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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/488/8372/ACanningsDP150811.1.mp3
60c10de0afd2927cc4910a888db911ef
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Title
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Cannings, Percy
Douglas Percy Cannings
D P Cannings
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Cannings, DP
Description
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An oral history interview with Percy Cannings DFM (1923 - 2016, 1809247 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 100 and 97 Squadrons.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Percy Cannings and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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Transcription
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AS: This is an interview with Warrant Officer Percy Cannings DFM, a mid-upper gunner on 100 and then 97 Squadron. My name is Adam Such and the interview is being conducted at Buckden, Cambridge on the 11th of August 2015 for the International Bomber Command Centre digital archive. Percy, thanks ever so much for agreeing to this interview.
PC: That’s ok.
AS: I would like to set the scene by asking you to describe your life before joining the Air Force, where you born, a bit about your home, your parents, and sisters, that sort of thing.
PC: Yeah, Yeah, I was born in West Sussex, in a little village called Stedham, near Midhurst. My father was a head gardener and he worked at an estate um, which was owned by a Captain Cobb. He was wounded in the first war and lost a leg, and he still carried on working, virtually, as if he wasn’t, um, what’s the word, injured, or what’s the word for it? In fact, he carried on and constructed a ha ha, if you know what that is, basically on his own, so that his estate looked over the field without the fences in the way, which consisted of a few cows and horses which he used for riding. My two brothers, I had two elder brothers and two younger sisters, my two elder brothers had already joined up in the Air Force, both of them in aircrew [coughs]. My eldest brother was um, they were both wireless op air gunners, and he, Eric, he flew in, Wellingtons before the war, and he crashed on take-off, the day, two days before the war, lost an engine on take-off, but they both got out ok. The whole crew got out ok, but he lost his nerve for flying, and in those days, they classed him as LMF. He volunteered later on for, um, my memory for words.
AS: No worries. If we walk away from it, it’ll come back, won’t it?
PC: Yes, um —
AS: [Laughs]
PC: Oh, what’s the word?
AS: Is it ground duties or a different service?
PC: He volunteered for the commandos —
AS: Good Lord, ok.
PC: And he spent the rest of the war out in North Africa, basically Italy.
AS: Wow.
PC: The other one, the younger one, Arthur, he went in to Coastal Command and he was on Catalina’s, yeah, anti-submarine patrols. I suppose that’s what encouraged me to do the same, but unfortunately, I didn’t have enough, um, sterling to be anything other than an air gunner, so, I was called up at eighteen, or just after eighteen, I reported for duty in 1943, I think it was. I went to [pauses] Lords cricket ground to join up, where I had my kit, all my kit, issued, and um, introduced to square bashing [laughs], which we, we always had to do that. After about three weeks, I was then, sent to Number 9, air gunnery school in Llandrog, in North Wales, spent about five weeks there um, then 1656 Conversion Unit, which is in Lindholme, introduced to first of all the four engine planes, the Halifax and then on to the Lancaster. That lasted about four or five weeks. Got crewed up at the 1656 and um, and it was, I don’t know how we got together, but we did [laughs]. I had a Canadian skipper, Ken Harvey [pauses], the navigator was [pauses] oh, names.
AS: It’s seventy years, isn’t it, it’s a long gap.
PC: Hang on a minute. Right, he was a sergeant and Canadian. Then another sergeant, Geoff Mander from York, bomb aimer, Jim Crake from Scotland, Harry Woods, wireless op, and he was from Mansfield. Sergeant Andy Barr from Scotland, Gordon Brown, rear gunner, myself as mid upper and then on to Lancasters. Transferred then to 100 Squadron, which was then situated at Bourne, near Cambridge. This was early February.
AS: In 1944?
PC: Yeah, 1944, err, ‘43. My first op, was on the 4th of March ‘43, on mining and that lasted about eight and a half hours which was quite long, and then another one to Nuremberg. We suffered two attacks by fighters on that occasion, and just after bombing, we were coned by searchlights which, the skipper slung us all over the sky trying to get out of it, and I swear we must have been upside down because at some point the contents of the [unclear] finished up all over me and the inside the plane. We lost all of our night vision and nearly completely blind for the foreseeable future. Luckily no further incidents occurred on this occasion and I finished my first tour, then being sent to 83 OTU at Peplow, I forget where that is.
AS: As an instructor?
PC: In Peplow?
AS: As an instructor in the OTU?
PC: As an instructor, yeah, and that lasted until the 15th of March ‘44 and called in to the office to say, “you are required back on ops” [laughs], and to report to Flying Officer Reid on [pause], arriving at the guardroom at around six o’clock in the evening. I leave all my kit in the guardroom, because I hadn’t got time to —
AS: Flying that night?
PC: That’s it. I had to go to see this, in the briefing room, see this flying officer, where I met up with my second skipper, and we went off out to Stuttgart that night.
AS: With a crew you’d not flown with before?
PC: Yep, Yep, they had lost their mid upper gunner due to bad eyesight, and consequences are, I went to make up their crew.
AS: And this was now 97 Squadron?
PC: 97, yep, yep. And I realised then that it was Pathfinders, so hence my hesitance for this particular bit of writing. My introduction as a Pathfinder. I didn’t get me pre-op meal on that occasion but I got it when I got back. Up until the [pauses], I did daylights for the first time on the first, second and third of, whatever the month is, I thought of writing this out, anyway, the first, second, third, and then on the fifth. Then a night time to Chateau la Roche, which I think is in France, and then finally another daylight to Deelen. This proved to be my last op on bombing, and the Lanc in front of us was hit from another one above us, and this resulted in an explosion that almost got us as well as, on return carried the scars so from call up to September 1942 to 15th three ‘44, I’d become a Pathfinder in about five months. That’s basically up to the, err, ‘44, and then I went again to another OTU for further instruction, and that lasted until the end of the war. Um, but in between, I had to re-muster to driver MT because air crew were no longer needed, but at that time, the Japan war was still going on, so we had to prepare for that, but luckily my de-mob time came up in between, so I didn’t have to go out there.
AS: Shall we pause there?
PC: Yeah, ok.
AS: Percy, if I could, I’d like to back in to your training a little bit. I know when you got your call up papers, you went up to the recruiting centre at Lords. What sort of things were they doing to you there? Was it instant square bashing?
PC: Instant square bashing, yeah. After, err, we did some aircraft recognition, which, was obviously of use.
AS: Were you mustered together straight away with other air gunners or was it —
PC: Mainly other air gunners, yeah, yeah —
AS: Ok.
PC: Or trainee air gunners [laughs], and the instructors of course. We were on [pause} Blenheims.
AS: Blenheims?
PC: Yeah, in the turret and on the Blenheim.
AS: Airborne?
PC: Yes
AS: These must have been old aircraft by that stage. Were they mechanically reliable, did you have confidence in them?
PC: As far as I know. We had one or two DNCO, no target, flying scrubbed. Yeah, and we did some cine gun, cine gun and under on the Spitfires and Hurricanes that pursued us [laughs].
AS: Did you get em?
PC: No, [laughs]. We had, the targets we had were towed by another plane usually, [pauses] what was it, I’ve got it down somewhere.
AS: They used to use all sorts of things, didn’t they? Masters and Martinet?
PC: Martinet, that’s the name. I had a very short trip in one of those.
AS: Was there much classroom based training as well?
PC: Much what?
AS: Was there much training in the classroom? Or in simulators?
PC: I presume there must have been, but I didn’t get it registered as such. We were flying first, eight, eight, eight three times on the eighth of the month 8th of November ‘42, one on the ninth, two on the 12th, two on the 13th, two on the 15th, three on the 17th, one on the 20th.
AS: Wow, so it’s quite high pressure.
PC: Yes, it was [pause]. I presume we must have had some innovation on the guns, but we had to strip them down, set them out, identify the bits, and also in the dark. But what use that was later on, how can you strip a gun out twenty-one thousand feet, with nothing to put it on?
AS: Service training is not always famous for getting it right.
PC: What use that was to us, I don’t know.
AS: Did you make friendships with the people you were training with?
PC: Not to my knowledge no, I never communicated with any of them either before or after.
AS: Ok.
PC: Not that I can remember of it. I must have most likely been with some of them sometime or other but —
AS: Can you remember passing out? Did you have a passing out parade with family and a band or —
PC: No, we had a photograph taken.
AS: Were you presented with your flying badge or did you go and draw it from the stores [laughs]?
PC: I can’t remember.
AS: It doesn’t matter.
PC: But I was surprised by my friends when I went home on leave for the first time, just around Christmas time, to be a sergeant with my brevet and in full Air Force uniform. My school mates couldn’t believe it.
AS: Very short time, from, from getting the papers to -
PC: About five, err, eight or nine weeks, something like that.
AS: Do you know what your parents felt about having yet another son going up in the air to —
PC: Well it must have been hell for them but —
AS: Didn’t talk about it?
PC: No.
AS: Did you volunteer for Bomber Command? Did you know you were going to Bomber Command?
PC: I volunteered for aircrew, I didn’t know what I would be in.
AS: Ok.
PC: But err, one thing led to the other so I finished up in Bomber Command.
AS: So, you have leave after training?
PC: Yeah.
AS: And then straight in to the squadron, sorry, the —
PC: 1516 Conversion Unit and then straight on to the squadron.
AS: You say you were flying Halifaxes at the conversion unit?
PC: Initially yeah.
AS: The conversion unit —
PC: 3rd, 9th, 6th, 13th, 15th, 17th, the last one we went to, which was a bit hairy, we lost sight of the ground because of haze, no idea where the aerodrome was, so skipper called out a mayday but he got safely down at the finish, but the engines cut out on the perimeter so we wouldn’t have been much longer in the air.
AS: So, really, really, short of fuel.
PC: Yes, yes it lasted a total of three hours sixty-five, forty-five, but we got down in time.
AS: So, can you remember, how, what sort of flying you did at the conversion unit? What sort of exercises you were doing?
PC: Basically, circuits and landings, local flying. Familiarisation, circuits and landings, homing and air firing, circuits and landings. That was when we went up on to the Lancaster for the first time.
AS: Did you very quickly feel confident as a crew that you were working well together.
PC: Yeah, yeah, the skipper was soon made up to pilot officer, but all the rest have stayed as sergeants.
AS: What sort of a leader was he, did he drive you, did he encourage you? Was he very keen on —
PC: He was more or less one of us and whatever the skipper did, we did [laughs] basically so I suppose you could say he led us.
AS: What, what was it like, going on to the squadron? Can you remember what you felt like when you were going to put it all into practice?
PC: Well we knew we were going to train for operations and it didn’t take long in coming. Did some cross countries and bullseyes.
AS: What were bullseyes?
PC: Pardon?
AS: What were bullseyes?
PC: It’s just a, you were told to fly to a certain place at a certain time, from there to another place at a certain time in order to try and keep on time, basically.
AS: So, that’s sort of like a practice bombing mission but over England?
PC: Yeah, over England or Scotland or whatever.
AS: When you were airborne, what were your duties?
PC: Just to keep a look out basically.
AS: Day and night?
PC: Yeah, yeah, day and night. Not that we had to look at a lot at night, except to try and help the navigator by reporting what, [pause] every station had a call sign which was in Morse with a red light, and you reported how many you could see of these which helps the navigator know where he was.
AS: So, you obviously learnt Morse as part of your gunnery training.
PC: Oh yeah.
PC: Only basic Morse, I can’t remember any of it now, just SOS, yes [laughs].
AS: My dad was a wireless operator but in a tank, not in an aeroplane.
PC: My two brothers err, err, did that, and of course they were wireless ops.
AS: You must have had a fantastic view from the mid upper turret on the Lancaster.
PC: Yeah, yeah except from underneath [laughs].
AS: Which counted, yeah, yeah. The actual sensation of flying itself did you enjoy it? Did you very quickly enjoy it?
PC: Took to like a duck.
AS: Yeah? Just the sheer enjoyment of, of, being up there? Did that, did that stay with you?
PC: More or less, yeah, yeah. Never thought we were going to get it but [laughs] it’s always the other guy.
AS: And did your crew really try to lengthen the odds by, for instance, doing lots of practices, dinghy drills, things like that? Was your skipper keen on doing that or —
PC: My skippers, both of them, they practised the weaving.
AS: Yeah?
PC: Never flew straight and level for very long at any one time but it was always fairly predictable for the navigator to know exactly what we were doing.
AS: So, so, both of them hand flew?
PC: Yeah.
AS: Maybe six, eight hours.
PC: Sometimes nine and a half.
AS: Always weaving?
PC: Yeah, Yeah, they must have been sweating when they came out, because they had the heating, we didn’t, it was bloody cold [laughs].
AS: Yeah, even, well you, you had the Perspex, and you had electrically heated clothing?
PC: Yeah, yeah, of course, you didn’t have that, only if you were a night flyer.
AS: It was minus thirty below isn’t it sometimes?
PC: It can be up to forty, and trying to manage a gun, take the gun apart, no way.
AS: Maybe it was to give you confidence in the gun.
PC: The theory was ok but, err, but if they jammed, you were having to do something about it but practicality no.
AS: As you say, where would you put the bits?
PC: Yeah. Where would you put it to start on it? Start stripping it out. You had no table or anything.
AS: When you were um, airborne on a trip was there much talk on the RT between you or was it just —
PC: Not between us, no.
AS: Yeah?
PC: No, skipper didn’t encourage that.
AS: And in the bomber stream, could you see or feel other aircraft at night?
PC: You could feel the other aircraft, the buffeting now and again, but see them, very, very rarely.
AS: I’ve never experienced the buffeting, can, can you describe what it’s, is it almost like hitting something or is it —
PC: Well, no, it’s like a very big wind hitting you. You’d, you’d go sideways, up, or down depending where that aircraft was coming from.
AS: But something, something you could get used to?
PC: Oh, yes you could feel it every time. You knew there was one up ahead of us somewhere, whether it was friendly or foe I don’t know.
AS: I, I’m told, I don’t know this to be true, that it’s quite rare, although you’re surrounded by a thousand aircraft, it was quite rare to see one in flight, is that -?
PC: Yeah, yeah.
AS: Is that —
PC: Except on the daylights of course.
AS: Yeah, yeah on the daylights. So, the crew practiced religiously, you’re flying quite a number of operations, quite, quite quickly, did you hang together very much on the ground as well as in the air?
PC: As much as we could.
AS: Ok.
PC: In fact, we were celebrating the skipper’s birthday, on one occasion, it was Ken Harvey, um, he started off with a gin and orange, went up to double gin and orange and then a double, double, and after about one double, double, I was leaning against the wall, [laughs], no more.
AS: And did you live together all the sergeants’ mess, certainly as a, a crew?
PC: We were in the same um, hut, and of course he was in the officers’ quarters, but other than that we were always together.
AS: And completely random crewing up?
PC: Indeed yeah, yeah.
AS: Percy, when you’d finished at the conversion unit, you crewed up and were posted to 100 Squadron. Um, did you go straight on ops or did you do a period of training?
PC: Did a period of training
AS: Is there anything that stands out in your mind about that training?
PC: That is later on.
AS: Err, I know each mission was different but could you give me some idea about what a day would be, an operational day from getting up, going through the briefing, what was the routine like on your squadron?
PC: Well, we would get up in the morning, and we would know, sooner or later, during the day whether or not we were on ops or whether there was anything laid on for that night, so we couldn’t leave the station um, it’s all a bit hazy now, but [pause] —
AS: Did you all, um, have the same briefing or were there separate briefings for the pilot and navigator?
PC: The pilot and navigator were usually first, and then we were called into the briefing room, um [pause], sorry I can’t give too much about —
AS: No, it’s, it’s an awful long time ago, and not everything sticks in your mind.
PC: We always had a meal, or were supposed to have a meal, egg, and bacon before we went off. There was only one occasion when I didn’t and that was in the start of the second tour [laughs]. I arrived too late in the day on the station and I went out that night before I had it, too late for it [laughs].
AS: When you went out to your aircraft, had all the guns been put in for you?
PC: Oh yeah, yeah, they were all set up for us —
AS: Ok.
PC: By the armourers.
AS: And did you look after your own guns or, or, whatever was —
PC: The armourers used to look after them.
AS: Did you, when you were airborne obviously, over the sea perhaps, did you, did you, test fire the guns or —
PC: No err, err, my skippers didn’t like that, they said it would give it away to anyone else, and you never really knew whether there was anything in the line of fire, being dark, he didn’t condone that at all.
AS: When you got airborne, did you climb straight on course, or was there circling around a beacon, or what?
PC: It depends on where you were aiming for, you usually had a name, um [pauses] you usually had to con.. what’s the word?
AS: To form up in the stream?
PC: No, you usually had a point on the coast where you had to start off from, usually either the east coast or south coast depending on where we was heading for. We often used to congregate over um, [pauses] on the east coast, the name won’t come.
AS: No, no, no. I know several points, like Alford or —
PC: Yeah, yeah.
AS: Were there any incidents that really stand out in your mind, from, from either of your tours, really, either on ops or in training?
PC: We saw actually um, when we were practising, formation flying on the 2nd tour, we had two banks of three, one, two and three, one, two and three, usually at different heights. Well always at different heights, and the err, [pause], the second, first one of three got up in the slip stream of the first one and he went violently up and then back down, he just missed us, and came on top of the other one, and they both went down. Um, there was one parachute I saw coming out and err, and he was later on classed as LMF because he wouldn’t fly again, and I think that was bad, but err, obviously I suppose you could look at it as saying well, he wouldn’t be any good anyway, so, but the way they did it, they stripped him of his brevet and stripes and off the station as soon as possible.
AS: In front of all of you?
PC: Yeah, yeah.
AS: They paraded the squadron and —
PC: Yeah.
AS: What {pause}, did you know people on all these aircraft?
PC: We knew of them. We probably came across them, but not particularly well.
AS: And can you remember, again a long time ago, but can you remember the effect on you? Um, was it just one of those things and you, you were —
PC: Just one of those things as far as you could see because we were out on ops again that following night.
AS: Really?
PC: Yeah.
AS: And their, their two-aircraft lost on training. At the time you were flying both your tours were, were the losses heavy?
PC: [heavy sigh]
AS: Did you get the sense?
PC: Something you didn’t realise about it.
AS: Really?
PC: Yeah, I think we were the only crew in the, we were re-formed 100 squadron to complete our tour but I am not sure about that.
AS: Wow.
PC: There wasn’t very many anyway.
AS: But you always knew?
PC: Yeah
AS: As a crew that—
PC: It was always the other one.
AS: Always the other guy. You have the Distinguished Flying Medal um, gazetted on the 13th September 1944. What was that all about? What was the citation for?
PC: I don’t think it was anything particular. Um, I say that because nothing outstanding as far as we were concerned. We were just doing our job and I think it was something to do with the Pathfinders. If you completed a Pathfinder tour it was basically automatic.
AS: I think you’re being a little modest on that. So, this was the end of your second tour?
PC: Yeah.
AS: Ok. Could we explore the Pathfinder connection a bit?
PC: Yeah.
AS: Cos’ you went to 97 Squadron and only found out when you got there that it was Pathfinder. Was the job and the routine for the crew, not necessarily for the gunner, was that very different from your previous tour?
PC: Only different in the respect that once you had bombed you were required to hang around just in case you had to re-mark.
AS: So —
PC: You were milling around the air um, the target area?
AS: So, left hand circuits with flak and searchlights coming up at you?
PC: Well yeah, and always trying to avoid the searchlights because we didn’t [unclear], well at least I didn’t, I don’t think any of them did.
AS: And this was for, was your skipper a marker or a backer up or what?
PC: it varied with each um, operation. Initially it was just backer up or illuminator, sometimes blind illuminator. That’s when you carried flares to light up the ground so that the master bomber could actually identify their target for others to mark usually a mosquito.
AS: Was the, was there a fair amount of specific training to be a gunner?
PC: Not as far as I was concerned but as the crew was concerned yes.
AS: Ok, and you still had a crew of seven, you didn’t have a second navigator or —
PC: Sometimes they had an extra one for the, but we didn’t for the operation of the H2S.
AS: So, by the time you got to your second tour you had much more equipment like H2S and Gee.
PC: Yeah, usually yeah.
AS: The um, the general, when you’d bombed and you’d been released from this circling, was your crew one of the ones that was really keen to get home first? Pour on the coal and come down hill or?
PC: We usually tried to get home first but with careful note of the petrol consumption to make sure we could get back, otherwise, if you put on too much, you might not have enough.
AS: That, that’s one of the things that interests me specifically. Was the ratio between the fuel that, that the bombers were given and the bomb load they carried.
PC: Mmm.
AS: And then you got variables like the wind. Was having enough petrol a worry for you most of the time? Was it something that you were conscious of all the time?
PC: Not to us.
AS: No.
PC: But to the engineer and the pilot of course, they relied on the engineer to make sure that we had enough because he had the consoles of the engines whether it was to [unclear]
AS: Did you always land back at base can you remember? Or did you -
PC: No, we occasionally had to abort [laughs} because of the weather conditions at home.
AS: Did you ever land at one of the FIDO aerodromes? Did you ever land at FIDO?
PC: No, not with FIDO, no.
AS: How about the long emergency strips like Carnaby or Woodbridge?
PC: We had to land at [pauses] oh, what’s the one just up the road? Wittering, because of the long runway because we ran out of hydraulic power for brakes. We had to just rely on slowing up.
AS: So, it wasn’t an entirely routine tour?
PC: No, No.
AS: What was the cause of the hydraulic power was it the enemy having a go at you or —
PC: No, it was just a breakdown.
AS: But generally, you had a lot of confidence in the aircraft?
PC: In the airplane? Yeah.
AS: It wasn’t all, I guess it wasn’t all operational flying and training. What sort of things did you do for relaxation?
PC: Sorry?
AS: What sort of things did you do for relaxation as a crew?
PC: Mainly the pub [laughs].
AS: What, what were they like? Were they absolutely rammed full of aircrew or did it vary?
PC: Sorry, I don’t —
AS: Were the pubs around the airfields really, really crowded or —
PC: Mainly, yes. On non-flying days, of course [laughs].
AS: So did you drink with your ground crew as well or with extra mates?
PC: If we came across them, yeah, which occasionally you did. Which was encouraged.
AS: I’ll pause it there.
AS: Percy, I know when you joined 97 Squadron they were Pathfinders. They were on 8 Group, but I believe that at some point they went back to 5 Group.
PC: I think it was something to do with Cochrane and [pauses] —
AS: Bennett. Was it Don Bennett?
PC: Bennett, yeah. Names, names.
AS: It’s said they didn’t get on particularly.
PC: No.
AS: So, so were you as a crew in the squadron, did you then go back to 5 Group during your time, or did you finish your time out as a Pathfinder?
PC: I finished the tour as a Pathfinder, um -
AS: Ok
PC: I joined them on the 15th of March ‘44 and finished with them [ long pauses] on the 29th of the seventh 1944
AS: Wow.
PC: Oh, no, the 30th.
AS: So, were you awarded your —
PC: Not then, no.
AS: Your pathfinder badge?
PC: The pathfinder badge, during the course of that, yeah.
AS: Ok.
PC: Which I’ve still got.
AS: So you finished your tour?
PC: Wait a minute, wait a minute, yeah, that was the finish of the tour the 17th of the eighth, err, the 13th, 15th of the eighth, at Sondeal, where the one in front of us was knocked out by bombs from above.
AS: Was that a daylight?
PC: That was on [indistinct]
AS: That was a night fighter drone, wasn’t it?
PC: That was a daylight, green, so there is no excuse really for that happening because it was daylight. At night time, you could understand it but err -
AS: So, you were on 97 Squadron in the build up to D-Day.
PC: Yes
AS: And the invasion of Normandy.
PC: Yes
AS: Did you carry out missions related to that?
PC: Only perhaps in some of the raids on the um, on the railways and such, one of which we did an op to Courtrai [Kortrijk] on the 20th of the seventh, and a gentleman from Holland contacted me with a view to attending to his book signing which he had written about those raids, but unfortunately it was in, written in err, what’s the [pauses], Flemish. Written in Flemish, so I can’t read it [laughs]. I’ve got it here somewhere, or its upstairs.
AS: Bit of a mouthful I think.
PC: And we went over there for that after getting into trouble and getting our passports. Mainly through yours. [talking to other person in room]
AS: Were you well received over there?
PC: Indeed. We couldn’t believe the warmth of the greetings that we got over there. For all [doorbell chimes]. There is somebody at the door. For all the damage that we caused, partly to them, it’s amazing. Even the chap who was blown out of his mother’s arms, and his mother was killed, shook hands
AS: It must have been very gratifying I would think. How, that is something today to be remembered, with, with warmth for what you and your —
PC: Sorry?
AS: Saying that is a, a good reaction today.
PC: Yeah.
AS: To be remembered for what you did, you and your comrades.
PC: And they were so grateful that we helped as far as we could.
AS: I’ll just pause. Percy, you just told me about the recognition in Courtrai and how grateful people are now for what you and your colleagues did, can you remember what you felt like, about the bombing at the time, what you were doing?
PC: Well, as far as I’m concerned, the Jerries started it so we tried to finish it, and with much success. We didn’t get too much recognition from Churchill at the end of the war because he didn’t want to be involved, at least it was the impression that I got, that he didn’t want any recognition of the badness of the bombings, if you know what that means. Um [sighs] but [sighs], I’ve lost the plot somewhere. Yep, I don’t think he wanted to be involved with anything that was wrong about it, or to be, the words don’t come —
AS: Associated with it, he didn’t want to be associated with it.
PC: Yeah.
AS: Yep. Do you think there’s a change now, in, in, our attitudes of finally Bomber Command getting some recognition? Can you see that?
PC: Only if through a bit of pressure from other people. I don’t think it was forthcoming, but it had to be wrung out of them.
AS: Could we go off in a completely different direction? Um, I know that you were involved in trying to, to contact members of your crew, and that your daughter, your daughters, in fact —
PC: Yeah.
AS: Have made a film. Could you give me a little bit of information on the background on that, on, on your efforts to contact your crew and the film?
PC: Yeah, we found the relatives of several of them, but none actually still alive. We attended to a reunion as such at [pauses] um, East Kirkby, where the Lancaster is doing taxi runs and had a good day there, met a lot of the, most of the relatives, of, I think we didn’t, the relatives of Jim Crake didn’t want to be involved. Um, but I think all the rest we, oh no, Geoff Mander, the first bomb aimer, wasn’t there because he was killed on a Mosquito in an accident between the wars, between tours, we went, we found his grave, up in [pauses] that film we’re doing, forget where it was now. Anything more?
AS: No, that’s really good, thank you. Percy, I know it was a long time ago and this might seem a silly question, but can you remember what it was like to be really in the flak, to be shot at, what it felt like and what it looked like?
PC: You were shaken all about, obviously, by how close it was whether there was too much air [pauses] disruption to affect us once or twice it was pretty close and you could feel it and you could hear the bits hitting the metal skin of the aircraft, but we were weaving, but whether you were in to it or away from it is another question. I don’t think there is much you can say about it, it was just luck, pure luck.
AS: And they, they —
PC: And I’ve had my fair share of that throughout the war.
AS: On luck, did you have any?
PC: Talismans?
AS: No, you didn’t.
PC: No, I know some people who did, they wouldn’t leave without whatever it might have been and we had none of that.
AS: Another direction, I, I think when you went to see one of your brothers you actually had a flying boat flight, what was that all about?
PC: Yeah, that was very nice, we went out in a little boat out to the aircraft and I think I’ve got the date somewhere [long pause], oh god, just a second. It was on the 27nd of January, February, March, April.
AS: 1943?
PC: Squadron Leader Lobley was the skipper, FP232 Catalina. Lasted one hour 20 minutes. That was quite exciting. The skipper signed the book.
AS: What was the sensation like on water compared to —
PC: It was quite calm really, I was surprised, I would have thought there would have been a bit more, a bit more reaction from hitting the water, but it wasn’t it as quite smooth.
AS: Can you, can you remember what duties your brother’s squadron were engaged on?
PC: It was on air sea, anti-submarine patrols and this specialise equipment test, which was basically the H2S.
AS: So, they carried radar in the Catalinas against the submarines?
PC: Yeah.
AS: When you’d finished flying you said that you re-mustered as a driver MT until the end of the war, when you, what was the de-mob process like when you finished?
PC: It’s done on numbers depending on time of entry and actual length of service. You had a number and when your number come up you were sent to ACAC which was err, names [sighs], Catterick in Yorkshire, that was where I was demobbed by.
AS: Is it true that you get a suit and a hat and a brown paper parcel?
PC: More or less [laughs] yeah. I had a trilby hat and a de-mob suit which was a pin stripe [laughs].
AS: And did you get any help with re-training, because there is not a lot of room for mid upper gunners in civilian life?
PC: Not in civilian life [laughs]. It might have been if you had gone abroad somewhere.
AS: Did they teach you a trade or —
PC: I thought we had adequate training because I made a good life out of carpentry and went on to building [pauses]
AS: So, after leaving the Air Force you got help, you were trained to be a carpenter?
PC: A carpenter, yeah, yeah.
AS: Ok.
PC: Then you had a period of about six months in which you, before you got full pay or whatever, after that if you were employed, got the rate but —
AS: And, you chose to live in Cambridgeshire or —
PC: Sorry?
AS: You chose to live in Cambridgeshire having been in —
PC: Well because, initially I was um, doing a lot of travelling between, so I was going through the mileage on cars and I felt that I should get some help towards it, but at that time it was a little bit of depression, so I parted company rather than [unclear], and as a consequence I was then employed working on these houses in which I now live in, and as the price was really reasonable, £3,950 for a detached house.
AS: Gosh
PC: Which I paid a lot more for because I had a mortgage on it, but at least I got on the ladder.
AS: Yeah, yeah, It’s always hard isn’t it?
PC: Yeah.
AS: The numbers now are ten times as much, but it is still hard to get on the ladder.
PC: Yeah.
AS: Did, did you keep in touch with your colleagues at all or with the Air Force generally? Did you join a squadron association?
PC: No, not until later, much later, no.
AS: Okay.
PC: I never even joined the um, [sighs] what do you call them?
AS: The RAF Association?
PC: No, no, the civilian one.
AS: The Union? No. The Benevolent Fund?
PC: No
AS: It’ll come.
PC: The Royal British Legion, I never even joined them.
AS: So, was that a period of your life that you parked for a long, long time?
AS: I just didn’t think any more about it. It was something you did.
AS: And what sparked getting interested again and joining the Association?
PC: That was done by my son, David, he saw a bit in the um, whatever it is on the internet about 97 Squadron Association, so he contacted the chap, that was on it and we got a visit from him, um, what’s his name? I think I shall have to go upstairs and get the book. Bending, “Achieve your Aim, A History of 97 Squadron” by Kevin Bending.
AS: So, he came to see you and what sorts of things have you got involved with since?
PC: We’ve got involved with the actual squadron association and we’ve been to their reunions in Horncastle. In Norfolk is it, or is it Suffolk?
AS: I don’t know.
PC: I think its Norfolk but I wouldn’t be 100% sure.
AS: And then there is, have been things like the Bomber Command Memorial?
PC: Yes, we have been down to the Bomber Command Memorial mainly due to um, my daughters again, that’s Sandy, getting the tickets for it. We never went to the um, sorry, we never went to the main place, we were allocated a different area which was about a mile away but we had big screens, which they showed up on us. And err, it was a very hot day, but they treated us well.
AS: And people came from, aircrew came from all over the world for that.
PC: Yeah, yeah
AS: I think there were 600, was it still -
PC: Sorry?
AS: I think 600 hundred aircrew came to that, it was huge.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Percy Cannings
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-11
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01:04:27 audio recording
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Sound
Identifier
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ACanningsDP150811
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Pending review
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Description
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Percy Cannings was born in Stedham, near Midhurst, West Susses and joined the Royal Air Force at the age of 18, reporting for duty in 1943. Percy served with 100 and 97 Squadrons as a mid upper gunner on Lancasters.
He tells of his two brothers who served in the forces and then goes on to talk about his crew and some of the experiences he saw whilst flying in a Bomber Stream.
After his missions, he was then posted as an instructor on Operational Training Units, before flying with 97 Pathfinder Squadron.
Percy flew in Bleinheims, Halifaxes and Lancasters and recalls his life in the Royal Air Force, and his crews and training, also meeting up with the relatives of his former crew, and meeting people from Holland after the war.
Percy also tells of his experiences flying in a Catalina after visiting his brother, who flew in Coastal Command.
Percy completed two tours of duty in Bomber Command and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal in September 1944.
Contributor
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Vivienne Tincombe
100 Squadron
1656 HCU
83 OTU
97 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Catalina
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bourn
RAF Lindholme
RAF Llandwrog
RAF Peplow
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/601/8870/PLoosemoreLJ1501.2.jpg
711df538feec47125a25b5846c6510a0
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/601/8870/ALoosemoreLJ151116.1.mp3
8ef370350df4759aa45dc6ad864c2ddc
Dublin Core
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Title
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Loosemore, Lesley Joseph
L J Loosemore
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Loosemore, LJ
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Les Loosemore (3033406, Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a mid upper gunner with 61 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
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 audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: My name is Adam Sutch and –
LL: Ah [emphasis], that’s a good idea.
AS: This is an interview with Mr. Les Loosemore, formally mid upper gunner in 61 Squadron, Bomber Command during the Second World War. My name is Adam Sutch, interviewer for the Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive, and the interview is being carried out at xxx Broughton Gifford on the 16th of November 2016. Les, thanks ever [emphasis] so much for agreeing for this interview.
LL: That’s alright.
AS: I’d like to set the scene by asking you to describe your life before joining the Air Force. Where you come from, your brothers and sisters, that sort of thing.
LL: Erm, well [emphasis]. I was born in Swansea, South Wales. Now, I can remember the address some. Left school, first job, first job I had was on a – well a scrap merchant, not [unclear]. This is all ship work [emphasis]. When the ships come in they’re bringing in shells and bombs and stuff, but they’d got to be packed in such a way that every one is above the other, and jammed on the side to stop them from swaying. And it was our job then to [unclear] all those ships and collect all that timber, then we used to store it in the dry [?] so the next ship that comes in, and takes its stuff over to [unclear] or over to Europe [?], you had all the stuff ready and you just put them all back [emphasis] in the same place. But you had to make sure that they stayed upright, so everything was right, a row of bombs, planks, but they had to touch the sides of the ships to stop them from going otherwise they’re all sinked [?] on the bottom. But by doing that, putting a layer of timber in between you kept them in the middle of the ship, yeah [coughs].
AS: How old were you when you started that job?
LL: [Coughs] that was the first job I had I think, yeah. I was only about fourteen, yeah, and – oh and I ended up in the, with the – oh hell, Old Barn Easton [?] was the old scrap yard. I got into somewhere, but I can’t remember where, but [coughs].
AS: Not to worry. But you left –
LL: Erm – I must have been fourteen when I left [inhales loudly]. I got a job [emphasis], sausage skin factory they called it. And you get all [emphasis] the sheep’s guts and get all the – it’s all frozen and it’s all dry and you got to rip all the fat off so you left with a skin which is used for sausages.
AS: Good lord.
LL: Yeah –
AS: That’s your first job.
LL: That’s the, the proper first job I ever had.
AS: Yeah. Were you living at home at that, at that time?
LL: Erm, I was, I was living at [emphasis] home then, yeah. And, where was that? Oh, that was at a place in Swansea, and, well, Treboeth they called it. It’s just on the edge [emphasis] of Swansea. And there was only about ten or fifteen minutes walk, so that want too bad there, yeah. That was an aunt, because I walked out of home, because too many arguments and all this and that. Conditions were better when I went and lived with an aunt.
AS: Oh okay.
LL: So, I haven’t had any, like a brother [?]. I did have that as my official address for many years, even when I was in the RAF, so you can say that was my second home really, yeah.
AS: Mm. Did you have, do you have many brothers and sisters?
LL: I got some, but they are too far away. I’ve only got some brothers. Oh [emphasis] sorry [coughs], I got a sister, she born 1936, that was about a, wrong again [?]. It must have been thirty-seven, mother died in 1937, how do I remember that? I used to play with two tins of World War One medals.
AS: Mm?
LL: Now, I usually, two tins laid right across the table. I never realised it until somebody mentioned it. ‘Why did you have two tins?’ One was is [?] some relative. I don’t think he had any brothers, he had sisters according to my sister. I lost my train of thought –
AS: The World War One medals.
LL: Yeah. I used to put all these medals across and – there were two tins. We discovered he had two tins. Why he had two I was asked by a certain person, and I said ‘I’ll find out.’ And it appears that he’d, he had a relative of some description, he didn’t have any brothers, but he [pause]. Yeah, he said that, well he asked if I had a brother who won a Victoria Cross, and ‘well sir I don’t know,’ and I said ‘next time I go down Swansea’ I said ‘I’ll ask about it.’ And apparently he had a relative as well that was staying with them. One tin was the old man’s and the other was the sister [?]. But he didn’t come back because I think he got wounded during the First World War and he passed away.
AS: Mm.
LL: So he left the old man with the two tins. In there was the square Victoria Cross.
AS: My gosh.
LL: I used to play with that all on the table, two tins of them.
AS: Good lord.
LL: ‘Cause when I asked the old man I said ‘what’s all this then,’ he said ‘well they were all different parts of World War One.’ He didn’t say what they actually were, but it was only later on that I discovered through somebody else that it was a Victoria Cross.
AS: Goodness.
LL: And that was a bloke Loosemore in the First World War.
AS: Good lord. When you were in Swansea during the war – when, what, what, what year were you born in? What year –
LL: 1925.
AS: 1925.
LL: 5th of the 8th 1925.
AS: So, so when the war started you were fourteen [emphasis].
LL: When the war started, erm – I’d left school. Oh [emphasis], that’s when I was working over with the scarp merchant, the one unloading the timber off the ships. That’s the first job I had –
AS: Do you –
LL: And I ended up – actually, oh, a yellow metal mill. It’s a bit like a steel works with all the rollers and a great big wheel and all that material used to come off all bent and we had a machine beside it that would flatten it dead straight. That would then go to the girls, what they called the stamping machine, and they’d stamp out bits of brass the size about, just a bit bigger than say a fifty p. piece. They turned that m, m, into money [emphasis].
AS: Wow, okay.
LL: It was an interesting job [coughs]. Peoples, peoples good, that’s the main thing.
AS: As the war started –
LL: Yeah.
AS: Did you see much of the war in Swansea? Was it –
LL: Did I –
AS: Was it bombed at all, Swansea? Did you see much of the war in Swansea?
LL: Well I joined the RAF in – it’s the book, 1940, 1940, February [emphasis] 1943.
AS: Mhm.
LL: That’s when I signed up with them. I had volunteered – you had to register I think a year before hand so that you could join the ATC and learn something about whatever service you going to go into, Territorials if you’re going in the army. And with the, for the RAF you had the ATC.
AS: Did, is that what you did?
LL: Yeah, and so, I didn’t require all that much because my old man being in the Home Guard, he had a rifle, a three-o-three, and that’s all we wanted to know when we got in the RAF. Who could handle a 303 rifle? But, I’ll tell you one thing, an incident there, I was lucky. I was sitting besides a table, just like that, hand was on [?] there, and I’d been up to the place where there these – oh they had an exercise on, the Home Guard, I had to go up to the barracks and get the rifle. I put it on the bloody table, and the old man started stripping it down to get a good clean overall. He put the blooming [emphasis] rifle down there [emphasis], with the end of it, and the bloody thing went off. It missed my ear by about an inch, yeah, pshh. And it cut a groove in the end of the table, and the old man, when he did go back up on duty, he give them a great big bollocking, ‘cause [coughs] I could have lost an arm easy enough.
AS: Mm.
LL: Yeah.
AS: What –
LL: You got to be, you got to be very careful [coughs]. I wish this cough would go away.
AS: Mhm.
LL: Yeah, yeah carry on.
AS: The – before you joined the Air Force, did you see much of the war in Swansea? Was there bombing, or anything like that?
LL: Well, they had a Blitz in there, I know that. Where were we living then? Most of the time I think we were in, what did they call it? District Road [?] Swansea, Plasmarl, it’s slightly north of the main town centre, and we had our own air raid shelter and that, and [coughs] a good – it was nice and warm [emphasis], it wasn’t cold like a lot of people you see shivering like mad in the middle. Ours was built against another big building, and you used that as one blanket [?], filled it up with earth and built all around it. And that was quite warm in there, yeah.
AS: Mhm.
LL: So we weren’t too bad really [coughs]. Oh bloody hell, I wish – they can’t find anything to get rid of this phlegm I got on my chest, they’re worried if I sit like this ain’t too bad, but I could be dead upright and I got to do it on that bloody bed there. But if I lay down flat it’s worse, but if I can sit upright, dead upright, then phlegm sinks to the bottom –
AS: Yeah.
LL: And then I’m clear for a while, yeah. Anyway carry on.
AS: When you were in Swansea under the bombing, what was it like? Was it night after night or?
LL: Well, we didn’t live there all the time, we were on the outskirts they call it, yeah. Yeah, we moved to an area called Plasmarl and that’s – I’d finished school I think, yeah. Because when I left home I was living with an aunt and I had to walk about two miles [unclear] but [unclear] the mills [emphasis]. Yellow metal mills.
AS: Mhm.
LL: You used to use them as the material brass to make bullet shells, and all that sort of thing. A good job, good pay, so I was alright like that.
AS: Mm. What made you decide to join the Air Force?
LL: Well I had erm, I had two brothers and a sister. The sister was in the WAFs. I think the eldest, no the eldest one was in the army [emphasis] but the second eldest was in the – I would say, erm, what do they call them now? [Pause] oh what do they call them, they were, they were classified as –
AS: Were they sort of soldier, or?
LL: Volunteers, yeah. I forget – they had a special name for them [coughs]. When did he [?] join the services anyway?
AS: Okay.
LL: So that was, one’s in the WAFs and one in the RAF, so I thought ‘I might as well make it a third.’ So I joined the Air Force. But I didn’t realise it when I – I went up to Penarth [emphasis] for an interview and they passed me as a fit for air crew duty. Well flying [emphasis], first of all, then I had to go somewhere else. Oh, we had to do some, go to a place, stay overnight I think, done some exercises to see if you’re fit [emphasis].
AS: Mhm.
LL: ‘Cause you had to be fit to be in the aircrew, if you’re going to fly anyway. And I passed alright. So from then on life carried on like normal, yeah.
AS: So you went up to Penarth, did they give you –
LL: Well, what they do there, they give you a lot of information, like about ranks and things like that, and all the usual ground, what I call the ground work for anybody any service, I mean Navy or Air Force. They still got to recognise you as a cornel or a captain or a corporal, and all the general information about the service you were joining. And that’s what the ground work was, but the flying [emphasis], you start going up for gunners, we went up to somewhere round [?] Scotland, Castle Kennedy, and that’s – we were flying on Anson aircraft then, the Avro Anson. And that only had a turret, a mid upper turret, but it was an Anson towing on the windbags, and you’d have about, what was it? About half a dozen chappies in there. Everybody had a different coloured bullet, so when that bullet went through the bag, the windbag, it would leave some paint. You could tell, tell how many hits you had. So, so when you got back –
AS: Were you any good at it?
LL: When you got back they counted how many little holes and the colour [coughs]. They got your score then, yeah.
AS: Were you any good?
LL: Yeah [emphasis] I thought I was very good. What did I do? Something special up there one day. We changed instructors, who was it? It was laughable really [pause]. It made me laugh at the time, it made me laugh. I was very good with the side-by-side shotgun.
AS: Mhm.
LL: I discovered I think, thanks to listening to the old man talking about in the Home Guard when he was on exercise, what they normally do. You get the gun side to you other [?] and you pass it through, and there’s a time when it stops [emphasis] and then it starts to fall. You fire when it’s on the top, on the apex and then you waited every time. But [coughs] I done this four times out of five, and the [unclear] said ‘oh, we’ll change instructor, instructors,’ and we had a good one in the first place. But, what was it this bloke said something? [Pause] ooh heck, it made me bloody laugh at the time I know that [AS laughs]. Oh Christ – I used to hit for some reason or another, you’d have five [emphasis] bullets to fire through this gun, the turbo [?].
AS: Mhm.
LL: And I hit the fourth one, and he said ‘I bet you a pound you can’t hit this one.’ I says ‘put the gun up [unclear].’ I turned round and it says ‘offices and NCOs should not gamble’ and [laughs] he said ‘you’re a bloody poacher mate’ [AS and LL laugh]. I never [coughs], I never handled a gun before.
AS: Wow.
LL: And yet I was able to do that, you know. Four times out of five, and he looked at him and he says ‘you’re a bloody poacher aren’t you?’ I said ‘I never handled a gun before in all my life.’ But I was watching the old man when he was in the Home Guard and listening to him talking, when they were on exercise and you learn quite a bit that way, yeah.
AS: Mm.
LL: Anyway, what else have you got to go onto? Checked – 20:43
AS: Let’s go back [emphasis] a little bit, before you went to air gunner training –
LL: Well, problem was, six months ground work, what I call ground work, that’s learning all the ranks and all the rules and regulations going into any service. And then six months there ground work, six months flying training. Start off with the Anson, then you went onto the Wellington, Avro Wellington, then up to Winthorpe, Stirlings [emphasis], then you go onto the, what they call the LFS, the Lanc Flying School. That’s where, the first time you sit in a Lancaster. You’re up at RAF Syerston, and you there for – well you’re supposed to be there for a given time, but somebody was, somebody took ill [emphasis] and then they remembered that one of them was the engineer. You didn’t fly – well, you’re not supposed to fly unless you had a full crew, but I, I can’t remember why we – oh, they didn’t need anybody on the Wellingtons, not a flight engineer, he came when we went onto the Stirlings, and then onto the Lancasters [coughs]. And we went into Syserston for that, from there onto the squadron.
AS: Okay.
LL: ‘Cause it was just up the road from Newham [?].
AS: Okay. How did you choose, how did you choose to be an air gunner? Did you do tests?
LL: Do what?
AS: Did you do – did they give you tests to decide if you would be an air gunner or a pilot or?
LL: Erm, no. I think what it was, it started, it started off where they decide [emphasis] you’re in brilliance, you’re intelligent, you’re general [emphasis] knowledge and stuff like that. And oh, you got to be fit. You had to be one hundred percent fit, and I suited everything and they, they said ‘well you qualify for flying duties.’ So that’s what I did. I said ‘oh,’ I didn’t know what aircraft you got to fly in, could have been a tiger moth or, I don’t know. But anyway, we were told we were going to fly Lancasters eventually, on a squadron.
AS: Okay.
LL: Yeah [coughs].
AS: So you were on forty-two course at Castle Kennedy.
LL: Pardon? Yeah [emphasis].
AS: To learn to be a gunner.
LL: Yeah –
AS: And –
LL: And they had – you do your training facing the side of this hangar and on there, there was, you had to chase the path [?] and you had to train the sites of the guns on that path without making the bell ring, because as soon as you hit the line – they had like a roadway, a pathway. These rung the bell as a fault [?] but if you go through straight through it, the two lines, without touching the lines, you got a clear run. I had many clear runs, because you kept on practicing all the time, yeah. But great big, behind the hangars, great big building started at one end, all the bloody way along there, yeah. Shake it mad hoping you didn’t touch the bloody line [AS laughs]. [Coughs] yeah, and that was up at the, now where was that? Oh that was up in Castle Kennedy, Scotland I think, yeah. Somewhere up there.
AS: Okay. And then you, you actually sat in an aeroplane for the first time in your life I guess.
LL: Yeah [emphasis], that was the first aircraft was an Anson, yeah. And that’s the first time I sat in the turret. Although they did have a turret during the training, the groundwork, so you could get used to where the bits and pieces are, how, which way the guns were going to be going, how you line them up and all that sort of thing. That sort of ground work consists of, learning all the basics, I think you could call them, yeah.
AS: And you have to strip the gun and clear stoppages and things?
LL: Oh yeah, you – and, and the thing was this. In case you were, had a failure at high altitude, you had all these flying clothes on, thick gloves like gauntlets [emphasis] and how had to fiddle about wearing them, and if you had a middle of winter now you’d have gloves on. And you just imagine trying to strip that thing down, it was a small parts inside the gun, the 303 [coughs] and you had to strip them down and put them back together again, wearing your gloves.
AS: Where do you put all the pieces when you’re in a turret [LL coughs] at twenty thousand feet?
LL: Oh, this is when you’re in the classroom.
AS: Oh.
LL: You do it all when you’re in the classroom. But [emphasis] you got to shout all the way around you in the turret so you’ve got bugs [?] everywhere. It’s like, it’s like drying, riding a motorbike. You don’t, don’t move your arms like that, you just run handle like that, up and down, that’s all, that’s all there is. It’s all under control, so you just, you don’t move [emphasis], you just move your hands like that. Course looking around all the time.
AS: Is the turret electric or hydraulic?
LL: I think oil [emphasis]. I think oil was the driving force behind it, yeah. It must have been, because they were very worried about any oil leaks when, if you’d been attacked, anything like that. Because you can easily slide on it and injure yourself, ‘cause it is a bit rough inside the aircraft because of all the ribs [?].
AS: Mhm.
LL: And you can easily break an arm, break a leg or something when you steady [?] yourself.
AS: Mm. Did you actually like [emphasis] the flying?
LL: Mm?
AS: When you got into the Anson did you actually like they flying and think ‘this is for me?’
LL: I liked the flying a lot, I really enjoyed that, and especially in the Lanc up there, it’s very comfortable, the seat itself was a strap of fabric, no wider than that but a bit longer, connected from one side to there. And you sat on that thing for anything, eight to nine hours.
AS: Good lord.
LL: Now you’d think, well your backside must have been sore but that strap forms the shape of your backside [unclear] end, and we used to be sitting there for eight or nine hours, longer. I forget what the – I supposed it’s somewhere in there, the longest one, eight and a half hours I think, over Germany, that’s the longest flight we had I think. But you don’t’ feel tired [emphasis] and it’s a lovely feeling, sitting in a lot of bloody clouds, yeah. ‘Cause you don’t know what’s coming the other bloody way.
AS: ‘Cause you faced nearly always the tail?
LL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah, mhm, yeah. When you’d finished on Ansons, was that when you –
LL: Oh –
AS: When you’d finished on Ansons, is that when you, when you were qualified and you got your wings?
LL: Oh, wait a minute [?]. No [coughs] you got your wings when you finished your ground training. The last lesson you get, I forget what it’s all about, but then the old chap says ‘right, you’re now classified as sergeants. You’re, you’ve jumped all those ranks just because you going into aircrew, and also your pay goes up as well.’ So it makes a vast difference when you – that’s going from Bridgnorth in Shropshire which is the last of the ground [emphasis] training. You then go up to Castle Kennedy in Scotland for the, to start your, no, to start your flying, proper gun training then, yeah [coughs].
AS: Mm. When you got your wings and your promotion –
LL: Yeah.
AS: Was there a big parade? Did any – did your relatives come or?
LL: Erm [pause] and where was it? We were in Bridgnorth, I know that [papers shuffle]. Oh, no I think we were in the classroom in Bridgnorth, that was RAF Bridgnorth, yeah. And when the, when the ground course finished, the instructor, he then informed you that you were then made sergeant, you jumped all the ranks and you were made a sergeant and your pay went up as well. [Papers shuffling] so that was a good thing, yeah.
AS: Yeah, [laughs] absolutely. So you went then I suppose on leave for a while, did you?
LL: Erm, I think we might have had a, a long weekend or something like that. Ah yeah [coughs] ‘cause I went home that weekend when we passed out. Now who did I meet? I met somebody – unimportant anyway.
AS: Mm.
LL: Walking through town, a pal a long time ago, a school kid, yeah. I’d gone – I had a bit of a long, a long weekend [emphasis] I think they called it when I went home. And then from there we went from, I went from Swansea all the way up by train to Scotland.
AS: To Castle Kennedy, yeah. Okay, and when you finished Castle Kennedy –
LL: Yeah.
AS: It was round about the time of D-Day. When –
LL: Well, I was never going to teach [?] [coughs] but if it’s in there, mm.
AS: Shall we have a pause for a minute?
[Tape paused and restarted.]
AS: Right Les, we pick up again. I’d like to talk about the OTU and the Wellingtons and –
LL: Yeah.
AS: And crewing up. When you got to the OTU how did you form a crew? How did the crew all [LL laughs] get together?
LL: It was brilliant [emphasis]. You never, you never seen such a process – you couldn’t invent such a thing. I [unclear] gunner, Bill Jenkinson. I suppose – oh, I was behind the door, that’s my favourite bit, behind the door. And Bill was on that side. I said to him, I said to Bill, I said ‘oh, have you got anybody else with you? Why not grab a wireless operator or something like that?’ ‘No,’ I said ‘let’s go and have a look, see what we can see,’ and walked into all these chaps of pilots and navigators, and when [unclear] barracks, and when they were in this long line I saw a pair of feet sticking right out. I said ‘let’s have a look and see what that is, he looks a big bloke.’ [AS laughs] and that was the skipper, a New Zealander.
AS: What’s his name?
LL: And we walked up to him and said ‘you got any crew members yet.’ ‘No.’ I said ‘well you got two gunners,’ ‘oh that’s a good start’ [AS laughs]. We picked up like that [emphasis]. It was long [?], if somebody fancied you, it was – if you didn’t like them then you just passed on. But ‘oh, he looks a friendly’ – ‘I know him, I had a couple of pints with him,’ like that. That’s how you picked up a crew.
AS: So when –
LL: You wouldn’t believe – it was so lackadaisical the way everybody come together as a crew, and yet it worked beautifully.
AS: So you chose your skipper because of the size of his feet?
LL: Yeah [AS laughs]. It’s rather strange how seven people like that, complete strangers, can come together and form a crew. And all more or less you work and play in, with one aircraft, it’s brilliant. And yet you just knitted together and formed a complete crew, yeah.
AS: And when you’d done this dating [?], did you go out and socialise to get to know each other?
LL: Oh, oh yeah. Oh, I’ll tell you a funny thing happened, it’ll make you laugh. When the course – now what was that called? Ah [pause] –
AS: At the OTU?
LL: Upper Heyford.
AS: At the OTU, yeah.
LL: Erm, OTU.
AS: Mhm.
LL: We’d finished the course and everybody passed and we had a party in the sergeants mess, and the – we had lots of drinking going on and all that. And old Bill the rear gunner, he said ‘that bird from the sergeants mess, the cook, she’s caught my eye. I’m going to chat her up’ he said ‘when we finish.’ Well, it was sometime later on I did catch a glimpse of him. Of course he had to see her the following night or something, so I said to him, I said ‘oh, how did you get on last night?’ He just lay on the bed fully clothed looking miserable as sin. I said ‘what did you do?’ I said ‘what did you get?’ [AS laughs]. And he fell silent for a while. I said ‘you must have had some – you must have done something’ or another, similar comment like that. I said ‘what did you get?’ ‘That’s it on the table’ he said, chunk of bread and a chunk of cheese [AS and LL laugh]. I said ‘all that fuss for nothing,’ he said ‘a chunk of cheese and’ – right in the middle of the table. We enjoyed it anyway, we had, I think we had a bottle of beer hidden away somewhere, but it was enjoyable, yeah.
AS: Mhm. Was the flying at the OTU, was it very intensive? Did you do a lot of flying?
LL: Operation – yeah [emphasis]. There is – you do all sorts of trips, daytime and at night time. Short ones, ops, what do you call them? Bumping and something or another –
AS: Circuits and bumps.
LL: Ah yeah that’s it, good, circuits and bumps. You do a lot of that, day and night so that the pilot can get used to flying the aircraft. That’s more than anything else, because there’s nothing you can do from the gunner’s point of view at night time, you can’t see nothing. Not a thing, it’s completely black. You can look down, you can see one light or anything. And the only lights you see is the runway lights, and you can see them quite a distance away. But that’s the only thing to guide [emphasis] you, and it’s up to the navigator to know exactly where you are, so you learn from them, and I should imagine they got some beacons [emphasis] dotted all over the country so, and each one is tuned differently, so you tune, the navigator tunes into them. That’s how they guide you down a narrow alleyway because you’ve got flying, aircraft flying in all directions during the war. You could have a collision anytime [emphasis], you never know it, but that’s it, that’s what it’s all about.
AS: Mm. When you were at the OTU you were – were you straight away confident straight away that you’d chosen a good pilot?
LL: Erm, I think we did. We had a couple of rough landings, bumps, but like everybody else the more you do your job, the more efficient you become. Like you learn – I kept on missing [emphasis] when I was flying over the target, and fair enough the pilot of the, I think it was the Anson, he was very patient because they tell you off in a, a personal way, not giving you a good bollocking but advising [emphasis] you is a proper phrase, what you’ve got to do so everything goes along smoothly like that, yeah. Good enjoyable, I enjoyed it, sitting in there.
AS: Mm, okay. When you moved onto the OTU as a crew, where there many accidents among the other crews at OTU?
LL: [Coughs] Well [pause]. We were at – nearly every [emphasis] station, RAF station we went, we went with an aircraft went missing. Up at [unclear] Castle Kennedy, an Anson went missing over the, not the North Sea, the West Coast.
AS: The Irish Sea?
LL: Yeah, ah that’s, Irish Sea, yeah.
AS: Mm.
LL: He went missing up there. Next station – oh, then we, there was a Wellington. Oh, the Wellington went and crashed somewhere in mid Wales and it must have gone somewhere into a bog [emphasis] because it, it sunk out of sight, nobody could find it. So wherever it is it’s down there rotting. And then we got to – nothing happened up at Newark, Winthorpe. Oh, the Lanc finishing school, that’s the first time you’re in a Lancaster. Joining the circuit I spotted a black shadow on the ground of an aircraft, and you could practically recognise it as a Lancaster. But the strange thing about it was, as if some yob [emphasis] had been there with a spray gun, blood red, and gone all the way around it, framed it just like that. This black shadow on the ground, in line with the perimeter track. And just a line of red all the way round it. They reckon that the black was a plane, the red was the remains of a crew, yeah, when it exploded. There’s nothing, there’s nothing left to show, it was a crew there, it’s just that red mark.
AS: Good lord. We’ll pause for a second.
[Tape paused and restarted.]
AS: Lesley, you were talking about lights, or not having any lights at night –
LL: Yeah.
AS: Could you see the exhausts from your own aircraft, from the Wellington or the Lancaster when you were flying?
LL: I don’t think – I wasn’t aware of it –
AS: Mhm.
LL: But I don’t think, I don’t think we, no I don’t think we did bother with it. We never saw anything because [coughs] I think that the flame from the engine would pass through the back end of it and disappear.
AS: Mhm.
LL: So you did – I don’t think, I can never remember seeing any light or flame or, coming from the engines.
AS: Okay.
LL: And I think they had an extended exhaust pipe [coughs] and it goes under the wing rather than over the top. So it’s out of sight [?] anyway, yeah [coughs].
AS: Yeah. There were two of you as gunners, there was you and Bill Jenkinson.
LL: Yeah.
AS: How did you decide who was gonna be the rear gunner and who was gonna be –
LL: Oh, well, well we were in a bedroom like this, a long hut. A peace [emphasis] time building, brickwork. Bill was on that side of the door, I was behind it.
AS: Mhm.
LL: And I had a look around and Bill was the nearest and I said ‘you got anybody to go up with you Bill?’
AS: Mm, mm.
LL: ‘No not yet’ he said, ‘but I want to be a rear gunner.’ ‘Oh that’s alright,’ I said, ‘I’ll take mid upper gunner position then’ –
AS: Oh so you decided between you?
LL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah, okay.
LL: He said ‘alright, that’s [coughs] that’s what I want to be, rear gunner.’ So that’s how we decided.
AS: Mm, okay. So you did a fair bit of flying at the OTU on Wellingtons.
LL: Yeah.
AS: Were they good, were they good aircraft, or were they pretty ropey at that time?
LL: No, oh [emphasis]. They must have been reliable because I think [emphasis] now you come to mention it, a lot of them were [coughs] exit [?] squadron.
AS: Mhm.
LL: And that had to be kept in a good condition, especially going on operations. The good maintenance on that aircraft was carried on I think through the training sessions. So you did have reliable aircraft – I can’t ever remember us having, if we ever – well you have a stimulated three engine landing for practice with a pilot [coughs], see how it handles landing and taking off.
AS: okay. So you were on forty-four course at –
LL: Sixty, sixty one.
AS: Okay. The, the course you were on at 16 OTU that was forty-four course. Did you, did you pass out from there, did you have a passing out parade when you finished at OTU?
LL: Erm [pause] Upper Heywood.
AS: Mm.
LL: OTU, operational training – no [emphasis] apart from having this, this party at the end of the course when Bill and all this cook from the sergeants mess catching his eye [AS laughs]. That’s the only incident I can remember [emphasis] in there.
AS: Okay.
LL: It was a very quiet sort of a station, yeah.
AS: Okay. And then you went on leave [emphasis], did you?
LL: I think we must have because I remember – I went on, possibly a long weekend because I went home to Swansea and I had to get on, what do you call the, they call the Coastal Train down there. It goes all the way round the outside of Wales until you get up into Scotland. You didn’t go across the midlands, I think they were kept clear for munitions [?] and all so you go on this track [coughs], going through small village all the way up to go up to Scotland.
AS: That must have taken forever [emphasis].
LL: Yeah, it does. But it’s surprising how quickly time goes when you’re moving, you know. And you tend to remember [emphasis] places like that. You, you seen it in your school days on a map where certain places are, so like ‘oh this is so and so,’ ‘that’s so and so.’ You go, time soon goes, yeah. Oh take my tea away, too much, too much of that.
AS: Mhm. Then after the OTU you went onto Stirlings at the Heavy Conversion Unit at Winthorpe.
LL: Er, yeah, Winthorpe, that’s where we were Stirlings.
AS: Mhm.
LL: Very, very quiet, not much happened on that station to my, to my knowledge anyway.
AS: Mhm.
LL: No I can’t think of any [coughs] –
AS: But at –
LL: Winthorpe –
AS: Mm.
LL: Stirlings, no I don’t think much happened on there. Very quiet station.
AS: Okay, mhm.
LL: At Winthorpe, yeah. Near Newark, yeah.
AS: Mhm.
LL: That’s it.
AS: But then, then did you start doing exercises with fighter aircraft in the sky, on the Stirlings?
LL: Erm –
AS: The fighter affiliation [?] –
LL: We didn’t do it on the Wellingtons because it’s got no mid upper turret, so the Stirling would have been the first aircraft. No hang on. The Wellington would have been a job for the rear gunner, there’s no mid upper gunner turret, so I used to stand at the astrodome and looking out possibly [unclear] one of the navigator might want it or somebody want some information. You can see everything but there’s nothing to see, it’s all black. So what they expect you to see in the darkness like that I don’t know. But I had a sometimes it was a longish journey and other times it was just bumps, bumps and whatever, yeah [coughs].
AS: Mhm. So that’s just over a month on Stirlings from mid October to mid November 1944. I suppose pulling you together as a crew still.
LL: Yeah, well you go from Wellingtons which has only got one active turret, you go onto a Stirling then which has got the two.
AS: Mm.
LL: It’s got three turrets actually – one in the doors, mid upper turret and a tail gunner, yeah.
AS: Mhm.
LL: But there’s only two gunners there anyway.
AS: And so does the bomb aimer use the front turret?
LL: Yeah, Well sometimes if necessary he can [emphasis] get up there if you got time [coughs].
AS: And then you went on, for a short time to the Lancaster Finishing School.
LL: Yeah.
AS: Right.
LL: Yeah, yeah we passed away [?] – yeah the Lanc Finishing School is the last time, oh the first time you sit in [emphasis] a Lancaster, ‘cause then that prepares you for your next station which for us was just up the road in Lincoln. That’s the only place, the first place you sit in a turret of a Lancaster, so the Lancaster Finishing School. That’s the whole idea of it, introduce you to the aircraft you’re going to fly, yeah, which is a good thing really, yeah.
AS: And how did that feel? Did that feel –
LL: I rather liked it myself, yeah, quite pleasant. It was a nice steady aircraft when you were flying, you know, it was rather stable, and often you see them bumping about but that one, it seems to hold itself dead level the whole time. It’s pretty well set up. I think that applies to a lot of them during the war.
AS: And that was a really modern aeroplane then.
LL: Yeah, yeah. And according to the book, it was a mark three I believe that we ended up with up on the squadron, ‘cause you had all the latest radar equipment and all that stuff in it.
AS: Mhm. But nothing special happened at Lanc Finishing School that you recall?
LL: Erm, apart from seeing that shadow with the red painted on, that was a very quiet station, yeah. You do, you do day and night flying in it. But you can’t see a blooming thing at night, anyway.
AS: Even though you’ve got the best view at the top of the aeroplane?
LL: Yeah you can’t see – well, people don’t realise what a blackout is. A blackout is every [emphasis] light [emphasis] is out [emphasis].
AS: Mhm.
LL: It’s complete darkness, and if you happen to show a light it’s so quiet that you can hear somebody shout out ‘put that bloody light out,’ or so ‘shut that doors, shut that window,’ something like that.
AS: Mhm.
LL: Because it’s so black [emphasis] that you spotted straight away – you go ‘well what the hell’s that then?’ Or ‘some buggar’s opened the window’ or something like that.
AS: But when you’re airborne with the stars and the moon, could you see horizontally or above you? [LL coughs] Could you see other aircraft in the sky, for instance?
LL: [Pause] You could see the horizon, the dark earth and if it’s a moonlit light you could see the curve of the earth and the difference – the horizon [emphasis], you could see the difference. Now, an interesting thing happened there. Talking about UFOs, now this is true this. There was a starlit night; you could see the horizon and the end of the darkness and all of the stars. And I thought ‘that’s funny, that star’s moving faster than the others.’ I kept on coming around to it [coughs]. That one star, that I believe could have been one of these foreign things, a UFO I believe. I tell you why, [talking in the background]. Yeah, it’s rather strange, nobody speaks [emphasis] when you’re in an aircraft, everybody’s concentrating on the job. You’re a navigator you’re concentrating, engineer, and all that you concentrate on – and I was looking and I thought ‘he’s moving.’ And I followed that. As it got overhead, I heard – nobody speaks [emphasis] when you’re flying, and this voice, I heard this voice as clear as you were talking. ‘We’re of no danger to you.’ So where did that voice come from? Nobody spoke, you never speak unless you’re telling the navigator tells the pilot ‘oh we’ve got to turn right here, and our starboard’ or something like that, or somebody passing a message, that’s the only time you speak. And you see somebody spoke just [emphasis] as clear as if it was in the aircraft with you. ‘We’re of no danger to you,’ so where did the voice come from?
AS: Wow. Did you discuss this with your crew later?
LL: No, well the thing is, you never mentioned – and this is strange. You never mentioned anything inusual [emphasis] because you then put everybody on nerves end –
AS: Mm.
LL: Thinking ‘now what’s he on about?’
AS: Yeah.
LL: But then the next thing you know, ‘what the hell’s he bloody on about, silly, he bloody drunk again,’ something like that. But, so you kept everything to yourself, and this is why it’s so quiet in the aircraft, the only time you’d speak if you’re passing instructions to anybody.
AS: It sounds like you were a very disciplined [emphasis] crew. Did your skipper keep tight discipline and make –
LL: Erm, well it seemed that we were completely at ease. I can’t remember the pilot or anybody for that sort of losing their temper. It’s rather strange, as if you’re entering another world. It’s very calm [emphasis] in there, when you’re flying, whether it’s the quietness, the only sound you can hear is the engines, but then you got your helmet on and you got your earphones, so you blocked out all the sound, the external sounds. So the only thing you can hear is when anybody speaks inside [emphasis] the aircraft. Otherwise it was dead quiet. It’s like this place now, yeah.
AS: Can you hear your own breathing?
LL: Hmm?
AS: Can you hear your own breathing on your mask? Checked – 59:41
LL: Ah now you come to mention, you did sometimes if you got excited, yeah. You’re bound to, yeah, and oh, another time was if your oxygen tube, pipe got disconnected, then you can hear all sorts of things then. Bad connection [?] from you to the turret, it’s complete, you can’t hear nothing else ‘cause it’s all coming through there, and what goes there comes from the person who’s either flying it or the crew, other members of the crew, yeah.
AS: So did you have this then, did your oxygen come disconnected?
LL: Yeah, it did. Now what happened there then? [Pause] oxygen lack at high altitude is very dangerous. A lot of things can go wrong, you’re maybe doing things that you would not normally do [coughs]. But, so you do take care of all your equipment at all times, to make sure everything is working right, and every switch is in the right position sort of thing.
AS: Mm.
LL: You got to be very careful when you’re flying.
AS: Did you check on each other to make sure you were all –
LL: Oh, oh, I’ll tell you what, I used to regular but you do it in a manner that you’re not scaring them, not upsetting them. ‘You alright down there Bill? You warm enough?’ Some remark like that.
AS: Yeah.
LL: You didn’t agitate any problem or anything like that, you kept quiet. Because anybody under tension could miss things. But when it’s all quiet like that and you’re concentrating you were quite safe I think, yeah.
AS: Mm. When you were on the ground as a crew, did you practice your drills? Your dingy drills, your evacuation drills?
LL: Well, Bridgnorth was some of the ground staff. Oh we did some dingy [emphasis] drill up at [unclear] at Castle Kennedy in Scotland. You cling onto an imitation, well a platform which represented the wing of the aircraft, and you want to jump [emphasis]. You’re in a pond, and then you had to get to the raft. Now, with all the flying clothes on, everything, you’re heavy, and you’ve got to get there as quickly as you can, otherwise – well it’s not all that deep anyway just sufficient to wet yourself or so, all your clothes. And you just go in and sort of change and put dry clothes on.
AS: Mhm, when you finished, or any time really, did you really think about ‘well, I’ll be going bombing soon?’ Did you think that you were about to go to war?
LL: No, not to my knowledge. I never – flying was just flying to me, and you look forward [emphasis] to it, it’s getting you off the ground. You join the Air Force to flying an air, to flying in aircraft, not to keep marching on the bloody square all the time.
AS: So even on operations you were keen to go flying?
LL: Oh, oh yeah. Never where you are – you wanted to get away from the, from the monotony of class, in the classes, because quite often you get different instructors but the subject is always the same. They drilling [emphasis] it into you, they, and they’ve got to succeed in getting that knowledge into you because it could save your life, and not only you but the aircraft and the rest of the crew.
AS: So going on operations was almost a relief [emphasis] to stop –
LL: It was in a way [pause]. There was a – I forget what happened, but we were on a very heavy raid. Loads of bloody shells everywhere, exploding all around you. I found that – now this is stupid [emphasis]. I was in an aircraft with five or six tonnes of high explosive bombs. I was trying to stand up in the mid upper turret, shaking like a leaf on a tree, shivering, frightened like hell, and it, well. It’s like the noise is like flying in a thunderstorm, a very heavy thunderstorm. And then the bumping [emphasis] about of bumps from the shells [?] is like when they go on these rapid waterfalls, you’re bumping all over the place – what was the other thing? Very calm sort of thing. I suddenly – I was shaking like mad, and then as quickly as it appeared, the condition disappeared completely. Instead of being frightened or scared stiff and god knows what, I just sat down there in amongst all this noise and what have you, I just sat and relaxed. And as if somebody had said ‘welcome to the club, you’re a survivor. You lost the fear of death.’ And there it was, in exactly the same conditions, shaking like mad and all that, I just sat down like we are now, and as if I was on a training flight. And all this going on outside, just outside the door [emphasis], and I just sat down there as if nothing was wrong. How your brain bloody works I don’t know, but I just sat down there, still the same conditions, but I wasn’t worried.
AS: Mm.
LL: It’s funny really, yeah, ‘cause – just normal training flight and I must be bloody mad or something [AS laughs].
AS: And you were fine from then on?
LL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah.
LL: We were going on a raid, I forget where it was, somewhere, somewhere heavy [emphasis] I know that. And I know one thing that – in the, oh, we got a 50, 61 Squadron newsletter that comes out once every three months I think. Somebody wrote an article about what happened over at Hamburg on this – it’s on there, the raid during the 61 Squadron I think [papers shuffling]. Oh, some bloke describing all the anti-aircraft shells everywhere. And these German [papers continue to shuffle] jets in amongst the aircraft. What did he – and someone else wrote it, that’s what drew my attention to it. It was completely wrong [emphasis]. He made it up, because the day in question, the 9th of the 4th, not one anti-aircraft shell was fired, and the only aircraft we saw was a German jet, the 262, and that flew head on, straight through the middle, plonk. Right through this group, turned round and knocked down three aircraft. We didn’t see the fourth go down but you’re in a group of six sevens, forty-two, six across and six behind them below, and that fighter knocked down three on one, on our side. You got the, I think the bombing leader on that end comes up to us and it’s a tail end Charlie sort of thing [coughs]. You there [?] to form the six in the front. That thing went down, but that thing [?] got shot on the following day with the Yanks. They damaged this aircraft, they had to find a place to land, and when they was looking and doing something with the controls of the aircraft, he didn’t see the crater in the middle of the runway. Straight in and up he went. That was the following day.
AS: That was the German pilot?
LL: Yeah.
AS: So, so with your six sevens of forty-two aircraft, that was both squadrons flying together, 50 and 61?
LL: Well, it was the son of the late rear gunner, he [pause] – did he phone or ring, write a letter? [Pause] I forget now.
AS: Okay, we’ll, we’ll come back to that later.
LL: [Unclear] no we’ll come back to it.
AS: Mm. So you were forty-two, in daylight, flying in formation.
LL: Yeah.
AS: Okay, so that must have been the two squadrons together.
LL: Ah, ah I know, I know. In that logbook, that’s all the operations and all the flying we did as a crew.
AS: Mhm.
LL: No other squadron is mentioned, but the son of the rear gunner, he must have something, telly or something, internet. He found that the Dambusters are not mentioned in there, but the Dambusters and us were on the same raids.
AS: Okay.
LL: And how I know that, we were on the one raid and I pointed out to the – it was Bill started it first. He said ‘look at that light down there’ he said ‘down on the port side.’ And he said something about ‘possibly turn back soon because it looks like the engines were not coping with the load.’ And we followed this progress, you didn’t focus on it you just casually glanced – it kept on coming nearer and nearer. But when that thing came near enough, we thought it was an extra fuel tank you know, to set fire to buildings, but that was the latest bomb that the RAF aircraft would, could carry. What was it, twenty-two thousand pounds?
AS: Is it the, the Tall Boy was it?
LL: Yeah.
AS: Yes.
LL: And that’s what they called it. But we followed that and gradually, so it came level with us, and you know when people bail out of an aircraft they travel at the same speed as the aircraft, and same applies to your bomb load, because when that plane gradually comes up dead level with us, wing tip to wing tip, the release of such a weight, that plane disappeared. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t bend my head back to see if they were overhead, but it just disappeared. And I was left with a view of this great big bomb flying level with our [AS laughs] wingtip. If we had a camera, nobody would have believed it was a fake picture, but it was the – I’d heard of [?] the people travel the same speed as the aircraft when they bail out, so that bomb load does and gradually [emphasis] it sinks. But for what seemed like an eternity it just stood there level with the wing and then it dropped. The size of that thing there, my gosh [emphasis], long as this bloody room nearly.
AS: Well I think [emphasis] the biggest one was twenty-two thousand pounds was it?
LL: Yeah that’s it, that was, that was this Dambusters aircraft [coughs] because a raid is made up of possibly a dozen or more squadrons all different ones, all with different purposes and all with different buildings to go to, stores or oil depots or things like that.
AS: Yeah, could you remember, could you talk me through a typical raid, from getting up in the morning to going to briefing, what was it like? [LL coughs] say a daytime raid.
LL: Well you get up in the morning – well more often than not your day, your own [emphasis] day starts about dinner time, because you’d been out, say, the night before, so you’ve had your kip and you go down to the sergeants mess for lunch. And then you got your briefing [emphasis] in the afternoon, and then similar, if it’s a late takeoff it’s normally about tea time or something like that.
AS: What was the briefing like?
LL: Erm, well they give you all the details, the name of the target – well it’s more for navigation than anything else. Bu you’re also advised that there are certain airfields about with various fighters in there. And at that point of the war [?] it was mainly German jets, the 262. And that’s the only time we ever – I’ve actually been that close it’s practically this distance away from here to the other side of the passage. And I should imagine that pilot, he would have knocked down the three outside ours, and that was I think two 61 Squadron aircraft went down and a 50, and I could imagine now [emphasis], I didn’t think of it then, I could imagine the bloke swinging his aircraft around and lining it up, and he weren’t that far away, he couldn’t have bloody missed us, and I should imagine that as he was able to press the button, I told him, the pilot, to take aversive action, and the pilot caught up and eighty-one [?] straight through, yeah. Carried on, he knocked down that three besides us and that was it, yeah.
AS: Mm. The luck of the draw.
LL: Sometimes it gets exciting but otherwise it’s boring [emphasis].
AS: Mhm.
LL: You’re just sitting there doing nothing. Nothing you can do about it, no.
AS: When you were flying on daylights –
LL: Yeah.
AS: Did you have fighter escort?
LL: No, never saw any.
AS: Okay.
LL: They might have been out of range, some distance away not to distract your attention, but I could, could never ever, 1943, forty-four, no forty-five –
AS: Forty-five.
LL: February forty-five was the first raid we’d done. Never had I seen anything there to protect us, you had to protect yourselves.
AS: So you weren’t, you weren’t told at briefing that there’d be –
LL: Yeah.
AS: You weren’t told at the briefing that there would be fighter cover or anything?
LL: Yeah, that’s all you, that’s all you relied on, whatever the squadron leader tells you during your briefing.
AS: Mm.
LL: Nothing else, target and all this and that, and they tell you the airfields with various aircraft, but at that time of the war, it ended a couple of days later anyway [emphasis], and [coughs] I’ll tell you what, in the areas [?] sort of thing, give you some advice, but you never took too much notice of it, because you know in about two, three days the war’s gonna end.
AS: So when you, so when you went on ops you knew this was just about the finish did you?
LL: Yeah, for us it was a limited period of time from the beginning of February I think it was until what was it, May?
AS: May, yeah.
LL: Yeah, that’s my wartime experience, that, the last three months, yeah.
AS: So –
LL: It was bad enough then –
AS: Yeah.
LL: When you consider fifty-six, fifty-eight youngsters lost, thousand [emphasis] lost like that.
AS: Mhm.
LL: Great number of men, and all youngsters, yeah.
AS: And still being killed at the very end.
LL: Yeah, yeah.
AS: Like your three aircraft.
LL: Yeah.
AS: Yeah.
LL: Yeah, practically the last, last day but one, down they went. I did see one of those Lancs splitting off. Either the pilot, mid upper gunner was sound asleep or something, or the bomb aimer above wasn’t with it because that aircraft broke right in half [emphasis], with [unclear] where the mid upper turret, mid upper turret gunner must have been killed instantly because the aircraft broke in half and the tail end gone down there swinging like a pendulum.
AS: Mm.
LL: And the whole front of it just went straight down. I don’t think any of them, anybody got out of it alive, I think they lost. Another aircraft was shot down further down and out of that, what was that, twenty, twenty, only a few survived, all the rest gone. There aren’t any survivors – once they start going down you can’t get out of them, yeah. That’s a big problem.
AS: Hmm. So still really dangerous with the flak and the fighters.
LL: Yeah you, well you did worry about it I think internally, but I think it soon passes over once you get used to it I think. You get accustomed to all this noise and bumping that goes on, and you accept it as part of the job, simple as that, yeah.
AS: Okay. We were talking about a typical mission. After the briefing you’d have your meal and then what would happen?
LL: Well erm [pause] first thing out to the aircraft. What you do there from then on, you were double checking all what everybody else had done. You check all your equipment, navigator and wireless operator, everything, everyone checks everything is okay. And then you just hang about, have a chat with the ground crew, discuss something like that. You just spending time until a tank [?] would takeoff. Comes on usually has after a meal or sometime in the afternoon, yeah [zipping noise].
AS: How did you get out to the aircraft?
LL: Oh, well we had transport [zipping noise]. We had one of these little round Land Rover things, you never walked because moving about on foot you’re sweating, and that’s the last thing you want to get into an aircraft and you gonna fly high and you’re sweating, because then you really get cold [emphasis]. It’s like when you have a bath in the winter, it’s not so comfortable as having a bath in the summer. It’s still having a bath [coughs] and you’re still flying but if you’re sweating you’re much colder. [Coughs] it’s a bloody nuisance this is.
AS: Did your flying kit generally keep you warm?
LL: Yeah, yeah. It was electrically operated, like yeah – oh it was like a pair of overalls [emphasis] you put on completely. Under your – oh, it was outside your trousers but I think you had your jacket – oh you had all your flying clothes on, thick, thick like sheep’s wool uniform –
AS: Mhm.
LL: All over you to keep you warm. And you wore mittens or gloves, gauntlets, they were plugged in as well. It was like an electric seat and that kept you warm when you were flying.
AS: Okay.
LL: So it wasn’t too bad.
AS: And some of your trips were quite long weren’t they?
LL: Oh yeah. I done eight and a half hours I think, or was it nine? But they’re not as long as some of these people have done, they’ve gone further and flying for ten or twelve hours.
AS: Mhm. And Nuremburg, that’s a long one.
LL: Yeah. I think eight and a half or nine and a half was the longest I think we done. It’s recorded in there anyway, somewhere.
AS: Mm. A really basic question is how did you use the loo, or did you, in the aeroplane?
LL: How did you?
AS: Use the toilet in the aeroplane? With all this suit [emphasis] on.
LL: Ah, now that’s a big problem. I never can remember, I never did do anything. Because the last thing you do, usually after a meal, you dive into the toilet and you get rid of all your problems down there [AS laughs]. And then – you got to be relaxed before you get in the aircraft. Remember you don’t want any distractions of any description.
AS: Mhm.
LL: That’s the only way I can put that, yeah.
AS: Changing tack a little bit, your skipper was commissioned.
LL: Yeah.
AS: Did that make a difference to the way the crew operated?
LL: No, he was still a skipper to us.
AS: Mhm.
LL: Mm, number – I think – well no, don’t forget you’re flying together, you’re practically living together, you don’t necessarily use the same sergeants mess because you’re not supposed to fly, what was it? A four engine aircraft, say a Stirling, a pilot must have – I don’t think the pilot was allowed to fly one of them unless he was a pilot or flying officer [coughs]. And when you got onto the Lancasters as if there was an unwritten law. You can’t fly in these aircraft unless you’re a flight lieutenant.
AS: Really?
LL: Yeah. And straight away, you move from one station to another and you gain all those ranks, and it’s the same as when we passed out at a training centre. You go from the lowest rank in the RAF to a sergeant, with an increase in pay which is a good thing, yeah.
AS: Did you, did you – what did you feel about bombing at the time? Was it just a job or did you feel sympathy for the people underneath, or?
LL: Erm, bear in mind that at that time I was living in Swansea and we were going through a Blitz over there.
AS: Mm.
LL: And they say that you dump [?] the bomb that’s going to kill you, you don’t hear that coming down. But you can’t get any nearer than about a hundred yards and you can still hear it, because I think it was at, what I remember, this chap must have been a doctor, and his wife and a son, and they were in a bungalow and that disappeared, and that was only a hundred yards away. But you heard this noise like a whistling sound, and that was it on its way down, the bomb on its way down. There was nothing left, there was a great big hole there and that’s all that was left of that little bungalow.
AS: In Swansea?
LL: Yeah, and that was during the Blitz, yeah. A bit of a noisy place down there. And we weren’t even in the centre of the town, we were on the edge of it, only about a well, a mile, maybe a mile and half from the centre of the town. Otherwise it was just a distant banging that goes on [coughs].
AS: Mm. And then at the end of May, operations, well, operations stopped. You finished operational flying in May 1954.
LL: Yeah.
AS: What happened to you after that?
LL: Interesting. The squadron got rid of its Lancasters. It changed over to the Lincolns. Now you might know, the Lancaster had a mid upper turret, the Lincoln hadn’t. So all the mid upper gunners had to remuster, and you had a discussion ‘where you going to go to?’ Sometimes the officers required certain people at certain stations, but more often than not they remuster to go to Marsham [?] to learn to drive [coughs]. Because don’t forget we were only kids at the time, only eighteen, so the more you learnt the better, and this is how I come to end up in Marsham [?] learning to drive.
AS: Okay.
LL: And that was a – what was I then? I left the flying when I was well, eighteen, I was still eighteen then, yeah. Yeah that’s when I went over to Marsham [?] and I’ve been in the air ever since, yeah.
AS: When you remustered, you kept your rank –
LL: Yeah, yeah you kept your rank and your pay.
AS: And your badge?
LL: Yeah, and the badge [coughs]. I never know, never knew where my wing went, my air gunner’s wing, and the length of ribbons like I got on the photograph.
AS: Mhm.
LL: Somebody must have thrown them out, I don’t know where. I used to keep a lot of the stuff altogether like we did with this.
AS: Mhm.
LL: But where they’ve gone to – they’ve disappeared now, anyway.
AS: Mhm. So you remustered as a driver in the Air Force.
LL: Yeah.
AS: And then where did you get posted to after that?
LL: Ah, where, Marsham [?]. I remember being interviewed with a friendly officer. He said ‘right, now’ he said, ‘we got to get posted now. What about going down to St Athan’s? That’s in Wales.’ I said ‘no good going down there, pubs are closed on Sundays’ [AS laughs]. That’s all I could answer, then he looked through some books around. ‘Bristol’ he said.’ ‘Ooh that’s alright’ I said, ‘I got a niece or a relative still down there in Bristol,’ I said ‘we could go down there.’ ‘Pucklechurch’ he said, that was a transport maintenance station and we used to do a lot of this, taking the vehicle, RAF vehicles from Pucklechurch and I think it’s up to Quedgeley [emphasis], place near Gloucester?
AS: Mm.
LL: I used to do that run quite often, and this is funny. Now then, what was required by the mechanics, whatever was on that list, you had to bring that vehicle in. You take the vehicle out that had been repaired and restored, and you bring another back, so you didn’t have an idle journey. And I came back, all sorts of private cars, officers cars, and all. And you know what those Queen Mary’s are?
AS: Yes, mhm.
