable. I was pretty, I’d never played before so I had to learn and I was never what you’d call a good tennis player but I played in clubs and I could hold my own. And I played two or three times a week regularly and I got immense pleasure. I played to win but I’d have a lot of fun and I joined different clubs because one club packed up and another one moved. All sorts of problems. Tennis players generally find over the years they’re moving from one club to another but I played and I had great enjoyment for tennis and I made lots of friends. I stopped playing tennis because I wasn’t in good form and I packed up about [pause] let me think. I went into hospital 2013. About 2010. No, that doesn’t. Yes. About twenty no not twenty I’m losing [pause] about twenty one. I retired at 2190. No. I’m getting a bit confused. I retired in 2090.
NM: 1990.
MF: That’s thirty two years ago.
NM: Yeah. Yeah.
MF: I played tennis. Once I’d started and I stopped playing tennis in twenty two.
NM: 2002.
MF: About twenty two o eight.
NM: Okay. Yeah.
MF: The reason being that I wasn’t in the best of condition and in 2013 I went into a hospital. I went into a hospital and I had some surgery which I got over well but, and I was still very active but I’d packed up tennis. And then about a year after that I had a pacemaker fitted because while I was in hospital as a result of the operation I had a mild heart attack which kept me in hospital much longer than we’d budgeted for and I had a pacemaker fitted when I was ninety. And now in two and a half weeks’ time I’ve got to go into hospital. I think just for the day to have the battery replaced. Like you replaced your battery which I’m not looking forward to but I hope it will be pretty simple.
NM: I’m sure it will be.
MF: And I’m told that there are not a lot of chaps who have a pacemaker fitted at age ninety who go back for a refit.
NM: Good to hear. Good to hear.
MF: And that I think my friend more or less brings you up to date.
NM: I think it does. I think that’s excellent. Just one more question going back to your time in Bomber Command what do you when you look back and reflect on your time in Bomber Command what are your main thoughts?
MF: Well, I can answer that. I never have had a moment’s regret at dropping bombs on Germany. I’m conscious of the bombing that the Germans carried out in the UK especially in London, in Coventry, in Liverpool, in Plymouth. Incessant bombing in London in particular with a lot of, lots of death. I’m very conscious of six million Jews dying in the Holocaust. I’ve spoken often about Dresden. I didn’t bomb Dresden and there was big talk of two hundred thousand people being killed there because the place ended up in a fire storm. It wasn’t but I think it’s conceded there was a heavy death roll of about twenty five thousand. I’ve got no conscience about it at all [pause] And I still haven’t today. I took the view my job was to get the aircraft to the target, to drop the bombs and to get home.
NM: And how do you feel about the way that Bomber Command itself has been perceived since the war?
MF: That again is a very pointed question. When the war finished, no. Let me go back. When it was agreed there would be a raid on Dresden and after the raid lots of people complained. Canon Collins I think the man’s name was. Made a big big fuss. The raid was perfectly justified. The Russians wanted it. Churchill agreed to it. It was a big railway place where armaments were moved and that was the justification of the raid. Afterwards, Churchill washed his hands of Dresden. He didn’t want to know. When Churchill made his victory speech after the war in Germany finished he mentioned all of the branches of the three Services, he never mentioned Bomber Command. When campaign medals were handed out Bomber Command didn’t get one. There was a big campaign, I think in the Daily Express which is not a paper I read trying to encourage the powers that be to award a campaign medal to Bomber Command. It never worked. Ultimately and this is only a handful of years ago Bomber Command were awarded a clasp to their victory medal at exactly the same time as the seamen who were doing the north, the North Sea around, around to the north of Russia to deliver them armaments they were awarded a campaign medal. Not Bomber Command. Lots of people have had plenty to say about Bomber Command but I don’t stand for any of it. When Bomber Harris’ statue was erected in the Strand there was a service for Bomber Command people in the Bomber Command church which was St Clement Danes and the late Queen Mother who was Bomber Command patron attended. I went with my friend Eric. I always tell everybody I was probably the only Jewish chap there and I was sitting behind a pillar and I couldn’t see anything. But it was a good service. We then walked across and there was going to be a reception in the hall of the Law Courts which is more or less where the statue was. Some, I don’t use too many profane words but some group threw red paint on to Harris’ statue. But nevertheless we went into the Law Courts, we had a drink or two and it was very nice. And the one regret and I have this regret to this day when I went in [pause] what’s his name? You see you get as old as me you can’t remember. What was his name? He was married to Sue Ryder.
NM: Leonard Cheshire.
MF: Sorry?
NM: Leonard Cheshire.
MF: Thank you. Thank you very much. I went in and Leonard Cheshire who was ill at that time and he was in a sort of almost bed wheelchair and he was close, as close to me as you are and I very much regret perhaps I was diverted I didn’t have the opportunity to go up to him and pay him my respects. And I’m still sorry about it. But anyway, there we are.
NM: So have you been to see in your old stomping ground at Piccadilly the Bomber Command Memorial on Piccadilly.
MF: Yes. Yes, I have been there. The one in Green Park.
NM: Correct.
MF: And it’s very impressive.
NM: Yeah.
MF: It’s very impressive.
NM: Were you involved at all when it was opened?
MF: No. I haven’t been involved in any particular capacity. Only as an old sod of the, of the Command but nothing else.
NM: Okay. Well, I think that’s an excellent place to finish so —
MF: Oh, well that’s very good.
NM: Monty, can I thank you very much for your time and your memories and your service of course.
MF: Well —
NM: Its much appreciated.
MF: It’s been, it’s been very interesting for me. I never thought I’d keep going this long but as you will have gathered from all of this and gathered from the, my talk at Bentley Priory I, I’m not frightened to talk.
NM: With such clarity as well. Excellent.
MF: Funnily enough, Nigel. I’ll say one more thing.
NM: Of course.
MF: And then I’ll shut up. I was telling somebody only a few days ago, somebody who had been to Bentley Priory I’m able if I’m given notice because Bentley Priory I just didn’t just talk off the cuff I’d spent quite a time preparing things. But then I didn’t need any notice because I knew what I was going to say. I could stand up and talk to two hundred people without batting an eyelid. Conversely, I used to be invited because of clients I used to be invited to functions. Sometimes functions when they had a, perhaps a little cabaret or whatever. A little show. In those days, I don’t think it happens these days masonic dinners. They might have a comedian and they might have four young lady dancers and very often these dancers used to come down, pick on a man take them up to the stage and the man would put a funny hat on or something and dance or whatever. A girl would come up to me, I would be if necessary very rude because I would die rather than go up on to a stage and dance in front of people and yet I can go up and talk. It’s odd isn’t it?
NM: Well, we’re all different aren’t we and that’s —
MF: Yeah.
NM: That’s you.
MF: Well, there you are.
NM: Very good. Excellent. Well, thank you very much again for your time.
MF: No. Not at all. I hope I’ve done you justice.
NM: Well I think you’ve done yourself justice brilliantly.
MF: Lovely.
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 Monty Felton
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nigel Moore
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2022-11-14
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Format
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01:51:16 Audio Recording
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AFeltonM221114, PFeltonM2201
Description
An account of the resource
Monty grew up in Croydon and became an articled accountant in London before joining the RAF. Training at the Initial Training Wing in Torquay was followed by RAF Bishops Court in Northern Ireland and RAF Kinloss, which had a flight simulation room. He was then posted to RAF Rufforth in Yorkshire where he was introduced to the Halifax four-engined bomber, before going to 10 Squadron at RAF Melbourne. Monty describes his relatively experienced crew, including George Dark as pilot and Eric Barnard as rear gunner, who remained a close friend. He flew 21 trips with George and a further 11 operations with Flight Lieutenant Wood. The first outing was a ‘bullseye’, a flight where they entered Germany and then turned back to mislead the enemy. Briefings would include meteorological forecasts of wind and speed direction at varying heights up to the time of the target. He discusses how navigation was carried out and the use of navigation aids, such as Gee. Monty went on several operations to the Ruhr. He recounts how their aircraft had to divert to an American airbase at Knettishall in Suffolk, which flew B-17s. In another, they lost two engines yet successfully flew back to RAF Melbourne. Monty runs through a typical operations’ day, including the briefings and debriefings. He depicts how they would fly doglegs to confuse the enemy and the navigators would throw out packets of aluminium strips, code named Window. He goes on to describe his off-duty life, including trips to York and ‘Betty’s Bar’ (precursor of Bettys Tearooms) which had a mirror inscribed by aircrew in the basement. There were dances in the De Grey Rooms. Monty was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, which he believes was just because they were an experienced crew. Monty contrasts the American and RAF treatment of Lack of Moral Fibre. After his tour, Monty was sent to a number of RAF stations before being demobbed in 1946. He qualified as a chartered accountant, setting up his own accountancy practice. Monty finishes by discussing his attitude to the war and Bomber Command, and disappointment over the lack of recognition given to it.
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Sally Coulter
Julie Williams
Carolyn Emery
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
10 Squadron
aircrew
Anson
B-17
bombing
briefing
coping mechanism
crewing up
debriefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
Gee
Halifax
Initial Training Wing
lack of moral fibre
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Oxford
perception of bombing war
RAF Bishops Court
RAF Carnaby
RAF Halfpenny Green
RAF Kinloss
RAF Melbourne
RAF Rufforth
RAF Torquay
RAF Uxbridge
training
Whitley
Window
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/630/30870/BPotterPLPotterPLv40001.1.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Potter, Peter
P Potter
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Potter, P
Description
An account of the resource
39 items. Collection concerns Peter Potter, (1925 - 2019, 1876961 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner with 626 Squadron. Collection contains an oral history interview, his logbook, memoirs and photographs
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Peter Potter and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-14
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.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
[underlined] Account of operations[/underlined]
Getting caught in searchlights was always bad. If this happened the usual evasive action was taken, plus Johnny Payne and I would throw out 'window'!
We had no idea if it helped but we evaded almost immediately every time.
Luck or not it seemed to work.
Air pressure at height reduces the higher you go and can cause some unusual
effects. Nitrogen bubbles in the blood can cause a sensation similar to
intoxication. Also releasing the ground pressure in a flask, particularly hot
beverages, causing the contents to expand and boil.
For example one thing I remember was a chap who had never flown at height
trying to eat a sandwich, breaking a tooth, and then to make matters worse
opening a flask at height and the contents (tea) boiling out scalding his hands
aud then freezing his gloves and hands solid. Frostbite caused him to drop
out sick for a time.
On night Ops we flew on the outside of the stream until 30 or 40 miles from
the target when we moved to the right track for bombing, trying to find a spot
with nobody above us. There is nothing more unsettling than being on the
point of dropping the bombs and seeing an aircraft immediately above you
with its bomb doors open with bombs still to be dropped. This happened
three times early in our tour. To see bombs falling in front and behind your
wing and tail tends to make you more cautious and think of a solution. We
flew on the edge and higher than the main stream which allowed us to dive
into the stream if attacked, which in fact got rid of the attacker every time.
On a cross country a Flying Fortress came close to us and indicated a race.
Tom opened up and we moved steadily ahead of him; After about 5 minutes
Tom throttled back. It came alongside again and to our surprise the pilot gave
us the ‘V’ sign and waved, then moved away. Two days later a jeep called at
the guardroom and left a 40 oz bottle of Bourbon 'for the guys who were flying
the Lancaster UMF with the naked babe on' three days before. How they
found out our station I have no idea. We never found where they were based.
Tom and I collected the bottle and gave each bod in the guardhouse a tot
before leaving. For several days we had personnel who didn't normally travel
around the station coming to look at the 'Babe' and the c.o. commented it was
probably in need of modification but as nobody had complained about it there
was no hurry. Later when there was a stand down, our crew and the ground
crew got together to finish the bottle off with a toast to all USA Forces,
especially USAAF.
On one other occasion, on our way home over the Kattegat, a twin engine
aircraft flew alongside us for 20 minutes, quite close, possibly a Mosquito but
no recognition was possible due to bad visibility. No attempt was made by it
that could have been considered hostile and we thought it was one of ours or
Swedish. One thing we did not do was fire, except in defence, which would
give away our position. I am convinced that some chaps fired at imaginary
aircraft and made themselves targets.
[page break]
Of all my ops the ones I remember more than the others were: Kiel Canal, Aire (abortive) when we hit downdraft of a cu-nim cloud and the plane was almost torn to pieces and Frankfurt and Saarbrucken when we landed with fun load of 62,000lbs with 3 engines. e also had a second dickie on board) (Aire Abortive is reported separately).
When we flew it was necessary to keep a sharp eye out for enemy aircraft, mostly at take-off and landing. Many of our aircraft were shot down for not being alert at an times. There was never a time you could relax, even in
England. We were an concerned about the possibility of becoming Prisoners
of War and found out as much as possible from evaders and escapees who
came to give us such information as they had, e.g. no labels or names.
numbers on clothing. I had a Swiss knife with a German inscription on it and
some German matches and watch I believe had been taken from a Prisoner of
War or perhaps a dead German. I also had a French pipe and pouch of French
tobacco which I did not use as I could not replace it and which by the time I
finished flying was nearly all dust.
Flying an aircraft which is open to the elements requires plenty of clothing. In
most bombers the wind could get into the fuselage from several points. To try
to keep warm was impossible and so we wore many layers of clothing, Le. one
pair of silk socks, 2 pairs of wool, 1 pair sea boot socks thigh length, silk Long
Johns and vest, silk balaclava and a wool one, 1 wool and 1 cotton vest, 1 RAF
shirt, wool Long Johns, I roll neck sweater, 1 8ft long silk scarf, 1 tunic,
trousers, flying inner suit, electric heating suit, Irving trousers and jacket or
Kapok electric buoyancy suit, silk gloves, wool mittens, electric inner gloves,
leather gauntlets, leather lined flying helmet, fur lined flying boots, Mae West
Parachute Harness. In our pockets we had a torch, all the personal items
mentioned, the escape kit which would have maps of the area, several
currencies, concentrated Horlicks tablets, water purifying tablets etc. in our
clothing were hidden knives, films, maps, compasses etc. There was also a
Thermos, sweets, concentrated caffeine tablets (Wakey, Wakey) which caused
eyes to become dry and sore on a long Op. We also had a parachute to carry.
Despite all the clothing and heating by the time we reached our operating
height the cold would be creeping in and within half-an-hour we would be
freezing. When the temperature was below minus 30 degrees or more the
pain began to penetrate every part of the body. It was not uncommon to suffer
frostbite even with the heating still on. In F2 we also had hot air pipes from
the engine exhausts which were pushed into the flies to give extra
warmth to the legs, but still could not dispel the cold.
Before an Op. every piece of equipment was checked. Nothing was left to
chance. We and our ground crew would be crawling all over the plane making
sure nothing was missed. The ground crew of F2 were, 1 believe, the best on
the station (Wickenby). Proof I believe is the fact that F2 was one of only 2
Lancaster's on the Squadron to survive the war.
To increase our chances, we spent time in the sections to keep up-to-date and
also in the Intelligence section, often helping there.
Briefing was conducted before each Op when we were given all information
known at the time about the target and defences and weather en route. Very
often both would be wrong but we expected that and took things as they came.
Winds, cloud cover etc were never left to chance.
[page break]
Interrogation on our return was more intense and I am afraid here we were less co-operative. After long hours frozen to the marrow all we wanted to do was get into bed to warm up after a hot meal (egg, chips and beans) and so we had nothing of note to report wherever possible, even if we had had a brush with a fighter. Any report unusual would mean an interminable questioning of every member of the crew when we were dead beat and just wanted to rest and relax. Only if something was completely new would we bother.
I flew with 3 other crews on Ops, one officially and the other 2 unofficially, due to chaps being unable to get back to the station, as previously mentioned. The official Op was with F/O Oram who was on his last Op and had lost both gunners when he had to ditch. The first was to Kiel and the others to the Ruhr.
Our ground crew were a grand bunch of chaps. The electrician, George Gant, lived not far from my parents. On every Op he would bring a 3/4 inch steel plate, heavily padded, for me to sit on 'for special protection'. Whenever there was a stand down we would take the ones 'with nothing to do to a show, cinema, dance or just a drink. There would sometimes be a dance on the station and so we would lend or procure SNCO or Officer's uniform for them if the dance was at one of those messes. Nobody, to my knowledge, ever complained as most crews did this. We always made sure to get all drinks when on the station and gave each one a pound to spend as he wished when off the station. Also, when any of them went on leave they were given a pound a day if single and if married double this with an extra pound for each child.
Each of us shared the cost but the Canucks insisted on paying twice the
amount of us natives. The Canadians also bought two rounds to our one, etc. Three of Us gave local farmers a hand when we could and in return we were given any farm produce they had. Over our time at Wickenby we were given chickens, ducks, beef, pork, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, bread, dripping, etc., and twice when we couldn't leave the station for a while a delivery was brought in by the local policeman.
Taking off from the station on a summer or autumn evening, turning towards the continent, meant I was often presented with some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen and climbing often prolonged them. We flew into darkness with bright skies behind, night below and daylight above and the only real danger from the dark areas, which meant there was no time to linger on the exquisite sight behind us.
On each Op I took note of the route and times etc. of different dog legs so that I would be able to estimate a course to be taken if the Navigator and navigational equipment were damaged. My hope was that I could give the Skipper a course to the centre of the British landmass from wherever we might be at that time and that one of us would be able to check drift, wind speed and direction and knowing aircraft speed, roughly work out ETA over Britain. All details had to be kept in my head. We put it into practice only once as an experiment and arrived over Cromer instead of Lincs. From Kiel. I did navigate sometimes when on cross-countries and was OK but had all the aids which I could not rely on in an emergency.
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
Account of operations
Description
An account of the resource
Mention action on getting caught in searchlights, effects of altitude on aircrew, avoiding bombs from above, encounters with B-17 while on operations and getting a bottle of Bourbon from the American crew later. Mentions encounter with probable Mosquito, operation to Kiel Canal, friendly aircraft being attacked on return to base, conditions while flying, clothing, operating procedures, briefing and post flight debrief. Describes ground crew and work they did. Concludes with comments on summer operations and that he took notes on each operation of routes and times. Pages numbered. 29, 30, 31 and 2,3 and 4.
Format
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Three page printed document
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
BPotterPLPotterPLv4
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Kiel Canal
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Saarbrücken
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
P Potter
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Bloomfield
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
aircrew
B-17
bombing
briefing
debriefing
ground crew
Lancaster
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
nose art
RAF Wickenby
searchlight
Window
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/233/3376/AColensoF170522.1.mp3
62f276f7578995b81676e568202f437e
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Title
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Colenso, Frank
Frank Colenso
F Colenso
Description
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One oral history interview with Frank Colenso.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-05-22
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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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Colenso, F
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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PL: Hello and, and first of all an enormous thank you. My name is Pam Locker I’m in the home of Mr Frank Colenso of [redacted]. Frank it’s wonderful that you have agreed to talk to us today and so a big thank you on behalf of the Bomber Command digital archive.
FC: Thank you for inviting me.
PL: It’s a pleasure.
FC: To do that.
PL: So, I guess what I, where I’d like to start Frank is to ask you a little bit about your family and, you know, a little bit about your childhood.
FC: Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I come from a very old Cornish family. There’s a lot of names with ‘o’ on the end but we’re not Italian. My, I was brought up in Falmouth in Cornwall. My dad was a boiler maker in the Falmouth docks. So, I was a young lad at school, in the scouts, a choir boy in the Parish church. A boy scout for many years and then when I started work at fourteen it was as a recovery porter on the Falmouth Packet weekly newspaper. So, the, the reporter there was Alan, doesn’t matter, he was, I, I started the job in February 1939, when I was fourteen and a half and left school. So, on the newspaper, Alan the reporter was showing me the ropes and he was in the territorial associate, the territorial army so as we went through 1939 and the war was imminent in the UK and Alan was off to war so for, for the next two years I was on my own as a, but it was a wartime rationing of paper we had not a lot of space for much news mostly it was funerals and whist drives and things like this, council meetings and such. So, then when the war broke out that year and Dunkirk happened with all the rescue allied forces from the Dunkirk area, scores of ships came into Falmouth Bay and they off loaded and the soldiers, and they were processed and given some clean clothes I guess and put on the train. So constant trains going up country from Falmouth. And my mother was a red cross nurse at the time and she was nursing these survivors from that awful time. Very much a, upset by the soldiers especially those who had swallowed fuel oil in sea water, in a bad way. So, here we are 1940 and Falmouth was bombed. The town was bombed, people killed and because the Germans were on our doorstep almost the reaction the day afterwards for hundreds and hundreds of men to join the local defence volunteers along with us young lads. Not quite sixteen some of us, so but they took us all on into the local defence volunteers and started to give us something to do. In the initial few days we were cycle patrol with an old vicar with his automatic from World War 1 which only had about eight rounds. He was our leader, so we drove, rode around the high ground round Falmouth at night, especially at night. Watching out for people setting up lights to align a bomber with say Falmouth harbour or the town or whatever. But I think the Germans wouldn’t possibly not wrecked Falmouth all the dock and repair facilities so they aimed for the town. Because they wanted a deep-water harbour and that Falmouth is the only one down that way. So that was background. We were well trained. We immediately had the sergeants all had tommy guns. The officers had side arms, the revolvers or automatics. We had American Springfield 300 calibre rifles with fifty rounds of ammunition in, in a cloth round our ear and we were well trained. We were always at the range shooting regularly and when we were kitted out gradually with uniform, boots and everything a soldier has. Well almost everything. We were well trained we was parade nights twice a week. Firing on a range Saturday afternoon. They formed us into platoons and they started at night guards around six different parts around the town from the looking across the bay to the high ground and along the low ground on the little Penryn river. So that was a pattern of my Home Guard thing was every six nights night guard. Along with that we would do with the Army exercises with the Army which got us used to the whole area around Falmouth because we drove to all the little paths and by ways and short cuts and where the high hedges were. So, you could form an ambush then. Throw all the stuff you had on with a few little turnips from the field and then just disappear because that’s the point about you really you don’t stand and fight. You get them worried that wherever they go there’s a shadow that might be us or somebody else. So that was the pattern of it. But we were well armed, we had, we had grenades and [unclear] bombs. We had mortars, spigot mortars that could fire twelve pound or eighteen pound bomb. We had what we called Vickers machine guns. The newest guns which was like an aircraft type gun, 300 calibre. We had something like phosphorus bombs. One of the bombs had five-pound weight of gelignite in it in a glass sphere. There was sticky bombs which you threw and if you threw them hard enough you took the covering off to stick on things and explode. We’d have done ourselves no favours using these things, but this was desperate times. The Germans had come right through across into France, all up as far as Norway and down towards the whole French Coast. And we were next, they were unstoppable except they had to defeat the Air Force before they could think of crossing the Chanel. So that was the pattern of the first bombing of Falmouth started the Battle of Britain, early July 1940. So that was the bombing in Falmouth. We got used to it. You were, took notice of the, the air raid warning the warbly siren and you dressed, undressed very tidily because we only had candles in the bedrooms and of course in air raid you don’t light up candles you’d got to be able to put your clothes on in the dark. So, you took your clothes off and laid them out in the right order and you were the worse and we got dressed. We had a little attaché case with odds and things in case you were blown out of your house and we took shelter next door in Cliff Roberts’ house. We were a terrace house, he’d built a huge air raid shelter in his garden. Being a deep-sea diver from the docks he’d brought a great lorry load of wood home, dug a big hole in the garden, lined it and covered it over with massive beams and that’s — Dad sawed through the fence to make a little gate. So, air raid meant we dressed, took our little attaché cases, went downstairs, through the gate into the shelter and the next-door below us was a tug boat skipper, one of the Falmouth harbour tugs. He dug a big hole, helped by his two sons and cleverly when they got a bit tired, I suppose, Mr White would find a half crown, so that made the boys do a bit more digging. And I realised, I didn’t think about it, I thought that was real treasure they were finding but I think the crafty Dad he wanted to [laughs] keep them shovelling. So, he was — that was the pattern of bombing. We weren’t allowed to write up about things like that in the newspaper but inevitably wrote about the funerals. One occasion which I didn’t put in my diary, if you imagine a stick of bombs, a stick of four bombs, one landing, I think on the boards, boarding house school. Anyway, it wrecked that school. One was in the quarry. The next one was, we were exactly in line, the next one was a hundred yards away which flattened a house and killed the occupants. So that was a narrow escape. In the early bombing as well in Falmouth my pal who was in the scouts with me and at school, Jeff Maynard. He was in Lister Street with, along with two relations who had come down from London to escape the bombing and that particular raid, parts of the town, his house was completely blown apart and collapsed on them. They were under the stairs which was a strong point, recommended to be and the gas main had been fractured. The water system pipes were broken, so they were faced with the water and gas leaking. They were dug out by the rescue, volunteer rescue parties and luckily not requiring hospital treatment. They were found a house in the, in the country about three or four miles away in Constantine and now Jeff was due to start work in — where my brother worked in Burts the electricians which was only three hundred yards from his house, so when this happened, he had to get the bike out. But we were all cyclists. We cycled patrol. Only lasted a few, a few weeks to give us something to do. But we were well trained. We had Army instructors, we had all these weapons that we learnt. We did grenade throwing and mortar usage, using mortar. So then and along with this night exercises perhaps which meant we’d just come off night guard because of six nights, each day was different and there was an exercise that started Saturday afternoon with the Army and ran all through the night until Sunday morning when they hoped to finish it, so we could get home for our Sunday dinner. That was the pattern of it. So, you were very tired at times but that was it, that’s normal to be quite — and you were cold sometimes on guard because, it was before we had greatcoats, we would have a blanket round our shoulders, patrolling along the cliffs. With these little glow worms sometimes but for the first bit of a town boy your night sky is just a few stars here and there but when you are out in the country and there is no other light from anything else that big ball in the sky is something you’ve never seen before. So, this was the pattern. Along with this was all the newspaper work, meetings, council meetings all sorts of evening affairs. I had to write about court cases and I was getting half a crown a week. I, I started as an apprentice you see, and I was bringing myself up really. Well I was on my own. So, this was six pence a day but I was never broke. I think I gave my money, my mother something as well and we were lucky. The Cornish Echo was the paper that operated from Falmouth and I was very friendly with Bill Ward their reporter and of course typically we worked together. We always met at court cases and things. In fact, for court cases, if I sent my copy up to the Western Morning News by putting it on the train I was paid a penny a line and I was often getting more with my, whatever you call it, sending my material up to them than I was [laughing] but then that was [unclear] no [unclear] really. So, with the, with the shooting I became quite expert. I was a sniper, we were snipers in the, in my platoon, and so that when — later on it was time to decide what I wanted to do because conscription was looming and if you could volunteer before then you went where you chose to go. So, my pal Bill had — older than I, he was a grammar school boy, so better suited to be training as a reporter really, than a young lad with me like I was. Now, he was a bomb aimer on 50 Squadron later on. My other pal, Nick, whose father was in the Bristol Aeroplane Company a roaming repair and modifications man, he was down on — working on [unclear]. On a Beaufighter. And he said if you come down to the Lizard Peninsular where the big scanners are now, you come down and I’ll show you round the Beaufighter. And whatever else is there so. These, these places weren’t fenced. So, you just came across and of course it’s a treat for young lads of fifteen or sixteen to get inside an aircraft like the Beaufighter for instance. Anyway, he showed us around the, also Vulcan and Hurricane which was another fleet. So, later on Nick’s dad said I’m going to take you up to London, he said I’ll ensure you get on the train I shall meet you at Exeter where you change, and we’ll go to the Windmill Theatre, there’s something to somebody, somewhere we can stay so that then this happened. We went to the Windmill Theatre which was a, we never close was the motto. And the attraction there was the nude, the nudes on the stage. So [laughs] but they weren’t moving, they weren’t allowed to move just graceful poses. So, you can imagine that with the gauzy screens, I suppose, in front. I can’t remember quite but no doubt a clever way of screening the fine detail of them and then when there was a little interval and people were leaving in the rows of seats. If there was an empty seat in front of you the men would clamber over to get into it because when they had a few intervals they got nearer and nearer the action [laughs] or the inaction [laughs]. So that was one episode and my memory I took away of all things, not about the nudes but about Vic Oliver, who’s the son in law of Churchill who was a comedian and played a violin and he could do most marvellous things with that violin. He could make it laugh [laughs] which had us in hysterics really to hear himself. This was the world of darkness it was then during the war. So back home again it wasn’t long before Mick’s dad said you get a job in the, in the Bristol Aeroplane Company because with all you do your in work, you’re in your workshop all the time making things. Because I made a half scale tommy gun for Nick’s nephew and in fact, because I could copy the detail in, I was obviously capable of making it from scraps of things. I made myself early on a practice rifle. The right weight of ten or eleven pounds to strengthen up my old muscles because I was a little weedy eight and a half stone when the, in 1939. Later on, when I went to join the Air Force I was well over, well about ten stone plus. So, I did volunteer, no I did go to Weston-super-Mare for an interview and of all things to show how nimble and clever I was with my fingers I brought a cigarette lighter that I’d made, not really knowing that this was a joke. Everybody around the country would say all they do is make cigarette lighters in the factories so anyway the, then I had a letter to take me on and then I had another letter. The, all our recruiting has been taken over by the government so that agreement is not valid now. So that’s when I joined, I volunteered to be an air gunner. Went to the normal medical at Plymouth and then later on went to Oxford for an aircrew medical when they discovered that my left eye was below standard and my right ear. So, thinking back all these seventy odd years later really, that, that saved my life, that bad eye saved my life really because as we know half of the Bomber Command people never came back. So that was, so as I was unfit for aircrew and so stamped on my document, I believe, then I could have a choice of what I wanted to do. What trade for instance. And I chose to be airframe. Airframe mechanic to start with because Nick’s dad said if you’re an airframe fitter, it’s a use, such a useful thing to know and after the war you can turn your hand to anything. And, in fact, it proved right really. So that was my time when I was called up go to Padgate up around Manchester way, I believe, as a recruit to be kitted out and do a bit of marching about, I guess and, so that was the first time that I was in a hut with about twenty odd others. But really as I had been in the Home Guard with sleeping in a guard room every six nights with the noise that goes on and the bustle that happens at times, it’s no big deal. Same as being shouted at on the parade ground, that was nothing new. Whereas it was bit of a great culture shock for a lot of chaps first coming into it. So, I took all that in my stride. So, the recruits then, new recruits were off to Blackpool, billeted in the landladies houses, you would first of all when you arrived and got, got into a situation where you marched down these streets. They would halt and right fourteen of you in here. That’s how they set you off in the different houses and the landladies were I’m sure occupied all through the war. Which is why they were after the war able to have so many marvellous changes, I would guess that happened. So that was it, but you see Blackpool was marvellous it was the only place, one of the seaside places that civilians could come to. The aircrew chose Torquay as their initial training and Torquay itself was barred from anybody coming, the beaches were all mined, mined here and there. Well a lot of mines and they had big obstacles to prevent ships landing, landing ships coming in. So, but Blackpool with all its electric trams going up and down the long, long coast sparkling away at night, must have been a great giveaway. But often the Germans didn’t get across that far. So that was a marvellous place, four shillings a day was our pay, I think, but beer was I think, maybe went up to nearly a shilling a pint. Anyway, imagine the tower, Blackpool Tower, now inside the marvellous ballroom and we couldn’t dance but there were nine bars there and they were so busy, if you, when you wanted to get a drink you were, there was two deep in front of you at least and close packed, trying to catch a barmaid’s eye. Anyway,but it was such a friendly place and when Christmas came and New Year this was a great place where a lot of kissing went on and hugging and kissing so good for us young lads it was a real eye opener really ‘cause we weren’t into girls before then, we had boys’ things to do. We had the Home Guard to keep us busy. So, this was an adventure then. So, one of these girls was from Bury in Lancashire, an ATS girl. Yes, we palled up and I saw her a few times. Only kissing and cuddling, nothing beyond that. And then later on, a year later on in Burma when I found this tower, Blackpool Tower beer label and on the back, she’d written her address. So, I started corresponding and we had lovely exchange of letters and she was a great poet. She would write marvellous poetry. And then another girl that I was also friendly with later on, in Wellington, I wrote her, and that was a nice little friendly exchange of letters but that’s digressing really. This early recruit training, stamping of feet around the [unclear] whereas out on the parade ground there was a lot of swearing went on. In Blackpool ‘cause you’d march around the streets and did your square bashing there the, the one in command had to watch his, watch his language. But he often marched us to a particular café for the break time, so that meant he would have his free, free [unclear] and we paid a tuppenny of course. We had to have a bath Fridays, Fridays and Mondays because they would march us to the big communal baths there with a swimming pool of course, that was a great attraction. Derby Baths, I think. So, we did our training there, the assault courses. We were shooting, we were running around, which was making us fit. Basically, it was keeping us fit. And also, when you think, stop to think about it on a parade ground when you respond to every order immediately that sets you up for the pattern of the future when you do, you respond to what your asked to do without question. That’s the point of it I think. And then from there I went to Western-super-Mare where Locking is the training, one of the schools of technical training. So that was in the summer of forty-three I suppose. Yes, it was. And we were in huts there and in the mornings when we woke up and had breakfast we marched to the, where the school was with a band in front of us. So, this was a great place for being a seaside place, a lot of people there. It was in the summer especially but we spent a lot of money on the dodgem cars. It eats up your money really when you don’t get much a day [laughs]. Cuts down your money for beer or cider and then one time coming from a local village, walking back west to Locking I kept wanting to take my greatcoat off, lay it on the white line on the road and lie down on it. So that was, I had to be dissuaded of that was not a good idea. Because all the vehicles headlights were havoc, were completely masked except for a narrow slit which was guarded from going upwards by a, like a peak of a cap.
PL: Um.
FC: So, they didn’t produce much light so that was I’ll explain why it’s there, I would do as I was told. But the cider was a powerful drink [laughs]. So, from there a group of us, we were all airframe mechanics, we went, we were sent up to, to, to Shropshire, to Peplow. An airfield which was half way between Wellington and Market Drayton. Wellington is now Telford. The big city of Telford since we were there. And this was, we were, we went there as part of 83 Operation Training Unit, because Wellington twin engine bombers but we hadn’t got any. So those early weeks we were, I suppose, the advance, in advance of the advanced party, really, ‘cause they were recycling themselves from Wales where they were based to there so we were getting things ready. Did meet my old friend who, when I got, I can see his face now, the morning after I got the worse for wear I can see that disgust on his face now. So that’s a reminder that I shouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t drink too much [laughs]. So that was a, a waiting time, working and waiting. We only had one Wellington there in a hangar with both wings off so and that wasn’t anything to learn from. Anyway, they did come and we settled in to some work then with the flying, daily inspections before flight, before flight the inspections turn round inspections and after flight inspections. Flying night time as well because they were doing navigation and working the crew up to a, to work together as part of it. So, but we only had a few other visiting aircraft come so it was only the Wellingtons and about time when they came back, we had all the engines had to be covered every night with a big, like an aluminium cover, balloon fabric with asbestos patches where it would come over the hot exhaust pipes. So that was a task at night in the wind trying to get these covers on.
PL: What was that for Frank?
FC: The reason for covering them over was to keep the moisture out of the engine otherwise the electrics, I think that was a good reason and they wouldn’t — the oil wouldn’t be, wouldn’t be as cold because turning over, if the oil is thick and cold it takes more effort to turn it over by the starter motor so there’s a reason for it. So really, we didn’t have real contact with the crew. We just helped, just supported the ladder as they climbed in, I guess and normal conversation I expect but no, not much memory of any detail of them. But once starting, once started and the signal for chocks away we pulled the chocks away, waved it off and did our salute as they moved, as they gathered speed, so and this main runway, though I think it was newly, newly made because it was completely tarred with, tarred with a black pitch and then covered with oak chips, oak wood chips which were then rolled in. Now, what that was for, thinking back afterwards, partly it could be to camouflage a new runway ‘cause it sticks out like a sore thumb when its new concrete. Might have been that. But certainly, it proved to be a good thing to save tyre wear. You imagine with our training lots of circuits and bumps around the take-off, circle round and landing, you know scores, scores of landings went on that wouldn’t otherwise have gone on with a flight, a flight of Wellingtons. So then, from there I went to Blackpool again to upgrade to a fitter 2A, fitter 2A airframe, so that was more time at Blackpool and that covered Christmas as well so a bit of a repeat, but in the meantime, we decided we must learn dancing. So, at Blackpool, over one of the shops was Madam somebodies dancing academy, so there we were learning the quickstep and the waltz and the foxtrot whatever and I have wrote, written in my diary that I am getting quite good at the waltz, but I haven’t tried it with a girl yet. So, but you can imagine the tower, the marvellous ballroom there, same as the Winter Gardens, sort of a up market place that had all those facilities and a huge dance floor and stage for the band. The whole place was crowded. The bars were crowded sometimes two or three deep waiting, trying to get a drink and no wonder sometimes we drunk these bars dry. So that was where our money went and then in my diary, I realised that I would occasionally draw ten shillings out of my Post Office account to keep my appetite for the old John Barleycorn [laughs]
PL: So, what were you doing at Blackpool when you returned to Blackpool?
FC: When I returned, we went to Wharpton[?] on buses and there, there was another school of technical training. I think it was Wharpton[?] but since called Warton, and so we were doing benchwork and my diary reminds me that I was nearly top of the class for different things like this because I had always been making and mending things as a boy, even when I was a reporter I spent a lot of time in my workshop making this tommy gun, half size tommy gun and making myself an automatic pistol, but it wouldn’t have been automatic but to fire, point two-two ammunition, but prior to that with my little cap gun, made of a steel castings probably put together for a roll of caps. I modified this pistol by drilling a hole where the hammer struck, just the size of a point two-two blank cartridge and then the hammer I drilled it so that I provided it with a spike which, when you, when you discharged, when you pulled the trigger that set the round off but I made a mistake really. I should have had it in the vice when I first fired it but I was holding it like you would and when I fired it really when you think about it there was no where particular for the, for the, blast to go, all it could do was to throw the side, pivoted side part of it off and crack, crack it off to my finger, so I thought I won’t, I won’t use that again.
PL: So, what were you making at the technical school?
FC: We were doing, we were doing filing. We had to file within a few thousands of an inch or even less. You were drilling, you were making brackets shapes, folding metal, drilling the holes, riveting, getting the, the idea of the rivet clearance hole and so on and riveting up and you were judged on the final product. So that’s where I got top marks again. So, I graduated, if that’s the word, we never used that, came away with a, with the upgrade which I think it gave me six pence a day more which was well worth it. So then back to the, back to Peplow, carrying on with the and then I was in modifications section and the diary reminds me that we’d start picking dual control on a Wellington on one morning we’d work all day, all evening, right through the night until six o’clock or so in the morning when we’d finished the job. We made provisionally an extra seat in that position because normally the pilot sits on the left with easy access for the crew down to the bomb aimers section and up to the front turret, but once the seat was in it was a bit of a squeeze to get by so we fitted an extra control column linked with the first pilots’ and another job we did in the modifications thing was strengthen up the under-carriage attachment structure. Where the under carriage pivoted from to, to be trapped that had to be reinforced. The radius rod which braces the length once it’s locked down, that structure was cracking. There was a, actually there was a heavy landing or any landing that was the, the main attachment pivot point and the radius rod attachment rod were trying to spread themselves. So, we, the modification was to strap a diagonal strut to strap between the two fittings which had I think three quarter bolts on it and my diary records that we did this Wellington in, on one side in eight and a half hours. So typically, with modifications seems to take time to do the first one but once you get the swing of it. And then because, because once we did that the aircraft had to have a test flight which meant all the crew positions had to be occupied, not just the pilot and his engineer. So, I was in the tail turret for this first flight I’d ever done, proudly stroking the, the gun butts, for the, the machine guns in there. So, we took off happily and we circled, climbed, circled and did different manoeuvres and looking over the fields for the first time from above it’s a real eye opener. Then there was an aircraft coming from behind, a single engine aircraft, I can’t remember what on earth it was but it was overhauling us from the star, from our starboard side and I knew, I knew you, you must never point guns unless you really mean, from the Home Guard you never pointed guns but in this case I was the hero with a wicked German and I was following him in the gun sights, I mean there was no ammunition, following him in the gun sights until he came along side by which time the turret was at right angles and there was an enormous bang behind me. And a rush of wind, a terrific rush of wind and what it was I hadn’t latched the doors, two doors together properly, which I mean it must have happened with lots and lots of other people at the time, so I nursed the turret back in line and scrambled, round to try and shut the doors because when it flew open and I looked over my shoulder at the green fields farm, you know, I only had a three or four inch strap around my waist and the chute, parachutes is clipped inside the aircraft in a bracket, so you’re a bit on your own there if you want to jump out. Not a happy place for anyone to be when things are happening for real. So, this is one of those things that the story must, must have been told endlessly if the doors flying open [long pause]. So, the pattern —
PL: So, so the point, what was the, what was the purpose of the test flight?
FC: Well the test flight was to, to operate the controls. We did other —
PL: Dual controls?
FC: We did other things regarding the rigging as well.
PL: Right.
FC: The, now, the undercarriage knock down selection [pause] it pulled the flaps, I think, partly down it was all through the aircraft, with all its trim somehow with its undercarriage dangling down, so it was linked up with the flaps but the, the, the point was if the — yeah, if they were flying and with the, with the trim controls, that was the other edges wasn’t it? Anyway, if you were flying and you operated the tail trimmer and then [emphasis] selected the undercarriage down, if you operated the tail trim too much and the flap and the undercarriage came down it would pull on the cable to do what it thought it had to do and it meant the cable snapping so it finished up with a spring strut being put in the cable somewhere I believe. But the Wellington was very touchy when you jacked it up in the hangar you had to, you had to know what you were doing. The jacking point typically you would think is on the point of balance but then that’s not a happy thing to do. You need weight on the tail when you’re jacking so because of this reason it depends, if you’ve got your engines in, it’s different to when you have got no engines in, but you had to watch jacking that you didn’t let it, let it tip so. It was a case of securing the tail wheel down till you were safely jacked and then the retraction we did, adjustments we had to make, the hydraulics all new to us we were learning how everything worked. We — when you fly the Wellington and if you think of a, perhaps a better with a low light coming across the wings you realise then what, how an aeroplane works, you get reduced pressure on the top side and increased pressure underneath. You realise then that being a fabric covered wing and geometric construction which is like a lattice work you looking across the wing, it’s like looking across a quilt on your bed, it’s all in squares, little square humps and you think it’s, that’s holding the blessed aircraft up that fabric. So, it’s well laced on.
PL: Um, um.
FC: It’s well secured, and the Wimpey could take a lot of damage. We didn’t have any damaged aircraft coming back to our patch because but, the, this design proved itself. If you had a big hole blown in it, it destroyed these, this lattice work then it wasn’t terminal for the aircraft. The strains could be shared up with whatever was there.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: And then they went — the ones that had an engine fire and maybe burnt the fabric off, burnt the fuselage fabric off right into the tail plane they would still get back.
PL: Good gracious. There’s sometimes you’d have aircraft coming back, and it was really a skeleton.
FC: Yes, I know. Maybe just one, one tail plane and a bit of an elevator to control. But they were sort of an all laid back aircraft in the air. They were moving a bit, when you’d, a lot of aircraft when you look back towards the tail, it’s like a, a ship at sea. They describe a little square pattern, repeated pattern, on a ship. I mean later on a troop ship, sleeping on deck the mast and the stars they would be making little squares in the sky. But certainly, as I said the, the, the low sun across the wing made you realise that you been,the aircraft had been supported by it.
PL: Um, um. So, can you take a guess at how many Wellingtons you converted to dual control?
FC: No, I didn’t record it you see I didn’t have room for recording things like that. It was all about the, the drinking and the dancing and the meeting of different ones.
PL: [laughing]
FC: Now one night, I’d forgotten about this. On one diary entry I’d drawn a picture of a brooch with a nice letter ‘M’ with wings. That was for one of the good girls that I was with and then, Marjorie, and then when I’d finished it, I mean in the diary it gives me away what type of chap I am. I, it came up so good, the words are in the diary, but that it’s too good to give to Marjorie. I’ll wait till I find another girl with a letter ‘M’ [laughs]. But in fact, I gave it to my mother.
PL: Oh
FC: Her second name was May but I said this is ‘M’, ‘M’ for mother.
PL: Oh, how lovely.
FC: [laughs]
PL: So how long, how long were you a flight engineer?
FC: I wasn’t a flight engineer, ground engineer.
PL: Ground engineer, sorry.
FC: Well this was once I was a classed as airframe fitter, fitter to airframe then, then I said farewell to my pal I joined up with, Jeff Grinden, of all things had taken his tenor saxophone with him, like musicians do.
PL: Um.
FC: Because he had a marvellous life, like pancake. We had a mountain of spuds to peel, Jeff would be tootling away on his saxophone. He’d go to the bands that were playing music for the, for the Officers’ Mess or whatever and of course abroad he had it all the time he was abroad. When, when we parted company at Bombay he went with others to the Cocos Islands on a Liberator Squadron in fact. But on the, when we were, the draft that I was in to go to Blackpool again, the ready crew, the ship from the Clyde at Gourock I think. That was at Blackpool again. So that’s where I said farewell to Jeff. Who was at the next town up from Blackpool. I went there, I shouldn’t have left the area really, strictly but said my farewells. Then my train to Gourock, or Gradock or whatever, whichever it was. There I was lumbered up with all my webbing packed up with backpack, haversack, kit bag on my shoulder trying to find G deck and A deck, A deck’s the lifeboat deck, a long way down. Coming down this wide, quite wide stairways, there was a chap coming towards me and I moved to the side and he moved to the side and we stopped. And I looked up and it was Jeff, so he was on the same troop ship [laughs]. Oh yes, G deck was a long way down.
PL: So how, just trying to clarify how you moved from working on Wellingtons. So, did that work come to an end?
FC: Oh no, we just —
PL: So, so how did you get to be on a —
FC: Well in my case, I didn’t know it at the time, they needed well over two hundred upgraded fitters 2A.
PL: Right.
FC: Airframe people. They did over two hundred airframe people to put them on a 9613B, now why did I think of that. Well our kit bags had it on. And on the troop ship we had instructions from the CG-4A Waco glider, a small glider.
PL: Right.
FC: Because we going, this was for Burma, for the going into Burma. So, we had all the instruction on it and then we got to Worli, to Bombay, Worli is a huge transit camp for people leaving and coming in. And when the dhobi wallahs came around in the huts asking for our clothes to be washed we innocently, naively gave them all our sweaty old clothing and when we — later on, we saw about four acres of khaki spread out to dry in the sun. So, but they had a clever code, they’d invented their own sort of barcode amongst themselves. Just a pattern of dots inside the collar perhaps and then on the, from the outside troops, I mean it was a four-year tour when I went, a four-year tour. They were, they wanted to raise some sterling, so they were selling things off and one, I bought a topi, a pith helmet, flat, sort of thick with a flattish top with a RAF [unclear] with an RAF flash on it. I don’t know how many — how much that was. Another one was Irish linen, a stone coloured suit in the RAF pattern which is starched. Very smart. So I bought that off him. I can’t just think what else. But I was proud to wear that suit, I’ve got pictures of it. So, in India, that’s right, that’s right, about eight or so of us airframe fitters went up to, to, to 144 repair and salvage unit which was based at the time at Risalpur, North West Frontier Province as we used to know it. Right by Afghan border where the, where the Khyber Pass starts.
PL: Um.
FC: Nowshera is a town across the Kabul river. So that was our first of the Indian town we went in, and I remember the cinemas there with Indian films and then there was a big pre-war army, army station with, with lots of facilities there, marvellous billiards rooms. We had our barrack blocks had a wide veranda, a covered veranda and a big rack to put your rifles in to lock them up and pegs over each bed to put your harness or whatever these cavalry people needed to have with them and we had our own bearer there we paid about six annas a week, of course clubbed together with a dozen of us. We had the young lad guarding our possessions and keeping the, keeping it clean. And then we got used to the Indian char wallah coming around with — on his shoulder was a harness arrangement, he carried an urn with a, with a heated, heated urn to, to serve up hot tea and egg, egg sandwiches [laughs]. So that was a good place and then Christmas came again celebrated with the officers coming round serving up the grub I suppose and 35MU was also based there. The maintenance unit. While we were there on the Frontier we were, we were, our particular party, working on the Hurricane doing a major inspection and completely recovering the fuselage with fabric, that was our task. And that had flown all the way from Burma. What they did, the aircraft in Burma that came to, need repair or whatever stage of air worthiness it was, if they had the, the time left on the major inspection date and could do it, they could fly as far as they could. They wouldn’t want to put all the aircraft into the first repair unit, so that distributed all across India. It went on, there was a three and a half year campaign, so you imagine it was a lot of work for the set up for the, right across India and of course that then was a good start when they started their own airlines later on. They had a lot of, a lot of experience in aircraft. So that was a, a memory that, and that aircraft turned up in Burma later when I was told to, when I was told to do something on this Hurricane when I was in central, lower Burma [pause] yes it, as you approach it you see how it settles, just checking the whole thing you walk around the aircraft checking things and typically you’d give it a slap underneath the fabric areas to check whether there was any water in there. So when I came to this Hurricane which had on its [unclear] a long piece of cord on the trailing edge on top of the trailing edge [unclear] and I said to myself ‘I was right after all, somebody else has done it’ and when I turned round to just look at and realise what number it was, it was the one that where, on the North West Frontier when it flew after we did all of the rigging checks, after the major,it was I think left wing low so having rigged it all with a, a positive droop or something the answer was to put I think eight inches of cord on top of the trailing edge of the rear, of the rear part of it. Bolt that on, which put a slight down pressure on. Just a gentle thing, but left wing low again and that’s why I put this quite long piece of stuff on [laughs]. So, the chaps were glad that it’s doing the, still going strong.
PL: Um, um.
FC: But, but when I first went, three of us got posted to Burma.
PL: Right.
FC: For a few weeks.
PL: So why did that happen? Was there just need in Burma?
FC: Well with, with the Air Force, no with the Army if you were in the regiment and down to a platoon, it’s like keeping an aircrew together in the war. These platoons have got to, have got to train together, whereas and they would, they would keep keeping that platoon together. But the Air Force it was all numbers, it was like if they wanted two hundred airframe fitters by that time, they went through their books and we met up with those we’d been training with as recruits. So, the time comes when they needed three chaps in Burma like they would happen. With the units, I mean they, this was another repair and salvage unit so three of us got our rations and I don’t know how long the railway journey took on these hard old wooden seats, where you had your mess tin and you had your loose tea and you went up on the, when the train stopped, you went up to the locomotive, asked the driver for some boiling water for your tea, he would blast this, you want to get out of the way, blast this super-heated steam which is well above boiling point, you know, it’s a super-heated stuff, down a pipe and then run water through it. By the time it came out it was boiling so that was our provision. And then on different stations the Indian fruit sellers were there and cakes and things you could get. So that was at Delhi. We didn’t get to the Taj Mahal we only had a day or two stop there. By the time we reached Calcutta in a big, in a transit camp there where, that’s where we was ventured in to Calcutta find where Thurpos[?] restaurant is and have a lovely meals there. [pause] So, then the, the journey on to where, whereby new unit 131 repair and salvage unit was. We had to go by train and boat and, and truck, across the Brahmaputra that’s right because the — oh the, with the Burma medal, the Burma star it was, it was for people who served East of the Brahmaputra, that was the line, so by the time we — when we got to Dhoapalong, not far from Cox’s Bazar on the Arakan Coast of Burma, the Bay of Bengal Coast. It was an airfield, we were in a lovely area which had bashas, lots of bashas which are huts made of — thatched huts with bamboo, woven bamboo side panels and things like that with, with beds in there. So that was — and then the airfields were Cox’s Bazar and Chittagong and so on. And we were repair and salvage so our task was to be in that position to, to be covering aircraft perhaps, and if you think of that coast, there’s a long beach, seventy miles long on one stretch of that coast, so a great safe landing for the pilot, not all that good for the airplane though, when you had to get there quickly, before the tide came in [laughs] so that was a — and if it was a belly landing job you had to try and lift it to get the undercarriage down and that was a task really and a half. So, but then they were desperate for any aircraft parts to be sent back to, to the big repair depots, that’s where they got their spare parts from. Now when we moved when Akiabyron[?] was taken, just by the Danba[?] Coast, we had an advanced party go down to get our new camp prepared and — oh and then I was tasked to be an escort for spares, going from Chittagong to Akyab and I wore my lovely stone walking out suit that I’d paid a few pounds for when I first landed at Bombay. I wore that and when I had to find somewhere to sleep I think because I was so well dressed, they said the CO is away you can use his tent and his bed. Clean sheets, imagine, this is, we shouldn’t keep the sheets on in case we made them dirty [laughs] now, so typically in the morning, no, there’s no, there’s no aircraft seat for you to return, they’re all jammed up with the wounded but while you’re here if you roll your sleeve up, to see, the [unclear] I think shows your, I was going to say postcode, your blood group.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, there was me in this MASH type forward hospital, laid alongside this soldier, for the first time giving a donation. Well its quite moving in a way and I remember thinking you could, you’ve got your religion here, I said, I’m C of E I wonder if my blood’s alright for him [laughs] thinking that, it set you up to do blood donation. For fifty or more times while I was at Farnborough later on. So that was my, the time when I —
PL: So, they just asked you if you would do a blood donation?
FC: Yes, anybody, any visitor wanted, any visitor they would —
PL: Right. Any visitor came along, and they would ask.
FC: Well, they were desperate days, weren’t they?
PL: Yes.
FC: And the wounded that were carried away in the daks[?], there were so many that were too, too bad to move.
PL: Um, um.
FC: And yet these forward hospitals had a lot, a lot on their plate.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, the only aircraft to come back was a Tiger Moth, a little biplane, a trainer biplane a very old design. So here I was with my, a, a thunderbolt propeller spanners and kit for a Hamilton propeller with that in the rear seat and sitting on the pilot’s parachute because he only had some blankets to sit on. And we were flying a lovely flight really up, just on, just inland of the coast, a nice area to fly in and this big, this big telescopic spanner with a tommy bar, I thought if any Japs come I should point this other weapon [laughs] like a —
PL: So, they’d think it would look like —
FC: Like a forty millimetre gun.
PL: Excellent.
FC: [laughs] So that was the only time I ever wore that suit once I was in Burma because I just put it away and went with a jungle green. So that was when we moved to Akyab that was, we were quite, it was a camp we were in, a flat area, if you — you only had to dig a hole, I mean, not knee deep and it would fill with water. So, you were alright for washing water and [pause] and Thunderbolts, Squadrons. New Thunderbolt Squadrons had moved in so I think the first day I frightened them, four or six of them were, had come from the airfield up the perimeter track around to, to where the runway was and one had got rather to the side of the, of the good ground and it sunk its wheel right up until the wing tip was on the ground so and that was all armed up you see, so we had to, that was our first salvage job to get that back on its, back on its wheels on its feet again but then nothing was damaged so that’s another Christmas tree to us we could take bits off as spares. I remember one chap there with his — he’d got a, I think it was a hydraulic tank all blanked off with a — he was putting air into it to check for bubbles so the only liquid around at the time was an open top had been cut open off a forty five gallon drum, it was a couple of feet of petrol in it so you submerge the tank in it to check for bubbles and somehow, I don’t know, it was stupid really cause you can blow with your mouth, you can blow a pressure of two pounds a square inch, but goodness knows what pressure he put on the tank because it expanded up almost to a ball and so he’d wrecked the tank but it was great for us it was like, it was like a kettle, once we’d left a few blanks on and a spout that was for boiling up our hot water for Crow the engine pit, the engine mechanic who was the butt of everybody’s humour. He would be grinding, grinding up this K rationed chocolate into little crumbs to make cocoa with, so that was a good use for that little tank. But another time, oh, we moved to a better area on a bit higher ground. And then the, the toilets had to be dug. About three barrels deep, a long way down and set up that for a latrine and the, the, they made beds out of telephone wire, bamboo poles and telephone wire, like a, like a grid, no springs but we were off the ground. So, when we moved — but when we were in Dhoapalong before we moved there to Akyab I’d made myself a camp bed. I went into the jungley bit where there was an old, one of our ground tanks abandoned and I used that to do the metal work for the legs of the, of the camp bed. I found an old tarpaulin off a lorry that I took to the [unclear] he was a tailor in the nearest village where he sewed up the canvas for the camp bed which cost me eight annas I think. So that was all it cost me. So that was good to have my own camp bed. And then I had a bed roll, a bed roll where you made your bed to sleep in and then you left it like that and you rolled it all up so you could easily unroll it and hop into it. Like a modern way of doing it I suppose. So Akyab —
PL: So what sort, what sort of date are we talking at now when you were in Burma? What sort of date was it?
FC: It’s in the diary, it’s in, just into forty-five, just into 1945. I got, it’s all in my diary somewhere. In fact, when I put in a claim for this shoulder that had gone wrong after they took, I had lots of cancer operations, they took a big one away from here which attached itself to my shoulder and neck muscles. So, once they took about three hours operation, anyway once that was radiotherapy on it.
PL: Um.
FC: To kill off the cancer, I describe it as a friendly fire that came. It was a risk with anything but certainly to kill the cancer. The fact that my shoulder dropped. This shoulder, the right shoulder has always been two inches lower than the left. Because the neighbour, who sadly died, he was a tailor, registered tailor, one of the top tailors in that line. Do all the Mess kits with their elaborate frogging and gold braid and he was — and he got me to try on the Sultan of Brunei’s Mess kit and Prince Charles’s Mess kit, in fact Len had made the Queen’s scarlet jacket she wore on early parades in London. Horse Guards Parade. He said your right shoulder is two inches lower. Well I didn’t know it. Didn’t realise it.
PL: Um, um.
FC: But in the bathroom with a mirror which shows the tiles behind you, he was right. But now this shoulder has dropped, now this shoulder is lower than this and you’ve gone out a bit out of kilter. And I have constant pain with it.
PL: Oh dear.
FC: My neck, tilts movement and I only got a sixty degree arc to travel through. So, but I, I tolerate pain really quite happily. I got peripheral myopathy in the legs which, which makes my leg burn. I can’t lay down in the day they just burn.
PL: Oh dear.
FC: But I can stand all day.
PL: Um, um.
FC: In fact, when they, when I’m trying to get to sleep and they burn, I’ve only got to lift the leg up, off the weight of the leg even if it’s soft or hard. Lift it up. Oh, it’s marvellous, I wish I could levitate my legs when I sleep. It’s not much to ask, I suppose. But that’s one of the things I’m , so I’m very stoical about that. But anyway, going back to Akyab.
PL: So how long were you there for?
FC: Well it’s —
PL: How did it all draw to a close? I mean it sounds like you became very clever at making something out of —
FC: Out of scraps.
PL: Out of scraps.
FC: Well this was our motto really, there was no job we can’t do was my corporal’s motto. So, you, there was great improvisation really.
PL: Did you have a workshop there? Did you have all the other kit that you —
FC: Well we didn’t have a workshop as such. I don’t, don’t remember much in the way of workshop situation. There’s a marvellous book called “The Bamboo Workshop” and I knew the bloke, the author of it, because in the early get togethers at, at the Albert Hall in London, this is in the early days, 1947 they had already had got together earlier than that, so each year we went to — for a reunion. Oh, anybody in South East Asia was there, you know Burma or beyond. Getting together because we want, we had [emphasis] to be together. You had all that time like, all unified in that in Burma and with all the, I mean it was a million soldiers in, in the fourteenth army, we were part of the fourteenth army. In fact, in, yeah, in General Slim’s book “Defeat into Victory” which tells the story of the defeat and so on. Just in the last chapter there’s a paragraph that stood out to me talking about 221 Fighter Group that, oh no, 224 Group was bombers, we were Fighter Group and then there’s 221, no we were 221, it was 224 on the [unclear]. Anyway it, he talks about the such close working together with the Air Force that we, we considered 221 Group to be, to be part of the fourteenth army.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: So that’s a good feeling really.
PL: Um.
FC: I’ve got newspapers of, we had a daily newspaper in Burma that came up with the rations when they flew rations, dropped rations, or flew them in anywhere. They tried to make a daily paper available which put you in the background of the what the rest of the world was doing as well.
PL: Um. So how long were you there for Frank?
FC: I had, when I joined, well when I was at Akyab, that’s right, that was maybe a couple of months later. I’ve got the dates, but then about a dozen or more of us were transferred to a number three repair and salvage unit, mobile unit which was formed in the Middle East, worked through the Middle East, come through India and then to the Arakan, to, to actually, took you up to Chapalong[?], this nicely set up with the bashas and things. In the book that was written that he wrote, Ranson, Samson, Reg, and he was always asking people in the Albert Hall ‘tell us about your units’. A lot of history and I regretted I didn’t tell him about 131 or number, well number three in the book was in the early chapter. But there were about twenty or more repair and salvage units that worked all across India.
PL: Right.
FC: And all into Burma. We were the number one —
PL: So, was it a sort of lorry, was all the kit, was it in the back, or how did it work?
FC: We were mobile, we had vehicles, we had three tonner lorries. We had high, high load up RAF trailer.
PL: Um, um.
FC: We had mobile workshops with a lathe, its own, it generated its own power a, lathe, a [unclear] I guess, a, but “The Bamboo Workshop” is a book that’s well worth reading.
PL: So, was that about — so, so did you work on the mobile, on, on the mobile unit?
FC: Yes. That was number three, when I was two years then with that unit.
PL: Right. Right.
FC: With the mobile unit. And so, they, when we joined the unit from the other unit, flew in, flew in across the mountains, the Arakan to Magwe I think, to — before they came down. We landed at Segore[?] it’s a Japanese built airfield just on the Mandalay Road up from Meiktila, only a few miles up there and we landed taxied around and the CO met us. Of course, you’re in a litter of damaged, Japanese aircraft and bodies around but the first thing he did because he was keen, ‘Are any of you footballers?’ And of course a lot, a lot put their hands up like they would because later on he formed — how many of us were there. Must have been a dozen football teams.
PL: Good gracious.
FC: And we played on the dirt runway. Not a happy place to come to grief on.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: But he — and then later on Kendrick, Squadron Leader Kendrick, he organised a, a bullet cart race down the runway. He got the locals to [laughs] bring their bullet carts on and the, the CO, Kendrick, he’d had a grass skirt, he’d got a proper grass skirt, but it wasn’t grass it was nylon towrope, glider towrope about as big as your finger I suppose but so strong, but, so the electricians jeep he had a, this for towing because a chain is a typical thing they issue or a cable but that’s solid whereas using, towing a vehicle out of the dirt, or the mud typically.
PL: Um.
FC: The tow vehicle could go forward and gather its strength up, pull on it without a jerk which could stall the engine.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: So that’s what he kept in the back of his jeep, but that disappeared and reappeared as the grass skirt. [laughs] And then he, he thief proofed his jeep, this electrician, so nobody could steal it. And what he, all he did, clever in my terms but simple. He had a change over switch, so what he did he interrupted the cable running down to the horn, horn, cause that’s just thin cable and then the starter one, button on the floor, that’s a, a small cable to trip in the relay to put the power in from the battery.
PL: Right.
FC: It doesn’t take a vast load but he, he got these side by side to the two-way switch. He could start the engine, nobody could start the engine because he’d cleverly moved the two-way switch. So, starting the engine was pressing the horn button, which nobody would have thought about. A thief especially. And the, the button on the floor, he — I think it you easily found with your foot. He put a little top hat shaped bracket over it with a hole in the middle to guard it, as a guard really.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: But it meant that he could casually go down and press that button to, to plug the hole.
PL: Goodness, gracious me. So, what happened next Frank? So, you —
FC: Well this was, we, we got, the unit, number three had just got there the day before and put up their old tents and all the place, the only place we could sleep was on the, in the cookhouse tent. That big hundred and eighty pounder tent, tent. So, we soon got fixed up with a tent and settled in. What were we up to there? Oh yeah. Meiktila in lower central Burma on top of the plains. There were eight airfields the Japanese had built. Pre-war there was one at Toungoo a bit further on the Rangoon Road, off the Rangoon Road but the one we were on had a marvellous runway, cambered enough to keep the water off.
PL: Um.
FC: And stop any pools developing whereas the perimeter tracks being flat, there were pools that, puddles and pools on that but they, but they’d excavated massive monsoon ditches and big storage ditches. Plus, they’d got the locals doing it all.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, it was, it was operable and they had their control tower up on, on poles on the, the, the trees. Well, well designed that was. And also, where the standing trees were, they got earth embankments to make a huge shaped pen to put the aircraft in.
PL: Right.
FC: So that on one occasion I was working on a Spitfire in this, in this pen. There was standing trees they’d left which was good for shade, you see. I was working on this Spitfire, sometimes if you had to put another tail unit on, you had to crawl down, you would support the aircraft prop, crawl down to uncouple the cables, trim the cables and the rudder and elevator cables and then the transport bolts on the, that took the, the front half, forward half to the rear half, a row of transport bolts to take out. That was rather a hot job. But this particular time I wasn’t there doing that when I was working on something on a little bench, it was a metal one, when, and I’d noticed this Hurricane with its forty-millimetre cannon parked outside and suddenly these cannons were firing right through the trees bringing branches down.
PL: [gasps]
FC: And I ducked under this little tiny bench and it went on and on and on. It seemed to go on forever but in fact I think their magazine holds about fifteen rounds. But if you think of [clapping] going on for — it seemed forever. We went around to see who’d, who’d fired this and standing in the cockpit a bit shame faced was the instrument man. He had put a new film in the cine camera which you matched up to the firing, put a new film in it, put the camera in, he [laughs] the Spitfire control column has a spade, spade shape, well that’s it. Suitable for your right thumb and the gun button has a guard around it.
PL: Right.
FC: So, if you’re working in the cockpit and pull it towards you and if you surround it you won’t set it off. But you’ve got the guard, you move it to a test position and then press it, that’s what he should’ve done, test. What he did was put it on full fire listening for this little whir of the camera and he’d got, fired this lot off and I think he, he was paralysed, he must of thought who’s doing that when it suddenly happened.
PL: Oh dear.
FC: But he kept his thumb on the button obviously.
PL: [gasps]
FC: And luckily, goodness knows where the shells were finishing up, a mile or two or more away. Because it fires about a two pound in effect a bullet.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: And they can be explosive ones as well.
PL: Um, um, um. That’s amazing.
FC: So that was — and we came around and everybody in the unit came round and the cooks as well and the CO come up in his jeep. So that he had to explain by Mr Neal who we called guns, called him guns after that.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: But particularly with the Spitfire, I mean the Hurricanes are totally big high aircraft on the ground a Spitfire is lower down so with the muzzles of the cannons.
PL: So luckily.
FC: You can be like a labourer leans on his spade, you drape your arm over that and it’s happened to people — those have been fired.
PL: [gasps]
FC: Been fired accidentally.
PL: Oh, my goodness.
FC: Maybe twenty millimetres [unclear] there. So, you see tail wheeled aircraft like the Hurricane and aircraft of that day, if they accidentally fire, they’re, they’re set up to about ten or fifteen degrees.
PL: Um.
FC: With a modern aircraft, tricycle undercarriage nose wheel, they’re parallel to the ground and if they fire any of those things of course, it’s just the height.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: To be aware of. So, you wouldn’t walk in front of an aircraft. [laughs]
PL: So, were there many accidents?
FC: I don’t remember many luckily, no, but it’s a warning when there were, to those around and you work safely.
PL: Um, um.
FC: Yeah, I’ve got all my fingers and thumbs. We had to — the one Spitfire that had a damaged wing we got the wing off another of our Christmas tree wrecks and fitted it. Now the pneumatics were connected up, the pneumatic pipes on the route end of the wing. And, now Rolls Royce can put the whole shape into the pipe on a, on a piece of paper but in those days the pipe was just lazily bent to a sort of “S” shape which is kind to the pipe you see but when you’ve got a whole group of them coming up like this from one wing and you take it off and you’ve got to put on another you see, easy to — so when the — right, when I went to test it, right, clutch down, hiss of the flaps. One flap went down and it copped, cropped the cannons in the wing so I thought to myself, that’s a problem with no labelling you see.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, this is a lesson that —
PL: Um, um.
FC: You label everything. But if you got the one wing off another aircraft without thoughts [pause] anyway that’s a lesson.
PL: Um.
FC: And then the — yes, we were detached. They had, typically the unit had the main, main base somewhere and with up to six or eight mobile repair sections, MRS’s and for instance, the one that I was on, number four, we had a crane, a Coles crane, a typical RAF one of the day. We had three tonners, jeeps and [pause] and what else did we have? I don’t know. I forget now. But at one stage — when we moved to Toungoo, that’s it, that was a pre-war airfield, a grass one but it had a big hangar and that hangar the Japs used as a warehouse for rice ‘cause it was — rice was in a huge heap like they pile up road salt nowadays, don’t they. In this hangar, great pile of it, goodness knows how many tons were there, but when we were — I was at Toungoo when the war finished and it was ceasefire and before the ceasefire, I think for eleven in the morning, the noise that morning they were, all these squadrons giving the Japs a good hammering and the, beside the airfield these big guns were firing up into the hills where the Japanese were, but suddenly you were, I don’t know, over awed by the silence because you’d never had, even the little chirpy insects seemed to be stopped. And then you realise the war is over, except the Japs were — they were waiting out Japs for a year after, they kept the West Africans back to, to flush out these Japanese. So, the — luckily the unit had, number three, had followed the, they were at Imphal, on the Imphal Plain with, which has got about eight airfields. The one there was Tollihull[?]. American built, because the American equipment made the road into China across those mountains.
PL: Um.
FC: So, when they were given the length of the runway as, whatever it was, five thousand feet or something, no, five thousand feet, that can’t be right, they must mean yards. Whatever it was it, it was the hugest longest runway but marvellous really because if you had an aircraft come to grief on it there’s plenty more of it.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: Whereas on a shortish run you’d have to clear the wreck off to make room.
PL: Um, um.
FC: For the newcomers.
PL: So, after the end of the war, what was your experience between the war ending and coming back? I mean were you involved with the decommission of aircraft or — ?
FC: Well in Burma we were — my unit was, was chosen to be part of the British Commonwealth occupation force to occupy demilitarising the Japanese.
PL: Right.
FC: So, our unit was chosen, being the top one with experience, but we, we, we will go there, we backed up the three Spitfire squadrons. There was a number four Indian squadron and number four and, no number eleven and seventeen squadrons, well, they operate the top aircraft. Now they have had an almost uninterrupted history from world war one. I mean they stand them down sometimes when they have got to get a new aircraft and when they stand up again the unit with the new aircraft. That’s the way they work. But that was a marvellous unit.
PL: So, you stayed on for a while?
FC: Well we were — yes, you could, you could opt out of going to Japan so in fact we were volunteers and there were two thousand RAF volunteers to go there with us, my unit as support and the Spitfires were rounded up from where ever the war left them and put on an aircraft carrier because we were going off in December forty-five but the, they loaded up this carrier with it, all these aircraft and they were on that carrier for six months. We couldn’t get the shipping we couldn’t get the three ships. We needed three ships with all the squadrons and equipment and stuff of ours.
PL: Um.
FC: Well the small ships of the day, so when we did — while we were there in Burma a hugest hole in the world that I have ever seen was made by the Indian engineers to dump all the aircraft in. A huge trench, if you like, ramping down each, up and down each side. So, we [clears throat] had a like fun which you would think of as fun putting all the Japanese wrecks in there.
PL: Um.
FC: And then our Spitfire useless parts.
PL: Um.
FC: So that occupied our time and they were tidying up Burma in fact when we, and Meiktila is quite near Upping Lake for swimming and typically we had the Spitfire overload tank as an actual raft and then drop tanks and we had the blow up you know plate of all assault dinghies to swim from and that pal of mine who was, er, he was, he was a Geordie but he spent all his time in another part of the country until he came into the air force and he had a camera, as I had, so we took a few pictures between us but when it came to develop and print and the fixer, the, sadly some of the photos have faded away.
PL: Ummm.
FC: Actually, faded away. But I am digressing there. But, that’s right we went to, to Toungoo in the — we were there when, when the war finished. So that was a tidying up time.
PL: Um, um.
FC: Then the, the, the jeeps were modified with rail wheels ‘cause the, it’s the same railway, it’s an old, the old pictures, the old carts of the old days the ruts they make you’ve got to stay in the rut and this is what the blessed trains are. Brunel had the right idea, what’s it, eight foot broad not four foot —
PL: The Western, the Western Railway.
FC: Yes, not the four foot eight and a half inch silly things but then that’s, that’s what’s happened all round the world they kept to that silly measurement.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, we tidied up Burma into this big hole and then we went swimming and then the order came the Burmese want all the scrap metal they can get hold of. Especially aluminium.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, we had to winch and drag and hoick these things out of the trench.
PL: Out of the hole.
FC: Onto tank transporters [laughs] lash them down to take them, go onwards to the scrap yard.
PL: So, having filled the hole you then had to empty the hole [laughs]
FC: That’s why stories go back people have seen the aircraft in the hole they know it’s real.
PL: Um.
FC: As people left, they’d tell the tale
PL: Um, um.
FC: And this business of crates being buried, well [pause], crates weren’t sent to Burma they were sent to India, Bombay maybe and shipped across. The aircraft had to be erected, test flown and, and it, you didn’t have facilities to do that in Burma.
PL: When you said crates?
FC: Crates, big boxes.
PL: What does that mean?
FC: Well big boxes.
PL: Big boxes of parts and things?
FC: The whole thing is in a box.
PL: Right.
FC: For instance, in Japan we had I think six or was it four, Harvards that came all boxed up.
PL: Right.
FC: So —
PL: Like giant Meccano?
FC: Well, no, no, no they were complete aircraft.
PL: Complete aircraft?
FC: No, no well as complete as they could be. Their wings were off.
PL: Right, ok.
FC: And the engines and the tail.
PL: Right, but everything else came in the box?
FC: To get it in the crate, yes.
PL: Good gracious.
FC: Now this, when we were erecting and testing these, test flying these Harvards, they’d been in that packing box for about three years and then Jim, my good friend, the engine fitter he built up the — got the engine on and built, coupled it all up and did everything like that. He wanted to do the engine run, he was desperate to do an engine run you see.
PL: Um.
FC: Now the Aussies had Mustangs, new Mustangs. We had old Spitfires. The Kiwis had their Corsair a big American goal wing thing.
PL: Um.
FC: We had the Spitfires so there was a bit of leg pulling between us and but once we got this Harvard outside, Sergeant Robinson our Sergeant said to Jim I shall run this, you know, pulling rank on him [laughs]. Although Jim had done all the work. Anyway, as we started up, I think Jim was standing, standing just by the cockpit I think, just started up the engine, just started up and there was a, there was a bit of a bang from the cockpit and this instrument glass had blown out and hit him.
PL: [gasps]
FC: And what it was, two pipes had crossed you see. The suction pipe and the pressure pipe, this little pipe across there — the pump should have been, the instrument was driven by suction.
PL: So, was he all right?
FC: And then Sergeant Robinson didn’t want to do any more engine running he let Jim do it [laughs] so Jim’s doing all the others making lots — the Harvards makes a wicked noise the propellers make an awful noise.
PL: Um.
FC: As you know. But —
PL: So how did it all end for you Frank? How did you sort of — what was the beginning of the end and heading home?
FC: Well that was once we were in Japan you see, we —
PL: What was it like being in Japan?
FC: Well it was, thinking back it must have been what Japan was like about twenty years before
PL: Um
FC: ‘Cause the Japanese were, until 1945 when the Japanese surrendered in China, ten years that war was. I mean at one time they had all the South East area right up to the North side but when you think about forty million Chinese was killed, what sort of a cope, what do they all the greater cope prosperity sphere or something, fancy name, they made old friends wherever they went.
PL: Um.
FC: With all the murder, I don’t know, same as Germany when all these countries making no friends at all. What sort of empire were they aiming at? You see it’s the few people at the top having it all done for them. They make decisions but in Japan we had earthquakes we were on, I was on guard on the bomb dump which was an area where there were underground aircraft factories. They were stacked up with materials as well.
PL: Goodness me.
FC: But we had a bomb dump there and we were there on guard one night when in the deepest winter. Bad winter of 1947, which happened here, Europe, but also in Japan, roads completely thick with ice. We were sitting, two of us huddled in this little sentry box when we felt it move, ‘somebody out there, you go that way and I’ll go that way’ so we grabbed our rifles but there was nobody there, ‘now what was that all about?’, but it was the earthquake, just tremors just starting. Now just across the road from us there was a big lagoon but it was thick with ice, you see, because we were trying to break it by finding, throwing big rocks on it but when the earthquake started it made this ice crack up. So, we had our little bit of fun there with an earthquake and then once, once the three tonner came changing the guard taking us back. In the guard room a big demijohn full of rum, but you were only supposed, not to have any before you went on guard, just after you came out so I, my pint mug, I had a couple of fingers of it in there I suppose and of course when you’re on guard room you only take your boots off and get in bed, which doesn’t warm the bed up properly because you were [unclear] anyway I had this rum, finished it off and was then, I was in a dream that I was on a sailing ship because of all the creaking and movement, I was in a sailing ship in my dream and I opened one eye and the, the light was swinging and moving like this, I realised what it was so I — there was a Sikh chap with his turban on just sitting up in bed he said ‘I think it’s an earthquake’ and I don’t think he took his boots, and he slide the window open, they were sliding windows not fitting very well.
PL: Um, um.
FC: And jumped down onto the ice and the snow, well, frozen snow, and a lot of thundering of boots [noise of footsteps] coming down the stairs of the upstairs and it was dangerous too because it was, the lights fused, the lights went out and then there was some scaffolding along inside the building so it restricted the — but they all went out and I thought, I’ve had four, four hours guard out there so I’ll stay here.
PL: [laughs]
FC: But was dangerous really.
PL: Oh goodness.
FC: But the buildings are made, I realised when there was not a lot of damage by the American bombing naturally and not uninhabitable in fact we were in tents when we went to Japan. Now when we had left Burma the big transit camp down in Rangoon was so cold that they found a new area to put the tents up in. The Japanese prisoners put those up, like they would.
PL: Um.
FC: So I had my camp bed, everything else was on a vehicle for loading, so happily in the camp bed when was awoken by the tent having collapsed inward, almost collapsed down inward, because, well it was new tent that, which we’d never seen before, ours were awful old tents, this was a new one but you can imagine new rope and the tent pegs weren’t hammered in very much, very deep because the ground was so hard. But nobody had put tents there before it was in the area that flooded.
PL: Oh.
FC: So, we had a good two inches of water around our feet, so that was — I, when I wrote it up later, I thought, yeah, suppose the boot was on the other foot, think if the British were prisoners, the Japanese were going to their homeland and we put their tents up which had fallen down, it wouldn’t have been any laughing matter. We could laugh with the Japanese in the morning.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: When it came, but not if it had been a different tale wouldn’t it?
PL: Um.
FC: So, our welcome in Japan was to be in tents again. Cherry blossom time I think later on. They were coolie, it was a flying boat station as well as an airfield with a big crane so when the aircraft carriers eventually came with their cargo of Spitfires there was this massive dock side crane. And then they were, we were divided up into working parties. There was some on the aircraft carriers and then some on the lighters, the big barges that they brought in, I don’t know three or four at a time and a big hook of this crane dwarfed, you know, dwarfing everybody and they’re dangling, when I wrote it up being a bit poetic.
PL: Um.
FC: And, about their first landing in Japan from the crane. And we had no tractors, we had no tow bars, don’t know if we had steering arms. They had to be pushed to the airfield about two, two miles away.
PL: Gracious.
FC: One at a time. Now, Bas, my corporal, when there was — jumped down into the lighter that had come in the barge to a hooker, he said ‘we, we got more help here’ and I can’t remember them introducing me to him properly, might have been Peter, but anyway he was stripped off. He was a moon man, you know, one with, with, a pasty chap who’d not been out in the sunshine much, but very willing and we worked together. I was telling him all about the unit, telling him about all the wheezes we could get for a, if you flogged your cigarettes down in the town you had a, each cigarette would more or less buy you a bottle of beer in the canteen you know, things like this.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: Like you would [emphasis] tell a newcomer.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: So, when the, when the last Spitfire got moved off and went back into this little workshop by the hangar where, where tops, and when I reached up from my NAC jacket, when he brought it, he was the new group captain. [laughs]. Telling him all the fiddles we could get up to.
PL: [gasps]
FC: But I mean, he, he and he said something like, it was a marvellous introduction to my new station. When I didn’t realise what he meant new station until that’s what he was.
PL: Oh no.
FC: [laughs] But then —
PL: So, did you get into trouble?
FC: Oh no. No, no. I mean he’d have been flannelled. If, if an officer or any — he’d have had a lot of flannel wouldn’t he. Well, this was honest, he knew we wanted to get the aircraft, wanted to have the aircraft, our aircaft flying again.
PL: Um, um.
FC: Not what I did at the time. He had the right spirit of us.
PL: Um. So, when you had to take these Spitfires for two miles, was it a question of ropes round everything and people pulling, pushing?
FC: People pulling, people pushing.
PL: Literally, so it was manpower? Were the locals sort of drafted in to help?
FC: They had, they had Japanese labourers. I think there was a requirement for the Japanese to work for the occupation force for so many days a month at least. Because when you think about it, we were getting them the idea that it’s a democratic situation.
PL: Um.
FC: Not rule, what they did as well, all the lords, think of our lords of the manor in our country with all the hard workers, like serfs doing their stuff. All the ground divided up between all these [unclear] a similar thing in Japan. They deposed all these characters, I think they went off to Tokyo for a ticket. But I didn’t know at the time but Air Vice Marshall Bouchier who’s a, our overall commanding officer, officer commanding. He took over this manor house to live in, just a few miles up the river where the Kintai bridge is, it’s a five arch wooden bridge with granite piers its often in photographs and pictures. The Kintai bridge. Now before we went there, we were, we had a pocket book telling you the custom of the country and so on and all sorts of helpful things and we were not supposed to fraternise. No fraternisation, so like you would going down by the river and meeting these Japanese girls we were like sitting on a little beach where the, alongside the river. It was, must have been a nice feeling just be sitting with a girl when you’ve got your book trying to say things and then laughing, you imagine they’re laughing and then they’re trying to read English.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: To know what — but it was only bit of harmless fun really but a good job we didn’t get him outdoors up the river seeing us. So, then the jeep, you see, it’s — we all got around with jeeps at the time. Well think of this five arch bridge taking a jeep over it, well it weighed a couple of tons or something and it’s a wooden bridge meant for foot traffic
PL: Um.
FC: I mean its arched like that and you’ve got very shallow steps and then it curves and so, so it’s a bumpy thing for a vehicle so it was pointed out that the Japanese had been complaining that we should take more care of their old things. Beside it only led you to a park. The Japanese are a great one for parks. That’s to their credit. But Japanese we could, we could walk around at night without any fears around Hiroshima. We didn’t have any fears. We were, felt safer there than we did in parts of India.
PL: So, you, you were at Hiroshima?
FC: Well we were based on the Inland Sea where Hiroshima is based about sixty miles west but that was our nearest place to do some shopping in. And of course, we climbed up the —
PL: What was that like?
FC: Well it was — I was just going to say we climbed I think about an eight-storey building but all that was left was the concrete shell of it, you know, everything else was gone but when you got up there about, perhaps eight floors up and you looked across the city the roads had been cleared. Which showed the grid the patterns of the roads, but it wasn’t long before people went back and claimed their patch and put a little shed thing on it and the shops grew then. There was a dance hall and in fact I got tickets, dance tickets for the hostesses, I’ve still got them, so —
PL: Um.
FC: Whether I was hoping to go back and spend them I don’t know.
PL: [laughs] Goodness me. So, what, what, when would that have been? What year would that have been?
FC: That was 1946.
PL: Right.
FC: Yeah. We were due to go December forty-five, that was delayed right till April I think, forty-six when we landed.
PL: Um, um.
FC: But we needed three ships. Now before, while we were tidying up Burma because what was a good trade for the locals, if you wanted chicken or eggs.
PL: Um.
FC: Was some of your canteen things.
PL: Right, right.
FC: So the word went up that the Japanese were desperate for soap of all sorts.
PL: Right, okay.
FC: And you thought well yes, that’s it. That will be a good trade, so our test pilots one took the Harvard across over the mountains to Chittagong bought up all the soaps he could all sorts of soap and then the other test pilot took it to Cox’s Bazar and along that coast, and other places, getting all the soap he could. Thinking that would be good a trade for the impress money from the unit when we get there to build that up so this was loaded on our trucks. Boxed up and loaded on the trucks and though we had about fifty vehicles I think, they had a job to find drivers for them all. Anyway, everything was aboard and that and I travelled down as a passenger in a very comfortable situation laid on top of the bed rolls in the three tonner and I had, we each had a crate of American beer. Little bottles, little lager type things. And of course, in Burma they were always desperate for bottles because they make their, you know their wines and spirits, using, they need bottles. You had a, if you had a bottle to dispose of and you saw some Burmese there by the roadside you could drop the bottle out into the dust ‘cause there was either six inches of dust or six inches of mud.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So that was the way we travelled. When we, we didn’t go half way to Rangoon and stop and spend the night there because the water, the doctor with us said no that water’s all right that water’s all green. When it’s all green like that its healthy water its only growing good water so, but mostly we drunk it as tea. I think we seemed to get by during the day without a lot of water. We never had water bottles, well we had a little enamel one to hook on your webbing belt, but —
PL: So, what happened with the soap in Japan? Did you manage to sell all the soap?
FC: The mistake was after we loaded the vehicles into this particular ship there was no escort for this, for the truck with the spares and all the equipment no escort on the ship and the dacoits who were the bandits and thieves of Burma lifted all the soap. Now when we got to Japan, we found the boxes had been opened and we, we, we deliberately made a shortage of soap around that area and then the robbers had the soap to sell. So, they must have done, done a lot of, done themselves a lot of good.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: Because I said later whether CID or whatever they were, were trying to investigate the thieves showed a clean pair of heels [laughs] with all that soap.
PL: [laughs] I see.
FC: So, we had — this, oh this earthquake that I was saying about when I was on guard. I went back and that upset the runway. The aircraft in the hangars were damaged.
PL: Right.
FC: They were crashing together, moving together.
PL: Right. Oh no.
FC: So briefly I stayed in bed. But when they were repairing these buildings, I thought those joints, those joints are too loose because they were making the uprights a tenon going into it. A great big slot for it, just with a big peg.
PL: Um. That’s what it was for.
FC: Meant for it.
PL: Right, right.
FC: When you pointed it out to the Japanese. And then one morning [clears throat] oh, we found the Japanese labourers with two big shell cases about six inches, a couple of feet long, I think they were off the cruisers, sunken cruisers in our harbour possibly, they were polishing them. So that evening when we went to, to do our drinking decided what mischief we could do, we thought we’ll get those big, big shell cases, we’ll take those and they were a bit of a heavy weight to carry when you’re a bit tiddly but by the time we were approaching barrack block, ‘H’ shaped barrack block, we were upstairs on the first floor. We didn’t know what to do with them, so the New Zealanders were billeted right below us and we crept, we slowly came in, put one each side of their doorway and crept upstairs to bed, like you would and like you would, I think possibly a weekend, well Saturday, I suppose it was Saturday or Sunday, came down, came out to go to breakfast [clears throat] looked over the balcony and down below it was a static water pool that was meant for, you to supply water for a fire, the Japanese were making a little arrangement of the garden in it. But below they were gathered around these Kiwis, gathered around these, these chaps who were, who had got their Brasso and cleaning them up so in my little write up as we went to breakfast, I said to Jim ‘by now all our fingerprints have gone they have only got Kiwi prints’.
PL: [laughs] Oh dear.
FC: So, they got in trouble, like they would. But that was when we got one over on them you see.
PL: [laughs]
FC: So how do you explain it that we found them there?
PL: Um, um.
FC: We found them there sir.
PL: So, were they engineers as well?
FC: Oh yes.
PL: So, you were all engineers together?
FC: Yeah. Well different trades of course.
PL: Yes, yes, yes.
FC: But they had their own Corsair aircraft.
PL: Right, right. So what sort of things—
FC: Patrolling around the, we, we had a Southwest, South side of the island, main island, the main occupation force was the Americans of course. We were under General MacArthur then.
PL: So, were the Spitfires really just for sort of, you know, keeping an eye on things, reconnaissance and things?
FC: Well they were patrolling around.
PL: Right.
FC: They were watching out that nobody was travelling from Korea, to and fro to Korea, I think.
PL: Right.
FC: But it was to show a presence there.
PL: Um, um.
FC: And then four [pause] 4 Squadron put up, well about four aircraft once and then 11 Squadron put up, 11 Squadron, eleven aircraft. Then what about you 17 Squadron blokes, how many have you got serviceable? I got a panoramic view from the control tower at Miho, this is on the North Coast where you count, I don’t know, how many Spitfires, thirty or something. One is taking off, I took it when one was taking off another one had just fired its Coffman starter cartridge to start the engine at, with a great puff of white smoke so that’s obviously in action, two things in action, and then by the time I’d moved around here to overlap the pictures, there was a view of other Spits and a, one was in the, in the flying position, the armourers were aligning the, synchronising the guns, but the Japanese armourer helping them like you would have to do.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, but then Japanese were pushing, like you were saying pushing, pushing behind the trailing edge. Once there’s enough of you, it was a strong enough area to push. But when, a trick was with the Spitfire, the flaps were taken down by the pneumatic rams and then flaps up, all it did was to let the air out because there was a spring recovery, so when people are pushing like this and you are in the cockpit on the brakes, ready to put the brakes on, pneumatic brakes so it traps up and can trap a few thumbs.
PL: [gasps] Ouch.
FC: Well it was, despite this. On the carriers. The Spitfires on the carriers to get lift for taking off on that short thing, they would have the flaps partly down. Well, in no way you could do that, they were either up or down but what they did, they had blocks of wood, put blocks of wood, let the flaps came up by a spring onto a block of wood. They’d be in the best position to get lift for take off and once they were happily airborne, just flick the flap switch down and up again and they could put the wood before that. So, I’ve got this panoramic view, I thought I must —
PL: And that was taking off from aircraft carriers?
FC: No, no that was taken in a time when they did like in Malta.
PL: Right,
FC: They had to do this didn’t they?
PL: Um.
FC: You know, we had a, one time when the squadron was all worked up, back to working pitch at that time. The operation firepower or something like that. They were bombing up and loading up and doing their firing, live firing. So that was good for the pilots to get that, to get together like that. Do your turn round inspections and arm and rearm.
PL: Absolutely.
FC: So, it was this, these underground aircraft factories, they yielded off some metal and things and we made great — and I made a nice cabinet, wardrobe thing and the bottom shelf had a beer, crown beer bottle opener on with a cigarette tin underneath at the bottom, because it just took a crate a beer. I could lazily reach out, knock the top off you see.
PL: Um, um.
FC: And then they decided because we had to have somewhere to put our kit to make a long wardrobe, the full length of the barrack room out of aluminium and things and so of course you had to be about thoughtful and you had to be careful shutting the doors when people were asleep because of the noise.
PL: [laughs] So when did you get sent home?
FC: This was, demobilisation, you were given a number, a group number, so when group forty was ready, was ready to — that batch of people would be demobilised. When it got to fifty which was mine, we were on a long way up in Japan and [unclear] troop ships every Thursday or something and anyway [clears throat] and then ‘cause was when, oh Jim, that’s right. There was a Sir Geoffrey Depretes[?], an MP of the day came out to talk like a politician would have to do. At this big assembly of us [unclear] Kiwis and the Aussies and us and the Indians so afterwards any questions, so Jim next to me, when I’m, I’m, I’ve not got away in my group, my group, in my group I’m in so the top man boy Boucher, he said see me afterwards and I, I can guarantee you’re on, you’re on the next troop ship so we had a little farewell drink with Jim and we waited on and on and on and the troop ship never came until finally Jim went away on the same ship as we did.
PL: Oh my goodness. So, when was that?
FC: That was 1947.
PL: Gosh that’s a long-time getting home.
FC: So, from 1942 they hung onto me. Well if you think of it in April forty-seven the war over in Germany was over a couple of years nearly.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, we did a long stint. We didn’t do a four-year tour because prior to that they brought the four year down to three and a half and then three and then two and a half which was what I did.
PL: Um, um.
FC: So, tour expiry came as same as that. On the North West frontier when it was on the cooler times a lot of the old ones still had a dog collar RAF uniform, they didn’t want to part with it. They didn’t want a blessed collar and tie they wanted to show that they were old stages.
PL: Um.
FC: So, my tunic is upstairs. I’m letting out the seams. So, I’m looking forward to wearing it when the centenary of the RAF is in April coming.
PL: Fantastic.
FC: So, I came out you see of Japan back to Blackpool again because we were based, we were in Nissen huts at Kirkham in the tail end of that 1947 winter. When the first thing they did when we got to Kirkham there was a stove in the middle of the Nissen hut you kept burning hopefully. They took our greatcoats away.
PL: Oh.
FC: First thing they did.
PL: Why?
FC: So, we wouldn’t flog them.
PL: Oh, for goodness sake.
FC: But we wouldn’t have flogged them. We wouldn’t have, would we?
PL: You’d have worn them.
FC: Would happily take them back in the summer.
PL: [laughs]
FC: [laughs] That would be a different tale.
PL: Goodness me.
FC: So that was Blackpool again.
PL: Um.
FC: So, we had a, had a fair bit of time at Blackpool in between other things. Yes, sorry, then I had three months leave to take paid leave. Well, you didn’t have to take it. I had three months paid leave. So, I had no leave when I was aboard. I had the old rest camp in Japan at Kobe, above Kobe at the, on the hill was a nice maiko it means Japanese dancer, I think. Where we had Japanese food and when the rice came, I wanted some jam on the rice because I had never had rice at home unless it had -
PL: Oh, jam on, oh, wonderful.
FC: We were squatting on low, I’ve got pictures on the low tables of girls, all nicely made up and dressed. So that was Japan.
PL: So, what, so when you got home what was your career after the war? Just very briefly because you’ve been so generous with your time.
FC: Well I didn’t want to — I had so much time using, working repairing things and making and mending things. I didn’t want to go back to reporting because really quite honestly I mean for a fourteen-year-old boy to come as to be reporting, it would be better for a grammar school boy to start because he’s got, his mind is trained and he’s got a lot of advantages. So, I — there was a job, I took all my three months and hadn’t done anything about — I knew I didn’t want to go back but the RAF newspaper, I was in the RAF Association magazine, advertising for trade engine and airplane, air people for Boscombe Down and Farnborough. So, I came to Boscombe Down when they wanted — and they had just taken on, if you can imagine, like a queue in a way, they had just taken the last one on when I arrived, so I went on to Farnborough to the Royal Aircraft Establishment as it was, who needed sixty, or it needed quite a lot of staff. So that was where I —
PL: So that’s how you ended up here?
FC: Yes, that’s it, that’s what brought me to Farnborough and the experimental flying squadron with all the different aircraft from Lincolns and Yorks, the, the Hudsons. We had the, had the sea fliers the Spitfires. The naval flight was there so it was exciting times when they were launching and arresting. Quite exciting times. Because at the end of the hangar was a big assembly that was the sort fitted on a ship to, to catapult them off and the Spitfire with four big rockets attached like under its armpits. The engine fitter had to go up there and run the engine, all engines had to be run every morning, typical wartime thing, so Farnborough must’ve been a noisy place.
PL: Um.
FC: With the Halifax’s and everything.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: But anyway, the engine man hated having to go up there. It was perched in the middle of the sky it —
PL: Yes, yes.
FC: And then another time a bit later when the Korean war was on, I think, we had a Sea Fury on the, on our radio flight operating that one. That had to be put in the twenty-four-foot wind tunnel. They must have had trouble in Korea with the certain stores they were carrying or something, I don’t know what it was. Then my good friend who joined up the same day as me in Oxford, now, he was the engine man and he didn’t like being in the wind tunnel where they got a full bore and in with, sitting in with the engine going full bore.
PL: Um, um, um, um.
FC: But that was the typical thing they did.
PL: Um. So that must have been a very interesting life. How long, how long did you?
FC: Well I was there forty years.
PL: Wow. Gosh.
FC: Till 1988. And then of course it’s, it’s about a hundred years ago since I retired now because it’s, it will be thirty years next year won’t it? Three and four.
PL: It feels a little like we need to come back and speak to you again Frank about your, your experience testing, in Farnborough.
FC: Oh yeah.
PL: And your career doing that.
FC: Oh yeah. We did fly, did fly the Lincoln up to Valley, RAF Valley and they were, the Window, you know they drop Window these aircraft. Because various sorts, sizes of it. The worst one comes in packs which you daren’t disturb in a, in a dispenser thing on the wing tips of a, of a Canberra and if you drop one the pack all busted open because they were only about ten millimetres long, a little tiny bit of aluminium, ‘V’ shaped that way and then ‘V’ shaped that way.
PL: Was this for the —
FC: They spun.
PL: Right and this was to confuse the —
FC: This was to put something that looked like an aircraft.
PL: Oh right, right.
FC: And in fact, on ‘D’ Day, teams of RAF aircraft were flying in a pattern like this.
PL: Um.
FC: And dropping Window.
PL: Um, dropping them
FC: So that to their screens it looked like there was an armada of things coming. Well they knew how to confuse. But the one that went to, I was dumping this stuff out of the, the chute and there were ack-ack firing behind, firing at us behind. I thought, I hope they keep firing at that — and when we’d circled and landed at Valley the last bundles that must have been hooked up or something littered the airfield because I remember they were black and gold, or black and yellow, long. So, we were there for the weekend. We came on the Saturday, Sunday they had all the RAF out in a long line.
PL: Picking them up.
FC: [laughs] Doing the foot plod, picking them up. Nothing to do with me [laughs]
PL: Oh Frank, thank you so much that has been an absolutely fascinating interview.
FC: I’ve been linked up with FAST Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Museum to keep the heritage of Farnborough’s flying alive.
PL: Fantastic.
FC: We’ve built a replica of the first aircraft to fly. Fifty-two-foot span. Quite an impressive thing. So that draws a lot of people to see and learn about Cody, Sam Cody.
PL: Um, um, um.
FC: So, there’s another story in that.
PL: Um. Well I’d just like to end by saying a huge thank you on behalf of the Bomber Command Digital Archive because it’s been such a valuable, valuable interview. So, thank you very much indeed.
FC: Thank you. Well you’re welcome to my diaries as well.
PL: Thank you very much.
FC: Couple of years there, ok?
PL: I’ll pass that on.
FC: Thank you, yeah.
PL: Thank you.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AColensoF170522
Title
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Interview with Frank Colenso
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.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Type
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Sound
Language
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eng
Format
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02:36:39 audio recording
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2017-05-22
Description
An account of the resource
Frank Colenso grew up in Cornwall and worked for a local newspaper at the outbreak of the war. He recalls the return of injured survivors from Dunkirk into Falmouth Bay. He joined the local defence volunteers following the bombing of Falmouth and describes training and weaponry within the Home Guard and civil defence precautions. He volunteered to serve with the RAF and trained as an fitter airframe and served with 83 Operational Training Unit. He discusses modifying Wellington aircraft, prior to being posted to Burma to serve with repair and salvage units. He speaks of the living conditions in Burma and of his work there which included repairing Spitfires and Hurricanes. After the war ended he remained in Burma as his unit was part of the Commonwealth occupation force prior to his demobilisation in 1946.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Spatial Coverage
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Burma
Great Britain
England--Cornwall (County)
England--Lancashire
England--Blackpool
Burma--Akyab (District)
Burma--Meiktila
Temporal Coverage
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1939
1940
1943
1945
Contributor
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Carolyn Emery
83 OTU
bomb dump
bombing
civil defence
demobilisation
entertainment
fitter airframe
ground crew
ground personnel
home front
Home Guard
Hurricane
love and romance
military living conditions
Operational Training Unit
runway
Spitfire
training
Wellington
Window
-
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
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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
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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]
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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
Creator
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Pam Locker
Date
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2017-02-27
Format
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01:11:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Description
An account of the resource
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
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
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
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
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
-
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9d0613ebe11616fc76dc192e1fe00d76
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a731039a6750e6a450a0cfda41997c6b
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 Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association
Description
An account of the resource
97 items. The collection concerns Royal Air Force ex-Prisoner of War Association and contains items including drawings by the artist Ley Kenyon.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Robert Ankerson and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
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2018-01-29
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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RAF ex POW As Collection
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A 'Long March' of Discovery: Zagan to Spremberg, January 2010
Description
An account of the resource
Written by his daughter, the article details her research into her father's incarceration.
Creator
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Pat Jackson
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2010-01
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
Netherlands--Dokkum
Poland
Germany--Spremberg
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Europe--Oder River
Poland--Żagań
Netherlands
Lithuania--Šilutė
Germany
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Personal research
Format
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Four printed sheets
Identifier
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MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610001,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610002,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610003,
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-610004
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
2010-01
77 Squadron
aircrew
bombing
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
navigator
prisoner of war
propaganda
RAF Hendon
RAF Leeming
shot down
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
the long march
Whitley
Window
-
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14944c26aa827cd2423b233d4d2ac572
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/117/3379/ACookKHH160725.2.mp3
199eff75afa2921f7b1278169d2c5ec3
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Cook, Kenneth
Kenneth Cook
Kenneth H Cook
Ken Cook
K H Cook
K Cook
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Wing Commander Kenneth Howell Cook DFC (b. 1923, 151017 Royal Air Force). Kenneth Cook flew 45 operations with 97 Squadron, Pathfinders.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-04
2016-07-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
Identifier
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Cook, KHH
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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PJ: Right. Interviewers Peter Jones and Sandra Jones. Name of the interviewee Wing Commander, Wing Commander Kenneth Cook DFC. Attending with him is his son Jonathan Cook. The date is the 25th of the 7th 2016 and it’s just 5 o’clock pm. The place is Chadlington, Oxfordshire. Thank you, Ken for agreeing to be interviewed for the IBCC. Ken, tell me about what you did before the war?
KC: Okay. Well I attended grammar school at -
JC: Marling.
KC: Marling Grammar School near Stroud in Gloucestershire and I was one of the first to join the Air Training Corps Squadron that was set up in Stroud, number 1329 Squadron and that helped to focus my attention on joining the Royal Air Force and while I waited until I was old enough to apply and a couple of years later I found myself on the train going from Stroud up to Paddington with an appointment to go to Lords Cricket Ground to be a part of what turned out to be over five thousand budding air crew that were joining the RAF on the same day that I was and after a few weeks staying in local accommodation in that area I was then posted up to Scarborough to the ITW [name number?]. That was at Scarborough Grammar School. So I did my ITW and then I was posted up, back up to the north west of England to wait for a boat because I was going across to America to learn to fly in America as a pilot and going across the Atlantic we were chased by a U-boat which gave us a bit of a turn and we got away from it and got to the other side alright and then got on a train that took us three days to go along through Canada right down through the centre of America to Georgia. And so my opening days were down there in very high temperatures erm which I enjoyed very much and we were flying an aircraft called a Stearman, the biplane, and I’d gone solo but they decided that I and one or two others needed a lot more time than they could afford so they asked me to go back to Canada to carry on my training there which I did but when I got to Canada I was told the pilot training schools were all totally full so I’d have to hang around. So they then asked me if I wanted to be an air gunner and I said no. And they made me hang around a bit longer and then eventually they said, ‘We’re opening up a new air crew job called an air bomber. Would you be interested in that?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ I’d have a go at that and so I went on through a couple of courses spread over three or four months and I came out as the two guys that, I was commissioned as a young pilot officer off the course. There was two of us commissioned. I was one of them and so I came back home having gone out as an erk I came back to England as a pilot officer. Then having got back to England I found myself, believe it or not, posted to, what’s that airfield near High Wycombe, the grass over?
JC: Booker.
KC: Booker. Booker airfield, to fly Tiger Moths and so I carried on. Started my pilot training or continued my pilot training there and I’m lost now from where I go from there.
JC: Do you want to stop for a second Dad? Shall we stop for a sec? Can we just stop for a sec?
KC: Hmmn?
JC: Do you want to stop for a little break?
KC: Yeah.
JC: For a second.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So you -
[Pause]
SJ: Okay.
KC: So I was posted to the northwest England to fly. Can you stop it for a minute? I can’t think.
[Pause]
JC: Botha?
KC: Botha, yeah.
JC: Botha.
KC: Yeah. That was it.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Up there in Scotland. In the northwest. And then on to er what was I saying? Which one the -
JC?: Cottesmore.
KC: Cottesmore. That was the Wellingtons. Starting to learn night bombing and all that techniques. And from there I was posted to -
JC: Winthorpe.
KC: Winthorpe, was it? Yes.
JC: Heavy Conversation Unit.
KC: Yeah. HCU.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And then -
JC: And then Bardney after that for five [weeks?]
KC: And then to 9 Squadron at Bardney.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On Lancasters, yeah. Yeah. I did ten ops with 9 Squadron and a crew there and then we were invited to join them, they had just set up the Pathfinder force in Bomber Command and we were recommended as a crew that could join the Pathfinder force which I went on a course at Bourne in Cambridgeshire and then graduated on, as a Pathfinder crew in Lancasters [pause] and I did another thirty five ops with a Pathfinder crew. Altogether, I did forty five ops and I came out of that. Just after finishing ops I got awarded the DFC. And where did I go after ops?
JC: You went off to, where did you go then? You went off to Fiskerton didn’t you? To be the station radar nav officer. Was that right?
KC: Yes, I did. I was posted to RAF Fiskerton near Lincoln.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Having, I completed altogether forty five ops so I was now screened from any more ops but I then flew at Fiskerton. There were two Lancaster squadrons there and my job was to, as new crews came in from training I had to fly with each new crew to check them out, that they, that their navigators could operate the radar properly before they were allowed to go on ops. That was hairy because some of the pilots were new and they couldn’t land the Lancaster at night and we used to do what we called a few, what we called a few cannon balls going down the runway at night. Anyway, went through that period. The squadron then moved from, they closed the airfield and moved us to Fulbeck and so I went along although I was on the station and not with the squadrons I was instructed by Group Headquarters to go with them to Syerston on the Fosse Way and I stayed with them for about two years at Syerston flying with new crews when they came in. Checking them out on the radar and so on. Then what happened after Syerston?
JC: Okay. So you were getting ready for the Tiger Force. Is that right?
KC: Um.
JC: You went to back to the, posted back to Coningsby. Station radar nav officer.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were part of the build-up for the Tiger Force when you were due to head out to the Far East weren’t you?
KC: They were going, they were going out there. Yeah.
JC: Yes but obviously it was cancelled because the Japanese surrendered. Didn’t they?
KC: Yeah. That’s it.
JC: Okay.
KC: [?]
JC: So that took you to the end of the war. Right?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so what was your first posting post war was at HQ1 Group at Bawtry.
KC: Bawtry yes. I was the group radar nav, group navigation officer.
JC: Yeah.
KC: At headquarters of 1 Group at Bawtry.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then in 194 –
KC: I was a wingco then.
JC: That’s, okay, well you were then offered a permanent commission in, that was 1948.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You were offered permanent commission?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you went on to Thirsk. Okay.
KC: Well, ‘cause I went to Topcliffe.
JC: Yes.
KC: ‘Cause that was, had been set up to, to train all wartime people like me in to being proper peacetime navigators [laughs].
JC: That’s right.
KC: And I was one of them. How to use Astro and all that stuff and to navigate the aeroplanes.
JC: What’s Astro?
KC: Astro and also with the radar, of course. All the latest stuff.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. What happened after Topcliffe?
JC: And then you went to a conversion course on night all weather fighters and you then moved to Coltishall flying in Mosquitos.
KC: Yeah. I had to go on to learn the latest air borne radar for night fighter navigator radar people and then I was posted to Coltishall.
JC: That’s it.
KC: Where there was a night fighter squadron and I joined the squadron. I can’t remember how long. About a year or more and then I was posted – when? I took command.
JC: That squadron, that squadron converted didn’t it? To –
KC: To Javelins.
JC: That’s, no, to Meteors I think it was.
KC: Meteor night fighters. That’s right.
JC: That’s right. Yeah.
KC: Yeah. From Mosquito to Meteor night fighters.
JC: Yes.
KC: When did I take command?
JC: You, so that was, I don’t know when you took command but in 1953 you were group navigation officer at that point and in 1956/57 you went to West Malling didn’t you? And you were appointed as a flight commander. Is that right?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Which was unusual for a navigator wasn’t it?
KC: I was one of the first navigators to be a -
JC: Yes.
KC: A flight commander.
JC: Yes. Okay. And then in 1957 you went to 153 in West Malling.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were appointed commanding officer there.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And given the rank of Wing Commander at that point.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. And the aircraft you moved to then were Meteor.
KC: Meteor and, and yeah Meteor night fighters.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: They were 12s and 14s I think.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Were they?
KC: Yeah. Mark 12s and Mark 14s. Yeah.
JC: And later you converted to another aircraft.
KC: Yeah. Javelin.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: That’s right. Okay.
KC: Javelin. Night, all weather fighters.
JC: Okay. And then after that you were posted, you had an opportunity to improve your, your shocking education.
KC: Yeah. They sent me to the Staff College.
JC: That’s right.
KC: I went to the RAF Staff College for a year and they were obviously teaching me to read and write again you know.
JC: That’s right.
KC: I was at Bracknell in Berkshire.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Do you want to take another quick break? Just take a quick break dad?
KC: Yeah. Shall we do that? Yeah.
[Pause]
JC: So where did you go? You went off to the Middle East.
KC: Yeah. I went to Iran.
JC: No. No.
KC: No.
JC: That was post air force. You went to somewhere else. You went to Aden didn’t you?
KC: Oh I went to Aden, yes.
JC: That’s right.
KC: In the Middle East. Aden. And I used to have to tramp up in to the Persian Gulf from Aden.
JC: Yes.
KC: Visiting the air force bases and that all along the Gulf.
JC: Yes.
KC: And I was out there about two years wasn’t I?
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Until 1963.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you were posted back to a training command I think. Is that right? For a couple of years. And then you moved on to Signals Command at Medmenham near Marlow.
KC: Yeah, it was, it was, was it a Group Headquarters or a Command Headquarters?