LL: The long aircraft carriers. I had to bring one of them back [coughs]. You had a building – on the station, Pucklechurch, you had a building, car park was this side, had this, I had this car, this Queen Mary, and I must have remembered what the driving instructor had said. ‘Pause briefly, have a look what sort of route you’re going to take, if you’re getting the vehicle out [emphasis] of the car park. And you’d get so far and close round [?] to the bend, and then you start turning,’ so you were lined up ready to go on. And I thought ‘well briefly I did that’ but in reverse, and I paused very slowly and I thought ‘I’ve gotta go there, there, there, there.’ I levelled [?] then lined myself up – I didn’t move the vehicle, just looked. ‘Right go on then, right God, I’ve worked the route out how to go out backwards with this Queen Mary,’ I went all the way around and went all the way in. Never touched the side [AS laughs] and all of a sudden I heard this voice. ‘Loosemore you’re a liar,’ well I thought ‘how’s that?’ I looked round, couldn’t see anybody, and I heard this voice again. And there was this, I think it was the transport officer and he said ‘you’re a bloody liar, you tell anybody who’s just done that they’ll call you a bloody liar mate.’ I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d never driven a Queen Mary before, and I just didn’t want to shut him down [?], go so far and backed up and that was dead [emphasis] in line. I could see the pillars of the windscreen, between the windscreen and it was all in, dead in line. And that’s what that transport officer was shouting.
AS: Mm.
LL: ‘You tell anybody you just done that,’ and I was dead [emphasis] in line. And he wouldn’t believe me, wouldn’t believe me.
AS: Brilliant.
LL: I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d never driven one before [AS laughs], mm.
AS: When, just as you left the squadron –
LL: Yeah.
AS: What was it like leaving your crew? Did they go on without you?
LL: Ah, no. That was rather strange that. I don’t think, no. It was proper procedure, because you were guided towards an office and all this rubbish, what I call rubbish piled on the floor. The officer then said ‘dump all you want to get rid of, take what you want,’ just like that. And there was all sorts of stuff, but your uniform, you didn’t want that, a lot of stuff straight on the pile. But if there was anything you wanted you just grabbed. I grabbed a couple of towels, that’s about all I wanted. Nice brand new towels, and I forget [?] what I didn’t want, but I could have had anything off that pile, he just said ‘take all you want.’ But I couldn’t for the life of me, well there was nothing I wanted really.
AS: Mm.
LL: Everything. But I did grab a couple of towels.
AS: Mhm.
LL: And all the other, the wrong number on it but you could always cross that number off and put your own number next to it, and name, yeah.
AS: What about leaving your crew, what did that feel like?
LL: Well as I said, I didn’t know they’d gone [emphasis].
AS: Oh okay.
LL: No, because I was sent straight to the dumping ground, the office.
AS: Mhm.
LL: When they went, I hadn’t seen then since [coughs] ‘cause they went possibly to another, to get ready to go to another station.
AS: Mm.
LL: Because I think they left, they left Skellingthorpe and they might have gone somewhere onto another squadron [coughs].
AS: Okay, so you didn’t manage to keep in touch?
LL: Oh, the only – oh I did with, oh I make [pause], did I see him? I might have had a letter or a phone call to say that the rear gunner who travelled from Ormskirk in Lancashire [coughs].
AS: Mm.
LL: He was with a fellow officer. I think we were all warrant officers by then. Oh they were at Crewe Station, and he said, he had to answer a call of nature [coughs]. And he was with this other bloke, I think a warrant officer, with his two kitbags [coughs]. When he came out his mate was missing and his kitbag. All his kit was in there. His family didn’t know what he had done during the war. The bloke disappeared, so did his kitbag with all his stuff like that in there.
AS: All his logbook and –
LL: I thought, he was telling me about it [coughs]. And when I was – I had a letter from his son telling me, telling me what happened, I thought ‘well, it’s not fair really.’ He’d got all this – it wasn’t too long back. His family didn’t know anything about his service life, not a thing. So been in contact with him, I thought ‘well, it’s only fair.’ You can change my name to any member of the crew, it’s exactly the same. All the flying you do is as a crew [emphasis], and all, no stranger amongst them. So if I take my name off and put yours instead, nobody could be any wiser because you all fly together as a crew and not as an individual with somebody else. So the recording on there is exactly the same, right the way through.
AS: Mm.
LL: All seven of us got exactly the same written on there.
AS: So you made a copy and gave it to –
LL: Yeah –
AS: The son.
LL: I did, I copied it I think.
AS: Yeah.
LL: You can have that if you want it.
AS: Thank you.
LL: It’s entirely up to you.
AS: Thank you.
LL: I think – oh, when I did the copying for Bill I done an extra one, in case I came across somebody else who wanted one, so I’ve always had – it’s been spare so I’m alright that way [?].
AS: Thank you. That’s been absolutely [emphasis] – we’ve been talking for two hours. Shall we stop now, I think?
LL: What do you want to do now, anything?
AS: I think we’ve pretty well covered most [emphasis] of what I was going to say, maybe we could pause now.
LL: Well what we could do, we could open that door there and when – you can unlock it and have a bit of air come through, it’s getting a bit stale in here, yeah.
AS: That’s what we’ll do. Thank you very much.
LL: Yeah.
AS: Cheers.
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 Lesley Joseph Loosemoore
Creator
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Adam Sutch
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
2015-11-16
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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ALoosemoreLJ151116
Conforms To
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Pending review
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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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01:41:32 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Les Loosemore describes his upbringing and employment history in Swansea before joining the war in 1945. He describes the Blitz in Swansea before training to be a mid upper gunner for 61 Squadron. He describes his rather intensive training, including his time at the Lancaster Finishing School, the crewing up process, the importance of maintaining equipment and the various aircraft he flew, including Ansons, Wellingtons and Lancasters. He articulates the atmosphere onboard an aircraft during an operation, recalling the silence as everyone concentrated on their own duties and the fear he felt on his first few operations. He recalls watching the aircraft next to him dropping a Tallboy (or Grand Slam) bomb, before likening the noise of a operation to that of heavy thunder. He flew operations for three months before the war ended, at which point the mid upper gunners were no longer needed. He retrained as a driver although missed saying goodbye to his crew.
Contributor
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Katie Gilbert
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
Wales--Swansea
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-02
1944
1945
61 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
bombing
crewing up
fear
Grand Slam
ground personnel
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Me 262
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Upper Heyford
RAF Winthorpe
sanitation
service vehicle
Stirling
Tallboy
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/914/11156/AKnottS151001.1.mp3
378d56e9297935f50b102ccca94f5736
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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Knott, Sidney
S Knott
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Sidney Knott DFC (1268143 Royal Air Force). He flew 64 operations as an air gunner with 467 and 582 Squadrons.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Knott, S
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: My name is Adam Sutch. I’m conducting an interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m interviewing Mr Sidney Knott. A Bomber Command aircrew member of 467 Squadron during the Second World War. Also present is his daughter Mrs Jean Mangan. Sidney, I’m really grateful to you for agreeing to this interview. Could we start by discussing your time before the war? Before you joined the Air Force. When you were growing up. Schooling and that sort of thing
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Well I was a, I was a youth of the 20s and 30s and I lived in Southend on Sea. I lived in Leigh on Sea which is in the borough of Southend on Sea, Essex. And [pause] things were quite, you know, you imagine what things were like between the wars. It wasn’t very [pause] My father was a joiner. He had his own business. He worked for his father and he, when grandfather died my father took his business over. Just a one man business. And my mother ran a fruit and greengrocery shop. And then when I came up, I left school at fourteen but I lost about fifteen months schooling when I was ten and eleven through an operation. And I worked in in the greengrocer’s shop. And then, of course in 1940, when invasion was imminent, where we lived notice was, I remember, I can see it now. It was on a Sunday and they put up notices on the shop’s windows and saying that we were to be prepared to leave within one hour and only allowed to take one suitcase with us. And as soon as people read this notice, well in twenty four hours from being a busy area full of people suddenly there was hardly, there was only the shopkeepers left. And the Battle of Britain was going on and my father came to me and said one day, well you know we had nothing to, had hardly any work to do because there was no people, many left there. And I used to do my paper round and that was how I got my pocket money. So my father came to me and he said one day, of course he was in the First World War and he was wounded twice and he was in the Essex Regiment. And when he got wounded the second time he was sent back to France in the Suffolks, and he come to me and he had a rough time in the army being wounded several times. And he, he come to me and he says, ‘You don’t want to go in the army.’ Because he was worrying about being called up. This was before I was eligible to be called up and he said, ‘You won’t get in the navy. You’d better see if you can get in the Air Force.’ So I said, ‘Alright.’ He said, because he said, my father was quite a proud man, he never went outdoors without a tie on and he used to say, ‘In the Air Force they wear a collar and tie all the time.’ So, [laughs] so he said, ‘See if you could get in the Air Force.’ So I found out they were, in Southend there was no recruiting for the for the Air Force in Southend so I had to get on a bus and go to Romford. And there was a, there was a recruiting office there, it recruited all sections and I, that’s how I joined the Air Force. And my education was very poor because I lost a lot of schooling and left at fourteen. I did do a little bit of after school work. You know, night classes when I was about sixteen to eighteen. And because I was, what was I when the war started? I was [pause] how old was I when the war started? Eighteen?
JM: Eighteen.
SK: Eighteen. That’s right. And so, you know, that was the background before then. That’s how I joined the Air Force. But they were recruiting for wireless ops at the time. This is ground wireless ops you see. And then I wasn’t good enough for that so he said, ‘We can have you for general duties.’ So I jumped at it and I joined the Air Force as a general duties wallah.
AS: In 1940.
SK: I got my number in 1940. I was sent home on deferred service and was actually called up on the, I think it was the 6th of January ’41. Went to Blackpool, you know, for to do my square bashing. And that was my early life. And then I was, after square bashing we were, a group of us were posted to Horsham St Faiths in Norfolk. And we were only there twenty four hours and they pushed us out to the satellite and we was on a, well we were sent to Blickling Hall. We was living in the cow sheds and things like that. In the outbuildings of Blickling Hall. But the airfield, the airfield was at Oulton. And it was just a grass airfield and we had two squadrons of Blenheims there that were really only just forming from being kicked out of France. And of course some of the crew, the ground crews were still wandering back after being got home from France and had a bit of leave and had been assessed as fit to go back to the squadron. And as I say the Blenheims were doing, that was 2 Group then and they were doing such things as Channel sweeps and things like that. And bombing the coastal ports like Brest and other French coastal docks and so on.
AS: Against the barges and things like that.
SK: Pardon?
AS: Against the barges and things like that.
SK: Oh yes. Yes. You see. That sort of thing. Yes. And then, while I was there doing all sorts of things I was put on, I was on the fire section while I was there and while I was on the fire section I had two duties. One was the fire section to look after Blickling Hall. And we had to eat at Blickling Hall. There was no, on this airfield, all there was on the airfield was two, about two Nissen huts where the fitters were and we had one little brick building where we had, there was no flying control. They had a duty pilot and he just used to have to log the aircraft as they took off and landed and that was his job. It was one of the aircrew that was grounded at the time and that was his duties. And I was put on a crash tender, and we used to stand alongside the duty pilot. There’d be the crash tender, the blood wagon side by side and we had to attend all, any crashes. We were, well I had to attend three crashes while I was there but that’s, that’s going to longer stories. But then, from there during the time, it came up on daily orders that we were to, they were recruiting for air gunners because in the pipeline four-engine bombers were — that was going to be the future. And so they thought, well I mean they had the Wellington bomber and they needed a gunner. And of course the Blenheim had three crew and they had a gunner on them. It was wireless op/gunner. And then the Wellingtons had, excuse me, Wellingtons had five crew with one gunner. But the wireless op was also a spare gunner. And they asked for volunteers so I volunteered and two of us went from this camp, were sent to Horsham St Faiths to see the station commander there.
AS: Who was that?
SK: I don’t know who it was at the time. I can’t tell you anyhow [laughs] I’ve got no record of that.
AS: No worries. Sorry. Go on.
SK: But we didn’t have to go, no test or anything like that and he said, ‘Oh you want to,’ he said, ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘Ok,’ and it was assigned to us and we awaited our call. And then we, that’s how we joined up. I didn’t have to pass any tests or anything there. And then from there we waited our call and it was the end of 1941. Somewhere about October I would have thought, may have been September, I was called to go to Regent’s Park in London because that was the recruiting centre. The initial centre for aircrew. And then from there we were sent to a, after a short course there we were issued with our white flashes. That means aircrew under training which we wore in our forage caps. And then we went down to St Leonards. Part of Hastings and we was in the big marina. Marine Hotel it was. It belonged to Southern Railway at the time but it was commandeered and we, we were posted there at the Initial Training Wing to do the ground work for an air gunner. And the initial gunners, we had quite an extensive course. We had to learn basic navigation. As regards to signals you had to learn the Morse code and read the lamp at, I think six words a minute and there was, you know, you had lots of extra duties. All to do with being a good crew member. And then when that came to the end of that course well of course I didn’t pass the maths you see. They said, ‘You failed on the maths.’ My maths. And of course I wasn’t very good at that sort of thing. So anyway our next posting to go on, they weren’t available to take us, that was to an air gunnery course, because the weather was bad and a sudden influx of people, there was nowhere to put them. So they said we are going to put you on an extended course to do — for several weeks we did just maths, drill and PT [laughs] And from there there was, I wasn’t the only one I must say, I was pleased about that, that didn’t pass on the first issue but they passed us on the second time. And they said, well, and then we were posted to a Gunnery School and I went to, to Manby up here in Lincolnshire to the 1 Air Armament School as it was called and I did my gunnery course there. And I passed my course at gunnery. This course. And I remember it because when we had to do, because Manby was very strict. A lot of bull at Manby. And on passing out parade we had to form on the parade ground where every Friday, every Friday we reported on the parade ground but this one was the passing out parade when you were awarded your brevet. And, and I remember I had to be marker because I was two thirds down the course. And so that’s my position. I passed two thirds down the course. But they were a grand lot of chaps. And then we passed out from there and then I was sent to, from there I was sent to an OTU and that was to Finningley in Yorkshire. I forget the number of the OTU but that’s where we went to. Finningley. And we had to do quite an extensive course there and that’s where I got crewed up. And our crewing up was quite funny really because there was quite a few of us sent to, there was about twelve gunners sent down there because most of these crews that were there we found out were Blenheim crews, which had three crews. They had a pilot, they had a navigator, called an observer and the wireless op/air gunner. And then they were posted to the OTU to take the conversion course on to Wellingtons. And then [pause] so they had to take on two more crew and that would be the rear gunner and a bomb aimer. Right. And the crewing-up procedure was, after about a fortnight because after the fortnight we were just doing section work where the gunners were in one place, pilots, engineers all in their own sections. Then we had to meet all together and the CO of the station said, ‘Well, now you’ve got to get crewed-up. So sort yourselves out.’ So we all just stood there and, you know one or two had got in mind who they wanted, you know to crew-up with and so on. But I remember one of the chaps, one of these gunner friends that I’d got to know said to me, ‘Well you’d better,’ you’d better, you know, ‘Get going.’ He said, ‘Otherwise you’ll be left with that young kid over there.’ You know, he was a pilot. ‘That young kid over there.’ Because he could see some of them getting crewed-up, ‘I’m crewed-up.’ But I’m not, I wasn’t one to push forward so I just waited. And then quite, at the end a chap come over to me and I see he was, he was a wireless op/air gunner and he said to me, he introduced himself like, and he said, ‘I’m Johnny Lloyd,’ and he said, ‘Would you like to join our crew as a gunner? And would you like to come and meet my pilot?’ So I said, ‘Oh yeah. Ok.’ You know. So that’s how I met my first pilot. That’s him there. And he was eighteen months younger than me. And that was the young kid [laughs] they said I’d be left with. And I’ve often thought afterwards of those twelve chaps that were there I wonder how many of us got through, you know. And, you know he was the young kid you’ve got to put up with so I was quite pleased about that. So that was our, so we did all our training there on the Wellington and then we had to go over to, now what was that place called? Near Bawtry it was. A satellite to Finningley, to do, to do cross country’s. Right. Where you, you’re left on your own to do the cross country’s, you know. That was big deals. And so we, that was about a three or four week course over there. Then you go back to Finningley afterwards and await a posting. Well, we waited at Finningley for quite, we were sent on leave then for a while and then when we got back to Finningley we were still hanging about. Finished our course, waiting for a posting and we was quite, there quite a long time and then suddenly it came through that we were posted to, to Scampton. Right. And so I thought oh yes, yes. This was, what’s the time now? It’s about, it’s about, I don’t know, May, June, July. Somewhere about July or August. Something like that. August perhaps, ’42. Yes. And he said, he said [pause] so we gets to, so we gets to Scampton and we find out that Scampton where we are forming a new crew, a new squadron, sorry. A new squadron. And there was already two squadrons already there fully operating. And we was the juniors coming in and as I say, and we found out our first part of forming up we had no aircraft. We had no ground crew. But our leaders were there. We had some leaders. We had to get to know our leaders and our section commanders and so on and we got to know people for the first couple of weeks and then, then we were sent — we’d got to join this Flight. 1661 I think it was. Conversion flight. That was at Scampton. And it was only a grass airfield at Scampton and there were two fully operational aircraft there err squadrons there. 49 Squadron and 83 Squadron were there. And then we found out we’ve got to do this course because we were posted to 467 Squadron. An Australian squadron. And so anyway we, we trained on Manchesters and then after, of course Manchesters were the forerunners of the Lancaster but it only had the two engines. Well when they put the four engines on it they called it the Lancaster and took off the third fin to make it look nice. And so that, that was, you know that was how we got crewed-up there and of course when we were there from a Wellington crew we had to take on two extra people again to make a seven crew. So we had to take on an extra gunner and, and a flight engineer. And then we flew in the Manchesters and there was quite a few on the course there. And then we had to do some bullseyes. Bullseyes are mock operations where we, like mock, they were raid diversions in a way because we used to fly within reach of the Dutch coast and then turn back and come home. But you did everything as if you was going on an op and you would divert. We were diverters to draw the fighters up to us so the main force could creep in and perhaps go in through southern France. So we had a good training there and we used to come over to, of course Scampton as I said was still grass. But unknown to us we were going to be posted to Bottesford, right. Which is just in Lincolnshire but it’s in three counties. The actual airfield I think was in three counties because Bottesford was a very dispersed sort of airfield. So it was Leicester, Nottingham and Lincolnshire. The postal address I think was Nottingham. But we were quite, we were quite close to [pause] what’s the town called? Grantham.
JM: Grantham.
SK: Grantham. And so, anyway we used to go over to Woodhall Spa to do our landing on, on the runways because the satellite stations, as Bottesford was called was built during the war and they built them as dispersed stations. They realised the stations that were built during the war period in the 30s were all quite cramped and in one section they found that was a dangerous thing so they built these dispersal stations. Well, when they built them of course, I mean aircraft were going to be bigger so they wanted more space so they had bigger airfields. And so that’s why we went over to Woodhall Spa which was, had runways to learn the different way of landing on runways as to, to grass. And then, anyway when we got to the, we were [pause] got to Bottesford, we left Scampton a few days before Christmas. That’s ’42. And we first flew at Bottesford about two or three days before Christmas. We had a lot of training to do when we got to Bottesford because unknown to us, the ground crew, they’d sent new aircraft into Bottesford, new Lancasters, into Bottesford and they sent ground crew there to, to learn their trade on Lancasters. And they had a month to do it. Like we was learning at 1661 conversion flight. We were learning from the aircrew side. They were learning it from the ground crew side. And because we thought that how can we be a squadron with hardly any, with no aircraft. No ground crew. Anyway, so we got there and we, I talked to one chap and he said, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’d only, I’d only been a mechanic on Magisters,’ which was a single engine aircraft. A little tiny thing, you see. And of course when he come to see the Lancaster, a great big thing, it frightened the life out of him [laughs] you see, and we had a lot to learn. Anyway, the squadron became operational and we operated from there. I finished my first tour and the squadron, the crew I was with we were the first crew to finish a full tour on 467. We, we, there was two other crews that we were quite friendly with. They finished one trip behind us so we beat them by three days. But we claimed that right to be the first then to finish a full tour. And that, that went on to the concluding the, my first tour there. And this was taking place between, shall we say the 1st of January and my last one, my last trip was on the 30th of May. And we were posted away on the 6th of June. And we were posted away. Do you want me to carry on? As screen gunners. As screen gunners. And we said, ‘Well what’s a screen gunner?’ We’d never heard of it before. They said, ‘Oh, you’ll find out.’ So we didn’t know. So five of the crew were posted to the same place. I think it was 17 OTU, I think that was the number, to, to Silverstone. And the navigator was posted to Wing. And he said that was the saddest moment of his life when he had to leave the crew. And we got posted by air and I remember when we got there we had dropped him off at Wing first and then our aircraft flew on and landed us at Silverstone. Well, Silverstone was only just, the OTU at Silverstone had only just moved there and it wasn’t really organised properly. And it took them a month to get organised and when they did get organised they found out they had a satellite as well which was called Turweston. So as all gunners were sent over to Turweston because the gunnery courses and I think the bombing courses were going to be sent from there. And we found out what a screen duty, what a screen gunner’s duty was. We were to be instructors without being taught by — not, not classroom instructors. Field instructors. To pass on our knowledge and, and to take new recruits, new crews coming through from their OTU because that’s what Turweston was. An OTU. And to take them on air firing and, and cine camera work. Well, we had a little training aircraft attacking us as a fighter and so on and so forth and we used to take them up in the air to do that sort of thing, you know. But that’s what a screen gunner was. And of course you were supposed, that was supposed to be a six month rest. Well, we had casualties while we was on there. But after that, so we were posted away in early June and I stayed there ‘til the middle of January and you were supposed to have a six months rest. And then a chap come to me who was one of the staff pilots there. Like us he was a screened pilot. He was an officer, and he said to me, ‘I’m forming a new squadron,’ He’d obviously been told he’s got to go back on ops and he said, ‘Would you be interested in joining my crew?’ So I said, oh you know it came quite out of the blue. And I thought, well I’d done about seven and a half months I think it was and I felt well I’ve gone over my six months. I could be called back at any time and, mind you we had a good bunch of lads, of air gunners there. We all lived in one hut as screen gunners. And it was, I thought well, you know what do I do? But I thought I’ve got to move on I think because if not [pause] So I liked this chap anyway. Although he was a flight lieutenant I liked him. Right.
AS: What was his name?
SK: Walker. Flight Lieutenant Walker. Clive Walker. He came from Bolton. He was the son of a known name in Bolton that had a big tannery works up there. And anyway, he, he approached me and I said [pause] and he said, he saw I was hesitating a bit. He said, ‘Well look, can you think it over? Can I give you twenty four hours to think it over?’ So I said, ‘Oh thank you. Good.’ And at that he approached me because he, I’d just been on, taking some air gunners on air firing and we used to take about four or five air gunners in one aeroplane and then change the gunners in the air and, you know they would be firing at a drogue, you know. Towed by a little light aircraft. And then we could, we were controlling the, the you know it was whilst we were in the air we was in control of these gunners. Well, so anyway when I got back to my billet I kept thinking about it. And I went to a friend I was quite pally with, one of the gunners and I said to him, ‘Clive, Clive Walker’s just approached me about going back on ops with him and I keep thinking, shall I go?’ And the chap said to me and that was Bill Harley, his name was and he said to me, ‘He’s asked me as well.’ So anyway we sat down on our beds and we had a chat and I said, ‘Well, if you go I’ll go.’ So he said, ‘Alright, we’ll both go.’ So the next day we told him yes, we’ll go with him. Alright. I think Bill err Clive Walker, he had a dog on the station. It was a corgi, you know. I didn’t like it. A yappy little thing. I didn’t think much of him as a dog but a nice looking dog but Bill loved this dog. He used to look after the dog a lot. He liked the dog anyway. And he, I think, I don’t know whether the dog swayed the argument [laughs] but we went, we went, and said the next day, ‘Yes. We’ll go.’ So he said he was very pleased about that and he said that and after a little while we were called. And then of course we were taken back to [pause] where did we go? Let’s see. We had to, mind you we had to leave Lincolnshire then. Do you want to go on because it’s not Lincolnshire?
AS: It’s great. Carry on.
SK: Anyway, we had to go to [pause] I think it come under Northampton. Let me see. What’s the name of the place? Turweston. Now was it Turweston? Wait a minute. No. No. No. No. No. Wait a minute. No. That’s where we were. Turweston. Then we had to, when we got the posting we had to go to Little Staughton in Bedfordshire. Little Staughton was 8 Group, Pathfinder Group. So there again when I joined 467 it was a new squadron and we found out that Pathfinders were forming a new squadron and of course as most of us had been off for over a year now from a squadron we had to do refresher courses. So we were sent to different places all around to do refresher courses. We went to Binbrook, up there and did a gunnery and the bomb aimers had to do a bombing course up there. And so we did various other stations around. And then we finished up at Little Staughton and that’s where we operated from.
AS: Which squadron were you?
SK: 582 Squadron. A new squadron. It was formed on April Fool’s Day 1944. And we operated from there, right. I did twenty nine trips on 467. But I did, and I did thirty five trips on 582. So that’s sixty four in total. And —
AS: Wow.
SK: And then of course that’s, we got through ok. You know. So that’s basically my, my flying life and then we didn’t know we was on our last trip and on our last trip was to Bremer in Northern Germany there. Bremer, Bremer. How you say it? And after I landed back somebody said, ‘This is your last trip.’ I don’t know whether perhaps our skipper knew. He hadn’t told me. So we just, you know thought — really? You know. It just came quite suddenly, you know. And that’s the last time I flew in the RAF. And then after sending on leave for a while, we were on leave for a little while, they sent us right up to Northern Scotland for, to be, for an attestation sort of course to reclassify you now to a different job. The only two jobs they we were offering at the moment was to be in the transport section or airfield controller. So I jumped for airfield controller and I did my, my course down at Watchfield in Oxford as an airfield controller. And then when I passed that course I was posted to West Raynham in Norfolk and [pause] as the airfield controller there. They were very pleased to see me because there were only two, two airfield controllers there and they were having to, it’s a twenty four hour station so — and you had to be relieved for your meals so they were never off duty. So when I got there I was welcomed. And so I was there then. That was the longest station I was on because otherwise we was, you know, we seemed to be always on the move. And that’s where I met my wife. At that station.
AS: Was she a WAAF?
SK: She was a WAAF. And then I got demobbed from that station when the war had all finished and so on. And then I went back to work, sort of thing and forgot all about the Air Force then. And I took, as I thought, having a green grocers shop I’ve always got a chance to know how to sell a cabbage. So my uncle was in wholesale greengrocery business and I fancied, I fancied to, to be more in the wholesale business than a retail business. I didn’t want to go and serve women coming in to the shop and arguing about the size of a cabbage so I went in the wholesale department, right. And we, because I was keen on getting back and playing a bit of football and we could have Saturday afternoons off then. And it was interesting, you know. When I was up West Raynham after the war finished suddenly it all came out, the orders came from the hierarchy everyone’s got to play sport. You’ve got to get playing sport again. Well I loved my football until I was called up and then, and then I found I hadn’t kicked a ball for six years. And of course I suppose I would have been in my prime then so I thought, I wonder if I can kick a football? So, anyway the sergeant’s mess got up a team and said we’ll have a try you know and we formed a sergeant’s mess team and we played different sections and goodness knows what else. And I got back playing football and then when I was started playing football that’s why I wanted my Saturday afternoons off. And then after a while it went on that I went to work in London in Spitalfields Market. And I worked as a salesman in Spitalsfield Market. That’s a wholesale fruit and vegetable market there. And I finished my working life there. It’s [pause] so you know that’s basically my life story. You know. In a nutshell [laughs] It’s quite interesting though that different things, you know little things creep up in your life doesn’t it? So if that’s any help to you there you are.
AS: That’s fabulous. Shall we pause there for a second?
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
[recording paused]
AS: Sidney, I’d like to pick up on a few questions that come to mind from, from your interview so far. Could you tell me a bit more about the air gunnery training? Did people ever hit anything firing at drogues? What was the standard like?
SK: I got a standard in my [pause] how did they put it in that? Stop the tape a minute.
[recording paused]
AS: Ok. So tell me a little bit more about the gunnery training and the assessment.
SK: Well the gunnery training was when you’re air firing at a drogue they, you had a little light aircraft come alongside you, flying with you on your beam. So you could turn your turret around onto the beam. As much as ninety degrees. And you’d fire at a drogue which was let out behind. Behind the little tug. And as we took up about four gunners, I think it was at a time we’d take one [pause] we’d take one and we’d, the first gunner would have his bullets. The rounds were dipped in a coloured paint. So the tips were red, yellow, green I think. Or whatever they were. There was about four different colours. And you had two hundred rounds each to fire. So you had little short bursts of two second bursts and then you’d undo your breach and you’d see what colour you are. Because once you lost your colour you had to stop. Right. And that’s how it was done. Right. So that when a drogue came down and it was assessed the bullet would leave a little hole in the drogue with the colour around like a little round circle. And that’s how you was assessed. Two hundred rounds — how many hits you got. And of course it was all done on a beam because that’s where deflection come in and deflection was allowing for the time for your bullet to get from the gun to the aircraft. If you fire direct at him you’ve missed him because it’s gone behind him. Although the speed of the bullet is fast it’s enough to miss the aircraft, you see. So anyway that’s how, that’s how gunnery was assessed. Right. And then also when you were doing cine camera work you had magazines. Two magazines. Each gunner was allowed two magazines. And he had these little aircraft and they did flat attacks you know. They’d be on the beam and they would come in just like this and then pass underneath you. And you had to see how good your manipulation was because gunnery training is a bit like [pause] it’s a bit like, think of yourself as a snooker player. A snooker player, if he wants to be really good like these professional snooker players they have to train for hours a day and keep training. And that’s what you had to do. For gunnery you’ve got to keep training to get your control of your turret because at the turret you’ve got to turn your turret and you’ve got to angle your guns at the same time. Right. And it’s manipulation and it’s, it’s a question of having really good manipulation. And it’s just a matter of continue working at it, you know. And, and it was a Fraser Nash 20 turret I was in with four machine guns. And I had them while I was on OTU flying the Welllingtons. And it was the same as that, exactly the same turrets when I got on the Lancasters. Later on because I’d finished flying by August. Finished operational flying by August. I don’t know what the, I haven’t got the date in my mind but I know it was August ’44 I’d finished flying. And oh where were we? I’m losing my track now.
AS: Did you have ground training turrets? Ground training aids as well or was it all airborne?
SK: Well, I’m talking, I’ve been talking about airborne. Ground training — no. We did, we did a bit of training. I mean you start off by, when you’re at even your initial training when you first join up we used to get, we was at Blackpool but we went up to Fleetwood and they had some rifle butts up there somewhere on the downs, on the seashore. Somewhere near there. And we used to, we were give five rounds to fire a rifle. Right. But then prior to that, I didn’t mention in the chat but prior to that when, when the forerunner of the Home Guard came out it was called the Local Defence Volunteers. And Anthony Eden came on the radio and said, ‘We’re calling for volunteers,’ because the invasion was imminent, ‘We’re calling for volunteers. Will you report to the police station.’ So me and my old mate said, ‘Yes. Let’s go.’ You know. So we went down and we signed on and we were, we was a Local Defence Volunteers. And of course we had nothing much to start with and gradually you got little bits and pieces and then just, it was just, renamed it after a little while because they had such wonderful support that they turned it in and renamed it the Home Guard. And then of course, as soon as it was made the Home Guard that was about the time I was called up. Right. But then we had other training firing machine guns. Not much done on the ground but when we was at, when we was at air gunnery school we used to fly at Mablethorpe, along the beach at Mablethorpe because from Manby to Mablethorpe wasn’t far. We used to fly along the beach and we’d turn the guns on to the beam and there was targets put in the water. You know, this deep of water like, you know because it’s tidal there and targets were put there for you to fire at, right. And that was just for one gunner because that’s when we had [pause] No. We weren’t crewed-up there so no we must have had several gunners then. That’s right. And we, so it was done at Mablethorpe beach. Right. And then to get your, to get your results of the targets from Mablethorpe beach there the people in charge of the sight down there used to go back out on horseback to pick up the targets, you know. I remember that. Don’t kill the horses, you know.
AS: It can’t have given you much time.
SK: Pardon?
AS: It can’t have given you much time because the target comes from the front of the aeroplane.
SK: Yeah. Yes.
AS: And you’ve got very very little time to —
SK: That’s right. Well, yeah. Yeah That’s what, that was some of the training we did. We did two or three. That was part of our air gunnery training when we was at Manby. And then, as I say OTU you did the training with the trailing of the drogue and so on. Basically that was the training, you know.
AS: How about the aeroplanes that you were flying in training?
SK: Well —
AS: Were they mechanically reliable or old and worn out? Or —
SK: Yes. Old and worn out mostly, you know. The longer the war it didn’t, if the thing was operational it wasn’t put on training exercises, you know. On the training stations. It wasn’t so bad. I didn’t notice any problems when we was at Manby when we had, we had Wellingtons there. So luckily I had a good training because I was on Wellingtons all the time and with the same turret and something but when we got to, to being screen gunners we had very poor aircraft there. They had a job to keep them, you know. They’d say, ‘Yes. Your aircraft’s ready.’ We’d go out there as a crew and you find out, oh no. You’d be sitting out there waiting for an hour and a half before it was finished. And I had a, had one crash flying at while I was a screen gunner because I was flying, flying with a sprog pilot. That is a pilot going through the course. And we burst a tyre just as we lifted off on exercise. And so I, I said, well I didn’t say nothing. I thought we’d burst a tyre there and the aircraft just screwed a little bit to the left and I thought well we might as well do the exercise whatever happens because we’d burn up a bit of fuel. So, so finished the exercise and I said to the pilot afterwards, I said, ‘I want you to throttle back a bit and when you throttle back to lower the wheels and we want to inspect the tyres,’ I said. ‘I think we burst the tyre as we lifted off.’ So he said, ‘I thought the thing screwed a bit to the left,’ you know, ‘To port.’ So we, we checked the, so he did, he lowered the aircraft — the wheels down. The undercarriage down. And the port, the port tyre was blown to smithereens. And so he put it up and I said ok. Well, he said, so he said, ‘I’ll let base know.’ So we flew back over base and then we called up and said we appeared to have burst a tyre on take-off, you know. So usual old thing come from that. Put flying control in a panic. So they said the usual thing of, ‘Stand by. Stand by.’ So we, we carried on circuit and we were watching down below and we saw, we know our flight commander in charge of the course. He was, he was a good man really but we used to think he was a hard nut. But he had a little van you know and we could see his van suddenly appeared and it was at the end of the runway, you know. And we were told to fly over. He wanted to inspect it. Yeah. So he, he flew it over and he said, ‘Yes. You have blown your tyre.’ That’s the message we got back. We knew that. We’d had a look at it. So anyway, he said, I thought perhaps he might let us land with wheels up on the grass but he didn’t. He was struggling to, he didn’t want to lose an aircraft so he said, ‘No. Land on the runway and try to keep the leg off as long as you can until last moment.’ So anyway, I went forward. I had a word with the pilot and I said, ‘I’ll assist you as I can,’ and I had to look after my gunners which I got them all sorted out in the, in the fuselage. And of course it wasn’t enough points for them to all know what was going on. So the one with the most sense, as I thought, I gave him the, so he could listen to the intercom and he was to tell the others what’s going on and we [pause] So I said, ‘I’ll come forward,’ and I remember when we were doing all our circuits and bumps when we were under instruction ourselves as a crew they always had, the instructor always called out the airspeed for him. For when he was perhaps doing his stuff and by calling out the airspeed it’s one less job he’s got to watch. So I said, ‘I’ll come forward and I’ll call out the airspeed for you and anything else I can do.’ Oh he thought that was a good idea so that’s what I went forward and sat alongside him. He brought it in but at the last minute he a bit over corrected trying to keep the leg up and instead of what you might expect you’d swing around on the broken leg he went the other way and the wing hit the ground and damaged the wing a bit but we kept upright. We didn’t tip over on our nose. We kept upright and because we were slow, we were lost enough speed to keep us flat and level and I said to the crews, ‘Don’t panic.’ I said, ‘We’ll get out nice and slowly,’ you know. I said, ‘We don’t want any broken limbs.’ There was no fire. I mean I was sitting up in the cockpit with him and I said to the skipper, checking everything’s switched off. I said, ‘All switches off.’ And he checked everything. All switches off so there’s no fuel running about and I could see there was no, it all looked, there was no imminent fire. So we got out quite slowly and by that time our officer commanding was standing outside with his, with his van you know. So I got out and got all my gunners together and with the pilot because he had, he was flying with his own crew, you see. That was their training as well. To learn how to be a captain controlling the crew because he was on the course. And he was, he was a flight lieutenant believe it or not so he must have been somewhere on a training station for years you know and then suddenly said, ‘It’s time you went on ops.’ And he, anyway I walked over to, to our commanding officer there and I said to him, no. ‘No injuries sir. We’re all ok.’ He said to me, he said, he said, ‘You took a long time to get out of that aircraft.’ I said, ‘Well, we’ve got no broken limbs. No casualties.’ So I I sort of went away with a flea in my ear sort of thing, you know. I thought I’d done quite well. So that was one I had like that. And then my other gunner that I got to know which I joined up on the second crew with, he had another trouble when we had an aircraft that caught fire after he’d been airborne a little while. And he of course, we used to control it all from the astrodome halfway down the turret. Halfway down the airframe. The fuselage. And we only just used to sit and we used to control it all by the thing and I used to control the, the screen gunner used to control the tug, the flying you know, the towing the target or if it’s a little fighter going to attack us. We did that by Aldis lamp you see. Using a green for go and red for stop. No. Red was, red was exercise complete. You know. Thank you very much. But we had the green for stand by and then flashing green for attack, you know. That sort of thing. And so there was always little accidents going on, on the OTU because the aircraft weren’t at their best. They weren’t at their best. And in fact a gunner I got very friendly with also, he was one of the three crews that were going through. He was, he was sent as a screen gunner afterwards. He come only two or three days after us. That’s why we had a good lot of gunners there. And he, his wireless op was sent on from, from Turweston. Turweston yeah. When we was doing this. They crashed on take-off and were killed instantly. And that was one. So we had casualties while we was, you know, screened so we thought well might as well go back on ops. So that’s how we volunteered for our second tour.
AS: When you passed out as an air gunner.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Did you know you were going to Bomber Command and how did you feel about it?
SK: No. No. When you passed out from where? From OTU?
AS: Yeah. Yeah.
SK: Oh from OTU we were told we were going to, as I said, up the road here.
JM: Scampton.
SK: Scampton. Yeah. Scampton. Good job I’ve got a prompter. To Scampton. And we was, we were told we were going on a conversion course. That’s what we were told. When we was on a conversion we were told we were actually posted to 467.
AS: In Bomber Command.
SK: Yeah. In Bomber Command, you see. Yeah.
AS: What was it like?
SK: Mind you the OTUs were like Bomber Command. They were OT, Bomber Command’s OTUs I believe. Yeah.
AS: So you knew fairly early on that you’d end up bombing Germany.
SK: Well yeah.
AS: Yeah.
SK: When we, when I joined the first crew, when I said they were a Blenheim crew they thought they were going to the Middle East as a Blenheim crew. Because at that time they were just phasing out the Blenheims and sending them to the Middle East. And they were so surprised when they come and they were going to be made into a Wellington crew you see. So it’s, that’s how the war, you know, evolved really, you know. You never knew.
AS: What was it like being an all English crew in an Australian squadron?
SK: Well the reason we were all English crew. One Irish.
AS: Sorry. I do apologise.
SK: British.
AS: British.
SK: We were British, weren’t we? But our crew we had one Irish. He come from Belfast. We had one from Bolton. One from [pause] where did Ted come from? Bradford.
JM: Bradford.
SK: Bradford. The pilot come from the Cotswolds. I come from Essex. Johnny Lloyd. I don’t know where Johnny Lloyd, I’m not quite sure. He was our wireless op. I’m never quite sure where he come from. So we British. A British crew there. Oh and then we had, we didn’t have the, the flight engineer we got on our, when we first crewed up on our first 467. Our flight engineer really didn’t fit in the crew. And I don’t know what happened to him afterwards. He never operated with us. We did all our training with him at Scampton but when we come to be posted to 467 he suddenly disappeared. So we had to make do with what they called odd bods. If there was an engineer that hadn’t got a crew on the squadron or whatever it was or if not they had to pinch one off another crew that wasn’t flying that night.
AS: All the way through your tour?
SK: Well we had, we didn’t have a lot. We had, I think four different engineers that I can remember. So they were split over twenty nine. Twenty nine ops. One was an Australian. He was pinched off another crew. And our crew, we never had any sickness in our crew at all apart from the engineer which I mentioned. But only once the Irish chap, coming back from Belfast. Coming back from Belfast the boat, the sea was so rough they couldn’t sail the boat and he got back twenty four hours late. Well, we was on that first night so we had to pinch, we had to be given another bomb aimer and they took one from another crew. And he was an observer with the O badge, you know. And he was a good chap. We liked him but he came, he didn’t get through his tour. He failed, failed to return on one occasion. Yeah. Does that answer that question? I don’t know.
AS: Absolutely.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: What was it like being surrounded Australians? Was it very different from — ?
SK: We weren’t surrounded by Australians. I didn’t really, I didn’t really say everything.
AS: No.
SK: A lot of our leaders when we were first formed up at Scampton we found most of our leaders were New Zealanders. Believe it or not. We had the two Flights. A and B Flight. And we was put into A Flight when we got to Bottesford. And that was Squadron Leader Pape and he was a New Zealander. And then when we formed a third Flight in March we, we had our flight commander was another new Zealander. Flight Lieutenant Field. Squadron Leader Field, sorry. And our, and our officer commander, he was actually RAF. He was, he formed, he made the squadron. There was no doubt about that. He was a wonderful leader and he joined the RAF in about 1936 if my memory’s right. But he was actually born in Brazil and, you know. I think he had, I’m not sure if he had British parents or what but he was actually in the RAF. So there was, we had quite a few new Zealanders there. Not many Canadians although there was a few odd Canadians there. And then to get the squadron going, being a new squadron how they, they sent in from different, other squadrons perhaps some experienced pilots because you can’t, you want, you want some experienced crews around you and with say six, six or eight trips to do, right. And so they were sent in to finish their tours with us. So we didn’t have a lot of Australians there. And when the Australians were coming you’d find a pilot would come with his navigator and then the rest we would make up with British. With Royal Air Force. Right. And then we had one or two gunners coming through on their own and they would join a crew. But also, we got through, we was pushed through our tour very quickly. The RAF crews were. We had no rest at all. You know. It was the hardest work I ever did. But they held back a little bit on the Australian chaps coming. Trying to build up the crew, the Australian crew. The Australian squadron. Right. But I don’t think I ever come across a whole, not in my time, a whole crew of all Australians. But they were, if an Australian pilot come through, looking through the book I can see they had a different colour uniform to us so you could always tell them that they had the darker blue one, you see, the Australians. And the New Zealanders as well. So you can see them when you look at old pictures. You could say oh look he’s got three. There’s three Aussies there. The rest were made up of RAF. That’s how it worked you see. So, but that’s why we were not, got through my first tour rather quickly, you know.
AS: Going through at such a rate.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Did, did you start to feel really worn down by it all or were you glad to be going through it so fast?
SK: You didn’t think about it. You were just, it was just what the order was. Whatever the order was you did, you know. It seemed that we was always on you know. Because I mean the weather’s, a lot of people forget what the weather was like. The weather we had in the war or the war winters were very hard. Very hard winters.
AS: That, that actually touches on something I’d like to talk about.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Did you have any experience of FIDO or the emergency landing grounds?
SK: I didn’t have it myself. There was three places in the country wasn’t there had them? One was at Manston and another one was in Suffolk.
AS: Woodbridge.
SK: Woodbridge. Yes. The other one was further up country wasn’t it? Was it in Yorkshire? But there was three in the country there. No. I never had. Never had any experience of that. I’ve spoken to. I did speak to some chaps that landed in it, you know. It’s not — you know, a dicey thing to land in. Flames burning both sides of you, you know. Makes the runway look quite small, you know when you’re coming in, you know.
AS: On your, on your first tour as you say the weather could close in.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Close down.
AS: What was it like coming back when the weather had closed in?
SK: Well Bottesford was in what did they called it? The Vale of Belvoir was it?
JM: Belvoir.
SK: Belvoir. In the Vale of Belvoir right. Right. And it was a frost hollow. So it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t too bad in the middle of the winter because our take off times you had more darkness. Put it that way. We were controlled by the moon. We wanted darkness. Right. And, but sometimes the moon would be coming up before you got back or something like that you know. So we were controlled. What was the actual question you asked me?
AS: What was it like when you came back to find the fog had come in or — ?
SK: Oh yes. Well, yes. Well, it was a frost hollow there so, but most mists like we’ve had recently actually they’d come in in the late hours of the night, you know they form. And then you’ve got them at dawn break, you know. And it wasn’t until you got shorter night hours when you’re coming back at daybreak perhaps or, you know, just prior to then and then it was a bit difficult. But only once did we get diverted. And we got diverted, it’s a long story there [laughs] but we’d done a long trip. That was, I’m pretty sure that was the time we went to the Skoda works down in Czechoslovakia and we, we found that quite a hard trip. Very hard for the gunners. Because, you see, I used to, if you were in the flak belts and you got ack-ack flying around you. I used to think you were better off if you were in the pitch dark because it got so intense looking out for fighters. It was, you know. And you gained experience to know how to [pause] you could smell danger by what was going on around you, you know. And we always had a good understanding. We used to, especially in the first crew because we were all sergeants in the first group. Just sergeants. In the second crew we had four officers and three sergeants. It wasn’t quite so cosy if you know what I mean there. We couldn’t do our crew meetings sitting on our beds. We used to have crew meetings after. The next day and, and if anything we could have improved on, you know. We all had our say and all that. And you could, there was lots of little things you could do to save your skin, I suppose, you know. That sort of thing. Because, you know, you’re flying in a block. You’re not flying in formation. It’s a block. It’s, you can get statistics where you can get the actual measurements. It’s a wide block and it’s that deep and you’re flying as a gaggle anyhow, right. And the reason it was like that, deep like that was because you got at the time on that first tour the Wellingtons were still flying. They could only convert them to Lancasters as the Lancasters became available. And you had, shall we say over a target you’d have the Wellingtons at fourteen thousand feet. You’d have the Stirlings at sixteen. Halifax at eighteen. And we’d try to get to twenty if we could but we couldn’t always get there but you know it just depends on the weather. So that, that’s why you got the depths of it like that. So then they used to stagger it a bit so you weren’t dropping bombs on the ones underneath you and things like that. But when you’re flying at night and your night vision was most important to you for gunners. And there’s always a dark side to the sky. There’s always a dark side. However pitch dark it is one side is darker than the other. And it’s nearly always darker underneath for a start and then the south was nearly always the darker than the north. Right. Because if you got the stars you don’t realise how brilliant the stars can be. Right. So we always used to think if we’d got a long leg to fly on, flying in this gaggle, this stream which I’d say to the skipper, you know, we had a message to say creep over to the, if that was the stream going through there and the dark side was this side shall we say we’d creep over a little bit this way. Right. We’re still in the gaggle but we’d creep over a little bit this way. So the track would be down the middle. Right. But we’d go over to this side. Not that side. So you’ve less chance of being seen. Right. So there was all them little things you learned. You weren’t taught. You couldn’t be taught operational flying. You just had to grin and bear it and learn it yourself. And the only way you learned it was by discussions afterwards, you know and by little tiny things to say how you’d go about it.
AS: What was your attitude, or your skipper’s attitude to weaving? Did —
SK: Oh yeah. In, in those days you did weave. You weaved a lot and of course it was it was so, so a gunner couldn’t get his bearing on you. Because, you know it only takes two seconds to shoot you down. Two seconds. And you’ve got to be, if you’re on a eight or nine hour flight. Long flights in the winter. It’s a lot, a lot of time that’s going on there you know. So —
AS: Did, did you, did you ever have any exposure to wakey wakey pills?
SK: Yeah.
AS: To keep you awake.
SK: Oh yeah. I used to take them. If it was only, if it was up to the Ruhr or places like that according to your, you worked out you was given your briefing to, to know what routes because you didn’t go just straight there and back. You had different ways to, tactics to do. You had to fly on. And oh I’ve lost track now.
AS: Wakey wakey pills.
SK: Oh wakey wakey pills. Yes. So going to the Ruhr it could be four hours. It could be six hours. Right. So, and so possibly not then but if you were going further afield where you’ve got an eight hours, anything over a seven hour trip you needed something to keep awake. But you’ve got to realise you’ve been at work since 8 o’clock in the morning. Right. You’ve been up since 8 o’clock in the morning. You’ve been to a meal and from half past nine that morning you started work. You had your, you’d know by 11 o’clock whether you was on that night. Right. And then you had things to do like we always went out to the aircraft. You’d find what aircraft you’d got. We didn’t have regular aircraft. You had to fly on what was available. I think I worked it out, I think it was fourteen different aircraft we flew in in twenty nine trips. I think it was fourteen. So you didn’t have a regular aircraft so you always went out there to have a look but you got to know aircraft. You know. Perhaps you might do a training trip in one because training never stopped. So if you was on that night you’d have to go out there and you’d look at it and make sure the turret, had it been serviced? You know. Check on it. Make sure the armourers hadn’t missed anything because they were hard pressed and then also give, give, of course we had no Perspex in the front. We had a canopy over the top. Give it a clean. A bit of a sides we had so clean that up. And then you had to do a night flying test. So that had to take place between a bit before you went for briefing or then you would have your briefing. Mostly you would have a meal beforehand. You know, ,a flying meal beforehand. Then you got your briefing. Sometimes it was the other way around accordingly, you know, how it worked out. So there was no, there was never any spare time. And if you weren’t on that night you’re bound to have a flying exercise to do. We never, exercises never stopped. There was always new equipment coming out that some training had to be done on. You were, you’d be put on air firing. We used to, we used to go to, that’s Lincolnshire. Wainfleet. The Wainfleet.
AS: Wainfleet ranges. Yeah.
SK: That range there. And we used to drop our eleven pound smoke bombs from twenty thousand feet onto a target down below. You had to pre-book it, you know and arrange your time and then you were, you were given a slot to bomb at, you know. And then we had gunnery places I told you. Where did we used to go? We went, we had gunnery exercises. Perhaps we went to Mablethorpe then. I don’t think so. I don’t know where we went. I can’t think but there was always exercises right to even if you’ve only got one trip to have done you were still given exercises to do and you were kept busy because it took your mind off any casualties you’d had. That’s what it was done for.
AS: Yeah.
SK: You were never, you’d never get any time to rest at all but then occasionally a squadron would be given perhaps a forty eight hour stand down. And that’s when it was, well that’s right, you know. You got the message. It was good then. The squadron would be stood down. It gives the squadron time to recover, you know. So that’s that. So anything you want to ask me now?
AS: Yeah. On the wakey wakey pills still.
SK: Oh the wakey wakey. I didn’t say that. So I used to take them if it was a long trip but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take them until after we’d done the bombing. Then you’ve got to be, the way home is always worse than the way out, you know. That’s the more dangerous place, coming home. More dangerous is coming back because they could be waiting for you. Especially if it was a long trip because they’d had time to go down, refuel and come up again. So I used to take the wakey wakey pills and I found out they used to make you quite tired for a quarter of an hour after you took them. Whether it was the thought of it or not I don’t know but I thought they always made me tired first. But then they did help you to keep yourself awake because it’s no good falling asleep for a time because it was very unsociable hours we were working and we worked long hours you know. And you could only do it if you were young, you know. And of course we were all young lads, you see. So.
AS: What, what was, I knew they were all different but can you give me an idea of what the debriefing was like afterwards?
SK: Debriefing. Yeah. It varied, I think on squadrons because some said when they come back they used to have a tot of rum and things like that but I don’t think we ever had that. But a cup of tea was more, was better than anything else. Of course when you, when you’ve only done one or two trips you want to keep talking about it, you know. You think, you know, fancy I’ve done that, you know and so on, you’d talk about that. But we, certainly that was one of the first things we got out in our crew is we’ve got to get to bed and forget what’s happened because we might be on the next night. Because your entire, you’d be two nights on and one night off. That’s how it was going. You weren’t always given that. You couldn’t be. But you had to be prepared for that. So from touch down we aimed to get to bed within, into our bunks in two hours. And if we could do it in two hours we were lucky. You know, we’d done well. And the initial crews, the early crews, the ones in the earliest stages would be three or four hours getting to bed, you know. And then that affected them the next day. So you’ve got to, you’d get out your aircraft, you wait for transport. Transport was good. They were nearly always waiting for you. You’d get back to the locker room. You’ve got to stow your gear and it’s no good being excited about it. I know it did happen to some of them that they were so thankful they got back they took the gear off and just threw it in the locker. But the most important thing is, especially the gunners is you have to hang up your suit, your electric suit and see that it’s in your locker. You had long lockers. And it aired in your locker. See. Because any dampness you’d get a short in it you see.
AS: Yeah.
SK: So we always made sure that we got [pause] got into our, into the locker room and stowed all our kit away properly, you know. And then you go to debriefing and when you get to debriefing it depends who’s in front of you. You know. If you had a lot, a lot of bombers on that night there’s only perhaps two or three intelligence officers there to debrief you. Right. So you walk in and the first thing you look for — whose got the tea? You know. And then there would be some WAAFs there that would bring you a cup of tea. So you had a cup of tea and you might, I don’t know whether, there was nothing to eat. You just had this tea. Two mugs of tea would go down that quick. And then if you’re lucky you’d go straight in but if not you’ve got to wait till your, a table’s available for you to sit down. And then debriefing of course. They debrief the pilot and the navigator. The navigator’s the one they’re debriefing really, with the pilot as well because the navigator has got a complete log of everything that has gone on. What you’ve got to remember is the moment you took off every one of those aircraft flying was a separate unit. No one knew what, what he was doing or what’s happening in that aircraft until he came back over base. They didn’t know where he was or anything. So the navigator had a complete log of everything that went on in the aircraft. Right. Just like a ships log. And we were closer to the navy than we were to the army although we came out of the army originally. Right. So we used to get the debriefing done and then you go for your meal. Right. Yeah. Your meal. And you always had an egg when you came back. You always found an egg. It was wonderful just to have an egg you know and that. And then, and when we was at Bottesford after we’d come out the mess there we had at least a half mile to walk back to the billet because we were dispersed. We was right out in the sticks. It might, it seemed longer than that to me but there was only just a small road to go down. Just enough to carry a van down you know. There were no big lorries in them days much. And then that’s what we tried to do. To try to get back to our billet within two hours. So is that the answer? Is that alright?
AS: Brilliant.
SK: Ok.
AS: Wonderful.
SK: Any more questions?
AS: I have hundreds of questions, Sidney.
SK: Oh [laughs]
AS: A couple more perhaps. Did, did you, because you are a man who survived two tours of operations.
SK: Yeah.
AS: At different times of the war.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Did you notice a real difference in how you operated between the first tour and the second tour?
SK: Yeah. Oh yes. Of course. Yes, it did. That’s why we had, that’s why we had to go on to a refresher course. As I said when, we crewed up but as a crew we had to go on to a refreshing course. And we did all sorts of courses. We was, I don’t know how long they were for. I’d have to check my logbook really but I think, I think it might have been even two months before we operated you know because first, navigational aids were coming through. Different navigational aids and so on. And your, your tactics were different, you know. Your tactics were different. You had to keep altering them all the time, you know. So yes, there was a big difference. Yeah. Yeah. And of course then they made more, more officers were coming through in crews and that’s what split crews. When you was all sergeants you were one unit together but when you had officers, not that we didn’t mix together but you had to, you couldn’t, you had to live apart. You didn’t live together. You lived apart. You ate apart and so on. Whereas when we were sergeants everything was done together. You was just a little unit on your own, you know.
AS: Well it seems from, from what you’ve said about your first crew at least that you were a very tight knit, staying alive club. That’s what you wanted to do.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
AS: Put a lot of —
SK: We got good results and all. We had some very good results. I remember when we didn’t know we’d finished because you were supposed to do thirty trips. Right. But our pilot had done one second dickie trip. Right. He did it with our squadron leader and he did it to Essen. Because you know what they say? When we, when we was at OTU and people used to come, come to you and say to you at OTU and say, ‘What’s it like flying on ops?’ You haven’t got an answer. You’ve got to find out for yourself. We used to say, ‘When you’ve got Essen in your logbook you’ll know what it’s like.’ That was the answer, you know. So Essen was the most heavily defended target in the Ruhr. Where the Krupps works were. And getting in and out was, you know, it seemed almost impossible. It was amazing how you got through. So that’s what we, that was our answer when we were screen gunners to tell them. Not very helpful but you couldn’t, you can’t teach them. You can’t teach them operational flying. You can teach them everything else but, you know because it was a different feeling. It’s a fear factor comes into it you see. How do you react? You know. There’s somebody there is trying to blow you out of the sky. Another fighter coming up trying to set you alight and blow you to pieces you see. So it’s, it was a fear factor there you know and people act differently, you know. And one never knows, you know. I can tell you a little story when I was [pause] is it alright if I carry on? When I was at ITW down at St Leonards we’d finished our course. Wait a minute. Where was I going to get to, to tell you? We finished our course. Oh wait a minute. I’ve forgotten what I was going to say now. What was we talking about?
AS: We, we were talking about the fear factor. And you were going to tell me a story.
SK: Oh. A story. Yeah. Oh yes. Yes. The fear factor. Yeah. Right. Got it. Well we had to wait a long time down at ITW down at, down in Eastbourne. And they said it’s all, it’s been posted. ITV has been posted. And we was put on a train at 7 o’clock in the morning. We never knew where we were going. And we finished up in Bridlington, you see, that’s Yorkshire. And then we passed our course there and [pause] what was the question again?
AS: We were talking about the fear factor.
SK: Fear factor. Fear factor.
AS: And how people react. Yeah.
SK: Yeah. How people react. The fear factor. Yeah. And oh yes while we was there so they couldn’t, they couldn’t find anywhere to train. The air gunners couldn’t find anywhere else to go forward. We had to wait for our tour because the weather was so bad they couldn’t get through to flying. So we had several weeks there doing different things, sort of thing, you know. And so the fear factor. I keep wandering off don’t I? The fear factor is —
AS: We can come back to that if you like.
SK: No. Wait a minute. The fear factor was that I thought to myself when you, when you sign on as aircrew you haven’t got any knowledge or any idea of what it’s like to fly. None of us had ever been, had had our feet off the ground. We didn’t know what it was like to fly. So I thought to myself a lot of people coming in how are people going to cope with it? Would they be airsick? You see. Well airsickness is not like seasickness. But airsickness is only, you only get airsickness if you’re, you know, doing rough flying. But when it comes to flying over enemy territory you get this fear factor, you see. So they thought well these chaps have never been off the ground. We’d better give them a test to see how they cope with flying. So we was at Bridlington, on the seafront and they decided, ‘We’ll put them through an air sickness test.’ And they got some swings what they had in the fairgrounds right. Big swings. And they put some boards along the top of them and you had to like, you laid down on the board, on the board. And then some of the course there had to keep these thing going, you know. And you had to get the thing so it went perpendicular. Like that. And you had to, to go for twenty minutes. And I mean, a lot of boffins come down and the boffins were standing at the side of us and asking us questions. They were standing here. So as we went up and down they spoke to you as you went up past, you see, ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Do you feel ill?’ ‘Would you like fish and chips?’ ‘What did you have for lunch,’ you know. Trying to make you feel sick. Right. And so this was all done on Bridlington sea front and I often thought to myself if any of the locals had seen us, ‘With a war going on what are these chaps doing having fun down there?’ See. So that’s, they did bring out the airsickness ‘cause they couldn’t tell. Some chaps did get sick in the air and its just the fear factor, you know. The fear factor of what might be ahead of them. They didn’t know you see. So they wanted to find out if there was any way they could train them but I’m sure that the tests they put us through was far greater than they would have been in reality like, you see.
AS: It’s a marvellous, marvellous story.
SK: Yeah.
AS: The fear.
SK: I passed my test by the way on that screening.
AS: Of course. Of course. But the fears that one had on, on operations. What, what was the greatest enemy do you think? Was it the flak or the fighters or the weather?
SK: Well both. Well all. There was three things you mentioned there, they’re all. It just depends at the time doesn’t it? You know. It’s, they’re all, all. Which is the worst? Well, I always thought, as I mentioned before fighters I always thought were the worst for me as a gunner because with the shells bombing around you, you know there’s no fighters there. That’s the [laughs] that’s the way I looked at it right. And my job in the back there was to make sure a fighter didn’t creep up on us you know because the German tactics changed as well as ours. And their approach to, their approach to attacking us changed. Where in the, on the first tour they all attacked us from behind, underneath and just came up to us and fired from the back. Right. Aiming at the rear gunner and the aircraft. Right. Between my tours they did the Peenemunde raid. Right. And that’s the first time the Germans used a new system. They called it the sugar music. Sugar music. I think that’s what they called it. They, they used to have a gunner in the night fighter and he was like we were. Firing from a swivel. From a swivel or a turret, you know. At us. Then they thought, well why don’t we have a, rather like the Spitfires had, fixed guns. So they fixed a gun at a thirty degree angle. Firing at that angle upwards. Right. And the pilot could fire it. Right. That’s what they did. So they used a different tactic. They’d fly underneath you where it was always darkest and then when they got underneath they used to lift up. Lift themselves up. They were mostly JU88s they weren’t fast like Spitfires or anything like that but they were just a bit faster than the Lancaster so they could keep up with you, overtake you, but they used to the throttle back and then when they got their gun right they’re aiming for your petrol tanks between the two engines. Right. And that’s how we lost so many through firing. And that started between our tours so tactics had to alter. But Air Ministry never told us about that. We never knew that. Except that we were getting, we were seeing more flamers going down. Set alight by flame. Been set alight. When there’s no ack-ack around about it must be a fighter you see. So you sort of realise something was going on but they never told us and I never knew about these guns until after the war finished. Amazing really. What I, they had the idea what you don’t know about you don’t worry about I suppose. You see.
AS: [unclear ] what, as for both of your crews really was your tactic to just not open fire if you saw somebody?
SK: I I I believed in that. I felt, you see, according to how light it was how far could you see? Right. Guns were harmonised. The four guns. Usually about two hundred and fifty yards right. So they were all supposed to hit on another at two hundred and fifty yards. Right. But sometimes you wouldn’t see an aircraft at that, not [pause] because he’s what, three times smaller than you are. He’s flying in the dark. You’re flying, so he can see you and he can see you and he can see your exhaust pipes just glowing red, you know. If he got in a certain position he could see them. So, you know, it’s — yeah where was I again?
AS: Whether or not you opened fire if you saw one.
SK: Oh yes. Whether I opened fire. Yeah. So I would think, it might have been, you don’t want to make a fight with him. You want to keep away from him. And my idea was if you, you could sense something and if you had any, you’d say to the pilot something like, are we, ‘Get to the darkest side you can,’ you know in as few words as we can. It don’t, ‘It don’t look right.’ ‘Things don’t look right,’ you know. So that, and then if they were like that, they were looking for simple targets. If they could find a crew that didn’t respond to anything you know that’s the one they’d go for, you see. So it was just, just a knowledge at the time really. I suppose. You know.
AS: When you’re flying backwards over a target that’s, that’s been bombed could you, did you look away? Could you preserve your night vision?
SK: I tried, the most important, the thing you were trying to do is don’t look at the target. Because that’s the only time it’s lighter underneath. Right. But avoid looking at the target. Don’t spoil your night vision. We had night vision training and it takes full twenty minutes to get your full night vision, you know. Twenty minutes. I know you can improve it in ten or something like that but, but it’s a full, full twenty minutes to get your full night vision and one flash of light can spoil it you see. And that’s another thing you didn’t want to do. So it’s very tempting to look to see where your bombs are falling, you know but I used to look away. And that’s the only time you looked upwards instead of downwards you know. Or sideways, you know. But that’s something you had to learn to do.
AS: Did you test fire your guns?
SK: In, in the very early stages we were allowed to do it when you were over, over the sea. Right. And then it got stopped doing it because they said there was a danger that you might give your position away and there was a danger that other aircraft might be not too far away from you. And so on. And they said, ‘No. You’re not to do it anymore.’ But we used to do. Test them. Just a short burst and so on but that got stopped. That was an order that came through to stop. So —
AS: Could you, I mean it’s a bit of a silly question because it depends to a great extent on how dark the sky was. But could you often see many other aircraft?
SK: Yes. Oh yes.
AS: Over the target? Or —
SK: Oh over the target you wonder where they all come from. You thought you was all alone. But when you were over the target aircraft were everywhere, you know. Above you. Below you. A pilot was always looking. You don’t want to see somebody with the bomb doors open just above you, you know. But yes its — yes it’s [pause] Ok?
AS: Yeah. As a crew did you ever talk about what you were doing? About the fact that you were bombing the enemy or did you just treat it as a job and just get on with it.
SK: Well it was a job of work. A job you were trained to do. It’s [pause] it’s something that we were right to do. And we had, we had targets to, we had targets to officially aim for, you know. But when you’re fighting an enemy things can go wrong, you know. I mean they had the problem of creep back. Creep back was where you, if you had a target area there and it was marked by the Pathfinders and then the bombers coming in and then they’re getting knocked about a bit. They let the bombs go a bit quicker you know. That sort of thing you know. So they used to put tactics. You’d put your, go forward, mark the forward there to allow for the creep back. You see. There was all things like that. But we were given a job to do and we thought it was the right job to do, you see. Yeah.
AS: And you said towards the end of the first part of the interview that you were demobbed and didn’t really think about it.
SK: We switched off.
AS: Yeah.
SK: It’s what happened. It’s what happened with the government and everything. They wanted everybody to forget everything. It’s like they destroyed all the aircraft. You know. All these aircraft we had. They were just got rid of them and so on and made you forget. That’s why they said on the stations what I said, got to bring sport back. They had sport everything. You’ve got to do. Play cricket. You’ve got to play football. There’s badminton, you know. And there was running races. Everybody had to be in to sport you see because that’s what the, that’s what the Services were before the war you see. So that’s you had a, you forgot all about. In fact my daughters, I’ve got three daughters, I don’t think they know much about what I did until they read the book. So there we are.
AS: Well, hopefully we’ve got a tape as well. One, one final question if I may and it’s not about your aircrew duties. It’s when you did aerodrome control. And I have a reason for this because my mum used to do it as well.
SK: Oh yes.
AS: What was your —
SK: She’d be in flying control.
AS: She was in flying control.
SK: Yes. Yes. I was in the caravan at the end of the runway.
AS: Oh Ok.
SK: Yeah.
AS: So, what did your duties entail?
SK: Right. As flying control. First of all you logged every aircraft as they took off and when they landed and you brought them on to the runway with an Aldis lamp and gave them permission to take off and then when they were landing, with your binoculars you’ve checked that their wheels are down properly. That their tyres looked in good nick and so on and also to recognise the aircraft as its coming to land and so on, you know. So that’s what your duties were. Yeah.
AS: Brilliant. Thank you.
SK: I’ve got a little bit about [pause] I’ll show you this then because I suppose you’ll want to finish then I’ll have said enough. I’ll show you one other thing. I think you’ll be able to keep it if I can show you something. Are you alright for time?
AS: I I have years for this, Sidney.
SK: Oh alright. Now where is it?
[Pause. Shuffling papers]
SK: Now where is it? No. That’s not it [pause] This was a battle order when we went to the Skoda works. Right.
AS: At Pilsen, yeah.
SK: At Pilsen. And that’s when we got diverted to Boscombe Down. I told you the one occasion.
AS: Yeah.
SK: We got diverted to Boscombe Down and our squadron, which is 5 Group, right. And a squadron should only be two Flights. And a squadron should be six aircraft to a Flight. So you should have twelve aircraft. But you had extra aircraft so you got six serviceable. Right. Well, when the war was going on and Bomber Command was building they formed, our squadron formed a third flight. Right. C Flight.
AS: Yeah.
SK: And we was in A flight when we were at the start. And then when it got to [pause] when it got to, they wanted to start a third Flight it was C Flight and the idea of that was how you build a new squadron is you build it up to three Flights and then when you’re going and alright and you’ve got, that’s eighteen aircraft and you’ve got two or three spares. Then you can take that flight away and it starts a new squadron.
AS: Yeah.
SK: But then you go back to your two flights. Well this time we was up to three Flights because we found out the first, it was the 1st of March, I think, we started our C Flight on our squadron there. And this was the 16th 17th of April right. And this is when we, it’s —these are all the pilots. There’s us up there. The other two pilots with us — one was on leave and Bally was the other that came, just followed us off here. That’s our wing commander. He was on that night. Going down, Mackenzie [pause] No. Stuart was RAAF. You asked about that.
AS: Yeah.
SK: Tillerson. Desmond. All RAF. Wilson. All RAAF I should say.
AS: Yeah.
SK: Sinclair. Wilson again. There was two Wilsons on our squadron. And Parsons. And Manifold. So by that time the captains were getting more, more Australians but we were — but they had RAF in their crews. Right. And this is the number of ops that crew had done. There. That’s the time they took off. The time they bombed. The height they bombed at.
AS: Six thousand feet.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was our height to bomb at because there was nobody there. We came down to that height to bomb because there were no defences there and yet we had the hardest trip coming back then ever. That’s the time we landed. We diverted, we got the diversion call come when we was crossing the sea. I know we were just crossing the French coast on our way back. I could go on forever. Because when we was at Bottesford you have to put me back on track in a minute, when we was at Bottesford we were, the station was confined to barracks because we had a Diphtheria scare on, on the squadron and they confined everyone to barracks. No one to leave. But we were able to fly on ops. And when we when we, when we landed at Boscombe Down they knew all about it so the MO had phoned through and said, ‘They’re aliens,' you know. That sort of thing. ‘You’ve got to be careful with them.’ So we were sent up to they wouldn’t allow us in the mess. They found us empty huts and we had to lay down and they found us some, what we called biscuits you know to lay on. Mattresses. And we laid down on them and they rustled up some — because Boscombe down was an experimental station for the RAF. Right. And it was only a grass airfield but that was in Hampshire. And they had to get — we lost two aircraft that night. Stuart. And where’s the other one? Failed to return. One there. Oh up here. “And diverted to Boscombe Down in Wiltshire on return as Bottesford was fog bound.” What I mentioned before. We lost thirty five aircraft. Bomber Command lost thirty eight aircraft from this raid and yet there was no defences at the target. A hundred and ninety nine were killed in action. Fifty two prisoners of war and thirteen, there were thirteen evaders. Right. How they — they must have come down in France somewhere and managed to get back through Spain I should think.
AS: So you could have dropped some aircrew with Diphtheria into the prisoner of war camp.
SK: Yes. We were, we were all the what, you know — what do you call it? They hadn’t got enough of the, would it be serum or something?
JM: Oh No. No. Inoculations.
SK: Inoculations. They hadn’t got enough of them, you see. But when you get a big outbreak like that and so they, they was able to test you to see whether you were positive or negative or something. Do they scratch you or something? I don’t know how they do it, put it like that. But our crew was alright but then we were poorly we were still allowed to fly. And the MO at briefing said to us that night, he said, ‘If any of you unfortunately crash and come down in German you must tell them that you are Diphtheria carriers.’ We said, ‘Blimey we wouldn’t tell them that,’ [laughs] You’re asking for a bullet in your head straight away, aren’t you? You know [laughs] So we didn’t agree with the MO one bit. I remember that. So you can keep this bit if you like.
AS: Thank you.
JM: Well, that’s not in the book is it? It’s not subject to copyright?
SK: I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah but —
JM: Oh.
SK: Yeah.
JM: In which case you can’t digitise that I’m afraid.
AS: Ok. We can —
SK: Well you can have a look at it anyway.
AS: We can sort that out.
SK: You must sort it out. I don’t know.
AS: What interests me on there as well.
SK: Yeah.
AS: Is two things. One — did you climb back to height after you’d bombed?
SK: What? In this? On this one. Yeah.
AS: On that one. Yeah.
SK: You would have done. Yes.
AS: And the “Froth Blower” on there. The code name. Is that the squadron or the target code name?
SK: That. No. That would be the target code name you see. “Froth Blower.” Yeah. Yes.
AS: Ok.
SK: I think that would be in the book there. But you see how many aircraft we put up there? And look. They can’t beat that now. We took off at minute intervals.
AS: Yeah.
SK: Minute intervals. And we got fourteen up there till this last one. And I remember Manifold. He was an Aussie but he went on and he did fifty trips. He finished his tour on fifty and he went on to Pathfinders afterwards and he [pause] he, when he went to start his aircraft one engine wouldn’t start. And they had to rush around and take the spare one standing by. So he lost fifteen minutes or whatever it was. But that’s, that was, that’s good flying control. That was a good bloke at the end of the runway did that one.
AS: Fast on the finger.
SK: Yeah. Yeah. Getting them all on there. To get heavy aircraft down at the end of the runway like that, you know.
AS: So at least on that squadron if you had one you’d have a standby aircraft fully fuelled and fully bombed.
SK: You would try to. It didn’t always happen. But there was at that time. At that time there was. Yeah. Yeah. I did a little thing here I wrote down. I think I’ve got it here somewhere. I’m sure I’ve got it here. Printed out. Perhaps I haven’t got it.
[Pause. Shuffling papers]
AS: Do you know how long we’ve been talking for?
SK: No.
JM: Two hours.
AS: Nearly two hours.
SK: Oh I’m sorry.
AS: No. Not at all. Don’t apologise. It’s wonderful.
SK: [unclear ]
AS: I was just saying shall we, shall we draw stumps there. At least for the tape.
SK: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: And maybe we can do another.
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 Sidney Knott
Creator
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Adam Sutch
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-10-01
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AKnottS151001
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Format
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01:51:57 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney Knott was from Leigh on Sea and recalls the day, with invasion apparently imminent, that signs were put up on the local shops advising people that they had to be ready to move within an hour and taking only one suitcase with them. Sidney’s father had been injured several times during the First World War and advised his son to join the RAF rather than the army. Sidney had had an interrupted education so was advised he would be accepted for general duties. He was posted to Blickling Hall where he was on crash duty but later remustered as an air gunner. Initially he was posted with 467 Squadron based at RAF Bottesford. His was the first crew to complete a full tour on the squadron. After his tour he was posted to RAF Silverstone. He was then approached to join a new squadron and do a further tour of operations. His crew joined 582 Squadron, Pathfinders based at RAF Little Staughton. He completed sixty four operations in both tours. He talks about the fear factor of operations, the instinct over the target looking out for threats and coping with the tiredness.
Contributor
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Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Bedfordshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Norfolk
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1944
17 OTU
467 Squadron
582 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
animal
bombing
fear
ground personnel
Lancaster
Manchester
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bottesford
RAF Finningley
RAF Little Staughton
RAF Manby
RAF Scampton
RAF Silverstone
RAF Turweston
RAF Wainfleet
RAF Woodhall Spa
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2103/42811/MMercierCG1868263-220820-02.2.jpg
af3e23c044cec7336ccb4c49b4c51019
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
Mercier, Gordon
Cyril Gordon Mercier
C G Mercier
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Gordon Mercier (1924 -2024). He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 171 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2021-10-21
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
Mercier, CG
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
AOC's Commendation on Completion of Operational Tour
Description
An account of the resource
A commendation awarded to Gordon.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Air Commodore 100 Group
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945-04-14
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Service material
Format
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One typewritten sheet with handwritten annotations
Identifier
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MMercierCG1868263-220820-02
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-04-14
100 Group
air gunner
aircrew
RAF North Creake
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/198/3333/PAugierF1701.2.jpg
d813080b590876c6422e7f021b5c6e23
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/198/3333/AAugierF171102.1.mp3
115beea6124addf30c0f3004ff9124fe
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
Augier, Sir Fitzroy
Sir Fitzroy Augier
Fitzroy Augier
Roy Augier
F Augier
Description
An account of the resource
One oral history interview with Sir Fitzroy Augier (b. 1924).
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
2017-11-02
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Augier, F
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AC: Alright. Good morning. I am with Sir Roy Augier. Welcome Sir Roy.
RA: Thank you.
AC: Sir Roy served with Bomber Command in England. My name is Alan Cobley and I will be interviewing Sir Roy today. The date is the 2nd of November 2017 and we are recording the interview at the University Archives at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. So, Sir Roy, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview.
RA: I’m happy to do it. Thank you.
AC: As I explained a little earlier, before we were on air, the International Bomber Command Centre that’s being established in Lincoln is collecting the life stories of people who served with Bomber Command and we are particularly interested to hear about the experience you had as a Caribbean person participating in this fascinating period of our history. And so, to begin with I would like to ask you about your early life and history. What can you tell me first of all about your parents and your family?
RA: Well, to begin, my father had died when I was ten so I was brought up by my mother but I had two brothers so there was three of us as boys.
AC: Right.
RA: All boys. Two year intervals between each of us.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And I was the eldest.
AC: Right.
RA: My father was, his passport says or his birth certificate calls him a merchant. The shop. I remember that he had a grocery shop. Reasonable size in Castries, St Lucia. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I’m a St Lucian.
AC: Yeah. By origin. Yes.
RA: By origin. I was born in Castries.
AC: Right.
RA: St Lucia in 19 [laughs] I’ll be ninety three on the 18th so I’ll be ninety three in December of this year so —
AC: Yeah.
RA: It is — 1917.
AC: So, ninety three. So, if we count backwards that would be twenty, let me see — twenty —
RA: 2017.
AC: So, 1920.
RA: Seven. No, not 1927.
AC: 1930. [pause] So, ninety three this year.
RA: Ninety three.
AC: My maths is terrible.
RA: Yes. So is mine. I should have subtracted long ago.
AC: Alright. But your birthday is —
RA: December the 17th
AC: December 17th
RA: That bit I’m certain about.
AC: And you’re ninety three this year.
RA: I will be in December 17th
AC: Right. So, if we count back we’ll figure out what the original date was.
RA: Yes. Yes.
AC: Let’s not worry about. Ok. So you were saying that your father had a grocery shop in Castries.
RA: Yeah. Yes.
AC: So, you were born in Castries.
RA: I was born in Castries. Yeah. Yes.
AC: Right. Ok.
RA: And he died of Appendix, Appendicitis, when I was ten. So, I was brought up by my mother.
AC: And did she continue the grocery business?
RA: Oh she continued for a bit but she wasn’t able to manage the financial aspects of it because of unreliable assistants. They, in fact, colluded with a competitor who was also a friend of mine. A friend of my father’s when he was alive. The first thing my mother knew about the shop is when, it went on for quite a bit because I used to be frequently in it which is how I happen to know about it. I really knew about it after his death or knew of it in an intimate sense.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Because I used to help my mother with the running of it and one day she just discovered that we didn’t own it any more.
AC: Oh, my goodness.
RA: Yes, it was terrible.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I still remember this.
AC: Yeah. That must have been a terrible blow to the family.
RA: Well it was just her and the three of us. Yes.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Well, she managed to make do. She switched over to what is called dry goods and up to the time that I went she was still — I went into the RAF, she was still trying to maintain that.
AC: Yeah. And so, in terms of social status of the family would you say that you were —
RA: Well, middle class.
AC: A middle class family.
RA: Yeah. Yes.
AC: And —
RA: And I went to secondary school.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Yes.
Well before we get to secondary where did you go to primary? Do you remember that?
RA: Yes. Well I started off in infants at a private entrant school and then —
AC: Yeah.
RA: To the — what was called a Roman Catholic.
AC: Oh yeah. Yeah.
RA: Boy’s school.
AC: But were you brought up a Catholic?
RA: Yes. And I still am. Yes. Yeah.
AC: Still a Catholic. Ok. Yeah. Ok. And so you went to a Catholic primary school. Do you remember what it was called?
RA: Yes. It was called the Roman Catholic Elementary.
AC: It was just called the Roman Catholic School. Roman Catholic Elementary.
RA: Yes. Boys School. Yes.
AC: Ok. And then from there you went to secondary.
RA: Yes, from there I went to St Mary’s College. Which was the only secondary school.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: At the time. Yes.
AC: Yeah. So actually, you were relatively unusual. Going on to secondary school in those days.
RA: Yes. I mean it wasn’t a large number.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Everywhere in the Caribbean. I mean relative to the population. But there’s no point attempting to calculate. Probably a hundred or so but nothing like the size of schools. And even when I came to Jamaica after University in St Andrews in Scotland. The expansion of Jamaica College and the rest, you know, really began after the war and it wasn’t really a very big expansion until about the late 50s and the early 60s. I mean, it really, in my memory and understanding took place by the time I got here to the UWI.
AC: Yes. So what kind of education did you get at St Mary’s?
RA: Oh. the usual. The exam which enabled me to go on was, and into St Andrew’s was the Cambridge. The Cambridge Exam. In fact, the same exam that was given to boys and people of my age. I mean, I think girls got the same thing if they were in secondary school and doing the Cambridge Exam. So, it was English literature, English history or Imperial. I mean, you chose. I think you could choose. But anyway we did Imperial. We had a headmaster who was an Englishman. That was also usual.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: He was keen on sailing. He had a little boat with sails so we got a lot of maritime history.
AC: Yeah.
RA: The English fleet. Nelson. The French and de Grasse. All the battles that were fought in the Caribbean. Rodney of course.
AC: Right. Right. Right.
RA: And you did two foreign languages. French and Spanish or you could do others but we did French and Spanish. So, I did French and not Spanish.
AC: Right.
RA: And Latin and not Greek but you could choose Latin or Greek. French or Spanish.
AC: Oh right.
RA: Or do both if you wanted. Most Barbadians did both so when I came up here there was Latin being taught in the Faculty of Arts.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And Greek I should say.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Both were taught because both Barbadian and some from Jamaica College and the teachers usually in Jamaica as in St Lucia who taught Latin and Greek were Bajans.
AC: So, when you look back at it now do you feel it was a good education that you got? You had a good start.
RA: When, when I went to St Andrews when I discovered that it was a good start. Because the first year I did moral philosophy among some history in the first year and the Professor Knox who taught moral philosophy made no bones about a black man. I will soften him up. Make allowances actually was what he said.
AC: Really.
RA: In fact, the best person in his class was a Sudanese who he took to like water and who took to him in the same way. So, there was no letting up. I mean you weren’t expected to be less than the equivalent of Scots who had done their sixth form. In fact they boasted that they were better than the English sixth formers.
AC: And did you do, apart from the formal subjects and so on, I mean, what did you do for fun? Did you play sports and so on?
RA: No. I was determined not to play golf [laughs]
AC: So, well at St Mary’s though. Before you came to England.
RA: Oh yeah before. Games were compulsory.
AC: Were they?
RA: Yeah. So in the dry weather — January on. In those days we had two very settled. The rainy season.
AC: Right.
RA: And the dry season.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And you played football in the rainy season.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And cricket were compulsory. When the headmaster got his little dory, you could be a Sea Scout.
AC: Oh. Ok.
RA: You were also in Scouts as well. So the games were separate from Scouts.
AC: Right.
RA: You had to be in Scouts.
AC: Right.
RA: So when he got the little boat you could be a Sea Scout. He introduced Sea Scouts.
AC: Ok.
RA: If you wished you could do both or one or the other.
AC: So which did you go for?
RA: I thought Scouts might start getting really [laughs]
AC: Oh well. I can appreciate that. Yes. Yeah. Ok. Well that’s terrific. So what age were you when you finished at St Mary’s?
RA: Well I [pause] seventeen and a half really and I joined the RAF at seventeen and a half.
AC: Oh ok.
RA: So, I was about seventeen because I did a year in the Post Office.
AC: Right. Right. Right. Ok. Well, what — so when you left school the war had already broken out.
RA: Yes. Because the war broke out in ’39 and I was still in school.
AC: You were still in school.
RA: Yeah.
AC: When it broke out.
RA: Yeah.
AC: So, what decided you to volunteer?
RA: This sounds funny. Even to me. From school I went into the Post Office. I became a civil servant.
AC: Ok.
RA: A bit of reality here.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Coming out of secondary school there were only two, and you’d passed your Cambridge exams, there were only two possibilities for you. If your colour was light enough, your skin colour was light enough, you had the possibility of going in as a clerk in one of the foreign banks. There were no local banks so either one from Canada or one from the UK. Barclays was the UK one. I’ve forgotten what the —
AC: Royal Bank.
RA: Royal Bank.
AC: Of Canada. Yeah? Was the other one? Or the Bank of Nova Scotia maybe.
RA: Yes. It was Nova Scotia.
AC: Nova Scotia.
RA: Yeah. So if you were not that the only other opening was the civil service. You might go into commerce but that would be pretty low stuff. Right. So, I went into the Post Office.
AC: So, you did that, just to [pause] you were mentioning your mother was working in dry goods and so on so there wasn’t really a family business in that sense that you —
RA: Oh no. Oh no. She was really supplementing.
AC: Yeah.
RA: She switched from the grocery because as I said —
AC: Yeah.
RA: We lost the grocery.
AC: Right.
RA: So we lost the building in which the grocery was. Right.
AC: Ok.
RA: So we had to turn our royal lodge and commodious house part of it on the ground floor she turned into a dry goods class business. Right.
AC: Right. So, get stuff in wholesale and then sell it out of the house.
RA: Yeah.
AC: Ok. Alright. So, you came out of school and looking at the options you had you went into the public service, the civil service.
RA: Yes. And then two of my schoolfriends — both one year ahead of me — went into the RAF.
AC: Well. Yeah. Before, just before we go into that. So you went to the Post Office. How long were you there?
RA: Between leaving school and going into the RAF.
AC: Yeah. So that was, that was a few months or —?
RA: I went straight — [pause] More like a year I think.
AC: About a year.
RA: Yes.
AC: Ok. And what kind of thing did you do there?
RA: Oh. I was at the bottom of the pile with a salary of twenty dollars which then translated into four pounds.
AC: Oh yeah.
RA: Twenty shillings.
AC: And that’s a month.
RA: A month. Yes.
AC: Yeah. Ok. So, you don’t look back on that time very fondly.
RA: Well, as a matter of fact I was, I regarded it as fun. The postmaster to whom I was really [pause] to use a phrase, posted as his assistant was a bit of a fuddy-duddy.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, I took opportunities to pull his legs. You had to sign the book at what hour you came in. You were supposed to come in at 8.30 and I wrote, I wrote the time in the book with Roman numerals and he objected to that. Well I didn’t begin by thinking he would object.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I wrote it — I suppose as a young fellow making — showing off and then he objected to that.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So I said, ‘I don’t know why you’ve objected. It says correctly the time I was in.’ He of course was middle class and I don’t know why it was that he [pause] he probably may not have gone to a secondary school. It’s possible. Anyway, so I just continued doing it and he would come and cross it out and write it. [laughs]
AC: Wow. Yeah.