JC: It was, it was HQ Signals Command it says.
KC: Oh the Command Headquarters then.
JC: Yes.
KC: As a staff officer I was there.
JC: Yeah. And what was your role there?
KC: Signals Command, Medmenham.
JC: Is it related to personnel? Wasn’t it? It says here you were a senior personnel staff officer.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. I think I was involved, yeah, in staffing matters there.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes you were. And then you took retirement in January 1968.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then started your civilian career.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah
JC: So is that as far as you want to take it? There we go. That’s that bit. Now, shall we start again and I’ll, I’ll ask you some questions around this different things that you just want to give me there as well.
SJ: Those.
JC: Okay alright. So dad, so going back to so when were you, first of all just give your birthdate, dad. When you were born.
KC: 9th of April 1923.
JC: 1923. Okay and where were you born?
KC: Randwick.
JC: Randwick in Gloucestershire.
KC: Near Stroud.
JC: Yeah. Near Stroud in Gloucestershire.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And just kind of describe what sort of a place Randwick was back in those, those days?
KC: Well, Randwick was a small Cotswold village. Everybody knew everybody.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I went to Randwick village school.
JC: How many kids were there in that school? Roughly. Can you remember?
KC: There was about a hundred and fifty altogether.
JC: Was there? Okay.
KC: There were about three or, yeah, three classes total.
JC: Yeah.
KC: In the school.
JC: Okay.
KC: And I passed the eleven plus.
JC: And you also had, did some things in the village as well didn’t you? Weren’t you sort of active in the choir as I remember? Is that right?
KC: I was in the church choir.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah. The C of E church choir.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I became the head choir boy ‘cause I was the guy that would always get pushed in the back by the choir master saying, ‘Sing up Ken.’
JC: Fantastic. Okay. Alright. And so then you went, you passed your exam and went to Randwick School and where was Randwick School?
KC: Well it -
JC: Sorry not Randwick School. You went to Marling School.
KC: Marling. Marling School.
JC: And where was Marling School?
KC: Marling School was on the outskirts of Stroud.
JC: Which was how far away from -
KC: About four miles.
JC: Right.
KC: I used to cycle there on a bike every morning.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so you stayed there for a number of years until you were what? About sixteen were you?
KC: Yeah sixteen.
JC: Yeah. And then you left the -
KC: I then, I got a job with a company called Erinoid. It was in the early days when plastics were first being made in this country.
JC: Yes.
KC: And Erinoid were one of the early companies and I was invited to join their lab, their laboratory.
JC: Right.
KC: Where all the experiments was being done on the latest type of plastics.
JC: And so -
KC: I was an office boy if you like.
JC: Right.
KC: But in fact they made me look at everything that was going on with a view to picking it up.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So you were almost like an apprentice there?
KC: An apprentice. Yes.
JC: That’s what you were kind of doing.
KC: Yes.
JC: Doing. Okay. And, and so you did that job. So we were now in 1939 so there would have, that would have been presumably you were working there at the outbreak of the war. Were you?
KC: Yes I was. Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And what was, how did you feel about the outbreak of the war? What was, you know your initial thinking?
KC: Well one of the first things I did was to join the Air Training Corps in Stroud.
JC: Right okay.
KC: And from there -
JC: And what made you join that as opposed to joining the army or the navy? What was it about the Air Training Corps?
KC: It was about flying and I wanted to learn to fly.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: It seemed like a better option. Did it? Fair enough.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Fair enough. Okay. So you got to the age, I guess, of eighteen where you could potentially signup.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So were you conscripted or did you volunteer?
KC: I volunteered.
JC: You volunteered.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where did you go to volunteer? At somewhere -
KC: I went to Weston Super Mare.
JC: Did you? Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Why did you have to go down there ‘cause that’s a bit of a way from Stroud?
KC: That was the sort of a holding centre.
JC: Right.
KC: Where you went down there and you’d find you were there with all sorts of guys and so on.
JC: Right I bet. Did any, did you go down there with anybody. Any friends go with you? Or?
KC: No.
JC: No you went off on your own did you?
KC: On my own. Yeah.
JC: And did you have to do anything before you went down there? Was there anything more local in Stroud that you had to do to -?
KC: Only that I was now an active member of the Air Training Corps in Stroud.
JC: So it was the Air Training Corps that helped you -
KC: That helped me.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Very much. Yeah.
JC: I see.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. And so what happened when you went to Weston Super Mare? What happened when you went down there?
KC: Oh crikey. What happened at Weston Super Mare? I think we were, we were every day marched out on to the top of the cliffs.
JC: Yes.
KC: And made to parade up and down doing all sorts of, learning to drill, you know -
JC: Right.
KC: All the drill stuff.
JC: That’s where your drill stuff happened?
KC: Yes.
JC: Right. Okay. Good. And, and of course you had your mum and dad were back at home.
KC: Yes.
JC: What was their reaction to your having signed up and volunteered? Do you remember?
KC: My dad was almost, sort of well, ‘I expected you to do something like that Ken.’
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing, you know.
JC: Yes.
KC: My mum said, ‘I don’t want you to go.’
JC: No. I bet.
KC: 'I don’t want you to go.’
JC: As mums do.
KC: But I did. But I used to, you know come home on breaks and -
JC: Yes.
KC: See them.
JC: And you had, you had several older brothers and a sister. What were they doing during all of this?
KC: Yeah. Harry was the eld– , well Mabel was the eldest wasn’t she?
JC: Your sister. Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: That’s right.
KC: And she’s the one who kept, if you like, the family running.
JC: Right.
KC: Although she lived a few miles away.
JC: Yeah.
KC: She kept an eye on my mum and dad.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And really kept the family running -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Smoothly. And I had brothers like Harry.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was –
JC: Did he sign up for any, any of the services?
KC: Sorry?
JC: Did he sign up for any of the services? Or was he a bit, he was a bit older wasn’t he?
KC: A bit older. Yeah. Walter. Walter did.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yes. He did.
JC: What did he sign up for? Did he sign up for, was one of them merchant navy? I can’t quite remember what he was.
KC: It was something like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: I think it was. Yes.
JC: Yes.
KC: Merchant navy. Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about your nearest brother?
KC: Charlie.
JC: Charlie. What did he do?
KC: Well Charlie was in a reserved occupation ‘cause he worked for Newman Henders and he was a draughtsman.
JC: Right.
KC: And they were working on munitions and stuff.
JC: Oh right.
KC: And so he was screened. They wouldn’t let him go.
JC: Right.
KC: He had to get on with the war stuff that he was working on.
JC: Fine. Okay.
KC: On drawing boards and things.
JC: Okay. Alright. So -
KC: Yeah.
JC: So that’s what the family were doing and what they were thinking and you were off at Weston Super Mare and coming home at weekend, occasional weekends and things like that were you?
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Okay. And how, and so you did that for a bit and then you said before that you had to go up to, to Lord’s to kind of muster up there did you? Is that, is that right?
KC: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I had to report to Lord’s.
JC: Yes.
KC: ‘Cause I wanted to fly aircrew.
JC: Yes. So that was where aircrew were sent.
KC: Aircrew. We all, literally I was absolutely shattered. Walked into the Lord’s Cricket Ground ‘cause I’d never been, even to London like that in my life.
JC: Right.
KC: And walked in and there with thousands -
JC: Yes.
KC: Guys like me and -
JC: And what was -
KC: We were there. They took over the expensive housing from, I’m not anti-Jews but a certain part near there a lot of Jew families, rich Jew families.
JC: That was St John’s Wood wasn’t it? Around the St John’s Wood.
KC: St John’s Wood.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the government kicked them all out.
JC: Yes.
KC: And took over all their sumptuous houses, I mean for me as village kid coming up there, going into their bathrooms and seeing all the ornate stuff they had in their bathrooms, you know.
JC: Quite something was it?
KC: It was. It was unbelievable, you know.
JC: And were you so you were sort of put into these, these kind of houses and apartments I guess in -
KC: Yeah.
JC: In London. And you were sharing with people from your part of the country or from around the country?
KC: All over the country. There were guys that could hardly add up to five.
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing.
JC: Yes.
KC: And there was, not cockneys but they had accents that you couldn’t understand half the things they said, you know.
JC: Right. I bet, I bet there were people that you hadn’t been exposed to many of those kinds of accents, had you?
KC: No. I hadn’t. No.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Fantastic. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so okay so you did, so you did that and then from there that’s where they sent you I think to Booker wasn’t it? To start the -
KC: Yeah.
JC: The training.
KC: FTS Booker.
JC: Yes.
KC: To start pilot training.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah. Yeah. That Booker was near High Wycombe.
JC: That’s it and that was for air experience wasn’t it? On, on -
KC: Yeah.
JC: What sort of aircraft? Those were on -
KC: Seeing if you were going to be airsick all the time.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which, they would chuck you out of aircrew. Yeah.
JC: And that on what sort of planes were those you were flying?
KC: That was Tiger Moths.
JC: Tiger Moths.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Gosh.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. And how did you take to the flying? What was your sort of initial memories of doing that?
KC: I felt quite comfortable about it. I think, I mean I wasn’t eliminated or anything like that.
JC: Right and could you have been eliminated at that point?
KC: You could have, yeah.
JC: Right.
KC: If you didn’t cope reasonably well they’d chuck you off the course.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay and so, so that was sort of April May 1942 and then in June 1942 they put you on board this ship the SS Leticia.
KC: Leticia.
JC: Leticia that’s right. And that was -
KC: And we went across the Atlantic -
JC: And that was from up in Scotland. You had to go up to Scotland to catch -
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: That didn’t you? From the Clyde.
KC: The Clyde.
JC: To go over to Halifax in Nova Scotia.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And –
KC: We were chased by U-boats going across the Atlantic.
JC: That’s right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then, and then from there you travelled down on the trains through to Georgia to -
KC: Albany, Georgia.
JC: Albany, Georgia. That’s right.
KC: Took about three days and nights on the train.
JC: That’s it.
KC: Thousand, hundreds of miles. It was a distance train trip.
JC: Okay. But you were flying from a place called Turner Field.
KC: Turner Field.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Albany, Georgia.
JC: That’s it. Okay. And then you were, what sort of planes were you flying down there? This was -
KC: PT17s. Stearman.
JC: Okay.
KC: A biplane.
JC: And this -
KC: The American version of the Tiger Moth sort of thing.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But it was a heavier airplane than the Tiger Moth.
JC: And why were you sent over to the States to do, to do this?
KC: Because they wanted air crew quickly.
JC: Right. But why not train them up here?
KC: The only schools we had were absolutely jam packed full.
JC: I see. Okay.
KC: And to, they needed to, they needed hundreds more.
JC: Right.
KC: So we were sent. I mean some were sent to South Africa.
JC: Yes.
KC: I was sent to Canada and America.
JC: Right. And America was still neutral at this time wasn’t it?
KC: Yes. Yeah.
JC: So, so, so but they were still happy for, for aircrew to be trained up in America on this -
KC: Yeah.
JC: There was -
KC: I don’t know how we got away with that but we did.
JC: Yeah. Okay and this was something called, there was a name for this scheme wasn’t it? What was it called?
KC: The Arnold Scheme.
JC: The Arnold Scheme. Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Alright. Alright. So, so you did some training on these Stearmans and then they decided that you needed to do more flying and they sent you back up to Canada.
KC: Yeah.
JC: But the -
KC: They said they hadn’t got enough hours.
JC: Yes.
KC: To keep me down there because it was such a concentrated course down in America.
JC: Yeah.
KC: So they sent me back to Canada and they said I could carry on up there. All the lot of guys had got up there at this holding unit and I found I was there with about five hundred other guys who were also were waiting to carry on with their training.
JC: Right.
KC: And so I was there, I can’t remember how long I was there.
JC: So this was in, this was Trenton.
KC: Trenton, Ontario.
JC: Trenton, Ontario.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. So -
KC: Yeah.
JC: This was in September 1942.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And I think you were there for some months by the looks of it.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Through until about January, I think.
KC: Yeah.
JC: In 1943.
KC: In the process they’d come every so often and say, ‘would you like to become an air gunner?’ And I’d say no.
JC: Why didn’t you want to be an air gunner?
KC: Well I didn’t, I thought that was an unskilled job.
JC: Right. Okay, Fair enough. Okay. And so, so then they offered you this thing called an air bomber.
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: And what, what was that?
KC: Well, the air bomber, that was coinciding with the four engined bombers coming in to the RAF.
JC: Right.
KC: And -
JC: Like what sort of, examples of those, like what?
KC: The aircrew in the Lancaster.
JC: Yes.
KC: You had the pilot and the flight engineer.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Then you had two navigators. One was what they called the navigator plotter.
JC: Yes.
KC: His job was to work out time, course and so on and the other one was a navigator observer which was me.
JC: Right.
KC: My job was to do all the, operate the radar that we carried to drop our bomb loads using my radar. If we had to do visual bombing I had to also operate the bomb site down in the nose.
JC: Right.
KC: Of the Lancaster and I also was trained to use guns in the turrets in case we were attacked and the gunners were killed.
JC: Yes.
KC: My job was to get them out of the, out of the turret and take his place.
JC: Right.
KC: That sort of thing, you see.
JC: And wasn’t there some forward guns as well that you were supposed -
KC: Yes. In the, right in the nose.
JC: Yes.
KC: There was a turret.
JC: Yes.
KC: Right at the front and the gun protruded out the front.
JC: Yes.
KC: And down the tail end there were four guns in the tail end turret.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And the mid-upper turret -
JC: Yes.
KC: Were two guns.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Good okay. So you trained on this new job of air bomber for a period of several months. You came off and you were commissioned.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And coming out of the course. What rank was it again?
KC: I was a flight lieutenant.
JC: No. I think you were a pilot officer.
KC: Oh pilot officer, sorry.
JC: I think.
KC: Pilot officer. That’s right.
JC: That’s what you came out as didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then you were sent back to the UK at that time.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you went up to Wigtown to fly these Bothas. Bothas. What sort of aircraft was that?
KC: Botha was a twin engine.
JC: Yes.
KC: Aircraft, it had been an operational aircraft but they reckoned it was underpowered so they took it off ops.
JC: Right.
KC: And used it as advanced training for people like me going on to ops.
JC: And had you formed a crew at that time or were you just randomly -
KC: No.
JC: Assigned to -
KC: I was a random guy at that time.
JC: Right.
KC: Didn’t -
JC: Okay.
KC: Didn’t, get a crew until you got to the OTU.
JC: Okay so that was the next thing. You went to the OTU.
KC: Yeah.
JC: At Cottesmore.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were flying Wellingtons.
KC: Wellingtons.
JC: So you got a crew there.
KC: There, yeah.
JC: And how did you, what was the process of choosing a crew. How did you -
KC: [Laugh] That’s a good question. We were -
JC: Were you carefully selected and matched up?
KC: We were a lump, a lump of aircrew there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: All sorts and sizes gunners and wireless operators and bomb aimers and navigators and pilots and so on and we used to wander around in a, you literally used to go up and say, ‘Have you got a crew yet mate?’ And whoever it was would say, ‘No I haven’t. Would you like to join with me? I’m a navigator.’ He’d say, ‘What are you?’ ‘I’m an air bomber.’ He’d say, ‘Yeah fine.’ And then we’d keep together and we’d go to somebody else, ‘Would you like to come in our crew.’
JC: So it was -
KC: And that’s how it was done.
JC: So obviously it was a scientific and carefully managed process so –
KC: Yeah.
JC: So that was good. So tell me a bit about the crew that you, that you ended up with. What was the skipper’s name?
KC: Jim Kermans[?] He was much older. I mean, we were, I was twenty one, twenty two and he was twenty nine. He was the dad of the crew.
JC: Right.
KC: Twenty nine.
JC: And where was he from?
KC: He was an Australian.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Very staid sort of person. Not much sense of humour.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On thinking back he must have been worried to hell on every flight he did. That sort of impression.
JC: Did he give you that impression while you were there or did you think he kind of took it in his stride quite a bit?
KC: He did it a bit when I was there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: ‘Cause I had to get very close to him.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The pilot. With some of the things I had to do -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Was directly on behalf of the pilot.
JC: Right.
KC: So I had to get to know him.
JC: Yes.
KC: I mean he had a flight engineer.
JC: Yes.
KC: But er -
JC: What was the flight engineer’s name?
KC: Ken Randall.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where was he from?
KC: The other navigator, what was called the navigator plotter was Don Bowes.
JC: Where was he -
KC: Who was an out and out Yorkshireman.
JC: Oh was he?
KC: He could hardly speak English. It was all Yorkshire stuff [laughs].
JC: Alright. What about, what about Ken Randall. Where was he from?
KC: Ken Randall, he was a Birmingham, brummy.
JC: Was he? Right Okay.
KC: Yeah. Yes.
JC: So you were meeting people from around the country that you’d probably never met people from that part of the world before.
KC: Yeah. It’s amazing how we welded into such a good crew.
JC: Yeah and what so what made a good crew do you think? What was -
KC: I think -
JC: How’d that work?
KC: You were individuals. In a crew of seven you’d find two or three of you were buddies and then suddenly a fourth one in the crew would sort of latch on to us ‘cause we’d go to a pub and he’d be there on his own.
JC: Right.
KC: And you’d say, ‘Come on. Have a drink,’ Sort of thing, you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And that helped to bring them in, you know.
JC: Right. So the pub was important then?
KC: Yeah. Oh yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The village pub.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And where was the village pub? So you were -
KC: Bourne. Well when doing ops from Bourne -
JC: Yeah.
KC: We used to go down in the village pub, literally was in the village of Bourne.
JC: Right. Yeah.
KC: And we used to brews[?] in there and have a few.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And then get back and get to bed ‘cause we probably had to get up early morning to do some flying the next day.
JC: So, so on a so you obviously with Wellingtons you found your crew now.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Who else on the crew? So let’s just finish the crew off. So you’ve got your flight engineer, you’ve got your navigator, you’ve got your skipper who’s the pilot.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about the, so you’ve got two gunners haven’t you?
KC: Yeah. We had, the mid upper gunner was a Canadian.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the tail gunner was an out and out broad Scotsman.
JC: Right.
KC: He used to get excited when we were on ops and he’d talk about this thing coming in and he used to shout and scream but it was in broad Scots and none of us could understand [laughs].
JC: [laughs] Brilliant. Okay. Good. So, Okay, so you’ve got your crew and you’ve moved over to the, to Winthorpe and then on to Bardney where you started operations in Bardney.
KC: I did ten ops at Bardney, 9 Squadron.
JC: And that was on Lancasters.
KC: Yes.
JC: On number 9 Squadron.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay and, and what sort of place, what was, what was Bardney like as a place to kind of work from?
KC: Bardney was very much a new airfield with Nissen huts.
JC: Yes.
KC: Everything was Nissen hutted accommodation.
JC: Right.
KC: And it seemed that, you know, everything was sparse there but it was just about enough for human people to live and be fed.
JC: Right.
KC: And then, but you were going off on ops and that from there and you used to think coming back oh I’ve got to come back to that bloody den downstairs again sort of thing, you know.
JC: Right. Right. And what so if you had an op, when did you know when you were flying on an operation. Did you -
KC: We were all, all the aircrew had to go for the briefing which was always held on the night of ops. The briefing was at two o’clock in the afternoon.
JC: Right.
KC: So all the aircrew that were about on the station would go straight towards the briefing room which was -
JC: Yes.
KC: Quite a huge room.
JC: Right.
KC: And they had table after table in there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And they could pack a couple of hundred or three hundred aircrew -
JC: Right.
KC: In there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And you’d walk in and then the far you came always came in at the back door. You walked in and you looked straight ahead because there were the maps of Germany and the continent ahead of you and there was the route you were going to fly that night and [?] we’d say, ‘Oh not bloody Berlin again.’ This was after I’d done about eight ops to Berlin, you know.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: And so, you know, we used to talk to one another, ‘Oh bloody Berlin again,’ you know.
JC: Yeah. Alright. So, so had the briefing room there. And who ran the briefings?
KC: The squadron commander.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And his flight commanders.
JC: Right. Okay.
KC: And of course they had specialists. I mean they had the guy who looked after the wireless operator guys.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
KC: And he was the radio wireless op king sort of thing.
JC: Yes. Yeah.
KC: And I think that was about it. What other trade was there? Oh the engineer.
JC: Right.
KC: Station engineer.
JC: Yes.
KC: Was always there.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And he would say something about what had happened to some of the aircraft. They had to do some modifications or.
JC: Right.
KC: And he also would cover anything wrong with the radar gear that we carried on board that had -
JC: Yes.
KC: Been modifications to it dadedadeda.
JC: Right.
KC: And all that stuff.
JC: Right. What other things came out of the briefings? I guess you would have some intelligence. There would be an intelligence officer there.
KC: They showed the route and they had a large scale map on the wall, the big wall at the end of briefing room but all they had shading areas showing where all the searchlight belts were -
JC: Yes.
KC: Over Germany.
JC: Yes.
KC: And where the night fighter air fields were -
JC: Yeah.
KC: In Germany.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And heavily populated areas. They were brought out to show you that -
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know don’t go flying over these on the way because they’ll shoot you down.
JC: Right.
KC: If you get mixed up with some of these other cities.
JC: Yes.
KC: On the way in to, in to your target in Germany.
JC: Yeah. Okay and so how long would a briefing typically take, would you say?
KC: Sorry.
JC: How long would a briefing typically take?
KC: I should say minimum of two hours.
JC: About two hours.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And then would there be a break and you could go off or did you then go straight to -
KC: They would tell you what time briefing was going to be.
JC: Yeah.
KC: For the raid.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They would announce what time the night flying meal was arranged for.
JC: Right.
KC: So you had a good cooked meal before you went.
JC: What sort of things would you have before you go up?
KC: Eggs and bacon ‘cause eggs were rationed. Eggs and bacon and you know tomato and things like that.
JC: Right.
KC: Lovely.
JC: Lovely, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. There’s got to be some pros to it I suppose. So, that’s good. Okay and so you have your meal and then what happens? You go to your dispersal do you?
KC: You went back to your room in dispersal and if it –
JC: How did you travel around the base did you –?
KC: Bike.
JC: On bike.
KC: [We were drove?] or bike.
JC: Right. Okay. So you would ride out and it could be a half a mile away or that kind of distance.
KC: Yeah.
JC: To your -
KC: A couple of miles.
JC: A couple of miles.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: Could be. Yeah.
JC: So it could be getting dark by this point and you’d be cycling off to –
KC: Yeah.
JC: And the plane would be there and there would be a building next to the plane that you would, you would sit in prior to -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Going off would you?
KC: Well remember we had to go back to briefing.
JC: Yes.
KC: For the raid.
JC: Yes. Okay. So that’s in addition to that. So you had a second meeting then -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Do you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay and what was, what was the purpose of that? That second meeting.
KC: Sorry?
JC: Have a drink. Have a drink, dad.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Sorry. I’m getting you to do too much talking.
[pause]
JC: And what would, what would the purpose of that second meeting be dad? The briefing. What was different from that from the first, the first briefing in the afternoon?
KC: Any changes of timing.
JC: Ah I see. Okay.
KC: Something might come through from group head or command headquarters.
JC: Yeah.
KC: That they’d found out something about Jerry tactics or something was going to happen.
JC: Yes.
KC: So that might modify the way you were going in. They may even change the route.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause they were ‘cause your original route would take you right into the middle where all the German night fighters were.
JC: I see.
KC: So they would re-route you.
JC: Right. So they’d have updates on intelligence.
KC: To try to avoid that.
JC: Okay. So they’d have updated information. Alright. So you’d have that second briefing and then you’d go off to your dispersal area. Right? Is that -
KC: Yes. Yeah.
JC: Yes. Okay and then would you go straight in to the plane or sit around in the dispersal area for a bit or how, how long a -
KC: We used to sit in our room.
JC: Yes.
KC: You know, I mean it was Nissen huts where I was. I probably had about four or five guys on beds in the same Nissen huts -
JC: Yes.
KC: That I was.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: So I we’d have a chinwag or you know you’d, you may have wanted to go and have a bath or something like that.
JC: Right.
KC: You know.
JC: What else did you do to kind of while away the time ‘cause obviously there was lots of sitting around waiting isn’t there? So -
KC: Yeah if this lady wasn’t here I’d tell you exactly what we were doing [laughs].
JC: Right okay fine I think we’ll leave that to the imagination there, dad. That’s fine. Okay. [laughs].
KC: Yeah.
JC: What about things, did you play cards or anything like that or -
KC: Some of the guys did. Yes.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And -
JC: Yeah.
KC: And card games or poker and things like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Well, you know, poker’s a card game.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Things like that.
JC: Chess and things like that?
KC: Chess, yeah.
JC: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, alright so then the time came and you had to get in, get in to the plane.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Presumably you had to suit up. Just describe what you had to wear before you -
KC: Well, you’d, you obviously would put your flying overalls on.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But we used to have odd pockets in these flying overalls and so each chap would decide whether he wanted to take a knife, bars of chocolate stuffed down the leg or something like that.
JC: Yeah.
KC: In case you bailed out and -
JC: Sure.
KC: You wanted, you know. That was the idea was to take something like bars of chocolate.
JC: Didn’t you have ration packs as well?
KC: Oh yes.
JC: Did you have emergency rations?
KC: Yeah. Had a -
JC: Or something.
KC: Ration pack, yes.
JC: Yeah. Yeah that you carried with you.
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay. So you had your overalls on and what else? What other things did you have to put on before you climbed in to the plane?
KC: Well, obviously the Mae West.
JC: Yes. What’s a Mae West for those that wouldn’t know?
KC: The Mae West was, was the, if you came down in the sea you wore it. You had your flying suit on and also your underclothing and anything like that and then this Mae West went over the top and it had a system of buoyancy.
JC: Right.
KC: But also you could inflate air. The little bottle -
JC: Right.
KC: With air and you could pull a plug plunger and that would shoot air and this thing would, from being close to you would suddenly you were in the middle of a floatation -
JC: Right.
KC: Gadget.
JC: Yes.
KC: Sort of thing, you see.
JC: Yes. So like a lifejacket almost. Yes.
KC: So if your aircraft came down in the sea and you had to get out of it whatever happened ‘cause it was going down with you on board –
JC: Yes.
KC: This was how you made your thing work so at least you.
[phone ringing]
JC: Yes. Yes. Okay so we’ve got that. And then what else? You presumably have a flying jacket would you, as well? That you would need to, to wear.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes.
KC: During the war they changed those quite a bit. I had one that was very woolly and fluffy.
JC: Yes.
KC: But it was also a nuisance ‘cause it was all padded in the wrong places and things like that for wear.
JC: Oh really.
KC: So it wasn’t, it wasn’t sensible.
JC: Oh right.
KC: So we chose not to wear that. We wore them in the middle of winter of course.
JC: Right. Yeah.
KC: But if we could get away without it we’d put an extra jumper on.
JC: Yes. Okay. Okay, alright so you put, put all that clothing. What about a parachute? Did you have to wear one of those?
KC: We all wore harness.
JC: Yes.
KC: What they called parachute harness.
JC: Yeah.
KC: With clips on the front and your parachute was a pack about that wide.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which was stored somewhere handy for where you sat.
JC: Right.
KC: In the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: And the idea was that if you had to get out the first thing you don’t enquire, ‘Where’s my bloody chute?’
JC: Yeah.
KC: You took it with you and as you went out of the aircraft you clipped it on.
JC: Yes.
KC: You pulled the thing so you come down alright, you know.
JC: I see. Okay.
KC: That was the drill that you were taught.
JC: That was the idea was it okay. And this was all -
KC: And I was pleased not to have to do that.
JC: Yes that’s good. Leaving a perfectly good plane. Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay so that’s how you dressed. So you climb into the plane and then presumably what happens then the kind of engines on and you’ve got sort of checks that you have to do before -
KC: Yeah and you had checks to do and you got in to the aircraft. Each of us had our pre-flight checks to do.
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know, I had to get all my equipment, bits of equipment that I carried.
JC: Yes.
KC: To do my job. And if I was using radar which I was had to set up the radar sets. [ ?]
JC: Have a drink. You’re not used to talking this much are you dad? Actually, you are used to talking this much. Yeah.
[Pause]
JC: So you’re getting your radar sets ready. Yes.
KC: Yeah. Getting it all set up and you know you’d obviously plug in your leads to make sure you were on the air with everybody else in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
KC: And just check that out.
JC: What about oxygen and stuff like that?
KC: Oxygen. Yeah.
JC: Pre-test that?
KC: You each had your oxygen point where you sat.
JC: Yes.
KC: [Excuse me] and plug that in.
JC: Yes and did you have if you needed to move around the aircraft you had presumably a kind of mobile -
KC: Yes. A portable bottle that you could -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Pick up. They were stowed in two or three places in the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So if you I mean for instance if you wanted to use the loo in the Lanc.
JC: Yes.
KC: You had to go right to the back of the bloody aircraft.
JC: Was that presumably where the rear gunner was, was it?
KC: You went right near to the rear.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Gunner.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But to get there you had to climb over what we called the main spar.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which went right through the middle of the main wing.
JC: Yes.
KC: But also went through the cockpit bit where we were.
JC: The fuselage. Yeah.
KC: So to get to that you had to literally climb over this thing.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: With all your garb on you know.
JC: Yeah. Yes. And -
KC: Not popular that.
JC: Yes and a slightly personal question but what was it like going to the loo on a Lancaster?
KC: Shall I tell you?
JC: Go on. Yes.
KC: Well on one occasion my bottom froze to the, to the pan.
JC: Did it? ‘Cause it was a metal toilet seat.
KC: We moaned about these things and then they changed this seat from metal to plastic because of that. Because not only me but some of the other guys had gone to the toilet and found they couldn’t get their bottom of the toilet. It was frozen on. It‘s absolutely true.
JC: Oh right okay. Alright.
KC: And -
JC: Yes. So -
KC: Yeah. I don’t think I’d better say any more about that.
JC: Okay dad. There’s enough detail there. Thank you dad. That’s good. Alright. So, so you’ve done your pre-flight checks, you’re in the plane and then you’re kind of taking off. Now that must have been quite a spectacle being there with lots of aircraft taking off at one time.
KC: Oh yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: What was that like? ‘Cause I guess you were able to, where you were sitting, look out and see -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Other aircraft around were you?
KC: See. Yeah, all the aircraft encroaching towards the beginning of the runway.
JC: Right.
KC: So they might have come right across the other side of the airfield. The airfields were pretty big.
JC: Yes.
KC: So they were taxiing around the peri track, they were.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: And suddenly all converge and all these aircraft were coming from all directions to -
JC: Yes.
KC: That one point.
JC: Yes.
KC: To get to the end of the runway.
JC: Right.
KC: That used to be a bit nightmarish at times because -
JC: You could have crashed into each other.
KC: Some of the guys used to get too bloody close and -
JC: Yeah.
KC: Bang the tips of their wings and things like that.
JC: Right okay so alright so can you, have a drink dad.
KC: Yeah.
JC: I was just going to ask you what your memories are of your early operations because that must have been quite, quite, you know, scary as a new crew.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Relatively new crew. Can you -
KC: It was, it was horrific.
JC: Yes.
KC: Is the fair way. In terms of there were these guys on the ground shooting up and trying to get you and you were flying along and suddenly there was a bloody great explosion out to the right and somebody’s been hit by ack ack and he’s exploded with all his bombs on board. The first time you see that is quite an eye opener I can tell you.
JC: I bet.
KC: And I used to see, we used to see it on almost every raid we went on. Some poor sod would get a direct hit from -
JC: Yeah.
KC: German ground ack ack stuff and what they, of course they had their night fighters up as well.
JC: And what sort of planes were those. Those were -
KC: They were –
JC: Messerschmitts, were they? Messerschmitt 109s.
KC: Messerschmitt and they were twin engine Messerschmitts.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And they had a tactic.
KC: The ME109 was single.
JC: Right.
KC: But they had ME110s.
JC: Right.
KC: Which was a two man crew.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah. And they were deadly.
JC: Yes. On what –
KC: ‘Cause they had the latest radar as we had the latest radar.
JC: Right.
KC: So they could pick us up.
JC: Right. And what was their tactic? You said about them using to try and fly up underneath.
KC: Yeah.
JC: I remember you saying about that.
KC: Their main tactic was to get A, to get themselves into the bomber stream.
JC: Yes.
KC: Our bomber stream.
JC: Yes.
KC: And then they had to use their own radar to pick us up.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bearing in mind we were going across twenty or twenty five thousand feet across coming up from the ground.
JC: Yes.
KC: From Germany and across the North Sea and so on.
JC: Yes.
KC: So they would suddenly find they were up among us.
JC: Right.
KC: And we soon knew they were there because suddenly, you’d be going along all nice and dark and suddenly boom an aircraft blew up just in front of you.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause they, if they attacked us on the way to the target we all still had all our bombs on board.
JC: And was that the tactic that they used to try and shoot up into the bomb bays as well.
KC: Yes they used to fly. If that was me flying along with my crew along there they used to come up there.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they’d open up because they knew all your bombs were in the bomb bay.
JC: Yes.
KC: On the bottom side of the aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So their idea was to explode our bombs.
JC: Yes.
KC: To blow us up.
JC: Right. Right. I see.
KC: And the nearest I ever had in my crew was when they did that ‘cause they did it several times but this particular occasion the, they were so close they were too close when they opened fire.
JC: Right.
KC: So the cannon shells came through the bottom of the aircraft, missed all our bombs but they ended up some of them in the front cockpit just missing me and the pilot and the other navigator.
JC: Right.
KC: But it was so close, bearing in mind we were wearing oxygen masks, the bomber crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But it was the cordite when the shells exploded in the aircraft.
JC: Yes.
KC: Was so strong even with oxygen mask I could smell, smell the cordite.
JC: Right.
KC: From the cannon shells exploding -
JC: Right.
KC: Inside the aircraft.
JC: That’s amazing.
KC: But also of course they came through and didn’t just stop. They kept flying through and this particular case of the attack they broke our plexiglass nose.
JC: Right.
KC: It shattered.
JC: Yes.
KC: So we had a gale blowing in the front didn’t we ‘cause there was no blooming plexiglass to protect us.
JC: Right.
KC: I’ve never forgotten that one. Yeah.
JC: Because didn’t you have to go down there as well to do the bombing?
KC: Visual. If the radar didn’t work.
JC: Yes.
KC: You didn’t bring your bombs back. You went down. I had to be able to use the visual bomb sight.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Mark 14 bomb sight.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Lying prone and looking through the actual bomb site and directing the pilot verbally over the intercom telling him which, to go left, right, up or down whatever the case might be.
JC: Yes.
KC: Because I was using my bomb sight.
JC: Yes.
KC: To aim at what I thought was the target we were going for.
JC: And, and so what stopped you from just dumping the bombs and heading off home? Why, why would that, you know.
KC: Well we weren’t going to do that. Fly all that bloody way and not drop our bombs were we?
JC: Yeah I know but why, why was it so important to, to kind of, you know, get, get them on target. Would you have been required -
KC: Well -
JC: To come back again if you -
KC: Because when you operated the bomb release.
JC: Yes.
KC: You set in motion a line overlap camera.
JC: Right.
KC: There was a camera built up in the bomb bay.
JC: Yes.
KC: And when your bomb doors was open and you pressed the bomb button to release the bombs, it operated this camera.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which then took a line overlap the ground that you were flying over so when you got over that back to base the station photographic officer came in and took the camera thing out of the camera, whatever they called it, you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Part of the camera away.
JC: Yes.
KC: And developed it and could, they could plot and decide whether you’d bombed your target or you’d bombed ploughed fields or something.
JC: Yes and so if you hadn’t hit the target they’d send you back there again the next night basically.
KC: That wouldn’t have counted as an op.
JC: And wouldn’t counted it as an op. So you would have -
KC: And your crew would kill you.
JC: Yeah. Yes.
KC: ‘You didn’t do it properly Ken. You made us do another bloody op Ken.’
JC: So but I guess on the other side of that there would be occasions where you were over a target being shot at.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And searchlights going everywhere weren’t there?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And you were trying to make sure you hit it and they probably wanted you to leave quick sharp didn’t they?
KC: The rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They’d say, ‘Ken drop the bloody thing. Drop it.’ [laughs]
JC: Yeah. Yeah okay. Alright.
KC: And I didn’t.
JC: No. No. No.
KC: And so when we came back I knew I had a good photograph of what we’d actually, where we’d bombed.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We had bombed the proper target.
JC: Okay so you did those early, those early operations in 9 Squadron and then you were moved to 97 Squadron as part of the Pathfinder force.
KC: Yes.
JC: Why, why were you selected to go to the Pathfinder force?
KC: I think we discussed as a crew because if you went there you got a promotion.
JC: Right.
KC: You got another rank.
JC: I see.
KC: Okay.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah. And we felt that we’d done ten ops on main force.
JC: Yeah.
KC: What we called main force. We felt we were ready to upgrade ourselves.
JC: Right.
KC: And so we volunteered and went through the, of course we had to learn all the latest radar which the main force -
JC: Did you automatically get put on to Pathfinders if you volunteered or is there a selection process that you had to go through. Did they, because presumably they wanted?
KC: There was a selection process.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay.
KC: But they knew your record if you’d already done ten ops on. As I had.
JC: Yes.
KC: As we had on 9 Squadron.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They knew that you knew what was going on.
JC: Yes.
KC: Sort of thing.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they still put us through this course to learn the latest radar.
JC: Right.
KC: That the Pathfinders had that the main force didn’t have.
JC: So tell, what was the role of the Pathfinder force? What was that really about?
KC: The role of the Pathfinder force was obviously to find the target and mark it with pyrotech markers or whatever –
JC: Yeah.
KC: You were, had been told to use. It was also part of our job was to put down route markers because some of the main force would lose their radar on the way.
JC: Right.
KC: So we’d put markers down which were at their briefings they would be told that route markers would be dropped and look out for a red/yellow or whatever pyrotechnic coming down. That’s the one you aim for going towards the target and things like that you know.
JC: So it was like breadcrumbs was it?
KC: Yeah. Yeah.
JC: Laid for you and you did they breadcrumbs.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Right. Okay. Okay and why, why did they need you to put markers down? Why couldn’t every, every crew just - what, what was the purpose of marking?
KC: They were not highly trained like we were.
JC: Right.
KC: We had been put through these special courses when we joined the Pathfinder force. We had special courses to try to get us to work to the odd minute.
JC: Yes.
KC: Of time.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bearing in mind we were going on a twelve to fifteen hour flight and to talk about getting within the minute or two or whatever was quite a tall order.
JC: Right.
KC: But we did it.
JC: Yeah.
KC: The guys who were, like me who were Pathfinders. That’s what we had to be able to do.
JC: Okay.
KC: That’s why I got a DFC at the end of it.
JC: Good. Yeah. Your timekeeping. That’s good.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good. So you, so you did this role and you, you marked the targets. Were you also dropping live munitions as well or was it just markers that you were dropping?
KC: Oh every time we dropped bombs.
JC: Yeah. You dropped bombs as well.
KC: Well when I pressed the button to let go the markers.
JC: Yeah.
KC: On that stick of bombing that I was using.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We were getting rid of incendiaries, sometimes incendiaries.
JC: Yes.
KC: Would go down.
JC: Yeah.
KC: A shower of them or it could be incendiaries plus five hundred pound bombs were going down.
JC: Right.
KC: It could be a whole stick of all that stuff.
JC: Yes.
KC: And then in the middle of that we were dropping stuff called Window.
JC: And what is Window?
KC: Window was the code name given to stuff that we used to throw out, disperse out of the aircraft to try to muck about with the ground radar system so it would instead of just getting, picking up our aircraft this was a massive metalised thing that dropped out of our aircraft and it caused consternation to the Jerries on the ground because instead of getting one clear blip of a bomber suddenly there was a bloody great cloud of stuff and you couldn’t pick out the bombers.
JC: Right.
KC: Because of our, the stuff we dropped out of the aircraft.
JC: It sort of confused.
KC: One of the tactics we were doing things against them and they were doing things against us.
JC: Right.
KC: But this was the sort of thing that we were trained to do.
JC: Right. Right. Okay. Okay and so were the Pathfinders always ahead of the main force or did they, ‘cause they had to mark the target.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Or did they have to -
KC: They were always the primary markers.
JC: Yes.
KC: They were Pathfinder primary markers.
JC: Yes.
KC: And you did that when you were, had become very -
JC: Yes.
KC: Experienced Pathfinders.
JC: Right.
KC: But then because some of the raids we had seven or eight hundred aircraft on.
JC: Yes.
KC: There had to be marker crews coming in towards the end.
JC: Yes.
KC: To drop markers for the last lot of ordinary bomber boys that were coming in.
JC: Yes.
KC: They still needed to find and put their bombs down on the target.
JC: Right.
KC: So the Pathfinder guys, believe it or not, we used to hate that. If you were one of the unlucky sods to come at the end you know you would get everything shot out of you because -
JC: Yeah.
KC: By the time you got there the Jerries knew you were coming anyway.
JC: Right.
KC: And their night fighters were up amongst you.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But usually very experienced Pathfinder crews that came in towards the end.
JC: Right.
KC: To make sure that the rest of the main force had some markers to aim at.
JC: Right. Okay. Okay that’s good. Alright. So, any particular, so you obviously did quite a few operations. You did forty five in total didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And any, any, any of them stand out in your mind at all for any reason?
KC: Um -
JC: You mentioned Berlin as a difficult place to go to.
KC: I did ten ops to Berlin.
JC: Yes.
KC: I think what was the, there was, also we did trips to the Ruhr area.
JC: Yes.
KC: Which was full of anti-aircraft. That was a terrible lot to go over because they used to try to knock you out of the sky straight away. There were some trips. I’m trying to think. I’ll think of it in a minute.
JC: Well just while you’re thinking about that the other thing is obviously during your operational time was the, of, was preparations for D-Day wasn’t it? Going in to -
KC: Yeah.
JC: 1944.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And so you started to intersperse operations over Germany with operations over France.
KC: Absolutely.
JC: And so what was your role really in the kind of run up to D-Day?
KC: We, we were given targets, German targets on the beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Normandy beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: We were given targets for about three nights in a row.
JC: Yes.
KC: To cover the Germans.
JC: Yes.
KC: They had built quite hefty defence systems behind the beaches of Normandy and we went over, and we came down lowish to do it. We didn’t do it at twenty odd thousand. I think we were dropping stuff over, over the French coast about ten thousand feet.
JC: Right.
KC: And so the idea was to make sure that you clobbered all the German ‘cause they had tanks on the beaches.
JC: Yes.
KC: And they’d built in gun systems.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Into the rocks and so on the beaches and so we used to go and drop sticks of flares to have a look and then when we could see them we’d turn around and do a visual run over them and clobber them.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. So that was a, was a slightly different role then from what you’d been -
KC: From normal.
JC: Normal operations.
KC: The normal mass bombing.
JC: Yes. Yes.
KC: We did in places. The big cities in Germany.
JC: Yes. Okay. Alright. So you, so you did all that and that took you up to, to around the time of D-Day which is when I think you had your, your last operation. July 1944 in fact was your, no, sorry, April 1944 was your final operation I think.
KC: Where was that too?
JC: I don’t know. I haven’t got a note of that but your, certainly your latter ones you did, I think, ten or twelve operations over France.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Various parts of France.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Including the Normandy, the sort of, the immediate environment of the beaches.
KC: That’s why I got that gong.
JC: That’s right. Yeah so that was why you got the Legion d’honneur.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So yes you did that. Then you moved on to do sort of training type roles didn’t you? After -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Preparing other crews to go up.
KC: Yeah. That was one of the worrying things in my life.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Whenever I flew with people I’d say, I’d say to, when I got down I’d say that bloody Pardew[?] he can’t land it.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was doing what we called a kangaroo landing every time he landed.
JC: Oh really. Bouncing down the runway.
KC: Yeah.
JC: With inexperienced crews.
KC: Yeah.
JC: And your role with them was to prepare them on the radars and that sort of thing.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Okay and how were you feeling at this kind of time? What was the sort of, ‘cause you’d done forty five operations so an experienced hand at doing all this so what was your sort of feeling about things? Do you recall how, how that was?
KC: Yes. I felt that I was due for a rest.
JC: Right.
KC: I felt I was happy to come back again.
JC: Yeah.
KC: But I felt we’d had some real tough ops.
JC: Yes.
KC: We’d been on Pathfinders.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And I thought enough is enough for a while.
JC: Yes.
KC: And that’s the way it went.
JC: Yes and you had, I think at least one or two operations where you come back and you’d lost engines.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yes and so -
KC: Yes, that’s, yeah at its believe it or not I was never terribly worried about that as long as –
JC: Yeah.
KC: We had two or three engines left.
JC: Yes.
KC: The Lanc would fly on it alright.
JC: Yes.
KC: But if you lost two engines -
JC: Yes.
KC: Particularly on one side.
JC: Yes.
KC: That could be, that meant that meant the pilot really, it was it was really critical because he had to operate the pedals to offset the fact he hadn’t have any power on one side.
JC: Yes.
KC: He’s got all the power on the left side.
JC: Yes.
KC: Or the right side.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And it needed quite a bit of physical effort to control that.
JC: Right. Right. Okay -
KC: But we had this chap Jim Kermans [?] who was a bloody good pilot.
JC: Yes.
KC: He was mature. He was twenty nine years old and we were all about twenty one.
JC: Right.
KC: The rest of the crew.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And he was mature, he was a trained lawyer in Australia.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And you know he was, he was a great guy really.
JC: Right.
KC: I didn’t like him too much as a man.
JC: Right.
KC: ‘Cause he hadn’t got any sense of humour.
JC: Right.
KC: But as, as an aviator he was tops.
JC: Yes. Got you back safely all those -
KC: Yes.
JC: All those times.
KC: Yes.
JC: Yes. Yeah, so that’s good and what happened to the crew after you finished your forty five operations. Did you stay in touch with them or did you all disperse to do other things?
KC: We soon dispersed off.
JC: Yes.
KC: To do, you know, different members of the crew, whatever their job was, they were sent to training schools.
JC: Yes.
KC: To, like the wireless operator guy would go -
JC: Yeah.
KC: To help train new boys and so on and that sort of thing. Yeah.
JC: Yeah. Okay, alright. And at the end of the war you were you did this goodwill tour as well which we hadn’t spoken about so -
KC: To America.
JC: Yes. So, tell, tell us about that. That was with quite a famous squadron wasn’t it?
KC: 617.
JC: Yes with 617.
KC: The one that Guy Gibson when they did the -
JC: Yes.
KC: Eder dams and all that.
JC: Yes that’s right. The Dambusters.
KC: They were based at that time at Binbrook.
JC: Right.
KC: And the AOC asked me would I like to go along -
JC: Yes.
KC: And fly on that trip to America with 617.
JC: And what was the purpose of the trip? You said it was a goodwill tour.
KC: Goodwill.
JC: So it was to -
KC: We were going to first of all flew across the Atlantic to Washington DC.
JC: Yes.
KC: And whilst we there of course we, the public were invited to come and look at our aircraft because you know we had, we had operational bomber aircraft.
JC: Right.
KC: So the public were invited in, in their droves.
JC: Yeah.
KC: To see our Lancasters.
JC: Yeah.
KC: You know, and it was quite a sight.
JC: Yeah.
KC: To have the whole squadron of Lancaster lined up on their airfields.
JC: Yeah.
KC: And the crowds would come in literally in their hundreds and thousands.
JC: Right.
KC: To see them.
JC: Right.
KC: You know.
JC: And what’s your memories of America having gone from wartime Britain. You know, immediately after the war to what was your lasting memory of America?
KC: I thought they were lucky sods.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah because -
JC: I guess the food was slightly different wasn’t it?
KC: Oh yeah. Yeah, that was lovely you know ‘cause we were still on rationing back home.
JC: Yes.
KC: But there we had the best of everything.
JC: Yes.
KC: That we could lay our hands on.
JC: Yes.
KC: You know.
JC: Fantastic.
KC: Sorry that sounds awful but you know what I mean.
JC: Fantastic. Okay and, alright so, and so you toured around the States with this -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good-will tour. Okay. Right -
KC: We were on Lincolns by the way.
JC: You flew on Lincolns. Not on -
KC: Not Lancasters.
JC: Right.
KC: They’d just brought the Lincoln in and we were, we took, was it twelve or fourteen Lincolns across to America? And of course everywhere we went, the first thing we would arrive we would do a flypast.
JC: Yes.
KC: Bloody great Lancs flying over the town.
JC: Or Lincolns, yeah.
KC: Or Lincolns rather.
JC: Yeah. Yeah.
KC: Flying over their towns.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Which they seemed to enjoy and we went right across. I mean we started off in Washington DC was our first port of call and then to Detroit. Across America to Detroit and from Detroit across to Kansas and Kansas to LA and from LA coming back more south. What was the place in the south? I’ve forgotten the big cities across the south.
JC: Was it Dallas or somewhere like that?
KC: Dallas, yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Dallas was one of them.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah and then back up to Washington eventually.
JC: Right.
KC: And from there and then we took off and flew back to England.
JC: Right. Right.
KC: It was, to me it was an absolute education ‘cause I mean we saw the states you know all the time.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Seeing places we’d read about and never been to.
JC: Yes, fantastic alright. Good. Okay so you came back and then you had your post war career and you carried on flying Mosquitos and then you converted to some of the early jets didn’t you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: And what was that like? Going from a sort of a propeller-driven plane to a, to a jet.
KC: That was an education.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. So that was, that was the early Meteors and then on to Javelins wasn’t it?
KC: Javelins. Yeah.
JC: Yes. Yes, okay.
KC: Yeah.
JC: So, good -
KC: Super planes they were. I thought anyway.
JC: Okay and you took and you took some of these planes on overseas didn’t you? I remember seeing pictures of you in places like Cyprus.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You went on training.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Operations didn’t you? Down -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Down there.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Were you involved in any of the sort of post war, so there was obviously problems in Cyprus and then there was -
KC: Yeah, we were there.
JC: In Suez and things like that were you?
KC: What aircraft did we have to go there?
JC: It would have been either Meteors or, or Javelins I’m assuming. Was it?
KC: I think it was Javelins.
JC: Yes.
KC: Yeah ‘cause when we were there we were the air commander of Cyprus [billed us?] we were told quickly, ‘You are now part of my defence force.’
JC: Right.
KC: Sort of thing and I was going off at night in the dark. My crew and other members of the crew and so on ‘cause they were having problems with the, what are they called? The Jews. You know the -
JC: The Israelis.
KC: Israelis. Yeah.
JC: Yeah.
KC: They were being a nuisance and coming over Cyprus and things like that.
JC: Right.
KC: And into the Cyprus airspace.
JC: Yeah.
KC: So we’d get scrambled to go and chase them off.
JC: Yeah.
KC: At night.
JC: Okay.
KC: But they were also Turkey were reinforcing their own people because there were a lot of Turks on the island of Cyprus.
JC: Yes.
KC: And the Turks were bringing in, we found out through flying -
JC: Yeah.
KC: They were bringing it, dropping in at night on parachutes.
JC: Right.
KC: Down to their own people in the villages.
JC: Yes.
KC: So we, more than once I’d been up the backside of one of these guys dropping stuff to the Turks from Turkey.
JC: What? Transport planes -
KC: Yeah.
JC: Coming over.
KC: Yeah I used to hone in on them I used to tell our control downstairs, ‘Got one, I’m locked on to him. I’ve got one.’
JC: Right.
KC: And they used to say 'Monitor him. Keep an eye on him.'
JC: Yeah.
KC: For the -
JC: Right okay fantastic. And then you say you carried on and you actually moved. Did a permanent stint out in Aden. What was going on in Aden? Why, why was there an air force base in Aden?
KC: I’m trying to think what made me, what made us go there.
JC: It was a British protectorate really wasn’t it?
KC: It was a British protectorate and I think that, I can’t remember how I ended up going there, what made me go there but that was a very interesting part of my life because you know we were the forerunner of what later was going to be problems up in the Persian Gulf.
JC: Right.
KC: From Aden I used to jump on aeroplanes and go up to some of these towns, biggish towns and so on the Persian Gulf which later became real trouble spots.
JC: Right.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Okay. Okay so that was that and then you came back and I think you did sort of some MOD type roles until the end of your air force career in 1968. Moving around. Non-flying duties. Yes. Yeah, okay.
KC: I’d had my innings.
JC: You’d had your innings at that point. Had your innings at that point. Okay. Good.
KC: I was very lucky to get away with it, with what I did when I think when I look back at what I did and what could have gone wrong, you know things like that. Amazing.
JC: Amazing. Yeah absolutely.
KC: Yeah.
JC: Good. Alright.
KC: You’ve got a history book now.
SJ: We have [laughs]. So did you have any lucky charms or superstitions?
KC: No. I honestly didn’t. I didn’t believe in it.
SJ: Yeah.
KC: No. No.
PJ: They say a lot of crews are superstitious or they were weren’t they, you know and there was always this little teddy bear in their -
KC: Yeah. I don’t think I had anything like that.
PJ: Coat or something.
KC: No. No. No.
JC: No. You didn’t believe in all of that.
KC: No.
JC: Just a good square meal.
KC: That’s right.
JC: What happened, what happened when you got back from flying, as well? Presumably you got another, there was a debriefing.
KC: No.
JC: Was it a debriefing?
KC: We got a night flying supper.
JC: You got a – did you?
KC: That’s what it was called. The night flying supper.
JC: Oh right. So you had a good meal before you went and a good meal when you came back did you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Oh right.
KC: When we came back there would be plates of eggs and bacon.
JC: Again.
KC: Beans and things like that again you know.
JC: Yeah.
KC: We, well we’d been flying for the last ten hours.
PJ: Yeah.
KC: Things like that and we were a bit, bit ravenous.
JC: Yeah. Did you take presumably in addition to your kit could you take things up in the plane with you?
KC: Yeah.
JC: A flask of coffee and things like that, did you?
KC: Yeah Mars bars and things like that. Stick it down there.
JC: Yes.
KC: There was a zip pocket in your trouser leg.
JC: Yes.
KC: And so on to stick a couple of Mars bars in there and things like that.
JC: Keep you going yeah?
KC: Just in case you had to bail out.
JC: Yes.
KC: People used to try and think ahead and think well at least I’ve got a couple of Mars bars I can have something to eat for the next couple of hours or so.
JC: Yes. Yeah, okay.
PJ: Did you all used to go out for a drink together? ‘Cause there was always this thing isn’t there, they say, that good crews -
JC: Well I -
PJ: All stuck together, and they all went out together like family.
KC: Well we did a lot of it. The strange thing was that some of my crew were not terribly social. Only one or two of them and we were seven in the crew of course and there was probably three or four of us that did that and there were a couple who always had a reason for not coming. Yeah. But you know we used to get on and let them do with what they wanted to do.
JC: Was there anybody out of the crew you felt particularly friendly with compared to the others?
KC: Em, Ken Randall, our flight engineer was a lovely chap. Brummy. You know, Birmingham. He was almost naïve but he was absolutely a totally professional flight engineer. He knew everything about all the engines. He could hear noises nobody else could hear coming from the engines and things like that and nice boy, nice fella.
JC: Yeah.
KC: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Our tail gunner was absolutely, absolutely, absolutely broad Scotch so if we were being shot at, being chased he would shout but he was shouting in Scot and we couldn’t understand [laughs].
JC: Okay was, he was from Glasgow or somewhere wasn’t he?
KC: Yeah.
JC: Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, yes. Fantastic. Good. Any other questions? I think I’ve got most of the ones from here.
SJ: Yeah. How do you feel that Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
KC: Pretty grim I think. Politicians I think are absolutely shysters. They want, you know they want things their own way and, but they don’t realise how people are doing trying to please them and I always felt that some of the things I’ve read that were going on around me were absolutely terrible. Politicians, on the whole, I have no time for them. They’re just there for the moment and they get what they can at the time and that’s it. But then that’s me. I could be quite different from anybody else on that.
PJ: What about a medal? A campaign medal?
KC: Yeah.
PJ: Do you think it’s, that you should have had a medal because they never had a medal did they? They had the bomber clasp they just brought in. A campaign medal.
KC: Well, I had medals.
PJ: Yeah but a campaign medal for, you know like for actual the bombing duties and -
JC: You had, you had a war medal.
KC: Yeah.
JC: You have an Aircrew Europe Medal, you had a defence medal and a Pathfinder Eagle.
KC: Yeah. And I got a DFC.
JC: And you got your DFC as well.
KC: Yeah.
JC: But yes there was, there were campaign medals for others weren’t there but not for Bomber Command?
KC: Bomber. We didn’t get anything special campaign for the -
JC: No.
KC: All the raids we did. No.
JC: No.
KC: You know we were going off night after night in the Lancasters with a bomb load. Not just bombs. We had bloody great loads of incendiaries we were taking to cart and drop down. It was, when you think back on it was a dirty war really but we did what the Germans tried to do to us didn’t we? I think we were a bit more successful.
PJ: Well, thank you Ken for letting us interview you for the IBCC.
KC: Okay.
PJ: It’s been a pleasure to hear your stories.
KC: You’ve got some notes.
PJ: Thank you.
KC: Yeah. Good.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ACookKHH160725, PCookKHH1601
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Kenneth Cook
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:20:59 audio recording
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter and Sandra Jones
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-25
Description
An account of the resource
Wing Commander Kenneth Cook was born in Randwick in Gloucestershire. At Marlings grammar school, he joined the Air Training Corps. On the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Air Force and went to America under the Arnold Scheme for pilot training. He continued training in Canada as a navigator/bomb aimer. He returned to Great Britain and continued training at RAF Cottesmore and the Heavy Conversion Unit at RAF Winthorpe. His crew were posted to 9 Squadron at RAF Bardney. After ten operations, they joined 97 Squadron Pathfinders. Altogether he flew 45 operations, including several to Berlin. At the end of his tours, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Thereafter, he served at 1 Group Headquarters, and then RAF Fiskerton, RAF Fulbeck and RAF Syerston, tasked with checking the readiness of new crews, specifically the navigators. For a time he engaged in preparations for Tiger force. At the end of the war, he accompanied 617 Squadron on a goodwill tour of the United States. After the war, he remained in the Royal Air Force and was stationed in Aden and Cyprus. He was awarded the Legion d’honneur and rose to be a wing commander. He retired in 1968 and thereafter pursued a civilian career.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942
1943
1944
1945
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Janet McGreevy
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Canada
Cyprus
Great Britain
United States
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Berlin
Yemen (Republic)
Germany
1 Group
617 Squadron
9 Squadron
97 Squadron
Botha
crewing up
dispersal
Distinguished Flying Cross
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lincoln
Meteor
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
Nissen hut
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Pathfinders
RAF Bardney
RAF Bawtry
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Fulbeck
RAF Syerston
RAF Winthorpe
sanitation
Stearman
Tiger force
training
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1524/30282/BBaxterPDBaxterPDv1.1.pdf
577eb11ecf5974b8a0c61795657b59c5
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
Baxter, Peter Dennis
P D Baxter
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-07-12
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Baxter, PD
Description
An account of the resource
63 items. The collection concerns Flight Lieutenant Peter Baxter (b. 1922, 52604 Royal Air Force) and contains his log book, photographs and documents. He was trained as an airframe apprentice at RAF Halton and served as ground crew before volunteering to become air crew. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 12 and 153 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Michael Baxter 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
I Flew with Nine Wing Commanders
Description
An account of the resource
The detailed and wide ranging story of Peter Baxter's service in the RAF from an Airframe Apprentice to Flight Engineer Leader.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Baxter
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Book in .pdf
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text. Memoir
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BBaxterPDBaxterPDv1
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.
England--Lincolnshire
England--Buckinghamshire
Wales--Glamorgan
England--Staffordshire
Wales--Gwynedd
Germany--Berlin
Italy--Milan
France--La Rochelle
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Essen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Italy--Turin
France--Lorient
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Nuremberg
France--Saint-Nazaire
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany--Wuppertal
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Paderborn
Italy
Great Britain
Germany
France
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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.
12 Squadron
153 Squadron
50 Squadron
aerial photograph
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
Battle
Beaufighter
Blenheim
bombing
Cook’s tour
coping mechanism
crash
crewing up
debriefing
dispersal
Distinguished Flying Medal
Do 217
entertainment
final resting place
fitter airframe
fitter engine
flight engineer
fuelling
ground crew
Halifax
Halifax Mk 1
Halifax Mk 3
He 111
Heavy Conversion Unit
incendiary device
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lancaster Mk 1
Lancaster Mk 3
Lincoln
mess
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
Nissen hut
nose art
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
pilot
promotion
RAF Cosford
RAF Faldingworth
RAF Halton
RAF Hemswell
RAF Kirmington
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Scampton
RAF St Athan
RAF Sturgate
RAF Tilstock
RAF Waddington
RAF Wickenby
recruitment
target photograph
training
Whitley
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/934/36456/BLovattPHastieRv1.2.pdf
9b3858b8c21f871c9674fb0bb2df1994
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
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lovatt, P
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hastie DFC: The Life and Times of a Wartime Pilot
Description
An account of the resource
An incomplete biography of Roy Hastie. Only pages 1 to 46, 104 to 106, 128 to 133 and 34 additional unnumbered pages are included.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lovatt
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Rhode Island--Quonset Point Naval Air Station
Bahamas--Nassau
New York (State)--New York
Bahamas--New Providence Island
England--Harrogate
Scotland--Perth
Scotland--Glasgow
Scotland--Glasgow
England--Warrington
England--Blackpool
Luxembourg
France
Belgium
Netherlands
France--Dunkerque
England--Dover
England--Grantham
England--Torquay
Wales--Aberystwyth
Iceland
Greenland
Sierra Leone
Russia (Federation)--Murmansk
Singapore
France--Saint-Malo
Denmark
Sweden
Germany--Lübeck
Netherlands--Ameland Island
England--Grimsby
Germany--Helgoland
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Lundy Island
Germany--Cologne
North Carolina
North Carolina--Cape Hatteras
Aruba
Curaçao
Iceland--Reykjavík
Greenland--Narsarssuak
Canada
Québec--Montréal
Rhode Island
New York (State)--Buffalo
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Virginia
Florida--Miami
Cuba--Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Puerto Rico--San Juan
Cuba
Florida--West Palm Beach
Cuba--Caimanera
India
Sierra Leone--Freetown
Jamaica
Jamaica--Kingston
Jamaica--Montego Bay
Virginia--Norfolk
Québec--Montréal
Washington (D.C.)
Newfoundland and Labrador
Trinidad and Tobago--Trinidad
North America--Saint Lawrence River
Newfoundland and Labrador--Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Bahamas
Florida
New York (State)
Great Britain
Ontario
Québec
Germany
Russia (Federation)
Trinidad and Tobago
North America--Niagara Falls
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
England--Kent
England--Lancashire
England--Lincolnshire
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Russia (Federation)--Arkhangelʹskai︠a︡ oblastʹ
Virginia--Hampton Roads (Region)
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. Coastal Command
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
88 printed sheets
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
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BLovattPHastieRv1
8 Group
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-24
B-25
Beaufighter
Bismarck
C-47
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
evacuation
Flying Training School
Gee
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Initial Training Wing
navigator
Nissen hut
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
radar
RAF Bircham Newton
RAF Catterick
RAF Cranwell
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leuchars
RAF North Coates
RAF Odiham
RAF Oulton
RAF Padgate
RAF Prestwick
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Eval
RAF Thornaby
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Windrush
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
Scharnhorst
Spitfire
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Whitley
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/934/36457/BLovattPHastieRv2.1.pdf
295406378e70aa4d2aeb43baeaddc085
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
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lovatt, P
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Hastie DFC: The Life and Times of a Wartime Pilot
Description
An account of the resource
A biography of Roy Hastie.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lovatt
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2003-10
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
United States
Rhode Island--Quonset Point Naval Air Station
Bahamas--Nassau
New York (State)--New York
Bahamas--New Providence Island
Great Britain
England--Harrogate
Scotland--Perth
Scotland--Glasgow
England--Warrington
England--Blackpool
Luxembourg
France
Belgium
Netherlands
France--Dunkerque
England--Dover
England--Grantham
England--Torquay
Wales--Aberystwyth
Iceland
Greenland
Sierra Leone
Russia (Federation)--Murmansk
Singapore
France--Saint-Malo
Denmark
Sweden
Germany--Lübeck
Netherlands--Ameland Island
England--Grimsby
Germany--Helgoland
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
England--Lundy Island
Germany--Cologne
North Carolina
North Carolina--Cape Hatteras
Aruba
Curaçao
Iceland--Reykjavík
Greenland--Narsarssuak
Canada
Québec--Montréal
Rhode Island
New York (State)--Buffalo
Gulf of Mexico
Caribbean Sea
Virginia
Florida--Miami
Cuba--Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Puerto Rico--San Juan
Cuba
Florida--West Palm Beach
Cuba--Caimanera
India
Sierra Leone--Freetown
Jamaica
Jamaica--Kingston
Jamaica--Montego Bay
Virginia--Norfolk
Washington (D.C.)
Newfoundland and Labrador
Northern Ireland--Limavady
England--Chatham (Kent)
Newfoundland and Labrador--Gander
Gibraltar
England--Leicester
Massachusetts--Boston
Egypt--Alamayn
Algeria--Algiers
Algeria--Oran
Algeria--Bejaïa
Algeria--Annaba
Italy--Sicily
England--Milton Keynes
Germany--Essen
England--Dunwich
Europe--Scheldt River
England--Sizewell
Germany--Hamburg
England--Kent
Germany--Stuttgart
England--Crowborough
Netherlands--Hague
England--Peterborough
England--Bristol
Germany--Homburg (Saarland)
Belgium--Brussels
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Wanne-Eickel
Belgium--Liège
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Aschaffenburg
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Hagen (Arnsberg)
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Ulm
Germany--Munich
Poland--Szczecin
France--Ardennes
Germany--Bonn
Belgium--Houffalize
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Grevenbroich
Germany--Dülmen
France--Metz
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Zeitz
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
England--Dungeness
Germany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Germany--Wiesbaden
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Koblenz
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany--Worms
Germany--Pforzheim
Germany--Darmstadt
Europe--Lake Constance
Germany--Bergkamen
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia)
France--Aube
Germany--Augsburg
England--Feltwell
England--Croydon
Norway--Oslo
Sweden--Stockholm
Czech Republic--Prague
Italy--Florence
Portugal--Lisbon
Monaco--Monte-Carlo
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
Netherlands--Venlo
Netherlands--Amsterdam
France--Paris
France--Lyon
France--Digne
France--Nevers
France--Lille
Norway--Ålesund
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Bailleul (Nord)
Belgium--Ieper
Belgium--Mesen
France--Cambrai
France--Somme
France--Arras
France--Lens
France--Calais
Germany--Emden (Lower Saxony)
Netherlands--Vlissingen
France--Brest
France--Lorient
France--La Pallice
Egypt--Suez
Germany--Berlin
Yemen (Republic)--Aden
Cyprus
Turkey--Gallipoli
Black Sea--Dardanelles Strait
Turkey--İmroz Island
Turkey--İzmir
Greece--Lesbos (Municipality)
Greece--Thasos Island
Greece--Chios (Municipality)
Greece--Thasos
Bulgaria
Turkey--Istanbul
Europe--Macedonia
Greece--Kavala
Kenya--Nairobi
Africa--Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Tanzania
Sudan
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Sudan--Kassalā
Eritrea--Asmara
Yemen (Republic)--Perim Island
Ethiopia--Addis Ababa
Sudan--Khartoum
Ghana--Takoradi
Libya--Cyrenaica
Libya--Tobruk
Egypt--Cairo
Iraq
Greece--Crete
Libya--Tripolitania
Tunisia--Mareth Line
Libya--Tripoli
Tunisia--Qaṣrayn
Tunisia--Medenine
Italy--Pantelleria Island
Malta
Italy--Licata
Italy--Brindisi
Italy--Foggia
Italy--Cassino
Italy--Sangro River
Italy--Termoli
Yugoslavia
Croatia--Split
Croatia--Vis Island
Italy--Loreto
Italy--Pescara
Trinidad and Tobago--Trinidad
North America--Saint Lawrence River
Newfoundland and Labrador--Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Bahamas
Florida
Italy
Poland
Massachusetts
New York (State)
Algeria
Tunisia
Libya
Egypt
North Africa
Ontario
Québec
Germany
Croatia
Czech Republic
Ghana
Greece
Kenya
Norway
Russia (Federation)
Turkey
Yemen (Republic)
Portugal
Trinidad and Tobago
North America--Niagara Falls
France--Reims
Europe--Frisian Islands
Germany--Monheim (North Rhine-Westphalia)
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Norfolk
England--Suffolk
England--Gloucestershire
England--Lancashire
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Greece--Thessalonikē
Germany--Herne (Arnsberg)
Atlantic Ocean--Kattegat (Baltic Sea)
Libya--Banghāzī
Russia (Federation)--Arkhangelʹskai︠a︡ oblastʹ
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Jersey
Virginia--Hampton Roads (Region)
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
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Format
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142 printed sheets
Identifier
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BLovattPHastieRv2
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending text-based transcription
1 Group
100 Group
101 Squadron
157 Squadron
2 Group
214 Squadron
223 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
6 Group
8 Group
85 Squadron
88 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
B-24
B-25
bale out
Beaufighter
Bismarck
Botha
C-47
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
evacuation
Flying Training School
Gee
Gneisenau
Goldfish Club
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Harvard
He 111
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Hurricane
Initial Training Wing
Ju 88
Lancaster
love and romance
Martinet
Me 109
Me 110
mine laying
Mosquito
Mussolini, Benito (1883-1945)
navigator
Nissen hut
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Oxford
Pathfinders
pilot
Proctor
radar
RAF Banff
RAF Catfoss
RAF Catterick
RAF Chedburgh
RAF Cranwell
RAF Dishforth
RAF Farnborough
RAF Horsham St Faith
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leuchars
RAF Lichfield
RAF Lyneham
RAF Manston
RAF North Coates
RAF Oulton
RAF Padgate
RAF Prestwick
RAF Riccall
RAF Silloth
RAF South Cerney
RAF St Eval
RAF Thornaby
RAF Thorney Island
RAF Windrush
RAF Woodbridge
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882-1945)
Scharnhorst
Spitfire
sport
Stirling
Swordfish
Tiger Moth
Tirpitz
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Whitley
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Lovatt, P
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Radio War Waged by the RAF Against Germany 1940-1945
Description
An account of the resource
A thesis written by Peter in 2002, for his Phd.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lovatt
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2002-07
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--London
Atlantic Ocean--English Channel
England--Norfolk
England--Norfolk
France--Dieppe
France--Cherbourg
England--Norwich
England--Swanage
England--Malvern
Germany--Berlin
England--Cornwall (County)
Canada
Newfoundland and Labrador
England--Devizes
France--Paris
England--Chatham (Kent)
Austria
Poland
England--Cheadle (Staffordshire)
England--Daventry
England--Orford Ness
England--Aldeburgh
England--Bawdsey (Air base)
Scotland--Dundee
Scotland--Perth
England--Christchurch (Dorset)
Russia (Federation)
Scotland--Firth of Forth
Germany--Baden-Baden
Germany--Krefeld
Germany--Borkum
Denmark
Norway
Germany--Bredstedt
France--Brest
Netherlands
Germany--Husum (Schleswig-Holstein)
Norway--Klepp
Germany--Stollberg (Landkreis)
Netherlands--Den Helder
Netherlands--Bergen op Zoom
France--Seine-Maritime
France--Cape La Hague
France--Manche
France--Morlaix
Germany--Lörrach
Italy--Noto
England--Tunbridge Wells
England--Harpenden
England--Somerset
England--Henfield (West Sussex)
England--Petersfield
France--Dieppe
England--Portsmouth
Scotland--Orkney
England--Rochester (Kent)
England--Essex
France--Le Havre
England--Hagley (Bromsgrove)
England--Gloucestershire
England--Bridport
England--Coventry
England--Bristol
France--Cassel
France--Poix-du-Nord
England--Radlett (Hertfordshire)
England--Henfield (West Sussex)
England--Cheadle (Staffordshire)
France--Bayeux
England--Kingsdown (Kent)
England--Harleston (Norfolk)
France--Barfleur
France--Cape La Hague
France--Le Mont-Saint-Michel
France--Cancale
France--Penmarc'h
France--Groix
France--Saint-Nazaire Region
France--Saint-Malo
England--Seaton (Devon)
England--Salisbury
Wales--Swansea
England--Droitwich
France--Brittany
England--Manchester
England--Chatham (Kent)
France--Chartres
France--Vannes
Poland--Lubin (Województwo Dolnośląskie)
Egypt
Libya
England--Lydd
England--Helston
England--Chivenor
England--Marske-by-the-Sea
England--Nottingham
England--Birmingham
Slovakia
Czech Republic
Italy
France
England--Milton Keynes
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
England--Dorset
England--Hampshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Kent
England--Northamptonshire
England--Staffordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Sussex
England--Wiltshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Yorkshire
England--Lancashire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Warwickshire
Germany--Kleve (North Rhine-Westphalia)
France--Ouessant Island
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Jersey
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Personal research
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
Language
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eng
Format
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80 printed sheets
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MLovattP1821369-190903-62-01
100 Group
101 Squadron
109 Squadron
214 Squadron
218 Squadron
Anson
B-17
B-24
Blenheim
bombing
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Do 217
Gee
Gneisenau
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
ground personnel
H2S
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
He 111
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Ju 52
Ju 88
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Oboe
P-51
Pathfinders
Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
radar
RAF Biggin Hill
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Defford
RAF Martlesham Heath
RAF Oulton
RAF St Athan
RAF Waddington
RAF Wyton
Scharnhorst
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Whitley
Window
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lovatt, Peter
Dr Peter Lovatt
P Lovatt
Description
An account of the resource
117 items. An oral history interview with Peter Lovatt (b.1924, 1821369 Royal Air Force), his log book, documents, and photographs. The collection also contains two photograph albums. He flew 42 operations as an air gunner on 223 Squadron flying B-24s. <br /><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/1338">Album One</a><br /><a href="https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/show/2135">Album Two</a><br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Nina and Peter Lovatt and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
2019-09-03
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Lovatt, P
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Offensive Phase
Volume Two of Two
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Peter Lovatt
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Norway--Trondheim
France--Brest
Russia (Federation)
England--Hartland
England--Beer Head
Europe--Elbe River
England--Dover
England--Folkestone
England--London
France--Bruneval
France--Pas-de-Calais
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Rostock
England--Norwich
England--Cheadle (Staffordshire)
England--Salcombe
England--Sidmouth
France--Cherbourg
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Dunkerque
France--Cassel
England--Salisbury
Russia (Federation)--Kola Peninsula
Russia (Federation)--Arkhangelʹskai︠a︡ oblastʹ
Germany--Berlin
Poland--Szczecin
France--Desvres
France--Arcachon
France--Nantes
France--Chartres
France--Reims
England--Swanage
England--Malvern
England--Plymouth
France--Lorient
England--Lincoln
Scotland--Edinburgh
England--Hull
England--London
England--Bristol
France--Montdidier (Hauts-de-France)
England--Guildford
France--Poix-du-Nord
Germany--Mannheim
Czech Republic--Pilsen Basin
England--Harpenden
France--Morlaix
Spain--Lugo
Spain--Seville
England--Radlett (Hertfordshire)
Germany--Cologne
France--Boulogne-Billancourt
Germany--Rostock
Germany--Essen
Germany--Schleswig-Holstein
Belgium--Liège
Germany--Bremen
England--High Wycombe
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Wilhelmshaven
England--Sizewell
Germany--Peenemünde
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Munich
Germany--Kassel
England--Crowborough
England--Huddersfield
Netherlands--Den Helder
England--Mundesley
Germany--Schweinfurt
Europe--Baltic Sea Region
Atlantic Ocean--Bay of Biscay
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Wolfenbüttel
Germany--Magdeburg
France--Limoges
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Munich
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Augsburg
France--Yvelines
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Kiel
Poland--Poznań
France--Dieppe
Turkey--Gallipoli
Egypt--Alamayn
Egypt--Cairo
Morocco
Algeria
Italy--Sicily
England--Ventnor
England--Beachy Head
France--Abbeville
France--Somme
France--Seine River
England--Southampton
England--Portsmouth
Scotland--Firth of Forth
Iceland
England--Brighton
France--Normandy
France--Cherbourg
England--Littlehampton
England--Portland Harbour
France--Amiens
Netherlands--Arnhem
France--Normandy
Germany--Gelsenkirchen
France--Le Havre
France--Arromanches-les-Bains
France--Bayeux
Belgium--Wenduine
France--Beauvais
England--Ditchling
England--Henfield (West Sussex)
England--Canterbury
England--Crowborough
England--Dover
England--Chiswick
Netherlands--Hague
Sweden
Belgium--Antwerp
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Trier
Germany--Siegfried Line
Netherlands--New Maas River
Netherlands--Waal River
Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
Germany--Darmstadt
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Braunschweig
Netherlands--Walcheren
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Bochum
Germany--Cologne
Europe--Ardennes
Belgium--Bastogne
Germany--Leuna
Germany--Essen
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Duisburg
Germany--Ulm
Rhine River Valley
Germany--Mittelland Canal
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Dortmund
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Hannover
Belgium--Houffalize
Germany--Neuss
Germany--Grevenbroich
Germany--Dülmen
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Bonn
Germany--Kamen
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Dessau (Dessau)
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Kiel
England--Coventry
Italy
Poland
France
Great Britain
Egypt
North Africa
Germany
Belgium
Czech Republic
Netherlands
Norway
Russia (Federation)
Spain
Turkey
Europe--Frisian Islands
England--Milton Keynes
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
England--Dorset
England--Gloucestershire
England--Hampshire
England--Herefordshire
England--Kent
England--Middlesex
England--Norfolk
England--Staffordshire
England--Suffolk
England--Surrey
England--Sussex
England--Wiltshire
England--Worcestershire
England--Yorkshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Warwickshire
Russia (Federation)--Poli︠a︡rnyĭ (Murmanskai︠a︡ oblastʹ)
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. Coastal Command
Royal Navy
United States Army Air Force
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
178 printed pages
Description
An account of the resource
A continuation of Peter's thesis on electronic warfare during the war.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
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
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
MLovattP1821369-190903-74-01
1 Group
100 Group
101 Squadron
109 Squadron
141 Squadron
169 Squadron
171 Squadron
192 Squadron
199 Squadron
214 Squadron
218 Squadron
223 Squadron
239 Squadron
3 Group
4 Group
462 Squadron
5 Group
617 Squadron
8 Group
aircrew
B-17
B-24
Beaufighter
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
Chamberlain, Neville (1869-1940)
crash
Defiant
Do 217
Fw 190
Gee
Gneisenau
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Hampden
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
He 111
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Hudson
Ju 88
Lancaster
Me 110
Me 410
mine laying
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
navigator
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
P-51
Pathfinders
radar
RAF Defford
RAF Downham Market
RAF Farnborough
RAF Foulsham
RAF Little Snoring
RAF North Creake
RAF Northolt
RAF Oulton
RAF Prestwick
RAF Sculthorpe
RAF St Athan
RAF Swannington
RAF Tempsford
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Uxbridge
RAF West Raynham
RAF Wittering
Scharnhorst
Stalin, Joseph (1878-1953)
Stirling
Tirpitz
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pfeifer, Charly
Charly Pfeifer
C Pfeifer
Karl W Pfeifer
Description
An account of the resource
One interview with Karl Wilhelm Pfeifer (b. 1941), a schoolboy in Betzdorf an der Sieg during the war. The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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
Pfeifer, KW
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-27
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PS: Lieber Charly,
CP: We can talk English, if you like to.
PS: Nein, es ist besser auf Deutsch. Können Sie mir erstmal ganz einfach ein bisschen von Ihrer Jugend erzählen. Die ersten Erinnerungen die Sie haben.
CP: Ja, die hängen natürlich zusammen mit den Zweiten Weltkrieg, weil, das ja außergewöhnlich, Krieg ist immer außergewöhnliche Situation, und da ich in der Nähe einer Stadt wohnte, in der zum Beispeil, sehr viel militärischer Nachschub über die Eisenbahn verschoben wurde, gleichzeitig gab es dort eine Fabrik für Lokomotiven und Industrie für Reparatur von Lokomotiven undsoweiter. Weil alles was in der Nähe im Krieg zerschossen wurde, wurde dort repariert. Also waren die Alliierten daran interessiert, diese Werke und die Eisenbahn, den Eisenbahnknotenpunkt stillzulegen durch air raids, was sie dann auch gemacht haben. Und ich kann mich dann als Kind in soweit daran erinnern, denn Bombenabwürfe sind ja nun nicht uberhörbar. Dann war es so, das abends und nachts, wenn die Alarmsirenen gingen, wir natürlich aus dem Bett mussten. Meine Mutter, mein Vater hatten schon immer einen gepackten Koffer da stehen. Und dann sind wir los in, entweder einen Bunker, das war aber kein Bunker der extra errichtet wurde, sondern das war ein Stollen von einer ehemaligen Mangangrube, oder aber wir sind, war auch wir bei also in einen Eisenbahntunnel dann nachts. Und… [dog barking] Dann ist klar das nach Bombenangriffen die Stadt dann brannte und ich kann mich erinnern dass meine Mutter mich auf den Arm nahm, weil ich alleine nicht so aus dem Fenster gucken konnte, schauen konnte, und ich dann gedacht habe das die Sonne rot scheint weil der Himmel rot war, aber in Wirklichkeit war das ja nur der Wiederschein des Feuers aus der Stadt.
Speziel kann ich mich erinnern an den Winter 1944-45, wenn wir Kinder spät nachmittags draußen gespielt haben, und es war blauer Himmel, dann konnten wir die Abschüsse der V2 Raketen sehen, weil in unserer Nähe, war nur ein Paar Kilometer weg von uns, war eine Abschussstation für V2 Raketen und im abendblauen Himmel konnte man schön sehen den Kondenstreifen der Rakete und wenn Brennschluss war, sah man nur noch in der Abendsonne den hellen Punkt weiterfliegen. Die wurden damals aber schon nicht mehr in Richtung England geschossen, sondern Richtung Belgien und Holland, weil sich in dem Bereich die Alliierten schon befanden, nach der Normandie. Und das war natürlich für uns Kinder interessant, weil logischerweise wir das ja nicht so als Krieg empfunden haben, weil wir ja nicht direkt da involved, also beteiligt waren, sondern mehr als, ja eine Art von besonderer Ablenkung aus dem Tagesgeschehen heraus. Und wir sind dann, dass weiss ich noch, 1945, sind wir dann von Zuhause weg, weil so viel gebombt wurde, und sind das, aber nicht allzu weit weg, sind wir in so‘n Dorf gezogen, was für Bombardements kein Interesse war, wo also nichts war, keine Industrien und nichts. Da wo ich zum Anfang wohnte war natürlich viel Industrie und dran war man ja interessiert. Und das direkte Ruhrgebiet, das war ja auch nur 80-90 km weg von mir, damals, so dass wir das alles also mitgekriegt haben. Wo ich mich noch dran erinnern kann war dass, sehr oft, abends, wenn‘s dunkel wurde, dunkel war, wir, ein einzelnes Flugzeug kam, wir nannten ihn den eisernen Gustaf und der machte aber nichts anderes, das war der Pfadfinder, der vor wegflog, und dann die sogenannten, wir sagten Christbaüme, Weinachtsbaüme, gesetzt hat, das war also, sah aus wie ein Riesending mit Leuchtkugeln, das also die ganze Gegend erhelte, und das war wie wir, wie ich dann später erfuhr, als ich älter war, dass das kein Schauspiel war, sondern dass das die Zielmarkierung für die Bomber war. Und auch als Kind haben wir natürlich nicht gewusst, sind das nun Englische Bomber, sind das Amerikanische Bomber oder, für uns waren das einfach nur Bomber.
Nachwirkungen von all diesen Dingen, nach den Krieg, als ich dann selber einigermaßen unterwegs war, also selbststandig war. Wir haben sehr viel aus der Natur gelebt damals, das hieß, wir gingen im Herbst, auch Pilze sammeln undsoweiter, und da haben wir zum Beispiel massenhaft nicht explodierte Brandbomben gefunden, Stabbrandbomben, das waren Fehlwürfe, die also die Stadt nicht erreicht haben, sondern in einem Waldgebiet runtergegangen sind. Das könnte ich Ihnen hier auch, ich habe extra deshalb hier Google Earth angeschmissen. Ich kann Ihnen das mal zeigen wo das war. Ok?
PS: Ach ja, können Sie mir sagen wo Sie eben gelebt haben?
CP: Betzdorf an der Sieg, das ist 90 km nordöstlich von Köln. Köln ist für jeden ‚n Begriff. Da bin ich geboren, aufgewachsen und ich bin 1961 erst nach Jever gekommen hier, durch die Luftwaffe. Sonst habe ich da unten gelebt, in dieser Gegend, dicht, dicht zum Ruhrgebiet. Das ist, was ich Ihnen jetzt erzählt hab, ist alles nichts von Jever hier. Jever war nichts los hier. Die Bomben, das weiß ich von Bekannten, die Bomben die hier gefallen sind, waren alles Notwürfe, dass heißt die sie in Bremen nicht so wie Wellington, die sie in Bremen nicht losgeworden sind wegen Wetter, oder Wilhelmshafen vorbeigeworfen haben die hier, aber meistens im Land hier und wo nichts passiert ist. Aber wie gesagt, zu meiner Zeit, da unten ist sehr viel bombardiert worden, weil ja auch alle Flugzeuge, die Bomber, auch in der Nacht, wenn die zum Ruhrgebiet flogen, flogen die immer über uns weg. Weil wir, halt, aus der Luft betrachtet waren wir direkt vor der Haustür, wenn man so will. Denn aus der Luft betrachtet sind ja 80-100 km keine Entfernung. So, und [pauses] ich weiß allerdings, also eben nicht mein Erleben, das weiß ich auch aus der Erzählung meiner Tante, die dort nach wie vor, als wir mal kurzfristig weggezogen waren wegen der Bombenwürfe, die ist dort geblieben und die hat auch erlebt, wie dann die Amerikaner eingerückt sind dort und wo also gegenüber auf den anderen Hügel noch Deutsche lagen und die sich dann gegenseitig da beschossen haben. Hat’s auch noch ein Paar Tote gegeben, liegen noch drei und auch ein Amerikanischer Leutnant liegt noch bei uns in meiner Heimat noch auf den Friedhof heutzutage. Und das ist aber alles relativ schnell gegangen da denn das waren die letzten Kriegstage wo also, die Alliierten rückten vor und die Deutschen rückten nur immer weiter weg. Das war also nicht mehr weiter viel, wiegesagt. Nach dem Kriege dann [waren] wir als Kinder natürlich sehr interessiert an allem. Wir sind also überall hingelaufen, wo abgeschossene Panzer lagen, wo abgeschossene Flugzeuge lagen, weil das für uns Kinder interessant war sowas. Da sind natürlich überall hinmarschiert. In der vicinity, also in der Nähe da wo wir hinlaufen konnten. Und da gab es für uns natürlich einiges zu sehen, für uns Kinder, wir waren ja neugierig, wie, wo, was ist da. Ja, ich bin auch in dieser Gegend zur Schule gegangen. Bin dann nach der Schule, wie in Deutschland üblich, habe ich ‚ne Lehre gemacht und am Ende dieser Lehrzeit von dreienhalb Jahren bin ich dann zur Luftwaffe gegangen. Und hab dann so die Standardausbildung gemacht bei der Luftwaffe, Flugzeugführerschein, Fluglehrerlehrgang, irgendwann Offiziersschule und also was hier, und hab auch sehr viel Ausbildung in America gemacht, war also sehr oft in Amerika drüben, und bin dann 1993 hier in Jever Airbase auch pensioniert worden. Habe mich aber trotzdem immer weiter mit der Luftwaffe beschäftigt. Der Fliegerhorst Jever hier ist so mein zweites Zuhause. Und so ist das auch gekommen, nachdem ich die ersten Verbindungen mit Jack Waterfall hatte, das ich dann diese Geschichten wieder intensiviert hatte. Ich wusste zwar sehr lange schon, ich wusste, seit Anfang der Sechziger Jahre wusste ich, wo die Wellington abgestürtzt war, weil ich kannte den Förster, den Vor-Vorgänger von Carsten Streufert, den kannte ich auch gut, der hat mir das mal eines Tages gezeigt und damals, 1960, war das ja gerade zehn jahre, zwanzig Jahre her und die Baüme waren dann noch nicht so wie sie dann heute sind, das war alles noch gut sichtbar. Und wir haben dann damals auch schon Einzelteile gesammelt die man so noch oberflächlich fand weil wir in den Neunzehnhundertsechziger Jahren noch nicht die, oder überhaupt, wir hatten überhaupt keinen Metalldetector, oder wie wir sagen Minensuchgerät. Heute haben wir natürlich, ich auch, das modernste Gerät. Wenn ich heute da langgehe, piept es an allen Ecken und Kanten, weil immer noch Blechstücke, Munitionen und allesmögliche im Boden leigt. Denn die damalige Luftwaffe im Dritten Reich hat ja nur oberflächlich abgeraümt, die Grossteile die da rumlagen. Alles andere da hat keiner gesucht, was da an Kleinzeug rumliegt. Und deshalb findet da man das heute noch. Und Ich bin mir sicher, da will ich zunächst auch mal hin, dass man an anderen Stellen auch noch genügend findet. Denn südlich vom Flugplatz, die Wellington die ist ja runtergegangen im Upjeeverschen Forst. Noch weiter südlich sind auch welche abgeschossen worden und um die Stellen denke ich hat sich heute noch gar niemand gekümmert. Es ist auch in Deutschland ein bisschen kompliziert weil man, weil offiziell brauche ich ja jedesmal die Genehmiegung vom Landeigentümer, das ich da überhaupt hin gehen darf und normalerwiese müsste ich noch eine Polizeiliche Genemiegung haben, weil ja immer die Gefahr besteht, Munition zu finden und ähnliches. Die brauche ich aber nicht, weil ich Gottseidank Munitionsfachmann bin durch die Luftwaffe und Sprenglizenzen habe und Feuerwehrlizenz, so das ich das eigen verantwortlich machen kann. Aber am sonsten ist das immer mit Schwierigkeiten verbunden, weil viele Landeigentümer sagen nein sie wollen das nicht, das man auf ihrem Land keine Löcher gräbt zum Beispiel. Ja, [pauses] zum Krieg fallt mir natürlich jetzt im Moment so gar nichts mehr ein.
PS: Sie deuteten vorher… Sie haben mir vorher die Bilder gezeigt von der Gegend um Betzdorf und den anderen Ort. Können sie mir das moment noch einmal wieder ein bisschen erzählen, der Ort wo Sie Pilze…
CP: Ich bin aufgewachsen in einem Ort, der heißt Scheuerfeld. Da haben wir letztens erst 1100 Jahre Bestehen gefeiert. Das ist eigentlich ein ganz besonderer Ort. Das war zu der Zeit da unten als ich geboren wurde noch Gebiet der Freien Männer, so nannte man das, änhlich wie hier in Ostfriesland, deshalb heißen die Ostfriesen ja auch die freien Ostfriesen. Und dieser Ort liegt ungefähr zwei Km von der Stadt Betzdorf weg. So dass das letztendlich, wenn ich das aus der Luft betrachte, eine Einheit ist das ganze. [pauses] Ja wie gesagt, da bin ich halt geboren, aufgewachsen und habe das halt erlebt was ich vorhin nun berichtet habe, aus der Kriegszeit, genau in dieser Gegend da.
PS: Sie hatten mir da auch erzählt warum….. Sie hatten da eben etwas von Scheuerfeld und Betzdorf erzählt in Verbindung mit den Bombardierungen.
CP: Ja, genau. Weil in Betzdorf diese Werke waren, Eismann Ausbesserungswerk, Lokomotivenfabrik, also wo Lokomotiven gebaut wurden, und viele, viel Gerät der Bahn, der Eisenbahn war ja zum Teil nach Bombenangriffen nicht mehr zu reparieren also musste man ja auch noch neue Lokomotiven bauen. Und in Betzdorf war ein grosser Rangierbahnhof, wo also Waren, Kriegsmaterial zu Zügen zusammengestellt wurde, die dann halt irgendwohinn an die Front fuhren, und auch mit Kanonen drauf, Panzer, Munitionen, was weiss ich, und deshalb war Betzdorf für die Alliierten vom Interesse, logischerweise Nachschub abschneiden und halt verhindern das noch, durch Bombardierungen, das noch Lokomotiven gebaut or repariert wurden, undsoweiter. Das war ein Hauptgrund warum dort viel bombardiert wurde.
PS: Sind Sie noch in… haben Sie noch Familie in Betzdorf? Und Scheuerfeld?
CP: Nein, nur Bekannte. Schulfreunde. Meine Familie, meine Eltern sind tot und meine Geschwister wohnen überall nur nicht mehr da. Da wohnen nur noch Freunde, Bekannte, keine, keine Verwandtschaft von mir mehr. Wobei ich, wobei muss ich sagen, ich komme ein Mal im Jahr komme ich dorthin. Ich besuch also, einmal im Jahr besuche ich mein Schulfreund da unten. Ich bin ja auch, wie Sie sehen, Jägersman und mein Schulfreund hat auch ein Jagdgebiet da unten und da fahre ich einmal im Jahr zur Jagd da runter und frische die Jugenderinnerungen auf.
Zum Beispiel, habe ich, ich erzählte ja vorhin das wir im Winter da gesehen haben wenn die V2 flog. Da bin ich inzwischen mal gewesen, wo die abgeschossen wurde und das waren ja zum Teil ganz einfache Abschussgebiete. Da hat man einfach mitten im Wald irgendwo ‚ne Betonplatte gegossen, mehr war das nicht, und der Rest war ja alles in LKWs, die dann drumrum im Wald gut getarnt standen und da bin ich zum Beispiel hin gewesen, ein Ort der heißt Bad Marienberg und dort habe ich dann im Wald auch noch so eine Platte, so ne Abschussrampe, so ‚ne Platte gefunden. Das war Bad Marienberg und eine andere Abschusstellung, die war nicht weit davon, die hieß Hachenburg.
PS: Und das waren die V2.
CP: Ja, das war V2. Das wird auch gut beschrieben in einem Buch, das da heißt “Kriegsschauplatz Westerwald”. Da kommt das drin vor und dann gibt‘s aus dieser Gegend noch ein Buch, das hieß, ich erklär das gleich, “Gefrorene Blitze”. Das stammt aus den Volksmund, das heißt, das haben die Leute so gesagt, wenn die V2 ab einer bestimmten Höhe zog die auch Kondensstreifen und genauso wie bei jetzt von den Jets wenn der Kondenstreifen anfangt zu zerfallen, irgendwann zerfiel der natürlich auch und weil der eine Zeitlang da war und sah aus wie ein Blitz, haben die Leute auf den Land das “Gefrorene Blitze” genannt. Und so heißt auch das Buch. “Gefrorene Blitze” behandelt die V2 Stationen im Westerwald. Und das ist ja direkt an meiner Heimat. Ich bin zwar Rheinland-Pfälzer aber der Westerwald grenzte direkt an meiner Heimat dran.
PS: Hat der Freund den Sie hin und wieder besuchen noch Erinnerungen? Haben Sie je noch darüber gesprochen?
CP: Ja, wir haben vorwiegend nur über Nachkriegsdinge gesprochen. Zum Beispiel, wenn wir im Wald waren und Brandbomben eingesammelt haben und sowas. Aber ob er direkt noch aus den letzten Kriegsjahr oder so noch was weiß, oder das letzte Halbjahr, sagen wir mal 1945 Januar bis Mai, das weiß ich nicht, da musste ich ihn ja fragen, weil wir uns weniger darüber unterhalten haben.
PS: Ich weiss jetzt nicht ob ich das aufgenommen haben. Können Sie mir vielleicht noch Moment von dieser Erfahrung mit den Brandbomben erzählen?
CP: Ja, Wie gesagt, Die Brandbomben steckten, das waren die Sechskantstabe, so lang, die stachen einfach den Waldboden, weil sie nicht explodiert waren. Und wenn wir Kinder im Wald waren zu Pilze suchen oder sonst, haben wir die natürlich gefunden. Und neugierig wie wir waren haben wir natürlich auch welche mitgenommen. Weil das war so. Wir haben in diesen Dingern gar keine Gefahr gesehen, weil diese Sachen alle bei uns in der Schule sehr genau beschrieben waren. In der Schule auf den Fluren überall hingen Plakate, „Hände weg von Fundmunition“, und da waren die einzelnen Sachen, die man finden konnte, waren da alle beschrieben und da waren zum Beispeil die Brandbomben auch beschrieben. Und da ich mich zu der Zeit auch schon, was ich heute noch tue, für alle diese Dinge, Waffen und Kriegsmaterial und Sprengstoff und alles interessiere, habe ich also.. Also die Brandbomben da habe ich natürlich nicht mit vier Jahren gesucht, sonder das war in der Zeit wenn wir schon alleine in den Wald gingen um Pilze zu suchen, da war ich zehn, elf, zwölf Jahre alt. Und da hab ich mich also schon sehr für Munition und Sprengstoff und all sowas interessiert. Und das habe ich natürlich später beim Militär alles ausgebaut das ganze.
PS: Und wenn Sie jetzt zurückdenken an die Kriegszeit, gesehen von heute, welche Eindrücke haben Sie?
CP: Sagen wir mal so. Was störend war, war nachts aufzustehen und in den Bunker zu rennen. Am sonsten, für uns Kinder, war das eine interessante Zeit, weil immer was los war. Und dann, man sah Flugzeuge am Himmel und wusste natürlich als Kind noch nicht genau überhaupt nicht wer ist wer, man wusste nur “die mögen sich nicht” weil da geschossen wurde oben, das hörte man ja unten. Von daher war es seine erlebnisreiche, interessante Zeit. Wie gesagt, mal abgesehen vom Bunkerlaufen nachts und änhlichen. Und was natürlich gestört hat, uns Kinder, gegen Ende des Krieges, Kinder haben ja immer Hunger, und Essen war immer weniger gegen Ende des Krieges. Das hat also eine bischen gestört, dass man vom eigenen Magenknurren, nicht nur von der Sirene wach wurde nachts, sondern auch vom eigenen Magenknurren. Aber am sonsten was tagsüber war und was so geschah um uns drum rum, weil ja außer Bombardements direkt am Boden bei uns zu der Zeit keine Kriegshandlungen waren. War ja nix, das war ja alles in der Luft. Und deshalb war es für uns Kinder immer interessant. [pauses] Meine Schwester, das ist ein Phänomen, das müssten aber Psychologen klaren. Meine Schwester ist im März 1945 geboren, das heißt die war bei Kriegsende drei Monate alt. Und das war die Zeit wo also sehr viel Bombardement war, und sehr viel geschossen wurde in der Luft und und und. Was ich später erlebt habe war, da habe ich mich immer gefragt, wie kann das sein. Wenn wir beim Essen sassen, und es kam in der Küche nur eine Fliege angeflogen, da ist meine Schwester vom Stuhl gesprungen und hat sich unterm Tisch versteckt. Obwohl sie das ja eigentlich gar nicht, sie war drei monate alt als das alles passierte. In wieweit man das ganze Getöse im Mutterleib schon mitkriegt weiss ich nicht. Ich sag dass ist ein Fall für irgendein Psychologen, rausszufinden wie sowas kam. Aber meine Schwester brauchte nur eine Fliege sehen die ankommt, irgendwas was in der Luft fliegt, war die verschwunden, weg.
PS: Jetzt wo Sie seit einigen Jahren die Beziehungen, gute Beziehungen zu den Briten haben, wie sehen Sie das ein bisschen alles, ich meine die Bombenkampagne und, ja?
CP: Ja sagen wir mal so. Nicht nur die Engländer und Amerikaner haben gebombt, wir haben auch gebombt. Also beruhte auf Gegenseitigkeit. Deshalb bin ich auf niemandem gram. Und dann, habe ich auch heute den Standtpunkt dass die Welt noch wesentlich besser sein könnte, wenn wir keine Politiker hatten. Denn sehr viele Politiker sind ja Schuld an manch einem Desaster. Und wie man ja jetzt auch sieht in unseren Beziehungen mit den Verwandten der ehemaligen Besatzung und und und, Leute unter sich vertragen sich in der Regel immer gut. Das ist überhaupt kein Thema und ich hätte auch keinen Groll gegen irgendjemandem, was weil das ist halt Krieg. Da fürt nicht nur einer Krieg, sondern da führt auch der andere Krieg. Und da muss man halt rechnen, damit rechnen dass es da Tote und Verletzte gibt, und und und. Nur also ich stehe dem ganzen, und das war auch in der Zeit wo ich in Amerika war, eigentlich positiv gegenüber, weil ich mir sage, die Leute unter sich vertragen sich in der Regel immer gut. Irgendwelche die dann, da gibt es ja ein spezieles Wort für in Deutschland, Scharfmacher, Leute die also solange hetzen, aufhetzen bis der nächste meint er muss mal zum Gewehr greifen. Also ich will das was wir hier machen und deshalb wollen wir das auch für die Zukunft weiter aufrechterhalten. Da bin ich auch mit Jack einig, wir können uns naturlich, alleine schon aus Kostengründen, nicht jedes Jahr treffen hier. Aber wir werden das ganze am Leben erhalten und vielleicht haben ich ja noch die Gelegenheit, wenn meine Gesundheit mir keinen Strich durch die Rechnung macht, noch irgenwelche anderen Absturtzstellen zu erkunden hier und vielleicht noch Kontakt zu anderen Leuten bekommen in England. Denn die Zeit drängt ja. Wir als Zeitzeugen sterben aus und die Englischen Zeitzeugen sterben genauso aus, so dass man irgendwann keinen mehr hat mit dem man über diese Dinge reden kann, den man, weil halt niemand mehr da ist. [pauses] Und Ich habe leider, leider auch in meiner Heimat da unten, wie gesagt, ausser mein Schulkameraden, auch niemanden mehr der so alt ist, dass er mir berichten könnte, den der müsste ja so wie Heino, 94 sein. Und, Ja und ich selber bin auch 75 und viele von meinen Bekannten da unten leben schon gar nicht mehr. Mein Schulfreund, auch 75, Paar noch drum rum, aber es gibt natürlich auch welche die sich im ganzen Leben für sowas gar nicht interessiert haben, die wissen auch nix zu erzählen weil sie das nicht interessiert hat. Und wir wie gesagt, wir haben früher, als Kinder, alles was mit Militär zu tun hatte, was wir gefunden haben im Wald, haben wir mitgenommen, haben wir gesammelt, zum Leidwesen meiner Eltern, den die mochten ja auch keinen Sprengstoff und keine Bomben im Haus haben. Aber ich hatte, wie das früher auch im Land so war, wir hatten neben dem Haus ein Hühnerstall, und änhliches, da immer alles versteckt. Aber wie gesagt, kenne ich leider niemandem da unten der also älter ist und der sagen könnte “Ja, ich habe noch das und das erlebt”.
PS: Wissen Sie von mehreren anderen Absturtzstellen hier in der Gegend?
CP: Ja es müssen noch zwei in der Nähe vom Ems-Jade-Kanal liegen und im Bereich Wilhelmshaven müssen noch welche sein, wo ich aber nicht auf‘m Meter genau kenne, wäre aber herauszufinden.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Charly Pfeifer
Creator
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Peter Schulze
Subject
The topic of the resource
World War (1939-1945)
Bombing, Aerial
Description
An account of the resource
Charly Pfeifer recounts his experiences of the bombing of Betzdorf an der Sieg, a small town not far from the Ruhr. He explains the strategic importance of the city, due to the presence of locomotive works. He recounts taking shelter from the bombs in a former manganese mine. He remembers the time as a child, when he used to go into the forest looking for mushrooms and finding incendiary devices. He tells that he wasn’t afraid of these objects because at school there were posters with detailed descriptions of the ordnance. He happened to find V-2 ramps hidden in the forest. He explains how it was a very interesting time for children because there was always something happening. The most annoying aspect, he remarks, was being woken up, not only by the air alarm, but also by the rumbling of his own tummy. He recounts seeing Pathfinder aircraft, which they as children used to call 'The Iron Gustav' and when it dropped the target indicators, which they called 'Christmas trees'. He tells about his sister’s weird and unexplainable behaviour. Although she was only three months old at the time of end of the war, later on whenever there was a fly coming into the kitchen, she jumped down from her chair and quickly hid under the table.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-06-27
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Language
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deu
Spatial Coverage
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Germany--Betzdorf
Germany
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:35:31 audio recording
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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APfeiferKW160627
Coverage
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Civilian
bombing
childhood in wartime
civil defence
home front
incendiary device
Pathfinders
target indicator
V-2
V-weapon
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/162/2012/ADraegertH180209.1.mp3
7d2224183e7f8aade3fac374613aa495
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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Draegert, Hubert
H Draegert
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Hubert Draegert, who lived in Berlin and was later evacuated near Wroclaw.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-02-09
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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Draeger, H
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
PS: Bevor wir anfangen, bitte ich Sie folgende Fragen zu beantworten, damit wir sicher sind, dass dieses Interview nach Ihren Wünschen sowie den Bedingungen unserer Sponsoren gemäß registriert wird. Sind Sie damit einverstanden, dass dieses Interview als eine öffentlich zugängliche Quelle aufbewahrt, die für Forschung, Erziehung, online und in Ausstellungen verwendet werden kann? Ja oder nein?
HD: Ja.
PS: Gut. Das dieses Interview unter einer nichtkommerziellen Creative Commons Attributionslizenz, die mit den Buchstaben CC-BY-NC das bedeutet das sie nicht für kommerzielle Zwecke benutzt werden darf, öffentlich zugänglich gemacht wird? Ja oder nein?
HD: Ja.
PS: Danke. Das dieses Interview an sie zurückzuführen ist? Ja oder nein?
HD: Was heisst zurückführen?
PS: Ja, dass Sie der Author.
HD: Ach natürlich, ja, klar, wer sonst. Ja.
PS: Und dann noch, sind Sie bereit, der Universität das Copyright Ihres Beitrags zur Verfügung zu stellen, damit es zu jedem Zweck verwendet wird, aber dass das Ihr moralisches Recht, als Urheber des Interviews nicht in Betracht nehmen wird nach dem Copyright, Design und Patents Act vom Jahr 1988 gemäß, damit Sie identifiziert werden.
HD: Ja.
PS: Ja?
HD: Ja.
PS: Danke. Jetzt, also, dieses Interview wird für das International Bomber Command Digital Archive durchgeführt. Der Interviewer ist Peter Schulze, der Befragte ist Herr Hubert Draegert. Heute ist der 9 Februar 2018. Ihr Interview wird Teil des International Bomber Command Digital Archive, das bei der Universität Lincoln untergebracht und vom Heritage Lottery Fund finanziert wird. Also, also, lieber Herr Draegert, konnen Sie mir erstmal was von Ihren, von Ihrem Haushalt erzählen, von Ihrer Familie, die, sagen wir, die ersten Erinnerungen die Sie haben.
HD: Also, die ersten Erinnerungen sind im Grunde genommen 1941, als mein Vater, der war da noch nicht Soldat, der wurde erst 1942, als mein Vater mit mir in die Innenstadt, also in die Mitte Berlins ging, um uns anzuschauen wie die Staatsoper Unter den Linden abbrannte oder die war getroffen. Die Staatsoper war eines der ersten Gebaüde mit die in Berlin getroffen wurde und weil mein Vater Musikliebhaber war, hatte der natürlich, jetzt ist er auf die Idee gekommen, dass müssen wir uns angucken. Mal Zwischenfrage, nehmen Sie das jetzt irgendwie auf oder schreiben Sie mit?
PS: Nein, nein, es wird aufgenommen.
HD: Wird aufgenommen, also kann ich flüssig reden.
PS: Ja, ich wollte noch eine Sache hinzufügen.
HD: Bitte.
PS: Wenn sie hören dass ich schweige, das Wichtige ist dass man Ihre Stimme hört und nicht meine.
HD: Aha.
PS: Also, lassen Sie ruhig die Erinnerungen empor.
HD: Fließen, ja. Ok. Also zurück, wir haben besichtigt 1941 den, praktisch die Zerstörung der Staatsoper Unter Den Linden aber das war zu der Zeit noch ein aussergewöhnliches Ereignis, so dass also viele Berliner sich diese Kriegschäden ansehen. Ich erinnere auch einen weiteren Bombenschaden in Kreuzberg, wo mein Vater auch noch mit mir mal hinging, wo ein Eckhaus getroffen wurde und viele Berliner nun also staunten über diese Schäden. Das hat sich natürlich mit der Zeit gegeben als dann die Zerstörung immer mehr Überhand nahm, und das also, sagen wir mal, zum täglichen Lebensablauf gehörte. Die Staatsoper ist insofern interessant, weil Hermann Göring, der damalige Chef der Deutschen Luftwaffe und Chef hier in Berlin, der Ministerpresident des Staates Preußen nun alles dransetzte um dieses Opernhaus, das seiner Aufsicht unterstand, sofort wieder aufzubauen und nun ist was besonderes passiert dass, trotz des Krieges, haben die Nazionalsozialisten alles dran gesetzt dieses Opernhaus wieder aufzubauen, es wurde 1942 in einem Gewaltakt wieder fertiggestellt. Ich erzähl das deswegen weil mein Vater, wie eingangs gesagt, Opernliebhaber mich nun in meine erste Oper schleppte. Das muss also praktisch 1942 gewesen sein, ich war sechs Jahre alt. Ich kann mich an Inhalt wenig erinnern aber ich rieche noch heute den frischen Putz in dem Opernhaus und die Deckengemälde waren auch nicht komplett ausgeführt, es roch alles nach frischem Mörtel, nach frischer Renovierung. Das Ende dieser Oper geschah dann spätestens 1944, wurde sie wieder getroffen und am 3 Februar 1945 war ja der größte Angriff der glaub ich jemals auf Berlin geflogen wurde, wo die ganze Innenstadt in Schutt und Asche ging, zum Beispiel das Berliner Schloss, das jetzt wieder aufgebaut wird, allerdings nur in den aüßeren Formen, aber als grosses Museum eines Tages in Berlin sicherlich ein Höhepunkt darstellt, das war der schlimmste Angriff und auch an den habe ich noch Erinnerungen. Jetzt mache ich erstmal ein Punkt.