RA: And the other pranks that I used to play. There was an Englishwoman there. The wife of some English official who had been posted to St Lucia as part of the war thing and she, I think she read letters. She was a censor.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: She subscribed to the American magazine “Time” and it came to her in the Post Office and it was folded rather neatly so I used to take it off and read it and put it back in the folder. Keep myself abreast of the, of how the war was going.
AC: So, she never know that you were reading her magazine.
RA: She suspected and voiced her suspicion but she couldn’t point to me. There wasn’t anybody else. It wasn’t likely to be the post master that was reading it.
AC: Yeah. Alright. So you were working in the Post Office and then you, you said.
RA: Yes.
AC: You knew somebody who had gone in to the RAF.
RA: Two of them and they both died because they got into Fighter Command.
AC: Oh really.
RA: Yes. At that stage.
AC: But were these people that you had been to school with or —
RA: Yes. Yes. That was it.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And both of them were rather husky, broad chested and so on.
AC: So they were a year ahead of you or so.
RA: A year ahead. Yes.
AC: At school. Yeah.
RA: And so my mother, my mother thought that there was no way that I would be accepted.
AC: Just these two friends you mentioned. Do you remember what their names were?
RA: Yes. One was Etienne and the other one was Bernard, I think. Etienne I remember. Definitely. Oh no, the other one was Deveaux. I was confusing — Deveaux was white. Creole white. Surviving white Creole. Yes.
AC: And Etienne.
RA: And Etienne was, was my skin colour.
AC: Alright. So they had got — they had volunteered for the RAF.
RA: Yeah. Because there was no —
AC: Before.
RA: All of us from the Caribbean in the RAF were volunteers.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Yeah.
AC: So, they had gone. When you were still at school they had gone into the RAF.
RA: Yes, they had left before [pause] I well no well my mind — my memory is fuzzy on this.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Whether they left whilst we were still at school.
AC: Oh right.
RA: Or whilst I was at the Post Office.
AC: Right. Ok.
RA: Because they would have, they would not have gone straight.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because there would have been the application.
AC: Right. Right ok. But did you hear that they had been killed before you volunteered?
RA: No.
AC: Ok. So that was later.
RA: Yes. That was later.
AC: So, did you, you were kind of, when you volunteered you were, in a sense, following their example.
RA: No. I wasn’t following their example.
AC: No.
RA: And this was where I said this is curious for me because what happened to me afterwards is what I thought might happen if I didn’t get killed. That I would be able to go to university if I went to fight. And I wish that a letter that I wrote to my godmother, who lived in Castries, I mean this was a letter really, indicating why I was going.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because she was very kind to me. She was also related to us.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And she was my uncle’s elder daughter and so considerably older than I was. Well, appeared to be considerably older. I don’t really know how much but she was certainly older than I was and she was my godmother. And so I wrote her this letter saying that I’m leaving and I hope that if I survive I would be able to go to university. And I did not know then that the British government had decided that all members of the forces would have their university paid for and so on once they were admitted. Yeah.
AC: So, you had, certainly the letter you wrote to your godmother saying, you know, you hoped you’re going to get to university if you survived.
RA: Yes.
AC: So was that the only reason that you volunteered? You were thinking about that future.
RA: Yes. I mean it wasn’t king and country.
AC: That’s interesting. Yeah.
RA: I mean, at the back of it —
AC: Yeah.
RA: I must say that both because the local newspaper, “The Voice” and there was another one [pause] “The Crusader” carried telegraphed news of the war.
AC: Right.
RA: And particularly Hitler’s supposed racism.
AC: Right.
RA: I was aware of this. And that element, I must say, has to be taken into account.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But the thing that I was conscious of — it wasn’t going to fight for England. It was really to get out of St Lucia.
AC: That was really the opportunity.
RA: The opportunity. It was an opportunity. Yes.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Ok. So alright so you decided you wanted to go. So how did that happen? You had to put in an application?
RA: Put in an application. Yes.
AC: Was it that you had a, did you go to a recruiting office or how did it work?
RA: No. I think that must have been a branch in St Lucia but I had to go to Trinidad for the physical exam.
AC: Ok. So, who did you contact in St Lucia. Just go to the —
RA: I don’t, I don’t have clear memory.
AC: Governor’s Office, or something.
RA: Yes, could be one of the —
AC: Yeah, and they basically said, ‘If you want to sign up you have to go to Trinidad.’
RA: No. No. I mean, when you went to Trinidad it was because you were accepted.
AC: Oh I see.
RA: Except for, sorry, except for the physical.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I mean you had to go to Trinidad.
AC: Right.
RA: To satisfy them that you were fit enough.
AC: Ok.
RA: Yes.
AC: So, when you applied initially did you have to, like, answer some questions or, you know.
RA: I don’t —
AC: Or submit anything to do with your education or anything like that?
RA: I don’t remember but it seems reasonable.
AC: Yeah. I’m interested. I don’t know.
RA: I’m interested myself. I think so because you would not have been accepted.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Caribbean people were not accepted into the RAF until later in the war.
AC: Yeah. But you specifically applied for the RAF.
RA: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Definitely for the RAF. Yes.
AC: Ok.
RA: Because of the other two. Because of Etienne and Deveaux.
AC: Right. Ok. Ok. So, you were accepted and you had to go to Trinidad.
RA: Yes, I had to go to Trinidad to Piarco where there was an RAF, RAF station.
AC: Ok. And they did —
RA: And did the physical.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And then I came back home and then the news that I’d satisfied the physical followed me. I didn’t get it coming back to St Lucia from Trinidad.
AC: Right. So, do you remember what you had to do? Did they have you —
RA: Oh yes. Mainly the physical stuff but the one I remember was the one that was new to me which was blowing into a tube with Mercury.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And holding the Mercury up the scale.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: For a long enough time.
AC: So, they were checking your lung capacity or something.
RA: I suppose so. And then your eyes.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And I had 20/20.
AC: Right. Did they have you running and stuff like that?
RA: I suppose so.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But I don’t remember.
AC: Ok, yeah.
RA: The two novel ones.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So, you go back to St Lucia and you get the news that you’ve been accepted.
RA: Yes. And then after an interval I had to go back to Trinidad.
AC: How did you travel there by the way?
RA: On both occasions I think it was the earliest manifestation of what became [BOA?] in the end.
AC: Oh right. Right.
RA: Yes.
AC: So it wasn’t a schooner or whatever.
RA: No. No.
AC: Ok. So you had to go — after you were accepted now you were back to Trinidad.
RA: Yes.
AC: And what happened next?
RA: I was put on a ship.
AC: Actually, before we get to that. Just a question. What did your mother say? What did your family say when you —
RA: It was just my mother.
AC: Were going to the RAF.
RA: Well my mother was, the first impression was she wasn’t worried because she didn’t think that I was going to be accepted.
AC: Really. Why? Why didn’t she think so?
RA: Yes. Well because [pause] why did she think so? Because she thought that I wasn’t going to pass the test.
AC: Really.
RA: Yes. I mean my memory of Deveaux was that he wasn’t particularly physically superior to me but Etienne was. Etienne was a huge fellow.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I mean, really broad shouldered.
AC: Yeah.
RA: You could see him being able to lift weights. Do anything.
AC: Yeah. Well it would be fair to say Sir Roy that you’re not, you’re not the biggest and thickly built man I’ve ever seen.
RA: Well you don’t know.
AC: So, in those days you were relatively slight in build.
RA: Well I lifted weights, you know.
AC: Oh, you did.
RA: Yeah.
AC: You did.
RA: Yes. And cross country running was my favourite inter house. We were in the English fashion.
AC: Ok.
RA: St Mary’s College had three houses. Rodney of course, Abercrombie, and the French priest who founded it — Father Tapon.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: Tapon, Abercrombie and Rodney. And I was a prefect and in charge of Rodney. And so we had inter-sports.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: And cross country running. So I was —
AC: So, you weren’t a big large fellow but you were fit. You were fit.
RA: Yes. Definitely. Yes.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Well I mean I really discovered how fit I was.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I really had lungs. But the other thing was that I swam a lot.
AC: Oh yeah.
RA: Again this was not particular — peculiar to me.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But we played games.
AC: Right.
RA: In the pool and in the sea itself.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And one of the games we played in the sea was how long you could hold your breath.
AC: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, we would form circles and then you’d have to swim underneath the water between the legs of everybody who was standing up so you could, we quite often did that. And the other one was to dive. Go down and you could go down like thirty feet.
AC: Right, so, your mother didn’t think you would get accepted but you were accepted. So, what did she say then?
RA: A lot of wailing.
AC: Really.
RA: Poor thing. Yes. Well I should be more polite and say crying. Well it was crying. She really didn’t, being the eldest. Yes, it was not a nice time. I mean she quite reasonably appealed to me as the eldest and without a husband and my other two brothers had not yet completed school.
AC: Yeah.
RA: At this college. Yeah.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. So, did you feel a little guilty or —
RA: Yes. I had to be pretty, you know, firm with the idea because I had already decided that I needed to get out of this place.
AC: Alright. So, so you —
RA: Perhaps I should mention that in those days there was this also the Caribbean so the British kind [pause] when you got out of sixth form there were the island scholarships but in St Lucia there was only one island scholarship and you, depending on what the person ahead of you had because they were financed for the entire period of the study.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So you were going to be very unlucky if the fellow in front of you was doing medicine.
AC: Yeah.
RA: If he was doing law —
AC: Yeah.
RA: That would be shorter.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So that alternative was already blanked out.
AC: Right. So your timing was bad as they say.
RA: My timing was bad in both senses.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: There were others who would be competing with me.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Who were likely — for one place I couldn’t be sure that I was going to be anywhere near.
AC: No. No.
RA: Getting that scholarship. Of course, my two brothers were lucky because by then the [CJNW?] the commonwealth welfare thing had come into being and they both got on this on their results at school.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: And went up to Canada because the war was on for them as well as for me too but it was worse for them because the German submarines were doing damage in the Atlantic.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So Caribbean scholars were shifted to Canada.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So, for instance if you wanted to do law you went to Toronto.
AC: Ok.
RA: And if you wanted to do medicine.
AC: Yeah.
RA: You went to McGill.
AC: Right.
RA: And in fact it was part of the increase in numbers that were going to McGill in particular that had an elemental increase in UWI and also starting the faculty. The faculty with which UWI started with was medicine.
AC: Ok. Oh, I didn’t know that history.
RA: Yes.
AC: We’ll have another interview to talk about the UWI’s history but anyway, so you went back to Trinidad.
RA: Yes.
AC: Having left your mother at home wailing.
RA: Yes.
AC: You went to Trinidad and then from there —
RA: And then I got — there was a ship.
AC: Yeah.
RA: In the harbour in Port of Spain.
AC: Right.
RA: That had come out of North Africa.
AC: Yeah.
RA: With Italian prisoners of war.
AC: Ok.
RA: From the early phase of the war.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Before the Germans came in.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Back when the Italians were holding on.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And they got beaten up and then —
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So the ship was carrying these Italian prisoner of war to the States.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Where they were going to be POWs.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Right. And we were put on the boat.
AC: Right.
RA: I was. But there were others from Trinidad.
AC: Ok. So, there was a group of recruits but RAF and other.
RA: No. Just RAF.
AC: Just RAF.
RA: Yes.
AC: What date was this? Do you remember? I mean, for a start, what year would it have been?
RA: ’40/41.
AC: ‘40 ’41.
RA: Yeah. It couldn’t be ’39.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I was still at school when the war started.
AC: Right . Yeah. Ok. Alright. So you’re on the ship. Had you ever been on a big ship like that before?
RA: No [laughs]
AC: Yeah.
RA: I hadn’t even been on a schooner like that.
AC: Really. Yeah.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, one of the things that again I will share, having written all of this down, worked it out we not only had sports between the houses in the college but St Lucia was part of the Windward Islands. Grenada, St Vincent.
AC: Right.
RA: St Lucia. And later on Dominica for a short period of time. They were late being moved on to the Leewards group and we used to have inter-colonial, as we called them, sports.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: We would shift between the islands every year.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So I never got to go to Grenada which has to really be understood because I would have had to go on a schooner and the U-boats had already started.
AC: Oh right. Yeah.
RA: In fact, one of the things I did whilst at school that marks it out — if one goes on long enough you remember these things — at school the Scouts and any other volunteers bent wire into circles.
AC: Yeah.
RA: To create a net to be an anti-submarine net.
AC: Oh really. Yeah.
RA: In the harbour because the Castries harbour — it was the second after Kingston, naval station.
AC: Right.
RA: For the North Atlantic and West Indian fleet.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So we created this net.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And the joke was that the submarine, a submarine came into the Castries harbour.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But it didn’t come under the net. It stayed just a little outside.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But above. And there were two ships in the harbour.
AC: Yeah.
RA: One was a Canadian national steamship and the other one was one of those ships with Indian names come out of Liverpool. Anyway, there were two of them there and the submarine we supposed fired two torpedoes because the one, the Canadian steamship was right up against the wharf because we had this deep, deep water.
AC: Yeah.
RA: For coaling.
AC: Right.
RA: It was a coaling wharf. Right. So the steamships could come right up to get the coal.
AC: Yeah.
RA: The Canadian steamship was where the coaling ship would normally be and the torpedo hit it and it — so it didn’t sink.
AC: Right.
RA: It leant.
AC: Leant against the wall.
RA: So, there was a period when Castries was full of looted stuff. Milk, butter and other delicacies which, by that time, had stopped coming in normally.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: We suppose but I don’t know whether there was ever any evidence it was found that the submarine fired the second thing at the other ship and missed it but because it was not against the wharf and it was against the Vigie Peninsula we supposed that the torpedo went into the mud.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Rather than hit it. Right. So —
AC: Yeah.
RA: That helps me to date the school bit because of course I was at school at the time.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But anyway, I didn’t go to Grenada.
AC: Right.
RA: Because we would have had to go on schooners and they were sinking the schooners because the schooners were carrying oil.
AC: Right.
RA: From Trinidad.
AC: Ok.
RA: Up the islands.
AC: Alright. So, before you got on that troop ship you’d never, you’d never been on a —
RA: No. I hadn’t.
AC: Ok. So, what was it like on board the ship? You were heading, you are heading straight to England now are you?
RA: No. No. Going to the States.
AC: To the States.
RA: Yeah.
AC: Ok.
RA: Because the Italian prisoners were being sent to the States.
AC: Oh I see. So, you had to go with them to the US.
RA: Yes. Well that was why I went back to Trinidad.
AC: Right.
RA: Because not only taking me from St Lucia, well I was in Trinidad, but it took others from Trinidad and Barbados.
AC: Yeah. You don’t remember what the ship was called.
RA: No.
AC: No. It doesn’t matter. I was just interested.
RA: Yes. I wish I could remember what it was.
AC: Ok. So, what was the port of call in the US? Where was it headed?
RA: New York.
AC: To New York.
RA: And we took a train.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Took a train from New York to Moncton in New Brunswick.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And Moncton was the RAF training station in Canada for the RAF.
AC: Right. Ok.
RA: And [pause] yes, I think only, I was trying to think whether Australia but Australian and New Zealand I think went to Rhodesia. There certainly was the equivalent training in Rhodesia but it was, I think for Australians [pause] I don’t know.
AC: So, at Moncton, at Moncton in New Brunswick you would have, you would have all the Caribbean recruits would go there would they?
RA: Yes.
AC: What about the Canadians? All the Canadians would come through there as well?
RA: Not all. No.
AC: No.
RA: But some. I mean I think that they had more than one training station.
AC: Yeah. Right. Right. Ok.
RA: Because the Canadian, it certainly wasn’t the only training station. But it was — and it comes to mind why I can distinguish it.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because when we had to do flying training.
AC: Yeah.
RA: We went to Vancouver.
AC: Oh.
RA: Yes.
AC: Why to Vancouver?
RA: Because we were training then on American air, American bombers.
AC: Oh really.
RA: Yeah. Which is one reason why I’m alive.
AC: You’re going to have to explain that one.
RA: Yes.
AC: You’ll have to explain that one.
RA: In due course. Yes. Yes.
AC: Yeah. Ok. So, ok. So at Moncton — what are you doing there? You’re doing basic things like navigation and so on.
RA: Up and down. Yes. Oh yes you went through the palaver of doing the training on a, in a room with a pseudo plane and the comedy was all whether you were going to be a pilot or not.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And if you’re not going to be a pilot then perhaps you might be a bomber, a navigator or an air gunner.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Of course, we didn’t appreciate the guff that the RAF were selling at the time. Of course they were losing large amounts of men and we didn’t know that. And the idea was that everybody was going to be a pilot. I mean it didn’t really matter how well you did on the trainer.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, most of the West Indians became navigators or air bombers. And those, like myself and Hearne and I can’t think of anybody else. John Hearne, incidentally — there were Jamaicans on the New York train up as well.
AC: So, you kind of linked up with them in New York.
RA: Yes. Because they came by train from Florida.
AC: Right.
RA: Jamaica — Florida and then Florida by train to New York.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: So, John Hearne and myself decided that if you were an air gunner your training was the shortest of the lot so we would train to be air gunners. Then we would get over to England. Do a short stint of being an air gunner and then you could come back to Canada and train to be a pilot. Now that bit —
AC: Oh ok.
RA: Was true to a limited — the numbers of course were limited but we weren’t in a position to appreciate how. But the story was true. But where the story needed to have some grit for it to be understood was that very few of the fellas survived being air gunners. So, so, and the time when they were being air gunners was longer than they appreciated. But enough of them made the circuit for it not to be an entire lie. But in effect very few people who did that chose that. So we chose it anyway.
AC: So, you chose to train as an air gunner.
RA: Yes.
AC: With the idea that you would do it for a little while.
RA: Yes.
AC: And then hopefully train as pilots.
RA: Yes.
AC: So, all this you were doing at Moncton.
RA: At Moncton. Yes.
AC: So when, what was the Vancouver part. That was part of the same period of training?
RA: No. No. that was when we left Moncton.
AC: Yes.
RA: We never went back to Moncton.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: But we flew small planes. I mean, those of us, all of us at that stage, all of us firing at drogues. Whilst we were at Moncton.
AC: So, this I, so you went from Moncton to Vancouver by train.
RA: No. No. Just we flew.
AC: Ok.
RA: We flew out of Moncton but on small planes.
AC: Right.
RA: And a drogue was attached to the tail of the plane.
AC: Oh, I see. Right. Right.
RA: And you fired at the drogue and sometimes if you hit the drogue it got separated and fell into the fields of the Quebecois.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: And the Quebecois were not in favour of the war.
AC: No.
RA: Particularly as the leftover of the disagreements although the Prime Minister was one of those very skilful politicians because he managed to bring Quebec in to the war without any big disruption of other stuff.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, the Canadians discovered that, what we called Patois of St Lucia — the French Creole was very similar to what the Quebecois, rural Quebecois spoke.
AC: Oh.
RA: And that was true. I was really quite surprised but then of course I understood because I had a very good French teacher in St Lucia.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And he used to explain that a lot of the verbs that we use in Creole were really maritime verbs and I still remember some of them and I remember one in particular. That the verb for hauling up sails when ships were supposed, they had — hale
AC: Yes.
RA: And hale is what we use in St Lucia for pulling anything.
AC: Ok.
RA: But in French is really a very special verb for pulling up sails.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Raising the sails on a sailing ship.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And when I found that verb among other things it alerted me to the fact to listen carefully because it was a slightly different pronunciation. Just like Haitian Creole.
AC: Right.
RA: It’s the same Creole but it doesn’t — phonetically doesn’t come out the same as Grenada and St Lucia.
AC: Right. And the Quebecois didn’t appreciate you shooting these drogues down on top of them.
RA: They didn’t like the idea. I’m putting it badly. In fact, I’m screwing it back to front. They, they appreciated the drogues because they were nylon.
AC: Oh ok.
RA: And nylon was pretty new at that stage.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: No. What they didn’t like was RAF coming over the fences and asking, ‘Could you give me back my drogue please?’
AC: I see. Yeah.
RA: So, where they found that I was useful was to go and chat up the Quebecois and come back with the drogue.
AC: Oh, I see.
RA: But of course by that time I wasn’t being a great hero because the fellas probably had enough drogues so they could spare a couple.
AC: So they had all the nylon they needed. Yeah. Ok. So — and the crews that were in these kind of practice runs — were they all Caribbean recruits or were they mixed crews with Canadians?
RA: Only one. One in a plane because they just had small planes and the only thing that they did from a small airport in Moncton was to pull a drogue but all all of us that were there at the same time had to go through that.
AC: Yeah. Right. Ok. So, when you get to Vancouver now — what do you do?
RA: Yes. I should add a couple of things.
AC: Yeah.
RA: You went in and out in groups. Right.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, our group and there was the weather so there were these operations of doing flying and hitting drogues and so on.
AC: Yeah. But you were doing this in single seater planes.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yeah. Right.
RA: And we weren’t the pilots.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And when we finished that, well, our life in Moncton really was finished and another set of fellas were having to come in. Wherever they were coming from. Whether they were Canadians or Australians as I said, or whatever. So, now we have to move out.
AC: Right.
RA: So, we spent some time in the University of McGill because we had to get out of the barracks at Moncton.
AC: Right.
RA: To make space for the fellas who came in afterwards.
AC: Right.
RA: So that kind of life was what was involved. You had to wait your turn to move to the next stuff.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So, from McGill we went back to Moncton before we moved to Vancouver because Vancouver had to be empty for us.
AC: Right. Right. Ok. So, and then what kind of training was done in Vancouver?
RA: Oh, that was real stuff. I mean I flew in a ball turret in a Labrador. American bomber. Ones that they used in Europe for bombing during the day and, essentially we were doing mock runs up the Rockies to Alaska and further up and then out in to the Pacific and then back into — and they were night flights. Always night flights. We didn’t do any day flights at all.
AC: Really.
RA: Not my lot anyway. So, they were essentially getting you accustomed to — one sitting in a ball turret suspended from the bottom of the plane for several hours because they were long.
AC: What was it like? Was it cold?
RA: Oh yes.
AC: Was it cramped? What was it like?
RA: It was cold. It was cramped but just sufficiently enough space. You were on your back. Your feet were extended on to pedals so that you could swing the turret at any approaching plane from coming up from below. Your hands were on the guns. And, of course the retraction machinery to go back into, into the plane.
AC: And now you’re in the bombers and practicing. What was the crew composed of? Were they all —?
RA: Oh well the crew was all West Indian.
AC: It was all West Indian.
RA: Yeah. The same. The same.
AC: So, they didn’t mix different recruits from different groups at all.
RA: No. Well you see it was really you were, as the Jamaicans would call us, we were a batch.
AC: Oh. ok. Yeah.
RA: I mean it wasn’t, it wasn’t that —
RA: Yeah.
RA: Other than that, I mean it simply was that we had gone into Moncton as a group.
AC: Yeah. As a batch.
RA: As a batch. Yes.
AC: And the crew that’s training together on the bomber is it always the same crew that you worked with or was it changed?
RA: It was always.
AC: So you had — you were St Lucian.
RA: Yes
AC: Were the others Jamaicans or were they —?
RA: Well the pilot was a Trinidadian.
AC: Yeah.
RA: A Trinidadian white.
AC: Yeah.
RA: The navigator, air aimer was a Trinidadian black. John Hearne was the rear gunner. And the other Bajan [pause] we were very friendly and now I’m not sure whether he was part of the crew because there was a turret on top. On top as well.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: But it was, it was a mixed West Indian crew.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: There were enough Jamaicans or Trinidadians to make up one crew but I can’t think of any that were really —
AC: Yeah. And the intention when you were training was that you were going to ship out as a crew.
RA: Yes.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: And in fact, that’s how I got to England. Because when we finished training in Vancouver
AC: Yeah. And how long was that? That period of training. Do you remember?
RA: I can’t remember except that it was towards the end of the year.
AC: Ok. So, this was probably the end of 1941 now. ‘40/41? Somewhere around there?
RA: I [pause] I somehow have a memory of ’41 being in England.
AC: Ok. So maybe the end of ’40.
RA: I certainly [pause] ‘45 right. I certainly flew for the war in ’43. ‘42/43 more in ‘43 than in 42 because I did not have a long war.
AC: Yeah. Alright. Well the date doesn’t really matter too much. I was just wondering if we could fix it.
RA: It helps me as well.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I’m reconstructing as I —
AC: Right. Right. Ok. So you finished your time in Vancouver.
RA: But I but I’m terribly certain about saying towards the end of the year.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And I have to correct, correct myself on one point. I said we always flew nights and that’s not, that’s not true.
AC: Yeah.
RA: We sometimes flew during the day. If only once. Because I had this [pause] the plane that we were on that I was on had this accidental landing because the forward leg of the plane, the nose, the nose wheel had to lock.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Because it recessed.
AC: Right.
RA: Now, the navigator, air bomber used to lie flat on his belly when the plane was landing. He sat next to the skipper when the plane was in the air. Right.
AC: Right.
RA: But when it was landing and his job while being there was to tell the pilot that the wheel had locked.
AC: Oh yeah.
RA: Right.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
[beeping noise in room. RA: Alright? AC: Yes. I don’t know what that was. Go ahead. ]
RA: So, the Trinidadian fella was flying it and he didn’t quite correctly see it had locked. Now, the reason they had that position there, or that duty was that the wheel didn’t always lock.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So that he could say it’s not locked. So that — but it was very dicey because the pin that locked it would sometimes appear to go in.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And this, on this occasion, it happened so when he touched down the nose went down on to the tarmac and the plane continued with the, with the propellers as it went further and further down churning up and I’d got out of the ball turret. Of course, for landing the ball is brought up, the ball turret so the place there, the round space there remains space. And sparks began to go past.
AC: Wow.
RA: And I thought my God I hope the bloody engine doesn’t catch fire. I’m going to be in some trouble. As the plane started to slow down I decided, well the thing to do is really to get out of here. Let it slow down some more. As much as possible. Keep calculating for sparks and get out of it and luckily for me I took that route.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And also luckily, managed to calculate just enough to be pulled forward and I fell forward and the plane passed. It didn’t catch fire.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But it passed over me.
AC: Wow.
RA: And when it passed over me I particularly, when I was on the ground, I thought ‘Roy, what a stupid thing to do.’ [laughs]
AC: Wow.
RA: But you see the sparks were really, well you could see the blades going and crunching up more and more and increasing.
AC: Right. Right. Yeah.
RA: Anyway, but you see that is how the chat spices up the narrative but anyway makes it more accurate.
AC: No. No. That’s ok. That’s a great, that’s a great story so —
RA: I remember. Well, there are so many stories I want to tell you, correct the statement that we only flew at night.
AC: Ok.
RA: Because I remember the night flights particularly.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Because it always seemed to me that we were flying.
AC: Flying at night.
RA: No. We were flying at night. But it always seemed that when we were flying at night the ball turret was pretty close to the top of several peaks of the Rocky mountains and I said to the skipper, ‘This thing is going to tickle my ass,’ you know [laughs] move it up a bit.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because with the moonlight and with the snow glistening you don’t think.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And you look at the ground and probably we weren’t that close but a bit close. Anyway —
AC: Let me ask you just that though before we move on though. I mean being in the ball turret there I can imagine it must be quite a scary position to be in. So what did you feel about the training? Was it an exciting period or a fun period? Or frightening. What was the experience like?
RA: The truth about it, apart from that and on occasion I’ll tell you about flying in England, although not over England, was that I can’t recall really being frightened. So, apart from this thing about fearing that I might be fried if I stayed in the plane and it caught fire because I wouldn’t have been able to move the turret because the belly is going to be partially there —
AC: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, so anyway I didn’t. I didn’t feel frightened at the time. No.
AC: Ok. So, you finished training now.
RA: The only thing I said was, ‘Move, skipper. Move.’ I thought I’d better tell him, I mean [laughs] because —
AC: Yeah. You don’t want him to forget you’re underneath the plane.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yeah. So, you finished training now in Canada.
RA: Right.
AC: So, what happens next?
RA: So, we were sent on leave. So, we were divided. That should come first. We were divided. That should come first. No — that shouldn’t come first. It has to come next. We were divided into two groups. One group was to go off. That was sent to Trincomalee in Ceylon where there was another base and that base, for the Japanese element. They were beginning to push the Japanese back from Burma and so on and these fellas were providing air support and the group that I was in, and John Hearne was in, was going to go to England.
AC: Ok.
RA: And we, all of us were sent on leave and our group was to report to Halifax in January.
AC: So, you had time to come back to the Caribbean or —?
RA: No. I just hopped skipped on American planes down the West Coast. So I saw LA and Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego.
AC: Wow.
RA: And then I —
AC: Yeah.
RA: Just got into an American plane, got in to the mess.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Asked for any plane going from here and to the next station.
AC: So, you kind of hitchhiked around.
RA: Yes. Yes. That’s what I did. And if there was space they just let you on.
AC: Yeah. Oh, that’s terrific. So, you’re in uniform.
RA: Oh yes. Yes.
AC: Oh yes. You’re in uniform. Yes.
RA: Yes. Obviously. Yes.
AC: Yeah. So you hopped and skipped around the States.
RA: Well just around on the coast.
AC: Right.
RA: Down and then I really intended to go down as far as the Mexican border.
AC: Yes.
RA: And then in and then turn in. And then I thought, hey what are you doing talking about going into the south? Don’t you remember what the fellow said who came up on the train from Florida? Because they did the old stuff of trying to get them to [pause] of course a lot of them refused but [unclear] refused from sitting in what was deemed to be first class or whatever.
AC: Oh right. Yeah. So, it was still that segregation period.
RA: Exactly.
AC: Yeah.
RA: According to the stories which were too many not too be true. Most of them refused because, in fact, it was news to them [unclear] with their nose in the air. Always thinking they were better than anybody else. Who were these fellas to tell them to move? So in fact, and the porters caught on that their accent was different and so on. But remember that we were not in uniform then, you know. The first time we got uniform was when we arrived in Moncton.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So, I thought, ‘You’re crazy. You’re going to go through the south.’ So, I’ve forgotten where I — how far south I got but I certainly remember deciding that I’m not going any further down the coast because I would have — however it turned out I would be turning too much in the south because you literally were dependant on the good will of the fellas at the next American air station.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: To get you on another plane.
AC: Right.
RA: To tell you that there was space and everything.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
RA: So, I cut off and I remember I went to Buffalo from wherever I was on the coast. And then from Buffalo to New York.
AC: Ok.
RA: And I went to New York because I had a relation there and so I stayed with him. And then from New York I went to Halifax. As we were told.
AC: Alright. Ok. So, you arrive at Halifax.
RA: Halifax. In January.
AC: January.
RA: In a blizzard.
AC: Ok. Yeah.
RA: And to our delight because I was on my own on the coast. So at that stage I find that I’m back with John Hearne.
AC: Ok. Yeah. Ok.
RA: We sleep on deck.
AC: On deck.
RA: On deck. Yes.
AC: Ok.
RA: Because the ship has more prisoners going and the Canadian fellows were going. And it’s not the same ship that brought us.
AC: No. No. Right.
RA: And the Canadians were down there. Plus they were fearful that the Canadian ones would make trouble if they were in fresh air. So, they kept them below deck for the whole sprint across the Atlantic. So, we didn’t regard being on hammocks as really a penalty at all. It was fresh air and no one fell in the water?] Luckily the Queen Mary. We had no cover you know.
AC: Really.
RA: No. But by that time I think that they had, they had begun to get some control over the over the submarines. They’d probably started to work on the code. You know, the code. The German code had been broken. So they were nor —
AC: Yeah. Yeah. They had more warning.
RA: They had more warning. Not as many ships were going down.
AC: Right. Yeah.
RA: And the Queen Mary was fast.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Yeah. So that we landed —
AC: So, you were on the Queen Mary.
RA: We were on the Queen Mary. Yes.
AC: Oh.
RA: So we left Halifax in a blizzard.
AC: Yeah. So just to be completely clear — you were saying you were on deck.
RA: Yeah, we were on deck.
AC: For the whole way.
RA: Yeah. In hammocks.
AC: So how did you keep cover from the weather?
RA: The only way you keep [laughs] Cover up.
AC: Wow. So, all the way across the Atlantic, on the Queen Mary, on deck.
RA: It only took about four days or something.
AC: Ok. Ok. So, ok but it was all troops that were on board.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yes.
RA: Entirely yes. I mean the Canadians who we never saw.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But who we knew were there with the tittle tattle between crews.
AC: So was it, was it the West Indian contingent that you were with that were up on deck.
RA: Yeah. The ones that were in the half that was divided.
AC: Ok. Yeah. Yeah. You say they were worried the Canadians would make a fuss. They didn’t worry the West Indians would make a fuss about being up on deck.
RA: No. It wasn’t because, because first of all I will say to you it never occurred to us that being in this army [unclear] that you had much leeway. I mean —
AC: You had to do what you had to do.
RA: Yes. I mean you assumed that you were on deck because there was no space.
AC: You didn’t feel it was discrimination in that sense.
RA: No. No.
AC: No. Alright. Ok. So, you go across the Atlantic. Where did you land?
RA: Liverpool.
AC: Liverpool.
RA: Yeah.
AC: And where to from there?
RA: By train to a place in Yorkshire and eventually from there to a station. A real station where we learned that we now had to train on English bombers. Halifax was one. It wasn’t the Halifax as I was thinking about it this morning. What was the name of the other English bomber?
AC: The Lancaster.
RA: Lancaster.
AC: Lancaster.
RA: Yes, so John Hearne and myself trained on Lancasters.
AC: Ok.
RA: Yes.
AC: Do you remember the station that you were posted to?
RA: No. Funny enough I remember, well not funny enough, I remember the maintenance station which was the last station that I was on but I can’t remember.
AC: Yeah.
RA: It’s one of the damned things that I feel badly about because I could have found out all of these things once I knew where. What happened you see that there were two things were happening. I never set a great store by my passbook and other pieces of paper once I got into St Andrews.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And so I never took care of them. Right.
AC: Right.
RA: I actually, took them to St Andrews. I mean, I came down from St Andrews with multiple tea chests of papers and things.
AC: Right.
RA: Including those things to to Mona.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So, from the RAF to St Andrews which I will tell you some more about. No. From, yes, from the RAF. I was going to talk to you about 16 MU next and then from 16 MU to St Andrews. And then from St Andrews by ship or not only by ship but the tea boxes by ship.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So —
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, when, when I arrived in Mona these things were with me but they were jammed in with a lot of other things.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And I never really took care to say I must.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Well you never, you never know what’s going to be important in the long run, do you?
RA: More to the point I really fancied, well, because the numbers stayed with me for a long time and, in fact, details also. And that was my undoing. When I had a good memory. And I did have a good memory. And no scientist has ever told me you have to make space for other things and you’re filling your head with other stuff.
AC: Alright. So anyway, so you arrived now at the station and they tell you you have to train on the English bomber. On the Lancaster. Was it very different from the American bomber you were trained on?
RA: Yes. Yeah. The way because I now was a real air gunner. You know what I mean? Real air gunner. [unclear] I said Labrador incidentally when I described the plane but it was Liberator.
AC: Ah. Right. Ok.
RA: So, I was really now at the bottom of this long fuselage of that plane altogether.
AC: Yeah. So, you’re in the rear turret.
RA: I was in the rear turret. Yes.
AC: Right. Ok.
RA: Yes. I was in the death turret which is how I came to realise why this story about being you could go off to England, do a round of flight and then go back to Canada and become a pilot. But they —
AC: So why was it called the death turret?
RA: Because you were the most exposed, first, to the Luftwaffe. The Messerschmitt particularly.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Because at this stage the easiest way to get one of these English bombers was to do the covert pursuit and come in from the back. And the covert pursuit meant that you were safe because the only chance that this air gunner could get at you was when you were turning your belly and you were exposed.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But if you did that way you were too fast mostly.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So that you would then, you had also more opportunity to shoot at him. Being on your side was not a problem.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Oh yes, It really was a very dangerous position.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So that even if the bomber didn’t go down it goes down with a dead tail gunner. Yes. So, having trained you see delayed further my getting into ops.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Right. So, by the time I get into ops we are in the ten thousand bomber raid time time.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Right. So, the RAF is flying at night.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And the Americans are flying day.
AC: Right.
RA: And taking a whack themselves.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But the RAF taking more.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Because of the difficulty that they had. But by the time they got to the one thousand they were able to do the combination of flying long distances up north. Right.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because the Germans now had little oil because their oil now came from Romania. Distance as well as quantity. So, they couldn’t deploy their fighter, their fighter planes with the same facility. So even if they knew there was a stream going north over Norway to deploy against the streams that were going into Germany they couldn’t know in time which of the streams.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So I was lucky. So, we could fly above the ack-ack.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Which we did so that and in a way not being afraid was a bit, kind of toffee nosed about German stuff which, of course, was perfectly wrong because we found they were damned accurate and everything depended on the fact that they got distracted so often by having to deploy on short notice and short while. So by the time I really, I can tell you, that I got afraid was when, of course, we were supposed to be and were no communication between members of the same squadron and no lights. And on one night some fool turned on his lights. I really shudder to tell you the expletives that were on the air which are supposed to be, supposed to be quiet and no communications between — and what’s more for some reason it occurred to me and still does it took them a little while to find where the [unclear] was [laughs]
AC: Yeah.
RA: And then you, because you would definitely be — and there were definitely be, and there were fighters getting into the stream because you were flying, you know, without — I marvel at the organisation of the RAF. You were in streams and you had to be precise in time to prevent some fellas bomb not falling, all of us carrying bombs, not falling on you.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Below.
AC: Yeah.
RA: It was uncomfortable of course.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because being in, by the time I started flying there [pause] the [pause] we agreed it wasn’t the Lancaster. What was it again? The other English bomber.
AC: Well we had said it was the Lancaster that you were in.
RA: It was the Lancaster.
AC: Yeah.
RA: What was, what’s the name of the other one?
AC: I forget what the other one you said.
RA: Anyway —
AC: Yes.
RA: That doesn’t matter. By the time I started flying that the number of planes flying meant that we spent the afternoon or sometimes earlier being debriefed altogether of what time, we, of whichever group it was that had to be in the air.
AC: Right.
RA: And you had to be in to the plane at the precise time.
AC: Right.
RA: Because I laugh when, when I think of it, you know, because whereas civilian life is entirely different. One plane at a time on the runway. We had three or four planes all fully revved going out.
AC: Right. Right. Right.
RA: And if anything pranged in front of you were dead because you would be going right into it.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Right. So everybody had to be — now air gunners. You dress and particularly by that time, that’s why I was trying to remember the name of the plane. One of the things that used to give away the position of the planes were the Perspex. So, originally, and for a little while the rear gunner’s turret was enclosed and it was enclosed with Perspex. But the Perspex used to, used to get scratches and a line in the dark and the moonlight and starlight would appear to be a plane coming at you.
AC: Oh wow. Yeah.
RA: Like that. Which, you would start firing and that would give away your position and the position of all the squadron to the German fighters.
AC: Right.
RA: So, they took off the Perspex.
AC: They took it off.
RA: Yes. So by the time I got into the air gunners position it was naked.
AC: It was just open.
RA: Yes. I mean they took off the Perspex so that you were open to the air so then you had to dress to deal with that. So, you would start off with nylon stockings next to your skin. Then another pair of woollen stuff over the nylon.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Coming up to your waist.
AC: Right.
RA: Then a pair of Long Johns which now went over your legs and now over your body. And then you had the boots which were lined but really wouldn’t — the lining was not enough so you had to plug them into the electrical system.
AC: Really.
RA: Yes. And the gloves as well.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, both were electrified. Electrified is not the word but they have warming.
AC: So electrical warmer.
RA: Electrical yes. But you had to plug them in and of course it depended on how you moved the turret. You may or may not disconnect the thing so you could have one boot burning like hell [laughs] the other boot cold .
AC: Yeah.
RA: But then you had to put all of that stuff on.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Except finally the jacket.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Sometimes in the summer —
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: At 6 o’clock other fellas were in their shirt sleeves. Why is that? Because everybody is by their plane to be absolutely ready to be off on time. No slacking. On time. Right.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, you could be on your plane from the little bus that took you to you to the plane on the runway.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And then sit down and wait for your turn. Now you’re all jacked up in your boots because you can’t wait for the plane to go before you put your boots on. All you could do is have the boots ready to be plugged in.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And the Long Johns and all.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And the nylons and all. All of which really worked you know.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Apart from the boots and the gloves which occasionally didn’t.
AC: So, all the rest of the crew were —
RA: Cool. Yes.
AC: Light clothes and everything.
RA: The rest of the crew and everybody waiting until the last moment to put on their stuff because they have room in the plane.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: That bit I didn’t particularly like it but it made sense.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And of course by that time, I discovered that the RAF’s propaganda that all members of the crew were equal turned out now not to be true. Air gunners were paid less than everybody else.
AC: Really.
RA: Yes. And what’s more you very unlikely to make flight lieutenant. So the pilot, all my friends who were pilots or air bombers and navigators.
AC: Yeah.
RA: All of them, after a short period, became flight lieutenants.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But as high as you could go and I didn’t get beyond warrant officer after I stopped flying.
AC: I never knew that. That air gunners were paid less.
RA: I wish, I wish, I kept saying to John Hearne look at that [unclear] can you believe these fellows saying we were paid the same and it really, I felt that bit, quite unjustly.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because everybody is exposed to death for one thing.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And second everybody was really equal in a sense. If if the plane was approaching from the back and truly coming at you you became the captain.
AC: Yeah.
RA: The captain had to do what you said because you were the one to say — to tell him — and that was —
AC: How to maintain. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: To maintain at. And the same thing went if the circumstances required.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: The air bomber, navigator had to give directions.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: The pilot had to take the directions.
AC: Can I ask you about the crew since we’re mentioning that? You’re still essentially the same crew you trained with.
RA: Yeah.
AC: So, it’s still an all West Indian crew.
RA: Yeah.
AC: With the Trinidadian pilot you were saying and so on.
RA: Trinidad. Yes. Yes.
AC: So, over the time were you becoming a very tight knit group?
RA: Oh, we were. I mean although the pilot. He became head of [unclear] or one of the big Trinidad commercial firms.
AC: You don’t remember his name?
RA: No. I know his name alright but it’s not coming to —
AC: Alright. Well if you remember after we talk maybe you can send it to me.
RA: Yes.
AC: Don’t worry about it now.
RA: Speaking and I was laughing about him because we were, well we were, I think I said how surprised I was to see that one day, I opened, in Jamaica —
AC: Yeah.
RA: I opened one of the papers and found that he was their managing director of the firm. Yes.
AC: Really.
RA: Yes. I didn’t think he had that capacity. But anyway.
AC: Really. Ok. Right, so anyway, You’re now flying missions with Bomber Command. How many missions would you fly? I mean would you be flying every day or once a week or —
RA: No. Every night once you started.
AC: Every night.
RA: Yeah.
AC: So for the period of a year or so.
RA: Yes. For nearly that.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because, you know if I had enough guides I could tell you.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Alright. And you were flying. You were saying you were in the thousand bomber missions.
RA: Yes.
AC: So you were flying missions, essentially over Germany.
RA: No. Not essentially. Sometimes. But mostly to the north.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Which is why I said.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I got into the air war late.
AC: Yeah.
RA: The earlier in the campaign perhaps because the Germans knew we had more planes now.
AC: Right. Right. And they had less capacity.
RA: They had less capacity. Yes.
AC: Right. So, what about the missions that you flew now?. Do you remember any of them particularly?
RA: No. Apart from the [unclear] light. I can’t really distinguish?
AC: Yeah.
RA: That was really, so often if you passed over a cluster of important industrial places.
AC: Yeah.
RA: That there would be anti-aircraft.
AC: Right.
RA: Flak. But you were flying pretty high and the anti-aircraft fellas, scatter, you could see the scatter below.
AC: So were you ever engaged by any fighters that you had to see off?
RA: No. No. That was one of the benefits of of flying that route.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Instead of into Germany. I would have been closer to the capacity for oil there. Yeah.
AC: Yeah. Right. Right. And so, you would drop your bombs. Could you see the bombs hitting at all?
RA: Yeah. You could see the bombs. Of course in due course you discovered when the war was over and we used to joy ride. Oh, let’s go and see. Of course [unclear] great organisations slowly disintegrate until they noticed what was happening. Fellas just used to take off because they had the oils and stuff. Let’s go and see where we were only to discover that we hadn’t hit them at all but later on as it became clear those planes, those crews that were able to land discovered that they hadn’t hit the place at all and the ball bearings which were one of the principal targets were underground. Yes. You know. This sacrifice of human beings really was much more expensive than the stuff. Yeah. And the Germans repaired stuff pretty quickly.
AC: So, I think we’ll come to what you felt about the campaign later but at the time did you feel like you were doing something worthwhile?
RA: Oh yes. Yeah.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Yeah.
AC: Yeah. So, you felt that you were helping to win the war.
RA: Yes. Yes. I mean, once I was in it.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I mean I wasn’t against. I mean I’ve commented myself.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I mean it’s only after that I could make estimations when I had enough information emphatically how lucky I was.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But when I was flying the raids themselves.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I often didn’t know where I was going.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because the briefing for that kind of stuff was for the pilots to make sure that they were on station and all that.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: I mean one would know you weren’t going into Germany over that area.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But sometimes you went sometimes into [unclear] a bit but not deep enough to —
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Into the eastern centre.
AC: Right. Yeah. So, it was just a target somewhere that you were going.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yeah. And what —
RA: And you were essentially distracting.
AC: Right. Right. And what was the feeling, do you think, amongst the crew? More generally amongst the people you knew. Did they have a —
RA: Among the West Indians?
AC: Yeah. Were they feeling like they were doing something worthwhile.
RA: Yes. I mean we never got, I can’t, certainly not from John Hearne, I can’t remember, I mean John was not the only one I knew.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I was close also to the Trinidadians. John and I were closer because we were air gunners and made the decision to be air gunners together.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: But no I got friendly with and, in fact, one of the sad things for me was later on when I started asking about the fellas that had gone to Trincomalee I discovered that a lot of them had died.
AC: Really.
RA: It turned out that the war over Burma was really hard. And a lot of them were Bajans.
AC: So, a lot of that that other contingent had died.
RA: Had died. Yes.
AC: What about the group that you were with? Did you lose many of that group?
RA: No. That’s what made me do the contrast because they were Trinidadians mostly and Jamaicans.
AC: Right.
RA: And they were all alive and I mean —
AC: Yes. So, you didn’t lose any friends or immediate group.
RA: I didn’t lose any close friends.
AC: No.
RA: No.
AC: Right. And while we’re on the subject of the West Indians in general what was the experience like? Well you were based in England initially were you in various bases in England through the war or did you move?
RA: No. We flew from the same station.
AC: Flew from the same station.
RA: Yes.
AC: And what was it, what was it like living on the station and in the area? Was it in an area, did you get along well with the locals and so on?
RA: Yeah. Yes. I didn’t have any bad experiences.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I mean I was young enough really [pause] it didn’t matter. I mean it wasn’t a life. I mean like, you know, going to a pub. Even after. I was doing my PhD, I used to dread fellows saying, ‘Let’s go to the pub.’ For me that was smoke.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: I mean, you know half and half but I was much happier being in a room in Hans Crescent reading or just relaxing.
AC: So, in general do you think, I mean your experiences are interesting, but the group as a whole they had a reasonable experience. There wasn’t a lot of discrimination or hostility or anything to them. They were well accepted.
RA: Yes. Well. Yes. Well it’s not something that I had to ask in a sense because it would have come up naturally and I had not had feeling.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: I was more surprised with the details of English social life than anything else. I mean, the lack of facilities for warm water, for coal. I mean when I witnessed coal in bathtubs I really was a bit surprised but you know there wasn’t any feeling from the family that I was —
AC: Right.
RA: Because I think the war really bred a feeling of we are in this together.
AC: Ok. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And that and that tape the [Belizian?] were brought over pretty early to Scotland to cut forests and I think there was some complaints being made there.
AC: But in terms of your experience you really didn’t have kind of negative like that.
RA: No, yes, but I must say also that I am living on an air base for most of the time. Right.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And we come back at 3 o’clock or 4 o’clock in the night.
AC: Right.
RA: At that point I just want to go to sleep.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Other fellas in the squadron would want to go to the mess and stay there but I always went just from the plane to the mess but had whatever food that I needed which was not very much and then go off to the hut.
AC: Yeah.
RA: In fact, my memory of that, of that aspect of continuity of a thing done all the time is walking to the hut by myself and in fact reliving some of the affairs that I had, and others of my age would have in St Lucia about walking alone and jumpies coming out of the side there. So, I always walked straight in the middle [laughs] because we were in a rural area.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. And you were in like a barracks or —
RA: A [unclear] hut. Yes.
AC: Yeah. So, you shared with —
RA: Yes. With whatever number. The hut.
AC: Eight or ten or twenty.
RA: I’ve forgotten the number but it was the standard. A standard set.
AC: Alright. So basically your space was a bed.
RA: A bed, a Veno spring bed with three palliases because you had to leave the room.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Absolutely tidy.
AC: Right.
RA: And be where ever you had to be back at 8 o’clock.
AC: Right.
RA: The easiest way to make up the bed which as I finally discovered, mercifully was to do three palliases which you just pile up. Blankets or pillow and there.
AC: Yeah. And you had, like, on the base, a main mess hall that you would all go to.
RA: Yes. Yes.
AC: Alright. So you were flying missions pretty much every night for the best part of a year. How did that come to an end?
RA: With the end of the war.
AC: So when the war ended basically.
RA: Flying. Flying. I mean for the interlude which for me was very brief.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Of lets let’s go and see what we did.
AC: Yeah. So, you actually went into Germany.
RA: Well I flew over it. Some fellas landed.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Did the usual exchanges of more myth probably than fact.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Chocolates. Well I think that is true of the Yanks for very expensive watches.
AC: So, you flew over just to see.
RA: Yeah. Just —
AC: To see where you had been bombing.
RA: Yeah. Yeah.
AC: And you said your impression was that you hadn’t hit much of what you had been bombing.
RA: Yes. Well from height down it looked which turned out to be true. You had bombed.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: I mean the buildings that you had destroyed clearly really stood out but the targets.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. So, Ok so the war is finished. What happened? Were you kind of demobbed and then went straight back? Or —
RA: No. No.
AC: What happened next?
RA: No. No. There was this, there was this lull. I mean as I said, when you were no longer able to fly. I mean you just didn’t have access to a plane anyway. So, I spent some of that time in London. That was when you were talking about leave that was leave.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Whilst you just waited to discover what they were going to do with you.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Right.
AC: Right
RA: And then there was a Jamaican who was a very nice fellow. Flight Lieutenant Ivor de Souza and they twinned, they twinned me with him. He was, incidentally the second High Commissioner for Jamaica after the war. In London. To London. He was a very cool chap as well. His manner suited him. Suited his appointment of course. He died unfortunately of cancer whilst he was still in the external service so he didn’t last long after the war. But we used to correspond. And then I noticed, he was much better that I, he wrote to me much more frequently than I wrote to him from Mona. And then I noticed that he was getting longer and longer. But I heard about the cancer from people here who knew him.
AC: Yeah. Right. Right.
RA: And I said, ‘What’s wrong with Suzie? I haven’t heard from Suzie for a long time.’ John Hearne also knew him very well. So, I was twinned with him and sent to this Moncton [pause] not Moncton [laughs] the 6 16, now, I remember the 16. Why the hell should I remember 16? 16 MU.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Where the ground crew, the ground crew existed in largish numbers and where they had a real race relations and of course that was what we were sent there for. I think this was somehow decided. Of course, I never got around to asking him how he managed it because I soon found myself alone in charge of this large group and I’m only a warrant officer. And only a warrant officer means I’m up against officers. Squadron leaders. In fact, the base was run by squadron leader.
AC: Where was 16?
RA: MU.
AC: Where was it?
RA: I think it’s — I think it’s Lincolnshire.
AC: Oh ok. Yeah.
RA: I think.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I used to remember what county it was in but —
AC: Ok. So, they sent you there basically to take charge of this group of ground crew.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because there had been fisticuffs, broken jaws and so on.
AC: Really.
RA: It was a Maintenance Unit.
AC: Yeah.
RA: With hangars.
AC: Right.
RA: Spare parts.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Therefore, it was dispersed.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Over the countryside so if the Germans had known it was there they couldn’t damage everything.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Because that was spare parts for the bombers.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And the fighters. Right.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, the hangars were dispersed over the countryside. The countryside was uneven which again was why it was used for maintenance and in the winter the dark comes early and fellows were being called n***** and phrases being distributed so could wait behind a rising piece of land which was curved, for the sergeant or whoever had been insulting him in the hangar and [unclear]
AC: Really.
RA: So race relations were pretty bad on that Maintenance Unit.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And I succeeded more or less which brings me back to speaking to senior officers where of course part of this ability at this time not to regard these fellows as anybody in particular. In Bomber Command there were fellows in the ranks above you and so but really everybody — I don’t remember any kind of person pulling rank and not, certainly not among the West Indians but not even among the English people and not the English people among themselves.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: There was a feeling actually, ‘Yes, we know you’re a flight lieutenant.’
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Or you’re a squadron leader.
AC: But you’re all in it together.
RA: But you’re all in it together but this chap gives me a speech to the effect that he’s glad to see me because I’ve been sent. So he said, he ends the talk by saying, ‘Well I hope you’ll do your part.’ So I said, ‘Yes sir and I hope you’ll do yours.’ [laughs] The joke was that these fellows had, I don’t know if you know the phrase, they had jazzed up the RAF uniform. The RAF uniform is terribly ugly.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Left to its own. So, these fellows had jazzed it up.
AC: Yeah.
RA: They had bagged out the pants.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Tightened the cuff at the ankle.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: And then they had all sorts of people with skills for sewing and ironing and so on.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: And they’d drawn a line across the shoulders of the jacket. Tightened up the waist.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And I had gone to the mess. Luckily for me the fact that I wasn’t an officer didn’t matter because the base wasn’t that way so being a warrant officer was enough so I was saying how I would have to speak to these fellows because I’ve told the man if he does his part I’ll do my part. I’m working myself up to this frame. I’m going to give these boys the proper speech that I’ve promised. Don’t let me down and all the rest of it.
AC: Yeah.
RA: When I go to breakfast I see these fellows are jazzed up and so but when I’m looking a little bit more closely as fellows come in the English fellows are also dressed up in the same. So these boys had carried the culture across the line.
AC: So they had [unclear]
RA: So yes. I said, that makes it very easy. The English aircraftsman bottom of the line jazzed up. Get the West Indian tailor from us to jazz them up. I just have to deal only with the n***** calling and so on which enough counter blows had passed by that time for me not to have any major things on my hands and really to be able to chat it out. The other task that I had was to distribute sugar on weekends and that was an eye opener. There were these fellas. Ground crew. Nothing like, nothing higher than sergeant and very very few. And in the photograph — if I had it here you would see and they were persuaded by their mutinous behaviour at the beginning when they landed which is why aircrew were being were being dispersed. To keep them in order. There were also clashes. There were Trinidadian ground crew as well but the Trinidadian ground crew were generally secondary school fellas. These fellas were primary school. Right. And there were clashes between the Trinidadians. Not on that MU station because there were only Jamaicans but I had heard from London before I got sent to that MU that Trinidadian and Jamaican ground crew had got in to sparring.
AC: So, what you’re saying that there was more of a class thing.
RA: It was a class thing.
AC: Not an inter-island as such.
RA: No. Well a little bit. But the essential thing was that it was class.
AC: Ok. Ok.
RA: Yeah. Class and the usual culture thing but not colour.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Because, because these groundcrew fellas were all more on the dark side of the African black skinned section.
AC: So, you were saying about the sugar. What was the sugar?
RA: The air council had agreed to give them special food. So they not only had refined sugar. You know, white refined sugar but they also had rations of meat and butter and stuff which, well nobody — none of us in air crew ever thought of even asking.
AC: Really.
RA: I mean we just took normally. You were in the RAF. That’s what people at the airfield and the squadron ate which is why the one food I will not eat is brown beans. Baked beans. Baked bean. I had enough between Moncton and —
AC: Yeah. Enough for a lifetime.
RA: Yes. Enough. Absolutely refuse. It’s not banned from the house but I won’t touch it. That’s my contribution to my war. So they [pause] I had a bicycle. Part of the equipment so to go around to make sure that everything was alright. So, I would then pedal around in the evenings to the huts where they lived. And then so I didn’t know anything about that so one Friday, so they said, ‘So you’ve come to — ’ ‘No I haven’t come to.’ ‘So, you haven’t come to divide the sugar?’ I said, ‘What sugar?’
SC: Yeah.
RA: So they had these casks.
AC: Yeah.
RA: That’s where the tea chest casks came from. The RAF had put the sugar in muslin bags. Big. And my job was to shovel out into each single muslin bag the ration for each man.
AC: Yeah. Right.
RA: So, when they discovered that I was not taking one they insisted, ‘No. No. you have to take.’ You have to take and they were really, I tried, I didn’t want it. there was sugar in the mess and I really didn’t want it. No. They insisted. So you know what left 16MU with me? A tea chest full of sugar in muslin bags. You know what went to St Andrews with me?
AC: What?
RA: Tea chest full of — you know what came down to Mona with me [laughs]
AC: You don’t still have it somewhere do you?
RA: No. No.
AC: That’s a great story. Yeah.
RA: Yes, but then what moves in the direction of St Andrews is that I got treated by these fellas as their boss so that they were insisting, the would insist on serving me on Sundays with curried chicken or beef or whatever and in any other fancy dish that they were bring this in from the mess ceremonially. For me. Right. Now, because this was a Maintenance Unit it was mainly served up the ranks below officer rates by people who belonged to the RAF before the war.
AC: Oh. Ok. Yeah.
RA: Now, those of us who had joined the RAF voluntarily were given equivalent ranks by the same name but you were called Volunteer Reserve and these guys were much much older than I was. Right. And they certainly didn’t like the idea of me being served with all of these things. Personally, I saw that there was no way. There wasn’t a table or a thing where they were being brought their food. They had to get their own food. These fellas were insisting that I get the food they’re bringing in for me. Right.
AC: Right. Right. Yeah
RA: So, I knew then just the sensitivity that although nobody made any unpleasant things about it below their breath they certainly resented it. So, when after ‘45 the air council sent a general thing saying that people with Volunteer Reserve ranks will go down and only have the rank that their years in service entitled them to. I realised [the damned things?] don’t account for a damn. Right.
AC: They would take your stripes.
RA: Yes, because I was volunteer reserve and I didn’t have any years to earn that.
AC: Right. Right. Right.
RA: And this applied across the whole of the air force.
AC: Right.
RA: Not just Bomber Command or Fighter Command or anything so that it was particularly effective for air crew. I mean, at that time, in other words, there wasn’t enough stuff to justify maintaining the ranks.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: But these old men would keep their ranks.
AC: Right.
RA: Right. So, there I would be in the mess right, if at all, right but without the equivalent. So I decided — master you can’t be lackadaisical about this thing. You have to get out. So, that’s where my gamble from St Lucia now paid off. So this is ’45. ‘39 to ’45, right. So, by ‘45 I started to apply to universities. Now, here comes again another diversion. In order to keep air crew, I mean there weren’t enough Maintenance Units and so they had to find jobs for them. So they used to run courses for what they called the Commonwealth. The English fellows could take care of themselves but for us from Australia and various parts who were in England they arranged for courses in the universities which were quite spontaneous.
AC: Yeah.
RA: They could be organised in any way. They weren’t part of the, part of the university things. Right.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And they could be held anywhere so the notices came around the various units where people like myself were and then I noticed that one was being held in Glasgow. So, I wrote myself a railway, I wrote myself a leave ticket.
AC: Right.
RA: And I told my corporal that I was off on this thing which was genuine, I mean, because it was a thing.
AC: Right.
RA: And left him with the thing from the — part of the air council or command that the Maintenance Unit belonged to and took off on the train for Glasgow to this thing. All that was above board. I mean it was quite genuine.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So, I found it was being run by a squadron leader, if not a group captain, whose family owned a coal mine and he was a manager and it was about management. And he was in charge of that.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, there was a Trinidadian doctor from nearby. One of the people who was supposed to chat. It was quite useful to have him. It turned out that he was one of these people who had contacts. So, one day he said to me, ‘What do you intend to read after you leave here?’ So, I said, ‘Law.’ He said, ‘Law? No. No. No. The Colonial Office would say too many lawyers. They wouldn’t agree with you.’ And I could just as easily say to him, ‘What’s it got to do with the colonial office. I’m in the RAF. I’m not here because I’m on a scholarship from the Colonial Office.
AC: Right.
RA: I’m here because I’m a member of the RAF.’
AC: Right. Yeah.
RA: ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It doesn’t matter. These fellas have a way of finding out you’re a black man wanting to do law go and go and make trouble in the colonies. Why don’t you do something to be a teacher?’ So, I said, ‘I don’t want to be a teacher.’ Right. And the conversation tended to, on that point, to go down but before it was down he said, ‘I know the Dean of Arts at the University of St Andrews.’ West Indians in my class only knew Edinburgh and Glasgow. They didn’t know there was Stirling and St Andrews. I’d never heard. So I said to him, ‘St Andrew’s? Where is that?’ Practically sneering, you know. So I was not at all impressed that he knew all about it. He knew the Dean, until later on when I knew he really did have contacts. So I left it at that. As I said I had conversations. Now, here comes another bit that I wished I’d kept the piece of paper. There I was at 16MU and I get a telegram from the Dean of Arts in the University of St Andrew’s saying, “You are admitted,” and I’m telling you the thing literally, “You are admitted. Come at once.” Because by then it’s October.
AC: Right.
RA: Pretty — certainly, I think, late, very late in September. In fact when I got to St Andrew’s I was already pretty late. Right.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Although, because it was an admission but before that once I decided that I’m going to be in a mess with these old men I immediately decided — oh well I have the Cambridge entry. Apply to Cambridge. Apply to LSE. I applied to LSE because Arthur Lewis had, by then, become a bit prominent at the LSE.
AC: Right.
RA: He wasn’t then his professor then because his professorship was in Manchester.
AC: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
RA: But that was later. That was the third piece of paper I wish I’d kept. I got a reply. Both places replied. But both Cambridge admits me for ’46 — no. No. For ’47. And I want to get out in ‘46 and I get a note from Arthur Lewis saying, and I remember it again by heart, and he said, “We have decided to admit four hundred students,” and later on when I met Arthur Lewis, I didn’t know him personally at the time. “We have agreed to admit four hundred students and you are four hundred and one. But you are admitted for next year.”
AC: Oh right. Right.
RA: But I want to get out now. Right.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, I could wait and choose, either Cambridge or LSE.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So that with the letter from the Dean, that telegram from the Dean came after.
AC: Ok.
RA: So I practically reconciled myself that I don’t have a choice at that stage. Right.
AC: Ok. Ok. Yeah.
RA: So, when it comes I then have to apply for demob.
AC: Right.
RA: Because I have an admission. Right.
AC: Right. Right. Yeah.
RA: So when I went to St Andrew’s I hadn’t been demobbed, you know. I had to then say to the corporal, it was the same corpora, ‘Here is my letter of demob. So you see I’m going to, but I’m going to apply for demob before I leave here.’ So my demob is going to come here when it comes this is the place I have to send.
AC: Right. Right. Right.
RA: So, when I went up, when I got up to St Andrews, St Andrews, all the halls were full.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So luckily the train that goes to St Andrews stops at Leuchars.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And Leuchars was an RAF station but for the sea.
AC: Right.
RA: Right. Because it was right on the coast.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And it was doing anti-submarine.
AC: Right.
RA: Anti-submarine work.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So that night, or later in the day. Probably. It was before night fell I decided the only thing to do was to go back to Leuchars. There was the train stop at Leuchars so I took a bus between Leuchars and St Andrews. So I went. I decided that, with my kit bag and stuff, and I’m in uniform [pause]
AC: Yeah.
RA: Nobody is going to be making any enquiries.
AC: Yeah.
RA: All these stations are exactly alike.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So I go in and I check out the rooms so I make sure I have a room with nobody on either side so there is no one to ask any questions before breakfast or when I’m coming back from St Andrews. And I doss down at Leuchars.
AC: Yeah.
RA: At the RAF station for about two months and then I, then I got a bit a queasy. I thought God, one of these days someone is going to ask me something or other.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Might become suspicious so, I decided I have to start searching around in St Andrews.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But at that stage it might have been better or worse. I’d got no way of finding out but I run into a Guyanese and this fellow in St Andrews who was in the RAF or had been. He was, not like me but he had got a billet. St Andrews has a name for it so that was not in hall but I’ve forgotten what the name was but unfortunately those landladies who took students before the war had, of course, all had been taken up by those people who came in first, when the hall was filling up and had gone there.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, we were with one of those who had never taken students but were taking overflows.
AC: Right. Yeah.
RA: And once again I was in a Veno bed and this fellows name was Hadley but I was in a Veno bed and I was a six foot man in a Veno bed that sagged towards the centre. Serious sag. So, when he gets into the bed naturally he rolls towards the centre first so I’m sleeping in this position.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Highly, highly uncomfortable.
AC: Yeah.
RA: So, I tried to reason with him not realising first of all it was not that he was hoggish and was taking up this stuff. It was the springs. It was the springs that were the cause of it.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, I decided after a while that this can’t work but before I decided that the landlady was already making things uncomfortable as well. Again, not in her manner but because she didn’t know about doing things like — the place was one of these old houses. No hot water.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: So, when we had to shave because of course we came out of the RAF shaving the idea of a bowl for her to bring up hot water because she didn’t normally think that hot water was necessary for shaving.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: So, one day I though what the hell am I shaving for. Boiling for hot water. I stopped shaving. So I started to grow a beard.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And went on with a beard until spring and then started to shave again and I got down one cheek I said, ‘Right,’ and I just said, ‘Roy, winter’s going to come,’ [laughs] so I just pulled out [laughs] on the other side because I hadn’t got past the soap but I pulled out enough on the other side enough for it not to — awkward and stopped shaving.
AC: You’ve had a beard ever since.
RA: Yeah.
AC: Ok. So, at St Andrews now you went into —
RA: I went for an interview with the Dean.
AC: Yeah. And it was the history programme you went in to there.
RA: No. I told him I wanted to do law because law was what I really wanted to do.
AC: Yeah. Right. Right. Ok.
RA: But he said law is not taught on this ancient campus. They were opening a new campus in Dundee.
AC: Right.
RA: Right. To deal with medicine and law.
AC: Right.
RA: And if I wanted to do law I would have to go across the river to Dundee and register there. Well I hadn’t got any telegram from the Dean of Law. So I thought —
AC: Right.
RA: So I said, ‘Will I be admitted there?’ And he said, ‘Oh yes, I will arrange for you to be admitted if you want to do law’. So I said to him, well, oh no, he said to me, ‘What else would you want to do?’ So, I said, ‘Politics.’ He said , ‘We don’t teach politics here either. What we teach is political philosophy but before you can do political philosophy you have to do moral philosophy.’ So, he said, ‘But I don’t think you would be able to do moral philosophy.’ I said, ‘Well, what is moral philosophy about?’ He said, ‘Oh Plato and so on.’ I said, ‘Oh Plato. Yes, I think I can do Plato.’ What happened was that going up from New York to Moncton I had bought Plato’s [pause]
AC: “Republic.”
RA: “Republic.” Right. And had managed at some point to consume one chapter.
AC: Ok.
RA: And I had never opened the book after that. So, he said, ‘Plato. So you know anything?’ I said, ‘Oh yes sir I have read, “The Republic.” And he said, ‘Well, what do you know about “The Republic”? Can you tell me?’ So I remembered [unclear] and I started to tell him and by the time I had spelled out a few words recalling these fellows names he said, ‘Oh yes, well I think you can do moral philosophy. So, yes. Yes. You needn’t go to Dundee to do law you can do your moral philosophy and then you can do politics and history.’ So, I, that’s why I graduated using the political philosophy stuff.
AC: Right. Ok. So, you had your career at St Andrews
RA: Yes.
AC: And from there you went to —
RA: Well, I got a post graduate award
AC: Yeah
RA: And went to London because I was going to do the History of Jamaica.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Well a thesis. I mean I’m making it sound much more settled than it all, than it was.
AC: Right. Right. Right.
RA: Because the key now to my next step is Macmillan. WM MacMillan who had written “Warning from the West Indies.”
AC: Yes.
RA: Which predicted the riots of the 1930s.
AC: Right. Yeah.
RA: And Sir James Irvine who was modernising St Andrews. And had, and he was a chemist and trained in Germany and he was, he had dealt with science and at that stage he was turning to arts so he had brought in MacMillan who had been a Rhodes scholar and so on to teach Africa.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: And let Macmillan decide what else to do and once I realised that Macmillan was there I decided I would be. So I was doing English history with Lionel who had been in the Indian civil service. Sir James Irvine and Sir John something or other. He had been a classical scholar, a scholar first, gone off to the Indian civil service took no leave at all. Then let all the leave accumulate and decided to go back from India to Cambridge and do history. Modern history. English history. And then he went back in the civil service and James had captured him as well. So, I did English history with him and African history and a bit of West Indian history with Macmillan and political stuff with Knox.
AC: Alright. And then ultimately you go back to the West indies. When did that happen?
RA: Well I went down, no, I went down to London. Yes well yes to London.
AC: You went to London and you were there to do your doctorate.
RA: My doctorate for St Andrew’s.
AC: Right.
RA: Yes. And from there, with Macmillan’s help I managed to get the social council that was involved with the ISER. The Institute of Social and Economic Research.
AC: Right.
RA: They had one in Lagos as well.
AC: Yeah.
RA: And one in Uganda
AC: Right.
RA: And so I got a scholarship from the ISCR.
AC: Ok.
RA: And that there was no vacancy in history. And ironically the first post that came up was for English history and a chap called Waldren who was also with me in St Andrews finished his PhD and got the award the same year had the same Convocation that I had and he got that job because his PhD was in history, was in English history and mine was in Caribbean history.
AC: Oh right. Well as I said to you I want to talk to you on another occasion about your early UWI days and so on but for the purpose of this interview I need to ask you a bit about looking back at your time in Bomber Command. Do you think, looking back at it now, as you were saying, you said that you saw looked at the bomb sights and so on that perhaps you hadn’t hit what you had wanted to hit do you think that was an important part of your life. That it was. That you had done something valuable? What did you feel about it? Looking back.
RA: Nothing. Because first of all I didn’t do very much of that and as I said a lot of that had been done before the air council woke up to the fact that this is going on and on and on a large scale. So that I needed only a very short time of that because by the time I had only done one or two flights the air council had decided that these working class ground crew people from the Caribbean needed managing and use aircrew from the Caribbean to manage them.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: Yes. So that — No. I discovered a lot of this on the ground after.
AC: Yes.
RA: After this.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But because, just let me say something.
AC: Yes. Sure.
RA: One of the things that I did — happened to be able to do was that whilst I was at St Andrews, at the end of the first year, in the summer I got invited over to Germany where a group of students from France and Holland and Belgium and [pause] Denmark, I think, had organised. They were all Catholics and they had organised a group for themselves for approachments between themselves and Germany. Right.
AC: Right.
RA: And so I got invited into that group and another way which I found out about and then certainly I was in England at the time when various assessments came up when the air marshall in charge of Bomber Command was the only one who didn’t get knighted or made a, given a, you know. The army fellas and the navy all collected their peerships or whatever they gave them but they discussed at [unclear] over indiscriminate bombing so I was part of that feeling and emotion about the waste of human, human life.
AC: So, looking back at it you did feel that it had been something that really wasn’t, shouldn’t have happened.
RA: No. No. I know that is where you started but I’m saying I didn’t feel that.
AC: Yeah.
RA: But that’s how I came to know things like that, and the underground. That we never really destroyed ball bearings.
AC: Yeah. Yeah.
RA: That didn’t come from flying over it but because I didn’t get much from that.
AC: Right. Right. So, well I mean one of the questions that I was asked to ask you is what do you think that war experience really meant to you? I mean was it, looking back at it, is it a time that you are proud of? That you look back fondly towards? Was it a formative period of your life in some ways? How do you feel about it, thinking at it now?
RA: Well just that I grew up. I mean nobody was — I was on my own. I mean, you know. I — the kind of excesses, if you call it that, I mean with the kind of life it involves I came out of the RAF. I went into the RAF without smoking. I came out without smoking. I didn’t have a woman. I never had a woman. So, life the life was self-directed. I mean that I managed on the capital that I brought out of St Lucia.
AC: Let me ask you about just, you mentioned John Hearne quite a bit. What happened to him?
RA: He went to Edinburgh.
AC: To Edinburgh.
RA: Yeah.
AC: I mean he came back to Jamaica eventually.
RA: Oh yes. He came back. He got married.
AC: Yeah.
RA: He got married in Scotland. I was part of the entourage when I went out from St Andrews.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: To start from then. We got together. We actually cycled in France and in Germany. Went down, went down the Valley of the Rhone. And then by that time he had decided to go back to Jamaica. He’d got a job at Jamaica College. So, when we went back to Paris, back [unclear] I could pedal up that [unclear] Going down was one thing. Going back another. Then he left me in Paris because I was not really going anywhere at that stage.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I mean was going. Going to London to do the stuff but —
AC: Yeah.
RA: I had not made any preparations.
AC: Oh right.
RA: Luckily for me because [unclear] came up. But he went back. I stayed. Then I went into Germany on the bicycle and met these fellas and did and I covered a lot of Europe. Went into Italy with them and from then, from them I got a food dose although we started and their [unclear] and they looked a bit really. I got a dose from them about, ‘Roy, how could you do this?’ Showing me some ruin.
AC: Oh, they were having a go at you for the damage that Bomber Command did.
RA: Well yes, they were having a go in a sense, I mean, but they really were astonished that they had, you know, really, I’m saying at first I was emphatic and then I realised there was a little more than that so I came off the emphasis and righteousness — ‘But you started it.’ You know. But I stopped saying that.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: But the feeling was — this was before I learned about Dresden.
AC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
RA: And some of the other because I really couldn’t believe. Anyway, I can’t —saying that I was happy wouldn’t quite work it out because I wasn’t unhappy.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I was among friends. The English people. As I said the normal white man in the RAF never. In fact I used to keep a diary and there was a chap who flew I’m trying to remember what task he had. Anyway, he realised and I kept a diary and he knew that I kept a diary and he always used to tease me. You know as being toffee nosed and sort of, you know he didn’t use the word but it was clear that he realised that there was a difference in the use of the head between us. So he used to call me, he didn’t say intellectual but he was posing me as that kind of person.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Rather than — but he was the only one. But it was not, it was not denigration. It was really recognising and a teasing of somebody up to useless activity. [laughs]
AC: When you came, really, just to kind of round this off now. When you came back to, well came to Jamaica to work here and so on were you in touch with people who had served with Bomber Command? Like John Hearne and so on. Was there a group of you here that kept in touch?
RA: No. John. John was the only one. Because I don’t know what happened to the other, funnily enough, the other Jamaicans who came up from Moncton.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I ran into one or two people who were in the RAF after the war whilst we were waiting. Like de Souza. I didn’t meet de Souza before that.
AC: Right. Yeah.
RA: One of the tapes there was a fellow called [pause] a Flight Sergeant Guest who was also a flight lieutenant. So from time to time I met, I met him.
AC: But So, there wasn’t anything like a veterans association or anything that you were a part of?
RA: Well I think that some, some of them went to [Kofe?] Place. I mean, oh, no there was the RAFA Association.
AC: Right.
RA: Yes. And the September. You know the Battle of Britain rituals. We’ve still got one. This September in [Kofe] Place.
AC: Yeah
RA: Yes. There was but I didn’t have a car and there wasn’t anybody in the Mona campus although later on there was a Dutchman who we used to call Boom Boom, who rode a motorcycle and he was a bit older than I was but he went to [Kofe] Place regularly and so he would say, you know, ‘Come along,’ but I really didn’t feel like going down there. I mean, compared to the senior common room where the academics from different faculties would be drinking Red Stripe and telling dirty stories [laughs] or complaining about the prejudices related to the promotion of this fella or that fella there was no comparison. [Kofe] Place was a bit too far.
AC: Yeah. So, by the way, John Hearne has passed away now.
RA: Yes.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Yes, some time ago now.
AC: Some time ago. Yeah.
RA: Yes. His daughter has written a biography of him which the University Press has printed.
AC: Oh really. I must look for it.
RA: Yes.
AC: It talks about his wartime experiences as well does it?
RA: Yes.
AC: Ok then. I’ll have to look for that. I guess I’m down to my final question really.
RA: Good.
AC: But let me just ask you this. When you came back to the Caribbean what do you think people in the Caribbean thought about what you had been doing? Do you think — were they indifferent. Were they — did you feel like you were welcomed home as a hero? Or —
RA: With not any doubt but I would say to you there was really an interlude.
AC: Yeah.
RA: I really came into Jamaica, if I can might use of the word, without any prejudice into a nest of Jamaicans.
AC: Yeah.
RA: Who I had made friends with in London whilst I was doing my PhD.
AC: Right.
RA: They called that marvellous place Hans Crescent. I don’t need to elaborate about Hans Crescent for you.
AC: No that’s —
RA: You know about it?
AC: Yeah.
RA: Yes, because when I came down from St Andrews first, there was a small place called Nuffield House and then, for some reason, well, I’m bound to say for some reason because I know the reason — the post graduate award. Of course St Andrews had some uppity Scottish title for it. It had really had no money. I mean no meaning not zero but it was a traditional thing. A bequest which was aimed at fellas given post graduate awards. Did it in Scotland and preferably, for all I know, in St Andrew’s or in surrounding countryside or Glasgow surround. So the money would have been adequate for that but it wasn’t for London. Now MacMillan had pull with the Colonial Office but for some damned reason they wouldn’t give him any money for me despite MacMillan really being in. Do you remember when [unclear] married and so on [unclear] the Labour party sent MacMillan to go and negotiate with [unclear] uncle who had already been [unclear] South Africa by beating some white man who had broken the law and we just couldn’t understand that. Well the sticking point was he’s going back to Jamaica and we have already appointed somebody to teach West Indian history. Caribbean history or whatever.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Who was Elsa. Now Elsa, because Elsa came up to UCL whilst I was still at St Andrew’s she had graduated a year before me and had gone back. So I went to Mona before she put in her PhD you know. Right. She was working on her PhD in England before she — but she had already got the job. So they just said to me we don’t need, why are you doing two PhDs? Right. ‘But you can do, we’ll look at it again if he does a DipEd.’ So they insisted in the hope of hanging [unclear] board after that MacMillan said [unclear] had no difficulty taking the advice although the money from Scotland had begun to come I was beginning to face the fact — how am I going to sustain myself? So I took the DipEd and that is how John Hearne and myself came back together again because Hearne also had to do the DipEd and so we both became close and that was all the stuff that led to our being friends in Jamaica but the bit that happened first was that we roomed together in London so we shared flats in different places. Shared the rent. Right.
AC: Right. Right.
RA: Then Hans Crescent opened. There was Nuffield House but they were just closing Nuffield House so I spent a short time in Nuffield House and then I was among the first people who went into Hans Crescent and Hans Crescent filled up with Caribbean but also with Africans from various — including [unclear]. When I saw [unclear] the first time I realised that some Africans can look red. Did you ever see him?
AC: Never in the flesh. I’m too young.
RA: You’re too young [laughs] I remember it from [unclear] to West Indian eyes they looked like [the cleaner?] we used for goblets of water before the fridge came into existence. So, that, then with one thing or another I became president of the house and for the time until I had to go back to St Andrews for my convocation to receive my PhD I ruled [laughs] I ruled Hans Crescent combined with I was the chairman of the Student’s Union. The West Indian Student’s Union.
AC: Yeah.
RA: During that period I made friends with a lot of Jamaicans. Very close friends.
AC: Right.
RA: And I had absolutely no difficulty settling into Jamaica because these people came out really and welcomed me.
AC: Right. Right. Ok. I think it’s been a fascinating journey. I want to thank you very much indeed on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre Archive.
RA: You want me to sign something?
AC: Yes. I’m going to ask you if you wouldn’t mind to sign the agreement which is there just to make sure that we have it all legal.
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AAugierF171102
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Interview with Sir Fitzroy Augier
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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eng
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02:31:09 audio recording
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Pending review
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Alan Cobley
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2017-11-02
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Fitzroy ‘Roy’ Augier was born in Saint Lucia. When Roy was ten, his father owned a shop in the main town of Castries. Roy had a good education and after school went to work at the Post Office. However, his ambition was to go to university to study law. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force as aircrew, in the hopes that this would lead to the opportunity to fulfil this ambition. He trained as an air gunner in Canada before being posted to his squadron in the UK. After the war, Roy attended St Andrews University before moving to Jamaica and eventually took a post at the University of the West Indies.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Canada
Great Britain
Jamaica
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia--Castries
United States
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Julie Williams
African heritage
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
fear
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1375/23784/MEdgarAG172180-180704-01.1.pdf
36ae9e28a74e85f4be77156522931818
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Edgar, Alfred George
Edgar, A G
Description
An account of the resource
83 items. The collection concerns Pilot Officer Alfred George 'Allan' Edgar DFC (b. 1922, 172180 Royal Air Force) He flew operations as a pilot with 49 Squadron.
The collection has been licenced to the IBCC Digital Archive by Pip Harrison and Sally Shawcross nee Edgar, and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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2018-07-04
2019-10-01
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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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Edgar, AG
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Transcription
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DADS TRANSCIPT MEMORIES OF CREW AND MISSIONS 1944 TO 1945
RECORDED BY MIKE GARBETT AND BRIAN GOULDING IN 1980 AT A REUNION ON THE CREW HELD AT SUDBROOKE LINCOLN, AUTHORS OF SEVERAL BOOKS LANCASTER AT WAR (UNFORUNATELY SOME OF THE TAPE IS MISSING AND BITS MISSED OUT)
PHOTOS OF FATHER FLYING HIS LANCASTER INTO FISKERTON IS SHOWN IN THEIR BOOK LASCASTER AT WAR NO3.
WE CREWED UP AT 17 OUT AT SILVERSTONE AND IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY THE FIRST PERSON THAT I GRAVITATED TO WAS THE NAVIGATOR BOB BROOKS AND AUSTRAILIAN I THINK THE MAIN FACT WAS THAT I WAS LOOKING FOR WHAT I THOUGHT WAS A MATURE RELIABLE GOOD NAVIGATOR AND HE SOMEHOW GAVE ME THAT IMPRESSION, SO WE STARTED TALKING AND I REMEMBER OUT OF THIS THAT HE KNEW ALAN MILLARD THE BOMB AIMER SO WE THEN EVENTUALLY GRAVITATED TO HIM AND HE KNOWING BOB FELT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO JOIN US.
AND AFTERWARDS I DID FIND OUT FROM BOB IT WAS SORT OF FIRST HAND IMPRESSION HE RATHER LIKES THE LOOK OF ME, IT WAS ONE OF THOSE THINGS
I AM ALMOST CERTAIN THEN THAT THE NEXT PERSON THAT WE GRABBED, WAS THE WIRELESS OPERATOR AG ALF RIDPATH WHO WITH HIS FAIR SWEPT BACK LOOKED A LITTLE BIT OF A GAY LOTHARIO AND WE FELT IT WAS ANOTHER COMPLETE IDIOT THAT WOULD JOIN AN IDIOT TYPE MOB ANYWAY, AND WE SEEM TO GET ON QUITE WELL. THE NEXT ONE WAS DON HARWOOD THE REAR GUNNER WHO ALTHOUGH HE WAS YOUNG AS US SEEM TO HAVE AN OLD HEAD ON HIS SHOULDERS, A DEEP VOICE AND GAVE AN IMPRESSION OF RELIABILITY, I SOMETIMES WONDER IF THIS WAS EVER TRUE! AND THEN JOHN WATTERS WAS THE MID UPPER GUNNER A LAD FROM BELFAST WHO I AM ALMOST POSITIVE WAS MUCH YOUNGER THAN WHAT HE MAINTAINED HE REALLY WAS, TO THIS DAY I AM CONVINCED THAT HE WAS ONLY ABOUT 16/17 YRS AND HE CLAIMED TO BE MUCH OLDER 18/19 YRS, IT WAS A GREAT PITY REALLY THAT I SUBSEQUENTLY LEARNT AFTER THE WAR THAT HE HAD STEPPED UNDER A TUBE TRAIN ON NEWS YEARS EVE COMMITTING SUICIDE, I LEARNT THIS FROM DON HARWOOD THE REAR GUNNER.
ANYWAY AFTER COMPLETING OUT AT SILVERSTONE WE
[PAGE BREAK]
2
FINALLY ARRIVED AT 1661 CONVERSION UNIT AT WINTHORPE JUST OUTSIDE NEWARK AND TO BE HONEST I CAN’T REMEMBER MUCH ABOUT MY INSTRUCTOR AT ALL – ALL I CAN REMEMBER IS THE BLOODY STERLING!! NOW THE MOST INTERESTING THING WAS THAT ALAN MILLARD THE AUSTRALIAN BOMB AIMER WAS A FAILED PILOT WHO HAD GONE ONTO THE BOMB AIMERS COURSE. SO FROM THE VERY BEGINNING AS A CREW I DIRECTED IF ONE CAN ASSUME THE WORDS DIRECTED THAT EVERYBODY WOULD DOUBLE UP ON EVERYBODY ELSE IN CASE OF ANYTHING HAPPENING AND SO ALAN MILLARD WOULD TAKE OVER IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO ME BECAUSE AS HE GOT AS NEAR TO GETTING HIS WINGS IT WAS QUITE POSSIBLE INFACT HIGHLY PROBABLE THAT HE COULD FLY THE AIRCRAFT BACK AND MAKE SOME REASONABLE ATTEMPT AT LANDING IT.
THE WIRELESS OPERATOR DOUBLED UP AS A GUNNER, THE NAVIGATOR BOB BROOKS DOUBLED UP AS A BOMB AIMER AS DID THE FLIGHT ENGINEER, AND IN MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY AS WELL, ALAN MILLARD THE BOMB AIMER ALSO PARTIALLY DOUBLED UP FOR THE WIRELESS OPERATOR. WE LEFT JOHNNIE WATTERS THE MID UPPER GUNNER TWIT ON HIS OWN AS WE FELT IT BETTER LEAVE HIM UPSTAIRS THAN DOUBLING UP FOR ANYBODY.
I CAN ALSO REMEMBER THE FACT THAT BOB BROOKS THE NAVIGATOR WAS A JUDO EXPERT AND INFACT IT WAS COMMON PRACTISE WITH OUR CREW TO EGG YOUNG WATTERS JOHN TO ATTACK BOB BROOKS WOULD THROW HIM AROUND THE CREW HUT UNTIL FINALLY THE YOUNG IDIOT IRISHMAN LEANT TO PACK IT IN FOR THE NIGHT, WHEN WE WOULD RESUME AGAIN THE NEXT NIGHT.
COMING BACK TO THE STIRLING I THINK THE MOST VIVID IMPRESSION FOR ME INITIALLY WAS TAXING. NOW WITHOUT AS DOUBT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST BARBARIC BASTARDISE BLOODY AIRCRAFT I HAVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE FOR TAXING. IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY THERE A HUGE YELLOW BRAKE AND YOU OPERATED THE FOUR THROTTLES AND PULLED THIS MASSIVE GREAT LORRY BRAKE BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS SWINGING THE RUDDERS AROUND WHILE THIS, I CAN ONLY DESCRIBE IT AS A TYRANNOSAURUS REX OF A DINOSAUR PROWLED RATHER THAN ROLLED ALL OVER THE PLACE, IN ADDITION THE FLIGHT ENGINEER SAT ON THE MIDDLE OF THE AIRCRAFT IN WHAT WAS LIKE A SUBMARINE WITH ALL HIS FOURTEEN AND IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY ONCE AGAIN THE FUEL TANKS FOR CROSS FEEDING AND OTHER PURPOSES AND IN ADDITION IT DIDN’T MATTER WHAT ANYBODY DID THIS COW OF AN AIRCRAFT NEVER REACHED ITS CEILING EVER.
LANDING AT WINTHORPE WITH THE RUNWAY THAT RAN PARALLEL WITH THE MAIN NEWARK/LINCOLN ROAD ONCE AGAIN THIS BLOODY HANDBRAKE WAS A DISADVANTAGE RATHER THAN AN ADVANTAGE AS I CAN ONLY SAY FROM THINKING DEEPLY ABOUT IT WHOEVER
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DESIGNED THE BLOODY STERLING SHOULD HAVE BEEN MENTALLY EXAMINED.
ANOTHER THING ABOUT STERLINGS WAS CORRING THIS WAS WHERE, I AM ALMOST SURE ITS AS IF THE OIL TEMPERATURE WENT DOWN THAT YOU DROPPED THE UNDERCARRIAGE OPENED UP FULL THROTTLES WITH PART FLAP AND STAGGERED ALONG WITH WHAT CAN ONLY BE TERMED AS FOUR BLOODY GREAT BIG BULLSEYES FOR THE ENGINES WHICH OF COURSE MEANT FROM AN OPERATIONAL POINT OF VIEW THAT THEY WERE SITTING DUCKS FOR ANYBODY, AND IT WAS 460 OR 490 TOW TURNS ON THE WHEELS TO GET THE UNDERCARRIAGE DOWN IF YOU COULD NOT LOWER IT NORMALLY BECAUSE I REMEMBER THAT HAPPENING TO US ONCE.
IT WAS AT WINTHORPE AS WELL THAT WE HAD TO GET RID OF OUR FIRST ENGINEER BECAUSE UNFORTUNATELY IT WAS TAKE OFF WHEELS UP “BREAKFAST UP” AND THERE WAS JUST NO WAY HE WAS GOING TO MAKE IT.
WE THEN TOOK ON ANOTHER ENGINEER CALLED GEORGE BEDFORD ON WHO OF COURSE FLEW WITH ME DURING MY FIRST TOUR AND GEORGE BEDFORD THE 2ND FLIGHT ENGINEER AS A VERY PROSAIC LAD AND INDEED HE BELIEVED IMPLICITLY THAT HIS JOB AS A FLIGHT ENGINEER WAS TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT WHATEVER AIRCRAFT WE WERE FLYING WAS ABSOLUTELY IN TIP TOP CONDITION – BECAUSE I CAN REMEMBER COMING BACK FROM A TRIP AND I THOUGHT FOR ONCE I AM GOING TO LIGHT UP A CIGARETTE AND HAVE A SMOKE AS WE WERE FLYING BACK ACROSS THE NORTH SEA AND I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER HIM GOING BANANAS OVER ME SMOKING A CIGARETTE.
AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF ABOUT 14 HRS OF WHICH 7 HRS DAYLIGHT AND 7HRS NIGHT AT LANC FINISHING SCHOOL AT SYSERTON I THEN ARRIVED AT 49 SQUADRON FISKERTON
WHERE FOR MY SINS I WAS GIVEN “A” APPLE TO FLY I CAN REMEMBER THE FIRST TRIP WHICH WAS A 2ND DICKIE TRIP WHICH WAS WITH RUSS EVANS AND THAT WAS TO DANZIG BAY GIDENER, KONISBERG AREA WHICH WAS A 9HRS 15MIN TRIP, I THINK THAT ALL I CAN REMEMBER ABOUT THIS WAS THE FACT THAT IT SEEMED COMPLETELY IDIOTIC TO ME THAT A PILOT SHOULD GO ON A TRIP RISK GETTING SHOT DOWN WITH ANOTHER PILOT AND CREW, WHEREUPON HIS CREW WOULD HAVE TO GO BACK ALL OVER IT AGAIN WITH ANOTHER PILOT! THE THING WAS TO STAND BEHIND THE PILOT AND FLIGHT ENGINEER AND OBSERVE “WHAT I DO NOT KNOW” I SUPPOSE THE IDEA WAS THAT YOU WENT WITH A RELATIVELY EXPERIENCED CREW AND AS IT WERE SHUCK DOWN WITH THEM AND GOT AN IDEA OR IMPRESSION OF WHAT THE WHOLE CAPER WAS ABOUT.
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BUT ALSO AS I SAY I TEND TO THINK THAT BECAUSE YOU AND YOUR CREW WERE DIFFERENT WHATEVER SHAPE OR FORM THERE WAS GOING TO BE A DIFFERENT REACTION ANYWAY BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE TEACHING YOUR CREW ON YOUR VERY FIRST TRIP WHEN YOU HAVE ONLY DONE ONE YOURSELF! WHICH HAD NOT GIVE YOU MUCH EXPERIENCE ANYWAY. AND INFACT RUSS EVANS IS STILL RUNNING AROUND
HE PROBABLY THINKS OF THIS IDIOT, WHO AFTERWARDS WE GREW VERY FRIENDLY TOGETHER.
MY NEXT TRIP WAS ONE WITH MY OWN CREW TO TORS MARSHALLING YARD AT 7,000 FEET AND I THINK THIS WILL ALWAYS LIVE IN MY MEMORY AS FRANKLY IT STARTED OUT AS A COMPLETE SHAMBLES BUT IT HELPED THE CREW INTO A FIGHTING UNIT.
WE STARTED UP AND TAXIED ROUND TOWARDS TAKEOFF AND I THINK I WAS ABOUT 3RD 4TH OR 5TH INLINE COMING UP THE RUNWAY AND ALAN MILLARD THE BOMB AIMER A TYPICALLY AUSTRALIAN IF I MY [SIC] USE THE WORD WAS IN THE BOMB AIMER COMPARTMENT AND PISSING ABOUT AS USUALLY WHEN SUDDENLY IN A TYPICALLY AUSTRALIAN TWANG OVER THE INTERCOM CAME “ I HAVE PULLED MY BLOODY CHUTE AND IT HAS BELLOWED OUT” I IMMEDIATELY SAID “ WELL THERE IS NO WAY WE CAN TURN OFF HERE AND I CAN’T SEE US TURNING ROUND HERE AND TAXING DOWN THE END TO GET ANOTHER CHUTE FOR YOU SO WE SHALL HAVE TO GO AS IS AND I WOULD SUGGEST TO YOU THAT IF WE HAVE TO BAIL OUT YOU HOLD YOUR CHUTE UP TO YOUR CHEST AND WHEN YOU GET CLEAR OF THE AIRCRAFT RELEASE IT BECAUSE ITS ALREADY OPENED ANYWAY” UPON WHICH IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY HE REPLIED “THAT HE HADN’T COME 12,000 ------ -----!! FOR THIS SORT OF CAPER!! IT JUST SO HAPPENED THAT THE VERY FIRST TRIP I WAS USING A OBSERVE TYPE CHUTE SO IN A FLASH YOU WOULDN’T CALL IT INSPIRATION MORE DESPERATION I SAID ALRIGHT YOU BETTER TAKE MY CHUTE THEN, INCASE ANYTHING HAPPENS, UPON WHICH HE SAID THANKS VERY MUCH SKIP AND PULLED MY CHUTE DOWN INTO THE BOMB AIMERS COMPARTMENT, AND BY THAT TIME I WAS ON THE RUNWAY AND BEGINNING TO TAKE OFF AND IT WAS PROVABLY OR COLLOQUIAL ‘NOT UNTIL AIRBORNE THAT I SHIT A BRICK!! SO OF COURSE THE TRIP COMMENCED WITH ME WITHOUT A CHUTE AND HE THE GREAT ALAN MILLARD WITH TWO, ONE WHICH WAS OPENED WHICH HE HAD STUFFED INTO A CORNER OF THE BOMB AIMERS COMPARTMENT AND AFTERWARDS WHEN WE RETURNED HOME THE REST OF THE CREW SAID SOME HOW OR OTHER THEY ALL FELT THAT THEY MUST NOT LET ME DOWN BECAUSE THERE I WAS FLYING WITHOUT A CHUTE WHEN EVERYBODY ELSE WAS OK AND NO WAY WERE THEY GOING TO LET THE SKIPPER DOWN. SO HAVING SET OFF AS IT WERE AT A SLIGHT DISADVANTAGE AND THINGS OF WAFTING MY WAY GENERALLY DOWN THROUGH THE AIR SHOULD WE BE SHOT UP ON NOTHING.
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WE GET TOWARDS THE TARGET AND STARTED THE RUN IN, DURING OUR TRAINING IT HAD BEEN EMPHASISED WE WERE NOT GOING OVER THE OTHER SIDE TO CHUCK OR THROW BOMBS AROUND AND THAT BASICALLY YOU SHOULD PUT THEM DOWN IN THE RIGHT SPOT SO WHEN WE CAME UP TO THE TARGET AND ALAN WAS SAYING “ STEADY RIGHT, STEADY OH I HAVE MISSED IT GO ROUND AGAIN” I LIKE THE IDIOT I WAS WENT ROUND AGAIN. NOT THINKING GET RID OF THE BLOODY THINGS. SO OF COURSE I WENT ROUND AGAIN AND RAN IN AND THIS TIME WE PUT THEM DOWN AND IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY IT WAS A AIMING POINT. IT WAS NOT TILL WE GOT BACK THAT WE REALISED THAT UNDER NORMAL CONDITIONS CREWS DIDN’T NORMALLY DO THIS SORT OF THING. SO REALLY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A DISASTER TURNED OUT TO BE A EXCELLENT THINKS FROM THE CREWS POINT OF VIEW BECAUSE WE BECAME WEILLED AS A FIGHTING UNIT. IT ALSO BECAME APPARENT ON THIS TRIP BECAUSE WE REALISED EARLIER ON THERE WERE THREE ALANS OR ALS IN THE CREW THAT WAS THE BOMB AIMER, WIRELESS OP AND MYSELF, SO THE REAR GUNNER AND MID UPPER GUNNER WOULD CALL ME SKIP AND THE REST OF THE CREW WOULD CALL ME PILOT, THE IDEA BEING THAT IF SOMEBODY CALLED ME SKIP I STARTED WEAVING STRAIGHT AWAY ON THE GROUNDS THAT A GUNNER WAS COMING UP ON THE INTERCOM.
I THINK THE MAIN THING ABOUT MAILLY LE COMP WAS THE ENORMOUS COCKUP OF THIS OPERATION IN WHICH 1 GROUP CAME WITH US ON THE TRIP BECAUSE OF THE SHAMBLES AT THE TARGET INCLUDING VIRTUALLY ALL THE BLINDED ILLUMINATORS BEING KNOCKED OFF THERE WERE “T.I.S” PUT DOWN IN TWO DIFFERENT PLACES ONE FOR 1 GROUP AND ONE FOR US AWAY FROM THE TARGET UPON WHICH EVERYBODY WAS TO CIRCLE THEIR RESPECTIVE “T.I” BY THIS TIME I HAD LEARNT ENOUGH NOT TO GO NEAR ANY “T.I”. WE WERE A LITTLE AWAY FROM OUR ONE QUIETLY CIRCLING IF YOU CAN POINT THAT OUT, WE KNOW THAT 1 GROUP IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY WERE CIRCLING A YELLOW “T.I” AS IF THEY WERE ON A RACE TRACK WITH A RESULT THAT THE FIGHTER BOYS WERE HAVING A FIELD DAY WITH THAT LOT
COS WHEN THE TIME CAME FOR US TO COME IN I CAN REMEMBER TWO INCIDENTS, ONE WITH OUR RUN IN WITH THE BOMB DOORS OPEN A LANC WENT PAST US LIKE A BAT OUT HELL WITH HIS BOMB DOORS OPEN AND THEN A FOKWOLF 190 WENT OVER THE TOP OF OUR COCKPIT BECAUSE THE REAR GUNNER HAD CALLED UP “FIGHTER” AND OF COURSE I WAS ON THE BOMBING RUN AND HE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN MORE THAN 20 OR 30FT OFF THE TOP IF US WHERE HE WAS GOING FOR THE LANC THAT HAS JUST PASSED US AND HE FIRED HOT THIS LANC AND KNOCKED IT OFF “IT JUST BLEW UP” ITS RATHER IRONIC AS WELL BECAUSE DURING THIS TRIP WE HAD THREE COMBATS AS WELL IT WAS A PRETTY HAIRY DO. THERE WAS SO MANY FIGHTERS AROUND US IT WAS TO BE
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UNBELIEVABLE, THEIR DAY FIGHTERS WERE UP AS WELL AS IT WAS SUCH A BRIGHT MOONLIGHT NIGHT.
IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME CORRECTLY THAT THIS TRIP WAS ALSO WHERE WE SPOTTED A WHITEL HINEKELL111 AND MY REAR GUNNER SAID LETS GO DOWN AND KNOCK IT OFF AND I SAID WAIT A MINUTE WHEN SUDDENLY IT TURNED TOWARDS AND WE WERE ATTACKED BY TWO FIGHTERS THAT WERE WITH IT, THEY WERE WORKING I AM ALMOST CERTAIN IN CONJUNCTION WITH THIS HINEKELL, SO THAT AS ONE FIGHTER CAME IN AND YOU CORKSCREWED INTO HIM THE OTHER FIGHTER CAME IN AND YOU CORKSCREWED INTO HIM WITH OTHER FIGHTER WOULD THEN BE ON THE OUTSIDE TO NAIL YOU WHICH OF COURSE WOULD FORCE YOU TOWTRDS THE HINEKELL WHICH ALSO WOULD LET FLY AT YOU SO INFACT IN REALITY YOU WERE BEING ATTACKED BY ALL THREE. I DO’NT[SIC] KNOW PERHAPS HE WAS A TRAINEE AIRCRAFT OR WHATEVER IT WAS WE SEEM TO THINK IT WAS A BLOODY GOOD PLOY, BECAUSE WE MENTIONED IT WHEN WE GOT BACK FROM THE TRIP THAT IT SEEMED LIKE A NEW SYSTEM OPERATING BY THEM. ALL WE KNEW THAT WE WERE ATTACKED BY TWO FIGHTERS WHICH APPARENTLY WERE WORKING IN CONJUNCTON WITH IT.
THE ONLY THING I CAN REMEMBER ABOUT THE NEXT TRIP TO SALSBREE ARSENAL WAS THAT ONE WE WERE HIT BY LIGHT FLAK WHICH NECESSITATED US HAVING TO CRASH LAND AT WITTERING THE OTHER THING WAS WE SPOTTED A TRAIN WITH WHITE STEAM COMING UP FROM IT SO WE ATTACKED IT RACED UP AND DOWN IT WITH THE GUNNERS FIRING AT THE TRAIN. IT SEEMS IRONIC TO ME THAT ALL I CAN REMEMBER IS NOT SO MUCH LANDING AT WITTERING ALTHOUGH I DO KNOW NOT HAVING ANY BRAKES OR FLAPS JUST SHOOTING UP THIS TRAIN WHICH WE THOUGHT WAS HILARIOUS EPISODE NOT REALISING OF COURSE THAT WE COULD OF EASILY BEEN BROUGHT DOWN EITHER BY GUNS ON THE TRAIN OR BY A FIGTER FOR UST GOING DOWN AND LARKING ABOUT I MEAN AFTER ALL WHY SHOULD FIGHTERS JUST ATTACK TRAINS WHY CANT LANCASTERS!!
AFTER THE NEXT TRIP IN WHICH WE HAD THREE COMBATS AGAIN WITH NO CLAIMS, CAME THE ONE TO BELGIUM
BOURG LEOPOLD WHICH I WON THE D.F.C.
I REMEMBER ON THIS THAT WE WERE ATTACKED WITHOUT EITHER OF MY GUNNERS SPOTTING THIS BOY HE JUST CAME IN FROM BELOW IN THE DARK AND THE NEXT THINGS THAT WE KNEW THAT HE WAS KNOCKING SIX OUT OF US BECAUSE LET ME RECAP – ONE CANNON SHELL KNOCKED OUT THE WIRELESS SET – WE HAD A FIRE IN THE BOMB BAY FROM THE ATTACK AND WHATS MORE THE FLYING CONTROL SYSTEM WAS HEAVILY DAMAGED BECAUSE SHE REARED LIKE A STRICKEN HORSE AND WENT OVER ONTO HER BACK THEN WE DROPPED ABOUT 12,000 FEET BEFORE I PULLED HER OUT
THE MAIN THING WAS THAT HE HAD GOT VIRTUALLY ALL HIS ATTACK IN BEFORE WE RIPPED UP AND WENT – AS WE HAD NOT DROPPED OUR
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BOMBS WE WERE IN A DIVE AND THE FIRE I OPENED THE BOMB DOORS AND SAID JETTISON THE BOMBS AND SEE IF WE CAN BLOW THE FIRE OUT THE NEXT MINUTE WELL REALLY IT WASN’T THE NEXT MINUITE BECAUSE WE MUST HAVE LOST 10,000-12,000 FEET
IN THE DIVE BY HINT OF PULLING AND MANOEUVRING THE LANC CAME OUT AND SHOT STRAIGHT UP AGAIN WITH A VIOLENT TENDANCY TO GO OVER ONTO ITS BACK – TRYING TO CONTROL HER (IT SEEMS RATHER FUNNY TO CALL A LANC A HER) TRYING TO CONTROL HER I HAD TO CROSS MY RIGHT LEG OVER MY LEFT LEG AND HOLD THE CONTROL COLUMN FORWARD WITH MY RIGHT KNEECAP THEN I HAD TO HOLD FULL LEFT AILERON DOWN AND THIS BROUGHT HER STRAIGHT AND LEVEL AND KEPT HER STRIAGHT AND LEVEL FOR A MOMENT. I CALLED THE BOMB AIMER UP AND THE FLIGHT ENINGEER TO GET INTO THE BOMB AIMERS COMPARTMENT AND I HAD WITH MY LEFT LEG FULL LEFT RUDDER THE IDEA BEING THAT ALAN MILLARD WOULD COME UP AND CONTROL THE THROTTLE TO ASSIST ME BECAUSE WE HAD TO HAVE THE ENGINES OUT OF SYNCHRONISATION IN ORDER TO KEEP HER STRAIGHT AND LEVEL AND GEORGE THE FLIGHT ENGINEER TIED A PIECE OF ROPE ROUND THE LEFT RUDDER AND WAS HOLDING ON TO IT TO HELP – IT WAS DURING THIS PART AS WELL ONE THINKS OF THE HILARIOUS EPISODE OF THE NAVIGATOR SAYING “ I HAVE BEEN HIT AND I WILL GIVE YOU A COURSE FOR HOME” WHICH HE DID OF COURSE THIS TOOK ME AGES TO TURN ONTO THE COURSE WITH THE LANC CRIPPLED AS IT WAS THEN HE FELT INSIDE HIS SHIRT UNDER HIS MAE WEST AND SUBSEQUENTELY SAID “CHRIST ITS SWEAT”
WE AND I SAY WE BECAUSE THERE WAS THREE OF US DOING THE JOB FLEW BACK TO ENGLAND AND WAS DIVERTED TO WOODBRIDGE WHERE I WAS TOLD TO BRING IT IN - SO AS I CAME ACROSS THE AIRFIELD FOR THE FIRST TIME I TOLD ALL MY CREW TO GO FORWARD AND BAIL OUT BECAUSE I DID NOT THINK I COULD BRING IT IN SAFELY THERE WAS THE PROVERBIAL RHUBARDS WE STAYING WITH YOU RATHER THAN BAILING OUT – SO THEY WENT INTO THE CRASH POSITIONS EXCEPT FOR ALAN MILLARD AND MYSELF AND I BROUGHT IT IN AND CRASHED LANDED WHERE AFTERWARDS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A MASTERLY LANDING ACCORDING TO THE CITATION
ALL I CAN REMEMBER WAS THAT TWO THINGS
ONE WHERE THE CREW SUBSEQUENTLY COUNTED 200 HOLES IN THE AIRCRAFT FROM THE FIGHTERS ATTACK AND THE QUESTION OF THE LITTLE RUM BOTTLES FROM WHICH WE ALL GOT STONED OUT OF MINDS AFTER HAVING SURVIVED
BECAUSE ALSO HALF THE PORT RUDDER WAS MISSING AS WELL. BUT MOST OF THE ATTACK WAS CANNON SHELL BECAUSE APPROXIMATELY 2 WEEKS AFTER THIS EPISODE I FOUND OUT THAT I HAD BEEN AWARDED THE D.F.C.
WELL IF YOU MEAN A CELEBRATION ALL I KNOW IS THAT AT WOODBRIDGE WE GOT STONED OUT OF OUR MINDS WIPING ALL THE
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RUM BOTTLES PRESUMABLY THEY WERE MEANT FOR THE OTHER CREWS WHO CRASH LANDED THERE AS WELL ALTHOUGH WE SAT OUTSIDE THE HUT AND THEY COLLOQUIAL PUT, PISSED OUT OF OUR MINDS - YES THERE WAS A DO IN THE OFFICERS MESS BUT AS THE REST OF MY CREW WERE N.C.OS. WE HAD A LITTLE ONE ON OUR OWN BUT THE OTHER THING WAS THAT OF COURSE MY WIFE SHE WAS NOT THEN SEWED MY D.F.C. ONTO MY TUNIC.
ANOTHER TRIP WAS TO A PLACE CALLED MAISY I STILL CANT PRONOUNCE THE NAME OF IT IN FRENCH AND WE HAD BEEN ATTACKED WE COULD NOT OPEN THE BOMB DOORS AND WE HAD 13,000 LBS BOMBS ABOARD INCIDENTALLY THE WHOLE OF THE HYDRAULIC SYSTEM HAD GONE AS WELL – AFTERWARDS ON THE WAY HOME WE WERE DIVERTED TO SILVERSTONE OUR OLD OTU WHERE WE HAD FIRST CREWED UP ON WELLINGTONS COMING INTO LAND I HAD TO USE THE EMERGENCY AIR SYSYTEM TO BRING DOWN THE UNDERCARRIAGE AND FLAPS WHEN ALOAD OF REDS WERE FIRED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE RUNWAY AND I WAS TOLD TO OVERSHOOT THIS MEANT THAT I INSTICITIVELY PUSHED THE THROTTLE OPEN APPARENTLY THERE WAS STILL ANOTHER AIRCRAFT ON THE RUNWAY SOMEWHERE SO WE STARTED TO STAGGER ALONG ON AT ABOUT 200 FEET WITH A FULL BOMB LOAD UNDERCARRIDGE AND FLAPS DOWN WITHOUT ANY CHANCE OF GETTING THE UNDERCARRIDGE AND FLAPS UP AND I WAS DIVERTED TO TURWESTON – I CAN REMEMBER LETTING A FLOOD OF LANGUAGE COME OUT OVER THE RT (RADIO TRANSMITTOR) TO THE CONTROL TOWER AND PUTTING ME IN THIS STUPID POSITION – SO WE STAGGERED TOWARDS TURWESTON IN THIS CONDITION WHERE I BROUGHT IT STRAIGHT IN AFTER USING THE INTERCOM VITROUILIC TO ALL AND SUNDRY WITRH SOME WORKDS I WOULD THINK ARE ANOT MENTIONED IN BOOKS ANYMORE – WE LANDED ONTO THE RUNWAY AND RAN OFF ONTO THE GRASS AND I REMEMBERED A TRUCK COMING OUT TO US AND SAYING THEY THOUGHT WE HAD SOME PRACTISE BOMBS ABOARD AND WHEN THEY WERE TOLD IT WAS A FULL BOMB LOADS THEY ALL LEPT BACK INTO THE TRUCK AND DISPPEARED OVER THE HORIZON AT HIGH SPEED
SO WE LEFT THE LANC WERE IT WAS AND STARTED TO TRUDGE ACROSS THE AIRFIELD AND BY DAYLIGHT I REMEMEBER DISTINCTIVELY SOME TWIT AS A WING COMMANDER GIVING ME A ROASTING OVER MY USE OF FOUL LANGUAGE OVER THE INTERCOM – IT DID NOT APPEAR TO HIM THAT THERE HAS BEEN ANYTHING WRONG WITH OVERSHOOTING ME WITH A FULL BOMB LOAD WITH UNDERCARRIDGE AND FLAPS DOWN AND ONCE AGAIN I AM CERTAIN THAT AT THE SAME TIME A HALIFAX HAD OVERSHOT AND GONE INTO THE CLOTHING STORE AND BLOWN UP
THE THING ABOUT THIS INCIDENT IS THAT I WILL NOT RELATE ANYMORE BECAUSE IT WAS FAR BETTER TO DRAW A CURTAIN ACROSS
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WHEN ONE CONSIDERS THAT AT THESE TWO AIRFIELDS WERE EX OPERATIONAL PEOPLE WHO WERE NOW INSTRUCTING WHO APPEARED TO HAVE LOST ALL SEMBLANCE OF REALITY.
I THINK IT WOULD BE OF INTEREST TO RELATE ONE SMALL HUMOROUS INCIDENT AND THAT WAS THAT THERE WAS A LEADER NAVIGATION CHAP “PATCHEET” WHO ALWAYS SWORE BLIND THAT HE WOULD NEVER FLY WITH ME BECAUSE I WAS THE HAIRIEST ARSE PILOT ON THE SQUARDON
COS I WAS NOTORIOUS FOR LOW FLYING AND FOR GETTING BACK FIRST
WELL WE HAD BEEN UP TO THE OPS ROOM TO PREPARE FOR THE NIGHTS TRIP AND BOB BROOKS THE NAVIGATOR HAD A BICYCLE AND ON THE REAR WHEEL ON ONE SIDE WAS FREEWHEEL AND THE OTHER SIDE WAS FIXED – HE ALWAYS USED THE FREEWHEEL SIDE AND RIDING BACK FROM THE OPS ROOM WOULD GO ROUND THIS BEND AND PUT HIS FOOT DOWN AND DIRT TRACK LIKE A SPEEDWAY RIDER WHILE HE WAS IN THE OPS ROOM PREPARING THE NAVIGATION ASPECT WE TURNED THE REAR WHEEL ROUND SO THAT HE WAS ON FIXED AND SO HE RODE ALONG PUT HIS RIGHT FOOT DOWN AND HIS LEFT ONE OUT TO DO A SPEEDWAY RIDERS BROADSIDE AND QUITE NATURALLY CAME OFF HIS BIKE HEADLONG INTO THE HEDGE AND DITCH!!
IMMEDIATELY THE DOC WAS INFORMED AND HE WAS CARRIED TO THE SICK BAY WHERE HE WAS TOLD HE COULD NOT GO THAT NIGHT SO PATCHETT WAS NOMINATED TO COME WITH ME AND MY CREW AND DID NOT LIKE THIS ONE AT ALL!
AND THE FUND THING ABOUT THIS TRIP WAS THAT WE WERE ATTACKED TWICE – WITH PATCHETT SITTING THERE AND ALL OF SUDDEN OVER THE INTERCOM AFTER THE SECOND ATTACK HE SAID “I THINK IN FUTURE ANYTIME YOU WANT ME I WILL COME WITH YOU BECAUSE I DID NOT REALISE THAT YOU AND YOUR CREW WERE SO EFFICIENT OVER THE ENEMY TERRITORY”
I KNOW THAT IT BECAME A BYE WORD THAT I WAS INVARIABLY FIRST BACK THERE WAS VARIOUS NAMES APPLIED TO ME INCLUDING CHAMPION JOCKEY AND IT BECAME ALMOST A MATTER OF PROUD WITH ME
A. TO BE FIRST BACK AND
B. B. FOR ANOTHER CREW ON THE SQUADRON TO BEAR ME BACK WHICH FROM MY MEMORY NEVER DID HAPPEN
THE MAIN ASPECT APPEARED TO BE HOW WAS IT I GOT FIRST BACK AND YET MY FUEL LOGS ALWAYS SHOWED THAT WE DID QUITE WELL REGARDS TO FUEL CONSUMPTION
THE ANSWER WAS SIMPLE AND IT WAS KEPT A CLOSELY REGARDED SECRET WITH MY CREW
THAT WHEN WE WERE TOLD TO START DESCENDING AT CERTAIN POINT I STILL KEPT ALTITUDE AND WOULD COME DOWN IN VERY
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SIMPLE SMALL STEPS STILL WITH THE SAME REVS THE RESULT WAS THAT THE TIME EVERYBODY WAS AT CIRCUIT HEIGHT AND FLYING STRAIGHT AND LEVEL TOWARDS BASE I WAS STILL SOME 1000S FEET ABOVE THEM AND VIRTUALLY AT A SIMILAR POINT RELATIVE TO THE EARTHS SURFACE IN RELATION TO THEM THEN THROTTLING BACK AND PUTTING MY NOSE DOWN I WOULD REACH WHAT ONE MIGHT CALL FANTASTIC SPEEDS FOR THE LANCASTER AND RACE PASS EVERYBODY REACHING BASE FIRST AND NOBODY COULD UNDERSTAND HOW THIS KEPT HAPPENING TIME AND TIME AGAIN
ITS INTERESTING BECAUSE AFTER THE WAR WHEN I WENT BACK TO 83 SQUADRON ON LINCOLN’S I APPLIED THE SAME TECHNIQUE AND WAS INVARIABLE FIRST BACK AGAIN AND NOBODY COULD UNDERSTAND EITHER HOW IT HAPPENED.
ANOTHER THING I WAS NOTORIOUS FOR I SAY NOTORIOUS IN APOSTROPHES AND ITALICS WAS COMING INTO THE AIRFIELD INLINE WITH THE RUNWAY AT NOUGHT FEET CLEAN AS A WHISTLE AND A THIRD OR HALFWAY DOWN THE RUNWAY PULLING UP VERY VERY STEEPLY AND GOING INTO A VERY VERY TIGHT LEFT TURN AND WHEN I WAS IN AN ALMOST UPSIDE DOWN POSITION UNDER CARRIAGE AND FLAPS DOWN AND THROTTLE BACK TEMPORARILY STICK WELL BACK IN MY STOMACH AND A SPLIT ARSE TURN ONTO THE RUNWAY LIKE A SPITFIRE OR HURRICANE. I HAD A FEW ROCKETS OVER THIS BUT NOBODY SEEMED REALLY TO OBJECT TO THIS ONE !!
I THINK INFACT THIS COULD REALLY BE MENTIONED IN THE BOOK IF HE GOT ROUND TO IT
THERE WAS A DRIVER A WAAFF ON 49 SQUADRON AND ALL WE KNEW HER WAS SWISS ROLL SAL AND SHE WAS EXTREMELY KEEN ON MY WIRELESS OP ALF WITH A RESULT WAS WHEN WE LANDED WHOEVER WAS CLOSE BEHIND US SHE WOULD INVARIABLY COME TO OUR DISPERSAL FIRST TO COLLECT US AND GET US BACK TO DE-BRIEFING IT WAS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE WITH HER! AND I REMEMBER WE HAD BEEN TO LINCOLN THE CREW AND I AND WE HAD GOT BACK TO FISKERTON FIVE MILE HOLT AND YOU CROSSED THE RIVER BY A LITTLE FERRY BOAT IN THE DARK AND SWISS ROLL SAL WAS WITH MY WIRELESS OP AG WITH SOME OTHER WAAFS AND A COUPLE OF OTHER CREWS AND THERE WAS A HILARIOUS MIX UP IN THE BOAT WHEN HALF OF THEM WENT ONTO THE WATER! AND I THINK THAT’S ITS JUST THE FACT AS I SAY EVERYBODY KNEW SWISS ROLL SAL
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
Transcript of interview with Allan Edgar
Dad's Transcript Memories of Crew and Missions 1944 to 1945
Description
An account of the resource
The memoirs were recorded in 1980 at a reunion at Sudbrooke. He starts by describing crewing up at Silverstone. His opinion of the Stirling was that it was awful on the ground and in the air. His first operation was a second 'dickie' (an observer) to Konisberg. On his third trip his bomb aimer opened his chute on the ground so Alan gave him his. Fortunately the trip was uneventful. They took part on an operation to Mailly le Camp which turned into a disaster because the bombing points were obscured. On the next operation they machine gunned a train without appreciating how dangerous it was. Then an operation to Bour Leopold, Belgium led to their Lancaster being heavily damaged. They crash landed at Woodbridge and Alan was awarded the DFC. After the landing they drank all the rum they found in a hut. On the next trip to France they were attacked and the hydraulics were damaged resulting in not being able to open the bomb doors. They returned to the UK with the bombs and successfully landed at Turweston. He was always first back because he maintained height until close to the airfield then dived at top speed for the airfield. The other crews could not understand how he achieved this.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alan Edgar
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1980
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
10 typewritten 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
MEdgarAG172180-180704-01
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Belgium
France
Great Britain
Poland
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
England--Nottinghamshire
France--Tours
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Belgium--Leopoldsburg
Poland--Gdańsk
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Claire Monk
1 Group
49 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bomb aimer
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
crash
crewing up
Distinguished Flying Cross
flight engineer
Fw 190
ground personnel
He 111
Heavy Conversion Unit
Hurricane
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
Lincoln
mess
navigator
Operational Training Unit
pilot
RAF Fiskerton
RAF Silverstone
RAF Syerston
RAF Turweston
RAF Winthorpe
RAF Wittering
RAF Woodbridge
Spitfire
Stirling
target indicator
training
Wellington
wireless operator / air gunner
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/2198/40172/BMcInnesAMcInnesAv1.2.pdf
039409582741300cd52a4251b3dd8e46
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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-01-29
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
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
Alan McInnes memoir
A German Holiday 1944-45
Description
An account of the resource
An autobiography by Alan of his time as a prisoner of war. He describes the night they were shot down over Germany. Also his training with his mainly Australian crew. Then he goes into more detail regarding the operation when he was shot down.
He describes their capture, mistreatment and interrogations at various locations. After interrogations at Dulag Luft they were sent to a transit camp in Frankfurt then on by train to Heydekrug, Stalag Luft VI. Although their camp section was new it was cramped and basic. He describes camp life in detail. As the Russians got closer they were sent by train to an Army camp at Thorn. He read a copy of NCO education in the camp. These courses were extremely popular and supported by text books sent from the UK. Exams were sat and papers sent to the UK for marking. At Thorn they marched to Stammlager 357 but not for long. They then marched back to the railway and were sent to Fallingbostel. He describes the rail journey in detail, then in greater detail he describes camp life.
Later he was moved to an officer's camp at Eichstadt. This turned out to be an Army camp which refused them and they were sent to Sagan. He stayed there for a short time then was moved to Stalag Luft 3, then 111A. As the Russians neared they moved again. After a couple of days waiting in trucks they returned to their camp. The railway system was breaking down as the end of the war neared.
After the Russians reached them they were allowed out of the camp but still remained billeted there. He writes about his impressions of the Russians.
His journey home was delayed by rain that did not allow aircraft to fly.
His story ends with his retelling of the night his aircraft was shot down, his night in Brussels and his return to England.
Creator
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Alan McInnes
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Magdeburg
Australia
Great Britain
England--Lichfield
Poland--Szczecin
Germany--Bremen
Germany--Stendal
Switzerland
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Lithuania--Šilutė
Poland
Italy
Canada
United States
Poland--Szczecin
Poland--Toruń
Greece
Greece--Crete
Poland--Vistula River
England--Staverton (Northamptonshire)
Germany--Bad Fallingbostel
Poland--Żagań
Poland--Bydgoszcz
Poland--Poznań
Germany--Pasewalk
Germany--Neubrandenburg
Germany--Stavenhagen
Germany--Malchin (Landkreis)
Germany--Güstrow
Germany--Hamburg
Germany--Lübeck
Germany--Eichstätt
Germany--Munich
Germany--Kassel
Germany--Eisenach
Germany--Fürth (Bavaria)
Germany--Treuchtlingen
Germany--Ingolstadt
Germany--Regensburg
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Plauen
Poland--Wrocław
New South Wales--Sydney
Victoria--Melbourne
New South Wales
India--Jammu and Kashmir
China
England--London
Germany--Elbe
Germany--Potsdam
Germany--Jüterbog
Ukraine--Odesa
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Halle an der Saale
Belgium--Brussels
England--Brighton
Germany--Nuremberg
Germany--Hannover
Ukraine
Germany--Luckenwalde
Poland--Poznań
Germany
Germany--Hof (Hof)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Australian Air Force
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Format
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85 printed sheets
Identifier
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BMcInnesAMcInnesAv1
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.
1944-01-21
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
83 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bale out
bomb aimer
C-47
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
crewing up
Dulag Luft
entertainment
final resting place
flight engineer
Fw 190
Goering, Hermann (1893-1946)
ground personnel
H2S
Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
incendiary device
Lancaster
Mosquito
navigator
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
pilot
prisoner of war
radar
RAF Bicester
RAF Lichfield
RAF Wigsley
RAF Wyton
Red Cross
shot down
sport
Stalag 3A
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
target indicator
the long march
training
wireless operator
Women’s Auxiliary Air Force
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1358/22527/PGrahamJ1701.2.jpg
03356d596bab678bf0be72fb90daba8c
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1358/22527/AGrahamJ170927.2.mp3
412f4cb7442925548a15d9c754948cc3
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
Graham, Jimmy
James Graham
J Graham
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Jimmy Graham DFM. He flew operations as an air gunner with 567 Squadron.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. 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
Graham, J
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
JG: The job I had —
AM: I just, I just have to say a wee bit at the beginning.
JG: Yeah.
AM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is —
JG: Yeah.
AM: Alistair Montgomery. Monty. And the interviewee is Warrant Officer Jimmy Graham. The interview is taking place at Mr Graham’s home in Kilwinning, Ayrshire and his daughter Alison, is present. Jimmy, just to start could you tell me a little bit about your family background and where you lived before you joined the Royal Air Force.
JG: Yeah. I was born in Irvine, and I went to school in Irvine. And there I got myself a job there when I grew up. The job was a Reserved Occupation. The war itself had now [pause] the war, the job that I was after it was a Reserved Occupation. To get in to the Air Force along the line I went up to Glasgow to volunteer and told a pack of lies. Yeah. Because, well the reason for that is none of us wanting to join the Royal Scots Fusiliers. That’s where, that’s the one you got shoved into, and so in the end I was taken on in to the Air Force and I got posted once I’d joined joining up side, I got posted up to Leuchars. And that was the start. And then I left Leuchars and went to Ireland.
AM: Right.
JG: RAF there. I had a job there, what was it. I was working in flying control there as well. And —
AM: So, you went to Ireland with the Royal Air Force.
JG: Aye.
AM: Right.
JG: And so in the Royal Air Force in there I volunteered for aircrew and I got all the medical side done in Ireland.
AM: Whereabouts in Ireland?
JG: What?
AM: Whereabouts in Ireland?
JG: Oh, it would be about [pause] about seven mile out of Belfast.
AM: Right.
JG: There.
AM: Ballykelly or something like that.
JG: What?
AM: Ballykelly.
JG: Nutts, Nutts Corner.
AM: Right.
JG: That’s it. Nutts Corner. Yeah. And well, I volunteered for aircrew and I got posted. I did some training, believe it or not in Lord’s Cricket Ground.
AM: Right.
JG: But all the Air Force took it over and some of the big houses. We got put in the houses until we got timed to get in to the big stuff. The next things. What’s the possible thing, Finningley? I went to Finningley, and I got all the training you need to get there to start off, and you, you graduated a wee bit higher up, and I went there and then I went off.
AM: And were you flying at Finningley or was it all on the ground?
JG: Oh no I was flying there.
AM: Right.
JG: Yeah, I learned away from, I think I was in to, I was at Leuchars and I left Leuchars and then I started flying from Leuchars, and so it was a case of training, training, training until you go on to a squadron and that was you away.
AM: Right. And did you want to be an air gunner or were you told?
JG: I was told.
AM: Told you were going to be an air gunner.
JG: I was told. I had no option.
AM: Right.
JG: Yeah. I think they were losing too many.
AM: Right. What, what episode stands out the most during your training period? Was there anything that was really memorable? Or —
JG: And on the training side [pause] I think that went pretty well. That period there. Everything was good about Finningley in all that time, the whole time we was there, and then we moved on after that on to the next one.
Other: After Finningley.
JG: Aye.
Other: Blyton.
JG: Blyton. That’s it. Yeah.
AM: At what stage did you join a crew? An operational crew.
JG: Oh, that comes at, once I left those two places. I went down to, down to, into Scotland. I got posted down to, I think it was, where that was, but what happened there was that they had a good method of crewing up people. Let’s say there’s a hundred altogether and a, it’s in a big hangar.
AM: Right.
JG: And they kept moving about and moving about, and they were, let’s say there’s a hundred pilots, and a hundred navigators around the same and that’s how the pilot there he’s looking around for someone to make up his crew, and that goes on and on, and on sand on until you’ve got seven there. That’s a good system that, and it worked.
AM: And once you had crewed up did you stay with that crew?
JG: Oh aye.
AM: Right. Tell me just a little bit about the very first time that you flew an operational sortie.
JG: The first time. I think it was intentional you got one that teach you just in to France and no more. Just in and out.
AM: Right.
JG: And that was the pattern.
AM: AM: Right.
JG: But the first operation I did. The big one. The Capital.
AM: To Berlin.
JG: Berlin. Aye. It was the. It was big. Well, they learned then that there was, a thousand aircraft at a time [unclear] yeah. A thousand. Yeah. The reason for the thousand is that Harris, who was the boss of the RAF. He had the same approach as America had when America dropped an atom bomb. The reason for dropping the atom bomb was to stop the war, and they did. Harris tried the same with the RAF, and the hundred at a time to be sitting there in the air, but then, again the, the average, no not the average, it was two to three hundred at a time used to go and do ops. There was about a thousand for Berlin. That was his idea. In fact, I’ll show you ahead now. The war is finished, and Churchill has now gone on to see things you see and he saw the mess of the big city, and he were very cunning. He didn’t want anything to do with that. It wasn’t me that did that. And that’s how the RAF don’t like Churchill because all the bosses of the Army and the Navy and that they were all [unclear] and the Air Force boys got nothing, and that. So that took me into the big stuff.
AM: Just Tell me a little bit about this. About how you felt about going on your very first mission to berlin. You know, from, from, from meeting in the operations room, getting to the aeroplane.
JG: Yeah. There was never any sign of dozing off. You were, you were alive all the time, oh aye. Oh, very much. Oh no. It was even towards the end I was very much alive all the way.
AM: Right.
JG: Oh aye.
AM: And what sort of flying clothing did you wear?
JG: I I was a rear gunner so I could connect up electricity and get warm. I had a complete suit.
AM: This is an electrically heated suit.
JG: Yeah.
AM: Right. And did it work?
JG: Oh aye.
Other: It was interesting the time we saw the Lancasters down at Prestwick, and, and the crew were out and being very supportive of the veterans and he said of course we didn’t have that when they had the Perspex bubble, and we said that was taken away very immediately, because the discovered that in the sky you got oil slicks on there so the gunners couldn’t see anything. That’s why that was taken away.
JG: Yeah.
Other: So, you were basically sitting out in fresh air.
JG: Aye.
Other: Hence the need for the electric suit.
JG: Aye.
AM: Tell me about the, the first time you saw flak coming up at your aeroplane.
JG: It may sound daft, you know, but you saw these things coming up at the side, and I had, I think [unclear] but, you know at that altitude, ‘Oh he’s missed. He’s missed me. He’s missed me.’ but, no the thing was that I forget the thing that we got. We’d got a tablet before. It was to make you, you know, there was no sign of sleeping or anything like that. You got a wee tablet for that.
Other: Do you have any idea what the tablet was?
JG: I forgot, Alison that side of it, but we got a tablet about nearly half an hour before you had to the big one.
AM: Right. Was this Benzedrine or —
JG: I forgot the name of it.
AM: Right.
JG: But we definitely, we all got the tablet. I don’t know about the pilot but I know all the gunners we got a pill.
AM: And did it work.
JG: Oh aye.
AM: Right. Right. And what was it actually like seeing flak for the first time?
JG: It, it was queer to begin with in terms, to me the fact for the first time is, I found the result together. The feeling now, that we’re safe enough now, because of the, the volume of, of Lancasters and that. To the picture that town with that up there, a thousand. Churchill, meant that Berlin was hammered. It was in a big mess, and Churchill was very cunning, it was down to him.
AM: Tell me a little about this manoeuvre called the corkscrew.
JG: Oh.
AM: Did you ever have to do that?
JG: Aye. At the [pause] Certainly, anyway, I’d better put it this way as well, on our way back from doing a job I, I was the gaffer. The reason for that is the pilot cannot see in front. He cannot see. So, I tell him what to do because I can see and do everything. He’s flying. I’m just defending. And everything the boss called Murray? come to a raid that we did, but we just had left having got to bomb and head for home when two Germans got behind me and they were flying this way on that trip. So, I, I said to Charles, ‘Hold it. Hold it, just now.’ I said, ‘We’ve got company now,’ for some time, and it went on and on. And I said to Charlie, ‘Charlie, I want to get down and fly on the roofs of all the houses.’ And he wouldn’t have it but I bawled at him and made him do it, and my attitude is that they’re not going to come down and fire on me. They’ll maybe hit Germans.
AM: And was this a day sortie or a night sortie?
JG: Oh no, mostly the night.
AM: Right.
JG: Oh aye. Yeah.
AM: And —
JG: Then when I got him to fly right down all the way to, to, in to, in to France, and then we, when we flew along the North Sea side, we had only two engines. He’d shot two off and we landed West Malling in Kent.
AM: Tell me a wee bit more of this attack that shot out two of your engines then. What exactly happened?
JG: When, when we were shot.
AM: Aye.
JG: That was, there was two of them firing away like hell. My turret got jammed, on, when I was out, and I was stuck that way, and what had happened they, they had hit all, the boys had hit the hydraulics and I couldn’t move it. So, I was able to talk to him but, the, the pilot and me got along great. Aye. And as I say we landed at West Malling in Kent, and we saw the aircraft the following morning and it was riddled, and there wasn’t a bullet that hit any seven of us, up to it finished.
AM: Had you thought at any time you might have to bale out?
JG: Did we what?
Did you think at any time you would have to bale out?
JG: I’m not so sure I can answer that rightly. I never thought about baling out. I was, as I said early on, I was dreading I would bale out, and the reason I was dreading it was that, the inside of a Lancaster, let’s see, it’s the length of the house here, and I’m the rear turret, but to get out the aircraft, I had to go halfway along, you see. Now, yeah, and then there was a, there was part of the strength of the, the aircraft, there’s a kind of, a kind of metal that height. You had to jump over it.
AM: So, it was the main spar.
JG: That’s it. Aye.
AM: Right.
JG: And then that were my biggest fear is that I had to, I had to get out of there and put it this way they’ve now made a parachute for a rear gunner and you can sit on it.
AM: Right.
JG: And —
AM: But your parachute was at the front.
JG: No. It was hanging, I took it out into the middle of the aircraft, and it was hanging up. I had to take it there.
AM: Right. Was that in a Mark 1 Lancaster?
JG: We each had the they were all in one. It was the outside of that metal bit inside.
AM: Right.
JG: To go to get through the plane. Yeah. Yeah.
AM: And was there any trip that you flew that you really thought you would have to abandon the aircraft a lot.
JG: Oh, we got, there was no question about that, you know. Let’s face it. You can go and do a trip to Germany and France and nothing happen. That can happen. And as I say you’re locked in, but I thought many a time that, what the hell do I do here now. The, the main thing is with me is that, and my life even now, don’t panic, don’t panic at all, you give that up, and. So put it this way if I had to, I could cope. Oh aye.
AM: What did you think when you saw another Lancaster in the stream being shot down?
JG: In what way?
AM: Well, I mean
[unclear]
AM: I’ll just put it off a second.
[recording paused]
JG: But that, there’s no question about it, you’re lucky if you miss the flak, because it’s coming all the time. Yeah. That, and, it could be curtains then if you’re hit then, but no I certainly didn’t panic.
AM: No.
JG: No.
AM: And of all the many missions that you undertook were there any that really stood out from the others?
JG: In what way?
AM: Well, in terms of being more dangerous or extremely long or very difficult.
No. As I said earlier that I was quite calm in, in the turret. You know that, I was moving about, moving about, and I was quite calm.
Other: Dad, of all the different things you did is there one particular mission that you remember most vividly?
JG: Oh aye. I was touching on it a wee while ago there. It was in Germany. These two aircraft fastened on to us. I had a hell of job on now, and that’s when I said to the skipper. Get down on the top of the roof, and we’ll see all the way and flew all the way across the continent down that level all the way. That was the one time that. Well, there was one or two. Let me think.
Other: What about Mailly?
JG: Eh?
Other: What about Mailly? You know, which one of the many things you did stands out most strongly in your mind?
JG: Oh, wait a minute. I’ll come to it. Well, have you heard of Mailly le Camp?
AM: Yes.
JG: I see. I thought that. To begin with whoever thought up that he should be bloody shot. The reason is that, you’re a sitting duck just doing that. The, the ideal thing was that they should have made a triangle, fly A, B, C, actual flying, on the raid, but we were all set up for the fighters, the night fighters. I mean, I was in amongst it. There were, I was seeing two Lancasters flashing each other. Oh aye. But I think there’s a wee bit in there, it was fierce fighting in the whole war. Mailly. It was the worst in the whole war. Mailly.
AM: And do you know why you were sent to that target?
JG: Oh aye. Well, the Germans had brought all the big tanks, from let’s say in France to, to that part. It was like an invasion now to get all these big super tanks and they had many of the men there who were Russians, aye, but they were prisoners and the Germans used them for maintenance on, on the, and most of them got killed and, but that, that was at, what, what. There was the Free French who kept phoning us to say that’s another ten there, that’s, and they kept saying you have to do something. That’s what it was built up to. They were going to try to stop us coming.
AM: And why do you think you were sent in to an orbit?
JG: I don’t know. Now, the guy, I mean in this in a way, the guy that thought it out should have got shot. I mean, the fact that you were doing that you’re stuck the one the area. Fighters can come from everywhere to that one bit and that’s what happened. Well, I’d have said, ‘Right. You got Kilmarnock. You go to Ayr. And you go to Girvin.’ And if we had kept doing that that would have worked but that was that. It was mad.
AM: How long were you over the target for?
JG: Well, wait a minute. Time. Oh, a hell of a time, sat. You see one of, one of the things, we were circling around because we had what we call they sent the people to find the actual target, so they were to go and they’re circling round, and when they find it, they’ll drop colours there.
AM: A marker.
JG: Aye. A marker. That’s right, and, but we certainly weren’t an hour away from that bit, but that was it. We were told it should be one of the things that happened there as well is the Germans, the Germans arrived, and they cut off our connection. So, the only thing we got was American dance music.
AM: So, so—
JG: That was the way to dance.
AM: The Gee beacon was cut out. Is that it? Right.
JG: No, the Germans did that themselves. They did change it to the national stuff and we couldn’t we couldn’t contact each other.
AM: So, the radio was jammed.
JG: That was done to begin with. Aye. Yeah. Yeah. Towards the end at the tape that they put on or something changed, and we got back, but that was the worst time. I heard, and the feeling was then was, ‘To hell with this. I’m going in.’ And so, the whole lot of us went in, didn’t wait on the colours, you could see that a lower column we went into that spot and then did our jobs. Aye.
AM: Gosh.
JG: But that, at that time, but at that time, it was frightening that one. It was incredible watching two Lancs. Yeah. I think earlier, but when I was on at that, the young German pilot, he shot three down right away, and he noticed, and he was on his own aircraft that he needed fuel, so what he would, when was near his own airport, he went down and topped up and came back up and got another two. He got five. What a mess. But all doing this. And I say that’s when I heard, I can remember that voice saying, ‘Oh to hell with this I’m going in.’ [thumping noise] And we all went, and that was that, yeah. It’s the worst, I might be able to read into it a bit, bit in there, but that was the worst in the whole war, the whole war. That one.
AM: Tell me a little bit about, about your crew. Tell me about the rest of your crew. Those that you can remember, and what were they like.
JG: I can —
AM: How you got on with them.
JG: I got on all right with them. The system was, the operation on, so you all met in this big hangar and it was full, all the place and you’re inside, and when you’re in there on the wall is that, that that, you’re going there. And if you were away a certain distance my bomb aimer took diarrhoea. That’s true. He couldn’t go, that he couldn’t go, so they had to get somebody to take his place, aye. Even now as I say you bastard, oh aye, that was that. But no. Mailly —
Other: You kept quite good contact with your crew.
JG: Oh aye.
Other: Over the years after the war.
Oh aye. The pilot. [unclear] We were going to, to Lincolnshire once a year to commemorate the Mailly thing, and my bomber he lived in Gainsborough which was next to the aerodrome, but as I say, I got along alright with him, but certainly when he saw where were going to land, he took diarrhoea, and the mid-upper gunner, was very slow, he didn’t see a thing at all and he was up there and I never did anything. And that was that. But I got on with the pilot very well and even I was offered to do a second tour and I turned it down. So, he crewed up, and I went on a second tour but when the war was all finished, he phoned me to go down and visit him. Anyway, he lived in [unclear] not far from Carlisle, and so I saw him quite often. The navigator, sorry for him, he an excellent navigator, super. But he was Canadian but the family had two houses. One in America and one in Canada, and he was in the, he was in America he got an [unclear], and when he finished flying with us, he volunteered and joined the pilot and the American war with Japan. Yeah. So I went to visit him and he was completely shattered. Oh aye. That was two wars. Aye. He was in a mess.
AM: Gosh.
JG: Ah huh. Yeah. And not the same man. But, and the pilot, I saw him very often, but the navigator. The wireless operator. A hell of a good lad. A great bloke. He had a job on the railway at one time and, but that was the only reason for him and his diarrhoea.
AM: Now, as a crew did you, did you go out socialising at all?
JG: Oh aye.
AM: And was that in to Lincoln or —
JG: Oh, no. We had for example you had your own fitter looking after your aircraft and you took them out but they were doing a good job for you all the time but —
Other: So where did you all go? Where?
JG: We went Doncaster.
Other: Doncaster.
JG: Aye.
AM: Was that when you were at Elsham Wolds? Was that when you were at Elsham. Right.
JG: Maybe sound daft, but come the time when the you, you crack so you go down there, and it’s all aircrew, it’s in there now, the whole lot, and all with. Wilson had a hell of a dram, and in fact I went to a funeral and I met with another fella, navigator, and when I was leaving him, I said I’ll get you in the [unclear] Thursday, that’s where all the [pause] In fact, I thought the other day I’ll get a card from him, and I tried to say I’ll see you on Thursday in the [unclear] but they were there to get drunk. Oh aye.
AM: Was that the best the pub in Doncaster then?
JG: In that area. That’s right.
AM: Right. Right. You mentioned the, the ground crew.
JG: The —
AM: The ground crew that looked after the aircraft.
JG: Oh aye.
AM: I mean apart from going out to the pub did you see a lot of them?
JG: Oh aye. Yeah. Aye. Ah huh. Oh, and of course there was what you call the NAAFI.
AM: Right.
You know you would get them in the NAAFI, and they would sit there [unclear], and they were quite good.
AM: And what was, what was the social life like in the, in the sergeant and the warrant officer’s mess?
JG: I thought it was ok. No. as I say, I got to WAM: O, and I was quite happy there. What were you when you, what did you finish up as?
AM: I was a pilot.
JG: Aye, but were you a warrant officer.
AM: A group captain.
JG: Were you a group?
AM: Hmmn.
JG: By golly. I should be standing.
AM: [laughs] Jimmy what was your, what was your favourite airfield?
JG: Elsham Wolds. It was a, everything was good about it, it had everything that I needed there, it was quite good. But we the other crew that was on with us the fact on 103 that’s what they were at. And —
AM: So, there were two squadrons there.
JG: There were two there and we used to take the mickey out of each other at the NAAFI, and we I’ll do it while we’re here, is that, 103 [sings] ‘103, they aint what they used to be. 576 are the best.’
[laughter]
AM: And how did 103 take that?
JG: Not very good.
AM: No. I can imagine that.
JG: Now, believe it or not, it seemed daft but, let me see if I can say it, but, you were both of you have been out, and places, and come back in and two of their [unclear] come back, things like that, that’s the thing, and you certainly, you feel, you know, what, what you normally do then is that maybe they get caught, maybe, maybe things are in their favour. Maybe get back. But, but no, they got on pretty well, the two squadrons but all that was the bit we used to sing to them.
AM: Tell me during your tour of operations when you had some leave did, did you go home?
JG: When I left when I left home. Yes, I did aye, because I wasn’t too far away.
AM: Right.
JG: I was down at Wigan. Down there.
AM: Is that where your parents were?
JG: That’s where, I was staying, I stayed at Irvine at the time.
AM: Oh right.
JG: So when, when I got into aircrew I got a posting, it was deliberate I think it was, nearer home and I made good use of that, you know that, because a firm [unclear] did all the washing. Laundered stuff. And [unclear] I got home then.
AM: Right.
JG: And things like that.
AM: There’s quite a big difference between your life in the air and then coming to visit family.
JG: Oh aye.
AM: How did you feel with that? Was it difficult or —
JG: No. It wasn’t difficult. No. No.
AM: How did your parents feel about the fact that you were aircrew?
JG: Well, they were quite happy. They looked at it as their boy was a lot bigger now than their little boys, or something like that, and they had wings on, or something on, thing up there.
AM: Right.
JG: Same as you with your four-ring belt, [unclear] too many steps there, I’d have got the uniform.
Other: Dad, did you ever go to spend time with one of your crew who lived near Lincolnshire?
JG: What?
Other: Was it the Carters?
JG: No, no. I think I mentioned it. [Tug] the navigator. He, he settled all together with one another. The navigator was [unclear] but and on top of that, the fact that they lived half and half in America he was accepted in to the American Air Force. And he went in there was the pilot and he had a rough time. But, but the thing with that was two, two lots of fighting here and in Japan, it was on out there. He had a rough time, could tell, he went inside the house what he was like but, he was, he was a very smart looking boy, so he was [unclear] but, and then his wife was the same. And the pilot and myself went to visit him.
Other: Who was it in your crew who lived in Lincolnshire? Was it the bomber?
JG: Left us altogether —
Other: No. Who lived in Lincolnshire? Was it —
JG: Nick Carter.
Other: Nick Carter. Right.
JG: Aye. Aye.
Other: And what did he do?
JG: He was the bomb aimer
Other: He was the bomb aimer.
JG: Aye. He was.
Other: So sometimes when you had leave, you went to stay with him and his family.
JG: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.
Other: Yes.
AM: Jimmy, when was your last operational sortie? Can you remember it?
JG: My last one. I’ll tell, you you’ve got me beat.
AM: I’ll just.
JG: Thats’s right.
AM: Where was it to?
JG: Hmmn?
AM: Where did it go to?
JG: Stettin.
AM: Right. Right.
JG: That’s the, that’s the town, isn’t it?
AM: Yes.
JG: That’s it.
AM: So how did you feel when you —
JG: In Germany, but knowing, leaving and [pause] you’re optimistic, you know. It was my last one and I went to a few but all in all it I enjoyed the whole of the Air Force. I really did enjoy my time there.
AM: After you, after you finished flying at the end of 1944.
JG: Yeah.
AM: What did you do between then and the end of the war?
JG: I got the air traffic control at Wigan.
AM: Right.
JG: I finished up there, and I could get home in, in minutes.
AM: Right.
JG: Yeah.
AM: So how did you feel when the war was finally over?
JG: Well, what I was feeling about that for some time I was at Prestwick. I think I said earlier that I thought Prestwick had a future. And the reason at the time was that there was no RAF at Glasgow, and we thought it was all be taken to, to Prestwick. And then I, I realised early on that Prestwick would never take off again, and I never changed my mind about it.
AM: Jimmy, is there anything about your, your time in the air as a Lancaster air gunner that you’d like to tell me that I haven’t asked you, or you’d like to share with me?
JG: That I haven’t what?
AM: Is there anything we haven’t talked about you’d like to add?
JG: Let me think now, [pause] no, put it this way. When, when I went on the aircrew side of things that was my life. It was at, give you an idea. It’s been on TV an awful lot. Sorry I’ll get the name. Group captain, and so on. What the hell, Sir John, wait a minute.
AM: Just pick that up.
JG: I was at Mailly, [unclear] he got the VC. Then later on I found out there were two or three of them got the VC. I’ve got one gripe about this one here, is that I, all, all the crew, all the crew were decorated to DFM, and all that [unclear] I couldn’t find out for you coming, but they were all out showing the medal, you see. And, why the dam, I thought it was disgusting because they all got medals, I doubt that [unclear] my last, I’ll tell you that was the worst one. Mailly le Camp. We didn’t all get medals for that, yeah. But you see the Dambusters, there was a film made, so it was a different atmosphere to the country about that. And I thought it was totally unfair that there were medals and medals, and we didn’t get medals. That didn’t happen at other places. That was my one gripe at the time about that. The other thing about it is that, I wasn’t flying that day but I knew it was on. I think there were about twenty of us hanging about that day. They said it, we all said it, the damage they did to the dams would last about three weeks yeah, yeah. But they started the film to give you this, to get the bomb to bounce and bounce and that all, and do it again. But in the actual bombing the Germans repaired it in three weeks. Yeah. I think the four of them got VCs. That’s, the Germans were very clever. And that’s what we said right away. That they would repair that in no time, and did.
AM: Any other stories you’d like to, you’d like to add or —
[pause]
AM: Any other stories you’d like to add?
JG: Any other stories?
AM: Right.
JG: I’m trying to think now.
Other: I think one of the things which I think is quite funny is that all these years after the war, it must be now about ten years ago my late husband engineered a meeting between my father and a German night fighter. Do you remember meeting Werner in Spain?
JG: That’s right.
Other: And after the initial discomfort of the meeting they settled down to chat.
JG: Ah ha. I took him in there. Ok we’re, he was a German night fighter, and the War finished, and they were having a hotel built.
Other: In Spain.
JG: Aye. And then, I got word from David that he knew him so I’ll get an introduction to him, and right away I go, I had to go and have dinner with him and his crew. Yeah. I think that’s the beauty about aircrew everywhere, that there’s a kind of feeling, that he’s a pal.
Other: Fencing, and then you were starting to say where were you? Where were you? Were you there? Were you there?
AM: Do you think you ever shared the same piece of sky?
JG: Aye. Oh aye.
AM: Yes. They did.
JG: Aye, yeah. Now, I, I was on that night, yeah [unclear] now as I say there was a feeling that there was no bad feeling between us. That’s all I’ll say. Come and have a meal. That’s the subtle difference. We both took it that way.
Other: Then his own history was quite interesting, because he said he was shot down three times in the war and he said the first twice, he was unlucky because he was shot down over the Channel and the Germans picked him back up, put him in a plane, and sent him off. And it was only the third time that he was picked up by the allies and shipped off to Canada.
AM: I didn’t ask you do you think you ever shot down a German fighter.
JG: Did I think what?
AM: Did you think you ever shot down a German fighter?
JG: Oh aye.
AM: Tell me about that then.
JG: No, I shot. I shot down, I shot two down.
AM: Right.
JG: I shot one down, this is quite a good one. It was Russia. There was a bit of a problem with the, their Navy all sitting waiting to get out, they couldn’t get out, before the Germans what do you call the water, you know where the coastline goes like that, in and out, [pause] the name for it, German name for it, no not a German name. A Norwegian name. Fjord, yeah, Fjord, yeah. So, the Russians went in there, but they want out, and the Germans come along and they plant their, their Navy in there, the big one. And Russia asked us is there was anything we could do to shift him, and then we took that one on.
AM: Was this the Tirpitz?
JG: Eh?
AM: Was this the Tirpitz?
JG: Well, that leaf, that level. Yes. You’ve got it there have you? It will be in there, I think.
AM: I’ll just —
JG: The German [unclear] done away with them so they asked us to help out and they, what we did was [unclear] when the Russians asked us we’ll help. I can’t remember, about three of us hundred went. We took mines with us, and there was only two can fit the, the bay and we were told that you don’t drop them in, you have to fly them in at, because they might explode if you drop them so, this is the. For me, I always admired them, how good a fliers they were going there, they can fly away down there, [unclear] and they did it. Now, to me they were hard to beat. Oh aye, and anyway we, we did that, and we dropped our mines in there, so you can imagine it was almost a thousand mines that the Germans have got to clear to get out, and so we left them and came back home, and I went down through Poland and to France and in France I said to Charlie, Charlie, hold it. We’ve got company, and a 109 it was. So I shot it down, fatally. The place where we are. That was in France.
AM: Right.
JG: From Russia. That was it. To try and get the Russians out of the water.
AM: Was that the first time you’d shot another aircraft down?
JG: No. No. No. No. That was the first one. The other one, one of them things. I know it sounds daft now. Turn it off.
AM: Right.
JG: But I couldn’t claim it. You know there’s a drill they have, if you, if you shoot an aircraft down when you come back from an operation you get interrogated and if you say you shot an aircraft down they will not log it because if the three hundred have left to go there, so three hundred have got to come back. So, and you say that you shot down one there, and then, so, all he’d done is put down the time and the place. And he gets confirmation from other ones that all the ones that are flying back that cannot see them. So, they’ve all been trained, if you see a light, or if you see anything record it. So maybe about twenty of them saw the lights of mine, and I shot him down. That’s how it was done. That’s why at Mailly le Camp, I did one there, but the point was that, what was going on at Mailly. You know, you say what the hell can I do, the aircraft coming. Aircraft. I mean, it’s all happening, between out here and here, it’s all happened. So, but nobody has got time to write that they saw that at the time. Yeah.
AM: Jimmy, Warrant Officer Graham, Legion D’honneur. Thank you very much.
JG: I’m pleased to meet you.
AM: And you. I’m honoured to meet you. No, please.
[recording paused]
Other: I rather thought that would be the case.
AM: Jimmy, you didn’t tell me you had a Distinguished Flying Medal. Perhaps you’d like to tell me why you’ve got a distinguished, why you’ve got a DFM.
JG: Well, it wasn’t because I’d, I’d shot down two. Yeah.
AM: There you are. Sit down.
JG: I shot down two. Yeah.
AM: And who awarded your medal?
JG: What, what they did they stopped royalty doing it because they felt they were doing too much of there, and that and that sort of thing, and it was well one of the big chief. What do you call them?
AM: An air marshall.
JG: Air marshall’s, aye.
AM: And where was that done in?
JG: That was done in, the Doncaster one.
AM: Elsham Wolds.
JG: Elsham Wolds.
AM: Right.
JG: Was that, and they came to do that, before they were, obviously their job was taken them everywhere.
AM: You must have been very, very proud.
JG: Oh, I was. When I came in [unclear] yeah.
AM: Superb.
JG: I felt good. That’s another of me there. Wireless operator, up, mid-upper gunner, who was that? Anyway, there was me, there’s me and Mick, he, he was the flight engineer, and the bomb aimer[unclear], and I used to pull his leg because —
AM: Jimmy, tell me about you’ve just showed a photograph. Tell me what the bomb aimer did.
JG: The bomb aimer did next to nothing. He doesn’t even help to put a bomb onto the plane, and the rear gunner on our way to the target is lying doing nothing. And then we were getting other players, he’s on our run now to where he was going to drop his bombs. ‘Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Left. Bombs away.’ And then he lies down, and did nothing. He lies down until he gets home. Aye.
AM: Well, I’ll say this again. Jimmy Graham, Distinguished Flying Medal, Legion D’honneur, thank you. That was brilliant.
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 Jimmy Graham
Creator
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Alastair Montgomery
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-27
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.
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGrahamJ170927, PGrahamJ1701
Conforms To
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Pending review
Format
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01:00:17 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Jimmy Graham was employed in a Reserved Occupation but volunteered with the RAF as potential aircrew. He began his training in Northern Ireland and was eventually qualified as an air gunner. He was posted to RAF Elsham Wolds. He took part in the operation to Mailly le Camp which he considered to be the worst raid of the war. After the war he met a former German night fighter and became good friends. After his tour of operations, he was posted to flying control.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
France--Mailly-le-Camp
Germany--Berlin
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
103 Squadron
576 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
Bombing of Mailly-le-Camp (3/4 May 1944)
Lancaster
RAF Elsham Wolds
training
-
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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
Lamb, Alexander
Alexander McPherson Lamb
Alexander M Lamb
Alexander Lamb
A M Lamb
A Lamb
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with Alexander McPherson Lamb (b. 1925, 1827673 Royal Air Force), his decorations, album and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 15 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alexander Lamb and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
2015-07-25
2017-08-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Lamb
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
1827673
SGT. LAMB.
AIR. GUNNER.
R.A.G.S. BRIDGNORTH,
7 A.G.S.
14 O.T.U.
AIRCREW SCHOOL
1654 H.C. UNIT.
15 SQUADRON.
[page break]
OPERATIONAL DIARY.
[underlined] STARTED:- MARCH 21ST. [/underlined]
MARCH 21st. 1945.
MUNSTER TARGET I MARSHALLING YARD. II TOWN OF MUNSTER.
[underlined] BOMB LOAD. [/underlined] 1 x 4000lb H.C. 14 x 500lbs g.p.s.
[underlined] TYPE OF ATTACK. [/underlined] POOR ATTACK FLAK MADE FOR POOR FORMATION FLYING on TARGET I. TARGET II GOOD ATTACK.
[underlined] OUR ERROR:- [/underlined] 400 YRDS. BOMB FELL ACROSS RAILWAY LINES S.E. from MUNSTER
[underlined] LOSSES:- [/underlined] 15 SQDN. NIL: 622 SQDN. NIL:- MAIN FORCES 5 A/C:- 3 by FLAK: 2 by Falling BOMBS.
[underlined] A/C INVOLVED [/underlined] On both targets 175: 3 Group Effort
[underlined] OPPOSITION [/underlined] VERY HEAVY ACCURATE FLAK. (VISUAL).
[underlined] INT [/underlined] SAW 5 CHUTES going down over target.
[page break]
MARCH 22nd. 1945.
BOCHOLT. TARGET: TROOP CONCENTRATIONS GOODS. SUPPLIES.
[underlined] BOMB LOAD. [/underlined] 1 x 4000lb H.C. 12 S.B.C. 4lbs INCEDIARIES [sic].
[underlined] TYPE OF ATTACK. [/underlined] G.H. (FOLLOWER) DAYLIGHT.
[underlined] EFFECT. [/underlined] WELL CONCENTRATED AND ACCURATE ATTACK
[underlined] OUR ERROR [/underlined] : NIL: AIMING POINT PHOTOGRAPH.
[underlined] LOSSES: [/underlined] 15 SQDN. – 1 on take off (W) 622 SQDN: NIL MAIN FORCE 1
[underlined] A/C INVOLVED [/underlined] 100. 15 SQDN 14 A/C.
[underlined] OPPOSTION [sic]: [/underlined] MEAGRE ACCURATE FLAK (VIS) ONE ACCURATE BURST & SALVO FROM ARNHEM.
[underlined] INT:- [/underlined] SAW MONTGOMERY’S SMOKESCREEN. MILES OF TANKS & TRANSPORT MOVING UP TO FRONT BEHIND IT.
[page break]
APRIL 13th 14th 1945.
KEIL TARGET. DEUTSCHE WERKE YARDS.
[underlined] BOMB LOAD. [/underlined] 1 x 4000lb. H.C. 12 x 500lb G.P.s
[underlined] TYPE OF ATTACK. [/underlined] T.I.S. BURSTING AT 9,000 [underlined] NIGHT. [/underlined]
[underlined] EFFECT:- [/underlined]GOOD ATTACK. MANY FIRES.
[underlined] OUR ERROR:- [/underlined] BOMB JETTISONED NEAR TARGET AREA.
[underlined] LOSSES. [/underlined] 3 A/C.
[underlined] A/C INVOLVED. [/underlined] 15 SQDN. 16 A/C 622 SQDN. 16 A/C. 3 GROUP.
[underlined] OPPOSITIION [/underlined] [underlined] FLAK [/underlined] AT 16,000 ACCURATE – MODERATE TO SEVERE. ROCKET FLAK & TRACER.
[underlined] SEARLIGHTS [sic]:- [/underlined] PLAYED ON BASE OF CLOUD FOR FIGHTER AID
[underlined] FIGHTERS. [/underlined] ALTHOUGH CREWS SAW SEVERAL A/C WITH LIGHTS BURNING NONE CAN BE DEINATELY CLAIMED AS FIGHTERS I SAW [underlined] “SCARECROW” [/underlined] ON LEAVING TARGET.
[underlined] NB [/underlined] On crossing enemy coast port outer had to be feathered W/T RX-TX. WAS U/S. Radar equipment U/S. Lights failed temporarily. Rear turret U/S and DR compass. As we steadily lost height pilot decided to jettison 4000lbs HC. This was done at 16,000 over German territory south of FLEANSBURGH [sic]. At this point we were still losing height & target not visible we jettison rest of load and made for base.
[page break]
APRIL 18th 1945.
HELIGOLAND. TARGETS I. AIRFIELD on DUNE ISLAND. II BARRACKS on North of ISLAND. III Dock INSTALLATIONS on SOUTH
[underlined] BOMB LOAD. [/underlined] 10 x 1000lbs M.C. & 4 x 500lbs GPs
[underlined] EFFECT. [/underlined] PERFECT ATTACK WHOLE OF TWO ISLANDS UNDER RED SMOKE PALL. SAW DENSE COLUMN OF OIL SMOKE ON TARGET 3, IMMEDIATELY AFTER BOMBING. MANY E-BOATS and G.MTB’s SHOT UP BY MUSTANG ESCORT WHILST TRYING to ESCAPE TO HAMBURG VIA ELBE ESTUARY.
[underlined] OUR ERROR. [/underlined]
[underlined] LOSSES:- [/underlined] NIL
[underlined] A/C INVOLVED. [/underlined] 15 SQDN 18 MAINFORCE 973.
[underlined] OPPOSITION:- [/underlined] FLAK. NO HEAVY AT ALL, but small stuff was observed – probably firing at master bomber.
[underlined] TYPE OF ATTACK. [/underlined] ALL A/C BOMBED on YELLOW T.I.s or MASTER BOMBERS INSTRUCTION. (DAYLIGHT)
[underlined] INT:- [/underlined] SAW AIRBOURNE LIFEBOAT DROPPING FROM WARWICK TO MEN IN DINGY. [underlined] POSN:- [/underlined] 0440E 5405N (APPROX)
[page break]
APRIL 22nd. 1945.
BREMEN. TARGET:- TROOP CONCENTRATIONS AND DEFENCES in SOUTH BREMEN.
[underlined] BOMB LOAD: [/underlined] 1 x 4000lbs M.C. 10 x 500lbs G.P.s. 4 x 500lbs MC.
[underlined] EFFECT: [/underlined] GOOD ATTACK.
[underlined] LOSSES: [/underlined] 15 SQDN NIL 622 SQDN 1 A/C
[underlined] A/C INVOLVED: [/underlined] 600-700 MAINFORCE of which [indecipherable word] 3 Group actually bombed.
[underlined] OPPOSITION: [/underlined] MODERATE TO SEVERE HEAVY FLAK: ACCURATE: OWN A/C HIT IN STARBOARD INNER NACELLE. FLAK DEFENSES [sic] AT WILHENSHAVEN [sic] PARTICULARLY ACCURATE & ACTIVE
[underlined] TYPE OF ATTACK:- G.H. (FOLLOWER) DAYLIGHT.
INT:- SAW 6 BALE OUT OF GI. “T”. Plane last seen circling & losing height.
[underlined] NB [/underlined] The A/C on which we were supposed to bomb had U/S Equipment & consequently overshot. Bomb Aimer noticed this & brought back load with exception of 1 x 4000lbs H.C. which was jettisioned [sic] in N. Sea jettison AREA.
[page break]
[underlined] APRIL 30th 1945. [/underlined]
[underlined] SUPPLY DROPPING. [/underlined]
ROTTERDAM.
[underlined] LOAD:- [/underlined] FLOUR, CHEESE, DRIED EGGS, PEAS & CARROTS CIGERRETTES [sic].
AREA:- TWO AND A HALF MILES NE ROTTERDAM CENTRE.
[diagram] [underlined] EFFECT:- [/underlined] WELL CONCENTRATED RELEASES NO CONGESTION OVER A/P.
THERE were crowds of Dutch women and children in the dropping area dispite [sic] the fact that the Germans have threatened to shoot people for this offence.
[underlined] INT. [/underlined] P.F.F. pranged a house north of the square of water, with T.I.s. House appeared to be well alight The Dutch people in all area which we flew over gave us a tremendous reception. Over one roof I saw two large allied flags Stars & Stripes & Union Jack.
Saw coastal defences [indecipherable word] over Flackle.
[page break]
MAY 2nd 1945.
[underlined] SUPPLY Dropping. [/underlined]
[underlined] THE HAGUE. [/underlined]
[underlined] LOAD:- [/underlined] SAME AS FOR ROTTERDAM 30-4-45 only decreased.
[underlined] AREA:- [/underlined] SPORTS TRACK 2 MILES NORTH of THE HAGUE CENTRE.
[underlined] EFFECT:- [/underlined] WELL CONCENTRATED RELEASES. NO CONGESTION OVER A/P. DROPPING WELL DISPERSED.
[underlined] INT [/underlined]
In Rotterdam area British & Dutch flags in greater evidence than a previous trip. Less Germans observed than on sortie of 30.4.45.
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
Alexander Lamb's Operational Diary
Description
An account of the resource
An unofficial diary kept by Alexander from March 21st, 1945 to May 2nd 1945.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Alexander Lamb
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1945
Format
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One book with eight handwritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Diary
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
YLambAM1827673v10001, YLambAM1827673v10002, YLambAM1827673v10003, YLambAM1827673v10004
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--Bocholt
Germany--Kiel
Germany--Bremen
Netherlands--Rotterdam
Germany--Helgoland
Netherlands--Hague
Germany--Münster in Westfalen
Germany
Netherlands
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945-03
1945-04
1945-05
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Steve Christian
14 OTU
15 Squadron
1654 HCU
3 Group
622 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
bombing of Helgoland (18 April 1945)
Heavy Conversion Unit
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
Pathfinders
RAF Bridgnorth
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1866/33372/BSmithACSmithACv10001.2.jpg
2a3db69fd97259980abe2e5dbea04007
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1866/33372/BSmithACSmithACv10002.2.jpg
df4a4ec8bad5c91043edd25894ae1543
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, A C
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
2017-06-07
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Smith, AC
Description
An account of the resource
27 items. The collection concerns Sergeant Allan C Smith (1459147 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as a navigator with 166 Squadron and became a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by C Smith and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
Transcribed document
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
A. I was the Navigator of a Lancaster bomber attacking Berlin on the night of 23.11.43. As we were approaching Berlin the plane was hit by two bursts of flak, the first of which came between my legs which were apart due to the fact that I had my parachute on the floor between my feet because the Wireless Operator had put the rations bag in my parachute stowage container. As I bent to look under the navigation table the second burst of flak came and the blast caught me in the eyes, face, under the chin and on the back of the left hand, resulting in superfluous cordite burns and cuts. The intercom and hydraulic systems were rendered u/s so therefore the bomb doors could not be opened or the bombs released. The two port engines were on fire and the incendiary bombs were ignited. I was ordered to bale out three times by the Flight Engineer on instructions from the Pilot, but I had seen that the Wireless Operator was in a state of shock and as he wasn’t wearing his parachute harness I stayed behind to fit it on him which was a bit of a struggle as his legs were rigid and I had to force them apart to get the harness straps to the front. Meanwhile the plane had lost height from 21,500 ft. to 13,000 ft. and kept veering and tipping over to port trying to go into a spin.
By this time the W/Op. had come round so I gave him his parachute to put on and I went to the Pilot who had now put the plane on automatic pilot. I wanted to open the bomb doors manually and for him to put the plane in a dive to try to extinguish the flames, but he said there wasn’t time and told me bale out and stop arguing otherwise we would all get killed. I then said I would go down the aircraft and see if the Mid-upper Gunner and Rear Gunner were out and I would then bale out of the rear exit, but he ordered me to get out at the front exit and said that he was going out at the rear exit and he would see if they had gone on his way down.
(Later when I saw him in Berlin he told me that he couldn’t get down the aircraft because of the flames so he had helped the W/Op. to clip his chute on and they had baled out of the front exit.
The two Gunners were never seen again).
During this period my parachute which had caught some of the flak and flames from the incendiary bombs was smouldering a little, so that when I jumped quite a bit of the chute was burnt and torn, so I dropped faster than normal and made a very heavy landing, which resulted in a severe pain from the right ankle, along the leg to the small of my back. Next day when I had been captured, a German Officer asked me if I had been wounded as he could see I was having trouble walking. Thinking I would be sent to hospital and have to face the wrath of the civilians of which we had previously been warned about back in England, I told him that I had just bruised my leg. I never reported sick with it in the prison camp although it game me considerable pain especially at night when I couldn’t sleep with my leg bent. When I returned to England in May 1945 I never reported these happenings as I thought if I told my story it might embarrass the W/Op., and as he never mentioned it I kept quiet.
[page break]
Although the weather wasn’t especially conducive, I was airborne from Parchim at the controls of my Bf110 on a Zahme Sau mission. I had caught sight of a Lancaster and immediately opened up with a long burst with my forward firing weapons. As it happened I was in an angry, vengeful frame of mind – it was three months to the day since I had been shot down and seriously wounded over Berlin. A bullet had smashed through my femur on that occasion and my injuries were such that I had been laid up in hospital for a good number of weeks. This time – and I’m still astonished to admit it today – I hadn’t aimed at the wing but poured a sustained salvo into the Lancaster’s fuselage. The resulting explosion sent countless chunks of burning debris and wreckage cascading earthwards.”
[page break]
Der Reichsminister der Luftfahrt und Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe
Luftwaffeempersonalam
[underlined] AS29 Nr. 206/44((A)5.V)
Berlin den 17.6.1944
Am [underlined] 5./N.J.G.5 [/underlined]
Der 5./N.J.G.5 wird der Abeschuss eines britischen Kampfflugseuses von Typ Avro “Lancaster” am 23.11.43. 20.02 Uhr durch Lt. Spoden
Als Ulfter (12) Luftsieg der [deleted] Gruppn. [/deleted] [inserted] Staffel [/inserted] merkamnt.
I.A.
[signature]
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 Shooting Down of Allan Smith
Description
An account of the resource
The story of Allan's Lancaster after they were damaged by anti-aircraft fire near Berlin. He had a heavy landing and damaged his leg.
The second part of the story is written by a German pilot who was involved in shooting down the damaged Lancaster.
A third item is a note crediting the German pilot with shooting down the Lancaster.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Allan Smith
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Three typewritten sheets
Language
A language of the resource
eng
deu
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Text. Memoir
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
BSmithACSmithACv10001, BSmithACSmithACv10002
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
Wehrmacht. Luftwaffe
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Parchim
Germany
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943-11-23
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
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Pending text-based transcription. Under review
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tricia Marshall
air gunner
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bale out
bombing
flight engineer
Lancaster
Me 110
navigator
pilot
prisoner of war
shot down
wireless operator
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/253/3400/PFellowesD1501.2.jpg
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/253/3400/AFellowesD150406.1.mp3
2e0bb6d3e178d0c61e40d54ef14a6507
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
Fellowes, David
David Fellowes
Dave Fellowes
D Fellowes
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Two oral history interviews with Flight Sergeant David "Dave" Fellowes (Royal Air Force), documents and a photograph. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 460 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Fellowes 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
2014-11-25
2015-04-06
2016-08-08
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Fellowes, D
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
(AP) This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Andrew Panton. The interviewee is David Fellowes. Mr Fellowes was a rear gunner in a Lancaster aircraft. The interview is taking place at The Princess Marina House in Rustington, West Sussex on 6th April 2015. Apologies for the poor sound quality at the beginning of the interview due to static on a tie clip microphone.