PS: ich wollte Sie zurückbringen,
HD: Ja?
PS: Wollten Sie jetzt etwas schon hinzufügen?
HD: Neh, sagen Sie mal jetzt.
PS: Ich wollte Sie Moment noch zurückbringen zu ihrer Familie. Ob Sie mir ein Bißchen erzählen konnen, wo Sie geboren sind, in welchen, in welcher Umgebung Sie aufgewachsen sind und, Vater, Mutter, Geschwister?
HD: Ja, sage ich ganz gerne. Also, ich bin geboren 1936, in Berlin. Wir wohnten im Norden Berlins, im Afrikanischen Viertel, wir hatten eine Dreizimmerwohnung, mein Vater war, [unclear] man sagte damals, Bankbeamte, er lernte in einem Jüdischen Bankhaus in Berlin und insofern war er eigentlich so geprägt dass er nicht in der NSDAP drin war, sondern eben durch diese, durch seine Tätigkeit offensichtlich politisch ein wenig informierter war als manch ein anderer aber er musste dann in ein anderes Bankhaus wiel das Jüdische Bankhaus ja aufgelöst wurde. Wir, mein Bruder ist 1928 geboren, der ist 1944 wurde der Luftwaffenhelfer, dass heisst also mit sechzehn Jahren, fufzehn Jahren glaub ich, wurde der zur Flak eingezogen in Berlin, dass heisst die ganze Klasse wurde eingezogen und ging mit dem Lehrer in eine Geschützbatterie in Berlin-Tegel, wo ich ihn dann als Kind auch besuchte. Meine Mutter war Hausfrau und wir lebten relativ friedlich bis 1943, wo mein Vater eingezogen wurde. Mein Vater ist, hat den Krieg überlebt, er sass in Dänemark und ist dort von den Britischen Truppen in Gefangenschaft genommen worden und hatt seine Kriegsgefangenschaft in England erlebt, in Leeds. Und es gibt die schöne Geschichte von dem Englischen Verhöroffizier der ihn fragte: ‘Sagen Sie mal, Herr Draegert, haben Sie Kinder?’, ‘Ja’, ‘Wie viel?’, ‘Zwei’, ‘Geboren wann?’, ‘1928 und 1936’, Und da sagte er mit einem lächelnden Blick, so erzählte es mein Vater immer: ‘Aha, Herr Draegert, dann haben Sie ein Kind für den Führer gezeugt’. Damit war also klar das [laughs], aber wie gesagt, das Ganze war irgendwo so, dass er eigentlich, als er 1947 nach Berlin zurückkam, gesund aussah, also das ganze gegentiel von dem was man so sah, wenn die armen Kriegsgefangenen aus den östlichen Landern zurückkamen, also sprich Sowjetunion. Ja, mein Bruder, wiegesagt, im, also Luftwaffenhelfer, unsere Wohnung ist nur leicht beschädigt worden, dass hiesst bei den ersten Luftangriffen sind alle Fensterschieben raussgeflogen und ich erinnere noch wie ganze Kolonnen von Glassfirmen bei uns um das Haus sich aufstellten, das war so ein langer Siedlungsblock und es wurden die Scheiben wieder eingesetzt, man wunderte sich warscheinlich ein bisschen, wo man die Hoffnung her nahm, das nur die neuen Scheiben das überleben wurden, es dauerte auch gar nicht lange, war der nächste Angriff da flogen die Scheiben wieder raus und meine Eltern hatten da irgendeinen Herrn in der Familie der uns dann die Fenster mit Pappe oder mit Brettern vernagelte. Es musste ja auch, und das ist meine Kindheitserinnerung, immer scharf drauf geachtet werden, das die Verdunkelung eingehalten wurde, dass heisst wir hatten vor allen Fenstern Rolleaux aus schwarzer Pappe, die abends rechzeitig runtergemacht werden mussten, damit die feindlichen Flieger kein Licht sehen sollten. Es passierte natürlich, dass meine Mutter mit mir irgendwann unterwegs war, ausserhalb Berlins und wir vergessen hatten im Badezimmer das Licht zu löschen, dass heisst in dem Riesenblock war ein Badezimmer, Fenster waren ja relativ klein, was nun nachts hell leuchtete und gross, grosser Ärger, der Blockwart machte meiner Mutter natürlich große Vorwürfe, sowas darf nicht passieren und man hat dann aus der über uns liegenden Wohnung versucht, mit einen langen Teppich es aussen abzudunklen, damit also der Lichtschien die Flieger nicht also auf eine Spur lockt. Das sind so Sachen die ich als Kind immer erlebt habe, andererseits war auf dem Hausflur war immer, standen immer Wassereimer und Beutel mit Sand und die sogenannte Feuerpatsche, ein Begriff der damals neu war, dass heisst irgend einen Stiel mit einen Lappen an und der sollte dann in den Eimer getunkt werden um das möglicherweise entstehende Feuer auszuschlagen, das haben wir nie benutzen brauchen, wir hatten nur eine einzige Stabbrandbombe, die oben durch die Wohnung durchging, das war so eine rechteckige mit einen Eisenkern, die waren uns damals sehr vertraut und wir Jungs sammelten auch Bombensplitter, unter anderem auch diese Eisenkerne. Und diese Bombe schlug auch durch unsere Decke, guckte bei uns oben in der Decke raus und ein behertzter Mann versuchte sie von oben rauszuziehen, übersah dabei dass ein Brand, ein Explosiv-stoff drin war, dass heisst der Mann verblutete in dem Moment und das war eigentlich so die schrecklichste Erinnerung die so unmittelbar ich erlebt habe. Aber ein Feuer enstand nicht, im Endeffekt ist also die Wohnung erhalten geblieben nur durch den zunehmenden Andrang der Bombenangriffe auf Berlin hiess es ja, Müttern mit Kindern, wenn sie nicht gerade in der Produktion wichtig waren, sollten evakuiert werden, dass heisst aufs Land. Und wir hatten dann die Möglichkeit, nach Schlesien, in der Nähe von Breslau, einen Bauernhof zu finden, wo ein entfernter Onkel lebte, und der nahm uns auf und so habe ich, Ende ‘43 bis Ende ’44 in Schlesien gelebt als Kind, im Prinzip sehr friedlich denn man sagte immer, bis dahin kommen die Engländer nicht, oder die Amerikaner. Und so war es wohl auch, es waren nur eigentlich wenige Bombenangriffe auf Breslau und man wusste auch nicht genau oder ich kann es heute nicht sagen, ob es nicht auch Russische Angriffe waren. Jedenfalls man war dort sicher, man lebte dort im Grunde genommen in Frieden und wir fuhren nur ’44, Ende ’44 nach Berlin zurück, um immer mahl zu gucken, steht die Wohnung noch? Es war ja nicht so, dass man immer telefonieren konnte und mit den Nachbarn sprechen konnte, das ging ja alles gar nicht so einfach. Also schauten wir uns die Wohnung an, die Wohnung war belegt mit anderen ausgebombten Menschen, was auch wieder zu Konflikten führten, weil meine Mutter natürlich meinte: ‘Na, wie leben die sich den hier in unserer Wohnung aus?’ undsoweiter. Aber in dem Moment wo wir Weihnachten ’44 hier in Berlin verlebten, mein Vater war natürlich in Dänemark, sass der fest an der Front, da brachen die Nachrichten doch rein oder man hörte ja auch den Englischen Sender, das machte mein Bruder mal, als Luftwaffenhelfer, der wusste damit umzugeben, [mimics the first notes of Beethoven’s 5 Symphony], also BBC und wir wussten also, oder mein Bruder wusste, dass die Russen also eine Offensive gestartet haben von der Weichsel bis an die Oder, also auf den Marsch waren. Am 16 Januar kamen sie ja dann an der Oder an, das heisst also wir kamen nicht mehr zurück nach Schlesien, meine Mutter versuchte es noch, wurde aber in Breslau von Deutschen Soldaten aufgegriffen, die ihr sagten: ‘Na, sagense mal, junge Frau, wo wollense denn hin?’, na dann sagte sie: ‘Na, ich will nach in das, dieses Dorf wo wir waren, in Juliusburg’. Da sagte sie: ‘Sie sind wohl verrückt, da sind die Russen schon’. Also kam sie wieder zurück, konnte sogar mit den Eisenbahnzug fahren, musste nicht also trekken, beziehungsweise laufen, so wie di anderen Flüchtlinge, diese schreckliche Zeit, weil’s ja auch einer der härtesten Winter damals war, im Januar, so dass sie, wir also hier in Berlin blieben, wir hatten alle unsere schönen Sachen, was man so auch hat, Silber und Besteck und Bettwäsche, das hatten wir alles nach Schlesien verlagert um es hier vor dem Bomben zu sichern aber nun war’s weg und nun, die Wohnung hatt’s überstanden aber di Sachen waren weg. So, nun waren wir wieder in Berlin und, ja, dann kam eben die Zeit wo die Bombenangriffe ja doch immer stärker wurden, 3 Februar wie gesagt ’45, einer der schwersten Angriffe. Am 26 Februar hatte ich Geburtstag, da wurde ich neun, war wieder ein schwerer Angriff, ist da als glaub ich Kreuzberg untergegangen. Des schlimme war, das sprach sich auch rum, das die Phosphorbomben die Menschen wenn sie der Phosphor sie traff, dann brannte es auf der Haut, dann ging die zum Teil in die Löschteiche, es gab so Löschteiche in Berlin, oder überhaupt, um Löschwasser für den Brand zu haben, dann tauchten die Menschen unter in diesem Wasser, und wenn sie rauskamen, brannten sie wieder, also das war eine ganz ganz fürchterliche Geschichte diese Phosphorbomben. Wir selber haben hier in unmittelbarer Nähe bei uns einmal eine Luftmine erlebt wo wir also richtig, von man so vom, von der Sitzgelegenheit so ein bisschen hochging, wo der Kalk so aus der, aus dem verstärkten Luftschutzkeller rieselte. Und als Kind hatte man natürlich Angst und die Mutter war bemüht uns zu schützen und wir hatten hier in der Umgebung in einem grossen Strassenbahnhof einen Tiefbunker für Mutter und Kind. Und dann hatten wir also eine Zeit wo wir abends so gegen acht oder weiss ich nicht, mit seinem Köfferchen halben Kilometer liefen, um in diesen Bunker einzukehren, Mutter und Kind und da konnte man schlafen und dann hörte man das auch nicht krachen aber es war immer dieses, diese Neugierde beziehungsweise die Angst wenn man um die letzte Ecke kommt [laughs] steht das Haus noch oder steht es nicht? Wie mann das so in anderen Sachen überlebt hat, ich habe dann auch gesehen, als diese Riesenluftmine die da bei uns runterging, das da hiess immer, da sind achtig Menschen ums Leben gekommen. Die ist so seitlich gegen die Mauer unten wohl eingeschlagen so dass sie den ganzen Sand, der dort als Schutzwall errichtet wurde, zur Seite und dann ist das Haus in sich zusammengestürtzt, einschliesslich Luftschutzkeller und daher diese hohe Anzahl von Toten. Ja, das sind so diese Dinge die im Augenblick, vielleicht machen wir hier mal eine Sekunde Pause und Sie fragen weiter.
PS: Ja, ich wollte Sie zum Beispiel, wir werden ein bisschen dann zurück kommen auf das was Sie mir jetzt kürzlich erzählt haben. Ich wollte wieder noch zurück gehen, zum Beispiel,
HD: Ja?
PS: Sie sagten Sie sind im Afrikaviertel.
HD: Afrikanisches Viertel. Ja?
PS: Können Sie mir ein bisschen erzählen, warum das eben so, diesen Namen trägt, trug und wie das Leben in dem Viertel war?
HD: Also, das ist eine Gegend im Nord-westen Berlins, das ist in den Zwanziger Jahren, Ende Zwanzig, Anfang Dreissig, gebaut worden im Rahmen, man würde heute sagen, sozialer Wohnungsbau, also ein Grosssiedlungsbau und es gab einen berühmten Architekten, dessen Namen heute noch in Berlin eine Rolle spielt, Bruno Taut, die also, Taut, T, A, U, T, die also Siedlungsbauten errichtet hatten, und meine Eltern konnten also 1931 eine frische Wohnung beziehen, erst in der Afrikanischen Strasse, so halt, die heisst heute noch so, und dann sind wir umgezogen in die Togostrasse. Und warum Afrikanisches Viertel? Sie wissen dass Deutschland, oder das Deutsche Reich eigentlich das letzte Land war, was so ein bisschen Kolonialbesitz auch haben wollte, der Deutsche Kaiser und die Deutschen Kolonien war Deutsch-Südwest, Deutsch-Ostafrika, Kamerun und Togo. Und nach diesen ist um die Jahrhundertwende die Gegend hier benannt worden also die Togostrasse, die Swapokmuder, die Windhuker, Transvaal, ach was noch? Wis ich nicht, also jedenfalls, und daher der Begriff Afrikanisches Viertel. Was im Augenblick ein bisschen hier politisch umstritten ist weil, vielleicht wissen Sie es am [unclear], weil es Forderungen gibt bezüglich [clears throat] der Hereros die damals von den Deutschen Kolonialtruppen da vernichtet worden sind, man spricht so von einem ersten Genozid, den es damals gegeben hat und es gibt also jetzt Forderungen, schon seit Jahren immer an die Bundesrepublik hinsichtlich der Entschädigung und in dem Zusammenhang kommt also auch die Frage auf ob, zum Beispiel die Petersallee in Berlin oder der Nachtigalplatz oder die Lüderitzstrasse, das sind alles Begriffe aus der Afrikanischen Kolonialzeit, unbenannt werden sollen in Menschen die also in Afrika eine Rolle gespielt haben. Soweit also Afrikanisches Viertel. Die Gegend selber ist sehr schön und ist auch heute noch schön und dabei ist ein grosser Volkspark, der Volkspark Rehberge. Also wir hatten dort eigentlich eine schöne oder wunderbare Umgebung, wir waren nicht so in der Stadt drin, sie müssen sich also nicht vorstellen, mit Hinterhaüsern oder dergleichen oder enge Wohnbebauung, sondern Ziel war damals sozialer Wohnungsbau: Licht, Luft und Sonne. Punkt.
PS: Wissen Sie überhaupt, wissen Sie ob es zu der Zeit, ehemalige, sagen wir, Kolonialafrikaner im Afrikaviertel lebten, ob also Herero oder andere da lebten oder ob das nur ernannt worden ist aus kolonialen.
HD: Nein. Nur in Erinnerung an das Kolonialreich, ich habe da zu der Zeit keinen farbigen Menschen gesehen, das einzige was man mal als Kind sah das war der berühmte Sarotti-Mohr, wissen Sie was’n Mohr ist, sagt Ihnen das was?
PS: Ja.
HD: Also, der Sarotti-Mohr, sa heisst also das Label der Schokoladenfirma und das haben sie glaub ich heute noch aber es ist auch umstritten und da gibt’s in Berlin die Mohrenstrasse aber das geht auf die Preussische Geschichte zuruck. Man wollte wohl um die Jahrhundertwende hier der, es gibt einen Zoomenschen, Zoo Erfinder in Hamburg, Herr Hagenbeck, der wollte hier in Berlin so einen, wie soll ich sagen, so eine Art, grossen Zoo, afrikanisches Leben hierherbringen, mit wilden Tieren, mit Elefanten undsoweiter, aber durch den Ersten Weltkrieg ist es nichts geworden und dann ist ja Deutschland auch die Kolonien losgeworden im Versailler Vertrag und ich glaube England und Frankreich sind dann an die Stelle getreten.
PS: Jetzt Moment zurück zu Ihrer familie.
HD: Ja.
PS: Wie war Ihre Wahrnehmung des Nationalsozialismus in der Familie? Sprachen Ihre, also sprach man darüber? Als kleines Kind hörten Sie dass Ihre Eltern darüber diskutierten und sprachen? Wie war also die, sagen wir, die Atmosphäre in der Familie?
HD: Also die Atmosphäre war so wie ich ja Eingangs schon schilderte, mein Vater war nur durch seine Berufstätigkeit nicht parteilich, also sagen wir mal, im weitesten Sinne ein Nazi, sondern der hat die Sache sehr nüchtern gesehen und ich kann mich erinnern immer, das wenn der Grossvater auch kam, dass dann die Männer vor dem Radio auch standen während des Krieges und sagen wir mal den Frontverlauf verfolgten. Ich glaub auch sogar dass wir eine Landkarte hatten wo, mit bestimmten Nadeln mit roten Punkten oder weiss ich wie, der Frontverlauf skizziert wurde. Und ich werde immer einen Satz nicht los den mein Vater wohl sagte: ‘Wir verlieren den Krieg’ und vielleicht auf die Frage ‘Warum?’, ‘Wir haben kein Öl’, oder ‘es liegt am Öl’. Das ist mir erst im Nachhinein natürlich klar geworden warum dann die Wehrmacht unbedingt also bis zum Kaukasus vordringen wollte oder bis zu den Ölfeldern, das war mir damals als Kind natürlich nicht so klar, was das zu bedeuten hatte aber so ist die Atmosphäre ungefähr gewesen. Mein anderer Onkel erzählte immer, davon des, der war im Geschaftsleben hier tätig, der ist nicht eingezogen worden weil man ihn brauchte und der hatte wohl Verbindung zu Wehrmachtsangehörigen und der horte mal irgendwie mal eine Geschichte wo dann doch davon die Rede war es müsse also Lager geben in Deutschland wo die Menschen also drangsaliert wurden, zum Beispiel die Juden, hier in Berlin und also, warscheinlich war Auschwitz gemeint oder Birkenau und jedenfalls beim Bier ist dann wohl mal ein Wort gefallen und er erzählte dann auch in der Familie und das habe ich mitgekriegt, das er Schwierigkeiten kriegte weil irgendeiner gesagt hatt: ‘Na, Herr Draegert, sie erzählen da aber Greuelmarchen. Sowas gibt es nicht’. Und der hat wohl lange ringen müssen aber weil er wichtig war, der war Leiter eines Betriebes hier in Berlin, ist er irgendwie mit einem blauen Auge davongekommen und als man ihn dann, und das war ganz spannend eigentlich, das habe ich als Kind natürlich dann bewusst mitgekriegt, als man ihn dann vorlud, jetzt zu einem Büro der Gestapo 1944, ist er am selben Abend am Kaiserdamm, wo er wohnte, ausgebombt worden, dass heisst also, die Bombe schlug so ein dass sie die Vorderfront des Hauses wegriss und wenn man auf dem Kaiserdamm stand, dann konnte man sogar noch die Lampe hängen sehen, und die hängt jetzt heute noch bei mir, jetzt konnte man sagte, da hatt er sich eine schöne Geschichte ausgedacht, nein, die stimmt aber wirklich. Aber der Witz, oder sagen wir man, das Glück für ihn war, dass er nun bei dem angegebenen Termin sagen konnte: ‘Meine Herren, ich bin heute ausgebombt, ich muss mich erstmal um meine Sachen kümmern’. Und da hat man ihn praktisch ziehen lassen, und er ist mit einem blauen Auge davongekommen. Also will sagen, und der dritte Onkel, der sass in Russland, der war dort und weil er früher Bankbeamter war, musste er da irgendwie auch so einen Betrieb leiten oder so, der ist aber durch den Rückmarsch so gekommen dass er in Liepzig in Amerikanischer Gefangenschaft geriet und dadurch auch den Krieg überlebt hat und glücklich war das er nicht in Russische denn das hätte anders ausgehen können, nicht, der war in Berdytschiw in der Ukraine, und da weiss man nicht wie, wie mann dann mit ihm umgegangen wäre. Also, will damit sagen, es war eigentlich eine sehr entspannte Atmosphäre, ich kenne keinen bei uns in der Familie der also mit’na SA Uniform oder sowas rumrannte. Lediglich, ach so, das muss man vielleicht sagen, mein Vater der war im Betrieb, die hatten hier so eine Art Betriebsorganisation, ich weiss nicht mehr wie das hiess, jedenfalls so wie in der DDR gab es so eine Art Werkschutz, und die hatten eine Uniform, und diese Uniform hängt bei uns immer im Schrank. Und nun war mein Vater längst Soldat, er stand also an der Küste Dänemarks und am Skagerrak und gab, hat nie in seinem Leben einen Schuss ab, also der hat Schwein gehabt, er war bei der Kriegsmarine und diese Uniform hängt nun in unserm Schrank und als nun die Russen einzogen in Berlin und man ja nicht sicher war dass die also Wohnung für Wohnung durchsuchten und sagen wir mal nach irgendwelchen Schätzen suchten, wusste man schon, das sprach sich schnell um, wenn die so eine Uniform sehen, dann denken die, Uniform ist Uniform, dann wird derjenige auf der Stelle erschossen. Und meine Mutter nahm rechtzeitig die Uniform, rollte sie zusammen und vesteckte sie im Keller unter den Kohlen, wir hatten noch Ofenheizung, und der Keller war mit Briquettes voll, und da wurden diese militärischen Sachen versteckt. Auch ein Hitler Bild kann ich mich nicht erinnern hatten wir nicht zu hängen, obwohl ich das natürlich von der Schule her kannte, da hingen natürlich überall die Bilder. Also dieses, zu dem Thema Familie. Also Punkt an der Stelle und Sie fragen vielleicht von derweise weiter.
PS: Ja, ich muss sagen, Ich wäre sehr daran interessiert mehr über, seis über ihren Bruder bei der Flak zu hören,
HD: Ja.
PS: Und spater auch über ihren Vater, auch das Thema der Gefangenschaft in Leeds.
HD: England, in Leeds, ja. Also, mein Bruder, wie gesagt, war Luftwaffenhelfer, der ist also, mit fünfzehn, das muss ja ’43 gewesen sein, ’43, wurden die eingezogen, der kam dann plötzlich mit einer Luftwaffenuniform die ihm etwas zu gross schien, also ein, eigentlich ein jämmerliches Bild. Die ganze Klasse ging also aus der Schule raus, wurde in einen anderen Stadtteil, hier in Berlin Tegel, verlagert, dort war eine sogenannte Batterie, und da standen also Luftabwehrgeschütze, Flak nannte man das damals, und auch das Kaliber weiss ich natürlich heute noch, vieles vergisst man aber so’ne Dinger hat man natürlich sich gemerkt, Kaliber 10,5. Und mein Bruder war dann eingeteilt für das sogenannte Funkmessgerät, FuMG wurde das damals abgekürtzt und ich vermute das es so eine Art Vorlaüfer des Radars gewesen, der sass also in so einer Kombüse und hatt dann den Nachthimmel irgendwie beobachtet, heranfliegende Flugzeuge und die Ortung und die anderen Kameraden, die standen neben der Flak und mussten dann auf Grund seiner Anweisung oder Hinweise die Flak ausrichten und wenn dann die Flugzeuge nachts kamen, dann schossen sie also in den Himmel, da war ich natürlich nicht bei aber am Tage, als ich die Batterie besuchen durfte, da erinnere ich noch wie um das Kanonenrohr immer weisse Streifen gemacht wurden, das war also der sogenannte Abschuss. Bei meinem Bruder war es aber nur so, das der da [unclear], das der nun Funk hörte, weil Funkmann war er im Funkmessgerät, hörte der natürlich wie eingangs erwähnt, auch den Britischen Sender und dann den Soldatensender West, den Deutschen Sender. Dass heisst also der war für seine fufzehn, sechzehn, siebzehn Jahre sehr informiert und wenn er hier bei uns zu hause war, dann hörten wir natürlich auch über den Rundfunk hörte er dann und wir mussten immer ganz vorsichtig sein, das darf der Nachbar nicht mitkriegen, und dieses berühmte Trommelzeichen von BBC, das war ja etwas durchdringend, also da musste man schon genau hinhören, aber mein Bruder wusste also wie es geht. Aber dann kam die schreckliche Situation, dass die ganze Batterie anschliesslich Lehrerpersonal nach Jugoslawien versetzt wurde und dann haben wir abends, im Lichterschein der trüben Laterne, es war ja alles abgedunkelt, mussten wir nun zugucken wie die Jungs an einem langen Strick die Kannonen zogen auf Plattenwagen der Eisenbahn und dann fuhren die bei Nacht und Nebel also Richtung Jugoslawien ab und die Mutter weinten natürlich bitterlich und die Jungs machten auch keinen Eindruck dass man das Gefühl hatte, jetzt geht’s in ein grosses Abenteuer. Also mein Bruder war Flakhelfer in Jugoslawien und daher weiss ich nur, kannte ich nur den Begriff der Partisanen, dass heisst also die Jungs waren von Anfang an darauf getrimmt nur im Block zu gehen, nicht alleine, es bestand immer die Gefahr möglicherweise aus dem Hinterhalt irgendwie von Partisanen angegriffen werden. Mein Bruder kam auch zu uns nach Schlesien, also man muss sich vorstellen, so ein sechzehnjähriger, heute, ich weiss nicht wie ein Vater heute denkt, wenn so ein sechzehnjähriger also nur durch die Weltgeschichte fährt, ob er nicht Angst hat. Der fuhr dann durch Halb Europa mit den sogenannten Soldatenzügen oder Urlauberzügen und kam auch nach Schlesien und erzählte immer voller Interesse und wir lauschten natürlich wenn er, sagen wir mal, fuhr ohne Genehmigung, offensichtlich hatte er da den Mut gehabt, ich weiss es nicht mehr so, aber es muss so, leider ist er tot, er kann’s mir heute nicht mehr bestätigen, aber er war also in der Hinsicht mutig, das er sich dann im Kloh des Eisenbahnzuges einschloss wenn die sogenannten Kettenhunde, die habe ich auch erlebt als Kind wenn wir nach Schlesien fuhren, das sind immer Soldaten mit irgendwelchen Schildern auf der Brust, mit’m Stahlhelm auf und so, das müssen wohl SS-Leute gewesen sein, die die Züge kontrollierten und von irgenwelchen Männern natürlich wissen wollten, warum sind die im Zug, haben sie einen Urlaubsschein, müssen sie irgendwo hin oder wie geht das. Also mein Bruder war da sehr couragiert, der hatt das überlebt, kam dann zum Schluss noch nach Prag. Prag war ja so ziemlich lange noch von der Wehrmacht besetzt und der Krieg da war wohl relativ harmlos, hat sich aber dann doch nach Westen dann, also Richtung Deutschland wieder zurückziehen können oder mit der ganzen Truppe, hat es sogar bis Berlin geschafft und nun kommt das besondere: Ende Oktober endete seine Luftwaffenzeit und diese Jungs waren alle vorgesehen für den Offizierslehrgang. Und mein Bruder mit seinem Wissen wusste genau, also wir müssen sehen das wir überleben wie auch immer. Und ich weiss auch dass seine Kameraden zum Teil, da waren welche bei, die bis zum Schluss den Führer verteidigen wollten und die Klasse hatte grosse Verluste. Will sagen, mein Bruder war so pfiffig das er für zwei, drei Monate untertauchte, aber bevor es soweit war, kam sein Batteriechef, also ein Luftwaffenoffizier zu ihm, wieder auf ihn zu und sagte: “Draegert, Sie müssen sich jetzt für eine Einheit entscheiden, wo Sie hin wollen, als Offiziersanwärter. Wenn nicht, dann werden Sie entschieden’. Und wir werden nun dann nachhinein wissen landeten so ne Jungs bei der Waffen-SS, so mindest karteimässig. Und also er ist auf Grund dieser Empfählung dieses Offiziers hatt er sich für die sogenannten Lenkwaffen entschieden, was immer das sein mag, jedenfalls die Lenkwaffenabteilung lag in Giessen und das muss wohl so gewesen sein und so hatt’s mir mein Bruder bestätigt, das Schreiben ist entweder nie angekommen oder aber, und das war seine Vermutung, Giessen war bereits von den Amerikanern besetzt. Das heisst also dieses Thema hatte sich erledigt was aber noch lange nicht bedeutete, dass er jetzt hier in Berlin sicher war. Und ich weiss auch das Nachbarn nachfragten, warum ist Ihr Sohn nicht an der Front bei meiner Mutter, weil meine Mutter sehr sehr ängstlich war und mein Bruder tauchte auch nicht mehr bei uns auf, der hatte irgendwelche Hilfsdienste am Bahnhof mitgemacht, also Koffer schleppen und Betreuung von Flüchtlingen oder solche Geschichten, irgendwie hatte er es geschafft, bis zum Einmarsch der Russen. Und hatt überlebt und war ein ausgesprochen, wie soll ich sagen, konnte mir der Situation offensichtlich so umgehen, dass er in erster Linie an sich dachte und nicht an den Führer, wen ich dass so formulieren darf, er hat dann, das Glück oder Unglück die Russen suchten bei uns im Keller einen jungen Mann der gut sprechen konnte, artikulieren konnte. Das er nun Soldat war haben sie nicht gesehen seine Klammotten alle entsorgt mit seiner kurzen Hose oder wie auch immer und mein Bruder wurde dann von den Russen in Anspruch genommen und zog dann mit denen hier mit einen Lautsprecherwagen durch unsere Wohngegend und dann praktisch der erste Befehl über Rundfunk, nicht über Lautsprecher, ertelit wurde, dass heisst die Menschen wurden aufgefordert die Enttrümmerung vorzunehmen, die Strassen zu saübern undsoweiter und sofort. Meine Mutter hatte wahnsinnige Angst um ihn, dachte jetzt ist so in letzter Minute aber er hatt es überlebt und er hatt auf Grund dieser Erfahrung dann später sogar den Kontakt zum Rundfunk gesucht und hatt dann eine Lehre beim Berliner Rundfunk in Berlin angetreten, im Jahre 1948, ’47 glaub ich, ’47, ja. Ja also, das war mein Bruder. Jetzt wollten Sie noch wissen von meinem Vater.
PS: Ja, also eben, ein bisschen wenn Sie sich etwas erinnern an sagen wir seine Kriegserfahrung, die Zeit wo er eben in Dänemark war und auch etwas erzählt hatt von seiner Gefangenschaft in England.
HD: Ja. Also der sass in Friederickshavn, das ist oben die nördlichste Spitze von Dänemark, er war Marinesoldat ist aber nie auf einem Schiff gewesen, auf Grund seiner Tätigkeit als Bankbeamte war er, sass er, wie es so schon hiess, in der Schreibstube, hatte also immer einen Verwaltungsjob und erzählte halt von irgendwelchen Situationen wo er oben an der Küste stand, er musste auch mal Wache schieben aber da passierte wohl nicht viel. Und ich erinnere, oder wir erinnern uns noch an die Zeit als wir aus Dänemark Packete auch kriegten, dass heisst die Möglichkeit bestand wohl damals auch für die Soldaten dort regelrecht einzukaufen, ich kann mir vorstellen das der das beschlagnahmt wenn sowas hat und schickte uns nach Schlesien also irgendwelche Lebensmittel, das muss wohl prima haben wir ja nun mitgekriegt das in Sachsenhausen, im KZ, die Dänische Währung kopiert wurde und so, die Dänische Wirtschaft unterlaufen wurde, warscheinlich sind die Soldaten mit diesen Geld bezahlt worden und mein Vater lebte da im Prinzip sicher. Jetzt war der Krieg zu Ende, und wenn ich ihn richtig erinnere sind die Engländer gar nicht bis da oben gekommen sondern die Wehrmacht hat kapituliert und die sind mit Sack und Pack von Friedrichshafen durch Dänemark gerollt, mehr oder weniger unangefochten, Richtung Schleswig-Holstein und sind dort von den Briten in Empfang genommen worden, sind dann erstmal nach Belgien weitergeleitet worden. Dort in Belgien hatt er schlechte Erfahrungen gemacht, die Belgischen Menschen sind über die Deutschen Soldaten natürlich hergefallen, haben sie geschlagen und bespuckt, also sowas erzählte er, nun wenn man die Geschichte mit Belgien kennt hat man beinahe schon Verständnis dafür. Also jedenfalls Belgien war nicht gut und sie sind dann verladen worden über den Kanal nach England.0 Und dort war er also Prisoner of War und wieder landete er in einer Schreibstube und war zum Schluss irgendwie Stellvertretender Lagerleiter oder in sowas. Also dem ging’s da, unter allen Umständen, soweit menschlich einwandfrei, ich habe nie ein böses Wort gehört aus der Richtung. Er hatte auch Kontakt mit irgendeiner Englischen Familie in Leeds, aber was daraus geworden ist das weiss ich nicht. Jedenfalls 1947 kommt mein Vater mit einen Riesenseesack hier in Berlin-Grunewald an, mit einen grossen Flüchtlingstransport und die kam auch nicht mehr im Güterwagen an sondern die hatten dann schon ’47 fuhren sie also doch etwas menschlich mit normalen Personenwagen. Mein Vater stieg aus dem Zug, er sah gut genährt aus, also ein Bild des Friedens und für viele Leute doch überraschend, weil man ja die andere Seite kannte. Noch kam ja noch gar nicht so viel aus der Sowjetunion, die blieben ja bis ’55 da. Also, und mein Vater brachte nun Sachen mit aus England in dem Riesenseesack die wir natürlich heiss ersehnten, zum Beispiel Cadbury, seitdem weiss ich was Cadbury ist. Ich weiss nicht ob es heute noch gibt die Schockoladenfirma.
PS: Ja, ja.
HD: Und das zweite war, was ich erinnere war, eine grosse Büchse Nivea, im Nachhinein stellte sich heraus, also Nivea in Hamburg ist wohl erhalten geblieben und hat erstmal für die Engländer produziert, jedenfalls brachte er eine Büchse Nivea mit, und Koffee vor allen Dingen und Tee. Also es war ein Fest des Friedens, meine Mutter war glücklich und im Nachhinein, aber das gilt nicht für mein Vater, wir haben im Umfeld so ein Paar Leute die sind in England geblieben. Also es muss auch Situationen gegeben haben wo, wenn sie keine Familie hier hatten und dort Anschluss fanden in England, offensichtlich sogar in Grossbritannien geblieben sind, also will sagen unter’m Strich mein Vater hat Glück gehabt. Ist nach Berlin zurückgekommen, als Bankbeamter im Westteil der Stadt gab es keine Arbeit mehr, dir Banken waren alle verstaatlicht, beziehungsweise sind aufgelöst worden von den Russen, es war ja hier alles anders. Und langsam entwickelte sich erst die Differenz zwischen Ost und West, Westberlin, Ostberlin und er musste also andere Tätigkeiten ausüben und er ist 1950 kehrte er wieder in das Bankgeschäft zurück, in die Zentralbank also die eine Unterabteilung der Bank der Deutschen Länder war, und später Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt-Main. Aber seine alte Bank, bei der er bis zum Schluss tätig war, bis also, [unclear], ’43, die gab’s nicht mehr, die wurde ja aufgelöst und die war dann später in Frankfurt-Main und da ist er natürlich nicht hingezogen. So, das war mein Vater.
PS: Hatte er Ihnen, also das war, er war in der Gegend von Leeds.
HD: Ja.
PS: Hat er Ihnen irgend, haben Sie noch irgendwelche Erinnerungen das er Ihnen etwas noch erzählte von dem Gefangenenlager wo er war oder etwas das Ihnen so einfällt?
HD: Der war zuständig für die, für irgendwie das Kraftfahrkorps, irgendwie für die Lastwagenverteilung und Organisation von Transporten undsoweiter. Ich hab natürlich aber da müsste ich mal suchen, ich habe sogar noch seine Personalakte die er mitgebracht hat und wir haben mal, oder meine, mein Neffe der lebt jetzt bei London und die haben mal im Englischen also in dieser Organisation nachgeforscht und haben die Unterlagen gekriegt. Alos, wir wissen wie der Fragebogen aussah, aber das werden Sie ja auch alles haben. Nicht, also was er beantworten musste, in welchen politischen Organisationen er war oder nicht war, das haben wir alles, aber aus dem Lager selber. Es war, vielleicht war er auch vorsichtig um, sagen wir mal, nicht den Eindruck zu erwecken, vielleicht manchmal ist er so in Gedanken gekommen, das der eine oder der andere gar nicht so scharf war wenn er zum Beispiel keine Familie hatte nun in das kaputte Deutschland zurückzukehren, wenn er in England eine Möglichkeit des Lebens sah. Bei meinem Vater war das nicht so, der wollte nach Hause natürlich, der wollte uns ja wiedersehen. Familie ist ja gottseidank intakt geblieben, wir haben also auch wenig Kriegsopfer in der Familie gehabt, alle habense irgendwie Schwein gehabt. Ja, nee also, mehr aus dem Gefangenenlager kann ich Ihnen nicht sagen, ich weiss nur dass mein anderer Onkel, der war in Frankreich dann bei den Amerikanern im Gefangenenlager und als die mitkriegten, die Amis, dass der Musiker auch nebenbei war, haben sie ihm ein Cello gegeben und der hat die Gefangenenkapelle organisiert. Also auch der kam eigentlich zurück mit einem sehr offenen Verhältnis zu den ehemaligen Kriegsgegnern.
PS: Ja, dann, jetzt ein bisschen zurück zu Ihnen.
HD: Ja.
PS: Wie, was, welche Erinnerungen haben Sie von der Zeit in der Sie in Breslau evakuiert waren, auf dem?
HD: Bauernhof.
PS: Ja, auf dem Bauernhof Ihres Onkels, wenn ich mich nicht irre.
HD: Ja, ja, der war da Gutsinspektor, wie man das nannte, und da habe ich natürlich die besten Erinnerungen. Weil, ich konnte dann auf dem Trekker mitfahren, ich habe gesehen wie Viehhaltung war, das funktionierte aber, Sie interessieren sich ja für die politischen Dinge, da weiss ich nur eins: das ich meiner Mutter Ärger bereitet habe, warum? Ich bin dort natürlich in die Schule gegangen und die Lehrerin in der Dorfschule die war eine stramme Parteigängerin, sie trug auf ihrer Bluse immer das grosse, relativ grosse Parteiabzeichen, das erinnere ich, und nun kam ich als Berliner in diese Dorfjugend. Und die Jungs die waren natürlich neugierig oder man, mutmass, ‘na, der kommt aus Berlin’ undsoweiter, und da ich hatte wohl zu der Zeit eine ziemlich grosse Klappe, wei man heute sagt, das heisst also als Berliner sowieso und ich erzählte wohl immer lustig von den Bomben in Berlin, zum Beispiel das wir Bombensplitter gesucht haben. Wir Berliner Jungs, jeder hatte eine Zigarrenkiste hier und wenn der Angriff vorüber war am nächsten Tag, dann ging man über die Strasse wenn in der Gegend was eingeschlagen war und man suchte Bombensplitter. Da hatte man einen ganzen Kasten voll und das tauschte man aus, also solche Sachen. Oder diese Kondensstreifen, weiss nicht ob Sie wissen was das ist, die Engländer die warfen so’n Streifen ab, die waren aussen Schwarz und innen silberig, die sollten das Funkmessgerät meines Bruders praktisch irritieren. Und die Dinger landeten wie so’n leichter Regen oder Schneefall auf der Strasse und die sammelten wir ja ein, das sollte man immer abgeben aber das haben wir natürlich nicht immer gemacht. Und diese Geschichten, und von den Bomben und so, wichtigtuerisch, wie man als Kind ist, muss ich wohl erzählt haben. Jedenfalls kam dann, eines Tages, entweder war es der Dorfgendarm oder der Parteimensch aus dem kleinen Dorf zu meiner Mutter oder bestellte sie ein und ermahnte sie, sie solle doch ihr Erziehungsauftrag wahrnehmen, denn der Junge erzählt hier defätistische Sachen. Ja, das hat er nicht zu machen, das hat er zu unterlassen. Also nun kam meine Mutter und dann kam der Onkel dazu, der hatte zwei Jungs die waren im Krieg, an der Front und der sagte: ‘Um Jottes willen erzähl ja nicht wat, det gibt nur Ärger!’. Also, mir, ich kriegte als Kind den berühmten Maulkorb verpasst, des war so’ne Sache. Am sonsten war natürlich, im Nachhinein ist es mir erst auch deutlicher geworden, das wir auch Fremdarbeiter hatten und in der Gegend waren es natürlich überwiegend Polen, die dort auf dem Gut arbeiteten, die waren aber normal untergebracht, ich kann mich nicht erinnern dass sie in irgendeinerweise jetzt drangsaliert wurden. Ich hatte sogar einen Polnischen kleinen Jungen mit dem ich spielte, also das war für mich, also dieser Gegensatz, Deutsche Polen und so war da nicht spürbar. Habe ich nicht erlebt, ja wir waren da also ganz friedlich. Ich habe übrigens jetzt nach vielen Jahren den Weg da zweimal angetreten nach Breslau und hab die alten Stätten besucht, hab auch das Haus wieder gefunden aber ich konnte mich leider nicht so verständlich machen was ich eigentlich wollte, ich wollte eigentlich nur wiedersehen und eigentlich mit den Leuten die jetzt da wohnen ein Versöhngespräch oder überhaupt ein Gespräch führen aber ich hatte dafür, die waren abständig, zurückhaltend, vielleicht im Hinterkopf den Gedanken, der will da einen Anspruch gelten machen oder was, hatte ich ja gar nicht und sie würden die Bude nicht [unclear], ja, bloss es war ein Stück Erinnerung und ein Stück Heimat. Und da meine Mutter aus Schlesien kommt, habe ich ohnehin mal das Gefühl, ich müsste unbedingt mal nach Breslau, ich bin, vielleicht wäre vielleicht auch ein guter Schlesier geworden. Also eine gewisse, ein gewisses Interesse für die verlorenen Gebiete im Osten. Ja, das war also so in Juliusburg, am sonsten sagte ich ja auf dem Bauernhof und das Leben war absolut friedlich. Ach, eins vielleicht noch, das fiel mir, das erinnere ich auch, da kamen mal die beiden Jungs von den Gutsverwalter, der eine war bei der SS, der andere war bei der Luftwaffe, und ich vermute also dem Gespräch nach waren die an der Ostfront, das heisst also in Russland, und mich schmissen sie aus dem Zimmer raus, also die müssen irgendwelche Geschichten erzählt haben, die nicht für Kinder ungeignet waren. Ergebnis war nur, nachdem auch meine Mutter den Befehl kriegte, in der Umgebung Schützengraben zu ziehen, also aussschöppen, Ende ’44. Muss man es mal überlegen, also die Kriegsheeresführung wusste was auf sie zukommt, aber der Bevölkerung der ist es nicht gesagt worden, und meine Mutter musste Schützengraben ausheben. Und da kam das Gespräch auf Onkel August, so hiess der Onkel, der sagte eines Tages mal: ‘Na ja, also, es macht kene Jedanken, wenn die Russen kommen, dan gehen wir über die Oder’, wir waren also, wenn mann jetzt flussabwärts blickt, waren wir rechts der Oder. ‘Dann gehen wir nach links auf die linke Seite in Breslau, und dann’, und der Satz der ist mir im Ohr geblieben, ‘dann hauen wir die Russen zurück’. Na ja, wie es ausgegangen ist wissen wir. Wir haben den Kontakt nach dem Krieg nie wieder aufnehmen können, ich weiss nicht ob die Familie es überlebt hat, was aus den Jungs geworden ist und der Gedanke nun mit den Leuten darüber mal zu reden und so ein bisschen Vergangenheitsbewältigung zu machen, der ist leider gescheitert, ich hatte den Eindruck, die wollten nicht, und, na ja, kann man nichts machen. Also, das zum Thema Schlesien.
PS; Also, ich wollte Sie, wir sind also fast zu Ende, nur noch ein Paar, ein Paar Fragen.
HD: Ja.
PS: Sie hatten mir erzählt das Sie mit Ihrer Mutter Zeit im Bunker verbracht haben.
HD: Ja.
PS: Das war noch in Berlin.
HD: Das war in Berlin, ja.
PS: Welch Erinnerungen haben Sie? Also Sie waren nur mit Ihrer Mutter? Waren da auch andere Familien? Wo war dieser Bunker?
HD: Der Bunker war hier in der Müllerstrasse, also kennen Sie Berlin, sagt Ihnen das überhaupt was?
PS: Ja. Ja, ja.
HD: Ja. Also, Müllerstrasse, das ist so im Nordwesten und das ist ein grosser Strassenbahnhof gewesen, der hatt den Krieg auch überstanden, da ist wenig oder gar nichts kaput gegangen und unter den Hallen der Strassenbahn, da ist während des Krieges dieser Bunker gebaut worden. Zwar ein Tiefbunker und in den musste man dann durch die Bunkerschleusen, diese riesen Eisentüren, vorne war die Luftschutzwarte, die hatten immer so einen besonderen Helm auf und irgendwie Gasmasken umgehängt, das war immer sehr martialisch und da sind wir durchgewackelt und da wurden uns die Raume zugewiesen und da lagen, waren da Pritschen so auf, die Luft war so wie im Bunker so ist, und man sass still und wir Kinder schliefen, und morgens da gab’s auch kein Fruhstück im Bunker oder so was sondern dann wenn die Sonne oder wenn das Licht wieder da war dann, wie gesagt, wurden wir dann geweckt und standen wieder auf und gingen zurück und wir hatten also einen halben Kilometer Weg ungefähr zu hinter, zu absolvieren und dann die Frage: steht’s oder steht’s nicht? Man merkte das im Bunker nichts, kann mich nicht erinnern das man irgendwie, das der Bunker gewackelt hat, wenn da die Bomben einschlugen oder was. Wie gesagt, bei uns im Norden in dieser Ecke, im Afrikanischen Viertel, waren die Schäden nicht so gross. Die Gegend war also nach dem Krieg relativ schnell enttrümmert oder entrümpelt oder die Strassen wieder zugänglich, wir hatten da also ein gewisses Glück muss ich sagen. Erst wenn man dann mal später in die Innenstadt fuhr, dann sah mal eigentlich, das wahre Ausmaß der Zerstörung, da oben war es nicht. Wir hatten ja die grosse Kaserne neben uns, die damals hiess sie Hermann-Göring Kaserne, war eine Luftwaffenkaserne die für uns beim Einmarsch der Russen natürlich die Quelle für Nahrungsmittel war, plötzlich war keine Kontrolle mehr da, die Menschen, wir stürmten also in diese Kaserne und die Läger waren voll mit Lebensmitteln und mit, ich bin durch Kaffebohnen gewatet, oder waren’s Erbsen, jedenfalls wir nahmen mit was wir mitnehmen konnten und raümten da aus und dann zog ja erst die Briten ein. Denn Berlin war ja erstmal von den Russen ganz besetzt, dann kamen im Juli die Amerikaner und die Briten nach und der spätere Französische Sektor wurde ja erstmal Englisch. Die Franzosen kamen ja erst im August zu uns. Und die Engländer haben sich dadurch beliebt gemacht bei uns, das es hiess, neben der Kaserne werden auch unsere Blöcke für die Soldaten benötigt und es bestand die Gefahr, das wir aus den Wohnungen müssten. Es ist aber Gottseidank dann nicht eingetreten. Aber eine zweite Sache erinnere ich noch, die Engländer forderten auf die Leute sollen ihre Klaviere abgeben. Und wie meine Mutter das geschaft hat, das sie die Leute also entweder keine Angaben gemacht hatt oder was, wir haben unser Klavier behalten. Vorher hatten die Russen ja schon unsere Radios abgeholt oder mussten wir abgeben, Telefone mussten wir abgeben und, wie gesagt, das Klavier haben wir ja behalten und die Engländer haben also darauf verzichtet, uns da zu vereinnahmen. Aber dadurch das die nebenan in der Kaserne waren, muss wohl das Starkstromkabel bei uns immer durchgegangen sein, jedenfalls wir hatten, trotz aller Stromsperren und dergleichen Dinge, hatten wir eigentlich während des ganzen Krieges und auch danach immer Strom. Jetzt war die Frage, Strom wurde kontingentiert, man durfte ja nicht so viel, Kraftwerke gaben das ja gar nicht her. Und nun war wieder mein Bruder, der da beim Militär pfiffig wurde und man fand dann Möglichkeiten um den Zähler zu überbrücken. Oder viele Leute gingen dann abends in den Keller um sich was warm zu machen, auf Kosten des Hauses, and die Leitung der Kellerbeleuchtung rangehen, all solche Geschichten nicht. Also, insofern, viele Erinnerungen auch an die Briten und dann, wie gesagt, kamen die Franzosen, insofern haben wir alle drei Besatzungsmächte kennengelernt.
PS: Hatten Sie Angst als Junge in den Bunker, ich meine, können Sie sich erinnern an die Gefühle die Sie hatten?
HD: Neine, ganz im Gegenteil, das war sicher. Der Bunker vermittelte das Gefühl der Sicherheit. In dem Bunker hatten wir keine Angst. Es gab ja noch den grossen Hochbunker am Bahnhof-Gesundbrunnen, da steht ja noch’n Stück, ist ja übrig geblieben weil man’s nicht sprengen konnte wegen der Eisenbahn, und da waren wir auch mal da als wir mal aus der Stadt kamen und vom Bombenangriff überrascht wurden, gingen wir dort in den Bunker und haben dort den Bombenangriff überlebt. Das merkte man ja nicht, das Ding bewegte sich ja gar nicht, also die waren so stabil. Der Bunker bot absolute Sicherheit und wir kamen auch rein, es war ja, man hat manchmal im Nachhinein Geschichten gelesen, das Menschen rein wollten und der Bunker der war überfullt, die haben dann keinen mehr reingelassen oder so, dass habe ich nicht erlebt.
PS: Ihre Mutter gab auch nicht den Eindruck, Angst zu haben?
HD: Nö, eigentlich nicht. Na wir sind ja hingegangen weil uns die Bunker im Grunde genommen Schutz gewährten, nicht?
PS: Erinnern Sie sich an die Bombardierung des 3 Februars? Sie sprachen auch etwas von Phosphorbomben.
HD: Ja, die Phosphorbomben, dass muss in Kreuzberg, muss dass ganz schlimm gewesen sein, wo die Ritterstrasse, so hiess damals, war mit sehr viel Textilfabbrikken und Hinterhof Etagen und da ist ja also tabula rasa gemacht und ein ganzes Stadtviertel ist zerstört worden. Und wie gesagt diese Phosphorbomben mit der, mit den schrecklichen Brandschäden und wer also Phosphor, wenn die Bombe plazte und man kriegte Phosphor auf die Haut, das war ja nicht zu löschen, nicht? Unter Wasser ging die Flamme aus und kam wieder Sauerstoff ran, dann ging das wieder los. Das haben wir insofern, den 3 Februar insofern gesehen weil über Berlin, das ist eigentlich unvorstellbar, aber, eine Wolke hochging, eine schwarze Wolke, wir sind, wir konnten, wir hatten so eine höheren Punkt bei da uns Park und da konnte man und da sind wir raufgegangen als Kinder und konnten über Berlin diese Riesenwolke sehen. Da brannte ja nun das Schloss, die Oper und die ganze Innenstadt ist ja da an einem Tag kaputt gegangen. Das ist ja das was im Nachhinein für uns Leute hier unverständlich war, warum man nicht, warum das Stauffenberg Attentat zum Beispiel nicht geklappt hatt, warum man nicht längst kapituliert hatte, diese sinnlosen Zerstörungen am 3 Februar, 26. Oder Potsdam, wennse darann denken, 14, 15 April ist Potsdam bombardiert worden für nichts und wieder nichts und der Gedanke den Bomber Command ja warscheinlich hatte, ja den Willen der Bevölkerung zu brechen oder, sagen wir mal, Aufstände zu provozieren, das ist ja nicht aufgegangen wie wir ja nun im Nachhinein wissen. Die Bevölkerung ist ja nicht, wir haben ja nicht jetzt gegen die bösen Nazis geschimpft sondern der Feind kam aus der Luft, nicht? So war ja warscheinlich die Denke damals.
PS: Ja, gerade Sie haben einen, sagen wir, Anstoß gegeben auf, sagen wir, die letzte Frage und das ist eben wie Sie, wie Sie eben damals, was Sie damals dachten von den Bombardierungen und auch wie Sie das heute, siebzig Jahre spater, sehen.
HD: Ja, also, wie soll ich sagen, also?
PS: Sie hatten mir, also wenn Sie mir, hätten sie noch etwas hinzuzufügen auf das was Sie mir eben gesagt haben, wie Sie das damals sahen?
HD: Ja, na ja, ich war damals Kind, also wir waren als die, es waren ja so ungefähr, wir sind hier am 24 April befreit worden und in den letzten Tagen gab es also keine Angriffe. Ich glaube Potsdam so am 15 das war das letzte und in dem Moment wo die Bombenangriffe aufhörten und der Krieg zu Ende war, man hatte zwar andere neue Ängste, nicht? Das hing nun wieder mit der Roten Armee zusammen aber da hatte man ja doch das Gefühl, Gott sei dank, dieser Terror, wie man sagte, der Luftterror von oben ist zu Ende. Also das man nun jetzt liebevoll dachte, die Amerikanischen und Englischen Bomber wollen lediglich die Nazis beseitigen, nee, nee, nee, es waren natürlich die Verluste in der Bevölkerung und in der Substanz. Und wenn man heute nun nach Syrien guckt, wie desselbe wiedermachen, diese sinnlosen Zerstörungen, ja, also, wir, die Bombardierung hat offensichtlich den Wiederstand, ja, sogar noch gefördert, nicht? Im eingangs sagte ich ja die Klassenkameraden von meinem Bruder, da waren ja welche bei die haben ja, die wollten ja noch mit der Panzerfaust wollten die ja noch den T34 ja zerstören, nicht? [coughs] [unclear] Entschuldigung [coughs].
PS: Kein Problem.
HD: [coughs] Ja, Herr Schulze, im Augenblick fällt mir nichts weiter ein.
PS: Ja, eben, sagen wir jetzt die allerletzte Frage.
HD: Ja.
PS: Wie sehen Sie, wenn Sie zurückblicken auf die Zeit, jetzt siebzig Jahre nach dem Krieg, wie sehen Sie das, welche Meinungen haben Sie von dem, von den Bombardierungen, von den, welche Gedanken kommen Sie ihnen jetzt?
HD: [coughs] Ja, also, ein Gedanke der mich immer oder uns immer beschäftigt hatt war eben, dass die Bombardierung der Zivilbevölkerung sinnlos war. Man hatte Verständnis, oder hat bestimmt Verständnis gehabt, wenn also Bahnanlagen, Industrienanlagen, das Ruhrgebiet zerstört werden, aber nun gab’s ja tatsächlich und das ist ja durch die Politik im Kalten Krieg so ein bisschen bestätigt worden, als würden in Berlin zum Beispiel bestimmte Areale nicht bombardiert worden sein, nämlich die die unter Umständen in Amerikanischen Besitz waren also AEG am Gesundbrunnen, da ist nichts kaputt gegangen und schräg rüber die Wohnquartiere sind zielgerichtet kaputt gemacht worden. Man konnte sich das als Kind nicht vorstellen oder überhaupt nicht vorstellen das man bombardieren kann, so punktmässig. Oder dann kommt die andere Geschichte hinzu von Wiesbaden, sagt man immer, die Amerikaner haben Wiesbaden nicht kaputt gemacht weil sie wussten dass sie da eines Tages ihre Komandozentrale unterbringen und so ist also Wiesbaden nicht kaputt gegangen aber nebenan die Stadt Mainz die ist natürlich zerstört worden. Also so’ne Sachen hat man schon im Nachhinein bemerkt und gelesen und man hatte damals also das Gefühl man soll persönlich getroffen werden und das empfanden, gluab ich, viele Leute als, ja, will nicht sagen ungerecht, wir haben ja den Krieg angefangen, also von Recht kann man da nicht sprechen aber zumindest im Ergebnis nicht, hat’s nichts gebracht, ja?
PS: Und das ist auch das was Sie sagen sie auch heute denken.
HD: Das allerdings ja. Das muss man immer noch dazu rechnen, ja. Sie wissen ja, der Zeitzeuge ist der Feind des Historikers, wie man so schön heisst. Der Historiker sieht das alles aus seiner Kenntnis und der Zeitzeuge, der bringt natürlich dann immer noch persönliches mit rein. Herr Schulze, was kann ich noch für Sie tun?
PS: Ich habe, sagen wir, nur eine einzige Frage noch. Und das ist wirklich die allerletzte.
HD: Bitte [laughs].
PS: Ich habe Sie schon [unclear] in Betracht genommen.
HD: Nein, nein, das macht, ist interessant mal über die Dinge zu reden.
PS: Erinnern Sie sich ob einige Ihrer Verwandten Erinnerungen an die Zeit haben? Ich weiss nicht ob Ihre Grosseltern oder so etwas miterlebt haben. Das hatt nichts mit den Bombarderierungen zu tun, vom alltäglichen Leben in Berlin.
HD: Das alltägliche Leben, meine, also man hat normalerweise vier Grosseltern, die eine Seite, die Väterliche Seite, lebte in Moabit und da ist die Oma, die hat das mitterlebt, wenn die einkaufen ging, das die Menschen, und zwar hier die Jüdischen Mitbürger, in der Levetzow-Allee zusammen, oder versammelt wurden und dort war, stand wohl auch eine Synagoge und von dort in Kolonnen losmarschierten. Meine Oma will das gesehen haben, will das auch als tragisch oder was auch immer empfunden haben, aber es war halt so eine bleiernde Stimmung in der, das man immer sagte darüber darf man nicht reden oder man kann da auch nicht protestieren es, also meine Oma hat’s gesehen, man kann also nicht sagen wir haben nichts gewusst. Meine anderen Grosseltern, die lebten in Charlottenburg, die sind ausgebombt worden, die hatten dann eine Laube draussen in Britz, also im Süden Berlins und haben dort den Rest ihrer Tage dort verlebt. Mein Onkel, wie gesagt, ist am Kaiserdamm ausgebombt worden und hat, und die Unterlagen habe ich noch, man ging dann zum Bezirksamt und liess sich bescheinigen das man ausgebombt ist und dann kriegte man eine Unterlage und da, und den, einen Bezugsschein für ein Messer, eine Gabel, ein Kochtopf undsoweiter. Und man musste auch aber gleichzeitig eine Verlustanzeige machen und da gibt’s dann natürlich nur die bösesten Geschichten, also bei meinem Onkel steht auch das er zwei Perser Teppiche bei sich hatte und meine Tante hatte einen Edelpelz und irgendwelche Leute haben mir dann mal ausgerechnet, sowiel Perser Teppiche hatt’s auf der ganzen Welt nicht gegeben wie plötzlich nach den Bombenangriffen hier bemängelt worden. So wie wir es ja auch erlebt haben wenn man unterwegs als Turist bestohlen wurde, weiss ich, irgendwo, und Photoapparat weg, dann war das bei der Polizei, immer eine Leika nicht, und immer ein bisschen höher wert, ja. Also, diese Sachen, an die erinnere ich mich natürlich. Und vor allen Dingen wie mein Onkel, der nun Betriebsleiter war und hier mit den Russen auch seine Schwierigkeiten hatte, dann seinen eigenen Betrieb abbauen musste, weil das dann nach Russland alles transportiert wurde, das war schon, aber das ist ja nicht jetzt Ihr Thema.
PS: Gut also, ich, das war alles sehr sehr sehr interessant, was Sie mir erzählt haben und ich würde jetzt damit aufhören, ich glaub ich habe Sie schon genug in Betracht genommen.
HD: Sie können jederzeit wieder anrufen wenn Ihnen etwas einfällt.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Hubert Draegert
Description
An account of the resource
Hubert Draegert remembers his wartime experiences, first in Berlin and then as an evacuee at his uncle’s farm near Wroclaw. He mentions the bombing of the Berlin State Opera and the repeated efforts made to rebuild the gutted building. He remembers the 3 February 1945 bombing, stressing how his neighbourhood was not heavily damaged. He tells of his brother who was drafted as a Luftwaffenhelfer with all his classmates. As a radio operator, his brother listened to the BBC and was therefore always up-to-date on the course of war. Herr Draegert mentions various episodes of his own life as an evacuee: Polish foreign workers; his mother digging trenches as the Russians approached; being reproached by a police officer for spreading defeatist stories at school. He remembers collecting bomb fragments and strips of tinfoil window so as to trade them with other children. He mentions his father working in a Jewish bank before being drafted into the Navy in 1943 and his father's subsequent time as a prisoner of war near Leeds, where he was treated humanely. Hubert Draegert reminisces about the time spent in the shelter with his mum, stressing the sense of safety it provided. He describes the effects of incendiaries on civilians and emphasises how the bombing didn’t turn the population against the regime and were therefore a failure, although factories and transport hubs were, in his eyes, legitimate targets. He describes blackout measures; food rationing; firefighting with domestic implements; and the opportunistic behaviour of civilians. He recollects British soldiers impounding pianos. He reflects on the bombing war, stressing the gap between scholarly interpretations and eyewitness accounts. He emphasises that targets were not always chosen according military priorities but rather the Allies’ post-war agenda.
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01:13:00 audio recording
Language
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deu
Coverage
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Civilian
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Spatial Coverage
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Germany--Berlin
Poland--Wrocław
Germany
Poland
Temporal Coverage
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1945-02-03
1943
Creator
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Peter Schulze
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Peter Schulze
Date
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2018-02-09
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Sound
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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.
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ADraegertH180209
bombing
childhood in wartime
civil defence
evacuation
firefighting
home front
incendiary device
Luftwaffenhelfer
perception of bombing war
prisoner of war
shelter
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1652/26481/SBriarsRA1299161v1.1.pdf
2a781daac7a5ee89fd2d6eb170264b96
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Casswell, Robert Ivan. Ralph Briars DFM
Description
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1 Item. Was an air gunner on John Sanders and Roy Machin's crew on 49 Squadron. Collection consists of a memoir.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-27
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
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Briars, R
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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[picture]
REAR VIEW
Ralph Briars
[page break]
[photograph]
TO MARK AND AMANDA, IN THE FERVENT HOPE THAT THEY AND THEIRS NEVER BECOME INVOLVED IN WORLD UPHEAVALS SUCH AS HAPPENED BETWEEN 1939 AND 1945
DEDICATED FIRSTLY TO MY TRAVELLING COMPANIONS IN THOSE UNFRIENDLY SKIES, PARTICULARLY TO JOHN SANDERS WHO FLEW US THERE AND BACK, AND JAMES BARRON WHO GUIDED US. THE OTHERS AL AND ARTHUR, ROY AND TOMMY, ALL STRANGERS THROWN TOGETHER IN THE COMMON CAUSE.
SECONDLY TO BILL HUDSON WHO CAME WITH ME FROM GUNNERY SCHOOL TO FISKERTON, A WARMLY REMEMBER [sic] PERSON WHOSE FAVOURITE TIPPLE WAS GUINESS AND GIN-MIXED. SADLY HIS AIRCRAFT DID NOT RETURN FROM A RAID IN MARCH 1944, SHORTLY BEFORE WE WERE POSTED TO 617 SQUADRON.
[page break]
[underlined] FORE-WORD [/underlined]
TO EMPLOY A WELL WORN BUT NONE THE LESS ACCURATE CLICHÉ, LIFE IS FULL OF SURPRISES. THUS I PONDERD [sic] RUEFULLY, IN JANUARY 1944, ON FINDING MYSELF SITTING AT THE REAR OF A LANCASTER BOMBER EN ROUTE TO STETTING, WHICH IS THE WRONG SIDE OF DENMARK. NOT THAT I AM UNPATRIOTIC REALLY, BUT DURING THE TIME THAT HAD PASSED SINCE JOINING THR [sic] ROYAL AIR FORCE I DID THINK THAT SOMEONE OUGHT TO GET A MOVE ON AND WIN THE WAR BEFORE I BECAME INVOLVED.
THE R.A.F. INVITED ME TO JOIN IN 1941 ON THE ROSY PROSPECT THAT TRAINING AS A WIRELESS OPERATOR/AIR GUNNER – KNOWN IN THE TRADE AS A WOP/AG – WOULD FOLLOW INITIAL INSTRUCTION ON GETTING THE LEFT FOOT AND RIGHT ARM IN SYNCHRONISATION ON MOVING OFF. SO AWAY TO SAMPLE THE DELIGHTS OF THE BLACKPOOL LANDLADIES, BLESS-EM. SOME WERE LIKE MUVVERS, OTHERS LET YOU WASH IN THE YARD AND NO WARM SHAVING WATER. ONE LEARNED, USUALLY TOO LATE, NEVER TO EXPOUND THE VIRTUES OF THEIR COOKING – OR ANY OTHER ACTIVITY – FOR THE PERMANENT STAFF SOON HAD YOU OUT AND THEMSELVES IN, TO USE THE VERNACULAR, WITH THEIR FEET AND TRULY UNDER THE TABLE.
NOW I WOULD NOT SAY THE MORSE CODE IS PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TO LEARN GIVEN MORE TIME MY INSTRUCTORS WERE PREPARED TO OFFER, AND AS THE WAR WAS NOT GOING ALL THAT WELL I HAD TO DEPART FROM THIS POSH PART OF LANCASHIRE. ALTHOUGH I WAS A BIT MIFFED AT THE TIME, THE DECISION WAS EVENTUALLY ADVANTAGEOUS, AS I WILL EXPAND LATER,..
SO THERE I WAS, WITH A FEW OTHER FAILURES, ON THE ISLE OF SHEPPEY, BEING INSTRUCTED ON A DIFFERENT SUBJECT, PARACHUTE AND CABLES. BEAR WITH ME, IF YOU WILL, YOU’LL NOT BELIEVE THE REST. SOME BRIGHT SPARK IN THE MIN. OF DEFFENCE [sic] INVENTED A FORM OF DEFENCE AGAINST LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT CONSISTING OF A ROW OF TUBES SET VERTICALLY AND CONTAINING ROCKETS TO WHICH WERE ATTACHED. [sic]
[page break]
2
LONG LENGTHS OF STEEL CABLE, WITH INCREDIBLE ACCURACY YOU FIRED THESE OFF JUST AS AN AIRCRAFT – PREFERABLE [sic] BELONGING TO THE OTHER SIDE – WAS ABOUT TO CROSS THE LINE, WHERE-UPON UP THEY WENT TO AROUND 800 FEET, EJECTING A PARACHUTE FIXED TO THE CABLE WHICH THEN SLOWLY DROPPED TO THE GROUND. IF THEN YOUR TARGET WAS NOT ENTANGLED IN THE STEEL CURTAIN, OR A SECOND ONE CAME ALONG, YOU NEEDED AT LEAST 30 MINUTES TO REFILL THE SYSTEM, PRESUMABLY THIS VISIONARY TYPE OF DEFENCE AROSE DURING THE PROBLEMS OF SUPPLYING CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS AT THAT STAGE OF THE WAR, AND WAS USED TO DEFEND MERCHANT SHIPPING AS WELL AS AIR FIELDS.
ANYWAY, I WAS PACKED OFF TO SAVE THE R.A.F. BASE AT LINTON-ON-OUSE, NEAR YORK, AND IN THE PERIOD FROM CHRISTMAS 1941 TO AROUND FEBRUARY 1943 WE FIRED NOT ONE SHOT. NO DOUBT THE LUFTWAFFE HAD HEARD ABOUT IT ALL. DURING THIS EXCITING PERIOD I MADE REGULAR APPLICATIONS TO TRAIN AS AN AIR GUNNER, FOR NOT ONLY WAS THIS DEFENCE WORK FARCICAL – FOR EXAMPLE ONE COULD NOT OPERATE AFTER DARK AS THERE WAS NO REFERNCE [sic] TO JUDGE DISTANCE – OUT DEFENCE DUTIES WERE BEING SLOWLY TAKEN OVER BY THE NEWLY FORMED R.A.F. REGIMENT, WITH ALL THE ASSOCIATED ARMY STYLE TRAINING WHICH I COULD PLAINLY SEE WAS NOT GOING TO BE MY CUP OF TEA AT ALL.
EVENTUALLY I FOUND MYSELF IN ST. JOHNS WOOD, IN LONDON, ONCE AGAIN ON ASSESSMENTS AND INITIAL TRAINING LEADING TO A GUNNERY COURSE. THENCE TO BRIDLINGTON FOR THE REAL THING, WHERE AMONGST DIVERS ACTIVITIES WE SPENT HOURS IN A LOCAL GARAGE WHIRLING AROUND ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF GUN TURRETS MOUNTED UPON METAL FRAMES CONTAINING SMALL PETROL ENGINES WHICH SUPPLIED ELECTRIC AND HYDRAULIC POWER. NEARBY FLAMBOROUGH HEAD WAS USED FOR LIVE FIRING MUCH TO THE DISCOMFORT OF THR [sic] RESIDENT GULLS, FOR THE CONTINUAL USE OF OLD GUNS SEEMINGLY SO WIDENED THE BORE THAT TRACER BULLETS RARELY FOLLOWED EACH OTHER BUT WANDERED ABOUT LIKE GUNSHOT.
[page break]
3
THE NEXT STOP WAS DALCROSS, THE FLYING SCHOOL NEAR INVERNESS WHICH IS NOW THAT TOWN’S AIRPORT. WHERE WE SPENT SEVERAL WEEKS IN LOVELY WEATHER FLYING OVER THE MORAY FIRTH IN OLD DEFIANTS AND ANSONS FIRING AT TOWED TARGET DROGUES OR SEA MARKERS. MANY OF THE PILOTS WERE POLISH, TEMPORARILY WITHDRAWN FROM ACTIVE DUTY, AND THEY UNDERSTANDABLY WANTED TO RETURN TO BASHING THE HUN RATHER THAN FERRYING AROUND THREE TYRO GUNNERS AND THEIR INSTRUCTOR. ONE OCCURRENCE THAT WOULD INVITE A FLOW OF FURIOUS POLISH – THE PURPORT OF WHICH WAS CLEAR EVEN THOUGH THE LANGUAGE WAS NOT – WAS WHEN AFTER PAINFULLY CLIMING [sic] TO HEIGHT AND AWAITING THE ARRIVAL OF THE TARGET TOWING AIRCRAFT THE FIRST GUNNER IN THE TURRET SHOT OFF THE DROGUE. AMONGST US GUNNERS THIS WAS SEEN AS EVIDENCE OF GREAT PROWESS, BUT THE RESULT WAS RATHER A LONG HOPEFULL [sic] WAIT FOR A NEW DROGUE TO BE STREAMED BY THE TOWING AIRCRAFT, OR, AS MORE OFTEN HAPPENED, A RETURN TO THE AIRFIELD. EACH GUNNER FIRED 200 ROUNDS. THE TIPS OF WHICH HAD BEEN DIPPED IN A STICKY SORT OF PRINTERS INK, RED PURPLE OR GREEN, SO THAT THE HITS COULD BE COUNTED. THE PROCEDURE WAS FOR US TO LAND FIRST AND AWAIT THE DROPPING OF THE DROGUE TARGET, WHICH WE HAD TO LUG INTO THE SCOOL [sic] FOR ASSESSMENT. OH! THE EXCITEMENT! HOW MANY WOULD YOU HAVE? HAD YOU, IN FACT ANY? 10 WAS EXCELLENT 15 INCREDIBLE, MORE OFTEN IT WAS SINGLE NUMBERS. AIR TO AIR FIRING WAS WILDLY WASTEFUL, NONE OF YOUR HEAT-SEEKING MISSILES THEN!
WE DID A LOT OF GUN TURRET TRAINING, AND COULD EVENTUALLY WRITE OUR NAMES BY MEANS OF A PENCIL WEDGED INSIDE THE GUN BARREL WHICH ENABLED ONE TO TRACE THE LETTERS ONTO A BOARD HELD IN FRONT OF THE TURRET. HOURS WERE SPENT INSIDE LARGE WHITE WASHED DOMES WHERE MOVING FILMS OF VARIOUS ATTACKING AIRCRAFT WERE PROJECTED, AND WITH A TORCH STRAPPED TO THE GUN BARREL ONE HAD TO SHOW CONVINCING ABILITY TO TRACK AND LEAD THE TARGET. ALERTNESS WAS EVERYTHING, FOR SOMETIMES A BRITISH AIRCRAFT WOULD BE SHOWN, AND IF NOT
[page break]
4
IDENTIFIED HEAVY SARCASM WOULD BE OBSERVED BY THE INSTRUCTOR, HAD NOT THE SERVICE ENOUGH TROUBLES ALREADY?
THE END OF THE COURSE CAME AND WITH THE EXCEPTION OF ONE UNFORTUNATE SOUL WE ALL PASSSED [sic]. THERE WE WERE AGAIN, BACK ON THE OLD L.M.S., TRAIN, DESTINED FOR VARIOUS COMMANDS AND GROUPS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. PASSING ALONG THE GRAND SCOTTISH SCENE THROUGH AVIEMORE, PERTH AND CARSTAIRS, AND THEN BY WAYS DEVIOUS I ENDED THE JOURNEY, WITH ONE ACQUAINTANCE FROM DALCROSS, AT 14 C.T.U. [sic] 9 (OPERATIONAL TRAINING UNIT) AT COTTESMORE IN WHAT AT THE TIME WAS THE PLEASANT COUNTY OF RUTLAND.
HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME WE MET OTHER FLYING TRADESMEN, PILOTS, NAVIGATORS, WIRELESS OPERATORS AND BOMB AIMERS. FIVE TO A CREW FOR THE TIME BEING, AS WE TRAINED ON WELLINGTON TWIN ENGINE AIRCRAFT. IN A SURPRISING BUT SOMEHOW VERY BRITISH WAY, A NOVEL WAY OF FORMING CREWS WAS ADOPTED.
NOT FOR US A LIST OF WHO WOULD FLY WITH WHOM, WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED, BUT INSTEAD A PERIOD – FROM LONG MEMORY AROUND TWO DAYS – IN WHICH WE MADE OUR OWN SELECTION. ANYONE NOT CREWED UP IN THE TIME ALLOTTED WAS MADE UP WITH OTHERS SIMILARLY PLACED. SO IT WAS DOWN TO THE (GEORGE) AT OAKHAM, AND BY THE TIME WE WERE CHUCKED OUT MOST CREWS WERE ARRANGED. HOW, YOU MIGHT SAY, DID ONE CAREFULLY SELECT SUITABLE SKILLED, ALERT, ETC. COMPATRIOTS WITH WHOM TO GO SWANNING AROUND GERMAN SKIES? DID ONE EARNESTLY ASK A PILOT HOW MANY HAD HE WRITTEN OFF ALREADY, OR SEEK A NAVIGATORS OPINION ON THE TRIANGLE OF VELOCITIES? YOU MUST BE JOKING! AFTER A FEW DRINKS WE WERE ALL EXCELLENT FELLOWS! THIS NAVIGATOR STEADIED HIMSELF ON ME AND SAID HE HAD A PILOT, WAS I FIXED UP? SEEMINGLY REASONABLY RESPECTABLE I WANT ALONG WITH HIM TO SEE THE PILOT, WHO HAD TWO WINGS UP SO WAS CLEARLY RELIABLE, AND HE TOOK ME ON, WE THEN ALL FOUND A WIRELESS MAN APPARENTLY KNEW ALL THE PUBS IN NOTTINGHAM, AND ON---
[page break]
5
ON THE WAY BACK ASSISTED THIS CANADIAN BOMB AIMER WHO WAS NOT SURE WHICH WAY EAST OR WEST, AND SO SANDERS SAINTS WERE FORMED.
TOGETHER WE TRAINED AS A TEAM UNTILL [sic] THE END OF SEPTEMBER, FLYING OUT OF SATELLITE AIR FIELDS AT MARKET HARBOROUGH AND HUSBANDS BOSWORTH, TOTALLING AROUND 80 HOURS FLYING TIME. INITIALY [sic] THE PILOT WAS MOST INVOLVED IN FAMILIARISING HIMSELF, UNDER INSTRUCTION, WITH THE LARGER AND HEAVIER AIRCRAFT. ONE HAS SOME FEELING FOR HIM IN THIS, FOR HIS SKILL AND PROGRESS WERE WITHIN SIGHT AND SOUND OF THE REST OF US PASSENGERS DURING SEVERAL HOURS TAKINF [sic] OFF AND LANDING, COLLOQUIALLY KNOWN AS CIRCUITS AND BUMPS. HOWEVER JOHN SANDERS WAS QUITE UP TO ALL THIS, AND BEFORE LONG WE ALL HAD TO JUSTIFY OUR TRAINING DURING CROSS-COUNTRY EXERCISES, PRACTICE BOMBING AND GUNNERY. IN THESE THE PILOT AND NAVIGATOR WERE OF COURSE CONTINUALLY EXTENDING THEIR EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE, AS WAS THE WIRELESS OPERATOR, TUCKED UP IN HIS LITTLE NICHE, AND HERE I WOULD INTERPOSE MY FEELINGS TOUCHED UPON EARLIER CONCERNING MY SUMMARY EXIT FROM THE WIRELESS SCHOOL.
THE VITAL WIRELESS OPERATOR, - RECEIVING INFORMATION ABOUT WIND SPEED AND DIRECTION CHANGES, ALTERATIONS TO BOMBING TECHNIQUES, CHECKING THE INTERCOM, TUNING IN TO ENEMY AIRCRAFT AND THEIR CONTROLLERS WAVELENGTHS SO THEY COULD BE JAMMED VIA A MICROPHONE IN AN ENGINE COMPARTMENT, TRACKING POSSIBLE NIGHT FIGHTERS ON A SMALL VDU, - SAW LITTLE OF ACTUAL WAR. SOME MAY THINK IMAGINATION WOULD HAVE WORKED OVERTIME WONDERING WHAT WAS HAPPENING OUTSIDE, LISTENING AND FEELING BUT NOT KNOWING. THE SIGHTS I SAW FROM MY VANTAGE POINT AT THR [sic] REAR WERE NOT ALWAYS ENTIRELY REASSURING, BUT THAT’S REALITY, AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO NOT KNOWING AT ALL, WAS PREFERABLE.
[page break]
6
SHORTLY BEFORE LEAVING COTTESMORE AT THE END OF OCTOBER 1943 TWO MORE CREW MEMBERS ARRIVED, THE ENGINEER AND THE MID-UPPER TURRET GUNNER. WHILST THE FORMER COULD BE ACCOMMODATED IN THE DUAL COCKPIT OF THE WELLINGTON, THE NEW GUNNER WAS LESS FORTUNATE AND SPENT A FEW DRAUGHTY COLD SPELLS IN THE FUSELARGE [sic]. ROY MACHIN WAS A LITTLE LESS THAN DELIGHTED WITH LIFE, BUT IT WAS NOT LONG BEFORE WE MOVED AND HE HAD HIS OWN NEST.
SO IT WAS OFF TO THE LAST STAGE OF TRAINING AT WINTHORPE, NEAR NEWARK. THIS PERIOD OF SIX WEEKS WAS SIMILAR TO THAT AT COTTESMORE, EXCEPT THAT THIS UNIT, 1661 CONVERSION UNIT, FAMILIARISED US WITH THE SAME TYPE OF AIRCRAFT USED IN OPERATIONS, THE HALIFAX AND THE LANCASTER. I BELIEVE OUR 5 GROUP WAS PHASING OUT THE HALIFAX AT THE TIME, ANDWE [sic] ONLY FLEW ABOUT FIVE HOURS IN THEM. FROM THE GUNNERS POINT OF VIEW THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO TYPES WAS THE BOULTON AND PAUL (BP) TURRET IN THE HALIFAX AND THAT MADE BY FRAZER-NASH IN THE LANCASTER. BOTH HAD FOUR GUNS FED BY AMMUNITION CONVEYED ON TRACKS FROM BINS NEAR THE CENTRE OF THE FUSELAGE TO AVOID UNWANTED WEIGHT AT THE REAR OF THE AIRCRAFT. THE BP TURRET WAS ELECTRICALLY OPERATED AND CONTROLLED BY A SINGLE JOYSTICK, WHEREAS THAT IN THE LANCASTER WAS HYDRAULICALLY DRIVEN WITH BICYCLE TYPE HANDLEBAR CONTROLS. I PREFERRED THE LATTER, PROBABLY DUE TO FAMILIARITY THOUGH BOTH HAD A SMOOTH AND PRECISE ACTION, EACH ‘303 BROWNING GUN FIRED ABOUT 1200 ROUNDS A MINUTE, AND WERE (HARMONISED) THAT IS FOCUSED FOR MAXIMUM CUMULATIVE EFFECT ON TARGET AT 400 YARDS. HAVING SEEN THE DEVASTATING RESULT OF SIX GUNS ON AN ENEMY AIRCRAFT DURING OUR FIRST OPERATION TO STETTIN WE HAD MUCH CONFIDENCE IN THEM.
THE PROBLEM WITH NIGHT OPERATIONS WAS, SIMPLY, SEEING THE ATTACKER. THE REAR GUNNER SEARCHED BEHIND AND BELOW, THE OTHER GUNNER BEHIND AND ABOVE, BOTH CONSTANTLY SCANNING THE SIDE AREAS AS WELL. THE MAIN DANGER CAME FROM TWIN ENGIND [sic] ME110’S AND JUNKERS 88’S NEITHER OF WHICH WAS ------
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PARTICULARY [sic] FAST BUT EASILY SURPASS A LADEN LANCASTER’S CRUISING SPEED OF 170 M.P.H. FURTHERMORE, SOME FIGHTERS WERE FITTED WITH UPWARD FIRING 20 M.M. CANNON, AND WOULD CREEP ALONG BELOW BOMBERS WHICH TENDEDTO [sic] SILHOUETTE AGAINST THE LIGHTER UPPER SKY. THEY WERE VERY DIFFICULT TO SEE, UNLESS THE GROUND WAS SNOW COVERED AND ALL WE COULD DO WAS TO CARRY OUT A BANKING SEARCH – THE PILOT DOING THE HARD WORK TILTING THE AIRCRAFT ENABLING THE AREA BELOW TO BE INSPECTED. THIS WAS, OF COURSE, DIFFICULT WITH A LOADED BOMBER, AND DOUBTLESS MANY GOOD CREWS WERE LOST DUE TO THE SHEER SLOG OF CONTINUAL SEARCHING AND A CONSEQUENT FALLING OFF OF EFFICIENT LOOKOUT.
THERE IS THOUGHT, HOWEVER THAT AS THE CANNON WERE, I BELIEVE, INCLINED AT 60 DEGREES ABOVE THE HORIZONTAL, IN ANY LIKELY FIRING ATTITUDE THE FIGHTER HAD TO BE BELOW, AND BEHIND, THUS WITHIN THE REAR GUNNERS FIELD OF SEARCH. PROVIDED NATURALLY IT WAS NOT TOO DARK TO SEE ANYTHING AT ALL!
MANY OF THE RADIAL ENGINED LANCASTER II WERE FITTED WITH AN EXTERNAL GUN POSITION OPERATED REMOTELY FROM WITHIN THE REAR FUSELARGE [sic], PROBABLY WITH A PERISCOPIC SIGHT VISIBILITY AT NIGHT WITH THE NAKED EYE IS OBVIOUSLY LIMITED AND MOST REAR TURRETS EVENTUALLY HAD THE PERSPEX PANEL FRONT OF THE GUNSIGHT REMOVED ENTIRELY. ANY FORM OR [sic] PERISCOPE WAS NO DOUBT FOUND TO HAVE SUCH A POOR FIELD OF VISION TO NOT JUSTIFY THE ADDITIONAL CREW MEMBER AND THE WEIGHT PENALTY INSTALLATION.
I HAVE INTERJECTED ONE OR TWO MATTERS FOR THE RECORD, AS THIS FORWARD TO THE DIARY FINISHES WITH COMPLETION OF THE COURSE AT WINTHORPE AND OUR POSTING TO 49 SQUADRON AT FISKERTON, A FEW MILES EAST OF LINCOLN, IN DECEMBER 1943.
A WORD ABOUT THE DEPTH OF TRAINING THE R.A.F. GAVE US. DESPITE THE WAR LOSSES OF PERSONNEL AND MATERIAL – MANY AND MUCH OR [sic] WHICH CAME BY HAZARDOUS SEA PASSAGES – THERE WAS NEVER ANY FEELING OF HASTE IN INSTRUCTING TRAINEES SO THEY COULD BE PASSED ON QUICKLY TO OPERATIONAL DUTIES.
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THE INSTRUCTING AND TRAINING SOMETIMES WAS UNIMAGINATIVE AND REPETITIVE, BUT IN THE OUTCOME IT WAS OF SUFFICIENT DEPTH FOR ONE TO ACHIEVE SOME SKILLS AND QUICK REACTION TO EVENTS. THIS IS PROBABLY TRUE OF THE OTHER SERVICES, AND SOMETHING FOR WHICH ALL TRAINEES SHOULD BE THANKFULL [sic]. HOWEVER, IT IS AN INEVITABLE FACT THAT IN WARTIME THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF TRAINING IS SUBJECT IN MANY RESPECTS TO LUCK, OR FATE, OR WHAT YOU WILL. THAT IS, BEING IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME OR BEING IN THE WRONG PLACE AT ANY TIME.
CONSIDER AIR COLLISIONS, A MATTER MUCH DISCUSSED IN THESE ‘80’S OBVIOUSLY IT CAN NEVER NOW BE KNOWN WHAT PROPORTION OF WARTIME LOSSES WERE DUE TO THIS CAUSE, BUT VISULISE [sic] THE FACTS. IN 1944 UP TO 800 OR SO BOMBERS TAKING OFF IN THE DARKNESS FROM DOZENS OF AIRFIELDS IN THE MIDLANDS AND EASTERN ENGLAND, NAVIGATION LIGHTS EXTINGUISHED BEFORE CROSSING THE COAST, ALL CLIMBING TOWARDS THE FIRST TURNING POINT. AS TIME TO BE OVER THE TARGET IS STAGGERD [sic] THROUGHOUT THE FORCE OVER A PERIOD OF SAY 20 MINUTES, AND THE NAVIGATOR FINDS SOME TIME MUST BE LOST, (DOG-LEGGING) IS RESORTED TO. SIMPLY THIS MEANS THE AIRCRAFT DIVERGES FROM THE COURSE BEING FOLLOWED AND RETURNS WHEN SUFFICIENT TIME HAS BEEN DROPPED.
THE IMPLICATION OF DELIBERATELY TURNING ACROSS THE PATHS OF MANY UNSEEN OTHERS AND RETURNING A LITTLE LATER STILL CHILLS ME. WHILST STILL OVER THE NORTH SEA IT WAS NOT UNUSUAL TO SEE AN EXPLOSION IN THE SKY, FOLLOWED BY BURNING DEBRIS, AND IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY PREVIOUS AIR TO AIR FIRING IT WAS REASONABLE TO ASSUME A COLLISION HAD OCCURRED. SOMEWHAT WORSE WAS WHEN THE TARGET WAS REACHED AND GROUND MARKERS HAD NOT BEEN DROPPED, OR WERE IN THE WRONG POSITION OR HAD BURNT OUT, AND IT WAS NECESSARY TO CIRCLE WHILST AWAITING FRESH MARKERS. CLEARLY, NOT ALL AIRCRAFT WOULD BE CIRCLING CONCENTRICALLY!
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THEN UPON RETURN TO ENGLAND THERE WOULD BE A CONVERGING OF THE THRONG, WHICH FOR VARIOUS REASONS WOULD BE FROM MANY DIRECTIONS. ONCE AGAIN WITHOUT NAVIGATION LIGHTS UNTILL CLOSE TO BASE (OR NOT AT ALL IF THE LUFTWAFFE WAS INFILTRATING THE STREAM HOPING TO FIND SOMEONE ASLEEP) WHERE WE CIRCLED HOPEFULLY WELL AWAY FROM ONE ANOTHER BEFORE BEING CALLED TO LAND. THIS WAS IRKSOME AT WOODHALL SPA BECAUSE BEING CLOSE TO CONINGSBY THE RING OF MARKER LIGHTS GUIDING AIRCRAFT AROUND EACH FIELD ACTUALLY INTERSECTED AND TO AVOID COLLISIONS AT THIS POINT WE ALL HAD TO FLY THE DOUBLE CIRCLE THUS CONSIDERABLY EXTENDING THE TIME TAKEN TO LAND. THIS PROCEDURE WAS OF COURSE PARTICULARLY TIRING TO THE PILOT WHO HAD BEEN AT THE CONTROLS CONTINUALLY FOR MANY HOURS.
THE POINT OF ALL THIS IS TO REITERATE THAT THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF TRAINING CANNOT NECESSARILY OVERCOME CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE THE ODDS ARE ADVERSELY STACKED. THE MIRACLE IS THAT SO MANY SURVIVED THESE ODDS; THE SADNESS THAT SO MANY CAPABLE CREWS WERE LOST, OFTEN THROUGH CAUSES OTHER THAN ENEMY ACTION. AN EXAMPLE OF THIS IS MENTIONED IN THE NOTES CONCERNING A RAID ON A TARGET NEAR RHEIMS ON THE 31ST OF JULY.
AS TO THE DIARY, WELL, THIS WAS WRITTEN UP SHORTLY AFTER EACH TRIP, USUALLY IN BED FOLLOWING THE TRADITIONAL SUPPER OR BREAKFAST OF EGG AND BACON. I HAVE NO RECOLLECTION WHY I WROTE IT, IT’S JUST THE SORT OF THING I USED TO DO. THE DIARY WAS MISSING FOR YEARS, BUT I HAD A FEELING IT WOULD RE-APPEAR, AND WHEN IT DID I DECIDED TO PROPERLY LAY IT OUT BEFORE IT WENT AGAIN. DESPITE WINCING AT THE STYLE AND PROSE OF THOSE TIMES I FELT IT RIGHT TO REPRODUCE IT VERBATIN [sic], WARTS AND ALL.
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[underlined] 6 – 1 – 44 STETTIN [/underlined]
FELT MORE INTEREST THAN NERVOUSNESS ON THIS TRIP – QUEER,. NOT TOO COLD AT 22,000 FEET, TARGET WELL ALIGHT. ENGAGED 109 WHICH WAS FINALLY SEEN WITH BROWN SMOKE POURING HEAVILY FROM THE ENGINE, OUR DAMAGE WASA [sic] FEW BULLETS FROM M.U. THROUGH THE FUSELAGE AND ONE THROUGH THE TURRET, SHAKY DO! SIX HOURS BACK – TERRIBLE, SAW SUN RISE OVER THE SEA, TEA NEVER SO WELCOME. SHORT OF FUEL, S.O.S. PREPARED, READY TO DITCH, FINALLY MADE IT AND LANDED AT THE FIRST DROME, LUDFORD MAGNA. PRETTY TIRED, 9 HOURS 50 MINUTES IN THE AIR. DICKENDS [sic] OF A JOB TO KEEP AWAKE, LUCKILY BAGS OF CLOUD, NEVER DID LAND LOOK MORE WELCOME AS THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] 109 WAS A SINGLE ENGINE MESSERSCHMITT AIRCRAFT, NORMALLY A DAY FIGHTER, BUT OCCASIONALLY SEEN AT NIGHT. WHEN THE ATTACK TOOK PLACE WE HAD JUST ENTERED AN AREA ILLUMINATED BY FLARES DROPPED BY HIGH FLYING GERMAN AIRCRAFT; THE FIGHTER APPROACHED FROM NEARLY DEAD ASTERN, FIRING – BUT MISSING – ALL THE WAY IN. AS I STARTED FIRING I SAW TRACER PASSING OVERHEAD FROM ROY MACHIN IN THE – UPPER TURRET (M.U.) AND ALTHOUGH INTERUPTER [sic] GEAR SHOULD HAVE PREVENTED HIS FIRE FROM DAMAGING OUR AIRCRAFT IN THIS INSTANCE IT DID NOT, FORTUNATELY WITOUT [sic] DISASTROUS RESULTS.
[underlined] 14 – 1 – 44 BRUNSWICK [/underlined]
FAIRLY COLD, -32 CALL LIGHT REPEATEDLEY [sic] FLASHED FOR NO GOOD REASON, HAD TO SMASH BULB HAVING NO WISH TO ADVERTISE OUR POSITION. CLEAR MOST OF THE WAY, 7/10 OVER TARGET, FIRES WERE NOT SO GOOD AS BEFORE, SAW 110 BUT DID NOT ENGAGE, LITTLE FLAK, BAGS OF SEARCHLIGHTS, NO OTHER FIGHTERS SEEN. SCARECROW FLARES SEEN, TWO LOADS JETTISONED NEAR TEXEL,. ENGINEER SHORT OF OXYGEN, DROPPED MY KNIFE WITH LEAFLETS. BACK AT 10-30 BEST LANDING JACK MADE. EGG, SAUSAGE, AND BACON FOR SUPPER, LOVELY;
[underlined] NOTES NEXT PAGE [/underlined]
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[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] CALL LIGHT WAS A SIGNALLING LIGHT AT ALL CREW STATIONS FOR USE IN CASE OF FAILURE OF THE NORMAL INTERCOM, IN THE GUNNERS POSITION IT COULD BE SEEN FROM OUTSIDE THE AIRCRAFT. 110 WAS A TWIN ENGINE MESSERSCHMITT, MUCH USED AGAINST THE R.A.F. AT NIGHT. SCARECROW FLARES GAVE THE EFFECT OF AN AIRCRAFT EXPLODING PRESUMABLY EMPLOYED AGAINST MORALE. WHEN BOMBS HAD TO BE JETTISONED THE RESULTING LINE OF EXPLOSIONS GAVE AN INDICATION OF ROUTE TO ANY NIGHT FIGHTERS IN THE AREA. BETTER THE BOMBS WERE DROPPED (SAFE) BUT THIS WAS UNDESIRABLE OVER ENEMY OR OCCUPIED TERRITORY AS THEY COULD BE RECOVERD [sic] AND EXAMINED. FUSES WERE OFTEN RE-DESIGNED TO FRUSTRATE, UNEXPLODED BOMBS BEING MADE SAFE BY THE ENEMY. TO BE HONEST, HOWEVER, IN AN EMERGENCY NECESSITATING JETTISONING A HEAVY LOAD IT SEEMS UNLIKELY THAT THE (SAFE) OR (LIVE) ASPECT WOULD OFTEN BE CONSIDERED! 7/10 INDICATED PROPORTION CLOUD/SKY.
[underlined] 20 – 1 – 44 BERLIN (MY BIRTHDAY) [/underlined]
NICE TRIP, FELT QUITE GOOD ALL WAY, EXCEPT USUAL SINKING FEELING OVER TARGET; THIS WAS WELL LIT UP, ANOTHER BROCKS BENEFIT, SCARECROWS AND ROCKETS ABOUT, FLAK NOT TROUBLESOME, NO FIGHTERS SEEN. DICKENS OF A JOB TO KEEP EYES OPEN LAST TWO OR THREE HOURS, EVEN STICKING HEAD INTO THE WIND DOESN’T HELP MUCH. MIKE WAS U/S FOR A PERIOD, HEARD SKIPPER SAY WAS I ASLEEP, CHEEK! FIRED TEST BURST OVER TARGET, GUNS O.K. WASN’T VERY COLD. CAME HOME A BIT QUICKER THAN USUAL, HOPE ALL TRIPS ARE AS PEACEFUL.
[underlined] Notes [/underlined] (MIKE) WAS MICROPHONE BUILT INTO OXYGEN MASK AND OFTEN FROZE DUE TO BREATH EXHALATION FREEZING. EVENTUALLY SMALL HEATERS WERE FITTED INTO THE MASK, AND THESE CURED THE PROBLEM.
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[underlined] 21 – 1 – 44 MAGDEBURG [/underlined]
HAD LITTLE TROUBLE OURSELVES, NO ENGAGEMENTS, A FEW FIGHTERS SEEN, BAGS OF FIGHTER FLARES AND SOME SCARECROWS. MIKE FROZE AS WE CAME ON TO THE TARGET, LUCKILY THERE WAS NO TROUBLE, IT BECAME U/S 1 HOUR FROM BASE. SPOOF ON BERLIN ABSOLUTELY USELESS, THERE BEING NO FLAK, FLARES OR ANYTHING, RAN INTO COASTAL FLAK ON RETURN, NO DAMAGE. TARGET WELL ALIGHT, LIKE STETTIN, 3/10 CLOUD. DON’T KNOW HOW I KEPT AWAKE AFTER LAST EFFORT, DARNED TIRED NOW.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] (SPOOF) WAS A DIVERSIONARY RAID, OFTEN CARRIED OUT BY MOSQUITO AIRCRAFT TO SOW DOUBT INTO THE GERMAN DEFENCES AS TO THE REAL TARGET. LIKE MANY THINGS IN WARTIME, SOME WORKED, OTHERS DID NOT.
[underlined] 27 – 1 – 44 BERLIN [/underlined]
VERY QUITE TRIP ON THE WHOLE, WARM TOO, TEMP. ABOUT – MINUS 20, DIFFICULT TO CLIMB – OVER TARGET AT .17,500 FEET. 10/10 CLOUD OVER CITY, NO FIGHTERS SEEN, THO’ OBVIOUSLY ACTIVE, QUITE A NUMBER OF FIGHTER FLARES, SAW ONE LANC. ONLY, NOT MUCH DOING OVER THE TARGET, QUEER. LONG ROUTE BACK, TERRIBLE BIND, ARRIVED AT ENGLISH COAST BANG-ON, DON’T KNOW HOW JOCK DOES IT. JACK WHEELED KITE IN, PERFECT LANDING NO TROUBLE WITH MIKE THESE DAYS.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] (JOCK) WAS THE NAVIGATOR JAMES BARRON, A CHEERFUL, SCOT WHO GUIDED US THERE AND BACK WITH LITTLE FUSS BUT WITH MUCH EXPERTISE. LIKE MOST BRITISH AIRCRAFT OF THE TIME, THE LANCASTER NORMALLY LANDED ON TWO MAIN WHEELS AND THE TAIL WHEEL, (THREE POINT) LANDING. OCCASIONALLY THE PILOT WOULD TOUCH DOWN ON ONLY THE TWO MAIN WHEELS, HOLDING THE TAIL WHEEL OFF THE RUNWAY UNTILL SPEED REDUCED. THIS WAS MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE FOR THE REAR GUNNER.
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[underlined] 29 – 1 – 44 BERLIN [/underlined]
THE BOYS WERE CERTAINLY WAITING FOR US TONIGHT, SAW COMBATS ALL THE WAY IN FROM THE COAST, BAGS OF FIGHTER FLARES, ROUTE LIKE PICCADILLY IN PEACE TIME. FIRED AT ORIGIN OF GREEN TRACER, SAW SOMETHING FALLING. TARGET HORRIBLY WELL LIT UP, HOW WE GET AWAY WITH IT BEATS ME, MARVELLOUS PRANG, FAR BETTER THAN PREVIOUS, SAW GLARE WHILE NEAR ROSTOCK ON THE WAY BACK. BAGS OF CLOUD MOST OF RETURN, - VERY USEFUL. CLOUD AT BASE DOWN TO 800 FEET, DON’T CARE FOR HEDGE HOPPING IN EARLY MORNING. VERY TIRED, BUT WE GO ON LEAVE TOMORROW!
[underlined] 15 – 2 – 44 BERLIN [/underlined]
10/10 CLOUD OVER MOST OF GERMANY, LITTLE TROUBLE EXCEPT AT TARGET, - LOADS OF FIGHTER FLARES AND FAIR AMOUNT OF FLAK BELOW, NO FIGHTERS SEEN. GENERATOR WENT U/S AFTER TARGET, GYRO COMPAS [sic] U/S, HAD TO USE P4. JACK MANAGED WELL. 23,000 FEET ON THE WAY BACK, SUITS NOT VERY USEFUL OWING TO LOW VOLTAGE. R/T U/S AT BASE, HAD TO USE VERY’S TO COME IN. TARGET NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT GENERALLY
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] I DON’T REMEMBER HOW MANY GENERATORS THERE WERE, BUT CLEARLY MORE THAN ONE! THE P4 WAS A STANDBY MAGNETIC COMPASS, QUITE RELIABLE BUT NOT SO EASY FOR THE PILOT TO FOLLOW AS WAS THE GYRO COMPASS REPEATER. (SUITS) REFERS TO ELECTRICALLY WARMED SUITS WORN BY BOTH GUNNERS. THERE WAS NO HEATING IN THE FUSELAGE AFTER THE MAIN SPAR AT THE WIRELESS OPERATORS POSITION, -- AND NOT A LOT FORWARD EITHER. VERY’S ARE SIGNALLING PISTOLS, USED HERE TO SEEK LANDING PERMISSION BY FIRING APPROPRIATETCOLOUR [sic] TO RUNWAY CONTROLLER IN THE CARAVAN, WHO SIMILARLY RESPONDED.
I NOTE FROM MY LOG BOOK THAT DURING THESE FIRST SEVEN OPERATIONS 261 AIRCRAFT WERE LOST. TOWARDS THE END OF FEBRUARY THIS INFORMATION WAS OMITTED, PRESUMABLY FOR BEING TOO GLOOMY TO INCLUDE.
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[underlined] 19 – 2 – 44 LEIPZIG [/underlined]
ON THE WAY OUT COULD GET NO GUN DEPRESSION, AGREED TO GO ON, FLACK AND SEARCHLIGHTS OVER COAST, SAW A NUMBER OF COMBATS, AND AIR WAS FAIRLY LIVELY ALL THE WAY TO THE TARGET; ARRIVED EARLY AND HAD TO STOOGE AROUND UNTILL THE MARKERS WENT DOWN. NOT A LOT OF OPPOSITION OVER TARGET, WHICH BLAZED UP QUITE WELL. SOON AFTER LEAVING THE TARGET OXYGEN TUBE DISCONNECTED FROM MASK, AND HAD TO COME HOME SUCKING TUBE – NOT VERY COMFORTABLE CLOUD MOST OF THE TRIP, COLD TOO – MINUS 30.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] ONE OF THOSE TRIPS; DESPITE PRE-FLIGHT AIR TEST, FAULT OCCURRED IN TURRET HYDRAULICS THAT PREVENTED GUNS BEING DEPRESSED BELOW HORIZONTAL. FORTUNATELY WE WERE NOT ATTACKED, - AND 79 AIRCRAFT WERE LOST.
[underlined] 20 – 2 – 44 STUTTGART [/underlined]
COLD TRIP, ABOUT 20,000 FEET MOST OF THE WAY, WENT OVER READING, FELT QUITE HOMESICK. VERY QUIET TRIP, COUPLE OF FLAK BURSTS OVER FRENCH COAST SHOOK ME A BIT. MIKE FROZE UP SOME TIME BEFORE TARGET, GETTING A REGULAR HABIT. 5/10 OVER TARGET, SAW BITS OF GROUND, GOOD PRANG, NOT MUCH FLAK, FIGHTER FLARES DID NOT ARRIVE UNTIL ABOUT 15 MINUTES AFTER LEAVING. HAD TO LAND AT DUNHOLME OWING TO TAKE-OFF CRASH AT BASE. PRETTY TIRED, BED LOOKED GOOD TO ME
[underlined] 24 – 2 – 44 SCHWEINFURT [/underlined]
ARRIVED AT THE SOUTH COAST IN TIME TO GET MIXED UP IN HUN RAID; CONED BY OWN SEARCHLIGHTS, LUCKILY COLOURS OF THE DAY DOUSED THEM BUT IT WAS PRETTY WARM. OVER THE OTHER SIDE IT WAS VERY QUIET, DIDN’T SEE ONE FIGHTER FLARE OR COMBAT. GOOD VISION, NO CLOUD, BOMBS WELL CONCENTRATED ON TARGET, BAGS OF SMOKE -----
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--- AND FIRES AS WE LEFT, AIRCRAFT CLIMBED WELL 23,000 FEET WAY BACK; FOR ONCE MIKE DIDN’T FREEZE, BUT ICE FORMED ON MASK OVER FRANCE.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] COLOURS OF THE DAY WERE FIRED FROM A VERY PISTOL FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES, RED/WHITE GREEN/RED ETC. COLOURS WERE CHANGED AT REGULAR INTERVALS, SOMETIMES EVERY 12 HOURS, LEST THE ENEMY USED THEM TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST OUR DEFENCES.
[underlined] 25 – 2 – 44 AUGSBURG [/underlined]
7 HOURS SLEEP, AND NO SQUARE MEAL BEFORE TAKE-OFF, BAD SHOW ARRIVED FRENCH COAST IN SOME LIGHT, PROMPTLY GOT SHOT-UP BY FIGHTER, FEW HITS ON PORT WING AND COCKPIT. LOTS OF ACTIVITY OVER FRANCE, SAW SEVERAL KITES GO DOWN. 30 MILES FROM TARGET LANCASTER BELOW SQUIRTED AT US, DAMAGED AIRCRAFT BEHIND DOOR SEVERELY, ON FIRE, ROY AND I PUT IT OUT, REAR TURRET U/S, NO OXYGEN, HAD TO GO FORWARD. BOMBS JETTISONED, STARBOARD ELEVATOR FABRIC STRIPPED, BALANCE TAB PRACTICALLY SHOT OFF, INTERCOM U/S, KITE DIFFICULT TO HANDLE, SKIPPER DID WIZARD JOB GETTING US HOME AND LANDING – SHAKY NIGHT.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] (SQUIRTED) – FIRED AT US FROM REAR TURRET. U/S – UNSERVICEABLE. THE FOLLOWING WAS ADDED TO MY DIARY ENTRY, UPON SUBSEQUENT EXAMINATION IT WAS FOUND THAT THE AIRCRAFT HAD BEEN HIT BY CANNON SHELLS SO IT SEEMS WE WERE HIT BY STRAY SHELLS AT THE IDENTICAL MOMENT THE LANCASTER FIRED. ALTERNATIVELY THE LUFTWAFFE WAS USING A CAPTURED LANCASTER WITH CANNON IN THE TURRET. THE 5 GROUP INVESTIGATOR THOUGHT IT HIGHLY UNLIKELY. WONDER IF WE’LL EVER KNOW? I STILL HAVE NO DOUBT AS TO WHAT I SAW THAT NIGHT. THE LANCASTER BELOW US WAS QUITE VISIBLE AT INTERVALS WHEN WE PASSED OVER PARTLY SNOW COVERD [sic] LAND, I HAD NOTICED IT EACH TIME THE TURRET WAS ROTATED IN THAT DIRECTION, AND NO ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED THAN I WHEN THE STREAM OF TRACER CAME TOWARDS US – AND WE WERE ON FIRE. THE DIRECTION OF THE SUSTAINED DAMAGE AND THE EXPLOSIVE EVIDENCE SUGGEST
S THAT POSSIBLY -------
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------- AND AT THE SAME TIME WE WERE STRUCK BY CANNON SHELLS FROM A NIGHT FIGHTER BELOW AND TO THE OTHER SIDE. IT SOUNDS A BIT THIN, BUT THE CASE WILL HAVE TO REST.
PILOT JOHN SANDERS WAS AWARDED A IMEADIATE [sic] D.F.C. THE WIRELESS OPERATOR ARTHUR WARD AND THE TWO GUNNERS ROY MACHIN AND RALPH BRIARS WERE AWARDED IMEADIATE D.F.M.
[underlined] 10 – 3 – 44 OSSUN [/underlined]
FIRST TRIP IN BRIGHT MOONLIGHT, FELT VERY OBVIOUS IN THE SKY, VISION ABOUT 3 MILES. EXPECTED BAGS OF FIGHTERS, BUT NONE SEEN, DIDN’T GET IT; OVER FRANCE AT 15,000 FEET TEMPERATURE MINUS 14, LOVELY, TARGET AT 8,000 FEET. CLEAR OVER OSSUN, HAD TO IDENTIFY TARGET FOR A CHANGE, WERE STOOGING AROUND FOR ABOUT 20 MINUTES BUT DIDN’T FEEL UNDULY WORRIED, - IT WAS TOO PEACEFUL. AL FINALLY SAW THE TARGET AND WE BOMBED, WE HAD D A’S SO DID NOT SEE RESULT, BUT SAW AND HEARD OTHER BOMBS GO OFF. SAW PYRENEES, LOKED [sic] GRAND BUT RATHER FORBIDDING. RATHER TIRED ON RETURN.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] AL WAS OUR CANADIAN BOMB-AIMER, D A’S WERE DELAYED ACTION BOMBS, JUST TO CONFUSE OUR FRENCH ALLIES, WHO NO DOUB-T [sic] HAQD TO DEFUSE THEM.
[underlined] 15 – 3 – 44 STUTTGART [/underlined]
BAGS OF OPPOSITION ON THE WAY IN, SAW SEVERAL COMBATS – AND SEVERAL GO DOWN, NOT SO GOOD, MAKES ONE WONDER WHO’S NEXT. FLAK HEAVY OVER TARGET, NO FIGHTER FLARES, SAW ONE COLLISION. BIT IF [sic] A MIX UP, PFF LATE, FEW T I’S UNTILL WE LEFT, APEARED [sic] TO BE QUITE A GOOD BLAZE ON TARGET LATER. VERY QUIET RETURN, SAW NOTHING; CLOUDS UP TO 20,000 FEET IN PLACES, CON TRAILS APPEARD [sic] NEAR FRENCH COAST, MOON BRIGHT, EXPECTED TROUBLE, NONE CAME.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] PFF WAS PATH FINDER FORCE WHO IDENTIFIED THE TARGET AND DROPPED TARGET IDENTIFIERS – COLOURED GROUND MARKERS WHICH THE MAIN FORCE FOLLOWING BEHIND SIGHTED UPON -----
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----- AND THESE WERE BACKED UP AS NECESSARY AS THR [sic] RAID PROGRESSED SO POOR OLD PFF HAD TO CIRCLE AROUND UNTIL EVERYONE HAD DONE THEIR BIT, NOT AN ENVIABLE JOB; CON. TRAILS THEN, AS NOW, OCCUR WHEN AIR CONDITIONS ARE SUCH THAT WATER VAPOUR IN EACH ENGINE’S EXHAUST BREEZES [sic] AND TRAILS ALONG WHITE PLUME, JUST RIGHT FOR A NIGHT FIGHTER TO FOLLOW. CHANGING HEIGHT DOWNWARDS WAS THE CURE AND THE PILOT PROMPTLY DID SO ON HEARING THE WAILS FROM THE GUNNERS.