(DF) [Static] I’d just passed out of gunnery school number 1 ATS at Pembury South Wales and we all went on leave as brand new young Sergeant air gunners. Whilst we were on leave, we received our postings where we were going to go and what was going to happen to us. In my case, I was posted to 30 OTU in in a place called Hickson in Staffordshire. So I left home [unclear]. The first stop was Crewe and I got to Crewe, we had to change trains to go to Stafford. On the train, there I was sitting alone and all a sudden three Australian Flight Sergeants pilots came bustling in. Well we soon made up a little conversation and I asked one of them whereabouts in Australia do you come from and he said: ‘Sydney.’ I said: ‘Oh yes.’ I said: ‘I know it’s a long shot I have an aunt in Sydney. She went out there after the First World War with her husband and have a sports business.’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘Do you know what part of Sydney?’ ‘Yes in the district called Marrickville.’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘That’s funny now I used to live in Marrickville. What road did she live in?’ I told him: ‘Illawarra Road and her name is Mrs Ivy Evans.’ Well he made a rather quick Australian [phone in background] good word and he said: ‘Well that lady happened to be my mother’s best friend. Chapel friend.’ So he said: ‘Well we also have something no much in common so will you be guarding me, we’re gonna be on the same course.’ So I said: ‘Yes, why not indeed.’ So when we did get to Hickson we were on the same course and, of course, I crewed up with him. We made the backbone of the crew. The two of us. Flying at 30 OTU, of course, on Wellingtons you didn’t require a Flight Engineer. When we were posted from Hickson, we went up to 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit to convert from the Wellington on course onto the Halifax. It was here up at Lindholme that we gathered the seventh member of the crew, our flight engineer. In this case we didnt have a choice, we were sitting on one side of the large room and the flight engineers were sitting on the other and names were rung out the captains name and then the Flight Engineer’s name and we were getting a bit close towards the end and there was this very old looking gentleman sitting down over there and I said to my skipper: ‘Hey Art I bet we get the old [unclear] over there.’ And, of course, what happened they called his name out: ‘Sergeant Shephard Flight Engineer you will fly with Flight Sergeant Whitmarshand crew.’ So we got this old gentleman. He was a family man already and, in fact, his trade was, in fact, a master baker, would you believe, but he was an excellent Flight Engineer. He really did know his stuff and we were very well pleased to have him but, of course, he was the daddy of the crew. If I remember rightly, he was about 38 years old. [Mobile phone ringing]. We passed out from the Conversion Unit at Lindholme and it was - we were destined to go to a Lancaster Squadron. So we had to go Lanc finishing school [mobile phone ringing] which was relatively a quick changeover from a Halifax to the Lancaster for the benefit of the pilot. Most of the rest of the crew especially the gunners had had experience on both kinds of turrets on each airplane. Anyhow, so it didn’t really worry us too much. Anyhow our skip did ask us if we could – how we felt going to an Australian Squadron, so we said: ‘Arh yes,’ because we knew there were advantages to going to Commonwealth or Colonial Squadron, and that was they were all on permanent RAF stations and had good quarters, married quarters so when you got there you never saw Nissan huts, wooden huts and things like that. You stayed in a married quarter. Married quarters, of course, were empty because wives weren’t allowed to be on the station during the war. When we got to Binbrook, we were allocated Number 13 Airman’s Married Quarters and it was there that we set up house. When one got to the Squadron, one of course had to check in, you went around with your arrival chit with all the different departments getting the signatures so they knew you were there. You reported and found out what flight you were going to and we went to B Flight which was in Number 1 Hanger. Well we were very lucky. It was a good flight. There was a lot of happy old people there and, of course, before we went on ops we did a training flight and then normally what happened was your skipper would go off with an experienced crew to see what it was all like. Well, low and behold that wasn’t going to happen to us. The Station Commander, Group Captain Edwards VC, DSO, DFC and bar said: ‘Oh, I’ll take Whitmarsh and his crew to Friesburg.’ Well ‘course word gets around the station about who you’re gonna fly with they say : ‘Dear oh dear oh dear.’ ‘Cause he had got a bit of a reputation. Quite a good one really but nevertheless he set off and took us to Friesburg. Coming up before we got to Friesburg , well way before Friesburg before we got to the bomb line we passed over an American sector. AnAmerican sector for some unknown reason didn’t care for us flying over their sector very much and opened fire on us and we did in fact got hit by flak. Well this rather upset the Group Captain [chuckle] which is quite understandable. He – no he wasn’t impressed with that. He did mention something about dropping a little bomb on them to keep them quiet but it didn’t happen. Anyhow the trip went on we did as we did – should have done and then coming home before we came home he had to go down and look at the target to see everything was alright and then, of course, we turned round and came home. My role in Bomber Command as an Air Gunner was to protect the crew from any form of enemy fighter attack. Now in the – I volunteered to go into the rear turret. I erh didn’t want to go in the mid upper turret, my other gunner fortunately did. He didn’t mind sitting up in the turret that would turn 360 degrees all the way round. I much preferred to sit in the rear turret by myself with four Browning 303 machine guns. It was a cold lonely place, yes, it was, it used to get very cold. It could be down to minus 14. Icicles would hang from your oxygen mask and erh – we were lucky though we did have an electrically heated slippers and we also had electrically heated gloves. These weren’t too good because it made your fingers too thick and bulky if you wanted to do anything but nevertheless I survived in the rear turret, though on one occasion while I was in the rear turret we’d gone to Stuttgart and as we were coming out there were two Lancasters signalling down, just behind us on the port side andthere was a Halifax on the starboard side. We did have wireless operator looking out through the astrodome checking on any fighter activity and also to make sure that nobody was going to drop any bombs on us which could happen. We had spotted a Wolfe 190 cruise over us so we thought hello there are fighters about. Then all of a sudden around the back of these two Lancasters, which were just a bit lower than us and on the port side, a JU88 came right in close. I opened fire, the mid upper opened fire and we gave the order to climb port but I can still sit here and see bullets and cannon shells ripping right alongside me into our aeroplane. Well, the tail plane was pretty well damaged and so was one of the fins and rudders, the - one of the fuel tanks was ruptured, the starboard wing fuel tank was ruptured and unfortunately our mid upper gunner got hit in the neck[?] which meant he had to be taken out of the turret, put onto the rest bed, given morphine and well looked after until we got back home. The fighter that I’d had the combat with I maintained firing at it all the time until all of a sudden it flipped onto its port wing nose went down and it went straight the way down and it looked completely out of control. Well we reported all this is our debriefing when we got back home. Made out a gunnery-you know - slip, and then, er, we did hear later that we had it confirmed that we got that JU88. The 7th of January 1945 is a day that I shall perhaps never forget in all my life but we were scheduled to fly to Munich in O-Oboe. Now O-Oboe was in fact our aeroplane. It’s a fact that on our squadron after you had proved yourself and you were doing your job properly and looking after things, you were given your own aeroplane to look after. That meant also you had a ground staff looking after that aeroplane as well. This particular night we were scheduled to fly to Munich which is a fairly long way into Germany. On the main sector down to the River Rhine we were scheduled to fly at 14000 feet so we stuck to the rules be flying at 14000 feet but when we got down to the area just prior to the River Rhine in Alzey[?] which, of course, used to be German territory we found ourselves in very thick nasty cloud and we were bumped around all over the place and you could feel the airplane being kinda damp. It wasn’t very pleasant. It wasn’t very nice at all. Our skipper said that he thought that we perhaps oughta climb and get out of this bad weather and also to get away from any icing up. Well the crew all agreed and so, I do remember him asking the flight engineer for climbing power. I can remember hearing the engines increase in power and away we went to climb up out of the cloud. As we came out of the cloud at the top, I don’t know what the exact height, it must have been about another 15 thou - to 15000 feet or more, there were other aircraft who’d already gone up there and it was quite clear but all of a sudden there was a great big thump – a bump. Well we - somebody said: ‘Christ, we’ve been hit.’ And we were, in fact, hit by another Lancaster coming out the cloud and as we were fly along just above the top of the cloud the other Lancaster came out and put his port wing into our fuselage. Er, our starboard wing we lost round about six foot and we think, we think it just went into their flight deck because that airplane just peeled off and went straight down and we can remember the explosion. Now our aeroplane had received this big thump. We went into a spin for 3000 feet and eventually the skipper got it out. He then ordered bombs to be dropped safe, so the bombs were dropped safe. That just meant that they wouldn’t explode when they hit the ground and from then we sorted it all out and climbed up to 20000 feet, above icing level and we took stock of what had happened. We had, in fact, possibly lost about six foot of the starboard wingtip, the starboard airline[?] was all chewed up and there was hole in the fuselage from the trailing edge of the starboard wing virtually back to the door and floor side of the fuselage and the floor had disappeared. Miraculously the mid upper gunner was still up in his turret. It was decided by the Flight Engineer and the Wireless Operator that they could get him forward ‘cause there was the possibility that the turret could have fallen through. They got him out and up to the front. Well that left me down in the back in my little turret which as still operational ‘cause it worked off number one engine and as I said we were going to go back to the UK to land at Lymonsea[?] Airfield, Manston and it was here on the way that the skipper said to me: ‘You know David that the tail’s swinging. Perhaps you oughta think about bailing out if you wish.’ ‘Cause otherwise, my chances of getting away would have been pretty slim but I declined this offer. I said: ‘No, I can’t do that and can’t leave you lot on your own.’ Besides that there was still the possibility that we could get jumped by a night fighter. So we flew on and flew on at a reduced speed until we got to the French coast. We could see Manston and there we made a long approach. A flapless landing at Man – at Manston. On landing at Manston, a follow me truck went out and we followed that down to where they wanted us to park the aeroplane. The crew in the front of the aeroplane couldn’t get out through the back because of the damage that had been done – the hole – so they had to forward the forward escape hatch. I, myself, was able to vacate my turret and just got out the normal way down through the rear door. They took us up to then the – to be debriefed, but had a look at the aircraft first and we thought Dear God. How did we get this aeroplane back? We were so grateful the fact that all the control rods of the aeroplane ran down the port side of the aeroplane. It was all the starboard side, of course, had sustained all the damage. So, yeah, we considered ourselves very very lucky. Went back up to flying control where we were debriefed, given somewhere to sleep and the next morning we had hoped that one of our own airplanes from the squadron would come down and pick us up. But, unfortunately, bad weather set in, both in Manston where it snowed and also at Binbrook. So, we were stuck there for a couple of days and we were playing snowballs larking about. Nothing to do. And all of a sudden, a voice called out: ‘Right you lot, you’re going back to Binbrook by train.’ So there we were all manner of dress. God, it was really terrible, really. And they gave us some money. We went down to Margate first of all. Got a transport down to Margate to get a train to London. When we got into Margate, we decided well – we hadn’t had a shave for about three days. So we hopped into a barbershop which was run by ladies. Their husbands were looking – had gone off into the army and these ladies were looking after the shop. Anyhow, we sat there and would you believe they gave us a reasonable shave with safety razors. Anyhow, after having a shave and bit tidied up, we went up to – we thought we better have a photograph taken of all this. So we went into a photographers and we got this photograph taken and we all signed it. We’ve all got one each and then got the train up to London. When we got up to London – oh dear oh dear – well you can imagine the state of us holding our parachutes, Mae-Wests, helmets over your shoulders still, flying boots some, some not. And, of course, there happened to be a service policeman and, of course, he stopped us and asked what he thought we were on. Well, our skipper Arthur Whitmarsh he really told him what we were on in good Australian language and we didnt hear any more about that. And from there, of course,then we back up by train up to Binbrook and we were – well, of course, they were pleased to see us again, but inside a week we were flying again. 23 of March 1945 we were briefed for a daytime raid on Bremen. Everybody thought we’re in for a straightforward flight. We were told that if anything went wrong we would have to fire off the colours of the day and the American fighter escort, of Thunderbolts and Mustangs, would come down and give us a close escort. We flew, no problem, through to Bremen. We then dropped our bombs right on target. We were running out of the target and all of a sudden, we were badly hit by flak between the two starboard engines number three and number four. Well they both stopped. They had to be feathered. Then, of course, we started to lose height and, of course, we weren’t so fast either. All the other aircraft were overtaking us. To – we then fired off the colours of the day which was done partly to alert the US fighter boys to give us fighter cover. Unfortunately we didnt see a thing. We were, if I remember rightly, flying round about 20000 feet and, of course, well we weren’t all that far from home anyway Bremen, so we set course back to back to base and well the poor old skipper up the front there, besides having full on rudder on to keep the aeroplane straight and he turned round and said when he landed, he said: ‘I’m sure I got one leg longer than the other.’ But we got back home alright. We made a good two engine landing at Binbrook again. No big problem. There was occasions particularly one unit we went to Hanover[?] when we discovered that the German ME262 was being used in operations against Lancasters. Now we did, unfortunately, have an occurrence where in the area of the raid the ME262, the German jet fighter, was quite prominent in action against Lancasters. Now, we had thought about the best way of combatting this, bearing in mind, of course, that the ME262 was a much faster aeroplane than the JU88, ME109 and the other aeroplanes Wolfe 190 and that we only had a 50 mile an hour overtaking speed gunsight[?],that the best thing to do was to take good avoiding action. But but we did this. The matter of fact if you’re flying straight and level and you spot an aeroplane, shall we say, on your port quarter high when he makes an attack he’s got to make a double back, like this, to get onto your tail and it was when he did that double back that you would then, if he was high, climb port therefore he couldn’t follow and so he’d have to break off the engagement. [Pause] This attack by the Germans JU88 was again, of course, at night time. It was - although it was night time it was very light because I can remember the cloud the way we looked down was covering the German countryside was quite still white and it was quite light up there, but soon as the attack started the JU88 open fire and his, his firing was more continuous. My reply was in short bursts round about four five seconds. This is done deliberately because a you don’t want your guns to overheat. You want to conserve ammunition, of course, as well if necessary. But I could still see the bullets from - well they weren’t bullets in his case, they were cannon shells whizzing past me and , damaging the aeroplane, where my 303 bullets which included tracer firing directly into him. One of the problems we had in aerial combat was that the enemy in German Luftwaffe aircraft they had far better and more powerful guns than we did. They had cannons point 5 where to us all we could offer was the ordinary 303 rifle bullet. Although, we - in our every three bullets that we fired there was one bore, one armour piercing, one err ahh incendiary –
(AP) Lets do that one again.
(DF) - one. Our bullets, we were set in a series of five. We had the ordinary ball bullet. We would have an incendiary bullet; we had an explosive bullet and a tracer. And there – that was repeated all the way along, this way you could see where your bullets were going and also, of course, if they were converged at the right angle at the right time, of course, they could do quite a little bit of destruction. Initially our gun sights was straight forward, ring and bead. That was a fixed ring that had a bead in the centre. This could be lit up at night time and when you rotated your turret, either way, of course, the gun sight went with it. Also, if you elevated your guns the gun sight, of course, went with it. We did later on towards the end had some experimental gun sights involving radar and gyros. We had the Mark 14 gyro sight which, of course, was a much improved version and it even guaranteed 98 per cent hits. So that was a big advantage to us. It – but unfortunately it all came in too late. It didn’t come into the beginning of 1945. [Pause] What did we did really do when we got out to our aeroplane? Well, normally we would have a chat with the ground staff crew and we’d have a last cigarette ‘cause we never smoked inside the aeroplane and normally wanted a quick pee. The usual place was against the tail wheel. Everybody eventually get into the aeroplane and take up their positions and carry out the checks that they had to do and there you’d sit until okay you were given instructions to taxi the aeroplane. The pilot would then taxi the aeroplane away down the taxiway onto the runway. He’d get a green from the runway controller and you’d open the throttles and you’d tear down the runway and Grace of God you got yourself airborne. Now from that onwards, that point onwards sitting in your rear turret well you did have a lot to do. First,you’d done all your checks before you’d take off. You’d done that. And you’d keep a watch out first all for other aircraft coming in towards the bombers stream. So you – you know you would try to miss any other aircraft that were flying around in the stream. Further than that you go on to occupied Germany and there then you’d have to keep your eyes open and look for enemy aircraft. We did this by basically turning the rear turret where search – where you’d turn from port to go right the way round starboard, lift up a little way and right the way back round again and you’d do a square search right up as far as you could see and then start all over again. This way, of course, then your chances of – well you wouldn’t miss any aircraft coming in towards you. Further to that, in our crew we used to roll the aeroplane a little bit to make sure that there was nothing coming up underneath. So you can see, you sat there and you were doing something all the time. This way, of course, prevented you feeling too cold. You were kept active all the time. Your skipper would call you up about anything around every 10 to 15 minutes. ‘Are you alright?’ The main thing being, of course, are you still getting your oxygen which was an important thing?
(AP) What about the bit about beneath the aircraft - the attacks – vulnerable?
(DF) Well –
(AP) Would you talk a little bit about that?
(DF) The - they started to use – the Germans started to use the JU88 – I can’t remember the name of it – something music.
(AP) Shraeder music.
(DF) Shraeder music. And, of course, they came up, to hit you not in the body of the aeroplane because if they did and the aeroplane blew up, they’d most likely get blown up as well. They really aimed at your fuel tanks in the wing and once they were really afire, well of course, your chances of doing anything about it were not very very good. Some aeroplanes towards the end did have armour piercing protection and have [unclear] so that the tanks wouldn’t catch fire – but, no, that music, we just used to roll the aeroplane just so we could see underneath.
(AP) I mean, the bit about removing the Perspex? And the flak, the flak must have been going off. Little pings.
(DF) Yeah but you didn’t think about it.
(AP) No.
(DF) You accepted it, you know. Part of life’s rich pattern. [Unclear] What you wanna talk about first?
(AP) Hang on.
(DF) To aid your vision we thought that it’d be a good idea to remove a lot of the Perspex from your rear turret. Now, there was good reason for this as well – as well as including good vision the Captain and the Flight Engineer used to clear their engines round about every 20 minutes to half and hour, that means they would take them up to full power and, of course, it burnt off carbon which used to fly out from the exhaust. Now, we didnt like this because it would give away that you was an aeroplane somewhere there and the other was those little specks of carbon would stick on your Perspex, and if you had a little dot on your Perspex you’d immediately think it was a fighter. An enemy aircraft. So, to get out of all of this we asked to have all the Perspex taken out. And they took the Perspex out and there it solved the problem. But also, yes, it was a little bit colder but the other good thing was you didn’t have a lot of Perspex to clean.
(AP) What about the noise and ping-ping?
(DF) When one was approaching the target I often used to think that, there was the Pilot, the Flight Engineer and the Bomb Aimer up at the front of the aeroplane they could see all what was happening. They could see searchlights up ahead penetrating the sky often in groups of three or more with blue and one which was a master searchlight and the others were attached to it. The akk akk often was a bit more fierce [unclear] as you approached the target and, of course, there was always the risk of other airplanes dropping bombs on you or you colliding with them. Flak in itself used to come up. You’d hear the bang. Then you’d often hear ping. Ping as the little pieces of the shrapnel casing penetrate the aeroplane. The ground staff used to count these when you got back home, but also you could sometimes smell all the cordite from the shells themselves when they exploded. I used to sit in my turret and, of course, I didnt see all of this until, as we had - the bomb aimer dropped his bomb we’d flown straight and level for the required length of time, so we got a photo flash and then, of course, I said to myself : ‘Good God. Did we go through all that lot?’ You know, say ‘Oh well. That’s it.’ But, of course, by that time the skipper dropped the nose down and we’re turning round and we’re off back home which – prior to going on any raid it was important that before you went for your briefing and crew meal before the flight that you got as much rest in as you can. So normally, you would go and have a good lie and a sleep before you went for your crew meal in the mess and then went to the debriefing. Now, of course, there was all of you together, the seven of you and you were chatting away. You weren’t – never showed any signs of fear or – can’t think of the real word – but they all felt quite pleasant, happy about what we got to do and you got into your aeroplane and you settled down and comfort relatively and away you went. I don’t think we ever thought about it. How long it was except you knew it would be good when you got back home and had another crew meal and, of course, the promise of a large glass of rum, which was an incentive. [Chuckle]. People wonder about why we did all this. Well first of all, of course, we volunteered for this kind of work. The RAF couldn’t make you fly as aircrew. So we knew what we were going into. We knew that there would be short trips, heavily defended; we knew there’d be long trips to do and it was part of the day’s work. We knew what – we knew what we were up to and people just didnt really think about the bad side of it. You just got on and did a job of work which we were paid for. In our particular crew, we did a lot of training. We made up our minds we were gonna survive and, of course, we did.
(AP) And you –
(DF) And I think a lot of that was due to the fact that our attitude to the job.
(AP) You you never felt that terror or fear? You just got on with it?
(DF) No, no but also one of the other things of course, some of us would have in mind, of course, that terrible thing called if somebody got to a stage where they didnt want to fly any more, they’d had it. They’d go LMF Lack of Moral Fibre, but, of course, the hardest part of that was going to the CO and admitting it, it was a big thing to admit.
Dublin Core
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Identifier
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AFellowesD150406
PFellowesD1501
Title
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Interview with Dave Fellowes
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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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00:38:49 audio recording
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Creator
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Andrew Panton
Date
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2015-04-06
Description
An account of the resource
Dave Fellowes flew operations as a rear gunner with 460 Squadron. He and his crew survived a mid-air collision with another Lancaster which resulted in an emergency landing at RAF Manston.
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Great Britain
Netherlands
England--Kent
England--Lincolnshire
Temporal Coverage
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1945-04
1945-05
Contributor
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Gemma Clapton
1656 HCU
30 OTU
460 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
lack of moral fibre
Lancaster
Me 262
mid-air collision
military living conditions
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Binbrook
RAF Hixon
RAF Lindholme
RAF Manston
taxiway
training
Wellington
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/253/18670/AFellowesD160830.1.mp3
dd47a976b8ab40995415cad343d49553
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Fellowes, David
David Fellowes
Dave Fellowes
D Fellowes
Description
An account of the resource
Eight items. Two oral history interviews with Flight Sergeant David "Dave" Fellowes (Royal Air Force), documents and a photograph. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 460 Squadron.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by David Fellowes and catalogued by Barry Hunter.
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
2014-11-25
2015-04-06
2016-08-08
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Fellowes, D
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AP: Ok.
DF: Why did I join the Royal Air Force? Well, we’ve got to go back in time. As a young lad my interest, or one of my main interests was in fact aeroplanes, my father was an engineer and he and I used to build model aeroplanes and fly them in the local fields. So I had this interest in aeroplanes, later I got, I had a bicycle, and when I had a bicycle I was able to ride out to various airfields, places like Brooklands, White Waltham, Cobham and see aeroplanes take off and land and I used to be this happy, happy little boy, well later on as I grew older the ATC was formed and I thought to myself, this is for me, so I joined the Air Training Corps and whilst I was in the Air Training Corps I did pass the air crew certificate of training and when I was seventeen I nipped up to the recruiting office and volunteered for the Royal Air Force. After a very short space of time I was sent off to a centre where I was given various tests and I was passed out as on a PNB course, they said, go home, oh and they gave me a VR badge and a number and that was it, I went home until the time I got called up.
AP: Right, so, when you were called up, can you go through the next bit?
DF: After having been called up I had this railway warrant, to send me to London to report to Lord’s Cricket Ground or somewhere very similar, to ACRC that’s the Air Crew Receiving Centre which were in fact large blocks of flats in the St John Wood area and also of course quite adjacent to London Zoo and it was here that we first got kitted out into uniform and one of the things I can remember about this uniform being kitted out, we went to Lords and we got our greatcoats and we were all standing in a long line with our greatcoats on and a corporal with a yardstick came along the back to make sure that every greatcoat was the same, bottom of the greatcoat was the same distance from the ground, this caused a little bit of a laugh really among some of us but anyhow we did it and then from there of course whilst we were at ACRC so we did various tests, night vision tests, various medical little tests to make sure that we were fit for aircrew.
AP: How about the next bit when you went to Crewe Station, how you managed to get into the RR, RAAF, Australian side?
DF: After I had passed out I was on, first of all let me go back, I was posted to an ITW down in Newquay and it was here that we did all our basic ground training for pilot, navigator, bomb aimer training, things like meteorology, how an aeroplane flies, everything appertaining to the Royal Air Force and aircrew. We learnt the Morse code, but not very well I might say. After ITW you passed out, you were sent then to a grading school and I went to number 15 flying Tiger Moths up at Longtown and it was there that I passed out and I went to Heaton Park outside Manchester, it was winter time, it was a horrible place, it was full horrible corporals, and we did nothing, there was a hold up on convoys going across the Atlantic or down to South Africa and whilst I was there a notice went up on a board and said, you can be an air gunner in four weeks or something like that, and I thought, that’s for me, if I want to get into this war, that’s what I’ll do so I did. I went to the orderly room, remustered and then I got sent down to number one AGS and it was here that I passed out and after passing out, sent home on leave, there I was, a sprog sergeant air gunner and I had a posting then down to 30 OTU at Hixon in Staffordshire. One of the places where we had to change trains was Crewe, to go then, go into Stafford, put on the train and in tumbled three Australian flight sergeant pilots, we got talking as one would and I said to one, whereabouts do you come from in Australia? And he said Sydney. I said, oh, I said, that’s a bit of a coincidence, but I have an aunt and uncle in Sydney they went out after the First World War, they have a sport shop. So he said, well, whereabouts do you know? I said, yes, they live in the district called Marrickville and the road is called Illawarra Road. Mh, he said, this is good, he said, what’s the name of your aunt? So I said, Mrs. Ivy Evans. Mh, he said, you wouldn’t like this, he says, my mother’s a chapel friend. So we had something in common, so he said to me, would I fly with him? And I said, yes, no problem, so there we were in a 30 OTU at Hixon, I was in his crew, the first one, then we set about looking for somebody else, we picked up an Australian wireless operator, Jack Wilson. We also picked up our bomb aimer, he was a Scot, from Glasgow, he was an apprentice telephone engineer, he was a handy lad cause they had a method of back dialling so we got cheap telephone calls, which was pretty good and our navigator, we looked for a studious looking lad, he was, he had a blonde hair, bushy eyebrows and he was a damn good trombone player, which was something else that we had in the crew. Then we found another gunner, after OTU, well, OTU lasted in two sections, first of all there is ground school and daytime flying, you go on leave for a week, come back and then we did night flying and more ground school. We did get into a bit of trouble there, I don’t think we were the best behaved crew, I know the worst case was our wireless operator, we were sitting in the Wellington waiting to take off and he was fooling around with his radio and he managed to pick up Glenn Miller playing In the Mood and of course he put it through to all our crew stations so we could hear it but alas also the authorities picked it up and oh well, we was in trouble for that but we got over it. And then from there we were posted up to 1656 I think it was, Heavy Conversion Unit on Halifaxes and there we converted onto Halifaxes and then from Halifaxes the skipper was told he was going to go onto Lancasters, so we did a three day course, I think it was the same place, could have been Finningley on the Lanc finishing and it was there that our skipper said, you boys had you like to come to an Australian squadron? And we all said, oh yes, that’s a good idea, why not? And so we were fortunate and we got posted to 460 Squadron at Binbrook. Now this was good because Binbrook was a pre-war station and had married quarters, all lying empty because you weren’t allowed to have your wives or families with you, so each crew was allocated a married quarter and ours was number 13, well, we weren’t superstitious so we settled in, you got a coal and coke ration, you went to the mess for your meals and otherwise you were just left to your own desert. The normal procedure when one joined a squadron was in fact that first of all the crew would be allocated to a flight, in our case we went to B Flight, Bob Henderson was the Flight Commander, he was a very nice chap, he then sent us on a, a nav-ex I suppose you could call it, we went on a long training trip, when we came back, what normally happened would be the captain, your skipper would go with a qualified crew on his Op to see what it was all about, but that didn’t happen to us, the Station Commander was a gentleman by the name of Group Captain Hughie Edwards VC DSO DFC and quite a character, and he turned round and said, oh, take Whitmarsh and his crew on their first trip on block, well, he did, the trip in fact that day was to Freiburg, down in South West, yes, South West Germany and away we went, it was very good, he was very good, he just called us by our Christian names and away we went, and we got just past the bombline, this was in 1944, and we were passing over an American sector, apparently, when all of a sudden we got hit by flak from the Americans, well somehow in those days there wasn’t such a very good feeling between the Americans and the Australians and also it upset us Brits too at the time [laughs], anyhow he did talk about dropping a bomb on them, keep them quiet but he didn’t. On we went to Freiburg but were warned that of course when we got there, you’d most likely do his usual trick, go down and have a look to see how main force were getting on. This he did and then of course, after he’d done what he wanted to do, we climbed back up and flew home. And that was my first introduction to operations. On 460 Squadron after you had kind of settled down, proved that you were up to the work and up to the job and you’ve done about five or six ops, you were given your own aeroplane. In our case our aeroplane was O-Oboe. Now the crew that flew Oboe previously came to see us off and we took it over on our first op in Oboe, when we got out there of course one of the things we were introduced to was the ground staff of which there were four, there was an Australian sergeant, he had lovely black, curly hair, he looked more like an Australian gypsy than anything else but he was in charge of the aeroplane, we also had an armourer, engine fitters and airframe fitter, now those boys were always there before we took off, they were always there when we got back and we were part of the team. They used to call themselves the dayshift, we called ourselves if you like the nightshift and it worked very well and of course the sergeant we used to see in the mess, no problem at all but the others, airmen, we used to take out, oh, every ten days or so, we used to take them down to the village pub and have a few beers together, we were part of a team.
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 David Fellowes. Two
Description
An account of the resource
David Fellowes tells of how he used to build model airplanes and fly them in the fields when he was a boy. The son of an engineer, he first joined the Air Training Corps and then volunteered for the Royal Air Force at the age of 17. Describes his training at various stations and converting onto Halifaxes at 1656 Heavy Conversion Unit and then onto Lancasters. Remembers being posted to 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook, from where he flew his first operation as an air gunner, when they were targeted by friendly fire on their way to Freiburg. Emphasizes the sense of comradeship arisen between the air crew and the ground crew.
Creator
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Andrew Panton
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-08-30
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AFellowesD160830, PFellowesD1501
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 Australian Air Force
Contributor
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Peter Schulze
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
England--Cumbria
England--Lincolnshire
England--London
England--Manchester
England--Staffordshire
England--Yorkshire
Germany--Freiburg im Breisgau
England--Lancashire
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
00:13:55 audio recording
1656 HCU
30 OTU
460 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
crewing up
ground crew
ground personnel
Halifax
Heavy Conversion Unit
Lancaster
military ethos
military service conditions
Operational Training Unit
RAF Binbrook
RAF Finningley
RAF Heaton Park
RAF Hixon
Tiger Moth
training
Wellington
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/268/3418/AHarrisB160509.2.mp3
193c040b8eadb9b7bbfded56985378c5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Harris, Bernard
Bernie Harris
B Harris
Barnard Harris
Description
An account of the resource
Three items. Two oral history interviews with Bernard 'Bernie' Harris (b 1925 - 2017, 1863168 Royal Air Force) an air gunner who served at the end of the war on 622 Squadron flying Lancaster on Operation Manna. In addition a photograph of four trainees.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Bernie Harris and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-05-09
2016-06-26
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
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harris, B
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: So, I think we’re ready to go. So this is Andrew Sadler interviewing Bernie, Bernie Harris for the Bomber Command Archive at his home in Ilford on Monday the 8th of May 2016. Bernie, can we start by talking about your background? Where you were born and when and —?
BH: Yeah. I was born in Shoreditch, so near to the sound of Bow bells, so I’m an official cockney ‘cause I was born [slight laugh]. So I was born on May 17th 1925.
AS: And can you tell me a bit about your early life?
BH: Er, yep. I was always, always interested in flying but my father was in the Flying Corps, Royal Flying Corps, during the First World War and, I suppose, in the genes anyway. I went to various schools because we were more or less an itinerant family, kept on moving, so we went to different schools. So, as far as an education was concerned, it was elementary because there was no consistency whatsoever. So I left school at fourteen. Um, my mother and father with my two sisters and brother were evacuated to, of all places, in 1939, to Chelmsford [emphasis], which was nearer for the German raids than anywhere else I think because the er, the, they had factories there. So anyway, that didn’t suit me there so I went home and got a little job and um, after a while the, the Air Training Corps was formed. I joined the Air Training Corps. We had no uniforms yet. At sixteen and a half I was working at different places up to sixteen and a half and went to Romford nearby and signed on, volunteered for aircrew, was obviously too young. I used to go every Thursday, cycle up there, make sure I was still —. And they used to say, ‘Don’t worry son. We’ll still call for you.’ Um, which they did just before my eighteenth birthday and they had then what they called their preliminary aircrew training scheme at different places, universities and what have you, and I was sent up to the Manchester School of Commerce er, to upgrade my education, if you like. But anyway, in between that, I went to Cardington for a three-day assessment and if you come out of there with, with, your badge, RAFVR, you know you were good. And I was then classed at PNB (pilot, navigator, bomb aimer) which meant that I was going to be trained either as a pilot, navigator or bomb aimer because my education had now reached a level I could do that and because, in any case, I was going to evening classes when I left school anyway to, to increase my education. I knew there was a gap between what I wanted to do and what the, the qualifications that I should have. So anyway, after vacating that, right next door to the Marconi factory which was a target for the Germans anyway, eventually. Anyway, so I finished the, the PAT course, Preliminary Aircrew Training, and went back to St John’s Wood where St John’s Wood, of course, is where we reported to in the first instance and we were received into the Lord’s Cricket Ground where we got a plate of soup and a long arm inspection which took place under the portrait of WG Grace. I always remember that anyway. So anyway, back to St John’s Wood and then to initial training wing, in Newquay, which was a three month course (in peacetime it’s three years), and from there I went to elementary flying training school, on Tiger Moths, at a place called Burnaston, outside Derby, where there’s one of the Honda factories on it I think now anyway, and done very well with that, but the weather was so bad I couldn’t get the flying hours in to go solo. But I had a very good instructor, Rhodesian, but he used to love aerobatics anyway. But I couldn’t get the hours in because the weather come down and I was allotted so much time at EFTS. So, after that, we were posted up to Eaton Park. Now, Eaton Park was a holding centre for potential aircrews to go to the Empire training scheme, via Canada, Texas or South Africa and, there again, we come up against holdups, so a few of us went to the CO and said, you know, ‘What’s happening? When will we get in? How long’s it going to take for us to get into the war?’ Well, he said, ‘There’s a hell of a holdup. If you want to get into the war go as gunners.’ So we did. So we went straight up to Morpeth, flying, air gunnery school, flying on Ansons, and we’d done all the preparatory work and anyway, for aircrew, so we, we were only there for three weeks, whereas the course was about six months, I think. And then from there, er, posted to operation training unit, Wellingtons, where we were all crewed up. That’s the photograph of the crew, the original crew there, on Wellingtons, and then from there having done that —. And there again we had bad weather and held up and so a continuation of bad weather and from there went to the heavy op, heavy unit, conversion unit. That was a place called Woolfox Lodge, between Stamford and Grantham on the A1. Still there. You can see the, the control tower. Er, and then from there we went onto Mildenhall, 622 Squadron, and we didn’t arrive there ‘til the middle of April. So we had to do quite a lot of things, familiarisation, and then they put us on some testing gunsights and other things like that. And finally on May 8th they put us on the Operation Manna, where we were dropping food over Holland, which was the last day of the war anyway. So we dropped the food at Ypenburg and went back. Then we done a bit more flying, one thing or another, experiments, and work for the Air Ministry, and then in August 19— we were earmarked to go to California to convert onto Liberators for the Far East but the pilot being Australian, the bomb aimer being Australian, in ’45, August ’45, the Australian Government said, ‘No. Our boys are going home.’ So the crew was split up and up popped the word “redundancy”. So, so we were knocked about from pillar to post, wouldn’t de-mob us. Um, a very interesting story. I don’t know whether you can record this but what we said at the time, you know when Churchill said, ‘In the field of humanity there’s so much been owed to so few,’ we said, ‘In the field of humanity has so many been buggered about by so few’ [laugh] . So we gunners, we found ourselves up in Burn, ex-RAF aircrew, full of aircrew, ex-aircrew, and they gave us the choice of three different trades rather than de-mob us and the trades were: learn to drive, a radar and wireless mechanic, or radar operator. And then again three guys, ex-aircrew, sitting back, with their feet up on the table, ‘OK Bernie, what you wanna to do?’ So I said, ‘I’d like to learn to drive.’ So, ‘No. You don’t want that. You won’t be in the Air Force long enough for that.’ So, I says, ‘Well, what about radar wireless mechanic?’ ‘That’s a year’s course. Don’t be daft.’ They said, ‘Go as a radar operator.’ So, ‘Oh, alright then.’ Anyway, the upshot was sent down to Ayls—, down to Wiltshire, for this course, which we did, all aircrew, ex-aircrew, one was Rayner [?] Goff [?] he was with Nicholson and he was mad as a hatter he was. When we finished the course the signal came from the Air Ministry that all ex-aircrew that had taken the radar course are now redundant and report back to St John’s Wood. So we did. So then we were sent back to Burn. Same procedure, ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I want to be —.’ ‘Oh, alright. We’ll teach you to drive.’ So they sent me up to Blackpool, Warton, to learn to drive.
AS: And so what year did you actually go in then?
BH: Pardon?
AS: What year did you actually go into the RAF?
BH: Er, 19—, April ’43.
AS: Oh, right.
BH: Um. On the 23rd of April. That was before my eighteenth birthday.
AS: And you were de-mobbed in —, you were de-mobbed in ’45 were you?
BH: No, ’46.
AS: ’46.
BH: No, wait a minute. ’47. January ’47 [emphasis] ‘cause I was then sent to Italy to join, what they called the “chechiduderci” [?] Squadron, 112 Squadron, Mustangs, they had the sharks on their cowls and I got into helping with drogue towing, propellers, over the Adriatic, in a Harvard, noisy aircraft, and then they asked me to take charge of the hotel, at a place called Grado on the Adriatic, so I just made sure everything’s alright, got myself a big Q-type dinghy, and made sure I was very comfortable. I had my own room in the hotel, made sure all the supplies were there and staff were alright, go down to the beach, read a book, and then go floating in the dinghy. I was completely blonde. And then I was de-mobbed in January ’47.
AS: And what did you do when you were de-mobbed?
BH: Well, a mixture of things really because I was a bit, very unsettled, like most of the aircrew. Most of the aircrew that I’ve met were totally unsettled. Some stayed in the Air Force. Some went their different ways. Er, my father wrote and told me that he’s found me a job with an agency, so when I returned home the agency turned out to be Prudential, [slight laugh] selling insurance, which didn’t suit me. That didn’t last long. So then I started working on my own as a sort of um, agent for, working on commission, of goods and one thing and the other and I got very friendly with a guy, well not friendly, he contacted me eventually, by the name of Harry Alper [?] and he had a vast warehouse of ex-wartime stuff: tyres, pyrotechnics and dinghies. So, I used to go round there merrily, selling, and I was earning a very good living. [Slight laugh] And then fate takes place, yeah? He had £20,000, no £50,000 worth of tyres, new tyres, and I had no car in those days and I used to use the buses, and I had this list of these tyres on me, and there was a guy by the name of um —, it’ll come to me in a minute, in Putney. Um, and they used to go to him and one day we were talking. I said, ‘What about some tyres?’ ‘No, no, no. I don’t have time.’ So, ‘I’ll leave you the list.’ So he said, ‘Yeah, OK.’ Well, two days later he rang me. He wanted a sample of these tyres. So I said to Harry Alper, ‘I’ll take it.’ No car. The 96 bus used to go from Stratford to Putney. Anyway, I gave the driver, the conductor, a couple of bob, said ‘Can I bring this on?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ Anyway, the upshot was, the guy who wanted them, he wanted the lot. So I was on ten per cent. The next day I thought, well, I’ll take this deal [?]. I’ll get a coach to Margate, you know, have a day out. Try to sell a few bob, pay my expenses. Well, I lived on Forest Gate at that time and all along the kerb were hosepipes. Have you ever had a premonition? An anti-Semitic policeman got into that warehouse and set it alight and the whole lot had gone up in flames. He’d also gone to George Cohen. They used to do tyres and everything like that, over in Canning Town, and he’d set light to that as well. Now I was on commission, £5,000 in those days, so it was a real shocker. So, being green I didn’t —, a few years later I leant, but being green, I had the order, I could have claimed my commission from the insurance. But there you are. I think I got about £5 out of it. So that was that. So after that I started up my own business in —, not my own business, but working by myself, for a company called Hawker Sidley, who were making vending machines, and I had part of the city and I was doing very well selling these vending machines. I met a guy named Brendan Feeley, er, Richard Feeley. He was doing the same thing in —. He had one part of the city and I had one other. Anyway we came together and we formed this company ‘Value Vendors’ which we were leasing vending machines to people, in the city, only nothing to do with industry. And those were the days like accountants, solicitors, everybody involved in professional work, you could shake hands in those days and do a deal. But along came the people from the —, the, the graduates from —, who pretended they knew about business and you couldn’t trust them then and there unless they signed a bit of paper, you know what I mean? Anyway, we built the business up and finally, when I was sixty-five, sold the business and retired, and then I got involved with Operation Manna.
AS: Can you tell me about Operation Manna?
BH: Operation Manna started in 1981. There was an advertisement put in the, the RAF Manual, airmail from RAF Association, Aircrew Association, Air Gunner’s Association, ‘Anybody interested in going to Holland to view, visit, the dropping zones where we dropped the food?’ Mine was in Ypenburg. ‘If you’re interested we’ll go for a weekend. It costs £100.’ Right? ‘We’ll get a coach from Gravesend and go to Holland and —.’ So I said to my wife at the time, ‘Would you like to do that?’ Well I mean £100 for a weekend, in those days it wasn’t bad, so she agreed. Anyway, I applied and that was fine, and accepted. One day I was out, I’d been to a vending exhibition in Hammersmith, I got home late and when I got home, my wife said to me, ‘You’ve had a call from I think it’s the guy that’s organising the trip to Holland.’ So I says, ‘Oh yeah. What’s his name?’ She says, ‘Hallam.’ I says, ‘Arthur Hallam?’ Now this is thirty-six years later, my navigator, right? So she says, ‘Yeah, he’s left his number.’ So I rang him back and we were chatting, chatting, away and I said to him, ‘Did you finish with the accountancy?’ ‘Cause he was an articled clerk. He said, ‘Yes, I’m now the Director of the Whitbread’s pension fund.’ So I says, ‘In Chiswell Street?’ And when I said Chiswell Street my wife said, ‘Arthur Hallam? I’ve been dealing with him for years in the Abbey National round in Sidney Road.’ [Slight laugh] What do you think of that?
AS: Gosh. And she didn’t know he was in the crew with you?
BH: No. So, so we all got together? So yeah, so then anyway, the Dutch, also the guy by the name of Hans Underwater heard about this and said to Ted Levis and Phil Irvine, who organised the whole thing, ‘If you are willing to go to Hull on your coach North Sea Ferries will take you across for nothing.’ (North Sea Ferries are a Dutch firm.) Which we did except it landed and when we got to Holland we were blown out of the water. We didn’t know the depth of feeling of the Dutch. They were in what they called the hunger winter ’44 ’45 and three million nine hundred thousand of the population got isolated because this Nazi, because, one thing because of Arnhem, Operation Market Garden, was a failure so he was so incensed by this that he stopped all food coming in from the agricultural east into western Holland. Further to that Queen Wilhelmina, who was here in exile, called the railway people in to come out on strike so Seysss-Inquart, this Nazi, who did other things and was actually tried as a war criminal and hanged after the war. Er, the railway people went on strike so he ordered the, the sea lochs to be opened which flooded [emphasis] most of western Holland so there was wretches there were starving and the dykes were filled and everything else and as I say, out of the population of three million nine hundred thousand, twenty thousand died of starvation and um, millions suffered malnutrition. Anyway, apparently, in January ‘45 Wilhelmina appealed to Churchill, the American President of that time and Eisenhower, to do something about it and they said, ‘We can’t do anything about it. There’s six thousand German troops still in western Holland and if we landed by sea it would be too costly, they’d have to wait.’ So anyway, a little later on in the year apparently Queen Wilhelmina appealed to Churchill and the allies to do something and this guy, Air Commodore Andrew Geddes —. Am I going on too long?
AS: No.
BH: Andrew Geddes was summoned by Eisenhower. Er, and he said caught [?] us in Reims to do —, for an urgent engagement. Anyway, he met Bedell Smith, General Bedell Smith, who put him in the picture so —. This is in a talk I gave last week so it’s still there. He met Bedell Smith and Bedell Smith who, who had been asked by the Dutch Government, and then pushed by Churchill, got to do something about it, ‘I want you to come back with a plan to feed three million nine hundred thousand people by air.’ Right? So Bert Harris, who was Bomber Harris, had been asked to give two groups, 1 and 3 Group, and 8 Group the Pathfinders. So, ‘Go away, make a plan, come back to me with a plan,’ which he did. So anyway the whole plan was, to cut it short, that Geddes presented his plan and what he would do, and dropping zones, and then went to Holland to meet this Nazi. He was a Reichskommissar. He wasn’t military but he was a real Nazi. He had people shot as hostages and God knows what throughout Europe. Anyway, he met him and showed the plan to which he objected to. So Geddes said to him, ‘You may object to it but we’re doing it and any attempt by you to disrupt this mercy, these flights of mercy, you’ll be charged as a war criminal.’ And so on the 29th of April, 28th of April it should have started er, but the weather was bad so it started on 29th of April. Pathfinders went in. The Dutch population had been told to watch out for flares, keep away, and the bombers are now leaving England to drop food and that was the start of Operation Manna but the agreement wasn’t signed until the next day so the Germans could have shot at us quite easily and been — and legally. Anyway, they kept quiet except a few irate Germans fired off their rifles and one pilot had a bullet through his foot but in most part it was alright. So all went well and er, Geddes, he was actually revered by the, by the, the Dutch. A big memorial is made to him, a street named after him and there’s three memorials, one in Rotterdam, one Duindigt was this race course and one in Zeebrugge to Manna and Chowhound. Chowhound was the American part of it. They came in May 1st to May 7th and ever since then, so from 1983, ‘85, 1995, 2000, 2002, 2005, right up to 2015 last year, the 70th anniversary, we’ve always gone back to Holland and always the same. People would come up to us and say, ‘Thank you for saving my life,’ ‘Thank you for saving my mother’s life,’ ‘Thank you for saving my father’s life.’ Incredible. And the feeling is still there. The whole story is still taught in schools, right? And ‘cause some little stories also. We had a bit of a wit with us and when we visited Gouda, and wherever we went we were hosted and everything else, and he was talking to our group, and he said, ‘Yeah, we came in so low,’ he said, ‘your clock on your tower the minute hand was twenty minutes fast so we clipped it with our wing and put it right.’ So, [laugh] so a bit, bit of a wit. And that’s the whole story.
AS: Fascinating.
BH: So out of that, you know, came a great friendship. Arthur, he died from, not long after we met, cancer, and now I think all my crew except for myself have all gone and these are the photographs of them.
AS: Gosh.
BH: Oh yes. I was also —. Arthur was the treasurer but when he died I became treasurer and the secretary. Geddes was honorary chairman, Prince Bernhard was our president and that’s it.
AS: Mmm.
BH: Any good?
AS: Yeah, excellent.
BH: Do I get a copy?
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AHarrisB160509
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Interview with Bernie Harris. One
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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IBCC Digital Archive
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Sound
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eng
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00:29:17 audio recording
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Pending review
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Andrew Sadler
Date
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2016-05-09
Description
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Bernie Harris joined the Royal Air Force in 1943 and trained to become an air gunner. His first operation was Operation Manna, dropping food on Holland at the end of the war.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Great Britain
Netherlands
Temporal Coverage
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1945-04
1945-05
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Christine Kavanagh
622 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Anson
Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)
Lancaster
memorial
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Operational Training Unit
RAF Mildenhall
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/588/8857/AHubermanA160329.1.mp3
b5727226db7314e09558768a459abf06
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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Huberman, Alfred
A Huberman
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Huberman, A
Description
An account of the resource
Two items. An oral history interview with Alfred Huberman DFC (1923 - 2023, 1671008 Royal Air Force) and a photograph. He completed 31 operations as a rear gunner on 576 Squadron. He subsequently completed other operations on a second tour with the Pathfinder force at the end of the war.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Alfred Huberman and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.
Date
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2016-03-29
2016-04-11
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 audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: Ok. So I think we’re ready to start. If I could put the recording machine there and that on there. So this is Andrew Sadler interviewing Alfred Huberman at his home in Hampstead in London on the 29th of March 2016 for the Bomber Command Digital Archive. Thank you, Alfred, for allowing me to come to your home to interview you.
AH: It’s a pleasure.
AS: Can I start by asking you how you came to be in the Royal Air Force?
AH: Well, my father was in the army in the First World War and he didn’t want me to go in the army and we had friends who felt the same way. They, they could only think of the war as trench warfare and bayonet fighting and he thought, he didn’t mind me at all going in the RAF actually. He was quite pleased ‘cause they could only think of the army you know as trench warfare and bayonets you know. That’s how the old timers used to talk. So I volunteered to go in the air force.
AS: And how were you selected?
AH: We went before a committee. People who, you know, examined you and why you wanted to go in and explain your reasons why you wanted to volunteer for Bomber Command.
AS: Before this time can you tell me about your background? Where did you live?
AH: Lived in Forest Gate. You know that’s not far from Mile End, you know. A bit further down near Upton Park and Forest Gate and I wanted to get in the war and get into action and I thought [unclear] because my mum and dad said I won’t go in the army. I wanted to go in the air force anyway and I volunteered in the air force when I was eighteen.
AS: So you started when you were eighteen.
AH: I went in. Yes.
AS: Can you tell me about your training?
AH: Yes. I first started training as a wireless operator air gunner. Started off in Blackpool and towards the end of ‘41 and I really, coming towards the end of it I really didn’t like being a wireless operator and I thought I’m not going to go through this, I don’t like this. I deliberately failed and re-mustered to go straight AG which they did, you know. The sent me for training as an air gunner.
[pause]
AH: Training was really tough. All kinds of things. You had to go on route marches. They made the training deliberately tough because it was tough being an air gunner and you’ve got to be tough mentally and physically to take it. That’s what the trainers all thought and the air force knew that and the quick, it quickly got sorted out, the good and the bad. You know, you could tell the guys who couldn’t make it. You know you felt a great deal of pride in being able to pass through ‘cause it was tough, physically and mentally, the training.
AS: Were there many who didn’t pass?
AH: Yeah. Yes.
AS: Where did you do the -?
AH: I’ll tell you this one thing that does seem funny. We thought it was funny at the time but quite a few rejected were those chaps who came from the Highlands of Scotland. No one could understand what they were talking, the way they spoke. So they couldn’t be correct, you know to serve on a plane. You couldn’t hear what they were talking about and there was quite a number of them who got knocked out for that but the course was so tough the weak ones were soon sorted out who weren’t, weren’t the right type for it.
AS: Where did you do your gunner training?
AH: In Bridgnorth. But you know being keen on being an air gunner I enjoyed it. The training was tough but it was, it was good.
AS: What did you do as part of your training?
AH: Well it does seem strange. We did quite a few fifteen mile, fifteen mile route marches which sorts out the weak from the strong and the weak ones did drop out and couldn’t take the fifteen miles. It got sorted out because it was a tough procedure to get through it because the corporals in charge were real tough guys and made you go, took you through the hard parts of the woods on the training.
AS: Did you join the RAF straight from school or did you work in between?
AH: I wasn’t, yeah I worked in between. I went to art school for a while in the fashion industry and I was also training at St Martin’s Art School. That’s why all these paintings that you see around are all mine.
AS: Yeah.
AH: And how can I follow on that one? I was keen to get in, to go on operations. The war was on and I wanted to get in the action.
AS: Presumably you were in East London and the bombing had started of East London.
AH: Yeah. I was in there during the bombing. We got bombed out. That’s what made me, oh that’s, I’m glad you reminded me. That’s, that’s what made me really keen to get at the Germans. We got bombed out in 1940. We went up, I had to go out and live with relatives in Leeds quite a number of months as well.
AS: How long did your training last?
AH: Well total training as air gunner? [pause] You don’t include being at OTU with that. Just solely training as air gunner. Oh God I think it was, I can’t think correctly but I think it was about six months.
AS: And then where were you posted?
AH: We passed out at the number 1 Air Gunnery Training School was at Bridgend. I passed out from there. You know, we had to do flying training there, you know, as an air gunner, you had, we trained on Ansons at gunnery school. Flying at Bridgend and it was, the training was really tough but it was nevertheless enjoyable. The comradeship was great. It all started from there. Air crew comradeship. Flying in Ansons. Shooting at drogues. We had to do, there was plenty of physical training as well. They made sure you were fit. A lot of physical training. Tough physical training every day. They kept us at it in air gunnery training. Training, you know. ‘Cause you really had to be fit. Their attitude was absolutely correct. One hundred percent correct. You had to be fit because you know, they knew you were going on trips from six to ten, eleven hours and at the time it was strenuous and you had to be really strong and fit especially sitting in the back where it was cold.
AS: What about after you’d finished your training?
AH: We then went to Operational Training Unit and to get sorted out into crews and you mixed and you talked with pilots, navigators and everything and in the mess all mixing together and you got sorted out. The first crew we got sorted out with we didn’t get on with one another. Broken up and then got sorted, got re-sorted again with another, six other chaps who found one another, talking together and we crewed up and they were a great crew, my crew were, every one of them. Super guy, the pilot especially. He was, he was a marvellous pilot and all the rest of my crew were. Each one of us. We were like brothers and he kept, the pilot, Ron Ireland he really kept his eye on us that we didn’t drink too much and one outstanding thing when we went to our first operational station, we went into the mess and of course you meet other guys that you knew during training and they came up to you and the first words they said to you, ‘Alf, whatever you do I’ll give you one bit of advice. Don’t worry or look about losses. Dismiss it from your mind because if you start worrying about losses,’ he said, ‘You can’t do a good job.’ And that was outstanding that. How they all told, told the newcomers at that point. I think it’s worth mentioning that.
AS: Where were you stationed to start with?
AH: What, operationally? Elsham Wold. Near Scunthorpe. And it was a great station. The comradeship was fantastic. The CO.
[pause]
AH: I’ll show you this.
[pause]
AH: It was Wing Commander Gareth Clayton. Later Air Marshall Sir Gareth Clayton and he unveiled a painting I gave to the, presented to the, and accepted by the Royal Air Force Museum. This is after the war.
AS: Oh gosh.
AH: The CO was a marvellous chap. He was very authoritative.
AS: And how many sorties did you do from there?
AH: Thirty one.
AS: Can you tell me, tell me about, about how you were organised and how the, each mission happened?
AH: The tour, you had to do thirty operations and then you were stood down for at least six months. After you’d done thirty operations you were automatically stood down. And the comradeship between the rest of the crew was really great. It had to be. The pilot was a strict disciplinarian. He’d make sure that we all behaved. Didn’t get drunk at nights, kept fit, which we did. And we all kept together and we became close, close friends. You know, every one of us knew each one’s life depended on the other one. Every one played their part. The pilot, the navigator, the bomb aimer, the flight engineer and the two air gunners, and the WOp/AG.
AS: Can you tell me about a typical mission? What it was like?
AH: Well you did have some kind of fear of certain operations because some operations were more dangerous than, than others and you had this fear and trepidation. Particularly of the Ruhr or Happy Valley as we used to call it and which was really tough because it was so heavily defended, the Ruhr. You couldn’t help flying over other targets, other cities which was heavily defended. Every, every one in the Ruhr, every city in the Ruhr was heavily heavily defended and they were all close to one another and when you went to bomb you passed over other cities and you were fired upon from beginning to end. I remember one operation dramatically we were going to bomb Gelsenkirchen which is just outside Stettin, next door, and very very heavily defended and I looked out the turret and I saw another aircraft was gliding slowly towards us and I said to the pilot, ‘Quick, dive. There’s another plane gliding towards us to crash. Dive quickly,’ and he dived and the aircraft passed over us and the pilot said, ‘Alf,’ he said, ‘You’ve saved the lives of all the crew.’ He said, ‘If there’d have been a hole in the hatch and I put, and I could have put my arm through,’ he said, ‘I would have touched the other plane that we just missed.’ Because a lot of aircraft were lost through crashes at night you know. Not always, not easy to see. Very dark and cloudy. Many losses were caused by other planes, our planes crashing into our, into our own planes.
AS: What, what was it like being a gunner? I understood it was one of the most dangerous positions.
AH: Well it was a dangerous position but one felt really proud of being a gunner and wherever you went in England you were admired as you walked along the street. If you went into a pub, I don’t think I ever bought a pint of beer for myself. I walked into a pub, someone came running up to me and said, ‘Hey, let me buy you a drink,’ and this was like that with all air gunners. Treated like this when they went, even walking down the road. Being nodded at and smiled at. Admired. Yeah, you felt very proud to be an air gunner. We did have the toughest job because it was cold. I mean one of my worst experiences, I was going to tell you at the beginning was we were at OTU and they started worrying now about German fighters coming over England and shooting down planes at night who were in training. So this particular night they gave us a plan to go up past, straight past the Orkneys and up towards Iceland to keep away from German night fighters and what happened this particular day they said, ‘It’s going to be very very cold there and we have to take out, for the first time, the back panel of glass on the rear turret to give the air gunner clearer vision,’ on the Wellingtons and the Lancasters that were coming along but the electronic suit had just been invented which was God’s gift to air gunners. It was a fantastic thing. You had an electric suit. Wires right into the gloves on your hand and it really kept you warm but at this moment there wasn’t enough electric suits to go around. They gave it to the operational ones first. They didn’t have enough to go in Training Command yet. They took out the panel of the rear turret and they told us that night, ‘Double your socks, pullovers, get yourself really warm because it’s going to be cold.’ So I did that and as we were going over past the Orkneys it’s now getting really cold and I’m starting to freeze and one thing we were taught as air gunners if you get too cold and you start freezing you must tell the pilot and I was becoming so cold the water on my eyes was turning to ice. I said, ‘Skipper,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry to report this,’ I said, ‘But I must tell you I’m freezing to death.’ I said, ‘The water on my eyes, I’m losing my sight, it’s turning to ice and I’m just freezing.’ So the pilot said, ‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘It’s a hundred and six degrees below zero.’ And then the navigator pipes up, he said, ‘Oh my God,’ he said, ‘I’ve made a mistake. We’ve gone fifty miles north. We’re over Iceland.’ And just to try a sidetrack at that moment I saw the aurora borealis. We all did. The pilot said, ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’m going to turn round, go back and dive.’ He turned the aircraft out, around and dived thirteen thousand feet and the force of inertia went right through my body. It brought me round and in no time I would have been frozen to death. And when we got back to base we all reported in. Three other crews had gone on the same trip as us and three air gunners had had their big toe operated, amputated. It was so cold that night. So they didn’t send anyone up that north again. So far up. That was one of my worst experiences. I was going to tell you beforehand, you know, on operations. Before I went on operation I nearly lost my life.
AS: What planes did you fly in?
AH: That was a Wellington. Trained in a Wellington initially and then we changed over to Lancasters and then I did all my operations on Lancasters then.
AS: You didn’t do any operations in Wellingtons.
AH: No. They were being phased out. You know, the Halifax and the, the Halifax and the Lancaster took over.
AS: Did you fly in any Halifaxes?
HB: Just once. I can’t remember where or when but just once but much preferred the Lancaster. The Lancaster was definitely a more superior plane.
AS: In what way?
AH: Technically it was faster, it was more manoeuvrable than the Halifax. I did go in a Halifax, did a trip, did training on it and didn’t like it that much. Felt much more comfortable in a Lancaster. Everyone on the crew did. Well, it was proved anyway you know. The Lancaster was the [emphasis] bomber. Successful.
AS: So you did, did you do all of your missions from Scunthorpe?
AH: On my first tour yes.
AS: Oh.
AH: Yes. We got our our toughest mission was Mimoyecques. Have you heard of that? Well this was the site on the English, on the French coast and the English Channel. The CA, we weren’t given technically what the, they said it’s a very very important German base in France. They got, they wouldn’t describe exactly what it was there. He said ‘but it’s very secretive’. He spoke in words going around the operation. Being indiscreet about it and we had to go in at ten thousand feet which is pretty low you know. We’d never gone in before at that height to bomb. He said ‘because the bombing’, he said, ‘must be very very accurate’ and as it turned out it was one of the most successful, important raids of the whole war. It was the site of, it was going to be the secret site of the V3 which was never used because we destroyed it and forty five were lost on that night and Leonard Cheshire was the master bomber on that raid and it was going to be the V3. It was sixty, it was going to fire sixty rounds. Each one was. Hitler apparently had ordered this to be built and be done. It would fire in one go sixty missiles to London, that would land in London in one go. They would fire sixty missiles from the base at Mimoyecques and we had to go in at ten thousand feet because the bombing had to be very accurate for it, apparently and forty five were lost on that raid which was horrendous and because we had to go in at ten thousand feet we were an easy target. We were hit badly by flak and one of the engines caught fire. The pilot doused the fire and flying back once, he said, the flight engineer said all the brakes had gone. The pilot, the turret wouldn’t turn and we had no brakes so the pilot asked each one of us in turn should we land on the sea just on the, by the coast and get out of the plane that way and we all said, each one said, ‘No. Let’s try and get back to base.’ Well we got back to the base but we had no brakes on landing so what happened, the pilot landed the plane, he couldn’t brake, he now cut the other engine in the starboard port engine, the starboard engine had been shot, he cut the engine on the same side, on the starboard side and the, we spun round and round and round and came to a stop and just hit a tree and we all got out but the aircraft could never be used again. We were all lucky to get out. The pilot had done a miraculous job to land a plane with no, to get us all out with no brakes. Yeah, you couldn’t do an operation without something going wrong and tough.
AS: So you did thirty one trips.
HB: Yes.
AS: For your tour.
HB: Yes. You were supposed to do two. You’re supposed to do thirty and then you’re stood down, then whilst I was there on the station earlier on when we were a rookie crew you had to stand by. You didn’t go on the operations. If any personnel on one of the planes couldn’t go that night you’d take his, you’d take his place and after we’d done about six operations we stood by that night and then the pilot said, we had, he said, ‘ Alf,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you this,’ he said, ‘But you’ll have to go. The air gunner’s been taken ill. He can’t go. You’ll have to take his place.’ So ok I went in his place. It was a French target. The longest one, French target I’d ever been on, it was down almost on the, to the coast and as we got over the coast the fog was something terrible. There was fog from over twenty thousand feet high to the ground and we got nearer so we were all tuned in, could hear what the master bomber was saying and he said, ‘Well chaps,’ he said, ‘We’ll get, try and get to the target, see, maybe the fog will clear.’ Well when we nearly got there the fog hadn’t cleared and the Pathfinders were going around and around, down to three thousand feet and it hadn’t cleared and he said we’d have to cancel the raid and return home. ‘Go back. Make your way back. Drop your bombs in the sea,’ because you can’t land with bombs in your aircraft, which we did. It was a nightmare of an operation. And when I got back all my crew were all waiting for me on the briefing. I said, ‘What are you all doing there? Why are you here?’ They said, ‘We couldn’t go to sleep in our beds while you were out there. We had to wait for you to see you come back,’ and they all patted me on the shoulders you know, shook hands and what a night that was. Never saw anything of the ground. Nightmare flying through the bloody fog. Fog nearly choked us. And then the pilot come to do the thirtieth operation and the pilot said to me, ‘Alf,’ he said, ‘You don’t have to come on this, this one ‘cause it’s your thirty operations. The CO’s told me that if you don’t want to come you can stand down.’ I said, ‘Oh no. All for one, one for all.’ I said, ‘I’ve been through all the lot together I’m still going to go with you with this one, so this will be my thirty first. So the pilot said, ‘Ok. Fine.’ We went and the target was one of the worst in Germany. It’s called Braunschweig, better known to us as Brunswick. Thirty miles just south of Berlin and when we got there, as we nearly got there, I saw an unidentified aircraft. I reported to the pilot an unidentified aircraft. We’d just bombed the target. An unidentified aircraft on the port side. I said, ‘I’m not sure what it is. Whether it’s enemy or ours.’ I said, ‘Well take no chances then. Prepare to corkscrew port.’ So I said, ‘I’m not sure about it. Let’s corkscrew port,’ and he did and we did a dive, went into a dive thirteen thousand feet or more. Just past the target and we flew back over Germany at five thousand feet all the way back to England. We got through. So it was quite a last night. Horrendous target.
AS: So when you, once you’d done your thirty one, what would, what did you do when you stood down for six months?
HB: They sent me to, you could have, they gave you a load of choices and I thought well I’d like to go, maybe go on a radar station on the coast and they did. They sent me to a radar station and they said you know you’ll see action in the planes there. Just sit and you know, just take it easy there. Have a, have a good rest. Myself and the flight engineer both volunteered to go and do the same thing so we both went together to the station and we were treated like lords on this radar station on the south coast. And then I missed, I certainly missed the operational, I certainly missed not being with air crew and I wanted, war was still on and it was, it was ok but we wanted to get back in to the action. We sadly missed all the air crew and the life on the squadron so I volunteered to go back which I did in February 1945 and I volunteered to go in the Pathfinder force. On 83 squadron at Wyton. And although I was operational again I was glad to be with all the air crew again and the operations weren’t as tough. Just did seven but what was really nasty the last couple were on the operation called Manna which was dropping food supplies to the Dutch. The Dutch were starving. I don’t know if you knew about that. They really hadn’t got enough food. We started dropping food at three thousand feet to the Dutch people who were starving who were tremendously, we found after how grateful they were and the German bastards even though the war had just finished but by a few days were still firing at us and shooting us down at three thousand feet dropping food to the Dutch. And a few days after the German gunners you know were still firing and shooting down our bombers. The bastards.
AS: Can you tell, tell me a bit about being in the Pathfinders?
HB: Yeah it was, you know you went in first but it was towards the end of the war. It wasn’t as bad as the early part like my first tour but I was proud to be with them because they did do a tough job and after the war I knew Bennett, knew Bennett very well. They were wonderful people. He was the commander in chief of the Pathfinder force and he was a super chap and a few years after the war I started up, I was instrumental with some others in forming the Air Gunner’s Association. It started about seven sort of years after the war because no association had been formed. We started out and we became very very active and I and others were instrumental in bringing Bomber Harris out of the cold. I had, and went to meet him and he was a most wonderful chap and he really loved his air gunners. He was at the reunions and he was always the chief guest of honour. And I’ll recall for you the story I never tire of telling. This story after the war had finished I’ll recall for you a name that by and large is forgotten now but his name was Albert Speer. Does that name mean anything to you?
AS: Oh yes. I’ve read his, I read his, his book, “Inside the Third Reich.”
HB: Yeah.
AS: And, and several books about him.
HB: Oh that’s interesting. Well he was the only German Nazi, leading Nazi who repented and he was the only one who wasn’t executed and after the war was over he got in touch with Bomber Harris and they told stories to one another about, you know the war efforts and became very friendly. During one of our reunions when Harris was there I had to stand up I’ll stand up, ‘I’d like to recall for you chaps Albert Speer as you all know, who you knew was the head of ammunitions, factories and armaments from the beginning of the war to the end’ and I had to say in front of Bomber Harris here that you will recall, I told all the audience that when Albert Speer spoke to him, Albert Speer said to Harris, ‘if it hadn’t have been for Bomber Command Germany would have won the war.’ And Harris stood up and said, ‘Ha.’ he said, ‘Right,’ he says, ‘Who knew better than him? He was our best customer.’ He’s right.
[pause]
HB: Where would you like me to continue?
AS: Please. When you were in the Pathfinders where were you stationed then?
HB: Wyton. RAF Wyton.
AS: What planes were you going up in at that point?
HB: Lancasters.
AS: Still in Lancasters.
HB: Yeah. No, I wasn’t a fighter pilot.
AS: No. And you were still working as a gunner.
HB: Oh yeah. Once a gunner always a gunner. Yes. And I’m proud to say that I also was instrumental with others, particularly Sir Michael Beetham, Marshall of the Royal Air Force in founding the air gunners, also going to get the Bomber Command Association started. I’ve been on the committee of the Bomber Command Association since day one and been vice chairman for a while.
AS: When, when the end of the war came, can you tell me about that? How did you greet the news that the war had come to an end?
HB: We were delighted, you know, we were happy to be victorious. The war, we all cheered it in the mess and clapped hands, you know, when it was announced and –
[pause]
HB: There was one incident, one nasty incident that I will recall. Just before Christmas 1945, after the end of the war, six months after the war, they thought it was a good idea instead of bringing such a long dragging trip flying the troops home from, it would be better to fly the, quicker to fly the troops home from Germany than, sort of quicker to fly the troops home that were coming back from Singapore or in Italy flying the troops home from Italy quicker than sending them back by boat. So that Christmas week they said you’ll go to, fly to Naples, fill it up with air crew from Italy and fly them back to England. It will save all that drag. So we did, we started, we flew from London to Naples which was a long trip. An eleven hour trip. When we got there, went into the mess, I meet the best friend I ever knew training as an air gunner. He, when I’d gone to Bomber Command, when I was posted he was posted to the Italian campaign and we were so pleased to see one other I can’t tell you. We clutched one another fantastically and he said, ‘Alf,’ he said, ‘And your crew. I’ll tell you what you must do while you’re here in Naples. The thing you mustn’t miss’ He said, ‘You must you must go and see the ruins of Pompeii.’ He says, ‘It’s easy to get there. It’s only five miles away and all day long there’s RAF transport and vans passing from the base here past the entrance to the ruins of Pompeii and,’ I told that, he said, ‘You must get all your crew to go there with you. Yeah. Just get a guard, pay one of the guards of the, who will take you all around Pompeii. Give him a good price and he’ll show you everything that’s there.’ And the rest of the crew said oh that would be marvellous. Pulled, stick on an RAF plane, on an RAF van. We all got in it. He dropped us at Pompeii and we got out and one of the guides, not a guard, a guide I meant and we paid the guy to take us around and we followed him and he pointed out, he spoke perfect English, all the interesting things in Pompeii and then we go downstairs in to the basement and there’s an artist working with his easel there copying all the paintings, the masterpieces on the wall and naturally being artistic I started talking to him and he spoke perfect English and he was explaining everything, what this meant and what he was doing and when I got out and went upstairs I couldn’t see any of the crew, I couldn’t see a person. So I started walking around and now I’m a bit lost and it’s a big place the ruins, in the ruins. I can’t see one person and I started walking along looking and suddenly two little boys about between fourteen and sixteen came up to me and said, ‘Hey Joe, you gotta the money.’ I said, ‘Get away.’ And they said, ‘Hey Joe you gotta the money. Give us the money.’ I said, ‘No. Get away.’ And I can’t find the crew and suddenly from out of nowhere another fifteen, twenty kids started all coming up to me and started tugging at me, pulling at me, ‘Hey Joe you gotta the money.’ I said, ‘No. Get away,’ and I started running to try and get away from them and they started running after me and still there was no one around. And I’m now getting worried. They started tugging me. Pulling me. Then suddenly they started screaming out [parapachi?]. That’s like the Italian word for police and suddenly they all left and ran away into the woods there and suddenly two men with, fully armed with machine guns across their shoulders come up to me and said, ‘ah’, they spoke English, they told me, ‘We’ve saved you,’ he said, ‘They would have killed you for the money. They would have taken every bit of your clothing off.’ Because they were short of money, you know in Naples and all bloody gangsters and God knows, and the mafia there. He said, ‘They would have killed you for the money and have taken a knife to you.’ Although they were only kids, he said ‘they’re really tough ones. ‘We’ll get you back to your crew, the rest of your men, you’ll be safe. Don’t worry anymore.’ And I was, I was nearly assassinated there.
AS: Gosh.
HB: After the war.
AS: When were you demobbed?
HB: 1946. Early ’46.
AS: What did you do in the RAF between the end of the war and when you were demobbed? Obviously fetching troops back was one of them.
HB: Yeah. One of them. They had all kinds of jobs for us. I mean one of the first things we did was to fly the POWs home from Belgium and that was quite a, quite something to talk to the chaps who were POWs and we were all naturally asking them how they were treated and they all said, terribly. And they were all asking me about what it was like for us afterwards and explained to them and one was a squadron leader. I’ll never forget. He had a DFC. When we landed in England he got out. He was the first one to get out, oh and he wanted to sit in the turret during the flight back because he, he said he was shot down in 1940. You know he wasn’t used to, he didn’t know what a Lancaster was. So I let him sit in the Lancaster all, sit in the turret all the way back to England. He got out, started kissing the ground and they all kissed the ground. They all followed him. The, all the prisoners thanking, you know that they were back in England. I wonder what it was for them. It was quite an experience watching them do that, you know. It’s so emotional.
AS: After you were demobbed what did you do then? How did you settle back in to civilian life?
HB: Well the first few months were very very difficult. Incidentally, I do say this. I never told my mum and dad that I was on operations. I told them I was in training all the time and I told all the family, you know I was operations, brothers and sisters, not to mention a word to them because you know they were reading every night, every day forty, fifty, thirty, sixty lost and my father said to me, he says, ‘You must be the lousiest air gunner in the air force,’ he says, ‘You’re always in training.’ So I said, ‘Well it takes a long time,’ and then of course when I finished and I told them and you know he shook his head at me, ‘Oh yeah,’ see, ‘You weren’t a lousy air gunner.’ No. I thought, save them. Why let them go through the agony of reading about the losses every night and knowing it could have been me, me on it and you know parents did have a tough time with their children on ops.
AS: So what did you do when you came home?
HB: I went to St Martin’s Art School to study art and fashion and then [pause] after about five years, six years I got married and then formed my own fashion company designing women’s clothes, coats.
AS: You said you found it difficult when you came home. In what way?
HB: The first six months. It was very difficult to reconcile. You missed the comradeship of your friends and you know rationing was still going on and things were still tough after the war being a civilian. The government I must say was helpful. They did support me in training in the six months I studied at St Martins.
AS: So you, so you studied for six months and then, and then did you start your fashion business then or did you -?
HB: Oh no. No. I went to work.
AS: You went to work.
HB: Someone else had [unclear] it didn’t take me long to be successful. It was strange, the first six months, it really was. To settle down with mum and dad again and my two brothers.
[pause]
HB: Is there anything else you’d like?
AS: Yes.
HB: Question?
AS: When you were, when you were on the base and you were doing operations, how long was it between the different operations? Was there a long time or were they in quick succession?
HB: Sometimes you’d go two nights running which I reckoned, off the record, that that was Harris’ big, one big mistake he made. We should never have been allowed to do, to go on two consecutive, two night’s trips, come back because you, when you came back three or 4 o’clock in the morning you didn’t get a good night’s sleep. They’d wake you up the next day at 8 o’clock to tell you you’d be on operations that night. And you weren’t exactly fit. You were a bit tired. It was a struggle to force yourself but you had to do it. You know, it was an order. You had to go and I think that’s the biggest mistake that Harris made. It’s never been mentioned, that. Going two nights’ consecutive trips was a real struggle. The second one.
AS: When you were, when you were between operations how did you, what did you do? Did you have any social life?
HB: What? Do you mean when I wasn’t on operations? What? Do you mean being on leave?
AS: Well or at the station but waiting for the next one.
HB: Yeah there was the comradeship was very, very strong between the crews and the other crews. You, it was, you know you made it part of your life and there was a pleasant side of it, pleasant side of it in sitting together and chatting with one another.
AS: Did you go out at all?
HB: Yeah. We used to go into the pub at Scunthorpe. Never allowed, he warned us not to drink more than a pint maximum. He was right. You shouldn’t get your head and drink too much.
AS: This was your pilot.
HB: Yes. Or even in the mess when you weren’t on ops not to drink. He was very strict. He made sure we didn’t.
AS: And were they all like that?
HB: Yes. Well he was very strongly. My pilot.
AS: What was your accommodation like in the mess?
HB: Very communal. We always all used to chat about the operations. What they were like and coming back, how tough. Did you see this and that? Talk about the target. And the comradeship was really strong. Really strong. That’s what I missed when I went to the rest for six months you know and that was cushy. I missed the, I missed the life. It got into your blood. The comradeship of your friends. You’d be with them.
AS: You were telling me, you told me earlier about going to the Saracen’s Head in Lincoln.
HB: Yeah.
AS: Can you tell me about, about that?
HB: It was, it was a pleasure to go in to the Saracen’s Head because you met comrades you’d been in training with, now they were on different stations to you now. You met old friends and the comradeship. It was all full of air crew, the Saracen’s Head. Every, so many air crew in there, in there, all chatting and talking to one another. It was, the atmosphere was fantastic. Never before and after was there a place to go into like that. The atmosphere was Bomber Command, you know. Have you heard from so and so and seen so and so. Talk about the different raids.
AS: Did you go there very often?
HB: Did we go there?
AS: Very often?
HB: When we had a stand by, a stand down. Where? At the Saracen’s Head? You always went in there a lot. Up in Scunthorpe it wasn’t, we went in the Saracen’s Head but I look back with a great deal of pride I served in Bomber Command. I mean it was really tough at times, you know, the losses were fifty five thousand killed out of a hundred thousand. We took the biggest loss pro rata of any other force during the war and we still have that. All my best friends are ex bomber chaps. We all stuck to one another closely. You can’t find it with other people like you can with a, with a comrade. Mind you, in the army you know they had the same thing. My dad, he used to stand on street corners with others from the First World War all talking and chatting to one another in groups of three or four.
AS: Well thank you very much. It’s been, it’s been fascinating listening to your story.
HB: I hope you have. Oh what about a cup of tea?
AS: I’d love a cup of tea. 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 Alfred Huberman
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Sadler
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-29
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHubermanA160329
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.
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:10:46 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Alfred Huberman volunteered for the RAF when he was eighteen and trained as an air gunner. He describes the training and emphasises how physically hard it was. He flew 31 operations from RAF Elsham Wolds in Lancasters. These included operations over the Ruhr and the bombing of the V-3 weapon site at Mimoyecques. After he completed his tour he was stationed at a radar station but missed the camaraderie of his crew so volunteered for further active operational duties and served with the Pathfinder force at RAF Wyton. He completed a further 7 flights for Operations Manna and Exodus. After the war he was very active in forming the Air Gunner's Association and also served on the committee of the Bomber Command Association.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941
1944
1945
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
Germany
Great Britain
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
England--Cambridgeshire
England--Lincolnshire
France--Mimoyecques
Wales--Bridgend
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Carolyn Emery
576 Squadron
83 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bombing of the Mimoyecques V-3 site (6 July 1944)
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard (1917-1992)
crewing up
fear
Harris, Arthur Travers (1892-1984)
Lancaster
Master Bomber
military ethos
military service conditions
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
Operation Dodge (1945)
Operation Exodus (1945)
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
Pathfinders
physical training
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Elsham Wolds
RAF Wyton
training
V-3
V-weapon
Wellington
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/646/8916/AStubbsD150930.2.mp3
1e4e32774635ebeee4b861ed3e9a7411
Dublin Core
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Title
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Stubbs, Derrick
D Stubbs
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Stubbs, D
Description
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An oral history interview with Derrick Stubbs (Royal Air Force). He served as ground personnel with 73 Squadron and as a rear gunner with 40 Squadron in Italy.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Date
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2015-09-30
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
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AS: Ok. Well I think we’re, I think we’re ready. I think we’re ready to go.
DS: Ok.
AS: Fine. So –
DS: Should I start off by how I got in to the air force?
AS: Yes. That would be very useful. I’ll just introduce it. This is Andrew Sadler speaking to Derrick Stubbs on Wednesday the 30th of September 2015 for the International Bomber Command Digital Archive. So, yes Derrick.
DS: What happened?
AS: Tell me how you got into the RAF.
DS: I had two older brothers who were both called up for the army. And at seventeen years of age I was very jealous of them and rather silly but I decided I’d like to get into the forces. So I joined the Royal Fusiliers Cadets and I did training with them from the age of — age of fourteen. After two years I decided I really wanted to go into the army properly so I went to Croydon to the recruitment centre and lined up to join. And the guy said, ‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to come back when you’re eighteen.’ Well, I wouldn’t be beaten so as I left the army recruitment centre, I walked across the road and the Royal Air Force were recruiting. So, I went into their recruitment centre and told a lie and told them I was eighteen and they didn’t check up at all. I just signed. Therefore, much to my parent’s annoyance, a few weeks later I got my calling up papers to go to Catfoss. Up north to recruitment. So that’s how it all began.
AS: Tell me what, what — tell me about your parents. Was your father in the first war?
DS: No. My father was in Canada during the first war. He was asked to go out there and do some armament work. No. He wasn’t in the forces at all.
AS: Ok. So you were in the RAF at the age of seventeen.
DS: Absolutely. By telling lies. They thought I was eighteen. So [laughs] so I was young and stupid.
AS: So, so what about your training?
DS: So, after six months at recruitment they posted me to Egypt via the South African route during which we were attacked by the Germans. U-boats. And we had to call in at Durban for six weeks while we were hiding away and then we came out again and continued our journey to Egypt. Then I got off the boat at Egypt, in the Suez Canal and they posted me to a centre for the RAF just outside Alamein. So, I stayed there and did some training to become an air gunner.
AS: And what year was this?
DS: This was 1942. ‘41/42. Yeah. 1941. And so I did some training at a centre for — to become an air gunner and then they posted me to a squadron of Spitfires and Hurricanes. 73 Squadron, which was a Spitfire and Hurricane squadron and I was there as an armourer’s assistant for a while. Then I passed the course and became a fully trained armourer. So, they used to go on dogfights and come back and I’d re-arm the various planes. So, we went all the way with the 8th Army. From Alamein right up to Tunis, North Africa. Step by step by step by step stopping at various airports on the way. And then after being at Tunis for a while they decided they wanted to invade Italy. So, we landed, our squadron landed at Foggia in Italy and from there we went to an airport called Foggia which is in the middle of Italy. And we landed there. So, I was there when they were doing raids over Yugoslavia. Not called Yugoslavia any more. But various raids. So, after a while they were looking for recruitments for air gunners so I left 73 Squadron and joined 40 Squadron as a rear gunner on Wellington bombers. And so, I stayed at 40 Squadron in Italy for a period of time during which I did twenty two operations over Germany, Italy, Northern Italy, Yugoslavia. That area. So, I was overseas for four years. Four years for a single man and three years for a married man was the sentence you got. Sentence is the wrong word isn’t it [laughs] but that was the word. They told me I had to do four years. So, after four years I came back to England for a year and then of course I was demobbed.
AS: As I, I understand that the rear gunner was the most dangerous place to be.
DS: It was. Yes. It wasn’t a [pause] it had its moments. Yes. I was, I was very lucky to survive but then I didn’t go over Germans as often as some of the other planes did. So, we were train busting in Yugoslavia. We used to dive low and then strafe the trains as they were bringing the Germans in. The German troops were coming in. We used to strafe the trains. So that was the most — most the jobs were there. Obviously used to come back and there were bits of shrapnel here, bits of shrapnel there. It was amazing really. It was only a — the Wellington bomber was fabric covered so shrapnel used to go pfft pfft and go straight through. And it was a bit draughty [laughs]
AS: I mean what sort of losses did your squadron sustain?
DS: Quite, I would say, whilst I was there there must have been — just go by the sergeant’s mess. I would say there were sometimes as much as forty over a period of eight weeks. Six weeks. You know. Probably about forty. Used to go into the sergeant’s mess at night and say, where’s so and so and they’d say, ‘Oh. Won’t be back.’ That was a bit heart rending because you made, we were such close pals. The comradeship was amazing. We were such close buddies you know. It was really like a family. It was [pause] tears come into my eyes when I think what happened.
AS: When you, you said you did about twenty different sorties?
DS: Yeah.
AS: And how far apart were they?
DS: Sometimes about a week. A week at a time. We just got back and waited for the call to come again and we got to do another raid.
AS: But you were there four years.
DS: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: So –
DS: I was in the air force for a whole four years.
AS: Oh, I see.
DS: Yeah. But actually flying was for about eighteen months. Yeah.
AS: Right. So perhaps it wasn’t quite as dangerous as the, some of the British bombers that were going from Britain.
DS: It wasn’t like the thousand bomber raids that they used to have over Germany.
AS: No.
DS: We didn’t have the amount of casualties they had because, you know, train busting was one way traffic although they did fire at us of course ‘cause they had machines on some of the trucks so that’s why we sometimes got hit. Fortunately, we survived that. So –
AS: Can you describe what the preparation was when you went out on a mission?
DS: On a mission. All the aircrew. Bill Murphy was the pilot and he was an absolute gem. He would give me a call and he’d say, ‘Oh Stubbs,’ because they always, they always never called you by your Christian name. ‘Oh Stubbs. We’re taking off tomorrow. So whose side are you going to be on this time?’ He was a hell of a joker. So, I said, ‘Well, if you behave yourself I’ll be on your side.’ So he said, ‘We’re taking off tomorrow. We’ve got to be ready. Out at the — the liberty truck will take us out to the plane. We’re going to leave at 6.20. So make sure you’re all ready and have you checked your guns the night before to make sure they’re clean and everything spotless?’ ‘Oh absolutely.’ He gave us the instruction and then the following morning the, well one of the, not the, one of the helpers woke us up and said, ‘Hey, you’re off today.’ One of the actual airmen that used to wake us up.
AS: How many of you were on the crew?
DS: There was seven altogether. Yeah. So, there was a front gunner, rear gunner. There’s a picture outside of the Wellington bomber that I was in. Quite interesting. If you look outside here.
AS: Yeah.
DS: There’s a picture there.
[pause — leaves the room]
DS: That’s me. I haven’t changed at all. That’s a twin engine. And I used to sit there. And those were all the medals we got.
AS: [unclear]
DS: Yes, you could. Yeah. That means with the various bullets people fired — that’s a twenty millimetre. That’s a fifteen. And that’s a 303. Yeah.
AS: Can you — what sort of living conditions did you have when you were there?
DS: Not too bad. In Italy it wasn’t too, wasn’t too bad. On the desert campaign at Alemain up to Tunis food was a bit short. So, we lived really on corned beef. Corned beef. Corned beef. Corned beef. And dry biscuits. So, yeah and, of course, the Germans when we got to a place where we were going to have an oasis to drink they’d put poison in the water so we couldn’t. Never had any water. Had to go about a hundred miles and get some water in the bowser to come back but they flooded the blooming oasis with blooming poison. Dirty trick isn’t it?
AS: So where did you sleep? Did you —
DS: We were all under canvas. Four in a tent.
AS: And was that —
DS: Four in a tent.
AS: That must have been quite hot.
DS: Hot and cold and wet. Yes. It wasn’t very comfortable. No.
AS: And tell me about the relationship between the officers and the others. You were a sergeant I believe.
DS: I was a sergeant. Yeah. There was a good comradeship amongst us all but when we were in Foggia there was an American squadron on the other side of the airfield. What a difference they had with the names that both senior officers you called Joe or Bill where you had to say Mr Murphy. But they were so casual with their sort of friendship from the senior officers to the lowest ranks. Much more casual. It was much nice when we were invited over to the Americans because they were better fed than us. Yeah.
AS: So, the, your captain — what rank was he?
DS: Bill Murphy was a flight lieutenant.
AS: He was a flight lieutenant.
DS: Yeah. Yeah.
AS: So, he was an officer.
DS: He was an officer. Yeah. Yeah. So. He came from York. They’ve all passed away.
AS: Did you, so I mean, would, did the officers, did they live separately to the ranks?
DS: Oh yes. Very much so and food was a bit better than ours.
AS: Was it?
DS: Oh definitely. Yes.
AS: It sounds extraordinary.
DS: Yeah.
AS: And when you had, I mean when you were billeted you’d obviously got a lot of time there when you weren’t actually flying.
DS: Yeah.
AS: And what did you do then?
DS: Well, I used to walk out into the country and there was boxing. There was physical exercise and everything. In fact, I went in for one boxing match and I remember there was an Irishman called Bunty Doran in the army and it was the RAF versus the army in a boxing match. So, the boys said, ‘Derrick you ought to go up for this, you know. They need a middleweight.’ So, I said, ‘Oh, well, I’ll have a go at it. Yes. Ok.’ So, I did training for about a week or so. The boxing match came up. This Bunty Doran came out. An Irish guy. And as we were shaping up I just hit him a couple of times. I thought this is going to be good. And with that he took a whack [laughs] I was out in ten seconds. Didn’t know any more. And on the way back on the liberty truck the guys said, ‘Oh that was bad luck. Wait till next time.’ ‘I said, ‘There’s not going to be a next time.’
AS: So, when you [pause] can you describe what it was like actually being in the, in the aircraft when you were out on a mission?
DS: I will try my best. First of all, your stomach used to turn over as you took off. And then you had perhaps three quarters of an hour or an hour. You could sit there and relax and be ready. And then over the target you never knew from one minute to another so it was really nervous all the time. Eyes like this. Everywhere. In case there were fighter planes following or something which happened on a couple of occasions. A fighter plane came and I strafed it, you know. And it dived away. Whether I got it or not I don’t know. But that was a bit spine chilling when you had to sit there ready for anything could happen. You never knew from one minute to another. I’m telling you more than I have ever told anybody else.
AS: How did you, I mean how did you cope with that emotionally or psychologically?
DS: As soon as you got back in to the billet all your shivering and — it just disappeared, you know and it helped with all the other guys all blooming laughing and joking. They were. It disappeared. And then they would announce that Number 4 Squadron was going to take off at 0700 hours the following day and you’d think oh here we go again. So, it’s amazing how quickly you recovered. One because I was young. Young and stupid but amazing how you recovered and went back quite calmly when the lorry came to take us around to the various planes to climb through. You’d think oh here we go again.
AS: So, when you, when you left Egypt you came back to Britain. That was before the end of the war.
DS: So, I did a whole tour. They sent me back to Sicily after I’d done quite a few operations because it was affecting me physically. You know. It was knocking me to pieces. So, they sent me back to Catania. To a rest and leave camp and so I was there for quite a while recovering because I was getting a bit shaky. And then, then they sent me back to Tobruk for all reasons which was right in the blooming desert. They sent me back there ready to join a Lancaster squadron but it didn’t happen because they posted me back to Cairo because the war was finishing. So, I finished up back at Cairo driving a lorry of all things. After doing all the aircrew stuff I had a three tonne lorry we used to drive from the actual city to the airport. City to the airport. So, I was an DMT driver. Motor Transport. While I was waiting to get back to England. And then of course we got the boat from Egypt by an Italian crew. The actual boat was packed with soldiers, sailors, air. Absolutely packed with troops. It ran into an island off Sardinia so we were all, we were shipwrecked. The boat began to sink so the HMS Ark Royal came and rescued us. So we all had to get off the boat, go on a little boat out to the Ark Royal and then climb on the Ark Royal and we finished up back in Egypt again.
AS: How did you come to be on a boat with an Italian crew? Weren’t they the enemies?
DS: No. The war had finished and the Italians, you know, then became our friends. The Italians, you know, I met a lot of Italians. Their heart wasn’t in the war from day one. You know. They really, you could tell by their defeats that they were so easily beaten. Their heart wasn’t in it. Mussolini forced them in to it of course. But yes, it was an Italian crew. But that was, so, that was I thought oh God I shall never get home. It was called the Medlock Route. So, what we did — you leave Egypt, you go to Southern France and then you get a train from southern France right across France and then a boat would pick us up and take us across the channel. So that was quite an end. After four years I thought I’d never get back.
AS: So how, how long were you out of England altogether?
DS: Three years.
AS: Three years.
DS: Yeah. Over three years. Yeah.
AS: So really pretty well most of your time.
DS: Yeah. Really all the time was overseas. Yeah.
AS: And when were you actually demobbed? Was it after came got back to England?
DS: Yeah. After we got back I was posted to Reading and in the MT section. Motor Transport section. And just waiting to get demobbed which took about six months before my number came up. So, I was stationed at Reading waiting to get demobbed. Yeah.
AS: And how did you, how did you acclimatise back to civilian life?
DS: Not too bad because just before the war, before — I worked at the Stock Exchange as a clerk at the Stock Exchange. That’s how I became a Cadet for the Royal, Royal Fusiliers. Because they had a recruitment centre there. I went back to the Stock Exchange and adapted to becoming a clerk again in an office. Adapted fairly easily. Yeah.
AS: And did you, did they keep your old job for you?
DS: Well, I was only the office boy. Yeah. So, the job was open. Yeah. I could go back. I didn’t stay there long. I went from one stockbrokers to another stockbrokers for more money. Yeah. I heard of another job going at a bigger stockbrokers who were paying more money and I left and joined that other one. So, I stayed at the Stock Exchange for quite a few years and then I heard that American banks were opening in London. So, I got a job with the Chase National Bank which was then one of the largest banks in the world. So, I worked for Chase for quite a few years. Picked up a lot of experience because I didn’t have the, I left school at fourteen. I didn’t have a very high education but I did pick up things quite good. And I’d been at The Chase for about ten years and another American bank came in to London. City Bank. And one day I had a telephone call. ‘This is’ — I’ve forgotten his name now. So and so of City Bank. ‘Derrick would you like to join me for lunch one day?’ So, I said, ‘Well yes. I could do.’ So, I went and joined him for lunch. He said, ‘How long have you been with Chase?’ And, I told him. So he said, ‘Well, what a job?’ ‘I do international financial loans for companies.’ You know. Running in to millions sometimes. So, he said, ‘Would you be interested in joining us?’ I said, ‘Oh I don’t know.’ He said, ‘What’s your salary?’ So, I told him my salary. ‘Supposing I doubled your salary?’ And said, ‘Do you get a company car? I said, ‘No I don’t.’ He said, ‘Well, you get a company car. Would you be interested?’ [laughs] ‘When do I start?’ And when I went back to the bank. The American bank — what was his name but he was a [unclear] He was from Dallas. But I went back. I said [pause] Why can’t I remember his name? Oh, Mr Felder. Oh, Mr Felder. Dean. We used to call him — being an American they always their first name. ‘Oh, Dean. I thought I’d tell you that I’ve decided I’m going to leave.’ ‘Oh, Jesus Christ. How much do you want?’ I said, ‘Oh, Dean, I wouldn’t do that because I’d given Chase my word that I would join them.’ You know. So, he said, ‘Ok. Well tell the messenger, the head messenger to, when you go out the door to lock the door so you can’t come back.’ Silly bastard. So that was, I suddenly — I went right up. I became a vice president.
AS: Oh God.
DS: Amazing. With a fourteen year old education.
AS: Excellent. Did you, did you keep in touch with your comrades from the RAF?
DS: For a long time but they, they’ve all died. Not, not one left.
AS: No.
DS: But Bill Murphy invited me up to York and it was touching really. Almost brings tears to your eyes. So when, and he had a big house. He was a monied man and, ok, he said, ‘Come up for the weekend. To York.’ So, I went up there. One night there was a knock at the door and he said, ‘Answer the door Derrick can you, because I’m busy.’ I answered the door and there was little Jock. He was the rear, he was the front gunner. And there was little Jock there. ‘What are you doing here you arsehole?’ [laughs] So he was the only one left. So, the front gunner and I was the rear gunner and the pilot was there. So –
AS: How long ago was that?
DS: Oh, a long time ago. Oh, years ago. It was soon after we came back. Yeah. All gone.
AS: And were the rest of the crew, were they all British or were there Canadians and –?
DS: Yeah. All British
AS: They were all British.
DS: Yeah. Yeah. All British yeah. Yeah. Wouldn’t be now though would it? In fact, you know, on 73 Squadron, the Spitfire and Hurricane squadron, it was all white. There were no black people at all. Not one black person. Wouldn’t be these days would it?
AS: No.
DS: If you leave the front door here and you’re outnumbered almost immediately.
AS: How did you, I mean when, I mean you must have had — what sort of social life did you have when you were in the –?
DS: Oh, very good. Yeah. I used to sing a song, “Nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty.” When we were in the mess they’d say, ‘Come on Derrick. Give us a song.’ So, I used to sing, “Nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty. Nobody loves a fairy when she’s old. She may have magic power but that is not enough. They like their bit of magic from a younger bit of stuff.” And they used to make me sing that when I’d had a few drinks. And there were other guys that would get up and there used to be a real comradeship. It was amazing.
AS: But you couldn’t have had any girlfriends out there.
DS: No. Not one.
AS: No.
DS: Not one.
AS: When you went overseas did you get any choice about where you went or did they just decide?
DS: They just told you where. You had no choice. No. No. You just finished up where they said.
AS: So, you just did as you were told.
DS: Yeah.
AS: And why? Do you think there was any particular reason why they sent you overseas rather than — rather than stay in the UK?
DS: I can’t think of a reason. It just, just your luck. I suppose 73 Squadron decided they wanted to go to Alemein and they started recruiting. And so, the guy, the air force head office — him, him, him, him, him, him. And that’s it. yeah. Just how it happened
AS: And was all your work in Halifaxes?
DS: It was the [pause] the Wellingtons to begin with. The twin engine Wellingtons.
AS: Yes.
DS: And then the [pause] not Wellingtons. I’ve forgotten the name of the other plane now.
AS: Lancasters.
DS: No. Lancasters were too big. It’s out there. No. The Wellingtons was a twin engine bomber.
AS: Yes.
DS: That which is out there. I’ve gone. Gone to pieces. I can’t think what it was now. But it was a Wellington to begin with. Yeah. Oh, because on the desert campaign I was just an armourer on the Spitfires and Hurricanes.
AS: Oh right.
DS: Yeah. Yeah. It was only when we got to Italy they asked for volunteers to become air gunners. That’s when I joined the Wellington bomber squadron. Yeah. Amazing.
AS: And why did you volunteer for that?
DS: Because I’m stupid. My dad used to say —
AS: I mean if you were, if you were arming —
DS: Yeah.
AS: The planes on the ground that would seem to be like a fairly safe occupation.
DS: I know. I know,
AS: But the rear gunner was the reverse.
DS: I know. It was a sort of [pause] I don’t know. I was a bit bored and I put my hand up.
AS: I mean was it considered a bit more glamourous to be flying?
DS: I suppose it was. The money was a bit better. But really, you know, that silly age. You didn’t, didn’t think about the danger. You think you’d be.
AS: Did you get increased rank for it?
DS: Yeah. They made you acting sergeant. Just a temporary. Temporary sergeant while you were flying but immediately you’d finished flying they’d take the sergeant’s stripes off so you become a leading aircraftman again. Yeah. So, it was only a temporary, temporary thing.
AS: Right. So, there was no great increase in status.
DS: No. No. Not really. It was just you had better quarters to sleep in as a sergeant. There was only like two in a tent whereas usually other ranks was four in a tent. So, different. It’s difficult to say. Why the hell did I put my hand up to become aircrew? But there we are I was surrounded by thousands of other aircrew. You did silly things in those days.
AS: And you were obviously very young. You were. How old were you then?
DS: Eighteen and a half. Nineteen.
AS: Yeah. And presumably you were a year younger than they thought you were.
DS: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was quite an experience. Four years. A long time.
AS: What do you think about the legacy of the, of the Bomber Command? Because the Bomber Command — many people think they weren’t given sufficient credit for the work that they did after the war.
DS: I think. Well I think, I think they were given credit for it. I mean, it’s difficult to say really. Difficult to answer that question. You had a certain amount of pride to say that you were a rear gunner but I don’t know. But it was a amazing time. You know. You’d go in to the mess at night and there would be half a dozen missing. And you would say oh so and so. ‘Oh he got it today.’ ‘Well I saw him. His plane landed. Would I hear from him again?’ ‘Maybe.’ You know. It was when you got back and talked it over it became sort of a lump in your throat because the night before you were laughing and joking with them. So it did hurt.
AS: What’s the —
DS: Amazing blokes though. They were really amazing blokes. You couldn’t believe in the mess the night before we were flying off how they were laughing and joking and playing all sorts of tricks. Climbing up the posts. Absolutely daft as anything.
AS: Presumably it wasn’t a good thing to go flying if you’d got a hangover.
DS: No. No. But then it certainly — well we were drinking Vermouth and Italian wine of course. There wasn’t any beer available but we used to get a bottle of Italian wine from the local people. To knockback Italian wine.
AS: What, what did you think of Bomber Harris before or during the war?
DS: I have a certain amount of pride for him. Yeah. Yeah.
AS: You thought he was a very —
DS: Yeah. Yeah. He was. He was very good. He had a rotten job to do. A rotten job. I mean he was sending people to their deaths wasn’t he? But there was no way of — it had to be done. Had to be done. I don’t think you could criticise him for the way he acted. Had to send so many people to their deaths. Yeah.
AS: And Churchill. What do you think his —
DS: Lovely. I love him. My father was with municipal works in the Strand and quite high up as a builder and Churchill used to come around the West End and look at various buildings that had been bombed. And my father had to show him around sometimes and he said that Churchill was rather blunt in his language. And things like that. But he said — my dad liked him. Yes. He was a man’s people. And troops liked him as well. Liked his style. Yeah.
AS: And is there anything else you’d like to talk about?
DS: Well. Not really. I mean, just general chit chat. And of course like everything else. An American stayed here because working for the Bank of New York I’d still got contacts in America. So, this guy came over and stayed with me for a couple of weeks and he gave me this note. He said, ‘When you were talking to me in New York at my house. I had to write down what we was talking about.’ He said, ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve written down what you told us.’ I didn’t realise that he’d kept a note of everything I’d said to him.
AS: Yes. You enlisted in the cadets at seventeen.
DS: That’s right. That was the Royal Fusiliers and of course I couldn’t get into the regular until you’re eighteen.
AS: When shipping out of England the Yanks were coming in.
DS: That’s right. That was. As our troop ship went out so the Yanks were coming in [laughs] and so we all cheered and booed as they came in.
AS: Everyone was raising up the other troops. You first landed in South Africa because the Mediterranean Sea was blocked.
DS: That’s right. Yes. That was at Durban. We landed at Durban where we hid away for a while.
AS: The lady that took you in had you give a talk about the irrigation of the Pyrenees.
DS: Oh yes. I went [laughs] I went to a party with the South Africans one night and I was so embarrassed and so she said, this was a big audience there, and, ‘This is Derrick Stubbs. He comes from London. He’s on the way to Egypt. He would like to talk about the irrigation.’ Well I never knew anything about irrigation in the Pyrenees. So I said, I had to make some excuse. I couldn’t answer. I said, ‘Oh, I’m afraid I’ve lost the material.’ Oh, how embarrassing.
AS: The convoy you were in, that you were moving into passed another one that was coming back and you came across your brother Stan.
DS: Yes. That’s right. Yes. Stan. My older brother Stan. He’d been called up by the army. Been out to Egypt. Did his service and came back and he was on the same. So, we exchanged some friendship. It was amazing.
AS: The night before the battle the big guns blasted all night.
DS: They did. Oh at El Alemein the night before. And the sound of the bagpipes. The sound of bagpipes. You had goosepimples on top of goosepimples. The sound was. Then it went quiet and suddenly the barrage started.
AS: They sounded the bagpipes before the battle.
DS: Yeah. They did and then the battle began. And the sound of it. Of course, our squadron was quite behind the lines. You could hear it so clearly. Oh and it — the barrage went on and on. Bang bang bang all night and that that was the beginning of the turning of the war, I think. The Alamein battle.
AS: And the Wellington had fabric sides and when a shell hit it it would make a popping sound.
DS: That’s right. It did.
AS: On the ground they would glue a patch on it.
DS: Yeah. That’s all they did. You got back and they’d put a patch on. They were called riggers. The riggers came and they’d put, ‘Where’s the –?’ ‘Oh there’s a hole over there.’ Patch.
AS: And then in bombing supply trains sometimes the train would go faster than the Wellington.
DS: Yes. That’s true. It wasn’t very fast. A Wellington. About a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty. Something like that.
AS: And then one mission Bill Murphy said, ‘Give them everything you’ve got,’ so you did and he then said, ‘We have to go around again,’ and was mad when you told him you were out of ammo.
DS: Well, of course, what did he want to go around twice for. No. He wasn’t quite happy with our first raid and decided he wanted to go in again but I had no ammo left. So, I had to sit there with nothing. With no guns. No ammo at all. And he went around just the same.
AS: Murphy often asked whose side you were on.
DS: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
AS: He thought you might win the Iron Cross.
DS: [laughs] He was a sod. He was always teasing me.
AS: And then in the barracks you would swing on the rafters by your feet saying, ‘I’m a bat,’ until one night you fell off.
DS: Oh, if I got a bit pissed. Yes. I used to climb up on the rafters and swing backward and forwards. Yes. Yes. After I’d had a few drinks.
AS: Yes. And in Foggia the Yanks would invite you over for dinner.
DS: That’s right. Yes.
AS: And once in a while you were surprised by how informal the officers and enlisted men were.
DS: I really was. They were, whatever rank they was always first names.
AS: When you went to Catonia for —
DS: Catania. Yeah.
AS: Catania. For R&R. That’s rest and rehabilitation.
DS: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.
AS: You met Maria. Your first love.
DS: [unclear] The first girl I ever had an affair with. I was absolutely saturated in love. Oh, she was lovely too.
AS: You told her you would see her the following evening.
DS: Yeah.
AS: However, you were given orders to ship out.
DS: Absolutely.
AS: To North Africa and couldn’t even say goodbye.
DS: No. Bastards. There was just a few hours’ notice. ‘There’s a plane waiting for you to take you back to the desert.’
AS: On the boat back to England it was operated by the Italians and it ran into something.
DS: That’s right. Yeah.
AS: Yeah. In the Mediterranean.
DS: Yeah.
AS: And began to sink and you were rescued.
DS: He’s done it well. Yeah.
AS: By HMS Belfast.
DS: Oh, Belfast was it? Yeah.
AS: Four men died trying to transfer to the Belfast.
DS: Yeah.
AS: On one mission your navigator died of gunshot wounds.
DS: Yeah.
AS: And Murphy said the way he laid on the cockpit floor was quite inconvenient.
DS: It was horrible. I had to go down and, he said, ‘Go down and see what’s happened.’ And I went down there and there he was. Blood everywhere. Horrible. Horrible. Laughing and joking with him the night before.
AS: Yeah.
DS: Oh, would you like a coffee by the way?
AS: Well, let me just — can I just say thank you then and I’ll just switch off?
DS: Yes.
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 Derrick Stubbs
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Sadler
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-09-30
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AStubbsD150930, PStubbsD1501
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Format
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00:46:52 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Description
An account of the resource
Derrick Stubbs joined the RAF at 17, after lying about his age after previously being told he was too young by the army recruiter. After training at Catfoss, Derrick was posted to Egypt and was attacked by U-boats on route. Derrick did some training to become an air gunner. He worked as an armourer’s assistant in 73 Squadron servicing Spitfires and Hurricanes and then became a full armourer. Derrick then joined 40 Squadron as a rear gunner in Wellingtons partaking in 22 operations over Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia flying from Foggia. Derrick talks of the living conditions whilst stationed in Tunis and Italy and how being an air gunner was a dangerous place to be. Derrick also talks of boxing in his off time and a match between the RAF and Army and recalls being in rest and rehabilitation in Catonia. Concludes with being Dereck talking about being demobbed, working as a clerk in the stock exchange in London, and his promotions. Finally speaks of his admiration for Churchill and the legacy of Bomber Command.
40 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
coping mechanism
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/719/10114/ABorthwickS180306.2.mp3
2ff5ec8d7ba556eaacdc93f61495839b
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
Borthwick, Sidney
S Borthwick
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Sidney Borthwick (b. 1925). He flew operations as an air gunner with 101 Squadon.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Borthwick, S
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AS: Ok. So, there we are. So, this is Andrew Sadler interviewing Sidney Borthwick at his home in Staines on Tuesday the 5th of March 2018. Sidney, can you, you were telling me about how you signed up in to the Air Force. Can you tell me about that?
[pause]
SB: It’s a bit indistinct now but there were recruitment areas in every town weren’t they? Staines. No. Where was it?
Other: West Hartlepool?
SB: But I’ve always had something wrong with my left arm. A tumour on the bone shaft of my left arm or something. The kind of thing that when you were in the playground at school. They’d just maybe let you out of lessons and you were all mad and you were chasing each other and they used to grab me and it was right where this tumour was on my, on my left arm. And it was like something on the bone that when they did things like that it wobbled about. I’ve still got it [laughs] It’ll only be, it’s long forgotten now you know but I was in the playground. I had to be very careful in the rough and tumble of [pause] what was that famous thing we used to play? Tig or something like that.
Other: Tag.
SB: Tag, and —
Other: And did this affect you for going in to the —
SB: Well, they used to grab my left, my arm you see and under there somewhere there was like a nodule or something. A tumour on the bone shaft of my left arm.
Other: But did that affect you joining the Air Force?
SB: Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. You had to keep your mouth closed about that, you know. So I think I probably went somewhere in this area to volunteer and they thought [pause] So I thought, well I’ll go to another place. There was another place. I forget the name of it now. I’ll go up there. I went in. Wanted to volunteer, you know. Here I am. ‘Yeah. Yeah. Fine. You’re in.’ [laughs] So a lesson in life that sometimes you’ve got to [unclear] [laughs] Yeah. So, yeah.
AS: And how old were you then? Was this before the war or after it had started?
SB: Doesn’t say anything in here, does it?
Other: You’ve always said that you lied about you age.
SB: I haven’t seen this in ages.
Other: You always said, dad that you lied about your age. If you had to be eighteen you were only seventeen but you put your age forward to the point that I always remember mum always said she never really knew what you were at a birthday because you kept it up.
[pause]
SB: Sergeant Brooking. I wonder how he is nowadays.
[pause]
AS: Can you tell me anything about the training that you did? How did you come to become a gunner?
SB: How come?
AS: How did you come to become a gunner?
SB: Well —
[door chimes interrupt recording]
SB: If you volunteered. A lot of people said, you know. ‘I want to be up there.’ You see. But I wasn’t like that. I knew I had limitations so I thought well there’s plenty of appendages on there, you know. You can be a bomb aimer, a mid-upper gunner and all the rest of it. So I didn’t cast my line and I always lived with the thought that one day they were going to walk up to me and say, ‘Are you Sid Borthwick?’ And I’d say, ‘Yes.’ And he’d say, ‘Yeah. Well, we know all about you. Bugger off.’[laughs] So, yeah I think I went [pause] [unclear] place. What’s it called? I forget now.
[pause]
SB: So, I learned pretty quickly when to keep my mouth shut and things like that. You, you lived in fear when your turn would come. They had a thing that spun around. I forget what it was but it was part, part of your volunteering. You passed these things and I thought I don’t think I’ll ever get through that but yeah. Be like mum. Or be like dad, keep mum. So, the less you say that can [pause] they could put up against you afterwards the better.
AS: Can you tell me about the training you had?
SB: Training?
AS: Yes.
SB: Well, yes. It’s all written down in the book.
[pause]
SB: Units at which served. ACRC. Aircrew Recruitment. St Johns Wood. In brackets I’ve put Lord’s. So, is there a big err St Johns Wood? What is the name of that?
AS: The Cricket Ground. Lord’s Cricket Ground.
SB: 4th of January 1944. And then I went to Bridlington, Bridgnorth. Stormy Down. And then Ludford Magna. Christ almighty. Catterick. Christ, I was up in Blackpool. I remember that. I had a good time up there.
AS: Can you tell me where you were posted?
[pause]
SB: I was at ACRC. At obviously, Air Crew Recruitment, St Johns Wood and I’ve got here Lord’s. 4th of January ’44. So there must have been a place up there where you went. [unclear] Upper Heyford. Scampton. Bottesford. Ludford Magna. Catterick. Kirkham. Blackpool. West Kirby. Demob. Off.
AS: Can you remember how you came to be a gunner?
SB: Capabilities. You know in your own mind. You know what you could take on without [pause] Although I always remember at school I was always in the back row. Of course, it gives you good pretensions that, you know. I don’t know what your school was like. Your headmaster sat down there and in the front row you had all the dummies as we used to call them, you know. People as thick as two planks. They were, you can imagine him standing there thinking how am I going to drum anything in to this lot? And I knew from that, the seating in the classroom how I was doing, you know. If you got yourself in the back row away from, the master used to sit in the front with the big cane didn’t he to see if you were awake. And I knew from that what I was capable of or what I thought I was capable of. So I might have diminished myself in certain respects but it gave me a line that I wanted to be above possibly. And without any, what did you call it educationally? You got secondary education, was it? The first. Secondary.
[pause]
SB: Yeah. I wasn’t going to set the world on fire.
AS: Can you tell me anything about the training you did to become a gunner?
[pause]
SB: It’s not very clear to me actually.
AS: Can you remember where you were? Where you were stationed? You said, you said something. You read from your logbook you were in Scampton. Can you tell us something about that?
[pause]
SB: Yes. This this is the book they give you when you join. You join up. Certificates of qualification etcetera. [pause] And then it goes all the way with you through. Red ink for night flying. Blue ink for daytime. Stormy Down. Yeah. Old Anson. I remember that.
AS: Could you tell us about that?
[pause]
SB: I couldn’t get on quick enough. It was, it was like taking a lad from the streets and I’m talking now a long time ago.
[telephone ringing]
[pause]
AS: Did you go on many missions? Can you tell us about some of those?
[pause]
SB: What? In the real war you mean?
[pause]
SB: Do you remember Concorde?
AS: Yes.
SB: Concorde BOAE. Passenger proving flight. Two hours up the Bay of Biscay. That was Concorde. A brand new aeroplane. [pause] ACRC. That was the old Bridlington. Then to Bridgnorth. Then to Stormy Down. Upper Heyford. Scampton. Bottesford. Ludford Magna. Catterick. Kirkham. Blackpool. Training. I was shoved off to India when they’d finished with me.
AS: Can you tell me about that?
[pause]
AS: What did you do after the war? Did you manage to settle back in to civilian life?
SB: Yeah.
AS: Was it difficult or easy?
SB: I’ve got in here Blackpool. Retraining [pause] as an equipment assistant. So it sounds like my flying days are over. Remustering training because when, when the war ended they wanted, well the lads who had been up where ever fighting the war. Serving. They all wanted to come back to England. Be in Blighty again. So lots of people like me, probably midway let him go on. So, the next thing I know I’m up in Ceylon. I’m posted overseas. Mind you it was wonderful. You’d never see [laughs] Never see them in your lifetime. Sitting here kind of thing. It’s the place to be. You see the ladies picking [pause] oh what the hell do they call them? Actually, you know the things are actually growing up there. You go from the, one day dropping bloody bombs all over the place. A couple of weeks later you’re in a foreign country. Why? Well, those lads had been up there so they’re due to come home and we need to replace them, don’t we? Yes. Off you go then. Next. [unclear] you’re sitting ladies in the, where was it? Ceylon? [pause] And they’re picking, yeah what the hell was it? What is tea like? The plant. A shrub isn’t it? [pause] Mind you, for a single bloke it was a good life.
AS: What were you doing in Ceylon? Why did you go to Ceylon?
SB: Because the government sent me there, I suppose. I didn’t volunteer for it. I just, as I say it was the time of life like that. The next thing I know I’m sitting on a bloody great liner with my feet over the edge. ‘What rank are you?’ ‘Flight sergeant.’ ‘Right. Well, you see all these squaddies sitting on this liner with you? Right. Tell them to get their feet back in. Inboard. They must not sit on the edge with their feet dangling over.’ [laughs] I thought, well I’ll tell you it was the way of it was a weird old thing, yeah. A couple of days later you land somewhere and the ladies are picking tea and things like that.
AS: Can you tell me anything about the Lancaster because you were on Lancasters, weren’t you?
SB: I was on Lancasters. Yes. A rear gunner on a Lancaster.
[pause]
Other: Can I do you another coffee?
AS: No. I’m fine thank you very much.
Other: Yeah? Can I switch this off, dad? It’s quite warm. Can I take your tea?
AS: Can you tell me anything about your squadron reunions that you, can you tell me anything about your squadron reunions?
[pause]
SB: I don’t think there are squadron reunions.
[pause]
AS: Can you remember being at Scampton, because I think you were at Scampton, weren’t you? In Lincolnshire.
SB: What?
AS: Scampton. Were you in Scampton?
[pause]
SB: It’s funny when you look at these things. Things you, because the Dutch refused to cooperate with the Germans. They were starved.
AS: And you went and dropped some food for them, didn’t you?
SB: Yeah.
AS: Can you tell me about that?
SB: Well, as I remember it we just went on to the runway, opened the bomb doors, right and rammed in as much stuff as you could. Not giving a lot of thought to what it is and we just kept doing that and then said to the skipper, ‘Pile on a bit more. Not a lot but a little bit more.’ And these because the bomb doors came down like that kept closing them down. Closing them down. Closing them down. Closing and they kept ramming stuff in to give to these people who were starving because the Germans, the Germans wouldn’t give them any food, would they? Because, because the Dutch refused to cooperate with the Germans they were starved themselves. Yeah.
[pause]
SB: I often wonder because we never kept, I mean if you flew all this time with all these people when you were demobbed that was it. Well, really —
[pause]
AS: Good.
[pause]
AS: You’ve got a good number of videos about the war, I think.
SB: “Imperial War Museum. The Official Collection. Royal Air Force at War.” Mind you, you’ve got to have plenty to, I used to have these. Yeah. There’s the lads bombing up. The front turret of a Lancaster. Crew positions of a Lancaster. [pause] I’m not quite sure if that’s my position there. Rear turret in a Lancaster. Yeah. [pause] “The story of the Lancaster bomber.”
AS: Ok.
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 Sidney Borthwick
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andrew Sadler
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018-03-06
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
ABorthwickS180306
Format
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00:40:45 audio recording
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
England--Yorkshire
Sri Lanka
England--London
England--Blackpool
England--Lancashire
England--Cheshire
Netherlands
Description
An account of the resource
Sidney enlisted on 4th January 1944 at the Air Crew Reception Centre, Lord’s cricket ground. He was accepted despite a tumour on his left arm. Sidney was a rear gunner on Lancasters. After trained at Blackpool, he served at RAF Bottesford, RAF Bridgnorth, RAF Bridlington, RAF Catterick, RAF Kirkham, RAF Ludford Magna, RAF Scampton, RAF Stormy Down and RAF West Kirby. He recalls operation Manna. When the war ended, Sidney had an overseas posting to Ceylon.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944
1945
1946
1944-01-04
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Sally Coulter
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending revision of OH transcription
101 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
Operation Manna (29 Apr – 8 May 1945)
RAF Bottesford
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Catterick
RAF Kirkham
RAF Ludford Magna
RAF Scampton
RAF Stormy Down
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/PHolmesGH1604.2.jpg
134f273cd93e015a7d789b8e877b159b
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/583/8852/AHolmesGH161016.1.mp3
cc225552ec17450d62364d1a1b362db0
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
Holmes, George
George Henry Holmes
G H Holmes
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Holmes, GH
Description
An account of the resource
Nine items. An oral history interview with Pilot Officer George Holmes (b. 1922, 1579658, 187788 Royal Air Force) his log book, records of operation, newspaper cuttings and photographs of personnel. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 9, 50 and 83 Squadrons.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by George Holmes and catalogued by Nigel Huckins
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-21
2017-01-14
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AH: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Anna Hoyles. The interviewee is Mr George Henry Holmes. The interview is taking place at Mr Holmes’ home [deleted] Lincolnshire on the 16th of October 2016.
GH: Yes. I had some very lucky escapes. We had, we were going to [pause] I’ve written it down. I’ve got a terrible memory.
[pause]
GH: Stuttgart in Germany. And of course they originated in France thinking possibly that there wouldn’t be many, many night fighters there but we got caught and we got shot and it took off the bomb bay doors. They fractured the starboard wheel, ruptured the main spar and left us with cannon shells stuck in the fuel tanks which is actually really instantaneous. And we did a belly landing when we got back and I was one of the first out and running. Somebody said, ‘Are you frightened?’ I said, ‘Have you seen a Lanc go up in flames?’ And the bloke said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well. Well, when you do you’ll run faster than I do.’ And actually they took these cannon shells away by the, if you handled the armament, whatever and emptied them they found out that the cannon shells actually had been filled with sand instead of explosives. Otherwise we would have gone up in one. And that was once. And another night someone on a circuit when we were coming, of course I was at Skellingthorpe at the time and there were about five or six airfields all around. And we had a bump and nearly got tipped over by the windstream of another aircraft. And when we landed there was about five foot off the end of the pit, of the end of the aeroplane gone. That was, I think we could call a very near miss. And all through my career they used to say you’ve got to get it right. The good crews survive and the bad crews don’t. But when you’re dealing with an aeroplane that’s attacking you at about between five and six hundred mile an hour you don’t have time to work out all the superlatives. You just learn how to, well you have to try to get him in to four hundred yards for the ammo to be, do any damage whatsoever. And these would wait about a thousand yards and pump these things in to you, you know. But, yes we lost a lot of young men at the time. Look back sometimes and I think how the hell did we get through it?
AH: How did you come to join the RAF?
GH: Mixed feelings. I was living in Kettering at the time and I would be about six years of age. I’d only just joined school which was a joining age in those days of about six years I think and I saw the R100 or the R101 in the sky. A most amazing sight. And of course everybody was reading Biggles books so I wanted to be a Biggles man. And my father wouldn’t sign any papers for me so when I was eighteen I went down and joined the RAF as an air gunner. But there were so many enlisting at the time it was over twelve months I think before I was called. And they wanted me to be a pilot or navigator. I said, ‘No. I want to be an air gunner W/Op.’ Anyway, I finished up there. They made me a wireless operator / air gunner. Well, up to going into the air force I’d hoped to be a semi-professional musician because I played the violin from seven years of age to when I went in the air force, eighteen. And I played the violin, trumpet and a mandolin. And the man who was teaching me he used to make instruments and he was going to teach me how to make them. And, you know when I went in the air force I was in the air force for just over five years. I couldn’t get back to the standard that I was in and work for a living at the same time because you’ve got to put about two to three hours a day in you know, to it. So I abandoned the musical stuff. And actually I was at an old miner’s school. A corrugated tin hut thing and when we moved to Leicester and I was a top boy at the school. The teaching, they taught us in that stinking little old tin hut was beyond their, what they were teaching us in there. They told me I couldn’t do joined up writing. We’d got to go back to scroll, you know. But I went to a school that was attached to the College of Art and Technology and I was studying textiles and hosiery. And I earned a very good living through the entire working life producing socks, stockings, knee socks and things like that. Of course you got paid in on production in those days. You didn’t get a standing wage. The more you made the more you got paid. And you were allowed ten needles per week and if you broke more than that you had to pay for them. Six pence each I think they were then. The unions would go bloody mad now wouldn’t they? [laughs] I had a very good education really. I was very fortunate. I was almost fluent in French. The French master said, ‘I can’t understand you, Holmes. You’re the worst pupil I’ve ever had. You’re always talking, take no notice, I can’t understand how you’ve got top of the class in French.’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s simple. You gave us a half an hour’s homework and I always got an hour. So I worked harder than anybody else.’ [laughs] But I had a very good — my parents were not wealthy. My dad was a manager of a, the management of a grocery shop. You know these, what they were before the war. Several strains of food, food retailers and I really thought I was going to be a semi-professional musician. But I abandoned that scheme altogether and I got my sleeves rolled up and got stuck in this hosiery thing. ‘Til the war of course and then I couldn’t get, I couldn’t wait to get in the air force. And I finished up as a wireless operator / air gunner due to the fact, I always presumed, I don’t know whether it’s true or not but the fact that I had learned music, got some dashes and all like that. Morse code came easy and I was a very good operator. But apart from that I had a very happy marriage. I’ve got one son. He’s sixty seven now. And a he’s a fourth [unclear] at Judo. But life is a wonderful thing. Not to be wasted. And when you look at the war and see the number of thousands of young people who were wasted in the war. And the building and the costs. At the end of the day you have to sit around a table and talk it over from the first day. Save a lot of trouble and strife. But of course in those days Bomber Command was the thing.
AH: So you wanted to join Bomber Command?
GH: Oh yes. But then when you say wanted to join Bomber Command I’d always worked shifts. Night shifts and three shifts and things. I thought if I go in to the air force I’d be alright. And what did they do? They stuck me on Bomber Command. It was night work. But it wasn’t altogether good so as you look in the book you’ll see I did quite a number of daylight operations.
AH: Where did you train?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Where did you train? Where did you do your training?
GH: Where did I do my training? It was wonderful really. I I went to Blackpool first of all. That was the Number 10 RS something it was called. Signals Reserve or something. And they were all radio personnel in the air force up there. And we had a bloke called corporal [pause] I forget his name now. Corporal. Used to take us to the arm drill and foot drill. And his stage name was Max Wall. Can you imagine a man like Max Wall teaching you? Amazing. And then I went down to Yatesbury for a radio course. And I was posted then to Manby in the ground wireless op ‘til they could fit me into an air gunner’s course. Well, Manby in those days was number 1 AS. Air Armaments School and they taught bomb aimers and air gunners. We kept going to see the groupie and saying, ‘Get us on the course for air gunners.’ ‘No. You have to wait until you come through officially.’ When it did come through we was at a place called Evanton. About forty mile north of Inverness. First time I’d been to Scotland. In June it was. And it was a wonderful summer. And it was the first time I’d seen the shaggy Highland cattle. And I was taken by Scotland ever after that. Then after that, the gunnery course, I was sent to Market Harborough which is now a prison. And I used to push off home every night. After being there about three weeks the CO said, ‘We’re getting rid of you. You’re never here.’ It used to take me an hour to get home from Market Harborough on the local bus through all these villages. Little villages. And I was posted to Silverstone. And at Silverstone if you went in and out by railway you could get a train called the Master Cutler which was a high speed train from Sheffield to London and back. It used to do that in forty five minutes. That was quicker than being in [laughs] And I got crewed up there then and joined the [unclear] so to speak but I suppose if you were young men you had to be in something. You had no objection. I mean, no one wanted you to be a conscientious objector or anything. There we were. I joined Bomber Command and I was very lucky because I got with some good crews and I must admit I was commissioned towards the end of the war as a wireless op and I got operational strain and one thing or another. I was a bit of a drunkard. The only way of overcoming some of the strenuous [pause] I mean the beer we were drinking in those days I think was 1.2 percent alcohol. The water you washed the glasses in was stronger than the beer.
AH: So did you drink mainly beer? Or did you drink other stuff?
GH: No. No. The doc said, our doc on the squadron, ‘Go out and get pissed. It’ll do you good. Don’t go on spirits.’ And I was based around here. Around Louth. One way or another. It’s so that when my wife and I decided to come and live here it was after I’d retired. It was a home away from home really.
AH: Where were you first based? Where were you based first?
GH: Where was —?
AH: Where were you first based? Which was your first base? Where were you sent first?
GH: Oh. At a place called Bardney. Just outside Louth. And we got there. The place was, looked vacant and we got out the transport and looked around and looked in the ditches and it was full of bodies. We said, ‘What are you doing down there?’ They said, ‘Bugger off, there’s a fire in the bomb dump.’ So we said, ‘Oh, we’ll leave you to it then.’ But anyway a guy put it out. And then we went from that place. I did six ops there. And then we went to Skellingthorpe where the pilot was made up to a squadron leader. And we were only allowed two or three operations a month due to the losses of experienced crews. And by the time we’d done twenty trips together he, the pilot and the navigator went over to Pathfinders as the rest of the crew did. And the, the crew got sort of crewed up but the wireless, he didn’t want a wireless. He brought one with him, the pilot. So I was a spare bod and I went with an Aussie crew. His name was Cassidy and he’d got it painted on the side of a Lancaster. “Hop Along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.’ And I finished up at the one near Boston. What is it?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Coningsby?
GH: Coningsby. Yes. Yes.
AH: What squadron were you in first?
GH: 9. And then I went on to 50 at Skellingthorpe and then I went on to 83 at Coningsby.
AH: And what planes?
GH: Lancs. Well, after the war, if you look in the book look I went on a tour to South America. They sent three what were called Lancaster Mark 21s I think. But in actual fact they renamed them to Lincolns. It was a bigger aircraft that the Lancaster. Especially built for the war against the Japanese. And we went right down the west coast of Africa and then across over the Atlantic to Brazil and then right down to Santiago. Flew over the second highest mountain in the world I think it is. Aconcagua. But by then I’d decided I would take a course, this course on radiography, radio operating and get on to the public airlines. And I’d met my lady who I married and I found out that to be on public airlines you were away for home for anything from six weeks to three months. I thought well that’s not right. So I docked that and as I say I stayed in the hosiery trade. Yeah. Had quite a varied existence one way or another.
AH: What did you do in South America?
GH: Demonstrated the aircraft. I think they’d got that many four engine aircraft they didn’t know what to do with them and they were trying to flog them to anybody who’d buy them. God knows where all the aeroplanes went to. They just suddenly disappeared.
AH: And what was it like there?
GH: Pardon?
AH: And what was it like? Were they interested?
GH: Interesting.
AH: Were they interested in the aircraft?
GH: Oh very much so. Yes. Yes. Whilst we were there there was an earthquake in Peru and they wished us to send someone who would take some supplies over to Peru for the earthquake. And the air force said they couldn’t be allowed to do that because although we’d get to Peru and land they hadn’t got an air force runway long enough to take off so we’d be stuck. But yeah. Funny thing was we all decided when we were going to Brazil we would get together and learn Spanish. And when we got to Brazil they didn’t speak Spanish. They spoke Portuguese [laughs]
AH: How long were you out there for?
GH: Oh not very long. I should think, well if you look in the book it’ll tell you how long. About four weeks I think. We did one leg of the journey per day. And —
AH: And when were you demobbed?
GH: When? I think it was June of 1945.
AH: And how long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Pardon?
AH: How long were you in 9 Squadron?
GH: Only a few weeks. Not very long.
AH: What was it like?
GH: Quite an eye opener really. Mainly we were supporting the invasion. In fact that was the first time I’d ever seen the white cliffs of Dover coming back from France on D-Day. As I say all the boats going over.
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Have I —?
AH: How did that feel?
GH: Satisfied I would think would be the only expression. That we were doing something. And of course that’s another point. I mean I don’t know whether you’ve watched it on telly but they give you films of the actual landings in France and they chuck the blokes out into the water that was about six foot deep. They were drowned. Never got to France at all. Instead of waiting for the tide to go out. Some damned idiots in this military attitude.
AH: What did you think of Bomber Command?
GH: Well organised. To a certain extent they were very well organised. Many actual Bomber Command crews packed up before they’d completed a tour of course because it was a great strain. I remember doing a daylight on, I think it was at one of the flying bomb sites when they were launching flying bombs. And of course Bomber Command never flew in the way the Yanks did. They had three people from leading in and everybody was sort of doing what they called a gaggle at the back. And we were close up behind this three Bomber Command [pause] well, leaders I suppose and I looked up and saw an aircraft above was opening his bomb doors. I thought it’s going to drop on him shortly. Anyway he did. He dropped them and then it just floated down. Hit the aircraft on the right hand side, the starboard, knocked his wing off and he spun over and tipped the wing of the other who went that way and he tipped the wing of the other and went that way. And there were bodies without parachutes floating around and everything. And it was Cheshire who was controlling the raid. Called the raid off because he said the chaps didn’t stand a chance if we bombed it. So we flew back to the North Sea and dumped the bombs and went home. But the things like that they were happening every day. You know, I mean I’m afraid you accepted it.
AH: Do you remember where you were going on that raid?
GH: Not completely. No. Because there were one or two launch sites for flying bombs. I mean at one time as far as I know they were, they were launching something like ten thousand pound. Ten thousand flying bombs in a matter of a month or whatever, you know. I mean they were really showering the south of England with them. And —
AH: And how did you feel when you saw the bombs coming?
GH: I hope to God it misses me. To be truthful. But it was a sight, you know. Their only, these aircraft which they hit and damaged were only about a hundred, hundred and fifty yards in front of us. A matter of three seconds or something isn’t it? The speed we were flying at it could have been us. But many of the young lads who joined up when I joined up never finished. They were killed. A great deal of loss of human youngsters. Many of them technicians and people we missed after the war finished because of their experiences. And if you take that you promise me I will get it back?
AH: Yeah.
GH: Because I applied for the Aircrew Europe Star which was allotted to everybody who did two or more operations before D-Day which I did and I was told I didn’t, I hadn’t done enough. So when they issued the Bomber Command medal at the end of the war they said I couldn’t have that either because I’d got the 1939-45 Star or something. I don’t know. I thought well that’s great. I did twenty one ops and I never got a bomber medal. It’s unbelievable some fairy in Whitehall who was domineering the life span of the one doing the work. But the main thing I need at the present moment is some backup somewhere to get, I mean I mentioned to you earlier how much it cost. I was only getting two hundred and ninety pound a month. That’s about seventy pound a week towards the cost of being here and it was costing [pause] what was it? Well, a monthly, the monthly cost here is three thousand and forty one which is quite expensive. I think it’s a very good. I get my monies worth. But I think the company, the government or whoever, the Department of Works and Pension allow me something to help me pay for it and they want [coughs] they just knocked off the pension credit. I’m about two and a half thousand pound a month worse off when I got a pay rise of two pounds and fifteen pence [pause] In other words hard luck isn’t it? You know I mean I’m not the sort of person who is laid back and you handed something but I’ve worked all, all my own life. What I’ve got I’ve chased the work of one kind or another. Whether it was in the air force or out. And I’m disgusted actually to think the money that gets wasted.
AH: Could I just ask you a few more questions about the war?
GH: Yes.
AH: What did you think of the way Bomber Harris was treated?
GH: Disgustingly. As I said earlier he was blamed for bombing the population whereas the targets were selected by the War Committee. And the two leaders of that were Lord Portal and Winston Churchill. Bomber Harris was behind his crews all the way. Next question.
AH: Where did you go after 9 Squadron?
GH: With 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe. That was, it was so far to the sergeant’s mess from where we were displayed in Nissen huts we used to go into Lincoln for breakfast [laughs]
AH: What sort of squadron was it?
GH: What 83? Er 50?
AH: 50.
GH: Very very compatible actually. The man who was my pilot took his place as flight commander was Metham. He finished up deputy leader of some bomber group. Was it Metham? He’s a well-known, established leader of the Royal Air Force.
AH: Was that a Pathfinder squadron?
GH: No. No. They only had two Pathfinder squadrons. They were both at Coningsby. 83 and 97.
AH: Were you in them at all?
GH: I was on 83. I did, I think nine trips with 83 Squadron. They said that it was easy on Pathfinders of course. You, if you’re first flare leaders putting the flares down you went over and laid your flares and shot off home but they didn’t tell you when you started laying your flares you had to put it in automatic pilot and you couldn’t drift. So by the time you got to the end of laying the flares the Germans had got all the information of what you were doing [pause]
GH: And I have the greatest admiration of the German people and Germany itself. Moreso than any other European country. I have a great ideal, great ideals of them. They’re a wonderful people. We should never have gone to war against them. Well, should we?
AH: What do you think we should have done?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What could, what could Britain have done instead?
GH: Shot Adolf Hitler. It was a dictator. A man who believes beyond his experience. I think, well what’s happening in the world today? I mean we’re now fighting the, oh ethnic crowds that we were fighting in the days of Christ. For two thousand years we’ve been fighting. Still doing it and we’ll lose in the end. Of course people say they mean good. If you read the Koran as far as I remember the first rule is thou shalt now kill. And I think the fourth one is thou shalt kill all non-believers. So it leaves you in a sticky mess. And they’re gaining popularity all the while.
AH: When did you read the Koran?
GH: I haven’t read the Koran. I’ve read extracts from it. I’m quite interested in reading other people’s religions and of course in actual fact I believe in the bible which says when you die it’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I don’t think there’s a heaven up there. I don’t think there’s anything like that. I think it’s just, you’re just dead meat. Unfortunately. And many many people leave their readings, writings and paintings to be perused over and you get the benefit of their experience.
AH: Have you written anything?
GH: Written anything? Only rude things on the wall [laughs]. No. I wish I could have written things. I was too busy with music. As I said I went to a school where we had possibly an hour to two hours homework every night of various kinds and I didn’t really get out amongst other young fellas of my age because I was doing one to two hours music training as well. Now, the school I went to had started a school orchestra. Violin, banjo and drums. And I loved music. But as I say when I went in the air force I didn’t take a violin with me and I should have done I suppose. After being in five years my fingers were all stiffened up with, didn’t work. So I abandoned it straightaway and got on with earning a living
[knocking on door]
GH: Come in.
Other: Sorry to disturb you.
AH: I’ll just put this on pause.
[recording paused]
GH: They don’t look like reading my writing for a start. But there’s a cutting in there I think I mentioned it earlier on from Stalin who stated he wanted the Bomber Command to burn Dresden because they were using it to refuel the battlefield. And it wasn’t so because after the war I were working with some of the replacement Polish people and they said they’d been in Dresden and there were no army facilities there at all. There was no reason for them to bomb it.
[pause]
GH: And I have a younger sister who’s ninety in October. Laurie. So we’re quite a long lived family aren’t we?
AH: How old are you?
GH: Ninety four. Feel a hundred and four [laughs] some mornings. Yes.
AH: You’ve got a picture here of Squadron Leader Munro.
GH: Yes. He wanted to crew up with us. He’s just recently died you know. A New Zealander. That was when I was at gunnery school at Scotland.
AH: Which one’s you?
GH: How dare you say that [laughs] I haven’t changed that much at all surely. I’m the shortest one. Yes. And that’s my favourite photograph of myself.
AH: That’s nice.
[pause]
GH: Yes. It’s a wonderful world and I’ve met some wonderful people and I’ve had some wonderful friends and relatives. It’s been enjoyment. Mixing the good with the bad makes you appreciate it all the more. We came out of there as you go in.
AH: You talked about the strain of it. What was the worst strain?
GH: Being with Bomber Command? Well, naturally the, the operations themselves. They were well organised, I don’t mean like that but I mean they always taught us the best crews will get through. Did I mention to you before luck has a lot to do with it? And I mean a matter of seconds in some cases. I never flew as an air gunner though. I was in the Home Guard before I went in the air force. In Leicester. Well a little village outside Leicester called Narborough. And they used to send me out on a railway bridge defending the bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broomstick with string. I don’t know what you were supposed to do with it. I had a few thoughts. But by the time I went into the air force I was fully trained and I’d got a Canadian Ross rifle that was in a cloth bag with about two inches of grease all around it. And I cleaned it up and the stock of it was beautiful. Lovely gun. And one of the chaps, he was a sergeant. I think he must have been a sniper. He said, ‘I’ll teach you how to fire a gun George.’ Because,’ he said, ‘Let’s face it. Who’s the last person that knows when you’re going to pull the trigger?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Well you don’t pull the trigger. You squeeze your hand. And you don’t jolt it.’ And I could hit an eight hundred target, a bull at eight hundred yards. Which is quite good shooting I think. But I never did fly as a air gunner. I flew once as a tail gunner. And the tail one was like that. You knew all I got it I knew I wouldn’t have that for long.
AH: Did you get bombed yourself?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Did you get bombed yourself? In Leicester.
GH: Well, Leicester got bombed while I lived there. But we lived on the outskirts. And of course like most targets they usually go for the city centre first where all the main multiples are. And I was, I was quite happy in the Home Guard because we got very very good training. Initially it was useless. For the first two years. But when they got organised they got organised. And I sit and watch “Dad’s Army,” you know. And I I don’t know who picked the cast but it’s amazing to think [laughs] they look like real people [laughs] Anything else?
AH: Did you meet your wife during the war?
GH: No. I met her after the war. One of the boys who’s died in the last two years from Leicester was in training with me all the way through and he finished up at Coningsby on 97 Squadron and I finished up on 83. And his wife and my wife or future wife or his future wife, they used to go dancing Saturday nights together. And I met this girl one night in the RAF club. And I can’t understand that, I can’t explain the feeling but she was wonderful. And I said, ‘Can I see you again?’ And she said, ‘Well, I can’t see you for two weeks because I’m going up to Lincolnshire. To a town that you’ve never heard of.’ Well, I’d done all my training and everything here so I said, ‘Well, try me then.’ She said, ‘Louth.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got news for you. I can’t go to Louth again [laughs] They’d shoot me.’ And she was always dying her hair. I think after the first two months I knew her she must have had about six or seven changes of colour. She was lovely though.
AH: What was her name?
GH: Barbara. And when we first got married we had to live in the front room of my mum and dad’s house until we could get somewhere. Everyone does I suppose. And her uncle was a butcher and he used to do all the joints of meat for Leicester. And this friend of his, a friend of his or someone in the trade he dealt with was the housing minister for Leicester. And in those days you couldn’t get housed if you hadn’t got a wood licence. You had to have a timber licence. And he mentioned to this gent that I was having trouble with my wife’s breathing because my mother and father had a dog and she was allergic to dog hair. And he said to this young gent, ‘He’s just come out the air force and he definitely wants a house but, and his wife is allergic to dog hairs and has to get out, you know of home and have his own place.’ And the fellow twiddled it a little bit and got me a timber licence and away we went. We bought a semi for nineteen hundred quid. And then after a while we bought, we bought a complete des res like, you know what do you call it? A house on its own at, in Oadby near to Leicester at the back of the racecourse and you got a full view of the racecourse. And I used to say to people, ‘I’ve got a nice place. There’s about four furlongs of grass at the back and they came and cut it, you know regularly,’ [laughs] But as I say we had this problem with this hooligan who was threatening her so that’s how we moved to Louth. But I mean moving to Louth was like going next door to the pair of us because we’d both been here so many times.
AH: Did you like Louth?
GH: I think it’s very nice. And I think once you get into Louth the people will do anything but they’re a little offish at the start. But it’s a lovely little town. I was born in Mansfield. In the Sherwood Forest. But I did like Louth there. Very much.
AH: What was your home like there?
GH: Where?
AH: In Mansfield.
GH: Well, I was brought up with my grandparents. I wasn’t brought up with my mother and father. They couldn’t get anywhere to live in, although my sister had been born. They wouldn’t accept anyone with two children so they farmed me off with my grandparents. My grandmother Holmes, when I was six or seven or eight years of age taught me how to sew and darn and knit.
AH: Did you have use of that later?
GH: Yes. Because I went into the hosiery trade and it was the machines that knit things make exactly the same loop as you do a knitting pin. And of course as I say I, I had a quite a few jobs. The job I had at Byfords. The other chap working next to me who was in his forties hadn’t been taken to the army. Hadn’t been called up. With a wife and two children. He always used to go down smoking in the toilets about once every hour and I used to run his machines as well as mine. And one day, you used to put your earnings under the table where they kept all the yarns and everything. He had a sneaky look and he found out I was earning more than him. So he went to the manager and he said he didn’t see any reason why someone’s underage that were in machinery should be earning more than he did. So they said, ‘Oh alright, we’ll give you two of his machines. They had me in the office and they said, ‘You’ve been bragging.’ I said, ‘What about?’ They said, ‘What you earn.’ I said, ‘I daren’t tell my father what earn. He’d go mad.’ I was earning as much or twice as much as my dad. And they said, ‘Well, we’re going to take two of your machines off you and you’ll run them for him.’ So I said, ‘I have an idea now. You can stick them up your arse.’ And they gave him the bloody lot. I got sacked for insolence. I got another job. I was never out of work. I got training that was necessary and I could go anywhere. I worked at Byfords. They sacked me three times after that incident and a very good job. The only snag is when I went into it before the war you were using cotton and well, wool and the machines were covered in like a white powder from the cotton in the wool, you know. And after the war when they started using synthetic fibres I think the synthetic fibres were so small you swallowed them. And I have a difficulty with breathing actually which is due to that I think. But nobody would say so because you then would jump then and say I want paid for being. I don’t think, I don’t think there’s more than one or two hosiery factories left in Leicester and it used to be the main city for hosiery. But that was all, that was all shift work. Night work and not very conducive for family life. I used to go to work because I mean you were busy. It didn’t bother you but my wife was stuck at home on her own you know and I didn’t realise until after I’d lost her that that’s what the problem was really. Basically. But we had a good life together. Yeah.
AH: Was your father or your grandfather in the First World War?
GH: Both my father and my wife’s father were in the First World War. My wife’s father was stationed at Louth here. In the Leicester, what did they call it? It was a mountain brigade. And he was only a little bloke. Smaller than me. And he looked like, well you just couldn’t imagine him sat on a horse.
AH: What he was called?
GH: Pardon?
AH: What he was called?
GH: His surname? Evans. Evans. Good Evans. I went to Edmonton for my gunnery course and we had a group captain called Group Captain Evans Evans and he got awarded the French medal. The Croix de Guerre. And he said, ‘Although I flew in World War One I’ve not flown in World War Two and I don’t think I deserved it. So I shall get a crew together and fly.’ So I went to my CO and I said, ‘Look, old Evans Evans is getting a crew together.’ We had a chance to get in because at that time I was a spare. And he said, ‘No, I don’t think so. My wireless op is covering that because he’s one behind everyone else in the crew and we all want to finish together.’ And off they went and they were shot down by the Americans before they got to the war. Before they got to the war line they were shot down by the Americans. And the only one that got out was the rear gunner. So that was another lucky escape. Just how the penny drops isn’t it? Am I boring you? Say so if I am. Anyway [pause] I am suffering really from the breathing quite badly.
AH: Shall we finish?
GH: Pardon?
AH: Do you want us to finish?
GH: Yes.
AH: Thank you very much.
GH: Quite all right. If it’s been of any —
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 George Holmes
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anna Hoyles
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-16
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AHolmesGH161016
Conforms To
An established standard to which the described resource conforms.
Pending review
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Civilian
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Julie Williams
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Brazil
Chile
Germany
Great Britain
Peru
Chile--Santiago
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Stuttgart
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1945
1946
Description
An account of the resource
George was born in Mansfield and was bought up by his Grandparents until he was seven when he moved back to his parents in Leicester where his Father ran a coffee shop. He was a semi-professional musician playing violin, trumpet and mandolin. He studied hosiery at college and worked in hosiery production his entire working life. He joined the Home Guard in Narborough, and recalls how he defended the railway bridge at night time with a bayonet fastened to a broom stick with string. After volunteering for the Air Force he was sent to Blackpool for training. The corporal who taught him foot drill went on to be the comedian Max Wall. He was then sent to RAF Yatesbury for his radio course, and then forwarded to the Air Armourers school. After completing the course, he was posted to RAF Evanton for a gunner’s course. His next posting was to RAF Market Harborough, but was only there for three weeks before he was sent to RAF Silverstone for crewing up. His first station was RAF Bardney with 9 Squadron for a few weeks. He remembers that when they arrived at Bardney it was deserted and they found everyone lying on the floor in the kitchen as the bomb dump was on fire. The crew were then posted to RAF Skellingthorpe in 50 Squadron and they completed 20 operations. George recalls a daylight operation on a V-1 site, and he witnessed the Lancaster that was above them blown up and seeing the bodies of the crew falling past their aircraft. The crew were then split up when the pilot and navigator joined the Pathfinders and he became a spare bod. He eventually joined an Australian crew in 83 Squadron at RAF Coningsby and completed a further nine operations. His pilot was called Cassidy and the nose art on the Lancaster was “Hop along Cassidy’s Flying Circus.” After the war he took part in a tour of South America and discusses an earthquake in Peru. He discusses his religious beliefs and how the war, Bomber Command, and Arthur Harris have been remembered. He met his wife Barbara after the war at a dance in the RAF club and they had one son.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
01:08:02 audio recording
50 Squadron
83 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bomb dump
bomb struck
bombing
civil defence
crewing up
faith
forced landing
Home Guard
Lancaster
mid-air collision
nose art
Pathfinders
perception of bombing war
RAF Bardney
RAF Coningsby
RAF Evanton
RAF Market Harborough
RAF Silverstone
RAF Skellingthorpe
training
wireless operator / air gunner
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1473/43021/SCookeJRA1336866v10006.1.jpg
e6266188022605bfe29c87b709b0b0c9
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
Cooke, Bob
James Robert Alfred Cooke
J R A Cooke
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-12-01
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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Cooke, JRA
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant John Robert Alfred "Bob" Cooke (1336866 Royal Air Force) and contains research about his crew. He flew operations as a pilot with 51 Squadron and was killed 30 June 1944. <br /><br />The collection was loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by James Seymour and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on John Robert Alfred Cooke is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/205728/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Charles Martin Allen by Mrs Anne Phillips
Description
An account of the resource
A brief biography of Charlie written by his niece, Anne. Charlie was an air gunner on Bob's crew.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anne Phillips
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1944-06-30
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
France
France--Normandy
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Royal Air Force. Coastal Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Memoir
Text. Personal research
Format
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One printed sheet
Identifier
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SCookeJRA1336866v10006
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
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription
1652 HCU
4 Group
51 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
bombing
flight engineer
Halifax
Halifax Mk 3
Heavy Conversion Unit
Normandy campaign (6 June – 21 August 1944)
RAF Andreas
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Pocklington
RAF Snaith
tactical support for Normandy troops
training
V-1
V-weapon
Wellington
-
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https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/1930/38411/EBartleADwyer [Mrs]430916-0004.jpg
b598f984e705c7c6b9007024866a0aea
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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Dwyer, John Henry Patrick
J H P Dwyer
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2017-09-02
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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Dwyer, JHP
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. The collection concerns Flight Sergeant John Henry Patrick Dwyer DFM (b. 1913, 746829 Royal Air Force) and contains documents, correspondence and photographs. He flew operations as an air gunner with 57 Squadron and was killed 9/10 November 1942. <br /><br />The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John L Dwyer and catalogued by Barry Hunter. <br /><br />Additional information on John Dwyer is available via the <a href="https://losses.internationalbcc.co.uk/loss/106743/">IBCC Losses Database.</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Letter to JHJP Dwyer's Wife
Description
An account of the resource
The letter from the wife of a crew member, Sergeant Bartle, asks if she has heard anything about the crew. She has been in touch with Pilot Officer Griffin's wife and Pilot Officer Walsh's wife. Air Gunner Grellier's mother also wrote to her. Sergeant R O'Neil, a second gunner, is reported dead.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Bartle
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1943-09-16
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Great Britain
England--Manchester
Northern Ireland--Londonderry
Germany--Lüneburg
New Zealand
England--London
England--Lancashire
Germany
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Language
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eng
Type
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Text
Text. Correspondence
Format
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Two double sided handwritten sheets
Identifier
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EBartleADwyer [Mrs]430916-0001, EBartleADwyer [Mrs]430916-0002, EBartleADwyer [Mrs]430916-0003, EBartleADwyer [Mrs]430916-0004
Conforms To
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Pending text-based transcription. Allocated
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
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-11-09
1942-11-10
1943
air gunner
aircrew
final resting place
killed in action
missing in action
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/343/3510/PVarneyE1501.1.jpg
2004f976156c1d3b87093033ead86f89
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/343/3510/AVarneyE150629.2.mp3
e637761d9a1110a451a0ad8d9c4cc084
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Varney, Eric
E Varney
Description
An account of the resource
Four items. One oral history interview with Eric Varney (1925 - 2015) and three photographs. 28 operations as a mid upper gunner with 207 Squadron from RAF Spilsby.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Eric Varney and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-06-29
Rights
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
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Varney, E
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM. Ok then Eric, this interview is being conducted by the International Bomber Command Centre and the interviewer is me Annie Moody, obviously you are Eric Varley and this interview is taking place at MrVarneys’ home at Wath Upon Dearne on the 28th no, the 29th of June 2015. So if we start can you just confirm your date and place of birth?
EV. My date of birth was February 25.
AM. And where were you born Eric?
EV. West Maldon in fact about three or four hundred yards from where I am living now.
AM. And what sort of thing, what did your Mum and Dad, what was your family background?
EV. Well, my Dad was a miner all his life, he lived to about seventy one. My Mum lived to about the same time, she died of pneumonia and that’s it, well I had three brothers, there were four of us, all lads.
AM. Were you youngest, oldest?
EV I was the second oldest, the older one he later joined the army. I served with the RAF, my next younger brother served with the RAF and the youngest brother served with the RAF.
AM. All four of you?
EV. All four of us passed for Grammar School as well, broke a record.
AM. Excellent, so how did you come to be in Bomber Command then?
EV. I just decided I wanted to fly. So I went to Sheffield and joined up, well asked to join the RAF. Every day for to months I came home from work and said to my mum, have they come? Eventually my papers came and I went for an interview at Birmingham, near Birmingham, yes Birmingham.
AM. What was that like, the interview?
EV. I have never been to, apart from Huddersfield and Cleethorpes this was the only place I had been to before that. So it was a bit of an adventure but I enjoyed it, went down all right. Then later I got the papers to join the RAF and then I had to go, I’m sure it was to St Johns Wood, London where we were in flats,accommodation flats that the RAF had taken over from the public I should imagine. Then we went through all the necessary medicals and injections and whatever. Went to Lords cricket ground for exercise and to the Zoo I think it was, to the Zoo where we had our meals, carrying the cups and knifes and forks. [pause]
AM. How long were you there for?
EV. We were there about four or five weeks, I forget, maybe six weeks. We went on guard at the gates of the flat complex, you could hear the ack ack guns going and whatever when the raiders were coming over London. Then we got posted from there, I’m sure I went to Bridgenorth in Shropshire, we had to white wash the pebbles outside the huts, it was very strict, very, very strict indeed. There we done basic training marching, gun shooting on the range and just basics, yes that’s right, went there. Our Sergeant, Sergeant Leech he was about the smartest Sergeant there, he was brilliant I’ll never forget his name, Sergeant Leech.
AM. What was brilliant about him?
EV. He was smart and he was good, there were maybe four or five could I say platoons of men, each with about thirty or so in and each had, each Sergeant in charge had to go and report all present and correct when we were on parade each morning. Sergeant Leech he were good, yeah, he were good. Anyway after that we got posted then to Walney Island that’s near Barrow on Furness to number ten Air Gunnery School there we did flying on Ansons piloted by Polish pilots mainly. They were good they used to chase sheep over the hills.
AM. In the planes?
EV. They were good lads and we used to extend drones of course out of the back, and we used to fire guns at them. There used to be two people beside the pilot on each take off, so then one used to wind out the drogue and the other used to shoot at it with the guns.
AM. How did they decide you were going to be an Air Gunner?
EV. I asked you know, if I could be an Air Gunner. After seeing one or two films on local television before I joined up. Yeah I wanted to be an Air Gunner. When at AGS Air Gunnery School at Walney Island we did photo recognition, aircraft, all aircraft English and German on slides. So we did dismantling breech blocks from guns blind folded because we wouldn’t be able to see what we were doing, and with gloves on, so we could take them apart and reassemble them in the dark. So we would have to do that before flying but I never had to do that. We used to have to practice it, we used to have a kitty, six pence each into the kitty, “should I say that?”
AM. Yes carry on.
EV. The quickest person to do it, won the kitty. That’s where I met my other Air Gunner, David, Gwyn David Morgan Watkins, Welshman by the way. I expect you got that from the name. We stayed together all the way through the rest of our RAF career, yeah we did virtually, yeah. Yes so after that we got postings to different squadrons well his initial being W.Watkins and mine being V.Varney next to each other in the alphabet really. So we got posted together which was good and we went from there and went for training, “where did we go? I just forget where we went.” Anyway we went to RAF Station and there, what they did they posted maybe forty Air Gunners, twenty Pilots, twenty Navs, twenty [pause] Bomber Aimers, twenty Wireless Ops so that, and eventually you just crewed up by having a meal together or sitting next together in the Mess whatever. Gunners usually stayed in pairs.
AM. Why?
EV. Well you come through your training together so you stayed together. So me and Taffy started so we more or less picked a bloke and said Bomb Aimer, you got your brevet and your sergeant tapes.You got your brevet so you got talking to a chap and you thought he seems ok, “are you crewed up?” “No.” “Ok would you like to join with us?” From that I think it was mostly Gunners I think what did the crewing up first and then you looked round for a Pilot eventually, you have got to have a chauffeur, So yeah and that’s how you crewed up. All but the Engineer, you didn’t have an Engineer at that stage because we were only going to go on Wimpies which don’t have an Engineer. Because it is only a two engine job, your Pilot has already flown two engine jobs. After that when we did our basic training on Wimpies we moved onto Stirlings, there we picked up an Engineer, so there was a total crew of seven then. Stirling, not a very good aircraft but we managed. Then after that we moved onto Lancasters at another Lancaster Finishing School, I just forget where that was, somewhere near Nottingham but I can’t say for sure. After the Lancaster Finishing School then you were posted to a Squadron.We got posted to 207 Squadron at Spilsby and from there we started on Operations.
AM. What year was that, when would that be Eric?
EV. That would be around Christmas time, er, Christmas time forty four.
AM. Christmas time forty four.
EV. Cause I was only nineteen then, anyway after that we just carried on doing ops until the end of the war.
AM. When you say we just carried on doing ops, can you remember your first one, what was that like.
EV. I can remember the first one yeah, because I didn’t go with my own crew. They were a Gunner short on a crew, can’t just think of the name now. I went as a spare bod on that crew and they frightened me to death[laugh]. They had a rubbish Nav to be honest and he never kept in line. They were first fifteen degrees to port and twenty degrees to starboard then fifteen degrees to port. He could never keep on line in the stream, you know in the stream we should be in. Anyway having got back I went, I was on for the second night, so I objected and I said I would prefer not to go, I didn’t go. Anyway I carried on with my own crew and I put our survival down to one person, the Nav. We had a brilliant Navigator, he was brilliant. Never off the track, always cool although he was Scot, but he was good and that is what I put our survival down to. Always in the bomber stream always there, its only the stragglers I reckon that got picked up mainly.
AM. What was it like being in the bomber stream?
EV. When we were flying out,we normally when we were going over France and that way across to Germany. We used to fly down, I think, down towards Reading. The first guy used to fly out over the sea and next one a bit less until all the squadron were airborne then we would fly down and you would see thirty or forty aircraft. It were daylight maybe at that time or just getting dusk and em you used to think, what will it be like when it gets dark, and there is another ten, fifteen squadrons joining us to make a total of five hundred. At times you could look up from the turret and see aircraft above, you could nearly count the rivets, used to be, when you were over the target because it was so light from below. So you used to ask the Skipper to turn either to port or starboard just a little bit, to avoid him dropping any bombs on you. It were pretty crowded over the target at times, but er, fortunately we, we got away with it. Only once did we go over the target several times and that were at Dresden. The Bomber Aimer did not put the heater switch on for the bombs so we couldn’t release them. When he released the bombs, nothing happened, well when he tried to release the bombs, nothing happened. We made two or three approaches before, and that made us behind the total. The skipper was thinking about fuel so he could not push on too fast because we would not have had enough fuel maybe to get back, because they did not allow you too much fuel, you just took enough for the journey at normal speeds. Anyway we did make it back ok safe and sound, a bit late but safe and sound.
AM. What happened to the bombs?
EV. Eventually he got them off, yeah when, after he put the switch on, oh yeah they did, he took, but they had frozen up with moisture and freezing temperatures.
AM. So the heat switch was to stop that happening,that he should have put on?
EV. He should have put that on but he didn’t and once coming back over the Channel another slight incident, we were only maybe two and a half thousand feet and the engines cut. The Engineer had switched to the wrong tanks and that was only on the quick thinking of the Pilot who said tanks, switch back and managed to start the engines. After that Rem advised or made the Engineer go on a three day refresher course. He was very strict our Skipper, if we had smoked he would have shopped us, no doubt. He said I am going to get you there and get you back in one piece, he was a New Zealander by the way, “What else?”
AM. No,no it is quite interesting just knowing the detail that you can remember, It’s fascinating. You showed me a photo earlier that we had taken a picture of. Was that the same crew that you were with all the way through?
EV. Yes, yes
AM. I will get the names of you afterwards then I’ll get the names of all the crew to go with the photograph.
EV. We stayed together as a crew all the way through. After the war when we finished flying the Bomb Aimer did tell me that he trained as a Navigator, fell out with his crew and retrained as a Bomb Aimer. So in actual fact we had a partly trained Navigator on board as well as a Bomb Aimer, as well as another Nav which were good. That’s what he did, he fell out with his crew and he retrained, he went to Canada and retrained as an er,Bomb Aimer. Yes so.
AM. How many operations did you do?
EV. Twenty eight.
AM. That was a full tour, just under?
EV. Yes, yes the war finished then.
AM. You said you have been to Dresden, where else did you fly, can you remember?
EV. Leipzig, Cologne, er [Pause], Dortmund Ems Canals, Frankfurt, Leipzig that was a bad one, we lost quite a few on Leipzig. Eh.
AM. From your squadron or from other squadrons?
EV. I’m sorry, ten hours twenty was the longest and that was to a place in front of Russian advance, what do they call it now, some petrol, oil refinery place eh, I can’t just think what they call it now. Ten hours twenty that was the longest trip.
AM. What was it like being in the plane for ten hours twenty?
EV. Well we had heated suits and heated gloves,well gloves that pressed onto your shirt, or onto the cuffs of your flying suit with press studs and on your shoes you had slippers insoles that went onto clips on the bottom of your trousers and you plugged the whole lot into the aircraft. So you got heated suits, so, the only thing that wasn’t, that was open to air was your eyes. You know we had helmets on, oxygen masks and clothes of course, so your eyes, but you used to get icicles on your eye lashes from the moisture from your eyes. You used to also get icicles on the bottom of your oxygen mask because I think the coldest temperature we recorded was minus sixty three which is cold. Its not sixty three that is fahrenheit which is not as cold as sixty three centigrade, but it were cold and so we had about four pair of gloves on starting with the, I think the chamois leather, silk, a pair of ordinary gloves then a pair of leather gauntlet type gloves, so plenty of clothing.
AM. So how did you manage to operate you guns with all that lot on?
EV. Well you got to use them, yeah you had four pair of gloves on. You needed your gloves and everything and your feet sometimes your feet, you finished up with one foot frozen the other one on fire ‘cause suits were not all good eh. We had chocolate, they gave us chocolate to take to eat but before we set off there was a little tray in the turret and you had to break it up first because if you didn’t it would have been frozen up solid. You get a chocolate bar with maybe a dozen pieces, you had to break it up and put it in your tray so you could get with it your gloves and get a piece and pull your oxygen mask of, put it in. It used to be in your mouth for about ten minutes before it started thawing[laugh] it was so cold. Yeh, on the way back the Wireless Op used to come down with a flask or cup of coffee so we could have that coming back. We used to put our hand like that from turret, he used to pass, I used to put my thumb into cup, into coffee[laugh] and then used to have a drink, yeah.
AM. So where were you, were you Mid Upper?
EV. Yes, because our Skipper would not let us out of the turrets at all, no.
AM. Why not.
EV. Well that was our place to be and nobody moved, [laugh] yeah. You had to go to the toilet before you went and whatever, so. Nobody roamed about, only the Wireless Op on the way back he used to bring me and Taffy a drink.
AM. Where was Taffy then?
EV. He was in the rear turret, well Joe used to go along onto, you’ve seen them inside have you? Down that front toilet, he used to stand on toilet, what do they call toilet Els? I just forgot what they call it, but it was. Used to stand on that and then had to slide down to the rear turret and Taffy used to open his rear turret you know put it central and open his doors. He would pass him a drink through, yeah.
AM. How did you, where did the coffee come from, a flask?
EV. Flask! oh yeah flask. We had nothing to drink going until we was on our way back and Joe used to do that, Rem would let him come down and bring us all a drink.
AM. Then what would happen when you landed after having been on a plane for that long?
EV. When we landed, transport used to pick us up and take us in for briefing, de briefing and eh, get coffee, cigarettes whatever you know and then after that it were bacon and egg and bed [laugh]. Yeah after briefing, used to have a briefing as to what you had seen, what you hadn’t seen, tell them how things had gone, everything. You all used to say you know, there used to be an Officer there interviewing everybody, asking questions and then off you went to bed.
AM. Ready for next day?
EV. Or same night. ‘cause it were morning then weren’t it? As we were coming back you could see the American Air Force going out if it were daylight. Yeah they were going out as we were coming back. Could see all the vapour trails from them, but they were very high, they used to get height in England I think before they left, cause there were all vapour trails behind them and when there were three or four hundred of them. You see them now, see odd ones, see half a dozen, you see a lot [unreadable] you see three or four hundred maybe, all going in the same direction, because they used to fly more in a formation because it was daylight. They used to keep together because they used to fly in daylight. Then they had an aircraft, what do you call it on patrol, fighter.
We went on a few daylights but er, there weren’t a lot, Cologne, Dortmund Ems Canal, on daylight, well we did I don’t know three of four, half a dozen.
AM. How different was that, to going at night?
EV. Not a lot because you didn’t, in fact they were better really, because you could see other aircraft that were round you which you couldn’t at night, it were all. My eyes used to stand out like chapel hat pegs when you were at night, staring just staring. Looking all the time, you know looking, looking, looking. Our instructions from the Pilot was Rear Gunner and myself we had to er, speak to each other every about five minutes unless he was in conversation with Navigator or anything else. We had to keep talking to each other to make sure we were not asleep. From my position I could see Taffies guns when they were pointing high. I could see his guns if he was scanning that way, rather than that way I could see his guns moving but eh yeah, we, we had to keep in touch with each other all the time. That was Pilots instructions and what Rem said went.[Laugh]
AM. How often did you actually use your guns, shoot your use your guns?
EV. We didn’t while we were on operations, we never had to, we never had to. We got flack through the aircraft, we never got a fighter in touch that we had to fire at, never, either of us, we were always in middle of airstream thanks to Navigator, that were the main thing I reckon and we didn’t wander of. They picked the ones from the outside with the fighters. I mean I have talked to German Pilots during the war er, what do they call him and his Navigator, they had the Shoory Musik (HD.Shrage Music) type aircraft with the guns upward firing. They put six Lancasters down in half an hour, yeah.
AM. When you say you talked to him, you mean after the war?
EV. Oh yes, in recent years while we have been going on these German trips. We must have been ten times, we’ve done several places in Germany. Last time we went, we went, they even took us to the place where they made the eh,[pause] you know the rocket fuel, “I forgot name of the place now” North east Germany, very east, it were in eastern Germany after division after the war and it were “began with S.” They made the rockets there as well, the ones that were flying over London, you know the Doodlebugs.
AM. Was this, who did you go to Germany with then after the war?
EV. After the war we went to Germany as a group for Doncaster Air Gunners, we formed a group there were maybe, originally there were about twenty seven, eight of us. We got in touch with the Germans and for twenty years we, alternate years we went to Germany and the other year we hosted them. We went to several German Night Fighter places and met some guys just like ourselves, maybe older because as a hole because they were Pilots and took, they had been training two or three years before they went into action. We only did about four and a half months before I was sergeant or so, that were difference. Yes we went to Silverheim that was one place, one near Rostok that near Baltic and they hosted us on their camps. The one near Rostok had been under the Russians until Germany were reinstated as a full country, I mean East Germany and West Germany it goes under East German rule. There you could still see the bullet holes on houses and damage that had been done during the war and that were thirty years after the war.
AM. How did you get on with the Germans and what sort of things did you talk about?
EV. They were fantastic, yeah, I have still got three people that I send cards to yeah. One in Bremen, one in Hamburg and one who were a POW here and married an English girl and lived here for thirty five years and then went back to Germany. He was good for translation having spoken English for thirty odd years. They treated us, we always stayed in Officers Mess quarters on the German camps. Sometimes they put us up in hotels, same as we did. Sometimes we had them at Finningley, early on but later on we had to find accommodation, we took them to different hotels and hosted them for three or four days, hired coaches and took them round to see the sights of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, whatever. There were one German Pilot, he got shot down and landed in the North Sea, Herbert Thomas was his name. I will never forget Herbert, although he was a German his name was Herbert Thomas. He was shot down in the Chanel or North Sea, he got rescued and in appreciation for the chap in the boat that rescued him and giving him a cigarette, he gave him a watch. He gave him his watch did Herbert he gave him his watch. Now I should say maybe ten or twelve years ago from now that watch was given back to Herbert Thomas by the fellow who had it all those years. Yeah we arranged that, that were arranged by[pause] part of the Doncaster Air Gunners Group and gave him back the watch that he had given. That were done at Bridlington, when we had the Germans over at Bridlington.
AM. What made you in the first place go and meet the Germans?
EV. Well, ok how it started really was there was an aircraft shot down, a British Lancaster shot down and “I am just trying to think hard.” Oh yeah, there was only one survivor in this aircraft. I’ve got photos of this, I were looking at them yesterday. This airman, I have just forgot his name now, he was caught up, the local people caught him. There was a chap, a German army guy, he took him because they wanted to do our airman harm, you know the people of Germany. He took charge of him, handed him to the proper authorities so that he would be a POW and no harm would come to him. Well in later years this German person, I can’t remember his name now, can’t just think of his name, he built a Memorial in the wood where this aircraft came down. Every year he used to put flowers and whatever on this memorial. Well what, we got in touch with him, I just forgot how it happened. We got in touch with him and he invited us over to go to see this Memorial, which we did and from there on it developed into us being a bi annual event. We kept going over to Germany and that’s how it started the first thing did. We contacted the German Luftwaffe and it just escalated from there. With their ex flyers and us we got together, but that’s how it did started. An aircraft got shot down and they wanted to lynch this airman who got caught.
AM The Bomber?
AV Yeah, oh you can understand to a certain extent, the army guy, “I forgot his name” he took charge and handed him into proper authorities so that he were a POW. Yeah he was the only survivor from that aircraft and that were it. Yeah that’s how it started with that.
AM. You still keep in touch with some of them now?
AV Yeah, yeah, yeah, so
AM What happened to your brothers I think you said one was RAF, the other two were Army.
AV. My older brother Army, he’s still around but at the moment he is more or less bed fast, he is two years older than me. My next younger brother, Raymond, he was in the air force, he went for his two years, military, training after the war and he stayed in for twenty four years. Unfortunately he died about ten years ago and my younger brother he went for his two years but only stayed in for two years in the RAF. He came out, he’s still around, I was on the phone to him this morning [laugh] So that’s all of us.
AM. You all survived the war?
AV. Yeah but other two were younger they didn’t go in war. They just went up you know when they used to call people up for two years. They went for that two years but Raymond stopped in for twenty four.
AM. What did you do after the war Eric?
AV. After the war I went bus driving, yeah, bus driving for four years, ten years down the mine, worked at the coal face. But I promised my Dad who was a miner all his live that I was just going down for ten years. I went down for ten years and three months and came out, got a nice home together and that was it. After that I went on long distance haulage which I loved yeah, after that twenty years, twenty five years hard work as a coal merchant, that were me finished. Retired when I was sixty two and carried on part time until I was eighty nine[laugh].
AM. Doing what?
AV. Working at race course.
AM. At Doncaster?
AV. Doncaster, Wetherby,Ripon,Thirsk,Wetherby,Newmarket,Haydock Park,Market Rasen I worked them all[laugh]
AM. What did you do?
EV. On security, on some security I were working with Judge, Stewards and photo people, you know camera people. Also worked on car parks, that was since I retired, when I was sixty two, but I have finished work now.
AM. How old are you know?
EV. I’m. eighty nine, ninety in five weeks
AM. Off course, fifth of August.
EV. Yes
AM. And what about Bomber Command now then, what about the way people view Bomber Command?
EV. Well, they always, a lot of people did not like the Dresden trip. Not the RAF people but other people said that Dresden should never have been bombed, but eh I think it were a legitimate target, same as all the others. I mean they didn’t think that when they were bombing London, Hull, Coventry and our cities, so yeah, I mean yeah I still think the RAF do a good job, I do really. We’ll not get on to deal with politics [Laugh]
AM. Maybe not, maybe not. Anything else you can think of?
EV. I have enjoyed my life, enjoyed my life.
AM. Good, and still do, you are coming out with us in October to see the Spire?
EV. Yeah, after the war I visited my other Gunner in South Africa, Taffy, went and visited him for three weeks. The Pilots been over to England from New Zealand, he has been over about four times since the war, so you know, yeah. I still phone the Pilots wife in New Zealand, the other Gunner Taffys’ wife in South Africa, the Bomber Aimers wife in Warrington, the Wireless Ops wife in Cottingham, Hull. So I keep in touch with them as much as I can. Yeah, I do phone them, I were talking to err, Sheena at Hull only a couple of days ago and Chrissie at Warrington I talked to her a week ago yeah.
AM. So although it was only a couple of years of your life its lasted right through to now. You noted that you still keep in touch with people right through to now.
EV. Oh yeah, yeah. Rems wife came over with him a couple of times not every time but a couple of times, he also brought Betty with him a couple or three times. We have had reunions in Hull, reunions in Edinburgh with the Nav and whatever, so.
AM. And we have the photograph with them all on, I’m going to switch off now Eric but if we get that photograph will switch back on while you tell me who they all are.
EV. Yeah.
AM. Ok so we have a photograph of Eric and his crew which we have taken a copy of and Eric is going to talk through who they all are.
EV. Top left Ronnie Moor, Bomb Aimer, next Jim Henderson, Engineer, next one is Ren Waters, New Zealand, Pilot, Malcolm Staithes is next on the top Malcolm Staithes, Wireless Op, Taffy Watkins, Gwyn Davies Watkins Morgan, Navigator Ian Stewart next then myself Eric Varney bottom right.
AM With a big grin on your face.
EV. Yes.
AM. Wonderful thank you Eric.
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AVarneyE150629
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Interview with Eric Varney
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Sound
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eng
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00:51:39 audio recording
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Pending review
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Annie Moody
Date
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2015-06-29
Description
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Eric Varney completed 28 operations as a mid upper gunner with 207 Squadron from RAF Spilsby. After the war Eric worked as a bus driver, coal miner, long distance lorry driver and coal merchant.
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
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Germany
Great Britain
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Cologne
Germany--Dortmund-Ems Canal
Germany--Dresden
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Germany--Ruhr (Region)
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Hugh Donnelly
207 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
bombing
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
Lancaster
Lancaster Finishing School
memorial
military service conditions
RAF Barrow in Furness
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Spilsby
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
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e83b7596b2100cb8c2b204db7e6daf7f
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/359/5527/AFraserD150713.2.mp3
8a9fa28cd8459c111675c687c272ffe4
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Fraser, David
D Fraser
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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.
Description
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One oral history interview with Warrant Officer David Fraser.
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-07-27
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Fraser, DW
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AM: Ok, so this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is myself Annie Moody and the interviewee is David Fraser. The interview is taking place at David’s home in Winchelsea in Kent. No.
DF: Sussex.
AM: Sussex.
DF: East Sussex.
AM: In East Sussex.
DF: Yeah.
AM: On the 13th of July 2015. So if you can just tell me just a little bit about your, your family background, schooling and childhood?
DF: Yeah.
AM: Schooling and what have you.
DF: I was born in Northumberland. And I was there until I was seven. Then we moved to Wales and that’s where I was educated, in Wales. But, but education was nil. Just the three Rs and I didn’t get to grammar school or, I sat the scholarship but failed [laughs]. Then pressed on and left school at fourteen. And I was too young to join the RAF even as an apprentice but I was determined to join the RAF from an early age. From the time I was a toddler I was always interested in aircraft. And so I had to wait till I was seventeen and a half, which I did.