[underlined] 30 – 3 – 44 NUREMBURG [/underlined]
VERY COLD TRIP, OPPOSITION HEAVY SOUTH OF RHUR, FULL MOON NO CLOUD TO KEEP FIGHTERS DOWN. USUAL TROUBLE, ROUTE TOO LONG, JERRY MARKING TRACK ON BOTH SIDES WITH COLOURED FLARES, 96 AIRCRAFT LOST A.M. WILL HAVE TO REVISE ROUTING METHODS. SAW AT LEAST A DOZEN KITES SHOT DOWN, BAD FOR MORALE IF NOTHING ELSE, SEVERAL ROCKETS OBSERVED. TARGET LOOKED POOR, THICK FLAK AT 17,000 TO 19,000 FEET. WAY BACK AGONY TO SIT TWO HOURS AND KEEP AWAKE. PERHAPS DAYLIGHTER WOULDN’T BE SUCH A STRAIN. TIRED AS HELL, BED;
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] THE LOSSES ON THIS RAID WERE THE WORST SUSTAINED DURING ONE OPERATION. AIR CHIEF MARSHALL HARRIS LATER SAID THAT AGAINST AN EXPERIENCED, WILY ENEMY, WHO WAS FAMILIAR WITH MOST OF OUR AIR WAR STRATAGEMS BY 1944, THINGS WERE INEVITABLE OCCASIONALLY DISASTROUS. SEEMINGLY THE LONG STRAIGHT ROUTE LEGS WERE, HOPEFULLY, A RUSE TO SUGGEST TO THE LUFTWAFFE THAT WE WERE GOING TO NUREMBURG, WHERE UPON THEY WOULD, BY EXPERIENCE, SUSPECT WE WOULD SUDDENLY DIVERT ELSEWHERE AND DISPOSE THEIR FORCES ACCORDINGLY, THIS TIME THEY WERE NOT DECEIVED. TRULY ONE CANNOT WIN’EM ALL, PARTICULARLY IN WARTIME. REFERENCE TO (DAYLIGHTS) REFERRED TO DAY OPERATIONS, OF WHICH AT THAT TIME, WE HAD NO EXPERIENCE. WHEN, LATER, WE FLEW MANY SUCH RAIDS, I ADDED A FOOTNOTE TO THIS DIARY ENTRY – AFTER 22 DAYLIGHT TRIPS I FOUND THIS TRUE – WELL, THERE’S NO ACCOUNTING FOR TASTES.
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FOLLOWING THR NUREMBURG TRIP WE WERE POSTED, QUITE SUDDENLY AND FOR WHATEVER REASON, TO 617 SQUADRON AT WOODHALL SPA, NORTH OF BOSTON LINCOLNSHIRE. THE MUCH PUBLICISED RAIDS ON THE GERMAN DAMS AT MOHNE, SORPE AND EDER WERE CARRIED OUT BY THIS SPECIALLY FORMED SQUADRON, WHICH WAS SUBSEQUENTLY, THOUGH NOT ENTIRELY RETAINED FOR SPECIALISED OPERATIONS. LEONARD CHESHIRE WAS THE WING COMMANDER WHEN WE ARRIVED AND HE WAS REPLACED BY WILLY TAIT IN JULY, I THINK BOTH WERE OF SIMILAR MOULD AND MUCH RESPECTED.
[underlined] 18 – 4 – 44 JUVISY RAILWAY YARDS – PARIS [/underlined]
DARK NIGHT, 10,000 FEET ALL THE WAY, TEMPERATURE MINUS 5,. DROPPED FLARES TO HELP MOSQUITOES IDENTIFY MARSHALLING YARD, THEN CIRCLED AND BOMBED THEIR MARKER, SAW ONE MOSQUITO CIRCLING AT 2-3000 FEET APPARENTLY UNCONCERNED AT WHAT LITTLE FLAK THERE WAS, IMAGINED BOMBS SHOOK IT RATHER. NO FIGHTERS, FLAK SHIP IN THE CHANNEL FIRED AT US, WISH WE HAD BEEN LOW ENOUGH TO DO THE SAME. CIRCLED BASE FOR 50-55 MINUTES BEFORE COMING IN, - SHADES OF FISKERTON.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] MOSQUITOES WERE TWIN ENGINE AIRCRAFT, LARGELY BUILT OF PLYWOOD AND GLUED TOGETHER. FAST AND HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL IN VARIOUS ROLES – NIGHT FIGHTERS, BOMBERS THAT COULD DROP 4000 POUNDS ON BERLIN, RECONNAISSANCE AND CLANDESTINE MISSIONS INCLUDING CONVEYING DIPLOMATS AND OTHERS IN THE (VERY COLD) BOMB BAY BETWEEN BRITAIN AND SWEDEN. BOTH CHESHIRE AND TAIT USED THESE FOR TARGET MARKING, LATER CHANGING TO ANOTHER EXCELLENT DESIGN, THE ROLLS-ROYCE ENGINE MUSTANG FIGHTER. PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWED AN UNUSUALLY CONCENTRATED BOMBING PATTERN, AT THE TIME WE DID NOT FULLY APPRECIATE THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS RAIL DISRUPTION SIX WEEKS OR SO BEFORE THE JUNE INVASION OF FRANCE. REFERENCE TO FISKERTON IS DUE TO THE GOOD OLD HABIT OF BELIEVING THE LAST WAS BETTER THAN THE NEW; ------
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------ INITIALLY I THINK WE FELT PROCEDURE AT WOODHALL WAS NOT TO THE STANDARD OF FISKERTON, IN OTHER WORDS WE WERE KEPT WAITING FOR OUR SUPPER; THIS SOMETIMES WAS DUE TO HAVING TO FLY AROUND TWO OUTER MARKER CIRCLES OF LIGHTS WHEN NEARBY CONNINGSBY WAS ALSO RECEIVING AIRCRAFT, AS MENTIOND [sic] IN THE FORWARD. TO BE FAIR, THOSE IN THE CONTROL TOWER WERE NO DOUBT JUST AS ANXIOUS TO GET US DOWN QUICKLY AS WE WERE; ONE’S FIRST DUTY WAS TO THE KING, THE SECOND TO GRUMBLE ABOUT THE METHOD OF SO DOING ..
[underlined] 20 – 4 – 44 PARIS – LA CHAPPELLE [/underlined]
INTRUDERS OVER AS WE TOOK OFF, STARTS STRAIN AT ONCE, STILL THERE WAS NO APPARENT TROUBLE. QUIET ALL IN AND OUT, BOMBED AT 11,500 FEET, TARGET, BEING NEARER THE CENTRE OF THE CITY, HAD QUITE A BIT OF MEDIUM AND LIGHT FLAK. LONG STRINGS OF RED AND GREEN CAME ALL ROUND, BURSTING ABOUT 1000 FEET BELOW, WITH BRIGHT SPARKLING FLASHES – PRETTY; AL WELL AND TRULY HIT THE YARDS WITH OUR BOMBS, CARRIED 12 X 1000 LBS BOMBS, NICE LOAD. SAW MOSQUITO RUN INTO AREA – AND SHOOT HELL OUT OF THEM. TEMPERATURE MINUS 5.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] (INTRUDERS) WERE NIGHT FIGHTERS PROWLING AROUND FOR SOMEONE LEAVING THEIR NAVIGATION LIGHTS ON TOO LONG AFTER TAKE-OFF MIND YOU, A TRICKY DECISION. LEAVE THEM ON FOR FRIENDS TO SEE – AND THE LUFTWAFFE, TURN THEM OFF AND RISK A COLLISION.
[underlined] 22 – 4 – 44 BRUNSWICK [/underlined]
LITTLE FIGHTER OPPOSITION IN OR OUT, CONDITIONS HAZY OVER TARGET ABOVE 18,000 FEET, SO WE DIVED THROUGH TO ABOUT 16,000 FEET TO BOMB, PFF A FEW MINUTES LATE SO IT WAS A NIGHT-MARE OF KITES COMING IN ALL DIRECTIONS. HEARD FLAK BURSTING FOR THE FIRST TIME, TARGET WAS WELL ON FIRE. LONG TRIP BACK, TO AVOID ANOTHER LANCASTER JACK DIVED SO SUDDENLY AND STEEPLY MY NEW THERMOS WAS BROKEN, MY KNEE BRUISED AND ALL THE AMMUNITION WAS THROWN OUT OF THE TANKS. -----
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----- INTRUDERS ALL THE WAY HOME, DARNED NUISANCE BUT WE HAD NO TROUBLE, TEMPERATURE MINUS 15 TO MINUS 20
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] AS MENTIONED IN THE FOREWARD, CIRCLING THE TARGET WHILST AWAITING MARKERS TO BE DROPPED BY THE PATHFINDERS WAS NOT THE MOST DESIRABLE OCCUPATION. LOOK AT THE MOANS AND GROANS, TOO, DON’T YOU KNOW THERE’S A WAR ON.
[underlined] 24 – 4 – 44 MILAN (ABORTED) [/underlined]
OUR FIRST BOOMERANG; (EARLY RETURN TO BASE) SHORTLY AFTER TAKE-OFF AN OIL PIPE IN THE TURRET BURST AND IN A FEW MINUTES THERE WAS NO OIL IN THE SYSTEM, - MOST OF IT WAS ON ME. AFTER A BIT OF NATTERY WE DECIDED TO RETURN, REMEMBERING THE LEIPZIG TRIP, AND IN VIEW OF A LONG JOURNEY – MILAN. PITY, BUT IT WAS THE BEST THING, BESIDES, WE GO ON LEAVE TOMORROW.
[underlined] 6 – 6 – 44 2ND FRONT (D-DAY) [/underlined]
AFTER NEARLY SIX WEEKS OF VERY BORING TRAINING AND INACTION WE DID OUR STUFF – SLINGING OUT WINDOW TO SIMULATE A CONVOY AND TO CONFUSE POOR JERRY; BY THE LACK OF OPPOSITION DURING TROOP LANDINGS IT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN A USEFUL TRIP. TOOK TWO CREWS IN ONE KITE, ROY AND I TOOK TURNS AS FRONT GUNNER, QUITE A CHANGE. SAW SOME OF THE SHIPPING IN THE CHANNEL – GRAND SIGHT – ALSO THE LUFTWAFFE APPARENTLY ATTACKING A CONVOY, ONE SHIP CAUGHT FIRE AND BLEW UP. LOTS OF TUGS AND GLIDERS SEEN GOING OVER. QUIET TRIP.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] (WINDOW) WAS METALLIC COATED STRIP DROPPED TO CONFUSE ENEMY RADAR. WE FLEW OVAL COURSES, EACH CIRCUIT BEING PROGRESSIVELY NEARER FRANCE. THE INTERVALS OF DROPPING THE FOIL MATCHED THE SPEED OF AN IMAGINARY CONVOY IN THE CHANNEL APPROACHING THE COAST MILES TO THE EAST OF THE ACTUAL LANDING AREA IN NORMANDY -------
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------ I AM NOT NOW SURE, BUT POSSIBLY ANOTHER SQUADRON WAS WITH US. TWO CREWS BECAUSE OF THE QUANTITY OF WINDOW TO BE DROPPED. AGAIN, MANY AIRCRAFT ORBITING UNSEEN TO EACH OTHER OVER A FOUR HOUR PERIOD IN QUITE A NARROW SPACE. I DOUBT THE BLOOMIN’ INFANTRY BELOW CONCIDERED [sic] THERE WAS A LACK OF OPPOSITION! WE CAN ONLY HOPE OUR EFFORTS SOMWHAT [sic] REDUCED THE PRESSURE.
[underlined] 8 – 6 – 44 SAUMER (FRANCE) [/underlined]
FLEW THROUGH CLOUD MOST OF THE WAY THERE AND BACK, WEATHER CLEAR OVER TARGET. USUAL SCHEME, H2S KITES DROPPED FLARES AND MOSQUITOES MARKED WITH RED SPOT FIRES. SQUADRON CARRIED 12,000 POUNDER BOMBS, - LOOK LIKE TORPEDOES – AND WE TOOK 1,000 POUNDERS TO ATTACK NEARBY BRIDGE, WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE FAIRLY UNSUCESSFUL [sic]. BIG BOMBS MADE COLOSSAL FLASH AND WE SAW EARTH FLUNG TO HELL OF A HEIGHT, THIS WAS SUCESSFUL! FLAK FROM ONE GUN BURST AT OUR HEIGHT BUT ONLY IN ONE AREA, SO WE CIRCLED ROUND IT – NO FIGHTERS ARRIVED, - NO TROUBLE, DIVERTED TO METHERINGHAM AIRFIELD TO LAND BECAUSE OF LOW CLOUD.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] SAUMER WAS ON THE MAIN RAIL LINK TO NORTHERN FRANCE AND THE OPERATION WAS TO PREVENT PANZER DIVISIONS ARRIVING AT THE DEVELOPING BRIDGEHEAD AT NORMANDY. THERE ARE PICTURES SHOWING HOW COMPLETELY THE TUNNEL WAS BLOCKED. H2S WAS AN EARY [sic] FORM OF RADAR THAT GAVE THE NAVIGATOR A RATHER POOR PICTURE ON HIS VDU OF THE GROUND BELOW. RIVERS AND ESTUARIES SHOWED UP QUITE WELL, OTHER FEATURES WERE NOT EASILY DISTINGUISHABLE. THE EXTERNAL SCANNER WAS CONTAINED IN A PROMINENT HALF-EGG SHAPE HOUSING BELOW THE AIRCRAFT. THIS TRIP WAS THE FIRST TIME WE HAD COME ACROSS THE 12,000 LB. BOMB, CODE NAME (TALLBOY) AND WE SUBSEQUENTLY DROPPED MANY ON SPECIALIST TARGETS. THEIR TAIL FINS WERE OFFSET, AND WHEN DROPPED FROM NEARBY AIRCRAFT ONE COULD OBSERVE THEM STARTING TO SPIN AS THEY RAPIDLY FELL OUT OF SIGHT. MY LOG BOOK REVEALS THAT WITH CAPTAIN SANDERS I WENT TO METHERINGHAM BY ROAD TO FLY OUR LANCASTER BACK TO WOODHALL. AS FLIGHT ENGNEER [sic] (TEMPORARY UNPAID) I THINK I WAS PERMITTED TO RAISE THE UNDER-CARRIAGE (MY FINEST HOUR.)
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[underlined] 14 – 6 – 44 LE HAVRE [/underlined]
FIRST DAYLIGHT RAID – OVER THE TARGET ABOUT 10-30 P.M. FLEW IN FORMATION GOING, SOME SIGHT, WENT AS FRONT GUNNER AS WE STILL HAVE NO KITE OF OUR OWN. SECOND TO BOMB – WITH TALLBOY – TARGET QUIET UNTILL A FEW MINUTES BEFORE DROPPING THE BOMB, THEN THEY LET LOOSE BAGS OF LIGHT AND MEDIUM FLAK, PREDICTED, TOO AS BOMB LEFT FLAK HIT STARBOARD INNER ENGINE AND TOP TURRET, GUNNER OK, ENGINE HAD TO BE FEATHERED. E BOAT PENS, 25 FEET THICK, WERE HIT, GOOD BOMBING. SAW PART OF SPITFIRE ESCORT, NO ENEMY FIGHTERS SEEN, INTERESTING TRIP.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] THE LANCASTER WE FLEW FROM FISKERTON WHEN POSTED TO 617 SQUADRON IN APRIL 1944 REMAINED A 49 SQUADRON AIRCRAFT, ALTHOUGH WE USED IT ON SEVERAL OPERATIONS PENDING IT’S RETURN TO THAT SQUADRON. EVENTUALLY WE WERE ALLOCATED A 617 AIRCRAFT THAT HAD BEEN REPAIRED AFTER A SPOT OF BOTHER LATE IN 1943. OMINOUSLY NUMBERED ME562, IT NEVERTHELESS SERVED US WELL OVER NINE MONTHS FOR NINETEEN OR SO OPERATIONS, SURVIVED THE WAR AND WAS SOLD OUT OF SERVICE IN JANUARY 1947. BY CONTRAST, OF THE TWELVE OTHER OPERATIONAL LANCASTERS WE HAD FLOWN IN – EITHER ON RAIDS OR PRACTICE BOMBING OR OTHER EXERCISES – ONLY TWO SURVIVED, ONE BEING THE FIRST WE HAD FLOWN IN ON A CROSS-COUNTRY EXERCISE ON ARRIVAL AT FISKERTON.
[underlined] 15 – 6 – 44 BOULOGNE [/underlined]
FOUND PORT OUTER ENGINE MOUNTING HAD ALSO BEEN HIT AFTER LAST NIGHT, SO IT HAD TO BE CHANGED, THIS MADE US FORTY MINUTES LATE TAKING OFF BUT WE GOT OVER THE TARGET SHORTLY BEFORE REST OF KITES LEFT, VISIBILITY WAS VERY BAD WITH LOW CLOUD AND WE WERE TOLD TO RETURN TO BASE. BOB KNIGHTS, BEING A KEEN TYPE AND IN VIEW OF THE WORK THE GROUND CREW HAD DONE DECIDED TO BOMB. BAGS OF LIGHT AND MEDIUM FLAK, HOT FOR A FEW MINUTES, REAR TURRET AND OIL TANK HIT, NO ONE INJURED. TARGET LOOKED QUITE A MESS WHEN WE LEFT, SAW LITTLE FIGHTER COVER. TARGET HEIGHT 7,500 FEET. ------
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------ [underlined] NOTES [/underlined] HERE AGAIN, I FLEW WITH THE SAME PILOT AS THE DAY BEFORE. WHAT NOW PUZZLES ME IS WHY I FLEW FIVE SUCCESSIVE TRIPS WITH BOB KNIGHTS, AS FRONT GUNNER. WHAT WAS THE THEN P.O. SANDERS DOING ALL THIS TIME? I HAVE A FEELING HE WAS AWAY HAVING A BABY, FOR I HAVE A FAINT RECOLLECTION OF A CONSTANT AIR OF CRISIS CONCERNING THE EVENT. THERE WERE EVEN STRONG RUMOURS THAT A LANCASTER HAD BEEN BORROWED TO FURTHER THE ABOUT-TO-BE-FARTHER’S [sic] CAUSE.
[underlined] 19 – 6 – 44 WATTEN (PAS DE CALAIS) [/underlined]
TOOK OFF ABOUT 6 PM IN TRUE FIGHTER STYLE, ONE EACH SIDE OF THE RUNWAY, FLEW OVER IN FORMATION OF FIVE, WEATHER PERFECT. FIGHTER COVER OF SPITFIRES., MET US AT ORFORDNESS. TARGET 10-12 MILES INLAND, SAW RESULTS OF THE MARAUDERS WORK IN LOTS OF PLACES, A LITTLE FLAK OUTSIDE TARGET AREA DIDN’T TROUBLE US. CIRCLING FOR ABOUT 20 MINUTES BEFORE WING COMMANDER GAVE THE OK TO BOMB, TARGET DIFFICULT IT WAS IN A CLEARING ON THE EDGE OF A WOOD. BOMBING FAIR, BOMBAIMER’S [sic] A BIT DISAPPOINTED WITH RESULTS, WATCHED THE REST OF THE AIRCRAFT COMING IN TO BOMB AND THEN CAME HOME. BELIEVE BANDITS TURNED UP AS MOSQUITOES LEFT – GOOD SHOW, FLEW AT 17,000 FEET.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] THE OPERATION WAS AGAINST FLYING BOMB SITES AS WERE MANY OTHERS THIS MONTH AND AGAIN IN JULY. (MARAUDERS) WERE TWIN ENGINE AMERICAN BOMBERS MUCH USED BY THE TACTICAL AIR FORCES.
[underlined] 4 – 7 – 44 ST-LEV-D’ – ESSERENT (PARIS) [/underlined]
FULL MOON – EXPECTED – AND HAD A RECEPTION AS AT NUREMBURG, SEARCHLIGHT BELT JUST INSIDE COAST ANNOYING BUT NO FLAK. COMBATS SEEN ALL THE WAY IN AND OUT, AT TARGET WE TURNED AND HAD THE MOON BEHIND, HARDLY HELPFUL; FIGHTERS CAME IN FROM ALL DIRECTIONS, NEVER SEEN SO MUCH TRACER, GOT VERY MAD AND SCARED; ------
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------ JU88 AT LAST CAME NEAR ENOUGH TO GIVE IT TWO LONG SQUIRTS OF GUN FIRE AND IT APPEARED TO GO INTO ONE BIG BALL OF FIRE, LOST SIGHT OF IT BUT SKIPPER RECKONS IT BROKE IN HALF AND HIT THE DECK. UNABLE TO BOMB BECAUSE MARKERS INDEFINITE, PITY. FIGHTERS FOLLOWED ALL THE WAY TO OUR COAST, COULDN’T HAVE ANY COFFEE TILL WE GOT TO READING.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] TARGET HERE WAS A V.1 STORAGE DEPOT ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PARIS. V1’S WERE PILOTLESS FLYING BOMBS V2’S WERE THE LATER GUIDED ROCKETS. THE LAUNCH SITES OF BOTH WERE THE FOCUS OF MUCH BOMBING EFFORT, AND WERE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO LOCATE.
[underlined] 17 – 7 – 44 WIZERNES (FRANCE) [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 11 A.M FLEW IN LOOSE BUNCH TILL REACHING TARGET, CLOSED UP A LITTLE THERE. WEATHER GRAND, ABOUT 1/10 CLOUD COVER OVER FRANCE, TARGET VISABLE [sic]. TARGET AREA HEAVILY BOMBED. SPITFIRE ESCORT, SAW NO HUN FIGHTERS, NO FLAK AT ALL, GENERALLY ALL WAS REMARKABLY QUIET. BOMBING SEEMED GOOD – ALTOGETHER VERY NICE AND QUIET TRIP. HAD TWO EGGS FOR DINNER, WONDER WHAT THE CATCH IS.
[underlined] 25 – 7 – 44 WATTEN [/underlined]
TOOK OFF ABOUT 07-00 FAIRLY CLEAR, COOL. SKY CLEARED NICELY OVER THE CHANNEL, TARGET EASILY SEEN. WATCHED KITES BEHIND AS WE RAN IN, SO INTERESTED THAT I FORGOT ABOUT DEFENCES, AND THEY LET GO SOME VERY ACCURATE FLAK JUST BEFORE BOMB WENT DOWN. DESPITE ALL THIS BOMBS WERE WELL DROPPED, GRAND SHOW ON BOMBAIMERS [sic] PART. WEAVED LIKE HELL FOR A FEW MINUTES TILL CLEAR OF AREA, NEVER FELT OR HEARD FLAK SO NEAR – SLUNG OUT SOME WINDOW MYSELF, STARBOARD TAILPLANE SLIGHTLY DAMAGED. SAW ONE KITE HIT IN ENGINE, SMOKE POURED OUT, ENGINE WAS FEATHERD [sic] AND THEY GOT BACK HOME.
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[underlined] 31 – 7 – 44 RILLY-LA-MONTAGE (NEAR RHEIMS) [/underlined]
WENT WITH ABOUT 200 MAIN FORCE KITES, - MADE A SIGHT WORTH SEEING. TARGET 120-150 MILES INLAND, JUST SOUTH OF RHEIMS, ANTICIPATED SOME JERRY ACTIVITY BUT NONE APART FROM HEAVY FLAK IN TARGET AREA. TARGET IN WOOD, DEPOT FOR FLYING BOMBS, RESULTS APPEARED GOOD, DIFFICULT TO ASSESS DUE TO SMOKE. JUST MANAGED TO WEAVE OUT OF THE WAY OF A STICK OF BOMBS FROM KITE ABOVE. BILL REID V.C. WAS HIT THE SAME WAY AND WAS LOST – SEE NOTES. WEATHER QUITE CLEAR. SPITFIRE ESCORT. ONE PIECE OF FLAK IN AIRCRAFT NOSE, AL (BOMB AIMER) DIDN’T KNOW TILL WE LANDED.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] BILL REID’S AIRCRAFT WAS TO ONE SIDE AND BELOW US AND WAS HIT BEHIND THE TOP TURRET BY A BOMB THAT DID NOT EXPLODE BUT SO DAMAGED THE FUSELAGE THAT IT MOMENTARILY SAGGED, THEN BROKE IN TWO AND SPUN AWAY. MIRACULOUSLY, BILL AND ONE OF HIS CREW SURVIVED. DURING THE LUNCH FOLLOWING THE SQUADRON MEMORIAL DEDICATION IN 1987, BILL TOLD US OF HIS FEELINGS AS HE FELL FROM THE STRICKEN LANCASTER, KNOWING HE HAD WON A FEW POUNDS GAMBLING, (THERE GOES THAT B----- REID) THEY WOULD BE SAYING (TAKING OUR MONEY WITH HIM) A LOVELY CHAP.
[underlined] 5 – 8 – 44 BREST [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 09-45, CLIMBED ON TRACK FOR A CHANGE. WEATHER PERFECT, COUNTRYSIDE LOOKED GRAND, ESPECIALLY IN THE SOUTH WEST. SPITFIRE’S MET US OFF SIDMOUTH. TARGET U-BOAT PENS, DIDN’T FEEL SO HAPPY KNOWING BREST’S REPUTATION FOR FLAK, OVER 80 HEAVY GUNS TO BE SHARED AMONGST SIXTEEN KITES. AS WE RAN IN FLAK BANGED VERY CLOSE, BUT CLEARED FOR BOMBING RUN. GOOD RESULTS, FIVE PENS HIT, REST VERY CLOSE. SAW ONE PARACHUTE FROM KITE THAT WAS LOST, QUEER THING, IT APPEARED TO BE UNDER CONTROL BUT MADE NO EFFORT TO COME HOME. WE HAD FLAK THROUGH THE NOSE AND ONE ENGINE COVER.
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[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] THE AIRCRAFT LOST AT BREST WAS PROBABLY F/LT CHENEY’S, AND BRINCKHILL’S BOOK (THE DAM BUSTERS) HAS A VIVID DESCRIPTION OF WHAT HAPPENED TO IT AFTER RECEIVING DIRECT FLAK SHELLS. THE PILOT AND TWO OTHERS WERE PICKED UP BY A FRENCH FISHING BOAT AND LATER RETURNED TO THE SQUADRON, THE REST WERE NEVER FOUND.
[underlined] 6 – 8 – 44 LORIENT [/underlined]
TOOK OFF ABOUT 18-00, WEATHER AND FLIGHT PLAN AS BEFORE, PROBABLY; SAW AN AIRFIELD BEING SHELLED NEAR TARGET. FLAK STARTED EARLY BUT AT 16,000 FEET WE SEEMED TO BE IN A FREE BELT, AS ABOVE AND BELOW IT WAS VERY THICK. BOMBING RUN GOOD, ALTOGETHER IT DIDN’T APPEAR TO BE SUCH A GOOD EFFORT AS YESTERDAYS, BUT DIFFICULT TO TELL REALLY. HEAVY FLAK FOR A FEW MINUTES OUT OF THE AREA, HIT IN TAILPLANE AND SPINNER, NO KITES LOST. HOPE THERE ARE NO MORE PENS TO HIT, JERRY GETS ANNOYED SOMEWHAT.
[underlined] 9 – 8 – 44 LA PALLICE [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 10-00, WEATHER GOOD. BEING A BIT LATE WE CUT ACROSS COUNTRY, PASSED QUITE CLOSE TO ALDERNEY AND GUERNSEY, EVENTUALLY CAUGHT UP WITH THE REST NEAR FRENCH COAST. WENT NEAR TO LORIENT AND FOLLOWED COAST TO THE TARGET. RAN IN FROM THE SEA, NO FLAK UNTILL BOMB WENT, RESULTS GOOD EXCEPT FOR ONE BOMB THAT WENT A LONG WAY WIDE AND HIT THE HARBOUR WORKS INSTEAD OF THE PENS. FLAK MODERATE, HIT ON ONE SPINNER. QUITEA [sic] LONG TRIP, SAW NO ENEMY FIGHTERS, ESCORT OF MUSTANGS AND SPITFIRES, MOST OF THEM MET US ON THE WAY BACK – HELPFUL; SKIPPER AND ROY’S THIRTIETH TRIP.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] ALTHOUGH AIRCREWS NORMALLY FLEW TOGETHER UNDER ONE PILOT, THERE WERE OCCASIONS WHEN INDIVIDUALS WOULD JOIN OTHER CREWS, AS I DID FOR SEVERAL TRIPS WITH BOB KNIGHTS. THE REASONS WERE MANY, SICKNESS OF ONE MEMBER MIGHT RESULT IN A REPLACEMENT FROM ANOTHER CREW, OR THE VARIOUS TRADES MIGHT BE FARMED OUT TO OTHER CREWS NEEDING TEMPORARY STAFF. ------
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------- THUS DIFFERENT MEMBERS OF THE SAME CREW OFTEN HAD VARYING NUMBERS OF OPERATIONAL SORTIES TO THEIR CREDIT, I SEEM TO REMEMBER THAT ON ARRIVING AT 49 SQUADRON OUR PILOT, JOHN SANDERS, FLEW HIS FIRST FLIGHT OVER GERMANY AS SECOND PILOT, SO HE WAS ONE UP ON THE REST OF US ALREADY; I SUPPOSE THE IDEA WAS TO SEE IF HE LIKED THE EXPERIENCE. . . . THE FIRST TOUR WAS THIRTY OPERATIONS, THE SECOND FIFTEEN.
[underlined] 11 – 8 – 44 LA PALLICE [/underlined]
TOOK OFF ABOUT 11.30, LOAD 6 X 2.000 LD. [sic] ARMOUR PIERCING, DON’T KNOW WHAT USE THESE ARE AGAINST PENS, - OURS NOT TO REASON WHY. ROUTE AS YESTERDAY, AS WAS THE ESCORT. MUCH MORE FLAK ON RUN IN, SAW ONE KITE HIT AND CONTINUE ON THREE ENGINES, HEARD LOTS OF BURSTS, BOMBS WENT DOWN BANG ON TARGET, WE WERE HIT IN THE AIRCRAFT NOSE AND ONE ENGINE, NOTHING SERIOUS. LANDED AT GROVE, SHORT OF PETROL. HOPE THIS TARGET IS FINISHED, FLAK FAR TOO ACCURATE FOR COMFORT,
[underlined] 12 – 8 – 44 BREST [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 07-00 – 12 HOURS AFTER LANDING. WEATHER PRETTY FOUL, TRIED TO CLIMB THROUGH CLOUD, BECAME ICED UP, HAD TO REDUCE TO 11,000 FEET AND CLIMB OVER CHANNEL. ONLY EIGHT KITES ON THE RAID, EXPECTED TO BE SHOT TO HELL, BUT LUCKILY FLAK WAS LIGHTER AND LESS ACCURATE THAN BEFORE, - ONE FLAK SHIP IN THE HARBOUR. PENS APPEARED TO RECEIVE SEVERAL DIRECT HITS, SMOKE POURED FROM GAP IN THE ROOF, SMALL DENT IN SPINNER, NOT BAD TRIP, INTERCOM BETTER THAN YESTERDAY, SO CREW WAS MORE SOCIABLE; SAW NO ESCORT, EXCEPT USUAL MOSQUITO.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] IT SEEMS WE HAD MORE DENTED SPINNERS THAN ANYTHING ELSE, WHICH IS PROBABLY VERY FORTUNATE, CURIOUS REFERENCE TOA [sic] MOSQUITO AS ESCORT, WHEREAS I KNOW VERY WELL IT WAS THE MARKING AIRCRAFT. PERHAPS THE CRACKS WERE BEGINNING TO SHOW.
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[underlined] 13 – 8 – 44 BREST [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 08-30, WEATHER GOOD. TARGET FOR US WAS A SHIP IN THE HARBOUR THAT MIGHT BE USED AS A BLOCKSHIP, OTHERS BOMBED PENS, AND 9 SQUADRON SUPPORTING HAD ANOTHER VESSEL. FLAK; COR! IT WAS HOT, JUST LIKE FIRST TIME TO BREST HIT IN UNDERCARRIAGE AND HYDRAULICS, BEFORE OUR BOMB LOAD (12 X 1.000 POUNDERS) WENT DOWN, BAGS OF HOT OIL AND VAPOUR IN THE NOSE, PANIC FOR A FEW MINUTES; TOMMY’S HARNESS WAS HIT AND THERE WERE OTHER HOLES. SAW ONE KITE GO DOWN, STRAIGHT DOWN AND BURST ON THE SHORE, NASTY, ONE BURST OF FLAK WAS PINK, - GREMLINS GOT ME AT LAST; ALTOGETHER FAR TOO LIVELY FOR MY LIKING.
[underlined] 14 – 8 – 44 BREST [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 08-30, USUAL TIME, WEATHER GOOD. AFTER YESTERDAYS EFFORT FELT LOUSY ON THE WAY ANTICIPATING EVERY SORT OF TROUBLE, THE OLD TUMMY GETS A BIT SORE THINKING OF FLAK THESE DAY’S. TARGET – SHIP IN THE HARBOUR AGAIN, 9 SQUADRON SUPPORTING RAN INTO TARGET IN MORE N.W. DIRECTION – OVER – BAY HEIGHT 16,200 FEET, FLAK BOUNCED US ABOUT A BIT BUT IT WASN’T QUITE SO BAD. PIECES OF FLAK THROUGH JACK’S SCREEN, MID UPPER TURRET AND ONE ENGINE, NOTHING SERIOUS. SAW SEVEN STICKS OF BOMBS GO DOWN, EACH JUST MISSED THE SHIP, HOPE SOMEONE HIT IT OR BACK WE GO ANOTHER DAY. BOMB LOAD 6 X 2,000 POUNDERS, ARMOUR – PIERCING.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] (STICKS) WERE THE ENTIRE BOMB LOAD DROPPED BY EACH AIRCRAFT. IT WAS INFURIATING TO WATCH THE FOUNTAINS OF SPRAY APPEAR AS EACH BOMB HIT THE WATER ON EITHER SIDE OF THE VESSEL. I WONDER IF IT EVER SANK, WE DIDN’T GO TO BREST AGAIN, THANK GOODNESS, (THE SHIP WAS THE GERMAN CRUISER GUEYDON) WE THEN WENT ON TO MORE INTERESTING THINGS. -----
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[underlined] 11 – 9 – 44 KAA FIORD NORWAY (VIA RUSSIA) [/underlined]
THE BIG ONE AGAINST THE GERMAN POCKET BATTLESHIP [underlined] TIRPITZ [/underlined], WHICH HAD SO FAR LED A CHARMED LIFE DESPITE A VARIETY OF ATTACKS BY EVERY – BODY EXCEPT THE ARMY, - AND SURVIVED THE LOT AS THE VESSEL WAS OUT OF RANGE FROM BRITAIN THE PLAN WAS TO FLY TO YAGODNIK, AN ISLAND AIRFIELD UPSTREAM FROM ARCHANGEL, REFUEL, CARRY OUT THE RAID, REFUEL AGAIN IN RUSSIA AND RETURN TO LINCOLNSHIRE. AS ADDITIONAL PETROL HAD TO BE CARRIED THE TOP TURRET WAS REMOVED, TOGETHER WITH MUCH OF THE AMMUNITION FOR THE REAR TURRET, SOME OF THE RADAR AND THE EXHAUST COWS [sic] FROM EACH ENGINE, - WHICH SEEMED RATHER EXTREME AND MAY HAVE BEEN DONE UNDER THE OLD DICTUM THAT EVERY LITTLE HELPS. A 250 GALLON FUEL WAS INSTALLED IN THE FUSELAGE, AND THE LENGTH OF THE TANK NECESSITATED THE DEPARTURE OF THE TOP TURRET. WE CARRIED TWELVE 450 POUND BOMBS – WHICH I HAVE A FEELING WERE A SORT OF SEA MINE – AND OTHERS HAD THE 12,000 POUND “TALLBOY”. THERE WERE TWENTY LANCASTERS FROM 617 AND EIGHTEEN FROM 9 SQUADRON. THE DIARY ENTRY:
TOOK OFF 19-00, HEADED FOR NORWAY AT 2,000 FEET, CLIMBED TO 6,000 FEET AT THE COAST TO CLEAR THE MOUNTAINS, BIT CLOUDY, SAW GLIMPSES OF THE PEAKS AT TIMES. SWEDEN WAS WELL LIGHTED, EVEN SAW NEON SIGNS OCCASIONALLY, SOME FLAK IN ONE AREA, ONE KITE DAMAGED. AS IT BECAME LIGHTER WE DROPPED TO AVOID CLOUD AT 500-1,000 FEET, CROSSED WHITE SEA VERY LOW, LOOKED SOMEWHAT INHOSPITABLE AND COLD. EVENTUALLY FOUND ARCHANGEL IN THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER, AND AFTER SOME SEARCHING CAME ACROSS THE AIRFIELD ON A [sic] ISLAND DOWN STREAM. LANDED ON GRASS WITH BOMBS ON BOARD. QUARTERS IN A OLD RIVER STEAMER, HAD TO CLEAN OUT, WASHING AND SANITARY CONDITIONS LOUSY. MEALS GOOD GENERALLY, PLENTY OF EGGS, BUTTER AND SUGAR. TEA WITHOUT MILK – IN GLASSES – SLIGHTLY SOUR BREAD AND SPAM WILL BE REMEMBERD [sic]; --------;
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----- SWAPPED CIGARETTES FOR CAP BADGES, COINS, PAPER MONEY AND BUTTONS. ENTERTAINED EVERY NIGHT WITH CONCERTS, FILMS AND DANCES. BAND COULD EVEN PLAY (LAMBETH WALK) SAND AND GRASS FIELD, WEATHER SLIGHTLY COLDER THAN AT HOME.
TOOK OFF 09-30 ON SEPTEMBER 15TH LOOSE GAGGLE, 1,000 FEET, ROUTE OVER FINLAND, SWEDEN AND NORWAY, A GOD-FORSAKEN COUNTRYSIDE OF HILLS, RIVERS, TIMBER AND MARSHES. WE LED J.W. FORCE AND CAME IN FROM A DIFFERENT DIRECTION. TO THE MAIN FORCE. SAW SMOKE GENERATORS START UP A FEW MINUTES BEFORE BOMBING, NUISANCE. SAW J.W’S SWINGING DOWN ON PARACHUTES, WEIRD SIGHT, FLAK SCATTERD [sic] AND INACCURATE, SUPRISING [sic] AS WE BOMBED AT 11,000 FEET, NO FIGHTERS. ONE KITE ONLY DAMAGED.
TOOK OFF 19-15 ON THE 16TH TO RETURN HOME. WEATHER DULL, POOR VISIBILITY, 1,500 FEET OVER FINLAND, CLIMED [sic] TO 7,000 OVER SEA AND SWEDEN. DARK NIGHT, SAW SOME AIRFIELDS LIGHTED, OCCASIONAL LIGHT FLAK. BAD WEATHER JUST AFTER LEAVING SWEDEN, HAD TO DROP TO 4,000 FEET TO CLEAR CLOUD AND HEAVY RAIN, OFF TRACK, RAN OVER NORTH DENMARK, SEARCHLIGHTS EVADED BY USING CLOUD COVER, FLAK SHIPS A DARN NUISANCE OFF COAST. CARRIED THREE OF ROSS’S CREW BACK. BET THEY WERE COLD IN THE FUSEELARGE [sic]. GLAD TO SEE ENGLISH SEARCHLIGHTS AND AIRFIELDS AGAIN – AND REAL EGG, BACON AND CHIPS ON RETURN.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] RE READING THE DIARY REMINDS ME OF THE PROFICIENCY OF OUR NAVIGATOR, JAMES BARON, WHO SO SKILLFULLY [sic] GUIDED OUR WAY TO RUSSIA AND BACK, BASICALLY WITH ONLY HIS EXPERTISE, MAP, AND SIX PAIRS OF ANXIOUS EYES TO ASSIST. NO NAVIGATIONAL AIDS IN THAT PART OF THE WORLD, SEVERAL AIRCRAFT FORCE-LANDED IN THE AREA WHEN FUEL RAN OUT IN THEIR VAIN SERCH [sic] FOR THE LANDING FIELD; SO FAR AS I RECALL, NO ONE WAS LOST, THE RUSSIANS BROUGHT THEM ALONG IN VARIOUS ANCIENT LIGHT PLANES AT INTERVALS. THERE IS A PHOTO OF A DOWNED LANCASTER, IT’S 12,000 POUND TALLBOY BOMB HURLED FREE ON LANDING INPACT [sic] AND LAYING FORLORNLY IN THE MUD. A CONSIDERABLE DISTANCE FROM THE AIRCRAFT.
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THE CREWS INVOVLED [sic] WITH THESE CRASHED LANCASTERS CAME HOME IN OTHER AIRCRAFT AND THEIR AIRCRAFT LEFT IN RUSSIA.
THE RUSSIAN FILMS WERE TERRIBLE, LONG AFFAIRS OF CONTINUAL WAR SCENES, AND I SEEM TO RECALL THAT THE ROYAL NAVY CONTINGENT AT ARCHANGEL SENT SOME CARTOONS WHICH CHEERED US UP AND LEFT OUR HOSTS BAFFLED. LIVING AROUND THE AIRFIELD IN VARIOUS PRIMITIVE HUTS WERE SOME OF THE RUSSIAN STAFF, INCLUDING, NO DOUBT, THE LADIES WHO FELL ABOUT IN LAUGHTER WHEN ASKED FOR HOT WATER TO SHAVE WITH – SUCH WESTEN [sic] DECADENCE. THE MEN SPENT MUCH TIME PLAYING CARDS ON THE RIVER BANK. THEIR WIVES ONLY APPEARED WHEN CALLED TO HAVE LARGE TREE TRUNKS, THAT HAD FLOATED DOWN FROM THE URALS, HOISTED ON TO THEIR STURDY SHOULDERS BY THEIR CARING PARTNERS; IT WAS A PEACEFUL SCENE, ONLY DISTURBED BY THE SOUND OF CHOPPING AND SAWING WHILST THE INTERRUPTED CARD GAME CONTINUED. LENIN WOULD SURELY HAVE APPROVED. I JEST A LITTLE, WITHIN THE LIMITATION OF THE TIMES, THE RUSSIANS WE MET WERE GENERALLY KINDLY, GENEROUS HOSTS. THEY BEAT US HANDSOMELY AT FOOTBALL TOO.
THE WAIT FOR SUITABLE WEATHER ACCOUNTED MAINLY FOR THE FEW DAYS THAT PASSED BEFORE ATTACKING THE (TIRPITZ) AND THE TIME WAS PROBABLY USEFUL TO ENABLE SOME AIRCRAFT SERVICING TO BE DONE. I THINK OUR J.W. BOMBS WERE KNOWN FOR SOME REASON AS JOHNNY WALKERS, AND AS DESCRIBED, THEY FLOATED GENTLY DOWN ON PARACHUTES. IF THEY HIT SOMETHING SOLID THEY EXPLODED ON CONTACT, IF THEY FELL INTO THE WATER THEY WOULD SINK ARMED THEM SELVES AND RISE TO THE SURFACE HOPEFULLY DETONATING UNDER A SHIP IF NO TARGET WAS FOUND THEY WOULD SINK AGAIN AND MOVE 30 FEET AND REPEAT.
AT THE TIME OWING TO THE SMOKE SCREEN THE RAID WAS NOT THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN THAT SUCCESSFUL, BUT LATER IT WAS FOUND THAT TALLBOY NEAR MISSES HAD DAMAGED THE SHIP AND PREVENTED IT FROM RETURNING TO THE SEA.
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THE TAKE-OFF TO RETURN HOME TO ENGLAND WAS AN INTERESTING SIGHT FOR ONLOOKERS, AS REFUELLING HAD TO BE DONE WITH THE ONLY AVAILABLE LOWER OCTANE RATED PETROL SO THERE WAS SOME ENGINE COUGHING AND BANGING AS EACH LANCASTER SPED ALONG THE SO CALLED RUNWAY AND FINALLY STAGGERD [sic] INTO THE AIR.
[underlined] 23 – 9 – 44 DORTMUND-EMS CANAL [/underlined]
NIGHT TRIP AGAIN – DARNED IF I LIKE ‘EM TARGET – AQUEDUCT CARRYING CANAL ACROSS A RIVER, LOAD TALLBOY. HAD FIRST SHAKING WHEN TWO KITES COLLIDED OFF THE COAST; THEN ANTI-RADAR LIGHTS WERE LEFT UNCOVEREDAND [sic] FLASHES ALL ROUND THE TRIP. QUEER THINGS, RED GREEN AND YELLOW FLARES, ENORMOUS FLAK BURSTS, KITES GOING DOWN WITHOUT COMBAT, - NO TRACER USED BY FIGHTERS, I GUESS. SPOT FIRE JUST UNDER CLOUD, HAD SEVERAL TRIES TO BOMB, BUT IT BECAME COVERED JUST BEFORE RELEASE SO WE BROUGHT THE BOMB BACK FELT VERY TIRED AND SHAKEN ON RETURN, CURSE THE DARKNESS.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] I DON’T REALY [sic] RECOLLECT BEING UNDULY DISTURBED ABOUT OPERATIONS, BUT IT SEEMS THERE IS JUST A HINT OF BOTHER WITH MY DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENTS. USUALLY UNSYMPATHETICALLY REFERRED TO AS THE TWITCH, IT WAS QUITE OFTEN EVIDENT IN THE DEMEANOUR OF THOSE IN THEIR THIRD OR FOURTH TOUR.
[underlined] 29 – 10 – 44 KEMS BARRAGE (ON THE RHINE) [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 13-10 PLAN SEVEN KITES TO BOMB AT 7-6,000 FEET, SIX AT [underlined] 600 [/underlined] FEET, WE WERE ONE OF THE SIX, OF COURSE AFTER THE DRAW, MUSTANGS AS ESCORT AND ANTI-FLAK. WE BOMBED FIVE MINUTES AFTER HIGH FORCE, RAN IN TWO ABREAST DROPPING TALLBOY WITH DELAYED ACTION. NOT A LOT OF FLAK, BUT MACHINE GUNS VERY ACCURATE WHICH HIT TWO KITES AFTER BOMBING, THEY HIT THE DECK – HARD, SO ONLY FOUR OUT OF THE SIX MADE IT. MY PERSPEX WAS SHATTERED TWO SPLINTERS IN MY SHOULDER, (NOTHING MUCH) BLAZED AWAY AT FLAK POSTS, VERY HAPPY; AL’S BOMB ZIPPED OVER BARRAGE TOP, GATES FINALLY GAVE AWAY, GOOD JOB.
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[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] THIS WAS A PRE-EMPT EFFORT TO FORESTALL THE GERMANS FROM RELEASING THE PENT UP WATERS OF THE RHINE WHEN ALLIED GROUND FORCES WERE ABOUT TO CROSS. THE EFFECT OF A CONSIDERABLE HEAD OF WATER UPON TEMPORARY BRIDGES MAY BE IMAGINED. DURING A SWISS HOLIDAY IN THE MIDDLE 80’S WE TOOK A VERY FRAGILE BOAT TRIP TO A ROCKY ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RHINE FALLS AT SCHAFFHAUSES, WHERE THE VIBRATION GRAPHICALLY DEMONSTRATED THE WEIGHT OF THE WATER FLOWING BY. THE TWO AIRCRAFT THAT WAS SHOT DOWN PILOTED BY (S/L WYNESS AND F/O HOWARD) IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT WYNESS AND HIS CREW MANAGED TO GETOUT [sic] OF THEIR AIRCRAFT AND INTO THE DINGHY TO SAIL DOWN THE RHINE TO GAIN THE SANCTUARY OF THE SWISS BANK BUT WERE SHOT BY THE GERMANS. PILOT JOHN SANDERS WAS AWARDED BAR TO HIS D.F.C.
[underlined] 29 – 10 – 44 TIRPITZ – TROMSO [/underlined]
TOOK OFF FROM LOSSIE MOUTH AT 2 A.M. AND LANDED BACK AT 2-55P.M. – DID I FEEL DONE. CROSSED NORWEGIAN COAST AT DAWN AND FLEW NORTH OVER SWEDEN, LOOKED VERY BLEAK AND COLD HAD TO ORBIT AT RENDEZVOUS, BOTH SQUADRONS WENT ON TO THE TARGET, BECAME VERY HAZY EVEN AT 15,000 FEET WITH 7-6/10’S CLOUD BELOW, SHIP HARD TO FIND, AL FINALLY BOMBED ON FOURTH RUN. BAGS OF FLAK, BUT VERY INACCURATE, ONE KITE HIT BADLY, LANDED IN SWEDEN. TERRIBLE STOOGE HOME, SAW NO LAND FOR FOUR HOURS, - HAD 16 HOURS SLEEP AT LOSSIE.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] THE VESSEL WAS MOVED SOUTHWARDS TO TROMSO AFTER THE SEPTEMBER ATTACK, POSSIBLY BECAUSE OF THE DAMAGED [sic] RECEIVED THIS PUT IT IN THE RANGE FROM LOSSIEMOUTH, AGAIN WITH LONG-RANGE FUEL TANKS. THE CLOUD PREVENTED ACCURATE BOMB-AIMING AND THE ‘TIRPITZ’ SURVIVED ONCE MORE, - BUT NEMESIS DREW NIGH; A SOME WHAT COMIC ASPECT OF THE LONG SEA CROSSING BACK WAS THE REASSURANCE GIVEN AT BRIEFING THAT ROYAL NAVY DESROYERS [sic] WOULD BE ON OUR RETURN ROUTE SHOULD ANY NEED TO PUT DOWN IN THE WATER ARISE. ------
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------ BY 1944 THE R.N. HAD QUITE PROPERLY DEVELOPED ITCHY GUN FINGERS WHERE AIRCRAFT WERE CONCERNED, PARTICULARLY IF THEY GAVE NO REGOGNITION [sic] SIGNALS. THUS WE WERE RATHER ALARMED TO FIND OURSELVES BEARING DOWN ON THIS MENACING LOOMING SHIP WITH AL IN THE NOSE FRANTICALLY DIGGING AROUND FOR THE COLOURS-OF-THE-DAY CARTRIDGES TO PUT IN HIS VERY PISTOL. I’M NOT SURE IF WE WERE ACTUALLY FIRED UPON, BUT CERTAINLY THE COLOURS WENT UP A TRIFLE LATE. ONE CAN IMAGINE THE IRATE OFFICER-OF-THE-WATCH DOWN THERE FUMING ‘THAT SHOWER’ UP THERE.
[underlined] NOVEMBER 1944 [/underlined]
MY LOG BOOK FOR THIS MONTH SHOWS ONLY A TRIP TO LOSSIEMOUTH FOR ANOTHER GO AT THE ‘TIRPITZ’, BUT THE WEATHER FORECAST WAS SUCH THAT WE RETURNED TO WOODHALL THE NEXT DAY.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, AN UN-DATED NOTE IS ADDED THAT MUST HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN JANUARY 1945:- “BROKE MY FINGER WHILST TRYING TO FIX AN ESCAPE HATCH DURING NIGHT PRACTICE BOMBING – CLOT!! WENT U/S UNTILL AFTER CHRISTMAS. ROY AND AL MEANWHILE FINISHED THEIR SECOND TOUR, DIDN’T SEE AL AGAIN. LUCKILY MANAGED TO GET BACK WITH SANDY AND REMAINDER OF THE CREW.
NIGHT BOMBING PRACTICE AT WAINFLEET WAS NOT A FAVOURITE PASTIME, SO I DOUBT ANYONE REGRETTED THE EARLY RETURN ARISING FROM MY MISHAP. I CHERISH THE MEMORY OF OUR CAPTAIN SPEEDILY CALLING FOR AN AMBULANCE TO MEET US ON LANDING, AND HIS INSISTENCE ON HALF CARRYING ME DOWN THE AIRCRAFT LADDER TO THE GROUND. BEING A VERY FORTUNATE CREW, THIS WAS ABOUT THE WORST THING THAT HAPPENED TO US IN ALL THE TIME WE FLEW TOGETHER ON OPERATIONS.
THUS I DID NOT JOIN THE FINAL ATTACK ON THE “TIRPITZ” ON 29TH OF NOVEMBER, WHEN THE VESSEL CAPSIZED FOLLOWING DIRECT HITS WITH TALLBOY 12,000 POUND BOMBS; INSTEAD ROY MACHIN HAD A VIEW OF THE AFFAIR FROM THE TAIL RATHER THAN HIS ACCUSTOMED POSITION IN THE TOP TURRET. ONE OF THE MINOR MYSTERIES IS WHY NO ENEMY FIGHTERS APPEARED DURING THE LAST TWO RAIDS, WHEN IN NORWAY.
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[underlined] 3 – 2 – 45 PORTESHAVEN (HOLLAND) [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 14-00, TARGET MIDGET U-BOAT PENS. WEATHER CLEAR, HEIGHT 14,000 FEET. OVERCOAST [sic] SAW WALCHEREN ISLAND, NEARLY ALL FLOODED, TERRIBLE DEVASTATION. LONG RUN UP TO TARGET AND JUST BEFORE BOMB WENT FLAK WAS VERY ACCURATE THO’ NOT PARTICULARLY HEAVY. WE BOMBED SECOND AND I SAW THE REST OF THE EFFORT, WHICH EXCEPT FOR THREE WIDE THE REST WAS DEAD ON. P.R.L. COVER DETERMINED THAT THE WHOLE STRUCTURE HAD COLLAPSED. IT HAD FIFTEEN HOLES.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] P.R.L. WAS THE PHOTO RECONNAISSANCE UNIT, OFTEN FLYING MOSQUITOES, SOMETIMES SPITFIRES, USUALLY ALONE – DODGY IN DAYLIGHT.
[underlined] 6 – 2 – 45 BIELEFELD VIADUCT (GERMANY) [/underlined]
ON THIS THE LONGEST TRIP INTO THE REICH, WE DEFINITELY EXPECTED BANDITS, SO GAGGLE WAS TIGHTENED AND ALTOGETHER WE HAD TEN SQUADRONS OF SPITFIRES AND MUSTANGS AS COVER, - VERY NICE FOR SEVENTEEN KITES; SOME HEAVY FLAK AT AACHEN AND COOLENZ, OTHERWISE NONE. 10/10 CLOUD COVER MOST OF THE ROUTE, SAW NO BOMBING. VERY SURPRISED AT NO LUFTWAFFE – AND RELIEVED. SKY WAS FULL OF OUR COVER, AND YANKS WERE VERY ACTIVE WITH HEAVY STUFF.
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] BY 1944 THE AMERICAN AIRFORCE (U.S.A.A.F.) WERE WELL USED TO FORMATION FLYING NECESSITATED BY THEIR BOMBING TECHNIQUES, AND THE MUTUAL COVER AGAINST THE LUFTWAFFE. APART FROM INITIAL DISASTROUS DAYLIGHT SORTIES IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE WAR, BOMBER COMMAND IN EUROPE LARGELY RESORTED TO NIGHT RAIDS UNTILL D-DAY IN 1944. THEN THE (GAGGLE) WAS THOUGHT UP AS A LOOSE FORMATION TO GIVE SOME PROTECTION AGAINST FIGHTERS WHILST STILL RETAINING EACH BOMB-AIMERS DESCRIPTION AS TO THE MOMENT OF RELEASE. HOWEVER, I FEEL THE WORTHY INTENTION WAS DIMINISHED BY THE RESULT IN THE AIR, AS AFTER YEARS OF INDIVIDUAL FLYING IN THE DARK THE DISCIPLINE-AND WILL-NEEDED TO KEEP IN CLOSE FORMATION WAS JUST NOT THERE AND WE TENDED TO JUST TRUNDLE ALONG FAIRLY NEAR TO ONE ANOTHER; ------
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------ AS IT HAPPENED IT DID NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE ON THE DAYLIGHT TRIPS I FLEW ON. THERE IS NOT MUCH DOUBT IN MY MIND, HOWEVER, THAT AN ATTACK ON US BY THE LUFTWAFFE WOULD HAVE HAD SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES BEFORE OUR ESCORT COULD HAVE GOT AMONGST THEM. BOTH GERMANS AND AMERICANS FOUND THAT EFFECTIVE DEFENCE OF BOMBERS BY FIGHTERS IS MOST DIFFICULT TO ACHIEVE AGAINST DETERMINED ATTACKS, SOME WILL ALWAYS SUCCEED.
[underlined] 6 – 2 – 45 IJMUIDEN (HOLLAND) [/underlined]
TOOK OFF 06-00 UNDER DULL HIGH CLOUD THAT PERSISTED WAY TO THE TARGET, SAW BAGS OF LIBERATORS FORMING UP ON THE WAY OUT. SPITFIRE ESCORT MET US OFF THE COAST. BOMBING RUN SEEMED PLAIN STUPID; INSTEAD OF RUNNING IN FROM THE SEA WE CIRCLED IN LAND, NEAR AMSTERDAM, AND HAD A LONG RUN UP TO TARGET IN HEAVY FLAK AREA. JACK LED GAGGLE AND DID THEY PASTE US, FOR JUST OVER TWO MINUTES WERE CONTINUALLY PREDICTED, - NEVER FELT AND HEARD SO MUCH. U-BOAT PENS WERE HIT,
[underlined] NOTES [/underlined] NOW WE ARE CRITICISING ROUTEING[sic] – EVERYONE IS AN EXPERT AFTER TWO TOURS, THIS WAS THE LAST OPERATIONAL TRIP FOR ME. DURING RAIDS INVOLVING MANY AIRCRAFT FLAK WAS GENERALLY INDISCRIMINATE, BUT WHEN ONLY TWENTY OR THIRTY WERE OVERHEAD IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR THE DEFENCES TO FOCUS ON ONE BY RADAR AND (PREDICT) ITS COURSE AND FIRE ACCORDINGLY. FLAK BATTERIES WERE OFTEN IN FOURS, AND OCCASIONALLY ONE COULD SEE SUCCESSIVE BURSTS FOLLOWING BEHIND, EVEN WHEN TURNING. I NOTICED THIS PARTICULARLY DURING THE OCTOBER (TIRPITZ) RAID AS WELL AS THIS ONE. NOT A LOT COULD USEFULLY BE DONE – EXCEPT HOPE – IF ON THE BOMB RUN; EVENTUALLY, OF COURSE, WE FLEW OUT OF RANGE, OR THEY SELECTED ANOTHER LUCKY LOT FOR ATTENTION.
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[underlined] POSTSCRIPT [/underlined]
TO FORESTALL ANY BRIGHT SPARK WHO MAY HAVE COUNTED ONLY FORTY OPERATIONS IN THE DIARY, THERE WERE FIVE OTHER TRIPS MENTIONED BUT NOT DESCRIBED AS EACH TIME THE TARGET WAS NOT BOMBED DUE, TO CLOUD AT THE CRUCIAL POINT, FOUR WERE ‘V’ BOMB SITES IN NORTHERN FRANCE, THE OTHER LA PALLICE AGAINST U-BOAT PENS TO MY SURPRISE, AND NO DOUBT PLEASURE, THESE WERE INCLUDED IN THE TOTAL FOR TWO TOURS OF OPERATIONS, THAT IS FORTY FIVE TRIPS. THE ‘V’ WEAPONS WERE FIRSTLY SELF PROPELLED FLYING BOMBS DIRECTED AT LONDON, AND SECONDLY ROCKET PROPELLED MISSILES LAUNCHED FROM HOLLAND THAT FELL UPON THE CITY WITHOUT WARNING. FORTUNATELY THIS ALL STARTED AROUND THE SUMMER OF 1944, SO THE LAUNCH SITES WERE PROGRESSIVELY OVER RUN AS THE ALLIED LAND ARMIES MOVED EASTWARDS FROM NORMANDY LATER IN THE YEAR.
ONE MUST OBSERVE THAT AS A CREW WE WERE QUITE FORTUNATE, FOR I CANNOT RECALL ANYONE BEING HURT, NEITHER WERE THERE MANY DISAGREEMENTS. THE ONLY ONE OF THE LATTER THAT COMES TO MIND WAS AN ALTERCATION THAT AROSE WHILST WAITING AROUND OUTSIDE THE AIRCRAFT AS TO THE MERITS OF THE FLIGHT SANDWICHES ISSUED FROM THE OFFICERS PALACE AT THE PETWOOD HOTEL (OFFICERS MESS) COMPARED TO THOSE FROM THE SERGEANTS MESS; IMPORTANT MATTERS SUCH AS THIS COULD HAVE AFFECTED THE WHOLE COURSE OF THE WAR.
TO COMMENT ON LUCK, THERE IS A STORY OF THE BOMB-AIMER’S PARACHUTE HARNESS. WE WERE SETTLING DOWN AT DISPERSAL AWAITING TAXI CLEARANCE WHEN AN AGONISED CRY CAME FROM AL IN THE NOSE – I’VE FORGOT MY PARACHUTE HARNESS, JACK; MUCH HEAVY BREATHING FROM OUR ESTEEMED PILOT BRFORE [sic] HE GROUND OUT “YOU’D BETTER HURRY AND GET IT THEN” OR WORDS TO THAT EFFECT. WITH INTEREST I WATCHED AL LEAP OUT, GRAB ONE OF THE GROUND CREW’S BIKES AND VANISH IN THE DIRECTION OF THE LOCKER ROOM, HEAD DOWN, PEDALLING FURIOUSLY. ------
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------ MEANWHILE, IN THE COCKPIT THE CAPTAIN AND ENGINEER WERE DECIDING TO SWITCH OFF THE ENGINES AS THEY WOULD OVERHEAT QUITE QUICKLY WHILST IDLING DUE TO THE LACK OF AIR PASSING THROUGH THE RADIATORS FROM THE PROPELLERS. WHEN AL REAPPEARED FULLY KITTED AND BREATHLESS, THE ENGINES WERE RE-STARTED. ONE, HOWEVER, STUTTERD [sic] BANGED AND BELCHED BLUE SMOKE, RAN VERY ROUGHLY FOR A FEW SECONDS AND FINALLY STOPPED WITH A SHUDDER THAT SHOOK THE WHOLE AIRCRAFT. SO WE ALL CLAMBERED OUT AND JOINED THE GROUND CREW CLUSTED [sic] UNDER THE OFFENDING ENGINE, ONE STILL HOPEFULLY CLUTCHING A FIRE EXTINGUISHER, SOME STAGING WAS PUSHED INTO PLACE AND A FITTER REMOVED THE COWLING AND LOOKED INTO THE WORKS. “T’ARIN’T ARF A MESS” HE INFORMED THE THRONG, “RECKIN IT’S THE CYLINDER HEAD, THERE’S BITS AND PIECES EVERYWHERE”. THUS, IT SEEMS, OUR LUCK HELD AGAIN WHO KNOWS, BUT FOR THE DELAY, WHETHER THAT ENGINE MIGHT HAVE FAILED ON TAKR-OFF [sic], AND WE HAD A 12,000 LB BOMB ON ABOARD.
SO THERE IT IS. ON COMPLETION OF THE TOURS I WAS SOON POSTED AWAY TO BECOME THE SHIFT NCO I/C THE PARACHUTE STORE AT WOOLFOX LODGE, AND WHERE THAT WAS I NOW HAVE NO IDEA. HOWEVER, WHILST THERE I HAD MY LAST FLIGHT IN A LANCASTER ON THE 20TH OF JUNE 1945, STANDING BEHIND THE PILOT ON A SIGHT SEEING TRIP OVER GERMANY IN DAYLIGHT. NO FIGHTERS, NO FLAX [sic] JUST GHASTLY DEVASTATION IN THE RHUR DOWN AS FAR AS COLOGNE AND EASTWARDS TO DORTMUND. WHICH REMINDS THAT ONLY A FEW WEEKS AGO WE WERE IN THE STATION AREA OF DORTMUND, WHERE EVEN THE TAXIS ARE MERCEDES BENZ REFLECTING THE GENERAL WEALTH. BARMY, AIN’T IT.
IN DECEMBER 1945 I MANAGED TO GET ON AN AIRFIELD CONTROL COURSE AT WATCHFIELD, NEAR SHRIVENHAM. HERE WE OCCASIONALLY FLEW IN ANSON AIRCRAFT, THE SAME AS AT GUNNERY SCHOOL SEEMINGLY SO MANY YEARS AGO. NOTHING HAD CHANGED, THE UNDERCARRIAGE STILL HAD TO BE WOUND UP AND DOWN BY HAND. HAVING SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED THE COURSE IN THE NEW YEAR, I WAS POSTED TO WELFORD, NEAR NEWBURY.
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WE WERE MARRIED AT THIS TIME SO I WAS ABLE TO COMMUTE FOR A WHILE VIA THE LAMBOURN VALLY [sic] RAILWAY AND PUSHBIKE. THE JOB AT WELFORD WAS LARGELY IN THE RUNWAY CARAVAN WHERE ONE IMPORTANTLY FLASHED LIGHJTS [sic] AND FIRED FLARES WHILST HOPEFULLY CONTROLLING AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS. ACCORDING TO THE SHIFT ONE WAS ON RATIONS WERE SENT OUT TO BE COOKED ON AN OLD PRIMUS STOVE, AND WHEN THE WEATHER WAS KIND IT WAS ALL SORT OF IDYLLIC, MUNCHING ON A BACON SANDWICH WITH A POT OF STRONG TEA HANDY, OBSERVING THE WILD LIFE ALL AROUND BEFORE THE FIRST AIRCRAFT TO LAND OR TAKE OFF DISTURBED THEM. INEVITABLY THIS COULD NOT LAST, AS WELFORD WAS BEING LESS AND LESS USED, AND SO I WAS SENT AWAY AGAIN, FIRST TO DISHFORTH IN YORKSHIRE AND FINALLY TO TERN HILL IN SHROPSHIRE. HERE I RECALL ENDLESS HOURS IN THE CONTROL TOWER LOGGING TRAINING HARVARD AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS. ONE HAD TO BE SURE THE NUMBERS THAT WENT OUT BALANCED THOSE THAT LANDED, OTHERWISE A GREAT FLAP AROSE, FOR WENLOCK EDGE AND THE WREKIN SEEMED TO ATTRACT THE UNWISE ATTENTION OF THE TYRO PILOTS.
EVENTUALLY THE R.A.F. AND I PARTED IN AUGUST 1946, WITH ME SENT TO OLYMPIA TO FIND A CIVVY SUIT. MY PARENTS HAD A FLAT AT POLPERRO AT THIS TIME, SO SYLVIA AND I WERE ABLE TO SOAK UP THE SUN IN THIS UNSPOILED VILLAGE BEFORE RETURNING TO NEWBURY AND WORK.
[underlined] WAS IT ALL WORTH IT; --- [/underlined] WELL, IT HAD TO BE, DIDN’T IT, AS I COME OUT UNSCATHED. AN ADVENTURE TO BE SURE, WITH GRAND AQUAINTANCES [sic] MET ON THE WAY. WITH OUR COMBINED GRATUITY WE BOUGHT SOME LAND ON WHICH OUR FIRST HOME WAS BUILT – BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY ----
RALPH BRIARS
BOURNMOUTH
1989
Dublin Core
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Title
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Rear view - Ralph Briars memoir
Description
An account of the resource
Starts with tribute to crew and has colour photograph of a 617 Squadron Lancaster over Lincoln. Writes of his joining the RAF, selection as an air gunner and his basic training. Goes on with description of gunnery training, before going to OTU at RAF Cottesmore where he crewed (describes crew) up while training on Wellington. Carries on with description of heavy conversion unit flying Halifax and Lancaster. Provides description of turrets in both types. Provides a long description of a night sorties and discusses the level of training in the RAF for aircrew as well as problem of collisions. He is finally posted to become operational on 49 Squadron at RAF Fiskerton. He then provides a very detailed diary of the 14 operations he carried out on 49 Squadron followed by the 25 he carried out after the crew were posted to 617 Squadron. These sorties included the Saumur tunnel, V1 and V2 sites, the Tirpitz, Dortmund Ems canal and the Bielefeld viaduct. He concludes with some more anecdotes and his activities after he finished operational flying including getting married.
Creator
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R Briars
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1989
Format
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Thirty-nine page printed document
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Diary
Photograph
Identifier
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SBriarsRA1299161v1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--London
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Inverness-shire
Scotland--Inverness
England--Rutland
England--Leicestershire
England--Nottinghamshire
England--Nottingham
Poland
Poland--Szczecin
Germany
Germany--Braunschweig
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Nuremberg
France
France--Paris
Italy
Italy--Milan
France--Normandy
France--Saumur
France--Le Havre
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais)
France--Brest
France--Lorient
France--Creil
France--La Rochelle
Norway
Norway--Alta
Norway--Tromsø
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Netherlands
Netherlands--IJmuiden
Germany--Bielefeld
France--Tarbes
England--Hampshire
England--Bournemouth
France--Reims
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-01-06
1944-01-14
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
1944-01-27
1944-01-29
1944-02-15
1944-02-19
1944-02-20
1944-02-24
1944-02-25
1944-03-10
1944-03-15
1944-03-30
1944-04-18
1944-04-20
1944-04-22
1944-04-24
1944-06-06
1944-06-08
1944-06-14
1944-06-15
1944-06-19
1944-07-04
1944-07-17
1944-07-25
1944-07-31
1944-08-05
1944-08-06
1944-08-09
1944-08-11
1944-08-12
1944-08-13
1944-08-14
1944-09-11
1944-09-23
1944-10-29
1945-02-03
1945-03-02
1945-02-06
1944-03-31
1944-06-16
1944-07-05
1944-04-19
1944-06-09
1944-06-05
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.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Steve Christian
Steve Baldwin
1661 HCU
49 Squadron
617 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Boulogne E-boats (15/16 June 1944)
bombing of the Creil/St Leu d’Esserent V-1 storage areas (4/5 July 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of the Le Havre E-boat pens (14/15 June 1944)
Bombing of the Saumur tunnel (8/9 June 1944)
bombing of the Watten V-2 site (19 June 1944)
control caravan
control tower
Cook’s tour
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
Me 109
mid-air collision
Mosquito
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Normandy deception operations (5/6 June 1944)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Cottesmore
RAF Dalcross
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Husbands Bosworth
RAF Linton on Ouse
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Woodhall Spa
Scarecrow
searchlight
service vehicle
Tallboy
Tirpitz
training
V-weapon
Wellington
Window
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1526/29793/BMilesRJMilesRJv1.1.pdf
9c4ecee51db3f431f91201332344b0c2
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Title
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Miles, Reg
Reginald J Miles
R J Miles
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2016-07-26
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Miles, RJ
Description
An account of the resource
102 items. The collection concerns Reg Miles (1923 - 2022) and contains his audio memoir, log book, photographs and documents. He flew 36 operations with 432 and 420 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by R Miles and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
Biography of Reg Miles
Ex Apprentice No 1 S. of T.T., R.A.F., Halton 39th Entry 34 – 67 M.U.s – 27 A/S Bloemspruit South Africa – Lympe Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 242 – 245 – 511
Squadrons Transport Command Lyneham, RAF
Chapter 1
Ex Apprentice No 1 S. of T.T., R.A.F.
The summer job had ended and there was a few months to go before I would leave for Halton, must get a job Mum said, so I got a job as a paper boy with Smith’s Book Shop in Westgate, delivering the morning papers to all the grand houses in the area and woe betide you if you got the houses wrong, no scandal sheets there all Times, Telegraph, Financial Review, and sometimes the Daily Express but certainly no Mirror. A friend worked for the same place and we both rode the Smith’s bikes, very distinctive they were, painted dark red with a large panel under the cross bar with the company logo on it and either side of the back wheel large canvas bags to hold the newspapers. Riding towards home together one day we came across a coal ship hight and dry on the Nayland rocks, which jutted out into the Margate harbour entrance, the skipper had missed the turn and when the tide went out there he was stuck, the crew were busy shovelling the coal over the side onto the rocks so that the ship could get off on the next tide. Too much of a temptation for two young boys, onto the rocks we went with the bikes and filled up the bags at the back with coal and home to the thanks of a family with a little more fuel for the winter. How the mighty are fallen, as we turned up for work the next morning at the crack of dawn, we were greeted by the manager with the words ‘you two are sacked here are your wages now clear’, when we asked why we were shown the front page of just about every newspaper with pictures of us and Smith’s bikes filling the bags with coal, and head office in London were not at all pleased, silly buggers very cheap advertising for them, so ended my last job before entering The Royal Air Force.
On January 24th 1939 I arrived at Wendover Railway Station in Buckingham Shire on a special train from Paddington with about one thousand other new boys, we were all shapes and sizes, colours, and aged between fifteen and eighteen. Halton at that time was the Apprentice Training Establishment for The Royal Air Force in the various aviation trades which included Engine Fitter, Airframe Fitter and other trades that were just starting to be developed. Prior to this most work on aeroplanes was done by the same people., but aircraft were becoming more complicated
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and needed specialists for just about every part, guns, radio, electric’s and so on. RAF Halton still is a training station for the engine, airframe, and all other bits and pieces of the aircraft. (I was recently told that a cook school was now in operation!!). The bits all have different names now. When I joined in January 1939 there were four wings each one had about 1000 boys in it under training, the course was three years, two entries each year , entry by competitive written examination of many subjects including, Math, English, and a number of science subjects which at my age when I took the exam at 14 made me struggle a bit but I got in! Massive workshops, an airfield and each wing was self-contained with proper three storey brick buildings housing the sleeping accommodation, each wing also had its own parade ground, gymnasium, cookhouse, band and all other facilities, different coloured hat bands were worn by each wing.
Apprentices were known as Brats and when you had passed out from Halton after a three year course you were an Ex Brat and a very close bondship with others who had been through Halton existed. Now March 15 1998!! I seem to have been very busy with all sorts of projects and still have some in the pipe line either incomplete or not even started yet but will endeavour to type a little more to keep this going. The first thing that happened to all us new boys was a medical to see if we were fit enough for service in the R.A.F. The first complete check up for most of us,the M.O. told me I had flat feet, said I did a lot of cross country running perhaps that was the cause!! Strange to say it was recently found that people with high arches were not able to stand the stress of marching and battle fatigue, flat was better. Next was fitting for a uniform, no I did not take size nine boots that Mum had said I would grow into but eight and a half and that still left room for thick socks.
Once all into our uniforms we paraded in sections for the swearing in for which we received an extra shilling (the Kings shilling) Most of us suffered with those boots made from leather so they said, more like sheets of armour plate, toes and ankle bones were rubbed sore after the first few hours, the corporal in charge of our section told us to fill the boots with water, pee was best, and stand them by our beds over night, empty them out and put them on straight away they would never hurt again, he was right but most mothers would have had a fit to see their little darlings squelching about in wet feet all day. I was allocated to four wing and told I would be trained as a Fitter 2E which meant I would become an aero engine fitter, others became Fitters 2A airframe, and others would become instrument, radio, and armament specialists. There were also boys who had joined the Royal Navy and would be trained in the same trades for the Fleet Air Arm, they were known as artificers, tiffys to the rest of us. Our uniform was the same as the regular service with proper trousers instead of a kind of jodhpurs with puttees that were wound around the lower leg, these were still worn by “Boy Entrants”
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who were trained in similar trades elsewhere but would end up as mechanics after a much shorter course, I think they were boys who were keen to get into the R.A.F but had not been able to pass the entry examination for apprentices. To distinguish four wing from the other three we had a bright orange-yellow hat band not too sure what the other were, seem to remember red and also black and red squares, we also had on our arm a brass badge that was a wheel with crossed propeller blades inside, and wore small rank badges the same as the adult services if promoted. All of the boys in the new entry were taken in group to the airfield and given a short flight in De Haviland Tiger Moth, gave us some idea how big Halton was and in most cases the first taste of airsickness, never had any trouble with this problem when I was flying as crew, but even a short flight at times as a passenger made me hang on to my seat and swallow heavily!! I joined the cross country team of four wing, and completed in many events during my period at Halton, won medals for this event and passed them on to Gillian for safe keeping. I was promoted to leading apprentice and made responsible for one of the rooms which held about thirty boys, one of them called Shaw I will never forget, a good looking boy but had a way of life completely strange to me and I suspect to most of the boys of my age.
This first came to light one night when he returned from a weekend pass with a full suit case full of cigarettes, where they came from we didn’t ask but we all got some free samples my share being double. He then told me he had a flat in London and a girl friend he kept there and paid for, how this was possible on three shillings a week I just could not understand, but it all came out later on. Because I was responsible for seeing that everyone in my room was present at “lights out” each night and weekend passes were only allowed very rare, Jonny Shaw asked me to sign him in nearly every weekend so he could go to London, didn’t worry me to do this, hadn’t asked to be a leading apprentice, was just given the job and I was never short of a packet of “fags”. One night late Johny turned up with another suit case, after climbing through a hole in the fence near our room, instead of cigarettes it contained woman’s clothing that he had picked up on the train from London, because it was there! Told him in no uncertain manner that if he didn’t do something about returning it to the owner it was the last time I covered for him. He packed up the case and took it out of the room and I expected he would leave it close to the guard room so that it would be found early in the morning and sent on it’s way to a very worried female. That was not Johny’s way, when I took a detail of boys out at the crack of dawn to make sure there was no rubbish about the place, every post, lamp standard, sign board and railing was draped with all of the contents of the case, we found the case and quickly packed the items back in and I took it to the guard room and stated that it has been found some way away from our room, it was opened by the police and an address found inside and was I presumed sent on to it’s owner, but I was very mad a Johny Shaw and never covered for him again,
[page break]
didn’t stop him from going out when he wanted to. Some months later he was found to have been forging instructors signatures on chits to book out micrometer and vernier gauges from the stores and was no doubt selling these in London and perhaps committing other crimes we knew nothing of, he was discharged from the R.A.F and as the second world war started soon after probably had a prosperous war and even ended up rich and famous, may be knighted for his efforts, while the rest of us fought and died! I have recently been contacted as a result of this webpage by Peter Long, another one of our fellows who knew Johny. He did become very rich eventually, Rolls Royce, Two ‘Planes of his own etc.!
R.A.F Halton was at one time a county residence owned by the Rothchild family whether they gave it to the R.A.F I don’t know but the “house” was used for the officer’s mess and the stables were allocated to the apprentices for a “hobby shop”. The stables were a magnificent set of buildings with curved brick walls and big enough to house a dozen families in great comfort. Many of the boys at Halton came from very wealthy families, some sons of aircraft manufacturers because it was recognised that an apprenticeship at Halton was the finest training anywhere in the world in Aircraft engineering. One father had given his son a new Ford car, he was probably in his last year of the three year course, we all helped him to take it completely to pieces and each part was reassembled with great care so that every part was a perfect fit, ran like a sewing machine the quietest Ford I have ever known.
There were even sons of Indian Princes, in fact it seemed as if every nation was represented there, many of the boys when they had finished their apprenticeship were “bought out” by their parents and returned to their own country or in some cases the firm that their parents owned in Britain, can’t remember the cost but did hear at the time it would have bought a row of houses in any town in England! The railway station we all arrived at was Wendover and the nearest large one was Alyesbury, (famous for ducks!) county seat for Buckinghamshire. Halton was set just below a ridge of hills and covered many square miles of country, the workshops were massive, covering all trades that operated in the Royal Air Force, an airfield with a grass runway complete with hangers and numerous aircraft that were used for hands on work and proper lecture halls where we were brought up to date on current affairs, and scientific laboratories with the latest equipment used in the testing of materials. The idea was to give not only complete technical training but a good all round knowledge much like a private college, apart from training in military matters and of course plenty of sporting activities. We were paid 5 shillings a week, four of which was saved for us, to be given when we went on leave, breakages which were deducted for individual items broken or worn out before a replacement was normally issued, boys can be hard on clothes! We were issued with a complete kit of
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clothes which included just about every thing required, but out of our weekly shilling we had to purchase things like metal and boot polish, once a week we had kit and barrack inspections when everything has to be spit and polish and all kit in good order, when the war started in September 1939 things change very rapidly, our three year course was cut down to just over two by stopping all holidays and we worked from dawn to dusk on our training, the subjects did not get shortened just longer days and no holidays or week ends, and we had to do anti invasion patrols and ride around the hills on our bicycles in the evenings to check for land mines that may have been dropped to blow the place up. At this time my father and mother had rented a house at High Wycombe which was not too far away from Halton, Dad was in charge of all military and naval buildings and repairs caused by shelling and bombing in Dover, so Mum lived at High Wycombe and Dad came up when he could, he had an old car and special petrol rations because of his work. I managed to get a weekend pass and went to get my bicycle from where it had been requisitioned for us in land mine patrols, the sergeant in charge said I couldn’t have mine but let me have grotty old service bike, think he was using it himself as it was new and my pride and joy, set out to visit Mum and Dad and coming round a corner met a flock of sheep all over the road, no where to go so crashed into the bank and bent the frame so that I could only steer one way, took me ages to get to High Wycombe and could not get anyone to mend it so Dad put it on the roof of his car and took me back to camp, left Halton soon after and took my bike with me.
The entry ages for Halton were 15 to 18, and we signed on for 12 years of service from the age of 18. As I was almost the minimum age, I was 15 in November 1938 and joined in January 1939, I would have been 18 when I finished the apprenticeship, but due to the war and cutting out holidays etc, I was only 17, I therefore was still classed as a boy when I left Halton and was not informed what rank I had passed my final examinations, so when I arrived at my first operational posting was paid the princely sum of ten shillings a week (about one dollar a week), yet was the only qualified member of the gang and had to tell men much older than myself sometimes the right way to do things.
– Reg Miles
Those items listed below can be found on the web at
http://members.aol.com/famjustin/Milesbio.html
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[underlined] Biography of Phyllis Miles (formerly Phyllis Dike), [/underlined] LACW, WAAF
[underlined] Collected Poetry of Reg Miles, [/underlined] Flight Engineer, No1SoTT Halton/ MUs/ Snowy Owls, 420 Sqdn RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 511 Transport Command, RAF
[underlined] Miss Phyllis Miles nee Dike, [/underlined] Photo, LACW, WAAF
[underlined] Group Photo, [/underlined] 432 Squadron RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Yorkshire
[underlined] 420 Squadron Badge, [/underlined] Photo, 6 Group Bomber Command, Tholthorpe Yorkshire, RCAF
[underlined] Barrington-Kennett Trophy Winners, [/underlined] 1939/40, Photo, Reg Miles, RAF Halton, RAF
[underlined] FIDO, [/underlined] Anecdote, Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, RAF
[underlined] Flight Engineer Reg Miles, [/underlined] Photo of Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, 432 Sqdn RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, RAF
[underlined] Flight Log 1664 HCU page one, page two, 432 Squadron page 1, 2, 3, 4, 420 Squadron page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1332 H.C.U. Page 1, Certificates of Competency, 242 Squadron, Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, 246 Squadron, Page 1, Page 2, 511 Squadron, Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Reg Miles, [/underlined] Flight Engineer, No1SoTT Halton/ MUs/ Snowy Owls, 420 Sqdn RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 511 Transport Command, RAF
[underlined] Halifax, E Easy and Crew, [/underlined] Photo of Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, 420 Sqdn RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, RAF
[underlined] Mail Plane, [/underlined] RAF Joke, Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, RAF
[underlined] Missing in Action Telegram, [/underlined] Reg Miles, 432 Squadron RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Yorkshire
[underlined] PLUTO, [/underlined] Anecdote, Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, RAF
[underlined] Queen Mary, [/underlined] Photo, Reg Miles, 67 M.U.s, RAF
[underlined] Salvaging a Bristol Beaufort, [/underlined] Photo, Reg Miles, 67 M.U.s, RAF
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[underlined] Tholthorpe Control Tower, [/underlined] from Jim Tease, Pilot, Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, 420 Sqdn RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, RAF
[underlined] Wedding Photo, [/underlined] Photo of Reg Miles, Flight Engineer, No1SoTT Halton/ MUs/ Bomber Command/ 511 Transport Command, RAF
[page break]
Biography of Reg Miles
Ex Apprentice No 1 S.of T.T., R.A.F., Halton 39th Entry 34 – 67 M.U,s – 27 A/S Bloemspruit South Africa – Lympe Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 242 – 246 – 511 Squadrons Transport Command Lyneham, RAF
Chapter 2
Ex Apprentice, 34 – 67 M.U.s, R.A.F.
I was posted to 34 Maintenance Unit Shrewsbury in Shropshire 5-10-1940, this unit was housed in sheds on the out-skirts of Shrewsbury and was responsible for the repair on site of crashed aircraft and the recovery of crashed aircraft that could not be flown away, this included both British, German, Italian, and later on American. The Flight Sergeant in charge of the crew of about six airmen was about sixty, was an optician in civvy street, had been a driver in the 1914-18 war so had no knowledge of aircraft, the rest of the gang were ex-garage workers only about one had any experience with spanners so it was finding out the hard way how ‘planes came to bites! We also had a driver for our Chevy truck and could call on “Queen Mary” low loaders and Coles cranes to lift things, but many times we were unable to get cranes or trucks to the site and it was sheer legs and muscle that were used.
[missing photograph]
[page break]
[italics] Photo of a crane of the type we used to salvage aircraft during my time with 34 & 67 MUs in 40-41. On show as an Amazon Crane but the same as a Coles one, so have altered it’s title. It is on show at the Yorkshire Air Museum based at Elvington airfield a WW2 bomber station flying the dear old Halifax of 77 Squadron RAF and two Free French squadrons 346 Guyenne and 347 Tunisie [/italics]
The only time I tried to drive a Coles Crane I made a complete mess of it and sheared the drive shaft!! The two Polish operators were not well pleased, but as the could not speak English and I not able to understand a single word of their long and arm waving complaint, it was left to our Flight Sergeant to ball me out, and as he was a geriatric (well must have been all of 50) little notice was taken of it all. The Poles got underneath and removed the bit, replaced it and were operational in a few hours, I was not allowed anywhere near it after!!
The lowloader, Queen Mary, was a specially made semi trailer body, very low platform with wheels exterior, from memory would think the platform about 12 inches from ground, also very long able to take most aircraft fuselages and wings. Extending side rails were fitted that could be locked up so that wings could be stood on their leading edges, one on either side (on sand bags to prevent damage) and strapped to these side rails, the rails were also covered in felt to prevent damage, and strapped to these side rails, the rails were also covered in felt to prevent damage, this left the centre of the trailer free to fit the fuselage on trestles, with propellor removed but engine still in place, some aircraft with long bodies could extend over the tail board if put on trestles to clear, open body to the trailer so that there was no height restriction, only the height of bridges and power cables, standard 1939-40 prime mover, 6 cylinder Perkins or Ford, nothing like the monsters on todays roads. It was called “Queen Mary” because they were so long that the only thing to compare them with was the ship of the same name.
[missing photograph]
photo from David Searle-Baker Queen Mary
[page break]
Recovering Hawker Tempest Mk. V Wreck
My first job with them was at an aerodrome called Shawbury that was used to train pilots and Navigators, a Spitfire pilot had been shot in a fight with a German fighter and had lost a lot of blood before crash landing beside the main runway and the aircraft had tipped onto it’s back as he had not been able to lower the underbridge. The first job was to make the guns safe and remove any bombs before starting to dismantle the ‘plane, the next job was always to remove instruments that were either secret or likely to be stolen, this in a Spitfire was the gunsight, compass and a clock it fitted, as the new boy I got the job of crawling into the upside down cockpit to remove these items while the rest of the gang removed the wing fairings and bolts to waggle the wings off. I had to get on hands a [sic] knees to get the items off as they were almost on the ground, felt something wet on my head and back as I worked, found when I crawled out that a large pad of congealed blood had come adrift from the floor and I was a right mess, no water anywhere near as we were miles from any building, the crew washed me off with the 100 octane petrol we drained from the ‘plane, but as we sat and ate our lunch of sandwiches couldn’t help keep looking at the blood still under my finger nails. As we sat and ate we saw a training Miles Master coming in to land with the cockpit hood open and the horn blaring loudly to warn the pilot that his under carriage was not down, we all stood up and waved like mad, the pilot, probably doing his first solo landing, waved back with a big smile on his face and crashed, we now had another ‘plane to remove!
I don’t know how the trainee pilot got on, we helped him out and he had no damage but whether he was “scrubbed” or not have no idea (scrubbed thrown off the pilot’s course through some error).
The Spitfire being monococ [sic] construction in aluminium alloys was a very easy aircraft to dismantle and transport, the main wing spar consisted of a series of square tubes fitted inside each other, gradually tapering towards the wing tip, the mating tubes for these being very close to the fuselage, with the propeller removed the body fitted easily into a low loader and the wings were slid in either side being supported on sand bags to prevent damage and strapped to the extendable rails fitted to the sides of the low loader, the guns, ammunition, and propeller being stowed in any suitable position. The Miles Master being of wooden construction was an entirely different proposition, the wing roots were attached about one and a half metres either side of the fuselage making this “centre section” which was not removable about three and a half to four and a half metres wide, when placed on the sides of the low loader these projected out each side a considerable amount and because they were very low often jammed on road side obstructions, this was particularly a problem on the windy narrow country roads with many “hump
[page break]
Back” bridges, we were caught only one when the centre section rode up onto the walls of a hump back bridge and very nearly caused the injury to one of the crew riding in the back of the low loader, three or four sleepers lashed to the side rails lifted this aircraft high enough to clear any road side obstacles. We never had enough red flags to fix to the overhangs so it was almost a game to ride in the back of the low loader and lean over as we motored along and steal the flags placed in empty paint cans by the road gangs, as we used the same route frequently from training airfields to our depot I guess the road workers got fed up with us and one day as one of the gang grabbed a flag found himself flying through the air to land in the road, the rotters had concreted all the flags in and they were very heavy, no damage done just a few bruises and wounded pride. Coming back from the same airfield one day we were held up by a new gang with a Miles Master stuck on the hump back bridge walls, to add to their problems their Coles crane was in front of the low loader so couldn’t get to the plane to lift it up, we managed to get our crane in place and help them out, they hadn’t read standing orders! Called to the same airfield with instruction to remove some twenty Avro Ansons from a hanger we through they were being transferred to another airfield, when we got there found the whole lot burnt out in the hanger, looked like an elephant’s grave yard with just the steel tubing frames and melting engines and propellers lined up in two long rows. When we asked what had happened were told that during the night an airman on guard duty saw a low flying airplane crossing the field and identified it as a German one so fired his rifle at it, the plane dropped it’s bomb which landed on the concrete outside the hanger, bounced over the bomb proof doors, bounced on the hanger floor and just missed going clean out the other end but hit a girder and went off. The airman had been put on a charge for firing at an unidentified aircraft!
I was going on my first leave after being posted to an RAF squadron as an aero engine fitter, and at only 17 in 1940 felt a big wheel, My folks lived in Dover and my brother of 9 years would need something from my war, grabbed a handful of .303” ammunition from a crashed training Hurricane, pulled out the bullets and emptied out the charge, would put the cases in a fire when I got home to get rid of the caps and put the bullets back, would impress my small brother. Put the cases in a fire out in the yard and got a most awful telling off from Mum, they were having more than their share of bangs. Next day was about to leave the house to look up at the “dogfights” going on above, Mother said you’ll get killed by falling shrapnel stay indoors, but out I went, and in I went after a few seconds as redhot bits of metal fell around me, I might be in the RAF but my folks and young brother were seeing more of the war than I was, my few bullets were nothing compared to his collection of shrapnel, from both our guns and those firing 12inch shells from France, he has seen more action that I had!!
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We had arrived at a very posh looking house set up on a rise with a well maintained garden with small bushes lining the curving path to the front door and a perfect green lawn. I suppose we did look a sorry bunch with our usual costume of rolled down gum boots, white socks turned over the top and greasy overalls that were well over due for a wash, no hats and most with a few days of beard, long uncombed hair in fact even the ‘chiefy’ could have passed for the robber leader, we had been out on the road for about a week and were tired and hungry when we got yet another job before returning to base for a rest. Chiefy went up to the front door and was answered by a smart looking man who took the Flight Sergeant round the back of the house through a very ornate garden arch way, he soon came back and called us to follow him. The sight that met the eyes was one to make us all laugh, a learner pilot has got into trouble and seeing what looked like a nice open field came into land, too late he found it was a chicken farm with lots of tall wire fences to separate the various chickens, his ‘plane had become wrapped up like a parcel as he ploughed through the lot, but to make matters even worse as his ‘plane neared the back of the house his engine fell off and landed into a rather nice goldfish pond, this cracked the concrete and all the water ran out stranding the fish. The owner was not a very happy man and refused most emphatically to allow us to clear a wide path way back through the mess so we could get a crane in to lift the whole lot out by a back way, no it all had to go round the side of the house and no damage must be done. What a hope he had the radial engine was levered out of the pond and rolled with great difficulty through the side gate, a few bits came off both as we struggled to hold the engine upright but when we got to the front of the house it just seemed to get a life of it’s own and rolled across the lawn leaving giant size foot prints and demolished hedges and flower beds on it’s way. The rest of the aircraft was sawn into bits and man handled the same way, miserable sod never even gave us a cup of tea when we had finished, just growled he would report us for damage we had caused, we all hoped his chickens never laid another egg.
As to the Learner who crashed, he was long gone before we got there. This was not always the case as we did come across the odd bits and bobs and even complete bodies at times, not all RAF either.
For about three months we worked all over the north part of England and Wales, even had to close The Mersey Tunnel one time to tow an American light bomber through from Speke don’t know why or where we took it. We were then transferred to 67M.U. bases in Taunton the county seat of Somerset. The depot was in a large garage on the main road south of the city, has it’s own sports field out the back which we used for general storage during transit, all the low loaders, lorries, and cranes were parked in various streets which had to have guards circulating during the night, our five rounds of ammunition and World War 1 rifle must not be lost or even used,
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it was all we had, another job for the technical people, office and stores people never got this job, perhaps because they made out the lists, one time when we were back at base had to spend the day shovelling coal at the railway station to fuel the fires for the office staff, couldn’t let them get dirty, wonder if Churchill knew that his trained people were waiting on the lazy sods in the office.
This was early in 1941 with the threat of invasion by the German army still a possibility, the sports field was surrounded with a high spiked railing fence. The fence was six feet high made of steel spikes about 3 quarters of an inch in diameter, spaced about six inches apart fitted through holes at top and bottom of steel plates which were made of 2 inch by 1/4 inch steel. I’m sure you must have some around houses or playing fields where you live. The spikes were held in swaged nibs pressed into the spikes when the sections of fence were made this held the spikes in place. We were given the job of filing off the nibs that held alternate spikes in place. We had to file these nibs off alternate spikes so the fence did not collapse, but the “doctored” spikes could be removed. Each one of these then had a number pained on it, all airmen were allocated a spike and on the call to arms would rush to get out their spike, if they could, and fend off the invading hordes of Germans with their Tiger tanks, machines guns and other lethal weapons, no doubt we should have had a major victory as the German troops fell about laughing!!
The C.O. held a dummy run which became a real pantomime as men fought for a spike having forgotten their number and short people couldn’t reach high enough to pull them out of the top rail. Nobody got stabbed but it was a close run thing. We all treated the whole thing as a joke, it is easy when you have your back firmly against the wall to consider defeat impossible, and so many of the daft ideas did work, FIDO, PLUTO, to name just two. This one was one of those that just was stupid!!
The same wally of a C.O. who gave us the spikes decided to make me up to a Corporal, told him he couldn’t because I still didn’t know what rank I had passed out from Halton, and in any case being technical trade had to pass a trade board before I could be promoted. Threatened to put me on a charge if I didn’t put up my stripes straight away to be officially second in charge of the gang, just ignored him and was called up before him a couple of days later to be told he couldn’t promote me for the reasons I had given him, but told me I had passed out from Halton as a Fitter 2 Engine with the rank of Aircraftman First class and my pay would start right away because of the work I was doing, so I did get some thing out of it all. Following on this I was given the job as Station Armourer, responsible for sorting and packing for dispatch all bombs, cannons, machines guns and ammunition brought in from crashes. I was given the relevant Air Ministry orders to tell
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me what to do because lets face it I was not even 18 and trained as an engine fitter, but perhaps the only real airman on the place, I was given the away team half of the sports changing room, the Station Warrant Officer had the other half, a retread from 14-18 war and responsible for station discipline.
One of the jobs I had to do was strip all guns of any bullets “up the spout” as many had major damage and bent barrels, this was never easy, the breach blocks had to be taken out and packed in separate boxes, with a bullet jammed in, the only way to release the blocks was to fire the gun which sent the bullet up the bent barrel and this released the breach blocks, S.W.O. came in one day when I had a pile of Browning Machine guns on the bench all with bent barrels and was firing them one at a time to get the breach blocks out, nearly wet himself, and then a few days later I was burning all the Very pistol cartridges. These were all different colours and were used to signal and identify aircraft. Usually they just burnt with lots of bright colours but this lot started flying all over the place just as he marched out of his office with his cane under his arm, moved pretty quick for an oldy and got back inside his office, seemed to think I did it on purpose!!
Does seem a bit mad perhaps now to do what I did as an “armourer”. But times were a bit desperate you know and everything was in very short supply so if it could be repaired and returned into service we might just survive.
The first 20m/m cannon I dismantled was a problem, had never seen one before had no books on it and had to get the breach block out, barrel was straight and nothing up it, the cannon was about two and a half metres long and the only nut I could see was on the “blunt” end, a large hexagonal nut with a locking tab on it, so behind it must be the return spring and hopefully the breach block, with the “blunt” end sticking out the open door I got to work and the nut kept turning and seemed to have lots of thread, with a bang the last turn flew off and what seemed like yards of spring flew out of the door, and guess who was just leaving the office? The other problems with the 20m/m cannon was the round cartridge drum that fitted on the breach, these always arrived to me battered and bent and the only way to get the shells out was to cut a slot in the case and prise or shake the shells out, I was sitting on the bench with an ammunition box on the floor shaking a drum to get the shells out when the door burst open and a strange sergeant charged in, “Call yourself an armourer” he shouted, “Stop that before you kill us both”. When I told him who and what I was he said that he had never seen a cannon gun in fact he didn’t know much at all as he had spent the last few years at a place called Shaibah in the Gulf and had only worked on Vickers water cooled guns while there, but he did know the coding for the shells I was dropping into a box and some were of a very delicate contact type to explode on contact with the thin aluminium skin of a ‘plane! I filled him in
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with all I knew and what had to be done with each type of weapon and worked with him for a week or so until I managed to get back with my old gang.
Shortly after we were sent on detachment to an airfield in Cornwall called St. Eval, at which were based Bristol Beaufort Torpedo Bombers, they were sent out after German ships and dock installations and had received very heavy casualties.
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Men of 67 MU at Bristol Beaufort Recovery Reg 2nd from left back row
We were housed in one of the Nissen huts and started work right away as there was a Spitfire sitting on top of a dry stone wall at the edge of the airfield, the pilots had overshot, bounced and come to a halt perfectly balanced on the wall, pained on the side was the pilots name and the legend “Sempre in Excreta” (Latin is not my strong point!) Always in the shit! At the end of the runway was a stone quarry and a Beaufort had crashed into it on take off loaded with torpedoes, these had detonated so there was little to move mainly the two large radial engines, one was in the middle of the quarry and our crane soon lifted that into a lorry, the other was partly buried under stone and against the quarry wall so we had to move it out with brute force to get it into a position that the crane could reach, It was hard hot work and we were having trouble keeping our footing because of all the oil that had spilt out when it had hit the wall, except it wasn’t oil but half a man buried under the engine, not a pretty sight but a nurse who just happened to be looking on helped us to put the remains in sacks so that they could be buried properly with the rest of the poor devil. We very rarely had a problem with bodies or parts there of, because the bodies were taken away before we arrived on the scene.
We did have one occasion when we were sent onto the moors to remove a Hawker Hurricane, but it was the wring number and found the pilot still in it, we reported this and found our one a mile or so away. The Hawker Hurricane was a very different type of construction from the Spitfire,
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basically a steel tubular frame around which were fitted wooden formers and these were joined together by wooden strips along the length of the fuselage, the wings were very similar and all surfaces were covered with doped fabric, this was very time consuming to make and repair, much like a model aeroplane in appearance. A fitter from Hawker’s had almost finished this repair to a Hurricane when German bombers gave us a visit to pay back for what the Beauforts were doing in France, a bomb dropped outside the bomb proof door, blew them in and flattened the poor Hurricane! We got bombed out that night so drove a few miles away to a friendly looking field and slept all in a row under a tarp for a few nights until we were given an empty holiday beach house at Trearnon Bay which became our base for a few weeks, when we were not out on a job. Visited St. Eval in the 1980s and they were only just starting to remove the remains of that hanger blown up in early 1941.
During the next few weeks we were constantly on the move all over Cornwall, from Penzance across to Predanack, which is on the other leg at the base of Cornwall. Working on a Whirlwind, twin engined fighter-bomber which had nose dived straight into the ground, on a desolate part of the moors, all that showed was the edges of sheets of aluminium in the ground and lying a few feet away, a hand complete with a ring on, we could not salvage the plane and pilot’s body without large earth moving gear and instructions were received to pull out what we could and fill the hole in, as we worked we heard the sound of aircraft high up and turned to watch a flight of the same ‘planes go by, as we watched one pealed off and dived into the ground a few miles away, heard later that the tail planes of this aircraft were a bit suspect. We always had billets in the nearest place to where we worked, sometimes this was an Army Camp or a pub and in this case we were living in a cafe at Predanack, after a wash we all trooped into the dining room for our first meal and on came a Cornish pastie, about a foot long and looked delicious but didn’t think it was a lot for six or seven hungry blokes to share, but then in came the rest and we had one each!
Once we had to go to a Fleet Air Arm station to dismantle an aircraft, it was in a hanger and we were dressed in our usual scruffy outfits, all these Naval types marching about at the double, and the public address system nearly drove us mad, never seemed to stop with lots of whistles and incomprehensible bellowing, asked one of the sailors what it all meant his answer left us just as ignorant as before. We were in one of the huts and left our truck at the hanger to walk to the mess hall to get some lunch, as we strolled by a hut the window flew open and a loud voice wanted to know what we were doing walking on the Quarter deck and tried to make us run across, not in gum boots we couldn’t and didn’t try. That night being near a town, after 50 years have no idea which one, we all thought a night on the town would be a good change, so managed to tidy ours [sic] selves up and found
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out when the bus left and got to the guard room at the main gate just as a sailor closed and locked it, outside was the queue for the bus which had yet to arrive. “Open” we all said, can’t was the reply because the liberty boat has gone, what a load of rubbish, if you were on a ship you could understand it, if the Navy still do things that way it’s about time they changed from the days of Rum, bum and Nelson!! Soon got away from that stupid place probably didn’t know there was a war on we certainly did and spent all our days clearing away the rubbish caused by it. Often we had to remove crashed German aircraft that had been shot down, most were just a heap of burnt wreckage with often the remains of the crew inside, not recognisable as such just bits of bone that had not been found for burial, at other times we would have a complete ‘plane with little or no damage, there we took to pieces if not able to fly out from where they were, went to a special place to be put together perhaps with parts from other ‘planes to make them airworthy, and test flown to find out more about that type. Once we were called to an aerodrome near the coast where, I think it was a J.U.88 had landed the pilot thinking he was over the channel in France, the duty officer seeing the plane land had driven out in a jeep and crashed into the tail to stop it taking off again, we had to get the bits from a depot that was full of the German ‘planes and replace the damaged parts. Some of the early R.A.F. bombers such as the twin engined Handley Page Hampden were fitted with special balloon cable cutters to the leading edge of the main wings, these in theory would be tripped as the cable slid into it’s jaws and an explosive charge would fire a razor sharp chisel cutting the cable allowing the plane to get free, after a number of M.U. airmen had lost fingers while man handling wings during salvage instructions were issue that these had to be tripped before any work was done on the aircraft, I tripped the only one I worked on and it chopped the end from my screwdriver! An American Flying Fortress had crashed somewhere in Devonshire, can’t remember where, and what it was doing in England I don’t know, though the Yanks came in much later, anyhow we were told to get it and it must be sent up to Liverpool. The biggest thing we had tackled, got the fuselage, wings and engines away alright but the centre section was very wide and when stood on it’s leading edge was exceptionally high.
The local police were always asked for advice on getting past low bridges and electricity wires, spent more than a week travelling a few miles only to find yet another low bridge in our way, chiefy was fed up and so were we camping along the road where ever we go stuck, most aircraft that we worked on had a fire axe stowed on board so we had a good selection of sharp ones we used for all sorts of jobs, we cut foot and hand holes in the centre section and cut off with the axes quite a few feet from the trailing edge which was now the top and were able to get back to the depot next day, thing was only worth scrap anyway. After about 5 months of this work which in most cases was just garbage collection, not what I had been trained
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at great expense to do, I saw a notice on orders calling for volunteers to go over seas. I put in my application and was accepted, given seven days posting leave and reported to the assembly camp called I think Paddington, hundreds or more like thousands of airmen of all trades were gathered there and we were all issued with both tropical and cold weather equipment, had two large kit bags of the stuff to lug about plus personal kit in a small bag. After about ten days of this which included a medical we were all paraded on the very large parade ground to get our instructions to more to lorries and get abroad a ship, suddenly a voice bellowed out “575931 Miles R.J. fall out and report to the parade adjutant” was that me? “yes” said a bloke next to me who had become a friend. So out I marched dragging bags in front of all these assembled airman, saluted after dropping the bags and reported my name and number, still not 18 I was told I was too young to go where these men were going and told to hand in my kit and report back to my unit, this lot went to Russia I found out later and many did not return, some drowned when their ship was sunk and others just died from the cold!
– Reg Miles
The URL of this page is
http://www.geocities.com/milbios/Milesbio2.html
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Biography of Reg Miles
Ex Apprentice No 1 S.of T.T., R.A.F., Halton 39th Entry 34 – 67 M.U.s – 27 A/S Bloemspruit South Africa – Lympe Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 242 – 246 – 511 Squadrons Transport Command Lyneham, RAF
Chapter 3
27 Air School, Bloemspruit South Africa,
B Squadron, Service Unit, R.A.F.
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I didn’t spend long back at Taunton before the call came again to report for over seas posting, I’d had the special leave so on the train to Blackpool this time.
The Leaving of Liverpool “ring any bells” a film about children forcefully taken from England during and shortly after the war, the parents and children never told if the others were alive and the children taken to Church run HOMES in Australia and treated as slave labour, in fact in many cases the children built the homes (as in collective enclaves) As I said a very different life style, we were all led to believe that they (as in any one in authority even self proclaimed) knew best and slavishly carried out their instructions to the letter. Children were abused, physically, mentally and sexually, both boys and girls, how did it happen, only because authority was not questioned until recently and only now is the truth coming out of those children’s tragic lives.
Bearing all that in mind you may not be surprised to read that I like my peers did as I was told without question.
The journey out to South Africa started from the joys of Blackpool, a holiday resort in the north of England, no work, billeted in houses normally
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used to accommodate the vast numbers of “visitors” from the industrial towns of the north during their summer holidays. The local “landladies” welcomed us with open arms, we were a source of income to them, not that they opened too wide the food cupboards, but many daughters opened their hearts and arms to us, we were all young healthy and free. Had my first go on ice skates at the local rink and after a few falls soon mastered it and really enjoyed it. Soon became time to board ship S.S. Mooltan 20,000 tons of sheer misery at Liverpool and head out into the Atlantic that was waiting for us with all the dirty weather it could find. April 1941, could well have been April fools days for all I know.
By buses we arrived at grey Liverpool to stand for hours on a grey dockside in front of a grey wall that stretched to the sky and disappeared into the grey distance, only relieved by a black hole in it’s side through which countless airmen staggered carrying all their worldly goods contained in two kitbags and a small case. One of the kitbags contained our normal selection of issue clothing, the other, two complete outfits one of tropical shorts shirts etc, the other cold weather clothes suitable for Russia!! We had no idea where we were headed and it was hoped neither did the enemy! The kitbag not required was taken off us well into the voyage, the Russian one I am now very happy to say!!
The Mooltan 20,000 tons of aging ship, massive to us but now would only be classed as a small ship 100,000 tons seems to be the average, 250,000 tons on the large size!!
Our turn came at last and through the hole we trooped to find ourselves in a black cavern, directed through doors that were about a foot off the floor so that dragging kitbags jammed and brought forth words of complain not heard very frequently in church. Now completely lost and descending even deeper into the bowels of this black tank we were at last told that is where you stay until told to move and that heap there contain hammocks and those hooks there are where you swing them and those tables and benches are where you eat and some can sleep on them and the heads are there and don’t move!!
So we sat and surrounded with our bags wondered what we had done to deserve this, after all we had volunteered for overseas posting, but this?
A few thought to see what was through the next doorway but only more of the same lots of airmen sat sitting waiting to be told what to do. Ah a sergeant has arrived, ‘you and you come with me’, not me but a couple near who left their kit and followed as detailed, who return some time later with urns of tea, a scramble to find our own kitbag and delve into it’s contents to find our ‘mugs airmen’ hopefully still in one piece.
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These two had been delegated as our mess orderlies and would fetch our food at the times arranged, well at least we should be fed and the tea was hot strong and sweet, by this time it was getting late in the day not that we had any idea whether the sun was shining or it was raining, the urns were returned and the message came back to sling your hammocks and get in.
I was just about 18 from memory and certainly the youngest in our “room”, places on the benches and tables had already been taken by those in the know. The Mooltan was a slow old converted cargo ship. As such the accommodations were happenstance and crowded. The only hammock hook left was over the stairwell and passage way. This is where I had to sling my hammock, which was over the stair case leading to the lower toilets. I slung my hammock and endeavoured to climb in and found myself on the floor the opposite side, I had tied it too tight and had no head room so that as I climbed in I pushed myself out again, instructions from those near who were well bedded down soon got things “ship shape” and I crawled in to assume the shape of a banana, not at all comfortable and desperately aware that a trip to the heads should have been made before becoming cocooned like this.
Sleep came but was soon interrupted by the rustling noise as hammocks swayed and rubbed together, we were on the move but this soon stopped and dawn found us moored in mid river, we had been allowed on deck soon after stowing our hammocks and being fed, strict instructions being issued that not too many on one side as the ship could capsize!! A sea of men everywhere, no small piece of deck was vacant, and only the grey Mersey, grey sky, and crowds of grey clad men were in view.