AM: So what did you do in between?
DF: Oh.
AM: Between fourteen and seventeen?
DF: I had various, I had a great time ‘cause there was plenty of jobs about and I just went - I had a factory job in a radio factory. I had one in a motorcycle factory. And I just bided my time until I was seventeen and a half and then I joined the RAF.
AM: So when you say I joined the RAF. Just talk me through that. How? What did you do first? How did it work?
DF: Oh I just made an application and they gave me an appointment up in London – Kingsway and I had this exam to be done which was easy and wrote an essay about my experiences in London and I joined as a flight mechanic. I thought, I was under the impression that a flight mechanic would be associated with flying and, but I wasn’t. I was a humble mechanic.
AM: Did they give you a choice or did they say that -
DF: I could have had any choice really. When the flight sergeant read this essay he said are you sure you want to be a flight mechanic? I said yes. So I enlisted as a flight mechanic.
AM: And this was in? 19 -
DF: 1939.
AM: ’39.
DF: February ‘39.
AM: So before the war had started.
DF: Yeah and -
AM: So then what happened?
DF: And then I went on a flight mechanic course which involved a lot of filing metal and God knows what and I, I tried to fail the course. I just wasn’t interested in flight mechanicing and at the end of the course I saw the CO and I explained that I was not interested in the thing and they passed me with forty percent, the lowest possible pass mark. He said when you get to your squadron when you’re posted you’ll [remaster?]. So that’s what I did and what they wanted pilots, navigators and gunners and I volunteered for the pilot’s course but the waiting list was three or four months and I was afraid I might miss the war so I got the gunners course.
AM: Where, where, where were you living at this point?
DF: Cranwell. I was at Cranwell then.
AM: Ok.
DF: Which is not far from Lincoln. And -
AM: So you went, you went on the -
DF: Went on the gunnery course in Scotland.
AM: In Scotland?
DF: Evanton Gunnery School.
AM: And this is still just pre-war or?
DF: No the war was on then. That was 1940.
AM: Was on. Oh right. Ok, so what was that like?
DF: Great fun. Flying about. We had lumbering pre-war aircraft and in a high wind they’d fly backwards.
AM: What, what aircraft were they?
DF: They were Harrows, Handley Page Harrows. They were so slow that coming back one day I was in the rear turret and we were trying to fly over the High Street parallel with the high street and which was rather, which was forbidden and I saw the local copper get his book out and take our number [laughs]. He took our number. When we got back we got reported and hauled up before the CO for low flying.
AM: And this was still, so this is while you were in training
DF: 1940.
AM: And this is while you were training?
DF: Yes. While training, yes.
AM: Ok, so what, what was the training actually like? What did that consist of?
DF: Oh. Firing. Air to air firing from air to air firing and air to ground firing. Stripping guns and learning all about the mechanism of them and how they worked and we had a month. That took a month and then after that we went to operational training unit which is another three months.
AM: So where was OT?
DF: That was in Scotland.
AM: That was in Scotland as well?
DF: Yeah. Yeah. Lossiemouth, Scotland.
AM: So what did you do there? What did that consist of?
DF: We got there and one morning we were told to report to the hangar and the hangar was full of bods just milling around. The idea was to just mill around and find people you had something in common with and that’s how you crewed up. It was a marvellous system. And you, you found chaps you took a liking to and they reciprocated and that was the way a crews was formed. There were six of us in the crew.
AM: Who chose who?
DF: Hmmn?
AM: Who actually chose who? Who took the lead in it?
DF: Oh pilot, one of the Australian pilots. We had two Australian pilots. They’d been around the offices and seen who got the best marks. And that was what happened. I had good marks at gunnery so they, ‘well he’s a good bloke’ and picked me and that was it.
AM: Were you with anyone else that you’d done the gunnery training with? Oh no you would all have been together wouldn’t you and milling around as you put it.
DF: Oh yes we were all there and we just formed up crews at that, on that morning.
AM: So you’ve got your crew. Then what?
DF: Then we started training as a crew.
AM: As a crew.
DF: Yeah.
AM: In what kind of aircraft?
DF: Wellingtons.
AM: In Wellingtons.
DF: Yeah and -
AM: So how did that go? What was that like?
DF: Well it was a bit dicey because we used to lose on average one crew per course. There were six crews per course and we used to lose one, an average one, one every course. Weather conditions primarily, hitting mountains or getting lost, snowstorms and God knows what, not and aircraft maintenance wasn’t the best ‘cause they were rushing things through and I think things got missed and -
AM: So as a rear gunner training?
DF: Ahum.
AM: What were you shooting at?
DF: Oh whatever they – sometimes they’d send a spitfire up and we’d have cameras, and have camera gunnery and they would develop later on, see how we’d got on. And and other aircraft again drogue, with a drogue towing - you’d fire at that and it was good fun really. We were there for about three months – November, December, January, February, March – yes just over three months. Then we went to the squadron.
AM: And at -
DF: At Marham.
AM: At Marham so -
DF: Norfolk.
AM: Which squadron?
DF: 115 squadron.
AM: 115.
DF: Yeah and we were only there just over a month, then we were shot down. [laughs]
AM: So how many operations did you actually do?
DF: Four.
AM: Four.
DF: Yeah.
AM: Where did you go on operation?
DF: Emden was the first one. Then Brest after the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau battle ships and the last one was Hamburg when we were shot down.
AM: And this was in, still 1940?
DF: ‘41.
AM: We’ve moved to ‘41 now.
DF: ’41. May 10th ‘41 we were shot down.
AM: So describe that to me. The shooting down, and what happened.
DF: Well we were, went up and approached the target and just before we got there we were knocked off course by a, with a blast of blasts so we went around again and that was our undoing. If we’d just got out, got out of it we’d have been ok but went around again doing the job properly and then caught in a cone of searchlights. There was one pilot beam which, and that latches on to you and the rest follow and you’re caught in this cone of lights like a sort of gnat [laughs] and they shot the hell out of us and hit, hit the hydraulics so I couldn’t operate any guns. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t operate, I had no gunsights which was electrical had been knocked out so I was useless. Nothing. I couldn’t manipulate anything. The gun, nothing would move ‘cause we rely upon hydraulic pressure for movement. And there I was. And then there was a silence. That meant a fighter was coming in and come in he did and he proceeded to sort of knock the hell out of us, set fire to the flares in the flare rack and she started blazing and that was the start of the, the whole thing.
AM: So then what happened? Describe it to me if you can.
DF: Of course, normally as a rear gunner you could just turn, turn the turret around, jetison the doors and just drop out but of course I couldn’t do that because the damned thing was jammed up so I squeezed back in, went up the fuselage towards the nose and there I saw Alex the second pilot, Aussie, he was lying bleeding profusely. He was bleeding in the arm and chest and I got him, stuffed him through the hatch, put my hand through to the rip cord. I said, ‘pull for God’s sake’ and anyhow I pushed him out and I looked out and saw him. His parachute opened so that was ok [laughs] and he recovered later on but he was badly wounded.
And then I bailed out and the country I landed in was very much like Romney Marsh. All level and no cover at all, there were no trees [laughs] or anything. I really felt exposed but I hit the ground and as I hit the ground I was swinging. I swung forward and landed on the base of my spine and I thought I’d broken my back. So I just lay there manipulating toes and hands to see if I was ok. Everything moved, worked. And a great herd of cows gathered around me. Friesian cattle. They all came out sniffing around the parachute so I just lay there for about half an hour ‘cause they were good cover and they just, they were nice and warm too these cattle, and I just laid there.
And then when I came to my senses I got the parachute and stuffed it into a dyke and sank it by putting a great, a bit of rock on top of it and I thought now where I shall go. The obvious thing was Denmark and that was occupied by Germans so anyhow I made, I was making for the Danish border. I thought I might have a bit of luck, get over it, get picked up by Danish patriots.
I hadn’t gone more than about a quarter of a mile and as dawn was breaking I came to a hut. It was a hut occupied by searchlight crews and there was a sentry outside and he saw me. He said, ‘ach Englander flieger for you the war is over. Come’. And that was it. I was hauled in to this hut and there I saw Alex lying on this table.
AM: Alex was the Aussie?
DF: Who was wounded, yeah
AM: Ahum.
DF: I thought he was dying. But he was breathing, shallow breathing and he said to me, “Look what they’ve done to my best shirt.” His shirt was all mangled and bleeding and then I was whipped away and put on to a lorry and taken away. And I I didn’t know what had happened to Alex. I thought, honestly thought he’d died until nine months later he turned up in the camp. He’d recovered.
AM: What happened to the rest of the crew?
DF: Well Bill the navigator, when I bailed out I put Alex through the hatch I looked across at Bill who was bent over the main hatch and I yelled, “Come this way.” But he made a gesture like that - so I left, at him waving, went out assuming he’d got out from the main hatch. But what had happened, I didn’t realise, what what had happened, when my turret caught fire Bill came down to give me a hand with the fire extinguisher by which time I’d got the fire out so on returning, he was returning to position and he got the second burst of machine gun fire, was hit in the intestines, went right through the back and right through the front and I didn’t realise he’d been wounded. Yeah.
Then the skipper called out and got no reply so he assumed we were all out and he bailed out and Bill was left in the machine on his own. He was a navigator, he wasn’t a pilot and he thought, ‘well I think I may as well, I’m wounded I may as well dive into the, dive into the deck and get it over with’ and he suddenly thought no he’d carry on. He took over and brought the aircraft down, the wheels, brought the aircraft down and he just came below some high tension cables, past a row of cottages in front of a hospital [laughs] and again they came and cut him out of the aircraft and whipped him into the hospital and this eminent French surgeon who was there, one of the the leading surgeons in France performed an operation on him and that saved his life. But later on he got dysentery and the stitches all broke and that was it. He never ever recovered properly. He always had this open wound and, but the skipper, Andy he bailed out and drowned in the river. He just didn’t release his chute obviously and there was - so one killed and two wounded and three whole.
AM: Three in one piece. So you’re on the lorry. You’re being taken away somewhere.
DF: Yes.
AM: Then what?
DF: And went, went to the officer’s mess, of the -
AM: The mess in?
DF: The squadron who’d shot us down. German officer’s mess but first of all we were interviewed by the couple of bods there and they were trying to get information out of us there and I just gave my name, rank and number. And they said, “Hang ‘em. Hang ‘em.”
Anyhow I didn’t say anything at all and they let me go into another room. Then they took us, a car came and took us to the mess and then we met the guy who shot us down. And he gave us Cognac and coffee and had a general chin wag with them and they said don’t worry the war won’t last long about another six months and the Fuehrer will be riding on a white horse down Whitehall and we said, “Wait and see” and this amused them this ‘wait and see’. And we finally left and they all came on to the front steps to see us off and they all said, “Wait and see” ha ha ha and we said, “Yes wait and see.” And I often wonder how many of them remained alive to wait and see.
AM: And you say us. So how many of you were there?
DF: There were two, there were two of us there.
AM: So, you because -
DF: Two of us and one was a bit further afield and he joined us later on. So there were three of us at [unclear] we were picked up and eventually made our way – or were taken to Hamburg station, put on a train and taken to Dulag Luft which was a reception depot.
AM: Ahum.
DF: And again we were interrogated by, by a guy speaking flawless English. He was, he could have been English and we gave our name, rank and number and he wanted to know what squadron we were from and they were interested in the Stirling. The Stirling at that time had just come operational and they had no information on it and they wanted to know about it. Anyhow, I didn’t give them any information and he pushed a packet of cigarettes and he said, “Didn’t I compete against you at the University Games in London?” I said, “No. No.” And he gave me these cigarettes which I politely refused. I was a non-smoker. After about an hour he, they let me into the compound with the rest, the rest of the bods and we met up in the, in the main sort of main hall. And there were about thirty aircrew there who had been shot down in the last few days. And they had permanent staff there who had been shot down way back. And we then went, the RAF camp wasn’t ready, hadn’t been built so we went around various other camps, army camps and we went to Austria, Poland a sort of cooks tour of Germany and we finally settled up and we ended up in Lamsdorf which an army camp near Breslau and there we remained until the RAF camp was ready which was Stalag Luft III.
AM: So how long were you at the one before Stalag Luft III? How long were you there for?
DF: Oh about, our wanderings, we were wandering about almost a year.
AM: On trains or -
DF: On trains yeah. We’d go, they’d take us to a camp. We might be there two months. Another camp we might be there for three months.
AM: And who was in, you said they were army camps.
DF: They were army camps yeah.
AM: So who else was in them?
DF: Well the last one, in Austria in a place called Wolfsburg, was a French army camp. There were about eighteen thousand Frenchmen. And -
AM: What did you do?
DF: We just -
AM: When you were in there?
DF: We just lived. Existed really. We commandeered the ablutions there and made them fit for use, our own use after the French had made a terrible sort of mess of them. The odd French peasant he doesn’t mind where he, where he sort of goes does he?
AM: But you were a bit more discerning.
DF: And we cleaned it up and it became our own, our own ablutions and everything.
AM: So then Stalag Luft III. Tell me about that.
DF: Oh that 1942 we got there. End of ’42. And that was where we really organised there. An organised camp. There were libraries there and skilled teachers. That’s where a lot of guys started their university experience. Qualified in the intermediate.
AM: Amongst the POWs?
DF: Yes.
AM: So they, who ran the -
DF: Ran the, ran the camp, yeah. Now my pilot, the one who was wounded, he took his intermediate economics exams on [?] university and he ended up being the deputy vice chancellor of the University at Perth.
AM: What did you do?
DF: What did I do? I did, I learned German. I read a lot and increased my knowledge generally and of course mixing with all different types of people what they knew rubbed off on you and I just gleaned information that way.
AM: And you were there for how long?
DF: All told four years.
AM: Four years.
DF: Ahum.
AM: I can’t imagine it.
DF: And we dug tunn, I was involved in five tunnels.
AM: Oh tell me a bit more about that.
DF: Well the first one we dug was what we called a moler and it was just, the actual tunnel was about the same size as your body, your shoulders and it was a question of knees and elbows and digging with a implement and the earth was shoved back like a mole does and after about a half an hour you had to give up and signal you were passing out. Of course you had a rope around your ankle and when you gave a signal they pulled you, hauled you back. Next man in and so it went on.
There was a brand new washhouse there the Germans had built, they weren’t using it, between us and the fence and we thought if we could get to that washhouse and crack a pipe and get some fresh air and I happened to have been digging with the pipe and there it was, this lovely salt glaze pipe and I had a bit of a rock with me and I gave it a couple of bangs and it broke and the fresh air came and, oh marvellous. And then the winter came along and the position we were in it was visible. We had dug during the summer by putting up two sticks with a blanket and just were sunbathing ostensibly but it was just that it was just the cover and there was just the blanket was just high enough so that the guard couldn’t see over it. And we dug this and yes carried on for some weeks and then we had to give up because winter started you couldn’t sunbathe.
AM: Don’t sunbathe in winter. So that was one tunnel.
DF: That was the first one.
AM: And what happened to it? Where did it, did it actually get to the outside?
DF: Oh yes it got about forty yards and we had to give it, had to leave it so I don’t know what happened to it. It probably caved in in the end.
AM: So that was the first one?
DF: The first one.
AM: And then?
DF: The second one was one from the one that had been discontinued, again in a washhouse and that was, that was quite a big one and I started on that and that’s when the Americans came into the camp then. American officers and I’ll never forget this ‘cause I was familiar with Roger and Wilko they were the sort of references to Roger and out or Wilco - will cooperate and this guy was a captain. I was handing up sand and he kept saying Roger. And I honestly thought he had two blokes up there - one called Wilkins and the other called Roger. [Laughs] You simply say passing the bucket to one guy Roger, Roger,
AM: And that was sand?
DF: That was compact sand really.
AM: So how did you stop the tunnel collapsing?
DF: Well we dug with, I had a big tablespoon just with the handle off and dug like that ‘cause it was easy digging. Too easy actually. Got some collapses and so had to retain a dome shape. So it kept its own shape and that damp got in to that and we gave it up. And the big tunnel, the best tunnel was the biggest one and that was again near a wash house, near a soakaway. We started on that. Dug down about ten feet down for the shaft and then along towards the wire and it hadn’t rained, we got about fifty yards, it hadn’t rained for about, nearly a month and suddenly it belted it down and it didn’t stop for about five days and we were digging near the soakaway so there was a subsidence in the soil and we saw a German ferret, we called them ferrets, snooping around and we saw him probing cause he saw the ground subsiding and so we went, we went to the barrack hut and the next thing we knew there was a hell of a commotion and there was German fire engine came dashing in and this guy had fallen in through into the soakaway and this fire engine came in and they got a special harness and put it around him and hauled him out and everyone cheered and they got their pistols out and started firing. I’ve never seen blokes move so quickly.
AM: Firing in what direction? At you?
DF: Oh in the direction of us, yes. So I saw blokes making for the huts, diving through windows and [laughs]
AM: Was anybody killed?
DF: No.
AM: Was anybody shot?
DF: No.
AM: No.
DF: No and then, it was then that they started issuing notices saying that all materials because you had we had to used beds and bed boards which in the German eyes was sabotage and they just said that anyone caught tunnelling in future and misusing German material would be guilty of sabotage and would spend a long time in prison or might, could even be shot. That didn’t dissuade us. We just carried on.
And then we went up to Barth a place called Barth on the Baltic coast and started a tunnel there cos the Yanks were there and we.
AM: So you moved up.
DF: Yes.
AM: From where you were.
DF: Yes.
AM: To a different camp. And what camp was that?
DF: Barth B A R T H
AM: It was actually called, right ok.
DF: And we started a tunnel there with the Americans and we were sent back to our own camp again then we started another one from a barrack, from a barrack hut which meant moving a big stove each time, each time and that got us, it was arduous so we gave it up and that was the end of the tunnelling really.
AM: So you never actually got any of them out?
DF: We didn’t no.
AM: Were you aware of what was happening with the ‘great escape’ tunnel?
DF: No we, we knew the Germans were getting trigger happy. They were very concerned about people using materials, sabotage and God knows what and they issued notices in the camp - escape is no longer a sport, it could result in death. And the first information we had was when we got – where were we then – up near Konigsburg. We’d all had to go, move camp and in through the gates came a convoy of motorcycles and vehicles all armed with heavy machine guns and they proceeded to cordon around us. We were out in the open some sort of roll surrounded us and this German, CO, German CO read out what had happened. He said that fifty, fifty officers had been shot and we all booed and then they clicked their safety catches and started getting - so our senior man said, “Cool it blokes, cool it blokes” don’t want any disasters but we knew. They said they were shot while trying to escape but they they’d been recaptured and then shot. We found -
AM: Did you know that or found out later on?
DF: Later on yes yeah. Marvellous, good men lost their, the whole secret organisation leaders were shot and there were several Germans hanged for it after the war.
AM: So what, going back to you and where you were then. So we’re getting towards the end of the war. What things started happening?
DF: Yeah.
AM: What?
DF: Well we ended up at a place called [Fallingbostel?] it wasn’t far from the main autobahn between Hanover and Hamburg and things were getting a bit tight and all of a sudden one day you’re going to march, got to get out and march. So everyone packed up their belongings and gathered, and carried what they could and assembled outside the gates. We thought to hell with this. This could lead to hostage taking so we said no we’re not marching so there were five of us avoided the Germans. They were searching the whole camp get people out of it. We hid up in various places and when the coast was clear we went out through the wire and made contact with our own army.
AM: How? How?
DF: We just went out into the open and we passed through the German lines and saw Germans laying mines in culverts and we met up with - we saw a tank coming towards us over the brow of a hill and the gun swung around and the gun, comms tower was opened and a black bereted head popped out. We said, “Don’t fire. We’re English.” So they drew up about twenty yards from us, the crew got out and gave us cigarettes and there we were smoking and -
AM: You were a non-smoker.
DF: No. No. I tell you what, when I was twenty one, on my twenty first birthday there was a consignment of Red Cross parcels. So everyone – ‘oh food, marvellous’ but it wasn’t food it was tobacco. Cigarettes. The issue was thirteen per man so I had my thirteen cigarettes. I thought well I can’t eat I might as well bloody smoke. That’s when I started smoking. Twenty one.
AM: So here’s the tank.
DF: And, and they drew up and we sat there chatting on a grassy bank and we’d earlier, before we’d met the tank, we’d come to a farm. Went into the farmhouse and there at a long farm table were the farmer’s wife and about six Germans – troops. So we questioned them and obviously they were no longer interested in fighting, they just more or less deserted, or given themselves up. And when we, when we spoke to the tank commander and told them about the guys in the farmhouse his eyes lit up so he sent a guy, one man up to the farm about a mile back and he came back not with six blokes but about thirty. They were all skulking in the cowsheds.
And this guy he’d sent up there was an Austrian and who’d been in England since 1936 and he joined the British army, marvellous bloke. And I always remember this squadron, this tank commander was called Major Hepburn and everyone called him Kathy [laughs] and when these, these Germans came down, he lined them all up and they put their packs in front of them and he said, “Right open them up” and they opened them up. There were tins of beef and pork and eau de cologne and cigarettes, cigars so he said, “There you are blokes take what you want” so we took, there were tins of meat and God knows what and put them in our packs. And then he said you’re running, you’re running a bit of a risk he said ‘cause there are still troops hiding up in woods. This was the SS. And so they armed us with rifles and ammunition and gave us a driver and a jeep and we went back about ten miles up to divisional headquarters and dropped us off there. So we were free once again.
We just we went back through the lines again everywhere like a lot of bandits with rifles and and yards of ammo wound around us and if we felt hungry we just caught up with the nearest army thing and they fed us and gave us a bed for the night and it was a marvellous week really. It was, was blazing hot sun. Marvellous.
AM: And you just worked your way.
DF: Yeah worked our way across the -
AM: Where did you end up?
DF: Well we saw six RAF blokes coming down the road so we said, “Where are you from?” And they said, “Oh we’re from a transport squadron he said but a bit further back, about a mile along there’s a fighter squadron flying Tempests,” and we thought they’re the boys so we walked up there and the sentry said, “Halt” and brought the guard out and took our weapons away and we made statements they gave us pieces of paper saying the bearer is an escaped prisoner of war.
And then we had a marvellous shower and then were, we were guests of the officer’s mess where we drank and oh I’ve never drunk before in my life and funnily enough it must have been because we hadn’t drunk for ages but we couldn’t get drunk. We just, it was a marvellous sense. But the CO, the group captain he went slowly under the table, just collapsed really under the table.
And then there was another guy who saw us - he turned around and embraced one of our mates. He was, Gerry Clark who was with us, he was bilingual French and this guy saw him who was a French, French ace and he turned around and he saw him and, “Oh Gerry” and they were from Biggin Hill. That’s where they’d last met. And Gerry had collided with a German in a dog fight and he and the German were in the same hospital. But Pierre Clostermann was the name of this, this French ace. He wrote two books Flames in the Sky is one and Big Show is the other one.
AM: Ahum.
DF: And he always wore, always wore a pair of guns like he was some old cowboy. He was quite a flamboyant creature and after the war he became an MP.
AM: Ahum.
DF: Alsace yeah from Alsace.
AM: So how did you actually get back to England?
DF: Oh then they thought there’s an Anson going back to Dunsfold tomorrow and oh lovely we can go back just as we are and just as we are dressed in scruff order but they had to, they had to inform Movement Control and we had to go through channels and they gave us army uniforms, all brand new and we had to go through, go through with the rest of the guys and we ended up at Brussels and they were flying in petrol in jerry cans and flying out prisoners of war. So we flew back in a Stirling and I flew back in the rear turret. And then we, we had, after that we went, we had, to Cosford to be debriefed at Cosford and given RAF stuff. RAF uniforms.
AM: Proper uniforms.
DF: That’s it. And then given pay, indefinite leave and that was it. Anti-climax.
AM: So what did you do?
DF: I went back. I went home and that was it. Show over.
AM: When you said they gave you your pay so that’s for all the time that you’d been gone.
DF: Oh they didn’t give us the lot. They gave us an instalment.
AM: Right. So what did you do afterwards then?
DF: What?
AM: You’ve had the anti-climax. You’re back. You’re home.
DF: Yes.
AM: Then what?
DF: I just remained in the RAF till my demob number came up and meanwhile I met my wife. Met her in June and we were married in October. And it worked out marvellously well and she was demobbed first and then I was demobbed and then I thought well what do we do now?
So I got a government grant and trained as a chartered surveyor but I failed the ex, again my mind wasn’t a hundred percent. I just went through the motions and I just failed the exam in one subject and then I gave it up. And I’m glad I did because the idea, in retrospect the idea of being in a routine job never appealed to me so what I did I joined, later on I joined a company selling farm buildings and it was marvellous. I was a freelance representative out every day, living in a place I wanted to live in – Cornwall. It was marvellous. That’s where the family were brought up. We were twenty years down there.
AM: Right. And here you are.
DF: Here we are.
AM: In Winchelsea.
DF: Yeah. In our second love, Romney Marsh.
AM: Ahum. Any other stories for me or shall we switch off?
DF: Hmmn?
AM: Any other stories for me or shall I switch off?
DF: I could go on forever I think but -
AM: Do feel free.
DF: No, then we were in Cornwall and the company, the company I was with, I was a freelance agent and the company I was with thought it was too far too come to erect buildings in Cornwall. They were, they were in Herefordshire so they just withdrew the labour from Cornwall and left me high and dry. So I thought to hell with it I’ve just about had enough of this bloody rat race so I gave it up and I started gardening and I’ve never had a more pleasant time in my life. Self-employed gardening. Marvellous. I used to do a bit of building.
AM: Out in the weather.
DF: Marvellous yeah.
AM: Wonderful so you had a good life.
DF: I had a good life. Very fortunate, very lucky. I had sixty nine years of married life. Marvellous. Got two nice daughters and a son in Australia. Good family.
AM: And you go swimming
DF: Yeah.
AM: When you can. In the sea.
DF: Yeah.
AM: At 94.
DF: Yeah.
AM: I think on that note.
DF: Yes.
AM: I’ll switch the recorder off.
DF: Ok
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 David Fraser
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-13
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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AFraserD150713
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending OH summary
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Description
An account of the resource
David Fraser enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1939 and was trained as a mechanic. He remustered as soon as he was able and flew four operations as an air gunner with 115 Squadron before his aircraft was shot down over Hamburg, in May 1941. He spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft 3.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Creator
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Annie Moody
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Julie Williams
Format
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00:45:54 audio recording
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Poland
England--Norfolk
Poland--Żagań
Germany--Hamburg
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1940
1941-05-10
1942
115 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bale out
bombing
crewing up
Dulag Luft
flight mechanic
Gneisenau
ground crew
Harrow
Operational Training Unit
prisoner of war
RAF Evanton
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Marham
Scharnhorst
searchlight
shot down
Spitfire
Stalag 8B
Stalag Luft 1
Stalag Luft 3
Stalag Luft 6
Stirling
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/7906/PIronsH1501.2.jpg
62e8999adc6227a8e1dcf9d08e401fbc
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/7906/AIronsH150723.1.mp3
113b2cff64ef934152b89828f1ea404f
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
Irons, Harry
Harry Irons
H Irons
Description
An account of the resource
Two oral history interviews with Harry Irons (1924 - 2018). He was an apprentice tailor in London, but lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 158, 462 and 9 Squadrons.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-23
2016-07-30
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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Irons, H
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Okay so, this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Annie Moodie and the interviewee is Harry Irons. The interview’s taking place at a hotel near Kings Lynn and we’re here for the 9 Squadron Association hundred year dinner.
HI: Yeah that’s right, yeah.
AM: And it’s the 23rd of July 2015. So, off you go Harry. Tell us –
HI: Er, actually I won a scholarship to go to a grammar school, but my father insisted that I left school at fourteen so I could go to work and earn a wage. So, being in the east end the only jobs you could get was either tailoring or cabinet making. There was a whole area that’s – it was a big Jewish area and the, most of the people were either tailors or cabinet makers, and they were good, very good, brilliant craftsmen. So I took a job on as a trainee tailor and I was doing that for two years until I was sixteen, nearly sixteen, and we lived in an area of London called Stamford Hill and one evening we, me and a few other chaps were on the hill, and we see the huge blitz on London, and we actually see the whole of the City of London literally ablaze. Enormous, as far as your eye could see was buildings all, all ablaze, that was the City of London. Actually, they weren’t after the City of London, what they was after was the Docks, and they just, their bombing, what we used to call creeping, crept back from the Docks into the City of London and once it hit the City of London course everything went up in flames so, two or three friends said ‘we’ll, we’re gonna join up.’ I was sixteen at the time, so we went up the recruiting office in Kings Cross, London, and I told ‘em I was seventeen and a quarter, how they believed me I don’t know but they said ‘alright you’re in,’ and that was at the end of 1941, and I was called up in January 1941 [unclear]. The blaze was – the bombing was in 1940 and we joined, we joined up at the end of 1940, and 1941 they called me up and I went to a place near where it was called Bridgnorth then six weeks square bashing [?] there and they said ‘you’ll have to wait to sele’ – they asked me what I wanted to be in the air force, I said ‘I wanna fly,’ they said ‘alright, we’ll put you down for either a pilot, navigator or an air gunner and we’ll sort that out later on.’ Anyway, I went to Bridgnorth, done my six weeks training, and they sent me to a RAF station, Wisbech in Cambridge and I had to do menial jobs there, in the cook house, in the stores, waiting for, to go on a course. In the mean while they told me I was gonna become a wireless operator air gunner, and I’ve got to wait for a course to come up, a vacancy for the course to come up, so I stayed at Wisbech ‘til August ’41, and then they posted me to Blackpool on a wireless course and everybody in the RAF went to Blackpool to do their wireless course, and you had to stay in a, all the border houses were commandeered, and all the aircrew used to live in these border houses and the thing was when you’re at Blackpool you got up to twelve words a minute which we all did, and then from there you’re posted to another sta, er, air force station to continue your study ‘til you become up to eighteen words a minute –
AM: When you say eighteen words a minute, doing what?
HI: Morse code.
AM: Morse code right, okay.
HI: Yeah, dit dah dit dah dit dah dit. Anyway, we was all queuing up to wait for postings and the sergeant came out just like that he said ‘you lot, over that side. You lot, that side,’ and fortunately or unfortunately I was in that lot on that side and we become airgunners. Not wireless operators, airgunners. Just airgunners. And the reason for that, I didn’t know at the time, was the heavy bombers, the Lancasters, were going on production, and there was, they were short of airgunners, because they had to carry another air gunner so they said ‘you lot over there, you become airgunners,’ and I went back to Wisbech – I was a bit cheesed off about it all anyway, couldn’t do much about it, and I waited another couple of months and then they sent me on a gunnery course, a place called Manby [emphasis] in Lincoln, it’s a big air force gunnery school there, and we done six weeks training there as gunners, gunnery, and I got the huge total flying hours of nineteen hours, that’s all I got, and they said – and from there you’re supposed to do a four month, five month operational training course, that’s getting accustomed to actually doing bombing raids on enemy territory. But then whatever happened they said to me ‘you’re being posted straight on a squadron’ and I tell you what, I was a greener than this.
AM: [Laughs] we’re sat on a green settee, for the record.
HI: Yeah, yeah. It was as green, I was as green as anything then. ‘Cause I got nineteen hours and I didn’t know what to expect. Anyway, I was posted to Waddington [emphasis] to Number 9 Squadron. And when I arrived there, as it was luck [exhale of breath] was in my favour because a flight lieutenant named Stubbs came up to me and said ‘you’re gonna fly with me as a mid-upper’ and I said ‘fair enough.’ They’d already, he was already on his second tour, he’d already done thirteen trips on Wellingtons [emphasis].
AM: So you didn’t do the usual crewing up thing?
HI: Never done anything like that, no.
AM: You just –
HI: No, no they just sent about ten of us to 9 Squadron, ‘cause I was just converting from Wellingtons onto Lancasters, and consequently they was one gunner short because the Lancaster carried a mid-upper. So he said to me, anyhow I didn’t know what it was all about actually, he said to me ‘the rear gunner I’ve got at the moment is a big Australian,’ he was about six foot three [unclear] ‘and he’s too tall for the turret’ he said ‘what we’re gonna do is you’re gonna do your first trip in the mid-upper and after that you’ll go in the rear turret, and the Australian will go’ –‘cause in the mid-upper you can pull your legs down, straighten you know, you’ve got plenty of room, so what we done then, we done – as time’s gone on, this was 1942, round about June 1942 and we started getting to used, well the crew getting used to flying a Wellington twin engine bomber onto a four engine bomber. And that, you use what they call conversion, and that’s pretty difficult ‘cause you learn how to fly an entirely different aircraft, land it, you got to find out all the different things, the different systems and the turrets, anyway we done about six weeks training, well not, training it was, well converting from the one engine to the Lancaster, and then September ’42 we was in a crew, we had a big crew and we used to lay and loll about smoking, swearing everything else [laughs] anyway, they said ‘ops tonight.’ So, before you went on operations you done what they call a night flying test [emphasis], you took the aircraft up, you tested the bomb site, you tested the, the bomb bays open and closing, you tested the turrets and you give a, you went outta sea and give the guns a little squirt, see everything was alright, the compass [emphasis], check the compass and the, the under carriage we’d dropped up and down a couple of time to make sure it was alright, and we landed, and as we landed, the bomb aimer had already done thirteen trips on Wellingtons, and this is vivid, and as we’d come out of the steps of the Lancaster, the bomb aimer’s behind me, and coming along the road was tractor carrying a four thousand pound bomb, and fourteen hundred incendiaries, and the bomb aimer said to me ‘oh, we’re going to Happy Valley tonight.’ He said ‘by that bomb load, we’re definitely going to Happy Valley,’ and I thought ‘well that don’t sound too bad, Happy Valley,’ I thought ‘well Happy Valley, that can’t be too bad,’ I didn’t know that that was a nickname for the Ruhr Valley. The whole of the Ruhr Valley was called Happy Valley, and I didn’t realise at the time but the Happy Valley, the Ruhr Valley, as you went in you got a brilliant [emphasis] reception and a better, a, what you say, a bye-bye on the way out, and I tell you what, right I’ll go on, anyway we – it was always ritual, always [emphasis] for bomber crews to have bacon and eggs before they went on ops, always. Didn’t matter where you were, all the time I was in the air force, I done sixty bombing trips, and every time we went on a bombing trip we got bacon and eggs [emphasis] and if we come back we got bacon and eggs. And that was a luxury in those, in wartime, and then of course the joke was, always the joke ‘if you don’t come back, can I have your bacon and eggs?’ you know. Anyway, we went to the, we got – there was a bit of a rigmarole getting ready, you had to, you had to have your bacon and eggs and you go down to – most, most aircrew wrote a last letter, most of ‘em. I think the majority of aircrew wrote a last letter home to their wives, and they used to put them on the bed, and I’m afraid to say, I seen many, many, many letters being collected by the padre, many, that’s why I never wrote one myself. Anyway, we had our food, our bacon and eggs, we were all laughing and joking, you know we were young blokes, and we went to the crew, to the briefing room and we all sat down to see who would come in, and the map [emphasis] had a huge sheet over it, and the CO always, always done it, come in, whipped the sheet off and there was the target. So the bomb aimer said to me ‘I told you.’ It was Dusseldorf, he said ‘there you are,’ he said ‘I knew we were going there’ he said, ‘we’re going to Happy Valley,’ and I still didn’t twig on, ‘oh well, that don’t sound too bad,’ thinking of German girls tryna start [?] kisses you know what I mean. Anyway, we went down to the crew room and the atmosphere changed completely [emphasis]. We went in the crew room and the whole squadron was in the crew room ‘cause we had cabinets for all our flying gear and used to get dressed in there, and as I walked in, all the crews were there, it was dead silence, and everybody was looking at each other, there was no jokes, no laughing, nothing. And there was simply a – the atmosphere was incredible [emphasis] to what it was in the mess having our egg and bacon. Anyway, we got dressed and it was – airgunners dressing was long underpants, pure silk, and a vest that was silk and then your shirt and then your pullover, and then a, over the shirt you put a, I think it was, no, before you put the shirt on, as we put the shirt on we put an electrical heated suit with gloves and electrical heated gloves and body and feet, which was really, really important. And over that we put our uniform ‘cause you had to wear a uniform, if you never wore a uniform, I never realised but at night if you’ve was parachuted out in civilian clothes you was likely to get executed, which many, quite a few boys did get executed, especially by the civilians. And over that we used to put a huge [emphasis] fur jacket and fur trousers, fur lined boots, and there we were –
AM: Fur trousers?
HI: Fur trousers, yeah [murmur from AM]. You know, thick, made of the same material as your jacket. Irvin jacket, you had Irvin trousers, thick Irvin trousers and they used to tuck them inside your boot, zip your boots up and there, you could hardly move by then, but – and I’ll tell you what, on a warm day you was walking out you was absolutely sweating [emphasis, laughs]. Anyway, we went out to the aircraft and everybody smoked, everybody smoked [emphasis] except the skipper, the skipper didn’t smoke, he never drunk, never went out with women, he was absolutely – they said in the officers mess that they couldn’t understand the man, he wouldn’t, he never swore, he never smoked. Anyway, he – a good pilot mind you. Anyway, we got in the aircraft and I was in the mid-upper, first time. And in the mid-upper turret of the Lancaster, I’ve got a picture of it, you had a fantastic [emphasis] view –
AM: Hmm, all round.
HI: All three hundred and eighty degree. You could see everything [emphasis]and I got in the mid-upper, and I never got, I was still raw, we done, only done six weeks training, and I plugged in the electricity for the heater ‘cause if we, even in the mid-upper the temperature was about forty-five, fifty below zero. Worse still in the turret, rear turret. Anyway, we got ready and then the crew room, nobody was talking, it was like that, nobody spoke, and off we went. We took off at Waddington, and the thing was at Waddington they had no runways at that time. There were two squadrons of Lancasters there and no runway. All we had was grass, and in the winter it was very, very difficult with full bomb loads to takeoff. Before that, when we arrived at Waddington there was a squadron there, 44 Squadron, a Rhodesian squadron, and apparently they was the first squadron in the RAF to be equipped with the Lancaster, in March, April, round about April. And what they’d done, they’d decided to do a daylight raid, a low level daylight raid on a town called Augsburg in Germany. They sent six Lancasters flying at zero feet right across France, right into Germany –
AM: At zero [emphasis] feet?
HI: Zero feet, I mean zero – well when I say zero feet, about half of these buildings.
AM: Right okay.
HI: Can you imagine six Lancasters –
AM: No [laughs] –
HI: At that height over, just ducking over the trees, going as low as low as they could, else they would have invade [?] the radar.
AM: Right.
HI: Anyway, what happened – unfortunately there was squadron of Messerschmitts flying, I don’t know if it was practicing or flying, and of course they see these six Lancasters, and they immediately they shot down five [noise of shock from AM]. So outta the six they sent, one come back badly, badly damaged, and his name was Nevillson [name unclear] and he got the VC. The other five that was shot down got nothing [emphasis] so, he was fortunate, he was leading the squadron from the front and they gradually cut the other five down and he managed to avoid and managed to get back badly damaged. So, I’m just telling you that because it deal with another operation I went on. Anyway, we all got ready to takeoff, and everything was quiet in the – nobody spoke, when we was on ops, very rarely we spoke. The only time we spoke is when we was being attacked, when the navigator was giving instructions to the pilot, or the bomb aimer or me or the mid-upper or the rear gunner could see something downstairs they could identify and then inform the navigator what we see, and that helped him to crack the course. ‘Cause in those days, 1942, we had no radar. We had what they called Gee-box up to the coast and once we hit the coast the Germans blocked it, so it was from then onwards it was the navigator used to have to go from one spot to another spot, estimate the time of arrival at the other spot before he made a correction to the course, and of course things improved later on in ’43, and the gunners helped a lot because they could, especially the rear gunner could see, or the mid-upper could see different –
AM: Rivers, train lines and stuff like that.
HI: -- objects, yeah. And sometimes that wasn’t possible, there’d be ten-Thames [?] cloud. And then navigation become very, very difficult. And don’t forget we didn’t have no radar help whatsoever, but we managed and we flew over, as we took off we flew over the Dutch coast and the bomb aimer, he used to lay pronged in the nose [very unsure about what was said here], he said ‘skipper, enemy air coast [?] ahead, flak, flak.’ Always gunfire was called flak [emphasis]. So I looked down and I see all these beautiful, indescribable [?] lights, every colour, reds, blues, greens, there all tracers [?] from what they call night flak. They went up to about eight or nine thousand feet and then it dropped down again. And that’s when flak –
AM: And how high were you at that point?
HI: We was about twelve thousand feet. So when I looked down from mid-upper and I see that flak below us and I thought to myself ‘if that’s flak, we’ve got nothing at all to worry about.’ So we flew over Holland, don’t forget this was the early phase of bombing. Before that the bombing was nothing ‘cause they had obsolete bombing, bombing aircraft and no idea whether they reached the target. It was only in beginning, half way through 1942 they was giving the apparatus so they didn’t really find the target. Anyway, you crossed the Dutch coast and I’m in the mid-upper, spinning it round, and for about, I should imagine it was about hour, hour and a quarter, then the bomb aimer said ‘target ahead skipper.’ So then I thought to myself ‘well I’ll have a look to see what this target is all about,’ and I swung the turret around and I had really [emphasis], really the shock of my life. In front of us, with no exaggeration, was one solid massive explosion of shells. Absolute whole area was full up of high explosive shell fire, and we gotta fly through that. And searchlights were creeping about, and they had one searchlight which was radar operated and it was a different colour, it was blue, very light blue. And that was a searchlight, never missed. It went up bang, like that, straight onto an aircraft. It was radar controlled [coughs] excuse me [pause to drink] so when I see this huge massive explosion ‘cause I had a beautiful view, so I thought to myself ‘cor blimey, surely we haven’t gotta go through all this.’ And I could hear it, and the plane was bumping up and down from the force of the explosions and the skipper said to me ‘mid-upper, keep an eye above you, because bombers above you will drop their bombs on you’ which happened many times. So I said ‘okay skipper,’ and – we called the pilot skipper, always called him a skipper. Doesn’t matter what rank he was, always a skipper. Anyway, we, I started looking up and there right above us was a Lanc, bomb bay open, ‘cause you know the bomb bays were enormous, I says ‘there’s a bomber above us skipper with his bomb bay open, dive port.’ We dived port, good job we did because he was ready to drop his load, so we slammed our bomb bay shut, because we was on a run as well and, and the bomb aimer said ‘we’ll have to make a correction on our way into the target.’ You must realise that all around us these huge [emphasis] explosions of shells, I’m telling you not few, hundreds [emphasis] of ‘em exploding into the sky. Anyway, as we were flying in, the skipper said ‘skipper, I’ve lost the target point,’ he said ‘we’ll have to round again.’ And I just told you, the skipper never swore. I’ll tell you what [laughs] he said to the bomb aimer ‘you are a silly chap’ [laughs]. There was a few more words. So we slammed the bomb bay shut, went right through that target, went all through that explosions and the plane was rocking about, could hear shrapnel hitting the bloody machine, in our machine, and we went round and we do a dogleg. We approached the target like that, and then we go like that, like that, in again. But you had to be very, very careful ‘cause when you left the target and you was gonna come in again, you was coming across the last of the bombers that was going in. And it was very, very, very dangerous. Anyway, when we went round, and by that time the German radar was on us and it was giving us a real, real shellacking [?] I’ll tell you. Anyway, we made our run round, opened the bomb bay, dropped our bombs, slammed the door, slammed the door shut and what we usually do then, you couldn’t – slammed the doors shut but you couldn’t get away, you had to stay straight and level for another forty seconds because the camera was turning around and at the same time you was dropping what they called a photo-flash [?]. That was in the fuselage. And as the photo-flash dropped down, the cameras turning over, and they took a picture, an actual picture, of you bombing the target, which was very, very important because if you didn’t bring back a picture the intelligence officers said to you ‘well it’s your word against mine that you went there,’ even if the aircraft was full of bloody holes, they still say ‘we don’t believe you,’ well, ‘not saying we don’t believe you but you’ve got no proof that you went to the target so it don’t count, so you can go all that way there and back for nothing,’ which happened several times. Anyway, we slammed the bomb bay down, we made a dived [emphasis] to the port, turned round and come back and that’s when your trouble started, the fighters. But that time they wasn’t so dangerous as what they were to be. They, we used to see the fighters flying about and straight away, I don’t know if it was instinct or not, when I see a fighter, I wouldn’t fire on him unless he was interfering with us, I let him go, because generally you’d find on a fighter he had huge [emphasis] canons and you had no chance, I tell you, you had no chance whatsoever.
AM: So you’re just causing trouble for yourself really –
HI: Yeah because they could stand off from two, three hundred yards and you couldn’t do nothing about it, ‘cause your 303 went about a hundred yards and started dropping what they called a gravity drop. They had canons and he could rake you [?] which happened a couple of times. Anyway, we slammed the bomb bay shut, and we started coming back, and the bomb aimer said to the skipper and the navigator, ‘skipper, we can’t breathe. We’ve got no oxygen.’ And what had happened, the shrapnel had cut through the oxygen lines, so the skipper said ‘alright, so what we have to do is dive down below ten thousand feet,’ which we did do, and coming home in the mid-upper I thought to myself, ‘if this is bloody Happy Valley, I hope we don’t go anywhere that’s miserable’[laughs]. And I’ll tell you what, it’s a terrible, terrible place. Anyway we got down to – we crossed the Dutch coast at about four thousand feet, and these beautiful lights we see were flashing past us like that, all over, and lucky enough we managed to get through a few bangs and we were damaged but not that bad. And we dropped down about two thousand feet and we headed home, and I thought to myself ‘dear oh dear, I got thirty of these, thirty trips to do like that before we get a rest.’ And we landed, and I was exhausted. Even at that age, at seventeen, I was exhausted. And we went into the briefing room and I stood there and we was asked a load of questions, and they said to me, it was only my first trip, they said to me ‘what do you think?’ And I said ‘I see four or five bombers exploding in the sky,’ I said ‘apart from that everything was alright.’ He said ‘you never seen no bombers’ – this was the officer, the briefing officer telling me that, he wasn’t even a flyer. He’s saying ‘you didn’t see no bombers blowing up, that was scarecrows.’ What the Germans were firing up shells to mimic a bomber exploding, and they kept this up right the way through the war.
AM: So it was true, you hadn’t, you’d seen the scarecrows, not a bomber blowing up.
HI: No, no they were actually aircraft blowing up in the sky. They did admit after the war there was no such thing as a scarecrow.
AM: Ah right.
HI: They admitted it, the Air Ministry, but they kept it a –
AM: So why did they say that?
HI: Well they – one of the reasons was they didn’t want us to duck and dive about. They wanted us to fly straight and level, ‘cause it was dangerous anyway, ducking and diving. But every time we went back we say we seen three or four, sometimes more than that, explosions, literally exploding in the sky. They said ‘no, that’s German scarecrows to demoralise you.’ Anyway, we got back and in the briefing room he said, he told me about the scarecrows so I thought ‘oh well, that’s it.’ Anyway, I didn’t know how exhausted I was, it was only a four and three-quarter hour trip. I went to bed and I felt absolutely exhausted. And I think the mental strain of the first trip. Anyway, we went back to the mess, we went to bed, and I think next morning we had a day off. The following day I think we went to Bremen, and the reason why went to Bremen, or Bremen [different pronunciation, shorter vowel sound] as they called it, they was building the submarines, the U-Boats there.
AM: Right.
HI: And we went across the Baltic that time. We didn’t see no flak until we hit Bremen, and the flak was unbelievable. It was worse than Dusseldorf.
AM: Were you in the rear gunner at this –
HI: I was in the rear turret, yeah.
AM: So you’d moved to the rear turret by this time?
HI: Yeah. And different position and the different visibility of the – when you’re in the rear turret you can see that way, see the bits you couldn’t see really above you or at the side of you –
AM: Or behind you.
HI: And at that time, the Germans were only attacking from dead astern, port over or starboard over . That was the method of attacking at that time [emphasis], things were getting much, much worse, but they had a little bit of a chance because if they come in close you had four guns here and you could – you had a bit of a chance, not a lot, but you had a bit of a chance. Anyway, I think it was after that trip, couple of trips, I complained to the engineering officer that the rear turret, that the oil for the Merlin engines was coating the Perspex in the rear turret, which obviously, the exhaust was coming out. So we was sitting in the crew room, the officer come in, he said ‘we solved the problem of the oil on the turrets,’ and I thought ‘well that’s good’ ‘cause after about two hours this oil used to go onto the Perspex, it was starting to be difficult to see outta it, and when we went out there [chuckles] what they had done, they had taken the whole Perspex out [chuckles]. So there we were in a rear turret with no bloody Perspex, and I tell you what, it was cold [emphasis].
AM: How did that – what so nothing between you –
HI: No, just – they took the whole of the front of the Perspex out. We used to look through, they took out because the oil.
AM: So it was just you [emphasis] and sky –
HI: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Nothing between you?
HI: No, no. Well the Perspex only stopped the slipstream but they took the Perspex out. Yeah, on all the Lancs, but they solved the problem [laughs]. Anyway, we –
AM: But the oil would just hit you in the face instead.
HI: Yeah, but it was, it wasn’t so bad because you could just wipe it with your glove with it [AM laughs]. But, we got rid of the – it wasn’t such a huge amount but it was enough oil to stop, to obscure your sight a bit, you know. And you had to be really, really on your toes all that time you was in that turret. It was bitterly cold in there, forty-five, fifty below zero, was nothing.
AM: Did you ever have an occasion when your suit didn’t work, or?
HI: Yes sometimes it, it didn’t work a couple of times. I burnt me foot ‘cause it was a new, new idea you know, they’d, after the war they made electric blankets [AM laughs] that was only through the electrical heated suits and it’s the short shirts – it’s like everything in the war, everything was crash, bang, wallop, get ready , but every gunner was issued with an electrical heated suit, and they were good when they worked. So I’d done my first op, and I thought I was proud of myself, but I had other twenty-nine to do. I mean, twenty-nine successful [emphasis] ones, so you can, you can go all the way there, and you get, you get engine trouble and you gotta come back, that don’t count. Even in respect of what you’ve gone through, it didn’t count.
AM: You had to drop your bombs on the target for it to count.
HI: Yeah, the gunner target, yeah. You see, what actually happened, I think at the beginning of the war, the few of them used to go to North Sea, drop their bombs and come back and say yeah they’ve, they’ve, and they – ‘cause they realised Germany wasn’t being bombed really, it was a, the most that we got to was five miles from the towns [?] so what they decide to put the camera in, and the photo-flash. And that stopped it all, ‘cause you had to bring back a picture. The first thing they asked for when you walked in, ‘have you got your picture?’ It was the first thing – [unclear] you’d land on the aircraft, there was a [unclear] photography unit come out and take the film out, and there’d be developed or they used to take it back to the crew, the, where we was being briefed, and they could see if we bombed the target or not. Anyway, so we went to Bremen, we gained a good shellacking [?] and we done a bit of damage there, and we come back, and I was blowing my chest out, I’d done two trips [laughs]. The following, following day, er day after that, we went to Wilhelmshaven, and that was worse. That’s where I was really in full, full strength of building submarines there, and we did – it was devastating the bombing we done there, it was very successful, they held up the submarine building for a long while, and then I’d done, I’d done three trips, and I was, you know, thinking to myself, well –
AM: Were you scared?
HI: Frightened outta my bloody life. The first one, I told you, that first one, Dusseldorf, I could not believe, I could not [emphasis] but everyone was the same –
AM: Did you talk about it?
HI: No, no we never talked about it, no. I’ll tell you one thing, we used to get crews coming straight from OTU into the squadron, ‘cause their losses were horrendous you know, we was losing so many aircraft, and they’d say ‘what’s the ops like?’ and we’d always used to say ‘you find out, you find out yourself.’ We never said ‘oh it’s terrible over there’ or nothing, never. And I don’t know if that helped them or not, but a lot of the crews only done one trip before they got shot down, hell of a lot of ‘em. Just one – in fact, what they used to do when a crew come from OTU, they used to let the pilot fly with an experienced crew on his first trip, so he’d understand what an actual raid was. Very often he never come back off his first trip, it happened time and time again. The crew used to be walking about the station with no, waiting for a new pilot. Yeah, happened many times. Anyway, after Wilhelmshaven we went back to Happy Valley again, and this time, I tell you what, I thought Dusseldorf was bad, we went to Essen [emphasis] and Essen was something out of this [noise of disbelief] something outta, I tell you what, it was absolutely ferocious. The flak was enormous, everywhere you look there was shells bursting, aircraft blowing up in the sky, aircraft going down in flames, and I had something with me because we just went through – we always got hit, always got hit with flak, big holes in the aircraft, but when we got back they used to bang ‘em and tap ‘em back and –
AM: Bodge [?] ‘em up.
HI: Yeah, that’s it [chuckles]. Anyway, we went to Essen, then we went to Munich, and I’ll tell you how my luck is, what happened, losses at Waddington on 9 Squadron, even those few weeks I was there, was horrendous. So they sent two scientists down from Cambridge with a new device to put into the rear turret so that when a fighter was five or six hundred yards away, which we couldn’t see, they could see us on their radar, this instrument was radar. It could pick up the fighter and warn us with a red light that there was a fighter in the close vicinity. Unfortunately the first time the squadron was equipped with them, we lost two aircraft and the Germans must have sorted the, must have examined the wreckage and seen this device in the rear turret and copied [unclear] a wavelength or whatever it was, anyway we went to Munich and that was a long trip, that was about eight and a half hours and we went over, and how the navigator found Munich I’ll never know ‘cause we went over in ten-tenths cloud, that means to say underneath you was solid cloud, but he found Munich as – before we reached Munich the cloud broke and there was Munich and we did, we did give it real good hiding.
AM: Is this day time or night?
HI: It’s night time –
AM: It’s night time isn’t it?
HI: Never, never done daylight.
AM: But you could still see it, so how come you could see it at night time?
HI: We could see it yeah because the – a couple of people had been bombing it and the searchlights –
AM: Right.
HI: And you could see the town anyway. You – but that’s why bombing – they, they said ‘well why did you bomb areas’ – the only way you can do night bombing was to, at that time was area bombing and in that area you probably got a load of factories you could destroy, but you couldn’t pick out – it was very, very difficult to pick out an individual target so you had to bomb an area, they used to pick an area out. This was before pathfinding [murmured agreement from AM] so we used to drop flares ourselves, we dropped a few flares as we was going in, or people before us would drop a few flares, and you’d sit and the bomb aimer would see the target.
AM: Who dropped the flares, the bomb aimer?
HI: The bomb aimer, yeah. Someone on the squadron [very unclear what was said here] would drop a few flares and then down they went, but that was the beginning, when we really first started bombing Germany, before that it was a joke. Anyway, we bombed Munich and we made a good frame [?] on it actually, and coming back the skipper said ‘I think we’ll fly through cloud’ because the fighter activity, we could see the fighter flares, and so he said ‘if we go through cloud we won’t meet any fighters,’ which we did do, so we was flying for about an hour in the cloud and all of a sudden the cloud broke clear, and believe it or not, right by my rear turret, as I looked outta my rear turret was a Ju-88. I tell you what he was no more than thirty yards [emphasis] behind us. And he opened fire with his cannons and the tracer went just above the aircraft, just missed us. The reason was that he was so close and we was up and down like that and I suppose as we went down he fired and he missed us. Anyway, we opened fire, me in the rear turret and the mid-upper ‘cause he was right close to us, and down he went, he spun over and down he went.
AM: So you got him?
HI: Yeah we got him, yeah.
AM: Which one of you got him, do you know?
HI: We don’t know, I think –
AM: Both of you?
HI: We both opened fire on him, and he was more surprised than what we were, he never expected it, and down he went. Lucky enough because usually once the night fighter got on your tail, it was very, very difficult. Anyway we, when we got back we told the intelligence officer that this night fighter had followed us through ten-tenths cloud for an hour ‘till the cloud broke. So they put two and two together and realised the apparatus they’d put in the turret was sending out a ray for the Germans to pick up and that’s what he was following us on. So what – immediately they took the radar thing out of the turret and I don’t know if it made any difference or not. After that we were talking and laughing about it and they said ‘you gonna do some low level formation flying in daylight,’ so we thought ‘well surely we’re not gonna have another daylight raid after the huge loss to 44 Squadron,’ and I mean we never even considered [emphasis] that they would do anymore daylight raids. So anyway, we done this practice formation, well it’s not formation flying – at that time there was over ninety Lancs in 5 Group, and there was ninety of us flying over Lincoln, around this area, right on the ground, well I don’t mean on the ground, as high as these buildings. Everyone was moaning down below because can you imagine ninety Lancasters flying about thirty or forty feet and they said ‘you’re gonna have to cut the squadron of Spitfires doing damning runs [?] on you.’ So I’m sitting in my turret, and the Spitfires come straight for me, and he was so close our slipstream hit his, hit his wings, and he turned like that, and being so low, he couldn’t, he couldn’t get outta the dive and he went straight in the deck. And I was ‘that don’t sound too bad, that’s gonna happen.’ Anyway –
AM: What happened to him? Crashed? Killed?
HI: Crashed, just crashed yeah. And when I looked along the road there was about three or four Spits on the deck, burning [emphasis] doing the same thing, come straight in –
AM: So they were killed?
HI: And the slipstream, they had no chance of correcting, correcting, ‘cause it’s too low on the ground. Anyway, on the Saturday they said ‘there’s gonna – report to your flights ‘cause there’s gonna be a daylight raid.’ So we went out to do the what they call a night flighting test, and when we landed there was the trailer, but all it had on it was six [emphasis] one thousand pounders. So we knew it was gonna be a long, long journey. We were – a bomb load like that was only a third of the weight of what we’d usually take to the Ruhr, so we were, obviously it was gonna be a long journey. We went to the briefing –
AM: Can I just ask, so why obviously, ‘cause that would conserve the fuel because you had a lighter load?
HI: Yeah we had to take more fuel and less bombs, so –
AM: Yep, okay.
HI: So actually we knew the distance when we see a big petrol load [emphasis] going in we knew we were on for a – we see a small bomb load we knew, the petrol, it was being loaded up for all the tanks and we knew we was on for a long trip. Anyway, we went and had our – even at that time, we’d already had breakfast, but they sent us out and said ‘we’re gonna have bleeding bacon and eggs’ [laughs]. That was always done, it don’t matter what time of the day it was bacon –
AM: Well what would happen if you didn’t like bacon?
HI: Well –
AM: What did they get, sausage?
HI: There were a few Jewish people who, they had to eat the bleeding bacon [laughs].
AM: Did they, they ate it?
HI: Yeah, well, by then I’d done five or six trips, and I thought ‘so I better eat the food, you never know what’s gonna happen.’ Anyway, we went to the briefing at about ten o’clock, Saturday morning, it was, in October, round about, I forget the date, about the tenth of October, and we went to the briefing, and the officer come in, pulled the blind down, and there it was. Place called Le Creusot. It was right on the other side of France, nearly on the Swiss border. It was a nearly ten and a half hour trip and we were looking at each other, and they said ‘you’re to fly as low as possible, even lower than that if you can,’ and they said ‘there’ll be two hundred Spitfires,’ or hundred, two or three hundred Spitfires ‘escorting you to the coast,’ but the trouble was the Spitfires went to the wrong bleeding place, we never see ‘em. So we crossed the French coast at about the height of these buildings, and then you imagine what a sight that must have been , ninety-two Lancasters flying –
AM: What a noise [emphasis] never mind a sight.
HI: Yeah, there was loads and loads of ‘em. And all we got was the French girls waving at us and I thought ‘that’s handy,’ and everybody was coming out and waving, it was a beautiful day, and we went right across France. I mean right across France, looking, wondering where the fighters was ‘cause there was thousands of by that time, ’42, there was hundreds and hundreds of fighters in France –
AM: German fighters?
HI: Yeah, German fighters in France. Anyway, we went right across France, there was no incidents, everybody was waving, and we approached the target [coughs] excuse me, and six of us had to break off and bomb the power station that was supplying the electricity to this huge armament factory in Le Creusot. It was a huge armament factory, nearly as big as what the Germans had, and they was producing armaments for the German army. So we broke off, telling you now there was six of us who broke off, Guy Gibson was with us, he was on our port side, and he was on 106 Squadron, Guy Gibson was on, and his second in command was flying the other Lanc, and on our starboard side was two Lancasters from 50 Squadron on the other side, we was in the centre and there was six of us. We broke off and went straight to this power station. Oh, and as we approached the power station, one of the Lancasters on our starboard side just went straight in the deck and exploded. We were – he had six one thousand pound bombs on it, and it literally went straight in the deck and exploded. What happened we don’t know.
AM: Don’t know.
HI: Anyway, the five of us carried on, Gibson was on our portside with his second in command and we was in the centre, and the last one of 50 Squadron was, was on our starboard side. Anyway, we bombed the power station and we absolutely flattened [emphasis] it. We was carrying six one thousand pounders, and we went and we climbed up a little bit and dropped ‘em, and we could see that the whole place was flattened. In fact, the factory was – actually I went back there last year, to the factory and it’s bombed, still bleeding bombed [unclear, laughs]. Anyway –
AM: Did you get your photo?
HI: Pardon?
AM: Did you get – not last year, I mean in 1942.
HI: No we didn’t, I don’t think we took a photo because it was daylight and everything –
AM: So they knew –
HI: Everyone was bombing the same target. Anyway, the ninety Lancs turned round, it was ninety-two ‘cause when we turned around there was only ninety-one, one had blown up in the sky, and we came back over the – by the time we’d got to the French coast it was getting dark –
AM: Still flying really low level?
HI: Yeah, and we started climbing when we got to the French coast, and as we passed the French coast it was getting dark, and we was flying for about another thirty or forty minutes, and all of a sudden the sky was smothered in bloody high explosive shells again. So the pilot said ‘where the bloody hell are we,’ so the skipper said ‘ I think we’ve, I’ve miscalculated and we’re flying over Jersey,’ and we were over Jersey with these huge explosions coming up, anyway the pilot called him a nice fella again, he said ‘stupid chap you are’ like that, and we branched out and come back, but that was a catch that, Jersey was very, very heavily armed, and anybody strayed off the course they wait for you. Shot down quite a few bombers over there. Anyway, we got back and went to the briefing, we were told exactly what had happened, and they confirmed that we done a good job there –
AM: Good.
HI: And I thought ‘there won’t be no more daylight raids after that.’ And we went to, in a week, we had a couple of days off and we went to Genoa [emphasis], and we couldn’t make out why we was going all the way to Italy, it was eleven hour trip to bomb Genoa, but we soon found out because on the Thursday [emphasis] they said, a briefing for Saturday, a daylight raid. So we said ‘surely we’re not having another daylight raid, we was lucky we got away with La Crusoe.’ Anyway, believe it or not, the target was Milan, and we was gonna bomb it, in daylight, taking it from a very, very low level ‘till we got to the Alps, we couldn’t go low level so we had to wander through the Alps, and there was ninety- two Lancasters, darting and diving through the Alps.
AM: Had the Spitfires turned up this time?
HI: No we never see no bloody Spitfires at all this time, and same again, we went right across France, no opposition whatsoever. We went through the Alps, and this is what I call a terror raid. We went across Lake Como about hundred feet then, we climbed to three hundred feet, and there was Milan waiting for us. No air raid shelter, no flak, they never expected British bombers to come all the way from England in daylight, never expected.
AM: Could you, were you low enough to actually see people in the –
HI: Pardon?
AM: Were you low enough to actually see people?
HI: It was, we was that low, we dropped down to about a hundred feet, hundred and fifty feet over Milan, we could see everybody in the streets, in the restaurants, we could see ‘em all. And we see ‘em started running about, there was no alarm given, and the city was completely open, and imagine ninety-two Lancs with six one thousand pounders on. We caused absolute havoc there, and a few of the boys I know were machine gunning, which I thought was wrong. Anyway, we climbed up again, came back, slid our way through the Alps, dropped down again to nought [?] feet and came right across France again.
AM: You missed Jersey that time.
HI: Yeah, we missed Jersey that time. We had our pullovers on [laughs].
AM: What did you feel about that then? The fact that you could actually see people?
HI: Oh we could see ‘em yeah, yeah because we –
AM: What did you, did you talk about it afterwards?
HI: No, we never talked about air raids, never mentioned it. Once you got back it was finished. No body, and same as the logbook, all we used to put in the logbook was the raid, the time, we never, what we should have done was put a little, exactly what happened, but when you put your books into the commanding officer to be signed once a month, [unclear] shooting, just put down what the raid was and that was it, that was what we used to do. But we should have done, we should have put the whole story of what exactly went on. And after that raid believe it or not the Ities [?] didn’t want to know anything more about the war, and there was huge – we had a big publicity the next day in the Daily Express, had a huge photo of Number 9 Squadron, coming back off the raid, and they reproduced it in Italy with, English Gangsters they called us, and there we are. I think we lost four aircraft that night, I don’t know where we lost them, might have been technical trouble, I don’t know, but, to go all that way in daylight and not see a German fighter was incredible. And after that we felt ourselves very, very, very lucky. It was about my ninth trip then, I was one of the top, experienced men then –
AM: And you’d shot somebody down by then.
HI: Yeah, yeah. But we’d, we were the top men in the squadron, we’d done about nine or ten trips.
AM: And you were seventeen.
HI: Yeah, yeah. And from then things got worse. Worse and worse and worse. The –
AM: In what way worse, Harry?
HI: The fighters got much more efficient, and their radar got much more efficient. Their guns got more efficient. Search lights got better, and more, and they had guns that fired with radar and they never missed. I remember later on in the year on my second tour we was bombing a place in the Ruhr Valley, and we was going in, our squadron, and as we was going in, there was people in front of us bombing, and they’d already turned starboard and coming out again, and for some reason, I don’t know, a Halifax [emphasis] I don’t know if it was in our squadron or the squadron beforehand, instead of going hitting the target, I don’t know what happened, he turned and joined the aircraft that was coming out of the, from the bombing run, which was in daylight, and there was a big gap between us going in and those coming out, and then he flew across, and as he flew across the flak went bang, bang, and the third shell hit him right underneath, and just exploded, yeah. Why he done that I don’t know, ‘cause we was all in the shadow of the silver paper we was dropping, and that helps with the – this one had got outta range with it going across and they shot him down straight away, yeah. And as it went on, we used to get leave every six weeks, and Lord [pause] what his name, Rank, Rank, wasn’t Rank, it was the er, the bloke that owned Morris, BMC, owned BMC, and he said, and he gave every aircrew bloke that was on ops, when he went on leave he doubled their pay, for a weeks leave yeah, he done that right through the war. Must have cost him a fortune.
AM: Every airman?
HI: Yeah, well it was in Bomber Command.
AM: In Bomber Command.
HI: Who was flying. He used to give ‘em – he used to, he used to double our pay, yeah.
AM: You know what, just going back to operations, you know the gaps between them, as in a day, a couple of days?
HI: All depending upon the weather. It was entirely dependent upon the weather. If the weather was, it was a bright – I’ll tell you one we went one, we went on one and I still think about it, it was a full light night, getting onto Christmas I think it was, and they said ‘there’ll be no ops tonight because there’s bright moonlight and no cloud,’ and it was suicide to go over there. Anyway, they said they’d picked out sixteen Lancasters, they’d picked out about eight from our squadron, four from 44 and I think four from another squadron, they said ‘we want you to do a low level night time raid on small towns just outside the Ruhr Valley.’ And the excuse they gave us was that the civilian population wasn’t getting any rest from the bombing raids on the Ruhr Valley and they was letting them come to these small towns to get rest. That’s why they wanted to go over there and liven ‘em up. So, it really was a terror raid and we carried sixteen one thousand pounders with a delayed charged of about half an hour, and we found this small town, we was after, just outside the Ruhr Valley, and we went right down, it was brilliant [emphasis] moonlight we were in, we went right down this village or small town and dropped the sixteen one thousand pounders right down the centre of the town. And I often wonder what happened about that, but I don’t, there was no need really to do that bombing really, but there you go, that was war.
AM: Well you called it a terror raid.
HI: Pardon?
AM: You called it a terror raid?
HI: Yeah, yeah, and that was Christmas, went home and had some leave, came back and we started again. And by that time, all the crews that I knew when I joined the squadron in June had all gone, they’d all gone. All been shot down.
AM: Every single one.
HI: Yeah, and they was all new recruits except us, and we was all NCOs.
AM: What do you think kept your plane – why your crew when all the rest of them got shot down? What can you say?
HI: I don’t know, I don’t know. I’ll tell you, shall I tell you?
AM: Go on.
HI: Well, what they used to do, before you went on a raid they used to give us a bag of sweets –
AM: Go on, keep going. I know the story, but keep going.
HI: Oh you know the story do you?
AM: You told me earlier on, but tell me again.
HI: And, we couldn’t undo the sweets with the cellophane, so we used to throw them out of the rear turret, and the Germans knew that and that’s why they never shot us down. ‘Cause they wanted the sweets [laughs]. That’s only a joke [both laugh]. I don’t know, I got no idea. Well, what actually happened, the crew I was with, I said they’d already done fourteen trips on Wellingtons when I joined them, they finished, and they finished, we finished our tour, was up to about sixteen, fifteen or sixteen trips, and I was left with no crew, and I was sitting in the mess, and a bloke walked in, I knew him as Sergeant Doolan, pilot, and he said ‘my rear gunner Robbie has just been killed, would you take his place?’ That was, that was luck really, so I said ‘alright, I’ll become your new rear gunner’ which I did do, and we was an NCO crew, and we was the only crew to, that I know of, all the time I was there, that finished the tour. And how many crews we lost, Lord knows.
AM: But you were the common denominator.
HI: Yeah, yeah –
AM: From the first sixteen and then fourteen and then the –
HI: Yeah, and then, we was all NCOs and we finished the tour, yeah. And I think the pilot got the DFM, and none of us got even a mention of a medal. And there was – but the thing was, what was happening by then was the Germans had come up with a new technique called Schräge Musik, that was what they’d come up with, they’d put two cannons at eighty degree, put the two cannons behind the cockpit at eight degrees so there was the aircraft, and these two guns stuck up like that –
AM: Okay.
HI: And all they had to do, they had radar, and all they had to do was coast [?] yourself underneath a bomber and just fly underneath him. You didn’t have to have no sight, no tracer, it just went underneath the aircraft, up to the petrol tanks, quick squirt, and we used to see ‘em blowing up but we couldn’t make out, we used to come back and tell ‘em that we seen aircraft blowing up in the sky, there was no flak and no fighters we could see, and the, and they literally shot down thousands [emphasis] of bombers, and not once did they ever mention what was going on at the briefing, not once. Never.
AM: Would there have been any way to avoid them if you’d have known about them?
HI: Well, if we knew and known about it, which they knew what we’d be doing, we’d start jiggling up and down, so they wouldn’t get a clean shot at us, but then when you think about it, you get five or six hundred bombers doing that in pitch darkness, you’re gonna get, gonna get a lot of problems. And that was it, but they were shooting them down, ah, unbelievable. Yeah, you had to be lucky really, because if you bowed out you had to be lucky, because if the civilians, you come out near a target and the civilians get hold of you they’d rip you to pieces. Yeah, and the Gestapo shot a few as well. If you was lucky the Luftwaffe got hold of you, was alright, but, or the army got you –
AM: But you never got shot down?
HI: No, I never got shot down, no.
AM: What happened at the end of your first tour, then?
HI: What happened then, finished my tour, didn’t get no bloody medal, don’t know why not –
AM: Even though you shot one down, ‘cause people got medals for that didn’t they?
HI: Yeah I know. Anyway, I went as an instructor, and then I realised how risky this business was, because all [emphasis] that was coming from OTUs were crews being trained in Canada. And when you think they were being trained on single engine aircraft in beautiful weather, all they had to do was follow the railway line from one point to another, everything was easy. Of course when they come to London, especially, and England, especially where, with the weather, and was OTU we had to train ‘em for three or four months before they went on operations, and hell of a lot of ‘em got killed on accidents, but they were very raw, they should have had much, much more training, but then again –
AM: And how old were you at this point? Eighteen?
HI: Yeah, eighteen, about eighteen and a half yeah. And I was an instructor, and apparently, I carried on for a little while and the, we had a bit of a go – oh they sent me up to a place up in Scotland to a gunnery school to do some – the instructors up there wanted to get on ops, don’t know why, but they said ‘you go up there and relieve them,’ about ten of us went up there, and we were in the mess one night, and we all got drunk and caused a bit of a havoc and we went in front of the CO next day, he said ‘I’ve had enough of you blokes, I’m posting you.’ So I thought ‘oh go on, I’ll be posted somewhere out in the Middle East’ or somewhere like that, and anyway I got posted to South End, about fifteen miles from where I lived, and I was thinking ‘be at home every night’ and while I was there, what we was doing there was flying drogues [?], the flak along the south coast, we had a big drogue pulled behind, and I tell you what, when I see that I knew we had no chance at all. They had these, we had to use a toeless drogue, and they used to fight, not at the drogue, a couple of degrees past the drogue, because they kept hitting the drogues and it was becoming expensive. So, but the flak [emphasis] to follow you, right, same height, would follow the drogue all the way along. Anyway, after a while they said ‘you’re posted,’ and this I knew was why the government knew what was going on in Germany with the fighters. They said ‘you’ve been posted to the 77 Squadron, Halifaxes.’ So I thought ‘alright,’ so and when I got up there –
AM: Where was that? Where was it?
HI: Er, Full Sutton I think, yeah Full Sutton. And when I got up there, the CO said he wanted to see me when I got up there, so I thought ‘that’s handy, the bloody warrant officer and the CO wants to see me, I must be important’ and he took me out to the, where the arment [?] officer, out to a Halifax, and what they had done they’d cut a big hole in the bottom of the Halifax and placed a point manual point five over the hole –
AM: Point five –
HI: Yeah, point five, point five machine gun.
AM: Okay.
HI: A much bigger shell than the 303. And they said ‘have you seen any German fighters coming, coming at you, you’ll be able to handle ‘em.’ So they knew what was going on. Anyway, we took off for Duisburg and I was sitting there – I was bleeding freezing, can you imagine there’s a big hole like that, about twenty thousand feet and –
AM: Hang on where’s this, is this in the middle of the plane?
HI: In the middle of the plane.
AM: Right, okay.
HI: A big hole.
AM: Where the bomb doors would have been?
HI: Er, it was different in the Halifax.
AM: Okay.
HI: It was different from the Lancaster. Most the bombs – up, further up and underneath the wings as well.
AM: Right.
HI: Anyway, they dug this hole, cut this hole in the Halifax and they had a point five there, and I sat there, and can you imagine it was about forty-five below, and it seemed the whole world was coming through that bloody hole. The pilot was moaning, the bomb aimer was moaning, and the – anyway, we’d done the bombing raid, come back and they complained bitterly about it, and that was the last that – and they said to me ‘we’re posting you to Driffield, to an Australian squadron’ and that’s where I went then, as a rear gunner at 462 Australian Squadron. I stayed there for a couple of months and I don’t know what happened there, I don’t know if I’d lost my logbook or – anyway, I done about eight or nine trips here and never even registered, and then they posted from there, from 64, er, 462 Squadron on Driffield to its other squadron which was at Driffield –
AM: Why did you keep, why did you keep getting posted to different ones?
HI: Well the pilot I went with in 462, bloke, Australian called Heurigen [unsure of spelling] – 462 they posted away completely [emphasis] but he, he stayed, he said ‘no I wanna stay here at Driffield’ and he went onto 466, and he took me with him. And when he finished, I was in, I didn’t know what to do, and they said ‘we want you to go to 158 Squadron at Lissett’ and that’s where I finished. I don about another ten trips there, and they said to me ‘you done enough, that’s it.’
AM: What was Lissett like?
HI: Nissan huts, terrible. Baking hot in the summer, freezing [emphasis] in the winter. And you come back off an op and you had to go in one of them bloody tin huts. The bedding was wet, yeah. But I survived.
AM: You did.
HI: Yeah, I really survived, yeah. All, most of them, all my friends went there, yeah, a lot.
AM: Was the DFC then for the number of operations you went on?
HI: Number of trips I done, sixty trips, yeah. Yeah, I done more now actually, but –
AM: Well the ones that didn’t yeah, didn’t get counted.
HI: Yeah.
AM: And then so from that point, when you did your last tour, sorry your last operation, then what happened, were you sent to demob?
HI: No, they said to me ‘what was your trade?’ The war had finished, and they said to me ‘what was your trade before the war? What did you do?’ and I said ‘I was an apprentice tailor,’ they said ‘we’ve got the job for you’ I thought – they sent me down to Newmarket on the racecourse, in charge of about eight or nine WAFs on sewing machines. I don’t know why they thought I was – they were making lorry covers on these machines, and they put me in charge of ‘em. Oh, when I was there.
AM: What was that like Harry?
HI: [Laughs] had a little giggle [laughter].
AM: So what, how old are you at this point you’re about twenty –
HI: About twenty, yes. Yeah, about, getting on for twenty.
AM: So go on, you had a little giggle [HI laughs], tell me [HI laughs] go on, tell me some stories.
HI: Yeah I was charge of them, that’s it [laughs].
AM: Right, alright then.
HI: Yeah and then I stayed in Newmarket – oh blimey, it’s, oh it’s only twenty past.
AM: No, we’re alright.
HI: Newmarket was a bombing station if you believe it or not. The Rowley Mile was a runway for 75 Squadron, a New Zealand squadron, and after the war they turned it into a Prussian [?] depot. They was dropping all the aircraft into Newmarket and crushing ‘em.
AM: Crushing them?
HI: Crushing ‘em. Hundreds of ‘em. Into this big machine they just went pfft like, just crushed ‘em up, piled ‘em up. As far as we could see was one huge pile of aluminium.
AM: Going back to you though, so you’ve had your giggle with your WAFs –
HI: Yeah.
AM: Then what? Did you get –
HI: I had a couple of giggles [laughter from both] but it was handy there because we could get up to London from Newmarket, they had a railway station –
AM: How long was it before you were demobbed then?
HI: Er, got demobbed in forty, 1946, August ’46.
AM: So quite early, a lot earlier than a lot of ‘em then? ‘Cause you’d been in the whole –
HI: I’d been in the whole, since [unclear] yeah. I come out, about to find a job, I couldn’t go back to tailoring, I’d missed it you know. Anyway, I tried, went back to tailoring and learnt a little bit. Things were very difficult when we come out, we had no houses, you can imagine London, there was all bloody roofs off the buildings, and then we had to wait for a house. I was married then.
AM: I was gonna say, where did, where did you meet your wife?
HI: I knew her from the, from the blackout. I was sitting on a seat in the blackout and she came along with her friend and we started talking and that’s how it started, and I, it was only when I [unclear] and we got married in forty, 1945, Christmas 1945, and I remember we, we done a couple of trips, and I remember I bombed Dresden, we bombed Dresden just after Christmas, February, but we got married on the Christmas, and I shouldn’t have got married ‘cause we had nowhere to bloody live, better than living with the mother-in-law for a little while, got fed up with that.
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/.
Creator
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Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-07-23
Format
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01:15:35 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AIronsH150723
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
England--Lincolnshire
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Harry Irons. One
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Irons left a tailoring apprenticeship to join the Royal Air Force and trained as a wireless operator but actually became an air-gunner. He describes the uniform he wore and the unreliability of heated suits. Discusses the invention of scarecrows which crews believed were sent up by the Germans to distract and demoralise them. Also describes a number of operations including to the Ruhr Valley and a number of daylight operations including Le Creusot (17 October 1942) and Milan (24 October 1942). Goes on to discuss the removal of Perspex from Lancasters to prevent oil from exhausts from affecting visibility, the introduction of radar into the rear turret and it’s quick removal after it was found as used by Germany and Schrage Musik. He returned to tailoring following his retirement from the Royal Air Force.
Contributor
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Katie Gilbert
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.
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1942-10-24
1942-10-17
158 Squadron
462 Squadron
5 Group
50 Squadron
77 Squadron
9 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
anti-aircraft fire
bombing
Bombing of Augsburg (17 April 1942)
bombing of Dresden (13 - 15 February 1945)
briefing
Distinguished Flying Cross
fear
Gee
Gibson, Guy Penrose (1918-1944)
Halifax
In the event of my death letter
Ju 88
Lancaster
military living conditions
military service conditions
Morse-keyed wireless telegraphy
Nissen hut
radar
RAF Bridgnorth
RAF Driffield
RAF Full Sutton
RAF Lissett
RAF Manby
Scarecrow
Spitfire
training
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/450/7970/AHarrisonR151116.1.mp3
78c4628fae306c070946abd90f7380e4
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
Harrison, Richard
Richard Harrison
Dick Harrison
Description
An account of the resource
10 items. An oral history interview with Richard Harrison (b. 1924, 1833947 Royal Air Force) a page from his log book and documents about gunnery training. Richard Harrison flew operations as a B-24 air gunner with70 Squadron, 231 Wing, 2015 Group in Italy.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Richard Harrison 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
2015-11-16
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, R
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Okay then so, this is Annie Moody for the International Bomber Command centre and Lincoln University, and today I’m with Dick Harrison in York, and what I’d like you to tell me is, first of all, is just date of birth and just a little bit about your family and your, your upbringing, what your parents did, that sort of thing.
RH: Yeah, I was born of the 5th of February 1924, I was born in Köln en Rhine, Deutschland, Cologne, Germany and er yeah, Dad English, Mother German, we came back to England in I think it was 1926, I was two years old.
AM: How did your Dad meet your Mum then if she was German?
RH: He was in the army of occupation.
AM: In? In Cologne or?
RH: In Germany.
AM: In Germany, yeah.
RH: Yeah, because he’d been on the Western Front from 1915 to 18, he was a regular soldier when he was in Cologne and various other places in the Rhineland, but he met my Mother in Cologne.
AM: Right.
RH: I think they were married there in 1922, something like that.
AM: So, what did he do when you came back to England? What did your parents do?
RH: Well he was a regular soldier and he carried on being a soldier.
AM: Right. Right through, yeah?
RH: Yeah until 19, yeah 1936.
AM: Oh blimey, right.
RH: He left the army and became a civil servant.
AM: Ah, me too, well that’s another story.
[laughter]
RH: And me too.
[laughter]
AM: So, tell me a bit about your school years then.
RH: School years, well Dad’s camp was near Salisbury, Winterbourne, so I went to a primary school in Winterbourne, and although people say today, you know, how good the schools were back then, this was a truly appalling school [laughs] well, and from there, I can’t remember what it was called, you sat the exam when you were eleven. And from there I went to Bishops school in Salisbury which was a local grammar school, then unfortunately my Dad left the army, the civil service post was in Gloucestershire, so we had to move to Gloucestershire, and I went to and I had to transfer schools, from a very [emphasis] good and excellent school in Salisbury to certainly a below par one in Gloucester.
AM: Right.
RH: Near Gloucester.
AM: What age were you when you left?
RH: When I left what?
AM: When you left school.
RH: Sixteen.
AM: Did you do schools certificate and everything?
RH: No, I didn’t.
AM: No.
RH: No, I had enough of that school.
AM: Right. [laughs] So what did you do when you left school?
RH: Worked in an office.
AM: Yeah, doing?
RH: Pardon?
AM: Doing just normal administrative?
RH: Yes.
AM: Office work.
RH: Yes, just clerical work, that’s all.
AM: Yeah.
RH: It was a company that, it was a [unclear]company so I was dealing with invoices and things like that.
AM: Right. So what year are we up to now? Sixteen, nineteen, I’m just trying to work my own arithmetic out, if you were sixteen?
RH: I left school in 1940.
AM: Right, so the war had started.
RH: Yeah and I was already involved.
[background noise]
AM: Right, and I’m looking now at the County and City of Gloucester air raid precautions, and this is to certify that mister Richard Harrison completed his course in anti-gas training, under the auspices of County and City of Gloucester air raid precautions central authority and has acquired sufficient knowledge of anti-gas measures to act as a member of the public ARP service. Tell me about that then, what was that like?
RH: Erm, and that’s what I—
AM: Oh, I’ve missed a bit, nature of the course attended was—
RH: Was a cycle messenger.
AM: Right, what did that mean?
RH: We were about ten miles north of Bristol, so when they were attacking Bristol, you know I was very interested, the first time I saw flak [laughs] but—
AM: What was that like then?
RH: Well, I mean as a kid it’s all very interesting, isn’t it? I mean we, the village hall was our local ARP post, and every Friday night that was my job, even when I was at school, every Friday night, get there for six or seven o’clock, I think it was, until six, seven o’clock the next morning, with my bike ready to go anywhere. And all over Bristol, it was a fantastic sight really was, searchlights, flak, German bombers coming over lit up, one crashed about a mile away from us here, but no it was quite a, quite a sight, and when they attacked Avonmouth and the oil tanks were set on fire, the whole of the horizon was red, yeah amazing sight.
AM: So, where were you sent off cycling? Taking what sort of messages?
RH: [sighs] Well we was just, I can’t remember the details. I remember one, one regular one was to cycle down to the pub and bring them back a pint of cider or something, and that was a regular run.
[laughter]
AM: Right, so the message was, how many drinks?
RH: Yeah.
AM: So, so when, so that was it, you did your cycling in your messenger training.
RH: Yes.
AM: And then what?
RH: What?
AM: What made you join the RAF? Oh, what came next should I say with regards to?
RH: The Home Guard.
AM: Right.
RH: I joined that when, yeah before I was seventeen I joined that and despite what people say and that, because there’s that film—
AM: Dad’s Army
RH: Dad’s Army. I mean, it was one of the most useful things ever because I was in a platoon where the officer commanding was World War one soldier, my Father was a platoon sergeant, World War one soldier, there were several of them, I mean when I went into the RAF, foot drill, arms drill, using a rifle, shooting on the range, using a machine gun.
AM: You’d already done it.
RH: It was easy, yeah, it was easy. I also joined the Air Training Corps about the same time.
AM: Right.
RH: So, at one time I had three balls in the air [laughs] ARP, Home Guard, Air Training Corps.
AM: And [unclear]
RH: And in addition to that, I took a St John’s, St John ambulance first aid course and got a certificate for that, so—
AM: Right.
RH: Yeah.
AM: Blimey. So, when you joined the RAF, but I think Gary said RAF regiment?
RH: Pardon?
AM: I think Gary said you joined the RAF regiment?
[phone rings]
RH: Excuse me.
[interview paused]
RH: Where were we?