There we stayed all day and other ships moored near, we were fed during the day and tried to wash with the salt water soap we were issue with, it didn’t foam and currently did not remove dirt, in fact it left a grey sort of coating on the hands which was difficult to remove, seems that life from now on going to contain logs of grey!!
And so to “bed” or do you say and so to hammock? only to be woken up feeling very sick and scrambled out of the hammock to find most others were doing the same and a rush to get on deck for some fresh air which may stop that horrible feeling. It was dawn a very grey dawn, and directly behind us was a very large grey ship, completely without modesty showing us her (it’s?) grey bottom as it lunged up and down, we likewise were playing silly buggers and this motion was no doubt the cause of our distress, in the distance could be seen other ships, some had things like broom sticks pointing about them and we presumed that they were to protect us, I like many other now wished that we could be torpedoed and sunk, they only relief in sight for that awful sinking feeling!
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That night, all the hammocks swung together as the ship rocked in the heavy seas and the rush by some people during the night to get to the “bogs” before they spewed up often ended just below me, perhaps it is no wonder that I spent as much time as I was allowed on deck away from the stench, but always got herded down when it got dark, the Atlantic was not a very pleasant place to be at that time apart from the gale that seemed to rage more each day, we were only too aware that U Boats would enjoy sinking a troop ship and the chances of being saved in that stormy water was about nil! It was cold and smelly in my hammock as we sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean.
The days passed and gradually we were able to take a small sip of tea a tiny crumb of bread without heaving it up straight away, as we and the other ships headed into the grey Atlantic, the clever ones amongst us saying that we were headed for America, others convinced we were going into the Med, and an even more knowledgeable bunch with a compass sure we were going south. The sea was empty but for our escort. Our convoy, being one with important cargo, a troop ship, was doubtless given a course away from the shorter more populated routes. We saw no planes escorting us or other ships other than our own convoy and escort. Some bits and bobs were sighted in the sea, just a few empty crates probably slung over board by any ship friend or foe going that way. Nothing else.
Funny things that stick in the memory after all these years, apart from the agony of sea-sickness which passed after about a week, was and still is the smell and taste of the bread loaves we were all given each day as part of our food ration. I had now recovered from sea sickness and was able to eat my share of the food on offer, what we were serves up I have no recollection apart from the small loaf of bread we were issued with each morning which had to do us for the rest of the day. Eat it when you like but you wont get any more until the next morning. It was the most enjoyable bread I have ever tasted, of course I had teeth then and was very hungry, as all young people are, but after so many years I can almost taste it in my memory!!
The grey has passed and the grey ships with guns, one of which was a battleship, left us as we entered Freetown, not the town you understand but the estuary leading to it. We called into Freetown after three weeks of utter misery. Freetown is on the west African coast, so it did look as if we might end up somewhere hot but where no one knew. Apart from one poor sod, one of our airmen though not from our mess, who had not stopped bringing up just bile for the last three weeks, no one from the troops got on shore. The lad who was taken ashore with seasickness that had lasted since leaving UK, was in a very bad way with dehydration.
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We moored away from the town itself and have no memory of other ships near us but guess they were there. We did not get ashore, not that it looked very inviting, mud huts and mud was all we could see moored out in the channel. After one day on a ship that actually stayed in one place horizontally we set sail again for parts unknown.
I developed a raging tooth ache and reported sick, the ships doctor showed me his equipment for treating tooth aches, it consisted of an armchair and a few rusty looking plier type instruments, said he hadn’t pulled out any teeth and which one hurt, showed him and tapped on the wrong one and told me to come back in the morning if it is still bothered me, funny thing the pain went away and only returned very many years later when all that was left was a hollow shell which crumbled to pieces when the dentist gripped it!!
Sailing away from Freetown the weather became much sunnier and it was now quite evident that south was the way we were going, the sea became less grey, but cannot remember the other ships, perhaps they no longer were showing their bottoms, flying fishes flew from our path dolphins rode our wash, and life became just about perfect, apart from the fact that the 10 shillings (about a dollar) I had boarded with was long gone (no pay until we arrived where ever we were going). I smoked a pipe but would smoke cigarettes as well and the only ones on offer free from my “room” mates were Springbok, a very strong South African fag oval in section and only given to me because those that had bought them felt sick after a few puffs. It is one of the other things that I remember after all these years, the horrible smell of the Springbok cigarettes, which was all I had to smoke the six weeks we were aboard. Perhaps in retrospect a good time to give up smoking you might say, but in those days they were issued free to some units and certainly the Salvo’s and other friends of the forces gave them out to all service men. The opiate of the masses it would appear!!
We got into smoother waters and the sun shone and most of the Navy escort left us, and there really is a sort of magic about the sea when you are far from land, suppose most of us got a good rest and were well fed for six weeks and enjoyed the days relaxing in the sun, watching the flying fish, dolphins and strange patches of seaweed, and of course we all had to be “welcomed” by King Neptune.
One thing about a troop ship there is no such thing as privacy, we slept close to one another, ate our food touching elbows, and washed and showered in sea water which does not get any dirty off only ingrains it further in the skin, even using the special soap that was provided. Toilets had to be increased and the solution on this ship was to construct on the top deck a trough about 30ft or 9 meters long and fix along this some 20 or so squares
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of wood with holes in, water was pumped in from the sea one end and ran over board out of the other, a very friendly loo indeed, the rocking of the ship was a worry some times when your next door neighbour’s evacuation born on a tidal wave came visiting!! To enliven an activity that was already fraught with some peril, people with a distorted sense of humour nailed a stub of candle to a piece of wood, lit the candle and then set it on its journey down stream to warm the posteriors and other appendages of the poor captive sufferers!!
We travelled south but then to confuse all and sundry we started to go north and with our very limited knowledge of where things were on the earth’s surface we were again lost, after six weeks of a war time sea cruise we entered the Port of Durban and once more were on dry land which to our consternation would not keep still and behaved much like the Mooltan had in Liverpool.
Perhaps it is not to be unexpected that most if not all were glad to get off the Mooltan after six weeks when she docked in Durban on the east coast of South Africa. The group I was with were taken from the ship to the rail and we began the last part of our journey to our final destination which was Bloemspruit R.A.F Pilot training station near Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, where we were to keep the 104 Miles Master aircraft flying day and night. A much better job that I had been doing since leaving Halton.
The railway journey from Durban to Bloemfontein lasted one whole day but can’t say I remember anything at all about it, on arrival at 27 Air School about ten miles outside the city which is the capital of the Orange Free State we were shown to our barracks, decent brick buildings, single storey, with stable type spilt doors and the usual basic beds and lockers, but heaven after the ship. Food was so strange at first, lots of fruit most of which we had never seen or heard of and many different dishes made from maize, one like porridge called “mealie meal” served at breakfast I thought wasn’t too bad but soon learnt that the natives ate it so South African whites wouldn’t beneath their dignity. We had a lot to learn about the South African white way of life, to see the native workers on the flight line covered in oil and grease as they did the dirty jobs and then watch them fishing in the bins where we emptied the left overs from our plates, made us recent arrivals very angry, but we were told not to interfere, we were guests in the country and our ways were not the right way to treat these “savages”. If we offered them the “butts” left from our cigarettes they had to hold out both hands in case they had a knife in the other and would stab us, it did seem and still does to me that the white population went in fear of their lives and in many cases rightly so because they did treat the natives in a terrible way and at last the right thing has been done but the Dutch Boer has a lot to answer for. These Boers had an organisation based in the Orange Free State (think they
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now call it The Free State) that went about blowing up power lines and post offices and was very pro German know the name but my spelling of it will be far from correct (Osiver Brantvag) told you it was all wrong!! I made a number of friends while stationed at Bloemfontein, the Florie family for one, they picked me up at the bus stop when I had missed it one night and gave me a lift back to camp, he was an accountant and she was after a bit of ‘rough’ not 18 and dim as a Toch H lamp didn’t recognise the invitations handed out every time I stayed over night, frilly things always had been left on my bed by mistake, “I’ll just put them away, do you like them?” was only one of the things and her husband I’m sure thought I was giving her one, would have done if I hadn’t been so thick!! One night at their house they were having the usual meeting of the tennis club, very few blokes but lots of pretty young girls, suggested that they might like me to do some toast on the open fire for all of them, funny thing it wasn’t some thing they had ever done, so there I sat toasting slice after slice and spreading each with lots of butter, calls for more coming all the time, the family cat came to see what I was doing and I just spoke to it calling it “Pussy”, a deathly hush descended over the room and then a few stifled giggles and one of the chaps wanted to tell me some thing outside, pussy was the local name for that part of a girls body that men seem to want to get into so no more calling cats pussy.
Another person I got to know was Nabiha Masoud (think that’s how to spell it) she and her large family were all from Lebanon and would you believe classed as coloured, which is only one degree above black and not to be mixed with, the Florie family would have nothing to do with her even though she had her own ladies hairdressing business and good at it, tried to get me not to see her or her family, but apart from “Dad” the rest of her folks were very nice to me and always had a place at their table for me, Dad thought things were serious so didn’t want her getting involved with a Pom, we were in fact just good friends and perhaps I saw her just to say “up you” to the white population. There is a town called Margate down the coast from Durban and I did write to the Mayor who invited me to visit the town and be their guest, but never took up the offer. Dac Dacre was an ex Halton “Brat” like I was and we got on very well together, we arranged to take a leave together and as we could get a free railway pass decided to go to a place called Muizenburg this is a seaside holiday town on the shores of False Bay, we had booked into a YMCA hostel and spent our leave there but the train journey lasted all of two days and did get a bit boring after a while, miles and miles of very little followed but some more, had a look at Cape Town and little did we realise that not too many months would pass before we again found ourselves in the area, in fact in a transit camp between Muizenburg and Cape Town waiting to board ship back to England and flying over Germany as crews of bombers. My mother’s father had a brother who had moved to South Africa many years before and I managed to find them in a small town called Krugersdorp near Johannesburg, they invited
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me to stay with them on one of my leaves so I took the offer up and spent two weeks with them. Very interesting for me as my uncle had a building firm and I went about to see how things were done, one of the sons was an inspector of mines and arranged for me to go down a gold mine and also see all the processes of getting gold from the ore.
There are two reefs bearing gold in that area, called north and south, can’t remember which is which but one is very wide and is made up of very white quartz pebbles around which can be seen the glitter of gold flecks, the other reef is quite narrow and in places only inches wide but is very dark even black in colour and the gold can be seen quite easily as small nuggets. Both of these reefs go down into the ground at an angle so that new shafts are sunk to reach the reefs as they get deeper in the earth and further away from the original shaft, each new shaft being much deeper before it reaches the gold bearing ore. The very large heaps of brilliant white dust from the treatment plants can be seen for miles around Joh/burg and when the wind blows cause painful eyes and noses.
The mine I went down was very deep indeed and the lift travelled at such speed that one felt slightly air-borne as it descended the earth. The area at the bottom was huge and the passage ways leading off very large and well lit, as we moved away towards the mine face things got steadily hotter until we reached a place where a native was working a jack-hammer in a steeply sloping crack removing the small but very rich ore piece by piece, all jack-hammers also have a water pipe connected to prevent that miners curse of silicosis, so we had a very wet large black man working hard in a very narrow and hot space, he still was able to give me a big white toothy grin, but what he said I do not know, the noise of the hammer was terrible! After an hour or so of this we returned to the surface, glad of the fresh air and my shirt at least a chance to dry off from the high humidity underground. The first part we visited was the Stamp house, the noise here was unbelievable, row upon row of steel hammers pounding the ore as it slid beneath them washed down by streams of water, sheets of corduroy were used to catch any free gold after the stamps, these sheets were taken out periodically and burn to get the gold, the slurry then passed over copper sheets with mercury on them which also collected gold, not sure how or in which order this happened, it is a long time ago!! The slurry then entered very large tanks open at the top in which cyanide was dissolved in water (cyanide is a very deadly poison) the gold was dissolved by this mixture, this fluid was then pumped to a centrifuge where any remaining rock particles were extracted, the fluid which now looked like clean drinking water, but was far from it, was pumped again and ended up in mile long sheds which were full of troughs that contained hundreds of separate boxes filled with zinc shavings, as the liquid passed through the zinc the gold stuck to the zinc, and the next process melted the zinc shavings in a furnace which was then poured into an
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inverted cone shaped mold [sic], on cooling the cone was turned upside down, banged and out fell a very large cone of zinc with a small gold top, these gold knobs were cut off by hacksaw and tossed in one corner, when enough had been made, were themselves melted and poured into newspaper lined ingot moulds, lots of these bars of gold were stacked against the wall and I was invited to help myself if I could carry one away, tried but it flattened me to the floor and had to be lifted off me by the ever grinning black workers. The zinc was re-rolled into sheets and in one corner was being turned again into shavings on a very old lathe by the still grinning workers.
So far it would seem that all I did was visit and enjoy but this was a pilot training ‘drome, flying went on 24 hours a day and our days were spent servicing the 104 Miles Master ‘planes on the daily inspections. The Masters was made of wood and plywood, much like the Mosquito of later and much greater frame. The Miles Master was an advanced training aircraft that trained pilots in fast single engine ‘plane management before they became operational on Hurricanes or Spitfires. Mark 1 Masters were fitted with Rolls Royce Kestrel engines (fore runner of the Merlin) some of these were even equipped as fighters with four Browning guns during the panic of 1940, Mark 2 Masters had Pratt and Whitney Junior Twin Wasps.
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Servicing Miles Master Trainers at 27 Air School
With the many hours they were flown each day, some very hard landings and the general wear and tear of pupil pilot use they were becoming very hard to keep airworthy, even had one do a forced landing at a place called
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Dewetsdorp which ended up on it’s back. As I had spent some time in England salvaging Miles Masters I was in the gang that went to collect it, still have some photos of the job.
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Miles Master Recovery
The salvage crew was led by Sergeant “Jock” Brown and was made up of members of the flight servicing crews at 27 A/S. A Queen Mary low loader was not available nor was a crane which made the task more difficult, sheer legs being used to lift, turn and load the ‘plane. As far as I know the pilot did not die but would have needed to “duck” a lot from the amount of cockpit damage. As bad as the airplane was, great care was taken to salvage the ‘plane without further doing further damage. This took a great deal of work, including some careful maneuvering [sic] over a narrow bridge on the way back.
104 American Harvards were flown in and my mate Dac and myself were given the job of checking these and making them airworthy for use, they had been shipped to Durban as deck cargo, and although sealed before loading, some had had their canopies opened by the ship’s crew, salt water had entered and causes much damage, not only to things that could be seen but many radios had been ruined and props had been turned so that ports had opened, we found many that had damaged pistons on the con rods due to salt water no wonder the delivery pilots had complained that some were gutless and rattled a lot. I joined the Camp Concert Party and band, played the fool on the camp and Bloemfontein stage and played the trumpet very badly at camp dances, practised like mad but still caused the lead trumpeter to shake his head in disgust.
Notices were on the boards for aircrew volunteers, Dac and I were a bit fed up with our treatment regarding promotion, we did the work and other got the credit, funny it’s still the same fifty years later!! We put our names in and after various interviews were sent to Cape Town to await shipment back to England.
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– Reg Miles
The URL Of This Webpage is
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/7797/Milesbio3.html
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Biography of Reg Miles
Ex Apprentice No 1 S. of T. T., R.A.F., Halton 39th Entry 34 – 67 M.U.s – 27 A/S Bloemspruit South Africa – Lympe Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 242 – 246 – 511
Squadrons Transport Command Lyneham, RAF
Chapter 4
Lympe, Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire
Unescorted fast ship Mauritania II brought us home in just two weeks. This was more like a holiday cruise, she was a large new fast ship, not over crowded, weather sunny, no real worries about the enemy, just too ignorant to have a care. And good food, all very pleasant!!
We came into port during the night, I suggest for security reasons. We would be confined below decks after dark so that no lights would be shone and any portholes on our decks would be welded shut. As we had no idea where we were it was only at dawn that we found ourselves suddenly in harbour.
We returned to a cold and rationed England, which was a bit of a shock after the land of plenty that was South Africa. I got to spend some time at home. Home was River outside Dover where Dad was responsible for building work for all the various Navy, Army and Airforce units stationed in and around the port of Dover.
After a couple of weeks I was posted to Lympne RAF Base near Folkstone in Kent, not too far away from home. I could cycle home on the odd day off. I was at a servicing echelon on Typhoons there from August 1943, making myself useful until the Flight Engineer course came through.
I arrived at this very basic airfield, grass runway, no hanger that I can recall, road to the village went through the place and we were living in requisioned [sic] houses on the floor, the Guardhouse miles away so we never booked out or in, just went! There I was fit, brown, and fairly knowledgeable, and there they were the service crews, lilly white, half starved, most hadn’t a clue about the RAF. The CO wanted me to stay, rather than take the flight engineer course. He did everything to make me, even tried to bribe me with promotion and an instructors course, turned him down flat, not the best way to make friends!!
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A few days later I watched as the flight sergeant in charge of the service crew was trying to unlock a propellor, up on the steps with a very, very large lead hammer and a long spanner thumping away to release the lock, told him it was the wrong rotation, what would I know?, the engine shaft sheered [sic] off and prop and F/S landed on the ground, another job now to remove the whole Napier Sabre and fit a new one, suppose the F/S got promoted and probably blamed me!!
The Typhoons were very heavy fast fighters. They were fitted with Napier Sabre H section sleeve valved 24 cylinder engines, had 20m/m cannon and rocket rails, and were hell to fly and worse to service. The engines were proto-types and only could do 20 hours or so between engine changes, never saw even one do that much while I was there, the single prop was the biggest in service and only cleared the ground when in flying position by 4 inches, many were bent on take off, and many came back from ops with bullet holes in as the ‘plane went faster than the bullets in a dive and caught up with it’s own fire!!
When I was working on Typhoons heard many yarns, but all “driversairframe” are a bit like fisher men I think. While the story teller was giving the the [sic] usual flyers tale, with lots of arm waving indicating who did what, even the other pilots had a “I don’t believe him” smiles on their faces.
The Typh’s were used as tank and train busters and also for downing V-1 Bombs and did a mighty job. Despite their success, some of the Typhoon pilots were very keen to improve the speed of the Typhoon so they could catch the enemy, be it pilotless V-1 Bombs, or piloted fighters. They were always wanting a few more miles an hour of them and “if only the bloody thing went faster I would have shot down” probably the whole German Airforce!! Adjustments to the engines were very difficult because they were so complicated and really just prototypes still. So they spent many hours with car polish rubbing and polishing every bit to reduce drag. They got us to help also, big things Typh’s and we got very tired of it. Guess they were like me, young and keen and a bit stupid as well, you’d have to be to risk life and limb for peanuts!!
Of course battle was not the only thing the pilots were keen on. The Typhoons were flown from a small grass runway. A sergeant’s mess party was being held one evening when I was on duty crew, we had to see the “dusk” patrol in and prepare them the “dawn” patrol, check everything and rearm and refuel and make sure every thing was as it should be. The small ‘drome was crowded visitors ‘planes from surrounding units and many were parked at the ends of the runway, fog was closing in and the last few of the dusk patrol had been told to divert to Manston, which was a very large aerodrome fitted with FIDO, by air it was seconds away by road it was
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too far to get a lift and still get to the party. All their mates would be there plus many of the local girls and if you didn’t turn up some one else would try their luck with your girl!! All managed to get back in, just one left to land, and here he comes he’s too low can’t see the row of ‘planes at the end of the runaway.
Yes he has but too late the massive undergear crashes through about six aircraft of all types and sizes and comes to earth with one wing low, the prop touches, that one won’t be on dawn patrol, as it taxi to our flight position where we are standing with torches to direct the pilot and hook the ‘plane to our tractor and tow it into position for the morning, the pilot climbs out, says “shit” and heads off for a shower and no doubt a bullet from the CO and even grounding if senior officers have had their ‘plane destroyed. We check the undergear to make sure it wont collapse as we tow it and generally check the damage, this takes a while and as we are doing this we hear the bell of the “blood wagon” in the distance, but too late for any injuries we say so I lay on the ground with one leg in the air and groan as the medical orderly rushes over, but it’s not the usual medical orderly it’s the senior medical officer, who wants to make a name for himself as all the top brass are on the base for the party. Well we didn’t part as friends I must say, but he really enjoyed chewing me out so perhaps that made his day!!
Arriving back at camp after a day with my parents, we slept in empty houses really outside the camp boundaries so no booking in or out, supposed to but why go a long way to the guard room if nobody cared, any how it was early in the morning, near midnight, not late at night as it should have been as I cycled to my billet, as I got off my bike the sergeant of my ground crew called for me to get moving and handed me a bucket of white paint. Our flight line was very close to our billet, and I was told to start painting wide white stripes under the wings of the Typhoons, other bods had black paint. So I crawled under them with buckets of white paint late at night in my best uniform. No idea where the Typhoons were off to, but we were told it was for identification purposes for an operation, but which one? It might have been coastal or near to it, and in support of either Commando’s or Navy, both tended to fire at all aircraft without any idea who flew what!! But why do it in the middle of the night with far from clever painters with large distemper brushes and I’m sure it was water based paint? On 15 November 1943, 2nd Tactical Air Force is formed, perhaps the Squadron I was on was made part of this force and some “stay in bed get the boys out” prat thought it would be nice if the new force were correctly dressed for Dawn Patrol. Whatever the reason for the early morning paint job, my best uniform was never quite the same, every one else had on their overalls!
As it turns out this was the first time that this type of identification was used on allied aircraft, and I Did It!!! These black and white stripes were
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called invasion stripes by others much later. They were widely in use for the Normandy invasion. They were painted to clearly show our ground forces that they were friendly aircraft so we would not lose aircraft to our own flak. Only the Tactiful [sic] Air Force had the invasion stripes. Well before the invasion some aircraft were painted with the stripes to be used as Targets for spotters and Anti aircraft units and also for ground troops to get familiar with our own planes, as marked. Apparently this Typhoon squadron was one of those painted early to get our troops used to the stripes.
I was stationed at Lympne until the end of 1943 when my posting came through to report at St Athan in South Wales to start my Flight Engineers training. Because of my training at Halton and my service work on aircraft my training would be specific to the type of bomber I would be doing my operations on, that was the plan anyhow.
It might be best to spend a moment reviewing the various RAF bombers. First there were the Medium Bombers. The Hampden, outdated before the war started so not used much – bit of a death trap so not to be included.
Bristol Blenheim private design as all decent ones are, Beaufort a torpedo version did lots of damage and raids on shipping in French ports, made the Germans angry. Beaufighter very fast version called “Whispering Death” also used as a night fighter with radar, all types with twin radial aircooled engines also by Bristol.
De Haviland Mosquito, best all round fighter, bomber etc of the war, just look up it’s stats and learn! 4000 lb bomb load, faster than any thing until the jets arrived, 42600 ft ceiling, used by the Master Bombers, fitted with 4 cannon and even with a single 57 m/m cannon. Don’t know what a Master bomber is? They first used Lancasters, would circle the target at a low height during all of the raid, and direct the “Pathfinders” where to drop more target markers, all this done at night of course and we would be called up as “main force” and directed which colour markers to use as an aiming point, and woe betide you if you came in from the wrong direction or dropped anywhere but the correct place. we were usually at 18000 to 20000 ft and could see the Master Bomber back lit by the bursting bombs almost as ground level, a number of back ups would be at our height and when, not if the master bomber was either hit by flak, or by a fighter or as was most likely had a load of bombs dropped on him, saw a Lancaster one time when we had to land away from base that had had a load of incendiaries land on it, not a pretty sight!! Master bomber two would have his own call sign and often with an accent to prevent the Gardens from giving us the wrong information, cunning devils!!
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Heavy bomber Wellington made by Vickers designed by Barnes Wallis (swing wing F1111, Dam busters bomb, and even the Avro York made from parts of the Lancaster) Twin engine geodetical construction, (all little bits joined together to make a net like effect, very strong) covered with fabric, front and rear turrets, two .303 Brownings in each 4,500 lb bomb load 300mph main stay of bombing until the large 4 engined bombers came along, still going strong at the end of the war, called The Wimpey by every one. very many versions from sea search with a lifeboat slung under, to mobile radar and radio station and I remember seeing one flying very low along the coast line with a large ring the size of it’s wing span detecting and blowing up magnetic sea mines.
Short Stirling the first 4 engine one, slow. low and designed by the Air Ministry with short wings so that it would go into the standard hanger, typical stupid desk riders. My log book contains some hours spent as F/E on one, a pretty useless bomber and not to be in the same class as the Halifax and Lancaster.
The Manchester was first operational about the same time as the Halifax but as we all know was plague by engine problems and was a “dead duck” until fitted with four Merlins, the Halifax was also supposed to get RR Vultures but because a shortage was expected was designed for four RR.
Handley Page Halifax 4 engined similar to the Lancaster never gets a mention much like the Hurricane is over shadowed by the Spitfire, but many thousands of them were flying and bombing Germany, while the Manchester was falling out of the sky with failing engines. Rolls Royce produced a 24 cylinder engine really based on two Merlins joined at the sump one upside down, it was only when the Manchester was modified to take four standard Merlins that it became the great aircraft it eventually did become. Both The Halifax and Lancaster had versions with Merlins and Hercules engines, the Halifax with Hercules was much better than the version with Merlins and the Lancaster was the reverse better with Merlins, More versions of the Lancaster were developed during the war and it’s construction was easier than the Halifax, but the Halifax was much tougher and took more punishment before crashing, I trained on and flew them all as an F/E, just wanted to get down in one piece so all were good for me!! 6,176 Halifax were built, their first operational flight took place March 1941.
Both Lancaster and Halifax had 4 .303 Brownings in the rear power turret, mid upper had 2 but had a full 360 rotation and up and down. Some later versions of the Lancaster had twin .5 Brownings in the rear turret, both Halifax and Lancaster had versions with mid under turrets with twin Brownings.
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The Lancaster did eventually drop 22,000 lb grand Slam bombs, called by some earthquake bombs as they were made of high quality steel typical bomb shape and were used to bomb things like bridges which are very hard to destroy, need a direct hit, theses bombs penetrated deep into the earth and shattered the foundations so that the bridge or viaduct collapsed. 7,377 Lancasters were built, their first operational flight took place on 3/4 March 1942.
So I started my training on four engined Lancaster Mark 2 bombers which were in every respect the same as all Lancasters except for the engines which were Bristol Hercules 14 cylinder air cooled radial, all other Lancasters had four Rolls Royce 12 cylinder water cooled twin 6 cyl. vee Merlin engines. Lancasters were the outcome of a design called the Manchester which originally had twin Rolls Royce X engines 24 cylinder X, really two Merlins coupled at the sumps making a cross of four banks of six, these engines were a completed failure and before I went to South Africa in 1941 had worked on one of the Manchesters that had crash landed in a field due to engine failure. A.V Roe (Avro) knew they had a good aircraft and as The Royal Airforce refused to allow them any engines, so scrounged 4 Merlins from Rolls Royce on the “old pals network” and re worked the ‘plane from two engines to four and demonstrated to the top brass what a good all round bomber they had, and so it proved to be in service, carrying heavier bombs farther and higher than any other ‘plane at that time.
I studied the Lancaster and it’s systems including the Hercules engines until I knew every part, hydraulic, air, auto pilot, bomb release gear, undercarriage, you name it I knew and passed with ease my examinations, so much of what I had been studying was what I had been working on for a couple of years, different ‘planes but basically the same in principle. St Athan is a very old and well known R.A.F. Station the R 101 and R100 airships were built there and a “ring” of one of them is fitted to the wall of the huge hanger they were built in, which still stood when I was there, anyone interested in these airships should get “Slide Rule” written by Neville Shute and learn some very interesting facts about these two airships, Neville Shute was an aircraft engineer and any of his fiction books are a good read, perhaps his most well known book was the basis for the film “A Town Like Alice”.
After passing out from the F/E course I was given a short leave and in March 1944 told to report to 1664 Heavy Conversion Unit at Dishforth in Yorkshire and it was there that I joined up with the rest of the crew who had until that time been flying twin engined aircraft. What aircraft did I see on the runway when I got there? Halifax Mark 2s and 5s different ‘planes and different engines so I had to start all over again on systems and bits!!!
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11.3.44, I had to do some initial training to see if I could handle things actually in the air, so it was circuits and landings with a senior Flight Engineer to see how I went. Well we took off OK and did a circuit and came straight in land again, with me operating the various undercarriage and flaps etc as the pilot asked and all was going well round and round until the bumpy air and round and round got to me and I felt sick as a dog after about an hour and asked the F/E if we could pack it up. He looked at me and said if you give in now you are off the course and can go back to your unit, well funny thing I suddenly felt better and got on with the rest of the job for another hour, after that I was always too busy to feel sick.
I have a log book of my time flying, and I include here the information in it from the flights I made as crew member, rather than as a passenger. This began here, with the 1664 HCU, 1664 Heavy Conversion Unit, which means it was heavy conversion unit from 2 to 4 engine aircraft.
Some of the terms on the Log Book shall require explaining. The Lat and Long at the top I have added recently when I bought MS World Atlas and was able to pin point the airfield locations. You will note the first column is the date to help you follow the sequence. This log book records all my flying both training, operational and at Transport Command. C&Ls circuits and landings very boring and mainly for the pilot and engineer to frighten them as much as possible, D.C.O. duty carried out D.N.C.O Duty Not carried out. P.O Lauzon was my first operational pilot, others mentioned on this first page and perhaps elsewhere were senior pilots who had done at least one tour of operations and were being rested before doing another tour of at least 30, all were very much more frightened of the ‘sprog’ pilot than of anything the Boche could throw at them!! PO is Pilot Officer and is really a rank to ensure that the person will not put up any ‘blacks’ and behave like an officer and a gentlemen, probationary period usually 6 moths. FO is not Flight Officer which is a female rank in the WAAF but Flying Officer. 25th Feb 1:32 E Easy was the aircraft that we normally flew when I was with 420 Sqdn, V Victor was our designated ‘plane when with 432 Sqdn, but as we were very new got what was available due to serviceability problems. Will get to each one as I go through my log book, which will be about 30 pages.
Pilot Officer Lauzon asked if I would like to join his crew. The rest were already joined as a crew. I was the last one to join being an RAF Flight Engineer, they needed me to shovel in the coal and to keep the boiler streaming!! As I knew nobody on the course happily agreed, soon realised that all crews belonged to The Royal Canadian Airforce so I had joined a bunch of people who I had no idea of their country or life style, some thing else to study, I was going to be a busy boy! The rest had trained on twin engine aircraft of some sort in Canada and were now ready for the big time.
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We were all very young with different back grounds and likes and dislikes, remember I was with the Canadians who were used to a much higher living standard, more independent than us down trodden POMS (from the Australian prisoners of His Majesty, convicts) So where they had quite a lot of money we did not, all the same Yanky pay, and the food parcels poured in from their families in Canada, when we had leave they went to certain places arranged for them or hit the “big smoke” and found some one to enjoy their pay with, I went home to a shell and bombed Dover, first thing Mum wanted was my ration book so should could feed me, one of my father’s sub contractors always called at our house soon after I got home and from the inside of his very dirty overalls gave me a Black Market parcel of butter, cheese and bacon. My crew always made sure I had some of their surplus food to take home, sugar and jam etc. I could not invite them to stay at my house, one reason was there was no room and another was that I had to have a special pass to even leave the railway station near home even though the local cop on duty knew me. The whole south coast was a restricted area all roads in were manned and high fences were all around so no use trying the fields, took one of my girl friends once, was only allowed to stay 12 hours and had to either send her back to London or both go somewhere else, went somewhere else!! My parents not too pleased but I was on a promise and determined to find out if it was as good as everyone was telling me, yes it was!
After being introduced to the rest of the gang, I got down to serious study learning about fuel systems, tank positions and the fuel transfer arrangements that allowed one tank to supply all engines and many compilations of this, very necessary if flack makes a hole in a fuel tank, need to use that one up first and tanks have to be balanced for the same reason during operations, loose a full tank and you wont have enough fuel to get back home again!! Engine controls are important too, boost and rpm govern the fuel consumption, and which supercharger gear ratio being used is also very critical.
A very brief explanation of boost, revs and supercharger gearing. Boost is the measure of pressure, plus or minus of the air in the induction system of an engine. When a piston sucks in air it increase it’s speed and therefore lowers it’s pressure below atmospheric pressure at ground level (14Ibs per square inch roughly) The more weight of air that can be crammed into a cylinder before it is fired the move power is produced. Hence turbo chargers and super chargers, turbo’s are driven by the exhaust gases, superchargers by gearing direct from the engine, as the aircraft flies higher the air gets less dense, and the power from the engine becomes less, turbo’s and supers pump more air in so that power is maintained, use of ground level increases the power from a given capacity of engine cylinders, an engine without a charger would always show a minus reading on the boost pressure guage [sic].
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The setting of the throttle (accelerator) governs the boost pressure coupled with the turbo or super charger speed setting, the two work together and then setting is done by the pilot or engineer for the conditions at the time (climbing, cruising, etc) components that are a part of the system automatically retain this boost pressure until either a height is reached where the air is so thin that it cannot do so, or changes are made to flight conditions. Revs are the speed at which the propellors go round and relate somewhat to the gearbox of a car, selection of speed is made and automatically kept at that speed by a unit on the engine and one in the propellor itself, bit like an automatic gear box on a car, changing conditions of flight such as taking off and landing require different propellor speeds and reacation [sic] of the flight conditions, feathering which rotates the blades so that they do not “windmill” in the event of an engine failure are also incorporated. Guess it’s not so simple after all and I used to teach this but had the advantage of being able to flap my arms about!!
My first flight with P/O Lauzon was on March 16, 1944 and was Exercise 7&8 in my log book. Exercise 7&8 I have no idea but only took about one and a half hours so not very important I should say.
Our next exercise was the next day, the 17th, and was Local Bombing. This was a training exercise for the crew but mainly for the bomb aimer and pilot to get their co-ordination working together so that the target is hit. Small practice bombs used but sometimes larger ones full of concrete may be dropped.
The next night I was up with another pilot, Fry, for Circuits and Landing exercises again. More night training.
The next morning I was called to fly with yet another pilot, Vinish, for a Sea Search. VINISH is correct, think I wrote “finish” and got a sharp reminder! Sea Search was a very serious matter that was to see us spend all those hours searching a particular part of the ocean with other crews looking for a downed ‘plane, a hell of a strain on the eyes, the sun shining on the moving waves makes it very hard to see anything properly so things are reported that are not there and other things missed, and no we did not see anything.
You will note that I took off at 10:15 am flew for nearly six hours and then took off again the same day with a different pilot at 20:20 being tested on night C&Ls for about 4.30 hrs and that is only the time in the air, lots goes on before and after!!
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Then it was back to P/O Lauzon for two flights in one day, the 20th. Two and a half hours of Local Bombing in the morning then a six and a half hour Night Cross Country exercise.
Apart from actually flying and being checked by a senior Flight Engineer to find out if I could do my job properly, our navigator had to give me instruction on star charts, which star was where and how to use the sextant to take star shots while flying to help in navigation, the F/E position was beneath the astro-drome and it was another of his jobs to do star shots if and when the navigator needed them, the correct star had to be found and a timed shot taken to give an average reading, the wrong star could make life difficult and I can tell you the ‘plane bumping about, nasty people trying to shoot you down didn’t make finding the right star in amongst the millions out there easy.
During this course we also had to take instruction in escape technic’s [sic] both from the aircraft and the enemy, we went to a swimming pool and in full flying gear jumped in the water and tried to turn over an up turned dingy we managed, but could not see it being possible at night in a rough cold North Sea, we all treated it as a bit of a laugh, young and foolish in hind sight.
Our next flight, on the 24th March 1944 at 18:45, our crew did it’s first night operation over France as a diversionary raid to fool the Germans into sending fighters up to intercept what appeared a bomber force approaching targets in their country. This Bullseye Mission was a number of training aircraft that were sent in a direction different than the proper bombers, hoping this would direct enemy fighters away from the real bombers. This diversionary raid turned back before any target was reached and hopefully before any of the inexperienced crews were shot down!! The 1/3 shown on the log was a third of a point awarded towards the total of thirty points needed for a complete tour of operations. “Bullseyes” only counted as one third of an operation. The missions was six long hours wandering about over enemy territory before landing back at base with eyes very sore with looking for enemy fighters that never appeared.
Another course we had to attend was escape after being shot down, this was carried out by senior NCO’s of the Army at a special camp on the Yorkshire Moors, a cold and bleak place, with our instructors determined to show those “Brylcreem boys” what tough meant, we were marched and run about all day, all ranks, some quite senior officers going back on operations for their third tour, were made to wear overalls at all times with no badges of rank and shouted at as if we were new recruits in the Army. Escape training was carried out at night without any warning, doors were slammed no lights put on and we had to get into our overalls and get outside, loaded
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into trucks half asleep, and driven out on to the moors, dropped off in twos with a map, not told where we were and left to find our own way back to camp, the local police, army and the courses just finishing came out looking for us and if found we were arrested and help in jail until sent back to camp. The Canadians were very much anti authority, (much like the Australians I now live with) so nothing was sacred, buses were found in back yards and driven near to camp with lots of aircrew hidden under seats, some stayed out for days being fed and “watered” by lonely wives whose husbands were in the Forces, and said they have got lost and were tired and hungry, some did look as if they had been working very hard and needed a rest. This was our last training in the Heavy Conversion Course.
The fact that this was our last flight was a coincidence. Bulls Eye was not a graduation ceremony. If one was wanted by the higher ups and you had reached a level of training able to do it you went, the needs of the service were what governed what and where you went.
I had completed training and was graded on my performance in the course. Exam result is 73.5% That was based on my flying with instructors and theory of the aircraft systems at HCU 1664, not wonderful but remember I did do a theory and practicle [sic] course just prior to arriving at HCU on the Lancaster Mark II, different ‘plane with entirely different engines, so apart from crewing up with a bunch of wild Canadians, I had less than two weeks to learn all about a new ‘plane and it’s engines, not bad for yours truly. The results of my examination were signed officially by the Flight Engineer Flight Leader, a flight of men can be any number that can be controlled or over seen, a flight of aircraft also can be any number that is suitable for the type, 3 bombers being usual, more for fighters, a number of flight make a squadron, a number squadrons make a wing, a number of wings make a Group and a number of groups make a command as in Bomber Command. Got all that? So the Flight Leader responsible for a number of Flight Engineers under training, signed to say that I had reached a standard whereby I could be expected to do do [sic] my job properly. All trades of air crew had Flight Leaders, Navigator, Gunners, Wireless operator, Bomb aimer, and lets not forget the driver Leader for the Drivers airplane!!
This all ended in due course and our crew were given a posting to 432 Sqdn RCAF at Eastmoor who were equipped with Halifax Mark 3, same engines as Lancaster 2s and much better version of the Halifax’s at Dishforth, so all that study had paid off in the end!! My flying time with Squadron 432 are covered in those pages of my Log.
The RCAF was called 6 Group part of Bomber Command, most airfields had two Squadrons based on it, each was controlled by its own staff and did not always fly to the same targets nor even on the same days of nights.
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Usually the same nation were located at each base, so you had two Canadian Squadrons where I was, 420 and 425 at Tholthorpe as an example with my next unit. I just can’t remember which squadron was at Eastmoor with 432, the Lancaster book I mentioned before gives all the squadrons and I will just look to see which Squadron was at Eastmoor with 432 when they were with Lancasters. Doesn’t help, my book shows an HCU at the same base but that was to covert 432 from Wellingtons I think on to Lancaster II, they then changed to Halifax III just before I joined, need the same sort of book for the Halifax which I don’t have and maybe no one has! To continue both these squadrons, and 432 as well, were part of 6 Group. Each squadron was divided into flights the number I cannot remember nor can I recall how many ‘planes in each flight. I would recommend to you that you beg borrow, steal or even in extreme circumstances purchase a book called The Lancaster Story by Peter Jacobs it is distributed in the USA by Sterling Publishing CO Inc 387 Park Avenue South, New York it’s ISBN is 1 85409 288 8 it is a very fine book and gives much detail of the history and operational types of Lancasters I was given the book by one of Phyllis’s brothers and treasure it greatly.
We flew out of Eastmoor airfield. The airfields were just that, fields, hangers and other buildings had been erected, but I visited some many many years later and just the concrete runway was still there most had been removed for scrap and given back to the farmers, local drag car clubs still use some of them and guess those farmer with ‘planes of their own could land and take off on them. Although I do not recall the details of Eastmoor, I have read that the Standard Airfield design for heavy bombers was to have a main runway 2000 yds, and two secondary runways at about 60 degrees to one another of 1400 yds.
A fence had been errected [sic] around the perimeter and RAF Police patrolled this to keep strangers out, but guess if you really wanted in it would have been easy, gun positions were manned by RAF Regiment people with mainly light guns and fixed posts with bofors. The local towns were in the main villages, been there for centuries still using the roads that the Romans built, a village hall, for all the functions so a trip to one on a dance night would see all the lonely ladies out in force and us being the local best thing since sliced bread were over whelmed with attention, take your pick and hope her husband is not near!!!
Two crew slept in each nissen hut so no need to shout for quiet more like a moan about someones socks which were “humming”, don’t ever remember noise being a problem, none of us played craps or other gambling games like the Americans, guess compared to them our lives were a bit like “The vicar’s tea party”! There were no other ‘normal working hours’ type people in our huts so no problem.
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Life on the Bases 432 and 420 was the usual things. We played horse shoes, pool. I even had to have lessons from the wireless operator on the morse code and key. Buses were laid on to the local villages for the dances which were not all that popular, not too many lovely ladies there!! The odd trip into York but much the same old thing into the pub a few beers and away before the usual fights started between the armies of the Allies. Only those that had not fought anywhere had to prove how wonderful they were, just idiots, bit like the rubbish on earth today. nuf said!!
We didn’t have any “hours” as such when bomber crews, we were expected to be available 24 hours a day , but if “stood down” officially for a number of hours usually until next morning could go out of camp and be back in by 23.59, the usual time for late return from a night on the town.
Stations Order were posted on the various notice boards which would give times of lectures , and other places we had to be, one such was the visit to our camp by the Prime Minister of Canada, we had to line up to be inspected, not to bull parade more like a casual couple of lines of airmen of all ranks chatting away until he got near and spoke to some one, unfortunately the first three or four he spoke to and asked “Where are you from in Canada” were all RAF and not RCAF so when he got London, Yorkshire etc was a bit puzzled, one of the officers took him by the elbow and steered him in the right direction. We all wore RCAF brevets for our aircrew trade so not easy for him to know who was who, on my squadron only the Flight Engineers were RAF the rest all Canadians. The Canadians had a saying that I have just remembered, “Joe for King, home by Christmas” Joe was Stalin and King was the name of the Canadian Prime Minister.
So to recap, we were pretty free to do as we wished most of the time, and I like most others only read any notice board if we thought we were getting promoted, and left all that stuff to our pilot, who knew before we did when and where we were flying etc. That is why I got in such a muddle over my Officer’s interview, mentioned elsewhere I think you will find, just never bothered to read the notice boards!!!
Our missions were at first all night operations. As such I shall have to educate you about night and day in England, Winters starts about October/November and goes on until February/March, some visitors swear it never stops and is winter all year, but the important thing is that in these northern climes daylight ends very early and starts late so a man working a normal day starting at 8am and finishing 4-5 pm will always travel in pitch darkness to and from work. Taking off in darkness at 18.00 hours is no different from taking off even later. Darkness from say 7pm to 7am is 12 hours and we did not have bombers that could last that long and where would they have
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bombed anyhow? Hope that helps, just to take a random looking in the log book 6-10-44 15.45 take off to Dortmund all listed as night flying. Remember England is not too far from the Arctic Circle where 6 months of days and the 6 months of nights happens all the time!! At times we would land fairly early in the evening, but for another random look 15.9.44 22.00 to Keil 5.35 meant we got back to base about 3.30 am debriefing meal etc bed by about 5am, no early night that one.
If there had been a large night force out on a target say a 1000 bomber raid not every place was at the target at the same time, enough problems spread out, guess it would have been chaos otherwise so a raid would start soon after dark and continue until close on dawn when the day bombers took over.
April fools day found me acting as F/E to our Flight leader, Flight Lt. Cooper, doing circuits and landings at night for more than two hours to again check my skills, followed a few days later on the 4th with the whole crew doing the same thing. We passed this ok so now had to do a daylight cross-county to make sure we could go and come back!! The next day, the 8th, we did another “Bullseye”, this one 3 hours 35 minutes long, but were told they didn’t count towards points for a tour!
On the squadron you only got points for what you did operationally. While I am talking about a TOUR, it was a walk in the sun eyeing up the Canadian WAAFs, all who were very pretty and carried about a ton of makeup on their faces, my Canadian crew thought it wonderful, I thought they looked like a bunch of clowns Hey Ho. A TOUR was a certain number of operations 30 being the average but based on targets and what the service wanted so some did more and some did less I did 36, wanted to do more so that my crew could finish with the same F/E, as I had done some ops before joining them, I didn’t say anything to my Flight Engineer Leader but when he found out I had done more than I should have, he stopped me and sent me to get my new uniform as an officer!!! But that was yet to come of course.
On April 10th we flew our first operation, to Ghent, Belgium. The ops to Ghent was in all probability a German ammunition dump, a guess.
The raid is on so after a quick trip to the mess hall for a preflight meal it’s back to the barracks to put on my flight gear which is really only to dispense with the collar and tie, pull on the very large white woollen rollneck sweater under my normal working uniform top, pull on my flying boots and zip them up (keep hoping that the latest ones will be issued to us, these are impossible to walk in, made of foam and suede with long uppers lined inside with sheep skin, they certainly keep the feet and legs warn [sic] but after a few
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uses tend to lose their shape and “become down at heel” the latest ones are made from black leather as proper shoes and the leg portion can be removed by cutting the top off with the small knife hidden inside, more suitable for aircrew to walk away from the enemy after bailing out.
Down to the parachute section with the rest of the crew and draw my chest type chute and harness. On one operation we were told that ALL squadron parachutes had been repacked, a rumour had been circulating that a chute had had it’s rip cord pulled by mistake and all that fell out was an old blanket!! Parachute silk was much sought after during the war to make the “gift wrapping” that men looked for when their girls took their outer clothes off. We always poked a finger into the corner of the case to feel if there was silk (nylon?) inside.
Time to board the truck to take us out to the aircraft, as we called at each dispersal point calls of “race you back” and some not quite so pleasant were made to those climbing out, at last we were at our ‘plane, tumble out and grab our bits and bobs, I had in addition to my chute and harness a tool bag with a few spanners, pliers, bits of useful wire, string etc, other had large bags with the navigation and wireless bumf, and the tails gunner probably had a brick or lump of old iron.
We all climbed aboard to put our things in a position we could grab them if needed, my chute went on the floor in my position, as did my tool box, then I fitted my chute harness on making sure it was tight and properly fastened. down to the tail to remove the elevator lock and start doing my normal checks before we started the four engines, I had an aircraft log sheet to fill in, with what fuel was in which tank, and as soon as we started engines, all their details must be entered., by this time we had all settled in and a quick call was made to check that all intercom positions answered.
Halifax crew positions were spread throughout the aircraft. The bomb aimer’s position was in the nose where he map read if possible our mark of Halifax had no nose gun, it was found that fighters did not attack head on at night, various design changes took place during the war as needed so some had nose guns and some not. Then there was a blackout curtain, behind which was the navigator, then the wireless operator, all these at a lower level than the pilot, wop more or less under the pilot’s feet, up a bit the Pilot and behind him the Flight Engineer, who darted about as required. Then there was the mid upper turret and then tail turret. The Halifax had bomb bays in the fuselage behind the f/e position but beneath the floor but could be got at through panels if needed in the case of a hang up, also bomb bays were situated in the wings between the inboard engines and fuselage.
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In the cockpit where the pilot was were all the throttles, under carriage and flap controls, and the usual flying instruments. My position was also in the cockpit, where I would access the various contrls [sic] and dials needed to keep the plane flying properly. Only on very rare occasions did I have to help my pilots and that was if we had lost an engine and then only on landing. Once when a tyre burst as we touched down did he want a bit of muscle to keep it straight other than that managed without what seemed any effort. The Halifax position for the flight engineer was right behind the pilot, with my instruments, fuel, oil water pressures and temps etc on a rear partition, levers etc to change fuel tanks was either side behind the main wing spar. I had no resting place, no chair, so what I was only the engineer!! If a crash landing was going to be done all the crew expect the pilot could make themselves a safe spot by clinging together behind the main wing spar, so that was no worry, in a crash I would be as well off as the rest.
I was able to stand upright at my F/E position, and also when I assisted the pilot, think I could stand upright at the mid upper gunner’s position but needed to bend my back as I got near the tail, The inside was not pained as such, but from memory was a dark green in colour, probably the anti corrosion coating applied to Duralumin, Alclad and Aluminium sheets used to fabricate the ‘planes. The step up to my F/E position was about 9 inches, underneath was stored the oxygen supply for the whole aircraft, but I could still stand erect with my whole 68 and bit inches of height (the bit is much more important than the preceding 68 for those of us who are in a neat and compact package) I was able to turn round with relative ease, the space being sufficient for my needs, no windows of any kind apart from the roof astro-drome, the cockpit did have sliding windows both sides as well as a windscreen which was a great help to us, to see our way!!!, Both wireless operator and navigator had windows (non opening) complete with blinds for night work, there was also a large curtain between these positions and the bomb aimer nose, which was completely made of perspex in the Mark III version I flew in on operations, as far as I can remember we could all stand upright in the nose section where the nav and wop had seat with tables for their equipment. far from being cramped we all has as much room as we would require, not enough to hold a dance or even a large party but we could all move about with relative ease and reach anything needed to do our job. The fuselage looking back from my position which was just forward of the main spar, was really empty except for the mild upper gunner’s position, his lower body and feet only projected down about half way, with room to pass either side of him, we didn’t have the open side gun positions used in the forts.
During this time we had gradually crept up to the runway threshold and were now awaiting the green from the Aldis lamp, I had left my position to stand next to my pilot at the top of the steps landing down the wop,
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nav, and bomb positions, ready to hold the throttles open as we charged down the runway and to assist in any way wanted, I had already told the skipper that all engines were running Ok and so we set forth to battle.
The tail came up and we reached our “unstick speed” (whatever that was !!) the whole aircraft was shuddering with the effort of leaving the ground, a few skips off the concrete and we were airborne, time to take a breath, it had stopped completely as the trees bordering the ‘drome had got closer and closer, we once arrived back with bits of branches still caught in the undergear, and a failure of only one engine at that time with a full bomb and fuel load meant the end. Up with the undercarriage reduce the flap angle and set the throttles for climbing, synchronise the propellers, fill in the log book, reduce again the flap angle, check engine temps and pressures, change gills to get the temps right, stepping in and out and up to the pilot to do as he wanted, breathing heavily into the oxygen mask, which always smelt of rubber and rust and wet with condensation. I had to keep mine on to receive instructions from the skipper but most of the other crew could leave theirs unfastened until we climbed higher and went on to oxygen.
Back into my cubby hole, standing looking up out of the astro dome to see if we were in danger of climbing into some one else, all clear, down to the top of the steps to pile up the window and pamphlets that I would start to put down the chute later on, check all the engine details again, at every change of engine revs and at a regular period (think it was 15 minutes but not sure the log had to be filled in, a cardboard rotary calculator was used to work out what fuel had been used at certain revs and boost to check what fuel was left in each tank, the gauges were only a very rough guide!!
Not exactly a “Jack in the box” but I always took my job seriously and did all I could to ensure my side of things ran like clockwork, no guesses keep checking and worrying until home again safe and sound.
We had arrived at the altitude we were to fly at and engine revs and boost were reset, oxygen had been switched on at about the same time high speed had been selected on the supercharger for each engine, about 11,000 to 12,000 ft.
The navigator would tell the skipper at what time and which compass bearing he should be on to set course not for the target but the first of the course changes, and so with the constant roar of four engines, our little world of icy cold draughts, a lethal cargo, shuddering rocking in the streams of air from those in front, with many staring eyes looking for any others who might be near us in the black sky, seven young men went about their duty as they saw it.
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It was cold, it was apparently dangerous, if you worried about not getting back you probably wouldn’t, those that were frightened all the time were the real heroes, most of us just did it and were glad to be doing something to save our civilisation, not that we ever know just how bad things were or what a terrible bunch the leaders of the enemy were.
Yes I was a bit frightened on our first operation, but the ones that I always felt sorry for were the gunners. The pilot and engineer could see what was happening but were also very busy not only with flying the plane, but I had to record all the engine and fuel tank details plus other odds and sods. The navigator and wireless operator were shut up in their places with little to see from a small window and were themselves busy with their bits and bobs. The bomb aimer was in all probability stretched out full length looking at the sights below waiting to do his bit and telling us what he could see to help us avoid others and ensure we got where we were supposed to go. But the gunners isolated in their turrets had only themselves to talk to and fear can become a self promoting thing. Being busy kept me from being too frightened to do my job properly, and I can honestly say that I never really felt fear just a bit of apprehension on some operations, but more of that later.
There was no way to tell if we hit the target, not unless we were told so later. Most times, as here, we were not the first on target, it was all organised on “waves” so the thing was usually well alight or just a ploughed field by the time we got there. What we added to this was difficult to say or see from our altitude. The bomb aimer would see all the ground targets and perhaps what happened when the bombs landed. I was busy with my jobs and searching the sky above to help the gunners, didn’t really see a great deal. Sorry I am not able to give you a graffic [sic] picture of bombs falling and targets blowing up, Hollywood might but they live in a dream world anyhow!!
When we returned from our first operation, we were told the mission was only worth one third of a point!
We did not fly again for a week and then only flew a cross country exercise. On the 18th we flew an op to Paris. Ah Paris!!! Do you really think it was lit up??? All we saw were the flashes of bombs going off and the crash and flash of anti aircraft shells trying to get us. Every target we went to sent up flak, the Germans seemed to really hate us I wonder why? Until we started daylight operations we only saw what was lit up by our bombs and must say we didn’t hang about looking at the sights.
A five hour mission. How can it take five hours to fly to Paris you ask? The time taken to get to a target does not indicate how far it was, to confuse
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the enemy bomber tracks were deliberately set out as if a certain target were that night’s one when in actual fact we went elsewhere so the navigator did not have a period of nothing to do but was always calculating when and where to turn onto the next part of the course, gaining or losing time if necessary to arrive on target at the correct time, and checking on drift from winds not as per listed, and adding anything in his log that was of use to others, such as new flak sites. We never flew directly to any target nor flew home the same way, always many twists and turns to fool the enemy, those that chose the easy way home often didn’t get there, we followed the plan as set out by our squadron commanders, in our case it worked!!
Again, only one third of a point for some reason. Two nights later, on the 20th, we went to Lens, Belgium on an operation for which we were given one third of a point again!! I can’t seem to remember any reaction to this grudging point system, good boys did as we were told!! Funny thing is that most of us never really worried about reaching the end of a tour, the mateship of the crew was more important, ie just look at my and others search for old mates we flew with, can’t afford in most cases to get really together but nice to hold hands at a distance!!
On 22 April 1944 we went to the Ruhr Valley, known by all bomber crews as Happy Valley, solid flack from end to end.
Flak was present not just over the target of course. There were flak sites all about, and even flak ships. flak ships were in fact ships moored off the Enemy coast and were very bad medicine for anyone foolish enough to fly over them, guess being cooped up in a ship and see sick some of the time made the crew mad as they were very accurate and fast with reloading. Flak ships were well documented and only the crews with poor navigators or ‘planes in trouble ever went near then, we saw but kept well away!!
A slight shuffle off course, there were many flak towers of our own situated in the Thames estuary which were just as lethal as the ships, some years after the war and many years from now took one of my boys out to one in the first runabout I built, pretty massive things and I took a couple of photos to prove we had been there, our boating friends all turned back halfway and chickened out!!
Back to Happy Valley, the flak was heavy. Dusseldorf was a very serious affair, bits of red hot flak flew about inside the ‘plane as the shells burst, our navigator got hit but fortunately right on the torch in his May [sic] West (flotation vest), made him grunt a bit but he was Ok to get us home again. I had to check all manner of bits that got damaged, seem to remember the fuel control levers, about ten of them got damaged and it was a nightmare of a lottery which bit of frayed wire controlled which tank, but guess I must have
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done the right thing because we got home!! Just remember all this is being done in more or less pitch black darkness with the “driver” dodging flak burst and weaving about for the gunners, none of it calculated to appeal to the faint hearted!! But I wanted to get home as well and could have been on a promise from my latest girl friend, what more incentive could a guy have? Over Dusseldorf we were hit by flack. We returned safely. This was a full point towards our 30 needed.
On the 24th Karlsruhe was the target, and Essen on the 26th, back to France on the 27th to Montzen one whole point for this one, but on the 30th again over France to Somain and back to 1/3 point no idea why.
My log book for April lists 40.15 hrs operational, total 56.05. It is signed by Squadron Leader (rank about Flight Lieutenant shown as F/L and S/L) Officer Commanding (OC) “B” Flight This Officer was in overall control of all LEADERS for that flight of a number of aircraft and men to fly them, The ranks when I was in the RAF were Pilot officer, Flying Officer, Flight Lieutenant, Squadron Leader, Wing Commander, Group Captain, won’t bother with the rest, but the rank did not signal the position held visa vi aircraft operations as these ranks applied also to medical, religious, cook house and all other branches concerned with the RAF so a clerk could be a Squadron Leader if an officer, got it? BUT no non-flying type ever got to be incharge [sic] of operational people, want a riot do you? Unless you had pilot’s wings, very few other crew members ever made it to high rank, had to be a “driver” to get to the top. and so it should be I say!! Driver a term used by non drivers to put them in their place at times of getting about themselves, like chatting up your girl or not standing their round at the bar!!
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Underlined] F/E Reg Miles [/underlined]
May started with an air to air fighter affil. A Fighter Affil was us in a Halifax or Lancaster bombers in daylight practicing avoiding a fighter and a fighter doing the same to us, or should I say trying to us down (in
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theory we hope) camera guns used, good fun if you like sick making dives and climbs, as Flight Engineer the only one of the crew in constant free fall, all others belted in and the pilot having a real fun time as he tries to make the slow bomber do things never designed for it!! Hope that tells you what fighter affil was, never tried it at night guess not too many would land again in one piece, with 19-20 year old boys doing wheelies in the sky with permission of the 24-25 year old bosses!! But this one we didn’t finish due to the weather. Heavy cloud moved in and the exercise was D.N.C.O duty not carried out! My Log book will show by each notation D.C.O. or D.N.C.O. DCO is Duty Carried Out, DNCO has a not in it!!!
In fact May was a bad month only two ops. The first was to France at Le Clipon. I note that on the night of the 19.5.44 ops Le Clipon that there is a small red note 15x500 could be what bombs we took!! The second mission in May was to France as well, to Mont Couple for a grand total for the month of 2/3 of a point. Most of the time was spent night flying about England doing more training.
A recent TV show about drugs, reminds me of something during my service, which many people may not know happened. On at least two occasions we were drugged!! Not too sure which ones it was but, you see we weren’t ever told what was being planned or cancelled, just called up to do a raid. Once we were pulled out of bed to do a raid and given pills to keep us awake, the raid was then cancelled after we had climbed aboard out planes, we were then given more pills to make us sleep. No idea what the pills were or even if they worked!!!
The second of June started much as May with an op to Neufchatel in France for another one third point, and on the 12th six days after D Day, Les Lauzon and I were marshalling V Victor from our dispersal to the main runway, as I unlocked the elevators by pulling out the large pin something slipped and my hand was trapped and very badly cut, I had to be taken to the hospital, sewn up, bandaged and my arm put in a sling. No possibility of my going on the op so a spare F/E was called up in my place.
Later that night after some pain killers and a rest I heard the 432 ‘planes returning and went down to the Ops room where all returning crews had to call in and give our statement of events, what we saw, if we could give any details of aircraft shot down, and all the details that would help to decide if the target had been hit. When the Station Adjutant saw me he had a fit, my mother had just been sent a telegram to say I was missing on operations, my crew had been shot down and would not be returning.
This was a great shock to me. It would also be a shock to my parents. and as it was now just after 8 o/clock in the morning knew that my
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Dad would be at work in his office on the docks at Dover, gave the Adjutant the number and was put through in record time, told Dad I was ok and would explain the details when I saw him.
Each crew shared a nissen hut with another crew, not a happy situation when the other crew went missing, but the padre or one of his staff quickly gathered all the stuff up and it was sorted out by one of the squadron officers to send to the parents, anything not nice was removed. I was lucky my stuff was not sent before I managed to let them know I was still on camp!!
Nothing for me to do on the base so home I went on the next train from York to Dover. Trains, now that is something that you should all enjoy, no Air Raid Wardens, the guard just turned off all lights when an air raid warning was sounded, if a tunnel was near the train would go in there, but we are only talking about trains near the coastal regions, hit and run raids were the ones that tried to get trains, trucks etc but that soon stopped when the RAF squadrons became equipped with plenty of fighters to scare the low fliers away, happened to me a couple of times on my way to Dover on leave but really not a worry, worse things happen at sea we always said. Train travel was dirty, uncomfortable, long delays, overcrowded with troops and all there [sic] gear going about the country, only very rarely would a seat be available and soon given up to the lass with a baby on board or in arms, the corridors solid from end to end, tired people going back from leave and even more tired people going home for a spell away from war, but in some cases going into more war if their home was in the south, not that the north escaped bombing raids but it continued for longer in the south in fact almost to the day war ended, V1s and V2s almost to the end. After I was made an officer I travelled first class, now that was good if I had a travel warrant, not so hot if I had to pay for it, lot of rubbish I thought but must do as I am told like a good boy.
I arrived just after eight the next morning and phoned Dad from the Railway Station, he picked me up and took me home, Mum was at the local corner shop and post office, all the staff knew me and also knew about the telegram.
I did not notice a great deal about the Normandy build up, the landing happening on the 6th. We flew over the south of England on our night operations and sometimes were on our way home at dawn we would see the build up. As I usually spent time with my father in the Dover docks while on leave would have seen what was going on. But remember Dover was always very busy and some parts were off limits to every one, any double decker buses used on that part of the coast had all the top windows locked and pained on the outside black so no view of what was happening about the place.
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D Day itself, however, must have come and gone without me noticing it. A bit like V Day and J Day. I was in all probability flying somewhere, or coming from somewhere by car, train, boat, or foot, just never registered, but see years later the crowds in London celebrating, guess they were lucky to be there at that time.
Being home with a wound, I thought I would have some luck with the local girls if I spun the yarn that I had swum the English Channel with one hand, didn’t work out that way because a couple of days later I had a big lump behind my ear and a raging headache, high temperature and not a well boy at all. Dad took me to the closest Military Hospital which was in fact at Dover Castle (built by William the Conquer 1066), beneath which miles of tunnels had been cut and a large and modern hospital installed, I was told that I had an infected scalp, the poison was draining into a gland behind my ear and would take a while to heal, perhaps brought on by a combination of shock from my injured hand and the loss of my crew, a close bond exists when people depend on each other for their survival and air crew had a very close bond. I was taken by ambulance to an old country mansion up the valley a few miles inland from Dover, this was on or about the 10-12 June 1944, no medicine was available to treat my condition, just aspirin for the pain and high temperature, I lay in bed staring through the large windows hoping for sleep and return to health and wondering what had happened to my crew, night time was the worst, nursing staff all asleep upstairs and every one else snoring their heads off.
Then to make matters worse the Germans started sending over Flying Bombs on the night of the 13-14 June and every night and day after that, these pilot-less aircraft had a rocket type motor which had a pulse mechanism that gave them a strange but most recognisable noise, when the noise stopped they just fell out of the sky and the one ton of explosives made a nasty mess of anything underneath. They were programmed to fly up the valley where I was laying sick in bed and on the opposite hills from my bed were 20 and 40m/m quick firing guns, which of course fired at each and every one they saw or thought they did. I swear they were firing straight at me and thought it very unfair that after putting up with Jerry firing his guns at me now my own side were doing the same!
After the war there was a newspaper article showing the location of all Doodle Bug strikes in Kent. I still have a copy, and it is copied elswhere [sic] on this CD.
I was in that hospital for more than a week until one afternoon the doctor seemed to think I was ripe and cut into this lumps behind my ear and out popped a golf ball sized ball that looked like wound up white wool, all pain went and the wound soon healed up,.
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A few days at home to get my strength up and I was told to report to 420 Sqdn RCAF at Tholthorpe in Yorkshire, where I was crewed up with Jim Tease as pilot and the usual other members of E easy, they had lost their F/E somehow can’t remember now why, but they were a nice bunch and as I had done a few more trips than them, was an old hand!!
One such trip they made without me Jim has only recently told me of. On the 25th of July 44, Jim relates, we started for Stuttgard with over-load petrol tanks in the wing bomb bays, and the fuel lines were plugged so we could not get the fuel from them into the main tanks, so we had an early return. He then says “think you were the F/E but book says Naish”. His Book is correct.
The new crew to which I was assigned was as follows. Jim Tease Pilot, Bridgeman Bombardier, Nicklen Navigator and best man at my wedding!, Baker Wireless Operator, Vaughan Gunner, and Yack Gunner. Our ground crew were LACs Jones, Milne, Parker, Smith and Sgt Berry. All were RCAF.
When I was stationed with 420 Snowy Owl RCAF Squadron our motto was ‘pugnamus finitum’ which translated mean (so I’m told) ‘We fight to the finish’, now my long time RAF mate, (Halton, South Africa etc) arrived on the companion Squadron at Tholthorpe, good looking always got the pretty girl, 425 Alouette RCAF Squadron motto ‘Je te Plumerai’ “I shall pluck you” how appropriate for a French Canadian outfit, the re-write by all and sundry is painfully obvious, even more so for my mate Darce, got through the war OK but lost touch in 1947 and just hope he is still doing what he always did best!!
Our first op together was on the night of 28th July to Hamburg in Germany, the port inner lost all of it’s oil over the target, flack put a hole in a pipe so we returned on three engines and for some reason it wouldn’t feather so that was added drag but we made it back in one piece, and all felt good that one was over.
On the night of the 31st we were over Deuf-en-Ternois and had a slight argument with an ME109 we both tried to get into firing position and the Jerry pilot realised that he might come off worse if he didn’t go away which he suddenly did, we were happy to see him go!! We again had problems which meant we couldn’t return to base but had to land at Skipton an emergency aerodrome equipped with FIDO.
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Landing away from home usually would be on a FIDO drome. Once landed, our ‘plane would be towed clear of the runway and dumped for us to sort out in daylight, we would get our heads down wherever we could and as it was often nearly dawn by the time we had sorted out our problems we would get some more fuel get the fans fixed and fly back to base, where we would then be de-briefed have a meal and either get some kip or get ready for the next one.
August 3rd daylight to Foret-de-Nieppe in France target an ammunition dump. Flying at night we all went our way and took no notice of friend or foe unless forced to, by daylight the powers that be decided we should fly in, and practice formation, all very good for them that always get lost or need to hold hands, not us we know where to go and what time we should be there so get out of the way and follows us if you like!!!
Perhaps I should try to relive the first daylight raid I went on, that would have been 3:8:44 Foret-de-Nieppe. I mentioned before that as far as flak we never had a free ride, well the flak this first daylight one is well remembered.
It seemed all very strange at first to be able to see what we were doing, not having to squint with hardly any illumination to read gauges and find things by touch alone, so a bit like a holiday as we set “sail” to our target. All our friends around us, not I hasten to add in formation, but at time close enough to be able to recognise some and even give them a wave as we passed close. We of course were heading in the correct direction for the target, where some of the others were off to we did not know, kites flying off all over the place, and yet at night we all arrived where we should be, but how we missed one another in the dark is a mystery. Thinking about it, all the navigators were in their little cubicles without reference to what was happening outside and were working out their own headings taking into account the wind directions and the aircraft speed, so were doing their own plans to get to the target on time, bit like modern motorists taking different roads to get to their work places on time. Any how the skipper and I looked at the mess of planes going every which way and remarked that some of them must be mad, not us we knew where we we [sic] going. Gradually things sorted themselves out and a few of us were going in roughly the same direction, not all at the same height I might add but you can’t have everything can you? As the holiday spirit continued we saw some of our ‘planes cross our path and joined us, where they had been no one knew, but we had a gaggle of bombers heading towards the target. Crossed the coast of England and could see the French coast coming up, no need for the bomb aimer to tell the skipper and I but the navigator would welcome the information and the fact that we were not alone anymore!!
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“Ten minutes to target” came through the inter com from the navigator and as was usual a heading for the skipper to take as soon as we had dropped our bombs, often a lot of noise over the target so best to get our escape route sorted before going in.
And there was the target the first wave had been in and were on their way home again, but it was impossible to get to the target, one solid mass of bursting flak, not enough room between the bursts for even a small ‘plane let alone a bomber. The skipper and I stared through the windscreen, we did not say anything but guess he felt as I did that this was going to be one hell of a trip, the holiday was over that was for sure.!! The bomb aimer was crouched over the bomb sight giving directions, only the skipper and I could see what was in front of us but in we went and all was suddenly revealed to us what we could see were the shells that had burst, the ones to worry about were the ones that were on their way up, not quite back to the holiday spirit, but survival was now possible, the great puffs of stinking smoke were swept aside as we juddered from near misses and kept on course to our dropping point, a quick look around the sky showed our friends doing what we were doing and guess we weren’t the only ones to have had a bit of a fright at our first daylight op.
Daylight operations were less stressful then night missions I would say over all, though we didn’t know about stress then. We could see what we were doing as we took off and every one in the crew could do their job without trying to see with a very dim light, the wop and nav could even see outside through their windows, not having previosly [sic] seen the bursting flak, and burning ‘planes, the first time in daylight may have been rather a shock for them!!! For our pilot I’m sure it made life just a little easier, taking off in the dark with a full load, not able to see where you were on the runway or how close to the end and it’s obstructions you were, for me it was a strain but for him trying to physically lift the beast into the air must have been a constant worry, and landing back in the light at base where he could see all the other circling ‘planes, the runway not a shadow but there in all it’s concrete glory was much easier than trying to figure out where everything on the ground was and where he was in relation to other unseen aircraft. I suppose both kind of operations had their good and bad points, at night you crept into the target like a black cat in a black room, unseen you hoped but concerned with contact with both fighters and your own friends, navigation difficult because of lack of ground sighting, landing and taking off harder, even taxing to a dispersal difficult at times. In daylight everything could be seen even you over the target so no hiding in clouds, just fly in and drop the bombs and get out again, not sure which I preferred, if you survived all were good!!
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We had fighters flying with us to keep the enemy ones away, so just a little of the holiday spirit came back, but on future ones we had the sight of bombers falling to the flak, my most vivid one was seeing a Flying Fortress some miles away have a wing shot off and counting the parachutes that came out as the ‘plane tumbled over and over and eventually disappear through the clouds. But for this trip there was none of that, and later it was very nice to see all the other squadrons from the many ‘dromes in our part of the world circling their airfields to go into land, some had a few bits hanging off them, and I suppose some had injured aboard, but home was near at hand a mug of coffee well laced with rum and one more to enter in the log book as DCO.
August 4th daylight again to France a pilot less plane storage dump at Boiss-de-Cassair. These were the V-1 Rockets, or Doodle Bugs as they were called. All we could see of the target was really only a gap in the forest with the ramp for the doodle bug to be fired up for launching, and the rest of the site was hidden in the trees,. I guess the local French Resistance would have sent the information by wireless of the location. Afterwards, not much to see when a number of bombers have dropped a few tons of bombs on a target. We used 500lb and 1000lb bombs on these sort of targets. Not too sure what our maximum bomb load for the Halibag would be but must have been at least 6 ton, but please don’t quote me! The area looked like a very poorly ploughed field after we had gone.
Regarding Bomb Loads this what Jim Tease, our pilot, has in his log book and I feel he is correct in what states. “We made many trips with 16x 500lb bombs, others were 9x 1000lb + 4x500lb. only one trip with a 2000lb + incendiaries, no record of taking a 4000lb believe the bomb doors would not fully close on a Halifax if one was loaded, bombs and petrol load would depend on the target and it’s distance from base”.
August the 5th daylight yet again to France this time ammunition stored in caves at St-D’Esserent. As usual there was no way for us to know if our bombs hit the target, whether we exploded the ammo dumps inside their caves or not. The explosions caused by our bombs 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, bombs going off do tend to make a lot of smoke and fireworks so unless we were on the ground hard to tell our bombs exploding from the enemy ammo or target going up, we did sometimes get a report days later from our briefing officer to say “well done target gone”.
It is a bit hard for me to explain about what was saw on the ground both in England and over the enemy, you see when I was flying passengers in Avro Yorks, from UK to other parts of the world, one of the first things passengers used to say as well climbed up to 8000 ft our cruising height was “Oh look the sun is shining” they didn’t seem to understand that it always is!!
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The highest we ever bombed at was 24,500ft all crew members with paddles going like crazy!! But that is still well over the cloud layer. Because that part of the world is more often than not shrouded in cloud people forget that above the clouds there is always sunshine. So you see most times we were over cloud, never saw a completely cloud free sky.
August 7th night operation to bomb Tanks and artillery in the German line at La-Hougue. You will note that August was a very busy month, nearly every day we were out either day or night, can be a bit confusing to remember what and where we went, guess one target is much like another, lots of flak, bits of hot stuff flying about just ajumble in the memory, one thing that does stay vivid and I really can’t be sure just when it happened or which target it was, only know it was at night and could have been in August. I think it was this mission to La-Hougue.
We took off on a very dark and rainy night and were told that the cloud and rain would clear just as we got to the target, we seem to have started our night flights very late at that time. Well we climbed to our cruising height and were in thick storm clouds, listening hitting us and rain very heavy, the whole aircraft glowed with static electricity and large rain drop slid along the radio wires like illuminated ping pong balls, to burst as they hit the fins and rudders, the ride was very bumpy and the skipper and I tried going up or down to get clear of all this storm without any luck, just before the target was reached we flew into bright moonlight, bombed and returned within minutes into what looked like a solid black wall from ground to the sky and flew in this muck all the way home, I see we landed at Tilstock on Fido one night so perhaps that was the night, have a vague feeling that we were one of the very few who made it to the target that night.
August 8th Daylight to France to bomb oil storage dump at Foret-de-Chantilly. On the way home from this mission, or perhaps one of the other daylight missions, an enemy fighter came toward us. The Germans, however, seemed as cautious as my crew was. There were plenty of targets in the sky for the fighters so why risk getting shot at if you could creep up on a crew too lazy to do their job properly. So when this fighter approached us in daylight our gunners gave him a warning burst at a distance and he just turned away. However we watched as he dived straight on another ‘place about a couple of miles away and shot it down. That crew had not been alert and did not see him coming. We were all on our way home, but the time to relax was on the ground not in the sky.
August 9th night operation to Foret-de-Nieppe to bomb ammunition dumps. What does this mean, you might ask? Was it like they show in films? Like most people I often view WW2 films on the box and have
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always wondered which war the markers were intending to show, certainly not the one played a little part in. You see when a bomber is shown being attacked by fighters or anti aircraft fire there always seems a lot of shouting and the intercom is full of talk, not on any bomber I flew in, or passenger one either.
So let me go through what I and the crew did. On the ground we were the usual young, bugger about, chase the girls, have a drink etc boys, but once in the ‘plane that all changed and the pilot, skipper or skip as he was known was boss, not in any heavy handed way but no task was started without his ok and all functions were reported to him.
So he and I marshalled the aircraft in a position allocated to us for that night’s raid on the perimeter track leading to the runway in use, there we left it while a last meal was had, briefing concluded, and we as a completed crew were then taken by truck to our ‘plane. The Canadian Salvation Army called at each ‘plane as we waited to board, handing out cigarettes and chocolate, and a last fumble in the layers of clothes was made to get rid of any urine likely to cause pain, no toilets on our “kites”.
A green light was shone from the small caravan parked at the end of the runway to tell us it was time to climb abroad, this caravan was painted in large black and white squares, a Perspex roof blister was used to signal to the crews and need less to say it was towed away before we started to land back after our raid, with the way some of us landed it would not have lasted very long in one piece likewise the occupants!!
Each one of the crew settled into their place and checked that all was ok with their bits and bobs, the pilot would then call each position in turn (not by the persons name but what position they occupied, ie rear gunner, navigator, etc) and each crew member would reply along the lines of “OK SKIPPER” I was often left to last and was given the order to start engines when my turn came, after all we running satisfactory, I would log the start time and all pressures and temperatures etc, the navigator would no doubt make a note in his log of this time also, when our aircraft letter was flashed from the control caravan we would taxi onto the runway, I would select what angle of flaps the skipper wanted, set take off boost and hold the throttles behind his hand to ensure we stayed straight along the runway. As we climbed up I would only raise the undercarriage and flaps as he ordered, setting climbing revs and boost as he wanted, and would without any order synchronise the engine revs on each side so that the propeller blades did not rotate in respect to one another. If we were one of the first in our squadron to take off we would gradually climb to the operation height and circle the ‘drome until all our aircraft were present, not that we could see much on a dark night but we had a set time to “set course for the target”.
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During the climb and setting course for the target one very important job was the charging and locking of the Hydraulic accumulator, this was an emergency charge of hydraulic fluid which would be enough to lower the undergear and even the flaps if we were lucky, should damage to the engine which drove the pump or the system itself be damaged. Was just a large cylinder connected to the hydraulic system filled with air (what this was pressured to I have forgotten only 56 or so years ago so sue me for having a bad memory) fluid was let into this cylinder and charged to a certain pressure (sue me) and the cock turned off so the fluid was held under pressure by the air also in the cylinder, in an emergency the undercarriage would be set to ‘lower’ and this cock turned on and hopefully this stored fluid would lower the gear, Got all that? Phyll just read the first part I sent and was rather surprised that I could still know what to do but not sure if the RAF would still require my service!! Back to the plot!!
As we reached about 12000ft I would change the supercharger speed to high, make sure all the crew were on oxygen, and fill in all the details in my log these included petrol consumption and which tanks I was using, I always tried to have an equal amount of fuel in each tank by the time we reached our target so that should a tank be punctured we only lost a small amount of petrol, but each time I changed tanks permission was asked from the skipper and he was informed when I had done it.
There we are drifting along trying to make sure we didn’t bump into any of our own ‘planes in the dark sky, all lights were at dim, mine to fill in my log was at a glimmer when wanted, all the pilot’s instruments lights very low and the blackout curtain between the bomb aimer’s position and the navigator and WOP very tightly fastened, both working with minimum lights. And it got cold, the gunners and bomb aimer had heated suits but even they felt it, as for the navigator his hands were too cold at times to hold a pencil and asked the Skip if I could direct hot air down to his position, The skip and I already partly frozen but to get there and back we needed to know which way so hot air it was and some of our bits that might be wanted in more pleasant times went into cold storage.
There was no chatter between crew members, and if someone left their mic on by mistake he was soon reminded of the fact, young as we all were I am reminded of very professional we were, perhaps that is why we survived to tell our tales!
This professionalism was needed. One night we had a Halifax with a mid under turret, not a standard feature in earlier models, and a gunner was added to our crew to man it. The gunner we were landed with saw more enemy fighters in the 6 or so hours we were airborne than I think were
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available to the Germans at any time during the war. This excitability was not helpful. We go rid of the mid under and that gunner.
Why we survived and others didn’t was because we took notice of the experts (those pilots and crews who had done it lots of time) you don’t fly straight and level thinking of nothing much, but weave and bank slightly so that the gunners get an all round view of things, there is no blind spot under the tail if you stay awake. No need for a lower turret to fill that blind spot then.
I can only speak for myself but guess all the crew were feeling as I was, and that was that our navigator would take us there and back, our gunners would spot the attacking aircraft in time and either shoot it down or scare it off, our pilot was second to none and would steer us through whatever came our way, our radio operator would get a fix, receive a message, and let us know what was happening, our bomb aimer would always hit the target, and I would keep the old girl in the air until we got home safely again. So there was no need for lots of chatter we all did our jobs and depended on the others to do theirs.
The navigator would sometimes ask the skipper if I could do a star shot for him, over my position I had an astro dome, would unload the sextant from it’s case hang it from the hook, wind up the clockwork 2 minute time and after I had found whichever star was wanted tell the skipper and of course the navigator I was ready when they were, the navigator would tell me when to start and I would press the trigger and try to keep the star in the mirror., at the end of the two minutes a reading of the average of all my shots would come up on a panel which I would give to the navigator, on the ground I had been averaging 2 to 3 miles, not as good in flight but handy if other navigating items were not up to scratch.
The bomb aimer was in the nose during the flight and gave what information he could to the skipper but the navigator also heard it and it would be something like this “Coast coming up skip” “crossing the coast now”. Now we were over enemy territory.
Details of flack ships and sites seen in action would be reported much the same, no panic just facts. The gunners would report fighters positions and would not fire unless ordered to. We were told that on some nights our fighters would be in the “stream” so gunners watch out for them, and they would circle the German dromes to shoot down any fighters taking off or landing, the Germans did that to our bombers early in the war but as we got air superiority it was our turn to be the nasty ones. Still, Fighters of any type all were enemy until they proved otherwise. Very few of either nation came
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near us. In most cases the fighters saw we were a threat to them and went elsewhere.
Although there was sufficient ammunition for whatever may occur, our own use was very minimal and mainly used to test fire the guns soon after airborne, our job was to deliver bombs and drop them hopefully at the right place, which we seem to do most of the time.
One night standing in the astro dome doing my bit of searching the sky I looked up and saw a FW 190 almost within touching reach just above me, would not have been 10 feet away. I told the skipper and of course the gunners wanted to have a go, but as the skipper said we are supposed to be bombing and will just slide away but if we see one the way back shoot the bastard down. The FW covered the sky, was flying quite close and not much faster than we were, no doubt we could have given it a very sore bum. But the skipper rightly said no, could have all gone wrong anyway, maybe his mate was close at hand and while we blazed away at one, another could have had us who knows?
Remember that this is flying in darkness. We had radar, but not for seeing other planes. We used radar in a thing called H2S, shows as a small bulge under the fuselage of bombers, used to show a map of the ground and useful for bombing on nights with full cloud cover. Radar, good if you are a fighter but what good would it do us, never switch any radar on even H2S unless needed, gives out a signal for the enemy to follow and get you, switch it off and use the mark 1 eye balls.
There were very many different anti fighter systems used, these names are all either tail warning devices (which caused more trouble that they were worth) special aircraft with German speaking radio operators who would tune into the German fighter directors and give conflicting directions, The Germans would do as we did and use people with distinct dialects to stop this, microphones were installed in the engine bays and this sound would be sent out on the fighter wave lengths to stop the information from being received. Gee was a navigation aid using three or more radio beacons and a special receiver, window you know about but many different versions of Radar were used to block fighters, G-H, Oboe, Serrate, Monica, ABC, Corona, and many names I either never knew or have forgotten were all warning devices fitted near the tail to warn rear gunners of the approach of night fighters, I suppose some lives were saved until the Germans had a crashed ‘plane to work on and then it was just the reverse, switch it on and get caught! All of this electronics, if on board for this mission, would be in use or ready for use while we moved towards our target through the night sky.
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The navigator would also tell the pilot that it was time to start “window” and at what rate, another of my jobs, as was the dispatch of leaflets to inform the enemy that it was time to give in, why didn’t I ever keep some??? So you have a very noisy ‘plane with not much chatter going on all the crew going about their jobs quietly, checking with the skipper if required and all hearing what was being done to keep us safe.
The view from the cockpit at night was minimal, the occasional flare of a bursting shell which changed to continuos [sic] bursts as we got near the target or passed near flak sites, the halfseen shapes of other bombers or fighters with muffled flames from their exhausts, from the astro-drome on a clear night, the dark blue inverted bowl of the sky pierced with a multitude of twinkling lights, but these often shaded by the dark shadows of friend and foe as they passed by.
Dark nights and heavy clouds were the norm, rain and lightening greeted us most times, eyes strained to see what was not there, but ready to give a warning of any contacts either friend or foe.
A master radar controlled searchlight may catch us and very soon we were “coned” no panic, every one closed one eye to retain night vision, and either the bomb aimer or the rear gunner would give the pilot instructions about the best way to get out of it, usually to dive down the master one and do very sudden sharp turns to one side, always got out before any real damage was done, and never ever thought we wouldn’t!!
Now we were nearing the target and the ‘plane jumped about as we flew through the wake of our bombers ahead of us, on a thousand bomber raid at night over the one target things get a bit hairy. Some of the sudden jumps are not ‘plane wakes but the burst of anti aircraft shells trying to send us down, but at night you see the flash, hear the rattle of splinters, check that all is well with the crew and our ‘plane and just carry on. The navigator would tell the skipper than it was say 5 minutes to target, the bomb aimer would have set his bomb sight to drop the bombs in a certain pattern, we had wing and fuselage bomb bays, and with the right pattern the pilots had an easier task to control the ‘plane as it lost it’s load, a 2000Ib ‘cookie’ really gave us a quick lift when let go, I can imagine that some of the Lancasters that carried and dropped 12000Ib and larger “earthquake bombs” really hit the heights when relieved of their parcels!
Now all eyes were searching the sky even harder than they had been, searchlights were weaving their way across the sky, catching a plane which was lit up and looked just like a moth around a lamp, sometime they slid out of the light, some time they suddenly flashed into extinction, and some
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times the flashing of guns was seen as a fighter chanced his luck amongst the bursting anti aircraft and was answered by the bomber gunners.
The flashing of bursting bombs, rattle and crash of anti aircraft shells bursting, searchlights sweeping the sky and settling on some lone ‘plane to be followed by the stream of incendiary bullets, all make the hearts of the night bomber crews halt for just a fraction as they go about the job of beating the foe into submission. Hearts once young and tender soon become hardened to this show of defiance, but not to the sudden eruption of flames at their height as one of their own is hit and spirals to destruction, “bastards” comes through the intercom from all quarters and the empty bottles, bricks and old iron brought for this occasion are pushed out of gun turrets and down flare and ‘window’ chutes, the rage is personal you can’t do this to ours is the feeling.
All in all over the target it was quite a busy place to be and we still had to reach the aiming point drop our bombs and beat a hasty retreat. Each plane that was hit was reported and logged by the navigator, new anti aircraft gun sites logged, ‘window’ and leaflets pouring out the chute, bomb doors opened and from the bomb aimer ‘steady, left steady left steady hold it hold it and the magic BOMBS GONE, bomb door closed, new course from the navigator and turn for home, but still aware that his was perhaps the most dangerous time, many crews relaxed and never got home. So search the sky dodged the ack ack and searchlights, perhaps put on a bit of speed by dropping a few thousand feet, and again that most welcome call from the bomb aimer still in the nose ‘coast coming up, crossing the coast’ and now I could eat my bit of chocolate, and just ease a little.
The wireless operator would be giving weather and other information to both the skipper and the navigator, as the navigator and wop sat next to one another many messages were passed by notes to and fro, but one that sent shivers through us was
“Intruders reported over the ‘drome skip” not often but meant we could not relax even when we arrived back at base, never got caught, guess our night fighters got up and sorted things for us. So on a normal return to base we were greeted by the interlocking rings of lights from all the multitude of bomber bases in Yorkshire, and each one flashed it’s own recognition red light to welcome it’s pigeons home, no radio silence now as there was prior to take off, call in make our letter E EASY and given a height and position in the queue, and as we were called down and moved up in the queue sometimes had to loose our turn to one of ours with dead and wounded on board, or no fuel left or any one of the things that happen to planes that will go out searching for trouble, down we go and I stand by the pilot and do all the actions in reverse, undercarriage, flaps and so on, all the others are
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strapped in but not me I just stand next to our pilot and help him as and when wanted, down we go another perfect landing and taxi to our dispersal, the crew climb out to wet the grass again while the skipper and I switch off everything, lock the brakes and controls, and make our own way to a quick piss, climb in the waiting truck and head for debriefing.
Now we would give our version of events while we are handed a large mug of coffee liberally laced with rum. Here we report the sighting of the sudden eruption of flames at our height, which we knew to be one of our own being hit and destroyed – the sighting that sent us to throwing junk down at the enemy. But at de-briefing, we were told it was on a “Scarecrow” shot up by the enemy to make us afraid. But it didn’t, it made us mad and nothing the briefing officer could say convinced us that it wasn’t one of ours failing to their death. So was the whole thing counter-productive by both sides, we just got mad not scared, so the enemy lost that one and we never really knew if there were such things as “Scarecrows” just kept heaving out the junk.!!
After debriefing, we hand in our parachutes, and head for a meal and bed. Our ground crew would be busy checking E Easy for faults, some I will have reported on landing to them, the camera film will be taken from the bomb sight and on it’s way to processing, and a hush will settle on this and many airfields while the weary rest for the next effort, but usually woken up by the roar of engines being tested for the next one.
The next one was August 12th, a daylight run again to France. The target this time was Foret-de-Mont Richard, more ammunition dumps.
August 18th Night to France to bomb the Railway Marshalling Yards at Connatre. must again had a problem because we landed at Skellingthorpe, returning to base the next day.
August 27th daylight to France to bomb a construction site at Marquise – Minoyecques being built to launch flying bombs on London.
I must add details of my selection interview by a senior RAF officer for a commission, My Flight commander had asked me to put in for a commission and when I failed to do so, gave me a direct order, sat me down and made me fill in all the forms, I just forgot all about it and rather than play the usual games that Canadian Air Crew used to while away the hours between operations of horse shoes, billiards and pool, I managed to convince the Station Engineering Officer to supply me with a hut, tools, bench, and a worn out Hercules engine. This I proceeded to take to pieces and section so that every one who was interested could see the inside of a very complicated sleeve valve engine, and perhaps treat them with just a
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little more respect! I would check with my pilot each day if we were flying and if not cycle out to my hut which was away from the main area and certainly not in range of the public address speakers. So I happily worked on my own getting my clothes well covered in oil and the aluminium dust from the sawing and filing which clung to everything this mean that I had to wear really old uniforms when working and must say that after a few hours in my hut did not look too special! A breathless Flight Sergeant burst in through the door and shouted with the little breath he had left ”Your name Miles?” When I replied yes it was, told me that that public address (Tannoy) had been calling for me for some hours to report to Head Quarter for my interview with Air Commodore. Said I would go back to my barrack room to change “No you won’t, I’ve been looking for you all morning and you go there now” Didn’t want to be an officer anyhow so who cares, arrived at Head Quarters on my cycle to be met by yet another Flight Sergeant, if anything more angry than the first, “Don’t you read Daily order Miles” I walked into the waiting room to find all other applicants polished and shining in their best uniforms, sat in rows like birds on a fence, my own make said “Hard luck Reg” Before I could answer yet another Flight Sergeant with great glee said “Miles you’re next” So In I went to stand in front of the table behind which sat My Squadron Wing Commander, The Base Group Captain, My Flight Leader and the imposing figure of the Air Commodore. Their eyes were all focused on the notes they were making about the previous applicant as I saluted and stated my name rank and service number. Eyes were raised and a look of horror passed over the faces of each one as they looked at this dirty silver speckled scruffy airman. The Air Commodore asked why I had not appeared when called before and how had I got into this condition. It seemed to me that only the truth would do and so I related my story of the engine I was working on and said how sorry I was that I had caused so much trouble. The Air Commodore asked each of the other officers if they were aware of my efforts and no one did, “ring the Engineering Officer and check while we question Miles” he confirmed my story and said I was doing a good job and hoped it would be finished before I left the Squadron. While this was going on The Air Commodore and I were chatting away about my service history and how far I had got with the engine, finally he said “I shall be pleased to welcome you into the Officer’s Mess in a few weeks time, we need more people like you who just get on and do things” So I walked out head high through the waiting room and said to all and sundry “I’ve got mine good luck to you”
Quite a busy month trying to help our ground troops push their way through France. I have not mentioned the training flights also carried out between operations, so that apart from the odd break we were flying most days and nights. My crew and I must have had some leave during the first week of September because my flight record for that month is a training flight on the 9th and a note that I had had some more practise at flying a Halifax,
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we only had one pilot on board and that was Jim Tease so if he got injured or killed who would fly us home? That left only me who did at least know how things worked but as I had no flying training on small aircraft it was very difficult to manage something so big and slow to react to the controls, alter the angle of the control column and it seemed ages before anything happened so learners always over correct and you end up with a ride like a fair ground switch back, I practiced whenever I was able always in daylight and most time on the return flight from an operation, tried a few times landing on clouds, more forgiving than the ground, think I could have got back to England ok but landing without a crash I’m not so sure!!
Back to France in daylight to bomb a German strong point at Le Havre on September 10th. I seem to remember that we were one of the last on target and all that could be seen were bomb holes on top of bomb holes, The RAF and American Air Force had complete air superiority so we had only flack to contend with and that could be very accurate because the Germans use Radar tracking.
September 11th daylight to Germany, to the dreaded Ruhr Valley, to bomb a synthetic oil plant at Castro-Rauxel. Our height for this drop, based on the aiming point photo, was 16,500’, and our bomb load was 16 500lb bombs. We hit it smack on and our photo showed that, still have my copy given to us, and we were given a guided tour of 6 Group Bomber Command in recognition of our skill.
The tour we had of 6 Group Bomber command was more for the Canadian guys, so they could oggle the Canadian girls, told you before I was not impressed so just saw lots of lush offices and big boards with meaning less maps and figures on them. Waste of time I thought but the rest of the crew liked it so that was OK.
September 13th again to Germany in daylight to bomb the railway marshalling yards in Osnabruck, I have a note that it went well so presume the target was destroyed, daylight targets were a bit scary after night ones but soon got used to it and at least we could see what we were aiming at and whether we had been right on target.
September 15th A night raid on the shipping port of Keil in Germany, this was a 500 bomber operation, we were coned by about six radar controlled searchlights on the approach to Keil, with German night fighter hanging about out of the cones, all had to keep at least one eye closed as the light was very bright and if we managed to get out of them the fighters would pounce as we would all be blind, Jimmy Tease handled the bomber like a fighter diving and side slipping all over the place even at one time diving down one of the lights, and got us out, we were however hit by flack
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over the target and the perspex nose fell right off, Red Bridgeman the bomb aimer had to hold the black out curtains between his position and Nick Nicklen our navigator while I wired them together, Red had to stand with his feet over nothing all the way home to hold the curtain against the howling gale that came in, Nicks charts had all ended up down the fuselage mixed up with the bundles of window that I was pushing down the window chute.
These were sorted out and Nick went on with his job of guiding us home, from my notes looks as though we or some of our Squadron hit the target so a good prang was noted.
I do remember this next mission, a daylight raid on one of those massive guns built into the ground with a barrel hundreds of feet long pointed at London. This was September 17th. The target was in France at Boulogne, our height in my log is noted as 2000ft. 2000ft is very low for bombing could get damaged by the bombs in front of you going off especially in slow old things like Halis – Lancs. This was the only low level bombing I ever went on!!! Although we would bomb from 2,000 feet, we flew down from base in Yorkshire at about 8,000 feet. This was a good cruising height for our aircraft, as we passed over many cities, towns, airfields, hills, barrage balloons, tall chimneys, and other obstructions for low level craft.
When we got to the English coast lowered our undercarriage and flaps pulled back the throttles and dived down to 2,000 ft over the channel. The lowering of flaps, undergear and reducing engine revs helped us to quickly reduce our height, the channel is only a bit over 20 miles wide not a lot of distance to get a great old lumbering kite down low and level out and on course to give the bomb aimer a chance to fund the target.
The dive over the channel was to get us down to 2,000ft quickly, at the low height we were certain to hit the rather small target and not the surrounding empty fields or buildings. We also had to have time to make the approach without crowding other aircraft. We had to watch out for ‘planes all round us because, at this altitude, if we were too close to one in front we could get our ‘plane damaged by a bursting bomb from the plane in front. So not quite the “milk run” it would appear to be.
The flight down to the target on this trip must have been a change, able to see some of the country side. Although the whole operation only lasted 4 hours, and so not a lot of time for sight seeing, no doubt the gunners and bomb aimer had a nice view. The only time I had to look was when I took a moment as we flew over the village where my parents were living, but I did not see any street or bit that I could say, “that’s where I live”. It is surprising how difficult it is to recognise thing from the air that you haven’t seen a few
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times from the air. But the skipper and I as usual were busy making sure we got there OK. Sounds as if he and I were always busy doesn’t it? Well we were, bomber pilots had it tough, long hours at the “office” in all weather conditions, responsible for a number of other people’s lives, not forgetting their own. My job was to help him, so I did, as best as I was able. I also wanted to get home again!!!
Once we were down to 2,000 feet, we pulled all our hanging bits back on board opened the taps, then bombed this target with all we had, again being very careful not to get too close to the bomber in front. All I saw was a few acres of mud which kept leaping into the air and rearranging itself, guess another case of over kill!! After the target, we climbed again after bombing to 8,000ft for the return run over the afore mentioned obstructions to our flight path.
This target was noted in the log book as a “strong point” which we were told it was at the time, no one knew what it was so it was decided to destroy it. A ground investigation later on found the gun, much to every one’s surprise at it’s size and pointing straight at London, various TV programmes over the years have shown it and it’s concrete barrel rising from deep underground. Checking distances with my M.S World Atlas I found much to my surprise that Boulogne is the closest point in France to London, closer that Calais by about 10KM, so an obvious place to put a gun of this range and size.
September 19th we took our old ‘plane to the HCU at Dishforth she had done 56 trips and had been hard used many patches and repairs has been done so with all her proud bombing trips still painted on her nose she went to train more aircrew for the struggle still to come.
September 25th off again to France in daylight to bomb a German strong point at Calais another target gone, our new E easy going good!!
September 26th to France in daylight again to Calais bombed Gun positions and the docks in the harbour, noted as another good hit.
September 27th daylight to Germany Bottrop in the Ruhr, have note that we bombed a factory on visual which means some thing had gone u/s. My pilot, Jim Tease recently gave me some more information on this mission. “I had a friend now deceased who was a navigator on 428 Ghost Squadron. He wrote a book about Ghost Squadron & I compared his report of trips we were both on, and found we had different visions of what happened. On our 31 trip to Bottrop on Sept 27 I indicate there was 10/10 cloud for the whole trip, the Master of Ceremonies (Master Bomber) of the Path Finders lost his way and we bombed where (our navigator) said the target area was
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located. Ron’s book indicates the refinery was hit & smoke rose to 17000ft. So much for records!!”
My Log Book for that raid states “10/10 cloud Bombed Factory Visual M/C U/S” guess that all means we found a gap in the clouds and bombed the target but had solid cloud both there and back M/C U/S Master of Ceremonies out of order, unserviceable.
On one of these daylight raids we saw a V2 launched on one raid, didn’t know what it was just a streak in the sky. Looking out of the windscreen I saw a streak of smoke come through a layer of cloud and shoot up into the sky and disappear into the next lot of cloud, l know the skipper also saw it but who else I am not sure, lasted milli seconds. It was logged by the navigator and an estimation of where it had come from made by us. When and where seen etc was important, once a site was located it could be knocked out by bombing.
September 30th daylight again in Germany Sterkrade in the Ruhr saw one of our Sqdn go down and three of the seven get out on ‘chutes, we landed at a FIDO ‘drome at Cranesby, no brake pressure went off the end of a very long runway into a field of potatoes that had just been ridged up and we went across the ridges, a bit like roller skating on corrugated iron.
On the 4th of October we went to Bergen in Norway flying across the North Sea in daylight to bomb U/Boat pens and a large ammunition ship in the harbour. We flew across the sea both ways at 1000ft to be under German Radar, and climbed rapidly near the target to 12000ft, Mosquitos and Mustangs gave us fighter cover.
I still have an image in my mind of a semi-circular bay with a large ship moored more or less in the middle. As I remember it the country around Bergen is low lying, nothing at our height to give us cause for panic, but if the ship had blown up and we were down low could have cause major damage to one or more of our Halifaxs [sic].
The large ammunition ship blew up. The ship was still all in one piece when I last saw it and if our bombs had done the damage guess we would have been told. I think it was our rear gunner who told us via the intercom that it had blown up, and that is why we were there.
Our attack made the Bergan people even more anti British than they already were, Gillian visited there some years ago as the intended bride to the son of one of Bergen’s top families, the mother was a local member of parliament, they treated her most awfully which did not help when she casually mentioned that her Dad had bombed the place during the war,
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needless to say that romance soon died!!! The Norwegians still didn’t like us Brits, near enough to Germans and lots supported Hitler during the war, bit like the Swiss only interested in making money, the shits.
Of course, most ordinary Norwegian people hadn’t any view pro or anti regarding Germany and Britain, just wanted to get on with their lives as best they could. Those that were anti us had lots riding on our defeat, and were involved in either working for the Germans or making lots of money out of them by trading with them, those that helped us risked torture and death, and were really in more peril than we were, they were the real heroes. After the war and for many years, I never met anyone who speaking with what sounded like a German accent, was other than Swiss, even if they said their home town was in Germany!!!. I still find the Swiss attitude to money and it’s retention disgusting, particularly in the light of revelations of their trading with the Nazis in Gold and goods taken from innocent people. Guess ordinary people all over this world just want to eat and enjoy what little life they have, but greed gets in the way and those few who can claw their way up the ‘food’ chain and get much more than their fair share are the ones who I have no time for, being poor perhaps colours my out look!!!
So we come to the 6th of October and a night operation over Germany to Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley, this was a 500 bomber raid to the centre of the city, we again were hit by flack bits flying about all over the place and very red hot some hit the bomb door hydraulics which fell open and stay open and I’m sure that it was on this operation that a lump hit Nick Nicklen on his side making a very nasty bruise, fortunately it also hit the torch on his MAYWEST [sic] life jacket so didn’t kill him, he was in much pain but got us back to England ok, Nick was awarded the D.F.C. later and I am sure it was for this brave effort. Because of our damage we again had to land apart from our base and this time landed at Woodbridge and after some quick repairs we flew back to base the next day, where I was told that I had finished my tour of operations, had been granted a commission, given dockets and a leave pass to get my officers uniform and told to report back in seven days. A friend and I travelled to just about every city and large town in Yorkshire before we managed to get kitted up in Harrogate.
Before departing on leave and to await our next posting we had to hand in certain flying and escape items. There were mainly items of some value French and German money hidden in our clothes together with fine silk maps of France and Germany. Our flying boots which had a hidden knife in the sheep skin lining so that the long leg warmers could be cut off leaving what looked like ordinary shoes also were handed in, other items like compasses hidden under badges or in pencils, hacksaw blades concealed in the linings of clothes, a bag of oiled silk that could be used to hold water and a few other odds and ends we kept, these like so many things at that time
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had no value to us and no doubt went into the bin without much thought! Jim Tease and the rest of the crew still had a few operations to go but I was not allowed to finish with them told not to be so greedy, others wanted a go and as far as I was concerned they were welcome. So home on leave to await what the RAF had in store for me again. Cycling along the main road in Cliftonville what should I see but a bunch of very good looking WAAF’s (Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force, who did every job except fighting (which they sometimes had to do for their honour) from clerks to Radar operators, cooks to delivering aircraft from the factories, and with them a girl friend if but briefly from my school days, Phyllis Dike!! I made contact and started to see her and eventually proposed marriage to her, she wasn’t very keen but agreed in the end.
I was recalled to service and was posted to Heavy Conversion Unit 1332, Nutts Corner in Norther Ireland where I crewed up with F/lt Poore,a navigator and a wireless operator all of us being officers and had completed at least one tour on bombers, we were being trained to fly Avro Yorks on the main trunk routes from U.K to India and Ceylon now India, Pakistan and Shri Lanka [sic]. We started the flying part of the course on the 8th April 1945 and completed it on 17th of the same month. My flight log of my time in 1332 H.C.U. is presented later.
The Avro York interior lay out was much as the Lancaster. The pilot, F/E, Nav, Wop were together in a small group, the F/E acting as second pilot even if untrained. When spare pilots became available they took over the task of second pilot the f/e found himself a place amongst the mail bags to sleep and do his job as he could.
When a number of crews joined Transport Command after our course at Nutts Corner, we arrived at 242 Squadron in Stoney Cross. My log book details my flights with 242 Squadron.
Within a day or so we were all loaded onto an Avro York, flown I know not where and without any “by your leave” injected with multiple injections in both arms and I seem to remember elsewhere, we were told this was for protection against all the terrible deceases we could encounter in foreign lands, yellow fever was mentioned as one but there was a whole list of them. I know most of us were a bit under the weather for a few days, some even very sick. What sticks in the memory was that we weren’t asked or consulted just injected!!
I had already obtain permission to get married and given leave for that period, but the Wedding was on the 28th and I had to get home and do some organising, so used the “old boys” network and thumbed lifts to England and managed to get a train to get home in time. Don Nicklen my navigator
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from 420 sqdn came down from Yorkshire to be my best man, and I can’t say I saw much of him before it was away on a short honeymoon, and then back to camp for both of us!!
– Reg Miles
The URL of this page is
http://www.geocities.com/milbios/Milesbio4.html
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Biography of Reg Miles
Ex Apprentice No 1 S.of T.T., R.A.F., Halton 39th Entry 34 – 67 M.U.s – 27 A/S Bloemspruit South Africa – Lympe Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 242- 246 – 511 Squadrons Transport Command Lyneham, RAF
Chapter 5
242- 246 – 511 Squadrons, Transport Command, Lyneham, RAF
I started flying at 242 Sqdn on the 16th May again all training in passenger flying technique, rather different from press on bombing! We did a few cross countries and many three engined landing and the use of radio range flying. One exercise in the log book was Over Shoots and Landings. Overshoots and landings are practice in taking off again before you actually get the wheels on the ground, some clever dickies even run the wheels along the runway and open the throttles and take off again, alright for intrepid birdmen like fighter pilots but not recommended for serious passenger flying types. There are the odd occasions when the runway suddenly does not become clear for landing, animals, cars, fire engines, even other aircraft, so practice for these times (which may never happen) is necessary, these days a no risk practice can be made in the Flight Simulator, we had to do it the hard way with an instructor beside us and no knowledge of what we would be asked to do, he could shut down one engine and then another, drop the undercarriage, put on full flap, what ever his distorted mind felt like that day!! The pilots I flew with on Transport Command had all done at least one tour on bombers, some quite a number and were used to the enemy doing much the same to the aircraft, so no panic just the correct procedure and “What would you like next” often asked, with a wry grin. So the other to “overshoot” became automatic, with me acting on my pilot’s instructions about throttle, flaps and under gear, but I was always aware of what he wanted and would be “hands on” waiting, would have been a rather poor F/E if not ready when wanted!!
My crew went on leave after this training, so I was made a temporary Flight Engineer to the Squadron Leader, who took me on a test flight of my abilities to Cairo and back, left Stoney Cross on the 4th flew to Luqa in Malta.
Malta was still on a war footing. Luqa, on Malta, a dry and stony place all the airport buildings pained white but very small and certainly not like any airport you may have seen, a concrete slab to park on for refuelling, all
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of which had to be done through massive filters, with chamois leather inserts to catch any water and of course the ever present dust and sand. All the ground crew well tanned and going about their jobs with efficiency, being bombed continually taught them not to delay getting the fighters airborne, we were lucky that the fighters had gone before we started to use Luqa, the enemy ones!!
Malta is an island with a long history of invaders, us being the last, independence was granted some time after the war and I am sure the locals were glad to see all the foreign military go, wonderful harbour, well used by the Royal Navy during WW2, a street (very narrow and steep) in Valletta was lined with open fronted drinking bars, just really the front room of a house with easy entry for the soldiers and sailors to get drunk, think from memory it was called by the Navy “The Gut”, but could be thinking of somewhere else, for us, just a place to “slip” crews, water always very scarce, milk, butter and cheese from goats, think I have mentioned that before, as I have about collecting all the papers and books from the mess before leaving UK to leave both with the RAF and also some Navy types who crewed a fast MTB (motor torpedo boat) made a change for both crews to chat with some one other than their working mates.
The runway ended at a quarry, no sight for the faint hearted, as it was well stocked with aircraft that had not made it, guess the passengers just thought it was some where the RAF stored unwanted ‘planes. My first trip there was with a senior pilot to check me out so a quick run to Cairo and back, all 7,800 Km of it! My years in South Africa had made me used to hot weather shorts and open neck shirts so it was easy for me to climatise to the changed weather conditions. I now live in Mackay, Queensland and there is thriving community of Maltese people, many sugar cane farmers or the descendants of cane farmers, and NO they are not called Maltesers!!
On the 5th Malta to Cairo. Cairo, a large bustling over crowded city, full to bursting point with every shape, colour and size of humanity, and I am talking about 1945!! We had little to do with Cairo itself, as we either landed at Cairo West or at Almaza in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo, where we were put up in the largest hotel I have ever seen, not that I am into hotels as such, but as a young very green officer the Heliopolis Palace Hotel was mind blowing, acres of everything, not outside but inside, entry large enough to hold a soccer match, dining rooms that vanished into the blue and rooms so large that if they had been properly furnished a guide would have been required to see us to the door. Each crew had a room on arrival with number of beds scattered about and a couple of tables and chairs etc, guess the hotel had not been completed prior to WW2 and had been taken over by the British Forces, lots of “red tab” types swanning about, had a very hard war from the looks of things!! Food was good and served properly the same
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as our mess in UK, so no complaints there. About flying times etc you must remember that as we flew East the time got later and daylight ended sooner, ie Cairo – UK 2 hour difference, same as New Zealand – Australia.
We all took a trip to Giza and along the road to the Sphinx and the Pyramids, don’t know who built that lot but bet he over ran the budget, The one thing that still sticks in my mind is the overpowering smell of diesel oil on that road, not so much burnt oil but the same smell you get on a production oil field, the brown desert stretched to the horizon on either side of the road which was very black and shiny, perhaps that’s where the smell came from not bitumen but oiled sand!!! Now I’ll never know!!! Natural History Museum in Cairo a must if you visit, remember it as a highlight of my various times there and after these many years must be a wonder to visit now, didn’t go to the medical section if just before or after lunch, in fact might be a good idea to give that bit a miss!!
I wanted to buy Phyllis something special and found a market that specialised in perfumes. Channel number 5 or was it 7? was all the go, entered this so dark and gloomy looking shop, about the size of your average toilet, greeted with lots of bowing, and what sounded like praises for my everything, down some steep stairs to end up in yet another room the same size where there was a small table and two or three chairs, ‘would the effendi like some coffee’? (no idea how you spell effendi)’ well really wanted to buy some perfume’ lot more praised heaped on me but coffee came regardless, the cups must have been part of a doll house at some time and the coffee bitter and black, Now I had to sniff every smell known to man, ‘is this for your lovely wife’? what colour are her eyes etc and so on ‘does my lord have a mistress’?
By this time I was all sniffed out, couldn’t tell one heap of horse crap from another of cows, throat dry as dust from the coffee, and still I was given the full treatment until I made a purchase and bolted, can’t remember what scent I did buy but it was a big bottle!!!!
On the 6th Cairo to Malta, and on the 7th, Malta to Base. My flight log records of my time in 242 Squadron are listed later.
Two quick training flights with my real crew and then I was lent to F/o Good to go as F/E on a Short Stirling (never seen one close up before) that was to deliver supplies all over the world, why me I’ll never know, a very quick half hour lesson on where everything was, happily the engines were Hercules with which I had done all my operations, perhaps that’s why I was picked, only one on the squadron with that engine experience.
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The Short Stirling was just a bomber, not converted to anything, the fuselage was used to carry freight and we carted an exhibition of bombs etc all over the place, we also picked up and dropped off odds and sods as required, much like a “tramp steamer” at everyone beck and call!! The Stirling was the first of the four engined bombers for the RAF and suffered because of that, a bad spec. by the chairbound in the Ministry ended up with a well made but poor WW 2 bomber, they did get used for bombing, others as tugs and for training purposes, remember one of Nutts Corner left the end of the runway and landed in the mud, tipped up on it’s nose, the Station doctor rushed to the crews aid (they had all left some time ago) climbed up on the wing slipped and fell off and broke his ankle, mustn’t laugh!!!
The Stirling was slow had no great ceiling, noisy, draughty and I was a long way from home, my crew and a lovely Avro York, what else do you need to think a ‘plane was terrible?
So off we went in a lumbering noisy old Sterling, 15th June England to Castel Benito in North Africa 7 hours 20 of misery, Castel Benito was obviously a place named for the Italian Dictator, My only recollection of this place is sand more sand and then some more sand, the tents we slept in were filled with sand and the food was full of sand and even the ever present flies were full of sand, how the troops managed to service ‘planes and keep them flying is a wonder. I don’t remember if there was a concrete runway but if there was bet it was covered in sand, it blew everywhere, filled every orifice, eyes got sore even just during one night there, no thank you don’t want to remember that place!!
16th June Castel Benito to Lydda the airport for Tel Aviv in (Palestine) Israel 6 hours 45. Lydda, was Palestine. now Israel, was the main airport of Tel Aviv, guess the name has been changed so people like me have no idea where it is now, but was decent airport so probably just extended and has a new name. While at Lydda took the opportunity to visit Jerusalem, The Wailing Wall, Church of the Holy Sacrement [sic], built on the site of the cross and also Bethlehem. I don’t even recognise these places when shown on TV now, Wailing Wall about the same but more open when I was there, Bethlehem completely unspoilt, a crude stable as it always had been, no frills or religious artifice, The Church of the Holy Sacrament surrounded by squalor, beggars, the maimed, and only reached by a walk through narrow alleys, now seeing them on TV, must have had a bit of a clear out, but the Church full of the usual con men selling bees wax candles to see the sights, all they did is coat the hand with evil smelling grease no bee had ever seen, and the opulence inside made a mockery of “love thy neighbour” when related to the poverty outside. HOPE THIS DOES NOT UPSET YOU but just report as I saw many years ago!!! Guess I was full of brotherly love after a tour on bombers!!!
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18th June a night flight to Shaibah in Iraq 3 hours 45. Shaibah, now there is a place to bring back memories not for me but for the thousands of RAF blokes who served there, when I was an RAF Apprentice I heard more dirty poems about Shaibah and its population than anywhere else, some went on for pages and although not a collector of such memorabilia, remember one that had as it’s main item a wheel of very large proportions that continued to revolve against the odds. Another place of sand, from the air very little could be seen as most accommodation was built under ground or should I say the roof of concrete was just about ground level, ventilation was by open slots at ground level, bit like sleeping in a WW2 air raid shelter, situated in Iraq at Lat 30-2349N Long 47-3628 E at 2224ft, has taken me many years to find out just where it was/is, managed it by locating a web site all about the Gulf War, nothing more to say about another sand castle.
19th June Shaibah to Karachi in what is now Pakinstan [sic] 6 hours 15. After taking off from Shaibah we flew directly to the waters of the Gulf and flew all the way to Karachi as near as possible in the centre of the Gulf, many bad friend either side so instructions were to avoid problems, even did a bit of a “dog leg” at the Straits of Hormuz to stay away from any one’s territory. Was quite a peaceful looking scene in those days, lots of small ships ploughing their way along and across, probably smugglers and all manner of evil goings on if we did but know it!!
And so to Karachi itself, part of India then, but now Pakistan, thriving city of many thousands or millions, place that I bought many carpets to bring back to England to help cheer up a rather dark old house Phyll and I were renting.
There were very many carpet makers in the various streets working on looms made from everything imaginable, some used by young children making wonderful patterns with the dyed wool, both hands and feet being used at a rapid pace to insert the wool and move the shuttle. I would shop about for one we wanted to do a room, passage or a hallway, and athough [sic] most colours were somewhat bright and did clash with others we had, we were glad to be able to cover the floors with some thing soft and warm. Many of the carpets had long wool which made them bulky to carry especially some long ones for the stairs, but the carpet makes were only too pleased to wrap them in sacking for me. Most times the Customs at Lyneham let me through without any payment but on occasion I would be charged some small amount to keep them happy!! The chewing of beetle nut and the continual spitting out of it’s bright red juice made the pavement look as if a gang battle had taken place, many were the street side workshops, silver coins hammered thin, cut into strips and soldered into intricate shapes to make the lovely fret work for jewelry [sic], and delightful decorative items. In fact all streets in every Indian city of town I visited had it’s crafts men,
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woman and children, some carved ivory to make the famous balls within balls, time seemed to have no meaning to the carvers who I was told spent years on a single item, how they lived was a mystery. Apart from the clever ones there was also the cunning ones, just a few of the things they made were, cigarettes in a perfect copy of all English packets and tins which when lit popped and crackled as the dead bugs burst, Phyll was pregnant with our first son and suffered as so many woman do with terrible morning sickness, was told that Philips Milk of Magnesia would help, but none obtainable in England that would could find, bought the largest bottle I could find in India at the Officer’s Mess, Dark blue bottle and all the correct labels etc, Phyll took one dose and heaved it straight up, might have been the right bottle but the contents were foul and unknown, apparently it was quite a common practise to bore a hole in the bottom of bottles of all descriptions, whisky, gin, brandy etc the favourites, pour the contents out and fill with anything that looked right and seal the hole in the bottom, I was told that at time pattent [sic] laws in India were unknown. A shoe maker told me he could copy any size, style, colour, so with a pattern of Phyll’s shoe size ordered a pair of suede shoes as a surprise, was a surprise to us both, Minnie Mouse would have been proud to have worn them, not Phyll, yet without soap they could remove grease and stains from the dirtist [sic] of shorts and shirts, return them the next day looking like new, a large country with a great deal of talent in the common man!!!
20th June Karachi to Dum-Dum Calcutta in India 7 hours 05. I have been asked what this was like, flying out of a war zone and to these peaceful areas. But it was not like that at all. Most places we went were on a war footing. Also I don’t think that the local population welcomes us, our money yes, but us no thank you. India was in the throes of becoming independent after many years under the yoke of Britain, Pakistan and Ceylon were also stirring as was Egypt. We landed in Dum Dum (Calcuta) one time to be told that we could not go into town as some workers had had an argument with their foreman and had tossed him into the furnace and shut the door. Another time we received an invite to visit a local Big wig’s Palace, nearby got there when a crowd on a rampage filled the streets and our taxi did a U turn and took us back to camp, war in England was never like that!! Instead of landing back at home, each time we landed in enemy territory, well on most days!!
22nd June Dum Dum to Palam in India 4 hours 25. The old city of Delhi, like some so many cities in India, narrow streets, too many people and cows, but New Delhi a much cleaner place guess the name tells it all, many administrative departments built I would guess to house the government in a cleaner environment, may be just as crowded now as the old one was years ago, we used both names New Delhi and Palam as our stop off point for this place, not a major junction at that time and not on our normal route. Calcutta
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in the East of India was a large city, the RAF base of Dum Dum well known throughout the service, the dum dum bullet came from there, and from the tales I was told much more that was strange and a mystery to western eyes, saw the Indian rope trick once, yes the boy did vanish but always thought there was something a bit iffy about it, if you don’t believe it can’t happen I suppose. Again the streets red with beetle juice and lined with small workshops in some areas, wonderful brass work made by hand, beaten out of sheets of brass, bought a beautiful rose bowl there on one trip, stolen long after by a staff member of the roadhouse we had, really heavy brass with roses carved around the circumference, these were filled with glass and fired so the glass melted into the cuts and then ground until smooth, coated with silver and fitted with a silver mesh to hold the stems, bought a few different types but all long gone now, probably found a new home years ago with the craved wooden tray, crystal glasses, and they even stole the fez I brought back from Egypt!!!
23rd June Palam to Ratamalana in Ceylon, now Shri Lanka [sic], 8 hours. Ceylon, Sri Lanka, was a nice place, called at a number of ‘dromes there, Ratmalana, Negombo, a couple of them, our sleeping quarters were straw huts in amongst the coconut plantations, spoilt for me on one trip when I left my case on the bed and went for a shower, found when I returned that it had been stolen so no change of clothes until I could buy some more, found out when I asked the station police that it was quite normal for things to vanish, very light fingered some of them.
Great surf beaches there which we all found very welcome to cool off in the water, no hope of swimming as one minute the sand is dry and the next 10 feet of water, terrific undertow we were very luck [sic] we did not get swept out to sea, Africa the next stop!!
A rather nice hotel built on a promontory or maybe it was a linked island anyhow went there one night and had a game of snooker with the attendant, played quite well but was given a lesson on how to play the game, found out later that the attendant had been the “marker” for Horace Lyndrum, one time world Champion.
24th June Ratamalana to Karachi 8 hours, 25th June Karachi to Shaibah 6 hours 40, 25th June (YES THE SAME DAY). One of the things I did notice about India as we flew the length of it to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from Karachi. That it was covered in trees and where the vast population lived I often wondered, certainly the street of towns and cities were full , covered in the red strains of beetle juice and cows.
Shaibah to Lydda a night flight of 4 hours 20. 26th June we had trouble with the electric’s of the flaps and undercarriage so missed a day!! 27th June
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Lydda to Castel Benito 6 hours 40. 28th June Castel Benito to Holmsley South 8 hours , and finally on the same day Holmsley South to base at Stoney Cross 15 minutes, all in an aircraft that I had had about ten minutes of this is this and that is that!!
We were now transferred as a crew to Holmsely [sic] South, with 246 Squadron, and I started flying again with a F/O Lunn on the 10th July doing 3 engined landings, another gap which could have been ground instruction or being a “dogs body” to my F/E Leader, or even a spot of leave and started flying with F/Lt Poore again on Yorks on the 22nd and again on the 28th doing various training flight, then it was off again on the 29th of July from Holmsley South to Malta, Cairo West, Shaibah, Mauripur (India) Dum Dum and so on back to UK on the 11th of August having flown on 29th and 30th July 1st 2nd 3rd 7th 8th 9th and twice on the 11th August. The reason was that there were so few trained crews and very few York aircraft, so we all had to do a great deal in fact far too much. The logbook of my time with 246 Squadron is presented later.
A York oversea flight was very different from Bomber operations, on bombers our cargo had no opinions of physical wants, just sad and waited to be jettisoned.
We carried mail as well, but our passengers were important, not in rank but in the interest of the service they were. So a completely different style of flying had to be undertaken, “press on regardless” the bomber style was no good for people. Safe and on time was the motto, no risks with bad weather, fly round it, we could not go over because there was no oxygen installed on the ‘plane.
From my point of view it was all very strange to start with, clothes for a couple of weeks was required but tropical ones were worn most of the time, so we got into a routine of flying out from UK in our normal uniforms, changed at Malta and left our “blues” there to be cleaned etc and changed back into them on our way home, leaving our tropical shorts shirts etc to washed, ironed and ready for us next time out. Food was another problem, Malta for example was still on very tight rations and my first taste of goat milk, butter and cheese still a rank memory!! The warning to be very careful what we ate, the sudden change in temperature and humidity took their toll of us all and from memory we are nothing at all out of our RAF Messes and very frugal in them. We were not able to drink much hard booze, mainly soft drinks and the occasional beer, the fruit was very welcome however and provided it was either skinned or peeled we could eat them, most of us took back to England some fruit each trip for our families, often when we landed back in UK, calls were out for certain fruit mainly bananas for sick children
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in London hospitals, something in banana which helped cure some illnesses, needless to say no one minded giving up whatever we had.
When you and I fly these days we bound the ‘plane and are quite confident we will arrive where we should, flying on operations we went and came back (hopefully) now we went and went and went and then turned round and came back but it was us doing the wenting and to places that we had never been before and had to land discharge our passengers, sort out the plane, refuel etc, find a bed and food and be ready for the next one in the following day, the first few time were difficult, strange places and people and equipment, and even a brand new crew, all who had done at least one tour but some had done a number, our navigator I remember wore “brothel creeper” suede boots in the topics, was to my eyes ancient and seemed to dissapear [sic] between flights into his room, never really got to know him!!!
I had to get out to the aircraft at least an hour before take off to check out things and run up the engines, you will note many 02, 03 04, 2359, times given as take off time so you can see I for one lost of lot of sleep, the rest of the crew were not in bed but sorting out all the charts, weather, flight plans etc, and we often flew twice in a day if needed so apart from the constant changes in climate as we flew hither and thither we were kept busy.
After take off and once we had reached about 8,000ft we could settle down to some hours of straight and level flight, passengers had to be checked, even in those days there were the terrified ones who could not look out of the window,
After a number of trips the whole thing became a boring job with very little excitement, great discomfort because of the climate, lack of food and the desire to get home to my growing family, I really loved the RAF but loved my wife more.
Among the sites seen during this flying over North Africa, ones that are stuck in the memory are the rusting tanks and other vehicles that littered the North African Desert as we flew in and out if Cairo, lots of miles of nothing then a heap of rust etc, all seen as we flew over at 8,000ft.
We as a crew were transferred yet again to the top Transport Command Squadron, 511 at Lyneham who still operate from there to this day. (August 1998). The logbook of my time with 511 Squadron is presented later.
The only highlight during October was the flight the skipper and I did on our own in Lancaster Bomber P 780 (it was used as the squadron spare parts transport) was to fly by my map reading to Prestwick near Liverpool to pick up a parcel and return, clocked up 3 hours 30 in a Lancaster. The York was a
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nice ‘plane to fly couldn’t go above 8000ft because we had no oxygen for the passengers and it was not pressurised, really a Lancaster with a different body to take freight or passengers, we even had a very good galley on board but until we were given an ex airgunner to act as steward was little used, don’t know what training our chap was given but on the first flight was told on the ground what and when we as the crew would like for our meal. He waited until we were well on our way before puncturing the tins and most of the contents ended in his face or on the ceiling, didn’t seem to know about changes of air pressure, but he soon learned!!
There is one trip to Langar mentioned in my log book where we picked up a York for a VIP Flight. We were in York MW100, which had been the first operational York delivered to the RAF. I have read that Langar was an AVRO refurbishment factory, where repairs etc were carried out, so it looks as though MW 100 was “tarted” up there for 24 Squadron VIP flight.
One of the more pleasant jobs we have, even if a bit sad really, was to fly back to England those British troops that had survived the death camps of the Japanese in Burma and else where. We used Freighter Yorks for this with mattresses spread on the floor and female nurses in attendance, the looks of thanks we all got from these sad men was soul touching, all crews involved would have happily got our old bombers out and bombed the bastards to kingdom come, I for one will never forgive them for their cruelty. Returning from one of the later trips we were met by the Squadron C.O. and told to move all our gear into the Waaf’s quarters (they had been moved out) get a decent room and then report to the main gate where transport had been laid on, the useless mob of non flying officers had crawled out from under the stones they had been hiding under, while we all risked life and limb, and were now insisting that we as crews were not allowed in the mess in flying kit, even though we had to breakfast at between 4-5am and then go straight out to fly, when we returned late night no food would be available after 6pm. Our C.O. wouldn’t stand for that, he had done at least 90 ops some with the Dam Busters, so we moved all the Squadron items from the mess to our new accommodation, which meant all the silver, billard [sic] tables most of the decent armchairs (we could never sit in one because these idle sods were always in them), all the liquor from the bar plus all the glasses and bits and bobs. We had all been paying mess bills but very rarely had been in England, so an even bigger shock was in store for them when they found their mess bills had sky rocketed.
The day after day of flying from cold damp England to steaming hot and humid India was very wearying and when at the end of February 1946 I was offered the chance to leave the RAF I took it, our son Tony had been born in April shortly before I left, I could have stayed on in The RAF, but long hours of flying and a new wife and baby were not the way to go if life was
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going to be at all normal, what I should do for a job I didn’t know, but time at home was what I really wanted, it had been a long hard war and I wanted a rest.!! I have been thinking about this part of my time with The Royal Air Force and it seems as if I should explain where possible the duties of the various aircrew members. Starting with the bomber crews, the pilot is the boss whatever his rank, some crews were formed with quite senior ranking officers as non pilot members, this was often caused by the need for senior officers to really find out what happened on operations, often this was of a temporary nature, but it was known for a senior officer to complete a tour with a N.C.O pilot. The pilot made all the decisions in the air and usually on the ground as well, he had to have the respect of his crew and a happy crew always had a father figure for their pilot even though he might not be the oldest member of the crew, fighter pilots could and possibly should be of a less serious nature, most times they only had to look after themselves.
The pilot must have some understanding of all the jobs that the crew carried out, not to any great detail but sufficient to understand when things went wrong, and in an emergency could make the correct decisions if that crew member was unable to do so, his training would take much longer and would start as a pupil pilot on small aircraft, when he got his wings and started his training on twin engine ‘planes he would be joined by his navigator and in some cases by the wireless operator, these two crew members would have been carrying out their training else where, and once passed as proficient would have been posted to the conversion unit to await joining a crew, it is possible at this stage that these three crew members could after completing their conversion course, be posted to a squadron flying twin engine aircraft, DC3’s. or twin engine light bombers or fighters such as Mosquito’s, Beaufighter’s, Blenheim’s there were many different RAF and USAF twin engined aircraft in service all over the world that this crew could have ended up flying, navigation and wireless equipment was all basically the same in the RAF and no doubt the same applied in the USAF. Assuming that this crew now carries on to four engine conversion, all of the previous training could have been carried out in Canada or South Africa some I understand also completed twin engine training in the USA. Crews formed of Canadian, South African and Australian nationals naturally liked to be all from the same country, I am not sure what happened in other countries but I joined a Canadian crew when they arrived in England because they had no Flight Engineers, I do know that other countries also had the same problem but just who and how much of a problem it was I do not know. So now we have the crew at a 4 engine conversion course some where in England, here the pilot must learn the tricks of flying and landing a large and most likely difficult bomber, having done some initial training with instructors he will now get his crew together and they will complete their training together, While he has been receiving instruction and doing take off’s and landings with an all instructor crew,
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usually only a pilot and F/E, if going on a cross country he would have both a navigator and wireless operator also from the instruction staff (all would be air crew who had completed at least one tour and told me that it was more scary instructing than doing ops!) the rest of the crew have been likewise receiving instruction. Navigators, wireless operators and flight engineers would be all flying both day and night being taught and checked for competence in their various jobs, and subject to being passed as suitable would then continue their training as a crew, any member that didn’t do their job properly was soon found out and a replacement soon found, our navigator had been passed as ok but on a cross country during our training got us hoplessly [sic] lost in the Welsh mountains and the pilot and I, map and beacon read our way home, needless to say he went! The pilot now has his crew and after arriving at a bomber squadron he and his crew are checked out again by the various section leaders, he will now go on two “second dickie” bombing trips to see just what it is all about, standing next to the pilot he will watch what happens all the way out and back, and have that little extra bit of knowledge that his crew hasn’t got.
So to complete this long story about the pilot he stands at the front of his crew and leads and guides them in the tasks ahead. He never shows fear nor does his voice ever tremble when in difficult situations, he may be trembling inside but no one would ever guess, a good bomber pilot was a hero unsung, I was lucky I flew with two on operations. The navigator must have an ability with numbers and calculations often carried out under very difficult conditions, many were remustered from pilot training having failed to reach the flying standard required, they made very good navigators because they understood the problems a pilot could have, and could be very quickly given what additional training was required for a navigator. His job simply described would be to get you there and back again, on time and on target, never as simple as that because the bombing routes were always being changed to dodge known hot spots of “flack” and lead the enemy into thinking you were going to one town and then suddenly turn and bomb some where else. His view of the target or for that matter anywhere we went was limited by his position below the pilot facing a blank wall, his instruments consisted of the usual pencils rulers etc. but also fitted were a repeater compass from the gyro-compass until in the tail, a Gee unit which had a screen and fixed radio stations in England broadcast signals that were projected as curved lines which could give him a fixed position, the gee signal did not reach far into the continent so was of limited use but did help the beginner out and home, H2S was also fitted in a belly blister underneath this was a very primitive form of radar and gave a misty picture of the earth below helpfull [sic] if bombing blind and could aid in locating a town and the trusty old sextant, much improved from the sailor’s version with a two minute clockwork motor that averaged out the readings over that period so was a bit more accurate, wouldn’t do on a yacht would rust up solid in no
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time, piles of maps, charts for everything. Not only did he have to keep up a proper running diary of events, such as aircraft seen to crash or explode any unusal [sic] sightings, we saw some of the early German rocket tests on one operation, we didn’t know what it was and said so and we weren’t told either, changes to targets would be passed to him by the w/op, wind drift had to be regularly checked and whether we had a tail or head wind could effect the time we got to the target, and when we got back home he had to hand in his charts for them to be checked just in case we hadn’t been where we were supposed to have been, a very busy member of the crew, perhaps managed to look out the nose on odd occasions but always working and figureing [sic] out the next course change. The wireless operator was probable a very frustrated man, he had all this high powered gear and could only use it to receive, except in an emergency which none of us wanted anyhow. Signals were being passed from group headquarters to the squadron in code and where they effected us were passed to those concerned, almost always to the navigator, these could be very sudden and high changes of wind direction as monitored by aircraft ahead of us, changes of routes to avoid a new “flack” post, recalls due to bad conditions over the target or fog closing in on our own ‘dromes.
Which meant we might not be able to land properly anywhere in England, 500 to 1000 bombers spread out all over England many crashed with crews killed was not a happy thought! So the w/op spent most of his time listening in, when we started using Master Bombers, (they flew round and round the target during the raid giving instructions to various crews where to bomb and telling those off who ignored him) the w/op got some extra work changing channels as briefed so that the German radio could not block transmissions. Our transmitted signals out were always brief until over friendly land and even then too much chatter from one ‘plane could cause trouble for those in real peril, ‘planes with injured on board or ‘planes so badly damaged that the sooner they could land the better got priority and all crews listened to see if one of their mates was in trouble often a few words of comfort from a friend helped no end, once we started doing daylight operations and could see many miles we could also warn others of enemy action such as flack and fighters, and when we given the job as “dive bombers” on a couple of raids warn other of bomb bursts and local guns that could be a danger. The Bomb Aimer’s (or as the USAF called him The Bombardier) job was to drop the bombs we had carted about the sky and drop them where they would do the most damage, his bomb sight of RAF planes was quite good, needed to be set accurately with wind speed and direction, had a set of switches that could be set so that various bomb bays on the ‘plane emptied first once all the settings were put in which also included things like height and temperature, could be others but it is a long time ago, then he directed the pilot to change course a degree or two either way until his sight was on the target and then he pressed the button and a
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sudden jolt told us we were a great deal lighter and could set course for home. The Master Bomber made a difference because he would tell us which coloured markers to bomb on and give us lots of warning as we came in towards the target. Pathfinder Force had arrived at the target with the Master Bomber before we got there, he told them where to drop their markers and which colour to use, they didn’t land on the ground but floated on parachutes so the Germans couldn’t put them out but they did light “spoof” ones which confused us until the Master Bomber started and then most bombs fell on the target. Some RAF and USAF bombers has a light machine gun in the front nose which the bomb aimer could use, don’t think is was much use, we never hand one. the only other job that the bomb aimer could do was help the navigator with map reading in daylight and he always called out when we crossed the coast both in and out of Europe and England, at night this showed up as a slightly different colour of grey. The USAF made a big fuss about how their Norden bomb sight was so good, reports I have read since the war seem to discount it’s accuracy, like most things, a good operator is good whatever rubbish he is given to use!!
Lets face it the Dam Buster’s used a sight made from a few sticks of wood and we know what they did. We now come to the Air Gunners we had two one as “tail end Charlie” in the rear turret, and another as the mid upper gunner, the rear gunner was considered the top man and he really had the worst position both for comfort and danger, both turrets were fitted with four Browning .303” aircooled machine guns, the turrets were power operated, and the rear gunner usually saw the fighters first particularly at night as they climbed up to get into position the Browning was no match for the fighter cannons so they could keep out of range and bang away until both gun positions were destroyed, then we were sitting ducks. We had two good gunners and just a couple of rounds fired at a distant fighter was enough for him to go else where and find a crew half asleep, we saw this a few times when on daylight raids and cursed them for not attending to their job of survival for the whole crew, some squadrons has much larger losses than others, we reckoned it was not luck but bad training and stupid people who once their bombs had gone thought they were home and dry. Another problem the gunners had and this also effected the bomb aimer was cold they all had electrically heated suits but it could get very cold at night and it made it just that much harder for the gunners to stay awake. On one trip they took our H2S blister out and fitted a mid-under turret, not like the USAF ball turret but more like a small bath tub with a gun mounting, didn’t look very comfortable and gave us a gunner we had never met. What a dissaster [sic] he never stopped seeing fighters from the time we left the ground until we got back, poor chap was probably “flack Happy” That bit of useless gear came out and never went back what they did with the poor gunner I don’t know. but he should not have been given a mid-under job a midupper would have kept him in contact with the rest of the crew and perhaps settled
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him down, who know what terrible tales he had to tell, but we didn’t want him!! The Flight Engineer usually came from the ground staff, had worked on engines, prefferably [sic] those fitted in aircraft, many were recruited like I was having been trained by The RAF at Halton Number 1 School of Technical Training, after passing out I had served two or three years on the flight line servicing a large number of different areo-engines so my F/E training could be specific to the engines fitted in the aircraft I should fly in, the course at St Athan in Wales was quite short, and like all the ex-brats found it no problem, my duties were to control the engines all the required speed the pilot decided and adjust boose and RPM so that they were all syncronised [sic] and did not “hunt”, raising and lowering undercarriage, flaps and bomb doors also were my job, on take off I had to help the pilot hold the throttles open and assist in correcting any swing which could happen with a cross wind and a full bomb load. Every other crew member was strapped in but the F/E had to stand beside the pilot to carry out his job, once off the ground U/G up and flaps retracted, climbing boose and revs set, temperatures checked and on radial engines gills opened or closed to keep the engines at the right temperature.
On water cooled the radiator flaps had to be adjusted for the same reason, a log had to be kept from the moment the engines were started so that a running total of fuel used to could be calculated, every change of boost, revs ,height and which gear the super charger was in affected fuel consumption. There reading were very important also which fuel tanks were in use so that all tanks could end up over the target holding the same amount of fuel, a full tank with a hole could mean no return to base. As an F/E I never really had enough time for all the jobs, the navigator called on me at times to do star shots with the sextant which I could hang on a hook in the astro-drome above my bank of engine and fuel instruments, there was always some thing that needed a tweek or a piece of wire to keep it going, and over the target apart from all my usual jobs I had to feed the “window” out of the special chute, some time there were large bundles of leaflets to send down, to let [sic] the Germans they had no chance or the invaded ones that thing would get better. Before and after a trip I had to check things, although the ground staff never missed a thing perhaps we survived because they were as fussy as we were. My log had to be handed in and any odd things explained so that they could be fixed before we went out again. When ever I had time or if fighter activity was great I would stand in the astro-dome and do my own bit of searching, one night to my amazement within almost arms-reach was a F/W 190 night fighter, I pointed this out to all of the crew and the skipper slowly dropped us a few feet until he was out of sight, the gunners wanted to have a go at him, but the skipper said you can’t be sure you will win and we are here to drop bombs!!! The different in the training for the carrying of passengers by those members of the flying crew that transfered [sic] from bombers to transport was not so very different except that the “press on
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Spirit” of bombers was now changed to safety and arrival at the destination on time. Pilots were trained to fly with the comfort of the passengers as of major concern, Navigators now had some visual land marks to help on long flights and with the help of the wireless operator many “fixes” obtained by cross bearings from two or more radio beacons. The war in Europe and with Japan was still on so many of the peace time facilities were still not available but most of southern Europe was conflict free so that flight were in themselves safe from enemy fire. The flight engineer’s duties still contained those element of engine, fuel, and general aircraft overseeing that were needed in bombers, in the early days he was the only member of the crew free to move about during the flight no cabin crew were employed, so the was the only contact that the passengers had with the flight crew, and many times his duties required him to reassure passengers who had not flown before, although he also acted as a second pilot, on long flights, ground prepared sandwiches and thermos filled with hot or cold drinks were given to the passengers by the F/E. On freighter aircraft another new duty the F/E had to perform was the checking of the centre of gravity of the load this had to be within very strict limits, because of safety considerations, each item of the load had to have it’s centre of gravity worked out and then it’s position in the aircraft designated to ensure that the centre of lift and centre of gravity were within limits.
All RAF Yorks of Transport Command were also Royal Mail carriers so that large bags of mail on both freighter and passenger ‘planes were carried, there was also a small compartment that could only be entered from the outside situated on the port side near the tail, this was for high security items and was usually filled and emptied by a person from the Consulate, who would also lock it.
Without checking with Phyll, or for that matter anyone else, I applied for release from the Royal Air Force, because I had been commissioned I was able to leave the RAF even though I had signed on as an apprentice for 18 years after the age of 18. Phyll was shocked when I turned up at the home she had started to make for us and told her what I had done, what was I going to do for a job?, how would I earn a living,? none of these things had really mattered to me, I just wanted to be with her and our new baby Tony. My Commanding Officer wanted me to stay in and said I could return at any time before my demobilisation leave ended, on the 27th of April 1946 (the day before our first wedding anniversary) I was given a demob suit, some food and clothing coupons and cleared from the RAF, my leave would finish on the 9th of July 1946 so I had a couple of months to decide what to do with my life and that of my family. Phyllis and I were married on the 28th April 1945, she was released from the WAAFs in November of 1945 and managed after a lot of form filling and chasing up the local council to get a requisitioned house, which she moved into in the early part of 1946. These
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houses had been empty for many years were of low standard compared to today’s, but ours was a solidly build three bedroom, two rooms and a kitchen down stairs but had only one cold tap in the house, gas lighting and an outside flushing toilet of the design known by young and old as the Thunderbox. I was still frying to India and Ceylon and only managed to get home for the odd night very seldom, so Phyll all on her own with no help from anyone sought out second hand furniture and managed to provide the basic things needed to make a home, Tony arrived on the 13th of April while I was on leave but I had to return to 511 Squadron as soon as all was well with Phyll and Tony, but was home again on the 27th of April for good.
– Reg Miles
The URL of this page is
http://www.geocities.com/jkjustin/Milesbio5.html
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Biography of Reg Miles
Ex Apprentice No 1 S. of T. T., R.A.F., Halton 39th Entry 34 – 67 M.U.s – 27 A/S Bloemspruit South Africa – Lympe Kent, Flight Engineer 432 – 420 Squadrons RCAF, 6 Group Bomber Command, Eastmoor, Tholthorpe, Yorkshire / 242 – 246 – 511 Squadrons Transport Command Lyneham, RAF
Chapter 6
Post RAF
My parents called round to this very old, dirty, requisitioned house and found me in my battle dress trousers and very large white flying rollnecked sweater sitting on the floor smoking a “Churchill” cigar (very large and the last of my Indian purchases) cleaning and stopping up holes in the wall of what would be our dining and living room. To say that they were horrified would be putting it mildly, where was their son of whom they were proud? The Flying Officer in the RAF who had been on bombers and regularly flew to India and other foreign parts, gave all that up to do what? I couldn’t tell them because I didn’t know, just wanted peace and my own family and no more racing about the world. Something would come along I said, my parents were not impressed they had battled for years to get a little bit out of the working class rut, still only out a little way and here was Reg on his way up and just throwing it all away to be at home cleaning up the dirt of years of neglect. After our marriage on each trip to India I bought carpets and other items that would help to furnish a home, after the floors walls and ceilings were washed the carpets gave a nice touch of luxury to the place. In the kitchen was a brick built “copper” this was filled with water, a fire lit under and when hot this water was used for cleaning the house, washing clothes, and once a week for Phyll and I to have a bath, the babies of course got at least one day. Friday evening was usually “bath night”, Phyll had managed to buy an adult size “tin bath” which spent most of it’s time handing on a nail in the back yard, with a fire going well in the back room downstairs, the bath was placed in front and buckets of cold and hot water carried in from the kitchen. Ladies first was always the rule so Phyll could have hers in comfort, when she got out I go in and removed my dirt, now came the reverse trip with the buckets of water, each one tipped outside to run into the drain by the back door, once tried to empty the bath by lifting it up to the window sill and sliding it out, not much luck with that just a lot more water to wipe up. I did eventually install a proper full size bath in the kitchen with the drain passing through the wall and hot water fed from a gas heater and cold from the one cold tap. The whole thing was boxed in with a hinged cover which gave Phyll a decent size work surface when cooking, and fun for the boys to hide in when not in use for either of it’s purposes. I
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thought I might like to work as a mechanic in a garage, just shows you what an innocent I was, spoke to a garage owner who had looked after Dad’s car before the war and asked if I could work there without pay for a couple of weeks to see what it was like. Started a few days later and after a day or so he wanted to pay me, worked there for a few weeks, can’t say I thought much of the job or the owner, gave me some wooden boxes with parts of a lorry engine in it and told me to build it up, no instruction manuals so took me a while to sort out what went where and he was not impressed, went out on welding jobs to hotels whose heating boilers had frozen up and cracked, nothing went right and as I unloaded the gear from the truck he threw a heavy spanner at me which just missed, I threw it back and nearly hit him, so he said I was not suitable for his job, not a very good start to civilian life! Next I called in at the Labour Exchange and it was suggested that I should go on a course to become a commercial artist, couldn’t draw to save my life so that was out, they had a vacancy for a Trainee Manager for a laundry would I like to try that. Why not I thought, so turned up for an interview by the boss lady and started next day, must learn all the processes she said and put me on a Hoffman Press doing fancy pillow slips, kept coming by every so often and throwing all I had done in the “do it again” bin, all females working there and most old enough to be my mother, put me on the calendar, long steam heated rollers that were used to iron sheets and other large items, I was at the back on my own taking things off while two or three woman fed them in, or course I got in a muddle and another job hit the dust!! So it was back home and helping Phyll with house cleaning, my father was not impressed and said I must have a job what ever it was and suggested that he could get me a job with the large building firm of which he was a very senior employee. When it came, it was as a painter’s labourer (the lowest for life in the building industry) but I just took it to save any arguments and did my turn of holding the bottom of ladders while the painter did the clever stuff, while doing this in the middle of the local shopping street two RAF officers much junior to me on my old squadron couldn’t believe their eyes, told them that good jobs like this were going fast so they’d better get in quick. I had bought a new bicycle, the one that I had bought with the money from my photo job before going into the RAF had been completely destroyed when my uncle Jack was killed on it by a German shell outside Dover. I cycled about Margate going from one painting job to another, the one I most remember was the one at the local brewery, being the lowest on the totem pole I had the job of lighting a fire with wood scraps and making the tea at mid morning and afternoon breaks, got things going just waiting to see how many to make and no one turned up, and went out side into the yard and there all the workers were, both brewery and building, lining up for tankards of beer. Told to come and get mine but just did not fancy cold beer for a drink, went in a had my cup of tea, we were there for some time and eventually I was persuaded to give the beer a
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try, never tasted anything like it, smooth and warming and just perfect, asked where I could buy some of it, told not be so silly, this was a special brew made by the brewer for the staff and not on sale anywhere!! I had not taken up the offer by my CO to go back into the RAF, guess time just went by and didn’t given it much thought, from a salary of 20 pounds a week I was now earning about 3 (took me about 14 years to get up to that again and it wasn’t worth as much when I did) we managed, or at least Phyll did, both of us took extra jobs she did cleaning for the local library and tourist department and also worked in the evenings as a cashier at a large seaside restaurant, later on Phyll worked at a couple of hospitals in the Margate area, I carried out maintenance at the same restaurant and also had a teaching job for the local technical college. My father was talking to the company manager who asked how his son the RAF officer was doing, when told that he was working for the firm as painter’s labourer suggested that there was a need for a fitter to take control of the depot used to store all the machinery used in the company and also large stocks of materials surplus from contracts would I like it? Would I just, right up my alley so after a couple of days I started work at this depot which was on ground adjacent to Manston RAF Base, and in fact my yard was next to the station bomb dump that my father had built just before the war. When I eventually found the yard it looked like a rubbish tip, met by an old man who said he was in charge and who was I. Explained what my job was and found out that he had been there for some time just to help unload and load up the odd lorries that came in from building sites, asked why things were scattered all over the place and he said that he just put things where there was a space, and certainly didn’t do any clearing up or sorting out. A number of sheds had been erected and were all full of a jumble of building materials returned from sites, he didn’t know what was in any of them and had no intention of finding out, bricks of every shape and colour were stacked in heaps without any order and large stacks of roofing tiles had collapsed, spreading out like the tide to cover other items, with weeds and flowers poking their heads between. Loaded lorries had driven over what looked to the driver empty areas, but were in fact filled with sheets of glass, tins of paint, sanitary fittings, and various strange items returned from sites as not required or perhaps in many cases wrongly ordered, so that a sticky mess of dried paint, broken glass, and unknown fragments covered some areas resembling the appearance of a hastily cleared bomb site. This would not do for me, dotted about amongst this bleak landscape were concrete mixers of all shapes and sizes, and many other rusting hulks that I had no idea what they were, order what was wanted and somewhere to work and store tools in safety. I found a shed that looked as if it might keep out the rain and with the old man’s help cleared some space for a bench which was among the multitude of items scattered about the site. One water tap was near the front entrance, I say entrance more like the gates of hell or a test of driver’s skill to weave
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through the junk piled just where it fell, and without me asking a cup of tea was soon offered, that at least had received top priority. I spent the following week looking at machines, to in the first case find out what they were and to check if they could be made to work, that would be my first job, to get the plant needed on building sites in a fit condition for work. To make matters worse there was no electricity or ‘phone connected to the site and very little in the way of anything to help me lift and replace things that were broken, I needed to get things sorted with the boss, calling into head office for my pay on Friday I asked to see him and told him what I needed and was given permission to book anything I wanted with their local supplier and arrange for power and telephone to be connected, the old man would return to his normal work of bricklayer’s labourer and I could engage a young man to take his place. So the clean up started, I concentrating on checking and repairing machines and my new helper re-stacking fallen heaps, wheeling away to a corner all the rubbish he found during his efforts, which would eventually be used to fill in some large holes uncovered during this clear up. The first shed I had used was emptied of all the rubbish and made into a small workshop where other benches were installed, the power and telephone were connected, I purchased some items of tools including a complete oxy-acetylene welding and cutting outfit from BOC, which I then had to learn how to use!! A call came for a large number of wheel barrows for a site, most that I had found had splits and cracks in the bodies and all had narrow steel wheels, repairs by welding were hastened and a quantity of wheels with pneumatic tyres were purchased, a coat of paint given from our stocks, all of which turned out to be grey of various shades when mixed together, the site foreman phoned to send transport, who shortly after receipt of the barrows phoned to register his delight in getting what appeared to be a truck load of new equipment. Gradually sheds were emptied, their contents sorted and listed and put away in some sort of order, all stocks of bricks, tiles, screws, nails, plumbing fittings, and all the multitude of items used in the building and construction industry were sorted and listen on stock sheets, these were sent to head office for typing and all site foreman and those people in the drawing, quantity and supply departments given copies, amendments made to these when required. All materials for building work was on licences, which were hard to get and the cause of a great amount of office time and paperwork, my lists helped to overcome some of these delays and gradually most people in the organisation used them to help in planning, they became even more useful when I was able to add separate sheets which gave lists of what machines were held in stock and what their state of readiness was. I was now getting more and more calls from sites asking for my help not only to supply machines and materials but my advice was asked for on the manufacture of items for sites and in many cases I was asked to make thousands of an individual item for the massive tower blocks being built in and around London to house those who had lost their homes
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due to enemy bombing. for most of this twelve years we still lived at Tivoli Road in the requisitioned house, much cleaner and more livable [sic] after Phyll’s ministrations, the wall paper in our bedroom which consisted of large purple parrots on a dark blue background had like the rest of the house been removed and given coats of a more restful colour of paint, there was always plenty of part tins returned from contracts so no problem with supplies! Philip our second son had arrived on the scene about two years after Tony, which gave Phyll. more work with washing and caring for two boys who carried on a constant war with each other and would always try to outdo each other in the speed at which they turned clean clothes into dirty rags. Sheila, Phyll’s sister came to stay and had the usual boy friends, mostly American service personnel from Manston, none of which seemed to understand that rationing of everything was still in place in the UK, invited to an evening meal on one occasion the incumbent boyfriend took out family’s weekly ration of cheese spread it our total stock of biscuits and swallowed the lot! Whether it was the same one who broke our settee into fragments one night in a fit of passion I don’t know, the remains however did come in useful as our ration of coal for heating had largely been burnt and the settee end up as fuel the stuffing and covers used to add humus to the starved patch of soil called garden at the back. To help with the family budget Phyll had obtained part time evening work at a large restaurant on the sea front manning the till, she also cleaned the Margate library, and at times the Margate Information centre, she wasn’t afraid of hard work but it did and still does seem all wrong that people like her who had done their bit during the war got nothing for their efforts while the stay at home fortune markers still got all the benefits, I noticed this particularly when visiting an aircraft factory in the Midlands, whole families worked in the one factory each one taking home much more than the fighting men did and most seemed to have a fiddle of some sort which enabled them to get the best of every thing regarding food and clothes, some got bombed but most got rich! Susan came along after a further eight years, she was born at home as Phyll had not been happy at the treatment she received at the local maternity hospital and determined not to suffer that again, her brother Peter was performing with a band at a local venue and his wife Jean stayed with us until she had her second child, we even at times had other artists to stay all to help with the family budget. I had changed my cycle for a “Corgi” , this was the war surplus parachutist motor bike, dropped with them for quick movements of men, they had a small 125cc two stroke engine, folding seat and handle bars, no instruments of any sort and very basic lights, push start, no gears, and certainly no suspension, the front tyre wore to a point after some miles so that turning on wet or icy roads was fraught with peril, many was the 360s I did on old cobble stones and slick corners. A large metal box was made and fitted and my range of operations grew to sites many miles away from base, it was a cold and slow means of transport, crawling up a
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hill with the box on the back filled with heavy tools after an hour or so on the road to be passed with ease by everything on wheels and some even on hoof did not endear me to other road users, who out of pure spite drove near and informed me if I pedalled harder would get along faster. To spend over an hour on the road to get to a site that had called me that they had problems with machinery, only to find as I often did that failure to check the oil in an engine had caused it seize up, the topping up with fresh oil prior to my arrival supposed to fool me, strong words were said by me while I stripped the engine freed the pistons and rings and got it running again. Some cases were even more bizarre, once called to a site two hours away because the small bulldozer would not “go”, this was in the middle of winter with ice and snow about, found that the machine had been left after it’s day’s work in a large puddle of liquid mud, this had frozen overnight and struggle as it may the poor thing could only slip clutches trying to get out of the clutches of the ice, a stern word to the “ganger” to get off his backside in future meant no more silly alarms from that site. On another occasion nearer home I was asked to call at a site because the 14/10 mixer would not mix (14/10 – 14 cu ft of dry material in and 10 cu ft of wet mixed out) It was still operating when I arrived on site to be shown that as the hopper tilted to pour the dry material in it shot straight out the other side, shut it down and had a look at the blades inside the drum, these often got badly worn after months of use, not in this case the drum was full to the brim with rock hard concrete. Again poor or perhaps in this case non existent maintenance, I had issued guide lines to all foreman as I found that certain work methods damaged or caused performance problems with plant, in this case of concrete mixers at the end of a day’s work a few shovels of sand or gravel should be placed in the drum and allowed to mix for a few minutes this combined with the liquid cement usually still present from the last mix and made it too weak to set hard, the following day it would be broken up during the first mix. There were a number of these information suggestions most of which I have no memory, one that still remains is the one involving flexible drives used on vibrators to consolidate in shuttering, or formwork, it was common practise to hang the vibrating head over the shuttering and leave it operating while the concrete was poured, the sharp kink in the flexible drive caused the high speed inner drive to cut a hole in the outer casing, this would be fairly large on the inside but often a very small slit on the out side, if this slit became immersed in the concrete the rotary action of the inner drive sucked in liquid concrete which soon set when switched off and the next day no vibrator, more obvious to the operator was the damaged caused if the actual vibrating head was to touch the reinforcing steel bars inside the shuttering, I have had the heads returned to me cut in half after being in contact with the steel. During the 12 years I was employed by Rice and Sons many things happened that are worth repeating. I cannot begin to remember them in any proper order will just tell them as they pop up in my memory, a local garage
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owner who’s place of business was just up the road from the yard, I bought my petrol from him and we often helped one another out with bits and pieces, he had been the only one who had an independent supply of electricity provided by a single horizontal cylinder glow bulb diesel engine to start it needed a long heating of the bulb part with an oversize blow lamp, then grasping the spokes of one of the very large fly wheels a heave to start the rotation and followed by more pulling until it fired and continued on it’s own, the trick was to let go before you went with it, rather like prop swinging an aircraft engine, his wife helped him to serve petrol, but needed the engine running to supply electricity for the pumps, the odd times when he was too ill to get out of bed I would start the thing for her and so we became friends and swapped ideas about thing, he had “come upon” some very cheap metal twist drills and wondered if I would like some they certainly looked good quality but would they cut I asked, we’ll give them a go he said and put one in his bench drill stand and tried to drill a hole, no luck must need sharpening, and still no luck, a close examination showed that they were left hand drills were stamped USAAF and no doubt had originated in the USAAF Base at Manston and were made for a DeWalt machine that did a number of operations some of which required left hand drills. The local manager of Rice and Sons had a number of children one of which was a young girl who like so many of her gender rode and had horses, the garden at his house had become too small for her latest horse and as there was quite a bit of open space at the yard now it was tidy he asked if we could manage to find room for it, wasn’t very keen but found a space between piles of bricks and partition blocks that could be fenced and space in a shed near by that would do as a tackle store. The young girl turned up with this, to us great hairy beast, and put him away while dad pulled up in his car and took her home. We used to let it out to feed around the yard during the day and never really had any trouble putting it away at night, not that any of us felt very comfortable with it, but it did cause trouble, one day it got it’s nose and most of itself jammed in the door way of a shed while it warmed itself on a potbelly stove that was burning to drive out the moisture from stored items, one of us climbed through a window and tried to back it out but it wouldn’t budge, only thing to do was push it forward and dodge the backward explosion as it’s nose got burnt, it often scratched it’s back on stacks of bricks or tiles, our only warning the rumble as thousands of carefully piled ones slowly slid down to cover yards of ground, when burning worm infested wood it loved to put its hooves into the hot ashes and the long length of pipe we used to move the wood about poured out smoke from it’s top end, the horse stood with this in it’s mouth and seemed to enjoy the odd smoke. We had a few minor problems with this horse, it got out one day when a stupid lorry driver left the gate open and the young lad I had taken on spent most of the day chasing it over hill and dale until it leapt a fence into a paddock of other horses and charged about until this owner
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caught it and insisted on knowing who the owner was. The end for us came when I arrived at the yard one Monday morning to be greeted by a very irate RAF officer, the horse had apparently got out during the weekend and right opposite was the grass runway of Manston Aerodrome, these acres of lush grass were heaven to the horse so in spite of large numbers of service personnel in jeeps and on motor bikes it just cantered madly about preventing the circling aircraft from landing. The main runway at Manston was some miles long, equipped with FIDO and a major airfield during WW2, at this time it was occupied by the USAAF flying Lockheed “Shrunk Works” F80 Shooting Stars, Spifires [sic] had by legend taken off across the runway it was so wide, the grass runway was used by visiting light aircraft to leave the main runway free for ops. I noted that the officer concerned was a non flier and after he had calmed down suggested that he get a few years in before going off at the mouth to me, but felt sorry for him as no doubt he had been torn off a strip by some other prat in uniform, told him the horse was not mine and mentioned my service number which shut him up, but the horse had to go and so it did. Another morning I arrived to be called over by the next door neighbour, who had a small holding and piggery behind his house, to complain about the noise I had been making late into the previous evening, said he would come over and shut me up if it happened again, told him I wished he had which surprised him. What had happened was I crawled into the drum of a large concrete mixer to check the blades and water feed pipes, it was going out on to a site the next day and the phone call only came in as I locked up the workshop, my men had already gone, knew that most of the mixer was in good condition but wondered if the blades and water pipes had been checked, blades were OK but still a small amount of concrete on the inside of the water pipe, got a hammer and cold chisel from the toolbox and chipped out the bits and pieces, a small pebble just didn’t want to move so pushed my finger in to flick it out, the pebble dropped down jamming my finger in and the harder I pulled the more it jammed. The only way I could get out was to hold up the pebble with a piece of wire while I eased my finger out, the tools I had with me were too large, that is why I was banging on the drum hoping someone would come and help me, but no luck and I was going deaf from my hammering. Perhaps the last shovel of sand put in to weaken the cement remaining in the drum had a piece of tie wire in, what a hope but after scrabbling about with my free hand for some time I found a piece, held the pebble up and quickly grabbed my tools and crawled out, the neighbour laughed and would come quick if heard banging late again. Another Monday I arrived at the yard to find the entrance blocked by a very large and dirty Steamroller, no sign of a driver, enquires with neighbours did not help, no note or message on the machine, just parked most tidily across the entrance, walking space only. None of my people knew anything about it and none of us knew how to drive, we checked the tank which had some water in it but no coal or wood,
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lit a fire made sure the sight glass was full and when steam started to come out of various holes, pushed and pulled every lever in sight until it moved into the yard, rolled up and down the yard a few times to make our road smooth and put the brake on, the fire was only wood so it soon burnt down and went out. It stay there for a couple of days and then one morning when I got to work it was gone, never did solve the mystery of the vanishing steamroller. While I was having fun and games at work Phyll was doing her best to balance what budget we had, many times when the gas meter was emptied we didn’t get any “rebate” only the return of the many foreign coins left over from my trips abroad that we had used to get gas because we were flat broke. Tony and Philip were a great trail being about 5 and 3 years old, she once got them all dressed up in their best white outfits, told them to be good boys and play together while she got dressed in her only decent frock, we were going to my Granny and Grand Dad Miles 50th wedding anniversary party, all the family would be there and poor as we were had to make out we were not. I was on my way home from some job or other and arrived in time to see the two boys playing together in the garden as requested, only they were playing in the heap of soot that the chimney sweep had left the previous day after sweeping our coal fire chimney’s!! Poor Phyll all the hard work, no [sic] only did she make their outfits, get them clean and looking smart, rushed to get dressed herself, and now had to start all over again, and I turned up dirty as well. We got to the party and everyone said how smart the boys looked, just one more of the miracles she worked. Kids can drive you mad and at other times make you laugh, arriving home from work one day Phyll told me that Tony had put his head into the bath of bleach water while she had been hanging out the clothes, ‘What a silly thing to do’ I said to him, ‘it could burn you and make your hair fall out’ With eyes as large as saucers he looked at me and said, ‘Is that what you did Daddy’ I couldn’t keep a straight face nor could Phyll. Returning from a trip to my brother’s small pig farm Tony suddenly said ‘I know eggs come from chickens Dad, do pigs lay sausages?’ always expect the unexpected where children are concerned. Apart from all the house work, looking after our growing family, Phyll always managed to find yet another job to help the budget, with Susan in her pram she pushed her quite a way to clean and tidy the house of the local vet, his wife looking after Susan while she did this, funny thing neither of us complained, just glad that we could feed and clothe us all from week to week. Among the jobs I did as part time extra work, was painting a house that a nurse lived in near the Manston yard, and doing all repairs and maintenance at the same restaurant that Phyll did evening work. This later one was a real learning experience, all equipment and machines had to be checked before the place opened for the summer season and most were completely strange to me. All the kitchen machines had to be cleaned and tested, and what most of them did was a mystery to me but head down and asked a few questions and off I went, the
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chipper didn’t work I was told, pulled a cover or two off and found that the last one to use it had put in a rock instead of a potato (dissatisfied employee?) cleared that, straightened the blades and OK again, the spud peeler was very slow, found that the abrasive lining was no longer abrasive! new lining ordered and fitted, and so I worked my way through all the catering gear. The manager asked me to look at the revolving entrance doors, had been very stiff at the end of the last season, what did I know about revolving doors, nothing but there must be a reason, climbed on top and found that the lock nuts that held the door up were loose and had allowed the door to drop so that it dragged on the floor, soon adjusted that and smiles from the manager, he began to think I was a miracle worker, but most of it was just the very uncommon common sense. This restaurant was situated on the land side of the road that ran along the beach, a section that was below high tide mark had a dance floor and entertainments as well as food and drinks served. The floor and walls up to high tide level had been “tanked” with a bitumen coating to prevent sea water damaging the decorations and timber block dance floor, some clever “dicky” had removed some of this timber block dance floor and “tanking” to increase the area used to cater for food and drink patrons, vinyl floor tiles had been stuck over the bare concrete floor that was exposed, at the same level and matching those already installed, but these new ones had no “tanking” underneath. The manager explained that as the tide came in and out the salt water dissolved the adhesive which expanded into a large ulcerous looking lump in the middle of the tiles, ladies with stiletto high heels punctured them when they stood on them and the resulting black goo shot up their legs damaging stockings and dresses. I had a look at the problem and sure enough a number were well and truly ready to “blow their top”, dug out those that needed replacing and realised that to put new ones in with adhesive was not the answer, nails would be good but the heads would probably trip people but headless one might be the answer but into concrete could be a problem, had an old gramophone at home that used the old steel needles, gave that a try and magic no problem the hardened needles went into the concrete easily and held the tiles OK, quick trip to the local gramophone shop got all their old used needles and a few boxes of new ones and just kept an eye on the tiles and as they started to bulge out they came and new ones in, during that summer think I changed the whole lot. I was on call during the evenings and week ends not too many problems, most had been already fixed mainly things broken by staff or customers, the ‘chefs’ were a funny lot always on their “high horses” about how clever they were and just threw things about if upset, more work for me, the amplifier and microphones at the dances often played up due mainly I think by drunks grabbing the mic. to bellow their inane rubbish. During the summer ‘season’ Phyll did other work, one of her aunties had a “Boarding house”, perhaps the more modern ‘bed and breakfast’ might convey to readers what it was,
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whole families came to Margate and other seaside resorts to spend their summer holidays, the cheapest accommodation for a family being the Boarding House, must be out of the house by about nine thirty and not let back in to the afternoon, these regulations varied, some miserable people stuck to them, but people never went back to them. Phyll’s job was to clean and tidy all the bedrooms, change over days, usually Saturday was very hard, most of the houses were big old places with perhaps only one lavatory and bathroom on each floor, some not even that, so chamber pots or ‘gusunders’ were provided under all beds, hence the commonly used expression used in those days for all things running late “here it is (time) and not a po emptied”. How Phyll managed to keep house, look after me and the kids and still go out to work I don’t know, no such thing as child minding in those days, we couldn’t have afforded it if there had been, must ask her some time how she managed it all!!! The house in Tivoli Road had no electricity, lighting by gas may be romantic but fraught with problems, too much gas pressure or touched when being lit and mantles break, a small hole will send a jet of flame against the glass cover and in winter when the whole house is cold, the glass shatters and people get cut, candles were used to move from room to room, and checking a sleeping baby without dripping candle grease on everything was an art soon learnt. We decorated this old house from top to bottom, never thought to ask for money to pay for things just got on and did it, remember Phyll standing on a chair wallpapering our bedroom just hours before she asked me to go out and phone the midwife as Susan was on the way, we had made up a bed for her in the dining room so no stairs to climb, I was pushed out and told to boil lots of water and get piles of newspaper, think the water boiling job was to shut me up, brave things woman, glad it was Phyll and not me going through child birth, I need medical attention if I break a finger nail, guess all men are cowards. Because the house was one of a long row of terrace houses, now known as town houses, houses all joined together, being old and some had been empty all during the war, mice had invaded one or two, we had used traps and got rid of ours but roofs and coal cellars joined, so that migration to the best food source was common. All food was kept in mice proof containers, the only source of food not covered being the layers of fat on the inside of the ancient gas cooker, efforts to get it clean only disturbed the recent deposits. Leaving Phyll sitting beside the fire in the room we used most of the time I went out to the cold kitchen to make our nightly drink of cocoa, as I lit the gas light I could hear a scrabbling coming from the oven, a mouse was having supper also, blocking the rear vent up with some clothes waiting to be washed I turned on the oven gas, waited for the scrabbling to end and picked up a dead mouse and in triumph took it in to show Phyll threw it on the fire and returned to make our cocoa. The next night a repeat performance was in sight as the next mouse awaited it’s fate, on went the gas, open came the door and Reg ended on his back against the wall as the
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cooker exploded, with the eye brows, eye lashes and moustache singed I staggered into Phyll, no longer the hero just a poor wounded soldier. The previous night the gas for our cocoa had not been lit, tonight it had, when I opened the oven door the gas escaped and was lit by the gas alight on top. Phyll covered my sores with Vaseline and I hurried out to get the mouse only to see it disappear behind the vegetable boxes in the larder, using all my force I crushed the box against the wall and another dead one, but of course the milk boiled over so I guess you could say, Reg one, the mice one, a draw. A friend of both Phyll and I when were at school was Laurie Foat he worked with his father who had a Greengrocer’s shop in Eaton Rd, I had been interested in bees when at school and found that Laurie also had an interest and had in fact a number of bee hives. We got together and started to expend the number of hives by breeding and bought quality Queen bees which we introduced after removing the old queens, we had bees in all sorts of places, orchardists welcomed us as pollination of their fruit trees was ensured, growers of many crops wanted our bees on site, this sometimes was a very painful as during transit the hives often moved and many times we travelled with swarms of bees round our heads, hoping that we would arrive on site still with enough to carry out the job in hand.
We experimented with new ideas, the only hive that had been used in England apart from the straw skip was the WBC, this had inner boxes in which the frames fitted, usually two types, honey and brood, and outer sloping ones that gave insulation in the cold months when the bees were in hibernation, we tried out the new style National hives, these were single wall and larger than the WBC (how I remember all this after 50 years, I do not know) The National hive was a copy of hives used in warmer countries such as Australia and South Africa, where the honey flow continued most of the year and hibernation was not needed, our extractor could not handle the bigger National frames and filling by the bees took much longer and in fact frames were often found to be only half full even if the honey flow had been good, they were easier to handle but really not for the small bee keeper who enjoyed the hobby more that the honey.
We also tried out a new floor board which had a fine mesh panel in it, a cover over it was controlled by a thermostat which opened and closed it depending on the temperature, this in theory helped the bees to drive off the moisture from the honey before it was capped. An old wives tale says that your bees know you and you must tell them all about you family particularly births and deaths, whether this is true I don’t know but sitting by the entrance to a hive as the sun goes down with crowds of bees at the entrance to the hive all facing inwards fanning their wings madly to drive off the moisture from that day’s honey crop is a rather magic experience, the bees ignore you and with your face close to them the sweet smell of clover,
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apple or other flowers they have been visiting beats any of man’s bottled perfumes.
As winter approached one year, it was obvious that two of our hives were not big enough to survive over the long months ahead, one had been used as a breeding hive for new queens, the other the remnants of one that had swarmed in an orchard miles away and the orchardist had not told us until it was too late to get most of them back. We would need to combine them and as bees are very territorial they couldn’t just be put together (one of the two queens must be removed), most of both hives would be killed, there were two normal ways to do this, cover each lot of bees with flour then combine them and by the time they had cleaned all the flour off themselves they would all smell the same, another ways was to block up the entrances put many layers of newspapers between the two and wait until the two lots of bees had chewed their way through and hope they would be friends.
Laurie lived over his father’s shop which had a flat roof which could be reached from one of Laurie’s windows, the combining needed to be watched to see if it was going according to plan, and the bulk of our hives were on land some miles away, the flat roof above the shop was an ideal place, we thought, the hives were set up near one another and a search through Laurie’s wife’s food cupboard failed to find any flour but a number of half packets of different coloured blanc-mange powder seemed just as good, the lid was removed from one hive and well dusted with powder, the floor taken off the other placed on top and it’s roof removed and the remainder of the powder sprinkled in.
Some of the bees took offence at this and gave us both our usual injection of anti-rheumatic treatment (after the number of stings I took should never get any joint problems, perhaps another old wives tale!) we retreated behind the closed windows of Laurie’s flat to watch events, all seemed to be going well until Laurie’s father suddenly appeared in the room, not a very happy Daddy, bees, all colours of the rainbow were driving his customers away, no one had been stung, but they were landing on everyone and everything and bright orange red, blue, and even multi coloured bees were not the normal thing seen in shops. After about an hour the panic was over and all the bees had settled down to do what bees do best, hum, and make honey.
Bees like the rest of living things get sick and we sent any suspect ones to Rothamstead Research Institute for analysis. I had been working the bees one weekend and on the Monday morning woke up feeling not too good, turning to Phyll in bed asked if my face was swollen, the look on her face and a sudden withdrawal of breath told me the tale, got out of bed and looked in the mirror, two slits that must have been eyes once, two nose holes
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that belonged more to a member of the pig family, the whole lot buried in a red blotched landscape of no sharp edges just fat curves, felt even sicker after seeing that sight. Phyll rang the doctor, (doctors actually came to see the sick in those days) who knew of our family history and at once remarked that it looked like a bee sting, told him we had a hive that we suspected had paralysis and were awaiting the results of tests, sat on my bed for about half an hour finding out all the symptoms of various bee diseases, gave me pills to take, come and see me in ten days, these blue pills got rid of the swelling but seemed to deposit glass chips in my joints, Phyll had to help me move and the pain was worse than the sting, managed to walk with great pain to his surgery after ten days, when I told him of my joints problem, said he should have given me these other pills to dissolve the crystals that would form in my joints.
Went to him once with a very swollen elbow, tennis elbow he said, don’t play it I said, showed me his elbow which was just as swollen as mine, got mine playing golf he said, what shall I do I said, don’t play golf or tennis for a bit was the answer!! Good doctor always came when asked and never gave you any bull, just one of the old school, straight answers to straight questions and don’t go to him if you just wanted a note to stay away from work, I never did, in fact had to argue with him at times when he wanted me to rest, but mutual respect was our way.
At work load was getting greater most self inflicted see a job do it is still my way, and the firm found that if they wanted some thing done and it was possible for me to do it, it got done. The “Corgi” motor bike was just too small for all the tasks expected of me, tried to get a van from the firm, but even old ones were very hard to get after the War, saw an advertisement for a 1928 Austin 7 only 20 quid, borrowed the money from my Dad and went to pick it up, one of the firm’s lorries dropped me off at this farm many miles away from home, it was in the back of a barn and sounded a bit rough when started up, farmer said it had been used to carry a full milk churn down to the front gate each day, drove it out to the yard at Manston, the engine rattle getting worse as time went on. Left it there to begin work on it the next day, stripped it right down, found the front seat was a bale of straw, no back seat, when pulled to pieces the small parts just filled a cardboard box, the chassis was two slender bits of channel joined at one end and that had a number of cracks in it, engine and body was all aluminium so very light, Phyll not very impressed when she first saw it, a box of greasy bits and some other bits of tin hanging on the workshop wall. I rebuilt the thing from scratch, crankshaft reground, cylinders rebored, valves and seats refaced, king pins and bushes renewed, any cracks in the chassis or body welded up, new seats, and tyres and tubes, it was a “tourer” open body and need less to say the canopy was missing, I had a new one made by a coach builder, when finished I spray painted it dark blue, and we now had our own motor car to
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go about and I had arranged payment by the firm for so much a mile when I used it on the firms business, which in fact covered all our costs of the car and a bit over, the overhaul had been done in the firms time and at their cost, not that they were made aware of it, and wouldn’t have minded if they had, for me to be mobile anywhere anytime was what they wanted and now had it.
I could take a decent size tool kit out on repair jobs and even the odd spare part, if they wanted me to do oxy cutting or welding a van or truck had to be available to carry the cylinders and other gear, and the oxy cutting began to become a major part of my work, I had taken on a fitter who stayed at the yard and together with the young bloke I had engaged kept on top of the repairs to machinery while I was out on jobs. A list of all of the metal work jobs I did on site would take pages and strain the old memory but some can never be forgotten for various reasons.
There are three which stick in the memory, Dreamland a very well known and large entertainment park, side shows, scenic railway, ghost house, roller coaster, you name it, Klingers a stocking and tights factory built by Rice and Sons, and The new Margate and district Telephone Exchange also built by Rice’s.
I’ll start with the last, the telephone exchange, this was a multi storey building with imposing stairs and entrance halls, Italian workers had been brought from Italy to do all the Terraza work to floors and stairs, my first contact with the site was when one of their machines would not start and the local garages couldn’t or wouldn’t repair it for them, not a very big job to fix it as I remember, but with typical Italian gusto I was treated as if I had saved them from a fate worse than death itself, showed me all their secrets for treating Terraza floors before people were allowed to walk on it, dozens of bottles of milk poured on after it was ground and washed, the fat from the milk sealed the pores in the cement and polish was applied over this.
The interior hand rail supports up the stairs had been concreted in before the Italians started their work, before they applied the final grinding and polishing they wanted the steel core rail for the wooden hand rail fitted, from their previous experience metal filings often landed on their Terraza and caused stains which were hard to remove, all the interior and exterior steel fences and railings had been contracted from by a London based company some 75 miles away by road. Their workmen arrived on site to fit the core rail and spent a couple of weeks drilling and fitting this top rail and returned to London, the manufacturers of the wooden rail itself came to the site to check that this work had been carried out properly, most people don’t look at wooden hand rails in multi storey buildings, next time you are in one have a look at the complicated solid wood shapes made to change direction
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round corners or up to the next flight, all made from plans and joins that are hard to see. The steel core rail was a mess and phone calls to the London manufactures went un-answered, there was also the question of some hundreds of yards of exterior fancy railings which had to be fitted into holes cut in the Portland Stone capping that was the topping for a wall that curved round and sloped and ended at various entrances on three sides of the building.
The call came in one morning to visit this site and see the site manager, who just happened to be my Father! He showed me the stair problem, the core rail in some cases had been cut short and in others it was too long making the legs fixed into the concrete look like a row of trees, some of the end rolls were all twisted, in fact it was a mess, went back to the yard got oxy gear and other tools told my staff expect me when see me and ring if you can’t cope, the only way was to remove completely the core rail, straighten and check for plumb the supports, and start one end and rectify as I went, finished that part in a week or so, it was OK’d by the handrail people and the Italians who still made a fuss of me and I started to pack up my gear to return to base, that was not on my father’s plans, the steel railing manufacturers had been ‘sacked’, would get no further payments, I would complete the work! ‘Thanks Dad I had other jobs to do,’ ‘but you don’t leave here until the railings are complete’, see what happens when you do a good job? you get more!!
I found that not only had I to get the railings to fit, but had to concrete the legs into the wall leaving the cement a good half inch below the top of the Portland Stone, I then had to come back when the concrete was set and pour melted lead into this space leaving it slightly proud, which I then had to hammer flat using a caulking chisel so that the lead prevented any water from getting at the steel in the wall and causing it to rust. All this was said as if I had been doing this all my life and my own father standing there and saying it, there’s family for you.
I started on a long straight section and when concreted in it was straight as a gun barrel, a good start, now for this curved and sloping section, each day was yet another battle with wedging posts upright, cutting and welding, all joins in the rails had to be half lapped, welded and smooth, at last this very long section was finished, ready for the lead. Back to the yard for a coke fired furnace, pouring pots, melting pots, scrap lead, coke and other tools, I needed help with this lead pouring so told my fitter to report to the site the next day and we would make a start, did the straight run first, each hold had to be done in one pour, lead soon gets a skin on it and if stopped half way would not seal properly, things went well until we did a hole that was damp and all hell broke loose, the hot lead turned the dampness to steam the lead sealed the hole, but the steam won and lead shot out covering
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both of us with lead spots on face and clothes, none in our eyes thank god, a lesson learnt, back to the yard to make to face masks with thick glass and a frame much like an arc welding mask.
Each hole after that had to be heated with the oxy torch to ensure no moisture was present, winter in England there is always moisture present, and so we poured and heated and caulked our way round to the last post outside the main entrance, heated, checked for moisture, poured, and bang the whole of the dark brick work at the main entrance covered in very pretty sparkling lead spots, who should walk out before we could hide, yes dad, “now you’ve got a long job picking every bit of lead out”, some we removed but like I said earlier it soon gets a skin and goes dark and it was winter with no light so we only spent one day doing the easy seen ones and then back to the yard for a rest!!
Dreamland was a very different job, it was the height of the holiday season and the crowds filled every place of entertainment, Margate was a sea side place and families came from all over southern England for their week or two of fun in the sun. Those businesses that depended on the holiday makers for their lively hood had just three months to make enough to last all year, rain didn’t really matter the people came anyhow just spent their money in different places and Dreamland was humming. A very large building had been erected just inside one of the entrances it was about 40 feet high and about a hundred yards square, really only consisted of a corrugated cement and asbestos sheeting clad roof on massive steel supports, the interior filled with side shows and games of chance (very little chance in most cases) and it was always very well patronised, if the sun was out it was a place to get cool and if raining a good shelter, most of the people who ran the side shows paid rent for the site and many managed to find a space in their stall to get their head down when Dreamland was closed for the night. I received a call at home before I even left for the yard to get my Oxy gear and come down to Dreamland to do some cutting, I always had plenty of gas bottles on hand and had purchased very long hoses because of the difficult jobs I was always getting. Arriving at Dreamland I could see this skeleton of a building still smoking from the fire, the foreman met me to say that the owners wanted it cleared away as soon as possible so that trading could start again, but if I made a start a professional in building removal was on his way and he would take over from me. Looking at the structure it was basically a cross with massive compound girder columns at each corner, with again compound steel trusses spanning from column to column, the roofing material had collapsed into the rubbish beneath, but the heavy purlins were all twisted about and had been put under great stress by the heat of the fire. The safest way was to get on top of the building and using boards climb up to the ridges from both sides cutting and dropping the purlins as you went, this would leave the massive truss supported only at
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each end, cut through this at one end with great care, and hang on when it dropped, climb up the other side and drop the remaining end of the truss, this could then be cut up into manageable size lumps and carted away, the two columns could then be cut close to ground level and chopped up and after the whole building had been removed a final cutting of the column stumps would make the site use able again. Explained my thoughts to the site foreman and the boss from Dreamland who both agreed that it seemed OK, barriers were put in place and men stationed to prevent anyone entering the area where I was working, ladders erected for me to get up top, but my hoses though long would not reach far enough, so with a bit of a strain got the two heavy cylinders up to the top of the columns and lashed them there, I would leave them in that position until the time came to fell the columns. Up I went, ladders removed and I started cutting away the purlins, each one acted in a different way depending on what the stress was, just had to be careful and not get too close at the final cut, but things went OK and soon the clatter of falling steel and the showers of sparks from the Oxy torch had a crowd of sight see’ers, got the first truss free of purlins and ready to drop one end, when an almighty bang nearly tossed me off the roof, looked round to where the noise had come from and there was the “professional”, with his long ladder leaning on the truss, he had cut through one end of the truss and had not cut any of the purlins, dangling by a rope tied to the ladder his torch burning the ladder and the truss hanging by the already under stress purlins. The site foreman rushed to help him down and put out the ladder fire.
I cut my truss end and went round to start on the other end when another loud crash rang through the site, the idiot had cut the same end of another truss and now two were hanging and swinging, told the foreman I was off, let the idiot kill himself but not me, don’t worry he said he has scared himself half to death and is going home the job is all yours, I often wonder if I should have thanked the foreman. For a number of days I started at sun up and worked long into the night, balancing on boards and cutting steel, usually woke up in the middle of the night shaking at all the near misses I’d had during the day but just went back to the job in the morning, Phyll was going to the cinema one night with her friend up the road and took a short cut through Dreamland to get to the cinema, saw me up on the roof sparks flying everywhere and just couldn’t go any further, got the job finished in the end but nobody ever thanked me and not even a whisper of some extra money, should have asked for some before I started I suppose, just too thick for my own good. Reading this could make people think that I am boasting about how clever I was, I’m afraid the reverse is the case, all of my children have more sense than I, if extra work is undertaken, extra pay is demanded, and received, promotion is given with extra perks for an employee of value, I just did everything asked and in most cases took on extra responsibilities without being asked and it seems never thanked, managers used my work to enhance their own images and gained increases
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of salary and position by getting work done under cost and dead lines because they could depend on me, and I the mug just kept on delivering. I obviously didn’t realise any of this at the time, probably would have carried on just the same if I had, but I had something that none of them had, satisfaction of doing a good job and over coming difficulties that would have had many asking for help, none of my jobs could ever cause me any embarrassment about my skill as a fitter, my training in the RAF taught me that near enough is not good enough, only one way, the right way, think before you start, it might be too late if you start to think after you have started!! The next job I will describe was again something quite different, a site had been cleared on the industrial are between Margate and Ramsgate for a factory being built to manufacture stockings and tights and owned by Klingers. This factory was a very special construction in reinforced concrete, a triple barrel vault roof with north facing double sealed windows, parking and storage beneath, no columns or supports of any kind on the factory floor. The drawings of the reinforcing steel bars to go into the roof were a maze of interlocking rods, the roof changing in thickness from massive beams running the full length, to just three inches in thickness in the centre of the curves and again getting thicker to support the large double glazed window units. I was given various lists of machinery required and the dates when they should be on site, apart from the usual concrete mixers and scaffolding, steel bar bending tools were wanted to make all the complicated shapes of reinforcing needed, the men on site would start working to the drawings provided many weeks before the actual construction work started. Benches, various benders and cutting gear was delivered to the site but the foreman had trouble actually bending some of the shapes with the machines provided, investigations of machines on the market indicated that there was none that could do the tight and difficult shapes wanted. The architect would not change his design, so the foreman, workers and I put our heads together and worked out a simple device to bend the difficult pieces, made one of the machines and once we were all happy with it made a couple more. Further tales of working life can be found in the FAMILY CD. Reg
[page break]
[Missing photograph]
[underlined] Wedding photo April 28 1945 [/underlined]
– Reg Miles
http://www.geocities.com/jkjustin/Milesbio6.html
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Biography of Reg Miles
Description
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A detailed Biography of Reg' service and post service life.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Navy
Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Air Force. Transport Command
Royal Air Force. Fighter Command
Free French Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Margate
England--Wendover
England--Aylesbury
England--High Wycombe
England--Dover
England--Shrewsbury
England--Liverpool
England--Penzance
England--Devon
South Africa--Bloemfontein
England--Taunton
England--Blackpool
Sierra Leone--Freetown
South Africa--Durban
South Africa--Muizenberg
South Africa--Cape Town
South Africa--Krugersdorp
Germany--Dortmund
Belgium--Ghent
England--Folkestone
France--Paris
France--Lens
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Karlsruhe
Germany--Essen
Belgium--Liège
France--Somain
France--Pas-de-Calais
France--Neufchâtel-en-Bray
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Hamburg
France--Creil Region
France--Saint-Vaast-La Hougue
France--Montrichard
France--Mimoyecques
France--Le Havre
Germany--Castrop-Rauxel
Germany--Osnabrück
Germany--Kiel
France--Boulogne-sur-Mer
France--Calais
Germany--Bottrop
Germany--Oberhausen (Düsseldorf)
Norway--Bergen
England--Harrogate
Malta
Egypt--Cairo
Australia
Queensland--Mackay
Libya--Tripoli
Israel--Tel Aviv
Middle East--Jerusalem
West Bank--Bethlehem
Iraq--Baṣrah
Pakistan--Karachi
India--Kolkata
Sri Lanka--Ratmalana
Sri Lanka--Negombo
Israel--Lod
India--New Delhi
England--Cornwall (County)
France
Queensland
Libya
Egypt
Germany
Belgium
India
Iraq
Israel
Norway
South Africa
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
Sierra Leone
West Bank
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Kent
England--Shropshire
England--Somerset
England--Lancashire
Egypt--Jīzah
France--Chantilly Forest
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Reg Miles
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109 printed sheets
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eng
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Text. Memoir
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BMilesRJMilesRJv1
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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.
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Georgie Donaldson
346 Squadron
347 Squadron
420 Squadron
425 Squadron
428 Squadron
432 Squadron
6 Group
77 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
B-17
Beaufighter
Blenheim
bomb aimer
C-47
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
control caravan
crash
crewing up
debriefing
demobilisation
dispersal
Distinguished Flying Cross
entertainment
FIDO
fitter engine
flight engineer
Fw 190
Gee
Grand Slam
ground crew
ground personnel
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 5
Hampden
hangar
Harvard
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
home front
Hurricane
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lancaster Mk 2
love and romance
Manchester
Master Bomber
Me 109
mess
military ethos
military living conditions
military service conditions
Mosquito
navigator
Nissen hut
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Oboe
P-51
Pathfinders
perimeter track
pilot
promotion
RAF Carnaby
RAF Dishforth
RAF East Moor
RAF Elvington
RAF Halton
RAF Langar
RAF Lyneham
RAF Manston
RAF Nutts Corner
RAF Prestwick
RAF Shawbury
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Skipton on Swale
RAF St Athan
RAF St Eval
RAF Tholthorpe
RAF Tilstock
RAF Woodbridge
recruitment
runway
Scarecrow
searchlight
Second Tactical Air Force
service vehicle
Spitfire
sport
Stirling
target indicator
Tiger Moth
training
Typhoon
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wallis, Barnes Neville (1887-1979)
Wellington
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
York
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/622/10612/BPayneRPayneRv1.1.pdf
4be42d107ed7b8f0a042057052d00c0f
Dublin Core
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Title
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Payne, Reg
R Payne
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Payne, R
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Two oral history interviews with Reg Payne (1923 - 2022, 1435510 Royal Air Force), his memoirs and photographs. Reg Payne completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe. His pilot on operations was Michael Beetham. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Payne and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Fred Ball. Additional information on Fred Ball is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/100970/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/ball-fc/"></a></p>
Date
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2015-07-03
2017-08-25
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AVIATION MEMORY.
[Page break]
18
RAF BASES WHERE REG SERVED
[Underlined] 5 YRS [/underlined]
PADGATE
BLACKPOOL
YATESBURY
NORTH COATS
SOUTH KENSINGTON
MADELY
STORMY DOWN
WIGTOWN
SALTBY
COTTESMORE
MARKET HARBOROUGH
WIGSLEY
SKELLINGTHORPE
SILVERSTONE
TURWESTON
NORTH WEALD
KIRKHAM
RANGOON BURMA
[Page break]
[Underlined] Reg Payne [/underlined]
[Underlined] 1939 SEPT. WAR DECLARED [/underlined]
[Underlined] 16 YEARS OF AGE [/underlined]
Home Guard at 16 yrs (1939)
If you waited to be called up at 18yrs you could be sent to work in any of the coal mines, miles away from home
i volunteerd at 17 yrs RAF [underlined] 1940 [/underlined]
Took inteligence exams Moreton Hall Northampton then to RAF Cardington for more tests.
Training as a Wireless Operator.
My training would cost the Government twice as much as sending a pupil thro a university. Period.
2 years training before operations
[Underlined] 1 year to learn morse code 4 hrs per [/underlined] day
Only fighter pilots had long range radio speech.
Bomber pilots had only 10 miles range “Hello Darky” [Underlined] Give Details [/underlined].
[Page break]
[Underlined] JOINING THE RAF OCT 1941 [/underlined]
16 yrs old War Declared
Always keen on RAF.
Joined Home Guard (then L.D.V.) Cransley reservoir & Pytchley Bridge
At 17 yrs volunteer’d RAF
Selection testS Dover Hall Northampton
later on Cardington
Selected as Wireless OP/AG. Training with ATC. Morse code
Short hand typing exam (Cacelled) and call up papers
Advised to get very short haircut ready for RAF
Train to Padgate with Sandwich’s
Poring rain ladies umbrella
Sore eye until Derbyshire
Soaking wet at Padgate hut to hut
[Page break]
After issue of uniform next day parcel up wet cloth’s to send home to mum. Then train to Blackpool P.D.C. Personel Disp Centre
[Underlined] King St. Blackpool [/underlined]
One week only learning about
RAF regulations etc
Care of uniform
Told to get haircut and had one next day (thought I told you to get haircut
Corporal took four of us to nearby hairdressers lost most of our hair
Landlady taught us to polish boots Candle and spoon (hot)
First letter from home (over breakfast) after reading it the landlady said
[underlined] your mother still loves you [/underlined] (tears)
Then move to start our training in the tram sheds every day. Our instructors were ex naval wireless ops, 2hrs morning & 2 hrs afternoon
Morse code Morse code Morse code
[Page break]
[Underlined] OCT 1941 [/underlined]
Mrs Clegg 4 Charnley Rd Blackpool
10 RAF young lads posted there
2 in each bedroom. 2 single beds 3 beds in our bedroom
No food in bedrooms. Ron Boydon Arthur Bromich
Electric lights out in bedrooms after 7pm.
We were detailed in turn washing up. If you didn’t eat all your meals she contacted the RAF Billeting Officer and had you moved
We got over this by flushing it all down the toilet.
Gym slippers had to be worn all the time 10 pairs of gym slippers in the hall always a job to find your own
[Underlined] RAF men had to be in by 10pm. [/underlined]
Mrs Clegg locked the door promp at ten
We could not see the end of film at Christmaas Day, for a small piece of chicken and a small glass of ale
We [underlined] were charged 2 and 6 pence [/underlined]
Ron Boydon & Arthur Browich
The two boys who shared my bedroom were both killed in the war
[Page break]
All your personal clothing and items had to have your name and RAF number printed on it.
[Underlined] No bath or shower at Mrs Cleggs [/underlined]
Showers were allowed for us.
Sat mornings [underlined] Derby Baths Blackpool [/underlined]
We could swim in the baths but had no swiming trunks etc
We [underlined] could [/underlined] swim without costumes etc.
The medical plasters on our arms came off in the waters and floted on the surface on the swimming pool.
A pool atendant collected them with a shrimp net.
Female workers in a large building across the road could’nt take their eyes off us, and waved their arms to us
Morse code Morse code Morse code
[Page break]
Reg’s close RAF friend.
[Underlined] RON BOYDON [/underlined]
Junior Ket Evening Tel reporter
[Underlined] Cover’d in Corby today [/underlined]
Shared my room at Blackpool
Tall young fellow
Ron carried the white parafin lamp at front of our squad, on dark mornings when we all had to march across
Blackpool, to the tram sheds for morse practice, or Stanley Park early morning for P.T. or drill.
On dark mornings & evenings
[Page break]
Morse code speed tests were carried out in a room above Woolworths (Fridays) as your morse speed increast. We only went up to 10 words per minute
If you failed three times you would be taken off corse and be trained as Gunner (Air)
At further training at Yatesbury your morse speed reached 18 words per min
We didn’nt get our own laundry back from RAF Laundry (sizes) sent my laundry home to mum. Food also in parcel when returned Told to put food in cabinet Other boys ate it.
[Page break]
Must be in doors by 10pm.
Home from pictures food not in cabinet! Next time put food in bedroom draw wrapped in underwear.
Later food not in draw contact Mrs Clegg.
Arrive back clock striking 10 oclock just in time we say
Ron Boydon late on parade oil lantern
Trim wick
Lights go out whilst shaving. 7pm.
Turn water off on landing.
Eat up food or will inform Billeting Officer Yellow Peril & hard cheese.
Food down toilet and down back of piano
Ron’s pygamas on landing
Drill with gym shoes on Tower Ballroom also lectures Ena Bagnor organ
Derby Baths shower and swim once per week
Vaccination scabs Office girls
PTO
[Page break]
[Underlined] CHRISTMAS 1941. [/underlined]
No extra Christmas meal, we had to pay 2/6d for some chicken and Christmas Pud
Found out later my mother wrote Mrs Clegg nasty letter.
Of the three in bedroom I was the only one to survive
I recently returned to Blackpool where I visited Charnley Rd,
Our biller much enlarged (2 floors higher
Found my old room So small coul’nt believe 3 beds in a room.
Posted to Yatesbury, P.T. long distance runs over the Downs. P.T.I. ran behind the last boys Took his belt off and made the last boys run fast
Sunday bus ride to Swindon Drinking cider.
Ladies behind bar, kissing us before we got bus home
[Page break]
[Underlined] YATESBURY WILTS [/underlined]
Morse code and wireless valves
Valves}
Triodes
Tetroes
Pentrose
Diodes
Aerials & Accululators
Morse Keys
Accumulators
Stormy Down south coast.
Air Gunnery Cause
Browning machine guns
Armstrong Whitworth [underlined] Whitley’s. [/underlined]
[Underlined] NO 1 A.F.U. SCOTLAND [/underlined] Advanced Flying [underlined] Unit [/underlined]
Ansons & Botha’s
[Underlined] Night flying 34 hours [/underlined]
Pilot suspected engine trouble daylight flight. Landed over in England mid day. Nice dinner in Sgts Mess
Were told later nothing wrong with engine but all had a lovely meal
[Page break]
RADIO WORK & TRAINING
JAN 42 Yatesbury Wireless study
MAY 42 North Coates Ops Duties, Coastal, Com
OCT 42 Radio Maintenance Kensington
JAN 43 Madely Flying Proctors & Dominies
APR 43 Gunnery Course Whitley’s Stormy Down
MAY 43 AFU Wigtown Scotland Ansons Bothas
JUNE 43 14 OUT Cottesmore Saltby Market-Harb
SEP 43 H.C.U. Wigsley Halifax Lancaaster
OCT 43 Ops Skellingthorpe
Now crew of 5 at Cottesmore
Heavy Conversion Unit Wigsley
At RAF Wigsley (Notts) we collected two new crew members
1/ Jock Higgins Mid Upper Gunner
2/ Don Moore Flight Engineer
We were lucky because Don had done a lot of work as an engine fitter before joining as air crew.
[Page break]
MORSE CODE
[Table of Morse Code]
[Page break]
[Underlined] 14 OTU COTTESMORE [/underlined]
[Underlined] JUNE 1943. [/underlined]
Pilots
Navigators
Bomb Aimers
Wireless Operators
Air Gunners
All taken to an empty hangar and told to sort themselves out into [underlined] crews of five [/underlined]
Later each crew would get a Bomb Aimer and [underlined] another Gunner [/underlined]
[Underlined] OPERATIONS [/underlined]
[Underlined] Take Wakey Wakey tablets on leaving English coast for Germany [/underlined]
[Underlined
I IDENTITY
F FRIEND
OR
F FOE [/underlined]
I.F.F. transmitter sends out a signal which recognises you as an RAF aircraft
and not an enemy aircraft.
[Page break]
1 [Underlined] EVERY MORNING [/underlined] change intercom lead ACI batteries. Sign Form 700. Return used batteries to the Accumulator Section
2. [Underlined] Inspect all external aerials [/underlined] for any damage
3. During air test flight, [underlined] check all radio equip [/underlined]
4 [Underlined] Attend the WOPS briefing. D/F stations and frequencies etc. Attend the main briefing [/underlined]
5. [Underlined] Collect the colour of the, day charts, bomber codes, M/F D/F groups to use. Broadcast spare helmet W/T challenge chart [/underlined]
[Underlined] Check ground flight switch. Check voltage switch on A 1134 amplifier for inter com Check radio whilst engines are running Tidy up bundles of window on floor Oxygen mask on before take off Once air born pencil in ranges on Monica Screen IFF switched on Keep watch on Monica screen Listen for half hourly broadcast from Base Leaving the cost wind out trailing aerial
[Page break]
At RAF Wigsley our pilot was given training on 4 engines, training starting with flying Halifax bombers, then changing to Lancasters
Luckily most the wireless equipment that I had was the same that I used in Wellingtons
We did a number of flights by night
Long distance flights which always ended up dropping bombs on a distant bombing range.
At last we were posted to our bomber squadron, which was 50 Sqdn only 3 miles from Lincoln city. Skellingthorpe airfield
The first thing we had to do when arriving was to contact the orderly room and give the name and address of our next of kin.
We were then taken to our sleeping quarters a hut alongside others in a field off the main road leading to Lincoln
Toilets were provided close by, but there were no washing or shower equipment on the site, this only in the Sgts Mess, some distance away a good ten minutes walk.
Rather than take our washing towel, and shaving kit backwards and forwards each day they were hung on pegs in the Sgts Mess where we did all our ablutions. The towels had to be folded back in our haversacks each day and they were always damp.
[Page break]
It was after we had our evening meal in the Sgts Mess, and were returing to our hut, that we spoke to a group of chaps on our camp site. After telling them what a “terrible” place we had ended up in, they smiled at us and said, “terrible” it’s a lovely place, Lincoln is only 10 mins bike ride down the road, loads of pubs, and all of them have plenty of girls there that love meeting us RAF chaps, you will see when you go there.
Fred Ball our rear gunner and myself both had bikes and said we would give it a try. Biking into the centre of Lincoln we spotted a small pub called “The Unity? Finding a place for our bikes we entered the building, there was music in there and we found a table & two chairs to relax on
Sitting there enjoying a glass bitter we could’nt help notice two ATS girls also enjoying their drinks, we could’nt speak to them as they were the other side of a busy room. Before 10 oclock the two girls got up and started to walk out.
Fred said to them and where are you two off now, and they said we have to be in by 10 oclock, and our billet is near the Cathedral. Fred said do you mind if we walk with you, they said not at all.
We arrived at the large house near the Cathedral now the ATS Headquarters. We chatted for a short time and agreed to meet again the same time tomorrow. I didn’t know at that time I had just met
[Page break]
[Underlined] SQDN CALLSIGN CODES [/underlined]
50 SQDN A/C Pilgrim (B. Baker etc.
Skellingthorpe airfield C/S Black Swan
MORSE CALL SIGNS.
50 Sqdn STB
5 Group A8X
STBB V A8X Radio call from 5 Group
STBB V STB. Radio call from our Sqdn
[Underlined] V means from [/underlined]
my first wife
[Page break]
[Underlined] WAKEY WAKEY TABLETS [/underlined]
Not usually taken until getting airborn.
[Page break]
ITEMS CARRIED IN OUR POCKETS BATTLE DRESS AND BOOTS
French and Dutch money etc.
Emergency high protane food. Ovaltine tablets Water purification tablets
Knife and torch in our boots
The knife to off the tops of our boots
Map of the area (on a silk scarf) more like a large hankerchief
Dead mans rope at rear door
Amputation saw and morphia tablets in first aid cabinet
[Page break]
[Underlined] OCT 1943 [/underlined]
Posted to 50 Sqdn Skellingthorpe Lincoln
Crew not up to operation standard
More training needed
Give name of next of kin and address to the orderly room.
[Underlined] NOV 3RD [/underlined] 1943
BEETHAMS SECOND DICKY
TARGET DUSSELDORF
18 Aircraft lost (One of them my brother)
Telegram brother Arthur missing on operation
Mother asking me to come home
Making a promise to our Wing/Co to keep flying
Hoping for an easy operation for our first one
My first wife
[Page break]
1943.
OPERATIONAL FLYING
14 OTU COTTESMORE & MARKET HARBOROUGH
JUNE 1943
Crewing up in hangar Cottesmore
CREW MEMBERS
P/O BEETHAM PILOT
P/O SWINYARD NAV
SGT BARTLETT BOMB AIMER
SGT PAYNE WIRELESS OP.
SGT BALL REAR GUNNER
SGT HIGGINS MID UPPER GUNNER
SGT MOORE FLIGHT ENGINEER
WIRELESS OPS JOB
Change accumulators every morning.
Keep in contact with Base
Care of the inter/comm system.
Assist nav with bearings and fixes
Able to move about aircraft whilst in flight
Astro shots using the sextant
Check all aerials before all flights
Watching Monica screen Pilot had only [word missing] radio communication 10 miles
Jamming enemy radio messages
Demonstrate morse code.
[Page break]
1
22.1.43. LANC JA899 F/O BEETHAM
7.15 [Underlined] OPS BERLIN [/underlined]
764 Aircraft – 469 Lancs, 234 Halifax’s 50 Stirlings, 11 Mosquitoes. This was the greatest force sent to Berlin so far. But it was also the last raid in which Stirlings were sent to Germany. Bad weather again kept most of the German fighters on the ground and the bomber force was able to take a relatively “straight in” “strait out” route to the target without suffering undue losses. 11 Lancs 10 Halifaxe’s 5 Stirlings 3.4 per cent of the force. Berlin was again completely cloud covered and returning crews could only estimate that the marking and bombing were believed to be accurate, in fact this was the most effective raid on Berlin of the war. A vast area of destruction. The mainly residential areas of Tiergarten and Charlottenburg, the dry weather conditions, several “firestorm” areas were reported and a German plane next day measured the height of the smoke cloud as 6,000 metres nearly 19,00 ft.
It is impossible to give anything like the full details of the damage or to separate completely details from this raid and a smaller one on the next night at least 3,000 houses and 23 industrial premises were completely destroyd, with several thousands of other buildings damaged. It is estimated that 175,000 people were bombed out, more than 50,000 soldiers were brought in to help. From garrisons up to 100KM distance, these were equivalent to nearly three
[Page break]
Army divisions taken from their normal duties.
Interesting entries among the list of buildings destroyed or severely damaged are. The Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtwiskirche (The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which is now half ruined, half restored, (a major attraction in West Berlin)
The Charlottenburg Castle, the Berlin Zoo, much of the Unter den Linden, the British, French, Italian and Japanese embassies, the Ministry of Weopons and Munitions, the Waffen S.S. Admin College the Barracks of the Imperial Guard at Spandau and, among many industrial premises, 5 factories of the Siemens Group and the Alkett tank works which had recently moved from the Ruhr. It is difficult to give exact casualty figures, an estimated 2,000 people were killed, including 500 in a large shelter in Wilmersdorf which received a direct hit, and 105 people killed in another shelter in Wilmersdorf which was next to the Neukoln gas works where there was a huge explosion.
[Page break]
23.11.43 2
17.05 LANC JA899 F/O BEETHAM
17.05
[Underlined] OPS BERLIN LANDED WITTERING FLAPS U/S. [/underlined]
383 aircraft 365 Lancs 8 Mosquitoes to continue the attack on Berlin. The bombers used the same direct route as had been employed on the previous night. The German controllers made an early identification of Berlin as the probable target. Their single engined fighters were gathered over the city by zero hour and other fighters arrived a few minutes later
Fake instructions broadcast from England caused much annoyance to the German who was giving the running commentary. The Germans started a female commentator but this was mostly counered by a female voice from England ordering the German pilots to land because of fog at their bases. Spoof fighter flares were dropped by Mosquitoes north of the bomber stream also caused some diversions of German effort. Bomber crews noticed that flak over the target was unusually restrained with the German fighters obviously being given priority [Underlined] 20 aircraft all Lancasters were lost 5.2 per cent of the bomber force [/underlined]
The target was again cloud covered and the Pathfinders carried out sky-marking, but many of the main force crews aimed their bombs thro the cloud at the glow of 11 major fires still burning from the previous night. Much further destruction was caused to Berlin but because many of the details of the 2 raids were recorded to-gether by the Germans, it is only possible to say that more than 2,000 further houses 94 wooden barrack buildings and 8 industrial premises and 1 military establishment were destroyed, with many other buildings damaged
Approx 1,400 – 1.500 people were killed on this night.
[Page break]
26.11.43 LANC JA376 F/O BEETHAM
[Underlined] OPS BERLIN DIVERTED MELBOURNE (YORKS) [/underlined]
443 Lancasters 7 Mosquitoes
The Berlin force and the Stuttgart force diversionary flew a common route over Northern France and on nearly to Frankfurt (diversionary) flew a common route over norther France and on nearly to Frankfurt before diverging
The German controllers thought that Frankfurt was the main target until a late stage and several bombers were shot down as they flew past Frankfurt. Only a few fighters appeard over Berlin where flak was the main danger. But the scattered condition of the bomber stream at Berlin meant that bombers were caught by fighters off track on the return flight and the casualties mounted [Underlined] 28 Lancasters were lost 6.2 per cent [/underlined] of the force, and 14 more Lancasters crashed in England. The weather was clear over Berlin, but after their long approach flight from the south, the Pathfinders marked an area 6-7 miles from the city centre (north west) and most aircraft bombed there. Because of Berlins size however most of the bombing fell in the centre and in the Siemen Sstadt (with many electrical factories) and Tegel districts. 38 war industry factories were destroyed, and many more damaged. The now routine destruction of housing and public buildings also took place, but not on such a great scale as on the previous raids to Berlin
The Berlin zoo was heavily bombed on this night many of the animals had been evacuated to zoo’s in other parts of Germany, but the bombing killed most of the remainder, several large and dangerous animals leopards, panthers, jaguars apes – escaped had to be hunted and shot in the streets
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Because of the confusion caused by so many raids in a short period, it was only possible for the Germans to record an approximate number of people killed on this night, of about 700-800. The local officials however produce a report in Jan 1944 giving details of combined casualties of the three raids of 22/23 23/24 26/27 November 4,330 were killed of whome the bodies of 574 were never recovered. The districts with the most deaths were Tiergarten 793 Charlottenburg 735 and Wedding 548. The dead were foreign workers and 26 were prisoners of war.
The property damage was extensive with 8,701 dwelling buildings destroyed and several times that number damaged
417,665 lost their homes for more than a month and 36,391 for up to a month
Reaching [underlined] Melbourne [/underlined] Yorks
Still heavy fog Diverted to [underline] Pocklington [/underlined] Yorkshire
We managed to land in heavy fog still,
All aircraft had little fuel left and could not find the runway
They were told to (head your A/C out to sea and bale out
[Boxed] 1 Lancaster ran out of fuel and crashed on a farm house. Killing the farmer & wife only the Lancaster R.G. survived
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One night we had to do a very deep dive when another Lancaster that had not seen us came across our path, Mike put our Lancaster into a steep dive to prevent us hitting each other.
After we had settled down and were flying a steady course again, we found that our inter com was not working and we could not speak to each other.
Using my torch I soon found the problem, the inter com battery was not in its place, and the inter com leads were where the battery had left. With a torch I searched along the aircraft and found the battery some distance away. I think the Navigators feet had released the clamp that held the battery in position, and the battery in the steep dive that we did ended up some distance away. Luckily I was able to replace it, and make sure it was clamped down in position.
[Underlined] OPS LEIPZIG [/underlined]
A relative successful raid on Leipzig during the war
24 Aircraft 15 Halifaxes 9 Lancasters were lost 4.6 per cent of the force
The largest building being taken over by the Junkers aircraft company the former world fair exhibition site whose spacious buildings had been converted to become war factories
[This text in the corner appears in following page text] were severely damaged One place that was hit by a exhibition site, whose spaciou [see following page]
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[Underlined] OPS LEIPZIG [/underlined]
[Underlined] LANDED WITTERING DAMAGED BY JU88 [/underlined]
3.12.43
Our crew were told to collect a Lancaster from RAF Waddington. We must take all our flying kit along with us. After arrival at Waddington we found we had to bomb Leipzig with it first then return the Lancaster to Skellingthorpe.
We thought what a strange way to deliver a Lancaster bomber 4 miles to its new airfield
[Second part of page missing – copy shows text from page beneath transcribed below]
A German nightfighter hit us in the port wing I reported that the wing was on fire. Our FL/t Eng came and looked and said, no its just petrol escaping from the wing tanks.
All the engines were then run from that one tank to save petrol being wasted
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[Underlined] OPS LEIPZIG [/underlined]
[Underlined] LANDED WITTERING DAMAGED BY JU88 [/underlined]
[Underlined] 3.12.43 SHORT OF FUEL. (TANKS SHOT UP) [/underlined]
527 Aircraft. 307 Lancasters 220 Halifax’s
Despite the loss of two press men on the previous night the well known American broadcaster Ed Morrow flew on the raid with 619 Sqdn Lancaster crew, he returned safely. The bomber force took another direct route towards Berlin before turning off to bomb Leipzig
German fighters were in the bomber stream and scoring successes befor the turn was made but most of them were then directed to Berlin when the Mosquito diversion opened there.
There were few fighters over Leipzig and only 3 bombers are believed to have been lost in the target area 2 of them being shot down by flak
A relative sucessful raid from the point of view of bomber casualties, was spoiled when many aircraft flew by mistake into th Frankfurt defended area on the long southern withdrawal route and more than half of the bombers shot down this night were lost 4.6 per cent of the force
The Pathfinders found and marked this distant inland target accurately and the bombing was very effective This was the most sucsessful raid on Leipzig during the war a large area of housing and many industrial premises were severely damaged One place that was hit by a large number of bombs was the former world fair exhibition site whose spacious buildings had been conserved to become war factories
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The Wehrmacht suffered damage to 4 flak positions, a clothing store, a veterinary depot and the Army Music School. 64 people were killed and 111 were missing or still covered by wreckage. 23,000 were bombed out. A train standing six miles south of Frankfurt was hit by a 4,000lb bomb and 13 people in it were killed.
Part of the bombing some how fell on Mainz 17 miles to the west and many houses along the Rhine water front and in southern suburbs were hit. 14 people were killed
We circled arround Wittering with little or no fuel left in our tanks, the Wittering phone R/T operator repeated saying the landing lights will soon be on, we waited an waited
Eventually the landing lights did come on and we were able to land with almost empty fuel tanks.
When we entered the Wittering mess we could see what the delay had been to get the landing lights on, as no one was on duty at their watch office, they were all attending the party.
A few years ago, giving our landing date and time to a serving RAF officer, he contacted me and said there was no mention in their flying control log book of our landing that night
Myself and two other crew members stood near the open back door with parachutes on as soon as the engines cut we would jump.
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20.12.43 LANCASTER G ED588.
[Underlined] OPERATIONS FRANKFURT [/underlined]
650 Aircraft 390 Lancasters 257 Halifax’s
14 Lancasters lost
The German control room were able to plot the bomber force as soon as it left the English coast and were able to continue plotting it all the way to Frankfurt. There were many combats on the route to the target. The Mannheim diversion did not draw fighters away from the main attack until after the raid was over. But the return flight was quieter
41 aircraft – [underlined] 27 Halifax’s 14 Lancasters lost 6.3 per cent of the force [/underlined]
The bombing of Frankfurt did no go according to plan. The Pathfinders had prepared a ground marking plan on the basis of a forcast giving clear weather but they found up to 8/10 cloud. The Germans lit decoy fires 5 miles south east of the city and also used dummy target indicators. Some of the bombing fell arround the decoy, but part of the creepback fell on Frankfurt causing more damage than bomber command realized at the time. 466 houses were completely distroyd and 1,948 seriously damaged. In Frankfurt and in the outlying townships of Sachsenhausen and Offenbach 117 bombs hit various industrial premises but no important factories are mentioned. The report stresses the large number of cultural, historical, and public buildings hit, including the cathedral, the city library, the city hospital and no fewer than 69 schools.
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[Underlined] JU88 SHOT DOWN [/underlined]
One night I felt the aircraft start to rise as the engines were open’d up I heard Les our bomb aimer on the inter com say to our mid upper gunner (Jock Higgins) not yet Jock I’ll say when.
He then said OK Jock [underlined] NOW. [/underlined]
By that time I was standing in the astro dome and looking above and in front of our aircraft I could see a German J.U.88 night fighter, flying in front of us, and a little above us.
Our bombaimer Les Bartlett suddenly said Jock now, with that they both open’d fire on the night fighter Ju88.
I noticed that Les seem’d to be spraying the nightfighter from side to side with his twin browning machine guns, but Jock Higgins with the same two machine guns was sending a constant stream of bullets up in the area of the nightfighter where the two crew members would be seated. The German night fighter flew for some time being riddled with bullets until it turned over and started to go down
I would think that it was Sgt Higgins that killed the two German crew members and caused the J.U.88 to crash with continuous firing in the cockpit area. As Les Bartlett was an office, he received ta medal for his efforts, but I still think it was Jock Higgins that brought the aircraft down.
Jock Higgins rec’d nothing
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29.12.43
[Underlined] 7.25 [/underlined]
1707 LM428.
[Underlined] OPS BERLIN INCENDIARY THROUGH STARBOARD OUTBOARD TANK [/underlined]
712 Aircraft, 457 Lancasters, 252 Halifaxes 3 Mosquitoes.
A long approach route from the south, passing south of the Ruhr and then within 20 miles of Leipzig. Together with Mosquito diversions at Dusseldorf, Leipzig and Magdeburg causes the German controller great difficulties and there were few fighters over Berlin. Bad weather on the outward route also kept down the number of German fighters finding the bomber stream
[Underlined] 20 Aircraft 11 Lancasters 9 Halifaxes 2.8 per cent [/underlined] of the force lost
Berlin was again cloud covered, the bomber command report claiming a concentrated attack on skymarkers is not confirmed by the local report. The heaviest bombing was in the southern and south eastern districts but many bombs also fell to the east of the city
388 houses and other mixed property were destroyed but no item of major interest is mentioned.
182 people were killed, more than 600 were injured and over 10,000 were bombed out
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REAR DOOR OPEN
The rear end of the Lancaster near the rear gunners position is one of the coldest parts of the aircraft, but one night our rear gunner said he was freezing in his position at the rear of the aircraft.
I soon found the problem when I got to the rear of the aircraft, the main entrance door was open, and the freezing cold air was coming straight in.
With gloves on I tried to close the the door, but with a two hundred mile wind rushing thro the door way it would’nt close. The Flight Eng came down to help me, but even the two of us could not close it.
We managed to get it partly closed leaving a small gap and tying it back with the dead mans rope The dead mans rope is a long length of rope near the rear door, should one of our crew be unlucky to have one of his legs or arms chopped off the rope was to tie a torch or a lamp on him, and with a parachute on push him out of this back door and hope people will see him coming down and rush him to hospital before he dies.
With the rope we still could nt close the door properly and had to push some heavy clothing into the door cracks to keep out the biting cold wind coming in the aircraft.
Whilst doing this work at the rear of the aircraft we had porable oxygen bottles round our necks all the time, or we would have passed out threw lack of oxygen.
Gloves on hands or you would loose the skin if you touched the bare metal
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1.1.44 OPS BERLIN
23.44
LANCASTER
M/ME 567 [Underlined] 421 LANCASTERS [/underlined] 8.15
German fighters were directed to the bomber stream at an early stage and were particularly active between 2. Route markers on the way to Berlin
The German controller was not deceived by the Mosquito feint at Hamburg. But his fighters were not effective over Berlin. Only 2 bombers being shot down by fighters there, and the local flak was probably restricted to the height at which it could fire and the guns only shot down 2 bombers over the target.
[Underlined] 28 Bombers were lost 6.7 per cent of the force. [/underlined]
The target area was covered in cloud and the accuracy of the sky marking soon deteriorated
The Berlin report says that there was scattered bombing mainly in the southern parts of the city.
A large number of bombs fell in the Grunewald, an extensive wooded area in the south west of Berlin only 21 houses and 1 industrial building were destroyed with 79 people being killed. A high explosive bomb hit a lock on an important canal and stopped shipping at that area for several days
14.1.44 LANCASTER B.LL744
[Underlined] F/O BEETHAM OPS BRUNSWICK [/underlined]
496 Lancasters and 2 Halifaxes on the first major
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We always took of with us a thousand or 2 [underlined] thousand pound overload [/underlined]
As we left the runway the long flames from the exhausts rose over the leading edge of the wings burning the [inserted] paint [/inserted] off the wings I knew there was 2,000 gallons of high grade petrol in tanks under all those flames
[Page break]
Raid to [underlined] Brunswick [/underlined] of the war [underlined] 38 Lancasters were lost [/underlined] 7.6 per cent of the force.
The German running commentary was heard following the progress of the bomber force from a position only 40 miles from the English coast, and many German fighters entered the bomber stream soon after the German frontier was crossed near Bremen. The German fighters scored steadily until the Dutch coast was crossed on the return flight. 11 of the lost aircraft were Pathfinders. Brunswick was smaller than bomber commands usual targets and this raid was not a success. The city report describes this only as a “light raid” with bombs in the south of the city which had only 10 houses destroyed and 14 people killed. Most of the attack fell either in the countryside or in Wolfenbuttel and other small towns and villages well to the south of Brunswick.
20.1.44 LANCASTER B/LL744
F/O BEETHAM [/underlined] OPS BERLIN [/underlined]
[Underlined] 769 Aircraft. 495 Lancasters [/underlined] 264 Halifax’s [underlined] 10 Mosquito’s. [/underlined]
35 Aircraft 22 Halifax’s 13 Lancasters were lost 4.6 per cent of the force
102 Sqdn from Pocklington lost 5 of its 16 Halifaxes on this raid, 2 more crashed in England ->
[Page break]
A CLEAR NIGHT OVER BERLIN
I think my first clear night over Berlin made me realize the terrible bombing coditions that the German folk were having to face
Looking down on Berlin from 3 or 4 miles high, I could see thousands of incendiary bombs burning on the ground. The large wide roads of Berlin showed like a large map
Every few minutes a huge explosion would take place along one of the roads wiping out part of the road plan.