AM: So, where were we?
GR: You were juggling three balls, ATC.
AM: We were juggling all those balls with your ATC, and your Home Guard.
RH: In the end I packed up the, one of them became civil defence from ARP, so I packed, I packed that up, I couldn’t get—
AM: Right.
RH: Otherwise I was chasing round four nights a week [laughs] and weekends with the Home Guard.
AM: And working in your office.
RH: And working as well.
AM: And working as well.
RH: Yeah.
AM: So, you’re coming up to eighteen, why the RAF? Where did you join? What was, what was you’re, what was it like?
RH: For a young lad I mean it’s, it’s just the glamour of the thing. King and country had nothing at all to do with it [laughs] don’t say that—
[laughter]
AM: We’ll cut that out.
RH: All I wanted, well I mean, one saw a war films didn’t you, ‘target for the night’ and all the rest of it. But unfortunately, I had a heart condition and my, on my medical records which I saw, because I wanted to go into aircrew, I wanted to be a wireless operator.
AM: Right.
RH: Wireless operator [unclear] because I’d been, Father had taught my brother and I morse code, and in the house, he’d rigged up two keys and we used to use that, even when we were ten or eleven years old we knew the morse code, and in the Air Training Corps, when the CO discovered I already knew morse, I became the morse code instructor for the squadron.
[laughter]
RH: And, but when I went for the medical, I think I was, temporarily unfit for aircrew duties, they said that would right itself eventually, and I remember being interviewed by the, this officer, he said, ‘well, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘ that you’re fit for ground crew duties but you’re not fit for aircrew duties,’ I said, ‘right, in that case I don’t want to join the RAF, I’m going to join the army,’ [laughs] because I was fit enough for the army, and I had a mate, a school friend who was up at Catterick driving a tank, saying how great it was and I could picture myself in that, so I said, ‘I’m going to join the army, the Armour Corps,’ ‘no you’re not,’ he said, ‘no you’re not,’ he said, ‘we’re not going to waste, what was it twelve months or more Air Training Corps and then you go in the army,’ he said, ‘you’ll be called up,’ and that’s what happened. I got, yeah, before Christmas it was, 1942.
AM: Right.
RH: And I got my call up papers and went to Penarth in South Wales where they sorted you out, and because I’d been a clerk in civvy street, I went through trade tests, maths, English, I could type, type writing, book keeping, and that took all morning, and then at the end of it they said, ‘alright you’re now a trade group for clerk general duties,’ but it did mean that whereas a lad going in without any trade at all was getting three shillings a day, I got four shillings and threepence a day because I was a trade [laughs] and of course guys like one of the guys I sort of chummed up with, he had been a metal worker, and I can’t remember what trade he went into, but I know he was getting sort of, six shillings and something a day because he was a group one trade as against group four. Right, so what do you want next then?
AM: Ooh, well, what happened next? Tell me about it. What were you actually doing then? So, you got three a day—
RH: I can think, in my eight weeks I think it was, square bashing and then I was posted to RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire.
AM: Right.
RH: And, that was the base for the special duties squadrons, 161 and 138, and they were dropping supplies and people for the resistance.
AM: Right, okay.
RH: And it was all top secret, I mean I suppose I didn’t know what they were doing.
GR: There was Maurice Buckmaster and Vera Atkins.
RH: Well, maybe so, Wing Commander Pickard, DSO, a couple of bars and all the rest of it, he was, he was the C.O. and, but I knew something about aircraft, and so what struck me was these Halifax’s, they had no mid upper turret, and I thought well that’s strange, and bomb trolleys were parked alongside the hangar with grass growing through them, so they weren’t being used [laughs] but no one told you anything. Eventually one of the guys in the office said, ‘Dick, do you know what we are doing?’ and this was after a month or so, I said, ‘yeah, I reckon you’re dropping agents into, into France,’ I said, because I had to do a what, a sort of duty every now and again, overnight, man the phone and so forth, and during that time, you would see a couple of black saloon cars going, going by, and they were going over to, what I discovered later, was a farm, an old farm where they were kitted up before they did their jumps. And, yeah, very secret, so I remember a guy crashed on take-off and they were all killed, and that night or the next night the father was calling and I answered the phone, and I said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything,’ you know, ‘was he on the raid to Berlin?’ I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ [laughs] I knew what had happened to him but wasn’t allowed to say. And another little story, no need to record, as I say it was all top secret, this Halifax was missing, so that was seven guys as well, so into the HQ, came their, the NCOs, their pay books and in the pay book was a next of kin listed. Now the wireless operator in that crew had listed his next of kin as a girl in Sandy village, which was four or five miles—
AM: Yeah, I know where you mean.
RH: Away, you know?
AM: Yeah, I know exactly where you mean.
RH: You know where I mean? So, the Padre and another officer went down to give her the bad news, sort of thing he was missing, but I mean I wasn’t witness to this, I only heard about it afterwards, and apparently when they gave her the bad news, she said, ‘well he’ll be alright wont he?’ they said, ‘what do you mean?’ ‘well I mean, they are dropping supplies to the French resistance and they’ll —
AM: Oh God.
RH: Get him back. Which they didn’t. While I was there, not him, but while I was there a guy came back, but the only thing I saw was her arriving with an RAF police escort in a car, and she was wheeled in to see Wing Commander Pickard, and I suppose he read the riot act to her, keep your mouth shut.
AM: Yeah.
RH: And some years ago when I was caravanning down there, I went back to see if I could get onto Tempsford, but it was all wired off, but you could see the huts in the background, and I met, a local woman came out of her house, and as a wee child she remembered this place and she said, ‘you see that hedge there?’ she said, ‘we lived up on the hill and we weren’t allowed to come below that hedge, no civilians were allowed below that hedge line,’ it was so, so secret.
AM: It’s amazing isn’t it.
RH: On one occasion Wing Commander Pickard, flying a Hudson, that’s that one up there, that was—
AM: I’m looking at, I’m looking at models here.
RH: Yeah, that was his aircraft, and he’d taken people down to the south of France to a landing ground down there, and when it came to take off, he’d bogged down, because it was just a field, and so they had to turn out local farm horses and so forth and pull him onto hard ground so he could take off. I remember next morning in the HQ, one of the guys said to me, ‘have you seen the CO’s Hudson take off?’ I said, ‘no,’ he said, ‘well go and look at hangar so and so,’ and there it was parked up outside, still with mud up into the engines themselves, and he got a, I think he had three DSO’s, was it, Wing Commander Pickard? He was shot down in the end on another raid, yeah. So, there we are, what’s next then?
AM: So that’s that, well you tell me. What came next?
RH: I must have been the worst clerk general duties that the RAF ever had, because I wasn’t a bit interested in what I was doing [laughs] and I was always on the—
AM: Wanting to be up there.
RH: Back in front of the adjutant flight sergeant being given a lecture about something I’d done wrong. Then one day two guys came into the office and I knew they’d been in north Africa, and they said, ‘can we have a form to volunteer to go overseas,’ I said, ‘but you’ve only just come back.’ [emphasis]
AM: Two aircrew this?
RH: Pardon?
AM: Two aircrew you talking about?
RH: No, they weren’t aircrew.
AM: Oh right, okay still—
RH: They were two groundcrew. Said, ‘we’ve only just come back,’ and I said, ‘you want to go back out there again?’ ‘well, [emphasis] England, terrible place isn’t it, full of Yanks and all the rest, no, the sooner we get out of here the better,’ so I thought, what a good idea.
[laughter]
GR: Get me one of these forms.
[laughter]
RH: Get me one of those forms, yeah. And then I had a medical and this medical officer said, you know, as I said to you on the phone yesterday, he said, ‘right, condition no longer, so I’ll put you forward shall I, for the aircrew medical?’ I said, ‘no, no thanks I want to go overseas.’
[laughter]
RH: Did you read that letter?
GR: This one?
RH: Yeah, the one, the regiment one?
GR: Yes, I’m reading it, yeah.
AM: I’ll take a copy afterwards. So, you went overseas rather than aircrew?
RH: Yes, I volunteered to go overseas, it was all very quick, in fact I was sent on what they called, embarkation leave.
AM: Hmm, hmm.
GR: Yeah.
RH: And I think that was one week or two, and while I was at home in Gloucestershire, a telegram came telling me to report back to Tempsford, and I’d only been home two or three days, and so I went back and there was my posting notice, and I think, I thought the RAF were taking their revenge on me for not carrying on with aircrew because they posted me to an RAF Regiment squadron. And believe me in 1943, to be in the RAF Regiment, you know, I mean today, yes, they’ve got a good reputation, but that was really the backend of everything. And there were about a dozen of us, tradesmen, clerks, cooks, vehicle mechanics, armourers, wireless guys and so forth, and all resentful [laughs] at being posted to the regiment.
AM: Where was that though? Where were you posted to?
RH: Oh yeah, that was near Peterborough, near Peterborough. And, when I arrived there, there was a corporal clerk in the, what do you call it? Orderly room, in the orderly room. And as soon as I arrived, he sent off a signal under the adjutant’s signature, under who was away at the time, to the airman’s records at Innsworth in Gloucestershire saying, that Corporal so and so, can’t remember his name, was unfit for overseas duty. And so about, a couple of days later a signal came posting him out, didn’t get off kindly. [laughs]
AM: So where, where from, where did you go from Peterborough?
RH: Overseas.
AM: Yeah, but where though? Whereabouts?
RH: Sicily.
AM: Sicily.
RH: We went to, yeah it was a, it took a month altogether, although I think it was three weeks to Algiers on a troop ship as a convoy—
AM: I was going to say—
RH: As it was, but— Yeah, although in my letter I said, not eventful, in fact it was interesting at times because a U-boat got in amongst the convoy, and there were destroyers dashing up and down dropping depth charges. [laughs]
AM: It’s probably quite exciting when you are eighteen, nineteen.
RH: It was, when you are a kid, when you are a kid.
AM: You’re still a teenager, really aren’t you?
RH: Yeah, I remember saying to one of the seamen on our, on our troop ship, you know, ‘why is that, why are they flying a black pennant?’ he said, ‘that’s because they’ve detected a boat,’ he said, ‘they’ve detected a U, U-boat.’ Then we went to Algiers, and then we left Algiers, still didn’t know where we were going at that time. And then, I was in what was called the headquarters flight, which all the tradesmen were in that flight and we were called up for a briefing by the adjutant, and then we knew we were going to Sicily, and there were maps passed round for us to look at, and we were going to takeover, it was a light anti-aircraft squadron by the way, it had a twenty-millimetre cannon.
AM: Okay.
RH: We were going to take over defence of the Gerbini airfield near Cantania in Sicily, and that was the plan. But unfortunately, the Germans, you know, didn’t know what our plan was—
[laughter]
RH: And so, when we got to Sicily they were still there. [laughs] And er, yeah, we landed, we went to Malta first, I think we stayed there overnight or a couple of nights, and then we went to Sicily, and it was over the, over the side, down scrambling nets onto the landing craft and then onto a little [old?] pier sort of thing. And then we formed up and marched up into an olive grove and we were there for about a week. We were waiting for our trucks to arrive and the cannon, but they’d all been sunk. It was funny when we were en route from Algiers to Malta, there was a, ‘boom,’ bang and a great column of smoke over in the distance, that was the ship going down, and we heard later that was our ship [laughs] with all the trucks on.
AM: Blimey.
RH: So when we got to, then we were posted and moved to Lentini and that was a new, new landing ground, and we were sent there for anti-parachute troop duties. The Germans had dropped paratroopers into Sicily, not, not straight into combat, they dropped them as reinforcements to the guys who were already there.
AM: Yeah.
RH: And, but some of them were dropped too far south, and when the 8th Army had pushed up and they were left behind.
AM: I’m just looking, thinking about the geography, so you’re in the south of Sicily?
RH: Pardon?
AM: I’m just thinking about the geography of Sicily, so the Germans were on the island?
RH: Oh yeah, and eventually, eventually they had four divisions there. They had three to, three to begin with and then, then they dropped in two regiments from the 1st Parachute Division, and they were dropped in as reinforcements, behind their own lines. But they were the guys who eventually who stopped the 8th Army, you know, getting any further. But, and so when we got to Lentini, they were forming patrols of about a dozen guys and an NCO, and they [unclear] [laughs] searched the local olive groves and go through, and as I said in, in the letter, you know, God help them if they come across any German para’s because I’m sure we would have been sending out the first missing in action signals.
[laughter]
RH: Because they wouldn’t have stood a chance, they wouldn’t have stood a chance against those guys. So, that was that.
AM: So, how long were you there for, on Sicily?
RH: Pardon?
AM: How long were you on Sicily for? Ish?
RH: Yeah, we landed there a week after the invasion began, July, August, and then, when did we go into Italy? September the 3rd? So, we went into Italy on September the 10th, something like that.
AM: Right, so, so the Germans had been pushed back?
RH: They evacuated.
AM: They evacuated.
RH: Yeah, they got everything away, they got everything away, they had a defensive line sort of thing, and they just took it step by step back, and meanwhile they, I think forty thousand men all their guns and tanks, everything they managed to get across the Straits of Messina. And, [pause] the regiment squadron, we were on, we moved from Lentini to the Scordia landing ground, again it’s only a rough strip through, through the fields and that was the American 57th Fighter Group. They were equipped with P-40 Warhawks and they used to go out day after day trying to stop the Germans evacuating the—
AM: Getting across the Straits.
RH: Their, their stuff. And that was the first time I’d come across American, Americans and they were great guys, [emphasis] they really were. And later on, we were on the same airfield, when I was in aircrew and again, you know, they really are first, first class blokes, I thought.
AM: So, you’re on, we’re on the push now, what, what month did we say we were? August? What, what—
GR: No, September into Italy.
AM: And September into Italy.
RH: September into Italy.
AM: So you—
RH: I’ll just tell this little story while we—
AM: Go on, yes.
RH: At Scordia, I mean they were suffering losses because I mean they were having to make quite low level attacks with their fighter bombers. And we were watching these guys coming back, and, and one of them he came in rather high, banged [emphasis] down onto the ground, up in the air, bang [emphasis] and then turned over onto his, onto his back, so the pilot was trapped under, underneath. But I mean, they were very, very quick, in no time there was a, the er, a fire tender, an ambulance, and a mobile crane. And the mobile crane lifted the aircraft up, turned it over—
AM: [inaudible]
RH: And they forced the canopy open and out [laughs] got this young lieutenant, stepped on the wing, walked away a few paces, reached into his overalls, pulled out a cigar—
AM: [gasps] Oh no.
RH: Lit it and went on walking.
[laughter]
RH: And I thought, well there’s, there’s a nerve for you, [laughs] there’s a nerve for you. But on the other side of the coin, I remember, I used to like going out into their dispersal and watch them come in. And, they’d taken off—
[background noise]
RH: And then one of them left the formation, came round, landed and then taxied up to where we were, we were, sort of thing, switched off the engine, pilot got out and he walked over to the, the er. There was a sergeant who was a sort of an engineer mechanic, whatever, and I can’t remember the words after all these years what the pilot said, but he was complaining that there was a fault in the, in the engine, there was something, something wrong, and then he walked away. And I said the sergeant, I said, ‘what do you thinks wrong with that then?’ Now, you’ll have to excuse the language.
AM: It’s alright. [laughs]
RH: He said, ‘nothing he’s just shit scared,’ he said.
[laughter]
AM: Fair enough.
RH: So then we went into Italy, [pause] now tell you, this was a regiment [laughs] with a squadron, and so I knew [emphasis] very well, being, being in the HQ, the squadron had been told they had to go to Crotone landing ground which was sort of under the, that part of the—
AM: The heel.
RH: Italian boot.
AM: The heel.
RH: And of course, and we were following a Canadian division along the coast. They were way, way, way ahead, we never ever saw them. When we got to Crotone landing ground, nothing there at all because it had already been evacuated. Now the same time as the 8th Army landed on the toe and moved up on the north coast, the Canadians were moving along the south coast and the British 1st Airborne Division came in by sea to land at Taranto to push up on the Adriatic coast. And when we were somewhere west of, of Taranto we came across the Airborne guys, and, and they were stopping our convoy. Now in our convoy would be about a dozen three tonne four by four Bedfords, three or four jeeps, two Italian trucks that we had pinched, stolen and, and motorcycles and so forth. Yeah, we spotted these Italian trucks in a little town called Catanzaro down on the toe and the C.O. had seen them, two big Fiat trucks, and so he said to our corporal fitter, engine fitter, ‘do you reckon you can get those going?’ he said, ‘yeah right.’ So sometime around midnight he and another mechanic went out and started them and drove them up the road a bit and then we found them [unclear]
AM: Appropriated them. [laughs]
RH: And then painted them in RAF camouflage and off we went. And then so, yeah, we met the guys with the, with the red berets and from what they were saying is, ‘go careful, keep your heads down because there are German para snipers in the area,’ [laughs] and I thought to myself, we shouldn’t be here, we had no business to be there with just our, just the C.O. You know, woo, let’s just going, you know so think you can imagine we were some kind of Panzer unit or something. And then we drove into Bari, you know that?
AM: Yeah.
RH: Well as we went to Bari, there were people on the pavements, waving and cheering and then passing out bottles of wine.
[laughter]
RH: And I thought, well this can’t be right, and, and where are our guys? I didn’t see any British soldiers at all, and we drove through Bari, and I can’t remember the name of the town now, but about ten miles north of Bari on the main coast road, we came into this little township, and again, [emphasis] people came out and they were waving and saying oh—
AM: Italian civilians you mean?
RH: Yeah, [emphasis] Italian civilians, I thought it’s got to be something, it’s got to be wrong you know, and then the word quickly came down the, the line, the Germans left here this morning.
[laughter]
RH: Well that decided the C.O., all the trucks were turned round. [laughs]
GR: You were the spear guard you were, you were out in front.
[laughter]
RH: We go back to, we went back to Bari, and he looked at his map. Bari airport which was an Italian air force base then, we’ll go there, and we’ll the, we’ll take over the airfield, we had no business—
AM: Is this just you the RAF Regiment, you’re talking here?
RH: Yeah.
AM: Right.
RH: No business at all to be, to be there. And we drove up to the entrance and there were gates and as we drove up, there were armed Italians carrying their funny little carbine rifles, they shut the gate. Now I wasn’t there I didn’t hear what, what was said but they refused to let us in. So, then the order came down the line, ‘get your rifles out men and load them, and stand by the trucks.’ And of course, in our headquarters truck, where are the rifles?
[laughter]
AM: We’re laughing now, but I bet you weren’t laughing at the time.
RH: Scrambling, put ten rounds in the magazine, get out the truck. Meanwhile the Italians, a lot of them, had crossed the road and were in the olive grove in that side, so I thought, God, we are going to be between two lots here, but I think that fact that they saw a hundred guys or more getting out the trucks with their rifles ready, and that decided the Italians to open the gate and let us in.
[laughter]
RH: Yeah, so.
AM: Blimey.
GR: So you’re fighting your way up Italy?
AM: And your C.O. wanted you to be fighting your way up.
RH: Pardon?
AM: And your C.O. wanted you to be fighting your way up.
RH: And the, what do you call it? SWO, he was, he was another sort of, you know, let’s get up there and we’ll, all the rest of it. But, yeah then we went up to Foggia and there were several airfields there which the Germans had used, and yeah, we were, I think on two different airfields there, if I remember rightly, well airfields, landing grounds it was just a single strip. But I can’t remember anything worth reporting there. And by that time, we were subordinate to Desert Air Force, and so you’d get the daily orders from Desert Air Force. And on one they were appealing for air gunners, air gunners, now I thought right—
AM: This is it.
RH: We’ll have a go at this, and so I, you know, I applied and went to Desert Air Force headquarters to get the preliminary medical as such. And, it was, it was quite interesting, because they had my records there and the first officer to examine me, flight lieutenant or squadron leader, doctor or whatever he was, he said, ‘I can’t understand why you were failed in, a year ago,’ he said. He said, ‘there’s nothing wrong,’ and I said, ‘well it says temporarily unfit,’ ‘I can’t see nothing wrong, well, we’ll get a second opinion,’ and he called in the chief, the group captain, and he came in and checked me over, ‘yeah,’ he said, ‘no,’ he said, ‘I can’t think,’ he said, ‘why you were failed a year ago,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing wrong with your, with your heart.’ I used to think afterwards, they failed me because when they looked at my background, they realised in fact, that Mum was a German.
[laughter]
RH: I’ve thought that might be a—
GR: That’s possible.
AM: Yeah.
GR: Yeah, yeah, possible.
RH: Yeah. Because when it came to the aircrew selection board, that was the next thing.
AM: Are you still in Italy at this point?
RH: Yeah, oh yes.
AM: Yeah.
RH: The, the aircrew selection board, and they asked, they asked that question, ‘what if you were ordered to?’ I mean there was no possibility for me to fly from Italy all the way to Cologne, but still, [laughs] They said, ‘what if you were ordered to bomb Germany, bomb something in Germany, you know, you were born there and your Mothers German, what, what if you were ordered to do that?’ [laughs] And I said, ‘I would obey orders.’ [laughs]
[laughter]
RH: Yes, so then there was, I was still with the Regiment Squadron, but I mean they hadn’t, they hadn’t fired a shot in anger and they were anti-aircraft, there was no need for them, so they found a new job for the RAF Regiment. That was to go up to the, our artillery gun line which would be a three, or four miles behind the front line, and by day if our guys were flying and bombing, they would put out smoke indicators to show where our front line was, so that our guys didn’t bomb in it. And by night they would put out flares and I was only there less than, less than, less than a week and but apparently, they did have some casualties later, later on. But, so that was it, now I went to Desert Air Force headquarters, and I had three or four weeks there, and then before I went back to the Middle East. Desert Air Force headquarters was the best posting ever I had in the RAF of a, really good guys to work with, we had an Australian flight lieutenant who was our, the C.O. of what’s called the organisation section where I worked. And he used to share his food parcels with us and he knew I was sort of going through them and I was going on for air, aircrew training and he called me in one day and he said, ‘Harrison,’ now I know this sounds like a line shoot, but he said, ‘Harrison, you’ve done a really good job here,’ he said, ‘we’re very pleased at the way you’re, you’re working.’ That’s because I had a gen, I wasn’t responsible to anyone even though I was only an airman I was doing my own, my own job, sort of thing, which was location of units.
AM: Right.
RH: And briefing people who came in asking questions about you, he said, ‘now why don’t you forget this aircrew thing,’ he said, ‘and I can guarantee,’ he said, in a few months you’ll have your first stripes,’ he said, ‘and I can see you going on from there,’ and I said, ‘no thank you, very much.’ [laughs] And so that was it, now I went back to Egypt
AM: Right. Where did you do your training, your aircrew training then?
RH: Air gunner training.
AM: Air gunner training, where did you do that?
RH: Yeah, a place called El Ballah.
AM: In, in Egypt?
RH: On the canal zone.
AM: Right. And how long, so how long were you training for?
RH: Right. [pause]
[paper rustling]
RH: You can take these away.
AM: Okay.
RH: Later. There were three six-week courses.
AM: Right.
RH: The first one was at 51 Air Gunner Initial Training School, and they’re all the subjects.
AM: Yeah.
RH: Then you had a forty-eight-hour pass into Cairo and then you came for another six weeks—
AM: Okay.
RH: At 12 Elementary Air Gunner School.
AM: Yeah.
RH: From there are all the subjects again.
AM: So, I’m looking at, I’ll, I’ll copy this, and but I’m looking at things like, different gun turrets, the Frazer Nash, the Boulton Paul, the Bristol.
RH: Yeah that’s right.
AM: Pyrotechnics, the Very pistol, the flares, forty flashes. Smoke floats?
RH: Yeah, smoke floats, yeah.
AM: Yeah, what’s a smoke float?
RH: Well it was, about, about that big and the idea was that, that in daylight, over the sea, over, over water, the navigator would ask someone to drop a smoke float, okay? And then the tail gunner, the rear gunner—
AM: Yeah, yeah.
RH: Himself. You see that smoke float and you take a bearing on it with your sight, and there’s sort of a compass ring—
AM: Right.
RH: And you say,’ okay, it’s at so many degrees,’ and then the navigator would count off so many seconds and say, ‘okay take another reading,’ so you take another reading and it shows you your drift.
AM: Right.
RH: The difference between the two readings.
AM: Yep.
RH: Yeah, smoke float by day, yeah.
AM: Oh.
RH: And that’s 13 Air Gunner school where you finally get to fly.
AM: I’m looking at this one because I was, I was going to ask you, what were, what did you actually train in? And we’ve got Avro Anson’s?
RH: Yes, it’s up there, somewhere.
AM: One of those up there? Dinghy drill. Did you all have individual dinghies at that point?
RH: No, seven-man dinghies.
AM: Because—It was a seven-man dinghy. Right.
RH: Then we trained in, in the Suez Canal, and the canal was only a couple of miles away from the, from the air field, so the instructor would tow an inflated dinghy out into the middle of the canal. And that was another, another thing and I’ve never come across it before and I’ve mentioned it to other aircrew types and they’ve never heard of this before. You had to swim fifty yards [emphasis] and if you did not swim, if you couldn’t swim that fifty yards you failed.
AM: That was it, you were out.
RH: You failed the course. So, I mean you had a life jacket on which was a damn nuisance believe me if you’ve got a Mae West and you try swim. [laughs] So you went out, two of you at a time, went out to a dinghy and righted it.
AM: Oops.
RH: Sorry. Righted it, then got into it, and then when the instructor was satisfied, when you got out you pulled the dinghy over you so it was upside down for the next pair.
AM: Right, and swam out from under it.
RH: To go out, yeah.
AM: I can’t imagine what the canal was full of?
RH: Oh yeah, [emphasis] yeah. Now and then whistles are blowing and everyone would have to get out if a ship came by. [laughs]
AM: Theres, there’s crocodiles isn’t there?
RH: No, no.
AM: Is there not? No. Alright then.
RH: There’s far more—
AM: I was thinking about horrible [unclear]
RH: Theres worse stuff floating in the canal, believe me.
AM: I can imagine.
[laughter]
AM: So, you’ve done your training.
RH: Yeah.
AM: Then what?
RH: Then we’ve went to [paper rustling] from Egypt—
AM: Hmm, hmm.
RH: To Palestine.
AM: Right.
RH: For the O T U.
AM: Right. [pause] So, I’m looking now at the, it was the 76 Operational Training Unit.
RH: That’s right.
AM: And you were on Wellington medium bombers at this point?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Tail gunner you said you were, weren’t you?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
AM: Tail end Charlie.
RH: Yes, we formed up of, as you may know, you know, the people weren’t detailed, we all assembled in a hangar.
AM: You did the crewing up.
RH: And we sort of—
AM: No other end.
RH: Pardon?
AM: No other end, is an expression—
RH: Is it?
AM: An expression, I’ve heard.
RH: Yeah well. And Joe, the other gunner, he, he eventually found a pilot who wanted two gunners, and so we met this Eddy who came from the Midlands, and he said to us, ‘who’s best at aircraft recognition?’ and Joe said, ‘he is,’ pointing to me.
[laughter]
RH: ‘So, right you are the rear gunner then.’
AM: So that was it? That was how that was decided. But then, so when was heavy Conversion Unit, were you still in Palestine at that point?
RH: No. We went back to Egypt for it.
AM: Back to Egypt for that, right.
RH: That was only four weeks I think at that point.
AM: So this is the 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit, into B-24 Liberators.
RH: B-24 Liberator, yeah. At least we got into a decent aircraft.
AM: Yeah. What, how many crew were on that? Was there seven or more? Seven.
RH: Well, seven. We trained as a crew of seven but operationally on the squadron, you carried an extra gunner, who manned the two waist guns.
AM: Right, so there was waist guns on there?
RH: There was also these, yeah, I did two or three [unclear] trips as a beam gunner, but you were the odd job. I’ll come to that when we get to the squadron then.
AM: Alright, okay. So, carry on—
RH: Well, [unclear, interviewer speaks over]
AM: Tell me about that and what happened and any stories about the conversion unit course or on to what happened after that?
RH: I can only think of a funny story on that. Sometimes, the nose wheel of the Liberator wouldn’t come down. And so, someone would go from the flight deck, for landing on the flight deck was a pilot, the engineer, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator and top gunner, six of them all on the flight deck in that area. If the nose wheel didn’t come down, there was a, a drill for it. One of them would go back into the nose and help to pull the thing down. Well, we’d been on a night exercise, and Joe our top gunner, a Lancashire lad, he always had intercom trouble. He was an electrician by trade, but he was a real jinx [emphasis] when it came to in, in, intercom. And the nose wheel hadn’t come down, so I mean I’m hearing everything on intercom, so the skipper said to, I think it was the bomb aimer Ron, ‘Ron go on down into the nose right and see if you can do it,’ and so Ron goes down there. Then the next thing I here, Ron’s on the intercom, ’no, I can’t do it and I need some help,’ ‘ah yeah, okay,’ and so the navigator is sent down. So, now there’s two of them in the nose trying to pull it—
AM: Yank the thing, yeah.
RH: And get the wheel down, and then they come back on the intercom, ‘no I can’t do it,’ so skipper, Eddy turns to Taffy our engineer and says, ‘Taff, go down and sort it, will you?’ So, Taff gets out of his seat and goes down. Theres a hatch in the flight deck that goes down into the nose. Now, Joe the top gunner, knows that the nose wheel hasn’t come down, and then his intercom goes dead. And one after another he sees the bomb aimer—
AM: Oh God.
RH: The navigator and the engineer all disappearing through that hatch down below, and what does he think? He thinks they’re all baling out. So, his seat release is a wire handle and he pulls that, drops out of his turret, goes straight through the hatch into the end of the bomb bay.
AM: Oh no.
GR: [unclear] [laughs]
RH: He just had a few bruises that was all.
AM: I was going to say, I thought you were going to say he went right through and had to pull his parachute. [laughs]
GR: Well, the thing is to anybody listening, obviously Lancaster, Halifax, B-17 all land, and land tail down, but the B-24 was one that landed, and landed with its nose up.
RH: Nose wheel
GR: The same, yeah. So, it landed, straight—
RH: Yes.
GR: As opposed to sitting back on the tail, so when you were on about the nose wheel coming down that’s—
AM: That’s why it’s important.
GR: Yeah
RH: Well, I— [unclear, interviewer speaks over]
GR: In fact that was the only bomber that, that—
RH: Yeah.
GR: The only, only four engine bomber that, that happened.
RH: If I remember rightly in HCU and I mean, I knew guys who were ahead of me and so forth, and Norman, and he came back and he came up to the truck as we were getting off it, and he said, ‘have you heard Mick Berry’s gone?’ Now, Mick Berry had been a corporal armourer and he was in our tent at gunnery school—
AM: Right.
RH: And he taught us more about the machine guns than the instructors. After all, that was his, his trade, he was a, I can still remember, he was a great [emphasis] man, he really was a good lad. And there they had, had crash landed and burst into flames, and Mick was in the mid er, top turret. Now that was held by, I think it was four bolts and it was a common fault that bang [emphasis] on, on the deck and that turret would drop out, and he was trapped and he couldn’t get out, yeah.
GR: Oh God.
RH: Mick Berry, he’s buried in the cemetery near Cairo.
AM: Oh, right. How big is it? I’m looking at a model of the Liberator here. How big is it in comparison then to the Halifax and the, and the Lancaster?
RH: [unclear] it’s a hundred and ten foot wingspan, the Liberator and the Hal, well Lanc, well it’s just over a hundred feet, in total.
AM: I was going to say, it looks a bit bigger to me.
RH: Yeah.
AM: On the, on the model, I know [unclear]
GR: Well at the same scales, they’re actually, the Liberators on a par with the Lancaster, probably slightly bigger.
AM: I’m showing my ignorance now, is it American?
GR: The B-24 was originally was an American bomber.
RH: Oh yeah.
AM: Oh.
RH: Yeah, consolidated to the aircraft company, yeah. [pause] Nice aeroplane to fly because after flying in the Wellingtons as the rear or tail, tail gunner, the heating system, well, didn’t really exist. And, in O.T.U. going out on a flight at night, and we’d six hours, six and a half hour flights sort of thing in freezing [emphasis] weather and you’d have long johns and, and then your shirt and your pants, and so forth. And your wool, pullover, woolly, the battle dress, then over the battle dress, the, an inner flying suit—
AM: Right.
RH: Which was sort of kapok something or other, brown silky, you put that on. Then over that, the outer flying suit which wasn’t padded at all, then over that your life jacket, then over that your parachute harness. Now, some of the gunners at O.T.U. there was only one entry hatch and that was in the nose, so the guys used to take their kit with them and get dressed when they got down into the fuselage. But I had an arrangement with the navigator, and the bomb aimer, and the armourer who would turn the turret of our aircraft to a hundred and eighty degrees, so I could get in from the outside. And they would lift [emphasis] me up into the turret, and then when we got back I would turn the turret a hundred and eighty degrees, open the doors, fall out—
AM: We’re talking about the rear turret then?
GR: Yeah.
RH: Pardon?
AM: Yeah.
RH: Yeah. And they would—
GR: Tumble out.
RH: And they would get me out.
GR: [unclear]
RH: The advantage of the Wimpy of course, and the rear, and with the Lanc and the British aircraft wasn’t it, you opened the doors as a tail gunner and you just bale out and go backwards—
AM: You just flipped out.
RH: Couldn’t do that on the Liberator.
AM: So, we’ve done Heavy Conversion Unit, you’ve got your crew, you’ve done your training with your crew, when was—
RH: I can’t think of any incidents.
AM: When was your first operation then?
RH: In February 45.
AM: Right, and where, where was it too?
RH: That’s a very good question, I think—
AM: Germany somewhere?
RH: No, I, no we were in Italy.
AM: Oh, oh.
RH: Yep, I think that’s just March, isn’t it?
GR: That’s just March, yeah.
AM: Yeah.
GR: Yeah.
AM: Can you remember what it was like going up? Right because now you’re doing it for real instead of training? Did it make a difference?
RH: It was just a job. I think, you know guys of our age at that stage of the war, nine, you know, coming up to the end of the war, and you, I can’t think of the term really, indoctrinated or whatever, and you are used to it, you are used to it.
AM: So, were you scared?
RH: No I wasn’t, no.
AM: No.
RH: Because I didn’t have enough up there to be scared.
[laughter]
GR: Am I right in assuming that the, the bomber force in Italy at the time, was doing things like marshalling yards—
RH: Yeah.
GR: In northern Italy.
RH: Yeah.
GR: Austria.
RH: Yeah.
GR: Southern Germany? I think that there was a couple of trips.
AM: I think, yeah, I thought, I thought you went to southern Germany?
RH: No, we there were, I never went on a trip into Bavaria.
GR: But that was some of their, their area of operations.
RH: Yeah.
GR: There was the northern Italy marshalling yards, the Turin’s, that sort of thing, Verona, to try and stop—
RH: It was mainly the railway lines coming down through Bremen.
GR: Yes.
RH: And also down to Trieste and so forth.
GR: Which was the main supplier [unclear]
RH: And also, we, yeah, we bombed, what was it? Monfalcone, a little port, Ancona and Assa [?] yeah, they were, they were where the Germans had ships and used to supply their troops by night by running these boats along the coast, sort of thing.
GR: Did you normally fly with an escort? With a—
RH: On daylight, yeah.
GR: Daylights, yeah.
RH: Yeah, yeah. We had the Americans.
GR: Yeah.
RH: American B-51’s.
GR: Tuskegee, Tuskegee airmen?
RH: I don’t know who they were.
GR: They, they were the black—
AM: Yeah.
RH: I remember on one, on a trip to Monfalcone in the daylight, I mean we didn’t fly in formation, I mean our guys didn’t know how to fly in formation I never, not on heavies. And it just the usual stream, and so there were, sort of sixty, eighty aircraft in a stream. And we picked up the American escort, this was at the top end of the Adriatic, Trieste.
AM: Yep, yep.
RH: Right, it was the port next to Trieste.
AM: Yep.
RH: And, we picked up the escort and it was coming up, and our wireless op was listening out on their frequency, there had to be some sort of contact for, for, I didn’t hear this. But I remember we’d said, said afterwards, he said, ‘when they saw us coming,’ he said, and they were [laughs] saying about look at those sort of God damned limeys they’re not in formation, you know, all that how do we protect this lot and all the rest of it. [laughs]
AM: It’s like herding sheep.
[laughter]
RH: Yeah.
AM: Or herding—
GR: Are the Luftwaffe putting in much of an appearance?
RH: No.
GR: Towards that stage of the war?
RH: No, no.
AM: Were they not?
RH: No, they had, they were 109’s on the Italian, northern Italian airfields, but I think most of those were in what was called the Italian Republican Airforce.
GR: Yeah.
RH: You know, Mussolini’s lot, so you did see them, you did see them. Right and I remember seeing a strange sight one night as we were coming away from wherever it was in northern Italy. It was all a tremendous glare of course and, and looking out I saw these three Lib’s flying in and they were in [laughs] formation more or less and then at the back end of the [unclear] was a Bf 109. [laughs]
GR: Oh.
[laughter]
AM: Following you.
RH: Following the—
AM: Did you ever get shot at?
RH: With flak.
AM: With flak, but not, not as Gary said, not from a fighter?
RH: No, no, I saw, yeah there was a, we were 70 Squadron, 37 Squadron operated from the same airfield. I mean I didn’t know who they were, were at the time but and coming back at night from somewhere, Austria I think it might, might have been, the, and then suddenly seeing green tracer which I knew it was German. And then red tracer [laughs] sort of thing, and then ‘woof’ [emphasis] up went the Lib and down he went, yeah and that was 37 Squadron. Liberator, all lost.
AM: All gone. Did you ever shoot your guns at anything?
RH: No.
AM: Never?
RH: No, no you even if, and we were tailed one night by a fighter coming back from Trento I think it was, Trento, Trento marshalling yards you know, and I just reported it to the, to the crew, it was a 109. And he was sitting out and sort of, sort of four hundred yards or so away, you’d just see them occasionally with the glare in the background but he didn’t close and I certainly wouldn’t fire at him because it would show where we were.
GR: Were you were.
AM: Other people have said that, why would you fire—
RH: Yeah. Quite.
AM: And you know, mark yourself out to them.
RH: Yeah.
AM: Effectively.
RH: Yeah. Yeah, no you never, never fire unless you’re fired at. Okay?
AM: Yeah. I think, have you got any more questions?
GR: No, no.
AM: How many operations did you do in the end?
RH: Bombing, eighteen.
AM: Eighteen.
RH: And then we converted to supply, as the war was coming to an end—
AM: Okay.
RH: And the bombing stopped, and then they put some sort of racking inside the bomb bay so we could carry four-gallon cans of petrol and things like that.
AM: Right. So, what did you do between the war ending and demob?
RH: Er, yeah, we carried, you see although the war ended we’d already converted to transport.
AM: Yeah.
RH: And so, yeah for two or three weeks after VE Day we were flying, we were talking up supplies up to the north of Italy. And then after that they converted the bomb bay so you could carry bodies, troops, we could carry twenty-two.
AM: Live bodies?
RH: Yeah.
AM: Live ones.
RH: Twenty-two in the bomb, bomb bay. Poor blokes, [emphasis] I mean they just had to go down into the, down onto the catwalk and then climb over the back of these seats and then sit down. And there was the aircraft fuselage wall, just there sort of thing, and they had to sit there and on flights back to the UK, it took six and a half hours.
AM: You can’t imagine, can you?
GR: No.
AM: Were these troops or did you take any prisoner of war back?
RH: No, no—
AM: It was troops.
RH: These were troops. The ones we were flying back were due to be retrained and reformed to go out to Burma. These were the, I remember, you see they didn’t need the air gunners as such, so you became an odd bod sort of looking after these soldiers and so forth. And I remember on one occasion we were flying back with some guardsmen from a guard’s regiment, and the truck arrived and this lieutenant got out with his twenty odd bods. And they piled around and he said to our skipper, ‘we were all NCO’s, we were all senior NCO’s, he said, ‘have you anything to say?’ to the men sort of thing, and he said, ‘no.’ Since I was Harrison, generally I was called Harry, and so Ken said, ‘now Harry will look after you,’ well that wasn’t good enough for the, for the lieutenant. He turned around and he said, ‘when you are in the aircraft I don’t want you putting your hands out and grabbing any wires or anything.’
[laughter]
RH: So I saw them on board and we were flying up to Peterborough, Croughton, just south, it was an American base at that time and I used to bring them out one at a time and with the beam hatches open they could have a smoke—
AM: Right.
RH: Sitting there. And I think it was one of the last guys, came out and he sat on the other beam gunners seat, and he didn’t have intercom of course, we could only talk to each other by shout, shouting really, and he shouted, he said, ‘do we go through customs?’ he said, I said, ‘well I don’t.’ Crewmen didn’t, you just went straight through, [laughs] I said, ‘you, yes you will have to go through customs,’ and I said, ‘why?’ and he pulled back the sleeve of his battle dress and [laughs] there were watches—
[laughter]
RH: On, on there. And I said, oh, how did you get those?’ and they disarmed an SS unit or something and so, and relieved them of all, of all their odds and ends. And er, and then he reached into his blouse, fiddled about and pulled out a pistol, and I said to him, I said, ‘I don’t think you’ll get through with that,’ he said, ‘I’ve got another one in my kit bag.’
[laughter]
AM: I thought you were going to say you took them through for him.
RH: No, no, no.
AM: If you didn’t have to go through customs.
GR: They’re here.
AM: [laughs]
RH: No, after, after we’d landed and I got my travel warrant, and had a forty-eight-hour pass to get back to Bristol.
AM: Right.
RH: Or near Bristol. And so, it was late evening when I caught a train from Peterborough to Kings Cross, and Kings Cross to Paddington, and Paddington to Temple Meads, then Bristol. Which, I arrived about seven o’clock in the morning, then I had to walk over to the bus station and get a bus, and I arrived at my parents’ house I think, yeah it must have been about nine o’clock in the morning. Knocked them up, then I had, since it was a Saturday, I had to leave next day, just after lunch—
AM: To get back.
RH: To get back, yeah, so my forty-eight-hour pass in fact was about thirty.
AM: In the middle.
RH: Oh, so, anything else I can help with?
AM: Yes, this is, just out of interest this question. So, your Mum was German, how was she treated during the war?
RH: Yeah, okay.
AM: Were people okay with her?
RH: Yeah, you see we were, when I say Dad went in, into the civil service, he did, he and a lot of other guys including the major commanding who is based and so forth. Some of them were sort of even if they hadn’t given their time were said, okay you’re finished, because now you’re going to an establishment in Gloucestershire where you’ll be training police, fire, in what today are called civil defence duties. And so, you know, my environment from a child and all the way through to the time I left home was, was semi military because all the other guys were like Dad, they all ex-army.
AM: Right.
RH: They were all ex-army and some of them I remember when we lived at Salisbury, I remember a couple of German women coming there to visit Mum and they were again were wives of soldiers and so forth. But, no and of course we had relatives in Cologne and at the time of the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, we had a telegram which came through the Swiss Red Cross, from Mums sister Gerda, in Cologne, asking if we were all okay. [laughs]
AM: Were they all okay, did they ask to—
RH: No.
AM: Did your relatives not survive?
RH: No, no they were, they lived, well as most Germans do in the cities, they live in an apartment block and the block was, was—
AM: Blown up.
RH: Hit, and Uncle Johan as he was, he died of phosphorus burns. And my aunt and my two cousins, saw one cousin, they were evacuated into, into central Germany. The other one, my, he was about a year or so younger than me and had been like you know like all the rest of them in the Hitler movement and so forth. And then when he was sixteen I think, he volunteered for part time duty on a flak battery, and then when he was seventeen he became a full-time member of the Luftwaffe [emphasis] on a flak battery. When I met him, you know after, we used to have a joke about it.
[laughter]
GR: That’s a, well at least you had the opportunity.
AM: At least you never shot at me.
RH: Never fired at me because you were in, on the Rhineland and in the Ruhr, yeah
AM: Yeah, Happy Valley, the Ruhr.
RH: Pardon?
AM: Happy Valley, I’ve heard the Ruhr described as.
RH: Yeah, yeah. But they’re all, my cousins and my aunt are not, they are all dead now so, no contact.
GR: What I’ve just found amazing is, you’ve saying like yeah, during the Battle of Britain, and Bristol was being blitzed and all that, and a family in Germany sends a telegram [laughs] to a family in England saying are you okay?
AM: Are you okay?
RH: Yeah.
GR: And that’s just like, that’s incredible.
AM: Ordinary people in the war.
GR: Yeah.
AM: As opposed to the Nazis and all the rest of it.
GR: But the fact is, so you are in Germany, and you’ve got Hitler, yeah, we’re going to invade Britain and do this, do that, but you can send a telegram. So, it goes from Germany oh yes, certainly a lot of it went through Switzerland through the Red Cross.
AM: [inaudible as speaking at same time]
RH: Yeah.
GR: But you got the telegram in England, are you okay? Is everything alright?
RH: Yeah, yeah.
AM: What did you do then after the war then, after you’d been demobbed?
RH: I became a civil servant.
AM: Which bit? Which, which department?
RH: The Home, Home office—
AM: Oh.
RH: Was the governing training department but again [coughs] it was, it was, it civil defence training I sort of followed on, I and my brother we were lucky having a father in it. [laughs]
AM: Not what you know, but who you know.
RH: Yeah, well yeah, well you had to go through selection board.
AM: There was always full fair and open competition and all that, allegedly weren’t it. I’m just looking at this, the warrant on the wall here, which is?
RH: The what?
AM: I’m looking for the year, 1962.
RH: That was commission—
AM: You became a, well you tell me what it is?
RH: Yeah, I was commissioned in the volunteer reserve training branch here.
AM: Ah ha.
RH: The Air Training Corps.
AM: As a pilot officer.
RH: Yeah. Eventually I was a flight lieutenant.
AM: Yeah, crikey. Well I think on that note we’ll switch off.
RH: Have you been recording all—
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 Richard Harrison
Date
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2015-11-16
Format
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01:07:06 audio recording
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHarrisonR151116
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Civilian
Conforms To
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Pending review
Spatial Coverage
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Egypt
Germany
Great Britain
Italy
Italy--Sicily
Temporal Coverage
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1942
1943
1944
1965
Description
An account of the resource
Richard Harrison was born in Cologne in 1924 to a German mother and English father. His desire to be aircrew was thwarted initially by a failed medical, something he later surmises could be on account of his mother’s nationality. A member of the Air Raid Precautions, Home Guard and Air Training Corps, he was called up in 1942. He was posted to RAF Tempsford, base for Special Duty Squadrons 161 and 138, who dropped supplies and people for the resistance. In 1943 he was posted to Sicily in the RAF Regiment Squadron for anti-parachute troop duties and then to Italy. He successfully applied to join the Desert Air Force and had air gunner training at El Ballah in Egypt. He went to Palestine as a rear gunner on a Wellington for the Operational Training Unit, followed by the 1675 Heavy Conversion Unit in Egypt with B-24 . His first operation was in Italy. After VE Day, they transported supplies and troops. After the war, he worked as a civil servant in the Home Office. In 1962, he was commissioned as a pilot officer in the Air Training Corps and eventually became a flight lieutenant
Creator
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Annie Moody
Gary Rushbrooke
Contributor
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Cathie Hewitt
Sally Coulter
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
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
138 Squadron
161 Squadron
70 Squadron
air gunner
aircrew
B-24
bombing
civil defence
crewing up
Heavy Conversion Unit
Home Guard
Operational Training Unit
RAF Tempsford
Resistance
training
Wellington
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/576/8845/AGoughH150922.2.mp3
c57cda680fc05053c4ed864f4febb674
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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Gough, Harry
H Gough
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
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Gough, H
Description
An account of the resource
An oral history interview with Warrant Officer Harry Gough (1925 - 2016, 1590911 Royal Air Force). He flew operations as a rear gunner 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
2015-09-22
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Transcribed audio recording
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Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: Ok so it’s Tuesday 22nd September 2015 and we are in Tingly near Wakefield and this is Annie Moody for the International Bomber Command Centre and I’m talking today to
HG: Harry Gough.
AM: Harry Gough. So if you would Harry would you just tell me a little bit about your childhood, and where you were born and what your parents did.
HG: I was born in Dewsbury, er Dewsbury Moor actually. My father at that time was er worked in the steel industry at Click Heaton up to me being probably six or seven and then he er decided to leave that and er go into the licensing trade being er, what is it, er steward at a working men’s club that would be when I was six or seven er.
AM: What was it like being a child working in a, er living near a working men’s club then, where you living there in it?
HG: No no we lived away from it
AM: Oh, Oh
HG: But er at that time, funnily enough we were only on about this a few days ago er the way families were brought up, I think it was when Victor was up er, I was the youngest of seven and the house we had a small terraced house (pause) you couldn’t say it was a one up and one down but that’s basically what it was one large bedroom and a small one at the top of the landing so that was the earliest I remember being there er.
AM: What about the bathroom and toilet, where were they?
HG: Oh no bathroom (laughs) there there were sink in the corner
AM: And a tin bath
HG: Tin bath yeah and a toilet way up the yard and er you prayed every day that it didn’t you didn’t have heavy rain (laughs) er but we moved into a council house at that time when I was seven and er there again seven of us and it was a three bedroomed council house you know people just wouldn’t have that today would they and er from there er went to the local school, broke my leg playing football er recovered from that and we moved into a public house then in Dewsbury the Great (unclear) Hotel in Dewsbury and we were there for two years transferred our interest to Leeds another pub, another two years, or less than two years, back to Morley (unclear) Morley and that another pub eventually er and that when my schooling finished that would be 1939
AM: So how old were you then?
HG: Fourteen
AM: Fourteen
HG: My eldest my second eldest brother he worked in the textiles and he had to work at Putsey and he had to go by bike from Morley to Putsey on the night shift his wage was twenty six bob a week so he’d had enough of that and he volunteered for the army me being the stupid lad, oh no I’m not stupid, er if he was having action I wanted it as well so I wanted to go in the boys army along with him er, my father agreed to it but er mother said no you’re not and that was the end of that up to er 41 and er I joined the air training corps local squadron at Morley and er in there until volunteering for the air force in 43 and er eventually accepted and I did the er air crew assessment at Doncaster and er they were full up with pilots and full up with navigators
AM: Everybody wanted to be a pilot
HG: (Laughs) that’s right (laughs) right well if you got to be a gunnery course that’s it well I wanted to fly anyway so it was August 43 when I eventually went and er signed on down at Lords cricket ground, lad at 18 years old and going to London you know, never been out of his home town I don’t think, occasional holiday but not many of those I kind of remember going on holiday with my parents more than once
AM: How did you get to London then did you go on the train?
HG: Train yeah yeah, I suppose you get on the train and follow the crowd (laughs) er when we were there our initial signing and initial whatever it is medicals and er up to er for a fortnight to three weeks and then back up into Yorkshire to Bridlington
AM: So in that three weeks what were you doing?
HG: er getting kitted out
AM: What sort of things?
HG: Medicals er several injections whatever they call them er but er my sister was stationed in London at the time she was in the WAFS and er we met up a few times at er I think it was just routine things er drills whatever marching to the London zoo for meals and er yeah and I met up with a gunner we met on the first day we were there
AM: What was he called?
HG: Bill Field from Chester we were about the same age and er we were together right the way through to finishing flying
AM: Really
HG: We did a gunnery course did our basic training in Bridlington over to Belfast or near Belfast for gunnery school
AM: What was the gunnery school like what sort of things were you doing there did you have to strip em and put em back together and all that sort of stuff
HG: No no you had to do theory work on the guns but er mainly it was er rifle shooting for the clay pigeon shooting er then up in the Avro Ansons for air to air gunnery
AM: So when you say air to air what were you shooting at
HG: A draw yeah there’d be another Emerson dragging a draw if you were lucky he ate it (laughs)
AM: Did you
HG: Well I got a percentage of it whether that’s true or not I don’t know I think they just put this percentage out to get you through and make sure you had a rear gunner or something.
AM: Mmm
HG: But er that was I finished there New Year’s Eve we left New Year’s Eve in 43 that was it so from August I’d done all the basic training air gunnery training and passed out as a Sergeant air gunner before I was nineteen
AM: Blimey
HG: When you think about that you know think about that lady how stupid can it be but er it wasn’t just me everybody was on it er and after a short period at home then oh we finished up in Scotland on New Year’s Eve at Stranraer bit frightening (laughs) as an eighteen year old a bit frightening
AM: Laughs
HG: But er nevertheless we caught the train early morning and er early morning made our way home. After a few days at home up to er Kinross forest in Kinross in Scotland
AM: Scotland again
HG: That was for er crewing up and er operational training
AM: So how did the crewing up go cos’ you’d already got your mate with you
HG: Yes we stuck together all the time did Bill and I and er I don’t remember er well
AM: Who chose who?
HG: (Pause) I think the pilot chose us (laughs) why he did I don’t know er
AM: Maybe he could see there were two mates together and he wanted…
HG: Yes I think that had a lot to do with it we’d been together as pals and Harry Harrison the pilot er then he’d already met the er navigator Johnny Hall from Bradford from there we all got together Scottish wireless operator Cockney lad for a flight engineer and er I don’t remember where he come from South Midlands somewhere… Leicester and er how long did that last probably January late February early March
AM: So that’s where you flew together as a crew then
HG: Crew yes flying Whitley’s doing all the basic things turning dinghy’s over in the bath (laughs) when you can’t swim it’s er a bit of a nightmare but we got through it er
AM: Why turning dinghy’s over in the bath, in case you got shot down
HG: Yeah in case you got shot down
AM: Or crash landed in the sea
HG: Yeah yeah and er flying Whitley’s er the flying coffin some of the cross countries that we did six hours in the rear turret of a Whitley not very nice but it was enjoyable because that’s what I wanted to do er from there we went to er Marston Moor er heavy conversion unit flying the Halifax Mk 2.
AM: Right
HG: Which you don’t get to know until later that was the worst period of your service flying in a Halifax Mk 2 you were safer flying in the Mk 3 and 4 going on operations
AM: Why was that?
HG: They were very unreliable er basically because of the engine I think er and the tail unit the tail unit of the Halifax changed a great deal and they put revised engines in then and they were a much sounder aircraft
AM: Right
HG: But er we didn’t get none (unclear) you were in a death trap really (laughs) but er we got through that and we floated about then in Yorkshire for some reason (unclear) and Maltby, Driffield just for nightly stays and things like until we got posted to a squadron which was Melbourne ten squadron
AM: And there was ten squadron
HG: Mmm from there well
AM: What was your first operation like then
HG: What was it like
AM: Well can you just, I can’t imagine how it must of felt
HG: (Pause)
AM: I bet you can’t remember (laughs)
HG: No I can’t remember, no I can’t remember (pause)
AM: Bacon and eggs
HG: (Laughs) oh aye coming back to bacon and eggs that’s what that’s what you looked forward to but never when they all went out on operations did I ever think that I wouldn’t get back never never entered my head that I would never get back
AM: Did you have any close shaves
HG: (Pause) I suppose there were one or two where er the fighters were about but er in the main there were I think the biggest (unclear) were the night operations which you know they were a bit backwards at coming forwards at coming up in the dark they’d wait till the Yanks went over in the day light and have a go at them
AM: Have a go at them
HG: But er anti-aircraft fire unnerving but even then never entered my head that er I wouldn’t get back
AM: And you were right
HG: Mmm
AM: What was it like ‘cos you were the rear gunner so as you’re coming away bombs have been dropped?
HG: That’s right
AM: And you can see
HG: Yeah
AM: What’s, what’s happened
HG: Oh the in most cases the place was ablaze down below and er I suppose you think at the time oh great we’ve done a good job
AM: Yeah
HG: It isn’t until later days you know was it all that good you know what damage did we do I mean innocent people were killed but this is years later you think about this
AM: I was gonna say that because at the time you were doing it
HG: We were doing what we would been trained to do and er got satisfaction out of doing it as well but er pub visits at the night when you weren’t on operation a little bit naughty at times but er
AM: I’m gonna have to ask you, in what way naughty
HG: Well I don’t know it er probably drink more than what you should really
AM: You’re still only twenty by this time nineteen
HG: Nineteen yes I finished flying before I was twenty so I were only well at that time you were what you called kids at eighteen you weren’t adults at all you were classed as kiddies really
AM: Did you fly with the same crew all the way through
HG: Yes yes stuck together all the way through thirty three operations
AM: Thirty three, blimey, I can see we’ve got your log book is there anything
HG: Laughs
GR: Well your first operation was a daylight
HG: Yeah it was
GR: According to this yeah Macer Owen
HG: Taverni was it
GR: Yeah Macer Owen…and your last op was Christmas Eve (Laughs)
HG: Yeah yeah fly from the 23rd (unclear) the 24th
AM: And you said to me before about the fact that it was Christmas Eve and that was your last one
HG: Yeah
AM: About your mum and dad
HG: Yeah at the time it never struck me at all that it was any different to any other operation or you know you feel a sense of relief that the operations are over but it was only oh much later that I thought about these things. I don’t know what my parents were really thought about me being in the Air Force and what I was doing what it meant to them but what a Christmas box it must have been if that’s the way they thought about that I wasn’t in danger of being shot down or losing my life or whatever er after that particular time I never mentioned it to them in fact it was after they’d both passed I think my dad thought about it but er
AM: Yeah so what did you do after you finished your operations
HG: Oh dear I got kicked about and er
AM: (Laughs) did you do any training or TU stuff
HG: No I went into air traffic control actually
AM: Ahh
HG: Er when they finally got me settled down at Shawbury which was the number one flying training school was it, that’s where the (unclear) flew from when we went over the North Pole wing commander Mcclurough I think it was er I did a few months there I was there up to er VE day which was in May wasn’t it
AM: Mmm
HG: 45 and on VE day I travelled to Valley on the Isle of Anglesey and I was there until after VJ Day, (pause) VJ day what a night
AM: (Laughs)
HG: There was a black and tan drink then wasn’t there Guinness and beer black and tan
GR: That’s right yeah
AM: Mmm
HG: Still only twenty and I’m drinking black and tans I didn’t eat anything for four days (laughs)
AM: Laughs
GR: Laughs
HG: That’s when I learnt how to drive er air traffic control there was a (unclear) out there are you alright, yes I’m alright, never driven a van in my life (laughs) and there was some…how do I start this thing, (laughs) and away I went, but er bit precarious but er
AM: On a road or
HG: No no on the air field on the air field
AM: Just as well
HG: Yeah (laughs) well from the mess to the er traffic control and whatever to the end of the runway and back and things like that but er and from there not long after VJ Day I went back to Shawbury again well just how long I was there I can’t remember can’t remember and by this time I’d er already got my Flight Sergeant that was late 44 I got my Officer late 45 when I was still at Shawbury and then went to various places then just two or three days stopping at one near Warrington I can’t remember I can’t remember what place it was
AM: I wonder why, why were they moving you about like that?
HG: To find getting a posting you just couldn’t get (unclear) to come out I did want to come out anyway because I had the chance to come out on was it class B release or something because I worked in the textiles before I went in and there was no way that I’m going back into textiles after being in the air force and the excitement that I’d had or the life that I’d had and they kick you about a bit until er they get you a posting and I finally got a posting to er Austria just outside Vienna (Schwechat) but in the meantime for some reason that I don’t know why and I always thought it was a bit unfair you had to re-muster and you lost your seniority rank you were taken down from Warrant Officer back down to sergeant in rank but not in pay you still got your Warrant officers pay and it always hit me that er you know you’ve done this, you’ve volunteered for this, you’ve done your flying you’ve done your duty and everything that’s been asked of you and you’ve been fortunate enough to get through and then they demote you which didn’t seem fair to me at all, er but as I say the money was still there you were a Sergeant with a Warrant Officer’s pay and er went to Vienna (pause) mid July 46 July 46 that’s right er (pause) yeah and I enjoyed that er in air traffic control again er the surrounding area you were in the Russian border so you had to be very careful what you were doing but you were allowed out of camp and there was woodlands and through the woodlands you got to the er river what is it in Vienna come on Clarice what river is it in Vienna
AM: I can’t think I should know and I can’t it’s not erm
HG: I’ll be dammed
AM: No it’s gone I can’t remember
GR: Could be the Rhine
HG: No
GR: The Rhone
HG: No
AM: I can’t remember either
HG: Crazy isn’t it, crazy
AM: I’ll find it after, the river in Vienna anyway
HG: Yeah er out of camp and through this woodland I actually walked on the river it was that cold it was frozen over it was really really cold but er the camp that’s about itas much as I can remember about it other than we often visited Vienna itself not nightly but certainly two or three nights a week and really enjoyable and er the diesel in the truck that took us down would often freeze up so you were stuck there in the middle of the night (laughs) trying to keep warm
AM: Laughs
HG: But er I suppose the most that I remember about that there were three of us myself a Geordie lad ex air crew and a Scotch lad ex air crew and we got to like our drinks a little bit I always remember one afternoon we were drinking in the bar and we drunk that bar absolutely dry
AM: There’s a there’s a thread running through this story isn’t there (laughs)
HG: (Laughs) we drank that bar absolutely dry we finished up drinking port of all things and we sat in this bar and an electric light, (pause) can’t be a fire can’t that and it was and er the electrics in upstairs room had caught fire and er everybody had to bail out of course and this Scots lad he went absolutely berserk and we were just across from the er guard room and er the three of us were taken into the guard room and this guy was given morphine to quieten him down he was really really bad so that was almost the end of my service in Vienna we got kitted out and put in with the airmen for the rest of our stay there but er came back to er Blackpool and we were de-mobbed
AM: You were de-mobbed so you did leave in the end
HG: Yes
AM: What did you do afterwards, not textiles?
HG: Oh dear er I did for a very short period my brother worked in the textiles then my elder brother er and I batted it out (unclear) while the money lasted you know (laughs) er eventually I had to get a job so I went there and er oh I think three or four week I’m not sticking this (laughs) and er what did I do from there oh cigarette people Ardath cigarette people they had er they were based in Leeds and I met Gladys then well we’d known each other years but we got together then and er I was there for quite a while months not years months and then we got married February 48 wasn’t it
GH: Mmm
HG: And er these people kind as they are you know oh yes you can have a week off it’s your summer holiday that’s fine as long as I can have a week off we got married had the week off and went down to Kent on our honeymoon and came back and gave my notice in (laughs) they can’t do that to Harry and er from there I went into engineering in Bradford not a very happy time because I was working with people who’d been er what do they call when they weren’t called up
AM: Erm not (unclear) to subject as if they’d been in a reserved occupation
HG: Like a reserved occupation and you’re working with these guys and (unclear) so that didn’t last very long either (laughs) er and from then I went to the Gas Board
AM: Right
HG: In 49 and er that’s been my life I suppose ever since
AM: You stayed there ever since
HG: The Gas Board er finished and had a period with the water authority and I had one spell in between the Gas Board and the water what was that er what do they call it fibre glass moulds making moulds out of fibre glass and it was the summer of 49 I don’t know if you remember it and it was absolutely scorching I think it was 49 48 48 49
GH: There weren’t many in 48
AM: Late forties must’ve been 48
HG: Yeah around 48 49 really scorching and a perspex roof and you could see all this fibre glass
AM: I was gonna say dust I would imagine it’s
HG: Floating about I though oooh Harry (laughs) get out
AM: You don’t want that on your lungs
HG: That was enough of that so from there I went to an outside job with the water authority and thankfully was able to stay there
AM: Stay there ever since
HG: Until I retired
AM: and you know you said just just going back to the bombing bit for a minute you said that at the time what everybody’s said to me we had to do it that’s what we were there for you did it
HG: That’s right
AM: But later on you did start to think about
HG: Yes you did yes you did
AM: The women and children and what have you
HG: And I think what brought that to my mind more than anything was er Munich ‘cos they really did we never went to Munich but er they really did flatten Munich and there must’ve been thousands of innocent people that died because of that and er (pause) were we doing the right thing that’s the way I thought of it later but er but at the time yes that’s what you joined up for that’s what you volunteered for they want you to do it get it done
AM: And that was to bring the war to an end
HG: That’s right yeah
AM: Excellent, I’m going to switch off now.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Harry Gough
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
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
2015-09-22
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AGoughH150922
Conforms To
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Pending review
Pending revision of OH transcription
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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00:30:08 audio recording
Description
An account of the resource
Harry Gough was born in Dewsbury, he finished school in 1939 aged fourteen, joined the Air Training Corps in 1941 and volunteered for the Air Force in 1943. He recounts his training as an air gunner and flying over the North Pole. After flying operations he was posted to Austria as an air traffic controller. He was demobbed and after the war he worked for the Gas Board and Water Authority.
Contributor
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Carron Moss
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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Austria
Great Britain
Austria--Vienna
England--Shropshire
England--Yorkshire
Wales--Anglesey
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1939
1941
1943
1944
1945
1946
10 Squadron
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
Anson
crewing up
guard room
Halifax
Halifax Mk 2
Initial Training Wing
Operational Training Unit
perception of bombing war
promotion
RAF Bridlington
RAF Kinloss
RAF Marston Moor
RAF Melbourne
RAF Shawbury
RAF Valley
training
Whitley
-
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/579/8848/PHarrisonJ1501.2.jpg
1a57ff0e3dad9384f62bb7cde4f22cfe
https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/579/8848/AHarrisonJ150809.2.mp3
d8bd795575540901698a5de69ed45289
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
Harrison, John
J Harrison
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
IBCC Digital Archive
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Harrison, J
Description
An account of the resource
11 items. An oral history interview with John Harrison (1924 - 2017), his log book, correspondence, documents and photographs. He flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham before being shot down and becoming a prisoner of war.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by John Harrison and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2015-08-09
Transcribed audio recording
A resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.
Transcription
Text transcribed from audio recording or document
AM: OK, try again. So this interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre, the interviewer is Annie Moody and the interviewee is John Harrison and the interview is taking place at Mr Harrison’s home in Birstall in Yorkshire on the 9th of August 2015. So, to start with if you just tell me a little about where, well tell me where you were born and a little bit about your childhood and school and when you left.
JH: Well I was born at a little village called Collingham in North Yorkshire, it’s just near Wetherby. And I lived there until I went to, eventually I passed an exam and I went to Harrogate Grammar School and I was at Harrogate Grammar School until, I got my school certificate and then I was sixteen and didn’t know what to do. Anyhow I had an auntie who was a big noise in the Civil Service, pardon?
AM: Me too.
JH: Yeah and she said ‘I’ll see if I can fix you up with a temporary job in the Civil Service in Harrogate ‘cause they were in Harrogate at the time. And so I ended up going in the Civil Service in a branch called E20 in the Civil Service in Harrogate at {unclear} Hotel I think it was. And they dealt with all enquiries and everything regarding barrage balloons and everything, must have been supplies you know, supplies and all that. And I stayed there until I was eighteen. And then of course when I was, I knew I was going to get called up at eighteen and I got called up at eighteen and caught the train down to London and I went to the Lords’ Cricket Ground where we all had to go. And I was there for a while and then from there I got shunted all over the place. [Sighs] I forget where I went next, oh, I ended up at Dalcross in Scotland which was an RAF place, it’s now the airport for Inverness.
AM: Right.
JH: And I was there, and I did my gunnery training there, and eventually – {rustling of paper}
AM: We’re just having a look at John’s logbook.
JH: I passed out as an air, sergeant air gunner, on the 17th of July 1943 at No2 Air Gunnery School which was at Dalcross. And then I went to, No2 Air Gunnery School that was it yeah, and then I was, I joined, I picked up a pilot, Flying Officer Clements, and I don’t know what happened to him because we did three, I did three trips with him, the last one was a leaflet raid to Le Mans and after that I never saw him again, so I don’t know what happened to him. But then I picked up, I went to gunnery school at Skellingthorpe and then I came to 1660 Conversion Unit at Swinderby, and there I picked up me pilot, Flying Officer Leggatt.
AM: When you say you picked up your pilot, what was that like then, how did that work?
JH: Well, we as far as I remember, we went into this room and they were milling around, pilots, looking for air gunners, and air gunners –anyhow eventually I got talking to this chap, Flying Officer Leggatt, and I went on his crew. He was a smashing bloke and we got on quite well together and we stayed together. Then we finished 1660 Conversion Unit which was at Halifax, er at Swinderby.
AM: So that was conversion to the four engined bombers?
JH: Yeah, yeah. Then we went onto the serious stuff, reported to 106 Squadron.
AM: 106 Squadron?
JH: Metheringham, and the first operation we did was to Frankfurt am Main and that was on ED593Y and that was the one that I was telling you about.
AM: That later on, what was it like, that first operation can you remember?
JH: Well I don’t know, yes, actually that one was very quiet, it was to Frankfurt and we, it was only five hours thirty-five minutes and we got with no problems, you know we got there, bombed the target, came back, landed.
AM: Were you a rear gunner or a mid-upper?
JH: I started off as a mid-upper gunner.
AM: OK.
JH: But then we um, until we got to, and then the next trip was to Berlin. And this was the one where we had the problems with two engines u/s, flight engineer was killed and the wireless op was injured.
AM: So which operation was this, how many had you done before that one?
JH: Berlin.
AM: Yeah.
JH: That was in this aircraft ED593Y which was on its seventy-third operation, we decided it had had enough. [laughs] We landed at, we decided that, we didn’t know whether we were going to bail out or what by the side door. So, we decided to make a dash for it and we come to Coltishall, and we landed at Coltishall in Norfolk and we were told afterwards, we’d no wireless, no nothing, everything was dead and all we did was fire in, was fire in the colours of the day through the front window and you know they told us there was twelve aircraft in various stages of distress waiting to land and suddenly this Lancaster, no lights, no nothing just fired the colours of the day, wheels down obviously coming in regardless. And we came in and we got half way down, and this is perfectly true, we got half way down the runway and we ran out of fuel. Now how lucky can you get you know? We stayed there the night and the following morning Group Captain McKechnie who was the CO of 106 Squadron, and he had the George Cross by the way, he came down and picked us up and took us back.
AM: Right, just drove down and got you?
JH: Yeah.
AM: Drove down or flew down?
JH: Flew down.
AM: He flew down?
JH: Flew down and then after that we went to Berlin. One, two, three, four, five, six to Berlin and then we hit trouble [laughs].
AM: Did you ever fire your gun?
JH: Yeah.
AM: Did you ever have to fire your gun?
JH: Oh yeah, yeah I’ve got bits and pieces in here [rustling of pages]. ‘One combat, enemy aircraft not identified’, [rustling] ‘Three engagements that were in Berlin. Three engagements, one Junkers 88 claimed as damage’.
AM: What did it actually feel like then firing your guns?
JH: Well [laughs] you know it was just what I was there for really. It was a treat to have a go at somebody [laughs]. It, that was when this aircraft we were flying was on its seventy-third trip.
AM: That was the one where you got shot up?
JH: Where we landed at Coltishall and it was parked up and then the next morning. Pardon?
AM: I’m telling Gary to shush {laughter} with his pages.
JH: And then the next morning we came down to get our stuff out of it and it was parked up there and there was about six or seven Yanks all looking you know, and they’d been brought down. They said ‘Sure you must be very, very sad to lose this old girl?’ you know ‘cause it was there with the seventy-three bombs on it you know? And I said ‘No we’re not really’ [laughter] and they couldn’t understand why we weren’t crying our eyes out because we’d lost it.
AM: Did they give you bacon and eggs, like they do on the British bases?
JH: Yeah, yeah oh aye.
AM: So they got bacon and eggs as well?
JH: Yeah, but Group Captain McKechnie came down and picked us up and took us back. Now then he had the George Cross, Gp Captain Mckechnie. There was an aircraft on fire, he went inside and pulled the pilot out.
AM: Right.
JH: I don’t know a right lot about it but it he did [rustling] and then –
AM: So then you got a new ‘plane?
JH: Yeah, and we were Berlin, Berlin. ‘One combat enemy aircraft identified,’ Berlin, Berlin and that time we had to land at Bardney, at Bardney.
AM: What was the flying time to Berlin?
JH: To Berlin? Eight hours roughly.
AM: About eight hours?
JH: Yeah, it varied, seven hours or eight hours and then the last one.
AM: What were you actually bombing, can you remember in Berlin, what were your targets?
JH: Targets? Berlin [laughs].
AM: Berlin, just Berlin?
JH: No they had a, it’s funny that because they you know, we were approaching the target and the bloody bomber aimer was fiddling about with his stuff you know, I kept thinking to myself ‘For God’s sake get the bloody bombs’ [laughs] but he. I went to Berlin again and then 19th of April it was, I was, we were going to Leipzig and we got shot down and the, we were, we couldn’t get the rear door open to go through you know, and the mid-upper gunner and the rear gunner used to go out through the rear door and we couldn’t get it open. So, he rang the pilot up and he said we were on fire like. And he said ‘I’ll hold it as long as I can’ so he shot up to front and I went out and he was still there and he went like that. And I went out and I landed right on the side of a lake, and I saw in the middle of the lake there was a great bang and a crash and what have you and obviously the aircraft had gone right into the lake and the pilot when he bailed out, this lake was frozen over. Well it was, I landed fortunately on the edge of the lake and so I was able to get my stuff off, but he landed right in the middle of the lake and he went under where the ice was broken and he drowned. And they told us next morning, they said ‘Your pilot was drowned, he couldn’t get back out of the aircraft’. He was a marvellous lad you know? It made me sick to think, but that’s how it ended, and he um –
AM: Did the rest of you manage to bail out OK though?
JH: Yeah, all of us, all of us got out. And I don’t know what happened to them. I was taken the next day, there was about six of us. It was a German air RAF, German bomber station which we’d landed near and they came and took us and shoved us in the cells. And then the next morning, there was six of us, and they put us in a {unclear} and they said ‘We’re taking you to Berlin ‘cause you’ll have to go from Berlin to Frankfurt to Dulag Luft to the interrogation centre’.
AM: OK.
JH: And he said ‘When you get into Berlin keep your heads down’ he said ‘Because it’s in a hell of a state’ and he said ‘You’re the ones that have done it’ and you know we actually saw one poor RAF bloke hanging from a bloody lamp standard. The Germans had got him you know? I suppose you could understand it.
AM: The civilians had got him then and hung him?
JH: Yeah, he was hanging, swinging in the breeze, I mean Berlin was in a hell of a state. It was just, I saw London, but London was nothing compared with Berlin. It was absolutely flattened, I mean we’d been bombing it every night for about seven or eight nights, with four thousand-pound clusters and all the rest of it. So, we were taken to Frankfurt and we were interrogated there and –
AM: What was that like being interrogated?
JH: Well it wasn’t too bad really because we had a, he was quite a civvy bloke he was. He said, he asked us what aircraft we flew. We said ‘You’ll know won’t you?’ And he did of course. He said ‘Well of course we do, you were in a Lancaster weren’t you?’ I said ‘Yes’ and he said it crashed into {unclear}, I said ‘Yes’. And he said ‘Well,’ he said ‘I don’t think there’s a right lot that you can tell us that we don’t know’ and he said ‘Right you’ll be taken, and we were taken by. [sighs] What were we in? Railway truck, and we were taken up to Konigsberg, right on the north coast, Stalag Luft 6.
AM: Right.
JH: And we were there, we were taken there, and then from there we were taken down to Turan in Poland and then from there we were taken across to oh, place in Germany, not while some three or four miles from Belsen it was, because we were frightened to bloody death when we found out.
AM: I’ll bet.
JH: I forget the name of the airfield. Fallingbostel I think it was and from there one morning they came in and they said ‘Right whatever you can get and carry, you’re going, moving’. And we were marched out and we marched northwards towards the, you know back, I thought we were going back to the bloody place we’d been before. Anyhow.
AM: Did you know why they wanted you to start marching?
JH: No they didn’t tell you, they just, but obviously we found out after later that the Americans and the British were coming and they weren’t far away from there. Anyhow we got about half way along there and we, there quite a few hundred of us with an odd German, a guard, and we’re marching on the edge of this wood and four Typhoons, you know British Typhoons came down circled and I thought ‘Those buggers are going to come at us’. They turned around, the first one came in and he opened up on us with bloody cannons. And they killed, I think it was eighty, eighty, I think eighty of us were killed with that. And I, my best pal was killed as well and I had a job. We’d been pals a long time and he came from Leeds and I had the bloody awful job of going to see his wife.
AM: Afterwards?
JH: Afterwards, and telling her what had happened you know?
AM: What did you think when the Typhoon came over then, why did you think it was, it was shooting?
JH: Because there were four of ‘em and they were going past and obviously they circled and wouldn’t land. The leader came down and he had a right good look at us and it was obvious that they were going to have a go at us. You know they thought we must be Germans, I don’t know why. And it’s funny, after the war I ran into, well I joined the Aircrew Association and one of these pilots was in it. I got talking to him and I said ‘Why on earth did you shoot us?’ He said well ‘They were Germans’. I said ‘Aye but there was only an odd German here and there’. I said ‘It was obvious to anybody that we were –’ and they came and the first one came in with his cannons and I dived in a muddy ditch [laughs] and he, the second one came, and then I found out afterwards a brave soul at the back of the column had got out and started waving a white sheet. So, they stopped and obviously the bloke came and had a look at us and went like that and off they went.
AM: Waggled his wings and went?
JH: I think you’ll find sixty or eighty of us were killed.
AM: It was quite a lot, yeah.
JH: As I say because I had to go to see, I’d been with him all the time.
AM: Yeah.
JH: So she ought to know.
AM: After that had happened what did you all do, did you all have to just carry on marching?
JH: No. We were on a farm and suddenly in the morning we woke up and all the bloody Germans had gone. And there was the, forget which unit it was, German, English unit, I think it was the Wiltshire Regiment or something were there and they said ‘Well look we’ve a German unit surrendering here any moment now, they’ll have a staff car’. So, he says ‘Can any of you drive? My mate says ‘Yes I can’ and there was four, he says ‘Right you four’ he says ‘Kick the bloody German out of the car,’ he says you know ‘he’ll be there with his –’. It was a staff car. He said ‘If there’s any trouble’ he said ‘Shoot the buggers’ [laughs].
AM: Did you have anything to shoot them with?
JH: [Laughs] They would have given us one. [laughs] We got this staff car, lovely staff car and we got a white sheet from the farm and put it over the bonnet and put a red cross over it. And they gave us enough petrol and food {gave us all the wine?] to get us into Northern France and off we went, and there was a camp there. And they came one morning and said ‘Right twenty of you’ so I said ‘What’s up?’ They said ‘The British aircraft are coming in and they’re going to take you home’ you know? And I went onto the airfield and I nearly fell over. I saw the registration number which was ZN, which was 106 Squadron, which was my squadron. And they were from Metheringham, and so I said to them, I said ‘You’re from Metheringham aren’t you?’ and they said ‘Yeah how do you know?’ ‘Because I used to be there’. And they said ‘Hang on’ and they got, I think it was twenty they took each aircraft, and they got ‘em in and they took me on the lads upstairs into where the pilot and that was, and they said ‘He used to be one of us’. So, I was sat on the thing there and it was a VE day. I’ll always remember it because I was listening to Churchill doing his speech, sat in my little chair. And we landed at, on the south coast. Forget the name of the place now, I forget the name, on the south coast. And the WAAF’s came and took us two at a time, and they took us into the delousing centre, [laughs] got us deloused. And then they took us to this RAF place where we were issued with new uniforms and everything. And I had shrapnel in this left big toe and I’d had it all the time since I was shot down and when we got tidied up, they took us up to this RAF place near Birmingham somewhere, don’t ask me where it was. The Sister there, I said ‘I’ll have to go and you know report with this’ I said, you know it were really bad. So, my mates were all dressed and I lost them again ‘cause they were off and I had to go into hospital. And the Sister said ‘Well’ she said ‘It’s a bit of a mess is this, you’ll be a few days’ she said. She got chatting to me, she said ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ I said ‘Well I had, I said ‘I hope I still have’. She said ‘Do you have a telephone number for her?’ I said ‘Yes, she works at the, in Leeds’. It was National Savings, Leeds. So, she gave me half a crown, she said ‘There’s a telephone there go and give her a ring’. And I rang her and I said ‘Can I speak to Miss Joan Prince please’ and they said ‘Yes’. And she came on and she said ‘Hello’. I said ‘It’s John’ she said ‘John who?’ I said ‘How do you mean?’ she said ‘John where are you?’ I said ‘I’m in hospital’ I said ‘It’s nowt serious’ but I said ‘Will you let me Mother and Father know?’ ‘cause she knew their telephone number and the {unclear] wanted to know. She said ‘Yeah I’ll let them know’ and then I was there until they said ‘Right you can go’ you know? And they put me on a train from Birmingham to Leeds. When I got to Leeds about seven o’clock at night I went into the station where there was a, what did they call them?
AM: A café?
JH: No. Records things you know? Military police.
AM: Oh yeah, right.
JH: And I walked in and said ‘I suppose it’s too bloody late to catch the bus or train to Collingham or Wetherby?’ And they said ‘Yeah, you’re right there lad’ he said ‘what are you?’ So I said ‘I’ve been a prisoner of war, I’m just coming back’. ‘Oh’ he said ‘I do wish they’d ruddy well tell us’ he said ‘We have people who will come and pick you up’ and he rang round and he said ‘Right’ he said ‘What did you say your name was?’ I said ‘Harrison’ , ‘Oh, this man I’m talking to knows your father, [laughs] so he says he’ll come and pick you up’. And he came to Leeds City station, picked me up and took me back to Collingham. Me Mother came running down steps, nearly fell over ‘em, ‘cause you know I’d been a prisoner two and a half years, and that was the end of it.
AM: And that was that?
JH: Yeah.
AM: Did you marry Joan?
JH: Pardon?
AM: Did you marry her? There she is.
JH: There she is.
AM: Lovely.
JH: She was a twin and her twin brother was on Bomber Command the same time as I was and he was shot down off the Dutch coast about six weeks before I was. And Joan’s Mother got a letter from the squadron about, and she recognised the Typhoon’s letters straight away you know? And she kept it for three or four days before she let Joan have it just to say that you know, I had been shot down.
AM: That you were a prisoner?
JH: So that was it.
AM: That was that. What did you do after the war John?
JH: I became a policeman [laughs].
AM: Oh right, you didn’t go back to the Civil Service then?
JH: No, no, no. I was kicking my heels doing nothing and I saw this advert for Police and I went and I got, joined Yorkshire, West Riding Police Force, and did thirty years in that.
AM: Thirty years?
JH: And I have a medal from them, from the, are you in a hurry?
AM: No you can show me in a minute. I’m going to switch this off now though, that was excellent thank you.
JH: Yeah. The camps made their own radio and they used to, a bloke used to come around every night or whatever it was and he used to read out what had happened in the world that day. If the Germans had ever found it we would have bloody been shot, but they didn’t find it.
AM: So you even knew about Belsen, what was happening?
JH: Oh aye, we got all the news. They used to come around, he used to come, I don’t know, they had a radio. Don’t ask me how it was or anything ‘cause they wouldn’t have told you but they had a radio, they’d made it themselves. And they used to listen to BBC and they used to take all the news down and then they used to go around various camps and that you know? And they used to come in and a bloke used to stand outside the door to make sure if there were any Jerries about, and then he used to read us the news so we knew what was going off. Marvellous organisation [laughs].
AM: What else did you do in the prisoner of war camps, did you do the shows and stuff like that?
JH: Oh aye, there was shows. I didn’t get involved in any of them, I weren’t good enough, I weren’t good enough to be girl. [laughs].
AM: What did you actually do then to occupy your time?
JH: Well I actually did a course on education.
AM: Oh right.
JH: You know like a GCE thing? And that was, you know, you got by.
AM: What about all the people building tunnels and stuff?
JH: Oh yeah we had them. You see they, there was one tunnel built from our camp and it, eventually they got, they caught them. And then the bloody Gestapo, there was about fifty of them, and they brought them into this wood at the side, just at the side of the camp, and they shot ‘em. Just mowed them down like that.
AM: Which camp was that John?
JH: That was Stalag Luft 6 we were in I think at the time.
AM: 6?
JH: No.
AM: Or 3?
JH: Anyhow, no we weren’t three. I forget, we’d been in Poland, they’d brought us back in ruddy trucks. It was right near Belsen it was and Stalag? I don’t know.
Unknown: You were in Stalag Luft 6. Yeah.
JH: 6? Yeah, Stalag Luft 6.
GR: It was the prisoners from Belsen that were machined gunned.
AM: Right.
JH: You didn’t argue with them ‘cause they’d shoot you as soon as look at you.
Unknown: Yeah.
JH: At back end of war.
GR: And by that time during 1944 it was getting so bad and they were treating you as terror fliers and this, that and the other. Even the German civilians would kill.
AM: Yeah, well like the man.
JH: Let’s face it I’ve been to Berlin two or three times since the war. My son went into the RAF, and he was in RAF Intelligence, and he spoke about five languages, still does I suppose. And he was based in Berlin and he used to go into this big tower, and whatever he took into that tower he left. He couldn’t bring anything out with him at all and they used to listen into bloody Germans and Russians and God know what. He’d come back to this country to take another language and his wife had gone with a friend to do some shopping, I forget where it was now, and a lorry turned the wrong way on a corner and it hit the car. I never thought [unclear] his wife would live, she was in a right state. Anyhow she did live and she still walks with a limp and that.
AM: Right.
JH: But that killed him going back to Berlin you know?
AM: Is that the son who lives in Lincoln?
JH: Yeah, he lives at –
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with John Harrison
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Annie Moody
Publisher
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IBCC Digital Archive
Date
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2015-08-09
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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AHarrisonJ150809
Conforms To
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Pending review
Description
An account of the resource
John Harrison grew up in Yorkshire and worked in the Civil Service before joining the Royal Air Force at 18. After training, he flew operations as a mid-upper gunner with 106 Squadron from RAF Metheringham before being shot down over Leipzig and becoming a prisoner of war. Following a short period of hospitalisation, he married his wartime sweetheart Joan. After the war he served with the Yorkshire police.
Contributor
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Dawn Studd
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.
Language
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eng
Coverage
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Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force. Bomber Command
Spatial Coverage
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France
Germany
Great Britain
Lithuania
England--Lincolnshire
Germany--Berlin
Germany--Frankfurt am Main
Germany--Leipzig
Lithuania--Šilutė
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1943
1944
1945
Format
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00:35:40 audio recording
106 Squadron
1660 HCU
air gunner
Air Gunnery School
aircrew
bale out
bombing
Dulag Luft
fear
Heavy Conversion Unit
Ju 88
Lancaster
lynching
Operation Exodus (1945)
prisoner of war
RAF Dalcross
RAF Metheringham
RAF Skellingthorpe
RAF Swinderby
shot down
Stalag Luft 6
strafing
training
Typhoon