These large explosions were the 4,000lb blast bombs which all the Lancasters carried (known by the RAF men as cookies)
I could see a wide road thro the streets of Berlin, quite clearly with the houses on fire on both sides, then a 4,000lb cookie would drop on the road, and a dark patch would appear where it had left no buildings standing.
Red and green incendiary bombs were still raining down and the RAF Pathfinder men were telling the bomber crews which ones they were to aim at.
I could look at a long wide road thro Berlin, houses on both sides alive with incendiary bombs buring, then a 4,000pb cookie hits the area and leaves a black space.
The master bomber above is shouting out to the aircraft aim at the reds not the greens.
We were expected to sleep when we got to out huts
[Page break]
-> and the squadron would lose 4 more aircraft in the next nights raid
The bomber approach route took a wide swing to the north but once again the German controller manage to feed his fighters into the bomber stream early and the fighters scored steadily until the force was well on the way home. The diversions were not large enough to deceive the Germans
The Berlin areas was, as son often completely cloud covered and what happened to the bombing is a mystery. The Pathfinder sky marking appeared to go according to plan and the crews who were scanning the ground with their H2S sets believed that the attack fell on the eastern districts of Berlin. No major navigational problems were experienced.
No photographic reconnaissance was possible until after a further 4 raids on Berlin were carried out but the various sources from which the Berlin reports are normally drawn all show a complete blank for this night. It is not known whether this is because of some order issued by the German authorities to conceal the extent of the damage, or whether the entire raid missed Berlin
[Page break]
[Underlined] 1,000lb BOMB IN BOMB BAY [/underlined]
One early morning after we had been on an operation we taxied the Lancaster back to our usual dispersal point at Skellingthorpe
The engines were shut down and all was quiet as we started collecting our loose flying kit together.
Suddenly we heard a large thud and at first we though a van had bumped into us. Then there was the sound of something rolling along the side of the aircraft.
Our bomb aimer Les Bartlett opened his bomb bay inspection door and was shocked at what he saw.
A thousand pound bomb had fell from from its station on to the bomb bay doors and it had rolled down the sloping bomb bay and had crashed at the rear of the bomb bay.
We did’nt know if it was still live and had to warn the ground crews, unless they opened to bomb bay doors where it would fall out.
We never did know how they made it all safe.
[Page break]
[Underlined] OPS BERLIN SPOOF ATTACK [/underlined]
27.1.44
[Underlined] F/LT BEETHAM [/underlined]
[Underlined] OPS BERLIN [/underlined]
515 Lancasters and 15 Mosquitoes
The German fighters were committed to action earlier than normal, some being sent out 75 miles over the North Sea from the Dutch coast. But the elaborate feints and diversions had some effect. Half of the German fighters were lured north by the Heligoland mining diversion and action in the main bomber stream was less intense than on recent nights.
33 Lancasters lost 6.4 per cent.
The target was cloud covered again and sky marking had to be used again. Bomber command was not able to make any assessment of the raid except to state that the bombing appeared to have been spread over a wide area, although many bombs fell in the southern half of the city, less in the north but 61 small towns and villages outside the city limits were also hit. With 28 people being killed in these places. Details of houses in Berlin are not available but it is known that nearly 20,000 people were bombed out. 50 industrial premises were hit and several important war industries suffered serious damage.
567 people were killed including 132 foreign workers.
[Page break]
[Underlined] FOG OVER AIRFIELD ON RETURN [/underlined]
All with little fuel left
Most sqdns sent up 20 A/C to target
2 Sqdns on each airfield (approx.) 36 A/C Each A/C had little more than 20 mins fuel left [underlined] No 1 [/underlined] would ask permision to land.
He was told to orbit at 3,000ft and as he circled he had to shout his position on the circuit such as (railway bridge) (cross roads) (Thompson’s farm) (reservoir)
As he circled he was called to decen’d to 2,000ft but still had to shout his number and position as he circled the airfield
Finally he was called down to 1,00 F shouting his position on the circuit No 1 down wind, then No 1 funnels No 1 touching down, then No 1 clear
No 2 would follow behind shouting out their positions on the circuit. Followed by No 3 doing the same
By shouting out their number and position and height the controller called them down
All crew’s had then to go to de-briefing
[Page break]
[Underlined] INSTRUCTING W/OPS [/underlined]
[Underlined] SILVERSTONE & TURWESTON [/underlined]
JUNE 1944 TILL END OF WAR
Of the 4319 men in the A/C shot downn attacking only [underlined] 992 [/underlined] survived 22.9 per cent.
On take off with 2,000lb overload
100 miles per hour were needed for take off
A gate stopped the throttle.
If the speed was not fast enough the pilot would say to the enineer [underlined] thro the gate [/underlined] and the gate was open’d to give more power
[Page break]
[Underlined] INTERNATIONAL DISTRESS [/underlined] SIGNAL.
[Underlined] SOS [/underlined]
ˑˑˑ / --- / ˑˑˑ
You would be told to divert to another airfield if there was fog over Lincolnshire where our airfield is. And stay there with the aircraft
[Underlined] DIVERSIONS F.I.D.O [/underlined]
[Underlined] FOG INTENSIVE DISPERSAL OF [/underlined]
[Underlined] FISKERTON 49 [/underlined] SQDN.
[Underlined] ASTRO DOME (FOR NAVIGATOR [/underlined] degrees & minutes
[Underlined] USING A SEXTANT. [/underlined]
Taking astro shots of the stars.
[Underlined] Polaris Bennet Nash Dubhi [/underlined]
[Page break]
2
Switch off IFF (Identity Friend or Foe)
Continuous watch on Monica screen
Listen out on given wave band for German speech
Tune my transmitter and jamb any speech
Wind in trailing aerial when over the cost [underlined] German [/underlined]
Pass bundles of window down to Flight Engineer
Transmit height and wind speed back to base. Details from Navigator.
Keep watching Monica screen whilst listening for German speech on given wave band
Obtain bearing from given [inserted] radio [/inserted] beacon for Nav, using loop aerial
Take hot coffee to the two Gunners
On clear nights, obtain sextant shots of given stars asked for by Navigator
On run up to target get in astro dome and watch for any bombers above us
Receive messages from base. Decode them & pass to pilot
Send more winds back to base. Our Nav is a wind finder
Shout out [underlined] contact [/underlined when a blip comes on Monica screen
Keep searching for German R/T speech.
After leaving enemy coast, let out trailing aerial
Switch on IFF when near English coast
Place colours of the day cartridges in Very pistol
[Page break]
3
Wind in trailing aerial crossing the English coast
If a diversion message is received on reachin the English coast, contact the diversion airfield and obtain a [underlined] QDM [/underlined] for the Navigator.
A QDM, is a coarse to steer to take you to the airfield.
You have to stay there with the aircraft. No washing or shaving equip. money or pygamas etc. Some times for two or three days if our aircraft needs work on it to be carried out
After landing you have to attend debriefing where you are asked a lot of questions before getting any sleep.
[Underlined] WHEN LOST. DARKY WATCH [/underlined]
“Hello” Darky”
Hello Darky
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4
[Underlined] SKELLINGTHORPE SITE [/underlined]
No washing arrangements were available on our living quarters site. Just toilet & sleeping quarters All shaving & showers etc were in the Seargeans Mess. All toilet items kept in small haversack hanging on peg’s. After a few weeks we were told to remove our toilet haversacks for one day only.
The ones still on the pegs were the property of the men missing
[Page break]
[Underlined] CANADIAN AIRMEN. [/underlined]
Three NCO members of our crew were housed in a tin hut at Skellingthorpe
We had the hut to ourselves.
Arriving back after our leave, three extra beds were in the hut occupies by three Canadians
They were very generous, and told us to help ourselves from all the boxes of food arround the hut. Tins and packages all arround us.
The S.W.O. Station Warrant Officer came in and looking at it all said, I will be in this hut ever night at 7 oclock and if it is [inserted] not [/inserted] clean and tidy you wont be allowed out until it is. We had to wait for his insection every evening before we could visit Ena and Joan in Lincoln
A short time after the Canadians were shot down over Germany, all their contents were taken away and the hut was tidy again
The S.W.O. then said we could go out in our own time he would not visit us again. It probably took the death of three nice Canadians to allow Fred and myself to take Ena & Joan for an early meal.
And they were taken away
[Page break]
Whilst flying over Germany I would search a wave band on my radio.
I would listen for German speech sounding like giving orders to people.
I would tune my transmitter to that frequency and prese my morse key.
This would transmit the noise of one of our aircraft engines on that frequency as there was a microphone in that engine
On one long German operation, bad weather was forecast for our return over Lincoln and we were told to land St. Eval, Cornwall Some hours later I received another message which said cancel the previous message return to base.
Our Wing Commanders wireless operator did’nt get this message and he landed in Cornwall. On his return to Skellingthorpe, crowds of aircrew members line’d the runway to cheer him in.
At our next briefing, the Wing Co. said Wireless Operators make sure you get all the messages from Group, not like some clot that dos’nt get them. Jagger his Wireless Op got up and said, if that’s what you think of me you can get someone else to fly with you[inserted] tonight sir [/inserted] and with that he then left the room to go,
[Page break]
28.1.44
LANCASTER B/LL744 [Underlined] OPS BERLIN [/underlined]
677 Aircraft [Underlined] 432 Lancasters 241 Halifaxes 4 Mosquito’s [/underlined]
Part of the German fighter force was drawn up by the early diversions and the bomber approach route over northern Denmark proved too distant for some of the other German fighters. The German controller was however able to concentrate his fighters over the target and many aircraft were shot down there [underlined] 46 aircraft 26 Halifax’s 20 Lancasters [/underlined] lost 6.8 per cent of the force
The cloud over Berlin was broken and some ground marking was possible, but the bomber command claim that this was the most concentrated attack of this period is not quite fully confirmed by German records.
The western and southern districts were hit but so too were 77 places out side the city. The Berlin recording system was now showing an increasing deterioration no overall figure for property damage was recorded Approximately 180,000 people were bombed out on this night. Although many industrial firms were again hit the feature of the night is the unusually high proportion of administrative and public buildings appearing in the list of buildings hit. The new Chancellery, 4 theatres, the French Cathedral, 6 hospitals, 5 embassies, the state patent office etc, the report concludes with the entry the casualties are still not known
RAF Police came forward to stop him and the Wing Co. said let him go.
[Page break]
28.1.44
LANCASTER B/LL744 [Underlined] OPS BERLIN [/underlined]
677 Aircraft [Underlined] 432 Lancasters 241 Halifaxes 4 Mosqioto’s [/underlined]
Part of the German fighter force was drawn up by the early diversions and the bomber approach route over northern Denmark proved too distant for some of the other German fighters. The German controller was however able to concentrate his fighters over the target and many aircraft were shot down there [underlined] 46 aircraft 26 Halifax’s 20 Lancasters [/underlined] lost 6.8 per cent of the force
The cloud over Berlin was broken and some ground marking was possible, but the bomber command claim that this was the most concentrated attack of this period is not quite fully confirmed by German records.
The western and southern districts were hit but so too were 77 places outside the city. The Berlin recording system was now showing an increasing deterioration no overall figure for property damage was recorded Approximately 180,000 people were bombed out on this night. Although many industrial firms were again hit the feature of the night is the unusually high proportion of administrative and public buildings appearing in the list of buildings hit. The new Chancellery, 4 theatres, the French Cathedral, 6 hospitals, 5 embassies, the state patent office etc, the report concludes with the entry the casualties are still not known but they are bound to be considerable. It is reported that a vast amount of wreckage must still be clearid. Rescue workers are among the mountains of it. *Report os Technischen Nothilfe Gau 111-Berlin Berlin and Brandenburg. In Berlin City Archives
[Page break]
Reg Payne flew with 91 different pilots during his service in the RAF
Flew with Sir Michael Beetham as pilot 108 times
362 official flights were made during his RAF service, plus a lot of unofficial flights not recorded in his log book
After one operation after returning to our dispersal, and switching everything off a 1,000lb bomb came detatched from its moring in the bomb bay, luckily the bomb bay doors were closed. It rolled down the bomb bay and made a clonk as it reached the bottom. We don’t know how the ground crew delt with it.
During one operation the gunners complained how cold it was, I was asked to look into this. Going to the rear of the A/C I saw that the rear door was open. It could not be closed agains the slip stream but we tied it up as close as we could, and then pushed spare heavy flying clothing in the small gaps.
[Page break]
[Underlined] KENSINGTON ALBERT HALL [/underlined]
Wireless instruction in Science Museum.
Meals in Victoria & Albert Museum
Bedrooms in Albert Court next to Hall
“P.T.” in Albert Hall (boxing) etc.
Football in Kensington Gardens
[Underlined] BOXING ALBERT HALL [/underlined]
P.T. instructor sort us out in pairs boxing gloves on.
Instructor shouts Get stuck into each other or I’ll get stuck in to the pair of you
[Page break]
[Underlined] FIRST OPERATION BERLIN [/underlined]
[Underlined] 16.45 hrs [/underlined]
2,000lb overload Beetham spared this
NOV 22ND 764 A/C 7HRS 15MINS
26 A/C Lost 169 killed
Dispersal 1 hour before take off
Check all aerials/W/T./Monica./SBA/IFF/Trailing/Gee/Loop
[Underlined] Gunners getting ready [/underlined]
[Underlined] 17.05hrs BERLIN AGAIN [/underlined] Trailing aerial out [underlined] over the [/underlined] sea
NOV 23rd. [Underlined] IFF switched on [/underlined]
383 A/C 7hrs 45 mins
Navigator reading airspeeds at take off flames from exhausts 20 A/C lost [underlined] while taking off [/underlined]
130 killed
[Underlined] ON LANDING [/underlined]
Flaps frozen up, [Underlined] Refused landing [/underlined] Diverted to RAF Wittering
Bath ready in the morning
[Page break]
[Underlined] 3RD OPERATION [/underlined]
NOV 26TH [Underlined] BERLIN [/underlined]
17.20HRS
443 A/C 8HRS 5MINS
28 A/C lost 202 killed
[Underlined] Fog over Lincoln [/underlined] 14 damaged beyond repair
Diverted to Melbourne (Yorks)
[Underlined] Fog also over Melbourne [/underlined]
5 A/C crashed landing
Head your A/C out to sea and B.O.
Back to Skellingthorpe 2 days later
K King hit farm house. Farmer and wife killed
Only rear gunner survived
No cash or shaving kit on operation toothe brush etc.
[Page break]
3 times to Berlin in 5 nights
Cold bed at nights thinking about it.
EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL GERMAN RECORDS ABOUT BERLIN RAID NOV 22ND
The most effective raid of the war on Berlin 3,000 houses and 23 industrial premises were completely destroyed with several thousands of other buildings damaged
175,000 people were bombed out
More than 50,000 soldiers were brought in to help from garrisons up to 100KM distance. Equivalent to three army divisions taken from their normal duties
Buildings destroyed or severely damaged are the Kaiser Wilhelm, Memorial Church (now a memorial) the Charlottenburg Castle, the Berlin Zoo, much of the Unter den Linden, the British, French, Italian, and Japanese embassies. The Ministry of Weapons and Munitions, the Waffen SS. admin college. The barracks of the Imperial Guard at Spandau, and many industrial premises inc. 5 factories of the Siemens Group, and the Alkett tank works, recently removed from the Ruhr. 2,000 people killed inc 500 in a large shelter which received a direct hit, and 105 people in another shelter near the gas works, where there was a huge explosion.
[Page break]
[Underlined] DEC 3rd [/underlined] 0023 HRS 527 A/C
[Underlined] LEIPZIG [/underlined 7HRS 50MINS
24 A/C lost 120 killed
Damaged by JU88 Fuel tanks ruptured short of fuel
Landed at Wittering
Officers Mess party no landing lights
Bath in the morning (much better conditions than at Skellingthorpe)
DEC 20TH 17.26 HRS 41 A/C Lost 193 killed
[Underlined] FRANKFURT [/underlined] 5HRS 40MINS
A/C G ED588 Did over 100 operations
DEC 29TH 17.07 HRS
[Underlined] BERLIN [/underlined] 20 A/C lost 79 killed
30lb phosphorous incendiary thro stbrd outer fuel tank.
We didn’t know about it.
Wing/Co took Beetham out to A/C after breakfast to show him hole in wing
[Page break]
[Underlined] JAN 1ST 1944 [/underlined] 23.44HRS NEW YEARS DAY 421 A/C.
BERLIN 8HRS 15MINS
28 A/C lost
Had to take the mid upper an axe spare mid upper smashes Perspex of turret Turret perspex frozen over
JAN 5TH 0005HRS STETTIN (TOUCHING SWEDEN)
358 A/C 8HRS 40MINS 16 A/C lost
Lancaster was fired on from another Lancaster
JAN 14TH 17.15HRS BRUNSWICK
498 A/C 5HRS 10MIN 38 A/C lost
Freda and Joans Lincoln Imps
Fred R/G forgot Lincoln Imp whilst on peri track.
Van driver collected it before take off
[Page break]
JAN 20TH [Underlined] BERLIN [/underlined]
16.35HRS
769 A/C 7HRS 35 A/C lost
Coned by searchlights Inter.comm battery became loose
No sound on inter com
2,400 tons of bombs dropped
Collected the HT battery from rear of A/C and re connected it
JAN 21st 19.51 HRS
22 A/C [Underlined] berlin [/underlined] spoof attack → 1 A/C lost
Main operation Magdeburg → 66 A/C lo
7 HRS 25MINS
Back door open. [Underlined] Tie up with rope Would not close. Slipstream [/underlined]
Dead mans rope at the rear door
Torch and knife in boots
[Page break]
FEB 25TH 18.35 HRS
[Underlined] AUGSBURG [/underlined]
594 A/C 8HRS 21 A/C lost.
Oil temperature much too high on one engine
Returned on 3 engines
Oil temp guage U/S
Nothing wrong with engine
Mike Beetham flying Lancasters promoted to Flight [inserted] LTD [/inserted] Commander
Could not drive car
Help from WAAFs.
1ST MARCH 23.19 HRS
[Underlined] STUTTGART [/underlined]
594 A/C 8HRS 10MINS 4 A/C lost
Thick cloud on route and over target
Night fighters unable to locate bomber stream
Much damage to Stuttgart
[Underlined] On the bomb run left left etc. [/underlined]
[Underlined] Bomb doors open Very cold draught when open. [/underlined]
[Page break]
JAN 27TH 17.17 HRS
[Underlined] BERLIN [/underlined
530 A/C 8.55 MINS 33 A/C lost
Off inter comm. High engine rev’s
Les and Jock attack Ju88
Of Les gets DFM, Jock goth nothing
JAN 28TH 0021 HRS
[Underlined] BERLIN [/underlined
677 A/C 7HRS 55MINS 46 A/C lost
Washing & shaving items
Haversacks collected from Sgts mess from airmen missing
19TH FEB 23.55 HRS
[Underlined] LEIPZIG [/underlined
823 A/C 7HRS 78 A/C lost
Returning home over North Sea (dawn reduce hight to stay in the dark
[Page break]
12.2.44
[Underlined] FIGHTER AFFILIATION [/underlined]
12.2.44 We were detailed to fly a short distance up into Yorkshire and to meet up with a Spitfire, who would contact us and when ready would continue to dive on us and give us advice on our defensive moves. In our Lancaster we had our full crew of seven personel, plus another pilot and his two gunners.
Our pilot Sir Michael Beetham decided that he and our two gunners would do the exercise first. With our two gunners in the turrets and Michael in the pilots seat, the attacks began all of them ending in the Lancaster doing cork screws to prevent the Spitfire from shooting him down. After 10 or 15 mins, the other pilot took over from Michael, and his gunners made for the turrets.
When all was ready the Spitfire came in for it first attack, the Lancaster went into a steep dive. I don’t think I have ever dived so steep before in a Lancaster, and so fast. On pulling out of the dive I noticed smoke round the port outer engine, and then there were flames.
Michael shouted a warning on the inter com and to our flight eng to use the fire extinwishes
[Page break]
With the extinuish’s working the flames vanished, with just smoke and steam, however once the extinguisher was empty the flames came back again, and seemed to be spreading down the wing. From the port outer engine the wing was on fire, and as the fire extinguisher was now finished and the fire spreading down the wing Michael gave the order to abandon the aircraft.
With ten crew members on board there was a move to the two exits, my pilot and navigator baled out at the nose exit, followed by the other pilot.
The rear door was open and Jock Higgins our M.U.G. baled out there, Les Bartlett our B.A. also left from there, when I arrived at the rear door they made way for me to go next. I had just left looking at the large fire in the port wing and I knew it was about to break off. I baled out.
Looking down I could only see 10 tenth cloud 3,000ft below me and I did’nt know if we were still over the Humber Estury
As I was falling to earth I found I was pulling one of the canvas handles and not the metal release handle. With the correct handle my chute opened, and looking up I saw part of the port wing following me down Also I could see the coast and I was drifting towards it. At the same time I heard the crash as the Lancaster crashed a few miles in land. I was drifting towards the Lincoln
[Page break]
shore, and I could see all the smoke drifting up in the sky from where it crashed
I made a soft landing in a field quite near East Kirkby airfield, quite close to where the Lancaster crashed. I was told that four of the crew were still in the aircraft when it went down. And I was asked if I would help them decide which body was who. As they were so badly crushed I did’nt want to go near them
[Underlined] REG [/underlined]
The four airmen killed were the other pilots 2 gunners.
Also our rear gunner Fred Ball our flight eng Don Moore
Fred Ball and Joan
Reg and Ena
The two ATS girls
Fred Ball was due to take Joan home to his house in [missing word] on their next leave together. But that was no longer possible
But Reg & Ena found it drew them closer together
[Underlined] Reg was made a member of the Caterpillar Club. [/underlined] Irving parachute.
[Pgae break]
19.2.44
[Underlined] OPERATIONS LEIPZIG [/underlined]
19.2.44 823 Aircraft 561 Lancaster 255 Halifax’s 7 Mosquitoes,
44 Lancasters and 34 Halifax’s lost 9.5 per cent of the force. The Halifax loss rate was 13.3 per cent of those dispatched and 14.9 per cent of those Halifaxes which reached the enemy coast after early returns had turned back. The Halifax 2’sand 5’s were permanently withdrawn from operations to Germany after this raid.
This was an unhappy raid for bomber command.
The German controllers only sent part of their force of fighters to te Kiel minelaying diversion. When the main bomber force crossed the Dutch coast they were met by a further part of the German fighter force and those German fighters which had been sent north to Kiel hurriedly returned. The bomber stream was this under attack all the way to the target. There were further difficulties at the target because winds were not as forcast and many aircraft reached the Leipzig area too early and had to orbit and await the Pathfinders. 4 aircraft were lost by collision and approximately 20 were shot down by flak.
Leipzig was cloud covered and the Pathfinders had to use sky marking. The raid appeared to be concentrated in its early stages but scattered later. There are few details of the effects of the bombing. No report is available from Germany and there was no immediate post raid reconnaissance flight. When photographs were eventually taken they included the results of an American raid which took place on the following day.
[Page break]
Reg Payne flew with 91 different pilots during his RAF service
Flew with Sir Michael Beetham his pilot 108 times
362 official flights made during his RAF service. Plus a large no of unofficial flights not recorded in his log book
After my operational flying at Skellingthorpe as a rest period I was sent to RAF Silverstone No 14 OTU, an Operational Training Unit
This made it rather difficult for me to see my ATS sweetheart in Lincoln.
I always visited her on my days off in Lincoln. Arriving back in the train one evening, I left the railway station at Brackley quite close to my airfield at Turweston. My bike was left chained to the station railings ready for me to ride back to Turweston a short distance away. A WAAF was in the same rail coach as me, she also was based with me, and worked in our Sgts mess. I asked her how she was getting to our airfield a couple of miles away. She said walk I suppose. I had my bike with me & she was please when I offered her a ride on my cross bar. All went well until near the airfield down a dark unlit lane, the pedals of my bike dug into the grass and we both ended up in the ditch. Luckily we were both not hurt, but decided we would walk the rest of the way, and I left her at the gates of the WAAFs site
[Page break]
Having all my meals in the Sgts mess, I thought I would see her again, and finally I asked one of the WAAFs if she was working there still. She smiled at me and said not any more, I then said why not, she then shook me and said, she’s had a dishonourable discharge, I asked what ever for, and she replied, she has had a mis-carriage and is in hospital. I could only think our bike accident was the cause of it. I never met her again.
[Page break]
[Underlined] OPS. AUGSBURG. RETURNED ON 3 ENGINES [/underlined]
25.2.44 23.55 Lancaster B LL744
F/Lt Beetham W.OP.
[Underlined] OPS LEIPZIG [/underlined 7.0PM
823 Aircraft – 561 Lancasters 255 Halifax’s 7 Mosquito’s 44 Lancaster and 34 Halifaxes lost 9.5 per cent of the force The Halifax loss rate was 13.3 per cent of those dispatched and 14.9 per cent of those Halifaxes which reached the enemy coast after early returns had turned back. The Halifax IIs and Vs were permanently withdrawn from operations to Germany after this raid
This was an unhappy raid for bomber command, the German controllers only sent part of their force of fighters to the Kiel minelaying diversion. When the main bomber force crossed the Dutch coast they were met by a further part of the German fighter force and those German fighter which had been sent north to Kiel hurriedly returned.
The bomber stream was thus under attack all the way to the target. There were further difficulties at the target because winds were not as forecast and many aircraft reached the Leipzig area too early and had to orbit and await the Pathfinders. 4 aircraft were lost by collision and approximately 20 were shot down by flak
Leipzig was cloud covered and the Pathfinders had to use sky marking. The raid appeared to be concentrated in its early stages but scattered later. There are few details of the effects of the bombing. No report is available from Germany and there was no immediate post raid reconnaissance flight, when photographs were eventually taken they included the results
[Page break]
BALING OUT OF THE LANCASTER
In a short time the whole port wing had flames along it, and Michael Beetham gave the order for us to bale out
With ten members of the crew in the aircraft we all had to move swiftly
Les Bartlett our bomb aimer left the astro dome where he had been filming the spitfire and baled out of the rear door followed by Jock Higgins. My pilot and navigator baled out of the front escape hatch
I made my way to the rear exit and baled out, below me all I could see was cloud, we were at 6,000ft, I did’nt know if we were over the Humber Estury or over land. We did not have Mae Wests on
As I was floating down on my chute, part of the port wing was above, luckily it passed by me.
Unfortunately the Australians two gunners didn’t bale out and were both killed
Worst of all our flight eng did not bring his chute because he told it was only a local flight
I think our rear gunner waited to late to jump.
Don our flight eng didn’t stand a chance He said he had not taken his parachute because it was only a training flight
Some time later after I had left the RAF, a friend of mine from East Kirkby took me to the crash side. We dug up a human pelvis and lots of metal that I had melted down and made into small Lancasters
[Page break]
9TH MARCH 20.42 HRS
[Underlined] MARSEILLES FRANCE [/underlined]
No A/C lost.
44 A/C of 5. Group. 8hrs 55mins
AIRCRAFT FACTORY BOMBED 10,000FT.
Practice flight before op with Air/Comm Hesketh Flew over target to get French workers clear before bombing
24TH MAR. [Underlined] BERLIN [/underlined]
811 a/c 7hrs 20mins 72 A/C lost
FOG OVER LINCOLNSHIRE LANDED FOULSHAM (NORFOLK
Tea with rum Massive searchlight & birds 2.30am.
[Underlined] EXPLAIN DARKY PROCEDURE [/underlined]
26TH MARCH 44 19.50HRS
[Underlined] ESSEN [/underlined]
705 A/C 5hrs 5mins 9 A/C lost
Jock pinching coal from compound
Bombs make a metalic jolt as each one leaves
[Page break]
30TH MARCH 19.50HRS
[Underlined] NUREMBURG [/underlined]
[Underlined] BELGUIM [/underlined]
795 A/C 7hrs 45mins 95 A/C lost
5 Northants airmen killed on this op.
Kettering man Arthur Johnson killed with all his crew
4 of our Sqdn were missing
Trevor Roper Gibsons R/G on the dams raid was killed
60 miles of burning A/C across Belgium
Aircraft flying in bright moonlight
200 mile strait leg to north of the target leaving large contrails behind
60 A/C lost
5TH APRILX 20.31 [underlined] TOULOUSE [/underlined] 6HRS 55 MINS
144 A/C of 5 Group [underlined] AIRCRAFT FACTORY [/underlined]
One aircraft exploded over the target.
The factory was severely damaged but 22 people killed in houses near by
[Page break]
[Underlined] HUMBER ESTUARY [/underlined]
12TH FEB [underlined] FIGHTER AFFILIATION [/underlined]
Baled out at 6,00ft
Pilot P.O. Jennings RAAF & two gunners
Les and his camera
Don [inserted] Moore [/inserted] No parachute
Jock on the tail
Me pulling wrong handle
Over the sea or over the land Baling out watching Don Moore (no parachute)
Large reservoir
P/O Jennings in the trees
Tablets from M.O.
Ena ringing Sgts mess
Looking over at Freds bed that night
Freds Lincoln Imp on tunic (not wearing it.
[Underlined] 1979 VISIT CRASH SITE PELVIS FOUND [/underlined]
Explain landing procedure at airfield after [underlined] returning to base Black Swan from Pilgrim B. Baker [/underlined] etc
[Page break]
2252HRS
28TH APRIL [underlined] ST MEDARD BORDEAUX [/underlined]
88 A/C 8HRS No A/C lost
Explosive factory
Markers set woods on fire
Unable to see target
Bombs returned to base
22.35HRS
29TH APRIL [underlined] ST MEDARD BORDEAUX [/underlined]
68 A/C 7HRS 20MINS No A/C lost
Explosive factory destroyed
Message (master bomber) do not bomb below “4,000FT
Blast lifted up our A/C
21.35HRS
1ST MAY 44 [underlined] TOULOUSE [/underlined]
131 A/C 5HRS 35MINS No A/C lost
Aircraft factory & Explosives factory
Both targets hit.
[Page break]
23.21HRS
[Underlined] 22ND APRIL BRUNSWICH [/underlined]
238 A/C 6HRS 4 A/C lost
617 Sqdn Mosquito’s marked target
Thin could over target hampered the bombing
[Underlined] 1,000lb bomb still in bomb bay after [/underlined] landing
Rolled down bomb bay after landing
[Underlined] 21.35 HRS SCHWEINFURT [/underlined
[Underlined] 26TH April [/underlined]
206 A/C 8HRS 50 MINS 21 A/C lost
Unexpected strong winds
Raid not a success
F/St Jackson Flt/Eng Awarded V.C. for climbing out on wing of A/C to put out fire in engine
FW 190 below Lanc. But didn’t fire at it.
[Page break]
11 TH APRIL 20.30
[Underlined] AACHEN [/underlined] 4 HRS
341 A/C 9 A/C lost
Always wanted to bomb Aachen
They gave us so much AA when it was used as a turning point
German civilian population all prepared for RAF raids. All their cellars were joined together with tunnels
The roof attic timbers coated with lime
18TH APRIL 44 [underlined] JUVISEY PARIS [/underlined] 4.25HRS
202 A/C RAILWAY TERMINAL 1 A/C lost
5 Group effort with master bomber Red spot marking
20TH APRIL 44 [underlined LA CHAPELLE [/underlined] (PARIS) 4HRS 30MINS
270 A/C 6 A/C lost
[Underlined] Rail target north of Paris [/underlined]
[Underlined] Washing & shaving equipment [/underlined]
[Underlined] Haversacks in Sgts mess. [/underlined]
Collected from hooks after approx. 6 weeks
[Page break]
Although operations were detailed one night our crew were not detailed.
I needed a few items for myself from the shops in Lincoln and went there on my own to purchase them.
Lincoln city was very quiet. Not an aircraft in the sky and you could hear all the traffic noises.
Suddenly the crackling noise of a heavily laden Lancaster bomber climbed over the roof tops from one airfield, then followed by another from another airfield. This was followed by dozens of Lancasters circling round the city, heavily laden with tons of bombs. The people of Lincoln were used to this, as they knew that once on their way to Germany it would be quiet until they returned some hours later
[Page break]
[Underlined] WE HAD TO BURY REAR GUNNER AT BIRMING [/underlined]
End of tour operations.
Returning after 7 days leave
5 – 50 Sqdn crews missing from raids whilst away
4 on Mailly le Camp.
15 Lancs flown whilst with 50 Sqdn 14 lost soon after.
[Underlined] No interest in football what so ever [/underlined]
[Underlined] DURING MY 30 OPERATIONS [/underlined]
691 aircraft lost
3967 aircrew killed
1111 P.O.W.’s
209 hrs over Germany (all at night) over 8 days.
Of the 4319 men in the A/C attacking Berlin who were shot down in the 18 raids only 992 survived 22.9 per cent.
[Page break]
Fred and Reg Ena Goodrich and Joan Brighty
[Underlined] THE LINCOLN IMP [/underlined]
Ena & Joan our two ATS girl friends gave us both a little Lincoln Imp badge to wear on our clothing when flying. They were known as very lucky items. Fred liked to pin his to his blazor when he went out in the evening, and pin it to his flying jacket when flying.
One evening when we were on operations being taken to our aircraft, Fred said to the driver of our transport, I have’nt got my Lincoln Imp (I never fly without it) Fred told him our hut number, 1st bed on left, Lincoln Imp on blazor hanging above bed.
The driver after dropping us at our A/C sped off to our hut, in ten minutes he was back with Freds Lincoln Imp. We all felt much better.
It was some time after, during a local parachute jumping afternoon, we had ten men in the Lancaster and only six of us managed to bale out before the Lancaster crashed. The other four men were killed Fred our rear gunner was one of them.
As I lay’d in my bed the next morning with Fred’s bed next to mine, his uniform jacket hung in the sun light: something on the pocket lapel caught the sunlight. It was Freds Lincoln Imp
[Page break]
AIRCRAFT & AIRCREW LOSSES DURING REG’S 30 OPERATIONS
[Table of aircraft with losses and details of crews]
Total number of A/C lost on these operations [underlined] 562. [/underlined]
Total number of aircrew killed [underlined] 4,300. 1206 POW’s
Average number of A/C on each operation 425.
Of the 4319 men in the A/C shot down attacking Berlin only 992 survived 22.9 per cent
[Page break]
BOMBER COMMAND LOSSES 8,325 AIRCRAFT.
1 in every 7 aircrew were killed in training
[Underlined] 1942 [/underlined] Only 3 in every 10 crews would finish a tour
3 groups od U.S. P40’s had sweepd German airfields in the afternoon prior to Nuremburg
Many say after pilots releasing their brakes and getting close to 105mph. was the moment of greatest fear. Sitting between 12 tons of petrol and explosives
6 nights before the Nuremburg raid 72 bombers were lost over Berlin
[Page break]
Killed on the Nuremburg raid
545 RAF crew
129 German civilian and military inc 11 Luftwaffe
[Underlined] 5 airmen from Northants killed [/underlined]
F/Sgt T J Hirst Weedon
F/O H C Frost Northampton
Sgt A J Johnson Kettering
Sgt J.P G Binder Moulton
Sgt G.W. Walker Geddington
In all during WWII 14,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Nuremburg. 6,369 Germans killed
A crew member had 1 in 4 chance when shot down
In the 5 month period known as the Battle of Berlin, it cost bomber command 1,123 A/C missing over enemy territory and crashes in England More than the entire strength of bomber command
Cyril Barton was the only Halifax pilot to gain V.C.
After Nuremburg, Mosquitoes went out with the bombers using the latest Mark X radar. Before this it was never allowed over enemy territory
[Page break]
[Underlined] NUREMBURG [/underlined]
41 Second Dicky’s took part in raid 9 killed 2 POW’s
9 Flight Commanders lost all killed
Half missing crews had done less than 10 ops.
30 missing had done less than 5 ops.
9 crews missing on their first op.
Out of 64 Lancs shot down only 4 rear gunners survived
101 Sqdn lost 7 A/C
51 Sqdn lost 6
Sgt Brinkhurst was the only crew member to get back to England after being shot down by a Halifax mid/upper gunner
Most men after being shot down in Germany, after taking off their parachutes, felt a sense of relief and were glad to be alive
No Mosquito carrying Oboe was ever shot down
[Page break]
Finally the moon set 1.48am, 3 hrs flight home against head winds
Martin Becker had shot down 6 bombers, he landed and re fuelled then shot down another Halifax. The rear gunner never saw him
50 men in Beckers 7 A/C 34 died
Major Heinz Wolfgang Schnaufer had shot down 121 bombers
The spread of bombers was 160 miles wide when crossing the coast home at 4am.
F/Lt Snell PFF pilot over Nuremburg 0107, landed base Downham Market 0410by direct route home 25 mins before the next A/C landed
Some crews 100 miles off track
Our crew crossed coast at Calais instead of 80 miles further south
P/O Barton crossed Durham coast 200 miles off track and crash landed. 3 crew survived.
Cyril Barton died – VC.
14 A/C crashed in this country.
[Underlined] East Kirkby [/underlined] 5 crews had there leave stopped to go on this operation 2 aborted 2 shot down.
[Page break]
NUREMBERG
Sgt Handley 50 Sqdn crashed RAF Winth [missing rest of word] All crew okay.
But all crew killed 5 weeks later Mailey le Camp.
When we were interrogated we were asked, How many did you think we have lost. Our M/U said about 100 and they said “Come off it Sgt. ” and poo pooed it.
Bennett was angry when he heard of the losses
One third of bombers shot down by 8 pilots
Nav F L Chipperfield 619 Sqdn Coningsby composed the Warsaw Concerto was on this raid
Our crew were No 1 airborne at Skellingthorpe at 2200 later Flt.Sgt Bucknall burst a tyre on take off and came off the runway “Wing & engine ripped out”
52 A/C Boomerang’d
4.7% Lancs
14.2 Halifaxs.
1.8 PFF.
2,600 tons of bombs carried all together
[Page break]
NUREMBURG
The forecast winds the bombers were using were not accurate & blew crews to the north
German night fighters still had navigation lights on when they first saw the bombers
The SN-2 improved radar could locate bomber even if they were using window.
Walter Heidenreich switched on radar and saw unusual blip. It was two Lancs flying together for company (it was so bright) He shot them both down with (slanting music)
Helmut Schuite shot down 4 A/C with 56 cannon shells
P/O Cyril Barton’s A/C on fire.
Nav, W/OP & B/A bale out
After fires are put out he still carried on with 3 engines loosing 400 gals fuel
Aircraft burning on ground lit up the sky
Our nav told crew not to report any more A/C being shot down
[Page break]
NUREMBURG
9 out of 10 pilots would always corkscrew port. The German pilots would allow for this
50 Mosquito night/fighters were in bomber stream, their radar could not pick up the signals from the German night fighters
The RAF radio station at Kingsdown could hear the claims of bombers being shot down and knew bomber command was in trouble
The long leg 200 miles 1 hr flying. 60 aircraft shot down one every 3 1/2 miles one per minute
In only 1 A/C did the whole crew survive
One crew in three were all killed
After the long leg bombers turned south for Nuremburg. Owing to strong wind, lots were too far [missing word] and east. 75 miles 20 mins flying.
PFF found that Nuremburg was covered by dense cloud 2 miles deep. Had to use sky markers
[Page break]
German single engine fighters all sent north to Berlin.
The bombers turn to the south wasn’t predicted
Chris Panton, brother of Panton Bros East Kirkby was shot down and killed on southern leg
PFF target indicators were widely scattered
Within 7 mins of bombers turning south, all German night fighters were told of new course
18 more bombers were lost on short south leg
In one Lanc Trevor Roper was killed Gibsons R/G
After target marking A/C should be bombing 47 A/C per min. or 160 tons per min
But they were late being too far north at turning point.
2 groups of markers could be seen several miles apart
Backers up dropped their sky markers near Lauf too far east. There was no master bomber to tell main force
[Page break]
NUREMBURG
It was usual practice for some PFF crews to scatter bombs over target area to keep the defences under cover whilst the aiming point was located and marked accurately.
Sky markers dropped over Lauf drew most of the bombing
One Path finder had a clear view of industrial town. Thought it must be Nuremburg and dropped large green TI on it
The town was Schweinfurt.
All the ball bearing factories were hit with incendiaries but no HE bombs.
Of all the A/C shot down on the outward flight only one full crew survived
German fire fighters working in -15 degrees- ce [missing end of word]
Village of Schonberg was destroyed by incendiaries 11 miles from aiming point
After leaving Nuremburg Some pilots flew into cloud after losing height still being blown north
[Page break]
[Underlined] 30TH MARCH 1944 [/underlined]
[Underlined] OPS NUREMBERG SAME SIZE AS BRISTOL [/underlined]
Harris
Severe icing in northern Europe, raid had to be more south
Harris chose Nuremburg.
Beginning of moon period
Early forecast cloud cover on way to target but clear over target
Straight leg 200 miles over Germany
Bennett PFF was against this
Halifax groups were in favour save fuel
Bombers in 5 waves 17 mins over target.
795 aircraft 572 Lancs 214 Halifax’s 9 Mosquito
In 7 months up to this date bomber command had lost 1047 A/C
6 days before 73/AC lost on Berlin
Halifax’s would carry only incendiaries one third of Lancasters weight.
162 aircraft involved in diversion raids (Baltic)
[Page break]
[Underlined] NUREMBERG [/underlined]
Some U.S. Mustangs and Lightnings were flying as night fighters RAF crews not told
20 Stirlings
10 Albemarles
8 Wellingtons
6 Fortress’s
110 Mosquitoes
I all 6,493 airmen over Germany that night.
In 103 Sqdn no one had completed a tour for 7 months
Photo rec’I’ aircraft flew over area in late afternoon and reported clear skys and no cloud cover.
But Harris did not cancel the raid
The German controllers ignored the mining diversion towards Baltic
German radar picked up signals from our H2S headsets soon after leaving our bases
By midnight, 200 German night fighters were making their way to orbit beacons “Ida” and “Otto” In the path of the bombers
Bombers were leaving contrails in bright moon
[Page break]
Because of the failure to find and mark Nuremberg Harris gave Cochrane (5 Group) the all clear to mark targets from low level. Using 617 Sqdn and Mosquitoes W/Co Cheshire obtained his V.C. for all his low level marking
Cheshire marked an A/C factory from 1,000ft over Toulouse and 5 Group destroyed it.
This was the last time the bombers all went in one stream to a single target.
[Page break]
[Underlined] REG’S TOTAL RAF TRAINING [/underlined]
Oct/41 Blackpool Basic RAF training Morse Code etc
Jan/42 Yatesbury. Wireless study. Morse procedure
May/42 “North Coates”. Wireless ops duties costal command
Oct/42 Radio Maintenance “South Kensington” London
Jan/43 Radio training “Madely” Proctors & Dominies
Apr/43 Air gunners course Stormy Down Whitleys
May 43 “AFU” Wigtown Scotland Ansons & Bothas
June 43 14 OTU Cottesmore Saltby & Market Harborough
Sept 43 H.C.U. Wigsley Halifax & Lancaster
Oct 43 50 Sqdn Lancasters 10 Berlin ops and Nuremburg Pilot Sir Michael Beetham
May 44 RAF Silverston 14 OTU.
June 44 RAF Turweston 14 OTU
June 45 Voluntarily taken off flying duties
July 45 Trained as receipts & issues stores officer at RAF Kirkham
Dec 45 Flown to Rangoon 56 FRU Forward Repair Unit 39 Flying hours reclaiming RAF equipment
July 46 Return home by boat. Demob RAF Kirkham 30 days not leaving the boat
In Burma. Reclaiming RAF equipment left arround after the Japanese were defeated
Based in Rangoon
Bringing it on charge or turning it to scrap
[Page break]
[Symbol] Lost on ops whilst F/O Beetham was at 50 Sqdn.
[Symbol] Missing POW’s.
[Underlined] No.50 Squadron Battle Order – 22nd November, 1943 [/underlined] BERLIN
[Underlined] A/C Pilot F/Eng. Nav. A/B. WO/AG. MU/G.
“A” P/O Toovey Sgt. Smith F/O. Pagett Sgt. Bedingham Sgt. Olsson Sgt. Kelbrick
“B” F/Lt. Bolton Sgt. Brown P/O. Watson F/Sgt. Forrester Sgt. McCall Sgt. Moody
“C” P/O. Heckendorf Sgt. Henderson P/O. Dale Sgt. Kewlay Sgt. Hope Sgt. Hall
“D” F/O. Beetham Sgt. Moore P/O. Swinyard Sgt. Bartlett Sgt. Payne Sgt. Higgins
“E” F/Sgt. Leader Sgt. Rosenburg F/O Candy P/O. Stevens F/Sgt. Lewis Sgt. Tupman
“F” P/O. Litherland Sgt. Green F/O. Chilcott Sgt. Hartley Sgt. Harris F/O Crawford
“G” F/O. Wilson Sgt. Felton P/O. Billam F/O. Newman Sgt. Gunn F/Sgt Harring
“H” Sgt. Lloyd Sgt. Avenell Sgt. Richardson SGt. Dewhirst F/Sgt. Hewson Sgt. McCarthy
“J” F/Sgt Erritt Sgt. Jones F/Sgt. Delaynn Sgt. Gleeson F/Sgt. Taylor F/Sgt. William
“K” F/Sgt. Thompson Sgt. Laws F/Sgt. Chapman Sgt. Conlon Sgt. Corbett Sgt. Spiers
Front Gunner – F/Sgt. Bolton
“L” F/Lt. Burtt Sgt. Taylor F/o. Presland F/O. Daynes F/O. Betty Sgt. Parkman
“M” F/O. Keith Sgt. Mitchell F/O. Guthrie Sgt. Bendix Sgt. Morrey Sgt. Brown
“N” F/Sgt Cole Sgt. Cammish F/Sgt. Burton Sgt. Wasterman F/Sgt. Stanwix Sgt. Sockett
“O” P/O Dobbyn Sgt. Cave F/Sgt. Palmer Sgt. Jackson Sgt. Ridyard Sgt. Duncom
“P” P/O. Lundy Sgt. Stevens F/Sgt. Jordan P/O Bignell Sgt. Green Sgt. Rundle
“R” W/O. Saxton Sgt. Fryer F/Sgt. Jowett F/Sgt Rees Sgt. Watson F/Sgt. Zunti
2nd Navigator F/Sgt Crerar
“S” P/O. Adams Sgt. Midgeley Sgt. Rawcliffe Sgt. Ward F/Sgt. Crawford Sgt. Hastie
“T” F/O Herbert Sgt. Russell Sgt. Rae F/O. Bacon Sgt. Poole P/O. Hughes
“X” P/O. Weatherstone Sgt. Gregory F/Sgt. Thompson Sgt. Lane Sgt. Spruce Sgt. Linehan
O.C. Night Flying S/Ldr. W.F. Parks, DFC.
Duty Engineer Sgt. Brown
R.McFarlane
Wing Commander, Commanding,
[Underlined] 50 Squadron, Skellingthorpe [/underlined]
[Page break]
[Photograph]
[Page break]
[RAF Challenge Chart]
[Page break]
Early DI’s change LT. accumulators Sign Form 700
Airtest check equip whilst flying
Attend W/Ops briefing D/F stations & freq’s etc. codes
Attend main briefing.
Collect. Colour of day charts
Main bomber codes
Beacon freq’s
M/F D/F groups to use
Broadcast times
Spare helmet
W/T challenge chart
Most of these are on rice paper and can be eaten before landing
Operate ground flight switch check voltage main acc’s
Switch on A1134? Amplifier for inter com.
Check radio whilst engines being run up.
Tidy up bundles of window on floor
Oxygen mask on before take off
Once airborne pencil in ranges on vis Monica screen
IFF switched on
Listen out for half hourly broadcast from base
Leaving coast wind out trailing aerial
Switch off IFF.
Keep continuous watch on Monica screen
Listen out on given wave band for German speech and tune transmitter to jamb the speech
Wind in trailing aerial when crossing enemy coast
Pass bundles of window down to F/Lt engineer
Transmit wind speed and height back to base. Details from nav
Keeping watch on Monica screen whilst listening for German speech on given wave length
Obtain bearing from beacon for nav. using loop aerial
On clear sky nights, obtain shots of given stars as asked for by navigator
On run up to target get in astro dome and look for A/C above you on bombing run
Receive any messages from base, decode them and pass to Pilot or nav
Send more winds back to base
Shout “contact” each time a blip comes on Monica screen
Keep searching for German R/T speech
Let trailing aerial out after leaving enemy coast.
Switch on IFF when near English coast
Place colours of day cartridges in very pistol
Wind in trailing aerial (crossing English coast)
If diversion message is rec’d before reaching English coast. Contact the diversion airfield and obtain QDM. Coarse to steer to get you to the airfield
[Page break]
[Photograph]
[Page break]
Alfred East Gallery Aircraft Paintings.
Grafton Underwood Oil Painting . Raffle for funds re Americans returning
Later Exhib Grafton Village Hall
Village scenes & aircraft.
Lady bought two church paintings
Vicars wife spitfire painting
Forest Green village bridge painting
Thank you letter.
Comission Lysander dessert painting
Kept. It.
Aircraft Paintings for guest speakers Air Gunners Ass
Chairman got praise
Lancaster Sqdn painting Lincoln £1,600 Memorial
Comission B24 Liberator painting Harrington Memorial unveiling
[Missing word] B17 over Grafton Underwood Dr Wildgoose
[Missing word] of friends deceased wife
Rothwell family mother father & wife all deceased
[Missing word] Ship painting for Malta.
[Page break]
Exhibiting Paintings in Rothwell Antique Shop.
2 Exhibitions in Rothwell library
Lancaster painting bought by friend donated to Bishop Stopford School.
Trevor Hopkins and talk to children
Photograph’s taken of paintings & made into cards
Started painting local scenes in water colours to produce greetings cards
Now visit all villages in this area taking photographs to use in producing more cards.
County library services use my Manor House painting to produce 4,000 cards.
Still have to go back to Lanc painting in oils
In 1999 exhibited 16 paintings All sold
[Page break]
[Underlined] PAINTING [/underlined]
Started 1970
Picture framing out of hand
Framing for art exhibitions & weddings
Nude lady painting in shed
Some of them not worth framing.
To Doctor [inserted] Walker [/inserted] with chest pains, pack up framing first do some for us
Calendars from drug firms.
Clear up back log framing
Try painting for change
Started copying calendars – water colours sold first one to neighbour
College told me change to oils
Did my first aircraft painting sketching model oils
Later photos of models at required angles
Started taking photo’s of local scenes to copy
Exhibited in Kettering P.O & Lloyds Bank
Commissioned paint bank for manager
Changed it to holiday painting
[Page break]
[Underlined] BROUGHTON ART EXHIBITION JUNE 2000 [/underlined]
Paintings hung 3 sold
1 painting took 2nd place in favourite painting vote.
Oct and November Exhibitions in-:
Alfred East Gallery Kettering
Kettering Library
Rothwell Holy Trinity
31 paintings sold during year 2000
Jan 2001, completed painting of Rothwell Church school building for use on letter heading note paper
Selection of greeting’s cards including A/C cards
Total over 100
Donate paintings-: Westside Community Group
Rowell Fair Soc
Rothwell Church
Painting of Rothwell Sunday School Bdls’
Broughton Flower Festival Poster
[Page break]
Intelligence Exams. Dover Hall? Northampton. RAF Cardington over night.
Fitness Exams [Underlined] DETAILS OF W/OP TRAINING [/underlined]
MAY
25.5.41 RAF Reserve
OCT
9-10-41 8 Recruit Centre Padgate.
OCT
16.10.41 10 Signals School [underlined] Blackpool [/underlined]
FEB
5.2.42 2 Signals School [underlined] Yatesbury [/underlined]
MAY
7.5.42 W/OP [underlined] North Coates [/underlined] Coastal Comm
SEP
16.9.42 7 Signals School [underlined] South Kensington [/underlined]
JAN
6.1.43 4 Signals School [underlined] Madeley [/underlined]
APR
6.4.43 7 A.G.S. Stormy Down
APR
27.4.43 1 A.F.U. Wigtown
JUNE
1.6.43 14 OTU Cottesmore, Saltby Market Harborough
SEPT
8.9.43 1654 Conversion Unit Wigsley. NOTS
OCT
22.10.43 50 Sqdn Skellingthorpe Lincs.
10.6.44 14 OTU Silverstone
1.8.44? 14 O.T.U. Turweston
[Page break]
RAF SERVICE OVERSEAS 1945/46.
[Underlined] OCT 1943 [/underlined]
Met my future 1st wife whilst serving in RAF Lincoln
She was an ATS girl also based in Lincoln
[Missing word] [Underlined] 1944 [/underlined]
After completing my operational flying 50 Sqdn Skellingthorpe posted to 17 OTU Silverstone as an instructor where I stayed until VE. Day May 1945.
By that time I was engaged to my ATS girlfriend but agreed not to get married whilst still flying
Large surplus of aircrew after VE Day.
Given choice to give up flying and take ground job.
After training were promised posting near home
1st 2nd and 3rd choice Desborough Market Harbor’o Silverstone
After courting 2 years decided to get married
Posted to RAF Kirkham 8 week course Receipts & Issues Officer
Fixed date of wedding 5th Oct 45
After finish of course posted to Blackpool P.D.C.
Then to North Pier to be told of our postings
My posting 56 FRU S.E.A.C.
Told to go to Karachi to find where 56 FRU was.
Home on leave for wedding & back to Blackpool
Trainload of us to Northweald Essex to fly over seas
[Page break]
NORTHWEALD LATE OCT. 1945
Parade 8am each morning hundreds on parade
Call for 50 personel 2 Liberators departing
Kept hanging back wifes parents living nearby.
5 weeks later not many of us left, all transported to [underlined] RAF Tempsford [/underlined] spy’s airfield [underlined] Bedfordshire [/underlined]
Now very cold snow on ground [underlined] no heating. [/underlined]
[Underlined] 11TH DEC [/underlined] 26 off us taken with kit, to waiting Lib
Given ‘K’ rations [underlined] no drinks no seats [/underlined]
1300 hrs took off for North Africa
Landed North Africa [underlined] Castel Benito Tripoli [/underlined] Mussolini’s airfield 7hrs 5mins
Canteen for cup tea Barrel of oranges
Slept in tent [underlined] cold [/underlined] Out door wash etc
Servicemen going home have preferance of A/C
Dock & harbour Tripoli full of sunken ships
Airfield littered with Axis A/C
[Page break]
[Underlined] 13TH DEC [/underlined] 4pm took off for [underlined] Cairo [/underlined] Landed [underlined] Almaza 6hrs 40mins [/underlined]
Taken to Helioplis Palace Hotel
Civil aviation hotel Very posh.
Cool bath in morning (Lady cleaner)
Trip to Pyramids in afternoon
Collect Roman coin [underlined] Diaclesus 300BC [/underlined]
Trouble with young Egyptian shoe shines
[Underlined] 15TH DEC 0630hrs [/underlined] Took off [underlined] Persia, [/underlined] Landed [underlined] Shaibah 5hrs [/underlined]
Very hot sunstroke centre near A/C
[Underlined] 15TH DEC 1500hrs [/underlined] Took off for India landed at [underlined] Mauripur Karachi 7hrs 20mins [/underlined] 10.20pm.
Given bunk beds in large hangar 3 high.
Spent 13 days at Mauripur including Christmas
Changed into Khaki clothing
Plenty of fruit and bananas and drink
Christmas day in shorts & hat only
Swimming in Arabian Gulf with dolphins
Hot sands Camel rides messy smells
[Page break]
[Underlined] 28 DEC 45 6 AM [/underlined]
Boarded Dakota to [underlined] Palam Delhi 4hrs 40mins [/underlined]
[Underlined] View of Everest during flight [/underlined]
28th DEC [underlined] 12.35PM Palam to Chakula 4hrs 15mins [/underlined]
[Underlined] 100 miles? From Calcutta [/underlined]
At Chakula for 2 or three days
Stayed on camp site all the time
Lived in bamboo huts on stilts [underlined] 4ft [/underlined]
Wild country all arround, jackals howling at nights
Primitive toilets on raised stairways
All personel were armed mostly Sten guns
All had firing practice on firing range
1ST JAN 46
We all boarded Indian train, no window panes no corridors
As Warrant Officer was I/C the train
Airmen firing from train at wildlife during journey
[Page break]
Thought I was in for rocket when we pulled into Calcutta station
Spent next few days in transit camp near Calcutta
Not allowed to leave camp over local Indians pushing for their independance
Whilst there played football against African black, they wiled the floor with us, playing with bare feet
Ice cream under shade of tree monkey’s dropping
Eating ice cream
5TH JAN 46.
[Underlined] TRANSPORTED TO DUM DUM AIRPORT CALCUTTA [/underlined]
12.30pm Boarded Dakota to Mingladon Airfield near Rangoon 4.30hrs
Total flying hours Tempsford England to [underlined] Mingladon Rangoon 39hrs 30mins [/underlined]
We were all taken by lorry transport (now 12 off us)
To Rangoon where we found 56 F.R.U.
F.R.U. = Forward Repair Unit.
[Page break]
We were taken to our separate mess’s
After a meal in the Sgts mess we were taken to a neaby bombed building nearby
Given timber & tools to make beds
Mosquito nets
[Underlined] No windows electrics water [/underlined]
After breakfast taken to 56 FRU stores
[Underlined] 56 FORWARD REPAIR UNIT. [/underlined]
Capable of repairing anything used in R.A.F.
Aircraft Vehicles Radio’s Parachutes etc
Stores in large [inserted] ex [/inserted] printing works
[Underlined] Job Detail As a W/O I was given the jobs [/underlined]
As, I/C our Sgts billet
Anti malaria officer
Fire officer
Petrol receipts & issues officer
As well as working in stores & Orderly Officer
[Page break]
[Underlined] Japanese POW’s working for us. Petrol drums [/underlined]
[Underlined] Very hot & sticky [/underlined] Atmosphere 110°
Green mould on shoes
[Underlined] Khaki shorts [/underlined] changed 3 times a day.
[Underlined] Dark [/underlined] soon after 5pm, thousands large bats
[Underlined] Fire fly’s [/underlined] lighting up tress
[Underlined] Canoe building [/underlined]
[Underlined] Victoria Lakes Sunday’s Me organising [/underlined]
[Underlined] Transport Food Bookings Snakes [/underlined] in lake
[Underlined] Hot sands [/underlined]
[Underlined] Petrol for Unit dance [/underlined]
[Underlined] Drains and sewers in Rangoon [/underlined] flooding in monsoon
Units closing down disposing of their equipment.
[Underlined] Orderly Officer Parachutes and Army Depot fire [/underlined]
[Underlined] Duty Free labels [/underlined] F/Lt. Adjutant
[Underlined] Rangoon toilets [/underlined] Squash dog on road
Water Festival
[Page break]
[Underlined] Monsoon rain [/underlined] Deluge on flat roof
Open sewers full
W/shops flooded testing canoes
We each bought a black steel trunk to store all our presents in to take home called a [underlined] deep sea trunk [/underlined]
[Underlined] One thing remains in my memory [/underlined]
Anglo Burmese ladies in office
11am Thursday’s shooting Jap war criminals
Listening to rifle shots ladies smiling.
[Underlined] EARLY JUNE 1946 [/underlined]
My demob group No 42 has come up
Transferred to a disposal centre on the outskirts of Rangoon
Sleeping 2 persons small tent
Were instructed to keep our arms in our beds, [underlined] “Dakoits” [/underlined] Burmese bandits from surrounding countryside
After a few days we were taken out by boat where our ship to take us home was moored [Underlined] The “Orduna” [/underlined]
[Page break]
REG PAYNE
WIRELESS OPERATOR
SGT RON BOYDON W/OP 207 SQDN
21/22 JAN 1944 OPS MAGDEBURG
ALL CREW BURIED IN BERLIN
1939-45 CEMETARY
“Bomber Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive 1939-1945
By the time war in Europe had ended more than 8,000 bombers had been lost during operational sorties, and by night alone nearly 14,000 were damaged, of which some 1,200 were totally wrecked. In terms of human casualties no fewer than 46,268 had lost their lives during or as a result of operations, and a further 4,200 had been wounded. In addition on non-operational flights 8,090 had been killed or wounded. Put another way, out of every 100 aircrew who joined an Operational Training Unit, on average 51 would be killed on operations, 9 would be killed flying in England, 3 would be seriously injured in crashes, 12 would become POW’s of whom some would be injured, 1 would be shot down but evade capture, and 24 would survive unharmed. No other branch of the fighting services faced quite these awesome odds.
[Page break]
1943/44
REG PAYNE
1435510 WIRELESS OPERATOR
50 SQUADRON
SKELLINGTHORPE
LINCOLN
PILOT SIR MICHAEL BEETHAM
NAV FRANK SWINYARD
BOMB AIMER LES BARTLETT
WIRELESS OPERATOR REG PAYNE
FLIGHT ENG. DON MOORE
MID UPPER GUNNER JOCK HIGGINS
REAR GUNNER FRED BALL
[Page break]
[Table of Aircraft & Aircrew Losses During Reg’s 30 Operations]
Total number of A/C lost on these operations 562.
Total number of aircrew killed 4,300. 1206 POW’s
Average number of A/C on each operation 425.
Of the 4319 men in the A/C shot down attacking Berlin only 992 survived 22.9 per cent.
[Page break]
[Underlined] BOAT TRIP HOME FROM BURMA RANGOON [/underlined]
As a W/O was given a berth in centre of ship
The ship terribly overcrowded
The only drinks water and tea
No canteen or such No books or library
30 day journey
Tried sleeping below deck first night
Slept on deck (crowded) after that
Quizz on how many miles the ship did each day
Went thro monsoon period
Attacked by swarm of locus
Hung dirty washing out of port hole
Noticed Army personel had ringworms
Nothing to do all day
Biggest event watching one chap having his boils squeezed each morning.
Called in at Ceylon, Alexandra Suez Gibralta
No one allowed off ship.
Went below to sleep just before we reached England
Docked in Liverpool mid July.
[Page break]
[Underlined] DEMOBBED AT RAF KIRKHAM 17TH JULY 1946 [/underlined]
W/O’s were told to leave their kit bags on deck and they will be taken to demob centre
All khaki clothing burned on parade ground
Our deep sea trunks were brought to us.
My kit bag had not turned up.
Had to pay 19/6d for missing overcoat (in kit bag)
Revolver & 40 rounds also in kitbag.
Told some of you W/O’s would loose your bloody head if it was’nt fixed on.
That’s all that was said
With that trundled my deep sea trunk to the railway station and home
[Page break]
[Underlined] SGT RON BOYDON [/underlined]
WIRELESS OPERATOR /AIR GUNNER 207 SQDN
LOST WITH ALL HIS CREW
WHILST BOMBING MAGDEBURG
21/22ND JAN 1944
YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN RON
REG PAYNE AND TUBBY MELHUISH
YOUR TWO EX RAF CHUMS.
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
Aviation Memory
Description
An account of the resource
A detailed account of Reg Payne's service in the RAF. He starts with a list of 18 RAF bases where he served in his 5 years of service. He was 16 when war was declared but volunteered for the RAF at 17. After tests he was selected for training as a wireless operator ending up at Blackpool. Morse had to be 10 words a minute or retraining as a gunner. Moved to RAF Yatesbury and speed increased to 18 words per minutes. Then RAF Stormy Down for air gunnery followed by #1 AFU Wigtown for training in flight.
By June 1943 Reg is at RAF Cottesmore, 14 Operational Training Unit.
He details his daily tasks before operations.
Next he is moved to RAF Wigsley Heavy Conversion Unit for conversion to Halifaxes then Lancasters then ended up at RAF Skellingthorpe.
The social life at Skellingthorpe is popular and he met his first wife.
November 1943 his brother is missing over Dusseldorf.
Each operation he was involved in is described in detail.
Later in his memoir he details where and when he trained.
There is a list of prisoners of war from his squadron and a colour photograph of Reg and two colleagues at the tail of Lancaster 'Just Jane'.
There is a list of Reg's paintings.
He details his post war service via Libya, Cairo, Iran, India and Karachi, ending up at 56 Forward Repair Unit in Rangoon.
In June 1946 he returned to the UK by ship.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Reg Payne
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
120 handwritten sheets
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
BPayneRPayneRv1
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Civilian
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
British Army
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.
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
Burma
France
Germany
Great Britain
Burma--Rangoon
England--Lancashire
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
France--Paris
France--Toulouse
Germany--Aachen
Germany--Augsburg
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Essen
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Magdeburg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Schweinfurt
Germany--Stuttgart
Germany--Braunschweig
France--Marseille
Poland--Szczecin
France--Bordeaux (Nouvelle-Aquitaine)
Germany--Wolfenbüttel
Poland
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1941
1942
1943
1944
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-04-05
1944-04-06
1944-04-18
1944-04-19
1945
1946
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Anne-Marie Watson
102 Squadron
14 OTU
17 OTU
49 Squadron
5 Group
50 Squadron
619 Squadron
Advanced Flying Unit
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Albemarle
Anson
arts and crafts
bale out
Bennett, Donald Clifford Tyndall (1910-1986)
bomb aimer
bomb struck
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Juvisy, Noisy-le-Sec and Le Bourget railways (18/19 April 1944)
bombing of Toulouse (5/6 April 1944)
Botha
Caterpillar Club
crewing up
Dominie
FIDO
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
incendiary device
Ju 88
Lancaster
Master Bomber
military living conditions
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Mosquito
navigator
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
prisoner of war
Proctor
RAF Cottesmore
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Kirkham
RAF Madley
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Melbourne
RAF North Coates
RAF North Weald
RAF Padgate
RAF Pocklington
RAF Saltby
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Eval
RAF Stormy Down
RAF Tempsford
RAF Turweston
RAF Waddington
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wigtown
RAF Wittering
RAF Yatesbury
Stirling
superstition
training
Wellington
Whitley
Window
wireless operator
wireless operator / air gunner
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/622/10635/BPayneRPayneRv2.1.pdf
a90530e769feeb87faa075c28bdb865c
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
Payne, Reg
R Payne
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Payne, R
Description
An account of the resource
14 items. Two oral history interviews with Reg Payne (1923 - 2022, 1435510 Royal Air Force), his memoirs and photographs. Reg Payne completed a tour of operations as a wireless operator with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe. His pilot on operations was Michael Beetham. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Payne and catalogued by Barry Hunter.<br /><br />
<p>This collection also contains items concerning Fred Ball. Additional information on Fred Ball is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/100970/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/ball-fc/"></a></p>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-03
2017-08-25
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
BEFORE I WAS IN THE RAF
[underlined] Wartime Memories [/underlined]. Reg Payne
[deleted] 2 [/deleted] 2
I didn’t think of being killed whilst flying until I visited one or two crash sites in the Kettering area, some of them were German aircraft and I knew members of the crew had been killed when the A/C crashed.
I visited the crash site of a Blenheim Bomber which crashed in some sand pits, I rescued parts of flying clothing in the hedge row, and found there were still parts of human flesh mixed with the lambs wool.
Another aircraft crashed near a pond and the crew were all killed, bits of the Blenheim Bomber were still on the ground. A bunch of boys with caterpilts [sic] were shooting at something floating in the pond. As it came nearer to me I saw that it was, a human eye ball.
All this didn’t stop me from Joining the RAF to fly when I reached the age of eighteen yrs.
After two yrs of training as a W/OP Airgunner for two yrs I finally arrived at RAF Skellingthorpe 50 Sqdn on the outskirts of Lincoln. My brother two yrs older was also flying in the RAF, near by at RAF Fiskerton, also a W/OP, he had already flown a number of operations.
I was already a member of a Lancaster crew, and my pilot had to fly on an operation with another, before he could take his own crew on his own. After the operation was over we were glad that he had returned OK, and said that he didnt [sic] think the operation was as bad as he expected.
The next day I had a phone call from my mother to say that my brother was missing from the same operation that my pilot was taken on. She asked me if I could come home.
I visited our Squadron C.O. and asked if I could visit my mother, he refused to let me go saying that my parents would perswade [sic] me to stop flying if I did. I told him that I promised him that
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I would come back and continue flying. My Mother and Father both told me to be very careful when I was flying so the C.O. had nothing else to say to me. Luckily later we found that the Lancaster that my brother was in exploded whilst flying and two of the crew, by brother one of them, were blown thro [sic] the perspex roof, although in a German hospital they were not killed.
After a few weeks my mother told me that Ron Boydon the fellow that I had done all my training with was reported missing from operations, followed by Arthur Johnson who I trained with. She told me that Mrs Boydon has been seen looking in peoples gate ways at night looking for her son Ron.
We didnt [sic] think much of our hut at Skellingthorpe with no washing arrangements, to do this we had to walk to the Sgts Mess some distance away.
On our first evening there Fred our Rear Gunner and myself cycled to Lincoln as we were told it was only a short bike ride.
We found a small pub called the “UNITY”,? it was quiet inside not many people in the room that we were in, just tow ATS Girls sipping their two drinks together across the other side of the room.
It was not until they got up to go that we spoke to them, they had to be in their quarters by ten o’clock, in a large house near the cathedral. We were ready to go ourselves and asked if we could walk back with them. They seemed a couple of nice girls and we arranged to meet them at an earlyer [sic] time the next night
Luckily we were not wanted for any evening duties and we were able to get away early and spend time with the two ATS girls until it was time for them to be in their billets by ten oclock [sic]
We spent time with the two ATS girls for a few weeks and both Fred and I found a close relationship with them, Fred along with Joan & myself with Ena, we all became very friendly, and met each other as early and many times as we could get away.
Returning to the large room of ours in our hut, we were
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surprised one evening when entering our large room that there was three extra beds in there, with lots of kit bags and luggage scattered about the room. We had three Canadian aircrew members added to our room who had just joined our 50 Sqdn.
They seemed to get lots of parcels from Canada, and told us we could help ourselves to any chocolates or fruit that we could see in the room they could not cope with it all.
However the Station Warrent [sic] Officer came in one early evening and looked around the room. He said the place looked like a rubbish tip and he would come to look at it each evening and we were not to go out until he looked to see how tidy the room was. At times he was late comming [sic] so it became late each evening for Fred and I to meet Joan & Ena, especially as they had to be back in their billets prompt at 10 Pm.
However one evening the Lancaster that the three Canadians were flying in failed to return and all their clothing and goods were taken out of the room, leaving our room neat and tidy again as it was before the Canadians moved in.
Now that our room was now so clean and tidy, the Station Warrent [sic] Officer said that he would no longer come to visit us each evening as he could see that the room would no longer be full of food parcels etc.
I never did know if the three Canadians lost their lives, but if they did all I could think was that it cost the lives of three men to allow Fred and I to go out early evening to meet our girl friends when we were not flying early evening ourselves.
Having the three Canadians possibly killed made it possible for Fred and myself to go out early and meet our ATS girl friends when we were not on duty ourselves.
Many of [deleted] Fred [/deleted] Ena’s ATS friends had lost their air crew boy friends, and never knew if he had lost his life or not
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Ena’s ATS friend Joan spent all her spare time with Fred Ball our Rear Gunner. Fred was killed when our aircraft was in flames and he didnt [sic] Bale Out.
Lots of Ena’s ATS friends had lost RAF Boy friends flying on operations and tried not to get attatched [sic] to them anymore.
Ena’s Mother came to Lincoln and work in the NAAFI as she was called up to do war work. She chose Lincoln to be near to her daughter Ena.
She had lodgings with a nice lady Mrs Fatchet in Winn St Lincoln. Next door to her was a young lady, that had a small baby, she had it in her arms as we watched the Lancasters flying off on another operation.
She told me that the babies [sic] father was an aircrew member that had been missing from operations for some time, and no one had had any news of him. I always felt very sorry for her as she watched the Lancasters taking off from the Lincolnshire Airfields.
When I knew we were on operations that night I would ring Ena around lunch time, and say to her, I wont [sic] be able to meet you tonight, but all being well will see you tomorrow.
She knew that we were on operations that night.
With my brother Art now a POW in Germany, only two of his crew surviving, my mother was worried what would happen to me. She already knew that our Lancaster was on fire over the Humber Estory [sic]and four members of the crew didnt [sic] have time to bale out and were killed. I went thro [sic] the clouds pulling one of the carrying handles and not the parachute release handle, luckily I pulled the correct one and my parachute opened and I made a safe landing.
We were asked to identify the four bodies in the crashed aircraft
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by one of the senior RAF officers, but not one of us wanted to identify the crushed up bodies in the burned Lancaster. We did’nt [sic] want to go near the aircraft.
On one of our ten operations to Berlin, a German night fighter attacked us and his bullets made a large hole in our Port wing. I thought it was smoke coming out of the large hole in the wing, but our flight Eng. said it was petrol coming from one of the large tanks in the wings.
Arriving back as far as Northamptonshire we were nearly out of Petrol and our Pilot decided to make a landing on the emergency airfield at RAF Wittering to save the extra miles to Lincoln. We circled the airfield, and were waiting for the runway landing lights to come on, expecting any time for the engines to shut down as the petrol had all been used. At last the landing lights came on and we were able to land with all the petrol now used up.
As we entered the Wittering office buildings, we heard the dance band close down and found that no one had been on duty, to turn on the Aircraft landing lights when Aircraft were in trouble and needed to land.
Returning from another of our operations to Berlin we were told to land at RAF Pocklington in Yorkshire, as there was a dense fog in the Lincoln area. We tried a few times to find the runway at Pocklington, but then were told to proceed to RAF Melborne which we found was also foggy.
After flying quite low for some time Michael found it in the fog and managed to land safely.
A large van driven by a WAAF picked us safely up and drove us to their crew rooms. In the fan she had a radio that could hear all of our aircraft calling and saying that they must land as they had little or no fuel left.
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One of our squadron aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed into a nearby farm house, the farmer and his wife were both killed, and only the rear gunner in the Lancaster survived. From then on all the Lancasters on the circuit trying to land were told to Head their aircraft out to sea and Bale Out, which they had to do.
The fog stayed with us for three days up in yorkshire [sic], and we could’nt [sic] return back to Lincoln. We had no washing or shaving items for three days or money to buy anything with, not even our toothe [sic] brush’s [sic] or razors to shave with, we had to stay with our lancasters until the weather improved and we could fly them back to Skellingthorpe.
We had a scare one morning, we had just landed after completing another of our operations, and taxied the Lancaster back to our usual dispersal. Michael Beetham then said to us all, OK everybody “All Switch’s [sic] off.” Before I could check all my radio and inter Comm switch’s [sic], there was a loud scraping noise like a van dragging along the side of the aircraft, followed by a heavy thud.
We all scrambled out of the aircraft and expected to see a small lorry or van firmly stuck to the side of the aircraft, but there was nothing any where near us. The Bomb Aimer went back to the Aircraft and opened the little inspection door panel that allowed him to look down into the Lancasters Bomb bay. He was shocked at what he saw.
A thousand pound bomb had been still in the bomb bay, it had not dropped with the others over the target. Its [sic] a good thing that it didnt [sic] hit its nose cap on the way down the bomb bay or we would all have been blown to pieces.
I’ve often wonderd [sic] how the bomb disposal crews got to remove the bomb without it blowing up the Lancaster.
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We landed early morning after a long trip to Berlin again and our ground crew asked how the aircraft had flown, we all said there were no problems with the aircraft and we all left in a hurry to get back to the Sgts Mess and get our breakfast before getting into bed and have our sleep.
After we were all awake again around tea time we were told that they wanted to show us something about our aircraft. Arriving at the dispersal point of our aircraft “B” baker” the ground crews pointed to a large hole in the port wing where a large bomb had gone thro [sic] and left a large hole you could look thro. [sic] Not only did it go thro [sic] the wing it also went thro [sic] a large petrol tank
Luckily the petrol tank was empty by the time we got to the target. There were three tanks in each wing and this tank was empty when the bomb went thro [sic] it. Had it been thro [sic] the one next to it which was full of petrol we would never have got home and finished as POW’s etc.
On one Berlin Operation as we were getting close to Berlin, I heard the engines on the Lancaster open up and felt the aircraft starting to climb. Our Bomb Aimer Les Bartlett shouted to Jock Higgins our Mid Upper Gunner and said, “Not yet Jock, wait until I say now.” I moved over to our Astro-Dome near my compartment and looked above and in front of us, and I saw straight away a German JU88 Night Fighter which had not seen us.
We flew closely underneath it and Les shouted “OK Jock NOW” They both opened up together and I could see the red hot bullets crashing into the German Heinkel Night fighters. Our Bomb Aimer bullets were being sprayed along its wing area, but I noticed that Jock’s the Mid Upper Gunner, his red hot shower of bullets were going into the cabin area where all the crew members were close together. The JU88 continued to fly steadyly [sic] on for some time whilst the bullets continued to enter the cabin area where the crew were based. After a short time after
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the German night fighter tipped over on its side, with smoke now coming from its engines and cabin area, as it fell lower and lower it was lost from my view.
The forward members of our crew said, that smoke and fire came from it as it plunged down to the burning city below it, and was certainly shot down.
What upset me though, that our bomb Aimer was an officer, and he received a medal for his shooting, but Jock who was only a Sgt received not even a mention.
[underlined] Frank Swinyard Navigator. [/underlined]
Frank Swinyard was a Flying Officer, we sat very close together, and we go on together very well. Frank was our Navigator. Frank and I worked together. He would ask me what stars I could see from the ASTRODOME close by me, when I told him the ones in view, I would take his sextant and read out the degrees & minutes for him to use on his Astro Graph. Also I obtained quite a number of radio bearings for him from distant Radio stations, this helped him to plot his position.
When we were diverted to another Air Base on the way home he would not worry about getting the Lancaster there, he could ask me to get him a QDM to the base, [underlined] QDM COURSE TO STEAR [/underlined] after another on or two, I could take him there.
My worst flying experience was not a bombing operation, but an Air Gunners training flight which we had over the Humber Estory [sic] part of the North Sea of course
We had our own crew of seven, plus another pilot and his two gunners, making ten men altogether.
From Lincoln we had to fly over the Humber Estory [sic] where a spitfire would join us, and in radio contact would continue to attack us whilst our two gunners would train their guns on it as it dived on them. We would then call the Spitfire Pilot & tell him that the other pilot and his two gunners were changing over and we would call him to begin attacking us.
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Cameras were fitted to the guns so the film could be shown after the exercise to see if the Airgunner was using the correct deflection in the attacks etc.
We had our full crew of seven on board the aircraft, along with the other pilot and his two gunners.
On boarding the Lancaster I noticed our Flight Engineer was’nt [sic] taking his parachute with him, I remember saying to him, wheres [sic] your parachute Don, and he said, it’s only a training flight Im [sic] not bothered about that.
The time of the year was January but it was a sunny day although the sea looked very cold should we ever have to land up in it one day, and I wondered, should I be wearing my Mae West. Looking down from the aircraft all I could see now was cloud, so I didnt [sic] know how far away the coast was should you have to use your parachute etc.
The other pilot and his two gunners were moving into their positions in the aircraft, and I noticed that our two gunners had now joined us at the rear of the Lancaster where we could see the other Australian pilot and his two gunners do their part of the exercise.
At the word GO. the Lancaster was taken in a very steep dive, Ive [sic] never seen one dive so steeply, but as it pulled out of its steep dive one of it’s engines burst into flames.
The pilot operated his extinguisher for the engine and for a little time we thought all was well, but after the extinguisher had finished its work, the whole wing seemed to be on fire, and Michael gave the order for all of us to abandon the aircraft. There were only two escape doors in the Lancaster, and ten men who needed to use them.
The Australian Pilot & his two gunners in the front of the aircraft started to bale out of the nose escape exit, as our Mid upper gunner Jock Higgins baled out of the rear exit, but damaged his ribs as he hit the tail plane. I tried to leave by the back exit, but the
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gust of wind blew me back again. I think I was given a push with someones [sic] foot that got me out of the aircraft.
As I fell thro [sic] the air there was nothing but cloud below me, and I didnt [sic] know if I was over the sea or the land.
I did a silly thing I was tugging away at the carrying handle of the parachute pack and not the release metal handle so by the time I had pulled the correct parachute release handle I had already gone thro [sic] the cloud.
A large part of the wing had broken off and was coming down behind me, I’m glad that it drifted away from me and didnt [sic] cut thro [sic] my parachute.
As I got nearer the ground I could see the coast a short distance from me, and I was drifting towards it, then there was a large crashing noise, and smoke and flame as the Lancaster crashed a few miles in land near East Kirkby Airfield and I was still drifting that way myself.
I finally landed in a large field and before I could get in a standing position I saw an RAF van coming towards me with two airmen in it. At the same time some one on a parachute coming down a short distance away landed in a dense spinney, I could hear the branches on the trees breaking as he fell thro [sic] them, I found out later it was the other Australian Pilot.
Our Lancaster had crashed close to East Kirkby Airfield, where I was taken to, there were four men in the aircraft when it crashed and I was asked if I could identify the bodies. I was told they were all crushed, and I just didnt [sic] want to look at them
Fred Ball our Rear Gunner would no longer come with me when I would visit Ena in Lincoln he had every chance to bale out the aircraft early but he didnt [sic] have the pluck to do this Jock Higgins hurt his ribs as he baled out and hit the tail plane, he spent a short time in the base hospital and made a good recovery.
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Following this air crash I would go into Lincoln to see Ena on my own.
Also I was introduced to Ena’s mother who was in lodgings with Mrs Fatchet in Lincoln, whilst working in one of the large NAAFI forces canteens in Lincoln.
Luckily I had plenty of time off when not flying, and during the cold winter day’s [sic] I could ride on my bike and visit Mrs Fatchet at her home in Winn St.
She always made me welcome and found me something to eat, she had a fish & chip shop next door to her so I could always pop in there during the day.
Before going on an operation taking six or eight hours flying time, after no sleep during the day, we were given Wakey Wakey tablets which we only swallowed just before we were airborne, there was no chance of a sleep during the day before going on operations, you didnt [sic] even know where the target was until the main briefing just you were airborn. [sic]
I was the wireless Operator in the crew of Lancaster LL744 VNB 50 SQDN. each morning after breakfast, if I had not been flying the night before, after breakfast I had to visit the Accumulator Store and collect two small but heavy accumulators, on my bike I would ride to our Lancaster, and replace them with the two in the aircraft. I then had to [inserted] VISIT [/inserted] the flight office and collect the form 700 and say the batteries had been changed Sign my name etc. and return the two batteries that I had replaced to the accumulator store. This had to be done by me every day unless I had been on operations the night before.
The batteries had to be changed each day, even if the aircraft had not been flown.
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During one operation the two gunners said how cold they were, especially the Rear Gunner.
Michael Beetham air pilot told me to see what the problem was, I had to put a portable oxygen [inserted] BOT. [/inserted] round my neck before I went down, you wouldn’t last long without one.
I could see straight away what the trouble was, the back door was open & a strong freezing cold wind was coming in.
The flight Engineer came down to help me, but together we could not close the door. There must of [sic] been a wind of over one hundred miles per hour coming thro [sic] the open door and the temp would be around minus thirty degrees.
With the help of I think the Navigator we managed to tie the door up but not fully closed, and leave a sharp knife there to cut the rope should we need to bale out.
One other night the mid upper gunner said his turret had frost all over it and he could’nt [sic] see a thing, he asked me to bring him an axe, I gave him one and he smashed the perspex from the front of his turret so he could see, luckily he had electrical clothing on and could only have the turret facing backwards.
We have a long length of rope close to the back door in the Lancaster, should a crew member loose [sic] an arm or a leg and we are three or four hours from reaching home, we could tie a torch on the wounded crew member, tie a length of rope to his parachute release handle and when passing a large German town or city push the wounded airman out the back door. His parachute would open and he would be seen with the torch and parachute. Hoping he would be rushed to a German hospital to have his life saved.
We called it The dead mans rope.
As a Wireless Operator whilst I was flying on operations I was given a frequency band on my radio to search, and if I picked up a German mans [sic] voice giving out instructions
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I would tune my transmitter to this frequency, and press down my morse code key, this would transmit the sound of one of our Lancaster engines on that frequency and blot him out. A Microphone was placed against one of the engines for that reason.
To prevent to [sic] many aircraft over the target at the same time and hitting each other, we were divided into two or three waves, First, Second, or third wave, we had our own height to bomb the target and the time over the target, but after a long flight to get there we rarely arrived at our time over target, it was not unusually [sic] for an aircraft to get an incendiary bomb thro [sic] its wing whilst over the target, from an aircraft above.
Whilst over the target area a senior RAF officer would be circling the city area, he was the “Master Bomber” he would be shouting out details of which colour’d [sic] flare’s [sic] to aim at, reds or greens etc. His language at times didnt [sic] meet up to an RAF Officer.
On one operation we were told to land at St Eval Cornwall on our way home, but during our flight I received a message, which said cancel Landing instructions “Return to Base” Unfortuneately [sic] the Wing Commanders Wireless Operator failed to get this message and they landed at St Eval. The only crew to land there.
All the Sqdn Aircrew were at the airfield when the Wing Comm landed back at Skellingthorpe to Cheer him home.
At our next briefing for an operation the Wing Commander said, Wireless Operators, make sure you get all the messages broad casts not like some clot I could name that misses them. His wireless operator stood up and said. If thats [sic] what you think of me sir, you
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can get some other Wireless Operator to fly with you tonight, and then started walking towards the door. RAF police at the door moved to stop him leaving, but the Wing Commander said let him go.
I’m glad I was’nt [sic] the Wing Comm Wireless Operator.
The Wireless Operator had an unusual name which you could remember and looking at a long list of aircrew who lost their lives on fifty Sqdn I saw his name on the list.
After breakfast if I found I was in operations that night, I knew that our Sgts Mess Phone was disconnected and to Tell Ena that I would not be able meet her tonight I used to cycle to a nearby village and us the public Phone Box (she always knew the reason why.
On one day when operations were detailed, I found our crew were not on the list of crews taking part.
I needed a few items such as soap & toothepaste [sic] etc and cycled into Lincoln to purchase them.
I found Lincoln rather quiet whilst in the shopping area with no local aircraft flying at the time.
As it became dusk winter time, all the local airfields were preparing for aircraft take off,
Suddenly I heard a heavy Lancaster taking of [sic] from Waddington, taking off with an overload, then another one from our Skellingthorpe, also from Fiskerton & Bardney, all these Lancasters were flying with an overload of bombs and needed all the power their engines had to get them airborn. [sic]
This was the first time I had been in Lincoln City to hear all the aircraft circling round Lincoln with a heavy overload of bombs, they needed all the power their engines had, to get them airborne. The people of Lincoln didnt [sic] seem to take notice of it I suppose they were quite used to it.
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Ena & Joan had given Fred our Rear Gunner & I a brass Lincoln Imp which they said would bring us luck, and told us not to fly without them.
I kept mine on my flying jacket so I always had it with me when I flew. Fred often removed his from his flying jacket and wore it on his tunic when he went out at Evenings.
One evening we had attended briefing for an operation, and were on our way to our aircraft when Fred told us he didnt [sic] have his Lincoln Imp with him, On arriving at our aircraft we told a ground staff member and he said he would collect it from our billet, after we gave him the hut number, and the position of Freds [sic] bed etc. Freds [sic] Lincoln Imp was on his tunic hanging up over his bed. First bed on the left as you go in the main door.
Off went the man in his van and he returned later with Freds [sic] Lincoln Imp which he had removed from Freds [sic] tunic
We all felt better after this, and we hoped it would make Fred more careful to make sure he always wore his Lincoln Imp.
It was a month or two after this that we had to do an airgunnery exercise with some extra members of the crew, during the exercise the pilot put the Lancaster in a very steep dive, which caused one of the engines and the wing to burst into flames. The Lancaster was overloaded with ten crew members taking part. Four crew members were killed when the Lancaster crashed and sadly Fred was one of them.
My bed was next to Fred’s and I didnt [sic] have a very good nights sleep, I lay awake for some time, looking up at Freds [sic] tunic which hung close to my bed the early sun light shone over Freds [sic] bed area, his tunic was hanging up above it, and the sun was shining on a small brass item on the lapel. I could’nt [sic] believe it, it was his Lincoln Imp and he was’nt [sic] wearing it again.
[inserted] PS I still wear my Lincoln Imp. [/inserted]
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I think my first fear of our operational flying was the Lancaster taking off and getting airborne.
At the briefing for the operation we were usually told we would all be flying with a thousand pound overload.
With a normal all up weight of bombs in the Lancaster it took a long run along the runway before the aircraft became airborn, [sic] but when they had added another thousand pounds of bombs on the aircraft it became that bit more stressful.
As the Lancaster began its way along the runway, the Navigator would read the speed it was travelling at, it needed one hundred miles per hour before it could take off.
Some times when the pilot could see that the aircraft was not going to reach that speed at a certain position along the runway, and the gate was getting closer on the throttle control, he would say to the flight engineer, “THRO THE GATE”, and the throttles were pushed that little bit more before the aircraft started leaving the ground.
[underlined] The gate had to be moved to get [/underlined] the take off speed up to 100 miles per hour.
We had an ELSAN toilet at the rear of the aircraft, but it was not used very much when we were flying. We all had our own metal cans close by us that we could use and they were emptied into the Elsan Toilet as we left the aircraft. The Elsan toilet was at the rear of the aircraft, and to get there in flight you needed a portable oxygen bottle to breath for the journey, and for all your layers of heavy clothing, and the temperature around minus thirty degrees you could’nt [sic] take your gloves off and touch anything.
Most of our flying time over Germany was around six to eight hours. Berlin was around eight hours which our crew flew ten times. We went there three times in five days. (Nights)
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In our pockets we had a bag of sweets, and a selection of money according to which country we were flying over. Also we had a map of the area that we could use should we have to bale out and find our way to safety.
If we had flying boots with high leather padding half way up to the knee, a knife would be in one of the boots so the tops could be cut off should you be shot down in Germany, or any enemy country, to make them look just like a pair of shoes, and not flying boots.
We also had water tablets in our pockets to use when selecting water from small streams, or brooks.
As the Wireless Operator I had to know the position of some of the stars, the Navigator would ask me which ones were plainly in view. I then had to use the Sextant and take a shot of the star asked for. This was taken in Degrees & Minutes and the correct time. From this the Navigator had equipment where he could plot his position
3.12.43 around lunch time Michael Beetham was instructed to take his crew to RAF Waddington to collect a Lancaster.
When we got there the Lancaster DV376 was already loaded with bombs and before we took it to our airfield, we had to go off and bomb Leipzig first, then take it to Skellingthorpe
During the operation we were attacked and damaged by a JU88, we were very short of fuel and managed to land at Wittering.
Another Lancaster from Skellingthorpe had to collect us the next day and take us back to our base Skellingthorpe whilst the Lancaster DV376 went thro [sic] repairs.
On the 29.12.43 we had to Bomb Berlin, and had a [sic] Incendiary Bomb through our Starboard Outboard Petrol tank and were lucky to get back home again.
We flew on operations to Berlin ten times, and in doing so, we lost 383 aircraft
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Our first three operations were to Berlin [underlined] 22.11.43 23.11.43 26.11.43 55 MISSING. [/underlined]
114 aircraft missing in our first three operations.
The inter comm system was powered by two smallish Lead Acid Batteries. Every morning, it didnt [sic] matter if the aircraft had flown or not these Lead Acid Batteries had to be replaced.
Each morning after breakfast, I as the Wireless operator, I had to visit on my bike the Battery Store. I had to collect the two batteries on my bike and cycle across the airfield where the Lancaster was parked. I had to change the batteries in the Lancaster. I then had to visit the flight offices and ask for the form 700 for our Lancaster.
I then had to sign it to say the batteries had been changed, then on my bike again I would return the two batteries that I had removed from the Lancaster to the battery store where they would be put on charge again.
This I had to do as the Wireless Operator every day, regardless of the day of the week or the weather. Even if the Lancaster had not left its parking site. The hardest job was finding the form 700.
If we were on our way back after an operation over Germany, and the weather was bad over lincoln [sic],”usually fog”. we would be diverted to another airfield which could be as much as sixty miles away from Lincoln.
To help our navigator, I would contact the airfield and ask for a QDM, a course to steer to reach them. By pressing down my morse key, the receiving station could give me a course to fly to reach their airfield, which I would then pass on to our navigator & the pilot.
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My Navigator was a wind finder, this because he was an experiest [sic] Navigator of around thirty years or more of age.
The winds that he found I would pass them on to 5 group, and these would be passed on to all 5 group aircraft in their half hourly broadcasts.
One evening I spent some time passing wind details to the 5 group radio people not knowing if the receiver was a man or a WAAF female.
In morse code I asked if the receiver was a male or a WAAF. I got a very short but strong answer,
In morse code I got, ([symbols]) which was a [underlined] G [/underlined] and an [underlined] S [/underlined]
The G & the S. was a short way to tell me to [underlined] get Stuffed. [/underlined]
When I attended de briefing after the operation, I asked if the 5 group radio operators tonight were male or female, and I was told they are all WAAF female operators.
All this gave us a lighter side of the serious thing we were doing in bombing cities in Germany ETC.
During our training days at RAF Cottesmore, we would be riding our bikes back to Cottesmore after an evening out at Stamford. Frank Swinyard our Navigator would ask me to point out certain stars in the sky, as he always asked me to do his astro shots for him with the sextant.
He had to make sure that I knew the star that he wanted Both he and our pilot (now Sir Michael Beetham) received the DFC. after war, but for us Sgts, there was nothing.
We always relied on my radio bearings when in trouble to get us home safely.
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When flying over the sea, I was taught to let my trailing aerial out, this hung down from the aircraft and [deleted] locked [/deleted] [inserted] touch’d [sic] [/inserted] the sea when the aircraft was flying at sixty feet.
If the pilot was flying over the sea and in the dark he could not see the water if he was going to ditch.
With my radio on, I would loose [sic] my signal as soon as the aerial touched the sea, and I would tell the pilot we are at 60 ft, and he would land the aircraft in the sea. We would call this ditching, “having to ditch”
When we were doing our training, flying as a crew on 14 operational unit at Cottesmore, I would tune my radio into one of the regular BBC programmes and we would all listen to some nice music, I would turn it down should our pilot want to give us instructions. Our cross country flights sometimes lasted two or three hours.
It became general practice for bomber crews to wear a white silk scarf when flying on operations, printed in black ink on the scarves [deleted] wh [/deleted] were the names of the German cities that the wearer had bombed. This went on for a short time until we heard that airmen shot down over Germany wearing one of these scarves, had one wound round their necks and hung on a lampost [sic] etc. This soon stopped us wearing them anymore.
By this time Ena my ATS girl friend and I had become very close to each other, she knew I was on operations, as I had contacted her & told her I would not be seeing her this evening.
However in the morning on the BBC news they would mention the RAF Bombing raid, then finish by saying sixty five of our bombers failed to return, and she could’nt [sic] believe it when I rang her the next day and said I will meet you again tonight.
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On a bombing raid to a large German city, the RAF Pathfinder Force would have arrived there and dropped marker flares for us to aim at, Greens & Reds.
Along with them would be the master Bomber, he would be in charge of the operation.
Green & Red marker flares were dropped all around the city and his voice could be heard telling us not to aim at the Reds, but hit the greens. I think what surprised me most was his bad language and his swearing.
I spoke to Michael Beetham and asked who was that man using that language over the target and he would say it was Wing Commander So & So.
I never thought that an officer such as Wing Co. would use language like that, I only heard it from Erks as we queued for our lunch.
The RAF bombers arrived over their targets in two or three different waves, each wave flew at a different height, should you be late getting over Berlin, you could have two hundred bombers dropping bombs from above. Our navigator F/O Frank Swinyard always urged Michael Beetham to get to the target on time.
There could be 500 ft between the height of each wave. One night we had a bomb dropped on us from above, it punched a large hole in one of our petrol tanks, passing thro [sic] the wing. We were lucky that the tank was empty, the petrol being used to get us to the target, should it have been the one next to it which was full, we would never have got back to Lincoln.
The wireless operator controlled the heat entering the Lancaster, you could never please all the crew. It entered the aircraft from the Engine Exhaust by the side of the Navigator, If I turned it up to please the pilot & Flight Engineer, the navigator would tap my knee and get me to turn it down a bit.
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[underlined] LANDING INSTRUCTIONS [/underlined]
When there was [underlined] two Squadrons [/underlined] based at the same airfield
This could involve over thirty aircraft wanting to land at their airfield, and most of them had only twenty minutes fuel left in their tanks.
[underlined] NUMBER [/underlined] 1 The first aircraft to arrive had to orbit at three thousand feet, and as he circled the airfield he would call out his position on the circuit such as “CROSS ROADS,” OR “BAKERS FARM,” “RAILWAY STATION”, then NUMBER 2 would arrive and call up and he would follow No 1 on the circuit shouting out NO 2 BAKERS FARM ETC,
After around four of five aircraft were circling at three thousand feet, number one would be told to circle at two thousand feet, but still shout his number and position on the circuit, until he was called down to one thousand feet, where he would call out, No 1 down wind, then he would call out No 1 Funnels, then No 1 “touching” “down” then No 1 clear as he left the runway
Our flying control would give the calling aircraft their number and instruct them when they could reduce their height as long as they all called there positions out whilst flying round the circuit
This would possibly go on for fourty [sic] aircraft to land. Our crews were trained to do this on night training exercises, to prevent aircraft running out of fuel whilst circling the airfield many times waiting to land.
My pilot, Michael Beetham (now Sir Michael Beetham) was told by one of the WAAF M.T. drivers that he could use one of the Commer vans on the airfield to check on the servicability [sic] of the aircraft. He asked me if I could drive a car, and on telling him NO. He then said, I have never driven a car.
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This came about because the Wing Comm. Spoke to Michael Beetham and said, now you have been promoted to a Flt Lt you will have the responsibility of checking the servicability [sic] of the Lancasters in “B Flight, but you can use one of the comer vans to get round the airfield. He didnt [sic] like to tell the Wing Commander that he had never driven a car before.
As the Wireless Operator I had the major hot air supply control close to my seating. Also it was close to where the Navigator spread his maps and charts to keep us on course.
The actual heat came from the flames of the port inner “Roles [sic] Royce” Merlin Engine, and were quite hot at times.
The navigator often got quite hot during checking his Course and direction, and signalled me to turn it down a bit, but after ten minutes or so the crew at the front of the aircraft complained at feeling the cold.
I could never please all of them.
Frank Swinyard FLT.LT. was our navigator, also he was a wind finder, from time to time he would find a wind & I would transmit it to our five group base
We must have had around ten aerials on the Lancaster, most of them small whip radar aerials, these had to be looked at before each flight to check that they had not been damaged by the ground crews
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25
During the bombing operations that we did to Berlin, I would look out of the astro dome and see areas of Berlin covered in the small incendiary bombs, the wide roads were plain to see running thro [sic] the city with all the buildings on fire each side of the roads.
At regular intervals the four thousand pound cookies would explode in the roads and that part of the wide road could not be seen any more, the whole area was covered in large cicular [sic] explosion areas, and the wide roads that were clear to see at the beginning of the raid, were not there anymore, just one large area of fire.
As we had no washing facilities on the site where we slept, we had to walk some distance to the Sgts mess, there we had washing and shower facilities. After we had been in the showers and dried ourselves we had to fold up our towels and put them back in our canvas hold alls, they never got dry, and were always damp when we used them.
Our canvas hold alls were hung on a long row of coat hooks in the shower room of the Sgts Mess.
After a number of weeks we were told to remove our canvas hold alls from the Sgts Shower rooms for a single day. During this time all the canvas holdalls were removed on a trolley that were [underlined] still [/underlined] hanging on the coat hooks, these hold alls were the property of the Sgts who were missing from operations.
When our Lancaster was taking off with an overload of bombs, I would see the flames comming [sic] from the port inner engine, and spreading over the leading edge of the wing.
It was only a few hours before that I had seen the petrol Bowser pumping petrol into the wings in the same area. And petrol running down the wings.
I felt easier after ten minutes of flight, only a small flame leaving the exhaust.
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26
During my time with 50 Sqdn at RAF SKELLINGTHORPE aircrew started wearing long silk scarf’s [sic] (pure white) on the scarf’s [sic] were printed in black marking ink the names of the German cities that they had bombed.
We were all proud of our scarves mine had the name of Berlin on it ten times.
This all came to an end when it was found out that aircrew who were shot down and were wearing one of these scarfs angered the german public, that the scarf was hung round the airmans neck and he was hanged from the nearest lamp post or tree.
I dont [sic] think I saw anyone wearing his any longer.
I still have mine in my wardrobe.
The pilot of the Lancaster sat in the front of the Lancaster on the Port (Left) side, behind him sitting at a large table was the Navigator, he needed a large table to spread his maps open so he could read his maps.
Also on the left hand side of the aircraft, behind the Navigator was the Wireless Operator, who had his large Marconi transmitter and receiver in a smaller table, along with his morse key for him to transmit his messages etc.
Also by the side of the Wireless operator was the Monica (aircraft Warning) Receiver which he had to keep his eyes on thro [sic] out the flight.
Down along the Starboard side of the aircraft were a number of box’s [sic] of “Window”. Window was small lengths of stiff paper, with a stiff metal like coating on the paper strips. The Bomb aimer in the nose of the aircraft would thro [sic] out a bundle every five or six mins or so, and each time he would call out Window.
A large blip would show on my Monica screen as it passed us by, and I had no need to shout a warning.
When I saw a blip on the monica screen & the
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27.
bomb aimer had said nothing, I would shout a warning, shouting “CONTACT” “STARBOARD QUARTER UP” our Lancaster would dive in a different direction and for the next few minutes everyone would search the sky until we were sure we were on our own again,.
The paper bundles of window strips were along the bomb bay floor in a row along the starboard side,
As our flight continued I would keep passing these bundles down to the bomb aimer in the nose of the aircraft, and as he said “WINDOW” I would see the blip apear [sic] on my Monica screen.
Its when I saw a blip apear [sic] on my screen and the bomb [inserted] aimer [/inserted] had not spoken that I shouted contact Port, should it be that, or Starboard if it was on our starboard side.
As a Wireless operator I had to tune my receiver to our five Group radio broadcast every half hour to see if they had any messages for us.
One part of my operational flying that I never felt easy with, was when we became airborne on an operation.
The Lancaster always had a one thousand pound over load and the engines needed every bit of power to get us airborn. [sic]
I would look out of my small side window and see the flames leaving the port engine exhaust, the flames were so long they even left large scorch marks on the wings, each side of the engine.
I knew that in those wings were over two thousand gallons of high octain [sic] petrol, the flames would burn the paint off the wings, each side of the engine. This continued until we reached the height we were detailed to fly at over Germany.
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28.
In our flying clothing pockets we had a fare [sic] ammount [sic] of French or Dutch money which we could use if we had to bale out of the aircraft over such as Holland or France. We also had a supply of water purification tablets to make sure we had drinking water. This all had to be handed back in to the Squadron after landing, which we were always glad to.
A little farther down the aircraft where the Navigator sat, and the Wireless operator, was the rest bed, quite a large bed where a crew member could be placed if he had been wounded.
It was also handy for placing spare heavy flying clothing, especially if I myself had to move into one of the turrets to take the place of a gunner if he had been wounded. I would need to wear some heavy warm clothing.
All our Wireless operators had completed an Airgunners course during his training and could man one of the turrets if need be.
During our crew training period at 14 OTU Cottesmore and Market Harborough we were detailed to do long cross country flights taking two or three hours.
I made this period a little more enjoyable by selecting some nice music on the radio and feeding it on to our “inter comm” circuit in the Wellington,.
Our crew always looked forward to this.
But when flying on our operations over Germany we needed every bit of information on the inter comm spoken, and action had to take place immediately
29.
Our Pilot Michael Beetham was concerned that we were always in bed at nights at a reasonable time.
He had nothing to fear for Fred our rear gunner and myself, as our two ATS girl friends had to be in their quarters before ten oclock [sic] at nights failing this they were not allowed out at nights for some time.
We only had a fifteen minutes bike ride back to our hut at Skellingthorpe, and were soon in bed.
Our ATS girls often gave us a sandwich or a slice of cake to eat on our way back to Skellingthorpe so we didnt [sic] go back feeling hungry.
During our operations and the long journey, our reward came when our Bomb Aimer decided which bunch of PFF marker flares he was going to aim att. [sic]
He would then say “Bomb Doors Open”, and a cold draft would fill the aircraft, then he said “Steady” Steady – “Steady”, and then “Bombs Gone”. You could hear and feel the “clonk”, “clonk”, as the bombs left their positions hanging in the bomb bay. The cold air left you as he said Bomb Doors closed.
We all felt better now we had no bombs on board, and the aircraft felt much lighter now all we had was the long journey home, hoping that there would be no fog over our airfield and we could have a nice long sleep.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Before I was in the RAF by Reg Payne
Wartime Memories
Description
An account of the resource
An account by Reg Payne of his wartime experiences. Too young to sign up at the start of the war he spent two years in the Home Guard. Training started at age 18 and lasted for two years. He served at RAF Skellingthorpe and his brother served at RAF Fiskerton. His brother was shot down and taken prisoner but Reg was not allowed to go home to comfort his mother.
He met his future wife in the Unity bar in Lincoln.
Reg survived a crash on a fighter training session when four of his aircrew died.
He also survived ten operations to Berlin. On one operation they were shot up and lost a lot of fuel and had to make an emergency landing at RAF Wittering where no one could be found because they were at a party, on base.
Arriving back on another operation they found everywhere fogged in but landed at RAF Melbourne where they had to stay for a few days until the fog cleared. They had no clothes to change into, no money and no toothbrushes.
After one operation they landed safely and on powering down the aircraft a bomb, which should have been dropped over Germany, came free and rattled down the bomb bay without exploding.
Once they came back with a large hole in the wing, made by a bomb.
On another op they shot down a JU-88 night fighter.
Bombing operations were directed by a Master Bomber who set flares.
Reg and Fred were given Lincoln Imps as mascots but the night Fred died he had left his mascot on another tunic.
He describes the landing procedures when 40 Lancasters arrive back at the same time, most low on fuel.
His navigator, Fl Lt Frank Swingerd calculated winds aloft and Reg transmitted these to 5 Group aircraft.
He describes the various operating areas of the crew on board the Lancaster.
Creator
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Reg Payne
Format
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28 handwritten pages
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
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BPayneRPayneRv2
Coverage
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Civilian
Royal Air Force
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Leicestershire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Rutland
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Leipzig
England--Cornwall (County)
Germany
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.
Contributor
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Tricia Marshall
David Bloomfield
Temporal Coverage
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1943
14 OTU
5 Group
50 Squadron
aircrew
Blenheim
bomb struck
bombing
civil defence
crash
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
ground personnel
heirloom
Home Guard
Ju 88
Lancaster
Lincoln
love and romance
lynching
Master Bomber
military living conditions
military service conditions
navigator
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
radar
RAF Bardney
RAF Cottesmore
RAF East Kirkby
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Melbourne
RAF Pocklington
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF St Eval
RAF Waddington
RAF Wittering
sanitation
superstition
training
Window
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1794/35819/BWilsonRCWilsonRCv1.2.pdf
46537616119db7e3fe539c2255ec6eb9
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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Wilson, Reginald Charles
R C Wilson
Description
An account of the resource
166 items. The collection concerns Reginald Charles Wilson (b. 1923, 1389401 Royal Air Force) and contains his wartime log, photographs, documents and correspondence. He few operations as a navigator with 102 Squadron. He was shot down on 20 January 1944 and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Janet Hughes and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2017-01-13
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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Wilson, RC
Transcribed document
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Transcription
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October 2001
[underlined] BOMBER COMMAND & NOTES OF SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES DURING 1941 – 1945 [/underlined]
[underlined] Churchill's Minute of 8 July 1940 about Bomber Command to Beaverbrook (Minister for Aircraft Production) [/underlined] – made [italics] after the fall of France and the retreat of the British Forces from Dunkirk, when Britain stood alone against the might of Germany under the control of Hitler. [/italics]
"But when I look round to see how we can win the war I see that there is only one sure path. We have no Continental army which can defeat the German military power. The blockade is broken and Hitler has Asia and probably Africa to draw from. Should he be repulsed here or not try invasion he will recoil eastward, and we have nothing to stop him. But there is one thing that will bring him back and bring him down, and that is an absolutely devasting, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland. We must be able to overwhelm them by this means, without which I do not see a way through."
A sustained air bombardment of Germany was therefore a major instrument of military policy, all the more appealing to the Nation as a whole because of the Blitz – As Churchill himself said, the almost universal cry was "Give it to them back!" (Extract from Most Secret War – R.V. Jones)
With regard to the Blitz, I personally experienced before I joined Aircrew in August 1941, seventy-eight consecutive nights when the German Bombers flew up the Thames and bombed London (East London had extensive damage and suffered many thousands of civilian casualties).
One of the last of these raids, and also the worst, occurred on 29 December 1940 when 300 tons of bombs (mostly incendiary bombs) were dropped on the City and surrounding area. The whole area was a mass of flames. (There is a famous photograph of St. Paul's in sharp relief against a skyline of fire). I walked through the devastated area the next morning on my way to Unilever House (my place of work before I joined the RAFVR).
On 29 December 1943 [underlined] exactly three years later to the night [/underlined], I 'gave it to them back!' I flew as navigator, in a Halifax Bomber as one of a force of over 700 Bombers to Berlin. It was the fifth heaviest raid ever made against Berlin and over 2300 tons of incendiaries and bombs were dropped in about twenty minutes!
[underlined] When Britain stood alone [/underlined]
After Dunkirk in 1940 there was no hope of bringing the war [underlined] to Germany [/underlined] on land until the success of the Second Front in 1944 and the Invasion of Germany in 1945. For the first three and a half years only one force, [underlined] Bomber Command [/underlined] was able to do so from the Air, and keep the torch of freedom burning for Britain and occupied Europe.
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For the rest of the war Bomber Command was joined by the American Airforce who supported the air war with a substantial heavy bomber force operating in daytime from East Anglia.
[underlined] 1943 – The growth point for Bomber Command [/underlined]
By 1943 Bomber Command, now under the direction of Air Chief Marshall Arthur Harris, had grown into a powerful heavy bomber force. A famous biblical quotation used by Arthur Harris about Germany's earlier bombing of British cities, summed up the future for Germany's industrial heartland – "they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind".
Bomber Command was able to sustain some 700 to 1000 aircraft, which could deliver in excess of 2000 tons of bombs on a target in one bombing raid. It flew at night throughout the year at relatively high altitudes; and in all weathers. It also used the long winter nights to penetrate deep into Germany to reach their industrial cities. Flying at over 10000ft required crew to wear oxygen masks and at 20000ft., temperatures could be minus 40 degrees centigrade! The sole heating for the crews would be from movable flexible pipes from the engines, or for the air gunners, electrically heated suits. Only fog, snow and ice around their base airfields and perhaps a full moon, would hold the squadrons back from operational flying.
Bomber Command flew in a concentrated stream and bombed targets in a matter of 20 minutes or so. Techniques were developed to smother the ground-to-air radar defences by all aircraft dropping metalised strips ('window') en route and over the target. The mass of strips obliterated the German radar responses from the bombers, so that the ground defences were unable to direct nightfighters or ack-ack to their quarry. Ground control of the nightfighters was also broken by jamming their intercom frequencies. Bomber wireless operators would tune to the nightfighters' frequencies and transmit engine noise to drown out communication. Specially equipped squadrons flying in or near the bomber stream would carry out operations known as ABC (Airborne Cigar), which interfered with radar responses from nightfighters, causing confusion in ground control operations. These squadrons would also tune to the ground control frequencies and with the aid of German speaking specialists gave false directions to the German pilots. When the German defences resorted to broadcasting coded music over national broadcasting channels, to indicate to the nightfighters where the targets were, these were jammed by over-playing the broadcasts, very loudly, with previously recorded Hitler speeches!
The development of the Pathfinder Force and the introduction of more sophisticated radar aids, especially H2S, enabled Bomber Command to keep closely to prescribed routes and to locate targets more accurately. This was achieved by the Pathfinders dropping coloured sky or ground markers near turning points and directly on the target, the whole operation being directed by Master Bomber crews flying at the forefront of the main force. In addition, other radar techniques for guiding bombers and indicating the release point for bombs, known as Oboe and G – H, were very accurate methods for pinpointing targets, especially in areas like the Ruhr Valley. All these techniques helped to produce highly concentrated bombing results.
These successes however were not without heavy losses to Bomber Command * as the German ground control revised their procedures and the German nightfighter force expanded. The nightfighter force (especially squadrons equipped with twin
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engined aircraft) became more freelance and extremely skilled due to the re-equipment of their aircraft with cannon firepower and radar air interception and homing techniques.
Bomber Command took a major part in destroying much of German's industrial base. It also caused the German ground defence forces to divert, in 1943-45, a huge number of men (almost 900,000) and all types of artillery (56,500) from the Western and Eastern Fronts to defend the skies over German cities, especially Berlin and cities in the Ruhr Valley. Additionally 1,200,000 civilians were employed in civil defence and in repair work.
Bomber Command delayed the use of the V weapons in 1944 by many months, and saved thousands of lives and possible destruction of much of London, especially the eastern areas of Greater London.
It was responsible, along with the American Airforce, for destroying in 1944-45 much of the armament, transport, radar and communications infrastructure in occupied Europe and Germany. Additionally the German oil refining industry was destroyed. These successes eventually grounded the German Airforce, paralysed the German Army, and advanced their surrender.
[underlined] *Bomber Command suffered very heavy losses [/underlined]
From 1939 – 1945 Bomber Command suffered some 60% casualties; a number greater than any other British and Commonwealth Force during the Second World War (only exceeded by the German U-Boat Force who suffered some 70% casualties).
Out of a force of 125000 Aircrew:
* 56000 were killed (equivalent to almost one fifth of all the deaths sustained by the British and Commonwealth forces for World War 2, and equal to all the Officer deaths on the Western Front – Vimy Ridge, the Somme, Passchendaele, Ypres etc during World War 1).
* 9000 were injured or wounded.
* 11000 were POWs or were missing.
In the peak times of 1943 and 1944 less than 10 crews in a 100 crews would survive their first tour of 30 operations. The Halifax and Lancaster Bomber would have an average life of 40 operational hours – about 5 or 6 missions.
The worst month of the war for aircraft losses was January 1944 when 633 aircraft were lost out of 6278 sorties – just over 10%.
This was also the month I was shot down over Berlin on my tenth operation, when my Squadron (102) lost 7 out of 15 aircraft – a loss of 47% (a loss of aircraft in percentage terms greater than that suffered by 617 Squadron on the Dam Busters Raid). The following night my Squadron lost a further 4 aircraft out of 16 on a mission to Magdeburg, Germany. Shortly after these disastrous losses, the Squadron was withdrawn from operations over Germany until they were re-equipped with the improved aircraft, the Halifax MK 3.
The worst single operation of the war was in March 1944, when 94 aircraft were lost on the Nurnberg raid with 14 more aircraft crashing on return to UK. On this raid more aircrew in Bomber Command were killed, than were killed in Fighter Command for the whole of the Battle of Britain.
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4
[underlined] Battle of Berlin [/underlined]
There were 16 raids during the Battle of Berlin from the end of 1943 to early 1944. In this time some 500 aircraft were lost on the Berlin raids. Over 3500 aircrew were lost, of which some 80% were killed! More than 2000 of them lie buried in the British War Graves Cemetery in West Berlin – two of my crew are buried there, two others who have no known graves are remembered on the RAF War Memorial at Runnymede.
[underlined] Bomber Command was heavily criticised for the destruction of Dresden and Chemnitz in February 1945 [/underlined]
Dresden and Chemnitz were regarded as non-military targets. Dresden in particular was a cultural and arts centre since medieval times. They were also great fire risks because of their wooden architecture.
As the Russian Forces on the Eastern Front entered East Germany in 1945, Stalin requested to Allied Command that Leipzig, Chemnitz and Dresden be bombed [underlined] as these cities were strategic railheads for moving German troops to the Eastern Front. [/underlined]
At that time I was a POW at Stalag IVB (Muhlberg on Elbe) and I was being moved to Oflag VIIB (Eichstat, Bavaria) with four other POW's. The route took us through Chemnitz station and we spent the best part of a day waiting with our German guards on the station for a connection to go south to Bavaria. [underlined] During this time we witnessed several German Panzer troop trains en route for the Eastern Front pass through the station. [/underlined] The date was 2 February 1945 just 10 days before Chemnitz and Dresden were bombed. I understand since, that the information about the date of these troop movements was not known at the time; otherwise the Allied Command might have taken action earlier.
Nevertheless Stalin was right, they were strategic railheads, and we (POW's) were [underlined] in the unique position of being the only Allied witnesses to see it. [/underlined] (I have a reference to this event in my wartime log entered whilst I was still a POW in Oflag VIIB).
The bombing was shared by Bomber Command and the American Airforce. The towns were burnt out and the casualties were very high indeed.
Personally I refute the charge, having seen the Panzer troop trains passing through Chemnitz, that these were open cities, wilfully destroyed. The Allied Airforces carried out what they were ordered to do – to aid the Russian Forces in what was total war in those days.
These charges of wanton destruction were, after the war, levelled at Air Chief Marshall Arthur Harris (who was denied a Peerage), and Bomber Command by the post war Labour Government. The accusations have been made ever since by all and sundry. They choose to forget that some 60,000 British civilians were killed as a result of German Airforce bombing and use of V weapons, on London and other Cities.
As a result campaign medals were not awarded to Bomber Command.
Arthur Harris said "Every butcher, baker, and candlestick maker, within two hundred miles of the Front got a campaign medal, but not Bomber Command".
When one reflects on the contribution that Bomber Command (a front line force without doubt) made to the success of World War 2; and the casualties and the
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stress the aircrew (mostly in their early 20's) suffered in achieving it, it is a travesty of justice to level the accusation of wanton destruction. Fortunately, with more thorough research, especially involving veterans of Bomber Command, the books of recent years have put the records straight.
[underlined] Summary of my aircrew training days [/underlined]
I joined the RAFVR in August 1941, wore a white flash in my forage cap to indicate aircrew; and after a long wait at St John's Wood, London, I was posted to Initial Training Wing Torquay, Devon.
Here I learnt the rudiments of subjects such as meteorology, air navigation, aircraft recognition, wireless telegraphy etc, alongside some square bashing and clay pigeon shooting.
I was promoted from AC2 to LAC and posted to Marshalls Airfield, Cambridge for a flying test. I flew with an instructor in a Tiger Moth for about eight hours and passed the initial experience requirement necessary to join the Arnold Training Scheme in the USA.
After some Christmas leave and a short stay at Heaton Park, Manchester, I joined the troopship 'Montcalm' at Gourock, on the Clyde, bound for Halifax, Canada. We were accompanied by another troopship the 'Vollendam' and we were supposed to have had a destroyer as escort for the crossing. Unfortunately the destroyer had to return to base. (It was a World War 1 American destroyer, one of fifty given to Britain in exchange for the use of Bermuda I believe, and it could not cope with the bad weather we were experiencing).
Luckily our two weeks crossing in January 1942 was uneventful although half a dozen ships were sunk in the same area of the Atlantic as ourselves. At this time in the war as many as 60 ships a week were sunk by German U boats in the North Atlantic.
From Halifax we were the first RAF aircrew trainees to travel to the USA in uniform. America had become our Ally just a few weeks before, (after the infamy of the Japanese who had bombed Pearl Harbour, on 7 December 1941, without formal declaration of war, sinking much of the Pacific fleet).
After suffering the privations in Britain – bombing, blackout, blockade, rationing of virtually everything, and the military setbacks such as experienced in Norway, France and the Middle East, America was no doubt the land of milk and honey.
We travelled to 'Turner Field' in Albany, Georgia for a month's acclimatisation, during which time I celebrated my 19th birthday. It was a base for the American Army Aircorps cadets.
Here we were given Army Aircorps clothing and were to be treated like the cadets to all their style of intake training such as:-
– drilling and physical training (callisthenics at 6 o'clock in the morning)
– being given literature on expected behaviour and etiquette!
– marching behind a brass band, playing Army Aircorps music, to all meals and to Retreat (lowering of the American Flag in the evening).
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Having endured basic rations in Britain for a considerable time, every meal at 'Turner Field' was a feast, and as cadets, we were waited on hand and foot by coloured waiters (at this time in the South, coloured people were not considered equal to whites; they were required to sit in the back of buses and in separate parts of the cinema etc and were treated generally as second class citizens). Back in Britain you had to queue up for your meals, get all your meal on one plate, take your own cutlery (in your gas mask case) and wash it up afterwards in a tank of tepid greasy water.
After a month I was posted to Lakeland, Florida (in March 1942) to a Civilian Flying School for Primary Flying Training.
Here I had a very pleasant time indeed. I went solo in a 'Stearman' biplane after the Instructor had 'buzzed off' a herd of cows from the auxillary [sic] landing field by diving at them! I had 40 hours solo, much of which was aerobatics – stalls, spins, loops etc. The flying was over lakes and orange groves in the Florida sunshine. As English Cadets we had much hospitality with local American families and their daughters!
After completion of the Course, we had a few days leave, and a colleague and I hitched a lift to West Palm Beach. We booked into an hotel, but within a short while we were invited to stay with an American lady (Mrs Hubbard), who turned out to be the daughter of Rockefeller (a multi-millionaire and philanthropist). She had an English lady staying with her (who had a son in the RAF) and between them they looked after us for the next two days, like two long lost sons. Her home could have been in Hollywood; it had a beautiful swimming pool within a magnificant [sic] Italian styled garden, with an arcaded drinks bar at one end.
My greatest memory of this occasion, was to meet – and be photographed with – one of the few surviving Fleet Air Arm pilots, who in the previous year had torpedoed the pocket battleship 'Bismark', damaged its rudder, and enabled the British Fleet to sink it in the English Channel. He was touring America as a hero and had been invited to Mrs Hubbard's home. (The sinking of the Bismark was a great British victory, it having sunk the battleship 'Hood', with the loss of nearly 1500 lives.)
After this short break (at the end of April 1942) we were posted to an Army Aircorps Flying School in Georgia for Intermediate Training. Here I started a course of flying on a basic trainer with an Army Instructor. After a number of flying lessons I was unable to convince my Instructor I was safe to go solo on this plane and that was the end of my pilot training. (The US Army Aircorps had a policy of failing a high proportion of cadets and I was one of them; had I been trained in an RAF Flying School in the States the story might have been different). I was disheartened at the time but took the view that I could have killed myself, as one of my friends did shortly afterwards!
I took the train back to Canada (in June 1942) to the RCAF Camp at Trenton, Ontario, and after some interviews and an exam I remustered to U/T Navigator. This transfer did at least give me a chance to see some more of Canada, and I was able to visit Lake Ontario, Toronto and Niagara Falls before I moved on.
A party of us were moved westward for a day or so by train, through impressive Canadian countryside with pine forests and rivers solid with floating logs. The train was pulled by an enormous steam engine, snorting its way through this majestic
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scenery with hardly a sign of civilisation anywhere. We stopped eventually at Brandon, Manitoba, where we stayed awaiting a posting to an Air Navigation School. Whilst at Brandon I managed to spend a weekend at Clear Lake about 60 miles north. It was a beautiful lake surrounded by pine forests (with log cabins, a restaurant, a central hall), where swimming, fishing, and rowing facilities were available. In the evening dances were held in the hall and a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman was in attendance – it was just like a picture post card! At the dance I met a girl who lived in Winnipeg, who I was able to see again on a number of occasions, as I was posted to the Winnipeg Air Navigation School about a week later (August 1942).
Winnipeg Air Navigation School services were run by civilians, with the teaching of all the subjects by the RCAF.
Winnipeg was situated in the vast grain growing area of Manitoba which was as flat as a pancake – when flying at a few thousand feet you had an unrestricted view to the horizon. The towns, marked by grain elevators and water towers (with the town's name painted on the side), were spaced along the railway line, with other towns scattered in the countryside. All were visible on any cross country route, thus it was impossible to get lost during navigational exercises, even at night, as there was no blackout in Canada!
It was a pleasant, comfortable three months training, spending about half our time in the class room and half on air exercises. We flew in ancient Anson aircraft with civilian pilots, and apart from our air exercises we had to wind up the wheels on take off and down on landing!
The main things I can remember were: the crash of a light aircraft only a few yards away, and the raging fire that ensued that made it impossible to rescue the pilot; the freezing nights practising astro sextant shots. And the more pleasant activitity [sic] of eating Christmas-like turkey dinners every Sunday, and going to dances in Winnipeg, with my friend whom I had met at Clear Lake, Brandon, at weekends. I was awarded my Navigator's Wing on 20 November 1942 and was promoted to Sergeant (I was just a few marks short of getting a Commission).
A few days later we were all on the long train journey back to Moncton, Halifax, breaking our journey for a memorable stopover in Montreal. We returned to England on the luxury liner the Queen Elizabeth, which had been converted into a troopship. We had two meals a day, there were 17 bunks to a state cabin, and we travelled without escort taking only four days to cross the North Atlantic. We were home on leave for Christmas – just one year had elapsed since I was on embarkation leave for my training in North America.
The beginning of 1943 brought about a glut of trained aircrew from the North American and Commonwealth Training Schools.
As a result many hundreds of us were held in holding centres in Harrogate and Bournemouth to await postings. To fill in the time I was posted with others to an RAF Regiment Training Course at Whitley Bay on the coast near Newcastle in the freezing weather of February 1943.
It was not until late April 1943 that we took up flying again, when a party of us were posted to the RAF Air Navigation School at Jurby, at the northern end of the Isle of Man.
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For the next three weeks, still flying in Ansons, I brushed up my navigation (not having flown for five months) with day and night cross country exercises around the Irish Sea, the east coast of Northern Ireland and the west coast of Britain. The weather was quite cool and we even experienced snow in the first two weeks of May. On free days we would take the small 'toast rack' railway from Jurby to Douglas (capital of the Isle of Man) for a day out – it was very quiet in wartime. The only feature I can remember was that all the hotels along the sea front were wired off, as they housed many of the aliens that had been interned for the duration of the war.
On the completion of the course we had some leave and I was posted to the RAF Operational Training Unit at Kinloss, Scotland, on the Moray Firth. I was now set for 'crewing up' in Bomber Command and getting nearer to operational flying.
I arrived at Kinloss in the first week in June. The weather was marvellous and stayed like it for the six weeks we were there. For part of the time a party of us were housed in a large mansion-like property (just for sleeping purposes) and each of us was given a bike to get to and from the airfield. The countryside was beautiful and with the consistent fine weather and the birds singing in the trees and hedgerows, cycling was an added pleasure. It was so peaceful the war seemed very far away indeed. RAF Kinloss was equipped with Whitley Bombers (withdrawn from operational flying in 1942) and were known as 'flying coffins' as they were very sluggish responding to the flying controls – a major defect we were to discover when flying in formation over Elgin (to celebrate a special occasion).
After a few days we were crewed up and our crew consisted of:-
F/O S.R. Vivian – Pilot – 'Viv'
F/Sgt R.C. Wilson – Navigator – 'Reg'
F/O L.A. Underwood – Bombaimer – 'Laurie'
Sgt W. Ross – W/OP AG – 'Bill'
Sgt J. Bushell – Rear AG – 'John'
During the ensuing six weeks we had day and night flying fairly frequently, carrying out exercises such as cross country and formation flying, airfiring, fighter affiliation and bombing practice.
We had some ground work also. I can remember being introduced to the Distant Reading Compass, located near the tail of the aircraft away from magnetic influences. It was a giro-controlled compass, very stable (which could be adjusted by the navigator for the earth's magnetic variation to give true north readings), with electric repeaters for the pilot, navigator and bomb aimer.
I can also remember flying at night, trying to practise astro-navigation, with the sky being barely dark. In the north of Scotland in mid-summer at a height of 10000 ft the sun's glow was present on the horizon most of the night. In this light the Grampian mountains and the Highlands below looked very gaunt and awesome indeed.
At the end of our training our crew had become great friends. We spent time together at Findhorn Bay (on the Moray Firth) on some afternoons, and in the pub in Forres town on some Saturdays. And once in the Mess all one weekend, when we were confined to the Station by the C.O. because we landed in error at RAF Lossiemouth (an adjacent airfield on the Moray Firth) instead of Kinloss! But we drank a lot of beer that weekend!
We left Kinloss for some leave towards the end of July, never to see 'Viv' our pilot again. Little did we know that 'Viv' would be killed in three weeks (just a few days
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after getting married on leave). This was before we even reached RAF Rufforth in Yorkshire, our Conversion Unit for Halifax Heavy Bombers.
We arrived at RAF Rufforth in the middle of August to find that 'Viv' had been reported missing on 10 August 1941 flying as second pilot on a raid to Nurnburg. (I have learned since that the aircraft crashed near Ramsen/Bollanden, Germany. Six were killed including 'Viv' and two became POWs).
All pilots, as captains of their aircraft, had to have two operational flights – 'second dickey trips' – before they could fly their own crews on operations. 'Viv' was on the second of his flights.
We were now a headless crew, awaiting the appointment of another pilot.
From now on it would be apparent that our lives in Bomber Command were becoming a lottery. There was no way we could tell, even at a Conversion Unit before Operations, whether from day to day we would live or die.
During our short stay at Rufforth, about 60 aircrew were killed due to mechanical failure or accidents. Among other accidents, I can remember that two aircraft collided in mid-air, another crashed when a propellor flew off into the fuselage, and a further aircraft crashed at night on a practice bombing raid exercise.
After a few days F/L PGA Harvey was appointed as our pilot, Sgt A McCarroll as our mid/upper gunner (formerly the drummer in Maurice Winnick's dance band – well known on BBC radio pre-war) and Sgt J McArdle as our flight engineer. This completed the crew for our 4 engined bomber, i.e. the Halifax.
F/L Harvey was an experienced pilot having two operational tours in the Middle East in 1941 on Wellington Bombers. It was a mystery to us why he was taking on another tour. Flying on operations deep inside Germany in 1943 was another dimension for him, (with cities heavily defended by ack-ack and night fighters armed with cannon and equipped with radar homing devices), to what he had experienced in the Middle East in 1941. Especially as many of his sorties (whilst being in a war zone) had not been bombing missions.
As F/L Harvey was an experienced pilot, the minimum time was taken to crew up, get familiar with the Halifax, and take on the new disciplines of a flight engineer and a mid/upper gunner. For my part I had to learn how to use 'Gee', a radar device for measuring pulses from two transmitting stations displayed on a cathode ray tube, which were then plotted on a special gridded map, to give pinpoint accuracy of your ground position.
There were air exercises for bombing, airfiring and fighter affiliation. The latter was an exercise to remember (the date was 2 September 1943). For this exercise we flew at 10000ft and a fighter would 'attack' from behind. The two gunners would then cooperate with the pilot so that he could take evasive action. F/L Harvey in taking evasive action managed [underlined] to turn the aircraft on its back, [/underlined] and it was several thousand feet later before the aircraft was righted again. I had spun round in the nose of the 'plane, broken rivits [sic] were rattling around inside the fuselage, and the chemical Elsan toilet at the back of the aircraft had emptied its contents all over the rear of the plane. We were all shaken up by the experience, especially as F/L Harvey had [underlined] 390 operational flying hours to his credit [/underlined] and we did not expect him to lose control. However some good came out of it, in that John the rear gunner decided that from then on he would store his parachute in his gun turret, rather than in the fuselage as required by regulations – this action would later save his life!
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I also decided I would be prepared and have a routine to cover baling out and I learnt the following procedure:-
'Helmet off' – You could break your neck with the helmet still attached to the oxygen supply and intercom!
'Parachute on' – You could jump out without it!
'Handle on the left hand side' – I was left handed (aircrew have been killed with an un-opened parachute with the handle – D ring – on the 'wrong' side!).
In addition (as navigator) I decided that over the target I had a minute or so to spare, so I could fold back my seat, lift up the navigation table clear of the escape hatch and be ready to bale out immediately if necessary. I believe these plans gave me and Laurie (bomb aimer) additional vital seconds, and with the action John took, the three of us saved our lives nearly five months later.
In a week or so we were posted to 102 Squadron to commence our operational service.
[underlined] 102 Squadron 4 Group Bomber Command – Pocklington Yorkshire [/underlined]
Pocklington airfield was situated 12 miles south-east of York, with 800ft hills 3.5 miles NE of the airfield. (Whilst I was there two Halifaxes with heavy bomb loads crashed into these hills after takeoff – that particular runway was not used after that.) It was a wartime airfield with only temporary accommodation, thus all our billets were in Nissen Huts. They had semi-circular corrugated iron roofs and walls, with concrete ends and were dispersed in fields nearby. They were dreary inhospitable places in winter, each heated only by a small central coal burning stove.
Where possible, when not on duty, we sought refuge and relaxation in the 'comfort' of the Sergeants' Mess or in the pubs (i.e. Betty's Bar) or dance halls (i.e. DeGrey Rooms) in the city of York.
Pocklington had three affiliated aifields [sic] – Elvington, Full Sutton and Melbourne. All the airfields were commanded by Air Commodore 'Gus' Walker, at that time the youngest Air Commodore at age 31 in the RAF. He had lost his right arm when a Lancaster exploded on the ground at the airfield he commanded, Syerston, in 1942.
We arrived at Pocklington in mid-September 1943. F/L Harvey was promoted to Acting Squadron Leader in charge of 'A' Flight and we became his crew, which meant we would not fly as frequently on operations as other crews. (This was considered to be a mixed blessing as a tour – 30 operations – would take longer.)
Over the next two weeks we completed a number of cross country exercises, mostly for me to practise my navigation with new equipment. At Rufforth I had 'Gee' radar which enabled me to plot accurate ground positions essential for calculating wind velocities – the basis of all air navigation. Unfortunately the Germans were able to jam this equipment, so that as an aircraft approached the coastline of Continental Europe, the radar pulses were obliterated. Thus the navigator had a race against time to get as much data as possible before we reached the 'Enemy Coast'.
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At Pocklington we had a very new piece of radar equipment called 'H2S' (height to surface). Located in the aircraft it sent out pulses to the ground around the aircraft for 15/20 miles. Reflections were received back as bright specks on a cathode ray tube. The density of the reflections depended on whether the aircraft was flying over sea, land, hills, rivers, cities, lakes etc thus a rough topographical map of the ground (the quality of the picture varied) was displayed on the cathode ray screen.
Best map results were between land and sea, but provided the navigator was reasonably aware of his ground position, he could recognise coastlines, large rivers and lakes, and sizable towns, to and from the target. Thus he could plot accurately the bearing and distance from these land marks, and be able to recalculate wind/velocities maintain required tracks, ground speeds and times to the target. For some more experienced navigators, they would have the ability to blind bomb, without the need to use the markers dropped by Pathfinders (who incidentally also used H2S equipment).
H2S could not be jammed, but nightfighters could 'home on' to the H2S frequency if it was continuously switched on (a hazard not known to aircrews for some time after the system was in operation!). Some aircraft were shot down this way. Another new piece of equipment called the 'airplot indicator' was available to the navigator. This linked the giro compass and airspeed indicator to provide a continuous read out of the air position in latitude and longitude. It was a useful guide to have available, but no navigator would rely on it entirely and give up his own airplot drawn on his own navigational chart.
We also had a hand held 'I.C.A.N. computer', a manually operated vectoring device on which we could plot a course and calculate the airspeed (to make good our desired track and ground speed), before we added this information to our main chart. Two other navigational aids we had used in training were radio bearings taken by the wireless operator and our own astro sight shots. The astro shots were converted to position lines by use of air almanacs. Both these methods were not practical when operating over 'enemy territory'. Even more so when considering that operational aircraft were faster, and the need at any moment to take evasive action (because of flak or nightfighters) would make these methods inoperable.
There were times when navigational aids were not available to us and map-reading over cloud or at night, especially at high altitude, was not possible. Then fall back on 'dead reckoning' methods was necessary. This required accurate plotting of the air position and the use of wind velocities supplied by the Meterology [sic] Officer, or use of those already calculated by the navigator en route. In both these cases they would need to be modified to cater for forecast weather and wind velocity changes and any alterations in altitude during the flight.
Preparing for a bombing mission on an operational squadron was quite a lengthy procedure, occupying a good a [sic] part of the day prior to the night's operation. About mid-morning 'Ops On' would be announced if there was to be a raid that night. Soon the ground crew were busy checking each aircraft's radar, guns, engines etc and filling the wing tanks with over 2000 gallons of fuel. Armourers would load the guns with ammunition and bring up and mount a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs in the bomb bays for that night's target. (The bombs were stored in a remote part of the airfield for safety, behind blast walls. They would be fused for the target and towed on long low trolleys, by tractor, to the aircraft dispersal points.) Although the target was not disclosed at this stage because of the strict security rules, ground
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crews would have a good idea from the amount of fuel loaded and the type of bomb load, as to where the target would be.
About the same time as the ground crew activities, aircrew would be briefed by their respective leaders. There would be a leader for each discipline e.g. pilots, navigators, bomb aimers etc. The navigator would be one of the busiest; the navigation leader would issue them with flight plans and meteorological information (they would be the first to know the target). They would then plot the route on their chart and smaller topographical maps highlighting towns, lakes and rivers near to their track. Initial courses and airspeeds would be calculated from the wind velocities supplied (these would be modified as more information was gained from 'Gee' and 'H2S' during the flight). It was essential that they kept to their prescribed altitudes, tracks and time table, to maintain concentration of the bomber stream and their time slot over the target (no more than three minutes long).
The aircrew would then go to the Mess, have their operational meal of eggs and bacon (civilians were lucky to get one egg a month!), and fill their thermos flasks with coffee. They would also draw their flying rations of chocolate and orange juice to sustain them during the long night. They would also have available caffeine tablets to keep them alert.
The squadron briefing would follow when all aircrew operational that night (about 150 personnel) were assembled in front of a large wall map of Europe, showing the route and the target. If it was the 'Big City' (Berlin) a gasp would go round the hut, as it was considered to be the most dangerous target of them all. The briefing was carried out by the Squadron Commander, the Intelligence officer, the Meteorology officer and any other specialist whose views were pertinent to that night's raid. The briefing would cover overall details of the operation such as:
– size of the bombing force and the objective of any diversionary raids taking place.
– the weather en route and when returning to base; the forecast wind changes; the extent of cloud on route and over the target; icing risks at various altitudes.
– how the pathfinders would be marking the route and target.
– danger spots for flak and nightfighters.
Finally, all personnel, especially navigators, were asked to synchronise their watches (to the second) to GMT
After this the aircrew drew their Parachutes and Mae Wests, left any personal items in a bag to be picked up when they returned(!), and departed by truck to their dispersal points around the airfield.
At the dispersal point they had time to smoke a cigarette outside the aircraft (not frowned upon in those days), and then to check their equipment thoroughly before they took off. The airgunners checked their guns over the North Sea!
(At times they would get to this point of preparation and have to wait for clearance of fog. The 'Met' officer had guaranteed it would clear but mostly it did not, and the operation had to be abandoned!)
At last it was take-off time and they were directed by the Airfield Controller to the runway, where many of the groundcrew would wave them off into the gathering darkness. Then commenced the long ordeal (5-8 hours) of freezing cold and the heavy vibration and incessant roar of four Rolls Royce Merlin engines, in an unpressurised aircraft, until they returned (with luck unscathed) in the early hours the following morning. On return they went to the de-briefing hut where they were given hot coffee and a tot of rum dispensed by the Padre(!) Then followed by a debriefing
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by the Intelligence officer, who took notes about their bombing run and any details of flak and nightfighters they had experienced during the night. After an egg and bacon breakfast, they trekked back to their respective Nissen huts, crawled into bed and attempted to get some sleep if that was at all possible, and await the next call.
After ten days of cross country flights at Pocklington as S/L Harvey's crew and practising with 'Gee' and 'H2S' equipment, we were considered ready for our first operation. This was a mine-laying trip (described as 'Gardening and planting vegetables') to the coastal waters on the east side of Denmark. Mine-laying was regarded as a reasonably safe and easy task and ideally suited to be a first mission – this turned out not to be so!
On 2 October 1943 we took off, carrying in the bomb bay two mines and their parachutes. 117 aircraft took part mining various places from Lorient to Heligoland. We climbed on track across the North Sea to a height of 10000ft. About halfway across the North Sea, S/L Harvey asked Laurie to take over the controls whilst he visited the toilet at rear of the aircraft. Laurie as bomb aimer would have had some training to assist the pilot on take off but not to fly the 'plane. In fact Laurie had never sat in the pilot's seat of a Halifax before.
[underlined] Now Laurie was asked to fly the 'plane on his first operation and, even worse, as we approached the 'enemy coast'! [/underlined] S/L Harvey really must have had an urgent call of nature! If the rest of us had known at the time what a predicament he was putting Laurie in, then I think we would all have needed 'to go', as well! Luckily for everyone S/L Harvey was back in his place before we crossed the Danish coast.
On crossing the coast there was a loud bang which lifted the aircraft alarmingly, afterwards restoring to level flight. At this point both 'Gee' and 'H2S' went out of action, but we continued across Denmark to our dropping zone described as the 'Samso Belt', which we identified visually through broken cloud.
The bomb doors were opened and we made our dropping run at 8000ft. We then attempted to release the mines but they would not drop. Several attempts were made to release them manually but without success. S/L Harvey then decided to return to base with the mines and tried to close the bomb doors. These would not close. It was now evident that the hydraulic system had been damaged as well as the radar equipment, probably caused by a flak ship as we crossed the Danish coast earlier.
We reduced our height to 2000ft to get under the cloud base and some nasty electric storms across the North Sea; also to pick out a landfall as soon as possible, as I had only 'dead reckoning' means by which to navigate!
As we did not need oxygen at this height I decided to visit the Elsan toilet at the rear of the aircraft. Taking a torch I groped my way to the back in the darkness. I was just stepping over the main spar when by torchlight I noticed a gaping hole beneath me; had I completed the step I would have fallen 2000 ft. into the North Sea! I relieved myself through the hole! I returned to the nose section immediately to confirm to S/L Harvey that there was no doubt that we had been hit by flak. I then had a drink of coffee from my thermos flask to restore my shattered nerves.
It was now obvious the damage was more serious than we first thought. Loss of hydraulic power meant that not only were the bomb doors down, but when the flaps and wheels were lowered for landing, the bomb doors, flaps and wheels could not be
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raised again. If we were to overshoot the runway on landing, we would have crashed – with two mines still on board!
These thoughts kept us silent, with all eyes skinned for our landfall 'Flamborough Head' on the Yorkshire coast, and the sight of of [sic] the flashing pundit that would indicate the close proximity of our airfield.
Luckily my dead reckoning navigation brought us back home on course and we landed safely (otherwise these notes would not have been written).
On landing one of the mines fell out onto the runway. At our dispersal point the ground staff were amazed that we had survived as a crew without a scratch.
Both mines, their release mechanism, the bomb doors and the fuselage had been damaged by shrapnel, and the parachutes badly torn. The hydraulics were severed, the 'Gee' and 'H2S' also damaged. Above the flak hole we discovered the fuselage was peppered with shrapnel holes within inches of the mid-upper gunner's turret.
We were told originally that the aircraft would be written off, but I learned since that the aircraft was repaired. It carried out a number of missions, including targets such as Kassel and Berlin, but sadly was shot down by a nightfighter off Denmark in April 1944, again on a minelaying operation. All the crew died when the aircraft crashed into the sea. (This crew had saved their lives three months before, coincidentally on the night we were shot down, having baled out of a Halifax, short of petrol. Such was the fragility of life in Bomber Command at that time).
Reading the [underlined] Squadron's [/underlined] Operational Record after the war, I found S/L Harvey's statement on our minelaying mission to be totally inaccurate. There was no mention of flak damage and having to bring the mines back, though the [underlined] Pocklington Station [/underlined] Operations Record did report it accurately. I believe S/L Harvey wanted to have a successful tour of operations and a possible DFC award later on.
Having had a near miss with shrapnel close to his turret, Alec McCarroll the mid-upper gunner, decided to report sick before the next operation. In fact he never flew again, and sadly he was labelled LMF (Lack of Moral Fibre), reduced from Sergeant to AC2 and posted to Elvington (one or our affiliated airfields) to general duties. Such arbitrary action was taken by Commanding Officers as a deterrent to all aircrew.
At this time losses in aircrew were extremely high, so much so that one crew hardly knew another before one of them went missing (often becoming obvious by a number of empty beds in your Nissen Hut). Every operation to Germany, especially to places such as Berlin, was almost like 'going over the top'. A succession of such raids could bring on exhaustion and a fit of nerves to anyone. The threat of being branded LMF was made to prevent the possibility of some aircrew refusing to fly. In point of fact only about 0.4% of all aircrew in Bomber Command were branded like this during the war. Nevertheless some, who had as many as 20 operations before they came off flying, were cashiered or demoted with ignominy. For these, it was a great injustice, especially as there were many civilians of military age (in reserved occupations) who would never be exposed [to] such risks. And a large proportion of servicemen, in all Services, who fortunately would not have to face the high risk of death on [underlined] every [/underlined] operational mission.
As the minelaying mission was my first operation and because of the experiences I had on that flight, the Squadron Navigation Officer decided to check through my log
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and chart. He found both completely accurate and commended me on the results which he knew were made under testing conditions. Later he informed me that he was recommending me for a Commission. (Actually this was long overdue and should have been made at the time I qualified as a navigator).
Our next operation was on 4 October 1943 to Frankfurt. This was not a success as firstly S/L Harvey decided to weave all the way to Germany (not normally done unless there is some predicted flak or there are nightfighters about, as it doesn't aid good navigation!). Then without explanation he turned back to base, dropping our bombs into the North Sea on the way. (We had flown five hours out of about seven to complete the bombing operation and had been less than a 100 miles from the target.)
S/L Harvey reported in the Squadron Operations Record "Overload petrol pump U/S. Returned early". I had a feeling that S/L Harvey wasn't very happy that night after our minelaying experiences just two days before. It was frustrating for us, having got near the target, as this raid turned out to be the first serious blow on Frankfurt so far in the war.
Later the flight engineer went sick and as far as I can recall he did not fly again.
Our third operation was on 8 October 1943 to Hanover, when 504 aircraft took part. This mission went without mishap. No trouble on route, it was clear over the target, we bombed on red target indicators (Pathfinder markers) from 17200 ft, and fires were see [sic] to start. This raid was reported as the most successful attack on Hanover of the war. We began to think we were at last OK as a crew but this proved not so.
Apart from a cross country flight and an air test we did not fly any more operations in October. In fact we did not fly any more missions again with S/L Harvey(!) although 'officially' he remained the 'A' Flight Commander until the end of November 1943. Shortly after our third operation I was interviewed by Air Commodore 'Gus' Walker for my Commission. During that meeting he informed me that S/L Harvey was being withdrawn from operational flying, indicating that he had had enough. It did not really surprise me though, especially as Bomber Command had entered a phase when life was becoming very fragile indeed. What did surprise me however was to learn (only recently) that at the end of November 1943 when he relinquished command of 'A' Flight, S/L Harvey was recommended for a DFC. The award was described as "long overdue" for his tours in the Middle East in 1941 and his operations over Germany (one in June 1942 and two with us in October 1943, which included the 'returned early' operation). He was awarded the DFC on 28 December 1943.
Now we were a headless crew all over again, awaiting the posting of another pilot. In the meantime destined to fly as spares, replacing crew members in other crews who were sick or otherwise unable to fly. This was a very demoralising position to be in. As a crew you develop a team spirit and a trust in each other; without a crew you are just a floating part. You have little or no faith in the crew you are joining for that night, or for that matter neither are they likely to have any faith in you. Your life is in their hands and their lives are in yours!
I complained on one occasion to the Acting 'A' Flight Commander about flying as a spare. His reply was "You will probably just carry on like it, until one day you don't come back". Later I checked his career and luckily he survived his first tour and got a
[page break]
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DFC at the end of May 1944. I have often wondered whether [underlined] he [/underlined] survived the rest of the war!
Laurie Underwood, John Bushell and I (the wireless operator seemed to have disappeared), then flew as spares for the next five or so operations, which was one of the most potentially unnerving periods I can remember.
More than a month had elapsed since I flew on the Hanover operation, before my next mission on 11 November '43 minelaying off the Frisian Islands (near the Dutch coast). I flew with F/O Eddy and 45 aircraft took part. We dropped our mines from 6000ft and we lost one aircraft from our Squadron, shot down by a flak ship. The aircraft ditched in the North Sea. All the crew were missing presumed killed. This was the same aircraft that I flew with S/L Harvey when we went to Frankfurt and returned early on 4 October '43!
My fifth operation was on 18 November '43 to Mannheim/Ludwigshafen flying as a spare with P/O Jackson (Australian pilot) when 395 aircraft took part. It was a raid to divert German nightfighters away from the main force of bombers who were bombing Berlin. We bombed from 17000ft on the green target indicators – bombing was well concentrated. The diversion was successful in that the main force only suffered 2% losses, whereas our losses were high at 5.8%. 102 Squadron did not lose any aircraft that night.
I flew again as spare with F/O Jackson on 22 November '43 to the 'Big City' – Berlin – the most heavily defended city in Germany. 764 aircraft took part, dropping 2501 tons of incendiaries and high explosive in about 20 minutes. This was the second out of 16 raids described as the Battle of Berlin. For all raids the target was the centre of Berlin (Hitler's Chancery) and for each raid the City was approached from a different point of the compass. Unless Pathfinders directed otherwise, bombing on each raid would 'creep back' like a wedge from the target point; thus the whole city over the period of 16 raids would be covered by bombing.
This night our bombing run was from the west and we bombed at 18000ft on the centre of the flares (checked by H2S). A glow of fires were seen through 9/10 clouds. This raid was the third heaviest of the war on Berlin and it was also the most successful. Much damage was done to industrial areas and munitions factories, the Ministry of Weapons and Munitions and many political and administrative buildings. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was also badly damaged, and post war was part restored and became a Berlin tourist attraction. (I suppose it can be compared with Coventry Cathedral, which back in 1940 was ruined by the German Airforce when they devasted the City. And after the War, a new Cathedral was built alongside the ruins of the old.)
The equivalent of nearly three German Army Divisions were drafted in, to tackle the fires and clear the damage which extended from the centre to the western limits of the City. Luckily we experienced no nightfighter attacks or flak damage, and we narrowly missed an accident on return to Pocklington;
Whilst we were still on the outer circuit waiting to land, another Halifax from our Squadron flying on the same outer circuit as ourselves, had met head-on with a Halifax from 77 Squadron. It had been returning to our affiliate airfield at Full Sutton and was also on its outer circuit preparing to land. The two outer circuits unfortunately overlapped and as a result of the mid-air collision both crews were killed outright –
[page break]
17
we had missed that fate by a small margin! John Bushell (rear gunner in our crew also now flying as a spare) had the unenviable task of representing 102 Squadron at the funeral of one of those killed.
I continued my time as spare, flying with F/O Jackson (his navigator must have had a long time off for sickness or, for some other reason, was not flying). This time, 25 November '43, our target was Frankfurt and only 262 aircraft took part. The flight was uneventful, although the gunners had heated discussions about seeing nightfighters, until F/O Jackson, in his casual Australian voice, settled the argument by saying "If they've only got two engines, shoot the bastards down!". We bombed on the red target indicators from 17500ft. Some fires were seen, but it was cloudy over target and the bombing appeared to be scattered. Despite the small force of aircraft, 102 Squadron managed to lose 2 aircraft over Germany, keeping up its record for high losses.
We had hardly got to bed after debriefing from the Frankfurt raid in the early hours of 26 November, when the tannoys blared out for all aircrew to report to their sections to be briefed for another raid that night. We were supplied with caffeine tablets and given 'pink gins' to drink in the hopes that it would keep us 'on our toes' that night. I flew again with F/O Jackson with a small force of 178 aircraft to Stuttgart. This was a diversionary raid to draw off German nightfighters from the main force of bombers whose target was yet again Berlin. We bombed on the red target indicators from 17500ft. Large fires were seen and bombing was scattered but, as planned, a part of the German nightfighter force was drawn off from the main bomber force sucessfully [sic]. We lost one aircraft which crashed near Pocklington and one returned badly damaged by nightfighter (airgunner killed).
We were diverted to Hartford Bridge airfield in the south, so that the main force of Lancasters could use 4 Group airfields, as some of their airfields were fog bound. They were also short of petrol after an exceptionally long flight. Nevertheless 14 Lancasters crashed in England that night. We returned to Pocklington after a weekend in Hartford Bridge, on three engines after one engine failed on take off. This was my last flight with F/O Jackson, who incidently [sic] was previously awarded the DFM. He finished his tour and was awarded the DFC in June 1944 – perhaps I should have stayed with him rather than return to my original crew!
Before Laurie Underwood and John Bushell and I came together again as a crew, I had just one other experience when I was due to fly as a spare. Fortunately the pilot, prior to take off, taxied off the concrete dispersal point into the mud of the outfield and the flight had to be abandoned. Just as well, as I had premonitions about flying that night with this particular crew.
The month of December 1943 proved to be a month of non activity first there was a full moor, then the weather was poor. I was also waiting for a week's leave to get my officer's uniform (my promotion, although it had been approved had not yet been promulgated) and we were awaiting the names to complete our crew.
Eventually, besides Laurie, John and myself, we learned the additional names to the crew. They were:
Pilot – F/O G.A. Griffiths DFM 'Griff' – On his second tour
[page break]
18
Flight Engineer – Sgt J. Bremner ) all had previous ops. as spare crew
Wireless Op. – F/S E.A. Church ) all had previous ops. as spare crew
Mid/Upper Gr. – F/S C.G. Dupuies (French Canadian) ) all had previous ops. as spare crew
It seemed beyond belief that our new Flight Commander did not authorise any cross country 'runs' for us to gain crew experience, or to practise H2S, bombing and gunnery procedures, before we flew on operations together. However it was not to be, and on 29 December '43 we were scheduled on a main force operation to Berlin.
This was the eighth raid on Berlin and the fifth heaviest. 712 aircraft took part, and 2314 tons of incendiaries and high explosives were dropped in 20 minutes. It was an uneventful flight. I remember clearly seeing the outline of the Zuider Zee on the radar screen (H2S always at its best on coastal outlines) as we flew over Northern Holland. Bad weather restricted the German nighfighters [sic] to 66, but these were the more experienced crews with air interception and H2S homing radar and upward firng [sic] cannon. Fortunately, due to two spoof raids by RAF Mosquitos the nightfighters reached Berlin too late to be effective.
We flew into Berlin from the southeast and dropped our bombs from 17500ft on the target indicators but no results were seen owing to 10/10ths cloud. Aircraft losses that night were down to 2.8%, but 102 Squadron yet again managed to beat the average with two aircraft missing! In one of these aircraft Harold Paar, a Chigwell neighbour of mine, was shot down on his first operation. He became a POW in the same camp – Stalag IVB – indeed the same hut, as myself. (I discovered he was a neighbour when my son met Harold's son in the same class at the same grammar school some 20 years later.)
January 1944 began as another month of inactivity, again as a mixture of bad weather. Also a full moon period prevailed, and there was a reluctance to send Halifax 2's out to Berlin because of their increasing vulnerability. However another maximum effort to Berlin was ordered, so our second operation, as full crew again, was scheduled for Berlin on 20 January '44. In addition a second pilot Sgt K F Stanbridge (flying as a 2nd dickey pilot for operational experience) was also included in the crew.
For this operation I was responsible as one of four navigators operating H2S equipment in 4 Group (4 Group comprised of 15 squadrons totalling 250/300 aircraft), to radio at intervals my calculated wind velocities back to 4 Group. These wind velocities from the four navigators were to be averaged and rebroadcast to the whole of 4 Group for their use in maintaining concentration in the bomber stream. In addition I was to do my own blind bombing that night (not bombing on Pathfinder markers), using H2S to identify the homing point for a timed run into Berlin.
This bombing raid on 20 January '44 was to be the ninth raid and the fourth heaviest on Berlin; 769 aircraft took part and 2400 tons of incendiary and high explosive bombs were dropped in 20 minutes. This riad was considered to have been successful although less concentrated than planned. Due to bad weather again over Germany, the German nightfighters were limited to 98 experienced crews equipped with 'schrage musik' upward firing cannon, and radar interception and H2S homing devices. The nightfighters (all twin engined) were also operating a new procedure called 'tame boar', where they were directed by ground control into the bomber stream at intervals and over the target. From this point they could fly freelance and
[page break]
19
use their own equipment to locate bombers, fly beneath them out of sight of the bomber's gunners and fire cannon shells into their petrol laden wings. Additionally on this night, thin cloud covering Berlin with tops about 12000ft was illuminated from below by many searchlights, allowing the nightfighters flying above the bomber stream to locate them, silhouetted against this bright backcloth. Thus, despite the limitation of nightfighters, it was a highly successful night for them, as they claimed 33 victories (nine of them over Berlin) out of the 35 bombers lost.
We took off at 1630hrs GMT on 20 January 1944 in a Halifax nicknamed 'Old Flo' by the ground crew and were soon flying above 10/10ths cloud. Using Gee radar initially and then H2S to 'map read', we flew uninterrupted over a northerly route into Germany, turning southeast about 60 miles from Berlin. Berlin was a large city and there were too many stray reflections on the H2S screen to identify the target position. I was instructed personally at the navigators' briefing in Pocklington to identify a turning point, by taking a precise bearing and distance on my H2S screen, of a small town about 10 miles north of Berlin. This was the commencement of a timed bombing run to the target – Hitler's Chancery. We flew in straight and level at 18000ft, maintaining a pre-calculated track and groundspeed, and at the time set by stop watch we dropped our bombs (2000hrs GMT).
This bombing procedure made us a sitting target for the nightfighter expertise available that night, for we had hardly closed our bomb doors when we were hit by a nightfighter. He had trailed behind and below our aircraft, waiting for our bombs to be released, then fired cannon shells upwards into our starboard wing. With more than 1000 gallons of petrol still aboard it was only seconds before the whole wing was aflame.
I heard 'Griff' our pilot call out; "graveners, Engineer!". (These were switches to activate the engine fire extinguishers.) This was to no avail, and the blaze was so fierce 'Griff' realised the aircraft was stricken and immediately called out; "parachute, parachute, bale out!". I already had my parachute on, and my seat and navigator's table folded back clear of the escape hatch (a discipline I always carried out over a target). I lifted the escape hatch door and dropped it diagonally through the escape hatch, but it caught the slipstream and jammed half in and half out of the aircraft. With the combined efforts of myself, the wireless operator and Laurie, we managed to kick the hatch door clear. I sat on the edge of the escape hatch and dropped through immediately, followed closely by Laurie. The wireless operator had no time to follow us and was killed. I believe after Laurie dropped out, the blazing aircraft went out of control and into a spiral dive.
After baling out at 17000ft, I spun over a few times, then pulled the rip cord. The canopy opened and my harness tightened with a jerk around my crutch, which brought me to my senses in double quick time! Below me and to my left I could see another parachute; it might have been Laurie but I couldn't be sure (I didn't see him again until his wedding after the war!). I was over a layer of light cloud and could see the glow of fires beneath it, and coming up was plenty of heavy flak and tracer shells hosepiping around the sky – I prayed it wouldn't come too near!
I floated down for 10/15 minutes; somehow I didn't feel too cold although it would have been minus 34 centigrade when I jumped out! With a 60 mph northerly wind prevailing I soon drifted away from being near to the centre of the City. The deafening noise from the aircraft's engines, present during flight, had gone and now the sound
[page break]
20
of bursting flak had died away. Instead there was an uncanny silence and the blackness of the night, as I decended [sic]through cloud which covered the area. Nearing the ground I thought I was going to land in marshes and my hand was on the lever to inflate my 'Mae West' (lifejacket), but it turned out to be the tops of trees of a small wood in a southern suburb of Berlin. I crashed through these, falling the last 15 feet and finishing up with a grazed face and a sprained ankle. I think it was remarkable that this was the only injury I sustained throughout this ordeal.
In less than 20 minutes my life had gone through a dramatic change. I had survived death by a hair's breadth. I was elated at being alive, but what of my crew, were they alive or dead? What traumas will my family suffer when they are informed by telegram that I am missing tomorrow morning? A few hours before I was eating my eggs and bacon (only available before operational flights) in the mess at Pocklington, my aircrew colleagues were around me, the friendly town of York was only 12 miles away and home leave to get my officer's kit was imminent.
I was now in hostile Germany, probably in the south-east suburbs of Berlin. What would happen if I were caught by civilians, having just bombed their City? There was nobody here who would care if I lived or died. Germany was now in the depth of winter. I was in enemy territory 600 miles from home, with only some french francs, a handkerchief with a map of France printed on it, and a magnetic trouser button (with a white spot on it which, when cut off my flies and balanced on a pencil point, would point north!). And a tin of Horlicks tablets. Only these to sustain me, whilst I evaded capture and got back to England!
I was a still in my F/Sgt's uniform although Commissioned on 1 December 1943 and I was five days off my 21st. birthday.
About eight hours, later having disturbed a dog whilst trying to hide up in a barn, I was captured by the civilian police. From here to the end of the war will have to be another story.
Laurie 'blacked out' I believe during part of his parachute drop, but landed uninjured and was captured by the Military early the next day.
Out of our crew of eight, only four survived. The other two survivors, 'Griff' (pilot) and John Bushell (rear gunner), had most remarkable escapes from death!
After Laurie and I baled out and the aircraft had gone into a spiral dive, 'Griff' was thrown forward towards the controls. He was held in his seat by the 'G' of the spiral dive. He saw the altimeter unwind past 7000ft and wondered when his end would come, before going unconscious. I believe the petrol tanks of the blazing aircraft exploded and 'Griff' was blown out, regaining consciousness just in time to pull his ripcord a few hundred feet from the ground. His parachute was still on the swing when he thumped down amongst the debris of the aircraft on waste ground in Berlin! He was uninjured but in shock. He wrapped himself in his parachute and went to sleep under a bush nearby, where he was discovered the next morning by a party of civilians led by a soldier.
John was thrown over his guns when the aircraft went into the spiral dive and he lost consciousness. He also 'came to' in the air in similar circumstances to 'Griff' and opened his parachute near the ground, but landed close to a searchlight battery and was captured immediately. John had a bad cut over his right eye and bruised face but otherwise was OK.
[page break]
21
The four crew who were killed, strangely, were all those fairly new to us. The wireless operator and co-pilot were buried in the British War Cemetery in Berlin. When he was captured 'Griff' our pilot was asked by the German Military "Tell us the name of your wireless operator so that we can bury him with a name". The flight engineer and mid upper gunner were not found nor identified, and having no known graves are remembered only on the War Memorial at Runneymede.
It was very sad that the mid upper gunner, F/S C G Dupuies, had avoided flying to Berlin on his 13th operation by flying on a comparatively 'safe' mission instead; only to be killed on this raid to Berlin, his 14th operation. The lucky rabbit's foot he always carried with him was to no avail. I also regret that I had said to the wireless operator, F/S E.A. Church, before this operation, he shouldn't take milk from the Sergeant's Mess for his own use. I had not known that it was for his young wife living near Pocklington who had just had a baby.
After the war we survivors came to realise that 20 January 1944 was a night to remember. We learned through a German archivist that we had been shot down by an ace nightfighter pilot, Hptm L Fellerer, in a twin engined Messerschmitt Bf 110 G 4 nightfighter. He had 41 victories to his credit, had been awarded the Knights Cross and had shot down five aircraft including ourselves on the night of 20 January 1944! He became Gruppenkommandeur of the Nightfighter Group 11/NJG5 at Parchim near Berlin. After the war he became a high ranking officer in the Austrian Airforce but was killed in a Cessna flying accident in the 1970's.
The archivist also gave us a map of Berlin showing where our aircraft crashed, which was about seven miles southeast of Hitler's Chancery at Oberspree. This confirms that we were on target that night, as the crash point was on our track less than two minutes flying time from the release of our bombs.
20 January 1944 was also a significant date for 102 Squadron, as the following extract from the Squadron Operation Record summary on that date shows (microfilm held at the Public Records Office Kew):
"Weather foggy clearing later, Vis: mod to good. Wind s'ly 20 - 25 mph.
[underlined] 16 Aircraft detailed to attack Berlin on what proved to be probably the most disastrous operation embarked by the Squadron [/underlined] which suffered the loss of 5 crews missing (F/O Griffiths DFM, PO Dean, F/S Render, W/O Wilding, & F/S Compton)
Moreover two aircraft were lost in this country, F/O Hall short of petrol had to abandon his aircraft near Driffield, the whole crew baling out successfully. F/S Proctor crash landed near Norwich, the Airbomber F/O Turnbull unfortunately dying from his injuries. The rest of the crew suffered minor injuries as a result. [underlined] Thus no less than 7 of the 16 aircraft which took off were lost including 5 crews – fortunately, an exceptional night of misfortune & unlikely to be repeated. There was also one early return, [/underlined] F/O W.B. Dean, 'W'."
So this was the end of our time in Bomber Command. After re-forming as a crew again, we had done only two more operations making for me only 10 in all.
2 October 1943 – Minelaying (Denmark)
4 October 1943 – Frankfurt
8 October 1943 – Hanover
11 November 1943 – Minelaying (Frisian Islands)
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22
18 November 1943 – Ludwigshaven
22 November 1943 – Berlin
25 November 1943 – Frankfurt
26 November 1943 – Stuttgart
29 December 1943 – Berlin
20 January 1944 – Berlin
Nevertheless we will go down in the annals of 102 Squadron as being shot down on the night when the Squadron suffered the loss of 7 out of 15 operational aircraft, a 47% loss, [underlined] which was a loss greater than in any other operation in the Squadron's history in both world wars. [/underlined]
102 Squadron was not a lucky squadron; after the disastrous night of 20 January 1944, another 4 aircraft were lost on the following night's raid to Magdeburg.
Shortly after this, as the losses continued, the Squadron was ordered not to operate over Germany. Subsequently the Halifax 2's were withdrawn to be replaced by the Halifax 3's, which were equal to the Lancasters of that time in their operational efficiency.
(Unfortunately for our crew the new aircraft arrived too late for us, otherwise we might have had a better chance of survival and been able to complete at least one tour – 30 operations – and perhaps been able to enjoy freedom for the rest of the war).
[underlined] In World War 2, 102 Squadron suffered the highest losses in 4 Group Bomber Command (15 Squadrons), and the 3rd highest losses in the whole of Bomber Command (93 Squadrons). [/underlined]
January 2000
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Title
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Bomber Command and Notes of Some of My Experiences During 1941-1945
Description
An account of the resource
Reg summarises Bomber Command's role in the war then details his personal experiences from training days. He covers in detail the navigational techniques he used. He describes the operation he was on when he was shot down.
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Reg Wilson
Date
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2000-01
Spatial Coverage
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Germany--Berlin
Great Britain
England--London
France--Dunkerque
Germany--Magdeburg
England--Runnymede
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Chemnitz
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Mühlberg (Bad Liebenwerda)
Germany--Eichstätt
England--Torquay
England--Cambridge
England--Manchester
Scotland--Gourock
Canada
Nova Scotia--Halifax
United States
Georgia--Albany
Florida--Lakeland
Florida--West Palm Beach
Ontario--Trenton
Lake Ontario
Ontario--Toronto
Manitoba--Brandon
Manitoba--Winnipeg
New Brunswick--Moncton
England--Harrogate
England--Bournemouth
England--Whitley Bay
Great Britain Miscellaneous Island Dependencies--Douglas (Isle of Man)
Scotland--Elgin
Scotland--Findhorn
Scotland--Forres
Germany--Ramsen
England--York
France--Lorient
Germany--Helgoland
England--Flamborough Head
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Hannover
Germany--Mannheim
Germany--Ludwigshafen am Rhein
Germany--Stuttgart
Netherlands--IJssel Lake
England--Chigwell
England--Kew
England--Norwich
Europe--Frisian Islands
Florida
France
Georgia
Ontario
New Brunswick
Germany
Nova Scotia
Netherlands
North America--Niagara Falls
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Devon
England--Essex
England--Hampshire
England--Norfolk
England--Northumberland
England--Surrey
England--Yorkshire
England--Lancashire
England--Surrey
Manitoba
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
United States Army Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Format
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22 printed sheets
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BWilsonRCWilsonRCv1
Temporal Coverage
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1941
1942
1943
1944
1943-10-02
1943-10-03
1943-10-04
1943-10-08
1943-10-09
1943-11-11
1943-11-12
1943-11-18
1943-11-19
1943-11-22
1943-11-23
1943-11-25
1943-11-26
1943-11-27
1943-12-29
1943-12-30
1944-01-20
1944-01-21
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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
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Sue Smith
102 Squadron
4 Group
617 Squadron
77 Squadron
air gunner
Air Observers School
aircrew
Anson
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
Bismarck
bomb aimer
bomb trolley
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Medal
entertainment
Flying Training School
Gee
H2S
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Halifax Mk 3
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Initial Training Wing
killed in action
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Me 110
memorial
mid-air collision
military living conditions
military service conditions
mine laying
missing in action
navigator
Nissen hut
Oboe
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
pilot
prisoner of war
RAF Driffield
RAF Elvington
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Hartford Bridge
RAF Jurby
RAF Kinloss
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Melbourne
RAF Pocklington
RAF Rufforth
RAF Syerston
RAF Torquay
service vehicle
Stalin, Joseph (1878-1953)
Stearman
target indicator
Tiger Moth
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Wellington
Whitley
Window
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1152/11710/PThomasB1801.2.jpg
82be96ae0e60596cb5bf8fe52ba63251
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1152/11710/AThomasB180518.1.mp3
87dc5ef5d939040d4e26f5126d911f58
Dublin Core
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Title
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Thomas, Bessie
B Thomas
Bessie Shackley
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Bessie Thomas (b. 1942). She served in the Women's Auxilliary Air Force at RAF Snaith.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-14
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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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Thomas, B
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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RS: My name is Robb Scott. I am a volunteer for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m interviewing Mrs Bessie Thomas. It is the 14th of May 2018 and we’re at her home address in Consett. Also present is Bessie’s neighbour, Teresa Davidson. Bessie, I’d like to start by thanking you for agreeing to talk to me today. As you know this is going to be preserved on the International Bomber Command Centre’s website for future generations to hear your story.
BT: Yes.
RS: Are you happy for me to carry on?
BT: I am.
RS: Ok. Lovely. First of all Bessie I’d like you to tell me a little bit about your early life before you joined the WAAFs please.
BT: Well, I was, left school when I was fourteen and I went down to Consett Iron Company to be a typist working in the invoice, invoice department. And then when the war started of course I was still young. And then when I became about eighteen and Dunkirk came a problem I felt I’ve got to go and save my country. And so I went and joined up down at Durham and we got word to say from Innsworth that I’d been accepted and would be called. Called up shortly. However, I wanted to be a radar operator and it said that there were no vacancies at the time and so they would wait and call me up later. However, I still got word again to say would I like to do another job? And so I thought right clerk SD [laughs] hoping it wouldn’t be anything to do with typing and joined up for that. Then I got word to go down to Innsworth with my little piece of brown paper and string to wrap my civilian clothes up to send home and did my square bashing. As I was the tallest one in the group I was made marker on the parade ground. And I got my injections and then of course we were posted. And I got posted up to Snaith which was Bomber Command and they had Halifaxes on at the time when I was there. And so I didn’t know what sort of job I would be doing but we were just, there were three of us. One girl came from Durham, one girl came from Chester le Street and we did shifts. So you did all sorts of different jobs. One was typing on rice paper to do for the beacons. And of course sweets were on ration you know so I had a little nibble at the, at the rice paper [laughs] which was very nice. And then we did shifts at that I don’t know if I mentioned that bit about the shifts but we did these eight hour shifts. So we weren’t, all the three of us weren’t all at the same time. And then I got the Windows in parcels which I used to go on the cycle around the perimeter to all the planes and pop a pack in for the airmen to drop out over Germany to disturb the air raid op. So that was another one of the jobs. Then I worked the diascope and they were being briefed, the airmen were being briefed for taking off. And of course the maps for the weather, and the maps for where they were going to bomb. And then we used to hand out like a briefcase that they had the maps and things in and aids to escape. Which included maybe a pipe with directions in for them and a silk handkerchief which that after the war you found a lot of people had these silk handkerchiefs with the maps on and they were all saying, ‘They’re very rare, you know. Very secretive.’ And so I used to laugh at that one. However, then one time I was in flying control and chalking down of course the planes going out and then the sad thing of waiting for them coming back. And in York, Yorkshire the weather was usually, when they were coming back very misty so you had the flying control officers out on the balcony doing the flares to get them landed. And then there was one night and I hadn’t been you know there for very long. I was real, I don’t know what they used to call them in those days. Sprogs or something they used to say. And I was sitting on the desk and waiting to see. You know waiting for them coming back. The planes. And then this airman came in with lots of scrambled egg on his cap and so he was talking to the officers and that, and of course I should have jumped up to attention. But not knowing too, too much what went on in the forces at the time and he came to me and said, you know, ‘Are you alright?’ And, ‘Nice to see you.’ And I said, ‘Well, the thing is I have to walk such a long way from the WAAF campsite to the main airfield and I haven’t got a bike. I can’t get a bike.’ [laughs] So, so he said, ‘Oh, I see.’ So the next morning a bike arrived for me. So they told me, ‘Do you know that was Bomber Harris that was visiting all the bomber stations that night.’ [laughs] So, so that was really my time with Bomber Command. And then about, it would be about a month after that we were told we were made redundant so the three of us would think, you know, what can we do? So I said, ‘Well, I wanted radar in the first place. I’m going to apply again.’ So I tried for it and we were all posted down to Yatesbury to do the training for that. So we got trained to do, what to do and look at the, not like they do now with the modern radar. See the planes. All we saw were electrodes running across the screen. And we got sent up to Scotland first. And I was up in Fraserburgh there and just looking for aircraft either going or coming. I was on the enemy and you just had to guess really how many aircraft you thought it was before they got to the [laughs] And then after a while I got sent down to Suffolk. Went to High Street there. I was always on what they called chain high which was the ones that, other radars were on the coast for anything coming in from the sea or anything. They were plotting that or tracing that I should say. And while at High Street I managed to trace a flying bomb coming in. V-1. And it was coming. They were saying, ‘[Not that] plot Bessie,’ and they put straight for the station. I didn’t even think oh, you know it might drop on us. If the engine stopped we’d had it. However, it went past and fell in the field behind the station so we were alright. And then used to do an SOS. Anybody. Pilots coming down in the sea. Funnily enough at the end of the war when I was waiting to be demobbed I met up with an airman who became my husband in the end. He had been in air sea rescue and apparently these plots that I was getting for them out at sea he was going out to rescue them and he could find them. So strange world really. But a funny thing to say that I really was happy. Enjoyed my life in the forces and it brought me up because I was an only child and living in Consett it wasn’t very much going on for me as far as I was concerned. So I had a, really had a lovely time.
[recording paused]
BS: So, after the flying bombs the V-2s rockets started coming over which were really nasty ones because we, you know didn’t know where they would be landing at all. And so we had special equipment made overnight with the little radar screen. A very small one. Not like the one that we’d been looking at before for the planes. And we were only sat for about a quarter of an hour because you had your face right up to the screen. And if you saw a flash on the screen we’d shout, ‘High Street,’ and then there would be a film taken and that would be developed and sent off to headquarters I suppose. And we only knew that it had been launched but we didn’t know where it would land. And of course at the time a lot of them landed in London. A lot of damage done. It was terrible. And I always, I had an aunt living in London and if I had a day’s leave I used to pop down to see her and she would say, ‘You know, they’re not doing anything at all Bessie.’ And I used to say, ‘Oh, they’re sure to be.’ Because I knew what I was doing and I couldn’t tell her. And I said, ‘They’re sure to be. You know, they’re not going to let them get away with that.’ However, at any rate this went on and eventually they found out where they were launching them from so they were going to bomb them. And I believe, I didn’t know at the time but I found out afterwards and then the, of course it was on a trolley thing that they were being launching off I found out afterwards and they just used to move it around. That was why it was taking a while to find out where they were really. But that wasn’t very nice. I didn’t like those. Weren’t. You know, really destructive. So that was another thing that we did. Thinking about that one I don’t think and funnily enough a mechanic they were Canadians that did the looking after the screens and the equipment and the transmitters and the receivers and one of the sons of the, one Canadian that was there got in touch with me after the war. So I’m still in touch with the son. Wanted to know if I knew his father which I did. Only by sight. And I think really that’s all my memories and very nice ones in one way. Very sad for other things that we had to do with bombing and things.
[recording paused]
BT: I remember while at Snaith it was 150 Squadron with Halifaxes.
RS: Bessie, is there anything else you’d like to talk about or tell me before we stop this interview?
BT: No. I think I’ve told a lot [laughs] Everybody will be tired of me.
RS: Well, can I just thank you again for taking the time and trouble to talk to us about this. It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much.
BT: Right. Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Bessie Thomas
Creator
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Rob Scott
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2018-05-18
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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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AThomasB180518, PThomasB1801
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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00:15:28 audio recording
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eng
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Great Britain
England--Gloucestershire
England--Wiltshire
England--Yorkshire
Scotland--Aberdeenshire
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Sue Smith
Julie Williams
Description
An account of the resource
Bessie Thomas left school at the age of fourteen and worked at the Consett Iron Company working as a typist. At the age of eighteen at the time of Dunkirk she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force where she wanted to be a radio operator but there were no vacancies. She was posted to RAF Snaith as a clerk. Working eight hour shifts, one of the jobs she did was to cycle to the aircraft and drop off parcels of Window, and handing out the escape kits. Whilst on duty she mentioned to a senior officer that it was a long way from the WAAF camp to the main airfield, and that she hadn’t got a bicycle, and couldn’t get one. The next day a bicycle arrived for her. Later she was told that that officer was Arthur Harris who had visiting all the station. She applied to work in radar and was posted to Yatesbury for training. Whilst working at a radar station in Suffolk she traced a V1 flying bomb coming in straight towards the station, fortunately it fell into a field behind the station. When the V-2 rockets were being launched she could see the flash of the launch on her screen. When waiting for demob she met an airman who worked in air sea rescue who later became her husband.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
150 Squadron
ground personnel
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
love and romance
military service conditions
radar
RAF Fraserburgh
RAF High Street
RAF Innsworth
RAF Snaith
RAF Yatesbury
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Window
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/736/26310/BMealingMillsSChandlerCHv1.2.pdf
0bcb3430fba4788a681cd7e24e9f1043
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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Chandler, Cecil Harry
C H Chandler
Chick Chandler
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. An oral history interview with Cecil Chandler (1923 - 2020, 1608265 Royal Air Force) and three letters. He flew operations as a flight engineer with 15 and 622 Squadrons.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Cecil Chandler and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-02
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Chandler, CH
Transcribed document
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
1/
10th August 2009
Dear Mr. Chandler,
Rather later than planned, enclosed is the transcript of the recording made during our telephone conversations with additions from the information you sent me. May I ask you to read through it and note any changes you would like to make, no matter how big or small. It is probable that I’ve misheard something, so please don’t hesitate. I will then send you a corrected copy of the text.
I hope you won’t mind if I take this opportunity to ask another few questions that have cropped up in the course of typing your document.
1) At your first main briefing when the question of ‘window’ arose, who did you ask for an explanation?
2) At briefings more generally, were you told to set a height to fly at, or did you just try to gain as much height as possible?
3) On the Karlsruhe trip you were coned for 20 minutes, was that at the target?
5) Given your feelings of concern about operations, what gave you the strength to keep going back night after night, thereby overcoming your fears?
6) When you were flying operations did you feel they were worthwhile and you were achieving good results?
I would especially like to take this chance to thank you for your time. It has been a privilege and source of great interest to have the opportunity to talk to you. With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Sam Mealing-Mill
[Page break]
[Underlined] 2 [/underlined]
I was an apprentice to a very small engineering firm, on war work of course. It was a reserved occupation, the only way to get out of it was by joining aircrew. I got carried away and like most stupid young men at the time I volunteered for aircrew.
I joined the Air Training Corps, most young boys joined the Air Training Corps and everybody had visions of being a pilot, of course. You did all the training, Morse code, navigation and that sort of thing. Eventually you went off and did a test to see what trade you were suitable for. I went with 29 other people and all thirty of us were suitable to be flight engineers. Of course they wanted flight engineers very badly, basically we were flight engineers before we even did the test! Initially I was told in July 1942 – when I went to join up – I would do a two-year course in engineering. The course was actually reduced to six months, so my training was very skimpy indeed. That’s how I became a flight engineer, obviously I wanted to be a pilot like everybody else. I knew nothing about it, but that’s the way wartime works.
You went in as a direct entry flight engineer. We didn’t do Initial Training Wing or anything else. We joined the air force, did six weeks square bashing – sloping arms and that sort of thing – and from there straight to 4 School of Technical Training at St Athan, to start the engineer’s course.
St Athan was a huge camp. We slept in bunk beds, 30 toa room, so it wasn’t particularly good. You had breakfast and then your hut would march to the particular classroom of the day. We did lectures on theory of flight, a bit of navigation and found out the rudiments of how aircraft worked. You studied the particular engines you’d be working on, at the time it was Stirlings with Hercules engines. Then we did electrics, because the Stirling had all electric systems. During my apprenticeship I’d been working on a bench using files and that sort of thing, but I didn’t really find it a lot of use to me at all. I knew the rudiments of how engines worked. At Christmas and Easter the whole school stood down and we got leave. I was very grateful to go home and have some decent home cooking.
We had a test at the end of each week, but, looking back, I must confess I think you’d be hard pushed to fail it. Although I studied very hard in the evenings – as we all did - in peacetime my 60.1% wouldn’t have been anywhere near good enough. I was a bit of a sportsman at the time and, unfortunately, I got quite badly injured playing football. I missed quite a lot of the early morning lectures, because I was at Sick Bay getting my leg tended. Although my course was shorter than it should have been, I didn’t even do all of that. My training was very skimpy to put it mildly. Generally speaking had they not been terribly short of engineers, I would never have passed the engineer’s course, because I really was green at everything I sis. I was a very naïve young man indeed. There wasn’t a big passing out ceremony. You passed your course, got your brevet and striped and went on leave.
[Underlined] C.H. ‘Chick’ Chandler Flt Eng – XV & 622 Sqns [/underlined]
1
[Page break]
3
The other members of the crew started off at Operational Training Unit as a crew of five. The crew of five came to Heavy Conversion Unit, where they picked up a flight engineer and mid-upper gunner. We crewed up almost immediately, the names of the pilots and engineers were simply called out. I remember feeling very disappointed when the list was called out. Somebody had a squadron leader pilots and somebody else a flight lieutenant and when it came to me, I had a sergeant pilot. That was Oliver Brooks. At the time I didn’t realise that because he was a sergeant pilot, it didn’t necessarily mean he was a bad pilot. In fact he was a particularly good pilot, but I remember feeling dejected at the time, thinking, ‘Everybody else got these high ranking officers and I get a common sergeant!’ The whole crew of seven were all sergeants.
Oliver Brooks was a good bloke, easy to get along with. His hobby was boxing so he was quite a big, strong man. He could fly the aircraft extraordinarily well and he managed the aircraft very well. You’ll find it hard to believe, but he was a bit short sighted; he had to wear glasses. That was unusual. I had differences of opinion with him at the early stages.
My introduction to flying came when I met the crew and we got airborne. The pilot was flying a different type of aircraft so he had a screen (instructor). I was brand new to flying, so I needed a screen as well. The rest of the crew were doing their normal jobs. After just 90 minutes of circuits and bumps the two screens left us to carry on by ourselves. On the very first circuit the undercarriage would not come down: leave it all to the new flight engineer! Sadly, when I reached the offending equipment I found the obsolete Mark I undercarriage and I had been trained on the Mark III. (I distinctly remembered that the training said we would not encounter the Mark I. Probably true on operational aircraft, but not so on this battered relic on H.C.U.)
After much instruction from the ground I was able to wind the undercarriage down by hand. After stooging around for ages, I was able to announce we had two green lights and the undercarriage rev-counter was reading 000. For some unaccountable reason I had misgivings and on final approach I nipped back, gave one more turn and distinctly heard the mechanical lock engage (Both wheels). That remained my little secret.
We arrived at Mildenhall and were allocated to “B” Flight, XV squadron. We all lived together in married quarters. That was pretty good, we had fires and we could make hot water. We had to pinch coal and wood now and again, but it was reasonably comfortable. We hung together, very much as a crew. We did most things together, except when the pilot got his commission and the bomb aimer started courting. Generally speaking the rest of us went out to social events
[Underlined] C.H. ‘Chick’ Chandler Flt Eng – XV & 622 Sqns [/underlined]
2.
[Page break]
4
together, the cinema, the local fairground or local pub. We didn’t go very far; the six weeks on the station we were on call all the time. We hung around waiting for things to happen, basically. After six weeks being on call you had six days leave. I always went home. The minute I got my leave I’d get on a train and come back here to Alton, where I was born and my mother was living. I’d spend the six days with my family.
We hadn’t been at Mildenhall long before we went on operations. We did circuits and bumps, cross-countries, night cross-countries, loaded climbs, beacon [deleted] calls [/deleted] crawls and bulls-eyes. We went through the gambit of what we would do operationally.
Our first two trips were mine-laying operations – which was standard procedure. I was nervous right from the word go; I was never terribly brave, I’m afraid. Our first mine-laying operation was to the Frisian Islands, that was uneventful, and we did our second mine-laying operation to the Gironde River and that was also uneventful. Then we did our first trip to Mannheim.
At our very first Main Briefing I felt quite over-awed by it all. It was all very new to me and my in-experience was highlighted when I heard, “Engineers, Window one a minute on reaching enemy coast, two a minute 40 miles from target.”
This was complete Double-Dutch to me so I whispered, “What’s Window?” “I’ll show you outside.”
I was duly shown a strip of window with the explanation that, “It buggers up the enemy r.a.d.a.r.” (On reaching the enemy coast I duly dispatched a strip of window as shown. Later I discovered the whole bundle of about 500 strips should have gone).
Having reached the halfway point it became apparent to me that we would have to feather the starboard outer engine because it had high temperature and low oil pressure. My advice was to jettison our bomb-load and make an early return to base. I’d only finished training a few weeks before and it was very clear in my mind that we had lost oil in that engine. The obvious thing to do was feather the engine and return to base.
This led to quite a big argument in the aircraft would you believe? We were on our first main operation, I insisted we return and the pilot was petrified of being branded Lack of Moral Fibre. Obviously he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him. He wasn’t very happy with the flight engineer saying, “Let’s go back to base.”
He said, “We can’t go back, they’ll say we’re LMF”
Fortunately the bomb aimer, who was a little older than us, said, “Look, he’s not telling you your job, don’t tell him his.”
The pilot was not at all impressed, but bowed to common sense and we returned to
[Underlined] C.H. ‘Chick’ Chandler Flt Eng – XV & 622 Sqns [/underlined]
3.
[Page break]
[Underlined] 5 [/underlined]
base. Had we carried on we’d be down to 8,000 ft and 20 minutes late on target. We would most assuredly have been killed had we gone on.
You can imagine my trepidation when we got down. The engineering staff and CO climbed up into the aircraft and we told them what had happened. The warrant officer said, “It’s a good job you feathered the engine, otherwise it would have caught fire.” If he’d said I shouldn’t have feathered the engine I’d have been in real trouble. I really was very green, but I didn’t want to get killed.
Our next trip was to Berlin, where we received a very hot reception, as you can imagine, at 13,000 ft. It was a little bit frightening. We actually arrived early – we never did that again, of course – because the navigator made a boob. We had to go round and start again. We saw quite a lot of action, but most of the action seemed to be taking place above us; we weren’t involved in it. We saw several Pathfinder Force kites blow up. We didn’t see anything actually attacked, but we saw quite a lot of aircraft exploding. In our naivety we thought they were Scarecrow flares, we said, “Oh, there’s a Scarecrow.” But there were no such thing as Scarecrows, it was the real thing. They were in fact PFF kites blowing up. I think the air force deliberately engendered the idea of Scarecrows so aircrew might not be quite so frightened. We did our bombing run and I read afterwards the raid was very successful.
After the Berlin trip even the pilot acknowledged it would have been suicidal to carry on to Mannheim. When the crew realised how serious it had been my prestige went up considerably. They conferred with me on allsorts of things after that, whereas before I was just a sprog engineer who knew nothing. My sense of self-preservation (for want of a better phrase) proved to be very useful in the end.
I only flew Stirlings on four operations. We did, mining trip, mining trip, early return from Mannhein, and then Berlin in Stirlings. They were very comfortable aircraft to fly in and not too noisy. I was at the front along with the pilot. The fuel cocks were back down the fuselage, but you sat by the pilot and went back to transfer fuel. There were 14 fuel tanks, which meant a lot of juggling with fuel: balancing the tanks using the fuel cocks. My training on that was quite good and I don’t remember any problems with it. Apart from the fact we lost an engine on our first main operation, it was a reasonably good aircraft. I wasn’t aware, of course, it was quite a dangerous aircraft to fly on operations. As far as I was concerned everybody was in the same boat, I didn’t realise that 7 or 8,000 ft above us the main force was flying while we cruised at 13,000 ft. The Berlin operation was our last trip on Stirlings, then we went on to Lancasters.
We went to ground school and spent a couple of weeks learning about the Lancaster’s engines and systems. Then we went flying with a screen (instructor)
[Underlined] C.H. ‘Chick’ Chandler Flt Eng – XV & 622 Sqns [/underlined]
4.
[Page break]
[Underlined] 6 [/underlined]
and he told us what to do. After a few trips we went off on our own. It didn’t take very long at all, just a few weeks. It was a very much safer aircraft. I felt safer in a Lancaster than I did in a Stirling, but the Lancaster was very noisy. When we flew Stirlings our wireless operator, Les Pollard, could cope with the noise, but when we changed on to Lancasters he had a problem with the noise. He stayed on Stirlings and a man called Barnes took his place. Barnes moved in with us to make up the crew of seven. I don’t know what happened to Les Pollard at all.
On Lancasters I remember the gunners’ oxygen masks had icicles hanging from them, but at no time was I ever conscious of being cold. I was conscious of fear, but not cold. I went in a Lancaster a couple of years ago and I realised how cramped it was, but at the time it didn’t seem cramped at all. The first operation on Lancasters was again to Berlin, but at 22,000 ft instead of 13,000 ft, which felt a lot more comfortable. As I recall we saw a lot of activity, but at no stage were we attacked. Having done six months training on Stirlings I mostly flew in Lancasters (24 ops). (4 on Sterlings [sic].)
Mid morning a Battle Order would appear in the crew room. If your crew appeared on the Battle Order, you would be told what time to attend briefing. When you went along to briefing there’d be armed guards on the outside door of the briefing room. Briefing would cover the route – they would give details of any heavily defended targets we might pass close to - and the load we were carrying. They also gave us the Aiming Point (the first trip to Berlin the A.P. was a police station). You got briefing on the weather, what to expect on the way back and any icing conditions (I can’t recall icing at all). Later on they began to realise we might form a contrail – which is very bad. I only had one incident of that. They covered diversion airfields and how much fuel we’d need to reach them; that was my department.
We had an aircrew meal in the Mess, usually eggs and bacon. We’d be getting ready about half-an-hour before the coach took us along to the aircraft. We wore several layers of clothing. I wore long-johns, a flying suit, two pairs of gloves – a silk pair and a pair of leather gloves on top of them – Mae West and parachute harness. I was well padded up in one way and another. I always carried my old Glengarry, superstitiously stuck in the lapel of my tunic. We had the new escape boots, which had a little pen knife in the side, so if you were shot down you cut the tops off and had had a pair of ordinary shoes. We had a silk map, a compass in a button (I wish I’d kept that), and some glucose sweets in an escape kit. We took a flask of coffee, which was nearly always cold by the time you got round to drinking it. We also had some energy giving boiled sweets and chocolate.
We wore our parachute harness all the time and in my case it was always done up. A lot of people left the bottom straps undone, so they could move about more easily. Mine was always very tightly done up, so I walked like a baby gorilla.
[Underlined] C.H. ‘Chick’ Chandler Flt Eng – XV & 622 Sqns [/underlined]
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[Page break]
[Underlined] 7 [/underlined]
I knew that if we had to jump there wouldn’t be enough time to do up parachute straps. I wanted mine on; I was belt and braces all the way through. We didn’t wear the parachute, you stored that somewhere near your position. We also had our Mae Wests on. Looking back, it seemed quite natural. It must have been a little uncomfortable, but, because we were quite young, we didn’t notice.
We always got down to the aircraft early, we aimed to be at the dispersal about an hour before take off, to check over the aircraft. We always made sure the pitot head cover and the undercarriage locks were removed. We also checked for tyre creep. The tyres tended to move around the wheels on landing, so two white blocks about an inch square were painted on the wheel and the tyre itself and you had to make sure they lined up. The pilot would run up the engines and check the magnetos. In my case the pilot did that himself.
Then we waited on the dispersal to see whether the operation would continue or be cancelled. Very often it was cancelled, for whatever reason weather or security leak. They fired a red or green Very flare from the control tower. We might go 3 or 4 times before we actually got airborne. If they fired a red we went back to bed, a green and you carried on as briefed. I’d done all the checks before we took off. We’d get in, start our engines and taxi round to take off. Very often various people – WAAFs particularly – would line up beside the caravan and give us a wave as we went.
On take-off. a lot of engineers had some control of the throttles, but I didn’t have control of the throttles at all, my pilot insisted on having the throttles himself. Oliver Brooks was a great big man and he had complete control of the throttles in one hand. I just stood by his side and watched the instruments as we were getting airborne [1]. They allowed a minute an aircraft for take-off. The first aircraft was airborne probably half-an -hour before the last, so aircraft started orbiting and gradually set course. I don’t know what the drill was because that was the pilot’s role. On our crew conversation was confined to absolute necessities throughout the flight, Brooks was very keen we do everything right. Chatter was not encouraged.
After take-off, I sat down and worked on my logs. In the Lancaster my position was next to the pilot on a little canvas seat, on the right hand side of the cockpit. Funnily enough I never used the canvas bucket seat: I stood most of the way there and most of the way back. If I was filling in my log, I sat on my tool box gazing at the instruments on my side of the aircraft. I was concerned with all the recordings and logging that one did as flight engineer: petrol consumption, temperatures and oil pressures of the engines. Mainly I was concerned with fuel consumption, trying to make sure we didn’t run out of fuel. The basic rule was: as much boost as you could and as few revs as possible. My job as flight engineer was to nudge the pilot and get him to knock the revs back to reduce fuel consumption. You could work out a very rough average, a gallon a minute per
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engine. Obviously we used a lot more than that taking off and climbing.
On a clear night the coastline is visible even on a very dark night. From the moment we crossed the coast going in, until you came back in the circuit, you could expect trouble. The bomb aimer would try to get a pinpoint as we crossed the coast, to see how close we were to our route. He would tell the navigator, who would make any necessary corrections. Again when we crossed the enemy coast we hoped to pick up another pinpoint, if it was cloudy we couldn’t, it was always an advantage to get a good pinpoint position.
On our aircraft I did the windowing every time. You’d start at the enemy coast, one a minute, and two a minute 40 miles from the target. That was my responsibility. The window chute was fitted on the side of the Lancaster, right opposite my position. It was no effort at all; it didn’t seem a particular problem. If it was something to save my life I was very careful to make sure I did it to the best of my ability.
When we got to the enemy coast, I spent most of my time looking upwards and backwards to make sure we weren’t being attacked by fighters. I filled in my log as we went along. Interestingly, after I’d done a few operations, I was well aware we’d go through the target using a lot of fuel. I had a pretty good idea of what revs and boost and fuel consumption would be, so I would cook my log 20 minutes before and 20 minutes after the target and I spent the next 40 minutes watching out for fighter, just occasionally looking at the instruments. I kept a fairly good log – nobody ever complained about it – and fuel consumption always seemed to work out as it should.
For myself, I didn’t look down at the target, I was too busy looking up in the sky behind the aircraft. I’m sure a lot of crews were lost because everybody was gawping at the fireworks display below them. I didn’t want to see that, I wanted to see a man who was going to attack me from behind and blow me out of the sky. That happened on the Nuremburg raid, 30/31st March 1944, I actually saw the fighter coming to attack us. I’d been on fighter affiliation exercises, that paid dividends, I knew he was much closer than he should have been. There was only time for me to scream, “Corkscrew starboard, go!” Such was the terror in my voice no one recognised it. Each gunner thought it was the other and the crew thought it was one of the gunners. We had a petrol tank holed in the attack, but fortunately it was an outboard tank and I’d already transferred the fuel – 114 gallons – to the inboard tank. That was the drill, you always transferred the fuel in your outboard tanks to your inboard tanks. The standard procedure was to leave 20 gallons in the tank because it was safer to leave some petrol in, than to have it completely empty, leaving a very explosive vapour mixture.
Very often there’d be somebody telling the bomb aimer which Target Indicators to bomb. Obviously there was quite a number of yellows, greens and
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reds, and they were fairly well scattered on occasions. The Master Bomber would say, “Bomb the reds” or “Bomb the greens”, whatever he decided. The bomb run would start quite some little time before the target and, [deleted] unfortunately [/deleted] the bomb aimer would then take over directing the aircraft, “Left, left. Right.”
Unfortunately we generally had to do quite a long run in. That was not very safe, flying straight and level and your course could be predicted from the ground. Once you dropped the bombs you flew straight and level for another 17 seconds to take a photo when the photoflash went off. It was quite a harrowing few minutes, you were well aware that some-one below might be picking on you to blow you out of the sky.
Everybody came back on the same set route, in a big group, the same as we went out. We more or less got back to the coast before going our separate ways, up to Yorkshire, Lincolnshire or Suffolk. On just one occasion we had difficulty getting back to base with poor weather, which was a bit frightening. We groped our way in with our fingers crossed.
There were three airfields in close proximity, so you had a lot of aircraft milling around until they went in to land at their respective airfields. There was a stage when German fighters flew back with us and attacked aircraft as they were orbiting to land with their navigation lights on. We didn’t encounter it ourselves. I don’t remember any unduly long delays in landing. Very often somebody would call for an emergency landing, which obviously had priority.
We taxied back to dispersal and the ground crew took over. We’d point out any problems or damage, but we did nothing at all to the aircraft. The gunners took their guns out and returned them to the armoury, but all I took out was my tool box and parachute. We were taken to the debriefing room and some-one would ask us what happened on the trip. The thing I remember at debriefing: we very often had cocoa with rum in it – one of the pleasant aspects. Then a meal and then to bed. Initially I had no difficulties getting to sleep, later on I did have some problems. Generally speaking I slept quite well, but towards the end – as my tour became more difficult – I was getting more and more tense and I had a little trouble sleeping. I never had to take the sleeping tablets some people did take, I managed quite well normally.
On the Nuremburg raid Conditions were very bright, you could see for miles. I think we were extremely lucky in that we were in the first wave after the backers up. The fighters came in to attack behind our position in the stream, so we missed the worst of it. We were attacked, but only on one occasion. We could see lots going on behind us. We did in fact see fifty aircraft shot down. If you saw an aircraft shot down the drill was to call the navigator and he logged it. In the end he said, “I haven’t time to log any more, so stop telling me about them!” After that we
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didn’t pass him any information and we lost count. We saw a lot of aircraft shot down.
Our crew had a disaster at Dusseldorf on the 22nd/23rd April 1944. We were on our bombing run, flying straight and level for some time – as we had to. At the very moment the bomb aimer released the bombs, at 0110, a heavy flak shell burst immediately below the aircraft. At the same time we were being attacked by an Me109. When we were hit the bomb aimer didn’t have time to say, “Bombs gone.” His death convulsion was to push the bomb release, luckily for us.
I was standing with my head in the blister to watch for any fighter attack from the starboard side, as was usual during our bombing run. I heard a tremendous explosion, which knocked me on my back, onto the floor of the aircraft. As I lay there, I saw a stream of sparks pass a few feet above the cockpit and it was some little time before I realised they were tracers from a fighter. In my assessment of the situation, I thought the aircraft had been hit by the shell and the tail had been blown off. We went into a vertical dive and I thought, ‘I ‘m not going to get out of the nose, I’ll get out through the back where the tail’s been blown off.’ As it happened I couldn’t move because of the ‘G’. I was pinned to the floor on my back, my face turned towards the side of the aircraft. I couldn’t get up to clip on my parachute. My frustration was immense, I thought, ‘I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to get out the back of the aircraft.’
We were hit at 22,000 ft and it wasn’t until we pulled out at 14,000 ft, the skipper said, “Bale out.” Before anybody could bale out we went into another dive. We pulled out again at 7,000 ft. It was all very hectic for quite a few minutes. When we sorted ourselves out we found three parachutes were burnt, so there was no question of baling out. When Brooks had said, “Bale out” I put my parachute on and realised the parachute harness felt slack. I always had it done up very tight – so I walked with a stoop – so I convinced myself it was nerves and the harness wasn’t slack at all. When we landed it was found there was virtually no back to my parachute harness: the straps were shot away, hanging by a few threads. Had I jumped my parachute and I would have parted company!
Oliver Brooks really had his work cut out trying to control a heavily damaged aircraft. We had the port inner engine on fire and the starboard outer engine controls had been damaged so the props were on coarse pitch – I wanted them in fine pitch – so we were only getting half power in that engine. The H2S inside the aircraft was on fire. We had no hydraulics because of what the navigator described as glycol swilling about in the aircraft, was, of course, hydraulic fluid. We had no gun turrets, the bomb doors stuck open, no undercarriage and no flaps. The aircraft was a sorry mess.
The Graviner system operated to put the port inner fire out, but once the fire
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was out I couldn’t restart the engine in case it caught fire again. I feathered the engine, put the fire out and the engine was then dead. The H2S, on fire in the middle aircraft, was put out by the mid-upper gunner. He had to go off intercom while he put out the fire, so he couldn’t pass messages on and we didn’t know what was going on. He had to put out the fire by himself in fact, but the three parachutes stowed on the H2S were burnt.
My next job was to go round and check for damage and casualties. I went down to the nose of the aircraft, to the bomb aimer’s position. My sheltered life had not prepared me for the sight that met my eyes. The nose of the aircraft had caught the full blast of the flak and to the bomb aimer had suffered the most appalling injuries. Suffice to say I was sick. I’d heard him screaming when he was hit, but he must have died within a few seconds. When I risked using my torch to check the bomb-load they had all gone, luckily.
I went all the way back through the aircraft, checking the navigators and the empty wireless operator’s position. (The wireless operator stood by the flare chute on the bomb run to check the photoflash had gone). The mid-upper gunner had reoccupied his turret, temporarily. When I reached the flare chute, I found the wireless operator had sustained very serious injuries. He was still alive, but so badly damaged I was pretty sure he was not going to live. The rear gunner [2] gave me a thumbs up sign, so I concluded he was O.K. Then I had to report back to the pilot that two of the crew had been killed in the explosion, the mid-upper gunner had suffered a wound to his ear [3] and the navigator was slightly wounded.
After a hasty consultation we decided to set course for the emergency landing strip at Woodbridge. I carried out a check on our fuel. From the gauges it looked as though we had not sustained any major damage to our main tanks, but I thought it prudent to carry out a visual check on the outside. Any fuel coming from the mainplane would indicate at least one tank holed. It was then I discovered that where our dinghy should have been, there was a gaping hole in the mainplane. The dinghy had been shot away and ditching was out of the question.
I sat down on my tool box to work out how much fuel we had left and the rate of consumption. We had two engines at full bore, one giving half power with the propellors in coarse pitch, and one feathered. I was double-checking my figured when the navigator asked our flying time. I stalled for time, saying I hadn’t quite finished, and asked how much time was required. When he gave me his figure I felt a flood of relief; my consumption figures gave us 20 minutes in hand.
Our predicament obliged us to make a direct return from Dusseldorf to Woodbridge, steadily losing height. I can remember very little of the actual trip, but I cannot recall being unduly alarmed, possibly because I resigned myself to my fate. We were coned by searchlights at between 3,000 – 4,000 ft, but in our crippled condition evasive action was out of the question. Although we were well
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within range of even light flak, we weren’t engaged.
I was able to concentrate on our critical fuel condition. I became more confident as each check bore out my original figure of 20 minutes to spare. Sitting on my tool-box, gazing at the instruments on my engineer’s panel, I became very aware of the red warning lights indicating the loss of our port inner engine. They appeared to be glowing like beacons, to be seen by any fighter that happened to pass. My remedy was to chew some chewing gum and stick it over the lights.
We staggered back, just over the sea, throwing overboard as much equipment as possible. Eventually we dumped all the ammunition and guns overboard to try and gain height. We had the navigation leader with us and he took over the navigation while our navigator took over the wireless operator’s position and sent out S.O.S. messages, all to no avail because the aircraft was too low for the calls to be received.
With the bomb doors open, one engine feathered, one engine producing half power, a gaping hole in the starboard wing and other small holes all over the aircraft, we were using fuel at an alarming rate. But the fact we had used so much fuel reduced our weight, allowing Brooks to coax the aircraft up to 500 ft on crossing the cost.
As we approached Woodbridge the undercarriage should have been lowered by hydraulics, but we didn’t have any hydraulics. Instead an emergency system would, in theory, lower it by pneumatics. We couldn’t try it, of course, the minute the main wheels came down the drag meant the aircraft would fall out of the sky. The deal was to wait until we got over the threshold of the runway, then the engineer pulled the lever which should lower the undercarriage by air. In our case it didn’t work. The aircraft was crabbing very slowly from left to right and I waited for the crash.
The crew sat in the crash position with their backs to the main spar, but the mid-upper gunner opted to stay at the rear of the fuselage and cradle the wireless operator (Barnes had actually died of his wounds before we reached England). I didn’t have time to get to crash position, we hit the ground with me standing by the pilot, hanging on to his seat. We did a belly landing and as hit the ground, the Perspex blister on the starboard side broke away. I was standing as we careered down the runway, and at the end of the crash-landing run I was still standing there! In theory I should have gone through the windscreen. I was very quickly through the top escape hatch, situated almost immediately above the flight engineer’s position, and I was so relieved I got to my knees and kissed the ground!
An aeroplane flew down next morning and took us back to base. We were debriefed when we got to Woodbridge and again when we got back to Mildenhall. We got back to Mildenhall late afternoon on the 23rd and on the 25th we were off
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again to Karlsruhe. I was very nervous as you might expect; I had extricated myself from a very bent Lancaster at Woodbridge. The pilot, rear-gunner and myself were part of our original crew, the other positions were filled by spare bods – the CO, W/Cdr Watkins, taking the deceased bomb aimer’s position.
Nearing the target, the dreaded order, “Corkscrew Starboard, go” came from one of the gunners. I did not see our attacker, but did see the lines of tracer shells speeding towards us. I instinctively ducked. As we plunged downwards I received a very heavy thump on the side of my right leg, just below the knee. At this stage I remembered the medical officer giving me a briefing saying that if hit and feeling pain thin [sic] injury would probably not be too serious, but if a numb feeling was felt it was probably very serious. I had certainly been hit, but felt no pain. Being too frightened to look, I felt with my gloved hand from knee to ankle; leg still there. I then removed my leather glove and felt with the white silk inner glove: no blood. It transpired I had been hit by a portable oxygen bottle that had broken loose from its attachment. (Caused by the violent manoeuvre of the corkscrew). We were actually attacked twice.
We were also picked up by the searchlights and once one picked you up they all picked you up. In the log book it says we were coned 20 minutes so we spent the next 20 minutes weaving and dodging trying to get out of the searchlights. I was dazzled, I couldn’t see much at all. If I looked out all I could see was light, which ever way we swerved the searchlights followed, but we got away with it.
Shortly afterwards our crew broke up. An experienced pilot had taken an inexperienced pilot and crew on an operation and all eight people were lost. Oliver Brooks took over the experienced crew without a pilot [4]. The rear gunner and myself were transferred to 622 squadron, to fill positions on that squadron in different crews. I thought it was a pretty raw deal. I finished up in a Nissen hut – quite a difference. I joined Flt. Lt. Hargreaves’ crew. I never found out what happened to his old engineer. He was a good pilot, not the same calibre as Brooks, but he was alright. I didn’t ever feel accepted as part of the crew. We didn’t have a crew, we had a crew and a flight engineer. I always had the feeling I was the odd man out. That’s the way I felt most of the way through.
Initially I wasn’t used to doing the throttles and Hargreaves thought I was. His previous engineer had done it, but when I moved to the crew I was completely new to them and their actions were completely different to mine, so he actually took over doing the throttles. He was a little more lax than Brooks. I certainly had a little trouble with him on the first trip because he allowed smoking. I said, “If you allow smoking again, I won’t fly with you. I don’t want people smoking in an aircraft full of petrol fumes.” Being the engineer I realised the danger and I don’t
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think they did. That little contre temp on our first trip was soon sorted out because I just wouldn’t fly with him.
The two trips I did on D-Day got a lot of kudos, but they were the easiest trips I ever did. The first one to Ouisterham was a [deleted] daylight [/deleted] NIGHT and there was no cloud so we could see the target. Our attack came completely out of the blue, we ran in and did our bombing run, which was very successful. We didn’t see an aircraft fired at and nobody fired at us. We didn’t even see a fighter. We came back unscathed and when we went to briefing later that night for the next operation, a message came through saying the guns at Ouisterham had not fired a single round.
We went that night to Lisieux, a communications target, and again we didn’t see any opposition. The following morning crews got quite a hot reception, but certainly the two trips I did on D-Day were the easiest two trips anybody ever did. As far as I was concerned D-Day was a piece of cake, but I felt very sorry for the people down below. I didn’t realise if was D-Day and again I spent most of my time looking upwards and behind, to make sure I wasn’t going to be attacked by a fighter. I didn’t really see the effort, although looking back I wish I had; it was much more important to stay alive than to see what was going on beneath me.
On the Bomleger raid, 21st June 1944, we were one of only seven aircraft to drop bombs. We were in the leading Vic of seven aircraft, leading a loose gaggle of bombers and bombed before the raid was called off. The trip was aborted because of cloud cover. We couldn’t see the target and the bombing leader called the operations off, obviously because of the possibility of bombing French people.
We were bombing the V-2 storage depots at Wizernes [deleted] 2nd [/deleted] 6th. July 1944. It was a very bright moonlit night and another Lancaster formated on us, just behind, to our right and below. It suddenly blew up and in its place was an Me110. At the time we didn’t know what it was, but it was a Scrage Musik fighter with upward firing canon. He’d sneaked up on the other chap, but had to attack us conventionally. He made three attacks and we shot him down. At the time I wasn’t convinced we had shot him down because I couldn’t see what was happening directly behind. The gunner told us he had shot it down, but I was a little doubtful. Immediately a Ju88 attacked us. He made four attacks and we shot him down, though again I was doubtful. Two years ago the 622 squadron historian produced an eye witness who actually saw our gunners shoot the fighters down [5]. Even I was convinced then. We shot down two aeroplanes in about 10 minutes, that must be very close to a record. The rear gunner got an immediate award, which he very richly earned.
We corkscrewed all through the attacks; I was shattered. I don’t know why
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he didn’t shoot us down, he had all the advantages. At one stage we had just one gun firing in each turret. It was a ridiculous state of affairs; hard to believe. At the time we didn’t know we’d been hit at all. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago photographs were produced showing the bullet holes through the aircraft that occurred on that operation. Our normal aircraft was GI-L, Love, and for some reason we took GI-P, Peter on that particular trip – ours was probably unserviceable. Because we weren’t flying our own aircraft we taxied it back to its dispersal not knowing it had been damaged. Our navigator was sick and the navigation leader came as navigator. Both trips I had a hairy do we had navigation leader with us. He must have been a bit of a jinx.
We did a daylight to Nucourt, 10th July 1944, bombing a V-1 storage site. I didn’t like daylights, although they were much easier. I remember seeing the fighter escort, which was very comforting, but you could also see the flak. The flak was just puffs in the sky which didn’t do any damage because it was already gone, but it was disconcerting to see so many of them; the sky was littered with black puffs. They were there at night, of course, but you couldn’t see them. I went to bed that night and a corporal policemen came and woke me up the next morning and told me my tour was finished. I remember him saying, “Your tour’s over mate!” It was great. In a matter of days I was on my way and I went as an instructor. There were no farewell drinks with the crew.
With Brooks’ crew, four of the eight got medals on that night trip to Dusseldorf. Two got killed and two wounded. I was the odd man out, I didn’t get a medal, I didn’t get killed, I didn’t get wounded. I was the lucky one. On Hargreaves’ crew, three of the crew got medals. The pilot got a gong and the rear gunner got a gong for the Wizernes trip. All around I was surrounded by medals and death; more medals than death, luckily.
From the very word go I was quite apprehensive, to put it mildly. After a few operations I was quite frightened. In the end – when we were shot down and crashed at Woodbridge – I was petrified, quite frankly. I just kept my fingers crossed. A lot of people said it couldn’t happen to them, but I knew it could happen to us. I was very, very grateful when I finished my tour.
I was posted to a training establishment as an [sic] ground instructor. (No 3 Group Aircrew School as far as I can remember). I explained the new fuel and hydraulic systems to new crews. I did a one hour lecture a day to the various crews. Operations would always crop up and my tip to the engineers was always keep a good look-out behind and above. The business of looking down at what’s happening was fatal. You’d no control over what’s happening below, but if you’re being attacked you can do something. As I was told, “Always search the dark part
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of the sky.” Which I used to do, in fact. I was very happy instructing, much happier on that than I was flying operations.
After about three months I fell foul of a very junior officer who ordered me to clean his car. Here again the fact that I was very naïve showed through, because I told him in the very best swear words what to do with his car. Unfortunately for me a few days later my immediate boss (a Flt/Lt.) was killed in a flying accident and this flying officer became my temporary C.O.
His first act of revenge was to send me off as an escort to a deserter. In my absence from the unit he volunteered me for a second tour of operations. Here again my actions were all wrong. My correct action would have been to see the Officer Commanding the unit then, failing satisfaction from him, applied to see the A.O.C. This would have stopped the thing in its tracks. Being very green I argued with him and various other ranks going up – I should have started at the top.
After just a few days I found myself standing in an aircraft dispersal with a parachute and tool-box. I was introduced to a Squadron Leader pilot starting a second tour with an all volunteer crew. I can’t recall the station, but almost certainly it would have been an H.C.U. in 3 Group. At this stage I informed the pilot that I was not a volunteer. I would fly on training trips, I wasn’t prepared to go back on ops. I wanted my full entitlement of six months rest, end of story. He was very understanding, but said I was no use to him and a screen instructor was detailed to take my place on their first trip. After one roller landing the aircraft climbed to about 300 ft, turned sharply left and crashed on the airfield; literally in front of my eyes. Just one survivor, the rear gunner, was pulled from the wreckage very badly burned.
This hardened my resolve to have my full entitlement of six months rest, but, as a result of these events I was accused on being L.M.F. (Lack of Moral Fibre). There followed about ten weeks of sheer hell where I was subjected to allsorts of psychological pressure and threats. That part of my time is all a blur. I was a leper, I didn’t have any duties.
Finally I was posted to Kersley Grange where my fate was to be demotion and stripped of brevet. Here, in front of a board of three officer [sic], my case was heard for the first time (and actually listened to). Almost immediately the Squadron Leader in charge of the board agreed that my actions were fully justified. However, he pointed put that my entitlement of six months rest would expire in two weeks. What was my intention then? My reply was that, since the past three months had hardly been a rest, I would hope to get a three month extension. This response seemed to cause some confusion to the board members and I was told to leave the room.
After what seemed to be a very long tine, I was recalled. The Squadron Leader was now on his own and told me that I had failed an aircrew medical. On starting to inform him that I had not had a medical he said, “Flight Sergeant, you
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have failed and aircrew medical and you are dismissed.” Even I, naïve as I was, saw that I was being given an opportunity to solve a difficult situation and obeyed the order, “Flight Sergeant, March out.”
I re-mustered to Air Traffic Control. In the early days it was a piece of cake. I sat in a caravan at the end of the runway and my equipment consisted of a red and green Aldis lamp and a Very pistol to fire reds, greens or yellows – depending on what happened. It soon changed to having a radio fitted, so you had radio contact with the aircraft you were controlling, instead of just lamps. Then it progressed so you went on a radar course, from that course you went onto another radar course and another and finished up as either a Talk Down controller, which I liked very much indeed, or the Area Controller, which I didn’t go much on.
The first station was Valley, which was excellent. I moved from there to Colerne, near Bath. From there I went abroad to Fassberg. That was a very isolated station in Germany and you couldn’t go anywhere from Fassberg except Fassberg. Luckily it had wonderful sporting facilities. My immediate boss was a very keen golfer and we built our own course on the airfield. My mother bought me a set of golf clubs at a local sale – she paid 10 shillings for a set of 11 wooden clubs in a bag, which I thought pretty good value. From then I’ve played ever since. I’m still playing, in fact I’ve been in the local golf club for so long they’ve given me life membership. When I was in the air force I never let my membership lapse, every time I was posted abroad I sent my subscription. I’ve done very well out of my golf. I’ve enjoyed it very much indeed, it keeps me fit as well. I retired from the air force in 1978. I was a professional air traffic controller and I like to think I was pretty good.
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1 I just had one very dodgy take off. That’s when I was detailed to go on an air test with a different pilot and he lost control on take off. We actually bounced over another aircraft at one stage. He finally got airborne. We didn’t go on ops that night, it was cancelled.
2 Because we had no hydraulics the gunners’ positions couldn’t be operated, but the rear gunner remained in his turret.
3 That kept him off flying for a few weeks.
4 When Oliver Brooks’ new crew finished their tour, they all got medals although nothing had happened to them. A very sore point with me!
5 This was a man called Bernie Dye, who asked his pilot if he could join in and his pilot said, “No, let them fight it out.”
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Title
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Letter and transcript of telephone interview
Description
An account of the resource
Letter encloses a transcript of telephone interview and ask Mr Chandler to check for accuracy and asks specific questions about window, operation briefings, bird strike, being coned on Karlsruhe operation, overcoming fear and did he feel operations were worthwhile. Transcript describes Chick Chandler's joining the RAF and selection as flight engineer. Talks of training at RAF St Athan, joining crew at heavy conversion unit and describes in detail his first trip. Goes on to talk of posting to operational squadron XV and RAF Mildenhall, First 4 operations were on Stirling before transfer to Lancaster. Describes in detail his first operation and second to Berlin. Gives long description of typical day with night operation. Mentions night fighter attacks, scarecrows, master bomber and seeing many aircraft shot down on Nuremburg operation 30/31 March 1944. Gives very detailed description of operation to Dusseldorf 22/23 April 1944 when his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and night fighter with bomb aimer and one other crew killed, two injured and the aircraft damaged and on fire. Talks of two operations on D-Day and others during the Normandy campaign including attacks on v-weapon sites. Mentions use of Schräge Musik and daylight operations. Mentions that four of crew got medals for Dusseldorf but not him. Concludes with tribulations during his rest/training tour when he was volunteered without his knowledge for another tour, the resulting medical downgrade and re-muster to air traffic control.
Creator
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S Mealing-Mills
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2009-08-10
Format
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One page printed letter and seventeen page printed document
Language
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eng
Identifier
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BMealingMillsSChandlerCHv1
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Germany--Karlsruhe
Great Britain
Wales--Vale of Glamorgan
England--Suffolk
Germany--Düsseldorf
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
2009-08-10
1944-04-22
1944-04-23
1944-03-30
1944-03-31
1944-06-05
1944-06-06
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Text. Memoir
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
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Anne-Marie Watson
15 Squadron
3 Group
622 Squadron
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Nuremberg (30 / 31 March 1944)
bombing of the Normandy coastal batteries (5/6 June 1944)
control caravan
crewing up
fear
flight engineer
forced landing
H2S
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Master Bomber
Me 110
military discipline
military service conditions
mine laying
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Mildenhall
RAF St Athan
RAF Woodbridge
Scarecrow
searchlight
service vehicle
Stirling
superstition
training
V-1
V-2
V-weapon
Window